The closer she came to the station, the more reluctant she felt to tell her crew, her experienced baby-sitting crew, about her bright idea and the contract she’d signed. What would they think? Would they insist on telling her father? She was the captain. She had to approve all communications. Would that stop them?
Gary Tobai met her at dockside. “How’d it go?”
“I need to talk to you,” Ky said. “You and Quincy, anyway.”
“Trouble?”
“No. My office, when you can.”
“Now works for me,” he said, dashing her hope that she could have a few minutes to think up how to say it. “I’ll get someone on dock watch, and call Quincy—ten minutes?”
“Fine,” Ky said. She went quickly to her quarters and tried to organize her thoughts. Quincy and Gary appeared long before she felt ready.
“So … what is it?” Quincy asked as she came in. The tone said “What have you done now, youngster, and how hard is it going to be to fix it?”
“We have a contract,” Ky said.
“A contract. You mean—another contract? You do remember the assignment is to take this ship to Lastway and scrap her …”
“Yes, I remember. But trade and profit is trade and profit. Belinta was our only time-defined delivery. The goods for Leonora and Lastway are all spec. This is a profit run.”
Quincy’s mouth tightened. “How much?” Gary asked. “And what do we have to do to get it?”
Ky explained about the Pavrati failure to deliver a prepaid order, and the Economic Development Bureau’s urgent desire for agricultural machinery before their attempt to open the Hamil Valley to farm settlements failed.
“And the profit,” she said, ignoring the twitch in Gary’s cheek, “is enough—with the profit we can reasonably expect from the sale of our Lastway trade goods—to do a refit at some reasonable yard, enough to bring her up to spec.” Or almost.
“Hmmmm.” Quincy looked down. Ky couldn’t read her expression.
“Payment or profit?” Gary asked.
“Profit,” Ky said. She tensed, knowing the next question.
“So how much is the advance?”
“Well … actually … they’ll pay on delivery. They paid Pavrati in advance, and the manufacturer in advance, and they don’t trust us.”
“So … you’re talking a spec run, and … do we have to pay for the merchandise?”
“Yes,” Ky said. “But it’s hard goods; if they don’t cough up, we can sell it somewhere else. And we get a residual, the rights to any insurance settlement.”
Quincy let out a stifled sound and buried her face in her hands.
“What?” Ky said. “It’s not that bad an idea …”
Quincy looked up; tears rolled down her face, and her shoulders shook. She was laughing, Ky realized, laughing so hard she couldn’t speak.
Gary, when she glanced at him, was grinning. “Ky, Ky, Ky. We wondered how long it would take.”
“How long what would take?”
“You. So prim, so proper, so very earnest—” He chuckled, and shook his head. “I knew it wouldn’t last. It never does.”
Ky felt her neck going hot. They were treating her like a child, and—
“You’re so Vatta, is what he means,” Quincy said, through the laughter she was trying to control. “Trade and profit, right? If there’s an angle—and then it is your first ship.” She shook her head, still laughing.
“The thing is,” Gary said, “there was no way you were going to take this ship off to scrap if you could help it. I’ll bet you that you’d been wondering if you could possibly earn enough for a refit before you ever got aboard.”
“Not … exactly,” Ky said. They were both grinning now, not sarcastic grins, but genuine glee. “You knew,” she said. “You knew all along … did my father know?” Gaspard must have known, she realized. He must have assumed that any Vatta would find a way to save a ship from scrap.
“He knows you,” Quincy said. “I don’t suppose he knew about the Pavrati nondelivery, no, but he knew you.”
“I think Ted got it,” Gary said to Quincy.
“Depends on how we set the time,” Quincy said. “From the time she made the contract, or from telling us?”
“Now what are you talking about? Ted got what?” Ky asked.
“The ship’s pool,” Quincy said. “Actually we had two, one for you taking a contract, and one for you figuring out a different way to make a profit.”
“I don’t know whether to laugh or cry,” Ky said. She had not even imagined a ship’s pool on her performance. “You were all sure I’d try to save the ship?”
“Did anyone pick no?” Gary asked Quincy.
“I don’t think so,” Quincy said. “I’d have to look at all the entries so far.”
“Just what did you expect me to come up with?”
“Who could guess?” Quincy said with a shrug. “First-run captains have done all sorts of things. There’ve even been a few who followed exactly the line they’d been given, but most of those end up working for someone else. Now—let’s take a look at this contract you signed. Spec, and we have to buy the goods up front?”
“Yes.”
“Could be worse,” Gary said. “You’ve got a letter of credit from the family, I suppose?”
“Yes,” Ky said. “It’s on Crown & Spears at Lastway, but that should be negotiable elsewhere, but we also have the payment on delivery for the cargo we brought in. That’s actually Vatta Transport, money, though. I’d rather not use it.”
“Quite right,” Gary said.
“So, I thought Sabine Prime,” Ky said. “The Economic Development Bureau has given me the specs for what they want. Sabine has several manufacturers of the kind of equipment they want, plus used-equipment dealers.”
“Is that where they ordered it from in the first place?”
“Yes. From FarmPower. But they’d take equivalent stock from another manufacturer, or used, in order to get something here quickly, they said. And that’s in the contract.” Ky pointed out the relevant paragraph.
“And how much do you know about farm machinery?” Quincy asked.
“Me?” Ky said. “Nothing. But there are books, and it’s two months to Sabine.” Quincy and Gary both rolled their eyes. “What? You don’t think I can learn?”
“Mitt may know,” Gary said. “But let me see that—we may have a load problem.”
“I checked the hold layouts,” Ky said.
“Yeah, but … some of these brutes will have to be disassembled, and then—we have to shift the Lastway cargo around. We aren’t fully loaded, but we’ll need easier access in these tight spaces …”
“Store some of it here,” Quincy said. “They aren’t paying in advance, so they can store our stuff free.”
“It’s worth trying,” Gary said.
Somewhat to Ky’s surprise, the Bureau of Economic Development was willing to put Ky’s Lastway cargo into storage for no fee, as security against their timely return. Ky had Gary check out the sealed storage facility; to her it looked like any other sealed storage facility. They had no special requirements, so she wasn’t nearly as concerned about temperature, pressure, and so on as about pilferage.
“The locks and seals are good quality,” he reported. “If something goes missing, it’ll be because someone used the main hatch and the key for it.”
“What do we do if they do?” she asked.
“We have their ag machinery, and we keep their ag machinery until they return our cargo.”
This was getting more complicated by the minute. Ky extracted Aunt Gracie’s fruitcakes from the rest of the cargo—maybe she could unload them on Sabine, and they fit into one of the lockers in her cabin—and signed off on the stowage contract.
Glennys Jones eased away from Belinta Station under her own power—Belinta’s single tug service being occupied with an insystem carrier—and Ky tried not to fret. Ted Barash, Mitt’s assistant in Environmental, had indeed won the pool, and used it to treat everyone to a meal just before they left. Ky tucked a mint she’d saved from the dessert tray into her mouth and went back to her calculations. Two months to Sabine. Say a week to locate the machinery, a week to do the paperwork, some days to load—to be safe another week—and then two months back to Belinta, and a week to unload, process the paper, reload with their Lastway cargo. Five months, all told, by which time the family would expect to hear that she was in Lastway, though Lastway would still be four months away.
She would have to let them know sometime, she told herself. But when? Not now, when they might tell her to stop, or send someone to help her fix her mistakes. Maybe once she had the cargo loaded at Sabine Prime? Or when she was back here and they’d be expecting word anyway?
The imagined message appeared in her mental vision, expressed in perky tones unlike her own: Hi Dad, all is well, I’m on Belinta with a load of tractors and we made a lot of money and don’t have to go to Lastway after all. Your loving daughter …
No. Definitely not. Slight delay, don’t worry wasn’t much better.
She forced her mind away from the wording of a message she didn’t have to send for several months, at least, and called up the ship’s reference library. Farm machinery. She knew what they used in the tik plantations back home; she had even been sentenced to a fortnight of hard labor—as she’d called it, bootlessly, at the time—driving one of the harvesters.
The Belinta Economic Development Bureau wanted ag machinery to convert thick forest into productive farmland. As a colony world with limited repair and manufacturing facilities, they wanted machines designed specifically for such use—very rugged, low maintenance, easily repaired. They were willing to trade off the advantages of multipurpose machines for the increased life-span of a dedicated single-purpose machine.
What they’d really wanted—what they had intended to have—were draft animals, horses and oxen, self-replicating, self-repairing, long-lived, but they’d been overruled by the aristos among them. Instead of draft animals, they had polo ponies—all owned by the rich, who weren’t about to let them pull a cart, let alone a plow. The machine equivalents were faster, if they worked, but right now they had nothing but small tillers people had planned to use in their gardens. Hardly suitable for serious farm work.
So—tractors to pull various field equipment. Multigang plows, harrows, planters, harvesters. Rugged trucks to haul their produce on rough roads. Ky thought they were making a mistake not to include road-building machinery in this order, but they were the customer.
She compared the specs the EDB had given her to the information in the database, and found nothing that the EDB hadn’t told her. All these things were fairly standard, and should be easy to find. The database also had the current market value of the equipment, in the currency of several systems. Unless Sabine Prime’s prices were over the top, she should have enough for the cargo.
It was going to work. She shut down the library link and allowed herself to relax. She’d been through it again and again, on her own and with Gary and Quincy. It was a good plan, and it had no obvious holes in it.
So why this nagging cold chill that ran up and down her spine? She told herself it was just the leftover loss of self-confidence from that mess with Mandy Rocher. Naturally she would distrust her own judgment for a while. But this had nothing to do with Mandy or Miznarii politics. This was just straight-up trade and profit, something she’d known about since childhood. Simple, straightforward, easy. It was all going to work.
Endim transition felt even rougher with no cargo aboard; Ky would have crossed her toes for luck if she could.
“We really do need to get that tuned,” Quincy said, when the vibrations settled down. “It’s degrading faster than I thought it would, to be honest. There’s a pretty good shipyard on Sabine that could do us an interim fix, probably wouldn’t take more than three or four days.”
“And how much money?” Ky asked.
“We’d have to ask.”
“We don’t have much,” Ky said. “We can’t draw on the company accounts for this—the ship’s not authorized for repairs. And we’re using my letter of credit to cover expenses.” Maybe she should have been bolder about taking the Belinta delivery payment herself instead of depositing it to Vatta Transport, Ltd.
“I know,” Quincy said. “I thought she had at least ten more transitions in her, but that last one wrenched something. If she’s that rough coming back out, we’ll have to get it fixed. If not—I suppose we could risk the trip back to Belinta, but I’d rather get something done. I’ve only got the three engineers, you know.”
“There’s nothing we can do now?” Ky asked, already knowing there wasn’t.
Quincy shook her head. “Sealed unit. It either works right or it starts degrading. I’ll tear down the supports, try rebalancing before we shift back, but I don’t think it’s the supports. I think it’s the unit itself.”
Fine. A rotten little sealed unit the size of a large suitcase could mess up her whole plan. To keep herself from hovering behind Quincy’s shoulder during the rebalancing, she took out the ship model and forced herself to work on it. Even if it did remind her of what she’d lost, it was better than driving her crew insane. She kept up her exercise periods, using one of the now-empty holds. In a way, she found it reassuring that she did not need the rigid schedule of the Academy, the shouting of instructors, to make herself exercise. But then, she reminded herself, lack of initiative had never been her problem.
She was back on the bridge for the down transition; she could not help noticing how many of the crew found it necessary to be there as well. She nodded to Riel, who gave the slightest shrug before touching the controls.
Down transition brought them out where they should be—whatever was giving Glennys the problem didn’t seem to affect navigation, at least—but that was all the good news. The ship trembled, creaked, even groaned as vibration stressed her structual members. Ky clenched her teeth to keep from crying out along with her ship. It felt like hours, but only a few minutes passed on the ship’s chronometer. Finally it steadied. Several new status lights came up red.
“Mandatory repairs,” Quincy said. “We have to replace that sealed unit.”
Ky didn’t argue. She could still feel a faint tremor in the ship’s fabric. She certainly didn’t want to take this ship back through endim transition again without a repair. Instead, she began downloading Sabine local information. Sabine’s manufacturers, drawing on a wealth of raw materials in their system, produced solid, basic agriculture, mining, and construction equipment for many of the colony worlds in this sector. Their advance sales information systems offered everything Ky needed to plan the stowage of their intended cargo. Sabine also offered a variety of ship services, from consumables to complete refitting.
She and her crew pored over the information. If she spent all her letter of credit on agricultural equipment, she would have very little left for repairs. If she didn’t, she’d short the order from Belinta. Surely they’d understand if she had to repair the ship … surely a couple of tractors short wouldn’t upset them.
But it would. She knew in her bones that they were really as dour, as inflexible, as unforgiving, as they’d seemed. They’d accept a fait accompli, but they’d hold it against her—and worse, against Vatta and Slotter Key—forever. She had to find some way of doing it all—fulfilling their order, repairing the ship, getting back to Belinta … There was always credit, though the interest would cut into the profits …
“Welcome to FarmPower,” the interactive salesprof announced. The voice was cheerful. “We are here to serve your agricultural needs. Please select one of the following options. If you have items on order and wish to check their manufacturing status, please speak now … If you have items on order and have received notice of shipping, and wish to check their shipping status, please speak now … If you wish to place an order for new items, please speak now … If you …”
“I need to speak to a sales representative,” Ky said. Sometimes these things could be interrupted.
“… need to register a complaint, please speak now. Have your invoice number ready …” The voice paused, and something that Ky knew was meant to be music tinkled uneasily in the middle distance. She had no invoice number, because she hadn’t placed an order yet. The salesprof paid no attention to her interruptions, and she finally gave up. She had to go planetside anyway; she’d contact FarmPower from there.
Sabine Prime smelled very different from Belinta; Ky sneezed as something acrid got up her nose as soon as she cleared Customs. She saw no humods at all in the passages, and only about half the people had the telltale bulge of implants. This time her security escort—a tall, thin man named Seward Humphries and clad in the charcoal brown livery of his employer—met her at the shuttle station, and guided her to a bubbletube. He seemed alert and competent, but radiated an unwillingness to chat with clients. Ky didn’t mind; she had plenty to think about as they neared the capital city. Sabine City—commonly called Sabine or even Prime—had sprawled across a river; the far side appeared to be more industrial, judging by the stacks and cooling towers.
The Captains’ Guild here was much larger than that on Belinta; the status board listed dozens of ships. Ky checked in, sent her luggage up to her room, and went directly to the Slotter Key embassy. It was only a few blocks away; she chose to walk, her escort silent beside her. Sabine’s citizens favored bright colors—a relief after Belinta—and some of them carried a small, round, bright-colored object in one hand. Ky had no idea what it was, but the shapes were the same even though the colors varied. Ornate glazed tile designs livened the fronts of the buildings, with exuberant decorative arches over doors and windows. Ground vehicles varied from large mass-transit cars—some red, some green—to tiny three-wheeled confections in various pastels, which unfolded to reveal a single seat inside. And the noise—after Belinta’s relative silence, the busy chatter of Sabine’s city crowds almost deafened her. She and her escort, she thought, must be the only two walking together who were not talking loud enough to be heard a block away.
The Slotter Key embassy was hardly larger than Belinta’s small legation—or so she thought, until she noticed the bustling staff and realized that it must also occupy the adjoining buildings.
“Captain Vatta,” said the desk clerk. “So nice to see you.” He was heavily tattooed and freckled around the tattoos. “We’re always glad to see Vatta people here. What can we do for you?”
“Trade and profit,” Ky said. “I’m on a contract run from Belinta, picking up agricultural machinery. Do you have performance files on repair yards?”
“Repair yards? For ag machinery?”
“No, for ships. I’m wondering whether to have a minor problem fixed here or wait until I get back to Belinta.” She was reluctant to reveal just how big the problem was.
“Oh, you’d want to do that here,” the desk clerk said. “Sabine has superb repair yards, and yes, we do have performance stats as reported by Slotter Key citizens who’ve used them. Would you like that now, or popped to your ship?”
“Both, please,” Ky said. “My engineer has the stats from Belinta for comparison, but I suspect you’re right.”
“Just a moment,” the clerk said, and blinked, accessing the legation’s internal database. “There,” he said. “Anything else?”
“Reputable sources of used farm machinery,” Ky said. “I already have contact with FarmPower, but they’re not selling used equipment anymore, they say.”
“No. They dropped their used equipment sales two years ago. Higher profit margin in new, and they’d just unloaded almost all their stock to the Chigwellin Combine anyway. Chigwellin got the contract for a twin-world system about eight jumps away, and they bought up just about all the used farm equipment anyone here had.”
“So … no one has used?”
“No one you’d want to buy from, Captain Vatta. FarmPower and the other manufacturers all quit taking old machinery in trade after that, and put the money into new manufacturing capacity. Our local agricultural unions sometimes have used machinery, but it’s low quality.”
“I see.” What she saw was the start of a problem she hoped wasn’t as big as it looked. If she was stuck buying new equipment at top price … but had no ship to get it back to Belinta … she might as well not buy it. On the other hand, fixing the ship—assuming she could—would leave her with no cargo to take to Belinta.
“Thank you,” she said, after a pause, and the clerk nodded.
“You’ll want to pay respects to the consul,” the clerk said. “He takes courtesy calls at 1600 local time on the second and fifth day of the local week … that’s tomorrow, which around here they call Umpord. Shall I put you down?”
“Yes, thanks,” Ky said.
“And here is a hardcopy of another file I loaded for you, local regulations and current warnings pertaining specifically to Slotter Key citizens. I call your attention to the Foreigners’ Curfew, underlined in red: they are serious about that, and you will require a local citizen escort to be abroad after curfew. You have an escort, I presume?”
“Yes,” Ky said.
“A licensed escort service suffices; if you choose to be out with an unlicensed escort after curfew, be sure he or she has his or her citizenship card. It is most inconvenient when our staff is asked to intervene in cases of curfew-related arrests and detentions. And things are rather tense just now.” The clerk, formerly so friendly, now seemed severe.
“I understand,” Ky said. “I have a licensed escort, and no intention of wandering about without one.”
“Good. And the most important local taboo, on page eighteen, is underlined in green. Never, under any circumstances, sneeze without using a sprayer immediately afterward.”
Ky had had no inclination to sneeze, but now her nose tickled. “But doesn’t that spread infection?”
“It’s symbolic. Don’t ask me, I think it’s stupid, but you’d better buy a sprayer. The cheap ones are actually considered in better taste.”
Ky rubbed her nose. “So … anything else?”
“No, I’ve put you down for the call tomorrow; the consul will expect to take tea with you. Allow a half hour, though it will probably be less; it depends on how many show up. Dress is afternoon business; your captain’s uniform is fine.”
“Thanks,” Ky said. She collected her escort outside the embassy, and called up a list of other ag machinery suppliers. None listed prices lower than FarmPower’s, but since a few listed no prices at all she put in queries.
“Where would I find a … er … sprayer?” she asked her escort.
“In general merchandising emporiums,” he answered. “There’s a shopping arcade just a few blocks away …”
“Fine,” Ky said. “That’s where I need to go …”
The shopping arcade, floored in tesselated stone laid out in floral patterns, had fascinating little shops on either side, and one large store with several doors. Her escort led her to the farthest, and then to a sales rack whose shelves were covered with items Ky would not have recognized as sprayers. She did recognize them as the rounded objects so many pedestrians carried. Pink, green, blue, yellow … painted with what must be intended as flowers … but how did they work?
“I don’t understand,” Ky said.
“The incense bead goes in here”—he pointed—“and the igniter is there, and you squeeze this—” This was an accordion pleated arrangement that Ky had not realized could flex. “These are all expanded to show the design,” he said. “But they compress to fit in a pocket.”
“Incense bead?” Ky said. “Igniter?”
“For the aroma,” he said. “If I might recommend—a neutral scent, like rainwater, is most appropriate for professional visitors. There are presumptions made about, for instance, honey musk or spiced fruit, no matter what your intentions.”
“So where are the incense beads?” Ky asked. He pointed out little packets of tiny round beads in various colors. Ky found “falling rain,” and then picked out the least garish of the sprayers—green with blue flowers. She paid cash for them, and then had her escort explain how to insert the incense bead, and how to compress and then operate the sprayer. He didn’t smile, but she could sense his approval. Stupid tourist does something right, for once.
When she queried her insert, she found a list of prices from other suppliers … none better than FarmPower. Drat. She had to hope now that either FarmPower or a repair yard would extend credit, based on her family name. She had better check again with her crew on the extent of necessary repairs.
Back at the Captains’ Guild, she called up to the orbital station. Quincy burst out laughing when Ky showed her the sprayer and explained its use.
“That’s the silliest thing I ever saw,” she said.
“I know. But what I need now is your best assessment of what repairs we absolutely have to make, and what we can defer. Nobody’s selling used ag equipment, and nobody’s prices—that I’d trust anyway—are lower than FarmPower’s.”
“The sealed unit, of course. But Ky, we can’t tell about the rest of it until we tear down the whole drive sequence. Depending on how much damage it did as it degraded, we could have cavitation in the main chambers. And once we start tearing it down, we’re committed to fixing whatever it is …”
“Yeah. I know. Well, tomorrow I have a courtesy call to pay on the consul—he only takes courtesy calls two days a week—and in the meantime I’ll see what I can do about arranging financing. There’s no way my cash on hand will pay for both the equipment and the repairs. We’ll have to find a cooperative soul who will trust our honest faces.”
“I wouldn’t count on that,” Quincy said.
“I’m not,” Ky said. “It’s wishful thinking. But something has to work.”
“Captain’s problem,” Quincy said. “Mine is diagnosing something without looking at it. But just for your planning—the going rate for a new sealed unit here is fifty thousand credits, installed.”
Something was going to have to give somewhere. Ky forced herself to eat a solid, stodgy meal in the solid stodgy dining room of the Captains’ Guild, and hoped none of the other captains could see past her face to her fears. No one spoke to her but the waiter. She signed the tab and went back to her room to wrestle with information available on the public ’net and the intractable number of zeros on her letter of credit.
FarmPower, in the tail end of its recorded sales pitch, mentioned its credit terms. Sheer robbery, but she didn’t have to worry about the interest rate because “… we do not extend credit offplanet; this includes consignment carriers. Please make arrangements with the financial institution of your choice. FarmPower apologizes for any inconvenience …”
So she would have to pay cash for the ag equipment. Fine. Then she could find a lender for the ship repairs. Lots of people borrowed to pay for ship repairs …
By morning, she had a list of the equipment she needed, and signed on to FarmPower’s interactive sales site again. The total brought a whistle of dismay. Prices were up 3.8 percent from what Belinta had paid—not surprisingly, but still. She was going to have to find a lender for that, too, or have no down payment for the ship repairs.
The list of financial institutions willing to do business with a first-trip independent captain, even one named Vatta, was short and not sweet. Over half were lending companies whose own ratings didn’t make her cut. Her name and letter of credit got her an interview with the Loan Department at Crown & Spears, but their rates were … high.
“I have the signed contract with Belinta’s Bureau of Economic Development,” she said, tipping the fac to the loan officer’s implant.
“That’s good,” the loan officer said. She was an older woman with silver hair pulled back into a braid. “That means we can almost certainly approve the loan. It does not, of course, change the interest rate.”
Ky’s implant calculated the total cost, including transfer fees, and compared it to the profit margin she’d originally loaded. Ouch.
“And I should warn you,” the woman said, “that the way events are proceeding between Sabine Prime and Sabine Secundus, you would be wise to procure any necessary funds soon. Interest rates will be rising, I’m quite sure.”
From her earliest training, she knew that anyone pressuring for a quick deal had other priorities than the customer’s welfare. But when she queried the implant’s newsfeed, she found that the woman was right: Sabine Secundus and Sabine Prime had long been at loggerheads over some obscure religious matter, and it looked like the conflict might erupt in violence any moment. The market, though volatile, looked to be headed up, in anticipation of hostilities that would require increased manufacture of war goods.
Great. So she was short of money with a ship needing repair and a contract, and she might be in the middle of a war as well. How many other rules of safe trading could she break? She thought for a few moments; the woman didn’t rush her. If she could get the cargo up to the ship, then trouble on the surface couldn’t prevent her from getting it … and the ship repair facilities were in space, where again a surface war wouldn’t affect them. True, Secundus had supporters on the mining world, Tertius, but her implant indicated no ability by either Prime or Secundus to sustain a war in space.
She would rather have locked in ship repair first, but in the event …
She arranged the loan as quickly as she could, for as much of the purchase price as she could. From the bank, she was able to contact FarmPower and arrange transport of the machinery to orbit—at least “freight on board” in the price meant that delivery was covered, though not transfer to her ship. From the bank’s secure com booth, she let Tobai know what was coming, and when, and briefly explained the political and economic problems involved.
“And yes, I know, we still have to get the ship repaired, but at least we won’t have the cargo impounded.”
“See your point,” was all he said. “When is delivery?”
“Tomorrow or the next day, depending on cargo shuttle availability. They say it’ll take four shuttles, and their estimated load time here is six hours per. They’re starting to move the cargo to the shuttle port now, though—or anyway, they said within four hours. I’ll keep on it.”
“Fine, you do that. If we’re in a hurry, we may need to hire some temp labor, for loading …”
“We can’t,” Ky said. “At least—we shouldn’t.”
She looked at the time when she came out of the booth. Close enough to her courtesy call on the consul. The morning’s calls had all taken longer than she hoped. Her implant reported that she could get by without returning to the Captains’ Guild for a trip through the ’fresher. A simple tuning of pores … her skin tingled, briefly, and for a moment she smelled a sharp herbal scent she couldn’t name, then it vanished.
Someone sneezed, across the walkway, and instantly yanked a screaming yellow sprayer from his pocket and sprayed something that smelled like melons. Ky tried not to stare. Other pedestrians ignored him, Ky noticed.
“Captain Vatta—” That was her escort, who until now had been as quiet as a robot servant.
“Yes?”
“I am receiving information relevant to your safety. It is my considered advice that we proceed immediately to the embassy.”
“What’s going on?” Ky asked.
“I—would rather not speculate,” he said. “My concern is your safety, and I am sure your officials will explain if there is need.”
If the loan department at the bank was worried, and her escort was worried, perhaps she herself should be worried.
“That’s where I was going anyway,” she said. “It’s only a short distance; do you think it’s still safe to go on foot?”
“At present, yes,” he said.
“Good,” Ky said. “Let’s go, then.”