Pelquin's Comet by Ian Whates Read Free Book Online

entail some furious background checking behind the scenes – but he didn’t care. Jossyren were hardly advertising their interest.
    Reese assured him the money would be available within a couple of days if everything checked out, and he believed her.
    As he headed towards the door it was all he could do not to skip and kick his heels.
    “Oh, one more thing,” Reese said from behind, even as the door swished open. “I will of course be appending one of the bank’s officers to your crew for the duration of the trip. Merely as an observer you understand, there to safeguard our investment.”
    “Of course,” Pelquin replied, though a passenger was the very last thing he needed aboard his ship; especially one who might suffer from an overblown opinion of their own authority. One man alone made the decisions aboard the Comet , and it wasn’t any banker. Still, this seemed a small price to pay for the credit line Reese had just agreed to extend to him. With that in place, Pelquin was confident that nothing could stop him from becoming a very rich man indeed.
     
    Terry Reese sat back in her chair, deep in thought as she reviewed the interview with Pelquin in her mind. He hadn’t overstated the case; well, not by much. This might not be Lenbya but it promised to be one of the most significant cache discoveries in recent years and the potential for profit was enormous. It was the sort of thing that could make or break a career.
    The amount she’d agreed to lend was significant but well within her remit and, in any case, much of the risk would be offset to other institutions, as was the norm where large sums were committed. Gut instinct told her that this was a good investment… So why was she still hesitant? Because she was taking a gamble, no question about it. She’d learned to trust her instincts, but this was far from being a clear-cut case. Oh, the figures added up; the risk assessment gave a high enough success rating that she could comfortably justify the loan should her judgement ever be called into question, but that failed to take into account the man himself. Pelquin had not been fully open with her, she was sure of that; the risk lay in precisely how much he’d kept back and whether it was personal to him or pertinent to the expedition.
    Reese had to wait for a few tense heartbeats before the call she’d been expecting came through.
    “Nothing,” a woman’s voice told her. “Sorry, but the images are of too poor a quality to yield anything useful. Either that or they’ve been expertly scrubbed to present as if they are. I can’t even pick up a hint of ambient quasar energy to help us get a fix.”
    “Thank you, Paula.” Terry made a point of memorising everybody’s name. She prided herself on such attention to detail and names were important; they were the key to dedication and loyalty. She could address even the lowliest of juniors by their first name after the briefest of encounters, and had been rewarded on more than one occasion with a smile of surprise and delight as a result.
    Damn! No more than a long shot, perhaps, but she’d had high hopes that the brief footage Pelquin showed – retained by her office systems as a matter of course – might give him away. It was surprising how many would-be prospectors were tripped up in that fashion, by failing to take even minimal precautions. Images generally held a wealth of encrypted information, but not on this occasion it would seem. Thirty five percent of the cache glimpsed so tantalisingly in the scratchy footage would more than justify the bank’s exposure, but a hundred percent would have been so much better.
    So, it was Captain Pelquin or nothing. The man was an enigma, one which merited careful handling and a watchful eye. A major mistake was something Terry Reese could ill afford at this stage of her professional life; the potential plaudits on the other hand… She needed her best agent for this one, someone capable of thinking on their