The Bright Black Sea (25 page)

'You'll have plenty more of those yarns, once we go
out of system. It'll be the drifts for us for sure,' said Tenry
with a leer. 'And deep drift cargoes pay too damn well to avoid
temptation. Once we've worked the deep drifts for a while, the
Last Striker Affair
will seem very humorous indeed...'

A knot in the pit of my stomach told me he was likely
right. Damn and Blast.

I drained the last of my cha and rising said, 'On
that optimistic note, I think I'll hit my hammock and see if I can
sleep. Rockets Away.'

01

'Look at all the shipping! Leave it to Sanre-tay to
make a boom out of a bust,' I said to Vynnia as we waited on the
landing stage for the arrival of the ferry to take us down to
CraterCity.

Beyond the clearsteel hull, the marbled sky glittered
with the lights of a thousand ships, boats, tugs and lighters
looking like a starry night – something largely unseen in the Nine
Star Nebula as the outer shell veils all but the brightest of the
stars outside.

'Looks like a miniature star cluster,' I added.

'Yes,' replied Vynnia, blandly.

I glanced at her. 'Ah, yes, of course. You've seen
the First Worlds. This must pale in comparison.'

' I grew up on Mulinn, where the night sky is
littered with thousands of orbital cities, resorts and
facilities.'

'Oh my, a First Worlder. You're rather far from home
and civilization.'

'Blame it on Ten. He's a Rigtanian, though he'll
never admit it. However, my parents came from Dunlea in the Apier
system, so I'm not a real First Worlder, by First World standards
anyway.'

'What carried your parents to Murlinn?' I asked
politely, taking the opportunity to get to know her a little
better. I couldn't ask for a better first mate, but our
relationship had remained rather formal, the friendship I'd prefer,
slow to develop.

'They're career Patrol.'

'Ah, of course,' I said. Murlinn is the Patrol's
BasePrime. 'You followed in their orbit.'

'Hardly,' she said with a faint, wry smile.

'Well, yes, I suppose being a first mate on a small
tramp freighter in the outer most system was not quite their
orbit.'

'Not that I wanted to,' she added. 'They're
long-career officers, admirals these days. By the time they had me
they were already posted in BasePrime, so I grew up at Prime. I
followed them into service, of course, not that I'd a real choice,
and advanced rapidly. To a point. The Patrol doesn't want
dynasties, so I reached a rank where my family connection became a
detriment rather than a plus. Further advancement would've been
decades in the making, and well, I fell in love with a shiftless
boarding boat leader and decided to follow him to the ends of the
nebula. And here I am,' she added with a shrug.

'I'll not complain,' I said. She didn't reply. She
probably couldn't say the same.

I certainly don't measure up to Patrol standards. Of
course, most tramp captains don't bother with the style or stature
of a Patrol ship captain, but my casual, band of equals approach,
likely grated on her sense of what's proper. Still, the Patrol
trained her well. I was captain and she, a competent, conscientious
and respectful subordinate.

I shivered. Sanre-tay is a hot, inner belt planet and
most of the terraformed craters and rifts of Lontria, Sanre-tay's
moon, reflect that climate as well, so I'd dressed in light
magnetic soled shoes, trousers, cap and light pull over jersey with
my old pilot insignia tabs still on the shoulders – too lightly for
the
Lost Star
. Luckily before I froze, Tenry, who had the
watch, announced the arrival of the ferry. Astro and Orbit, who had
been quietly sitting alongside us, leaped to their feet and started
barking. I wasn't impressed, this time.

We were taking the ferry rather than the gig down to
CraterPort on the advice of the Trade Control official who
conducted our brief inspection. He'd warned us that with so many
ships in the anchorage, heavy boat traffic landing in CraterPort
often caused long waits for landing slots and parking was often
kilometers away from any access point. He advised catching a ferry
to the Transit Terminal or a bum boat to one of the outlying
landing fields instead.

The ferry slipped into view, a broad, twenty meter
long barge sporting a single deck under a clearsteel dome. Its
pilot deftly aligned its side airlock with our gangplank. I sternly
told the hounds to 'stay' and followed Vynnia aboard.

The ferry was jammed with loud spaceers clinging or
floating about the rows of narrow seats – surging this way and that
as the vessel maneuvered. Since Lontria is an airless, .21 standard
gravity moon, elaborate accommodations weren't required to
transport passengers down.

'Who's boarding us?' called out one of the spaceers
as we emerged from the airlock.

'Wil Litang and Vynnia enCarn of the
Lost
Star
,' I replied, searching the crowded deck for a familiar
face.

'Willy, over here!' said Ram NiLang of the LeStellar,
shooting up above the standing crowd to give me a wave – a fellow
pilot who I've crossed orbits with countless times over the
years.

Meanwhile another spaceer called out 'Captain
enCarn!' and Vynnia, recognizing him replied 'Hello, Chief !' We
exchanged nods and separated to visit with our friends.

Somewhat paradoxically for a profession whose
practitioners spend most of their lives sealed in little D-matter
cans in the middle of nothing, spaceers are a very social lot as a
rule – no doubt because we do spend so much time in our D-matter
cans. We often pass our off watched gossiping with other spaceers
in the radio lounge and as likely as not, cross orbits with them on
the next planet or two in the dives of spaceers' row. And when you
consider many spaceers spend a century or more in the trade, it is
easy to see how they can accumulate a vast number of friends,
acquaintances and enemies. Given the number of ships in Sanre-tay
anchorage, there'll be plenty of mates to pass our idle hours and
lift glasses with during our stay.

'Roll an old drunk captain for the cap, Wil?' asked
Ram eyeing the star on my cap as I reached him through the press of
spaceers. 'I thought your captain gig was just a jobbing commission
to Calissant.'

'There were not many old captains, sober or drunk, on
Calissant to offer the job to, once Vynnia enCarn passed on it, so
I'm it, believe it or not.'

'Well, congratulations, Wil, it's good to see they're
bringing in new blood. For as long as it'll last...'

'Aye. Might last for a while, we're heading out of
system...' We went on to banter, gossip, and catch up on what's
swinging in and around PortCity. With cargoes scarce, what was
swinging was mostly a good time – while the credits lasted, anyway.
And as we talked, other spaceers pushed their way though the crush
to inquire about friends and acquaintances aboard the
Lost
Star
.

The ferry called on a half a dozen additional ships
filling it to standing room only, dove for the mottled dark and
glowing night side of Lontria and CraterPort, the system's prime
spaceport.

Sanre-tay is an unpleasant world. Located on the
inside track of the inhabitable worlds, it's mostly a steaming hot,
poisonous jungle. Only its polar regions are, more or less,
comfortable, and that only after 10,000 years of terraforming, and
only if you like it hot. Many Sanre-tayians split their lives
between working on Lontria or in the jungle factories and relaxing
in the resorts and cities of the poles. It is nevertheless, a world
rich in resources. The jungles provide not only the famous
fireproof taywood, the wood used for the wood trim aboard our ship
– but also a rich array of bio chemicals, spices and
pharmaceuticals – harvested and processed by massive mobil
factories slowly creeping through the continent-wide jungles.

While moons are usually developed for mining, heavy
industries, and as colonies for dissenting populations, Lontria,
due to the long millenniums spent making the poles inhabitable,
became the major Unity Standard population center of the Sanre-tay
system and the most populous moon in the Azminn system.

Given how inhospitable the planet was, (and is) it's
not surprising that Lontria was settled and developed first and has
a far greater concentration of Unity Standard communities than
other moons. And since moving cargo is far more economical in space
or from the surface of an airless moon than up and down through a
heavy atmosphere, Lontria developed into a major interplanetary
transhipment point. Located opposite Azminn's prime planets of
Pinelea and Calissant, it's a convenient collection node for
neighboring planets whose product are forwarded in fast cargo
liners to Pinelea, Calissant and the other major planets. And
because of this direct liner service to all the major planets of
the system, it's the main interstellar portal of Azminn as well,
serving the trade with Amdia and Aticor star systems.

The surface of Lontria is the usual jumble of craters
and chasms, many of which have been turned into inhabitable valleys
by doming them with a tough, self-mending fabric made up of various
layers of D-matter materials for strength, insulation and shielding
and terraforming them into sustainable human environments.
Metrolontria, comprising some seven hundred craters tied together
by a wide, five hundred kilometer long domed canyon is the largest
city complex, home to nearly 300 million people. The whole complex
includes everything needed to be self-sufficient – farms, lakes,
parks and light industrial complexes. The heavy industrial base,
warehouses, shipyards, heavy factories, and foundries are built in
open craters adjacent to domed ones. In addition to the Met, there
are thousands of other crater and rift systems communities, home to
a further 550 million people. A majority of these systems operate
under Unity Standard law, but even so, there are almost a thousand
dissenting semi-autonomous kingdoms, principalities and utopias,
the type found on every moon of the Nebula.

The ferry swooped low over dark mountains and raced
over the glowing domed craters and rifts towards CraterPort. We
circled and approached the wide, brightly lit plain of CraterPort
and joined a queue of rocket boats, taxis and ferries lined up to
enter the vast Transit Terminal building set in the crater wall.
The crater's wall itself is hidden behind clearsteel banks of
offices, shops, hotels and residences burning brightly in the
Lontria night.

The Transit Terminal had a slowly rotating, hundred
meter tall and wide, circular airlock divided into four sections.
Outbound boats used the upper half, inbound boats the lower half.
The ferry, in its turn entered as the section opened and followed
the moving partition around, first to the intermediate stage where
air is rapidly pumped in, and out, into the bright spacious,
multilevel hangar to discharge our passengers.

We joined the crush of eager spaceers pushed out into
the thin, cold atmosphere of the hangar smelling of hot metal and
rocket exhaust as the ferry's airlocks opened and dashed across the
hangar apron to a bank of revolving doors to reach the warm,
brightly-lit inspection area. I said a hasty 'see you later' to Ram
and rejoined Vynnia. Clearing inspections, we hurried out into the
high, wide and bustling concourse, and boarding an express
velowalk, set out for Vix Fange & Co.

02

We met a pounding storm of Saypori Screez music as we
pushed through the doors of Vix Fange & Co. Tat Timlor sat
alone in the office beating out the wild rhythms on his desktop,
keeping the grim hours before sunrise at bay.

Beyond the clearsteel office wall, set low on the far
edge of the CraterPort side of the rim, the distant rocket flares
of ships rising or landing could be seen beyond the reflections.
Shipbrokering pays, in good times anyway, but not enough to have an
office high and centered on the rim.

He saw us reflected in the clearsteel and turned with
a wide smile. He held up his hand for a moment, and when the tune
drew to an abrupt close, turned down the volume to subdued roar and
eagerly rose to greet us.

'Welcome, welcome! It's fine to see you once again,
Captain Wil, and a delight to see you Captain enCarn!' he exclaimed
energetically shaking our hands.

'Hello Tat, It's just plain Vyn, these days. I'm a
pilot,' Vynnia said before I could speak.

'Good to see you, Tat, and don't believe her. She's
my first mate and I'm lucky to have her,' I said, adding, 'Tallith
Min sold the
Silvery Moon
and convinced Vyn and Ten to give
tramping a try.'

'You're lucky, Wil,' agreed Tat. 'But your luck's
been running hot and high these days. Permanent Skipper are we
now?'

'As permanent as any skipper is.'

'Well, grab a chair, download your mail and I'll give
you a concise overview of your depressing prospects.'

'Where's your professional optimism? We're counting
on you,' I said as I brought out my data drive and plugged it into
the secure terminal on the desktop.

'Professional optimism? Well, I'm pretty sure I'll
have a cargo that'll pay the expenses of passage inside of six
months. No promises, but you wanted the optimistic outlook.'

'Is it really that grim?' I asked entering my code to
download all the waiting radio-packets for ship and crew. 'I assume
you're aware of our owners plan to send us out of system.'

'No more cargoes outbound than in-system. I know the
day crew has been working with Min & Co to set you up to roam
the eight systems to you're heart's content, but we've five other
ships on our list looking for outbound cargoes and you're number
five. And when you consider there's half a dozen other shipbrokers
here in PortCity with similar lists, you can gauge your prospects
as well as I.'