version of Islam going on there, and it’s starting to hurt their economy. Did you notice that the port field was surrounded by a fifteen-meter wall?”
He nodded. “Sure. But I didn’t want to ask about it. I was afraid they had some sort of insurrection going on, and would get suspicious.”
She shook her head. “Nope. It’s to keep from offending the godly by exposing them to the fact that there are other inhabited worlds that don’t share their religious quirks. The shipping agents, factors, dealers and chandlers are permitted to deal with visitors, of course. But visitors are not permitted to leave the port field.
“They’re getting almost as hard to deal with as the Glory, and their balance of trade is starting to show it. A few more years of this religious fanaticism and they won’t have to worry about contamination by unbelievers — nobody will go there to trade.” She shrugged. “Anyway, that’s why the customs inspection was such a pain in the ass. Oh, they were looking for contraband, all right, but mostly they were interested in anything that might contaminate the godly. If they’d found anything they considered ‘blasphemous’, you wouldn’t have left there alive.”
He looked at her curiously. “How do you know what they consider ‘blasphemous’?”
She shrugged. “You don’t. Even more conventional Islamic believers have trouble figuring out D’Jellabah’s religious quirks. So you take your chances. And fewer and fewer traders are willing to take that risk. It’s a lot easier to just skip D’Jellabah and trade elsewhere.”
Kas nodded. “I noticed that there weren’t many ships at the port.”
She chuckled again. “And there won’t be, until D’Jellabah learns to share the universe with people of other beliefs.”
Kas found himself spending more and more time with Lady Jane. Even the seemingly endless series of Jasc games with Gran became less frequent.
Their conversations became the highlight of Kas’ days. Somehow they never seemed to run out of topics, or become bored with each other. Kas found himself getting up in the morning anticipating their chats, and saying good night only reluctantly.
But Lady Jane was wrong about Homesite. Almost as soon as they’d completed emergence from jump, Rom announced the presence of a ship, and moments later Edro reported that they were being hailed.
Kas frowned. “What kind of ship?”
“Empire-pattern corvette,” Rom reported.
“She says she’s the Singh system ship Shiva, Captain,” Edro added. “They demand to speak with our Captain.”
Kas looked at Lady Jane, standing beside his command chair. She shrugged and spread her open palms. “I dunno, Captain,” she responded to his unasked question. “They’ve never had customs here before much less picket ships. I think you’d better answer them. There must be something wrong.”
“Yar,” Rom put in sourly, “They’re lookin’ for a battle cruiser.”
Kas shrugged. “Maybe,” he replied. “Edro, put them on the main screen.”
The man who appeared was dark, with a large, thin nose. He wore some sort of cloth wrapped around his head to form a large helmet-shaped headpiece.
“Who are you and what are you doing here?” he demanded without preamble.
Kas had opened his mouth to speak when Lady Jane cut in. “Raj? Is that you? What’re you doing sitting on your ass out here? I thought you had some cushy posting on Singh!”
The man had noticed her as soon as Lady Jane spoke and relaxed slightly. He shook his head as she finished. “The question is, what’re you doing out here?” he replied. “You wouldn’t be planning to sneak in on the night side and pick up a load of thorium, now, would you?”She laughed aloud. “In this bucket? DIN-classes are good for a lot of things, Raj, but sneaking isn’t one of them! Naw,” she continued in a careless tone, “this is just a recal stop. Don’t tell me somebody’s finally figured out how to make smuggling profitable at Homesite?”
The man grinned. “Yah. Seems somebody’s been stealing heavy elements from the processing plants, and smuggling them off-planet. The Magnates contracted with the government of Singh to put a stop to it.” He shrugged. “And what’s the prettiest trader in the sector doing aboard a DIN-class, and not in the Captain’s chair?”
She shrugged again. “Captain Preslin here got himself a charter to run a bunch of cold-sleep colonists out to the rim. The Lady Jane ’s laid up for awhile, so I contracted to be kind of a local guide.” She grinned mischievously. “You know the weird things you local-system chairwarmers can dream up to harass us poor, innocent spacers.”
The man laughed aloud. “‘Poor’ and ‘innocent’ are not words that I would associate with you, Lady Jane.”
She shook her head in mock sadness. “And I thought we were friends,” she replied. “Captain Kas Preslin, this is Raj Brahamaputra. He’s an Ensign or something in Singh’s Navy. Raj, this is Captain Kas Preslin. Kas is an Impie trader tryin’ to make his way through the independents without getting’ himself killed.”
The man nodded, glaring at Jane. “That’s Commander, not Ensign, as you well know, Jane. If it weren’t for the fact that Captain Preslin is a stranger out here, I’d come over there and paddle your backside for you!”
She stuck out her tongue. “You’d better bring a working party if you want to try!” She struggled to keep a straight face, but finally broke into a smile. “Seriously Raj,” she continued, “Why don’t you come on over, and we’ll have a cup of caf and get caught up.”
The man answered her smile with one of his own. “I’d love to, Lady, but duty, duty. Uh,” he added, his smile fading, “You’re not going anywhere near the planet, are you?”
Kas shook his head. “No, sir,” he replied before Jane could speak. “This is just a recal stop as Lady Jane said. If you’d like to escort us to the jump point…”
Raj was shaking his head. “Sorry. We got a tip that a pickup was scheduled about now. I can’t leave this point. I’ll squirt a message ahead to the ship picketing the other jump point, so they don’t give you trouble. But keep well clear of the inner planets. I’m not the only surprise in the system.”
Kas assured the man that they’d stay well away from the inner planets and then signed off, as the communications time lag was becoming a problem. They began driving toward the other jump point in the system. Finally, Tera completed her computations and Rom set up their course to enter the jump point at the proper angle to take them to their next destination. There was another ship picketing the other jump point, but it didn’t even bother establishing communication. Evidently Lady Jane’s friend had been as good as his word. They jumped.
Kas breathed a huge sigh of relief. “Lady,” he said, “Thank you. You’re as good as your word. A single word to your friend Raj and we’d have been dead. His approach angle wouldn’t have let our weapons bear.”
She shrugged. “I’m a trader, and I gave my word.” She took a deep breath, causing serious distractions for Kas. “Where to next, Captain?”
“A place called Cytan. You know it?”
She nodded. “Yep. Poor system. Somehow, they’ve never managed to make the system a success on almost any level. They don’t even have an orbital port. If you’re not planning to ground you probably won’t even be questioned, much less searched. They don’t have any ships at all, just a few gunboats with no interstellar capability.”
This time, Jane was correct. They weren’t even questioned as they recalibrated and drove for their next jump point.
As soon as they were safely in jump, Kas called Lady Jane and Lar Tennig to the bridge. “I just want to warn you,” he began. “We have three more recal stops to make and two of them are in the Alliance.”
Jane frowned. “You mean this ship of yours is in Alliance space? If I’d known that, I might not have given my word.”
Kas shook his head. “No, actually it’s in a system just outside Alliance space. But to get there we have to pass through Alliance space. Otherwise, we’d have to detour through unexplored space and it would take at least six more jumps. We can’t afford the time penalty.” He frowned, his eyes narrowing.
“Don’t pay any attention to her, Captain,” Lar put in. “She suffers from a severe case of foot-in-mouth disease. We won’t betray our word, or you, just because we’re in Alliance space. So,” he added with elaborate casualness, “What’s the first stop?”
Kas stared at Lady Jane for a moment. Finally, she nodded, and he shrugged. “Our next recal is at a system called ‘M’Keba’. Do you have any information about it that we can use?”
