Her Brother's Keeper - eARC Read Free Page A

is done, I suppose. I like to think that I did well enough for myself regardless. At any rate we’ve gotten rather off topic, haven’t we? What is it I can do for you, Father?”
    Augustus’ demeanor darkened again. “It’s Cecil.”
    A pang of concern went through Catherine’s chest. She wasn’t close to her brother anymore, but he had been all she’d had after their mother died and their father became withdrawn and distant. “What’s wrong?”
    “He’s been off-world for two years, and now he’s being held for ransom. I need you to go find him, get him back, and bring him home.”
    “ Ransom? Where is he?”
    “As far as I know,” Augustus said, “he is on Zanzibar.”
    Catherine closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose between her finger and thumb. Zanzibar. A lawless, strife-torn, failed colony world near the raggedy edge of inhabited space. “What in God’s name is Cecil doing there?”

Chapter 2
    New Austin
    Lone Star System
    Las Cruces Spaceport, Laredo Territory
    Southern Hemisphere

    “Marshal,” the deputy sheriff complained, “are you sure about this? Everything looks normal to me.”
    Colonial Marshal Marcus Winchester ignored the deputy and continued to study the ship parked on the ramp through multifunction binoculars. With the optics zoomed in and gyro-stabilized, he was able to read the registration number on the hull of the ship. He turned to the bewildered-looking spaceport traffic controller and asked him if he’d run the ship’s number when it set down.
    “Of course,” the controller said nervously. He was a short, sweaty man with a bad comb-over. “It checked out. That’s the Luxor , an independent free trader. She comes through here two or three times a year.”
    Marcus frowned, lifting the binoculars to his eyes again. The Luxor had a fat, cylindrical hull capped with a blunt, rounded nose. Her unpainted gunmetal hull was covered with scorch marks, dents, and fabricated repairs. She stood a hair over fifty-three meters tall on her landing jacks. Stubby, aerodynamic radiators and small airfoils jutted out of her hull. The Luxor was presently the only ship on the parking apron at the so-called Las Cruces Spaceport, and was connected to the service tower at the port’s only fully functional launch pad. The bridge from the tower was locked into the ship’s open cargo bay, and a retractable umbilical refilled her reaction mass tanks. The spaceport terminal where Marcus found himself was maintained by robots and was in pristine condition, despite being practically deserted.
    Marcus’ partner, Deputy Marshal Wade Bishop, tapped the screen of his handheld. “She checks out, Boss,” he said without looking up. “She’s an old tub, currently registered to Captain Bartleby Oleander out of the Llewellyn Freehold. That comes from their transponder download from when they arrived in-system. Everything else I can pull up on the ship is from more than a year ago.”
    “The Freeholders ain’t exactly known for their deep and abiding respect for customs law,” Marcus said with a grin. “The only reason they bother to register in Concordiat space at all is so they can trade with the Inner Colonies. There’s a very good chance that info is out of date or an outright lie.”
    The Llewellyn Freeholders were considered to be a bunch of belligerent anarchists by most civilized societies. Their colony had a barely functioning central government with almost no actual authority. The Freehold was notorious for its easy access to every imaginable vice and the stubborn, individualistic independence of its small permanent population. What existed on Freehold couldn’t exactly be called a “black market”; as long as you weren’t killing people or trafficking in slaves, you could buy or sell just about anything you could want on the open market. There were no taxes to speak of, precious few actual laws, and no police. Unscrupulous traders and smugglers would often register their