David Alexander: Tramp

“Well what? I don’t know what half this stuff is, leastwise if it’s broken or not. Do you have the code for the online systems?”

Proper ship’s security called for different CACs for ports, holds, and computer access, but as I had already confirmed, Eves wasn’t a careful man. A careful man would not have run out of fuel in the vast emptiness between the stars. His codes for the main hatch and the main hold shouldn’t have been the same, but they were. I hoped that the same one would access the engineering computer as well. It did.

Calipha called up a schematic of the engine room, then highlighted each major piece of equipment that he didn’t recognize and hit the plate’s “More Info” choice. Slowly at first, then faster as he began to find his way around the system, Calipha dove through the contents of the on-line manuals. At first his explorations were punctuated with guttural noises, “hmmms,” and an occasional soft whistle, then, the deeper he got into the system, the quieter he became. Finally, Calipha closed the help window, turned to me, and let out a long sigh.

“I don’t know if she’s in working order or not, but I can tell you one thing: this ship doesn’t belong to Slater Eves.”

“Who does she belong to?”

“I don’t know. And maybe I don’t want to know. She’s experimental, a prototype; I can tell you that. No way some clown in red pants would be flying around in this baby on a joyride where he accidentally runs out of juice.”

“Experimental how?”

Calipha took a long breath, then waved loosely toward the plate. “It’s all in there. She’s got a new sensor suite, Prox-2 according to the manual. The on-line docs say that it can detect other bubbles in Non-E and plot a vector to them. It’s still pretty crude, not very good at calculating an intercept, but apparently it works.”

“So that’s why I kept getting a prox alarm just before we dropped out. When he started to run out of fuel, Eves found the Orion on that thing.”

“That’s not all.”

“What else?”

“Within certain energy ranges it can drop a target ship out of Non-E by destabilizing her bubble.”

“What! Do you know what this means?” I said angrily as I studied the strange equipment with a look of revulsion.

“I’m not stupid!”

“Who do you think built this? The Fed military? The Combination?”

“This is no government ship. My guess? Some company was researching something or other and one of their scientists ran into whatever phenomena this Prox-2 sensor uses. They start pouring money into it, maybe figuring on a government contract. Or maybe their plan was to go straight to the Combination. The hijacking business would probably repay the investment in the first six months.”

“We’ll be sitting ducks for these guys! Stolen cargos, ransacked ships, kidnapped passengers—it’ll be like it was in the old days of sailing ships. It’ll take the Feds years to outfit a fleet big enough to protect us.”

“How do you suppose Eves got her?” Calipha asked, no longer concerned about his lost sleep.

“If you’re right, maybe he was an executive with the company. He’s no scientist, that’s for sure. Or maybe it was his family’s business. He’s such a jerk, that makes more sense to me. A guy like that, he needs money, starts thinking about what he could do with a ship like this. He lets himself into the facility with a backdoor code he’s been saving and takes off ten minutes in front of the cops.”

“What are we going to do about this, Dondero?”

“What can we do? We don’t have any proof that it’s a stolen ship or that Eves or anyone else has done anything illegal, even if we were policemen, which we’re not.”

“But if they get this ship back—”

“Maybe they don’t need it back. It stands to reason they’d have copies of all the documentation, all the research.”

“If he didn’t take that too,” Calipha said, a crafty look creeping into his face. “If it were me, I’d have wiped out their records when I grabbed the ship. God knows the Combination wouldn’t pay twice. I would have fixed it so that I wouldn’t have to worry about any competition.”

“That’s easier said than done. We can sit here and spout ‘maybes’ all day but it won’t change anything. Close it down. It’s the captain’s decision, not ours.”

“Look, Dondero, I’ve seen broken ships, bodies floating in space. I’m not going to—”

“That’s Mister Dondero. Now shut it down and get back to the boat!”

Calipha’s red-rimmed eyes glared at me for a long heartbeat, then angrily he slapped the system off and climbed the stairs to the main deck. I stayed behind for another minute or two, then followed.

“What were you doing down there?” Calipha asked me when I joined him in the boat.

“Just double-checking that all the systems were off and that everything was back the way we found it. Making sure everything was shipshape.”

Calipha gave me a suspicious, sidelong glance, but I ignored him and a moment later we were pulling away from the Montclair.

“Go back to bed,” I ordered Calipha a few minutes later when we had returned to the Orion. “Get yourself a few hours sleep before you have to go back on duty.”

“But what about—”

“I’ll talk to the captain. Go on, get some rest. You’ve earned it.”

Calipha stared at me for a moment longer, started to say something, then thought better of it and turned away. As for myself, I went down to the mess, got some breakfast, then went looking for Captain O’Bannion.

“So there’s no proof he’s done anything wrong?”

“No, sir.”

“All right. Well, at least we can demand to see his papers.”

“And then what?”

“Whose side are you on, Dondero?”

“Suppose we’re right and he can’t prove she’s his ship? We leave her here and take him to Coffernam. Then the people who built her come back and get her and what good have we done?”

“All right, Dondero. What do you want me to do?”

“We’re not the police, Captain. We should mind our own business. What else can we do?”

Frustrated, O’Bannion turned back to the maintenance report I had just given him.

“You’ll have this finished by fourteen hundred hours?”

“If I get back to work right now.” The captain nodded, punched the “confirm” button on my CB, and handed it back to me.

“Get back here by the time Calipha’s ready to begin injection.”

“Yes, sir.”

As I was leaving the mess just after lunch Eves caught up with me.

“I need to talk with your captain,” he said with an edge to his voice as if daring me to argue with him.

“Fine,” I agreed, checking the chron. “He should be on the bridge right now. Follow me.”

I made Eves wait outside while I checked with Captain O’Bannion, then a minute later I ushered him inside.

“Captain,” Eves said warily.

“Mr. Eves. Will you be accepting our hospitality as far as Coffernam?”

“Thank you, but no. If I can impose on you for enough fuel to get me to Jasmine, I’ll take the Montclair there for refueling and supply.”

“Mr. Dondero did explain to you that I’m responsible to the owners? You’ll have to pay standard rates for the fuel.”

“Two thousand UCs should cover it, I think. I have that much with me.” Eves handed the captain his card with the debit already coded. O’Bannion looked at it, frowned, then inserted it into the ship’s reader. Eves applied his left thumb to the pad, then wrote his code longhand beneath the privacy hood. The reader’s light signaled that the codes and handwriting matched. The transfer would be completed as soon as the captain indicated his acceptance by the entry of the ship’s code.