Owner's Share (Trader's Tales from the Golden Age of the Solar Clipper) Read Free Page A

the normal traffic router, but the special one that flagged traffic from home office.
    I opened it and read the short message.
    “At approximately 1940 on 72-Dec-13, Mr. Geoffrey Maloney succumbed to a heart attack in his apartment on Diurnia Orbital. Security personnel found his body when he failed to attend a scheduled meeting. Medical personnel were unable to revive him. He was alone in the apartment at the time.
    “Operations are to proceed normally until further notice. All ships and crews are instructed to continue their voyages during this difficult time, and to maintain delivery schedules and contracts while the Board of Directors deals with this emergency.
    “Contingency plans have been activated and Mr. Ames Jarvis, recently deployed to Breakall, is the interim CEO pending Board ratification. We will keep you informed as soon as we know anything more.
    “Our sincerest condolences go out to the friends and family.”
    The message was from Kirsten Kingsley, head of operations for Diurnia. I routed it to the console on the mess deck and sent a copy to Mr. Hill at the helm.
    He grunted as if punched when he read it.
    Silently, we sailed on toward the expanding disk that was Diurnia.
    At 0430, Mr. Wyatt came up the ladder to the bridge. He brought hot coffee and a concerned look.“Skipper? Is it true?”
    I nodded.“It appears to be, Avery.” I accepted the mug from him with a nod of thanks and took a sip while he gave one to Mr. Hill and collected the empties
    He started down the ladder, but stopped at the top, turning back. “It doesn’t seem possible. Who dies of a heart attack?” he asked, unknowingly echoing Mr. Hill’s statement.
    “Apparently, anybody who doesn’t get to the autodoc soon enough, sar,” Mr. Hill offered.
    Mr. Wyatt gave a little shake of his head, as if trying to clear it. “So it would seem, Mr. Hill.” He sighed and headed down the ladder toward the galley.
    We docked at Diurnia safely and without incident in the afternoon of December 17th. The mood aboard was more worried than somber. All the crew had seen Geoff Maloney, of course, but I was the only one of them that had significant interaction with him. Even I couldn’t say I knew him personally.
    When we docked, Ms. Kingsley met us, coming aboard as soon as we’d cleared Confederation Customs. The tired looking brunette in a severely tailored suit had a slim portfolio tucked under one arm. The hollows under her eyes made me think that the suit might be the only thing holding her up.
    I met her at the lock, and escorted her to the cabin while Ms. Thomas established the portside watch and declared liberty. The crew did not immediately stream off the ship, but rather huddled on the mess deck. Waiting for news, I suspected.
    As we settled onto the sofas with a tray of coffee and cookies between us, courtesy of Avery Wyatt’s forethought, I thought she blew out a sigh. I must have looked at her oddly. “Sorry, Captain.” She accepted the coffee and gave a small tight laugh. “It’s been a very hectic few days, and I suspect it’s only going to get worse.”
    “I can only imagine.” I gave her a moment to sip her coffee, and let her push the tray of cookies away. “How can I help you, Ms. Kingsley?”
    “Kirsten, please.” She paused for another sip, or maybe to gather her thoughts before speaking. “As you might imagine, there’s a lot going on behind the scenes. A power shift of this magnitude has the sharks circling.”
    I didn’t know. The situation was well outside my area of expertise, but I nodded for her to continue.
    “The company has emergency plans in place to deal with the situation, although we never thought we’d need them. I don’t suppose anybody ever does. There’s a service on the eighteenth—gods, that’s tomorrow—family only and down on the planet, although I’m not sure who all will attend. There’s not many of his family here anymore.” She took another sip of the coffee—pausing to