The Ship Errant

Chapter Eighteen

A few days passed after the Cridi returned safely from the capital city. Keff continued to pretend doing business on the high plain near Thunderstorm's enclave.

The longer the Cridi's ship parts were on display, the more interested the pirates became in buying them. Keff was now in possession of a handful of credit chits whose legitimacy and provenance he very much doubted. Narrow Leg, on duty as Keff's guardian in the Medical Waste box, was less of a success than Tall Eyebrow, because he kept a closer eye on his inventions than he did on the human whose life he was supposed to be protecting.

"I do not like these disappearing," he protested into his radio over and over again during the long, hot day. "They go into the pirates' hold, and they go away toward the city-but they are not here."

"Relax, Tad Pole," Keff said, out of the corner of his mouth. "We'll get everything back just as soon as we're finished here. Thunderstorm promised me that the parts are being well looked after."

"It must be soon," Narrow Leg said. "All this dust, getting into the components! Impair efficiency!"

"Shh! You're exaggerating, I'm sure," Keff hissed, seeing Bisman coming down the ramp of the raider ship. He hoped the Cridi shriek hadn't been audible. The leader was stalking toward him with purpose. Keff stopped pretending to tidy his wares, and waited.

"What have you heard?" Bisman asked, without other preamble.

"Nothing yet," Keff said. "I sent the request for a meeting, as you asked me to. It'll take time for the message to meet her. I had to assure her you're not a small-timer, that it would be worth her while doing business with you. I told her you had sixty ships under your command, is that right?"

Bisman spat into the dust next to Keff's feet. "At least sixty. And I've got other resources. Connections."

Keff raised his eyebrows, but the older man was far too canny to take the questioning look as an opening. He shook his head, and Keff grinned, pretending to look sheepish. "Can't blame a fellow for trying."

"You just tell me when she gets here," Bisman said, poking him in the chest again. "I'll talk a lot more when I hear her bona fides."

"All right," Keff said, but to Bisman's back. As soon as he'd had his say, he'd swung around and stalked off in the direction of Thunderstorm's pavilion.

"I do feel sorry for that griffin," he said into his sublingual pickup. "He's taking all the brunt for us."

"You play the part of the up-and-coming flunky to perfection," Carialle said acidly.

"I've always said I should start at the top and work downward," Keff said, forcing a note of cheer into his voice. "Is there any word today?"

"Not a thing," Carialle's voice said, sounding a little strained. "There has been plenty of time for my first transmissions to have reached the nearest space station. I could have flown up and back in the time it's taken them to respond."

A couple of the raiders on the edge of Keff's "bazaar" reached for the same book-chip library at the same time, and started to bicker over it. Keff turned his back on them.

"There's always the question, if there was an armed ship in the vicinity, and whether they could send it," he said.

"They might already have sent it," Carialle pointed out. "If it's behind the anomaly, the ship won't receive any more transmissions from us until it clears Cridi system. By then, the Melange, or at least Bisman, could be long gone. Noonday's guards won't be worth a darn against energy weapons. I wish you could have gotten even one base location out of Bisman. Any starting point so I don't have to unravel ion threads again."

"He doesn't like me," Keff said, thoughtfully. "More fool he. But he's starting to lose patience. How long can we stall him before he finally loses his temper?"

"If that happens, he'll attack, in which case our cover, and the Cridi's, is blown; or he'll leave. We'd have to give chase, and I don't fancy our chances. That third Core may still be out there somewhere."

Keff rocked back on his heels and looked up at the sky. He stared at a bank of clouds gathering in the northwest, then realized the novelty of atmospheric condensation in such a dry climate. Looked like a head of stratocumulus building. Did it ever rain here? He must ask Thunderstorm.

"We're not policemen," Keff said, "but we can't just let these people go."

"Not until I get what I want," Carialle said. "Once the CW forces land here, that possibility is gone, and we're stewed, too. I'll be in a home for the perpetually bewildered, and you'll be flying a troop carrier."

"We're not making much progress," Keff admitted. "I haven't managed to elicit a single confidence out of those people, not in six days. Not a single detail of where they've been in the past, a single event. You'd think they'd be bursting to brag about their successes, but no!"

"It's a tight ship," Carialle agreed. "They keep themselves to themselves with a vengeance. There are organized minds in charge. I'd admire the Melange, if we weren't trying to break through their defenses."

The air grew heavier, and the sky darkened. Keff checked his chronometer. "Looks like weather," he said. "How far away is it?"

"I've been charting a pattern coming in from planetary northwest," Carialle said. "I've been charting a tropical front in the far west. It hit a cold front a thousand kilometers from here, and I admit it whipped up faster than I estimated. You'd better start getting things under cover. You have about ninety Standard minutes."

"Looks like it could be a gully-washer," Keff said, starting to pick merchandise up at once. He signalled for the servo to come over and help.

"Keff," Carialle said. Her voice sounded tentative. "I've been trying to stifle my natural anxieties, but something needs to happen soon. I've… I find I've been counting."

Counting, as she had twenty years ago, adrift in space, to keep herself sane. Keff felt an urge to run inside the ship, to be close to Carialle, anything to help her calm down. "Have you had any memory flashes?" He started to pick up piles of circuit boards with a burst of nervous energy, then stopped to look around for the boxes.

"No."

"Good. Hang on, Cari. Nothing's different than it was just a few days ago."

"No, we're nearer an answer, Keff. I know it. I'm beginning to feel antsy in anticipation of it."

Aggravated at how slowly he was progressing, he glanced toward the humans browsing through the lanes. The men and women from the Melange had also noticed the lowering sky. They shot glances at him and the tons of merchandise, but moved purposefully toward their own ship. Bisman stood next to the ramp of the raider with his arms crossed and a sneering smile on his face, watching Keff.

"Nice people," he growled, with more force than he'd intended.

"Why?" Narrow Leg asked, hearing Keff's comment.

"Because it's going to rain," he said, in frustration. Movement in the direction of the pavilion caught his eye. "Here comes Thunderstorm, probably to tell me the same thing."

"Rain is rare," Thunderstorm said. "And yet, here is! Do you need assistance?"

"Sure do," Keff said shortly, stacking boxes of components on the robot drone's back. His own worries didn't prevent him from remembering to say, "Thanks."

Thunderstorm started to pick up items with all four of his hands, and gestured to his apprentices with a tilt of his head. The young Thelerie fluttered in at once, and began to help. Across the field, the pirate's ramp ostentatiously clapped shut.

"There's nothing I can do now until the rain's over," Keff said sublingually to Carialle. "Can you last? Otherwise, I'll drag them over to you one by one with my bare hands and torture the truth out of them."

He was rewarded by Carialle's dry chuckle. "No, Sir Keff. That would get you thrown out of the Good Knights Club. I'll make it. Only," she hesitated, "stay by me."

"I'm always here for you, lady love," Keff said, with heartfelt sincerity, "even when I'm ankle deep in dust." He grunted as he hoisted a case of plumbing fixtures over his head, and passed them on to a hovering griffin.

"We will help as soon as the light goes," Narrow Leg's voice squeaked from his concealed post. "The outer shell can wait. Gather the life support and navigation components first!"

"Thanks," Keff said, absently, stopping for a moment to triage the most important items left on the field. He was distracted by his concern for Carialle. Had they set themselves an impossible task, with an implausible deadline?

"Where shall I lay these inside?" a Thelerie voice boomed through the rising wind. Keff sprinted across the darkening field to help her.

Mirina watched on the galley screen as the trader and his two robots scurried to put their merchandise away before the rain came. The small drones rumbled across the rocky plane with impossibly high piles of crates on their backs. It was a credit to AI engineering that not one item fell off all the way across the field and up the ramp of the lovely white ship.

"You're being mean, not letting any of us pitch in and help him," she scolded Bisman, who was watching over her shoulder.

"He's a businessman; he knows the risks," Bisman said, with indecent satisfaction. "Weather's a risk." Mirina shot him a glance filled with disgust. The raindrops were already starting to march across the dusty, tan plain. The Thelerie, who hated getting their fur wet, ran before the wind, hurrying to get undercover before the storm broke in earnest.

Mirina watched for a while, wondering how Keff had ever gotten all that hull plate into his little ship in the first place. He must have been sleeping on containers. You couldn't travel for very long in that kind of discomfort. She guessed he'd probably traded upscale from a much bigger craft, and was now paying the price in smaller quarters. She didn't recognize the design, but it was a honey. She missed being around quality like that. The controls must hum under one's fingers, instead of juddering, clacking, and even breaking loose. Mirina thought she'd like to see her fly.

A crack of thunder erupted and lightning burst like a star splitting apart. Mirina jumped back as the rain began to fall heavily, spikes of silver peppering the golden earth. In moments, the dust turned to mud and began to flow toward them. Mirina had a horrible feeling that the whole ground under them would turn into sticky goo, pulling the ship down into it, drowning them. She hated rain.

"It's a young typhoon," Glashton said, idly, with a glance at the screen. He poured himself a cup of coffee. "Nice to be under cover."

"I wish it would stop," she said, turning away.

"Why? It's just started." Bisman looked at her scornfully. "Nice to get a bit of change. This never happens in space."

"Yes, thank heavens," Mirina said. The others in the galley exchanged pitying looks.

"You weren't born in atmosphere, were you?" Glashton asked.

"Nope," Mirina said, reaching past him toward the replicator and programming herself a combination protein/alcohol cocktail. "They say you don't miss what you never had."

"Like what?" Javoya, the chief engineer jeered. She and Mirina had really never hit it off. Now that Mirina was leaving, the woman had been venting all her saved-up spite.

"Like common sense," Mirina said, coldly. "But then, you wouldn't know, would you?" Zonzalo, and all the others, gawked. Part of Mirina said she was stupid for opening her mouth, but the other part admitted she was human, too.

Grabbing a tool out of her belt, the engineer took a threatening step forward. Mirina found she didn't really care if the woman cut her throat right there, but the other crew members moved between them and made the engineer sit down. Ostentatiously, Mirina took another swig of her drink. Javoya glared. Mirina ignored her, thinking about her own problems. There was no other ship available here on Thelerie for her. She'd have to stay on with Bisman and this increasingly hostile group to the next stop, and maybe the next one after that, until they found a team with one that Bisman could bully, to get rid of the troublesome Dons. The one thing she could depend on was that he would keep his word about a transaction.

Eventually, the engineer tired of her aggressive pose, and threw the spanner down on the table. Everyone relaxed a little.

"Aw, what are we doing still here?" Javoya asked, appealing to the others. "It's nice enough. I like Thelerie, but even their hospitality gets to be overwhelming after a while."

"Business," Bisman said shortly.

"Well, let's get on with it already," Glashton said, frowning.

Mirina gestured in the vague direction of the other ship. "We're waiting for word from this Keff's employer about a face-to-face meet. Aldon wants to secure this system for uh-for the Melange."

Glashton made a face at Bisman. "What's the matter, is this guy stalling?"

"I don't know," the leader said, in turn scowling at Mirina. She finished her drink, even the awful coffee-tasting dregs which seemed to be at the bottom of every beverage lately. Everything on the ship was breaking down. A burst of thunder shook the ship. She shut her eyes and told her internal stabilizers to ignore the slight rolling under her seat.

"Spacedust, that's a horror."

"Well, we wouldn't still be here listening to it, if your boyfriend over there wasn't black-holing us," Bisman sneered. Mirina, in spite of her promise to herself not to get involved in any more arguments with him, glowered. He returned the fierce stare, with interest. "You don't want to be with us, madam. Maybe you should go ask Blue Eyes in his new ship to give you a boost offworld."

That reminded everybody of Mirina's upcoming departure. Suddenly, between the rain and the unfriendly glares, the fierce planetary weather felt less threatening.

"Maybe I'll go and see if I can't find out what's holding up the transmission," she said. Very casually, so it didn't look as if she was retreating, Mirina tossed her cup overhand into the disposer, and walked down the corridor. As if they were physical touches, she could feel every eye on her back as she left.

"If you're going, see if you can dicker for the whole load of parts," Bisman called.

"Whew!" Keff said, jumping back out of the way as Carialle closed the cargo bay hatch. "As if there wasn't enough in there with our own things, and your Core."

"It is intact," Narrow Leg said, fussing over the mass of machinery like a mother hen inspecting her chicks. "That is what matters. Oh, days lying in all that dust!"

"We have it all safely held in place and dry," Tall Eyebrow said. He closed his small black eyes for a moment. "All is stable. It fits together as neatly as if of a single piece." The Cridi flew or glided nimbly out of Keff's way as he slogged back toward the airlock. Carefully, he removed his environment suit, folding the outside in to keep most of the dust from scattering around the ship. Under the plastic hood, his curls were plastered to his skull with sweat.

"It's a good thing those pirates can't see in there," Keff said to Carialle, pointing down through the floor toward the cargo hold. "They'd wonder how I got the whole shop in here in the first place. Most of the hull and the engine casings are still outside. I'm exhausted!"

The human staggered back into the main cabin and flopped into his crash couch with a sigh. All of his muscles felt as if they were coming unraveled.

"All that weight training has been good for you," Carialle said, manifesting her Lady Fair image on the wall.

Keff was too out of breath to make a suitable rejoinder. He made a quick, one-handed gesture in Cridi that he knew had a slightly rude meaning. The amphibioids tittered.

A faint vibration ran through the body of the ship. Keff glanced up.

"Thunder, almost directly above us," Carialle said. "We are now separated from the rest of the world by a wall of water."

"Rain," Big Eyes signed dreamily, as Carialle directed her cameras to different views outside. The sun had dropped most of the way below the rim of the canyon walls, throwing black shadows across half the plain. The remaining crepuscular rays through the heavy clouds spotlit the distant plain. In the direction of the capital city was a double rainbow in almost 270 degrees of arc.

"This is not such a bad place," Big Voice said. "I would prefer to visit during nice seasons like this."

A slow, very brief, and faint rumble clattered on the hull. Keff glanced idly at the screen, waiting for the brilliant fork of lightning.

"That's outside," Carialle said, suddenly interrupting. She switched one of her screens to show a small, rounded, bipedal figure standing next to the ship's landing fin, holding up one upper limb. "One of the pirates. She's knocking with a rock."

Keff peered much closer, and signalled for magnification. "It's Mirina Don. Wonder what she wants?"

"I don't know," Carialle said. "Let her in. Perhaps one at a time you can get some information out of them about where they were twenty years ago."

"Not a bad notion," Keff said.

"Will it be dangerous to allow her access?" Tall Eyebrow asked.

"I doubt it," Keff replied. "But she can't see you. You'll have to hide."

The Cridi gathered up their belongings with a whisk of Core power. The bowls and cups from their meal flew through the air and sank into the cleaner like pool balls into the corner pocket. Narrow Leg supervised the picking up of travel globes. In a few minutes, the room was as tidy as it had been weeks ago when only Keff inhabited it.

"We will watch to ensure safety for you," Big Eyes assured him. She waved her hand, and the door slid shut.

"I'd better hide, too," Carialle said. She darkened the long slice of the room in front of her pillar, then built an elaborate holographic display of a control panel which she projected from several different angles onto the dark space.

The banging came again.

"I'd better let her in," Keff said. He stepped to the inner airlock hatch as Carialle lowered the ramp. The forlorn figure stumped up the ramp and waited inside as the chamber pressurized. Mirina Don emerged into the corridor and turned back her hood, presenting a sodden face to Keff.

"You left me there standing long enough," she said, resentfully.

"Sorry," he said, smiling an apology. "I was doing a crossword puzzle. What can I do for you?"

The woman shifted uncomfortably. "Er, just visiting. May I come in?"

Keff stepped to one side, and made a slight bow.

"Certainly," he said. "It's nice to have company."

Mirina shed her rain poncho and put it up on a hook next to a selection of protective suits in a closet just beyond the airlock. The Circuit sure supplied their people well. Keff had one of everything. One full environmental suit, one light enviro, an empty hook where the plastic thing should have gone that he'd been wearing, packs, both light and heavy, rebreathers, a thing like a shriveled green skin with a clear-plas helmet that was probably for deep-water environments. Whatever the Circuit was, it had money. Mirina sighed for pure envy.

"This way," Keff said. He led the way into the main cabin.

It may not have been a large craft, but it was new and beautifully appointed. Mirina glanced at the shadowed section where the control panel lay. A complicated holographic screentank filling almost half of that wall showed a long-range view of a slice of sky over Thelerie, with both small moons on the horizon over the cloud mass. A heap of boxes prevented her from getting too close, so Mirina stood back to admire the view. Both main stations had crash couches of generous proportion before them, so Keff could run either in equal comfort.

With no one to please but himself, Keff clearly lived most of his life in this room. She strolled over and examined the complicated-looking exercise station in one corner. On the other side of the console, a couple of worn grommets in the floor showed where a piece of heavy equipment had been removed from the alcove. The food synth looked clean and well-maintained. The round table beside it had an interrupted-ring bench with a dished top. Everything was neat, comfortable, and expensive-looking. Mirina wished for something like this for herself so much she hardly heard her host speaking to her.

"May I offer you something to drink?" he said.

"Certainly," Mirina said, peering at the synthesizer and wondering if the newfangled-looking controls were as easy to operate as they looked.

"Oh, no, not that," Keff laughed, and bent to a cabinet hidden in the wall behind the exercise machines. Behind the touch-open panel lay dusty bottles in shock webbing. Mirina stared at a small fortune in fermented beverages. "I have a nice beer. Not so good as a cask-aged brew that's served where it was laid down, but not bad."

"Mmm," Mirina said, appreciatively, unwilling to demand anything specific from the treasure house. Keff continued to paw through the collection. Now and again, she heard a faint clink as a couple of the fragile containers touched.

"Or-here, how about a drop of this? Red wine, from Denubia. Sixteen years old. No, wait," he said, after a pause during which he stared at the wall thoughtfully. He withdrew his selection. "This is better. Six-year-old Frusti."

"My God," Mirina said, staring as he produced a glass cylinder with a square paper label. The glass was dark, but the fluid within was darker yet. "I haven't had wine, real wine in years."

"It's real," Keff said, thumbing the synthesizer control for a couple of empty glasses. "Please, sit down."

Mirina watched him draw the cork carefully. She scented the faint headiness as the wine began to breathe, and drew it in appreciatively.

"You shouldn't be wasting this on me," she said, although she hoped he wouldn't take her at her word and put it away. She watched his hands. Nice hands. Square palms, square fingers, but favored with grace as well as strength. "In these parts that single bottle's worth a quarter of your other stock."

"A thing's only worth what people are willing to pay for it," Keff said, with his engaging grin. "I paid about ten credits for it six years ago when it was grape juice." He tilted the bottle gently to one side. "We ought to chamber the wine for a little while. May I offer you a snack in the meantime?"