Trading in Danger

“The Katrine Lamont, then,” he said, hoping Furman was still in the system.

“Very good, sir,” the tech said.

“Katrine Lamont receiving call from Vatta HQ, Slotter Key,” the communications officer aboard the ship said, quite properly.

“This is Gerard Vatta; patch me through to Captain Furman.”

“Sir, it’s—it’s third watch…”

“And this is an interstellar call, priority. Wake him up.”

A faintly hissing silence, then: “Captain Furman here.”

“This is Gerry Vatta,” he said informally. “What’s the situation?” He heard Furman draw in a breath.

“The situation, sir, is that your idiot daughter has stolen a Vatta Transport ship and gone haring off into jumpspace—she says she’s on the way to Belinta to deliver a cargo, but for all I know she’s on her way to any place you can think of. She hasn’t learned one damn thing since she was—”

“Excuse me.” Gerard knew that he was being calm; he knew it by the whitening of his knuckles and the fact that he managed that courtesy rather than the bellow of rage he felt. “Did you just call my daughter an idiot and a thief, or perhaps I misunderstood your use of the words idiot and stolen…?”

An audible gulp. “Sir, I—I misspoke myself. The fact is, despite my attempts to make her see reason, she refused to come aboard this ship with her crew, let me sell off that old hulk for scrap, and bring her home.”

“I didn’t tell you to do that.” He was calm, he was very calm. That, no doubt, was why Stavros now had a firm hand on his shoulder, and why the techs in the communications center were staring at him wide-eyed. “I told you to give her every assistance, to make it clear that she was under Vatta protection.”

“You can’t protect someone who’s acting like an idiot!” Furman blurted. “I tried to talk sense into her—”

“That’s the second time you’ve called my daughter an idiot,” Gerard said. Again Furman gulped.

“I didn’t mean it like that—I just meant, impetuous, young, headstrong—”

“You should have known,” Gerard said. “You had her on her apprentice voyage—” From which she had come back even more determined to enter the Academy, he recalled. Furman had done nothing but drive her farther away back then. Gerard tried to stay calm. It wasn’t entirely Furman’s fault, but Furman was there, handy, and he wanted so much to tack someone’s hide to the wall. He took a deep breath, reminding himself of Furman’s years of exemplary service.

“You’re not blaming me, surely.” Furman’s voice sounded thick; was it sleepiness or anger? “I’m a senior captain in the Fleet; I disrupted my own important schedule to come get that—her—out of the mess she’d gotten herself into—”

Stavros’ hand tightened on Gerard’s arm; he realized that the wash of brightness across his vision was another wave of white-hot anger. “She did not get herself into a mess, Captain Furman,” he made himself say, rather than You arrogant asshole, say one more word about my daughter and I’ll have you for breakfast… “She happened to be in the system when a war started, and she survived until help arrived. I find that commendable. I would find that commendable even if you had done it.”

Something that might have been a splutter came into his headphone.

“I sent you to help her. Not scold her. Not order her around as if she were still a thirteen-year-old apprentice. Help her. And what you’ve done, apparently, is help her go off again, without my having a chance to talk to her, and you may have convinced her that she’s in trouble with me. Now you may be one of our senior captains, and you may have an important and lucrative route, but the fact is, Captain Furman, that you are still a Vatta Transport employee, and your job description does not include insulting my daughter…” He knew his voice had risen; he knew that Stavros had a hard grip on his arm, and the faces in the communications center were all shocked, and he should get hold of himself, calm down. “Damn it, man!” That was a shout, the shout that brought him back to himself, his voice all but gone. “If she…” If she didn’t come back, if she was lost because the drive failed, because she’d hurried the repair because of Furman, if she disappeared into the endless dark reaches of space…

“I’m sorry,” Furman said, a distant scratchy voice, irritating even in its submission. “I didn’t mean any harm, I just thought…”

“Just… don’t say anything,” Gerard said. He felt sick, all the energy of anger drained away, the emptiness of not knowing hollowing his heart. He had hoped… he had counted on talking to her himself, hearing her voice, proving—if only for the time the call lasted—that she was alive, that he had been told the truth.

“Do you want me to follow her to Belinta? Make sure she’s safe?”

Stavros took the headset from him before he could answer; Gerard leaned on the console with both hands, bracing himself upright, while Stavros’ calm voice told Furman what to do: clear up all Vatta accounts in Sabine, report in when he had done so, and then in all likelihood return to his usual route for the present.

Gerard blinked back the tears, tried not to sniff audibly at the congestion in his nose. He should be happy. She was alive. She had not let Furman bully her. She had gone off to do her duty, fulfill the contract, trade and profit, like a true Vatta. He could send a message by ansible to Belinta, telling her he was proud of her. He could reach her while she was there. It was all right now.

He could not believe it. He felt in his own heart the avalanche of disasters that had come to her, one after another, each one tearing her away from the family, rushing her away, out of control, to some disastrous ending. She would not come back. If he saw her again, she would be someone else, a stranger, not his daughter Kylara. A quick cascade of images raced through his mind: infant-toddler-child-preadolescent-teen-young woman. In the future? Nothing.

“Well.” That was Stavros, a warm hand once more on his shoulder. “She’s alive for sure, ourKy.”

Gerard couldn’t answer. He forced a deep breath, straightened. Communications techs busied themselves at their consoles, carefully ignoring the senior officers.

“You’ll want to leave a message at Belinta,” Stavros said. “Letter of credit as well?”

Would she think it was a bribe? Would she think that not leaving one was a ploy to make her come begging? Did she even need the money?

“Everyone needs money,” Stavros said. “Even when they have enough.”

“A message,” Gerard managed to say. “From me.” He took another breath, picked up a recording cube from the stack on the console. “I can do it, Stav. I’m fine now.” He took the cube into one of the booths they used when they weren’t rushing as he had been, and recorded a short, cordial message to be sent to Belinta and left it in the queue for her arrival.

The days wore on, marked only by ship’s time. Ky updated the captain’s log, scribbling in the margins the things she had not had time to put in before. It might be messy, but it would be complete as she saw it. Her log.

Some things, though, she did not want to put in. Her account of the mutiny was precise, detailed, and accurate so far as it went. It did not include her feelings. It particularly did not include that wholly unmentionable feeling of utter, absolute, complete glee that had taken over when she killed Paison, his mate, and Kristoffson. Oh, she’d thrown up after it was over—and she’d expected that; they’d been told in the Academy that most people did, after a first killing. But even so, even with the horror and revulsion, she’d been aware of something much worse going on underneath.

She had enjoyed it. She had enjoyed the crisis; she had enjoyed the need to make those snap decisions, take that immediate action.

And she had enjoyed killing.

That did not fit with any of her ideas about herself. Kylara the rescuer, yes. Kylara the brave defender, yes. But Kylara the happy killer? What kind of monster was she? And why didn’t she feel more like a monster? Was it true, as Master Sergeant Pitt and the Colonel had told her, that she was wasted in civilian life? Was she a born killer, and did that mean she should join up with other born killers? Should she join the mercenaries, where her violent tendencies would be under proper control?