Barry Longyear - Enemy Papers

The suspension pods look like elongated silver teardrops gathered into two circles, the points aiming toward the centers where are located the life-support monitoring banks and connections. There is room in the compartment for six other such circles, but they have been removed and the space given over to exercise equipment and more cargo space. It is going to be a six-month trip to Timan, and as the captain points out, in the space between takeoff and landing, life on the Aeolus is much like doing time in prison. Upon relating that bit of information, he smiles his only smile.

"Captain Moss is making it sound worse than it really is," assures Rotek I Hye after we return to First Colony Charters. "You’ll be in suspension for most of the trip, with probably one or two interruptions for health checks and maintenance. While you are in suspension you can go blank, as they say, leaving your trip with only a total of perhaps five or six days in real time, or you can use the time either to entertain or educate yourself."

Zammis makes a joke about being on a trip to Earth once and stuck in the middle of a work called Moby Dick for twenty-eight days until it was rescued by a maintenance and exercise break. "Damn your eyes!" shouts Jeriba Zammis, "what’s that pump stopping for?' Roared Radney, pretending not to have heard the sailors' talk, Thunder away at it!

" Aye, aye, sir, said Steelkilt, merry as a cricket."

And so on. In a more serious vein, Zammis points out that, if I want to, I can have The Talman programmed for the voyage. "It would give you a solid foundation for memorizing the work, for when you stand the rites."

The charterer apologizes and says that in another six days there will be a second ship available for charter, and in a month a third. Moving a charter from a larger port on another planet would effectively triple the price and would take at least forty days.

Sanda joins us at the charter office and Rotek I Hye excuses herself and leaves as the investigator reports using its pocket computer to refresh its memory. "The ship is registered on Rhana and is one of three such ships owned by Moss Transportation, which is wholly owned by Eli Moss, captain of the Aeolus. Although he has never actually been charged with violating any laws, he has a bit of a reputation as a smuggler."

I ask, "Was Moss in the military?"

Sanda nods as it pages to a particular reference. "He was an attack pilot in the USEF, seeing action only in the Buldahk Insurrection eleven years ago. Shortly afterward he was dismissed under dishonorable conditions for disobeying orders and striking three superior officers. After his dismissal, he flew as a mercenary for several quadrant powers, principally for the Dracon Chamber. Five years ago he took his savings and began his cargo line."

"Did he ever serve the Timans?" asks Zammis.

"No. The only connection with Timan I can find is that he does regular runs there, bringing in the few human and Drac passengers who need to travel there on business, and to bring in specialized instruments and equipment available only outside Timan."

"For Timan Nisak?" I ask.

"Yes. Among others."

I point at Sanda’s computer. "What of the crew?"

"The co-pilot is a female named Yora Beneres. When Moss was cashiered from the USEF she resigned her own commission. She’s been with Moss ever since. The engineer is a male named Ghazi Mrabet. He’s been with Moss for the past three years, and appears to be something of a magician with machinery." Sanda raises a disapproving eyebrow. "Prior to his employment with Moss, Mrabet’s principal notoriety was based on his well-publicized sexual liaisons with some rather well-known Dracs, most notably the artist Xian Ti."

"He knows Xian Ti, the sculptor?" blurts out Jeriba Zammis, thoroughly starstruck and quite missing Sanda’s point.

"Yes. Quite." The investigator pages down and says, "The remaining member of the crew, cargo master and steward Ernst Brandt, served with the Tsien Denvedah, becoming a seventh officer before he resigned to join the same mercenary unit for which Moss was fighting."

I am stunned. "A human in the Tsien Denvedah?"

Sanda looks at me as though I had recently emerged from beneath a rock. "Of course. Humans have been in the Denve for the past two decades. Dracs are in the USEF, as well."

"When in the Denve," interrupts Zammis, "did this Ernst Brandt have a specialty?"

Sanda taps a finger on its computer’s tiny screen, "Military intelligence. His nickname is Reaper."

"Reaper?"

"It’s an agricultural term the significance of which escapes me," answered the investigator.

"Among some humans," Zammis interrupted, "the Grim Reaper is a euphemism for Death."

I acknowledge the explanation with raised eyebrows and a sinking feeling.

Jeriba Zammis walks to a window and looks through it to the enclosed mall connected to the space port. A scattering of humans and Dracs walk slowly, pausing to look in the store windows while the moving walkways speed small crowds of pedestrians to their various destinations. "Tell me, Mirili Sanda," says Zammis. "If there were two ships available for this charter instead of just one, what are the odds of the second ship being similar to the Aeolus and its crew?"

"Charter work is something for which ships register when they can’t get anything else. I’ve seen worse ships and more disreputable crews, Jeriba Zammis, but not much better."

"What of this involvement with Timan Nisak?"

"A ship equipped to land on Timan gets that way because it travels to Timan. Nisak is the largest single interplanetary business concern there. Chances are good that if a human or Drac ship is used in business on Timan, it will at some time or other deal with Nisak or a subsidiary of Nisak."

Zammis turns from the window and looks at Sanda. "Then it is merely a coincidence?"

Sanda holds out its hands. "That is possible."

Facing the window once more, Zammis says, "Sanda, please post that information to the estate. Uncle might be back by now and Ty will show it to him. It’s Uncle’s decision, not mine."

"Back?" I inquire.

Zammis glances at me and returns its gaze to the mall. "Yes. Uncle went skiing this morning."

As I point out to myself that there is no point in asking why or with whom, Zammis asks Sanda, "Incidentally, what is the significance of the ship’s name, Aeolus?"

"Moss named the ship after it was refitted, and the name wasn’t English or Esper so I wondered and did some research." Sanda glanced at me and then told Zammis, "In ancient belief on Earth, among the tribe of Greeks, Aeolus was the god of the winds."

"The Greeks. Zeus, Athens, Aristotle and all that?"

"Yes."

I face Jeriba Zammis. "Humans often name their machines and other possessions. I have seen humans address weapons, helmets, luck charms, landtraks, flyers, cook stoves, and satellites with names of endearment. Usually the names are only a way to make an inanimate object something more: a friend or companion. There are no rules or customs, as such."

Zammis rubs its chin. "I have witnessed this same behavior on Earth. The chief executive officer of Baine Whitley refers to her computer as The Bitch. I can’t recall Uncle ever naming such things, however." Zammis looks at Sanda. "What are the names of Moss’s other ships?"

"The Max Stearn , named after a fellow USEF pilot of Moss’s whose ship and crew were completely destroyed in the Buldahk Insurrection shortly before Moss was dismissed from the USEF. The remaining ship is the Edmund Fitzgerald, named for a freshwater ore ship on Earth owned by the Columbia Line that sank with its entire crew during a storm in the Common Era year of 1975."