James Cobb lives in the Pacific Northwest, where he writes both the Amanda Garrett technothriller series and the Kevin Pulaski ’50s suspense mysteries, not to mention the occasional odd bit of historical and science fiction. When not so involved, he enjoys long road trips, collecting classic military firearms, and learning the legends and lore of the great American hotrod. He may also be found frequently and shamelessly pandering to the whims of “Lisette,” his classic 1960 Ford Thunderbird.
AS HAD become their habit before an evening shift package, the Voice-of-Decision for River-’Tween-Worlds and the Operations Director for Transtellar United’s Wormgate Complex dined together. The menu consumed consisted of a raw and slightly rank slab of gristly deep ranger flesh liberally dusted with Kessta pollen, iced tea, and a Cobb salad.
The fact that the two aspects of the meal were consumed two point forty-eight parsecs apart did nothing to distract from the worn-comfortable camaraderie of the meal.
“Voice-of-the-Dance Tleelot found the selections of Artist-called-Miller most impressive. Believes we can apply to varianting of Flame-River and Joyous-Bay dance cycles. We shall experiment next amusements gathering.”
The fluid chirps and purrs of Tarrischall’s actual words in the tongue of the People flowed behind the stark computer English. Marta Lane had long ago developed the knack of laying the alien’s vocal emotion tones over the bland and choppy diction of the translator block to deduce the true meaning behind her friend’s speech.
“I’ve found that Glenn Miller works better then Cab Calloway for free-fall dance,” she replied. “The flow of the Big Bands draws a more rhythmic line than Bebop. I’d love to see what you are doing with it.”
“Shall record and send, Marta-Friend. Appreciate your introduction to musics of your Pre-Space-Times. Would like more, especially Artist-Called-Miller.”
“My pleasure, Tarrischall. After shift tonight I’ll bang ‘Tuxedo Junction’ and ‘The Jumpin Jive’ across the link. We might try a little Charley Parker while we’re at it.”
Seated in her quarters aboard the Stellar Transfer Command Station, Lane took up her personal data pad, and clipped the transparent rectangle of crystal state circuitry and liquid surface display onto the forearm sleeve of her black vacuum suit liner.
The figure within the snug liner was still firm and svelte, and Lane’s angular features were still unlined for all of her fifty plus years. An athletic mother of two and grandmother of four, she well-carried the biological rewards bestowed upon a human female who had lived the majority of her life in a low-to-zero gravity environment.
A simple gene booster treatment could have erased the silver hazing her blonde spacer’s ponytail as well, but she elected to keep her hair natural. It served to remind the youngsters on her watch that the Boss had indeed been around since the legendary days when the old fire-belching shuttle rockets had been the only available stair step into space.
Lane tapped the time hack recall on the pad’s surface with a fingernail. “Speaking of banging things across, we’d better get to work if we’re going to make that transfer at twenty-two hundred, Voice-of-Decision. I make it T minus two hours eighteen minutes to shift initiation.”
“Wrong, O Operations Director, it is two hours, seventeen minutes and twenty-three seconds, human time, precise, to channel open. Any load configuration changes in batch of cheap beads and trinkets you send to us?”
“Nothing appreciable. The outbound will be a couple of tons light. Quan Intertrade had a transshipment delay on a load of entertainment cards they wanted to squeeze aboard today’s load. They requested a hold, but I chilled it. I daresay the People can survive without The Classics of Twentieth Century Video Comedy, volume eight, for another twenty-four hours.
“Volume numbered eight?” Tarrischall chirped.
“Uh-huh,” Lane called up a data line. “Leave it to Beaver through Monty Python’s Flying Circus.”
“My species thanks you for reprieve.”
“You’re most welcome. You never know, though. You might like the one about the beavers.”
Humor-purring to himself Tarrischall-of-the-Crystal Springs twisted his sphere-of-communications closed, stowing it into a pouch in his possessions harness. He had eaten in the lower observation bubble of the River-’Tween Worlds Nest-of-Guidance, simultaneously enjoying his meal, his conversation with Friend-Marta-of-the-Place-called-New-England, and the awe-inspiring view.
River-’Tween Worlds held in geosynchronous orbit above the North Pole of Life-Waters, the home world of the People. The huge northern polar continent with its central ice cap rotated slowly beneath them, half in shadow, half blazing in the golden light from Life-Fire-of-All-Things.
On the nightside of Life-Waters, the lights of the linear river cities of the People trickled along the numerous broad watercourses that connected the ice pack with the equatorial lake/seas. On dayside, in a half loop along the equatorial orbits, the sunward collector arrays of the light-power-gatherers glittered like a string of pleasure-time beads.
River–’Tween-Worlds itself was not visible from this end of the great cylindrical skynest.
The channel entry assembly held in a slightly higher orbit above the support facility.
However, the running lights and glowing propulsor vents of the orbital traffic servicing River-’Tween-Worlds spiraled up past the skynest, the trade of the People flowing out to buy the wonders and amusements of the distant Upright culture.
With a final quick cleansing lick of his forepaws, Tarrischall fluidly reversed himself in midair, launching down the core passage with a thump of his muscular tail against the dome surface.
Approaching the central interchange, he exchanged whistled salutations with a pair of coworkers. Spiraling past them, he snared the padded surface of the maneuvering ball that hung suspended at the corridor nexus. His six sets of claws caught a purchase in the webbed fabric and he relaunched himself into the guidance chamber access, his day’s duties due to commence in a sixteenth portion.
None of the People’s space facilities utilized artificial gravity unless it was necessary for some industrial application. A semiaquatic species, the People had come to relish free fall as much as they loved the floating freedom of their world’s vast network of lakes, rivers and shallow seas. A product of his planet’s water-dominated evolutionary processes, Tarrischall was a sexipedal, carnivorous semi-mammal, bearing closest resemblance to a terrestrial river otter blown up to the scale of a Bengal tiger. Covered from whisker pads to tail with a glossy blood-red fur that trended toward a yellowish cream tone along his belly, his species found clothing irrelevant.
Friend-Marta had often mentioned that her kind found the People to be most attractive.
Honestly flattered, Tarrischall had always replied with a verity of polite sophistries.
Marta’s folk were certainly nice enough to know and do trade with, but it had to be admitted that the Uprights were an odd-looking crew.
Tarrischall shot into the Guidance Chamber, a spherical structure with far-viewer panels sheathing its upper and lower surfaces and a row of task pallets spaced around it in a central belt.
The other Voices were already present and at station with shift preparations already underway under the guidance of Narisara-of-the-Ice-Crystal-River. The sleek, black-furred Voice-of-Physics would no doubt have an arch comment or two about the Voice-of-Decision being the last to arrive for duty.
Bouncing off the maneuvering ball in the center of the chamber, Tarrischall dove across to his task pallet. En route he aimed a teasing nip at one of Narisara’s rear legs. Without looking up from the glowing half-bubble of her instrument display she replied with a tail swat that could have broken a jaw if it had been aimed to connect.