Kill Station Read Online Free Page B

accessible. "Seems that way."
    "And no welcoming committee at all, it looks like. Not even from the people who almost crashed us into the bay doors at too damned many mips. A bit unfriendly."
    Evan shrugged. "I'd like to see those people myself
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    . . . and I will, sooner or later. But as regards anything formal, it's not something you're likely to see.
    Places like these aren't as regimented as inner-system stations. No customs, no immigration—as a rule—or it's handled differently from any way you expect. Some places, records aren't even kept on computers ... on purpose. I know some places on the other side of the Belts that don't care where you've come from, or what you've done, as long as you're willing to give them all your money. There are lots of people who think that's a good deal."
    Evan saw Joss make a wry face. He knew that Joss was no fool about such things. The man had been partnered with him, he suspected, specifically because his mind was so quick and his knowledge even of things outside of his experience was so considerable. Such a man was a natural choice to partner with a powersuited officer. But Evan suspected that the basic untidiness of an environment like this would annoy Joss mightily, once he actually got into it himself. He had been raised in order, on the Moon, in an environment where things were controlled and kept rigorously correct. The sloppiness of the Asteroids would be trying for him. Evan was committed to making sure that this wasn't too much of a problem for Joss, but at the same time he had never promised not to be amused by it.
    The small dome into which they had walked was indeed a storage area for vehicles, and a service area as well. More ships, most of them one- or two-man vessels, were sitting or lying about in various states of repair. Some were little more than stripped-down chassis; others showed signs of having pieces of five or six different vessels bolted together, the matings often looking rather crude, and occasionally positively unsafe. It was the spacecraft manufacturers themselves who had made this possible, in the days when the Belts were first starting to open up. Most people going out had very little venture capital to work with, and the shipmakers had decided that if they were going to get any of this eager money at all, they had better come up with something cheap, simple, and easily re-SPACE COPS 31
    placeable and repairable. So VW and Skoda and Lada had decided to cut most of their potential losses. They and the other major marques had pooled their r&d money, largely duplicated one another's designs, and brought out ships that could be put together in pieces, suiting the needs of individual spacers: heavy hauling vehicles, ships with lots of extra storage, or bigger engines, or better power arrays that could manage more tools inside and outside the ship.
    Naturally, when you sold your ship on, the person who bought it secondhand might find it wasn't exactly what he had in mind—though it was close. So he would detach the module that didn't work, or just chop it off if he had to, and add another bit that did, possibly bought from the same dealer. Within brands, of course, the module parts and their fit worked perfectly. But if you had a VW body and wanted a Lada cargo module, which was bigger than the VW's, what to do? You naturally had no intention of staying with all VW parts—though that had certainly been VW's intention.
    The pooling of designs had not been that complete. So you went to see your local mechanic, and for the right price, he made the Lada rear end work with the VW front.
    At least, you hoped he did. Naturally, none of this work ever came under the warranty, and the person who did the repairs tended to be a long way away if something went wrong. For the first twenty years or so of the opening up of the Belts, as many spacecraft mechanics died as miners did, usually at the hands of the miners' friends or relatives.
    After that, most of