Ky stared at him, shocked. “What—”
He shook his head. “I don’t know, Captain. I demanded answers, and got nothing except that the situation had changed and I was to follow orders. I pointed out that you were sick, incapacitated, in danger, and was told to get you a room in a hotel. Whatever happened, it’s got the government scared. Some threat, I’d guess, to them as well as to Vatta.” He sighed, then went on. “I tried calling some other people I knew; one of them told me there were rumors of attacks on Vatta holdings, but had no details. It was on the third call that we were cut off. I asked the police to check the combooth records from the Captains’ Guild; that was about six hours after you lost the signal to your headquarters.”
Six hours. Much could happen in six hours… or in six minutes, or six seconds.
“I’m guessing that ISC’s enemies are behind the ansible failure, but whether that has anything to do with this change in policy about Vatta, I don’t know.”
“It must,” Ky said. “The ansible attacks on Sabine were certainly aimed at ISC, or so ISC thought. And I can understand the people who did it blaming me. I did kill two of them. Maybe it’s a two-pronged attack.”
Consul Inosyeh shook his head. “Wrong scale. A criminal organization wanting to punish you might send an assassination team, yes—though it’s more likely they’d have some local thug beat you up in a bar somewhere—but not take out ansible service to your home planet.” He paused, and Ky nodded. He went on. “The thing is, I’m under orders to dump you on the street, effectively. I’m not going to.” The look he gave her was brimming with mischief.
Ky stared at him.
“Instead, I’m going to commit time travel and have a conversation with you that actually occurred prior to that ansible call. In fact, we’re already having that conversation. If anyone asks later, this conversation occurred in the morning. Is that clear?”
Nothing was clear at the moment, but the intensity of his gaze suggested that she needed to answer. “Yes… I guess.”
“Good.” Consul Inosyeh leaned back in his chair, hooked a heel around the leg of a hassock, and pulled it nearer before stretching his legs onto it. “I’m going to share with you what I might have shared if not instructed otherwise—because from my point of view, I haven’t yet been instructed otherwise. And if you think that merely proves the moral elasticity of diplomats, please keep it to yourself.” He ran his hands through his hair, leaving it in rumples.
“Er… yes, of course.” How had she ever thought this North Coaster stuffy and arrogant?
“How much do you know of Slotter Key’s foreign policy, especially as regards maintaining the safety of the spaceways?” That last might have been set in inverted quotes, so marked was his emphasis.
“That’s what we have a space navy for,” Ky said promptly. “Our strong Spaceforce deters…” Her voice trailed away at his expression. “Doesn’t it?”
“I always wondered what they taught cadets,” Consul Inosyeh said. He sighed. “You know, the universe would work much better if people just told the simple truth, and you may think that’s the stupidest thing ever to come out of a diplomat’s mouth, but really!”
“My father always said honesty in trade was better than trickery,” Ky said. “If you wanted repeat customers.”
“And let’s hope that honesty didn’t get him killed,” Consul Inosyeh said. “All right. Here’s the truth of it. Slotter Key, our mutual home, is widely disliked for its way of handling interstellar security. Our Spaceforce, for all the resources dedicated to it, defends only the home system. One star system, three inhabited planets, some colonized satellites, and so on. We have pickets at several nearby jump points, as an early warning system. We don’t take our ships into other people’s systems without elaborate preparation—if we just waltz in, they call it invasion. They have called it invasion.”
“But I thought—” Ky stopped again. Nothing she’d been taught actually contradicted what Consul Inosyeh was saying, though this was a strange interpretation. “But then what keeps pirates from raiding our tradeships?”
“That, Captain Vatta, is the reason Slotter Key has a shady reputation. Slotter Key runs privateers, private armed vessels authorized by the Slotter Key government to pursue and take action against the enemies of Slotter Key. Which, broadly defined, means anyone who messes with our trade in ways we don’t like. We’re not the only ones to do what we do, but we do it fairly aggressively.”
Shock like an ice-water bath stopped Ky’s breath for a moment. “Privateers! They’re—they’re nothing but pirates with a piece of paper!”
“That’s exactly what some other systems call them, yes. It’s what we call foreign privateers, too, if they interfere with our ships. But, Captain Vatta, every government finds itself in need of force—clandestine, unofficial, deniable force—in some situations. Vigilantes, privateers, bounty hunters, mercenaries, someone who would do the dirty work but whose dirty work could be disavowed if things went sour.”
“But—but it’s wrong.” Even as she said that, she knew how naïve, how immature, that sounded. Consul Inosyeh did not laugh at her, or even smile.
“It’s certainly not ideal,” he said. “At best, the use of such methods should be reserved for a few rare difficult situations. But for economic reasons, Slotter Key and several other planetary systems have come up with this way to fund police in space. I’m sure you can imagine the diplomatic problems that arise. Innocent ships seized, disputes over the proof of guilt, that sort of thing. The Merchant Council agreed, in the Commercial Code, to recognize privateers as separate from pirates, and privateers—including ours—are bound to adhere to the code for the treatment of prisoners, for instance, just as mercenaries do. Privateers have provided the only space police for many decades now, and on the whole the merchants are happier with them than with the real pirates.”
“There should be a real space police,” Ky said. “Surely the various systems could get together—”
“So far they’ve refused,” Consul Inosyeh said. “The closest thing is ISC’s enforcement branch, but they don’t do anything about piracy that doesn’t affect them directly, and they aren’t enthusiastic when systems do try to combine forces. But here’s the thing: merchant firms, including some you know, have participated in the privateer program, committing a small percentage of their fleet. What’s lost in cargo capacity to the armament they carry is made up for in prize money. Spaceforce usually assigns an officer—always on the larger ships, or if they’re working in a group—to keep an eye on things. We in the diplomatic service are provided a list of privateers operating in our area, in case we need to contact them or vice versa.”
Despite her initial disgust at the thought of privateers, Ky imagined herself on such a ship—almost as good as a real warship—protecting Slotter Key’s merchant fleet from pirates. Maybe it wasn’t that bad.
“So you see, I can think of reasons why Slotter Key might be attacked, even without an attack on ISC. We’ve annoyed a lot of people, not just our intended targets.”
“Are… uh… Vatta ships among the privateers?”
“Not on any list I’ve ever had,” Consul Inosyeh said. “I believe it was the policy, when privateering was first authorized, that at least one carrier should not be invited to participate, so that its sterling reputation could cover the others.” Sarcasm soured his voice. “I don’t know the whole history, but Vatta appears to have been chosen as the unspotted lamb of an otherwise motley flock.” He looked at her closely. “You didn’t know any of this, I gather.”
“No,” Ky said. Some of the reactions she’d gotten here and on Sabine now made sense, though. So did that model kit with stray electronic bits Master Sergeant MacRobert had sent her back before she left Slotter Key. If you need help, his letter had said, and he was Spaceforce. He must have known about the privateers; he must have been trying to give her a way to contact them. But why hadn’t her father told her? Surely he’d known.