From: alaric@sti.com (Alaric Tekiahyn)
Newsgroups: alt.pub.havens-rest
Subject: [Severinsen] Inquiries
Keywords: Ho hum...  what now?
Date: 26 Jan 93 02:32:03 GMT
Organization: Software Transformation, Inc.
NNTP-Posting-Host: smurf.sti.com


Arno ate his meal in silence, savoring each mouthful of the ordinary,
mundane food as though it was the rarest of delicacies.  The one who had
spoken to him earlier said not a word, and as Arno finished, he became aware
that the white-suited man had apparently slipped away without his noticing,
so engrossed had he been in his meal.  It was, after all, the first taste
of real food he'd had in longer than he cared to think about.

He sat for a few more minutes, silently thinking and looking around the
Rest.  His eye fell upon the bulletin board, and a comtemplative expression
passed across his face.

Standing up from the booth, he walked over to the bulletin board and examined
it.  He was a little surprised at first to see actual paper notes pinned to
the board, but then filed the fact away as a mental note on relative
availability of technology in this place.  It didn't bode well.

Still, there was a chance.  He had hoped that he would find someone here
who had the answers he was looking for; if so, that person would have been
likely to seek him out, asking the questions that would have told Arno that
the information he sought was here.  That had not happened.  So, he'd just
have to try asking the questions himself; and the first thing to do was find
people who might be worth asking.

"Hey, barkeep," he called.  "You got any paper, something to write on?  And
 a stylus?  I want to put a note on your board, here."

The barkeeper rummaged briefly under the bar and came up with a grubby pad
of out-of-date invoices - apparently from liquor shipments.  He handed Arno
two or three off the top, and a battered writing stylus.

Nodding his thanks, Arno thought for a moment, mentally composing a message
designed to attract the kind of people he needed to talk to, and wrote out
his note.

      ____________________________________________
     |                                            |
     |      TECHS WANTED                          |
     |                                            |
     |  Specialties required:                     |
     |      Communications                        |
     |      Armscomp                              |
     |      Navcomp and nav systems               |
     |      Computer systems                      |
     |      Xenology and languages                |
     |      Drive engineering                     |
     |      Optical systems                       |
     |                                            |
     |  Permanent assignments available, subject  |
     |  to skill level                            |
     |  Terms of payment negotiable               |
     |                                            |
     |                                            |
     |  Interested parties                        |
     |                                            |

He paused.
"Hey, barkeep," he asked again.  "Someone wants to get in touch with me,
 can they leave a message here?"

"I ain't nobody's charity message service," growled the bartender.

Arno reached into his pocket again and started counting fifty-gram gold
ingots onto the bartop.
"I didn't say anything about charity," he said.  He stopped after the
tenth ingot, then drew a small plastic plate out of another pocket and
placed it on the bartop next to the pile.  It was about three millimeters
thick, and about three centimeters by six.  On the upper surface, the
thin outline of a touch-plate was visible.

"Worth your while to tap this a couple of times if someone wants to
 talk to me?  It's paramagnetic.  You set it flat against any metal
 surface, it'll stay there."

The bartender considered the idea for a moment, then nodded grudgingly.
With a brief smile of thanks, Arno finished his note and tacked it up on
the board.

     |                                            |
     |  Interested parties, leave message with    |
     |  bartender.                                |
     |____________________________________________|

The com-plate's homing signal was powerful enough to reach his mastoid
implant almost any place on the planet.  Shipboard - well, if he couldn't
make the damn computer switch to the com-plate's modulation scheme, he at
least knew he could get it to monitor the frequency.  The ship should be
able to pick it up from anywhere in the damn system.  If his note got any
nibbles, he'd hear the call.

Leaving the com-plate and the pile of ingots where they lay, Arno went to
the door, retrieved his equipment belt from the 'droid, redistributed a
few items, and went outside.  It was time to get himself some supplies of
real food - meal-packs, E-rats, anything except stale-flavored blue crud.



-- 
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