18: The Crew

News of the Io bombing reached Foss and his full crew less than an hour after the fact - and several minutes before the official newscast from Earth. The shuttle's booster phase had ended, and they were in the beginning of several weeks of freefall, before the braking phase.

"This is Radio Free Jupiter. Eighteen volunteers on the Io Refinery Station Two were just killed in a hit-and-run bomb attack by the Terran Fleet, as it returned to the system in full force after a previous failed raid led by the E.S.S. Ford. The attack, led by the E.S.S. William Jefferson, was executed by a single space-to-surface interceptor craft, identified as built for Colonel Haruman Clarke of the Martian Security Forces, also known as 'Argus-A'..."

"Oh no..." said Venix, as she and the shuttle crew listened to the underground station. The broadcast struggled to get through the static and distortion of Terran jamming-transmitters.

"You sound involved, ma'am," the extremely gaunt, bald Moravia said in his nasal Moon accent. "Pardon my asking, but haven't I seen you somewhere on the networks?"

"Quiet, stickman," the obese, hairy Keaton said between mouthfuls of food, "Cap's listening."

Christof Foss listened intently to the broadcast while the ship's leisure droid, a slightly old-fashioned female model, massaged his legs and arms. He put a cigarette in his mouth and just chewed on it, his mind occupied. Then he switched off the cabin radio.

"Boys," he told the crew, "I think I know why they're willing to pay so much for Venix. She's with the Fleet. Some sort of high-level defector."

Keaton coughed out a chunk of synthetic food and it flew, weightless, into the opposing wall. Moravia clutched his bony knees where they stuck out from his frayed coveralls, and shook his head.

"You should've warned me before you picked me up," Moravia reproached the captain. "That was sneaky, man, not telling me about her. When they find out, we're in real trouble... the MSF messed up Eric Malta's crew real bad a month ago, remember? Blood all over the place, man..."

"Moravia, you'll get your share of the reward," the captain assured him. "And wasn't it you who begged me to be in on this flight, before I dropped you off for your R-and-R?"

"But it's the race, man. Keaton's big chance. We're a team, he can't do it without me..."

His Earth-born colleague pushed away from the weightless cabin wall and drifted off to pick up the stray piece of food. The blond, large-breasted leisure droid began to work on the captain's back, while casting a long look at Venix - who sat in an opposite corner of the cabin, "upside-down" relative to it.

"Venix," the blond simulacra asked in its husky, childish tone, "are you robot, simulacra, or human? I cannot quite figure out which. But of course... I'm not very clever," it said with an innocent flutter of fake eyelids.

In a second, Venix' expression changed from anger to shock to bafflement. All three crewmen looked at her face, waiting. Keaton put one cautious hand on the large multi-purpose power tool in his vest-pocket. Venix shook her head at him, and her long red hair fanned out about her head. He quickly removed his hand.

"I am," Venix said with deliberate slowness, "a cyborg and political refugee. I intend to seek asylum on Mars. I don't want to cause you any harm, but with or without your help I'm going to try and get past the MSF and reach the Martian Immigration Office."

"Want to borrow my hairnet?" the leisure droid asked, its gaze following the drifting coppery strands of Venix' hair with a dreamy expression on its face.

"And what if the Martians choose to play it safe and simply deliver you back to the MSF, ma'am?" Moravia suggested gloomily. "It's not like they've got a fleet. Heck, they barely have independence."

"I'm going to try," she repeated, focusing on the crewmen with her remarkably steady, clear, unblinking eyes.

At once reacting to her gaze with a nervous grin, Moravia made a quick suggestion: "Maybe we could drop her into the Martian stratosphere during re-entry, with the... other shipments? It doesn't get so hot inside the drop-capsule, she could survive it. Hey, I figured out she wasn't human days ago. No offense, ma'am."

"Sure, Moravia, if you agree to tossing out several kilos' worth of merchandise to make room for her. Our Martian business associates can get pretty nasty if they think we're screwing them," said the captain. Keaton added: "And another thing. If she's located by the MSF on the way down - and I'll bet the Fleet has some means of tracking her - it means our shipment gets busted with her. No - she has to go in stealth, and separately."

"Hate to say this, but we've lost our last spare stealth-cloak," Foss said. "I had to... get rid of a little legal problem when we picked up Moravia from the lunar bus. Dumped it in space, it'll never be found. Sorry. Should have bought more. P-A's broken, so it couldn't handle it for me."

"Does your shuttle at least have an escape pod I could use?" Venix asked.

The crewmen looked at each other with blank faces. Keaton moved toward the red hatch in the ceiling, opened a small panel and pressed the large "TEST" button.

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

"Warning! Escape pod unstable due to malfunction. Propulsion system will explode if the pod is ejected. Do not open!" shouted a computer-voice. Keaton shut the panel and the alarm stopped.

"This is just incredible," Venix said - her lips smiling, her wide blue and white eyes suggesting stunned outrage. "I jumped the only shuttle in the universe that I can't get off!"

"Fark!" Keaton cursed out loud. "I don't want to end up a lobo like my dad! I'd rather quit, I mean it..."

Lobos, criminals who had had their brains surgically corrected, could no longer commit crime - or walk and chew at the same time.

"Let's be practical, boys," Foss said even as Keaton kept ranting and Venix regarded the captain's neck in a most unsettling way. "Where and when is the best time to drop secret cargo from Martian orbit?"

"May I make a suggestion?" Venix said, and got their attention without having to raise her voice. While she talked, she let herself drift through the weightless cabin while rotating, slowly. She knew her floating hair was an eye-catcher, and made full use of the effect.

"Keaton is right. The Fleet can track me. During my years on Earth they always seemed to know where I was. So I think they've figured out that I'm headed for Mars - the MSF don't have to know which shuttle I'm actually on. All they need to do is to check every cargo shipment as it arrives."

"Stop looking at her like that, Captain!" the pouting leisure droid said hurtfully. "You've got me."

The captain's face turned a shade paler. "Venix is probably right. Why would the Fleet divert any of its precious forces just to track us, when they've got a war on their hands? I mean, where could she go, but Mars? What I still don't know is why you escaped, and what they want from you. So you're a cyborg, big deal. I've got plastic kidneys, a pacemaker, a hearing aid, titanium reinforcements in my bones and a digestion-bot in my stomach. What's so special about you?"

"Never mind that," Venix said, landing softly on a wall section. "There is one way you can drop me off the shuttle without connecting you to my escape."

Foss raised a hand: "We'll claim you hijacked us... no, they'll set an example and punish us anyway." He put away his chewed-up cigarette.

"I shall take Keaton's place in the Skysurfing Grand Prix," Venix said in her most unaffected voice.

Keaton stood upright and began to bounce around in the cabin like a human rubber ball.

"Never!" he protested. "She won't take my board! Never! I'm going for the tryouts this year, no matter what!"

"Keaton and Venix are about the same height," Foss said, ruffling the leisure droid's blond head, like showing affection for a pet. The droid smiled with closed eyes, purring gratefully. "She can fit into your surfer suit easily."

"But Caaap..." wailed the fat man, spinning around his center. "You know the race is my life! All the money and effort I've spent training for this... I could've made the tryouts this year! Ask Moravia!"

"I wash my hands," Foss replied. "I didn't choose to have her on board, but at least we can get her down without a fuss and 'they' pay us two billion hits for the effort. You can build a brand-new board with your share. My decision's final."

Venix could not shake her suspicions that "they" were the Fleet.

"For this plan to work, you must get killed in the Grand Prix," Venix said to Keaton, who glowered at her with open hatred. She could see with her infrared vision that the man was being quite emotional. Her years of experience reading heat-patterns from the heads of humans told her, intuitively, that some kind of revenge act was to be expected.

Without a sound, she pivoted off the wall, bounced off another, caught hold of Keaton and they slammed into the ceiling. Venix put her face an inch from his; his breath smelled of cheap soy protein and alcohol.

"Keaton, whatever you're thinking of doing... don't. I'm much too fast for you. Now, get into a suit and show me how to ride that board. We've got plenty of time until the tryouts."

"My, Captain, would you like me to start behaving like that too?" asked the leisure droid in an outraged tone - perhaps testing the ground for adapting its behavior.

"No, Sugar, you just stay the lovely way you are. Venix is... very, very focused. Last time a saw a woman that focused, she was chasing after some man. And the more hopeless her chase became, the more she... well, you know how it is."

Venix avoided the captain's eyes. Sometimes she wanted to lash out and scream at people that she wasn't an emotionless robot, her inner life wasn't as visible as on a body of flesh and blood, words could hurt her... but she had learned to give up trying.

Her hopes focused on the one man who had seen her feelings on the first attempt. Venix promised herself for the millionth time, that she and Gus would be together again... even if she had to deal with smugglers and worse scum to get there.

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THE ARGUS PROJECT INTERNET EDITION (c)A.R.Yngve 1999, 2000, 2004. All rights reserved. May not be copied without permission.

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