BUT THERE AREN’T THAT MANY HILLS ON THIS STATION, Professor Scrounger observed.
WHERE WOULD THEY GO? Kris thought on net, eyeing the heavy lifters parked on the apron in front of the office’s picture window.
Dave took the moment to point out something on his desk, a bill of lading signed off and stamped by the space station’s port master. Kris gave him an encouraging smile even as her thoughts went quite to the contrary.
PROFESSOR, GET SOMEONE WHO KNOWS SHUTTLE OPERATIONS TO GO OVER THOSE BILLS OF LADING, BOTH FOR THE TRIP UP AND THE TRIP DOWN. IF SAILORS ARE GOING OVER THE HILL, SEVASTOPOL HAS A LOT OF LOVELY MOUNTAINS THAT YOU CAN SEE FROM THE BAY.
YOU THINK THEY’RE MAKING THE JUMP FROM DRAFTED SAILOR TO DIRTSIDE FARMER? Jack said.
YOU CAN LIE ABOUT A LOT OF THINGS, Kris said, BUT YOU DON’T DARE LIE TO YOUR LOADMASTER. IF A SHUTTLE IS HEAVY, IT BETTER HAVE THE REACTION MASS AND ANTIMATTER TO GET IT UP OR BRING IT DOWN.
I KNOW JUST THE GAL TO CHECK THOSE OUT. AND, HEY, WHAT DO YOU KNOW, THERE ARE TWO SETS OF WEIGHTS FOR EVERY FLIGHT THOSE SHUTTLES HAVE MADE IN THE LAST TWO MONTHS. BESSY IS GOING TO LOVE THIS.
PLEASE GET BACK TO ME AS SOON AS YOU CAN, PROFESSOR, Kris thought in one direction. “Would you mind giving me a copy of those files, Dave?” Kris asked, never letting her smile falter.
“Well, these are proprietary business records,” Dave said, seemed to consider the matter, then relented. “We can’t do enough for the defenders of the working merchant shippers. The lifeblood of the Alliance is what they are.”
Kris agreed, and he shot a load of data to Kris’s computer.
I’LL CHECK IT THOROUGHLY FOR MALWARE, Nelly said, sounding like she was being forced to hold a skunk by its tail.
IF YOU HAVE THE TIME, PLEASE CHECK IT AGAINST THE OTHER THREE SETS OF DATA THIS GUY HAS GIVEN US, Kris said. IT WILL BE INTERESTING TO SEE IF THE “DEFENDERS OF THE WORKING MERCHANT SHIPPERS” ARE BEING FED YET ANOTHER SET OF DATA.
I’LL DO THAT, KRIS.
Having dazzled Kris with his lies, Dave now set out to bury her with the technical specs of the plant’s production.
“This plant was just supposed to be making refrigerators, cooking stoves of all descriptions, air conditioners, and light electronic equipment,” Dave said, as they walked toward one of the production bays. “Mannie’s heard the story, many times.”
“It still amazes me you pulled this off right under the watchful eyes of State Security,” the mayor said.
“I told you, Mannie, the black shirts were never so watchful as when they were counting their cash. Give them enough cash to count, and they don’t see nothing.”
The folks from Sevastopol shared a laugh. Kris admitted to a chuckle. The tighter you make the supposed controls, the greater distance from the mean to the outliers. While some poor loudmouth was rotting in jail for telling the wrong person the truth, someone else was gaming the system and walking off with a fortune.
Was this a lesson Vicky would be interested in learning? Or would she balk at the very idea that the system that raised her so comfortably could serve others so poorly?
“Some of the fabricators I’ll be showing you we bought for scrap from the right dude across the lake in St. Pete. Other stuff we put together from scratch. We have some pretty savvy folks in Sevastopol. Especially since that woman crusader, what’s her name, managed to get more channels added to the education net. There are lots of people with net degrees working for me thanks to her.”
“Miss Adel Nottingham,” Mannie said with pride. “She’s my great-aunt.”
Campaigning for her father, Kris had toured plenty of light-industrial production facilities. The pride of workmanship was clear in the smooth flow of the line and the clean workstations.
But this was not what she’d come to see.
“So, where do you put together the ship-quality lasers?” she said.
“That would be Building 12,” Dave said. “It’s restricted. But you’d expect that. I don’t think even Mannie’s been in there. You aren’t going to make me show my pride and joy, Mannie?”
“I think the commander expects to see them,” the mayor said.
“Well, okay, but you’re going to have to leave your heat behind, Mannie. Just you and the princess.”
Jack and Gunny Brown just kept right on walking along behind Kris.
It took Dave a couple of paces before he noticed that his tail hadn’t decreased nearly as much as he’d expected it would.
He turned back to Kris. She gave him a sunny smile.
He shrugged and continued leading the way to Building 12. They had to pass through two sets of guards before they were admitted to a high-roofed work bay with a heavy-duty overhead crane.
The production line here was very different from the others. They had been neat, laid out in an orderly fashion, and clean enough to eat off the floor.
Building 12 was a mishmash of equipment that went together in the most tenuous of fashions. Nothing actually seemed to fit together, and the overall effort left piles of wiring and odd tables scattered across the shop floor.
“You’ll have to excuse the look,” Dave said. “We are still adding in new tools and rearranging others.”
“So I can see,” Kris said.
Close to them, where a huge door opened out onto the apron, a laser cannon was being carefully lowered by the overhead crane into a swivel-gun mount.
“They’ll mount that on the ship’s hull close to the reactor. That will save them having to make long power runs to it,” Dave said.
“That would be an interesting arrangement,” Kris agreed. Since she had never seen a small defensive laser mounted that far aft, she suspected that someone was stringing Dave along. Perhaps the assessment of the nano defenses was right. This fellow had wandered onto the bad side and just didn’t know it.
NELLY, RUN THAT IDEA BY CAPTAIN DRAGO.
I’LL DO THAT, KRIS.
“Do you have someplace where we can talk . . . alone?” Kris asked Dave.
“Yes,” he said, and led Kris up two flights of steps to a room that overhung the shop floor. Several men in ties, shirts, and slacks were leaning over a large table, attempting to make some kind of sense of the sprawling mess it displayed, reflecting the machinery below.
“Please, fellows, we need this room for a few minutes. Why not take ten?” Dave said.
The workers moved out quickly, suppressing looks of mild surprise as they passed the Marines.
Kris settled in a chair at the digital worktable as Dave did the same. His fingers moved quickly over the display to close down that view and bring up a plain wooden tabletop.
NELLY, START SHOWING HIM HIS FILES. ALL OF THEM THAT WE HAVE.
OH, THIS IS GOING TO BE SO MUCH FUN, Nelly said, and the table came back to life. Three different sets of files opened in different portions of the table and began to cascade.
Dave frowned at the table for a second, his eyes growing wide. Quickly, he started tapping the controls again. The view did not change.
At his elbow, Mannie’s look became more and more puzzled.
Kris put her elbows on the table and leaned forward. “We know about your three sets of books.”
Defiantly, Dave folded his arms across his chest. “Listen, Longknife, this is Greenfeld. I don’t know how your old man makes all his money on Wardhaven, but on a world like St. Pete, everybody has a different bottom line depending on who is asking.”
The look Mannie gave Dave told Kris that everybody didn’t necessarily play by those rules. She went on.
“Let’s talk about these 5-inch lasers.”
“All properly documented,” Dave cut in. “Shipped up to High St. Pete station and turned over to the harbormaster for transshipment to the receiving merchant-ship captain. All proper and documented,” he repeated.
“Yes, we noticed that,” came from Nelly, though in the gravelly voice of Professor Scrounger. “The signatures on the bills of lading are always the same man . . . even though he retired six months ago.”