Summer's End, page 7
“Okay. Can we hit a bank? I really am just about broke.”
“And you’ll probably still be. The money you spent on Gany-Two was an advance on your salary I’d asked the captain to give you. As we only get paid monthly, I don’t think you’re going to find much in your account. Plus” —she turned and smiled at me —“you have to pay for the bullets you shot and the materials we used to build your new pistol, as well as all the new ammo we’re going to buy.”
“Didn’t you say it was cheaper to make it yourself?”
“Yup. But until I teach you, or you learn how to do it yourself, you’re going to be really short of ammunition, if you don’t buy your own.”
“Fine,” I sighed. “Let’s go find a bank so I can see just how impoverished I am after I pay you back and buy those things.”
“That’s the spirit!”
She checked her tablet, and then led us to a nearby branch for our bank. Coeus was actually a very large station, having a large asteroid as its original core. From what I’d read about it, there were a large number of processing facilities here, as well as cargo storage and other warehousing. A lot of people may have moved out of the station here, but there were so many habs in orbit around Saturn that many still came here to shop and trade for any major items. So while people were moving out, companies were moving in.
So I soon discovered that there were a lot of shops here, as well as a lot of people shopping and trading, some of whom were at small stands set up in the side corridors. I also noticed that barter, something I’d never really seen, was alive and well here.
When we got to the bank, I found that my balance was barely over three hundred credits. I took most of it out and added it to the forty-three credits I had left over from my last shopping spree.
“We’re not buying anything expensive, are we?” I asked.
“Nope, and you owe me forty creds for everything.”
I blinked and quickly forked it over. “That’s it?”
“Bullets are cheap and the only expensive piece of your pistol was the stock we milled the receiver out of. Oh, and the hat was ten.”
“You’re charging me for the hat?” I said with a surprised look.
“TANSTAAFL.”
“Huh?”
“There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.”
“Oh! Right, PFWYG,” I replied.
“Haven’t heard that one before.”
“Pay for what you get. The doles and the elies may get everything for free, but the proles have to work for every cred,” I said with a grin. “The only freebies are at year’s end and birthdays.”
“Ah. Well, let’s get our shopping done and head back to the ship. I think the captain wants to take everyone out to dinner tonight.”
“What about the hat? Won’t anybody say anything?”
“Stick it inside your jacket. As long as you’re with a large group of people, I doubt anybody will try anything. Most folks go armed in the stations, so as long as you’re with a crowd or around lots of people, you should be safe.”
“That sounds like the voice of experience.”
“It is. Now, shake a leg. I want to get back before they leave.”
It didn’t take us long to find what we were after, though the stuff for rebuilding the panels made for a fairly large package that, as the junior engineer, I got the job of carrying. But considering how fast Dot had been on the draw last time, I’d rather she kept her hands free and said as much.
“Just be sure to drop that the moment anything happens,” she said, keeping a lookout as we walked. “Because I can’t afford to have any of that shot up.”
I sighed and shook my head as she just smiled.
At least the trip wasn’t a long one, and we got inside unmolested.
“Well, I didn’t see anybody who seemed to be all that interested in us,” I told her as I carried everything into Engineering.
“I didn’t see anybody either,” Dot agreed. “Maybe they haven’t gotten word back yet that your assassin failed.”
“Or better yet, they think he succeeded.”
“I wouldn’t count on that. I’m sure he was supposed to show them a picture of your dead body.”
I nodded glumly to that, and then took the materials for repairing bad panels back to the machine shop. By the time I got back, the entire crew was waiting for me and we all left for dinner, the captain locking the ship access behind us.
We trooped down the same hallway as I’d gone down earlier with Dot, but once we got into the commerce section with the shops, we took an elevator down into one of the lower levels of the station, which was a lot nicer, and much more posh looking than what I’d seen so far. The restaurant the captain led us into was definitely a very nice one.
He’d even reserved a room for us, so when we sat down for dinner, it was just the crew.
The waitress came out and took drink orders; I ordered a sweet tea, which I was surprised they had, while everyone else had cocktails.
“Dave! Unwind a little, have some alcohol!” Hank teased.
“Maybe once you’re all used to me making a fool out of myself without any extra help,” I said with a grin.
“Wise policy,” the captain said with a nod. Then as the waitress left to get our orders he looked around the table. “This has been a good year, mostly.”
I heard a few muted groans at that.
“Losing our last apprentice engineer caused a small bit of upset with the folks back in the head office, as they had to reroute a few of our trips to get us back to Earth so we could pick up Dave here,” he said with a gesture toward me.
“Word of warning, Dave, never try to draw to an inside straight or I’ll strangle you myself.”
I shook my head. “Definitely not, Captain. I grew up playing poker. I know better.”
“Excellent. Anyway, to get us back up to the levels of profit that the company is used to seeing from the Iowa Hill, we’re going to be doing a lot of shipping along the Gray Routes from here on out. We probably won’t hit a major hub again for at least six months, possibly a year.”
“Do you think we’ll hit any of the Blue Highways?” Hank asked.
“Maybe a few, it all depends on what and where we’re going. Half the routes will probably be picked by me and Ian here,” the captain said with a nod toward Chief Parks, who was sitting on his right, “if we come across any specialty or rush cargoes that we can fit into our routes. But from here on out it’s all going to be fractional loads. The cargo we’re picking up has six different destinations, so our route’s going to be changing constantly.”
“What about the dark stations, will we be going to any of those?” Dot asked in a soft voice.
“Doubtful. There are a few I’m willing to put into, but only because we’ve been there before, and only if it’s a very special case.”
“Like a lot of money,” Hank muttered.
“Or an emergency, like last time,” Chief Parks replied.
“More of the latter than the former,” the captain said with a smile. “The folks back in the head office weren’t too thrilled with me the last time. But the point I specifically want to make is that any entertainment you might wish to indulge in, or materials you might wish to bring onboard that you can’t get easily elsewhere, well, we’ll be pulling out three days from now.”
He looked around the table. “Any questions?”
I raised my hand.
“You don’t have to raise your hand, Dave, you’re not in school anymore,” he said with a laugh.
“Oh, sorry!” I lowered my hand. “But I’ve got two.”
“Shoot.”
“How many ships does Damascus Freight Lines have, anyways?”
“Eighteen, plus ours. Sixteen of them are the same class, two are smaller and do specialty runs. One’s here in the Saturn system, the other’s in the Jovan system. What’s the other question?”
“Umm, what sort of things should I be looking to buy for entertainment?”
“Nothing breathing,” the captain said and winked at Hank as everyone chuckled.
“Hey, I earn my keep!” Chaz protested with a frown.
“Yes, and we’re pretty happy that you do too. That’s why I put you on the ship’s roster and payroll. But . . . there was this cat he brought on a few years back and I don’t want to see a repeat of that debacle.”
There were a number of snorts at that.
“Now, let’s get our orders in and get some food,” the captain said as the waitress returned with our drinks. I quickly looked over the menu, and thankfully I recognized most of the dishes and was able to order something I’d like.
“What are the Gray Routes?” I asked Pam, who I’d ended up sitting next to. I figured she was one of the deck crew and could both fly and navigate the ship, so if anyone would know, she would.
“Those are the trade routes to the smaller and sometimes less reputable places that no one wants to go to. A lot of them don’t have enough trade to justify a large ship, even one as small as ours. That’s why the captain said we’d be doing partials, dropping off a few containers here, picking up a few there, and just moving on.”
“What do you mean by ‘less reputable’?”
Pam took a deep breath and sighed, causing me to notice that she was obviously stacked under that loose suit.
“Every hab, every orbital outside of the gravity well of a major planet, makes their own laws.”
“I thought they all did that?”
“To a lesser extent, yes. But the farther away you get, the more things change. Anything you can imagine, it exists out there, somewhere, maybe even in more than one place. And the worse something is, the more likely you are to run into it.
“That includes pirates.”
I gave a small nod at that. “What about ‘Blue Highways’?”
“Those are the secondary trade routes. Places that see more traffic because they either specialize in something, or they get a lot of tourists. Though some of them can be a little different as well.”
“And dark stations?”
“They’re people who are hiding, either from governments, police, military, or each other. Some of them are okay, but most of them are not. They’re all run by gangs and if you get in trouble there, you can end up dead, or worse.”
“Any advice on what I should get before we leave?”
Pam gave me a sly smile. “Sex toys.”
“What?” I said, blushing. This wasn’t the kind of thing I expected to hear from a pretty girl.
She laughed at me. “A lot of the places we stop at, we’re not going to be at for more than twenty-four hours. Probably nothing for more than two days, and the kinds of girls, or boys if that’s what you like, that you’ll meet there probably aren’t going to be ones you want to spend time with.”
“Well, I don’t see how I could really meet someone in two days.”
“I was talking hookers,” Pam said.
“Oh! Right! Yeah . . . ”
Chaz asked me a question then about shopping the next day and I talked with him and the others until dinner arrived. Dinner was quite good, and I did my best not to wolf my meal down. Dessert was also quite good and the captain settled up the bill and left right after with his wife. Parks and Pam excused themselves not much later, though each headed off separately.
“Well, I’m gonna hit the facilities, then I guess it’s back to the ship,” I said, getting up.
“Facilities?” Chaz asked.
“Bathroom.”
“Oh, the head!”
I nodded. “I’ll try to be quick, as I don’t want to have to try and find my way back on my own.”
“If you get lost, just ping one of our tablets,” Hank said. “The same codes we use on the ship’ll work here.”
“I’ll do that,” I said and left to take care of my business.
* * *
It ended up taking a bit longer than I’d expected, and when I came out of the bathroom, everybody was gone.
I thought about going out the back of the restaurant, but then I remembered that I had no idea what was there, just that it wouldn’t be a street or an alley. So taking out my tablet, I called up the map of the station I’d downloaded and told it where I wanted to go as it zeroed in on my current location.
Leaving the restaurant, I stuck the tablet in my vest pocket and listened as it softly told me which way to go. I realized then that I’d forgotten my hat; I’d left it on one of the consoles in Engineering.
A minute after that I realized I was lost.
We’d come here on an elevator, but the navigation program wasn’t leading me to it. I briefly considered backtracking to the restaurant and trying again, but I wasn’t sure I could find it, after having made several turns.
So my only choice was to stick it out and hope that the path I was being led down would take me where I wanted to go.
Three turns and two doors later and I was at the base of a staircase that zigzagged up and down, out of sight. The program was telling me to go up, so that’s what I did. Every fourth landing, there was a door, on which there was a level number painted. I wanted concourse one.
The first one I came to was Recreation Eight.
Four levels later, and I was at Recreation Seven.
I had no idea at all how many concourse levels there were, and if that was even what came after I cleared the recreation levels. So I started pacing myself, though I kept moving quickly. I was used to walking and I was in good shape, a couple of flights of stairs shouldn’t be too much of a problem. Still, going up twenty-eight or so flights of stairs was a daunting prospect.
I had just passed Recreation Four when I realized there was someone on the stairs a couple of levels below me, and they were slowly catching up. So I picked up speed and after a minute, I was pretty sure that they had too.
So I started to run. I watched the floors go by as I ran up the stairs; I could hear that the person behind me was now running too. I could only hope that they weren’t gaining on me!
When I passed Recreation One, I gave a sigh of relief, or it may have been more of a pant, which turned into a swear as two flights later I came to Machine Level Two.
I didn’t even hesitate; I grabbed the door, pulled it open, and ran through it.
I was instantly in a long hallway that had pipes and cableways lining the ceiling. The floor was smooth and wide, with what looked like tire scuff marks on it. I grabbed the handle on the first door I came to. Locked.
There was a side corridor and I ducked down that, just as I heard the door from the stairwell bang open.
I dodged down three more side corridors, left, right, right again, then I found a small side corridor and, ducking just around the corner, I drew my pistol and made sure the safety was off, then put it back in the holster and waited.
I heard him before I saw him, and the sound was coming from behind me!
Diving into the hallway I heard the muted sound of a shot and felt a burning sensation in my left leg as I fell to the floor.
“Stop running, Walker. You’ll only die tired!” The guy actually laughed.
I scrabbled around a corner and waited. He wasn’t trying to sneak up on me. I guess he didn’t think I was armed. Drawing my pistol, I waited. The moment he stepped out of the side corridor, I shot him twice in the gut on purpose and once in the groin by accident. He cried out crumpled to the floor.
Getting shakily to my feet, I limped over to him and kicked his pistol away, then kicked him in the head as hard as I could, stunning him. Putting my pistol away, I straddled his body and dropped to my knees, pinning his arms to the floor. A tactic I’d used more than once in the past while dealing with people who’d picked on my little brother or caused me other problems.
Going through his clothes I found his tablet and, opening it up, I was surprised to find he had a password on it.
“I can pay you!” he gasped, coming to.
“Yup, you sure will,” I said. “What’s your password?”
“I’m not —” I punched him in the nose, breaking it and bouncing his head off the floor.
“Next time, I shoot you in the head, understand?”
He nodded. “R three, F four, V five.”
I tapped it in and called up his mail program. Sure enough, there was an email there, a recent one too. He was getting ten thousand to kill me.
I opened up his bank app next. “What’s the password for your bank?”
“Umm . . . ”
I raised my fist in warning, and he gave me that next. There wasn’t really all that much in it. But he had a contract for ten thousand, and all I needed was a dead body.
I looked down at him and thought back to a few things I’d done in the past that I wasn’t too proud of. I put his tablet in my pocket.
“I need a doctor,” he gasped.
I pulled my pistol out stuck it in his eye.
“Wait, no . . . ”
And pulled the trigger, the sound of the suppressed pistol a little quieter than what I’d expected.
Wiping the barrel off on his shirt, I rolled off him and cursed loudly. Now that the adrenaline was starting to wear off, my left leg felt like it was burning. Looking down, there was a hole in the side of my pants leg, and a small bullet hole in my leg and it was bleeding. I’d been shot.
Looking at the dead body, I rolled it over, onto its side, shot it twice more in the back, then, putting my pistol away, I got his tablet out and set it down.
Next, I pulled off my belt and one of my shoes, then my sock. Pulling my pants down, I rolled up the sock and put it over the bullet hole and wrapped the belt around it to hold it in place and stop the bleeding, or at least slow it down. Then I pulled my pants back up, put on my shoe, and looked at the body. There was enough blood coming out of the back wounds, so I moved farther away and took a couple of pictures.
Then I got one of the face. That done, I relieved him of anything even remotely valuable or that might be used to identify him. Next I got his pistol, staggered back to my feet, and left the area.
