by LeRoy Clary
He paused, then said, “But I have nothing to offer in return. Bert’s computer research will help you, I think. Kat has her ability to sway thoughts.”
“Bill, I have room on my ship for a hundred crew. In that room, there are places to set up a ‘school’ for you to study any subject that interests you. I’ll hire instructors. If you could do anything at all, what would it be?”
“I like to make things.”
“Like what?”
He hesitated again his youthful age apparent. “It probably sounds silly to you, but even the threads on the end of a pipe that fit into threads made on the inside of a coupling amazes me. There is beauty in that fitting I cannot explain. But once, I made a threaded end of a stick that threaded into a socket of another. I put it in and removed it so many times it became loose and broke.”
“You were proud of that?”
“Yes. I shouldn’t have mentioned it. So, I don’t know what I could do to earn my way on your ship and that has been bothering me since you offered to take us aboard.”
He hadn’t touched his wine. She liked that. And she understood his story. “You want to be an engineer, that’s what you’re telling me.”
“No, I was just telling you—answering your question. I know I’m no engineer.”
“Some people see there is beauty in the way things go together, like your pipe and coupling. Can you imagine how many similar things there are on a starship? Tens of thousands of pipes, nuts, bolts, fittings, welds, braces, and more. All of them need attention at one time or another. Do you believe we can carry a storehouse of repair parts for all of them? No. We have a small machine shop and 3D printers to duplicate them. We have only two crewmen who are responsible for all of that. They need a helper and someone to learn skills where they are weak. My ship is not getting any younger.”
“Are you saying I could do that?”
“We would welcome you. You would be valuable to us. All of us. You could even specialize in plumbing, electrical, data, or fabrication.”
Bill lifted his glass and sipped, but she doubted if he tasted the wine as his eyes teared up. She drew a few nasty looks from others in the room who thought she had mistreated him in some manner when speaking so seriously in the muted tones.
They didn’t understand. In truth, she didn’t understand either. Not fully. But she saw the interest she’d sparked in his eyes. She welcomed it.
She knew he was going to join her crew.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Kat
I woke and found Bill absent from the cabin we shared. He often went on his own, but we were on a passenger starship and there were only a few places he could be. Bill often spent time with Bert, but Bert was in the bed above Captain Stone. He may have gone to the galley to eat or stretch his legs.
Bert heard the door opens and spoke as he sensed my increased breathing, “Kat, is something wrong?”
I said softly in case the captain was sleeping, “Where’s Bill?”
“He and Captain Stone went into the passage to speak.”
“About what?”
“Do you wish me to speculate? They did not talk while here except to acknowledge that they needed a private conversation.”
“Bill came to her about a private conversation? Yes, speculate.”
“I think Bill is assuring her that she should take the two of us to join her on her ship, but he is not part of the group because he is not an empath or computer wizard if I can brag about myself.”
“He’s a dumb ass. We should leave him stranded on the nearest asteroid without air. The three of us have to stick together.”
“We always have,” Bert said in a conciliatory tone. “I expect that to remain constant.”
“I’ll go knock some sense into him,” I said while pulling on a pair of pants. I understood Bill’s dilemma. He had been the protector of our group. His size intimidated many. He was not afraid to fight when needed. However, that position didn’t belong on a starship.
The same subject had been in the back of my mind. Bill was smart, no doubt about it. Living as we had didn’t provide time to learn skills others considered necessary. Our skills were supplying meals for most days. Not all, but most. Bill was also a scrounger. He found material for our tent, a metal grate for cooking over the fire, discarded clothing, warm coats in winter, and a hundred other things.
While he scrounged for the necessities of life, I handled the food department. I often started with a small item found in a waste bin and found someone that needed it. An exchange took place, hopefully with me trading up to a better item. Eventually, I traded up until I either had credits or food.
The trick was knowing who might want the items. A good deal helped both of us and future facilitated trading. I seldom used my empathy because the few times I had convinced a person to make a trade, they later reconsidered and believed that I’d cheated them. They no longer traded with me.
Bert tapped on the wall to draw my attention. “I believe you should remain in your cabin. I have a feeling there will be a good outcome if you do not interfere.”
“If it’s not good?”
“We face it together, the three of us. As always. Now, may I return to my slumbers?”
“Liar, you were not asleep. Do you ever sleep?”
“I rest. The same thing—only different.”
I said, “Well, that makes a lot of sense if you’ve been using stims all afternoon.”
Bert didn’t answer. He probably considered the conversation over. And he was right. Bill should talk with Stone on his own and maybe realize that the starship could use the three of us—and we would benefit the ship. We all had value to offer. Bert had probably lived with others over the last couple of hundred years and why he’d decided to team up with us was a mystery he wouldn’t speak about.
I let that idea drift in the back of my mind as it had a hundred times before. Bert was special. His skills with computers and using the results for deductions were amazing. Well, he didn’t know a lot about computers, the hardware, and software stuff, but he understood how to make use of them in the same way a driver of a car could get from place to place without knowing how to add fuel or repair the repulse unit.
Ask Bert a question and he found an answer, cross-referenced, and double-checked for accuracy. Long ago, Bert had insisted both Bill and I learn to read and calculate. Then he had insisted we take sides on controversial questions and defend them in debates that lasted well into the darkness of the early morning. Later, he’d made us change sides in those same questions to understand there are different viewpoints.
However, Bert never interfered with our scrounging, be it for food or clothing. Bert could have provided a comfortable living with the use of his computers. A few credits invested in the stock market at the right time could have yielded nice returns. He could have instructed us to start a small business. Once, we had discussed the possibility of buying a food cart and selling food on the street. That way they would have an income and food.
The idea had been tossed around for years. There were many problems and many positives. It had never gone beyond discussion. The point stayed the same. Bert could have guided them to more comfortable lives, but he had an unshakable belief that he should never interfere or support them in certain ways. He believed they would learn to find a way and that would serve them better later in life.
With the absence of Bill and Stone from the cabin, I gathered my thoughts. There hadn’t been much time to do so since the first meeting with Stone. It had been one critical exciting adventure after another.
I’d learned so much already. I’d never even been inside the spaceport on Roma. It was all new to me. The worker’s entrance had been unknown, as was the way the captain had bribed the woman to help us—and in turn, she had helped the woman return to her home. A fair trade.
The spaceships, even when seen from afar, had always looked large, and they were. What I hadn’t understood was that most of the insides were filled with massi
ve engines, life support equipment, and fuel.
The air inside the old ship we were on smelled greasy and odd, like tasting metal in every breath, undercut with sweat—not all human, and there was a faintly musty smell as if the air filters needed changing. There was little room inside for people or cargo.
I’d also learned that I trusted Captain Stone even after so short a time knowing her. That was an odd idea because trust usually came slowly to me. Only Bert and Bill had earned it so far. We were friends with others I’d probably never see again, but total and honest trust were items difficult to find in the swarms of people I’d met.
Perhaps I trusted her more than made sense, but she also offered a possible new life for us. A look back at the last few years showed that our future had been bleak. Eventually, we’d have lost a fight, caught a disease, been arrested, or all of those. Even the tax problem we’d encountered would have put us on a work crew for debtors. It was a cycle we had no chance of breaking.
My trust was not because she had bought tickets for us to travel off-world. For all I knew, where we headed could be worse than where we’d left. She might be a slaver or worse. If she were, she would have a story just like the one she was telling.
However, the manner she had handled the green frog named Fang was interesting. Me? I’d have probably killed Fang if he had tried to drug me and then turn me over to the Roma authorities, especially when I hadn’t done anything but play their game and win.
I’d give Bill and Stone two-tenths of time to work things out, and then I’d go join them. I told myself I’d do that to make sure they hadn’t met any trouble. They might need me. What it meant was that I was bored. Well, hungry, worried, and bored.
Staying inside a metal box that was hurtling through space was dull. The speed didn’t matter because there was nothing to judge it. There were constant drone engine sounds, the whisper of air being pumped into each room, both for freshness and temperature control, I assumed. Not a lot else besides metal walls, ceilings, and floors. The drone of the same noises became tiresome.
Maybe I should go across the passage and knock on Fang’s door. I could make sure he was okay. I mean, he looked and smelled different, but I think he’d made a pass at me and that is something to consider when another finds me attractive. It is a compliment, right? Even when coming from a frog with teeth like a shark and at least six eyestalks.
The idea of doing that illustrated how bored I felt.
“Hey, Bert. I need something to watch. An entertainment spool. Or a vid.”
“You need a digital book to read. Do you think I have not noticed your failure to read for eleven days in a row? You and I had a pact. Remember? You read every day and you will get smarter, live longer, and enjoy a better life. That’s statistically speaking and may not hold in all cases.”
“I don’t want to read a damn book. I’m bored, I said.”
“You might want to read one that held my interest when I was your age.”
Bert’s voice was somewhat muffled from beneath the clothing piled on him. I knew he waited for my next question. Resigned to accept the inevitable, I asked, “What book held your interest?”
“Three of them that I can recall offhandedly. All are about Escobar Habitat, our destination. Two are semi-historical, and one fictional. I tend to believe more in the latter than the other two. I think the author wanted to pretend it was fiction, but I suspect he or she was there from the level of detail it contained.”
“Why do I care about any of that?”
Bert chuckled before saying, “It’s not the habitat that is interesting, but the people. It’s not listed as a destination on official records, yet Captain Stone managed to buy tickets for us to go there on the Dreamer with only one transfer. Do you find that interesting?”
“No,” I lied.
“Then how about the rumor that almost anything can be sold or bought there? It reports to no planet or government.”
“Not a lot different from where we live in the forest at the edge of town. Lived, I should say.”
“Perhaps, but there are subtle differences.”
“Meaning?”
“Rumors again. There are a series of suspected high-profile thieves that escaped their local authorities and ended up living on Escobar. They are in lavish apartments larger than entire government buildings on Roma.”
Enough was enough as I rolled my eyes. “I doubt that.”
“Seriously. Since it does not officially exist, the heads of several crime syndicates operate from there. In fact, managing crime in one fashion or another seems to be the only reason for the habitat to exist.”
“Stone said something about getting her ship repainted and papered. I’m not sure what that means, but the way she said it makes me think it isn’t legal, so there may be something to what you’re finding.”
Bert delayed responding for long enough that I counted slowly to a hundred. I waited.
He said, “Papered does not mean covered in paper as the term implies. The ownership, registration, history, and everything about the ship is changed. The old ship disappears from records, and a new one, complete with its new history appears.”
“Repainted?” I asked, expecting a similar answer. “Is that another term meaning something else?”
“No. It means a new coloring on the outside of the hull.”
“Very funny. You almost got me on that one.”
Bert chuckled again. He loved a good joke, even when it was on him. He said, “It has a more in-depth meaning, also. Repainting includes item such as the new name of the vessel on linen, stamped on machine parts and shipping containers, embroidered on uniforms, and dozens of other items, right down to minutiae such as rugs in the entryway with the ship’s name and emblem—and they are created to appear old.”
Repainting. Genuinely nice. Not just a hack-job with a spray gun, but a new impression for anyone investigating the ship. I said, “What else does Escobar Habitat exist for?”
Bert answered right away, “As near as I can tell, it services the criminal underworld and provides entertainment, relaxation, ship repairs of all kinds, and safety from pursuit. Since Escobar does not exist, there is no reason for a military or police force to visit. They are quite adamant about that, insisting they have an arsenal larger than many planets and are ready to defend themselves.”
That threw me. People of any species living in a habitat, or even on a world, cannot exist without a formal organization to govern. There must be some kind of government, or the place would be wild. “How can that be?”
“I see the point of your question because I had the same. After extensive research, I concluded that it is little different than living on Roma, which has no formal government, but is managed, if that is the correct word, by the gambling syndicates. Those syndicates make and enforce the laws. What is good for Roma is good for the people. Ever hear that?”
At first, I thought it different on Roma, and that Bert was wrong. After considering what little I knew of governments in general, Escobar may consider what is good for Escobar is good for the people, much like Roma. Without meaning to, I asked, “What do you think about Captain Stone?”
“Ah, now she is another subject I’ve amused myself by researching. She is the legitimate captain of a vessel, exactly as she said. And the owner. It is indeed a ship bought from a scrapyard around a planet or moon called Demos, however, I cannot seem to isolate its precise location as there seem to be several locations with the same name. The ship was purchased after it sat unused for nearly thirty standard years.”
What impressed me about that was the story was close to the one she’d told me. I’d learned long ago not to embellish a lie. Just change enough to meet your needs.
Bert continued, “I’d wager the legitimate part of her being a captain is not real. She had no formal training that I can find in the records for such education. However, she was born on a trader and raised on one, so those experiences and the mentoring of her father probably q
ualifies her to command. There had been no mention of the earlier names of the ship, although it is perfectly legal to change the name, especially with new owners. I’d wager that Captain Stone has used other names for herself.”
“Are there formal rules for being a captain?”
“That is a tricky question. The answer is both yes and no. Yes, if you wish to work your way up a progress ladder in a company such as the one that owns this ship, and no, if you purchase a ship and name yourself captain.”
I didn’t hear any judgment in Bert’s tone. Just the facts. In my mind, the lack of a background Bert couldn’t find impressed me. She deserved credit for using the system to her advantage. The Guardia captained by Stone would never be welcome on Roma again, however, a similar ship with a different name and a ‘different’ captain would be greeted with open arms, especially if it paid spaceport fees upon arrival and its crew enjoyed gambling.
Without raising my voice because Bert was in another room under a pile of clothing, I asked, “What do you think of all this? You’ve been around a couple of hundred years and have seen it all, I’d think. What’s your overall opinion?”
“If you’re asking good or bad, that is not something I’m qualified to answer, partly because of lack of solid information. What I can tell you is that I’ve been worrying about the future of you and Bill for some time.”
“Worrying?”
“Allow me to pontificate. I’m certain you do not know much of what follows but listen anyhow. The two of you are now young adults. Fifteen? Perhaps a year either way. Your schemes grow bolder by the day, the arena tickets for example. You were already attracting attention from the Roma authorities and I suspect that within a year you would have been sent to prison for a petty crime, something you were guilty of doing. I’ve tried to gently steer you away from some of the more reckless adventures of your recent imaginations, but we three have been together for about ten years, and I see you want more from your lives than mere existence. I have lofty expectations for both of you.”
