Barnacle Passage, page 2
JONN TOKAL, ERRAND boy in a man's body, sat without invitation. "Carver." He set his bottle on the table. Jonn's immaculate wardrobe couldn't disguise the mass of muscle underneath. The whole effect of trying to be a gentleman was sabotaged by a large head appearing sans neck from the starched white collar. He extended a meaty fist in greeting.
"Jonn." Carver massaged his fingers without reciprocating Jonn's awkward gesture. "Sorry, hand's sore."
"DualE," said Jonn. "I saw. There's a 'buster."
High praise or disdain? Carver's admiration and suspicion of the merc notched up a point. The enemy of my enemy could be my friend, he thought. Or another enemy. "We just met. I've no opinion. What in the remote reaches of the void can I do for you, Jonn? Are you a pharm merchant today, come to peddle your non-cryo options for jumpspace?" Carver hadn't missed the shift of Jonn Tokal's eyes and the hitch in Zofie's stride when the two had passed each other. Tokal wasn't selling, he wanted to buy something.
"Pharms?" His tone dismissed the idea. "Never. Cryo's the sane way to jump. Demons enough in the deep-freeze." He hesitated, as though recalling a personal experience. Jonn focused on Carver. "I'm here on unfinished business. An opportunity. Mr. Kondradt wants you to make another prospecting tour. On his credit. Duplicate your success." Jonn swigged his bottle of fortified ale and wiped the inherent goo from his dark lips. Foam and ale snot lingered in the bushy mustache.
"You should decant that swill into a glass before you drink it, keeps the mung out of your digestive tract."
"My digestive tract likes the mung. I haven't been sick in years. Back to our last aborted conversation, what will it take, Carver?"
"More than you or Kondradt can offer. Besides, there's little left out there to find. I got lucky once. I don't fancy I can repeat my fluke. I already gave your boss a decent return shipping it from the Eddy to here. Tell him to enjoy it and move on. Exploit the next batch of immigrants." He thought about Ellick's scheme. Ellick wasn't the most original con man he'd ever met, Kondradt could be thinking along similar lines.
"There's more than one way to make a fortune prospecting, Carver. You happened upon the rarest one, finding a lode."
"Yeah, I know, the guys who make the real money are the ones selling the equipment to the saps."
Jonn drained his bottle and signaled the servbot for another. "True, selling scoutships and hardware is one way but selling dreams, there's the best way. The most lucrative." He ran a wet finger around the glass's rim. "A second tour for you doesn't have to be about repeating your success. It's about speculation you can repeat. It's also about bringing more direct investment to the Realm, weaning us from the Confluence's money teat."
Jonn Tokal might be a messenger for Kondradt but he was no fool in his own right, Carver realized. He couldn't have memorized all of this from the master's lips.
"Let Kondradt exploit my name to amplify the dream? Sorry, Jonn, I've already heard that scheme once today."
"Ellick?" Jonn laughed. "Let him try. Kondradt offers this proposal." The errand thug leaned forward and lowered his voice. "Join with us and there will be no risk in shipping your lode to Bohr. Keep it here, we'll control supply while demand forces the price up. A patient man will be rewarded with top dollar, not wholesale bulk discount. Come in with us, Carver, Kondradt's offering a full partnership."
Carver had neither the energy nor the will to be subtle. "Funny, I don't recall encountering any other Kondradt partners in my time out here. I can't imagine I'm the first, what happened to my predecessors?"
"There's more at stake than anomalies like you. You show up in Bohr as you plan and market reaction is only one volatile. There's be an influx we can't control." Tokal's gazed blurred. He wasn't looking at Carver any more. "Too many wildcards, those scrambling to survive in the Eddy will respond."
"War waged by a bunch of boozed-out rockhounds? You and your friends wouldn't last a week." Carver doubted his words, he didn't like Tokal and took small pleasure in opposing his every word.
"It'd take more than a week; let's say years for the Confluence Navy to scour every asteroid in the Eddy. While the ones they don't find lie in ambush." Tokal grinned at him but there was no mirth in the expression.
"Kondradt has a lot of faith in my value, Jonn. I wish I could help but I have a date in the Confluence. Someone prettier than you or Gar Kondradt."
Tokal's smile disappeared in a wink. "We'll crush you like that friend of Zofie's crushed your hand. If you're not with us, you are against us. That's what happens to Kondradt's partners when they don't cooperate. You've five shifts until Sympat jumps." Jonn Tokal grabbed the bottle from the servbot and moved quickly to his feet. "Don't barnacle on her." He moved away with the last word.
Zofie's warning and now Tokal. Carver didn't doubt the threat. He couldn't match it so he would have to avoid it. Somehow. The stakes were too great to be sidetracked in the Realm.
He returned his attention to the outside view. Pollux was too far away for an easy appraisal. He adjusted the viewing glass to a magnified image. There it lay. Two kilometers long and hundred meters in diameter, it looked like a floating sewer pipe. From what he'd heard, the description fit the inside of the hulking old jumpfreighter well. At her blunt nose, he discerned one barnacle already clamped on. Zofie and Ellick's Bonanza hadn't locked on yet. The first barnacle was a unique bell shape but unknown to him. Pollux wouldn't jump for a few days; this one was saving moorage fees at the expense of hunkering down before cryo took the inhabitants through jump.
Barnacle passage. Small ships incapable of making their own hyperspace leap attached to the ones which could. Opposite Pollux the sleek, shiny profile of Sympat contrasted with Pollux's pock-marked, dull grey surface. A good place to hide, Carver thought.
Chapter 2
Six hours later, Carver docked a skeeter-ferry next to Sympat's forward airlock. The hull's shine visible from the station lost its uniformity close up. It was discolored and corroded in many places. The ship's armaments were more obvious. Too small to take the offensive, but enough to fend off all but the most determined attack.
He cycled inside and unsealed his visor to ship atmosphere. The freighter smelled sickly sweet. The space suit's protection and lack of gravity aboard spurred him to keep the helmet in place. He didn't want to crash skull-first into any one of the multitude of obstacles protruding from the hull, decks and bulkheads.
"Welcome aboard Sympat. Follow the blue stripe to cargo decks, red to bridge, yellow to purser." The mechanical voice repeated instructions as Carver selected his path.
Sympat, like all jumpfreighters, spaced with minimal crew. Once outside the twenty-thousand-kilometer limit from Argosy Station, jump sequence initiated and the computers took over until transit down from hyper-space. Upon return to three-dimensional Euclidean Space, the crew were awakened from cryogenic sleep to prepare for port or the next jump.
Within their own ships. barnacle passengers would deep-sleep through jump-time, or as Zofie'd called it, 'spook-space', safely unconscious. 'Every awakening a rebirth', so the myth was portrayed for first-timers. In reality, jump-time as a barnacle was anything but enjoyable and the flipside of rebirth was the micro-death one endured going into cryo. It hit each individual differently. Carver's experience was more than unpleasant; it came in the form of severe hallucinations but jumping without cryo, as Jonn intimated, rendered those who tried confused and disoriented in the short-term, psychotic in the long. Carver would not welcome future trips. This had to be his last. He and Helena would travel short-hop norm if at all.
Carver avoided a cluster of liquid globes drifting under their own momentum. A rainbow reflection indicated lubricant of some kind. He touched a glove to one and it burst into a dozen smaller sludge-brown orbs. Dirty water and oil. "Nice," he muttered and continued following the path.
Grav warning signs surrounded him three-sixty. The yellow line ended before an oval door set in a plasteel bulkhead. Carver spun himself to match the up and down and the deck pressed against his boots as he inched forward. Purser labels adorned above and below the portal. He rapped on the door and it slid aside.
"Denz, come in." A human voice. "Spit on the floor and all that navy crap." Purser Toine Melville shuffled a stack of paper and found what he was looking for. "Got your Barnacle Agreement here. You sign, Captain signs, fare clears, you show up forty-eight hours before departure and prepare for a dream-filled passage to Bohr."
Carver removed helmet and gloves to squeeze through and sat. A ripple wave went through the deck, releasing Carver from the chair momentarily.
A few of Melville's precious papers floated free from the desk top. The purser snatched them from mid-air without taking his eyes off Carver. "Damn grav unit's still on the mend. Our last jump's distortion gave it the heebies. Won't need it once we're underway, Cap'n Wyle doesn't believe in wasting energy on grav." He handed one sheet to Carver.
Carver looked over the agreement, one arm hooked into the chair in case another heebie manifested. "You forgot to fill in the fare." He pushed the agreement back.
Melville shook his head. "Each share is in flux until we know the full barnacle complement. It won't exceed forty thousand, but admit it, even a six-figure solo fare is well within your resource."
Try and keep a fortune a secret, Carver cursed. It certainly grabbed everyone's attention. Just as well, he thought, his riches kept attention diverted towards the economic, not the strategic, focus of his activities beyond Argosy. "I heard DualE's barnacling with us. I'll authorize twenty-thousand now and we'll discuss any increase once we're in Bohr. You keep the excess if any others join." His nouveau wealth made him famous but not stupid.
"DualE's Nightshade isn't attached yet nor has she signed on. We have two committed prospectors, both failures but enough family funds to get them back to mommy and daddy's I-told-you-so clutches, and one diplomat who missed last month's passenger liner." Melville filled in the blank space, initialed the insertion and passed it back to Carver.
"I'll move the Eagle across tomorrow or the day after," said Carver. "I'll drop into deep-sleep early so don't fuss about commlinks once I'm attached." He signed and authorized payment.
Melville rolled the agreement and put it in a glass cylinder with brass endcaps. He placed it in a vacuum tube and with a puff it vanished into a maze of pipes. "Captain will have your spot ready. Glad to have such fame and fortune barnacled with us, Carver. You've chosen passage well, some wouldn't give Pollux an even chance to maintain its integrity accelerating from Argosy Station, let alone a jump or two." Melville laughed.
"My fame and fortune are luck more than anything."
"I hope some of your luck rubs off. No one wants a bad jump and I wouldn't wish it on our competition either. Pollux is okay but don't let Wyle know you heard it from me. Care to stay for drink hour?" Melville checked his watch. "Coming up in a quarter-shift. You can tour the ship beforehand. Purge the spooks now."
Quarter shift. Two hours, Carver translated. He stood in the small office. "Thanks, celebratory cocktails will have to wait until arrival in Bohr, I fear. I have much to arrange."
"Suit yourself. See you in Bohr."
Carver retraced his route to the airlock, concentrating on conditions inside Sympat which he'd noted only in passing on his way in. The state of the hull echoed the minimum of internal maintenance. The odor of disinfectant ineffectively masked spoiled cargo, worn-out electronic systems and noxious bacteria. Carver guessed why Captain Wyle didn't activate grav once underway either. The unit hadn't been rebuilt according to proscribed hours in norm and jump space. Sympat's owners were cheap. The freighter might need all Carver's luck, if he had any left.
ZOFIE MONITORED MULTIPLE systems while Ellick eased the Bonanza closer to Pollux's barnacle site.
"We're cleared for marked area 2," she said. "Watch the first barnacle. It's larger than I thought." The grey sphere already locked to Pollux was lit up by the freighter's hull lights.
"I've got it," said Ellick. A bang from Bonanza's rear elicited a curse from her partner's lips. "Bloody momentum drive."
The ship rocked perilously close to nudging Pollux with her nose until Ellick regained control and dropped hard to the freighter's hull.
Zofie's fingers danced across her screen, engaging temporary suction seals. "Give it a confirmation nudge?" she asked.
Bonanza's drive hummed but they didn't move away from Pollux. "We're good. I'll clamp us on." Ellick shut down the drive and donned helmet and gloves for EVA.
She heard him cycle out and bored into Pollux's systems, digging deep for specific information on crew, cargo and itinerary.
Bonanza shuddered and settled by increments. A firm thump reverberated through her seat as Ellick activated the first lockdown. She registered the rest peripherally while she completed her scans. She tried to determine the identity of the first barnacle without success then looked for confirmation of further barnacles. Their resources would be stretched beyond their limit if only two chose passage aboard Pollux.
The airlock signaled Ellick's return and she shut down her queries. She screened Bonanza's status and left it for Ellick's perusal.
"Now we're here, we can save on stores by going into cryo early," said Ellick.
Zofie touched both hands to the ceiling in a stretch. "It's harder in a small ship when you're not moving. Do you want to prep and go under first? I've got systems checks to finalize. No sense in tripping over each other."
"Let me eat something while I get the coffins ready. All you'll have to do is lay down and throw the switch."
She kept retrying the barnacle manifest while Ellick fussed in the galley, floating behind her. He hummed some tune while he chewed. She joined in without thinking. The minutia of the man entertained her and diverted her lower moods. If only his greater persona didn't grate so often. He couldn't turn off 'being on the sniff' as he called it. She called it greed. Ellick mistrusted everyone. It was his nature to assume the worst since he projected his own avarice onto others. So focused on the money, he never suspected other motives.
"I'm ready," he said.
She released her restraint and pushed to Bonanza's stern. Ellick lay on his back in the cryo coffin, shoulders touching both sides of the tight box. Zofie leaned down to kiss him. "Sweet dreams," she whispered.
"In cryo? Small chance. I never allow my conscience to get the better of me but deep-sleep can. See you on the other side, Zofie. Big things are coming our way."
"Big things," she repeated and put a finger to his lips before the canopy slid over his head.
She heard the whoosh of atmospheric exchange within the coffin and a mist blocked further view of Ellick's face. She returned to her investigations. "How lucky you are, Ellick. The conscience deal. My dreams in deep-sleep will be anything but restful."
CARVER FERRIED BACK to Argosy Station, planning his deception. Inside the station, he sat in a public access portal and activated a false persona created before he'd left for the Eddy, a failed prospector named Willie Renfrew. Under the guise of the down-and-out man, he searched the station's inventory until he found the ideal craft. Willie's credit account he'd created with the phony identity served its purpose. Willie Renfrew was now the registered owner of the Busted and Rusted, a near-derelict of a barnacle for a supposed derelict of a spacer. He wished he had a confidant for the next maneuver but going it alone was safer. Carver trusted one person in Argosy Realm with his life and that person was himself.
Transaction completed, Carver retreated to the Argosy's lowest environs to plan the prospector shuffle he hoped to pull off. He spent the next day avoiding direct contact with Jonn Tokal or any other representative from Kondradt Enterprises. He didn't miss the company of the station; he'd experienced solitude in much lonelier environs.
DUALE SPIED HER QUARRY outside Phyl's Fill, the submost tavern on the station. She'd trolled this area many times in her weeks aboard Argosy, trying for a gig with the smugglers and runners she knew operated from here. Her naval past was too proximal for even the most desperate to chance hiring a merc so recently released from Bohr's service.
She couldn't find fault with the suspicion. She'd do the same were the roles reversed. The constant patrol had at least rendered her a familiar enough figure to make her presence in this time and place unnoticed.
Carver Denz on the other hand, was a fresh face down here. Easy to follow by the wake of glances in the regular crowd. He appeared to have no plan or agenda. He wandered. She questioned the risk he took; his notoriety penetrated the entire station. Maybe he'd done a deal with Kondradt and that's why he could intrude the lower depths of the station unmolested. Or the threat of anyone but Kondradt harassing him was enough to leave him safe.
DualE watched Denz leave the tavern. She waited two minutes before picking up the trail. He was heading to his temporary digs, she'd guessed. He was pushing it close, Sympat was due to leave in twelve hours. Putting it close for her as well to barnacle her Nightshade.
She climbed a spiral gangway. At the top, she listened, smelled and then retreated behind a thick girder. She waited. The odor grew stronger. The scuff of a boot on the top step brought her into view. She yanked the man's coat down, pinning his arms and locked an arm about his throat.
"Tokal. You dare follow me?" she hissed.
He struggled in her grip, trying to kick her shins. She swept his legs over the edge of the platform and dropped to her knees. Tokal flailed helplessly before settling at a firmer throttle.
"Why would I follow you? Kondradt doesn't want you and neither do I. I'm on a routine scouting walk. I didn't even know you were here."
"Bullshit. You've been on my tail for a shift."
"You're dreaming. Time you went back where you came from, DualE."
She realized he was likely tailing Denz and had recognized her own surveillance. Tokal had decided to follow her and trust her to keep tight with Denz. She dragged Tokal back to his feet and released him.
