Fresh Water

The price of water at Korora was two days old when Maren Ashby crossed the gate into Barra, and two days is a long time in the Red Belt.

Her data bank said forty credits a ton, stock falling, last seen 47 hours ago. The board at Barra Station said eleven credits, stock ample, source: Bureau of Tidings. The Bureau's number was fresh. It was also a lie, and everybody docking that week knew it, and nobody said so out loud.

She had carried prices for nine years. You learn that a number is cargo like any other: it spoils, it can be stolen, and sometimes somebody pays you to throw it overboard.

The Seal Fleet cutter came alongside before she reached the hangar. The officer did not board. He did not need to. He asked for her records in the polite voice the Dominion uses for things that are not requests, and her data bank opened itself to him the way they all do now.

"Korora," he said, scrolling. "Forty a ton. That figure is out of date, captain."

"It's two days old."

"It is wrong." He tapped once. The record was gone. "The gate to Korora is closed for maintenance. Water reserves there are ample. You'll find the official figure on the board." He smiled at her through the canopy. "Safe flying."

She docked. The clamps closed. The market opened on her screen with its clean, fresh, false eleven credits.

Maren did not trust data banks any more. She trusted the wormhole stabiliser log, because the Seal Fleet never reads it: it is nothing but numbers about field tension, thousands of them, every second. Somewhere in the 4,000th line of last Tuesday, between two readings of the stabiliser's pulse, was a number that had nothing to do with field tension.

40.

She found the Open Way's courier at the bar on the ring, a quiet man who drank tea and bought nothing. She did not sell him the number. She gave it to him. He looked at it for a while, and then at her.

"Two days," he said.

"Two days."

By the time her clamps opened again, the price of water at Barra had climbed to twenty-six, and the board no longer said source: Bureau of Tidings. It said nothing at all. Twenty captains had filled their holds with water. None of them had filed a flight plan to Korora.

That was the thing about the Dominion's gates, she thought, as she flew out past the tower and its slow red light. They could close a road. They could not close a rumour that was already on board.