Easy Money, Part 9
Ham floated in the central shaft near the open hatchway to the now-crowded bridge, Izzy looking over his shoulder.
"Mr. Scarpazzi," Izzy said, "I don't understand much of what just happened, and what precious little I do makes me physically ill."
Ham sighed; Izzy wasn't kidding. The sight of Merideth and Layne after they'd tangled with Morg had sent the kid to the head where he'd spent ample time puking his brains out.
Never a pleasant experience in freefall, that.
"They suckered us," Ham said. "Troweled-on a thick layer of Annoying to cover a core of Pure Bad."
Izzy nodded. "Fornicators. They were never married, were they?"
Anybody else -- anybody else in the goddamn galaxy -- and Ham would have been certain they were kidding. But the look on Izzy's face was pure earnest.
"Izzy," Ham said, "are you telling me that, of all those two just put us through, of all the illegal, immoral, downright dangerous shit they've done, what really alarms you, what really cheeses you off, is that they were having sex with each other?"
"The Bible is quite unambiguous on the subject of sexual congress outside of the boundaries of holy matrimony," Izzy said. "For instance, First Thessalonians, Chapter 4, Verse 3: 'For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication.'"
Ham was speechless. Working alongside Izzy was like having a bona-fide goddamn alien on the crew.
"And I really must have a word with Mr. Morgan about his treatment of Mrs. ... well, of Miss Merideth. He beat that poor woman!"
"That 'poor woman' pulled a gun on me!"
"Ham," Odrida said from the bridge. "We need to get a move on. Get Merideth to Sick Bay and run the autodoc."
"Aye-aye, Skipper," he said as the pink hair and absurd breasts of their sole remaining passenger drifted into view. "No rest for the wicked. You doing okay in the Pit?" he asked Izzy, referring to the engine room.
Izzy nodded. "Yes. I don't anticipate anything outside my ability to handle. You're training me very well, Mr. Scarpazzi."
"Erm. Glad to hear it." He gestured down the central shaft. "Little tough to sneak past you here, big fella."
"Oh!" Izzy said. "Yes. Of course. I'll get back to work. Sorry, sir."
"No prob," he said as Izzy used the hand/foot rails to guide himself down the shaft.
Ham shook his head. Scorn, he could deal with. Cheeky smart-assery, he could deal with. But Izzy's relentless politeness and respect was just plain disconcerting.
"Where's deh sig bay?" Merideth asked, hanging halfway through the hatch. Jesus, her face really was a mess.
"You've seen it," Ham said, pivoting himself and pushing himself down the shaft. "Follow me."
He opened the hatch to Deck 4 Starboard -- the 'Guest Room' -- as Merideth made her unsteady way to him, one rung at a time.
"Ta-da!"
"Are you kidding?"
"Nope," he said, taking her hand and helping her through. "Small ship; most space needs to do double-duty. This is the guest cabin, sick bay, cargo bay, whatever we need it to be."
He yanked the sheets off the bed -- pausing to reflect that perhaps they ought to be burned -- and starting flicking switches and levers that allowed him to fold the bed in half.
He paused when Odrida counted down to engine burn, helping Merideth into the bed for her own safety.
"Don' you need to sit or grab subting?"
Odrida hit zero; the engines fired, and Ham landed on his feet, as though he'd just jumped down off a stepladder. "Nah. Artigrav tech didn't start showing up on commercial ships until I hit mandatory retirement age. I've spent my whole damn life working in conditions where there may or may not be a 'floor' at any given moment." He motioned to her to get off the bed so he could lay down a fresh sheet.
"If you hab to be retired, how come you're here?"
"MR age differs from one corp to the next," he said, laying down the bedding. "Some of them peg it at sixty-five; others insist on sixty-five. Still more will allow you to work until you're sixty-five, and not one day past.
"Odrida? No damn idea what her employment qualifications are. Save that I fit 'em. God help us all."
He patted the bed. "All right, lay down. Time to get a look at just how bad Morg screwed you up."
She lay down apprehensively as Ham strapped-on a pair of specialized SmartGoggles™ and pulled a collection of boxes and wires out of one of the many cabinets embedded in the bulkhead.
"Whad's dat?"
"HealthTech Industries Model Forty-Two Automated Medical System," he said, attaching the bulky sensor unit to the bulkhead above the bunk. "Better known as an autodoc. Staple of low-budget starships across the galaxy."
He flipped the sensor on -- the words "Ready to Scan" flickered low in his field of vision.
"All right," he said. "Lay still."
She nodded.
He flipped-on the holo display, and tapped a "Scan" button floating in mid-air that only he could see.
"Well, you're human," he said, reading off the 'doc's status screen. She snorted.
"Says here that if I was a vampire, sucking your blood would get me high as a fuckin' satellite," he said. He motioned downward with his left hand, which the autodoc correctly interpreted as "No."
The goggles tweaked what Ham was seeing so that when he looked at Merideth's face, it was as though he had x-ray vision and could see the interior of her damaged nose. Overlayed on top of that was a faint, ghostly blue image of what the autodoc believed her nose ought to look like.
"Well, whaddya know," he said, gesturing up for "Yes." "Looks like a broken nose. Know how that mighta happened?"
"Fell down some stairs."
He laughed in spite of himself.
"Says to warn you that when I'm done, you're gonna look like a raccoon."
"Fuggin' great," she said. "Careful wit da goods, pal; loogs like I'm back to working for a living."
Ham raised an eyebrow as he started gathering the shopping list of drugs and medical supplies the 'doc said he'd need. "So that wasn't just him being a dick?" he asked, pulling some painkiller out of a cabinet. "You really are ..."
"A whore?" she finished. "Yup. You god sub kinda problem wit dat?" Her stare was filled with challenge.
But Ham shrugged. "Sneaking enough junk on my ship to toss a planet-wide party, pulling a gun on me, trusting that numb-nuts Layne ... those, I judge you for. And not kindly. But turning tricks? Fuck it. Gotta earn a living somehow."
A blinking green dot appeared on Merideth's face, next to her nose.
"Prepare to lose all feeling in your face," Ham said, indicating "No."
"Best damn thing that's habbened to me all day."
