Fingers shaking, she called up the catalog that he had pushed her to create, that he intended to rely on for his own work. With a pass of her palm, she found her first record. Alethium Mining on Marduran. She heard the mechanics recorded there, the alien knowledge preserved for Jessup to exploit. Bernard had urged her to enter every one of the mining records first; he had encouraged her to set aside the social science scrolls for later. He had been working for his three million even then.
For just an instant, she thought about erasing the entry. Jessup would discover a deleted record, though. The company would withhold her 500,000 credits, keep her enslaved for future missions. For future lies. It might even accuse her of sabotage.
Sabotage. The ancient act of shoving sabots—wooden shoes—into machinery, to spare workers from the evils of the Earthside Industrial Revolution. Where had Sarah learned that? What source had taught her? How had she gained the knowledge?
She shook her head. She, too, could bring technology to a halt. She could insert things where they did not belong, bring the so-called wheels of progress to a stop. She could cripple Jessup Universal Mining as certainly as French peasants had destroyed their massive threshing machines.
On one side of her workcon, Sarah pulled up a digital representation of one of the ornate Marduran scrolls. Eldercare—Its Goals and Its Rewards. One of the crucial Marduran works. One of the volumes that showed civilization, that proved the species was worthy of a Class Three designation.
On the other side of the ’con, Sarah opened her catalog. She summoned a blank form, completing the rote task as she had hundreds of times before, as she would hundreds of times more, before Earthfall in three short weeks.
Her fingers flew as she primed the icons. She mouthed the catalog entry rapidly, enunciating the title, the Marduran author, the subject matter. She took the time to add half a dozen alternative subject headings, selecting ones that would attract attention from the broadest community of scientists, from segments beyond mining and manufacturing. Society and social structure. Daily life on other planets. Ethics. Voortman Index. Marduran society.
The image of the alien scroll shimmered in front of her, shifting as if her eyes were blurred by tears. Her fingers hovered over her ’con.
One touch, and she could upload the entry. One touch, and she could tell every librarian in the universe about the Mardurans’ highly evolved social structure. One transmission, and she could open the doors for Class Three status.
One heartbeat, and she could lose 500,000 credits, her job, her future. Bernard.
The wildcatters exploded into boisterous applause, shouting out praise to their embattled warrior colleague. Sarah heard them swear; she smelled the drinks they poured out on the floor. She recoiled at the foul words they shouted.
Without glancing at the miners’ game, Sarah touched the icon and sent her catalog entry to the stars.
When Mindy L. Klasky was learning how to read, her parents encouraged her, saying that she could travel anywhere with a book in her hands. Mindy never forgot that advice. While growing up, Mindy’s travels took her from Los Angeles to Dallas to Atlanta to Minneapolis. She now lives in a suburb of Washington, D.C. Mindy’s academic travels ranged from computer science to English to law to library science. Professionally, she has moved from practicing trademark and copyright law at a major law firm to managing the reference department in a large law firm library. When Mindy is not reading, writing, or working as a librarian, she fills her time with swimming, baking, and quilting. She is an active member of the Science Fiction Writers of America, many legal bar organizations, and a number of library societies. Her two cats, Dante and Christina, make sure that she does not waste too much time sleeping.
Ferret and Red
by Josepha Sherman
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Ferret, flat as she could get in the narrow engine tubing, swore under her breath. It was hot and airless in here, and her sleek brown fur was plastered to her skin, and picking up interesting stains despite the coveralls. Yes, and if one of the humans did something stupid, like accidentally hitting the start-up button before her partner, Red Collins, could stop him, she was one fried Ferret.
Don’t think about that. Don’t think about anything. Trust Red and just get the skelking job done.
Ferret’s real name was much longer and more complicated, listing as it did her clan and family as well as her own use-name, but all that tended to be too much for anyone not of her own species to manage. Some human had once dubbed her “Ferret,” and even after she found out what an Earth ferret was, she’d had to admit that her species really did bear a resemblance to bipedal ferrets.
No matter names. She really did like her job as part of Station Alpha’s mech crew: meet new species, see new ships and equipment that needed to be puzzled out, work—and drink, yes—with Red, her human partner for three station-years now, Red, who was a good mech with a sense of humor as wry as her own—
Yeek, yes, all enjoyable except for jobs like this. Once the starfaring humans had colonized the world they’d christened York (apparently a nostalgic name for their home world, which most had never seen), and built this station/dry dock (silly name: space was never wet) to orbit it, of course mechanics had been needed. Once you had interworld contacts, you needed mechs even more, because then you had trade.
Yes, and once you had trade, there were always going to be scruffy independents like the crew of this ship, living off whatever scraps of contracts they could snag that were too small for the big companies.
And cutting costs wherever costs can be cut. Must rankle them to have to pay mech fees. Be more careful, silly humans, have no need for mechs.
One arm stretched out in front of her as far as it would go, she groped blindly with the long seizing-talon of her forefinger, touching composite, composite…
Yes! Just as she’d guessed, something had gotten pulled into the engine, and not been quite vaporized.
Lucky they didn’t blow themselves into just some more space dust. The talon snagged the offending whatever-it-was. Nothing living, not at this point.
Ferret wriggled her way backward out of the tube, and did a neat little twist-jump that brought her out onto the engine room floor, facing the five humans towering over her. Red was the shortest of them, still taller than Ferret but stocky, at least as one of his species went, with the blazing red hair that had given him his nickname. He was also, Ferret thought, cleaner man the four others, even now, and had more recently taken care of his human facial fur. The others looked downright ready to molt.
Living close to the edge, these. Independents, yes.
“Got it?” Red asked succinctly, and Ferret gave him a head-flip of a nod. Glowering at the others, she shook the talon and its incriminating evidence at them.