Кристофер Банч - The Return of the Emperor

The second was a basic bully. Cady. All she was unhappy about was that Moran was a more successful, more dangerous bully.

The third, however, was a bit more complex. Engine Artificer Pitcairn. She tried to sound no different than the others and mostly succeeded. But Raschid heard the echoes of some kind of education in her speech. He paid close attention to the woman—and his attention was noted.

She sought him out in his quarters.

"Wanted to ask you something about dinner," she began, and pointed to the com.

"It's clean," Raschid said. "Moran or somebody had an induction pickup inside. It don't work no more."

"Pretty sophisticated for a hash slinger."

"Not sophisticated. Just careful."

"You SDT?"

Raschid shook his head.

"Didn't think so. Pease Lines don't hire nobody but scabs. Or those who don't claim a union card."

"Like you?"

"Hard stayin' militant when you been beached for a couple of years. Plus where I boarded, union organizin' was a bit risky."

Raschid's curiosity about Pitcairn was satisfied. The Ship, Dockside, & Transport Union was on hard times. It was famed as a militant and understandably aggressive organization; the Empire's down economy made it easy for bosses not only to force yellow-dog contracts on any spaceport workers, but to blacklist any union official or organizer.

"Reason I wanted to talk… this drakh can't keep on the way it has been," Pitcairn said. "If Moran don't beat somebody to death, Jarvis'll get blistered an' navigate us into a collapsar."

"Mutiny's a hard way to go."

"Nobody said nothing about that. Yet."

"What other options do you—do we have? I don't see any grievance committees lurkin' out the porthole."

"You're quick," Pitcairn said. "Course th' others ain't figured that out yet."

"How many are in on it?"

"Ten. You'll make eleven."

"That's a start. But we don't have enough goin' for us. Run up the black flag—that closes out the options. Especially if an officer gets dead or marooned to death in the process. Bosses get hostile, somethin' like that happens. They'll hunt us all down, however long it takes, and we'll be dancin' Danny Deever."

"You talk like you've got some experience."

Raschid started to answer by saying "Not for a couple of thousand years or so," then stopped. Where the hell did that come from? He wasn't Methuselah.

"I read," he said instead. "But let's say nobody feels real logical and the drakh comes down. What then? We got ourselves a ship. Maybe half a fuel load. With a cargo. Which gives us what? This scow ain't suited for smuggling, and the on'y place people go piratin' is in the livies.

"Say we head for whatever Smuggler's Roost we can find. What are we gonna get for what's in the hold?

"Somethin' better. Where we headed? What kinda armpit? Desert with cannibals, or someplace where we klonk Moran over the head, jump ship, and live with what we got?"

"Good questions," Pitcairn said after thinking. "We need more skinny. Can't compute with what we got. Problem's gonna be keepin' somebody from gettin' assed, goin' berserk, and we got blood on the bulkheads."

"You rabble-roused for the union. With only twelve goons to worry about, you oughta have no trouble keepin' 'em under your thumb," Raschid said.

"For a while," Pitcairn said, "I can do it. But they ain't gonna stay in a holdin' pattern forever. We better get more info quick."

Four ship-days later, they did. Their destination was the Cairenes—specifically, the capital world of Dusable.

"That ain't good," Pitcairn observed. "I organized there for about twenty minutes. If there was an honest being in the whole damn system, I never met him, her, or whatever. Plus they got a righteous depression goin'. We jump ship there, we'll be on the beach a long, long time.

"You know anything about Dusable?"

Raschid was about to say no, but didn't. Because he suddenly realized he knew a whole hell of a lot about the system and the way it worked. But he could not remember ever having visited or read anything about the Cairenes.

"A little," he lied. "That's one piece. Now, it'd be real nice to know what's the cargo."

"I asked Moran. Got my chops slapped for doin' it."

"Hercules helps those who help themselves."

"You pray to your gods. I'll stick to Jack London. We decide to tippy-toe out th' lock, Moran sees the lock alarm go off, an' you an' me'll be out there till we figure a way to breathe space."

"The lock alarm's been disconnected for a week. I made sure at least one suit ain't leaky. I'll check another one right now."

"Well, well. First the bug, now the alarm. For a cook, you'd make a fair spy. All right. First watch. Moran sleeps like a corpse, long as you don't try to go in his compartment."

They went out the air lock as quietly as they could. Raschid winced at the air-hiss and the whine of the lock mechanism. Both of them pulled themselves out of the open lock, making sure the attractors on their boot soles had no chance to clang against the hull. Pitcairn aimed a line-thrower and fired, and the grapnel at the end of the line snagged through an X-beam.

They hand-over-handed their way across to the cargo hold and inside, then opened their faceplates, found pry-bars, and went to work.

"Bless m' clottin' sainted mother," Pitcairn swore after a while. "There's at least one somebody on Dusable ain't in no depression."

The cargo was entirely luxury goods. Exotic foods. Liquors. Wines. One case held jewelry.

"We been livin' on swill, an' all this was just across the way. I'm tryin' not to lose it, tear Moran's face off and order a hog-out. What next?"

"Interestin'," Raschid observed. "You note there ain't no customer ID on any of the packing lists. Just: As Per Instructions To Captain ."

"Okay. I say again my last. What next?"

"I think… maybe a mutiny."

"That sets real easy. Then what do we do with all these goodies? Smugglers'll pay heavy credits for what's here."

"Maybe that's the option. Mutiny first, questions later."

The mutiny came off painlessly, to use the term broadly. Raschid had given explicit orders, so only four of the twelve conspirators were used—those Raschid thought would not go berserk.

Jarvis was easy. Cady, on bridge watch, waited until the captain got tired of wearing his gun-heavy uniform coat and hung it up. The next time Jarvis paced by, a bar of soap in a stocking was applied with some firmness to his medulla oblongata. He was carried to his cabin and, after the cabin was searched for more weapons and the sealed shipping instructions taken, locked in.

Moran took a bit more skill. One sailor, selected for her slenderness, draped herself on an overhead conduit running past Moran's compartment door. Moran was buzzed for his watch. He came out, and the sailor prayed and dropped.

The flurry before Moran pitched her the length of the corridor gave Raschid, Pitcairn, and T'Orsten time enough to rat-pack him. Eventually Moran was hammered into unconsciousness.

They knew he had to have weapons stashed in his compartment, so they locked him in a bare and disused room. The fresher worked, and they could slide meals through a narrow slit cut in the door's base.

Raschid fingered his split lip, then went for the engine spaces and D'veen. He carried Moran's gun as a completely empty threat. D'veen took no threatening whatever. All she asked was that when the mutineers were caught and tried, they would testify that she had put up a magnificent battle.

"We have no intentions of being in front of a court," Raschid said. "But if so, we'll save your ticket."

The mutineers held their council of war in the officers' wardroom—after Raschid and Pitcairn had made a careful selection of goodies for a victory feast. They allowed one half bottle of alk per sailor—and Raschid thought that was too much.