Trans Galactic Insurance Page 2

  “Um, well, my scholarship…”

  “Mr. Dashi said you have a ninety-nine average. If you don’t have any tests tomorrow, then you will be fine. Come down and have a beer with us. Twenty hundred at the caf. I’ll see you there. Gotta go, boys.”

  Nadine slipped off the desk, then stopped. “Oh, and Jake? The act was passed in 735, but it wasn’t given imperial assent till 736. So, technically, it was the Imperial Insurance Act of 736.” She turned and walked down the aisle toward the door at the front of the classroom. All three men watched in silence. She looked good from behind.

  “What a great view,” Danny said.

  “She certainly packs a punch,” Bart said.

  “How did she know the date of imperial assent?” Jake asked. “That can’t be right.” He typed a query into his computer.

  Bart and Danny just looked at him, and Bart shook his head.

  “Don’t worry if you can’t make it, Stewart,” said Danny, stretching. “We won’t miss you. Bart—what about those bets?”

  “I’m in,” Bart said, “but I do have to get my studying sorted out. Comm me after meal, and we’ll sort something out.”

  “Good. Talk to you later, Bart.” Danny walked away.

  Jake watched him go. “He’s an ass.”

  “He is,” agreed Bart. “But he’s an ass who likes to gamble, and he’s not too good at it. So, I’ll put up with him.”

  “Why does he hate me so much?”

  “Well, he can’t very well get mad at me, can he? My family can buy and sell his. So unfortunately, you, my broke Belter friend, are his hate target.”

  “So, I’m kind of like the king’s whipping boy.”

  “Whipping boy? Jake, I told you, I’m only into regular sexual encounters, not any Belter weirdness.”

  “It’s a classical reference—the old-time kings. Did you read any of that historical text I sent you?”

  “None of it. I was watching the flag races in the Outer Belt. Good move pointing out my shirt to Nadine; upstart third-level stockholders like him need to know their place. It showed Nadine who’s the better man.”

  Bart turned to Jake. “And regarding your and Nadine’s event, my young spacer friend, you are an idiot. Or in your unique argot, an ‘ijit.’”

  “I don’t use those words anymore. I’m working on my accent, like you told me to. And I am not. I’ve got work to do. I can’t go.”

  “You don’t need to study much tonight. Just go down at twenty hundred. Order a beer. Say hello to Nadine and everybody there. Congratulate Kieran. Tell him how jealous you are.”

  “That won’t be hard. I am jealous. Deck officer on a major trade route—that would be whizbang. Globus Galactic is a big ship. Purpose-built pre-abandonment as a trader. I’ve heard her fusion plant still operates at a thirty-five percent efficiency rating.”

  “Whatever,” Bart said. “I think you should be more concerned about Nadine’s efficiency rating. I wouldn’t mind adding a few percentage points to that. And what does whizbang mean?”

  “It comes from that old textbook I sent you. You told me to stop using Belt expressions, so I had to find new ones.”

  “Whizbang wasn’t exactly what I meant. But you should go see Nadine.”

  “She’s just being polite. She wanted you to go.”

  “Of course she did! All the ladies do. But she stayed behind and asked you to go with her, even after she knew I wouldn’t be there. She wants you there too. You need to go.”

  “I’ll see,” Jake said.

  “You should go.”

  “I’ll see.”

  “Her friend Alicia will probably be there,” Bart offered.

  “I don’t have any clothes.”

  “Wear your old suit, the one with the colored patches. It makes you look like an honest workingman standing up for truth and decency in this age of debauchery.”

  “Really?”

  “I know that you have only two suits, and the patchy one is the least awful. I’d loan you a shirt if we were the same size.”

  Bart was tall and thin, over 180 cm. Jake was 170 cm and broader. All of Bart’s shirts were tailored to fit him exactly, and Jake couldn’t get them over his shoulders.

  “All right. I’ll go. But only for one beer,” Jake said.

  “Fine. I have to run—have to get my bets in.”

  “Good luck.”

  Jake watched as Bart wandered toward the front of the class. He sighed and turned back to his terminal. He typed slowly on the archaic keyboard.

  Bart had a customized tablet linked to his school account where he stored all his notes, but Jake couldn’t afford a tablet. Whatever class he was in, he always had to sit where there was a working terminal and keyboard and type his notes there.

  He checked his query. Nadine had been right; he was wrong. It was the Imperial Insurance Act of 736, not 735. How did she know that? He mentally shrugged and finished his typing, carefully saving his notes to his school account and the backup storage. Then, just as carefully, he logged off and walked out of the lounge.

  * * *

  Back in his cube, Jake’s comm alarm rang, and he saved his work on the in-wall terminal and flipped the screen and keyboard up. He didn’t even have to get off the bed in his cube to open the closet. He looked inside. There were two spare body stockings hanging in the closet alcove, and a patched semihard suit. He sighed, pulled his suit on, and stepped out into the hall. He stopped in a fresher on the way, punched his code into a water fountain, and drank deeply. A sign on the wall said, “Fountain water is charged to personal account.”

  He walked down the corridor, went through an airlock and down a set of stairs, and got onto the main walkway. Each of the stations spun, so gravity was “out” from the core, and since the walkway circled the outer rim of the station, it appeared to climb up in front and behind him. The caf was a five-minute walk anti-spinward from Jake.

  The walls, floor, and ceiling were all steel panels connected by square brackets. Metal conduits lined the ceiling. Every station was the same. Items that had to be boosted from the surface—wood, food, fabric—were rare and expensive. Metals, hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen were found in abundance in Delta’s ring system. Belters mined ores, and orbital refineries boiled the metals out. The pure metals were mixed together to produce steel and other alloys. Zero-G factories stamped out standard panels, standard beams, standard bolts, even standard furniture. Because they had holes and knobs in a continuing pattern, everything could be assembled in an infinite number of patterns. They were called Legos, for some historical reason. The whole station consisted of combinations of metal brackets and panels snapped together.

  The corridors were extremely bright and colorful. By long-held convention, residents owned the hallway partition outside their cube and could decorate it as they liked. Businesses got into the act as well. Jake passed several images: a mural of buffalo grazing on the southern plains of Delta; a family picture of mother, father, and two children; a depiction of a laboratory; the green and red interlinked cubes of a medical office; a painted forest; diagrams of hydrogen and helium atoms; and not a few abstract color combinations.

  One picture was done entirely in different shades of blue. Somebody must have struck big in cobalt to paint that, thought Jake.

  He passed several station workers on their own private errands. The slap of their skin-suit sandals belied the clank of his magnetized Belter boots’ metal soles striking the metal floor. Jake took comfort in the fact that if there was a blowout, he would stick in place, and the others would blow out of the breech. Their sandals would blow out separately. Several times he walked through a cloud of apple or mint scents—a sure sign that the person he had walked past was having a no-shower day. Concentrated scents were cheaper to boost to orbit than bulky soaps.

  Jake arrived at the central part of the station. The rooms were larger here, and the ceiling was higher, airier. All the public rooms and businesses that faced the central corridor had larg
e windows facing the main corridor. There were green plants everywhere, which helped remove carbon dioxide from the air. Each table had a plant section in the middle. Plants lined the walls, and large planters surrounded groups of tables.

  There was a tight group of perhaps twelve students clustered around two tables in the rear. Jake saw Kieran in the back against the wall. Nadine was sitting with her friend Alicia, and both had their backs to Jake. They were drinking from draft glasses. Jake decided to get a beer before he got to the table, so he went over to the bar.

  “One beer, please,” he asked the bartender.

  “Draft or green bottle?”

  “What’s in the green bottles?”

  “Surface beer.” If it had been lifted to orbit, it would be ruinously expensive.

  “Draft,” Jake said.

  “Here. Five credits.”

  “Five credits? That’s ridiculous. It used to be three.”

  “It’s five now.”

  Jake knew exactly how much money was in his pocket, but he began counting the coins there anyway.

  “I don’t have five. I’m one-tenth short.”

  “Use a credit chip.”

  “Don’t have it with me.” That was a lie. He just never, ever spent money on the credit chip, except for food.

  “Then you don’t get a beer,” said the bartender. He took the mug of draft off the bar and put it behind him.

  Danny appeared at the bar.

  “Belter boy,” he said. “Didn’t see you come in.”

  Jake ignored him and turned to look back at the group.

  Danny handed the bartender a credit chip and asked for a tray of twelve beers. The bartender took the credit chip, checked it, and quickly filled up a tray, including the beer he had just pulled for Jake. Danny grabbed it and strode back toward the table.

  Jake looked at the money in his hand and put it carefully in his pocket. He turned and faced the table of his classmates, all of whom were drinking and laughing. He put both hands in his pockets and then pulled them out again. That wouldn’t work. He looked back at the bartender. “Can I have a glass of water in a draft glass?”

  “One credit.”

  Jake cursed under his breath but paid, and the bartender gave him a glass of water.

  Now with something to do with his hands, Jake walked over to the table and stood just behind Nadine. Danny had put the tray on the table and distributed the glasses, handing two to the girls.

  Nadine and Alicia leaned forward and said something. Both girls started giggling and then grabbed Danny by the arm as they continued laughing.

  Jake stood there awkwardly. Nobody was speaking to him, and the girls weren’t looking his way. He continued standing for a few seconds longer.

  Kieran interrupted his conversation on the other side of the table to give him a glance. “I know you, don’t I?”

  “Yes. I’m Jake. I was in your law seminar. I wanted to come by and congratulate you on your posting. I hear it’s a fine ship!”

  “Thanks!” Kieran grinned dopily. “I’m really looking forward to it.”

  “When do you leave?”

  “Ship out tomorrow, second shift,” Kieran said. “My gear is already on board. I just have to sleep off this hangover and then report tomorrow, and we’re on our route. We’ll be gone eight months and hit twenty different stations.”

  “That sounds whizbang.”

  “Whizbang?”

  “It sounds great.”

  “It does, doesn’t it?” Kieran smiled and drank his beer. “Thanks, Jack! See you around.” He turned back to his conversation.

  “It’s Jake.”

  Kieran gave no indication of having heard him. Jake stood by himself for a moment, at a loss.

  Nadine finished her conversation and turned around. “Jake! You made it!” Her face was flushed; this was obviously not her first drink.

  “Yes.” Jake didn’t know what else to say. He took a sip of water.

  “Kieran’s so lucky, don’t you think?”

  “Yes, he is. Very lucky.” Jake knew he couldn’t keep the envy out of his voice, so he didn’t even try.

  Nadine tapped her friend. “Hey, Alicia, Jake’s here.”

  Alicia looked toward him, smiling. “Hi, Jake!”

  Jake swallowed. Nadine radiated sexual energy, like a burning forest fire. She was like a burning warmth when you stepped from a cold hallway into a warm room. Nadine was so far out of his league that Jake could talk to her without embarrassment, but Alicia made him nervous and tongue-tied.

  “Hi, Alicia.” He couldn’t think of anything else to say.

  “Nice party, huh? Good for Kieran,” Alicia said.

  “Yes, it is. Good for him. And a nice party.” Jake shouted. The noise had picked up.

  “What?”

  “It’s nice. Kieran. It’s good for him.”

  “Yes.” She nodded.

  Danny downed his glass and turned toward them. “Alicia—time to go!” he said.

  “OK.” She drank the rest of her glass, collected her comm, and leaned down to speak to Nadine. Nadine smiled and looked at Jake. The girls exchanged words, and Nadine nodded. Both stood up.

  “Danny’s taking us to the netball final,” Alicia said. “He has a big bet on the outcome.”

  “Oh?” Jake asked.

  “Yes, he bought the tickets and everything. You should come.”

  “Yes, come along,” said Nadine with a smile.

  Danny interjected. “Sorry, Belter boy, but I’ve only got the three tickets.”

  “Surely you can get another one,” Nadine said.

  “Special deal with a friend of the family—only three left,” said Danny. He shook his head at Jake.

  Jake nodded twice. “No problem. Enjoy the game.”

  “Bye, Jake, see you in class,” Alicia said, smiling, and the three of them walked out.

  Jake stood there. Kieran was talking to his friend, and everybody else was ignoring him. He cradled his glass in both hands for a moment, then drank it off and put it on the table.

  “Congrats again, Kieran!” he called as he walked away.

  Nobody looked up.

  * * *

  Jake shut the airlock door behind him and entered a large park. He walked across the glass floor and looked down.

  Delta spun beneath him. The great rivers that flooded down from the frozen poles to the equatorial sea were clearly visible, along with dozens of volcanoes. Delta wasn’t a planet; it was the fourth moon of Iota Draconis IV, a gas giant in the Iota Draconis system. Volcanoes caused by the gas giant’s gravity warmed the moon enough to make it habitable. Corporations had established orbital stations to mine minerals and ground stations to grow food and provide supplies for passing ships. The population was small, but it had prospered.

  Then the ships had stopped coming. Theories varied. Economics. Societal collapse. War. Divine intervention. But it had happened abruptly, and there had been no further imperial communication since the abandonment. The planet produced sufficient food for its current population, if in limited varieties. There were resources in the Belt. There were warehouses stuffed with high-tech supplies, and automated factories could make a surprisingly large variety of things, but there was no shipyard or fusion foundry. Delta could fix small ships and maintain drives, but they couldn’t build a jump drive, or a new power plant for a spaceship, or a station.

  They were in range of the primary right now, so the reflected light was bright through the floor. There were no green plants in this room; the radiation was too strong. It also wasn’t heated; there was no insulation from space. Despite the chill, Jake was comfortable in his semi-hard suit. It stored heat in internal heat sinks for times like this.

  Jake walked up to the smallest food cart in the middle of the park. Unlike the caf, which served mostly food from the hydroponic gardens, this cart advertised Belter specials using canned rations. They combined superpotatoes, canned tuna, a seaweed ration, and Tabasco sauce. The whole
thing was mixed up in a bowl and heated to piping hot. Jake had eaten variations of this for most of his life.

  “A small superpotato special please,” he said.

  The old man mixing the food took Jake’s credit chip with no comment. A sign listed the prices: Small 1Cr, Medium 2Cr, Large 3Cr. The man didn’t say anything else, but he took out a large container and filled it up to the brim and then some. The first time Jake had ordered, he had gotten a small, but the second time the man had looked at his suit more closely and made note of his accent. From then on, he got a large for the small price, no matter what he paid. He was always given a Belter beer as well. It always made him feel guilty, but he was hungry—and it tasted like home.

  Jake took his large, walked to the metal chairs, and sat down. There was no cutlery, but that didn’t bother Jake. He pulled his own spoon out of the outer thigh pocket where he kept his cutlery, knife, and toothbrush. Belters always carried those with them.

  The sunlight reflected from the primary was still bright when he sat down. The station completed a full rotation every eighty-seven minutes, so Jake made his food last. He ate very slowly, watching the light dim as the station’s rotation spun away from the primary and began to face deep space. There was no overhead lighting in the room. He continued to sit as the station spun, and after he had eaten all the food in his tin, he carefully cleaned it out with a small plastic spatula he produced from his pocket. He scraped the very last of the food out of the tin and licked the spatula clean. Then he sat quietly on his chair as the reflected light faded, until he was completely by himself in the dark.

  CHAPTER 2

  The next afternoon, Jake was taking notes in his advanced engineering systems class while messaging Bart. Bart said he had “not disgraced” himself in the finance class, which Jake interpreted as meaning he didn’t come in last place. Bart wanted better notes for his next test, so he kept messaging Jake questions and comments about the finance seminar.

  Jake’s email flashed. A message from Mr. Dashi.

  “Jake, please come see me immediately after your class,” the message said.

  “Why would Mr. D want to see me?” he queried Bart via email.