The Sculpted Ship

by K. M. O'Brien

  “Wait, never mind, the haircare requirements make up for it. Your hair must be in AWFUL shape. You're supposed to treat it three times a day through this weekend, then it's twice a day for another two weeks, then it's finally only once a day.”

  “Treat it? What does he expect me to do?”

  “You don't have to do much, just use the styler. It will apply the correct treatments; you just have to be sure to use it at the right intervals.”

  “Well, if it can do something with my hair, I don't mind. As a spacer, it doesn't pay to have long hair, but mine has never gotten much longer than this without looking ragged from bits breaking off.”

  “Wow, that's...kinda terrible.”

  Anailu shrugged. “It's never bothered me. Keeping it short keeps it out of the way.”

  Naomi decided that Anailu needed to get her first treatment in right away, and insisted that Anailu use the styler immediately.

  Anailu agreed reluctantly. She supposed there was no point in putting it off.

  Naomi showed her lots of crazy hair styling choices, but in the end, Anailu only accepted a minimal trim, just to even up her hair.

  She sat with her back to the styler and leaned back on the neckrest so it could reach her entire scalp. Tiny manipulators went to work, swiftly working hair by hair. Naomi explained that one difference in the cost of a styler was how many manipulators it had, thus how quickly it could work. She said this was a very expensive styler.

  When it was done, Anailu got up and looked in a mirror. It didn't look very different, but with her hair freshly trimmed, she did feel more professional. When she touched it, her hair was definitely softer.

  Naomi nodded. “It's a start. I can't wait to see how it looks in a couple weeks. Just promise me that for now, you'll let the styler manage its length. I know you don't like long hair, but since you've had trouble growing it out, you'll know if the treatments are working if your hair can keep growing without breaking off.”

  That made sense to Anailu. It was a reasonable experiment, so she agreed.

  Naomi clapped her hands. “Then all that's left is getting the laundry started on your new outfit!”

  They took the supplies down to the laundry and loaded them in. Naomi prompted her to bring up the laundry recipe menu. Anailu did, and saw that there was a new selection of designs, apparently loaded directly from the “storage chest.” The submenu containing them was locked to her ID. She opened it and saw the designs for both outfits as well as their accessories.

  The “feathery” outfit and its accessories were marked as locked for her personal use only. The other outfit was marked the same way, but that one had an indicator showing she had full control to modify those settings, if she chose. There were recipes for the whole outfit, so she selected the most basic choice: a top with the standard commercial captain's insignia, pants, belt, boots, and hat. She added the “boat cloak,” since Miss Prithers said she would need some sort of formal outerwear if she had to go outdoors on the way to a formal event. The system indicated that while not all the required fabrics were loaded, it could weave them from available materials. She expected that, so she selected two of each item, and the laundry started to work. It would make the custom fabrics, and then it would make her two uniforms.

  The whole process would take time, mostly due to weaving the fabric, but the first uniform was supposed to be completed the next morning.

  Naomi jumped up and down and clapped her hands excitedly. “Ooh, I can't wait! You'll have to show me tomorrow!”

  Anailu nodded. “OK, I'll show you, but now I have some work to do. I have to figure how I am going to upgrade my comm system with what I have left.”

  Naomi hugged Anailu. “Good luck then. See you in the morning!” With that, Naomi left for Untsala's lab.

  Chapter 16: The Captain's Past

  Anailu's first step was to check her pricewatcher to see if it had flagged any new suitable ship's comm systems that might have become available. It hadn't.

  Her next step was to look at whatever new listings were available for comm-related parts and systems in general. She spent some time looking through listings, both new and old, hoping to find anything she could use. She was starting to get desperate.

  She found an announcement from a salvager who had just come in from outside the Rim. So far, he didn't have any comm systems or parts listed, but his posting indicated he was still inventorying his finds. Anailu had looked through all the more likely listings, so she decided to browse through what he'd posted, just to see if there was anything interesting. Sometimes, salvagers found really old, unusual equipment; so even if Anailu didn't have a reason to buy, he might have something worth seeing. Looking at a salvager's find could be like going to a museum where they allowed you to buy the exhibits. Sometimes, a salvager's finds did end up in a museum.

  Right at the top of his listing, she knew she had to go look at what he'd found, because he had an ancient Altairan Empire hypershuttle.

  Anailu didn't remember it herself, but they'd told her how she'd been found on a similar hypershuttle.

  The independent asteroid miner Annabelle had been working a claim. The husband and wife mining team, Jorge and Annabelle Totilu, picked up a distress signal in a language they didn't recognize. Their computer said it was ancient Altairan. They had tracked the distress beacon to an Altairan hypershuttle on the last of its power. The pilot was a grey-skinned, grey-haired young man of unknown race who had recently died. Next to him, they'd found a grey-skinned, grey-haired toddler, alive in a life support bubble, frightened, and speaking a language their computer didn't recognize. They'd brought the child and the shuttle back. Researchers examined the ship, the body, and the girl, but found no clues to their home. The ship was an artifact of the Altairan Empire, a human-led Empire from millennia ago. The only writing found in the ship was ancient Altairan. The occupants of the ship were not Altairan. Indeed, the researchers could not identify their race.

  The researchers believed that someone, possibly the pilot, had restored the ship to barely working order. They believed the ship itself had been buried for a very long time, and only recently excavated: investigators had found dirt from some unidentified world still lodged in all the crevices of the hull.

  The young girl's language wasn't a clue, either. It was not a language of the Altairans or anyone else the Empire knew. They studied the girl, trying to learn her language, but she quickly picked up Imperial. As she learned Imperial, she forgot her own language, which soon ended her value as a linguistic research subject. They might have continued biological research, but her court-appointed guardian demanded that her rights as a sentient came first. So, the girl was given a home, adopted by the Scholastic Achievement Association.

  Anailu knew that “her” Altairan shuttle was in the warehouse of a Core World museum. The repairs that made it flyable had damaged its value because it was no longer an untouched architectural artifact. She did remember being taken to visit the shuttle as a child, by a researcher who hoped that returning to the shuttle might awaken some lost memory. It had not.

  Anailu had long ago decided there was no point dwelling on where she was from. Time spent wondering about the past was time not spent working toward her future. Still, she felt it was important to go and see this Altairan shuttle.

  She took her rented van to the starport, her shipmaster's license granting her access to the field. As she approached the landing pad for the salvage ship, Gift of the Past, she called the captain requesting permission for a visit. He agreed, though he explained he couldn't deliver anything yet, since his ship hadn't cleared customs. Doran's customs rules were pretty relaxed, so he could have social visits. The salvager met her at wide ramp that led up to his main cargo hold. He was a crusty old spacer with a potbelly, in a faded shipsuit. He put out his hand and they shook. “I'm Nate Tomlinsen, and I don't think I know you, Captain Xindar. Perhaps we have a mutual friend?”

  She shook her head. “Not that I know of, Captain T
omlinsen. I'm just curious to see that shuttle you found.”

  “Call me Nate, young lady, and we'll get along better.”

  “Fine, Nate, I'm Anailu.”

  Nate smiled. “Well, Ana, I hope you're not going to tell me you're some lost Altairan princess who left her tiara aboard that shuttle, and has returned to collect.”

  Anailu smiled. “Not quite, but my story is still kinda odd. I was found as a three year old, on an Altairan shuttle adrift in a system on the other side of the Empire. I just wanted to, well, to take a look.”

  Nate whistled. “Well, I guess that's as good a reason as I've heard in a while. Sure, come back and take a look.” His main hold was filled with junk and detritus that appeared to be from several salvage operations. She could see the ancient shuttle hulking in the far end of the cargo bay. Captain Tomlinsen led her through the maze of bits and parts, large and small, toward the shuttle. “You say 'found' – what about your parents?”

  “I never knew them. There was a man on the shuttle with me, but apparently, he wasn't related to me, and he died some time before they found the ship. The researchers thought maybe he dug the ship up and got her working, but there were no clues to explain why. From what I remember, his work impressed the engineers. Of course, it pissed off the archaeologists, because he'd modified an artifact.”

  He looked impressed. “I've seen several of these old ships in my years, and not a one of them would I be willing to take to space. You'd have to be crazy, desperate, or both.

  “But you, found alone like that? I guess that makes you a regular child of space. And here you are, as a captain yourself? Why, that brings the story full circle.”

  He showed her around the ship, pointing out the removed panels and the long missing components behind them. “I found her in an ancient mining facility. Most of the place was stripped long ago. My guess is this shuttle was cannibalized for parts and left behind. I've already got a buyer lined up, an archaeologist who's buying everything else I found there, including the coordinates to the place so she can go do her own scavenging – of the academic kind, you know.”

  Anailu looked over the interior of the shuttle. Like Nate had said, it had a lot of parts removed from it. As she looked over the ship with from the point of view of an experienced starship engineer, she knew it had to take a powerful motivation for a man to fly a jury-rigged ancient ship like this into space, especially with a small child.

  What was he thinking? Why did he do it?

  There were no answers for her today. She climbed back out of the ship. “Thanks, Nate, for letting me take up your time.”

  “It was worth it to hear your story, Ana. I figure half of why I keep doing this is the stories I learn when I find this stuff. The other half...is the money, of course.” They both laughed.

  “Now, is there anything else I can do for you, young captain?”

  “Not unless you know where I can dig up a top of the line comm system for cheap, before the weekend. I'm pretty desperate.”

  Nate stopped short for a moment, then continued. “No, afraid not, captain. But now that I think of it, there is a quick favor you could do for me, if you can take a minute. Do you mind?”

  “No problem. What sort of favor do you need, Nate?”

  He nodded toward the rear cargo bay. “I need to get something from the rear bay, but it will only take a moment. C'mon.”

  They entered the rear cargo bay and the door closed behind them. “I believe I recall recently finding some components compatible with a StellaSystem 100 commsuite.”

  “That might be of interest to me. If you have enough parts, there's a trashed one for sale here in town that I could get running if I had the right parts.”

  Nate smiled, “Well, then maybe I can help you. I won't be posting the rest of my inventory until after the Customs inspector is here tomorrow, but if I remembered right, and I find them, I'll set them aside for you. Now, about that favor I needed. I need to run over to the Captain's Rest.”

  The Captain's Rest was a private club near the spaceport that only admitted captains and their guests. There was at least one place like it in any large port. Not being a drinker, she'd only visited once, and despite her newly minted captain's license, still felt out of place.

  “Sure, I can do that.”

  He walked to a crate, opened it, and got out a case of wine. Then he wended his way through the cargo bay to some other unremarkable crates. “Have you heard about a wine which is traditionally used by captains to settle certain private bets?”

  Anailu recalled something about it. “I think I remember my first captain mentioning it, something about losing a bet and 'settling up with a case of Cutter.'”

  Nate nodded, “That's right. Cutter wine is special to captains. A captain only gives it away to settle up particular types of private bets. Usually the only way to get it, too. It's tradition, and it goes back a long way, I don't know how far. Older than the Empire, I'd say. It's also tradition to only transport one case of Cutter Wine per crate. Some say that's to signify how important the tradition is. I say it's so it looks more important than it really is.” Now on the far side of the hold, Nate set down the case of wine, and opened a crate. “This crate will do nicely.

  “Today, I owe a case of Cutter Wine that I gotta deliver to a sister at the Captain's Rest.”

  “Wait, what about Customs?”

  “Why, that's another part of the tradition, see? Cutter Wine is from inside the Empire, and it's always a gift, so you don't gotta have it checked by Customs. On the Core Worlds, they don't respect that, but out here on the Rim? Most places respect the tradition.”

  Anailu didn't remember that exception from her captain's license test, but she remembered something her first captain said time and time again, “There's laws, and then there's the law.”

  “Your sister?”

  “Well, not my 'sister' sister. I mean a sister captain. I'd like you to take me over there, if you don't mind.” Nate smiled as he put the case of wine into the crate. “I don't know if you'll like her, though; she bends the law from time to time.”

  “There's laws, and then there's the law.”

  “You know it! Sounds like you've flown on the right ships.” He put the lid back on the crate, sealed it, and turned on the CG. He pushed it back to where she stood. “Let's go.”

  Chapter 17: The Scofflaw Sister

  They went back out through the front cargo bay, down the ramp and to Anailu's rental van. She opened the cargo door, and Nate pushed the crate inside and locked it down.

  They drove to the spaceport exit. At the checkpoint, both Anailu and Nate pulled out their captain's licenses.

  One of the guards came to the driver's window, checked their licenses and asked, “Taking anything out?”

  Nate called across Anailu, “Nah, Billy, just losing some Cutter Wine.”

  The guard leaned down to see inside better. “Hey, Nate! It's been what, six months since you ported here? You only lost one bet in that time?”

  Nate laughed. “No, but the rest of the assholes are taking their time to collect. I'll be back through with more Cutter later on, no doubt.”

  Billy shook his head. “Well, I hope you have better luck with your cargo than your betting.”

  “C'mon, Billy, you know better than that. Betting is for fun, salvage is for business.”

  Billy waved them on out of the spaceport.

  It was a short trip to the Captain's Rest, since it was just outside the starport. Nate had her pull around to the loading bays at the back. He pointed her into an open bay. Once they were in and landed, Nate got out and activated the door, closing it behind them. He waved to Anailu to come around to the van's cargo door. When she was there, he opened it.

  “You know that the Imperium doesn't allow salvage from their warships, no matter whether they're found in or out of Imperial space?”

  She nodded, remembering this from her preparations for the captain's license examination.

 
“Well, they also stopped paying for location and trajectory information on their wrecks, oh, about ten years ago. Since then, it's every captain's 'duty' to report any that they find. Since then, it also seems that salvagers have found damn few wrecked Imperial warships.”

  “I can understand how that would happen.”

  “Let me show you something.” He opened the crate.

  Anailu looked inside and saw what appeared to be a complete, pristine set of StellaMil 100 racks – the restricted, military version of the StellaSystem 100. There was also a case of wine, sitting on top of the electronics. She looked up at Nate in shock.

  Nate cackled. “Oh, the look on your face. So, what do you think of your sister, now that you've met her? I understand she helped smuggle some illegally procured Imperial military equipment onto Doran.”

  “You tricked me!”

  “Yes, yes I did, but it was for a good cause. I understand your sister captain said she needed StellaSystem parts before the weekend, so I took a chance on helping her out. So, did I hear right?”

  Anailu stopped short, thinking about it. Was she seriously thinking about taking this offer? Yes, she was. She needed a comm system, and she didn't want to disappoint Mr. Torrell. If she put the StellaMil rack units in the StellaSystem cases, there should be no way to tell the systems apart without opening them up. If anyone went to that much trouble, they had to already know what they were looking for. If she bought that busted StellaSystem, she would even have a legitimate purchase record for the right model.

  “How much?”

  Nate smiled. “I thought I saw a practical captain inside there. 8K.”