13 Degrees of Separation (25 page)

“Let em laugh. We'll be the one's laughing in the end,”
Petunia growled.

“Yeah well, you get this feeling when you talk to people.
They are nice, but distant. They'll ask, but they aren't willing to throw in
any support. Just best wishes,” Freeze said.

“Right. And we can't attract talent until we've got
something to show.”

“Which is where this new plan comes in,” Clio responded.
“I'm putting out adds tomorrow.”

“Yeah,” Savo nodded. “I think that's it?” he asked. The
others nodded and got up. Taylor and Rasha smiled politely. “Fine then. I've
got a lovely lass to tuck into bed,” he said, nodding to Petunia. She preened a
bit as he took her right hand and kissed her fingertips. Howie smiled and
wrapped his arm around Shari and rubbed her side. She hugged him back. They had
been quiet for the entire meeting. “Night folks,” Savo said, leading Petunia
out. The others followed.

...*...*...*...*...

Mairi sat on the tan couch and used the remote to pull up
the new feed on the functional wall screen. That's a novelty she immediately
fell in love with. She found out about Admiral Irons and how he'd left only a
few weeks before. Apparently Irons had made a big stink in his leaving. There
was something about replicator keys and parts and how the station would stand
up to pirates in the future. “Damn, missed him,” she muttered.

“What was that honey?” her mother asked, coming out of the
refresher toweling her hair.

“Nothing mom,” she replied absently, changing the channel.
The other news was about the new corporations founded only a few weeks ago.
Each were already staking out their nitch but all said there was room for more.
She snorted softly.

One of the corporations was an industrial one that
transplanted itself up from Antigua. She figured they had a lot to learn about
doing stuff in space. Another was based on Antigua, they just had a branch
here. The third and fourth sounded like non entities. Two others were
pharmaceutical, not what she had any interest in. She was interested in the
talk of shares and a stock market. When the anchor mentioned that the stock
market was volatile and like gambling she winced. Trust her mother to hear
about that.

She also discovered that the station was indeed still under
repair. From the sound of it, it was an ongoing thing, it would probably take a
decade to get the station back to what passed as normal for it. That meant she
should be able to find a job relatively easily, though she was worried about
the range to the belt. It was a bit long. She'd have to have strap on tanks or
something to make it safely there and back with any sort of cargo.

There were commercials about various jobs and products. She
snorted. Her mother cooed about a facial cream. She just rolled her eyes and
pulled a pillow into her lap to hug. When a commercial for a new apartment
complex came up she was half awake. She snorted, watching it. They talked about
how the station was still less than twenty five percent capacity. That figured.
That explained why they had lucked out, competition. She'd have to remember
that. She was amazed by all the things they had there, gym, weight room, baths,
even a pool and entertainment rooms. “Wow,” she said softly. The price was only
slightly higher than what they were currently paying here.

“I'll have to remember to look into that place,” she
murmured. Her mother snored from the other end of the couch. She looked over to
her and then snorted softly. She flicked the screen off with the remote, tossed
the remote onto the little table in front of the couch and then went to bed.
Tomorrow was going to be a long busy day.

...*...*...*...*...

Clio watched the resource stock exchange and swore, trying
out a few cuss words Savo frequently used. She didn't see what the big deal was
over the anger, it just wasted time and energy. Energy she could put to better
use, so she ended the emotional experiment and swung into action. It was a
little late, but she wasn't going to let the McDougall brothers corner the
market on Chromium.

Malcolm and his twin Ian McDougall ran the space branch of
McDougall Mining and Refining Inc. Their father had sent them up two months ago
to get his hands in the growing asteroid metal market. The twins were cut from
the same cloth as their father, a pair of cut throat shifty robber barons who
would stop at virtually nothing to take control of the station's metals.

That of course wasn't going to happen. The station owned
99% of the tugs after all, so they were supposedly impartial. But their surplus
and the feed from the handful of freelancers out there, along with the one or
two tugs each of the corporations had managed to buy tended to feed the ever
growing metal resources stock market. Where companies like the Yard Dogs went
to buy the necessary resources they needed to manufacture goods their clients
ordered.

The twins had just driven up the cost of Chromium, cutting
their profits for the next series of orders by 1.5% and also cutting into any
future profits if they continued to hoard their stocks for any length of time.
The artificial inflation would play havoc with the other markets over time and
there was little she or anyone else could do about it.

Of course the other corporations had their own way of
dealing with that. Some weren't in the manufacturing and metal refining, they
were just there to play the market for their own profit. Companies like Zark
Freight and Pete's Plastics had no interest in metal yet they played the
market, driving the price of goods ever higher.

Sunrise Metal fabrication she could understand. Also
Rinwerk's industrial works, they were the second largest industrial interest on
the station. They were jockeying for power, butting heads with their old rivals
the McDougall's. But the Umbrella corporation? They were a pharmaceutical start
up! What business did they have in metal?

It didn't make sense, and when things didn't make sense
there was something going, on a secret war her people were caught up in.
Unfortunately they were at the bottom of the pile. Even though Umbrella
Corporation had just started a week after they did they had deep pockets and
had chipped away at their stocks. They'd even leased all the cheap warehouse
space around the Yard dog's space for some reason.

Pete's Plastics, another start up was getting off to a
rocky start, but had hung in there. They'd switched to making and recycling
plastic wares. Their most popular lines were plastics for the organics to use
to contain and consume their nutritional substances.

Now Iris pet food was sniffing around. They'd just set up
shop last week, coming up from the planet to service the growing pet market on
the station. She'd had two inquiries to purchase Yard Dogs from the pet food
chain this week. Apparently they'd even sent out feelers to the share holders.
They'd of course gotten a cold reception there.

Tuesday night Alice, Ralph and the others talked late in
the evening. It was home time, one of the few times they were able to have some
private time... and of course it had to be interrupted as Clio reported on the
latest antics of the McDougall brothers.

Instead of a physical meeting in Ralph's Irish bar they had
a teleconference, they were all too tired and strung out from working regular
jobs to meet and focus on the Yard dogs. “Isn't it always the thing?” Savo
asked bitterly. Shari rubbed his shoulders in sympathy. Petunia grunted,
picking at Howie's fur. Howie tried hard to relax, it was hard, he had someone
three times larger than his own massive frame grooming him.

“The only way we're going to get anything done is if we're
on it full time. But a man's got to eat, got to breathe, got to live. We still
need our day jobs. At least till we get this off and running and paying for
itself.”

“But we can't do that until...”

“Until one or more of us quit and work on it full time. Or
we hire someone to do it for us.”

“Hire great. Where are we going to get the money?”

“Royalties and rentals. We barter in other words. We find a
couple of volunteers to get the ball rolling faster.”

“Okay,” Savo bobbed a nod. “I'm with you.”

...*...*...*...*...

The next morning Mairi took a quick shower as her best
coverall was cleaned in the wall cleaner and then went to get the bitch off the
MM. However she immediately ran into a problem, she couldn't store it on the
station without racking up docking fees. She became pissed right off, things
like that weren't done in Senka. Sure they charged for air, food, and water,
but not for docking! It wasn't like the little ship took up all the space in
this giant station! She didn't even need a bay she could just attach to an
airlock but they wouldn't even allow that!

She talked to a dock worker in a green coverall who seemed
sympathetic. He was a super, watching the robots and crew unload the MM. He
pointed her in the direction of several of the newly minted corporations. He
told her not to bother with Yard dogs, they were the bottom of the pile and
were going to go under sooner or later. “They are all wind and piss, they
haven't done squat.”

She thanked him and moved on. She checked in with the
corps, they politely informed her they had their own equipment and might hire
her but it was a 2 week waiting period, and then a month of mandatory training
for stuff she already knew.

“I don't have that long,” she told the receptionist through
gritted teeth. She was trying hard not to reach over the desk and throttle the
Veraxin. “MM leaves in three days,” she said, trying to keep her voice even and
level.

“MM?”

“Mariah's Mischief. The ship I came in. She's in dock.” She
wondered how much the Captain was being charged for his docking fees? He must
not be happy, he'd planned to stay for a week or more.

“Oh. Um... let me check.” The Veraxin made a call and spoke
quietly into a hush microphone for a minute. However she was rejected. She
chittered in sympathy after closing the circuit. “Try the Yard dogs.”

“I was told to avoid them. Something about they are going
out of business?” Mairi asked.

“Them? No,” the Veraxin chittered a laugh. “Oh no dear.
They are subsidized by admiral Irons and members of the council. No, they just
need a push to get started. Just get your foot in the door there and reapply
with us when you are settled.”

Mairi nodded. “Okay thank you.”

...*...*...*...*...

“Anything?” Savo asked on his lunch break. He finished the
sandwich and then balled up the paper. A toss landed it in the open door of a
recycler. “Two points,” he murmured.

“Not a thing. The corporations and the station are paying
rates we can't match. And with that crap in the rumor mill about us going under
at any minute, no one wants to apply,” Howie replied, shaking his head.

“We need a pilot.”

“We need a tug first. A pilot is useless without a tug,”
Howie replied.

“Yeah well...” Savo shrugged. He'd damn well figure a way
around the tug problem even if he had to get creative. But a pilot was a Major
necessity.

“We'll come up with something. Or someone will drop into
our laps.”

“Yeah well, knowing our luck they'll say they know it all
and be a complete amateur.”

Howie shrugged. “Yeah, that's possible too. But I'm going
to keep an open mind and ear.”

Savo nodded and clapped him on the shoulder. “You do that.
I've got to get back to work. See you tonight?” he asked.

Howie grimaced. “I'm working another double. Which is
stupid. We don't need to do it, someone's being an ass.”

“Tell me about it,” Savo muttered, walking away.

...*...*...*...*...

Mairi wandered the station for an hour before she found a
kiosk in the main thruway selling corn dogs. She tried one and sat on a bench
munching it for a few moments while she got her thoughts in order. There really
wasn't a choice, she'd have to start at the bottom. Of course she didn't have
to stay there, and she had no intention of doing so. But maybe it would like
the Veraxin receptionist said, buy her time to get on her feet.

She looked around as she dusted her hands and then tossed
the stick and napkin into a nearby recycler. She turned to a terminal and
waited patiently for an older couple to finish what they were looking up and
move along before she stepped up to it.

She was lucky, information like maps was free. She smiled
slightly and tapped at the controls looking for Yard Dogs central headquarters.
After a bit of circular looking she finally saw a small PO box and a note
stating that prospective employees should send an inquiry to an e-mail address
or inquire in Ralphi's bar.

It's the bar. She's amused by the no frills approach, it
reminded her of Uncle Edgar. He had run many small businesses out of his bar,
or so he'd said.  She pulled up the directions. When she was sure she had the
directions memorized she cleared the display and then moved off.

...*...*...*...*...

Mairi looked around the bar as she entered. It was dark as
usual, but clean, a lot cleaner than Uncle Edgar's usual fair. The seat
cushions weren't even taped! Wow, she thought looking around. There were
pictures on the wall and a real wood bar with brass railings. Glasses and
bottles were in racks behind the bar, with a big mirror. Wall screens were
around the room displaying null g sports. She snorted at the picture of a guy
wearing a plaid dress and carrying a purse with sticks sticking out of one end.
He even had one in his mouth! What the hell? She thought turning to get a
better look at it.