Ballistic (The Palladium Wars), стр. 41

The other ship’s airlock hatch opened slowly, retracting backward and into the hull in two halves that were separated diagonally. Three people were in the airlock on the other side, a freight container on a transfer float between them. They made their way out into the pressurized docking collar, pushing the float along in front.

“Weapons check negative,” Maya said over their helmet comms. “That doesn’t mean they don’t have sharp sticks or something.”

“I’m not too worried about sharp sticks,” Henry said. He pulled the hardware release handle on the control panel and twisted it to disarm the locking mechanism. The outer airlock hatch unlocked and slid sideways into its recess in the hull.

The three Iron Pig crew members who walked into Zephyr’s airlock deck a few moments later looked like they belonged on a different ship. Their pressure suits were all new, or close to it. It took Aden a moment to figure out why their appearance stood out to him beyond their newness. Most freighter crews had company-branded suits with name tags, patches, and various personal touches. These were plain and uniform, with no identifying markers.

Henry raised the visor on his helmet in a customary gesture of welcome. Face shields of pressure-suit helmets were coated with an opaque radiation layer that obscured the face of the wearer, so it was good manners to raise them before talking in a pressurized environment. Aden and Tess followed suit. After a moment, the visitors raised theirs as well. One of them looked around and nodded his approval.

“That’s a nice ship,” he said in Rhodian. “Hanzo built?”

“Tanaka,” Henry replied, and the other man nodded again.

“Ah. Custom shop. Not many of those around. Never seen this model before.”

“Is that all of it?” Henry asked. “That one container.”

“Yes, that’s all of it. You got a spot in mind? It’s 278.55 kilos.”

Henry pointed at one of the cargo markers on the deck flooring.

“Over there on the green one will do.”

The visitors moved their float over to the green marker Henry had indicated and lowered the container onto it. Tess walked over to inspect the cargo from all angles. When she was satisfied that it was just a standard quarter-height shipping container that was properly locked and sealed, she activated the hold-downs, and four clamps extended from recesses in the deck flooring to secure the container on each corner.

“It’s not tripping the explosives scan,” Maya told them from the command deck. Henry nodded. Just because it wasn’t a bomb didn’t mean the contents weren’t dangerous, but at least they wouldn’t get blown to pieces by a clever salvager who was after the palladium in the rotor assembly of their gravmag compensator. Aden tried to guess the nature of the cargo. Weapons? Drugs? A deadly virus prototype? A fugitive in cryo? It could be two hundred-plus kilos of anything. The only certainty he had was that it was illegal, otherwise the owners wouldn’t need to hire an expensive courier to smuggle it into Rhodian space. When he had agreed to take the contract with the rest of the crew, the idea of a smuggling run had seemed vaguely exciting and adventurous. Now that the goods were bolted down on Zephyr’s deck, it felt unsettling.

“Everything looks good,” Tess said.

“If that’s all you have for us, then we’ll be on our way,” Henry told the Iron Pig crew members. “Thank you for your business. We’ll deliver on time. We always do.”

“We aren’t worried,” their leader said. Aden noticed that he was the only one of them who had spoken. “Safe and profitable travels.”

Their visitors filed out of the airlock again, pushing their empty float. The one with the float had to go first because of the bulk of the device. His two colleagues lingered in the airlock as they waited their turn to step into the collar. Just before they stepped out, one of them said something in a low voice to his companion, who chuckled.

Something about the exchange triggered vague recognition in Aden’s brain. He hadn’t understood what the Iron Pig spacer had said to his leader—he was standing at the foot of the ladderway, and they’d had their exchange in the airlock, ten meters away and facing away from him—but it had sounded familiar somehow, as if it had involved some mostly forgotten vocabulary from a language course twenty years ago.

Henry closed the airlock hatch behind the departing spacers. He stepped back into the main deck and sealed the inner hatch as well.

“Cargo secured and airlock buttoned up,” he said over the shipboard comms to Decker and Maya.

“Understood,” Decker replied. “Come on up and strap in so we can get out of here. Maya is getting twitchy with that safety hazard right off our port side.”

Overhead, the maneuvering-deck hatch unlocked and opened. Aden started the brief climb to the deck above. Before he passed through the hatch opening, he glanced at the cargo container that was now securely clamped to the deck below. It was a regulation-sized yellow polymer Class I container, identical to dozens they had transported before. But something about this whole exchange made Aden feel uneasy about that plastic box, and he couldn’t figure out why.

It’s your first smuggling run, he reminded himself when he strapped himself into his gravity couch again. It would be shocking if it didn’t make you uneasy.

Henry and Tess didn’t seem worried. Tess took her place on the gravity couch to Aden’s left. Henry’s was on the other side of the deck, facing Aden and Tess. Tristan sat on Aden’s right side. There were two more couches on the maneuvering deck, but they were empty because Zephyr had space on board for two extra bodies. Each of the ship’s two crew berth decks had one berthing compartment that stood empty, intended for temporary passengers. Tess and Henry strapped in without hurry and reclined their couches into maneuvering position to prepare for acceleration.

“Docking collar retracted and secured,” Maya said. “We are