Andre Norton - Derelict For Trade

"And in trade, what do we give them?" Jellico asked.

To everyone’s surprise, Thorson’s lean cheeks showed color. "Uh, as it turns out, we won’t have to."

"Save Momo," Tooe spoke up in her high voice, which reminded Tau of a bird. "Shver hunt, try to kill Momo, Dane save. We get data for Dane," she finished proudly.

"Were you seen?" the captain asked.

Dane grimaced. "I’m afraid so." He explained quickly; Tau winced, remembering his own encounter with cryo once—those burns were excruciating, even without freeze amputation.

"That’s bad," Steen muttered.

Rael Cofort, coming up from behind, said, "Not necessarily. Those Shver youths are not supposed to be up there— at least technically—but more important, they won’t make a public issue of the fight due to pride."

Dane nodded his corroboration. "That’s what I thought as well." He made a face. "Though they’ll remember it, and we’ve already had a kind of run-in with someone from Clan Golm."

Cofort smiled at him, her deep blue eyes bright. "You seem to make a habit of rescuing people."

Now Dane’s face was deep red, and he looked down, as if someone had attached a new pair of feet to his legs. "Anyone here would have done it—probably better," he mumbled. Then he looked up. "Anyway, we set up a signal system. One of Nunku’s gang will give us the signal if she gets any data."

As everyone began talking, Dane sidled over to Tau and said, "I’ve got a question about Nunku." Tau listened in growing surprise and pain as Thorson described the weird leader of Tooe’s gang. "Do you think there’s any way to help her?"

Tau sighed. "I don’t have the technology. From what you describe, she probably was taken at a very young age into free fall—"

"She was," Dane said. "Escaped, actually. Taught herself everything, including Terran, since she knew she’d been born Terran." He scratched his head. "You should hear her! All she could get when she was little was a vid-tape of some ancient historical plays, and she learned off that. Didn’t know it wasn’t current—or true!"

Tau shook his head, trying to imagine one’s single reference point to Terra being a piece of fiction about a time a millennium ago. "Remarkable. Well, as for her physiological growth, I’m afraid that’s remarkable as well: the living in free fall while still growing, combined with what was inevitably a poor diet, made her bones grow the way you describe. There are probably places that could treat someone like that, probably with some form of electromediated calcium involution, but it would cost as much as our ship is worth for the medtech."

Tooe’s yellow eyes switched from Tau to Dane and back as each spoke. Now she said, "No Nunku leave. She stay in Spinner, stay with klinti people, never leave. Knows data, knows console, likes nest."

Tau winced. It sounded like a hellish life to him, but from the sound of it Nunku had found a niche for herself and her gifts. "We won’t interfere, Tooe," he said.

As Dane and Tooe started away, Rael Cofort slid up to Tau’s other side. "If I can, I’d like to go up there with them and see if there’s anything I can do," she said quietly.

Tau nodded. "We can research the syndrome, and make up a packet of mineral supplements and whatever else might be needed—"

"Well," came the mellow voice of Jan Van Ryke.

Tau broke off, looking up as the cargo master bounced in, his white brows soaring.

"Something to report?" Jellico asked.

"Something indeed," Van Ryke said, grinning. "A mysterious person has offered to buy the Starvenger from us. At twice the going rate, I should mention. Take her as is, no questions asked, just sign over the papers, take our credit, and run." He paused, looking around at his audience.

"And?" Steen prompted, knowing the cargo master of old.

"And, it seems, our good friend Tapadakk is now desperate to sell us a fine cargo once we come into some money."

"So he knows about the offer, then," Jellico said.

"It seems so." Van Ryke nodded, rubbing his hands.

"Twice?" Frank Mura said, from behind Dane Thorson. "We going to take it, Captain?"

Jellico looked around. The entire crew, except for the two on duty at the Starvenger , were gathered around the narrow accessway to the control deck. Tau saw intensity in each face as they waited for the captain to answer.

"Talk it out in the mess," the captain said, pointing below.

With speed born of long practice the crew members dropped down to the galley level and crowded into the mess cabin. With the two missing, there were still twelve, Tau realized as he sat in his usual place, next to Frank Mura. The engine crew usually sat in a group, and the cargo master and his apprentice nearby, Dane standing so his long arms and legs didn’t get in anyone’s way. The rest filed in. Rael Cofort stood near Tau, and the little Rigelian ranged herself alongside Dane. She pushed herself up towards the ceiling and touched him occasionally on the shoulder with her foot as she drifted down, keeping herself high enough to see over the Terran heads. Tau noticed she now oriented her head to the same direction as the Terrans, unlike her behavior when she was first discovered.

The captain scanned them once again, his hard face impossible to read.

"Who wants to sell?"

The others looked around, then Karl Kosti said, "I do. And I think I speak for Jasper as well. We know what runnin’ two crews is like—we did that with the Space Wrack ."

"He’s got a point," Ya said.

"Except there are more of us now—and new crew is not impossible to find," Van Ryke put in. "True, we can’t go back to Terraport and trust Psycho to select crew for us, but I’m confident in our own abilities to find people who will synch in. We’ve had good luck so far." And he gave a gallant bow in Rael Cofort’s direction.

The captain did not look up. "Anyone else?"

No one spoke. Rip Shannon’s dark eyes were narrowed with suppressed feeling, and Ali rubbed his knuckles restlessly against his other palm.

"If we accept the offer, we drop the investigation," Jellico said. "If we drop the investigation, then we’ve made a mistake."

"But we haven’t," Ali protested.

Wilcox muttered in a low voice, "That’s what we have to settle."

Jellico nodded once. "Exactly. We’re legally liable if we sell, knowing there’s something crooked. And I have to add, we’d deserve everything they throw at us."

Several people murmured, then fell silent.

Jellico smiled slightly. "Now, if you really believe we’re chasing space dust."

Kosti said, "There’s something stinking about this deal. I admit, my first thought was to get rid of it—let some other poor slob deal with it, and run with the money." He shook his head. "We ought to ride it until it lands—or crashes."

"Starvenger or Ariadne ," Rip said, "they were Traders, just like us. We owe it to them to solve this thing."

Jellico assessed them once again, and his expression lightened fractionally. "Do I have a consensus, then?"

He waited for the "Aye, Captain"s and "Yes, sir!"s to die away, then turned to Van Ryke. "I think it a mistake to turn this down flat. Can you spin it out?"

Jan laughed, and rubbed his hands as he drifted up slightly from his place. "Can I!" he repeated, with every evidence of pleasure. "Nothing would suit me more than to use some of Tapadakk’s same techniques on him. Yes, Captain, if need be, I can spin out the negotiations until our Kanddoyd friend goes into his old-age molt."

They all laughed, and Jellico said, "Thorson, brief the cargo master on what you and Tooe learned. Then we’ll all sit down and plan a strategy."