There were plans that the Panhandle would become the hub of a Deep Space International City, hence all the empty space in the Pan. For the moment it was simply an asymmetric ceramic fiber dumbbell, spinning in a minimal collision orbit-area of the asteroid reach-the Pan full of prospectors and their support staff, the Knob reserved for the government's business out here, and the Handle an empty, concertina-walled permanent umbilical between. The AIs took care of everything serious. The only actual human authority on board was Eddie. His duties were not onerous. As far as Orlando and Grace could make out, he did nothing when on shift except sit in his office at the Knob end of the Handle and play Freecell. On his off shift he would come down to the saloon and schmooze with assorted ruffians. His squeeze-suit and official rank branded him as a dilettante, but he adored the Deep Spacers.
Eddie's gaff was a step or two up from the standard cabins. It had a double skin to keep the cold at bay, and the chairs, desk and cabinets swelling from the walls and floor were designer styled, in a drab, corporate sort of way. There were no personal touches and no visible equipment (besides Eddie), except the desktop screen that he used for his endless solitaire. The Supercargo was a skinny fellow, with wispy dark hair that floated around his shoulders, sad eyes and a taste for extravagant dress. Today he was wearing knee-high platform boots crusted in silver glitter. The bone-preserving pressure suit was concealed by a spiderweb gold silk shirt and black neoprene biker trousers; a copper and silver filigree scarf swayed airily about his throat. The prisoners of knocked-down gravity favored drifty accessories; it was a kind of gallows-humor; and Eddie was a shameless wannabe.
He greeted the aliens with enthusiasm, but he didn't like their complaint.
'Listen,' he cut them off, at last, 'I'm sorry you lost your bikes, but you know the rules. There are no rules. Anything you want, you take. That's the way we live, and you got to breeze it. You can't go all holier-than-thou out here in the Deep.'
'We understand that' said Orlando, rolling his eyes.
'We'd be fine with that,' drawled Grace, with a shrug, 'if those deadbeats had anything that we wanted to steal. It's just unfair that it's all one way.'
Eddie beamed, relieved that they hadn't been expecting a police action, and the visit became social. The truth was, passionately as he admired the Deep Spacers, Eddie was frightened of them, and the fact that (theoretically) he could sling them in irons or chuck them off the Panhandle made no difference. It's personality that counts in these back-of-beyond situations. The aliens understood this perfectly: They were pretty much in the same boat. Extreme tourists are always trying to look as if they belong, in situations where only insanely hard-ass nutcases have any real business.
'You know,' Eddie confided, 'the last Supercargo was knifed in the saloon, over a menu choice. You shouldn't take it personally; the guys are just a wild bunch - '
They knew the story. They thought it was unlikely and that the prospectors only knifed each other. But they sympathized with Eddie's need to romanticize a shit job: a career in space-exploration that had obviously hit the dregs.
'Thanks,' said Grace. 'Now we feel much better.'
Eddie broke out alcohol bulbs and chocolate from his waistbelt, and the three of them chatted, talking guiltily about the blue planet far away, the overcrowded and annoying dump to which they would soon return-Eddie at the end of his tour, and Grace and Orlando on the next Slingshot-which was to the forgotten heroes of the Deep Space saloon an unattainable paradise. Suddenly the Supercargo went quiet, attending to a summons imperceptible to his visitors. They sat politely, while he stared into the middle distance, wondering if he was receiving an update from the AI machines, or maybe a command from faraway Houston.
'Ooops,' he said. 'Duty calls. It's time for the alien to be milked.'
'You mean the other alien,' Grace corrected him.
Eddie shook his head, making his hair and his delicate scarf flip about like exotic seaweed in a tank. 'Hahaha. C'mon, you two aren't really aliens.'
Eddie gave slavish credence to whatever loony resumes the Deep Spacers cared to invent. Wormhole trips? Sentient rocks, diamonds the size of Texas, wow, he lapped it up… Orlando and Grace declared their elective cultural identity, which was perfectly acceptable at home, and they were jeered at.
'It's a state of mind,' said Orlando.
'Hey,' said Eddie shyly. 'D'you want to come along? It's against the regs, but I trust you, and you did lose your bikes and all. It'll be okay. You won't get fried.'
He stood up, teetering a little because the glitter boots were weighted, and concentrated on stowing his treatpack back on his belt. Grace and Orlando exchanged one swift glance. They knew exactly the terrifying thing that they were going to do.
Eddie did not use keycards, he did not visibly step up to a mark or get bathed in any identifying fields. He simply went up to the blank wall at the end of the umbilical. It opened, and he stood in the gap to let the aliens by. They were through the unbreachable Wall and inside the Knob, a Deep Space Fort Knox, the strongbox which held, according to rumor, the most fabulous treasure in the known universe.
'The Knob recognizes you?' said Orlando, suitably impressed. 'Or do you have a key or an implant on you, that it recognizes?'
'Nah, it's me. I've got an implant-'
'Yeah. We noticed.'
'That's a requirement of the job. But it's my informational profile that's written into the Knob, just for my tour of duty. Bios wouldn't be secure enough.'
They were in a miniversion of the Pan, following a spiral corridor divided by greenish, ceramic fiber bulkheads. They noticed at once how clear the air was, free of the dust, shed cells and general effluvia of many human bodies. It was warmer too, and it didn't smell bad. The walls opened for Eddie, he stood and let his companions through like a wise cat inviting guests through the magnetized catnap; the walls closed up behind with spooky finality.
'Is there always air, heat and gravity at this end?' wondered Grace, offhand.
'Always,' said Eddie. 'Not for the thing, I don't think it uses air. I don't think it breathes. It'd be more expensive turning the life support on and off, that's all. The rad protection is shit,' he added, 'except in my actual cabin. The AIs are shielded, they don't need it. But half an hour won't fry your nuts.'
'What about you?'
Eddie shrugged. 'I've got my cabin, and hey, I've finished my family.'
The aliens' wiry red hair stood up on end. They felt that, briefly, the Kuiper Belt station was not rotating aimlessly in place but steaming full ahead. They were sailing outwards (the only direction that there is) across the Spanish Main, around Cape Horn, with Franklin to the North West Passage… Finally Eddie ushered them into a little room with the same fungoid fittings as his office: desk, chairs, screen and touchpad. One wall was a window, apparently looking into the cabin next door.
'There you go,' said the Supercargo, shivering. 'Now you can say you've seen it. Oh, no pictures, please. You don't want to get me into trouble.'
'We wouldn't dream of it.'
Eddie teetered, patting at his wayward hair. The aliens stood like zoo visitors, looking into a naked and featureless cell where something huddled on the floor: a dark, fibrous, purplish lump like a hundred-pound hunk of horsemeat. It was fuzzy in outline, as if not securely fixed in these particular dimensions, and had four blunt extrusions. A convoluted sheet of paler tissue covered some of the main lump, like a skein of fat over a slab of steak.
'Is it really right next door?' asked Grace, casually.
'I suppose,' said Eddie. 'I never thought about it.' His eyes went unfocused as he checked the Knob's internal architecture, and he nodded. 'Yeah, actually it is. Shit, I never knew that-' He was shivering more strongly.
'It looks as if its been skinned alive, filleted, and had its arms and legs cut off,' breathed Orlando.
'And that could be its brain,' whispered Grace. 'It looks kind of like a cerebral cortex, unfolded out of someone's skull.'
'I don't know why you're whispering,' said Eddie. He'd started to pace up and down, flexing his long, delicate hands, as if in nervous impatience. 'It can't hear you. Hey, you don't know what they're meant to look like. You're anthropomorphizing. It could be a handsome, happy whatsit, for all you know.'
'We don't anthropomorphize,' objected Grace. 'We're aliens.'
Eddie groaned a little. 'Oh, have it your own way, a different word. You're thinking like it's a person. It
