He placed his papers on the table in front of Alex, took a copy of the contract. Alex absently looked through the recommendations and evaluations. Xang Morrison, thirty-nine, free stations citizenship. Those born in space made the best pilots in the universe. A decent work record. Even better than Alex’s own, to be honest.
Quicksilver Pit wasn’t Earth or Edem. But it was a large and well-developed planet. And to have a master-pilot unable find a job here? For two weeks?
Very strange.
“Not bad,” said the pilot with bitter resentment, putting the contract aside. “Looks like the owners aren’t tight.”
“So it seems.”
“What is the Sky Company about?”
“I don’t know.”
“And where are we flying to?”
“Don’t know that, either.”
“Well, isn’t that nice …”
“They can’t require anything illegal,” said Alex with a shrug. “It’s a perfectly standard, union-approved contract.”
“I can see that. Captain, I won’t lie to you … two master-pilots can’t be happy on a tiny ship like Mirror. Can you take me on temporarily? Till you find another pilot? Then just give me the slip … I’ll get drunk while on duty, if you want, or show insubordination, or something. Just help me leave this awful hole!”
Alex thought for a moment. Morrison waited, tense and visibly on edge.
“But not until I find a good replacement …”
“I will be as diligent and obedient as a graduate on his first flight. Just find someone to replace me and kick me off on some halfway decent planet. Even New Africa will do.”
Alex couldn’t suppress a wry grin. To take aboard a pilot, knowing that he had no intention of staying for any length of time …
“Please, friend-spesh …” said Xang quietly.
“Go on and sign the contract,” Alex decided. Crunched the cigar in half in the ashtray.
His crew had been hired.
One hell of a weird crew, to tell the truth.
He himself, a master-pilot who could use some more work experience, just out of the hospital. A woman soldier and executioner from Eben in the role of a doctor. A girl barely out of metamorphosis as a fighter-spesh. A touchy natural navigator. A co-pilot who couldn’t find a job for two weeks, sitting at a huge transport crossroads. A young engineer who had brought their ship to Quicksilver Pit, thinking he was done with it … only to go right back aboard.
If Mirror’s routes proved to be half as odd as the crew, he was in for an exciting life.
The communicator beeped in his pocket, and Alex took it out, feeling a strange pleasure mixed with embarrassment. A captain’s communicator was slightly larger than standard, loud orange in color … one of the few symbols of power.
“Captain …”
He recognized Generalov’s voice. In a second, the visual matrix opened up above the receiver. The navigator was at his workstation. Wearing his spacesuit. With his hair braided in the form of a pretzel on top of his head. And … a discreet red-and-blue ornament glowing on his left cheek. It was probably pointless to try to reform him.
“Captain here.”
“A direct communication from the owners. I’m transferring it to you.”
Alex closed the hologram, switched off the speaker, and touched the communicator to the back of his head, to the computer interface. This was the only way to guarantee the privacy of the conversation. He was intrigued—they hadn’t bothered contacting him when he first got hired, so he had no orders as far as the crew or the ship itself. Had it only now occurred to them to contact him?
“Alexander Romanov?”
The sound imitation was perfect. The voice seemed normal, secretarial. Just polite enough, just formal enough.
“Yes.”
“Are you using a private channel?”
“Of course.”
“Mister Li Tsyn, the Director of the Sky Company, wishes to speak with you.”
Alex realized that visuals were not being transmitted. But he straightened his back anyway. He wasn’t in the habit of having official conversations while picking his nose, or scratching his foot, or even simply lounging in a chair.
“Mister Romanov?”
The owner’s voice turned out to be one of an elderly but still sturdy man.
“Yes, Mr. Li Tsyn. I am listening, Mr. Li Tsyn.”
No formal introductions. No questions or congratulations on the new job … Mr. Li Tsyn could have used the same tone of voice to talk to his coffeemaker or his vacuum cleaner.
“Have you hired a full crew?”
“Yes, Mr. Li Tsyn …” Alex looked sideways at Morrison, who was in the act of pressing his finger to the contract.
“Good. Today you will take aboard three passengers and put yourself at their service. They will provide all the necessary route information.”
“Yes, Mr. Li Tsyn.” Alex could imagine the company director as vividly as if the visuals were on. A fat old bastard lounging in a luxurious armchair, petting a girlfriend … maybe even that same secretary …
“Mr. Li Tsyn has finished talking with you,” purred the secretary, as though reading his thoughts. “Are there any questions?”
The tone of her voice presupposed that there shouldn’t be any. That was why Alex asked:
“Mister Li is not in the habit of talking with new employees?”
“He is. You’ve talked. Any other questions?”
Under the inquisitive eye of Morrison, Alex forced himself to smile. The co-pilot could hear Alex’s part of the conversation.
“No, thank you. Goodbye.”
The transmission ended.
A direct call from Earth … wow … that cost a pretty penny.
“What are the orders, Captain?” inquired Morrison. It was an ambiguous question—orders for Alex himself, or orders for Morrison? Alex chose the second option.
“Be on the ship in an hour. We might be leaving tonight.”
“Aye-aye, Captain.”
The ship was all in order—this much, at least, was going right. Kim and Janet were in the sick bay; the black lady seemed to have taken the girl under her patronage. Turning on the surveillance system, Alex looked into the sick bay for just a second. Janet and Kim, both leaning over a table, were taking apart an assault ray gun, the Perun, the most powerful hand weapon allowed on small-tonnage ships. Kim was probably better at handling guns, theoretically speaking, but Janet had experience behind her … bitter, hard-won, but valuable experience as an Ebenian soldier.
Inside his navigation module, Generalov was still blissfully immersed in his work. Alex watched him for a few minutes on the screen of the captain’s control panel. Constant practice and self-training were typical for a spesh. And although Puck wasn’t a spesh, that was what he was doing—plotting imaginary routes in virtual space. Just now, Puck was plotting a course from Quicksilver Pit to Edem, Kim’s home world. At first, that track seemed far from perfect to Alex—the navigator had ignored the stationary space-tunnels, which were in constant use, and was taking the ship through “pulsing” tunnels. That would cause them to lose time—pulsing tunnels opened on intervals ranging from three to a hundred and twenty hours. It was also financially deleterious. The use of a pulsing tunnel cost twice as much. And finally, Alex did not see any distance advantage at all. The ship’s route was drifting farther and farther away from Edem.
When Generalov plotted a trek from Zodiac to Lard Crest, Alex finally realized what he was up to. Here they had no need for any tunnels, as the ship would be propelled by its own hyper-generator. And afterwards, covering two parsecs and arriving at the Crest, the ship would find itself at the stationary tunnel Lard Crest-Edem.
The solution was beautiful, and, as far as Alex could tell without being plugged into the machine, perfectly reasonable. They won with respect to time, to money, and to the ship’s resources.
“Cunning natural,” murmured Alex in delight, and switched over to the engineering mod
ule. This time he did it openly, initiating a two-way communication channel.
Young Paul Lourier was standing near the gluon reactor. He was swaying slowly, as though meditating in front of the energy stream flowing less than two feet away from his face.
Nothing was safer or deadlier than gluon energy. It was almost cost-free, not counting the cost of the reactor itself. No radioactive waste. No collateral radiation. If the reactor ran stable, of course.
But it was no easy task to achieve working stability with a reactor manipulating the very basis of all matter. At this level, the laws of physics started tripping up. There were no easy answers and ready-made schemes. While the reactor was in minimal-capacity mode, everything was still predictable, and it could always be turned off. But as soon as it moved into full capacity, the process would start “drifting.” And a great many different radiation flows would start appearing out of nowhere. The titanium body of the reactor could turn into gold or graphite, and once Alex even saw a reactor whose walls had turned into a cylinder of solid crystal. Mirror had a tandem Niagara gluon reactor with absolutely no walls, only force fields around the core.
Outwardly, the gluon flow looked like falling water, and Alex appreciated the imaginative approach of the design engineers. It looked as though two transparent, slightly bluish currents were cascading in front of Paul, taking their source from a gold-colored plate inside the ceiling and disappearing into a similar plate in the floor.
“Engineer,” Alex called out.
Paul turned around slowly. His eyes were half-closed, and a smile haunted his lips. He enjoyed familiarizing himself with the driving chains of the reactor—a typical spesh’s reaction to his work. Alex wondered what Paul saw. Probably not flowing water. Paul’s vision was rather different from Alex’s or Kim’s. He could see most of the known radiation bands and visually estimate a flame’s temperature to a fraction of a degree. Now a whole magical fireworks display was playing out before him … neutrons slipping past the force field, bursts of gamma rays, fanlike X-radiation, slow and clumsy alpha particles …
“Are you free?” asked Alex.
“Yes, Captain.”
“Meet me in my quarters.”
“Aye-aye, Captain.”
Lourier shook his head, tossing his heavy hair off his forehead. Glanced once more at the gluon streams and left the camera’s field of vision.
He was apparently an excellent engineer. Young, but familiar with this very reactor. Burning with enthusiasm. What more could a captain hope for?
Alex threw his coat off, rolled up his shirtsleeve, and looked at the Demon. The little devil was wincing. Sad and hopeless, as though a nameless ache was gnawing at him.
“I sense it,” Alex whispered. “I really do feel it. Something’s wrong.”
A spark of curiosity appeared in the Demon’s eyes.
“I don’t know what it is yet …” Alex confided. “But I swear I’ll figure it out!” The Demon probably had little faith left in his promises, but its tiny, cartoonish face did look slightly more relaxed now.
A door signal beeped, and Alex hurriedly rolled his sleeve back down.
“Captain?” Paul hesitated at the threshold.
“Come in.” Alex waved him to a chair, suggesting with his entire manner that the talk would be informal. “Want some coffee? Wine?”
Paul nodded awkwardly. By tradition, as they came off duty, engineers were used to having some dry red wine. But he apparently did not consider himself off duty just yet.
“Coffee, please.”
Alex waited a few more minutes, exchanging small talk with the engineer. And only when the fellow seemed to have relaxed a bit did he bring up the serious business.
“I was really surprised by what you said before, Paul.” The engineer looked at him questioningly. “Tell me how you got onto this ship the first time. Why were you let go?”
The young man was silent for a second, obviously formulating his answer.
“I graduated from the university in Lyon, got my engineering degree. We had been warned that finding a good job while still on Earth would be difficult. And I’d already been thinking about a trip to some outlying parts to look for a position. But then this trip turned up … a one-time thing, one-way. To take a yacht called the Intrepid over to Quicksilver Pit. I checked it out in the handbooks—there’s a huge transport crossroads here, and speshes are in high demand. But the planet’s own academy is rather small. The trip over was uneventful, just three people aboard—a master-pilot, a navigator, and me. Got our pay here … it was all legit. Started looking for the next job, and met you.”
“So there was nothing unusual?” probed Alex. Paul looked at him in surprise.
“What could be so unusual about driving a ship from one planet to another?”
“Well, the fact that you all were dismissed, and a whole new crew had to be found. Why?”
Paul shrugged his shoulders.
“Were you bringing anything to Quicksilver Pit? Cargo? Passengers?”
“No.”
“Were there accidents during the flight? Non-compliance with orders?”
“Not at all!”
“Who recommended this trip to you? Who hired you on?”
“A fellow graduate from the academy. He had gotten a job on a military cruiser … well, you know … he has family connections… . As for hiring, it was done through the net, as usual. I sent an inquiry to the Freight Company, then got the contract …”
“The Freight Company?”
“Yes. It’s a small company, specializing in incidental deliveries and driving ships from planet to planet. The company is affiliated with the lunar shipyard, the one where this ship was built.”
Alex was silent. Everything Paul told him was plausible. The surplus of speshes on Earth wasn’t at all surprising, and neither was the custom of driving empty ships from place to place.
One problem remained. Driving crews were never formed for only one trip. To hire three people only to dismiss them—what for? Why not keep the three of them aboard and hire the rest of the crew on Quicksilver Pit? Or even hire the entire crew on Earth in the first place?
There was a possible answer, but it was way out of the ordinary.
“Forgive my questions, Paul, but I am a bit uneasy about this whole thing.”
He watched the youngster’s face closely, but Paul just smiled a shy smile.
“I’m not all that experienced in these matters, Captain.”
That made sense. Stupid of him to seek advice from a greenhorn. His communicator beeped. The sound was soft, so it wasn’t a secret call.
“Yes?”
“Captain”—the voice of the ship’s service program was soft, soothing—“the co-pilot Xang Morrison has arrived on board, sir.”
“Thank you.” Alex switched off the connection. “Paul, go to the cargo bay. Welcome the co-pilot aboard, give him a tour of the ship, and show him to his quarters.”
Paul nodded, getting up from his chair. Alex hesitated for a moment, and added:
“Oh, and please don’t scratch your name on the john anymore. Or on your bed. Despite the tradition. All right?”
He was curious to see the engineer’s reaction to his words.
Paul smiled and left.
Alex sat for a time, staring at the closed door. You should never enter a place without knowing how to exit. Or whether there is an exit. Or what awaits you outside.
But he’d already entered. Breaking the company contract was impossible without forever ruining his chances of other employment.
“Increase plating transparency,” he said, getting up from behind the table. The outer wall of his cabin vanished, opening a vista of the spaceport.
A boundless concrete field, with various vessels scattered here and there, big and small, old worn-out orbital clunkers and new interstellar liners. Though not too many of them …
And above it all, a gray sky. A sagging layer of dirty gray clouds and smog, several miles thick. H
ow could anyone stand living here?
It suddenly occurred to him how richly the planet deserved its name of Quicksilver Pit. Not only because of the huge mercury deposits of the south continent: the famous Mirror Lakes, as beautiful as they were deadly. Those lakes had become the foundation for the entire planetary economy and killed off tens of thousands of workers. But the planet’s sky was also a quicksilver pit. It was beautiful, in its own way, and just as merciless. The lid of a gravity well with a teeming mass of millions of people, both speshes and naturals, forced together at the bottom.
“I’m so ready to get out of here,” Alex whispered to himself.
Gray clouds swirled into washed-out spirals. A fiery needle cut through the sky—somewhere far away, a tiny orbital ship had been launched. Alex followed it with his eyes, until the tiny flame was engulfed by the clouds.
Then he turned around and went to the bathroom unit. Took down his pants, sat on the toilet. Turned his head and cast a gloomy look on the pristine, white plastic wall. The laser in his Swiss Army knife was very weak, even at the maximum setting. Alex had to apply himself.
“Took on the rank of Captain,” he scrawled on the wall, and then added his signature, clear and easy to read.
Alex conducted their first drill late that night. Kim and Janet, of course, were not fully involved. The crew took to their battle stations according to the ship’s schedule, but Alex had no intention of putting the ship’s weapons systems on line. Some jumpy spaceport security officer might take it the wrong way.
Morrison took his pilot’s chair first—Alex didn’t mind. Let the co-pilot get used to the ship. He’d had it pretty rough lately… . Alex stood at his pilot’s chair in front of the control panel and watched its tiny flashing lights. The engineer was at his station. The navigator went to his. So did the co-pilot. And only when all battle stations had reported ready did the captain lay down in his chair.
The automatic straps fixed him in place with a soft click. This was an almost pointless precaution—after all, if gravity compensation failed, all living tissue would be torn apart. Still, even the craziest instructions had been issued for a reason; behind them was somebody’s life and somebody’s death.