Hex Read Free

Patriotism of Fidel Castro .”
    â€œNot complaining at all.” Too late, Andromeda realized that she’d said the wrong thing. Ever since his death seventeen Earthyears ago, Carlos Montero—original Coyote colonist, hero of the Revolution, former Federation president—had become something of a martyr, his name held in reverence particularly among those like Theodore Harker, who’d personally known him. It had just been Andromeda’s misfortune that her ship, a Union Astronautica deep-space surveyor she’d brought to 47 Ursae Majoris following the collapse of the Western Hemisphere Union, had been the one picked to be rechristened in his honor. Andromeda may have fled the WHU and taken her ship and crew with her, but everyone in the merchant marine knew that she hadn’t completely given up a long-held belief in social collectivism. Yet no one had asked for her opinion; one leader was to be immortalized, the other consigned to history’s ashbin.
    â€œGood.” Another glance at her, more approving this time, then Harker went on. “You’ve got a good crew, a couple of whom have been with you from the beginning. And over the past few years, you’ve been to more places... a lot more... than you would’ve if you’d remained in the Union Astronautica.”
    Andromeda couldn’t argue with any of that. Before she’d decided to take her ship through Starbridge Earth in the waning days of the Union, as so many other UA captains had done once it was apparent that the Union was doomed, the Castro had been used to survey the Jovian system, including the establishment and support of a small science station on Ganymede. So, yes, she and her original crew had seen the outer planets of their native solar system, and for a long time this had been the high point of her life.
    All that paled, though, once the Castro was rechristened the Montero and refitted to serve as a merchantman. Since then, she’d seen worlds that made Jupiter and the Galilean satellites almost banal by comparison. The city-sized space colony of Talus qua’spah ; the methane seas of Tau Boötis-C; the mountains of Sanja, in the HD 73256 system, which the native soranta had spent centuries carving into the likeness of a god.
    â€œI realize that,” she said. “And believe me, I’m grateful. You. . . the merchant marine, I mean... could have taken my ship, then mustered me and my people out and turned us into sidewalk beggars or something. Instead, you were good enough to let us keep . . .”
    â€œNo.” Harker shook his head. “I appreciate your gratitude, Andi, but don’t think for a second we did it out of the goodness of our hearts. Taking a ship while discarding its crew would’ve been a waste of resources.”
    â€œNice to know,” she murmured. You’re all heart, she silently added.
    â€œThink nothing of it,” Harker said dryly. “Maybe that sounds cold, but speaking as one CO to another, the last thing I ever intend to do is ground a captain who isn’t ready to stop flying. . . Unless you really are ready to retire, of course.”
    Andromeda was about to respond when, from the distance, her attention was drawn by an abrupt and distant roar. Turning about in her chair, she looked back to see, above the rooftop of her waterfront cottage, a slender finger of grey-white smoke rising into the deep blue sky, a tiny silver thimble at its tip. A spacecraft lifting off from the nearby New Brighton spaceport; judging from the character of the engine noise and the shape of the exhaust plume, she immediately knew that it was an Ares-class heavy lifter, probably belonging to one of the freighters parked in high orbit above Coyote. A few seconds later, the crackling roar of its engines reached them, causing a flock of sea-swoops to rise from the nearby river.
    Some women do a double take when a handsome man walks by; Andromeda Carson looked at