April 5: A Depth of Understanding (5 page)

They acquired an obvious beam dog, who looked horribly hung over, a very well dressed Japanese couple and a fellow festooned with photo gear wearing a vest with more pockets than it seemed likely he could own enough junk to fill. All the other seats were occupied now, so the photographer took the last empty seat next to the security guy in the middle row.

In the hushed cabin, you could hear the body guard speak to him. "Our client would appreciate if you refrain from photographing him."

"That might be a problem, if I knew who the bloody hell he is, Jack." The fellow scoffed.

"He's Amos, lead singer for The Ancient Astronauts." The security man obviously didn't believe he was unaware of that.

"Oh, then if he's a public figure, you're damned silly to think you can say he's off limits, but I'm not a paparazzi , I won't waste my battery charge on him. I think my kid listens to them, useless noise as far as I'm concerned." That pretty much ended any friendly chit chat.

The flight crew came in, an Oriental lady and a surprisingly small blonde Caucasian man. He had a FedEx hard shell pack under one elbow like a lunch box, plastered with all sorts of blue and green safety color biohazard stickers and not even the normal orange expedited stickers, but the special square stickers instead, that said HOT in big letters on a hot pink background. Somebody paid a fortune to lift that if it was hand delivered to ride in the flight cabin. Just in case you didn't get the message it was special, it was sealed by a crimped steel band around the whole box, instead of the usual plastic cable tie in the lock loops.

They got things sorted out up front, stowed the hot freight away somewhere and the number two pilot, the Scandinavian, came back to the hatch and hung on the collar looking them over.

"Jefferson Singh?" he inquired.

"That's me," Jeff said waving. The fellow looked at Jeff hard, like he might be joking.

"You are listed on the manifest as a licensed lander pilot. Is that correct?"

"Yes and my friend April here is an apprentice going for the same ticket."

"On what type are you qualified?"

"Only for our own first of class shuttle,
Dionysus' Chariot.
"

"Your own? You mean it is a Home built and ported vessel?"

"That too, but we and Ms. Anderson here with us, are the owners also."

"I always like to know if we have any qualified people flying with us. You aren't rated for a Mitsubishi D body then?"

"Not at all. I don't even know what your board looks like. Our ship can do aerobraking like a D body, but we're able to do powered vertical landings. April and I are both rated for orbit to orbit too."

"Indeed," That got a high lifted eyebrow. "Welcome aboard," he said, which was safe enough and polite. He retreated to the flight cabin and dogged the hatch closed.

"We look too young to him," Jeff said, not upset, but certain.

"They're Earth based even if they are spacers," April pointed out. "There's still some Earth Think clinging there." Jeff just nodded agreement.

The lift was normal to the point of boring, the old shuttle worn, but just fine in every mechanical particular that mattered.

Chapter 4

They docked at ISSII and never went in spin, staying in the zero G mast, just moving down to another dock that had a screen showing a shuttle to Home in twenty minutes. The well inked man and his two bodyguards joined them, with one of the guards standing right at the hatch the entire wait, obviously intent on having first choice of seats when they boarded.

The guards were obviously not spacers, but they handled themselves with enough finesse that you could guess they had been in zero G before. The musician was a little more awkward, but was sensible, not trying anything fancy. He showed no discomfort, so either he had a natural ability to tolerate the weightlessness or he had the good sense to take the offered pill.

They were switching carriers, so their luggage was delivered to the dock. April didn't bother, but Gunny broke the Tongan customs seal on his bag and put on a belt with a matched brace of 10mm pistols and a magazine carrier. He was after all on duty.

"Isn't that a decompression hazard?" the  body guard near them asked, worried.

"Not with low velocity frangible ammo." Gunny didn't tell him the left gun held armor piercing, just in case. He'd really try not to use that one.

The flight crew arrived early and opened up the shuttle. Two ladies, both middle aged and both with that smooth tight face and easy movement that said they had life extension therapy. April couldn't put a name to them, but she'd seen both before. They had on the gray uniform with a stylized rocket logo of Larkin Lines. April was happy to see that, they ran a tight outfit.

They filled the luggage locker full as most orbit to orbit travelers didn't have the volume of bags they'd brought up from an Earth visit. The musician's body guards looked happier now, being able to pick their seats. Then they sat for awhile because there were three paid seats empty and they had ten minutes until their published departure time.

It was down to the last thirty seconds before two kids hit the hatch fast and utterly confident like birds landing on a fence. The older one, the boy of about ten crossed over his sister and stuck his head in the hatch to the flight cabin. "Our dad is coming." He assured the crew. "He just can't move as fast as us so he told us to go ahead. They didn't like his papers getting out of the North American Sector and wanted to argue."

April's face clouded over in a frown. "Are they aware you are boarding a Home vessel?"

"I don't think they ever got around to talking about where we're going, not while we were there, dad seems to be on the don't fly list," the boy told her. "We just jumped past them through the gate and what are they going to do? They can't keep up with us either and it looks really bad to try to Taser a couple kids." The little devil grinned at playing that advantage.

"It's
stupid
," the little girl declared. "We've been up before. We're the same people."

April got out of her couch, "The three of us," she informed the crew woman, "are the partners of Singh Industries, with who Larkin Lines does a great deal of business. I'd appreciate it if you would declare a ten minute hold to local control. We will indemnify you for any loss or fines you receive for the hold."

"I'm quite aware of who you are. I've seen you speak in the Assembly. We will tell local control we are holding until our passengers board and hang our weapons boom out in case they don't understand we are upset," she hurried back into the crew space.

"Thank you," April called after the crewwoman, she turned to Gunny, "I need a pistol," she demanded, open hand out.

"I made sure your bag was on top," Gunny said, getting up and going to the locker. "Get your own, because I intend to go with you."

"You are not obligated to guard me when I
seek
trouble." April admitted. Gunny already had the customs tape cut and spread the bag open. April pulled out an aikuchi and stuck it in her waist band and then the laser, not bothering with a holster, just taking it in her hand.

"I want to."

"Thank you," April said. The brother and sister still hanging by the crew hatch looked shocked at this turn of events.

The lights flickered and there were various sounds as the vessel detached from station utilities, which wasn't normal with the lock hanging wide open. Gunny closed the bag and stuffed it back in the locker. "You kids take a couch and belt in. When we come back we may want to leave quickly and you are one less thing we need to sort out."

"Yes sir," they said in unison and moved quickly to the furthest open seats.

Gunny went out the lock, with April close behind. There were two customs and immigration agents approaching down the mast with a man between them.

"Are my kids aboard?"

"Aboard and strapped in, ready to depart," Gunny assured him.

"We did not release them to board," one of the agents said, angry.

"Read the departure screen," April told him. "Where is this vessel going?"

The man looked at the flat screen on the boom bulkhead. "Oh, shit…He didn't tell us he was going to Home," the agent complained. "He had a NA passport."

"You don't have a departure schedule at your duty station?"

"Yeah, but there are four shuttles in count to leave. Only this one is going to Home."

"Now you know. Is there any further problem?" Gunny asked, not especially friendly.

"No problem," the fellow agreed. He and his partner had holstered Tasers, April had a weapon in hand and Gunny two visible. That may have helped keep the conversation simple and brief. They turned to go.

"You have my passport," the fellow objected, holding his hand out.

He was sullen, but the customs agent put it in his hand.

"Do you have anything else they held up, any luggage?" April asked.

"No, I anticipated problems, so we decided not to burden ourselves with anything we couldn't fit in our pockets. Thank you for your help. I owe you. We are the Wilsons, I'm Matt, could I have your names?"

"I am April Lewis, this is my hired man Mack Tindal, call him Gunny. Strap in and we can talk later, we're past departure time. They
know
better than this," she complained to Gunny.

When they came in through the lock the crew woman who had agreed to a hold was braced in the hatch opening to the crew cabin, feet on one side, shoulders against the opposite flange, she had a short barreled twelve gauge nestled in her arms, watching the lock carefully.

"They say we're clear to boost," Gunny told her. "Don't trust them to mean it."

"I won't. Would you close and dog the lock, please?" she asked and closed crew access and they could hear it seal shut when the dogs clunked.

"Lock closed," Gunny reported at the intercom before he was the last to strap in. The crew undoubtedly had sensors on their board, but it didn't hurt to confirm it.

The little girl, not much younger than the boy, maybe a year, spoke to her dad when he strapped in the seat ahead of her. "Dad, she's the one the teenagers all copycat and upset all the teachers and mall cops!"

The grapples withdrew with a distant thud and they got a gentle push sideways with no delay. A couple more turns and pushes and the speaker came alive. "Nobody is giving us any trouble. We will ramp to a very modest third G burn in fifteen seconds. Local control approved our altered departure with no comment. Thanks for flying Larkin Lines," she added automatically.

* * *

At Home his guards hustled the musician out the door quickly. He was slow, but April's party wasn't in any hurry, patiently following them down the short north mast. 

Eddie and April's grandfather met them at the bearing portal to spin. It was a huge contrast to the mob that greeted her last return from Earth. It was the middle of main shift and April's parent's would both be working and Heather's mother had a very hands off approach to raising her children, so nobody felt slighted or ignored.

They all logged on at the security station, touching the ceramic plate of the DNA reader. Nobody was fussy enough to ask a wipe down before using it, but several of them used a sani-wipe before putting on fresh gloves. The plate was silver impregnated and had an ultraviolet lamp flooding it so it should be safe, but people were paranoid. There were some strange new diseases coming out of the African continent recently, so it wasn't entirely a baseless worry.

Eddie was babbling on to Jeff about getting landing rights for
Dionysus' Chariot
in Australia and Barack was bending her grandfather's ear about something. The three ahead of them were a little slower in zero G and they were going to catch up before they got to the elevator. The musician pulled a granola bar or a candy bar out of his pocket and opened it. He crumpled the wrapped and tossed it 'down' to the floor, but there was so little spin here it rolled up the curved bulkhead on the air currents.

"Hey, you dropped something!" April called out to him. When he looked she pointed to the wrapper  still slowly climbing the surface counter-clockwise.

"It's just trash, the clean-bot will get it," he said, with an honestly quizzical look on his face.

"There
is
no clean-bot in zero G. The hand rails get wiped down weekly and the bulkheads get a wipe-down maybe every six months. Your trash will float around until it gets sucked into an air filter, or somebody else picks it up and takes it to a trash receptacle, because we don't want to live in a pig sty like an Earth city. I'm informing you what local custom is," she said pointedly. She was still irritated from the customs people breaking the free travel agreement and not in a mood to let anything slide.

He'd turned around and April hadn't stopped. It would have been OK, but his security man thrust himself between them and held a hand up to stop April. He wasn't very graceful in zero G and he ended up stopping his own motion by pushing off of April's shoulder.

"How
dare
you lay hands on me?"

"I doubt the young lady is a threat to me Ron, I think you can back off."

"They're armed and
I
see a hazard," Ron insisted.

"There is a hazard, but you have no idea what it is," April told him. "If you will promise to keep your hands to yourself in the future, I'll ignore your ignorance."

"I didn't really intend to make contact, but I'm just doing my job. You can't press in on my client like that when you are arguing. I'd have stopped you getting closer in any case."

"
You
aren't capable of stopping me if I decided to get physical with your client, or you, but you have no idea of your limitations. You will apologize or you will meet me here tomorrow morning and give me satisfaction. You have the choice of weapons, or if you come unarmed we will fight bare handed." April was horrified, it was like some stranger's voice saying this, but she was taking out every diminutive statement and insult built up in memory out on this final disrespectful act.