Jack Chalker - Melchior's Fire

“My problem is Sanders,” Lucky Cross put in. “No matter what, I just can’t trust the son of a bitch. He’s got some way to cheat us, I’m sure of it.”

“Well, we’ve let the Guild lawyers do the contract, so that part is solid,” An Li assured her. “And we’re gonna have the valuables under our control, so we’ll have possession. I agree, he’s slimy and he’ll try to pull stuff, but, frankly, considering what we’re about to agree to do, handling him is gonna be the least of our problems, and something I’ll happily worry about when we’re back.”

“Agreed,” Sark said, nodding. “If all else fails, I’ll gladly just shoot the son of a bitch and take my chances. Out here, your word and your contract are the sacred things. Who the hell’s gonna convict me for popping a crooked producer?”

“That’s important,” Queson pointed out.

“What? That I could kill him and get a medal out here?”

“No, no. That he has to come here to settle, or at least we settle here. The contract’s signed and sealed here, we’re hired for the round trip from here, so this is where it ends. We don’t play in his yard.”

“Agreed. Okay, folks, there’s nothing more to do but to do it,” An Li told them.

Maybe, Randi Queson thought, but Norman Sanders isn’t the only slimy crook around here. This time you don’t get to sit high and dry up in orbit while we put our necks in a noose. This time, your neck’s on equal footing with mine. You’re not the boss anymore.

Sanders was all smiles, which made the crew collectively uneasy, but he assured them that he would sign the agreement and that their own attorneys would verify it before they left. He did choke a little at the list of equipment the various members came up with, but he still agreed that he’d provide it all, or at least the closest equivalent he could find on this junkyard planet.

“I’ve transferred the Stanley ’s lease to my production company,” he told them, “and a crew is already up there making modifications and repairs to outfit it for the trip. Just out of curiosity—any of you ever ridden through a wild hole before?”

“Not too many people have,” Cross told him. “At least, not too many have and lived to tell the tale. None of us are looking forward to it, but we’re ready to give it a try.”

“Yes, well, that’s not really your job, is it? Your job starts when you arrive. I’ve placed the navigational information in encrypted form in the captain’s navigational computer, by the way. The captain will have access to it, but nobody else, and even she won’t be able to get to it until she needs it, and only during that period. You’ve been making snide remarks about my honesty, so this is my way of insuring yours.”

“That’s not fair!” Cross almost shouted at him. “What if something goes wrong? We won’t have any data at all to be able to use manually!”

He shrugged. “I suggest that if something that bad goes wrong then manual control will be the least of your problems. Manual control brought back mangled ships and dead bodies. The captain’s signed off on this. The rest makes no difference. Oh, and one other thing.”

“Yes?” An Li responded, not liking this a bit.

“You’re going to take along a robotic camera unit. It’s quite intelligent, almost to having a personality of sorts, but it consumes nothing and its sole function is to record this entire expedition. If you get back, this footage alone will be a sensation.”

“I don’t like it,” Sark grumbled. “I don’t like to shower in public.”

“It’s smart enough to know what’s appropriate, and to take criticism and suggestions. It absolutely will not get in the way. That’s not its job. But refuse to take it, and it’s a deal breaker. That’s the one and only condition I place. At the very least, I want to see where my money’s going.”

And whether or not we’re trying to put something over on you, An Li thought. Still, it wasn’t worth arguing over.

“If it’s smart and doesn’t interfere and if it can even help if need be, then we’ll take it. One problem or funny move, though, and it’s history. You understand that?”

“I think we understand each other perfectly.”

“When will the supplies be aboard and the ship refitted? In other words, how soon can we go?” An Li asked him.

“Two more days. Some of the weaponry you wanted isn’t exactly legal, you know, and many of the sensors and such are also pretty tough to find in good condition. Still, most of it is repairing the damage to the Stanley . Oh—the shipfitter wants to know if you want to take the smelter. Even if you did use it to good effect last trip, it seems rather excessive here, and the object is to streamline the outer hull as much as is possible in a salvage ship.”

“We can send that one back,” Jerry Nagel told him. “It didn’t really do a whole hell of a lot of good for us, and even less for poor Achmed, and I can’t think of anything we’d use it for on this kind of trip. What few of its functions might be useful we can get from the weapons array. A lot of what we asked for isn’t for shooting, it’s alternative tools, you might say. I suspect if we face off against an alien race that’s been running this kind of experiment or scam or whatever all these years, they can probably outgun us anyway. My feeling is they’ll keep hidden, let us hang ourselves, as it were. I’m not itching to fight somebody who actually might be able to use stuff that’s brand new.”

“Fair enough. I’ll stick around long enough to see you off, but then I have to get back home. I’ve put off work far too long now,” Sanders said.

“But we meet here to settle up,” An Li reminded him.

He smiled sweetly. “Of course! You couldn’t keep me away. So, that’s it now.”

“Well, one more thing,” An Li told him.

“Oh?”

“Petty cash. We’re going to need to pick up some personal things here, and we’re gonna have a nice little going-away party as well.”

Norman Sanders sighed. “Oh, very well. How much?”

“Two thousand apiece.”

“ What! ”

An Li shrugged. “Don’t worry, Normie, Baby. It comes out of our share…”

He wasn’t mollified. “What the hell are you going to do with money like that?”

She smiled sweetly. “That’s none of your damned business.”

“Hello. I am Eyegor,” said the thing floating just in front of Randi Queson. The voice was pleasant enough, but it had that ring of artificiality, of machine, in a clear undertone, and its emotional range was somewhat limited.

The thing itself was about a meter high, and was mostly a stalk filled with folded-up arms and tools, almost like a gigantic utility knife, with a “head” that was a small translucent globe with a thin, reddish-brown band going completely around its equator. It floated in some fashion, keeping the “head” roughly at a height just below parity with whomever it was addressing.

“Let me guess. You’re Sanders’s camera, right?”

“One of many, yes. In this case I am his primary documentary unit. My sole function is to record as much raw footage as possible of whatever happens and then get it back to my company. I am used to making myself as unobtrusive as possible.”

“Well, you better be very unobtrusive when it comes to us,” she warned the robot. “We’re not actors or film people in any way, and we treasure our privacy. There isn’t much on a ship like this, even less on an away team, so whatever privacy we can get we demand. You should understand that.”