Free Balance of Trade by Steve Miller, Sharon Lee

figured them for about eighteen hundred Standards old. Won't be long—say ten Standards, for some of the earlier ones; maybe a hundred for the latest ones—before the timonium's too weak to power—whatever it powers. Might be they'll just go inert, and anybody's who's interested can just take one, or five, or five hundred apart and take a peek inside.

    "Arin, now. Arin figured fractins was maybe memory—warship, library, and computer, all rolled into one, including guidance and plans. That's what Arin thought. And it's what he wanted you to know. Iza and the Golds and all them other sane folks, they think they don't need to know. They say, only a fool borrows trouble, when there's so much around that's free. Me? I think you ought to know what your father thought, and I think you ought to keep your eyes and your mind open. I don't know that you particularly need to talk to any Liadens about it—but you'll make that call, if and when you have to."

    He looked deep into his cup, lifted it and drained what was left.

    "That it?" Paitor asked, quietly

    Grig nodded. "It'll do."

    "Right you are, then." He held out a hand; Grig passed him the bottle, and he refilled the cups, one by one.

    He stood, and Grig did, and after a moment, Jethri did. All three raised their cups high.

    "To your success, your honor, and your duty, Free Hand!" His kin said, loud enough to set the walls to thrumming. And Jethri squared his shoulders, and blinked back the sudden tears—and they talked of easier things until the cups were empty again.
    * * *

    "MUD," JETHRI MUTTERED, as his blade scraped across the hatch. Lower lip caught between his teeth, he had another go with the wrench-set, and was at last rewarded with an odd fluttering hiss, that sent him skipping back a startled half-step.

    Pressure differential , he thought, laughing at himself.

    The sound of squeezing air faded and the cover plate popped away when he probed it with the blade point.

    Stuffed into the cavity was some paper, likely to stop the plate from rattling the way Khat's did whenever they were accelerating, and he pulled it out, ready to crumple and toss it—and checked, frowning down at the paper itself.

    Yellow and gritty—it was printout from the comm-printer the captain didn't use any more. She'd always called it Arin's printer, like she didn't want anything to do with it, anyway, 'cause she didn't like to deal with nothing ciphered. Curiously, he separated the edges and opened the paper. There was his birth date, a series of random letters and numbers that likely weren't random at all if you knew what you was looking at and—

    . . .  WILDETOAD WILDETOAD WILDETOAD like an emergency beacon might send out.

    WildeToad ? Jethri knew his ship histories, but he would've known this one, anyway, being as Khat told a perfect hair-raiser about Toad's last ride. WildeToad had gone missing years ago, and none of the mainline Wildes had been seen since. Story was, they'd gone to ground, which didn't make no sense, them having been spacers since before there was space, as the sayin' went.

    Jethri squinted at the paper.

    Mismatch, there's a mismatch, going down

    WILDETOAD WILDETOAD WILDETOAD

    We're breaking clay. Check frequency

    WILDETOAD WILDETOAD WILDETOAD

    Thirty hours. Warn away Euphoria

    WILDETOAD WILDETOAD WILDETOAD

    Racks bare, breaking clay

    WILDETOAD WILDETOAD WILDETOAD

    Lake bed ahead. We're arming. Stay out.

    L.O.S. TRANSMISSION ENDS

    Lake bed , he thought. And, gone to ground . Spacer humor, maybe; it had that feel. And it got him in the stomach, that he held in his hand the last record of a dying ship. Why had his father used such a thing to shim the plate in his door? Bad luck. . .  He swallowed, read the page again, frowning after nonsense phrases.

    Breaking clay? Racks bare? This was no common ship-send, he thought, the grainy yellow paper crackling against his fingers. Arin's printer. The message had come into Arin's printer. Coded,