Counterweight (12 page)

Callum took another sip.

Family. Kids.

None of it had seemed important when he was a young man on Earth,
struggling against what he’d thought to be an evil administration. Oh, sure,
the government had been up to a lot that he still didn’t approve of but they’d
been telling the truth about the aliens.

Most of the people who’d made up that government were long
dead – killed in the plague that wiped out most of the planetary population.
The Humans who survived were effectively a new species.

He still wasn’t welcome among decent folk. Most of the
original Alliance crews could remember, first hand, his role in nearly
crippling the Human war effort. It wasn’t surprising that he had a closer
connection to the aliens he was sent here to manipulate into revolt.

Cal shoved the mug across the table. He looked down at the
half-empty drink for a few seconds until, with a quiet sigh, he stood up and
walked away.

The
Foxlight II,
Chaco
Benthic

R
ick
woke to the sound of a loud humanoid voice. It took him several seconds to
realize he was aboard the
Foxlight II
’s small shuttle and not in the
jungles of 3428. It took even longer to sort out that the voice was speaking in
Dheema, the official language of orbital control throughout the Republic.

He had no trouble understanding it – the pod system on the
Canal
had implanted it along with his engineering knowledge – but it was confusing to
wake up hearing a language other than your own.

“
Foxlight II,
this is Orbital Control, Chaco Benthic.
We’re reading heavy damage to your vessel. Do you require assistance?”

Heavy damage was an accurate enough assessment.  The
bridge was unusable. The hull breaches were only half the problem. A third of
the workstations had been smashed by enemy fire and Rick had been obliged to
improvise.

He’d realized the only places on the ship that still had
atmosphere were the two shuttles. From there, it was a small leap of
imagination to realize he could slave the bridge controls to one of the
shuttles and operate the ship in relative comfort.

He had launched the small craft and attached it to the
underside of the mother ship’s nose, locking the ventral escape chambers of the
vessels to provide easy access between the two. After a fifteen-hour marathon
of wiring, he had a working control link and the
Foxlight II
jumped back
into distortion with her jury-rigged bridge.

And he’d found a hidden store of spicewood under the
shuttle’s deck plating. Probably the last of the stolen wood from his home
world. At least the raiders had left him with something.

 He shook the cobwebs out of his mind, scrambled into
the pilot’s seat and activated the manual controls. “Orbital Control, Benthic –
this is
Foxlight II
. We were hit by raiders two days ago. The captain
and crew are dead; I’m the only survivor.” His Dheema was flawless, if a bit
formal. “Request permission to dock.”

“Permission to dock your shuttle at
chinef
42.”

Something felt wrong. Rick could see at least four dozen
large ships – some larger than his – docked at the station. “Stand by, Orbital
Control.” He muted his out-going link.

He was a military officer – kind of – and he’d been trained
in applicable legal matters. Republic law regarding rights of salvage was
standard fare and even the crew of the
Canal
had the knowledge installed
in their minds.

He’d never needed to use it, however, and the specifics were
a little hazy. Nonetheless, he knew an abandoned vessel was free for the
taking, regardless of whether you were in Earth orbit or Republic space. If
they could trick him into detaching the shuttle and docking, the ship would
fall out of his control.

So how much was this sieve worth in salvage? He gave her a
professional appraisal as a ship’s engineer and realized she was in far better
shape than she looked. The fusion, pitch and distortion drives were all in good
working order and the bridge controls wouldn’t be hard to repair. Buy a few new
capacitors and repair the hull breaches and you had yourself a perfectly good
ship.

“
Foxlight II
, this is Orbital Control, Benthic.
Confirm docking gate.”

Rick ignored the intrusion. This was where the crew was
headed, so there were probably relatives down on the planet. Under Republic
law, if he put in at a world where others could claim ownership, it reduced his
share by half.

If he left the ship, all shares would revert to the
planetary government. The family would get nothing and he’d be dirt poor on an
alien world. Not a good option.

The specifics of Republic salvage law were flooding back
into focus now, including the accepted norms and customs of pressing a claim.
It was amazing how effective pod training was in practical use. He unmuted his output
channel.

“Orbital Control, Benthic, this is
Foxlight II
. I
formally request notification be provided to the vessel’s owner or next-of-kin.
Please inform them that I will wait at holding coordinates until negotiations
are concluded.” He sat back in the chair, knowing what the response would be,
but not sure what it indicated.

“
Foxlight II
, Orbital Control, Benthic. We’re going
to send an inspector aboard before notifying the next-of-kin.”

It felt like the controller was playing for time. Rick
probed for a few seconds, bombarding the alien with unasked questions. It
seemed the orbital tether was instrumental when it came to inserting orbital
controllers into salvage situations as middle-men.

The ride down was relatively cheap but the ride back up was hideously
expensive. That fact alone tended to keep wary travelers from visiting but
there were still plenty who fell into the trap.

More to the point, the high price provided work for salvage
brokers. The brokers lived on the counterweight, a massive former troopship
repurposed as the spaceward end of the carbon nanotube tether. From the
counterweight, elevators carried freight and passengers to the underwater city.

The agents saved owners the high cost of travelling to the counterweight.
For a small percentage, they provided the legally required face-to-face
negotiation with salvagers.

If the controller was forced to notify the next-of-kin, an
agent would be hired and the controller would lose a lucrative chance. 
Rick grinned. The controller’s problem was the solution to Rick’s own dilemma.
He couldn’t allow anyone aboard until the deal was struck but he couldn’t leave
the ship to negotiate or she’d be declared abandoned. “Orbital Control,
Benthic,
Foxlight II
. I need someone to act as my agent in this matter.
Would you be willing to sell my share to the family’s broker?”

He almost laughed at the controller’s rampant greed. He knew
what was coming and already had his response ready.

‘It’s irregular,” the controller lied smoothly, “but I could
do it for fifty percent.”

Rick had already explored his idea by floating dozens of
unasked questions for the controller. Five percent was the norm, though it
varied. “I was thinking along the lines of ten,” Rick replied. “But it sounds like
we’re too far apart on this. I’ll just break contact and ping for the next
available controller. Maybe I’ll offer them twenty.”

“No need for that,” the controller assured him hurriedly.
“Twenty will be fine.”

“No,” Rick corrected. “I said I would offer you ten. Twenty
is what I’d offer to a controller who didn’t try to empty my pockets.” He
waited until he knew the other was about to speak before he continued. “I
believe the standard is five percent in cases like this…”

“All right, ten,” the controller said, though he didn’t
sound terribly disappointed. It was still a lucrative deal for him. “Is there
any cargo aboard?”

Rick could feel the man’s reluctance to name the cargo of
this ship. He decided to remain vague about its nature, reasonably sure he was
dealing with someone who knew what the
Foxlight II
had been carrying.
“Taken by the raiders,” he replied, “but there
is
still twelve hundred
w.u. of
cargo
aboard the shuttles.”

He could almost hear the gears turning as the controller
worked out the value.

“Excellent!” the alien enthused. “That’s worth almost half
the value of the ship! Give me a deca-day and I’ll have your money ready for
you.”

Rick made good use of the time. He backed into the
sani-locker and parked his EVA suit against the holding plate. The myriad
surfaces of the suit folded open and he stepped out, turning to watch the
locker door slide shut. In ten minutes, the suit would be cleaner than new.

He headed for the locker’s humanoid equivalent, a sealed
chamber that sprayed a mist from almost every direction. Within minutes, he was
clean and dry, and so was his suit. It was a good thing because he had no other
clothes, except for the skins he had been wearing when he’d snuck aboard.

He walked into the cockpit and sat down to have a good look
at the station. It was a standard Dactari troopship, roughly the size of a
Human-built carrier like the
Canal
but far more boxy. An untrained eye
wouldn’t know that, of course, because the recycled ship now had a wide variety
of docking wings attached, concealing its original shape.

A massive ring-shield generator clung to the bottom surface
of the vessel with a large carbon filament descending through the middle. 
Repeater rings focused and strengthened the shielded corridor at regular
intervals. The entire assembly dwindled to a thin, blurred line before becoming
lost in the haze of the planetary atmosphere below.

He leaned forward, squinting at a hint of motion. An
elevator resolved into view, climbing at an incredible speed. As it approached
the station, it slowed gradually before sliding past the shield generator and
out of sight.

He expected a long pause before seeing the elevator again
but he was surprised to see it dropping back to the planet within seconds.
Before he could get beyond the surprise, his ‘agent’ called him back.

He sounded very excited, which Rick took as a good sign.
Their current goals were aligned, after all.

“Two hundred thirty-eight thousand Imperial Credits,” he
announced proudly.

“That good, huh?” Rick was shocked by the response he knew
his comment would trigger.

“Best commission I’ve ever made!”

If the
commission
was that much, Rick was looking at
more than two million for himself. He quietly queried and found that the
controller only earned eighty thousand credits a year, meaning Rick was sitting
on a skilled employee’s lifetime earnings.

Not a bad start to his new life.

He docked the forward boarding portal of the shuttle with
the station. When the heavy door slid out of the way, the orbital controller
and the owner’s agent were both standing there. The controller was a Dactari
but the salvage agent could have been a Human, for all Rick could tell.

“Welcome to Chaco Benthic,” the controller said with a
smile. He held out a hand, a small silver chip between his fingers. “Try not to
spend it all in one place.”

Rick took the chip and stepped across the threshold seconds
before the agent would have given in to his impatience.

Rick had to step off the ship before the agent went aboard;
otherwise, there would have been complications in the transfer of ownership.
Get something like that wrong and the lawyers would wrangle over it for years,
leaving no value for the owners.

“You heading down to the city?” The controller nodded back
over his shoulder.

“Sure.” Rick had never set foot in a real city. He’d seen
them in images and videos but the only life he’d ever known was the little
Human enclave on 3428. He was intensely curious to explore a place where
millions of people lived out their lives.

“Tether’s this way.” The Dactari turned, extending a hand.
He led Rick down the companionway, turning onto a main thoroughfare.

Rick was pretty sure, from old design images, that this long
space had once housed one of the ship’s medium-caliber rail guns. Now, it was
filled with hundreds of people. Some of them were racing along a central pedway
while the rest were browsing the myriad shops that ranged along either side.

“Your Dheema is a little crusty,” the controller observed.
“Where’re you from?”

An easy chuckle. Rick knew the question was coming. “I’m
from a sour-gas ball of dirt out on the fringes. Doesn’t even show up on the
database.”

“How’d you fall in with G’Maj? Was he there trading?”

Rick knew why he was asking. G’Maj was bringing spicewood
here. If this controller could figure out where it came from, he’d be a rich
man.

“He wouldn’t tell me where he’d been,” Rick shrugged. “He
picked up our distress call after we got hit by raiders. I wasn’t the only one
that made it into an escape pod but I
was
the only one they didn’t use
for target practice.” He feigned an angry tone. “I drifted behind the wreckage
before they lost interest.”

“Fornicating vitros!” the Dactari snapped. “You wipe out one
nest of raiders and two more spring up the next day!”

“Well, hopefully, my luck’s changing.”

“I’d say it has.” A sidelong glance at the chip in Rick’s
hand.

They approached the breech end of what used to be the rail
gun and the corridor opened onto the massive open space. The center of the
chamber was dominated by the tether system’s docking carrousel.

The controller led Rick past a long line of waiting
passengers. A guard at the front of the line opened a gate with a nod to Rick’s
guide. 

“Well, here we are.” The controller waved a hand up at the
huge capsule, sitting ten meters away from the tether. “Front of the line for
you! Don’t worry about the cost; I’ll cover the ride.” He grinned as an
elevator slid into view. “It’s the least I can do, seeing how rich you’ve made
me!”