"I'm not. Everything on Prime leads through Haines-or could, anyway. Who's she most likely to cooperate with?"
"Ah'll gie y' th' loan ae a mattress manual, Burns' love poems, an' a crook champagne distributor Ah know. But where am Ah headin't twa?"
"Like I said before. We're officers of the court now. But we're understaffed. I'd feel real comfortable with more. Say... ten thousand?"
Kilgour considered. "Hae much ae th' AM2 we stole kin Ah use?"
"Beyond what we had to give back to the Bhor... what we need for power here and for the Bhor cover fleets... whatever it takes. But bargain hard."
"Grannies' wi' eggs once more, lad. I'll gie Otho fr transp'rtation. Ah hae an idea where I'll look."
"Don't bother Otho. He's busy. I already lined up your ride."
"Ye're smilin' lad. Ah dinnae like thae smile."
"Trust me, Laird Kilgour. You're gonna love it."
Ships flickered into existence, so many minnows swarming to bait around the Jura System. Then, again like minnows, they formed into two fleets and went into parking orbits. Unlike minnows they were not silver, were not uniform, and mostly were not very sleek.
The first fleet landed one ship on Newton. Sten was waiting. Jon Wild, king of the smugglers-or at least their spokesman for this moment-stepped out. Again Sten marveled at his appearance. Not a pirate, not a brawler, Wild looked more like a clerklet or an archivist.
The meeting was very brief-merely a declaration of confederacy. It had taken awhile for Sten's emissary to find Wild, but only moments for the message to be conveyed and understood.
Smugglers needed four things to succeed: Trade laws, transport, cunning, and client prosperity. The privy council had destroyed one and nearly another of those preconditions. No matter how clever a smuggler is, Wild told Sten, if he can't fuel his ship he might as well stay home and farm potatoes. And what boots it if he can find fuel, but his customer has no way of paying for the smuggler's goods?
"So what can you promise me, Sten? Beyond access to the AM2 you seem to have... acquired?"
"Not the good old days. The AM2 flow stopped with the Emperor. But with the privy council condemned, they will eventually fall. I find it hard to conceive that anything short of complete chaos could be worse than what we have now."
"Smugglers, as a last resort, can live with chaos," Wild mused. "Somebody must carry the cargoes. Very well. For intelligence... scouting... transportation... troopships as a last resort... you can depend on us. For a time. Until boredom sets in, or those happy anarchists of mine decide to listen to someone else."
Sten requested Alex's presence when he boarded the "flagship" of the second fleet—revenge for Kilgour having stuck him with not only a bodyguard, but an acolyte as well.
He had hoped to surprise Alex.
It did not work very well. Kilgour looked at the projection of the motley throng their ship was closing on and called up the Jane's fiche. After glancing at a few entries, he glowered at Sten.
"Y' bastard."
Alex knew.
"Y'd stick me... y'r mate. Y'r wee lifesaver. Th' charmin' an' sophisticated lad whae taught y's all y' ken noo. Y're bent, lad. Y'r proper surname's Campbell!"
"Probably. But do you know a better pilot? Or a group of people better able to keep your potential—and I quote, officers of the court, end quote—under control?"
"M'tongue'd blacken i' Ah agreed wi' y'. An' dinnae be restatin' th' obvious when tha' wee airlock opens."
Ida was waiting for them. If anything, she had gotten even fatter. She still wore a loose, flowing Gypsy dress, probably with nothing under it, but it was a dress made of the finest fabrics. Tailored—if it was possible to tailor for a blimp. Also, her slangy language had improved—at least a little.
She whooped happily seeing her long-ago Mantis commander and started to buss Kilgour before she remembered their continuing, reason-lost, half-jesting feud. "You hadda bring him."
"He gets in trouble without a minder," Sten agreed.
"Nqo, thae't th' question ae th' hour," Alex said.
"Who's th' keeper an' who's th' bairn? I" fact, Ah mean."
Ida led them to her quarters. A bridge suite on a prehistoric ocean ship might have been more luxurious—but that was unlikely. Tapestries. Couches. Tables barely visible under a galaxy of delicacies.
"And it all clears for action in ten seconds," Ida said proudly. "Action stations, and this is a countermissile battery over there—launchers are under the floorboards right now. Over here's an emergency CIC. And the bath becomes a med clearing station.
"We've got Scotch from Earth. Real Scotch. What they call a single-malt. Not that clottin' imitation I read our late and lamented Emperor poured.
"My own lager for you, Kilgour. Not that you'll appreciate it."
Ida Kalderash was a Romany—a Gypsy. The race/culture still existed, and still thrived, living as they did outside conventional society and its rules with a very keen eye for the credit—acquired as an individualistic Rom might see fit. Instead of caravans they used spaceships—for trading, smuggling, or just traveling for adventure and profit. Their customary laws—kris—required them to respect fidelity, their family, and returning favor for favor. Within the Rom. And even then, the customs were hardly commandments.
It was unheard of for a Rom to serve in the military, let alone the supersecret Mantis Teams. How and why Ida ended up on Mantis Section 13, under the command of Lieutenant Sten, was an even bigger and even less answerable puzzler. She had been carried on the rolls as pilot and electronics specialist. She was also their unofficial banker, gambler, and "investment" specialist. At the end of a mission the "investments" would be liquidated, and the team members would be flush enough for truly exotic leaves.
When Mantis 13 had been broken up and Sten transferred to the Imperial Guard, Ida had refused reenlistment and vanished back to her culture.
She had surfaced—in absentia on a fiche—after Sten and Alex had escaped from the Tahn prison at Koldyeze and returned to Prime. The surfacing had been the announcement that she had accessed their pay that had been held while the two were POWs and invested. And invested. She had not explained—but both men became fabulously wealthy. They had been... and might be again if the privy council were destroyed and they were no longer fugitives.
Ida had found a unique finale for the announcement: she had turned and hoisted her skirts at them.
As Alex had observed, "Th' lass still dinnae wear knickers..."
"My family will join us for the feast," Ida said. "They're curious to see how much I lied about you two gadje. Don't clot it up, Alex." She led them to a sideboard and poured three drinks into crystal goblets. "To the dead past... and a prayer this clottin' present will soon join it."
Ida had turned somber.
"Your message was welcome, Sten," she said.
"I didn't think it would have as large an effect."
"You expected just me—or me and my vita—my family?"
"That was the best I had hoped for."
"Times've changed for all of us. You're an admiral. I am now Voivode, chieftain of my band. Other voivodes have been known to listen to me, even if I am a woman."
"There's more to this many of your people showing up than just you being a heavyweight, Ida. Gypsies, from what I know, what you taught me, don't get together on anything," Sten said skeptically.
"No. That is what we are—and there've been terrible tragedies because of this in our past. And another tragedy is on the wind." Ida explained. The gypsies may have been outsiders, but they maintained careful intelligence contacts beyond their culture.