Kas released pent-up breath with a whoosh. “You have no idea how glad I am to hear you say that. You’ve just saved your lives. I figured the Glory would only have enough ships to picket the main recal points. That, plus the fact that we were both transiting it at the same time, told me that you’d be picked up quickly. That left me only two choices: trust you, or put you back aboard your ship and then blast her to emm-cee-squared. I was desperately hoping you’d come up with some way to let me trust you.”
Her eyes narrowed and her face darkened. “You mean that all this time you knew you couldn’t just maroon us? That every time you talked about marooning, you were really talking about killing us?”
Kas nodded. She jumped to her feet, her flush deepening. “Why, you revolving sonofabitch! You… you… unprintable bastard!” She seemed about to continue when Lar Tennig put his hand on her arm. “Lady,” he said quietly, “It might not be diplomatic to insult a man with reason and means to kill you!”
She stopped, mouth open. Her gaze moved from Lar to Kas, then back. The flush began fading from her cheeks. Suddenly she smiled and then giggled. Finally she collapsed back into her chair, roaring with laughter. Lar joined her a moment later and Kas broke down at nearly the same time. The three of them dissolved in gales of laughter as the almost palpable tension dissipated. Rom sat quietly, a smile lighting even his dour features.
Finally, they began to compose themselves. “What’s a ‘revolving sonofabitch’?” Kas asked. “I’ve been called names by experts, but I’ve never heard that one.”
She stifled a laugh. “A revolving sonofabitch is a sonofabitch any way you look at him,” she managed to get out before being once again carried off by gales of laughter. Kas, Lar and even Rom joined her. Kas managed to choke out some comment about ‘revolutions’, sending them all back into paroxysms of laughter. It was a good start for what Kas hoped would be an effective partnership, and not one of betrayal.
Before they boosted for the jump point Edro went over to the Lady Jane to erase the communications recordings involving Starhopper. He also gathered personal belongings for their new recruits. Neither Jane nor Lar suggested that they be allowed to return to their ship for that purpose; this partnership was too new and too fragile to permit that. As soon as Edro returned, they boosted for the jump point at max acceleration. The Lady Jane remained behind, of course.
“Y’know,” Lar observed, “By the time we get back here we’re liable to be a space legend; ‘ Lady Jane, ghost ship of the Hatchell system’. Found drifting with her drive coils and sensor array damaged, but no sign of the crew.”
Jane grinned. “Not really. Oh, maybe for awhile. But as soon as the authorities see our com tapes they’re going to be more concerned with the Glory. They’ll probably assume that Glory bastard grabbed us. It could cause a helluva stink, though.”
Rom was still unhappy about trusting the newcomers, but as soon as they’d jumped, Kas called Jane and Lar to the bridge. “Our next recal point is a system called ‘Homesite’. What can you tell me about it?”
Jane shrugged. “Not much there. Its only claim to fame is that it’s the only privately-owned planet in known space. It was some tycoon’s great idea. He bought the rights to the only terrestrial planet in the system from the government of Singh about twenty years ago. I hear it pretty much wiped him out, but he had this hare-brained idea that a privately-owned colony, operated for profit, would be more efficient than colonies with more typical governments.
“So he bought the planet, set up a shuttle service to Singh, and started trying to sell land. As I understand it, he planned to market his land in other systems once Homesite started to pay off. Only thing was it never did pay off until the heavy industries moved in. No laws or oversight, of course, so they could operate pretty much as they pleased. For the past twenty years they’ve been raping the planet’s resources, polluting the air and water, and just generally running the place into the ground.
“About the only people there now are a couple hundred thousand employees of one or another mining, smelting or processing companies. We’ve made a pretty good profit there a few times, though. Not enough people to attract most of the larger traders, so us little guys can run a load of luxuries in there, and make a pretty nice bundle.” She shrugged. “You won’t have to worry about customs there. No import restrictions, so no smuggling.”
Kas nodded. “Good. After D’Jellabah and Hatchell I could stand a little boredom!” He told her about their experience at D’Jellabah. He didn’t spare himself and confessed to his errors in dealing with the dealers and chandlers.
She chuckled. “Don’t worry about it. Oh, in most systems, you’d have attracted lots of attention. But on D’Jellabah you were just another unbeliever, and all unbelievers are crazy or stupid. Or both. They’ve got a weird version of Islam going on there, and it’s starting to hurt their economy. Did you notice that the port field was surrounded by a fifteen-meter wall?”
He nodded. “Sure. But I didn’t want to ask about it. I was afraid they had some sort of insurrection going on, and would get suspicious.”
She shook her head. “Nope. It’s to keep from offending the godly by exposing them to the fact that there are other inhabited worlds that don’t share their religious quirks. The shipping agents, factors, dealers and chandlers are permitted to deal with visitors, of course. But visitors are not permitted to leave the port field.
“They’re getting almost as hard to deal with as the Glory, and their balance of trade is starting to show it. A few more years of this religious fanaticism and they won’t have to worry about contamination by unbelievers — nobody will go there to trade.” She shrugged. “Anyway, that’s why the customs inspection was such a pain in the ass. Oh, they were looking for contraband, all right, but mostly they were interested in anything that might contaminate the godly. If they’d found anything they considered ‘blasphemous’, you wouldn’t have left there alive.”
He looked at her curiously. “How do you know what they consider ‘blasphemous’?”
She shrugged. “You don’t. Even more conventional Islamic believers have trouble figuring out D’Jellabah’s religious quirks. So you take your chances. And fewer and fewer traders are willing to take that risk. It’s a lot easier to just skip D’Jellabah and trade elsewhere.”
Kas nodded. “I noticed that there weren’t many ships at the port.”
She chuckled again. “And there won’t be, until D’Jellabah learns to share the universe with people of other beliefs.”
Kas found himself spending more and more time with Lady Jane. Even the seemingly endless series of Jasc games with Gran became less frequent.
Their conversations became the highlight of Kas’ days. Somehow they never seemed to run out of topics, or become bored with each other. Kas found himself getting up in the morning anticipating their chats, and saying good night only reluctantly.
But Lady Jane was wrong about Homesite. Almost as soon as they’d completed emergence from jump, Rom announced the presence of a ship, and moments later Edro reported that they were being hailed.
Kas frowned. “What kind of ship?”
“Empire-pattern corvette,” Rom reported.
“She says she’s the Singh system ship Shiva, Captain,” Edro added. “They demand to speak with our Captain.”
Kas looked at Lady Jane, standing beside his command chair. She shrugged and spread her open palms. “I dunno, Captain,” she responded to his unasked question. “They’ve never had customs here before much less picket ships. I think you’d better answer them. There must be something wrong.”
“Yar,” Rom put in sourly, “They’re lookin’ for a battle cruiser.”
Kas shrugged. “Maybe,” he replied. “Edro, put them on the main screen.”