Desert Stars (24 page)

“
Because I don’t have the
money, sir,” said Jalil, deciding it would be best to be honest.
“That’s why I’m trying to sign on and work. Are you a starship
captain?”

Mark smiled. “Yes, you
could say that. My ship is the
Bridgette.
”

Jalil nodded, his heart beating a
little faster. “And I don’t suppose I could, well, sign on with
you?”

“
That depends. We usually
limit our crews to family and close friends of family. That’s what
you’ll find with most interstellar outfits on the frontier
worlds.”

Jalil’s stomach fell.

“
Still, another hand might
be useful. Do you have any experience working on interstellar
freighters?”

“
No.”

“
How about in-system
carriers?”

“
I’m afraid
not.”

“
Do you have any piloting
skills at all?”

Jalil drew in a sharp breath. “No, not
really.”

“
Navigation experience?
Mechanical experience?”

“
I used to work on
caravaneers out in the desert,” Jalil said eagerly. “I’ve rebuilt
whole vehicles from the ground up, including the micronuclear
cores.”

Mark leaned back and stroked his
beard. The expression on his face didn’t look very
promising.

“
You said you were one of
the Farlands?”

“
That’s right,
sir.”

For a few moments, neither of them
said anything. Outside, a transport took off, momentarily filling
the room with its roar. Jalil shifted nervously where he
sat.

“
Well,” said Mark, “I
can’t pay you much, but I can give you passage—if you’re willing to
work hard enough to earn it.”

Jalil’s heart skipped a beat. He could
hardly believe his luck.

“
Well, what do you
say?”

“
Thank you,
sir!”

Mark smiled. “Meet me at gate 23A this
afternoon, sixteen hundred local. I’ll have your contract ready at
the shuttle.”

* * * * *

Jalil arrived at gate 23A nearly half
an hour early. The concourse was filled with people, all hurrying
from place to place. Most of them wore gray or navy blue jumpsuits,
marking them as starship pilots or crew members—not passengers. The
walls, too, were a utilitarian gray, devoid of the flashy
advertisements so prominent in other areas of the
spaceport.

At first, he wondered if
he’d come to the right place. The gate was little more than a
simple, windowless door; if it weren’t for the giant blue
23A
painted above it, he
would have left. Instead, he stood awkwardly outside.

When the clock across the hall read
“1548,” a young woman approached the door from the main hallway.
She had short blond hair and wore a loose-fitting, short-sleeve
jumpsuit with a utility belt strapped around her waist. As she came
closer, Jalil saw that her clothes were covered in grease stains
and dark smudges.

She saw him standing next to the door
and stopped. “You lost?”

“
This is gate 23A, right?”
asked Jalil.

“
Yeah,” said the
girl.

“
Then I guess
not.”

She frowned and cocked her head. “What
are you looking for?”

“
A man by the name of Mark
Stewart.”

The girl only looked more puzzled than
ever. “That’s my father,” she said. “How do you know
him?”

Jalil shifted nervously from foot to
foot. “I met him in a cantina earlier. He said he wanted to hire
me, and told me to meet him here.”

“
Oh yeah? Huh, that’s
interesting. What’s your name?”

“
Gavin,” said Jalil.
“Gavin Farland.”

The girl’s eyes lit up, and she
brought a hand to her chin. “Farland? Where’re you
from?”

How do you know that
name?

“
Karduna,” he said, “but I
grew up in the desert. Is your father here?”

“
Oh yeah,” said the girl.
“Sorry.” She produced a card from her chest pocket and held it in
front of the access panel; the door hissed open, revealing a narrow
corridor.

“
Come with me,” she said,
glancing at him over her shoulder as she went on ahead. “Dad’ll be
here soon. The name’s Michelle, by the way.”

“
Nice to meet
you.”

Jalil stiffened a bit as he followed
her into the narrow space. Michelle was not much older than Mira,
and he didn’t feel comfortable being alone with her.

“
Sorry to be rude,” said
Michelle, stopping in front of the second door. “It’s just that we
don’t generally take on new crew in foreign ports. We’re mostly a
family operation, you see.”

“
That’s what your father
told me.”

“
Farland, though—are you
related to the Farlands from Kardunash III, by any
chance?”

Jalil’s heart leaped in his chest. “I
don’t know. Maybe.”

“
Maybe?” She gave him a
funny look. “I thought you said you were from Karduna.”

“
Yes,” he said, “but… it’s
a long story.”

“
We’ve got some time to
kill. Care to tell me?”

She looked at him expectantly, hands
in her back pockets. In spite of her baggy jumpsuit, she had a
strikingly attractive figure. Jalil blushed.

“
Maybe later?”

She shrugged. “Suit yourself. It’s
probably better to wait ‘til we’re topside anyway.”

She reached up with one hand to a
keypad on the wall next to the door. Her nimble fingers danced
across the keys and the door hissed open, revealing a small, dimly
lit room.

“
Watch your
head.”

Jalil ducked as he followed her into a
narrow room barely larger than a closet. The door slid shut behind
them, and for a second, Jalil felt a wave of claustrophobia wash
over him. He turned around and banged his head.

“
Ow!” he said, looking up
to see what he’d hit. It was a metal handhold.

What the hell is a
handhold doing on the ceiling?

“
Sorry about that,” said
Michelle as she opened yet another door. “The shuttle’s a bit cozy,
but at least this way we don’t have to pay for the
ferry.”

What ferry?
Jalil nearly asked. Not wanting to sound like an
idiot, though, he followed her inside without saying
anything.

The first thing he noticed were the
pipes and conduits running along the ceiling. Once again, he ducked
his head, and this time nearly tripped over a false-leather chair
embedded in the floor. It was one of eight; two in front, three in
the middle, and three more in back. Various metal cabinets and
compartments lined the walls, while a series of panels and displays
formed a semicircle around the two seats in the front. The forward
window was wide but narrow, and looked out over the flat horizon
that marked the top of Terra 2 Dome. Outside, a starship passed
noisily overhead; inside the cabin, however, it was remarkably
quiet.

“
You like it?” Michelle
asked, wiping her hands on a rag.

“
Sure,” he said, taking a
seat. The fact that they were alone together made him nervous—it
reminded him too much of that night with Mira.

“
Well, what do you
think?”

“
It… looks good, I
guess.”

“
Not the decorating, you
idiot, the functionality,” Michelle said, rolling her eyes. “I
installed a twenty-five hundred kilowatt micronuclear drive and
hooked up a second CPU to the shuttle’s mainframe to cut down the
system startup time. I’ve souped up the engines to give extra turbo
thrust, and tripled the capacity of the chemical fuel tanks. If we
needed to, we could take this baby to either of Gaia Nova’s moons
and back again.”

She beamed as she patted her hand
against the nearest metal duct, clearly proud of her
work.

“
You’re a mechanic?” Jalil
asked.

“
More an engineer, but
yeah, pretty much.”

“
I used to repair
micronuclear engines in the desert.”

Michelle’s eyes lit up at once.
“Really?”

“
All the time,” said
Jalil. “Though to be honest, I was more of a handyman than a
mechanic.”

“
What the hell did you
need micronuclear engines for? I thought those were just for low
orbit spacecraft.”

“
We put them on our
caravaneers—er, our long-range vehicles. A good one could ride for
four thousand miles without refueling and still power a small
camp.”

“
I’ll bet,” she said,
nodding appreciatively. “So what do you think of what I’ve done
here?”

Jalil stood up and walked over to the
micronuclear device embedded in the back wall. “Well,” he said, “it
looks like you got a newer model here. Wiring looks fine, power
transfer looks good—but you’ve got a problem with the central
gauge.”

“
What kind of a problem?”
she asked, already by his side.

“
It only goes up to
two-fifty, but this drive model should run up around three
hundred.” He stepped back to let her look. “Seems like whoever sold
you this unit cobbled the gauge together from spare
parts.”

“
Damn, you’re right. Do
you think I should reconfigure it?”

Jalil shrugged. “It shouldn’t be a
major problem, but your readings are going to be a couple of marks
off until you do.”

Michelle swore again. Before he could
answer, the door hissed open and Mark stepped through.

“
Hello, sir!” said Jalil,
standing up at once.

“
Oh, hi there,” said Mark,
completely unconcerned to see him alone with his daughter. “I see
you’ve met ‘Chelle.”

“
Yes, I have. But
don’t—”

“
Daddy!” said Michelle,
giving her father a hug.

“
It’s good to see you,
dear,” said Mark, hugging her back. “Did you have fun these past
couple of days?”

“
Oh yeah! The snorkling
trip was awesome—you really should have been there.”

Mark chuckled. “Believe me, I wish I
could have come. I’m glad you had a good time, though.”

He allows her to go out by
herself,
Jalil realized.
Either he doesn’t care what she does with men, or
he knows that she can be trusted.
Either
way, Jalil was off the hook.

“
Well, let’s get ready for
launch. I’ll get Gavin his contract.”

While Michelle went up to the front of
the shuttle, Mark produced a datapad and brought it to
Jalil.

“
Here’s your contract,” he
said, handing it over. “We can’t pay much and we don’t have much
extra living space, but if passage to Karduna is all you’re looking
for, we can hire you on for two hundred New Gaian credits per week,
plus room and board.”

Jalil took the datapad and looked
briefly over the contract. “Where do I sign?” he asked.

Mark laughed. “Whoa there! I haven’t
finished yet.”

Jalil blushed. A low humming sounded
through the walls as the shuttle powered up.

“
The contract also
includes six months’ labor at our warehouse on K-4,” Mark
continued. “We don’t have much work for you to do while we’re en
route, but we do have need for you when we get back. Wages are the
same, though we can provide temporary housing for you at a
discounted price. If we’re satisfied with your work, we may be
willing to hire you on full-time at more than double the contract
rate.”

Jalil thought about it. Six months
seemed like a long time—but if it meant passage to Karduna, that
was a small price to pay for the chance to finally return
home.

“
Great,” he said. “Where
do I sign?”

“
Just making sure,” said
Mark. “Before you sign, though, I need to see your passport. The
port authority at Karduna is pretty liberal about immigration, but
we’ll need to get all your documents in order.”

Jalil reached into his pocket and
pulled out the passport datachip. He handed it to Mark, who took it
to the computer terminal next to Michelle.

“
Ah,” he said, “I forgot
about this Gaia Novan design. ‘Chelle, got a port
converter?”

“
Yeah,” said Michelle,
opening one of the side cabinets and pulling out a small conversion
device. The male end was identical in shape to the one on Jalil’s
locket.

Mark plugged it in and looked over the
data readout for half a minute. The humming from the walls became
louder, and a series of lights on the ceiling came to
life.

“
Looks good,” he said,
unplugging the chip and handing it back to Jalil. “Once you’ve
signed the contract, I’ll upload a copy for your own
records.”

“
Great,” said Jalil. “Uh,
what do I sign with?”

“
Oh, sorry,” said Mark. He
reached over and pulled out a stylus from a slot in the datapad.
“Use this.”