Next, Heris went to find Oblo. “I’ve got our slot,” Heris said, with no preamble. “The family’s requested that the yacht be put in deep storage. The court agreed. Spacenhance doesn’t want the responsibility of moving it, and I’ve refused to allow a ferry crew, under provisions of my employment contract with Lady Cecelia and my rights as possible heir. The court agreed to that, too. Suspicious, but they did agree. So we’re to move her.”
“But what about stores? If you’re planning to go outsystem at once—”
“Are you telling me that the best thief I ever knew can’t manage to get a few cargo cubes aboard a yacht guarded by an interior decorator?”
“Well . . . no. But it won’t be easy. Those people are strange.”
“Oh? You’ve been checking?”
“Of course.” Oblo looked up at the ceiling. “You said get ready for a quick departure, so I thought I’d . . . ease things. Turns out they have an almighty sticky AI on their dockgate.”
“But you can do it.”
“Unless you’re planning to run a year without stopping anywhere, she’s fit.” He didn’t look at her directly, but she knew his face too well to be fooled. He had begun shifting provisions into the yacht long before. It had probably started simply to prove he could bugger the AI.
“Now?”
“I’d like another three shifts, to sort of finish things off. But we could go now, and not be much shorter.”
“Good. You can have three shifts, but not a second more, and you’d better not get caught.” Oblo looked insulted at that, as well he might.
“And that includes weaponry.”
“No problem.” By the tone, he’d installed that first. He would.
“Right, then. We file a flight plan for eight shifts from now—” Oblo scowled, and Heris pointed at him. “Think about it. You’re going to be sure they are as stupid as you think. If you’ve been doing something every shift or so, five blanks will make them show themselves, especially with a plan filed. I’ll have reserved our space in Rockhouse Minor’s deep storage, and tickets back here on the ferry. Show up in uniform; we’re Lady Cecelia’s employees, and not a gang of toughs who might go larking off somewhere in her ship. Very formal, very sad. Look as grim as you like—you’re miserable about this, and you don’t mind saying so. But not in the bars yet, not until the last night.”
Heris had no trouble looking grim as she filed the flight plan. Everyone knew about the legal dispute; this would make it clear who was winning.
“Tough luck, Captain,” said the Traffic head clerk. He had been on Rockhouse for years; she had filed Fleet plans with him. “It’s disgusting the way they’ve messed up what the old lady intended.”
“Lady Cecelia is—was—a fine woman,” Heris said. “And I only hope they don’t scour the tubes when they shut the main drive down over there.”
“Oh—you’re not going to Duibly’s?”
“No. Lady Cecelia’s family insists that it’s not cost effective, since they don’t foresee the ship being used for several local years—and possibly sold away. As you see, they specified Harrigan’s.” The clerk would know what that meant, in credits and in skill. Harrigan’s was a fine deep-storage yard, if you were planning to send a ship or sell it to someone who would be doing a major overhaul anyway. Duibly’s, far more expensive, boasted it could power and air up a ship from deep storage in less than 50 hours.
“A shame. A lovely ship, I’ve heard.”
“It is.” He wanted to know more; she could tell. “You know, she had just had it redone when I first took command, and she was having it redone again.” His eyes widened; he wanted even more details. “Real wood paneling,” Heris said. “Furnishings brought up from the family estate. And it was impressive before.”
“I know,” he said. “Spacenhance has been using the interiors in their advertising. That was their top designer; I wonder why she wanted to change it.”
Heris shrugged. “She could, I suppose. Perhaps it didn’t have the effect she expected. But you see what I mean.”
The clerk nodded as if that had meant something, and sealed the flight plan with a coded magnetic strip.
On the way back from the Traffic Control office, a short brown-haired young woman stopped her at a slideway entrance.
“Captain Serrano?” Her face and voice were slightly familiar. Heris paused, wary.
“Yes?”
“I don’t expect you remember me—I was just a very junior ESR-12.” Military: environmental systems technician, enlisted. With the specialty and rank, the name came back to her.
“Yes . . . Vivi Skoterin.” Another reminder of her earlier failure, though Skoterin might have been junior enough to escape the courts-martial that devastated the officers and NCOs of her former crew. “How have you been? Did you—?”
“They didn’t send me to prison, no ma’am. But—but I didn’t re-up.” No wonder, Heris thought. The young woman looked thin and depressed; what had she been doing?
“Find a job all right?”
“Well, ma’am . . . I just got in . . . been working on a bulk transport, independent carrier, Oslin Brothers. Maybe you know of them?”
Oslin Brothers meant nothing to Heris, but independent carriers of bulk cargo were marginal profit concerns. She shook her head, and Skoterin went on.
“I . . . was hoping for something better. Scuttlebutt around Station is you have your own ship and are hiring some of your former crew . . . and I was wondering . . .” Damn. Heris didn’t need this, not now. But responsibilities didn’t come when you needed them. At least she could get this woman a square meal and perhaps a little money to help her find a better berth.
“Scuttlebutt’s got it slightly wrong, as usual, but come on—at least have lunch with us. You remember Sergeant Meharry and Oblo?” Something flickered in Skoterin’s eyes, but Heris dismissed it as recognition. “They’ll be glad to see you. Come on, now.” Skoterin climbed onto the slideway with her, and Heris spent the trip back to the hostel thinking furiously. What would she do now? She owed Skoterin, as she owed all her former crew . . . and they were short an environmental tech, as Haidar had reminded her only that week. The others were willing to do the work, but in an emergency, they’d have their own stations to keep.
Haidar remembered Skoterin at once, which relieved Heris: what if the woman had been planted on them somehow? While she went off to freshen up for lunch, he said, “You will bring her along, won’t you, Captain? We really need another tech—I could use two more, in fact.”
“You’re sure of her?”
“Oh, yes. That’s Vivi. Kind of dull, except for her work: she’s absolutely reliable. She got top reports from Lieutenant Ganaba—” Lieutenant Ganaba, who had been killed on the island even before the hunt started; Heris had heard the story from Petris. The admiral had not liked to leave officers alive as effective leaders. And Ganaba had been tough; if he approved of Skoterin, then she was good.
“Seems a good solution to me,” Heris said. “But if we ask her, she has to say yes . . . we can’t leave her behind to tell the tale.”
“Just tell her we’re ferrying the yacht, and not the rest of it.”
“But that’s like hijacking her—”
“Hell, Captain, we’re going to kidnap a prince—why not an environmental tech? Besides, she wants a berth.”
And Skoterin, offered a short-time job ferrying the yacht, with “maybe a longer job later” agreed at once. Haidar took her off to lunch himself, waving away Heris’s offer of funds.
With the flight plan filed, and the Sweet Delight entered into the undock sequencer, time seemed to compress. Heris had her own list to complete. Check out of the hostel, with reservations for herself at another, lower-priced hostel for the end of the week. Consigning the letters patent to Kevil Mahoney’s office downside; she sweated out the hours until he called to confirm receipt. The messenger service was supposed to be secure, but one never knew.