Command Decision Read Online Free Page B

Orleans–Vishwa–Darien–Moscoe route should arrive insystem in the next few days. Ordinarily,
Katrine Lamont
’s captain—now Balthazar Orem, transferred from
Gary Tobai
because Stella knew him better—would have offloaded cargo consigned here, sequestered cargo that would be transferred directly to the incoming ship, acquired more cargo to take on from here, and left room for any cargo the incoming ship needed to transfer. But now, with trade down and Vatta’s reputation almost as ruined as its headquarters and coffers, nothing was that simple.
    Still, there was always someone who wanted to ship something somewhere. Stella had put off hiring new crew for
Gary Tobai,
and
Katrine Lamont
was still undercrewed, but at least the ship was in perfect shape. Stella had sold off all the cargo that wasn’t consigned elsewhere—about 30 percent was, and of that, a little less than half would need to be shifted to
Marcus Selene,
the ship due in. The sale of cargo, plus the company share of profits from Toby’s dog’s breeding fees, had kept her balance on the right side of the ledger, and in another thirty-five days she would have access to the late Captain Furman’s accounts. And if Toby could actually build shipboard ansibles…maybe it was Osman’s genes, and not Stavros’, that presented her with an inkling of how profitable that could be, but maybe that didn’t matter. In her imagination, a new corporation rose from the ashes of the old: Vatta once more, trade and profit; for the first time it seemed real, herself in a proper office, giving orders. In the meantime, her business office was the dining room table in the apartment.

    “Cousin Stella! I found it!” Toby burst out of his room a few days later, Rascal scampering around in him in frantic circles.
    “What, Toby?” Stella had just been running the figures again.
Marcus Selene
had arrived insystem and was making its way in from the jump point. She might afford a real office within the next week.
    “What it was protecting…that thing I told you about. Not the ansible—or not this ansible—it’s what keeps these from interfacing with system ansibles.” He grinned, eyes sparkling. For an instant, Stella saw a ghost of the depressed, scared boy she had found in protective custody at Allray. Whatever else she had done wrong in her life, however vicious her biological father had been, she had changed Toby’s life for the better. Then her brain caught up with his words.
    “You mean they could interface—?”
    “Yes. It’s quite simple, really. Rafe said they couldn’t, they were built so they couldn’t, but he didn’t tell me what they’d done. Maybe he didn’t know; he said he didn’t understand it all. Anyway, it’s this circuit here—” He pushed a printout of a circuit diagram at her; to Stella, it was all lines and symbols, as meaningless as straws in the wind. “If I leave that part out, and change this bit here”—he pointed at something on the diagram—“then it could.”
    “That would be…very useful indeed,” Stella said. Her mind filled instantly with the possibilities for profit—a lot of profit—but surely ISC had all the relevant patents. How could they come up with something on their own, something ISC couldn’t interfere with, using Toby’s ideas? “Brilliant, Toby. And do you think you can build a working model?”
    “I could do it faster if I didn’t have to go to school,” he said, eyeing her sidelong.
    Stella laughed. “Not that, my boy. You’re going to school, and that’s final. Besides, you’ve been enjoying the company; you said so.”
    “Well, yes. Some of the other kids are all right, especially since they moved me up a level. But I want to get this done. It would help us so much…and if ships went out with these, they could relay information from systems where the ansibles aren’t working, until ISC had time to fix them.”
    “I can see that,” Stella said. “But you have to go to school