Chapter 12
Cheers greeted them when they broke airlock back on Mérida's surface. While the hull cooled the crowd of onlookers that had turned out for the landing had come down to the ship to welcome them.
“Fabuloso!” cheered José and the chant was picked up by the crowd.
“Wow,” said Squirrel. “He knows how to work up a crowd. It almost makes me wish I had kept my eyes open.”
“You would never think, looking at the tyke” said O'Riley. “M'Elise says he learned it from lighting chicklizard sheds on fire on Guadeloupe”.
“Everyone needs a hobby.”
When Carmencita and Raoul emerged there were hands all around to help with their gear and a near endless run of everyone wishing everyone well.
“We had such a good time,” said Raoul to M'Elise in her turn.
“And learned a lot” added Carmencita. “Especially about family.” M'Elise smiled thinly.
“Not everyone has family like we have” said Raoul, including everyone with a sweep of his hand. “But other people have different families.”
“You. Your crew. Your ship,” said Carmencita. “You are all a family. It's so simple when you realize it.”
M'Elise looked surprised. “I'm not sure I have ever looked at it quite like that” she said politely.
“We apologize if we caused any awkwardness with our questions” said Raoul. “But we have learned now and see things differently. We wish you all well.”
And with that they parted and after a time so did all of their guests. M'Elise sent the rest in to finish the open bottles left. She did not feel like socialzing and picked up the data pad to run the external check list on the ship.
As she got to the bottom of the list she noted one guest remaining. He stood at the edge of the berm, dressed in a long concealing coat with one of the dust guards pulled mostly over his head. He watched her from behind darkened glasses.
M'Elise finished the last two items, stowed the clipboard and headed directly toward him. “Is there something I can help you with?” she asked testily.
After a pause he said “Yes”.
After a longer pause M'Elise prompted him. “And that would be?”
“You should look to your own” he intoned.
She looked at the ship, at the sky and checked the position of her breasts. “Got it. Thanks. I think I'm good now.”
“You're messing in things you don't understand.”
“Well, if you are just going to stand there and make vague allusions then I'll probably never understand whatever you think it is that I'm messing with.”
He soundlessly held out a news sheet and tapped the headlines.
“Lets see.” She read the headlines. “The Camelidae Sapphire was stolen on Jopur. The Port Newark Orbital of Port Newark was blow by terrorists. And the Yuping Yips won the forty world championships for the first time in fifty two years.” She tapped her cheek in thought. “Yep. I have no idea what I'm messing with. Anything else?”
“You aren't supposed to be here.”
She took a step to the right. “Is this better?”
He drew himself up. “We'll be back.” He then stalked off.
M'Elise watched him depart in some irritation. “I'm tired of this crap” she said aloud and stomped off after him. “Excuse me,” she said tapping him on his arm. “Who is 'we' and when, exactly, will you be coming back?”
He stopped and frowned at her. “You really don't know who you are messing with.”
“We've already established that. Please forgive me for not taking your implied threats with the dark foreboding they were intended to induce, but I really am just trying to work out if the Heimdall's CPA routine is an act or if you are really serious.”
He shook his finger at her. “You're messing in some serious stuff.”
“Well, that's progress. I now know that what I don't know about is serious. Next clue?”
He turned his warning finger into a frustrated fist and glared at her. He then stalked off again.
She stepped right after him. “At the risk of further offending your gravitas... Was that messing with something serious, or seriously messing with something? Or even seriously messing with something serious?”
He glared at her again and kept walking. “And if you let me know,” M'Elise continued, keeping pace. “like a day or something, when you and your department are coming back I can, like, bake a cake or something.” He kept walking.
“You know, I can keep this up all day. I'm not tired.” M'Elise smiled up at him,. He managed to look impassively exasperated. “Or proud.”
They reached one of the gates of the downport. A collection of workers behind the desk recognized her. “Hey M'Elise! We saw the landing. Fabuloso!” They all laughed. “Do you need to go city side? Is he with you?”
“Nah” she said. “Just our first date. He heard I liked the tall, dark and vague type.” She slapped his arm. “I'm not sure it's going to work out. Communication problems and all that. I guess I'm just a heartbreaker. You better check him out.”
He gave her an even more serious glare at that. She leaned her back against the admin counter and spread both arms along it. “Yeah, mister. I'm a paper pusher. I can't skulk, lurk or glower as well as you. But I'm good at pushing paper. I've filled forms that would fluster Odin's Ravens, drafted contracts that would send Dwarfs spinning in sub clauses, and I've driven Juggernauts through loopholes tighter than Sif. You do not frighten me.”
The dark man's jaw clenched, and lacking anything else, he turned and walked briskly into the men's toilet. One of the admins leaned forward. “Who was that?”
M'Elise shook her head. “Someone's bruiser.”
“Do you want us to... take care of him?” the aide asked eagerly, spinning the stamp carousel.
M'Elise smiled. “Yeah. Rough him up. But only a little bit.” She left them to their bureaucratic plotting.
“Is everything alright?” asked O'Riley, only slightly slurred when she returned. The galley was a mess with empty bottles and unmoving crewmates littering the deck.
She picked up the single glass of almond flavored liqueur he had left for her. ”I really have no idea.” She sipped it and smiled. “But we have a cargo and a destination. So life is good. At least for some definition of good.”
“Smashing” he said. After a pause, “What and where?”
“You'll like it. It's alcoholic. Twenty cases of what I'm assured is Mérida's finest.”
“Thank the saints! Nineteen cases did you say?”
She took another sip of her liqueur. “No, twenty. And at a price of 5,000 talents a case, we had better not come up short.”
“Merciful water of life!” swore O'Riley.
“Espresso?” muttered Squirrel, drifting briefly to consciousness.
“It'll be a nice bonus. Once we get it there and get paid.”
“Oh, yeah. Where's where?”
“Tungkoey.”
“Really? What a milk run!”
“I'll drink to that,” said M'Elise.
Tungkoey was indeed, a milk run. Other than another traffic citation for reckless endangerment to add to José's collection it was uneventful. And other than some last minute doubt, the factor they were promised was willing to pay the price they were promised for the cases of Mérida wine.
“Bonuses all round!” announced M'Elise. This was met with much acclaim. When the chits were passed out the enthusiasm dampened.
“Two thousand?” asked Squirrel. “I thought it would be more.”
“By the blessed fifteen year blend. We just pulled in 100,000.” Complained O'Riley. “What right has ya to be so stingy?”
“Do your math” said M'Elise. “Normal fare is 20,000 per person per week. “Two people, two weeks, plus another week in transit to convert his 'payment' into cash. Plus the risk of no passengers or cargo on this industrial depot. Technically we're less than break even.”
“But you said we only have to have work half
the time to make enough” said Squirrel.
“True,” admitted M'Elise. “And in three weeks if we're made more money I'll be happy to issue another bonus. For now enjoy your share of what we saved by eating the newlyweds food rather than our own.”
“This will be a lot of Solar Corona!” said José.
“Just don't spend it all in one place José” chided M'Elise.
“Again” added O'Riley.
“So do we, like, get shore leave or something?” asked Squirrel.
“Well, this isn't the greatest of ports,” said M'Elise. “I hate to travel empty but I hate to linger somewhere waiting for a cargo that never shows.”
“They must make something here” said O'Riley.
“Mostly refined metal. They've dug right down to the core of this planet and out the other side. Lots of ore and refineries. Not a low bulk commodity.” M'Elise shrugged. “There's no good answer. Let’s spend a couple of days here with our ears to the ground. Take your leave, circulate. Don't stray too far. I might find another ship prepared to take pity and dump some cargo on us for transshipping.”
“I'll check out the bars” volunteered O'Riley, predictably. “Hey! If they import wine, they must have an appreciation for the blessings of the saints. They probably brew something sellable.”
“Don't look at me” said the old man. “I'm filling my prescriptions and staying put. These cheap ass low grav places aggravate my bad hip.”
“Yeah, yeah. Knock yourself out. Just remember, the sooner we find a cargo or are out of here, the better we stand bonus-wise”, pointed out M'Elise.
“Don't you be worrying your pretty little head,” said O'Riley. “That will not be far from my mind at all.”
Squirrel sat in a cafe, with a blank piece of paper in front of her. She tried to find something to write about, but kept drawing a blank. She watched some local children, somewhat pudgy but unencumbered in the low gravity near the center of the world and thought to turn it into a sketch. But the pen stopped before it could mark the paper. The blankness of the surface loomed at her, intimidating her creativity. Emptiness is its own perfection. Any mark holds the potential for error, and stopped her each time she raised the pen.
Distractedly she called for the waiter. Not for the first time. “Can you please turn the gravity up?”
“But Madame” he protested.. “We have turned it up twice for you already.”
“Yeah, but you turned it back down again twice too.” He made to protest further but she swirled the liquid in her glass and pointed out how far up the sides it rose.
“Yes Madame” he conceded.
Although the world of Tungkoey was small as worlds went, the fact that its crust had been mined through down to the metallic core left it with a considerable amount of interior space. A total of as much living area as you might find on a continent of a much larger world.
However the small size, plus the fact that cities were located at all depths, meant that most places had very little gravity. The local inhabitants had little difficulty with this having, long ago, mastered the biological processes necessary to make such an environment comfortable. But for visitors, and certain smelting processes, artificial gravity was necessary. Gravity generators cost money, though, and needed power to run. And this cafe, like many of its patrons, tried to cut costs at every opportunity.
Squirrel had put her letter writing off from the first thing this morning to now with some energetic, but mostly fruitless shopping. Most interesting things were imports, and so were badly priced. There were good deals on jewelry, but the workmanship was so poor that the price was determined solely by weighing the pieces. And, to top it off, the tea in this cafe was nearly as weak as the gravity.
She was contemplating calling the waiter over, yet again, as she watched the swirling waters rise in the glass. But two large men sat at her table unasked, distracting her. She sighed at the familiarity of it all. As an exotic dancer there were at least a half dozen times a night some drunk patron would ignore the warning sign on the dancer's break table and bug the girls. Here, however, she lacked even the minimal protection of a sign.
“Hey boys,” she began uncertainly. “I don't know what you are looking for, but if its gravity then you might as well forget it. With old light fingers on the controls there isn't enough g-force in here to crack an egg.”
They looked at each other, slightly confused. “There is some gravity to this situation” said the shorter of the two.
“Not worth mentioning.” She shook her head. “Do you think my hair normally has this much body? Seriously.”
They waited for a suitable pause to make a statement. But she didn't leave a gap long enough. “And my nails! How can you have a planet with so no nail salons? I always get mine done professionally and I thought, well hey! Light gravity types, they should be able to do some cool effects. However, no nail salons. Can you believe it?” From their blank looks they clearly had problems believing something. “The locals must mine the earth with their nails to sharpen their talons. I wouldn't have imagined.”
Adjusting his definition of what a suitable gap was one of them opened his mouth to talk but didn't quite make it.
“And skin products? You'd think I was asking for axle grease in a shoe boutique. All this low gravity seems to make the locals short and bloated looking. I guess they focus on inner qualities. And that's fine. I'm all about inner qualities myself. It's just that you can't rouge them up a bit, or accentuate them with pearlescent colors. And, you know, sometimes a girl needs that.”
The waiter chose this moment to hover in their area. “Oh? Thank you, no. I don't need a refill. Here's a two. Don't keep the change; pass it on to these gentlemen here who were just about to order cups of your lovely tea. Gotta fly!”
She rose in the fluid motion the low gravity allowed, sent a two talent note wafting towards the waiter and bounded out of the cafe. With her notepad and shopping.
The waiter looked suspiciously at the men in their dark coats and glasses. “Two teas?”