Daniel chuckled, returning to his normal good humor. “I’m confident that the pay and maintenance charges do exist—in somebody’s pocket,” he explained. “Well, this isn’t Cinnabar, you know; and even on Cinnabar . . .”
“Ah,” said Adele, nodding. She reminded herself again that records might be wrong when there were human beings in the equation. She should just factor that in as she would the chance of equipment failure, instead of feeling a surge of anger every time she learned that somebody had deliberately corrupted her data! “Yes, of course. In any case, one of the picket vessels cleared a Kostroman freighter forty-seven minutes ago and is on its way to the Princess Cecile. The other picket vessel is . . .”
She frowned. “That’s odd,” she said, switching back to the commo screen without thinking of her guest. This might be important.
“Daniel,” she said, “the other picket is clearing an Alliance freighter out of Pleasaunce named the Goldenfels, ID Number 83191-7.”
“Well, that’s proper,” Daniel said, locking his right leg around the post of her seat as he squinted at the display. It would mean as little to him as his astrogation tank did to her. “The Alliance was never formally at war with the Commonwealth, you know. There just isn’t much Alliance traffic because of distance and the risk of piracy.”
“Daniel,” Adele said, pursing her lips in exasperation, “that’s all I can tell about the Goldenfels. I can’t get into their navigation system through their communications suite. The ship’s shielded too well.”
“Ah!” said Daniel, his face placid and wearing a quizzical smile. “Can they get into our system, Adele?” he asked.
“Of course they can,” she said tartly. “If they couldn’t, it’d be a dead giveaway that we’re a spy ship, wouldn’t it? To anybody who had the equipment and the necessary skill, I mean.”
She gave her friend what she supposed was a smile of rather prissy satisfaction. “They can’t get into my system, however,” she added. “And according to the manifest they can read, we have a much smaller crew, mostly from Novy Sverdlovsk. And no missiles.”
“The Klimovs are approaching the bridge,” Tovera’s voice whispered through the left ear of Adele’s helmet.
“Captain, how long must we stay like this?” said the Count as he slid through the hatch inexpertly; though at that he was rather better at it than Adele was, she noted with a degree of irritation. The Klimovna followed her husband, bouncing from the deck to the ceiling of the passage.
They’d gone to their stateroom on C Deck after the Princess Cecile fell into orbit around Todos Santos, hoping to find it more comfortable than the bridge annex. Apparently they’d been disappointed in that hope.
“Guardship Abdul Hassan docking with Cinnabar vessel Princess Cecile,” an edgy voice said over the ground control channel in a demand rather than an announcement. “Prepare to receive port control officials.”
“Princess Cecile to Abdul Hassan,” Daniel replied. His voice was blurred to Adele in what was now a familiar fashion, coming by radio through her helmet as well as directly from his lips to her ears. “We’ll receive you at our forward dorsal hatch. Princess Cecile over.”
Rather than “out,” Adele noticed, indicating that he expected to resume transmission. The locals hadn’t bothered to code their signal, either out of sloppiness or deliberate discourtesy.
Daniel turned to the Klimovs, straightening and wedging the toe of his left boot between Adele’s console and the bulkhead to anchor him. “Port control will board in a few minutes, sir,” he said politely. “I trust that when a few formalities are taken care of, we’ll be cleared to land.”
He coughed. “Ah, one of the formalities is likely to be a tip to the officials,” he added. “Otherwise we might remain in orbit for an extended period.”
“Yes, of course,” said Klimov. “How much?”
The Count shrugged, but he shouldn’t have. The motion sent him drifting toward the ceiling again. His arms windmilled.
“The Kostroman freighter that just got clearance paid a hundred and fifty Kostroman ducats,” Adele said. “If those are New Ducats, as I assume they were, that’s about a hundred and ten Cinnabar florins or . . .”