Redline the Stars

4

Dane glanced at his timer. What was keeping the woman in there anyway? His own initial interview had taken only the few seconds necessary to process his ID. . .

He glared at the door, angry with her and with himself because he recognized that his present ill will stemmed from his own uncertainty.

Damn, he thought. He knew as well as the next that mixed crews were supposedly better on every count, but th6 Queen had managed just fine with only men since he had joined her company, and he was not anxious to see anything intrude that might cause trouble now. They faced enough of that from the outside without introducing it into their own company.

It was no question of Rael Cofort's probable skill or lack of it that was bothering him. Certainly, it was not her gender. There had been an abnormally low percentage of women in his class at the Pool, but they had still comprised more than a third of the total. To a one, they had proven equal to the work and had pulled their part both individually and in the group projects assigned to them.

He sighed to himself. The newcomer's capabilities hardly interested him at the moment. He was simply afraid of what she might do. He liked the SoJar Queen the way she was. He was settled, comfortable, and he did not relish the thought of any changes this potentially disruptive recruit might bring about.

Recruit! Cofort had not even been invited to join the crew. She had bludgeoned her way in with that blasted charter.

Memory rose to Thorson's mind, and his irritation ebbed. He had not been with the Queen so long that he could not remember his fears and feelings during his own first days aboard. This woman might be older and fully accredited in her specialty, but he did not believe she would be entirely immune to at least some of the same emotions that had made his initiation such a misery for him. He would be a proper bastard if he added to her trials with a show of causeless hostility.

No, he told himself decisively, in all fairness and all humanity she would have to be given her chance, maybe several of them, but let her prove a source of trouble, let her even begin to try to destroy what they had here . . .

The panel slid open, and Rael Cofort stepped into the corridor. She gave him a quick smile. "All set," she told him. "I'm now an official—"

A shriek as loud and teeth-jarring as a civilian attack alert silenced her. Even out here they could hear Jellico slamming the bottom of the cage, setting it bouncing violently, but for once this usually sovereign remedy had no effect. The siren wail continued undiminished.

Thorson winced. "I wonder how much of that the old man can take. Or Queex, for that matter. It's a wonder that jostling doesn't scramble his brains."

The woman laughed. "Hardly! He loves it."

"He'd have to be even odder than he looks to enjoy taking a beating."

She looked at him strangely. "You haven't read up on hoobats?"

"I'm afraid not. I've been too busy studying the finer points of cargo management," he responded, manfully keeping out of his voice the defensive note threatening to sharpen it. Alt used to make him feel like this, sometimes still did, with his superior air. He wondered if that was a characteristic of all extraordinarily fine-looking people who were also uncommonly intelligent. "You have, I suppose?"

His companion failed to notice his discomfort. "Mara's description intrigued me, so I did a little research. They're rather fascinating little things. I can well understand why the Captain would want to adopt one, given his interest in X-Tee wildlife."

"That's more than the rest of us can say," he remarked, his curiosity aroused almost despite himself. "How about sharing your findings?"

She laughed. "Sure thing. — Hoobats come from Tabor and are quite rare even there, filling a very specific niche. They live only in certain canyons that are little less than wind tunnels and spend their entire lives clinging to stone projections or ledges or to wildly swaying branches, waiting for something falling within the appropriate size range to come within striking or luring distance. They don't have to eat often, and they hunt, of course, the way Queex did when he rounded up those poisonous pests for you.

"The young are nurtured in free-hanging nests depending on slender branches to safeguard them from predators.

Both parents feed them during their short period of dependency, but otherwise, hoobats are completely solitary creatures. That's why Queex can exist happily in isolation from his kind the way he does. As for the jarring, that's actually soothing, a flashback to his old life and to his time in the nest. In fact, a hoobat appears to require a certain amount

of sharp movement to remain healthy."

Dane grinned. The image of Captain Jellico tenderly rocking an overage hoobat infant to rest was one worth cherishing in the heart if not to be openly shared—at least not in the skipper's hearing.

"You didn't really believe he'd consciously abuse an animal or keep one in intolerable conditions, did you?"

"No," he replied seriously after a brief pause, "I guess I didn't, or I wouldn't if I'd thought about it. I have read some of Jellico's papers, and all of them show too much liking and respect for his subjects to allow any mistreating of them."

The man glanced at his timer. "Let's have a quick run- through of the Queen and drop off your gear. We'll soon have to be strapping down."

"Good idea." She hefted her kit bag, which she had eased to the floor while they had been talking.

Thorson eyed it sourly. It was the standard size and obviously of manageable weight but was easily three times as full as his had been when he had boarded the Solar Queen.

Reason quelled his resentment. What else could he have expected? Rael Cofort was not some raw recruit out of Training Pool. She was a veteran of the starlanes who had literally been born in Trade and had hitherto lived and worked under conditions of considerable prosperity. She should have accumulated a few possessions. He, on the other hand, with no kin to back him, had come to his post with only his bare issue gear and the pathetically few extras he had been able to buy for himself to augment that.

The Cargo-apprentice first led the way through the bridge area and pointed out the personal cabins of those working there. Then they descended the core ladder to the next deck, which housed the engine and drive controls, where Johan Stotz commanded and lived with his staff.

The public cabins in which the hands and any passengers gathered during off-duty time were located below that. Here was the mess and galley, Frank Mura's chief domain, plus the small crew's cabin with its media readers and other equipment designed to help dispel the boredom of interstellar travel.

Farther down, close to the holds that, with the fuel coils and drive tubes, comprised the greatest part of the Solar Queen's interior, were the Cargo-Master's and Thorson's own cabins plus those of Frank Mura and Doctor Tau and the two minute chambers kept for passengers, one of which would be assigned to Cofort for the duration of her service aboard the Queen. The final cabin there was, of course, the combination sanunit/fresher that was a mandatory part of every deck containing permanent sleeping quarters.

The newcomer briefly surveyed the cabin to which her guide showed her, then dropped her pack on the foot of the bunk. The room was small even by spacer standards since it had never been intended to serve anyone as a permanent home, but it was adequate. The bunk at least was full size, and there were sufficient lockers for both clothing and bulkier belongings. A large metal panel could be unfastened and swung down and outward from the wall to provide a desk or workspace with the bunk taking the place of a chair. The lighting, she saw, was well placed and more than bright enough for reading or close work.

She did not linger to unpack but quickly went outside again to follow Thorson down to the final deck that they would be visiting. There would be no time to see much more, and she doubted that she would be invited to examine the holds for a while, although they were unsealed, empty for the most part save for a small store of trade goods. A Free Trader was usually cautious about whom he let into that treasury of his business, the storehouse of the magic he hoped to wield among the denizens of the planets he visited.

The level to which they now came was the most interesting of all to Cofort. Here was the sick bay, Doctor Tau's surgery and laboratory, and the hydro, the large chamber housing the plants that replenished a starship's oxygen, scrubbed the waste products of respiration from the continuously recirculated air, and supplied as a by-product fruits and vegetables to vary the otherwise monotonous diet of concentrates that was the nearly perpetual lot of space hounds who ranged the vast reaches between the stars.

The portal giving entrance to it was partly transparent, and they paused for a moment to admire the lush greenery within.

"So much!" she exclaimed. "And such variety! — I thought you were forced to flush it all out when you picked up those Sargol pests."

"We did. Mr. Mura's worked hard to bring it back."

Dane took a deep breath as he opened the door, savoring as always the crisp freshness of growing things. Everywhere else, the ship's air was stale, processed stuff. Here, it was alive.

Feeling something brush against his leg, he glanced down. A large, orange-striped tomcat had slipped in behind them and was rubbing him in the traditional greeting of his kind before turning his attention to the newcomer.

Cofort lightly lowered herself to her knees. "Hello, big boy," she said softly as she offered him her hand to sniff. "You're the Chief of Pest Control, I presume?"

"He is," Thorson confirmed. "This is Sinbad, an honored member of the crew."

"Rightly so." She shuddered. "I shouldn't care to voyage far on any ship lacking a good cat."

"You won't find too many who'd give you an argument on that," he agreed.

She scooped Sinbad into her arms. "He's enormous! Ours are kittens by comparison."

"The Roving Star has more than one cat?"

She nodded. "A senior citizen and two former foundlings who now sort of run the place under her supervision."

Rael rubbed the big cat under the chin with the tips of fingers obviously well accustomed to that delicate work and received a rumbling purr as a reward.

Reluctantly, she put him down once more and came to her feet. She sniffed the scent-rich air appreciatively. "I'd know you had a master chef aboard even if Mara hadn't apprised me of that fact. — Thyme, sage, basil, honey seed, sharp grass—all the old faithfuls, and I detect some real delicacies as well."

"Detect? We're not near the spices at all . . ."

"I've got sensitive senses, smell included." Her nose wrinkled. "That's not always an advantage on some of the holes we visit. Besides, I've worked in the Star's hydro quite a bit and more or less know what to expect in a good one."

One familiar aroma was missing. "You should have some lavender," she told him. "There's nothing like it for freshening the air, and it's not overpowering even in the smallest cabin."

Three whistles sounded over the intercom. "Lift-off coming," Dane remarked, unnecessarily since the signal was universal to the starlanes.

They carefully sealed the hydro door after seeing Sinbad out, then scrambled up the ladder with the ease of long

custom to strap down Solar Queen would be would come the jump to Canuche of Halio.