Set'em Up Page 5

  “May the Lilstar always bring you home!” James led the very solemn toast. I tried not to gulp my bubbled delight too quickly, but it had been more than a year since I’d had my last one. This one seemed to be more bitter than what I’d remembered, but that was due to the fact the expiration date on the bottle was close to a few months past. I drank the whole thing anyway.

  Ariadne had taken two sips before she made the hundred-yard dash to her new ship, squealing as she inspected it. The ship was then given our scent and fingerprints, both of which gave us access to its entire systems. I followed Ariadne into the ship’s tight quarters.

  There was as little to the inside of the ship as there had been to the outside. All of the controls were shoved in an ease-of-access fashion to the right with two chairs, one for the pilot and one for the copilot. The controls involved sensory nodes that sent signals throughout the ship when pressed, controlling the ship’s organic structure. Some areas were made up of color-shifting scales that acted like an organic read-out, signaling the pilot about the ship’s status. The controls also had two metal and plastic control panels embedded in the control area that operated the Pseudo-Gravity system and the engine’s screw.

  The living quarters, incredibly cramped I might add, were closed off by an archway to the left. The arch created pockets on either side of a small hallway and those pockets housed the small kitchenette to the right with a small inorganic stove and lots of stowage for space rations. The left had more stowage, but this was mostly for clothes and other non-food items. Above the kitchenette and consumables stowage were small alcoves that made up the bunks, each with a narrow step built into the stowage’s falsebone doors, which locked securely into place with a pair of metallic hinges. I’d hate to roll out of one since it sat almost a whole four feet off the ground.

  Beyond the living area was the bathroom which surprised me because it managed to squeeze an almost-full-sized bath into such a small space. It was an entirely efficient space, much like the rest of the ship. Directly across from the bathroom was a cargo… closet. It was hardly big enough to carry enough provisions for extended flights, which made sense for how much of a runabout it was. A step left from the bathroom was the small accessway to the ship’s bowels. The organs sat to the left, fitted into the last few feet of the ship’s frame and walled off from the living compartments by a semi-opaque membrane. The ship was kind of built like an inflated pufferfish. It had a relatively small body compared to the big, cavernous space it created. A falsebone ribcage, complete with a spine that ran along the entire body of the ship, provided stability to the living quarters and protection to the ship’s organs.

  Overall I though the Lilstar was a lovely ship. For two people. And only two people.

  The problem was the same as before: I wholly doubted that this ship could carry three people and all their provisions to or from Meropis-C. That being said, there was little we could do about it now. I began calculating how much we’d have to starve Ottoman in order to get him back to Aristotle.

  There was no way I was skipping meals for a debtor.

  Farther back into the ship was the access to its key organs. While these were sealed off to prevent infection, the dermis was relatively thin allowing for easy access for topical medicines, injections, and even surgery if the ship needed a transplant. Hopefully the company was still growing or willing to grow spare organs for the Lilstar’s model.

  Overall the Lilstar was just as healthy on the inside as she appeared to be on the outside, with a strong pulse and good coloring. The ship didn’t smell quite like the warmed-over-wheat of normal organic buildings and ships, instead having an almost lavender-like scent that was at its strongest in the living area. The temperature was also a lot cooler than what would be expected for a ship this size sitting underneath direct sunlight. The Lilstar must have an excellent temperature-regulation system. I wondered how that would fare whenever the Centauri-made micro-stovetop was turned on. I fiddled with the device that sat in the kitchenette just below one of the bunks. While it would be a handy thing to have, I wondered about whether or not it would heat up the whole cabin or burn the Lilstar. I thought about asking Ariadne about it, but decided against it. She seemed focused on something at the pilot’s seat.

  Ultimately I decided this ship would make a great runabout.

  For two people.

  “When can we lift off?” I asked, leaning against the command chair in which Ariadne was sitting. She was pressing buttons that didn’t seem to do anything but light up. I assumed the ship was in some sort of diagnostic mode.

  “Lift off?” she asked without really looking up at me.

  “Yeah, you know, Meropis-C, Ottoman the Debtor, being an astronomical amount of credits in debt ourselves?” I kept adding things to the question until she finally gave me her full attention.

  “A few hours maybe. I have to finish my inspection of the ship, then we have to hire a Boot and clear the launch with one of the Slings, all after we plot a course to Meropis,” Ariadne said with something of a shrug. I glanced at the ship uncertainly.

  “What do you want me to do?” I asked. Ariadne looked at me like I was a flat tire. In a word: completely useless.

  “Uhmm….” She looked around the ship much like I had a moment ago.

  “I’ll go call Aristotle and then figure out where Meropis-C is this time of year,” I said with a sigh and wandered back out to the hangar.

  I made it into the hangar, which was filled up with all kinds of skin grafts and falsebone splints, ready and waiting to patch up any broken ship that might come along. Like human bones, falsebones sometimes broke and more often than not it was impossible to put a cast on an organic ship. This meant that other ways to stabilize the bones were used, such as metal splints or mesh sleeves, depending on which bone was broken and what type of break had occurred. Rarely was a ship ever decommissioned from a broken bone, but there had been some cases of old ships retired because their falsebone had degraded too much to handle. From what I could tell, the Lilstar had close to a century before retirement. Most organic ships outlived their owners by decades or more, especially when they were well-cared for.

  “Are you Marcie?” Someone who was not James startled me as I rummaged through the hangar, looking for the telephone. I knew I had seen one earlier. While not a wide-spread technology, surprisingly not a Centauri import but rather the result of a U.C. funded communications project, most companies had a phoneline.

  “Uh, yeah, who are you?” I blurted out to the slick-haired woman. She smiled from ear to ear and it unsettled me just a bit. While Ariadne was in a good mood because she finally got her ship, I caught the impression that smiling was this woman’s natural setting.

  “Sasha, I’m James’ girl.” She kept smiling. “I hear you and Ariadne are going into business together.”

  “I sort of owe her for some medical bills,” I said. Sasha nodded as if she understood the entire story. A moment passed, and I could feel her trying to pry into my soul and judge me. At least that was what her stormy eyes seemed to indicate. Two can play at that game, sister, I thought. Except she was a lot better at hiding herself than I was. All I could read on her was a wall of nothing. Fine, if I can’t read you, then I won’t give you the luxury, I concluded. I shrugged off her bemused expression with some annoyance. “Isn’t there a phone around here? And an Orbit-Time book?”

  “Sure! Phone’s right there and I’ll go scrounge up an O.T.” Sasha said with a disarming smile. Just like that, she turned from creepy soul-seeking judge to a smiley, normal-looking woman. I glanced at her with a frown as I started mashing the nearby telephone’s buttons. Sasha was undoubtedly the kind of girl who lurked in corners at parties. Not saying anything to anyone, not joining the chaos, just lurking. Watching everyone. Smiling.

  Aristotle was none too pleased with Ariadne and I’s late start to Meropis which he made clear as soon as the phone finally went through. He made the matter even more obvious as he outlined the rough
time estimates involved in finding a suitable Sling to launch us into orbit, then the undoubtedly long queue at a Light Atmosphere ReHy station before we could come back to Earth. After he finished lecturing me about the fact that his company could cover some of the transportation expenses, however, he didn’t seem too angry with the whole affair. I could hear him sigh and resign to the idea that his two newest skiptraces were little better off financially than their quarry. Angry employers were something I actively avoided, but annoyed was easy enough to handle.

  “Just bring back that debtor,” he said finally.

  Of course I left out the part where Ariadne’s ship could only hold two people.

  No need to worry him.

  Sasha had returned with an O.T. book as soon as I hung up. I was a bit more than relieved to find the book was from the last 5 years, though I didn’t know why; this was a shipyard after all. Having an up-to-date O.T. book was a fundamental requirement.

  “Where are you headed?” Sasha asked, looking over my shoulder just a little.

  “Meropis-C,” I said simply, kind of wishing for her to leave.

  “Ah,” I could hear the frown or concern on her face before I actually looked up and saw it. “How big’s your knife?”

  After a quick moment to verify that I understood what she was asking, I pulled out the little folding knife. It was kind of dull and what had been a white ceramic blade was a bit stained from use. Sasha plucked it from my hands and fiddled with it. Her frown deepened. With a motion that had no warning, she flicked it across the hangar into the hangar’s organic wall. The knife embedded itself perfectly straight into the thick epidermis. I gave her a wide-eyed expression as I processed how easy she made that look. Sure, I could throw a knife with some accuracy, but nowadays, who couldn’t? She was downright talented.

  I watched as she plucked my knife from the epidermis, inspected the unbleeding wound, and walked back toward me.

  “Let me sharpen this. You’ll need something a bit more impressive on the Merse,” she said simply. I shivered slightly before returning to the Orbit-Time book I’d forgotten was in my hands.

  I quickly found Meropis-C’s relative location to Earth this time of year. Unfortunately, its orbit was built for ice and water exportation, so it spent most of its time above either Pole or any of the oceans. This made it great for a booming trade with ice and water freighters specially designed to simply fly upward. The freighters weren’t made for even shallow space travel, just barely climbing above the atmosphere, and didn’t have to go through the lengthy wait at a Sling or ReHy station. This meant Meropis just needed to be over a targeted loading site like the ocean.

  What this meant for other kinds of ships, the kind that had to use Slings or ReHies, is that you had to launch into orbit somewhere not underneath the station’s ocean-polar orbit and then cut across high atmosphere or shallow space to get to it. This used up a tremendous quantity of time and fuel, meaning money. Of course, if I really wanted to, I could probably figure out how to smuggle myself aboard one of the ice or water freighters. That was never fun to do unless you had a liquid pod, of course, to dampen the massive quantity of G’s the ships pulled to exit and enter the atmosphere.

  I sighed loudly as I began to calculate how much everything was going to cost us. I rubbed my forehead when I realized this was all for the idea that Ottoman the Debtor was even still on Meropis-C. He could be halfway to Proxima Centauri by now.

  “B or C?” I asked Sasha as she reappeared with my knife. The ceramic blade was now polished and sharp enough to scare me. I tossed it to the epidermis for fun. My technique definitely wasn’t as elegant as Sasha’s, but I hit the center without too much error.

  “B,” she said with just a hint of unease. I didn’t blame her. I’d only spent a collective few months on any station and didn’t envy the livelihood. I couldn’t help but ask, though. “I’ve tried to kick the habit of calling them Merse, but it’s tough.”

  Sasha’s stormy eyes let down one iota of her guard. I nodded with an understanding smile. Then I realized she wasn’t the kind of person to accidentally let a slip of the tongue reveal her entire life. People who lived on the stations were tough like rawhide. People who grew up on one were either broken or impenetrable. All I knew is that I wouldn’t want to face Sasha in a fight on top of not wanting to face her at a party.

  “I also found this for you,” she said, slapping a flat disk into my hand. I yelped as it shocked me terribly before retreating almost magically back to her hand. My entire arm tingled and seized up before falling completely limp. “Like it?”

  “You little jerk,” I cursed. Sasha only smiled a little more.

  “It doesn’t have a name, and it’s very contraband, but if you use it on someone, they’re out like a light for a few minutes. The nice part is that it comes back.” The sadist showed off the device. It was a little bigger than someone’s palm and was made largely of tough plastics I knew weren’t biodegradable. It had two removable disks from what I could tell, each one capable of delivering a great shock to a person, or ship, and returning magnetically to the core device.

  I looked at Sasha with some measure of uncertainty before I took the device. It was heavier than I expected, but I definitely wouldn’t find that a problem if I needed to use it.

  “Merse-B was bad enough, I’d hate to think of what C is like,” Sasha said in all seriousness and I realized part of what my mission would be: bring Ariadne back home in one piece. Even to Sasha, I was the stranger that got her caught up in this mess. I pocketed the device right as the princess bounded into the hangar.

  “So did you find Meropis?” Ariadne asked in a bubbly yet unyielding demand.

  “Yes, yes,” I said waving the Orbit-Time book with my good hand. The other was beginning to regain some sensation, but it still tingled like I’d sat on it for a week.

  “Good, where is it?” Ariadne commanded, not even attempting to shrug off the arm Sasha had draped across her shoulders.

  “At apogee, dead center above the ocean,” I said, showing Ariadne the map. The princess crinkled her nose in irritation.

  “That means we either have to shoot from the local Sling and cross nearly the whole planet to intersect it, or pay to have a Boot come and drag us to a Sling across the continent and launch from there.” Ariadne chewed her lip in thought. I watched as she completely phased out of the hangar for a moment, trying to figure out the best, and hopefully cheapest, route we could take.

  “I have it on good authority that your brother was going to treat you to a launch once you got your ship,” Sasha said in low tones and without making eye contact with anyone.

  “Why would he do that?” Ariadne said, and although her tone was accusing, she perked up a bit.

  So did I, in fact. Finally, life had a little hope.

  Sasha just nodded, still leaning on the princess’s shoulder.

  “I’ll go ask,” Ariadne said, freeing herself of Sasha and then dashing across the hangar until she was swallowed up by it.

  “Oops,” Sasha shrugged without any real remorse.

  I looked at the station girl for a moment, trying to decide if I actually wanted to press her for more information on the Merses or not. Fortunately, she decided to read my brain at that moment and said, “There’s not much to tell about the stations. The company that runs them makes the United-Consortium look like a church. Back when I was really little, they were shy of outsiders, a murderous kind of shy, but the company finally realized that was a bad habit to kick,” Sasha said. I nodded. “I suggest you don’t even try to blend in.”

  “That’s good. I’m pretty sure buying another outfit would completely ruin my credit as it is,” I said with some speck of humor, which Sasha caught and laughed a little louder than was comfortable.

  “I think Ariadne is in good hands,” she finally said, apparently over her laughing fit. I shook her offered hand and Ariadne magically reappeared.

  “Sasha!” James cried out pathetically, being
dragged by his currently effervescent sister. The offending station girl shrugged apathetically.

  “You made the offer, I’m just here to remind you of it,” Sasha said, catching her love at the waist.

  “Ahh, fine,” James relented, snaking a hand around Sasha and pulling her a little closer. “Yes, I did say that I would pay for a launch once you finally bought the Lilstar. I can always save it for another day, of course.”

  “Oh no,” I said with a brief shake of my head. “I think we need it now.”

  “She’s right,” Ariadne said, batting some long eyelashes at her brother. “We could really use it now.”

  “All right,” James nodded. “Just tell me which Sling you want and if you’ll need a Boot.”

  “I’m thinking a Boot that’ll take us to the Sling at Aban,” the princess snatched up a map from the table. “That way we only have to cross shallow space for a few hundred miles to intersect with Meropis-C.”

  “Sounds good to me. You make all the calls, put me down as the creditor for the Boot and the Sling, but not the ReHy station, you hear me?” James warned his little sister. She nodded with childlike solemnity.

  “I hate to be a bother, but is there a couch I could crash on until you guys get everything sorted out?” I suddenly asked. I hadn’t realized how tightly wound I was until that moment.

  “The only one we have around here is somewhat infested; it’d probably be safer to sleep on the Lilstar,” Sasha commented. I nodded in agreement. Besides, sleeping on the ship would give it a better chance to recognize me. Good ships were like cancer-sniffing dogs, even capable of judging its occupant’s health to some degree. This was mostly a safety feature; if the pilot was unable to send an SOS, the ship could. Of course, it wasn’t as though the Lilstar and I weren’t going to get to know each other over the next few weeks.