Spacejunkman

by Grace Bridges -

The little ship sighed around Mike as he adjusted his orbit slightly. The junknet billowed behind him and he felt a slight resistance as it collected a metal something that might once have been a piece of a ship. He flipped dials to haul the item into the small cargo hold at the back—but he’d have to wait until he got back to Avenir before he could inspect it. Might as well take another run at the junk-belt then.

Once known as Trail Boss, he’d wrangled cowboys on the ore trail from Sheba. But it was a hard, thankless task, and he’d lost one too many colleagues—and family members—to the violent physics they’d harnessed to herd the rocks across the expanse. Most younger than himself, too. You had to be good to get to his age in that business. Finally he’d seen sense and gotten out of it at the first chance, though space still called to him. He was a junkman now, collecting scrap metal from low planetary orbit.

Often he pondered how it came to be there—defunct satellites? Collisions? Pirate attacks? And—he sighed heavily—ore accidents, when the fragile gravity wells failed and pieces of rock flew everywhere. He made sure to stay safely away from the cowboy convoys now.

He turned the ship again and the Whale Star came level with his cockpit, bathing Eclectia and some nearby asteroids in a golden-white light. Perhaps someday he’d go down, put his feet on the dirt, but for now he was content to remain a spacer.

Prize Puppy

by Joseph H. Ficor -

The Governor gave Shouhei many trivial errands to run, mostly taking things to the other aristocrats of Carlston's Cove. Everyone praised Shouhei for being so favored by the Governor. The young man's discipline was pushed to its maximum tolerances every time he heard a greater-than-thou exclaim “Here is the symbol of Bokassa's benevolence” or “Here is the epitome of rich charity.”

The other members of the security detachment chose to call him the “prize puppy.”

His “cuteness” began wearing off after a month on board the station. The Governor and other higher ups started showing disdain and boredom when he came around on official business.

Fear seized him when an Enforcer Second Class shouted at him as he passed a guard station on the Governor’s level, “Hey, prize puppy! You're going to play with the big dogs soon.”

His soul forecasted ill times ahead.

Cowboy

by Walt Staples -

The air inside his environment suit stank of a combination of sweat, halitosis, and machine lubricant seasoned with a hint of ozone and urine. In short, it smelled like everyone else’s suit. The fact that he noticed reminded Trail Boss to change out the scrubber cartridge when they made Avenir. After that, some quality time with his rack.

“Krueger is out of position, “ a voice in his earphones snapped him out of his reverie, the slurring of the vowel combination a dead giveaway to its electronic nature.

“Thanks, Kitty.” He toggled his com. “Krueger, get your butt back in position!”

A whisky growl replied, “Sorry, Trail Boss, A.I. slip.”

Trail Boss made a face. “And you were wool-gathering.”

A laugh. “Yep, ‘fraid so. Won’t happen again…”

“‘Til next time,” every one of the drovers chorused together.

Trail Boss shook his head with a smile as he scanned the plotting board. His drovers had the herd, 231 massive ore bodies, clustered together and moving at the same velocity and on the same vector, or close enough to make no difference. He spoke to his A.I., “Kitty, recheck gravity well alignment.” Though the herd was held in a net of tractor beams from his drovers’ cutting horses, Eclectia’s muddle of gravitational fields—five major ones—generated by the pair of suns and the three nearest planetary bodies could play hob with the unwary. One miscue and—stampede! Huge chunks of planet flying in all directions as he and his trail crew tried to dodge. His father, an aunt, and two cousins had met their fate that way.

Instead of acknowledging the order, the A.I. reported, “Hitchens has broken formation.”
Trail Boss’ eyes flew to the plotting board as the blue dot that was Hitchens’ cutting horse suddenly accelerated from its station as forward starboard flanker. “Hitchens! What the—”

Her panicked voice cut over his, “Trail Boss! Trail Boss! Drive malfunction! Hard wire out!”
As she drew a breath, he spoke in a quiet, assured voice, “Roger, Sana. Status of reaction mass?”

“I can’t shut it off! I can’t—”

“Status reaction mass? Report,” he chopped her off in his command voice.

“I…Okay. Okay, “ her voice steadied. “Three-six tons and dropping.”

“Roger. Hold on,” he said calmly. He felt the sweat soaking his under suit and heard the suit’s scrubber kick up a notch to handle the increased moisture. He did a quick calculation in his head; it was rough but faster than tasking the A.I. “Sana, you should have shut off inside four-four-zero seconds. Your present delta-vee is one-niner-six. Vector is X-three-point-zero, Y-seven-point-four, Z-two-point-one. What is your Oh-two?”

Her voice was matter of fact, she’d run the numbers also. “Doesn’t really matter, does it, Mike?”

He sighed. No point in trying to kid her. “No, guess not, Curly-Top.”

“I always hated this old Nebula-six. Was saving up for a newer cutting horse. Something younger than my grandma.” She paused. “You’ll see she gets the money?”

A tear trickled down his cheek. “Yeah, no sweat. I’ll make sure.”

“We had some times, didn’t we?”

“Yep.” He swallowed. “Some times.”

“Mike?”

“Yeah, Curly-Top?”

“Will you say it with me? You know the one.”

They began together, Trail Boss tripping over the words slightly—his folks said it a little differently. “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want…”