About four feet square. About the right size. He tested it with his knife and pried up the lid.
“What are you doing?” Cloye grunted at him curiously. “You up for another robot arm?”
“Get inside.”
She smirked. “What’s the plan? You going to drop me in the box, do me like a filly?” Her husky laugh echoed in the hall. “I like the idea, though I’m not that kinky, just warning you.”
“Very amusing, Cloye, now get in.”
“No. Why should I? Why don’t you get some other bimbo for your sports?”
“Because I have a fucking uniform and can fake my way through these dimwit shiphands, while you can’t.”
“I could have gotten Rourke’s uniform, for shit’s sake,” she snorted, “but you stopped me from—”
“Right, and have them discover a naked corpse, and put the ship on hold for a red alert. Brilliant plan.”
“That wasn’t what I meant—”
“Get in!” he roared.
Teeth clenched, she drew her long legs over the rim and hunched down, arms wrapped around her sides, fuming.
Yul grunted, somehow liking the look of her in that cramped bin. But he shook off the image and put the corrugated cardboard sheet over her, followed by circuit boards and some robot parts, not too heavy over her head. “Keep still, and don’t say anything. I’ll ensure there are some air holes, so you won’t suffocate.”
“Very thoughtful of you.”
“I thought so. Now, shh.”
He resealed the tape. A bit of a hack job, but without tools, he couldn’t do much better.
The ship came out of light drive. Yul felt a backward jar. The faintest echoes of human activity came from the companionway and the clomp of feet. He slid back behind the crate, listening, waiting, churning over loopholes in his plan. A creaking at the hatch alerted him to the opening of the bulkhead. Three crewmen filtered in, bantering.
Yul crouched behind a larger crate, his muscles tensed, poised to attack, if necessary. He waited until a number of them had gathered before he slowly slipped in behind their backs to join the group. Rubbing his temples, he wiped off the rest of the camouflage from his face on his shirtsleeve. The crew started hauling the crates forward toward the exit hatch in preparation for the transfer of goods. The ship’s engines powered down. He assumed they had landed—on Remus.
The landing had been so smooth there had been no need to grasp the hand straps on the wall.
The ship’s cargo bay doors slid open and Yul saw a huge, dimly-lit, high-domed depot illuminated by fluorescent lamps. Massive front-end loaders and hydraulic lifters sprawled off to the sides. Several terraformer ships lay docked at the far end, very similar to the starship he was in. Hresh had certainly been busy in the past two years since he had fled Mathias’s employ.
“Lorde was furious with Rourke,” one of the cargo men was saying. “Didn’t believe the sot’s bogus story about being attacked by some female stowaway. Figures one of us played a number on him, revenge for some past deed.”
“Yeah, well, it’s not implausible. Rourke was a bit of a jerk. If it was anybody, probably was Tonkin, if you ask me. Always had it in for Rourke.”
Yul’s lips quirked in a grin. That’s it, boys, keep the rumours flying...
Lorde, a tall, meaty man with a walrus-style moustache appeared in person to ensure that the operation was going smoothly. He was decked in full uniform with badges and knee-high leather boots. He peered around with officious disapproval, gave some orders, then headed back to the exit.
Yul breathed a sigh. He had kept his face turned away, as unlikely as it was the captain could recognize all his men by sight. No sense in giving the man anything to arouse his suspicion.
Yul took up an electro loader with forks on the end and wheeled Cloye out of range of earshot while nobody was looking. He kept going, his eyes trained ahead, darting around a stack of thick cables beside some parked loaders. Sounds echoed here as in a large cave—the clomp of boots, the clink of tools, the murmur of men’s voices. All merged into a background chatter of white noise. The smell of machine oil and refuelling hung in the air. Also an unfamiliar odour not describable—the scent of an alien world. He wondered how inhospitable this planet Remus was. He had no visual of the planet as of yet.
When he was far enough away from the main crew, he accelerated his pace.
Cloye banged on the wood.
“Sh!” he rasped. “Don’t blow your cover.”
She stopped her noise-making. He turned to push her on, when all of a sudden, out of nowhere rolled a monitor, a silver, insect-like, mechanical thing with long neck, beady eyes.
“State your mission,” it bleated. A stalk of a neck extended and twin blue laser eyes glared down imperially at him.
Yul blinked. Was this for real? One of the archaic droids from generations ago, right down to the tinny robotic voice? In fact, he had seen one very much like it in Mathias’s eerie collection on Phallanor. A Brille E3?
“State your mission!” it repeated.
“I request access to—” he gazed at the luminous number over the exitway “—Bay 6.”
The thing beeped in rapid succession. “Request denied. Illegal transfer. All cargoes are to be processed at duty check counter 9-16C. Report there immediately.”
Yul cleared his throat. “It’s a special requisition—for Hresh’s eyes only.” He said it with as much authority as he could. But he doubted such tactics would work. “Have you been informed?”
The thing processed the information, its eyes blinking dizzily. “No such request has crossed my databanks. Duty roster is incomplete. You have cited a case without a file number.”
Databanks? What kind of a cheesy outfit was Hresh running?
“Proceed to security officer Hanson—immediately.”
