It took more than two hours to load Captain Sorenson's unconscious form aboard the robo-porter, cover it with a blanket, and make their way up to the moon's surface.
Lando had expected a certain amount of attention. After all, the combination of a man, a little girl, and what appeared to be a dead body should turn a few heads, and would have anywhere else.
But most of those who lived in the moon station saw stranger sights every day, and besides, they had other things to worry about. Like making enough credits to go somewhere else.
The robo-porter was little more than a beat-up metal platform with a drive mechanism and a low order processor. Having accepted a load, the robo-porter would electronically imprint on its customer, and follow until released.
Nice in theory, but their particular machine had some sort of processing dysfunction, and followed anyone of Lando's approximate size and shape. As a result it had a tiresome tendency to carry its unconscious passenger off in unpredictable directions.
Each time they chased the robo-porter down Lando was forced to stand in front of the machine, recycle its imprint function, and start all over. That, plus a screeching drive wheel, was just about to drive Lando crazy when Melissa found a solution.
The robo-porter had just followed a tall willowy naval lieutenant down a side corridor, when Melissa called, "Hey, Pik! Wait a minute! I think I've got the answer."
Taking Lando's place in front of the robo-porter's eye, Melissa recycled the imprint function, and led the device away. Ten minutes and a whole series of twists and turns later, the machine was still with them.
"It's 'cause I'm smaller," Melissa explained cheerfully. "There aren't very many kids around here, so there's less chance of a screwup."
About fifteen minutes later they left a lift tube and entered a large open space. A transparent dome curved up and over their heads. The planet Snowball hung suspended above them. It seemed ready to fall at any moment.
Lando assured himself that it wouldn't happen. And given the laws of physics, the moon wouldn't fall on Snowball either.
The planet had a slightly pink albedo and a surface temperature of -290 degrees F.
The atmosphere was too thick to see through, but Lando knew most of the planet's surface was covered with oceans of ethane, ebbing and flowing around occasional islands of ice.
Just great for the robotic gas scoops that cruised the planet's surface but not very good for people. They stayed on the moon.
The dome's floor was part passenger terminal and part warehouse. All sorts of sentients came and went. Lando saw humans, Finthians, Zords, Lakorians, and a few aliens he couldn't name, all going about their various chores.
Meanwhile hundreds of machines rolled, whirred, hissed, rumbled, and creaked their way through the crowd.
There were lowboys stacked high with cargo modules, tall mincing auto loaders stepping over and around sentients and machines alike, and short multi-armed maintenance bots that dashed every which way in a valiant attempt to keep things running.
Working together the sentients and their machine helpers were trying to load, unload, and service the circle of ships that surrounded the dome.
There were freighters, couriers, scouts, tankers, and a dozen more. Appearance depended on function, racial preference, and a whole host of other factors. In fact, the only thing the ships had in common was their size. All of them were small. Due to the moon's gravity, and the relatively small dome, larger ships were forced to remain in orbit.
"Our tender's over there," Melissa said eagerly as she pointed across the dome. "Lock 78."
Now that negotiations were over Lando noticed that Melissa had undergone a change. The mostly serious business manager had disappeared. In her place was a naturally gregarious little girl. Of the two Lando preferred the second.
"It's a good thing you're here," Melissa said seriously, "Daddy gets mad when I fly the tender. He says I'm too young. Still, what am I supposed to do when he's sick?
"Mom flew the tender when she was alive, she could do anything, but that was a long time ago. She died trying to salvage a wreck. Daddy said it would have been a big score, big enough to retire on, but the wreck's drives went critical and blew up. I miss Mommy . . . but Daddy and I do okay. Do you have any children?"
An alcoholic father, a dead mother, Melissa's nine or ten years had been far from pleasant. Lando felt a tightness in his throat. "No, Melissa. I don't have any children. But if I did, I'd want a little girl just like you."
Melissa's eyes shone as she looked up into his face. "Really? You're probably just saying that to be nice, but I like it anyway. We're almost there."
The robo-porter picked that particular moment to follow a short, stumpy Lakorian toward a distant ship, but was quickly retrieved and guided to Lock 78.
Melissa touched the red indicator light located next to the lock and was rewarded with a synthesized voice. It said, "Manual override engaged. Please call for attendant."
Melissa said something ungirlish under her breath and hit the attendant call button.
It took a while, but eventually a Zord rolled up, stepped off his motorized platform, and examined them with a baleful eye. Like all of his race the Zord was vaguely humanoid. But while the alien had two legs, four armlike tentacles, and a skinny torso, any resemblance to a human ended there. Folds of brown leathery skin hung all over his face, and a writhing mass of tentacles surrounded his oral cavity.
Because Zords have no vocal apparatus they use the tentacles that surround their oral cavities to communicate via high-speed sign language.
While Lando knew enough sign language to get by, Melissa was a good deal more proficient, and took charge of the situation. Melissa's fingers were a blur of motion as she stated her case.
The tentacles around the Zord's mouth writhed in response, and although most of the interchange was too fast for Lando to follow, it was soon apparent that some sort of dispute was in progress.
It seemed that Melissa wanted to charge the docking fee to her father's account, and that was fine with the Zord so long as she paid the existing balance first.
Melissa replied that she'd be happy to pay the existing balance, if and when the station paid the damages owed her father from their last visit. She claimed that a deranged maintenance bot had entered the ship, dismantled part of the control system, and left.
At this point the Zord consulted his portacomp, found no records pertaining to a deranged maintenance bot, and noticed that an incoming shuttle was queued up for Melissa's slot.
On the universal theory that time is money, the Zord decided to let the matter of the unpaid balance go for the moment, and settled for a two-day docking fee cash-on-the-portacomp.
Melissa agreed, and as she produced exact change from a carefully zipped pocket, Lando got the feeling that things had gone her way. The smug little smile that she wore as the lock hissed open seemed to confirm it.
It took a while to maneuver the robo-porter through the tender's lock, down a short corridor, and into a tiny cabin.
After that they rolled Captain Sorenson into a bunk, strapped him in, and guided the robot out through the lock.
As the lock cycled closed Lando headed for the ship's control room. The tender was larger than Lando had expected, and a good deal newer, although he didn't see a scrap of luxury in her boxy hull. She looked like what she was, a good honest work boat, sturdy and plain.
Lando noticed that the ship was clean and well maintained. Good. At least Sorenson did something right.
The control room was small, but not especially cramped. As Lando dropped into the pilot's seat the tender's navigational computer sensed his presence and activated the ship's control panel.
"Welcome," a voice said. "Please provide appropriate identification."
Lando looked at Melissa. She smiled. "This is Melissa. Confirm."
A moment passed while the computer recorded her voice, analyzed it, and confirmed her identity. "Identity confirmed," the voice said. "Instructions?"
"Meet Pik Lando," Melissa replied. "He'll have level one access to this ship. Confirm."
"Level one access confirmed," the computer replied. "Recording."
"Say something," Melissa instructed, "so the NAVCOMP has a sample of your voice."
Lando thought for a moment and said:
"Cannon to right of them, Cannon to left of them, Cannon in front of them Volley'd and thunder'd Storm'd at with shot and shell, Boldly they rode and well, Into the jaws of death, Into the mouth of hell."
"Identity recorded," the computer said. "Thank you."
There was curiosity in Melissa's eyes. "What was that?"
"One of my father's favorite poems," Lando replied. "He was a soldier in his younger days and had a taste for blood and thunder poetry."
"Where's your father now?" Melissa asked, completely oblivious to the pain in Lando's eyes.
"He's dead," Lando replied gruffly, and for a moment he remembered the ambush, the hell of blaster fire, his father's charred body.
Well, the bastards had paid for their treachery, and paid in blood. For as his father fell, Lando had turned three men and the sand they stood on into black glass. He'd been on the run ever since.
Lando pushed the thoughts away and turned his attention to the tender's control panel. As his fingers danced across the buttons, Lando missed Melissa's hurt look and the slight tremble in her lower lip.
Screens came to life, indicator lights shifted from amber to green, and a faint whine sounded inside the cabin. The tender was ready to lift.
Lando double-checked his indicator lights, got a clearance from moon station traffic control, and fired both drives. The ship lifted up and away.
"Lots of power," Lando commented, glancing in Melissa's direction.
The little girl had strapped herself into the co-pilot's position. Something about the way Melissa sat there told Lando that she really could fly the tender if she had to. It was clear she didn't want to though, and Melissa looked relieved as the tender moved up and away, a dot against Snowball's vast presence.
"Yup," Melissa said, patting the tender's control panel, "Daddy says she has strong legs. And hyperdrive too. Daddy says we're lucky to have her. Even though she isn't big enough for a serious tow, we can use her beams to move things around, and that helps a lot. We got her from a tramp freighter. They couldn't pay their bill, so Daddy took the tender in trade."
"He got a good deal," Lando said matter-of-factly. "Where's your ship?"
Melissa punched some instructions into the ship's computer and nodded her satisfaction when a three-dimensional representation of Snowball appeared on Lando's main control screen.
Because the tender was moving in the opposite direction, the moon was now in the process of disappearing behind Snowball's considerable bulk. A complex tracery of parking orbits had also appeared, each representing a ship, and each bearing an alphanumeric code.
"That's us," Melissa said, pointing to a red delta, with the code "J-14" flashing on and off next to it. The "J" stood for the first letter of the ship's name, and the "14" for the orbit to which that particular vessel was assigned.
"What's the 'J' stand for?" Lando asked as he put the tender into a long gentle curve. "Jasmine? Jennifer? Justine?"
"Of course not," Melissa said stoutly. "Those are silly names. 'J' stands for 'Junk.'"
"Junk?" Lando asked disbelievingly. "You have a tug named Junk?"
"Yes," Melissa said defensively. "And what's wrong with that? It's a joke. Mother was an engineer and a darned good one. Right after she married Daddy she designed Junk and put her together. Look! There she is!"
Melissa pointed toward a point of reflected light in the middle of the forward view screen. The point of light quickly resolved into a dark silhouette against the pink marbling of Snowball's surface.
Lando dumped power and fired the tender's retros. He gave the controls a gentle nudge and they slid along the tug's starboard side. Lando wanted a look at his new home.
In a few seconds Lando saw why Melissa's mother had christened the tug Junk. She was far from pretty. Larger spaceships rarely have the streamlined grace of smaller craft designed for atmospheric use, but they often have a symmetry that's pleasing to the eye, and a sense of majesty. Not this one. Junk was just plain ugly.
Most of her hull was cylindrical, a common enough shape, but that's where any similarity to other ships ended. For one thing the ship had two enormous drives fitted to her stern, understandable on a tug, but ugly as hell.
And adding insult to injury, Junk was equipped with heavy-duty lateral thrusters mounted bow and stern. Again, given the fact that tugs are often required to move heavy objects port and starboard, the thrusters made a lot of sense. Unfortunately however they looked like large black warts.
Then there was the bridge. On most ships it was nothing more than a control room tucked safely inside the vessel's hull. But Junk's bridge looked a lot like its maritime forerunners. It was a long rectangular box mounted at right angles to the hull and perched atop two large pylons.
Lando guessed that the pylons were hollow and provided access to the rest of the ship. The purpose of the whole affair was clear, to provide good 360-degree visibility during close maneuvers, but like the rest of the ship's fittings the bridge helped give the ship a raw ungainly appearance.
And then there was the maze of weapons blisters, launch tubes, cooling towers, com masts, solar panels, beam projectors, and God knows what else that covered the ship's hull like an exotic skin disease.
"Beautiful, isn't she?" Melissa asked, her face beaming as she watched the tug slide by.
"Just gorgeous," Lando agreed dryly, pulling up and firing retros to match speed with the tug. "Where's the launching bay?"
"Underneath the hull," Melissa replied, and pointed toward the deck.
Lando nodded and performed a full roll to the left. When the tender came out of the roll she was right under a rectangle of bright light and moving forward at the same speed as the larger ship.
"That was neat!" Melissa said enthusiastically. "Will you teach me to do that?"
"Sure, if it's okay with your father," Lando replied, watching the screens to make sure the tender was centered in the larger vessel's hatch. Once it was properly positioned Lando used the vessel's repulsors to move up and inside Junk's sizable bay.
It was well lit and large enough to haul some freight. One end was full of neatly stacked equipment, porta thrusters, auxiliary beam generators, and other tools of the towing trade. None showed any tendency to drift away, which confirmed an artificial gravity unit somewhere on board. Junk wasn't pretty but she was well equipped.
Moving to the right Lando dropped the tender with a gentle thump.
A few minutes later air had been pumped in to replace vacuum and they were free to leave the tender. Melissa scurried toward the lock. "Whoa," Lando said gently. "If you want to be a pilot someday you've got some work to do."
Melissa looked confused and then her face cleared with sudden understanding. "Ooops! Sorry. 'The pilot is responsible for securing the ship's main power systems. These systems are automatic but shutdown should be verified.'" The words had a formal quality as if memorized from a manual.
Lando nodded. The next few minutes were spent powering down, running through a series of routine diagnostic programs, and making the ship secure.
When they were done Melissa looked at Lando questioningly, he nodded, and she rushed toward the lock. "Come on, Pik! I'll show you the ship!"
"What about your father?" Lando asked as he released his harness. "Shouldn't we move him out of the tender?"
"What for?" Melissa said pragmatically. "He's used to waking up in the tender."
"Terrific," Lando mumbled to himself as he made his way to the tender's lock, "the slob is used to waking up in the tender."
But Melissa didn't hear him because she was already outside the tender and skipping across the deck. As Lando stepped out of the lock and made his way down a short ladder he saw that someone had used some white hull paint to lay out a hopscotch diagram.
Though marred by a few repulsor burns the diagram was otherwise quite serviceable. Melissa was busy hopping and jumping her way through it.
Beyond her a tidy little speedster sat on shiny struts looking far too racy for Junk's utilitarian launch bay. It reminded Lando of his own speedster, a Nister Needle, little more than a drive unit with a cockpit strapped on top. The perfect ship for a smuggler. Small, fast, and hard to detect. The speedster, like the ship that carried it, had been left behind on Ithro.
"What's the deal on the speedster?" Lando asked, nodding toward the little ship.
Melissa shrugged and stooped to pick up the burned-out memory chip she used as a marker. "About a year ago we found a wrecked yacht and took her in tow. There was no one on board so she was ours fair and square. We sold the hull but kept some of the stuff on board including the speedster. I think we should sell it and use the money to overhaul the hydroponics tank."
Melissa looked up and smiled. "Daddy says I'm right, but he likes to ride in the speedster every once in a while, so nothing seems to happen."
Lando nodded. It fit the pattern. Captain Sorenson seemed to have a hard time seeing very far beyond his own needs.
"Come on!" Melissa said, taking Lando by the arm and pulling him along. "Let's find Cy. He'll want to meet you."
"Cy?" Lando inquired, allowing himself to be towed through a lock and into the ship's interior. "Who's he?"
"Our engineer," Melissa replied happily. "And a good one too! Daddy says we're lucky to have him. Cy keeps everything up and running."
That's when a silvery ball appeared at the far end of the corridor and zoomed toward them. Lando threw himself against the wall and reached for his slug thrower. It was halfway out of its holster when Melissa grabbed his wrist. "Don't shoot! That's Cy!"
And just as Melissa spoke the silver ball came to a stop, hovered in front of them, and extruded a second vid pickup. Lando didn't know for sure but assumed the globe was equipped with some sort of fancy antigrav unit. "Hi, Mel. Who's this?"
"Our new pilot," Melissa answered seriously. "His name is Pik Lando. Pik, this is Cy Borg, our chief engineer."
"Their only engineer," Cy replied cheerfully, "but what the heck, with me around one is enough." There was a soft whirring noise and an articulated arm appeared.
Much to his amazement Lando found himself reaching out to shake with a three-fingered metal hand. It was cold and very strong.
"It's a pleasure, Cy. I hope you'll forgive my reaction. I had a run-in with an airborne robo-laser not long ago. It tried to slice, dice, and cook me for dinner."
"Perfectly understandable," the silver globe said reassuringly. "Happens all the time. I'm used to it."
"Cy had a body once," Melissa said soberly, "but he gambled it away."
The metal sphere bobbed up and down in apparent agreement. "That's right . . . and the moral is?"
"Don't gamble," Melissa replied automatically, "no matter what anyone says."
"That's right," Cy said approvingly. "Being a brain in a box has some advantages . . . but not many." The cyborg spun toward Lando. "I sometimes wonder who's got the rest of me . . . and how they're doing."
It was meant as a joke but Lando didn't laugh. Like most smugglers he'd spent a good deal of time in sleazy dives, rim-world saloons, and smoke-filled gambling dens. In some of them you could lose all your money, sell an arm or a leg, and keep on going. There was a good market for bio parts, and while most settled for one or two replaceable organs, some went all the way.
Those who did ended up as brains floating in a bath of nutrient liquid. For such as those there was little choice, a life of total isolation within themselves, or continued existence as a cyborg. Most became cyborgs.
Cyborgs came in all sorts of shapes and sizes, their forms frequently following function, and such was apparently the case with Cy. Though why he'd chosen to call himself Cy Borg, Lando couldn't imagine. Whatever the reason it didn't seem polite to ask.
"So how long have you been with the ship, Cy?" Lando inquired. "I notice that she's in pretty good shape for a . . ." he almost said, "pile of junk," but looked at Melissa and thought better of it. "For a tug," Lando finished lamely.
If Cy noticed, there was no sign of it in his cheerful response. "Well, thanks, Pik. I do my best. I guess I've been with Cap and Mel for a couple years now, ever since I ran into a little trouble on Joyo's Roid. She's a good ship, and now that we've got a pilot, I'll feel a whole lot better."
The cyborg turned in Melissa's direction. "Where's your father? Sick again?"
Melissa nodded. "You know how it is, Cy, I tried to stop him but he wouldn't listen."
"That's okay," the metal sphere replied. "It's not your fault, Mel. You hear me? It's not your fault."
"Sure, I hear you," Melissa replied easily. "It's not my fault. Hey, you wanta race me to the end of the corridor?"
"Not right now, honey," Cy replied. "I've gotta repair the number four pressor housing before we break orbit. You know how your father is when he wakes up. 'All hands man your stations!' and that sort of stuff."
Cy's vid pickup turned toward Lando. "Nice meeting you, Pik, welcome aboard, and let me know if there's anything I can do to help." And with that the cyborg used a jet of compressed air to squirt himself down the corridor.
"Wanta race?" Melissa inquired, and took off toward the opposite end of the corridor without waiting for Lando's response.
The smuggler followed along behind, marveling at her youthtul exuberance, and wondering what he'd gotten himselr into. First a ten-year-old business agent, then an alcoholic captain, and now a bodiless chief engineer. What next?
That's when the whoop of the ship's collision alarm sent Lando racing for the bridge.