Dedicated to Harold Lamb, who first conceived this tale.
Normally, Tipara was one of the last star systems most reasonable citizens of the galaxy wanted to visit, except that the Empire needed to build a large number of ships, and those ships required unreasonable quantities of material: titanium and its alloying substances; rare earth minerals; and, of course, gold and silver.
Rumors of gold, lanthanides, and more had drawn the usual collection of hardscrabble prospectors to Tipara, hoping to strike it rich.
After the first year on his claim, Jor Bran Dald confided to a friend over drinks, “When God separated the heavens from the worlds, he forgot about Tipara.” It was an apt description: Tipara was a close binary star, with a third dwarf near companion. Far too chaotic a system for the usual kinds of planets to form, the orbital plane was a vast banded sea of asteroids, tapering out to a vertiginous array of wheeling dust rings that stretched out into the cold dark of interstellar space.
The effect of the close binary was to bathe the system in such a din of radio noise as to make normal communications bands unusable. A pair of chondritic asteroids orbiting far outside the usual plane served as relay stations and navigation buoys for incoming traffic. These were the Evangalani: Timovnika and Tinikos, galactic north and south, respectively. There in their distant prisons, lonely operators purportedly monitored navigation markers and relayed tightbeam transmissions with the greater galactic community.
The main navigation marker to track was that of Port Arcetanova, a largish rock that had been hollowed out and served as a capital, of sorts, as well as a supply depot and jumping-off point to the rest of the system. The system’s population had trebled in six months, with most of it focused on the Port, for with the prospectors had come the usual train of opportunists, leeches, and other ne’er-do-wells.
At the end of this train, late in time, came the Kuriphoda, a chartered freighter carrying a small but official team of Empiriit scientists, Watran and Quirnid, mineralogists of great esteem. When they arrived, they were met at Port Arcetanova’s docks by the mayor and his good friend Zan Cashillist, who owned most of the port, the Evangelani, and the one moderately-successful asteroid mine.
After this august company had debarked, one Julin Terch made footfall on Port, then quickly dodged to the side to avoid being struck by his own duffel, thrown with deadly accuracy by the ship’s steward.
“And good riddance,” said the steward, before dogging the hatch behind him.
Julin just shook his head and stood tall, hands on hips. His right hand did not stray to the holstered gun, nor to his shortsword. His anger had been long ago spent, giving way to acceptance. He was just as happy to be rid of that crew, though he would have preferred to have been marooned in such a godforsaken system after receiving his pay for the trip.
He wandered the docks a bit, but there were no other out-of-system ships in evidence. From there he ventured inward, into the rabbit’s warren of smooth rock corridors that comprised Port Arcetanova. The Cosmos hotel near the docks was far outside his means. “Try the flophouse,” suggested the gruff desk clerk, who gave him a set of incomprehensible directions. Julin glanced at his wallet and decided that would be outside his range as well.
So it was some hours after his arrival that Julin approached the bar of one of the dock-front saloons. The bartender was short and stocky, a native of some high-gravity world. He stood on a stool to get his shoulders above the bartop.
“Hey, Squat,” Julin addressed him, carelessly, “d’you know where I might find a job? Anything from able spaceman to dishwasher.”
The bartender stared at him, clearly not used to being called Squat. “I wash the dishes here, Stilts.” He spoke in the cultured accent of the Euti Dominion worlds rather than some rough peripheral dialect.
Julin chuckled and adjusted his own register up a bit. “I’m sorry, Euti, I let my mouth run away from me. My name’s Julin.”
“Pleased to meet you, Stilts.” The bartender returned to the glass he’d been polishing with his bar towel. “You looking to work a claim?”
“Depends. How long until the next ship out of here?”
The little man shrugged. “They were coming every week for a while, but it’s tapered off. After this one, might be a week, might be a month, might be six.”
Julin’s face fell. “Longer than I’d like, but there’s no fixing that.” He briefly outlined his own tale, how he’d run afoul of the ship’s master and subsequently been marooned and cheated of his pay. He didn’t mention his search for his father, the Grand Admiral, or the Lost Fleet.
The bartender had a similar sob story of being marooned and making do. Business was slow, so they chatted like that a while, and soon were fast friends. “Euti,” said Julin, “you’re a fine fellow. Don’t you know anybody who’s hiring? I know these asteroid joints, and I know they start renting the air to you once you overstay your welcome.”
“Euti” hooked a thumb at the back room. “Wealthy fellow, name of Cashillist, owns most of the Port, some say half the system. He’s back there, playing cards.”
“Thanks. I’ll check it out.”
“Don’t mention it.”
To be continued in our next…
- The Jumping-off Place, Ep. 1
- The Jumping-off Place, Ep. 2
