Gerard Vatta’s implant bleeped insistently. “Excuse me a moment,” he said to the midweek meeting he was chairing.
“Gerry, it’s Lewis Parmina at ISC.”
His stomach went into free fall. “Yes?”
“Gerry, our people went insystem at Sabine about seven hours ago. And your daughter’s ship is not there anymore.”
“Not there?” He turned away from the table, from the faces that were searching his own for meaning.
“No,” Parmina said. He went on, speaking rapidly. “The story we got from the mercs who came out, and from other civ ships, is that they interned captains and officers on your ship; your daughter was … was fine then. They made a contract with her; we’ve forwarded a copy they showed us to your offices.”
Gerard noted but didn’t comment on that slight hesitation. Alive would have done; fine could be defined variably. Contract—he motioned to one of the assistants hovering around the main table, scribbled New contract, Mackensee & Vatta, just in, bring it. The assistant stepped back with the glazed expression that meant he was querying by implant.
“Apparently they disabled the FTL drive or it wasn’t working or something,” Parmina went on. “So the ship was expected to be insystem on a particular ballistic course. Its beacon was working; they’d loaded additional rations and supplies and so on to cope with the additional passengers. We found the cargo—”
“Cargo?”
“The cargo your ship had been carrying, ag equipment. It was put outside the ship, netted, separately beaconed, with a copy of the relevant contract, because the cargo holds were converted to hold the passengers.”
What the dickens was Ky doing carrying ag equipment, anyway? She’d set off with a cargo of mixed trade goods. One corner of his mind quickly put together a first stop at Belinta, a relatively young colony, and Sabine, known for its ag equipment in this region. He turned back to the table, waved, mouthed Later and left the room, heading for his office.
The rest of his mind stayed with Parmina, absorbing every word, every nuance of tone and expression.
“The contract states she had picked it up on consignment for the Belinta Economic Development Bureau. It was found on the course the mercs told us to check, right where the ship should have been. And the ship wasn’t there. There were old traces of drive usage—apparently she turned on the insystem drive sometime after the mercs departed the system, but without a beacon trace, none of the scans in the system picked it up. We have no idea where she went, or why the beacon didn’t show on anyone’s scan.”
“That can’t be good,” Gerard murmured.
“No … Gerry, I’m sorry. I really hate having to tell you this. If it were my daughter …”
“Don’t apologize,” Gerard said. “I can’t thank you enough for telling me this much. A drive signature—at least that’s not an explosion. I don’t know what it means, but … there’s a chance.”
“We’ll keep looking,” Parmina said. “The primary mission has to be restoring ansible communication and ensuring the security of our people and equipment, but then—”
“Do you have an estimate on that?” Gerard asked.
“We’ll have a skeleton system up, for nonpublic and emergency communications, within another couple of days. Very limited bandwidth. Rebuilding the platforms for full commercial usage will take much longer. How long we won’t know until we examine the wreckage and find out if any of the power units are usable. And we need to find out how it was done—how they destroyed them.”
“But you’re in communication with your people there now?”
“Spike ansible—yes, but we can’t give anyone else access to that. I have put Ky’s name in a priority-one bin, though, Gerry. We’ve also made it clear to Mackensee that your daughter’s welfare is very important to us. If anyone there hears from her—or via any of our ansibles—our security personnel have been directed to pass it straight up to me. You’ll have the news as soon as I do.”
“Thanks, Lew,” Gerard said. “I know you have a lot more on your mind than one little trading ship—”
“The whole Sabine situation is nonstandard enough that I’d be glad of some good neutral input,” Parmina said. “The mercs are upset, the Sabine government is upset, no one’s claiming responsibility for the ansible attack, and now that ship disappearing … It’s not just a simple bit of sabotage anymore. I have my own reasons for wanting to find that ship, as well as our friendship.”
Something in Parmina’s voice left a cold spot, even colder than the rest in Gerard’s gut. “You aren’t thinking … that Ky was involved …?”
“No, no, of course not. I don’t think she blew the ansibles. For one thing, there’s good scan data from before the attack to show that she was docked at Prime’s orbital station. She did undock without permission after the ansibles were hit, but other ships did that, too—the orbital station was the next logical target. But ships don’t just disappear like that, Gerry. You and I both know that ship beacons are sealed systems intended to work unless completely vaporized, and vaporized ships don’t have a drive path signature. Something weird was going on, with her ship as well as the whole system.”
Gerard could think of nothing to say. She had been there, alive after the time when he had feared she was dead. She had been alive until a few days ago, for sure. Now … maybe she was alive, even though the disappearance of her ship—or the malfunction of her ship’s beacon—suggested something very serious had gone wrong.
“Thank you,” he said again, just for something to say.
“I’ll let you know as soon as we hear anything else. As for general business, I’d say it would be safe to schedule deliveries and pickups within seven to ten days. We won’t have public systems back up by then, but surveillance will be full-on. Got to go, Gerry; we’re up to our armpits in alligators.” The line went blank.
“So is she all right?” Stavros was in the doorway.
“I don’t know,” Gerard said. His voice sounded disgustingly normal, he thought. Inside he felt shaky as jelly, but his voice didn’t waver. “That was Lew Parmina at ISC. They’re in the system; they have eyewitness and other records that show she was there, and she was alive and well up to the point where the mercs left the system. She was just coasting along, ballistic, full of passengers, with her cargo netted outside, and then—the beacon went off, there’s insystem drive residue, and she’s nowhere to be found.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” Stavros said, frowning. “If she was being pursued she might wish the beacon were off, but—I don’t have a clue how to turn one off and I doubt she did. And why didn’t she jump out of that mess? She’s got a perfectly good FTL drive—”
“Apparently not,” Gerard said. “I’m not clear on when it was disabled, or by whom, but apparently all she’s got is insystem drive. What she does have is contracts. One with Belinta, to deliver ag equipment—”
“Which explains why she was on Sabine, instead of almost to Lastway,” Stavros put in.
“Yes. The other is with the mercs, for carrying the passengers they assigned her, the officers of the other ships they interned temporarily. We have a copy of that, via the Mackensee Military Assistance Corporation and the ISC; I haven’t looked at it yet.” He checked the latest deliveries, and found it. “Here we are. Standard passenger rates for ten days’ passage on an assigned course which is the same as that which the mercs gave the ISC, and on which the cargo was found.”
“Binding on the firm, then?” Stavros asked.
Gerard winced. If Vatta Transport took over those contracts, it would be an admission that Ky was dead. And yet, their reputation rested on prompt, complete service.
“We can’t do anything about the passengers,” he said. “Not until the ship shows up. But we can reassure Belinta that they will get their cargo, though it may be somewhat delayed.”
“Send someone to pick it up in space or reorder?”
“Let’s look at the routings … wait a second—” He had come to the last part of Mackensee’s message to ISC about the ship and its captain. “They say she no longer has a Vatta implant—what can that mean?”
Stavros shook his head. “How would they know, unless—” He looked at Gerry. “They removed it themselves. She must have been their prisoner.”
He would not faint. He would not panic. It would do no good, and she was—she had been—alive, and might still need him. “Routings,” he said, in a voice that sounded nothing like his own.
Together, they called up the present positions and routings of all the Vatta ships within two jumps of Sabine system. Nothing that would work easily, nothing that wouldn’t break other commitments. Katrine Lamont was closest.
“We’ll do it,” Stavros said. “I’ll get in touch with Furman—he knows her, I think. Wasn’t he captain when she was on that apprentice trip?”
“I think so,” Gerard said. He looked at the schedules. “If I ship today on a fast courier, I can send her a replacement implant, and that stack of mail waiting for her; Furman can pick that up at—where’s he going to be? Delian II? Tight, but he can wait for it. We’d still want to confirm that Sabine’s stable before we send him in.”
“There’s a piece missing,” Sawvert said. The beacon’s capsule lay open, its components spread on the deck.
“He must have taken it,” Corson said. “Paison must have taken it out so he could put it in later.”
“Or destroyed it,” Ky said. “We know he destroyed part of the insystem drive control linkage.”
“It’s small,” Sawvert said. “He could just stick it in his pocket—it’s about like this”—she pointed at another piece, a slender cylinder about a finger long—“a number five inducer.”
“You’re sure it’s missing …”
“Yes, Captain, I’m sure.”
“And I am, too,” Corson said. “Everything else looks fine—there’s no sign of anything wrong but the missing part.”
Something about the shape tickled Ky’s memory. She had seen that shape before, but not in the beacon … she’d never looked inside the beacon case. Where had it been …?
“Did you … er … search the bodies after you … shot them?” Sawvert asked.
“No.” She had had other priorities, like getting the ship back under control and the rest of the hostages safely locked into the cargo holds again.
“It might be still … in his clothes …” Corson looked sick at this suggestion. Ky felt the same way.
“There’s a problem,” she said. “We don’t have the bodies.”
“You—spaced them?”
“I had cargo holds full of you folks, some of you hostile, and a ship to get under control, and no spare space anywhere,” Ky said, trying not to sound defensive. “I couldn’t just stick them in the cooler with the rations.”
“Maybe he dropped it somewhere,” Sawvert said. “Or maybe he gave it to someone who doesn’t realize what it is.”
“Maybe,” Ky said. She felt certain that it was in one of Paison’s pockets, and the dead pirate was mocking her still.
But that wasn’t where she’d seen something like that part. Where was it?
“What kind of marks would it have on it?” she asked.
“Marks?”
“Any way to identify it? Stripes or something?” She waved at the disassembled beacon. Some of those parts had color-coding stripes, or numbers.
“Sure,” Sawvert and Corson said together. They glanced at each other, and Sawvert went on. “It depends on the manufacturer, but basically it’ll have a number and a stripe, probably purple. You don’t have a parts store that might have it, do you?”
“No … but I know I’ve seen that shape aboard,” Ky said. She frowned; something was tugging her toward her cabin, a memory too vague to be recognizable. It couldn’t hurt to follow the hunch … “I’ll be back,” she said.
In her cabin, she stood still, trying not to think, not to interfere with whatever memory was trying to find its way to the surface. Nothing showed on the surface but the stains from the cleanup after the … the death. No handy part lay in the middle of the floor, or her bunk, or her desk. The shelves to either side of her desk held only the cube reader and one rack of cubes. The desk drawer had her captain’s log and its stylus. She pulled open the locker under her bunk, where the brightly wrapped fruitcakes had been stowed. One remained; she hoped they wouldn’t have to cut into that one. So far no one had dared complain about the flavor, but Ky still preferred to donate her share to others. No way Paison could have accidentally dropped the part here, but what if he’d hidden it, or had someone hide it, for him? Wouldn’t he have chosen the captain’s cabin?
It still didn’t make sense, the timing of it. He had not had time to disable the beacon and hide a part in her cabin; she knew that. She had been in her cabin when they discovered the beacon wasn’t working; she had confronted him too soon after that.
But something was here … she knew it. She started with the lockers over her bunk, where she found that things were not quite as she remembered. Of course. The mercs would have searched the cabin and simply shoved things back in, and she’d been too busy since to come in and reorganize. Entertainment and study cubes, clothes folded not quite as neatly as she’d left them. Behind them was a box, somewhat bent. The model … the spaceship model. She remembered now having shoved it to the back herself.
Ky pulled the box out—it rattled. When she opened it, a folded note was on top of broken parts. Sorry, the note said. Needle got it. This is most of the pieces. The needle-round had not reduced the model to its component parts, quite. Some of the assembly was still there. Ky laid the pieces on her bunk, wondering where the round had hit—obvious when she laid them in order—and there it was.
No purple stripe, but molded into the gray cylindrical shape which the assembly directions had told her was a missle was “I–5–239684.” The other “missiles” were beige.
Cold chills ran up and down her back. The meaning of MacRobert’s cryptic little note suddenly seemed clear. He had, for whatever reason, given her parts to a beacon of some kind and she had been too stupid to recognize them …
She grabbed the whole box and raced back down the passage to where Corson and Sawvert were slumped against the bulkhead, contemplating the guts of the beacon.
“Is this one?” she asked, holding out the little cylinder.
Sawvert looked up. “Looks like it—let me see—” She took it, turned it, peered at the inscription. “Yup, that’s it. Where’d you find it?”
“In a model kit,” Ky said. She put the box down. “Either of you know what the rest of this stuff is?”
“Model kit!” Sawvert leaned over the box. “That’s nothing—nor that—but this—and this—and that bit there—all that’s the makings of a small pin-beacon. A shouter.” She pushed the parts around with her finger. “I don’t know if you’ve got all of it—are there any more pieces?”
“There were, but it was in the way when the mercs shot up my cabin.”
“I didn’t know about that,” Sawvert said.
“You weren’t aboard then,” Ky said. “Someone we’d picked up off the docks at Prime—someone from home—went crazy and tried to fight with the mercs. They shot him.” The less said about that, the better. “So—anything more we can use to fix this beacon?”
“Let’s just see what this piece does—if it works, the beacon should work. If it doesn’t, we have some more bits to try, at least.”
Reassembling the beacon took another two hours, but even before they closed the case, Lee reported from the bridge that their passive scan showed the beacon on.
“Only problem is, it’s not our ID,” he said.
“What do you mean, not our ID?”
“It says we’re the Mist Harbor, serial number XWT–34–693, out of Broadman’s Station. I’d guess that scumsucker changed the ID so when he put the part back in, no one would find us.”
“And nobody will recognize us for who we are, unless we can change it back.” Ky looked at Sawvert and Corson. “Can you change it back?”
“What he probably did,” Corson said, “was change out the chip. That’s what he did on the other—” He stopped; Ky suspected that her own face had the same expression as Sawvert’s, a mix of horror and fury. “It’s not my fault; I didn’t want to do it,” he said in a rush. “It was Paison—he was the captain, I had to—”
“Did you know he’d changed out the chip on this one?” Ky asked.
“No—I swear I didn’t. I didn’t even know he had one with him; I wouldn’t have thought he could, with the mercs just about pushing us out of our ship and into their shuttle.” He swallowed. “Do you have a spare ship chip? I can change it back.”
“I don’t know,” Ky said. She’d not ever thought about it. Beacons came with ships, already sealed …
“There’s a chip,” Sawvert said, pointing to a little piece in the box. “Where’d you get this, anyway?”
“I don’t know if it’s ours,” Ky said, about the chip. But if it came from MacRobert, what would it be? Maybe a generic Vatta ID? Maybe Slotter Key spaceforce? “In the meantime, Corson, since you seem to know so much about how Paison operated, what would he have done to our insystem drive?”
“I don’t know anything about drives,” Corson said. “I really don’t.”
“Even a fake ID ought to get someone’s attention,” Sawvert said. “And if I can fix your transmitter—”
“That would certainly help,” Ky said. “I’m not at all sure what this chip is—it was in this box of model parts, as you can see—so I’m reluctant to put it in. At least this way someone can get us on scan. Give us a way to talk to them, and we’ll be a lot better off.”
“Who is Mist Harbor?”
The chief scan tech on ISC’s bulbous command ship turned to look at the watch officer. “Dunno. Just showed up, but there’s no downjump signature.”
“Anything running around with no beacon is probably part of the problem,” the watch officer said. “We have a missing ship, and now we have an extra ship—let’s get a distance, heading, and mass reading on that, and see if it answers us. And if we have one ship that’s been running silent, there may be more. How’s the system catalog coming?”
“We have the data from Prime’s orbital station; we’re using that as baseline and plotting against it. So far no anomalies, but we’re only thirty-two percent complete. We wouldn’t have found this ship for another two or three hours. At a rough guess, it’s four to six light-minutes away, judging by signal strength.”
“Commit another two units and speed it up. Do you want Ganges to site some additional spindles for it?”
“That would help,” the scan chief said. “Real-time scans like that would cut it by half, anyway.”
“I’ll talk to ’em,” the watch officer said.
The scan chief turned back to his board, allocated two more computing units to the system catalog, and then increased the power on the active scan beam.
Two hours later, he knew that the Mist Harbor was in the same mass range as the missing Glennys Jones, that she was 6.1 light-minutes away, not under power, and did not answer a hail. The ISC specialty ship Ganges, having dropped four spindle-ansibles in remote reaches of the system, was able to get real-time data from them.
“That’s interesting,” the scan chief said. “Not only is Mist Harbor the same general size as our missing Vatta ship, but there are two other ships out there lying doggo. One’s here”—he pointed, as the watch officer came up beside him—“and one there. I do like that fine-resolution scan we added.”
“A year ago we wouldn’t have spotted them,” the watch officer agreed. “Nice work. I’ll pass the word up … wonder if that is the Glennys Jones and she was captured by the bad guys. Doesn’t look good for Vatta if that’s true.”
“Sir!” One of the junior techs waved for the chief’s attention. “Mist Harbor’s beacon has gone—no, there it is—look at it—”
The beacon icon blinked on and off, in a rhythm not quite regular.
“Power failure? Fuel expended?”
“No, sir. I’d bet my next raise it’s a signal code of some kind. There are dozens of those blinker codes on various planets. This one’s from—what did the registration say?”
“Assume it’s the Vatta ship, from Slotter Key. Can we translate it?”
“Without translating it, it’s got to mean that their transmission capability is gone, and they’re trying to signal … which still doesn’t tell us who’s in control.”
“At least whoever’s looking knows a ship is here,” Ky said. “They may not care about the Mist Harbor, but they’re bound to care that a ship appeared out of nowhere with no downjump turbulence. Someone will come investigate.”
“In time?” asked Corson. He looked pale.
“We may be very hungry, but we’ll be alive, I’m sure,” Ky said with more certainty than she felt. Her stomach growled.
“What if one of Paison’s ships gets to us first?” he asked.
“Why would they? ISC is here in force; their best move is to lie low or go away quickly.”
“They think Paison’s on this ship; he’s their commander. He’d be trying to rendezvous. When they don’t hear from him, they will come looking.”
“Honor among thieves, eh?” Ky shook her head. “I don’t believe it; I think they’ll run off or stay hidden.”
“You don’t understand how they work,” Corson said.
Ky cocked her head at him. “Are you going to explain, or just complain? Either get busy helping Sawvert fix the transmitter, or I’ll have you escorted back to the others.”
He looked scared, and bent to his work. But a half hour later, he shook his head. “Can’t be done,” he said.
“He’s right,” Sawvert said. “The problem here is mechanical as well as parts missing. Things have been bent, ripped—”
“So he didn’t plan on using our transmitter,” Ky said. “He was more interested in preventing any of us from calling for help. He did plan on using the beacon. How was he going to signal his other ships?” The answer came to her almost as she asked. “The ship chip change. The signal to his allies is the change in the beacon. They would figure that only he could get it back on, and changed to that ID. So basically—we’ve just been telling them to come and get us.”
“That’s what I meant,” Corson said. “They could be out there right now—”
“We’d see them on scan,” Ky said. “Wouldn’t we?”
“Not if their beacons are off,” Sawvert said. “Though if they’re close enough, we might get them on active. He probably left active scan working, for close maneuvering, and he probably also had a small transmitter on him, for the same purpose. Something that would work within a kilometer or so.”
Ky scrubbed at her head. “We need to let the ISC know who and where we are, and what’s happened. What if we switched the beacon on and off … they’d pay attention to that, surely?”
“So would Paison’s people,” Sawvert said.
“Yes. That’s a risk. But the way I see it, they’re going to be after us anyway. Quincy—”
“Yes, Captain.”
“How well do you know that old code they used in the war? And do you think anyone in the ISC knows it?”
“Probably,” Quincy said sourly. “ISC has a database and a half. But I don’t. Best thing is to just count out letters. They’ve got the processing power to decode something that simple.”
“Again, maybe too late for us. But at least someone will have the facts as we know them. And I can tell Dad to send someone to Belinta with our cargo.”
“Cargo! You’re worried about cargo at a time like this?” Corson looked shocked.
“It’s a contract,” Ky said. “Vatta honors contracts.” She could tell by his face that he had no comprehension at all, but her own crew nodded.
It was easier, this time, to crack the cover on the beacon unit, and this time Ky knew exactly which piece to jiggle to disable and enable the beacon. Unfortunately, that still meant wriggling into the cramped compartment in an awkward position that she knew would make her neck and back hurt: she wanted the beacon connected to its running power system. She tested it, sending the ages-old triple-three distress signal, which Lee easily picked up on their own scan equipment. In the meantime, Quincy had written down a simple letter-number list.
“It works in principle,” Ky said. “Now for a message.” She scribbled down the simplest thing she could: the ship’s name, her name, the number of personnel aboard. “Read that to me one letter at a time,” she said to Quincy. “Have Lee check that that’s what I actually send.”
It seemed to take a long time to work through that first simple message, and Ky realized that she should have had someone else do that while she composed a longer one with more details. She wriggled back out, and turned to Sawvert.
“Repeat that message, and I’ll be working on more.”
Back on the bridge, she glanced at the scan. An ISC beacon was closer now, but she had no way to tell how close. No odd beacons, so if Paison did have stealth ships in the system, they weren’t revealing themselves yet. Could ISC pick them up? She shook her head. She had a lot to tell the ISC or whoever got her message, and it needed to be concise and clear.
“Glennys Jones, Captain K. Vatta, boarded by members of the Mackensee Military Assistance Corporation, contracted with MMAC to care for passengers …” No, strike passengers. “… captains and senior officers of other civilian ships interned by MMAC.” What was most important? “Arly Paison, captain of Marie, mutinied, destroyed transmitter, damaged beacon, accused as pirate by former crew, stealth ships in system, involved in ansible attack. Jake Kristoffson, captain of Empress Rose, with Paison. One crew dead, three mutineers dead. Rations low. Insystem drive inoperable.”
She handed that to Quincy for Sawvert to transmit. Minutes passed; she watched as the outgoing message came up, letter by letter, on her desk. While it was still in progress, the first response came in.
“Ship with beacon Mist Harbor now claiming identity Glennys Jones: explain discrepancy in ship ID, passenger totals. Mackensee Military Assistance Corporation reported total personnel aboard plus three to your number.”
“I just answered that,” Ky said to the bridge crew. “What’s that put us, about six lights away?”
“Yup. But I think they’re closing. They’ve got something that can microjump.” Lee grinned back at her. “I think we might make it after all.”
“I wish I knew where Paison’s ships were,” Ky said. Then she went on with more information. A list of personnel aboard, and their original ship assignment. A brief statement of her own contracts with Belinta and the Mackensee Military Assistance Corporation. The course they’d been on when they dumped cargo; the beacon ID of that cargo. A more detailed accounting of events aboard, starting with their departure from Prime’s orbital station. She was uncomfortably aware that Paison’s ships could be listening in, and might choose to avenge the death of their boss. If Corson was telling the truth, something she wasn’t sure about.
More responses came in from the ISC ship, as they received the messages. Questions, mostly, many of them she could not answer. Who had Paison’s local system contacts been? She had no idea. How long had Paison been in the system? She didn’t know. How long had he and Kristoffson been connected? She didn’t know that, either. Did she know if the Imperial Spacelines was implicated in that connection? Of course she didn’t. Had she questioned everyone concerned? Had she had autopsies performed on the deceased crew and passengers?
“They’ll be asking if I filled out some form in quadruplicate next,” Ky said. “They should have a list from the mercenaries of who was put aboard, and already know that forensic pathologist is not one of the specialties listed. Of course we didn’t do autopsies. We know exactly what killed them. I killed them.”
That question didn’t show up for another hour, during which they asked a host of other questions Ky couldn’t answer. She hoped they’d start offering her some useful information soon, such as when they planned to intercept and remove her passengers, something like that.
“Wonder who that is,” Lee said. Ky looked at the longscan display, where two new beacons had lit up.
“That’s an odd place to downjump into,” Ky said. “What’s the downjump turbulence give us?”
“No downjump turbulence. It’s like he was running quiet, beacon off, and then turned it on.”
“Like us, in fact. And we know who else in the system can manipulate beacons.”
“Going to warn them?” Corson asked.
Ky considered. “The ISC will have figured it out on their own. Still, we can tell them what we suspect.” She scribbled out another message and sent it down for the others to transmit. Her stomach growled again. With the ISC in the system, she was reasonably sure they wouldn’t be left to starve, but she still had a shipful of passengers and not enough food.
“Another arrival, if it is an arrival.” That one was clearly a downjump transition, the scan blurry and finally steadying to show the now-familiar Mackensee beacons.
* * *
He was in the shower when his skullphone went off. Gerard Vatta turned off the water and answered; it had to be high priority.
“Gerry, we located your daughter Ky, and she’s alive.”
He almost fainted, leaned on the shower wall, and blinked hard to steady his vision.
“She’s had some problems; we don’t know the whole story yet, but she’s fine and the ship’s still whole. I’m sure you’ll want to send someone—have you already ordered a ship in?”
“Yes … Furman with Katrine Lamont is closest. He’ll be there in a day or so, if I’ve got the jump span right. Are the ansibles back up?”
“No, and won’t be for days. Whoever blew them did a thorough job. We’ll put in narrow-channel emergencies, but only for official use—at least we’ve got more bandwidth than pinbeams now, but not much. Look, it’s irregular, but will you accept a credit line for her until your ship gets there? We’ve frozen monetary transfers in and out of the system, and between planets for the present. We can have our lawyers talk to yours tomorrow, but I thought you’d want to know now.”
“Thanks, yes, I will accept it. Whatever she needs, Vatta will stand for it.”
He had to tell the rest of the family. He turned the water back on, finished his shower, and came light-footed out to dress. Myris, sipping breakfast tea, turned at his footsteps. “You heard something? Something about Ky?”
“She’s alive. All I know for now, but it’s enough.”
“Stavros?”
“Doesn’t know yet. I’m about to call.” Normally he hated using the skullphone for calls out; he swore it made his sinuses buzz. But this was special.