Trading in Danger Read online

  “No. Pavrati. They’re the blue-and-white ones, right?”

  Pavrati did indeed have blue-and-white colors. They were based on Serinada, not Slotter Key, though they registered their ships in Slotter Key; they dominated the coreward trade. Vatta held an equal share in the outer ranges. “The ship didn’t arrive?” Ky asked.

  “A Pavrati ship came, but no machinery. They said it had all been diverted.”

  Sold off, more like. Pavrati Interstellar Shipping was the example held up to young Vatta trainees of how not to operate a shipping line. Rumor had it they survived by running contraband.

  “We tried to contact the company—Pavrati headquarters and the shipping agent for the manufacturer—but we haven’t heard anything. And we’ve asked every ship that’s come by.” The man said, “We’ve heard nothing.” Belinta was a good hundred years behind Slotter Key in development; a missing shipment like this could cause them real trouble.

  “I’m sorry,” Ky said. “But I don’t know anything about it. If it’s a Pavrati contract, I doubt the manufacturer would send a replacement by Vatta.”

  “We told them next available,” the man said. “We really need it.” He looked at Ky as if she could create agricultural machinery out of thin air right in front of him.

  “Who are you calling on this?” she asked.

  “I’m not sure. I just know we’re looking for it—but the Economic Development Bureau can tell you more. If there’s any way, any way at all that we can get something—we’ve lost a year’s production already—”

  She opened her mouth to deliver a standard apology—it was not her concern, she had a route to run, a mission to accomplish—but the words wouldn’t come. Possibility tickled her ambition. What if this turned into a lucrative contract, lucrative enough to repair the ship? She told herself it was impossible, but she asked the question anyway. “Does the Economic Development Bureau have an office onstation?”

  “Oh, no, Captain. You’d have to go planetside. You’d have to have an appointment. You do have a consul here, of course.”

  Of course. She had orders to visit the Slotter Key legation on every planet, to be polite and charming and give nothing away while gathering any useful information to be passed back to the family. A very boring duty, she’d thought, but an excuse to wear the scarlet-lined formal cape which she liked in spite of herself.

  “But you’ll try?” the man said.

  “I don’t know,” Ky said. “I’ll have to consider what it does to the rest of my schedule. I’ll think about it.” She was already thinking about it. She was already imagining a fat contract that would give Vatta Transport, Ltd., leverage in this system and herself a ship in which she had owner’s shares. A contract whose negotiation would excuse her spending a few more days downside, exploring her first alien world.

  Before she left the station, Ky made her reservation at the Captains’ Guild—”an acceptable expense chargeable to the company.” She also placed a call to the escort service Vatta Transport used—”a captain never prowls about alone; if no senior crew accompanies, a captain will hire an escort from the usual service [list appended.]” Belinta was supposed to be a safe port, but this was her first voyage; she would take no chances. Executive Escort promised to have a suitable individual on call when she arrived. She chose to meet the escort at the Captains’ Guild.

  On the down shuttle, she leafed through travel brochures she would never use, such as “Beautiful Belinta, Belle of the Hub Worlds.” Nobody but the residents would call this sector the Hub Worlds, unless they thought the rest of the wheel had fallen off. Belinta advertised “unparalleled cultural opportunities,” “scenic sights,” and “marvelous experiences for the value-conscious traveler.”

  The “cultural opportunities” looked like a group of people in costume singing something; and the “scenic sights” looked like a cliff over an ocean. Ky wondered what kind of brochures Slotter Key handed out to tourists. She wondered if Slotter Key had any tourists.

  She turned over some of the others. “Salzon’s Singing Sands,” far across the planet, looked like piles of gray dirt, but the “Singing Sands Luxury Resort” promised “unparalleled self-indulgence amid the shimmering dunes.” “See the Sights of Mystic Valross Valley” showed a mountain valley, with a large red arrow pointing to the Mystic Valley Luxury Resort perched on a cliff on one side. Mystic Valley’s hostelry promised the same unparalleled self-indulgence as well as horseback tours to Spirit Falls. More interesting—at least in the brochures—was the “Sea Isle Reef Extravaganza Tour” with stays in the Sea Isle Luxury Resort promising the now-familiar unparalleled self-indulgence.

  The brochures were archaic—plasfilm, with inert illustrations and no linkup codes. Ky put them aside for the next passenger to enjoy as the shuttle landed. Belinta had only one shuttleport, near its capital. She caught the City Center train, using the coupon from the brochure. No humods on the train, a disappointment; aside from the dull clothing, everyone seemed normal. She came out of the grimy, strange-smelling station across a paved street from the Captains’ Guild, a dark brick building in a row of other dark brick buildings, with the starred flag of the Captains’ Guild waving in a gentle warm breeze over the entrance.

  She had been to the Captains’ Guild with her father back on Slotter Key, where he—like all the Vatta senior captains—was personally known to all the service personnel. But this was her first time to enter a guildhouse in her own right. She half expected the doorman to ask for her ID, or suggest that she wait in the Visitors’ Lounge for her father. She resisted the impulse to flick her dress cape back from her sleeves to reveal the rings, and walked toward the door as if she owned it. The doorman at the Captains’ Guild opened the door for her at once, and the on-duty steward met her in the lobby.

  “Captain Vatta, a pleasure. Right this way, please.” Of course: their implants would have picked up her ID before she arrived. Her overnight bag disappeared with a bellboy up a flight of stairs; the steward led her to the registration desk. “Just to check that everything’s in order—” It was. Ky looked automatically at the status board. Princess Cory, Captain R. Stennis, Ind., NR, LPoC Vauxsin; Pir K., Captain J. Sing, Ind., R, LPoC Local System; Glennys Jones, Captain K. Vatta, Vatta Transport, Ltd., R, LPoC Slotter Key. She made herself quit looking at her own name on the status board—”Captain K. Vatta” right out there in public—and tried to extract from the simple list all the information she could. Two independents, one staying in the guildhouse and one not. Pir K. was probably an insystem rig; Ky wondered what she carried and to and from whom.

  “Your room, Captain—number six, second floor. You require assistance?”

  “No, thanks,” Ky said.

  “Will you need us to arrange an escort?”

  “No, thank you,” Ky said. “I have contacted a service already. I’ll call them again from my room and let them know I’ve arrived.”

  “They should have met you at the ’port,” the desk clerk said. “Unless you requested that they not . . .”

  “I said here would be fine,” Ky said. “But thank you.” She ignored the elevator and went up the carpeted stairs to the second floor where a single short cross-hall made it clear that the Captains’ Guild on Belinta didn’t expect much business. Her room overlooked the street and although it contained all the amenities the Captains’ Guild promised its members, it was smaller and plainer than the room her father had shown her back at Slotter Key’s Guild residence. Ky turned on the comconsole and uplinked to her ship, giving them her onplanet contact codes. Then she called Executive Escorts, where the same pleasant voice promised to send someone over immediately. She had just unpacked when the desk called to tell her that the escort had arrived.

  Back on Slotter Key, Vatta had its own security personnel, wearing company colors; Ky had never dealt with outworld security firms before. The stocky young man in dark green tunic and brown pants looked nothing like the Vatta employees, but his ID patch fit the information she’d dow
nloaded from the escort service. Conor Fadden, senior operative, certified and licensed to carry those firearms deemed appropriate for private hires on Belinta. He had the little bulge in the left temple that indicated an implanted skullphone, and the larger bulges under his tunic that must be his weaponry.

  “Mr. Fadden,” Ky said, as she came into the lobby. He turned from the desk.

  “Captain Vatta? You’re not the same Captain Vatta—?”

  “No. It’s my first run here.” The here slipped out, implying more experience than she had, because of the way he’d looked at her. “Your credentials, please.” The Captains’ Guild staff would have checked already but Gary had impressed on her the need to check everything herself.

  “Of course, ma’am,” he said, handing over a datapak. Ky ran the hand scanner over it—clean—and then offered hers to his hand scanner. He took his ID pak back and straightened. “Where first, Captain?”

  “The Slotter Key legation,” Ky said. “If it’s close enough, I’d like to walk.”

  “Easy close enough,” he said. “Just across the street and down a ways.” He led the way to the door, and then out onto the street. According to the Captain’s Guide, escort services could provide a range of services, but the only one authorized on the company account at Belinta was “guide, basic protection.”

  Ky felt a strange combination of young and important as she walked with her armed escort along the street of a city on a planet she’d never seen before. It smelled different. People dressed in different colors, different styles. Although Belinta was supposed to have “nominal normal” gravity, her feet didn’t seem to hit the ground with the same impact as on Slotter Key. Ky tried not to gape at the sights, keeping her eyes firmly on the Slotter Key flag which her escort had pointed out, a short walk away. When they got to the Slotter Key legation, she nodded to the guards at the gate and handed them her ID pak. They nodded back, ran a scanner over it, and opened the gates for her. Her escort paused; the guards checked his ID, and then allowed him into the gatehouse. Ky walked on up to the door; another uniformed guard opened it for her.

  Inside, the legation’s reception area had tiled floors and cream-colored walls hung with tapestries representing the Six Colonies. Ky handed her ID pak to the desk clerk, a cheerful middle-aged woman, who ran it through a reader and returned it. “Need to see the consul, Captain Vatta?”

  “Yes,” Ky said. “A matter of trade and profit.”

  “It’s always nice to see a Vatta representative here. A tisane, perhaps? I will inform the consul that you wish to see him.”

  “Thank you.” Ky sat in the comfortable chair the clerk pointed out, and looked through a window into a covered garden filled with Slotter Key natives. Not, of course, a tik tree. She sipped the tisane the clerk brought her.

  “A new Vatta on this run?” The consul appeared quickly. He looked like a northerner and had a North-Coast accent. His ID patch provided a name, Parin Inosyeh, and a brief biography. Ky ignored it; her own wiring would store it for her. “Trade and profit, you say?”

  Ky nodded. “A Pavrati shipment. Ag machinery that didn’t arrive on the last Pavrati ship. Customs say they asked for a next shipment priority. I want to bid on it.”

  “Does Vatta approve?”

  Ky blinked. How could he ask that when the main office was light years away . . . oh. She was Vatta here. So—did Vatta stand behind this venture or was it personal, a captain’s gambit? She could commit Vatta to a course of action that would not play out until after she returned shipless, the old hulk sold—or she could work this solo, and—if it came out as she hoped—use the profits to refit the ship. If it didn’t, she would be out of luck, but Vatta wouldn’t be harmed.

  She had not thought that far. She felt stupid that she had not thought that far.

  “I have not decided,” she said, hoping she sounded more capable than she felt. “There are advantages either way, for me, my family, and Slotter Key. More information would help, and that is why I have come here. I would like to know—” Her mind raced swiftly through the decision matrices, noting blank cells she most wanted filled. “I would like to know Pavrati’s trading history here, and where that could be found. The customs employee I spoke to, Inspector-junior Ama Dissi, directed me to the Economic Development Bureau, which he said had tried to find out where the shipment went astray, and obtain a replacement. I need an introduction to that Bureau.”

  “Indeed. Some of this I can help you with, certainly. Pavrati began yearly contacts here some six years ago, and increased their service to twice yearly two years ago. The initial contact of my predecessor with the Pavrati concerned a customs dispute about interdicted psychoactives. Recently . . . let me just say that it would be indiscreet of me to complain that Pavrati captains have been a plague to this office for years—always demanding, never asking. So I would not say that. I would say that if Vatta brought trade and profit out of this, it could only help my office perform its duties and possibly improve relations between governments.”

  Ky wondered how much “incentive” from Vatta had contributed to his attitude, or if Pavrati captains had really been stupid enough to alienate their own government’s consul repeatedly. She remembered those entries on the books, something she’d questioned back in what now felt like distant youth. We don’t bribe people, do we? she’d asked in horror, only to be glared into silence by her father and uncle. It was not a bribe, they’d explained. It was merely a courtesy, too small to do more than suggest that Vatta Transport was a friendly and cooperative entity.

  As neutrally as possible, she said, “I was hoping you could inform me of local law and custom in such matters.”

  “Easily. These people distrust outworld traders as they breathe air. They consider us all cast in the same mold, and blame any of us for all of us. If you were to make good on a promise Pavrati made, they would be very surprised, and probably indecently grateful. As for Pavrati’s reaction, they care not. There are no statutes requiring notification of intent.”

  She thought that over for a long moment, while the consul finished his own tisane. She could commit Vatta . . . she could go independent. She had just made a huge blunder going independent at the Academy, but this was different. Here that boldness protected the family . . . she hoped.

  “It’s my venture,” she said to the consul.

  He nodded. “First command, I assume? Yes. You Vatta seem to run to adventures on a first voyage in command.”

  Did they? No one had told her about that. “I am not looking for adventure,” Ky said firmly. “Trade and profit.”

  “Oh, certainly. Only fools look for adventure. But I daresay your orders didn’t mention scooping Pavrati contracts, not that I’m asking.”

  She didn’t know whether to be annoyed or amused at the twinkle in his eye. She went back to the other issue.

  “The Customs Inspector mentioned an Economic Development Bureau?”

  “Yes. Hidebound, stuffy, and suspicious, like all these people. If they’ve been stiffed by Pavrati, they won’t pay up front, but they’re honest enough and if you deliver the goods, they’ll pay in good credit. I’ll be glad to give you a letter of introduction—they still go in for that kind of formality—to the right office.”

  “Thank you,” Ky said. “That’s most helpful.”

  He shrugged, a very North-Coast shrug. “Anything to relieve the tedium. It’s normally months between ships, with nothing much to do in between but listen to their complaints. You can’t believe how tedious these people are. Imagine—for amusement, they play some idiotic game with sticks and balls on horses, of all things.”

  “Polo?” Ky asked.

  “Something like that.” His eyebrows went up. “You know about it? I hadn’t imagined that anywhere on Slotter Key we had anything like that—I’ve never been on a horse in my life.”

  North Coast . . . Slotter Key’s industrial hub. Considered themselves superior, North Coasters did. The rest of Slotter Key, Ky suspected, felt much
as her family did about North Coasters. Necessary folk, but stodgy and proud.

  “I’ve heard of it,” Ky said, without mentioning where. “We’re expected to know a lot of customs from all sorts of places.”

  “I suppose,” he said. “Well, if you know enough to chat about chuckles”—Ky realized he meant chukkers—”you’ll get along fine with them, or as fine as any of us can. But look out; they might ask you to get on a horse and play.”

  “Oh, I think I can stick to trade and profit,” Ky said.

  “Well, then—you’ll have dinner with me, this evening? I’ll have a letter for you by then, and I’ll call ahead as well to see when you might get an appointment. Where are you staying?”

  “At the Captains’ Guild,” Ky said. “And thank you. What time?”

  “Eight local. I’ll send the legation driver for you, and put a ping on your alarm.”

  Outside, the moist air carried all the smells she’d imagined when, as a junior apprentice, she’d been stuck on the ship polishing the floor while the captain and senior crew were onplanet. Here was a whole world she had never seen before; it was hard to believe she was really here, that she had just been talking to a consul, captain to government representative. Her escort joined her at the gate. “Where to?” he asked.

  Ky just wanted to walk around, experiencing the strangeness, but that wouldn’t do, not on a company account. “There is a harbor here, yes?” Harbors meant shipping, and shipping was her business.

  “This way,” the escort said, pointing. Ky called up a city map on her implant—he was leading her the right way. It seemed silly to check, but it was protocol. They started off, still on foot. Around her, the native population of Belinta went about its business, dressed very differently from the people on Slotter Key. Most wore some shade of green—gray green, greenish brown, yellowish green, bluish green—with a plaid shawl slung around the hips for the women or shoulders for the men. Their legs were bare from the knee down to sandals with turned-up toes, but they wore long-sleeved tops with snug cuffs. What was that about?