Angeleyes - eARC

For Marla, Hank, Laura, Corinda, David

CHAPTER 1

My name is Aonghaelaice. It’s pronounced “Angelica.” My parents are freako alt-agers. That’s part of why I left home early. They did a lot of fairs and festivals, and that’s why I wanted stability. I never got it, of course. I’m too much of a butterfly. I tried marriage. I lasted a year.

During the War, I was a spy.

I actually didn’t notice when the War started. I mean, I saw the news mention it. I didn’t really pay any attention. There’d been several attacks between forces, with a handful of deaths and no real followup. I watched reports on those. I’m a veteran, so I kept wondering if I’d see any of the medics I served with show up. Second Legion never got involved in those, though, so no.

I wasn’t homeless. I was transient. I paid my way, and I had savings in several systems in case I needed them. It’s hard to travel interstellar without either a roll of money or some kind of business, but I managed. I made myself useful as needed. Sometimes I was a ship’s cook. Sometimes I was a medic. Usually I was just a cargo handler. If need be and I felt like it, I was somebody’s girlfriend.

A lot of the time I was in Grainne’s Outer Halo. It’s a good place to go to—and from— anywhere. Of course, Station Ceileidh and Station Breakout are damned near thirty light-hours apart. It’s often easier and cheaper to hop around through Caledonia, Novaja Rossia and Earth than try to grab in-system transit.

But I hadn’t been on dirt in about five Freehold years when the War started. That’s eight Earth years.

As I said, there’d been a couple of shootouts between Earth and Freehold. After each one, nothing happened. So I figured it was some chest-thumping stuff for the public, and the governments would do something behind it to clear things up. I was much more concerned with getting back to the Halo from the Prescot’s mining system of Govannon. It’s all minerals, covered in domes, with resorts for the stupid rich. If I wanted to land, the flight in would cost fifty K-marks, then I’d need ten K-marks per night for lodging, and I heard food was about two K a day, minimum. Stupid rich.

I was twenty—thirty Earth years. I looked pretty good, and I give killer head, but you can’t see that. No one was going to hire me as their girlfriend unless I had about 50K in wardrobe to get to the right parties. Even then, chicks with a lot of biosculp surgery, who were full time escorts and looked younger even if they weren’t, were going to be top call. And I don’t mind being a girlfriend to some rich guy, but I’m not in it strictly for money. So I was never going to see the indoor ski slope, the indoor lake and beach or the indoor jungle cave.

But there was a lot of work in the stations. They’d been moving a meshload of processed metal a week out of there for a couple of centuries. I can’t do advanced math, but I can do a bill of lading and count mass ratios, I know how to operate a forklift, tug sled (gas jet or chemical), and can move pretty good loads. Cargo loads, I mean.

I’d seen what I needed to, and wanted to clear out of my bunkie, load up my backpack and get back to the Freehold for a bit. After that, I might try Alsace or Salin for a change. Money goes a long way in Salin.

It can take months to find transit, and sometimes you take what you can get, traveling around six sides of a square, to get there. I hung around the scheduling office in the mornings, and spent the afternoons visiting shipping offices personally and flashing my assets at them.

No, that did not involve dressing down. I’d rather work my way than bitchhike. Quite a few ships have a professional sex worker, or at least simulacra. I don’t show cleave or wear lips when asking for a job. I keep my hair longish but ship style, natural red-tinged gold, and wear a clean shipsuit with just enough wear to prove I work. Some people wear a qual badge of some kind, but I don’t bother. Your quals should be on file, or readily provable. A badge can be bought anywhere. If you want to look green, hang crap off your work clothes. Professionals generally don’t.

I had a file on archive for any interested parties, and was on the rolls with a hiring agency. I scurried into the station office lounge every morning to see what was available. I’d decide which ones I’d consider, and go from there. I won’t go on a ship if I’m the only female. I won’t go with Earth Arabs, but Ramadanis are usually okay, and most Mtalis, but not the Shia from there. New Indians I need to interview with to decide if it’s safe.

From there, I’d see which ships needed crew. I was hoping for Wednesday to be good. That was the big load day. There was always a processed ore load leaving for Sol system, with minimal facilities for passengers. I thought of that as my last-ditch nasty route. There were two luxury cruisers scheduled, but they were unlikely to need crew. They ran extensive background checks and paid well, and if they happened to wind up a body or two short would rather just run that way than take local hires. Their passengers were billionaires.

Billionaires had nothing on the three private yachts who wouldn’t be interested in me for anything, although there was a slim chance one of the crew would want a playmate and be allowed a courtesy guest.

But in the last twenty-four, a tramper had come through, en route to Caledonia. I couldn’t afford the M10K or so transit fee, but they might need labor or have other openings.

A couple of their crew were hanging out jabbering with the woman at the Support cubicle. They might have been fueling or transshipping some local stuff. I didn’t need to know that right now. What I did know was they were flirting with her, badly.

I toed over in the low G, letting it do wonderful things for my chest, which was fully-restrained inside my professional coverall. They could see my figure, however, and that got their attention.

“Good morning,” I said. “Are you with the
Kubik
?”

“Yes,” said the one to my left. Not bad looking. Fit, clean, neat. That told me they kept a good ship. “I’m Ted Kubik. Purser.” He held out a hand and I shook it, going for a firm grip.

I stepped back and to the side to give some distance from the Support tech. “Angie Kaneshiro. Pleased to meet you.”

“You’re trying to crew?” he asked.

“If you have space, I’m ready to work,” I said.

“We have space, but it got quiet. We’re not going to need a full complement.”

Damn. I’d been afraid of that. I pitched anyway.

“Then I’m your man. I can handle cargo loaders, lading charts, lashing plans, and I’m trained as a cook and medic.”

“Certs?” he asked. He was still interested.

“Paper for the loaders, I can demonstrate the rest. Military for medical.”

“Colonial military?”

“Freehold of Grainne.”

He suddenly shied away.

“Yeah, if you’re a Graunna vet,” he mispronounced it, “We can’t have you aboard. Too complicated with the invasion starting.”

“I have Caledonian ID,” I said. “Landed immigrant.”

He looked unsure. Gods dammit, why had I been so honest? I should have just said I was a Caledonian resident.

I lowered my voice, and said, “I don’t even care about the money that much. I just want to get back home.”

Caledonia wasn’t home, but I did have legit ID and kept a drop box there.

He looked at the other one, who hadn’t been introduced, but I was pretty sure he was an officer, too.

They looked at each other.

“Got a scan?” he asked me. “I can show it to the captain-owner.”

I drew a stick from my pocket and passed it over. It had my face, “Able Spacer,” and “Multisystem,” on it. My name was listed as “Angie,” not the awful spelling. It listed my quals and some of the ships I’d transited with, for reference. As big as the universe is, most spacers know someone who knows someone. I’d be “Oh, yeah, that girl,” to most of them, but that could be enough.

I figured the captain-owner was his father. Quite a few family companies plowed all their assets into spacecraft to get off Earth, or struck resources in the colonies and used it as capital.

If they didn’t bite, I’d try again in the morning. It was better if there were two or more ships. If they needed crew and thought they might have to compete, they made option offers. As it was, I was running out of local funds. I didn’t want to dip into my emergency money.

There weren’t any other choices, but I hung around until lunch just in case. I had lunch with me, prepared cold in the minikitch at my bunkie. Tuna salad and rice crackers.

Nothing happened by noon.

With that, I went looking for station work. If there was any, it wouldn’t pay much, but I needed to keep my balance up as best I could. I had already decided I wasn’t coming back here. The Prescot family owned it outright, and ran a closed shop. It was a good shop, but unless I wanted to ground and work in the mines for a year or two, there was little to offer. Working in the mines, or even in HQ, wouldn’t get me into the resorts. So there was no reason for me to land in domed habitats that were just like space habitats but on the surface.

Unless I wanted to sling hash as backup hash-slinger in a crew dive, there weren’t any station jobs listed, either. At least, if I ran out of funds, they’d give me a “free” trip to Sol system. Some systems are reported to have spaced vagrants, meaning anyone without air money.

I decided I’d take a walk around the station. I had nothing else pending, and I needed to decide if I wanted to take the fry cook job for a few days, or lower my standards and be an entertainer. Not that there’s anything wrong with being an entertainer, but it’s not what I wanted.

It also has its own risks. You’ll get seen by crew. If you show up the next day looking for work, you’ll be, “That stripper chick who wants to play in space.” If I decided to do that, I’d have to raise money fast, stash most of it, live super austerely, and wait for all ported ships to rotate. That wasn’t going to happen here.

Govannon’s station is called “The Highlands.” The perimeter passage is called, “The Zodiac Walk.” It’s roughly in the ecliptic, with large view ports, but the Earth constellations are badly beaten because of the distance between stars.

It’s an attractive walk, made to look like cobbles. There’s an electric trolley for faster travel and ambience, and it’s actually free.

The Prescot family is oddly conservative. You can’t buy most recpharm. You can buy tobacco. I went past a tobacco shop and stopped to look.

I don’t smoke. I’m fascinated by the delivery methods people have. Cigars, cigarettes, cigarillos, pipes, tinglers, hookahs, censers, holders, cutters, lighters. They had everything. And it smelled delicious. Why does it smell so good raw, and so revolting burned?

“Good afternoon, ma’am,” the clerk greeted me. “Can I help you find anything?” Behind him were tubs and bins and cans of various mixtures, a sign offering custom blends, and more signs listing types and origin.

“Just browsing,” I said. “I don’t smoke.”

“Not an issue. I don’t want to be rude, but I’m going to have to close for an hour. I have a shipment waiting on the docks and it has to be moved. My wife is sick today, so I’ve got to get it.”

I slipped a card out of my thigh pocket and slid it across the counter.

“I’m Angie Kaneshiro. I’ve got certs on loaders and tugs. I do have a bond on file.” It was in Caledonia, but I figured he wouldn’t check that hard. What would I do with a pallet of tobacco and accessories?

“Okay?” he asked, looking at it.

“I could get it for you so you don’t lose sale time.”

Just then a couple walked in, and I stepped back out of the way. I busied myself looking through the glass of his small walk-in humidor.

He helped the man with a blend of something lychee and apple for a hookah, apple scented charcoals for it, and some little tools that were used for maintenance. They took a glance around, came near me and I heard him say, “Seeing those humidors almost makes me wish I smoked cigars.”

He sounded Earth Canadian.

They left, and I looked back at the owner.

“How much?” he asked.

I asked back, “How much stuff is it?”

“Two standard cubes.”

“You have a dolly?”

“Yes.” He gestured toward the back.

“I’ll leave my ID. Fifty marks and a meal.” I figured that was up-end of average for this station, based on what I’d gotten elsewhere.

“Fifty flat,” he countered. “I don’t have any food handy.”

“Done,” I said.

He pointed to the storeroom, and I found the dolly. It was a manual type. He handed me a Landed Cargo slip, and off I went, out the rear and into the service passage, which was much less pretty, but a lot more interesting. I might find more work back here.

I skated the dolly down to the dock, found his cubes, strapped them on, shoved them back and got a bit sweaty. The whole task took me about an hour. He handed me a L-note and my ID.

“Thank you,” he said. A party of four had just left.

Well, that would feed me cheap for a couple of days, and pay for my bunkie for one more. But I’d found a couple more places needing general labor, so I went back down the service passage, now that I had a reason, and made another M76 by day’s end.

Their definition of a bunkie is pretty roomy, too. I had a double bed, drawers mounted at the head and foot, a shelf on one side. The other side had enough room to stand and change. That was offset with the one above me, so they managed with about twice the width, but no more height that what most places offered. The soundproofing was good. The upright end near the bed head had a micro/induction heater/minifridge. There was more storage under the bed, too. My backpack and rolly were there. The bathroom down the passage had five stalls and usually at least one open. The showers were clean and roomy enough for a friend or toys. I took toys. I felt a lot refreshed after that, and slept well. I like it completely black.

The next day I was back at the station office. If you’re reliable on searches, you are seen as reliable for work.

I was in luck. Ted Kubik was there again, with the captain-owner.

“Ms. Kaneshiro,” he said, and offered a hand. He was old, gray, didn’t smile, but seemed to be in good shape and alert. “I’m told you can work cargo manifests and some various duties?”