COMPANY OF ADVENTURERS

“Captain, could you come to the bridge?” Hope called over the comm.


Rand put down his cards. Derry followed his father to the bridge. 


Hope pointed to the screen that showed their position in the Out There.

“We can’t eyeball yet, but there is something big out there that’s giving a distress call. No reply when Bluebell signals though,” the teenager said.


“How far out is it?”


“A good ten hours.”


“And it’s showin already? Yer right, Hope, That is big.”


“Is it dangerous, daddy?” asked Derry.


“We won’t know until we’re closer. No response to our call makes me think there are no live people there though. Hope, keep an open mind about it. And keep sending a call. Let me know when we can see it. And tell your mother to keep an eye open too on her shift”

About six hours later, Rand returned to the bridge, his son still in tow. “Bluebell can see it now. It’s a city.” Hope reported.


“Uh, yeah. Well big enough for one. How big is it compared to say, a government base ship like the Morse?”


The spaceship’s voice recited: “Daniel C Morse. Iskellian Technology Solutions Tohoku-class cruiser, Essentially a mobile city in space, Over 40,000 personnel can be accommodated on board the ship, including a minimum crew of forty naval personnel, as well as information and development specialists, economists and financiers, administrators and support staff.”


“Umm. Yah. And how big is our city out there?” The voice computer wsas something his wife, the ship’s mechanic had recently added and Rand was constantly nonplussed by his ship answering.


“Physically about five times that size. No weapons visible. Different configuration.” reported the young pilot. “I do believe it’s an Ark.”


Rand gazed on the generation ship , already huge at this distance, in wonder.


“Daddy? Like the ones from Old Earth?”


“Looks like.”


“There’s one of those on Octavian . The school is going to make a field trip for the Eights after exams.” said Derry. 


“Sounds like an expensive extra t’yer school fees.”


“Uncle Michael told mummy it would be a present if I got more’n 90 ’cross the board on my exams, next year.”


“Oh.” Their paying passengers Dr.Michael Chen and his husband David Commanda were childless and endlessly indulgent to the crew’s children.


“There’s her name. It’s in Roman letters only. Rio de Janiero.” said Hope, as their little transport cruised along the length of the huge ship.
 “Strange name. Is it a foreign language? Or named for somebody special?”


“The Portuguese language died out after the Leaving, however it was spoken by millions of people on Old Earth, most in a country called Brasil. Rio de Janiero was a city there,” Bluebell responded.

“There was a song…,” Hope spent a lot of time listening to music when she was on watch. 


“Derry, go look up Brasil and Rio de Janiero, mind the spelling. Find out if there were any Ark by that name and where it ended up.”
 his father ordered.

“Yessir.” Derry hurried off.

“I don’t see any signs of breaching, but we’re still pretty far out.” said Dita Aglukak.

The crew had gathered in the commons, the largest open space on the tiny transport. Dita, Hope’s mother and co-owner of Bluebell Transport, was the official pilot of the ship. 


“So why the silence?”asked Rand. “Those ships were designed to keep going, with people being born and dying in them for centuries.”

“They could all be dead from an epidemic. They could have put themselves or their remnant population into cryosleep.” Doctor Chen added.


“If that’s true, there would be good money in salvage.” said Rand.


“If anyone is alive, there’d be no salvage. The passengers would still have possession. even in cryo,” added Dita.

“They could be suspicious of strangers. Or they may have forgotten there is more than their ship,” suggested Mamie , Rand’s wife
.

“The only way to know is to board.” said Rand. “We need to be certain that the ship is dead if we’re going after salvage. But if we find crew or passengers, we’re on a rescue mission.”


“Rand. We may not be the first to find them.” Dita said. 


“Pirates?” said Marco, the r cook, anknxiously.


“Possible. This was their territory. Or slavers more like ,lookin’ for the frozen passengers.”


“Dita’s right, Rand,” added David Commanda.”And if pirates were here, or slavers, we have to report the find to the Central authorities.”


Derry’s research had found some information on ark specs,but none on a ship named Rio de Janiero. It was very different from the one displayed in orbit around Octavian, and from the other recorded arks that had brought people to this system from Old Earth. Larger, a huge rectangle, flat sided. There were many entries marked, a few damaged beyond hope of use, but most in workable condition.


“Marco, you and I will take the shuttle over first. We’ll see if those old airlocks are mates for ours. If they are, we’ll look for the cargo bay entry. Then back here for a pow wow.” Rand decided. 


The shuttle, mostly used for atmospheric flights, had actual windows and from there the walls of the ark seemed infinite. The men reckoned the size as about five km by two by five. But bare metal, many of the original ceramic tiles pocked away by meteorite hits, was all that could be seen from the bridge.


The shuttle started at one end and cruised slowly along then across the back of the craft and disappeared from Bluebell’s view.


“There’s damage here,” Rand reported. “A frigging huge hole, bigger than Bluebell.”


“So no atmo?” asked Dita, from Bluebell’s bridge.


“Could have sealed itself or it might not have taken out… shit.”


“Rand?”


“What dya think, Marco? Are those cryopods?”


“Kinda banged up. Mebbee.”


“Rand?”


“Sorry, Dita. They seem to have been hit by a fair chunk of rock. Smashed into the cyro storage. Can’t tell if it was passengers or livestock yet. The entrances we can see to the rest of the ship seem to be sealed, but we don’t see any airlocks. The cryoboxes have been in vaccuum for a long time.”

After two more hours spent girdling the ark, Rand and Marco had made holos of the damage and of possible entries. Enough had changed over the centuries that some of the airlock designs were obsolete. A military vessel might be able to use them but Bluebell had only basic airlocks.

When they returned the whole crew, including Derry and Hope, discussed the situation in the commons, while Rand and Mamie ’s youngest, Beege,played with her dolls .


“It still comes down to salvage or rescue,’ said Rand.”If there’s anyone alive, passengers or crew, the ship is theirs.”


“So then…?” put in Dr. Chen.


“Call the nearest government base and report the ark. Keeping in mind we may not be the first to have found them.”


“And salvage?” asked Hope.


“That’s complicated, sweetie. We have to register as salvage agents, and buy a license, and pay tax on whatever we take.” said Dita.


“Them licenses is a pretty penny,” said Rand.


“Penny, huh- glittering gold, I’d say, Rand,” said Dita.

“From what we‘re seeing, if any of this stuff is viable, we got the mother of all livestock here. This is real cashy money.”


“More ’n that, Rand,” said David Commanda. “This is new genetic material. They’re not just chickens and sheep. There’s the addition of genetic diversity- especially from an underrepresented continent.” David and Michael travelled for the Flying Doctors, visiting worlds without constant medical attention. Their rent money kept Bluebell Transport flying. 


“Good thinking, Davy! We’ll pull out a few samples. Doc, you can test for viability?”


“Yes, that’s simple enough. Choose a domestic chicken though. If they’re lost, the universe won’t be too much worse off, even if testing destroys a few viable embryos.”


Marco had donned his spacesuit and Rand checked the fastenings.


“The label you’re looking for is ’pollos’, Derry says. That’s chickens, but watch for any sign of cryoboxes for people.”

“You put a lot of store in a ten year old’s opinions.’ said Marco.

“Well, he can play that cyclopaedia of his better’n any of the rest of us, even the doc.’

It took about an hour for Marco to return with three cryoboxes chosen from different parts of the smashed cargo hold.


Rand was irritable and antsy when he returned.


“I figgered that some of the boxes might be damaged and some not and if they were stored in diff’rent places, mebbee they come from diff’rent places and were… diff’rent,” he explained.


“Huh. Good thinking, Marco.” Rand’s glance was respectful. Marco was not as dumb as he tried to appear.

“What’s a ‘cetacean’?” asked Marco, who had been showing their holos to the crew.


“Dunno, what does the cyclopaedia say, Derry?”


The boy spent a few moments finding the word.


“Whale – the largest mammals that ever lived on Old Earth . Almost extinct before The Leaving, no whales were brought with our ancestors, because the huge animals had no commercial value. Whooah!”


“What’s so shocking, Der? Lotsa animals were left behind.”
 asked Marco.

“Look at the size of this whale?”


Derry showed an illustration of a Blue Whale proportional to a human and to an Apatosaurus. All the adults gaped.


“Y’all might think me a touch moonbrained,” said Rand, “but if we find some of those in the hold, I’m bringing it on board.”


“Captain, it’s bigger than Bluebell,” scolded Hope.


“They’re embryos, dear,” her mother reminded her. “No bigger than those chickens right now.”


“And it would be best to see if our chickens are viable, before we start hatching plans. Hope and Derry, would you like to help me test them?” said Michael.

Beege followed the older children to the infirmary. Mummy had murmured something to Daddy and they had slipped off to their bunk. Beege knew not to follow them because the hatch would be locked.


Marco brought the cryoboxes and she watched with interest as the first was opened with a hiss of cold, making snow as it hit the warm moist air of the ship. Doctor Michael had Derry and Hope dress in clean robes and gloves, but just lifted her onto stool to watch. She couldn’t hear much of what he told the others and didn’t understand what she could hear. After a few minutes, she left the infirmary.

In the common room she found a bookpad with some stories she could read and curled up for a while. Then feeling restless, she walked, carrying the bookpad and reading aloud to herself. Her teacher dirtside had told her that it was good practice for her diction, but Beege preferred to practice alone. She didn’t like being encouraged by the crew.

She entered the bridge and clambered onto Auntie Dita’s lap. The two sat cuddled without speaking until Beege got bored again 


In the cargo bay, Marco and David had spread the mats the children used for gymnastics out and were playfighting.


David’s glossy black pigtail fell down his bare back while Marco wore a torn tee, most of his clothes were raggedy. Daddy said Marco had only one nice outfit- his black pants and matching whoring shirt. He had a Bluebell Transport tee which he wore when he went with Daddy and Aunt Dita on business calls.

David had Marco flat on his back with the larger man’s arms pinned over his head. He straddled Marco and said, “Cave?” Marco just grunted.


Beege giggled, knowing that Uncle Marco hated to surrender on anything.


The men heard her and beckoned her over.

“Bring that towel will ya, Beege?” asked Marco. He pulled off his sweaty tee and the little girl rubbed down his back before he took the towel and dried his own chest.
 “Uncle Marrrco, you as… you are as fuzzzzy as my teddy,” she giggled.


“M not a teddy bear.” he frowned.


“I thaid like my teddy,” Sigh. “ Sssaid.”


Davy smiled at her. He was not sweaty but his skin glowed coppery red.


“What game was that? Were you all scwewing?” she asked.


Marco choked, “No!” but Davy just smiled more.”No, no, Beege. It’s what’s called wrestling, it’s a very old sport, Thousands of years old.”


Marco had recovered, “But not as old as screwin.”


“Mummy and Daddy play that game, too, all the time. I think Daddy usually wins, but Mummy won this morning.”


David turned redder. “Um, Beege. That’s a private game. Um. Nobody needs to know that.”


Dita, passing on the catwalk from the bridge to the galley said, “She’s five. Never tell a five year old a secret.”


“Might be time for a little girl to get her own room, though.” said David.



Michael and his young lab assistants were able to start some of the chicken embryos growing, which meant that hard vacuum in the Black had not destroyed them. It would take about 21 days for the chicks to hatch, but other work could continue.


Dita was able to confirm that they had enough food on board to stay near Rio for three weeks and take another week to find a suitable world for restocking the pantry.


“We won’t need that long though, Daddy,” Derry pointed out. “We can head back to civilization before our chickens hatch.”


“We’re gonna have to put you in charge of logistics, m’lad. You’re a dab hand for detail.” his father said. “We’ll spend five days checking over the ark and seeing if she really is available for salvage. If she is, we’ll get a decent cargo together and look for buyers.”


Mamie interrupted. “Does that mean we’ll be getting that license Dita talked about, cause we prolly have enough with my Daddy to cover it.”


“Don’t think that will be necessary, darlin’. Specially if we stick to the domesticated beasts.”


“Will we get a whale, Daddy?”
 asked Beege.

“What would a little girl like you with a massive great thing like that?”


“Rride it. Marco will make me a hawneth. Harrnessss.”

Five days of exploration barely touched the vast expanse of the ark and did not turn up any cryoboxes with human cargo.


“That doesn’t mean much,” Michael told David, as they prepared for bed in the shuttle they rented. “This ship is almost a world and we haven’t found anything like a map that might help us find where the refugees were stored.”


“What if we do? What will the Captain do then?”


“Hard to say. He might turn them over to the Navy, especially if there is a reward for rescuing lost refugees. But the cargo is very tempting. Without the salvage license … even just selling on the hard-to-trace animals and plants, without any bonus for the new genes we’d be introducing, would be very profitable.”


“It would be hard to stake a claim to such a big vessel.”


“Harder to keep pirates and such off it. Any salvage rights would be bought by some big group that could afford to put an engine and sails on her and move her closer to a world where she could be disassembled cargo, ship, and all.”


“I hadn’t thought of the actual ship. I guess the metals would be very valuable.”


“And don’t forget the living quarters would be a treasure trove for antique collectors. There would be some petroleum plastics, just everyday items for our ancestors, bottles and hairbrushes and plates and some fabrics. Our terraformed worlds like ours don’t have petroleum and our ancestors used it for everything. It would be a pig to find the right buyer, but when we did the money would keep us flying for a couple of years.”

After some discussion with Dita and Mamie , Rand decided to end the search for human life. They had made a few short forays into other parts of the ship, but while there was still air, the life support system was powered down to occasional lights, operating on stored energy from the engine waste.


The crew filled the cargo hold with cryoboxes of chickens and other poultry, which would be easiest to sell on with little explanation of origin, as well as some bovine material. David was disappointed that they would not be promoting the genetic diversity aspect.


“We could make a fortune with new genetic material, true enough. But we would also have to show where we got the material and that we got the salvage permit we can’t afford to buy. Better to mine the Ark for cargo and sell it where we can, to them as don’t care too much about origin.” decided Rand.


“If we do well on the sellin’, we could mebbee buy a salvage permit, Rand?” asked Mamie .


“I wanna get some cash ahead first. A permit for a prize this big is gonna cost.”


“What about Owner Suwelyos, Rand?” said Dita. “He might be interested in an investment opportunity.”


“He’s got money, truth. But is he open to a harvesting job like this? To do the job right would require a lot of manpower. Come down to it, he’s a rancher. His fortune is in land and livestock.”


“Which ties in with the cargo on Rio.” said Dita.


“You know him best, of course, captain,” said Michael, “But why not offer him the chickens first and work up to the investment opportunity?”


“Good thinking, Doc,” said Rand. “Hope, would you look up his contact? We want a direct line and we don’t need to be traceable until we’re well away from this sector. We’ve got a decent cargo if we can’t make it back here, but no point broadcasting where we found what we found, eh?”

Suwelyos was interested in the poultry and not too interested in learning how the crew had come across such a valuable commodity. But when he saw the cryoboxes on screen he was concerned.

“That’s a very old design and I don’t recognize the language on the labels. What do you want to tell me about?”


“As little as possible ’less you’re interested in a big investment. We can supply a lot of similar material if you want it. You have properties on other worlds?”
 Rand used his most ‘sincere businessman’ look

“Several worlds. I like to diversify my holdings between climates. My grandfather got caught with a world-wide drought on Harper’s Moon about 200 years back and the family learned from that. Took us decades to build back up. “


“We got mostly chickens and other poultry this trip. We could do that again, or we could go for more of the larger animals. Cows or sheep. There could be some real exotics too. Ever heard of a pack animal called a llama?”


Suwelyos decided he wanted the poultry embryos and gave instructions to drop them off at his ranch on Beta Moon off Pentangle. The ranch turned out to be an immense battery farm run by incurious clerks. They assured David that the hatchlings would be kept quarantined for a few generations before becoming part of the general population.


“We got the best solution after all,” he told the crew. “The new genes should strengthen the flocks, but with such a large population, the changes can be waved off as normal mutations.”


Suwelyos wanted to wait out the quarantine period to see what he would actually be getting, but passed on the name of a colleague who was looking for beef cattle.


“Brasil and Argentina were big time exporters of beef,” reported Derry, still engrossed in his study of the lost bio-diversity of South America. “They were cutting down the forest to make more pasture for the herds.”


“Wouldn’t the forests be more valuable than the cattle?” asked Hope.


“The forest had always been there. It didn’t need to be planted like we do on terraformed worlds. And most places, if farmers stopped planting, the forest grew back,” explained David. “The poor farmers would clear a section by burning and after a few seasons, the land was worn out and they moved on and did it again. And the forest would grow back within a year or so. Some called the Amazon Forest the lungs of Old Earth.”

Suwelyos’ friend paid well for the bovine embryos. And recommended the crew, even before the embryos were proven, to another rancher who wanted sheep. Derry recommended adding some alpacas to his herds for their wool. “We won’t make much on these, Daddy,” he said. “No one knows how to raise’em, and there could be questions about their provenance.”

The low price was less important to Rand than his boy’s growing confidence. Derry was working closely with David, who came up on a farming world and ,as a nurse, had studied biology, which turned out to be surprisingly useful in harvesting the most saleable cargo from the Ark.

As they once more approached the Ark, ready to load more cryoboxes, Dita called from the bridge.


“Captain, there’s another ship here.”


“At the worst possible time! Navy?” Rand hurried into the cockpit. “There they go. I think they saw us and ran. We can cope with another salvager, long as they ain’t looking to fight. Why didn’t we see’m on approach?”


“On the other side.”

“What’s on the other side?”


Dita pulled away from their usual docking point near the animal hold and for only the second time Rand saw the other side of the Ark. Since that first inspection there were some changes. Most important a large cargo door stood open to the vacuum of space.


“Sloppy,” said Rand, “Dita, Marco, suit up, we’re going exploring. Bring some armament in case there’s excitement.”

The airlock behind the open cargo door was not password protected. But unlike the rest of the ship, the cargo bay and the corridors leading off it were powered up and brightly lit.

“Stay suited. They left in a hurry and could return just as fast. Or they may have left crew behind. Open the airlock and vent the gas, we’re dead.” said Dita.

They proceeded with caution. This part of the ark was designed for an active crew. A corridor they chose at random became the first floor of a building and they left through an ordinary revolving door into an area about a kilometre square and 300 metres high. The architects had installed a village including shops, multistory buildings, what looked like a school, and a park, now with only the remains of tall single trunk trees, freezedried after perhaps centuries of the cold dark.


“These generation ships—they didn’t keep everyone active. There weren’t many actual generations of wakeful folks. The base crew were awake and brought up their families. Most of the people were in cryoboxes like our cargoes.” said Dita.

“How d’ya know that?” asked Marco.

“My great grandparents were Ark crew. Our family’s main ship was a cutter from that Ark that great grandma modified for transport. She was some fast. The crew was supposed to be paid in land but Grandpa Albert was from sailor stock. We’ve been in transport and importation for centuries on my mamma’s side, back to Cornwall on Old Earth.”

“My grandfather Left as a corpsicle,” said Marco.

“Hey! Street signs!” said Rand. The signboards gave a map of the level the crew were on, including a path to the engine section. Paydirt.

“Too bad Mamie ain’t with us, she’d be all excited at playing with a new engine,” said Marco.


Rand grinned. He hoped there was air in the ark’s engine room. His wife got very imaginative around engines. And flexible.
 Maybe they could visit later.

Dita set her tracker to broadcast their whereabouts to the ship, and they set off at a trot for the engine room, magnetic soles almost silent on the rubbery floors. They entered the engine area carefully, watching and listening for any sign of life. Nothing moved as they entered.


The engines looked like nothing they had seen before. “We’ll need Mamie to figger this out, but it don’t look like we can harvest any fuel cells here.”


“What did they run the ship on then?” Marco asked.


“Nuthin as simple as fuel cells. No shieldin’ for one thing. An these big tanks... what do them words say?”


“Gás natural liquefeito . PERIGO . Sem chamas,” read Dita.


“Must be Portugalian. I’ll get Derry to look it up when we get home.”


“There are some universal danger logos though,” said Dita.”I think I know what this is. Liquified natural gas. Methane.”


Rand brightened. “Marco, see if those tanks have fastenings we could undo.”


“How would ya transport them, Rand? They’s almost as big as Bluebell.”


’Pull’em behind us. The methane won’t ignite if it’s liquid. And there are cities that could be powered for years by a tank this size.”

“Could you power an Ark with methane? And where would you get that much of the stuff? This ship’s been in the Black for nigh on 500 years.”


“If the crew is limited, once you’re underway, you don’t need much to keep goin’. And this ship was slow to arrive. Slow enough to be forgotten. Keep the crew small, mebbee two or three hundred actives, mebbee less, and you don’t need much power for light and heat.”


“Here’s a different tank,” reported Marco, “Oxigénio.”


“Oxygen. We’ve found real treasure. Sell that tank to a shipyard for real cashy money.”

Back on Bluebell, the crew discussed their next steps.


Dita preferred to stay with their current plan of harvesting cryopods of animal embryos. “They sell easy and we already have customers. More important, they hardly ever explode.”


Michael agreed, as did his husband. “The livestock is badly needed on almost every newly settled world and easy to sell on older worlds. There is a valuable social benefit to dealing in livestock.”


Marco was interested in the most lucrative cargo. “We grab the methane and sell it to a shipyard. Boom, done.”


“But we have to get the tanks out of the ship first. They were put in place early in the build. Might be tricky. And of course, they’re right volatile fuel,” Mamie said. “So, yeah. Boom.”


“Same with the oxygen. The builders would want to keep that on board. No reason ever to take it off.”

“Well, we don’t have the equipment, the time or the customers for either methane or oxygen, so lets leave it for now and do some research after we find and deliver this cargo. It ain’t goin’ anywhere,” suggested Dita.

“Unless them salvagers that scarpered figgers the same as us.” said Mamie .

“Not salvagers,” said Dita. “Slavers.The animal bay is easy to get to. They were on the other side.”


“Lookin to harvest the cryopods of the fugees? Dammit! Nasty shock to wake up centuries from home and find yer bought and sold like livestock.” said Rand.


“And dangerous. Don’t give a good goddam bout human life less’n they can sell it. Frozen bodies would be a perfect cargo, no need to feed ’em and no need to control ’em until they are paid for.” added Marco.

“We have to do something,Rand. We haven’t found any refugees yet, but that open cargo door indicates that the slavers have.” said Michael.”Perhaps it’s time to notify the Navy about the Ark. We don’t have to tell them when exactly we found it or how often we’ve visited.”


“There’s damn good money, real coin, solid gold, sittin’ waitin’ for us to take it. An’ we don’t actually know that the slavers have found the refugees,” said Marco.“Or even that they are slavers.”


“I’m with Hope on that. Anything that can go wrong,” Rand leaned back on his chair and closed his eyes. Mamie stroked his thigh.

“We have to do right by the fugees, hon,” she said softly.

The next morning, Rand had made up his mind. “We’ll take our cargo and as much more on spec as we can. Deliver it, pick up some other cargo then move on to Quattro. We’ll pass news to the Navy there. Don’t have to mention the possible slavers, since we didn’t stop for long and didn’t investigate much, except to see that the Ark had been visited. That should cover our ass if they don’t look too close. So let’s suit up and harvest as much as we can.”


A heavy day of work followed for all the adults, with Hope keeping a close watch for other ships and Derry caring for his sister.


Most of the crew were glad of a shower after a day spent in the odorous confines of a space suit and one by one went off to bed. Only Dita did not retire early, but took over the bridge from her daughter. There had been no sighting of the other ship, visual or instrumental.

Mamie and Rand showered together, pleased that the day had been successful and probably would make them a lot of money.


“I never saw those engines,” remarked Mamie, “and now we’re leaving and not coming back.”


“We could make a short trip over there, if you like darlin.”


“Is there air in the engine room, Randolf?”


“I like where this is goin, baby.” Rand kissed his wet naked wife. “We could just stay here. We’re the last in the shower room.”


“I’d really like to see those LNG engines, Randolf. I’ll make it worth your while. There’s no gravity over there, is there?”


“Don’t tease a horny man, Amanda. Why don’t we go check those out? We could make a quick trip over while the kids are sleeping. And you could inspect them on the spot,” her husband suggested.
 “I don’t tease… at least not for long. Let’s shuttle over, take a few pictures of what’s there for customers?”


Rand notified Dita that he and Mamie were going back over to the Ark.


“I can come along case you find something worth bringing back,” offered Marco.


Mamie glanced at the captain.


“No. This’ll just be recon. No need for extra hands.”

They took a pair of spacesuits up to the shuttle and lifted off, slipping over the bulk of the Ark, out of sight of Bluebell.


Rand piloted the shuttle to the open cargo door that led to the village and then to the engine room. As they helped each other into their suits, Mamie remarked on the stink of them after a full day.


“At least Marco drained the bio units.”


“How come he’s on honeywagon duty this week? What awful thing did I miss?” Rand was busy caressing Mamie ’s breasts as he fitted the suit. They had decided there was no point in getting dressed before going over for a short visit


“Not like we’ll be meeting any strangers. “


They checked each others seals, although Engineering still had full atmosphere. He bent down to kiss her before fastening on her helmet. Her pink tongue traced the outline of his lips and she held his eyes before smiling and stepping back. His eyes asked a question and hers a promise.

“What we do for privacy, little girl”


She laughed and returned his kiss with heat.

Rand led the way to the engine room while Mamie looked around in amazement.She had helped collect cryopods with the rest of the crew but had not seen this side of Rio de Janiero.


“I’ve read about how we left Old Earth and even seen some vids about it. A lotta my stories use the Leaving as a start. But I couldn’t imagine…. This is a whole city inside a ship!”


“Not really a city. A town, mebbee only a village. Davy reckons there were five hundred crew awake at any time, tops. Probably less, most of the time. Only reason to have more was to make sure there was a next generation of crew, without people marrying their sisters.”


“Geez you can be nasty sometimes, husband.”


“Lemme show you them engines you’re so taken with an we’ll see who can get nasty.”

They had removed their helmets once clear of the airlock, but still wore their suits with their magnetic soles. Engineering took up an area nearly 500 metres square and 20 metres high, and Mamie lit up with glee. Engineering was both sealed and fully atmospheric. The engines needed oxygen to run and enough had leaked into the section that they were a little giddy with it.


Finding the magnetic soles on her suit slowed her down too much, she opened the seals and catches and stripped down. Rand, removed his own suit and watched with amusement and delight as his almost naked mechanic bounced around in zero gravity, cooing over engines and machines inexplicable to him, that she identified at a glance. Her happy enthusiasm ignored his presence, as she stroked the humming machines and read labels and nameplates. It did not even seem to slow her down that most of the labels were in ancient lost Portugese.

He was entranced by his view of her rump, round and bouncy as she squeezed into a space behind some incomprehensible tank of something dangerous. He reached out his big hand and stroked the smooth brown skin, cupping each warm globe in turn.


She swatted his hand away, “Gimme a minute, Rand. I wanna check this gauge…” her words became indecipherable as she wriggled deeper into the machinery.


Her legs now. Slim but curvy. Those curves were muscle, he knew. She was sliding back now, and halfway out with a triumphant wiggle. He stepped forward and embraced her.


“Rump.” he murmured.


“Whaah?” she replied, concentrating on the mechanism in her grasp. He moved one hand down her front and touched her.


She always said engines made her hot.


Rand felt himself rise in appreciation of that rump. He decided not to resist but kissed then gave into the temptation and bit the tender rounded flesh.


Mamie yelled in surprise, jerking away and bumping her head on machinery. She pulled out of

the space she had been investigating and glared like an offended kitten. Rand pulled her up and kissed the bump, pressing into her soft belly.


She giggled, unclipping the fastening of his spacesuit and floating away from him while he struggled out of it. Free of the suit he rose to meet her and she pulled him to her with her strong legs around his waist. As they moved together, they floated against the cool surfaces of the unused engines. 


They bumped into walls, floor, ceiling then bracing themselves on piping,settled into a steady tempo that kept her at first gasping then moaning and finally as he came screaming at the intensity.


They lay wrapped around each other, holding tight, each trying to melt into the other.

“Nice show.” said a strange voice.

They spun apart. Rand was on his feet in an instant, steadying himself on a pipe, trying to stare down the heavyset stranger who held an energy gun on them. Mamie cringed away, horrified, sliding towards the safety of the storage tanks.

The stranger was as tall and broad as Rand, and was accompanied by another, equally large. Both were armed and were obviously aroused by what they had observed.


Mamie watched the three men. Rand was naked and had not been concerned about bringing armament to a deserted ship. For the moment she was not being watched, but she knew that she would soon be the object of their interest. Making herself as small as possible, she slid a hand out to the nearest suit, floating where it has been discarded in their heat. She touched the rigid frame and found the left shoulder, pressing the emergency button there. Short short short long long long short short short. She slipped her hand back to her side.

Looks like we’re not the only ones to have found this little treasure,“ Rand was saying, with an easy grin. “You interested in the fuel ? Cause it’s way too much for us to handle.”

The men were still silent.

“We ain’t had a chance to look around much. I was thinking there might be some good antiques in the village back there. small stuff, easy to sell for cash money.”


“So would a couple of healthy workers.” said the big man. His companion laughed. “Big demand for miners, farmhands.”


“Whores.” added the companion, leering.


Mamie, knowing she was back in observation, moved to a less constricted position.


“Don’t need a job.” said Rand. “Got work.”


“Us too,“ the companion said,” An there’s lots of stock for labour suppliers here too.”


Rand’s grin never faded. “There are corpsicles? You’re taking the frozen fugees for slaves?”


“Bond labourers, please,“ the leader said. “Best thing for them, once they get used to the idea. They get food and board while they learn about a brand new galaxy. Practically a favour to them.”


“Yer selling people.”


“I sell labour contracts. Good business too. The customers pay me to find them workers for newly terraformed worlds and the workers pay me for my costs of rescue and transport to the place of work.”


“Slavers.”


“All legal and above board, Rand.”


Mamie saw the tiny twitch when the slaver said Rand’s name. She knew Rand was running his face through his long list of ‘people I have pissed off.’


“Name’s Matt McDougall.”


“Yer name is Rand Hudson and you robbed me of my whole cargo back on Kerry in 2718. My name is Honda. Took me a year to get off that dirtball.”


“Don’t recall the occasion. May be some other fella looks like me. Must be lots of handsome, well set up spacers in the universe.”


The twitch again. The buddy laughed. Mamie got ready for when the violence started. 


“Still not ringin any bells, Mr. Honda. Pert sure you got the wrong fella.”


“If you ain’t him, yer close enough for me to want to take out my upset and hurt feelins on. And you ain’t got much goin in yer favour, do you?”


“I do seem to be at a disadvantage. Mind if I put my pants on? Yer buddy there keeps staring at my fam’ly jewels. Gets embarrassing after a bit.”


The buddy made a squeak of denial. Honda glanced back at him, taking his eyes off Rand who launched himself grabbing for the taser gun.

Buddy swung his weapon up but with his leader in the way, had no clear target. Then Mamie ’s skull hit him full on the groin. He collapsed, writhing and she managed to get hold of his gun and aim it in the direction of the fighting men.


“Stop that right now,“ she commanded, in her ‘mama ain’t happy’ voice. Childhood memory kicked in and for only a second Honda stopped struggling, allowing Rand to wrest his weapon away.

The slavers froze, while Rand and Mamie , discussed with glances and few words how to handle this unexpected problem.


“Dita?”


“Coming.”


“Rope?”


Mamie handed Rand Buddy’s weapon, and spun to a well equipped work bench. She found some thin wire and a pair of wire cutters.


Dragging Buddy’s hands from his screaming crotch, she wired them behind his back and to one ankle. She pulled the gasping man around and with a new wire attached that ankle to Honda’s opposite ankle so that the men faced each other. Then she similarly wired Honda’s hands behind him.


“Still got wire left, husband.”


“That’ll do, wife.”

“Think I should solder the wires together?”


“Let’s just tie ’em to something solid. We’ll deal with em when the others arrive. I wanna find the fugees.”


“And corpsicles would be on their ship. I could disable it pert easy.”


“Trickier if they grabbed any live crew.”


“What’ll we do with these two now?”


“We could discuss it with the crew, but I’m none too taken with the idea of letting them tell the Navy about some pirates interrupting their legitimate business.”


Mamie sighed, then picked up the spacesuit. “Dita?” she called.


“On our way.”


“Could you grab some clothes before you leave, please?” she asked. “And could you bring Michael or David rather than Marco?”


“Who’s bleeding?”


“No one. But I’ve managed so far to avoid Marco seein’ me nekkid. Michael and David don’t care.”


“Good plan.”

Donning their suits, Rand and Mamie headed the way the slavers had entered. Rand used the suit comms to let Dita know about their adventure and that they were heading off to investigate the slavers’ ship.


They headed down a long corridor with sealed doors each marked “Garantir câmara de estase- Sem entrada”


“Derry, could you find out what these words mean?” Rand asked his comm.


“He better not answer that, he’s supposed to be in bed.”

“Right, mamma bear. Hey, that was good work back there. You got me scared, even.”


“T’weren’t nuthin. I just didn’t want them buggers anywheres near Bluebell and my babies.”


Hope’s voice came over the comm. “The signs say ’Secure Stasis Chamber. No Entry’.”


“Guess that’s the corpsicles, then. We’re on lookout for one that’s been opened.”


“There.”


Rand carefully checked the opened door. The seals had been broken roughly, probably with vacuum explosive. The chamber, larger than the Village, was filled with cryopods.


Each pod had a nametag, a number and an odd speckled square. In addition, there was a holo of the person held in frozen stasis in the ’pod.


“Five centuries,” marvelled Mamie .


“An then a new life. Well, at least it won’t be slavery.”


“What do we do, Rand?”


“We can’t let those slavers loose. They know too much about our operation. We can’t let any of the fugees loose either. They prolly don’t know how to run the ship, and we don’t know the extent of the damage. Safer for them here, even if other ships find them.”


“Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.”


“Thinking we should paint that on the ship as our business slogan, darlin’.”
 They returned to the engine room.

Dita and Michael arrived quickly. Dita held a taser on the slavers while Rand and Mamie scrambled into coveralls and Michael checked the captives for serious injury.


“What are we supposed to do with these prisoners, Rand?” Dita asked .


“We could just leave ’em for the policers. Could be months before the Navy gets here, course.” Marco suggested over the comm.


“This is a real bugger of a sitchashun. Can’t let em go. Can’t let em tell anyone their story.” Mamie said.


“Can’t say I disagree,” said Rand. “If we let them go on their merry, they could turn us in to the Feds lickety split, an’ I reckon their slavin’ ways is a mite more legal than our own business here.”


Back on their ship, Marco and David were listening while Hope was singing in the background.

“Our object all sublime, we shall achieve in time, to make the punishment fit the crime; the punishment fit the crime.”


“We could space ’em.” suggested Marco.

“We can’t kill them in cold blood, Captain,” Michael said. “For what it’s worth, outside of some minor bruising, they are in rude good health.”


“Too much gravity anyway. They’d orbit Rio forever. An if we are connected with the ark , like by notifyin that it’s here, the Feds find the bodies. And it all comes out in the wash.”


“Laundry day, see you there,” chirruped Hope.


“We could leave em tied up in their own boat… nope, they might be found too soon.”


“Yeah, now that two crews have found Rio, chances of another are pert high.”


“And we can’t let them tell their story. Oh bloody hell.”


“With my freezeray, I can stop the world,” Hope sang in the background.

Michael said, “I think Hope has found the solution.”


“Then we better get it in real small words, cause I ain’t any less confused.” said Rand. 


“The crew were active in shifts, then went back into cryogenic sleep. There must be a cyronics machine somewhere.” explained the doctor.


Mamie squealed. “That’s it. We freeze ’em and file ’em. Mark ’em with some low status so’s they ain’t defrosted any too soon.”


“Good thinking Doc, Hope. Would we need someone over here to do the freezing?”


“It should be automatic, since the crew would be doing each other, but I have operated the machinery once, back in med school, which is once more than anyone else on crew.”

They filed the slavers, naked and identified as illiterate fishermen. Mamie broke into their ship and stripped it of some useful fuel cells and spare parts, as well as identification, then Dita set the ship a course that would end by crashing into the sun.

One of the useful finds on the slaveship was a huge net with mesh fine enough to hold cryopods. Mamie and Marco decided it could be jerryrigged to pull as many pods again as could be held in Bluebell’s hold. Dita was confident that she could safely pilot the ship and the net to a friendly world, although they would not be able to enter atmo with the net dragging.

“We’ll head for Suwelyos’ chicken ranch.” said Rand. “Get hold of him from there and get advice.”


“That should work. It’s quiet enough there that orbiting the world won’t be noticed much.” added Michael.


“Allus said you had the making of a good criminal mind, there, doc,” grinned Rand.

Owner Suwelyos was annoyed by the new development. “So that’s the end of our new product line?”


“ ‘Fraid so, Su,’ said Rand. “Now, if we could get a proper salvage license, we could go in search of lost ships, maybe around the Deadlands. We might even be able to keep an eye open for other lost Arks.”


“I don’t have that kind of influence, Rand. Those licenses are expensive, and if I say they are expensive, you know you could never afford one. You couldn’t even afford the interest on the loan to buy one, if you could get the loan, which you couldn’t. There is no chance they will let any go to a fly by night outfit like yours.”

“Well, we had a good run, an we made some good money. Mack, thank you for your help.”

“I made money too, Rand. And there are people now beholden to me for the product you were able to supply. So, we’re even.”

“Got one more request though, Owner Suwelyos. Need some advice on where I can grow a couple of special embryos to birthin’ size. Then I need a world that would be able to support a colony of blue whales.”