“Good morning,” said Alex.
He always felt slightly uncomfortable entering a spider room. It wasn’t fear or hostility… more like a nagging feeling of shame at bothering these people with his seemingly petty and useless business, while they were busy solving truly important problems.
The spiders were quiet, busy with their silent network dialog. Only one girl, the youngest and prettiest one, was moving her lips—she had not yet rid herself of this useless habit. Alex had no intention of taking advantage of her weakness, but her mouth moved so distinctly that he could not help reading her lips. “He’s hot… girls, let me… come on…”
Oh, no! All that would mean was that she’d take three times longer than necessary to process his documents.
One of the accountant-speshes gestured to him to come up. That was good. He could hope that this spesh-woman, in her virtual detachment, would not take too long.
“Name?” said the spider. Her eyes were closed, and she did not even bother to take a look at the pilot for politeness’s sake. The information from the computer receptors was enough for her. Well, at least she was nice enough to talk to him in person rather than using a computer speaker and a voice synthesizer. She had a pale, bluish face, thin lips, swollen eyelids covered with red traces of capillaries, and short, smoothly pulled-back hair.
“Alex Romanov, spesh, master-pilot…” he began, and the spider lifted her hand, indicating that he had provided enough information.
Alex stopped in mid-sentence. Stood there, looking at the spider’s desktop computer. The screen was turned off, so he had no way of knowing what the spider was doing at the moment. Perhaps she was preparing someone’s contract. Or looking for ways to evade taxes. Or sorting warehouse cargo. Or maybe she was making love to a partner on the other side of the galaxy. The little computer with a small sticker proudly proclaiming “Gel-Crystal inside” allowed her to do a whole lot. Even if the crystal was only the size of a match head…
“The spaceship Mirror of the Sky Company,” said the spider.
And opened her eyes.
This was so unexpected that Alex started.
It was as though a mighty sorcerer had whispered a magic word, turning the computer’s living appendage human again.
The spider turned out to be rather young. Even pretty. If only she would change the hair, visit a cosmetologist, and replace her work overalls with a dress…
“Your papers,” she said.
Alex did not understand her. He reached into his pocket for his copy of the contract. But the she-spider was already handing him the freshly printed ship permit.
“Identity stamp.”
Alex licked his finger, touched it to the stamp. A few rainbow waves ran through the thin plastic sheet.
“Good luck,” said the spider.
“That’s it?” asked Alex, utterly confused.
“Yes. That’s it. Is there a problem?”
“Well…”
“The ship is launch-ready. You have your permit. Can I help you with anything else?”
He had nothing to say. The spiders had done their part. The way they were supposed to… in an ideal world. But for some reason, this time there were no long excursions into Alex’s life story, no such questions as: Were you really an enuresis sufferer at the age of five? What were the reasons for your deep emotional attachment to your paralyzed grandmother? Did you drink a lot before the bar fight on Zasada?
“Thank you,” said Alex. “Excuse me.”
“Yes?”
“No… nothing.”
He turned and started to walk toward the door, feeling the gaze of all the spiders on his back.
What in the world was going on?
Was this their customer appreciation day?
Were quality assurance inspectors watching every spider room employee?
Did Alex’s face remind the spider of her high school sweetheart?
Too good to be true was also bad. The guard looked at Alex in surprise. Then asked, “That bad, eh?”
“Yeah… seems like it…”
“Early this morning, another spesh… the guy barely walks in, then rushes out all red in the face, hands shaking. Turns out he’s missing some info about relatives on his mother’s side. They told him to go get it. Three days’ running around at least, he said. No one’s ever been interested in these relatives, and now all of a sudden… For some insurance discount, can you believe that? For his own good. And the ship he’s been hired on is leaving tonight.”
The guard laughed without malice, with compassion, even. He himself must have had occasion to deal with the spiders.
“Insurance is a good thing,” said Alex. Nodded to the guard and went on to the transit platform, left by someone nearby. Maybe it had even been left there by that other spesh, the unfortunate guy who was now fighting with the spiders of the imperial archives.
According to the papers, his ship was waiting not in the hangar, but right out on the landing field. This probably meant it had not been on the planet for very long. Alex stood on the platform, lightly holding onto the handrail—a part of his specialization, imprinted through repetition, was the habit of always having at least three balance points when on a moving object. The platform glided out into the main tunnel and hurtled along at full speed underneath the landing field.
Alex suddenly realized what had been bothering him from the very beginning.
The right to choose his own crew.
Things like that just weren’t done. Well, to be exact, they could be done, but only with the vessels built on this planet. But Mirror had been assembled on Earth.
Someone had to have been in charge of the ship on its way to Quicksilver Pit. Okay, so it may have not been a full crew; it could have been the bare minimum—a pilot, a navigator, and a power engineer. But to hire people for a one-way trip and then to start looking for a whole new crew on another planet—that was absurd. Earth could offer a far better choice of specialists than a colony world, even a well-developed one.
And then there was the useful tradition of keeping at least one member of the previous crew aboard. Every ship had its own unique character, and an experienced person could often save not only time and money, but the very life of the vessel.
Weird…
The platform slowed down, stabilized under an exit shaft, and slowly started rising. Sixty-five feet up, through layers of rock and then the concrete pad of the landing field… Alex glanced at the Demon. It seemed thoughtful and wary.
Right. Something was odd, but what could it be…? It was like that old joke about speshes that had been making its rounds among naturals for the last hundred years—“I smell a rat, but where is it?”
“But we needed the money. We couldn’t let the girl die, could we?” Alex asked the Demon.
Judging by the little devil’s face, they very well could have. So what was up?
The ship was an experimental model? Something dangerous, still being tested—trick a crew into it, and watch what happens? Not likely. Judging by the papers, it was a very good ship, and it had no unexpected novelties. All the equipment was standard. A dangerous route, perhaps? Also bull. People got lured into danger by money, insurance, discounts… anything but lies. There would always be volunteers to stick their heads into a lion’s jaws, why make people do it against their will?
Something barely legal? The same objections applied.
So it wasn’t about the ship. Everything was always about people, not metal.
Alex shook his head and tried to toss his doubts away. Not for good… just to put them away into a far corner of his mind.