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

Phil said. “And they all use two names, which pretty much tells you that they’re first-generation.”

“Do traders really elect council members based on pens and playing cards?” Georgia couldn’t help asking.

“We never took it that seriously because the council doesn’t have any power, other than managing Rendezvous. But the Conference of Sovereign Human Communities addressed the invitation to us, so all of a sudden, the council is a battleground.”

A young woman on a bicycle turned into the campsite and braked to a halt right next to the pair of couples. “Hi,” she said with a bright smile. “Do you have a minute to talk?”

“Maureen?” Larry asked, working his way back a few cards and then pulling one out and holding it up to compare the image with the original.

“That’s me,” Maureen said. “As you know, I’m running for the council, and I just wanted to introduce myself and ask for your vote.”

“Have you been a trader long?” Rachel inquired. “We come to Rendezvous every year, and I have a good memory for faces, but I don’t recall meeting you.”

“It’s my first Rendezvous, but I’ve had my ship for six years now. I never thought I’d be running for the council, but I became a trader for the independent lifestyle, and I’m totally against joining the royalty thing.”

“Conference of Sovereign Human Communities,” Georgia told her. “It’s an elective body that—”

“You know what I mean,” Maureen interrupted. “They claim to be sovereign, but most of their communities are on so-called open worlds that belong to alien empires. Sure, there are over thirty million humans here on Aarden, but the world is ruled by a Vergallian queen.” She lowered her voice and made a show of checking the surroundings before continuing. “I heard that the last council got paid to move Rendezvous here after the Stryx opened the tunnel.”

“Have a marker,” Phil said, handing one to the young woman. “I’m the father, by the way.”

“You’re running for the council?” Maureen asked Larry, her face flushing red. “Why didn’t you say so?”

“You were doing such a good job telling us the way it is that I didn’t want to interrupt,” Larry said. “Word of advice. If you want to be taken seriously, talk more about the trading you’ve done and leave the conspiracy theories to Earthers.”

Maureen stood on the pedals to get the bike moving, and Rachel made a rude gesture at her back. “Coming onto my campsite and insulting my husband. I should have slashed her tires.”

“She didn’t wait around long enough,” Georgia said. “Do you think that all of the candidates on the playing cards are out on bicycles doing the same thing?”

Phil frowned. “I don’t remember ever seeing election swag that promoted more than one person. Most years it’s a struggle just to get enough candidates to stand. Rachel?”

“It’s something new, all right, but we can worry about it after we eat,” she said, ushering the group in the direction of the fold-out picnic table. “Tell us what you think of the trading life, Georgia. Is the time you spent with my son your first experience in a small ship?”

“Yes, and other than the first bout of Zero-G sickness, I loved it. I even got to save the ship from a saboteur,” she added proudly.

“What happened?” Rachel demanded of her son. “You’re not the first candidate to have a problem.”

“Somebody slipped a chewer on the ship and it went after the secondary cooling hoses,” Larry said. “I didn’t want to pull up all the deck plates, and Georgia was able to work her way through and crush it. What do you mean we weren’t the first?”

“Kari’s ship was holed when she was approaching Aarden,” Phil told him grimly.

“Kari the gardener? The woman who’s sat on the council longer than anybody?”

“Hit by a steel ball bigger than the meteor protection field or the self-sealing hull could handle. Luckily, Kari was on her cargo deck when it happened, and she had the hatch closed because she’s religious about sealed compartments. Kari laughed it off as a trillion-to-one-shot bit of space junk, but it’s pretty obvious that somebody potted her with a rail gun. And Arlene said she would be here early to discuss strategy but she’s a day overdue.”

“Everybody likes Arlene,” Larry protested.

“Is she running for reelection to the council too?” Georgia asked.

“She planned to, but the deadline for registration is in two days, and candidates have to be here in person,” Phil said. “Rachel, you give the kids dinner. I’m going to round up the other council members who are here and see if we can work out exactly what is going on.”

Fourteen

“Thank you again for all of the help,” Ellen said to Marshall. “I wouldn’t have even known about this long-term lot for traders if you hadn’t told me. And the meeting facility was a life-saver when the representatives of all the different journalist groups from around the world flew in to finalize our syndication deal this morning. I was going to rent a meeting room at a hotel, but this was much nicer.”

“If you missed the plaque, the meeting hall was a gift from Drazen Foods,” Marshall told her. “It’s a tradition of theirs to build facilities for independent traders at the ground stations of space elevators on all of their own worlds. When they saw that Earth didn’t have one, they offered to take care of it.”

“The ironic thing is that I’m on an expense account for the first time in my life, yet I’m being more careful with my programmable cred than when I’m footing the bills myself.”

“If you come back to Earth frequently enough it’s worth paying for the annual parking pass. The break-even is around thirty days, and if you’re going to be returning here once a month to meet with