The Ship Who Won Read Online Free Page A

booth. Mariad
    delivered a pair of Guinnesses and, with a motherly cluck,
    sashayed away.
    "You're looking well," Susa said, scanning his face with a
    more than friendly concern. "You have a tan!"
    "I got it on our last planetfall," Keff said. "Hasn't had
    time to fade yet."
    "Well, I think you look good with a litde color in your
    face," she declared. Her mouth crooked into a one-sided
    grin. "How far down does it go?"
    Keff waggled his eyebrows at her. "Maybe in awhile I'll
    let you see."
    "Any of those deep scratches dangerous?" Carialle
    asked, swiveling an optical pickup out on a stalk to oversee
    the techs checking her outsides. The ship lay horizontally
    to the "dry dock" pier, giving the technicians the maximum
    expanse of hull to examine.
    "Most of 'em are no problem. I'm putting setpatch in
    the one nearest your fuel lines," the coveralled man said,
    spreading a gray goo over the place. It hardened slowly,
    acquiring a silver sheen that blended with the rest of the
    hull plates. "Don't think it'll split in temperature extremes,
    ma'am, but its thinner there, of course. This'U protect you
    more.
    "Many thanks," Carialle said. When the patching compound dried, she tested her new skin for resonance and
    found its density matched well. In no time she'd forget she
    had a wrinkle under the dressing. Her audit program also
    found that the fee for materials was comfortingly low, compared to having the plate removed and hammered, or
    replaced entirely.
    Overhead, a spider-armed crane swung its burden over
    her bow, dropping snakelike hoses toward her open cargo
    huU. The crates of xeno material had already been taken
    away in a specially sealed container. A suited and hooded
    worker had already cleaned the nooks and niches, making
    sure no stray native spores had hooked a ride to the
    Central Worlds. The cranes operator directed the various
    flexible tubes to the appropriate valves. Fuel was first, and
    Carialle flipped open her fuel toggle as the stout hose
    reached it. The narrow tube which fed her protein vats
    had a numbered filter at its spigot end. Carialle recorded
    that number in her files in case there were any impurities
    in the final product. Thankfully, the conduit that fed the
    carbo-protein sludge to Keffs food synthesizer was
    opaque. The peristaltic pulse of the thick stuff always
    made Cari think of quicksand, of sand-colored octopi
    creeping along an ocean floor, of week-old oatmeal. Her
    attention diverted momentarily to the dock, where a
    # AAV^ T " \^# 1
    front-end loader was rolling toward her with a couple of
    containers, one large and one small, with bar-code tags
    addressed to Keff. She signaled her okay to the driver to
    load them in her cargo bay.
    Another tech, a short, stout woman wearing thick-soled
    magnetic boots, approached her airlock and held up a
    small item. 'This is for you from the stationmaster, Carialle. Permission to come aboard?"
    Carialle focused on the datahedron in her fingers and
    felt a twitch of curiosity.
    "Permission granted," she said. The tech clanked her
    way into the airlock and turned sideways to match the
    up/down orientation of Carialle's decks, then marched
    carefully toward the main cabin. "Did he say what it was?"
    "No, ma'am. It's a surprise."
    "Oh, Simeon!" Carialle exclaimed over the stationmaster's private channel. "Cats! Thank you!" She scanned the
    contents of the hedron back and forth. "Almost a realtime
    week of video footage. Wherever did you get it?"
    "From a biologist who breeds domestic felines. He was
    out here two months ago. The hedron contains compressed videos of his cats and kittens, and he threw in
    some videos of wild felines he took on a couple of the colony worlds. Thought you'd like it."
    "Simeon, it's wonderful. What can I swap you for it?"
    The stationmasters voice was sheepish. "You don't need
    to swap, Cari, but if you happened to have a spare painting? And I'm quite willing to sweeten the swap."
    "Oh, no. I'd be cheating you. It isn't as