Ghost Ship by Steve Miller, Sharon Lee Read Free Book Online Page B

top-flight.”
    Pat Rin yos’Phelium—Boss Conrad, according to Surebleak—had been a pro gamer and a high roller in his former life. Remembering that, it made sense that he’d open a casino as his personal bit toward bringing the port up to “proper.”
    “Top-flight, is it?” She looked down at her leathers, then back to Val Con’s grin. “Think they’ll let us in?”
    “If not the front door,” he said, offering his arm, “then the back.”
    - - - - -
    The screens were grey, the countdown to Jump-exit running quietly in the lower right-hand corner of Number One. Inside the next eight Standard Hours she’d raise a world called Denko. She was to set down on the reserved hotpad, open the supply chute and wait exactly two Standard Hours. If all went as it should, during that brief time a plastic envelope would come up the conveyer, pass through the Toss ’s automated security and arrive in the supplies locker, from which Theo was to convey it, unopened, to the safe, and lock it in.
    If it happened that a packet did not arrive in this decidedly odd fashion, she was not to wait, but to lift according to the schedule filed with Denkoport Tower and proceed to Gondola.
    In the pilot’s chair, Theo finished her snack and her tea and wondered if courier pilots ever died of curiosity.
    On the other hand, it was probably better that she didn’t know what she was carrying. She rose and moved toward the galley. Ignorance was protection, sort of, in case she pulled a Guild inspection—which would only happen if somebody filed against Uncle—or, worse, if the Federated Trade Commission drew the Toss in a random pool. Not that the FTC targeted Guild pilots, exactly, but the stats showed higher fees and more “violations” filed against Guild, when they were stopped.
    Theo put her teacup into the washer, and moved out into the bridge. In the wide space between the galley’s door and the pilots’ chairs, she danced a compact and neat dance she’d learned from one of Primadonna ’s archived Fun and Education programs. The dance was designed to work key muscle groups and offset the effects of long hours at the board.
    Though it was a small dance, it required significant concentration, which was the other thing Theo liked about it. By the time she’d gone through the phrases and come to a rest, her mind felt like it had been stretched, too.
    Moving lightly, she went to the copilot’s chair, where she’d set up her personal comm, and accessed Kamele’s letter again.
    Jen Sar has disappeared in midsemester, without notice to me or to the Administration, on his off day before mid-tests. The only clue I can gather is of a small and dilapidated spaceship long unflown, departing Delgado the same day, from an airfield within easy drive, flown by one of his description. His car, keys on seat, fishing gear in place, sat in an assigned spot there. The spaceship, so station informs me, is not in Delgado space.
    Within a day of his departure, I discover that the house on Leafydale Place, all possessions, and especially the cats, are gifts to me. I continue the tea run, with fading hopes. I felt that you must be told, and can only hope your connections with your father are not as fully disrupted as my own.
    Right. Theo ticked the points off on her fingers:

    1. Jen Sar left
    a. suddenly
    b. without a word to anyone
    2. Departure via a spaceship nobody knew he owned
    3. All of his possessions—house, car, cats—were now Kamele’s
    4. Subtext: Theo, if you know where your father is, please tell me that he’s safe.

    Father’s story about his previous arrangement with . . . with Scholar Caylon, and his Balance—that was interesting, and merited both thought and fact-checking. It was even possible—no, he definitely owed Kamele the truth he had given Theo, and an apology, and whatever else that was due a relationship that covered so many years, and so many memories.
    But that was Father’s debt to Kamele, not