Being an interstellar trouble shooter wouldn't be so bad ... if I
could shoot the trouble!
The Old Man had that look of intense glee on his face that meant someone
was in for a very rough time. Since we were alone, it took no great feat
of intelligence to figure it would be me. I talked first, bold attack
being the best defense and so forth.
"I quit. Don't bother telling me what dirty job you have cooked up,
because I have already quit and you do not want to reveal company
secrets to me."
The grin was even wider now and he actually chortled as he thumbed a
button on his console. A thick legal document slid out of the delivery
slot onto his desk.
"This is your contract," he said. "It tells how and when you will work.
A steel-and-vanadium-bound contract that you couldn't crack with a
molecular disruptor."
I leaned out quickly, grabbed it and threw it into the air with a single
motion. Before it could fall, I had my Solar out and, with a wide-angle
shot, burned the contract to ashes.
The Old Man pressed the button again and another contract slid out on
his desk. If possible, the smile was still wider now.
"I should have said a _duplicate_ of your contract--like this one here."
He made a quick note on his secretary plate. "I have deducted 13 credits
from your salary for the cost of the duplicate--as well as a 100-credit
fine for firing a Solar inside a building."
I slumped, defeated, waiting for the blow to land. The Old Man fondled
my contract.
"According to this document, you can't quit. Ever. Therefore I have a
little job I know you'll enjoy. Repair job. The Centauri beacon has shut
down. It's a Mark III beacon...."
"_What_ kind of beacon?" I asked him. I have repaired hyperspace beacons
from one arm of the Galaxy to the other and was sure I had worked on
every type or model made. But I had never heard of this kind.
"Mark III," the Old Man repeated, practically chortling. "I never heard
of it either until Records dug up the specs. They found them buried in
the back of their oldest warehouse. This was the earliest type of beacon
ever built--by Earth, no less. Considering its location on one of the
Proxima Centauri planets, it might very well be the first beacon."
* * * * *
I looked at the blueprints he handed me and felt my eyes glaze with
horror. "It's a monstrosity! It looks more like a distillery than a
beacon--must be at least a few hundred meters high. I'm a repairman, not
an archeologist. This pile of junk is over 2000 years old. Just forget
about it and build a new one."
The Old Man leaned over his desk, breathing into my face. "It would take
a year to install a new beacon--besides being too expensive--and this
relic is on one of the main routes. We have ships making
fifteen-light-year detours now."
He leaned back, wiped his hands on his handkerchief and gave me Lecture
Forty-four on Company Duty and My Troubles.
"This department is officially called Maintenance and Repair, when it
really should be called trouble-shooting. Hyperspace beacons are made to
last forever--or damn close to it. When one of them breaks down, it is
_never_ an accident, and repairing the thing is never a matter of just
plugging in a new part."
He was telling _me_--the guy who did the job while he sat back on his
fat paycheck in an air-conditioned office.
He rambled on. "How I wish that were all it took! I would have a fleet
of parts ships and junior mechanics to install them. But its not like
that at all. I have a fleet of expensive ships that are equipped to do
almost anything--manned by a bunch of irresponsibles like _you_."