Customs at Belinta, their first port of call, should not have been a problem. Ky shifted from one foot to the other, and struggled not to point out that every single item on the delivery manifest—raw materials for pharmaceuticals—had been preordered. The Customs Inspector was an unmodified human, but she had seen a Mobie and a pair of Indas on the way to this office, and she wanted to see what other humods were in the system. Finally the Customs Inspector looked up from the readout and glared at her as if she had sprouted horns.
“The thing is, we see more than enough of you Slotter Key hotshots,” he said. “Always trying to convince us our tariffs aren’t reasonable—I’ll bet you wouldn’t like it if we did that.”
Ky refrained from pointing out that Belinta couldn’t reciprocate whatever injury they felt they suffered; they didn’t have the bottoms to haul their own freight anywhere outsystem. Vatta Transport didn’t need more enemies.
“We have only approved cargo,” she said, in what she hoped was a voice sufficiently pleasant to avoid offense. “Aside from what’s in personal stowage, which is all locked down.”
The Customs Inspector looked at the list again. “Preordered pharmaceutical precursors—that gives us value-added—and tik extract. All right. What about agricultural machinery?”
“Not on manifest,” Ky said promptly, wondering what they had against agricultural machinery. “Is that—do people try to smuggle in ag machinery?”
“No, no. We’re looking for it. It was supposed to arrive last year; we hoped you’d have it, since you’re from Slotter Key.”
“A Vatta ship?” Ky asked. Surely someone would have told her if a Vatta ship had gone missing on this run.
“No. Pavrati. They’re the blue-and-white ones, right?”
Pavrati did indeed have blue-and-white colors. They were based on Serinada, not Slotter Key, though they registered their ships in Slotter Key; they dominated the coreward trade. Vatta held an equal share in the outer ranges. “The ship didn’t arrive?” Ky asked.
“A Pavrati ship came, but no machinery. They said it had all been diverted.”
Sold off, more like. Pavrati Interstellar Shipping was the example held up to young Vatta trainees of how not to operate a shipping line. Rumor had it they survived by running contraband.
“We tried to contact the company—Pavrati headquarters and the shipping agent for the manufacturer—but we haven’t heard anything. And we’ve asked every ship that’s come by.” The man said, “We’ve heard nothing.” Belinta was a good hundred years behind Slotter Key in development; a missing shipment like this could cause them real trouble.
“I’m sorry,” Ky said. “But I don’t know anything about it. If it’s a Pavrati contract, I doubt the manufacturer would send a replacement by Vatta.”
“We told them next available,” the man said. “We really need it.” He looked at Ky as if she could create agricultural machinery out of thin air right in front of him.
“Who are you calling on this?” she asked.
“I’m not sure. I just know we’re looking for it—but the Economic Development Bureau can tell you more. If there’s any way, any way at all that we can get something—we’ve lost a year’s production already—”
She opened her mouth to deliver a standard apology—it was not her concern, she had a route to run, a mission to accomplish—but the words wouldn’t come. Possibility tickled her ambition. What if this turned into a lucrative contract, lucrative enough to repair the ship? She told herself it was impossible, but she asked the question anyway. “Does the Economic Development Bureau have an office onstation?”
“Oh, no, Captain. You’d have to go planetside. You’d have to have an appointment. You do have a consul here, of course.”
Of course. She had orders to visit the Slotter Key legation on every planet, to be polite and charming and give nothing away while gathering any useful information to be passed back to the family. A very boring duty, she’d thought, but an excuse to wear the scarlet-lined formal cape which she liked in spite of herself.
“But you’ll try?” the man said.
“I don’t know,” Ky said. “I’ll have to consider what it does to the rest of my schedule. I’ll think about it.” She was already thinking about it. She was already imagining a fat contract that would give Vatta Transport, Ltd., leverage in this system and herself a ship in which she had owner’s shares. A contract whose negotiation would excuse her spending a few more days downside, exploring her first alien world.
Before she left the station, Ky made her reservation at the Captains’ Guild—“an acceptable expense chargeable to the company.” She also placed a call to the escort service Vatta Transport used—“a captain never prowls about alone; if no senior crew accompanies, a captain will hire an escort from the usual service [list appended.]” Belinta was supposed to be a safe port, but this was her first voyage; she would take no chances. Executive Escort promised to have a suitable individual on call when she arrived. She chose to meet the escort at the Captains’ Guild.
On the down shuttle, she leafed through travel brochures she would never use, such as “Beautiful Belinta, Belle of the Hub Worlds.” Nobody but the residents would call this sector the Hub Worlds, unless they thought the rest of the wheel had fallen off. Belinta advertised “unparalleled cultural opportunities,” “scenic sights,” and “marvelous experiences for the value-conscious traveler.”
The “cultural opportunities” looked like a group of people in costume singing something; and the “scenic sights” looked like a cliff over an ocean. Ky wondered what kind of brochures Slotter Key handed out to tourists. She wondered if Slotter Key had any tourists.
She turned over some of the others. “Salzon’s Singing Sands,” far across the planet, looked like piles of gray dirt, but the “Singing Sands Luxury Resort” promised “unparalleled self-indulgence amid the shimmering dunes.” “See the Sights of Mystic Valross Valley” showed a mountain valley, with a large red arrow pointing to the Mystic Valley Luxury Resort perched on a cliff on one side. Mystic Valley’s hostelry promised the same unparalleled self-indulgence as well as horseback tours to Spirit Falls. More interesting—at least in the brochures—was the “Sea Isle Reef Extravaganza Tour” with stays in the Sea Isle Luxury Resort promising the now-familiar unparalleled self-indulgence.
The brochures were archaic—plasfilm, with inert illustrations and no linkup codes. Ky put them aside for the next passenger to enjoy as the shuttle landed. Belinta had only one shuttleport, near its capital. She caught the City Center train, using the coupon from the brochure. No humods on the train, a disappointment; aside from the dull clothing, everyone seemed normal. She came out of the grimy, strange-smelling station across a paved street from the Captains’ Guild, a dark brick building in a row of other dark brick buildings, with the starred flag of the Captains’ Guild waving in a gentle warm breeze over the entrance.
She had been to the Captains’ Guild with her father back on Slotter Key, where he—like all the Vatta senior captains—was personally known to all the service personnel. But this was her first time to enter a guildhouse in her own right. She half expected the doorman to ask for her ID, or suggest that she wait in the Visitors’ Lounge for her father. She resisted the impulse to flick her dress cape back from her sleeves to reveal the rings, and walked toward the door as if she owned it. The doorman at the Captains’ Guild opened the door for her at once, and the on-duty steward met her in the lobby.
“Captain Vatta, a pleasure. Right this way, please.” Of course: their implants would have picked up her ID before she arrived. Her overnight bag disappeared with a bellboy up a flight of stairs; the steward led her to the registration desk. “Just to check that everything’s in order—” It was. Ky looked automatically at the status board. Princess Cory, Captain R. Stennis, Ind., NR, LPoC Vauxsin; Pir K., Captain J. Sing, Ind., R, LPoC Local System; Glennys Jones, Captain K. Vatta, Vatta Transport, Ltd., R, LPoC Slotter Key. She made herself quit looking at her own name on the status board—“Captain K. Vatta” right out there in public—and tried to extract from the simple list all the information she could. Two independents, one staying in the guildhouse and one not. Pir K. was probably an insystem rig; Ky wondered what she carried and to and from whom.
“Your room, Captain—number six, second floor. You require assistance?”
“No, thanks,” Ky said.
“Will you need us to arrange an escort?”
“No, thank you,” Ky said. “I have contacted a service already. I’ll call them again from my room and let them know I’ve arrived.”
“They should have met you at the ’port,” the desk clerk said. “Unless you requested that they not …”
“I said here would be fine,” Ky said. “But thank you.” She ignored the elevator and went up the carpeted stairs to the second floor where a single short cross-hall made it clear that the Captains’ Guild on Belinta didn’t expect much business. Her room overlooked the street and although it contained all the amenities the Captains’ Guild promised its members, it was smaller and plainer than the room her father had shown her back at Slotter Key’s Guild residence. Ky turned on the com-console and uplinked to her ship, giving them her onplanet contact codes. Then she called Executive Escorts, where the same pleasant voice promised to send someone over immediately. She had just unpacked when the desk called to tell her that the escort had arrived.
Back on Slotter Key, Vatta had its own security personnel, wearing company colors; Ky had never dealt with outworld security firms before. The stocky young man in dark green tunic and brown pants looked nothing like the Vatta employees, but his ID patch fit the information she’d downloaded from the escort service. Conor Fadden, senior operative, certified and licensed to carry those firearms deemed appropriate for private hires on Belinta. He had the little bulge in the left temple that indicated an implanted skullphone, and the larger bulges under his tunic that must be his weaponry.
“Mr. Fadden,” Ky said, as she came into the lobby. He turned from the desk.
“Captain Vatta? You’re not the same Captain Vatta—?”
“No. It’s my first run here.” The here slipped out, implying more experience than she had, because of the way he’d looked at her. “Your credentials, please.” The Captains’ Guild staff would have checked already but Gary had impressed on her the need to check everything herself.
“Of course, ma’am,” he said, handing over a datapak. Ky ran the hand scanner over it—clean—and then offered hers to his hand scanner. He took his ID pak back and straightened. “Where first, Captain?”
“The Slotter Key legation,” Ky said. “If it’s close enough, I’d like to walk.”
“Easy close enough,” he said. “Just across the street and down a ways.” He led the way to the door, and then out onto the street. According to the Captain’s Guide, escort services could provide a range of services, but the only one authorized on the company account at Belinta was “guide, basic protection.”
Ky felt a strange combination of young and important as she walked with her armed escort along the street of a city on a planet she’d never seen before. It smelled different. People dressed in different colors, different styles. Although Belinta was supposed to have “nominal normal” gravity, her feet didn’t seem to hit the ground with the same impact as on Slotter Key. Ky tried not to gape at the sights, keeping her eyes firmly on the Slotter Key flag which her escort had pointed out, a short walk away. When they got to the Slotter Key legation, she nodded to the guards at the gate and handed them her ID pak. They nodded back, ran a scanner over it, and opened the gates for her. Her escort paused; the guards checked his ID, and then allowed him into the gatehouse. Ky walked on up to the door; another uniformed guard opened it for her.
Inside, the legation’s reception area had tiled floors and cream-colored walls hung with tapestries representing the Six Colonies. Ky handed her ID pak to the desk clerk, a cheerful middle-aged woman, who ran it through a reader and returned it. “Need to see the consul, Captain Vatta?”
“Yes,” Ky said. “A matter of trade and profit.”
“It’s always nice to see a Vatta representative here. A tisane, perhaps? I will inform the consul that you wish to see him.”
“Thank you.” Ky sat in the comfortable chair the clerk pointed out, and looked through a window into a covered garden filled with Slotter Key natives. Not, of course, a tik tree. She sipped the tisane the clerk brought her.
“A new Vatta on this run?” The consul appeared quickly. He looked like a northerner and had a North-Coast accent. His ID patch provided a name, Parin Inosyeh, and a brief biography. Ky ignored it; her own wiring would store it for her. “Trade and profit, you say?”
Ky nodded. “A Pavrati shipment. Ag machinery that didn’t arrive on the last Pavrati ship. Customs say they asked for a next shipment priority. I want to bid on it.”
“Does Vatta approve?”
Ky blinked. How could he ask that when the main office was light years away … oh. She was Vatta here. So—did Vatta stand behind this venture or was it personal, a captain’s gambit? She could commit Vatta to a course of action that would not play out until after she returned shipless, the old hulk sold—or she could work this solo, and—if it came out as she hoped—use the profits to refit the ship. If it didn’t, she would be out of luck, but Vatta wouldn’t be harmed.
She had not thought that far. She felt stupid that she had not thought that far.
“I have not decided,” she said, hoping she sounded more capable than she felt. “There are advantages either way, for me, my family, and Slotter Key. More information would help, and that is why I have come here. I would like to know—” Her mind raced swiftly through the decision matrices, noting blank cells she most wanted filled. “I would like to know Pavrati’s trading history here, and where that could be found. The customs employee I spoke to, Inspector-junior Ama Dissi, directed me to the Economic Development Bureau, which he said had tried to find out where the shipment went astray, and obtain a replacement. I need an introduction to that Bureau.”
“Indeed. Some of this I can help you with, certainly. Pavrati began yearly contacts here some six years ago, and increased their service to twice yearly two years ago. The initial contact of my predecessor with the Pavrati concerned a customs dispute about interdicted psychoactives. Recently … let me just say that it would be indiscreet of me to complain that Pavrati captains have been a plague to this office for years—always demanding, never asking. So I would not say that. I would say that if Vatta brought trade and profit out of this, it could only help my office perform its duties and possibly improve relations between governments.”
Ky wondered how much “incentive” from Vatta had contributed to his attitude, or if Pavrati captains had really been stupid enough to alienate their own government’s consul repeatedly. She remembered those entries on the books, something she’d questioned back in what now felt like distant youth. We don’t bribe people, do we? she’d asked in horror, only to be glared into silence by her father and uncle. It was not a bribe, they’d explained. It was merely a courtesy, too small to do more than suggest that Vatta Transport was a friendly and cooperative entity.
As neutrally as possible, she said, “I was hoping you could inform me of local law and custom in such matters.”
“Easily. These people distrust outworld traders as they breathe air. They consider us all cast in the same mold, and blame any of us for all of us. If you were to make good on a promise Pavrati made, they would be very surprised, and probably indecently grateful. As for Pavrati’s reaction, they care not. There are no statutes requiring notification of intent.”
She thought that over for a long moment, while the consul finished his own tisane. She could commit Vatta … she could go independent. She had just made a huge blunder going independent at the Academy, but this was different. Here that boldness protected the family … she hoped.
“It’s my venture,” she said to the consul.
He nodded. “First command, I assume? Yes. You Vatta seem to run to adventures on a first voyage in command.”
Did they? No one had told her about that. “I am not looking for adventure,” Ky said firmly. “Trade and profit.”
“Oh, certainly. Only fools look for adventure. But I daresay your orders didn’t mention scooping Pavrati contracts, not that I’m asking.”
She didn’t know whether to be annoyed or amused at the twinkle in his eye. She went back to the other issue.
“The Customs Inspector mentioned an Economic Development Bureau?”
“Yes. Hidebound, stuffy, and suspicious, like all these people. If they’ve been stiffed by Pavrati, they won’t pay up front, but they’re honest enough and if you deliver the goods, they’ll pay in good credit. I’ll be glad to give you a letter of introduction—they still go in for that kind of formality—to the right office.”
“Thank you,” Ky said. “That’s most helpful.”
He shrugged, a very North-Coast shrug. “Anything to relieve the tedium. It’s normally months between ships, with nothing much to do in between but listen to their complaints. You can’t believe how tedious these people are. Imagine—for amusement, they play some idiotic game with sticks and balls on horses, of all things.”
“Polo?” Ky asked.
“Something like that.” His eyebrows went up. “You know about it? I hadn’t imagined that anywhere on Slotter Key we had anything like that—I’ve never been on a horse in my life.”
North Coast … Slotter Key’s industrial hub. Considered themselves superior, North Coasters did. The rest of Slotter Key, Ky suspected, felt much as her family did about North Coasters. Necessary folk, but stodgy and proud.
“I’ve heard of it,” Ky said, without mentioning where. “We’re expected to know a lot of customs from all sorts of places.”
“I suppose,” he said. “Well, if you know enough to chat about chuckles”—Ky realized he meant chukkers—“you’ll get along fine with them, or as fine as any of us can. But look out; they might ask you to get on a horse and play.”
“Oh, I think I can stick to trade and profit,” Ky said.
“Well, then—you’ll have dinner with me, this evening? I’ll have a letter for you by then, and I’ll call ahead as well to see when you might get an appointment. Where are you staying?”
“At the Captains’ Guild,” Ky said. “And thank you. What time?”
“Eight local. I’ll send the legation driver for you, and put a ping on your alarm.”
Outside, the moist air carried all the smells she’d imagined when, as a junior apprentice, she’d been stuck on the ship polishing the floor while the captain and senior crew were onplanet. Here was a whole world she had never seen before; it was hard to believe she was really here, that she had just been talking to a consul, captain to government representative. Her escort joined her at the gate. “Where to?” he asked.
Ky just wanted to walk around, experiencing the strangeness, but that wouldn’t do, not on a company account. “There is a harbor here, yes?” Harbors meant shipping, and shipping was her business.
“This way,” the escort said, pointing. Ky called up a city map on her implant—he was leading her the right way. It seemed silly to check, but it was protocol. They started off, still on foot. Around her, the native population of Belinta went about its business, dressed very differently from the people on Slotter Key. Most wore some shade of green—gray green, greenish brown, yellowish green, bluish green—with a plaid shawl slung around the hips for the women or shoulders for the men. Their legs were bare from the knee down to sandals with turned-up toes, but they wore long-sleeved tops with snug cuffs. What was that about?
She slowed down, feeling the slight difference in the way her foot hit the ground, noticing the odd quality of the light, and the smells … What was that? A gust of wind lifted her cape and the smell grew stronger. Not unpleasant or pleasant, just enticingly different.
The street they were on curved to the right and ended at a tangle of buildings beyond which stretched an undulating surface of dirty yellow water. In the distance, she could see the dark ragged line of another shore. She called up her infovisor: it was an ocean … or rather, this was a bay, and the ocean lay off to the right somewhere. The Greater Ocean, on their maps. Ships carried cargo on that water, just as on Slotter Key; she eyed them as she walked along the street that paralleled the docks. Big ones, little ones, in a bewildering variety of designs: high at the prow with low, rounded sterns, high at both ends with a straight low section in the middle … she had no idea which design was meant for which service. Would the escort?
“What kinds of cargoes do they carry?” she asked.
“Lot of it’s wood,” he said. “Over there, it’s the mills—behind them, the forest still. Food and fiber, too, from the farmland away east of here. Riverboats come down with ores and such from the mountains.”
“What kind of local transport organization?”
“There’s the Amalgamated Transport Trust—that’s a group of shipping companies, agree on rates and that kind of thing.”
She had already looked that up and was again a little surprised at herself for checking up on the escort service.
Across the pavement on the shoreside were tall blank-fronted buildings—obvious warehouses—bearing names and logos which meant, to this world, much what Vatta Transport meant to hers. Tall doors stood open; she toyed with the idea of going in and introducing herself to a manager or two, but the ships were too interesting. She could do that tomorrow if a data search suggested it might be profitable. She came back in time to dress for dinner.
Dinner at the legation was almost as elaborate as the fanciest dinners at home. The consul had invited several government officials to dine with them; Ky was very glad she’d worn one of the formal outfits her mother had insisted on.
“You’re very young, aren’t you, to captain an interstellar ship?” asked the wife of someone in the Waterways Commission. The implant, loaded with information the consul provided, handed her the names: Cateros, Sylis and Max.
“Fairly young, yes,” Ky said.
“I wouldn’t let my daughter go out there, so dangerous, don’t you agree, Max?” The woman laid a hand on her husband’s sleeve; he turned abruptly.
“What? Sanna? Ridiculous.” He smiled briefly at Ky. “Not at all the same, Captain Vatta. You have been trained to this life for most of yours, no doubt.” He didn’t wait for her answer before going on. “And what do you think of our homeworld, Captain? We’re still in the early stages of development, but already the waterways form a fine transportation network.”
“It’s lovely,” Ky said. “I haven’t seen much of it yet.”
“But you did see the harbor today. Quite roomy. As development proceeds, we’ll need all that space.”
“If it doesn’t silt up,” said someone down the table. Ky queried her infochip: Samfer Wellin, Minister of Agriculture.
“It won’t silt up,” Minister Cateros said. “My engineers assure me that the scour of the Big Yellow will continue to keep it cleaned out.” He glared down the table and the Minister of Agriculture subsided, then opened another topic.
“Captain Vatta, I understand you’re going to be talking to the EDs about importing some machinery for us …”
Clearly Belinta was not a world given to keeping secrets. Ky just managed not to glance at the Slotter Key consul. Had he been the source, or was it the talkative customs official? “I was told up on your station that equipment you’d ordered had not been delivered, and was urgently needed,” she said.
“That’s true. Was supposed to come last year and didn’t. We need it badly; we’re points below projections on production because of it—”
“That’s not your department, Wellin. Your job is getting the most out of what we’ve already got.” Minister Cateros seemed to puff up like a bullfrog. Ky looked down at her plate. She didn’t need a teaching tape to know that the men were rivals, and that Cateros thought he outranked Wellin.
“I can’t plow fields with polo ponies,” Wellin said. He stabbed a slice of roast as if it were Cateros. “If we’d imported heavy stock as originally ordered—”
“They’d be stuck in the muck up there,” Cateros said. “You just have to get the job done, Wellin …”
“Do you play polo?” Cateros’ wife asked Ky with a desperate smile.
The men stopped and stared at her.
Ky shook her head. “No. I do ride, but I’ve never played polo. Not formally anyway.”
“Not formally? What does that mean?” Cateros sounded grumpy still.
“Oh, my brothers and I had read about the game, so we sneaked some brooms out of the pantry, and tried it.”
“You grew up on a planet?” asked Wellin’s wife. “There was room for horses?”
“Oh yes,” Ky said. She wondered if the woman thought all spacer crews grew up on ships. “Slotter Key has plenty of room … where I live, many people ride.” Always be ready to talk about any neutral topic, her father had said. You never know what it might be, but be ready.
“You should come to a match while you’re here,” Cateros said. “You can use our box.”
“Thank you,” Ky said. “I don’t know how much time I’ll have.”
“There’s a match day after tomorrow on the City grounds. If you don’t have an appointment.”
“I’ll see you have my number,” Cateros said. He looked at the ornate timepiece on the wall. “Good heavens, it’s late. We’re due at Erol’s wedding rehearsal, Sylis. We must go—you will excuse us,” he said to the consul. They both stood, as did Sylis, looking confused. The others all stood, until Cateros and his wife had left. Then, in a straggle, the other Belintans excused themselves, leaving Ky facing the consul across a cluttered table.
“That went well,” the consul said.
“Really?” Ky said. “They seemed angry to me.”
“They hate each other, but I got them to come and sit through most of a meal together. Captain Vatta, if you can possibly stand it, please go watch that polo match. I’m sorry to say that I simply can’t make head or tail of it, but you have a clue. Perhaps that will loosen Cateros up a little, and be a chink in their armor.”
“I can try,” Ky said. She could, she supposed, watch a polo game and make polite conversation.
“Good. I have transmitted a letter for you to the Economic Development Bureau, and here’s a hard copy for you to take tomorrow. Your appointment with the Assistant Minister for Procurement is at eight local time: that’s midmorning to these people. He’s supposedly going to arrange additional appointments for you. Let me know if he doesn’t.”
Garsin Renfro, the Assistant Minister for Procurement, was a tall, thin man with the long face Ky had begun to think of as Belinta-normal. “Can you really get us that machinery?” he asked.
“I don’t know yet,” Ky said. “But very likely.”
“How long would it take?”
“Where had you found it before?”
This led to a long explanation of the process, starting with bid requests sent out to a dozen manufacturers and proceeding at glacial pace through every detail of what had happened. Ky kept wanting to interrupt, but made herself listen. Her father had always said no one could tell which detail would make trade and profit … but she was fairly sure none of these would.
“So … you were happy with the quality of the bid samples from FarmPower and Pioneer Agriculture Supply, and FarmPower had a closer outlet?”
“That’s right. Actually five suppliers met the quality standards. But FarmPower gave us the best overall deal, and they charged shipping only from Sabine. We ordered shipping by fastest scheduled carrier, and that was Pavrati; they come in every sixty days.” He looked at her as if she might object; Ky smiled.
“That’s understandable, if you had an urgent need.”
“We did—we do.” He shifted in his chair. “I won’t—I can’t—burden you with all that’s involved, but this delay has cost us …”
“Of course,” Ky murmured. “Now—your government’s contract with Pavrati. Was it exclusive?”
“No. The Board isn’t authorized to make such deals. But they were the next, on the schedule. I spoke to the Pavrati captain myself; he assured me they could pick up the machinery on their way outbound, from Sabine, and just store it until they came back. We’d hoped to have it sooner—that another ship could pick it up on the way in—but he said no, they stop at Sabine after Belinta, not before. But he would be back in about one hundred twenty days, he said, and that was well within our parameters.”
“So when he came back …”
“He didn’t come back,” the man said sourly. “The next Pavrati ship wasn’t the right one, and we knew that. We didn’t even ask. Then no Pavrati ship came for another one hundred twenty days, twice as long as usual. We’d queried, of course, but they had no explanation. When that one arrived, it didn’t have our machinery, or any explanation. It wasn’t the same ship, or the same captain, and he knew nothing about our shipment. We’d asked FarmPower in Sabine if the goods had been picked up, and they’d assured us they had. So at least the captain hadn’t spent our credit on fancy clothes.” For a moment the man’s gaze rested on Ky’s formal captain’s cloak, as if it were encrusted with precious gems.
“That must have been very confusing,” Ky said.
“Confusing and infuriating. FarmPower claimed they’d delivered our goods to the ship we specified, and they had no further responsibility. Pavrati, when we finally got a reply from them, said that taking goods aboard outbound and carrying them on the long legs of the circuit would result in storage charges in addition to shipping charges, whereas we had prepaid only base shipping from Sabine to Belinta. They tried to charge us for the balance right then and there, said it should have been prepaid. And besides, they said, the ship had never arrived at its next stop and was listed missing.”
“Insurance?” Ky asked.
He glared at her as if she had just insulted him. “Insurance! Do you have any idea what insurance charges are for a cargo like that? We’re a young colony; we don’t have money to throw around. Of course we had some insurance. But not full value. The insurance company won’t settle until we can give a cause for nondelivery, and for that we need a statement from Pavrati. They say they won’t sign it until we pay what we owe for storage, and we aren’t going to pay for storage and shipping of goods that never arrived.”
“I see,” Ky said. “And you want someone to bring a new order?” She had never been to Sabine; she wasn’t entirely sure what the standard routing was, whether Vatta had regular service there.
“Yes,” the man said. “But we aren’t paying first this time—it’s pay on delivery.”
“Our policy,” Ky said, “requires at least a deposit on account. You’re asking me to change my schedule—”
“We’re not going to be cheated again!” the man said. “You Slotter Key pirates—”
Ky put up her hand. “A moment. Vatta Transport, Ltd., are not pirates; we are licensed, bonded transporters.”
“It’s all the same,” the man said. “Take our money, and for nothing—”
“Has anything consigned to Vatta ever failed to reach its destination here?”
“No. Not yet.”
“Then—” Don’t blame us because you didn’t have sense enough to hire us was hardly tactful. “Not all firms are alike,” Ky said instead. “Vatta Transport is sorry that you have not been served well by another firm, and that this incident has damaged the image of Slotter Key businesses.”
“I suppose it’s not actually your fault,” the man said. “But we’re so far out—”
Which wasn’t Ky’s fault. Was this the time to push for a mutually agreeable solution?
“What do you think happened to the Pavrati ship?” the man asked.
“I don’t know,” Ky said. “They could have had a drive failure—”
“Drive failure! You mean—that happens?”
“Yes,” Ky said. “Usually going into or coming out of FTL space. Any little bit of debris in the jump lane can cause that much damage—it’s why we only travel to places with a decent traffic control crew. Or they might have collided with something bigger—” Leaving a dangerous smear of debris on the mapped routes. “Piracy you mentioned—they could have been intercepted somewhere—”
“But surely Pavrati would have told us about any of that—”
“No,” Ky said. “In the first place, they may not know what it is yet, and in the second place they won’t want it known, lest someone else profit by the knowledge.”
“Seems ridiculous,” the man said. “They should at least tell our insurance company …”
“If they know, yes. But when a ship disappears … space is big and ships are small.”
“Ships really do disappear … they’re not lying about that?”
“Ships can,” Ky said. Across her mind ran the list of Vatta Transport, Ltd.’s disappearances. They had a good record, the result of prudence, hard work, and another dollop of prudence on top. The spaceways, her father had said when she first mentioned the Academy, offer risk enough.
“Well, then …” His voice firmed. “Your consul tells me you have the authority to decide if you want this contract. As I said, we aren’t going to pay in advance this time. What are your rates?”
“We have no consignments for Sabine,” Ky said. “Nothing we can sell there.” She had tried to find something in the cargo for Lastway that would sell on Sabine, but nothing fit. “And you have no consignments, either, do you?”
“No. We’ve never had exports to Sabine.”
“Well, then. That means it’s a dry run over, and a paying cargo back. If we’re not getting an advance, that means a surcharge for the extra distance—”
He scowled.
“Think about it,” Ky said. “You want us to go out of our way, without profit on one leg; if we know we’re going somewhere, we carry cargo there, and that means we only need to charge each shipper for the distance their cargo actually travels. Now, have you asked for bidders again, or are you planning to buy from FarmPower?”
“Well … no.”
“Well, then,” Ky said. “Let me suggest this …”
The haggling continued for hours, with breaks for refreshments, but in the end she had what she thought was an acceptable deal. She had missed the polo match, but she didn’t much care.