Like a Fox on the Run, стр. 13
Outer Frontier. He smiled to himself. He’d been there almost from the beginning of the Rush, when man was just getting back into space. Back then, anything past Low Earth Orbit had been the Final Frontier. How far they’d come in twenty or so years, from when it all had finally been opened up for commercial and economic development. When the doors to the sky were flung open to the ‘average Joe’ to ply his trade. Everyone from miners and factory workers to cooks and saloon girls joined scientists, researchers, and physicists in colonizing the solar system. The past two decades, he’d helped write history. He shuttled workers and materials during the construction of the majestic Grand Orbital Hotel and Midway Station, located, not surprisingly, midway between the Earth and the Moon. He watched in awe as the first of the massive orbiting shipyards came together 250 miles above Earth. He’d participated in the establishment of the first permanent colonies on the moon. When the Martian expeditions launched, he was one of the first to volunteer for deep space duty, doing six-month stints hauling colonists and supplies across deep space to populate the great domed cities that arose like bubbles in a boiling pot from the red dust.
The Rush was, for the most part, history now, and the colonization boom had settled down somewhat. Except for those pioneering souls like himself who were pushing the out into the asteroid belt. People were pretty much where they were going to be for the time being. There were few habitable bodies left in Sol to feasibly colonize. Maybe Jupiter or Saturn’s moons in the next decade … maybe some of the Kuniper Belt bodies by the end of the century. But the dream was, and would always be, to find planets with sustainable eco-systems. Seriously, let’s face it, humans were never meant to live under domes. And for man to find another world or worlds in which he could breathe the air and live pressure suit-free, he would have to leave Sol. The Marvins still clung tenaciously to the hope that they might one day make the Red Planet green. Every year or so, some maverick “scientist” or shady company would claim a major breakthrough in terra-forming technology for them, but so far nothing substantial had ever materialized. Even if it did, Tiger would never see the God of War go green in his lifetime.
Glorious adventures and blazing new trails across the Great Black no longer interested him. He was getting too old for that. Pioneering was for the young. There comes a certain point in one’s life where the dreams and excitement of youth give way to the need for a secure future. For twenty years, he’d made other people rich. Now it was time to take care of numero uno.
The last year or so, his address had been a collection of small rocks out in the Belt, where he prospected for titanium, plutonium, uranium and other precious metals. He hadn’t gotten rich, but it made the payments on the Jenny Lou and bought the groceries. A little smuggling on the side didn’t hurt either. The Martian black market was always a place where an enterprising go-getter like himself could supplement his income. The despised excess tax imposed by the Space Authority’s Essential Cargoes Act on such things as alcohol, tobacco, “non-essential foods” and other items deemed as taking up valuable cargo space on freighters had been a boon for the lawless, creating a separate illicit industry and underground culture that paralleled legitimate society like some shadowy alternate dimension. The more the authorities tried to curb it, the more it grew. And while Tiger was careful never to fully immerse himself in it, it was hard not to take advantage of profitable “ventures” from time to time. Tiger hoped that this extra income would put him over the hump when he retired in a few years to the Gulf Coast. His Pilot’s Guild pension would be adequate for a simple, quiet life, but it wasn’t going to buy a house in Mexico Beach.
“Alright,” Rip had finished up and was pulling the towel from around his shoulders. “You’re good for another six months,” he quipped good-naturedly. Having been Tiger’s barber since the early days back at the old Redstone port, he knew all too well the grooming habits of a spacer. A haircut and a hot shave was a luxury. Tiger always got his money’s worth out of one.
“Thanks Rip!” Tiger stood up, held his Personal DataCom to the PayPoint screen and then entered in the tip. “Good to be back amongst real men. Those barbers on Mars don’t even have hot towels anymore.”
“You know what you call a barbershop without hot towels and a straight razor? A friggin’ hair salon!” Rip shook his head in disgust. “Whole of Sol is going to shit!”
“Tell me about it,” Tiger agreed. “Everything’s starting to get all civilized up there. Old timers like me … we’re just dinosaurs. Last of the Mohicans.”
“Way it always is.” The old scissor-slinger shook his head. “Just like the Old West. You’ll be like the cowboys and the Pony Express one day.”
“Really?” Tiger grinned. “That’d be frosty!”
“Actually, you’ll probably be more like the telegraph operator.”
Tiger ignored the friendly jab. “Reckon they’ll make movies about us spacers one day?”
“Nah!” Rip laughed. “Horses at least have personality. Lone Ranger had Silver. Roy Rogers had Trigger. Rocket ships just don’t make good sidekicks. Who wants to make a movie about a man in love with his ship, for Chrissakes!”
“Hey! Don’t sell my Jenny short now. She ain’t Belle, but she’s true-blue!”
“Yeah, but I done told ya, son