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The Nearly Infinite Possibilities of Junk [MultiFormat]
by Stephen L. Burns
Category: Science Fiction
Description: The good people of the asteroid Fred's Ball work hard and play hard. Their economy is based on mining the Ball, sweeping the Belt, and income from Hartman's Junkyard. But when lawyer Elmo Luckless arrives carrying papers from AllMine Corporation evicting the residents of the Ball, only Vance Hartman's inspiration as to how to build a new kind of space habitat from junk and leftover tailings can save them from being forced to work for AllMine if they want to stay. Things get complicated when Hartman's daughter Jane kidnaps Luckless-just as he's about to try to help them keep AllMine from stealing the idea behind the habitat they are building, and even more complicated when she decides he's kind of pretty.
eBook Publisher: Fictionwise.com, 1989 Analog
AllShortStories.com Release Date: April 2005
 
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Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: eReader (PDB) [65 KB], ePub (EPUB) [60 KB], Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [49 KB], Portable Document Format (PDF) [365 KB], Palm Doc (PDB) [55 KB], Microsoft Reader (LIT) [101 KB], Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [121 KB], hiebook (KML) [173 KB], Sony Reader (LRF) [84 KB], iSilo (PDB) [46 KB], Mobipocket (PRC) [57 KB], Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [84 KB], OEBFF Format (IMP) [75 KB]
Words: 16386
Reading time: 46-65 min.
Microsoft Reader (LIT) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
Portable Document Format (PDF) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud DISABLED
All Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED
They held the meeting in Vance Hartman's office because of the gravity of the situation.
That office was in a slap-patched old derelict cruiser permanently grounded on the asteroid known as Fred's Ball. The ship's engines had long ago been stripped away. In fact, Vance had pretty well salvaged every unnecessary part of possible utility off the hulk. It was often said that Vance could get five kilos of usable parts out of a busted two-kilo you-name-it, and still have a full kilo of absolutely useless junk left over. But the ship's spindrum had been left intact, and he had cobbed together a system of gears and drive motors powered by an old, almost played-out WuFusion unit to power it up and keep it cranking. The resulting spingravved space housed not only his parts and papers-filled office, but also the Fred's Ball Clinic (run by his wife, Shana), the Fred's Ball Community Hall, which was a place for the kids to raise hell and hide from their folks (kids needing both those things to be kids, and gravity besides so they grew up strong enough to take acceleration), and the Fred's Ball Balls-Out Billiard Emporium, which featured Reb Goldfarb's vacuum distilled Algae Whiskey and the only genuine, regulation, leather-pocketed, green-felted pool table with a full complement of balls within 300Kk. The story of how Vance got that pool table is a perennial favorite. It has been lovingly handled and handed around almost as much as the beautiful realwood cue-sticks. The story of how Hartman (as in Vance) became a household name is probably as widely known as his name. Part of that story is the tale of how Fred's Ball became a name to be reckoned with rather than snickered at. It's a story of lovers and lawyers and labors and lives changed once and for all. And like so many stories with a happy ending, it had a very unhappy beginning... * * * *The meeting they were holding in Vance's office wasn't like one of the more-or-less monthly Fred's Ball Correct English Council meetings. That's not English as in the language, but english like the spin you put on a cue-ball. The seven of them didn't so much govern Fred's Ball, as try to english it into what the consensus figured was the right pocket. They weren't holding it over the big green-felt table with drinks in their hands, whacking the issues around as they played interminable games by the idiosyncratic, and occasionally changeable Fred's Ball Rules. Nobody was smiling. Nobody was laughing. They were gathered around a scarred old conference table, each one with a big sheaf of official looking papers before him or her. There was a lot of sighing and paper-shuffling, a lot of muttering and fine-print-puzzled head-scratching. Finally old Bernice Berne looked up over the top of her half-glasses at the others sitting around the table.
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