The Medic looked surprised. "Naturally. I had to report my suspicions to someone. Surplanetary police are usually all right, but an off-worlder can never be sure in a situation like this. On the other hand, corruption's almost nonexistent in the Stellar Patrol, and some of its agents know how to think. Besides," she concluded practically, "Teague says it doesn't hurt any ship to gain the reputation of cooperating with them, as long as she doesn't play the fool about it, that is."

"I wonder if you'd be speaking in such glowing terms about the folks in black and silver if you'd shared our recent experience with them," Alt observed lazily.

"They were only doing their job! Those Company sons who framed you should've been sent to the Lunar mines for attempted murder, but to the Patrol, you were suspected pestilence carriers. They had no choice but to act strongly against you."

"Very magnanimous of you," Kamil commented with the same sleepy sarcasm, "especially when you can do your judging after the fact from a nice, safe distance."

Rael placed her hands palm down on the table. She fixed her attention on them. "It's true that I've never had to go through what you did, but I was part of the real thing."

Her eyes rose once more to briefly meet his before dropping again. Their expression was as somber as the memories she was recalling. "I was still a child at the time. Father had planeted on a pre-mech world and was treating with the inhabitants of one of her chief trading centers when we discovered that some sort of sickness had broken out in the community, in the very section where we were operating, and was slowly but steadily gaining ominous force. We'd been on-world for several days at that point, in daily contact with the inhabitants of the infected region, and our Medic could make no more headway against the disease than could his primitive counterparts. Only one course of action was possible for us, and we took it, even as other s.p.a.cers trapped in similar situations have in the past. We couldn't risk carrying an unidentified and as yet incurable, highly contagious, deadly illness back with us into s.p.a.ce, so we chose to stay where we were. We couldn't even remove ourselves from the stricken city for fear of bringing the infection to uncontaminated areas of the planet."

Her fingers whitened where they met the table. "Whatever our fears at that stage, they paled before the reality that followed. About three hundred thousand people lived and worked in that community when we arrived. Ten months later, one hundred thousand of them were dead, more than eight thousand in a single, awful week. Seven of our crew, including my father, were among them.

"So was our Medic, but he had identified the causative organism, and before he died he gave those people both a cure and a vaccine that stopped the plague as if it had hit a high security wall. The on-worlders realized what we had done for them and recognized that we had chosen both to remain and to work among them despite the proven danger to ourselves. They were grateful, and when Teague took our survivors off-world, it was with the means to buy a fine new ship outright, re-crew with top-rate hands, and fill the holds with prime trade stock."

Her eyes suddenly locked with Kamil's, then moved to fix each of her shipmates sitting or standing opposite her.

"That fact neither softened the horror of those ten months nor clouded the memory of it, no more than any onworlder living through that time is likely to forget it. The dying and the sickness itself were only part of it. The misery and want were everywhere, the fear, the ever-growing, crushing despair, and with all that, too much, far too much human-nastiness. I was young and a stranger, but even I was aware of rampant filth and evil.

"Never, ever, can a similar scourge be permitted to strike any planet, not while the power or the possibility of preventing it exists. That need holds true and must hold despite the danger of occasionally serving individuals or starships with the gravest injustice."

"I don't think any of us will argue that. Doctor," Miceal Jellico said quietly after several seconds of grim silence. "If our lads had believed us to be plague-stricken in fact, the Solar Queen would've met her end in a star's heart. Spirit of s.p.a.ce! Had I imagined them capable of any other course, that's where I would've sent the Queen myself before I pa.s.sed out."

Rael smiled. "I know. If I'd doubted that, I'd never have come on board at all."

Jellico shook his head as he watched the woman leave the cabin several minutes later. She would have been young, he thought, probably not much more than eleven, when she had gone through that plague. It would have been a hard experience at any age and explained both her basic gravity and her fascination with ma.s.s illness and other disaster situations.

That was no condemnation of her. Every human being reaching adulthood had his defenses and his own way of viewing the universe around him. Those who experienced ma.s.sive trauma, physical or mental, and who were not shattered by it had made some pretty powerful adaptations to accommodate it, especially when it had been suffered in their vulnerable formative years. The awesome slaughter of the Crater War had shredded Ali's childhood. Somehow, he had lived through that carnage, but it had left him one of life's observers. He would allow nothing to penetrate the armor he had carefully constructed around himself. Rael Cofort had been somewhat older and the deadly situation in which she found herself had been of considerably shorter duration, but even so, she, too, had her facade and, her scars ...

He saw the Cargo-Master start to push out into the corridor. "Van, hold up."

The other waited for him and fell into step beside him.

"Quite a story," he remarked.

"Aye."

"You believe it?" Van Rycke asked. "She never mentioned a ship's name or a planet's."

"That can all be checked. The timing'd be right. Cofort appeared as a force on the scene suddenly and very young out of a s.p.a.cer clan who should never under normal circ.u.mstances have been able to finance the setup he created for himself." The rest of his history, of course, was the result of a lot of luck and even more hard work and shrewd dealing, but that early start had often been a source of speculation among the ranks of the Free Traders.

Jellico shrugged, dismissing the question for the time being. "It's Rael herself who interests me at the moment. You and Thorson'll be checking out the market soon. Take her with you and give her as free a hand as seems prudent. I want to see what she can do."

"Her brother never or only rarely used her in that capacity," Van Rycke reminded him doubtfully. "From what I saw, she'd choose the goods, but Cofort would trade for them."

"Put it to the test anyway."

Van gave him a curious look. "Why bother?"

He shrugged. "A xen.o.biologist looking for more data, maybe. Cofort's a puzzle however you try to look at her."

His eyes narrowed. "You and I're both old foxes, but given all the information she had, would you have reached the same conclusion or come to it as quickly as she did?"

"Not in a star's life span," he admitted.

"That kind of deductive power might prove very handy to a Free Trader-if she can use it for more mundane purposes than uncovering bizarre murder plots."

"It wouldn't do to make a career of that," his companion agreed dryly.

"Not unless one was straight Whisperer bait or planning to ally himself permanently with the Patrol, which would amount to the same thing."

"You don't believe Rael Cofort's thinking along those lines?" the Cargo-Master asked.

"Who knows what that woman's thinking?" he responded wearily.

Van Rycke eyed him closely. "Craig mentioned that you had some serious reservations about her."

Jellico smiled. "I still do, but at least I think I know now why Cofort dumped her."

Jan's pale brows rose. "That's more than I can claim."

"Some perfectly capable people draw trouble. I believe Doctor Cofort is a prime example."

"A jinx?"

Miceal gave a short laugh. "Does the Cofort operation show much sign of any such influence? - No, but Rael appears to have an overdeveloped sense of what's right, or maybe the sight of the downtrodden just sparks a powerful protective response in her. Whatever the cause, the result can be pure headache for her Captain and shipmates, if not outright disaster.

"Look at her behavior in that alley, Van. The starlight was scared out of her, but she was all set to march in for that sc.r.a.p of bone and then blast off to the Stellar Patrol at warp speed. She never gave a thought to our strained relations with that organization or a Trader's natural instinct to navigate clear of all bra.s.s as much as possible. Add to that the fact that she's admitted to dragging her brother into more than one sc.r.a.pe he'd have preferred to duck and you have the makings of a problem of no mean magnitude."

"Why court trouble ourselves? We'll be rid of her soon."

"Curiosity mostly," the other responded. "Besides, she's tied to us until we're ready to lift anyway. I'd like to see if she's any good in real Trade. The Queen might as well reap some benefit if she is."

"All right, I'll give her a shot at the market," the CargoMaster promised willingly enough. "Come with us yourself. She'll know she's under observation anyway, and it'll be late enough now by the time we're ready to go that some of the big industrialists might be scouting around there. I understand they usually do when a new ship comes into port, and several have this past week. We could possibly pick up a charter."

Jellico nodded. "I'll do that," he said. "I'd intended waiting a bit longer before giving it a walk-through, but it won't hurt and might help to look the place over at once."

12.

Ali Kamil quickened his pace until he came up beside Rael.

"I'm sorry," he told her quietly. "I was navigating right off the charts in there."

"So was I," she replied' bitterly. "Firing off my mouth like that was inexcusable. I knew what you all had been through."

"It was no more than you had."

He frowned and stepped aside to allow Dane and Rip to pa.s.s. Sometimes, he thought sourly, finding a place to have a private conversation aboard a starship was about as easy as netting an asteroid made of pure platinum, at least for lowly apprentices lacking the luxury of a private office or work cabin.

The Medic sensed that something more was weighing on him, but Kamil was the last person to broach it in the busy corridor. "I want to check on some seedlings," she said.

"You could lift out the germination trays for me if you've got the time and don't mind."

"I'm happy to a.s.sist, Doctor Cofort."

Hael breathed deeply of the rich air in the hydro. It was her favorite place here, even as the one on the Roving Star had been when she had been serving under her brother's command. All it needed was some lavender ...

The Engineer-apprentice walked over to the tall bank of germination trays. "Which one?" he inquired.

"The top two. You've got enough inches on me that we won't have to get out the ladder."

It took only a few seconds to carefully remove the trays and set them on the nearby work bench.

He peered at the closely s.p.a.ced, neat rows of minute plants, each of which bore two leaves. "What are they?" he asked curiously. "There are a couple of different kinds, I think, though it's hard to be sure. They're so small."

"Most just put their heads up this morning, the others yesterday afternoon. They won't be readily identifiable for a while yet. - One box contains tarragon, the other gray pepper. Mr. Mura wants them for the galley. He'll be trying some new spices as well for more variety."

"That's always welcome."

Both fell silent while Rael checked the moisture and nutrient content of the growth medium and examined the seedlings themselves. The time to catch trouble was early, at the first sign, before it could develop into a full-blown problem that might sweep the whole little crop.

At last she stood up. "All our infants are doing well," she announced. "You may return them to their cradles, Mr. Kamil."

The man complied. When he was finished, he leaned back against the bank and studied her speculatively. "How is it that you're so good at everything. Doctor. Or so many things?" he amended. His own chief did not sing her praises the way Tau and Mura did, but then Johan Stotz rarely praised anyone. Just keeping one's position without having one's head verbally removed on a daily basis was compliment enough coming from him.

"I just sort of picked things up along the way. I was interested, of course, and I wanted to be of real use and not just so much inert cargo until I finally managed to officially qualify for something."

"Ah, yes. You were raised and trained in the comforting bosom of your clan."

"I was lucky," she agreed seriously, "especially since I love Trade." Her face clouded suddenly. "But, Alt, I've never been on my own, never once had the chance to see if I could pull it by myself. I was never even physically at Training Pool. All my cla.s.ses, even my medical courses, were taped, with clinical experience gained at accredited hospitals wherever we planeted."

The apprentice gave her a sharp look. "That's allowed?"

"Aye, of course. The ongoing testing is stringent, with a ten percent higher grade required for pa.s.sing."

"Which I presume was never a problem."

"No, not really. Don't forget, I had a shipload of captive tutors all eager to help out."

"What about the Psycho?"

"I never asked for a ship a.s.signment since I was staying with my own clan, but cla.s.sification was compulsory, of course. - Free Trader all the way."

"Not even a shot at the Companies?" he teased.

Rael laughed. "I wouldn't last twenty-four hours on a Company ship!"

Her expression darkened again, not pleasantly. "I didn't manage so marvelously on the Mermaid, did I?"

"You cut your losses and ran, which was as much as anyone could have done under the circ.u.mstances." His voice softened. She had not concealed that her failure to secure the berth cut her. "You'll make out. You know Trade work and don't mind doing it."

It was a new role for Kamil, offering comfort and support. He stopped speaking for a moment, not quite knowing where else to go with it.

Unless . . . Cofort had picked up on that incredible murder plot.

"Doctor," he said suddenly, before he could give himself a chance to back down, "can you keep your mouth shut?"

"I'm a Medic. That comes with the job. - I don't expect you to fasmit our recent conversation to the universe at large, either, you know."

"I won't." He eyed her gravely. "What do you think of Canuche of Halio?"

"I detest her," the woman replied in complete surprise. "I like gloriously wild planets or else beautifully civilized ones with powerful conservation and anticruelty laws, all full of furry, feathered, and scaled creatures, not malodorous chemical stews."

"Maybe there's a galaxy more wrong with Canuche than that."

Rael Cofort's eyes narrowed. "What do you mean, Alt?" she asked quietly. She had never seen him deadly serious before, but he was now with that softly voiced suggestion.

The Engineer-apprentice did not respond for almost a full minute. "Maybe I don't know," he said at the end of that time. "I just don't want to wind up in the clutches of the psychomedics as straight Whisperer bait or worse."

"I'm no psychomedic, and I have been around the starlanes long enough to be aware of some pretty odd things, odd enough not to dismiss an unlikely-sounding theory outright."

Kamil turned away from her. "A number of people have wondered how I managed to survive the Crater War given the fact that I'd only just started school when our community got hit."

When she made no answer, he steeled himself and went on. "I woke up that night, a bit after midnight, terrified, in a cold-sweat panic. If I'd been older, better able to think, I'd have awakened my parents, but that would've ended me. I'd have been soothed, put back to bed, and been blown to bits with the rest. As it was, I simply ran. The fire ladder was outside my window. I went down it, took to my heels, and so great was my fear that I kept going until I was outside the town limits before it eased up enough to let exhaustion take over. By that time, the bombs were already falling. I was the sole survivor out of thirty thousand and some odd people.

"No one discovered that for some time to come. I was usually hungry and always cold, but I scrounged enough to get by and spent most of my time in hiding for the next couple of years. Something inside me told me to keep away from people. They'd try to help, maybe, but they'd stop me from running if I had to get out fast again.

"I did, too, twice more from air raids and twice from those butchering... When they advanced through our area and when they were being whipped back at last.

"After that, things got quieter. There were still dangers to be faced, but they weren't on the same scale, and I'd learned to look out for those on my own. I didn't get the same kind of warning against them."

Alt began pacing, as if the act of movement helped him to clarify his thoughts. "When I reached p.u.b.erty, something else started, and that's continued. Whenever I come onto a site where something really bad or some enormous tragedy occurred, no matter how far back, I feel this great weight, this sorrow, settle, not on my shoulders, my body, but on my spirit, my soul as it were. I didn't feel it in that alley-it's got to have a bigger scope than that, I think-but I felt it where the Heaven's Hope crashed, killing all those people. I felt it in the ruins on Limbo and in the Big Burn on Terra, though I made d.a.m.n sure I kept quiet about it. Besides, we were in too much trouble of our own at the time to be worrying about the problems of the past."

He risked a look at the Medic. She was standing spear straight, her attention fixed on him as if by compulsion.

The woman drew a deep breath. "You sense the same about Canuche?"

Kamil gave her a grim, bleak smile. "Doctor, I have to actually be on site to feel anything. Aye, I feel it now. I felt it at the moment we entered the outer atmosphere of this accursed planet. Worse, for the first time since those days in the Crater War, the panic's back. - It's with me all the time. Sometimes it's all I can do not to storm the bridge and set the Queen's controls to lift for anywhere as long as it's not here."

He gripped himself. "Canuche of Halio's one big disaster, one huge tragedy. Her past reeks of it, and her future's shadowed by more of the same. This is a true jinx world, and, Doctor Rael Cofort, there's not a thing either of us can do about it, because no one, on-world or off, is going to believe one word I've said, not to the extent of taking any action to get the Solar Queen away from it. Business will be conducted as usual in the usual amount of time, and I just pray to every G.o.d in the Federation that the inevitable does not happen before we do finally lift."