Low Port Part 25

The s.h.i.+p's afterjets were still smoking as Jeffers trotted out onto the blast ap.r.o.n, the display panel in his hand showing the manifest the crew had transmitted from orbit. He'd snagged this one the minute he saw the read out, before Ota or Singh got a look at it, and all because of one word: Pets.

As far as Jeffers was concerned, pets were a struggling customs officer's wet dream. He could claim they were diseased or dangerous, he could demand endless doc.u.mentation, genetic scans, certifications from half a dozen governments or organizations-basically, he could delay the s.h.i.+pment indefinitely.

And pets needed care and feeding, which would eat into someone's profits for every day the cargo was delayed, and the animals would be getting older and less valuable, and might get sick or die, which would make them worthless; their owner would want them delivered as quickly as possible.

Which meant that Jeffers could expect a very healthy fee to expedite the process. With luck, he could wind up with half the captain's profits going onto his own card.

And it was all far safer than "overlooking" drugs or weapons; exotic alien pets were legal, after all, and the people who transported them were therefore far less likely to shoot an overly greedy customs inspector. He wouldn't be threatening anyone with arrest, deportation, or reprogramming-just with bureaucratic delays. n.o.body liked red tape, but only a lunatic would shoot anyone over it, while drug dealers and gun runners shot each other with depressing frequency.

Of course, the Lord Lucan might be smuggling contraband, as well as its official cargo, which could make the haul even richer, albeit riskier. Jeffers smiled happily as he tapped the phone keys on his display.

"Musas.h.i.+ Port Customs, requesting permission to come aboard," he said.

"Just a minute, Customs," a woman's voice replied, though no image appeared. "I'm checking on the cargo restraints. Wouldn't want anything to hit you on the head."

"Whenever you're ready, Captain," Jeffers said. He stood on the ap.r.o.n, waiting patiently, as the sound of heavy objects thumping on metal surfaces came over the display speakers.

At last the woman spoke again.

"Opening the lock, Customs; stand clear."

Jeffers booted up the atmospheric sensors on the display, then tucked the panel under one arm and watched as the outer door of the airlock swung open and extended itself downward to become a boarding ladder. Before the bottom rung had entirely stopped moving he grabbed the rails and began climbing.

At the top he waited while the airlock cycled-apparently the captain wasn't in any hurry to expose herself to Musas.h.i.+'s air. At last, though, the inner door opened and he found himself facing the Lord Lucan's captain. She was a st.u.r.dily built woman with coffee colored skin, wearing a standard s.h.i.+p suit that was drab blue at the moment.

"Madis Tyler," she said, holding out a hand. "Is Maintenance coming?"

Jeffers shook the offered hand. "Karl Jeffers," he said. "I haven't heard anything from Maintenance; that's between you and them."

"They said they'd send someone right out."

"Shouldn't be more than an hour or so, then. They're a bit backlogged." His curiosity got the better of him. "What needs maintenance?"

"The main drive. That's why I put down; I wasn't planning to land at all. If this place had a decent orbital station instead of just that stupid navigation post, I wouldn't be here, wasting time and fuel, I'd have made the repairs in orbit."

"Then your cargo isn't bound for Musas.h.i.+?"

"Oh, h.e.l.l, no; I've got buyers waiting on Telemachus III. I'm just here because I was using the Musas.h.i.+ beacon for transition, and the drive went unstable and dumped me out of hyper about fifteen light minutes off the point. I didn't want to risk jumping again until I found out why."

This took the edge off Jeffers' enthusiasm; if the s.h.i.+p was going to be delayed for expensive repairs anyway, and the impatient buyer wasn't here on Musas.h.i.+, his bargaining position wasn't quite as good as he had thought. He couldn't demand payment before allowing the pets to leave the s.h.i.+p, because they weren't going to leave the s.h.i.+p here. He could probably still manage something, but this wouldn't be as lucrative as he thought; if he got too greedy the Lord Lucan would probably just launch without clearance and run for it, and there wouldn't be much anyone in the Musas.h.i.+ system could do about it. Musas.h.i.+ did not have many patrol s.h.i.+ps, and the Confederacy Guard was unlikely to waste one pursuing someone whose only crime was not bribing the port officials adequately.

"I'll still need to take a look," Jeffers said apologetically. "Port rules, you know."

"I figured you would," Tyler said with a sigh. "Every port in the galaxy has rules and bureaucrats. I suppose there'll be paperwork.''

"Oh, I think we can keep it to a minimum, since you aren't offloading anything," he said. "In fact, a small service charge might expedite the process..."

"How much?"

"Well, that depends on the exact nature of your cargo."

"They're pets. Sixty of them. Furb.a.l.l.s indigenous to Fomalhaut IV. Do you need the species name? It should be in the manifest."

Jeffers took the display board from under his arm and looked at it. The atmosphere indicators showed a bunch of non standard trace organics-that would presumably be from the cargo's breath or waste. There were no traces of anything that looked like illicit drugs or out ga.s.sing from explosives, unfortunately, which meant Tyler probably wasn't smuggling anything and Jeffers couldn't extort even more.

The manifest did give a species name-Ardema.n.u.s ardermani formalhauti-that was amazingly uninformative, and tapping the query b.u.t.ton elicited "No data on file."

He hesitated. He knew he should just name a fee, but he wanted to see what these things looked like. There might be some excuse to charge more if they looked especially valuable.

And a thought struck him. "You only have sixty? On a s.h.i.+p this size."

"They're big furb.a.l.l.s, not just hamsters or something, and I've got to haul the food and water for them."

Big animals? That meant he might be able to make an accusation of inhumane treatment, or transporting dangerous livestock; that could raise the price. "I'll need to take a look," he said.

"Yeah, fine. This way." Tyler led the way to the central core, where they ascended a ladder to the main hold.

The smell reached Jeffers before the door slid open, and he almost gagged; there was no question that the Lord Lucan was transporting animals. A glance at the display showed four red indicators on the atmosphere readings-but steady red meant "unidentified," not toxic.

Then he looked at the cargo, and saw why Captain Tyler had called them "furb.a.l.l.s."

There were about a dozen of the creatures in this compartment. Each stood about five feet tall and about three feet wide, thick legs supporting almost spherical bodies covered in luxurious fur in a variety of colors. It took Jeffers a moment to puzzle out exactly what he was seeing, beyond walking b.a.l.l.s of fur, but at last he understood.

They were tripodal-a leg on either side and one at the back, the back one jointed differently, which Jeffers suspected meant it had evolved from something like a tail. Plastic restraints encircled every leg, each creature tethered to a cargo ring on the bulkhead.

Between the front and back leg on either side of each furball was what could only be considered an arm, though the resemblance to human arms was slight; each was equipped with four things somewhere between fingers and pincers at the end, and also with something clawlike at the lower elbow. There were no actual hands.

And between each pair of front legs hung a long neck ending in a flat, pan shaped head, equipped with four eyes and a mouth, and other openings that might or might not be ears and nostrils.

Most of those many eyes were staring back at him.

"Whoa," he said. "Who'd want those for pets?"

"Rich people," Tyler said. "On Telemachus III."

Jeffers shrugged. "I suppose some people will buy anything." He looked at his display. "I'll want to take some readings."

Tyler didn't reply; she just frowned. Then her com twittered. "Maintenance, waiting to come aboard," it said. "What's the nature of the problem?"

"I'll be right there," she said. Then she turned her attention back to Jeffers. "Don't touch anything," she said. "They're docile, and they're tethered, but that doesn't mean they can't step on your foot or b.u.t.t you accidentally if you get too close." Then she spun on her heel and marched back out to the ladder.

Jeffers watched her go, then turned back to the furb.a.l.l.s.

He didn't really care what they were, or what the readings said; he just wanted to figure out how he could maximize his income from this.

They were odd looking creatures, and the way they were all watching him made him nervous. The smell didn't help.

"You guys stink, you know that?" he said.

"Sorry," the nearest replied, in slightly accented Commerce.

Jeffers almost dropped his display. "You can talk?" he demanded, once he was sufficiently recovered to speak.

The furb.a.l.l.s exchanged glances; one said, "The captain lady said we mustn't talk to you." Two of the others turned to glare at it.

Jeffers glanced around for cameras, and spotted three-but he knew how to deal with that; anyone who conspired with smugglers had to be able to alter records. He hurried to the compartment's com port and punched up a link between the s.h.i.+p's systems and his display board, then selected one of the display's files and quickly entered a few parameters.

That would generate synthetic images of utterly innocuous behavior in the cargo hold, starting from the moment Captain Tyler descended the ladder.

"She can't hear us now," he said, turning back to the furb.a.l.l.s. "Now, what were you saying?"

"We're sorry we stink," a reddish brown one said. "We haven't had a decent bath since we came aboard, and the food doesn't agree with us."

"Or the air, " a bluish one interjected.

Visions of a charge of inhumane treatment, and the bribe it would take to have it dismissed, arose in Jeffers' thoughts, only to be immediately dismissed by a far more basic issue.

These things weren't pets.

Oh, there were talking pets-parrots and mynah birds and Sirian mimic hounds-but those couldn't hold real conversations. A mere pet would not apologize for its smell and complain about a lack of bathing facilities, would it? Those flat heads didn't look big enough to hold much brain, but not every species kept its brain in its head.

"What are you?" Jeffers asked.

The furb.a.l.l.s exchanged glances.

"Well, our own word for our kind is..." It made a gurgling noise.

"It just means 'people', really," another explained.

"The captain lady calls us her cargo," said the reddish one.

"Or furb.a.l.l.s."

"Or slaves."

Jeffers stared at them. "Slaves," he said.

"That was the word she used, yes."

There was clearly more going on here than a little smuggling. "Not pets?"

The furb.a.l.l.s exchanged glances.

"No."

"I don't think so."

"What are pets?"

Jeffers ignored the question and asked, "Do you know what slaves are?"

"Workers," the reddish one answered promptly. "We're to cultivate crops, and run machines, and do whatever we're told. If we don't, our families will be killed."

Oh, this was just getting better and better, Jeffers thought. Kidnapping, slavery, and maybe even murder if Tyler had demonstrated that her threats were serious. Not to mention that she was probably suppressing knowledge of an intelligent species, in violation of the contact laws.

This was not something he wanted to be part of.

Jeffers knew he was not a law-abiding citizen. For the right price he could look the other way when s.p.a.cers decided to bring in drugs or weapons, because after all, their customers chose to buy the stuff. Drugs might ruin lives, but the owners of those lives had taken the drugs in the first place of their own free will, despite all the warnings in their schooling and entertainment. Weapons might kill people, but people could improvise weapons readily enough, or kill each other without them-human beings had demonstrated great ingenuity in their long history of violence. He could tolerate drug smuggling and gun running, and still consider himself a fairly decent human being; he had no trouble facing himself in the mirror most mornings. He lived with that sort of crime easily.

But slavery? That was an entirely different level of wrong.

And what was the point? Why weren't the farmers of Telemachus III using robots for their labor?

Slaves were probably cheaper, especially if these things would breed in captivity. If Telemachus was a metal-poor system, or if it had an environment that corroded metal or circuitry, robots might be expensive there.

Slaves might be more versatile; the furb.a.l.l.s seemed pretty bright.

Or maybe there wasn't any sound economic reason. Maybe the Telemachans just liked the idea of slaves. Jeffers shuddered at the thought, but he knew it was possible.

It wasn't really any of his business, he told himself. He shouldn't get involved...

But slavery?

Still, what could he do about it? Reporting it to the cops here wouldn't do any good; Tyler would just bribe them, or maybe launch before she could be arrested. Jeffers knew very well just how corrupt the local law enforcement was. He also knew what would happen to his own reputation among both cops and smugglers once the word got out.

And if by some fluke he found an honest cop, and Tyler got hauled off to jail, and did not manage to flee, then what? He'd be called to testify, and if Tyler managed to find even a halfway competent lawyer the jury would then be treated to all the lurid details of Jeffers' own past. Juries were notoriously unlikely to believe crooked officials.

And the other smugglers, the people who made it possible to live decently on his salary, would all hear about it. Losing half his income was the best he could hope for; turning up dead in an alley was far more likely.

No, the sensible thing to do here was to take a moderate bribe and keep his mouth shut, slaves or no slaves.

But he looked at the furb.a.l.l.s, at the dozens of eyes staring at him, and wished there were another way.

He blinked, closed his eyes, and tried to clear his thoughts. This wasn't really so different, he told himself. He'd let gun runners through, after all, and he knew those weapons weren't just for target practice. And he'd seen what happened to people who got too fond of the drugs he'd let in.

It wasn't any of his business. Drugs and guns and slaves were going to be smuggled in no matter what he did; he might as well take his money and keep quiet. He had long ago decided that-well, he had long ago decided that about drugs and guns, anyway; slaves had never come into it before.

He wished they hadn't come into it now, either.

He opened his eyes and found the furb.a.l.l.s were looking past him; he quickly tapped the abort on his display and turned to find Captain Tyler climbing back up the ladder.

"They're looking at the drive," she said. "Can we get this paperwork out of the way so I can go keep an eye on them, and make sure they don't break anything they can add to my bill?"

"Of course," Jeffers said. He looked at the display and began entering commands. "So tell me about Telemachus III," he said. "I've never been there-h.e.l.l, I've never been off Musas.h.i.+. I love to hear the stories, though."

"I don't know what to tell you," Tyler said with a shrug. "It's just another d.a.m.n colony. The Confederacy runs the port, but mostly people there just mind their own business."