“Ammonium nitrate?” the Medic asked, frowning slightly.
“A common natural salt. Canuche has vast stores of it.”
“It sounds familiar,” she said, “though I don’t recall the Roving Star ever carrying any. One of my brother’s other ships or her predecessor may have done so at some time or other.”
“I doubt it,” Van Rycke told her. “There’s no interstellar or even intrasystem Trade in it. The stuffs plentiful throughout the galaxy. Any planets we’ve found thus far who want it either have enough of their own or the means of readily making it or a reasonable substitute. As a matter of fact, I can’t recall any other planet’s making a real industry out of it, though my memory could be failing me on that. Synthetics and animal products have either overshadowed or entirely supplanted it in most places for centuries.”
Adroo nodded. “True. It’s the fact that we have so much of it so readily available that gives it its strength here, that and because sil plants respond so well to it.”
He pointed to the scurrying workers and machines loading medium-sized crates on a squat-looking ship. “That freighter’s kind of interesting. She bears the pretentious name of Regina Man’s and is an independent that carries just about everything she can cram into her holds or on her decks. That’s not the norm on Canuche. Most skippers don’t care for a great deal of diversity. They’d rather not have to worry about more than one or two types of cargo at a time. Not this one, though. She took on coring drills and the stems supporting them from one of my competitors yesterday morning, then picked up an immense cargo of small items from another—screws, nuts, bolts, nails, and spikes of every conceivable description, some fashioned from metal and a lot from sundry synthetics. Passable stuff, too,” he added grudgingly, “though none of it would win any contests against Caledonia’s counterparts.”
The industrialist smiled at that display of chauvinism.
“Oh well, it’s a sad man who can’t or won’t take pride in his own.”
“What’s she loading now?” Jellico asked, peering down at what seemed to be a scene of utter frenzy but which he knew was in-fact a well-ordered operation. “Do you have any idea?”
“Considering where she’s berthed, a good guess would be a consignment of rope of various types, including twine and string. A large shipment of it was brought to that dock yesterday evening.”
“You know everything that comes and goes on these docks?” the Cargo-Master asked dryly.
Macgregory laughed. “Hardly, Mr. Van Rycke. It’s just like I said before. A lot of the docks’re either owned or permanently leased by fairly big organizations with well-known products and imports, and similar types of goods tend to move from fixed spots. I don’t have a clue about the numerous small, independent lots that go in and out every day, and if someone wants to make a big secret of what he’s doing, I wouldn’t know what he’s hiding.” His eyes sparkled momentarily. “Unless I think it’s worth the effort of finding out, that is.” His guests would know full well that his position gave him the power if not the official authority to do that under most circumstances if he chose to exercise it. “Like most independents, the Regina Man’s has her own band of regular customers. That makes for a similar cargo mix, just about what I described, often along with some ammonium nitrate or benzol thrown in. She’ll spend three or four days in port loading up and refueling, make her run, and come back to repeat the cycle. — No mystery at all about her.”
Seeing that the four had finished their torte, Charles returned to the table. “Would you like some jakek or coffee?”
“Jakek,” Miceal responded quickly. Inwardly, he mourned that local etiquette forbade the requesting of a second helping of the torte to go with it. That had been one of the finest examples of the culinary art he had enjoyed in a stellar age.
“Jakek,” Rael said somewhat absently.
Van Rycke eyed his shipmates with disapproval. “Coffee for me, please. Old is best after a fine meal like this.”
“I’m old-fashioned as well,” agreed Adroo. “That’ll be two cups of jakek and two of coffee, Charles.”
“Very good, sir.” He deftly retrieved the used plates and cutlery and withdrew as unobtrusively as he had arrived.
Some minutes later, he returned with a tray bearing the four cups, which he set before their proper recipients.
Jellico sipped his. “As good as any I’ve tasted even on Hedon,” he averred.
“So’s the coffee,” Jan remarked. “A special blend, Mr. Macgregory?”
He nodded. “Yes. Max’s secret. We could easily enough find out the varieties he brings in, but not the proportions he uses.”
“That would only spoil the mystery.”
“Precisely.”
Rael Cofort raised her cup to her lips but held it there while she gazed beyond it seemingly into the depths of space. Suddenly, she set it down again with enough force that the resulting click against the saucer caused her three companions to turn toward her. “Mr. Macgregory,” she asked tensely, “you said ammonium nitrate is frequently loaded in the Cup area?”
“Yes,” he answered, surprised. “Just about every week. Nearly daily at this time of year. Why?”
“Then Canuche Town is a death wish awaiting fulfillment.”
19
A frown darkened the Cargo-Master’s features, but Jellico silenced him with a sharp shake of his head. A cold dread chilled his own heart. It was not the Medic’s words but the deadly, calm certainty with which she had spoken them that drove the spear through him. That tone compelled attention, the more powerfully from those who knew this woman at all.
Adroo Macgregory was not pleased, but he, too, was gripped by his guest’s manner. Groundlessly or not, she was afraid for his city. “It’s an old, stable compound, Doctor. You can jostle it, drop containers of it, run a transport over it without any effect whatsoever.”
“Aye, but give it a sudden, extreme increase in temperature, and you’ve got an atom bomb on your hands. — I’m not exaggerating, Mr. Macgregory. Ammonium nitrate sounded familiar to me, not because I’d heard of it in connection with Trade but because of my own studies. History tells loud and clear what it can do. That stuff has caused galactic-class chaos before now, and given everything else stored and made around here, there’s enough of it down there right now to literally annihilate everything and everyone between these slopes if absolutely everything went wrong, and maybe a good part of the city beyond as well.”
“You’re sure?” the Solar Queen’s Captain asked quietly.
“Aye. The incidents I’d studied took place in the far past. As Mr. Van Rycke says, ammonium nitrate hasn’t been big business, or real business at all, for a very long time, but it has caused trouble before, and it’ll do it again. Canuche Town’s primed for it.”
“She’s right if that blasted stuff’s as bad as she claims,” the Canuchean cut in sharply. “The Cup’s the worst conceivable place for an accident involving a volatile substance. — I’ll look into this. Doctor Cofort. If your claims prove out, before you lift with your last charter from me, you’ll find ammonium nitrate being handled on the red docks, with shipments so scheduled as not to bring it into contact with too much else that might exacerbate an accident.”
“Will you be able to get the dock space for it?” Jan asked doubtfully. “Everything looks pretty locked up down there.”
“Out at the very tip, yes, which is where it belongs anyway by the sound of it. Those piers’re too far away from everything to be considered convenient, so there are always a number of them available. We don’t ship that much sensitive material at a given moment nowadays to tie them all up. Or we didn’t.”
“You’ll have to delve far back for confirmation,” Rael warned, “to the first Martian settlement and pre-space Terra.”
“I have the people to do the digging, Doctor. Don’t you worry about that. I also have the means to collect evidence more directly. — I’ll have to ask you to excuse me for a few minutes. They have sealed booths here. There are some calls I have to make.”
Rael watched him go, then lowered her eyes to the table to avoid those of her companions. “I’m sorry,” she said softly.
“He mentioned that two million people live in Canuche Town,” Miceal said.
He took a sip out of his cup and scowled. “Space, woman, why couldn’t you at least have waited until we’d finished our jakek?”
“The coffee’s no less good,” Van Rycke told him, although he glanced nervously below even as he spoke. The motion of the restaurant had already begun to put the Cup behind them. The effect would be strictly illusory in the event that the worst happened while they were up here, of course, but it was a definite psychological comfort to see it go.