Two - The Friendly Mould
War raged about the star Horus,its six worlds and thirteen moons. The forces of Topica and Upfrontfought over the planet Bid-2., its mineral resources for pastcenturies the focus of countless disputes, with each side accusingthe other of abusing agreed quotas and violating land rights.
The contest was bitter, more so asthe opposing planets drew ever closer in their mutual orbits throughthe firmament. A peace delegation from Earth had been annihilated.Daily the worlds grew in one another's skies, bleeding across greenand yellow horizons. And daily the cost in lives and hardware wasbeamed into Byron's living-room.
He waited for the knock on thedoor that never came...
‘I can still fly,’ heprotested bitterly. ‘They had no right to discharge me.’
‘They had no choice you mean,’answered Sally.
Byron cracked his knuckles andswitched the screen off. ‘Whose side are you on?’
‘The Topican's,’ Sally toldhim. ‘I'm a spy...’
‘No,’ said Byron; ‘you'retoo ugly. Spies are beautiful and dangerous.’
‘You don't think I'm dangerous?’She rose from the couch and walked into the kitchen, acting theruffled tigress.
He rolled a cigarette. ‘No,’he replied. ‘But your sister, she has all the qualifications.’
Sal returned with a glass of milkand a doughnut. ‘You wish she was here instead of me.’
He couldn't refute the statement.Brooding, he sighed. The cigarette smoke soothed him, quietened hisnerves; but the restlessness was still there, the urge to be flying.
‘Don't look so worried,’ Sallysaid. ‘Sis and the captain want to be underway as much as anyone.’
‘To Earth and Sol system,’whispered Byron, who had never been farther down the arm thanFortuna. ‘Is it really as paradoxical as they say?’
‘Earth? Nah, not like it wasyears ago, more...What's the word? Cultivated.’
‘Cultivated?’It was a new one on Byron. He'd met Sally Droover the previous day ona hilltop on the outskirts of town; she was taking in the sunset,pale and smooth in the waning light. They got to talking aboutplaces, his homeworld of Upfront so close to destruction, hers ofLuna, Earth's grey satellite, and he'd felt it then, what she calledmothertug, a strange, almost overpowering desire to set foot on theworld of origin, the blue-green planet from which the threads of lifeextended, its gravity of the heart and mind an unquenchableattraction, a thirst exacerbated by the fact all non-military trafficwould soon stop around the vicinity of Horus, the golden sun that wasfor many years his guiding star.
‘Yes,’ saidSal, munching. ‘Notnearly so raw as Upfront or Grandee or Deathspoint - but kind ofboring; the parts I've seen anyway...’
Which amountedto nothing.
And they were stuck without atrained engineer, albeit one with a record.
Byron Friendlywould never fly again in this sector, that was definite. So what didhe have to lose? Zero, and they were sure to take him as everyavailable engineer of even middling ability had been drafted.
But not Byron.Byron had survived the unsurvivable, lived to tell the tale, toooften; those who flew with him were luckless and, rumour had it,regarded as expendable.
Sal was right, they had no choicebut to discharge him. Still, he should never have floored thatcontroller.
*
‘What do you think of him?’
‘I don't know, he puzzles me.’
‘In what way?’ Captain Jonesleant on the bar, face alert to every movement in the room, itstables and chairs, pillars and shadows fixed in their pattern, eachsubtle change noted, each citizen and soldier marked.
‘It's difficult to say,’admitted Kate. ‘I like him; he's good, we know that much. But...’
‘You can't forget Ernie,’ Amyfinished.
Kate nodded.
‘Me neither.But Ernie's dead, gone, and we need an engineer, unless you'replanning to spend the rest of your life on this precarious edge, eh?Halfway between somewhere and nowhere!’
Kate sipped her drink. ‘You'vemade your decision,’ she said.
‘Right,’ confirmed thecaptain, adding, ‘I may be the majority shareholder in our littleoutfit - and a drunken whore to boot - but I still like to discussthese changes in...’ She paused, tensed.
‘Amy?’
‘Sorry, Droover, touch ofnerves.’
‘You drink too much.’
‘Right again...’ A man withbrown skin and yellow hair watched them from the far side of thescantly peopled, grotesquely furnished restaurant. ‘No manners.’
‘Who?’
‘Guy in the corner there.’
‘Security?’
‘Yeah, they have those eyes.’She waved obliquely.
Kate laughed, smothering it. ‘Weleave in six hours,’ she reminded; ‘don't go getting usarrested.’
‘Nochance,’ Amy rejoined. ‘What for, flirting?’
‘You know what I mean.’
Captain Jones shrugged. ‘Okay,okay...I'll curb my less demure instincts; you just buy the drinks.’
And so it went.
Kate stood alone in the darkstreet, shades like gravel shards, icy charcoal about her. In thedistance she could make out the faint umbral glow of Upfront's mainspaceport, its screened image mellow and illusive, her sight subtlynudged aside. The stars, close-nit, glimmered overhead, providing thecolourless illumination.
She heard sweetened breath in herear, the captain.
‘I hate to squat in strangealleys...’ confessed Amy Jones, tugging Droover's padded sleeve.‘Come on.’
‘Sure you can walk?’
‘I was born walking; besides,it's late, we don't want to miss our slot.’
‘And Friendly?’ said Kate,guiding her companion like on so many occasions: a little guilty, alittle sick...
‘Who?’
‘The engineer!’
‘Oh, I took care of that hoursago.’
‘You called Sal from the bar?’questioned Droover, navigator to pilot.
Captain Jones kicked a stone,chased it. Grinning, she glanced over her shoulder at Kate. ‘Raceyou!’
And was gone.
Kate broke into a run, followingthe hollow footfalls that echoed in the street, the buildings eitherside leaning as if poised; preparing, given sufficient encouragement,to fall like oddly pigmented waves onto the road, washing her away.
The spaceport loomed ahead beyonda fence of brittle trees and harsh, netted wire. Eerily quiet, thewells and bunkers filled the ground for several kilometres square.Kate reached an IN ramp and jogged the descending pathway, eager toboard the ship, its familiar sanctuary and contented faces. The skylit up briefly, a ball of lightning closely attended by a weight ofexhausted thunder as booster rockets lifted a guppy clear of theplanetary surface, thence toward some orbiting engine.
She smiled ahalf smile, felt the thrill of near departure, wondered at the courseher life, the lives of the crew might take from here, Rigmarole. Itwas months since she'd seen Earth, breathed its neutral(reconstituted) air and returned its harmless (stagnant) gaze, andlike a favourite lover she longed once more to array her limbs acrossits naked contours.
‘Slow as ever, Droover...’drawled the captain from a hidden doorway.
‘I never could keep up withyou,’ she came back; ‘not in anything.’
Together theyrode anelevator. Kate stuffed her hands in her pockets and Amy drummed herfingers on her brow - on, off, on, off, on...
‘We got lucky,’ Sally told hersister some time later, prior to launch.
‘How's that?’ Kateconcentrated on her maps, the traceries in her skull like a fireworkdisplay. ‘I wish Frank and Monica would slow it down once in awhile,’ she commented.
‘Our new engineer,’ said Sal.‘You know. He's a funny colour, but I like him.’
‘What?’ She blinked.
‘I said he's a funny colour.Don't you agree?’
‘He's native Upfront,’ Katereturned.
‘Yes! And if he's at all likeErn...’ Sal shrugged and wandered from the narrow space.
If he's at alllike Ern, mouthed Kate, aligning neat rows of neat figures, shufflingtheir order, filing the rote, feeling the old man's loss, thepossible gain. If he's at all like Ern, we'd better watch out.
Ernie was crazy. Ernie sang.Ernie, on four of the last five loops, had nearly wiped their slate.
She belled the captain.
‘Jones.’
‘Droover K. Listen, what doesByron Friendly know of Ernie's bubbles?’
'Nothing; they died with him,that's finished.'
‘You're sure?’ Kate had otherideas, thought there was more to his fantasies than a lifelongaddiction to squeaky, ten-a-penny pheromones.
'Ain't I always?' replied thecaptain, feigning disinterest, a sure a sign as any that she wasconcerned. But they had to leave Upfront, and in a hurry.
‘Fine,’ the navigatorconcurred, satisfied Amy had taken stock of the situation. Didn't shealways? Okay. Still, it intrigued her, what the engineer wouldfind...
'Straight, Droover K?'
Kate pursed her lips. ‘Fine,’she said again.
'Okay...'
Fine, she repeated, a third time,to herself...really.
And to Sally, ‘Yeah,’dissolving sugar in coffee, ‘he does sort of grow on you.