The area behind the buildings along Potosi’s single street was given over to garbage, storage, and living quarters. In a few places the forest had been cleared. Generally the trees had died when human activities stripped their bark or poisoned their roots. Derelicts used dead limbs for firewood and sheltered beneath the fallen boles.
This ten-by-twenty-meter space equidistant from the two syndicate headquarters was one of the formal exceptions. Four large trees had been left at the corners to support a roof of structural plastic. A metal post peaked the center of one end; the sheeting was rectangular, while the area it covered was a rough trapezoid. One of the corner trees was dead, but for the moment it seemed steady enough.
The fenced area under the rigid marquee garaged vehicles ranging from jitneys to the elaborate aircar beneath which projected the legs of a man in multi-pocket overalls. The four lift fans whined in different keys. They were spinning out of synchrony, obvious even to ears less trained than Moden’s.
A boy of twelve or so was in the driver’s seat, adjusting controls in obedience to orders which the man under the chassis shouted. The boy saw Moden and chopped the car’s throttles. “Father!” he called. “A man is here. A big man!”
Moden waved to show that he was friendly. The fence around the garage was a combination of woven wire, barbed wire, and the body panels of wrecked vehicles welded to metal posts.
The chained and locked gate was metal plating on a tubular frame. Judging from the power cables, it could be electrified. Moden didn’t feel a prickle when he passed the back of his hand close, but he didn’t actually touch the panel to be sure that the power was off either.
The man who pushed himself into sight from beneath the aircar was dark-skinned and solid-looking; in his late thirties or maybe forty standard years, though Moden didn’t consider himself any judge of age.
“Yes sir?” the mechanic called.
“I want to rent a vehicle,” Moden replied. “Maybe several, there’s six of us. We landed from Nieuw Friesland yesterday on business.”
The man relaxed slightly. He wiped his hands carefully on a rag, giving himself time to consider both the request and the stranger making it.
“My name’s Moden,” the logistics officer went on, adding reassurance. “Besides, I’ve worked maintenance myself and I wanted to see what your operation was like. Who decided to bring a Stellarflow to Cantilucca?”
He gestured toward the aircar, its fans now at idle.
The mechanic’s face changed again, this time to an expression of interest and even hope. “I am Esteban Rojo,” he said. “I am the owner here, though not of the aircar.”
He glanced over his shoulder and called to the boy, “Pito? Go on back to the house now. It’s time for your lessons.”
He unlocked the chain. Moden stepped aside so that Esteban could swing the gate outward. The boy darted through, following the one-armed stranger with his eyes until disappearing into the alley.
Esteban gestured Moden into the enclosure before chaining and relocking the gate. “You’re familiar with the Stellarflow, then?” he asked.
“There’s people who swear by them,” Moden said, looking critically at the ornate aircar. “Not the people responsible for maintenance, though. And I wouldn’t have thought you could get parts for one closer than Earth. Are there many aircars on Cantilucca?”
“This one,” the mechanic said glumly. “Adolpho Peres, a friend of the Widow Guzman, bought it on Delos and shipped it here. He’s given me a tennight to get it running properly.”
“No spares, I gather?” Moden said. He didn’t ask when the tennight was up, nor whether the Widow’s gigolo had bothered to state the obvious “or else” at the conclusion of his orders to Esteban.
“Stellarflows are of the finest Terran engineering,” the mechanic quoted in flat irony. “They never break down. This one must have been damaged in shipping. But it’s up to me to fix it!”
He shook his head. “I can’t get the fans to synchronize,” he said. “Peres says the car was fine on Delos, but I don’t believe him. I think the problem’s electronic, not mechanical, but I couldn’t have gotten control boards from Earth in time even if I’d ordered them five days ago.”
Moden walked around the aircar, lifting and closing access plates. “You couldn’t get parts on Earth either,” he said. “From the serial number, this unit’s older than either of us are.”
“Stellarflows are of the finest Terran engineering,” Esteban chirped. “They never wear out.”
“Right,” said Moden. He opened the side door and lay down on his back in the driver’s compartment so that he could look under the dashboard. “Their engineers’ stools don’t stink, either. Just ask them.”
The logistics officer carried a multitool. He used it now to loosen fittings behind the wood-veneer interior panels. His size and single hand made it difficult to work in the strait confines, but he proceeded without asking for help.
“I thought it might be the fans themselves,” Esteban said, peering through the opposite window in an attempt to follow what was going on. “They’d been replaced in the past with standard units, Gurneys, instead of Stellarflow parts. I thought that might be the problem, but the fans synch fine when I jury-rigged a chassis from a ground car.”
“You do a lot of work for the Astras, then?” Moden asked. His face was hidden, but his casual tone fooled no one.
“I work for whoever pays me!” the mechanic snapped. “Or doesn’t pay, half the time. The cyclo drivers, it’s their livelihood. They haven’t got any money when they break down, and sometimes they forget to pay when I get them running again. Do you have a problem with that?”
“Quite the contrary,” Sten Moden said. He folded the powered multitool into its belt pouch, then straightened with a flat plug-in module in his hand.
“This car has an autopilot,” Moden said.
“Yes, of course,” the mechanic agreed. “But we don’t have guidance beacons on Cantilucca. You can’t engage it.”
“Right,” said Moden. “And the board driving it is identical to the board driving the manual duct controls. Except with luck this one isn’t shot.”
He handed the module to Esteban, who took it with dawning comprehension.
“May the Lord bless you and keep you, Master Moden,” the mechanic whispered. Relief flooded through the dikes of insouciance with which the man had tried to protect himself against the coming deadline.
“Well, we’re not out of the woods yet,” Moden said. “If this board’s packed it in too, then we cobble together something from scratch. Refrigerator controls from big trucks—four of them in parallel, that might work. Do you have reefer trucks here?”
“I could never manage that in five days!” Esteban said.
Moden got out of the car. “We can do it in twelve hours,” he said flatly. “I’m not looking forward to dialing in four separate units though, I’ll tell you that. But chances are this one’s going to work.”
Esteban, holding the module as if it were his first grandchild, started to crawl under the aircar again. He stopped. “You want to rent vehicles, Master Moden? What sort of vehicles? Anything you please.”
“We’ll talk about that later,” Moden said. “Right now, I want to get my hands dirty.”
His face set, then smiled again. He took out his multitool. “I’ve been in admin too long.”
The big Frisian sat down, lay back, and slid himself under the blocked aircar with the certitude of the tide coming in.
The man guarding the garage beneath the building holding the Ortegas’ apartment wore brown trousers, a green shirt, and a carbine which fired fléchettes. He slid the gate closed as Pilar squeezed the port van into a space that was only wide enough by the thickness of the paint. Ten other vehicles, one of them a scarlet armored truck, had virtually filled the parking area.