by Sarah Zettel
Al Shei took out her pen. The heat of her hand and the pattern of her fingerprints activated it. Using it as a pointer, she touched the active surface of the desk, flicking through the menus until she called up her private account for this trip and funnelled enough cash into the desk for a transmission to Ankara. She could have used the Intersystem Bank Network to set up a fast-time link. Uncle Ahmet would have gladly paid the exorbitant fee that the banks charged for access to their crowded channels, but that would have been one more thing she would have had to thank him for. One more favor he could trot out at the next family dinner she attended.
She had heard of tribes from the Amer-Indians who had the custom of the “potslatch,” where a person showed how rich they were by giving gifts. Uncle Ahmet practiced this method of displaying wealth almost constantly. Al Shei couldn’t help wishing, though, that he could make his gifts easier to accept.
The desk accepted the transfer, channeled credit back into the bank’s lines and raised the transmission screen. The blank, grey screen turned robin’s egg blue to indicate that record mode was on. Al Shei saw her own eyes framed by the hijab reflected on the blue background. She automatically straightened her shoulders and smoothed her brow. “Selamunalekum, Uncle Ahmet,” she said. Peace be with you. “I am sending this to thank you for your gift of a Fool’s contract. Because of your generous present, the Pasadena will be able to upgrade its rating and will pull down at least a ten percent increase in our profits this trip out. With luck, and the help of Allah,” she added piously, “this will mean it will be only three more years before I can commission a ship that will allow Asil and our children to travel with me.” I am not repaying you by grounding myself in Ankara. “So, again I say thank you, Uncle. I shall see you in eight months.” She clicked her pen against the desk top to shut the recording off a split second before the desk beeped at her to indicate that she had used up her deposit.
Why do I act like this? she wondered as she authorized the transmission with a stroke of her pen. He’s really just trying to help.
Because his way of helping has a way of reminding me that he thinks I should have become a banker rather than an engineer with a time-share ship who’s spending her life, and her husband’s, trying to create a new family business when there’s a perfectly good one that goes back two hundred years just waiting for her.
She sighed again and reached up under her veil to rub her neck. Oh well, he loves the kids, and he did just get me my C rating.
She glanced at the desk clock. Fifteen-fifteen. A little over three hours until evening prayers. It might be possible to get the inspection over with before then. What was it Schyler was always saying? God willing and the creeks don’t rise? She smiled. Schyler had told her it was a saying from back before The Fast Burn and the Management Union, when Earth’s rivers could still go into unscheduled floods. Al Shei found it a nicely quirky expression for the omnipresence of unpredictability.
Al Shei activated her pen again and sorted through the menus until she found the on-call roster of station personnel. The Lennox office had three inspectors checked in. Al Shei wrote a request for a Lennox inspector to meet her at the Pasadena berth for the purpose of a ratings upgrade. The AI that ran the station had her handwriting, with most of its eccentricities, on file, so it didn’t ask for a rewrite. The desk just absorbed her words and replaced them with a much tidier line of text that said TRANSMISSION COMPLETED.
Al Shei wrote SECURE over the top of the ship’s book. The text on the top film blanked and the pages sealed themselves together. It would take her handwriting, Watch Commander Schyler’s, or Resit’s to open them again.
She touched the CLOSE icon on the desk. The desk inventoried the remaining supplies and funneled the change from her deposit back into her account, automatically forwarding a record of the transaction to the accounting program on board Pasadena. Once the financial transactions were taken care of, the desk shut itself down to wait for the next customer.
Al Shei tucked her pen back into her tunic pocket and stood up carefully so that the spin-gravity wouldn’t disorient her. The business module was in the outermost ring of Port Oberon, which meant it had nearly a full one gee gravity, but the speed of the station’s rotation was still detectable to her inner ear. If she moved too quickly, it would remind her that she was aboard a rapidly spinning conglomeration of tin cans, not firmly on the ground of some planet. How Dobbs made all those quick shifts of weight without really losing her balance was beyond Al Shei, but then, Al Shei was a groundhugger at heart. The problem was that in spirit and in skill, she was a starbird.
Al Shei tucked the Pasadena’s book under her arm and followed Resit’s path out the door and into the curving corridor. She joined the steady stream of men and women from across a hundred cultures as they made their way around the module to the door that would let them into either their elevator, or their appointment room.
Port Oberon took its name from the fact that it hung over the lagrange point of Oberon, Uranus’ largest moon. It was the departure point for most of the fast-time traffic from the Solar system. Consequently, it was always full to capacity and its owners able to milk the patrons for all they were worth. Al Shei noted smugly that they were at least a little less obvious about it now that they had to glance over their shoulders at the Titania Freers. The Freers had been indicating that they’d be more than willing to set up their own commercial station, should the market open up for it.
Resit’s comments about revolutionaries and jacked-up kids echoed in her mind. Al Shei pressed her lips together. She would readily admit there were aspects of their philosophy she didn’t like, and some others that she regarded as flatly ridiculous, but she had worked with Freer contractors in the past. Certainly some of them had the arrogance that belonged to the self-righteous, but their engineers and pilots were the best in Settled Space.
Even by the standards of corporately owned space stations, Port Oberon was huge. It usually had two hundred modules, each the size of a fifteen story office building, operating at once. That did not count the tethered cargo pods, the tankers off-loading helium and methane from the mining operations in low orbit above Uranus, or the ships that were docked but still pressurized and crewed. Oberon was the major fueling station, traffic control, trade depot and all around place of business for all of the Solar System between the asteroid belt and Pluto, which, in the time since Al Shei’s great-great-grandparents had first helped set up the Intersystem Banking Network, had become a very busy place.
The Henry V Business Center was one of the twenty-five modules permanently maintained by Oberon Inc., collectively known to the shippers, starbirds, miners and canned gerbils who put into the port as “the Landlords.” Like most of the other twenty-four permanent modules, it was cylindrical, with a bundle of elevator shafts running straight down the middle. Its wedge-shaped rooms, spiral staircases and circular corridors were lined with bristly carpet that could double as velcro when the module was in free fall, and covered in the bright, but unimaginative, panel decor.
The only loose things in the module were the occupants and their possessions. Everything else was glued, bolted, sealed or simply extruded from the hull or the decks. The walls had ears, and eyes, but between the garish panels, they also had arms so they could reach inside the tiles and work on their own repairs, or grab anything that actually came loose in an emergency.
Al Shei frowned at the automated hands that were retracted back into the panelling as she skirted the wall to get passed a knot of broad-shouldered miners. In her opinion, Port Oberon relied too much on AIs and waldos and didn’t have half enough real engineers and maintainers. She knew the technical reasons. Like Pasadena, Oberon was a profit-making concern, and real people cost real money. Still, AIs could do worse than any human being ever did. If a human went stir-crazy and decided to run away, it was almost nobody’s concern. But if an AI did the same thing, it could mean the life of the station, or the colony. Could and had.
Al Shei ducked through a doorway that was relatively clear of other people and into the elevator bay. There were six lifts, any of which could have gotten her to the core in under four minutes, but Al Shei preferred to use the stairs. Every eight months she lived her life in confined spaces with varying gravity. She needed every second of exercise she could get. Even if she walked, the Lennox inspector wouldn’t get there that much ahead of her.
The stairs spiraled around the bundle of elevator shafts. Since only standard-measure cans were allowed to link up with Port Oberon, the stairs fit together even between the bulkheads that indicated she had passed from one module to the next.
The core was forty stories up, or three rings inward, depending on how you thought about such things, with gravity getting lighter the whole way. She shifted her stride and the swing of her arms to compensate without even thinking about it. Every motion became smaller and gentler. Abrupt, expansive movements in .5 gee were not a good idea. Even so, she all but flew up the last fifteen stories.
Al Shei reached the hub landing. The door’s surface registered her palm print as belonging to a crew member for a docked ship and let her in, opening just the hatchways that would take her to the Pasadena, since no one had invited her to visit anywhere else.
The Pasadena’s Watch Commander, Thomas Paine Schyler was already in the little lobby that held the airlock to the Pasadena in its far wall. Schyler was the only full-term crewman on the ship, working under both her and her partner, Marcus Tully. Most shippers signed on for a single tour and then took themselves a break ground or port side. On low-rated ships, some signed on for only one run, working to reach their destination, taking their share and walking off to whatever it was that was waiting for them.
To Schyler though, the Pasadena was home. Every time they docked at Oberon, he, Al Shei and Tully went through the formality of renewing his contract and reviewing his share. It was required to keep their Lennox rating, but they all knew Schyler would have worked for free if they had asked him to as long as they let him stay aboard and do his job.
Next to Schyler stood a little man with the pinched expression of the perpetually fussy. Half of Al Shei’s family wore the same expression during business hours. He had his pen out and was waving it towards the ship. Around his ankles waited a small flock of rovers: squared off centipedes with waldos that looked more like mandibles and tentacles than hands and fingers. Schyler looked at Al Shei over the top of the strange man’s thatch of dust brown hair, and rubbed the end of his roman nose.
Al Shei smiled behind her hijab.
“Watch Commander Schyler.” She touched her forehead in brief salute. “And Inspector… ” she held out her hand.
“Davies, ‘Dama Al Shei, and… ”
“And thank you for coming on such short notice, Inspector,” said Al Shei before the inspector could finish his sentence. “I’m extremely sorry to have had to put in a short-notice call and I assure you and the Lennox station that it will not happen again.”
“Well, yes.” The little man fumbled with his pen and managed to tuck it into his pocket so he could shake her hand. “Thank you, ‘Dama Al Shei. Let’s see if we can get this business over with.” Schyler was rubbing his nose again. Al Shei grinned, extremely glad of her hijab.
“Of course, Inspector. We won’t take up any more of your time than necessary.” She retrieved the ship’s book from under her arm and wrote OPEN across the cover with her own pen. The memory chip registered her handwriting and unsealed the book. “This is my crew roster and ship specifications,” she said, handing the stack of appropriate films to Davies. “You’ll find it in order, I’m sure.”
He took the pile and sniffed. “What I find is not the real issue, ‘Dama Al Shei.” Davies nodded towards his rovers. “It’s what they find.” He flipped through the films and extracted the ship’s specifications. He slid the stack into the chief rover’s scanner slot.
“Specification recorded,” it said in the bland, neuter voice that belonged to the vast majority of automated systems. “Proceeding with verification.”
The rovers lifted themselves up off the deck and marched in single-file into the Pasadena. They’d go over the ship, checking, measuring, scanning. Davies would do a walk-through and spot check when they were finished, but that was mostly a formality. Al Shei felt her neck muscles tense up. Maybe she should have checked things over first. Tully, for all his scheming, was generally a truthful partner and if he said the ship was in prime working order, it would be.
“The pilot you’re hiring.” Davies looked up from the open book that he held balanced on the palm of his hand. “‘Dama Yerusha, she is from Free Home Titania?”
“That is what her bio file says.” Al Shei realized she’d been staring at the airlock and fiddling with her sleeve.
“She’s a Freer then?” Davies put all of his facial muscles into the frown.
“I didn’t know hiring a Freer disqualified a Lennox rating,” Al Shei kept her voice casual.
Davies shrugged. “Not technically, no, but it can prejudice your security marks.”
Al Shei bit her tongue. It was Davies’ job to be skeptical. If she said anything, she’d just be giving him additional ammunition.
From the recess of her pocket, Al Shei’s pen beeped. She pulled it out and saw Resit’s name on the display. She pulled out a square of film and held the pen against it. Resit’s message wrote itself across the blank surface.
Al Shei: Got the contract with Dr. Dane. Big shipment. Had to check with Communications Chief Lipinski to make sure we’d have room in the hold. Dane’s paying extra. Terms are in storage for your eyes and say-so.
Now the bad news. Your business partner and respected brother-in-law Marcus Tully may have been at it again. Dane wanted to know if this was the Pasadena that pulled the plug out of the Toric Station security code. I’m checking to see if there’re warrants out. Better say a few extra du’a’s at prayer tonight.
Al Shei felt her teeth begin to grind together slowly. She glanced across at Schyler. He must have seen the thunder in her eyes because he shifted his weight slowly and jerked his blunt chin towards the inspector.
Al Shei erased the message and tucked pen and film back into her pocket. “Inspector, will you need my seal for anything?”
Davies blinked up at her. “Mmm? No, no, not until the results are in.”
“Good. Watch,” she said to Schyler, “call me when I’m needed back here.” Mindful of her balance, Al Shei turned around. She did not need to fall over right now. What she needed was to find out was if Tully had left the station yet.
Once she was back in the stairwell, she wrote her request for a trace to Tully on a green wall tile and waited impatiently while the station’s AI tracked him down. He was in the Desdemona Hotel module on the outer ring, getting himself a drink in the Othello coffee shop.
Al Shei declined to transmit a message to say she was coming. This time, she took the elevators and moving walkways three modules down and ten sideways until she reached the hotel.
Once coffee houses had been introduced, they had never left human history. When humanity took itself out to the stars they brought their problems, their religions, their arts, and their cafes. Every station that had the room kept a coffee house for its patrons.
The Othello was on the edge of a spacious, plant-filled lobby. The stairwell had been gilded and four different fountains splashed around it. As she made path towards the cafe, ducking and weaving between the other patrons, Al Shei decided that if this module went into unscheduled free-fall, she’d rather be elsewhere.
Tully sat at a wide, round table. He leaned back in his chair with his legs kicked straight out in front of him. In between sips from a bulb of rich, black brew that could have been coffee, sarsaparilla, or Guinness stout, he whistled cheerfully between his teeth.
Al Shei unclenched her fists and waded between tables and server carts to where he sat.
“Tully.” She sat down across from him. Startled,
he drew his legs in and straightened his back. Someone in his ancestry had supplied his parents with the genes to allow shockingly blue eyes to shine out of his medium-brown face. “Tully, what have you been doing?”
He set his bulb gently down on the table. “Nothing you need to be worried about, Katmer.”
An alarm bell sounded far in the back of Al Shei’s mind. If Tully had been engaged in his usual petty hacking and cracking, he would have said so. “One day you’re going to remember that I don’t believe you when you say that.” Al Shei leaned forward. “I’ve got a client saying the Pasadena pulled a security plug out of Toric’s Stations secured codes.”
Tully glanced quickly around the cafe. “You really want an answer in public?”
Al Shei’s fingertips scraped against the table top. “Marcus Tully, you can run your little civil disobedience racket however you see fit, but if you call attention to the ship I have to fly, I am going to have you in the tightest sling the communications collective can sew together for you!”
Tully sighed toward his bulb. “The guy got hold of a rumor.” He glanced up at Al Shei, as if to see how she was taking the comment. Al Shei didn’t even blink, and Tully looked down again. “Resit will assure him that your crew and my crew have nothing in common. You’ll get the job and all your profits, and there won’t be a problem. Just like there’s no problem for me when you skirt the regs a little too close.”
Al Shei was glad he couldn’t see the hard line of her mouth. “Tully, what do you think you’re doing?”
He shrugged again. “Keeping the corporations on their grubby little toes, oh-my-sister-in-law. Same as you.”
“I do not break anybody’s law.” Her voice was low and furious.
“I’m not asking you to protect me.” He pulled another long draft out of the bulb. “If I’m careless enough to get caught then I deserve it, and you’ve got the Pasadena and all the remaining payments on it by default.”
