Running With Argentine (17 page)

Dreamspace

Most everyone
was already gathered in the mess when Argentine made his entrance.

"Sami, how long before we can go into skip?"

"We should clear the Asperian gravity well in another
seventeen hours, give or take…"

"Are there any ships that can overtake us before
then?"

"In a system this busy?" she asked. "Yeah, of
course."

"Are any of them warships? Customs, police… any ships
that could threaten us?"

Sami's eyes took on even more of a dreamy look than usual;
she was obviously interfacing with the ship's astrogation computer.

"I could easily have done that. We
are
still in-system
and I
am
the ship's pilot, you know," a voice quietly grumbled.

"Not now, Barry. I'm not in the mood."

"Righto," came the reply.

"No, First. I think we're clear. It looks like a couple
of inbound freighters could match course with us if they really tried, and
there's a few more heading out system that are ahead of us, but I don't see
anything that looks like a patrol or an armed ship."

"Satisfied, Captain?" Mandi asked. "Can you
breathe easy now that you know I'm not leading you into an ambush?"

Ignoring her, Argentine turned to the professor…

"Are you really an engineer specializing in ore
processing?"

"Ah, well…"

"Exactly what I thought," interrupted the chief.

Argentine shifted his gaze. "Okay, Mandi.
Explain."

With a slight grin she said matter-of-factly, "You have
a habit of getting into trouble everyplace you go and then running away,"
she said matter-of-factly. "I think that pretty much sums it up nicely,
don't you?"

The room was deathly silent.

"Oh for the sake of the Galactic Gods," she said
in exasperation. "If I'm going to have to keep rescuing you like this the
least you can do is be nice to me!"

"Rescuing us? You're going to bloody well get us
killed!" Barry blurted out.

The chief had been about to speak but realized he couldn't
have put it much better than Barry had…

"I'm going to say it again," Argentine said
quietly. "Explain yourself."

Mandi cocked her head with an expression that was… Curious?

"Very well, but if I help you connect the dots will you
at least promise to be civil?"

Again, no one responded.

"Sheesh," she mumbled. "Okay, I learned
through my contacts that you’d gotten yourself in trouble with the Asperian
police. Fortunately, you hadn't had time to totally piss them off so you were
only
persons of interest
- they hadn't issued any arrest orders
yet."

The chief started to object but Argentine held up his hand,
holding him off.

"Anyway, I knew it wasn't anything you couldn't handle
until I found out you’d also managed to piss off the military..."

Looking directly at Argentine she said, "You know you
have every right to do stupid things. No one cares if you mess up your own
life… But you have no right to do that to this poor girl," she said
pointing at Sami.

"She adores you and she's placed her trust in you. I
couldn't just sit back and watch you place her in danger, so I did something
about it. It's just lucky for you that I couldn't help her without helping you
too," she finished with crossed arms and a look of defiance.

Argentine had that funny tight feeling in his head… The one
you get right before a massive headache overwhelms you.

The chief looked at Argentine and flexed his hands…
Now
can I interrupt?

Argentine nodded.

"You're the reason the police were suspicious of us in
the first place! We hadn't been aboard the platform for more than ten minutes
before they realized you were there!"

"Yeah, they must've upgraded their facial recognition
software since the last time I visited," she mused casually.

"Whatever!" the chief said loudly. "The point
is, you are the cause of all our problems!"

"Oh, nonsense. Why didn't you just tell the
truth?"

"What? Why…"

She turned to look questioningly at Argentine.

So did Sami and Barry…

"You wanted me to give you up? I… We…" he looked
over at the lieutenant.

"We didn't think it was wise to be associated with you
in any way shape or form," Lieutenant Stark said calmly.

"Well, there you have it," Mandi pronounced.
"You made a bad decision and you're blaming me for it. If you would've
come clean they would've questioned you for a while and then let you be about
it. Instead, you had to recklessly endanger this girl's life!"

"Wait a minute!" said Argentine. "By playing
dumb we not only protected ourselves, we gave you time to make your escape. At
the very least you should be showing us some gratitude!"

"I can take care of myself, I'll have you know. I
didn't need your help."

"She did manage to change her identification photo in
the police database pretty quickly," the chief muttered.

Argentine looked at him sharply as if to say, W
hose side
are you on?

"At any rate," Mandi said, again picking up the
conversation. "I had nothing to do with you challenging the Asperian
military. You own that one all by yourself."

Changing tacks, Argentine said, "And just how do you
know what happened with the Asperian military?"

"I told you. I have… contacts."

"Contacts with whom?" Argentine insisted.

"Is it really that important?" Mandi suddenly
asked. "I did get you out of there… Your flag was lifted, you've got a
freight contract, and you’re establishing a reputation with the Guild… Isn’t
that what you wanted?"

Argentine could see the chief and Barry exchanging glances.

Turning to the professor, Argentine asked, "And just
how do you figure into all of this? Is your name really Sullivan?"

"Yes, actually it is." Glancing at Mandi, he
continued, "I, uh… Have a need to get to Trinity. I really do appreciate
your help and I really can help you process some ore along the way. Call it a
payment of gratitude, if you like."

"Trinity," Argentine said deadpan.

"Yes, Trinity." With some confusion he continued,
"You knew that's where you were taking me, right?"

By now everyone in the room had turned to look at Mandi…

The professor spoke first…

"Haven't you told them anything?"

ΔΔΔ

"I'm
Professor Jake Sullivan, from Denmany University on Asperia. I'm working on a
grant from the Open Society of Enlightened Crustaceans.

"As I told you, I'd be happy to help you calibrate your
machines to process some ore… Metallurgy is a hobby of mine. But my major field
of study is xeno-archeology."

"Xeno? As in alien?" Barry asked. "There
aren't any aliens. No one's ever found any."

"Actually, we've discovered a large number of alien life
forms. But you are correct in so much as we have never found any lifeforms that
are intelligent. For that matter, we've never found anything even close to
possibly being intelligent on an evolutionary scale."

Looking around the professor realized that the group wasn't
necessarily following his line of thought…

"Think of it this way… We are fairly certain that
mankind originated on a single planet in some distant past that’s so removed
we've lost track of it.

"Everyone can agree with that, right?"

Argentine looked around to everyone and then spoke,
"Yes, I suppose that makes sense. It's not something I’ve really put a lot
of thought into."

Several others in the crew nodded also.

"Well, I can assure you that is the prevailing thought.
The point is, human beings didn't just start out as human beings. We
evolved."

"Now you're just being insulting," the chief
interrupted. "We all know that chimpanzees are our closest relative."

"Exactly right!" responded the professor,
oblivious to any insult. "But even before primates, life had to evolve
into vertebrates. That was really the first evolutionary step that would allow
intelligence to eventually develop."

"Uh, just a minute, Professor," drawled Rory.
"Do you have an evidence based theory to support that stipulation?”

He took a bite from an energy bar, chewed it a couple of
times, and then continued, “Couldn't intelligence just as easily have evolved
in invertebrates? Exoskeletons could easily protect vital organs and
neurological structures. What's the basis for your claim?"

The professor started to respond but no one was listening.
Everyone was staring in astonishment at Rory.

"… So you can see, as astute as your observation is,
there is good reason to believe otherwise. There is a Doctor McKinney on the
planet Tarcer that actually tries to make a case for your viewpoint, but most
don't really accept his ideas as wholly sound…" the professor continued,
oblivious to what was going on around him.

"Rory?" Argentine asked. "How do you… Where
did all that come from?"

"What? You think all he cares about are dream space
motors and flux actuators?” said the chief. He then rolled his eyes, “He has
hobbies."

Argentine said, "Oh."

"… So you see, it's absolutely critical I get to
Trinity."

"Wait a minute, Professor. Why do you have to go to
Trinity?" Argentine asked.

"I just told you, I have to see the alien artifacts for
myself."

"Artifacts! They have alien artifacts? Well, I'll be
buggered!" Barry exclaimed.

"No, no, no…" the professor interrupted. "They
claim to have artifacts but no one believes them. The thing is,
as I've
already explained
, I think there's a chance that they might be fossils. If
I'm right, it could be the first evidence ever gathered of intelligent alien
life forms."

From the way the professor looked around, expectantly,
Argentine assumed he was waiting for everyone to get as excited as he was.

He was in for disappointment.

Turning to Mandi, Argentine asked, "What aren't you
telling us?"

"Why do you just assume I'm holding something
back?" she responded.

"Because you are, and you always do."

"I'm hurt, really… But if you must know it is a
little
bit more complicated than what the professor has mentioned."

Argentine's look hardened.

"I think he probably assumed that you already knew…
Trinity is an embargoed planet."

After a long moment, Argentine asked the question that
everyone knew was coming…

"Why is it embargoed?"

"Because it lost the war, silly."

ΔΔΔ

The groans and
curses being thrown out by the crew weren't in jest…

"For the love of…"

"Bloody hell!"

"Somebody grab my gun…"

"All right! That's enough…" Argentine said firmly.

"We're not done here…

"Professor, if your precious fossils are so… p
recious
,
why can't you go there openly to inspect them?"

"Well, you see… I and my colleagues at the University
are really the only ones that…"

"In other words," the chief interrupted.
"This is some half-baked idea of years that no one else buys into."

"I resent that!" the professor said with vigor.
Just because I'm the only person to put sufficient study into the subject to
appreciate the…"

"Oh geez… Man! Can you believe this?" interrupted
the chief. "Argentine, we can't get caught up in this! We need to start
making good decisions… We need to start thinking about ourselves!"

"Professor," Argentine said calmly. "Just how
do you know Mandi and why are you two working together?"

"Well, she came recommended by the society I get my
funding from. They said she could get me there."

Argentine turned to her, "And just why would the
Society for Smart Fish recommend you?"

“Crustaceans… Enlightened Crustaceans.”

“Whatever.”

"Oh, I occasionally do business with them," she
responded. "You might say they're one of my… contacts."

"And this load of ore? Our contract says we’re to
deliver it to Paladin III…"

"Yeah, well… It's their job. So, if you want to get
paid you’ll need to let the professor stop off at Trinity first…"

Argentine closed his eyes. The headache had just hit with
full force.