Chapter 45

"Okay, let me sit with that. I want to know what Yao was trying to get off the ship, but - "

"Yeah."

They shared a companionable silence as the coffee brewed. When it was finished, Rotfold poured two mugs and handed one to Olivia.

"Captain," she said, then paused. "Leo. I've been a pain-in-the-ass XO so far. I've been stressed out and scared shitless about eighty percent of the time."

"You do an amazing job of hiding that fact," Rotfold replied.

Olivia nodded the compliment away.

"Anyway, I've been pushy about some things that I probably shouldn't have been."

"Not a big deal."

"Okay, let me finish," she said. "I want you to know I think you've done a great job of keeping us alive. You keep us focused on the problems we can solve instead of feeling sorry for ourselves. You keep everyone in orbit around you. Not everyone can do that, I couldn't do it, and we've needed that stability."

Rotfold felt a glow of pride. He hadn't expected it, and he didn't trust it, but it felt good all the same.

"Thank you," Rotfold said.

"I can't speak for Kellan and Austin, but I plan to stick it out. You're not just the captain because Cilliam is dead. You're our captain, as far as I'm concerned. Just so you know."

She looked down, blushing as if she'd just confessed something. Maybe she had.

"I'll try not to blow it," he said.

"I'd appreciate that, sir."

Dave Rood's office was like its occupant: big, intimidating, and overflowing with things that needed to be done. The room was easily two and a half square meteres, making it larger than any single compartment on the Tactical. His desk was made of actual wood, looked at least a hundred years old, and smelled of lemon oil. Rotfold sat in a chair that was just a little lower than Dave's, and looked at the mounds of file folders and papers covering every flat surface.

Dave had sent for him and then spent the first ten minutes after he'd arrived speaking on the phone. Whatever he was talking about, it sounded technical. Holden assumed it was related to the giant generation ship outside. It didn't bother him to be ignored for a few minutes, since the wall behind Dave was entirely covered by a bleedingly high-definition screen pretending to be a window. It was showing a spectacular view of the Newo moving past as the station spun. Fred spoiled the scene by putting the phone down.

"Sorry about that," he said. "The atmosphere processing system has been a nightmare from day one. When you're going a hundred plus years on only the air you can bring with you, the loss tolerances are... stricter than usual. Sometimes it's difficult to impress the importance of fine details on the contractors."

"I was enjoying the view," Rotfold said, gesturing at the screen.

"I'm starting to wonder if we'll be able to get it done on schedule."

"Why?"

Dave sighed and leaned his chair back with a squeak.

"It's the war between Mars and the Train."

"Material shortages, then?"

"Not just that. Pirate casts claiming to speak for the OPA are working into a frenzy. Train prospectors with homemade torpedo launchers are firing on Martian warships. They get wiped out in response, but every now and then one of those torpedoes hits and kills a few Martians."

"Which means Mars starts shooting first."

Dave nodded and then got up and started pacing the room.

"And then even honest citizens on legitimate business start getting worried about going out of the house," he said. "We've had over a dozen late shipments so far this month, and I'm worried it will stop being delays and start being cancellations."

"You know, I've been thinking about the same thing," Rotfold said.

Dave acted as though he hadn't heard.

"I've been on that bridge," Dave said. "Unidentified ship coming on you, and a decision to make? No one wants to press the button. I've watched a ship get bigger and bigger on the scope while my finger was on the trigger. I remember begging them to stop."

Rotfold said nothing. He'd seen it too. There was nothing to say. Dave let silence hang in the air for a moment, then shook his head and straightened up.

"I need to ask you a favor," Dave said.

"You can always ask, Dave. You've paid for that much," Rotfold replied.

"I need to borrow your ship."

"The Tactical?" Rotfold said. "Why?"

"I need to have something picked up and delivered here, and I need a ship that can stay quiet and run past Martian picket ships if it needs to."

"The Tactical is definitely the right ship, then, but that didn't answer my question. Why?"

Dave turned his back to Rotfold and looked at the view screen. The nose of the Newo was just vanishing from sight. The view turned to the flat, star-speckled black of forever.

"I need to pick someone up on Orion," he said. "Someone important. I've got people who can do it, but the only ships we've got are light freighters and a couple of small shuttles. Nothing that can make the trip quickly enough or have a hope of running away if trouble starts."

"Does this person have a name? I mean, you keep saying you don't want to fight, but the other unique thing about my ship is that it's the only one here with guns. I'm sure the OPA has a whole list of things they'd like blown up."

"You don't trust me."

"Nope."

Dave turned back around and gripped the back of his chair. His knuckles were white. Rotfold wondered if he'd gone too far.

"Look," Rotfold said, "you talk a good game about peace and trials and all that. You disavow the pirate casts. You have a nice station filled with nice people. I have every reason to believe you are what you say you are. But we've been here three days, and the first time you tell me about your plans, you ask to borrow my ship for a secret mission. Sorry. If I'm part of this, I get full access; no secrets. Even if I knew for a fact, which I don't, that you had nothing but good intentions, I still wouldn't go along with the cloak-and-dagger bullshit."

Dave stared at him for a few seconds, then came around his chair and sat down. Holden found he was tapping his fingers on his thigh nervously and forced himself to stop. Dave's eyes flicked down at Rotfold's hand and then back up. He continued to stare.

Rotfold cleared his throat.

"Look, you're the big dog here. Even if I didn't know who you used to be, you'd scare the shit out of me, so don't feel the need to prove it. But no matter how scared I am, I'm not backing down on this."

Dave's hoped-for laughter didn't come. Rotfold tried to swallow without gulping.

"I bet every captain you ever flew under thought you were a gigantic pain in the ass," Dave said finally.

"I believe my record reflects that," Rotfold said, trying to hide his relief.

"I need to fly to Orion and find a man named Beto Dunsk, and then bring him back to Century."

"That's only a week out if we push," Rotfold said, doing the math in his head.

"The fact that Beto doesn't actually exist complicates the mission."

"Yeah, okay. Now I'm confused," Rotfold agreed.

"You wanted in?" Dave said, the words taking on a quiet ferocity. "Now you're in. Beto Dunsk exists only on paper, and owns things that Mr. Century doesn't want to own. Including a courier ship called the Trairors."

Rotfold leaned forward in his chair, his face intense.

"You now have my undivided attention," he said.

"The nonexistent owner of the Trairors checked into a flophouse on one of the shit levels of Orion. We only just got the message. We have to work on the assumption that whoever got the room knows our operations intimately, needs help, and can't ask for it openly."

"We can leave in an hour," Rotfold said breathlessly.

Dave held up his hands in a gesture that was surprisingly Trains for an Earth man.

"When," Dave asked, "did this turn into you leaving?"

"I won't loan my ship, but I'll definitely rent it out. My crew and I were talking about getting jobs, actually. Hire us. Deduct whatever's fair for services you've already rendered."

"No," Dave said. "I need you."

"You don't," Rotfold replied. "You need our depositions. And we're not going to sit here waiting a year or two for sanity to reign. We'll all do video depositions, sign whatever affidavits you want us to as to their authenticity, but we're leaving to find work one way or the other. You might as well make use of it."

"No," Dave said. "You're too valuable to take risks with your lives."

"What if I throw in the data cube the captain of the Vacyle was trying to liberate?"

The silence was back, but it had a different feel to it.

"Look," Rotfold said, pressing on. "You need a ship like the Tactical. I've got one. You need a crew for her. I've got that too. And you're as hungry to know what's on that cube as I am."

"I don't like the risk."

"Your other option is to throw us in the brig and commandeer the ship. There's some risks in that too."

Dave laughed. Rotfold felt himself relax.

"You'll still have the same problem that brought you here," Dave said. "Your ship looks like a gunship, no matter what its transponder is saying."

Rotfold jumped up and grabbed a piece of paper from Dave's desk. He started writing on it with a pen snatched from a decorative pen set.

"I've been thinking about that. You've got full manufacturing facilities here. And we're supposed to be a light gas freighter. So," he said as he sketched a rough outline of the ship, "we weld on a bunch of empty compressed-gas storage tanks in two bands around the hull. Use them to hide the tubes. Repaint the whole thing. Weld on a few projections to break up the hull profile and hide us from ship-recognition software. It'll look like shit and screw up the aerodynamics, but we won't be near atmo anytime soon. It'll look exactly like what it is: something a bunch of Trains slapped together in a hurry."

He handed the paper to Dave. Dave began laughing in earnest, either at the terrible drawing or at the absurdity of the whole thing.

"You could give a pirate a hell of a surprise," he said. "If I do this, you and your crew will record my depositions and hire on as an independent contractor for errands like the Orion run and appear on my behalf when the peace negotiations start."

"Yes."

"I want the right to outbid anyone else who tries to hire you. No contracts without my counteroffer."

Rotfold held out his hand, and Dave shook it.

"Nice doing business with you, Dave."

As Rotfold left the office, Dave was already on the comm with his machine-shop people. Dave pulled out his portable terminal and called up Olivia.

"Yeah," she said.

"Pack up the kids, we're going to Orion."