Kaspar's Box

"We've never seen nothin' before," Irish O'Brian responded, looking as nervous as the others at the prospect of actually getting inside the thing. "Just pony carts and horses and the occasional spaceship. Stuff like that."

"C'mon, girls, just step aboard and take a seat!" Murphy urged. "This won't wait forever, and I want to get into town."

Chung was already on, and Maslovic and Murphy helped each of the young women to come aboard even though there was no step and no gap. It was just now striking even the old captain just how fish-out-of-water these girls were. He'd been going back and forth in his mind, calling them "girls" but knowing that they were older and more experienced in one way than the name implied, but it worked here more than anywhere else as a truthful term. They were mere children in most experiences.

Even though they'd pulled an amazing fast one on the navy and actually partly taken control of a sophisticated craft, they really didn't know what they were doing or what even they were seeing. They were being fed, led, or controlled when they did that. In actual fact, none of the trio had ever been off Tara Hibernius before, and the world in which they'd been born and raised had been kept deliberately backward and primitive, more nineteenth century than twenty-third. It was one thing not to have seen an elephant before; few had who hadn't been on one of the very few worlds where they were a part of the culture. It was quite another to consider that none of the three had ever seen a train, a taxi, even a paved road or sidewalk. Now here, everything was new and scary and mysterious. No matter what powers they had, without the mind behind those necklace gems or the minds here they were pretty much helpless, not to mention clueless.

The trains were extremely fast as well as being isolated from just about all bumps and grinds, and if there hadn't been several stations between the spaceport and the city, they would have been there in just a few minutes. As it was, they reached the downtown section of Port Bainbridge in about twenty minutes.

"We might as well get off at this stop," Maslovic told them. "This is the center of the main commercial district. I don't know where else would be better."

They all exited at the stop, and as the train closed its doors and floated silently away down its maglev track, Murphy turned to Chung and Maslovic and asked, "So, now what?"

"What do you mean?" the lieutenant responded.

"I mean exactly that," the old captain explained. "We're in the middle of town in what looks like the middle of the day and these three sweet things can't even get a cup of tea on their own. They stand here basically clad in the navy's bathrobes helpless as babes. I know where I have to go, but what of them?"

"What about them?" Chung asked him. "We're free of responsibility to you and to them at this point. We've landed you successfully at the nearest inhabited and interconnected colonial world. We have naval business here, and then we are on leave until our ship comes insystem. Our responsibility to you is done."

Murphy looked like he was about to have a stroke. "But-but-you can't do this to me! I got me own business here and then I want off! I can't be saddled with the three of 'em indefinitely! I mean, I ain't even been paid yet!"

"I'm afraid they are your problem, Captain," Maslovic put in. "I mean, when we intercepted you, you were in the process of smuggling these three here, or at least bringing them here. Three very young, underage in fact, pregnant teens without the permission of any of their family or even that family's knowledge. That can result in some pretty serious stuff if it were to come to that!"

"Oh, c'mon! You know they was runnin' fer their lives!"

"So you say. Well, you also said you were being paid to bring them here. They're here. We didn't stop that. Now they're your problem. You're lucky we don't turn you in, or at least charge you for the robes."

Murphy's face was beet red and he began to sputter. "But we ain't even due here for another week! What do I do with 'em until then?"

"If we didn't have other things to do, we'd be quite curious to find out the answer to that," Lieutenant Chung said to them, trying to keep a totally blank expression on her face and not quite making it. "Farewell, Captain. Farewell, young ladies. Sergeant?"

"Yes, sir?"

"Let's get on with our business," she said, and the two of them walked crisply away from the other four and were quickly gone down the escalator at the far end of the station.

Although there were some informally dressed commuters around waiting for the next train, they were otherwise alone on the platform.

Irish O'Brian asked innocently, "Where do we go now, Captain?"