Chapter 4
CIS, Computer Interface Systems, are a set of tiny circuits that extend into the gaps between nerve cells in the brain. This lets them talk directly to the brain. Human brains are flexible and with practice learn to distinguish the CIS data from normal neural impulses.
Because every brain is different in detail, the computer interface system must be adjusted to suit each individual. When you get your CIS, you will be able to talk directly to the school computers and it will let you play a whole bunch of new games.
Bonks Station One, second grade worksheet, Introduction to the Computer Interface Systems.
Published Standard Date 01 01 607
Location: Restaurant, Concordia Station
Standard Date: 01 23 630
“What are the goals of this trading mission?” Danny asked Checkgok as he used his interface to bring up a spreadsheet of the content of the Pan’s holds. They were in a private room at a station restaurant with the Pan sitting in by comm and a lawyer, Robert Jones, acting as witness and advocate of Clan Zheck, since Checkgok, as kothkoke to Clan Danny Gold, presumably had mixed loyalties.
Danny wasn’t all that sure how mixed Checkgok’s motives were. Yes, while under the influence of the Parthian Banger, it swore a Parthian oath. But alien psychology didn’t necessarily correspond to human psychology, and even if it had, Danny was experienced enough to know that just because you swore undying love—even got married when you were drunk—well, that didn’t mean you still wanted to be married after you sobered up. Much less that you suddenly stopped caring about your old girlfriend. But Checkgok was talking.
“There were three. First: to obtain a more reasonable price on certain goods that recently came to market from human worlds: jalapeño peppers from New Mexico and New Texas, beeffish from Sargasso, tor vine resin from Sinnath, several other items.” Checkgok keyed in an information transfer with its mouthparts and Danny looked at the data, more because he didn’t want to look at the Parthian mouthing the keypad than because he wanted to.
Danny picked up his coffee and sipped as Checkgok spoke. It was fair, but not great, coffee. Standard station fare like you might see in any station restaurant in the Pamplona Sector, much like the decor of the restaurant. Bland, beige, and boring.
“Second,” Checkgok continued, its mouth-hand shifting back and forth, “we, ah, they, wanted to open up human markets to some of our products. Our people are more biotech-oriented than yours are. We have bioengineered products that we think could be very useful.”
Another download and Danny scanned quickly. They sure as heck did have some interesting stuff. Danny used his interface to mark a couple of items to discuss with Checkgok later.
“Third: my clan, my previous clan, is fairly conservative in many ways. We have not had, nor sought, much contact with humans or the other two space-faring races in the hundred years since the first human ship landed on Parthia. Other clans have bought shares in ships, and even in the case of the Fly Catcher, outright ownership by Clan Kox, but their results have not generally been very good.”
“Why not?” Danny asked.
“We’re not entirely sure,” the Parthian said, his eyestalks wobbling in what Danny thought might be a shrug. “We don’t normally do well on our own, but groups as small as a ship’s crew do fine when trading with other clans. Both on Parthia and our space colonies.”
“You have colonies?” Robert Jones interjected, clearly as surprised as Danny by the revelation.
“Yes. We had them when Clan Canova’s ship appeared at the jump point into our system. There are clans who are based on our artificial worldlets. That was what brought the exploration ship to contact us. They felt, quite rightly, that a race that had independently reached space must have things of value to trade.”
Danny nodded. If the Parthians climbed out of their gravity well on their own, their independent tech had to be pretty darn good. But in that case, why was the Fly Catcher a human-made ship? Why didn’t they build their own? Another thing to ask Checkgok about later. “So would you clarify that third reason?” Danny asked instead. “You wanted better prices and new markets. What else? That your clan is conservative doesn’t really count as a reason to send you out.” Though Danny suspected it just might, and if it did, Checkgok was screwed. It was, after all, not that different from what his own family did to him.
“We, ah . . . the Zheck Clan wants a better understanding of the wider universe. It was to be my task to provide the clan with that understanding.”
Danny winced somewhere deep inside where it didn’t show. It was bad enough for him when his people just thought they were a superior species. What was it going to be like for the poor bug that actually was being exposed to a different species and a different set of thought processes, then asked to come home and be a good little bug again? “So we will need to find markets for your goods, buy stuff you think that your clan needs or that they will want, and teach you about the wider universe. Good so far, but what’s in it for us? Just because I’m not willing to rip off your clan to the tune of your cargo and yourself doesn’t mean I’m willing to provide you free transport.”
“The arrangement with the Fly Catcher was that the Kox clan would receive two percent of the net worth of the cargo that was sold or offloaded at Parthia.”
Danny noted the movement of Checkgok’s eyestalks, and his translation app signaled that the eyestalks moving that way indicated acknowledgment of a point. “Two percent of net doesn’t seem enough even with all your cargo. It costs money to run a ship. How could they manage it?”
“Clan Zheck undertook to provide running expenses.”
“That’s more like it, but it doesn’t quite get there. You have less cargo and the Pan is a larger ship than the Fly Catcher. Besides, I have debts to pay.” Danny had his own troubles, and the Parthian societal structure bothered him. It was too much like what the Cybrants were doing with the Iron and Wood lines, designing them to be easily conditioned to extreme loyalty. Making people into slaves. Still, Checkgok was in trouble and it was at least sort of Danny’s fault. If they could help each other out, Danny was willing to try.
“The cargo has less bulk, yes,” Checkgok agreed, “but not less value. Quite a lot of our initial cargo was high bulk, which has been replaced in part by components which are smaller, but more expensive. Even with the loss of Kesskox’s off-the-books cargo, the cargo that will transfer from the Fly Catcher to the Pan will have greater value than the cargo that was initially loaded. Several of our products are much more valuable in the wide universe than we thought.”
“Which is nice,” Danny said, “but not quite what I was getting at. We’ll be running your schedule with your goods, but Pan’s over twice the size of Fly Catcher. After the stuff that’s going to stay with Fly Catcher, you’ll only be using a bit over a third of the cargo space and that’s not a great way to make the most profit on a cargo ship. Not for you and not for us. We’re going to want to fill the rest of that cargo space. And if we wait to do it until we’re back on your home world, we’re going to end up with two percent of less than half of our cargo hold filled.”
“So you want off-the-books cargo too.” Checkgok’s mouth-hand scrunched up toward its body.
That comment felt like a sneer to Danny. “No, I want it on the books. I’m not a member of a Parthian clan and I don’t have your cultural or biological structure. Humans are our own breeders. I’m my own clan and Bob here is his own clan. An advantage that you would expect for your clan, I want for my ship.” Danny sighed, and tried to come up with a way to explain to the Parthian what it was to be human. He’d read up on the Parthians and realized that “hive” was probably closer than “clan” in describing their social structure. Put together with what happened here on station and the meaning of the insults that they threw around, some of the differences between them and humans came clear. Now Danny was trying to make those differences clear to Checkgok. Preferably without convincing it that all humans were perverted monsters. A tall order, considering that by Parthian standards, humans are perverted monsters. It was as though humans ran into a race of intelligent black widow spiders who then tried to explain to the humans that killing and eating your partner was a natural and fulfilling way of ending a sexual encounter. Which it is . . . to a black widow spider.
“The Pan is my clan home and I must see to the welfare of myself as you are obligated to the welfare of your clan. Which, at the moment, is my clan.”
“Not exactly. While I have been made kothkoke to your clan—”
“Me,” Danny interrupted, pointedly.
“You,” Checkgok agreed, its mouth-hand scrunching up again, then continued. “You and the court have instructed me to act in this case as agent for Clan Zheck, so I am required to represent Clan Zheck.”
“Which is made easier by the fact that in spite of the kothkoke oath, now that you have sobered up, you’re still emotionally of Clan Zheck, not Clan Danny Gold, right?”
“Well, yes. But we of Clan Zheck hold our oaths sacred,” Checkgok said. And it was true, but there was more. It felt rather comfortable with this human though it didn’t know why. “Whatever I may feel now that I have, ah, sobered up, I swore the oath and it was within my authority to swear it, so it’s binding on Clan Zheck, and through Clan Zheck, on me.”
Location: Hotel Lobby, Concordia Station
Standard Date: 01 25 630
Two days later, Checkgok sat with the monkey—human—named Barnabas Carter and discussed the tanta root that was a product of the Cordoba Alendail system. It was part of the official cargo of the Fly Catcher, and Checkgok was selling it here to raise some operating capital. Pandora had given Checkgok a list of equipment that the ship would need and the Fly Catcher’s credit was not available.
Barnabas Carter clicked a greeting in very bad Parthian and they got down to negotiations. They were meeting in the hotel lobby. Checkgok was staying in the hotel while the legal issues were settled, cargo transferred, and finances arranged, because the judge didn’t want Checkgok under the authority of either ship until everything was settled. It was also worth noting that Magistrate Stella Jones owned a share in the station hotel and Checkgok was paying for good rooms.
Location: Pandora, in orbit off Concordia Station
Standard Date: 01 28 630
Danny put on the helmet and headed for the airlock while he listened to Pan bitch.
“I still say we should have gotten the whole cargo,” Pan said.
“Maybe, but I understand why she didn’t rule that way,” Danny said as the air was sucked from the lock. He felt the vacuum tingle on his skin. Skin was a lot stronger than most people thought. Even a normal human wouldn’t actually blow up if they were exposed to vacuum. It would kill them, all right, but that would be because of the eyes, mouth, ears, and nose, not the skin. The skin would stretch at the loss of external pressure, and that would be both painful and debilitating for a normal human, but not immediately deadly. With his helmet, Danny wouldn’t even suffer vacuum burn. He had a sheath of subcutaneous muscles that kept his skin from expanding in vacuum.
The lock pumped empty and Danny opened the door, still talking. “She has to keep everyone happy, Pan, or at least not so pissed off that they don’t figure they have anything to lose by calling the cops.”
“There are no cops. The Cordoba and Drake families are simply trading houses.”
Danny snorted a laugh. That was technically true, in the same way it was technically true that Julius Caesar was just a Roman general. “You know better, Pan. You’re just pissed that your quoting of precedent didn’t carry the day. Now, where is that relay you want me to look at?”
“Section Fifteen E, forty meters sternward.”
Danny looked, saw the stanchion, and leapt. He loved zero-g.
“Did you have to leap, Captain? You know that is an unsafe procedure, and calling a dutchman to the station would cost us five hundred credits.”
Danny ignored the complaint. “What about new crew?”
“We have an offer in the trades, but no takers,” Pandora told him.
“I was afraid of that,” Danny said. “We aren’t looking all that spry.” He reached out a hand and grabbed the stanchion as he flew by, and swung around it. He was wearing gloves because the stanchion was cold and he didn’t want to freeze the skin on his hands. Danny used the stanchion to make his way back to the hull of the Pan and took a look at the relay. It was four inches across, greenish gold, and slightly misaligned. Danny locked his boots in the foot holds to keep his position and started the realignment, while Pan gave him a report on Checkgok’s negotiations.
Part of the problem with crew was the cost of flexsuits. The flexsuit was a hand-crafted piece of specialized clothing that cost thousands of credits. It was made one micro link at a time by an artificial-brain-controlled machine over the course of weeks, and each one was made to fit the individual wearer. They did what Danny’s genetically modified skin did, and more. They controlled heat loss and provided directional magnetic fields that made it possible to operate in space almost as though you were operating in a station. Danny owned one, though he tried not to wear it any more than necessary, because it was twenty years old and well past its safe life expectancy. So, in relatively safe environments, like next to Concordia Station, he went for space walks in his skivvies.
Danny couldn’t afford to buy flexsuits for new crew, and crew that had their own could afford to be picky about the ships they signed onto.
∞ ∞ ∞
Checkgok squatted before the console in its hotel room and considered the screen. The Pandora was a larger ship than the Fly Catcher. Both ships’ cargo holds were about a third full. With the roots it just sold, they could buy enough hydrogen to fill the Pandora’s tanks and pay the fines and docking fees, but that was about all. It debated trying to sell the foff seeds, but the station prices were outrageous and it wasn’t getting good prices for the cargo it had to sell. There would be better prices once they got back to Cordoba space.
Location: CSFS James Bond, Aegean Cluster, Cordoba space
Standard Date: 02 18 630
Lieutenant Commander Tanya Cordoba-Davis was tied into the ship system as the Double O7 went through the jump. She immediately saw the light cruiser four and a half light seconds away along the route toward the next jump. It would be four and a half seconds before the Drake cruiser would see them, but five point three seconds before any sand or grape shot she threw could reach the point in space it was located. That would give it over a second to dodge, and it was a safe bet its sensors were pointed right at them. The jump point wasn’t all that big. Still, it was worth a try. She sent the order Lieutenant Sanders was waiting for and the magnetized BBs shot out. Tanya was jerked against her harness as Newton’s second law slammed the Double O7 in reaction to the wings grabbing the magnetized BBs and flinging them away.
At the same time, tied into ship’s systems, Tanya got the precise value and duration of vector change caused by the grapeshot as the massive magnetic fields of the Double O7’s wings flung them at the Drake Falcon-class cruiser. The Drakes used birds of prey from owls to eagles to hawks as names for their Falcon-class ships, the Drake equivalent of the Cordoba Hero-class.
Tanya’s mind sorted through the data provided by the link and searched for the enemy blocking force. It should be near the next jump point, almost a light minute from here. But at almost a light minute, they would be hard to spot unless their wings were up. Something the size of a spaceship, even the largest spaceship, would be like spotting a grain of blue sand on a green sand beach a mile away.
Tanya knew that even a lucky hit on the watcher wouldn’t do any good. It would have already sent a full description of their force, position, and vector to the waiting drakes. In just under a minute the enemy force would know precisely where to aim their telescopes. Besides, the Double O7 and the rest of the squadron were coming through the jump under full sail.
The Falcon-class was flapping like mad to get out of the path of her grapeshot. Yes, it made it. She shifted her vector to intercept it. Her job was to push it away from the jump exit so that the enemy reads on the rest of the fleet would be less precise.
The problem with space combat was that there was no place to hide in ambush, and most tactics were based on some variation of “hide in ambush.” Making the enemy think something was happening, but the wrong something.
Tanya checked her systems and called up the vectors and data. They were traveling at seventy-five kilometers per second, but their exit vector from the jump was almost forty degrees off the vector they needed to hit the next jump, and it would take them almost a day to get there. Tanya ordered the Double O7 to two standard gravities, twenty meters per second acceleration, and went in pursuit of the picket ship. The rest of the fleet would be maintaining one standard g until they got some distance from the jump, then kill their accell to see if they could get the enemy looking in the wrong direction. It was a standard tactic, but it was standard because it was hard to counter.
At distances like these, the delay between an action taken and an action observed made targeting, or even keeping your eyes on a target, difficult. But that wasn’t Tanya’s problem. She was after the Falcon-class ship out there.
“Do we have an ID on that ship?” she asked Lieutenant Vance, who was acting as her sensors officer at the moment.
“Not yet. No . . . wait one. It’s the Sparrow Hawk, built in 613 at the Granger Yards in the Drakar system. They have a good rep, but it’s seventeen standards old.”
“That’s not old,” said Chief Petty Officer Ralph Howard, who was chief of ship and the senior NCO on the Double O7.
“Check for upgrades anyway,” Tanya sent and grinned at the byplay. Ralph was mostly right. Ships were expensive to build and kept in service as long as possible, and if that was more true of cargo ships than warships, it was still true. The Double O7 herself was fifteen years old, and there were ships in the squadron that were upwards of fifty.
Vance sent a vector projection. “Captain, it’s trying to curl around to stay in range of the squadron.”
In Tanya’s mind, the vector projection ran out and several options presented themselves. She could shift immediately and keep the pressure up. She could let the Sparrow Hawk think she was getting away with it. Or she could split the difference, delay her response a little so that the Sparrow Hawk might think her sloppy, and make a risky move based on that. “What do we know about the skipper over there, Bosun?”
Ralph dove into the shipnet and came up with a name and a service history. “Sir Douglas Gillette. He’s old for his rank and . . . Captain, he received his knighthood for service to the Drake Combine. He was born on Pabang and was an enlisted spacer for almost ten years before he got knighted and received his commission.”
“Respond, Mr. Vance, but be sloppy about it, like you just noticed and are overcompensating. Rather like I am.” Tanya sent him a vector correction, and he looked up at her.
Tanya grinned. “I am a spoiled darling of the aristocracy, Mr. Vance, not expected to be competent. Let’s see if we can encourage the ‘grizzled old spacer’ over there in that belief, shall we?”
They continued their dance for hour after hour, Tanya and the Double O7 forcing Sparrow Hawk away from the squadron, but sloppily. The tension on the bridge got more and more intense as they got farther from the support of the rest of the squadron and closer to the Sparrow Hawk. Making mistakes meant taking chances. Even when you were intentionally leaving yourself open, you were left open. The crew of the Double O7 wanted the Sparrow Hawk to take the bait, but when it did they might get mauled.
∞ ∞ ∞
“What the fuck?” Vance exclaimed. “Sorry, Captain. They are running. Just deadout running.”
Tanya sighed. The vector of the Sparrow Hawk was shifting again, but this wasn’t a subtle attempt to close with the Cordoba squadron. Nor was it an attempt to get back to the Drake squadron that had to be out there guarding the next jump on the jump chain. It was a flat out run at three standard gravities, thirty meters per second, to get as much distance as he could from the Double O7. Tanya looked at the vector, called up her rutters, and realized that for the past hours while she was playing him, he was playing her. There was a jump along his projected course. It was a short jump, and according to Tanya’s rutters it was into a cul de sac. But the advantage of the attacker when coming through a gate was based on the fact that the defender would not know when, or precisely where, the attacked would make jump, and the attacker would see the defender first.
When you were chasing someone through a gate, that advantage flipped. The fleeing ship knew where you were, and your options as to when and where you made jump were limited, whereas from the moment they passed through jump the fleeing prey could vector in any direction and send salvo after salvo back at the jump point.
“Break off,” Tanya grated.
The ship’s system came up with “simulation concluded.”
“I wondered if you’d go for it after you realized you’d been suckered, Tanya,” Captain Hedlund said over the net. He ran the sym from his cabin interface. “Don’t underestimate old salts. Gillette is perhaps the best ship commander in Drake service.”
“I read about him. But, honestly, sir, it all sounded like Drake propaganda. ‘See, we really do promote from the lower classes when it’s merited.’ “
“It was Drake propaganda, and don’t doubt that the Drake old line Spaceforce officer corps resents the hell out of him. But the truth is that Gillette should be commanding a Dragon-class, not a Falcon-class, or even be a squadron commodore.”
“If you say so, sir. But doesn’t that make it even more likely that he would expect my incompetence?”
The Double O7 was back to half a standard G, all they could manage without venting plasma in this part of space. The starfield was empty of other ships except for the Davy Crockett, who watched the exercise from a safe distance. Tomorrow it would be the Davy that did a full-on sim, while the James Bond watched for trouble.
Captain Hedlund stepped onto the bridge, flex suit covered by his uniform. Tanya got up and gave him the captain’s chair and he continued the talk. “Yes, but it really didn’t matter. Whether you were being stupid or clever, it still let him get to his back door out of the pocket. He’s done his job. The enemy knows our fleet’s vector and has good reads on all the ships. And we know crap about them except for the Sparrow Hawk, and it’s gone through that jump to a cul de sac or maybe a side route that we don’t know about, back to the main jump route. You should have kept the known jump points, even the cul de sacs, in mind, Tanya. You’re good. In all honesty, as good a natural commander as I’ve ever seen. But you have the vices of your virtues. A tendency to expect to be able to outthink your opponent. You’re going to want to watch that.”
Tanya nodded. The function of the Cordoba Combine Spaceforce was to protect trade in the Pamplona Sector. At least, in theory.
Location: Drake Space, Drakar Palace, Drakar
Standard Date: 02 16 630
Counselor Le Wong, cousin to His Imperial Majesty Kenneth Drake and, more importantly, nephew of Ferdinand Drake, the chairman of the board and largest stockholder of the Drake Combine, strode through the corridors of the palace with a memory stick in his right hand and a severe expression on his face. Two Drake agents in Cordoba space recently met with fatal accidents, and when he combined that with the presence of a Parthian wingship in Drake space, it suggested all sorts of nasty possibilities. The Cordobas were up to something or they never would have let the bugs get hold of a ship.
He stepped through the crystal pillars into the garden. His cousin waved. Then, seeing his expression, held up a hand. The garden, almost an acre, was full of trees, flowers, and ball courts. It was also surrounded by a plexicreat wall thirty feet tall. The emperor was, at that moment, standing on a rock over a crystal blue brook that bubbled and laughed its way through the garden. Prince Nave of Hellespont Three, the sole habitable planet in the Hellespont system, was at the base of the rock with an ash bow in hand, aiming at a target ten meters away. Prince Nave loosed his arrow as the emperor’s expression changed.
“No, absolutely not,” the eleven-year-old emperor of the Drakar system said. “Politics are not allowed in the dragon’s garden. You know the rules.”
A grin twitched Le Wong’s face as he looked back at Emperor Kenneth, Prince Nave, Count James of Drakar City, and Lady Angla of Golden, whose bow was now pointed in Le’s general direction. Le liked his young cousin, who was bright and at least reasonably willing to put up with the royal folderol.
His grin was only a twitch, though, because if the Cordobas were actually planning on integrating the bugs into their population, it would give them a massive boost. The Pamplona Sector was only lightly populated by the Sol System standards of a few centuries ago. There were billions of Parthians, and their integration would give the Cordobas a population of seventeen billion. That was almost half again as many people as the Drakes had. And the Parthian tech base was impressive, if not quite up to human standards.
“Then, Your Majesty, I must draw you out of the garden for a few moments.”
Emperor Kenneth Drake looked at him, sighed, and waved his playmates away. He followed Wong out of the garden and down the hall to a secure office.
“The Cordobas seem to be making a play for control of the sector,” Wong said as soon as the door was closed.
At eleven, Kenneth was just at five feet tall, and thin. He had golden hair. Not blond. Golden. Golden brown skin, and his greenish-gold eyes had just a touch of elongation of the pupil. Not cat’s eyes, but a bit cat-ish. Kenneth was as enhanced as any of the prime Cybrant lines but was also educated from birth to be a ruler. He had, in theory, all the traits to make a great leader.
Wong knew it wasn’t Kenneth’s fault that he was spoiled. Kenneth had been fawned over for his entire life, while it was also made clear to him that he was not allowed to follow his own interests.
“What does Father say?” Kenneth asked.
“This is a government matter. Not something to bother Chairman Drake with.”
The emperor of Drakar snorted. “In other words, you’re not sure enough to take it to my father. Okay, what have the Cordobas done?” Kenneth went to one of the chairs in the secure conference room and flopped down on it.
“They released a ship to the Parthians.”
“Give me the dump.”
Wong plugged the memory stick into the room’s net and let Kenneth absorb the data electronically.
“I don’t know, Le. You know how corrupt the Cordobas are. Couldn’t it just be that one of the families got careless or needed a bit of cash?”
“That was our initial assessment, but note subsection C. Two of our top agents in Cordoba space have met with so-called accidents that were fatal in the last month. Both of them were deeply involved in keeping track of Cordoba Combine policy toward Parthia.” That was what really upset Wong, the combination of events.
“Could be coincidence,” Kenneth said.
“I don’t believe in coincidence, Your Majesty.”
“All right. I’ll take it to Father.” The emperor considered. “But he’s been concerned with the free traders, smugglers, and the gray colonies, so he may not pay much attention to this.”
Location: Yagan 3, Cordoba Space
Standard date: 02 16 630
Admiral George Cordoba-Davis waved his former aide into his office. “How did it go, Allan?”
“It got a little messy, sir. He was better trained than we thought.” Allan didn’t pause in the doorway or even hesitate as he entered the private office, but George didn’t ask any other questions until the door was closed and the security systems engaged. Those security systems turned off the holo panels, turning the pleasant, airy space into a white-walled vault.
George went to his desk as he asked, “How much better trained?”
Allan’s face was grim. “He was enhanced, sir. Had to be. He was drinking heavily, and the plan was to have him ‘trip’ going down the stairs. But he avoided the throw and almost brought down our operative.”
“Sit, sit. Then tell me about it from the beginning,” George said, a bit more harshly than he intended. “Are you sure he was enhanced? Couldn’t he have just been lucky? There is no way someone at that level in the Jackson-Cordoba organization should have that level of enhancement. And a clerk, even if he was enhanced, shouldn’t have that sort of enhancement.”
Allan sat but didn’t relax. “I wondered the same thing, sir. I got a tissue sample and had some friends do a genetic analysis. He had most of the Cybrant Iron Line mods and a couple of the Bronze.”
“No way that Tobin Jackson-Cordoba would go along with that,” George said.
“I know, sir. That’s what has me concerned. I think we hit a Drake agent.”
“What the hell is a Drake agent doing pushing the Jackson-Cordoba claims to the Canova system?”
“I don’t have a clue, sir.”
George Cordoba-Davis looked at his long-time friend but didn’t see him at all. The factions within the great families of the Cordoba Combine were becoming more and more polarized, and the gap between the great families and the Spaceforce was even worse. Could the Jackson-Cordobas have sold out to the Drakes? He wouldn’t have thought that of Tobin, but who knew what was going to happen in the next shake up.
Location: New Argentina
Standard Date: 02 16 630
Tobin Jackson-Cordoba stepped out of the theater with what might be called a firm step. If one was prone to understatement. He scanned the street for his limo and checked the time with his internals. It was seventy-three seconds since he signaled for the limo to meet him, and his mouth tightened in irritation.
Tobin appeared about forty to the eyes of a pre-space, pre-genetic engineering human, but you could add a standard century to that and still fall short of the mark. He was dressed in New Argentina formal attire. Not for Tobin the fad of dressing down. His jumpsuit was of Candahar silk, a blend of the red, blue and violet black. It glowed royal purple in the sunset. The joint bands that circled the jumpsuit’s limbs at wrist, elbow, shoulder, hip, knee, and ankle, were gold. His old fashioned “space helmet” hat followed the motion of his head without ever touching his perfectly coiffed auburn hair.
Tobin liked live theater when it was done well, but he walked out on this play five minutes in. An over-ambitious and under-talented playwright attempted to update Romeo and Juliet to the Pamplona sector. Utterly ridiculous. You might as well try to update the melancholy prince. Tobin was a realist. The notion that a fully realized, genetically enhanced human would fall into the sort of emotional morass the unenhanced stumbled into wasn’t just silly, it was actively insulting.
Like the play in question, the Pamplona Sector was indeed ruled by two great houses. The Drakes and Cordobas evolved from family businesses into corporations, then into governments, in response to fluctuations in the political and economic landscape. They controlled, between them, most of the trade in the Pamplona Sector. Through that control, they directed most of the planetary and system governments. Both families were genetically enhanced, logical, and pragmatic.
Either family would have jettisoned Romeo and Juliet through the airlock without a second thought.
Each had done things much more severe to erring family members. Tobin Jackson-Cordoba himself did worse when the situation demanded it.
∞ ∞ ∞
There was his limo. Finally. He strode down the steps and the chauffeur barely got the door up in time. Tobin settled into his seat and sent a message to Conrad to meet him at the palacio.
∞ ∞ ∞
Conrad was there when Tobin arrived, and if he was looking not quite as neat as he might, Tobin decided to let it pass this time. “What’s the status of Canova?” Tobin asked.
“The court rejected Barbra’s final appeal.”
“I know that,” Tobin snapped. “I want to know if any more action is going to be necessary.”
“No, Uncle. The Parthian’s tech is different enough that most people don’t recognize it for what it is. Certainly Barbra Canova . . .”
“Barbra Billingsley,” Tobin snapped again. He was in a snappish mood. But that wasn’t all. It was important to maintain the position that Barbra Billingsley Canova was not, in fact, a member of the Canova family. That there were no Canovas still alive, because only then did the contracts between the Canova family and the Jackson-Cordobas go into effect.
“Excuse me, Uncle, but why the sudden concern?”
“Because in a few minutes I’m going to call that idiot bitch Angela Cordoba-Davis and tell her she’s talked me into supporting her position on New Kentucky, in exchange for her support. . . . Don’t shake your head at me, boy.”
“Sorry, sir, but the wealth of the Parthian industrial base will . . .”
“I know that, but I have a solution.” Conrad was talking about the danger that as soon as they started to truly exploit the industrial base of the Parthian home system, the Cordoba Board was going to notice and react. Probably send in the navy and take the bugs’ system for the Combine.
“Sir?”
“I was thinking about it while that hack butchered the play by trying to update it without taking into account the fact that we are practical people, not romantic fools. Our solution is Admiral Lord John Charles Huffington.” The Drake admiral was a hot head and had all the subtlety of a bull in a china shop, but he was an effective naval commander.
“I don’t understand.”
“The Ambrosius route.” Tobin said referring to a gray route that the Jackson-Cordoba Trading Company used to smuggle goods from Parthia into Drake space. It was common knowledge that it was there, but its precise location was closely held. On the Cordoba side, it came out on the route between Parise and Ferguson. “Huffington will go after Parise, but it will be a plausible threat against Canova. Once we have the forts in place, we’ll be in a position to use the bugs as a labor force. We won’t have to worry about the chairman of the board ordering out the navy. Not against forts, not when he’s already dealing with a Drake incursion. We’ll have decades to put the proper controls in place and ramp up production. With the bugs churning out war goods, the rest of the Two Hundred will have to fall in line.”
“It’s risky, Uncle. Once we give Huffington the route, we lose it. If he gets his ass handed to him, we give up the route for nothing.”
“Make sure the commander at Parise is not the best we have. You’re right that we need Huffington to have at least initial success.”
“The board?”
“Petros Cordoba wants the chairmanship.” Tobin filled a snifter about a quarter full of cho-ki brandy, swirled the deep blue liquid around in the snifter, lifted it to his nose, and inhaled the scent of the Parthian liquor. He took a sip, then turned back to his nephew. “He won’t get it, but we can make it look like he might, and that will tie Susan Cordoba’s hands. At least long enough.”
“That might push the Chairwoman to supporting the spaceforce’s demand to vote the space force shares.” The Cordoba spaceforce was supported by the dividends from a large block of stock. If the spaceforce was allowed to vote it, they would instantly become a power in the selection of the Cordoba Board.
“No.” Tobin shook his head. “The rest of the board would never go for it.”
“And the Drakes?”
“Nothing for now, but once we have control of the Cordoba Board . . .” Tobin considered. “The boy will have to go, but we will need to make sure none of our gene scans are anywhere near that, because we won’t be imitating the Montagues. We’ll follow the example of the Habsburgs instead.”
“Ah, happy Austria,” Conrad quoted, “other royal houses commit war while the Habsburgs commit marriage.”
“But all that is decades away. First we must gain control of the Cordoba Combine.”
“Actually, I was worried about what the Drakes are going to be doing in the meantime,” Conrad said.
“You mean you think they’ll follow up on Huffington’s gains?” Tobin shook his head. “No. Ferdinand Drake is too cautious for that. He won’t be happy about Huffington’s actions and he’s going to suspect the military of trying to gain support for a coup. The first thing he’ll do is purge their ranks of anyone competent. The Drakes aren’t the danger.
“The danger is what it’s always been. That someone other than ourselves will see the use that a race of natural born slaves can be put to in the building of empire.”