Andre Norton - Derelict For Trade

Now he felt different.

A little energy flowed into him again. He flexed his hands, swung his arms, and performed the isometrics he’d been taught as a child. He sensed he was on the verge of something. if he just kept at it.

"I need more compute power," he murmured, tapping into the ship’s computer. He wished he dared to reach through the line connecting the Queen to Exchange’s compute arrays, for he knew he’d solve the dilemma if he just had an enormous pattern-search space. But he hadn’t, which required him to be clever.

He called up the holding matrices he’d set going, and nodded with satisfaction. The genetic neural algorithms he’d bred up had been patiently probing for hidden patterns in the organization of the other computer—and it looked like they were settling toward a solution. He had to know how it was set up first before he could work on decoding it.

Then he glanced at the corner of his screen. The little icon he’d set up as a measure of progress shimmered suddenly, then snapped into a line.

A moment later the screen below flickered, and ordered ranks of alphanumerics appeared. It was still in some kind of code, but he knew how to break codes. The biggest problem had been finding the patterns that would give him clues to the unfamiliar computer’s organization.

Flexing his hands again, he called up the sherlocks he’d specifically designed, and set them onto the code. At once they went to work, and again his icon wavered in a foggy line. This would not take long, though, he suspected. He reached for another tube of jakek, flicked the heat tab with his thumbnail as his eyes watched the screen, where his sherlock programs continued their patient unraveling.

He was halfway through the tube when the icon clicked once again into a firm line. He keyed the console, and the codes flickered into readable script.

Paging down through it, he scanned through his blurring eyes, just to

make certain it made sense; then he set up some search fields and set them going. This time it only took seconds to scan.

When he saw the results, he let out his breath in a big sigh, got up, and hit the door control.

It was time to dump everything into Jellico’s lap.

The subdued booms and thuds of footsteps on the outer lock ladder made both Jellico and Rael Cofort look up quickly. Rael Cofort passed by in silence, going in to the mess. Jellico remained where he was, and half a minute later, there was Dane Thorson’s tall, lanky form. Rip Shannon’s dark, pleasant face was at his shoulder. "Cap’n?"

"What’s the word?"

Thorson spread his huge hands. "Dead space," he said. "Until the Festival of the Dancing Sprool is over—whenever that might be." He frowned suddenly. "Hell! Is that the name of the Shver hibernation period? If so, we’re sunk—they hibernate for three months! I’d better check—" He ducked out, and they heard the click of his magnetic boots going up the ladder to the main computer databank.

"What happened?" Cofort asked from the mess hatchway.

"We went back, just as we were told to," Rip said. "But they told us that we had to continue our business with the Jheel that had begun to help us. And when we asked for him, we were told just what Dane told you—that he’d withdrawn from duty for this festival, and he’d return when it was over. All his business would have to wait."

"No one would cooperate?" Jellico asked, his suspicions intensifying as he walked with his navigator apprentice into the mess cabin.

Rip gave his head a quick shake. "On the contrary," he said. "The other workers who spoke Terran were really apologetic. One woman even tried to help, but she said that the Jheel had put a lock on the Starvenger inquiry, so she could do nothing. She said they earn promotions by how many jobs they successfully complete, so it wasn’t surprising."

Jellico frowned. "This is not how Trade does business—"

"—in Terran space," Cofort added, from the other side of the cabin.

Jellico finished, "—and we’re not in Terran space. Right."

"Three months," came Dane’s doleful voice from the hatchway. "They hibernate for a full three months."

"How hibernation can be called ’Dancing’ anything, I don’t understand," Rip said dryly. Then he turned a serious look to the captain. "I know you and Jan are trying to get us a cargo as soon as possible. Does this mean we have to drop our inquiry as a bad business?"

Jellico was watching Cofort, who stood by a bulkhead, her dark blue eyes narrowed in an expression of abstract concentration. "On the surface it would seem so," he said. "We’ll think it over."

Both young men looked relieved, and moved to draw some food from the server. Jellico knew what those expressions of relief meant: they both were confident that The Captain Would Think of Something.

He hefted his tube and moved out of the galley to consider what he had heard. As he started toward his cabin, he saw Karl Kosti coming up toward the galley.

The big man was frowning, which was not in itself a cause for alarm.

"Rough crowd," Karl said as he moved on past.

Jellico turned and watched, wondering what that portended; it was rare for the most taciturn member of the crew to offer any kind of unasked-for comment.

The answer was immediately forthcoming. The intercom tone sounded, and Jasper Weeks, who was currently manning the bridge, said, "Captain?"

Jellico reached for a wall console and tabbed the key. "On my way."

Moments later he was in the bridge, as Weeks, with an apologetic expression on his mild, bleached-pale face, played back the message just received.

A Shver visage appeared on the screen, gray, wrinkled, and glowering.

"Am I Lictor of Monitors of Harmony, and the Shauv of Clan Norl. Have I instructions for you, in accordance with the Concord of Harmony. Initiating a fracas, has committed your unit Karl Kosti. Required of you is confinement to your vessel of said unit for the remainder of your stay." There was no further word, and the image blanked.

Jellico reached to hit the com, then pulled back his hand when he saw Kosti standing right behind him. "What’s the story, Karl?"

"Wasn’t me started that fight," Kosti said. "Riffraff from a company ship, strutting big—"

"You learned how to ignore that kind of talk when you were half-grown," Jellico said, exasperated.

Kosti gave a brief nod, impassive as a rock. "Brag talk is so much noise. Talk about how Free Traders are barely legal thieves, and how they jump ships to claim derelicts—that I couldn’t sit by and eat. Especially when ignoring them would have been agreement, in which case half the spacers there were ready to lynch me," Kosti added reflectively.

"So there’s talk about our claiming the Starvenger?

Weeks said quietly, "It’s to be expected gossip would get out. How many ships come out of jump and find an empty sitting on their jump point?"

Jellico said, "But if talk is going around about our having pulled in a derelict, then it should mention that our vids of the catch were legit—and accepted by Trade as so."

Kosti shook his head. "All I can tell you is what I heard. It was humans who started it, three cargo wranglers off that Deneb-Galactic ship docked down that way." He jerked his head in one direction. "Monitors pinned the blame on me."

Jellico felt and suppressed a flash of annoyance. No use in lodging a formal complaint with Trade over what might turn out to be a lot of gaseous talk in a bar. "We’ll comply, of course," he said. "You may’s well take your turn out at the Starvenger —replace Thorson. I need him here anyway."

Kosti gave his short nod and moved silently away.

Jellico tapped his fingers on the arm support of his command pod, trying to sort through his reactions. There was too much bad luck here, but it all seemed random and unconnected. He’d be a fool to give in to conspiracy suspicions without some hard evidence of connections—if any.