her by and went out the door.
Cool night air surrounded him. He stopped under the spreading branches of an unfamiliar, alien tree, and lifted his head to watch Syrinara’s blood-tinged moon for a moment or two.
It was very possible that he had just made a huge mistake. On the other hand, all he felt at the moment was an overwhelming sensation of relief. It would have been too easy to fall into the admiral’s trap. Already Rast was past the age when he should have married and begun his own family. Pressure had begun to increase on him from all sides — parents, sisters, brothers. With the admiral flinging an eligible female of good family at him, he might have succumbed…if it weren’t for Lira Jannholm.
Odd, though, that only a few weeks ago sen Trannick had been so eager for Rast to bed Captain Jannholm, and now seemed equally eager to make sure the two were kept as far apart as possible.
Or perhaps not so odd at all…
----
The base on Ganymede was too regulated, too clean and proper to have the equivalent of the spaceport dive bar Lira had seen on tens of other worlds, but the Big Dipper would have to do. Located in Dome 2, next to the shuttle pad that ferried people back and forth from the mining outposts on Io and Europa, it had its share of what Marta Jannholm referred to as “colorful characters” — meaning they made their living by getting their hands dirty. In a figurative sense, of course, as out-system miners used automated equipment to do most of their work. And even if they did use their hands from time to time, those hands would of course be protected by the gloves of an EVA suit.
The miners often traveled from world to world, following the next big strike. In that way, they weren’t much different from the prospectors of old, although the equipment modern-day miners used would have probably made the “forty-niners” Lira had read about in her history texts fall over in their well-worn shoes.
Anyway, since she had to find something to do with herself, and since the legitimate avenues seemed to be closed — a few carefully worded messages to former classmates at the academy had been enough to convince her of that — she decided her next course of action would have to be pursuing some less-than-legitimate avenues. And that meant hanging out at the Big Dipper and looking studiously at loose ends.
It didn’t take too long. After five minutes or so of nursing a reduced-alcohol ale while seated at the end of the bar, she saw a burly character with a week’s worth of stubble on his jaw rise from his own table and amble toward her. He nodded at the barkeep, then remarked, as if to the air in general, “I hear there’s a transport in need of a pilot.”
“That so,” she responded, staring down into the wan suds at the edges of her cup as if they were the most important thing in the world.
“Yeah.”
The stranger was silent as the bartender handed over another pint and then wandered off to the other end of the bar, where a hard-faced man sat a little too close to a pretty redhead who had to be at least two standard decades his junior. They were both drinking watered-down white wine and not looking very happy about it.
“Last pilot got his arm broke in a fight the other night. Owners want that transport gone ASAP. You interested?”
Of course she was, but Lira knew better than to display too much interest. “What’s the cargo?”
The stranger let out a rusty chuckle. “Do you care?”
“I care if it’s going to land me in the MaxSec on Titan.”
“No worries. Spare drive parts, farm equipment. Harmless.”
On the surface, sure. She guessed that “harmless” cargo was hiding some contraband the owner had bribed the proper authorities to make sure was never discovered, but that was just the way these people did business. Once upon a time, she might have cared. Now, all she cared about was getting off Ganymede, away from the no-longer-family that had given her very little refuge
Cool night air surrounded him. He stopped under the spreading branches of an unfamiliar, alien tree, and lifted his head to watch Syrinara’s blood-tinged moon for a moment or two.
It was very possible that he had just made a huge mistake. On the other hand, all he felt at the moment was an overwhelming sensation of relief. It would have been too easy to fall into the admiral’s trap. Already Rast was past the age when he should have married and begun his own family. Pressure had begun to increase on him from all sides — parents, sisters, brothers. With the admiral flinging an eligible female of good family at him, he might have succumbed…if it weren’t for Lira Jannholm.
Odd, though, that only a few weeks ago sen Trannick had been so eager for Rast to bed Captain Jannholm, and now seemed equally eager to make sure the two were kept as far apart as possible.
Or perhaps not so odd at all…
----
The base on Ganymede was too regulated, too clean and proper to have the equivalent of the spaceport dive bar Lira had seen on tens of other worlds, but the Big Dipper would have to do. Located in Dome 2, next to the shuttle pad that ferried people back and forth from the mining outposts on Io and Europa, it had its share of what Marta Jannholm referred to as “colorful characters” — meaning they made their living by getting their hands dirty. In a figurative sense, of course, as out-system miners used automated equipment to do most of their work. And even if they did use their hands from time to time, those hands would of course be protected by the gloves of an EVA suit.
The miners often traveled from world to world, following the next big strike. In that way, they weren’t much different from the prospectors of old, although the equipment modern-day miners used would have probably made the “forty-niners” Lira had read about in her history texts fall over in their well-worn shoes.
Anyway, since she had to find something to do with herself, and since the legitimate avenues seemed to be closed — a few carefully worded messages to former classmates at the academy had been enough to convince her of that — she decided her next course of action would have to be pursuing some less-than-legitimate avenues. And that meant hanging out at the Big Dipper and looking studiously at loose ends.
It didn’t take too long. After five minutes or so of nursing a reduced-alcohol ale while seated at the end of the bar, she saw a burly character with a week’s worth of stubble on his jaw rise from his own table and amble toward her. He nodded at the barkeep, then remarked, as if to the air in general, “I hear there’s a transport in need of a pilot.”
“That so,” she responded, staring down into the wan suds at the edges of her cup as if they were the most important thing in the world.
“Yeah.”
The stranger was silent as the bartender handed over another pint and then wandered off to the other end of the bar, where a hard-faced man sat a little too close to a pretty redhead who had to be at least two standard decades his junior. They were both drinking watered-down white wine and not looking very happy about it.
“Last pilot got his arm broke in a fight the other night. Owners want that transport gone ASAP. You interested?”
Of course she was, but Lira knew better than to display too much interest. “What’s the cargo?”
The stranger let out a rusty chuckle. “Do you care?”
“I care if it’s going to land me in the MaxSec on Titan.”
“No worries. Spare drive parts, farm equipment. Harmless.”
On the surface, sure. She guessed that “harmless” cargo was hiding some contraband the owner had bribed the proper authorities to make sure was never discovered, but that was just the way these people did business. Once upon a time, she might have cared. Now, all she cared about was getting off Ganymede, away from the no-longer-family that had given her very little refuge
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