Supergiant (Gigaparsec Book 2)

by Scott Rhine

  She sat in the same room as the dental assistant scanned Max’s mouth. The staff was reluctant to allow her presence until she uttered the magic words, “I’m paying.”

  The station dentist diagnosed microfractures in four molars. “This has to be painful.”

  “Only when I’m under stress or drink something cold,” Max said.

  “To do it right, we need to use nano to reinforce all four.”

  She had employed similar techniques to patch concrete and hull fractures. Nano was expensive because of the extreme precision and safety standards required. The new matter had to be biocompatible without leaching existing calcium. Given the menu of choices, she picked the porcelain composite that would last the rest of Max’s life, even if he elected to have life-extension treatments. As a hero trained on Anodyne, he was certainly eligible.

  “That’s going to be pricey.” The dentist named a figure equivalent to months of her old salary after taxes. Roz wasn’t sure she could afford a boyfriend. “I’ve only got half that in portable credits. It could take me a week to transfer the rest.”

  “Because you’re transients, I have to ask for payment up front.”

  She sighed. “Kesh won’t like this.”

  Max had a twinkle in his eye when he said, “You mean giving up the good stuff from his collection?”

  Confused, Roz tried to play along. “Kesh will have to pay import taxes and sales taxes, plus storage fees and transport fees. It’ll eat him alive, but what else can I do?”

  “What good stuff?” asked the dentist.

  “The governor’s wine collection, of course. The Montrachet alone goes for a few thousand a bottle,” Max replied.

  “Not the Earth vintages,” she said, trying to sound heartbroken. “He was hoping to save that for Phoenix. It’s worth its weight in gems there.”

  The dentist licked his lips. “Maybe we could work out a trade. If you don’t charge for something, then there’s no tax. I might be able to save you a transport fee or two.”

  Max showed him the catalog on his wrist unit, displaying the products on his forearm. They settled on 600 credits for the dental scan and cleaning, plus two of the premium bottles. Max handed over a business card. “If you know anyone else interested in fine wines, we’ll be selling off the remaining catalog in eleven days at that auction house. Remote bids will be accepted.”

  From the lobby, Max contacted Reuben on the ship’s comm and ordered some wine. “While you’re at it, bring all three cases of samples to the baggage check-in at the public shuttle, along with our bags.”

  Roz said, “Don’t forget the geodes. Kesh wanted us to deliver them to the jewelers on our route.”

  “I can’t carry all that, woman,” Max objected.

  “I’ve rented a buggy to haul our gear. We can’t take taxis that far, and the only complete railroad line goes from the spaceport to the iron range.” Other railways were being built by prison labor camps.

  “Yeah, but …”

  “Problem?”

  “I never learned how to drive,” he whispered with embarrassment. “I came from a low-tech preserve where cars were banned. When I was a medic in the Navy, my ambulance had a separate driver so I could concentrate on the patient. While hunting war criminals, the Turtles took care of transport.”

  Roz smiled. “I can fix and drive anything with an engine, Doc. I think I can manage a few lessons.”

  As Max rushed out to meet Reuben, the receptionist said to Roz, “You make a nice couple.”

  Her first instinct was to deny the assumption, but then Roz decided it should be part of their cover for the trip. “Thank you.”

  “Don’t worry. When a man settles down, he finds a steady job and makes something of himself.”

  Roz looked fondly at Max as he wound his way through the bazaar. “He already is somebody. He just needs someone to believe in him.” She left to catch up.

  Reuben navigated customs with skill. To prove that the cases were all free samples, he gave a couple bottles of Eden table wine to the customs agent along with a business card.

  When they returned to the dentist’s office, Roz said, “That’s the slickest bribe I’ve ever seen.”

  “It’s a way of life where I come from,” Reuben replied. “Government employees don’t get a regular paycheck. Everyone has a price tag.”

  Roz remembered what Ivy had told her about the Banker network. “Still feels like I should be arresting you.”

  Reuben smirked. “I like handcuffs.”

  As Roz opened the office door, Max cuffed him in the back of the head.

  “Ouch.”

  “There’s a lady present.”

  Roz giggled, something she hadn’t done in almost twenty-five years.

  Reuben went on his way, hauling the hand truck full of cargo.

  After the dentist completed his work, the receptionist gave Roz a receipt and a card. Inside was a certificate for free ice creams at an orbital dessert shop. “A gift. I know what it’s like to be a young couple starting with nothing.”

  Roz read the older receptionist’s nametag. “I don’t know what to say, Hettie. Thank you.”

  As Max stepped out to join her, he asked, “You okay? You look a little sad and misty.”

  “Hmm. Just someone restoring my faith in humanity. Now that your teeth are fixed, I want to take you to try something.”

  ****

  Max was reluctant to try the frozen treat at first, but Roz coaxed him into visiting Just Desserts. The proprietor brought over a banana split for each of them, with three flavors and three toppings each. The candy toppings had been 3D printed into shapes of stars, rainbows, and hearts. “Wow,” Max said. “You folks do this up right.”

  “Call me Herb.” He had graying, slicked-back hair, glasses, and a large smock covering a stocky frame. “My wife likes to show off her gourmet training. Ladies like the extra touch of elegance.”

  “So why is this place so deserted?” asked Max.

  Herb shook his finger at the pun. “The novelty has worn thin. Nobody wants cold stuff in space.”

  She could detect an Anodyne accent, which reminded her of her university days. After a single bite, Roz refused to accept this excuse. “Really? You can tell us.”

  “I’m not a guild member, so the breeders make me pay export prices for the milk. Nobody wants ice cream that expensive. This year, maybe next, I’ll retire. Who knows?”

  “Breeders?” asked Roz.

  “Sorry,” the old merchant said with genuine regret. “Back in the founding days, people who got caught breaking the fertility laws on Earth were sent here to the back forty of the galaxy. When the war loomed, Prairie grew faster than other colonies because it was considered a safe haven. If the Phib managed to wipe out every other planet, we could seal off the incoming jump point and preserve the Human race.”

  Roz said, “Better than the nose-bleeders on Ravenna. The chosen few are so concerned with keeping wealth in the family that they inbreed until the boys have trouble clotting.”

  Max cleared his throat. “Are all the Prairie settlers poor?”

  “Nah. Rich families wanted a safe haven, too. A lot of ranches cropped up after the massacre on New Hawaii. The breeder farmers had to form a guild to stand up to the ranchers and rail barons. The guild hates outsiders, especially businesses from the Lunar Oligarchy colonies.” The merchant’s eyes flicked nervously toward a passing space-station official. “Let me know if you need anything else. Enjoy.”

  When the crewmates were alone, Roz circled back to the spy issue that still bothered her. “Do you trust Kesh?”

  “With our cargo choices? Of course. He’s a financial genius. Those Harmony trees from Eden will make a great firebreak against grassfires for farms on Prairie.”

  She couldn’t talk about Banker spies in public, so she switched topics to the manifest. “What I don’t get is that the majority of our cargo is assorted grain. This place is a major grain producer. Why not buy it here and save t
he fuel?”

  “Because ships who buy food here are assumed to be selling it for obscene profits in Jotunheim. Like the old guy said, the farmers have some sort of guild, so they automatically mark up the orbital grain cost to take half that expected profit. We can offer our grain to other ships at a few credits under Prairie’s monopoly level, and they’ll buy all of ours first.”

  She liked how the smile softened his features. “Sneaky.”

  “If we have any grain left, Kesh will trade it for power crystals on Phoenix.” He paused to make appreciative sounds over the dessert. “This whipped cream is great.”

  She made a mental note, adding it to his favorites list.

  Chapter 6 – Traveling Salesman Problems

  Early Monday morning, Roz made certain the ship repairs were going well under Reuben’s supervision before leaving for the spaceport on Prairie’s surface. Filling out paperwork for the buggy took longer and the fees were higher than anticipated. Up front, the rental agency demanded a large deposit. “In the event of an accident between cities, a null is almost impossible to locate. You’ll need to rent a satellite tracker for your buggy.” What the stern clerk was really saying was that nulls couldn’t be trusted. Nulls tended to lack empathy for other sentients, and no one could tell what they were feeling. Normally when renting a vehicle, she listed whoever she was with as primary driver to avoid any conflict. This was the first time she would be traveling with another null.

  The second problem was more subtle. She filled out incidental paperwork while Max loaded the rear of the buggy. As the last line on her driver information form, she read, “I swear that in the last six months I have had no periods of fever, epilepsy, unconsciousness, or blindness?”

  The clerk shrugged. “We had an outbreak of Crimson Fever. Customers would lose their sight and crash. People would sue us, too. The lawyer had us add that language.”

  Silly as it seemed, after her incidents on the ship, she couldn’t sign the oath. “Oops.” She hit the Clear button on the computer form. “The company is paying for this, and I filled in everything wrong.” The second time, she put Max as the primary driver and herself as an add-on. The add-on had no affidavit to sign.

  “You a couple?” asked the clerk.

  Roz blushed. “He hasn’t asked my dad yet.”

  The clerk folded the papers from the printer and handed them over. “Put these in the glove box, and don’t let him speed.”

  “No, sir.”

  She drove. The warning proved unnecessary, as the buggy wouldn’t go above forty-five kilometers an hour. This put a serious dent in her plan, as she had estimated a rate of a hundred for the trip between cities. They would be on the road longer each day, and she mentally cut the city with one marginal restaurant and no product deliveries from the itinerary. Still, she and Max delivered two cases of geodes before they broke for lunch.

  That’s when things took another unpleasant turn. Her number-one pick for restaurants was closed. As she rattled the locked front door, a passerby asked, “Can I help you?”

  Why don’t these people say what they mean? A null like you must be trying to break in to steal something. “Don’t they cook lunch anymore?” Roz asked politely.

  “Sunday’s their biggest day,” explained the local. “Church crowd. They take Mondays off.”

  “Thanks,” Max said. “We’ll just find another restaurant.”

  The local man shook his head. “All the good ones are closed today. Slowest day of the week. Only place you’re likely to find open is the spaceport diner near the police station. They never close.”

  Roz couldn’t trust herself to speak. Her jaw trembled with rage. Is he trying to protect his whole city from her rampaging null gang?

  Max sensed her ire and stepped between them. “How’s the chow?”

  “The eggs and coffee aren’t bad.”

  Max grimaced. “Thanks.” He waved good-bye.

  Roz rested her head on the door. “Crap. This throws what’s left of our schedule out of whack.”

  “Who knew they rolled up all the sidewalks in town on Mondays? We have time for a local chef tomorrow.”

  “They don’t want our kind here,” Roz whispered angrily.

  “Come on. I’ll buy you some eggs. At least nobody’s going to steal our rig outside a cop diner.”

  The diner in question had actual newspapers for sale. Roz stared. “Why kill trees for this instead of an online info burst?”

  Max picked a paper up for a coin. “You said yourself that infrastructure for advanced tech takes time. Besides, can’t wrap a fish in my wrist computer. When in Rome …”

  Seating themselves in a booth, they waited for a waitress. Max flipped pages idly. “Plans are ramping up for the sesquicentennial.”

  “What?” asked Roz.

  “A hundred fifty years since founding,” explained a woman whose nametag read Mary Lou. “Going to be the biggest cheese festival ever. What can I get you, deary?”

  Max nodded to the slate over the main counter. “Number two, over easy, with jam.”

  He doesn’t miss much. Roz, who had been expecting a menu, fumbled. “Um … do you recommend the apple pancakes with the side of hash browns or the potato pancakes with applesauce?”

  “Most women order the salad,” said the waitress.

  So now I’m an overweight null? “Yeah. Most women don’t haul crates for a living. Give me the apple-pancakes meal and the potato-stuffed sausage meal. Add a large chocolate milk to go with my slice of peaches-and-cream pie.”

  Max didn’t look up from his paper. “The guild is talking about blocking milk sales to corporate worlds as part of their trade sanctions against the Lunar Oligarchy.”

  “Cutting off their own noses,” Roz said to the wall of paper. With a grain embargo, the locals could make alcohol or fuel with the excess. Not much one could do with extra milk. It sounded like the farmers already had a surplus of cheese.

  Betty Lou wrinkled her upper lip. “The oligarchs have done nothing but exploit the colonies to squeeze out as much profit as possible. They own all the ships. It’s been a fixed game for too long. Once we have a ship of our own, they’ll see.”

  Roz wanted to roll her eyes. This backwater place didn’t even have a construction shipyard. Any local company that mortgaged a ship from Jotunheim would side with the oligarchs to pay off the loans as soon as possible. Earth would collapse if the colonies stopped shipping food, and the ranchers’ families might suffer. No one would let that happen. “Right. Are you blocking milk to this table, too, or just letting it age?”

  “I’ll make sure it’s extra fresh for you,” said Mary Lou.

  When the waitress was gone, Max said, “She’s going to spit in your drink now. The whole idea was to blend in and listen.”

  Not the second date or dining experience I was expecting. The back page advertised something called a “Meat Raffle,” along with books about Union conspiracies: hidden prophecies by a secret forerunner race, how the oligarchs were manipulating the masses, and who was behind last year’s drought in the south. These people are so flaky we should put them in a breakfast bowl.

  By the time the food arrived, Roz was calmer. The first thing she tried was a forkful of his eggs. Max guarded his plate with an arm like a prison inmate. “Hey. You’re worse than the Saurians.”

  “Don’t be such a baby. You can have anything of mine you want,” Roz said.

  “I ordered what I wanted. I don’t want any spit-in food.”

  She took a deep drink of the chocolate milk. “Ahh.”

  “Gross. Let’s just hope you don’t catch anything.”

  “Or go blind,” she agreed, thinking of the Crimson Fever.

  “Huh?”

  “After dinner, I’m going to teach you how to drive.”

  Max looked apprehensive. “I thought we were going to check into the hotel. You’ve been all about having a nice, hot soak for that sore arm of yours.”

  “Yeah. We’ll be on the roa
d a little longer than I thought. We can get to a decent-sized town by sundown and sleep there if we leave in the next half hour.”

  “I guess. Can we wait till we’re outside town first? I don’t want anyone to see me.”

  The fragile male ego. “Sure.”

  He watched in disbelief as she demolished half the meal. “What?” she asked. “It might be a while till our next meal.”

  When the waitress wasn’t looking, Roz took sealable plastic bags out of her pocket for the rest of the meal, his toast included.

  “Um … is there something I should know?”

  “You ever go hungry?”

  “Once, when I was four. Then I learned to hunt and trap.”

  Roz lowered her voice. “As migrant workers, we ate twice a day, most days—a little bit of cold breakfast, usually leftovers, and warm dinner once we finished the day’s quota. Normally we didn’t eat till after dark. If we didn’t get back to camp in time, sometimes we went hungry.”

  “No wonder Jeeves likes you so much. You carry food on you all the time?”

  She raised an eyebrow. “And?”

  “You’re not a kid anymore,” Max said. “You don’t need to.”

  “At university, the cafeteria would close down for a week at a time for breaks and holidays. I didn’t have much cash my freshman year, only what I earned from tutoring math. You should have seen me at an all-you-can eat pizza place or buffet.”

  “Intermittent reinforcement,” he muttered.

  “One semester, a roommate borrowed my meal card and ran me out of money.”

  “Didn’t they make your roommate pay?”

  “She dropped out. Seems she attended more parties than classes. I had to work for building services for the rest of the semester.” Seeing the pity in his face, she hardened. “It’s okay, my dad always quoted the fable about the ant and the grasshopper. I bolted together bookshelves and repaired heating systems, which paid much better and more closely resembled my vocation than tutoring people who hated math.”

  “You’re part of a team now. We cover each other’s backs. We won’t let you starve.”