Hunting Party

Chapter Four

“I didn’t ask you if it was ‘going fine,’” Heris said. “I asked you what the sulfur extraction rate was. Do you know, or not?” With each day, her unease about the yacht’s basic fabric and systems had grown. Getting answers from the crew had turned out to be harder than she expected.

The moles looked at one another before Timmons answered. “Well . . . pretty much, Cap’n. It’s below nom at the moment, but it usually runs that way ’cause that dauber wants a sulf-rich sludge for his veggie plots.”

It took Heris a moment to translate civtech slang and decide this meant Lady Cecelia’s gardener wanted more sulfur in the first-pass sludge. In the meantime, they still had not answered as she thought they should. She let the steel edge her voice. “Below nom is not what I’m looking for. What, precisely, is the number you have for sulfur clearance?” Again, the sidelong look from one mole to another. This time it was Kliegan who answered.

“It’s . . . ah . . . zero point three. Of first-sig nom, that is—”

“Which is . . . ?” prompted Heris; she could feel temper edging higher.

“Well, the book says one point eight, but this system’s never worked any better’n one point six, just under first-sig. Mostly we run about two sigs below, say about point seven or so. System’s underutilized, so it’s not that important. It’s rated for a population of fifty, and we don’t have that many aboard.”

Heris closed her eyes briefly, running over the relevant equations in her head. Sulfur clearance was only one of the major cycles, but critical to the ship’s welfare because errors could not only make people sick, but degrade many ship components as well. Delicate com equipment didn’t like active sulfur radicals in the ship’s atmosphere. She added ship’s crew, house staff, and owner’s family. “In case you haven’t noticed,” she said briskly, “we now have fifty-one humans and a long voyage ahead of us. I presume you flushed the tanks and re-inoculated them while we were in port—?” But the hangdog looks told her they hadn’t. “And the last logged maintenance by offship personnel was this—Diklos and Sons, Baklin Station?”

“That’s right, ma’am,” Timmons said. “They couldn’t have done such a good job, fancypants as they are, ’cause the system never did pick up the points, but Captain Olin said never mind—”

“Oh, he did?” Heris struggled to keep her thoughts off her face. First his demand for an odd, inconvenient course that did not meet the owner’s needs, and now a tolerance for malfunctioning environmental equipment—something no sane captain would have. Failing to order the tanks flushed and recharged at Rockhouse might have been spite—revenge for being fired—but until then he had risked his own life as well. What could have made the risk worth it? “We’d better see how bad it is,” she said briskly. “Suit up and we’ll go take a look—”

“You, Captain?” asked Iklind. He almost never spoke, she’d discovered, letting chatty Timmons say anything necessary. But now he looked worried.

Heris let her brows rise. It had worked on other ships; it should work here. “Did you think I wouldn’t want to check for myself?”

“Well, it’s not that, Captain . . . only . . . these things can smell pretty bad.” Pretty bad was an entirely inadequate description of a malfunctioning sulfur loop, and she was sure more than the sulfur scrubbers were in trouble. Once the pH had gone sour, many of the enzymes in other loops worked erratically, as the chemistry fluctuated.

“That’s why we’ll be suited,” she said. When they didn’t move she said. “Five minutes, in the number four access bay.”

“Complete suits?” asked Timmons. “They’re awfully hot—”

“You prefer to risk the consequences?” Heris asked. “With a system you know is malfunctioning?”

“Ah . . . it’s just stinks,” Timmons said. When she glared at him, he said, “All right, Captain. Suits.” But as he left, she heard him mutter, “Damn lot of nonsense. Can’t be enough reaction in that loop to give us mor’n a headache at worst.”

Quickly, Heris gave Gavin his orders for the next hour: which compartments to seal, which backup crew to have ready, suited, in case of trouble. Then into her own suit—the cost of which had come from the advance on her contract, and which she never begrudged. Whatever else on this gilded cesspool of a yacht did or did not work as designed, her own personal self-contained suit would . . . or her family would enjoy the large sum which Xeniks guaranteed if any of its suits failed. She wasn’t worried—only twice in the past fifty years had Xeniks had to pay out.

When she was still a corridor away from the access bay, the alarm went off. For an instant she thought something had gone wrong on the bridge, but then she realized what it must be. One of those fools hadn’t waited for her.

“Captain!” Gavin bleated in her ear. She thumbed down the volume of the suit comunit.

“What is it?” she asked. “I’m at E-7, right now.” Ahead of her, a gray contamination barrier flapped down from the overhead and snicked tight, its central access closed.

“Computer says dangerous chemical—sulfur something—and the motion sensor said someone was there, but isn’t moving. But they’re in suits—”

“Get those backups down here,” Heris said, mentally cursing civilians in general and the ship’s former captain in particular. “Make sure they have their helmets locked on. I’m going in.” Despite her faith in Xeniks’s legendary suits, she shivered a moment. The gas in there was deadlier than many military weapons, but so familiar throughout human history that people just did not respect it. She wriggled through the access iris, which lengthened into a tube and sealed itself behind her. The suit’s own chemical sensors flicked to life, giving the readout she expected: hydrogen sulfide, here in less than life-threatening concentration.

Heris hurried, even though she knew it would almost certainly be too late. Around the corner, she came upon Timmons, who had suited up but not locked on his helmet. Presumably he’d planned to do so when he got to the access bay itself. He lay sprawled on the floor, one arm outstretched toward Iklind, slumped against the open access, wearing no protective gear at all.

She went to Timmons first, locking his helmet in place and turning his oxygen supply to full with the external override. Her suit had all the necessary drugs for standard industrial inhalation accidents—but she’d never used it, nor was she a medic. She’d have to rely on the backup team. Iklind wasn’t breathing at all, and no wonder—the hydrogen sulfide concentration in here had peaked at over 1,000 ppm, according to the monitor above the open access hatch. Inside, someone—presumably Iklind—had cracked the seal on a sludge tank. It was brimful, far above the safety line. A black line of filth drooled over its lip.

Heris picked up the wrench on the floor, closed the cover, and tightened the seal, then closed the hatch. Now the monitor indicated the concentration was below 200 ppm, still dangerous but not instantly lethal. They were lucky, she thought, that the agitator hadn’t been on in the sludge tank (and why not?) or the concentration could have been a log or so higher.

A shadow moved at the corner of her vision. The backup team—that would be the number two engineering officer and the off-shift senior mole—came around the corner and stopped. Even through their helmets their eyes showed wide and staring.

“Come on,” Heris said. “Get Timmons to the medbox—he might have a chance.” It seemed to her they moved too slowly, but they did wrestle Timmons back up the corridor toward the contamination barrier. Heris called the bridge. “Iklind’s dead,” she said. “Hydrogen sulfide—apparently he opened the sludge tank without any protective gear—” Gavin started to say something, and she overrode him. “We have three problems here—Timmons first: is that medical AI capable of handling inhalation injuries? Second: we’ve got to clear up the rest of the contamination, and the system is too overloaded to resorb it unless you can come up with a cargo section full of reactant. And third, of course, is Iklind. We need medical and legal evaluation; I will take that up with Lady Cecelia. Oh—and another thing—we’re not going to continue in this unsafe condition. I want Sirkin to plot a course to the nearest major repair facility, preferably on the way to our destination.”

“The medbox . . . I don’t know, Captain,” Gavin said. “It’s not—you know—meant for major problems.”

Heris managed not to snap at him. “At least you can tell it the problem. All I know is it’s a cellular poison, and there’s some kind of antidote. Now: send someone down with a recorder, so that I can document Iklind’s position and the monitor readings. Then we can bring his body out.” Even as she said this, she realized she was straining the crew’s resources.

“Milady,” said Heris, “we have several problems.”

Just what I need, thought Cecelia. Problems with the ship. Now she’ll start whining about how different this is from the military. She nodded, trying for a cool distancing expression. That and a straight back usually dissuaded complainers.

“We’ve had a death among the crew, environmental technician Iklind.”

“What! A heart attack? A stroke?” Despite her determination not to react, she felt her heart lurch in her chest, and her voice came out shrill and harsh.

“No, Lady Cecelia.” Heris had tried to think of a nonthreatening way to tell her employer—considering how old the woman was—but had not come up with anything better than the bald truth. “He died of hydrogen sulfide poisoning, the result of opening a sludge tank without protective gear. In addition, another crewman is suffering severe inhalation injury from the same source.”

“But all we have is a medbox!” Cecelia felt as if she had just fallen off at a gallop. A crewman dead, and another sick . . . was this what came of hiring an ex-military captain? She tried to remember the specifics of the medical unit.

“It’s a standard industrial pollutant,” Heris said. “The unit has the right medications and the right software to treat him—I checked that, of course, before coming to you.”

“Oh—I—” Cecelia realized she’d slumped, and straightened again.

“I’m very sorry to have given you this shock. Perhaps I should call someone?”

Cecelia recognized someone giving her time to pull herself together, and was caught between resentment and gratitude. “I’ve never lost a crew member before,” she said. “Not since I’ve owned the Sweet Delight.” She struggled with the mix of emotions, and tried to think clearly. “Poison gas from the sludge tank, you said? Has someone put something in it?”

Heris recognized the attempt for what it was, and masked her amusement that anyone—even a rich old lady—could travel in space and not know the most common and deadly of the environmental by-products. “No, milady. Sludge generates several toxic gases, which are normally converted into harmless chemicals used in your ’ponics sections, when the environmental system is functioning smoothly. This isn’t sabotage, just a mishap. . . . Iklind apparently decided to open the tank without proper protective gear, and Timmons tried to rescue him, but hadn’t sealed his own helmet.”

“Then who saved Timmons?” asked Cecelia.

“I did,” Heris said. Cecelia’s eyes widened, but she didn’t say anything. “I had told them I would inspect the system, and they were to meet me—properly suited—at the access bay. Instead—” She shrugged. “I don’t know why Iklind didn’t wear his suit, or why Timmons didn’t wear his helmet . . . but I will find out.”

“Very well, Captain.” That was clearly dismissive. “I . . . will expect to hear more from you tomorrow.”

“That’s not quite all,” said Heris carefully.

This time the gaze was direct and challenging. “What? Is something else wrong?”

“I realize,” Heris said, “that you just had this vessel redecorated, and it must have been expensive . . .”

“My sister did that,” Cecelia said. “What of it?”

“Well . . . your main environmental system is overloaded; that’s why I was going to inspect the system: it was not functioning to specifications. Your former captain did not have the system purged and recharged at the correct intervals—”

“He must have! I remember the bills for it.” Cecelia called up her accounting software and nodded when the figures came up. “There it is: Diklos and Sons, Refitting General, Baklin Station.”

“Sorry, milady,” said Heris. “You got the bill, but the work wasn’t done. I could see that from the sludge tank Iklind had opened, and since then I’ve had the other moles—environmental techs—check the filter and culture chambers. It’s a mess. The sulfur cycle’s in trouble, and that impacts your nitrogen uptake in hydroponics. It isn’t presently dangerous, but it will require some caution until we reach a refitting station. My recommendation would be to do that as soon as possible. By choosing a different set of jump points, we can be at your chosen destination only one day after your request.”

Cecelia glared. “You didn’t find this out before we left.”

“No, milady, I didn’t.” Cecelia waited for the excuse that she herself had rushed their departure, but it didn’t come. Her captain had no expression at all, and after a moment went on. “Initially I accepted the log showing that the purge and recharge had been done, and the fresh inspection stickers; you are quite right that I should not have done that. Logs have been faked before, even in the Regular Space Service.” A tight smile, which did not reach the captain’s eyes. Cecelia wondered if she ever really smiled. “But I noticed an anomaly in the datastream two days ago, and began tracking it down. Your moles—sorry, ma’am, your environmental technicians—claimed it was your gardeners’ fault. But the plain fact is, the work wasn’t done. I believe it will be possible to document that, and get a refund from Diklos and Sons; your reputation should help.”

“Ah . . . yes.” Cecelia felt off balance; she had been ready for evasions and excuses, and her captain’s forthright acceptance of blame surprised her.

“I realize, milady, that one reason you changed captains is that your former one could not keep to your schedule. But in this instance, I feel that your safety requires an emergency repair of the system.”

“I thought,” Cecelia said pettishly, “that I had specified an environmental system far larger than I’d ever need, just in case something went wrong.”

“Yes, milady, you did. But with your present guests and their personal servants, that limit has been exceeded—and with the degradation of performance of the system, and the lack of refitting capabilities at Lord Thornbuckle’s, it would be most unwise to proceed without repair.”

“And that will take—?”

“Six days to the nearest refitting facility, I’d trust; two days docked; and with a reasonable course and drive performance, we should be, as I said, just one day late at your destination.”

“I suppose that’s better than the eight days late I had before—which landed me with young Ronnie, because I wasn’t there to argue hard enough and loud enough.” Cecelia shrugged and said, “Oh, very well. Do what you think best; you’re the captain.” But her captain didn’t leave, merely stood there. “What else?” she asked.

“I strongly recommend some restrictions in the next six days. At present we have no shipwide emergency, but I would prefer to prevent one.”

“But it’s only six days—” Cecelia began, then stopped. “You’re really worried.” To her surprise, her captain smiled slightly.

“Yes, and I cannot justify it by the data alone. But although I’ve been on this ship only a short time, there’s a feel of something wrong—”

“Intuition in a Fleet officer?”

“Just so. Intuition I have learned not to ignore. I am instituting quite severe restrictions in crew activities, and strongly recommend them for your staff and guests as well.”

“Such as?”

Her captain ticked them off on her fingers. “A change in diet to minimize sulfur and nitrogen loading of the system—for six days, the loss of muscle mass or conditioning from a low-protein diet should not cause any distress, and if you have someone with special needs, that can of course be accommodated. Restrictions in water use, to include the exercise pool since that water is cycled through the same systems, and organic compounds inevitably end up in it. The . . . er . . . gardens will need to be handled as part of the regular environmental system as well . . .”

“The gardeners will love that—!” She thought of her pet equids with a pang. They would have to go—perhaps she could flash-freeze them, but it was always chancy. And the beautiful flowers, the fresh fruits and vegetables—they would have to restock or eat preserved food all the way to Bunny’s.

“Sorry, milady, but the environmental tech’s excuse for letting the system go outside nominal is that your gardeners had requested a particularly high sulfur effluent for some special crop.”

“I see. So we’re to arrive at some shipyard hungry, thirsty, dirty, and bored—”

“But healthy and alive. Yes.”

Cecelia’s heart sank. She could imagine what Ronnie and his friends were going to say about this. It had been bad enough already. For a moment, she was tempted to let go in one of the towering rages of her youth—but she was beyond that now. She had no energy for that kind of explosion. “Very well,” she said again. “If you will enter the specifications, I will inform staff and the others.”

“Thank you, milady.” Her captain’s face looked as if it might be intending an apology, but she did not then apologize. She gave a curious stiff nod, and went out quickly. Cecelia blew a long, disgusted breath and called Cook. She might as well get on with it.

Takomin Roads occupied a location that made it ideal for refitting deep-space vessels and little else; not even the most ship-fevered spacer would choose for recreation the bleak cold planet the Station circled. Farther insystem Merice offered sweet shallow oceans, and Golmerrung spectacular peaks and glaciers . . . but Takomin Roads offered reasonable proximity to four mapped jump nodes, one of them apparently bound to the planet. Heris had stopped there with a battle group once, and been impressed by the size of the fixtures and the quality of the crews.

The Sweet Delight had communications equipment only just inferior to that of the cruiser Heris had left. She could pop a message just as they left FTL flight, and it would arrive well before them, given the necessary deceleration of the yacht. Mr. Gavin, still gray around the gills from her lecture and Iklind’s death, and the very close shave with Timmons, presented her with his estimate of the work to be done, down to the specifications for every component fastener. She took that estimate to the moles themselves, and when they would have initialled it without discussion she insisted on going over every item with them.

“I’m sure Mr. Gavin is right,” the junior kept saying, with nervous glances at the other. She had hardly met Ries before the emergency.

“I’m not.” Heris was past worrying about Gavin’s reputation with the moles; she was far more concerned with getting the yacht safely to refitting, and back out as quickly as possible.

“I guess you want us to look up this stuff in the manual. . . .” said the senior mole, Kliegan.

“I want you to do your jobs,” Heris said. “If you are not sure, of course you must look up the specs.”

“Well, I do, but . . .”

“Then is this correct, or not? Don’t hedge about, mister.” She wondered, not for the first time, how Lady Cecelia had survived so many years with incompetents manning her yacht. Did rich people not even know the difference? She supposed not. A shiny surface would satisfy them, even if it covered decay.

“Yes,” he said, after a moment. She nodded; she would hold him to it. At the end of this voyage, she would suggest to Lady Cecelia—no, she would insist—that she replace the least competent of the crew. In fact, with Iklind dead, perhaps they could find someone competent at Takomin Roads.

The refitting specifications all went into the message capsule, along with Lady Cecelia’s credit authorization. By the time the Sweet Delight had come within a light-hour of the Takomin Roads, the refitters had had time to ready their equipment, unpack the necessary parts, and shift their workload to accommodate a rush job.

Or so they should have, Heris thought. The first message she received began by explaining how impossible it would be to do the work at all, and the next (a day later) argued that it could be done, but not within the time limit she had specified. Heris took none of these to Lady Cecelia; refitting was her responsibility and she knew already that a yacht owner, like an admiral, doesn’t want to hear about problems that can be solved at a lower level. Besides, arguing with refitting had been a normal part of her duties as a cruiser captain. Those who didn’t argue went to the bottom of the stack and got leftover parts.

She fired back her own messages as fast as the uncooperative ones came in, pointing out Lady Cecelia’s holdings in the companies whose ships formed a large part of Velarsin & Co., Ltd.’s work. Alienating a major shareholder could have a negative impact on future contracts . . . she ignored, as beneath her notice, the long list of other work that would run overtime if Lady Cecelia’s were done. The refitters capitulated, finally, in the last message received a half-hour before docking, when a Station tug already had a firm grip on the Sweet Delight’s bustle. Heris watched the docking critically; she had no real confidence in their pilot, and luckily no need for it—the Station’s AI had no glitches as it eased them to Berth 78.

“I hope you’re satisfied!” growled the bulky man in a dark gray shipsuit uniform when she called Velarsin & Co. “Shifted a dozen jobs for you, we have. Gonna lose a bonus on one of ’em.”

“I shall be satisfied when our work is complete, correct, and prompt,” said Heris.

He snorted, half anger and half respect, just like every Fleet Yard superintendent she’d ever known. “I have your specs,” he said. “They’re as foul as you claim your bilges are.”

“I’m not surprised.” Heris smiled at him. “We had nonconformance at the last maintenance, before I took this ship; it’s my guess it hasn’t met the original specs in years. When will your crew board?”

“They’re waiting at your access,” he said. “And me with ’em. I want to meet the captain of a private yacht that can bend the rules upstairs.”

“Fine,” said Heris. “I’ll be there in five minutes. I have to inform the owner.”

The owner, when Heris called her, sounded stiff and resentful. “I still do not understand, Captain Serrano, why we could not have stayed aboard. Surely, with the umbilicals to Station Environmental, we don’t need to worry about contamination aboard. . . .”

She had explained before; she explained again, patiently but firmly. “Milady, even the best refitting crews cannot access the system without an occasional leak. It will stink—and worse than that, you might be exposed to hydrogen sulfide or other toxic contaminants. It is safest to seal the crew, staff, and owner’s space—the vents themselves—which means no circulation at all. All the working crew will be in protective gear, as I will be while I supervise. It takes only one good lungful of sewer gas, milady, to kill you.” She did not need to say more; Lady Cecelia gave a delicate shudder. And she had already arranged for the appropriate law enforcement division to take over Iklind’s body, along with the meager evidence. “The crew is waiting, milady, and the sooner they start—”

“Very well.” It was crisp and unfriendly, but not an argument. “And where are we staying?” The real problem, Heris thought, was that Lady Cecelia had never been here before and wasn’t sure of accommodations. As well, those brats were probably whining and dragging their feet.

“You, milady, have a suite at the Selenor, where the shipping line executives stay. There’s limited space, and I had to book the young people into a different hostelry on another level. I realize that’s inconvenient—”

This time a trace of warmth in her employer’s voice. “I can survive that. Meet me for dinner, then; I’ll want a report. Twenty hundred, local time.” Six hours; they’d just have started, really. Heris had counted on supervising them closely all through the first shift. But she could come report, and return quickly. She would not have to stay for a meal, she was sure.

“Of course, milady. I’ll be at the maintenance access as you leave; please have Bates call when the staff has cleared the ship.”

“Very well.”

Heris gave her crew a stern look. “Mr. Gavin, you and Environmental will suit and observe the first shift. The rest of you are booked into transient crew quarters less than fifteen minutes from here; I expect you all to stay available. We’ll have at least two crew aboard the ship at all times, and you’ll rotate.” A stir, no more; they knew better than to protest by now. “Have you confirmed Station air supply to every compartment?” she asked Gavin.

“To all but the owner’s quarters, ma’am,” he said. “I was going to do that as soon as milady left the ship; computer says it’s fine, but . . .”

“Do that, then, while I go meet the refitters. Lady Cecelia is debarking now.”

She followed the crew off the ship, and met the crew chief of the refitters in the maintenance access. He and his workers already wore pressure suits to protect themselves from contamination and carried helmets tucked under their arms. By the sudden flicker of his eyelids, she saw that he recognized her origins.

“I’m Captain Serrano,” she said. “And you’re . . .”

“Key Brynear,” he said, a slow smile lighting his heavy face. “ ‘Scuse my asking, but you’re ex-Regs, aren’t you?”

“That’s right,” said Heris. She wondered if he’d ask more, but he merely nodded.

“Guess that’s why you managed to put fear into management. They don’t hear command voice real often. Well, Captain, let’s see what you’ve got.” He wasted no time asking for details she’d already sent, but ordered his crew into helmets, and nodded sharply to Heris. She suited up, locked her own helmet on, and led him into the ship.

“Let’s start from the bottom up,” he said over the suit radio. She could hear his voice, but not the clear words, through the helmets; it formed an irritating echo. “Worst first, and then we can give you an estimate.”

Heris had always hated suit drill, and even after the suit had saved her life she still disliked it; she hated being closed in with her own breath sounds and the hissing of the air supply. She had two hours of air in her own rebreathing tanks, and the exterior connector allowed her to plug into Station air in any compartment with a vent, but she felt smothered.

In the lowest environmental level, her own moles were already suited; they managed to look sheepish even in suits, as well they ought.

“Mr. Brynear,” she said to her moles. “He’s in charge of this overhaul.”

“And here are my shift supervisors,” Brynear said “Herak Santana, first shift; Allie Santana, second shift, and Miko Aldovar on third. Any time I’m not here, one of them will be; I expect to be here most of the time, but I may have to goose inventory control if you people are in as bad shape as you said.”

The shift supervisors, in bicolored orange and silver suits, stood out from the orange-suited crew, but nonetheless had name and position stenciled on front and back of both suit and helmet. By local time, it was now second shift; the first shift supervisor waved to Brynear, who nodded, and then left. The second shift supervisor’s voice came over the radio.

“Captain, would you have your crew secure compartments.”

“Certainly.” This command she could give herself, direct to the computer; the compartment hatches slid shut. Status lights changed, and they all moved to connect their suits to the compartment’s exterior air supply vent. From now on they would have to take care not to tangle each other’s umbilicals. “Confirm external air . . .” she said, and waited for each response before nodding to Brynear.

Brynear pointed to one of the ship’s moles. “Let’s take a look at the scrubber that’s looking worst on the computer.”

Inside the first protective shell, streaks of black slime marked the joints of the inner cover, and corrosion had frozen the bolts. Heris noticed that the gas sensors had gone red, instantly. One of the refitting techs grunted. “Who’d you say was supposed to have done the refit? And how far back?”

“Never mind, Tare,” Brynear said. He moved over to look; when he tapped the scrubber with a wrench, more black goo oozed out. The readouts on the scrubber shell were all offscale. “That’s the owner’s problem; ours is fixing this mess. And I can tell right off we’re going to need more equipment. You were right, Captain, this is an emergency refit if ever I saw one.” His orders to his crew were, Heris heard with relief, as decisive as she’d have heard in a Fleet dock, and his explanation to her assumed that she would understand the technicalities.

“We’re going to have to vacuum your entire system—and this Yard charges for hazardous storage. On the other hand, if it’s this thick it may generate enough methane to pay part of your storage fee. And we’ve got a repair job in, a big Overhull tanker, that’s going to need a whopping inoculation of its hydroponics. . . . I might be able to do a deal with them.”

“Safety first, then speed,” Heris said. “Money counts, but only third.”

“Fine. We suck everything out, sort it, clean and repair, and put back your basic inoculum. . . . How about the living quarters—did you have much contamination up there?”

“No, probably because of the oversized filters; I kept thinking I smelled it the last day or so, but the sensors didn’t react.”

“Then we’ll try a wet flush there—saves time—but the bottom end is going to be a bitch.”

“Estimate?”

“Full crews—and it’ll depend on whether we replace units or rebuild them—”

“Replace ’em,” Heris said. “Anything you can.”

“Forty-six hours,” he said. “And that’s spending your owner’s money flat out. Can’t be done in less than forty-two, if everything goes right, and it won’t. Might be a little longer. . . .”

“Do your best,” Heris said.

She had not expected real speed from a civilian refitting firm, but when Brynear’s crews moved into high gear, she realized that they made their profit from speed. By mid-shift, four great hoses were draining the muck from Sweet Delight into the Yard storage tanks. Half the damaged scrubbers were out; Brynear, she noticed, was meticulous about giving credit for those which could be rebuilt. She and Brynear had documented the condition of scrubbers, chambers, and pipes; Lady Cecelia should have no trouble making a claim on Diklos & Sons. Or for that matter a case against Captain Olin.

In the second half of the shift, new components stacked up in the access bay: scrubbers, environmental chambers, parts, controls. Brynear and Heris inspected them together helmets off.

“We don’t have enough to give you a matched set,” he said. “You’ll get thirteen Shnairsin and Lee 4872’s, same as original equipment, and seven Plekhsov 8821’s. Personally I prefer the Plekhsovs—we use ’em a lot as replacements and I think they’re tougher—but I’d give you a matched set if I could. The performance specs are identical . . . here.” Heris looked at the printout and passed it to her moles.

“That’s good enough,” she said. “What about environmental chambers? And the runs?”

“You’ll have to have new chambers—every single culture either overgrew or was contaminated by one that did. Again, we have Shnairsin and Lee, but I recommend Tikman. They’ve come out with a lining that really is better—we’ve had about five years’ experience with it.”

“Go with the Tikman,” Heris said. The Regs had seven years experience with the new polymer lining; she hadn’t realized it was available on the civilian market. “The runs?”

He frowned. “That depends on whether you want to put up with a little pitting. We can cut out the worst, and patch—we have good pipefitters, and I guarantee you won’t have turbulence problems at the joints. Or we can pull them all and restring the runs. Pitting . . . it’s not dangerous, once we cut out the really bad patches, but you’d want to replace it within a year or two. It’d get you where you’re going, safe enough. Restringing all the runs will really squeeze the time I gave you.”

“So would finding all the bad places, and being sure of them,” Heris said. He nodded. “I want a safe ship, Mr. Brynear; I’ll take my owner’s heat if you run a little over. But . . .”

“It better be worth it—I understand that. I tell you, Captain, I’m really shocked at Diklos. They used to be good. I’d have trusted ’em with my own ship, if I couldn’t get here.”

“Mistakes happen,” Heris said, somewhat grimly. “But not on my ship, not again. Now, if you have the hard copy estimates, I’ll go see Lady Cecelia.”