20 Sina 1117: Kupakii – Tlianke/Hinterworlds (0101 C654352-A S 905 Cs K4 IV M8 D)
I spent most of the morning dealing with cargo. Managed to get a reasonable price for most of it and a few leads on the rest. Most of the freight had also been picked up, so I went ahead and announced Gimisapun as our next stop. It was a regular destination for ships on the Alike Run, so we were hardly the only ship available, but still offers and passengers should start showing up over the next few days.
I also looked at a few spec cargoes. Mostly specialty foodstuffs, that’s what they produced here after all, but I grabbed the usual set of entertainment chips and even a few tons of “glacial water.” We were going to an asteroid belt, after all.
I was about to stop for the morning and go out in search of something to eat when my comm beeped. I glanced at it and frowned then accepted the call.
“I figured you would call me when you were ready,” I said.
“And I had expected a call from you much earlier,” said Dr. Korvusar. “Until now, you have been eager to seek information from me. Perhaps your reconciliation with Lieutenant Denan has changed your priorities?”
“That was never a factor,” I said. “I had known something was going on with you, and it somehow tied into what was going on around us. I wanted to know what it was. Now I know. So I saw no need to intrude on your time off. Or on. Or… whatever you are doing.”
“I am enjoying my downtime on the planet, Captain. What else would I be doing?”
“You tell me,” I said with a sigh. I paused. “I do owe you a favor, I guess. Commander Winters didn’t exactly like the way we handled the situation with the Gortors. Apparently, she thinks I should have been executed for interfering with an Imperial Knight. I guess helping an Imperial Baroness at the same time helped.”
“Commander Winters needs to stop following her orders so strictly,” she replied. “You would have thought someone in the Scout Service would know the need for flexibility. I suspect she has spent her entire career in the administrative branch.”
“Probably,” I said. I thought for a moment. “I’ve posted our next jump; we’re heading over to Gimisapun. I have to ask; are you still with us?”
“Of course, Captain. I’ve spent too much time with you to abandon you now. I’ll send my passage over as soon as this call is completed.”
“OK, sure,” I said frowning. Did I still want her on board? Actually, yes. As long as she kept pulling rank in our favor as she had done here, I would be an idiot to turn her down.
“Good. Was there anything else we needed to discuss?”
I frowned. “You seemed to know Jestin. Or, at least you knew something about him. He gave me a contact here, but when I went to meet him, no one knew who he was. Any ideas?”
There was a slight pause. “No, not really. Unless something happened to him that Jestin had not heard about yet.”
“Yeah. I just hope we aren’t being played here.”
“You certainly don’t believe that, do you, Captain? I believe I have clearly demonstrated my trust.”
I shook my head even though she couldn’t see me. “No, no. I wasn’t talking about you. I meant Jestin. Maybe he thought that by talking to someone else I was untrustworthy and so sent me on a wild swilder chase. That’s all.”
There was a pause. “No. From everything you have said you have done nothing that he should have found objectionable. There must be another factor involved.”
“Whatever. I’m just going to head to Gimisapun, then head rimward. I’ll be happy to put all this behind me.”
“Rimward? You are heading towards Solomani space?”
“Yes and no. The Solomani are rimward, but they’ll be turning towards the Imperium. One of them anyway. They’ve maintained a balance out here because this is a somewhat independent area. But now that the various Imperiums are pulling their fleets back towards their core sectors? They’ll try to recover the sectors they lost in the Rim War. Watch. They’ll probably actually pull back from the Hinterworlds.”
“You’re… probably right in that assessment,” she said. “Though it troubles me personally; did you know that my Barony is in the Old Expanses? I worry about it.”
I sighed, nodding. “I didn’t even know you were a Baroness but… yeah, I understand.”
“I’ve been gone for a long time…” she said. I could tell from the tone of her voice that she wasn’t talking to me; just talking out loud. “My sister is there. She’s been handling the family holdings all these years. But… I don’t know what she will do when the Solomani fleets arrive.”
I hesitated. I knew too well what she was feeling. Well… as well as I could from a 16-year-old’s point of view. “Do you want to go back?”
She hesitated. “No,” she said finally. “If it is a choice between Atil and the Imperium? Or Humaniti? I know where my greater responsibility lies.”
“Still, that’s a tough choice,” I said. “I’m glad I never had to make it.”
“You did,” she said flatly.
“My father did,” I snapped in return. “I just had to live with the after-effects.”
“You could have changed those.”
“No!” I snapped. “That’s… Besides, that was a long time ago. All I care about now is my crew and my ship. OK? Let’s leave what was in the past.”
There was a long silence.
Finally, she spoke. “For what it is worth; I think your father made the right decision. Just like I hope Commander Winters makes the right decision here.”
“You leave all of that out of this. That was… a long time ago.’
“But you have to see the parallel.”
“Yes, I do!” I snapped. “The Imperium will always protect its trade. How often have I said that? And Empress Margaret, who is who we have to deal with here in case you haven’t noticed, owes her fortune to trade. So… don’t expect anything to change.”
There was a pause. “Things can always change.”
“Yeah. I hope so too.”
A longer pause. “Captain, I can assure you that, in my opinion at least, you are doing the best job you can possibly be doing in these unfortunate times.”
I frowned. “Yeah, right. And who cares. Do you have any actual suggestions?”
“Captain, I am trying to tell you…”
“That you know too much about my family and think that I should do something based on what happened 30 years ago? Forget it. We leave in 5 days. See you then.” I clicked off the comm.
I sat there for a while. What did Dr. Korvusar know. And what was she up to anyway? I sighed. I still couldn’t bring myself to turn down her passage every jump. And if her being with us was important enough to us that she would pull rank every now-and-then? So much the better.
I stood up. I had been in my room for too long. I needed to be somewhere.
I wound up in a place called Vikkainisha, which I was later told was a Vilani word that meant “remembering a place long gone.” Which was more appropriate than I would have expected.
I had stayed underground and just looked for a place that seemed a bit out-of-the-way. Vikkainisha was it. It looked to be more geared towards food than drink, but the food came from a long counter in the back and there was a small bar near the front. I headed for the bar.
There were a pair of locals near the middle and another non-human like the one I had seen in Mayor Moraz’ office at one end. The food counter was packed. I took the opposite end of the bar and sat down.
The bartender showed up almost immediately. “Want something?” He asked.
“Sure. Can I eat here?”
“I suppose,” He said. “You’ll still have to go to the counter to pick it up.”
I frowned, then shrugged. “I’ll wait for the crowd to clear. So… what’s your best local?”
“Local what?”
I frowned again. “Beer?”
He laughed. “OK, sure. Hang on.” He left and returned a minute later with a glass. “Try this.”
I picked it up and took a sip. It was pungent, which I was expecting, but it also… wasn’t bad…
I took a longer drink. “Not quite what I expected,” I said. “But not bad.” I paused. “Do you put spice on everything here?”
He laughed at that. “Yeah, I asked the same thing when I first got here. It’s… inevitable. The spices here–they’re a kind of algae, actually–only grow out on the ice. It’s a thin layer. A film, basically. No way to harvest it mechanically; you can only really peel it off with your bare hands. So pretty much everyone here is exposed to the stuff all the time. They can’t really taste it or even realize it’s there. But leave it out? They completely feel that something is missing.”
“Wait…” I thought a few seconds. “This stuff isn’t addictive, is it?”
He shrugged while giving me a slight smile. “Yeah, the off-worlders are the ones who get messed up by it the most. They leave and… just kinda want to come back, you know? And their off-world markets? They keep ordering. More. Everyone needs their ‘Kupakii Spice.'”
I frowned. “Got it.” I shoved the glass back across the bar to him. “Just bring me a Galactose Intolerance.”
“Don’t like our local stuff?” he asked with a noticeable lack of sincerity.
I shrugged. “I just like what I’m used to.”
He laughed. “Yeah, got it. Coming right up.” He took the glass and left.
A few minutes later, I had my beer and was looking at the line at the food counter when someone came and sat down next to me. I turned to see the non-human that had been on the other end of the bar.
“You have something against Jarishki?” it asked.
I shook my head. “What? No!”
“So you just accidentally tried to sit as far from me as you could?”
I shook my head again. “No! I had some work to do. I was going to do. I… was just looking to do some work and wanted somewhere other than my room to hang out in.”
It nodded its head. Well, its entire body. It didn’t really have a neck, so the best it could do was kind of a bob. “Yeah, yeah, sure. Got it.”
I turned away and made a point of looking at my comp. Still, it wouldn’t give up. “You really are an idiot, you know,” it said, speaking more quietly and leaning towards me.
“Hey!” I said, pulling back.
It… he, shook his body. “Oh, a big human now. Want to start something?”
I looked around to see several people staring at us. I shook my head.
“No. Fine. Whatever. Go do… whatever it is you do. I have a beer to drink.”
He smirked. “Yeah.” He turned away and headed for the exit, but I heard him say “Stupid humans.” loudly enough that others could hear him as he left.
I turned back to the bar and sat down. The bartender was looking at me.
“Sorry,” I said as I returned to my seat. “Didn’t expect someone to get in my face like that.”
He shook his head. “Yeah, he’s a Jarishki. A group of them showed up several years ago and set up a couple of farms down on the southern continent. For the most part, they stay down there and out of the way. But, a few of them come in from time to time to sell their spices. A lot of the farmers don’t like them because they’re cold-adapted and can handle the conditions here a lot better than us humans can. But Mayor Moraz accepts them; more farmers mean more tax revenue, you know.”
I frowned. “Are there problems with them?”
He waggled his hand. “Not really. Some people get a bit belligerent if they’ve had a few too many, but that’s about it.” He frowned. “Actually… I don’t think I’ve ever seen one of them get onto someone like that. Did you do anything to tick him off?”
I shook my head. “Never saw him before. Actually, I never met one of them at all before yesterday. Where are they from?”
He shrugged. “Someplace called Arishk. Near Hiver space. Not sure beyond that. The Scout Commander doesn’t really like them; thinks they’re Hiver spies.”
“What do you think?”
He shrugged again. “If they’re spies, they have the most boring assignment possible. Not much is going on here.”
“Maybe they like the quiet.”
“Good for them,” he said with a grunt. “I’m ready to get out of here.”
I raised an eyebrow at that. “Oh? Looking for a ship?”
He laughed. “Why, you know one?”
“I own one.” I stuck out my hand. “Derek Kodai, Captain of the Free Trader Grayswandir.”
He shook my hand. “Gavin Hars. I’d take you up on it but… I can’t afford a real passage yet, and I won’t go in one of those freezers.”
“Don’t blame you,” I said, nodding. “We don’t even have those things on board.”
“Yeah, I…” He stopped. “Wait! The Gray Swan? You’re the ship that got fired on, then escorted in by the Boilingbrook Navy!”
I smiled slightly. “Um… yeah. That was us. And it’s the Grayswandir.”
He frowned. “What? Oh! Yeah well, you were all over the news-nets the other day! They haven’t had a ship attack since I’ve been here. It was kind of exciting; there usually isn’t that much going on.”
“Oh?” I thought. I hadn’t thought to look at the news-nets since landing. “What… what did they say about us?”
He shrugged. “That you were transporting some kind of Boilingbrook VIP and apparently the other ship was trying to kill him. And you, obviously. The people on Boilingbrook must have thought they were sneaking him in on a Free Trader. Guess they were wrong.”
I frowned. “Did they say anything about what had happened on our ship earlier?”
“No?” He shook his head, thinking. “No, not really. Just that you had a VIP on-board. Why? What happened?”
I almost started into the details, then stopped. If the official word wasn’t out yet, then I wasn’t going to start rumors. Instead, I just shrugged. “Just… do you know what it is like having to keep a VIP happy for a week in Jumpspace?”
“Yeah, I can imagine,” he said, laughing. “I have enough trouble keeping people happy for a few hours in a bar.”
“Yeah, you’d handle a Free Trader pretty well.”
He nodded. “So… want another? And do you want something to eat?”
I frowned. “Sure. And I thought I had to go to the counter.”
“I can handle it.”
The menu was a bit limited, but I eventually ordered a sandwich and some tama leaves. He left, and I started thinking. Winters had apparently not publicized that Sir Gortor had been on-board, that there had been a hijacking/assassination attempt, and that Sir Gortor was dead. I didn’t know if that was more of Dr. Korvusar’s interference or not. Still… news would get out eventually; too many people knew what had happened. Hells, Mayor Moraz knew. At some point, everyone would know.
How would Scout Commander Winters react to that? When everyone on Kupakii knew that someone had tried to prevent the treaty between them and Boilingbrook and that she wanted to block it.
I almost felt sorry for her at that point. Almost.
The food came, and I started eating while reviewing the latest news on my comp. Most of our cargo had now sold, and we had a request for a pair of middle passages; what looked like a couple of local merchants. Trying to get a regular trade run set up, I suspected. Given that most Belters were probably living on something that had been through the fabricator multiple times some spices to add to it would probably be a good sale. I thought for a moment of staying and making a few trade cycles, then shook my head.
I was a Free Trader. No local run for me. I was heading on. I did bump the amount of spice I was looking for, though, and the price I would pay for it. No point in missing an opportunity.
I looked up and around, then frowned. Something had been bothering me, and I suddenly realized what it was.
I waved at Gavin, and he came over. “What do you need?”
I gestured around. “You don’t have wall screens?” There hadn’t been any at the Frozen Dawn when we first landed, but that was an “outdoor” pavilion, and I wouldn’t have expected them there. But, now that I thought about it, there hadn’t been any in the Rusty Stanchion yesterday, and now there were none here. That went against the design of just about every Startown bar I had ever been in.
He shrugged. “Nope. No one pays any attention to them. Most sophonts here like to keep to themselves, or just hang out with their friends or families. No one pays that much attention to what is going on out-system, and if they do care, they just check up on the local newsnet. No need to have it in their face all the time.”
I nodded. “OK. Yeah. I’m not sure if I can’t understand that at all or if I understand it way too well.”
He laughed. “Yeah. You’re Imperial, right? I guess I wouldn’t want to check the news lately either.”
I hesitated. “Well… the Grayswandir is Imperial registry. I’m actually from coreward of here, up in the Glimmerdrift.”
“Oh. OK.” He shrugged again. “Most traders out here are Imperial, Ral Rantan, or with the Coalition. I just assumed…”
I waved my hand. “As I said, we are. Technically. Doesn’t matter where I came from originally.”
“Why’d you leave?”
I thought of several answers, then smiled and raised my eyebrows. “You aren’t from here either, right?”
He laughed. “Yeah, you got me there. I guess I get it.” He hesitated. “Must be nice, having your own ship like that.”
I smiled a bit more at that. “Yeah. Yeah. It has its own challenges sometimes but… Yeah. It’s nice.”
He shook his head. “Sweet. I hope to get on a ship someday.”
“Why don’t you?” I asked. I gestured around. “If you can run a bar, then a lot of ships would love to have you as a Steward. Just be aware, it’s a lot less glamorous than it seems on the net-vids.”
He laughed. “Yeah, I can imagine.” He started to turn away then paused, seeming lost in thought. He turned back.
“You aren’t actually looking for a Steward, are you?”
I winced. “Sorry… no. I didn’t mean to…”
He waved a hand. “No, that’s OK. It’s cool. I just…” He appeared lost in thought again. “It’s just that I never actually thought of that. Do you… do you think a ship would actually hire me?”
I almost laughed at that. “Seriously? Do you know how hard it is to find people who want to be Travellers? It sounds glamorous. Luxurious. ‘Go where you want, when you want. And no dress code!’. That’s what the net-vids say, right?”
“It isn’t like that. Well… yeah. For some people, it is. For most of us? It’s going to the next world to see if we can make enough credits to make it to the one after that. It’s work. Some people… some people don’t get that.”
He was nodding at me. “Oh, I get it, yeah. Been running bars for almost 10 standard years now. Or hauling around cargo crates. Or even acting intimidating for some local VIP when it seems to be the best choice. It gets me around.”
“Yeah, whatever works. But… check with the ship’s captains who come in. One of them will have something.”
He shrugged. “We don’t get a lot of you down here.”
“Oh?”
He shrugged again. “As I said, most of the locals aren’t very outgoing. Ship’s crews typically hit a few bars here, realize that no one really wants to talk to them, then head back to the Scout base.”
I was surprised at that. “They’ve got a place to stay there?”
“They’ve got a hostel. Not much, really.” He frowned. “No one told you that?”
I shook my head. “We… had a few problems when we landed. We aren’t the most popular crew over there.”
He frowned at that. “You must have really done something to piss them off. The Scouts usually love the traders here.” He paused. “Much more than they like the locals, anyway.”
I nodded. “You know, I can see that. We… didn’t think that way. That’s probably one of the reasons why they didn’t think too highly of us.”
He smiled a bit at that. “Well… glad to hear not everyone in the Imperium looks down on us locals.”
I shook my head. “Not everyone does. In fact, I would have thought that hardly anyone did.” I frowned. “What does Commander Winters say about us?”
He raised his hands. “Beats me, but she keeps most of the off-worlders away from the colony. Not sure why.”
I wondered what I should share. “From what I’ve heard… she was trying to keep you isolated.”
“What! Why?”
I grimaced a bit. “The Imperium… likes everyone out here disjointed. If you started forming a larger coalition, then their influence in the sector would be reduced. They can’t allow that.”
He frowned. “OK, yeah. I get that. But… why us? We’re an isolated ag planet.”
I hesitated. How much did I really want to reveal? “Yes, but you produce a product that sells well off-world. Extremely well. Specialty goods like your local spices go for several times as much as other agricultural products. You may have a small population, but you have a disproportionately high level of economic impact. That’s why the Scout base is here. The Imperium… wants to make sure you stay on their side.”
He shook his head. “We’re independent.”
I shook mine in return. “Kupakii is an Imperial Client State. Mayor Moraz takes his orders from Commander Winters.” I hesitated. “For now, anyway.”
“What do you mean?”
I shrugged. “I’m probably already talking out of turn, but… I learned a few things from that VIP passenger. You’ll probably hear about it, sooner than later. Beyond that… I probably shouldn’t say anything.”
He narrowed his eyes. “You’ve been saying a lot.”
I shrugged again. “Yeah. I’ve been drinking a lot too.” I held up my empty glass. “Another?”
He hesitated, then nodded. “Sure.” He turned away and pulled another beer.
When he returned it to me, I nodded then busied myself in my comp. He watched for a moment, then left to tend to another customer. I was a bit annoyed at myself. I had said more than I had really planned, or what I really should have. I shrugged. I had been at the meeting between Mayor Moraz and Minister Trakon. The treaty was being signed. I was surprised that it hadn’t been announced yet. Which meant that something else would be happening. Soon.
Hopefully, it would be a few more days before whatever was going to happen did, and we would be safely away in Jumpspace by then. But with the way my luck had been going lately… that wouldn’t happen.
I drained my last beer and waved for my tab. I would be glad to be out of here.