Meet me at Pierre’s, w4552. J
White zone, she thought and looked down at her stained
fatigues. Totally inappropriate.
Cookie led the off duty crew out of the lock but stopped
near the dockside ramp and waved to her. “Meriel, we’re heading for the
TarnGirl. Gonna join us? John will be there.” He gave her another cagey smile.
“Sure. Later,” she said. “I need to finish up and do some
shopping first.”
A few hours later, Meriel and her crew finished unloading,
and she walked down the blue-zone docks wearing a more stylish bracelet link
heading for white-zone to meet her lawyer. But white-zone was special, with
fancy shops and clubs intended for station administration and finance personnel
that were too bright and expensive for spacers. So Meriel altered her course to
green-zone for a more suitable dress.
Once in green-zone, Meriel paid cash for some stationside
clothing. She picked out a versatile high-collared outfit that would cover her
scar and mimic a range of styles and then pressed a tab on the sleeve to select
the “little black dress” option as the most neutral. Discussing the orphans
with a lawyer violated the no-contact court orders, so without thinking, Meriel
stuffed her fatigues into her bag, lowered her head to hide her face from the pervasive
surveillance cameras, and left the store camouflaged within a group of women.
Well-dressed adults and children without the lean and
nervous look typical of spacers filled the white-zone concourse. When passersby
looked at her, their generous smiles disappeared, and their eyes narrowed with
suspicion. Meriel felt out of place and wondered if her simple dress made her
too obviously a stranger. Then she remembered that the cold looks might simply
be the security scans of android nannies.
At Pierre’s, a uniformed man briefly glanced at a link,
smiled warmly, and opened the door for her. Past the door, she entered a busy
public square with a ceiling so high that clouds drifted above. Tiny white and
pink blossoms drifted in the air from the cherry and plum trees surrounding the
square, and pigeons pecked at seeds between the cobblestones. Artists sketched young
couples while mimes entertained the children, and the scents of coffee and
pastries drifted past. A jazz trio near the corner played something upbeat. Meriel
smiled and switched the dress option from black to a white sundress with a rose
print.
“Ms. Hope,” a voice called, and Meriel turned to see a man
waving from a small table at an outdoor café nearby. It was Jeremy looking
quite professional in an impeccably tailored business suit. She walked over,
and they shook hands. Then he pulled out a chair for her. No spacer would ever treat
a woman this way, so she blushed. He snapped his fingers, and a waiter brought
over a glass containing a dark-red liquid.
“Nice, huh?” he said. “It’s Montmartre, Paris, on Earth.
That’s the cathedral behind me.”
Meriel smiled. “Is this all for me?”
“Yes, of course, my dear,” he said with a broad smile and a
flourish of his arms. “Really, my clients invited me to lunch here,” he said,
but his sincerity was insufficient to overcome her anxiety and impatience.
“The drug impound was supposed to be a technicality and
temporary, Jeremy. That’s what you’re working on.”
“Let’s order first.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“I insist,” he said. He called the waiter over and ordered
something in French. She looked for the kiosk that would sync with the dietary
profile on her link but did not find it. Jeremy just smiled and shook his head.
When the waiter left, Meriel leaned over the table. “She’s
ours, Jeremy. The Princess is ours.”
“Not for long. They want to close the case as a drug deal
gone sour. The Princess has been impounded for a decade, and the station
wants to recoup the dock fees. Forfeiture will let them do it.”
“My folks would never do anything like smuggle drugs,” she
said. “And they never found anything to implicate the Princess or crew.”
“No one has adequately explained an attack in deep space,
Meriel. A bad drug deal is the easiest interpretation.”
“And the most convenient,” she said. “If they ruled it
piracy, the merchant fleets might refuse to fly.”
“Yes, yes, and the stations would die without the trade,” he
said. “You’re right of course, and it’s all circumstantial. If the Princess
had simply disappeared, they would write it off as bad nav or pilot error.
Showing up the way you did leaves only piracy or smuggling, so they’re stuck
with a drug drop as the only acceptable explanation.”
“But they have no evidence!”
“Absence of evidence is not proof of innocence,” he said. “With
all else equal, the simplest explanation, the one with the fewest assumptions,
is usually the truth. That’s how they see this.”
“That’s Occam’s razor, Jeremy. We have science and facts
now.”
“Meriel, these are judges, not scientists, and law is much
older than science. Most scientists believe everything taught is the truth and
build on that; they extrapolate in one direction or another. Judges see
scientific explanations as temporary agreements that live only until better
explanations arise. From Newton to Einstein and now Nakamura, science evolves
better explanations. The judges have nothing but speculation, but it is the
most logical and useful speculation.”
“Useful for them,” Meriel said.
The waiter came back with two small plates. Gracing her
plate was a pastry containing a variety of fruit and vegetable sprouts surrounded
by abstract patterns drawn in dark-brown and red sauces.
Meriel stared with her mouth open. Oh my God. She leaned
over to Jeremy. “Is this fresh?” she asked quietly, and Jeremy smiled and
nodded. Meriel blushed with fear. “Am I paying for it?”
Jeremy grinned at her discomfort, leaned back, and shook his
head. Meriel sighed, having been saved from a debt she might never be able to
repay.
“Enjoy it. My clients have paid for it all,” Jeremy said.
“Where were we?”
“Jeremy, they have no proof.”
“Your parents are guilty until proven innocent. It’s
Napoleonic law out here, Meriel, not like America before the UNE.”
“How can they do this? My folks never did anything wrong,”
she said while toying with her lunch.
“They were in debt,” Jeremy said.
“Everybody’s in debt. They’d never carry anything illegal or
dangerous. Papa even did long jumps to keep us near stations.”
“It was a big debt,” Jeremy said.
“Never, J, never!”
“Then prove it.”
“We were just kids, Jeremy. We had to depend on the Biadez
Foundation investigation, and the private investigators never seemed to get any
further. I don’t have a lead.”
“Get one.”
“My ship will stop at Enterprise next week, and I can stop
by the Princess.”
Jeremy shook his head. “You’ll need a court order and that
will take too long.”
Meriel sighed. “Then what the hell can we do now?” She
clutched the sim-chip on her necklace. “The police went over every bit of
computer data on the ship and found nothing—the pirates wiped all of it.” She
held out the sim-chip for Jeremy to see. “And the police screwed with my chip.
It’s the only thing my mom left us, and they screwed with it. The police and
troopers went over every inch of the Princess, every deck plate and
hidey-hole, and found nothing but a pair of counterfeit designer shoes and some
unidentified hair.”
“That hair came from a stim user, Meriel.”
“Not our crew! Not on our ship!” She threw down her fork,
leaving her lunch untouched, and lowered her head to hide her tears. Jeremy put
his hand on hers.
In a soft voice, she said, “The cops took everything, Jeremy,
even our stupid toys. Liz and I don’t even have a single photo of our folks.
And now they’re taking our ship.”
Jeremy laid a handkerchief by her hand. “Photos of the
adults could be dangerous for the kids, Meriel,” he said. “They’re still in
protective custody.”
Meriel took the handkerchief and brought it to her eyes. “Well,
I’m not,” she said. “And so what?” She held out her sim-chip again. “This and
the Princess are all my sister and I have to remember our folks and our
friends. The other kids have nothing at all.” She shook her head and exhaled
slowly.
“What about an extension?”
“Extensions are usually automatic…but not this time.”
“Can we buy her?”
Jeremy shook his head. “They’ve got the bid they want and
closed the bidding. They did it without any announcement.”
“Is that legal?”
“For an impound that’s damaged, yes.” Jeremy leaned over the
table. “Ms. Hope, as your counsel, it is my responsibility to advise you that a
settlement has been offered to you first, not to the station.” He pulled out a
link and displayed the offer letter. The sum, in bold, was a fantastic amount
of money.
Meriel whistled. “That’s almost enough to buy a new ship.”
“Almost. It’s like they’re trying to discourage opposition.”
“Like me.”
Jeremy nodded. “Or our mutual friend.”
He means Teddy. “They don’t want me to have my
ship but will compensate me when they steal her. This stinks.”
“I must advise you that you’ll lose everything if you pass
up this offer. If we let the remaining time expire you’ll forfeit your rights,
including any remainder from the proceeds. You’ll get nothing. Finding exculpatory
evidence in less than three weeks is unlikely, and that information would still
be subject to the ruling of the court. And that can never be certain.”
Meriel remained quiet.
“The settlement can set you up, Meriel.”
“You mean buy me off,” she said. She was ready to spit or
cry but not sure which.
“As your counsel I advise you to be prudent and take the
cash if you cannot meet the court’s demands. Make your peace with this and move
on. Lots of people would say you’ve been through enough.”
“It’s not about me, Jeremy. It’s about the kids. They’ve got
nothing—parents gone, ship in a graveyard, no future. All we’ve got is the Princess
and each other. That bid will not go very far split between eight of us.”
“Don’t misunderstand, Ms. Hope. The offer is to you alone,
not to them,” he said.
“But I can’t just take it and run.”
“It’s not the Princess, and it’s not a new
ship, but it’s something, even if it is split eight ways.”
“It’s not enough to save us from drifting into danger if
we’re alone,” Meriel said. “Did Teddy tell you about when Penny went missing?”
Jeremy shook his head.
“Penny is a real pretty kid—” Meriel began to say.
“It runs in your family,” Jeremy said with a playful smile,
but Meriel just tilted her head and did not recognize his compliment.
“People always told Penny that she was pretty, but her folks
played it down, hoping that she might not let that define her. Well, on her
ninth birthday, she disappeared from a play area on Ross.”
“What about her biotag? Her link?” Jeremy asked.
“I’ll get to that. Anyway, the kids scoured the station for
her with no luck. Sam Spurell, Tommy’s little brother, found her. Sam was
looking after her because her older brother got spaced on their prior ship.
That’s why the Hubbards joined the Princess. Well, Sam knew that Penny
wanted something for her mom for Mother’s Day, and a vid might be the thing. He
found her just down the boardwalk in a dress-up shop. He called us, and we all
rushed there.
“We found Penny in tears. They had her all tarted up with
big hair and lots of makeup, so she looked like she was going on twenty years
old—unrecognizable. But Sam recognized her. My dad called the station police,
and there was a big fuss. Apparently, the shop owner had lured her in with free
vids for Mother’s Day. But the shop had a jammer to mask the biotags, and it
made her untraceable.”
“EtnaVid?” Jeremy asked, and Meriel nodded. “I heard of
them. Lucky you found her in time.”
“Not luck. Family. They closed them down after that.”
“I heard. What happened to Penny?”
“Penny’s mom got her out of there before the shouting and
took her and us girls to a legit photographer. They scrubbed her makeup off,
washed her hair, and redid her in very subdued makeup with a French braid. She
was gorgeous. The photographer offered to introduce them to an agent, and her
folks had the good sense to say no. But he kept a copy of the photos for
advertising.”
“You saw it?”
“Yeah. It’s still there,” she said. “And Penny has only
gotten prettier. You can’t hide beauty like hers. We all know she’s gonna waltz
into a white-zone party when she gets older and walk out with a prince. But
I’ll bet Sam will be two steps behind him, checking his pedigree.” Meriel took
a breath. “We nearly lost her, and without the family, we would have. We’re
stronger together, Jeremy. I want this for them.”
“It doesn’t change things with the Princess.”
Meriel tried her pathetic kitten look. “There’s nothing you
can do?”
“Not and keep my license to practice,” he said.
Meriel looked as though she was going to say something, but
Jeremy shook his head. “I can’t help you if I lose my license.”
Meriel sighed and stared at her uneaten lunch. “How many
days to decide on the money?”
“Ten days, ET.”
“Damn. How can they do this? My folks never did anything
wrong.”
“Then prove it. Bring the judges a better explanation—means,
motive, opportunity. They have nothing but speculation, but it is the most
obvious speculation. I’ll do all I can to help.” The link on his wrist buzzed
and he looked at it. “Excuse me, Ms. Hope I have another appointment. Please
advise me soonest of your decision.”
He rose and they shook hands briefly, but rather than let go,
he held her hand and put his other hand over hers. She blushed again at the
attention.
“Now, business aside,” he said with a steady gaze, “I did
mention that the authorities moved the Liu Yang to the impound dock,
yes?” When Meriel nodded he smiled and let go of her hand. “Great to see you
again, Meriel,” he said and turned to leave.
Meriel watched Jeremy walk away and thought about what he
had said. Of course, she knew that the authorities had moved the Princess.
They had just talked about it, and he told her she could not visit legally. Then
why would—
The waiter interrupted Meriel’s thoughts with a polite bow.
“Pardon me, miss, but is there something wrong with your lunch? I am sure that
Chef Pierre would be happy to prepare something special if this is not to your
liking. Perhaps an ile flottante or raspberry crepes with crème fraiche?”
She had no idea what he was referring to, but said only, “No,
thank you. I’m sure that would be delicious, but I’m just not hungry.”
The waiter frowned slightly and raised an eyebrow, as if
forgiving a veiled insult. “As you wish. If I may, we will close for the
afternoon in approximately five minutes. If there is anything else I can get
for you, please just signal me.”
“Thank you,” Meriel said, and the waiter took her lunch
plate, the only fresh food she had been served in her entire life, away
untouched.
Meriel looked out at the busy square and the beautiful day
and sighed. The settlement for the Princess and her current savings
would buy her a vacation on Earth, perhaps in the real Paris, but it would only
be for her and only for a little while. And when she left, it would all be gone,
every physical reminder of the Princess and her childhood and her family.
Everything would be gone forever. Still, I would have something more than I
have now.
She pursed her lips. No. This is beautiful, but it’s just
an illusion. This is not my life. She would need to prove that the Princess
was not a mule and her parents were not drug dealers. But how do you prove a
negative? she wondered and rose to leave.
As Meriel walked out of the café, the hologram faded away,
and the space became featureless gray walls and ceiling. When the doors closed
behind her, the waiters and customers, all mindless androids, lined themselves
up against a wall and turned themselves off.
***
Meriel switched back to the “simple black dress” option and walked
to the edge of the torus to avoid the security cameras. She boarded a tram
headed for green-zone—where the regular folks went to relax, and the elites
went to tarnish their reputations. Her mission there was simple: score some
tranq boost to dispel her nightmares without taking the meds.
Neon holograms flashed outside the transparent ceramic
window. Another tram passed in sync with hers every few moments to balance the
mass and smooth the microgravity tremors with a compensating angular
acceleration. The view was the same from the tram on Runner Station in the Ross
128 system, which was where Elizabeth found her seven years ago, except she
remembered the flashing advertisements to be a lifeless gray.
***
There was no color in her life then, and the incessant advertisements
and colorful signage of the blue-zone bars and businesses that passed outside
the window left no impression on her. She was alone—three years after the Princess
attack. Her parents and friends were dead and her sister was light years away.
She knew what she had seen the day of the attack and could
not forget, no matter how much she wanted to. The anonymous faces in white
jackets with pleasant smiles had told her all the reasons why the Princess
attack could not have happened the way she had said, and they complimented her
on her rich fantasy life and creative imagination. But the smiles turned cold
when she couldn’t align her memories to the stories they wanted, stories of
drugs and intrigue that she could never believe. In their notes, her creative
fantasies became delusions that had to be controlled by medication.
After months of interviews, therapy, and separation, she
doubted herself, and unable to invent a story that made sense to her and them
both, she stopped fighting and took the medication.
Now at fifteen, she had no friends and desired none. There
was only the job and the biological need to be suitably compliant for the
leadership and the young men on her ship. She thought only of her mission to
get a part to repair her power loader, without which she would fail her cargo-2
rating and not see the increased income for another year.
Within that lifeless, gray world, a young blond girl
bordered the tram accompanied by an older woman who gave her a pathetic smile.
From somewhere, Meriel remembered the faces and returned the weak smile, but
there was no emotional tug of recognition, and she looked away. It was her
sister, Elizabeth, with Aunt Teddy.
Elizabeth sat next to Meriel and took her hand. “I’ve been
looking for you, Sis,” Elizabeth said.
“Uh-huh,” Meriel said.
“Where did you go, M?” Elizabeth asked. “I miss you.”
Meriel shrugged. The briefest memory flickered that once in
her life, this young girl meant more to her than life itself, but the thought
slipped away, and she just shrugged.
A tear rolled down Elizabeth’s cheek. “We’ve been at the
same docks, and you never come by,” she said. “You don’t answer my texts any
more. It’s like you don’t remember me at all.”
Meriel shrugged again and turned to the window wondering
when the blond person would leave.
Reflected in the window, Mariel watched Elizabeth reach out
to her. But just before touching the scar on Meriel’s neck, Elizabeth’s hand
clenched into a fist and her frown changed to a scowl. She pulled her hand
back, opened Meriel’s purse and rummaged through the contents until she found
what she was looking for—the meds, Aristopine, the same drug that the doctors planned
to give her and the other orphans from the Princess.
Elizabeth held the tube of meds up. Teddy nodded and tapped
her link a few times and looked up to check the tram stops. Four stops later,
Teddy waved to Elizabeth who took Meriel’s arm.
“Come with me,” Elizabeth said and stood.
Meriel rose reluctantly. “I need to pick up a part for my cruiser.”
“We’ll get that next, but first we need to stop here,”
Elizabeth said and led Meriel from the tram and through the green-zone corridors.
Meriel stopped and looked around. “Why are we going this
way?” Meriel asked. “I need to fix my cruiser.”
“Mom said you need my help. You want to do what Mom says,
don’t you?” Elizabeth said and Meriel nodded. “Well, then we need to go this
way. Come.”
Before entering the rehabilitation clinic, Elizabeth dropped
the tube of meds in the recycling chute at the entrance.
Elizabeth and Aunt Teddy stayed with Meriel for a week until
the meds had flushed from her system, and Meriel finally cried. The meds had
helped her push the memories of the Princess to the depths of her psyche
and dragged the memories of the kids down with them. Without the meds, it all
came back in a rush, but it wasn’t so overwhelming this time, because her
little sister had stayed with her through it all. It was there that she learned
techniques to control her symptoms, including conscious blinking and contact
with the other orphans to keep her grounded in reality.
When Elizabeth told her of the meeting in the tram, when
Meriel had just shrugged, it scared Meriel so much that she swore to her sister
she’d never take the meds again, regardless of the nightmares.
Her ship had noticed immediately because of her
noncompliance and the return of her night terrors. They tried to get her back
on the meds and threatened her with pulling her work card and certifications, but
after her sister scared her, she knew it was wrong.
Her shipmates didn’t help. “Meriel, just go with the flow,”
they had told her. “Take the meds and get along. Lots of us do it.”
At the time, she didn’t know what to tell them and just
remained quiet. What was she, all of fifteen and a half? Now she knew what to
say: Why take meds to adjust to a world that sucks? It’s seductive to
take a vacation from reality for a bit, hoping that things will be different
when you come back to real life, but life doesn’t change like that. Instead,
make the world adjust to you. You don’t need to be an ass or a bully,
but you don’t have to accept the crap either. Our ancestors didn’t stay
up in the trees and numb themselves to relieve their fear of tigers; they came
down and made spears.
Meriel’s spear was a lie, a disguise. And behind that
disguise, Meriel and Elizabeth worked out ways to fool the psych evaluations and
drug tests to keep Elizabeth and the kids from having the meds forced on them.
***
Meriel exited the tram and walked to her destination:
Heinhold’s, a bar for neighbors and upscale stationers with no business in green-zone.
It was dark, discreet, and nearly empty. She sat at the bar, and a huge bartender with a chin as big
as her fist came to her, drying a glass with a towel.
“What’ll it be?” he asked.
“Teddy here?”
Without moving his head, the bartender scanned her and then
the room and the door. He put his elbow on the bar and flexed a big, tattooed
bicep in front of her while pretending to polish the glass, and then he looked
back at her with a cold squint. “What do you want with her?”
“She’ll know. Just tell her that hope has returned.”
“No promises,” the bartender said. He walked to the other
end of the bar and picked up a link.
Above the bar, a large monitor displayed the latest news
from IGB, InterGalactic Broadcasting, one of the few honest networks out there,
and Meriel watched while she waited.
In business news, LML Corp, representing the Local Merchants
League, has added new routes to Alpha Station in the Alpha Centauri system and
nearby asteroid habitats. This is a result of the redesigned and rehabilitated
stations at Alpha and Proxima Centauri…
A nicely dressed woman about Meriel’s age sat next to her
and interrupted her thoughts. “Hey, spacer, need company?” she said and gave
her a professional smile.
Meriel noticed the subtle spacer tattoo on her inner wrist
and smiled back. “No, thanks. Bunk’s full, but have one on me.” Meriel gave her
a large tip, about a night’s worth. The woman smiled, genuinely this time. She
put her hand on Meriel’s arm and then left.
Must have lost her ship or her sailor, Meriel thought.
Tough life. That might have been Penny in a few years. Or me.
Meriel returned part of her attention to the monitor and the
news.
Top news in Sol System, recently elected UNE President Biadez
pledged to uphold the United Nations of Earth charter today at his inauguration
ceremony…
The bartender, still on the link, looked back at her and
stared for a few moments. Then he turned away. On the monitor, Biadez began his
inauguration speech.
My fellow citizens of Earth, we stand here on the brink of a
resurgence of Earth’s influence on the galactic stage after decades of
stagnation, a resurgence of the vitality and influence…
Meriel looked around the bar. A woman in an expensive
business suit, her black hair pulled back severely, now sat at a small table.
She might have been a CEO or a corporate lawyer. Her glasses shimmered
slightly—a heads-up display out of focus for anyone but the wearer. She looked
at Meriel with a broad smile.
Other than Elizabeth, this woman was the only person in the
galaxy in whom Meriel could confide: Theodora Duncan, her mother’s childhood
friend and nav-6 who was so good that she could work any ship, even navy.
“Hi, sweetie,” Teddy said with a smile and signaled for some
drinks. Meriel walked over, gave her a hug, and sat opposite her.
Meriel tipped her head in the direction of the girl who had
approached her earlier. “What’s her story?”
Teddy frowned and shook her head. “Don’t know. She doesn’t
work for me. I don’t have the heart to stop them. They’re all independent.
Pimps get spaced around here, and I make sure they know it.”
Meriel glanced back at the monitor on which Biadez continued
his inaugural address.
Teddy caught her glance and dropped her smile. “He’s still
your hero, isn’t he?”
“Who?” Meriel said. Teddy nodded in the direction of the
monitor. “Biadez? Well, yeah, I guess. No one forced him to help us, them, I
mean; his foundation didn’t have to help us.” The Alan C. Biadez Humanitarian
Foundation had helped them with their medical bills and relocation costs after
the Princess attack. The foundation also funded the investigation. “The
kids treat him like a grandfather. They still send him Christmas cards.
Anonymously, of course.”
“Does he ever respond?” Teddy asked through clenched teeth.
“Not really,” Meriel said. “We get those corporate bulk
e-mails. He’s a busy guy, and none of us takes it personally. We’re not
supposed to have any contact at all.”
Teddy sneered. “You know what I think,” she said.
“Yeah, I—”
“I think they’re a bunch of bastards.”
“You’re still mad because they cut you out of the custody
hearings.”
“No,” Teddy said. “Because they put you on meds so young.”
“Those were the shrinks, Teddy.”
“Sure, but the foundation paid for them.” The foundation was
the biggest donor and squeezed the others out, including Teddy, who had
petitioned so aggressively for custody of the kids that the court issued restraining
orders.
“That’s why I came, Teddy,” Meriel said. “Boost. My
nightmares flared up again when we started working the old Princess
routes. They won’t leave me now.”
“Boost is legal here, you know.”
“I can’t have a trail that shows I’ve got ’em, Teddy.
They’ll know I’m off the meds and pull my work card,” Meriel said.
“We’ll take care of you,” Teddy said. She tapped on her
bracelet, and the big bartender turned to her. Teddy nodded, and the bartender
picked up his link. “It’s more than the boost, M. What’s bothering you? Is
Jeremy making progress?” Teddy asked, referring to Meriel’s lawyer. “I heard
he’s visiting Lander.”
Meriel nodded but lost her smile entirely. “I just met with
him. We’re stalled in court-5 for the Princess. Jeremy says he needs
money for special legal talent.”
“You need a loan? How much?” Teddy asked. That was her
way—no conditions, no questions. But Meriel shook her head and played with the miniature
umbrella in her drink.
Teddy brightened. “Say, did I tell you I met Kenny
Grannath?”
“Ah, who’s he?” Meriel said without looking up.
“Grannath. Doesn’t ring a bell? His grandpa designed the Princess.”
Meriel frowned. “Uh-huh.”
“He said the Princess was his grandpa’s favorite. He
had a model on his desk wherever he worked. He showed me vids of the original
interior. Did you know the Princess was a private yacht? It was
gorgeous. The cargo bays moored private shuttles.” Teddy’s smile changed to
concern as she waited for Meriel’s response. “There’s something else. What is
it?”
Meriel looked up with pain on her face. “They’re gonna take
her, Teddy.”
“Who?”
“The Princess. And I can’t stop them.”
“No. How?”
“As a drug boat if I can’t prove we were clean.”
“By when?”
“The court gave us twenty-one days. Nineteen, now.”
Teddy shook her head. “Is bidding open? Can we buy her?”
“Jeremy said it was a private bid, and it’s closed.”
“That’s odd,” Teddy said. “It’s like they were trying to
preclude competing bids.”
“That’s what Jeremy said.”
“What court?”
“Enterprise,” Meriel said. “She’s still in impound.”
“I’ll talk to Jeremy. M…Don’t give up.”
“They’re trying to buy me off.”
“How much?” Teddy asked. Meriel showed her the settlement,
and Teddy raised her eyebrows. “This looks fishy. What’s your plan?”
“Well, talking to Jeremy and you first.”
“Uh-huh. Next?”
“Nick.”
“Take another shot at the sim-chip?” Teddy asked, and Meriel
nodded. “That’s low probability. We need a motive other than drugs, M. The Princess’s
nav systems said that they pointed you at a gas giant before you jumped. They
wanted you to disappear entirely.”
“Ships disappear all the time,” Meriel said.
“Too many to be random or systems failures. OK, we need other
motives. What else you got?”
Meriel leaned over the table and whispered, “If we stop at
Enterprise as planned, I may—”
Teddy shook her head and leaned back. Then she said loudly,
“I’m sure that anything you might consider is unquestionably legal.” She softened
her voice. “Let me look into it.” Teddy patted Meriel’s hand. “You’ve always
got a place here. You know that.”
“What about all the kids?”
“The court won’t let me near them, M.”
Meriel nodded. “The court orders.”
“Not unless they come out of protection, and I’m not sure
that’s a good idea. I’m still not sure it was a good idea for you to come out.”
“Then they’ll drift,” Meriel said.
“We won’t let that happen, M.”
They updated each other about the kids and friends over a
second round of drinks, after which the bartender gave Teddy a slip of paper
that disintegrated a few seconds after she touched it.
“See the man at the fish-and-chips stand around the corner.”
Teddy said. “Tell him you want the regular. Leave the money with Ed at the bar
on the way out. It’s not for me; it’s for them.”
“Thanks,” Meriel said. “Say, do you ever see Torsten?”
Teddy smiled, and her eyes softened. “Not since May, dear,
but he’s fine. He’ll be here in two weeks.”
“You ever think of going back to the Endeavor?” That
was Torsten’s ship, a midsize independent freighter that worked a vector from
Earth to Den 10.
“You know, I bought a ship just to chase him once,” Teddy
said with a smile and a drifty look. “A sleek job, real pretty, and I could fly
her by myself. Now? Nah. He’s got to come to me. He needs to be in space, and I
won’t have another.”
“Thanks, Teddy. I gotta go now.” They hugged again, and
Meriel left.
***
Meriel made her trade for boost as directed and changed her
course to blue-zone for the crew’s party. All the while, she wondered about
what to do to prove that the Princess was not involved in dealing drugs.
Two toughs leaned against the elevator door, and she decided to find another
route. She made sure not to make eye contact, but it didn’t matter.
“Hey, doll,” one of them said. “You got something of mine.”
Meriel ignored him and turned to find another lift.
“Hey, I’m talking to you,” the tough said.
She heard the footsteps behind her quicken, and she prepared
to run when a hulk of a man stepped out in front of her, picking his teeth with
a tiny fingernail.
“Hey, cruiser,” he said. He grabbed her bag, which caused
her fatigues to spill out, and then he made a grab for her.
Muscle memory engaged, and Meriel kicked her assailant in
the neck. He dropped to his knees holding his throat and gasping as he faded
into unconsciousness. The other two watched her, now more cautiously, but one
of them, wide-eyed and grinning with a stim dose, scooped her bag off the deck
and rummaged through it.
She wasn’t supposed to be there and could not leave her bag
behind as evidence.
“You owe me a scotch,” a voice behind her said. Meriel spun,
expecting a new assailant, but instead, she saw John Smith from the Tiger.
“I’ll be with you in a second,” she said to him and turned
back to her attackers. John did not look like a fighter, and Meriel prepared to
defend them both, but John walked up beside her.
“Cover your ears,” he said and held up a small tube. “Trust
me. Now.” She dropped her guard to put her hands over her ears while the
attackers closed in. John stepped in front of her and squeezed the tube. The
air around her assailants quivered and hazed, and a soft pop blew her hair back
gently, but the two men dropped to their knees, bleeding from their noses and
ears. John turned to leave, but Meriel walked over to the attackers, picked up
her bag and fatigues, and kicked each man in the groin.
“That was cruel,” John said as they walked away.
“What do you think they had in mind for me?”
“You know that guy?” John asked.
“God, no,” Meriel said.
“He called you ‘Cruiser.’”
“I think he was going for ‘slut,’” she said. “What are you
doing up here?”
“I could ask the same of you,” he said, evading her
question.
“Heading for the TarnGirl?” she asked while looking into the
shadows for threats.
“I have an appointment first.”
Meriel noticed John’s nonanswer and saw that he had a
package under his arm. She stopped. “What’s that?”
“Pharmaceuticals and—”
“Son of a…you’re dealing drugs,” she said and stared at him.
“No, no.”
“What is it?” she asked with a sneer. “Rejuve? Stim?”
“No, really, they’re life enhancing. It’s what we do on my
colony.”
Meriel wondered how she could be so wrong in her assessment
of him. “I don’t believe you.”
“Please, let me explain.”
“I can’t get caught with you,” she said, backing away and
checking for security cameras. “I’ll lose the kids.”
John frowned but continued. “Please, Meriel, nothing I have
with me can get you into trouble with the law. I promise.”
What is it about that face that I trust? she thought.
“They’re not illegal?”
“Not yet, not until our competitors find out about ’em.”
Meriel did not move, and John continued.
“Please, let me show you.”
Meriel nodded slowly, and they left for white-zone. John led
her to a plain building with a small green cross by the door.
“Hospital?” Meriel asked.
“Recovery facility. A clinic for physical therapy and
rehabilitation.”
John introduced himself to the receptionist and signed them
in as Mr. and Ms. Brown. Before Meriel had fully adjusted to the smells of
alcohol and disinfectant, a man in a white coat met them.
“You are Mr. Brown?” the man in the white coat asked. He
took off his name tag and put it in his pocket.
“Yes,” John said. “Pleased to meet you. Dr. Wo, is that
correct?” Meriel smiled and rolled her eyes at the transparent charade. “As
part of our quality control, my associate and I would like to review the
efficacy of the prior samples my associate left with you.”
“Yes, of course,” the doctor said. “This way please.” He led
them down a corridor to a small room where a patient sat in a chair covered
from head to foot in a gown. His face was protected by a hood from the harsh
clinical lighting.
“This is our burn unit,” the doctor said and showed them
into the room. “Hello, Phillip.”
The patient nodded, and the doctor sat on a stool facing
him. “Phillip, may we see your progress?” Again, the patient nodded. The doctor
took the man’s right hand and pulled the sleeve up to the elbow to expose
perfectly normal pink skin. “We’re treating this patient with your…” The doctor
looked at his link. “Your product C, I believe.” The doctor raised the sleeve
to the shoulder to expose the hideously scarred skin above the elbow.
“As your associate promised, there is no scaring at the
tissue boundaries, and melanin is normal,” the doctor said. He then took both
of Phillip’s hands and rotated them together so that John and Meriel could
compare both hands and wrists: badly scarred on the left and fully recovered on
the right.
Without thinking, Meriel put her hand to the scar on her
neck and looked up with a smile. She expected to see the face of a grateful man
under the hood, but instead she saw the burned and torn face of her Uncle Ed. The
smell of charred flesh filled her nose and she gasped, transported back ten
years to her struggles on the Princess.
“Meriel, help me,” her uncle said in her nightmares while
reaching out a hand to her.
She stumbled backward to get away from the horror until she
bumped into a table and fell. Instruments crashed onto the clinic floor around
her, and she clutched her arms to her chest and neck to hide her scars.
John rushed to her and kneeled. “Are you all right?” he
asked.
John’s voice brought her back to reality. She blinked
repeatedly and nodded. “Yes. Just some water, please,” she said, and John
helped her to her feet. She walked back to sit near Phillip. He pulled his hood
farther down to hide his face, and Meriel realized how much she must have hurt
him. She looked more kindly at his disfigured face and put her hand on his arm.
“Please, forgive me, and don’t be offended. Your injuries reminded me of a
close friend who had wounds similar to yours. The memory was very painful for
me.” The hood nodded, and he patted the back of her hand as a tear rolled down
his scarred cheek and fell onto her sleeve.
“You can see the improvement in just two months,” the doctor
continued. “With access to the final product and replicator templates, we will
be able to…ah…thank you, Phillip,” he said and led them out of earshot.
“Treatment can begin next week if we reach a final
understanding,” the doctor said, and John nodded. Meriel frowned at the idea
that he might delay treatments for the burn victim because of financial
arrangements, but she said nothing.
Dr. Wo led them to a small exercise area where two athletic
women played a version of racquetball. One woman had red cuffs around her left
knee and ankle and a bright pink scar that ran between them on the outside of
her leg. Four monitors adjacent to the viewing area showed side and top views
of the knee and ankle joints as they moved. It was clear that the red cuffs
were instrumentation displaying real-time telemetry.
“See,” the doctor said while pointing to a graph below the
display on the monitors of the knee joint, “the joint stress exceeds the
nominal range for her age. She needs to worry that the ISA
will rule this as a disqualifying enhancement.”
“Is she a professional athlete?” Meriel asked, not
recognizing her on the sports networks.
“No. At least, not yet. A talented amateur. Her joints were
crushed last year in an accident. They told her to forfeit the leg and hip for
prosthetics. Your company offered her an alternative. She learned the sport as
part of her physical therapy. Now she’s considering a professional career.”
Meriel wondered if John had some business deal that would
require continuing treatment for people like Phillip and this girl.
“What about the radiation patient?” John asked and looked at
his link. “Mr. Thompson?”
The doctor smiled again. “Released last week.” He looked at
Meriel. “An impossible case, you know. Mining accident. Just remarkable. Stage
IV melanoma spread to his lungs—incurable. He came here to die, to waste away
where his family could not see him degenerate.”
“Bone-marrow regen,” John said.
“That’s right, Mr. Brown,” the doctor said. “Genetic
replication for hematopoietic regeneration. Your company also provided the cancer-cell
tagging. The regenerated T-cells wiped out the melanoma completely.” He looked
back at Meriel, clearly moved. “Death comes easy for some who have nothing to
live for. This man recovered remarkably fast and returned to children who loved
him.” The doctor walked ahead, and Meriel and John followed a few paces behind.
Meriel could remain quiet no longer and whispered, “John,
it’s cruel to withhold treatment for business reasons.”
“Yes, I agree it is immoral and unethical to withhold it,”
John said, “but treatment is also extremely expensive.” Meriel opened her
mouth, but John raised his hand to stop her. “That’s why their treatments are
free.”
Meriel raised her eyebrows. “Then what’s this ‘final
understanding’?”
“In a moment,” John said. The doctor stopped by the door to
a small office, and John turned to Meriel. “If you will excuse us please, I’ll
be out shortly.”
Meriel waited for a few minutes and then went back to watch
the women playing racquetball. She looked at the screens with interior views of
the ankle and watched it flex and extend. The graphs spiked with stress each
time she planted her foot or cut in a new direction.
The young woman’s faint scar caught Meriel’s attention
again, and she recalled Phillip’s scar-free wrists. She rubbed her shoulder
above her left breast. Maybe his people can heal me, she thought.
John came up beside her. “Well, what do you think?”
“Well, it’s not stim. Can…” Her voice trailed off, and she
blushed, not wanting to expose her disfigurement to another round of “poor
girl” or “oh my God.”
“Does the scarring treatment work on…old scars?” she asked.
“As far as I know, yes,” he said. “Why?”
“Oh, nothing. So what’s this ‘final understanding’?”
“It’s a trade for marketing,” John said. “Each treatment is
custom to the patient and still very expensive until we can get equipment and
replicators near the point of treatment.”
“Their treatments are free?”
John nodded. “And no one else could help them.”
Meriel thought she had misjudged him more than once today
and looked at John with newfound respect. She pointed to the women playing
racquetball. “Which was your product? The joints or the instrumentation?”
“Yes,” John said with a smile and led her back to the
entrance of the clinic.
“Uh, which?”
“Both. When we first introduced joint regen, the doctors
could not distinguish the performance between the original and the regenerated
joint without better instrumentation, so we had to invent that, too. All of our
competitors had joint replacements, but no one could heal the bones, nerves,
and muscles at the same time. We can. The standard postop goal is mobility.
We’re changing the goal to performance functionality.”
“Why so much secrecy?”
John looked around them and smiled. “Not here,” he said and
led her outside the clinic and flagged a personal shuttle heading back to the
docks in blue-zone.
Blue-zone included the docks and had its own shops and bars
that were functional, sterile, and resilient because spacers from different
ships tended to mix it up. Stationers thought spacers brought vermin with them
and were hard on their fragile decor, so they mostly forced spacers back to the
facilities near the docks. Station police harassed the blue-zone bar owners with
sanitation orders that kept most of them alternating between repair and
fumigation.
Meriel and John joined the Tiger crew at the TarnGirl
in the middle of a raucous party and pulled chairs over to the table. Cookie
flirted with a buxom blonde at the next table, which annoyed a large bald man
sitting beside her. Their shoulder patches identified them as crew on another
ship in their league, the JSS Rowley. Both crews had already reached stage
5—loud and bawdy—of Meriel’s ten stages of a spacer’s party
with Alf Martin, Socket’s alternate, acting surly and heavily invested in a
severe hangover. Socket was there as well, enhancing her legend with two
muscular escorts.
John scrolled through the list of premium scotches. “What do
you think, Alf, a single malt or blended?”
Alf Martin blinked with his mouth open, and Meriel looked
away and bit her lip. She let her breath out slowly when John ordered a
scotch-flavored alcohol replica.
“So why the secrecy?” Meriel asked John.
“Our competitors hunger for information about our products
and customers. I can travel under the noses of our competition when I work
crew.”
“Competitive products?”
“Not really,” John said, “but they control the product buzz
and the media. Our tactic is for loyal customers to post testimonials on the net
and spread the word before BioLuna and others can suck the air out of our
message.”
“Who’s the ‘we’ in your story?”
“LGen Inc. You heard of them?”
“No,” Meriel said.
“Good. That’s the idea.”
“What are you selling?”
“Information,” John said. “It’s too expensive to ship
finished goods, so we sell replicator data sets so partners can mass produce
locally.”
“Everybody does that,” Meriel said.
“Yes, but ours mimic an individual’s genetic markers—implants
are guaranteed nonrejection; drugs are guaranteed compatible; drug blends
without contraindications. We just need to have our nanoscale replicators on
site to execute the data sets.”
“Why haven’t I heard of LGen before?”
“The big corporations have a media blackout to keep LGen out
of retail,” he said, “so we need to sell through channels. Even BioLuna sells
our stuff. Actually, the anonymity gives us lots of flexibility.”
“How does a small group like yours compete with BioLuna and
the other conglomerates?”
“They need us. We’re still a big part of their R and D,”
John said. “Most of the technology, the research threads, started on L5. You
know about L5?”
Meriel raised her eyebrows, remembering that was where John
came from. “Not much,” she said with a skeptical tone.
“What’s the matter? Why the look?”
“You look too normal, too healthy, to come from L5,” Meriel
said.
John stood up and grabbed a pool cue from the wall and then
hit his leg with a loud whack without flinching. “Nobody’s perfect.”
“Prosthetic?” Meriel asked.
“That’s us—prosthetics, genomics, pharma. They built L5 for research
and development of products that could be mass-produced back on Earth. Well, L5
got old and worn, and the residents, including my parents, took a chance and
left for a habitat called Haven. Our station is called LeHavre.”
“Haven’t heard of it,” she said. Sheesh, refugees from a
condemned habitat moving up to a low-grav hellhole like Ceres. Meriel
shook her head. “Rumor has it that L5ers were sterile from radiation and went
extinct.”
John smiled and shook his head. “Nope. We’re doing fine.” He
reached for his link and pulled up a vid of two girls, perhaps nine and eleven,
and a woman kneeling between them. The older girl had a patch over her left eye.
“See? I got two of the sweetest and healthiest little girls in the galaxy
there. Becky and Sandy.”
Meriel raised her eyebrows and smiled. Good thing he
didn’t surprise me about that, she thought. “They’re beautiful. Is that
their mom in the middle?” Meriel asked.
“Yeah. She died some years ago.”
“Sorry,” she said and paused. “People out here don’t know
anything about LeHavre either.”
“Only LGen ships fly in and out. The catalog coordinates are
wrong, and BioLuna keeps them wrong.”
“How come?”
“BioLuna thinks they still own us. They want to control
immigration and don’t want squatters,” he said. “It’s just as well. The
ecosystem can’t handle a large influx of immigrants.”
Meriel nodded, only half listening. She was thinking about
Haven and how impossible it sounded that a viable station and habitable body
she’d not heard of could even exist. Before she could ask John about Haven’s
location and livability, he interrupted her train of thought.
“Back there,” John said, “what did you mean when you said
you’d lose the kids?”
“The kids from my ship when I was a kid.”
“The Princess?” John asked, but Meriel remained
silent. “Sorry. Word gets around. I didn’t mean to pry.”
Meriel did not hear a note of pity in his voice and gave him
a friendly smile. “You’re not…yet. I try not to talk about them. What did you
hear about the Princess?”
“Only the announcement. The story disappeared pretty quick.”
“Yeah, instantly.”
“You’re the kid who survived?”
“One of them,” she said. “I’m trying to get our ship and the
kids back together. There are lots of lawyers involved, and I need to act like
I’m a good influence—or at least not a bad one.” Meriel finished her second
drink and felt it. She wondered if any of the station lawyers might be taking
vids of her here.
“Where are the others now?”
I should not be talking openly like this. “I really
don’t know.” She lied. “Sometimes, I want to go AWOL to see them, especially my
sister and little Harry.” She knew she had said too much. The drinks had
affected her mood. Time to change the subject. “Say, Cookie told me you
could help with some questions about coordinating in space.”
“OK, shoot.”
“How could one ship ambush another between stations?” she
asked. “Cookie says they teach marines that it’s impossible.”
“Not impossible, just improbable, and that’s the
issue—probability.”
“They don’t teach two-ship coordination.”
“That’s because they don’t do it anymore. Let me get
Cookie.”
John turned around, and Meriel stole a look at his profile. A
nice face, she thought, and honest eyes. He’s the most straight-arrow
guy I’ve met in my life. But he’s not some station hookup. I still need
to work with this guy tomorrow.
When John turned back to her, she felt the blush returning
to her face. Cookie had a similar blush, and she suspected that the nearby blonde
still held his attention. It appeared that the table next to theirs had already
achieved stage 6 on Meriel’s party scale, and at the current rate of alcohol
consumption, they would soon enter stage 7.
“You’re nav two, right?” John asked, and Meriel nodded. “OK,
so I’ll just take it for granted you know about jumping and the sphere,” he
said. Meriel nodded again. “Before they built all the stations, spacers tried
to transfer cargo at jump points but gave up. Bottom line is that merchants
could not make their margins trying to transfer cargo at jump points, and
thieves gave up looking for them.”
“How so?”
Cookie turned to join their conversation. “’Cause you need
to know exactly where something’s gonna be.” He swayed in his chair and
grinned, oblivious to the balled up napkins that the blonde bounced off his
head and the growing annoyance of the muscle beside her. Meriel wondered if
they had reached stage 7 already.
“That’s right,” John said. “You need to know exactly where
something is going to be, and you just can’t know that exactly. Even if they
tell you where they plan to be, no one can hit the mark exactly.”
“The sphere,” Meriel said. She wondered if she should have
invited them back to Teddy’s to discuss nav with an expert.
“Right,” John said.
“Right,” Cookie repeated and hit the table for emphasis.
Meriel wondered if he would fall from his chair.
John continued, “OK, even if you know where your partner is
supposed to be and wait there for him, you will not actually know he is there
until his EM broadcast appears on your scopes.”
“When they wink-in,” Meriel said.
“Right. EM travels at light speed, so you don’t see their
signals until then. Let’s say your sphere is one AU,
which is pretty good for a jump. That’s still hundreds of millions of miles. It
takes nearly ten minutes before you can see the signal and still lots more time
and energy to get there. It’s much easier to build a station on the
high-traffic routes.”
The big blonde had been listening and tried to wedge her way
into Cookie’s conversation. She poked him on the shoulder, and he turned
around. “Say, so why do we still use AU anyway?” she asked. “Earth is eight
light years away.”
“It’s just a convention, like meters and feet,” Cookie said.
The blonde swung a dainty shoe onto the table in a most
undainty manner. “Sure, but we bring our feet with us; we don’t bring Earth
with us.”
Cookie slammed his boot onto the table, dwarfing hers. “Your
foot is different than mine, but we all agreed on what a foot of distance is, just
like meters and AU,” he said, removed his boot from the table, and turned back
to rejoin the conversation with John and Meriel.
The blonde tried to swing her foot off the table but leaned
back too far and would have fallen over if not for the nearby muscle, who
caught her chair. Meriel guessed that the blonde would either pass out or be
the first to reach stage 7 on the party scale.
“What if they don’t broadcast their position?” Meriel said,
and Cookie frowned.
John continued, “If they don’t broadcast when they wink-in,
you’ll need to find them against the background of stars. A ship’s albedo is
really small at one AU and it can take hours to compute contrasts and displacements.
Hell, it’s really hard to find anything smaller than a moon at that distance, if
you find it at all.”
“And it could jump away first…” Meriel said.
John caught Cookie’s frown, and they exchanged glances. “So
what’s this about? The question isn’t academic, is it?”
“No, sorry. I’m trying to figure out how pirates attacked my
ship when I was a kid. Pirates have the same problem you two are talking
about.”
“Right, pirates gave up because it’s too hard to find the
victim.”
“Everyone says it couldn’t happen, but it did,” Meriel said.
“I just can’t figure out how or why.”
John dropped his casual smile and looked at her. “Are you
sure that the meeting was not…intentional?”
Meriel clenched her jaw and balled her fists but restrained
the urge to punch him in the face at the insinuation of a clandestine drug
drop. She held her temper and glared at him instead. “Absolutely.”
Cookie leaned over the table. “Then someone sent you
somewhere your pilot didn’t intend.” He looked coldly serious but then blinked
twice slowly as if the last drink had just reached his brain. The blonde
escalated to cocktail olives to get his attention again, but stage 7 impaired
her aim. From the look on her companion’s face, violence was imminent, but
Meriel could not leave just yet.
“They could not just follow you in,” John said. “It would
take too long to find you. They’d need two spheres to put you there and keep
you there.”
Cookie nodded slowly as if he had uncovered a priceless gem.
“And lock your nav so you couldn’t jump away before they got to you.”
Meriel frowned and fiddled with the sim-chip on her
necklace. “But you can’t lock nav, right?”
Cookie leaned back with a smile and said loudly, “Right. Nav
is more secure than a hooker’s client list.” He laughed, but Meriel shook her
head with disappointment.
The blonde turned to Cookie. “Who you calling a hooker,
sailor?” she said with a jiggle and a teasing smile. Apparently, all of the Rowley’s
crew had reached stage 7—looking for trouble—and Cookie was where they were
looking. He opened his mouth to reply, but the big man sitting with the blonde
stood up.
“Yeah, who you calling a hooker?” the big man said.
Cookie stood up with open arms and a generous smile on his
face, but the big guy swung at him anyway. Cookie leaned back and deflected the
punch, but the big man lost his balance and fell on the table, spilling all of
their drinks. It looked like Cookie had knocked him down, and both crews stood
and squared off for a yelling match complete with shaking fists and threatening
postures. Alf Martin escalated to a pool cue, which started the punches. Meriel
backed away and looked for the door but could not maneuver around the fighters.
She grabbed John’s sleeve. “I’ve got to get out of here,
John. I can’t get caught in a fight,” she said, intentionally leaving out again.
“It’s just a bar fight. They’ll let us all go in a few
hours.”
“My sheet is too long, and I’m marine-three,” she said. “If
I hurt someone, even by accident, I’ll lose my ship. I’ll lose my kids, John.”
“We can just blame it all on Cookie.”
“I’m serious. I gotta get out of here.”
John nodded and led her to the back of the TarnGirl as the
bartenders and bouncers rushed past them to form a cordon in front of the
liquor inventory. They found a door behind the bar, and Meriel went outside to
a service corridor. John tried to follow, but someone pulled him back and threw
a punch. The door slammed closed before she could stop it and would not open
from the outside. She leaned against the wall to wait for him, but when the
police sirens wailed, she knew she had to leave.
On her way back to the Tiger, Meriel stopped at a
party-planner’s office to arrange a party and cake for Harry’s twelfth birthday.
She used an alias because of the court orders that kept the kids’ identities
and whereabouts secret—even arranging a party could put the kids at risk and her
legal cases in jeopardy. While giving instructions to the party planner, she
dreamed about having all of the kids together again, something that had not
happened since they left the Princess all those years ago.
She tried to call John and Cookie without response, so she
returned to the blue-zone docks and the Tiger. Molly stood at the air
lock talking to Lev from her cargo crew and hailed Meriel.
“Seems our crew is in jail,” Molly said. “How’d you avoid
that?”
“I was arranging a party, ma’am.”
“Well, they’re not getting out by themselves. Better go get
them, Chief. I’ve authorized you for bail, but call me if the damages exceed
your allowance.”
“Shore patrol is Cookie’s job,” Meriel said to hide that she
knew he’d been arrested with the others.
Molly smiled. “He’s detained as well.”
“OK,” Meriel said and looked at her link. The authorization
surprised her; it was almost a blank check—limited in purpose but not in amount.
Meriel turned to go, but Molly continued.
“Oh, and Meriel, someone found this in green-zone,” she said
and handed Meriel a lapel ID button that read, “LSM Tiger/Cargo.” It had fallen
off Meriel’s shirt when the tough grabbed her purse. Meriel desperately tried
to guess how much Molly knew so she could spin a cover story, but Molly
interrupted her thoughts. “Maybe you can find the owner and return it,” she
said with a smile and turned to board the Tiger.
Meriel borrowed a cargo cart that could accommodate everyone
on the ship, not just her crewmates who were in jail, and drove the short
distance to red-zone and the police station. She trusts me with the ship’s
funds. If this is a test, then I need to pass it. How much does she know?
she wondered.
Security spiders idled by the entrance to red-zone; their crimson
lights blinked to remind everyone that they were armed. No ID was required to
enter so as to expedite representation and removal of the detainees.
She parked the cart next to the police station and went
inside. The small waiting room was equipped with two wire benches, a video
monitor on the wall, and a single opaque window opposite the entrance. No exits
were visible other than the door, and she guessed that a hazmat crew could hose
down the entire room and sterilize it without damaging anything—like some
bachelor apartments she had nearly entered.
Meriel approached the opaque window. It appeared to be thick
and most likely made of a ballistic ceramic that would fog at ionizing
wavelengths. She held her bracelet link up to the window so it could scan her
ID, after which the window cleared, and the desk sergeant appeared.
“Here for the Tiger crew,” she said.
Without raising his head, the desk sergeant looked up at her
with an asymmetric squint. “Haven’t I seen you before?”
“Probably. Bail?”
His gaze returned to his monitor, but he pointed to a comm
button on the wall. She ran her link near it.
“Damages?” Meriel asked. The officer nodded slightly and hit
a button to display his console data on the window in front of her. Meriel
synced the data again. When the data hit his screen, the officer hit a few keys.
“The Rowdy boys are here too,” he said absently, referring
to the crew of the JJS Rowley.
Meriel turned away from the window and keyed her link.
“Molly, they’ve got the Rowley crew. Can we take them?”
“Yes, but no damages,” Molly said. Meriel turned and synced
her approval on the button.
The officer nodded. “Wait, please.”
After examination of the bench for fresh stains and vermin,
Meriel sat down in front of the monitor.
In breaking news, elections on the Chosho colony on tau Cetu-4
have been in turmoil with the late inclusion of Fredric Allen on the Senate
ballot. Allen’s candidacy is supported by the Archtrope of Calliope. His only
legislation to date has been to extend the domes to include an exclusive
self-governing colony for followers of the archtrope. His standing for election
is seen as a referendum on the archtrope’s involvement…
Meriel half listened while she worked on her link. News was
so sequential, so linear, and so dumbed-down that she needed something to do
between the endless clichés and cultural tics. She composed another text to her
hacker friend, Nick.
See if you can find anything on a colony named Haven or a
station called LeHavre.
Haven, she thought. John. I didn’t thank him for
helping me out. She leaned back on the bench and imagined the two possible
outcomes for her—prison or traction—if he had not intervened between her and
the two stim addicts. He did not look like a fighter but seemed competent. How
many other non-lethal weapons does he carry?
One of the thugs had called her “Cruiser” when he had first
confronted her. Was it really just an insult, or did he know she worked cargo?
Her fatigues were hidden in her bag. They might recognize me as a spacer by
my walk or the proximity to the handholds or maybe just my nervousness on a
station. But why cargo?
Meriel walked to the window and waved her link near the
button. “Excuse me, Officer. Do you have a moment?”
The window clarified. “Is it business?”
“You betcha. You’ve seen thousands of people come by here,
huh?” she said, and he nodded. “So, what do you think I’m rated for?”
The cop smiled. “Well a pretty young—”
“Way off. Start over.”
The desk sergeant shrugged. “Spacer, of course. Right
handed. Study a lot. Marine training, maybe three or four. Let me see your
hands.” Meriel showed her hands in front of the window. “Marine three. Got a
rough past—no I don’t want to know. Shipside accident maybe with a torch.”
“I thought I covered that.”
“You still flinch. You’re bailing out friends, not just
shipmates.” He smiled broadly. “Right. And you were with them.” Meriel opened
her mouth, but he waved his hand. “No need to deny it.” He squinted. “Trouble
sleeping. Boost—”
“OK, OK. I wasn’t looking for a CAT scan. Rating?”
“Hmmm. Not security. Nav? Communications?”
“Anything that would indicate cargo?”
He looked at her again and squinted. “Nope.”
“OK, thanks.”
“You still get insulted when they call you a cruiser?” he
asked. “Don’t take it personally. Some guy called my wife a cruiser.”
“What happened to him?”
“Dunno really. Seems he kinda disappeared,” the desk sergeant
said and fogged the window.
Then why did the thug call me a cruiser? Maybe he saw me
dockside. Maybe it was just an insult to throw me off.
The scene on the monitor switched to an interview of a tall
man in uniform impatiently slapping a riding crop against his leg.
General Subedei Khanag of the Draconian League and follower of
the Archtrope of Calliope has posted his fleet near Chosho Station. A spokesman
for the government called the presence of Khanag’s highly armed ships
intimidating and provocative. The general was candid in a recent interview with
INS news correspondent Uriah Limets.
“Why have you brought so many armed ships into neutral space,
General Khanag?”
“Merely as a sign of support and solidarity,” Khanag said.
Meriel heard repeated shouts of “Subedei!” from the men
behind him led by a handsome young man with captain’s bars.
“I assure you we only wish Representative Allen and the
archtrope the best of luck in this election.”
“Allen’s opponent has claimed that you plan a new front in the
Immigration Wars right here on TC-4.”
“Nothing of the kind, I assure you. Such silly rumors should
not be entertained for an instant. As believers, we value all human life and
would never use our powers in the Immigration Wars. Those battles are for the
desperate and the fascists. We support self-determination and the will of the
populace to decide their own future.”
“General, where will the archtrope send you next?”
“Don’t misunderstand. The archtrope is my spiritual guide and
prophet, not my commander…”
Another front in the Immigration Wars, Meriel
thought, and another band of thugs to fight them. If we get the Princess
back, I’ll remember to stay away. She shook her head and sighed. So just
how am I going to get the Princess back?
“Chief Hope,” the officer said, interrupting her thoughts. “Tiger
crew will be at R258T in three minutes. I’m sure you know the way, yes?” Meriel
smiled, waved, and left the police station, then walked to the detention-center
exit.
A few minutes after she arrived, John came out leading the
crews of the Tiger and Rowley. Cookie came out arm in arm with
the muscle from the bar, both of them in their T-shirts, and the blonde who had
instigated the fight squeezed in between them. Meriel noted the similar marine
tattoos on the two men’s biceps.
The big man came over to Meriel. “Thank your cap’n for us,
dearie,” he said and extended his hand. However, before his hand reached her,
he began to fall backward with the same speed as the extended hand, and it appeared
suspended in space. A second later his body pulled his hand back, and he fell
to the deck and began to snore. The Rowley crew picked the big man up, his
arm still extended in the air, and they all boarded the cargo cart.
Cookie and the blonde talked softly in the back of the cart
on the way to the docks and hugged when Meriel dropped off the Rowley
crew.
“Who’s the blonde, Cookie?” Meriel asked as she drove them
back to the Tiger.
“Ex-wife.”
“Whose?” John asked.
“His…and mine. She’s the reason I left the Marines.”
Meriel just shook her head.
(c) 2014, 2015 Benjamin R. Strong, Jr.
Meriel just shook her head.
(c) 2014, 2015 Benjamin R. Strong, Jr.
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