training. There are too many ways a suit can kill you.' Cale responded. Her pleadings failed miserably. Cale was adamant, and Nabel backed him up.
They helped Nabel into a suit and the two men simply jumped across the three meters between the airlocks. The liner was shabby, but her life support functioned flawlessly, as did her AI, which greeted them as they boarded.
Nabel explained their mission, and in moments, a robot floatchair appeared to carry the old man to the sick bay.
'I am activating the sick bay and the regen tank,' the AI informed them. 'I have run diagnostics, and the med comp is completely functional. Nanobot support is also available if needed, though the nanobots are nearing their expiration date.' The AI's voice was female, a warm, cultured contralto befitting the fine liner she had once been.
Cale returned to the tramp and a frantic Ruth. Nabel joined them three hours later, walking effortlessly, as though he had not just had a broken thighbone. They returned to the planet.
Nabel was in an expansive, talkative mood. 'While I was sittin' there in my own shit for a week, I had a lot of time to think,' he began. “Torlon is done. I've tried for thirty years to find a younker I could teach to take over the business, or just to learn to pilot. But them as were interested was drove off by the book learning it took, an' once the port traffic slowed down, people started driftin' away from Torlon City. Ain't but about twenty left. Most of 'em went off farmin' or somethin'.'
'What about the man over in the port building? The comm tech?'
'Him? Pah. It just makes him feel important to carry the comm alarm around. I figger he'll get tired of carryin' it someday, an' Torlon's last contact with the rest of the galaxy will be lost.
'Anyway,' he continued, 'I'm done here. I'll buy L'rak back, 'cause I said I would, an' 'cause I just hate to give her up. But I'm gittin' outta here. I figger I'll just load up that old tramp with the best stuff I got, take your gold, and head off fer greener pastures.'
Cale grinned. 'You'd abandon your scrap empire, here?'
Nabel's answering grin was accompanied by an enthusiastic bobbing of his head. 'Truth is, I been bringin' in the only hard currencies on the planet, and the people here are goin' back to barter. No profit in that fer me. Oh, they's a good market out there fer used ship parts, what with the loss of manufacturin' since the Fall. But this fall showed me I'm too old t'be climbin' around on scaffolds in gravity fields.'
Finally, Cale thought, an opening. 'If you're really going to abandon this place, do you mind if I do a bit of scavenging, myself?'
Nabel laughed aloud. 'Son, you find anything here or in orbit you want, you can have it as the price of L'rak. I got a few operable ships left, if you want one. Tell ya what. I'll just transfer the title to the whole shebang to you. Oh, I expect once I leave these people will come in an’ steal anythin' down here not welded down. But there's still plenty a' good stuff in orbit.'
Cale thought hard. No one would be able to track him to Torlon, and if they did, no one here except Nabel had really had contact with him. It might be useful to have a cache of ships and parts in orbit here. Call it a 'bolt hole,' a safe refuge in case the hounds got close. Nothing deteriorates in the vacuum of space, except radioactives, of course. Nabel had already posted a beacon proclaiming ownership of the orbiting junk and warning off trespassers. But chances are he could come back in fifty years, and that Beta-class liner would still be there to welcome him. Call it a private space station and space fleet. All for the price of two bars of gold.
'Done,' he said, 'but there're two things I'll need you to do for me. One is to help me ferry any operable ships here on-planet up to the orbital yard. Second, do you have papers on all your ships here? I'm particularly interested in that Stinger-class courier in the yard.'
'That? Sure, I got all the papers on it. Had to keep 'em, in case somebody claimed it was theirs. I got papers on all of 'em.'
Cale nodded. 'Good. I want you to transfer ownership of that ship to me, officially, on the ship's papers. I also want you to cut out the hull plate with the ident info cast into it. We'll be welding it into place on my ship, once I bring it down. We'll hide the rest of the papers on one of the hulks in orbit. You never know what you might need some day.'
Nabel's smile turned suspicious. Then his face cleared, and he waved a hand. 'No, I don't want to know. Fer two bars a gold, I ain't askin' no questions.”
They wrestled a large file cabinet out of the depths of the old ship, and Nabel finally found the papers for Cheetah, the Stinger-class in the yard. They completed the formalities transferring Cheetah and the entire scrapyard business to Cale, and L'rak back to Nabel. They put the file cabinet full of ship's papers on an antigrav skid and moved it to the port landing pad, near the tramp they'd used, and Cale triggered the recall beacon for Scorpion, soon to be Cheetah.
Nabel's tramp was the only operable ship planetside, so no ferrying was required. Cale offered to help Nabel gather valuables and load the tramp, but Nabel declined. 'Naw, I'm retired now. Got nothin' but time. They's no hurry. Might take a week, might take a month. It don't matter. I got nowhere to go, an' all the time in the world t'get there. Right now, I think I'll get started cuttin' out that hull plate.'
Cale frowned. 'Ber, are you sure about this? I mean, you just signed your life's work over to a stranger because of a broken leg.'
Nabel smiled. 'Yep, I'm sure. 'Sides, it ain't my 'life's work'. It's been more of a life than you think!'
Cale wished him well, and the old man returned to the yard.
By the time Scorpion grounded, the new hull plate was ready. Cale had Tess ground Scorpion at the entrance to the yard. Nabel simply commented on her similarity to the Stinger-class ships, and the differences. Then he began expertly cutting the ident hull plate out. Some six hours later, the hull plate was in place. Only a slight newness in the antirad coating over the new plate revealed the deception, and a few weeks in space would take care of that. Cale inspected the work carefully. After all, Cheetah was a space-to-ground vehicle, and aerodynamics was important. However, Nabel was an expert. The new welds were blended flawlessly. Cheetah would pass even the closest inspection.
Tess, the ship's AI, took the identity change in stride. Evidently, she accepted it as part of the 'secret agent' story with which she had been programmed.
It was not so easy with Ruth. Ever since he had introduced the subject, Ruth had been cold and distant. 'I will not ask why you feel it necessary to perpetrate this hoax. I understand that lying and cheating are the offworlder's way.' was her only comment.
Cale sighed in exasperation. 'I told you when you came aboard that I was being chased,' he replied in an irritated tone. 'With luck, this will be the last of the deceptions necessary.' Anger flared. 'Damn it, I'm trying to save our lives!'
She was unruffled. 'At the cost of your honor and your immortal soul.'
'I don't believe in souls, and I lost my honor a long time ago.' he shot back. 'About the time I was made a slave and sent to the mines! All I have left is my life. I'm very fond of my life. It's the only one I've got!'
She stiffened in astonishment. 'You do not believe in the soul? And what of God?'
'Which one? There are thousands throughout the galaxy. One of the nastiest tyrannies in history was a theocracy. You, of all people, should know. Ararat was a Glory world!'
'Of course I know of the Mission. They were seduced by false prophets, but they sought only to bring mankind to the Lord. Their intentions were good.'
Cale laughed, a grating, derisive sound. 'Good intentions have caused more misery throughout mankind's history than anything else.' He became aware of a growing anger, and clamped down on it. 'You see? We have to work out an arrangement, at least for the time we're together. Can we agree that your moral standards differ from those of most man-settled planets?'
'Yes!' she replied heatedly, 'They're better!'
Cale suppressed an equally heated reply. A quarrel would not settle their differences; indeed, it would only drive each of them toward the extremes. 'Very well,' he said in a reasonable tone, 'They're 'better'. But they are not the same, and unless you want to provoke quarrels wherever you go, I suggest you follow them if you wish, but not try to impose them on others or lecture others about them.'
Ruth looked troubled, but did not reply.
'Also,' he continued after a moment, 'While your exaggerated courtesy and piety fit the culture of Ararat, you
