Trading in Danger

“I see.” Was that a twitch of amusement? She hoped not, but she could imagine the kinds of things Furman had said about her.

“We’ll expect the tug contact in six hours, then,” Ky said. She would try to catch a nap before then, and another snack.

By the time the tug’s call came, Ky had slept a few hours, eaten again, showered, and started a list of necessary repairs and their projected costs. Refueling the insystem drive. Purging and reinitializing the ship’s control systems. Obtaining a new, certified ID chip for the beacon. Replacing the sealed unit of the FTL drive and the damaged liner section. Removing the plumbing fixtures from the cargo holds—she presumed that Mackensee would want their toilet and sink units back, but that could wait. Repairing or replacing the communications modules. The credits mounted up, a few hundred here, a few thousand there. She compared the total to the amount that Mackensee owed her for transporting their prisoners… a squeak, but she might make it.

Once they docked at the orbital station, Ky spoke to the station security about unloading her passengers. In only a short time, they were all out of the ship, onto a dock area secured from the media. Ky had begun to relax when a series of dockside calls came in. A Mackensee officer—she had no idea what rank, but he seemed very young—asked permission to come aboard and arranged for the removal of their property. An ISC official also asked permission to come aboard; she named herself “Assistant to the Incident Investigator-General.” A representative of the Sabine Prime government’s Department of Foreign Affairs wanted to talk with her about her knowledge of the involvement of Captain Paison in the Secundus affair. A representative of Interstellar Transient Transformations wanted information on Gary Tobai’s faith and the type of ceremony desired. And an officer from the Katrine Lamont claimed to have urgent communications from Captain Furman and Vatta Transport, Ltd.

She groaned inwardly. What she wanted most was an uninterrupted sleep shift, but clearly she wasn’t going to get it. She tried to think what should come first.

“Quincy—what kind of service would Gary have wanted?”

The old woman shook her head. “We never talked about it. He was a Modulan, I know that much, but that’s all.”

“Well… what would be best for the crew, then?”

“Modulan’s always safe. But you Vatta are something else, aren’t you?”

“Saphiric Cyclans, yes, but it doesn’t matter about me.” Even as she said it she wondered why. Why shouldn’t she matter? “What about his family? Did he ever talk about them?”

“Had a granddaughter out in the Necklace Islands; I don’t know about the rest.”

“We’ll do Modulan and have the box made up for her, then. Do you know her name?”

“Angelica,” Quincy said.

Ky called Interstellar Transient Transformations and gave them this information.

“Our condolences, Captain, to you and your crew,” the ITT representative said. “I’m Selon Bahandar, and I will be assisting you through this sad time. We’ll need to discuss chapel availability, once we’ve collected the… er… remains.”

“Chapel availability?”

“Yes. We have many other services scheduled, you understand…”

She didn’t. But then, she’d never attended any religious service on a space station.

“It’s a matter of finding the open time slot most suitable to you and to his memory.”

“I see.”

“You are familiar with the process, I presume?”

She wasn’t. They hadn’t had a funeral in the family since Aunt Pellit’s, and that was over on North Coast when she had an ear infection and couldn’t fly. “I’m sorry,” she said. “But I haven’t dealt with this before.”

His smile managed to combine extreme sympathy with extreme satisfaction; Ky found it extremely a

“Uh…”

“You may not have known that orbital stations usually allot only one space for religious purposes, a holographic chapel which is preprogrammed to offer a variety of religious spaces suitable for practically every faith and ceremony. Now as you’ve indicated your loved… er… lost one was himself a Modulan, let me show you the Modulan setting…” Up on the screen, a window opened to show the interior of a typical Modulan chapel, very like that at the Academy except for the lack of a Spaceforce seal. The restful curves, even to the seat backs, the soft golden glow of the lighting, the Focus of Faith in gleaming pewter. “If you want to personalize this in some way—” The display flickered, and morphed to an exaggerated style, with banks of pink flowers along the side walls and a beam of light striking down at an angle to rest on the Focus.

“No,” Ky said, slightly repelled as always by the Modulan color scheme of soft greens, but even more repelled by the deliberate drama of the variant form.

“Very well. Now about the Box…”

The box, Ky knew, was nothing but a symbol, small enough to fit in the hand; Bahandar’s tone added the capital and implied extraordinary worth.

“Traditional Modulans still prefer the plain wood with the Focus on the cover,” Bahandar said, implying that traditional Modulans were far behind the times. “But we have a very nice selection of boxes—enameled, inlaid—”

“The plain wooden box,” Ky said firmly. “Gary was very traditional.” She didn’t know how traditional he was in the practice of his religion, but she did know how traditional he was about spending money on things that were not necessary to the ship or its cargo. He would come back to haunt her if she indulged in any fancy additions to his service.

“Very well. And the chaplain,” Bahandar said. “There’s the recorded service, the Interactive service with counseling subroutines…”

Ky had never imagined anything like this. “I thought there was just a chaplain—”

“Oh, if you want a live chaplain, that’s certainly possible—” His voice warmed. “We have to arrange to bring someone up from Prime—that is a little expensive…”

“No, that’s all right,” Ky said. “I’m sure one of the other methods will do very well. But you’ll have to excuse me—I have other commitments to meet here. If you’ll collect his body, I can get back with you later.”

“It’s a good idea to go on and make arrangements early,” Bahandar said. “There are still a lot of casualties coming in—”

She hadn’t considered that. “What is the schedule then?”

“With a holographic chaplain, or the recorded or AI version of the service, we can fit you in… let me see… at 1330 hours the day after tomorrow. That includes a one-hour slot in the… that’s the Modulan basic-plan chapel, with provision for either the recording or the interactive audio service. If you wanted the half hour of grief counseling in the chapel, the first open slot is 0730 three days from now.”

“The recorded version,” Ky said. “We won’t require the grief counseling.” If the crew needed grief counseling—she didn’t let herself think about whether she did—Vatta Transport could provide it somewhere else, as part of their health coverage. Not from a smarmy little man who was a

“Very well. You’re entered for 1330, day after tomorrow, that’s Senket, in local calendars. Please be sure that you vacate the chapel on time, as there is a service scheduled after yours. The actual recording begins when you press START and takes thirty-four minutes.”

“We will be out on time,” Ky said.

“And to what account should this be charged?” Bahandar asked.

“Vatta Transport, Ltd.,” Ky said. She had no qualms about that; their insurance would cover it.

“Very well. Now—where is the… er…”

“In the cooler,” Ky said. “One of my crew will show your perso

“Within the hour,” Bahandar said.