Drifter's Run Read online

  "Underneath the hull," Melissa replied, and pointed toward the deck.

  Lando nodded and performed a full roll to the left. When the tender came out of the roll she was right under a rectangle of bright light and moving forward at the same speed as the larger ship.

  "That was neat!" Melissa said enthusiastically. "Will you teach me to do that?"

  "Sure, if it's okay with your father," Lando replied, watching the screens to make sure the tender was centered in the larger vessel's hatch. Once it was properly positioned Lando used the vessel's repulsors to move up and inside Junk's sizable bay.

  It was well lit and large enough to haul some freight. One end was full of neatly stacked equipment, porta thrusters, auxiliary beam generators, and other tools of the towing trade. None showed any tendency to drift away, which confirmed an artificial gravity unit somewhere on board. Junk wasn't pretty but she was well equipped.

  Moving to the right Lando dropped the tender with a gentle thump.

  A few minutes later air had been pumped in to replace vacuum and they were free to leave the tender. Melissa scurried toward the lock. "Whoa," Lando said gently. "If you want to be a pilot someday you've got some work to do."

  Melissa looked confused and then her face cleared with sudden understanding. "Ooops! Sorry. 'The pilot is responsible for securing the ship's main power systems. These systems are automatic but shutdown should be verified.'" The words had a formal quality as if memorized from a manual.

  Lando nodded. The next few minutes were spent powering down, running through a series of routine diagnostic programs, and making the ship secure.

  When they were done Melissa looked at Lando questioningly, he nodded, and she rushed toward the lock. "Come on, Pik! I'll show you the ship!"

  "What about your father?" Lando asked as he released his harness. "Shouldn't we move him out of the tender?"

  "What for?" Melissa said pragmatically. "He's used to waking up in the tender."

  "Terrific," Lando mumbled to himself as he made his way to the tender's lock, "the slob is used to waking up in the tender."

  But Melissa didn't hear him because she was already outside the tender and skipping across the deck. As Lando stepped out of the lock and made his way down a short ladder he saw that someone had used some white hull paint to lay out a hopscotch diagram.

  Though marred by a few repulsor burns the diagram was otherwise quite serviceable. Melissa was busy hopping and jumping her way through it.

  Beyond her a tidy little speedster sat on shiny struts looking far too racy for Junk's utilitarian launch bay. It reminded Lando of his own speedster, a Nister Needle, little more than a drive unit with a cockpit strapped on top. The perfect ship for a smuggler. Small, fast, and hard to detect. The speedster, like the ship that carried it, had been left behind on Ithro.

  "What's the deal on the speedster?" Lando asked, nodding toward the little ship.

  Melissa shrugged and stooped to pick up the burned-out memory chip she used as a marker. "About a year ago we found a wrecked yacht and took her in tow. There was no one on board so she was ours fair and square. We sold the hull but kept some of the stuff on board including the speedster. I think we should sell it and use the money to overhaul the hydroponics tank."

  Melissa looked up and smiled. "Daddy says I'm right, but he likes to ride in the speedster every once in a while, so nothing seems to happen."

  Lando nodded. It fit the pattern. Captain Sorenson seemed to have a hard time seeing very far beyond his own needs.

  "Come on!" Melissa said, taking Lando by the arm and pulling him along. "Let's find Cy. He'll want to meet you."

  "Cy?" Lando inquired, allowing himself to be towed through a lock and into the ship's interior. "Who's he?"

  "Our engineer," Melissa replied happily. "And a good one too! Daddy says we're lucky to have him. Cy keeps everything up and running."

  That's when a silvery ball appeared at the far end of the corridor and zoomed toward them. Lando threw himself against the wall and reached for his slug thrower. It was halfway out of its holster when Melissa grabbed his wrist. "Don't shoot! That's Cy!"

  And just as Melissa spoke the silver ball came to a stop, hovered in front of them, and extruded a second vid pickup. Lando didn't know for sure but assumed the globe was equipped with some sort of fancy antigrav unit. "Hi, Mel. Who's this?"

  "Our new pilot," Melissa answered seriously. "His name is Pik Lando. Pik, this is Cy Borg, our chief engineer."

  "Their only engineer," Cy replied cheerfully, "but what the heck, with me around one is enough." There was a soft whirring noise and an articulated arm appeared.

  Much to his amazement Lando found himself reaching out to shake with a three-fingered metal hand. It was cold and very strong.

  "It's a pleasure, Cy. I hope you'll forgive my reaction. I had a run-in with an airborne robo-laser not long ago. It tried to slice, dice, and cook me for dinner."

  "Perfectly understandable," the silver globe said reassuringly. "Happens all the time. I'm used to it."

  "Cy had a body once," Melissa said soberly, "but he gambled it away."

  The metal sphere bobbed up and down in apparent agreement. "That's right… and the moral is?"

  "Don't gamble," Melissa replied automatically, "no matter what anyone says."

  "That's right," Cy said approvingly. "Being a brain in a box has some advantages… but not many." The cyborg spun toward Lando. "I sometimes wonder who's got the rest of me… and how they're doing."

  It was meant as a joke but Lando didn't laugh. Like most smugglers he'd spent a good deal of time in sleazy dives, rim-world saloons, and smoke-filled gambling dens. In some of them you could lose all your money, sell an arm or a leg, and keep on going. There was a good market for bio parts, and while most settled for one or two replaceable organs, some went all the way.

  Those who did ended up as brains floating in a bath of nutrient liquid. For such as those there was little choice, a life of total isolation within themselves, or continued existence as a cyborg. Most became cyborgs.

  Cyborgs came in all sorts of shapes and sizes, their forms frequently following function, and such was apparently the case with Cy. Though why he'd chosen to call himself Cy Borg, Lando couldn't imagine. Whatever the reason it didn't seem polite to ask.

  "So how long have you been with the ship, Cy?" Lando inquired. "I notice that she's in pretty good shape for a…" he almost said, "pile of junk," but looked at Melissa and thought better of it. "For a tug," Lando finished lamely.

  If Cy noticed, there was no sign of it in his cheerful response. "Well, thanks, Pik. I do my best. I guess I've been with Cap and Mel for a couple years now, ever since I ran into a little trouble on Joyo's Roid. She's a good ship, and now that we've got a pilot, I'll feel a whole lot better."

  The cyborg turned in Melissa's direction. "Where's your father? Sick again?"

  Melissa nodded. "You know how it is, Cy, I tried to stop him but he wouldn't listen."

  "That's okay," the metal sphere replied. "It's not your fault, Mel. You hear me? It's not your fault."

  "Sure, I hear you," Melissa replied easily. "It's not my fault. Hey, you wanta race me to the end of the corridor?"

  "Not right now, honey," Cy replied. "I've gotta repair the number four pressor housing before we break orbit. You know how your father is when he wakes up. 'All hands man your stations!' and that sort of stuff."

  Cy's vid pickup turned toward Lando. "Nice meeting you, Pik, welcome aboard, and let me know if there's anything I can do to help." And with that the cyborg used a jet of compressed air to squirt himself down the corridor.

  "Wanta race?" Melissa inquired, and took off toward the opposite end of the corridor without waiting for Lando's response.

  The smuggler followed along behind, marveling at her youthtul exuberance, and wondering what he'd gotten himselr into. First a ten-year-old business agent, then an alcoholic captain, and now a bodiless chief engineer. What next?

  Th
at's when the whoop of the ship's collision alarm sent Lando racing for the bridge.

  3

  Heart pounding and pulse racing Lando ran toward the lift tube. His boots made a thumping sound as they hit the metal deck and squares of light flashed by overhead. He caught up with and passed Melissa.

  Now the whoop of the collision alarm was overlaid by a stern-sounding male voice. "This ship is in imminent danger of collision. I repeat, this ship is in imminent danger of collision. Evasive action is required. I repeat, evasive action is required. The pilot or another responsible officer should report to the bridge. I repeat, the pilot or another responsible officer should report to the bridge."

  Lando skidded to a stop in front of a lift tube, slammed his hand against the white sensor plate, and jumped inside as a door hissed open. Eyes searched desperately for the emergency UP button. He found the red square, stabbed it with a stiff finger, and watched the door slide closed on Melissa's frightened face.

  The platform rose so quickly that Lando's knees buckled and his stomach felt as if it were being shoved down through the deck. A chime sounded as the platform came to a stop and the door hissed open.

  A bright green sign said "Control Room" and pointed to the right. As Lando left the lift tube and sprinted toward the center of the ship, he remembered the two pylons that connected the bridge to the vessel's hull. He'd come up through the center of the port pylon. There's nothing like learning your way around in the middle of a collision, Lando thought grimly.

  The control area was up ahead, a softly lit curvature of green, amber, and red lights, topped by a semicircular screen. The screen showed ten or twelve distinctly different pictures. Each one represented a vid-cam eye view of surrounding space. Five or six showed all or part of Snowball.

  But Lando didn't need the vid screens. The front, top, and sides of the bridge were entirely transparent. As a result he could see the problem with his naked eye. A vast darkness was inserting itself between Junk and Durna's sun. There was no mistaking the thing's silhouette. It was a ship, a big one, and damned close.

  As Lando dropped into the pilot's seat, he estimated the other ship was only one, maybe two hundred yards away and moving closer.

  There wasn't time to sequence the main drives. He decided to steal as much power as he could from the tiny fusion plant that ran the ship's environmental systems and feed it to the huge thrusters mounted along the starboard side. If he acted fast enough they might do the trick.

  Lando's fingers danced over the keys, redirected power to the lateral thrusters, and fired them. Nothing. Only a display that read "Provide voice sample to activate manual override."

  "Damn!" He was locked out of the control system!

  Meanwhile the collision alarm continued to whoop its warning and the computerized voice continued to order people around.

  But it was too late for that now. The other ship had blocked the sun and left only a nimbus of yellow light around its gigantic form. As it came closer Lando saw the name Hercules spelled out across its bow in green letters fifteen feet high. They flashed on and off like an advertisement for a ten-credit pleasure dome.

  And then, just when a collision seemed inevitable, and a scream had formed in Lando's throat, the other ship veered away. Moments later it was gone, leaving Lando's pulse pounding in his head, and the taste of bile in the back of his throat.

  Seconds later the collision alarm shut itself off and the synthesized voice stopped in midsentence. Lando was still in shock when a voice came from behind.

  "Who the hell are you? And what're you doing on my ship?"

  Lando swiveled his chair around and found himself face-to-face with Captain Ted Sorenson. He had bushy eyebrows, a long straight nose, and a tight thin-lipped mouth. His eyes were bright blue and nearly buried in deep cavernous sockets.

  The rest was tall and thin. An alcoholic's body, starved for nutrients and forced to expend large amounts of energy countering the poison that Sorenson pumped into it.

  "My name's Pik Lando," the smuggler replied, getting to his feet, "and I was trying to save your ship."

  "I hired him, Daddy," Melissa said desperately, stepping in from the side to tug at her father's arm. "You were sick, and Pik brought you back."

  Sorenson looked down at his daughter and his face underwent a sudden transformation. Hard lines turned soft, wrinkles disappeared, and his mouth turned upward in a smile. "You hired him? Well, good for you, honey. I can always count on my little business agent."

  Melissa glowed as her father stepped up to offer Lando his hand. His words were civil, but his eyes were stone-hard and formed a barricade between him and the universe.

  "Sorry, Lando, but that alarm scared hell out of me. What was it? A systems malfunction?" The captain's handshake was brisk and firm.

  "Nope," Lando replied evenly. "It was a ship, a big one, and damned close. It had the name Hercules printed across the port bow in letters fifteen feet high. I tried to move Junk out of the way but was locked out."

  Lando saw the other man's eyes narrow as if the name had some special meaning. "Hercules you say? You're sure of that?"

  "Yes. Why? Do you know her?"

  The other man shrugged thoughtfully. "Sure… everyone knows her. She belongs to Stellar Tug & Salvage. They like to give their tugs ancient 'H' names. You know, Hercules, Hebe, Hecuba, that sort of thing."

  "I see," Lando replied thoughtfully. "Looking back, the whole thing seems deliberate, as if they came that close to scare us or something. Is this Stellar Tug & Salvage outfit known for things like that?"

  "You bet they are," Melissa answered grimly. "They harass all the smaller operators. They want Daddy to quit, but he won't."

  The worshipful way in which Melissa looked up into her father's face made Lando realize that she'd made the transformation from adult back to little girl.

  Sorenson chuckled. "I'm not the hero my daughter makes me out to be. I'd cave in right now if I could afford to. But I can't, Junk's all we've got so we tough it out. Let's see what they have to say. Now that I'm here the controls should respond."

  Turning, Lando saw a message waiting light was blinking on and off. He touched it and watched as a com screen swirled to life. What he saw took some getting used to.

  It was a cyborg. Not a sphere like Cy, but a huge thing with a human head and a chrome body. The com screen cut the cyborg off at the waist, but Lando saw that its upper torso had been carefully sculpted into a work of art. A representation of the male form so extreme it verged on parody.

  As the cyborg moved its skin bulged with synthetic muscle, rippled over metallic bone, and shimmered with false life. Each rib was carefully defined, each muscle given its correct and proper size, each limb perfectly proportioned. The whole thing was a work of art, a living sculpture celebrating something lost, a terrible and endless sorrow.

  It smiled and a shiver ran down Lando's spine. There was something frightening about the blond hair, the Adonis-like face, the perfectly modulated voice.

  "Greetings, Captain Sorenson. I tried to speak with you face-to-face, but since you were undoubtedly drunk, this will have to do. You don't recognize me… but you may remember my name. It's Jord Willer, once second officer aboard the Star of Empire, and now captain of the tug Hercules.

  "It's been a long time since we dropped out of hyperspace into the middle of Durna's asteroid belt, hasn't it? Of course it probably seems longer to me, since I spent so much of it in hospitals.

  "But there I go, talking about myself when you're so much more interesting! In fact you're something of a legend around here, aren't you? The crazy old man who looks for the ship that isn't there. Well, guess what? I believe it's there, and when you find it, I'll be by to collect my share." And with that the com screen faded to black.

  Turning, Lando saw that Sorenson's face had turned ashen gray, as if his life force had suddenly drained away. When Sorenson spoke his voice was little more than a croak.

  "There's a load of robotic minin
g gear waiting in Orbit Level 4. Mel knows what to do. I'll be in my cabin." And he walked away.

  Lando watched Sorenson go with a certain amount of misgiving. What was this stuff about dropping out of hyperspace into the middle of Durna's asteroid belt? And Cap being drunk? And this guy named Willer spending years in the hospital? Holy Sol, if Willer's injuries were Sorenson's fault, then no wonder the cyborg was pissed! Pissed enough to want revenge. If so, the close call with the Hercules could be more than corporate intimidation, it might be a promise of things to come.

  But as unsettling as those thoughts were Lando had little time to worry about them because the next couple of days were extremely busy.

  They were standard days, and therefore shorter than Snowball's, but still a lot longer than Lando liked. His first task was to move Junk down to Orbit Level 4 (OL-4).

  Having been properly identified and coded into the ship's recognition system Lando found the controls quite responsive. Though somewhat hampered by his lack of familiarity with the ship's nonstandard systems, Lando found he had little difficulty dropping Junk into a lower orbit.

  Once Junk was established in OL-4 it was a relatively simple matter to match speeds with Utility Platform 63. That's when the real work began.

  Junk wasn't a real freighter and didn't have the sort of robotic equipment freighters normally use to load and unload cargo. That meant doing the job by hand, and given the size of Junk's crew, it was a two-day task.

  Donning a well-used but still serviceable set of space armor, Lando allowed Melissa to lead him into the lock, and out into the brightly lit launching bay.

  "Cap," as Captain Sorenson preferred to be called, and Cy were already there.

  Since Cy had his own supply of oxygen, and had his brain tissue safely tucked away inside a metal casing, he had no need of space armor. As a result the cyborg moved freely from atmosphere to vacuum with little or no inconvenience.

  Having spent the last hour or so securing various pieces of gear, and preparing the bay to receive cargo, Cy was taking a break. With the ship's argrav turned off to facilitate loading, the little cyborg was busy performing acrobatics and generally making a nuisance of himself.