Warp Thrive

by Ginger Booth

  Wilder belatedly made it into the galley, proudly bearing a stack of clothes, beat up sneakers on top. “Hey, roomie! Everyone works out in the morning on this ship, no exceptions! What size are your feet? Hey, everybody! Line up for foot size!”

  This started the inevitable can-can choral line dance. Hunter lost the foot-size competition, but only had two pairs of shoes. Copeland drifted in extra late. He and Judge stood back to back. They matched in height and shoe size, Judge’s lucky day. The chief had four pairs of shoes and eight coveralls ranging from dress blue to threadbare. He laughed and trooped back to his cabin to fetch them.

  Kassidy sidled up to Judge. “You know he’s the president of Thrive Spaceways, right?”

  Judge blinked. “Who? The chief engineer?”

  Teke watched with manic eyes aglow. “It’s an engineering firm.” Elise Pointreau tittered beside him, whispering something in his ear. She sure didn’t look like a deck hand. None of them did. Judge had no idea what this youngest Denali did aboard. He seemed to disappear into officer country all day. Wilder made clear that corridor was off limits. This was one weird crew.

  Cope returned with two pairs of spare coveralls, one medium battered, the other suitable for painting or mucking out life support. “Welcome to Thrive Spaceways,” he said, holding out a hand for a firm shake. “You’ll probably report to me half time. Closest thing to a first mate for the moment.”

  Judge hesitated, then asked, “Sar –”

  “Chief, not sar.”

  “Chief. She said you’re the president of Spaceways. Is she making fun of me?”

  “No. I’m the president and majority shareholder. I own most of the ship, too.”

  “Oh.” Judge wasn’t sure whether to be star-struck, or all the more convinced that the company was doomed. He worked for Vultures for 8 years. He’d never seen its president, let alone shook his hand.

  Cope hopped onto a chair for an announcement. “Everybody! Thank you for your generosity! Judge didn’t have time to pack.” The group chuckled. “Next stop, Hell’s Bells. We’ll spring for a Saggy wardrobe. On behalf of the captain and Spaceways, welcome to the team! Beer’s on me.”

  Everyone cheered. Zan handed Judge a beer and the ice wand, and they settled in to party.

  Only a complete and utter degenerate would double-cross this team. Judge wondered if he was up for it.

  78

  Pierre Lavelle leaned back and set his cowboy boots on Ben’s desk. The two of them plus Cope and Teke squeezed into the tiny office. Prosper was docked at last at Hell’s Bells. “Change of plans. You take too long, on this mission of mercy with Gorky. The items of interest, they are no longer together.”

  True, they’d taken a long time, Ben allowed. The usual transit from MO to Hell’s Bells took only 3-5 weeks. But waiting for Gorky, and avoiding any hard acceleration, added a few weeks to their trip. Not that this was a bad thing for their true mission. Cope and Teke had their key parts, and test vehicles. Ben pitched in, working with Judge to gut the skiffs of extraneous sleep nooks and mining equipment. Then he labored under Cope’s supervision to rig the vessels with remote propulsion. Elise Pointreau was in the thick of things working with Teke, and likely sleeping with him as well.

  These were heady days for Spaceways R&D, and Ben enjoyed them to the hilt. The old Thrive crew and his newbies didn’t require much supervision. Judge and Hunter handled most of that by now. He’d let Willow out of her closet to serve penance cleaning the kitchen and bulkheads. The computer screeched an alarm if she ventured anywhere she wasn’t supposed to go, and Wilder and Zan traded off to watch her during the day.

  Best of all, Ben worked nearly half his time with Cope at his happiest.

  The chief wasn’t happy now. “What do you mean, the items are no longer together?”

  Lavelle shrugged. “We can speak plainly?” He batted his lashes at Teke. The physicist enjoyed this and leaned toward him coquettishly.

  Cope playfully back-handed Teke. “We’re equal partners.”

  Lavelle grinned. “The warp lens, she belongs to Hell’s Bells. This is not negotiable. The pipe manifold device, she is sold to a very rich, very stupid man in Sagamore Landing in exchange for other collectibles.”

  Landing was the capital dome-city of Mahina’s sister moon Sagamore. Ben and Cope visited once, imprisoned to serve as paddy janitors. They escaped across the airless frigid regolith using emergency bubbles in lieu of pressure suits. Neither was eager to return.

  Lavelle continued, “The last device, with antlers, she remains at SO – Sagamore Orbital, yes? – with a very eccentric collector, Benoit Northmore. Now two missions to retrieve, instead of one.”

  Was it Ben’s imagination, or did Cope blow out in relief and relax his shoulders at the name of this collector? He covered his reaction by folding his arms, Schuyler grump-style. “We agreed to one attack. And we already earned one of our third gen star drives. I expect delivery.”

  “But of course!” the one-time pirate agreed. “Your old friend Seitz will deliver, maybe tomorrow. And he moves onto your ship to collaborate. He is very useful!”

  “No,” Ben stated categorically. “Non-negotiable.”

  Not that he disliked Seitz, despite the fact the tech lied to them all the way from MO to Hell’s Bells when the Thrive brought him here. That was the same jaunt when he and Cope acquired their paddy janitor experience. Seitz came here as an understudy, to train as Mahina’s star drive expert under the system’s best, a Saggy. Thrive Spaceways was entirely in accord with this agenda.

  But Ben’s crew was complex enough already.

  “Everything is negotiable,” Lavelle assured him with a wink. “But yes, Cope, we cannot retrieve both items at once. And stealing the first will make the second much harder to reach. So which is first?”

  “Antlers,” Cope and Teke chorused.

  Ben was less enthused. “Guys, you don’t know SO.”

  But the alchemy module was not their quarry. Cope sought the suspected quantum moose transceiver. He wouldn’t fire up their new micro warp drive until the quantum communications aspect of Teke’s complex theory was confirmed. Ben agreed completely. A star drive was not a throw-away item, to be risked on a first test.

  Lavelle’s eyes narrowed. “You do not want this pipe manifold.”

  “I’d love it,” Cope assured him. “It needs to be acquired. But not by me, not now. We want antlers.”

  “Interesting,” Lavelle mused. “You know what it is.”

  “Get me the other and I’ll tell you,” Cope returned. “We had a deal.”

  Lavelle probed, “The pipe device has nothing to do with spaceship design? I find this hard to believe.”

  “It is a spaceship component,” Cope conceded. “But Thrive Spaceways has limited resources. My focus is on propulsion R&D. Basic research. Any product is years away.”

  The pirate sighed loudly. “I am not a fool, Copeland. This mini moose is not propulsion.”

  “No comment,” Cope insisted. A smile slipped out.

  “Very well. It is impossible to assault SO. Like MO, she is a gun turret for killing asteroids. But your MO, she is unloved for decades. Weak, decayed. SO is a fortress. Very well funded! This is what I propose.”

  Ben leaned forward intently to hear the plan.

  A week later, Prosper docked at Sagamore Orbital, Lavelle’s Gossamer nowhere in sight. Lavelle was banned from SO, permanently. His ship lay just out of detection range, running without ID transponder – including from his shuttle.

  Ben had double-checked that point.

  He blew out to steel his nerve as he trotted down the stairs from the catwalk to join the away team, wearing the stained coveralls he reserved for gunky cleaning days. Cope awaited with their toolbox, looking equally disreputable. Hunter, Eli, Kassidy and Wilder stood beside him, with the gifts. Hunter and Eli, at least, were dressed to impress.

  Kassidy masqueraded as a young male crewman. Ben touched her jaw, amused. She’d worked
something black into her pores to mimic beard stubble to match her black hair. Her lustrous waves she’d cut to shoulder length and bound into a man bun, coated with something sticky to make her hair appear coarser. As for her waist and hips, she’d suddenly grown rather chubby. He stuck a finger into the resilient padding that supplied her new beer gut. “Not bad.”

  He turned to the luggage. “You’ve been growing these all along?” he asked Eli sourly. Three plants graced a hydroponic trough, propped above two crates on a grav lifter, ready to go.

  “They’re a couple months old,” Eli allowed. “Don’t even try to hand me a guilt trip. Earth’s biodiversity belongs to all its children.”

  “Let it go, Ben,” Cope urged.

  Ben’s look shot daggers at Hunter. “Fine.” He glanced up to Judge, Teke, and Zan on the catwalk. Willow was confined to her crew cabin with Elise Pointreau. The metallurgist refused to exit at Hell’s Bells, too deep into their science to leave now. Quire probably soothed his nerves in the engine room garden. Teke nodded back to him soberly. Judge looked edgy, Zan rather eager.

  Ben blew out again and tried to put his backup team out of mind. If this went sour, he had no idea what the Denali would choose to do, but there wasn’t much help for it. “Wilder, don’t let Kassidy out of your sight,” he reminded them. “The only women on this station are sex slaves. Period.”

  “Understood,” Wilder acknowledged.

  Ben’s pocket buzzed and he checked his comm. “Our entourage awaits. After you, Hunter.”

  Kassidy and Wilder hung back by the med bay. Eli and Hunter strode forth across the umbilical to the station dock. Ben and Cope followed them, just two workmen along to transport and install the gifts.

  Getting onto Sagamore Orbital was just that easy, for Prosper. Ben had been here a half dozen times over the years. He loathed it all over again, including the smell, a permanent miasma of hashish, opium smoke, and body odor.

  “Corpses?” Cope pointed to the base of the bulkhead across the cargo bay. Tracks snaked through grime on its floor.

  “Probably just stoned.” Ben rubbed his irritated eyes. “Beware the contact high.”

  “The what?”

  “The air is full of psychoactive drugs.”

  Cope stuttered a half-step. “Their life support doesn’t work?”

  Ben shot him a sympathetic half-smile. His ex suffered from extreme atmo phobia, a holdover from the air drop that killed his parents when he was a toddler. “Works great. They’re just smoking drugs everywhere.”

  “Worse than Hell’s Bells?”

  “Yup,” Ben confirmed.

  Hunter met the collection of guards and an unctuous guide, who bowed them into the main corridor. The bowing flunky wore a silly cutaway black jacket with tails, over a flowered vest, over high-necked white shirt and wide bloused cream satin tie. Ben recognized the general style from old Earth movies. The films didn’t make much sense, so he often focused on the peculiar clothes and scenery.

  Hunter and Eli mounted the back seats of a silly electric cart with tasseled awning. Another uniformed servant drove. Ordinary citizens flattened themselves against the walls to yield right-of-way. The vehicle aided their speed not at all. The guards, and Ben and Cope maneuvering their grav lifter, proceeded at a walking pace.

  This main thoroughfare was fairly clean, with occasional potted plants. The road ran straight into SO’s captive asteroid. The concept was much like MO, except continuously inhabited for over a century. The place was a labyrinth. But Saggies used no personal grav generators. Their dwellings provided grav plating at 0.9 g. Unlike Mahinans, they didn’t care to alter grav direction, either. Down stayed down.

  They endured a couple side-trips for sightseeing. The honor guards tended to stumble into each other, none too sober. Cope gulped uneasily when a sudden glass dome wall opened up beside them, 30 meters high and gracing a plaza. Ben swapped places to walk between him and the vertiginous window.

  After a kilometer or so cruising the more wholesome sights of SO, the cart group alighted and crowded into a small elevator lined with gilt and mirrors. The flunky with tails waved off the guards to wait and escort Ben and Cope in a second trip.

  Thus arriving several minutes later, Ben was confronted with three men smiling broadly as the elevator doors opened. Which was good, because behind them gaped a clear glass wall of stars. An unfamiliar small disk of Pono and a solar array slowly slid past.

  Ben touched Cope’s hip for moral support, and jockeyed the grav lifter out of the elevator single-handed.

  “They’re already grown!” their host Benoit Northmore cried in delight as Ben perforce parked the plants in front of him. The man clapped slim and elderly hands, bedecked with rings. His jacket featured tails as well, tacked outward at the bottom to reveal their red satin lining. The outer fabric was brocade printed in blossoms of assorted warm rusty colors. Wispy white hair failed to cover his age-spotted skull, and his wrinkled face sagged.

  By local standards, this guy was richer than God.

  79

  “The plants are immature,” Eli explained. “Though coca is short-lived. Try a leaf.” Ben watched aghast as the botanist plucked leaves for the three in suits, and began to chew. Nobody offered any to Ben and Cope, here to be overlooked as workmen.

  “Now this will grant me megalomania and a burst of speed?” Benoit chewed delicately, to assess the leaf’s flavor.

  “In this form, no,” Eli replied. “Not even addictive. Merely a pleasant stimulant.”

  “How lovely. I like the flavor. Astringent.”

  “And this is the champagne grape, and the Spanish rose. Too young to bloom, I’m afraid.”

  “Magnificent!”

  “All the seeds will grow.” Hunter waved to the seed case already in Benoit’s hands. “These are a demonstration. A show of good faith.”

  Their feet sank a centimeter into a luxurious pile carpet, a creamy beige and absolutely clean, unlike anything Ben had seen before.

  And they wore socks. The penguin flunky cleared his throat and pointed to a discreet shoe rack. Cope, then Ben, squatted to comply. Apparently the guards would wait here.

  “I brought these crewman to set up the hydroponics for you,” Hunter explained. “May we see the moose device first? I’m very eager!”

  You’re a son of a bitch, is what you are, Hunter Burke, Ben grumbled to himself. After Lavelle’s ‘reveal’ that the antler radio was here, Ben cornered Cope. He knew all along where the device was. It was Hunter, not Pollan, who first showed him the three pictures. This deal was Hunter and Josiah negotiating with the Saggies. Cope agreed to help in exchange for financial backing and the antlers.

  And because Cope believed in the mission, Ben had to admit in fairness.

  Benoit chuckled. “My little bit of Sanctuary before the blackmail material? You surprise me, Hunter. This way.”

  Ben deposited his boots and traded relieved glances with Cope. This part was dicey. They had theories about how to enter Benoit’s treasure room if he didn’t bring them, but those plans were weak.

  In the event, the contingency plans were unneeded. They threaded through several immense and ornate living rooms. Life-size nude statuary stood scattered among wide-spaced elegant furniture, concrete paddies, some bearing a vase, or a tray of knick-knacks. The walls were papered in restful florals.

  Benoit paused and touched a hidden control on a wall bearing a fake bookcase. The wall slid away, to reveal a very different style of room. The walls shifted to industrial clean concrete, and the floor the same but waxed to a high gleam. Their host touched a switch, and spotlights came on one by one to shine down and display the man’s special treasures, arrayed on enameled metal stands in dark autumnal colors. Each seemed to float in light against the dim backdrop. One short red plush sofa and a cocktail table with lamp provided a spot to rest and commune with the toys.

  Ben noted carefully as Benoit’s fingers danced over a control panel just inside the doorway – 963123
was the code. Then the collector drew them toward the center plinth before the couch. The moose device stood in the spot of honor, antlers extended, their dark coating greedy to suck up its bright golden illumination.

  Eli and Hunter approached reverently while Ben and Cope hung back attempting to be inconspicuous. Remember to touch it, Ben urged. Fortunately they did so, making sure to lean on the stand as well while they studied the item intently.

  “May I see the underside, Benoit?” Eli requested. “John, please hold this for me.”

  “Ah, wait!” their host interrupted with a warning hand. He reached out and flicked a switch hidden on the inner side of one of the stand legs. “Weight detector. For security, you understand.”

  Cope stepped forward and obediently lifted the item for Eli’s convenience, getting a quick chance to study it himself. He stepped sideways to get the stand out of Eli’s way. Ben edged forward to study the counter top as well as the pronged prize.

  Hunter and Eli peered at the machine, emitting appreciative oohs and ahs, and requested their workmen helpers turn it to and fro. Neither of them really gave a damn. Ben appreciated how they spun this out, though.

  “And we have no idea what it does?” Hunter asked.

  “None whatsoever,” Benoit confirmed. “But look how the light strikes the surface. Exquisite. Like textured velvet rendered on steel. And the shape of the antlers, so organic, as though listening a-quiver, awaiting a challenge to the creature’s manhood, to fight to prove himself the finest mate.”

  That’s one way to describe an antenna, Ben supposed, working his jaw to prevent his sense of humor escaping to his face. He reached in his gloved hands at a glance from Cope to turn the device to reveal its next face – supposedly to Hunter and Eli. He shifted to keep the family jewels out of stabbing range of the horns as they rotated back up. Of course Ben and Cope were the ones studying the item intently, but their suited crewmates did a fine acting job.