"Lasers're all they make here. It's their main industry," Alvec said. "I can't believe…"
"They were cheap, and it's my money, okay?"
"You bought them?"
"Al," she said warningly.
"You're right," Alvec soothed, "someone'll want 'em."
"Attention Central Worlds freighter, this is Schwartztarr traffic control, please identify yourself."
Alvec leapt for the com like a drowning man after a lifeline. His stubby fingers touched the controls with an odd, butterfly delicacy.
"Cleared," traffic control said. "Planetary approach, Tarrstown spaceport. Welcome to the Schwartztarr system."
"Yes, welcome," Joseph murmured. He had slid into the vacant navigator's couch. "Joat, observe."
Joat slaved a screen to the scanners the Bethelite was using. "A ship… oh."
Alvec leaned over. "Got a neutrino signature like a cathouse billboard," he observed. "Either they're leaking, or…"
"Corvette-class engines," Joseph said. "Very similar to the ones the Prophet bought for our in-system patrol craft."
Joat grinned. "I think we've left respectability behind."
The Wyal buffeted as they slid down their vector towards the outer fringes of the atmosphere. Screens began to fog as the hull compressed gas into a cloud of ionized particles. Joat's fingers itched to touch the controls; she wrapped them around the arms of her crash-couch instead. Alvec was kneading a fisted right hand into the palm of his left.
"Cloud cover," the AI's metallic-smooth voice said. "We're down to suborbital velocity. Hull temperatures within parameters." It paused. "Ground is at minus twenty, wind seventy kilometers per hour." Another pause. "Down to suborbital speeds. Exterior view on."
Alvec gave an exaggerated shiver as the largest screen cleared to show a swirling mass of storm cloud. The hull toned again as they plunged into it, a different note from the stress of high-altitude reentry.
"Brrr."
A moment later he yelped and reached for the controls. Joat stretched out her own arm and touched him on the shoulder. The Wyal rang as if a thousand medium-sized mad gods were pounding on it with their fists.
"Let Rand handle it. Rand, what is that?"
"Frozen water," the computer said. "Nodes of from millimetric to centimetric size, at high velocity."
Joseph's brows rose. "Hail?"
"Yes, hail."
The exterior screens showed darkness shot with lightning and massive winds. Joat felt the skin along her spine creep. The hazards of space were orderly, compared to this; Wyal had the capacity for atmosphere transit, but it seemed unnatural, somehow.
They broke through the cloud cover at three thousand meters above their destination. The spaceport was a cleared space of a few square kilometers, set in a sea of green broken only by white-rimmed inlets-the scene twisted mentally, and she realized that it was a forest, fretted by fjords of the sea. Tarrstown lay along several of those arms, its street-patterns bright against the darkening landscape. Snow blew by, nearly horizontal in the gale. A spot on the concrete of the landing field began to strobe.
"Don't believe in luxuries like gantries or tiedowns here," Alvec grumbled. "We'll have to keep the drive hot or get blown over."
"Nope, there's a mobile unit coming out," Joat said, tapping the screen. "Guess they don't have enough traffic to justify the cost of fixed installations. Lots of worlds don't-"
She broke off with an oath that put Joseph's eyebrows up again. Something had slammed into the hull, not enough mass to feel but enough to make the plating ring. Several more somethings followed.
"What is that?"
The exterior screen split. A central panel showed something dirty-white and about ten meters from wingtip to wingtip closing fast on the pickup. That went black as it was covered, and then showed flashes of teeth and slaver as whatever-it-was tried to gnaw its way through the metal.
"Not too bright," she said, forcing herself to relax-her arms had been trying to push her body back through the couch in instinctive reflex.
"But hungry," Joseph observed thoughtfully.
"Very hungry," Alvec concurred.
The winds were slower below the clouds; the ship slid downwards as if it were following an invisible string in the sky. Snow blasted away from the landing site, and there was a rumble and clank as the seldom-used leg-jacks extended from their pods in the stern.
"Adjusting to planetary gravity." Weight came down on them, a sluggish feeling. "There," Rand said, "I told you that we'd perfected the program."
"Yeah, well, conditions were pretty smooth," Alvec said grudgingly. "But I guess you did okay."
"Thank you," Rand and Joat said simultaneously.
Smooth? Joat thought wryly. Conditions were pretty smooth? I hope I never find out what you'd consider rough, buddy.
"It's nice to know you still have some faith in me," she said aloud.
"What do we do now?" Joseph asked.
"Well, you guys can go play," Joat told them. "Rand and I will wait for our contact." She put her feet up on the console and leaned back in her chair, arms behind her head: "To contact us."
"What about selling our cargo?" Alvec asked.
"Don't be silly, Al. Who ever heard of shipping laser tubes to Schwartztarr?"
Joat watched the ground-crawler take the two men towards the buildings at the edge of the spaceport. It was a long low flatbed, born on a dozen man-high wheels, with an armored cab at both ends; a heavy laser was mounted on a scarf-ring above each of the cabs. As she watched the crawler fade into the blowing snow one of the gunners swiveled his weapon and fired into the brawling whiteness. The beam itself was invisible, but it cut a tunnel of exploding steam through the snow. At the far end something unseen gave a screaming bellow that faded into a series of snarls.
"Nice planet," Joat said.
"Low salubrity rating," Rand replied seriously. "Nice compared to Kolnar, maybe. There is a man requesting entrance."
"Let him in," she said.
"What do you mean, five thousand?"
The man sitting across from Joat was almost a clone of the man who'd first contacted her; pale, thin, with a beard. The bulky furs and the snow melting on them were different, as was the heavy explosive-bullet slug-thrower he cradled in one arm.
He shrugged his narrow shoulders and said with a sneer: "That's what my principals have authorized me to pay you. Take it or leave it. But, uh, you're goin' to owe me something if you leave it."
"Oh?"
"Yeah, you were given an advance to cover shipping expenses. Remember."
"I agreed to do this for twenty-five thousand, plus shipping expenses. If you've decided to shortchange me on this you're the one breaking the contract, not me." Joat glared at him and added mentally, You oily little weasel.
"Contract!" He laughed explosively, leaning back in his chair. "What, somebody signed a contract for this? You think I'm stupid?"
"It's implied," she said evenly. "A verbal contract is still a valid contract."
"So take us to court! You got a case, right? So sue us. Just tell the judge that you agreed to ship stolen information for a ridiculous amount of credits and we only want to pay you a part of it. You can't lose!"
Joat schooled her face to cold disdain, an expression Channa had taught her. The courier seemed to find it excruciatingly funny. At last he looked away, waving a pleading hand.
"Ooh, ooh this has gotta stop, ooh wow!" He shook his head and grinned. "Look," he said reasonably. "If you decide not to take the five thousand and to keep the datahedron, all you got is something you can't use and you can't sell and you're out five thousand. Plus, you owe me two thousand." He stopped and glared at her through narrowed eyes. "And lady, you will pay me that two thousand. So where does that leave you? Broke on Schwartztarr with a cargo load of laser tubes. Nobody here is going to buy laser crystals! I'm not stupid, y'know."