"Good," Brim said with an evil leer. "In that case, before I lead you to freedom you will also have to promise to chauffeur me wherever we go today-I don't have a staff car."
"Universe," Claudia swore in mock rage. "I just knew you'd take advantage of me the first chance you got!"
"Basically," Brim retorted, "we Fleet people are all without honor when it comes to walking halfway across a base the size of this one."
Claudia laid the back of her hand against her forehead. "All right, you cad," she said theatrically, "I shall drive, but oh, the shame of giving in so easily!"
Giggling like schoolchildren, they made their way to the brow. There was always so much to talk about when he was with this beautiful woman. It never failed to make him feel a little guilty-when he thought about it....
Shortly before the turn of the watch, Claudia parked her skimmer and disappeared inside a dirty brick tower to inquire about the ship's location. Beyond stretched an ugly square c'lenyt of radiation-blackened clay and dead weeds where obsolete starships were stored until it was time to tow them to a breaker's yard. Brim had noticed the dull rows of ancient vessels from the air, parked side by side on the bare earth. No gravity pools graced the base salvage yard. Instead, old ships were propped up at wild angles by forests of rough wooden poles. Most were old C-and V-class destroyers, with a few angular Resolute-type monitors, but there were also whole rows of the graceful little ED-4 packet ships that were so popular in his grandfather's day. Interposed among these were a number of ancient-looking merchantmen of all possible shapes and sizes. Brim always found something melancholy about the area when he soared past it on takeoff or landing, but now-with time to contemplate the corroding old hulks from close range-it was downright depressing.
Claudia returned in a few moments carrying a voice recorder, two handlights, and a large electronic key-all of which she handed to Brim while she climbed back into the skimmer.
"Row fifteen, slot thirty-one," she said, starting off toward the opening gate. "I've become pretty objective about most everything on this old base," she added, setting her jaw, "but I still find something perfectly obscene about the salvage yard." After that, she drove in silence.
As soon as they were inside the compound, Brim understood why. He could literally smell the dead starships: dried lubricants, reactors leaking coolants, long-fused logics, and occasionally the faint stench of decay-battle-damaged ships were often hopelessly soaked in blood. Everywhere he could see peeling paint, dented and patched hullmetal, yawning scuttles, weeds growing from recesses in the hulls, and empty Hyperscreen frames gaping sightlessly at a sky upon which they would never again embark. In the eerie silence of this grotesque boneyard, wind moaned around unkempt deckhouses, cycled loose hatches with creaking hinges, and rattled shards of metal on broken decks high overhead. Squealing little animals with naked tails and huge ragged ears scurried out of the skimmer's path in the weeds ahead. Brim shuddered in spite of himself. "I see what you mean," he said with an involuntary grimace.
A little apart and at the far end of row fifteen stood a lone civilian ED-4. The most widely used commercial vessels of a bygone era-and long afterward-ED-4s had the snub-nosed bow and elongated, teardrop hull that characterized a whole generation of starships, Their flight bridges with old-fashioned V-shaped Hyperscreens forward were faired smoothly into the top of their hulls, and large side ports gave them the frowning, raptorlike countenance that whole generations of children associated with the romance of starflight. Actually, the clean, streamlined shape reduced reentry temperatures to safe and comfortable levels for the metallurgy of the day.
This one looked as if she had so far been spared from most of the parts scavengers, although both her great teardrop nacelles were stripped of their Drives. The last SGR-1820 crystals had been produced years in the past, but an active market in spares made replacements relatively easy to obtain. And aside from her missing crystals, it was clear the old ship hadn't been around the salvage yard very long. Her hullmetal was even burnished to a reasonable sheen.
Propped up here on the ground, she rested with a kind of innate dignity, although every ED-4 that had ever been built-and there were a lot of them-possessed the unique sort of grace and beauty that even the best builders design only by accident. Though he'd never had the opportunity to fly one, Brim knew from long experience that her hull was exactly one-hundred-sixty irals in length and twenty-five irals in diameter. Not large as starships went, but perfect for nearly every light cargo job in a whole peacetime galaxy. Big liners carried the glamorous cargo between major ports, but at least a thousand times more commerce still traveled everywhere else in little ships like ED-4s. They'd caused a revolution in space when they were first introduced.
Claudia broke into his reverie. "We're here, Wilf," she said in a hushed voice, "or had you already noticed?"
"I'd noticed," Brim answered, eyeing the old-fashioned characters that spelled "Prize" just short of the old starship's bows. He spoke in the same hushed voice Claudia had used.
There was something about this particular vessel that seemed to demand respect.
Presently, they walked over to the hull; closer up, her age showed-there were countless little dents on her bow from collisions with a billion-odd grains of space debris over the years. And up on the bridge, her big portside Hyperscreen had been holed, probably when she was laid up. But antennas and atmosphere probes were still neatly in place beneath her chin, and someone had thoughtfully stuffed wadding in some of her larger intakes-as if on the odd chance that she might someday be called upon to fly again.... Claudia touched a button on the strange-looking key and a ground-level hatch dropped slowly outward, stopping before it was fully open because the old ship's teardrop hull rested in a nose-high attitude.
After a rapid walk-around, they climbed on board and made their way up the canted decks by handlight to the bridge. It was clear that no one had been on board for a considerable time. The air inside the vessel's corridors and companionways was dead-as stale as if it hadn't moved in centuries. It was definitely not, Brim noted, the sort of cozy darkness be would choose for a social evening with his lovely companion. He paused at the hatch to the bridge and looked for the old ship's nameplate; it was just inside. He rubbed away a coating of dust that appeared to have settled all over everything from the broken Hyperscreen.
S.S. PRIZE
SERIAL NO. 4
CLOVERFIELD
51783
"This is the number-four ship," Brim gasped under his breath. "They must have built ten thousand of them. She's-let's see-two hundred twelve standard years old. Voot's beard, Claudia, someone must have flown her here, too."
Claudia nodded. "That's right, Wilf," she said. "I got a chance to read about her when she was delivered. Quite a ship, our old Prize."
"I want to hear," Brim said, brushing dust from the old-fashioned Helmsman's console.
There were even levers and digital readouts!
"Well, for one thing," Claudia related, unconsciously leaning back against a navigation console until her nipples protruded distinctly through her coveralls, "Prize was a real celebrity in her day."
Brim desperately struggled to keep his eyes locked to her face. He set his jaw and ground his teeth as he settled himself in the Helmsman's recliner, then felt his cheeks burn as he remembered-too late-the covering of dust....
"A lot of famous people stood right here on this very bridge, Wilf," Claudia continued, quickly stifling a smile. "Would you believe that she carried Cortez Desterro to Avalon after his discovery of the Edrington Tetrad? Or that August Thackary Paladin himself flew her from Vornhold to Throon a few months after his circumnavigation of the galaxy?" Her eyes lit with an inner excitement. "She even won some sort of trophy-for helping open the Eoreadian sector. She was special. And then, for the longest time she just disappeared: no log entries or anything. But we know she was in use almost constantly, recording time on her automatic spaceframe counters. Voot only knows where she wandered all those years. She was seen in at least a dozen dominions-and served Universe knows what purposes." Claudia shook her bead. "The Xervellos Cluster-she was registered there for nearly eighteen years, you know-is still knee-deep in the slave trade, and..." she threw up her hands, "who knows what else?"