The next two jumps, both to Empire systems, were uneventful. The crew used the time to practice their personas.
For the first time, Kas felt that they had a good chance of carrying off the deception. Tera seemed determined to show Rom that she could be as uncouth and barbaric as he could. As a result, her persona was quite convincing. Finally Kas even had to ask her to tone it down, as few Fargonners were as crude as she was becoming.
Gran’s attempts were also successful. Once again, Kas had to ask him to tone it down, as his accent began becoming all but unintelligible. But from his rolling gait, an observer would be sure that Gran just debarked from a fishing boat.
Chapter 4
They were as ready as they could be, but Kas was still nervous as they emerged from jump at Meron, the first of the Independent Systems.
No casual dismissals here. A large space station picketed the jump point. Almost as soon as they emerged, a cutter cast off from the station and headed toward them. At the same time, the comm channels echoed demands that they cancel all orbital motion relative to the system’s sun and stand by to be boarded.
The man that Kas and Rom greeted at the passenger airlock appeared to be middle aged. He wore a uniform of nauseous green adorned with braid and an array of medals so gaudy as to make Kas suppress a wince and he displayed an attitude to match.
“Your papers!” he demanded. Next, he demanded their course data for all jumps since leaving Prime. Finally, he announced that a search party would be boarding to search Starhopper. At that point, Rom protested.
“Aw, C’mon, Admiral!” he whined, “We ain’t goin’ nowhere near your damned planet. Ya can see we’re on a charter job. Exceptin’ for some mining machinery, all we’re haulin’ is a bunch of corpsicles straight fer the rim! We cain’t hardly smuggle stuff to yer planet if we ain’t goin’ near it, can we?”
The gaudily uniformed official sniffed. “Nevertheless, regulations require that all ships entering Meron space be searched. If you’ve nothing to hide, you shouldn’t object!”
Rom broke into laughter, shaking his head.
Kas tried to explain. “The only objection we have is to the delay, sir,” he said. “Our Astrogator should have us recalibrated and our next jump programmed in less than six hours. Two days to boost to the jump point, and we’ll be gone.”
The official sniffed again. “I don’t think so. It’ll take at least a full day to search a ship this size.”
Kas nodded. “Exactly, sir. We could be delayed for several days. We have delivery commitments. Penalties could turn a profitable charter into a dead loss for us. Isn’t there some way we could speed this up? As my purser mentioned, we’re not going to be approaching Meron. Perhaps you could do a quick inspection. I assure you, we’ve nothing to hide, and would be happy to show you anything you want to see.”
“Yar,” Rom put in. “It could be worth some credits if we could avoid th’ delay.”
The man stiffened. “Are you trying to bribe me?”
“Oh, no, sir,” Kas hastened to reply. “My Purser was just saying that avoiding unnecessary delays could save us quite a lot of credits. We’d be happy to share some of those savings with someone who could expedite our passage.” He glared at Rom, and a slight movement of his head told Rom to disappear.
“Why don’t we go to my cabin, sir,” Kas said, “and you can examine our papers while we discuss it over a cup of caf or a glass of Solian brandy.”
The customs agent reluctantly allowed himself to be swept along to Kas’ cabin. He had proved resistant to Rom’s attempts to bribe him, but after several glasses of Solian brandy, he was persuaded to call the station and request permission to conduct an abbreviated search in person. This was evidently slightly unusual, but not extremely so, and the permission was granted in less than an hour.
“You see, Captain,” the man said as he and Kas walked around Starhopper, poking into various niches, voids and compartments, “we can be reasonable when the situation warrants. As your rather… uh
… forceful Purser pointed out, you won’t be approaching Meron. Since this is just a recal stop, a full search is unnecessary. But I would suggest he be more careful in future. Attempted bribery of a customs official is punishable by twenty years’ hard labor on Meron.” Kas hastily assured the man that Rom had no such intention.
Abbreviated the search might be, but it was anything but cursory. The man poked about and examined for almost six hours. By the time he finished, Tera had completed her jump computations and recalibration and Kas was exhausted.
He ushered the man into the main airlock and watched as he hooked up his safety line and jumped to his cutter. Kas sagged against the bulkhead next to the lock hatch. After a moment, he sighed and stalked off toward the bridge.
In only minutes, they received permission to boost. As Starhopper began moving, Kas whirled on Rom.
“Are you insane?” he demanded. “You could have got us all locked up for attempted bribery.”
Rom grinned and shrugged. “Naw, no chance, Skipper. Y’don’t unnerstand how business is done out here. Yar, this’n was honest, but even honest customs agents know that bribes ‘r routine in a lotta the Independents. They don’t resent th’ offer, if it’s made tactfully. I jus’ din’t know ‘bout Meron.”
“What about our next jump point, uh, Odell’s world?” Kas asked. “Is bribery routine there?”
Rom nodded. “Been there once’t. Th’ bribes ain’t too bad, if I ‘member right.”
Kas shook his head. “I’m glad they gave us so much cash; I wondered about that.”
“That’s Imperial Intelligence at work. They’d know how things are out here.”
Kas frowned. “All right. You’re the purser, bribes are your department. I’ll turn the cash over to you. Just try not to use all of it or land all of us in jail.”
Rom shrugged. “It’s all a matter of how you approach ‘em. Y’gotta be tactful, see?”
Tera turned from the astrogator’s station. “Oh, yes,” she said with broad sarcasm. “We can see that you’re a model of tact!” Rom grinned and blew her a kiss. She sniffed loudly, then turned back to her station. Kas reflected that it was the first time he’d ever seen a woman flounce while sitting down.
During the two days’ travel to the jump point and the seventy-nine hours of the jump itself, Kas amused himself by watching Rom and Tera. They reminded him of school children. Rom continually teased and irritated Tera and she could be counted upon to overreact just enough to motivate Rom to continue. Kas thought he could detect the signs of a budding romance.
It was four hours after they’d jumped that Kas received a call from Toj Kray. Kas was a bit surprised, as the big Bulworther tended to isolate himself in engineering, burying himself in technical journals and utterly unnecessary maintenance tasks.
“Captain,” the big man rumbled, “you’d better be comin’ down to Engineering C-4.”
Kas frowned. “I’ll be right there, Toj.” It must be important. The big man wouldn’t invite him into his solitary domain unless it was something important.
He was puffing when he reached the Engineering C-4 compartment where Toj awaited him. “What is it, Toj?” he gasped.
Wordlessly, Toj reached to point behind a generator housing.
Kas leaned over and craned his neck. He frowned. “What is it? I assume it’s not part of the generator.”
Toj shook his head. “Nossir,” he rumbled in his deep bass. “It isn’t for sure. I’m thinkin’ it’s some kind ‘er spook crap. A recorder or somethin’. Th’ question is whose?”
Kas started to answer, then paused. “I see your point. Is it something Fleet Intelligence put on there? Or Imperial Intelligence? Or was it put there by a spy or saboteur at the yard itself? It could even have been placed by that customs agent at Meron. We were in this compartment.” He cursed. “Is it connected to anything?”