Gateways (48 page)

A shipload of refugee rubes and their companion swine well taken care of. . .

I could see my bank balance depleting at lightning speed with nothing but zeroes looming on the horizon.

Most of my attention was on my drink when the nasal whine of Elmo’s voice cut through the dark thoughts of my coming fiscal failure.

“The captain said
what
?” I broke in.

“Just that we was longer getting here than he thought so we owe him eighteen thousand an’ thirteen credits. He ain’t letting any more critters—human or swine—offen the ship until we pay up . . .”

“That’s called kidnapping—and pignapping—and is against the law,” I
growled. Cheered to have a target for my growing anger. “The name of this miscreant?”

“Rifuti. His first name is Cap’n. Cap’n Rifuti.”

“And the ship is called. . .?”

“Rose of Rifuti.”

I shuddered.

“Don’t you think it’s past time we paid the captain a visit?” Angelina said. She smiled down at the snoring Pinky—but the chill of death was in her words as she thought of the crooked captain.

“We shall—but in some style,” I said, turning to the viewscreen and punching in a number. The screen instantly lit up with image of a robot—apparently constructed out of groundcar parts.

“Moolaplenty Motors at your service Sire diGriz—how may we aid you this lovely summer’s day?” it said in a sultry soprano voice.

“A rental. Your best eight-seat vehicle . . .”

“A Rolls-Sabertooth, gold-plated, satellite-guided with real diamond headlights. It will be in your drive in . . . thirty-six seconds. Your first day’s rental has been debited to your account. Have a good one.”

“We leave,” I announced. Leaning over and scratching Pinky under her ear-quills. She grunted happily, stretched, climbed to her trotters and gave herself a good rustling shake.

The groundcar was waiting for us, humming with barely restrained power; the robot chauffeur nodded and smiled mechanically. The albedo was so high, with the sun glinting off the gold plating, that I had to squint against the glare. I handed Angelina into her seat, waited until the porcuswinette curled up at her feet, and joined her. After Elmo clambered aboard I pressed the pearl-studded
GO
button on the armrest.

“To the spaceport.”

“Arrival time three minutes and twelve seconds, Sire Jim and noble passengers.” The robot chauffeur had obviously not looked too closely at Elmo. “And welcome as well to their pet dog. . . errr . . . cat. . . pszip—” It’s voice chuntered to a halt, its computational software undoubtedly unacquainted with porcuswine.

For a few moments I was cheered by the gold-and-diamond luxury; then deeply depressed when I thought of the coming assault on my bank balance.

Moolaplenty was a holiday world and catered to the very rich and even richer. The glint of the diamond headlights drew a salute from the spaceport gate guard as that portal swung wide.

“We’re going to the
Rose of Rifuti
,” I said. His nostrils flared at the name; unflared when I slipped a gold cinque coin into his tip pocket.

“You jest, sire.”

“Alas—it is our destination.”

“If it is, I suggest that you stay upwind. Row nine, pad sixty-nine.” The carputer beeped as the driver heard the location and we surged forward.

While all about me the riders smiled, laughed, grunted porcinely—I was struck down and immersed in the darkness of gloom. I hated the fact that Elmo had ever been born and grown up to invade my happiness. I was cheered that Angelina was cheered—but I had the depressing feeling that all was not going too well.

I was right. Our magic motor stopped, the doors swung open—and we must have been downwind because a certain effluvia crept over us. The eau de barnyard flashed me back to my youth.

“Porcuswine . . . ,” I muttered darkly.

“Not the most welcome reception,” Angelina said, frowning at the spacer.

An understatement if there ever was one. Each of the landing fins of the battered, rusted spaceship was attached to a thick chain, which in turn was bolted to the ground. A heavy chain-link fence circled the pad. There was a single large gate in the fence, that was just closing behind an official-looking vehicle. A dozen armed guards scowled at our arrival while a grizzled sergeant stepped forward and jerked his thumb over his shoulder.

“No visitors. All inquiries at the guardhouse.”

“But that car just went in!”

“Officials only. They’re an inspection team from Customs and Quarantine.”

“Understandable. Now, sergeant—would you be kind enough to do me a favor? See that this donation reaches the Old Sergeants’ Rest Home and Bar.”

The thousand-credit note vanished as swiftly as it had appeared. It tempered our conversation.

“The ship’s quarantined. Just those medical officers allowed inside now.”

But it wasn’t quite working out that way. A gangway had been run out from the lower spacelock. The officials had just started up it when loud cries and a fearful squealing sounded from the open lock. An instant later there was a thunderous pounding as a black horde of quill-shaking, galloping porcuswine poured out of the ship. The officials dived for safety as
the stampede swept by. The thundering herd headed for the gate, which was now closed and locked. The lead boars snorted with porcine rage and turned, leading the pack around the circumference of the fence.

Then, waving shovels and prods, the angry farmers poured down the gangway and ran after them in hot pursuit. ’Round and ’round the fenced enclosure they rushed. I leaned back against our groundcar and beamed happily.

“Beautiful!” I said. Angelina frowned at me.

“The swinelets might get hurt. . .”

“Never! The sows are the best mothers in the known universe!”

Eventually the great beasts tired of their circular performance and were hurried back aboard the ship. I resisted the urge to clap in appreciation of the performance. The sergeant waited until the clatter of hooves had died away and considered his litany of woe.

“Quarantined with good reason, I would say, sir. In addition to these sanitary problems there are financial ones. Landing fees, rubbish removal, and site-rental charges have not been paid. If you wait here I’ll send for an officer to give you the gen.”

Then he moved like a striking adder. Kicking the gate open, grabbing the yiping Elmo by the collar and hurling him through it, he hauled a squealing Pinky by the leash right after him. The gate slammed shut behind him and he dusted off his hands.

“This guy and that thing got out before the quarantine came down. Somebody is in very bad trouble.”

I sighed tremulously and suspected that that person would surely turn out to be me. I dug deep into my wallet again. All I could ahead see was my bank balance spiraling downward, ever downward. I also saw that one of the guards was hauling Elmo and the loudly protesting Pinky to the spacer. They went up the elevator in the access gantry. Their arrival in the ship provoked almost instant results. Short moments later a uniformed figure emerged and retraced their footsteps.

As he came toward me I saw the wrinkled uniform, battered cap, and even more battered, unshaven face. I turned away from the sergeant and looked coldly at the approaching figure. This repellent creature had to be Captain Rifuti.

“I want to talk to you!” he shouted.

“Shut up,” I suggested. “I’m the only chance you have of getting out of this mess. I talk and you answer? Understand?” My patience was wearing thin.

His face was twisted and dark with anger. He took a deep breath and, before he could say anything, I made a preemptive strike.

“Sergeant—this officer appears to have violated quarantine procedures. He is commander of an unsafe ship, has kidnapped his passengers, as well as committing a number of other crimes. Can you put him behind bars—at once?”

“Good as done.” He reached out, then stopped; no moron the sergeant, and he quickly twigged as to what was going on, then added in a growling voice, “Unless he shuts his cakehole and follows your instructions.” For punctuation he grabbed the protesting captain and gave him a quick shake that rattled the teeth in his head.

Crooked he certainly was—but stupid he was not. His face darkened and I thought he was going to burst a blood vessel. “What you want?” he asked, albeit with great reluctance.

“Slightly better. You have told your passengers that they have additional fees to pay. You will produce records justifying these payments. Only then will I pay these and the spaceport charges that you have incurred. After that we will discuss what is going to be your next port of call, to which you will transport your passengers and their cargo . . .” This last was a feeble attempt to get rid of my friends and neighbors—not to mention their porcine companions.

“No way! I gotta contract that says I bring ’em here and here they stay!”

“We’ll see what the quarantine authorities have to say about that.” Grasping for straws, aren’t you, Jim?

Sometime later—and a good deal lighter in the bank account—I sat in the base commander’s office sipping at a very fair domestic brandy that he had been kind enough to open for us. And the mayor’s first assistant who had joined us. They smiled—as well they might with all my money in their coffers—but they were firm.

Elmo’s pilgrims and their quilly creatures were not welcome on the holiday world of Moolaplenty. This was a vacation planet for tourists—as well as home for well-heeled residents like me. And all the food was imported. Not a single farm or tilled field sullied the well-manicured countryside. Dreadfully sorry—but this policy was entrenched in their constitution, pinned down in the law books, inviolate and unchangeable. We are desolate, Sire Jim—but do have another bit of brandy, the base commander smarmed. With no reluctance whatsoever I accepted. All I could see was gloom and unhappiness and a prevailing blackness in my future.

Blackness—the color of porcuswine quills . . .

Lighter in bank balance and heavier in heart, I led the way to the gantry elevator and thence into the welcoming airlock of the
Rose of Rifuti
. My Angelina smiled, then laughed aloud when she heard the distant squeals and grunts of a porcuswine herd. My bucolic youth down on the farm flashed before my eyes—with concomitant black depression. I had fled the agrarian cesspit of Bit O’ Heaven for a successful—and happy—life of crime. Now I felt myself retrogressing through time, returning to a life-choking farming fate that I thought I had left far behind me. I went down the entrance corridor, staggering under a dark cloud of gloom.

I was jarred back to the present by sudden loud squealing that assaulted my ears—accompanied by shouts of pain and picturesque cursing. More crashing and the sound of mighty hoofbeats sounded down the corridor. Then, squealing and grunting, a porcuswine thundered around a bend in the corridor and galloped toward us.

Angelina, no coward, gave a little shriek at the sight. Who could blame her?

One tonne of outraged boar rushed directly at us. Sharp tushes sprayed saliva, tiny red eyes glared.

Sudden death was but meters away.

Salvation rose reluctantly from the dark depths of my memory and I heard my voice, calm and relaxed, gently beguiling in a swinish way.

“Sooo-eee . . . sooo-eee . . . here swine, swine swine!”

With skidding hooves a tonne of outraged pork skidded to a halt before me. Sinister red eyes rolled up to look at me; the razor teeth chomped and drooled. I reached out, gently lifting the creature’s meter-long quills with my left hand, reached under with my right and scratched vigorously behind the beast’s ears.

It shivered with pleasure and burbled happily.

Angelina clapped her hands with joy.

“My hero!”

“A humble childhood skill that proved most useful,” I said, scratching away to the accompaniment of blissful swinish grunting.

Crisis averted I became aware of a tumult of shouting—plus some screaming—that grew louder. Then two of the crewmen came into view, running toward us carrying a stretcher with a recumbent figure. Close behind them a galloping crowd of angry farmers, waving pitchforks and clubs—very
much like the last scene in a vampire film. Leading them, his face red with rage, was the normally placid Elmo.

“And iffen he comes on this deck again he won’t leave it alive!”

The subject of his wrath appeared to be Captain Rifuti himself. He moaned theatrically as he was carried past, with his good hand clutching his obviously broken arm.

“We caught him sneaking into the sty deck!” Elmo stopped and smiled down at the happy boar, then got in a quick quill-scratch of his own. “Crusher here knocked the cap’n over. Was going to eat him if we hadn’t got there in time. Swineknapping, that’s what it was—he was after one of our porcuswinelets! And we know WHY!” Even Angelina joined in with the horrified gasps.

“You mean he . . . wanted to. . .?”

“That’s right, Miz Angelina.” He nodded grimly and everyone gasped again. Except me; it was a little too hypocritical since I did enjoy my breakfast bacon now and then.

Angelina’s horror turned quickly to cold anger. Unhappily aimed at me since I was the nearest target.

“Well, former farmer diGriz—what do you mean to do about this?” Her tone of voice lowered the air temperature by ten degrees. I groped for an answer.

“Well—first I’ll turn this fine tonne of porcuswine over to his owners. And then I’ll take care of the rapacious Rifuti.”

“And what will that cataclysmic action be?”

I looked around, then whispered, “I’ll tell you in private since there are other ladies present.” Desperately buying some time—since my mind was emphatically empty of any inspiration. “Stay with Elmo and I’ll find you later. I don’t want you to see what happens next for I am mighty in my wrath!”

I shouted the last, turned, and stamped down the corridor after the miscreant.

But what could I possibly do? Rifuti had paid quite a price already for his attempt to supplement the ship’s undoubtedly rotten rations. Plus—I had a lot more important things to think about besides his failed swineknapping. This little contretemps had already cost me a small fortune with no end in sight.