by E. M. Foner
“How is that even possible?”
“You’d have to ask the guy who taxied into me. He waived the lessons too. Anyway, the Frunge rental place kept my deposit and I became the proud owner of a broken set of wings, though the actuator still has some life in it.”
“I guess a broken wing set for a spool of copper isn’t a bad deal.”
“Plus I was tired of looking at those wings in my hold. Is that lasagna with meat sauce?”
“Yeah, but I think the meat sauce is fake. I’ve got a couple hundred packages of it left if you’re interested in a bit of barter. This whole meal is freeze-dried, including the vegetables, and it lasts for years. It’s all good stuff, but I get tired of eating it every day.”
“What did you trade for it?”
“Did you hear about the Ark?”
“Sure, that was less than a year ago. The crazy cult leader who thought he could turn an old freighter into a colony ship and brought his followers along. It’s a miracle they didn’t all die.”
“They came close,” John said, setting the empty tray on the ground and taking his seat. “I was on my way to do some trading at Four Sisters, which was the hot mining play at the time. Would you believe there were almost three-hundred people, including babies and grandparents, all crammed into this ancient Horten freighter in Zero-G and puking their guts out all over each other? The cult had bought it as scrap in Earth orbit and they didn’t even do a basic refit. The real miracle is that the drive got them to the tunnel entrance.”
“What were they doing in the Four Sisters System?”
“Their leader had a vision that it was some kind of paradise. Can you imagine? They could easily have found a town in better shape than this one to take over right here on Earth and nobody would have said a thing about it. Instead, they begged, borrowed, or stole enough money for a flying piece of junk and headed for an asteroid belt where you have to pay for oxygen. Who knows why traffic control on this end even let them in the tunnel.”
“Out of sight, out of mind,” Ellen said philosophically. “Hey, this lasagna is really pretty good, but what does it have to do with the Ark?”
“So that’s the one thing they did right. The cultists had brought three months of freeze-dried rations up on the space elevator, though they barely had enough water to last a week, and the Horten recycling system was meant for a crew of at most a dozen. Bad show all the way around, but a few of us who were in the area got the people off before they ran out of air. I happened to be almost two-thirds empty at the time so I managed to cram forty-six people into the cargo hold. Even though it was only a six-hour trip to the elevator hub on Four Sisters Prime, it took a month to get the smell out.”
“That’s awful. What happened to them?”
“The Drazens brought them down to the surface and put them to work so they could earn passage back to Earth. Those of us who were in on the rescue were awarded the Ark as salvage, so we split up all the freeze-dried food, and then somebody, I think it was Gary, towed the hulk into the tunnel and all the way to a Sharf recycling orbital. I found out later that he got a bonus from the Stryx for clearing a navigation hazard from a high-traffic area.”
“Mountain Man Gary? The guy with the mouse living in his beard who runs the Tall Tales competition?”
“He only does the mouse thing at Rendezvous. Try the green beans.”
“Thanks.” Ellen moved some green beans to her plate and then took a second helping of lasagna. “You know what? I think that the Ark might have put the whole Colony One thing on the map. It got a lot of play in the Galactic Free Press. Even though the cult was a joke, the idea of humans wanting to start a new colony somewhere rather than moving to established worlds with alien governments really resonated with some people. It’s been almost a century since the Stryx opened Earth and we haven’t done it yet.”
“That’s because we haven’t developed our own interstellar drive and the Stryx don’t connect tunnels to new systems until they’re economically viable. Hey, did you hear that?”
“Was it barking? Do you think there are wild dogs around here?”
“If there are, I don’t want to meet them, but it could be coyotes. My father said they were already a problem when he was still here.”
“I’m going to get my stunner,” Ellen said, rising from her place. “Back in a second.”
“Me too.”
The two returned to the table a few minutes later, each armed with a commercial-grade Dollnick stunner of the type favored by traders, and resumed their meal.
“So why don’t the Stryx connect tunnels to promising systems as they’re discovered?” Ellen asked. “I have to believe they would make their investment back in no time.”
“You really don’t know?” John paused with a forkful of green beans halfway to his mouth.
“Would I be asking if I did?”
“The only cost to the Stryx for opening new tunnels is the energy, and they seem to have infinite amounts of that. They wait until worlds are already terraformed and settled so they don’t put the colony ship industry out of business. Even the Stryx-subsidized teacher bots we grew up with are programmed so they only share the knowledge that humanity has already discovered for itself. The Stryx started the tunnel network to bring together the species that are willing to trade rather than fight, but they don’t want to destroy any existing industries. The one thing that all the biological species have in common is that without work, we tend to make problems.”
“My only problem is that you’ve been avoiding me the last few years.”
“You know why that is, Ellen. I can’t be around your drinking.”
“I’ve cut back on the hard stuff—I don’t even keep any on the ship anymore, except as trade stock.”
John looked at the half-empty bottle of wine sadly. “Let’s just say it didn’t work out between us and leave it at that.”
“I thought it was working out just fine.”
Six
“Lorper Orbital administration requesting navigation handover,” the ship’s controller announced.
“Close the hatch to the cargo deck and proceed,” Larry ordered the controller and looked over to see if the alarm buzzer would wake Georgia. “Are you still sleeping off that squeeze tube of baked scrod casserole?”
“I’m up, I’m up,” the reporter said, opening her eyes and staring in horror at a long thread of spittle that was floating just inches in front of her face. “Is that mine?”
“I wanted you to see what happens if you sleep with your mouth open in Zero-G,” Larry told her matter-of-factly. “Some traders who can’t break the habit wear a cloth surgical mask while they sleep just to save having to clean it up.”
“What if my drool had gotten into the electronics and shorted something out?”
“Humans couldn’t live in space if the equipment was that fragile. Everything on the bridge is rated for temporary submersion, but that doesn’t mean saliva won’t leave a sticky residue on the view screen. There’s a story about a rookie trader who burned through an entire fuel pack making course changes to avoid a navigation hazard that stayed right in front of his ship throughout evasive action.”
“You mean it was just gunk on the view screen? Did that really happen?”
“I doubt it. Traders tell lots of rookie stories like that, and the ship controller would have known better.”
“Are there paper towels somewhere, or do you have a vacuum cleaner?”
“It’s all vacuum outside. If you have a squeeze-tube disaster, we’ll go into the hold and seal the hatch, and then the controller can vent the bridge atmosphere through a filter. Nobody complains about dumping gases in space.” Larry corralled the long strand of free-floating spittle with a tissue, but instead of taking it to the garbage, he shoved it in a pocket and pulled himself back to his chair. “Buckle your safety harness for docking. It’s a Drazen regulation.”
“Got it. Hey, are we moving?”
“We’ve been moving for t
he last three days. You meant to ask if we’re accelerating.”
“My question stands.”
“That’s Lorper traffic control bringing us in with manipulator fields. None of the alien stations or orbitals allow ships to dock under the captain’s control, there’s just too much at stake. You slept through me giving up authority so the AI running Lorper could shut down all of our navigation controls and handle us directly.”
“I didn’t know the Drazens were big on AI.”
“They’re not, and some species actually handle traffic control with highly-trained technicians, but AI is a natural fit, and it’s good-paying work for them when they need the money. I hear that gambling addictions are common with some types of artificial intelligence.”
“Weird,” Georgia commented. “Have you ever been here before?”
“I try to stop a few times a year. There’s a large contingent of human contract workers, at least two million, and what with the families, they always need shoes.”
“You deal in shoes? I thought you’d trade something high-tech, like, I don’t know.”
Larry gave her a minute to think before replying. “Earth’s idea of high-tech would be obsolete in an alien museum exhibition of their pre-tunnel network days. We’re really that far behind. And kids go through shoes pretty quick. I try to keep around a quarter of my capital invested in children’s shoes and clothes because they’re almost as good as cash. For the rest of my cargo, I play it by ear and try to increase value through bartering.”
“Some of the restaurateurs I interviewed for articles on Union Station bought special ingredients from traders to supplement the staple crops grown on the ag decks.”
“Food is risky for traders, especially if it doesn’t keep. I’ll carry seeds, or even root vegetables on occasion if I can get a good price. Anything edible is welcome at mining colonies, so canned food is always a good bet, but the truth is, I like dabbling in alien goods. My dad used to say I was just one notch above a treasure hunter.”
“Treasure hunters are bad?”
“Well, they usually waste their lives searching for treasures without finding anything.”
“Ooh, I think I need to use the bathroom.”
“That’s because traffic control is matching us up to the orbital’s radial acceleration so it can set us down. As your weight returns, it feels like your bladder is getting squeezed, and—”
“I got it, I got it. How long will it be?”
“Just another minute or so, you can hold it. I bet we’re already in the core.”
“How come there’s nothing on the view screen?”
“I left it off in case it makes you nauseous. Are you game?”
“Try me.”
“Controller. Viewscreen on.”
The large panel came to life with a view of parked spaceships and cargo handling equipment, all of it upside-down and slowly rotating away from them.
“Is this place constructed the same way as Union Station?” Georgia asked.
“All space habitats are, at least, they are if the inhabitants want to weigh something,” Larry explained. “There’s no technology for creating localized artificial gravity, so living in a giant centrifuge is the only option. A good-sized orbital like this one has an open core just like a Stryx station, though on a much smaller scale.”
“I’ve never really understood the difference between an orbital and a space station.”
“Different species use the terms any way they want, but the tunnel network standard is that space stations can be anywhere while orbitals have to orbit a planet or a star. You see how the deck isn’t rotating past us anymore? That means traffic control has matched our velocity and will be setting us down any—” there was a gentle thud as the ship’s landing gear made contact with the deck, “—second.”
“That’s it? I don’t feel my normal weight. Can I go to the bathroom now?”
“Yes, but don’t use the vacuum attachments. Just do your normal thing and it will flush automatically when you get up.”
Georgia ripped off her safety harness and disappeared into the small bathroom while Larry stood up and stretched.
“Welcome back to Lorper, Captain Larry,” an odd-sounding voice came through the trade ship’s console. “Your navigation controls will remain locked until departure. Please drop your ramp and stand by for boarding and customs inspection.”
“On my way,” Larry replied. “Georgia, I’m heading down to the cargo deck to meet the customs inspector. Controller, open hatch.”
The alarm buzzer sounded again, and after descending a few rungs of the ladder, the trader took the rest of the distance in a fireman’s slide. Then he made his way to the main hatch, which doubled as a ramp, and pressed the actuator button. As usual, the customs inspector was waiting by the time the ramp hit the deck.
“Is that you, Janice?” Larry called to the woman, whose face was hidden by the long visor on her official cap.
“You’re in luck again, smuggler,” Janice said, looking up with a smile. “I don’t know how you always manage to arrive during my shift.”
“I bribed a Drazen supervisor to tip me off.”
“Big spender. Any banned drugs, banned weapons, or banned books?”
“Banned books?” Larry asked in surprise as the customs inspector moved past him into the hold. “That’s a new one. Is there a list?”
“Gotcha,” Janice said. “I’m eleven for eleven with that line so far today. Traders are so gullible.”
“Takes one to know one,” Larry retorted, as she played a hand-scanner over his netted-in-place cargo. “Don’t you miss it at all?”
“Days at a time in Zero-G doing monotonous exercises? Eating out of squeeze tubes. Pissing into a—hello. Who’s this?”
“Georgia Hunt, Galactic Free Press,” the reporter introduced herself as she stepped away from the ladder.
“Janice. Inspector Number Sixty-One,” the uniformed woman replied. “Were you going to declare her, Larry?”
“Georgia? She’s just hitching a ride.”
“All working press must register with the orbital’s administration. I assume from the introduction that you aren’t here on vacation, Miss Hunt.”
“No, I’m working. I didn’t know about registering.”
“I can handle it right here,” Janice said, returning the scanner to her belt and pulling out a small tab. “There’s a hundred cred fee.”
“A hundred creds? I don’t even know how long we’re going to be here.”
“How about twenty?”
“Play nice, Janice,” Larry scolded the inspector. “What do I owe you for the cargo?”
“Just the standard bribe, and I still have to look at the bridge.”
“Go on up. I trust you.”
“And your controller will be recording my every move, no doubt,” the customs inspector said. She holstered her tab and started up the ladder.
“What was that all about?” Georgia whispered. “Is she really corrupt?”
“Janice? No, she’s a good one. Used to run a family trader with her husband, but when the kids were both old enough for school, they decided to take ten years somewhere with a decent human population.”
“So she was joking about the bribes?”
“Not exactly. The way the Drazens work customs here, they figure that the inspectors are all going to take bribes, so they pay them a low base rate, like waitstaff. This way they get the inspections done for cheap.”
“But doesn’t the government want to collect fees?”
“The orbital doesn’t have a government, it’s run by the Blue Star consortium. Some of the older tunnel network species, like the Dollnicks, build colony ships that can double as terraforming platforms, but the Drazens keep a couple of these terraforming orbitals that they tow into place as needed. Lorper has been on the job here for a few hundred years, though they only started hiring workers from Earth a couple decades ago.”
“But what if you were actually bring
ing in something illegal?”
“Like banned books?” Larry asked. “That scanner hanging from her belt would catch most of what they really care about, and if you’re worried about doomsday weapons, checking for them after we’re parked in the core would be too late. That inspection would have been done remotely as soon as I turned the ship over to the local traffic control.”
“All set,” Janice announced, returning after just a few seconds on the bridge. She accepted a five-cred coin from Larry and slipped it in her belt pouch. “Why don’t you stop by the café for a drink and say ‘Hi’ to Danny? I know he misses being up on all the latest trade rumors.”
“I’ll do that,” Larry said. “Thanks for the clean bill of health.”
“Is that it?” Georgia asked, after the customs inspector headed down the ramp. “I don’t really have to register or go through immigration or anything?”
“The Drazens could care less if you decided to stay here for the rest of your life as long as you didn’t cause problems. If you hung around bothering people and refused to work, one day you’d wake up and find yourself on a ship to somewhere else.” He looked over to the Sharf bot. “Genie, let’s get the net down from Section Three.”
“I can help you,” the reporter offered.
“You’re here to do a job, so take care of that first, and if you have time afterward, I’ll welcome any help you can give me.”
“That’s right. The seminar here is starting soon so I better find the exhibition hall. I’ll fill you in when I get back.”
Georgia looked out through the shimmering atmosphere retention field, the only thing separating the open landing deck of the cylindrical orbital’s core from the vacuum of space, and shuddered. On Union Station, the landing bays on the core also featured atmosphere retention fields, but they were backed by giant bay doors that were closed when not in use. The curvature of the deck was much more pronounced than on a Stryx station, where the cylindrical structure’s diameter was so large that you barely noticed it most of the time. She headed for a nearby spoke, which was the most logical place for a lift tube, and was rewarded with the sight of somebody just emerging through the sliding doors.
