Freelance On The Galactic Tunnel Network by E. Foner (best beach reads of all time TXT) 📗

haven’t missed anything exciting,” Mario said. “They came for my ship less than twenty-four hours after the final deadline for my missed payment passed. I’d been trying to sell my goods for any cash I could get, but it turned out that a dozen or so traders beat me to the punch. By the time I laid out my blanket here, everybody within a light-year had enough canned fish to last them a lifetime.”

“What else did you bring?”

“Canned beans, Boston brown bread, canned vegetables—I mean, who ever heard of asteroid miners having too much canned food on hand? Nobody was willing to pay cash, and by that point, there was no sense bartering because the only way I could make the payment on time was through my mini-register.”

“You didn’t bring any prospecting supplies at all?”

“That’s what people kept asking me, but I checked Advantage before I came, and canned food took up the top ten slots on the hotlist. My previous stop was at Void station, so I had no trouble trading everything else I had left there to go all-in on cans. The ironic thing is that within a day of my ship being repossessed with all of my merchandise, I would have killed for a case of beef stew.”

“I hope you don’t mean that literally,” John said.

“No, but I had some hungry days.”

“And you said the repo team was nice about it?”

“Yeah, they were actually the same reps who helped me with the refi. They both felt terrible about having to take my ship, but that’s part of their job. The woman piloted the ship they came on and the guy followed her in my ship.”

“How did they get here so fast? It takes at least a day to travel to the habitat from the tunnel at top speed.”

“I asked them about that and they said they happened to be in the system already to meet with other clients. I guess when a mortgage goes delinquent, MORE assigns the repossession to the nearest team, and I just got unlucky. Sometimes I think my luck ran out back when the Sharf sold my mortgage, because I was doing okay before then. Not getting rich, but I made my payments and I wasn’t starving.”

“Traffic control has released navigation lockout,” the ship’s controller reported.

“Run a filter on the nearest part of the asteroid belt to check for debris from explosions,” John instructed. “Report when you find—”

“There are signs of recent explosions throughout the target volume of space.”

“Put the closest one on the main viewer. Recognize anything, Mario?”

“Yeah, that’s exactly what the miners were complaining about. That big asteroid that looks sort of like a dumbbell has a half-dozen claims staked on it, and I did some work for two of the prospectors there. It’s getting pelted with micro-debris right now, and I’ll bet the miners who set off the charge on that egg-shaped rock not far off never even transmitted a fire-in-the-hole warning.”

“I’m surprised the others don’t get together and run them off.”

“The way I heard it, SHARE sort of snuck up on everybody,” Mario said. “They sent some advance agents to quietly buy up claims, and then they brought in a transport with a couple thousand contract miners in one go. They’re bringing in new miners and supplies and taking out the ingots at least once a week.”

“But they don’t process the ore at the local habitat.”

“Nope. That’s one of the reasons I had such a hard time making ends meet—there’s not enough work left. SHARE brought in an old Frunge mining ship that handles crushing the ore and separating the metals, nobody knows if it’s leased or owned. And the guys running it just eject the waste back into the asteroid belt. It’s a complete mess.”

“Any idea where that ship is stationed?”

“They move it around, almost like they’re trying to spread rock dust over as much space as possible just to make life hard on the independents. I don’t know if your controller—”

“Frunge mining vessel Gzelda located,” the ship’s controller interrupted. “Shall I intercept?”

“Yes, and try to raise them on the comms,” John replied.

“Hey, that’s not a standard ship controller,” Mario said. “It sounds almost like AI.”

“In addition to the security add-on for the basic tunnel navigation controller licensed from the Stryx, I have expert system software for solo operations. It’s what people back on Earth would have called artificial intelligence before we found out that to everybody else in the galaxy, AI implies non-biological sentience.”

“Does it give you trading advice? I could have used something like that.”

“Gzelda responded to my hail with a warning to keep our distance or they won’t be responsible for our safety,” the controller announced.

“Tell them I’ve got gold extraction chemicals for—tell them it’s salvage I’m looking to unload for cash,” John interrupted himself. “And ask for a comm channel again. Promise I’ll make it worth their while.”

“Hey, boss,” Mario said. “I’m not one to call the kettle black, but when you say ‘salvage’, do you mean you’ve been dealing with the Free Republic?”

“No, I got the goods in barter from a Huktra, but I’ve found that crooked people are more likely to buy if they think that you’re one of them. Controller, divert more power to the dust shields. I don’t like the look of this space we’re getting into.”

“Already done,” the ship’s controller replied. “I have a positive response from Gzelda. Opening comms.”

A dour woman in her fifties whose face looked a bit puffy from too much time spent in Zero-G appeared on the main viewer. Her eyes flicked past Mario, dismissing him, and settled on John. “Make it quick,” she said.

“I’ve got a load of cyanide salts and hydrochloric acid and the habitat processor says they’ve got all they need,” John said. “I’m on my way to Rendezvous