by Alan Black
The passenger looked back at Tasso. “You want to see a spaceship up close?” At Tasso’s nod, he shrugged. “Don’t that beat all! Okay, junior, we’re going to be nearby and we don’t have to rush back to the office, so why don’t we go see one up real close?” Moments later, they sped through the spaceport security gate. Other aircars were stopping and being checked, but the driver of Tasso’s flitter didn’t even slow down.
“There you go.” The passenger pointed at a towering structure. The driver steered straight at what looked like a huge building snugged up next to another building. “The one on the left is a spacecraft. The one on the right is terminal G.”
Tasso leaned forward and peered through the front windshield. He was disappointed. It looked like any other building. From this angle, it didn’t have enough windows to let in more than the barest slivers of light, but there were spots where it looked like massive shutters could open as necessary. There were no colossal engines, no enormous rocket packs, no huge gun ports, turrets, dishes, or antennae. “How close can we get?”
The driver said. “We’re going to drive right up to the back door. You’re going to be so close you can touch it.”
Tasso grinned, “Really? Gee whiz, thanks!”
The passenger sneered, “ ‘Gee whiz’? Really? Who the frak talks like that!”
Tasso grinned wider, “Grandpa always says cusswords are the sign of a weak mind and a limited vocabulary. Or was it a limited mind and a weak vocabulary?”
The driver laughed and pointed at the other passenger, “He’s got you pegged, don’t he?”
The passenger frowned, “You calling me stupid, boy? Frakking son of a—”
Tasso quit listening. He stared out the window at the spaceship. It looked much bigger than it originally appeared to be when he’d first seen it. It towered over the terminal building. He could now see most of the craft was sitting in a hole and he wondered how far down it went. There was a short fence surrounding the hole and a huge ramp leading to the spaceship. The ramp was big enough for a tractor-trailer to drive into the ship with room to spare.
The flitter pulled up close to the ramp and eased to a stop. The driver shut the engine down, its sound going from a quiet whuff to a whimper as they settled to the ground.
“Can I get out and look around?” Tasso asked.
“Get out? Oh golly gee whiz, I should hope so, yeah,” the passenger said with an edge of sarcasm. “We didn’t come all this way to sit and look at the frakking thing.”
Tasso jumped out, rushed to the fence, and looked down the hole. The ship went down a long way. Ramps coming from and going into the ship were flooded with light as tractor-trailers floated across the ramps on heavy-duty anti-gravity drives. A stream of cargo was loading and a stream of cargo was moving off the ship and into underground tunnels. Most of the loading must have been completed because he saw some of the ramps moving away from the ship and hatches were silently closing.
He looked at the ground level ramp. Their flitter had parked right at the edge of the ramp. They would’ve blocked any traffic, but it seemed most of the cargo transfer was taking place below ground. The flitter passenger walked across the ramp.
There was a man lounging by the open hatch. Tasso was amazed at the man’s outfit. He was wearing a hat, a big hat. The wide brim would protect a man from sun and rain. Why a spaceman would need to wear a hat was a mystery to Tasso. The man also wore boots. They weren’t work boots like Tasso’s hand sewn jack-o’-lantern hide boots or the city style soft boots worn by Tasso’s escorts. This man’s boots had high heels and pointed toes, both capped with shiny metal overlays, ornate swirls in colorful patterns covered the boot tops, and his jeans were tucked into the boot uppers. His ornate silver belt buckle was as huge as Tasso’s fist and his shirt was a work of art, with a line of horses stitched across the shoulders and around the chest.
Music flowed from the ship’s open hatch. Tasso couldn’t see anything beyond the hatch because the bright afternoon sun made the inside dark. The flitter passenger waved Tasso to join him at the hatch.
Tasso saw the ship’s name, Escorpión Rojo, stenciled on the side of the ship near the hatch. The man in the big hat grinned at Tasso as he tried to make out the words.
“Escorpión Rojo,” the man said. “It is Spanish for the Red Scorpion. She’s a beautiful ship, is she not?” The man was darker skinned than Tasso was used to seeing. He had dark hair that was long, black, and thick. However, he had a big friendly grin with white teeth.
“Yes sir. It is impressive,” Tasso agreed. “I haven’t seen any other spaceships to compare it with, but it’s impressive.”
The man nodded, “First of all, the Escorpión Rojo is a ‘she’. She is not an ‘it’.”
“Sorry. May I touch her?”
“Sure. Why?”
Tasso said, “I read in the repair manual that our shuttle was made of unpolished stainless steel, unlike spacecraft that are made with a ceramic titanium mix.”
“Yep,” the man replied. “It makes her slick so she cuts through atmosphere like bare toes through a fresh cow patty. She just squishes right through. Of course, that isn’t the technical description, but you should get the picture.”
Tasso didn’t really get the picture, not knowing for sure what a cow patty was. Nevertheless, he ran his fingers over the exterior of the ship. It did feel slick, as if nothing would stick to it.
The man said, “When we lift off, the engineers run a charge through the hull so it actually even repels space dust.”
Tasso looked at his fingers. The ship felt slimy, but it didn’t leave a residue on his hands. “Thank you.”
“No hay problema, mi joven amigo.”
Tasso looked confused. “Sorry? I don’t understand.”
“I said, ‘no problem, my young friend.’ Don’t worry, you will pick up the lingo quick enough while you’re working here.”
“Working here? No. I just stopped by to see a spaceship.” He turned around to look for his escorts. Both men were gone and the flitter was nowhere to be seen. Tasso’s bag sat on the ground at the far end of the entrance ramp.
“That’s not what your man said. You might as well grab your bag and we’ll get you settled in before take off.”
Tasso backed up a couple of steps. “No. There’s some kind of mistake.”
“Relax, amigo,” the man said. “I’m on hatch duty and all I know from the notes on my duty log is that we have a Saronno court order to take you aboard for a training cruise. I don’t know squat about Saronno laws. This is a Texican ship and we won’t force you to do anything you don’t want to do.”
Tasso was ready to turn and run until he realized he didn’t know which way to go.
“Calma, amigo,” the man said, holding his hands up, palms outward. “Relax, my friend. Let me get the head wrangler down here to straighten things out. Bien? Okay?”
Tasso said, “Okay. Can I call my uncle?”
The man said, “Sure. Do you need a holo-vision set or something?”
Tasso pulled his dataport off his chest. He waved it at the man in response. Tasso selected his uncle’s code from the list and the dataport placed the call. There was no response and the call went straight to the message center. Tasso dialed again, using an emergency code. The call went straight to the message center again.
Tasso turned back to the man. There was a short, dark haired woman standing next to him. She was dressed the same way, except her boots and hat were a matching bright red. The woman looked down at the man’s boots. “New? What happened to the pair with your granddaughter’s rendering of a spaceship sown into the uppers?”
He looked sheepish and nodded. “I lost one of them out an airlock a while back, and as strange as it seems, the captain wouldn’t go back and let me pick it up.”
“How could you lose a boot out of an airlock?”
He smiled, looking more embarrassed than ever, “It’s a long story involving a deep pile of manure, a six pack of
beer, and a bet that I could clean them quicker in a vacuum than with a wet rag.”
The woman shook her head sadly. “Is there any wonder you keep getting stuck on dooty duty?” She slapped the holographic display floating in mid-air near the man’s dataport so it turned to face her. After a quick read, she said, “It looks right to me.”
The man shrugged. “Maria, I don’t think he wants to go.”
“Huh!” Maria snorted. “He must be as smart as he looks. There’re times I don’t want to go on another drive. I’d like to stay home and put my feet up, but we don’t always get what we want, do we?”
The man laughed. “Si, amiga, some of us are so far down the organizational chart that what we want is so far off we couldn’t see it on a clear day with a scope.”
She looked at Tasso. “Stefan is right, Señor Menzies. We won’t force you to do anything you don’t want to do. Look at this dataport, por favor... if you please. This is you, is it not?”
“Yes, Miss Maria. I am Tasso Menzies.” He pointed at his uncle’s picture on the dataport display. “That is my Uncle Bruce Menzies and that man is some guy named Moffatt.”
“Some guy named Moffatt?” she asked. “Anywho, this is your tio’s signature here ..., I mean your uncle’s signature and this is Moffatt’s counter signature. This document is your tio’s declaration of guardianship. And this document is his authorization signing you up for a drive on the Escorpión Rojo. As of right now, you are a member of this crew whether you like it or not.”
Tasso said, “I didn’t agree to this.”
Maria shrugged. “According to this, Saronno law says you don’t have to agree. You just have to go. However, as I said, we will not force you to go if you don’t want to. We don’t work that way. Still, we’ll be subject to substantial fines if you aren’t on board when we take off.”
Stefan frowned, “Fines? Who the frak agreed to that?”
Maria said, “The ramp foreman signed it, but it looked as if he didn’t have much choice. Either we agreed to take the boy or we would forfiet all profit here. And according to this addendum, the Escorpión Rojo would become ship non-gratis on Saronno. We’d never be allowed back and the rest of Rojo’s ships would be blacklisted.”
Stefan looked shocked. “So the boy goes with us or we’re all screwed.” He looked at Tasso, “Who’d you make angry, amigo?”
Tasso shrugged, “I don’t know. I really don’t understand any of this. I know I’m an embarrassment to Uncle Bruce and he didn’t want to be my guardian. I don’t know about the rest of this. Why would he stop trading with your spaceship because of me?”
Maria said, “Not just our ship, Señor Menzies. This threatens all of our family’s ships, all sixteen spacecraft, and every one of our crews and their families. Saronno is one of our more profitable ports. I’m going to have to take this to the captain. This is going to force us to put some of our spaceships in dry dock.”
Stefan shrugged, “I hate this, but it would be worse to force the boy.”
Maria shook her head, “I agree. I’m sorry for the inconvenience, Señor Menzies. The exit from the spaceport is that way.” She pointed off in the distance and turned to Stefan. “Let’s get this hatch locked down. We’re getting close to hitting the trail.”
Tasso said, “Wait! Where am I supposed to go?”
Maria shook her head again. “I wish I could tell you, Señor Menzies. I don’t know what Saronno law says about youngsters who disobey their legal guardians. Do you?”
Tasso shook his head. He could hear his Grandpa, ‘Respect your elders’.
“Okay,” he said in resignation. “Okay! Okay! Okay! I don’t want to go, but Uncle Bruce says I have to and it doesn’t seem right to hurt you folks for my disobedience. I’ll go, but I’m not happy about it.” In one respect, Tasso knew he wasn’t completely truthful about not wanting to go. A voyage in a spaceship was nothing short of a childhood dream.
His little valley would be all right. He could take a short space cruise, return there to claim his land, and harvest his chiamra crop. He would set foot on another world and come back here soon to breathe Saronno air again in a few months.
Stefan pointed at his bag. “Get yer possibles, amigo. It’s time to head ‘em up and move ‘em out. Maria, you want him to hang around here with me until I get this hatch locked down?”
Maria said, “Nope. I’ll ride herd on him. I’m going to corral him in the observation lounge until I can throw a lasso around FO Graham and find out what’s going on. I hate to bother the captain with this, but we need to address this addendum. I don’t like planetary governments pushing crap like this on us. I don’t like being threatened.”
Stefan grinned, “You ready to climb aboard, amigo?”
Maria said, “Ready or not, we gotta get a move on. If you’re gonna be crew, I ain’t gonna call you Señor no more. Tasso, right? Okay, let’s get a move on, little doggie. I got to get you corralled before we lift off.”
Tasso only understood about half of what the woman said, but her intent was obvious so he hustled after her. Her boot heels clicked on the floor and his heavy work boots thudded loudly a step behind her.
He looked down. He’d expected the spacecraft to be like their shuttle with metal walls and metal floors. Smooth, polished wood planks, or at least what looked like wood planks, covered the floors along this hallway. He wanted to stop, bend down, and touch the floor to identity the type of wood. However, Maria’s short legs churned and he had to hurry to keep up.
It didn’t take him long to get lost. Various hallways branched off, some halls they turned into, and others they walked past. The walls weren’t the steel he’d expected either. Wood panels covered many of them. Plaster covered other walls, each painted in soft pastel colors and tapestries hung on wood and plaster walls alike at irregular intervals.
The doorways they passed weren’t like the steel hatch Grandpa set into their stone house. These doors all looked different. Some doors were wood and glass, others were inset with insect screens, although there didn’t appear to be any insects to keep out or in.
Maria led him through a wide-open courtyard. When he glanced up, it looked as if they could see the blue sky above them. Tasso wondered if the open air was an illusion or if there was a large open hatch. In the center of the courtyard was a water fountain. There were benches scattered among flowerbeds and shade trees. He saw little alcoves where people could talk privately, and off in the distance, he saw what looked like a small open-sided octagonal building surrounded by benches.
There were no people sitting in the courtyard. Everyone in sight was scurrying about, obviously getting ready for take off. Maria was hurrying as well. She led him across the courtyard and through a wide archway. The room looked like a giant’s living room. There were sofas and overstuffed chairs scattered about with a sprinkling of little tables.
“Pick a seat over near the window. You can watch our departure from there. I’ll come back and get you as soon as I can.”
Tasso walked across the room. He had his choice of seats, as he was the only person in the room. The window Maria pointed at covered the whole wall. He stepped up to it and could see the entire expanse of the spaceport spread out in front of him. There were a couple of other spaceships in sight, but they were too far away to see any activity. He thought all of the loading and unloading was probably done underground like this ship.
He tossed his bag onto the chair next to him and sat down. His feet hurt and he wanted to take his boots off, but he didn’t know how long he would be here. His stomach rumbled. He hadn’t eaten since yesterday’s boiled yapikino and potato lunch and he hadn’t finished that. He sat quietly for a while, but hunger and thirst were about to drive him out of his seat.
Two young people bounced into the room, laughing and chattering. They rushed over to stand in front of Tasso. He started to stand up politely, but the girl waved him down. She was about his age, but the boy was a few years younger. Both had dark hair, the gi
rl’s dark eyes were larger than Tasso had ever seen, with full, lush lips. He’d never thought of lips as being lush before, but he thought so now.
She clasped her hands, stared at the back wall, and began to recite an obviously memorized speech. “Soy Anisa Rojo-Graham. Voy a ser su la acomodador ….” Her voice faded away as the boy cleared his throat loudly.
The boy gestured with his chin at Tasso.
The girl realized Tasso didn’t understand a word she was saying. She asked “English?”
Tasso nodded, “Yes, miss. I’m sorry, but I don’t know any other language.”
She smiled, “Great. My Spanish isn’t very good anyway. Let me start again. “My name is Anisa Rojo-Graham. I will be your attendant for this take off. Please buckle up.” She looked at Tasso and waited until he took the seatbelt and strapped it across his waist.
“This is Freddy Rojo.” She gestured broadly at the young boy. “Freddie is your baggage handler for this,” she swept her arms about the broad glass window in an obviously practiced movement, “spectacular view for our departure from … um ….”
“Saronno,” Freddy supplied.
“Yeah, I knew that.”
“Like fun you did!”
Anisa said, “Where was I? Okay. Freddy is your baggage handler for this,” she swept her arms around the window again, “spectacular view for our departure from Saronno. In the unlikely event of turbulence, Freddy will store your bag in a gabinet in the back.”
Freddy said, “Cabinet.”
“What?” Anisa asked.
“Cabinet is English. You said gabinet which is Spanish.”
Anisa sighed in resignation. “In the unlikely event of turbulence, Freddy will store your bag in the cabinet in the back.”
Freddy grabbed the bag and took off. Tasso would’ve been concerned, but so far he kept losing the bag and it kept coming back. Besides, Anisa continued talking.
“As your attendant, if you need anything, please ask.” Pointing with two fingers, she continued, “In the event of an emergency, the observation deck has four exit doors. There are two in the back and two on the sides. Please keep all aisles clear of people and obstructions.”