Ghost Ship Read Free

according to the note on the door, been tied down and cleared for transport. He opened the door, discovering thereby that the note was accurate; though it was but the work of moments to liberate desk and chair, and to bring the computer, still gratifyingly able to find the planet-net, online.
    That same computer now chimed, requesting his attention. He leaned forward and touched a key to accept the queued files.
    Theo’s license, of course, was an open book to one who was not only a Master Pilot, but who had the use of Korval’s access codes. The records of her ship, proud Arin’s Toss , even now resting at Solcintra Port . . . those were trickier.
    Daav was no stranger to trickery, and he possessed what was very nearly a supernatural touch with a research line. Still, whoever had the ultimate keeping of Arin’s Toss had taken great care to be discreet, and he didn’t like to force the issue, when doing so might lose Theo her employment.
    She came very quickly, commented the voice only he could hear. Did you expect her so soon, Daav?
    “I hardly know that I expected her at all,” he answered. “A pilot new-come to first class surely has better things to do than to be wondering after the whereabouts of her aged father.”
    Kamele must have written, Aelliana said, to tell her that Jen Sar had gone .
    That, he conceded, was very probably how it had been, and what Kamele’s state of mind might be at this point in her relationship with Theo’s father, he found himself reluctant to imagine. As she was a woman of great good sense, it was likely that she wanted to murder him—for which he would blame her not at all.
    Ought we to write? Aelliana asked.
    “How would we begin to explain ourselves? We will seem either mad or craven.” He shook his head, frowning at the screen. “And truly, Aelliana, it seems a poor Balance, to involve Kamele in Korval’s little unpleasantness.”
    There were those who wanted Korval—all of Korval—dead, or worse. There were those; their number and disposition as yet unknown. And Kamele, who had lived all of her life on a Safe World . . .
    “Perhaps it’s best to let that connection die.”
    How? Aelliana asked. Theo has found us .
    There was that.
    Daav sighed.
    “I propose that we plunge our ship into a sun and have done.”
    Inside his head, Aelliana laughed. That never works.
    His lips twisted toward a smile, then straightened as the door opened.
    “Father,” Val Con said from the threshold, “may I come in?”
    “By all means! I have here for your perusal Pilot Waitley’s tale thus far. The ship’s is murkier, and I hesitate to push my point.”
    “How murky, I wonder?” Val Con asked, coming cat-foot to the desk.
    Daav spun the screen, watching his son’s face as he took in the data. One eyebrow twitched; he hitched a hip onto the edge of the desk and leaned to touch the scroll bar.
    “The pilot is . . . conservative,” he murmured. “That hardly seems like us.”
    “The pilot was taught young to distrust herself and to set the good of the many before her own necessities.”
    “Hm,” said Val Con, touching a key. “Hugglelans Galactica, second to Pilot Rig Tranza”—he looked up—“who appears also to have been conservative, and unwilling to push the pilot beyond her comfort. An odd sort of care, from elder pilot to junior.”
    Daav tipped his head.
    “Yes?” Val Con murmured.
    “Pilot Waitley was . . . let us say, rusticated from Anlingdin Piloting Academy. I believe the phrase was ‘nexus of violence.’ ”
    Val Con smiled. “Now that,” he said, “sounds more the thing.”
    “Yes,” Daav said earnestly, “but recall that she was gently raised—unlike yourself—and taught to honor safety above sense. Such a dismissal, and in such terms—it would not be wonderful if the pilot had entered a period of . . . overcompensation.”
    “Thus requiring a deft touch of Pilot Tranza.” Val Con looked back to the screen and touched the scroll bar. “Yes,