Drifter (8 page)

Wendy breathed the beauty in and let it fill her soul. "Thank you."

Lando smiled. "For what?"

"For everything. For crashing through that door on the chance that I was in trouble, for nursing me back to health, and for bringing me here. Now I'll have good memories to balance out the bad."

Lando looked into her eyes and found himself drawn to the softness there. The hamper fell from his grasp to the ground. Their lips touched. The kiss was tentative at first, but the awkwardness soon passed.

Hands touched, bodies met, and hearts beat a little faster. It was Wendy who pulled Lando down towards the grass.

Lying there beside Wendy, his hand cupping a well-shaped breast, Lando brushed her lips with his. "Are you sure?"

Wendy smiled, one of her hands slipping down the front of the smuggler's body. "Yes, I'm sure."

Lando grinned. "It's not against your religion?"

Wendy laughed. "Of course not. Just shut up and take advantage of me. Watch my chest though… it's still a little sore."

Lando opened Wendy's shirt one closure at a time. "Guess what? Your chest looks fine."

Wendy raised an eyebrow.
The Tinker's Damn
was in hyper-space and had been for hours. They were seated in the ship's miniscule lounge. "Wait a minute. I thought you said it was my problem."

Lando grinned over his coffee cup. "I changed my mind."

Wendy did her best to look stern. "Oh? And why was that?"

"Because if I get the concentrate past the company's ships,

and down to Angel's surface, I'll be able to spend more time with you."

Wendy laughed. "Nicely put! Realizing of course that your idea of spending time with me involves more than friendly conversation. So what's the plan? Remembering that violence is out."

"Well," Lando answered lightly, "while you were lying around the hotel room sleeping, I did some research. It seems that Mega-Metals runs a highly automated shipping operation. Rather than pay the higher costs associated with crewed ships the company runs a fleet of automated cargo carriers."

Wendy nodded her agreement. "That's true. They're cheaper to operate and carry larger payloads to boot. The company still charges us an arm and a leg, though. But so what? How does that help us?

Lando took a sip of coffee. "Answer the following question first. You indicated that your supplies arrive via Mega-Metals hulls. Does the company search your cargo prior to landing?"

Wendy shook her head. "No, that's done at the other end. The company's security police search our supply modules before they're loaded aboard. The company claims that they're looking for contraband, but the truth is that they're checking to see what we're up to. By analyzing what we import, they can tell which crops are doing well, which aren't, and where to put more pressure on us."

"So," Lando concluded, "it's fair to say that whatever cargo comes off the carrier is taken at face value?"

Wendy's face lit up with sudden understanding. "I get it! Somewhere between Earth orbit and Angel we load the concentrate aboard their own ship! The vessel arrives, and they bring the fertilizer dirtside along with everything else. Not only that, they deliver it right to our front door! It's brilliant!"

"Maybe," Lando said thoughtfully, "and maybe not. The timing would be absolutely critical. There's no way to locate, much less board, another ship in hyperspace. That means the cargo would have to be loaded just prior to, or just after the jump. Not only that, there's the matter of available space. Would there be enough room for the concentrate?"

"Yes, sometimes," Wendy answered eagerly. "The company man, a rather unpleasant individual named Lorenzo Pal, gripes about partially loaded supply ships all the time. They lower his profit margin. But there's no way to be sure that we'd get one.

"As for the other problem, well, that's a good deal more difficult. Tugs escort the carriers out from Terra and stand by until they enter hyperspace."

Lando nodded. "So it would be impossible to load the concentrate prior to the hyperspace jump. What about afterwards? Are tugs waiting at the other end?"

Wendy bit her lower lip. It was a nice lower lip, and something about the way it moved caused Lando to think about other activities. He forced himself back on track.

"No, I don't think so. We don't get much pirate activity around Angel, and the tugs are kept pretty busy, so Pal allows the carriers to drift for a while."

"How long would that be?"

Wendy shrugged. "It's hard to say exactly. Hours at least, days at most."

Lando gave it some thought. For the scam to work, they'd have to match speeds with the carrier, land on it, crack the company's security code, fine a place to stash the additional cargo module, shift the concentrate from
The Tink's
hold to the larger vessel, secure it, and escape. All without leaving any sign of their visit. Not an easy task. Still, it would be one helluva scam, and might even impress his father.

Lando thought about the problem for a moment longer, and then raised his cup. "To a first-class scam. Let's hope it works."

6

Lando glanced at Wendy, saw that she was absorbed in a medical text, and slid out from behind the table. He walked the few short steps to the cockpit, dropped into the command chair, and checked the ship's sensors. Nothing. Not too surprising, since a buzzer would sound if a ship came near.

Lando swore softly and wiped the sweat from his forehead. The main drives were shut down to avoid the possibility of detection. The result was an unusual amount of heat buildup, less than optimum air-recycling, and a shortage of water.

Three standard days had passed with no results. How long would it take for a cargo carrier to appear? A day? A week? A month?

Things had gone pretty well up till now. Sex is fun, and done properly, takes lots of time. But even that wears thin eventually. Both wanted to talk, to share more than their bodies, but were afraid to actually do so. They were very different people. What if they disagreed? Became angry? Had a fight? No, it seemed safer to stay with what they had. And what they had was a lot of time to kill.

Lando decided to wait a bit longer. One more day. If the cargo carrier didn't show up within one standard day, they'd call the whole thing off and try something else.

The smuggler got up, made his way back to his cabin, and stretched out on the bunk. Maybe some shut-eye would make the time pass more quickly.

The harsh sound of a buzzer brought Lando up and out of a shallow sleep. He rolled off the bunk, pulled the curtains aside, and slipped into the cockpit.

Wendy had heard the buzzer as well, and arrived a few seconds later. She wore short-shorts and a sweat-stained halter top. "Is that what we hope it is?"

Lando activated the ship's tac tank. A star system appeared, complete with color-coded planets, a yellow-white sun, a green dot that represented
The Tinker's Damn,
and a red delta that symbolized the incoming vessel. The ship had dropped in-system about halfway between Angel and the sun.

Words appeared beneath the red delta. SHIP. TYPE UNDETERMINED.

"It's hard to tell," Lando replied. "It's too far away. We'll have to wait."

Time passed slowly, but the incoming object was following the right track, and decelerating all the way.

Then, when the object was only a few hundred thousand miles away, a radio beacon came on. It made an intermittent beeping sound, and according to
The Tink's
sensors, was easing into an orbit around Angel's sun. It had to be a cargo carrier. A crewed ship would keep on going.

The tac tank confirmed Lando's theory with the words: SHIP. CARGO CARRIER. TYPE TM49021. REGISTRY: TERRA/MEGA-METALS HN30-78965.

"That's our baby," Lando said happily. "Let's get to work."

Lando fired the drives, felt the temperature begin to drop, and imagined that he could taste the additional oxygen in the air. Now came the challenge. To match speeds, transfer the concentrate, and escape without detection.

Like most NAVCOMPs
The Tink's
would accept instructions via voice or keyboard. Lando preferred the keyboard except for rare emergencies. It gave him a feeling of direct control.

He typed some instructions into the NAVCOMP and watched the distance between the green dot and the red delta start to shrink. He scanned the tac tank. No tugs or other vessels on their way to retrieve the carrier. Good.

The next few hours passed with agonizing slowness. First came a long period of acceleration followed by an equally long period of deceleration. But finally, after what seemed like an eternity, the waiting was over and the cargo carrier appeared on Lando's viewscreens.

The carrier was little more than a gleam of light at first, but it quickly took on shape and size, and became a long rectangular box. Each corner of the hull was marked by a flashing beacon.

Knowing that the cargo carrier would never be called upon to negotiate a planetary atmosphere, the tech types had been free to ignore aerodynamic design. And, while the resulting shape brought joy to the hearts of Mega-Metal's accountants, it had none of the streamlined grace common to smaller vessels.

No, the box-shaped hull reflected the cargoes it would carry, and nothing more. Standard-sized cargo modules on the journey out, and raw ore on the return. Both would fit into the cargo carrier's hull with a minimum of wasted space.

The smuggler's fingers flew across the control panel, giving the NAVCOMP some necessary freedom, but reserving the right to override the computer's decisions.

While nothing less than a computer could guide a ship from system to system, there were times when facts weren't enough and intuition came into play. Although most NAVCOMPs were self-programming, and could acquire experience, they did make mistakes about
which
experiences to retain.

Most computers had a tendency to collect information around orthodox problems and accepted solutions. A tendency that made them somewhat less than useful when sentients decided to do something unusual, such as landing one ship on another.

Unusual for
The Tink
that is, not for the company's supply shuttles, which landed on cargo carriers all the time. Their computers knew what
The Tink's
didn't.

A double row of white landing lights came on and rippled the length of the ship. The letters M-E-G-A-M-E-T-A-L-S had been stenciled lengthwise along the hull, and a green X marked the landing zone.

Lando's heart tried to beat its way out of his chest. Was someone aboard? It was possible. There were emergency crew quarters on some cargo carriers. Had a tech type come along for the ride? Had they mistaken
The Tink
for one of the company's tugs and activated the landing lights? Should Lando abort the landing and run like hell?

No, wait a minute. They'd be on the comset by now. "Hi there, it's about time you showed up," or something like that.

Lando scanned the most commonly used radio frequencies,

just to make sure. Nothing. The most obvious explanation was best.

The cargo carrier's NAVCOMP sensors had detected another ship's presence and assumed that it would land. After all,
The Tink
was the approximate size and shape of a medium-sized tug. Lando released a long slow breath.

The Tink's
NAVCOMP made its approach, disapproved of the landing zone, and started to abort. Lando switched the computer to standby and took control.

The cargo carrier was closer now, and Lando could see that the landing path was more like a channel than a flat surface. It had thick raised sides with nothing at either end.

The sides were far from empty, though. They contained cargo-handling equipment, a variety of ship's systems, and yes, the emergency crew quarters. An area that held increasing interest for him.

The ship jerked slightly and the larger ship rose with alarming speed. Wendy closed her eyes.

Lando cut power to the main drives, fired the ship's retros, and used steering jets to push
The Tink
towards the carrier.

Wendy opened her eyes and saw lights flashing by. The freighter skimmed only feet above the carrier's durasteel skin. The raised sides were only feet away from
The Tink's
stubby wings.

Then, just when it seemed certain that
The Tink
would zip through the landing zone and shoot off into space, the lights slowed to little more than a crawl. There was a gentle thump as Lando put the ship down at the very center of the green X and activated the electromagnets built into the ship's landing jacks.

Wendy let out a sigh of relief. "That was something to see… and I never want to see it again!"

Lando released his harness and laughed nervously. "Thanks. I think. So much for problem Number One. Now for problem Number Two."

"Which is?"

"Which is breaking and entering," Lando replied, getting up from his seat. "With the emphasis on 'entering.' Breakage could cause problems. We don't want the company to know that we've been here."

Wendy released her harness and also stood up. "Won't the carrier's NAVCOMP tell them that we landed?"