Sullen Stars: Free Merchant

Her stay at the security bureau didn't take as long as she feared.

Since she had gone through this before, there was extensive documentation on her file about how they had to check her over last time to make sure she wasn't trying to bring a bomb aboard, crammed somewhere in her chest or something. Seemed that nobody was entirely sure how she should be checked over, so the two officers tasked with it resorted to the same metal detecting wand from the flight lounge, a millimeter wave radar someone dragged up from one of the maintenance bays and an ultrasound machine from medical. Surprise, surprise, she didn't have a bomb inside of her.

Given how much they were cross referencing maintenance charts and manuals from Tsoukalos Industries, she was surprised they didn’t charge her for performing a routine inspection of her internal systems. But in the end, she was just glad they didn't find a way to slap on an extra charge for wasting security's time and requiring extra vetting of the harmless little cow woman coming through their docking port.

Whatever. Other than wasting an hour of her time and turning her into a spectacle for the station's security team, no harm done.

She just wanted to head back down to the concourse, find an antique book store and thumb through the magazines. Or sit on a bench and watch the people walk by and just remind herself that there was someone else around for a change. Maybe her Cineflix subscription would pull in some new movies once she joined the station's network. She'd heard some good things about some experimental AR movie about an exploration team that found some ancient shipwreck that led them back to Earth, but from what she heard it took a lot of physical space to experience it properly, but supposedly it was designed to work well on small freighters. Maybe she'd look and see if that movie about the ancient zombie aliens someone dug up on Devaki had come out yet instead. She hadn't seen a horror movie in a while.

[hr]

By the time Rachel got down to the concourse, she was beginning to doubt that the extra water was needed to sustain a larger crew population.

To be fair, the local time was about 23 o'clock, but even at this hour she expected to see at least a small crowd ambling around. Instead, she saw maybe fifteen people scattered along the kilometer long stretch of benches, windows and shop fronts. All of them were standing off or sitting alone, glued to their compads.

And to make things worse, the book store was gone. Not just closed, which she could forgive at this hour, but gone. The faint odor of a coffee shop hanging in the air had lied to her.

She stood at the empty, barred up store front and blew out another artificial breath. Maybe she shouldn't be so surprised. The throwback printed book movement was probably doomed from the start, given the expense and complexities of producing physical books. Maybe a store like this would find enough of a market back in Sethena on Anvari to stay in business, but here, with such a small population it was probably hopeless. Even if every freighter that came through bought a few books, it wouldn't be nearly enough.

“Well, I guess I'll just have to be number sixteen then,” she muttered to herself before looking for an open bench to plop down on and plan for the next sixty hours.

She chose a bench along one of the observatory wings, which was lined on every wall and ceiling with displays of the stars beyond the walls. Above her, Autolye was distant enough that it looked surprisingly similar to all of the other stars twinkling in constellations she had never learned the names of. Were it not for the helpful indicator pointing out the star's name, its size would have have only given it away to an observant viewer. Anvari was only a bright dot, enclosed in a blue circle next to a dozen bits of information. It was currently 00:21 Universal Time on the planet, same as the station. The date was October 22nd, 3198. It was currently 3.1415 AU away from Haruta and receding. Another indicator for Hespaya was just visible at the edge of the screen, 41.4 AU away. Another indicator-

Was buried under a flash advertisement for Do-do's Donut shop, which explained the scent of coffee. A large, goofy purple cartoon bird with its neck covered in rings of doughnuts pranced across the display as if chasing Anvari. It opened its beak and clearly said something, but to her relief the concourse either wasn't wired up for audio, the ads were silent at night, or something was broken.

“Better check my messages anyway,” she muttered, reaching for her compad.

It informed her right away that the paperwork from administration had come through already, and that she had eighteen documents to sign. She had all the time in the world to address that now, but dismissed it. Maybe after unloading her cargo later. Cineflix apparently had twenty-two new suggestions for her to review. Maybe. Ninety new books suggested. Maybe later. Some news article about a suspected smuggler ship being destroyed in the Eurymedon system after orbiting too close to Martis without government approval, but details were sketchy. An alert from Vasili Station maintenance…

“Well, well, looks like the rumor mill churned out a truth for once,” a woman said from her right.

Rachel jumped with a start and almost dropped her compad. She looked up to find a group of five men and women of various species dressed in orange and white jumpsuits. Carpet was a nice distraction from the sterile interior of Theseus, but it also muffled footsteps.

The leader, a short equine woman with long ears, a light mottled gray coat and a small smile said, “We heard that someone from Freeman Shipping just came through. You must be Rachel.”

“That's right.” The stylized white horn patches surrounding their suits' shoulders was unmistakable. “And you must be with Freeman Express.”

She nodded and offered a hand. “Captain Tabitha Windham. We came in on The Pegasus yesterday.”

Rachel returned the shake and got to her hooves. “Nice to meet you.”

“Likewise. Listen, I know we're technically competitors, but I don't want that to… uh, how should I put this...” Tabitha shifted her weight to her other hoof. “I don't want you to think we're...” She held up a finger. “Never mind that. Uh, listen, did you have some time in an hour or so? We were going to be departing in the morning and I was getting the crew together for a little meal aboard The Pegasus, and I wanted to extend the offer to you too, if you're interested. Your whole crew, if you want. You know, a chance to have a friendly get together, have a few drinks maybe and clear the air?”

That was hardly what she expected to come out of the horse's mouth, and while she couldn't imagine it would be anything but awkward, it wasn't like she had anything better to do anyway. Besides, having an informal chat with someone would be an excellent change of pace. She wouldn't eat much. Just enough to look gracious, since she didn't need it.

“That sounds nice.  When was it?”

“Right now, if you're not busy,” Tabitha said. “We're docked on clamp one, so you can get your crew together and come on over.”

Rachel put her compad away and straightened her shirt. “Oh, I can just follow you then. I am the crew.”

The group with Tabitha exchanged confused looks. “Wait, you run your ship all by yourself?” a black and brown coated bull asked.

They must not know either, somehow, she thought. Phillip must have really kept his family matters private.

“Yeah, that's right. A Lockhoof ASLC-187. It's not easy, but I manage.”

“When do you sleep? And you know how to run the engine room, pilot the ship and run spike drills all by yourself?”

A tiny smirk crept onto Tabitha's face. “So, it's true. Isn't it? You are a robot? Helps if you don't have to sleep, right?”

Rachel folded her arms, but managed to keep the eye rolling to a minimum. “That's right, I am. And it does. Was that what this was all about? Wanted to invite me to your ship so you could dance around the bush while trying to figure out if I'm a flesh and blood cow?”

Tabitha threw up both hands. “No, no, no! No, I really did want to have a chance to talk with you. I mean, if you wanted. Listen, there's been a lot of talk around the company lately, people say things and I wanted to hear it from your side. Okay? And you know, look, we're competitors, but I really don't want there to be any bad blood between us, you know?”

Ugh, save it. Rachel shrugged. “All right. I don't have anything else to be doing now, so I don't mind having a chat. I'll try to avoid telling you anything that'll get you fired. Just don't go repeating any of it to Tony, or anyone who talks to him.”

The bull from earlier fell in beside her as they circled around the concourse toward the flight deck on the far end of the station, where docking clamp one loaded and unloaded. His eyes kept darting her way, until he finally leaned in and asked, “So, uh, do you even eat then?”

Here we go. “I don't have to, but I can. And yes, I can taste things just like you do.”

“Oh, okay, cool. Uh, does it taste the same to you? Like it does to us?”

And now they could complete the circle from talking about bureaucracy to robotics to philosophy…

“That's a complicated question, but nobody really knows. But I'll say I like chocolate and sweets, so I think it's close enough anyway.”

He grinned. “Sounds like it. I'm Arthur, by the way. Arthur Anderson.”

“Rachel Freeman, but I think you knew that already.”

Arthur nodded. “Captain told us, so I guess she must have actually paid attention to the last few corporate announcements. Uh, anyway, it was nice to meet you. I hope everything goes well for you after you leave port.”

She smiled and gave the most sincere smile she could in reply. “Likewise.”

[hr]

The Pegasus was a much newer and nicer ship than Theseus. Built within the last twenty years even, given by the lack of discoloration in the interior plastics, the number of those plastic access panels still covering junctions and fuse boxes, and the commissioning placard in the airlock that put its construction date at 3185. It was also a Lockhoof ship, although a little bigger and probably with no atmospheric capability. The view from the umbilical only revealed so much, but it was longer than Theseus, and with a very rectangular and boxy profile. Its orange and white paint job wasn't immaculate, as none would be after even a brief stint in space near landing bays or loading docks, but it was fresh enough that she could still make out the serial numbers painted next to the access hatch.

The internal layout was bizarre too, with access to the flight deck being somewhere aft of the airlock, not that they strayed there. The lounge was situated about where she expected at least, betrayed by the scent of something spicy wafting through the corridor before they rounded the corner. Two blindingly white tables, evidently able to retract into the flooring if the crew needed more space, stood in the center of the room and topped with containers of carryout from a noodle shop from somewhere aboard the station. Combine that with the two boxes of doughnuts Arthur broke away to grab on what she imagined to be a sweet, if somewhat creepy, way to extend an olive branch toward her, and they had a meal very suiting to the “space trucking” industry.

Now that she'd explained that she didn't need to eat, she passed on taking any of the real food, although she did get a chocolate doughnut for Arthur's sake, and took a seat at the end of one of the tables.

The conversation, if it could be called that, given the interruptions for people to chew, was slow, informal and very disjointed as everyone asked whatever random questions came to mind.

Naturally, a disproportionate number of early questions circled around what it was like to be a robot. Did she ever eat? Not often. Did she enjoy eating? If the food was good. Did she have a battery? Yes. How long did it last? Six days. Yadda yadda yadda.

Tabitha came to the rescue by steering the conversation back to less personal matters. The horse set aside her tray of noodles, stained green by herbs of some variety, and asked, “So, you've been running Theseus for three years now, you said? You like the business?”

Not very much, really. “It pays the bills, as the saying goes.”

“I guess I'm just a little surprised to see you running a ship, you know? Did you ever work one while Phillip was still in charge? I always figured you must have been in administration.” She held up a white hand. “Look, not that there's anything wrong with that, but it's a pretty different skill set, you know?”

Rachel leaned back and stared up into the ceiling tiles. They were embossed with an almost imperceptible texture of swirls, the kind of finishing detail you'd find in a nice house, planet side. Instead of the individual light fixtures like aboard Theseus, light emitting strips were embedded between the tiles, filling the room with a nice, soft glow that surrounded her instead of the harsh light bearing down from above that she was used to.

This is such a nice ship…

“I know what you mean. It took me a while to learn most of the business details, but I learned to pilot ships like this a long time ago. Well, not cargo freighters per se, but the basics aren't very different from the personal shuttles I flew for my dad. I was already certified by ASFA with a class four license, which, surprisingly, was good enough for all but a couple of stations in system.”

Arthur exchanged a hushed word with the doe to his left and asked, “So, if you don't mind me asking, why did you leave Freeman Express then? If you wanted to fly, weren't there openings in the company?”

Because I didn't have a choice, that's why. How can I word this nicely?

“For starters,” Rachel said as she crossed her legs and folded her arms, “It's a little bit complicated to work for anyone on Anvari when you don't have a birth certificate and when your identification says you're too young to sign paperwork. I never actually worked for the company.”

“Oh, damn,” Tabitha said. “Everyone just thought… well, hey, wait a second, how are you able to do business with the orbitals then?”

She shrugged. “They aren't as picky. Most are tied so deeply into the Exchange that they follow their rules.”

The doe from before sorted. “Never thought I'd hear someone say that the Exchange's rules were more permissive. I've got a backlog of training materials to watch by the end of the year that I'm going to have to file an extension for.”

“It'd help if you watched them when you're supposed to, Cal,” Tabitha said. “But anyway, that's really fascinating. The Exchange has guidelines for robotic workers then? Not going to lie, you're the first I've met.”

Rachel pushed a stray hair out of her eye. “Maybe it's not really accurate to say it's Exchange guidelines. More that the orbitals kind of do business on their own terms. Violating Anvari law would cause a lot of trouble, but they can issue landing permits to whomever they want. Dumb as it sounds, it was easier to get a permit for Anvari Station than it would be to be an accountant on the planet.”

Tabitha started picking through the purple box of Do-Do Donuts and said, “I had no idea. That's crazy. You can't be the first person to deal with this. The government hasn't done anything about it?”

Rachel tried and failed to not scoff. “I stopped keeping up with it a while back, but last I heard, no. I don't think that's going to change anytime soon either.”

“Man, that sucks.” The pink frosting on her doughnut did interesting things with the green color already staining her teeth. “You really should get Tony to lobby over it or something.” She grinned. “That's what rich people do with all of their money, right?”

The comment could have been taken a lot of ways, but Rachel opted to give her the benefit of the doubt and assume she was just trying to make a little joke. She couldn't have known the full situation, and as much as she wanted to kick her “brother” out of the air lock sometimes, this wasn't the time or place to bring that up.

She settled on a forced little chuckle. “Yeah, I guess so. Some of them anyway. I don't know, I'm not too worried about living on Anvari again. Maybe I'll take my business to Asa or something one day. Just got to learn to perform spike drills first.” Except she'd trust riding an asteroid there more than trying Theseus's spike drive anyway, so she wasn't in a hurry to learn that.

The conversation kind of petered out after that, with nobody really sure how to follow it up. After one more chocolate doughnut on Freeman Express's dime, Rachel took her leave.

All-in-all, not a bad experience. Captain Windham offered to help out if she ever needed it, the sort of hollow gesture one made to end a conversation that wasn't meant to be taken seriously. She also joked that she should fire the whole crew and get some robots to replace them, but she probably didn't mean it in a mean spirited way.

If nothing else, she killed an hour. Fifty-nine to go.

[hr]

Fortunately, she had another destination already lined up. The alert on her compad from station maintenance wasn't going to address itself, and if she'd gotten it that soon the news could only be bad. She could already see the credits fleeing her account. At least four digits’ worth. She really hoped not five. Her account couldn't take another one of those.

Maintenance was five decks down from the concourse, past another deck of shops, temporary sleeping areas and hotels and a deck dedicated to warehousing. The carpeting vanished somewhere around deck three, and by the time she reached maintenance, the atmosphere as a whole could be described as a haunted space attraction.

The drywall and paint was nowhere to be seen, leaving bare superstructure beams and plating for walls. Pipes carrying water, air and some undefined HOT liquid crisscrossed the ceiling amid sprawling networks of cabling. Grease stains marred the concrete flooring, including a suspiciously red stain of some kind that had splashed the ceiling, walls and floor. The lights even spluttered as if a ghost was passing through.

Her hooves echoed through the cavernous room at the base of the access stairs as she followed the green lit signs on the walls pointing her toward reception.

She found reception in a little office down a side hallway, next to a massive door twice her height and twenty meters across. The locking mechanisms on the door appeared to lack any manual controls, and the door was littered with standardized warning symbols. The skull and crossbones and tumbling EVA suit jumped out among the mix.

Danger, variable gravity. Authorized and trained personnel only.

Extreme danger, zero oxygen area ahead.

Maintenance teams must have used this as an air lock for large equipment. Rachel gave an amused snort. The station may have saved money on hangar space by using docking clamps, but she was willing to bet money that the maintenance crews hated having to make a space walk to run even cursory inspections. Just not much money, since she was probably about to vent some into space anyway.

After steeling herself, she stepped into the office, where an older moose was leaning back in his chair with one hoof propped up on the semicircular desk. Like the deer she met at the air lock, he seemed to be missing his antlers, and his uniform looked thirty years old, with more patches than original material left. Infuriatingly, like everyone else on the station, his uniform had no name tag.

He stretched and lowered his compad. “Captain Freeman, right?”

“That's right. You had a report for me? Bad news?”

The graying moose sat up straight. “‘Fraid so. Want the bad news or worse news first?”

What a question…

“Should I sit for this?” Without waiting for an answer, she plopped into an available folding chair sitting across from him. “Worst news first, I guess.”

“All right. Well, during inspection, we found that your ship damaged the clamp. Could be worse. Far as we can tell, you just jammed the third digit. It bent one if the lock pins and pinched some wiring.”

Her shoulders slouched. That sounded very expensive. “What has to be done? Did it damage my ship too?”

“Eh, well, we don't think so, but we've got to disassemble the digit to find out how bad it is. If there's anything on your ship, we'll find it then. Anyway, disassembly is going to take ten hours. We've got to cut the pin to get it out now, and we'll probably have to do some rewiring. That might take another ten hours. Hope you weren't planning on getting out of here sooner than that.”

“No,” Rachel stressed. “No, that's fine. I'm waiting on a shipment anyway. How much is that going to cost?”

He frowned and stroked his beard. “Now, this is only an estimate, so don't go adjusting your retirement plans just yet, but…”

Mr. Moose held up the tablet for her to see, and she said something distinctly unladylike. Just under six thousand credits! That was more than she was being paid to be here! There was no way it was going to take three crew twenty hours to do all of this. That had to be an over estimate. Six thousand credits! Give her the torch and she'd cut the pin out herself! But wait…

“What was the other bad news?”

He swiped to another quote, this time showing about fifty line items adding up to yet another three thousand credits. Fuel, atmosphere recycling, an overhaul of the life support system, some kind of rewiring of the secondary power rails, there was probably a window washing fee in there somewhere…

“You know your ship's getting old. This is all of the stuff we found just by looking at and plugging it into the diagnostic computer. Now, I can't make you fix any of this stuff, but you really, really ought to think about it. The air filters alone haven't been replaced in two years. It's a miracle the air is any good aboard at all.”

At some point she'd put her face in her hands. She sat back up and asked, “Did you at least find anything wrong with the lidar system? Something you can fix?”

He skimmed the list. “Not directly, but I can have someone check on it. You did get the inspection, so it won't cost you anything for us to look at it.”

“Great, thanks… Just forward that all to my pad, okay? I'll look at it soon.”

“Will do,” he said, already in the process of tapping on his own. “I'll send you the paperwork for the dock repair too. You need to get that signed before we can start, and I'd hate for you to get stuck here.”

Rachel blew out another artificial sigh. This day was going just wonderfully. Next they'd probably tell her the shipping contract had been canceled and handed over to someone who hadn't crashed into their station.

[hr]

By the time Rachel made it back to Theseus and started unloading the cargo, the news had managed to get worse still. After a technician plugged into a few diagnostic ports aboard the ship, she'd managed to narrow down the problems with the lidar system to one of two things, which were possibly related.

First, it could have been a logic board or sensor computer's memory boards. The parts weren't that expensive, but to put it in the goat's words, getting to the parts was “like eight bitches on a bitch boat” since they were buried deep inside of a crawlspace that required removing about three meters of power and electrical duct work. The Lockhoof engineers “either had their hands tied or were drunk off their asses,” she said. Something like fifteen hours of work, at a hundred credits an hour, plus parts, meant like two-thousand credits to try fix it. And there was no guarantee.

The second possible problem, which could have caused the first problem, was that the power rails had inconsistent voltages. The computer warned her that there was as much as a 10 percent swing in nominally steady state voltages on the primary power rail, when there should be less than half a percent at most. After Rachel mentioned that the drying booth had burnt out from suspiciously electrical seeming reasons, Miss Goat Technician was convinced that this was a real issue and not a computer glitch with the voltage monitors. It could have damaged the lidar sensor boards, as well as a thousand other things on the ship.

How expensive was that to fix? It could be anything from the generator's voltage regulators to requiring a complete rewire of the ship. Costs ranged from five to fifty-thousand credits, and possibly shipping in parts from Anvari that they couldn't fabricate on site.

In the end, she just told the tech to forward it to her compad along with the other bad news from maintenance for her to review after she unloaded her cargo. She didn't have the money to deal with it until she got paid, and even then it would only cover the docking clamp pin.

She dropped another package onto the cargo sled and snorted. How does Tabitha's crew afford this? Do they get special rates with the station? Better pay? Bigger jobs?

Another parcel slapped down onto the growing stack, which she realized after the fact had a large fragile warning on it. Oops. Better get a dedicated courier to deliver your parcels, since they're the only ones who can afford to do it right.

Rachel spared a glance to the massive containers sitting in the cargo hold ahead of her, covered in warning signs conveying how fragile they were, electrostatic sensitive or whatever. Fresh, bare and silvery metal checkered the floor and walls where she'd banged the interior to heck and back trying to get them wedged in here. She was absolutely going to wait for the station crew to come pick those up. Maybe they'd be careful enough to avoid putting another half meter scrape on the wall since they wouldn't want to be liable for damaging someone else's equipment. Maybe. Plus they would have the heavy sleds needed anyway.

There was one parcel left on the metal grated floor, addressed to a Liana Pangalos on Haruta. It was a meter square, in an unusual metallic container emblazoned with the Tri-Pi-Tek logo, and she remembered it weighed a metric ton. Oh, and she was being paid thirty credits to deliver it.

She pushed it with a hoof to judge its weight and groaned. Lift with your legs, not with your back.

The parcel didn't budge. She wedged her fingers beneath the edges and hefted with all she had. The box, filled with lead ingots she was sure, shifted.

“Come on!”

With a full body jerk, she snatched the package up and stumbled backward. Pinned against the wall, she fought to gain control and drop it onto an open spot on the sled. A tight sensation ran down her back, followed by a growing burn that consumed her spine. The box drifted downward against her will. Her shoulders ached and burned. She could lift this box just a week ago when she put it on the ship! A stab of pain shot through her left elbow. Something snapped, and the box fell onto the sled with a deafening bang.

Rachel landed next to it. She rolled over and extended both arms. The searing pain rolling through her limbs and back eased. Everything ached, but the pain faded. Her right arm moved fine, but she her left arm didn't want to retract. The bicep twisted as she flexed her arm, and another twinge ran up her shoulder. Her arm felt so heavy.

“S-so, what? Am I breaking down too?!”

She tried to slam her hand into the wall, but the new injury didn't let her get enough velocity to do more than make a little slap. So she kicked the box of stupidly heavy whatever instead. She halfway expected to break her hoof in the process.

Who do I even contact about fixing something like this?

Rachel pushed herself up against the wall, just letting silence fall as she flexed her arm. It didn't get better. It wasn't going to get better on its own.

Can the station crew repair it? Should I even bother? How much would they charge to just look at it?

Her compad chimed. That was the sound of a message over Rumormonger. Maybe the tech's compad had just relayed something sent from Anvari a couple of weeks ago. Or maybe the station's repeater node just got off its lazy butt and forwarded the message.

With her good arm, she pushed up off of the floor and grabbed the pocket computer. Immediately, she wished she hadn't.

FROM: Sakalos Law Firm (High Priority)

RELAY: 16 hops, sent October 22nd, 03:55 AM UT

SUBJECT: We need to meet, urgently.

Rachel,

I hope you get this within the next few days. Anthony and Andrea have moved forward with their bid to dismiss your case with the Sethena city court, since you haven't responded to their last request to appear in person to plead your case. I know you've been out in the belts, but there's not much I can do about it.

I've filed to have the appeal extended for five (5) more days, but it's the best I can do. If you can't get here, in person, by then, the judge is probably going to dismiss your case.

Please, contact me as soon as you can. If I don't hear back from you I'll try resending this message by direct commlaser if I can get a fix from STC. Your account is getting kind of low, but this falls within the acceptable uses of the funds there.

Alexander Sakalos

Rachel had never thrown anything in anger, to her knowledge, but the sounds her compad made after banging against the hallway made her pretty sure she was going to need a new one now.

She should have thrown it with her left hand.