Metal Boxes (26 page)

“Yes Commander, we have to actually walk around the station and knock on the hatch at the Ruby Rock. Some automated
answering machine may not let me through, but Aunt Ruth will have no trouble recognizing me.”

Stone, Wright and
the two drascos filed out into the empty corridor. The hatch slammed shut behind them, locking tight. It was a wide corridor with a high ceiling, but it was empty in both directions.

St
one pointed to his left. “Clockwise, Commander. Jay and Peebee, you grab a hold and stay close to me, hear?” He stuck out his hands to each of the drascos.

Jay wonked and grabbed his hand. Peebee was busy looking around at the strange surrounding
s.

Stone rapped his already bruised knuckles on her head. “Peebee? Grab my hand, okay?”

Peebee wonked and grabbed his hand. Both drascos wonked happily and pulled at Stone in opposite directions.

Suddenly, a couple of uniformed station staffers stepped into sight around the curve of the corridor. Their uniforms
clearly identified them as security. The uniform cut and colors may have been different than on other stations, but private security looked the same everywhere. These two were the large type, looking more likely to start a barroom brawl than to stop one.

On
e of them pulled a truncheon from a ring on his belt and shouted. “Hold up, you two. We have a few questions for you.”

“
I guess we weren’t fast enough,” Wright sighed. “Well, we are on the navy time clock again. Let’s see if that helps.” She waved at the approaching men. “I am Full Commander Danielle E. Wright of the Emperor’s navy. What can I do for you gentlemen?”

As the men approached one
said, “Stationmaster Brickman wants us to take a look at your ship. You caused some damage to the station and he wants your craft checked out by security from top to bottom.”

“There is nothing for security to be concerned with
,” Wright said. “Nothing we did was criminal. He should have sent a maintenance crew if his concern is safety.”

The man
said, “We will check. If we decide we need maintenance, we will call them in. What is that?” He pointed his truncheon at Jay.

“It is a pet
,” Wright said. “It is not listed as an illegal exotic, so they are not your concern.”

“Yeah, right
,” the man said. “Whatever. Open the hatch and we will check out your ship.”

Wright shook her head. “Do you have a
n Empirical warrant to search this craft?”

“We have orders from the station master. That is all we need
,” the man replied.

“
No,” Wright answered. “I have introduced myself as an officer in the Emperor’s navy. My spacecraft may not be navy property but it is under my control and my lock. At this point, to search anything in my possession or me would definitely require an Empirical warrant.”

The man raised his truncheon and balanced it on his shoulder
like a cricket bat. He said, “Look lady. I don’t care-”

Two loud drasco hisses interrupted him
. Jay and Peebee pulled loose from Stone’s hands. Jay rose on her hind legs stretching her neck. Even for a small month old drasco she reached almost three meters high from the deck to the top of her head. She waived her arms, the flaps snapping back and forth. She was shaking her head back and forth hissing loudly. Peebee crouched low to the deck; her body seemed to spread out wide. Her long tail shot over her head. The tail spike rang as it tapped the deck.

Stone
stepped between the drascos and the security team. He said calmly, “Gentlemen, I suggest that you lower your weapons and put them away. These are not dangerous creatures unless Commander Wright or I are attacked.”

The men froze. The man who had spoken slowly lowered his truncheon and slipped it into the ring on his belt. The other man bolted, running screaming back up the corridor.
Peebee’s tail spike flipped up from tapping the deck and pointed at the first man’s chest, freezing in place. Jay screeched and launched over the frozen man, sailing five of six meters in the air slamming down to the decks meters behind the man.

Jay’s feet slapped the deck as she raced after the fleeing man.

“Jay. Stop. Now!” Stone shouted. “Oh, crap!” She either did not hear him or would not listen. He started to run after Jay.

Wright called to him, “Mister Stone. Stand fast.
I need you to stay with me. We need to stay together.”

Stone said
, “But-”

“But? Now who is calling whom names?” Wright interrupted with a smile toward the remaining security man. They heard scream
s coming from around the curve of the corridor. “Sorry Mister Stone, but I don’t think you would have caught up to Jay before she caught up to the man. And we do need to stay together and get to a secure location.”

“
Aye, aye, Commander. I mean, yes sir.” He looked at the security officer. “Sir, we want to go to the Ruby Rock at hanger seven. Can you escort us?”

The man nodded, his eyes never leaving Peebee’s tail spike
poised inches from his chest.

Stone nodded back. He rapped the drasco on her head to get her attention. “It is okay, Peebee. Put your tail down.
We have all seen your tail spike now and it is pretty, but you can put it away.” He reached up and patted her tail.

Peebee started to lower the tail spike when they heard another scream from down the corridor. Peebee’s tail shot back up but she let it fall behind her when Jay trotted back around the curve. The security man was sitting straddle legged across Jay’s back
. Jay’s hands pinned his arms to his side. The man bounced and slid about as Jay trotted up to Stone. She slid the man off her back and dropped him at Stone’s feet.

Jay wonked happily as if to say, “Throw him again.”

Peebee wonked sadly as if to say, “It’s not fair, mine didn’t run so I had nothing to fetch.”

Stone looked at the man on the deck. He was staring up at the drascos with near panic in his eyes.

“Come on, man,” Stone said. “They are not going to eat you. They were just playing fetch. Don’t you know enough not to run from a baby drasco?”

“B-b-b-baby?” the man stuttered.

“Of course they are babies,” Wright responded. “Why else would they be this little?”

Stone tsked as he leaned down to help the man up off the deck. The man’s uniform pants were tattered along the inseam as if he had been trapped by an out
-of-control power sander. A rash had already begun to form along the inside of his legs and crotch.

Stone tsked again.
“Man, that is gonna sting in the morning. You need to get some salve or something to put on that rash.” Stone brushed the man off and helped straighten the rest of his uniform. “Didn’t your momma teach you not to go riding on the back of drascos without a saddle? Man-o-man! It looks like you must have left a couple of layers of skin behind. Hey, my fault for not having them on their leashes. Sorry about that. Add the cost of the salve and a new uniform to our invoice on the hanger, okay? And the first drink is on us tonight, right?”

Wright smiled sympathetically at the man. “The drascos have kind of rough hides, don’t you think? Anyway
, we are going to visit friends at hanger seven. I believe you two gentlemen offered to show us the way?”

The first man nodded. “Yeah. Um…sure. Is it okay to move?”

“Oh, it is plenty okay to move,” Stone nodded vigorously. “Just don’t make any real sudden moves or go running off. You know how baby drascos are; they think anything that runs is a chew toy to play with.”

“
Chew toy? Um…okay…then. Right this way.” The man turned and started back up the corridor, but his eyes never left Peebee. He walked slowly as if he did not want any confusion about whether he was escorting or running away.

Stone followed, taking Jay and Peebee b
y the hands. Wright joined them. Jay reached out and grabbed Wright’s hand, pulling her in closer. Wright winced at the drascos grip.

Stone said in the calmest voice he could muster, “Easy on the hands, Jay.” He gave Jay’s hand a gentle squeeze and then held it very loosely to give the drasco the idea. “Don’t forget that you have tougher hides than Commander Wright and your finger talons can scrape if you are not gentle enough with her. We don’t want to break her, okay?”

“I still don’t know how much they understand, but I am sure they get the idea from your tone of voice.” She used her other hand to pull herself free from Jay’s grasp, then re-grabbed the drasco’s hand using a different grip. “Those talons are sharp, aren’t they? But I guess they would have to be to handle the spikes and thorns on everything that grows on Allie’s World.”

Stone nodded
, “Having your food fight back can always make you a bit tougher.” He laughed. “Humph, listen to me. You would think I was a rangy old explorer. Except for our short time on Allie’s World the toughest fight I had with my food was moving a jar of pickles to get at the mayo.” He glanced behind them.

The other security man
was following along; walking bow legged, trying to keep up. It was obvious his legs were starting to chafe.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

The
corridor was empty until they walked far enough around the curve that the hanger numbers hit forty and started over again at one. There was a loading crew at the hatch to hanger one. They had the huge bay doors open and were operating loaders, skid jacks and tow sleds, moving containers into the hanger and the ship parked inside. A steady stream of lumpers were wrangling boxes and bins from the belly of the ship, cutting across the corridor and dropping out of sight in the freight elevators lining the inner curve.

Shouting and swearing
was the order of the day for this crew. The crew was in some sort of jungle mode. Most of the box wranglers were making wild animal noises as they passed each other. A few lumpers, apparently unable to make decent animal noises, were shouting nonsense phrases or bits of song lyrics. Stone could only assume that the phrase ‘git ‘er done’ was meant as encouragement, but it was shouted as if it were an insult.

All of that changed when Wright, Stone and the drascos rounded the curve of the station. In a nano-second the corridor
became a silent, staring, morass of jumbled containers and gawking crew.

The first security man glanced at Peebee and held up his arms. “It is okay
, people. These creatures are not dangerous, just don’t run. Stand still and clear a path to let us pass.”

The loading crew cleared a path. It
was not straight or even, but the lumpers backed away to make a very wide path. The crowd got larger as other loaders and ship’s crew joined the staring crowd. Planet bound people often thought that working on a station where all kinds of creatures came through might make people jaded at seeing odd creatures. However, human space stations did not often play host to any creatures other than humans, or the occasional cat or dog. Horses or cows would have drawn stares, but even the most uneducated loader would have seen pictures or videos of earth animals. Until today, only two humans had ever seen drascos.

A voice whispered from the crowd
, “Are those them Hyrocanian things the navy is fighting?”

Another voice whispered back
, “No, you moron. I don’t know what the freak those things are.”

Wright spoke to the crowd. “These are baby drascos from the planet Allie’s World. They are not dangerous unless they are attacked or unless you run from them.
”

A voice called back
, “If those are babies I would hate to meet their momma.”

Wright and Stone both laughed. Stone called back. “Their momma wasn’t but about twice as big as these two but their daddy was really big.”

A woman’s voice said, “Oh my aching eyes. I never…”

Wright said, “Don’t worry,
sweetie. Nobody else has ever either.”

The
y were almost through the crowd when a short fat bald man along the inside of the curve was unable to back up very far because of the press of bodies and containers coming from the freight elevator. He was almost able to reach out and touch Peebee, but it was obvious he had no intention of touching the drasco. He was on the verge of panic when Peebee raised her free right hand and waved it at the man in a happy greeting. She wonked loudly.

The crowd noise ceased.

The man waved back. He looked at his own hand as if it had betrayed him and acted of its own accord. Taking his hand off his loader caused his load to shift. It slid off the platform crashing into the load next to it. Quickly, half a dozen skids were spilled across the deck. None of the loaders moved or spoke. They stayed frozen in place staring at the drascos.

From somewhere in the middle of
spilled cargo pile a large red rubber ball bounced free. It hit the deck, bounced off the inner bulkhead and flew at the short fat bald man who had waved.

Stone felt Peebee tense up.

He shouted, “Peebee. No!” just as the bald man reached to grab the ball. Instead of capturing it he slapped the ball sending it bounding across the corridor.

Peebee yanked her left hand free from Stone’s grip and shot after the ball. She wonked loudly
as the ball hit the outer curve bulkhead at the edge of the hanger doors. It took a weird bounce and caromed toward the ceiling. Peebee jumped sideways into the air with her tail twisted up. She tapped the ball with her tail spike and volleyed it into her hands. She landed on the deck with a thud. She lost her footing and crashed to the deck. She held on to the ball, rolled to her feet, waved the ball over her head and wonked loudly.

Spontaneous applause broke out from the crowd with shouts of ‘good catch’ and ‘sign it up to the Thunderheads, they need a good receiver’. There were even a few ‘wonks’ shouted from the crowd.

Peebee pranced back to the short fat bald man who had waved at her. The man froze and the crowd suddenly grew quiet again.

Stone started to move between Peebee and the man. But the drasco stopped a few meters from the man.
She wonked at the man and held out the ball to him.

“Thanks, but um…no thanks. You can keep it
,” the man said.

Peebee continued to hold the ball out to the man, unmoving.

He shook his head, unwilling to reach out to take the ball.

Stone could see the sweat begin to break out on the man’s bald dome.

Peebee rose on her hind legs, stretched her neck toward the ceiling and wonked.

Jay echoed her wonks.

The crowd shrank back, pressing against the corridor bulkhead and dropping farther back into the open hanger.

Stone stepped between the
Peebee and the man. He gave the man a friendly pat on the shoulder. “It is okay, pal. She just doesn’t understand that you wanted to give her the ball. She is just trying to give it back.”

The man stuttered, “It ain’t gonna eat me?”

“Nah. She already ate today,” Stone grinned. “Besides, even your girlfriend doesn’t want that job.”

The man rolled his eyes away from Peebee at looked at Stone as if you say ‘You too?’ There were hoots from the crowd.

Peebee dropped to all fours and held out the ball to the man.

“Go ahead and take it,
signore. She doesn’t have cooties…or at least none that have infected us yet,” Stone said

The man shook his head ‘no’
, his double chin jiggling with the motion but he took the ball anyway.

Peebee wonked and started to turn, but the man held the ball out to the drasco.

He said, “I don’t think anybody is going to miss this one ball. You go ahead and take this.” He held the ball at arm’s length.

“It
’s okay, Peebee. You can take the ball,” Stone said.

Peebee tensed up, her eyes never left the ball.

“Sorry, signore,” Stone said with a shrug. “She doesn’t understand you are giving her the ball. Just give it a little toss and let her chase it.”

The man flipped the ball over Peebee’s head. Peebee’s eye
s never left the ball as it sailed up, her head swiveling to watch it. At the point where ball started to come back down she did a standing back flip to reverse her direction. No sooner than her feet slapped the deck, she leapt straight at the ball, snagging it in midair. She landed again smoothly on her feet wonking happily as she pranced back to Stone and the man.

The crowd roared with wonks.
Even Stone and Wright applauded. Jay wonked back happily, but continued sitting on the deck, never leaving Wright’s side.

Peebee held out the ball to the man again.

Stone shook his head. “No, Peebee. We are late for a meeting. Maybe you can come back and play with your new friend later, but we have to go.” He put his palm on the ball and pushed it back at Peebee.

She wonked questioningly.

“Yes. You can keep the ball. Go show Jay. Go on,” Stone said.

Peebee just stood looking at the ball and looking at the man.

“Commander Wright, if you would call Peebee, please?” Stone asked.

Wright s
aid, “Of course, Mister Stone. Peebee, come here.”

Peebee’s head swiveled around and looked at Wright, who pointed at the deck next to where
Jay was sitting.

“Go on, Peebee
,” Stone said. He stepped forward and pushed to get her moving. Fortunately the little drasco decided to go show Jay her new toy. Stone was pretty sure he couldn’t make Peebee leave if she didn’t want to go.

A voice shouted from the crowd. “Hey,
navy!” A tall lanky female loader raised a blue rubber ball in her hand. “Give this one to the other one, okay? Compliments of first shift Loaders Union 7173.”

A chorus of wonks followed the ball as it arched toward Stone. The woman had
thrown the ball in a perfect soft toss. Stone missed the catch completely and it bounced off his chest, ending up in the hands of the man in front of him.

The bald man
gently put the ball in Stone’s hands and patted Stone on the shoulder. “That’s okay, boy. I wasn’t much of an athlete until I got older and developed this dancer’s body.” He patted his own belly causing it to jiggle.

Stone raised the blue ball over his head. “Thank you
, Loaders Union 7173.” Stone did not know much about sports but everyone in human space knew of the perennially bottom of the league soccer team sponsored by the Loader’s Union. They may have been the worst team year after year, but they had a loyal fan base. He shouted. “Go Union United!”

The crowd roared with approval.

Stone walked back to Wright. “I think this is what we were talking about when we said we needed to get noticed. Think that’ll do, Commander?”

“
Yes, Mister Stone. I am sure we won’t be made to disappear quietly,” Wright grinned.

Stone handed the blue ball to Jay.

The drasco looked at the ball and gave it a gentle squeeze. She bounced the ball on the deck and watched it sail toward the ceiling. Jay stood on her hind legs, stretched her neck and caught the ball in her mouth. She gave the ball a little flip with her head and caught it in her hands. She wonked and shook her shoulders waving the ball around.

Suddenly Jay started a stream of wonks. She shook her head
and shoulders, dropping to all four feet where she gave a little dance. Before Stone could stop her she raced back toward the woman who had tossed the ball. Jay skidded to a halt a few meters from the crowd. She held the ball wrapped in an arm flap and waved at the woman with a free hand. When the woman waved back, Jay turned and ran back to Peebee. The two exchanged balls, sniffed them with open mouths and swapped them back. Both drascos tucked the balls in one hand, waved to the crowd in general and wonked happily.

“Okay you two
, enough showing off. These people have work to do and schedules to keep. Let’s go,” Stone said.

The little procession continued around the curve of the station corridor. At
hanger three the inside freight elevators became farther spread apart. Small shops, restaurants and bars began to fill in the gaps. Most of the businesses were open. The lunch crowd was thick, but little of it was doing the business of lunch.

It started with a few people standing around a burrito stand watching as their little procession walked by. Then there were half a dozen people around a small bookstore/coffee shop. Suddenly there were people lined up two and three deep, each straining to get a good look at the weird new creatures walking by.

The crush of people stayed to the inside of the curve. The areas around the hanger doors were all marked as ‘no walk’ zones. Ship and hangar crews controlled these zones. It might have looked inviting to stand away from the crowd, but everyone knew the rules of station life. It might be dangerous to walk in the marked off zones. Each such section on every station in human space had sensors and alarms to detect intruders, trespassers and the occasional gawker. The design gave crews a broad working space near their hanger doors and gave those crews a bit of privacy on what was their front porch.

“It looks like our parade route is getting broadcast around the station
, but the ships must be out of the communications loop,” Wright said. “We haven’t seen more than a few ship crewmen standing around.”

“Commander, I am not sure about that. There was ship’s crew back at
hanger one. That whole episode was broadcast ship-to-ship faster than any of the loaders could have relayed the information to their Aunt Sadie on speed dial.” He nodded to a couple of ships crew lounging by their hanger door. They were making a good show of working on a loader jack motor. “Ship’s crews have a reputation to uphold, they are the ones who fly from strange place to strange place. Gawking at weird creatures would wrinkle that reputation.”

“But
it is true freighters go to strange places and see strange things.”

Stone snorted. “Sorry, Commander
. What freighters see is a series of station after station after station after station after station.” He waved a hand causally at the crowd along the inner curve. “The weirdest thing we see is station crew.”

Someone in the crowd saw the wave and waved back at Stone.