Читать книгу Seven Against Mars - Martin Berman-Gorvine - Страница 10

Chapter 6

The trip through space was more fun than Katie had thought existed. Jack seemed to think most of the two dozen or so other passengers were boring, “suits in space, not guys in spacesuits,” as he put it, but Katie had rarely met anyone from outside the Texas Panhandle, let alone from another planet. Meeting them was a blast. To begin with, there were shady characters like Eagle-Eye Eddie, who tended to talk fast and loud about other subjects when you asked them why they were making the trip.

“The name’s Lightning Larry, little lady,” one typical specimen said to Katie on the third day out. He was on the heavy side to be lightning anything, Katie thought as she slurped up some noodles in the cafeteria. And did all these guys have corny nicknames? She was going to have to talk to Rachel about that.

“So, do you travel around the solar system selling lightning rods, or is it kites?” Katie asked him.

“Kites? Oh, I gotcha. Ha ha! No, nothing like that,” Larry said, absently patting his head and dislodging his toupee. “Say, who do ya think is gonna win the New Wimbledon Open? My money’s on Phobos Williams. They got nothing to do on that Martian moon but play tennis.”

“So are you from Phobos, Mr. Lightning?”

“Me? Ha ha! Just call me Larry, sweetie. Say, would you like to come to my cabin after lunch and inspect my meteor patches?”

The ship executed a midcourse correction, and Larry’s toupee floated away, much to the delight of the other diners, who began to play keep-away with it. Katie slipped out of the cafeteria, leaving a whining Larry lunging after his hairpiece.

Not all of the rogues onboard were so obvious. Katie was fascinated by a fit-looking man in his twenties who wore a sandy mustache and spent much of his time reading in the recreation room. He looked like a man of action, someone who could have repaired a split-rail fence in an afternoon back home in Texas, but when he was reading he could sit perfectly still for hours at a time. Ordinarily Katie was shy around strangers, not that she ever met many of them in her world, but it didn’t seem to make so much difference now, when everything was imaginary anyway. So she stood in the doorway and stared boldly at him, until he looked up with a half-smile and said, “Can I help you, miss?”

“What’s that you’re reading?”

He showed her the spine of the book.

“Nuh-uh, I don’t believe you.”

“Don’t believe me? What’s not to believe?”

“There ain’t no such book as Jovian Property Law for Beginners.”

The man shrugged, a rippling motion like a tiger pacing in a cage that made Katie feel kind of hot and mushy inside, like warmed-up grits. “Believe what you want. Now if you don’t mind, I’m going to go back to reading my nonexistent book.”

He had a few seconds of quiet to do so before Katie asked, “You studying to be a lawyer or something?”

“Nope,” the man said without looking up.

“Then you’re a, whaddaya call ’em, a real estate agent?” Katie was proud of herself for remembering this word from a library book.

“Not that either.”

“Well, what are you then?”

“A very annoyed man,” he said, slamming his book shut and standing up.

Katie stood her ground without flinching. “A man of unnecessary mystery, I’d say.”

“Cheeky,” the man said reflectively, walking right up to Katie and grasping her shoulders with both hands. Their eyes were exactly on a level with each other, a relief for Katie, who was tired of being short stuff. The man’s eyes were the color of tea before milk is added.

“Well, my importunate friend,” he said, releasing her.

“I am not.”

“You are not what?”

“Importunate. You can’t intimidate me with fancy words.”

“Wasn’t trying to. I was only trying to read my book,” the man pointed out with some heat.

“What for? If you’re neither a lawyer nor a real estate agent.”

“Maybe I’m a secret agent.”

Katie stuck her chin out. “Now you are messing with me.”

“How would you know? Considering you ain’t never been outside the Panhandle.”

Katie felt a large, dense lump form in her stomach. “What did you say?”

“You heard me.”

“I mean, how do you know where I’m from?”

“Your ac-cent,” the man said, neatly catching Katie’s upswung fist in his hand as if fielding a fly ball.

“Don’t you mess with Texas!” Katie cried, drawing back her fist for another swing.

“Whyfore would I want to do that? My mother’s from Abilene.”

“What? Is not!”

“Is too!”

“Oh yeah? What’s her name then?” The population of Abilene had declined drastically since Independence, and Katie bet she knew most of the family names there.

“Helen McSwain.”

Katie’s knees buckled and she grabbed at the door frame for support. “Helen McSwain?” she whispered hoarsely.

“That’s what I said. So?”

Katie knew Helen McSwain, a quiet little girl who lived in Abilene and was the daughter of her mom’s best friend Becky. Helen was nine years old last Thanksgiving. Except that that was thirty years ago, right? That is, her home was thirty years in the past and sort of at right angles to this world, if Rachel was right. So Helen could be all grown up now. Except, how could she have a son this guy’s age?

“How old are you?” Katie demanded.

For the first time since she had interrupted his reading, the guy looked defensive. “What’s it your business?”

“Twenty-five?” she persisted.

“No. I’m younger. People say I look grown-up for my age.… Why am I telling you this?”

“Beats me. I don’t even know your name.”

“I don’t know yours, either.”

“Katie Webb.”

“Pete Kowalski. What?” he added when she rolled her eyes. “I’m half Martian on my father’s side, sure. You got a problem with that?”

“Guess maybe I don’t,” Katie said, and they shook hands. “So why are you reading about property laws on the planet Jupiter?”

“Maybe I’m just interested,” he said. “You have any idea how complicated it is trying to draw up a deed for a cloud of methane gas moving at several hundred miles an hour?”

“I can honestly say I’ve never thought about that.”

“Well, it’s pretty darn complicated. Especially when the property owners are these sort of giant gas bags the size of hot air balloons that reproduce like amoebas. You can imagine how complicated things get, legally speaking, when they start budding.”

“Umm. Sounds fascinating. So what do you have to do with it?”

Pete winked at Katie for an answer, making her insides tingle pleasantly, but then retreated to the couch and resumed his reading, where he ignored further questions.

Well, all right, suit yourself. Katie wandered over to the Ping Pong table and picked up a racket.

In walked a woman who appeared to be about Pete’s age (but did that mean she was really older than him?). The stranger picked up the other racket. She was slim, with a plain, pale face and brown hair held back from her forehead with a hairband. “So you think you’re good, do you?” she asked Katie.

“What? I didn’t say anything to you!”

The woman sneered. “I can tell you think you’re pretty sharp, just from the way you hold that racket.”

“Well, maybe I am good. My daddy plays with me every Sunday after church—they have an old table in the basement.”

“Choir girl, eh? Well, let’s see ya handle this,” the woman said, smashing a serve over the net. Katie returned it just as fiercely, and they had a volley going before the ship made a minor course correction that sent one of Katie’s return serves bouncing off Pete’s head.

“Sorry,” Katie said as he got up and stalked away in disgust.

“Ha! One-love,” the woman taunted.

“That’s no fair! It wasn’t my fault the darn rocket jiggled just as I was serving!”

“Space rules, girlie. You wanna play with me or your dollies?”

“I’ll show you!” Katie snarled. A furious volley followed. To her surprise, she eventually won the point. Each point after that was hard-fought, but with the continual minuscule changes in “gravity” caused by the ship’s inconstant acceleration, Katie’s more experienced opponent had the advantage of her.

When she reached 21 points to Katie’s 14, Katie braced herself for some heavy-duty gloating, but instead the woman put down her paddle and walked around the table grinning, her hand held out. “Never had an opponent as good as you,” she said as they shook. “The name’s Gun.”

“Gun, huh? Well, I’m Katie Webb, from the Lone Star Republic.”

“Never heard of it, but apparently they raise some good table tennis players there,” Gun said as they shook hands. “I grew up on Ceres myself, so I’m a true Belter through and through. Even the biggest of them asteroids don’t have enough mass to hold a wad of spit, but they spin the inhabited ones to make artificial gravity. At slightly different rates, though, which is why I can play the game under variable acceleration. Oh, and by the way, my full name is Sherilynn Gunnarson, but if you ever call me Sherry I’m gonna push you out the nearest airlock. Capeesh?”

“Suits me.” Katie grinned. Gun was the first person she’d met on this ship—and really the only one in this whole crazy world she’d stumbled into, with the partial exception of Rachel—with whom she felt instantly at ease. That wasn’t true of the princess, who despite all her attempts to put Katie and Rachel at ease was still larger than life and just too, too perfect. But Katie had to scrape together the courage to ask to talk to her alone—that business about the “new Martian flag” being a near-copy of the Texian flag couldn’t be just a coincidence.

♂

Her chance came one day when she found herself alone with Anya in their cabin. Katie pulled herself even with the bunk where the princess was resting with her hands clasped neatly on top of her head, as if ready at a moment’s notice to swing into action. Seeing Katie, she turned and put on her full, radiant smile. “Kaitlyn, I can’t believe how quickly you’ve adapted to weightlessness! You are a natural at it. I only wish it were as easy for Ray.”

“Shucks, princess, if Rachel is Ray you can certainly call me Katie.”

“All right then, Katie. You look like you want to talk to me about something.”

“Yeah, I do. That new Martian flag that the fake Ares forced everyone to use.”

Anya’s eyes widened, then an unaccustomed scowl tugged at the corners of her mouth. “What about it? That night at the bar, you said it resembled the flag of your Republic of Texas, didn’t you?”

“That’s right, I did. And you said there was a rumor about the fake Ares.…”

“Must we talk about him?” Anya blew a few stray strands of red hair away from her face. Seeing that Katie wasn’t giving up, she sighed. “There are many rumors about him. Nobody seems to know who he is, or where he comes from. He speaks Marpolski worse than Jack. Some people whisper that he is actually an Earthling—no offense.”

“Just so’s you don’t say nothin’ bad about Texas.” Katie paused and bit her lip. “Does anyone say he’s from Texas?”

Anya thought for a moment, then shook her head. Katie let out a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding. “No, I never heard anyone say what country on Earth the usurper is from. But my mother once heard that he came from some place with a weird name—the Potholder?”