The Canopus Conundrum by J A Mortimore

Author:J A Mortimore [Mortimore, J A]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781739350024
Publisher: Sperrystone Press
Published: 2023-06-10T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

“Your quartermaster wants to steal my minerals and ores.” Captain Mertens paced the floor, waving his arms, the tails of his embroidered coat slapping against his legs. “All my goods that I’ve worked so hard for. She wants to make me poor, take away all my credits, and leave me destitute!” It was a performance, Glory thought, from her post just inside the door. She exchanged an amused glance with the other prefect on duty, Konnil, a tall thin young man. In a brief exchange when they’d first met, she’d learned that he’d been a rookie prefect on Meridiana and had, like her, been recruited by Rydon since leaving the planet.

“Storekeeper,” Captain Asterion corrected politely.

“Your pardon?” Mertens stopped pacing and stared.

“Kora is a storekeeper, not a quartermaster.”

“Whatever she calls herself, she’s trying to steal my cargo!”

“It’s not theft,” Nashira said, folding her hands carefully on the edge of the table. “As I have explained to you several times, Captain Mertens, like all the other merchants you will be issued with a receipt for any and all goods taken from your cargo holds. A receipt you will be able to exchange for either credits or an equivalent cargo when we reach Union space. And please sit down.”

“And when’s that going to be?” demanded GFI Director Greybridge as Mertens grumpily returned to his seat. “It was going to take some ten years at pluslight, and here we are ambling along at sublight! Surely the chief scientist isn’t still waiting on a bunch of wall paintings to tell us which way to go!”

“Yes, tell me, Ashwood,” Nashira began, and then frowned suspiciously at her brother, who was seated next to Captain Asterion at the other end of the oval oversight committee group table. “Ashwood, do you have a black eye?”

“I do,” the chief scientist admitted, lowering the hand with which he’d been attempting to cover the offending blemish.

“How did you manage to get a black eye?”

“It was Thom’s fault,” Ashwood said. Off Nashira’s look, he continued hurriedly, “Of course it wasn’t Thom who hit me! We were walking along talking and turned a corner, and someone swung at Thom.”

“So how did you end up with the black eye?”

“He ducked,” Ashwood said mournfully. “I didn’t.”

Nashira shook her head disbelievingly. “Only you,” she said, glancing to her right, where normally Colonel Kovis would be seated. Instead, today, a young woman wearing a maroon command staff safesuit was seated there, nervously jotting notes on a holopad. Glory caught the young woman’s eye and offered her a sympathetic smile. “And just why did this man swing at Thom?” the admiral pursued.

“It was a woman, and she didn’t,” Ashwood said. “We were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Nashira gave him a long look, then sighed. “Murals,” she said. “What’s taking so long?”

“There are more than we thought there would be,” Ashwood said. “And Kovis doesn’t have an assistant at the moment, thanks to the failure of the gravity plate which resulted in Prefect Glory breaking her leg.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.