Allan Cole - Sten

They had the look of men going home.

"Time to hoist 'em," one of them said.

In unison, they finished their drinks and rose. Sten pushed in behind them as they moved through the crowd and out the door.

Sten huddled in the nose section of the shuttle. A panel hid him from the sailors. They lifted off from Vulcan, and moments later Sten could see the freighter through the clear bubble nose as the shuttle floated up toward it.

The deep-space freighter—an enormous multisegmented insect—stretched out for kilometers. A swarm of beetlelike tugs towed still more sections into line and nudged them into place. The drive section of the freighter was squat and ugly with horn projections bristling around the face. As the shuttle neared the face, it grinned open.

Just before it swallowed him, Sten thought it was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

He barely heard the judge as the man droned on, listing Sten's crimes against the Company. Sten was surrounded by Sociopatrolmen. In front of the judge, the Counselor loomed, his head nearly invisible in plastibandages, nodding painfully as the judge made each legal point.

They had found Sten in the shuttle, huddled under some blankets, stolen ship's stores stacked around him. Even as he messaged Vulcan for someone to pick Sten up, the captain kept apologizing. He had heard stories.

"We can't help you," he said. "Vulcan security sends snoopers on every freighter before it clears, looking for people like you."

Sten was silent.

"Listen," the captain went on, "I can't take the chance. If I tried to help and got caught, the Company'd pull my trading papers. And I'd be done. It's not just me. I gotta think of my crew. . ."

Sten came awake as a Sociopatrolman pushed him forward. The judge had finished. It was time for sentencing. What was it going to be? Brainburn? If that was it, Sten hoped he had enough mind left to kill himself.

Then the judge was talking. "You are aware, I hope, of the enormity of your crimes?"

Sten thought about doing the Mig humility. Be damned, he thought. He didn't have anything to lose. He stared back at the judge.

"I see. Counselor, do you have anything of an ameliorative nature to add to these proceedings?"

The Counselor started to say something, and then abruptly shook his head.

"Very well. Karl Sten, since you, at your young age, are capable of providing many years of service to the Company and we do not wish to appear unmerciful, recognizing the possibility of redemption, I will merely reassign you."

For a moment, Sten felt hopeful.

"Your new work assignment will be in the Exotics Section. For an indeterminate period. If—ahem—circumstances warrant, after a suitable length of time I will review your sentence."

The judge nodded, and touched the INPUT button on his justice panel. The Sociopatrolmen led Sten away. He wasn't sure what the judge meant. Or what his sentence was. Except his mind was intact, and he was alive.

He turned at the door, and realized, from the grin on the Counselor's face, he might not be for very long.

"SIMPLY A MATTER a' entropy. Proves it," the older man said. And lifted his mug.

The younger man beside him, who wore the flash coveralls of a driveship officer, snickered and crashed his boots onto the table. His coveralls bore the nametag of RASCHID, H. E., ENGINEERING OFFICER.

"Wha's so funny?" his senior said belligerently. He looked at the other four deep-space men around the tavern's table. "These is me officers, and they didn't hear me say nothin' funny. Did ya?"

Raschid looked around and grinned widely at the drunkenly chorused "yessirs." Picked up his own mug in both hands and drained it.

"Another round—I'll tell you. I been listening to frizzly old bastards like you talk about how things is runnin' down, and how they're gettin' worse and all that since I first was a steward's pup."

The barmaid—the spaceport dive's biggest and only attraction—slid mugs down the long polished aluminum bar. Raschid blew foam off the top of his mug and swallowed.

"Talkin' to fools," he said, "is thirsty work. Even when they're high-credit driveship captains."

The captain's mate flexed his shoulders—a move that had kept him out of fights in a thousand worlds—and glowered. Raschid laughed again.

"Man gets too old to stump his own pins, he generally finds some punko to do it for him. Tell you what, cap'n. You gimme one good example of how things is goin' to sheol in a handbasket, and maybe, jus' maybe, I'll believe you."

The captain sloshed beer down and wiped the overflow from his already sodden uniform front.

"The way we's treated. Look'a us. We're officers. Contract traders. Billions a' credits rest on our every decision. But look around. We're on Prime World. Heart'a the Empire an' all that clot. But do we get treated wi' the respect due us? Hell no!"

"We's the gears what makes the Empire turn!" one of his officers yelled.

"So, what d'ya expect?"

"Like I said. Respect. Two, three hunnerd years back, we woulda been fawned over when we made planetfall. Ever'body wantin' to know what it was like out there. Women fallin' over us. I tell you. . ."

The captain stood up and pointed one finger, an effect that was ruined by a belch that rattled the walls slightly. "When an empire forgets how to treat its heroes, it's fallin' apart!" He nodded triumphantly, turned to his officers. "That prove it or not?"

Raschid ignored the shouted agreement. "You think it oughta be like the old days? Say, like when there were torchships?"

"You ain't gotta go back that far, but tha's good example. More beer! Back when they was ion ships and men to match 'em."

"Torchships my ass," Raschid sneered. He spat on the floor. "Those torchships. You know how they worked? Computer-run. From lift-off to set down."

The other spacemen at the table looked puzzled. "Wha' 'bout the crews?"

"Yeah. The crews! Lemme tell you what those livees don't get around to showin'. Seems most'a those torchships were a little hot. From nozzle right up to Barrier Thirty-three, which is where the cargo and passengers were.

"After a few years, they started havin' trouble gettin' young heroes as crew after these young heroes found their bones turned green an' ran out their sleeves after two-three trips.

"So you know who these crews were? Dockside rummies that had just 'bout enough brains to dump the drive if it got hot beyond Thirty-three. They'd shove enough cheap synthalk in 'em to keep 'em from opening up the lock to see what was on the other side, punch the TAKEOFF button, and run like hell. Those were your clottin' hero torchships an' their hero ossifers.

"An' you think people didn't know about it? You think those drunks got torch parades if they lived through a trip? You think that, you even dumber than you look."

The captain looked around at his crew. They waited for a cue.

"How come you know so much—Barrier Thirty-three—on'y way a man could know that he'd have to crew one." The old man's mug slammed down. "That's it! We come over here for a quiet mug or so—sit around, maybe tell some lies. . .but we ain't standing for nobody who's thinkin' we're dumb enough to believe. . ."

"I did," Raschid said flatly.

The man broke off. His mate stood up. "You sayin' you're a thousand years old, chief?"

Raschid shook his head and drained his beer. "Nope. Older."

The captain twitched his head at the mate. . .the mate balled up a fist that should've been subcontracted as a wrecking ball and swung. Raschid's head wasn't there.

He was diving forward, across the table. The top of his head thudded into the captain's third officer, who, with another man, crashed to the floor in a welter of breaking chairs.