From: locke@telerama.lm.com (Herb Gilliland)
Subject: REPOST: [Story Excerpt] "New Beginning"
Date: 10 Apr 1995 22:21:43 -0400
Here is something I wrote, please send feedback to locke@lm.com; it's not
necessarily "Cyberpunk" per se, but I think it was heavily influenced by
Gibson none-the-less.
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He woke up to pure pain. The agony of his hangover
was astounding. His forehead crinkled into a mountainous
range of excruciating morning-after. He couldn't bare to
sit up. His leg hurt. He felt wholly bad.
It was a while before he attempted to move. A half-
empty glass spilled off his bed and shatter on the floor, the
sound was so loud he held his head against the black-spots
that formed. He lay back, the bed was very inviting, and
shut his eyes. The redness that was behind them shown
through; the sun of Rigis was rising out of the distance
cloud-haze that had created a false sense of night on the
Dock. His pillow was cool and soothing against his
pounding head. He dozed.
It was an hour before he woke again. All he could
hear was the sound of blood throbbing in his ears, it
dulled him to a crawl, and he couldn't do much more than
move. He had to focus, but his eyelids would not part.
He opened them, but there was another blinding shot of
pain and he squinted towards the glare of the room and the
blazing sun that streamed into it. He felt faint again, but
forced himself to sit up. Someone was yelling.
"You lazy son of a bitch, get UP! Get up, just get
the fuck up now!"
Who was that? He couldn't think. His mind was
numb with a still throbbing mass of pressure. His hand
rubbed his forehead in misery as the sound beckoned on.
It was a high shrill voice, the voice of someone familiar.
Suddenly, something hit him and he opened his eyes
again to the glare, this time his eyes began to focus a bit,
and he could make out a large fluffy white object
repeatedly smacking him with a soft whoosh. His pillow.
The voice was of his lover and roommate, Cynthia, a
lithe slutty streetwalker from the southern side. She was
dressed in her night clothing (a thin black negligee which
left little to the imagination). It billowed from her as her
hands swung the pillow around, and his hangover abated
for a moment as he found this enticing. The mood was
killed quickly as he began to realize she was very angry.
"Get up, you fucking cheat, you fucking louse! Get
up, give me my jasid, get out of this place right now! I
want you out of here!", each word she enunciated with
another pillow hit. Jharod was sure the next thing she
would use would be one of their vases, or maybe his gun.
He put his hands up to grab the pillow, but it fell
right between them. Dazed, he clasped it as if he was
hugging something, and she lost her grip. He clutched it
and fell backwards, hitting his head on the bedboard. He
clutched his neck and sat up, wincing. She screamed at
him some more and then left, but not before she grabbed
his billfold and two or three hypos of Blueskull. She left
in a tiff. As soon as the door closed, he locked it. And
after a few minutes, he smirked, realizing she was clad
only in her lace.
What was the bitch so mad about?
The night before he had went to a very, very good
party and had gotten very, very drunk, and all he could
remember was a dancer and some rings of blue and a large
fat woman with massive eyelashes and . . .
. . . and passion. Yes, there had be quite a lot of that.
Two, maybe three, girls. The fat woman, however, was a
black memory he couldn't put a fix on. The girls, he
remembered vividly. Very vividly. So many things he
had done. That was probably why she had been so mad,
he thought, she had found out and wanted her stuff and
wanted out.
Jharod looked at his watch and swallowed down a
few pills that would sooth his pain. In a time long since,
they were called Aspirin, Jharod mused, but now what did
they call them? Pain reduction medication. Everything
had become more complicated since that by-gone time.
Things were changed, very much so. Jharod pulled on
some day-old desert-khaki and made his way out to the
Spotted Gobucci, where his meeting with The Kludge was
scheduled.
He made his way to the stairwell, the dust already
filling his nostrils from the street. He started down and
began to go over what he had to push today. He wasn't
really a drug dealer, but when a man had to make ends
meet, he did. So he push some jasid from now and again.
What was that? A few credits, enough to pay for sex and
a hotel room. Some liquor, and enough food to last until
the next sale, or maybe the next rigging job.
Jharod was a rigger, or as the Underground called it,
a rocket jock. He fixed things. Built things. Designed
things. Once, in another time-gone-by, Jharod had been
really something. He was burning himself on Blueskull,
the street name for the drug jasid, and even jasid probably
wasn't its real name. The stuff cost a fortune, he knew,
and a nagging feeling in the back of his mind told him to
quit, but he ignored it. Of most things, jasid was the least
deadly. Out here in the Dock, anything could let you
wind up dead. Even getting out could mean the end of
you. And oh no, Jharod wasn't gonna worry about some
hypos now and then.
Sure, he was addicted. He knew it, he didn't care. It
used to scare him from time to time, a creeping anxiety
that he was losing control, so he eased up, and the feeling
went away, and he hooked himself at a lower tolerance.
He took four hypos a day, when he had that many, and
three at night, if he had the money. Usually, however, he
only took two, and he didn't realize that if he continued to
wean himself, he could be off the stuff in two months.
But he wasn't worried, and two months was a long time.
As he walked out into the baking heat of the early
morn, he shielded his eyes with plasticeen sungoggles.
The strap always chafed him, but he took no real notice
now that he had been sunburned for the past few weeks.
It was summer, if there was such a thing on a world of
desert, and it was hot. 'Its a dry heat' is what they'll tell
you if they are really sweltering, but on Rigis VII it really
was a dry heat. Dry and rough, like sandpaper. It cut you
when you weren't looking, slowly rubbed at you,
toughened you. Newcomers were soft flesh, and the
natives were hardened like the soles of your feet. Jharod
had lived here since 2500, a year which was so far away
now it seemed like another lifetime. A different person
lived in his body then, a person who was set for life. He
had the best certifications, he was the slickest aeronautics
engineer, he was hotfire burning bright back then. Top
notch.
Jasid didn't change his life. So many times before
had the drug been labeled as the cause of the problem.
But it wasn't it. Jasid was just a side-effect of a larger
disease. Jharod came to the Dock to leave, to get off
Rigis, to make a run for the border that led out of the
Zone, out into free territory. The Zone was an area of
space just downspin from the Federation. An area that
was lawless, it had no centralized government, and no one
offered to attempt such a thing. The syndicates owned this
area, the crime organizations that plundered traders that
skirted the Zone border on the wrong side, and found
themselves laid in siege by pirates. Zone officials came
and went, whenever a new crime boss took power.
Periodically, Federal attempts would be made to enter the
Zone, usually by hodge-podge suicide pilots, and so far
they had been unsuccessful. Jharod figured that these
raids were staged ones, just to keep the commonwealth
centered on other problems. Sometimes the pirates took a
few ships by surprise and found them to be automated.
This had only happened a few times, and only recently,
but it showed that there was a window opening, a window
of negligence by the high command over there in the
UFSE.
The Zone was his only hinderance, and in the end,
Jharod had to succumb. He tried, tried as he might, but he
couldn't shake himself free of its overwhelming grip. He
was 16 then, an age where he could have slipped through,
but his ship didn't make it. The Dock couldn't let him go.
He didn't get enough money in enough time. His personal
window, his path, had been closed, cut off, severed. He
was left, stuck rather, on the home side, with no place to
go but within.
At first he had tried to leave again. Again, the ships
couldn't get through, or he didn't have enough credit, or he
was too young. But after a while, Jharod resigned to stay.
He was stuck, exhausted, homeless, and becoming a
vagabond. He had known someone from before he went
to the academy, someone who could help him. The
Kludge.
Jharod stepped into the Gobucci. It was empty, it
was never filled at this time of day, and he walked to the
bar. He sat down and looked around patiently. A single
bartend, a young one, younger than Jharod, took his order.
Jharod winced at the drink, it was watered and tasteless.
He set it down and listened to it clink against the counter.
He knew it was plastic, but the idea that it was glass was
unmistakable.
There was a holographic television in the back. He
watched it for a while, waiting, and it wasn't long before
The Kludge popped out of the back and leaned over the
bar behind him. He whispered into his ear as if he was
commenting on the holo.
"Hey Kull, the dot got the slang from those two you
left with."
Was it only two, then? "Hey Kludge", he didn't turn,
"got any business for me. Or more jasid deals. You know
I hate dealing."
"Kid, I gots lots for UGs like you. Right, my man
underground?"
A small, almost invisible smile crossed Jharod's face,
and then was gone. The Kludge was a small guy. A deep
throaty voice, but tight. Probably the only Black on this
side of the Dock, he was a rarity that made his
establishment so popular. The Kludge was a connection,
to offworlders and onworlders alike, and Jharod thanked
his lucky stars for him. The Kludge had helped him out in
the past a few times.
"Right, Kludge, what's this job you have?"
"I ain't got none. No job."
Jharod's brow furrowed, he still wasn't looking at The
Kludge. To outsiders, it would appear they were
discussing the holo that was replaying itself over and over
in the far corner. Someone walked in, asked for the
restroom, and left for it.
"Kludge, tell me about this job you know about."
"You sure want a lot for free."
"I bought one of your shitty water-drinks didn't I?
Why don't you fire that hand and get a new, professional
one."
The Kludge laughed a sort of laugh, more like a hiss,
and said, "That boy saves me more credit than a man ten
times his ignorance. I gots a job for you, UG, but don't
forget what you used to be, shurgen. You bets not forgets
about what you used to be to me, dig?"
Jharod dug, "All right. Tell me about the connection."
"Bets Jharod has a line up with some offworlds. Says
they got some lines here. Dunno. Three slashes on these
dudes. Don't worry though, they have plans for little
Jharod. Big plans. Big pay. Talk with you tonight, says
they. One looks familiar, he's a black knight I think, a
messenger more than perhaps. The others are his minions.
They in a big group, gonna boogie-down with your ass
tonight, dig? Want a rigger, I mention your name, you
know, wants some cred thrown my way, dig, but they nod
as if they's already in touch with your ass, so I tell 'em
where they can meet. Third small table, back there."
Jharod looked at where his quick thrust of a finger
went, and nodded slowly. Small table near the dance
floor. Actually, the tables there were usually engulfed by
dancers by midnight, and it didn't clear out until five or
six. Nights on Rigis VII were funny though, and they
usually didn't have a definite end or beginning, and nights
were a rarity, so those who could, did.
"Thanks, Kludge." He passed his last gold chip back,
which to an outsider would have looked as if he were
paying for the already paid for drink, and stepped out.
Behind him he heard the Kludge say, "Thanks my man,
thank you."
Stepping out of the nightclub, it was like a blast of
hot wind, and Jharod pulled his sungoggles on again to
shield the glare from his eyes. The headache was starting
to come back, but he had other things to worry about.
He was down to two silver credits. He knew they
weren't really silver, but he was sure he wouldn't have
anything by the end of the day. He needed this job, big
payoff inclusive, or he would be flat broke and hungry by
next nightfall. The hotel was paid up until the first of the
following week, three days, but he needed more than just a
place to sleep.
He went down to a small dive to eat. Its name isn't
important here, but what is important is that when he
entered the eatery, three men in trenchcoats and black
sunglasses followed him in. Inside, Jharod saw them, and
when he was looking they appeared to be three rather
exuberant offworlder tourist executives from a corporate
on Rigis VI. But when they weren't looking, they were
watching Jharod close. They watched him spend his one
of his last two silvers on lunch, a lunch which consisted of
greasy synthetic potatoes and greasy fried tlatlroc (an
indigenous species of bird, its meat very bland and bitter).
They watched him pour a sticky red sauce over the meat,
and they watched him wash it down with a cold glass of
sweet ale. One of them paid close notice as he slumped
into his chair after the meal, while the other two glanced
at their watches and jotted notes onto the napkins,
apparently busy in some work.
When he got up to leave, so did they, talking idly
about how the weather was hot, and proclaim that Rigis VI
was much nicer, even though the winters lasted three
fourths of the year, and that they should have more grease
dives like this back home.
They followed him back to the Gobucci, where he
watched holos and talked to the bartend, and ordered
several drinks which he said that the owner wouldn't mind
if he just put the on the tab. The young bartend nodded
naively; the Kludge on lunch break.
They followed him back to his hotel, although he
didn't notice them, in their thick metal-toed flight boots
and bundled in thick winter overcoats. The temperatures
on Rigis VII usually didn't dip below 90, even during the
cool spell (winter) which some temperatures slipped down
to a ripe 85 degrees, and to normal individuals, bundling
up in these overcoats was incredibly hot. So sufferingly
hot that a normal person would faint after an hour of such
exposure, but these three didn't bat an eyelash for the three
hours they followed Jharod. The main reason was that
were not human. They were alephoenofear human,
genetically altered. Alephoenofear was an alien word,
translated in entirety into Standard, which meant
'augmented'. Augmented, changed, whatever you called it,
these were men that could resist cold, heat, inferno, fire,
freezing and most poisons, as well as the effects of alcohol
and most drugs. They were suped up, altered, improved
and extremely expensive.
No alephoenofear grew naturally. None reproduced.
Every existing one was grown, or cloned, and existed as a
commodity.
They were also illegal.
Illegal in civilized zones. Illegal in places where
culture, government and the establishment ruled. They
weren't illegal here.
Rigis VII lay just downspin from the Lawless Zone
border. A large strip that extended all along the downspin
border of the UFSE. The UFSE, the United Federation of
Space Exploration, was a large bubble of space that was
centered around Sol, a quite insignificant yellow sun, and
had expanded outward since its creation some 50 years
hence. There were other races, non-humans, that existed
in this part of the Galaxy called Milky Way by humans,
Aietrar by phenokti, ClearFocus by kraatek, Klgritha by
the thallamassa, and countless other things across the
swath of the Far Arm.
In most instances it was the same. When the UFSE
discovered a new race, it asked it if it wanted to be
absorbed. If it didn't, but it didn't intend any harm, they
let it go. A facet of the bubble was formed. If it meant
harm, the UFSE first tried to persuade, then it tried to
absorb, and finally it tried to annihilate. This was policy,
or so it seemed, from the beginning. They had never
annihilated anyone yet. They fought wars, won them, lost
them, came to agreements. But they had never obliterated
anyone.
But what of before? What had come before the
UFSE?
There were names for what had come before. And it
wasn't long ago, so it wasn't a mystery. An inkling in the
eye of father time was 50 years, and thus an inkling it
was. Before the UFSE was dictatorship. Warlords.
Tribunals. What was before UFSE? Chaos. Confusion.
Oppression. The FCCS, but only at first, existed. This
was before then. Farther back, in the year 2361, the
FCCS, the Federal Colony Control Service, had founded as
a company. A shipping service, and at first it was the
leading in shipping. It created ships that were faster,
better, and easier to handle than all the rest. It was
extreme, the way things were handled, that the government
remain in control. But the people wanted the FCCS.
So it became a monopoly. It controlled all ships,
regulated trade offworld. At this time no one knew about
any other races, in fact the ships still hadn't been able to
leave the solar system for any reason. They could make it
from the third planet to the ninth, which was a shithole of
a world anyway, in three months or less, but beyond? The
endless and vast interstellar distances were mind-numbing
and could not be traversed effectively.
But they had done it before, hadn't they? Yes, there
was relativistic travel, and yes it allowed for ships to move
fast so that interstellar travel was feasible, but it had been
lost. The human race had forgotten how to build the ships
that it used to be able to, but no one knew this. Before
FCCS, there just hadn't been anything.
People are apt to forget things in time. And if the
thing that they are to forget is traumatic, or unrealistic, or
so out of the ordinary that it is hard to comprehend, then a
person chooses to forget. So the people forgot their
origins, the pre-war world of 2000, the enigmatic voyage
of a ship known only as The Shuttle, an ark that saved
them, and they forgot about the engines that The Shuttle
had.
So the FCCS had to create the technology. Places
were filling up. Earth was losing most of its population,
over 50%, due to overcrowding. Where were they
moving? Mars mining stations, moon observatories,
Mercurial solar power stations, anywhere they could. So
they felt the need to push on. The general consensus was
a 'what's out there next?' feeling, so the FCCS, to remain
in favor, had to produce.
They couldn't, and things had to be worked out, but
they couldn't get an engine that would surpass half the
speed of light. A staggering figure, but not the relativity
they had hoped for. Plus, great chunks of time would be
lost testing these engines, and things had to go on, didn't
they? They were saved on August 14th, 2379 when a blip
was picked up on the scanners of a ship far out beyond the
asteroid field. It was an FCCS survey ship, testing ground
on a new moonbase to be build on Titan. The ship was
suddenly overcome by hundreds of small spacecraft of
alien design. His videocom crackled to life and a sullen,
alien face appeared. And that was that.
So the FCCS grew, changed. They had won the
support, undying, and became the government through
time. Soon the Earth government was just a figurehead,
and eventually the FCCS became corrupt.
And then what? And then people started to notice.
They started to protest. They wanted their freedoms back,
and with due cause. The FCCS crushed rebellion with an
iron fist. Until the final force of revolutionaries, a group
called only Resist, rose up to stop them from their tyranny.
So that was it, the beginning, the before.
UFSE was founded on principles opposite that of
their predecessor. They grew and remained unchallenged
inside their citizenship. Until now. The Lawless Zone
was widening, slowly. There were other groups, other
infiltrators. There was corruption, again. What would
come this time to usher in a new age? No one knew. Not
even the three alephoenofear that sat quietly on a balcony
above and across from Kull Jharod's room. No, not even
them.
Jharod looked at his watch for the hundredth time.
He tapped nervously at the plastic table top with his right
hand, while his left reached for the half full glass of
crimson ale. His hands enclosed around the glass and he
lifted it to his lips, drinking the bitter liquid. He sighed
and motioned for another.
His fingers tapping blindly again, Jharod watched the
exotic Gobucci dancers swaying suggestively on stage.
The blue and red holos played with his sense of depth and
his brain numbed to the constant shifting of forms around
him. He stroked his beard stubble absently and chewed on
his cheek.
He didn't even notice that his guests had arrived.
"Kull Jharod, I presume."
Jharod looked up startled and saw, in the darkness of
the club, a huge form looming behind him. He nodded
and nervously offered the seats around them. Only one
sat.
In the florescent light of the table, the man in front of
him looked half dead. His olive skin and angular features
gave him a gaunt pose, and Jharod couldn't help but feel
more edgy than he already was. He stopped tapping his
fingers.
"I am Val Spector. I contacted you because I have an
offer to make." Kull nodded and drew in a sharp breath.
He folded his hands on the plastic tabletop. A small piece
of credit was pushed out from between the man's thin
fingers. It sparkled gold in the dance lights.
"I heard you're the offworlds who talked to Kludge,
why are you here?"
Val let the rest of his breath ease out in a sigh and
moved his right hand to his hip pocket, he fumbled for a
glowstick and lit it. "Jharod we know your line of work,
word from this man you call The Kludge was that you
were just the ticket for our requirements. And we're not
offworlders, your friend The Kludge was wrong there.
We're locals." -- absently, Val thought about how Jharod
couldn't have known him, he must have been in a heavy
daze for the past weeks.
Jharod drew in a sharp breath and said, "What do you
need a rigger for anyways? I mean, what's this job you
guys want me for?"
"Its not important why we need you, what is
important is that we acquire your services. We have your
payment."
Jharod knew the bottom line, "How much? And I
don't get involved unless I have some idea of what I'm
being paid to do."
The man smiled and sniffed a sort of laugh, "Spoke
like a true Underground. Jharod we have the payoff with
us, I want an answer after you see it. We can't explain it
here, Kull, so you'll have to play by ear. You can always
back out, however." That was a lie, but Val made no
visible show of it.
Jharod felt uneasy, but nodded just the same. Big
news from Kludge said these croners had a big payoff.
While he always liked cash and Blueskull, he didn't like
the guys who dealt them like a hand of cards. This guy
had the best poker face he had seen. In a cloud of thought
that Val had apparently sunk into, Jharod took a minute to
size up his connection. He was gaunt, not over twenty
five (couldn't be a few years older than me, Jharod thought
quickly) and he wore a thick cowl around his neck. The
cowl was made of some strange thick material like burlap,
but he didn't want to ask. Clasping the cowl to his neck
was a large golden medallion with a marking of three
parallel slashes in red; the Claw emblem.
Jharod shifted in his seat nervously again, which
brought Val out of his sullen shifting gaze about the room.
Jharod quickly said, "Yeah, yeah sure, whatever. An
answer. Lets see it."
Val grinned savagely to himself and motioned to his
rear, even though his henchmen were behind Jharod, and
they produced a metallic case from somewhere in the
darkness. The men put the case on the table and Jharod
heard the clicks of the latches. He watched as they lifted
the lid revealing piles of credit chips and several Jasid
dualhypos.
Jharod's eyes alternated between the man who called
himself Val, and the payoff he saw in front of him. He
was on his last ropes. This was more jasid and credit than
he had ever seen. It could be his. What could be worth
so much? He shook the thought away. Finally he spoke,
"I'm your rocket jock."
Val showed him to their Lexus VI-2000 and let him
spice up in the back seat. He had Morg drive them to the
penthouse while Jharod related to him a story about some
girl named Cindy that had him over that morning. Val
chuckled to himself as he examined a readout on one of
the car's computer screens. He slowly counted the minutes
until the credit slipped through and he added another six
million to the Claw treasury. He shut off the cyan colored
phosphor screen and looked out into the clear night.
Tired from a day of dealing, Val let himself sink back
into the plush Corinthian leather of the Lexus. He
watched the holographic remakes of ancient neon through
the blue tinted plasteel glass. He heard the telltale signs of
sleep and glanced over to see Kull Jharod zonked out of
his mind on jasid. Val smiled again and lit a glowstick.
He read the package (no tobacco, no nicotine) and
wondered why he bothered smoking a piece of wood.
Morg signaled him from the front seat, and Val slid
the privacy glass down around Jharod so he wouldn't hear
what transpired. He extinguished the glowstick and turned
on the intercom.
Morg spoke in his hoarse voice, "So what we doing
with this operator, boss?"
"Nothing, Morg, just planning on building a station is
all. Claw's gonna get off this rock sooner or later."
"What about Frere Hasak?" Morg reminded him.
"I'll be taking the Imperator's position as soon as we
get to Spacedock."
Morg coughed violently and spit a wad of some sort
of sinus fluid out the open front window. "Is this a
planned promotion?"
"You ask to many questions, Morg." Val shut the
window.
He looked back over at his new recruit. Pity, he
thought, that Rigis VII was so pathetic when it came to the
lowlife that thrived on it. Claw had just a year ago been
nothing more than a whisper on everyone's lips; a rumor
that a new gang had sprung up on Rigis that controlled the
Southern Hot Zone, and now it was already large enough
to run most of the major offworld piracy rings. Frere
Hasak must have been a genius, Val reflected.
Must have been, until he fried himself on Jasid. Val
admired the man, he was ruthless, but he had a bit of
compassion. The drugs he sold to his friends as kids got
him money, but when one of his friend's turned up dead,
he knew enough not to be at the funeral. Frere Hasak had
lines running all over the place now, hard to keep away
from the funeral now that there were so many.
Val's thoughts turned to the impending murder of his
mentor.
There were some people he needed to get out of the
way. Janson Ride, former Vice Squad cop, served as the
connection between the people who ran Claw and the real
force behind Claw's rapid piracy success; the people who
ran the group of VS agents who didn't work for the Squad
anymore. Janson was a good carder, having learned from
the Best of the Best who ever got caught, and could grab
some quick credit anytime he needed it. He prided
himself on carrying cash. Mudak Blyad, the contortionist,
was their Claw connection. Val was an official member
only because Mudak was. He planned to do Mudak as
soon as Frere Hasak hit the ground bleeding.
All in all, things were good. Business was good, Val
was happy with grim anticipation, and the blue blood
flowed like water through the streets of Hightown around
Spacedock. Val was appointed the coordinator of the
entire Hightown Jasid network, and had the stuff shipped
in by the kiloliter every day. The grunts sucked the shit
up as fast as they could get their hands on it, and Val
made sure they always had a ready supply. Ever since the
Lawless Zone extended beyond Rigis VII in 2491, Jasid
had controlled the market. And with Vice Squad's
inauguration in 2502, Val made sure to keep it that way.
He needed a few more things to complete the puzzle.
A hovercopter for one, as well as a few railguns. The
kind with armor piercing particles. He thought to himself
that things might get rocky in the weeks to come. First he
would establish himself the leader of Claw, then he would
find his way to this station project, and use it as a starting
point. Soon men would tremble over the mention of his
name. He clutched at his armrest, the black leather
squeezed firmly under his hand, and he grinned an evil,
maniacle grin. It was time to pay the federation back.
Morg announced that they had reached the quarantine
interlock of Spacedock, and Val put the Jasid into the
tritinium blackbox. A small panel slid aside on one of the
towering pillars marking the entrance to the interlock, and
out from it the single working automated scanner emerged.
It swooped on a damaged hydraulic arm and gave them a
quick look over, a small green line passed over the car
quietly, and then it retracted like the head of a turtle into
the shell of the interlock. The doors opened the seal into
the core of the Dock. Out of the night, a sudden rush of
street trash towards the Lexus overwhelmed him. They
were scramblers trying to get by and into the climate
controlled environment of the interior. They cascaded out
of the black obsidian knife like wolves, hungry for relief
and protection, and they seemingly surged out of no
where. Morg floored the engine and managed to squeeze
through only hitting a few, the sound of their muffled
screams echoed in Val's ears as the door behind them grew
farther and farther away. The interior was like a parking
garage; cool and made of poured cinderblock. The strange
luminescent glow of the artificial lights made Val's skin
turn a pale color. It forebodes a twisted future, Val
thought, his cheeks flush and his face gaunt and drawn.
He lit another glowstick and puffed at it.
The ride was bumpy. Morg's driving didn't seem to
yield to anything. The rusted pipes of the entrance
corridor hung low over the hood of the Lexus and at
intervals the frayed ends of wires hung like spider's webs,
brushing the plastic hood of the Lexus. Morg slit his eyes
low and sunk into the seat. Val readied himself, he
shrouded the sleeping rigger with a thin kevlar web and he
himself opened the compartment that housed his pistol.
The plasteel glass deflected the first barrage. The
sudden loud noises threw Kull into a fit of screaming to
which Val could only subdue him. Soon, however, the
bullets left huge punctures in the hood and windshield.
Blue foam spewed from the shredded front seats and a
huge mat of protective webbing shot out from a damaged
side housing. Val ineptly pulled the webbing apart while
he scrambled for a sonarashan, but the pistol was just out
of his reach. Morg shrieked and yelled obscenities as a
bullet clipped him in the arm. He spun the car out in the
middle of the tunnel, the tires squealing and burning
synthetic rubber. A group of splatterpunks began to
approach in anticipation like deadly buzzards expecting a
fresh kill.
The jarring motion pulled the gun free and Val got a
handle on it. He glanced around outside of the Lexus and
saw the assailants, there were six or seven splatterpunks
about ten meters away. Not really aiming, Val fired the
first round into the midst of the crowd. He smiled with
glee as the sonarashan burst exploded; the group scattered.
Activating the laser sight, Val took up aim. It was Morg's
turn, as he had pulled his own pistol from his belt, and
began to fire. The blood, green, oozed from his wounded
arm as he squeezed off shots. The thick cords of muscle
that wrapped around the handle of his pistol rippled as he
intently fired upon the diversion.
Morg managed to sizzle a few of them, but it was Val
that managed to scare them off finally. He fired his
sonarashan at a pillar that he knew several were using for
cover. They didn't realize that the shell wasn't aimed for
them, so they ducked behind it. The cinderblock pillar
exploded into heavy basketball sized chunks, and the ones
that were left ran.
When the threat was abated, Val looked over at
Morg. He tore out a piece of the cloth webbing that had
filled the front seat, and tried to soak up the green blood
from Morg's wounded arm. Morg only winced and started
up the car. They drove the car now, riddled with minute
needler bulletholes, off to the hotel that they would stay up
at. It was going to be a long week.
Kull woke up at midnight. It was still dark outside,
and he was amazed that the night had lasted so long.
Normal 'nights' on Rigis VII were short, lasting rarely
longer than two or three hours. His watch showed it was
at least six hours since he had met with the Claw people.
His head spun from the jasid he remembered taking. He
shook his head to clear it and sat up, looking outside in a
daze. Then he remembered he was in the Dock, and that
there wouldn't be any sunlight if he was on a lower level.
He stood, still dressed in yesterday's day-old clothes,
and walked over to a small wooden desk that was against
a far wall. The paint was yellowed but not pealing, so it
had to have been a fairly mediocre establishment. There
was a case on the floor, a metallic brief with brass latches.
On the desk was a small slip of paper, it read:
The Key to the Latches will be available upon
completion of the job. We supply you with
enough money to eat and will provide this room for
you when you are planetside. This will not be
deducted from your final pay; as long as the job
you do is more than satisfactory.
- Val
Jharod smiled to himself, thinking he was in the clear.
He figured these guys were safe, he hadn't felt threatened,
he only felt that he was expected to do his best. The case
was thick and no doubt unbreachable, so he decided it
wouldn't be worth his while to make off with it. He
flipped the note over and saw the Claw streaks in one
corner in red ink.
Next to the note was a folded blue parchment, and
upon opening it he saw it was a schematic sheet. Another
note was tacked to the inside of it. It was written small in
plotters ink.
Jharod,
Your 'job' will be to design this station from
the ground up. We have a budget, which is outlined
on this schematic. There are some corrections to
the schematic that I penciled in, I want this design
to be completed by the end of the month. The size
of the station is irrelevant, but it must
accommodate several thousand permanent
residents, as well as several thousand visitors at
any given time. It must have large docking bays for
at least several alpha class starships, and they
must also have direct access to a multitude of
cargo bays, somewhere in the range of 1.31 metric
kilotons of space. Please take measures to make
the base protected; we want it impenetrable. Do
your best. Ignore references to a man name Frere
Hasak, I should have replaced most of those on the
diagram with my own name. On floor 12 of this
building there is a computer station that has an
uplink to the orbital library, use that room to
work on your designs. There will be no time to
spare. Start in an hour. No jasid either, not for a
while. You know your payoff, so don't worry about
it. Maybe this will get you off the shit. I'll send
Morg (the driver) up tonight with some food. You
will eat, sleep and breath this station for the next
few weeks. Another designer will join you in a few
days, her name is Melinthra, she's a kraatek slave,
but she was trained before her enslavement. I
bought her from a slaver in bad shape, so she's
recuperating.
Do not leave the building. If you try to do so,
you will be apprehended. I suggest you don't fuck
with the alephs, they have orders to break you if
you try to run. There's no reason you should try,
however.
- Val
Jharod read this and folded it into quarters, then put it in
his pocket. He rolled the schematic up and found a pack
of glowsticks in a desk drawer. He lit one, coughed, and
put it out. As an afterthought he put the pack in his
pocket too. He took the matches and slid them into his
trousers. In a fold between his pocket and the lining of
his pants, he stuffed them with a wad of paper promissory
notes. His personal treasury.
He opened the door and stepped out into a sterile hall
lit with flourescents. It was bright, but he didn't have
much of a hangover now. He walked to the end and
found a lift. It took him up to the twelfth floor where he
found himself in a small, barren office. There was a door,
ajar, leading into a back room. Shades were drawn, but he
could see that sunlight was streaming through them. I
must be above the dome, he thought, and walked to the
window. Through a slit in the blinds he saw that he was
indeed in a tower that jutted out from the chrome surface
of the Spacedock environment dome. Aircars and
hovercopters were flying this way and that in small
groups. A large tower was in his view, he was less than a
mile from it, but the haze of the Rigis morning obscured
any details. The sun was hot and it was going to be a
dusty day. Wind was already picking up. He looked
across and mused at the altitude of the tower. He could
see the sprawl of Hightown and beyond, the Wasteland.
He also noticed that the window was very thick, and
had no method of opening it. Just as well, the tower was
also climate controlled. It was a nice 75 in the office, and
he made his way to the back room. It was enclosed, there
were no windows except one, and the single one was
above a high bookshelf. It let indirect light into the room,
casting a bluish twilight on the stacks of books that filled
the room. They were books such as "Spacial Engineering
in Three Dimensions" and "Station Architecture and
Construction Costs". It is important to note that the books
were all on microfiche.
In a corner was a bulky microfiche reader, quite large
for the age it was built in, and a massive computer
terminal took up the rest of the room. It was a large
domed table with controls on each of the three sides. The
controls were mainly keyboards and rollerballs with
adjusting knobs, but there was a long cord that snaked out
of one of the panels. The cord was undoubtedly a neural
uplink; Jharod had no implant. He sat down in one of the
plush chairs (surprisingly comfortable, he thought) and
activated the computer.
The display was holographic, and a large sphere of
Rigis appeared on the screen. using the rollerball to rotate
the display, he examined it for a long time. It had been
over a year since he had last be able to use a real terminal,
and a year ago was college and the academy and
engineering courses. It was like old leather, and it fit very
well.
He began to punch codes into the keyboard, calling
up numerous informational sites from the library satellite.
He began to read the latest news from the wire.
Apparently this satellite was tied into the main network
database at Starbase Central, and Jharod ogled. He was
amazed at the information virtually at his fingertips. His
eyes were wide with the amazing breakthroughs that
scientists were making. These were public newsgroups,
though, so he figured that they were allowed limited
access. The Claw was many things, but they couldn't
breach the high security over there in Fedspace. He began
to do some light research on the latest techniques.
By noon, Jharod was very hungry. He found an
intercom and started trying floors. Most floors didn't
answer him. He had suspected, from the emptiness he saw
through the plastic walls of the lift, that this building was
relatively unused. He managed to get someone on floor
one, but the rest (he worked down from floor 12) went
unanswered.
"Solway here."
Jharod was glad he had found someone, "Err.. this is
Kull Jharod, I was wondering if I could get something to
eat. Its been a day, you know."
The voice answered, through a crackle of poor
reception, that he could not get any food until three.
Jharod sighed.
"Are you on floor twelve like Val wanted?"
"Yeah, I'm in the computer room. I was just catching
up."
"You don't have any jasid, do you? We checked you
clean last night, but Val doesn't want you hitting up."
"Yeah, I'm clean. I read his note. Call me when you
have some food." he switched it off.
For the next hour he continued to read news, papers,
books and thumb through schematics. He turned on the
microfiche reader and scanned through some of the films
that were available. Finally, he sat down and called up the
program that he would be using to design the station. The
computer chimed to life and he began to split the station
into sixteen or seventeen sections. He decided he would
have to do it another way and erased the work he had
been doing. He spread the blue diagram onto a table and
studied it with detail, working out what they wanted. It
was strange, he never thought he'd be designing a whole
station for a syndicate.
He began to decide what metal would be best, or if
he could, what type of plastic synthetics he should use.
There was a chime at the intercom.
"Kull, we have some food, Solway is coming up with
it." the intercom clicked off.
He sighed and went back to work. There was a large
database to look through, and he had just called it up when
the man called Solway entered. He put the food on a
table, nodded to Kull and left.
He yawned, tired from days of running around and
nights of doing the same, and sat back in the chair.
Val started up the car while he waited for Morg.
They had just returned the Lexus and were in a small
loaner until the windshield and apolstry could be replaced.
Morg had drove the Lexus into the shop and Val had got
the loaner. He switched into the back seat and waited
with the motor humming.
He munched on a foodstick while he waited.
Foodstick, produced by the same corporate as glowstick,
was imported from Rigis VI. It tasted awful to the natives
of Rigis VI, but it was a unique and uncommon flavor on
Rigis VII. And Val had to admit, it was aptly named. It
looked just like a piece of wood.
Rigis VI was a world of endless pines and ice. A
winter that lasted most of the year blanketed even the
warmer areas in a thick layer of snow. They had pines
and other trees, all conifers or of a similar variety. Val
had never been there, but he suspected most of the things
that were made there were byproducts of wood. There
wasn't any readily available natural resource aside from
some oil, and very little minerals that could be mined.
The colony was founded there in the 2400s, just like the
colony that would eventually become Hightown.
Hightown was a large spiralling city that spread from
the central location of the Spacedock, or the Dock, or
Hightown dock. For this area of Rigis VII there were
many names. The Southern Hot Zone, a band of intense
desert that wound its way from the equator to the Arctic
circle, was an area where there was a 78 hour day, and a 2
hour night. The planet was horribly tilted, an incredible
angle that baked the surface during all months. The angle
was such that its winter, which was theoretically every one
hundred and forty years, would freeze Hightown in a
blizzard of ice. This was the theory. But the planet's
current dark side was covered in volcanic activity, and the
atmosphere was always warmer than the light side. Rigis
VII had no moons. It also had no oceans, except one,
which was frozen. The extreme desert turned to frigid
tundra fifty miles north of the equator, another harsh
extreme. Here there were few survivors. When the
colony was founded, it was just turning summer.
Calculated, it would be 157 years before the next winter
came round, and the two landing pods had chosen separate
landing sites, one hundred miles apart. Hightown was
founded by the first pod, the inklings of the ship's
structure would be apparent in the construction of the
Dock for years afterward, and the northern city, which was
never named more than Colony B, didn't have a chance.
The first winter killed off most of the colonists, and those
that didn't die of exposure made their way south to
Hightown.
Of other cities on Rigis, there were few. A small
city, known as Teral, formed at the mouth of a massive
dry riverbed near the single ocean, Aquaticus, and served
as the water purification system for Hightown and
anything else hooked up to the main pipeline. No other
cities lasted long enough. Sometimes roving nomads
would be seen, castaways or drunks that wandered away
from Hightown during one of the 2 hour nights perhaps,
but they never lasted longer than a few hours in the
blazing heat of the Southern Hot Zone. And if
dehydration didn't kill them, there was a great variety of
birds and flying reptiles that enjoyed preying on strays,
delirious or not.
Hightown dock, in the middle of the Southern Hot
Zone, or as the natives called it; Desert Jungle, was
bustling with activity. The main tower, which loomed
high above the dry, dusty city, was filled with patrons. A
thousand or so members of the organization known as the
Claw had arrived at the spaceport that morning, and were
assembling in one of the large meeting chambers on the
observation floor. Large bulletproof windows looked out
across the green-purple horizon. It was always sunset in
Hightown, the sun was just ready to fall below the
flatlands and bring night. It rarely did. The Southern Hot
Zone was aptly named because of the conditions which
made it such. A dry wind always blew through the region,
and the sun was always either above or just below the
horizon. During winter the constant sunlight was broken
by fits of two-hour nights. Frere Hasak looked out the
windows and sipped quietly at his tea. Behind him,
people were filing in and picking their seats at the large
conference table. At one end was a curved inlet in which
a large, plush, leather chair resided. This was Hasak's
chair, but he didn't feel much like sitting. In his left hand
was the cup of tea, his right hand slid absently into his
coat and fumbled with the safety on his sonarashan. A
strange pistol, he thought absently.
The sonarashan was a jet-black pistol firing hollow
point explosive shells. It normally was laser guided (with
its option sight), but the model Hasak had didn't have this
feature. His was handcrafted from cast-iron. Formed and
shaped to his hand for perfect balance and feel. The iron
was coated with a thin lacquer that reflected most types of
weapon scanners, and gave it a shiny, surreal look. It was
smooth, with small grooves, which felt to Hasak as 'oh-so
right'. Along one side of the triangular barrel were several
small flash-slits that lit up when the gun was fired. The
shells this particular model fired were of a unique variety.
They had brass bands that increased the size of the
shrapnel, and let the interior build up the explosion longer.
The effect was devastating to an individual target, and
extremely effective to a group target.
His fingers repeatedly pressed the rough safety in,
toggling the activation of the gun. It had four knobs. One
controlled the site (which his did not have), two were
beam thickness and blast radius, and the final was the
safety. The shells were produced by the gun itself, which
Hasak found most tantalizing. The sonarashan produced
its own bullets with its own interior replication computer.
Energy-matter converters were a large percentage of the
reason the gun was illegal. He didn't need to hinder
himself with ammunition, nor did he have to carry heavy
belt-packs or battery-cables that wound themselves around
a person's arm and reduced a persons' flexibility. His
version of the sonarashan was able to run on very low
power, thus when the shell exploded, it produced enough
energy to recharge the gun itself. Hasak's sonarashan was
a unique version.
He listened intently to the metallic click when he
pressed the safety catch, and he sipped again at the
lukewarm tea. Setting the China cup down, he turned and
sat in his chair, facing away from the windows.
"Gentlemen. Please, sit. It is time we discussed the
topics of this very important meeting."
Hearing him, his guests (of which there were several
dozen) began to sit down in their seats. He leaned
forward on the black-glass tabletop and rested his head in
his hands for a minute. When the sounds of their suits
stopped, he looked up.
"First, may I welcome you to Hightown dock. It is
the finest example of Claw resources on Rigis VII at this
time. But this will soon change. What you see here is
only a taste, gentlemen. Claw is planning a massive
construction project. The funding is coming in at an
alarming rate, and I believe its time to introduce this
project."
There were murmurs, very few, and he slid back a
panel on the chair's arm. The windows clouded over into
blackness, and the lights dimmed.
An automated voice spoke, and as it began a large
holographic projector lowered from the ceiling. The voice
was stock figures, statistics, crime reports, budget
itineraries and monetary figures. The voices, of which
there were three, spoke quickly, and began to overlap and
overrule each other until the sounds became a tangled
mess of numbers. Then the voices, reaching a thunderous
crescendo, stopped.
The projector lit up showing Rigis VII. Its sandy-
brown land masses, spotted with small oceans. Small,
unreadable computer output flashed across the screen in
red typeface. The camera panned outward, the world was
pushed into the background as a massive structure came
into view, a silhouette, shrouded in white light by Rigis,
the sun.
Then the camera circled around and the structure
came into focus. It was a starbase, of hideous proportion.
An ultimate gluttony of Claw. At first, the station looked
twisted, oblique angles and odd shapes, but soon the
proportions adjusted and the camera panned back. It was
a huge cylinder with several concentric circles wrapped
around its bulk. Ships were flowing in and out of the
docking ports. Flashing lights, railguns, metallic drones,
probes, merchant vessels, damaged, being towed by ships
with the Claw emblem. Three red streaks.
A soft, calming female voice spoke, her voice thick
with a sexy tone, "Gentlemen, this is the future. This is
the station which will launch Claw into supremacy over all
other crime syndicates.", the camera panned in and out of
the station, then began to encircle it in huge, flowing
flybys, the voice continued, "Once, a long time hence,
there was a great kingdom. It ruled the homeworld, Earth,
and it was always in existence. It always lived and
thrived. The kingdom looked as though it would never
fall. It fell, with the wars in 2000, it fell. But its glory
lives on in history. We are a new kingdom, gentlemen, a
gloriously newborn kingdom. The cat's claw, always
reaching for the great treasures. Lashing out.", the camera
began to pan outward, flying away, in reverse, from Rigis,
showing its proportion to the solar system, the sector, the
nebula, the galaxy, the universe, the voice became lower,
male, like a priest proclaiming himself god's savior, "We
shall go forth, away from this rock, and we shall use Rigis
Station as the first stepping stone. We no longer shall
drink from the castaways, but from the very goblet of
bureaucracy."
The projector retracted into the ceiling as the
windows became clear. The room, however, remained
dark. They looked at the black outline of Frere Hasak in
the chair, the light casting a white corona on his face. His
eyes were dark, his face a mask of blackness.
"We will destroy those who oppose us. Claw's
station will rule the Lawless Zone. I have put a young
man on the job, a man named Val Spector. He is new, but
he has much influence. He has gathered a motley crew of
operators and developers to design us a station that will
suit our desires. We have plenty of funds coming in each
day. Gentlemen, it is your job to insure that this
continues. We have much to discuss. Are there any
questions?"
A man in the back, a dark browed man, young, but
not youthful, spoke, "Frere Hasak, what do the phenokti
need with this station? Our homeworld is not Earth, we
do not require your assistance, because we control our
own home. Why should the Underground on Phenoktus
bother with your organization?"
Inwardly, Frere Hasak sighed, but outwardly he
showed no reaction except to answer, "Our wealth will
prove our worth. We have supplied you steadily with
Blueskull for your UU, without fail, have we not? Our
progenitors did nothing such as good."
The phenokti nodded slowly, sat back and crossed his
legs. He looked thoughtful. He slowly tucked his third
leg under him, and then stood. "Frere Hasak, tell me
about this Spector."
Frere nodded and turned to address the group, "Val
Spector is a bright star, he will do fine. He has already
acquired us a rocket jock and several cyborg workers.", he
coughed for a moment. The phenokti spoke.
"Yes, but just a few workers hardly constitutes
enough to build an entire station."
"True, true enough. We have more workers at our
disposal, but the cyborgs will be most useful. Val has run
the Jasid ring around the central Spacedock for eleven
years now, since he was but a lad of 16. I am confident
he can be trusted as well as counted on."
The phenokti sat, looking thoughtful again. Hasak
thought to himself that phenokti always looked thoughtful.
They made him feel uneasy, such a race. They were
slightly shorter than humans, roughly five foot average
height, but they possessed three legs, and only a light
scattering of white hair. They had wide amber or blue
eyes, that always looked a bit more innocent than was
naturally acceptable. He didn't like many phenokti, this
one was no exception, but because he was a business man
he chose to ignore personal traits and study an individual's
actions. But he felt he knew this phenokti, and quite well
at that. This one seemed -- uneasy. He was gaunt, as
most phenokti were (you didn't ever see a pudgy phenokti,
ever, not even the pregnant ones) and they were alien to
him with their eloquence. The race was a race of artists
and artisans, not of killers. Yet even though they claimed
to love, they were able to hate. Hate with more passion
than humans. They hated only one thing; the Allindorna.
A sister race, no doubt, a race that Frere Hasak knew little
about. He cared to know little. They were even more
alien than these phenokti. But he understood the
Allindorna a trifle better, because the Allindorna were
killers, and he could live with a killer easier than a fucking
artist. They used to have names for artists. He couldn't
think of what the old ones used to call them. There was a
movement, once, but that was ages ago, before The Ark
and the Great War. They were mainly musicians, the
government was a council of elders, and the Underground
(Underground was a universal name given to crime
syndicates that were above the law) on Phenoktus
influenced the society, instead of opposing it. A strange
bunch of holy joes, he began to understand the theory
behind the UU that had partially developed there in
phenokti society.
The UU, the Ursae Usa, a group of techno-religious
fanatics, had surfaced only a few months ago. Most
people were just waiting for them to die out, because on
average most small religions seemed to be a flame that
burned bright for its day, and fizzle out without enough
energy. This one was different, in the past few weeks it
had begun to gain support. Technological religion wasn't
a new concept, but the Ursae Usa seemingly popped up
out of nowhere and it quickly gained speed. One day it
wasn't here, the next it was a large force, swiftly moving
through, effecting the ranks of all the societies it could
effect.
Frere Hasak stood, turning the lights up so that they
could now see his face, his expressions, and he took his
tea thoughtfully in his left hand, as he always did. He
turned towards the windows and looked out.
"Frere Hasak, when will the construction begin?"
He didn't turn, instead spoke towards the skyline,
"We plan to start as soon as possible. There is a problem,
a minute one, there is an opposition force of Vice Squad
non-converts coming here, a fleet. They think that there is
something going on in the Zone.
"Of course they don't know about the operations here
on Rigis; in fact they believe the source of Lawless power
lies coreward of here, in a system called Corvi, a few
parsecs in from the Federal border. I'm not worried too
much, Claw's resources could slaughter a small squadron,
but if they plan to use military ships, it could pose a
threat." he turned, revealing his grave face to them, "I
want operatives sent over to find defectors. I need a group
of ships so that we can disassemble and mass-produce
them. With all of our funds, we don't have the advanced
technological facilities, gentlemen, that the Feds have."
A few nodded and the phenokti shuffled a placard,
then a menaling spoke, his thick reptilian drawl hissed out
the words, "We can get you the ships." The S's protruded
somewhat extraneously.
"It is time, I believe, to take some action, " the brown
skinned snake-creature stood on his hindpaws, lifting two
clawed hands into the air, "We, the menaling
Underground, do not take kindly to our fathers, our race
despises us, for our trading skill, our unhanded business
sense you may call it, and they force us out of our home.
Mena is the forbidden. I will find operatives, and they
will bring the ships you desire, Frere Hasak."
Frere nodded into his tea, sipping the cold brew,
wetting his lips for what he was to say, "Yes, we require
new ships. Please, Ambassador K'rel'kravek, I wish you
luck and hope your agents will return with a fruitful
venture. But do not think it is so ambitious of me to ask
you, because this pathetic hodge-podge of Vice doesn't
frighten me. I'm worried more about their attempts to
thwart our movements on the Denzadi trading alliance."
The menaling sat and poured, quite ineffectively, a
large grog of some amber liquid into its gullet, and said,
"What do you plan, Frere Hasak?" The name Hasak
slurred together around the narrow tongue.
Frere Hasak heard something, but paid no notice. In
his mind he thought he heard the sound of wings flapping,
like wings of a goose back on Earth, but the closest thing
to a goose on Rigis VII was a cuieroctyl, and they didn't
come within a hundred miles of an urban sprawl such as
Hightown. Frere spoke again, discarding the sound he
thought he had heard, "Well, I don't see anything stopping
us, gentlemen, there's no more catches, lets get down to
the latest reports." -- he flipped on a recorder -- "Who
goes first?"
The phenokti sounded off, "We've got seventy more
shipments of iridium, and an allotment of cryogenic
components from yesterday's raid."
Two humans offered their latest extrication of a set of
Julian red tea from a Denzadi highrunner, then the
menaling spoke in its hissy voice, "We have no materials,
but news from the Federal High Command, they plan to
send up a group of outposts along the Zone border to help
prevent Denzadi piracy." There was a hearty laugh from
the crowd, of which Hasak did not play a part, he was
concentrating on a low flapping noise that interceded the
group's banter.
Next, a kraatek reported he had found several
thousand tritinium canisters on the hulk of a Denzadi
merchant vessel. The vessel, unfortunately, had been
destroyed.
The sound was definitely getting louder, and Frere
Hasak noted that several others had noticed, too. There
was a silence that flowed across the room. Hasak began
to turn towards the windows, and as he turned, a huge
craft rose up in front of the windows. It was a massive
hybrid of a helicopter and a desert hover-runner, and he
could quite clearly see, through the tint of the craft's
cockpit windows, the face of Val Spector. Some
mammoth green henchmen was sitting in the pilot seat.
Too affixed on Val's face, the others began to flee
while Hasak stood frozen looking at the unannounced
visitor. He didn't notice the massive guns that had
suddenly began to fire. His hand trembled and his teacup
fell to the floor, shattering. He reached for the sonarashan,
as craft's guns began to punch four inch holes in the
protective glass. The beamware the craft was carrying was
too wide for Val to aim correctly, but the swath of the
rays left Hasak frozen in position, huge wounds opening
on him as the repeating blasts echoed through the large
conference room. He fired the sonarashan, but the round
entered the floor just below him. There was a second
pause before the shell gained enough current to tear his
legs from him. He fell to the floor in a cloud of smoke,
the pain so great, so very great.
Hasak looked weakly as the craft began a second
barrage that shattered his glass conference table and the
floor underneath it. The railguns were probably armor
piercing, and not meant for such weak targets such as
glass, wood and flesh.
Hasak began to fade as the final blasts removed his
right arm at the shoulder, his left leg's stump at the hip,
his lower intestine and most of his chest cavity, sparing
him his heart and right lung. A final blast found its way
into his jaw at the place where it meets his neck, and the
remains of his body slumped to the floor with a sickening
sound. The recorder made a clicking sound and shut off.
Val was ecstatic and ordered Morg to take the ship
down.
She was excited. Too excited perhaps. Excited to
the point of being tipsy. It was graduation day.
To many, this was the day of endings and new
beginnings. To many this day was a day of which life
begins. To Katherine it was the start of many things, and
the forgetting of many things.
She was eighteen now. Ripe, lovely and fresh.
Invigorating. She was a beautiful child, and a beautiful
young woman. And, many suspected, she would be a
beautiful old woman, too.
She was in a far off place, like another world, just
watching it all. Her straight black hair cascaded down her
shoulders, her bright, white smile lit up the faces of those
she showed it to. She was a lovely vision of grace and
elegance. She was intelligent, having finished third of her
class, with only two others ahead of her. Markus Greene,
being number one, and Sasha Jhirl being number two.
She was, to most of her friends, Katherine. Her
eloquence and style permitted nothing more casual, but
even the elegance of her name was casual. She was alive
and free at last. Free to do what she wanted.
She wanted tour of duty.
Sitting in her dorm room, just before ceremony, in
cap and gown, she was radiant. She sat on the edge of her
bed and excitedly went over the speech in her head.
Again and again she went over every syllable. It was an
important thing for her. It was one of the more important
actually, and she was damned to get it right. Her blazing
and clear blue eyes shimmered with glow, as she knew
they would. She practiced one last time and then thumbed
the door open. He was standing there.
Leaning against the door frame, inches from her face,
he was looking at her and smiling a wide, amused smile.
His dark hair was slick and hanging over his forehead, and
his laughing eyes were sizing her up. She smiled back.
"Well, did you come here to look at me or what?"
she asked.
He decided her mood was playful, "I came to escort
our third rank class member to the graduating ceremonies."
Smiling, she said, "That's good, I was just about to
escort our first rank class member to the graduating
ceremonies myself."
To Markus, she looked luscious. To Katherine, he
looked much the same. They had been dating for some
time now. It was more like a relationship, and they both
were still wildfire in each other's arms.
"So, shall we?" he offered her an outstretched arm.
She nodded, smiling of course, and took his arm.
The ceremonies began with the dean speaking. He
spoke mostly of the history of the facility, and how he was
happy to see another proud group of young men and
women embarking on their epic journey of life. He was
an older man, his name was Ross Harkman, and he spoke
with a tinge of an English accent. He was bald on top,
with furrows of hair on the sides of his head, but it was an
agedness that seemed a wholesome part of the
administration. He ended the speech with the best of
hopes, and his own personal wishes, and the audience
clapped.
John Clemens was the first to speak after the dean.
He spoke for a long and boring time about the future, as
most thoughts on that day were of the future. After his
speech, which was also received with some clapping
(although not as much), the students spoke in order of
succession.
Markus approached the podium, he smiled and was at
ease. It was uncanny how well he spoke to them, with
such smoothness, his voice like silk.
"Parents, ladies and gentlemen, I am Markus Greene.
I came to this school in order to better myself and others.
It has been a long time since I have seen home, and a long
time since I have rested for longer than a week. I have
worked hard, and I have helped others work hard. But
that is all I must say for myself. For others? There are
many mentions. I am the top in the class, but I do not
want to be isolated from a group of individuals who are
shining stars in this academy. I would like to name some
people.
"Jay Renner, who helped me very much with
engineering and finals, I thank you for help and hope that
we will remain friends in the years to come. Arnold
Hopewith, I extend my sincerest congratulations to you in
achieving all you have achieved here. And I hope only
that the Vice Squad will accept you with open arms." there
were murmurs from the crowd for a moment, then silence
when he spoke, "Arlan Edison, I hope you can forgive me
for beating you to the top." Markus let out an internal and
invisible sigh of relief when Arlan clapped and laughed
heartily, then he continued, "And I would like to thank the
teachers, instructors, proctors and administration here at
the academy, for their help and obvious involvement."
"Finally, I would like to send a message out to those
people who don't really know me. I came from a family
where my mother and father both died for their cause.
They were martyrs, although my mother was really a
victim. I ask for no consideration of this. I have received
none. I worked my hardest and my best here, and hope to
in the future, but it is important that we remember three
things. The first, and foremost, is to never forget our past;
it teaches. The second, is to learn from others' pasts; it
concurs. And finally, never underestimate the wickedness
of humanity, and the universe as a whole. Because the
absence of malice in nature is reflected in ourselves."
Applause, as it can be duly called, and Markus smiled
warmly and left the stage with his certificate of
authenticity.
Sasha Jhirl took the stage. She felt less nervous now,
after Markus, and she stepped up to the podium. Of all
the girls in the class, Katherine thought, Sasha was the
hardened one. She was just tough, only nature knew why.
She cleared her throat and spoke, her blond hair tied
back in a ponytail, with a few bangs hanging free, saying,
"Blessed be the maker, in his divine effort, for making me
who I am. Blessed be my parents, for getting horny and
ending up with me and my brother. Blessed be Markus
for his kindness, and Katherine for a girl to talk to.
Blessed be my teachers for teaching me. Blessed be me
for working and blessed be the dean for being a half
decent old guy."
She smiled, blushing as the applause swept her, and
quite nervously walked off stage with her certificate of
authenticity.
Butterflies filled Katherine's stomach as she stood.
She wasn't nervous until now, and her inner voice told her
to toughen up. She was the last and she was going to be
the best, or so she hoped.
She stepped up to the podium and spoke:
"Today is a day that we end. We end school, thank
god! And we end our time of learning by hearing. We
start something new. We start our second trial of learning,
learning by doing, and we start our time of growing old
instead of growing up. For this, this day is possible. It is
a rite of passage. Before us, man has had many rites of
passage, and I'd like you all to remember a few. While
others are on the paths of the future, please take a minute
and bear with me, we're going into the past.
"In the past men have had to be cut, a bloodrite. In
the past men have been cast out into the wilderness, or
burned, or branded or sold. In the past men have had to
fight for this rite of passage. They have had to swear
allegiance or admit defiance. Now they have to learn and
learn until there isn't much left to teach them.
"So lets end this day looking from the past, to the
present, to the future. Lets live for today, and not
tomorrow, lets take our present and live it up, because
tomorrow may never come."
Tears from those gathered, as well as a stifling
applause and then a roar. She smiled, and found herself in
tears. Emotions sometimes did that to her.
She turned and found herself in Markus' arms, he had
been waiting there, or had come up there, at the last
minute. She trembled in her happiness and relief, and
kissed him, and they walked off the stage together, holding
their certificates up high and shouting in excitement of the
final end; the end of their years at the academy.
A rite of passage.
The neo-trome sat on his bed, his legs were cross and
his hands sat palm up on his knees. Smoke slowly rose
from a brazier in front of him. It was thick, entwining in
the light breeze, making pattern like twisted vines,
reaching to the ceiling. Resting on the tips of his fingers
of his right land were two dried leaves of marijuana. An
ancient plant, cultivated for centuries, he smoked it more
than anything else. Drawn upon his aged forehead was a
pentagram in red ash. His hair flowed black, with thick
bands of gray, down unto his naked shoulders. His long
beard and mustache were also touched with streaks of
silver. His eyes were closed behind the round rimmed
sunglasses.
The room was huge and dark. Satin, gold and purple
tapestries draped themselves over the crossbars of the
canopy bed. Soft yellow light flowed about the room in
amber droves. Music played in the background. It was
arabic in sound, but it was music no arab had ever played.
The wall which the neo-trome was facing was a large
bay window, criss-crossed by wooden strips that seperated
the window into dozens of frames. Through it, a perfect
yellow sunlight flowed through. Behind him were two
double doors with brass handles.
One of them opened, and in stepped two individuals.
One was a black man in his mid fifties. The other was a
small boy.
"Neo-trome, the boy has come to see you." the man
spoke, removing a straight-thatch hat from his head, "This
is the boy that you wanted to see."
The neo-trome did not speak. He did not move. The
music played on, its irregular and low melody weaving
into the early morning air. For a long time no one said a
thing, nor did they move. The neo-trome was not known
for his understanding of needless distractions. Slowly he
brought himself out of his medative trance and shrouded
himself in the silk comona that was around his waist. His
low voice floated lasily across the room. "Leave us.
Have the boy come around and stand before me."
[Now in < 84 column mode...]
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_ __ __ __ ___ | locke@lm.com: Herb Gilliland, CEO Obelisk Entertainment
//_/. /_///// _/ | Coder of The Isles. (formerly Z8soft)
/__/__/__|_\/__/ | Contact Obelisk on C-serve: 76202.2513@compuserve.com
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