The Bryce Connection, page 5
“What about him?” Sykora asked pointedly.
“His kind are a symptom, not a root cause,” Afia challenged the giantess. “Local power based on fear and bribing the authorities to look the other way. Bullies.”
“Yes,” Djamila breathed harshly.
“So just killing him outright won’t change anything around here, except open up space for someone else to step in,” Afia said. “I was planning to bring everyone back for dinner tomorrow night, because I had an idea. Maybe the ship needs a restaurant.”
Blank look. Afia was expecting that. These two were killers, not businesspeople. She would need Javier and Zakhar down from orbit for that.
“We have a wardroom,” Sykora challenged. “We could hire him to cook.”
“That would be like asking you to teach physical education classes at the local community college, Dragoon,” Afia snapped. “The man is a chef. And that is a bistro. You would understand if you ate there, what the difference was.”
“What does that have to do with these punks?” Djamila asked.
“So we’re law-abiding citizens these days,” Afia grinned. “Remember? We could afford to pay off the debts of the restaurant, but they’d just go right back into the hole tomorrow, because this planet is dying. Maybe every planet. If we can bring the whole restaurant with us, they don’t get into that pickle.”
“You haven’t answered my question, Afia,” Djamila growled. The emerald fire was back in her eyes.
“Oh, this punk deserves some punishment,” Afia snapped back. “Let’s pay him off on the money Chay owes him. Then drop his ass on another planet somewhere, where nobody knows who he is. Let him start from scratch and see if he can survive being little people. Put all four of them down in different cities on our next landing, minus any appropriate freight fees. Simple. Legal. Painful.”
The fire was banked, for now.
Afia’s as well, as she envisioned this punk suddenly little people. Worse, with money in his pocket and sharks circling. Maybe someplace where they only spoke Chinese, or some really rare language he wouldn’t know.
That would help her sanity, when the other nightmares came for her.
“And here I was expecting you to suggest turnabout,” Djamila smiled harshly. “Rape them so they could understand what powerless felt like. But this is an even better form of rape.”
“Men like that wouldn’t understand, Djamila,” Afia sneered. “Hell, they might enjoy it. To them, it’s just a power game with sex thrown in, if we did that. But to carry them off. Disappear them in total isolation all the way there, so they don’t even know what happened to their friends…”
“I like it,” Djamila stood abruptly.
She drew a pistol and shot all four again. Afia noted that she held the heavy stunner. The kind where these dipshits would be out for hours.
“Del, this is Djamila,” she said into her handheld. “Break out the land vehicle and drive your lazy butt down to these coordinates. I need to haul heavy gear off planet.”
Djamila smiled at the pilot’s grumbling. Afia joined her.
“Wait,” Afia said. “You ran here from the shuttle?”
“It was only four and a half kilometers, once you throw in the outer perimeter fence and the terminal building,” Djamila shrugged. “I needed the exercise.”
Afia felt her eyes get big. Djamila Sykora was in a league of craziness all her own. But Afia had an idea she might be catching up, after tonight.
Afia fought not to roll her eyes as they pulled up in front of Le Bistrot Parisien, in the shuttle’s cargo flatbed.
“I still don’t see why turning them over to the cops isn’t good enough,” Javier offered.
Del Smith was driving. Afia was in the middle of the bench. Javier was riding shotgun. Zakhar, Djamila, and the rest were in back, hair whipped by the wind.
“Cops on this planet are so crooked they’d probably throw us in jail,” Del offered. “Our little buddy and his friends would have all charges dropped as soon as enough money changed hands.”
Afia nodded. Javier scowled at them both.
“And you refuse to kill them?” Javier said.
“Yup,” Afia said.
“And I like the idea,” another voice emerged from Afia’s handheld.
Suvi. Ship’s Sentience-in-Residence aboard Hammerfield. Javier’s oldest friend. And possibly still his best one.
“I’m going to get overruled on this one, aren’t I?” he asked.
“Even Zakhar had the good sense to shut up, Javier,” Afia noted, pushing him to open the door to get out.
Burdine was already waiting on the sidewalk. She looked like she had been crying when Afia walked up and got a huge hug.
“Leonardo is really gone?” she whispered in Afia’s ear.
“Forever, as far as you need worry,” Afia murmured back.
Burdine didn’t need to know the details about last night. What might have transpired. Just that the man was never going to bother them again.
Afia noted the sign on the door indicating that the restaurant was closed for a private party as she entered, finding Collette and Simone moving like competitive tango dancers as people got seated and wine delivered.
Options tonight included beef, fish, or vegetables as a main dish, plus more veggies and some starch. Cheese was everywhere. Bread was optional.
Wine was mandatory.
The place had an air of celebration about it. Partly, Afia’s promise this morning when she had called Burdine to let her know that the loanshark would never bother the restaurant again.
The woman had been ecstatic, but reality was starting to set in over more dessert tarts.
Afia found herself with Javier, Zakhar, Djamila, and Sascha as desserts began to digest and Burdine and Chay came out to join them. Hajna and Del were at the next table. Suvi had been present on Afia’s handheld all night, talking and playing her own music in the background until Afia explained how real bistros did not have music, so that the only noise was good conversation and people eating merrily. Suvi had enjoyed herself almost as much as the organics.
Javier pulled an envelope from an inside pocket of his nice jacket and handed it to Burdine.
“This has been one of the best dinners I’ve had in years,” he burped. “And I go places just for the food.”
“Thank you,” Burdine said.
The woman blanched when she opened the envelope to see all the bills tucked in, and the denominations. She might have overcharged them for the food, for this planet, but Javier had paid as if they were at a top restaurant on Merankorr or Bryce, and then thrown a nice tip on top of that.
“Afia,” Javier said. “Your show.”
She took a deep breath and concentrated on the couple standing before them. And glanced over to make sure Collette and Simone noticed, and then waved them over. The pirates all fell silent slowly, by arrangement.
“Thank you for taking such good care of us,” she began. “I am so happy I managed to convince my bosses to make a stop here, even if the business we originally planned never really panned out. It let me see my cousin again, and make new friends.”
Chay blushed and Afia got kisses from the three women.
“Now, I have a new question I would like to ask,” Afia continued as they settled. “I understand that you have worked hard to create this bistro, and I appreciate how much effort that had to have taken. But Barrowclough is having problems: political, social, and economic. The planet is no better. Zhang Xiu is just a victim of what’s happening on a broader scale across a number of sectors. Things are only going to get worse.”
“What would you suggest, then, mon amie?” Burdine asked with just a trace of sarcasm under her tones. “As you have said, hard work has gotten us here, but we cannot afford to leave. Even with our debts to Leonardo erased. Thank you for that, by the way.”
“It was my pleasure,” Afia said. “Our pleasure, as we took up a collection from the crew for a good deed. Ex-pirates like us don’t get to do nice things for people very often.”
“What was your question, Afia?” Chay spoke up in a quiet tone, arm still wrapped possessively around Burdine’s hip.
“Would you be interested in a new gig?” she asked carefully. “Come aboard Hammerfield on a semi-permanent basis and bring the restaurant with you? I have spoken with the various principles of this enterprise and gotten their tentative approval.”
“Hammerfield?” Burdine queried. “Your ship? The one that is Suvi?”
“Hey, I just live here,” Suvi called, eliciting a broad laughter from everyone.
“Yes, Hammerfield,” Afia said. “We have the space aboard, as she is an old war Galleon from the Great War. We will be hauling cargo, but not nearly the crew or number of marines that the ship was designed for, to say nothing of the flight wings of combat craft. Entire decks of the ship are currently shut down because we aren’t using them.”
“A bistro is more than the people, Cherie,” Chay spoke up. “Terroir plays a major role in things.”
“Yes, it does,” Afia replied. “The ship already has a significant botanical research station, growing seventeen different species of fruit and nuts, representing more than fifty kinds of options, once all the grafts are accounted for. The vegetable patch is less impressive, but we had already planned to expand it. Adding an herb garden would be easy.”
“And fresh ingredients, Afia?” Chay asked. “A bistro is about what was available from farmers and fisherman each morning.”
Afia scowled.
Javier rescued her.
“Fish is not a problem,” he spoke up suddenly. “The bio-system is currently being used at less than eight percent normal capacity, due to the small crew, but the water tanks are all still intact. We could easily pick up a bunch of new breeds at our next chandlery call. Bring the extra tanks back in line, and you should be able to harvest them. Not enough to make this a Normandy-style bistro, but enough to offer fresh fish regularly. Pork and beef will be a problem, because nobody wants to become a rancher, but we can also pack fresh meat at every stop and give you priority on it.”
“We would need to do the same for wine, Captain Navarre,” Burdine said. “A bistro is the wine list.”
“Indeed it is, madame,” he agreed. “Plus, I have enough mature grape vines to make small batches of wine on an on-going basis. Plus mead from my honey bees.”
They were surprised. Afia liked that. It meant that she had planned far enough ahead to answer their qualms. And Javier obviously liked them. Hell, he kept a list of planets to visit, just for the restaurants. Tonight had added this place, even if they failed.
“Bread,” Collette spoke up suddenly.
Afia had forgotten the sisters were even there.
“I have an entire deck we could turn into a wheat farm,” Suvi spoke up from her place in Afia’s handheld. “Russian Red #2. Rye. Whatever grains you want. More than a hectare could be converted, one we sealed it up and plumbed it right. Add enough topsoil and go to town.”
“You are serious,” Burdine exclaimed in shock. “Leave this?”
She gestured to the room around them.
“We could actually strip the walls clean,” Suvi continued. “Recreate everything exactly as it is. I had Afia do a fast scan for me. All that’s left is the kitchen. I have a lovely spot on Deck Six where we could install a mezzanine balcony and give customers a fantastic view of the upper loading dock. Especially if we put in the vegetable garden and grain fields a deck below.”
Afia watched Chay turn to Burdine. She could see the desire in his eyes, but the wife was the one that would make the decision. Her eyes grew shrewd.
“Run it like a restaurant?” she finally turned back and asked Afia and Suvi. And Javier. “A bistro?”
Her eyes were almost as serious as Chay’s.
“At least until you decide you wanna start doing breakfast as well and put the wardroom out of business,” Javier interjected with a laugh. “We only have a crew of a few hundred now, and I don’t see that expanding. We’re not a cruise ship with thousands, regardless of space, although I can already see adding some premium passenger space and hauling the Khatum and some of her rich friends around, just for the food and to help defray costs.”
They had grown serious, the four locals.
“And the law?” Burdine broached the subject, finally.
“We’re not pirates anymore, as long as we stay out of the Concord,” Afia said. “We have Letters of Marque and Reprisal, but the ship has been hired by the Khatum of Altai to conduct trade and exploration voyages into the dark spaces where no star nation holds sway. We’re on an adventure, and we would like you to come.”
There. As simple as that. Afia felt almost as naked as that bastard would have left her last night. Hopefully, this wouldn’t bring nightmares.
“All of you?” Chay asked.
“I’m technically the owner of the ship, at least on paper,” Javier said. “Suvi is herself a primary crewmember, and has voted in favor. Afia represents the crew, and would normally have to stand aside from this decision, for personal reasons, but neither Del nor Hajna have spoken up, so I’ll assume their support. Zakhar represents the Centurions, and is the only person I haven’t heard from so far. Zakhar?”
Afia burst into laughter with everyone else when the Captain burped loudly and smiled serenely, swirling a half-empty glass of wine in one hand.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” Javier acknowledged as things died down. He fixed his eyes on Burdine when the giggles subsided. “Should I have Suvi send along an employment contract? Rather than treat you like employee crew, I foresee charging a nominal service fee for deck rental, and giving a Centurion’s share for the chef, and another for the restaurant itself. Based on past experiences, that will be more than enough to sustain yourselves and put away a nice retirement fund. Afia, can you be trusted to fill in the numbers, when she asks?”
Afia gave him a sour stinkeye in response. This was family he was talking about.
And then she realized it. They were family. Not just Chay, but Burdine, as well. And the two sisters she was beginning to think of as nieces.
Javier winked and turned back to the restauranteurs “Chay?” he asked. “Burdine?”
Afia was on pins and needles as they turned inward and murmured. The sisters joined as well, and the group moved over to the bar for a measure of privacy. Suvi could probably understand, but for everyone else it would be just rumblings.
Burdine surfaced first, followed by the other three. She fixed Afia with a hard, Gallic eye, peremptory and unforgiving.
Afia tried to smile in response, but she felt her stomach sink.
Finally, Burdine smiled.
“Pending a look at your books for the last year, and your operating budgets, we will accept,” she said.
Afia nearly collapsed. She rose from the chair instead and walked up to the woman, getting engulfed in a hug that Chay joined a moment later.
“Welcome to the family,” Afia whispered.
The Forest Goddess
One
Rainier
“Dr. St. Kitts, your two o’clock appointment is here with Dr. Harvison,” the voice interrupted her reading.
So much of modern botany involved maintaining a good search engine algorithm, to look for key words so you could filter out ninety-eight percent of the latest research findings, in order to focus on the things that would actually help you. For Rainier, despite how well she’d fine-tuned her searches, she still had to dedicate up to an hour reading, every single day, just to stay on top of things. Today, that had already stretched to two.
“Rainier?” the young man on the comm repeated.
“Coming,” she said as she surfaced from the magazine.
The University of Uelkal had just isolated a new mutation of rust threatening several varieties of grain crops, and she had been trying to track down all the places the blight had been identified to date. She wasn’t sure where she and her cohorts might find the money to introduce a new breeding program to thwart it, though. Every planet was its own microcosm of genetic variance, and diseases moved around almost as quickly as humans did, in spite of every effort to isolate diseases.
Bananas had been like that, once upon a time. Perfect clones copied over and over, until a disease wiped them all out and botanists had to start over with a different breed. How many species of bananas had gone extinct, mono-cultured clones at such risk, before humanity finally accepted that bananas should be bred for seeds, and their generational variance and diversity celebrated?
Of course, as she stood up from the comfortable sofa, Rainier’s eyes fell on the tree outside the window of her office, framed in an inner courtyard. Anne Smith had first identified that particular breed on her farm, and then grafted it onto another tree to preserve it. How many generations, how many centuries had passed, and they still grafted Granny Smith’s apples onto a different root stock, across thousands of planets?
Rainier shrugged. Botany was both her love and her life. Making new things for people to enjoy and stay fed, while always racing to stay one step ahead of the diseases that came with them.
She set her reader down on her desk, atop a pile of documents to read and edit, and checked the calendar again. She hadn’t remembered having an appointment this afternoon, just a lab she needed to supervise in a few hours, and a lecture later to a group of local farmers looking for new breeds of mustard they could grow as a cover crop around fruit trees, both as a secondary cash source and to keep weeds down.
Hmm. Yes. New appointment. Ah. Forwarded by Dr. Harvison first thing this morning and automatically accepted by the rules engine, since she had time free. The guest was a name she didn’t know, but anything that got MacWilliam out of his office to meet with someone probably meant money in some form. Or at least the potential for it.
Perhaps new funding for a lab, or scholarships? Something. The university was perpetually broke, and MacWilliam had warned them to prepare for another round of budget cuts, next fiscal year.
