[STORY BEGINS HERE]
It was still light — light gray and raining — when I got back to my room at the autotel but since Frothup's day runs a bit over 27 hours, it didn't mean it hadn't been a long day. Once we'd been released from not-quite-durance-vile, we'd caught an indifferent meal in what passed for a lunch counter at the port. Afterward, Raub had headed back to his shop to work up alternatives for the sabotaged circuit breakers and I'd caught a bus back into town.
Our run-in with Port Security had worked out better than expected: though Port Control had flatly denied any chance of the sabotage happening while our squirt-boosters were under their care, the not-police had approached the matter with the cynical skepticism of good cops everywhere and worked their way down the list of every Port employee who could possibly have had access to them. A cleaner named Mallory had shown up for his shift while the vehicles were starting to be hauled to where Raub and I had looked them over. He'd stuck around just long enough take in what was happening; gate records showed him leaving shortly after. Port Security had sent an officer to his address of record, which turned out to be a vacant lot adjacent to the crater from the tanker crash. And that, on this still very Edger-like world, was just about that: he'd been hired without references and there's no official paper trail other than voluntary documents. At least for a certain value of "official."
I didn't hear those details at the time but I have my methods. This is, if it counts as "method" that my best friend is the ship's third-shift Security boss. With one of their own looking very questionable, Port Security decided their opposite numbers on Lupine needed to be brought up to speed; they may be a bit too suspicious of anyone from Earth on the Far Edge but in a crunch, Edgers tend to step right up. Part of stepping up involved an Edger custom I'd heard about but forgotten: they post criminals and debtors. Assault someone, skip out a bill, pull a hold up, dodge making restitution for a crime, run out on a trial or your spouse, flee an accident, whatever, it gets posted. They started out doing it literally, "Wanted" posters tacked up on corkboards and the like; you'll still find that for local stuff in small towns and stations, mining drifts and the like, but mostly it's on computer networks now, internet or even Fidonets in some places. Port Security ran a search on the cleaner's name to no avail — and then tried an image search on the suspect's work ID. The software's tricky but it worked better than you'd think. It turned up three possibles and a little more digging elimated two of them: one too young, one known to have skipped the planet. Number three was a bingo. Vandalism, five years back. It wasn't much as I'd count crime, tagging a building with a political slogan, but despite an attitude towards free speech that'd make the ACLU crow with delight, Edgers take property rights very seriously.
And speaking of free speech... There was a pamphlet shoved under the door of my autotel room when I got there, EARTHMEN GO HOME across the front and a wild mix of misinterpreted, misreported Earthside and NATO-space politics and paranoid accusations on the inside. Who knew the Trilateral Commission even knew about the Hidden Frontier? Or that the Kansas II territorial government was run by non-humans? Despite overheated, ALL_CAPS invective, I was pretty confident neither of the George Bushes nor Mr. Obama and Ms. Pelosi were crypto-Rosicrucians; but hey, I just fix Stardrives, maybe they all had me snowed, too.
I saved it for the laugh value; C. Jay has a handsome collection of similar things, everything from Chick tracts to a made-up history text from Stalin Mir, where the old Soviets had very nearly managed to convince a generation born there that they and their "perfect" political system were all there was of Mankind. (It didn't work out, though the endgame probably would have gone on a lot longer had the USSR not. Visit the place now and you'll get no closer than low orbit; they even run their own shuttles. Suspicious doesn't begin to cover it and they're fanatical about self-sufficiency.)
Tried to reach Handsome Dave but he was off-duty and not responding; checked my watch (still on ship's time, CST just like Starship Company HQ) and my only choices for scuttlebutt were Drew or Conan the Objectivist.
The ratty little terminal built into the desk in my room had a blinking "Message" icon that finally caught my eye; navigated to the inbox and there was a note from Lupine's IS boffins with the URL for (limited) access to the ship's intranet. Shipname.ftl, as usual. I didn't expect it to be much use with the available hardware, but there was a text-based browser in the terminal's top menu and I was able to fumble my way to my official ship e-mail account.
A note from Handsome Dave confirmed they'd found a couple boosters with the same sabotage; sure enough, they'd been down and unloaded on the suspicious Mr. Mallory's shift. Ship Security — Sheriff Mike — had insisted on checking every single squirt-booster and Lupine's two de-miled landers (LRV's Hardaway and Snodgrass, better known as "Hard Way" and "No Way"). That was the only damage found other than somebody's forgotten and seriously forbidden ashtray on Snodgrass. Probably the squirt-booster tampering would have been caught on pre-flight and if not, probably it wouldn't have mattered much, no more that the one that made my trip down more exciting than it needed to be. On the other hand, a light load that just happened to mate those two squirt-boosters to a couple of cargo containers could have gone majorly wrong.
Dave added that he'd send us replacement breakers in the first trip down once Port and Lupine had squirt-boosters moving again, "maybe tomorrow." Ever the optimist.
Along with the usual routine stuff — new entries in TASKER automagically get e-mailed to everyone in Engineering, and we're not spared the same kind of work stuff you get, either — I found a note from Finley Michaels at Irrational, asking if I was ready to reschedule with them. I replied that I'd check on it, added the Chief to the recipients, logged off and turned in. It was just about full dark and the rain hissing outside was very nearly as soothing as the normal background sounds of my quarters aboard Lupine. I snuggled under the covers and drifted off.
For the second morning in a row, an unfamiliar alarm was going off and I groped for a light switch that, once again, wasn't there. Frickin' rent-a-phone! I found the lights and said a bad word; grabbed for the phone, knocked it to the floor and said a worse one.
Managed to repeat neither of them answering the phone. It was T. As usual, she started right in: "Hey, do you have contact numbers for Port Security?"
"What?"
"Didja get their card?"
"Do you have any idea what time it is?"
"Breakfast time. End of my shift. You're not up yet?"
"T: Planet. Non standard days."
"So what time is it?"
A fair question. "Just a minnit." There was a clock built into the console on the desk, dim-flowing numbers just visible if I sat up. "Four thirty ayem. Jeez."
"Um, 'oops?'"
"'Oops.' Hey, I'm up now. And I think I have a card with a number for the Port cops."
"Fan-tastic!"
I winced. It was too early to be that enthusiastic about anything, as far as I was concerned. But it turned out she was bursting with news, more than enough to finish waking me up:
"I'm going to be down there this evening, looking into the saba-toojie. And you'd never guess who Space Force Intel is sending!"
Hmph. Never guess, would I? Watson, a clue! Sleepy isn't the same as stupid; I've only officially met one USSF-I reservist aboard ship. "Rannie Wu?"
"Aw. You peeked."
"You know we've met." Sort of; at the time, I think she'd've been happy to have me tossed out an airlock for being the cause of her wasting time. "She's an investigator?"
"Closest they've got. Intel trained and you know what she does in the Purser's office."
"Not really, what?"
"She runs Internal Inventory! You can't tell me Engineering's never been in her sights."
"Aw, geez, double-eye. I've met her minions, trying to explain how a $57,000 phantasmajector tube is 'consumable supplies.' The Chief got their boss to back down. So that was her, hey?"
T kind of coughed, and went on, "She's sharp. Mike says USSF is sending a Regular Forces team aboard a Mad Russian courier but all he's got is a couple of names and an ETA about 40 hours from now."
That was a mark of just how much attention USSF was giving it — they'd much prefer using their own ships, few though they are. BisPosEtKom -- Russian for "Express Delivery Co." but hardly anyone calls them that -- flies tiny starships, which despite their minuscule mass carry enormous 'Drives and realspace engines and can probably beat anything flying. The huge Mad Russian fleet, started by ex-Soviet Space Arm pilots and techs, means there's usually one headed where you want to go. It wouldn't be much fun for the passengers or pilot; those things are crowded even when they're empty.
"So Sheriff Mike wants to have it all wrapped up before the cavalry arrives?"
T just snickered. That'd be a yes, then. No pressure.
"So why isn't he headed down?"
There was a pause. T was quieter when she replied. "The Captain. He's got to be here for that."
"For what? Are they going to have services already? Here? Why Mike?" Sometimes I'm not as clever as I like to think.
"No — Look, we go way back." She sounded grim. "You've seen a lot of things that aren't exactly common knowl—
"Are you trying to tell me Mike thinks somebody killed Captain James?"
Grim gave way to bleak, "We don't know. Medical says it's highly unlikely but Mike and USSF-I really suspect the timing. And that's all I'd better say."
"And way more than I should have heard. 'Unlikely?' T, it's impossible."
"I sure hope you're right."
While we talked, I'd been logging on to Lupine.ftl; during T's revelations, my e-mail had popped up and for want of a coherent response, I looked at the inbox list. The usual blather from Personnel, Medical, what looked to be routine stuff from Enviro & Physical Plant (Conan the Objectivist claims he's seen a BOIL AIR notice from them but I am pretty sure he's pulling my leg) and...a note from the Chief. He always sets them to ACK back to him and the sooner read, the happier he'd be:
Roberta, Report to Irrational local start of business for walk-through and training. Dave and locals will repair boosters today.
At least it gave me a way to deflect the subject. "Say hi to Handsome Dave, T; I'll bet you lunch money he'll be riding down with you and Lt. Wu."
"No bets; you cheat."
"I just wonder if he's met the Lootenant already? I'm expecting a full report"
T snorted. Dave's quite the ladies man but none too fond of the starchier sort of officers — or of the Purser's inventory-watching, penny-pinching minions. On the other hand, except for that and not being blond, the Eurasian USSF reserve officer fit his usual date profile: smart, not too tall and strikingly pretty. It could be an interesting trip.
I dug out Port Security's card and passed their contact info to T with a "See ya later." We were off the phone before I realized she'd neatly avoided one factoid: if USSF Intelligence was sending Lt. Wu to look into sabotage at Aberstwyth Port, who was running their side of the investigation into the death of Captain James? She'd very clearly said, "Mike and USSF-I." The more I learn, the less I turn out to know.
[TO BE CONTINUED]
09 March 2011
15 January 2011
War Poster
C. Jay (you would not believe what the C stands for, by the way) has a nice collection of ephemera and books -- stuff from the NATO and Russian worlds and a few things from the Far Edge like this poster, nearly fifty years old now:
Nobody who's seen it so far has any idea what the "Star Palace" was. Some kind of Edger venue, but what or where?
Nobody who's seen it so far has any idea what the "Star Palace" was. Some kind of Edger venue, but what or where?
06 January 2011
Frothup: Dropping In Part 7
[STORY STARTS HERE]
Even before the rain, it didn't look good. Oh, there were some pluses: we had not found the possible major booby-trap by getting ourselves exploded, for instance; and Aberstwyth proper was on the far side of the port's high, hollow-square berm. But blowing a big hole in the ground and spraying radioactives around is something of a social gaffe, even on the Far Edge — and even more so in a place where they have already had an overlarge share of flaming death from above. Run that by the force multiplier of what appeared to be mixed public opinion regarding the NATO worlds and.... What I said before. Didn't look good.
Raub was more hopeful. He wanted to hand this mess over to Port Security and I let him talk me into it.
I knew that Chief would balk at paying some ex-Edger bomb squad — assuming they even had one — ruinous fees for a possible booby trap that, if it was there at all, was probably on a timer or some kind of freefall switch. I didn't want to have to explain the expense to the Chief or the Purser's office, either. But better them than the citizenry of an entire planet who would be left with the mess.
So Raub called the Port Authority's not-cops and gave them a short summary of the situation. They told us to stay right there, then took about half an hour to arrive. We spent the time talking shop and watching the light rain. We'd ducked into the squirt-booster farthest away from the one that had the power plant got at. It was a big passenger double like the one I'd ridden down in; we'd popped the airlock hatch open and sat on the edge. It wasn't raining very hard but it was continuing to warm up and the humidity was rising, a far cry from the cool. clear morning. I commented on it and he looked surprised. "Yeah, this time of year, it rains at least every other day."
"Pretty big temperature swing, though."
"It is? I still think you've had too much shipboard time. This is normal."
It wouldn't've been, back where I spent my growing-up time, but I was saved a dialogue on comparative meteorology by a siren.
Let me explain something: starships don't show up every day. Even at a port frequented by the generally smaller and more numerous Edger ships, it's weeks between ships. Port Control can be a kind of routine affair, with the ancillary business of storage and surface transport predominating and what few full-time staffers there are operating in very narrow and well-worn mental ruts. Shift change had come and gone in the control center without a word and either our presence wasn't logged or the lone controller didn't bother to check when asked. So when Raub called Port Authority Security, they had called the control center, gotten a "Who-what?" response and despite his careful explanation, had taken things a little bit wrong. (I was miffed. What, sabotage to Lupine's squirt-boosters isn't gossip-worthy news?)
Security showed up expecting the very worst. Sure, they're not "real" police, but you'd be surprised how little those details matter when you are looking at the wrong end of what passes for a standard LEO-type weapon on the Far Edge: a copy of the WW II "grease gun," which even the select-fire edition of can ruin your whole day. The one riding — ha! — shotgun had his aimed at us from their little golf cart-looking vehicle from first clear sight.
It helps to be with a local. When the little quadricycle stopped, two uniformed officers hopped off and as the one kept cheap and nasty armament pointing at us, the other hopped out from behing the controls and barked, "Step down from there and put you hands up—"
Which we did.
"—Now move slowly over there — Raub?
He was quick to reply, "Yes, Matt. Um, good to see you?"
"Who's the woman — keep your hands up, Miss! — and what are you up to?"
Raub smiled. I don't know if I'd've been able to. "It's a long story and Port Control should be able to back us up...."
The big one who'd been driving, Matt, shook his head. "No they cannot. I think you two had better come with us."
At least he didn't handcuff us.
The Port Security team were not that different to police officers in your home town: they'd rather be safe than sorry. The good news was, we were going to get in out of the drizzle before it really started to rain. The bad news was, while we weren't quite under arrest, we weren't free to leave, either. They brought us in and abandoned us in the public office of Port Security, tucked in the rabbit-warren of spaces under the outer berm, a cross between a waiting room and a small-town police station, presided over by a cheerful and heavily-armed young woman behind a tall desk. I still had my phone and I made the call I should have made a half hour earlier.
The Chief wasn't answering. Next step was to go up a level — Sheriff Mike, or Dr. Schmid — but I tried the general Shop number first, hoping he'd be out there.
Nope. Handsome Dave picked up. He'd been chased chased out of his lair in the squirt-booster bays by Lupine's Security, who had that section buttoned up vacuum-tight. I gave him a sketchy outline and got as far as the suspicious hatch when he started to laugh.
"Oh, it's darned funny up there, pal. You're not stuck down here!"
"No,no, wait," he snickered. "Did you write down the ID number?"
Darned right I had. I read it off to him and there was a short silence, if muffled chuckling counts as silence.
"Yep, here it is. Power room wrote it up day before yesterday when they had to change out tow units. Latch is jamming. They had to force it."
I didn't have anything to say at first. I was grinning too widely. "You son of a—"
Raub had been chatting with the desk officer, a young-looking woman with a wide smile but he'd sat down next to me while I was talking. He broke in with, "—snake," and I echoed him.
Dave replied, "I'm the snake who just saved your hide."
"As soon as we figure out how to make it official, you mean. I need the Chief."
"Left about ten minutes ago, looking annoyed. I think he's in a meeting. I'll take this to him as soon as he's back."
I tried not to sound desperate when I asked, "Do me a favor: page him with it," thanked him and hung up. Stuck. I guessed I could invoke the Agreement and ask for a lift back but the odds of that working out didn't seem good. Sure did wish I'd brought something to read. The only magazines looked like security stuff, with titles I'd never seen before, things like"SWAT" and "Concealed Carry" and months or more out of date. Still, there was some hope; I figured I might as well smile and gave it a try.
Raub gave me a quizzical look. "Good news?"
"I hope so. Our guys — Lupine's, I mean — bunged that door up."
He looked thoughtfully into the distance. "It figures."
"As soon as I can get hold of my boss, we'll get this straightened out."
"Not him on the phone, then?"
"Unh, no."
He made no reply and the quiet stretched out and hung there. I blinked first. "Hey, what's the deal about snakes?"
"What?"
"When I was on the phone. And I've heard other people say stuff like that, too."
"Oh! That. It's from the war. It started as a joke and we never stopped."
"Okay, but what, exactly?"
He grinned, worries forgotten for the moment. "Simple. Any expression that refers to a person, place or thing, you substitute 'snake.' Unless it had a snake in it already, then it should be 'cow.'"
I took that in. "Um, why?"
"For fun! Because it confuses dirtsiders— er, sorry. I mean you guys. Old-worlders. No offense."
Old-worlders? Suddenly I'm European? But I caught his drift. "Okay. At least now I know. But if I'm a 'dirtsider,' what's that stuff outside under the grass?"
"Frothup. I guess it's dirt, too, but it's our dirt."
I gave up. Edgers! "Fair enough." I had another question but about then, the officer on the desk — her nametape just said JOANNA — looked over at us while talking into the air (Bluetooth, of course) and gestured us over. "Hey, you two. I think we're done with you."
As I later found out, the meeting the Chief had been called away to was a conference wall with Port Authority's higher-ups about my little mess and Lupine's side of it alone involved him, Dr. Schmid, Security Director Mathis, the Purser and a couple of her tame legal wranglers — and for all I know, a couple of chaplains, too. After Dave's page hit the meeting, we were almost in the clear; the only remaining problem was the curiously methodical damage, where it was happening and who was doing it: pretty much the same mystery we started with.
[TO BE CONTINUED]
Even before the rain, it didn't look good. Oh, there were some pluses: we had not found the possible major booby-trap by getting ourselves exploded, for instance; and Aberstwyth proper was on the far side of the port's high, hollow-square berm. But blowing a big hole in the ground and spraying radioactives around is something of a social gaffe, even on the Far Edge — and even more so in a place where they have already had an overlarge share of flaming death from above. Run that by the force multiplier of what appeared to be mixed public opinion regarding the NATO worlds and.... What I said before. Didn't look good.
Raub was more hopeful. He wanted to hand this mess over to Port Security and I let him talk me into it.
I knew that Chief would balk at paying some ex-Edger bomb squad — assuming they even had one — ruinous fees for a possible booby trap that, if it was there at all, was probably on a timer or some kind of freefall switch. I didn't want to have to explain the expense to the Chief or the Purser's office, either. But better them than the citizenry of an entire planet who would be left with the mess.
So Raub called the Port Authority's not-cops and gave them a short summary of the situation. They told us to stay right there, then took about half an hour to arrive. We spent the time talking shop and watching the light rain. We'd ducked into the squirt-booster farthest away from the one that had the power plant got at. It was a big passenger double like the one I'd ridden down in; we'd popped the airlock hatch open and sat on the edge. It wasn't raining very hard but it was continuing to warm up and the humidity was rising, a far cry from the cool. clear morning. I commented on it and he looked surprised. "Yeah, this time of year, it rains at least every other day."
"Pretty big temperature swing, though."
"It is? I still think you've had too much shipboard time. This is normal."
It wouldn't've been, back where I spent my growing-up time, but I was saved a dialogue on comparative meteorology by a siren.
Let me explain something: starships don't show up every day. Even at a port frequented by the generally smaller and more numerous Edger ships, it's weeks between ships. Port Control can be a kind of routine affair, with the ancillary business of storage and surface transport predominating and what few full-time staffers there are operating in very narrow and well-worn mental ruts. Shift change had come and gone in the control center without a word and either our presence wasn't logged or the lone controller didn't bother to check when asked. So when Raub called Port Authority Security, they had called the control center, gotten a "Who-what?" response and despite his careful explanation, had taken things a little bit wrong. (I was miffed. What, sabotage to Lupine's squirt-boosters isn't gossip-worthy news?)
Security showed up expecting the very worst. Sure, they're not "real" police, but you'd be surprised how little those details matter when you are looking at the wrong end of what passes for a standard LEO-type weapon on the Far Edge: a copy of the WW II "grease gun," which even the select-fire edition of can ruin your whole day. The one riding — ha! — shotgun had his aimed at us from their little golf cart-looking vehicle from first clear sight.
It helps to be with a local. When the little quadricycle stopped, two uniformed officers hopped off and as the one kept cheap and nasty armament pointing at us, the other hopped out from behing the controls and barked, "Step down from there and put you hands up—"
Which we did.
"—Now move slowly over there — Raub?
He was quick to reply, "Yes, Matt. Um, good to see you?"
"Who's the woman — keep your hands up, Miss! — and what are you up to?"
Raub smiled. I don't know if I'd've been able to. "It's a long story and Port Control should be able to back us up...."
The big one who'd been driving, Matt, shook his head. "No they cannot. I think you two had better come with us."
At least he didn't handcuff us.
The Port Security team were not that different to police officers in your home town: they'd rather be safe than sorry. The good news was, we were going to get in out of the drizzle before it really started to rain. The bad news was, while we weren't quite under arrest, we weren't free to leave, either. They brought us in and abandoned us in the public office of Port Security, tucked in the rabbit-warren of spaces under the outer berm, a cross between a waiting room and a small-town police station, presided over by a cheerful and heavily-armed young woman behind a tall desk. I still had my phone and I made the call I should have made a half hour earlier.
The Chief wasn't answering. Next step was to go up a level — Sheriff Mike, or Dr. Schmid — but I tried the general Shop number first, hoping he'd be out there.
Nope. Handsome Dave picked up. He'd been chased chased out of his lair in the squirt-booster bays by Lupine's Security, who had that section buttoned up vacuum-tight. I gave him a sketchy outline and got as far as the suspicious hatch when he started to laugh.
"Oh, it's darned funny up there, pal. You're not stuck down here!"
"No,no, wait," he snickered. "Did you write down the ID number?"
Darned right I had. I read it off to him and there was a short silence, if muffled chuckling counts as silence.
"Yep, here it is. Power room wrote it up day before yesterday when they had to change out tow units. Latch is jamming. They had to force it."
I didn't have anything to say at first. I was grinning too widely. "You son of a—"
Raub had been chatting with the desk officer, a young-looking woman with a wide smile but he'd sat down next to me while I was talking. He broke in with, "—snake," and I echoed him.
Dave replied, "I'm the snake who just saved your hide."
"As soon as we figure out how to make it official, you mean. I need the Chief."
"Left about ten minutes ago, looking annoyed. I think he's in a meeting. I'll take this to him as soon as he's back."
I tried not to sound desperate when I asked, "Do me a favor: page him with it," thanked him and hung up. Stuck. I guessed I could invoke the Agreement and ask for a lift back but the odds of that working out didn't seem good. Sure did wish I'd brought something to read. The only magazines looked like security stuff, with titles I'd never seen before, things like"SWAT" and "Concealed Carry" and months or more out of date. Still, there was some hope; I figured I might as well smile and gave it a try.
Raub gave me a quizzical look. "Good news?"
"I hope so. Our guys — Lupine's, I mean — bunged that door up."
He looked thoughtfully into the distance. "It figures."
"As soon as I can get hold of my boss, we'll get this straightened out."
"Not him on the phone, then?"
"Unh, no."
He made no reply and the quiet stretched out and hung there. I blinked first. "Hey, what's the deal about snakes?"
"What?"
"When I was on the phone. And I've heard other people say stuff like that, too."
"Oh! That. It's from the war. It started as a joke and we never stopped."
"Okay, but what, exactly?"
He grinned, worries forgotten for the moment. "Simple. Any expression that refers to a person, place or thing, you substitute 'snake.' Unless it had a snake in it already, then it should be 'cow.'"
I took that in. "Um, why?"
"For fun! Because it confuses dirtsiders— er, sorry. I mean you guys. Old-worlders. No offense."
Old-worlders? Suddenly I'm European? But I caught his drift. "Okay. At least now I know. But if I'm a 'dirtsider,' what's that stuff outside under the grass?"
"Frothup. I guess it's dirt, too, but it's our dirt."
I gave up. Edgers! "Fair enough." I had another question but about then, the officer on the desk — her nametape just said JOANNA — looked over at us while talking into the air (Bluetooth, of course) and gestured us over. "Hey, you two. I think we're done with you."
As I later found out, the meeting the Chief had been called away to was a conference wall with Port Authority's higher-ups about my little mess and Lupine's side of it alone involved him, Dr. Schmid, Security Director Mathis, the Purser and a couple of her tame legal wranglers — and for all I know, a couple of chaplains, too. After Dave's page hit the meeting, we were almost in the clear; the only remaining problem was the curiously methodical damage, where it was happening and who was doing it: pretty much the same mystery we started with.
[TO BE CONTINUED]
25 December 2010
On The Far Edge: Captain Mitch And His Spirit
[This's not my authorial voice but one from the other side of the line, a kind of gossip reporter for an Edger news site.]
I knew he was a glocker crewman the first time I saw him. The skinsuit gives them away; the working stiffs never bother to unfasten their gloves, even in civic pressure or on a planetary surface. He was sitting disconsolate in one of the little bars near the old cargo port on Smitty's World. These days, the big transfers use Newport, thirty miles away, big enough and modern enough to handle Earthside containerized freight in bundles and the fat, fourth-generation bell-ringers our guys use both independently and to carry cargo on and off the huge station-ships. The older ships and the smaller carriers still find it easier to get a spot in the pattern for the old port, easier to deal with the freight-wallopers and, perhaps, easier on their pride, too.
It was just 1900, 22nd December, Greenwich. Like most ships, stations and planets with cycles too far from the human norm, Smitty's kept strictly to Greenwich Mean Time, or as close as they could. These days, with the phase-rotation ansible and modern computational horsepower, that's close as anyone could want.
The bar'd made a few concessions to the calendar in the form of a bedraggled banner draped across the top quarter of the backbar mirror and twinkling little led lights circling the ceiling, sagging markedly in several spots. It wasn't doing anything for the glocker's mood; he sat by himself near the wall, attention on his sippie of station gin-and-water as though all the worry in the world was contained therein. Or perhaps an anodyne to it and he wasn't hopeful of a successful treatment. He looked up as the door -- and on Smitty's, most of them are merely doors -- jangled behind me and I caught the dark curls, hazel eyes and freckles of one of the Materjacks. Clearly not Micki or little Martha but that still left Mikey and Mitchell, Mark and Marvin, the whole lot of them originally out of some little industrial installation doing mining and refining around La-A's star, or maybe it was Otherstone's. They're all well-known among the smaller starships as fair pilots, navigators and captains, starting even before their father and family ship was lost on Ganymede, early during the war. Skiddoo had been serving as a gunship, all the younger family safely elsewhere, but an entire generation of Materjacks had flashed to a ball of steam and molten metal and with it, their legacy.
Stringing for the newssite FreeTradeCetera, I tried to keep up with the shipping news, the lifeblood of civilization, our Edge on the mudballers from old Earth. Oh, that is boosterism; but it is who we are. I had spent the first of the week at Newport and not paid much heed to the small fry.
"You, I should know," I said to him. "You might be the Martian or the Saint, or the young one--"
"Or the oldest," he replied, "And that is me, just old Mitch. But you, I do not know, with the big fine notepad" -- he nodded at my well-worn SlateBook -- "and the talk of a glocksman but you wear no proper suit for working," with a frown at my bared hands. He had my story soon enough, as well as any interviewer could. "So you write about the Free Traders and the big Earth shippers for the webs, is that so? You would know, then, if there were to be any openings for a Captain shortly?"
I demurred. "I know them when they're posted, same as you. Someone you know needs a berth?"
"Me. Just me. They've come and took my Spirit Of Skidoo and here I am, an honest man walking the docks with a lamp in my hand. Spirit is gone."
That pile of patches! It was coming back to me. One of the small ones, a Derby or a Cloche, with an older MOF 'Drive and only enough power and mass for the third-level effect: slow and uncertain. The Materjacks had put it together from salvage thirty years before and run short-haul freight to keep the family afloat. "I'd heard it was lost, bounced into a rock free-trading around Sol?"
"No, no, a rumor. Stove up. Stove up some, was all, and I had to sell my share to get her fixed, but the best Cloche flying is still at it and I was still her Captain. What a beauty! As shiny as a silver dime. Smooth as silk to land and in and out of the Jump. She shouldn't be carrying anything but shareholders and their luggage, you know."
"I'd heard her 'Drive tended to glitch and the boom was off-center?"
He replied with some heat, "It is a lie, a jealous lie. There was never a finer little bell."
"Wasn't she down to half a year per light-year underway?" I asked, just to see if he'd bite.
He leapt up. "Six months? Show me the man who told you that and I will show him six months all right! She goes two months per, and that with a light hold and half power! And a beauty, like to blind you under any light, all the portmasters know her."
"So the stories of air leaks and coolant in the lifesystem..?"
"Not one bit of truth in it. Not one bit. She was a beauty, a real beauty," and he slumped back over his sipper, took a long pull and looked near to tears.
I hate to see a man with years in Jump space and with stripes on his sleeves cry. I inquired how he'd come to lose her altogether before he sprang a leak himself.
"A misunderstanding, really, a misunderstanding. When you come right down to the rivets, it was Dutch's fault, my Navigator, though we both sat Pilot, of course. He was the one took on the 'prentice, though we all should have known better. There we were at Witherspoon's, full up with fuelwax" -- kerogen, that is -- "for The Rind, and he shows up with a youngster in tow. She looked young but she had all her papers; we'd had to leave Jack W., the Third Hand, back at La-A with a broken leg, him having lost an argument with the cargo-jack, and we were plenty tired of hash-and-eggs from Engineer Jo, plus if her precious 'Drives were out of true, why, she'd tell us to sling a packet in the 'wave if we were that hungry! It was a trial. --How I miss that neat, fine galley!-- But the 'prentice, she wasn't a Welles or a Witherspoon or a Faux-Smith and on Witherspoon Processing--"
I nodded. It's not that big a drift and if you're not born or married into one of the three families, you are a rare bird indeed.
"Mind you, those papers looked all right. Jo ran them and the local web said they were jake. 16, uncontracted, Basic rating."
Not unusual. If you're a NATO or Russky mudballer, 16 likely sounds young. We figure if you can claim your majority, you've reached it. Even for an underpowered cloche like Spirit of Skiddoo W-Proc to The Rind could be hardly more than four months, five at the outside, long enough to take a 'prentice's measure, short enough to not be a bother if he falls short. Or she.
"It wasn't until the second night out Dutch heard her crying. Took Jo to find out why. She was no sixteen and no Glocker 'prentice, either. Crystal Smith she was, the very granddaughter of the Smith himself, out to see the world."
A scion of Johnathon Harper Cameron Smith, Smitty, sole proprietor of the non-aligned (and sunless) world that bears his name. I told Mitch that sounded like a pickle, but no reason for a man to lose his command, and he nodded.
"You would think that, would you not? Dutch was sure there was money in it, and wanted to divert to whatever port or drift or station was nearest. Jo cursed our lack of an ansible -- you'd think the owners would have one piped in, her the finest Cloche in the firmament! -- and said we should head on Rind-wards and send a message out with one of those Mad Russian couriers after we'd docked. But that is not my way. No, I told them, no, we must get this little one to home, first and foremost, and keep it quiet to not embarrass her gran-dad. Oh, I was clever, clever!"
He paused in his narrative, drained the last few cc's from his sippie and gave it a significant glance. I was eager to hear how he got from a mission of mercy to a captain without a ship, so I waved the bartender over and got him a fill.
"Was I not so clever. We pushed her hard, my little Spirit; dropped out, reset and made the Jump here to Smitty's in under two months, almost--"
A run the big station-ships will do in a week and Gen Fours solo in a month.
"--And the Smith himself welcomed her back as a prodigy and us as heros. He'd have nothing for us but the best, the very best, the finest accommodations and whatever we wanted, entertainments every night and it was not even two weeks gone by before I got word."
I asked just what that word might have been.
"The owners! When we'd gone overdue at The Rind, they'd put out a circular to all their agents; and when their man here sent back we'd been seen on a drunken carouse for nigh the past week, he rounded up a crew and took her out, my very own Spirit." He returned his attention to his drink, pondered it and emptied the sippie as though its contents were only water. "So if you know of anyone out for a Captain, qualified as navigator and pilot alike, and very discreet, mention my name to them, will you?"
And with that, he turned away, as if he had gone suddenly shy of saying more.
I'm told Spirit of Skiddoo had life-support problems before she could get up enough velocity to Jump out from Smitty's and in the subsequent towing and repair, somehow word of the miscarried justice reached the desk of one J. H. C. Smith, Prop., Smitty's World; I cannot say precisely what happened from there, but I am pleased to report that by Christmas Eve, Captain Mitch Materjack and his crew were back aboard Spirit of Skiddoo with commendations to boot and perhaps the only glockers qualified to keep "the finest cloche in the starry sky" actually in the sky.
Merry Christmas from the Far Edge of the Hidden Frontier!
I knew he was a glocker crewman the first time I saw him. The skinsuit gives them away; the working stiffs never bother to unfasten their gloves, even in civic pressure or on a planetary surface. He was sitting disconsolate in one of the little bars near the old cargo port on Smitty's World. These days, the big transfers use Newport, thirty miles away, big enough and modern enough to handle Earthside containerized freight in bundles and the fat, fourth-generation bell-ringers our guys use both independently and to carry cargo on and off the huge station-ships. The older ships and the smaller carriers still find it easier to get a spot in the pattern for the old port, easier to deal with the freight-wallopers and, perhaps, easier on their pride, too.
It was just 1900, 22nd December, Greenwich. Like most ships, stations and planets with cycles too far from the human norm, Smitty's kept strictly to Greenwich Mean Time, or as close as they could. These days, with the phase-rotation ansible and modern computational horsepower, that's close as anyone could want.
The bar'd made a few concessions to the calendar in the form of a bedraggled banner draped across the top quarter of the backbar mirror and twinkling little led lights circling the ceiling, sagging markedly in several spots. It wasn't doing anything for the glocker's mood; he sat by himself near the wall, attention on his sippie of station gin-and-water as though all the worry in the world was contained therein. Or perhaps an anodyne to it and he wasn't hopeful of a successful treatment. He looked up as the door -- and on Smitty's, most of them are merely doors -- jangled behind me and I caught the dark curls, hazel eyes and freckles of one of the Materjacks. Clearly not Micki or little Martha but that still left Mikey and Mitchell, Mark and Marvin, the whole lot of them originally out of some little industrial installation doing mining and refining around La-A's star, or maybe it was Otherstone's. They're all well-known among the smaller starships as fair pilots, navigators and captains, starting even before their father and family ship was lost on Ganymede, early during the war. Skiddoo had been serving as a gunship, all the younger family safely elsewhere, but an entire generation of Materjacks had flashed to a ball of steam and molten metal and with it, their legacy.
Stringing for the newssite FreeTradeCetera, I tried to keep up with the shipping news, the lifeblood of civilization, our Edge on the mudballers from old Earth. Oh, that is boosterism; but it is who we are. I had spent the first of the week at Newport and not paid much heed to the small fry.
"You, I should know," I said to him. "You might be the Martian or the Saint, or the young one--"
"Or the oldest," he replied, "And that is me, just old Mitch. But you, I do not know, with the big fine notepad" -- he nodded at my well-worn SlateBook -- "and the talk of a glocksman but you wear no proper suit for working," with a frown at my bared hands. He had my story soon enough, as well as any interviewer could. "So you write about the Free Traders and the big Earth shippers for the webs, is that so? You would know, then, if there were to be any openings for a Captain shortly?"
I demurred. "I know them when they're posted, same as you. Someone you know needs a berth?"
"Me. Just me. They've come and took my Spirit Of Skidoo and here I am, an honest man walking the docks with a lamp in my hand. Spirit is gone."
That pile of patches! It was coming back to me. One of the small ones, a Derby or a Cloche, with an older MOF 'Drive and only enough power and mass for the third-level effect: slow and uncertain. The Materjacks had put it together from salvage thirty years before and run short-haul freight to keep the family afloat. "I'd heard it was lost, bounced into a rock free-trading around Sol?"
"No, no, a rumor. Stove up. Stove up some, was all, and I had to sell my share to get her fixed, but the best Cloche flying is still at it and I was still her Captain. What a beauty! As shiny as a silver dime. Smooth as silk to land and in and out of the Jump. She shouldn't be carrying anything but shareholders and their luggage, you know."
"I'd heard her 'Drive tended to glitch and the boom was off-center?"
He replied with some heat, "It is a lie, a jealous lie. There was never a finer little bell."
"Wasn't she down to half a year per light-year underway?" I asked, just to see if he'd bite.
He leapt up. "Six months? Show me the man who told you that and I will show him six months all right! She goes two months per, and that with a light hold and half power! And a beauty, like to blind you under any light, all the portmasters know her."
"So the stories of air leaks and coolant in the lifesystem..?"
"Not one bit of truth in it. Not one bit. She was a beauty, a real beauty," and he slumped back over his sipper, took a long pull and looked near to tears.
I hate to see a man with years in Jump space and with stripes on his sleeves cry. I inquired how he'd come to lose her altogether before he sprang a leak himself.
"A misunderstanding, really, a misunderstanding. When you come right down to the rivets, it was Dutch's fault, my Navigator, though we both sat Pilot, of course. He was the one took on the 'prentice, though we all should have known better. There we were at Witherspoon's, full up with fuelwax" -- kerogen, that is -- "for The Rind, and he shows up with a youngster in tow. She looked young but she had all her papers; we'd had to leave Jack W., the Third Hand, back at La-A with a broken leg, him having lost an argument with the cargo-jack, and we were plenty tired of hash-and-eggs from Engineer Jo, plus if her precious 'Drives were out of true, why, she'd tell us to sling a packet in the 'wave if we were that hungry! It was a trial. --How I miss that neat, fine galley!-- But the 'prentice, she wasn't a Welles or a Witherspoon or a Faux-Smith and on Witherspoon Processing--"
I nodded. It's not that big a drift and if you're not born or married into one of the three families, you are a rare bird indeed.
"Mind you, those papers looked all right. Jo ran them and the local web said they were jake. 16, uncontracted, Basic rating."
Not unusual. If you're a NATO or Russky mudballer, 16 likely sounds young. We figure if you can claim your majority, you've reached it. Even for an underpowered cloche like Spirit of Skiddoo W-Proc to The Rind could be hardly more than four months, five at the outside, long enough to take a 'prentice's measure, short enough to not be a bother if he falls short. Or she.
"It wasn't until the second night out Dutch heard her crying. Took Jo to find out why. She was no sixteen and no Glocker 'prentice, either. Crystal Smith she was, the very granddaughter of the Smith himself, out to see the world."
A scion of Johnathon Harper Cameron Smith, Smitty, sole proprietor of the non-aligned (and sunless) world that bears his name. I told Mitch that sounded like a pickle, but no reason for a man to lose his command, and he nodded.
"You would think that, would you not? Dutch was sure there was money in it, and wanted to divert to whatever port or drift or station was nearest. Jo cursed our lack of an ansible -- you'd think the owners would have one piped in, her the finest Cloche in the firmament! -- and said we should head on Rind-wards and send a message out with one of those Mad Russian couriers after we'd docked. But that is not my way. No, I told them, no, we must get this little one to home, first and foremost, and keep it quiet to not embarrass her gran-dad. Oh, I was clever, clever!"
He paused in his narrative, drained the last few cc's from his sippie and gave it a significant glance. I was eager to hear how he got from a mission of mercy to a captain without a ship, so I waved the bartender over and got him a fill.
"Was I not so clever. We pushed her hard, my little Spirit; dropped out, reset and made the Jump here to Smitty's in under two months, almost--"
A run the big station-ships will do in a week and Gen Fours solo in a month.
"--And the Smith himself welcomed her back as a prodigy and us as heros. He'd have nothing for us but the best, the very best, the finest accommodations and whatever we wanted, entertainments every night and it was not even two weeks gone by before I got word."
I asked just what that word might have been.
"The owners! When we'd gone overdue at The Rind, they'd put out a circular to all their agents; and when their man here sent back we'd been seen on a drunken carouse for nigh the past week, he rounded up a crew and took her out, my very own Spirit." He returned his attention to his drink, pondered it and emptied the sippie as though its contents were only water. "So if you know of anyone out for a Captain, qualified as navigator and pilot alike, and very discreet, mention my name to them, will you?"
And with that, he turned away, as if he had gone suddenly shy of saying more.
I'm told Spirit of Skiddoo had life-support problems before she could get up enough velocity to Jump out from Smitty's and in the subsequent towing and repair, somehow word of the miscarried justice reached the desk of one J. H. C. Smith, Prop., Smitty's World; I cannot say precisely what happened from there, but I am pleased to report that by Christmas Eve, Captain Mitch Materjack and his crew were back aboard Spirit of Skiddoo with commendations to boot and perhaps the only glockers qualified to keep "the finest cloche in the starry sky" actually in the sky.
Merry Christmas from the Far Edge of the Hidden Frontier!
17 December 2010
In Space, The Connectors Are Not Flatulent
The Hidden Frontier comes to Earth: PEI-Genesis offers a full range of space-rated connectors. Outgassed, even, to keep them from failing in interesting and dangerous ways.
Riddle me this, Mr. Detective: if NASA (+.mil), commercial satellite folks, SpaceX, Blue Horizon, Bigelow, Virgin Galactic and the various X-prize contenders are the only market, how're they turning these gadgets out in bulk without going broke? Total up all the known customers and you might use up a week's production at the connector factory to replace every vacuum-spec, low-magnetism, non-toxic plug and socket they're using.
Just thought I'd point that out.
Riddle me this, Mr. Detective: if NASA (+.mil), commercial satellite folks, SpaceX, Blue Horizon, Bigelow, Virgin Galactic and the various X-prize contenders are the only market, how're they turning these gadgets out in bulk without going broke? Total up all the known customers and you might use up a week's production at the connector factory to replace every vacuum-spec, low-magnetism, non-toxic plug and socket they're using.
Just thought I'd point that out.
07 December 2010
Lupine's Logo
I've mentioned before, "there's a doggie on the ship's stationary," and on the officer's uniforms, too. You'll find it on people's T-shirts and sweatshirts; passengers can even buy souvenirs. Those versions are mostly plain, dark-blue on off-white. Unlike the snarling wolf's head profile of her warship days, Lupine's merchant wolf is enjoying the ride.
On the sides of the ship's single largest pressure hull, there's this version by a top graphic designer, filling the full ten-story height:
Famous graphic designer? Yep. And you know him, too -- Mr. Robb Allen.
Now available on a T-shirt!
On the sides of the ship's single largest pressure hull, there's this version by a top graphic designer, filling the full ten-story height:
Famous graphic designer? Yep. And you know him, too -- Mr. Robb Allen.Now available on a T-shirt!
16 November 2010
Frothup: Dropping In, Part 6
[TO THE BEGINNING]
No cell signal inside the squirt-booster, of course, and it didn't look all that great in the big hanger; I found my way back to the human-sized door and stepped out into the sunlight. It seemed a little warmer already, though clouds were skipping overhead at a pretty good clip.
The Chief was my first call and it works unexcitingly just like calling a business -- dial up Lupine's temporary number and punch my way through the shipboard system. I tried to just stick to the facts, bare description, but he started asking questions before I'd gotten very far. Ended by telling me he was having "Dave, Jay and anyone else on shift" go check out the other boosters, and that he was grounding any we had at the port. Sometimes I think he's paranoid; but that doesn't mean he isn't right nearly all the time.
I went back inside and had about enough time to check in with Raub when his phone went off. Or phone-like device; he was carrying the same kind of gadget his buddy had used at the gate, looking like sort of a Soviet iPhone and it seemed to work just fine in the hangar. Edger tech, overbuilt, probably half of it from parts smuggled off Earth. (This is the galling thing about Edgers; lacking any strong central authority that bothers to do more than the most basic policing, short on population and, at least until recently, many kinds of industrial infrastructure, they regard smuggling as a sort of a game. But that trade runs both ways, as it must; I am convinced the papers that started our side down the path towards stealth technology was based on information sold by an Edger smuggler low on trading fodder who needed bucks for blue jeans or beer — or a roller bearing or a breeding pair of guinea pigs; which reminds me, avoid the hot dogs and lunch meat on their side of the line).
While I was following that train of thought to its unlunchly end, Raub had plenty of time for a semi-mysterious conversation, at his end mostly consisting of monosyllabic questions: "They did? Just now?" "About an hour and a half." "Where?" He gave me a couple of unreadable looks through all that, ended the call and sighed. "Feel like a change of scenery? You and me, we are the 'experts' now."
I tried to look innocent. Failed, as usual. "Which means...?"
"It's off to the port for us — they're hauling all your boosters to the far side of the field and we gotta check them." He turned back to his phone and punched numbers.
I'm not going to detail the trip back to Aberstwyth Port, but there are some aspects worth mentioning. Naturally, there's a more or less direct route to the port from the North side of Southport/South end of Aberstwyth and it's not named after any ancient deities, either. But calling it "Road 215" didn't make bumping up and down through rolling farmland on an unfamiliar gravel road, at a rate of speed and in a pickup truck that appeared to have been "improved" from a collection of random truck-like parts any less, ahem, "thrilling." My driver was revealing a nearly shocking amount of leg and grinning like a fool, clearly after every last erg the drivetrain could turn into speed. I wasn't even sure what the truck had been to begin with. The few labeled controls and indicators were no help, though a lot of the markings looked like Chinese. I was pretty confident the speedo was calibrated in kph but after it passed 100, I stopped trying to read it. Yeah, I hurtle unafraid through hard and hostile vacuum outside of normal reality for a living; I ride aboard a starship as big as a medium-sized city as it plunges into solar systems at an appreciable fraction of the speed of light. I even fall to planetary surfaces in landing craft that don't have enough lift or motive power to fly for more than a few minutes, and cheat at physics in order to set down, and relish the experience. But I'm still a chicken in ground vehicles. The landmarks are too close, the other drivers and random critters are even closer and there isn't even any central traffic control keeping tabs on it (most places — ask me sometime what Kansas II has instead of railroads). What would happen if we met up with one of those driverless trucks?
I needn't have worried. The road was wide and smooth; the only other vehicle we saw was a truck headed the other way, a big flatbed with a few tarped shapes in the back. The driver favored us with a cheery wave and as we rushed past, I saw the flying saucer logo on the door and the name INNOVATIVE. Raub noticed me noticing — I wished he was looking at the road — and said, "Yep. We just about own this road. Even do our own grading."
We arrived at the port intact, under increasingly cloudy skies. It was already warm enough I'd struggled out of my sweatshirt in the truck, one more distraction from the drive. Raub checked in at the gate and we followed increasingly-worse lanes around the huge berm. On the far side from the city, there was a series of beat-up concrete pads. Five of Lupine's squirt-boosters were laid in a row there and a funny-looking hauler was bringing another one out.
A fussy-looking gent with a clipboard was waiting as we parked, and trotted right over to the truck. "Which one of you is Mr. 'Ecks?'"
Geesh, another one. "I'm Miz Ecks, Mr.—?"
He held out a clipboard. "Port Control. Sign here."
Man put my back up. "What's this, Mister 'Port Control?'"
The man sniffed. He actually sniffed. "Your bill. For hazardous haulage. Plus fine for operating dangerous vehicles. Additional fees for special storage." He seemed primed to continue.
I made my eyes all big and innocent. The "big eye" part was easy; by then I'd found the total, a staggering sum. "Gosh, I can't sign that. You'll need an officer. Did you Cc Lupine command?"
He looked daggers at me.
Raub had been looking on with a half-smile. Now he leaned in, right hand on his hip, shirts pulled tighter over a shape that could have been a holstered gun; Edgers tend to consider personal protection a do-it-yourself art. "Knock it off, Jim," he said, "At this point we don't even know if there is a hazard. Whyn't'cha let us find out before you total up the bill?"
"But- but-" indignation was warring with fear and just about to lose,"What about the powerplants?"
Raub shrugged. "No moving parts. Jimbo, I went over the one in our shop myself and it's clean. These, we'll find out -- and if it worries you, git."
I wouldn't've put it that way. On the other hand, I don't work for Frothup's main starship repair yard. With a last, schoolteacher-stern stare at me, the port agent turned and tromped off towards the ungainly vehicle that had finished dropping off the sixth squirt-booster.
Raub turned to me. "He's not a bad guy, really. Transferred out here from the Port Admin offices downtown after the Cut & Run crash, though, and he's never really got used to it."
I nodded.
"Hey," he asked, "How many of these things are down?"
A text message had buzzed into my phone on the way but I'd been bouncing too much to risk a close look. I fished the thing out of my purse and had a look. "Eight, counting the one in your hanger. Guess they haven't brought the final one out yet."
"Tellya what -- let's both go through the one in the middle, then split up and work our way out."
It sounded like a plan to me and I said as much, adding, "You won't need my help on the software unlock?"
He didn't turn a hair. "Nope."
The "middle one" turned out to be a bingo, the same MO only with a nice scratch down the the front of the power supply and a little etched spot in the deck. Somebody was after our squirt-boosters and they'd darned near succeeded in creating a nasty incident — and a medium-sized crater. By the middle of the afternoon, under skies gone overcast and climbing temperatures, we'd found three more. Raub had found something else and called me over: scratches and gouges where someone had been trying to get at the power plant of an otherwise unsabotaged squirt-booster, or possibly succeeded. It was the one that'd been hauled out last, after we'd already started checking them out.
I'm not sure how much I can explain about that power source; while if properly handled it's as safe as a Russian lighthouse or even safer, it is a little bit classified and tends to worry the fretful. Individual units are fat cylinders like overgrown LP gas tanks and they're incredibly rugged. Drop 'em from high enough, though— Just about anything will melt and/or splatter, even rocks.
Looked like somebody was a belt-and-suspenders saboteur. Until that find, I was still hoping that it was, somehow, defective parts or some bizarre maintenance mistake.
We stood there, looking at the thing, and I figured I needed to say something. "It could be worse," I ventured, "it could be—"
"Don't say it."
"—raining?"
It started to drizzle.
[TO BE CONTINUED]
No cell signal inside the squirt-booster, of course, and it didn't look all that great in the big hanger; I found my way back to the human-sized door and stepped out into the sunlight. It seemed a little warmer already, though clouds were skipping overhead at a pretty good clip.
The Chief was my first call and it works unexcitingly just like calling a business -- dial up Lupine's temporary number and punch my way through the shipboard system. I tried to just stick to the facts, bare description, but he started asking questions before I'd gotten very far. Ended by telling me he was having "Dave, Jay and anyone else on shift" go check out the other boosters, and that he was grounding any we had at the port. Sometimes I think he's paranoid; but that doesn't mean he isn't right nearly all the time.
I went back inside and had about enough time to check in with Raub when his phone went off. Or phone-like device; he was carrying the same kind of gadget his buddy had used at the gate, looking like sort of a Soviet iPhone and it seemed to work just fine in the hangar. Edger tech, overbuilt, probably half of it from parts smuggled off Earth. (This is the galling thing about Edgers; lacking any strong central authority that bothers to do more than the most basic policing, short on population and, at least until recently, many kinds of industrial infrastructure, they regard smuggling as a sort of a game. But that trade runs both ways, as it must; I am convinced the papers that started our side down the path towards stealth technology was based on information sold by an Edger smuggler low on trading fodder who needed bucks for blue jeans or beer — or a roller bearing or a breeding pair of guinea pigs; which reminds me, avoid the hot dogs and lunch meat on their side of the line).
While I was following that train of thought to its unlunchly end, Raub had plenty of time for a semi-mysterious conversation, at his end mostly consisting of monosyllabic questions: "They did? Just now?" "About an hour and a half." "Where?" He gave me a couple of unreadable looks through all that, ended the call and sighed. "Feel like a change of scenery? You and me, we are the 'experts' now."
I tried to look innocent. Failed, as usual. "Which means...?"
"It's off to the port for us — they're hauling all your boosters to the far side of the field and we gotta check them." He turned back to his phone and punched numbers.
I'm not going to detail the trip back to Aberstwyth Port, but there are some aspects worth mentioning. Naturally, there's a more or less direct route to the port from the North side of Southport/South end of Aberstwyth and it's not named after any ancient deities, either. But calling it "Road 215" didn't make bumping up and down through rolling farmland on an unfamiliar gravel road, at a rate of speed and in a pickup truck that appeared to have been "improved" from a collection of random truck-like parts any less, ahem, "thrilling." My driver was revealing a nearly shocking amount of leg and grinning like a fool, clearly after every last erg the drivetrain could turn into speed. I wasn't even sure what the truck had been to begin with. The few labeled controls and indicators were no help, though a lot of the markings looked like Chinese. I was pretty confident the speedo was calibrated in kph but after it passed 100, I stopped trying to read it. Yeah, I hurtle unafraid through hard and hostile vacuum outside of normal reality for a living; I ride aboard a starship as big as a medium-sized city as it plunges into solar systems at an appreciable fraction of the speed of light. I even fall to planetary surfaces in landing craft that don't have enough lift or motive power to fly for more than a few minutes, and cheat at physics in order to set down, and relish the experience. But I'm still a chicken in ground vehicles. The landmarks are too close, the other drivers and random critters are even closer and there isn't even any central traffic control keeping tabs on it (most places — ask me sometime what Kansas II has instead of railroads). What would happen if we met up with one of those driverless trucks?
I needn't have worried. The road was wide and smooth; the only other vehicle we saw was a truck headed the other way, a big flatbed with a few tarped shapes in the back. The driver favored us with a cheery wave and as we rushed past, I saw the flying saucer logo on the door and the name INNOVATIVE. Raub noticed me noticing — I wished he was looking at the road — and said, "Yep. We just about own this road. Even do our own grading."
We arrived at the port intact, under increasingly cloudy skies. It was already warm enough I'd struggled out of my sweatshirt in the truck, one more distraction from the drive. Raub checked in at the gate and we followed increasingly-worse lanes around the huge berm. On the far side from the city, there was a series of beat-up concrete pads. Five of Lupine's squirt-boosters were laid in a row there and a funny-looking hauler was bringing another one out.
A fussy-looking gent with a clipboard was waiting as we parked, and trotted right over to the truck. "Which one of you is Mr. 'Ecks?'"
Geesh, another one. "I'm Miz Ecks, Mr.—?"
He held out a clipboard. "Port Control. Sign here."
Man put my back up. "What's this, Mister 'Port Control?'"
The man sniffed. He actually sniffed. "Your bill. For hazardous haulage. Plus fine for operating dangerous vehicles. Additional fees for special storage." He seemed primed to continue.
I made my eyes all big and innocent. The "big eye" part was easy; by then I'd found the total, a staggering sum. "Gosh, I can't sign that. You'll need an officer. Did you Cc Lupine command?"
He looked daggers at me.
Raub had been looking on with a half-smile. Now he leaned in, right hand on his hip, shirts pulled tighter over a shape that could have been a holstered gun; Edgers tend to consider personal protection a do-it-yourself art. "Knock it off, Jim," he said, "At this point we don't even know if there is a hazard. Whyn't'cha let us find out before you total up the bill?"
"But- but-" indignation was warring with fear and just about to lose,"What about the powerplants?"
Raub shrugged. "No moving parts. Jimbo, I went over the one in our shop myself and it's clean. These, we'll find out -- and if it worries you, git."
I wouldn't've put it that way. On the other hand, I don't work for Frothup's main starship repair yard. With a last, schoolteacher-stern stare at me, the port agent turned and tromped off towards the ungainly vehicle that had finished dropping off the sixth squirt-booster.
Raub turned to me. "He's not a bad guy, really. Transferred out here from the Port Admin offices downtown after the Cut & Run crash, though, and he's never really got used to it."
I nodded.
"Hey," he asked, "How many of these things are down?"
A text message had buzzed into my phone on the way but I'd been bouncing too much to risk a close look. I fished the thing out of my purse and had a look. "Eight, counting the one in your hanger. Guess they haven't brought the final one out yet."
"Tellya what -- let's both go through the one in the middle, then split up and work our way out."
It sounded like a plan to me and I said as much, adding, "You won't need my help on the software unlock?"
He didn't turn a hair. "Nope."
The "middle one" turned out to be a bingo, the same MO only with a nice scratch down the the front of the power supply and a little etched spot in the deck. Somebody was after our squirt-boosters and they'd darned near succeeded in creating a nasty incident — and a medium-sized crater. By the middle of the afternoon, under skies gone overcast and climbing temperatures, we'd found three more. Raub had found something else and called me over: scratches and gouges where someone had been trying to get at the power plant of an otherwise unsabotaged squirt-booster, or possibly succeeded. It was the one that'd been hauled out last, after we'd already started checking them out.
I'm not sure how much I can explain about that power source; while if properly handled it's as safe as a Russian lighthouse or even safer, it is a little bit classified and tends to worry the fretful. Individual units are fat cylinders like overgrown LP gas tanks and they're incredibly rugged. Drop 'em from high enough, though— Just about anything will melt and/or splatter, even rocks.
Looked like somebody was a belt-and-suspenders saboteur. Until that find, I was still hoping that it was, somehow, defective parts or some bizarre maintenance mistake.
We stood there, looking at the thing, and I figured I needed to say something. "It could be worse," I ventured, "it could be—"
"Don't say it."
"—raining?"
It started to drizzle.
[TO BE CONTINUED]
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