Freelance On The Galactic Tunnel Network

by E. M. Foner

  “Sally’s group? Whatever for?”

  “I’m trying to get into investigative journalism and I thought Colony One was a scam.”

  Rachel burst out laughing. “Oh, that’s funny. I’ll have to tell Sally. I’m planning on taking the elevator up tomorrow to meet her.”

  “You know the head of Colony One?”

  “I think she prefers Captain Sally now, but when you’re rich, you can get away with those minor affectations.”

  “Rich? Do you mean Colony One is collecting money after all?”

  “The opposite, my dear. You’re too young to remember her, but she used to be known as Sally Nugget.”

  “The woman who discovered the solid gold asteroid? I heard about that when I was a child.”

  “It wasn’t really an asteroid, mind you, just a big chunk of gold that had probably been part of some ship’s cargo a hundred million years ago, but nobody ever presented a counter-claim. It wasn’t worth anywhere near the trillion creds the Grenouthian News made it out to be either, but she was able to retire from trading before she really got started. I knew her before I married Phil and she found her pot of gold. Sally spent a few decades cruising around the tunnel network as a tourist after that, and she came back with this idea that humanity needed a colony ship of its own.”

  “So the whole thing is philanthropy?”

  “That’s a good word for it,” Rachel agreed. “Sally couldn’t have children because of a radiation accident when she was young, and she wanted to do something for future generations with her money.”

  “Why didn’t Larry say anything to me about her?” Georgia asked.

  “I’m sure he didn’t know. I hadn’t heard from Sally for years myself, and I only found out she was behind Colony One when she contacted me to say she would be coming here. She knew that I would never miss a Rendezvous.”

  “I’m going up myself for the tour of Flower that Colony One is sponsoring. I’m hoping to manage at least one story that isn’t about food out of this trip. Are you taking the elevator?”

  “Of course. If you promise not to ask any of those hard-nosed reporter questions, I’ll introduce you to her.”

  “I’d love that.”

  “And I’d love to hear more about you and Grumpy,” Rachel insinuated.

  “Grumpy? Do you mean your son? He’s been very nice to me.”

  “Maybe he’s finally getting over it. Did he tell you about his ex?”

  “Only to say he didn’t want to talk about it.”

  “It was our fault, really, by which I mean my husband’s fault. He and Thistle’s father are old friends—they operated a two-man trader together when they started out. Larry and Thistle grew up hearing from their fathers how perfect they were for each other, and they were always inseparable when we met up. They even got married at a Rendezvous.”

  “What happened?”

  “Thistle was always a bit, well, let’s just say she liked to get her way. When she was ten, it was sort of cute. By the time she turned twenty, I had my misgivings, but Larry didn’t seem to mind. It only took her a year of marriage to decide she had made a mistake. Larry was heartbroken as well as nose-broken since he never saw it coming, and I don’t think he’s looked at another woman since she left.”

  “Oh. Well, I think he’s very nice.”

  Rachel groaned. “Nice?”

  “More than nice,” Georgia amended herself, “but we have a working relationship and I don’t want to mess that up. Besides, he’s never given me the slightest sign.”

  “If you’re hoping my son will share his feelings first you’re both in for a long wait. Forgive me for presuming, but do you mind if I give you a piece of advice?”

  “Please do.”

  “Get him drunk,” Rachel said, and then smiled over Georgia’s shoulder. “There you are, Phil. Come and meet Larry’s passenger.”

  After a quick introduction, Larry’s father asked the reporter, “Did you come for Rendezvous? It’s going to be a wild one this year.”

  “I was traveling with Larry chasing a story that didn’t pan out and I thought I’d write a few articles about trader food culture while I’m here. I’m a freelancer for the Galactic Free Press.”

  “Do you cover the Conference of Sovereign Human Communities? The council election next week will determine whether the Traders Guild will become a member.”

  “Larry told me all about it while we were exercising in Zero-G. There’s a full-time reporter on Union Station who covers CoSHC, but I’m afraid I haven’t paid very close attention. I’m not sure I understand why so many traders are reluctant to join.”

  “Old minds, old ways,” Rachel put in.

  “We actually looked into it a few years ago, but some of the CoSHC members at that time didn’t believe that the Traders Guild rises to the level of a community,” Phil explained. “I’ve been on the council for over twenty years and I’ll admit that we’re a pretty independent bunch, but it doesn’t take the Prophet Nabay to see which way the human diaspora is heading. I’m stepping down because I’m too old a dog to learn a new trick, but Larry is running on the pro-CoSHC platform for my seat, and I think most of my old supporters will line up behind him.”

  “Is it a full-time job, being on the council?” Georgia asked.

  Rachel and her husband exchanged a look and burst out laughing.

  “Did I miss a good joke?” Larry asked as he joined the group.

  “I was just curious whether you’d have to stop trading if you win your father’s council seat.”

  “It’s nothing like that. The council only meets once a year at Rendezvous, though if we do join the Conference of Sovereign Human Communities, I suppose somebody will have to act as our representative. But CoSHC only has the one convention a year, and most of the business is done over the Stryxnet.”

  “In all the time Phil has been on the council, I doubt he ever put in more than a couple days a year while we weren’t at Rendezvous,” Rachel said.

  “So how do the traders know who to vote for?” Georgia asked.

  “It’s basically a popularity contest,” Larry told her. “Most of the council members have either been traders for decades or they grew up in it, like me.”

  “But still, how many people could actually know you? There must be hundreds of thousands of independent traders.”

  “A couple of million, at least, but you have to be at Rendezvous to vote. I have twelve days to convince voters, and the election is on the last night. It pretty much comes down to the speeches.”

  “Haven’t you noticed what a beautiful speaking voice my son has?” Rachel teased.

  “The Traders Guild is less one big community than a collection of smaller groups,” Phil said. “Those of us who trade the same routes or make our home port different places tend to get to know each other. My friends and I will be talking up Larry, and his friends will do the same. By the way, I stopped at Chintoo orbital and got you ten thousand printed markers at wholesale. You owe me four hundred creds.”

  “Twenty-five markers to the cred is dirt cheap,” Larry said. “Are they any good?”

  “The artificial Sharf who handled the printing guaranteed they’re the same product he makes for Mark-Up, but without the branding, of course. Give it a shot.” Phil drew from his pocket two cylinders about as wide around as Georgia’s pinky and twice as long and handed them over.

  “Vote for Larry, Phil’s son,” Georgia read the printed message on the side of the marker. “That’s pretty straightforward.”

  Larry removed the cap and sniffed the soft tip of the marker. “Yup. Smells just as bad as a Mark-Up.” He drew a line on the back of his hand, recapped the marker, and then flipped it over. “Now comes the real test,” he said, and ran the flat end of the marker over the line he had just drawn. It disappeared completely.

  “What do traders use these for?” the reporter asked.

  “Didn’t you notice all of the printing on containers and crates in my cargo?”
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  “I just didn’t make the connection because I never saw you writing on anything. Can it erase lines after they dry?”

  “Everything would be covered with cross-outs by now if they didn’t. Thanks, Dad. Between your friends and my friends, we should get most of them handed out in time for the election.”

  “But take a look at these,” Phil said, pulling a rectangular package out of his back pocket.

  “Playing cards?” Larry examined the smiling woman’s face on the box and then extracted the deck. “Beth Anderson? I’ve never heard of her. Is she on every—they’re all different!”

  “Actually, each candidate repeats through all four suits for the same value of card, and the face on the box gets the jokers as well. So the opposition has a candidate standing for all thirteen council seats and they’re running as a package deal.”

  “These are pretty nice cards, other than the faces,” his son said, executing a one-handed cut and tossing an arc. “Somebody spent some money.”

  “They’re giving these away all around Rendezvous,” Rachel informed her son. “I picked up that deck at the Vergallian market this morning when I went to buy fresh vegetables. All of the vendors were giving them away. I asked one girl who was running her family’s farm stand, and she said that a Human came around last week and offered all of the vendors twenty creds a day to give them out.”

  “Somebody has deep pockets,” Larry observed as he worked his way slowly through the deck, studying the images. “You know, I don’t recognize a single one of these traders.”

  “Neither did we,” Phil said. “And they all use two names, which pretty much tells you that they’re first-generation.”

  “Do traders really elect council members based on pens and playing cards?” Georgia couldn’t help asking.

  “We never took it that seriously because the council doesn’t have any power, other than managing Rendezvous. But the Conference of Sovereign Human Communities addressed the invitation to us, so all of a sudden, the council is a battleground.”

  A young woman on a bicycle turned into the campsite and braked to a halt right next to the pair of couples. “Hi,” she said with a bright smile. “Do you have a minute to talk?”

  “Maureen?” Larry asked, working his way back a few cards and then pulling one out and holding it up to compare the image with the original.

  “That’s me,” Maureen said. “As you know, I’m running for the council, and I just wanted to introduce myself and ask for your vote.”

  “Have you been a trader long?” Rachel inquired. “We come to Rendezvous every year, and I have a good memory for faces, but I don’t recall meeting you.”

  “It’s my first Rendezvous, but I’ve had my ship for six years now. I never thought I’d be running for the council, but I became a trader for the independent lifestyle, and I’m totally against joining the royalty thing.”

  “Conference of Sovereign Human Communities,” Georgia told her. “It’s an elective body that—”

  “You know what I mean,” Maureen interrupted. “They claim to be sovereign, but most of their communities are on so-called open worlds that belong to alien empires. Sure, there are over thirty million humans here on Aarden, but the world is ruled by a Vergallian queen.” She lowered her voice and made a show of checking the surroundings before continuing. “I heard that the last council got paid to move Rendezvous here after the Stryx opened the tunnel.”

  “Have a marker,” Phil said, handing one to the young woman. “I’m the father, by the way.”

  “You’re running for the council?” Maureen asked Larry, her face flushing red. “Why didn’t you say so?”

  “You were doing such a good job telling us the way it is that I didn’t want to interrupt,” Larry said. “Word of advice. If you want to be taken seriously, talk more about the trading you’ve done and leave the conspiracy theories to Earthers.”

  Maureen stood on the pedals to get the bike moving, and Rachel made a rude gesture at her back. “Coming onto my campsite and insulting my husband. I should have slashed her tires.”

  “She didn’t wait around long enough,” Georgia said. “Do you think that all of the candidates on the playing cards are out on bicycles doing the same thing?”

  Phil frowned. “I don’t remember ever seeing election swag that promoted more than one person. Most years it’s a struggle just to get enough candidates to stand. Rachel?”

  “It’s something new, all right, but we can worry about it after we eat,” she said, ushering the group in the direction of the fold-out picnic table. “Tell us what you think of the trading life, Georgia. Is the time you spent with my son your first experience in a small ship?”

  “Yes, and other than the first bout of Zero-G sickness, I loved it. I even got to save the ship from a saboteur,” she added proudly.

  “What happened?” Rachel demanded of her son. “You’re not the first candidate to have a problem.”

  “Somebody slipped a chewer on the ship and it went after the secondary cooling hoses,” Larry said. “I didn’t want to pull up all the deck plates, and Georgia was able to work her way through and crush it. What do you mean we weren’t the first?”

  “Kari’s ship was holed when she was approaching Aarden,” Phil told him grimly.

  “Kari the gardener? The woman who’s sat on the council longer than anybody?”

  “Hit by a steel ball bigger than the meteor protection field or the self-sealing hull could handle. Luckily, Kari was on her cargo deck when it happened, and she had the hatch closed because she’s religious about sealed compartments. Kari laughed it off as a trillion-to-one-shot bit of space junk, but it’s pretty obvious that somebody potted her with a rail gun. And Arlene said she would be here early to discuss strategy but she’s a day overdue.”

  “Everybody likes Arlene,” Larry protested.

  “Is she running for reelection to the council too?” Georgia asked.

  “She planned to, but the deadline for registration is in two days, and candidates have to be here in person,” Phil said. “Rachel, you give the kids dinner. I’m going to round up the other council members who are here and see if we can work out exactly what is going on.”

  Fourteen

  “Thank you again for all of the help,” Ellen said to Marshall. “I wouldn’t have even known about this long-term lot for traders if you hadn’t told me. And the meeting facility was a life-saver when the representatives of all the different journalist groups from around the world flew in to finalize our syndication deal this morning. I was going to rent a meeting room at a hotel, but this was much nicer.”

  “If you missed the plaque, the meeting hall was a gift from Drazen Foods,” Marshall told her. “It’s a tradition of theirs to build facilities for independent traders at the ground stations of space elevators on all of their own worlds. When they saw that Earth didn’t have one, they offered to take care of it.”

  “The ironic thing is that I’m on an expense account for the first time in my life, yet I’m being more careful with my programmable cred than when I’m footing the bills myself.”

  “If you come back to Earth frequently enough it’s worth paying for the annual parking pass. The break-even is around thirty days, and if you’re going to be returning here once a month to meet with the journalists in your new syndicate, you’ll save some creds.”

  “The Galactic Free Press thanks you,” Ellen said. The opening chords of Beethoven’s Fifth played from her back pocket and she pulled out her cell phone. “Hello?” Her expression changed to one of disgust and she tapped the disconnect.

  “Telemarketing call?” Marshall asked sympathetically. “I pay extra for a service that blocks them if you want me to give you the details. Earth must be the only planet in the galaxy that allows communications spam, but they cling to the old cell phone network as a matter of pride.”

  “Prank call,” Ellen told him. “Some clown saying he’s the President of EarthCent.” The phone rang again, and this tim
e the freelancer said, “Jerk,” before hanging up.

  “How do you know it’s not actually the president?” Marshall asked.

  “Why would the president call me? Besides, nobody that high up would place a call themselves. They’d have a secretary do it.”

  Beethoven’s Fifth began to play again, and Marshall said, “Let me have a look.”

  Ellen handed the phone over, and before he answered, the trader tapped an icon she’d never noticed, and then held the device a couple of feet in front of his face as the video function went live.

  “Hello? Yes, it is her phone. Yes, Mr. President. Yes, she’s right here.” He handed the phone back to Ellen, who blushed like a schoolgirl.

  “I’m so sorry about calling you a jerk,” she began. “I thought you were a prankster.”

  “Happens all the time,” the EarthCent president assured her. “I just got off a tunneling network conference call about a promotion we’re running in conjunction with the Galactic Free Press at Rendezvous this year. Your managing editor, Walter Dunkirk, participated as well. Our head of public relations, Hildy Greuen, decided at the last minute that she’d like to attend Rendezvous in person, but there isn’t a direct passenger service from Earth to Aarden. Walter mentioned that you were just wrapping up some business here and would probably be leaving for Rendezvous later today.”

  “EarthCent’s head of public relations wants to hitch a ride on my ship?”

  “We’ll pay,” the president offered hopefully.

  “I’m not worried about that, it’s just—it’s a two-man trader. The trip to Aarden will take almost forty-eight hours in the tunnels, all of that in Zero-G, and—”

  “Hildy is an experienced traveler. Whenever we go somewhere, I’m the one who gets sick.”

  “I was just packing up to leave,” Ellen said irresolutely. “I already reserved a slot with—”

  “She’s at the base of the elevator now so she could take the monorail to your location and be there in less than twenty minutes. You’ll be saving her a full day on the elevator, and at least three days travel.”