Drifter's Run (2 page)

A time and place for interviews followed.

Seeing no specific prohibition against smugglers, Lando stabbed the button labeled "Print," and waited while a sheet of plastic fax whirred from the side of the terminal.

A tug wasn't Lando's idea of heaven, but it beat the heck out of the other three possibilities.

As Lando turned away a birdlike Finthian stepped in to take his place.

A close reading of the printout revealed that Lando had two hours to kill prior to the first scheduled interview. He used it to obtain a blister pak full of pain tabs, a sandwich filled with tasty vegetables, and a quick shower. It took five of his remaining credits but was worth it.

Showered, shaved, and dressed in his second ship-suit Lando felt and looked much better. "Show people what they want to see, son," his father had always said, "and they'll hear what you have to say."

It took a half hour to make the trip from the public showers to a middle-of-the-road hotel called the Starman's Inn, identify himself at the front desk, and drop to level four. According to the desk clerk Captain Sorenson occupied Suite 437.

Eyeing the doors, Lando watched the numbers get larger, 433, 435, and, yes, 437. As Lando approached, the door opened and a man stepped out.

He was tall, thin, and stooped over, as if years in small ships had somehow compressed him. There were no eyebrows over his bright blue eyes.

The man shook his head. "Don't waste your time, lad. You'd do better humping cargo or swabbing decks."

Lando had questions, lots of them, but by the time he had them ready the man was already halfway down the corridor and headed for the lift tubes.

Lando shrugged. Chances were the man was right, but what the heck, he could always say no.

Lando touched the door and heard a distant chime. "Come in!" The voice was faint and surprisingly childlike.

Lando pushed the door open and stepped inside. The suite was comfortable but not plush. The sort of quarters favored by traveling salesmen and tourists on a budget.

The walls were tuned to a pattern of rather amorphous blue bubbles that appeared from under the floor and floated slowly upward to disappear beyond the ceiling.

A thousand feet had worn a path toward a low arch and the bedroom beyond. The sitting room boasted a beat-up power lounge, a stained couch, and a small desk.

A little girl sat behind the desk and watched Lando with big solemn eyes.

He didn't know much about children, but Lando guessed the girl was nine or ten years old. She had brown-blond hair, an upturned nose, and a round face. She spoke with great care, like an actress reciting lines.

"Welcome. My name is Melissa Sorenson. Are you here to apply for the position of pilot?"

Lando nodded. "Yes. Is Captain Sorenson in?"

Melissa Sorenson bit her lip, seemed to realize it, and stopped.

"No, I'm afraid my father is sick right now, but I'd be happy to take your application. Would you care to sit down?"

Lando was starting to have real misgivings, but the little girl Was so earnest, so serious, that he couldn't bring himself to walk out. It might hurt her feelings.

He sat on the power lounge. It groaned, creaked, and whined into an upright position.

"Now," the little girl said, consulting the portacomp in front of her, "I'd like to ask you some questions."

"Shoot," Lando replied, and mentally prepared himself for a play-pretend interview. No wonder the man left. This was absurd.

"Imagine that you are the pilot of a Hexon Class IV gas transport. You've just dropped out of hyperspace in the vicinity of a white dwarf. The NAVCOMP activates your standard drives but both drop off-line. Your board is green, the NAVCOMP claims everything's A-okay, and the chief engineer is completely mystified. What do you do?"

Lando was only a few words into his answer when he began to sweat. The question seemed simple enough, but in order to answer it, he'd have to demonstrate a working knowledge of that particular make of ship, the drives it had, and the standard diagnostic procedures for a green-board power failure.

Since the board was green, and the chief engineer was mystified, chances were that the NAVCOMP had malfunctioned and the drives were okay. But there were other possibilities too, and in order to provide the little girl with a complete answer, Lando would be forced to deal with those as well.

It took Lando fifteen minutes to answer the first question. The second, third, fourth, and fifth took even longer, as did the sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth.

By the time Lando had finished the tenth question he'd been in Suite 437 for more than three hours. He was exhausted and Melissa Sorenson was fresh as a daisy. Not only that, but Lando was fairly sure that she'd understood all of his answers, and found some of them inadequate.

Whatever Melissa's reaction she typed it into the portacomp with more than average skill. After a minute or two the girl stopped typing and looked up. "Your name?"

For a moment Lando debated the merits of using his name versus an alias. In the technical sense he was wanted on Ithro, and only Ithro, although bounty hunters could follow him anywhere.

So, it probably made sense to use another name, but there was something about Melissa's trusting eyes that made it hard to lie. "My name's Pik Lando."

Melissa nodded, typed the information into her portacomp, and asked a routine series of questions. World of origin, next of kin, and so forth. For the most part Lando told the truth.

When she was done the girl straightened up as if to make herself bigger. "When can you start?"

Lando raised his eyebrows in surprise. "You're making me an offer?"

The girl was suddenly crestfallen. Her lower lip began to tremble. "You don't want the job?"

Suddenly on the defensive, Lando held up a hand. "No, no, I didn't say that. I just wondered if you should consult with your father or something."

All signs of concern vanished from Melissa's face. "Oh, no, Daddy always goes along with my decisions, he calls me his little business agent." She smiled brightly.

Lando sighed. Great. A deep-space tug with a ten-year-old girl as its business agent. On the other hand, anything that made him hard to find was a plus right now, and a tug could be just the ticket.

He forced a smile. "I see. Tell me, Ms. Sorenson…"

"Everyone calls me Melissa. Except Daddy that is. He calls me Mel."

"Thanks. My friends call me Pik. Tell me, Melissa, if I accept the job, where's the ship headed?"

The girl looked thoughtful. "That's hard to say, Pik. Daddy works this system mostly, but we'll go anywhere if the price is right, and the big companies let us. Daddy will find something. He always does."

Lando nodded understandingly. Well, what the hell. Anywhere was better than here. And even if it wasn't he could always quit, and go to work for someone else.

He smiled. "Okay, Melissa, you've got yourself a pilot. And in answer to your original question, I can start right now."

Melissa's face lit up with happiness. "Really? That's wonderful, Pik. Now, if you'll thumbprint this contract, we'll be all set."

Suddenly Lando found himself holding a neat-looking printout, six pages of printout to be exact, single-spaced and full of legal jargon.

Skimming through the contract, Lando saw all the usual responsibility, liability, and damage clauses, along with two other paragraphs of special interest.

One granted him a slightly substandard salary, with the promise of a "ten percent share of any salvage that said company might realize during the lifetime of the contract," and the other obligated him to "Sorenson Tug & Salvage for a minimum of six standard months, or until injury, dismemberment, or death renders the incumbent unable to carry out his/her duties."

The wording seemed slightly redundant but Lando got the idea. It was a good contract, good for Sorenson Tug & Salvage that is, and it caused Lando to eye Melissa suspiciously.

But her cute little face was absolutely free from any hint of guile, sharp dealing, or subterfuge. For one fleeting moment Lando considered asking for more money, but it didn't seem fair to lean on a ten-year-old girl, so he let it go.

Lando signed by pressing his thumb against the lower right-hand corner of the contract, accepted his copy, and watched the original disappear into a small case along with Melissa's portacomp.

The girl was organized, you had to give her that.

Melissa looked up and smiled. "Do you need to collect your gear or something?"

"Nope," Lando replied, "everything I need is all right there." He gestured toward the suitcase that he'd left by the door.

An adult might have questioned the single bag, or the fact that Lando had it with him, but not Melissa.

Like most children she took adult activities at face value, unless they had something to do with business, in which case Melissa assumed they were lying. Except for the ones who underestimated her abilities… and they deserved whatever they got.

Melissa moved on to the next problem. "Good. In that case I'll call for a robo-porter."

"A robo-porter?" Lando asked, looking around the room. "What for? Have you got lots of luggage or something?"

Melissa giggled. "Heavens no! I travel light. It's for Daddy. The spaceport's quite a ways from here… and Daddy's too heavy for me to carry."

"Too heavy for you to carry…" Lando said suspiciously. "What's wrong with him? Where is he?"

Melissa put a finger to her lips and motioned for Lando to follow. Together they tiptoed into the bedroom. The walls were dimmed to near darkness but Lando had no difficulty seeing a man sprawled across the bed.

Moving in closer, Melissa patted the man's shoulder protectively and looked up into Lando"s face. There was something sad about her expression.

"This is my daddy. He's sick, but he'll wake up in two or three hours."

Lando felt a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach as his eyes confirmed what his nose already told him. Melissa's father, Captain Ted Sorenson, wasn't sick. Not in the usual sense anyway. He was dead drunk.

2

It took more than two hours to load Captain Sorenson's unconscious form aboard the robo-porter, cover it with a blanket, and make their way up to the moon's surface.

Lando had expected a certain amount of attention. After all, the combination of a man, a little girl, and what appeared to be a dead body should turn a few heads, and would have anywhere else.

But most of those who lived in the moon station saw stranger sights every day, and besides, they had other things to worry about. Like making enough credits to go somewhere else.

The robo-porter was little more than a beat-up metal platform with a drive mechanism and a low order processor. Having accepted a load, the robo-porter would electronically imprint on its customer, and follow until released.

Nice in theory, but their particular machine had some sort of processing dysfunction, and followed anyone of Lando's approximate size and shape. As a result it had a tiresome tendency to carry its unconscious passenger off in unpredictable directions.

Each time they chased the robo-porter down Lando was forced to stand in front of the machine, recycle its imprint function, and start all over. That, plus a screeching drive wheel, was just about to drive Lando crazy when Melissa found a solution.

The robo-porter had just followed a tall willowy naval lieutenant down a side corridor, when Melissa called, "Hey, Pik! Wait a minute! I think I've got the answer."

Taking Lando's place in front of the robo-porter's eye, Melissa recycled the imprint function, and led the device away. Ten minutes and a whole series of twists and turns later, the machine was still with them.

"It's 'cause I'm smaller," Melissa explained cheerfully. "There aren't very many kids around here, so there's less chance of a screwup."

About fifteen minutes later they left a lift tube and entered a large open space. A transparent dome curved up and over their heads. The planet Snowball hung suspended above them. It seemed ready to fall at any moment.

Lando assured himself that it wouldn't happen. And given the laws of physics, the moon wouldn't fall on Snowball either.

The planet had a slightly pink albedo and a surface temperature of -290 degrees F.

The atmosphere was too thick to see through, but Lando knew most of the planet's surface was covered with oceans of ethane, ebbing and flowing around occasional islands of ice.

Just great for the robotic gas scoops that cruised the planet's surface but not very good for people. They stayed on the moon.

The dome's floor was part passenger terminal and part warehouse. All sorts of sentients came and went. Lando saw humans, Finthians, Zords, Lakorians, and a few aliens he couldn't name, all going about their various chores.

Meanwhile hundreds of machines rolled, whirred, hissed, rumbled, and creaked their way through the crowd.

There were lowboys stacked high with cargo modules, tall mincing auto loaders stepping over and around sentients and machines alike, and short multi-armed maintenance bots that dashed every which way in a valiant attempt to keep things running.

Working together the sentients and their machine helpers were trying to load, unload, and service the circle of ships that surrounded the dome.

There were freighters, couriers, scouts, tankers, and a dozen more. Appearance depended on function, racial preference, and a whole host of other factors. In fact, the only thing the ships had in common was their size. All of them were small. Due to the moon's gravity, and the relatively small dome, larger ships were forced to remain in orbit.

"Our tender's over there," Melissa said eagerly as she pointed across the dome. "Lock 78."

Now that negotiations were over Lando noticed that Melissa had undergone a change. The mostly serious business manager had disappeared. In her place was a naturally gregarious little girl. Of the two Lando preferred the second.

"It's a good thing you're here," Melissa said seriously, "Daddy gets mad when I fly the tender. He says I'm too young. Still, what am I supposed to do when he's sick?