The Light Years

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The Light Years Page 3

by R. W. W. Greene


  “Are you going to keep that?” the man in the seat behind him said.

  Joao turned his head to see the man pointing at the empty box.

  “You can have it,” Joao said.

  The man took the box. “You were the Hound Dog’s friend. Get off with me. It is only two stops after yours. We will get a drink.”

  “Did you know him?” Joao said.

  “Not well.” The man looked familiar, but, under the dust and grime, everyone who worked at the factory looked the same. “But I need a drink, and we should remember him.”

  “All right.” Joao wasn’t much of a drinker. He’d never gotten a taste for the syrupy sweet liquor sold on the streets or the grog sold in the bars where the workers went after work. The shuttle passed by his apartment building. Hadiya would be upstairs waiting to hear about his day. They went about a kilometer farther down the road and stopped in front of a dingy storefront.

  “We are here,” the man said. He slung his lunch satchel over his shoulder and stomped off the bus. Joao followed close, afraid of being left behind in an unfamiliar neighborhood. Even the air smelled different. Refuse perfumed with the herbs and spices of a different culture. Saffron, maybe.

  “Who are you?” Joao said.

  “A man who has ridden the same shuttle as you for many months.” He smiled and held out his hand to shake. “Alfonse.”

  “Joao.” His hand felt tiny in the man’s massive fist.

  Alfonse pointed west, away from the main road. “I live about a kilometer down there. Deep in La Merde.”

  “I lived there when we first arrived.”

  “And now you are rich. I have seen your home, Joao.”

  “It’s for my daughter. She’s in a contracted marriage. We couldn’t afford it otherwise.”

  Alfonse tapped the side of his nose. “The daughter pays her way before she is even born. You are a wise man.” He stopped in front of a low doorway and held the curtain aside, ushering Joao to enter in front of him.

  It took a moment for Joao’s eyes to adjust to the dim light inside. The bar was low, and the patrons were all sitting on floor cushions. Complicated water pipes were set up on low tables in every corner.

  “Do you smoke?”

  Joao pulled his eyes away from a colorful mural showing two barely clad prostitutes servicing a client on a street corner.

  “A drink then.” Alfonse clapped his hands. “Two whiskeys to honor our friend.”

  The whiskey burned all the way down Joao’s throat. He had never had a drink so strong and, after the first sip found its way to his stomach, wasn’t sure he wanted more.

  Alfonse slapped him on the back. “Good whiskey?”

  “It’s fine.” Joao emptied the tiny glass and put it on the bar. “I should be going. My wife will be–”

  Alfonse got the bartender’s attention. “Do you think so little of the old man? Is he already gone from your head?”

  “Of course not, but–”

  “Beer, then, to wash the whiskey down.”

  “Then I have to go.”

  “Of course,” the big man said. “But eat first. They have a wonderful acarajé here. So good with chili sauce.”

  “I’ll take some to go,” Joao said. It would be a treat for Hadiya. She loved acarajé but rarely got it. With Davet’s death bonus in his wallet, maybe she could eat it more often.

  The bartender turned to the small grill behind the bar and began slicing onions.

  Alfonse slapped Joao on the back again. “Drink up, bride father. The work day will begin all too soon.”

  Joao picked up the beer and sipped it carefully. It was cool where the whiskey was hot. It tasted like the citrus fruit his father had given him once. Joao took a bigger swallow of the beer and held up the glass. “To Davet!”

  “To Davet,” Alfonse said, holding up his own pint glass. The big man raised his voice. “We drink to Davet who died in the works today. He gave his blood so that we can breathe easier.”

  “To Davet,” the small crowd thundered in response.

  Joao looked at his beer and wondered how it had emptied so quickly. He signaled for the bartender. “Is the acarajé ready?”

  The bartender shook his head.

  “I’ll have one more beer while I am waiting.”

  Joao made it home only minutes before curfew. The walk from the bar had been short on distance but long on paranoia. His imagination had made a mugger out of every shadow and put an assailant in every door he passed. His head felt thick, and he imagined that he weaved as he walked. He put his hand on the lift-call button and tried not to think about the cost.

  Hadiya was still sitting in her chair, dark circles of worry on the skin beneath her eyes. “So late!”

  “A friend died in the crusher today.”

  Hadiya’s breath hissed through her teeth as she struggled to get up. “Are you alright?”

  Joao knelt beside her. “I wasn’t touched. Only him. I had a drink to remember him.”

  “And to help you forget.”

  “He named me as his beneficiary. His death bonus will be in my next paycheck.”

  “Why you?”

  “I talked to him. Listened. He said once I reminded him of his son. It’s not much. Two months’ pay. He left me this, too.” He showed her the book of poetry.

  “Is this English?” she said, scanning through it. “Can you read it?”

  “Not yet,” he said.

  ADEM

  Thirty-three days out of Gaul

  Sarat’s eyes flashed. “We need to talk about it.”

  Adem rolled over. He had plenty of room. The bed was twice the size of original issue, and he figured to add on another couple of decimeters before his bride came aboard. He had read somewhere that women liked large beds. “We have.”

  “No. Whenever I want to, you come at me with a bottle of that rotgut you distill down in the engine room. End of conversation.”

  “There’s not much to say.” Adem covered his eyes with the crook of his elbow. “When she comes aboard this has to stop. Maybe it should stop earlier.”

  It had started this time in the engine room. Near the end of the shift, Sarat had accidentally-on-purpose squirted Adem with coolant, forcing him to make a run for the safety shower. Sarat had followed to make sure every trace of the chemical had been cleaned off Adem’s skin. Now it was morning or as close to morning as it could get on a cargo ship travelling at the speed of light, or c as Einstein liked to call it.

  “What if I don’t want it to stop?” Sarat played with the hair on Adem’s chest.

  “It’s going to be hard to keep it going by yourself.”

  “You don’t even want to get married.”

  “My family wants me to.” Adem shifted position to face Sarat. “I never made you any promises. We agreed we’d keep this informal.”

  “If you’re so married, why are you here?” Sarat slipped his hand under the sheet. “Wonder how your bride would feel about that.”

  “She’s…” Adem squinted at the view screen on the far wall and did some mental math. “She’s about two years old right now. She probably wouldn’t feel much one way or another.”

  Sarat traced Adem’s thigh with his fingernails. “She doesn’t even know you. Marry me instead. I’ll study up. I can be part of the family.”

  “United Americas physics isn’t something you can learn from the nearsmart.”

  “Your toddler can marry someone else then. Your sister likes women.”

  “She likes men more. And she doesn’t want to get married, either.” Adem lifted his hand to the side of Sarat’s face, cupping his cheek. “It’s just not how it’s done, amante. You know that. Marriages like these are meant to bring something to the family that it doesn’t have. We need this girl.”

  Sarat’s fingers clenched. “I have other talents.”

  Adem hissed between his teeth. “You have plenty of talent.” He lifted Sarat’s hand from his groin. “And, maybe, if my wife doesn’t mind
, we can do this again someday. It’s not personal.”

  “You say that like you believe it.” Sarat left the bed. “I’m going to take a shower. You want to join me?”

  “You go ahead. I want to check my to-do list before I put foot to floor.”

  “Suit yourself.” Sarat went into Adem’s small bathroom.

  Adem stared at the bathroom door. He hadn’t expected Sarat to put up such a fight. Their relationship had been uncomplicated. It made the nights less lonely, the black space between ports pass by more quickly. Adem hadn’t noticed that Sarat had developed real feelings and wanted them reciprocated.

  Adem slid out of bed and into a clean utilisuit. He snagged his boots and tool belt and left the room quietly. If he grabbed breakfast before Sarat made it out the door, they might not see each other for the rest of the day.

  He thumbed through his to-do list as he walked. There was nothing pressing, just the usual, endless requests for maintenance that showed up after every night shift. He’d have a busy day, but there was nothing on the list vital to the ship’s operation. The engines and the complicated systems that controlled gravity and dealt with the acceleration of a ship chasing photons were working perfectly. If not, they would be dead before an alarm could sound.

  Adem ducked into an unassigned crew suite to shower and shave. His hair had finally evened out, and he had a good face – or so he had been told. He’d never had a hard time getting attention. His bride might take some comfort from that when her parents showed her his picture and told her she’d be leaving home for a life in space.

  Third shift was just sitting down to dinner when he made it to the cafeteria. Odessa Romanov, a tattooed computer tech, invited him to join her at an empty table, but he shook his head and pointed at his reader. Lots to do and little time. Adem stuck a packet of protein shake and a meal bar into a pocket. His reader buzzed angrily, and he keyed in a response without looking at Sarat’s message: sorry. busy day. worklist is never ending. see you later.

  The message might cool him down but probably not. Sarat’s temper was quick to flare then settled at a steady burn for what could be weeks.

  The third shift bridge crew had reported a bad smell in their bathroom. Adem scanned his list in the hope of finding something more important to do and thus leave the bathroom to second shift. There was nothing obvious, and the bathroom request had been signed by his mother. Bad smell it would be.

  He headed to the spine that connected the ship’s bow to its stern. The Hajj wore its cargo like a girdle, hundreds of pods bound around the ship’s slender middle. The lift ran through the spine’s center. During the ride to the command section, Adem successfully avoided thinking about Sarat by moving the search for Lucy’s plumbing leak higher up his to-do list. If he could dedicate a couple of hours, he might actually find it. At the least, he could spend a good chunk of the day in the ship’s crawlspaces where Sarat and anyone else would have a hard time finding him. There was a harmonica in his tool belt, and suddenly he wanted nothing more than to hole up in some forgotten corner of the ship and practice his riffs.

  The lighting in the lift flashed to red, and a klaxon began hooting for attention. Adem fumbled his reader out of his pocket, absurdly grateful that something more important than the bridge toilets had come up. He pushed the feeling away. The last thing his mother needed was an unprofitable trip. They couldn’t afford a delay or an emergency dock. A message floated on the reader’s screen: Pirates. Closing fast.

  Adem reversed the lift without stopping it. He’d pay for the action later in worn parts and hard work, but if it got him to his combat station five minutes earlier it might be worth it. The lift jarred to a stop, and Adem tumbled out. He tapped the comm unit clipped to his collar. “I’m in engineering. What’s happening?”

  “Hold that thought,” the captain, his mother, said. “We’re altering course. Lucy says they’re going to miss us by a mile.”

  Lucy might mean a literal mile – the Earth measurement – or she might be feeling metaphorical again. Changing course quickly at near light speed was impossible. To fly the Hajj between the worlds, Lucy aimed where the nearsmart said something was going to be by the time the ship got there and accelerated. A course change could fuck up a whole host of things. Adem could get back to Gaul years late to find he was betrothed to an eighty year-old, and a contract was a contract.

  Adem twinned the bridge’s primary view screen to the monitors at his station. From that perspective, bright dots amid the field of gravity wells, the ships looked to be right on top of each other. “Keep me posted,” he said.

  The bridge didn’t answer.

  “Hello?”

  The crew of the Hajj still practised for such things occasionally, but there hadn’t been a real pirate attack since before Adem had been born. To hear his grandmother’s stories, though, the trade routes had been snake-pits in the early days. Routes and departure times had been closely guarded secrets, but bribes could sometimes shake them loose. Pirates, running small, stripped-down ships, would race to intercept Trader vessels or leave before they did and decelerate to head them off.

  He turned the comm unit on his collar off and on. “Engineering to bridge.”

  They’d miss by a mile, Lucy had said. Adem reached under his console to make sure the gun was still there. The low-speed rounds were safe for the hull but would make a mess of any flesh they hit. Fifteen rounds in the clip. Adem had plenty of practice with the thing but had never fired at a real person. He wiped sweat off his forehead.

  The siren shut off abruptly, and the alert light stopped flashing. Adem waited for the all-clear announcement.

  He tapped his comm. “Mom?”

  If the pirates had gotten in at the front of the ship, they could have taken out the bridge crew and shut the alarm down. One armor-piercing round in the right spot, and pressure loss might open the bridge like a tin can.

  Not even the nearsmart was answering. Adem pulled an emergency pressure-suit out of a locker, making sure to strap the gun on over the suit this time, and climbed back to the spine. The lift slowed into its place behind the bridge, and he exited cautiously. The lights were on in the outer hallway, but that was no guarantee the bridge would be the same. He drew his weapon and steeled himself for the sight of his family, most likely dead, strapped into their stations surrounded by a squad of well-armed pirates.

  The bridge door hissed open, and Adem walked into light and warmth and air.

  “What the hell are you doing in a pressure suit?” the captain said.

  “I tried to call but–”

  “The comm system is down. That’s something you can fix before you start in with the bathroom.”

  “What happened to the pirates?”

  The bridge speakers flattened any emotion out of Lucy’s response. “They missed us by a mile and blew up. Engine overload, probably. They’re all over the place.”

  HISAKO

  Age three

  Joao patted the arm of the overstuffed chair. “Come here, little muffin.”

  Hisako giggled. “Not a muffin. ’Sako.”

  “You look like a muffin to me.” He held his arms out to the little girl. “Come here and let me eat you!”

  Hisako pretended to be scared then ran across the room into Joao’s arms. He swept her off the floor and buried his face in her stomach, making growling sounds. Hisako giggled and kicked to keep from being devoured.

  “Riling her up like that is not going to help,” Hadiya said.

  “I know.” Joao bent to his daughter’s stomach and growled again. “But she is so delicious!”

  “I hope you remember the taste when you fall asleep under the crusher tomorrow.” Hadiya dried her hands on her pants. “Let me take her. I’ll put her to bed.”

  “No!” Hisako said. “Read first! Read first!”

  Joao spread his hands in mock surrender. “You heard her.” He shifted his daughter to her favorite reading position, legs extended along his, her tiny back pr
opped against his chest. Her feet did not yet reach to his knees. When they did, Joao feared, she would be far less interested in reading time. “I am helpless against her will.”

  Hadiya shook her head. “You spoil her.”

  “That will be true until her reach exceeds my grasp. For now, though…” Joao reached into a pocket on the side of the chair and pulled out a hand-bound book. “We read.” He flipped open the book at random and read aloud in English.

  I have dreams.

  Wishes that I chant with every candle I blow out.

  I want to fly free.

  I want to be unchained. I want to let go. Let loose!

  They pull the feathers from my wings.

  One by one like snow.

  Pluck, snip, cut, go my vehicles of swift escape.

  I fall from the sun.

  The beautiful sky I would fly through,

  Crashing down like glass.

  “What does that even mean?” Hadiya said. “You read to her from that old book every night, and I don’t think you understand half of what you say.”

  “It’s poetry,” Joao said. “You aren’t meant to understand all of it at once. Last time I read it, I thought it was sad. This time it seems full of hope.” He jogged his knees up and down to make Hisako giggle. “Did you like it, muffin?”

  She fidgeted. “Want a story!”

  “That was a story! It’s about a bird who wanted to be free.”

  “Real story.” Hisako leaned over the arm of the chair and pulled Joao’s reader from the charging pocket. “Fish-Peri!”

  Joao complied and read Hisako the story of a magic fish who, caught by a lowly fisherman, revealed herself to be a woman so beautiful that even the sultan wanted to marry her. Hisako drew the time out with questions, but, finally, Joao put the reader back in the chair pocket.

 

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