by Rolf Nelson
“Wow. Twenty thousand tons?” Floyd says. “Good-sized ship. Two hundred meters or more. Must be one of those on the outer ring.”
“Hope so. They look nice. Shiny.”
“Name doesn’t ring a bell, but I’ve been away a few months. Must be new here.”
“Guess I’ll know soon enough.”
Helton stands at an information counter in the spaceport concourse central hub. The young woman at the counter shakes her head. “I’m sorry sir, no ship registered by that name here.”
“Are you sure? I had it confirmed before I left. It’s my ship. It must be here.”
“Nothing on the computer. Do you know if it landed in the last thirty days?”
“Actually, I, um, I’m not sure when it came in. Won it in a card game.”
The Info Clerk is apologetic as she digs for more data. “Sorry, no commercial or private craft by that name registered with the port on any landing pad.” She tap-tap-taps on the computer. “No landings or takeoffs in the last year by any craft with that name.” Tap-tap-tap. “No fuel requests under that name. No quarantines on it. No bonded cargo listed as being from it. Or for it. No passengers, either. If it’s here, it’s a Flying Dutchman.” Info Clerk looks up at Helton, shrugs her shoulders and spreads her hands silently.
“Is there anyone else here that I could talk to?” Info Clerk shakes her head. Helton takes a deep breath and leans on the counter.
She glances over Helton’s shoulder, sees Floyd, waves him over. “Glad to see you’re back.”
Floyd looks inquiringly at Helton, and gets a tired head-shake in reply. Surprised, he looks at the Info Clerk. “Not here?”
“No. He says he checked before coming, but…” she shrugs.
“Could it be one of the hulks?”
“Maybe. Boneyard ships are a different company.”
Worried, Helton says, “Boneyard?”
“Ships that can’t fly,” Floyd explains. “Old wrecks and such. Used for parts and parties. Not likely, though. None of them are that big, unless it’s a small ore hauler. They’re something like 30k gross tonnes, I think.” Helton acquires a pained expression.
“I’m headed that way. Work out past the end of Concourse 4. We could take a look out there first so I can check in, though there’s nothing anywhere close to that mass out there. Maybe one of the old guys knows something about it.”
“Well, it’s a start. Lead the way.”
Floyd heads down the concourse, Helton following.
Allonia
Helton walks along a dusty road on the outskirts of the port between a generic beige warehouse and a tarp-covered, dusty, crusty, old ship. He stops and looks at the number on the outbuilding, and he mutters to himself. “1701. Well, there’s the right building, and he said across from it.” He looks at the ship. Back at the building number. Back at the ship. He makes a skeptical face and shakes his head.
The ship is a little more than 70 meters long, and half that wide. It looks like it’s been there forever. Streaked, dirty, large tarps over parts of it, uncertain color underneath the crud and graffiti. It’s a very simple and angular design, like a flattened hexagonal prism with sharply pointed ends. It seems to be resting directly on the ground, without landing struts or gear holding it up. On one side a fold-away boarding ramp is lowered; it’s about 1.5 meters wide and it looks massively thick. Open at the top is an old-fashioned airlock hatch, slightly inset. Dimly visible in the shadows, something is closed across the hatch on the inside. Overall, it looks like a mostly intact wreck of a very old ship, but with an abandoned-building-in-a-spaghetti-western vibe. A tarp flaps in the wind and under it he catches a glimpse of lettering. He steps up to get a better look. On the hull beneath, hand painted in fading, chipped paint, is the name Tajemnica.
“Well, well, well. So here you are. At least the rest of the chips were worth something.” He sighs in resignation. “Not quite what I was led to expect, but free’s a good price. Let’s see what sort of mysteries are inside.”
He mounts the stairs cautiously, but they feel rock solid. At the top of the stairs is a scan pad with a dim light next to it. Inside the airlock hatch is a simple, home-made screen door. He holds his title up to the scan pad and pushes a button. Nothing happens. He holds his hand to the pad. Nothing. He folds the title, slips it back in his breast pocket, opens the door, and steps through into the dark interior. The screen door closes with a sharp bang behind him. He pulls out and turns on a small flashlight, revealing a cramped, narrow passageway into the ship, about 3 meters long, with another heavy-duty airlock hatch at the end, also open. He moves cautiously inward. As he passes through the inner hatchway, he hears a slight scuffle off to his left, and he casts his light beam around.
The inner hatchway opens into the middle of a box-shaped cargo bay, 40 meters long, 8 meters wide, and 6 meters high. It has two large cargo doors (one at each end), several other hatches, and a number of large windows looking onto it from the next deck up. The windows are hinged at the top, and some of them are propped open into the cargo bay.
A couple of chain hoists hang from above at one end, and lots of assorted things lay about the deck: barrels and crates; metal beams; tools; some odd cylinders, about a meter high; an ATV missing a wheel, up on blocks; a stack of boxes labeled “DO NOT STACK”, with “THIS SIDE UP” arrows pointing every which way.
Helton hears another scuffling sound, and he jerks the light in that direction. Nothing. “I think she might be needing just a bit more than a coat of paint. LIGHTS!”
No response from the ship. He flashes his light around and sees a com-panel on the wall, with switches and another dim LED. He moves a switch and nothing happens. He pulls out the title and holds it up to the scanner. Nothing. He hears another scurrying sound, but again his small flashlight shows nothing but a very abandoned and creepy-looking ship. He pockets the title, switches the light to his left hand, pulls out a small locking knife and flicks it open, snick.
He lights up the cargo doors to his left and sees the word STERN printed in large letters. Swinging the light the other way he sees BOW. A pair of flags are painted on the top edge, about a half-meter on a side, one below the other. The top flag is a blue cross on a white background, the lower flag has three horizontal stripes with blue on top, then white and red below. He advances cautiously in that direction, slowly, scanning his light around the cluttered ship.
A hatch near the bow door leads to a storage area and a stairway. Faintly visible on each riser is the name of a virtue: BRAVERY, DEPENDABILITY, FAITH. Helton climbs one level to the middeck and casts his light down the passageway. It is clean and orderly, with a couple of hatches. He moves a few meters down the cramped passageway, and casts his light into a side door. It reveals a small cabin, about 2.5 meters wide and 4 meters deep, lined with a dozen close-spaced bunks — three high on each side, two each end-to-end — and a set of small lockers at the back wall, with a low row of drawers along the floor. The next door reveals an identical cabin. He opens the next door, sniffs the air, and makes a surprised face as he recognizes the pleasant smell of fresh food. Scuffling sounds again and he whirls, knife at the ready. A clink-rattle-rattle, and he whirls the other way. A scampering sound, and something hits Helton’s coat from behind with a thwap.
He jumps, startled, and yells.“YAARRGG!”
“TAG! YOU’RE IT!” A small barefoot boy runs away down the passageway and around a corner, laughing.
“Hey! Wait! Who are you!” Helton calls. “Where are you going! STOP!” But the boy is gone.
Helton breathes deeply and leans against the doorway to calm down for a second. Then he folds his knife, drops it back in his pocket, and looks around the room with his flashlight. It contains a galley and serving line, partly neat and orderly and clean, partly a mess of heaped stuff. Then he hears a slight sound behind him and feels the cold point of a knife at his neck and a contralto female voice commands: “FREEZE!”
Helton freezes, then slowly raises
his hands.
“You are?” she asks.
“Helton. New owner of this ship. You?”
“You don’t look like the owner I met a few months ago.”
Helton wiggles one finger at the knife. “Do you mind?”
“Not until I know who you are.”
“Helton Strom. I won the ship in a game a few days ago.”
“Yeah, right,” she says sarcastically. “That’s what the last guy said. Didn’t believe him, either.”
“No, really, I did! I’ve got the title in my pocket.”
“He said that, too. Do you take classes to sound so corny?”
“What? NO.”
“Okay. Slowly turn around.” She moves the knife away from his neck. Helton slowly turns around, still holding up his hands, his small flashlight pointing upward. In the reflected light he can see a lot of dark hair, a round, pretty face, and a large kitchen knife pointed at him. It does not waver at all.
“Your boy gave me quite a scare,” he says.
“Not mine. Just stays here sometimes. Now, then. You?”
“As I said, I won the ship in a card game a few days ago, and I’m here seeing what it was I won.”
“Well, lucky you.”
“What are you doing here?” Helton asks.
“I live here, more or less. Free rent, keeps the riffraff away. Safer than town. Heard you come through the alarm.”
“Alarm?”
“Screen door.”
“Can I put my hands down now?”
She pauses, then pulls out her own flashlight and lights him up. It’s much brighter than his, and he squints in the intense beam. She looks him up and down. “Hmmm… I guess so. You don’t look too badass.”
“Thanks. Just what every guy wants to hear.”
“But I’m still going to check out your paperwork.”
Background
Helton sits at a table in the Adelaide Spaceport Restaurant & Lounge with the woman and the boy. She’s young, maybe 21, full-figured with curves in all the right places, visible even through her loose-fitting layers of clothing. The boy, about five years old, has messy hair, dirty clothes, and a glass of milk.
“See?” says Helton. “I told you I owned it.”
“Now what?” she asks.
The boy says, “You two get married and fly Ship into the sunset.”
They both look at him and burst out laughing.
Helton chuckles pleasantly. “I’m not the Prince Charming type, I don’t think, and it might be just a little too soon. I mean, I haven’t saved her from a dragon or bad guys or anything yet.”
“Hah, and where’s his space armor, eh, Quinn?”
“In storage on deck five, Allonia. What about lunch?”
Helton turns mock serious. “I think I can manage that.”
“So what do you plan to do now?” Allonia asks.
“I don’t know. I figured it would already be flying, so…” He shrugs dismissively.
“It’ll cost a lot to get it back in the air,” she says.
“You a starship tech?” Helton asks. Quinn’s getting bored, so he starts rearranging things on the table.
“No,” she says, “but that thing has been here since the port was first built. Before, actually. The port was built because it landed here out of The Deep Black over a hundred years ago.”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously, as far as I know. Hasn’t moved since, except getting jacked up to be worked on. When I was his age…” She looks at Quinn, who’s now lying on his back with his feet in the air. “… my grandma said it was a ghost ship. Didn’t believe her, ’cause I used to get babysat on the ship, kinda like Quinn. It showed up crewless, landing on autopilot, before grandma was born. Had a whole string of owners that all went bust with it. People called it the Dutchman back then.” Helton looks less and less happy as she goes on. “I moved in a year or so ago. Quiet. No shore power though. Bills not paid, so it was put into land-lock. Not that it could go anywhere.”
“Great. Any more good news about my newfound albatross of ancient history?”
Allonia shrugs. “I’ve heard rumors it’s haunted, and that’s why no one wants the buildings next to it. People claim they hear voices on board. Parts of it aren’t accessible; access hatches welded shut, others that won’t open, things like that. Weird layout, not like any normal Meridian transport I’ve ever seen. Things work pretty well if you hook up portable power to them. So, can I keep living there until you go broke, too?”
“Ah, well … I guess there is enough room for us both–”
Quinn pipes up from under the table. “It’s a good ship. And a nice one.”
“-for all three of us, until I can get a better idea of what I’m up against. Sure. In exchange for all the help and info you can give me, you have a free room there.”
“Any room I want?”
“For now. Why?”
Quinn interrupts: “I get the story room!”
“Sure you can. I think. Unless I get it.” Helton mouths “Story room?” to Allonia, who shrugs and shakes her head.
“Can I expand the hydroponics section?” she asks. He looks at her sharply, suspicious of the sudden cooperation.
“There’s a hydroponics section?”
“Sort of. All kinds of interesting things on board, to be honest.”
“If it doesn’t interfere with any other repair work, yes, I suppose.”
Power
Helton and Allonia stand at the information desk of the spaceport. The clerk is the same young woman Helton spoke to before. “It was the Dutchman? No wonder it wasn’t listed,” she says. “Well, let me see, power, power… Yes, there is a shore power bill of… That can’t be right.” She looks up at Helton, apologetically.
“That’s okay. I scored a pretty good pile when I won this ship. What’s the damage?”
“It says power can be restored to Pad D9 with a payment of 182,000.”
“I’m sorry, I could have sworn you said ‘one hundred eighty two thousand’.”
She nods sheepishly. Even Allonia is surprised. Helton bites back a rather profane retort, takes a deep breath, and taps his fingers on the counter for a moment, thinking aloud. “Okay. Assets can come with liabilities. Can’t make it fly if I can’t get it started. Still leaves enough to make some repairs, or at least makes it easier to sell.” Louder, he continues. “Okay. Do it. Get the power back on.”
Allonia’s impressed. “You’re richer than I thought you were.”
“Not anymore,” Helton says. “Just hope it doesn’t become what Dad called a ‘major learning experience’.”
Helton and Allonia stand in Tajemnica’s cargo hold. It is pitch black except for the light from their flashlights and an LED on a wall-mounted com/security panel. “Let’s see what I won,” Helton says, as he places his hand on the panel. “Strom, Helton T., new owner and captain.” The panel lights up and scans his hand and face.
“Present certification, please, Sir,” the Ship AI says in a brisk, male, military-sounding voice. Helton holds the title up to the panel, which blinks. There is a long pause. “Please present your eyes for scanning, Sir.” Helton looks concerned, but he positions his face for an eye scan. Another delay. “Certification approved. It’s been a very long time, Sir. Welcome back aboard, Captain.”
Helton turns to address the empty cargo hold and says, theatrically, in his best Doctor Frankenstein voice, “It’s alive! ALIVE!” He glances at Allonia. “No?” She raises an eyebrow. “Oh, sorry. I always wanted to say that. Would you prefer: and He said, Let There Be LIGHTS!”
Allonia shakes her head. “We want power to go to the lights, Helton. Not your head.”
The cargo bay grows brighter and brighter as most of the display screens and ceiling-mounted flat-panels come slowly to life. It still seems shabby and worn, but it’s no longer scary. It looks both cramped and cavernous at the same time. The regularly spaced windows lining the middeck above are mostly open, as are the do
ors on both sides of the cargo bay.
“Want to give me the tour?” asks Helton.
“Right this way, your majestic heroic-ness.” She drops the mock seriousness as they walk forward to the stairs. “Ever been on a Meridian transport?”
“No,” Helton admits. “Read about them. Feels smaller than it looks from the outside.”
“Simple layout. Main cargo deck here, storage and machinery on either side. Usually they have only one cargo door, but this has one at each end with loading ramps and heavy-duty airlock doors. The windows up there go to the B-Deck passageway and rooms. A-Deck is above this bay, all the way across. Most of the passenger and crew space is there. Some of the doors are locked, a few hatches welded — don’t know what’s in them. Lots of machinery crammed everywhere: between decks, under the decking, outboard, everywhere. Port passageways have a red stripe, starboard have green. By the way–”
Quinn runs by, grabs a chain hanging down from a hoist, and swings on it like Tarzan on a vine, laughing like a maniac. “Look out! Giant hamsters attacking! Man the railguns and Armadillos!”
“Giant hamsters?”
Allonia shrugs off boy-child weirdness. “Yesterday it was Greeks at Marathon.”
“ATHENIANS!” Quinn shouts gleefully, swinging back toward them.
“Sorry, Athenians at Marathon,” Allonia responds with exaggerated seriousness. “Tomorrow it might be mutant whales. He’s a good kid, but where he comes up with this stuff…” Helton nods and grins, then follows Allonia as she heads toward one of the side doors.
The com system starts emitting a faint noise, similar to static at first, but it quickly evolves into an unusual pulsing sound, then becomes recognizable as music — and singing. Steppenwolf’s “Magic Carpet Ride” plays LOUD over all the speakers on the ship. Quinn starts dancing as only an excited five-year old white boy can. Helton yells at the Ship AI, “Turn that OFF!”
“In a minute, Sir,” the Ship replies. Helton and Allonia look at one another in surprise. Helton opens his mouth to say something, and the volume drops sharply. “Better, Allonia?” the Ship asks.