The Best Alternate History Stories Of The Twentieth Century Part 33

"Topside, taking a s.e.xtant reading." She nodded toward the observation blister above us. "He'll be down in a minute."

Typical. Part of the reason why Superiors have enhanced eyes is for optical work like s.e.xtant sightings. This should be Jeri's job, but McKinnon seemed to regard the blister as his personal throne. I sighed as I settled down in my chair and buckled in. "Should have known," I muttered. "Wakes you up in the middle of the G.o.dd.a.m.n night, then disappears when you want a straight answer."

Her mouth pursed into sympathetic frown. "Bo will tell you more when he comes down," she said, then she swiveled around in her chair as she returned her attention to her board.

Jeri was the only person aboard who was permitted to call Captain Future by his real name. I didn't have that privilege, and The Brain hadn't been programmed to do otherwise. The fondness I had developed for Jeri over the last three weeks was tempered by the fact that, in almost any disagreement, she usually sided with the captain.

Obviously, there was something else she knew but wasn't telling me, preferring to defer the issue to McKinnon. I had become used to such behavior over the last few months, but it was still irritating. Most first officers act as intermediaries between captain and crew, and in that sense Jeri performed well, yet at times like this I felt as if I had more in common with The Brain than with her.

So be it. I swiveled my chair to face the nav table. "Hey, Brain," I called out. "Gimme a holo of our current position and trajectory, please."

The s.p.a.ce within the holo tank coruscated briefly, then an arch-shaped slice of the main belt appeared above the table. Tiny spots of orange light depicting major asteroids slowly moved along blue sidereal tracks, each designated by their catalog numbers. The Comet was pinpointed by a small silver replica of the vessel, leading the end of a broken red line which bisected the asteroid orbits.

The Comet was near the edge of the third Kirkwood gap, one of the "empty s.p.a.ces" in the belt where Martian and Jovian gravitational forces caused the number of identified asteroids to diminish per fraction of an astronomical unit. We were now in the1 ?3gap, about two and a half A.U.'s from the Sun. In another couple of days we would enter the main belt and be closing in on Ceres. Once we arrived, the Comet would unload the cargo it had carried from the Moon and, in return, take on the raw ore TBSA prospectors had mined from the belt and shipped to Ceres Station. It was also there that I was scheduled to depart the Comet and await the arrival of the Jove Commerce .

At least, that was the itinerary. Now, as I studied the holo, I noticed a not-so-subtle change. The red line depicting the freighter's trajectory had been altered since the end of my last watch about four hours earlier.

It no longer intercepted Ceres. In fact, it didn't even come close to the asteroid's...o...b..t.

The Comet had changed course while I slept.

Without saying anything to Jeri, I unbuckled my harness and pushed over to the table, where I silently stared at the holo for a couple of minutes, using the keypad to manually focus and enlarge the image. Our new bearing took us almost a quarter of a million kilometers from Ceres, on just the other side of the1 ?3Kirkwood gap.

"Brain," I said, "what's our destination?"

"The asteroid 2046-Barr,"it replied. It displayed a new orange spot in the tank, directly in front of the Comet 's red line.

The last of my drowsiness dissipated into a pulse of white-hot rage. I could feel Jeri's eyes on my back.

"Rohr..." she began.

I didn't care. I stabbed the intercom b.u.t.ton on the table. "McKinnon!" I bellowed. "Get down here!"

Long silence. I knew he could hear me.

"G.o.ddammit, get down here! Now!"

Motors whined in the ceiling above me, then the hatch below the observation blister irised open and a wingback chair began to descend into the bridge, carrying the commanding officer of the TBSA Comet. It wasn't until the chair reached the deck that the figure seated in it spoke.

"You can call me... Captain Future."

In the ancient pulp magazines he so adored, Captain Future was six-and-a-half feet in height, ruggedly handsome, bronze-skinned and red-haired. None of this applied to Bo McKinnon. Squat and obese, he filled the chair like a half-ton of lard. Black curly hair, turning gray at the temples and filthy with dandruff, receded from his forehead and fell around his shoulders, while an oily, unkempt beard dripped down the sides of his fat cheeks, themselves the color of mildewed wax. There were old food stains on the front of his worn-out sweatshirt and dark marks in the crotch of his trousers where he had failed to properly shake himself after the last time he had visited the head. And he smelled like a fart.

If my description seems uncharitable, let there be no mistake: Bo McKinnon was a b.u.t.t-ugly, foul-looking son of a wh.o.r.e, and I have met plenty of slobs like him to judge by comparison. He had little respect for personal hygiene and fewer social graces, he had no business being anyone's role model, and I was in no mood for his melodramatic bulls.h.i.t just now.

"You changed course." I pointed at the holo tank behind me, my voice quavering in anger. "We're supposed to come out of the Kirkwood in another few hours, and while I was asleep you changed course."

McKinnon calmly stared back at me. "Yes, Mister Furland, that I did. I changed the Comet 's trajectory while you were in your quarters."

"We're no longer heading for Ceres... Christ, we're going to come nowhere near Ceres!"

He made no move to rise from his throne. "That's correct," he said, slowly nodding his head. "I ordered The Brain to alter our course so that we'd intercept 2046-Barr. We fired maneuvering thrusters at 0130 shiptime, and in two hours we'll execute another course correction. That should put us within range of the asteroid in about..."

"Eight hours, Captain," Jeri said.

"Thank you, Mister Bose," he said, otherwise barely acknowledging her. "Eight hours. At this time the Comet will be secured for emergency action."

He folded his hands across his vast stomach and gazed back at me querulously. "Any further questions, Mister Furland?"

Further questions?

My mouth hung agape for a few moments. I was unable to speak, unable to protest, unable to do anything except wonder at the unmitigated gall of this mutant amalgamation of human and frog genes.

"Just one," I finally managed to say. "How do you expect me to make my rendezvous with the Jove Commerce if we detour to..."

"2046-Barr," Jeri said softly.

McKinnon didn't so much as blink. "We won't," he said. "In fact, I've already sent a message to Ceres Station, stating that the Comet will be delayed and that our new ETA is indefinite. With any luck, we'll reach Ceres in about forty-eight hours. You should be able to..."

"No, I won't." I grasped the armrest of his chair with both hands and leaned forward until my face was only a few inches from his. "The Jove is due to leave Ceres in forty- twohours... and that's at the latest, if it's going to meet its launch window for Callisto. They'll go, with or without me, and if they go without me, I'm stuck on Ceres."

No. That wasn't entirely true. Ceres Station wasn't like the Moon; it was too small an outpost to allow a shipwrecked s.p.a.cer to simply hang around until the next outer-system vessel pa.s.sed through. The TBSA rep on Ceres would demand that I find a new gig, even if it entailed signing aboard a prospector as grunt labor. This was little better than indentured servitude, since my union card didn't mean s.h.i.t out here in terms of room, board, and guaranteed oxygen supplies; my paychecks would be swallowed up by all the above. Even then, there was no guarantee that I'd swing another job aboard the next Jupiter or Saturn tanker; I was lucky enough to get the Jove Commerce job.

That, or I could tuck tail and go back the way I came-and that meant remaining aboard the Comet for its return flight to the Moon.

In the latter case, I'd sooner try to walk home.

Try to understand. For the past three weeks, beginning with the moment I had crawled out of the zombie tank, I had been forced to endure almost every indignity possible while serving under Bo McKinnon. His first order, in fact, had been in the hibernation deck, when he had told me to take the catheter off his p.r.i.c.k and hold a bag for him to pee in.

That had been only the beginning. Standing double-watches on the bridge because he was too lazy to get out of bed. Repairing decrepit equipment that should have been replaced years ago, only to have it break down again within a few more days after he had abused it past its tolerance levels. Being issued spurious orders on a whim, only to have those same orders countermanded before the task was half-complete because McKinnon had more scut-work he wanted me to do-then being berated because the first a.s.signment had been left unfinished. Meals skipped because the captain decided that now was the time for me to go EVA and inspect the davits in the payload bay. Rest periods interrupted because he wanted a snack fetched from the galley and was too "busy" to get it himself....

But most of all, the sibilant, high-pitched whine of his voice, like that of a spoiled brat who had been given too many toys by an overindulgent parent. Which was, indeed, exactly what he was.

Bo McKinnon hadn't earned his TBSA commission. It had been purchased for him by his stepfather, a wealthy lunar businessman who was one of the a.s.sociation's princ.i.p.al stockholders. The Comet had been an obsolete ore freighter on the verge of being condemned and scuttled when the old man had bought it for the kid as a means of getting his unwanted stepson out of his hair. Before that, McKinnon had been a customs inspector at Descartes, a minor bureaucrat with delusions of grandeur fostered by the cheap s.p.a.ce operas in his collection of moldering twentieth century magazines, for which he apparently spent every spare credit he had in the bank. No doubt his stepfather had been as sick of McKinnon as I was. At least this way the pompous geek spent most of his time out in the belt, hauling rock and bellowing orders at whoever was unlucky enough to have been talked into signing aboard the Comet .

This much I had learned after I had been aboard for three weeks. By the time I had sent a message to Schumacher, demanding to know what else he hadn't told me about Bo McKinnon, I was almost ready to steal the Comet 's skiff and attempt flying it to Mars. When Schumacher sent me his reply, he gave a lame apology for not telling me everything about McKinnon's background; after all, it was his job to muster crewmembers for deep-s.p.a.ce craft, and he couldn't play favorites, so sorry, et cetera....

By then I had figured out the rest. Bo McKinnon was a rich kid playing at being a s.p.a.cecraft commander. He wanted the role, but he didn't want to pay the dues, the hard-won experience that any true commander has to accomplish. Instead, he managed to shanghai washed-up cases like me to do his dirty work for him. No telling what arrangement he had worked out with Jeri; for my part, I was the latest in a long line of flunkies.

I didn't hijack the skiff, if only because doing so would have ruined my career and Mars colonists are notoriously unkind to uninvited guests. Besides, I figured that this was a temporary thing: three weeks of Captain Future, and I'd have a story to tell my shipmates aboard the Jove Commerce as we sipped whisky around the wardroom table. You think this captain's a harda.s.s? Hey, let me tell you about my last one....

Now, as much as I still wanted to get the h.e.l.l off the Comet, I did not wish to be marooned on Ceres, where I would be at the tender mercies of the station chief.

Time to try a different tack with Captain Future.

I released the armrests and backed off, taking a deep breath as I forced myself to calm down. "Look, Captain," I said, "what's so important about this asteroid? I mean, if you've located a possible lode, you can always stake a claim with the a.s.sociation and come back for it later. What's the rush?"

McKinnon raised an imperious eyebrow. "Mr. Furland, I am not a prospector," he huffed. "If I were, I wouldn't be commanding the Comet, would I?"

No, I silently responded, you wouldn't. No self-respecting rock-hounds would have you aboard their ship. "Then what's so important?"

Without a word, McKinnon unbuckled his seat harness and pushed out his chair. Microgravity is the great equalizer for overweight men; he floated across the narrow compartment with the grace of a lunar trapeze artist, somersaulting in mid-air and catching a ceiling rung above the navigation table, where he swung upside-down and typed a command into the keyboard.

The holo expanded until 2046-Barr filled the tank. Now I could see that it was a potato-shaped rock, about three klicks in length and seven hundred meters in diameter. An octopus-like machine clung to one end of the asteroid, with a narrow, elongated pistol thrust out into s.p.a.ce.

I recognized it immediately. A General Astronautics Cla.s.s-B Ma.s.s Driver, the type used by the a.s.sociation to push large carbonaceous-chrondite asteroids into the inner belt. In effect, a mobile mining rig. Long bores sunk into the asteroid extracted raw material from its core, which in turn were fed into the machine's barrel-shaped refinery, where heavy metals and volatiles were separated from the ancient stone. The remaining till was then shot through an electromagnetic railgun as reaction ma.s.s that propelled both asteroid and ma.s.s driver in whatever direction was desired.

By the time the asteroid reached lunar orbit, the rig would have refined enough nickel, copper, t.i.tanium, carbon, and hydrogen to make the effort worthwhile. The hollowed out remains of the asteroid could then be sold to one of the companies, who would then begin the process of transforming it into another LaGrange colony.

"That's the TBSA Fool's Gold," McKinnon said, pointing at the computer-generated image. "It's supposed to reach lunar orbit in four months. Twelve persons are aboard, including its captain, first officer, executive officer, physician, two metallurgists, three engineers..."

"Yeah, okay. Twelve guys who are going to get rich when the shares are divvied up." I couldn't keep the envy out of my voice. Only one or two main-belt asteroids made their way in-system every few years, mainly because prospectors didn't find enough such rocks to make them worth the time, money, and attention. The smaller ones were usually broken up by nukes, and anything much larger was claimed and mined by prospectors. On the other hand, if just the right asteroid was located and claimed, the bonanza was enough to make its finders wealthy enough to retire. "So what?"

McKinnon stared at me for a moment, then he cartwheeled until he was no longer upside-down and dug into a pocket. He handed me a wadded-up slip of printout. "Read," he said.

I read:

MESS. 1473 0118 GMT 7/26/73 CODE A1/0947.

TRANSMISSION FROM CERES STATION TO ALL s.p.a.cECRAFT.

PRIORITY REPEATER.

MESSAGE BEGINS.

MAYDAY RECEIVED 1240 GMT 7/25/46 FROM TBSA Ma.s.s DRIVER "FOOL'S GOLD" BREAK VESSEL EXPERIENCING UNKNOWN- REPEAT UNKNOWN-PROBLEMS BREAK CASUALTIES AND POSSIBLE FATALITIES REPORTED DUE TO UNDETERMINED CAUSES BREAK SHIP STATUS UNKNOWN BREAK NO FURTHER COMMUNICATION FOLLOWING MAYDAY BREAK VESSEL FAILS TO RESPOND TO QUERIES BREAK REQUEST URGENT a.s.sISTANCE.

FROM NEAREST VESSEL OF ANY REGISTRY BREAK PLEASE RESPOND ASAP.

MESSAGE ENDS.

(TRANSMISSION REPEATS).

0119 GMT 7/26/73 CODE A1/0947.

I turned to Jeri. "Are we the nearest vessel?"

She gravely nodded her head. "I checked. The only other ship within range is a prospector near Gaspara, and it's thirty-four hours from Barr. Everything else is closer to Ceres than we are."

d.a.m.n.

According to common law, the closest vessel to a s.p.a.cecraft transmitting a Mayday was obligated to respond, regardless of any other mission or prior obligation in all but the most extreme emergency... and my job aboard the Jove Commerce didn't qualify as such, as much as I might have liked to think otherwise.

McKinnon held out his hand. I handed the paper back to him. "I guess you've already informed Ceres that we're on our way."

The captain silently reached to another panel and pushed a set of b.u.t.tons. A flatscreen lit, displaying a playback of the transmission he had sent to Ceres Station. A simulacrum of the fictional Curt Newton appeared on the screen.

"This is Captain Future, calling from the TBSA Comet, registry Mexico Alpha Foxtrot one-six-seven-five."The voice belonged to McKinnon even if the handsome face did not. The Brain had lip-synched them together, and the effect was sadly absurd. I've received your transmission, and I'm on our way to investigate the situation aboard the Fool's Gold. The Futuremen and I will keep you informed. Captain Future, over and out."

I groaned as I watched this. The idiot couldn't keep his fantasy life out of anything, even a distress signal. Captain Future and the-yech!-Futuremen to the rescue.

"You have something to say, Mister Furland?"

McKinnon's hairy chin was thrust out at me with what he probably thought was obstinate resolve, but which actually resembled the petulance of an insecure child daring someone to step into his corner of the sandbox. Not for the first time, I realized that his only way of dealing with people was to boss them around with what little authority he could muster-and since this was his ship, no one could either object or walk out on him. Least of all me.

"Nothing, Captain." I pushed off from the nav table and floated back to my duty station. Like it or not, we were committed; he had both law and his commission on his side, and I wasn't about to commit mutiny because I had refused my commander's orders to respond to a distress signal.

"Very good." McKinnon shoved himself in the direction of the carousel hatch. "The s.e.xtant confirms we're on course for Barr. I'll be in my cabin if you need me."

He stopped, then looked over his shoulder. "You'll need to arm the weapons pod. There may be... trouble."

Then he was gone, undoubtedly to claim the sleep I had lost.

"Trouble, my a.s.s," I murmured under my breath.

I glanced over at Jeri. If I expected a sly wink or an understanding smile, I received nothing of the kind. Her face was stoical behind the b.u.t.terfly mask she wore; she touched her jaw, speaking into the microphone implanted beneath her skin at childhood. "TBSA Fool's Gold, this is TBSA Comet, Mexico Alpha Foxtrot one-six-seven-five. Do you copy? Over."

I was trapped aboard a ship commanded by a lunatic.

Or so I thought. The real insanity was yet to come.

s.p.a.ce pirates were no new thing, to the System. There were always some corsairs infesting the outlaw asteroids or the wilder moons of the outer planets.

HAMILTON, Outlaw World (1945)

One good thing could be said about standing a second consecutive watch on the bridge: I finally learned a little more about Jeri Lee-Bose.

Does it seem surprising that I could have spent three weeks of active duty aboard a s.p.a.cecraft without hearing a shipmate's entire life story? If so, understand that there's a certain code of conduct among s.p.a.cers; since many of us have unsavory pasts that we'd rather not discuss, it's not considered proper etiquette to bug someone about private matters unless they themselves bring it up first. Of course, some shipmates will bore you to death, blabbing about everything they've ever said or done until you want to push them into the nearest airlock. On the other hand I've known several people for many years without ever learning where they were born or who their parents were.

Jeri fell into the latter category. After we were revived from biostasis, I had learned many little things about her, but not very many big things. It wasn't as if she was consciously hiding her past; it was simply that the subject had never really come up, during the few times that we had been alone together without Captain Future's presence looming over us. Indeed, she might have completed the voyage as a near-stranger, had I not made an offhand comment.

"I bet the selfish son-of-a-b.i.t.c.h has never thought of anyone else in his life," I said.

I had just returned from the galley, where I had fetched two fresh squeezebulbs of coffee for us. I was still fuming from the argument I had lost, and since McKinnon wasn't in earshot I gave Jeri an earful.

She pa.s.sively sipped her coffee as I p.i.s.sed and moaned about my misfortunes, listening patiently as I paced back and forth in my stikshoes, ranting about the commanding officer's dubious mental balance, his unflattering physiognomy, his questionable taste in literature, his body odor and anything else that came to mind, and when I paused for breath she finally put in her quarter-credit.

"He saved my life," she said.