Part 26 (1/2)
”They're rich enough to buy your cargo, though; how'd that happen?”
”Oh, the local fauna's good for scents and flavors; real complex stuff, easier to grow it than synthesize it. They've got whole plantations of weird plants they export.”
”Sounds interesting,” Jeffers said, with a glance at the furb.a.l.l.s. That explained what these things would be doing.
”Yeah, and it gets lonely out there in the backwater plantations, so they'll buy fancy pets. Now, do you have the papers ready? Got the fees figured out?”
”Just about...”
Tyler's com twittered.
”Yes?”
”Maintenance, Captain. Looks like you've got a blown balancer.”
Tyler grimaced. ”Which one?”
”Portside, number three.”
”That son of a b.i.t.c.h. I'll be right down.”
”I could just transmit...”
”No, I want to see it.” She turned to Jeffers. ”Show me where to thumb, and tell me what it's going to cost to get out of here as soon as Maintenance has my drive working.”
Jeffers decided that he didn't want to drag this out. He held out the display and pointed. ”Right there. And I think that, say, sixty kay will cover everything and get you cleared.”
”Sixty kay? Try twenty.”
”Well, I was allowing for extras, you know how it is. Say fifty.”
”Thirty five. The Telemachans aren't that rich.”
”I can't be sure to get it all done for less than forty.”
”Forty's good enough. Give me your card.”
Jeffers held out the card, and accepted the funds transfer. Then he took back the display and tapped more keys.
Tyler glared at him. ”I thought you said that would cover it.”
”It will,” he said, not sure himself why he was delaying. ”I still need to do the data entry, that's all. It'll just be a minute; I'll be out of here long before they have a new balancer aligned.”
”Fine. You know the way out. Don't bother the furb.a.l.l.s, okay?”
”Sure.”
She wasn't even nervous; he marveled at that. She hadn't asked whether the furb.a.l.l.s had done anything, wasn't worried about what he might see or do. She had weighed him in her mind and found him harmless.
Jeffers stood and watched as Tyler once again descended out of sight; the minute she was gone he reactivated the camera jammer and turned back to the furb.a.l.l.s.
”Listen,” he said, only then realizing what he was going to do, and what he would say, ”this is your s.h.i.+p, you understand? You bought it, and hired Captain Tyler to fly it for you, and then she chained you up and you don't know why. Got it?”
The furb.a.l.l.s exchanged glances.
”No,” one of them said. ”It isn't true.”
”No, it's not true, but it should be, and you tell anyone who asks you on Telemachus that's what's happened, and they'll make sure that you can go home and that your families will be safe.”
”I don't understand,” the reddish one said.
”Just do it!” Jeffers said. ”If anyone asks. If no one asks, forget I said anything.”
”But...”
”I don't have time to argue,” he said. He turned and headed for the ladder.
He glanced over his shoulder as he descended, and saw the furb.a.l.l.s looking at one another in confusion. He hoped they could manage their role-but it shouldn't be too demanding. All they had to do was act like wronged innocents-and that's what they were.
He started working up the new manifest while waiting for the airlock to cycle, but didn't finish it until back in his own office. It was a bit tricky; he had to make it look as if his subst.i.tute was the original, and the freight list a fake pasted over it. He also had to make sure that the Confederacy officials at the port on Telemachus wouldn't miss the revised version.
It was a safe bet that Captain Tyler would never check it, but he didn't dare just leave the modified version out in the open; the Confederacy would never believe that...
At last he was satisfied, and transmitted the files, along with a customs clearance for the Lord Lucan-a deliberately faulty customs clearance, so that the Confederacy would double check it.
If it worked-and he thought it would-when Tyler landed at the port on Telemachus and had her doc.u.ments checked, it would look as if she had been hired to fly sixty pa.s.sengers to the Contact Authority on Sirius II, and had instead kidnapped them to Telemachus III to be sold as slaves, with altered records calling them pets.
He hoped that the Confederacy officials on Telemachus III were less corrupt than his coworkers on Musas.h.i.+. They should be; the Confederacy had a reputation for clean, if ruthless, administration.
Tyler must have had some way to get past the customs officials there, though. Would the ”pets” designation have been enough? Perhaps she knew who to bribe. But the risk letting a manifest this damaged through...
Well, Jeffers had done his best. He could only hope it was enough. The more he thought about it, the more he wanted those furb.a.l.l.s safely returned home. He wished there were a way to find out what would happen to them on Telemachus III, but he doubted the news would ever reach Musas.h.i.+.
An hour later he watched the launch, wondering whether he had done enough-and why he had done anything.
He hadn't known he had any real scruples left, but obviously he did.
As he watched the glowing dot vanish into the heavens he wondered whether it might be time to find another line of work, perhaps even time to get off Musas.h.i.+ once and for all; Musas.h.i.+ Port was clearly not a good place for a man with scruples.
He had tried for years to do without them, but he had discovered today that there were some he was not willing to lose, and the discovery was strangely comforting.
If he settled somewhere new, he would try to do better than he had here, to be a better person. He wondered how honest he could be if he worked at it.