the satellite-keeper's daughter

Sex and space don't mix. And Mattapenny's Galactic Guidebook can't be trusted.

If you doubt either proposition, ask Bill Brack. It's hard to tell what he thought about women, but all space truckers used to look upon Mattapenny's little red book as a sort of interstellar Bible.

"Looking for a planet to stop over at?" they'd say. "Place to get good meals? Decent room for the night? You can't go wrong with Mattapenny!"

Brack did.

You see, the Galactic Guidebook lists Corbie as one of the five small fuel stations sharing the outer-most orbit of the Dryodean planetary system. The latest edition still gives Hotel Eros two asterisks.

Now, two asterisks (**) is supposed to mean "Plain but fairly comfortable".

"Sure," says Brack, "the hotel may lack an up-to-date Dreamawake or a Time-conditioner, but at least you expect your room to have a Vibrobath and controllable gravity."

None of this at the Hotel Eros. Brack shakes his head complainingly. "You sleep in a primitive 7/8G-bed. You wash yourself with old-fashioned magnetic water. And oxygen service costs 10% extra."

Some people ask: "Then why in the world did you stay there?"

"Had to," Bill answers. "I was hauling out of Dryod-7 with a cargo of deluplasm. Damn valuable stuff, consigned to Hesdin-2. Well, I'd figured the time a little wrong, and it left me with twelve hours to kill before our convoy jumped off. And you know how it is. I was facing three weeks of interstellar rations, and I had a sudden yen for nonsynthetic food. So I looked in the guidebook, and there was Corbie...."

Brack was disappointed from the start. When he sat at a table of the hotel restaurant and studied the menu, he saw it was all synthetics.

"Blast it!" he barked into the table phone, "haven't you anything else?"

"I understand how you feel, mister." It was a live human female voice that answered, not the usual robot. "Hold on. I'll come out and see if I can help you."

Through the kitchen door emerged a young girl, short and white-skinned, but very well proportioned.

"Outbound?" she queried. Her pretty face was clouded by an unhappy expression.

"Yes, and I wanted something with a little taste to it, a little substance."

"Such as what?" said the girl, tossing her long blond hair.

Brack looked at the girl carnivorously. "A steak."

She smiled sympathetically. "We haven't anything of that sort. Sorry." She stared at him with light blue eyes the color of moonstones. "How do you happen to land at this miserable place? Fuel?"

"I'm early for my convoy."

Brack stared at the girl's face and he could see it was the mask of some hidden, tragic emotion.

"You weren't thinking of staying at the Hotel Eros?" she inquired in a voice edged with repugnance.

"Well, I do have about twelve hours."

The girl was emphatic. "Take my advice, mister. Spend them in your ship."

A man's voice crackled over the table phone. "Esther!"

She looked startled. "Yes?" she said, leaning over the table to speak into the phone.

('Beautiful!' thought Brack. 'She must have some Earth-blood in her veins.')

The man's voice was angry, strident. "Don't gab with the customers!"

Esther stood up, a blush of embarrassment on her milky-white cheeks.

"Your order, please?" she said to Brack, stiffly.

The trucker put his big, brown-colored hand over the phone. "Who's that character?" he asked with distaste. "The boss?"

The girl nodded unhappily. "I didn't realize he was listening."

"Sounds like a tyrant." Brack uncovered the phone. "What's the closest thing you have to beefsteak?"

"Why don't you try some of our roasted pradolan? It's quite good," she added for the boss's benefit. "Specialty of the house."

"There's just one thing I want to know," said Brack. "Is it synthetic?"

The girl smiled sadly. "I'd do anything for some real food myself. I haven't left Corbie in seven years."

"What makes you stick around a place like this? Married?"

"No. My father owns the Eros."

"You're free, brown and twenty-one," said Brack somewhat inaccurately. "He can't make you stay if you want to leave."

Esther waved warningly at the table phone and Brack again covered it with his hand.

"Maybe he can't legally, but there's only one passenger ship between here and the planets every year, and they've refused me a ticket twice now."

"Sounds pretty rotten to me," said the trucker. "Well, what if you got married to some guy? Then he couldn't—"

A heavy-set white man, bald and bullet-headed, strode out of the kitchen and seized the girl roughly by the arm.

"Now I told you not to gab with the customers and I meant it!" he snarled. "You get back there in the kitchen where you belong!"

She tried to wrench free of his grip. "Take your hands off me!"

Slap! He batted her across the cheek with his open hand and she staggered from the blow. "No back talk, young lady! Now, git!"

The trucker half rose from his seat, his fists clenched, but it was over too quickly for him to intervene. And after all, he reflected later while eating the pradolan roast, the man was her father.

With some misgivings, Brack checked into the hotel. It was a tiny installation—perhaps nine or ten rooms. His own cubicle was a drab affair, with neither entertainment screen nor sleep-inducer.

He had just tested the 7/8G-bed with disgust when there was a buzz at the door. It was Esther, holding some linens.

"They have you doing everything around here," Brack said with empathy. "What are these?"

"Towels. You use them after you wash."

"Boy, this sure is ancient!"

Esther's eyes betrayed deep torment. "I know. I would do anything to get away from this place."

She put the towels in a rack. The trucker was lying on the bed, contemplating the girl's deft, graceful movements.

"Listen," he said, "why wait for a passenger ship? Why not arrange secretly with one of the cargo ships that stop here? I know if I was inbound—"

"Don't even say it!" she expostulated. "It's very kind of you, but certainly you've heard of the Pledge Act? My father could prosecute any cargo ship, no matter where it landed in the planets. You know, unlicensed transport of people."

She paused to look at herself in a mirror above the washstand. Brack's eyes were on her bare, marble-white shoulders, her finely sculptured bosom. She sighed.

"No, my only chance is to get away from the Dryodean System altogether. If I go to another star—where the Pledge Act wasn't even heard of—"

She brushed back her long blond hair with an unconscious gesture, like a maiden getting out of a degravity pool.

Brack said thoughtfully: "Esther, if you're really determined to get away from here, maybe I can help you. I'm taking a cargo to Hesdin. Your old man couldn't reach you there, or prove anything against me, either."

The girl's moonstone eyes flared up in hope, but she hesitated. "I don't have very much money. I couldn't make it worth your while, financially."

"That part is unimportant. The thing for you to consider is the situation on Hesdin-2. It's a new colony; life there is pretty primitive."

Esther waved at the room. "Any more so than here?"

Brack grinned. "Not much more. But then also, you've got to remember that it's a three-week trip. Pretty monotonous. Just the two of us."

She looked him in the eyes with understanding.

"I'd try not to get in the way."

They met in the middle of the night at Brack's ship. Working slowly, soundlessly, they opened a cargo case and removed enough unit boxes to make room for the girl.

Esther settled down in the container.

"I'm afraid that isn't too comfortable," Brack apologized, "but you'll only have to put up with it four hours. I take off at seven."

"That's all right, Bill. Just so there's no delay. My father expects me to open the dining room at seven."

"We'll be ten million miles away before he misses you," said Brack. He put the top on loosely, faking the straps across the cover, so the girl could breathe.

In his room again, Brack lay with arms folded under his head, thinking honeyed thoughts. He would have Esther's pleasant company. His cargo was a valuable one. Two-thirds of the receipts on Hesdin-2 would represent sheer profit. Perhaps it would be enough to establish him in some kind of a local freight business. Esther could make a man a wonderful partner. Lovely, delectable girl!

He reminded himself that they were not safely away from Corbie yet, and he passed the remaining hours in the Hotel Eros sleeplessly anxious.

Brack delayed going to his ship until the last minute before takeoff time. Then, as he half-feared, he saw a customs officer standing beside the airlock.

The trucker tried taking the offensive. "Gosh, I'll be late for my convoy if I don't leave right away."

"Sorry, sir, but I'll have to inspect your ship." He was a burly, tough-looking character in pale green uniform, blocking the doorway with a flatfooted, wrestling stance.

Brack sensed that a contest of fists might not end in his favor. He unlocked the entrance and waved the official in with reluctance. "Take a look, but I've already gone through customs on Dryod-7. I can show you my clearance."

"This isn't customs exactly," said the man. "We're searching for a person."

"A person?" (The old man sure kept a close watch on his daughter.) "I'm the only person aboard this ship."

The customs official remained polite. "Yes, I understand that, sir. But Mr. Eros' daughter is missing. He thinks she may have stowed away on your ship."

"Impossible! I had the ship locked."

They stepped into the pilot's cabin, a tetrahexahedron-shaped room crowded with multiple-monitor screens of an astrogation-computer. Brack threw the ignition switch to start the buildup in the ship's nuclear engine.

"What is your cargo?" the customs man demanded.

"Fifteen cases of deluplasm," said Brack with unfeigned anxiety.

The official debated with himself. "I believe it would be best if I opened the cases."

Brack looked at his watch with desperation. "But we don't have time! That would take at least a half-hour! I'd miss the other ships! And you know what that would mean. I couldn't navigate interstellar space alone, not at a hundred times the speed of light. I'd be stuck here in the Dryodean System until the next fleet left. That might be months!"

He grabbed the official's arm. "Please, fellow, give me a break!"

The customs man considered. "Well, since the ship was locked, it does seem unlikely that the girl has hidden herself here. I certainly wouldn't want you to lose your convoy."

Brack smiled in relief and started the rocket engine secondaries.

"Thanks a million."

"But just to protect me in case the girl has run off somewhere—I want you to sign this form."

Brack felt a twinge of suspicion, but more of a twinge of haste. "Sure. What kind of a form is this?"

"It simply says that I inspected each case in your presence and found the contents identical with your bill of lading. This girl has made several attempts to leave Corbie in the past. This is my protection in case she's finally succeeded."

The customs officer made the slightest perceptible wink. Brack signed.

He took off immediately. He was already ten minutes late. He had to blast at top speed for the next hour, continually correcting his navigation. There was no time to go back and let Esther out of the cargo room. He had to remain at the controls, feeding data into the computer, modifying course as solutions flashed on the screens.

Finally, Brack sighted the convoy and maneuvered into pattern just as the fleet was dematerializing into supra-space. He set his ship on pantagraph-automatic with the lead navigator, then hastened to the cargo hold.

Esther was not there. Neither were ten of the fifteen cases of deluplasm. Two-thirds of his cargo had been hijacked.

It was of course pointless for Brack to turn around and raise hell on Corbie. With the waiver he'd signed for the customs officer, he'd only look ridiculous. All he could do was continue to Hesdin-2 with his one-third cargo. At least he'd break even on the trip; Esther and her co-workers had been that considerate.

No, sex and space don't mix.

And it's high time that Mr. Mattapenny deleted the Hotel Eros (**) from his little red guidebook.