The Burning Crown (Stone Blade Book 4) by Cox James Matt

Author:Cox, James Matt [Cox, James Matt]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2014-11-23T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 10. Night of Deception

Karr stared at the terminal with equal parts amazement, disbelief, appreciation and disgust.

"That simple," said Blue, "That bloody simple! But to what end? It seems pointless."

"But it isn't, m'lady. It can't be. It happened far too often to be mere coincidence, therefore we must conclude that it is not. With the others I might consider it but even that is stretching the laws of statistics. They do not stretch well."

It took Worthington surprisingly little time to acquire the voided manifests they wanted. It took even less time to form the correlates. The result: House Brightcrown had purchased an incredible amount of merchandise from loss-recoveries associated with House Varl, House Binkor-Sud, House Imix and a host of their allies. A significant number of those came from Fallstar Lines or another company with large outstanding debt with Binkor-Sud or Varl. The suspicious recoveries were intermingled with enough others to cover any local suspicion and they were also more-or-less evenly dispersed across a large number of Crown worlds.

"It almost looks like Varl is trying to drain Brightcrown of cash, to lock up their ready credits and force them to liquefy other assets." Blue puzzled over this. "If Brightcrown wanted to purchase at this quantity they could do so in bulk and receive a commensurate discount for it, but this is not an efficient drain technique. The actual credit amounts aren't that much and Varl would have to keep this up for several centuries to make a noticeable difference. Even they aren't that patient."

"I concur, m'lady. There is no pattern here save that over half the recovered merchandise is heavy industrial equipment or supplies. Might there be something there?"

"Nothing but a higher credit-density," she replied, absently lighting a 'stick, "It's also less volatile in price, so the amount lost can be considered constant. Do you think they are trying to slowly drain Brightcrown's wealth?"

"What I think, m'lady, is that we should plan a trip to Fallstar," said Karr, helping himself to a 'stick, "We know Parl had some interest in the place. For myself, I should like to know, unequivocally, exactly how much of this merchandise touched the ground there or passed through the place. Most especially those items that should have made a shorter trip."

Blue nodded. "I'll arrange it. We'll be there quickly and without notice."

***

"The Fallstar agents have reported," said Adrian Mooke.

"Anything of interest?" Tobart didn't expect anything but as a rule he overlooked nothing, whether potential threat or source of information.

"Fadding's lapcat Outremin made an appearance at the base." Mooke carefully did not reveal anything more of that than absolutely necessary! "He told Kenjai most of what Fadding told you. That was mostly that we should mind our stitching and not worry, that he and his Laird had matters well to hand. He also mentioned Outremin's newest acquisition. Kenjai said that man put him on edge."

"A chirping beetle puts Kenjai on edge," said Tobart, "Anything on Outremin himself?"

"Just that he takes lack of concern to an art form.

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