Plague Ship, Andre Norton [e books free to read txt] 📗

Which must put him on the bottom rung once more, Dane calculated swiftly. Or even below⁠—though he didn’t see how he could fall beneath the rank he held at assignment. However, he found the news heartening instead of discouraging. Compared to a bleak sentence at the moon mines such demotion was absolutely nothing and he knew that Van Rycke was breaking the worst news first.

“You also forfeit all pay for this voyage,” the Cargo-master was continuing. But Jellico broke in.

“Board fine?”

At the Cargo-master’s nod, Jellico added. “Ship pays that.”

“So I told them,” Van Rycke agreed. “The Queen’s warned off Terra for ten solar years⁠—”

They could take that, too. Other Free Traders got back to their home ports perhaps once in a quarter century. It was so much less than they had expected that the sentence was greeted with a concentrated sigh of relief.

“No earth-side leave⁠—”

All right⁠—no leave. They were not, after their late experiences, so entranced with Terraport that they wanted to linger in its environs any longer than they had to.

“We lose the Sargol contract⁠—”

That did hurt. But they had resigned themselves to it since the hour when they had realized that they could not make it back to the perfumed planet.

“To Inter-Solar?” Wilcox asked the important question.

Van Rycke was smiling broadly, as if the loss he had just announced was in some way a gain. “No⁠—to Combine!”

“Combine?” the Captain echoed and his puzzlement was duplicated around the circle. How did Inter-Solar’s principal rival come into it?

“We’ve made a deal with Combine,” Van Rycke informed them. “I wasn’t going to let I-S cash in on our loss. So I went to Vickers at Combine and told him the situation. He understands that we were in solid with the Salariki and that the Eysies are not. And a chance to point a blaster at I-S’s tail is just what he has been waiting for. The shipment will go out to the storm priests tomorrow on a light cruiser⁠—it’ll make it on time.”

Yes, a light cruiser, one of the fast ships maintained by the big Companies, could make the transition to Sargol with a slight margin to spare. Stotz nodded his approval at this practical solution.

“I’m going with it⁠—” That did jerk them all up short. For Van Rycke to leave the Queen⁠—that was as unthinkable as if Captain Jellico had suddenly announced that he was about to retire and become a kelp farmer. “Just for the one trip,” the Cargo-master hastened to assure them. “I smooth their vector with the storm priests and hand over so the Eysies will be frozen out⁠—”

Captain Jellico interrupted at that point. “D’you mean that Combine is buying us out⁠—not just taking over? What kind of a deal⁠—”

But Van Rycke, his smile a brilliant stretch across his plump face, was nodding in agreement. “They’re taking over our contract and our place with the Salariki.”

“In return for what?” Steen Wilcox asked for them all.

“For twenty-five thousand credits and a mail run between Xecho and Trewsworld⁠—frontier planets. They’re far enough from Terra to get around the exile ruling. The Patrol will escort us out and see that we get down to work like good little space men. We’ll have two years of a nice, quiet run on regular pay. Then, when all the powers that shine have forgotten about us, we can cut in on the trade routes again.”

“And the pay?” “First or second class mail?” “When do we start?”

“Standard pay on the completion of each run⁠—board rates,” he made replies in order. “First-, second- and third-class mail⁠—anything that bears the government seal and out in those quarters it is apt to be anything! And you start as soon as you can get to Xecho and relieve the Combine scout which has been holding down the run.”

“While you go to Sargol⁠—” commented Jellico.

“While I make one voyage to Sargol. You can spare me,” he dropped one of his big hands on Dane’s shoulder and gave the flesh beneath it a quick squeeze. “Seeing as how our juniors helped pull us out of this last mix-up we can trust them about an inch farther than we did before. Anyway⁠—Cargo-master on a mail run is more or less a thumb-twiddling job at the best. And you can trust Thorson on stowage⁠—that’s one thing he does know.” Which dubious ending left Dane wondering as to whether he had been complimented or warned. “I’ll be on board again before you know it⁠—the Combine will ship me out to Trewsworld on your second trip across and I’ll join ship there. For once we won’t have to worry for awhile. Nothing can happen on a mail run.” He shook his head at the three youngest members of the crew. “You’re in for a very dull time⁠—and it will serve you right. Give you a chance to learn your jobs so that when you come up for reassignment you can pick up some of those files you were just demoted. Now,” he started briskly for the door, “I’ll tranship to the Combine cruiser. I take it that you don’t want to meet the Video people?”

At their hasty agreement to that, he laughed. “Well, the Patrol doesn’t want the Video spouting about ‘high-handed official news suppression’ so about an hour or so from now you’ll be let out the back way. They put the Queen in a cradle and a field scooter will take you to her. You’ll find her serviced for a takeoff to Luna City. You can refit there for deep space. Frankly the sooner you get off-world the happier all ranks are going to be⁠—both here and on the Board. It will be better for us to walk softly for a while and let them forget that the Solar Queen and her crazy crew exists. Separately and together you’ve managed to break⁠—or at least bend⁠—half the laws in the books and they’d like to have us out of their