Into the Green

by J. L. Curtis

  Doc nodded, “That would be a good idea.”

  With that, Fargo led Ian out, they got back in the runabout, and headed back to the trading post.

  Nicole

  On the way back from the clinic, Ian suddenly sat up straight, “Unka, we need to get honey.”

  Fargo looked over, “Where do we get that, Ian? Do you know how to get there?”

  Ian looked around, “Turn that away, Unka.” He said, pointing to the right. Fargo obligingly turned the runabout down the side street, and glanced at Ian again. Ian pointed to the right again, and Fargo turned, then Ian said, “There Unka, there. The pot.”

  Fargo looked up and saw a sign with what looked like a mug more than a pot hanging on the front of a small building. He pulled the runabout in at an angle in front of the building, as Ian unstrapped and bounded out of the vehicle. Fargo hurried to catch up, as Ian bolted through the door. Cussing under his breath, he stepped through the door to see what was either a restaurant or an upscale tavern setting, but empty of people. Fargo sensed a presence behind the curtain of the bar, and sensed and heard Ian babbling about honey from the same area.

  Fargo walked toward the bar as Ian and a woman came through the curtain, with Ian pulling her by the hand as she looked down at him. Fargo saw a small woman with a pixie haircut, as Ian said, “Mizz Nikki, this is my Unka Fargo.”

  She looked up and met Fargo’s look with one of her own, and he felt her attitude change immediately to wary and defensive. He saw a slender 5 foot 7 inch blonde woman with green eyes and a challenging attitude that physically stopped him in his tracks due to his physical attraction to her. She continued from beyond the bar and stopped in front of him saying in a husky lilting voice, “Nicole Levesque. Owner operator and jack of all trades at the Copper Mug.”

  Momentarily flustered, Fargo stuck out his hand in self-defense, “Ethan Fargo, retired and sometime hunter. My sister said something about honey?”

  Nicole shook it with a firm grip, and looked down at Ian, “So that is what you were babbling about. You need to slow down, young man.” Fargo had thrown up a block and was trying hard to not read her mind, even as his empathic senses picked up her sensuality.

  Abashed, Ian scuffed his boot, “Yes ma’am, Mizz Nikki. But momma said get honey.”

  Confused and realizing he was still holding Nicole’s hand, he quickly dropped it, “Luann is my sister, and she isn’t always known for filling in all the blanks, so to speak. She mentioned getting some honey, but this doesn’t look like a shop.”

  Nicole waved her hand around the minimally but tastefully decorated area, “It’s pretty much a bar, restaurant, if you can stand the food, and kind of a herb and natural emporium. I do what I can to make enough to cover the costs and keep the doors open.”

  Fargo winced at that, “So long hours and no relief, eh?”

  “Not really. My husband died three years ago, and I’m running this place, the winery, and raising a few other things with just me and my daughter.”

  “Sorry to hear that,” Fargo said. His mind finally connected and he continued, “All those grapes and other things out beyond the last two sets of containers?”

  Nicole cocked her head, “Um, yes. But I don’t understand what containers you’re talking about.”

  Fargo searched his mind, “When we did the second-in on this planet, there were about a thousand containers, stacked two and three high, with some other containers sitting out by a few acres of grape bushes. They were probably a mile from the other containers.”

  Nicole smiled, “Vines, grape vines. It took almost five years to get them trained and separated, well, for those that didn’t mutate. Those four containers were a completely automated winery. We’ve been making wine for almost seven years using that equipment.”

  “You mean it actually worked? Other than the two living containers we found, we thought all the others were empty ark type containers.”

  Nicole smiled, “Nope, they were still sealed and we were able to puzzle out the instructions and get power to them. When we finally did, they opened right up, built themselves out and the BIT checks all worked. We hand-picked about fifteen bushels of mixed grapes and pushed them through the system, and got a bottle of wine out the other end. It took us another year to find the rest of the automated equipment, including the auto mechs that take care of the vines and pick the grapes.”

  Intrigued, Fargo asked, “How much wine are you making?”

  “We are getting about three hundred cases a year, so about thirty-six hundred bottles a year. Some red, some white, some mutated, and some fortified port that we mix with the pear brandy we’re also getting…”

  Ian interrupted, “Unka, I gotta pee.”

  Fargo blushed, as Nicole laughed, “End of the bar, down the hall, first door on the right.”

  Fargo scrubbed his face as Ian went to the bathroom. Looking in the mirror, he ruefully decided he needed to pay more attention to his appearance when he came to town. Ian finished, and Fargo led him back to the end of the bar, where a jar of honey was sitting. He picked it up and asked Ian, “Can you carry this without dropping it?”

  Ian, wide eyed, said, “I think so,” holding up his hands. Fargo gently set the jar in his hands, and Ian cradled the jar as Nicole came through the curtain.

  Fargo asked, “How much do we owe you?”

  Nicole replied, “Just tell Luann to put a credit on my account.” Turning to Ian she continued, “Now Ian, if you don’t drop it, the next time you’re here, I’ll give you a cookie. Would you like that?”

  “Yes, Mizz Nicki,” was Ian’s enthusiastic response.

  ***

  Dinner was excellent, and Fargo groaned as he pushed back from the table, “That was delicious. That’s much better than what I get out of the autochef.”

  Luann smiled a harried smile, “Well, a lot of this is actually out of our autochef, but I’ve been playing with seasonings and native plants and meats for a while. But thank you.”

  Coming back from the kitchen, Luann set some puff pastries on the table with the opened jar of honey, “Try a little honey over the dessert, I think you’ll like it.”

  Fargo used that opening to ask, “So, what is the story with Levesque?”

  Mikhail rolled his eyes, “Now you’ve done it,” he chuckled.

  Luann swatted at him, then turned to Fargo, “She, her hubby and daughter, Holly came out about three years after we did. She and hubby were both GalPat, had their forty in, and used their credits to buy one hundred acres, including the vineyard. Apparently, she is originally from France, and knows something about wine, among other things. They’d just gotten the business up and running good, and she started the Melting Mug as a way to sell wines and some herbs and other things she’s got out there.”

  Looking at Ian and Inga, she said, “Okay kids, time for you to go study.”

  Inga immediately got up, gave Mikhail and Luann hugs, then came around the table and tentatively hugged Fargo, “Yes, mama. Can I use the e-tainment?”

  Luann glanced at Mikhail, who nodded, “For a little while. Then it will be Ian’s turn, when he finishes his math homework.”

  Ian pouted, but said, “Yes, mama.” Then ran into the living room to get his books, yelling back at Inga, “You better hurry, I’m almost done with my lessons!”

  Luann sighed, “Anyway, I think, yes it was three years ago, Nicole’s husband, Frenchy, no, Bertrand was clearing some dead trees with one of the mechs on the back side of their property. Apparently a cable snapped, and by the time anybody found him, he had bled out and died. Since they’d already paid their homestead fees through the military, Nicole and Holly decided to stay on. Holly’s secondary is medical, she was a World Conservation Corps pediatric doc somewhere in the sub-Sahara for ten years before migrating. She backs up Doc Grant when he’s either at one of the other settlements or off planet.”

  Fargo replied, “I was just curious, based on her comment today. Didn’t realize she was ex-GalPat
.”

  Luann looked at him slyly, “Ohh, does big brother have some interest?”

  Fargo laughed to cover his embarrassment, “Yeah, sure. I’m living out in the Green, and she’s running a winery. That would really work well.”

  ***

  Fargo needed to get away from Luann and her scattershot thoughts, and he wanted to see if he could actually keep a mental block up for any length of time, so he decided to take a walk. His footsteps led him back to the Melting Mug.

  As he stepped through the door, he consciously raised his shield as he now thought of it. He walked to the bar, and asked for a glass of wine. Nicole was all business, serving him quickly and efficiently. Slightly disappointed, he started walking back toward a table by the door when a slim spacer walking with catlike grace brushed him as the man stalked toward the bar. Fargo sensed rage and hate pouring off the man, and Fargo froze. He unconsciously oriented on the spacer as he set his drink blindly on a table. As he was trying to process the thoughts, he saw the slim man draw a small pistol from a side pocket.

  He opened his senses and the emotions coalesced into a hatred that could only be based on Nicole, as she was the only one in front of the man. As he began to raise the pistol, Fargo drew his own pistol, firing without thinking. As the spacer collapsed to the ground, Fargo saw the hand with the pistol fall away from the body.

  His peripheral vision picked up a small dark figure calmly sitting back down as Nicole slapped the bar, “Dammit! You didn’t have to do that, CSM, I was going to handle him!”

  The small figure said calmly, “I only severed the hand, I didn’t kill him. The man by the door did that.”

  Nicole rounded on Fargo, “What in the hell did you shoot him for?”

  Stunned, Fargo responded, “He was going to kill you!”

  Nicole came around the end of the bar, looked at the dead man and said, “He was going to try! Shit, now I’ve got to clean the damn floor,” looking at the back wall she continued, “And the damn wall. Damn all men!”

  She walked back behind the bar and punched the e-comm unit, “Sergeant, there has been a killing at the Melting Mug. Scene is safe, request your presence for investigation.” Fargo didn’t hear the answer, but realized he was sensing frustration and anger from Nicole, and a cold, calm determination from the small man. Fargo picked up a chair and placed it directly in front of where he was standing, then moved to the side and approached the body. Kneeling, he saw that his shot had gone true, penetrating the C6 vertebra.

  Careful not to step in the blood spatter, he looked down at the pistol, still gripped incongruously in the severed hand. The safety was off, and the finger still gripped the trigger, but at least if there was any kind of muscle spasm, it was pointed safely away from everyone. He turned to the small man, seeing a strangely shaped bloody knife now sitting on a napkin, “I’m sorry, I never saw you move, or close this guy.”

  The small man replied in a lilting voice, “Tunnel vision. It happens. It happened to him, and to you. He was so focused on Nikki, he never saw me. He didn’t honor the threat, and it cost him. Had you not shot him, the only cost would have been his hand.” Shrugging the small man continued, “But rage consumes. With that comes loss of situational awareness.”

  Fargo marveled that the small man could have been giving a lecture rather than sitting at a table where a man had just been killed, until he remembered Nicole’s calling him CSM. Fargo suddenly realized who this small man was either a current or former Command Sergeant Major, GalPat. The genotype, way of talking and the knife was sending up signals that this man was not to be trifled with, but Fargo just couldn’t place them.

  Those thoughts were interrupted by the arrival of Sergeant Omar from the space port along with a response team. He stepped slowly into the Melting Mug, walked to where the body lay and said via his GalTrans, “Ho, Lieutenant of the retired. Body of the dead, gunshot caused. Shoot him you did?”

  Fargo said, “Sergeant, I shot him as he drew a weapon. Hand is there, still with weapon.”

  The sergeant puzzled, “Shot his hand off, did you?”

  Fargo replied, “No, shot him in the head, did I.”

  The sergeant picked up the hand and casually pried the weapon from it, “Weapon loaded is not safed. Good, this is not.” He put the safety on and laid the weapon on the CSM’s table, noticing the bloody knife for the first time.

  Sergeant Omar popped to attention, “Ho, CSM, sir. See you, I did not.”

  The CSM said softly, “Omar. Recruit Omar. Arcturus, Class twenty-eight-eighteen-zero-three. I see you’ve done well.”

  The sergeant stammered, “CSM, this one thanks you. Tell me what happened, you can?”

  The CSM glanced at Fargo, “I observed said spacer approaching the bar with intent to do harm. When I saw him remove a small caliber 3mm semi-automatic pistol from his right front jacket pocket, I made the assumption that he was willing to do fatal injury to Mrs. Levesque. At that time I proceeded to draw my kukri in an effort to prevent said injury.”

  Pointing to Fargo, he continued, “This gentleman apparently saw the same thing I did from a further distance, and drew, firing in a most timely fashion. His shot was simultaneous with my removal of said spacer’s hand.”

  Sergeant Omar nodded, “Lieutenant of the retired, add anything will you?”

  Fargo shook his head, “Nothing to add, have I, Sergeant.”

  Sergeant Omar turned to Nicole, “Mrs. Levesque, know this spacer did you?”

  Nicole stood at the end of the bar and Fargo picked up the smoky emotions of anger and disgust with a small tendril of fear, “Sergeant, know him I did not. But, he came to the winery earlier today and demanded favors I was not willing to indulge him in. Direct him to leave, we did, at the point of a weapon. Expect him here, I did not. My thanks to those who saved me, I give.”

  Sergeant Omar looked around the bar, raising his voice, “Ho, clientele, knowledge of this person anyone have?”

  Receiving no answers, Sergeant Omar declared, “Killing of this individual was warranted. Report I will file.” With that, he picked up the spacer’s hand, shoved it in an evidence pouch, picked up the pistol, placed it in a different pouch, and directed the response team to bring the body. They got a body bag from the response runabout, loaded the body and departed the Melting Mug. Fargo, not wanting to be confronted by Nicole, left at the same time.

  ***

  Sergeant Omar met Fargo at the pad the next morning as he was preparing to head back to the Green, asking Fargo to attend him in the administration building. Fargo followed him curiously, figuring the liteflyer would be okay for a few divs.

  In the conference room, Omar pulled two clear evidence pouches out of his pack and laid them on the table, “Ho, lieutenant of the retired, either the gun or the wrist comp do you recognize?”

  Fargo said, “Can I pick up the pouches?” Omar nodded, and Fargo first picked up the gun. Turning it over and looking at it from different angles, he finally said, “I don’t think this is… I think this might be Trader technology. I’m no expert, but I don’t recognize any of the marks, nor does it have a manufacturer’s stamp on it.”

  The sergeant simply nodded, and Fargo put the pistol back down, picked up the wrist comp and turned it to see various angles. “I just flat don’t know on this one. I’d have to see it powered up, and try to look at what it displays.” Glancing at Omar, he asked, “Has anyone done that?”

  Sergeant Omar replied, “Power up Mrs. Levesque has done, Trader unit she believes. Security locked it is. Possible self-destruct she believes.”

  Fargo hastily set it back on the desk, “What about the spacer?”

  The sergeant pulled out a flimsy and handed it to Fargo, “This so far found. False identity believed.”

  C&I FILE 23419- 28240614 2354LOCAL

  ID- 23409852 BRINKMAN, BERNARD NMN

  SYSTEM ENTRY 28240610 SSTATION DISEMBARK F/S NIGHTWING

  PLANETING 28240611 0830LOCAL SHUTTLE #0342 WHITE BEACH SP
ORT

  NO BILLETING RECORD FOUND

  SHUTTLE #2451 28240612 0730LOCAL DEPT WHITE BEACH ARR RUSHING RIVER 28240612 1214LOCAL

  NO BILLETING FOUND

  GALPAT RECORDS CHECK NEGATIVE ON ID 23409852 PRIOR TO 28200101

  GALPAT RECORDS CHECK NEGATIVE ON ID 23409852 BETWEEN 28200101-28240610

  RECORD CHECK CLOSED ATT

  #BT

  MEDAUTOPS-

  MID-80 HUMANOID 5FT6IN 135LB B/B/CAUC/MIX/HISP

  NO F/P OR RETSCAN ON FILE

  NO INDC MAJOR SURG

  POSS FACIAL FRAC W/MED-COMP REPAIR

  PALM PAD INSTAL- BOTH PRI R/INDEX

  NEURAL NET INSTAL- NON-GP INDC PILOT/CMD NODES

  Fargo whistled, “So he’s a non-entity. One wonders what he was here. Scouting or transshipping?”

  Omar replied, “Able to determine not. Lookout requested.”

  Fargo asked, “Why was Levesque brought in? I thought she was the target.”

  Omar answered, “Intelligence Mrs. Levesque did. Chief Sergeant she was. Known to us, she is.”

  Fargo nodded, “Understood. Am I free to go?”

  Omar chittered a laugh, “Go you may. Mikhail you may tell.”

  ***

  Fargo secured the liteflyer and bummed a ride back to the trading post. Luann took one look, and sent the kids up to the e-tainment to play, where they were safely out of earshot as Fargo explained to Mikhail and Luann what had gone on last night. Luann was aghast that he’d killed a man and didn’t even feel it was worth mentioning, while Mikhail was nodding and scribbling notes on his datacomp.

  Luann burst out, “But how am I supposed to know any of this? I don’t do intelligence I just work with the people that come in.”

  Mikhail said, “If someone doesn’t look right, or is asking strange questions, let me know. If I’m not here, let Sergeant Omar know. If we do have Traders scouting us, the quicker we know, the better. I’m sure the sergeant has pushed this to White Beach, but I’m going to follow up through my channels.”