Mother Lode

down?» She laughed. «Sit. I've been gone for six years. The last letter I had from my father was almost a year ago. What is a Mother Lode?» «A Mule Class space-going tug.» «Good God,» she said, sitting down weakly. «You didn't know?» Gale asked. He had deep, dark brown eyes, a regular, pleasant face, a mouth that smiled easily and attractively. «I've had a lot of surprises lately.» «He bought it just under a year ago. She's in good shape. Really. She was on service with the Trans-Zede Corporation. She was one of the last Mules to be built, as a matter of fact.» «What in hell did my father want with a Mule?» she asked. Gale shrugged. «I didn't ask.» «What does an antiquated space-going tug cost?» He named a figure that was within a few thousand credits of the face value of the mortgage she'd found in her father's desk. «The reason I came over tonight,» Denton said, «is because the pad rent is due on the Lode. The port's government operated, you know—» «No, I didn't.» «Well, it is. And they get pretty damned sticky if the pad rent is late.» «How much?» «A hundred and fifty credits for the month.» «Fine.» That, along with the current power bill, would clean out her father's checkbook. «If you like, I can take the check with me,» Gale said. «I'd appreciate that.» She went into the office, wrote the amount. «How do I make it out?» she called. «Canadian County Spaceport Authority,» he answered. «You're sure that's not you?» she asked, coming out of the office waving the check. He laughed. «Nope. I'm 'The Computerman, the Century Series a Specialty.' « «Antiques,» she said. The Century Series of computers was two generations older than the Unicloud computers on Rimfire and all current X&A ships. «But solid,» he said. «Look, my office is at the end of the main administration building. I'll be glad to show the Lode to you any time.» «Can you help me sell her?» «I guess so,» he said. «If the weather isn't too bad, I'll come over tomorrow.» «Fine.» «Give you a cup of coffee before you go?» She didn't know him, but he had a nice smile and the house seemed so empty with only the little dog for company. «I really do need to run. I've got a rush job on a freighter that's scheduled to lift for the Tigian planets tomorrow.» «Thank you for coming by.» He smiled, and for the first time his eyes showed that he had noticed that she was a girl. «My pleasure.» She watched his aircar lift off and zoom up and away. The snow was heavier. The ground was turning white. Mop had followed them out. He lifted one leg and left a liquid message on a bush and then ran to wait for her at the door. She went to the library and pulled down a reference book. Mule Class tugs had been in deep space for almost fifty years. Thousands of them had been built on Trojan during the last half-century. A Mule was a stocky looking brute, knobby and squarish. She was overpowered, built with a blink generator that could take her on half a dozen jumps without recharging, hefty enough to enclose the largest ship within her fields and jump with her in an electronic embrace. Spaceships, after all, were just electronics and mechanics. Electronic things and mechanical things had not changed since some Old One on Old Earth invented the wheel. Machines broke down. Electronic circuits failed. And if enough of them broke down or failed at the same time, a ship carrying a crew and a valuable cargo or a ship with a load of passengers was stranded in space. That's where the Mules came in. Some space tugs were government owned. Most, however, were free enterprise. At specified sites on every blink route space tugs were stationed. There was fierce bidding for the more traveled routes, for the salvage money that came to a space tug and its owners when a big ship had to be piggybacked to a repair yard by a squat, dwarfed Mule made fortunes. Although the Mule was hailed all over the civilized galaxy as the most dependable ship ever put into space, she had been replaced over the past ten years by the newer, larger, more comfortable Fleet Class tug, built by the same Trojan shipyards that had produced the Mules. Erin first saw her Mule on a day when snowdrifts were piling up against the side of the port buildings. She had drifted over in her father's aircar, Mop sitting beside her, tongue lolling in excitement at being able to go. She was given a landing spot at least two hundred yards from the administration building. After a few doubtful steps in the snow, Mop decided that it was frisky time. He dashed back and forth, made mock attacks on her legs, bit at the falling flakes. Sure enough there was a sign over a door that said THE COMPUTERMAN, The Century Series a Specialty. She entered without knocking. Denton Gale sat with his feet up on his desk. He dropped his boots to the floor and stood, smiling. Mop jumped into his chair and demanded attention. Denton rubbed the dog's head as he said, «I didn't think you'd come today.» «Well, I couldn't wait to see my inheritance,» she said with a wry smile. «Let me get my coat.» The Mother Lode sat squatly on a pad another two hundred yards away through snow and icy wind. Denton punched a code into the airlock. «Mother's birthday,» Erin said. «This is a pretty secure port,» Denton said. «Even if someone figured out the code you wouldn't have to worry.» Ship's smell. A hint of silicon lubes, that almost intangible scent produced by banks of electronics at work, the odd tang to the recycled air that meant a Blink generator was in operation. The Mother Lode was on standby. Her automatic monitoring systems purred and hummed. The control bridge had been freshly painted. The command chair was newly upholstered in synthetic leather. «He had her completely overhauled,» Denton said. «She's ready. You could take her anywhere.» «I've just been there,» Erin said, for the hatch had closed behind him and she was closed in, encapsulated once more in metal, and although it was the cold, winter air of New Earth outside instead of the harsh vacuum of space, she suddenly felt lonely. «Still want to sell her, huh?» «Yes.» «I just wish I had the money to buy her,» he said. «I wish you did, too.» «I haven't had a chance to ask around. If you want me to, I will.» «Please do.» He touched buttons on the console. An electronic hiss accompanied the brightening of the computer screen. «Know anything about the Century?» «We had one at the Academy in my first year, then it was replaced with a first generation Unicloud.» «The Century will do everything a Unicloud will do.» «But slower,» she said. «True. But how vital are a few nanoseconds?» «Most of the time, not vital,» she said. «There was some senility in the cloud chambers when I first began work on her,» Denton said. «Nothing serious. Required recharging the Verbolt fields. Reloading. You'll find that she's as crisp as new.» «I don't really anticipate—» A beeper at Gale's waist buzzed. He put the instrument to his lips, identified himself. Erin, examining the controls of the Mule, didn't hear the communication. «I have to run over to the office,» he said. «Someone wants to give me some money and I find that to be one of the more rewarding aspects of having my own business. If you'll wait here, I'll be back in a few minutes and I'll show you the rest of the layout.» Erin nodded. In a careful search of the house she had turned up nothing to indicate why a retired spaceman— who had said repeatedly that if he never had to breath recycled air again he would be happy—would put his entire assets into a spaceship. She went into the Mule's living quarters. Crews of two had spent long months in the large and luxurious private cabins aboard the Lode when she was on space duty. On the Mother Lode one cabin had been converted into a control room for mining equipment attached to the ship's squarish hull. The remaining cabin was equipped with a terminal to give access to the ship's library. She returned to the bridge, turned on the computer terminal, punched information up idly, saw that the Lode was stocked with a rather magnificent library of books and visuals. «My boy,» she told Mop, who had jumped up onto the bed, «I think Mr. John was planning to be in space for a long time. Now the question is, why?» Mop cocked his head as if to echo her question. «Why would he name the ship the Mother Lode? That's a mining term. My father? Going mining?» She shook her head, turned off the terminal, continued her search. In the engine room the huge blink generator was a solid bulk. Even in repose it emanated a force that lifted the short hairs on her neck. The gym contained the usual exercise equipment. The galley was stocked with enough concentrates to feed a dozen men for a year. She went back to the control bridge and reactivated the computer. She was checking files when Denton Gale returned. «Ah, so you decided to get acquainted, after all,» he said. She shrugged. «Denton, why did my dad buy this ship?» «He didn't say and I didn't ask.» «Come on. You worked with him. He must have given you some hint.» «Only her name.» She nodded. «That has occurred to me, but I can't really see John Kenner going off into deep space to prospect for gold.» He laughed. «He was a nice fellow.» «Yep,» she said, and suddenly she missed him like crazy. She turned back to the computer. «Not many files.» «Nope. The star charts and navigation tables are in the root directory. Internal operations and monitors, ditto. Library is in a separate sub-file.» «I saw that. There's nothing personal listed in the directories. Nothing that my dad put in himself.» «No.» «You've looked?» He grinned. She was not unaware that Denton Gale was a well-constructed, smooth-muscled young man of considerable masculine appeal. He had sun-smiles at the corners of his eyes to match her space squint lines. The way he looked at her told her that he was not unimpressed by an ash blonde woman in spacer's blue. «Damn,» she said. «What?» She shook her head. She'd been joining Denton in the mating dance of the juveniles, and she wasn't in the mood for games of that sort. «I've forgotten how to check hidden files on a Century,» she said. «Unless you have the entry code there's no way to do it short of cooking the X&A black box.» The black box, required equipment on any space-going computer, held everything that went into the Century whether from the ship's automatic recordings of position and direction or by manual feed from an operator, kept it secure from meddling, under seal, available for official examination should it ever become necessary. Accidents in space were rare, but when the inevitable happened the black box, destructible only by atomics or by being tossed into a sun, gave the reasons. The black box was sacred. To tamper with it was a felony serious enough to lose a man his license and his liberty. X&A was jealous of its police powers in space. «Did you try Mother's birth date?» He smiled and nodded. «And your dad's birth date and his Service serial number.» «If you have something to do, Dent, I think I'll stay here and tinker with this old crock for a while.» «There is some paperwork. I'll be in the office.» «Thanks for what you've done.» «No problem,» he said. She punched in an order for coffee. It was a thick, heady brew, her father's favorite, made from Delos beans and rich, synthetic cream. Mop indicated that he'd been on board the ship before by going to a service area that had obviously been installed for a person of just his height to paw a little red button that delivered a Mop-sized milk bone. «Well, aren't you the spoiled one,» she teased, as he crawled under the command chair and began to consume the tidbit with unhurried satisfaction. She began to punch codes into the computer. Her own birthday. The day of her mother's death. The date of her graduation. The date of her father's retirement. When she ran out of numbers, she began on names. Erin. Elizabeth. John. Kenner. Mop. Nire, which was Erin backward. Htebazile, hers and her mother's middle name spelled backward. The computer clicked and hummed, hissed in electronic satisfaction, displayed a typed letter. The letter began, «Dear Erin.» «Oh, Moppy,» she moaned, as she read. «He went senile.» It was a long letter. It told of a visit from an old shipmate who had come to New Earth specifically to see John Kenner. And then she knew why her father had mortgaged his retirement retreat to put everything he had and could raise into an antiquated space tug. The old shipmate had been a member of a prospecting party that stumbled onto a belt of space debris orbiting around a dim and distant sun, debris so rich in heavy metals, including gold and the platinum family, metals so vital to the new age of exploration that one trip to the belt would make a man rich. «Oh, Dad,» she whispered. The old shipmate had died, leaving the space coordinates that would lead his friend, John Kenner, to the rich belt of ores. There it was, a star chart. She had to check references to orient the relatively small area shown on the chart with the United Planets zone. The distances involved could best be measured in thousands of parsecs. If, indeed, John Kenner's old shipmate had gone there, deep, deep into the hazardous, star-crowded heart of the galaxy past the mysterious Dead Worlds, he had traveled far. Past the Dead Worlds the blink routes extended only a few light-years. «Mop, he was going to go off the established routes,» she said. «What do you think of that?» Mop thought it was time for a little loving. He licked his chops, leapt into her lap, and threw himself onto his back so that she could rub his chest. «What are we going to do?» she asked. «What do you think?» «Wurf,» Mop said contentedly. «You're a helluva lot of help,» she said. «Here we are, owners of a Mule equipped for deep space mining, in possession of a treasure map and enough food to last us for three or four years and that's it, buddy. The old home place is mortgaged to the hilt. If we could sell this mother—» She was using that element of the tug's name in another context, and that set the ship's personality in her mind, «—for enough to pay off the mortgage, we'd be damned lucky.» She had saved most of her salary during the years of deep space probing aboard Rimfire, but a fleet lieutenant didn't earn enough, even in six years, to become rich. She might be able to unload the Mother, redeem the old homestead, and squeak by for a few years on what she had saved. «The question is, Mr. Mop, do I want to? What about you? Would you rather stay at home or go—» One ear came to attention, for «go» was one of his favorite words. «—Blinking and creaking off into the unknown?» «Wurf,» Mop said, waiting for her to say «go» again. Two days later Denton Gale came to the house with an offer on the Mother. «I hate to tell you how much they said they'd pay,» he said. «In that case I don't want to hear,» she said. «It's less than your dad put into her.» «Mother jumping—» She caught herself. «How much less?» He named a figure thousands of credits below the amount owed on the mortgage. «Tell them eff them and the horse they rode in on,» she said. Inheritance laws were simple on New Earth. Racial guilt for the spoliation of the planet settled by the only people to escape the Destruction sent U.P. money in great sums to the government. Tax loads were light on New Earth's citizens. There was no governmental bite into John Kenner's estate. The Mother Lode and the mortgage encumbered family home were transferred to Erin's name without undue red tape and an offer to buy came not for the Mule but for the Kenner house and lands. The snow had melted quickly, leaving the clay-rich earth puddled and muddy. Until she'd had to visit her father's attorney's office, Erin had not been out of the house since the first day she'd gone aboard what she was coming to think of as that Mother, John Kenner's Folly. «So you see, Miss Kenner,» the attorney who had settled her father's estate said smoothly, «it is quite a generous offer. You would realize some five thousand credits over and above the payoff of the mortgage and legal fees.» «Legal fees, if any, will be paid by the buyer, if any,» Erin said in a steely tone, her sea green eyes squinting. «Perhaps that could be arranged,» the attorney said doubtfully. «I must tell you, however, that my client is quite eager to settle on New Earth and is examining other properties.» «Bless his little heart,» Erin said. The lawyer raised his eyebrows. «Don't try to con me, my friend. I've been screwed by experts.» She rose to leave his office. «You may tell your client that I am considering his offer, but that I would consider it more strongly if he added five thousand credits to the price.» «I'm afraid that's out of the question.» «Toug