15.
324-1073
Tsadzguez / Subsector B (Ksinanirz 1601) A754105-9 Lo Naval
The low number of starship services explained the eighty or so Vargr manning the laughable, A-rated Downport on Tsadzguez. There was no Startown. No bars to get drunk in. Just a single structure, a traffic Tower with some adjacent living quarters made up the Naval Base on the mainworld. Making port here meant self-service to the facilities if a ship wanted to be refueled. Everyone else was working on the current ship in the only drydock. Bring your own spare parts and replacement systems.
But we were paid by a contact of the botanist. Donrairr was on the tarmac, walking off this latest jump and in-system transit while I was left to unload the Freight cubes full of the agave plants. A transaction later and I was able to pay for the low-cost berthing on this frontier world. Some marketeer for Tsadzguez was smoking something illegal when they wrote the advertisements set to automatically transmit the system welcome signals alongside the navigation beacon guide-path.
Roull finished refueling the
Ninth Square just as I finished off-loading the cargo cubes. He addressed me with, “One of the techs at the yard says there is a restaurant on the edge of the lake we saw on final approach.”
I keyed my Comm to Donrairr two or more grav-ball fields away and said, “There’s a restaurant down by the lake. I’m buying. Want to come with us?”
I saw her shape in the rising heat waves off the cracked tarmac reach up and answer me, “Whatever.”
The Cr5000 we were paid supplied the ship, refueled it and put us in front of an all-you-can-eat buffet in a quiet, but sizeable restaurant. The waitress told me that once, many crews ate here as a stopover to points coreward. But no ships had come from coreward in the past year and change. I kept my explanation inside me and dished up a pair of megasalmon hoagie heavy on the spices and a few brand beers. Roull had a steak of some kind of lizard and drenched it with imported barbecue sauce that I sniffed once while he was getting his drinks. Granddam made hers better. Donrairr, who would not look in my general direction joined us with a platter of something called
sushi, uncooked meats and vegetables wrapped inside steamed rice inside a seaweed wrap. No comment. After the beers, I saw her looking at me once more. Maybe she had forgiven me. Maybe not.
There was no hotel, no motel, not even a campground on the field. The best I landed was a hammock on wheels that locked in place. I spent the night outside and under the summer stars with the light wind of a Thin atmosphere slept in my Combination-A mask. The devices aren’t that uncomfortable and soon it muffled my snoring under the port-aft wing of the Far Surveyor. The light breeze felt good and only a few calls of a flock of flyers woke me up at local midnight.
The yellow white dawnstar beamed me in the face as I lay in the hammock. Its low sunrise angle would not let up until a shadow of a Vargr shielded me from its morning glare. Sitting up with a mild, beer hangover, I rubbed my neck ridge mane until the crick in my vertebrae let go of my head. Backlit, I thought the Vargr was Donrairr or Roull until he spoke in Morning Person. I had been awake just a minute ago, I swear. I just wanted to sleep in though my body clock was arguing with me as was my need for a fresher.
“Excuse me,” began the Akumgeda with a voice that shoved needles into my ears and stabbed my brain. But one thing I got out of a hangover was telepathic silence. My head rang with hangover rather than tune into the Vargr before me. I rolled out of the hammock, stood up and cracked my head on the wing tip, hopped around in pain and squinting my eyes of tears. “The port board says you’re bound for Kiden next. Is that right?”
“Err, that’s right,” I grunted through the pain of a growing egg on my skull mixed with the mild hangover. I still was unable make out his details in silhouette with the stellar primary behind him. Shorter than me, he carried himself with lesser charisma but as a Vargr with an agenda.
To make matters worse, Donrairr Zuutig appeared at the steps just outside the opened airlock. Seeing us both and me without focus enough for Listening, she smiled at me a smirk of justification before addressing the newcomer.
“Good morning,” announced Donrairr with a voice she knew would irritate the hung over.
“Good morning, yes,” said the backlit Vargr male. “My name is Thezki. Thezki Nuaerrdo.”
I rubbed my head as Donrairr fielded Mr. Nuaerrdo. The Akumgeda Vargr was seeking to send some project machinery back to Kiden where he and his small business had rented the equipment. But with Kiden gone silent, he could not rent any further project assets until the equipment was returned and signed in, online if need be.
“...and my crew and I cannot take on another contract if we’ve still to return the gear,” explained Nuaerrdo.
“What if there’s nobody to take back this stuff?” I asked.
“Oh, that’s no problem. All that’s needed is to drop it off, scan their serial barcodes into the rental site and the owning company will process it. I – through you – will have done my part in returning the equipment. I can pay, even better than normal Freight rates if it’s a trouble for your ship.”
“We can haul up to six tons,” offered Donrairr for me. “Say, two-thousand per ton?” I did not know that Explorers could be hagglers. The ringing in my head was gone now and others’ thoughts were becoming sensible again.
