He flashed his smile again. “Indeed.”
Presently the computer fired the engines once more, and Lagrange’s nearly featureless hull began to crab sideways beneath us. Then we were past the Rim and crossing over the station’s ever-shadowed South Pole.
“Ah,” I heard Tottson sigh in pride and satisfaction as we passed over his mining Fleet and the fruits of their last expedition. A dozen huge snowballs, each of them miles across, floated solemnly like oversized pearls in the shadows, waiting to be processed into air and fertilizer and water and all of the myriad other needs of spaceborne humanity. Two of the snowballs were very bluish in color.
“I still can’t believe that you guys found methane out in the Kuiper,” I said, the pure wonder of the sight loosening my tongue.
Tottson chuckled, a deep rumbling sound. “It’s giving the astrophysicists fits,” he acknowledged. “Even the refinery folks are having trouble dealing with the Blueberries. I don’t care a whit, though. Those bergs are the richest ore that we’ve ever found. They’ll support every Station in the sky for months, each of them. Next trip, I intend to seek out more of the same.”
I nodded dreamily. The Kuiper was the far frontier of the human experience, the dividing line between what was known and what was unknown. It was dreams of the Kuiper that kept my tongue civil when others were making wisecracks at my expense. “They’re so very beautiful,” I murmured.
“Yeah,” Tottson agreed. “There’s so much beauty in space. Far more than most people ever realize.” Slowly we drifted past the Pole, and then the wondrous sight was gone. “There’s a tremendous amount of wonder out here,” Tottson said once his treasure trove had passed below the horizon. “Even for the Pussy Pilot.”
I flinched visibly, but said nothing.
“I’ve taken the liberty of checking up a bit on you,” Tottson continued remorselessly. “With Sister Mayberry and with a few others. You’ve had a pretty rough go of it.”
I shrugged. “Mom and Dad were murdered,” I explained. “It happens. You get over it.”
“Yes,” the Commodore agreed, peering at me intently. “You do.” There was another long silence. “You’re consistently at the top of your class, in pilotage matters at least. Yet this is the best job that you could find?”
“I don’t have any connections,” I replied honestly. “Most pilots, or at least most pilots who actually have jobs, are the sons or daughters or nieces or nephews of pilots.” I turned and looked Tottson in the eye. “Your mother was a Command Navigator. A very fine one. Very well-connected, too.”
He looked away. “Ouch,” he said softly. “But it’s true. So very true. We keep our little society very tightly closed. Too tightly, in my opinion.”
“I might have found something better,” I continued, “if I’d had the money to hold off just a little longer. But school’s expensive. I had to take whatever was open, right away, or else default on Mrs. Mayberry. And that wouldn’t exactly have been a proper way to thank her for helping along so much, now would it?”
“No,” Tottson agreed. “I suppose not.”
“And I want to be more than a pod pilot someday,” I continued. “I want to go into deep space. Then beyond, even. You’ve heard the rumors about a star drive too, I’m sure.”
The Commodore narrowed his eyes. “Yes, I’ve heard them.” Then he paused a moment before continuing. “But son! You’ve had yourself made over into a chicken, for heaven’s sake! You’re the butt of half the jokes in the System, and you know it! Do you really imagine that you’re ever going to be chosen to go interstellar after making a start like this?”
Once again, I shrugged. “You said it yourself, sir. I’ve made it ninety days without a single incident. In another ninety days, I’ll with luck have made it half a year, and so forth. Even more, I’ll have been honoring my debt to Mrs. Mayberry and thereby paying a pilot-Sister what I owe her. Would you rather have me try to pave my way to the stars by turning down paying work and defaulting on what I honestly owe?”
The Commodore pressed his lips together, then looked away and sighed. “I suppose not,” he said eventually. “Not when you put it like that. But still…” He turned to face me. “Son, you have such promise. And you’re throwing it all away!”
It was my turn to look away. “Maybe,” I agreed after a time. “Maybe I am throwing away my future. But if so I’ll have done it honestly according to my own lights, and in the end that what’s matters most. It matters even more than the stars.” I smiled weakly and fingered my beak; I still wasn’t used to it, not really. “Besides, it’s probably too late to worry about it now. Once the Pussy Pilot, always the Pussy Pilot.”
“Heh!” Tottson’s chuckle was a single explosive snort. We drifted along in silence for a while longer, and then the Commodore stood up to leave. “Well,” he said at last, clasping his hand on my shoulder, “I can honestly say that I’m proud to have met you, son. You’ve made me think about some things that maybe I needed to think about.”
It was against the rules for me to stand up while Aphrodite was under way, so I had to remain seated. I did, however, extend my hand one last time. “Sir,” I said. “You’ve always been a hero to me. Thank you so much for coming by.”
“It was my duty,” Tottson replied, smiling again. “My duty in the greater sense of the word.” He released my hand, but still clasped my shoulder. “Keep at it, son” he urged me. “Don’t give up on school, and keep right on pecking away at what you owe. You’ll get it paid off someday, and then you’ll be free to move on.”
I suddenly went stiff at Tottson’s choice of words, and then he too realized what he’d done. “Shit,” he mumbled, releasing my shoulder. “Damn! I mean…”
“It’s all right,” I said resignedly, turning back towards the forward port. “Don’t worry; I’m pretty much used to it by now.”
For just a moment longer Tottson stood stock still, trying to find something more to say. Then he finally slumped in defeat, clasped my shoulder one last time, and retreated to the main cabin.
Docking at the Henhouse was a far simpler matter than at Lagrange; since Aphrodite was the only pod to utilize the lock on anything like a regular basis, there wasn’t any crowding at the axis and rim docking wasn’t necessary. I stood by and watched carefully as the computer first spun us to exactly the same rate as our dumbbell-shaped destination, then eased us up to the lock and latched on. “All secure,” I said into the log recorder. Then I called up my friends at Lagrange. “Control, this is Poon-I mean, this is Peter Thomas Six-Niner,” I intoned formally. “We are coupled and secure.”
“Confirmed, Six-Niner” the controller acknowledged. “You are coupled and secure. I certainly hope that you’re wearing a condom. Control out.”
I sighed aloud, then powered everything down and slipped out before the cattle could begin their stampede into to the Rooster’s Roost, our saloon. I made it, barely, the elevator door slamming shut in the face of the very first hungry-looking customer as he floated around the last corner. Perhaps my thumb on the override button had something to do with how quickly the door closed.
It was just as well that I’d made sure to be first. The Dragon was waiting for me at the other end of the docking tube, dressed in the full regalia of her specialty and ready to get to work. I winced at the sight; the Dragon was intimidating enough without her black leather hood, stiletto heels and whip. “Damnit, Marvin!” she exploded in my face before I could flinch away from the blast. “That fan that you fixed is squealing again! How am I to concentrate? Your work is miserable, you are disgusting and you are unfit to be a pilot!”