E-mail Matt Jarpe at m.jarpe@comcast.net
Web design & programming by David Louis Edelman.
By Matthew Jarpe
Originally published August 2004 by Asimov's Science Fiction. Copyright © 2004 by Matthew Jarpe.
A collision course. Well, that had to be a mistake. There was too much empty space in the solar system for two ships to collide, and there was no good reason to steer one ship into another on purpose. Randy Marsgalen watched the blip on his radar get closer and closer, and finally he decided it was no mistake and switched on his radio.
“What the hell are you doing?” he said on the standard ship-to-ship frequency for the Red Run. “I mean, unidentified vessel, this is the Rattle and Hum, Martian registration number 5538-A47D. What the hell are you doing?”
“Rattle and Hum, this is Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Damager’s license 632. Maintain course and speed and prepare for rendezvous.”
“Damager?” Randy said, staring at the radar blip. “Crap. What the hell does he want with me?”
No one answered him, because he was all alone on the ship. Long-haul trucking was a singular pursuit, perfectly suited to a solitary man. Some truckers might welcome a bit of company along the Red Run. It was half-a-year at best to schlep manufactured goods from Earth to Mars, or refined metal the other way. A guy could get a little lonely making the trip. But nobody would welcome company in the form of a licensed Damager. It could only mean trouble.
Maintain course and speed. The Rattle and Hum had finished its orbital insertion weeks ago. It was capable of only minor course corrections during the long coast to Mars. Maintain course and speed was all the long hauler could do.
“Tex, I gotta ask why?” Randy tried to keep his voice pleasant, but didn’t quite make it. “Got no contraband here. Honest legal cargo.”
“Rattle and Hum, maintain your course,” the Massacre said. “We’ve got pirate activity in the area. I need to board your vessel and look for stolen goods.”
“Pirates,” Randy growled. “There are no frigging pirates. I’ve been doing the Red Run for six years and I’ve never seen one goddamned pirate out here!” He took a deep breath of cold, dry air, smelling as always of machine oil and metal, and activated the pickup. “Gee, Tex, I don’t know. You hear stories about pirates in the bars at either end of this run, but out here in the big empty, it just doesn’t seem possible. A pirate would have to be pretty damn stealthy to sneak up on a fella out here, don’t you figure?”
“A family was attacked yesterday,” the Damager said. “Homesteaders on their way to the outer system. Everybody dead, their gear stripped. They were back along your vector. You stay your course and I’ll board you in two hours.”
“I’m staying, chief,” Randy said. “Got no place else to go. We’re sharing the same orbit, after all.”
And in any case, the Damager had weapons. That’s what Damager meant. The Rattle and Hum had a clumsy particle shield/beam weapon that could stop a small rock or a slow rocket. But the Damager was loaded with all manner of wicked implements. Neutron slammers, lepton fingers, positron poppers. The Damagers got to play with all the cool toys. And, in exchange, all they had to do was prove, after the fact, that they had only used them on bad guys.
Two hours later, and the Texas Chainsaw Massacre was on the Rattle and Hum like a randy Chihuahua on a sluggish St. Bernard bitch. Prehensile coupling cables joined the two ships so that the suspect couldn’t fire up secret engines and make a run for it. Randy listened to the clunks as the cables found purchase, then more clunks as the Damager clomped around the uninhabitable parts of the long hauler. He watched the privateer’s progress on his external cameras where he could, tracked him by electrical field distortions where he couldn’t.
Some of the Damagers were like police. They did what they were meant to do, and chased bad people around the solar system. Others were out for adventure, and, out of sheer incompetence, caused more trouble than they deterred. And some, a few, were actually criminals themselves. There were stories, told in the trucker bars at the space stations all over the inner system, of Damagers planting evidence and confiscating gear and cargo. And then there were the ones about maniacs who took advantage of the remote darkness of the outer system to perform unspeakable acts. Unspeakable for everyone but the truckers in the bars, that is. Some of the stories went into graphic and improbable detail about the things one could do to someone who would not be missed, in a place where the sun didn’t shine, in a void where screams didn’t carry.
This guy seemed okay, though, Randy decided. Thorough, a little clutzy in freefall, slow, but probably not a murderer in spite of the name of his ship. He poked around the cargo hold, the engines, and the life support cluster before making his way to the habitat airlock.
“I have to check inside,” he said over the short-range radio.
“Come on in, captain,” Randy told him. “Door’s not locked.”
The Damager cycled through the airlock. There wasn’t much to look at when the inner door opened. His pressure suit was a hardshell, armed with a laser on one arm and a slug thrower on the other. Every surface was reflective at most of the wavelengths that standard lasers had emission lines.
He didn’t take off the suit or waste time on niceties, but went right to his search. He combed through the piles of junk Randy had been playing with on his long trip. He had several projects in various stages of work, from hey-maybe-this-will-work to bad-idea-time-to-scrap-it. It did look like a bunch of gear you could have stolen from a homesteader ship, but Randy was sure that none of the serial numbers would match that ship. Randy couldn’t guarantee they hadn’t been stolen at some point, but he was sure they hadn’t been stolen since he had left Earth.
The Damager seemed satisfied. After a few more minutes looking in the food lockers and prodding the growing mass of dirty laundry netted in the corner, he turned to Randy.
“I have to get a positive ID on you, last thing.”
“What do you need, retina, fingerprint, tissue sample? How’s about a nice firm handshake? Randy Marsgalen, of the Tharsis Marsgalens. Glad to meet you.”
The Damager grabbed the hand that Randy offered in his armored gauntlet, but instead of shaking, he twisted it around to expose the wrist and jabbed in a needle. Randy tried to flinch, but couldn’t pull out of the cold, mechanically enhanced grip.
“This analysis will just take a moment,” the Damager said. “Marsgalen, Randall H. Licensed operator of the Rattle and Hum.” The Damager turned and pushed off toward the airlock. “I’m finished here. Proceed as you were, and keep an eye out for those pirates.”
“I’m telling you, man, there are no pirates out here. You know, most of the truckers who do this run are more afraid of rogue Damagers than any pirates.”
The Damager turned back before entering the airlock. “Let me tell you something, Mr. Marsgalen. That homesteader family didn’t know what hit them. We heard their distress call. One minute, clear space. The next thing they know their drive is disabled and they’re being boarded by well-equipped and well-trained soldiers. By the time we got there the ship was an empty can and twenty seven frozen bodies shared its vector. I didn’t get a chance to check their computer logs because their computers were taken. But in the distress call, they swore that that ship came out of nothing. These pirates are not to be trifled with.”
Randy shook his head. “Man, that sounds like a legend. Happened to a friend of a friend. What you’re talking about is a cloaking device. Anybody who could invent one of those and make it work in the real world isn’t interested in stealing junk from homesteaders!”
“I believed those people, Mr. Marsgalen. If you choose not to believe me, that’s your funeral.”
Randy shrugged, and turned around in time to see his proximity alarm go off for the second time that day. He started to pull himself over to his control console when the hull plate jumped up and smacked him in the nose. He bounced off and raised his arms just in time to stop the opposite wall from caving in his skull. Blood beaded up in front of his face as the lights flickered, went out, then came back on weakly.
He grabbed for the nearest support and pulled himself tight against the underside of the command sling. He could see the lights of the control board flashing to announce multiple emergencies taking place all over the ship. He could taste fire suppression foam in the air.
He pulled up into the command sling and strapped in. He blotted the blood off his face as best he could, and called up the status screens.
A battle was raging outside his ship. Something had come up from behind, fast, and taken out his engines. His automatic defenses had never had a chance. This thing was using Damager weapons or better. Both aft thrusters and over half of his lateral thrusters were out. Only the attitudinal thrusters at the nose of the ship were still working at a hundred percent.
But the Rattle and Hum was not defenseless. It had a Damager strapped to its back, and the Damager was fighting back. Incredible energies were being tossed around out there. Rockets were flying, bombs were exploding, and only the occasional ping of blasted metal on the outer hull betrayed the action.
The enemy quickly figured out where the fire was coming from, and moved to the opposite side of the cargo hauler where the Damager could not fire. Randy fired up his attitudinal thrusters and turned the ship back to bring the enemy in range of the Massacre’s guns. He kept it up for a few minutes, the enemy trying to disable the atts and the Damager fighting back with everything it had. But it was a standoff. Finally, the attacker hung an enormous amount of fire on the Damager itself, then it turned and ran. It dodged fire for a couple of minutes, then it simply vanished.
“Mr. Marsgalen, I’m going to have to ask permission to re-enter your vehicle,” the cop said.
“Door’s open. What’s the matter, too much damage?”
“I’ve still got main thrusters,” he said over the radio as he cycled the airlock again. “But my lats and my atts are out. Most of the energy weapons are intact, but I’ve spent nearly all of my projectiles. Worst thing is, the habitat module took a direct hit from a gauss grenade. Totally slagged.”
“Bad luck. Your partner make it?”
“I’m solo. It was a tactical AI that was doing all the fighting. It’s okay.”
“I guess that’s good, then. Me, all I lost were my mains and a couple of lats. They must have wanted me intact while they busted you open like a piñata. Well, this isn’t much, but I guess you can bunk here until your buddies come and bail you out.”
“I’m the only Damager in the area. I’m afraid we’re on our own. We’ve got to get ready in case the pirate comes back.” The airlock opened and the silver-suited figure pushed into the cabin.
“I guess I should clean the place up,” Randy said. He grabbed a hand net and swept the air free of debris and electronic components. He picked out the good stuff and dropped the rest into the recycler. “So you’re with me all the way to Mars. That’s another 150 days. I got no mains, so we’ll need help getting into orbit once we get there. No other ships coming this way, either. When you leave at a different time, you take a different transfer orbit. Whole lotta nothing until we get right near the planet.” He glanced back at his visitor. “You gonna take that suit off, or you just want to float around until you run out of air?”
The Damager paused and said nothing, then finally raised his hands to his neck. He worked the clasps, then cautiously broke the seals and lifted the helmet free.
The guy’s face looked a little funny. The crew-cut was normal. Most spacers kept their hair short. At least the ones who had hair. The nose was angular, the jaw sharp, the eyes almond shaped. But there was something strange.
Randy figured it out when the rest of the suit came off. “You’re a woman.”
The Damager squared her jaw and took a belligerent zero-g stance. “That’s right.”
“Your voice is different.”
“I . . . it’s a voice modulator. I’ve found that truckers like you don’t respond well to female authority figures.” She glared at him.
“And all I said was, you’re a woman,” Randy said. “Just making an observation. Obvious, yes, but then again, I was surprised.” He held out his hand to shake, remembering the needle but keeping it out there. She looked at it like it was covered in filth, but finally took it in a firm grip. “You got a name?”
“Breitman,” the Damager said. “Cal Breitman.”
“Cal? What’s that short for, Callista?” She didn’t’ answer. “Ms. Breitman, then. Nice to meet you. Make yourself at home.” He swept his hands around the cramped quarters. “Such as it is. What’s mine is yours.”
She held up her hand. “Listen to me. We are not going to get into a whole thing here. I don’t want to hear about how lonely you are. I am not interested in any of your physical or emotional needs. We are in a difficult situation, and I’m willing to work with you to ensure our survival. Now, we have to work together, and I expect a certain amount of professionalism and I expect that my boundaries will be respected. Are we clear?”
“Listen here, Ms. Breitman. You’re getting ahead of yourself. Why don’t we just assume for the moment that I’m a human being and not some kind of predatory monster or an impulsive troglodyte. I’m not going to do anything to you. I’m a Martian, for God’s sake, I’m not some kind of slave trader! I don’t like being accused of planning to do things that I’m not going to do.”
“I’m not accusing you. . . .”
“That’s what it sounds like to me. We’ve got a long trip ahead of us. Let’s take a deep breath and start over.”
She did take a deep breath, and so did Randy. “You’re right,” she said, stiffly. “I’m sorry. Thank you for welcoming me into your ship. I will try and make this as pleasant as possible, and I assure you that you will be reimbursed for whatever supplies I use on the way to Mars.”
“Well, that’s more like it,” Randy said. “Now, you can recharge your suit right over there. I’m taking mine out because I’ve got to check the damage on my engines. That bastard comes back shooting, you give me a shout, because I’m going to need some time to prepare. It ain’t easy to kiss your ass goodbye in a space suit.”
Growing up in a rapaciously capitalist society, Randy had gotten business advice drilled into him since the time he could walk. Most of that advice concerned things that you couldn’t eat. Love, for example, or adventure, could not be eaten. In the Marsgalen household, if you couldn’t eat it, you may as well forget it.
Looking over his cargo hold, the Randy thought to himself that here, finally, was something his family would appreciate. Row after row of rectangular shipping containers holding pure nutrition. It was grown in vats orbiting Earth, secreted by microorganisms, purified from cloudy water, and dried under hard vacuum. Powdered vat protein.
Venus needed all the PVP Earth could ship it. The miners working there didn’t have any way to grow food. Every once in a while, the supply outstripped the demand, or the shipping schedule got mixed up, and there was extra powder. Randy had found out about this occasional glut of the powder, and had bought up enough to fill the Rattle and Hum. He wasn’t going to Venus, though. His was the Red Run. He was taking his PVP home to Mars.
The Martians had truck farms working down on the rusty dirt. They had fish in covered ponds, and chickens scratching right there in the colony domes. There were even rumors that someone had shipped in some beef cattle. But the Martians, disorganized and all but lawless, always lived on the edge. Randy was betting that they would welcome his edible cargo like a windfall check.
Yes, even old Galen Marsgalen, the clan’s founder, would be proud of this business scheme. After all, if you couldn’t sell the cargo, at least you could eat it.