So we finished our beers and Hawk gave me a conducted tour of his scrapyard.
He talked me through the various intact ships he had in stock, from tiny three man escape craft to big, ungainly asteroid wreckers, and everything in between. As well as giving me their specifications, he was a walking encyclopaedia of their varied histories, their missions, mishaps and mysteries.
“It was a wondrous age,” he said. “Space was an enigma. Exploration was fraught with danger. How many crews lost their lives opening up the way?”
And then Telemass technology came along, and almost overnight these beautiful starships were put out to pasture. A few exploration companies threw in their lot with the Telemass people—they still needed crews to map the worlds they found—but a hundred Lines went to the wall.
“And you found yourself out of work?” I said.
“The end for me came well before Telemass,” he said quickly, and moved on. “Now this one,” he said, standing in the shadow of a Norfolk Line scoutship, “this little pearl has aesthetics and comfort. Come on, I’ll show you around.”
His description was meant as a superlative, but the vessel did remind me of a pearl: oval and lambent, with a pale polymer re-entry carapace that almost glowed.
Inside it was slick and soulless. It lacked character. Evidently it was one of the last ships designed before Telemass came along, and featured what thirty years ago would have been state-of-the-art technology. But something about it was without the appeal of the other, older ships.
I wanted an old, battered tub that had soaked up the light of a hundred distant stars.
I think Hawk sensed this as we emerged once more into the glaring light of Delta Pavonis.
“Not for you?”
“Too new. Do you have anything more…more romantic?” I stopped there, because, across the yard, my eye had caught sight of just what I was looking for.
It was hard to describe why I fell in love with the horizontal hulk that squatted on its landing stanchions like a giant insect. It combined a graceful line with obvious age, was proud and at the same time defeated. Perhaps it called to me to be… if not loved, then cared for.
“Tell me about this one,” I said, striding across the yard.
It was small, perhaps fifteen metres from the stubby nose-cone to its flaring twin exhaust vents. Many missions had blasted the livery from its hull and flanks, and alien ivy had made progress up its stanchions.
Hawk smiled and shook his head. “Trust you to pick the one crate I know nothing about. Or next to nothing,” he added.
“Can we go inside?”
He gestured for me to mount the ramp, then keyed in a code and the hatch slid open.
It was surprisingly spacious within: a wide command deck looked out through a wraparound viewscreen. It would make a marvellous lounge, with views across the bay. Smaller rooms gave off the main corridor, along the length of the ship; these would make bedrooms and a bathroom. A spray of paint, a few furnishings, and it would provide a comfortable retreat from the cares of the world.
“I’ve never been able to trace the history of this ship,” Hawk was saying, “and believe me I’ve tried. I don’t know where it came from, which world of the Expansion, nor its Line.”
“But it is human-built?”
He smiled and said, “I can’t be certain even of that.”
The possibility that the crate might be of alien manufacture added to the allure. There were three known space-faring alien races, and they kept themselves pretty much to themselves. I had seen them only on holo-docs, and never in the flesh. The thought of living in an alien starship…
“Where did you get it?” I asked.
“Not from my usual sources,” he admitted. “Someone found it.”
“Found?”
He thumbed over his shoulder to indicate the jungle of the interior. “A farmer came across it ten years ago, a hundred kays north of the Column. He approached me and I took a look, found it overgrown with vines and moss and salvaged the thing.”
“And you don’t know anything about it?”
“Nothing. Its control system doesn’t make sense. Even its propulsion is odd.”
“How so?”
“It has a couple of atmosphere jets, but no planetary drive. Which might suggest that it wasn’t an interplanetary. But—” he laughed and shook his head “—it’s equipped with a subdermal re-entry skin.”
“So maybe it is alien?”
“Maybe,” he said.
I looked around inside a little more, then left the ship and made a slow circuit. I shielded my eyes from the swollen sun and stared up at the vessel’s arching lines.
“And it’s for sale?”
“I’ll tell you what… It’s taking up space, I can’t cannibalise it, and you obviously like the look of the thing. It’s yours for five thousand.” I was open-mouthed at his generosity. I had expected to spend at least twenty thousand on a villa, perhaps a little more for a starship that took my fancy.
We shook hands and sealed the deal.
He agreed to deliver it to my plot of land in the next few days, and gave me the addresses of contractors who would connect it to the water and electricity supplies. He even promised to give it a paint job—the colours of any line I chose.
I paid Hawk half of the five thousand up front; the other half would follow on delivery.
As we parted company beneath the metal-work archway of his premises, he told me that he’d meet me in Magenta at the weekend and introduce me to a few people who made the local watering hole, the Fighting Jackeral, their spiritual home.
As I climbed into the ground-effect vehicle, I took one last look back at the rearing shape of the mysterious starship. I had the feeling then—and this is not stated with the wisdom of hindsight—that a new phase in my life was under way.