Hayford Peirce: The Ore-Ball Express

“Then why don’t you stop trying to strangle me and tell me what it’s all about?”

Eventually, in disjointed bits and pieces intermingled with threats and self-pitying whines, I got the gist of J. Davis Alexander’s sad tale.

Years before, at the successful culmination of one of his more remunerative deals of dubious legality, the managing director of Hartman, Bemis & Choupette had opened a numbered bank account in Liechtenstein, a tiny nation-state in Europe that exists primarily to service clients with the ethics of J. Davis Alexander. As time went by, his bank account grew larger and his paranoia more pronounced. He converted the numbered account into cash, gold ingots, and bearer bonds. These he stored in a box 2,000 meters beneath the Alps in the same Liechtensteinian bank, secure now against even nuclear fusion.

“And now,” groaned J. Davis Alexander in piteous tones, “that unspeakable Hooten, my own flesh and blood, is on his way to Earth to steal everything I own. He’ll kill me, White, kill me!”

I extracted the rest of my neck from his python-like grip and eyed him coldly. “You mean all of this hoohaw is because you think Hooten is going to steal your money? From a Swiss bank box two klicks beneath the Alps? You don’t need a bodyguard, you need a custodian!”

“Liechtensteinian, not Swiss.” J. Davis Alexander’s angry glare was only a pitiful travesty of its former nova-like wattage. “You don’t understand, White, it’s not just a regular bank box where you have to prove your identity to get access to it, it’s a bearer box!”

“A bearer box?”

“Like a bearer bond—anyone who bears the codecard to it is assumed to be the rightful owner. With absolutely no questions asked.”

“Oh. And Hooten has the codecard?”

“He stole it, White, right out of my office safe! Oh, the perfidy of the man!”

“How can you be so sure it’s Hooten who has it? Who else—”

“The safe is only keyed to two thumbprints, you idiot, mine and Hooten’s! I was so... distracted when I fired him that I forgot to cancel his authorization. Any time the safe is opened, a video is made of whoever’s using it. It was Hooten, all right, two days after I fired him, that bloodsucking murderer Hooten!”

I fingered my chin. “So now he’s on his way to Earth with your codecard. And all he has to do is waltz into the bank, stick the card into a slot or two, and walk off with all of your money.” I considered my boss carefully—it was hard to believe that so basically dishonest and conniving a schemer could ever have been so stupid.

“It’s worse than that, White,” he murmured in mortified tones. “There are... other... things in the box. Things that if Melinda ever saw, she’d… she’d... it’d be the end of our marriage, White, the absolute end! If she didn’t shoot me first.” He turned away, his shoulders quivering.

I regarded him with amazement. Melinda, of course, was Miss Grain Harvest of 2273, the Belt’s most gorgeous woman and J. Davis Alexander’s improbable trophy wife. Was it possible that inside the old wolverine a few reputable human emotions still existed—such as shame, remorse, love? I shook my head in wonder: J. Davis Alexander a human being? Such a fanciful notion had never before crossed my mind.

And now I finally realized what other emotion his furry face was concealing besides simple rage: out and out fear.

“So what is it you want me to do?” I asked finally.

“Do? Go to Earth, of course, and get to the bank box before he does, you numbskull! What else do you think there is to do?” I was relieved to see a little bit of his basic nature reasserting itself.

“So there’s another codecard, is there? One I could use to open the box?”

“Yes, I kept a second one hidden at home—just in case.”

“Very wise.” I pondered J. Davis Alexander’s words. Our daughter, Valerie-France, was on Earth, in a special school/home/medical center for the very occasional Belter child who is afflicted with Kesler’s Syndrome in spite of the gravity pills that all children begin taking as soon as they leave the Earth-normal gravity of Maternity Rock. Unless Vally wanted to end up looking like J. Davis Alexander, she would have to stay on Earth until her growth stabilized at eighteen or nineteen standard years. It had been eleven months now since I had last seen her. “You want me to go to Liechtenstein?”

“Yes.”

Liechtenstein was next to Switzerland, and Valerie-France’s clinic was in Switzerland.

“Why don’t you go yourself? Now there’s one more person who knows about the bearer box.”

“You expect me to be able to take two months off from my duties, White? Are you crazy? With that billion-buckle Medimax issue coming up? Of course you’re going!”

“First-class round trip, all expenses paid? Full salary while I’m gone, at double overtime?”

“Yes, yes, yes! Just go, White, go! ”

“I’ll do it,” I said. “Let me go find out about packets.”

“I’ve already done it,” said J. Davis Alexander, settling back in his seat and fixing me with his customary beady eye. “Hooten took the Yankee Flyer, which left Ceres eleven days ago. Luckily for us, it’s going via Vesta, so he won’t be getting into Earth orbit until around three in the morning GMT on August 12th. If he hurries, he could be at the bank the same afternoon. So, just to be on the safe side, you’ve got to get to Earth by at least the 10th.”

“Yippee,” I muttered, my mind already turning to the presents Isabel, Jin Tshei, and I would be getting for Valérie-France, “that means I’ll be there in time to celebrate Tahitian Independence Day. So what packet have you got me booked on?”

“It’s not exactly a packet,” snapped J. Davis Alexander. “There are no ships from anywhere in the Belt that could get you to Earth by then.” He leaned forward, his malevolent little eyes boring into mine. “You, White, are about to go down in the annals of history: you are going to be the first human being to travel from the Belt to Earth inside an ore-ball express!”

This, I reflected sourly as I scowled at the cramped quarters of the tiny beltship that were going to constitute my living space for the next twenty-three days, was a scheme you could pull off only if you owned 13.64 percent of the stock in Orbex, Inc. You could delay the departure date of the Ore-ball Express by thirty-six hours and have its feeble little propulsion system reprogrammed to thrust at .1 g instead of the .087 already scheduled—just enough, according to VettiLou Propokov, to get me into Earth orbit by August 10th, just in time for the Polynesians’ Independence Day celebrations, and nearly two full days before the Yankee Flyer bearing Hooten Delahooty and his favorite uncle’s codecard were due to arrive on their way to the Banque Unione de Vaduz.

It was, I supposed, remarkable—and reflected the extent of J. Davis Alexander’s desperation—what the resources of Hartman, Bemis & Choupette had managed to get done in a mere thirty-six hours.

A one-man beltship small enough for its essential components to be passed through the airlock in the side of the Ore-ball Express had been located and chopped to pieces. Nothing remained of it now except for its living quarters and life-support system. My new home was hardly larger than a good-sized powersuit but infinitely more comfortable. Besides having a narrow bunk that folded down from the port wall, it boasted a tiny bathroom and an even smaller galley.

“Everything looks all right?” asked VettiLou Propokov, floating upside down in her powersuit in the ship’s airlock. I nodded glumly. “I personally checked the water supply, power, lighting, the galley, the head, and the air-recycling,” she assured me. “Everything is fine—you should have a very comfortable trip.”