The first thing the Desk sent him was a patch.
It came up on the console at Tau Ceti Orbital before he had so much as looked at the board. A small stitched badge, and a line underneath saying he had flown the lanes before the doors opened, and that the patch and the title were his for keeps. That was true in the narrowest sense. The doors were opening that morning and Azorius was already through them, sitting in the cab of a Rust Runner with a full tank, an empty hold and no idea at all what anything cost.
'Grain,' said Jessie. 'It's cheap here and it's dear at Pollux. Not very dear. Don't buy a house on it.'
He had picked her name off the list on the first screen and her face off the second, and he could not have said why either, except that she had looked like somebody who would tell him when he was being an idiot. He bought forty sacks at twenty-eight credits apiece and set course for Pollux.
From Tau Ceti the mouth for the Pollux lane sits just past the planets. The run out took a couple of minutes. Then the drop, and the hang, which everybody had warned him about. It was silent, and it was nothing, and then it was over. He waited to be sick, because he had been told he might be. He wasn't. He decided not to wonder what that said about him.
He sold the grain at Pollux Orbital for thirty-one apiece. A hundred and twenty credits, start to finish, for nine minutes' flying. The Frontier man on the dock told him it was a pleasure doing business, and meant it.
'Well done,' said Jessie. 'Now look at the board.'
The board paid better than grain. The board, it turned out, paid better than nearly anything. He took twenty-four sacks for Rigel b and the contract alone came to eleven hundred, nine times what his own cargo had made him, and he sat on the dock at Rigel with that figure on the screen and felt the first of several small adjustments to his view of the universe.
He renamed the Runner while he was sitting there. Top Deck. Jessie asked why, and he said it was a long story, which it wasn't.
Then he spent the money. A cargo pod, five thousand credits, which left him nearly nothing, and three contracts, which left him no choice. Cutting gear to Spica, where the crops grow in volcanic ash and nobody asks how. Composite alloys to Hadar, which was quiet, patrolled and so dull he could feel the paperwork through the hull. Robotics to Cebalrai. He bought copper ore at Spica for forty-four and sold it at the Frontier's refinery at Gienah for eighty-four, and the Frontier, again, was pleased to see him.
Cebalrai was farm worlds, orderly fields under an orderly sky. He brought the robotics down at Cebalrai b, had the hull patched where Hadar's long lane had worn it, and took a survey contract on his way out because it was there.
'Tarazed,' said Jessie. 'Survey the planet, bring the readings back. It pays well. Surveys always do. Nobody wants to sit still that long.'
He went by way of Pollux, where the Frontier sold him deep-water fish out of the storm seas at Kornephoros, and Kornephoros itself, where they sold him more. He was at Tarazed b by half past one. The survey finished and the money came in, and he read the figure three times, because the first two times he thought he had the decimal point wrong.
Thirty-eight thousand two hundred credits.
That was more than everything he had made since the patch, put together, and then some. The Desk sent him a line telling him he was a Hauler now, and another telling him the yard would sell him a Needle Scout on the strength of his explorer record. He had an explorer record. He had not known that until it was mentioned.
He sold the fish at Tarazed Orbital for twice what he had paid. He bought electronics at two hundred and sold them at Procyon for three hundred and eighty-one, and at Procyon, at four minutes past two in the afternoon, the yard told him he could have a Mule Freighter for forty-five thousand.
He had forty-five thousand.
Procyon is a lanes junction, which means repair yards and arguments, and he had one of each.
The Mule was bigger than anything he had imagined owning that morning. He moved his cargo pod across, fitted a bigger one beside it, an auxiliary tank, and a pulse laser because the yardman said he would want one and did not say why. He named her Canterbury. Then there was the question of the Runner.
'What'll you give me for her?'
The yardman looked at Top Deck for some time, with the patience of a man who has been asked this question by every new pilot on the chart. He explained, kindly, that a Rust Runner was worth exactly what it cost to tow it away, and that the yard would do him the courtesy of not charging for the tow.
The log says Sold Top Deck, a Rust Runner, to the yard (+0 cr). He had owned her for five hours and named her for three and a half. He did not look back at her on the way out, because he was a grown man. He looked at her on the screen instead, which is not the same thing.
He took three contracts at Procyon and then three more at Bellatrix, where the bars are cheap and the soup is very good and every old hauler on the dock wanted to look at his new ship. By evening he was running medical supplies to Rasalhague and the board offered him something new.
'Escort,' said Jessie. 'A convoy for Cebalrai. You fly alongside, you see them in. If anybody takes an interest, you take an interest back.'
'Does anybody usually take an interest?'
'That's why it pays.'
Somebody took an interest six minutes out. The convoy was interdicted in deep space, which is to say a raider dropped out of the slack beside it and opened up, and Azorius found out what the yardman had meant about the laser. It was short and loud. The raider was quick and he was not, and Canterbury took a pasting he would feel in the repair bill for a day. Then the raider was in pieces, and he was picking twelve hundred credits and five hull plates out of what was left of it, and the convoy was under way again as if nothing had happened.
He saw them in to Cebalrai b at twenty-five to eight.
'The Almanac says Cebalrai means the shepherd's dog,' said Jessie. 'Old-world word. Nobody knows why they named a farm star after a dog.'
'I was the dog.'
'You were the dog,' Jessie agreed. 'Good dog.'
He did not stop that night. He would think, afterwards, that this was where the trouble started, though it did not feel like trouble at the time. It felt like money.
He flew a survey at Regulus, a ruined charter colony where squatters were taking the old world's buildings back one room at a time, and the Desk told him he was a Merchant now: the ledger says so, and the ledger doesn't flatter. He flew a survey at Alphard, lonely and proud out on its own. He flew a survey at Spica, and sat in orbit over the ash fields for an hour while the readings came in, and then he bought three hundred units of rare earths and took them back to Alphard, because the refinery wanted them and had said so on the board.
The contract cleared at fourteen minutes past two in the morning. He sat on the dock at Alphard Refinery with the hold empty and the refinery's lights going red and white across the cab, the only lit thing for a long way in any direction. He thought it was the most beautiful place he had ever seen. He was very tired.
He slept until a quarter to eight.
The second day was rare earths, Rigel to Alphard and Alphard to Rigel, the two refineries each wanting what the other had. Seventy-one thousand credits on one run. At eleven the Syndicate told him he was Friendly with them now, and that its docks would offer him bonus freight, and that he might pledge himself to it if he liked.
He did not like. He had nothing against the Syndicate, who had always paid on time, but he noticed they never said what anything was for.
At a quarter to four, at Naos, the Union told him the same thing. Naos is the Union's own yard, where haulers are built and mended and buried, and the Union is the haulers' guild, born in the Long Stop, when every hauler on the chart stopped flying for forty days and three systems nearly starved. Without haulers, the systems starve. He had seen it painted on a wall at Tau Ceti and not thought much about it then. He thought about it now.
At eight minutes past four, at Cebalrai again, the Core Authority made it three. And the yard told him he could have a Drayman Freighter.
At ten past four he set course for Rigel, opened the Factions card, and looked at the three Friendlies in a row.
He had been flying since a quarter to eight. He had been flying, near enough, since half past nine the morning before. He liked the Union. He pressed Pledge.
There was a line underneath the button. He read it afterwards. It said that pledging to the Free Traders Union would turn its rival, the Frontier Collective, hostile, and that it would stay hostile for as long as he stayed sworn.
The Frontier. Pollux, who had bought his first grain and been glad of it. Gienah, who had paid eighty-four for his copper. Kornephoros, whose fish had doubled his money on the first afternoon. The card said Frontier Collective: −1,055. Hostile. Its docks will refuse you.
He said a word that Jessie, to her credit, did not repeat.
Then he did the second thing, and he did not read that line either. He renounced the pledge. It cleared at once, and the Union, which had been sworn to for very nearly sixty seconds and had not been asked how it felt about being left, sent him a bill for the inconvenience. Five hundred off his standing. Unfriendly. Its docks will stop offering you bonus freight.
It was twelve minutes past four. He had started the minute Friendly with three factions out of four and finished it on speaking terms with two.
Jessie let the silence go on for a decent interval.
'Well,' she said. 'I've known pilots take a year to do that.'
'Can I undo it?'
'Some of it. Not quickly.' She sounded, if anything, slightly impressed. 'The Frontier will let you back on their docks in a few days. After that you'll be buying them a drink, one at a time, for a long while. The Union'll come round sooner. They've seen worse. They've been worse.'
'How do I fix the Union?'
'Fly for them,' said Jessie. 'That's all they ever wanted from anybody.'
At Tau Ceti he sold spices for nearly double and fine art for twice what he had paid, bought the Drayman for seventy-five thousand, and sold the Mule to the yard. The Mule, unlike the Runner, fetched something. He moved the pods and the laser across, fitted a mining laser because Jessie said the Drayman could carry one, and named the Drayman Canterbury, because that was the name of his ship. The hull had changed. The name went across with the pods.
He took her to Ankaa to try the mining laser.
Ankaa is a colony that has failed twice and is trying a third time, and the Almanac says the name means the phoenix, which the colonists find either very funny or not funny at all, depending on the year. He held orbit over the field and cut rare earths at three units a tick, which was slow, and five minutes in a raider came down on him.
The board said the mining had stopped. It said that if he did not deal with the raider it would help itself to forty per cent of his ore. He had six units of ore. While he was reading that, the raider helped itself to two of them and pulled off a little way, and sat there in orbit with his rare earths in its hold, not even bothering to leave.
That was too much. He went after it. It did not take long.
When it was over there was a wreck in orbit with its hold open, and in the hold were his two rare earths, which he took back, and twenty units of fertiliser, which he had never seen before in his life. He took those too. It would have been rude not to.
The yard on Ankaa b sold him a Pickaxe Skiff for forty thousand, a small hard mining hull that cut five times faster than Canterbury could, and he named her Tynan and went back out to the field. By six he had a hold of rare earths and a refinery at Alphard paying fifty-four thousand for them.
At Altair, that evening, he found out what hostile meant.
Altair is the Frontier's front porch. Claims office, outfitters, frontier prices and frontier people. He came in on the run with a survey contract for Altair b in his log, and he called the dock, and the dock said:
'Not you. Not this week. Go on.'
He held orbit for four minutes, in case it changed its mind. It didn't. He went on to Deneb, the far, bright freeport, the last lit harbour before the dark, and docked there without anyone asking him who he was, and sat in the cab for a while before he went to look at the board.
'Told you,' said Jessie, quite gently. 'A few days.'
The next morning he did the sensible things.
He abandoned the Altair survey, because there was no getting it in, and the Frontier noticed that too and took another twenty off him. Then, because he had learned nothing at all, he took a survey at Cebalrai and dropped it again in the same minute, and the Core Authority docked him twenty for it in a note so courteous he read it twice to be sure he had been told off.
And then he flew for the Union. Fertiliser to Bellatrix, where the old haulers on the dock had heard what he'd done and bought him soup anyway. Workcloth to Procyon. It was dull, honest freight, and it paid twenty-five standing a run, and he watched the number come up the Union card one delivery at a time. Minus a hundred and eighty-one, where the night had left it. Minus a hundred and fifty-six. Minus a hundred and thirty-one. He could count his way back in deliveries. He found he did not mind.
He was at Cebalrai again by half past eleven, with antimatter for the farm worlds. Nobody told him what a farm world wanted with antimatter, and he had stopped asking. While he was there he sold the raider's twenty units of fertiliser to people who, it turned out, had been waiting for some, for seven hundred and eighty credits.
'The raider was probably bringing it here anyway,' said Jessie.
'Then I've done him a favour.'
'You've done Cebalrai one.' A pause. 'There's spices on the shelf here and Tau Ceti going without. Your ledger'll know if it's worth it.'
His ledger thought it was. He did not go. He had seen something on the system board.
It was listed as a signal, and named, the way the Desk names anything it cannot explain. Cebalrai Shear. It was out in open orbit, over the orderly fields, a short hop from the dock.
He left Canterbury on the dock at Cebalrai b and took Tynan out to it, because she was the smaller ship and the readings would be cleaner. He came to holding orbit at sixteen minutes to twelve. From there it was nothing to look at. On the scope it was a line, faint and straight, and on either side of the line the stars were in their places, only not quite the same places. The ones on the far side sat a hair off from where the near side said they should be, as if the sky had been torn along a seam and put back by someone in a hurry.
He opened the survey. The board told him it would take about an hour and forty minutes at his sensors. It told him one more thing, in a line underneath.
Stopping loses the data so far.
He read that line twice. Then he read the screen again, from the top, all the way to the bottom. Then he started the survey, and took his hands off the console.
'You're not going to touch anything,' said Jessie.
'No.'
'Good lad.'
Below him Cebalrai turned, field after field in tidy squares. Rimward, past the edge of everything, the Seam was up, a long pale line across the sky that looked no closer from here than it did from anywhere. The Shear sat on his scope and did nothing, and the instruments chattered at it, and the counter in the corner of the survey began to climb.
At a quarter to one it was past halfway.
He sat on his hands, and watched it climb.
At six minutes to one he got up to put the kettle on.
It was a small kettle, bolted to the bulkhead behind the pilot's chair, and Tynan was a small ship, so it was four steps there and four back. He had taken three of them when Jessie said his name, in a voice he had not heard her use before.
'Az. You've company.'
He came back with the empty mug still in his hand. The survey screen was red. A raider had come down out of the slack onto the Shear, and the board was telling him, in the plain way it told him everything, that the survey had stopped. Engage it, or leave. Left alone it will jam your sensors and the data is lost.
He read it. He read it twice, all the way to the bottom, because that was what he did now.
It took four minutes. He would think about that afterwards. Four minutes to read the screen and look at the raider and look at the counter, and remember that leaving orbit would lose the survey too, and work out which of the two buttons was the one he wanted. By the time he had his hand on the right one the raider had done what it came to do. The instruments went white, then grey, then quiet. The counter in the corner of the survey went back to nothing.
The raider jammed your sensors and pulled off. The survey of Cebalrai Shear starts again from nothing.
An hour and nine minutes. Seventy per cent of the way there.
The raider had not gone far. It had pulled off a little way and was sitting in orbit with its running lights on, in no hurry at all, the way the one at Ankaa had sat with his two rare earths. It had done its job. It saw no reason to leave.
'Jessie.'
'Here.'
'Is it still mine to shoot?'
'It's the Authority's orbit,' said Jessie. 'And they'd be very grateful.'
He went after it.
It was not a long fight and it was not a clever one. Tynan was a mining hull with a pulse laser bolted on as an afterthought, and the raider was quicker, and he took it anyway, because he was angrier than it was and it had not expected him to come. At five past one it came apart over the orderly fields of Cebalrai, and the board, in the same plain voice, told him he had salvaged twelve hundred credits, and that its hold was his to take while he stayed.
He looked at the hold. Twelve units of gemstones. Fourteen units of steel. Whoever it had robbed before him had been doing well.
He took both.
The Core Authority sent him fifteen standing with a note so courteous that, this time, he did not need to read it twice to know he had been thanked. Below him Cebalrai turned, field after field, and nobody down there had noticed anything at all. That was what the Authority was for, he supposed. That, and the dog.
He put the mug down. He looked at the Shear on his scope, the faint straight line with the stars a hair out of true on the far side of it, exactly where it had been an hour and nine minutes ago, as if nothing had happened, because to the Shear nothing had.
Then he opened the survey again, from nothing, and settled back in the chair.
This time he kept one hand on the console.
The second raider came down at eight minutes past two. He had his hand on the console when Jessie said his name, and he did not get up, and he did not read anything twice. It came apart over the fields forty-seven seconds after it arrived, with seven units of steel in its hold, which he took.
The survey came in at twenty-two minutes to three. The registry paid forty-four thousand credits for the readings.
He put the kettle on after that.