Jasper said mildly, "Aren’t those ships reported as abandoned also reported with coordinates—oh, but those are next to worthless unless the ship is dead in space," he amended.
Wilcox nodded. "And even then it could move, especially if something hits it. Always possible, though unlikely. Mostly ships are abandoned while moving—why spend fuel slowing it down? Sure it travels in a straight line, but what if that line intersects a gravity well? Approach at the right angle, and it slingshots around and zaps off in another direction. You could probably spend the time plotting likely courses of a ship—in fact, that’s one of the things we had to do in school— but why bother?"
"These are all minor Traders, with no one in high or influential places to call for big, expensive investigations," Van Ryke said.
"Right." Jellico looked around at all of them. "Two things. We need the name of whoever’s at the top, and we need to know exactly what’s the purpose behind this switching of ship names. If Jan’s scenario for what happened to Starvenger —Ariadne—is correct, that’s a lot of work to go to just to leave the ship as an orbiting hulk."
"They probably wait a certain period of time, then go out and harvest the ships," Stotz said. "For parts, if nothing else. You can get plenty for good engines, or up-to-date refrigeration units, or ship’s computers, in the right market. I’m always looking out for a good buy in spare macronucleic collimators, because they have a tendency to blow right after snapout, when we’re millions of kilometers from anywhere and moving fast. You can’t stock up on too many"—he frowned— "and until now I never thought to ask where they came from."
"Same with the jets and jet parts," Jasper offered, his pale, mild face concerned.
Jellico swung round to face Ya. "Can you do anything to flush out the data we need?"
"I wish I could," Tang Ya said. "I’d need better access to Exchange’s computer system—and I’d need time to study its organization. Nunku’s
the one to oversee it, but even genius that she is, that ferret of hers is bound to crash soon—if it hasn’t by now—and she’ll never get a second one in there. The system’s immune reaction won’t permit it. She’d almost have to be on-site to do the delving."
Jellico’s fingers were drumming lightly on his chair arm. "All right.
Then it’s up to us. Let’s break, and each consider what we’ve heard and what we can do. Meantime, Thorson, keep checking that mail drop—but this time I want you to take at least two people as backup."
Dane nodded, surreptitiously wiping his hands down his pants again.
He was slightly distracted by the sight of Tooe sliding out of the mess cabin. She probably had to go to the fresher, he thought. She faded from his mind when Rip said, "What I can’t seem to get hold of is how could anyone get away with something that big?"
"I think I can answer that," Wilcox said, his austere Scots face grim.
"All these ships have been insured through Trade. But except for the Lucky Lucy twelve years ago, and the Ariadne recently, none have been run by humans. Some are humanoid registered or owned, but they all seem to range from farther outside Terran spheres of influence."
"That would explain the cats," Craig Tau said.
Everyone turned to look at him.
"If the hijackers are used to nonhumans, that would explain why the cats were overlooked. Having ship’s cats is a custom peculiar to Terrans," he explained. "Alpha and Omega probably hid when the intruders came aboard, and if you don’t know to look for a hiding cat, you won’t find one," he finished dryly.
Dane thought of Sinbad, who could make himself scarce when he was of a mind—even though by now there wasn’t an inch of space Dane wasn’t familiar with aboard the Queen.
"And they were in a hurry," Rip said.
"They wouldn’t want to risk being a blip on the screens of some ship just emerging from hyperspace, or one moving to its jump point," Jasper put in.
Rip nodded, and continued, "Which would explain their overlooking that extra little console down in the hydro. It was pretty well hidden by plants, and there was stuff piled all over it. The woman who tended it must have come from a real jungle environment."
"The main thing is that the hijackers are sticking to small stuff. Independents—like us," Dane said.
"Which means even less likelihood of anyone pursuing mysterious disappearances," Ali drawled. "Company ships disappearing would occasion those big, splashy searches Van mentioned. A succession of humans disappearing from well-traveled starlanes might cause a raised brow or two. No one is going to notice a bunch of missing rockrats gathered from spaceports spread across the galaxy."
"Which explains the correlation between the stories I heard up in the Spinner." Rael Cofort spoke for the first time. Dane could see muted pain in her dark blue eyes. "A good many of the people I met were either refugees from unexplained—uninvestigated—ship attacks, or had been left behind for one reason or another when their ships disappeared and didn’t come back for them."
The captain smiled very faintly. "So you’re ready to do battle on their behalf, Doctor?"
"A system is suspect that deliberately throws away so many people who otherwise would be working happily within the law, utilizing their talents for something besides stealing food and shelter." Her voice was soft, but there were spots of color along her cheeks. Dane looked from her rigid posture to the captain’s same and wondered what he was missing. Then he felt a change near him, a kind of mental tickle that made him glance to the side, and he saw an odd expression on Ali Kamil’s face.
Ali did not speak. Dane realized that Tooe had still not come back, and he wondered what that meant.
Van Ryke said, "Let us each go our own way for a time, and put our minds to the problem. We all have unique talents, and varying perspectives on tackling problems. Let’s use those now."
"We’ll discuss this again later," the captain said shortly, and he one-handed himself off his bench and catapulted through the hatchway.
"What’s going on?" Dane asked his peers in a low voice as the others were all moving out. "The captain, I mean. And Cofort."
Ali laughed. "The stone and the steel, my blind Viking, the stone and the steel." And he dove out the door and vanished.
"What does that mean?" Dane asked Rip, now feeling more defensive by the second where before he was merely perplexed.
Rip just shook his head, and Jasper said quietly, "When the captain decides he wants us to know, we’ll know."
Dane sighed, and went off to seek Tooe.
It all certainly seemed to add up, Jellico thought as he pulled himself down in his chair. He stared reflectively at the blue hoobat, who rocked in dreamy slow motion in his cage, making contented noises that sounded like the tearing of metal. Jellico’s mind reviewed the knot of mysteries tangling their affairs. The mysterious disintegration of their cargo deals. The spread of detrimental gossip not just among Traders but Monitors as well. The generous offer to buy the Starvenger—sight unseen—by someone who would not meet Van Ryke face to face, but sent a series of mouthpieces whose lies did not match. The postponements, the put-offs, the hounding of his crew followed by official commands to brig them. all of these could be viewed as tactics to wear the Queen's crew down, to make them want to leave as soon as they could. Even the postponements, for what that meant was added cost. Jellico had no doubt whoever was in command had a good idea how much credit the Solar Queen had, and was hoping they’d decamp and run cargoless—and maybe without taking the Starvenger, which could then quietly be made to disappear.