“Long ago,” Venezia said. “She was more serious—she even took a doctorate in synthetic chemistry, did you know that?” Raffa hadn’t; while she digested this surprising fact about her favorite aunt, Venezia looked around. “Ronald—George—where are the other two?” Ronnie’s attempt at a smile froze into position. Raffa leapt in.
“Other two—oh, the young men at the tram stop? Just some boys Ronnie and George met in a bar one night.”
“Locals?” asked Venezia, but without waiting for an answer she launched into her plan. “I’m glad they’re not here, dear, because I would not wish to discuss family business in front of strangers. I know I can trust all of you.” She favored them all with a bright little smile that made Raffa’s teeth ache. “Have you explained about Ottala?”
“Not . . . really. I thought you—” With that, Venezia interrupted to go over the whole thing again, this time with additional commentary on Ottala’s scholastic record, the errors in judgment that had made it necessary for Bertie and Oscar to ask for her financial assistance, her opinion of men in general and her family in particular . . . on and on, until Raffa felt that she would doze off in sheer self-defense.
“And what you would like us to do—” she said, in one of the rare brief pauses for breath.
“Oh. Well. What I’d like you to do is go to Patchcock and find Ottala. If, as I suspect, she’s living some kind of adolescent fantasy of being a hero of the working masses or something, let me know that she’s safe. I’m quite willing to pay your expenses—” She slowed here, eyeing George in particular as if his expenses might well run over budget.
“We couldn’t possibly ask that of you,” Raffa said, with all the charm she could muster. “Besides, suppose your family noticed something. We all have ample allowances; it’s really no problem.” Ronnie stirred; she ignored that. If they were going to be partners for life, he would have to learn to use her resources as she intended to use his.
“I insist,” said Venezia, with a touch of color to her cheeks. “At least the tickets there.”
“All right,” Raffa said. “But we must make our own reservations. In case your family is hiding something from you, it will be easier if they don’t make the connection.”
Passenger service to the Patchcock system routed through Vardiel and Sostos. Vardiel, Raffa remembered, was the ancient seat of the Morrelines. Ronnie, poring over the display in his copy of The Investor’s Guide to Familias Regnant Territories (a guidecube purchased in the Guerni Republic), commented that it was a roundabout approach. “I’ll bet they don’t ship freight that way,” he said. “If this is accurate, there are two near jump points, with easy vectors to Brot, Vesli, Tambour. And Tambour’s a direct to Rockhouse.”
“Morrelines like control,” George said. “But why not? It’s their investment base.” He glanced around their cabin and shrugged elaborately. Raffa glared. If they were being monitored, his glance and shrug would look as stagey to anyone else as it did to her. They had agreed not to discuss their plans once on board the ship to Patchcock. The system itself, yes, since none of them had been there.
The other passengers were all on business transfers, older men and women whose conversation was full of technical detail. Raffa strained her ears and memory to interpret them, but the veneer of chemical knowledge she’d picked up on Music didn’t help her penetrate the dense thickets of jargon. They had dropped into the Patchcock system before any of the other passengers spoke to the young people.
“Are you in Bioset or Synthesis?” an older woman asked Raffa in the lounge. Raffa noticed that the nearest group of older people paused in their conversation.
“Neither,” Raffa said. “I don’t even know what they are. I’m just a tourist, really.”
“Ah.” A little pause, during which Raffa could almost see the cascades of decision points in the other’s mind. Then, “You’re with a Family?”
Though the words were polite, Raffa heard the faint sneer that meant “rich, spoiled, idle.” But that was the most harmless hypothesis, so she didn’t react. “Yes,” she said. “My aunt’s trying to get me involved in business, and I told her I needed to travel more. I’m hoping to visit some of the pharmaceutical facilities here.”
“Here? Where did you hear about them?”
Raffa tried for the offhand tone that would disarm suspicion. “I went to school with Ottala—Ottala Morreline.”
“Were you planning to visit her?”
“Is she here?” Raffa raised her brows. “I thought she lived on Vardiel—at least when she was in school we visited there—”
“No—I mean, yes, she still lives with her family, the last I heard. I just wondered why you were here.”
“Well, Ottala bragged about the facilities—my aunt, you see, has investments in pharmaceuticals, so I told her I’d like to see these—and others—”
“A good excuse for traveling, then?”
Raffa smiled, and leaned closer, confiding. “Yes . . . and you see, my family doesn’t approve of . . . of Ronnie. This way they think I’m traveling on business for Aunt Marta; Ronnie and I met a long way from the capital.”
“And the other young man?”
“Ronnie’s friend George. Well, of course I know George, too. But everyone knows Ronnie and George travel together, so it’s less obvious that I—you know.”
The older woman smiled. “I think it’s incredible that you Family people go through all these maneuvers . . . why not just take your shares and go live with the boy, if that’s what you want?”
“I couldn’t do that,” Raffa said. “It’s just not—not done.” She had never thought of it. The idea sat in her mind staring back at her; she forced herself to ignore it.
The Guernesi tourist cube had an account of the Patchcock Incursion (under “investors’ warnings: possible political instability”) far more extensive than what Raffa remembered vaguely from school. Ronnie read the section and nodded. “Captain Serrano told me about that. I wonder how the Guernesi found out about the terms of the Gleisco contract?”
“They said they’d bought raw materials from the Patchcock system,” Raffa said. “They probably had agents of their own poking around.”
“I suppose—in the aftermath of the incursion—it would’ve been easier to start manufacturing the drugs here—retooling the lines wouldn’t be as obvious if they needed complete rebuilding anyway.”
“How are we going to approach this?”
“Didn’t you hear what I told those people in the lounge? My Aunt Marta has pharmaceutical investments; she’s asked me to gather background . . . she has,” Raffa said, as the two looked at her in disbelief. “I was in the Guerni Republic, and heard about Patchcock . . . that’s all I have to say. We’ll see where it goes from there.”
“Something’s going on,” George said. He had finally seen Raffa’s point about the way Venezia’s family treated her. “I’m just not sure Ottala’s aunt is as stupid as she pretends to be.”
“I don’t think she’s stupid at all,” Raffa said. “But she may be baffled by the family. And if they’re manufacturing illegal pharmaceuticals, perhaps they’re even drugging her.”
“If they could do that, they could get their shares back—”
“Wait—” George looked excited suddenly. “It’s—it’s all about the rejuvenation process. And the legal changes—what do you want to bet that Ottala’s aunt hasn’t had the new one? Maybe none at all, but if she did, it was the Stochaster.”
“How do you figure that?”
“Because it changed the inheritance laws, and it’s going to change the laws about cognitive competence. The ones that caused your aunt so much trouble, Ronnie.”
“Huh?” Ronnie looked confused. “I don’t see how the kind of rejuvenation someone has matters that much.”