The Privateer (10 page)

"Do not trouble yourself," she replied coldly. "Does this '1.5G' mean we will get there sooner?"

"Yes. We'll get there in less than 20 hours. But it will be very uncomfortable."

"Then go! Go!"

"Sit Down!" he roared. She dropped into the copilot's seat with a thump. Cale worked out the orbital data and delta vee requirements, entered them into the nav comp. Their bodies pressed back into the padded seats as the acceleration built. It steadied on 1.5G. Cale felt that was enough to get them there sooner, but would still allow them to move around when necessary.

Ruth struggled to breathe against the force compressing her chest. She had never experienced anything but the .96 gravity of Ararat, and panic was setting in. She gasped for air.

"Relax," Cale said in a gentler tone. "Don't fight it. Concentrate on breathing. That's it. In, out, in, out. That's it. And above all,
don't panic
!"

For the first time in her life, Ruth regretted not knowing any curse words. She fumed, but the simple act of breathing demanded so much attention that her anger faded. "How . . . long?" she forced out.

"About . . . 18 hours." She was pleased to note that his voice also sounded strained.

Several hours later, it took her over a minute to pry herself from the chair and struggle heavily to the 'fresher, moving hand over hand for fear of falling.

Finished, she gathered two of the self-heating space ration packets and worked her way back to the copilot's chair. She dropped into it with a painful grunt.

Cale tried to smile at her, but the acceleration's effect on his face turned it into a horrible rictus.

They traveled on in silence. Cale also made a struggling trip to the 'fresher, but except for the few moments when
L'rak
flipped over to begin deceleration, they merely sat in mutual discomfort, breathing hard and counting the seconds until that awful weight would lift.

Finally, it did lift, and they approached orbit around Torlon. From his previous visit, Cale knew that the space detection satellites were not functioning. When he hailed ground control, it took almost half an hour for the familiar raspy voice to respond. Since the landing grid also didn't work, calling ground control was mostly a courtesy. Cale simply did it out of habit.

He landed
L'rak
manually at the edge of Nabel's junkyard. The two tired, dirty travelers climbed out of the tiny cabin and stretched, breathing in huge, gusty sighs and luxuriating in the one G gravity field of the planet.

He was a bit surprised the old man didn't hear him land and come out, but after a few minutes, he shrugged and headed for Nabel's "office". There was no sign of Nabel, and Cale was beginning to get worried and suspicious. Had the pirates tracked him down? Had news of the price on his head reached here? Would he find only an ambush in the old warship/office?

He motioned Ruth to stand to one side, then went to the other, turned the knob and threw the door open. It banged against the hull, but there was no hail of pellets or blaster fire. Just a wave of stench and a querulous voice. "'Bout time ye got here!" Nabel said weakly. "I been waitin' fer ya fer a week!" The two visitors steeled themselves against the odor and entered the office.

They found Nabel propped in his float chair. A duramin rod was tied to his right thigh and leg with filthy rags. The overpowering smell testified that he had been sitting in his own feces, unable to get to the 'fresher in the next compartment of the old ship.

"What happened?" Cale asked as he forced himself to examine the crude splint.

"Talk about it outside," Ruth interrupted. "We have to get him out of here before anything else."

Cale nodded. "I'll find something we can use for a litter."

"Nah," the old man said. "Just gimme a hand up and let me lean on yer shoulder." Cale lifted the old man out of the chair and put his shoulder under Nabel's armpit. With Ruth stabilizing his left side, they made their way into the bright sunlight and out of the horrid stench. Cale found an old acceleration couch whose padding had not yet rotted away, and he jammed it into the ground. He hoisted Nabel into the improvised bed. "Okay, now what happened?"

Nabel grimaced. "Damned scaffold collapsed on me. M'right thigh's broken. I crawled over here to th' office. Lucky there was a survival water tin outside the hatch of that Epsilon tramp over there. I pushed it inta the office aheada me. Didn't get no food, though. I found the rod, stretched the thigh, an' splinted it. Been settin there ever since makin' bets with myself about whether you'd come back afore I starved."

Cale was puzzled. "Why us? I mean, you're on a planet. Why did no one come to find you? Why didn't you call for help?"

The old man chuckled. "Shit, Son, they ain't but about twenty folks left in Torlon City. They hate me an' I hate them. They pretty much leave me alone. An' the phone system ain't worked fer near ten years." He sobered as he shook his head. "Torlon's had it, boy. When I die, th' last spaceflight capability on Torlon will go away, and it'll go the way of Cutler's World."

Cale waved a hand. "What about those tramps over there on the field?"

"Hah!
I
put 'em there, boy. So's it'd look like Torlon was still an active port. But your ship was the first to ground here in half a year. Ain't been one here since you left, either. Did ya bring m'baby back to me?"

Cale nodded and started to speak, but Ruth interrupted. "Enough! This unfortunate man is injured and in pain. Noble sire," she asked Nabel, "Where might we find clean fresh water and a way to heat it?"

Nabel stared at Ruth as though seeing her for the first time. "Noble sire? I'd bet you'd be from . . . lessee . . . Ararat or Camelot, right? Damn if you ain't a purty thang."

Ruth winced inwardly at the old man’s swearing, but she smiled and nodded. "Ararat, noble sire."

Nabel looked at Cale. "I see why your mission was so urgent. Cain't blame ya none. I'da been in a hurry to get her, too!"

Both Cale and Ruth blushed and tried to stammer out denials at the same time, both trailing off as they heard the other speak.

Nabel just chuckled. "Then you're both damned fools. Th' water in the 'fresher in the office is good. The well goes through to bedrock. An' the galley works fer heatin'"

Cale nodded and set off. He found a bucket hanging from a rope outside the airlock of a DIN-class freighter hulk. He was still stiff from their high-G run, and yawning, but he got the water and heated it in the old corvette's tiny galley.

Between them they stripped off Nabel's filthy shipsuit and foul underwear, and Ruth calmly began cleaning the man up. She gave no indication that Nabel's nakedness bothered or offended her. She simply cleaned the dried urine and feces from the old man's skinny body in a calm and businesslike manner.

Then she turned her attention to his right thigh, gently touching and feeling the limits of the break. Finally, she sat back. "It is indeed broken, noble sire. May I offer my services? I am no healer, but I have set such for others in my village."

The hard lines of Nabel's face softened, as did his tone. "Yep. You're from Ararat, all right. Been there twice. The first time, by the time I figgered out their manners, I'd lost a deal. Second time was better." He paused, and a smile lit his face. "The manner of speech near drove me crazy, but I cain't say anyone ever tried to cheat me on Ararat. Thank ye, mistress. I'd be honored to accept your generous offer."

Cale gave the man a piece of thick leather to chew on, and then stretched the red, swollen leg. When Ruth felt the ends of the bone align, she replaced Nabel's makeshift splint with one from an emergency medical kit still aboard the DIN-class hulk. Cale rummaged through the med kit, hoping to find a nanobot kit, but he was disappointed.

Nabel shrugged. "They wouldn't have been any good by now, anyway. That ship's been here near twenty years." He brightened. "Say! If you can get me to th' orbital yard, I got an old Beta-class liner up there still powered up. I use it t'live in when I'm workin' up there. Which ain't often, any more. But she's got a real sickbay, with a regen tank. A few hours in there, an' I'll be right!"

L'rak
was too small to transport the three of them, and Cale flatly refused to leave Ruth behind on Torlon, even for a few hours. However, Nabel assured him that one of the tramps on the port pad still flew. He used it to ferry ship parts down from the orbital yard. It was filthy and cluttered, but it did fly, and carried them to the liner. Cale matched orbits with the ships' airlocks only a few meters apart.

Ruth complained when told she would have to remain on the tramp while the two men went onto the liner. "You can't wear a suit with that long hair. Besides, it would be criminal to put you in a spacesuit without any training. There are too many ways a suit can kill you." Cale responded. Her pleadings failed miserably. Cale was adamant, and Nabel backed him up.

They helped Nabel into a suit and the two men simply jumped across the three meters between the airlocks. The liner was shabby, but her life support functioned flawlessly, as did her AI, which greeted them as they boarded.

Nabel explained their mission, and in moments, a robot floatchair appeared to carry the old man to the sick bay.

"I am activating the sick bay and the regen tank," the AI informed them. "I have run diagnostics, and the med comp is completely functional. Nanobot support is also available if needed, though the nanobots are nearing their expiration date." The AI's voice was female, a warm, cultured contralto befitting the fine liner she had once been.

Cale returned to the tramp and a frantic Ruth. Nabel joined them three hours later, walking effortlessly, as though he had not just had a broken thighbone. They returned to the planet.

Nabel was in an expansive, talkative mood. "While I was sittin' there in my own shit for a week, I had a lot of time to think," he began. “Torlon is done. I've tried for thirty years to find a younker I could teach to take over the business, or just to learn to pilot. But them as were interested was drove off by the book learning it took, an' once the port traffic slowed down, people started driftin' away from Torlon City. Ain't but about twenty left. Most of 'em went off farmin' or somethin'."

"What about the man over in the port building? The comm tech?"

"Him? Pah. It just makes him feel important to carry the comm alarm around. I figger he'll get tired of carryin' it someday, an' Torlon's last contact with the rest of the galaxy will be lost.

"Anyway," he continued, "I'm done here. I'll buy
L'rak
back, 'cause I said I would, an' 'cause I just hate to give her up. But I'm gittin' outta here. I figger I'll just load up that old tramp with the best stuff I got, take your gold, and head off fer greener pastures."

Cale grinned. "You'd abandon your scrap empire, here?"

Nabel's answering grin was accompanied by an enthusiastic bobbing of his head. "Truth is, I been bringin' in the only hard currencies on the planet, and the people here are goin' back to barter. No profit in that fer me. Oh, they's a good market out there fer used ship parts, what with the loss of manufacturin' since the Fall. But this fall showed me I'm too old t'be climbin' around on scaffolds in gravity fields."

Finally, Cale thought, an opening. "If you're really going to abandon this place, do you mind if I do a bit of scavenging, myself?"

Nabel laughed aloud. "Son, you find anything here or in orbit you want, you can have it as the price of
L'rak
. I got a few operable ships left, if you want one. Tell ya what. I'll just transfer the title to the whole shebang to you. Oh, I expect once I leave these people will come in an’ steal anythin' down here not welded down. But there's still plenty a' good stuff in orbit."

Cale thought hard. No one would be able to track him to Torlon, and if they did, no one here except Nabel had really had contact with him. It might be useful to have a cache of ships and parts in orbit here. Call it a "bolt hole," a safe refuge in case the hounds got close. Nothing deteriorates in the vacuum of space, except radioactives, of course. Nabel had already posted a beacon proclaiming ownership of the orbiting junk and warning off trespassers. But chances are he could come back in fifty years, and that Beta-class liner would still be there to welcome him. Call it a private space station and space fleet. All for the price of two bars of gold.

"Done," he said, "but there're two things I'll need you to do for me. One is to help me ferry any operable ships here on-planet up to the orbital yard. Second, do you have papers on all your ships here? I'm particularly interested in that Stinger-class courier in the yard."

"That? Sure, I got all the papers on it. Had to keep 'em, in case somebody claimed it was theirs. I got papers on all of 'em."

Cale nodded. "Good. I want you to transfer ownership of that ship to me, officially, on the ship's papers. I also want you to cut out the hull plate with the ident info cast into it. We'll be welding it into place on my ship, once I bring it down. We'll hide the rest of the papers on one of the hulks in orbit. You never know what you might need some day."

Nabel's smile turned suspicious. Then his face cleared, and he waved a hand. "No, I don't want to know. Fer two bars a gold, I ain't askin' no questions.”

They wrestled a large file cabinet out of the depths of the old ship, and Nabel finally found the papers for
Cheetah
, the Stinger-class in the yard. They completed the formalities transferring
Cheetah
and the entire scrapyard business to Cale, and
L'rak
back to Nabel. They put the file cabinet full of ship's papers on an antigrav skid and moved it to the port landing pad, near the tramp they'd used, and Cale triggered the recall beacon for
Scorpion
, soon to be
Cheetah
.

Nabel's tramp was the only operable ship planetside, so no ferrying was required. Cale offered to help Nabel gather valuables and load the tramp, but Nabel declined. "Naw, I'm retired now. Got nothin' but time. They's no hurry. Might take a week, might take a month. It don't matter. I got nowhere to go, an' all the time in the world t'get there. Right now, I think I'll get started cuttin' out that hull plate."