Chapter Eighteen
Davies
“Nowwhat do we do?” I ask as the full ramification hits me. “Do we confront the captain?”
McMurtry slowly shakes his head. “Whocanwe trust? Maybe you and I only ones darkened about this.”
“Inthe dark.”Dammit. He’s right. I’ll automatically assume we can’t trust any of the Shalfin. We don’t know if they’re in cahoots or not. I mean, not to be speciesist or anything, but it looks like two Shalfin are in on this together, and I know at least two of the other Shalfin aboard are the captain’s cousins or something.
So it’s a reasonable assumption that we can’t trustanyof them, for now.
If several of them are involved, it also explains how they were able to more easily conceal what’s going on. Two of the helmsmen are Shalfin, as is the environmental officer who usually handles, among other things, life support monitoring, scanner duties, and other related tasks.
Meaning it’d be easy to conceal what’s going on.
If they’re all involved…
“We need an incidental plan,” he says.
“What do you mean?”
“A…coincidence of our own. Contrived. An intervention.”
I think again about contacting H’looder. “I might have just the contrived coincidental intervention we need.”
We both hear someone enter the outer mess area. “Hello?” I call out.
The captain appears in the galley doorway. “Ah, there you are.”
“Which one?” McMurtry and I both ask.
The captain smiles, and it’s hard for me not to read nefarious intentions into it. “McMurtry. I’ve called for an ether-jump tow since we’re not within a practical distance to reach a jump portal large enough to accommodate a ship of our size. The tow is currently engaged in another retrieval, but it will intercept us within the next three weeks, and will then piggyback us and ether-jump us close to our destination port. From there, we can make our way in under tachyon and sub-light drives. They’ve got a repair facility there with the capability of going through our ether-jump drive.”
His smile doesn’t fade. “We’ll be a little late making our deadline, but not too much. Meanwhile, we’ll continue under sub-light, until the tachyon drive’s online.”
His smile doesn’t make sense when I know damn well his load bonus is based on how much time he can shave off the delivery window. And unlike me, he does take hits to his pay for delivery delays, even if the delay is mechanical and not his fault.
Before now, he would borderline freak out if we didn’t look like we might berth that first day of the delivery window.
Which we’ve always made it well before then, because I’mthatgood. Still, this isweirdbehavior for him.
It also doesn’t escape my notice that, if the tow is simply jumping us in and dropping us off to finish the journey under our own steam, then it means they won’t be docking at the station, and therefore not subject to Customs boarding and inspecting them.
I clear my throat. “I have an idea. I’ve been working with Dr. H’looder from Maxim Colonies. He performed some augmentations for me, and he’ll be doing more, once we return to Pfahrn on our next run. I know his ship is an ether-jump ship, and they piggyback other vessels on the regular. I’ll bet that we could talk him into helping us out because he’s really eager to continue working with me. He could probably be here in a couple of days, or sooner. Then we could make our delivery deadline without any problem.”
Deep blue flashes in the captain’s cheeks. I watch him take a breath before answering. Yet when he speaks, his voice now sounds tight, strained. “That is appreciated but won’t be necessary, Davies. I’ve already contacted corporate, and they talked to Maxim Colonies. Since our load isn’t under a critical delivery deadline, they’ve said that we are fine to wait for our jump tow. We won’t be delayed that long.”
One of the things I do when processing a jump is run through multiple scenarios in an infinitesimally short amount of time in my head. Not seeing all the potentialities, or the potentials, could get us killed.
It’s what I’m doing now, with the captain and the blatant lie he’s just told us.
Scenarios ranging from calling him out and telling him we know what he’s done, to blithely going along with this stupid and dangerous charade until we’re safely at port and I can sic the coalition and military and Maxim Colonies on him.
There are no good answers here. Norightanswers.
Only the answer that will keep me and McMurtry alive.
Because how do we know that the crew of the “tow” he’s arranged isn’t in on this scheme, too?
