Finity's End - a Union-Alliance Novel (49 page)

It was, Fletcher discovered,
not
Pell,
not
Mariner. It looked more barren than Pell's White Dock at the dead hours of alterday, as seedy as any between-shop alley in White. And it had a look of danger, the way White Dock had been dangerous, the domain of insystemers and cheap hustlers and those who wanted to sink in among them for safety.

Customs was a wave-through. For everyone.

Baggage pickup was fast. Everyone had packed as lightly as possible and bags came down the exit chute from cargo as if the handlers had slung them on six at a time.

"The bag-end of stations for sure," he said to the junior-juniors when they set out for their sleepover, a short march across the docks to a frontage of gray-painted metal.

Definitely not Mariner. The promised Safe Harbor Inn was squeezed in between a bar's neon light and a tattoo parlor.

Fifteen minutes later, with scant formality, they had their keys and found themselves sandwiched into what they'd called a suite on the second level—with a note from JR on his pager that occupants on the same floor were known smugglers and that senior staff would walk the whole junior-junior contingent to their duty shift
every
shift.

Their so-called luxury suite was one room, two beds, and a couch.

"God," Vince cried. "This is brutal. We're
stuck
in here?"

"We've got a vid," Jeremy said in desperate cheerfulness, and turned it on. The program selection was dismal and, at one channel, Fletcher made a fast move to stand in front of the screen.

Then he thought… what the hell. They were spacer juniors. They'd tossed Linda in with him and Jeremy and Vince, and he figured it was because she was safer with them than elsewhere, tagging around after some preoccupied senior crewwoman and trying to catch up with her age-mates for duty.

"The hell with it all," he said, and gave up on censorship with the vid. Then turned it off. "Yes, we're stuck. I brought my tapes. Vince and Jeremy, the bed on the left, Linda, the right, I get the couch cushions and probably I've got the better bargain. We'll splurge on supper, go to duty. It's three days max."

"Walking us to duty like babies," Linda sighed, and collapsed on the end of the bed, her feet on her duffle. "Skuz."

It was, Fletcher thought, the other side of the spacing life. It wasn't all palaces. His mother had known places like Mariner. But this was
like
post-War Pell, this was like the apartment he'd shared with his mother, right down to the plumbing that rattled. It wasn't a place he wanted to remember, in its details, the cheap scenic paneling. The place had had a plastic tri-d painting, pink flowers, right over the couch that was a makedown bed

And he'd gotten those couch cushions for his bed, on the floor. Odd thing to be nostalgic about. But that was how little space they'd had. He'd had to walk on the cushions to get past the arm of the couch, his mother had fitted him in that tightly against the wall. His nest, she said. And then when welfare complained, she'd gotten a bed for him, but he'd preferred the cushions, his homey and comfortable spot. So after all that fuss they kept the cot behind the couch and never set it up.

They ate supper, he and the juniors, they walked the only circuit they had, in the lobby, they played a handful of game offerings in the game parlor. At 1200 hours a party of
Finity
crew formed in the lobby and walked, in a group, to the dock, and to the cargo lock.

The instructions arrived, written, for each section head. He read them three times, because it made no particular sense to be emptying one container into the other. He went to the head of Technical over at the entry, a little sheepish.

"Are we emptying one can into another or is it something I'm missing in the instructions?"

"Vacuuming it from one to the other. That's why we took on only food grade and powders." Grace, Chief of Cargo Tech, the coat patch informed him. "Easier to clean the vacuum with powders." He must have looked as bewildered as he felt, because Linda, who'd tagged him over to ask, nudged his arm.

"They can kind of put a foreign mass in stuff, even powder like flour, and they sort of make it assemble by remote, or sometimes it's on a timer. It's real nasty. But it's got to have this little starter unit."

"It blows up," Grace said. "That's why we're analyzing the content on every can and sifting through everything. Security Red. There's those with reason to wish we'd fail to reach our next port."

"Because of the negotiations," he said.

"Because of that, and because some just had rather on general principles that we didn't exist."

All the junior-juniors had gathered around. People wanted to blow up ships with kids on them. That was why the court had kept him off
Finity
. Maybe the court had saved his life. They talked about so many dead, the mothers of these three kids among them, dying in a decompression.

He didn't ask. He lined the fractious juniors up to go in and get the coats they were supposed to have. The cans were sitting outside on the dock, huge containers, the size of small rooms. The message to the section heads said something like fifteen hundred of those cans.

And they were going to transfer cargo from one to the next so they could be sure of the contents?

He'd never been inside a ship's hold. He'd only seen pictures. He went up the cargo personnel ramp, was glad to snatch a coat from the lockers beside the access and to see the juniors wrapped up, too, on the edge of a dark place with spotlights illuminating machinery, rows and rows of racks.

"Back there's hard vacuum," Jeremy said, pointing at another airlock with Danger written large in black and yellow. Machinery clanked and clashed as a can came in, swung along by a huge cradle. No place for kids, his head told him, but these three knew better than he did.

"You got to keep to the catwalks," Vince yelled over the racket, breath frosting against the glare and the dark. Vince slapped a thin rail. "Here's safe! Nothing'll hit you in the head! Lean over the edge, wham! loader'll take your head off!"

"Thanks for the warning," he said under his breath, and said to himself of all shipboard jobs he never wanted, cargo was way ahead of laundry or galley scrub. His feet were growing numb just from standing on the metal. Contact with the rail leached warmth from his gloved hands. The proximity of a metal girder was palpable cold on the right side of his face. "Colder than hell's hinges."

"You got a button in your pocket lining," Jeremy said, and he put his hand in and felt it. Heated coat. He found it a good thing.

They were mop-up, was what the duty sheet said. Every can had to be washed down and free of dust, as it paused before its trip into the hold. Cans that had been set down, behind the concealment of the hatch, had to be opened, the contents sampled, shifted to another can, and that can, its numbers re-recorded on the new manifest, then had to be picked up by the giant machinery, and shunted to
their
station while Parton and his aides were running the chemistry to prove it was two tons of dry yeast and nothing else.

The newly filled cans acquired dust in the process. Dust was the enemy of the machinery and it became a personal enemy. They took turns holding a flashlight to expose streaks on the surface, on which ice would form from condensation even yet, although the cold was drying the raw new air they'd pumped into the forward staging area. Ice slicked the catwalks, a rime hazardous as well as nuisanceful. Limbs grew wobbly with the cold, hands grew clumsy.

Fletcher called for relief and took the junior-juniors into the rest station to warm up with hot chocolate and sweet rolls and sandwiches, before it was back onto the line again.

"Wish we had that bubbly tub from Mariner," Jeremy said, cold-stung and red-nosed over the rim of his cup. "I'd sure use it tonight."

"I wish we had the desserts from Mariner," Vince said.

"You and your desserts," Linda said. "We'll have to roll you aboard like one of the cans."

"Not a chance," Vince said. "I'm working it all off. A working man needs a lot of calories."

"Man," Linda gibed. "Oh, listen to us now."

"Well, I
do
," Vince said.

Fletcher inhaled the steam off the hot chocolate and contemplated another trip out into the cold. He looked at the clock. They'd been on duty two hours.

They had four more to go.

The gathering in the Voyager Blue Section conference room was far smaller than at Mariner, hardbitten captains, two women, one man, who wanted to know why they'd been called, and what they had to do with
Finity's End
.

"Got no guns, no cash, nothing but the necessaries," the man in the trio said.

Carson was the name.
Hannibal
was the ship-name, a little freighter not on the Pell list of ordinary callers, but on Mariner's regulars: JR had memorized the list, had seen the -s- and question mark beside both
Hannibal
and Frye's
Jacobite
, the one that was sharing the sleepover with them. That -s- meant
suspect
.
Jacobite
did just a little too well, in their guesswork, to account for runs only between Mariner and Voyager and maybe Esperance at need, but Esperance was pushing it for a really marginal craft, no strain at all for
Finity's End
.

There was reason the small ships took to trading in the shadows, bypassing dock charges, maximizing profits.

"We hope," the Old Man began his assault, "that we have a good deal in the offing. We've got a problem, and we've got a solution, and let me explain the making-money part of it before I get to the cost. It's not going to be clear profit, but it's going to be a guarantee Voyager stays in business; it's going to mandate your ships keep their routes, as the ones that have kept Voyager solvent thus far. There's also going to be a repair fund, meaning credit available for the short-haulers. Mariner's backing it. So's Pell. Voyager stationmaster will speak for himself. We have a list of twenty-five small haulers that stay within this reach. Those ships will see protection."

"The cost."

"You serve this reach and you make a profit doing it. You keep the trade only on the docks and you pay the tariff."

"We pay the tariff,"
Hannibal
said.

"On all trades," the Old Man said, and there was a little silence. The captains liked the one part of it. Salvation for the small operator, vulnerable to downtime charges and repair charges, was inextricably linked to cession of ship's rights. Anathema.

"Who's going to say our competition pays the same?" That from
Jamaica
, captain Wells, whose eyes darted quickly from one side to the other in arguments. "Who's inspecting?
Finity
, arguing to let station inspectors on our decks?"

Difficult point, JR thought. Difficult answer, but the Old Man didn't pull the punches.

"They'll pay," the Old Man said, "because there'll be a watch on the jump points."

"No,"
Hannibal
said.

"You're supplying Mazian," the Old Man said, more blunt and more weary than he'd been at Mariner, and the captain of
Hannibal
sat back as JR registered a moment of alarm. "Not necessarily by intent," the Old Man said in the next second. "But that's where the black market's going, and that's why there's going to be a watch at those jump points. The money that's not going to the stations will have to get to the stations. And this is where the profit will be for
you
."

Totally different style with these hardbitten captains than the Old Man had used at Mariner. JR took mental notes.

"We have an agreement in principle by Voyager, and the stationmaster will be here within the hour to swear to it: there will be provision for ships that register Voyager as their home port. Uniform dock charges, to pump money into Voyager and do needed repair. More freight coming in, going out, more loads, more profitable goods…"

"Too good to be true,"
Jacobite
said. "What if we sign and we comply and here comes a big fancy ship, say,
Finity's
size…"

"
You
get preference on cargo. You're registered here.
You
load first."

"Voyager's going to
agree
to that?" Clear disbelief.

"Voyager
has
agreed to that."

"Way too good to be true,"
Jamaica
said. "Say I got a vane dusted to hell and gone, and I'm going to borrow money, get it fixed and the Alliance is going to come across with the money."

"In effect, yes."

"I'm already in hock to the bank."

"The idea is to preserve the ships that preserve this station. The Alliance is not going to let a ship go, not yours, not any ship registered here. Fair charges, fair taxes, stations build up and modernize and so do the ships that serve them. You may have seen a Union ship go through here in the last few days. That did happen. The Union border is getting soft. Union trade will come through, possibly back through the Hinder Stars again."

There was alarm. The smaller ships couldn't make a jump like that. Then
Jamaica
said:

"They open and they shut and they open, I don't ever bet on the Hinder Stars. Waste of money."

"It's getting to be a good bet, at least for the Earth trade.

Chocolate. Tea. Coffee. Exotics of all sorts. Cyteen's two accesses to trade are Mariner and Esperance. Voyager is right in the middle. If Esperance opened up a second access to the Hinder Stars and on to Earth, Voyager could be in a position to funnel goods along the corridor to Mariner, in a damned lucrative trade competing with Pell's Earth route. If you survive the transition. That's the plan. Shut down the black market, cut Mazian out of deals and the local merchanters in."

There was consideration. There were thinking frowns, and a general pouring of real coffee, which
Finity
had provided for the meeting. JR moved to assist, and Bucklin set down a second pot to follow the first.

They were working as hard to sell three scruffy short-haulers on the plan as they'd worked to sell far larger ships on the concept.

But these ships were the black marketeers, the shadow traders. This
was
Mazian's pipeline, among the others, and these captains were beginning to listen, and to run sums in their heads in the very shrewd way they'd dealt heretofore to keep their small ships going.

They wouldn't say, aloud, we'll try to do both, comply and maintain ties with Mazian. JR had the feeling that was exactly the thought in their heads.

But half compliance was better than no compliance, and half might become whole, if the system began to work.

He went outside to bring in another platter of doughnuts.
Hannibal's
capacity for doughnuts was considerable, and
Jacobite's
captain, in the habit of common spacers at buffet tables, had pocketed two.

"Loading's going smoothly," Bucklin found time to say. "We've moved ahead of schedule on that. But fueling's going to take the time. The pump's not that fast."

"Figured," JR said, and had. The high-speed pumps at Pell and Mariner were post-war. Practically nothing on Voyager was, except the missile defenses.

To a place like this, ships, if they would forego the shadow trade and pay standardized dock charges, offered more than a shot in the arm. Ships to follow them brought a transfusion of lifeblood to Voyager, which until now had seen ships just as soon trade in the dark of the jump-points as stay in its dingy sleepovers and spend money in its overpriced amusements. In the War, the honest trade had gotten thinner still, as Union had taken exception to merchanters supplying the Fleet and tried to cut off Voyager, as a pipeline to Mazian's Fleet.

It had been one hell of a position for station and merchanters to be in, and one which Alliance merchanters resolved never to get into again. Abandon Voyager? Let Esperance slide into Cyteen's control?

No. Starting from a blithe ignorance at Pell, JR had acquired a keen understanding of the reasons why small, moribund Voyager was a key piece in keeping Esperance in the Alliance, and keeping trade going between Mariner and Esperance inside Alliance space.

He knew now that Quen's deal about the ship she wanted to build would put her in complete agreement with the position other Alliance captains had to take: new merchant ships were useless if all trade ebbed toward Cyteen; and shoring up Voyager would protect Pell's territory more effectively than the launch of another Fleet.

That was why they'd agreed with her. The danger to the merchant trade now was in fact less the Fleet than a resurgence of Union shipbuilding with the clear aim of driving merchanters out of business.

So Voyager fish farms and an infusion of money to refurbish the Voyager docks were part and parcel of the new strategy. Voyager could become a market, a waystation: a station, given the wide gulf between itself and the Hinder Stars, that might revive the Hinder Stars for a third try at life, if they could establish a handful of ships capable of making that very long transit.

If the Hinder Stars could awake for a third incarnation free of pirate activity, there was a future for the smaller merchanters after all.

Get Voyager functioning, the Fleet cut off, Union agreeing not to compete with Alliance merchanters and get Union financial interests on the side of that merchanter traffic, and they had the disarmament verification problem solved. Alliance merchanters threaded through Union space, every pair of merchanter eyes and every contact with a Union station (to some minds in Union) as good as a Fleet spy recording their sensitive soft spots. But odd to say, they felt a lot the same about Union ships carrying cargo into Mariner and Viking. There were Unionside merchanters, honest merchanter Families whose routes had just happened to lie all inside Union territory, and who now got more favorable docking charges and privileges and state cargoes now that those ships had come out and joined the Alliance.

To his personal knowledge none of those Families had succumbed to Union influence and none would knowingly take aboard a Union operative. But love happened, and you could never be sure there wasn't some stationer spouse of some fourteenth-in-line scan tech on a ship berthed next to you whose loyalties were suspect and who might be gathering data hand over fist.

That was the bright new age they'd entered.

He saw the years in which he might hold command on the bridge as a strange new age, a time of balances and forces held in check.

With less and less place for the skills of the War. The Old Man, who remembered the long-ago peace, had shown him at least the map of that future territory—and it was like nothing either of them had ever seen.