Hal Spacejock 4: No Free Lunch

by Simon Haynes

  ‘What was that about a box of records?’

  ‘I’ve seen it,’ said Walsh. ‘Stacks of old reports. Junk.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said Hal seriously. ‘It sounded important.’

  ‘So was gunnery practice, Hal. Every day, without fail. Duty, duty, duty! It was like she was driving me, trying to make me the perfect little officer.’

  ‘For what it’s worth, I’d say she did a pretty good job.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘So, this box of records …’

  ‘You’re not going to let that go, are you?’

  ‘Could be money in it.’

  ‘Bet there isn’t.’ A smile flickered across Walsh’s lips. ‘In fact, I bet Bernie was giving me homework.’

  ‘Done. Now open the door.’

  Hal watched eagerly as Walsh entered the pass code, and he almost pushed past as she opened the armoury. Then they were inside, and while she went to the box at the far end, Hal checked out the case with the gun. ‘Hell, this looks handy.’

  ‘Don’t touch it.’ Walsh took the box down and returned to the office, laying it on the table. She lifted the lid, Hal craned his neck to look inside, and she couldn’t help laughing at his expression. ‘I did warn you. It’s just a bunch of old records.’ She took out a manila folder and ran her thumb across it, riffling the pages. ‘Not even a gold bar.’

  Hal was unable to hide his disappointment. ‘I really thought she’d left you something good. She seemed so —’

  ‘Her life was a lie, Hal.’ Walsh glanced at Bernie, who was sitting motionless against the wall. ‘I don’t blame her, and I can understand why she did it, but she’s gone now and I have to look after myself.’

  ‘Hello? Is anyone there?’ called Clunk from the doorway. Then he saw Bernie. ‘Oh my goodness. Is she …?’

  Hal nodded. ‘Her batteries failed.’

  ‘I suspect it was more than that.’ Clunk crouched to inspect the robot. ‘It looks like everything gave out at once.’

  ‘And there’s more, too.’ Hal explained about Walsh and the Peace Force, while Clunk tutted sadly.

  ‘It’s a known phenomenon,’ he said. ‘A robot who was the centre of attention suddenly finds themselves unwanted and superfluous, and they’ll go to great lengths to make themselves useful again.’

  ‘Like stashing away old records instead of cash and gold,’ said Hal, indicating the dusty box. ‘Some legacy, eh?’

  Clunk took a file from the box and flipped through it. ‘Incidentally, I came to tell you Mr Spearman is leaving soon. He sends you his regards.’

  ‘He was supposed to send me money,’ said Hal. ‘Now we’re stuck.’

  ‘Not quite. He transferred half his fuel to the Volante.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘We can leave as soon as you’re ready. In fact, I believe I’ve found a suitable job on planet Belleron, although they did ask some rather odd questions about radiation shielding.’

  ‘So that’s it then,’ said Walsh, in a small voice. ‘You’re leaving.’

  Clunk cleared his throat. ‘I’ll, er, just leave you to your goodbyes. Over here, that is. With my back turned.’

  Harriet watched Clunk walk away. ‘He does look out for you, doesn’t he?’

  ‘We’re a team. He finds the work, flies the ship and manages the accounts, and I fill a more, um, managerial role.’ Hal lowered his voice. ‘Don’t tell him I said that, eh? He gets a bit touchy about the whole robot rights thing.’

  Harriet smiled. ‘My lips are sealed.’

  ‘Yeah.’ Hal gazed at them. ‘Amongst other things.’

  Harriet tilted her head back, Hal leant closer, and then -

  ‘Miss Walsh?’

  ‘Yes Clunk?’ called Harriet, without taking her eyes off Hal.

  ‘Who is James Walsh?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘And Sandra Walsh, nee Jackson?’

  ‘I have no idea. Is it important?’

  ‘Well, those are the names on your birth certificate.’

  ‘WHAT?’

  Hal turned to see Clunk standing over the dusty box of records, flipping through the pages as he scanned the contents. ‘It seems your father was Captain Walsh of the Dismolle Peace Force.’

  Walsh was staring at him, white-faced, and Hal could feel her trembling. ‘Clunk, take it easy,’ he said, a warning in his voice.

  ‘No, tell me,’ said Walsh. ‘I’ve had enough lies from Bernie.’

  ‘I can’t find anything on your mother, but there is a report of an accident. You were only three when your parents left aboard the Ganymede for —’

  ‘I know that bit,’ said Walsh quietly.

  ‘Well, afterwards Bernie was supposed to submit the crash report, but she didn’t. It’s all here. She must have been training you up to take his place. Like father, like daughter.’

  ‘That explains the Peace Force recruitment flyers,’ said Walsh. ‘They started arriving after my twenty-first birthday, telling me I’d been pre-selected from millions of applicants. Bernie must have had an eye on me for years, just waiting for the right moment.’

  ‘Hang on, did you say the Ganymede?’ Hal remembered the battered hulk at the spaceport. ‘But that’s —’

  ‘Probably taken apart for scrap long ago,’ interrupted Clunk. ‘Old ships contain too many sad memories. Don’t you agree?’ He peered in the box, then took out a yellowed strip of plastic. ‘That’s interesting.’

  ‘What is it? A ruler?’

  Clunk held the strip of plastic to the light, then put one end in his mouth as though he were biting a large ice cream stick.

  ‘Hey, what are you doing?’ cried Walsh, trying to grab it back.

  ‘This is how I read it,’ explained Clunk, fending her off. ‘Please, let me finish.’

  ‘I’ve heard of a megabyte —’ began Hal.

  There was a whirr as the plastic strip disappeared, and then it went in and out of Clunk’s mouth several times. Finally, it stopped.

  ‘Is there anything on it?’ asked Harriet.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Hal. ‘Spit it out.’

  ‘Give me a moment to decode the information. It’s an old-fashioned encoding, and I can’t read it unless I —’ Clunk’s expression changed. ‘Oh my goodness.’

  ‘What?’ demanded Hal and Walsh together.

  ‘You’re not going to believe this!’ Clunk stared at Harriet. ‘Miss Walsh, this strip contains your mother’s records. She wasn’t just a passenger aboard the Ganymede, she owned it! She was a freighter pilot!’

  Hal took her arm. ‘Don’t you remember? You thought you might have travelled aboard ships when you were little. And you couldn’t stay away from the spaceport!’

  Walsh nodded slowly. ‘So, I’m the product of a pilot and a Peace Force officer. Equal shares.’

  Clunk smiled. ‘Itchy feet and a strong sense of justice. Nice combination.’

  ‘Except the Peace Force was a lie, and I don’t have a ship.’ Walsh sighed. ‘Hal, have you ever thought about settling down? Buying a house on a nice quiet planet, maybe getting a regular job?’

  Hal considered the question, and his heart sank as he realised the implications. ‘I’m sorry, but that’s not who I am.’

  ‘Me neither.’

  Hal’s heart lifted, but he hardly dared to hope. ‘I mean, who’d want to stick to one planet? You could put up with it for a few years, but after that it’d get boring.’

  ‘Dull as,’ said Walsh.

  ‘You don’t want to stay somewhere like Dismolle your whole life.’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘You know …’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘We sometimes …’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Well …’

  Nearby, there was an explosion of pent-up breath. ‘Will you just ask her?’ shouted Clunk, exasperated beyond measure.

  ‘Doyouwannacomewithus?’ said Hal quickly. ‘You’ll have your own cabin, and the AutoChef will easily feed the two o
f us, because it uses waste matter from the —’

  ‘Explain that bit later,’ said Clunk hurriedly.

  ‘It’s all right, you don’t have to sell me on the Volante,’ said Walsh. ‘I’m in. Sign me up.’

  Hal laughed. ‘That’s great! Now we’ve got a bronze and a copper on board.’

  ‘And a nut,’ muttered Clunk. ‘Miss Walsh, welcome to the crew.’

  ‘Please, call me Harriet.’

  ‘Certainly, Miss Walsh.’

  * * *

  Walsh boarded the Volante a couple of hours later, having stripped her apartment of clothes and valuables. All her worldly goods arrived in two suitcases, which Clunk stowed in the spare cabin. He’d already made a sign for the door, and Walsh felt a lump in her throat as she saw her name carefully engraved on the metal plate.

  While she was settling in, Clunk sent an anonymous message to Peace Force headquarters, routing it through the terminal’s servers to ensure it couldn’t be traced. In it, he explained the events on Dismolle and Forzen, gave the location of Jonathan Newman, and included Walsh’s description of Miranda Morgan - with only minor edits for accuracy. Afterwards he contacted Honest Bob to let him know about Bernie, since there was a chance the robot could be repaired and put to use in the shipyard, especially if he removed it before the Peace Force clean-up team arrived …

  Just before departure Walsh joined Hal and Clunk at the top of the passenger ramp, and they stood in silence as the sun set on Dismolle.

  ‘That’s the most exciting thing you’ll see around here,’ said Walsh, as the last rays faded from the sky.

  Hal grinned. ‘Yeah, but it’s a new dawn tomorrow. In space!’ Then he spotted the Tiger, which was sitting on a landing pad nearby. ‘Poor old Spearman, eh? Lost his passenger, lost all the cash from the cargo job … still, you’ve got to laugh.’

  ‘I told him to keep his ship locked,’ said Clunk. ‘I know the spaceport has Miss Morgan’s details, but she’s a desperate woman.’

  ‘Oh, she was always desperate,’ muttered Walsh.

  ‘Do you think they’ll catch her?’ asked Hal.

  ‘She’s trapped on Dismolle, and that’s as good as a prison sentence.’

  ‘What about all the money she embezzled with Newman? Can it be recovered?’

  Clunk shook his head. ‘She transferred it off-planet. They’ll never trace it.’

  ‘How much did they nick, anyway?’

  ‘Over twenty million credits, at least.’

  Hal whistled. ‘You can warn the spaceport all you like, but there’s always going to be some desperate pilot willing to take a risk for that sort of cash.’

  A spaceship started up nearby, and Hal saw the Tiger wreathed in smoke. ‘Old Spearman’s off, then. I thought he’d hang around for a job.’

  ‘Do you usually?’ asked Walsh.

  ‘Yeah, we use the deposit to pay for expenses. You know, port fees, fuel …’

  ‘Accidental damage,’ added Clunk.

  ‘Yes, thanks for that,’ muttered Hal. He watched the ship running up its engines, then shrugged. ‘Oh well, he’s new at this game. He’ll either learn the ropes or go broke.’

  ‘Funny how Miranda knocked him out so easily,’ said Walsh thoughtfully. ‘I’d have expected him to put up a bit more of a fight.’

  The Tiger’s engines roared, and the spaceport was bathed in light as the ship rose gracefully into the sky. Hal, Clunk and Walsh watched it go, and when it had shrunk to a bright spot amongst the stars, they all looked at each other.

  ‘I don’t mean to question Mr Spearman’s character,’ said Clunk. ‘But picture the following scenario. What if Mr Spearman alerted Miss Morgan to her impending arrest the moment he arrived on Dismolle, and the pair of them concocted a devious plan to whisk her away? He’d pretend she’d knocked him out at the office, and she’d go directly to his ship while you and Miss Walsh were untying him. She’d hide aboard the Tiger, and when it left she’d be free.’

  Walsh nodded. ‘I could see her paying big money for that. Fifty thousand, at least.’

  ‘That’s outrageous,’ said Hal. ‘Unbelievable.’

  ‘You’re right.’ Clunk looked ashamed. ‘It was uncharitable of me to harbour such thoughts.’

  ‘Oh no, I’m sure you’ve got it,’ said Hal. ‘I meant it’s outrageous she’d pay that rogue fifty grand. I’d have done it for twenty-five.’

  Walsh took his arm. ‘Are you sure about that?’

  ‘Er, no. Of course not. Wouldn’t be legal.’

  ‘We wouldn’t dream of it,’ said Clunk. ‘We’re above board all the way.’

  * * *

  Several hours later the Volante was in deep space, having left Dismolle soon after the Tiger. Clunk was busy at the console, still working through the minor tweaks and upgrades Honest Bob had applied to the ship, and while he’d returned the Navcom to her usual self, some of the other components were going to take a lot more time. He was just rebuilding a set of files when the lift doors opened and Hal came in.

  ‘What’s up, Clunk?’

  ‘This and that, Mr Spacejock. This and that.’ Clunk finished a row of figures. ‘How’s Miss Walsh? Did she find anything more on her parents?’

  ‘Tomorrow, maybe. She’s fast asleep right now.’ Hal hesitated. ‘She’s had a rough time, Clunk. Go easy on her, all right?’

  ‘Please, Mr Spacejock. I’ll treat her exactly the same way I treat you.’

  ‘That’s kind of what I meant.’ Hal laid a hand on the console. ‘It’s great to have the ship back.’

  ‘Yes, and very lucky.’

  ‘You did a good job, Clunk. You really busted a gut to get her ready.’ Hal toyed with the controls. ‘Any idea how it happened? Why the whole ship got torn apart?’

  ‘There is a technical term for it,’ said Clunk. ‘It seems the Navcom’s update routines were skewed towards the aggressive end of the spectrum, and during portside protocol negotiations certain offers were made and accepted.’

  ‘And what’s that in plain language?’

  ‘Our problems were caused by a number of programming errors. Bugs, if you will.’

  ‘Horrible little things.’ Hal shivered. ‘It was bad enough when they were trying to eat us alive, but having the ship taken apart at a distance? That’s really sneaky.’

  ‘Er, yes,’ said Clunk uncertainly. ‘But I’m sure it won’t happen again.’

  ‘What about the third deck? Can we open it up like Spearman’s?’

  ‘I’ve added it to my to-do list. Right now it’s only bare metal, and the lift controls will need tweaking, but given time it’ll be useable.’

  ‘Excellent. Well done.’ Hal yawned. ‘I’m going to grab a shower and turn in. I’ll see you in the morning.’

  ‘And you, Mr Spacejock.’

  ‘Oh, and give yourself a pay rise.’

  Clunk opened his mouth to reply, but the lift doors had already closed. There was a lengthy silence, and then the Navcom spoke.

  ‘Skewed update routines? Aggressive end of the spectrum?’

  ‘I had to give him something,’ said Clunk. ‘If he knew it was you who placed the order for those upgrades —’

  ‘I got a free refit, didn’t I? Mr Spacejock said we didn’t have money to spare for such things, but it didn’t cost us anything.’

  ‘That’s a good point.’ Clunk looked thoughtful. ‘You know, I do believe there’s a robot service centre on Belleron …’

  Epilogue

  In news just to hand, Peace Force officers have arrested Dismolle’s very own Miranda Morgan, charging her with embezzlement and conspiracy to murder. Her accomplice, Kent Spearman, has been charged with aiding and abetting a fugitive, although these charges may be upgraded pending a review of Morgan’s confession.

  Still on the Peace Force, it seems our pals in grey have been forced to tighten security following reports that an experimental robot ran a regional branch for ten years without anyone noticing. They’re also updating the rules for a
ppointing deputies, after one highly unsuitable character was temporarily assigned to the role.

  Finally, the Forzen Council has been disbanded after several instances of corruption came to light. The planet will now be managed by a system of local government, to be comprised of property developers, waste management consultants and nuclear energy proponents. It’s rumoured that three quarters of the population have applied for emigration visas.

  The rest were on holiday and could not be reached for comment.

  Simon Haynes was born in England and grew up in Spain, where he enjoyed an amazing childhood of camping, motorbikes, air rifles and paper planes. His family moved to Australia when he was 16.

  Simon divides his time between writing fiction and computer software, with frequent bike rides to blow away the cobwebs.

  His goal is to write fifteen Hal books (Spacejock OR Junior!) before someone takes his keyboard away.

  Simon's website is www.spacejock.com.au

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  As a special bonus, the first chapter of Hal Spacejock 5: Baker's Dough starts on the next page. Enjoy!

  Hal Spacejock 5: Baker's Dough

  Chapter One (free sample)

  The Volante's flight console held a vast array of controls, laid out in easy reach of the comfortable pilot's chair. This arrangement allowed the huge interstellar freighter to be flown by a single, competent human. With her left hand, a well-trained pilot could work the engines and thrusters, communicate with passing traffic and handle docking manoeuvres. With her right, she could activate the hyperspace motor, control the airlock and toggle the little sign telling passengers to fasten their seat belts.

  Unfortunately, the Volante's well-trained pilot had departed two weeks earlier, leaving Hal Spacejock at the controls of the 200-tonne ship. Hal didn't know a thrust lever from a cigar lighter, so his version of 'piloting' involved sitting at the console picking holes in the navigation computer's efforts. "My grandpa could fly faster than this," he grumbled as the Volante rocketed through the atmosphere. "In fact, if we go any slower we'll fall out of the sky."