Sister Time lota-9 Read online

  “Obviously, this would normally be a minor annoyance and profit loss,” she continued. “The Epetar ship would simply skip its next stop and jump directly to its third scheduled port of call. This is where the human plan against Epetar would ordinarily fail. Because of Epetar’s gross lack of wisdom, we will help the plan to succeed. The Epetar ship will also be late for its third port of call. This is the reason for your assignment.

  “Remember, for purposes of the station’s employment log, you have just debarked from the ship High Margins. With your orders from me, neither the ship’s real crew nor the station’s crew will gossip or pry. The station master is Aem Beilil. You will convey my message to him to expedite the loading of Gistar shipping and delay the loading of Epetar shipping, and to do so unobtrusively. He is to discreetly facilitate the operations of humans with the replacement cargo, who will stall the loading of the Epetar ship after it is irrevocably committed. The humans will most likely seem sincere but incompetent. This is not to put him off dealing with them. They are neither. Do you have any questions about your assignment?” The question was rhetorical. The instructions were clear.

  “Mentat O’Neal,” the young Indowy asked tentatively, “isn’t the Epetar Group the one that holds your contract for—”

  “This decision comes from those far wiser than myself,” she said, holding the little green Galactic’s eyes until his ears narrowed in embarrassment at his own presumption. The only people who would ordinarily be considered wiser than a mentat — any mentat — would be major clan heads or Tchpth policy planners. Michelle would never have involved herself in large-scale Galactic politics without the sanction of higher authority. Wxlcht’s seemingly casual comments over a game of aethal would, in the military, have amounted to a direct order. In the hierarchy of established Galactic wisdom, almost everyone took the “suggestions” of Tchpth planners of any rank very seriously indeed. She did not like to think that personal friendship might have colored such a major decision, but was not about to let minor misgivings divert her from following the considered advice of someone whose wisdom was as far above her own as hers was above — well, above her sister’s, for example.

  “We will be going now.” She took his hand, then released it as they appeared in a purplish-brown maintenance closet. The intense crowding in the destination space was unremarkable to him, but he did startle slightly at the abruptness of the transition. He only had an instant to blink before she was gone, leaving him alone with his new job.

  Cally was on the last leg of her morning five-mile run. With the buckley clipped to one hip and a supplemental speaker clipped to the other side, she had music that projected to her own ears in stereo with little leakage. The sound was a bit scratchy. The speaker was older than the girls, having been part of her shopping splurge on the moon after the escape from Titan Base. That is, before she found out Stewart was alive. After he’d tracked her down in a bar, valiantly trying to drown her sorrows, her stay had been a frenzy of activity as they found a priest, put him under seal of the confessional before enlisting his cooperation, got married secretly, and stole precious private moments. All of this had had to be managed as she gave the performance of her life for Granpa and Tommy, moping around and pretending to be heartbroken and bereaved, slipping away here and there for a few hours on the pretext of shopping and long walks alone through the endless, anonymous corridors of Heinlein Base. The corridor she’d seen the most was a rent by the hour strip in the red light district where she and Stewart had snatched a furtive, rushed, passionate, and pitifully brief honeymoon.

  On returning to Earth, she had found through experimentation that a heavy-duty workout schedule would keep about twenty pounds of Sinda fat off without her having to constantly starve herself. Twenty pounds less helped. A lot. So she ran, she lifted weights, she swam, and she danced. While the girls were at school, she fit as much general training in as she could around the normal martial drills — unarmed combat, shooting, climbing. She hated the climbing. Her morning run was the workout she enjoyed most, next to her dancing.

  The morning was cold, doubly so with the wind blowing off the ocean. She wore longjohns under her jeans. Without them, she would have frozen in just the worn denim, the wind biting right through the holes in one knee and around her back pockets and belt loops. Her breath frosted in a small puff that trailed away as she ran through it.

  The next moment she was on her ass on the ground, having crashed into her sister.

  “Ouch.” Michelle said, rubbing the back of her neck. “Are you usually unaware of your surroundings?”

  “Unaware? You weren’t there, and then you were. I was watching the dunes and the shoreline, okay?” The blonde grimaced, brushing sand off her jeans. “What do you need?”

  “That is the right question. I will use the vernacular to make sure you understand me the first time. I need to know about your husband. Spill it.”

  “What husband?” Cally asked, too quickly.

  “I do not have time for this. I have more than enough to do on my end. Your former lover, now husband, James Stewart, is alive and getting himself involved in high level Galactic politics. You know it, and I need the details. Tell them to me,” she said.

  “I’d love to know how you found that out. Not that it’s any of your business. And I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about with the Galactic politics line. You know talking about this could get us both killed, right?”

  “No, it is failing to talk about it that could get us killed,” the mentat said solemnly.

  “I meant him and me ‘us,’ ” Cally grumbled.

  “Oh. Why would you tolerate association with humans that would — nevermind. I need you to tell me the details of his plotting.”

  “Not that I’m not doing everything I can to keep you alive, but to help you I need more information about what you want to know and why,” the assassin said, breath frosting the air as she panted.

  “Keeping secrets is more difficult than you imagine. Are you telling me that you do not know about his economic plots against the Epetar Group? Plots that coincide with your theft of a large amount of value from them,” Michelle accused.

  “What?” Cally was beginning to feel like a broken record. “He wouldn’t. He couldn’t have. I didn’t tell him…” She thought for a moment. “If he knew how big my commission was for selling the code keys to you, you don’t think he could have figured out where it came from? How?”

  “You have almost no experience of business, do you?” Her sister sighed. “It does not matter if you knew about this or not. I need you to find out exactly what he is doing and his timetable.”

  “I’m not going to do anything that might get him killed,” his wife said.

  “That is an ironic statement. I know you can keep a secret — usually. You can tell Grandfather not to worry. I do not intend to hurt your husband’s plans. Presently, they are likely to fail. I find myself in the unenviable position of having to ensure their success.”

  “I’d rather keep Granpa out of this.”

  “Grandfather does not know of your marriage?” Michelle looked shocked. “I had thought you were more mature than to keep that kind of secret for our clan head. I am sorry I do not have the time to have that conversation. If you do not know his plans, I need you to discover them, quickly. Starting with whatever he is plotting on Dulain, and proceeding from there.”

  “Dulain? What the—” Cally shook her head, interrupting herself, “Never mind. Just because I didn’t mean to leak anything and I’m pissed off at him over it doesn’t mean I’m going to help screw him over without damned good reason. You promise you’re only going to help him?”

  “I cannot believe you think I would lie about something like that.” The mentat looked genuinely shocked.

  “Fine, but I hope you don’t need it soon, because arranging meetings with him isn’t easy or quick.”

  “I know he is on the moon. Tell your employers you are making a courier run for me. All
you have to do is get him to tell you the information I need. The broad plan, and all the details you can get me. You and I won’t need to meet afterwards, I will simply listen in.”

  “You will not!” Cally blushed. “We’re going to be busy. You just keep your mentat mind out of there.”

  “Fine. I do not have time to argue, I am very busy working the prototype in around my other work commitments. Please be on the next courier flight.”

  “Delivering what? What am I supposed to be taking you and why?”

  “Invent something. I’m sure that will not be a problem for you, as your dramatic skills far exceed mine.” There might have been something vaguely disapproving in the way she said it. She was so closed that it was impossible to tell. Cally couldn’t even say anything back. Her sister was gone.

  Saturday 11/20/54

  The hotel room was clean enough. Maybe. Stewart might have said the place had seen better days except that, sadly, it probably hadn’t. The walls were cheap white stucco, probably slapped right over the lunar equivalent of cinder block. One wall was simply the decorative brick of the corridor outside painted a glossy white — barren cheapness trying to masquerade as decorating panache. The blue patterned carpets were dingy, tinged brown with dirt up next to the walls. The paint on everything was fresh and clean, like someone had been desperately trying to pretend the place was not a dump. It had been the best anonymous privacy he could arrange in the base’s dusty underbelly on short notice. It also featured two double beds instead of one king. They’d just have to get very close.

  “Okay, what the hell was so important?” He addressed his wife, a pin-up perfect picture even in old jeans, who had arrived before him and now sat on the edge of the bed nearest the door, legs crossed. Anyone else would have been leaning back. Cally sat, spine straight, weight balanced forward, elbows in, hands in her lap. It was body language Stewart associated with the real Cally, Cally without masks. No masks, just defensive as all hell. A muscle jumped in his cheek as his jaw clenched as he took in her disconcertingly neutral expression. She was really pissed off about something. Unfortunately, being called out of business meetings on practically no notice for a dangerous face-to-face rendezvous didn’t have him in a receptive mood.

  “My sister Michelle sends her belated congratulations on our happiness.” Her voice had that cheery lilt that southern women got when you were really in the shit.

  “Oh fuck.” He turned and walked a few steps away, his forehead clasped in a hand.

  “She also sends congratulations on your debut into high level Galactic politics and asks what in the hell you thought you were doing,” Cally said coldly.

  “Excuse me?” He tried, and apparently failed, to look innocent. He felt like a husband caught with five sealed decks of cards after promising to give up poker.

  “What did you do, or are you doing, to the Epetar Group?” She was giving him the deep freeze for sure.

  After a long pause, he said, “I don’t know if I can get into that, Cally.”

  “I see,” she said shortly. “Fine. I’ll go first. You started with what I told you about my windfall and extrapolated that, correctly, to my having stolen a set of nanogenerator code keys from the Darhel Pardal. You proceeded to plan and act on that information for the sake of your organization. Fine, my mistake for indiscretion. Now I’m going to compound that by providing more information. Whatever you planned is about to go all to shit and, your good luck, Michelle finds it in her own interests for it to succeed instead. No, that’s not right. She finds it in Clan O’Neal’s interests. That Indowy upbringing really took. She wants to smooth the way for it, but she needs to know what the hell you have planned.”

  She held up a hand to forestall his interruption. “Lest you think this is a setup, I know her situation. You’re trying to screw Epetar, she wants them thoroughly screwed but can’t have her fingerprints on it. For our part, let’s just say that this ties in, in an acceptable way, to things we’re working on, as well. Fortunately.” She shrugged. “You’ve got two choices. You can take the gamble that she’s telling the truth and talk to me, or you can tell me to go to hell and take your chances.” She looked at her watch. “It’s late. I’m tired. Think about it all you want. I’m grabbing a shower and going to bed.” She snatched up a small bag and left him to his thoughts.

  Even if he had a good poker face, a guy’s wife could tell a lot about his thoughts from watching him think. It was a decent gesture to leave him alone to do his thinking. Or would be if she didn’t have the place bugged to the gills. It was what he would have done. He pulled a small device out of his case and began a sweep.

  “You don’t need to bother sweeping the place. I didn’t bug it. Just applied some creative static.”

  “If it’s not bugged, how come you knew when I started looking?”

  “I’m your wife, genius. Go ahead if it makes you feel better.”

  Damn but she was good. He sometimes forgot how good. Now, did he bring her in or pass? Obviously, bring her in. First, she was good. Good enough maybe even to read her mentat sister right for motivation. Second, said mentat sister, like all the Indowy-raised, would put her loyalty to her clan — as she saw it — above everything else. However much he disapproved of Michael O’Neal, Senior, for letting his son continue to think he was dead, Michelle had to know her grandfather was alive, which would make him the O’Neal clan head. Third, and perhaps most importantly, Michelle could have sunk Stewart himself any time she wanted, and still could, just by pointing a finger. She didn’t need proof. Darhel paranoia would kick in and that would be that. Helping it succeed was the only possible reason she could have for wanting the full plan.

  It still messed with his sense of reality to call people with the highest levels of the Indowy’s production voodoo “mentats.” He kept having flashbacks to a fucking long science fiction movie he’d seen years ago with freaky looking human calculators. He knew how it had all happened. When they translated Indowy labor ranks into English, or coined words for them, they had classified all the levels at the top of the list as different grades of “adept.” Well, that had been great until they found out that there was another voodoo level above the adept grades that was so qualitatively beyond them as to be a whole different ballgame.

  There was apparently a very sudden, massive jump in ability from the top grades of adept to this new thing. It hadn’t been on the lists of Indowy labor ranks because it wasn’t one. All the other grades had a set wage rate for assigned work. These folks had variable pay based on negotiated contracts, and were the direct employers of the various Indowy work teams. As much as you could translate something as individualistic as “employment” to Indowy, anyway. So they needed another word for someone super-skilled, something so way up there as to be almost unimaginable. Some wit had borrowed the term “mentat” from the same book that inspired the old movie. Stewart still couldn’t hear someone spoken of as a mentat without picturing a fat guy with toothbrushes for eyebrows.

  He was flipping through the channels on the holoviewer, mostly reruns with the occasional hologized prewar show, when his wife came out of the dinky hotel bathroom, still vigorously toweling her hair. He immediately did a double take.

  “Footy pajamas? You wear flannel footy pajamas?” He managed to keep his jaw from dropping, but only just.

  “Sometimes,” she squeaked. “They keep it damned cold in some of these corridors. Besides, I didn’t have my good stuff with me when I booked my ticket up here. They were a present from the girls,” she admitted self-consciously, walking over to the wall heater and fiddling with it.

  “I checked. It’s broken. We’re stuck with central ambient,” he said.

  She held her hand over the weak stream of warm air coming from the vent, glared at it and gave it a kick. The result was a light dent added to its already battered appearance, and louder noises coming from the thing as it shifted into higher gear. She made a satisfied harrumph and came back to sit on the bed beside him, cros
s-legged so that the toes of the absurd flannel pajamas peeked out from under her knees. He silently vowed to dispose of the offending garment as quickly as possible. Over against the wall, the heater lapsed back into an apathetic wheeze.

  Cally rolled her eyes at it, brushing her hair back behind one ear and looking at him expectantly. “So, what’s it gonna be?” she asked.

  “Fine. You’re in. Here’s how the plan goes,” he began. “First, you made Epetar’s ship three weeks late shipping out for Dulain. They needed that money plus their human cargo to pay for a big load of tech gear for Diess. The gear is high-margin — you’ve interrupted an extremely valuable run. I don’t know if you knew it, but when cargo ownership transfers between Darhel groups it’s strictly cash on the barrel head. No FedCreds, just hard value in hand. FedCreds aren’t really Galactic money, anyway. Not the way we think of money. Close, but not the same. So anyway, Epetar’s ship had to wait for more cash to get here, or it would have been pointless to go on to Dulain. From Dulain, that ship’s scheduled to go on to Diess, then Prall, and beyond that is irrelevant for purposes of the plan. The point is it’s a very high profit, complicated route with half a dozen stops before it comes back with a mixed hold of goods for Earth and the Fleet repair facilities on Titan. You don’t see a lot of Galactic goods on the Earth market because — well, never mind. You can’t learn the shipping business in a day,” he said. “Are you following me so far?”

  She nodded, gesturing for him to go on.

  “The important point from all that is that being late puts the Epetar Group in breach of their shipping contracts with the groups that administer those planets, or otherwise own the cargo. Technically, once the Darhel are in breach, the groups on those planets are free to renegotiate shipping with anyone. In practice, it virtually never happens because the odds of another ship turning up with an empty hold before the late ship gets into port are infinitesimal. Contracts usually only get renegotiated if a ship is lost. Then any group positioned right races a ship there to try to snap up the route. Time is money, so the first group to get there usually gets the agreement. I’m going off at a tangent again. The point is, if another group can get a ship there that can carry the cargo after Epetar is late but before they finally show up, the factor for the Darhel group that owns the cargo will deal with the ship that’s there instead of waiting for the late one. Obviously, the ship poaching the route also has to be carrying enough money to buy the cargo, or the deal won’t happen. Another reason a late ship is usually embarrassing, but not that big a deal. You see where I’m going with this.”