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The Outer Routes, Episode 5: Debts
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The Outer Routes, Episode 5: Halvren's Way
outer_routes_ep06_halvrens_way.doc
Keywords male 1312627, female 1194325, fox 270711, squirrel 33507, alien 26259, ferret 11538, ai assisted 2934, space pirate 115
Halvren's Way

An Outer Routes Story — About 13 Years Before Silvania

~ I ~
Oren Sallow found them at Brannock, two years after the business with the drive cores. He was sitting in the Lantern tea house when Raskon and Corrin walked past. He raised one hand, and they stopped.
"Captain," he said. "Sit. I have a courtesy for you."
"I don't want a courtesy," Raskon said.
"You'll want this one." Sallow slid a data slip across the table. "A Halvren supply convoy. Four automated cargo barges and one escort. It leaves Castor Depot in six days and crosses the Sennik ice field on the ninth. The barges carry mining supplies, medical stores and company records. No crew aboard any of them."
Raskon didn't touch the slip. "Why give this to me?"
"Varro has no use for it. Our crews are not subtle, and Halvren's escorts shoot at people who are not subtle." Sallow sipped his tea. "You have a history with Halvren, I understand. I thought you might enjoy it."
"What does it cost?"
"It's a courtesy," Sallow said. "Courtesies don't cost anything."
Corrin's hands had stopped moving. With Corrin, that was a warning.
Raskon took the slip anyway.
On the ship, he put the route up on the galley screen. Everybody looked at it. Ishva traced the ice field with one claw. Riska counted the barges twice. Borrik asked how heavy the cargo was.
"It's a good target," Raskon said. "No crew on the barges. Nobody to get hurt. Supplies we can sell at any free port."
"It's Halvren," Keldan said.
"It's a good target that happens to be Halvren."
"It's a grudge," Keldan said. "You've been carrying it for seven years. Four months of wages, and a ship they'd have scrapped with us still owed." He folded his arms. "I'm not saying don't do it. I'm saying know why you're doing it."
"Can it be both?" Raskon said.
Keldan thought about it. "Yes," he said. "It's usually both."
~ II ~
There were two problems. The first was the escort. The second was that Halvren believed the 417 had been destroyed at Harrow with all crew.
"So nobody sees us," Raskon said. "Nobody hears my voice. And the escort never has a reason to shoot."
Tessik solved the first part. The barges had no pilots. Each one followed a formation signal from the barge ahead of it, like cubs following a parent. She built a transmitter out of a spare comm unit and the nav system from the shuttle, which took her four days.
"It copies the formation signal," she said. "If we send it stronger than the real one, the last barge follows us instead."
"Will the escort notice?"
"Not in the ice," Raskon said. He had the chart open. The Sennik field was two hundred thousand kilometers of ice and dust, and sensors lost half their range inside it. "In the ice, the escort is watching for collisions. Not for a barge that turns left."
They waited inside the field for eleven hours, dark, the way they had waited at Harrow. The convoy came through on the ninth day, exactly when Sallow had said. There were four gray barges in a line. Behind them came the escort.
Ishva looked at the plot for a long moment.
"Captain," she said. "The escort is the Due Diligence."
Nobody on the bridge said anything.
"Russet," Keldan said finally.
"He was recovery," Zethik said. "What's he doing on escort duty?"
"He closed the file on the 417 without recovering her," Raskon said. "I don't think Halvren was pleased with him."
"Do we call it off?" Keldan said.
Raskon looked at the four barges and the small fast ship behind them. Russet, the now fifty-nine year old fox, was guarding crates for the company that had told him to abandon his crew.
"No," Raskon said. "We do it carefully."
"Who's Russet?" Riska said. She had come aboard at Tallis. So had Corrin. Neither of them had been at Corvel or at Harrow.
"He was our captain," Sathe said. "A fox. Nineteen years with Halvren when we knew him. He read us the order to leave the ship, and then he got on the transport."
"So he's the enemy."
"He's the one who told Halvren we were dead," Borrik said. "At Harrow. He looked at a cargo pod full of scrap and my old coupling, and he said that's a ship, they're all dead, close the file."
"He believed it?"
"Nobody knows," Sathe said. "The captain thinks about it more than he says."
Riska looked at Raskon. Raskon kept his eyes on the plot.
"Then he's not the enemy," she said. "He's just on the other ship."
"That's about right," Keldan said.
Tessik switched on the transmitter. For two minutes, nothing happened. Then the fourth barge drifted out of line. It turned eleven degrees to the left and followed the Drizola into the thick of the ice. Its engines were quiet, and it was as obedient as a cub.
The Due Diligence slowed. Its lights swept the ice. It stayed there for nine minutes.
Corrin had a speech ready, in case the escort hailed them. He was going to be a survey ship with a damaged antenna. He never had to give it. The Due Diligence did not hail anyone.
Then Russet's voice came over the open band, making his report.
"Escort vessel Due Diligence. Barge four has suffered a navigation fault in the Sennik field and left formation. Probable ice collision. No hostile contact. I am continuing with the remaining three barges." There was a pause. "Barges wander. Russet out."
The escort moved on. The three barges followed it out of the field.
"He knew," Keldan said.
"He looked for nine minutes," Raskon said. "Last time it was twenty. He's getting faster."
~ III ~
The barge held two hundred crates. There were drill heads, filters, ration packs and forty cases of medical stores. Hollis looked at the medical stores for a long time and then asked if he could keep six. Raskon said he could keep ten.
In the barge's control room, Riska found a data core the size of a ration tin. It was labeled HALVREN EXTRACTION — LAND AND CLAIMS DIVISION — ARCHIVE COPY.
"Company records," she said. "Sallow said there'd be company records."
Tessik plugged it in. Most of it was locked. She tried for an hour, then sat back.
"Same as the nav lock," she said. "I can't break it. I can read what isn't locked, which is about a tenth."
A tenth was enough.
It was dull reading at first. There were shipping orders, insurance claims, and land purchases filed with the colonial registry. Raskon read them, looking for patterns. He was three hours in before he saw it.
"Keldan," he said. "Come and look at this."
There were seven planets. Each one had been settled by a small colony, and each colony held a land claim. Under registry law, a claim had to be renewed in person every ten years. If the colony couldn't renew, the claim lapsed, and the planet went to open sale.
On each of the seven, something had gone wrong before the renewal. A supply ship had been lost. A colony transport had been delayed fourteen months by an engine fault. A navigation system had failed in deep space. Each time, an insurance claim had been paid to Halvren. Each time, the land claim had lapsed. And each time, Halvren Extraction had bought the planet within sixty days, at a tenth of its value.
"Seven times," Raskon said. "Over forty years."
"That could be bad luck," Zethik said from the door.
"Once is bad luck," Raskon said. "They did to those ships what they did to the 417. They make more money when a ship fails than when it arrives. Only this time, the ship has people's whole lives on it."
Keldan had not said anything. He had been reading the third entry for a long time.
"Keldan?"
"Vintral," Keldan said. His voice was very flat. "Entry three. Thirty-six years ago. The second-wave transport was delayed fourteen months by an engine fault. The claim lapsed. Halvren bought Vintral for a tenth of its value."
"You know it?"
"I was born there," Keldan said. "I was twelve when we lost it. Four hundred families. Halvren let us stay on as workers, in the houses we'd built, and paid us to dig up our own ground." He put one finger on the screen. "My father said it was bad luck. He said that's how companies work. I've been saying it ever since. I thought it meant the same thing."
Nobody spoke. Hessa put a hand on Keldan's shoulder. He let her.
"I went to work for them when I was twenty-five," Keldan said. "Sixteen years. I worked for them for sixteen years."
"You didn't know," Raskon said.
"No," Keldan said. "Now I do."
~ IV ~
Raskon tried to tell someone. He tried twice.
The first was a clerk at the colonial registry office on Castor Station. Corrin went with him, in the good jacket. The clerk was a patient human with a stack of forms.
"These are Halvren's own records?" the clerk said.
"Yes."
"How did you obtain them?"
Raskon didn't answer. The clerk nodded as if he had.
"I can't accept stolen records as evidence," the clerk said. "The registry requires a chain of custody. I'd also need the registry number of your vessel to file a complaint, and I suspect you don't have one." He pushed the data slip back across the counter, gently. "I'm sorry. I believe you, if that helps. Seven lapsed claims in one company's favor. People here have noticed. Nobody has been able to prove it."
"What would prove it?"
"A claim that was sabotaged and filed anyway," the clerk said. "With witnesses. In time."
The second was a reporter for the Sector Dispatch named Varga. Raskon reached her by comm, with the picture off. She listened for ten minutes. She asked good questions.
"I can't run it," she said at the end.
"It's true."
"I think it probably is. But my source is a stolen archive, a tenth of it readable, sent by a man who won't show his face. Halvren has more lawyers than I have readers. They'd end the Dispatch in a month." She paused. "Catch them doing it. Catch them with a ship that's still drifting and colonists who are still alive to talk. Then call me. I'll answer."
The comm went quiet.
"Nobody will listen," Raskon said.
"They listened," Corrin said. "They just can't do anything. It's different." He thought about it. "It isn't better."
~ V ~
Sallow was waiting at Brannock again. He had the same table and the same tea.
"I hear a Halvren barge wandered off in the ice," he said. "I hope you enjoyed the courtesy."
"You knew what was on the barge," Raskon said.
"I knew there were records. I did not know which." Sallow set down his cup. "Varro would like to buy the archive. Two hundred thousand credits."
It was more money than the crew had made in seven years. Corrin made a small sound.
"What would Varro do with it?" Raskon said.
"Halvren is a very large company with a very large secret. Varro would hold the secret. Halvren would pay, regularly, for it to stay held."
"And the colonies?"
Sallow looked puzzled. "The colonies are not part of the arrangement."
"Then no," Raskon said.
"Captain. Two hundred thousand."
"If Varro holds it, nobody ever finds out. Halvren pays and keeps doing it. That's worse than me keeping it in a drawer." Raskon stood up. "No."
Sallow took off his glasses and cleaned them with a small cloth. He did not seem angry. Raskon would have preferred that he did.
"I'll tell Varro you declined," he said. "Varro will remember it. Varro remembers everything." He put the glasses back on. "And Captain. The courtesy. I said it didn't cost anything. I should have said it didn't cost anything yet."
"I thought so," Raskon said.
"You owe us one. Not money. One. We'll say when."
~ VI ~
The cargo sold for thirty-one thousand credits at Brannock. Everyone got a share. Hollis got his ten cases of medical stores and spent an evening putting them away.
Zethik caught Raskon in the corridor that night.
"Two hundred thousand," he said. "Split eleven ways. That's eighteen thousand each. Do you know how long it takes us to make eighteen thousand?"
"About four years," Raskon said.
"And you said no. For seven planets full of people we've never met."
"One of them was Keldan's."
Zethik stopped. He hadn't thought of it that way. He turned the cord on his wrist.
"I still think we should have taken it," he said, but more quietly. "Sooner or later we're going to need money more than we need to be right."
"Probably," Raskon said. "Not this time."
Zethik went back to the cargo bay, where Hessa was. Raskon watched him go. Zethik had been aboard seven years. He had learned to stop when Hessa took his wrist. Raskon was not sure he had learned to stop on his own.
Tessik brought the data core to Raskon's cabin. "Nine-tenths of it is still locked," she said. "Whatever's in there, it's worse than what we read. They lock the worst things best." She set it on his table. "I've said it twice now. I can't break locks like this. We need someone who does it for a living. A real systems specialist."
"Where do we find one of those?"
"Somewhere expensive," Tessik said.
Raskon read the open tenth once more before he put it away. Near the end there was an eighth entry. It was short, and it wasn't like the others.
Item eight. Pending. Returning colony transport, expected in approximately three years. Claim renewal required on arrival. Arrangements under review.
He read it twice. He didn't know what "arrangements" meant. He didn't know which planet, or which ship. It was one line in a locked file.
He copied the line into his navigator's log anyway, because he wrote everything down. He put the data core in the drawer under his bunk. The page with Sathe's song was in the same drawer.
Keldan was in the galley when Raskon came down. He was sitting in front of the wall with the three rules on it. He wasn't reading them.
"You kept it," Keldan said.
"I kept it."
"Good." Keldan was quiet for a moment. "Someday there'll be an eighth. When there is, I want to be there."
"So do I," Raskon said.
He sat down next to him. Neither of them said anything else. It was what Keldan did instead of comforting people. Raskon had learned it from him.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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Seven years after Halvren wrote off their ship and kept their wages, the Varro Syndicate’s accountant hands Raskon a “courtesy”: the route of a Halvren supply convoy. Keldan calls it a grudge. Raskon calls it a good target. They lure one unmanned barge away in an ice field while the escort’s captain, Teo Russet, watches for nine minutes and reports a navigation fault. In the barge is a company archive, mostly locked. The readable tenth shows seven colony worlds over forty years, each one lost when a ship failed just before its land claim came up for renewal, and each one bought by Halvren for a tenth of its value. The third was Vintral, where Keldan was born. A registry clerk believes Raskon and can’t act. A reporter believes him and can’t print it. The Syndicate offers a fortune for the files, to use as blackmail, and Raskon says no. If nobody with any power will listen, what is the truth worth in a drawer?
Keywords
male 1,312,627, female 1,194,325, fox 270,711, squirrel 33,507, alien 26,259, ferret 11,538, ai assisted 2,934, space pirate 115
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Type: Writing - Document
Published: 1 day, 5 hrs ago
Rating: General
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