Chewing Rocks (14 page)

Sno said, “T
.M.D! That last bit was ‘too much data’. What is barbarque?”

Lee looked appalled
. “BarbEEEque,” he corrected her. “What is barbeque?” He looked up at the ceiling again, “Yes, Your Honor, we have no choice but to bring child abuse charges against the girl’s parents. She was seriously handicapped as a child.” He looked back at Sno. “Wait, you said your name was Whyte. Is that as in the Whyte Mining Corporation?”

Sno nodded, “Yes
, I thought you knew. I am part owner of the company you are contracted to for your mining ores.”

Lee said, “Well, don’t that beat all! If you said
it, then I missed it. I don’t think Jackson picked up on it either. Well, boss lady, we better get you to the comm sooner than later.”

Sno nodded, “Now?”

Lee looked shocked, “Now? Not a chance. Jackson made rhubarb and strawberry pie for dessert.”

“Okay, what’s rhubarb?”

Chapter 12.1

Sno finished her message to Dad. She had
given him the complete story of the computer crash on the Sedona, relaying everything that had happened from the first hiccup to the location of the Blinkin and their destination. It would take Dad or Vittie a while to get the message, a while longer to formulate a response, and more time for the message to get back to her.

Lee and Jackson wanted to give her privacy on the bridge to make the transmission, but she waved them into chairs. There wasn’t anything that was a secret
; just the opposite. The more people who knew about Queene deliberately spreading poisoned apps and cores, the better. When she signed off and looked back at the two earthers, she was surprised to see that both men looked angry.

Lee looked ready to spit nails
, “Criminal, that’s what it is, just plain criminal.”

Sno shook
her head, she was as angry as he was. Having to relay the information to Dad had caused her to relive each moment. “It had better not be criminal, not by my last breath.”

Lee said
through gritted teeth, “What? Why not? Queene Mines tried to kill you, someone ought to pay.”

S
no all but shouted in frustration. “You are too right someone should pay, but what good does it do me to bring them up on criminal charges? Queene Mines tried to kill me. They didn’t try to kill some policeman or some jailer. Me! I want justice. I don’t want someone sitting in a prison somewhere or given a fine that goes to some earther government. Me! I want it.”

Lee and Jackson looked at each other.

She snorted, “What? Earthers never seem to get it. What good do I get out of sending someone to jail? If I file a civil warrant, then I can get justice for me and mine.”

Lee said, “That makes sense, but attempted murder is a crime.”

Sno said, “Not on Ceres it isn’t. It is grounds for massive civil judgments, but not for criminal charges. If I can prove someone tried to kill me, I can take them for everything they have, even as much as sending them into servitude to pay off the debt. Or I can challenge them to a duel; either a personal duel or I can appoint a champion to stand in my stead. They don’t get the option of a champion; they have to face who ever we send after them.”

Lee said, “But, when we were i
n Arizona City we saw your jail. Everybody did. That Sheriff Bob has a chain link fence in the middle of the park and puts people in jail. We saw them. We did.” He looked at Jackson for confirmation.

Jackson nodded.

Sno agreed, “Yes, you did see them, I am sure. Sheriff Bob almost always has someone in jail. Sometimes the people there have had judgments made against them. They are held there to keep them from running out on paying their debts. You would be surprised how many people run from spending a few years in servitude or from standing up in a fair fight.

She continued without pause
, “Mostly, the people in there aren’t there for big things. They are there for minor offenses against the city. You know: littering, graffiti on public buildings, kids being too rowdy at the mall, talking in the movies. Not that we put kids in jail, but if their parents don’t control them, then their parents can spend the time in jail. It’s all pretty small stuff that is not enough of an annoyance for someone to file suit over or to take to duel…except maybe talking in the movies. That really chaps my cheeks, you know?”

Lee asked, “But, you said that you have to prove someone tried to kill you.”

Sno shook her head, “Figure of speech. I am responsible for any investigation, but I can get help from anyone I want; family, friends, concerned people. There are a couple of pretty good private investigators in Arizona City. Sheriff Bob is really just a publicly paid investigator who also runs a publicly funded, security company. He will take complaints from anybody, but a lot of earthers are surprised when he sends them a bill at the end of the month for anything he figures is not public business. Most earthers think he is really some sort of policeman. Well, from what I have heard of Earth police forces, they aren’t much more than historians anyway. They don’t show up until after a crime has already been committed, then they just write reports on what happened. On Ceres, if some son of a turd tries to kill me, I try to kill him right back.”

Lee said, “I do believe that you would.”

Sno said, “Don’t doubt it. The biggest mistake Queene Mines made is they didn’t do the job right the first time. Next time, I plan on seeing them coming.”

Chapter 13.0

“But, I only used it for an hour.” Jackson whined.

“And that may be an hour you can’t get back if you need it,” Sno snapped. “Look, your EVA suit is your back-up life line. Where do you go if you have to abandon ship? Mining ships don’t carry evacuation pods or life boats.”

“But, nothing is going to happen to the
Blinkin,” he said.

“That is what I thought about Sedona. Where would I be now if I hadn’t kep
t my suit prepped to the maximum? Look at it this way; we are heading for your mining site, right? When we get there, are you going out to work in vacuum with your suit an hour short of air, water and power? No! If you take the trouble to go outside you might as well make it worth the effort and stay outside as long as you can, not an hour short.”

“Okay
, I can see that, but do I have to do it now? Lee is here on bridge duty and it is past my bedtime. I’ll do it in the morning before we reach the mine site.” The man left the bridge and scurried off to the dorm room.

Sno looked over to Lee.

Lee shrugged. “Don’t worry, Sno. He gets your point, so do I. We will both get down and prep our suits as soon as we can.”

Sno snapped back, “
Sooner is better than later. There isn’t any reason for you to be on the bridge. It is not like the computer can’t handle anything that comes up. The repulsar field is on so you won’t run into anything big enough to hurt us. For that matter there isn’t anything out here to run into until we get to your mine site.”

Lee
groused, “I know, but it isn’t all about what I think. It isn’t all about you and what you think either. We have three ships working together, remember? We all agreed before we started that certain conditions would be met on all ships, and one of those conditions was that someone would be on the bridge on each ship all of the time, or most of the time anyway. That way, if there was trouble on one of the ships, the other two could quickly respond with help.”

Sno said, “All right, I can see that. You are just following your fleet’s compact. But,
Jackson is just going to bed. He can put that off until he gets his suit up to maximum operating capacity.”

Lee shrugged again. “Give the man a
break; it isn’t really about his sleep. He is just uncomfortable being in the room with you.”

“What? Why? I mean, I know I am not the most pleasant person in this
sector of space, but what did I ever do to him?”

Lee shrugged for the third time. “It isn’t you. He isn’t comfortable being in a room with me either. I don’t know anyone he can spend time with
, for very long anyway. That makes him a great shipmate for me. He leaves me alone; I leave him alone. We cross paths all the time, but mostly we don’t have anyone telling us what to do and when to do it.”

Sno nodded. “I couldn’t agree more. Come to think of it, I haven’t had a shipmate in about five years. But, you do work together when you are mining right?”

Lee snorted, “We better work together. Having six men doing their own thing could get dangerous real fast.”

“Six? I thought there were seven of you on three ships
,” Sno said.

“
Actually, there are six and a half. Doc Savage and Daryl Graham are on the Winkin. Graham has his son Joey with him. Joey is just a dopey kind of kid, twelve years old or so. He gets in the way more often than not. Better them than me, I would have had to beat him senseless before now. Doc and Graham find him busy work on the ship when we are mining.”

Sno replied, “Mining ships are no place for kids.”

Lee grunted. “Look who is talking! From where I sit, you aren’t much older than Joey, chronologically anyway. You are far and away more mature than you should be for your age. Your dad should be dog-slapped for letting you grow up so fast.”

Sno said as she left the room, “I may not be old in years, but I’ve got more
time in asteroid mining that your whole fleet put together. It’ll do you good to remember that, Grandpa.”

From
the suit locker she could clearly hear him laughing on the bridge.

She tapped her suit on the chest. “Afternoon,
big fella. Hungry? I though I would come down and see if we can do a little preventative maintenance while we fill your bellies.”

She hooked tubes and hose
s from the walls into the appropriate openings on her suit. The universal connectors snapped quickly into place and the ship began to feed water, air and raw fuel into the suit.

She sighed and hooked Jackson’s suit into the ship’s feeds as well. Miners should always maintain their own suits. T
hat way they did not have anyone to blame but themselves if something went wrong. Still, she was their guest. She was a paying guest, paying at double the rate, but a guest none-the-less. They could always check her work, just as she would have checked someone else’s work on her suit.

“Might as well, make it a clean sweep
,” she said to herself. She checked Lee’s suit and saw it was running on empty as well. “Earthers! Not a lick of sense among them.” She plugged the suit into the ship to begin filling its tanks.

Both of the
earther suits were of the same make and model. They had the look of pre-owned, but well refurbished equipment. They were unadorned without any external insignia.

She
rolled a riser over to her suit and climbed the steps until she was face-to-face with the helmet. “Okay, big fella. What do we need to do?” She ran a hand over the decal on the suit’s right shoulder. “Stuff and nonsense! When did that happen?” There was a gash across the artwork proclaiming she was a fan of the Ceres Comets Soccer Team of the Pan Solar League. The gash cut deeply through the decal, but did not so much as place a mark on the suit itself. She checked over the suit’s shoulder and saw the gash did not extend to the decal advertising vacations on the Martian Riviera. She always chuckled over that decal, since there wasn’t any such place. Mars was so ugly even the Martians left long before anyone from Earth showed up.

She quickly ran a hand over every portion of the suit, feeling for any dimple, dent or crease that might indicate external damage. She hadn’t ever found external damage, but it only took once for unnoticed damage to ruin your day when your suit failed.

She swung the right breast portion closed and popped open the access panel just under the Whyte Mining Company name and logo.

“
Let’s see...diagnostics: run full. Internal only. Do not query the ship.” It wasn’t that she did not trust the Blinkin or its crew, but she did not trust the Blinkin or its crew. While the suit ran its diagnostic functions she reopened the chest and unsnapped the internal suit liner.

“Oh, gag a maggot
,” she said. “Whoeee, big fella. You smell like month old cabbage stew.” She yanked the liner out completely.

“Hey, Lee,”
she shouted.

“Hey, what? I am busy in here
,” Lee shouted back.

“Yeah, whatever. Where is your laundry refresher?”

Lee shouted back, “You finally decided to do something about your suit liner?” His voice came from the doorway as he stepped into the room. “Beats me how you could even climb into that thing and seal it up. It’s been stinking up the whole ship since you got here.”

Sno
stepped up and took a whiff of his suit liner. “Yours doesn’t smell great either. Kind of smells like ass.”

Lee replied. “That is just the residual smell from you
r suit stuck in your nose, ‘cuz my bottom side don’t smell. The refresher is this way in the galley.”

He led the way to the galley and pointed to a wall panel. “It is
in here.” He pushed a wall switch and the panel slid back opening up for a full laundry facility. I take it the Sedona doesn’t have laundry in the galley?”