very light blue, which was echoed in the covers on the bed. One wall featured a large vanity table, complete with three-sided viewer and a liberal supply of beauty products. Dee squealed in delight and headed for this, but Cale headed her off and directed her to the ‘fresher. Actually, the term ‘fresher was totally inadequate to describe the large room they entered. Here the carpeting changed to a white, with a different texture. In place of the large plas bag that the usual ‘fresher used to avoid wasting water in space, this room featured an open tub, large enough for three, with no less than six nozzles to provide water or steam. A large button on the wall controlled a clear plas bubble that lowered around the tub, presumably to prevent the leakage of water, if the occupant cared to be bothered. The various knobs and handles controlling all the facilities were plated in what Cale had no doubt was real gold, and the amenities included the thickest fabric towels he had ever encountered, as well as the usual air blast drying nozzles.
As they left the suite, Dee turned to Cale with a grin. “Well,” she said impishly, “At least you won’t suffer if you have to run to your ‘bolt hole’ to hide!”
Cale grinned and shook his head. “Too overwhelming for me, I’m afraid. I’m a man of simple tastes.”
Their tour had shown them, though, that despite air recirculation and frequent cleaning, fifteen-year-old mattresses and fabrics became musty and rotten. Luckily, Pride had a large supply of replacements in vacuum storage. By the time Zant arrived with the work crew, Pride ’s army of spider-shaped mechs had clean, fresh, and sweet-smelling staterooms ready for them. Normally, of course, those mechs serviced only the lower-class accommodations. The upper decks had been staffed by human servants, from cooks to cleaners to personal attendants, when required. Cale actually had to override a prohibition in Bet’s programming forbidding her mechs from visiting the upper decks when humans were present.
Of course, the work crews wouldn’t be using the upper decks anyway. The lower decks were much more convenient to the workshops and airlocks they would be using.
When Zant contacted Cale upon emerging from jump and approaching with comm range, he was obviously depressed and even angry.
“I brought three dozen,” he told Cale in a challenging tone, “and I’d have brought three dozen more if I’d had a larger ship!”
Cale’s reply was puzzled. “All right,” he said mildly. “You know our needs and our resources. Three dozen should help us get done quicker, and I guess you decided we could afford them.”
Cale’s attitude plainly took Zant by surprise. His hunched shoulders relaxed, and his belligerent expression faded to one of sadness. “Deity, Cale, you should have seen it,” he began, “No, maybe you shouldn’t. I sure wish I hadn’t. People were starving, Cale. The government tried to seize the food aboard our ship. I actually saw two women fighting — physically fighting — over a bucket of grass one of them had gathered in a park. Grass, Cale!
Cale frowned. “I’ve seen starving people, Zant. I’ve been one. You tell them we have a big, comfortable ship for them to stay in, and plenty of food for them to eat. Tell them that as long as they do their best for us, we’ll take good care of them.”
Zant breathed a huge sigh of relief, and a shadow of his usual smile reappeared. “Thanks, Cale. It was really bad, kid. When I kicked those government creeps off the ship, and announced what we needed on the Worldnet, we were practically mobbed. There’s a good man running the groundside port there. He put armed men all around the port in exchange for ship’s rations for them. Workers were lined up for more than a kilometer. The Port Manager put a man to asking each person about their shipyard experience before he would let them onto the port. I still could have hired hundreds. As it is, I’ve got thirty-eight. None of ‘em has less than ten years’ orbital ship yard experience. Twelve of them have crew leader experience, and three have project management experience.” His eyes took on a haunted look. “All of ‘em wanted to bring their families. But even hiring a Din-class I didn’t have room aboard! I gave ‘em all a month’s pay in advance, so they could leave it with their families.”
“A month’s pay?” Cale asked. “I doubt the project will take that long. At least I hope not.”
Zant flushed. “I know,” he said guiltily. “And I agree, the quicker the better. But these people were almost pathetically grateful. I think we’ll get the best from every one of them.”
His image darkened again before he continued, “Uh, I might as well tell you the rest. I told ‘em that if our plan worked, we might let ‘em use one of the hulks to move their folks off-planet. Uh, I maybe kinda hinted that they might even be allowed to remain on Ilocan.” At Cale’s raised eyebrow, he continued defensively, “If this works, I’m sure I’ll be able to talk them into it. After all, these’ll be the folks who fixed up the ships and then crewed them into possible battle. Sheol, they’ll be blasted heroes!”
“And if it doesn’t work?”
Zant shrugged. “They’ll probably be dead, those as were crewin’ the ships.”
Cale grinned. “Along with us. I agree, Zant. Okay, we’ll have hot meals ready for all of you when you arrive.”
Zant looked relieved. “Good. We’ve been on short rations ever since leaving Vishnu, six ship’s weeks ago.” His usual grin resurfaced. “The Captain hasn’t been really happy with me since we left most of our ship’s rations behind!”
Zant and the work crews were delighted with the Pride. The ship’s interworld-class chef program had a number of recipes from Vishnu, and the grins from the work crew were universal and wide.
When Cale met the captain of the Din-class Zant had hired, he was glad that Cheetah was concealed in Pride ’s hold. He immediately reminded Cale of several of the Terror’s more prominent pirates, dark, lean, and shifty-eyed. Those eyes didn’t miss a single detail of the luxury evident on the Pride. Cale went to some trouble to stress that the Pride was immobile scrap. The captain loudly and immediately demanded that his looted provisions be replaced, and Cale agreed. He had Tess’s spider mechs transfer some of the supplies he’d purchased on Rama to some of Bet’s mechs, who in turn delivered them to the Captain. The mechs then turned to the much larger job of offloading over a thousand space mines. It was almost thirty hours before the tramp boosted for the jump point.
Cale questioned Zant about the tramp and her captain. “Trust him? Sheol no. He’s as crooked as a dog’s hind leg. But I checked around, and his rep says that once he’s bought, he’ll stay bought. He’s agreed to wipe this trip from his log, and show it as a trip to Vargas. Besides, why should he talk? There’s nothing on or above this groundbound mudball worth coming back for. “
When Cale asked him if the Captain might have overheard him discussing the plan, Zant shook his head. “My mother didn’t raise any fools — except my brother, o’course! Seriously, though, I only talked to the three project managers. We talked in my quarters. I ran a bug scanner over it, and disconnected the ship’s intercom. And it seems I managed to pick up a distorter somewhere.”
Cale smiled. “A distorter? I thought only governments have them.”
Zant shrugged and smiled vaguely. “This one must’ve got lost somewhere. I don’t remember where I got it. Comes in handy, though. Anyway, I talked to the project managers, and told them the whole story and plan. That’s when I told them about maybe lettin’ them use one of the hulks to move their families, and hinted they might be able to stay on Ilocan. I also told ‘em that if they told anyone else, even their own brother, I’d maroon them on Torlon, with no space flight. So I’m pretty sure they didn’t talk.”
Cale nodded. “Okay, then after dinner this evening, you can brief all the others, I guess. No sense trying to keep it secret. I was a bit concerned that if they’d been paid in advance, they might slack off; but you’ve got a couple of pretty good incentives, there.”
Zant’s announcement was a big hit, and all the workers swore undying loyalty. Of course, they had full bellies and warm beds to sleep in at the time.
Zant and Cale used the Pride ’s scanners to survey the contents of the orbital scrap yard, with no great success. The scanners simply lacked sufficient detail.
It was Dee who remembered Cale telling her that Alpha and Beta-class liners carried lifeboats. Cale and Zant checked one out. The lifeboats were small spaceships themselves, lacking only a jump drive. They had life support for six months for the crew of two, though one could run them. They also contained twenty stasis units. Moreover, of course they were in pristine condition, unused. Both agreed they were perfect for flitting around an orbital junkyard. They spent three days doing just that, while looking for likely hulls.
Their original list of sixteen possibles shrank to twelve when they examined them more closely. Several of the others had been stripped of their inertial engines, and one was even missing its AI. However, they found an amazing array of weapons, ranging from infantry-model Alliance design quickfirers to a nuclear-pumped planetary defense laser someone had grafted into a Chata-class freighter. Zant made a note of that one; he decided it would
