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

“You’re only half right,” John said. “I’m with EarthCent Intelligence. We work closely with the Drazens and ISPOA but I’m here on our own operation.”

“What’s ISPOA?”

“The Inter Species Police Operations Agency. Why do you think the Frunge would be closing in? Is this ship stolen?”

“The Gzelda? If she’s stolen then there’s a scrapyard owner somewhere wondering what happened to one of his piles of junk. No, I heard that SHARE is planning to expand to Break Rock, and the habitat there is still owned by the Frunge, even though everything is leased to humans. Something tells me that my former employers won’t be as tolerant as the Drazens when it comes to an operation like SHARE depreciating their assets.”

John hesitated, and then pulled an odd-looking ring off his finger. “Okay, here’s what I can do. The only way I can shield you if ISPOA gets involved is if you’re working for us. That’s a Drazen poison detection ring, standard issue for our field agents, so if you get caught up in a sweep, it should convince the Frunge to check your story with us. Your name goes on the rolls as an undercover source, and any EarthCent cultural attaché will be able to vouch for you. Good enough?”

Liz pushed the data chip towards John and he sent the ring back the same way. The two objects passed each other in flat Zero-G trajectories and were caught by their respective targets. “Deal,” the woman said.

They both headed back to the hatch and pulled themselves down the ladder to the cargo deck. The swap was already wrapping up, so the musclemen must have been good for something after all. Mario called to John from the area where the chemicals had been stacked. “You better have a look at this, Captain.”

John shuffled over on his magnetic cleats, bracing himself to see metal eaten away by a hydrochloric acid leak. His temporary guest was pointing at a large container that the EarthCent Intelligence agent didn’t recognize.

“Are they dumping their trash on us or something?”

“No,” Mario said. “It was behind the drums and containers you just traded for ingots. The thing is,” the young man hesitated, “I think I heard something moving inside. The container has holes in it.”

“Controller, close the main hatch,” John ordered, suddenly feeling very tired. “Mario, you better go up on the bridge and lock yourself in, just in case.”

“I’m not afraid of a couple of space rats.”

“If it is what I think it is, it eats space rats for snacks.”

“There’s something taped to the side,” Mario offered helpfully. “Maybe a packing slip?”

John shuffled forward, hoping against hope that his intuition had failed him, and pulled the folded note off the container. The hand-printed scrawl read:

John,

I hope you don’t mind babysitting Semmi for a few weeks. She’ll probably sleep through most of it since I’ve had her up for months. I’ll catch up to you at Rendezvous and make it worth your while.

Myort

Thirteen

“Have you been to Aarden before?” Georgia asked Larry. Her fingers dug into the armrests of the co-pilot’s chair as the two-man trader barreled through the atmosphere, its direct energy conversion shield shedding excess heat as electrical discharges. “It will be weird for me walking on a real planet after living on Union Station for three years.”

“It’s my first time here,” Larry replied, his eyes on the main viewscreen as the ship broke through a concentration of thunder clouds, adding its own lightning to the show. “The Stryx opened the tunnel just recently. Didn’t you say you worked on the All Species Cookbook?”

“Tasting recipes, but what does that have to do with it?”

“You know that Aarden is a Fleet Vergallian world and they never signed the tunnel network treaty.  There’s a rumor that the real reason the Stryx agreed to connect the planet has to do with some multi-party negotiation in which the Imperial Vergallians agreed to stop trying to undermine EarthCent. Supposedly the cookbook was at the center of the deal.”

“Oh, that. The word in the newsroom was that there were a bunch of secret treaties involved, and unfortunately, the aliens are better at keeping their mouths shut than we are. Besides, I thought that the sovereign human community on Aarden was one of the biggest, and they were enough to meet the requirement for a tunnel exit without the Vergallians.”

“Close to thirty million of us at last count,” Larry confirmed. “There are a couple of Dollnick open worlds with more humans than Aarden, and maybe the Drazens and the Frunge each have a planet that comes close, but it is a lot of people to be living on an alien world without being there as contract workers. Like I said, the cookbook thing was just a rumor I heard.”

“Are you sure I’ll have time to take the elevator up to orbit and find transportation to Flower before the Colony One ship arrives?”

“Easily. You’ll be able to spend a full day on the ground helping me prepare for the election before you have to leave, but I thought you were giving up on that story.”

“I hope to at least get an article about Flower’s open house out of it. The Colony One people said they’ve arranged tours for whoever shows up, and I also have a friend on board. Dianne used to cover the entertainment scene on Union Station for the Galactic Free Press and she helped me get started on restaurant reviews.”

“Touchdown in sixty seconds,” the ship’s controller announced. “Deceleration at two G’s.”

The pair saved their breath as their weight increased to double of what it would have been on Earth, and one minute later the Sharf trade ship set down on its shock-absorbing landing gear with barely a bump. The image on the main viewscreen was replaced with a silver-haired woman whose face