6.

 

“Hoss, I really don’t like these gauge readings. Pulling ten armored hazmat containers is hard on our baby,” Billy Joe said coming back up from the reactor control annex.

“I know, I know. Felt it when making that turn out of the Consolidated yard,” Winston fussed back. “Ain’t the first time we’ve pulled this much, though.”

The power draw on the Sierra Madre’s reactor was staggering when compared to a normal string of containers. The good news was, barring a load of uranium or some other super-dense cargo, the energy draw would hardly change. The bad news was the readouts danced on the dark yellow to orange side of the spectrum with a worrisome flutter. It was tolerable, but if something happened, she’d red-line and scram the reactor or worse.

“The grav relays will need to be stripped and rebuilt after this is over,” Billy Joe worried on, seeming to read Winston’s mind.

“Nahq, mench!” Winston swore. “Stop with the old mother hen routine! I hate it just as much as you do. I see the same things. We’ve got maybe two too many cans on our back, but we got no choice.”

Billy Joe made a clucking sound with his cheek and tongue.

“Gah! I hate that!” Winston said, squirming.

“Sorry. You know I can’t help it when I get overwhelmed,” Billy Joe said.

“Didn’t we do a thorough check?” Winston sighed.

“Yeah.”

Winston started scrolling through the pretrip inspection screen again. “No problems, right? None of the treble grav couplers were flakey, yes?”

“Check, I found nothing wrong,” Billy Joe said and sighed.

“All the container’s internal gravity planes worked just fine?” Winston kept hammering on his point. They did their job and did it well.

“Okay! I get it. It’s just...” Billy Joe paused, letting the silence fill in the rest.

“I’m with you on this, Bubby. I don’t like it one bit. We’re flying on the ragged edge of disaster, and if anything goes wrong on this run, well…?” Winston sympathized. “If you can give me a better option, I’m pretty sure I’d take it.”

“I guess we’ll be fine, as long as these containers come back in one piece and everyone plays well with each other and does their part,” Billy Joe said, deliberately ignoring the pesky whine of engine alarms. “So, all that matters is that we did our job. If the containers rupture or lose power, well, that’ll be all she wrote. We’ll be a smear on millions of tons of cargo can, accelerating through us as it falls toward the engine’s imaginary black hole until it hits something tougher than us.”

Winston gave Billy Joe a horrified look followed by a weary eye roll. He turned to watch the clouds whoosh by and shook his head. “Ain’t you just a barrel of laughs.”

“Just don’t play crack the whip, Hoss.” Billy Joe snapped back. Winston laughed despite himself.

~~~

Monte Moncalme was a wedge cut out of a planet like a colossal grapefruit section. The underside consisted of strange icicle shaped peaks and drip-like sandcastles of frozen magma. The outside curve of the skyland’s wedge was a taiga of dense mountainous forest. It reminded Winston of a pre-Dream movie he saw shot in the Carpathians about some count.

They arrived right on time as the skyland rotated into her shade and deep twilight fell on the valley. Winston dropped to sub-mach speeds as they followed their cleared flight path into the narrow valleys that hid them from view on nearly all sides. The Sierra Madre’s telescope showed this to be part of a private estate.

True night was only something you saw from videos of old Earth. It didn’t exist in the Dream unless you got caught in a thick enough cloud or went into the shivering cold deeps. Though the narrow valleys looked able to give a close approximation of what the ancients called astrological twilight.

“Billy Joe,” Winston asked. “See what you can get on the local net about this place. I really hope we’re not being suckered.”

“Rog that, Hoss.”

After a few seconds, an auxiliary holo opened up to Winston’s left with Billy Joe’s findings of ownership, tribal affiliation, Imperial status and favor.

“Duke Justinian Payzhur?” Winston didn’t recognize the name, and continued to flip down the data as they entered the authorized glide-path. They were five by five and on the way down.

“Looks like that’s Duke Payzhur. Humanist tribe. Member of Xiao’s First Court, but not too high a member. Important member of a long list of corporate boards and Imperial bureaucracies. A kissing cousin from a long line of the Payzhur family scattered all throughout human space like an ancient clan of kings, princes and captains of industry. All highly connected and busy getting their cut as middlemen from all sides, while still enjoying the favor of Emperor Xiao.” Winston whistled low in appreciation, realizing that not only were they about to do something crooked, it was so crooked, it had to screw its socks on in the morning and then would deny it ever owned socks.

“Working for human supremacists. I don’t like this one bit.” Billy Joe said.

Winston understood how his partner felt. Billy Joe feared destruction just like he feared death. Even though he was a mechanoid with the ability to be restored from his last save. He would still lose some memory if he was brought back, just like an amnesiac.

“Me too, bubby. Let’s just pray that we get out of this with our skin intact, somehow,” Winston agreed.

“Hoss, I never wanted a gun so bad,” Billy Joe moaned.

“Kinda too late now,” Winston muttered, feeling the same way.

Winston oriented the Sierra Madre’s train of containers to match the ground as they swooped in to their final approach. From this angle, the thin slice of sky was resplendent with the dark reds and deep purple shadows associated with night. The valley itself was miles long, dotted with Potemkin villages for the amusement of the Duke.

“Look at that!” Billy Joe gasped, pointing down at a set of fantastically ornamented pavilions and latticed rides. “A private theme park?”

“Rich people’s toys.” Winston said with a chuckle.

The nav beacon’s programmed route led further past the palatial manor home in a looping curve, keeping them away from the tranquil beauty of the duke’s palatial grounds, and over a less manicured environment with fewer watching eyes.

The servants’ quarters and dirty industry necessary to maintain the illusion of bucolic luxury slid below the Sierra Madre as she coursed down a secondary branch of the valley. Several dozen warehouses stood next to a ‘we’ll look the other way for cash’ nanofabrication mill. A nest of derricks and scaffolds of nanofeedstock plumbing spread out from it like a spider’s web. On the marked loading tarmac, big industrial mechanoids waited for them to land.

Holographic markers were sent to the Sierra Madre’s hud, lighting up a tight curved line where they wanted the containers positioned for the onload. Billy Joe bent the string into the desired coil. With a snort, Winston realized that shape would conceal loading activity from his view from the Sierra Madre’s cab.

The comm gave its encrypted incoming message chirp.

“This is the Sierra Madre. Go ahead,” Winston answered.

“Sierra Madre, this is ground control. Do not spin down your grav generators. Sync it with the local source and keep your fans running.” The man’s voice was rich and oily like Winston expected. Part of him wondered if he had a waxed mustache to twirl.

“Rog that, ground control,” Winston said.

“Once that’s done, open your keel door. Envoys will provide further instructions.” Again, that voice made Winston think of some white hatted lawman was about to pop up over the horizon and arrest Mr. Evil Mustache and his top hat too.

“Rog that. Synchronizing fields, keeping drive and fans hot. Beware the tidal wells. They will suck you up,” Winston warned.

He shared an embarrassed look with Billy Joe. The memory of the foolish trucker shooting through the fan at Omnifeed still painfully fresh in his mind.

There was a gentle bump and the Sierra Madre and her container consist came to rest.

“Roll down port facing doors only,” came the instruction from ground control.

“Rog that,” Billy Joe responded.

Within seconds, the sounds of onloading cargo penetrated the cab. Fork loaders moving crazy-fast shot to and from the containers. A dozen yards or so in front of the nose stood a small clutch of people in front of a ground limo, wheels and all!

“Check it out!” Winston marveled, “Now there is rich people’s money in action. A ground car with wheels on this small chunk of rock?”

“When you can afford to waste your money, why not?” Billy Joe said enthused with seeing the luxurious vehicle.

“Must be nice. But then again, after this run, we might have enough money to burn for a week or two,” Winston said grinning at the thought of this run’s big check.

Billy Joe gave a queer autotuned rebel yell in excitement at the coming payday.

A pair of figures began walking toward the keel airlock door of the Sierra Madre.

“Well Bubby, Looks like we got company. Let’s go greet ‘em nice and hospitable.” Winston said popping open his pilot seat’s crash cage.

“I’m so hopin’ this doesn’t go cattywampus on us,” Billy Joe fussed.

“We meet them, get our extra instructions and get out of here,” Winston said.

“With how fast those lumpers are moving, we could be in the air in another quarter hour or so, judging by the sound,” Billy Joe agreed with an expert opinion.

Billy Joe suddenly made that nervous clucking sound again.

“What now?” Winston growled as he got up out of his seat.

“Maybe it’s better we don’t have guns,” he said, stopping Winston at the gangway down to the keel airlock.

“Why’d you say that?” Winston turned to see what caught Billy Joe’s eye.

“Look at ‘em,” Billy Joe said and pointed just as they walked under the nose of the keel canopy glass. “They move like muscle, not money. Something tells me this has already gone cattywampus.”

Winston gave a loud exhale and began descending the ladder to greet the pair. “Like we have a choice now,” he said, resigned to whatever fate awaited them.