Tramp Wars: The Enemy

by Larry Roberts

  An arm reached over to Marks platform and separated it from the chain. The platform arced away from the chain as it slowed down and up into the now empty slot in the deck as the platform that was sitting at that deck slid up and over into the now empty slot on the chain Mark’s platform had just left. As his platform came to a smooth stop on Hold A’s deck, Mark hesitated to step off the platform as he thought things over. The circular rail around the slot and platform bent out around to the sides as a ramp extended itself from the deck to the platform allowing Mark to walk across the short one foot wide gap between the platform and the deck. But he just stood there as his face hardened. “But you still don’t get it do you? You are still just a pair of ugly glasses!”

  "No I am not! I am not your old ugly black and overly repaired plastic glasses Mark. Everyone that sees you thinks we are beautiful as do I. The Medic Dian is very attracted to you with me on your eyes. Without me you would be just another helmet head guy on the ship and ignored. I make you look intelligent and interesting. The bionic implants would even be detrimental to your mating possibilities and would have driven her and most other women off just as the Doctor had told you."

  Cargo Hold A had become the black hole of the ship when it had become clear that due to the expanding population, the ship could simply not lift the weight to fill most of the cargo holds with the heavy bulk cargo they usually carried and being the highest and hardest to load, due to the lack of a cargo hatch on the none existent hold above that could be used as a crane rail for this hold. That meant that any cargo for Hold-A had to be lifted through the open hatch into the hold by air trucks taking at least twice as long as the other holds to load, or an external crane or gantry not available on most of the less traveled planets the ship stopped at even if they could afford it.

  "No they don't. They keep looking at me like I am a freak."

  As someone coming up the chain approached A hold’s deck, the platform got tired of waiting for Mark to vacate and used the hand rail at the back of the platform to push him off into the chain room. Getting his balance back as he stepped out onto the little ramp, he paused turning around to stare at the offending platform as it lifted up and attached itself to the chain and a new platform rose up to replace it.

  The young woman who had seen him passing many decks below stood on the platform only a foot from Mark smiling at him. She took a step toward him, her boobs rubbing up against him since she could not go around him and said with a smile in a whisper. "Hi. My name is Patty. I don't remember seeing you around before sweetheart."

  Mark backed up automatically putting the proper distance between them as he started to apologize. "Sorry. Ah. For getting in your way mam."

  "Don't be sorry." She stepped closer just shy of letting her boobs touch Marks chest again gently grabbing onto his arm to keep him from backing up again. "What's your name?"

  "Ah. Mark Collins. Mam."

  "Call me Patty please. Mark. I have to help clean out my family’s storage box right now but I hope I will see you around again. Bye." She squeezed his upper arm and continued around him and on out of the chain room looking back over her shoulder with a smile before disappearing around the corner.

  Tom stuck his head into the Chain room. "There you are. Come on, we have work to do."

  The strange half mechanical voice started speaking again. "I told you women like you with me over your eyes love, just as much as I do. She would have been terrified of you if you had those implants in."

  "Oh shut up will you."

  "No asshole. You shut up and get your butt out here oh wise one that knows they will never clean out the hold."

  “I wasn't talking to you Tom. I was…" Mark started toward the hatch as he tried to figure out just who he had been talking to and what the hell was going on with the thing on his nose.

  "I don't care who you were not talking to. We have to figure out where to put all our shit. Come on already."

  Mark followed Tom out the hatch. "You are full of it Mickey." He said just to get the last word in.

  Mark had never seen or heard that deck so busy before. Ever since he could remember it had sat vacant and unused as a cargo deck with only garbage and trash and the discards of anyone not wanting to throw out half good or unused equipment with the cast offs. With a little room for people to get away from the crowds on the rest of the decks. But over the years it had piled up like peoples garages or unused rooms on every planet in the universe. Well; that and some of the people’s personal aircars. With the truck deck so busy while in port; A-hold had developed into the flight deck for aircars to operate unhindered by trucks, though the Truck Deck had storage for aircars on a shelf around the top outer edge of the deck that also was used for general storage for truck parts and such. You had to make an appointment to fly out of the truck deck during certain hours. But on the Junk deck, anyone off duty could take their aircar and see the sights of the planet or anything else they wanted to do anytime they wanted too. Something Mark and his friends had done often. Mark had even rebuilt his own aircar from parts scrounged from various planets in their travels or even discarded by the ship's crew. But know it all had to be moved. But where?

  "No Mark." Mickey spoke up. "All the girls that see you smile and start showing traits of sexual arousal. You have an air of mystery with something no one else has now that is expensive looking and not garbage. I makes you attractive. Remember Mindy on the mess deck last night and Dian and now Patty. You just have to believe in me and yourself. The Doctor was right that the implant's beedee red eyes would only scare them and the last thing they would be doing is smiling at you. Besides the implants are just cold temperamental stupid sensors. And I love you." Mark was starting to get used to the mix of mostly mechanical speaking with an almost human voice throwing in a word or two scattered through the conversation. Though it still hit him as strangely odd at all the sudden turns of phrases and tones.

  The hold was also the perfect place to off load shipping containers as well as the other crates and boxes needed to deliver equipment and furniture and supplies over the years. Leaving the empties scattered around the hold to be used for storage, club houses and shops and little markets and even an old man every one called Pop living part time in a shack built out of a half container. Going up to visit his wife when he needed to shower and such. He was a nice old man who spent his time helping people with their cars and fixing things, settling disputes, giving advice and basically running the place. Rumor had it he was older than the ship and had been wounded during the famous pirate battle 21 years before explaining his limp and the cane.

  "Hey! Did you see that bomb shell come out of the chain room ahead of you?" Tom looked at the woman walking ahead of them with a smile as she looked over her shoulder at Mark smiling.

  Mark did not even hear him as he continued walking. Each step seemed to take more effort as he discovered more muscles and joints he did not know he had. The drugs where definitely wearing off. The first container on his left was open with the lights on, its inside looked like someone had ransacked it for valuables which in fact the owners had. On the outside was a big red painted X and the word (abandoned) below, which surprised Mark as at a glance he could see that the molecular welder he had drooled over for years was still there. Far too expensive for him and his buddies to afford even a broken down one from a junk yard, the Banners had just left it for junk. But then he realized the reason it was still there; no place to put it.

  The days of having your own private workshop or club house or market stall, or tavern, was gone. Maybe even the private cars would be gone as well. As he had heard a rumor that private cars would be banned from the truck deck. So what could you do with all the personal junk people had collected over the years even if they still had a use for it?

  "Hey Four eyes!.. Mark!" A guy stuck his head out of a container down the alley they were crossing. "Come over here morons." Mark stopped and turned to look without thinking. "Hey, I like your new glasses Mark. Nice. The ot
hers really made you look stupid. Sorry. You guys have been after me to sell you my press for years. I have decided to give it to you cheap for a thousand credits."

  Mark did a double take, shook his head in disbelief and started walking away as Tom yelled back at the guy. "Ya sure Mac. Put it on our account. On account you're never going to get that much now from anyone. 50 and deliver it and you have got a deal."

  Mark hit Tom on the shoulder. "We are supposed to be cleaning out the junk and not getting more."

  "Ya but I always wanted the damn thing and now it’s mine for a few hours."

  Walking around a pile, Mark glanced down the alley and saw Pop quietly rocking in his chair in front of his shack. Turning down the alley it only took him a minute to walk up to the cabins open area. Pop was rocking in the same rocking chair he had used for a century they say, with his cat on his lap. Nothing had been touched around the shack. Smoking his pipe, Pop did look like he had a care in the world.

  “Hey Pop’s where you moving to?” Mark said as Tom walked up beside him.

  Taking a puff on his pipe he took his time to answer as he rocked saving his place in his book with a nice book marker with a fancy braided tassel before looking up at Mark. “I am not going anyplace. Those sons of bitches will have to push me and my things out the hatch.” Taking another puff he smiled. “Besides where do you think an old fart like me and lightning can go to smoke my pipe and rock in peace.”

  “You have a good point there Pop.” Mark started to say something else but just shook his head and turned around walked back up the alley as Tom followed him. Most of the as yet un abandoned crates and storage containers had someone arguing about what to do with stuff they wanted to keep as well as what to pitch.

  As they walked into the shop's clearing they herd the same arguments from their buddies. Dick, Peter, Jolleen and the rest standing just outside the shop, Mark shook his head. He had no better answer than anyone else except that he did not want to just abandon everything as some were doing. Though he knew deep down he was going to have too, but how do you choose and where do you put the shit you kept?

  “Maybe we should just let them push the damn thing out the hatch with all the other shit. And not bother unloading it.” Jolleen was as frustrated as the rest as she sat down on the lawn chair in front of the heater/cooker. "Can you imagine watching it hit the pit and bust open spewing everything out across the concrete." Taking a drink of Sparkling soda.

  Tom peaked into the container and then walked over to sit down across from them.

  "Hell there is plenty of room between the inner and outer hulls around the cargo decks but the elevator does not stop on those deck so how do we get our equipment up into them." Dick suggested as they watched Mark and Tom take seats.

  "You have got to be kidding." Mark took a seat next to Jolleen and propped his feet up on the heater. "There is only 6 feet between the outer and inner hulls around the cargo decks not like the 12 foot of the between the inner and outer hulls on the passenger decks and the hatches are barely big enough to crawl through not to mention that they are bolted and not latched. They are Voids not compartments." Mark could not believe anyone could even suggest such a thing. Shaking his head he looked up at the container box lifter attached to the overhead rails above and to the side of the main elevator hatch as what looked like the same cat from the night before laid with its head and front paws hanging over the edge sound asleep. Wondering how it kept from falling. There used to be two of the cargo handling cars but the one originally parked next to the one above was laying on the deck not far from the elevator hatch stripped of all its parts and most of the skeleton attachments to keep the cargo lifts operating in the other holds.

  "Ya but we could add hatches." Dick tried to continue in desperation.

  Shaking his head as he settled into his chair with half his body aching, feeling like he had been run over by an airtruck. Mark turned to Dick to say something sarcastic, then looked up the side of the hull just toward the elevator. The outlines of the decks with the bulkheads separating compartment voids every 30 feet around the ship between the inner and out hull jumped out at him with bolted down hatches slowly coming into view with their big half inch bolts sticking out toward the chain lift compartment. Hope starting to well up inside of him as he tried to imagine how to fit all their equipment into several of the narrow compartments no wider than 6 feet made him smile as he started looking around trying to figure out how many of the narrow compartments it would take to hold all of their junk including the big 10 foot wide screen they used to play video games on and realized that the idea was truly ridiculous for the huge video screen.

  Then looking behind their cargo box he saw the decks that were spaced every 8 feet up the side of the rest of the cargo hold were missing, replaced by a half dozen 8 foot wide trunks running up the side of the hold between the hulls. Arrows appeared pointing up and Mark realized that he was looking at the air duct trunks that moved the fresh air up from the Garden/Farm deck below the holds to the rest of the ship above the holds. The other side of the hold had to have copies of the Air trunks to circulate the used exhaust air from the upper decks back down to the Garden/Farm decks to be cleaned and refreshed with oxygen before making the trip back up this side of the ship again.

  His eyes fell on what looked like a trunk some 50 feet farther around the hold that was different. Narrower and what looked like the vague shape of a ladder going up through the decks and the narrow compartments all the way up to the next berthing deck just below the huge locks for the Ship’s Shuttle’s turned gunboats. Something he had not known existed before that moment. He quickly looked on around the hold to the elevator shaft looking for more surprises when his eyes again fell on the cargo crane hanging down from the overhead they used to move containers and cargo in each of the Holds as the cat stood up and stretched arching its back into a steep curve. Why the hell did he keep looking at that stupid thing?

  Jolleen turned to Mark. "Oh Smart one, seer of all things in the future and mighty Trade business wizard. You have a pile of box titles in on the counter all signed and dated. You now own half the boxes in the hold. I hope you have the money to pay for them."

  "Oh shit! You're kidding? I did not want the Farmers selling their box for scrap when I thought it was just the usual yearly cleaning. I figured I would give it back to them once things had settled down again." Shaking his head he looked at Jolleen. "Half you said?"

  "Actually I bet it is well over half of them. Maybe ¾’s." She smiled shaking her head.

  "Well shit. At least I can get some of my money back selling them to the junk yard for scrap."

  "Yap. You're a financial Wizard. I will sell you everything in our box that we can't move out for what we paid for it since you are being so generous oh wealthy one. Give us some money to replace it all with something smaller that will fit whatever space we find to set up a new clubhouse. Any ideas so we can start moving stuff?"

  Mark started looking around at the containers scattered through the junk, shaking his head. Not believing he got stuck buying over half of them. Suddenly remembering Dick’s suggestion of pushing their container out the hatch he started visualizing pushing all of them out so he would at least have some fun for his money. “Now I like your suggestion of pushing the whole mess off the ramp Jolleen." Mark chuckled as the thought of the containers getting stuck behind all the garbage wedged across the hatch flashed into his mind. Suddenly feeling sleepy Mark stretched, raising his arms above his head while sticking his legs out as far as he could and tensing them up as he yawned making a howling noise for several seconds as he did.

  Finishing his stretch, he sat back again getting comfortable in the lounge chair and relaxed. He looked up as he took a deep breath again, his eyes falling on the cargo crane tractor sitting by the elevator again and that damn cat. Smiling as he watched the cat walking across the frame of the lift tractor far above them making itself at home as it’s eyes studied the goings on below. Suddenly it
sat back down and started cleaning itself as if it didn’t have a care in the world. It did not have to worry about its home getting dumped out the hatch. He was safe all the way up there.

  "Yes! It would be easy to lift the containers over the top of all this shit in the hold and drop it all over the edge and watch it fall all the way down to the pit pad like you said.” Mark smiled at the thought. “It would almost be worth paying the fines while losing everything just to watch it burst open like eggs when they hit and we would not have to worry about packing it all up. To damn much work packing anyway.”

  His eyes stayed on the tractor crane hanging from the rails on the overhead as he pictured it picking up the container and taking it out to dump and noticed the empty space next to it with the catwalk and ladder providing access for the operator and maintenance personnel to the crane that was no longer there.

  His eyes drifted to the cat as it finished cleaning itself and laid back down and seemed to stare directly at Mark turning its head to the side as if to say. (Well, you going to come up and join me or not?) Mark smiled. “I think I have an Idea Jolleen, Tom, Dick, Peter and the rest of you. Follow me while I get my tools.” Mark kicked Jolleen's legs off the heater then dragged Peter out of folding camp chair to follow him as he walked into the container. Telling his buddies what he had in mind.

  They thought he was crazy but since they had no better ideas, they jumped his in desperation. Sending everyone out to start collecting abandoned non-junk such as the Micronics welder he had spotted earlier; he grabbed up a bag of tools to get the overhead crane working. Which was a big problem as no one they knew had ever seen it run. That is except maybe, Pop. But asking him was not a good idea, he could say no don’t touch it. So from experience Mark decided not to ask, so Pop could not tell them not to do what he was thinking about doing. But then. It was possible they had already been taking parts off it to repair the cranes in the other holds like the one on the deck. Which would put a quick end to his idea. Unless they could come up with replacement parts. Quickly looking around the junk deck Mark smiled. If they couldn't find something in all this junk to replace the needed parts they just did not look hard enough.