Sasha held a certified check in front of the scanner. The woman nodded. “Good. Get your asses aboard. We got a schedule to keep.”
The screen snapped to black. The lock yawned and swallowed us whole. The hatch made a hissing sound as it closed. The umbilical that connected the Red Trader with Staros-3 was already pressurized. The second hatch opened quickly. The umbilical was pleated to accommodate slight movements of the ship or the habitat it was moored to.
Six or seven steps were sufficient to carry us into a rather spacious lock. Sections of paint had been worn away, leaving islands of magenta. A rubber mat gave slightly beneath my feet and air jets cooled my face. I was still inspecting the space suits racked to either side of the compartment when the inner hatch irised open and a man entered. A funny smell followed him in, like when you visit another person’s apartment, or skirt the edge of an enthnoplex.
He had thinning black hair, feral eyes, and a hatchet-shaped nose. He wore a filthy tank top, baggy shorts, and bright orange high-tops. His eyes went from my skull plate to Sasha and stuck like glue. “And what have we here? Some nice-lookin’ poontang, that’s what. Hi, honey, my name’s Lester, what’s yours?”
Sasha gave him a look that would have killed most men. “Screw you.”
Lester licked his lips and rubbed his crotch. “What a coincidence. That’s exactly what I had in mind.”
I stepped forward, gathered some of the tank top in my right hand, and lifted Lester clear of the deck. His feet kicked and his fists beat against my arms. “Put me down!”
“Apologize to the lady.”
“All right! I apologize. Now put me down.”
I put him down. He pulled his tank top straight and looked daggers in my direction. “Come on. The captain wants to see you.”
We followed Lester out of the lock, down a passageway wide enough to accommodate standard cargo modules, and right through an access corridor. The ship was surprisingly roomy. And why not? It had been constructed in space, where shape made no difference and size was limited by little more than the cost of materials and the energy it would take to push them around. So, given a desire to move large quantities of cargo all at once, and the need to retain a competent crew, the corporations were inclined to build large rather than small. It was one of those thoughts that offered themselves when it made little difference and were impossible to find when I really needed them.
Lester took a left and led us past a number of cabins to a brass plaque that read “Captain.” It had been polished to a high gloss, and the hatch to which it was affixed stood slightly ajar. Lester rapped three times. His knuckles made very little sound, but a voice yelled “In!” nevertheless.
Lester turned in our direction. I could see that he wanted to say something, to take a parting shot, so I raised an eyebrow. “Yes?”
He scowled, did an about-face, and marched down the corridor.
The voice was annoyed. “I said ‘In,’ damn it!”
We entered. The combination office-cabin, for that’s what it seemed to be, was spacious. The decor could only be described as eclectic, since it incorporated everything from ultra-modern fiber chairs to an overstuffed sofa with a paisley print. The common element was food-cartons, plates, and remnants of which were scattered everywhere.
The captain was even more monstrous than she had appeared on video and was supported by a specially modified forklift. Yards and yards of shiny black cloth had been used to make pajamas for her over-sized body, and the slightest movement sent light rippling in every direction. She had piggy eyes, and they were filled with malevolence. “What you staring at, chrome-dome? You ain’t so pretty yourself. Give me the money.”
Sasha handed her the check. A small, well-kept hand reached out to accept it. Light flashed off a multiplicity of rings. The captain held it up to the light, saw that the electro-threads were intact, and gave a grunt of satisfaction. She poked it down into the crevasse between her massive breasts and gave us the look most people reserve for dog turds.
“Good. Consider yourselves duly sworn in and all that other crap. Now here’s the deal. I run a tight ship, I don’t take shit from know-nothing ground-pounders, and I expect a full shift’s work. Clear?”
We nodded.
“Good.” She looked at Sasha. “So, sweet stuff. What happened to your eye?”
Sasha met her gaze without flinching. “I sold it.”
The captain nodded, as if selling an eye was the most natural thing in the world, and nothing to be concerned about. “Right. Find an idiot named Kreshenko. Tell him you’re the help he’s been asking for, and keep an eye on Lester, he’d screw a droid if he found one equipped with a hole.”
The forklift whirred and carried her to a combination desk and console. She searched through the junk, found a disk, and flipped it in my direction. I caught it and she nodded approvingly. “You’re in charge of the farm. Your predecessor drank himself to death. Don’t make the same mistake. Read the disk, memorize the contents, and don’t mess up.”
I nodded stupidly, hoped I could comply, and knew I couldn’t.
The captain reached for a bag of Oreo cookies, spilled some into the palm of her hand, and shoved one into her mouth. The words were muffled. “Good. You can have cabins G and H. Now get to work.”
We were halfway out the door when she stopped us. Crumbs dribbled down her chin. “One more thing…the dart guns are legal…but keep ’em holstered.”
We shrugged, nodded, and hit the hall. It seemed as if secrets were damned hard to keep. The ship broke free of Staros-3 about an hour later, accelerated away, and started the long, slow journey to Mars.
8
“Although technically competent, Lester Hollings demonstrates certain behaviors consistent with a psychopathic personality. I recommend close supervision by qualified mental health professionals.”
A notation from Lester Hollinqs’s personnel file that had been scrubbed from memory but was later found on a backup matrix
I spent the first forty or fifty hours sleeping, exploring the ship’s cavernous interior, and becoming acquainted with the rest of the crew. And a jolly bunch they were too.
In addition to the porcine captain and the hormonal Lester, the Red Trader boasted an over-the-hill pilot, a cook nicknamed Killer, and a detail-obsessed load master named Kreshenko. There were fifteen or twenty androids too, some of whom had names, and some of whom relied on numbers for identification. The most notable of these was known as “the phantom,” after the character in “Phantom of the Opera,” and was said to be in desperate need of a full-scale electronic tune-up. I decided to keep an eye peeled for him.
All of which was interesting but didn’t help me learn my job. A job that was connected with the hydroponics section, or “farm.” It seemed that production had fallen off, and, given the captain’s preoccupation with food, I was in deep trouble. Especially since the captain kept the pressure on Killer and he kept the pressure on me.
Finally, after another close encounter with a cleaver-waving cook, I retired to my cabin and sat in front of my computer screen. The cursor winked at me like an electronic pervert, well aware of my weakness, and happy to exploit it. The problem stemmed from the fact that a penny-pinching corpie had equipped the Red Trader with manual PC’s, denying me the voice recognition systems that I had learned to rely on, and plunging me into despair.
I inserted the disk, hit the key that made things go, and watched characters flood the screen. I stared at them, forced the images into my mind, and waited for knowledge to flood my brain. It didn’t. The characters remained as meaningless as ever, cutting me off from the information that I needed, and filling me with rage.