Freelance On The Galactic Tunnel Network

by E. M. Foner

  “Ground up hose that hasn’t dispersed because there’s limited air movement down here.”

  “Why is it shaped that way?”

  “Probably has to do with the way the refrigerant gas leaked out. Anyway, you want to go around the other side of the coils, not through the dust, and then it’s a straight shot to the main thrusters. I’ll give you an update when you get there.”

  “Got it,” the reporter said, and began to work her way through the cramped space by gently pulling her way forward on whatever she could reach. “I’d hate to have to do this if I weighed something.”

  “You’ve taken to Zero-G like a duck to water,” Larry encouraged her. “Genie, any update on the chewer location?”

  “The maintenance chewer is still moving behind the primary thruster, heading towards the primary cooling exchanger.”

  “You’re going to cut it off at the pass,” Larry called to the girl. “You know, I don’t think it could be an accident after all. The chewer couldn’t be moving around in Zero-G unless somebody intentionally magnetized the legs. I’ll bet it’s programmed to move really slowly to avoid losing contact with whatever surface it’s sticking to.”

  “So you’re saying if I pick it up like a lobster, it will be helpless.”

  “If it’s anything like the size of a lobster, I want you to get out of there.” He changed his position in an attempt to be able to follow Georgia’s progress. “Looks like you’re almost there.”

  “I think I see the inside of the hull right in front of me. I’m checking both directions and—gross!”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. It’s just that it really does look like a cockroach. We always got them in the commune kitchen because everybody wanted to cook and not clean.”

  “It’s just a little dumb bot.”

  “I know.” There was a moment of silence, and then a distinctive crunching sound was heard.

  “Are you all right?”

  “I think I killed it,” the reporter called back. “I meant to just pick it up, but it felt so gross that I kind of squeezed too hard.”

  “That’s even better,” Larry said. “Do you have room to turn around?”

  “No problem. I’ll be out in a few minutes.”

  “Okay. I’m going to start gathering the parts I need to make the repairs. I’ll bet it was able to hold onto the hose because of the curvature, but it got blown off when the leak started.”

  By the time Georgia pulled herself out of the technical deck crawl-space, Larry had gathered everything he hoped he would need to do the repair in a work bag to keep it all from floating off.

  “Good job,” he praised the reporter when she showed him the remains of the chewer. “Genie, is the power source dead?”

  “The maintenance chewer’s fuel cell is in open circuit mode.”

  “What does that mean?” Georgia asked.

  “You crunched it good so that there’s no longer a complete circuit,” Larry said. “Maybe you should keep it to show your friends when you tell the story of how you saved a spaceship. I’ve got some Dollnick crystal glue somewhere so you could seal it into a clear pendant for a necklace.”

  Georgia surprised both of them by blushing. “Thanks. I’m a regular big game hunter. I’ll hang around out here to fetch and carry for you while you’re fixing the cooler.”

  “Dinner’s on me next time we’re somewhere with a restaurant,” Larry said, pulling himself back under the cargo deck and setting to work replacing the damaged hoses.

  “Those people I was talking to in the bar might have guessed that I’m investigating Colony One from the questions I was asking,” Georgia mused out loud. “One of them may have slipped the chewer into my purse or even the bag of promotional brochures. It’s so small I might have missed it.”

  “I don’t know,” Larry replied after a minute. “Why would any of them have been carrying a chewer with magnetized legs? They could hardly have been expecting you.”

  “Well, you said you don’t have any enemies.”

  “I said I don’t have enemies lined up around the galaxy, but that’s not the same thing as none. There’s a Traders Guild election coming up, and I’m standing for the council this year as a candidate for the CoSHC faction in place of my father, who’s the outgoing council head. Some traders are getting pretty worked up about the election, which sort of took us all by surprise.”

  “You’re joining the Conference of Sovereign Human Communities? I’ve been to one of their conventions on Union Station and it’s all representatives from human communities on alien open worlds and orbitals. What does it have to do with the Traders Guild?”

  “They invited us to join,” Larry explained, and then paused to examine his work. “If you add up all of the independent traders, there are more of us than the population of most CoSHC members, and it’s about time we had some representation. Hang on a sec while I refill this thing, I need to pay attention.”

  Georgia waited patiently for a minute, and then she heard a hissing sound that started fairly loud, but quickly ran down until it was inaudible.

  “What was that? Did it leak?”

  “No, that was just the system refilling. It should be all set now. I’m coming out.”

  “But what if it did leak? You said you only had enough for one recharge. Will we cook before we get out of the tunnel?”

  “We might have had to back off exercise and sit around naked, but it wouldn’t have gotten that bad in just two days,” Larry told her. “There’s also an emergency tap on the primary cooling system I could have temporarily hooked up to, but that’s a lot of work.”

  “Do all traders know as much about their ships as you do?”

  Larry pulled himself out of the crawl space, gave his work bag a gentle push in the direction of the tool locker, and reached for the access panel. “Half and half, maybe? The majority of our traders fly second-hand Sharf ships, primarily the two-man version, because there happened to be hundreds of thousands of them available cheap when the Stryx opened Earth. Believe it or not, the Guild got its start when a bunch of first-generation traders got together to publish a sort of repair and maintenance manual for the systems that humans are capable of fixing. But not everybody is a mechanic.”

  “Why didn’t the ship controller warn us when the leak started?”

  “It’s not considered a critical system and I turned off the secondary alarms years ago,” Larry admitted as he locked down the access panel. “I got tired of the controller waking me up to tell me that the toilet receptacle was ready to be emptied or that it was time to lubricate the main hatch hinge. Now I just review the alert queue once a day on my tab.”

  Georgia watched as Larry put away the tools. “So when is the Traders Guild election?”

  “A little over three more weeks, at the end of Rendezvous. If you haven’t wrapped up your Colony One investigation before then, you’ll have to take a break or go it alone for a couple weeks.”

  “Where is Rendezvous this year?” she asked, following him onto the ladder.

  “At a Vergallian Fleet open world on a brand new tunnel exit the Stryx recently opened. There was a lot of arguing about that too.”

  “What do traders have against it?”

  “The gravity and the atmosphere. Some traders fly ships that are patched together junk with just enough thrust to travel the tunnel network between space stations and elevator hubs. They hate it when Rendezvous is on a planet. Do you want to try the rock climber?”

  “I’ll stick with the bike,” Georgia said, launching herself towards the now-familiar exercise equipment. “So who chose the location?”

  “The human community there made a deal with the Vergallians to offer free space elevator transportation for attendees. The Guild council thought it would be too rude to refuse.”

  “Maybe I can get a story out of Rendezvous, though I’ll bet the Galactic Free Press is already sending somebody. Hey, I should contact them from our next stop and tell th
em I’m going. Maybe they’ll give me the assignment.”

  “Did you have any luck with the squeeze tube cuisine story you submitted from Lorper?”

  “I didn’t tell you? They bought it, and the message from my old editor was that she’d take all the Zero-G dining stories I can write, at least until I start repeating myself. But after we ate in your friend’s café on Lorper, I had an idea for a more cerebral series of articles about why people eat the way they do in different places. I’m going to title it ‘Food for Thought.’”

  “I think the freelance life is starting to agree with you.”

  “Me too. I can’t believe how fast I’m getting used to everything. This is only my third time on the exercise bike and it’s already gotten much easier.”

  “Lesson two,” Larry said. “The dial with the numbers sets the resistance. It’s considered polite to leave equipment on the easiest setting when you’re sharing, so I turned it down after I used it.”

  “Oops.”

  “You didn’t know because I didn’t tell you. Later I’ll show you how to empty the toilet receptacle.”

  “I’m fine with you doing it. I don’t want you to think I’m trying to take over your ship.”

  Nine

  “Myort, you old lizard. I’ve been looking all over the station for you.”

  “John,” the Huktra acknowledged. He set his mug full of some tarry black beverage on the bar and politely offered the trader a clawed hand. The human grasped the smallest of the three fingers, which was as thick as a child’s wrist, and gave it a perfunctory shake. Formalities disposed of, he climbed up the rungs of the barstool next to the alien and perched himself on the broad seat.

  “I just got back from Earth and I brought you a little gift,” John said. He stuck his left hand into his jacket pocket, brought out a closed fist, and placed it on the bar. Then he opened his hand and let the acorn roll out. “Surprise!”

  The Huktra slammed his own hand over the acorn so hard that his talons dug into the bar’s heavily scarred surface. The bartender glanced over at the sound, shook his head in disgust, and went back to polishing glasses.

  “Are you insane showing that thing in here?” Myort hissed. He bared two rows of pointy teeth and took advantage of his sinuous neck to check their surroundings in three hundred and sixty degrees. “No sniffers. We lucked out.”

  “I think my translation implant is glitching,” John said. “What are you talking about?”

  “You’ve traded in and around our space. Are you telling me you’ve never noticed that some of us have long snouts?”

  “I’ve never seen a Huktra with a short snout.”

  Myort shook his head in disgust, and then, with a quick movement, palmed the crushed acorn and tossed it deep in his mouth to where the molars started. He chewed for a few seconds, then took a swig of his drink and swished it around. “Not terrible, not great. How many do you have?”

  “How many do you want?” John countered.

  “Oh, so it’s going to be that sort of trade,” the alien said. “Let me buy you a drink.”

  “Do they have anything in here that won’t kill me?”

  “We won’t know unless we ask. Gator!”

  The alien bartender, who John would have described as a skinnier version of Myort, hung the glass he had just finished polishing from an overhead rack and cast a disinterested look in their direction. “What?”

  “Got anything that won’t kill Humans?” Myort inquired.

  “Water,” the bartender grunted. “I could put a little umbrella in it.”

  “Never mind,” John said. “Why don’t you finish your drink, Myort, and we can go look at the merchandise.”

  “Are you in a big hurry to unload your cargo?” the alien asked craftily, but he threw back the rest of the sticky fluid and employed his long tongue to lick out the mug. “I’m a bit short on cash at the moment, but I’ll look at what you have.”

  “Look at what I have? I was talking about us taking a stroll to wherever your ship is parked and me checking out if you have anything I want in barter.”

  “Barter is better,” Myort responded automatically. “All right, we’ll do it your way,” he said, rising from the barstool and tossing a coin to the bartender. “See you later, Gator.”

  Gator barely nodded as the mismatched pair left the bar and made their way to the nearest lift tube. The corridor was lined with food booths, all of which seemed to specialize in selling grilled meat on sticks. There were also a few shops displaying woven egg carriers in the garish colors favored by young Huktra couples, who were much more likely to spend time on Stryx stations than their elders.

  “Keever’s,” Myort instructed the lift tube, and looked down at John. “Got your nose plug filters?”

  “They’re already in. The trick is remembering to breathe through them. Why aren’t you parked in the core bay for traders?”

  “Getting a little work done on my ship. You’ll see.”

  The capsule doors opened and the large alien led the way through a poorly lit corridor to a medium-sized docking bay. Even with nose plug filters, the air smelled of chemicals, and John could see flexible fume-hood tubing crisscrossing the space between the parked ships.

  “What is this place?” he asked his companion.

  “Keever’s hull shop, they specialize in custom paint jobs,” Myort explained. “Oh, now that’s just—Wrude!”

  “You don’t have to shout. What’s rude?”

  “Wrude is the name of the Dollnick finish artist I hired. I can’t believe what he did to her eyes,” the Huktra complained.

  “Whose eyes? What are you talking about?”

  “Don’t you recognize my ship? Look at the prow,” the alien said, pointing with a claw.

  John had to crane his neck to see the tip of the Huktra freighter, which was four times the size of the standard two-man Sharf trader most humans favored. “That’s some beautiful artwork,” he said. “Somebody you know?”

  “My wife, if I can ever get her to engrave her signature in the tablet,” Myort said. “Look what Wrude did to her baby reds.”

  “Are you talking about the eyes? They’re green.”

  “Now you’re catching on. Wrude!”

  Nobody ignores the bellowing of a Huktra for long, and a Dollnick wearing a paint-splattered apron hurried over, looking annoyed.

  “What is it now, Myort?” the four-armed alien demanded in an angry whistle that almost overloaded John’s translation implant. “First her teeth were too white, then her claws weren’t long enough, and last time—what was it? Oh yes, the barb on her tail had four spikes instead of five. I’m an artist, not a draftsman.”

  “But green eyes,” Myort protested, albeit in a subdued manner. “The eyes of a Huktra female only turn green when they’re carrying a fertilized egg.”

  “How was I supposed to know that? Keep your wings folded and I’ll get a floater scaffold and fix them right now.”

  “Thanks. I’m taking this Human on board to look over some merchandise.”

  “You know the rules, Myort. No trading while the ship is in the shop.”

  “It’s only in the shop because you keep getting the details wrong, and this isn’t a trade, it’s a, uh—”

  “Showing,” John suggested.

  “Right, a showing.”

  “Hurry up and don’t let any of the other customers see you,” Wrude grumbled. “You better whistle my praises to your friends for all the grief you’ve put me through.”

  The Dollnick stalked off in search of a floater to carry him up to the freighter’s nose, and Myort instructed his ship’s controller to lower the cargo hatch, which doubled as a ramp. It was steeper than the ramp on John’s trader and the helpful claw-holes weren’t useful for humans. Myort let out a sigh of exasperation when he noted his companion’s lack of progress, and extended his tail.

  “Grab a hold, but watch the barb, and don’t yank on it or my reflex reaction might throw you across the hold.”<
br />
  John took a quick look around to make sure nobody was watching, and then he grabbed his companion’s tail and let the reptile haul him up the ramp into the cargo hold. As soon as they reached level deck, John let go of the tail and was almost knocked over by a gryphon.

  “No, Semmi! Down!” Myort barked, but the winged alien lioness with a head like an eagle already had its front paws on the human’s shoulders and was licking his face energetically.

  “Couldn’t you keep a normal cat,” John complained, trying to push the gryphon away. “Her tongue is like sandpaper.”

  “Give her a treat,” the Huktra suggested helpfully.

  “Yeah, that makes sense, I’ll reinforce her bad behavior,” John said, but he fished another acorn out of his pocket and offered it to the gryphon. She must have found the gift acceptable because she dropped down on all fours and then tried to stick her beak in John’s pocket for more.

  “You know what this means,” Myort said sadly. “I’m going to have to run a force field to protect those nuts or she’ll tear through whatever they’re packed in and give herself indigestion.”

  “Not my problem,” John pointed out, still trying to shove the gryphon’s head away. “What do you have to show me?”

  “So the thing is, I’m heading home from here. My future wife’s family owns a chemical business and I thought I’d get a claw in the door with her parents by bringing industrial samples. Lights, please.”

  The ship’s controller brought up the illumination in the hold, and John saw stacks of barrels stenciled with what looked like warnings in more languages than he could count. One yellow drum sported a pictogram of a stick-figure humanoid projectile vomiting, and a black barrel featured a photo-realistic picture of liquid droplets leaving holes in the wings of some flying species.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me, Myort. It looks like you’re doing a toxic waste run.”

  “We have a saying about killing two gryphons with one stone. No, I didn’t mean you,” the Huktra hastened to add, but it was too late because Semmi was already flying up the companionway to the bridge. “Now she’s going to pee on my command chair,” Myort said in a resigned voice. “Hey, how about—”