Ky glanced behind her. No one stood in line. “It wouldn’t take a moment to look it up.”

“Next, please.” The clerk still wasn’t looking at her. Ky wanted to reach across the counter and wring his skinny neck, but that was the impulse of a moment. This was part of being a tradeship captain; this was the kind of senseless, ridiculous, annoying nonsense she could expect.

“Fine,” she said instead. “I’ll deliver it myself.” After all, she had to go downside anyway, to find out if there was any cargo worth carrying from this wretched planet.

“Glad to be of service have a nice day,” the clerk said all in one breath.

Ky went back the way she’d come, past the corridor that led to the docking area, past Goodtime Eats and Jerry’s Real Food and Quick-snack, where the two women she’d seen earlier were head to head over a small table, to the ticket office for the shuttle service. She could not remember just when the daily service left—

“Two and a half hours,” the clerk said. “Be at the boarding area a half hour before departure.”

That gave time to go back to her ship and change. She turned to go but a screech from the PA system stopped her. “What’s that?”

“I don’t know,” the clerk said.

“Stay wherever you are,” a bone-shaking voice said. “All personnel stay wherever you are. Emergency crews one and two, to dockside on the double. All personnel…”

“My ship!” Ky said. “I have to get back—”

But the ticket office entrance was closed, the metal grate locking with a final chung even as she moved toward it.

“You heard ’em,” the clerk said. “We’re all supposed to stay put.”

“Well, I can’t,” Ky said. “Open that thing.”

“Can’t,” the clerk said. “It’s automatic, like section seals. Station Security controls it. Unless you’ve got the override code like one of the emergency crews…”

The PA announcement had stopped. Fifteen minutes later, the grate slid back into its slot, squeaking a little. “Return to normal activity,” the PA said. “All personnel return to normal activity.” Still no announcement of what had prompted the lockdown. Ky hurried back to the docking area. She saw nothing unusual except a Station Security officer standing near Gary Tobai’s open hold bay talking to Quincy.

“What was that about?” she asked, coming up to them.

“Nothing to concern you, madam,” said the officer. “Please stand away.”

“It’s the captain,” Quincy said, just as Ky said, “It’s my ship; it concerns me.”

“Oh.” The man looked confused. “You’re not in uniform.”

“It needs cleaning,” Ky said. “Here’s my tag.” She held it out, and he scanned it. “What happened?”

“We believe an attempt was made to rob your ship,” the man said. “Individuals known to us as of dubious character were hired to move cargo, and this individual” —he nodded at Quincy—” noticed something untoward with one of the containers and challenged the individual transporting it, suspecting that a substitution had been made. Two individuals ran away; this individual called the alarm.”

Theft by casual dockside labor was a constant threat, Ky knew. “Did you catch them?”

“They have not been apprehended yet,” the officer said. “They made it to the unoccupied spaces. We are confiscating this container, which they tried to put aboard, and we are searching for the legitimate container your crewmember reports missing.”

“I’m sure you’ll take care of things,” Ky said.

“We will find you here?” the man asked.

“No,” Ky said. “I must go downside to deliver reports to your government. My shuttle leaves—” She checked the time. “Sorry, I must hurry. Quincy will serve as my agent for the duration of my visit down. All right, Quincy?”

The old woman nodded. “I can do that. Will you be buying cargo?”

“Quite possibly. I expect to be downside a few days. I’ll keep in touch.” Ky hurried into the ship. She put on her remaining uniform with the formal captain’s cape and made two quick calls to arrange lodging at the Captains’ Guild and an escort to meet her at the downside shuttle terminal. She hesitated, then put several of the diamonds in her pocket. She didn’t expect anything to cut off her access to Vatta resources, but just in case, it couldn’t hurt to have hard currency.

She made her shuttle connection with a few minutes to spare, and rode downside with a mixed lot of Belinta station workers going home for the weekend break. She cataloged them automatically—clerical, clerical, equipment operator, service worker—and wondered why she bothered. It was the same mix she could find anywhere across the galaxy, no duller here than elsewhere. She spotted her escort at the passenger exit and they exchanged the passwords and ID checks, another familiar routine. The ride into the city passed fields striped with a more vivid green than Belintans ever wore. She recognized the machine working its way across one of the fields as one she’d delivered from Sabine, and felt a surge of satisfaction. If she could learn to appreciate the good done by the cargoes she transported, if she could see things from that angle, maybe.

Gerard Avondetta Vatta watched as his pilot loaded his small case in the light plane. They would be back in the city by nightfall; he and Stavros would have a working dinner, and tomorrow he would tackle the delicate political tangle still left by his daughter’s abrupt departure from the Academy. Now that she was out of danger, now that he had seen her face, had spoken to her, his attention had returned to the reasons behind the obvious reasons.

Why had a Miznarii complained about religious discrimination in the Academy? Miznarii were a difficult sect, to be sure, but they’d served in the Slotter Key Spaceforce for the past thirty years or so without any problems he knew of. And why had Ky been chosen as the vehicle? Her habit of helping lame dogs made her gullible, of course, and yet it did not quite satisfy him. She was a naturally generous person, yes, but he had noticed a streak of hardness in her that boded well for her survival in the cutthroat world of interstellar shipping. When she came back, it might be time to tell her a few things not in the basic Vatta database her implant contained.

The Miznarii… were they part of the resurgence of anti-humod feeling some of the Vatta captains had reported? They were certainly foundational purists who refused even the most common enhancements and modifications, such as cranial implants, but he hadn’t heard they bothered with offplanet politics. Besides, Ky had little exposure to humods; she could hardly be a target for anti-humod bias.

Then there was InterStellar Communications. Vatta had supported ISC all along, and he fully appreciated what ISC had done for Ky at Sabine, but he wondered if its judgment matched its power. He’d tried to say something about that to Lew Parminer, the last time Lew visited, but Lew had shrugged off his concerns. “We pay our researchers enough to keep them quiet,” he’d said. “No muzzling the ox that treads the grain, you know.”

Still… there were other sources of wealth in the galaxy. Some who would be willing to pay almost any price for the secrets of ISC’s labs. Some already funding research, he was sure, trying to duplicate the secrets of ISC’s technology, or trying to advance it. The attack on the ansible platforms at Sabine had been crude, but to Gerard’s mind clearly a test. How strong was ISC, and how fast could it respond?

The pirates, too… the information from Sabine was disturbing. An alliance of pirates? Of their agents in legitimate firms? And how did that work? Vatta had thousands of employees on dozens of ships, more dozens of support offices. Was one of them a traitor, feeding information to pirates? So far, the pirates had concentrated on smaller shippers, driving several out of business. According to the Captains’ Guild figures—if they were accurate—the largest shippers hadn’t been hit. But that wouldn’t last, he was sure. They would run out of easy targets, and move on to take other prey. The great merchant companies, Vatta among them, had never persuaded the planetary governments that their trade served to combine and create a true interstellar space force capable of policing the spaceways. ISC had the resources, but refused to use them for anything but maintaining its own assets.