Jack Chalker - Kaspar's Box

As they went, they were scanned as thoroughly as they ever had been in their lives. By the time they reached the end point of the walkway, perhaps a kilometer or so, the master Customs and Immigration computers could tell them how many hairs they had on their heads (if they had any), where their scars were, what they’d had for breakfast, and almost everything else. At the end, each of them had to stand and place their right index fingers in a small fitted slot before moving on. Although none felt a thing, their genetic histories were now added to the files.

It ended at an unstaffed set of kiosks. A green light would go on, and you had to enter, one at a time. Lieutenant Chung was first, depositing the credit and authorization cube from the shuttle. It would allow the navy pair to charge throughout the city region and order whatever maintenance was necessary on the shuttle. The others were simply asked by a disembodied voice to state their full names, their planet of origin, and how long they would be on Barnum’s World. The girls were told to say “We don’t know at this time,” to that, which resulted in a warning that they had a week to find out and notify authorities or they would be located and deported.

There was nothing else required of them. No matter where they went on Barnum’s World from this point, their own DNA matched to the database just compiled would be known, and their every move tracked within the city. Outside of the city, the transport would be known, so that authorities generally could find them as needed.

The one thing the girls couldn’t do was buy anything. That made them totally dependent on Murphy for now, or on whoever might meet them. Murphy wasn’t all that worried about that part of it. Even on their own, he bet himself that the girls and their funny gemstones would allow them to buy almost anything they wanted without the transaction ever even registering. When you took over a naval frigate, what was a government tracking system?

For all the precautions taken, and this was typical of modern, well-run colonies now, even Murphy knew how to bypass almost every system they had, and he didn’t even have to.

Finally, they reached another double door setup quite like the last part but this time much cleaner and better maintained. When they went through the second of them, though, they were back into the hot, humid, and smelly air of Barnum’s World and now facing transport into the city. It ranged from robotic taxis and a basic mass transit train to the more exotic. There were carts about, and carriages, and all sorts of other conveyances, which were in many cases pulled by great beasts the likes of which none but Murphy had ever seen before. Elephants, both Indian and African type, and camels, among others.

“There’s some of the smell, ladies,” he told them, pointing. “The local cheap and scenic route.”

They just gaped at it all, the taxis and trains as exotic as the bizarre animals, unable to take it in.

“Welcome to Barnum’s World,” said Captain Murphy.

The maglev train, with no sound to speak of and no obvious driver, pulled into the station and came to an equally silent stop and opened its sliding doors.

“Is it alive?” Mary Margaret wanted to know.

“Of course not!” Sergeant Maslovic responded, sounding amused. “You’ve never seen a train before?”

“We’ve never seen nothin’ before,” Irish O’Brian responded, looking as nervous as the others at the prospect of actually getting inside the thing. “Just pony carts and horses and the occasional spaceship. Stuff like that.”

“C’mon, girls, just step aboard and take a seat!” Murphy urged. “This won’t wait forever, and I want to get into town.”

Chung was already on, and Maslovic and Murphy helped each of the young women to come aboard even though there was no step and no gap. It was just now striking even the old captain just how fish-out-of-water these girls were. He’d been going back and forth in his mind, calling them “girls” but knowing that they were older and more experienced in one way than the name implied, but it worked here more than anywhere else as a truthful term. They were mere children in most experiences.

Even though they’d pulled an amazing fast one on the navy and actually partly taken control of a sophisticated craft, they really didn’t know what they were doing or what even they were seeing. They were being fed, led, or controlled when they did that. In actual fact, none of the trio had ever been off Tara Hibernius before, and the world in which they’d been born and raised had been kept deliberately backward and primitive, more nineteenth century than twenty-third. It was one thing not to have seen an elephant before; few had who hadn’t been on one of the very few worlds where they were a part of the culture. It was quite another to consider that none of the three had ever seen a train, a taxi, even a paved road or sidewalk. Now here, everything was new and scary and mysterious. No matter what powers they had, without the mind behind those necklace gems or the minds here they were pretty much helpless, not to mention clueless.

The trains were extremely fast as well as being isolated from just about all bumps and grinds, and if there hadn’t been several stations between the spaceport and the city, they would have been there in just a few minutes. As it was, they reached the downtown section of Port Bainbridge in about twenty minutes.

“We might as well get off at this stop,” Maslovic told them. “This is the center of the main commercial district. I don’t know where else would be better.”

They all exited at the stop, and as the train closed its doors and floated silently away down its maglev track, Murphy turned to Chung and Maslovic and asked, “So, now what?”

“What do you mean?” the lieutenant responded.

“I mean exactly that,” the old captain explained. “We’re in the middle of town in what looks like the middle of the day and these three sweet things can’t even get a cup of tea on their own. They stand here basically clad in the navy’s bathrobes helpless as babes. I know where I have to go, but what of them?”

“What about them?” Chung asked him. “We’re free of responsibility to you and to them at this point. We’ve landed you successfully at the nearest inhabited and interconnected colonial world. We have naval business here, and then we are on leave until our ship comes insystem. Our responsibility to you is done.”

Murphy looked like he was about to have a stroke. “But—but—you can’t do this to me! I got me own business here and then I want off! I can’t be saddled with the three of ’em indefinitely! I mean, I ain’t even been paid yet!”

“I’m afraid they are your problem, Captain,” Maslovic put in. “I mean, when we intercepted you, you were in the process of smuggling these three here, or at least bringing them here. Three very young, underage in fact, pregnant teens without the permission of any of their family or even that family’s knowledge. That can result in some pretty serious stuff if it were to come to that!”

“Oh, c’mon! You know they was runnin’ fer their lives!”

“So you say. Well, you also said you were being paid to bring them here. They’re here. We didn’t stop that. Now they’re your problem. You’re lucky we don’t turn you in, or at least charge you for the robes.”

Murphy’s face was beet red and he began to sputter. “But we ain’t even due here for another week! What do I do with ’em until then?”

“If we didn’t have other things to do, we’d be quite curious to find out the answer to that,” Lieutenant Chung said to them, trying to keep a totally blank expression on her face and not quite making it. “Farewell, Captain. Farewell, young ladies. Sergeant?”