Part 11 (2/2)
The industrialist smiled at that display of chauvinism.
”Oh well, it's a sad man who can't or won't take pride in his own.”
”What's she loading now?” Jellico asked, peering down at what seemed to be a scene of utter frenzy but which he knew was in-fact a well-ordered operation. ”Do you have any idea?”
”Considering where she's berthed, a good guess would be a consignment of rope of various types, including twine and string. A large s.h.i.+pment of it was brought to that dock yesterday evening.”
”You know everything that comes and goes on these docks?” the Cargo-Master asked dryly.
Macgregory laughed. ”Hardly, Mr. Van Rycke. It's just like I said before. A lot of the docks're either owned or permanently leased by fairly big organizations with well-known products and imports, and similar types of goods tend to move from fixed spots. I don't have a clue about the numerous small, independent lots that go in and out every day, and if someone wants to make a big secret of what he's doing, I wouldn't know what he's hiding.” His eyes sparkled momentarily. ”Unless I think it's worth the effort of finding out, that is.” His guests would know full well that his position gave him the power if not the official authority to do that under most circ.u.mstances if he chose to exercise it. ”Like most independents, the Regina Man's has her own band of regular customers. That makes for a similar cargo mix, just about what I described, often along with some ammonium nitrate or benzol thrown in. She'll spend three or four days in port loading up and refueling, make her run, and come back to repeat the cycle. - No mystery at all about her.”
Seeing that the four had finished their torte, Charles returned to the table. ”Would you like some jakek or coffee?”
”Jakek,” Miceal responded quickly. Inwardly, he mourned that local etiquette forbade the requesting of a second helping of the torte to go with it. That had been one of the finest examples of the culinary art he had enjoyed in a stellar age.
”Jakek,” Rael said somewhat absently.
Van Rycke eyed his s.h.i.+pmates with disapproval. ”Coffee for me, please. Old is best after a fine meal like this.”
”I'm old-fas.h.i.+oned as well,” agreed Adroo. ”That'll be two cups of jakek and two of coffee, Charles.”
”Very good, sir.” He deftly retrieved the used plates and cutlery and withdrew as un.o.btrusively as he had arrived.
Some minutes later, he returned with a tray bearing the four cups, which he set before their proper recipients.
Jellico sipped his. ”As good as any I've tasted even on Hedon,” he averred.
”So's the coffee,” Jan remarked. ”A special blend, Mr. Macgregory?”
He nodded. ”Yes. Max's secret. We could easily enough find out the varieties he brings in, but not the proportions he uses.”
”That would only spoil the mystery.”
”Precisely.”
Rael Cofort raised her cup to her lips but held it there while she gazed beyond it seemingly into the depths of s.p.a.ce. Suddenly, she set it down again with enough force that the resulting click against the saucer caused her three companions to turn toward her. ”Mr. Macgregory,” she asked tensely, ”you said ammonium nitrate is frequently loaded in the Cup area?”
”Yes,” he answered, surprised. ”Just about every week. Nearly daily at this time of year. Why?”
”Then Canuche Town is a death wish awaiting fulfillment.”
19.
A frown darkened the Cargo-Master's features, but Jellico silenced him with a sharp shake of his head. A cold dread chilled his own heart. It was not the Medic's words but the deadly, calm certainty with which she had spoken them that drove the spear through him. That tone compelled attention, the more powerfully from those who knew this woman at all.
Adroo Macgregory was not pleased, but he, too, was gripped by his guest's manner. Groundlessly or not, she was afraid for his city. ”It's an old, stable compound, Doctor. You can jostle it, drop containers of it, run a transport over it without any effect whatsoever.”
”Aye, but give it a sudden, extreme increase in temperature, and you've got an atom bomb on your hands. - I'm not exaggerating, Mr. Macgregory. Ammonium nitrate sounded familiar to me, not because I'd heard of it in connection with Trade but because of my own studies. History tells loud and clear what it can do. That stuff has caused galactic-cla.s.s chaos before now, and given everything else stored and made around here, there's enough of it down there right now to literally annihilate everything and everyone between these slopes if absolutely everything went wrong, and maybe a good part of the city beyond as well.”
”You're sure?” the Solar Queen's Captain asked quietly.
”Aye. The incidents I'd studied took place in the far past. As Mr. Van Rycke says, ammonium nitrate hasn't been big business, or real business at all, for a very long time, but it has caused trouble before, and it'll do it again. Canuche Town's primed for it.”
”She's right if that blasted stuff's as bad as she claims,” the Canuchean cut in sharply. ”The Cup's the worst conceivable place for an accident involving a volatile substance. - I'll look into this. Doctor Cofort. If your claims prove out, before you lift with your last charter from me, you'll find ammonium nitrate being handled on the red docks, with s.h.i.+pments so scheduled as not to bring it into contact with too much else that might exacerbate an accident.”
”Will you be able to get the dock s.p.a.ce for it?” Jan asked doubtfully. ”Everything looks pretty locked up down there.”
”Out at the very tip, yes, which is where it belongs anyway by the sound of it. Those piers're too far away from everything to be considered convenient, so there are always a number of them available. We don't s.h.i.+p that much sensitive material at a given moment nowadays to tie them all up. Or we didn't.”
”You'll have to delve far back for confirmation,” Rael warned, ”to the first Martian settlement and pre-s.p.a.ce Terra.”
”I have the people to do the digging, Doctor. Don't you worry about that. I also have the means to collect evidence more directly. - I'll have to ask you to excuse me for a few minutes. They have sealed booths here. There are some calls I have to make.”
Rael watched him go, then lowered her eyes to the table to avoid those of her companions. ”I'm sorry,” she said softly.
”He mentioned that two million people live in Canuche Town,” Miceal said.
He took a sip out of his cup and scowled. ”s.p.a.ce, woman, why couldn't you at least have waited until we'd finished our jakek?”
”The coffee's no less good,” Van Rycke told him, although he glanced nervously below even as he spoke. The motion of the restaurant had already begun to put the Cup behind them. The effect would be strictly illusory in the event that the worst happened while they were up here, of course, but it was a definite psychological comfort to see it go.
He frowned again as an old memory stirred. ”I think she's right, Miceal. Way back in my first year at the Pool, we had an old cracked-helmet retired Cargo-Master as an instructor. I recall his mentioning that ammonium nitrate used to be on the hazardous cargo list at one time before it was dropped for never being carried. I believe he also mentioned that it was actually used as an explosive in olden times. - d.a.m.n, I should have remembered that as soon-”
”Power down, Van,” Jellico said calmly. ”Even you're not a computer. - Here comes our host.”
Macgregory did not reclaim his chair. ”Come on, s.p.a.ce hounds. We're about to witness an experiment.”
One of the calls the Canuchean industrialist had made was to order a transport for his party, and a large four-wheel pa.s.senger vehicle was waiting for them at the entrance of the tower building when they emerged from it a few minutes later.
It made no delay in carrying them through the crowded streets and deposited them in short order before the main entrance of the giant Caledonia, Inc., plant.
Adroo nodded to the guard stationed there and led his guests inside. ”Our research quarters are this way.”
It was through the clerical portion of the huge facility that he conducted them rather than through those sections where Caledonia's numerous products were made or a.s.sembled. Here were no coverall-clad laborers driving their minitrucks, lifters, or manipulators or commanding their banks of robots but, rather, fas.h.i.+onably dressed men and women seated at desks or moving in an office worker's universal hurry along the seemingly endless hallways.
Once again, Rael was struck by the suitability of their Trade uniforms. They attracted no notice, or none beyond the inevitable interest aroused by the company in which they traveled.
She gave a wry smile. That held true only for their dress uniforms, she amended. They would not make such an appealing picture after a few hours shoving cargo around, particularly on some low-mech steam pit like Queex's Tabor or Amazoon of Indra.
”Here's the Research Center,” Macgregory told them at last, echoing the sign on the big double swinging doors as he pushed his way through them.
Another maze of corridors awaited them on the other side, in general appearance much the same as those they had left behind save that the people they encountered now were wearing white. Most also had their hair confined in san-nets and their hands covered by the light, supple laboratory gloves that were standard equipment in such installations throughout the Federation.
A technician whom Rael judged to be about Dane Thorson's age approached them. ”We're all set, Mr. Macgregory.”
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