Drifter's Run (9 page)

Lando had tried everything from soap and water to industrial-strength deodorants and nothing worked. The suit had been around a long time, and over the years the smell of sweat, urine, and God knows what else had worked its way down into hundreds of little nooks and crannies.

Lando's air gave out and he was forced to breathe. The sour coppery smell nearly gagged him. His suit radio crackled into life. "Hey, Pik, how ya doing?"

"Great," Lando lied, "just great. Couldn't be better. Shouldn't you be working on your math?"

"I am," Melissa replied defensively, "I was checking, that's all. That's my job, isn't it?"

"Yeah," Lando replied, snapping the suit's final closure. "That's your job when I'm
outside
the tender. When I'm
inside
the tender your job is math. How're you going to be a pilot if you don't know any math?"

"I'll hire you to do it for me," Melissa responded cheerfully. "Besides, you're just grumpy 'cause you're going outside."

"Sounds like a good enough reason to me," Lando replied.

He hit the large square of green plastic with his gloved fist and waited while the inner hatch irised closed. His external mike picked up the loud whining sound. He'd heard that sound a lot lately, and wished it would go away.

They'd been working on the orbital cleanup job for two weeks now, long tedious weeks, during which he'd spent endless hours on the beam controls.

There were two kinds of beams, tractor beams that could pull things toward the tender, and pressor beams that could push them away.

The trick was to use these beams in conjunction with the ship's sensors to push and pull things into the trap. The work was very exacting. Some pieces of debris were so small the beams had a hard time getting a purchase. Somewhat akin to chasing a pea with two tree trunks.

And then, just to make the task even more interesting, there was the trap itself. It was a large rectangular structure cobbled together by Cap and Cy. Basically it was a durasteel frame covered with metal mesh and equipped with some bolt on steering jets.

A set of remote controls aboard the tender allowed Lando to steer the trap, open and close its various doors, and place objects inside for storage.

Doing so was a challenge since any attempt to capture debris required Lando to control the trap as well as a couple of tractor beams.

Simple for anyone with three hands, but a rather difficult task for everyone else.

And then there was the inspection phase, "panning for gold" Cap called it, which forced Lando to spend a lot of time in his space armor. "Panning for gold" was not only physically demanding it was also dangerous as hell.

The fact was that Lando rarely knew exactly what he was stuffing into the trap. Although the ship's sensors could tell him lots about an item's heat, speed, mass, and density, they couldn't tell him what the object
was.
And since what an object
was
had a lot to do with its potential
value,
someone had to inspect it. More often than not that someone was Lando.

A red light came on to indicate vacuum inside the lock. Lando hit a square of green plastic and waited for the outer door to cycle open. As he did so, Lando hit another switch and killed the electromagnetic wall lock. With no argrav in the tender his suit floated free.

Lando's stomach felt heavy. The odds grew worse each time he went outside. Lots of things could go wrong. His suit could malfunction, he could collide with a piece of orbiting junk, a loose space mine could explode and blow him to smithereens, a chunk of radioactive drive shielding could fry his brains… the list went on and on.

All things considered, it was hard to say which he liked less, running from bounty hunters or working for Cap. He could quit of course, but then there was the contract, and the fact that he hadn't been paid.

Lando had approached Cap about his pay on two different occasions, and each time the other man put him off, citing "administrative difficulties," and promising to deal with it soon.

The latest excuse was a need "to do a little banking," and accounted for the fact that Cap had gone dirtside about two hours before.

Lando wondered if the bank was located in close proximity to a bar, and hoped that if Cap got drunk, he wouldn't run into Jord Willer.

Was it simply bad luck that had guided Cap into Hizo's Saloon on Dista? Or had Willer planned it? Waited for Cap to show up and then started the fight?

One thing was for sure. Having shot the cyborg in both of his chrome-plated kneecaps, Lando was safer in space than he would be on the ground, unless he died "panning for gold" of course. The thought was far from cheerful, and Lando did his best to suppress it.

The external door was open and Lando used conveniently located handholds to pull himself toward it. Just inside the hatch he scanned his readouts, checked his monofilament lifeline, and chinned the radio.

"I'm stepping outside for a while. Keep a close eye on the vid screens."

"That's a roger," Melissa answered. "If someone comes our way I'll let you know."

Lando hoped so. Cy had marked off their current search area with radio beacons, but you never knew when some idiot would decide to ignore them. And if they did that, chances were they'd ignore his suit beacon too, and take a shortcut right through the center of his chest.

What were the odds of a ship passing through his chunk of space anyway? Thousands to one? Millions to one? Ever "billions to one" sounded dangerous to Lando. He fired his suit jets and headed into space.

Pylax was a dark presence below, a black disk over which the sun was barely starting to rise, rays of brilliant light hitting his visor and causing it to polarize.

Lando cut power and checked his safety line. It was a pain, but given Melissa's limited abilities, his only chance in case of an accident. The other end of the cable was hooked to a power winch inside the lock. If necessary Melissa could reel him in like a fish on a line and then holler for help.

The cable looked fine. Beyond it the tender's multicolored navigation lights blinked on and off with boring regularity.

Lando turned away, fired his suit jets, and headed for the trap. Its corners were marked with flashing red beacons. Sunlight gleamed off metal mesh and hinted at shapes within.

It took twelve minutes to make the journey. Once there Lando hooked his lifeline to the wire mesh, went inside, and closed the gate behind him.

Junk rounded up during the previous days had already been stashed in the expandable compartment located at what Lando thought of as the trap's stern. Being little more than a box made of durasteel and wire mesh, the trap didn't actually have a bow or stern, but what the heck, he could call it the stern if he wanted to.

Lando took a deep breath and began the tedious process of sorting, inspecting, and securing his latest finds. He dealt with large items first. Unlike the smaller stuff they were easy to get his hands on, easy to check out, and easy to move.

There was all the usual stuff. Chunks of scrap metal, empty oxy tanks, a broken stabilizer, some cargo pallets, and a worn-out comsat.

Lando had the comsat in front of him, and was pushing it toward the stem, when he saw something from the corner of his eye. He turned and it was gone.

What the hell? Had he imagined it? No, it was a space suit all right, and inside the trap.

The comsat drifted away completely forgotten. Lando pulled his hand blaster and headed toward a piece of free-floating solar panel. Questions jostled each other looking for answers. Who was this guy? Where'd he come from? And what the hell was he doing in the trap?

Sunlight flared off the panel's reflective surface as Lando skimmed across it. His visor grew darker while his suit labored to dump the extra heat. There he was! Sliding behind a shattered cargo module.

"All right you sonovabitch… come out with your hands on your helmet!"

"Pik? What's the matter? Who're you talking to?"

Lando gave himself a mental kick in the pants. He'd given himself away and scared Melissa to boot.

"Don't worry, honey, just cover me with that blast rifle, and we'll put him in a cross fire."

As he shot toward the cargo module, Lando gritted his teeth and waited for Melissa to ask, "What blast rifle?"

Much to his surprise the question never came.

Grabbing the cargo module's top edge, Lando pulled himself up and over. The maneuver must have caught his opponent completely off guard, because as Lando grabbed him, the other man didn't resist. "Gotcha!"

"I've got him covered, Pik… shall I blast him?" There was a quaver in Melissa's voice that belied her words.

"No need," Lando replied, pressing his blaster against the other man's helmet. "I've got things under control. Okay, bozo… talk or suck vacuum. Who the hell are you, and what're you doing here?"

Silence.

Lando started to say something, then changed his mind. There was something weird about this guy, about the way he just hung there, limp as an old dishrag.

Acting on a hunch. Lando turned his helmet light on and aimed it through the other man's visor. What he saw made him gag and push the suit away.

It was horrible. Some stringy hair, a couple of bulging eyes, and a lot of rotting flesh. Not only was this guy dead, he'd been that way for quite a while. Lando's breakfast came up for a visit and he forced it back down.

Then Lando saw something else. Something down low where the man's abdomen would be, a blackened area, where an energy beam had burned its way through the expensive self-sealing suit. A high-powered blaster perhaps… or a light energy cannon.

"Pik?"

"It's okay, Melissa. I've been playing hide 'n' seek with a stiff. More in a bit."

Lando heard Melissa's mike click twice in acknowledgment.

A stiff. Damn. There was no way around it. He'd have to collar the corpse and turn it in. Lando could imagine the paperwork, the interviews, the endless bureaucratic nonsense.

Easing his way forward, Lando grabbed a space-suited arm, and pulled the body toward him. He was just about to take the corpse under tow when something flashed in the sun.

Turning the space suit slightly, he saw that there was a comet etched into the top of each shoulder, a golden comet, the kind worn by Imperial Couriers. A courier by God!

With a growing sense of excitement Lando saw that a small satchel was clipped to the courier's chest.

Squeamishness suddenly forgotten, Lando towed the body to the main gate and tied it to the wire mesh. After that it was a simple matter to remove the satchel.

It had no weight due to zero gravity, but the satchel's contents were solid, and tightly packed.

Moving the satchel into the light, Lando saw a series of snap closures, and a wax seal that bore the Imperial crest. Lando knew that he shouldn't open the satchel… and knew that he would.

"Watch out," his father had cautioned him years ago. "Curiosity killed a lot of Landos."

Lando used clumsy gloved fingers to break the seal. After that the closures unsnapped one at a time, until the flap was loose, and he could push it out of the way.

Suddenly released, a pair of gold bars floated up and away. Lando grabbed them before he realized what they were. Gold bars! Holy Sol! He was rich!

Cramming the bars back inside the satchel, Lando saw more, ten or twelve more, each stamped with the Imperial seal.

And then the joy was gone. "Now wait a minute," a voice said. "That's Imperial gold in that satchel. You know, the kind that belongs to the Emperor, the kind he wants back. Take it, and you'll be lucky to end up on a prison planet."

Lando felt sure that another part of his personality had an adequate response but he never got to hear it.

"Your read me, Pik?" Melissa's voice was tense.

"Loud and clear."

"There's a ship coming our way. She's ignoring the beacons and my calls."

Lando swore softly and snapped the satchel to his chest. The stiff could wait. He opened the gate, secured it behind him, and unhooked the lifeline from the mesh. Snapping the hook onto a fitting located just behind his neck, Lando saw a green light come on above his visor, and kicked off.

"Melissa, I'm on my way. Keep trying to raise the other ship."

"That's a roger." She sounded better now that he was on the way.

Lando fired his suit jets and aimed for the black triangle located between the tender's navigational lights.

"Pik!" Melissa sounded scared. "The ship's picking up speed! It's coming toward you!"

Lando turned and tried to locate the oncoming ship's navigational lights. There weren't any. A rock fell straight to the pit of his stomach. No com, no lights, the bastards were trying to run him down!

"Reel me in, Melissa! Do it now!"

Melissa obeyed and Lando felt himself jerked backward. He wasn't sure which was faster, his suit jets or the electric winch, but he couldn't stand the idea of being hit from behind. At least this way he'd see it coming.

And there it was. The sun had risen relative to Lando, and it backlit the ship, making it appear black and menacing.

Lando was momentarily blinded by a pulse of blue light. An energy cannon! The bastards were shooting at him, or the tender, he couldn't tell which.

Seconds passed while Lando waited to die. Nothing happened. That was good… but something was wrong. Then he had it. The pull of the emergency line had disappeared. The sonsabitches had cut him loose!

Lando fired his suit jets but moved too late. Something locked on to him with crushing force. He blacked out and came to seconds later.

"Pik! Pik! What's going on?" Melissa was terrified.

Lando tried to speak but found he couldn't. It took every erg of energy he had to breathe. His eyes told him that the black ship was moving closer. What the hell were they doing to him? Then he understood. A tractor beam. The miserable bastards had speared him with a tractor beam. But why?

His first thought was the gold but he quickly dismissed that. There was no way they could know about the gold. No, it must be something else, something…