THE KOSTROMA SAGA by Michel Poulin - HTML preview

CHAPTER 2 – CARGO RUN

 

14:03 (Universal Time)

Friday, February 19, 2315

M.S.S. KOSTROMA

Orbital terminal of Titan Magnus Spaceport

Low orbit of Titan (10th moon of Saturn)

‘’Tina, Denise reports that the loading of bulk liquids will be completed in about two hours. The loading of cargo containers and crates is already completed.’’

‘’Thanks, Ingrid.’’ replied Tina to the sensors and communications specialist. She then punched a button on one of the controls pads attached to her pilot’s chair, calling the ship’s hostess, Natalia Vasilyeva.

‘’Natalia, how is the passengers’ embarkation going?’’

The clear voice of the tall, sculptural blonde, answered from the level of the Promenade Deck, where the passengers entered the ship from the spaceport terminal through ship airlocks and boarding tubes.

‘’We have up to now greeted and led to their cabins a total of 306 passengers, Tina. We were told by terminal personnel to expect another 120 passengers due to arrive soon by shuttle from Enceladus and Dione.’’

‘’Good! On my part, I expect to be able to undock and depart for Vesta at 18:00. We will retract the boarding tubes at 17:30.’’

‘’Understood, Tina.’’

Cutting the line, Tina then looked at the large screens giving a view of the outside to the bridge crew. The Saturn System was the jewel of the Outer Solar System, for many reasons. There was of course Saturn itself, with its majestic ring system that made it one of the most stunning sights of the Solar System. Apart from being beautiful, the giant gas planet was also a plentiful source of helium, ammonia and hydrogen deuterium, the latter an important ingredient of the cryogenic isotopic fuel used by all interplanetary ships. The cryogenic fuel production facility on the tiny moon of Prometheus, deep inside the rings of Saturn, was in fact one of only five such facilities in the whole Solar System, making it a primordial asset. Six other moons of Saturn, all with diameters

21

larger than 400 kilometers and composed half of water ice and half of rocks, made ideal places for subsurface hydroponic farms, dairy farms and cattle ranches. Their combined food production capacity more than made the Saturn System self-sufficient in foodstuff, at least of the basic kinds, while leaving a sizeable quantity available for export. The dairy farms on Enceladus were in fact the largest producers of dairy products in the Outer Solar System. Two hundred refrigerated containers now loaded aboard the KOSTROMA were filled with such dairy products destined for Vesta and the population of the Asteroid Belt. Finally, there was Titan, the second largest moon in the Solar System and, with a diameter of 5,151 kilometers, larger than the Moon, Pluto and Mercury. Its dense atmosphere of nitrogen, ethane and methane, its surface lakes of liquid ethane and methane and its outer crust of water and ammonia ice made Titan a treasure of hydrocarbons and other chemicals, all in great demand on Earth and the rest of the Solar System. As the industrial center of the Saturn System, Titan was home to over 26 million people, mostly employed by its chemicals industry. Life on Titan, with its thick orange-brown atmospheric haze and its frigid surface, was however far from idyllic and was made bearable only by simulating Earth conditions and views inside cities buried deep under the surface ice. Those who could afford or had occasions to spend some weeks off Titan did so gratefully, even though a direct one-way trip to Earth typically took five weeks or more. Passenger liners, built for speed, long range and passenger capacity, could do such a trip in less than three weeks and handled the bulk of the passenger traffic in the Solar System, but charged hefty prices for a passage. Cargo ships with some passenger facilities, like the KOSTROMA, took care of those who could not afford a liner ticket but could accept a longer trip. Such travelers were typically families relocating to a new world to get jobs, government functionaries being transferred and students heading for years of studies on Earth or returning home. Because of that particular composition of travelers, 1,200 of the 1,260 passenger cabins of various sizes on the KOSTROMA were economy class, which was fine with Tina. While the ship’s facilities were good enough to render even long trips comfortable, she had no desires to cater to crowds of upper class snobs. Her primary interest was cargo transportation, a trade much more lucrative than mass passenger transport and one also much more important in her opinion to the future of humankind than simple space tourism.

Leaving the ship’s navigator, Dana Durning, in charge of the bridge, Tina left her captain’s chair and took an elevator cabin ride down to the Promenade Deck, 110

22

meters below the bridge level. There, Tina walked towards the outer promenade and its access airlocks. A key part of the ship, the outer promenade was a six-meter-wide, fifteen-meter-high-ceiling avenue forming a closed ring 160 meters in diameter, with commercial shops along the inner side and large armored windows giving a view of space along the outer side. Facing the armored doors of the main access airlock on the promenade were reception counters where Natalia Vasilyeva and her assistants were greeting passengers and sorting them out before leading them to their respective cabins. Reinforcing Natalia’s small crew for this occasion were the eight sex workers of the ship’s sex club ‘JUPITER’, one of the small commercial enterprises and boutiques which rented space aboard the KOSTROMA. Tina had laughed when her uncle had first shown her that practice, but she had quickly seen the wisdom of that move. The six young women and two men were physically attractive and were trained by trade to be pleasant and sociable with strangers. They also knew well the layout of the ship and could easily guide passengers around. In return, they and their manager, Madam Lee, got discounts to their rents aboard ship, something which satisfied both parties. It also had the benefit of making unnecessary the hiring of more costly permanent personnel for what was essentially an activity that took only a very small part of the time of a cargo run.

Taking a discreet position near the reception counters, Tina watched with interest the variety of passengers coming aboard her ship in small groups. The Spacers populating the Outer Solar System were an eclectic lot indeed, but they had one common point: they were all professionally active, in contrast to the Earth’s masses of unemployed or inactive people whose lives were subsidized by government entitlements and pensions. This socio-economic aspect of Humanity was in fact starting to rend it apart in two, with Earth’s massive population of over eight billion people on one side living on a polluted, depleted planet, and on the other side less than 350 million Spacers dispersed around the Solar System, working hard to produce the mineral resources the Earth could no longer provide itself. Those Spacers lived in an inherently dangerous and inhospitable environment which made adequate living and working facilities mandatory, simply to ensure survival. Building and maintaining such space facilities was very expensive and had at first been the burden solely of Earth’s population, when Humanity’s Space expansion had started in the 22nd Century. However, that was now a thing of the past, with the human space colonies now being self-sufficient or nearly so. The problem was that many on Earth still thought of the Spacers as spoiled, high-living

23

elitists prospering on the back of the majority. The Spacers shot back that the spoiled, high-living elitists were actually the few millions of bankers, industrialists, land owners, corporation executives and high-placed politicians living in their gated mansions and private islands on Earth, mostly isolated from a general population half formed of hard-working but lowly-paid menial and agricultural workers and half of unemployed people, those who had lost for good their jobs because of the general depletion of Earth’s resources. The big problem with those unemployed was that they could not be shipped ‘en masse’ to the Outer Solar System colonies: the housing and life support infrastructure for so many extra hundreds of millions simply did not exist.

As Tina reflected mentally on all this while leaning against a support pillar, a small boy maybe five years old suddenly ran away from his young mother, chasing after his soccer ball. The ball rolled towards Tina, prompting her to make a few quick steps to stop it with one foot. Grabbing the ball, Tina handed it with a smile to the Eurasian boy.

‘’Here is your ball, boy. You should remember that artificial gravity can sometimes play funny tricks with your ball.’’

‘’Uh, thank you, miss.’’ said the boy in a timid voice. As he turned around to go back to his parents, Tina had a sudden idea and followed him. The boy went to a young Asian man and a Caucasian woman carrying an infant Eurasian girl, with the small family about to register at Natalia’s reception counter. Giving a discreet wink first to Natalia, Tina pointed the boy and his family.

‘’I could guide this family once registered, Miss Vasilyeva, if it could help.’’ Natalia, an intelligent and quick-witted woman, smiled and nodded her head.

‘’Your offer is welcomed, Tina. Registering them will take only a minute.’’ After finishing to process the group of nine teenage students heading to Earth for university studies which had been at the counter, Natalia invited the Eurasian family to come forward. She then took the identity cards and boarding passes presented by the Asian man. The latter spoke in a polite tone tainted by the nervousness typical of first time space travelers.

‘’Good day, miss. I am Kenji Kurozawa and I am heading with my family to Vesta. Here is my wife Joan, my son Hiro and my little daughter Kimi. I took one-way tickets, as I am going to study advanced ore smelting techniques for a few months on Vesta.’’

‘’Welcome aboard, Mister Kurozawa.’’ said Natalia before holding down in succession the electronic identity cards of the family against an electronic reading panel,

24

copying the data on the cards to the ship’s computer records. She next selected a specific cabin for the family, with her computer then producing three suitably coded electronic entry cards. Natalia clipped a long holding ribbon loop to each card before handing them to the man, woman and small boy of the family.

‘’Here are your key cards, Mister Kurozawa. I counsel that you wear them around your necks, so that you have them handy at all times. You have Cabin 12-D-08.’’ Natalia then produced a number of small printed pamphlets, distributing them to the Kurozawa.

‘’Here are as well a simplified map of the ship, a list of instructions to be followed in case of an emergency and a list of the facilities and services available on board. All passengers are to attend a short briefing at 17:45 in the ship’s auditorium, just prior to departure. If you have no questions at this time, Specialist Tina Forster will now guide you to your cabin. Feel free to pick her knowledge of the ship if you wish so.’’

‘’Mister Kurozawa, if you will follow me with your family.’’ said Tina, taking over from Natalia. She then led the Kurozawa, who were in turn leading an anti-gravity chariot carrying their luggage, down the main promenade. In this, Tina was following a long established practice meant to introduce new passengers to the commercial concessions installed on the ship and thus help their businesses attract customers. Having fun playing her role as a guide, Tina described the various shops and facilities as they followed the closed loop of the promenade, lined on both sides by potted plants and small trees to make the surroundings more pleasant.

‘’We are presently on the ship’s Promenade Deck, which houses the various commercial concessions present on the KOSTROMA. All those facilities will of course be pleased to serve your needs or wishes. While your tickets cover the cost of your meals, which are provided by the ship’s cafeterias, a number of small restaurants and service counters offer at reasonable prices a variety of specialty foods to those who want to vary their diet. We are presently passing in front of the ‘SWEET TOOTH’ candy store and the ‘ENCELADUS SWIRL’ ice cream parlor.’’

Tina noted with amusement that young Hiro’s head snapped immediately towards the two stores with obvious interest, prompting his mother to preempt him.

‘’Later, Hiro, later!’’

‘’Next, we have the ‘HOUSTON GRILL’, a Texan counter serving grilled meats and hamburgers, the ‘LONDON KIPPER’, a traditional British fish and chips counter, and

25

the ‘SUSHI BELT’, a sushi counter. We also have a Middle-East grill, the ‘HOUSE OF KEBABS’, a noodle counter…’’

They went by four more small restaurants and crossed a wide intersection leading to another main airlock before the Kurozawas slowed down at the sight of an establishment’s façade decorated with flashy neon signs.

‘’A sex club, here on a cargo ship?’’ asked Kenji Kurozawa, incredulous. ‘’I would have expected this, and all those other shops, on a liner, not on a cargo ship.’’

‘’Well, let’s say that the previous owner of the ship had some very personal ideas about how to attract clientele.’’ replied Tina with a malicious grin. ‘’To his credit, I have to say that the KOSTROMA is rated highly by the passengers who booked passage with us in the past. In fact, passengers in the middle to low income bracket love traveling on the KOSTROMA. Most mixed cargo/passenger ships have no such facilities like this shopping promenade, while they charge no less than us for cabins. As for liner ships, they charge at least four times more for a cabin than us.’’

‘’It is true that the price we paid for our cabin was very reasonable, miss.’’ said Joan Kurozawa. ‘’How do you manage to keep your prices so low, in fact?’’

‘’Actually,’’ said Tina in a serious tone, ‘’we make most of our revenues from the cargo we carry, Misses Kurozawa, and by a long shot. We can thus afford to keep the prices for our cabins low, which in turn endears us to low budget travelers.’’

‘’A sensible policy indeed and one we will certainly not criticize, miss.’’

The group took ten more minutes to tour the other shops and facilities on the promenade before heading down a main hallway towards the core central axis of the ship and its banks of elevators. Little Hiro was by now all excited by the facilities he had seen and would have run back to the promenade’s playground if not for being restrained by his parents. Taking a lift and going up three levels to Deck 12, Tina then guided the little family to one of the ship’s 320 economy-class two-bedroom cabins. Opening the sliding access door of the cabin for the Kurozawa, Tina let them enter first in the small lounge of the cabin. Kenji Kurozawa looked around at the comfortable furniture, which included sofas, a large audio-visual entertainment unit and a bar counter with refrigerator, and nodded his head with satisfaction as Tina spoke.

‘’This is the lounge of your cabin. The bedrooms are past this curtain door to your left. You may want to leave your anti-gravity chariot here and carry later by hand

26

your luggage: the hallway forms a ninety degree corner and would be a bit tight for the chariot.’’

Taking the lead again, Tina pulled open the curtain door leading to the bedrooms and walked in a short hallway. She showed the Kurozawas another curtain door to the left.

‘’This is the door of the bathroom, which includes a full-size bathtub. Next will be the children’s bedroom.’’

The latter room, while small, was carefully designed and contained two double bunk beds, plus a work desk, a chair and two storage closets. The beds had as well large drawers at the bottom. Letting her passengers examine for a moment that room, Tina then went to the nearby main bedroom, which was as large and well-furnished as one would expect of a good hotel room on Earth. Tina walked past the large double bed and opened what looked like a sort of small storage unit, unfolding and deploying a padded baby crib with its textile mesh cage. She then smiled to Joan Kurozawa.

‘’If you prefer to have your adorable little girl sleep in your room, I believe this crib would be large enough for her, Misses Kurozawa.’’

‘’This is all very well designed.’’ said Joan, checking the crib for its sturdiness and padding. ‘’We didn’t expect such a nice cabin for the price we paid. If the food at the ship’s cafeteria is on the same level, this trip will be quite enjoyable.’’

‘’Our cafeteria may not serve luxury gourmet food, but I believe that you will find the quality and variety most adequate. I…’’

Tina’s wrist communicator then buzzed, interrupting her. Excusing herself with the Kurozawa for a moment, she then opened the lid cover of her communicator, activating it and lighting the small display screen inside the lid. The head of Ingrid Holtz appeared, her expression serious.

‘’Yes, Ingrid?’’

‘’Sorry to bother you, Tina, but I have an urgent call for you from Mister John Volpe, of the Jovian Shipping Lines.’’

‘’Uh, give me a few seconds before transferring me, Ingrid.’’ Tina then smiled apologetically to the Kurozawa.

‘’I am sorry to have to leave you like this, but duty calls.’’

‘’Go ahead, miss.’’ said good-naturedly Kenji Kurozawa. ‘’You were of great help. We will manage from here.’’

‘’Thank you, sir. Have a good trip, you and your family.’’

27

Leaving the cabin in a few quick steps, Tina looked back at her communicator once in the main hallway.

‘’Go ahead, Ingrid: transfer the call.’’

The head and torso of a man in his forties wearing a good suit soon replaced the image of the blond specialist. Ingrid knew well John Volpe, as the man was the Vice-president for space operations of the Jovian Shipping Lines, which provided the KOSTROMA with the majority of its transportation contracts. It was thus good policy to be polite with him. John Volpe was anyway a decent, reasonable man.

‘’Mister Volpe, what can I do for you today?’’

Volpe made a forced grin.

‘’Potentially a lot, Tina. I just got a big headache handed to me and you and your ship are the only ones who can help solve my new problem.’’

‘’I’m all ears, Mister Volpe.’’ replied Tina, bracing herself for trouble.

14:58 (Universal Time)

Space liner M.S.S. APOLLO

Orbital terminal, Titan Magnus Spaceport

Zara Varanian exploded with anger as her impresario and manager meekly stood in front of her after delivering the bad news to her in her luxurious cabin.

‘’WHAT DO YOU MEAN, OUR SHIP IS BROKEN? HOW THE HELL AM I SUPPOSED TO GET BACK TO EARTH IN TIME FOR MY BIG TOUR?’’ Leon Steinberg made an apologetic smile to his mercurial star client: Zara Varanian, as well as being recognized as one of the most popular singers in the whole Solar System, was known to be a diva with a difficult character and with little patience for whatever obstacles she found on her path. One had once said that she was about as unstable as nitroglycerine, which was actually close to the truth.

‘’Uh, I spoke directly with the ship’s captain and he told me that his main engine has suffered a major engineering breakdown which will force him to go to a repair yard for many weeks. He however told me that an alternate ship is docked to this terminal and is ready to take us to Earth.’’

The diva, a small, thin woman in her late twenties with a sensual body, pretty face and intense black eyes, calmed herself somewhat at those last words.

‘’That’s better! And what is the name of that passenger liner?’’

28

‘’The ship is called the KOSTROMA. It is actually a cargo ship.’’

‘’WHAT?! DO THESE IDIOTS EXPECT ME TO PITCH A TENT IN SOME DIRTY CARGO HOLD? I’M GOING TO SUE THEIR ASSES OFF FOR THIS!’’

‘’Please, calm down, Zara. The Jovian Lines assured me that this cargo ship actually has quite decent passenger facilities. It is also supposed to be a fairly speedy ship, as cargo ships go. We should suffer only three days of delay compared to our original planned date of arrival on Earth. We can still live with that delay and conduct your tour on time.’’

‘’And there isn’t any other, better alternative than that cargo ship?’’ Steinberg shook his head at once.

‘’I have gone over the arrival and departure schedules with the terminal’s traffic control center. No other ship will be available to go to Earth for another three weeks. Worse, the first ships then are a collection of cargo ships with only minimal facilities for passengers, all in economy class. The next real liner available for a ride to Earth won’t come here for another five weeks.’’

‘’Five weeks? Why so long?’’

‘’Because of the distance, Zara.’’ explained patiently the manager. At least she had not screamed…this time. ‘’Saturn is over one billion kilometers from Earth. Even with all the ships traveling in space today, the Solar System is a huge place. That and the fact that passenger ships constitute only a very small part of the space traffic. I assure you that this is the best alternative we have, Zara.’’

‘’Alright, we will transfer our things on that…what’s the name again?’’

‘’The KOSTROMA. I will arrange for our transportation to that ship right away.’’

‘’Good! If I am not satisfied with that ship, though, I will still sue the Jovian Lines for all they got.’’

16:18 (Universal Time)

Docking Station Number Four

Orbital terminal of Titan Magnus Spaceport

As her air limousine made its way down the long pressurized structure supporting eight of the docking stations of the orbital terminal, Zara Varanian couldn’t help be impressed by the enormous size of the behemoth she was supposed to embark on. In comparison, the passenger ship APOLLO, her initial ride, was nearly a toy. Just one of the twenty or so pods hooked to the flanks of the KOSTROMA was nearly as big as the

29

APOLLO itself. Her wonder however turned into alarm when she saw the dense stream of containers, crates, vehicles and persons entering the ship via multiple access tubes.

‘’Leon, you better tell me that you reserved already the best cabin on board for me. Look at all these people going in!’’

Steinberg had a quick look from his seat besides Zara and smiled to her, apparently unconcerned.

‘’Do not worry, my dear. I was told that the KOSTROMA had ample room for all the passengers on the APOLLO. Even more, the reserves of fine foodstuff and alcohol stored aboard the APOLLO are also being transferred aboard the KOSTROMA. Miss Wang, the liaison person from the Jovian Shipping Lines, assured me that we will be as comfortable aboard the KOSTROMA as aboard the APOLLO.’’

‘’Humph! Maybe they are not total incompetents after all.’’ conceded Zara.

Another nine minutes and the air limousine was able to enter the cargo ship through one of the communications tubes which led to a sort of combination of garage and storage space. Two young women, one impeccably dressed in a female business suit and the other wearing a simple red Spacer’s work coverall, greeted Zara when she stepped out of her limousine. The woman in business suit, an Oriental, bowed her head in salute at Zara.

‘’Miss Varanian, I am Miri Wang, sent by the Jovian Shipping Lines to ensure that your trip is most satisfactory to you. Welcome aboard the KOSTROMA.’’ The other woman seemed annoyed a bit at hearing Wang greet Zara aboard and presented her right hand in a very plebeian way in the diva’s eyes.

‘’Welcome aboard my ship, Miss Varanian. I am Tina Forster, captain, first pilot and owner of the KOSTROMA.’’

Despite her social prejudices, Zara did not miss the part about Forster being the owner of such a huge and thus expensive ship and shook her hand briefly.

‘’Thank you, Captain. I am told that your ship is quite fast for a cargo ship.’’

‘’It is, miss, although there are some safety limits I can’t ignore when at full load. Be advised that we will have to make a brief stop at Vesta, in the Asteroid Belt, to pick up a cargo of refined metals on our way to Earth. I however intend to keep my engines at near maximum performance during our trip in order to keep you and the other passengers of the APOLLO near your original schedule.’’

‘’A stop in Vesta? Is that really necessary, Captain?’’

30

‘’It is, Miss Varanian. That load of metals is by itself worth a lot more than my whole ship and is important to sustain the industries on Earth.’’

‘’Oh?! I will take your word for it, then. I suppose that you have cabins ready for me and my entourage?’’

‘’Effectively, Miss Varanian. Once your luggage is taken out of your limousine, I will personally guide you to your cabin, while Miss Wang will take care of your assistants.’’

‘’Thank you, Captain.’’ said Zara before turning towards the driver of her limousine and to a big, beefy man in a dark suit. ‘’Karl, Devin, you may start unloading our luggage from the limousine.’’

The two men nodded their heads and opened the trunk of the vehicle, while a crewman of the KOSTROMA brought forward three small anti-gravity chariots. As the men started emptying the limousine, taking out a bewildering quantity of suitcases and travel bags, Tina’s sharp eyes caught on something. Approaching the beefy man, she patted his shoulder, making him stop his work as he looked at her with curiosity.

‘’Yes, miss?’’

‘’I see that you are armed. I suppose that you have a weapon carrying permit?’’

‘’Of course, miss! I am one of the bodyguards for Miss Varanian. Do you want to see my carrying permit?’’

‘’That won’t be necessary: I believe you. I however want to see the ammunition in your pistol.’’

Intrigued, the bodyguard still obliged her, taking out his pistol from his shoulder holster and removing its ammunition clip, handing the latter to Tina. She took one look at the bullet at the top of the clip and frowned.

‘’This is an armor-piercing bullet. It is good at piercing body armor but is also able to puncture a wall or viewing port of my ship and thus cause a catastrophic explosive decompression. Do you have low-penetration, frangible bullets, mister?’’

‘’Uh, no, miss.’’

‘’Then, go see later my chief of security, Mister Morrison, and get some frangible ammunition from him. I will not allow you to carry around my ship a weapon with armor-piercing rounds. Keep your weapon unloaded until you can get some new ammunition. The same goes for the other bodyguards of Miss Varanian.’’ The bodyguard hesitated, looking briefly at his employer. Leon Steinberg took on himself to give him an order.

31

‘’Do as she say, Devin. Karl, unload your pistol as well.’’

The bodyguard and the driver complied at once, making Tina nod in satisfaction.

‘’Thank you for your comprehension, gentlemen. By the way, you may be interested to know that there is a fully equipped pistol firing range on my ship.’’

‘’A firing range? On a ship?’’ said Steinberg, truly surprised. Tina smiled to him.

‘’A small one but one with a range of thirty meters and five firing lanes. My ship’s security guards do need to practice their pistol shooting regularly after all, and we spend most of our time in space.’’

‘’Decidedly, your ship seems to be full of surprises, Captain.’’

‘’It is the sixth biggest ship in terms of mass in the Solar System, mister. There is thus ample room aboard for many things that would not fit even on big passenger liners like the APOLLO. I will be more than happy to give you and Miss Varanian a tour of my ship tomorrow, once we are on our way.’’

‘’I will be looking forward to it, Captain.’’

Tina then stepped away from the limousine, letting the driver and bodyguard finish unloading the vehicle.

Four minutes later, and with all three chariots full to capacity and the limousine moved to its storage spot, the group followed Tina to one of the cargo lifts running along the central axis shaft of the ship. The sixteen persons and three chariots easily fit inside the big cargo lift, made to accommodate five meter-long short cargo containers. Tina then made the lift rise to Level 15, where the cabins reserved for Zara Varanian and her troupe were. Once out of the lift, the group split in two, with Miri Wang escorting most of Varanian’s employees and assistants towards their respective cabins. Tina stayed with the diva, her dressing lady and her executive secretary, leading them to one of the few business-class cabins on the KOSTROMA. Stopping finally in front of a sliding door, Tina opened it by using her access card, which opened all the doors on her ship, then invited Varanian in.

‘’Your new home for three weeks on the KOSTROMA, Miss Varanian. I hope that you will be satisfied.’’

Fully expecting to be disappointed, Zara stepped inside a spacious lounge and looked around her. The first surprise was the size of the room itself, which even had a dining corner at one end with a table for four persons. The lounge also featured a bar corner and a huge plasma display unit faced by comfortable sofas. The lounge in her cabin

32

aboard the APOLLO had been significantly smaller than this one. Tina then went to a door in one corner, opening it and revealing a small bedroom with a double bunk bed and one single bed.

‘’This bedroom will accommodate your two assistants, Miss Varanian. It has its own complete bathroom and entertainment unit. We will see next your bedroom.’’ Crossing the length of the lounge, Tina opened a door at the end, closely followed by a curious Zara. The latter actually smiled with satisfaction on seeing the big bedroom and its attached walk-in closet and luxurious bathroom, complete with a large whirlpool bath.

‘’Your ship keeps surprising me, miss. This is as good and certainly as spacious as any first-class cabin I have ever seen on a liner.’’

‘’Thank you, Miss Varanian. For supper, the cafeterias are on Level Ten. There is a separate dining room for business-class passengers there. There are also a few small fast food counters on the Promenade Deck, on Level Nine. Those counters, like the other shops on the Promenade Deck, are however commercial concessions and you will have to pay for your meals there, contrary to the cafeterias, with their hot and cold buffets. You will find a number of information pamphlets on the ship’s services and facilities on your bedside table. I will now leave you to let you install yourself. Have a good evening, miss.’’

‘’You too, Captain.’’

Once Tina was gone, Zara gave a few orders to her two female assistants, making them unpack her numerous bags and suspending or putting away their content in the walk-in closet and in the chest of drawers of her bedroom. In the meantime, she examined with interest the few pamphlets she found on her bedside table. That was when she realized the true size and volume of the KOSTROMA. As large and spacious as the decks she had seen up to now were, the passenger cabins and attached facilities represented actually less than ten percent of the internal volume of the ship. And that didn’t include the volume of the various cargo pods which could be attached to the outer hull of the ship and which represented most of its cargo capacity. One piece of information then made her open her eyes wide and suck air in. Activating her wrist watch/communicator, she frantically called her manager, who answered after two buzzes.

‘’Yes, Zara?’’

33

‘’Leon, they have an auditorium aboard this ship, a 3,200-seat auditorium! We could throw a few shows aboard during our trip. It could be good practice for us, apart from helping us pay for our trip.’’

‘’An auditorium? That is certainly something worth looking after. I will go have a look at it after I’m unpacked and report to you after. What cabin are you in?’’ Zara examined quickly the access card given to her by Tina Foster before replying.

‘’I am in cabin 15-A-01. And you?’’

‘’I’m in cabin 15-B-06. When are you going to have supper?’’

‘’I will go to the business-class cafeteria on Level Ten at six thirty.’’

‘’Good! I will see you then.’’

About one hour before the agreed supper time with Leon Steinberg, Zara, having showered and changed, decided to tour some of the facilities of the ship with her executive secretary. Being intensely curious about it, she first went to the ship’s auditorium. While the furnishing of that huge hall was rather austere to her taste, the acoustics proved adequate, like the facilities for the performers in the back of the large stage. Now more decided than ever to throw a performance on the KOSTROMA, Zara went next to have a quick look at the business-class cafeteria, which was already open for supper. She used that occasion to book in advance a table in a corner that would provide her some intimacy, then advised Leon of that by wrist communicator. With half an hour still to spare, Zara then went down to the Promenade Deck and toured quickly its boutiques and counters. The sight of the sex club JUPITER did attract an amused smirk on her face but, when she looked at the pictures of the club’s ‘performers’ near the front entrance, she couldn’t help feel some interest towards one of the male dancers, named simply ‘Marcel’ on the advertising. The man, apart from being built like an Adonis, obviously had Mediterranean blood in his veins, something that attracted Zara. Discreetly noting mentally the operating hours of the sex club, the diva then continued her tour of the promenade.

As Zara Varanian was completing her exploration of the Promenade Deck, Tina Forster was taking place in her command chair on the bridge of the KOSTROMA. Her first business was to call in succession Denise Lonsdale, the ship’s cargomaster, and Natalia Vasilyeva, the head hostess, to confirm with them that the loading and

34

embarkation were completed. Once she had their thumbs up, Tina contacted Chief Engineer Rose Tillman, who answered from the main engineering control room.

‘’Main engineering!’’

‘’This is Tina. Are you ready to fire up the main drive, Rose?’’

‘’Affirmative! Our three fusion generators are on and hot and our capacitor banks are fully loaded. As soon as we clear the terminal’s safety zone, I will be able to light up the main drive’s fusion chamber on your order.’’

‘’Excellent! I will now contact the terminal’s traffic control center to get clearance to undock. I will get back to you in a few minutes.’’

‘’I will be ready, Tina.’’

Cutting that line, Tina then called by radio the traffic control center of the orbital terminal, getting a nearly immediate response.

‘’Titan Magnus terminal, go ahead, KOSTROMA!’’

‘’Titan Magnus terminal from KOSTROMA, we are ready for Space. You may disconnect and retract your communication tubes and docking clamps.’’

‘’Understood, KOSTROMA. Retracting communication tubes and clamps now.’’ Tina then watched one of the secondary viewing screens of her station, where she had a view of the communication tubes linking the KOSTROMA with the terminal. Those, along with the giant clamps which had secured the big ship to the terminal, unhooked from the KOSTROMA and slowly pulled away, leaving the cargo ship to float freely alongside the spaceport terminal.

‘’KOSTROMA, from Titan Magnus terminal, you are free to maneuver away.’’

‘’Thank you, Titan Magnus terminal.’’ answered Tina before turning her head towards Dana Durning, the ship’s navigator. ‘’Light up our navigation lights, Dana!’’

‘’Navigation lights on! There are no craft or other ship in our departure path.’’ Tina nodded in understanding: with a present total mass of eleven million tons, the KOSTROMA would easily crush any craft or small ship unfortunate enough to be caught in its path, even at very low speed. Her next order went to Frida Skarsgard, who was now effectively first pilot of the ship.

‘’Frida, you may start pulling us away on gravity sails.’’

‘’Aye, Captain!’’

Frida then tugged gently her control stick, sending computerized signals to the various gravity sail surfaces of the KOSTROMA. Under her commands, the gravity sails, in

35

essence a form of gravity mat that sent gravity waves against metal plates like wind blowing in a canvas sail, started moving the ship away from the terminal, slowly at first. Gravity sail drives were common to all interplanetary ships and formed the main drives of many of the smaller classes of ships and of all auxiliary craft. While not as powerful as thermonuclear fusion drives, gravity sail drives had the advantage of being simple to operate and maintain, needed only a source of electrical power and were safe to operate near people or other craft. In comparison, a ship needed to back away by tens of kilometers from any space terminal or ship before it could fire up its fusion drive. If it didn’t do that, then the long, searing hot plume of plasma from a fusion drive could burn away or even melt any craft or ship caught in its exhaust. The gravity sails of the KOSTROMA were only powerful enough to impart to the ship, when at full load, an acceleration of less than two meters per second square, making it look slow and ponderous. Right now, accelerating away from the space terminal at one quarter gravity under gravity sails, the KOSTROMA took a full twenty minutes before it was distant enough to safely fire its main drive. At that point, Tina contacted again the main engineering control room via intercom.

‘’Captain to engineering: you may light up the main fusion drive now. Keep it at five percent power and neutral thrust at first.’’

‘’Understood, Captain.’’

‘’Frida, align the ship on our calculated path to Vesta. Be ready to apply power.’’

‘’Understood, Tina.’’

Down in main engineering, Chief Engineer Rose Tillman, a 21-year veteran of space flying, eyed critically the readouts from her instruments as she was about to light up the main fusion chamber of the ship’s thermonuclear drive. A push on a large red button then started the computerized startup sequence. Electrical brakes were applied to half of the massive flywheel capacitors sitting on the deck under that of the main fusion chamber, extracting from them a massive electrical surge of eight gigawatts. That surge in turn fed a huge bank of multimegawatt lasers, which then sent dozens of powerful laser beams through optical conduits which converged on the main fusion chamber. Those laser beams, entering the fusion chamber at carefully calculated angles, hit a tiny pill of deuterium-tritium, vaporizing it while at the same time compressing the gasses under tremendous pressure and temperature. The deuterium-tritium then ignited into thermonuclear fire, which lit up the fine mist of deuterium-tritium

36

fuel pre-injected in the fusion chamber. The tremendous surge of thermonuclear plasma filled the fusion chamber, with its excess plasma leaving via a magnet-lined conduit. When functioning as a source of boost for the ship, that excess plasma would travel to the four fuel injection chambers of the fusion drive and ignite in turn more fuel, producing millions of tons of thrust. Right now, however, that hot plasma simply vented away in space from both the forward and aft nozzles of the KOSTROMA’s main drive, producing no effective thrust. Simply closing either the forward or aft plasma acceleration conduits would then produce thrust in one direction, pushing the cargo ship in the desired direction or braking its flight. Rose Tillman watched this critical process for a few seconds before calling back the bridge.

‘’Captain, we have a sustained fusion reaction in the main drive chamber. We can apply power any time you want now.’’

‘’Thank you, Rose.’’ answered Tina before turning her head towards Frida Skarsgard. ‘’Engage main drive at sixty percent power and initiate our pre-calculated flight plan.’’

‘’Main drive at sixty percent! Engaging on pre-calculated course.’’ The main engines of the KOSTROMA then erupted, producing a staggering ten million tons of thrust and creating an exhaust plume of hot plasma tens of kilometers long. However, instead of increasing its absolute orbiting speed relative to the Sun, the cargo ship actually started to decrease its speed, in order to come down from the gravity well of Saturn towards the orbit of Vesta. Helped by the efficiency of its fusion drive and its large fuel tanks, the KOSTROMA then went on decelerating for hours, to match the orbital speed of Vesta, in the Main Asteroid Belt.

21:42 (Universal Time)

Entrance lobby of the JUPITER sex club

Mark Cisco exchanged a satisfied grin from a distance with Madam Lee, the owner of the club: business was good tonight, no small thanks to all the extra passengers from the liner APOLLO. Many of those extra passengers were also obviously financially more comfortable than the average passenger the KOSTROMA was accustomed to carry. That meant bigger tips and a more generous consumption of drinks, the latter being the biggest part of the revenues of the club for Madam Lee. Presently, a group of seven wealthy businessmen were having a rowdy time in one

37

corner, enjoying a table dance from a voluptuous blonde, Vera Lutjens, while a no less enthusiastic group of four young women were admiring from very close the anatomy of the beefy Rick Westmore. With glass partitions between sections which could be polarized to become one-way mirrors, the action could become in fact about as rowdy as a customer wished. The only rule, which Mark Cisco was tasked to enforce if need be, was that consent had to be mutual and between adults. For even more intimate action, small private cabins could be rented in the back of the club, not only for customer-performer encounters but also for customer-on-customer action if two persons got attracted to each other during their visit at the club. The social mores of the 24th Century, at least among Spacers, were tolerant enough to make this quite frequent, actually. Things were a bit trickier on Earth, were what was permitted and tolerated varied greatly depending on where you were.

The club was already nearly at full capacity when Mark saw a young woman and a big, muscular man enter the club and approach his reception counter. He hid a smile when he recognized the woman and acted as if he had no clue that such a celebrity as Zara Varanian was visiting the club: he had learned long ago how such celebrities often wished to go around anonymously during their free time.

‘’Welcome to the JUPITER, miss, mister. We have separate sections for male and female shows. Where would you like to take a table?’’

‘’In the male dancers’ section, please.’’ answered Zara while discreetly admiring the impressive physique of the bouncer. Mark Cisco nodded and led her and her bodyguard towards the smaller section of the club, finally presenting them an empty table with chairs. Mark didn’t miss the fact that Zara’s male companion then chose to sit at another nearby table rather than at Zara’s side and gave the bodyguard good marks for his professional judgment. He then returned to his post after being given a tip by Zara. A bare-chested waiter with the physique of an Adonis quickly showed up at Zara’s table to take her order as she was eyeing the male hunk dancing and stripping on the stage a few meters away.

‘’Good evening, miss. My name is Marcel. What would you like to drink, miss?’’ Zara repressed a smile on recognizing the hunk who had attracted her attention on the façade’s advertising a few hours ago.

‘’I will have a red vermouth on ice, please.’’

‘’Right away, miss.’’

38

Marcel then quickly took the order of her bodyguard, who went for a glass of mineral water, before walking away towards the bar of the establishment. He was back a mere minute later with the drinks. Zara smiled to him as she paid for both glasses.

‘’Could I ask for a table dance, Marcel?’’

‘’Of course, miss! Let me just finish my tour of the tables and I will be with you.’’

Back at the entrance lobby of the club, Mark Cisco soon greeted two new customers, black men in suits. One was huge and powerful, while the other was of medium built, was in his early twenties and wore a very expensive suit and a gold wrist communicator. ‘This is decidedly a night for VIPs and their bodyguards’, thought Mark before leading the duo into the female dancers’ section and giving them a table. Contrary to the bodyguard of Zara Varanian, the black bodyguard sat with his charge at the same table. While obviously well-to-do, the younger man didn’t tip Mark and dismissed him with a negligent gesture of one hand, as if he was chasing away an annoying dog. Mark left without a word, less than impressed by this particular customer.

Less than forty minutes later, a blinking red light and a discreet alarm on Mark’s security computer screen made his head snap. He swore quietly to himself when he saw that the alarm came from the special wrist communicator of one of the club’s dancers, Joan Ferguson. Furthermore, it came from the area of the table occupied by the young black snob. Without wasting time to check the view from the relevant security camera, Mark launched himself in a quick walking stride, charging towards the table of concern. A panicked cry from Joan then made him accelerate to a run in the semi-darkness of the club.

‘’LET ME GO!’’

Mark arrived near the table to find Joan being forced to kneel in front of the young black snob by the man’s bodyguard, obviously to make her give a fellatio. The black bodyguard didn’t react fast enough to Mark, who sent him down to the floor in pain with a kick to his testicles. Mark then grabbed solidly the young snob’s left shoulder, pushing him in his chair while glaring at him.

‘’Let her go, now!’’

The young man, obviously half-drunk already, glared back.

‘’Do you know who you are messing with? Why all this fuss for this ill-trained whore?’’

39

Mark did not respond immediately, first helping Joan to get up.

‘’Go see Madam Lee and tell her what happened to you, Joan.’’

‘’Su…sure, Mark.’’ said the dancer in a shaken voice before fleeing. Mark then looked back at the snob he was still holding.

‘’Customers are to respect our employees, mister. Sex acts are given only with mutual consent. I will now have to ask you to leave the club without further ado.’’ As soon as Mark released his hold, the young man shot up from his chair, furious.

‘’I AM NELSON ZEMBELO, SON OF THE GOVERNOR OF AFRICA! HOW DARE YOU THROW ME OUT?’’

A movement behind him and a warning shout from a nearby customer then alerted Mark.

‘’BEHIND YOU!’’

Mark turned around in time to face a bull-like charge by the snob’s bodyguard, who was still grimacing with pain. Quickly pivoting and stepping aside, Mark used the man’s momentum against him, grabbing hold of his collar and forcing him to circle him before throwing him head-first against the nearest wall with a resounding ‘THUMP’. As the bodyguard slumped to the floor, unconscious, Mark activated his wrist communicator, having had enough of these two customers.

‘’Hello, ship security? This is Mark Cisco, at the JUPITER sex club. I have here a case of assault against an employee by a customer. I suspect that the latter is armed. Send a team as quickly as you can!’’

The customer who had warned him, a tall and thin man in his thirties wearing the kind of simple and informal coverall favored by Spacers, joined him besides the knocked out bodyguard.

‘’If you need a witness, mister, I am all yours.’’

‘’Thank you, sir. That will be most appreciated.’’

The young snob eyed with anger Mark, then the other customer.

‘’You damn Spacers! You always gang up on us Terrans when you can. Wait till my father learns about this: you will then be sorry for this.’’

‘’What is this idiot talking about?’’ asked the volunteer witness, surprised and confused. Mark answered while eyeing Nelson Zembelo grimly.

‘’I suppose that you never went to Earth, mister?’’

‘’Uh, no. Why?’’

‘’Because, then you would have known that many Terrans resent our supposed life of high-tech luxury. They think that they are still subsidizing us, when in fact it is the

40

other way around now. Unfortunately, some on Earth find it convenient to perpetuate that myth among their citizens, mostly to help hide the fact that they are the ones who are exploiting the masses.’’

The helping customer shook his head in disbelief.

‘’A life of luxury… I have yet to breathe fresh atmospheric air and never swam in a real lake or sea. As for luxuries, this visit to Vesta is the first real vacation for me and my family in four years.’’

‘’That is the story of most Spacers, mister. Too bad that so many Terrans think otherwise.’’

The arrival at a run of Bill Morrison, the KOSTROMA’s head of security, and of two of his security guards, interrupted their chat. Morrison, a big and tough man in his early forties, had a stun pistol in his right hand as he looked at the scene around the table.

‘’Alright, what happened here?’’

The young snob immediately pointed an angry finger at Mark Cisco.

‘’THIS THUG ATTACKED MY BODYGUARD, THAT’S WHAT HAPPENED!’’

‘’Bullshit!’’ replied Mark. ‘’He had his bodyguard forcing down Joan on her knees to make her give him a fellatio against her will. I had to knock out his bodyguard when he charged me. Be careful: he may be armed.’’

‘’The receptionist is telling the truth, sir.’’ volunteered the helping customer. ‘’I saw everything and so did my two friends at that table.’’

Morrison’s eyes focused on Zembelo as he pointed the unconscious bodyguard to one of his guards.

‘’Leo, find out if that man is armed. If yes, confiscate his weapon and then cuff him. You, mister, sit down!’’

Probably because he was too drunk to realize how much in trouble he was, Nelson Zembelo stayed up, shouting in protest.

‘’DON’T GIVE ME ORDERS: I’M THE SON OF THE GOVERNOR OF AFRICA.’’ The response of Morrison was to step forward and brutally push the young man down on his chair.

‘’I said ‘SIT’! Now, show me your identity card!’’

When Zembelo didn’t move to take out his card, glaring instead at him, Morrison frowned.

‘’Very well! You want to play that kind of game? Then we will find your card by searching you in the detention block. Ahmed, cuff him!’’

41

Zembelo then made yet another mistake and tried to take a swing at the head of security. The latter jumped back in time to avoid the fist directed at his face, then pointed his stun gun at the young man and pressed the trigger. Propelled by a small explosive powder charge to a muzzle velocity of 120 meters per second, the blunt nose, rubber-tipped twenty millimeter caliber slug slammed against Zembelo’s ribs, flattening on impact while also delivering a 50,000 volts discharge through a small needle in its tip. The young snob went down like a rag doll with an audible ‘HUMPF’, his muscles convulsing. Ahmed Jibril then stepped around him and turned him on his belly to cuff him. As Morrison was shaking his head at Zembelo’s stupidity, his other guard, Leo Sanchez, showed him a heavy caliber pistol, along with the magazine extracted from it.

‘’That bodyguard was effectively armed, boss: he had a ten millimeter caliber SIG-4000 automatic pistol, loaded with armor-piercing bullets.’’

‘’This is getting better and better.’’ groaned Morrison before looking at Mark Cisco. ‘’Where is Joan, so that I can take a statement from her?’’

‘’She’s with Madam Lee, Mister Morrison. She was quite shaken by this incident. I suppose that you will need a statement from me as well?’’

‘’Yes, and from you and your two friends as well, mister.’’ replied the head of security, looking at the customer who had warned Mark. ‘’My men will take care of bringing those two bozos to the detention block.’’

‘’Uh, could you send me the names and pictures of those two men later, so that I can place them on the club’s black list?’’

‘’That is certainly the right of your club, considering the charges these two will face. Son of a governor or not, that young idiot put himself in deep shit. Did you have by chance a security camera pointed towards this table?’’

‘’I do have one covering this sector, yes.’’

‘’Then, let’s go review its recent footage. Ahmed, you better call two more men to carry these two birds.’’

‘’Yes, boss!’’

Letting his two guards take care of the black men, Morrison took with him the three customers who had witnessed the incident and followed Mark to his access counter to view the footage from the security cameras. It took only one minute of viewing to make Morrison nod his head.

42

‘’Your security camera confirms your accusations, Mister Cisco. I will download this footage for my evidence files and then take depositions from you and from those three gentlemen, plus one from your waitress.’’

‘’What will happen to these two men, Mister Morrison?’’

‘’They will be charged with physical assault, sexual assault, attacking a peace officer and resisting arrest. At a minimum, they will have to pay a stiff fine, on top of staying a night or two in my cells, but they could get up to a year in jail.’’

‘’Don’t forget that one of them may have a lot of political pull, if we can believe that he is indeed the son of the Governor of Africa.’’

That brought a mean grin to the face of the head of security.

‘’I’m not going to wait until we are on Earth before dumping that young idiot, mister. I will recommend to the Captain that we drop these two on Vesta, along with copies of your statements and of this camera footage, so that the Vesta Police Department can deal legally with them. I doubt that the father of this Nelson Zembelo has much political clout on Vesta.’’

Mark nodded in understanding then: the Vesta Consortium, which owned Vesta and thousands of other asteroids around it, was fiercely independent and its CEO, Karl Langemann, had little regard for Terran authorities. Zembelo had anyway violated laws which applied in the whole Solar System, and not only in the Jovian System.

‘’Well, I can’t say that I will be sorry for that young idiot.’’

‘’Amen to that!’’

The next twenty minutes were spent giving statements, with Morrison finally leaving Mark and the others to return to their business or, in the case of the three customers, to their ogling and drinking. Those three even got a round of free drinks and a free table dance by Joan Ferguson as a thank you from Madam Lee. Mark had to give it to the gray-haired owner of the club: she may be in a so-called dirty business but she took good care of her employees.

10:12 (Universal Time)

Saturday, February 20, 2315

Detention section, MSS KOSTROMA

Void between Jupiter and the main Asteroid Belt

43

Nelson Zembelo’s ribs on his right side were still sore, with a spectacular blue and red bruise at the spot where the stun slug had hit him, when the door of his cell was unlocked and opened. He looked up angrily from his bed at the door, ready to protest again his treatment. This time, his visitor was a young woman in red coveralls, rather than one of his guards. One guard however stood outside the cell, ready to enter, as the woman, a pretty brunette with grey eyes, stopped just inside the door to stare at him with a cold look. Zembelo sat up on his bed and swung his legs out but didn’t stand up.

‘’Who are you? When am I going to be released from this cell?’’

‘’My name is Tina Forster and I am both the captain and owner of this ship. As for your release, it will happen in two weeks, when we will stop on Vesta. There, you will be handed over to the Vesta Police Department, which will process your case and prosecution.’’

‘’On Vesta? But I paid a full fare to Earth, not to Vesta!’’

‘’Don’t worry about your ticket fare, mister: it has already been credited back to your bank account by the Jovian Shipping Lines. You however sexually assaulted a worker employed on my ship, then attacked my head of security and resisted arrest. You will thus have to face the justice for those charges. The Vesta Police Department has already received electronic copies of the statements and security camera footage concerning yesterday’s incident at the JUPITER CLUB and has accepted to take over your case. You will be able to secure the services of a lawyer on Vesta, as is your right. You can in fact contact a lawyer in advance of our arrival if you wish so, but the time lag between transmission and reception will make any real conversation difficult.’’

‘’I still want to talk to a lawyer!’’

Tina nodded her head but kept her cold expression.

‘’Then you will get access to a communications link before lunch, Mister Zembelo. Whatever happens, however, you will never board this ship again. As Captain of this ship, and in accordance with the laws and regulations of Space, I declare you Persona Non Grata on the MSS KOSTROMA. Even if you manage to work up a legal deal before our arrival on Vesta, you will still disembark there. Next time you travel in space, remember to treat others on your ship with the same respect you would like to get.’’ Nelson Zembelo snickered at those words.

‘’You must be joking! You want me, the son of a continental governor, to treat a sex club whore like an equal? As for your damn ship, wait until my father learns about all this: you will then be able to kiss your sailing license goodbye.’’

44

What he then saw in Tina’s eyes were not the fear he had expected on hearing his words. Rather, she now stared at him with intense anger mixed with contempt. Her voice was frigid when she replied to him.

‘’Don’t rate too highly your father’s influence, mister: he may be fond of plundering the riches of Africa, or rather what is left of them, but he has no say here in the Outer System. I would suspect as well that the executives of some big corporations on Earth would not appreciate it if he made it more difficult for them to receive the hydrocarbons and metal ores which this ship regularly brings to Earth, so don’t fool yourself.’’

Tina then turned around and left the cell. She waited until Ahmed Jibril had locked the cell door before speaking to him.

‘’Allow him to call a lawyer before lunch. Apart from that and further legal calls, he stays in his cell until our arrival on Vesta. The same goes for his bodyguard.’’

‘’Understood, Captain.’’

Still fuming from Zembelo’s threat, Tina left the detention section at a quick step and went to the ship’s central longitudinal axis and its battery of elevator shafts, calling a cabin and going up three levels to the Crew Facilities Deck, where her suite was. The short trip gave her time to reassess the danger level of that threat. She still didn’t think that this governor would have enough political influence to cause her real trouble, but one never knew when the corrupt politics on Earth were concerned. She had better learn more about that Governor Zembelo and then, if need be, she could take some preventative measures. Once inside her private study, she sat at her work desk and booted up her computer. Unfortunately, being in space made it impossible to access instantly a universal database comparable to the old Internet of the 21st Century. The ship’s databanks were however regularly and frequently updated every time the KOSTROMA docked in orbit of Earth or of an inhabited moon or planet connected to the Solar System’s data network. Tina thus had the equivalent of highly detailed and recently updated encyclopedias at her fingertip. She also could consult the news bulletins relayed with lags of at most a few hours around the system. Her first search was about the political leadership of Africa. That brought up immediately numerous entries about Governor Horace Zembelo. The man had been elected governor of Africa three times in a row and had now held office for nine years. However, Tina knew better than be impressed by that: African politics, even by Terran standards, were notorious for

45

their widespread corruption, nepotism and outright graft. The reading of a dozen media articles going back up to the first mandate of Horace Zembelo only confirmed Tina’s suspicions about him. While officially as clean as a whistle, Zembelo and many of his friends and acolytes had been repeatedly accused in the medias of practicing corruption and nepotism on a large scale. Many of the reporters who had written articles against Zembelo had however been put in jail on a variety of alleged charges on orders from Zembelo, or had been assassinated by killers unknown. As for being elected three times, allegations of vote rigging and vote buying had been leveled repeatedly by many, including by Terran government level agencies. Each time, an ‘official inquiry’ had cleared Zembelo of wrongdoing. Searching next in a less direct route, Tina read economic and financial statistics concerning Africa and other continents and covering the last twenty or so years. What she saw made her shake her head with disbelief and disgust. Those statistics made it too evident that Zembelo’s reign over Africa had been far from being a godsend for the impoverished, overpopulated continent. While a few, high prestige projects had been conducted, often at appalling costs to the continent’s limited financial resources, the human services infrastructure and transportation networks had been grossly neglected. Housing and sanitation for the poor, which represented a majority of the population, was rated as being the worst overall compared to all the other continents. In contrast, Horace Zembelo was said to be one of the five richest men in Africa.

Nearly sick with disgust and wondering how things could have fallen to such depths on Earth, Tina ended her database search after two hours of reading. Governor Zembelo was now certified bad news for her if he had strong contacts with Terran government agencies, particularly with the Terran Customs Services and its navy. Tina was however far from ready to let herself be intimidated by such a man and started reviewing mentally the people and contacts she could use to shield herself and the KOSTROMA from any possible abusive procedure. A couple of names readily came to her mind. She then noticed the time and nearly jumped in her chair: she was about to miss the last service for lunch at the crew’s cafeteria! Leaving her study at a quick pace, she walked quickly to the crew cafeteria, which was close to her quarters, while still thinking about her potential problem with Zembelo. She however cleared her mind and pasted a smile on her face before entering the cafeteria: a visibly worried captain made for a worried crew.

46

 

08:01 (Universal Time)

Sunday, February 21, 2315

Business class cafeteria, Deck 10

MSS KOSTROMA

Zara Varanian was having breakfast with Leon Steinberg, discussing schedules to practice a performance in the ship’s auditorium, when a message was heard on the public address system.

‘’Attention to all! This is the Captain speaking! The ship will hold today a ‘First deep space walk event’ for all the children, either passengers or relatives of crewmembers, who have a personal spacesuit with them, are eligible for such a walk and have the permission of their parents. Those who are interested are to register for the walk at the ship’s customer services counter on Deck 16 before noon today. For those who do not have their spacesuit, a limited number of spare suits will be available from the ship’s stores. A refresher course on spacewalk procedures will follow at two o’clock, with technical checks of spacesuits at three o’clock. The spacewalk itself will be held at four thirty and will be reserved in priority to the children who never did a deep space walk before. If necessary, a second spacewalk will be scheduled as well for tomorrow, at the same hours. Thank you for your attention.’’ Before Zara could say to Leon that the notion of sending young children out on a spacewalk was crazy and irresponsible, at least four children sitting at nearby tables, three of them preteens, screamed with joy and started pestering their parents for permission to go on the said walk. To Zara’s disbelief, most of those parents agreed readily, making her look wide-eyed at her agent.

‘’My god, Leon, this is nuts!’’

Leon didn’t answer right away, his eyes following a small girl of maybe seven years of age in the process of physically dragging her mother out of the cafeteria, probably to go enroll for the space walk.

‘’Uh, I was about to say the same, Zara. Maybe we should ask the Captain about this so-called first deep Space walk.’’

A man in his thirties eating at the next table smiled to them on hearing that.

‘’Uh, excuse me if I may appear to be rude, but I think that I can explain this event to you. I am an executive from one of the mining companies on Titan and did my

47

first spacewalk at the age of eight. It is actually a cherished event in the life of all Spacer children and one can participate as young as the age of six. There are actually three types of spacewalks a Spacer kid can strive to complete. One, the most common and frequent, is the surface walk event, when a child goes for his first outing in a spacesuit on the surface of an airless moon or planet. The second type of event is the spacewalk event, where a child goes out of a fixed space installation for a tour in the vacuum. Finally, there is the deep space walk event, when a child goes out of a ship in transit, like today.’’

‘’But, our ship is presently moving at many kilometers per second.’’ objected Zara. ‘’A child, or even an adult, would be swept away if going out at such speeds.’’ The man smiled with comprehension at her misunderstanding.

‘’Our ship is moving very fast right now, yes, but it is not accelerating or decelerating, miss. It is just free-falling towards the orbit of Vesta. Thus, anyone exiting the ship now would simply float alongside it.’’

‘’Oh, I didn’t think about that. But still, why make children face such risks?’’ The mining executive adopted a serious expression as he carefully worded his answer.

‘’Because, for all of us Spacers, learning how to live and work in space is not only a question of practicability: it is actually a question of survival. Someone who doesn’t know how to put on and use properly a spacesuit and who lives on a ship or a space installation not only puts his or her life at risk unnecessarily, but also puts other lives at risk as well. Let’s say that you are a teenage girl living on a space station and that you never learned to use a spacesuit in a vacuum and in zero gravity. Let’s also say that one day a stray meteorite hits your space station and causes a catastrophic decompression in your section of the station. If you can’t put on a spacesuit properly by yourself, then you will force other people to help you. That will prevent them in turn from helping others or from helping to repair the breach in the station, just when time is most critical.’’

‘’Uh, I see.’’ said Zara, contrite. ‘’I have to say that, on Earth, many people would simply care about themselves and their families and forget the others around them.’’

‘’And that is where the biggest difference between Terrans and Spacers lies, miss. Without wanting to brag, us Spacers have learned the hard way that we must all work as a team and must help each other if we are to survive and prosper outside of Earth. Individuality is not discouraged, on the contrary, but selfishness is. Contrast that to what we see in the medias about the various social troubles on Earth. Don’t get me

48

wrong, miss: we have our share of sociopaths and criminals, but the great majority of Spacer population believe in mutual assistance. That is why we encourage our children to learn very young how to work in a spacesuit. Another difference with Terrans is that we won’t tolerate unproductive people who are still in their physical prime, for the simple reason that we don’t have the resources or housing capacity to support such free-loaders. On Earth, you could at the worst pitch a tent or build a shack somewhere and survive, but in space you can’t do that. Building space housing and living facilities and sustaining them is both expensive and time-consuming, apart from needing to be carefully planned in advance if you don’t want to end up with a major disaster in the near to medium future. Before you could think that we look down on our old people because they aren’t productive anymore, let me assure you that they are well treated and respected for their experience. Many of them choose any way to continue working well into their sixties and seventies, as long as they are physically and mentally capable of doing their work. On Titan, I know of an employee of my mining company who still operates an ammonia separation processor at the age of 81, and I can certify that he is damn good at it, miss. He swore that he would die at his post and I believe him.’’

‘’Wow! You sure are making me reassess a few things, mister.’’

‘’Glad to be of help, miss.’’ said the executive with a smile before continuing his meal. That left Zara free to think about many things from new angles. After eating in silence for a few minutes, and with the mining executive having left the cafeteria, she looked at Leon Steinberg and spoke softly to him.

‘’You know, Leon, I think that I will go watch that first deep Space walk event this afternoon.’’

Zara made good on her declaration, being part of the crowd which first encouraged the 37 young children, ranging in age from six to twelve, who went for a carefully supervised space walk along the huge bulk of the KOSTROMA, then cheered wildly the children once they had successfully completed their adventure. The

happiness on the face of the children, along with the pride and joy evident in their parents, made a profound impression on Zara then. She watched on as well when Tina Forster, as Captain of the ship, gave to each child during the end ceremony a ball cap hat with the embroidered badge for first deep Space walk and the badge of the MSS KOSTROMA. One of the most cheerful parties she had ever attended followed in the

49

evening, with the new deep Space walkers treated like heroes. That day changed forever the view Zara had of Spacers as a community.

50