Though Hell Should Bar the Way

by David Drake

  A red telltale alerted me that the ship’s sensors thought we were twenty feet above the surface. I took manual control and locked the thruster output at the current level. We continued to descend on the programmed course, entering the quay from the open mouth. As we slid toward the far end, I adjusted the thruster angle five degrees forward and with my other hand flared the sphincter petals gradually.

  The usual gush of steam warned me we were about to touch down. The outriggers hit with solid splashes, the port one an instant before the starboard.

  I chopped the throttles and leaned back. It hadn’t been perfect, but it was pretty bloody good. The hours I’d been spending on the simulator had been worth it.

  “What do we do now?” Monica said.

  “Now, we wait for the local inspectors to clear us,” I said without getting up. I was worse wrung out by the landing than I’d been by the days of doing two men’s work in the rigging. “Same as always.”

  I thought for a moment and added, “Except I think I’ll open the ship up a little quicker than I’d do if that worm hadn’t melted the way it did.”

  Ozone and garbage burned by the thrusters didn’t seem too bad as an alternative to the present on-board atmosphere.

  * * *

  “Good heavens,” the inspector said as he stepped into the main hatch. He backed away, then turned and stared at me. “Good heavens!” he said.

  “A wild animal got aboard while we were taking on water,” I said. We’d met the official at the foot of the boarding ramp. I’d walked him up while Monica and Lal waited below. “We had to kill it, but the reaction mass pump was damaged. We need to repair that, but we’re also going to pick up cleaning supplies.”

  “I should think so!” the inspector said. He craned his neck and looked around the nearly empty hold.

  “You’re welcome to search us,” I said. “We recaptured the ship from pirates, and it’d been completely stripped. We just want to get home to Saguntum.”

  That was as much fancy as truth, but the official didn’t need details which would just confuse him. He could see we didn’t have any dutiable goods aboard.

  “I don’t see any reason to waste more time here,” the inspector said. He jotted on his metal-backed pad, then tore off and handed me one end of the form. He kept the counterfoil.

  “Carry the inspection report to the port office,” he said as we walked back to my shipmates. “You’ll still have to pay landing fees but that will be hull only, forty thalers.”

  “I suppose the chandleries are on Water Street?” I said.

  “St. Marie Street we call it,” the man said. “But yes. I recommend the Trident House, myself.”

  “We’ll try it,” I agreed.

  * * *

  The inspector got onto the saddle of his jitney and rode off. I said to Monica, “We’ll try the Trident House. His recommendation.”

  She frowned. “He’s probably been paid to say that,” she said.

  “Of course,” I said. “He wasn’t a prick, the way petty officials always can be. Even if his brother owns the place, that’s still a good reason to do business there if they’re halfway reasonable.”

  Lal didn’t say anything. I’m not sure he’d even heard the exchange. He figured it was none of his business, I suppose. That was how I figured too, if it came to that.

  Trident House was the furthest of the three ship chandlers facing the harbor and was a little more imposing than the others. The doorway was framed by bright yellow pillars running up to roof height; the counter in back was painted a matching color.

  I walked up the central aisle and said to the middle-aged man behind the counter, “I need an electrician and a switch circuit for the reaction mass pump.”

  “And we need bleach and mops,” said Monica. She remained slightly behind me, but she was fully part of the discussion.

  “Of course,” said the counterman. “We normally use Ricardo; I’ll give you directions to his shop.”

  He coughed into his hand and said, “Do you have an account here, Captain?”

  “We’re good for the cost,” I said, smiling. I handed over the credit chip.

  I hadn’t given it back to Monica. I’d seen that at any distance from Cinnabar and the core worlds of the Alliance, women tended to be taken less seriously than men. To tell the truth, even in Xenos—especially as you went down the social scale—there were plenty of situations in which I figured I’d get a better deal than Monica would have.

  The counterman inserted the card into his reader, then looked up at me with sudden respect. “I see, sir.”

  “Before you find the electrician,” Monica said, “I want mops and five gallons of bleach. Lal and I can get started on the cleanup.”

  She pursed her lips and added, “And clothing. Ordinary spacer’s clothes, but clean. Several changes.”

  “And for me also,” I added. “Lal?”

  “If the captain is willing, a set of slops would be welcome,” he said.

  “And two hundred thalers cash,” I said to the counterman. “If you’re willing to be our bank.”

  “Of course, Captain,” he said. He opened a cash drawer.

  I wondered what he made of us. We were an odd-looking trio, certainly. Remembering what I’d told the customs inspector, I said, “We escaped from pirates, but we don’t have much besides money and the ship.”

  “That’s quite sufficient for me,” said the counterman with a grin.

  * * *

  Monica, Lal, and a boy with the Trident handcart returned to the Alfraz. Monica had a hundred and fifty thalers—of her own money, of course.

  I found Ricardo’s shop easily—halfway down the nearest cross street—but the woman there explained he was out on a job. She sent me with their ten-year-old son as a guide to find him.

  We did, but the job was on the opposite side of St. Marie. Ricardo made a good impression and agreed to come out to the Alfraz in the morning to spec the job—but he wouldn’t leave this afternoon, even if I doubled the extra ten thalers I’d offered him to slip our job in before he finished wiring the new construction he was working on.

  It was nearing evening by the time the boy led me back to the port office and left me. The clerks had already gone home, so I wearily trudged to the quay and down it, looking for the Alfraz. What was left of the preserved food we’d brought from ben Yusuf wasn’t very exciting, but I was looking forward to a quiet meal and then sleep.

  Sleep out on the outrigger. I’d gotten used to the stench of the ship’s interior, but sleeping in an atmosphere of chlorine bleach would be dangerous instead of merely uncomfortable.

  The lights of the Alfraz shone in the dusk. Every hatch was open. Monica and Lal were at the bottom on the boarding ramp. She sat cross-legged, he squatted. They rose as they heard me approach.

  “I thought we’d make up shake-downs on the outriggers tonight,” I said. I didn’t see the piles of bedding that I hoped had been removed before they doused the ship’s interior with bleach.

  “I’ve taken care of that,” Monica said calmly. “Roy, what’s the correct pay for a spacer?”

  “On Cinnabar?” I said. “A florin a day for a landsman. One and a half for an ordinary spacer, two for an able spacer.”

  Monica sat again and began counting coins onto the ramp where the ship’s running lights fell on them. She said, “Lal, we’re paying you as an able spacer. Is that acceptable to you?”

  “Lady, that is very generous,” Lal said. He bowed to her before he scooped the coins into a purse which hung under his breechclout.

  Lal probably wasn’t qualified as “able” but he still wasn’t being overpaid. He’d worked like two men on this voyage.

  “I suggest you find a meal and accommodations on your own,” Monica said. “You’re dismissed until noon tomorrow.”

  He bowed again. “Thank you, Lady,” he said and disappeared up the quay.

  Ordinarily pay—and duty schedules—were the business of the captain alone. I sus
pected that Monica already knew that; I didn’t feel any desire to raise the matter aloud.

  “I rented a houseboat,” Monica said to me. “I thought we could spend the night there. It didn’t look like rain, but I wouldn’t feel comfortable simply lying out in the open on a strange planet.”

  She looked away and added, “Also, I bought fresh food which we can heat now that you’ve arrived. On the boat, that is.”

  “Great idea,” I said honestly. I was confused by all this. Everything Monica had arranged was good, but it was different from the very simple one-foot-in-front-of-the-other evening I’d planned. I was physically and mentally tired, and I resented even good changes that made me think.

  I hadn’t noticed the houseboat floating between the starboard outrigger and the hull of the Alfraz. It was about twenty feet long with most of the length covered by a curved roof. We stepped easily from the boarding ramp to the short deck in the bow.

  I sat on a cushion while Monica heated the meal she’d bought—a stew of meat and vegetables. The stove was a can half filled with sand into which she’d poured diesel which wicked up to burn safely at the surface.

  “I didn’t really make it myself,” she said. “I bought it from a restaurant on shore and brought it back to heat when you got here. The food we’ve been eating is so bland and I wanted something different.”

  “This is much better,” I agreed, though it was really a little too spicy for me. She must have bought the bowls and spoons also. “Ah—if I can ask you a personal question?”

  “You can,” Monica said, looking up. “You haven’t asked me anything all the time we’ve been together.”

  There were a couple reasons for that, and I didn’t plan to go into them now. I said, “You have money. Why weren’t you ransomed instead of being stuck in the Admiral’s harem?”

  “Well, I couldn’t buy myself free,” she said. “They’d have just stolen the credit chip if they’d known about it. The way Azul did the barrette. And the Karst consul couldn’t allow me to be freed after he’d helped rape me instead of doing his duty to me as a Saguntine citizen.”

  She swallowed and put her spoon down beside her bowl. Staring at them she said, “Maybe if I’d screamed at the beginning that I was important, it would have been better. But I was from Saguntum and I thought I’d be all right if I just kept in the background and it’d all be over.…”

  “That was what I’d have done too,” I said, though I really didn’t have any idea what I’d have done in her situation. Because of our different genders, there was no real comparison in the ways the pirates had treated us.

  Monica started to cry.

  I don’t know what I’d been expecting, but it wasn’t that. It had gotten really dark while we ate. I’d thought of bringing out the little light I’d bought in Salaam, but I hadn’t gotten around to it. Pretty clearly this wasn’t the time to climb up to the hold of the Alfraz and go rummaging around, though I’ve got to admit the thought crossed my mind.

  I put my hand on Monica’s shoulder. I didn’t say anything. I’d set my bowl to the side, but she knocked hers aside as she threw her arms around my neck and drew herself against me. I patted her on the back, wondering what the hell to do.

  Suddenly Monica straightened. I wished there’d been some light so that I could see her face.

  “What’s the matter?” she said. “Don’t you like me? Why don’t you kiss me?”

  I kissed her, but withdrew a little and said, “I like you very much, but I didn’t want to …”

  I didn’t want to have her scream, “You raped me!” at me some time in the future.

  “I don’t want to take advantage of you,” I said. I didn’t know where her head was right this instant, and she obviously wasn’t in the best shape.

  “Is it because I was raped?” she said. Her voice rose. “Do you think I’m dirty?”

  “No!” I said. “Monica, you’re wonderful and—”

  She kissed me hard. “Then come,” she said. “I want to make love, and I want to make love with you.”

  And so we did.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  I was still making my first survey of the interior of the Alfraz when Ricardo arrived, pedaling a large-wheeled tricycle. There was a cage of woven-wire fencing, empty at the moment, over the back wheels. When I heard Monica greet him, I stepped onto the ramp.

  “Come on up,” I called. “It’s not too bad.”

  The pong of the dead worm was gone. I was still aware of the bleach, but leaving the ship open overnight with the ventilator circulating kept it from being a problem.

  I thought about the night for just an instant before my mind shied away. It had been a really long time since I’d been with Rachel. A lifetime.

  I didn’t know what the future was going to be like. I suppose I should have been thankful for what had happened instead of worried about losing it again, but that wasn’t how I felt.

  Ricardo took a look at the open knife switch and whistled. “Hey,” he said. “That’s bloody dangerous. You know, you ought to have the whole rig rewired rather than just replace the control circuit.”

  “I do know that,” I said, “and I will as soon as it’s practical. For now, though, I just want to be able to fill with reaction mass and get home to Saguntum. There the new owners can upgrade the Alfraz.”

  I didn’t own the ship, after all. I wasn’t even sure who did. Platt wouldn’t dispute my title, but perhaps the Hegemony of Karst could.

  “Well, if that’s what you want …” Ricardo said. He looked sideways at me. “You know, if it’s the cost … ?”

  “It’s not,” I said firmly. It was mostly a matter of time, though part of me was offended at the notion of spending a lot of money on a ship I didn’t own. I was sure I could convince Monica to approve the work if I’d really wanted to. “Can you replace the control circuit or can’t you?”

  Ricardo shrugged. “I’ll be back this afternoon to do the job,” he said.

  We went back out. He headed for his vehicle. I took a deep breath and walked to Monica, who was straightening the houseboat. I guess she was, anyway.

  “He’ll be back this afternoon to fix it,” I said. “Well, he says he will. I expect the pump to take about six hours to fill the tank from what I saw of the flow rate before it jammed. With luck we’ll be able to lift tomorrow morning.”

  “That’s very good,” Monica said primly. “We’ll need dinner, then. I plan to go back to the same cafe to pick that up, but I’ll bring something different. And I’ll get fruit and bread and cheese right now, if that’s all right?”

  “That’s great,” I said, trying to sound cheery. “Ah, it wouldn’t have to be quite as spicy for me as last night—though that’s all right.”

  “All right,” Monica said, nodding solemnly. She reached out and touched me on the back of my hand. “Roy, are you all right. About us?”

  I put my arms around her and kissed her. “Monica, I didn’t know how you’d feel and I was afraid …”

  She kissed me back, holding me hard. She started crying again but she sounded happy.

  I didn’t know where it was going to go in a moment—well, yeah, I did know where it was going to go—but a group of men started up the quay toward us. Lal was with three other guys.

  I turned Monica so that she could see them, then broke away and climbed up to the ramp.

  “Good morning, Lal,” I called. “You’re here earlier than I expected you. The repairs are supposed to be done this afternoon, and I hope we’ll lift tomorrow morning.”

  Lal cleared his throat and stepped out in front of his three companions. They were dressed in bright-colored tunics and loose white slacks, more clothes than I’d ever seen Lal wear. All four were slightly built, similarly dark, and barefoot, however.

  “Captain,” Lal said. “We are short crewed, yes?”

  “Yes, certainly,” I said. “Are your friends spacers?”

  “The Singh brothers are my compatriots from Kashga
r,” Lal said stiffly. He didn’t look over his shoulder at the three strangers. “They will speak to you about their requirements.”

  He moved to the side and continued to stare straight ahead. More was going on than I understood. The man in the middle of the three strangers stepped ahead and crossed his hands behind his back.

  “I am Rajiv Singh,” he said. He was about thirty. “I am a skilled astrogator. I and my brothers offer to take positions on your ship.”

  “We don’t need a mate,” I said. “We’ll pay you as spacers—depending on your skill levels, on a voyage to Saguntum. I judge that to be about fourteen days, though we might make better time with a full crew.”

  Rajiv frowned. “You will pay us as able spacers?” he said.

  “If you demonstrate that level of skill,” I said. “We have close to twenty-four hours before we lift, so I’ll run you through your paces here. If you perform as able spacers, we’ll hire you at that rate.”

  I smiled slightly. I hadn’t warmed to Rajiv, but we certainly did need crewmen. “And we’ll pay you for the day of testing.”

  The money didn’t really matter. Emphasizing to Rajiv that I was in charge did matter.

  Rajiv moved back to his brothers. The three spoke in whispers. Rajiv returned and said, “We will accept your positions. Though I am due better.”

  “One moment,” said Monica as she mounted the short rope ladder from the houseboat. “What was your last berth and why did you leave it?”

  “I will not take orders from a woman!” Rajiv said to me in an angry voice.

  “You don’t have to,” I said. “I’m captain of the Alfraz, like I’m sure Lal told you. Only—”

  I smiled again. Monica, standing beside me now and sizzling like a pot on the boil as she listened, looked just a hair less furious.

  “You’d better at least be polite, because Mistress Smith is half owner of the ship and is in charge of the money. Now, answer the question or get the hell out of here.”