in it—the woman waved a hip flask at us.
“Drink to the heroes of the schlock rock brigade,” she said. “Have a swig, why doncha?”
“Later,” Em said.
“Later?” the woman said. “Later will be too later, sister.” But Em was out of reach. The woman grabbed my arm. “You’ll drink, won’t you, darling, you’ll drink to the schlock rocks.”
“Go on, have a swig, you young hoon,” her companion said. “It’ll do you good.”
I took the flask and put it to my lips. Whatever it was ripped most of the skin off my throat and found its way into my nose. I spluttered and handed the flask back. There were tears in my eyes by the time I reached the top of the scramble net. All the hammocks at this level seemed to be taken.
“You’ll have to share mine,” Em said.
I clambered across into the hammock Em was already occupying.
“Cozy,” I said.
“Bloody hell, Earth-boy,” Em said. “Just fix those clips there. We have to be completely enclosed.”
“Suits me,” I said.
“There’s a zero-g component to this trip,” she said. “You don’t want to float away, do you?”
I fixed the clips that secured the top webbing. Em and I were now in a sort of open weave basket with a lid. We could have been kittens.
“This isn’t quite how I’d imagined it,” I said.
“Imagined what?” she said.
“Going to bed with you.”
“Oh shut up, Ned,” she said. But she settled herself with her head on my shoulder. I put my arms around her, kissed her hair. I had half a mind to tell her I loved her, but she already knew that. And I also knew that she didn’t love me. So I asked her a technical question instead.
“So how come the g-forces are less in the top hammocks?”
“They’re not, dingbat. It’s just that if anybody chunders during takeoff, it’s best to have them below you rather than above you. Get it?”
“The voice of experience,” I said.
“Common sense,” Em said.
There was a garbled announcement from half a dozen speakers. I looked down through the webbing. The loading gang was leaving, waving a mock good bye. Then they were gone, and I could hear the whine of the hydraulics as the boarding ramp was raised. The bright lights from the apron sent a wedge of brilliance into the runabout. The wedge shrank and disappeared. There were no windows in the craft. The dim cavern could have been deep underground; we could have been miners, or refugees in a bomb shelter. There were noises of locks engaging. More garbled announcements. In their hammocks the crew cheered and burst into song. Then I had the feeling that the runabout was floating gently, it was swaying, it could have been a boat on a tranquil sea. Suddenly the g-forces hit. We were accelerating and accelerating fast. The singing died. Em and I were forced down onto the webbing. And forced down onto the webbing, and forced down onto the webbing. It was hard to breath.
“How long,” I gasped. “How long’s this going to…?”
“As long…as it takes.”
* * * *
Em Talking
By the time the acceleration had cut out and we’d negotiated the zero-g component and then gone into synchronized spin, Ned was looking a bit pale. But, as soon as we’d docked with The Delegate, he managed to make it through the airlock and down the radial elevator without a major regurgitation event. The muster room at the end of the elevator was full of drunken crew regaining their composure.
“Magnets?” Ned said.
“What?” I said.
“There’s gravity in here—do they do it with magnets?”
“No, no. We’re spinning. The whole ship is a giant centrifuge. It’s one big barrel.”
“Of fun?”
“Who knows,” I said.
“Behold,” said a voice beside me, “the fresh-faced innocence of youth.”
I turned. There was a small guy in a large overcoat. He looked like a walking tent.
“I trust,” the tent said, “that you two are new additions to our esteemed crew of psychopaths and alimony evaders—we will have the pleasure of your company in the long drear months ahead?”
“Keep your hands in your pockets,” Ned said to me. “This guy will rob you blind. I’ve seen him at work on Earth.”
“Young man, that was uncalled for,” the little guy said, but he didn’t sound offended. “I am an honest trader, a merchant of the space lanes. My reputation can stand any scrutiny.”
“What do you sell?” Ned said.
“What do you want?” the guy replied.
“Hard to say,” Ned said. “We own nothing.”
“Then I am your man,” the runt said. “Everything the heart desires can be yours.”
“At a price?” Ned said.
“At a very reasonable price,” the guy said. “The name’s John Doe. Delighted to have made your acquaintance. Do not hesitate to seek me out if there is anything you desire. And now, if you’ll excuse me.…”
The guy scuttled off, passing through the only door out of the muster room, announcing himself to the log-in scanner as “Maintenance Leading Hand Doe, John. At your service.” This was a more civilized announcement than other people were making. Most of the drunks, as they left the room, yelled out a funny name or bawled a bit of ribald verse. They also made silly faces at the scanner. It was a standard voice recognition and retina scan barrier: it just checked your voice print and the patterns on the back of your eyeball, it didn’t know or care what you actually said or did. I hadn’t seen one since I left Newharp, but they are common enough at home.
“OK,” I said to Ned, “let’s try to get through the door. It’ll probably knock us back.”
It knocked us back. The repulsion field kicked in with a vengeance despite Ned yelling the first verse of Gert-by-Sea and thumbing his nose at the scanner. The Delegate’s systems had no idea who we were. The last two remaining drunks cheered as Ned dusted himself down.
“Good try,” one of them said. “I’ll have a word with the beast, appeal to its better nature.”
As the guy passed through the door he yelled, “Let them in, you half-witted lump of incharitable space debris, give the poor sods an even break, why don’t you, you moth-eaten.…”
He was still cursing the ship and all its systems as he and his companion disappeared round a corner
