Inside, the bar smelled of stale alcohol and fried food. The light show bounced patterns off the walls in time to thumping electronic music, making it hard for me to see. A babble of voices indicated that people were in the back of the room.
I waited for my eyes to accustom to the dark. It was the kind of bar where you stared moodily at the drink in your hand; just right for spacemen.
“What’ll you have?”
“Asteroid on the rocks.” An experienced bartender, he.
knew my uniform meant he could serve me without checking my age. There were very stiff penalties for serving minors, both for the bartender and the minor.
I took my drink and slid into a dimly lit booth to the side, tossing my jacket on the seat beside me. I took a sip and nearly choked. The alcohol tasted almost raw, and there was a lot of it. No wonder Darla had warned me about a double.
An asteroid on the rocks. Whiskey, mixed fruit juices, and Hobarth oils, imported from faraway Hobarth or imitated with synthetics. In this case, probably synthetics; I suspected the Runway Saloon didn’t stock imported liqueurs.
Actually the drink wasn’t bad, just strong. Silently I raised my glass to the empty seat across from me and saluted Harv Malstrom. It would have been great, Harv, to be sitting across from you. You’d make a joke about the drinks, and I’d grin, enjoying your company, recalling our most recent chess match. The alcohol made my eyes sting. I took another long swig. It burned going down. I had another swallow to ease my throat. After a time I sat tapping an empty glass, staring moodily at the empty seat, while flashing lights danced on the walls.
“Ready for another?”
“No.” I looked at my watch. Early yet. “I suppose. A small one.”
“Sure.” He grinned without mirth and handed me the glass he’d already brought. A comedian. He should have been on the holovid.
About halfway through the second drink I thought I’d feel better if I closed my eyes, and that was easier to do when my head was resting on the table. I stayed that way, drifting in and out of a doze, while the bar filled and the noise grew louder.
“Detour! Off to Detour for seven weeks, then another week’s leave.” A woman’s voice. Ms. Edwards, our gunner’s mate.
“You joes should work the Hope Nation system. You’re never more than five weeks from port. One easy run after another.” My eyes were open now but my head stayed on the table. I listened, drifting.
“Nah, who wants a milk run? You gotta go deep to get action.” Guffaws.
“Sure, joeygirl.” The voice was mocking. “It’d be great, stuck interstellar with a tyrant for a captain and only fourteen months to go!”
“Hey, don’t slam our Captain, buster!”
“Hah. I hear he’ll be out of diapers soon!”
“Listen, grode, I’d rather sail with Captain Kid that one of your system sissies who’d wet his pants if he couldn’t see a sun.” I blinked, focused on the empty glass.
“Captain KID? You spank him if he makes a mistake?” I felt my ears flame.
“Hey, Seafort’s all right! Sure, Captain Kid gets a wild hair up his ass sometimes--what officer don’t? But that joey knows what he’s doing. He took the puter apart singlehanded, ‘cause he knew she was planning to kill us. If he hadn’ta found her glitches we’d be half outta the galaxy heading for Andromeda.”
Another voice joined in. “I’ll match him mean for mean with any Captain in the fleet. Two joes we had, they beat up on the CPO. They were real garbage, druggies and worse, but always got away with it. He hanged them himself without batting an eye. And you know about Miningcamp, where they tried to seize our ship?”
Yes, tell them about my folly at Miningcamp. Sickened, I closed my eyes.
“Those scum shot their way aboard, the Captain held them off with a laser in each hand ‘til help came. When it was over he marched one of them right out the airlock and made him breathe space, and laughed all the way back to the bridge! He’s tough, Captain Kid is. You don’t mess with him. I’d rather be on a ship with him than with some old fart can’t find his way to the head!”
For some reason I was feeling better. Time to go, before they found me spying on them. Cautiously, I raised my head.
I was dizzy but functioning. I gathered my jacket, left a few unibucks on the table, and moved as quietly as I could to the door. Nobody saw me. I slipped outside, greedily sucking in the fresh air.
“God, it’s the Captain!” Two of Hibernia’sratings saluted hurriedly. I fumbled a return salute and kept moving, working at making my unsteady legs cooperate. I lugged my duffel toward the shuttleport, feeling a bit more steady with each step. By the terminal 1 was nearly myself again. I made for the rental agency at the far end.
“Hey, Captain, wait up!” I turned. Derek Carr in civilian garb, waved from the far end of the building. He ran to catch up. He stopped, his face flushed with healthy exertion. “Sir, 1, uh--” All at once, he looked abashed.
Impatient, I asked, “What, Derek?”
“Your invitation. Is it too late to accept?”
I studied his face, unsure of my answer.
He stared at the pavement. “Sorry about the way I spoke to you yesterday. I’m still immature sometimes. I’d enjoy touring with you, sir, if you’ll have me.” With an effort, he raised his head and looked me in the eye.
My smile was bleak. “What changed your mind, Derek?”
“I was steamed over your sending me to the Chief, even though I really was asking for it that day. Then I remembered two things: 1 promised you I could take anything, and you were the only person who was kind to me when I really needed it.” His face lit in a smile. “That was the most important thing anyone’s ever done for me. So holding a grudge is pretty stupid. I’m sorry, sir.”
I smiled back, meaning it this time. “What about your trip to your plantation?”
“I thought, sir, perhaps you’d like to come with me.” His smile vanished. “Though I’m not sure we’d be welcome.
My father told me that the manager, he... “He shrugged.
“Anyway, we could go to the mountains afterward.”
I debated, my melancholy lifting. His company would be more pleasant than my own. “Sounds great. I’ll rent a car.”
“I already have one, sir. I got it yesterday.” He blushed.
“I was sort of waiting until you came down.”
“Right.” I followed him to his electricar, a tiny threewheeler with permabatteries that could power the vehicle for months. I thought fast. “Derek, while we’re groundside, I want you to call me Mr. Seafort, as if I were first middy.
And you don’t have to say ‘sir’ all the time. Just make sure you switch back when we go aboard again.”
“Aye aye, si--I mean, thank you, Mr. Seafort.” We climbed in. I took off my jacket and tie and stowed my duffel in the back seat. “I’ve got a tent and supplies in the trunk,”
he said. “If you’re ready, I am. It’s a two-day drive.”
I leaned back and closed my eyes. “Wake me when we get there.”
A couple of hours out of Centraltown we came upon the Hope Nation I’d first expected. The three-lane road gave way to two lanes and then one and a half. Instead of pavement, only gravel. Homes were few and far between. Occasionally a cargo hauler lumbered toward Centraltown. We passed the time chatting and joking, sharing a merry mood.
Our route paralleled the seacoast a few miles inland. Occasionally, from a high point, we caught a glimpse of the shimmering ocean; more often our path cut through a dense jungle of viny trees of unfamiliar purplish hues.
We stopped for lunch at Haulers’ Rest, a comfort station and restaurant about two hours from the edge of the plantation zone. The public showers were in an outbuilding. After, we walked past enclosures of turkeys, chickens, and pigs to the restaurant entrance. Cargo haulers were parked at random in the mud-packed parking lot.
Haulers’ Rest generated its own electricity from a small pile in the back pasture, pumped water from deep wells, and prepared most of its own food from the hoof. Wheat and corn fields provided the grains, from hybrid stock that needed no pollination. On Hope Nation, no local blights affected our terrestrial crops, and there were no insects to harass the livestock, so everything grew fast and healthy.