Part 6 (1/2)
The Medic looked surprised. ”Naturally. I had to report my suspicions to someone. Surplanetary police are usually all right, but an off-worlder can never be sure in a situation like this. On the other hand, corruption's almost nonexistent in the Stellar Patrol, and some of its agents know how to think. Besides,” she concluded practically, ”Teague says it doesn't hurt any s.h.i.+p to gain the reputation of cooperating with them, as long as she doesn't play the fool about it, that is.”
”I wonder if you'd be speaking in such glowing terms about the folks in black and silver if you'd shared our recent experience with them,” Alt observed lazily.
”They were only doing their job! Those Company sons who framed you should've been sent to the Lunar mines for attempted murder, but to the Patrol, you were suspected pestilence carriers. They had no choice but to act strongly against you.”
”Very magnanimous of you,” Kamil commented with the same sleepy sarcasm, ”especially when you can do your judging after the fact from a nice, safe distance.”
Rael placed her hands palm down on the table. She fixed her attention on them. ”It's true that I've never had to go through what you did, but I was part of the real thing.”
Her eyes rose once more to briefly meet his before dropping again. Their expression was as somber as the memories she was recalling. ”I was still a child at the time. Father had planeted on a pre-mech world and was treating with the inhabitants of one of her chief trading centers when we discovered that some sort of sickness had broken out in the community, in the very section where we were operating, and was slowly but steadily gaining ominous force. We'd been on-world for several days at that point, in daily contact with the inhabitants of the infected region, and our Medic could make no more headway against the disease than could his primitive counterparts. Only one course of action was possible for us, and we took it, even as other s.p.a.cers trapped in similar situations have in the past. We couldn't risk carrying an unidentified and as yet incurable, highly contagious, deadly illness back with us into s.p.a.ce, so we chose to stay where we were. We couldn't even remove ourselves from the stricken city for fear of bringing the infection to uncontaminated areas of the planet.”
Her fingers whitened where they met the table. ”Whatever our fears at that stage, they paled before the reality that followed. About three hundred thousand people lived and worked in that community when we arrived. Ten months later, one hundred thousand of them were dead, more than eight thousand in a single, awful week. Seven of our crew, including my father, were among them.
”So was our Medic, but he had identified the causative organism, and before he died he gave those people both a cure and a vaccine that stopped the plague as if it had hit a high security wall. The on-worlders realized what we had done for them and recognized that we had chosen both to remain and to work among them despite the proven danger to ourselves. They were grateful, and when Teague took our survivors off-world, it was with the means to buy a fine new s.h.i.+p outright, re-crew with top-rate hands, and fill the holds with prime trade stock.”
Her eyes suddenly locked with Kamil's, then moved to fix each of her s.h.i.+pmates sitting or standing opposite her.
”That fact neither softened the horror of those ten months nor clouded the memory of it, no more than any onworlder living through that time is likely to forget it. The dying and the sickness itself were only part of it. The misery and want were everywhere, the fear, the ever-growing, crus.h.i.+ng despair, and with all that, too much, far too much human-nastiness. I was young and a stranger, but even I was aware of rampant filth and evil.
”Never, ever, can a similar scourge be permitted to strike any planet, not while the power or the possibility of preventing it exists. That need holds true and must hold despite the danger of occasionally serving individuals or stars.h.i.+ps with the gravest injustice.”
”I don't think any of us will argue that. Doctor,” Miceal Jellico said quietly after several seconds of grim silence. ”If our lads had believed us to be plague-stricken in fact, the Solar Queen would've met her end in a star's heart. Spirit of s.p.a.ce! Had I imagined them capable of any other course, that's where I would've sent the Queen myself before I pa.s.sed out.”
Rael smiled. ”I know. If I'd doubted that, I'd never have come on board at all.”
Jellico shook his head as he watched the woman leave the cabin several minutes later. She would have been young, he thought, probably not much more than eleven, when she had gone through that plague. It would have been a hard experience at any age and explained both her basic gravity and her fascination with ma.s.s illness and other disaster situations.
That was no condemnation of her. Every human being reaching adulthood had his defenses and his own way of viewing the universe around him. Those who experienced ma.s.sive trauma, physical or mental, and who were not shattered by it had made some pretty powerful adaptations to accommodate it, especially when it had been suffered in their vulnerable formative years. The awesome slaughter of the Crater War had shredded Ali's childhood. Somehow, he had lived through that carnage, but it had left him one of life's observers. He would allow nothing to penetrate the armor he had carefully constructed around himself. Rael Cofort had been somewhat older and the deadly situation in which she found herself had been of considerably shorter duration, but even so, she, too, had her facade and, her scars ...
He saw the Cargo-Master start to push out into the corridor. ”Van, hold up.”
The other waited for him and fell into step beside him.
”Quite a story,” he remarked.
”Aye.”
”You believe it?” Van Rycke asked. ”She never mentioned a s.h.i.+p's name or a planet's.”
”That can all be checked. The timing'd be right. Cofort appeared as a force on the scene suddenly and very young out of a s.p.a.cer clan who should never under normal circ.u.mstances have been able to finance the setup he created for himself.” The rest of his history, of course, was the result of a lot of luck and even more hard work and shrewd dealing, but that early start had often been a source of speculation among the ranks of the Free Traders.
Jellico shrugged, dismissing the question for the time being. ”It's Rael herself who interests me at the moment. You and Thorson'll be checking out the market soon. Take her with you and give her as free a hand as seems prudent. I want to see what she can do.”
”Her brother never or only rarely used her in that capacity,” Van Rycke reminded him doubtfully. ”From what I saw, she'd choose the goods, but Cofort would trade for them.”
”Put it to the test anyway.”
Van gave him a curious look. ”Why bother?”
He shrugged. ”A xen.o.biologist looking for more data, maybe. Cofort's a puzzle however you try to look at her.”
His eyes narrowed. ”You and I're both old foxes, but given all the information she had, would you have reached the same conclusion or come to it as quickly as she did?”
”Not in a star's life span,” he admitted.
”That kind of deductive power might prove very handy to a Free Trader-if she can use it for more mundane purposes than uncovering bizarre murder plots.”
”It wouldn't do to make a career of that,” his companion agreed dryly.
”Not unless one was straight Whisperer bait or planning to ally himself permanently with the Patrol, which would amount to the same thing.”
”You don't believe Rael Cofort's thinking along those lines?” the Cargo-Master asked.
”Who knows what that woman's thinking?” he responded wearily.
Van Rycke eyed him closely. ”Craig mentioned that you had some serious reservations about her.”
Jellico smiled. ”I still do, but at least I think I know now why Cofort dumped her.”
Jan's pale brows rose. ”That's more than I can claim.”
”Some perfectly capable people draw trouble. I believe Doctor Cofort is a prime example.”
”A jinx?”
Miceal gave a short laugh. ”Does the Cofort operation show much sign of any such influence? - No, but Rael appears to have an overdeveloped sense of what's right, or maybe the sight of the downtrodden just sparks a powerful protective response in her. Whatever the cause, the result can be pure headache for her Captain and s.h.i.+pmates, if not outright disaster.
”Look at her behavior in that alley, Van. The starlight was scared out of her, but she was all set to march in for that sc.r.a.p of bone and then blast off to the Stellar Patrol at warp speed. She never gave a thought to our strained relations with that organization or a Trader's natural instinct to navigate clear of all bra.s.s as much as possible. Add to that the fact that she's admitted to dragging her brother into more than one sc.r.a.pe he'd have preferred to duck and you have the makings of a problem of no mean magnitude.”
”Why court trouble ourselves? We'll be rid of her soon.”
”Curiosity mostly,” the other responded. ”Besides, she's tied to us until we're ready to lift anyway. I'd like to see if she's any good in real Trade. The Queen might as well reap some benefit if she is.”
”All right, I'll give her a shot at the market,” the CargoMaster promised willingly enough. ”Come with us yourself. She'll know she's under observation anyway, and it'll be late enough now by the time we're ready to go that some of the big industrialists might be scouting around there. I understand they usually do when a new s.h.i.+p comes into port, and several have this past week. We could possibly pick up a charter.”
Jellico nodded. ”I'll do that,” he said. ”I'd intended waiting a bit longer before giving it a walk-through, but it won't hurt and might help to look the place over at once.”
12.
Ali Kamil quickened his pace until he came up beside Rael.
”I'm sorry,” he told her quietly. ”I was navigating right off the charts in there.”
”So was I,” she replied' bitterly. ”Firing off my mouth like that was inexcusable. I knew what you all had been through.”
”It was no more than you had.”