The Bright Black Sea (6 page)

'Anyway, that brings us back around to paying off the
crew after clearing the ship's cargo,' I continued. 'With the
Ministry official unavailable to say otherwise, that'll have to be
the case with us too. Kardea said we can treat it as unpaid shore
leave, no need to clear our gear until our fate is settled. We can
come and go as we like. I can keep a single ship watcher on board.
Nothing to be done about it.

'We should be able to discharge our cargo in short
order, I've already received notice that lighters are on their way
up. We'll start our 'Survival Banquet' fourth watch tomorrow and
any survivors will be paid off the following day. I understand that
with prospects of a ship out of Port Prime almost nil, most idle
spaceers are drifting down to Barque-nela on the Amibon Sea coast,
inexpensive, warm and with real beaches. You can take the long boat
down under Illy, I'll keep the gig for Port Prime runs. Any
questions?'

'What's your status? Did Kardea have anything say
about that?' asked Illy.

I shook my head. 'She didn't mention anything. I
didn't ask. Until the fate of the
Lost Star
is determined,
appointing a permanent captain is unlikely to be a high priority.
I'm likely to meet Min tomorrow, so I may know more after that
conversation...'

'Captain, the quarantine boat is coming along side,'
Dyn said in his quiet voice beside me.

'Alright mates, down to the landing stage to get
examined, and get your manifests in order for the inspectors. With
traffic so reduced, we're going to get first class treatment this
time around.'

Port procedures vary little planet to planet. The
Quarantine boat docks first with an assortment of droids to conduct
medical exams, sample the ship's environment and clear all trade
goods slated for the planet. Procedures are rigorous and
inflexible, but pandemics are rare.

Once medically cleared, Unity Trade Inspectors
arrived with their droids to verify each cargo container is the
same untampered container sent up from the world of its origin.
They also inspected and recorded the crew's Guild goods, usually
small, rare or luxury items privately purchased on the planets by
spaceers to be either re-sold directly to customers or bartered
spaceer to spaceer via the Guild's exchange posts.

Once the trade inspectors had signed off, we began to
off-load the containers to the waiting lighters. Normally in
Calissant orbit, we'd wait the better part of a day for the first
lighter to arrive up alongside, but this time around, with trade so
slack, we were treated like an express packet with four lighters
waiting for their boxes by the time the inspectors' boat departed.
We discharged our full cargo in a hectic rush of less than two
watches.

Afterwards, though tired, I found sleep evasive. The
sense of relief I should've felt after seeing the
Lost Star
safely and profitably home – without running over any buoys – was
curiously subdued. All rather anticlimactic, no end at all
really.

It was early afternoon, Fourthday, in Primecentra as
the anchorage shuttle followed the guide beam down to Port Prime's
Smallcraft Field. Dyn, as principal heir of Miccall's estate, had
business with both the Guild and the Ministry of Probate. Being
very uncomfortable beyond the confines of the ship, he had asked
Illy to accompany him on his bureaucratic ordeal. Since I'd my
final accounts to complete, I sent them off with the ship's gig.
I'd take a shuttle down and we'd rendezvous for the return
trip.

I'd awoken in a more confident mood. Having seen the
ship around Azminn as routinely (save the Belbania Affair) as
Miccall, earned a respectable profit and feeling that I could do it
again, I decided that there was no cause to be anxious, until I
tackled my accounts, anyway. It still took all of the second watch
and part of the third before they were within what I considered the
margin of error and I was ready to go downside and turn them in to
Min & Co.

Somewhat weary, and now a little wary as well, I'd
tucked the secure data drive in my coat pocket, sought a
comfortable refuge in a Neb may care attitude against the prospect
of meeting my new boss with the Belbania Affair hanging over me,
and signaled for the shuttle. I'd credits in my account and even if
the
Lost Star
was laid up, I'd find something to do. It was
never my intention to spend my whole life in space, I reminded
myself, so I needn't fear meeting Tallith Min. Much.

The shuttle drove down through the clouds – the
viewpanels, showed only white deepening to grey, leaving the towers
of Primecentra and the sprawling fields of Port Prime to memory or
imagination.

Port Prime, Calissant's major space port, spreads
southwards from the clearsteel reefs of Calissant's capital city,
Primecentra, encompassing a hundred square kilometers of
specialized landing fields, hangars, warehouses, docks and ship
lots. The passenger centre borders Primecentra, serving planetary
fliers and near-space rockets, jump ships to orbiting liners and
stations and small space liners to Yendora, Calissant's major moon.
To the east of this is the large Primecentra Yacht Club. Southwards
things get commercial and industrial, a jumbled mix of hangars,
docks, repair yards, freight fields and cargo transfer facilities.
The Smallcraft Field lies on the extreme southern edge. It serves
as the landing and parking field for small boats like our ship's
gig and a bewildering array of lighters, miners, and other
specialized small craft. It's the part of the Port Prime that
interplanetary spaceers know best, and was the shuttle's
destination.

The shuttle's landing jets fired suddenly and we
settled to the flame scarred tarmac without ever breaking though
the clouds. We taxied between space boats, puddles and sooty snow
piles, all vague in the fog to the drop point. It looked like
winter, but if you know Port Prime, the puddles proclaimed that
spring had arrived. (At last!) Coming to rest, we donned our coats
and tumbled out into the cold, damp air smelling of hot metal,
smoke, ozone and wet tarmac. As a pack we splashed and cursed
through the slush and puddles to the access station. Weather can be
very unpleasant. It was not noticeably warmer underground as we
stepped onboard the pseudo-moving surface of the velowalk and
quickly strode our way to the large subterranean reception hall.
The reception hall seemed darker, almost derelict, many shops
closed or deserted, with only a thin scattering of spaceers
scurrying quietly about under its arching dome. I steered for Gate
31. Had it been our early fall visit, I'd have walked the five
kilometers to Min & Co along Star Gate Boulevard just to soak
in its life. But seeing it was 'spring' I limited my choices to the
tube or a flier. As mere first mate, I'd have taken the tube, but
as my last perk as captain, I rode up to the surface gate to hire a
flier. Hunching down in my turned up coat collar, I strode out onto
the gloomy dampness of Star Gate Boulevard and hurried towards the
nearby flier stand.

Star Gate Boulevard circles Port Prime, its character
varying with the activity of the port and neighborhood. I'm only
familiar with the wide canyon between the brooding hangars and work
shops of the Smallcraft Port and the glittering, neon-lit
escarpment of Port Prime's spaceers' row. This is the Star Gate
Boulevard of dark bars and dim taverns, vile drug dens, dives and
joints, loud spaceer clubs and crowded lounges, hundreds of quiet
cha houses, cafes, bustling bistros, diners, eateries, specialty
restaurants and snack stalls, cinemas and immersive vids, arcades,
game rooms and gambling dens, vice clubs and pleasure palaces,
cheap boarding houses, rundown hotels and rendezvous flats,
interspersed with narrow, dark shops, crowded, dusty stores, and
bright, vast emporiums, all offering the guaranteed lowest prices
on the largest selection in the galaxy of everything you want,
need, or can imagine, plus a million other things as well, used and
new, second and twenty-seventh hand, all guaranteed and warranted
authentic, and for those at the end of their tether, pawn shops,
Guild hostels, sheltered corners and benches. And perhaps, a
friend, or a shipmate. In short, everything the spaceer, the
tourist and the curious can spend a credit on. When the weather is
nice, this teeming life bursts out of the neon escarpment to flood
the Boulevard with tables and chairs under awnings and lights,
racks and piles of merchandise, booths and carts, spaceers,
companions, tourists and the curious milling, drinking, eating or
fighting under the arch of trees and banners. But on this early
spring afternoon, Star Gate was dirty, white, grey and desolate,
the canyon wall of colorful signs fading to brighter greys within a
block in either direction, posing no challenge to the brooding dark
hangars along the port side of the boulevard. The only spot of
color in the Boulevard was a line of brightly dressed companions
perched on a bench half buried in a sooty bank of old snow and a
small pack of uniformed and shivering flier pilots keeping them
company.

One companion dressed only in a little blue dress
rose as I hurried out of the port gate and skipping lightly through
the slush and puddles, slipped her(its) arm around mine and said
brightly, 'Hello, mate. Welcome home. I'm Lyrath.'

'Hello Lyrath,' I said, though I continued walking
towards the flier stand. 'You should put more clothes on young
lady. Just looking at you in that skimpy dress is making me even
colder than I am already.'

She laughed, being a professional. 'We can't have
that love,' she replied, and I felt a sudden glow of warmth as the
avatar's operator raised the heat level of avatar's 'body'. Within
a few steps I was walking arm and arm with a warm stove.
'Better?'

'Much. But I'm on ship's business, my dear, and
regrettably I haven't time to sample more of your heat.'

'Oh, I'm sure we'll find time. My rendezvous is just
a few steps up the way, and love, with times being the way they
are, the Guild allows me to offer very special rates for handsome
ship's officers like you – matinee rates all day for the entire
day. So why not let me warm you up thoroughly before your ship's
business and afterwards make an evening of it? I don't see any
company badges,' she added glancing at my cap, 'so I can't imagine
you'll be going anywhere soon.'

The robotic avatar clinging to my arm was a woman
shaped animated machine referred to as a companion. They come in
both sexes. I was conversing, however, with a real woman somewhere
in Primecentra, or, more likely, one of the less expensive
satellite cities that huddled close to Port Prime. She controlled
the avatar's mannerisms and speech as well as its personality, and
she's the she I'll refer to. Companions, avatar and operator, work
as prostitutes or animated sex toys. Your call. Under the Unity
Charter's post robot rebellion laws, all avatars must be clearly
mechanical, though body styles vary from planet to planet. They're
legal on most planets and all moons, though sometimes in only
limited areas like around space ports and red light districts.
Safe, sanitary and strictly regulated by government and their
guild, they're the companion of choice amongst spaceers. If you
wanted a human prostitute around Prime Port you'd have to leave
Star Gate and venture beyond the office buildings into the
tenements beyond. Not recommended. Besides being safer for customer
and operator, avatar companions are also very versatile – a'la the
little furnace beside me. You also avoid the pitfalls associated
with social taboos, tastes and smells which vary planet to planet.
And you don't need to buy 'em drinks. The avatar is pre-programed
for sex – active participation or virtual presences of the operator
is not required making it easier for the operator to become a
“companion” and making the operators much less socially stigmatized
by their job. In my experience, I've found the operators pleasant,
intelligent and a treasure trove of information and gossip. All I
have to do is share any trade news I have to learn a great deal
more of what's going on in the trade before it appears in the
regular trade reports. Sex and shop talk may not sound very
romantic, but companions, however pleasantly they may pass an hour,
are not about romance.

We'd reached the flier stand and I came to a stop.
She stepped around in front of me, pulled me close to her slim hot
avatar body by wrapping her arms around my neck. I must admit that
I took my hands out of my pockets, but only to warm them on this
very female shaped furnace.

'You may well be right about not having places to go,
my dear. But today I have to turn over my accounts, meet my new
boss, and head back to the ship to pay off my crew... So I'm really
sorry, my dear, no time today...'

She snuggled closer and began to purr and softly
vibrate. 'Are you sure..? And quizzically glancing at my cap with
its first mate's pin still on it, added, 'Captain?'

'Quit that, Lyrath. I told you I'm meeting my bosses
in a few minutes...' I said ignoring the implied question, though
failing to find the strength to push her away. 'I really need to be
right straight and proper...'

'But that's what I'm doing...'

'What? Oh. Belay that, Lyrath! Do you want to land me
on the beach before my time?'

She smiled and looked up at me with her large dark
eye lenses and said, 'If you insist, my love....' And stepping back
she added, 'Seriously Captain, in better days, I'd have taken your
'no' and wished you fair orbit. But you're likely my only chance
today. I go to the back of the line,' she indicated the bench with
a nod of her head. 'Certainly not all of your time is spoken for.
I'm willing to wait until you're free. I've nothing else to do
except the laundry. Sorry, that's out of character.'