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But here at Voyager, thank God, they’d found no attempt to sabotage them, not by low tech or high, not even a glitch-up at the hurried negotiations, where they’d tried to hammer out financial information, and none in refueling. Just getting the signatures on documents wouldn’t actually speed specific negotiations at Pell, Mariner, and Esperance, but it certainly put Voyager’s vote in as favoring the new system. The Voyager stationmaster, a reserved man courting a heart attack, had looked every way he could think of for a trap or a disadvantage in what they’d almost as a matter of course come to him to offer, and instead had found nothing but good for him in the deal—so much so that they’d not only gotten his agreement and that of his administration, they’d been inundated with information handed to them on Esperance. It even included things they were dismayed to be told, dealings which the Voyager stationmaster had found out, evidently, regarding the stationmaster’s affair with his wife’s sister—that tidbit of information had come out yesterday night at di
A stationmaster who routinely had di
Two bottles of wine administered in meetings like that, and the Voyager stationmaster probably found out things the captains didn’t even tell their next of kin.
But last night, to them, the Voyager stationmaster had named names regarding Esperance’s near bedfellowship with Union. Then the captains, at the same table, had outlined the easy operations of Esperance customs, and exactly what the contacts were by which Esperance obtained luxury goods.
And those goods shipped right past Voyager, a golden pipeline from which neither Voyager nor these captains could derive benefit. Damned right they were a
The party broke up, Jacobite’s captain actually singing on the way down the dock, the others with their respective crews headed off, God save their livers, for more drinking, probably with their crews.
They had undock coming: that saved them a breakfast invitation with the station administration. They parted company with a very delighted and only slightly tipsy stationmaster, and took their security from the restaurant’s kitchen, past a straggle of determined news cameras, newspeople asking such questions as: Can you talk about the agreement? How would you characterize the agreement ?
No information was the Old Man’s order. “Sorry,” JR had to say, to one who tried to catch him; and he hurried to overtake the rest on their walk back to the Safe Harbor.
Madison had said, in privacy after last night’s di
It had been a joke. But a thin one, even then. They had everything they wanted at three stations, and they were going to be up against profit motives with a fat, prosperous station which thought it could do whatever it pleased.
“We could turn around,” Alan said when the topic came up as they were walking back. “Let Esperance hear about the deal we’ve made so far with Sol, Pell, Mariner and Voyager, and let them worry for a year whether they’ll be included.”
“Let them hear that Sol is in the deal,” the Old Man had said, entirely seriously, as JR, walking behind with Bucklin and their security, listened in absolute quiet. “That’s their source of luxury goods, in exactly the same way and through the same co
“If Quen has her way,” Madison said, “more of Boreale’s class will never be built. Not by Union.”
“And if I have my way, we won’t spend those funds building Quen’s super long-haulers ourselves, either. We’ll build enough ships to keep the stations viable and building. Bigger stations, bigger populations; bigger populations, more trade. Alliance stations will never top a planetary population, but our markets are totally dependent on us—unlike Cyteen’s. Esperance will never grow grain and she’d get hellishly tired of fishcakes and yeast in six weeks, let alone six years. Which is what she’ll be down to if we pull the merchanters together again and threaten to strike if they don’t go along. We have them, cousins. They may think they’re going to doublecross us and go direct with Earth, and they may think Union’s new warrior-merchanters are going to be their answer, but we, and Quen, have that cut off.”
The Old Man, two glasses of wine in him, was still sharp and dead-on, JR said to himself. It made self-interested sense even for merchanters like Ha
“We don’t want to say all of that,” the Old Man said, “at Esperance. Not until we have Union’s agreement on the line, but they’re already done for, in any ambition to become the direct Union-Earth pipeline. We just have to get them to sign the document we have. Let them do it in the theory they can doublecross us, and get Union ships in. Those ships won’t ever materialize because of Quen’s ship, and because of our agreement about the tariffs. And that means Union will define its border as excluding Esperance, because we can give Union the security and the trade it needs far better than some backdoor agreement they might make with Esperance. They’ll be left out without a tether-line. Just let drift. They don’t know that yet.” A moment of silence, just their footfalls on the station decking. Then the Old Man added: “In some regards, Mazian is the best friend we’ve got. As long as Union fears he might come back a popular hero if they push the Alliance too hard, we’ve got them , as well. Mallory wants to finish him. I prefer him right where he is, cousins, out in the deep dark, in whatever peace he’s found.”
What could you say to that? Even Francie and Alan had looked shocked.
About Madison, JR wasn’t so sure.
And for himself, he feared it was the truth.
Chapter 21
Finity’s End eased back from dock with the agility of a light load and a surrounding space totally unencumbered by traffic, even of maintenance skimmers. And the senior staff on the bridge breathed a sigh of relief to have the tie to Voyager broken.
Francie was the captain sitting, at this hour. The Old Man, Madison and Alan, the captains who’d been nearly forty-eight hours with no sleep during last-minute negotiations and subsequent celebration, were off-duty, presumably to get some rest as soon as they reached momentary stability.