“What does the captain do?” I asked dumbly.
“Decides where we go, how we get there, and what we will do upon arrival. That’s a full-time job, I assure you.”
Her response was flippant, and I sensed there was more but didn’t know what to ask. I looked to Fang for help, and he avoided me, turning all eyestalks away. I gave it more thought and one item stuck out like a pink air-dancer in a flock of blues. “If you are not going to buy another ship to trade, what is it going to do?”
“Explore the rim,” she said. “And beyond.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Captain Stone
Watching the changes on Kat’s face as she doled out the information about a new ship and exploration was more fun than when she had gathered Bill, Bert, and Fang together to tell them. All knew working out near the rim of the human sphere was dangerous.
However, the potential discoveries of new races, making new trade agreements, learning unknown technologies, and hundreds of other things made exploration exciting. The stories of others who did the same were legendary.
There were also the ships that had mysteriously gone missing recently, the others that had been attacked, and local inhabitants wanting no part of explorers. Big risks equal big rewards some said. Others compared it to searching for lost treasures—when there was no verified documentation that the treasures ever existed. Few who attempted it returned wealthy.
Yes, there had been a few heroes emerging from exploration. Not many. The truth was that the inhabitants of each new world discovered already knew something of its nearby neighbors.
Often there was existing trade between two or three planets nearby. As the human sphere expanded and discovered one of them, the other trading partners were quickly found, identified, and the products they were willing to sell noted, as well as products they wished to buy.
Thus, the traders moved the rim outward like an expanding balloon, always at the edge, seldom venturing beyond because of the unknown wormholes. There was no way to calculate where a ship would emerge, or if there was a route back. Often there was not.
Traveling through wormholes was not like going from here to there. Instead, it was like diving into an ocean covered with life-rings while blindfolded. When you surfaced inside a life-ring floating above, that was your new location. If you knew which wormhole or life-ring to enter, you also knew your destination. Otherwise . . . it could be anywhere.
Charted wormholes meant you could find your way home. If they were unknown, a ship could spend a lifetime searching for a way to return home or locate a charted nexus, which was where two wormholes converged.
It wasn’t typically the military that brought new worlds into the human sphere, it was the traders. Each trader vied for profit and each new world discovered was a new opportunity for unimagined wealth.
Established trade routes paid the bills. New worlds created empires.
Captain Stone had three huge advantages over other rim explorers. She had cash. She had the coming salvage payment. She had a ship that earned a steady income that would support her for years of discovery, even if none of the discoveries brought in a profit.
However, if she found a planet with needs to fill or cargo to ship, the Escolta could sweep in and be the first, and thus the most profitable. That was the core reason she had been so willing to work with the Bradley Concorde admiral. It benefited both. Even better, the admiral was willing to finance a good amount of the initial costs in hopes of finding technology that would help her win her war.
She glanced at the small study-table in the corner of the bridge, and at the newly installed command chair beside hers. Kat was studying, and when she was not, she sat in the new chair and observed Fang and the captain. There was much to learn as she had found out the hard way when she inherited the ship her father left. Not only the operation of the ship but leadership skills.
It would take years for Kat. The big difference was that Kat would have a mentor and never have to face the problems she had.
It was now five days since Kat had come to her with the request of learning a position on the crew. Everyone aboard the Dreamer was aware of the training position. That was not true of the personnel on the Escolta.
Heshmat Habitat was at the nexus of the final wormhole where they were transiting. Just ahead, as Fang put it. The Escolta was waiting there for her, completely reoutfitted with her new name, past trade transactions forged, new paint on the hull, and inside, repair documents certifying installations and repairs done over the years for the Escolta—all untraceable for one reason or another.
To even the most intense investigation, the Escolta had plied the human sphere trade routes for over fifty standard years and had an impeccable reputation for fairness and trustworthiness. Creating that sort of background was not cheap. However, it would allow the Escolta to charge maximum rates while earning maximum profits, and little interference from local authorities who were busy chasing after those with poor reputations that were possibly wanted on other planets for crimes committed there.
All that was fine with the captain. The cost of doing business. What worried her was the reactions of her crewmen when they suddenly found out there were four more of them. Bert would dig in and fill a
