Abruptly, the Elsin’s commander turned to Van. “There’s one aspect of this position that I did not fully reveal to you.”
Van stiffened.
“You recall that I mentioned that we dealt with the Farhkans, and also that our first jump was to rebuild your implant so that you could handle the Elsin, then your own ship?”
“They’re going to do that?” Van felt cold at that thought.
“They’re far better than any human doctors. I know. Personally.”
“You?”
“I was badly injured on my last Service assignment. I ended up at a Farhkan base. They saved my life. Later, I found out that I would have died anywhere else.” Desoll shrugged. “You worry about it too much, and I can arrange for the implant to be reactivated on Perdya. It won’t be as good, but I understand.”
Van considered. There was a time to be skeptical and a time to trust. He knew very little about IIS. Or about the mysterious Trystin Desoll. He did know one thing. So far, Desoll had been truthful and kept his word, and he hadn’t been able to say that about the RSF lately.
“I’ll go with the Farhkans.”
Trystin Desoll nodded, and Van felt as though he had crossed an invisible bridge to another land. Or was it another Galaxy, or the underside of the one where he had lived?
Chapter 40
The jumpshift from Sulyn system to whichever Farhkan system Desoll had selected was the same as any other jump—white turned black, and blackness became incredibly white, and both seemed to last forever within an instant that was over almost before it registered—all the impossible contradictions that the human body felt during a jump transition.
Without a functioning implant, not only did Van not know their destination, but he felt lost even in the cockpit, because the Elsin had almost no physical visual instruments on the board before them—just basic EDI, thrust, velocity, and closure indicators, and the emergency use manual levers and stick for thrust and drives to the left of the command seat—that and a screen view projected before him that could have been almost any star system in the Arm.
Once Desoll had the Elsin steady on an inbound course, he stood. “Let’s go back to the mess—it’s really just an oversize galley, but it sounds better to call it the mess.”
“You don’t have much in the way of manual instruments here.” Van followed the other down the narrow passageway.
“No. It’s better that way, and once your implant’s up, you’ll see why.” The older man stopped in front on the compact bank of formulators and what looked like the modern version of an ancient stove. “Electronics just doesn’t boil water right. I take tea,” the older man said, extracting one kettle from a cabinet. “You?”
“Café, if you have it. If not, tea will be fine.”
Desoll swung out another device, set in its own recessed space. “We carry both, even the right kind of cafémaker. Eri and I generally take tea, but there’s plenty of café.” His hands were deft, and soon both kettle and cafémaker were beginning to steam.
“Have you given any thought to where you want that bond set up?”
“I have a question. Can I have a beneficiary to that, so that if anything happens to me in the first year…?”
Desoll smiled. “I should have mentioned that. The bond also doubles as accident indemnity. Doing what we do, no one will insure us, even though we’ve never lost anyone.”
“In how many years?”
“From the beginning—more than a hundred. We still could. We’re moving into a dangerous time in history. It could be more dangerous than the Eco-Tech-Revenant War.”
“You think so?”
“Yes. We’ll talk about that after you tell me where you want your bond.”
“What about Kush?”
“We can do that. I’d recommend either the Candace Bank or the Nabatan Trust, but you could choose branches of the Argenti Arm Fiduciary Trust or Cambrian Holdings.”
“Do you know every financial institution in this part of the Arm?”
“Most of them. In our business, you have to know whom you can trust, and they have to know that they can trust us.” Desoll filled a large mug with café and handed it to Van. For a moment, his eyes seemed to glaze, and then he focused on Van. “Space debris. Just checking.”
Van still was getting used to the idea that Desoll was running the ship from wherever he was. In the RSF, command was in the cockpit, but Van could see that would be impractical in a vessel with such a small crew.
“Tea, Eri,” Desoll added, pouring a mug of that and handing it to the tech, who had appeared from somewhere aft of the mess. Desoll gestured to the narrow table beyond the galley. “We could sit down.” He poured himself a mug and slid onto the anchored bench on one side.
Eri sat on the other side, farther aft, allowing Van to sit across from Desoll.
“Is there any real difference between the Candace Bank and the Nabatan Trust?”
“They’re both solid. We’ve done business with both. I’d give the edge to the Nabatan, but you couldn’t go wrong with either.”
“Why would you favor the one?” Van knew he was being difficult, in a way, but he was as much feeling out Desoll as obtaining information.
Eri smiled knowingly.
Van looked at her. “Why does he favor the one?”
“He has a friend there. She is a good banker, but she is also a very nice lady.”
Van sensed the absolute truth and laughed, heartily. Somehow, that single sentence, said truthfully and yet shyly, made Trystin Desoll seem far more human.
Desoll actually flushed for a moment.
“We might as well give your lady friend the business,” Van replied.
“There’s another thing we need to take care of, as well, and for that I’d really recommend one of the Coalition banks.”
“Oh?”
“Your pay. You’ll be paid automatically to
