She waved back as a gust of wind caught the board at just the right moment, twisting it from beneath her. Instead of landing with her normal skill, she tumbled into the water, losing her grip on the sail. I jumped up and pulled my shirt off.
"Where are you going?" Marny asked. She was our heavily muscled security officer and girlfriend of my best friend Nick.
"She might be in trouble," I said.
"First, I don't think there's enough trouble within a hundred square kilometers to worry that girl," she said, giving me a lopsided grin. "And second, you're the worst swimmer I know."
As if in response to Marny's declaration, Tabby resurfaced and clambered back onto the board.
"You distracted me," Tabby exclaimed once she'd pulled the sail out of the water and was scooting back out to sea.
"I can honestly say, you're distracting me," I replied.
"Lech."
Our conversation was interrupted as Ada ran up.
"You guys want to join a pickup volleyball game?" she asked.
Ada was probably the most naturally gorgeous woman I'd ever met and today she was in top form. Her ebony skin was a beautiful contrast to the brilliant blue two-piece suit she wore. Even more than her beauty, Ada's ebullient personality attracted followers wherever she went.
"Marny? Nick?" I asked.
"Hey, I'm in," Tabby said over the comm.
Marny didn't answer other than to slide to the end of her chair and pull a pair of shorts over her single piece suit.
By the time we'd had our fill of volleyball, hunger set in, so we caught a three-segment tram back to the resort. It was inconvenient that structures weren't allowed on the sandy beaches, but as I looked back toward the water, I could appreciate how they'd retained the natural beauty of the location.
Only twenty percent of Curie was habitable. Though the atmosphere was breathable, the only surface water to be found was a single salt-water sea. Completely surrounded by tall mountains, it had been formed by the cataclysmic impact of a planetoid. It was that collision that had sheared off Curie's two moons, Irène and Ève, and left the thousand kilometer diameter crater where we'd discovered the pristine white sand beaches and brilliant blue waters of the Radium Sea. With only two hundred million people on all of Curie and extremely restrictive environmental safeguards, it was hard to imagine a more beautiful location in the known universe.
The resort was two kilometers from the water and its huts spread back into the jungle, connected by elevated, wood-plank boardwalks. We'd rented a large hut with three separate bedrooms and a living room, a configuration we often selected when traveling on business.
"What are you wearing for dinner tonight?" Tabby asked as she stepped out of the shower naked, holding a towel in one hand.
I had difficulty focusing and didn't answer as quickly as she expected.
"Hey, sailor, eyes up here." She pointed two fingers at my eyes and then back to her own.
"Uh, I was thinking of wearing my Nuage civvies," I said.
In the cloud city of Nuage Gros we'd befriended a clothing designer who'd set us up in the style of that city. That same colorful clothing would fit well in the festive atmosphere of Curie.
She turned back to the head and gave a little skip to her step, knowing I'd follow her progress out of the room. She looked back over her shoulder to make sure I was watching and gave me an alluring smile.
"I'll dress accordingly, then," she said.
I took her smile as an invitation.
We were only a few minutes late to dinner and I appreciated that no one called us on it.
"So who is it from Belirand that we're meeting with tomorrow?" I asked Nick as we waited for our dinner to arrive.
"It's more of a mystery than I like," he said. "We received the invite through Admiral Tullas' office, but when I pushed Lieutenant Peren on it, all he'd tell me was it came from the highest levels."
"What do you suppose that means?" Ada asked.
"Sounds like someone is looking for an off-the-books mission," Marny said. "We'll want to be careful with this."
"What time are we meeting tomorrow?" Tabby asked. "I'd like to get a run in."
"Shuttle is picking us up at 0800 local," Nick answered.
Where Marny was Earth-born, tall and heavily muscled, Nick was small, even by spacer standards. What Nick gave up in size, he more than made up for with raw intellect and his capacity to plan. Tabby, Nick, and I grew up together on a mining colony in Sol's main asteroid belt and had been best friends for as long as I could remember.
"We have a load to pick up on Curie's main orbital platform sometime tomorrow. It'll fill Sterra's Gift completely. After that, I've got an appointment to take a look at a segmented container tractor. It's pretty roached out, but the scans show it has good bones," I said.
"How would you get it back?" Nick asked.
"It has operable engines. We'd sail straight to Meerkat shipyard on Gros. Worse case, we piggy back on Sterra's Gift. Without seeing it, I can't be sure," I said. "One nice thing is the guy selling it has two sixteen container link segments. No engines on them, but we have those engines you picked up a few weeks ago."
"What shape are they in?" he asked.
"They'll need work, but they've been used as recently as two months ago. The guy is either retired or is trying to retire and is cashing out," I replied.
"I hope he's realistic about price," Nick said.
"He's asking seventy thousand for the entire setup and we've an appointment day after tomorrow to check it out," I said.
"Do we have that much free?" Ada asked.
"Barely," Nick answered. "All of our capital is tied up in ore that needs to be delivered to the Belirand Terminal Seven project."
"How much are we sitting on?" Ada asked.
Nick flicked a spreadsheet to her from his HUD. "If you skip to the bottom, you'll see the total. Once we deliver that ore we should be sitting on one-point-one million. Subtract fuel costs, that looks more like an even million," he explained.
"And," I added. "We'll clear forty thousand for this trip in delivery fees after fuel," I said.
"That's insane," Ada said, breathing out. "I knew the ore had value, but I didn't realize we were sitting on that much."
"That makes two of us," Tabby agreed.
"Big Pete really wants us to get an armor-glass kiln if we can find one. 'The bigger, the better' were his exact words," Marny added.
"Frak. I forgot about that," I said. "But I don't see that we can afford it on this trip."
"He might be okay with a small one if it's between that and nothing," Nick said.
"This would be the place to find it," Tabby said.
She was right. Ninety-five percent of Tipperary's total population was spread out between Curie, Irène and Ève. If we were going to find something as specialized as an armor-glass kiln, our best shot would be the orbital bazaar that was tethered to the temperate, forest planet of Irène.
We finished dinner and walked along the boardwalk. The night sky of Curie was littered with bright stars and we could just see the edge of the Petri Nebula that was also visible from Lèger Nuage.
"Cards?" Tabby asked as we arrived at the deck separating the three huts. A metal fire-pit was inset into the center of the wooden deck and surrounded by comfortable couches.
Nick started the fire that had been thoughtfully arranged and we settled down for a few hours of cards. It was well after 2400 when we finally turned in.
I didn't even hear Tabby when she left early the next morning for her run. She'd given up trying to get me to come along as I couldn't run fast enough to make it interesting for her. Unfortunately, Marny didn't mind waking me up. We were compatible running mates and she felt it was her duty to keep me in shape. I wondered if there was some collusion between the two women, but they never would admit to it.
***
"I'm starving, are you sure they're going to provide food?" Ada asked as we met on the deck.
"Th
at's what was passed along," Nick said, referring to the instructions Lieutenant Peren had forwarded from Admiral Tullas' office.
"They better have something to eat or I'm going to be grumpy," Ada said.
I laughed. For such a small girl, she always worried about where her next meal was coming from.
A shiny silver, oval shuttle landed next to our huts, just down from the stairs leading to the beach.
"That's us," Nick said.
A small gang-plank extended from the side of the shuttle and we trooped down the stairs, meeting a formally-dressed man in a black suit and white shirt.
"Greetings, Mr. James, Ms. Bertrand, Ms. Masters…" He spoke as we entered the shuttle, making eye contact with each of us. "My name is Jonathan and I'm here to make your journey comfortable. If there is anything you need, please don't hesitate to ask."
The shuttle was large enough to carry at least thirty people, so there was plenty of room for the dining table that had been set up at one end. Jonathan showed us to the table that was covered in a white cloth complete with five place settings.
"I've taken the liberty of having our chef prepare a light breakfast of eggs, toast and local fruits," he explained as he leaned in, turning over fluted glasses and filling them with water. He was joined by a middle-aged woman, who wore a black uniform.
The shuttle rose gently from the ground and the three hundred sixty degree windows darkened to the point of being opaque.
"Excuse me, Jonathan?" Marny asked.
"Yes, Ms. Bertrand."
"Is it your employer's intent to obscure our destination?"
"It is. My employer is private and prefers that his whereabouts are not generally known. I hope this is acceptable," he said.
"You're asking us to take a lot on faith," she replied.
"I assure you, Ms. Bertrand, everything is aboveboard. It is simply a matter requiring discretion. We will allow you to retain your weapons as a gesture of good faith," he said.
"How far are we going this morning," Nick asked.
"The trip will take ninety minutes, Mr. James. Would anyone like coffee?"
I'd spent much of my short career studying people and their response to stressful conditions. If Jonathan felt stress, he sure wasn't showing it.
"In for a penny," Nick said and picked up the delicate coffee cup in front of him.
"Quite," Jonathan replied.
We ate the provided breakfast in an awkward silence. Jonathan and his cryptic answers did nothing for our comfort.
After breakfast we adjourned to the couches that would have otherwise provided a good view. Jonathan seemed content to clean up after breakfast and then sit quietly at the other end of the shuttle.
I held Tabby's hand. Like all of us, she preferred things to be out in the open and her stress level was rising. She was also the most likely to make an issue of it if the uncertainty went on for too long.
Mercifully, a small bump warned us that the shuttle had come to rest.
Jonathan was the first to stand and walked to the entry hatch, where he palmed a security pad. The door slid into the hull. The shuttle had landed in such a way that it opened onto a well-lit hallway.
At that point, I was ready to get off the shuttle and would welcome whatever we'd gotten ourselves into - anything to end the awkward trip. Jonathan's reassuring smile at the doorway did nothing to ease my discomfort.
"If you'll follow me," he said.
The hallway ended at a T-intersection. We followed him to the right and found ourselves at an elevator which opened as we approached.
"Definitely a station," Tabby said, mostly to herself. I nodded. The smell of recycled station air wasn't something that could be faked, nor could it be hidden.
The elevator doors closed behind us. We dropped for a few seconds and then jogged to the right.
"And here we are," Jonathan announced just before the doors opened.
In front of us was a cavernous room that extended up twenty meters ending in a domed ceiling. Video panels, tools, equipment, partially constructed robots and all matter of technology were hanging above or strewn over a dozen workbenches placed haphazardly throughout the room.
In the middle of it all sat a small, ebony-skinned teenage boy. We were far enough away that he might not have heard us arrive - or he was ignoring us. That said, I assumed we weren't here for him anyway.
"Master Anino, I present to you, the Loose Nuts Corporation and crew of Hotspur. Gentlemen, ladies, I present Master Phillippe Anino, direct descendant and sole heir to Thomas Anino, inventor of fold-space technology and the TransLoc gate system," Jonathan said proudly.
You know what they say about assumptions.
SURVIVAL
Yishuv Settlement, Planet Ophir
Amon stood atop the fallen nanstel gate, driving out the ancient bolts that secured the iron hinges. He marveled at the strength of the nanstel. Even after four centuries of use, neither the gate panels nor nuts and bolts showed any signs of deterioration. Indeed, the weak link had always been the cast iron hinges.
He carefully collected each nut and bolt pair and placed them in a wooden crate. Over the centuries, several bolts had been lost to carelessness and Amon vowed it would not happen on his watch.
"Mom, I'm ready," he called to Nurit.
One by one, Nurit and Amon picked up the broken seventy-five kilogram hinges and placed them on the platform of a four-wheeled cart.
"Will you repair them or cast new ones?" Merik asked.
Merik, the settlement's chief engineer, had been helping the masons excavate the buried hinge straps from between the massive limestone blocks.
Nurit looked up, still out of breath.
"I'm sorry about Ozzie," she said. "He was a good man."
"I'll miss him. He was a bright engineer and full of life," Merik replied.
"We'll all miss him," Nurit agreed. "As for the hinges, we'll have to make new casts. It catches us at a bad time as we're short on pig iron."
"Do you have enough?"
"We do for the gates, but with all of the damage to the settlement, there will be considerable demand."
Merik's daughter, Merrie, stepped forward but remained respectfully quiet.
"Yes, my young apprentice, do you have something to add?" Merik asked.
She rolled her eyes at him. "I'm not that young. I'm only a year younger than Amon."
"Forgive a father for not wanting his precious daughter to grow up too soon," he said with a warm smile.
"You're forgiven," she said, suddenly looking at the ground as Amon approached.
"Did you have a question?" Merik asked.
"Uh… well… why aren't we using steel instead of iron?" she stammered.
Merik and Nurit exchanged a knowing smile, recognizing Merrie's sudden change due to Amon's arrival.
"That is a good question, young woman," Merik said. "Tell me why you think we aren't using steel for the hinges."
Merrie's cheeks flushed at Amon, Nurit and Merik's attention. "That's obvious. Iron is practical and easy to smelt and the founder's maker-machine can't make steel. Not to mention, we haven't previously known how."
"And now we do?"
"Yes. That engineering pad you found in the broken blaster has plans for steel mills and more," Merrie said.
"Sounds like I gave it to the right girl, then," he said proudly.
"Da-ad, I'm not just your little girl anymore, I'm twenty-stans. And I'm serious. We could make steel," she said.
"Sounds like quite an undertaking, what would you have us do?" her father asked.
"Make an electric arc furnace. We have the raw materials and it would only take a tenday to manufacture the special items on the maker-machine," she said.
"My apologies, Merrie, for interrupting," Nurit said. "Amon and I must return these hinges to the forge. We have many days of work ahead. I don't want to discourage you, but I'm afraid the Council will not accept using the maker-machine in such a way."
"I unders
tand," Merrie's crestfallen face betrayed her disappointment.
Uncharacteristically, Amon spoke up. "The Council needs to hear Merrie's idea. What if our gates hadn't fallen to the Ophie? Merik might have been able to relocate the working turret in time to hold off the breach."
Merrie beamed at Amon's praise and looked to Nurit and Merik.
"The Council has many things to discuss after this latest attack and might be open to a new project," Merik said. "But you must be able demonstrate how it aids our defense. What you have, Merrie, is an idea. What you need is a plan that demonstrates why it is critical to our survival. Only then will the Council approve using the maker-machine for that length of time," Merik said.
"I don't know how to do that," she said.
"This, my young apprentice, is the job of an engineer. If you are truly interested, you must show creativity and resolve," Merik said.
"Do you believe you could really create a machine that produces steel?" Amon asked.
Merrie paused, intimidated by being put on the spot. What had once resided in the sole province of her mind was now out, in front of people she respected. If this went any further, it'd be in front of the entire community. A failure would be hard to live down.
"I could with your help," she finally said.
"Then you will have it," he said, holding his hand out to her.
For Merrie, it was an unfamiliar gesture. People never sought to shake the hand of a twenty stans old engineering apprentice. Amon, steady as a mountain, didn't waver as she hesitated. She finally reached out to grasp his wrist, as was their custom. She felt an electric charge at the touch and was surprised at how gentle his grip was as he closed it on her own.
"Amon, we must go." Nurit pushed.
He nodded and climbed into the cart with her and they drove slowly back through town to the smithy.
"I need all of your attention on these hinges," Nurit said as they drove.
"I understand. Even if Merrie's plan were approved, we couldn't leave the gates lying on the ground waiting for an untested machine to produce steel," Amon agreed.
A Matter of Honor (Privateer Tales Book 9) Page 2