The Bright Black Sea (3 page)

I continued, 'I am responsible to my owner, which, at
this point is the Ministry of Probate. I've received neither
authorization nor instructions from the Ministry, nor from Min
& Co to take on your cargo...'

'I can show you the radio-packets from Tallith Min
confirming the orders to transfer my cargo to the
Lost
Star
.'

'Oh, I believe you. But, I've no orders. Now as a
general rule I'm quite prepared to follow instructions from Min
& Co without such formality, but not in this case. I don't need
your cargo for Min's plan to work. And while I see the clear
advantage of only one of us going on to Calissant, I don't see any
reason why it has to be me.'

'I'll have Min send you orders to that effect.'

'I'm afraid I'm rather pressed for time.' And reached
out to touch the communicator field on the desktop, opened a line
to my first mate standing watch on the bridge. 'Illy, please advise
Riv and Eljor that we'll be leaving orbit within the hour.' I
closed the link and looked to Jann, 'I'm going to have to cut this
short, we're behind schedule and need to sail. You're welcome to
travel on to Calissant as my guest, Captain, but I'm sure you'd
rather travel aboard your own ship.'

'You wouldn't dare, Litang. It'll break you.'

'Maybe. Likely. No matter. Our crews are old tramp
hands. They know how planets spin and Night Hawk Line operates.
They'd know the
Comet King
could sail to Calissant just as
readily as the
Lost Star
. And they'd know you can't force me
to take on your blasted cargo. I'm not certain it's even within the
scope of Min & Co's operating authority. You can only try to
intimidate, but I've so little to lose I can't be intimidated.
You've no lift.'

'Listen, Litang,' he growled rising to his feet and
leaning over the desk, not that it was any obstacle in free fall.
'I don't give a damn what your shipmates think and neither should
you. I'm the one you don't want to cross. You don't want to cross
me.'

'Blast away,' I fired back. Then more pleasantly
added, 'Really, Captain, you've tried your line and failed to make
orbit. Roles reversed, I may've tried the same line myself. No hard
feelings. However, I don't need the ghost of Captain Miccall
standing over my shoulder to tell me how you and he would've
settled this. I won't settle for anything less.'

He stood glaring down at me for several very long
seconds, giving me the impression he was weighing his chances of
getting away with murder.

Finally he growled, 'Get them out.'

I let out my breath.

Pinelea orbit, 194 days out of Calissant orbit.

'Have it, Tilli,' I radioed, as I felt the cargo
crane latch on to the shipping container. A green light on the
console confirmed it.

'It's yours,' replied Tilli, releasing the container
from the lighter's cargo arm and clearing the last red light.

We were over the night side of Pinelea, its cities
glowing jewels in the velvet darkness beneath us. Through the
clearsteel dome of the raised cargo tower I could see Tilli's
lighter, bright in our flood lights, hanging in space above no.1
hold. It was a standard two box lighter, a stubby, delta winged
craft with wingtip rocket engines designed to ferry two 4x4x24meter
shipping containers between surface and orbit. She'd pushed the
container out of the lighter's rear cargo doors and it now hung at
the end of the spider-like cargo crane between the lighter and the
ship. I carefully drew the container away from the lighter.

'You're clear.'

'Right. That's all I have for you,' she replied as
the rear cargo doors of the lighter swung closed.

She'd just delivered the last of only five containers
waiting for us on Pinelea, the Azminn system's most populous
planet. Given the current shipping rates the boxes wouldn't cover
their share of rocket fuel so I wasn't too disappointed.
Still...

'Ah, Til, can't you find a few more in the warehouse
to bring up? Five boxes aren't going to have me swinging back
around anytime soon. How will you get by without me?'

'Sorry, It's damn hollow downside at the moment. And
I've other customers. I'll get by.'

'But I'll wager none of them are acting captains, my
dear.'

'None of them are acting captains...' she laughed,
adding, 'Still, five boxes are nothing to sneer at these days. Not
that you seem to need them,
Captain
Litang. I haven't seen a
tramp with so many boxes for ages. Even the liners are running half
empty.'

'I'm good. But I'd be sadly misleading you if I
didn't mention that Jann of the
Comet King
sent along his
boxes with me.'

'He did, did he? That was nice of him. How many?'

'Forty-seven,' I admitted.

She whistled. 'He sent forty-seven boxes with you?
That's not a cargo to sneer at these days. Why'd he give 'em to
you? Knowing Jann, I doubt it was out of the kindness of his
heart.'

'It wasn't out of the kindness of his heart, I can
assure you!' I laughed.

'You have me curious. What's the yarn Wil? There's
nothing waiting for me downside.'

'Well, with the death of Hawker Vinden, Calissant's
Ministry of Death is now our acting owners...'

'Aye, I heard that somewhere.'

'Have you heard that the Ministry is laying up all
Vinden's ships as they returned to Calissant?'

'A lot of tramps being laid up, that's not
surprising.'

'Aye. But with the Ministry of Death it's simply a
matter of policy. Profitable ships, unprofitable ships, it doesn't
matter – pay'em off and lay'em up.'

'So Jann wasn't ready for the beach and he handed
them off to you. I can see that clear enough. Where I'm in the
drifts is why you'd take them. Unless it's out of the kindness of
your heart.'

'Oh, I'm very soft hearted, Til, but not that soft in
the head. But it wasn't just Jann's idea, or at least wasn't his
alone. It came down from Tallith Min, of Min & Co, who the
Ministry employs to manage us, and I suppose my boss. So you see, I
found myself between the Black Star and a quantum storm. There was
a way out, though, because they were a bit too clever. I'd not been
sent a direct order to take Jann's cargo, no doubt fearing that
radio-packet might've somehow ended up arriving garbled or too
late...' I said 'So I told him no way I was taking on his
Neb-blasted boxes.'

'And he barked and you changed your mined.'

'Ah, Til, do you really think I'm that newly
hatched?'

'Seeing that you arrived with forty-seven of Jann's
boxes. I might be forgiven for thinking so.'

'Well, it's not the case. He growled and barked about
following orders, being loyal and thinking about my future in the
trade.'

'And you gave in.'

'No. You see, I knew how it would've been settled it
if Captain Miccall was alive and I wasn't about to settle for less.
With no direct orders, I'd have gone on to Calissant without his
boxes and damn the consequences. But what I really wanted was a
chance to keep the
Lost Star
out of Calissant orbit.'

'Oh, my, Wil. I hadn't realized that a star badge
could make a lorelion of a little grey shipmouse.'

'Oh, that badge makes a difference, but in this case
is wasn't a matter of turning a shipmouse into a lorelion. I knew
if I let Jann bully me into cutting my own throat and word got
around, I'd be beneath contempt in the tramp trade. However angry
Jann was, and he was very angry, he'd break me, just as readily for
just accepting his boxes as he would for refusing them.'

'And yet somehow, you ended up with his boxes.'

'That we can blame on a three of stars. Seeing that I
wasn't to be intimidated, Jann, the loyal Night Hawk Line skipper,
reluctantly offered to cut cards to determine which ship would go
on to Calissant. Which, as I said, he'd have done out of hand with
Captain Miccall.'

'Hence the three of stars.'

'Exactly. We now had our chance to avoid the beach.
So we gathered the crew on the awning deck and set up a com link to
the
Comet King
so everyone could witness the cut to see
everything was on the level. I cut my three of stars and Jann cut a
twelve of comets.

'Jann gruffly ordered
us
to
close with the
Comet King
and we worked non-stop for the
better part of a day and a half transferring those blasted boxes
ship to ship. And that, my dear Til, is how I came to have Jann's
forty-seven boxes. The moral being, don't cut a three of
stars.'

'I'd say you're lucky Jann gave in. Both he and Min
would've had their plasma knives out for you if you'd just gone on
in, tossing a spanner into their plan.'

'Maybe, well probably. Jann's still not happy about
it and how Tallith Min will take it is anyone's guess, though I'll
know soon enough.'

'Ever find out how he ended up with forty-seven boxes
for Pinelea and Calissant?'

I laughed. 'There never seemed a good time to ask. I
didn't want to make an enemy of Jann.'

'You've a strange way of forging friendships,' she
laughed. 'Well, I imagine you're eager to make a new one on
Calissant, so I'd best not keep you a'yarning. Hope your orbits are
clear.'

'Thanks Til. Until our orbits cross again, whenever
that'll be, fair orbits.'

'Fair orbits, Captain Litang,' the last with a
laugh.

And with that the steering rockets and the big wing
rockets of Tilli's lighter flared, sending the lighter outwards in
a shallow arc and plunging downwards for Pinelea and I was very
much alone.

Well, the box dangling on the end of the cargo crane
wasn't going to stow itself – though it would've eleven thousand
years ago, before the sentient machines went on strike and eventual
exile in the inner drifts, free to do what sentient machines do.
Since the Unity Charter not only limits machine intelligence to a
level well short of self-awareness but requires active human
participation in every operation. So, if I wanted to clear Pinelea,
I'd best see to stowing that last box.

Using the control levers with a neurological link to
the crane's sensors by the com link I wore on my wrist, I swung the
box into position and guided it into its slot in the hold –
operating the crane on the macro level with the manual controls
while the crane's sensors and the ship's computer did the micro
level adjustments preventing me from making a hash of it.

Containers are stored on end, locked on a movable
docking bar at the bottom of the hold, which provides a sensor link
and power to the boxes. Each box has its own environmental unit to
keep its contents within the content's specified limits. I locked
the box down, braced the hold's containers, lowered the crane and
folded the hatch covers over the holds.

I paused for a moment before lowering the cargo tower
to admire 'my' ship. We'd swung around to the day side by this time
and the scarred hull glowed rusty, formerly ruby red, having been
sanded thin and dull by centuries of plying the Nine Star Nebula.
The low angle of the sunlight showed every dent, ding and patch
starkly in its warm glare, the badges of the centuries knocking
around the Nine Star Nebula's gas, dust, and debris filled
space.

The
Lost Star
is a small enclosed-hold cargo
liner designed primarily for service on low volume interplanetary
runs but with its enclosed holds and heavily reinforced bow and
stern, can sail anywhere within the Nine Star Nebula. She's not an
elegant ship – a stubby dagger, 220 meters long with 56 x32 meters
lens-like cross section – carrying 144 standard shipping containers
in three hard vacuum holds. Since the ship's not designed for orbit
to orbit service, cargo is brought up by lighters and stowed by the
ship's two cargo cranes. The hydrogen fuel tanks are packed ahead
and alongside the main cargo hold.

Below the three main holds is a four box atmospheric
hold, which, in all my years aboard has only been used as the
ship's attic and a playing field. Below that are the five crew
decks housing the ship's accommodations, control, engineering
facilities. Since she was originally fitted with 12 passenger
suites, a passenger deck and quarters for a crew of 20 she's a
roomy ship as a tramp with my present crew of 11 (slightly
understaffed).

Below the crew section is the engine room – a
mechanical jungle of catwalks, struts, fusion piles, generators,
environmental machinery, and fuel pumps serving one large main
plasma rocket engine and eight smaller ones. The engines, like the
hull, are constructed of D-matter, designed materials, artificially
designed matter capable of withstanding thermal and electromagnetic
energy far beyond the ability of naturally occurring matter.

Two sheltered boat decks on each side of the crew and
engine room hull house a 17 meter long boat and a 14 meter gig with
room for several more. The ship's two gangplanks are located at the
after end of the boat decks and beyond them are the launch tubes,
our anti-meteor/defense missiles.

Sensor bars can be extended from both the upper and
lower hulls housing radar, laser radar, radio, cameras and other
sensors and aft of them are the ships's heat exchangers to remove
heat generated within a ship sheathed in a perfectly insulated
hull. Finally, the rocket tubes right aft.

Enough. It's past time for this narrative and this
ship to get underway.

I lowered the cargo tower into the hull and stepped
out onto a small platform in No. 4 hold. The deck was 12 meters on
my left, with a bulkhead at my feet. Being in free fall I simply
walked down the bulkhead with my magnetic boots and swung myself
around when I reached the deck. I crossed the hold to the main
access well set between two strongrooms. The access well is an open
shaft to the engine room control platform five decks below
surrounded by a semi-circle of stairs. It's the fastest way to move
between decks in free fall. (It's even faster when under power, but
the landing's unpleasant, hence the stairs.)