Wamba smiled sadly and shook his head. “What’s done is done, and there’s no going back. Take care of yourself, Max, and let me know how things turn out.”
I considered hugging him but decided on a salute instead. It felt natural, somehow, and very right. He returned it, smiled his broken smile, and turned away. Kaa met us at the lock, and Burns led us up towards Deck Four. Joy felt warm and wiggled in my pocket.
12
“Unauthorized personnel will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.”
A sign posted in locks one through twelve of the Mgundo Tug and Barge Company’s Hull 264
Ships have names, but barges don’t. Don’t ask why…it’s one of those traditions spacers like, because it makes their profession more romantic. It seems silly somehow, especially when the barge is a hundred times larger than the ship that pushes it around, but that’s the way it is. Ask, and spacers will feed you some bull about how a ship has a soul, and a barge doesn’t, whereas the only real difference is that ships have propulsion systems and barges don’t, or so it seems to me.
This particular barge was cylindrical in shape and at least three miles long. Numbers, each of which was white and about three stories tall, slipped by as our shuttle made its way towards what I assumed was the bow. One of them, a “ 4,” was cratered where something had hit it. My stomach contracted. A meteorite? Traveling at what? Twenty miles a second? Whipping out of nowhere to hammer the barge?
No, I told myself, chances were the crater had been caused by something more prosaic. A docking accident or a collision with another barge, perhaps.
Whatever the cause, the crater gave way to an almost featureless gray hull and disappeared behind us. The barge did have some solar arrays and a small antenna farm, but nothing like the maze of sensors, duct work, and other installations that crowded the skin of the average ship. But so what? It didn’t matter as long as the barge was well built and headed in the right direction. The “right direction” being defined as the asteroid belt, since passenger ships bound for Europa Station were way out of our price range.
Sasha resourceful as always, had rummaged through some of the habitat’s seedier dives until she found a half-stoned shipping agent willing to accept half fare in return for a ride on the barge. A ride that, while illegal, and minus the comforts of a liner, would be quiet and peaceful.
Sasha painted a glowing picture. Rather than work as we had aboard the Red Trader, and kowtow to the likes of Killer, we would eat and sleep our way to the belt, grab some new transportation, and arrive on Europa Station in tip-top shape. I should have known better.
We sat three abreast with Sasha occupying the jump seat in the middle. Our pilot was a sallow little man with a pitted face. The green, yellow, and red half-light filled the craters with darkness and made the condition seem even worse. His eyes pecked at the readouts while his hands jumped from one control to the next. “You be ready now…I can stop for two, maybe three minutes. Any more and the tug crew will get suspicious.”
I knew problems could result from the fact that the tug crew wasn’t aware of us but wasn’t smart enough to know what they were. Which just goes to prove that ignorance isn’t necessarily bliss.
The pilot touched a series of keys. The shuttle slowed relative to the barge, tractor beams made contact, pulled the smaller vessel into place, and held it against a lock. Metal clanged and a motor whined. The pilot swiveled towards Sasha and rubbed thumb against fingers. Sasha nodded, pulled a roll of currency out of an inside pocket, and dropped it into his hand. The pilot slipped the rubber band off, counted out loud, and nodded his satisfaction. “…One thousand eight, one thousand nine, two K right on the nose. Grab your gear and haul ass.”
We hurried to comply. Sasha went first and I followed. I had released my harness, floated free, and was pulling myself towards the stern when the pilot grabbed my ankle. “Hey, chrome-dome.”
I looked back over my shoulder. “Yeah?”
“The barge is loaded with all sorts of stuff, including crystal generators.”
“So?”
“So, the generators don’t work worth shit during zero gee. Makes the crystals come out all weird or something. That means the tug crew’s gonna put some spin on the moment they break orbit. The results could bust your butt.”
“Thanks for the tip.”
The pilot grinned. “Hitched a ride once myself. Nobody told me. Now get the hell off my shuttle.”
I nodded and propelled myself down the short passageway. There were equipment racks, padded corners, and lockers from which most but not all of the uniformly olive drab paint had been worn away, leaving patches of shiny metal.
Sasha had transferred most of our supplies to the shuttle’s lock, and I was surprised at how bulky they were. Our food was concentrated but still took up a lot of space, as did the first aid kit, a cube reader, and our clothes. I was worried about water but Sasha had assured me there was plenty on board.
And so it was that we sealed ourselves into the lock, waited for pressures to equalize, and watched the hatch iris open. It took about fifteen seconds for the airtight door to open all the way. The adjoining lock was larger and padded to protect it from damage. We pushed our duffel bags through and followed with our bodies. My boots had barely cleared the hatch when motors whined and the opening closed. A few moments later we heard a thud and felt the hull vibrate as the shuttle pushed itself away. We were alone. Or supposed to be, anyway.
A duffel bag hit me in the nose. I pushed it away. The suction pulled a piece of paper in front of my nose. I knew what it was before I grabbed it. A Mars Bar wrapper. I held it out for Sasha to examine. “What’s this?”
She looked defensive. “The tug crew ran a check on this tub yesterday. One of them left it.”
Spacers are a tidy bunch-they have to be-so I had doubts about her theory but knew better than to pursue it. Sasha would stick to her point of view until forced to change. That reminded me of someone else I’d known, but I couldn’t remember who.
Joy had agreed to maintain a low profile aboard the shuttle, but the promise had expired. She floated free of my pocket and peppered us with questions.
“Where are we? What’s going on? Why is Sasha holding that wrapper?” It was like dealing with an articulate six-year-old.
I did my best to answer Joy’s questions while trying to capture a duffel bag under each arm and maintain my equilibrium all at the same time. I handled the zero-gee stuff better than I had at the beginning of the trip but was clumsy compared to Sasha. She took pity on me and grabbed the second bag in addition to her own. That left the emergency pressure suits we had liberated from Marscorp. They had been duct taped together and were floating just below the overhead. I was about to reach for them when Joy launched herself off my shoulder. “Don’t worry about the suits! I can handle them.”
And handle them she did, using a combination of zero-gee savvy and some highly skilled gymnastics.
Air hissed as the inner hatch irised open. Joy pushed herself away from a storage locker and drifted through the aperture. I formed words but didn’t get them out in time to do any good. My stomach muscles tightened. She would draw fire if someone was waiting on the other side. Nothing happened. I heaved a sigh of relief and made a note to speak with her later. Yes, she was an android, but with a difference. Maybe it was the fact that she’d been a present, or maybe it was her pseudo-personality, but the result was the same. I liked Joy and would be sorry if she were hurt.
I passed through the hatch next, towing the duffel bag with one hand and holding my weapon with the other. I noticed that Sasha made a point of leaving her gun in its holster. I tried a flip, hoped to land feet first, and hit the bulkhead with my back. Sasha laughed, did what I had tried to do, and hung there with a smirk on her face.
I looked both ways, made sure the corridor was clear, and holstered my weapon. It wouldn’t hurt to have a free hand.
Joy was disgustingly cheerful. “Hey, this is fun! Where do we go? This way or that way?”
Our head swiveled as Sasha and I considered the alternatives. There wasn’t much difference. The passageway was sufficiently wide to accommodate a standard autoloader or a train of power pallets. And, judging from the longitudinal marks that scored the walls, a good deal of cargo had been hauled through this corridor. Though pretty much interchangeable during zero-gee conditions, the distinctions between overhead, bulkheads, and deck were
