The woman stomped her boots in the wet slush and returned her attention to the storefront. "Thought so,"
she said. Then she fell silent.
"You still didn't tell me what the line's for," Brim prompted after a while.
"You never asked."
"Yeah. You're right; I guess I didn't. Why's everybody in line?" For better or worse, he seemed to be in it, too. At least ten other ragged figures had queued up behind him while he talked.
She laughed derisively. "I guess you haven't been down this way very often— Mister ex-officer," she hissed. "But we're seein' more and more of your kind every day."
"You still didn't tell me why you're in—"
"Jobs," the woman said, "IGL Spacelines. They recruit people for the lower decks in places like this. You know—menials."
Brim nodded. He'd heard; he'd simply never before had a reason to... Suddenly he frowned. There was ample reason now. His funds were almost gone after his meal with Margot and their bottle of Logish Meem. He'd had to hassle with her for the right to pay for everything, but she'd finally given in, clearly to save what little pride he retained. Soon, however, that pride would cost him dearly. His rent was due in exactly one week, to a landlady totally devoid of compassion. At that juncture, he would have to either find some employment or accept help from someone. Otherwise, he would become one of the city's growing cadre of homeless veterans who slept in doorways or under bridges. Even that was almost better than accepting help.
He stayed where he was, shuffling along in the line. Just about everything he owned of any value was on his back, and he couldn't bring himself to return home. Presently, he found himself through the door and into the relative warmth of a shabby room whose peeling walls were covered by holoposters advertising IGL's great starliners. One, nearest the bare light pictured a city of canals, proclaiming:
Royal
A'zurnian Getaway
Odyssey
Lifting on a biweekly schedule.
Book Early for the
Mitchell Trophy Race
at
Magalla'ana,
A'zurn
Brim ground his teeth. The Mitchell Trophy Race. Margot's naked body suddenly replaced the holoposter in his mind's eye —only she was rutting with LaKarn and making a baby after dickering with Gorn-Hoff for starships to compete in that race!
"Well, c'mon, mister," a man demanded behind a scarred desk, "none of us have all day. How many years in space you got?" He had a fat, greasy face and wore the quasi-military uniform of Intragalactic Spacelines, whose winter tunic was clearly too warm for the room. He was sweating profusely as he peered nearsightedly into a battered display.
"Twenty-two years in space; almost five of them in the Fleet," Brim answered, trying to keep his eyes from the poster. Even for a Carescrian, he'd started flying early.
The fat man made a face and looked up. "Just in case I might believe that kind of corgwash, mister," he growled, "what kind of work you lookin' for?"
Brim forced his mind to concentrate. What kind of experience did he have? Clearly, they weren't looking for Helmsmen in a place like this.
"Come on, mister," the fat man chided again. "Either pay attention or let somebody else in." He wiped his nose with a pudgy finger.
"Um... I guess I can do b-baggage handling," Brim stammered. Before he learned to fly the dangerous ore barges that earned him his berth in the Helmsmen's Academy, he'd worked at a lot of menial jobs.
"Baggage handlin'," the man repeated, his pudgy fingers thrumming a filthy console while he squinted into the display. "Yeah, good choice," he said presently, "we got a couple of round-trip berths on S.S. Prosperous—big 'un, deparrin' tonight for Hador-Haelic and the city of Atalanta." He looked up at Brim. "You look like you're pretty strong, all right. They'll like that. But you got no seniority with IGL, either—leastwise, you don't show up on the company's books under Brim. So they'll expect you for extra duty in the galley if you want the job."
Brim considered a moment. If nothing else, it would mean a warm, dry place to sleep for a while. And at the rate things were going, that might be a definite improvement in his lifestyle.
"Get a move on, Brim. There's lots of people outside that'll take the job with no thinkin'."
"I'll take it." Brim said.
"Where's your stuff?" the IGL man asked. "You'll have t' get the next launch t' catch 'er."
"Everything I own is on my back," Brim asked.
"All right," the man said, bending to his console again, "that's it. Remember, it's a round-trip job and there's laws against jumpin' ship in the middle. This ain't no free trip to Atalanta, no matter how many jobs they've got there during their reconstruction. Unnerstand?"
"I understand," Brim said, eager to be on the way to anything.
He spent most of the next metacycle on one of ICL's shabby, fly-spotted work stations, trying to ignore the holoposter and keep his mind from the open wound that Margot had become while he completed the million and one legal forms required by the Empire for intragalactic employment. Then, having been issued a temporary scrap of a badge reading, new menial, he made his way onto the cold quayside. One more job remained before reporting to the pier.
Transferring his last credits to a public correspondence system, he sent a brief message (via text, the least expensive delivery method available) to a confidential destination Margot maintained for just such circumstances:
Dearest Margot:
Last night proved how much I need to put together some sort of new life for myself: one in which I can look you in the face once more. Please trust that I am safe, that I remain unchanged in my love for you, and that I shall someday return. Care for yourself in the way I would care for you, were I able.
All my love,
Wilf
Within two metacycles, he was balancing himself on the icy open deck of a labor-pool launch as it skidded around the edge of a colossal gravity pool supporting IGL's premiere starliner, the S.S.
Prosperous. Far overhead, he could see the big ship's conoid bow and farther back, her high, rakish superstructure, completely distorted by the extreme perspective. After a complete postwar refitting, she was resplendent in dazzling white with the vivid IGL logo blazing forth from the center of her bridge. The last time he'd seen her this close, she was finished in wartime ebony hullmetal and he was on his way to A'zurn for the first land campaign of his experience.
As the launch drew to a halt at the lowest embarkation platform, he looked up to see passengers gliding into the big ship on moving walkways through lofty, gold-tinted glass brows. He shook his head as he dodged a sheet of icy spray, wondering what sort of skills one needed to obtain such luxury in peacetime.
Then he shrugged sadly. Whatever they were, all seemed far beyond his own wretched understanding.
"All right, bums," a tough-looking IGL officer barked from a freight elevator, "in here on the double. We've work aplenty for the likes of you."
Before he swung himself to the wave-slick platform, Brim craned his neck for a last look at the ship's brooding control bridge, nearly one hundred fifty irals overhead. While he stood there, transfixed, he felt a sharp jab in the ribs. He looked down to see a pair of young IGL surface officers: slim, perfectly uniformed, and effete, as nonflying officers often seemed to be. One was brandishing a baton.
"On your way, Menial," he said contemptuously. "The only way you'll see the bridge of that ship is with a mop in your hand." He laughed at his own joke.
"That's right," the other sniggered. "What do y' think y' are, a Helmsman or something?"
Whines and rumbles of imminent landfall cascaded on Brim's ears as he desperately sprinted toward the menials' compartment. He'd been the last hand to leave the galley because it was his responsibility to make a final cleaning pass over the slops compartments and the garbage crusher. Now, with the ship's mammoth gravity generators droning at idle—about to be reversed at any moment—he knew he had only cycles to strap himself in before Pandemonium broke loose along the big starship's keel. He could almost feel it.