by Allen Steele
Bo McKinnon hadn't earned his TBSA commission. It had been purchased for him by his stepfather, a wealthy lunar businessman who was one of the Association's principal stockholders. The Comet had been an obsolete ore freighter on the verge of being condemned and scuttled when the old man had bought it for the kid as a means of getting his unwanted stepson out of his hair. Before that, McKinnon had been a customs inspector at Descartes, a minor bureaucrat with delusions of grandeur fostered by the cheap space operas in his collection of moldering 20th century magazines, for which he apparently spent every spare lox he had in the bank.
No doubt his stepfather had been as sick of McKinnon as I was. At least this way the pompous geek spent most of his time out in the belt, hauling rock and bellowing orders at whoever was unlucky enough to have been talked into signing aboard the Comet.
This much I had learned after I had been aboard for three weeks. By the time I had sent a message to Schumacher, demanding to know what else he hadn't told me about Bo McKinnon, I was almost ready to steal the Comet's skiff and attempt flying it to Mars. When Schumacher sent me his reply, he gave a lame apology for not telling me everything about McKinnon's background; after all, it was his job to muster crewmembers for deep-space craft, and he couldn't play favorites, so sorry, et cetera...
By then I had figured out the rest. Bo McKinnon was a rich kid playing at being a spacecraft commander. He wanted the role, but he didn't want to pay the dues, the hard-won experience that any true commander has to accomplish. Instead, he managed to shanghai washed-up cases like me to do his dirty work for him. No telling what arrangement he had worked out with Jeri; for my part, I was the latest in a long line of flunkies.
I didn't hijack the skiff, if only because doing so would have ruined my career and Mars colonists are notoriously unkind to uninvited guests. Besides, I figured that this was a temporary thing: three weeks of Captain Future, and I'd have a story to tell my shipmates aboard the Jove Commerce as we sipped whisky around the wardroom table. You think this captain's a hardass? Hey, let me tell you about my last one...
Now, as much as I still wanted to get the hell off the Comet, nor did I wish to be marooned on Ceres, where I would be at the tender mercies of the station chief.
Time to try a different tack with Captain Future.
I released the armrests and backed off, taking a deep breath as I forced myself to calm down. “Look, Captain,” I said, “what's so important about this asteroid? I mean, if you've located a possible lode, you can always stake a claim with the Association and come back for it later. What's the rush?”
McKinnon raised an imperious eyebrow. “Mr. Furland, I am not a prospector,” he huffed. “If I were, I wouldn't be commanding the Comet, would I?”
No, I silently responded, you wouldn't. No self-respecting rockhounds would have you aboard their ship. “Then what's so important?”
Without a word, McKinnon unbuckled his seat harness and pushed out his chair. Microgravity is the great equalizer for overweight men; he floated across the narrow compartment with the grace of a lunar trapeze artist, somersaulting in mid-air and catching a ceiling rung above the navigation table, where he swung upside-down and typed a command into the keyboard.
The holo expanded until 2046-Barr filled the tank. Now I could see that it was a potato-shaped rock, about three klicks in length and seven hundred meters in diameter. An octopus-like machine clung to one end of the asteroid, with a narrow, elongated pistol thrust out into space.
I recognized it immediately. A General Astronautics Class-B Mass Driver, the type used by the Association to push large carbonaceous-chondrite asteroids into the inner belt. In effect, a mobile mining rig. Long bores sunk into the asteroid extracted raw material from its core, which in turn were fed into the machine's barrel-shaped refinery, where heavy metals and volatiles were separated from the ancient stone. The remaining till was then shot through an electromagnetic railgun as reaction mass that propelled both asteroid and mass driver in whatever direction was desired.
By the time the asteroid reached lunar orbit, the rig would have refined enough nickel, copper, titanium, carbon, and hydrogen to make the effort worthwhile. The hollowed out remains of the asteroid could then be sold to one of the companies, who would then begin the process of transforming it into another LaGrange colony.
“That's the TBSA Fool's Gold,” McKinnon said, pointing at the computer-generated image. “It's supposed to reach lunar orbit in four months. Twelve persons are aboard, including its captain, first officer, executive officer, physician, two metallurgists, three engineers...”
“Yeah, okay. Twelve guys who are going to get rich when the shares are divvied up.” I couldn't keep the envy out of my voice. Only one of two main-belt asteroids made their way in-system every few years, mainly because prospectors didn't find enough such rocks to make them worth the time, money and attention. The smaller ones were usually broken up by nukes, and anything much larger was claimed and mined by prospectors. On the other hand, if just the right asteroid was located and claimed, the bonanza was enough to make its finders wealthy enough to retire. “So what?”
McKinnon stared at me for a moment, then he cartwheeled until he was no longer upside-down and dug into a pocket. He handed me a wadded-up slip of printout. “Read,” he said.
I read:
MESS. 1473 0118 GMT 7/26/46 CODE A1/0947
TRANSMISSION FROM CERES STATION TO ALL SPACECRAFT PRIORITY REPEATER
MESSAGE BEGINS
MAYDAY RECEIVED 1240 GMT 7/25/46 FROM TBSA MASS DRIVER ‘FOOL'S GOLD’ BREAK VESSEL EXPERIENCING UNKNOWN—REPEAT UNKNOWN—PROBLEMS BREAK CASUALTIES AND POSSIBLE FATALITIES REPORTED DUE TO UNDETERMINED CAUSES BREAK SHIP STATUS UNKNOWN BREAK NO FURTHER COMMUNICATION FOLLOWING MAYDAY BREAK VESSEL FAILS TO RESPOND TO QUERIES BREAK REQUEST URGENT ASSISTANCE FROM NEAREST VESSEL OF ANY REGISTRY BREAK PLEASE RESPOND ASAP
MESSAGE ENDS
(TRANSMISSION REPEATS)
0119 GMT 7/26/46 CODE A1/0947
I turned to Jeri. “Are we the nearest vessel?”
She gravely nodded her head. “I checked. The only other ship within range is a prospector near Gaspara, and it's thirty-four hours from Barr. Everything else is closer to Ceres than we are.”
Damn.
According to common law, the closest vessel to a spacecraft transmitting a Mayday was obligated to respond, regardless of any other mission or prior obligation in all but the most extreme emergency ... and my job aboard the Jove Commerce didn't qualify as such, as much as I might have liked to think otherwise.
McKinnon held out his hand. I handed the paper back to him. “I guess you've already informed Ceres that we're on our way.”
The captain silently reached to another panel and pushed a set of buttons. A flatscreen lit, displaying a playback of the transmission he had sent to Ceres Station. A simulacrum of the fictional Curt Newton appeared on the screen.
"This is Captain Future, calling from the TBSA Comet, registry Mexico Alpha Foxtrot one-six-seven-five." The voice belonged to McKinnon even if the handsome face did not. The Brain had lip-synched them together, and the effect was sadly absurd. "I've received your transmission, and I'm on our way to investigate the situation aboard the Fool's Gold. The Futuremen and I will keep you informed. Captain Future, over and out."
I groaned as I watched this. The idiot couldn't keep his fantasy life out of anything, even a distress signal. Captain Future and the—yech!—Futuremen to the rescue.
“You have something to say, Mister Furland?”
McKinnon's hairy chin was thrust out at me with what he probably thought was obstinate resolve, but which actually resembled the petulance of an insecure child daring someone to step into his corner of the sandbox. Not for the first time, I realized that his only way of dealing with people was to boss them around with what little authority he could muster—and since this was his ship, no one could either object or walk out on him.
Least of all me.
“None, Captain.
” I pushed off from the nav table and floated back to my duty station. Like it or not, we were committed; he had both law and his commission on his side, and I wasn't about to commit mutiny because I had refused my commander's orders to respond to a distress signal.
“Very good.” McKinnon shoved himself in the direction of the carousel hatch. “The sextant confirms we're on course for Barr. I'll be in my cabin if you need me.”
He stopped, then looked over his shoulder. “You'll need to arm the weapons pod. There may be ... trouble.”
Then he was gone, undoubtedly to claim the sleep I had lost.
“Trouble, my ass,” I murmured under my breath.
I glanced over at Jeri. If I expected a sly wink or an understanding smile, I received nothing of the kind. Her face was stoical behind the butterfly mask she wore; she touched her jaw, speaking into the microphone implanted beneath her skin at childhood. “TBSA Fool's Gold, this is TBSA Comet, Mexico Alpha Foxtrot one-six-seven-five. Do you copy? Over.”
I was trapped aboard a ship commanded by a lunatic.
Or so I thought. The real insanity was yet to come.
* * * *
Space pirates were no new thing, to the System. There were always some corsairs infesting the outlaw asteroids or the wilder moons of the outer planets.
—Hamilton; Outlaw World (1945)
One good thing could be said about standing a second consecutive watch on the bridge: I finally learned a little more about Jeri Lee-Bose.
Does it seem surprising that I could have spent three weeks of active duty aboard a spacecraft without hearing a shipmate's entire life story? If so, understand that there's a certain code of conduct among spacers; since many of us have unsavory pasts that we'd rather not discuss, it's not considered proper etiquette to bug someone about private matters unless they themselves bring it up first. Of course, some shipmates will bore you to death, blabbing about everything they've ever said or done until you want to push them into the nearest airlock. On the other hand I had known several people for many years without ever learning where they were born or who their parents were.
Jeri fell into the latter category. After we were revived from biostasis, I had learned many little things about her, but not very many big things. It wasn't as if she was consciously hiding her past; it was simply that the subject had never really come up, during the few times that we had been alone together without Captain Future's presence looming over us. Indeed, she might have completed the voyage as a near-stranger, had I not made an offhand comment.
“I bet the selfish son-of-a-bitch has never thought of anyone else in his life,” I said.
I had just returned from the galley, where I had fetched two fresh squeezebulbs of coffee for us. I was still fuming from the argument I had lost, and since McKinnon wasn't in earshot I gave Jeri an earful.
She passively sipped her coffee as I pissed and moaned about my misfortunes, listening patiently as I paced back and forth in my stikshoes, ranting about the commanding officer's dubious mental balance, his unflattering physiognomy, his questionable taste in literature, his body odor and anything else that came to mind, and when I paused for breath she finally put in her quarter-credit.
“He saved my life,” she said.
That caught me literally off-balance. My shoes came unstuck from the carpet, and I had to grab hold of a ceiling handrail.
“Say what?” I asked.
Not looking up at me, Jeri Lee absently played with the squeezebulb in her left hand, her right foot holding open the pages of her personal logbook. “You said that he's never thought of any anyone else in his life,” she replied. “Whatever else you might say about him, you're wrong there, because he saved my life.”
I shifted hands so I could sip my coffee. “Anything you want to talk about?”
She shrugged. “Nothing that probably hasn't occurred to you already. I mean, you've probably wondered why a google is serving as first officer aboard this ship, haven't you?” When my mouth gaped open, she smiled a little. “Don't look so surprised. We're not telepathic, rumors to the contrary ... it's just that I've heard the same thing over the last several years we've been together.”
Jeri gazed pensively through the forward windows. Although we were out of the Kirkwood gap, no asteroids could be seen. The belt is much less dense than many people think, so all we saw was limitless starscape, with Mars a distant ruddy orb off to the port side.
“You know how Superiors mate, don't you?” she asked at last, still not looking at me.
I felt my face grow warm. Actually, I didn't know, although I had frequently fantasized about Jeri helping me find out. Then I realized that she was speaking literally. “Prearranged marriages, rights?”
She nodded. “All very carefully planned, in order to avoid inbreeding while expanding the gene pool as far as possible. It allows for some selection, of course ... no one tells us exactly whom we should marry, just as long as it's outside of our own clans and it's not to Primaries.”
She paused to finish her coffee, then she crumpled the squeezebulb and batted it aside with her right foot. It floated in midair, finding its own miniature orbit within the compartment. “Well, sometimes it doesn't work out that way. When I was twenty, I fell in love with a boy at Descartes Station ... a Primary, as luck would have it. At least I thought I was in love...”
She grimaced, brushing her long braid away from her delicate shoulders. “In hindsight, I guess we were just good in bed. In the long run it didn't matter, because as soon as he discovered that he had knocked me up, he got the union to ship him off to Mars. They were only too glad to do so, in order to avoid...”
“A messy situation. I see.” I took a deep breath. “Leaving you stuck with his child.”
She shook her head. “No. No child. I tried to keep it, but the miscarriage ... anyway, the less said about that, the better.”
“I'm sorry.” What else could I have said? She should have known better, since there has never been a successful crossbreeding between Superiors and Primaries? She had been young and stupid; both are forgivable sins, especially when they usually occur in tandem.
Jeri heaved a sigh. “It didn't matter. By then, my family had disowned me, mainly because I had violated the partnership that already been made for me with another clan. Both clans were scandalized, and as a result neither one wanted me.” She looked askance at me. “Bigotry works both ways, you know. You call us googles, we call you apes, and I had slept with an ape. An insult against the extropic ideal.”
She closed the logbook, tossed it from her left foot to her right hand, and tucked it into a web beneath the console. “So I was grounded at Descartes. A small pension, just enough to pay the rent, but nothing really to live for. I suppose they expected me to become a prostitute ... which I did, for a short time ... or commit ritual suicide and save everyone the sweat.”
“That's cold.” But not unheard of. There were a few grounded Superiors to be found in the inner system, poor sad cases working at menial tasks in LaGranges or on the Moon. I remembered an alcoholic google who hung out at Sloppy Joe's; he had eagle wings tattooed across his back, and he cadged drinks off tourists in return for performing cartwheels across the bar. An eagle with clipped tailfeathers. Every so often, one would hear of a Superior who checked out by walking into an airlock and pushing the void button. No one knew why, but now I had an answer. It was the Superior way.
“That's extropy for you.” She laughed bitterly, then was quiet for a moment. “I was considering taking the long walk,” she said at last, “but Bo found me first, when I ... well, propositioned him. He bought me a couple of drinks and listened to my story, and when I was done crying he told me he needed a new first officer. No one else would work for him, so he offered me the job, for as long as I cared to keep it.”
“And you've kept it.”
“And I've kept it,” she finished. “For the record, Mr. Furland, he has always treated me with the greatest of respect, despite what anyone else
might have told you. I've never slept with him, nor has he ever demanded that I do so...”
“I didn't...!”
“No, of course you haven't, but you've probably wondered, haven't you?” When I turned red, she laughed again. “Everyone who has worked the Comet has, and sometimes they like to tell stories about the google and the fat slob, fucking in his cabin between shifts.”
She smiled, slowly shaking her head. “It isn't so ... but, to tell the truth, if he ever asked, I'd do so without a second thought. I owe him that little.”
I didn't say anything for a couple of minutes. It isn't often when a shipmate unburdens his or her soul, and Jeri had given me much to consider. Not the least of which was the slow realization that, now more than before, I was becoming quite fond of her.
Before he had gone below, McKinnon had told me to activate the external missile pod, so I pushed myself over to his station and used that minor task to cover for my embarrassment.
Strapping an EMP to an Ares-class freighter was another example of McKinnon's overheated imagination. When I had once asked why, he told me that he purchased it as war surplus from the Pax Astra Royal Navy back in ‘71, after the hijacking of the TBSA Olympia. No one had ever discovered who had taken the Olympia—indeed, the hijack wasn't discovered until five months later, when the uncrewed solar-sail vessel arrived at Ceres Station with its cargo holds empty—but it was widely believed to be the work of indie prospectors desperate for food and various supplies.
I had to cover my smile when McKinnon told me that he was worried about “pirates” trying to waylay the Comet. Having four 10k nukes tucked behind the Comet's cargo section was like arming a gig with heatseekers. Not that McKinnon wouldn't have loved it if someone did try to steal his ship—Captain Future meets the Asteroid Pirates and all that—but I was worried that he might open fire on some off-course prospector that was unlucky to cross his path.
