“Okay.”
“Another thing: No looting.”
“Fine.”
“I really mean it, Walter.”
“I ssaid fine!”
Molly narrowed her eyes at him to hammer it home, then leaned forward to disengage the autopilot relays, taking over from her mom. She pulled back on the flightstick to gain a bit of altitude. There was enough traffic in the air around town to feel safe from the fleet above, almost like a solitary bird feeling emboldened by joining a large flock.
With a better view of the layout of town, she started picking out which of the many stables to land in. There were several to choose from on the near side of town, all of them a few kilometers from the city center to minimize thruster noise. Most looked extremely busy, whether due to the Bern fleet or the upcoming election, she couldn’t know. She picked one in the middle of style, with not too many fancy ships, but no derelicts propped up on wooden stilts, either. Something she could afford, but where Parsona wouldn’t get robbed.
“There’ss a better one over there,” Walter said as she peeled away for the stable she’d chosen. He pointed to one closer to town where fancy hulls gleamed in the growing light of dawn.
“A little out of our league, pal.”
Molly thumbed the landing gear down and grabbed the radio. The town ahead stirred with plenty of activity despite the early hour. Headlights moved through the city streets, each pair kicking up a plume of dust that streaked off and thinned in the breeze.
Molly squeezed the mic. “GN-290 Parsona to…” she read the stable’s info from the nav screen, “… Pete’s Hideaway. Come in.”
She pulled into a hover and waited for a reply.
“Pete’s Hideaway, here. Come back.”
“Yeah, this is the Gordon Class ship hovering east of you. The two-ninety. We’re looking for a place to stay, over.”
“Roger and welcome, you picked the right place. Anywhere you like. Those small huts with lotsa room around them are the heads. Over.”
Molly laughed. “Thanks for the heads-up. Parsona out.”
She hung up the mic and brought the ship down between two other craft a little nicer than her own. The thrusters sent up a puff of dust, blocking out the view through the windshield. Molly moved the Wadi to the back of her seat and crawled over the control console to go check in at the stable office. As she crossed the cargo bay, she felt a sudden surge of giddiness, a rare crack in her two weeks of loneliness and dour moods. She could feel it as she lowered the cargo ramp into the cloud of swirling dust outside: today was going to be her lucky day.
“How many nights you need her stabled?” the man behind the counter asked. A patch on his coveralls said “Pete,” but it looked like a logo rather than a nametag. Molly pegged his age at sixty, but knowing Lok, it was probably a rough forty. They had skipped introductions, so she decided to think of him as Possibly Pete until she discovered otherwise.
“I’m not sure how long we’ll be here, to be honest.” Molly eyed the voting machine on his counter, the ‘L’ nearly worn off. “Should I pay as I go?”
“Yup, that’ll work. Just need you to fill out them papers. She need water?” Probably Pete bent down over the counter and squinted through a grime-streaked window in the general direction of Parsona. Like the pane of glass, Pete had a sheen of grease on him, almost like it oozed straight from his pores. Even his long hair, which fell out of a backward cap in stringy clumps, seemed coated in something foul.
“She need water?” he asked again, giving Molly a curious glance.
“Uh, no, but thanks. We filled up in Cramerton.”
“Cramerton? They got water out there?” Potentially Pete slapped the counter. “Don’t that beat all!”
Molly laughed politely, but wasn’t sure it was a joke. On her mental to-do list, she added dropping another iodine tablet into the freshwater tank, just in case Possibly Pete’s sense of humor wasn’t intentionally dry.
“There you go,” she said, handing back a form with mostly made-up information. She had checked the “Liberty” box under political affiliation to match his voting machine.
Probably Pete narrowed his eyes at the form, his hands coating the fresh paper with his oily perspiration. “Fyde,” he said. “Wait a second—” He pulled off his cap and ran a tarry hand through his hair, the black on him so dark it verged on purple. “I know your ship. My Uncle Pete did some work on her once. What was your father’s name?”
“Is,” Molly corrected him. “His name is Mortimor—”
“Mortimor!” Poseur Pete slapped the counter, leaving another hand-print. “That’s right! How’s your old man doing?”
Molly shivered, a sudden wash of paranoia tickling her scalp. Two weeks of traipsing across her childhood home had teased her with a weak sense of nostalgia, but she never considered the chances of bumping into someone who might know her. She had been six when she left and could barely remember anything from her childhood.
“My dad? He’s, uh… fine, I guess. We don’t talk much anymore. He, um…”
“He split on you, did he?” Pretend Pete pulled off his hat and slapped the counter with it, smearing the grease there. Molly was beginning to pick up on his unique brand of non-verbal communication. It made her feel sorry for the counter.
“Don’t that beat all?” he said, tugging his hat back on. “Never thunk him to be a runner.”
“Yeah…” Molly didn’t know what to say, figuring it didn’t do any good to replace a misconception with a lie. “Do I pay now, or at the end of the day?” She clenched her fists, waiting for the reply.
“Each night up front, usually.” He turned his cap the correct way and pressed the bill up with a single, blackened finger. “But we’ll settle up when you get ready to go, how’s that?”
“Thank you so much,” Molly said, sighing. She smiled at him and relaxed her fist. Pretend Pete pulled out a slip of paper and shoved it across the counter, leaving a trail of purplish slime behind.
“The codes for the heads are on the back. TP’s for sale in the ship store. If you need power for any reason, we have one thousand and two thousand amp hook-ups. No partyin’ after three, and welcome to Pete’s.” He smiled at Molly. “I’m Pete, by the way. Pete the fourth. And that’s my boy in the picture.” He pointed a filthy digit at a curling print of film taped to the register. “That’s the newest Pete. Pete the fifth.”
He beamed with pride. Molly wasn’t sure if it was for siring another Pete or being able to count that high—or maybe both.
“Nice to meet you,” Molly said. “And good looking kid.”
He rubbed one hand on his coveralls, the direction of the grease transfer questionable, and held it out to Molly. “Nice to meet you too, Molly Fyde.”
She moved her hand into his nasty clutches as gently as possible. Penultimate Pete shook it, his grip firm and slick. She could feel her hand sliding around inside his palm and half expected it to pop out like a freshly caught fish.
Pete’s lips pulled back in a smile so wide she could see his gums. A bright trace of purple gunk ran along the edges of his teeth.
“Molly Fyde,” he said again, pumping her trapped hand.
“Walter?” Molly poked her head into his room and then looked back through the cargo bay toward the cockpit.