But even with all this, nothing had come back. Chan could imagine being more wily, cunning, and brave than a Stellar Group team. Hell, he wouldn’t be here if that weren’t true. What he couldn’t imagine was being more careful . And that was a very bad omen.
The outer door of the office was sliding open. At last. Chan glanced at the clock built into the ornate surface of MacDougal’s desk. As he suspected, the Ambassador had taken far too long. More problems.
“You couldn’t get it?”
“Oh, I got it all right.” MacDougal had a sour look on his face as he went to his desk. That was all right. Chan was in a foul mood, too. “The answer is not reassuring. It seems that we were provided with false information.”
“Happens all the time. Our ship didn’t go to the Geyser Swirl?”
“It went there all right. But I am no longer surprised that it failed to return. You see, this was very much a secret and undercover operation. We had to take many things on trust that would normally be checked through official channels. The `highly competent and experienced private team’ that I told you about? It doesn’t look so good now. The crew captain, Friday Indigo, is a rich man, but it is all inherited wealth. He describes himself as an `entrepreneur,’ but he has never earned a penny in his life. And he is a `space expert’ who failed his space navigation examination three times and his engineering tests four times. Most upsetting.”
“Not to me. It’s more worrying when competent people don’t come back.” Chan studied the scowling image that MacDougal threw up on the display set into the surface of the desk. “That’s Friday Indigo? He looks like he’s got a pickle up his ass. What about the other crew members?”
“Two of them. The chief engineer and astrogator is a total mystery. We have been able to discover nothing at all about him. There is no name in the files, and we have no background. Not even a picture! He is described vaguely as a `big, fat man.’ Certainly he does not have official certification in either engineering or astrogation. But there is another mystery here. When we checked with Venus Equilateral, the Mood Indigo’s last stop before it departed for the Geyser Swirl, their senior engineering staff insisted that the ship carried an engineer who knew what he was doing.”
“Self-taught, maybe. I am, pretty much.”
“You are not claiming credentials that you do not have.” MacDougal drummed his fingers nervously on the top of the desk. “Are you?”
“I’m not claiming anything. But if I thought I could get more out of this deal by lying about my credentials, I’d do it before you could spit. What about the third crew member, what do you know about him?”
“Not him. Her. The third crew member is a female, Liddy Morse. I am hoping you can help us.”
Chan studied the image of a young woman with dark hair and curiously lustrous and liquid eyes. “Mm. How old?”
“Twenty-four. That’s one of the few things we do know about her.”
“She’s a beauty. But I never heard of her, and I never saw her before.”
“Maybe not. But she’s from Earth, we think from the Gallimaufries.”
“So are a hundred million others. Odd place to look for a space crew member. What are her qualifications?”
“For space work? None. She is described in the crew duty roster as a `general worker with versatile personal skills.’ But I think that is Friday Indigo’s idea of a joke. Judging from her picture and the limited information that we do have about her, it looks rather as though Friday Indigo—” MacDougal paused. “Well, it seems as though he bought her a few months ago, when he was down on Earth. For purely sexual purposes. Is that possible?”
“If she’s a Commoner, it’s more than possible. Happens every day of the week and every week of the year. All he’d have to do is find out who owned her contract. Not me or the Boz, in this case. I would have remembered her.”
“In this case? Are you admitting that you—”
“I’m not admitting a damn thing. I’m just telling you the way things run in the basement warrens. It’s not all flowers and nectar down there, you know. If you don’t like what you’re hearing, stick it. Tell the boys in Unimine and Foodlines that I’m too immoral for you to work with, and the whole expedition is off. I’ll be more than happy to go back home to the warrens.”
“You know that is not an option. They would kill me.”
“I doubt it. They know what the Stellar Group wants. They’d more likely come straight to me and put the screws on some other way. All right, what else do you have? You might as well get it over with — I can see you’re fidgeting.”
“Word from the Stellar Group members. I forwarded to them your requirement that the ship you take to the Geyser Swirl must have a Tinker Composite, a Pipe-Rilla, and an Angel on board.”
“That wasn’t a requirement. Call it more of a test shot. What did they say?”
“They say that they have absolute confidence in you, and that their presence would be quite unnecessary and even indicate a lack of trust. They will have no representatives on your ship.”
“In other words, they’re scared shitless. Don’t blame ’em. That’s one worry out of the way. Don’t want them looking over my shoulder. Suppose I have to off somebody?”
“They still insist that there be no violence.”
“Course not.” Chan fumbled in his pocket and found nothing but empty fizz holders. Had he really taken that many? He shook his head and went on, “Violence. Think we’d tell ’em if there was? Good. No aliens. Makes things a lot simpler. Got a ship picked out yet?”
“The best one in the solar system. The Hero’s Return , a former Class Five cruiser. An appropriate name, don’t you think, considering the mission?”
“Depends whether or not we come back. It takes more than a nice name to make that happen.”
“And you’ll be under the command of a highly respected officer, General Dag Korin.”
“Whoa there, Mr. Ambassador. What’s this `under the command of’ crap?”
“The General is one of the system’s great heroes.”
“I’m sure he is. But if I’m going to a dangerous place I’d rather be led by one of the system’s great cowards. And I’m not supposed to be led by anyone. I thought I was running this show.”
“We need a person of known reputation in charge. With all due respect, that’s not you.”
“Then the expedition can go without me. You can stuff it. I won’t have some general getting in the way when I want to do something a Pipe-Rilla might not approve of.”
“I don’t think you’ll find it’s that way with General Korin. His attitude to aliens is … different. At the very least, you ought to meet with him.”
“All right.” Chan swept his arm across the desktop. “Then bring him on. Bring ’em all on.”
“Not just now, I think.” MacDougal caught the glass as it skidded across and off the desk.
“Why not?”
“I don’t think that you are in any condition to — I mean, I do not believe that the General can be available at such short notice. Let me arrange it for, let’s say, tomorrow morning.”
“Bright and early.” Chan caught at the edge of another thought. “One more thing, Ambassador. I have to know when this ship — the Return — will leave. How much time do I have?”
“I will have that information for you. Tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow morning . Bright and early.”
“If you insist.” Dougal MacDougal examined the way that Chan Dalton sat slumped in his chair, eyes half closed. Tomorrow morning, Chan Dalton’s brain would feel like a boiled pudding.