Chapter One

Chapter One

People have this wonderful misconception of starship captains, fueled by glamorous holopics that show the heroic, bold captain standing tall as they battle evil aliens or space pirates or whatever other nonsense. A captain was believed to be like the sheriff back in the Wild West, bringing civilization to untamed lands like the colonies on the moon and Mars. In reality, most of us are just hard-working people, and truth be told, most of us are crooked as all hell.

In five years as a hauler captain, I’d done my own share of carrying illegal goods while on a legitimate cargo run. Another misconception is that smugglers are always suave conmen, carrying weapons or drugs to sell on the black market. In reality, the goods smuggled the most are fresh vegetables and fruits from Earth. After health inspections, tariffs, and local taxes, a single apple could cost well over three unidollars on the moon and twice that on the newer colony of Mars. We “smugglers” were actually doing the local populace a favor by selling fruit and vegetables directly on the black market. It was a system that benefited everyone: the growers on Earth, the smugglers delivering the goods, and the consumers buying the merchandise. The only ones not to benefit were the planetary governments who missed out on the tax revenues, but they more than made up for it in the high tariffs they charged on goods that came in legally.

Today’s cargo was predominantly a legal haul, mostly industrial machinery being sent from a big corporation on Earth to a subsidiary on Mars. Tucked away in my quarters were a few cases of bananas from the Brazil-Argentine Cooperative to be delivered to a black market buyer once my ship had gone through customs. A good captain always made a little extra room for profit, and I was no exception.

Most people snickered when I told them what I did for a living. A middle-aged man pushing fifty who had a doctorate in accounting just didn’t seem to fit the profile of a cargo hauler captain. The snickering usually stopped when people saw how successful my ship was. All those years in the business world had given me some useful training in how to make deals with suppliers, how to talk my way past custom inspectors, and how to expedite deliveries by greasing the right palms. In three years I had become one of Fischer Galactic Transport’s best, so that for the last two years I got the most lucrative cargoes.

A typical cargo hauler is basically a metal brick with engines in the back. Warships, liners, and personal spacecraft were all designed more aerodynamically, but a cargo hauler had no need for such amenities. The length of haulers varied, mine was about seven hundred meters with enough cargo capacity for fifteen hundred tons. That much cargo room left very little space for the crew, but fortunately a hauler only needed three people. Besides the captain, each hauler was required to have a pilot and a flight engineer.

My pilot, Brian Palmer, and my flight engineer, Murray Gill, had thirty years of hauler experience between them. They were two of the best on Fischer’s payroll, and I had been enormously lucky to have them assigned to my ship. Some of it was not luck so much as the company wanted a crew that could baby-sit someone as unqualified to command a hauler as I was. Over the years we had not grown into the Three Musketeers, but we got along well enough to make one of the best teams in Fischer Galactic Transport’s history.

It was Brian Palmer who spoke to me now. “Message coming in from Orbital Control.”

I looked up from the book I’d been reading, thinking to myself that it was about time they’d gotten to my ship. I’d been sitting just a few hundred kilometers outside of the Martian moon Phobos for three hours, waiting for an approach vector from the traffic controllers. Mars had only been colonized thirty years ago, but it was already a bustling hub of commercial traffic, which meant long delays for ships coming in. It didn’t help that the Martian traffic controllers were poorly trained and high, drunk, or both most of the time. “Let’s hear it,” I replied wearily.

“Poseyville, this is Orbital Control, you may approach on vector three-four-seven,” the controller commanded gruffly, his voice sounding as though he’d already gotten a few drinks in, even though it was only ten in the morning by Martian time.

“Control, this is Poseyville, we are beginning course correction burns now,” I responded, biting out the name of the ship like a curse. I had always hated the name of the hauler I’d been given command of, but until I could buy the ship from Fischer or get one of my own, I was stuck with it.

I watched Palmer type the course corrections into the navigation computer and felt the ship begin to move ever so slowly. Palmer regarded himself as a great pilot, and maybe he had been when with the United Nations Defense Alliance, but mostly a hauler pilot typed instructions into the computer and let the machine do all the work. I had tried my hand at piloting the Poseyville once or twice and found it was not too challenging. Still, it was best for everyone concerned not to bruise Palmer’s fragile ego too much.

It took well over an hour to make the necessary corrections and to slip into a docking berth at the customs station in Mars’ orbit. The station was a long, wide tube with hundreds of long pylons jutting out, ships connected to each pylon so that the whole thing looked like a giant metal bush floating in space. It took a few minutes for the airlock on the pylon to establish a connection with the Poseyville’s airlocks, a seamless fit was necessary or else someone could implode.

“Run a final check on our cargo and prepare to be entreated by a visit from our friends at Customs,” I said to flight engineer Murray Gill. Gill had been on haulers for almost twenty years now, he didn’t need me to tell him what to do, but I always had to go through proper procedures just in case someone at Fischer HQ was listening in. The company randomly bugged ships to test the competence of its crews, an invasion of privacy that they thought was necessary to maintain quality control, and maybe they were right.

“Yes, sir,” Gill replied crisply, his large frame waddling back towards the cargo hold to make a manual check of the crates we were carrying. While Gill was gone, Palmer and I worked to shut down all systems and make things ready for customs inspectors. After about a half hour, Gill returned and the airlocks finished aligning to allow the customs team on board.

I waited for them on the bridge; it was always better to let them nose around a little on their own to assuage their concerns. Had I gone to the airlock to greet them and escorted them to bridge, they probably would suspect that I was hiding something, so I just sat back and waited. Three men in blue jumpsuits finally appeared on the bridge, all three having a bleary look in their eyes and stubble on their chins. “Welcome to the Poseyville,” I began as innocently as I could. “What can we do for you gents today?”

“We’re just checking things out,” the inspector in the middle replied, his voice filled with the surliness of someone with a bad hangover.

“Here’s our cargo manifest, you’ll find it matches our inventory exactly,” I handed the inspectors a comcard that contained a detailed list of what was in the cargo hold.

“I’m sure it does,” the lead inspector grunted, reading over the manifest then handing me the comcard back. “Fine, you can start unloading your cargo. You realize of course that there are special fees for certain goods.”

I nodded to the inspector. In the case that the ship was bugged, the inspector was hinting that he wanted a bribe to forget about any illegal cargo we might have on board. They may have found the illegal goods I had hidden in my quarters, or more likely, they had simply guessed. I took the inspector’s wallet and transferred a hundred unidollars into the man’s account. He took the wallet back, stuffing it into a pocket without even looking. “Well, everything seems to be in order, then, Mr. Gallowes. You and your crew have a good day,” the inspector finished smugly before he and his two silent partners left.

Once they were out of the airlock, I turned to Palmer and Gill. “Murray, have the dockhands start to unload. When they’ve got things under control, you can make yourself scarce. Brian and I have business to attend to in the meantime.” Actually I had no idea if Palmer had any business to conduct, but I had to find my contact to sell the bananas I had smuggled aboard. For formality’s sake, though, I had to at least make things appear business-like. Gill nodded to me as I left, he knew the drill, and I’d expect to see him in Dodger’s Pub in about an hour. Palmer and I separated, going to our quarters to pack up our gear. We each had a cart stacked full of crates, though I wasn’t sure what Palmer had brought on board.

“Keep your relay active, so I can contact you when we get new orders,” I told Palmer as we walked down the pylon and into the customs station.

“Yeah, sure, you know me,” Palmer winked and then disappeared into a throng of people. I sighed, and then headed to find my contact and unload my shipment of bananas.

The customs station, while it looked like a bush, had rings like a tree on the inside. There were three rings to be exact. The innermost ring contained all of the station’s systems for power, water, air, and so on. The second ring was primarily for command and conference facilities, it was where Orbital Control was housed. The outer ring was the commercial area, by far the seediest of the three rings.

Back in my days as an accountant in Chicago, I would never have gone near such a place as the outer ring, but now days it was almost like home. My contact for the bananas was Hal Schneider, he ran an upscale electronics shop that served as a front for his more lucrative business. I steered my cart around a herd of busy travelers to the back of Schneider’s store, then rapped three times on the door, which was the signal that he had a “special” client. I waited impatiently for a few minutes, hand on the stun pistol at my hip just in case anyone tried to hijack my cargo. Fischer wouldn’t let its employees carry real weapons, the stun pistols were the only armaments they allowed aboard the ship. That policy was fine with me, I carried the same stun pistol I had bought when I started at Kovalchuk, Spezza, and Weiss to ward off any potential muggers. The stun pistol shot tiny darts that would in theory stop an attacker by disrupting their nervous system with an electrical charge. My stun pistol had only been fired three times since I had bought it, once by my son when he was trying to shoot some birds in the backyard, and twice on the shooting range, so I was not an expert marksman, but appearances were what counted.

Finally, Schneider appeared at the back door, his dark face splitting into a broad smile. “Gallowes, I wasn’t expecting you!”

“Well, I was in the neighborhood,” I replied lamely.

“So what have you brought?” Schneider asked as he inspected the crates.

“Bananas fresh from Braziltina.”

Schneider nodded, motioning for me to open a crate. I entered an access code onto the side of one of the boxes, the top popping to reveal the golden booty within. Schneider picked up one of the bananas, studying it carefully, like a jeweler examining the cut of a diamond. He finally cracked open the peel, breaking off a piece and popping it into his mouth. He chewed melodramatically for a few moments, then a smile slowly spread across his face. “I see I continue to underestimate you, Gallowes, these are pristine.”

“Five cases all like it.”

Schneider’s face turned solemn. “Usually I check the entire shipment, but you’ve never steered me wrong before. So how much do you want?”

“Two thousand and a case of Ebbett’s.”

Schneider looked ready to argue, but finally he nodded. He knew how much his suppliers on the surface would pay, and how much their customers would pay for fresh fruit. “You drive a hard bargain, but a fair one. It just so happens I have a case of Ebbett’s in the back room right now. Perhaps you’ll have a drink with me?”

“Maybe some other time,” I answered, giving Schneider my wallet. He dumped two thousand unidollars into my account then took the cart inside. He returned a few minutes later with a single small case on the cart, a case of Ebbett’s, which produced the finest scotch in the Solar System. “Thanks, Hal, I’ll be sure to drop by the next time I come in.”

“Of course, Gallowes, you are always welcome here.” I took the cart and started towards the flats Fischer rented for use by its employees while they were at the station. The entire trip I kept the case of scotch in sight, it was even more valuable than the bananas, easily worth fifteen hundred unidollars.

I brushed past the dozens of saloons, whorehouses, and the like, my mind long-since numb to the debauchery that went on in those places. I peeked in Dodger’s Pub for a moment, finding Gill at the bar with a pair of women, most likely hookers he was planning to take back to his flat later. I didn’t bother to interrupt him and ask how the unloading operations were going, Gill was experienced enough not to leave the ship’s cargo in the hands of incompetents.

I continued on through dark promenades lit only by tawdry neon lights advertising any kind of sexual experience a human might be interested in. Finally, I came to the office of the Nebula Lodge and checked into my usual room. Fortunately, an automated innkeeper handled check-ins, so there was no one to eye my case of scotch or to ask what my intentions were.

The room that I used was probably the least disgusting in the entire building. It was not because I didn’t make a mess, in fact I usually left the place in a shambles, but because I paid a maid to keep the place clean in my absence. The last thing I wanted was to flop onto the bed and into a puddle of someone’s vomit, or even worse things. I flipped on the light, a single old fluorescent bulb providing the entire room with a dim glow. I carefully landed the cart on the floor, kneeling down to crack open the case of Ebbett’s. I took out one bottle, staring for a moment at the amber liquid in silent longing. After opening the bottle carefully, I took a long pull, feeling the familiar burn rolling down my throat, dulling my senses.

I sat down on the queen-size bed, grabbing a vial of pills from my left breast pocket. The drug was called Lexmafil, it’s not only a common drug for spacesickness, but also a powerful tranquilizer. Three pills and a half bottle of scotch later, I was comfortably resting in bed, my mind too numb to think of anything, too numb to conjure images of my butchered family. I simply lay in bed, tears silently running down my cheeks as I stared at the blank vidscreen.

On the ship, during a run, I was able to keep myself together, with a little help from the Lexmafil. I usually had enough other things to think about that I could keep the memories of Becky and Steve in the back of my mind. When I was alone, though, those memories would come roaring back to my consciousness. The only way to escape them, to escape the pain they caused, was to drown it in an avalanche of booze and pills.

Even in my stupor I would sometimes bitterly ponder the world around me. What a cold, cruel place the universe was, the universe that would kill a good woman like my wife while the scum that butchered her was allowed to remain free. At one time I had been a Christian, but after Becky and Steve were killed I lost all faith in any higher powers. The kind of god that could be so heartless, so sadistic as to allow my family to die while the killer received no punishment was not one I wanted to believe in. For hours at a time I would just sit on the bed, staring into space, cursing everyone and wondering why I bothered going on with my life.

I’d contemplated suicide numerous times, sometimes even going so far as to have the bottle of pills poised on the edge of my lips, but I could never go through with it. Maybe it was cowardice, maybe it was stubborn pride that I would not give the cosmic powers the satisfaction of completely breaking my spirit, or maybe there was some guardian angel looking out for me. No matter the reason, even while I thought of how unfair life is and tears coursed down my cheeks, I couldn’t bring myself to end it all.

On this night I lay in bed for hours, staring and trying not to think, downing two bottles of scotch and six Lexmafil pills before I drifted off into sleep. Even with the booze and drugs, my dreams were the one place where I could never get any respite from the events of that winter night. Every night it was the same, horrible nightmare that tormented me.

I was in my home in Chicago, climbing up the stairs to the bedroom. It was dark, I could barely see anything around me, but then there was a scream, Becky calling out to me. I tried to climb the stairs faster, but something seemed to be holding me back, so that I had to fight my way up the stairs, my wife screaming all the while. I reached the top and entered the bedroom to find the assailant on top of my wife’s naked body, a knife gleaming silver in his hand. I tried to run to Becky’s aid, but I was held in place, only able to watch as the killer’s blade arced down time and time again, tearing open my wife’s flesh until the knife was drenched in blood. I could only stand by helplessly as the life faded from Becky with each thrust of the silver blade. Finally, after it seemed as though every inch of her naked flesh was coated red with blood, the killer looked up towards me. The murderer came towards me, his entire body nothing more than a shadow. He approached slowly, his hands reaching up to pull off whatever mask he was wearing so that I could see who he was. Just as I was about to make out his face, to see who had done this terrible thing, I woke up in a cold sweat.

For a moment I just stared blankly at the walls of the room, trying to piece myself back together, when I realized that my relay was going off, my groggy mind slow to respond to the tiny device’s insistent beeping. I clumsily activated the relay, the room’s vidscreen coming to life to show Palmer’s face, looking pale and haggard. “Brian, what is it?” I slurred.

“It’s Murray…he’s dead,” Palmer replied.

I reached Murray’s room at the Nebula Lodge five minutes later, just long enough to take a pull of scotch and to put on a fresh jumpsuit. A pair of station security guards were in the room, examining the scene, bringing my mind back to the night when I had come home to find Becky and Steve dead, my entire body shaking at the memories. There were a couple similarities between Gill’s murder and that of my family over five years ago. Gill had been stabbed numerous times in the chest, and there was not a trace of the killer. The security guards were far less professional than Detective Sedin had been, they had me identify the body then asked a few basic questions. I tried to answer as best I could, but I had no idea who would want to kill Murray Gill or for what reason. I described the two women I had seen him with earlier, but that was sure to be a dead end, there were hundreds of hookers on the station, it would be hard to track down two of them. After that, I met Palmer outside and we went to a little café to sober up with a pot of coffee.

“I don’t get it, I just swung by his room to see if he’d had any problems with the cargo, and he was just lying on the bed, all cut up,” Palmer began, shaking his head. “It doesn’t make sense, who’d want to kill Murray?”

“I don’t know, maybe it was one of the dockhands, or one of the hookers he was with,” I suggested, the coffee not doing much to erase the fogginess in my brain.

“You really think a hooker could do that?”

“Maybe, or for all we know it was just a random robbery.”

Palmer nodded, a frown creasing his face. “Yeah, you may be right. There are all kinds of whackos on this station. So what do we do now?”

“We’ll have to contact Fischer and get a replacement.” As I finished speaking, my relay beeped. I activated the device’s tiny mobile screen, the thin, rat-like face of Jorgen Fischer appearing.

“Gallowes, I want your ass on the ground ASAP!”

“But sir, we’ve…”

“I don’t care, Gallowes, I want you here, now!” The signal broke off and I shrugged to Palmer.

“Well, looks like I’ll get to ask Fischer for a replacement in person.”