Ad Astra (2 page)

It wouldn’t take a lot of experience for her to guess our gear wouldn’t pass a certification test right now. “It works fine.”

“Maybe I ought to look at it.”

Maybe. I knew what that meant. “Hey, I just remembered something. Can you hold here just a sec?”

She gave her watch an annoyed look and nodded. I went straight to my quarters. In the bottom of one drawer, well wrapped, I found the bottle and carefully carried it out. “I’ve got a friend in port I meant to give this. But I forgot. Could you get it to him?”

“I suppose.” She took the bribe, examining the label as if ready to reject it, but then her face cleared. “From Mother Sol?”

“Yeah.” Mother Sol was a long, long ways from the port of Mandalay orbiting the planet of the same name orbiting the star humans had named Ganesha. Anything from Sol, even rotgut, had the exotic aura imbued by great distance, and this wasn’t rotgut. “From Martinique. That’s an island. It’s good rum. You ought to try some.”

“Maybe I will. I guess this friend isn’t that special if this is all you got him.”

I shrugged and gestured at the entry lock. “Funds are pretty short right now. It’s all I could afford.”

“Okay.” Cover story for the bribe established for the benefit of any hidden recorders, and her questioning whether we could give her a bigger pay off also fielded, the inspector pocketed the bottle. “You’re cleared for departure. But I’ve tagged your ship entry. Next time you hit this port you’d better have a recent engine certification or we’ll do a full inspection.”

“No problem.”

She grinned at what we both knew was a lie, then headed off, patting the place where she’d stashed that rum. Damn. I’d been saving it for a special occasion. But like just about everything else I’d had to use it in an emergency.

I checked the lock’s log to confirm everyone was aboard, then sealed the lock tight. “Able Spacers Kanidu, Jungo, and Siri. Meet me in the crews mess.”

The two tables grandly labeled the crews mess had plenty of empty places even when breakfast was supposedly being handed out. Dingo wasn’t here, of course, but we had a lot of unfilled slots. We couldn’t afford to pay for a full crew, but then again that wasn’t really a problem because it was so hard to get sailors to sign on to a ship in
Lady’s
shape that recruiting just enough to meet minimum standards was a big enough challenge.

Kanidu eyed me in a disinterested way as I assigned her to engineering and pointed her toward Chief Engineer Vox at one of the tables. Vox just nodded silently when Kanidu reported to her.

Jungo was a tall, slim guy with an eager smile who’d been happy to sign on. I wondered what he was hiding and who or what he was running from. I gave him to the cargo section.

Last came Siri. She was a small woman, thin and shivering slightly, carrying every indication of being a star dust addict. No wonder no other ship had taken her on. She’d go cold turkey for certain on our voyage, which wouldn’t be pretty, but the worst that could happen was she’d die and then we wouldn’t have to pay her. I gave her to ship’s systems, because she’d been certified a System Tech Second Rate at one point. Maybe her dust-addled brain still remembered some of that.

I stopped next to the Chief Engineer. “We okay to go?”

Vox nodded wordlessly again.

“Anything I need to tell the Captain?”

Vox dug something out from between her teeth before answering. “Refit.”

“I know we need a refit. As soon as I can -.”

“Shipyard.”

I stopped talking and just nodded back. The
Lady
needed a full engineering refit in a shipyard, nothing less. The Chief Engineer had a responsibility to remind me of that. I couldn’t do a thing about it, but I had to be reminded of it.

I went forward, trying to figure out where I might be able to get the Lady’s engines looked at for something less than cut-rate prices. Maybe an under-used maintenance facility at a middle-of-nowhere star would be willing to give us a break for the sake of keeping their hands in. It was worth a try.

Captain Jane Weskind sat in her still-darkened cabin. She’d gotten dressed by herself but didn’t look good this morning. “We’re cleared to leave,” I reported, standing in front of her desk and touching my brow with my right hand.

A long moment passed. Weskind’s face cycled through a half-dozen emotions before she caught it and froze it in a shaky grin. “No problems?” It was what she always said, now.

There wasn’t a thing she could do about engineering and she’d already been told we were overdue for a yard period. “No problems.”

“Good work, First Officer Kilcannon.” She lowered her voice, as if sharing a secret. “The
Lady
needs work. I know it.” A long pause. “A good profit on this run. That’s all we need. One good run.” Another pause. “Right, Kilcannon?”

“Right, Captain.” She always said that, too. Just one good run. That wouldn’t be enough, of course, but with the profit from one good run we could set up an even better run and then we’d be on our way up again. Dingo might think Haven was in the nearest bar but Captain Weskind clung to it being one good run away. It seemed it had always been one good run away and maybe it always would be one good run away. Maybe not, though. This run did promise a good return. Not without risk, of course. I smiled and nodded at Captain Weskind’s words because this really could be the one good run we needed, and because I was sure Captain Weskind needed to believe that run would happen and needed to know I believed it, too. “Will you be on the bridge when we leave port, Captain?”

More expressions chased their way across Captain Weskind’s face. “I…have work, First Officer Kilcannon.”

“I understand, Captain. I’ll take the ship out.”

“Thank you, First Officer Kilcannon.”

I saluted again and left, making sure her hatch was set to notify me if Captain Weskind left her cabin. It didn’t happen much nowadays, but I needed to be there if she needed me.

Leaving port was the usual mix of tension and boredom. Tension because things could go wrong. A blown directional vector or an aging control system sending the wrong commands could result in a painful meeting of ship and some other object.
Lady
wasn’t the smallest freighter running between stars, but she wasn’t all that big, either. Odds were if we hit anything
Lady
would be the loser.

But it was boring, too, because the procedures were ones we’d run through a hundred times and they didn’t change all that much from port to port. Same old drill, often in different places, but always the same old drill.

Then we were out of the confines of the port and running free down the outbound shipping lanes, heading outward past planets and rocks and comets, aiming to get far enough from the gravity well of Mandalay’s sun Ganesha to start our jump. Systems, especially inner systems, always felt cramped and crowded when you were used to the wide open freedom of the big dark. Nearly a hundred suns held human colonies now, and even after so many years of sailing between them I still felt a moment of wonder at the thought that the
Lady
could carry me to any sun and planet I chose. In theory. In practice, we could only go where the paying cargo runs took us. The roads between the stars aren’t free, no matter what the poets dream far away on Mother Sol.

Here, close to port, the inbound lanes passed near the outbound. I watched the big ships coming in. Sol Transport, Vestral Shipping, Combined Systems, Great Spinward. The ships belonging to the giant companies seemed to glow on our screens, all their systems registering in top shape on our read-outs. I fought down a wave of envious anger. With a fraction of what the big companies spent to keep those ships of theirs shiny I could get
Lady
back in shape. But it wouldn’t happen.
Lady
was beneath their attention. The ports
Lady
called at were often beneath their attention. The cargo
Lady
carried usually wasn’t worth it for the big carriers. So I watched the big ships pass and wished for more of their leavings.

Maybe some of them were watching old, small, battered
Lady
heading out. If they were watching, I could too easily imagine what they were thinking. I wished the wrath of the saints on smug company spacers and went to let Dingo out of his quarters.

#

I double-checked the jump solution while Dingo glared at me. The lump visible on his forehead hadn’t aided his forgiving me for tricking him last night. But he’d done his job right. A short run to Wayfare, then a middling run to a nowhere star named Carnavon that didn’t see much traffic and wouldn’t have any local authorities asking awkward questions, and finally a long run into Fagin. The circuitous route should bring us into Fagin along routes a fair ways from the usual inbound and outbound channels for that system. “Looks good.”

“As if I didn’t know this job better’n you, Kilcannon!”

“Dingo, somebody has to double-check things like this. You know that, too.”

“Oh, I know lots, Kilcannon. Did you tell them new ones yet where we’re goin’?”

“No.” Jungo, nearby, looked over with ill-conceal alarm.

Dingo grinned nastily. “Where d’they
think
we’re goin’?”

I didn’t answer, so Dingo looked at Jungo, who swallowed nervously. “Polder,” he half-whispered.

“Polder! Hah! Try Fagin, lad.”

“Fagin?” Jungo paled. “But…the war.”

“Yeah! Civil war! Brother against brother! The best kind. And the best rates for those willing to try to run cargo in through the privateers roamin’ the spaceways.”

The crew would’ve heard sooner or later, but I still wasn’t happy having it spilled now, days before we’d get far enough out-system to enter jump to Wayfare. “Shut up.”

Dingo just grinned at me. “’Shut up,’ is it? And what’ll you do if I don’t, Kilcannon? Shanghai me on a voyage to a war zone in an old tub that should’ve seen the wrecker’s yard a handful of years ago?”

Jungo was shaking his head. “I signed on for Polder.” His voice wavered. “My contract says Polder.”

I shook my own head. “Your contract contains a necessity clause which allows the ship to change destinations if required. You ought to be grateful for that. We won’t meet any arrest warrants on any of our crew that’ve been forwarded to Polder. Right?”

Dingo laughed again, Jungo looked stricken and relieved at the same time, and I ignored both of them.

#

So many ships. I keyed the transmitter again. “Wayfare System Control, this is
Lady Be Good
still awaiting authorization to clear system.”

I sat back to wait. Spacer Siri was at the auxiliary control panel on the bridge, shivering constantly, her eyes going into and out of focus. Withdrawal from star dust wasn’t pleasant to watch, but watching was all anyone on the
Lady
could do. It’d either kill her or leave her clear. So far, Siri had been able to follow orders when I snapped them at her.

A babble of messages from other ships to Wayfare System Control and each other flowed in after I stopped transmitting. The authorities at Wayfare were obviously overwhelmed again. Why one of the most often used relay stars couldn’t upgrade its system control was beyond me.

Lady
was skating along the fringes of Wayfare, just heading for the jump point to Carnavon. A slightly unusual route, but I knew from experience that Wayfare System Control would be too busy to worry about what one little freighter was up to.

And I was right. “
Lady Be Good
, authorization granted to clear Wayfare.” I punched in the jump commands, secure in the knowledge nobody was paying attention to
Lady
.

Nearby, Spacer Siri shivered. I dug a packet out of one of my pockets and tossed it to her. “These’ll help.” She caught the packet automatically and stared at it. “Somebody I knew beat star dust. They said that stuff helped a lot.”

Siri nodded, tearing open the packet with trembling hands. I went back to studying my control panel. Somewhere aft, one of the engines groaned into momentary instability that made my stomach flutter. A moment later, Chief Engineer Vox called the bridge. “Bad.”

“Can you hold it together?”

“Yeah.”

“How long?”

“Depends.”

“Give me as much warning as you can.”

“Just did.”

#

Carnavon was small and dim. For a star, that is. No other ship beacons flared on our scans. Quiet and isolated, just the place for a small ship looking to avoid awkward questions.

To get the right arrival angle on Fagin we’d have to fall through the Carnavon system and climb out the other side, a time-consuming pain in the neck under any circumstances.

“Hey, Kilcannon.”

“What, Dingo?”

“On the bridge, sweetheart.”

I made my way up there, wondering what Dingo could have to talk about that needed me on the bridge in person. Most of the possibilities weren’t very good. But Dingo didn’t seem worried as he pointed at scan. “What d’ya think that is, Kilcannon?”

I peered at it, checked readings, then thought about it. “What do you think it is?”

“I asked first.” Dingo smiled with derision. “Don’t know, d’ya? How long ya been a sailor, Kilcannon?”

“Long enough.” I frowned at the scan. “It looks like a dead ship.”

“Not bad! It’s a ship, alright.” Dingo’s smile vanished. “She ain’t dead. Not yet.” He tapped a blunt nail on some of the readouts. “It’s real faint, but there’s still a heat source active in there, and leaking atmosphere.”

“Saints. Are you saying there’s someone still alive on that thing?”

“Could be.”

A wreck would’ve been interesting as a possible source of parts, though probably not interesting enough to warrant a diversion from our course. Wrecks tended to be stripped before we ever saw them. But if some of the crew had holed up in the interior… “There’s no distress beacon.”

“Nah. Which tells you and me how that wreck got in trouble, right?” I immediately checked scan again, but Dingo was already grinning at me. “I checked. As good as I could with this tub’s instruments. There ain’t no other ships burning engines in this system right now. Either the pirates or privateers are sitting quiet in ambush, or they’ve left.”