Doctor Who_ Match of the Day - Chris Boucher [53]
So it was that, while the ship off-loaded plant, equipment and replacement workers into a succession of landing shuttles, the rich gawped in idle fascination at the ice-and stone-ringed, hydrogen giant that was the planet Geewin.
For the richest among the rich there was a special shuttle to take them to a geostationary orbit hotel, whose accommodations afforded unparalleled views of the huge planet. The waiting list for the meanest of rooms was five years long and getting longer all the time.
The story was that when this hotel was new and very fashionable the Lady Hakai had stayed there. This they said was why, when she finally withdrew from human society, she came to Geewin. It seemed unlikely to Keefer that the third richest person in all the settled worlds, and the richest woman in the history of the race, would ever have visited a tourist hotel no matter how fashionable it was. Whatever the reason though, her space-yacht, the mighty Ultraviolet Explorer, did wander among the moons of Geewin. And Reefer‟s immediate problem was to find it and get on board.
„What‟s your interest in her?‟ the shuttle pilot had asked.
„I‟m interested in money,‟ Keefer said. „And she‟s got more than her fair share of it.‟
„She‟s got more than your fair share and my fair share and most everyone else‟s fair share summed and squared, but that doesn‟t answer my question.‟ The pilot finished scrolling through the shuttle manifest on his control screen and entered his acknowledgement without bothering to conceal the code.
„I asked you first,‟ Keefer said and gave him another large denomination currency note.
„There‟s nothing very secret about it.‟ The young man tucked the cash away and grinned smugly. „UVX runs a more or less routine series of orbits. She‟ll be somewhere around Dreen or thereabouts right now.‟ He flicked on his navigation plot. „Yeah, there you go,‟ he confirmed and pointed at the display. „You could have had that information for nothing.‟
Keefer didn‟t smile. „It was information about you I was buying,‟ he said and turned back towards the passenger section.
The pilot could not resist it. „How do you mean?‟ he asked.
Keefer looked back at him. „It was a test. You scuffled it up.
It‟s going to cost you big.‟
The pilot was not fazed. „You rich boys never could take a joke.‟
Keefer smiled now. „We rich boys don‟t have to.‟
As he went back through the cabin and took his seat he wondered if he had overplayed his fist, but then he remembered what Jerro had told him that time he almost set up the fight with Razorback Turner: „An empty fist can‟t be overplayed, kid, it‟s impossible. That‟s like bad publicity: a contradiction in terms.‟
Keefer tightened the seat straps and waited for the motors to kick in and punch the shuttle sub-orbital. He had watched earlier ones leave the deep-space transport so he knew that the trip down was unlikely to be smooth. He was not the only one. He could smell the fear-sweat on the other six people crammed into the cramped pressurised section. On five of them at least. Perhaps the woman had not bothered to find out what to expect, or perhaps she was tougher than the men. Pale skinned, with her red hair cropped close to the skull, she was as hard faced and whiplash lean as the rest of the contract work crew, but there was something else about her, a cold watchfulness, that was different. For a moment Keefer felt he should know her, that they had met somewhere. They couldn‟t have done of course. He had been told that the six were an established team scheduled to replace a full crew killed in an airlock failure. Such losses were routine it seemed since that accident had happened during the time the transport had been en route. Either someone was a lucky guesser, or they always shipped out plenty of replacement workers because that would be cheaper than