Tor looked doubtful. "I think I agree with Valt. Uh, we've got a big bonus coming when we get to Boondock, don't we? I mean, we're carrying a high-priority cargo, and there's a delivery bonus, isn't there? Wouldn't that pay for it?"
Jirik sighed. "Not any more, there isn't! We'd have to deliver the cargo within a week to collect the bonus. It'll take more than a week for someone to get out here to us. In fact, we're probably going to end up paying delivery penalties."
He shrugged. "If the tow doesn't cost too much, we should be all right. Our operating funds should cover the repairs, and maybe even get us an inbound cargo." He sighed again. "Bran?"
Bran shrugged. "I'd recommend getting a tow, Captain. It's much safer!"
Jirik straightened. "All right. Bran get back to Engineering and see if you can do anything that'd help. Tor, you and I'll go up and draft an SOS message. Then, I guess we just settle in for a long wait!"
Chapter 1
Captain Jirik Jeffson trudged wearily into the mess deck of the Independent Trader Bonny Lass and slumped into a padded chair. "Damn this gravity!" He complained, "Of all the planets in the universe, we have to get marooned on one with a 1.4G gravity. Where the hell are all the light planets when you need one?"
Bran Fergson answered Jirik's feeble joke with an equally feeble smile. "At least you're built for it, Captain." His eyes compared Jirik's short, burly frame with his own taller, portly body.
"I might be built for it, you tub of guts, but I'm sure as hell not muscled for it! We've been here over a week, now," Jirik continued in an aggrieved tone, "And I haven't even made it into town for a beer. By the time I put in a day arguing with ship's chandlers, it's all I can do to come back here and collapse into my rack!"
Bran snorted derisively. "Beer, hell. You mean beers, plural, and brawls, also plural." He grimaced at Jirik's chuckle, and then continued more seriously, "Maybe you should make an effort to get into town, Captain. Something is strange here."
It was Jirik's turn to snort. "I'd be surprised if it weren't strange. We're a long way from home. After all, we've come clear across the Alliance, from the Empire border to the Rim. You know the kind of people that come to the rim: malcontents, nonconformists, and ne'er-do-wells. Toss in this hellish gravity, and I'd expect this place to be a lunatic asylum!"
Bran's round face didn't smile. "Seriously, Captain, Have you talked to many of these people? What did you think of them?"
Jirik shrugged. "I dunno. I've only talked to chandlers, repairmen and agents, on business. I guess I like 'em well enough. They seem to be my kind of people. Only thing is, they're so damned smug! It's like they know the secret of the universe. I dunno exactly, but it's kinda like those religious fanatics on Yahweh. Y'know what I mean?"
Bran nodded soberly. "I think so, Captain. You mean the sort of self-righteous smugness that comes with the absolute certainty that you are God's favorite person, and that nobody else will ever be as good."
"That's it, exactly!" Jirik replied excitedly. "An air of superiority that's guaranteed to piss off anyone who comes into contact with it. Why did you ask?"
Bran shifted uncomfortably in his chair. "Because I think that there is something wrong here, Captain. I can't describe it exactly. It's as though the whole planet is full of fanatics; but they seem to be political, rather than religious fanatics.
Jirik snorted. "There's damned little difference. Religious fanatics have a way of becoming involved in politics. Look at Januvia."
Bran didn't smile. "I know. But I don't think that there's a religious element involved here. Politics out here seem to excite the same type of fanatical fervor, though. At any rate, I'm getting worried that whatever they're doing is hostile to the Alliance."
"Well, I did notice that a couple of them looked kinda strange at any mention of the Alliance – almost disgusted. I didn't pay much attention at the time, but now that you mention it, it does seem odd for Alliance citizens to react that way to their government's name."
Bran nodded. "Exactly. But that's not all. You know how I like to browse in bookchip stores in port." He glanced inquiringly at Jirik, who nodded knowingly. Much of Bran's inport time and most of his money were spent browsing bookchip stores wherever they went. Most spacers are voracious readers; there is a lot of down time on a ship in jump space. But even so, Bran was something special. His collection of bookchips was threatening to crowd him out of his stateroom.
"Well," Bran continued, "There are quite a few of them on Boondock, more than I would have thought such a frontier planet would have. I've been to a number of them here, and they all have one oddity in common. By far the largest section in each of them was devoted to political science. And every one of them prominently displayed the same chip, or rather a set of chips. Now, usually that just means it's the current best seller, some vacuous love fiction or lame brained thriller. This one was a political science treatise published some seventy-five years ago."
"We're a long way out," Jirik said doubtfully, "Maybe it just took that long to get out this far."
"That was my first thought, Captain, but it's not the answer This five-volume theoretical work was copyrighted seventy-five years ago, here on Boondock!
"Hell!" Jirik was startled. "I didn't know that Boondock was settled that long ago, much less that they were issuing copyrights!"
"I picked up a history of Boondock, and skimmed it last night," Bran replied. "This place has an unusual background. In a nutshell, it was colonized from Jaxon about a century ago as a mining colony. You know that they produce a lot of heavy elements." Jirik nodded and Bran continued, "There was the usual rush when the planet was first opened up, but Boondock is a savage world. Only the very strong could survive the gravity and the weather. Women, especially, had trouble surviving. It wasn't until about twenty years passed that the survivors were able to establish any sort of civilization."
Jirik snorted. "There still isn't much, from what I've seen. This is the biggest city on the planet, and it would be a village anywhere else."
Bran shook his head soberly. "You're wrong, Captain, and that's another part of the puzzle. Boondock was a typical frontier planet until about eighty years ago. Then, suddenly, what had been a typical amateur, lethargic frontier planetary government became activist and progressive almost overnight. Within the space of a few years, these rugged individualists obtained state of the art communication screens for every household and mine, began collectively buying shiploads of bookchips, well, bookdiscs, at that time, for general circulation, set up a planetary trivid system, and started an intensive educational drive. Within ten years, they started the University of the Rim, which is now one of the most prestigious schools in the Alliance. Now, Boondock is one of the leaders of a loose economic coalition of nine rim planets."
Jirik looked thoughtful. "Hmm. You're right, it is hard to believe that a planet could go from a few, scattered mines and camps to a worldwide network of dedicated civic types in a few years. Any idea what happened?"
Bran shrugged. "Not yet, Captain. But I did buy both that five-volume monstrosity and a pop-level book about the author, a Dr. Ran Atmos, and his work. Maybe I'll get some hint from that, I'm going to review it tonight. Maybe I'll be able to tell you more tomorrow. This thing really bothers me. I want to know what the hell's going on!"
"Well," Jirik replied indifferently, "I can't say that I care too much, unless it somehow affects us or the Lass. Now, tell me about the repairs."
Bran straightened in response to the businesslike note in Jirik's voice. "Making progress, Captain, but it's slow going. That little asteroid pebble really messed up our Inertial Drive Generators – both of them. With the 'help' of those ham-handed cretins that call themselves a repair crew, I've finally managed to get one of the drives torn all the way down, and a damage survey completed." He held up a small piece of twisted ferroceramic. "This used to be part of the main impeller turbine. When the asteroid penetrated the drive casing, it must have hit the turbine. The turbine explo
ded like a bomb. The generator casing is full of fragments. This is the largest piece that I could find." Bran sighed deeply.
"Everything outside the casing is salvageable, of course, and I think that I may be able to get the holes in the casing itself molecularly bonded if bonding is available here, and if there's no other damage to it. The casing wasn't warped, at least. I'll have to wait for the stress analysis results before I'll know for sure whether we can salvage the casing. The problem is that DIN-class Combat Carriers aren't common out here. Every part that we'll need will have to be machined. Of course, we have all of the engineering specs. Thank heaven for bureaucratic redundancy. If the Lass wasn't military surplus, she probably wouldn't have come with all the component machining programs." He smiled wryly. "I've stumbled over that damned box of microdiscs thousands of times. Never thought I'd be glad it was there."
Jirik had listened intently to Bran's recitation. "What about the other drive generator?"
"I don't know yet, Captain. Projecting the asteroid's course through the hull and the generators, I'm sure that the other generator is in better shape than this one. From what I can tell from an external examination, the asteroid didn't pierce the casing, but it gouged a big groove in it, weakening it beyond use. I'm hoping we'll be able to get molecular bonding done here. If so, we may just need to replace the external components. I'm going to begin pulling it down tomorrow, if I can leave those idiots that call themselves a 'repair crew' alone long enough!"
Jirik hid a smile at Bran's words. Bran was a perfectionist, and regarded the Engineering decks as his own private domain, jealously guarded, even against the rest of the crew. Being forced to permit groundhog work crews not only on his spotlessly sterile decks, but even to work on his beloved engines was sheer torture for Bran. His irritation and frustration echoed Jirik's own trader's fury and disgust over the delays and costs that the accident had caused.
"What's your best estimate of repair time?" Jirik asked, "And what have Valt and the Jankys kid been up to? I've been so damned busy in that rented office that I'm out of touch."
Bran sighed deeply. "I can't give you a very exact estimate until I get into the other generator, Captain, but I would say two weeks at least. I can't order parts made until I know what parts we'll need. I believe that I can have the first generator on line in ten days to two weeks, if no new problems arise." He shrugged expressively. "I can't even hazard a guess on the other one. If only the externals were damaged, I may be able to repair it from stores once the gouge is bonded, and no additional time will be needed. If there's internal damage, it's anybody's guess."
"As for Valt and Tor," He continued, "Valt is useless. He's totally ignorant about everything but astrogation, and not interested in learning. You know how he is in port; his liberties are non-stop orgies of booze and sex." Jirik nodded. Jori's orgiastic excesses were a never-ending source of irritation for Jirik, who had many times had to bail his astrogator out of planetary jails, or deal with irate husbands and parents.
"Well," Bran continued, "On Boondock, he has a problem. Women are seriously outnumbered by men here, and as a result, women are held in high regard. Since nearly any Boondock woman can get a husband any time she wants, there are very few prostitutes. Valt's usual pursuits simply aren't available on Boondock. Not that he hasn't tried. He's been beaten up four times so far for insulting a woman. It seems that heavy-world women aren't to Valt's taste. So, he drinks. A lot. He hasn't come back to the ship sober since we got here. If there's anything more annoying than trying to get Valt to do something other than navigation, it's trying to do it when he's hung over. I finally sent him back to his nav compartment to compute cargo distribution and fuel requirements for our next leg, but I suspect that all he's been doing is nursing his hangovers and watching those damned porn vids of his." Valt's collection of pornographic vids was legendary. Both his sleeping compartment and the Astrogation compartment had their walls lined with vid chips, whose contents ranged from intriguing to disgusting. Nearly all of what Valt had left over from his orgies was spent on enlarging his collection.
Jirik snorted disgustedly. "I've about had all I can take from Valt. What about Tor?" Tor Jankys had been picked up on Corona. His father was a farmer with seven sons. He realized that Tor was not suited to farm life, and used his life savings to buy Tor's share after the Lass' Comm Officer paid off after a fight with Valt. Tor was still excited by the transition from farmer's son and student to crewman on a Free Trader. The trip to Boondock was his first space voyage.
Bran smiled gently. "Well, you know Tor. He's excited as hell about being a spacer, and determined to learn everything there is to know in record time. He's like a puppy. He's been trying to help me, but all he's really accomplished is getting underfoot and driving me crazy with questions. I think that he's spending most of his off-duty time at that university of theirs; it's the only place around with lots of kids his own age."
"All right," Jirik said briskly. "I hadn't realized how out of touch I've gotten until now. These damned repairs and cargo negotiations have kept me so busy that I don't even know what's going on with my own crew. That, at least, is going to change. As soon as we finish here, I'm calling a crew meeting. I'm worried about the repairs. We've already been here more than a week, and another two weeks means a hell of a lot of down time. With the repairs and delivery penalties eating into our operating capital, we'd better come up with a good cargo to get us back to the inner worlds. Well, I'll save that for the meeting. In the meantime, I'll begin taking Tor with me. He can do a lot of the legwork, and generally be my 'Gofer'. It's time he learned how cargoes are contracted anyway, and it won't hurt him to watch me deal with the damned ship's chandlers and repair contractors."
"Valt is a different problem," Jirik continued, his lip curling in disgust. "I can't believe that a spacer could be so shallow. I want you to take him, and work his lazy ass off. I want you to sweat the alcohol out of him, and I want him so exhausted that he collapses into his bunk every night. We've tolerated his laziness for too long. He's entitled to his free time," Jirik added viciously, "But he doesn't have to enjoy it. I want him to either 'shape up or ship out', as the saying goes. We'll leave here with either a better crewman or a new Astrogator!"
"That's all well and good, Captain," Bran replied, "except for a couple of details. Whatever else he is, I must admit that Valt is an excellent astrogator – and he may not be easy to replace out here. I might also mention that with our operating capital depleted by penalties and repair costs, I doubt we could afford to buy out his share." He raised a hand to forestall Jirik's heated objection. "I do think that working his ass off is a reasonable course of action, though I don't relish the job. As long as you're prepared to deal with a lengthy series of complaints and whine sessions, I guess I can try to shape him up. Now, if you really want to call a crew meeting, I suggest you get on with it. I'm worn out, and in this gravity, I really need my rest to keep those thumb-fingered 'repairmen' from tearing the old bitch down around our ears!"
Jirik assembled his crew on the Mess Deck. Valt Willem was obviously hung over. Almost a hundred and ninety centimeters tall and classically handsome, Valt was nearly always the very picture of health. Now, however, that handsome face was marred by his obviously hung over condition, as well as by the assortment of black eyes and plastiflesh patches bearing mute testimony to his eventful liberties. His usually spotless and knife-edged uniform was dirty, rumpled and disheveled. Valt stared morosely at the table in front of him, his misery obvious.
The youngster, Tor Jankys was nearly as tall as Valt, but there the similarity ended. Where Valt was graceful and lithe, Tor was broad and muscular. Fortunately, his youthful face was always cheerful and smiling, keeping him from being physically overwhelming and his graceful movements from being threatening. But his face was also suffused with a simple wholesomeness and lack of guile that inspired confidence. Despite his lumbering physical presence, he displayed an enthusiasm and a sense of wonder that made the
others feel ancient. Now, he was bright-eyed with interest, chattering excitedly with the laconic Bran, and stuttering with embarrassment when talking with Jirik, whom he obviously idolized.
"All right," Jirik announced, "Settle down. We've got business." He glanced at the log recorder on the table, and said, "For the record, this is a crew meeting to discuss Ship's Business. All shareholders present." He concealed a smile as he noticed Tor straighten and flush with pride at the word "shareholders." The kid's excitement at being a spacer never ceased to amuse Jirik.
"First off," Jirik began, "I'm not happy with the pace of the repairs. Bran and I have been carrying too much of the load, and there are going to be some changes. Tor," The boy jumped as though shot, and Jirik continued, "I think that it's time you started to learn about the really dirty part of spacing – dealing with ship's chandlers and cargo agents. Starting tomorrow, you'll come with me; and don't count on getting a whole lot of free time – You'll be busier than you were on that farm on Corona.
"Valt," Jirik rounded on the astrogator, his face darkening with anger. "I've had enough of you moping around here like a hung-over zombie. Tomorrow at 0700 Local you report to Bran for work detail, and you'd better be sober. I don't really care if you're hung over, because if you are, you're going to regret it. I want these damned repairs completed within two weeks. If that means that you and Bran work 20-standard-hour days, then so be it. But we're losing credits every minute that we sit on our butts on this mudball."
Anger darkened Valt's pasty face, and brought a gleam to his previously dulled eyes. "Damn it, Captain, I don't have to take that! Sure, I've been drinking a little more since we got here, but you haven't been out into town. There's not a whorehouse on this bloody planet, and what whores there are are pigs; pale, homely bitches with big asses and no imagination. And the other women on this bloody planet are snooty bitches who just want to talk, for deity's sake. You'd think that the men, at least, would be more reasonable, but they act like these bitches are goddesses or something." His whining voice took on an aggrieved tone. "There's not even much porn on this backward, bloody hell of a planet. There's nothing else to do but drink!"
The Rim Rebels Page 2
