Derelict For Trade

by Andre Norton

  What we need to know is if it’s the authorities—or someone else. And Jan and I might be the ones to look at this for now. After you, Tang, get the rest of the data from the Starvenger's log deciphered."

  "Aye, Captain," Ya said. "I’ll get back to it right now." He pulled himself out of the mess and disappeared in the direction of his cabin.

  "I’ll go let Tooe out of the brig," Dane said.

  Frank Mura motioned to him. "Bring her back for a meal," he said. "From the looks of her, it’s long overdue."

  Dane grinned as he descended to the brig, and opened the door.

  Tooe was still under the bench, upside down. Again, vertigo seized Dane; after a brief struggle he accepted the inversion of his world. She looked down at him, her yellow eyes huge. The pupils narrowed into slits and her crest rose in a gesture that looked so hopeful, Dane tried not to laugh. "You’re in my charge," he said in Trade, then repeated it again, awkwardly, in Rigelian.

  "Speak Trade, me," Tooe said proudly, pinwheeling out from under the bench and flipping upside down to match Dane’s orientation. Watching her made his stomach flip-flop. She smacked her scrawny chest. "Learn off vids Nunku get." Then she peered closer at him, as if puzzled.

  "Well, you’ll need some more practice," Dane said, fighting off vertigo again. What was happening to him?

  Then a vivid flash of memory filled his inner gaze: Tooe, interrogated by the captain, surrounded by people all of whose heads were oriented parallel to the same axis. Except hers.

  We all act like we're under acceleration, even when we're not. She

  doesn't. So who was better adapted to space?

  "I fast. Very fast." Tooe took her gaze from his face, then hesitated, her pupils widening and narrowing disconcertingly as she looked around as if searching for a word. Then she said, "Zounds!"

  "Zounds?" Dane repeated, no longer able to hide his laughter. "How old are those vids you’ve been watching?"

  Three days later, Dane floated into the Starvenger's galley and drew a bulb of hot drink.

  Rip Shannon bounced gently against a wall and watched his big, yellow-haired friend maneuvering carefully in free fall. Behind him was a diminutive blue person, miming his movements.

  Rip delighted in the absurdity of the situation, but he kept his voice steady as he said, "Good workout, you two?"

  Dane looked over his shoulder at Tooe, who had become his shadow during the two days he and Rip had been stationed for their turn on the Starvenger. During those two days both men had talked to the little Rigelian, but it was Dane who did the most, sometimes using vocabulary culled from three or four languages. Tooe’s understanding of Trade speech was much better than her spoken use of the language, but she was a very fast learner, and her ability to express herself grew noticeably better each day.

  "I strong, me," Tooe chirped. "I strong in one grav, like Terrans."

  "She can pull a lot of weight for her size," Dane admitted. "She’s apparently been working out in high grav for years, ever since she formed her plans for getting into space."

  Tooe obviously understood this; her crest spread out at a proud angle above her head, and she grinned, showing a row of sharp, pointed little teeth.

  "Everything locked down on the lower deck?" Rip asked.

  Dane nodded. "All’s shipshape."

  "We go back?" Tooe asked, looking from one of them to the other, her yellow eyes wide.

  "We’re just waiting for the—" Rip paused as a clanking noise reverberated through the ship. "Hey, sounds like the shuttle just reached the lock. Shall we go see?"

  Tooe chirped, "I help, me!" She doubled up her feet and sprang from the wall, rocketing through the hatchway into the corridor outside. Rip followed more slowly, just in time to see what looked like a thin blue streak ricochet swiftly from bulkhead to deckplates down the corridor and around the corner.

  When he and Dane reached the lock, Tooe’s fingers were already busy at the console. Rip bounded toward her, then slowed.

  "Will you look at that," he said.

  On the screen in front of her the lock icon flashed into a steady green as she initiated the pressure checks.

  "All clear, is," she announced proudly.

  "All clear, is," agreed Dane and Rip solemnly.

  As Johan Stotz and Jasper Weeks emerged from the tube, Jasper smiled in greeting. "How’s the new crew member synching in?" He nodded toward Tooe.

  Rip saw Tooe glance their way, her crest flicking up at a hopeful angle, and he hid a smile. "Fine," he said. "Learns fast." He faced Weeks and added casually, "Almost looks like home down in the engine compartment."

  Jasper’s grin twisted a little. "Isn’t it starting to look like home all over? Or haven’t you hauled over some stuff you like to mess with?"

  Rip nodded slowly, thinking of the two little potted rilla-mints he’d brought over. They bloomed so nicely, and their scent did a lot to improve the antiseptic but boring ship air.

  "You did," Jasper said with a triumphant grin that was not the least

  malicious. "Bet you brought some of those little plants that make the silver flowers. They smell like Terra in the summer, kind of. Or they remind me of my one visit to Terra." His bleached face looked wistful for a moment.

  That aroma makes a place home, Rip thought, but he couldn’t bring himself to say it out loud. None of them ever referred to the Starvenger as a future home, or themselves as its officers. They couldn’t; Rip sensed strongly that the other three felt the same. Their own ship, and officer status. No, until it came, best not to jinx it by too much chatter.

  He waved a salute and pulled himself after Dane into the tube, followed closely by Tooe. Even though she had made the same short journey when they boarded the shuttle to come out to the Starvenger, Tooe looked around just as intently, her crest fluttering, echoing her mercurial emotions. She appeared most fascinated by the silvery, moist-looking walls of the tube, the molecules of which both maintained its shape and healed any punctures by tenaciously "remembering" the stress programmed into them by the lock extruder. Obviously this technology was expensive—and had not been deployed up in the Spin Axis area where she lived.

  Dane slapped the lock control, visibly wincing in anticipation. Rip’s ears popped slightly as the tube behind them pulled away from the Starvenger's lock and sealed instantly in a mouthlike pucker. As the lock sealed behind them, the extruder reversed its function and began to eat the tube. Rip shuddered: none of the crew could get used to the weird Kanddoyd lock technology.

  "Sucks it all up," announced Tooe. "Why it not suck us up,too?"

  "Doesn’t like the way we taste," said Dane solemnly.

  Tooe’s crest flattened in doubt, her slit pupils narrowing. "No tongue in lock, and yours is twisted."

  Rip grinned at the expression on Dane’s face. "She’s got you there!" he said.

  The hatch in front of them cycled open as the tube shortened behind them and Tooe shot through it, flipping over to bounce off the ceiling and accelerating down through the short cabin toward the control section. Rip and Dane followed more sedately.

  "If we intend to be this far out of human space often, we’re going to see a lot of habitats," commented Dane, his gaze following the little blue biped.

  "Nice to have crew that know them?" During their two days’ stint aboard Starvenger the big cargo master apprentice hadn’t discussed Tooe with Rip, and Rip hadn’t pushed him on it, despite his curiosity. Maybe now he was ready to talk.

  But Dane merely nodded and pulled himself into the nav-pod—he’d piloted on the way out.

  Rip concentrated on his piloting, listening with only half an ear to Tooe’s incessant questions and Dane’s patient answers. She was picking up the subtleties of Tradespeak now, as shown by her response to Dane’s joke.

  They didn’t talk about anything important on the shuttle; they all knew that anyone who wished to could record conversations. Rip reflected that it would take him ten minutes to check for bugs, but why bothe
r? He and Dane didn’t know anything new. Stotz had said nothing, and Jasper had only discussed Tooe and plants when they arrived at the Starvenger. This closed-mouth attitude was just as the captain had ordered.

  Tooe fell silent as the little shuttle pitched down and the habitat loomed huge before them. They were coming in on an angle from the axis; the length of the huge cylinder dwindled in perspective, rendered into an abstract conic section by the harsh, knife-edged shadows of vacuum. The almost greenish light from the system primary glinted off the dull metallic maze of the huge end cap, a confusion of antennae, sensors, vents, radiators for a variety of energies, and much more that was unidentifiable. At the center loomed the vast mouth of the habitat docking bay, the still center of the visible rotation of the habitat.

  Rip triggered the attitude thrusters and felt the tug in his inner ear as the shuttle spun up to match the habitat. The vast construct’s rotation appeared to slow and stop. As they approached the bay, the half-phase gray-swirl bulk of the planet it orbited slipped from sight, like moonset.

  Looking at Tooe watching the phenomenon with unblinking concentration, Rip realized she had never seen a moonset. Or a sunrise.

  They glided inward, joining the incessant ballet of small service vessels and space-suited figures under the terse direction of Dock Control. Tooe’s questions started up again as she pointed excitedly at a big Shver freighter newly berthed not far from the Queen, but Rip hardly glanced at it, his eyes drawn by his own ship, the Solar Queen. Rip studied her length, glowing silvery-gold in the diffuse illumination from the many lights scattered throughout the bay. She wasn’t nearly as large as some of the other ships docked along either side, nor as fancy, but she was home. Home. The word brought vividly to mind the Queen's crowded galley, the narrow hatchways, his tiny cabin, fixed snugly just the way he liked, and not the spacious home he’d spent his childhood in, with its pleasing view of the lakeside. He frowned, realized he couldn’t remember what color his room had been.

  A vivid memory intruded then, the tears gathering in his mother’s dark eyes. "I’ll never see you again, son."

  And his own voice, cheery, careless, "Sure you will, Mom!" He could hardly wait to wave good-bye to his family and blast off on his first journey. "The time’ll go fast, you’ll see."

  Well, it had gone fast—for Rip. Had it for his mother, stuck back on Terra, looking at the skies? Though Rip would not change his life for anything, suddenly he was glad his brother and sister had chosen dirthugger careers.

  The shuttle clanked and boomed as the fingers of the Queen's auxiliary lock seized it. Again it was Tooe’s eager fingers that tabbed the controls to verify proper mating and, when the light glowed green, keyed the inner hatch open.

  They were soon on board the Queen. Mura greeted them, pointed with his chin to the control deck.

  Captain Jellico was busy with Steen Wilcox, but when Rip, Dane, and Tooe appeared in the door, he stopped and faced them. "Anything to report?"

  "Not a thing," Rip said. "Quiet two days." Next to him, Dane nodded—and a moment later, Tooe nodded in exactly the same fashion.

  Rip saw the captain’s lips quirk slightly. But all he said was, "There’s

  little to report here, other than Kamil is now confined to the ship. Supposedly he was caught up near the forbidden areas of the Spin Axis—though he maintains he was chased there."

  Rip shook his head, mentally promising himself a visit to Ali, to find out what had happened.

  Jellico continued, "You two have six hours of leave time, then check back for your orders."

  Rip started to turn away, saw Dane hesitate as though he were about to speak. But then he shook his head as though he’d made a decision, and backed out into the hatchway.

  "Going down to Ali’s cabin," Rip said. "Want to find out what’s up."

  "I’ll check in with you later," Dane replied, which surprised Rip a little. "I have an errand to do first." At his elbow, Tooe’s yellow eyes blinked.

  Rip felt a cautionary remark forming, and he bit it back. "Later, then," was all he said.

  12

  Dane frowned as he and Tooe passed through the dock into the main concourse. Had the captain read his mind? Why had he told them that business about Ali?

  He sighed, hoping he was doing the right thing. It seemed right, he thought, looking at it from all angles. The Spin Axis was forbidden, and the captain had to officially uphold that ruling, even though everyone on the crew knew there was an awful lot of unofficial and sinister rule-breaking going on at Exchange.

  But the habitat was not Terran territory, and the Queen's crew had no influence. Just the opposite, in fact, if someone was spreading bad rumors about them to the other spacers. Dane would have liked to explain his idea to the captain, and get his okay—but then that placed the burden of the decision on the captain. Dane couldn’t do that. So he was going to have to take this risk on his own.

  He looked down, saw Tooe watching him, her crest half-raised at a hopeful angle. "Lead on," he said.

  They zapped through the dock tubing to the access lock, but instead of bouncing their way down the concourse, she looked around carefully, then said, "We go this way, us." And she retreated toward an area jumbled with cables and cranes. Again a look, then she slipped behind a monster automated loader. Dane squeezed after her, cursing to himself when he klunked his head against an unseen pipe. That wouldn’t have happened in normal grav. But here, it's all too easy to launch yourself fast enough to knock your brains out, he thought sourly as he pushed after his charge. And maybe that's just what I need.

  Tooe kept looking back, her yellow eyes bright with a chatoyant glow, as she picked her way past a jumble of outdated equipment. Then she clambered up onto a pipe and jumped into an open air shaft. Sighing to himself, Dane followed.

  The microgravity of their level had made it easy to follow her up the shaft at first, but after they had climbed for a while Dane found himself losing all sense of orientation. He realized they were now in the Spin Axis proper—that area of the habitat where the gee force was too small to influence the human vestibular canals sufficiently to give any sense of up and down at all. He wondered briefly if the boundaries were different for Kanddoyd and Shver, or how their physiology worked.

  They came out on a deck canted at a weird angle, and vertigo tugged at Dane. He shut his eyes for a moment, then hastily opened them again.

  That was worse: without vision to orient him, free fall was just that—an endless fall that made his monkey hindbrain gibber in terror. He tried to force himself to abandon the concepts of down and up. Now he had six directions to choose from, instead of four. The deck wasn’t canted; he was.

  Again Tooe launched into a dark hole. Dane pushed after, his heartbeat accelerating. Was this going to be the stupidest— and the last—impulsive decision he’d ever made?

  At first Tooe led him through abandoned air shafts and service hatchways cramped with poorly lashed, corroded cargo pods and other ancient junk, all dimly lit by random console or emergency exit lights. Dane frowned at the sight of one particularly large tangle of pipes and reaction vessels—perhaps an autochem or something—that was fastened

  down so loosely that Tooe’s impact on it when she changed direction sent it slowly toward the bulkhead. That kind of carelessness killed people, he thought, then grimaced as he remembered where he was. On a ship, yes, badly stowed cargo could be a death sentence for ship and crew, but anything that hit the habitat hard enough to make this junk move would open the habitat to space and kill everyone on it long before shifting junk up here had any effect.

  As he followed the little hybrid, he thought over the last couple of days. All his instincts favored Tooe, but he realized now that that might just be because she was so small and flimsy she didn’t seem to constitute any kind of threat. But that was aboard the Queen, in their territory. Here in this weird hinterland, she could always get a lot of small creatures together, and they could do what they wanted with an unarm
ed spacer.

  Suddenly his breath caught in his throat as the space around them opened up abruptly to a vast cavern, with huge spokes reaching off at thirty-degree angles, their shadowed depths dwindling in impossible perspective. He realized they had to be at the top of twelve of the Kanddoyd towers—down the center of each spoke was the slender tube of a maglev, bedizened with the strange liquescent light-lines favored by the insectile aliens. The maglevs came together in a twelve-pointed star; suddenly, to Dane’s already stressed perceptions, the sight suggested nothing so much as some immense denizen of undersea with twelve luminescent tentacles, and he half expected one of them to curl towards them with feral intent.

  But Tooe spared the spectacle not a glance. Instead she pulled herself gracefully along the interstice between two spokes and thus across the cavern, taking care to stay under the structural bracing—out of sight of inimical eyes, no doubt. Following her maneuver more clumsily, Dane put his hand on a pipe and yanked his fingers back with a hissed curse. The insulation was tattered and the pipe was bitterly cold. Only then did he note the ideograph denoting inert cryogenics. Probably nitrogen, he thought, then dismissed the thought, resolving to be more careful. He saw many more pipes like it, carrying different gases and liquids, some quite dangerous, and realized with mild appreciation the wisdom of the design: the emissions from any ruptures would tend to stay localized in zero gee, giving more time for repairs.

  They traveled through air shafts for a while longer, finally emerging

  into an intersection off which led five dark tunnels. The sixth was closed behind steel doors. Fog drifted out of one of the tunnels, veiling the faint lights that illuminated the open space and further confusing his sense of orientation. Dane’s danger sense prickled at the back of his neck. Where was the fog coming from?

  Tooe paused, and when they saw a slight movement in the shadowy alcove just beyond a pool of light, she whistled quickly, a complicated series of notes, then rapped her knuckles on a loose piece of sheeting. It boomed softly; Dane noticed the center of it was shiny and dark, as if from years of steady use.