Sentient Thrive (Thrive Space Colony Adventures)

by Ginger Booth

  “Because they were dying on Denali!”

  Tovik finally connected the dots. “Wait, you’re Ben Acosta? Captain Ben Acosta?”

  “Yeah, the guy stealing half your pay for sky drive fuel.”

  “I’m confused,” Kramer admitted.

  Tovik spit out, “You’re the guy who up and quit! Half our people still trapped in Waterfalls to die! Because you had a nervous breakdown!”

  “I –” As though sucker-punched, Ben couldn’t get any air.

  Tovik crowded closer, stabbing a finger at Ben’s chest. “And to answer your question, after taxes, yeah, I get eight credits a day. But I need to eat and pay the water fee! Should’ve stayed in Waterfalls to die. This is no life here.”

  “In crates, the lot of them,” Kramer confided to Nathan.

  “Ingrates,” the dentist corrected. “I don’t want him in my house. Benjy! Your mom and I, we scrimped and saved, worked hard to buy this house. I raised you here!”

  Ben retreated until his back hit the dusty wall, Tovik advancing on him. Sheriff Kramer – still stretched and ignorant, but these days Yang-Yang nanite-reinforced, and two and a half meters tall – plucked up the Ben-sized Tovik and plonked him back a few meters.

  “Give Benjy some air. I know how you feel, son,” the sheriff said kindly. “Some days you just hit a wall.”

  Literally. Ben inched forward to get his shoulder blades off the dusty wallpaper, and swallowed. Why wasn’t he swinging on Tovik? Why was he struggling to breathe? Blow out! He tried, but barely managed to swirl the dust motes. “What – what do you do? How do you get past the wall, sheriff?”

  “Oh, the missus kicks me along until I get tired of her nagging,” Kramer confided. “Never mind that. Doc, I think you gotta rent to ’em. Just fleece ’em good.”

  “Nothing to fleece,” Ben breathed. “They can’t afford to eat.”

  Basic water tax cost two credits a day. Good thing they worked on a farm. At least they could steal some vegetables. And it’s all my fault. And compared to the Denali, the stretch settlers were idiots. These brainy people he saved, they despised the Mahinans. Like me. Like Dad.

  But dammit, I can’t fix everything!

  “Benjy, you’re hyperventilating,” Dad pointed out, to Kramer’s alarm. Long words frightened him. But Ben couldn’t translate just now. He dropped his head and tried to pull himself together.

  “Dad, give them the place,” he whispered.

  “I don’t have to, if I don’t want to!”

  “You do. You have to.”

  “They can shove off to Schuyler!”

  “I’d love to go to Schuyler!” Tovik countered. “Schuyler has culture! But I got assigned to this crappy ville!”

  “Hey!” Kramer said, shoving him. “Poldark got culture! Benjy, what culture?”

  “Singing, dancing, artsy crap,” Ben supplied. “Denali are big on pretty stuff.”

  Kramer peered into his face. “That what happened to your eye? Looks like eyeliner.”

  Ben grimaced. “Drinks at sunset. Is culture in Poldark. When folk get drunk and kick the can-can.”

  “Yeah! We drink to sunset!” Kramer turned to the dentist. “But your boy’s right, Nathan. Gotta rent the place. If they can pay.”

  “I’ll teach them to use the kitchen.” Ben faced the prospect in dread. “And the bathroom.”

  That two credits a day for water assumed they used the facilities like proper desert-dwellers. Which left someone to teach grown men and women how to pee and wash and cook without wasting water.

  “About that, Benjy,” the sheriff added. “Could you…do the numbers on our water? Reservoir looks a mite low. Only, we knew the doc was coming today, so…”

  Mouth hanging open, Ben checked the Poldark reservoir, calculated the loss rate, and sighed. “You’re dry in eight days at this rate. I’ll fetch you a berg.” There was a request form, but he already knew the answer. If Poldark got an iceberg in time, it was because one Ben Acosta flew into the rings and caught one.

  “Did you calculate my rent?” Nathan demanded.

  “You won’t get a damned thing, Dad, and neither will I.”

  Nathan snorted. “Perhaps you could have thought that through! Before you brought them here!”

  Ben slid down the wall to plant his butt on the floor. “Dad, I love you, but get out. Go grab a beer with Kramer.” He buried his face in his arms, propped on his knees, and waited til the sheriff took his dad away. He was probably crying. Hard to tell anymore, his eyes just leaked sometimes. And Tovik and his crew would despise him. And he couldn’t blame them.

  He thunked his head back against the wall to look up. “Can you buy a protein recharge kit for the printer? Plus a few liters of oil.”

  “I got six credits. What’s a protein recharge kit?”

  “You mean engine oil?” another Denali inquired.

  “Never mind.” Ben dragged out his comm and asked old man Rojas at the store to supply those, plus the standard sanitary and air system recharges, and put it on his tab. Dad ought to pay, they were his tenants. And Ben’s credit was tapped out. But Rojas didn’t know any better. He’d send a kid right over.

  Ben levered himself off the floor, and pointed to the waiting room toilet. “You need to use these right. Or you’ll run out of water.” Dad was right. Eight Denali would trash his childhood home. And he didn’t damned well care.

  He hadn’t bargained on the time to get the neighbors to evacuate the yard and the shed. They’d colonized the kitchen greenhouse, too. He helped Tovik negotiate for a cut of the current crops and an orderly succession into his hands.

  A few hours later, at last Ben piloted his dad back to Schuyler in his ship shuttle, without a word. He simply parked the shuttle at the spaceport by Merchant Thrive. Dad could catch a trolley to his own townhouse.

  He meant to tell Nathan about Texan and Ari today. But no.

  “Benjy, are you alright?” he inquired, awkward but full of paternal concern.

  Ben just walked away.

  When he reached home, Cope looked up from the dining table with a smile that rapidly morphed to alarm. “Ben?”

  He kept walking until he locked the bedroom door behind him, and collapsed into sobs. Again.

  “Buddy?” Cope coaxed through the door. “Don’t let your dad get to you. Let me in. Please.”

  “No! I’m gonna sit here and cry until I’m done. Go away!”

  To Ben’s surprise, this worked. After a solid hour of crying, he found he no longer gave a damn about the prospects of the 30,000 Denali he’d already dragged to Mahina to despise their hosts, nor the 40,000 Denali still awaiting salvation. Schuyler, in the bosom of his loving family, was not the R&R the burnt out space captain required.

  He had a better idea.

  9

  Ben rolled over and hid when Cope rose for a morning run.

  “C’mon, buddy, you’ll feel better,” his husband urged, rocking him by the hip. “Get those endorphins hopping.”

  “I’ll run to the spaceport. Soon.” That much was true.

  Cope sighed. “You’re not ready for work, Ben. You totally broke down last night.”

  Ben pulled the pillow over his ear and ignored his husband until he went away.

  He leapt out of bed and threw on shipboard clothes to run. The lowering Dusk sun brought blessedly cooler temperatures than the midweek swelter. Even the rego dust laid low before the weekday morning scuffle.

  Cope was right about endorphins. Wrong about work. Work is exactly what Benjy needs. Not the real project he’d chosen, not yet. Today was only the first step.

  If all 3,000 people in Poldark paid 2 credits a day, 28 days a month, for 4 or 5 months since last he topped their reservoir, and an emergency rush job added ten percent on top, that was a sweet million! True, that was a drop in the ocean of red ink Spaceways swam in.

  But it was enough to pay one engineer, a skeleton crew, and buy some fuel. Then he’d be in business to pursue the brass ring.r />
  Nicely sweaty, he hopped up to Merchant’s door airlock and let himself in. Judging from the tangle of female limbs, and bottles strewn across the hold, his security sidekick Wilder threw an orgy last night.

  Ben hit the ship-wide address at max volume. “Good morning, Merchant Thrive!” Groaning ladies of the night clapped hands to ears to shut out the thundering cheer. “This is your captain! All ashore that’s going ashore! Ladies, that means you. Crew, report to galley for calisthenics and a mission brief! Wilder, secure the ship and police the hold.”

  He meant ‘kick out the whores and mop the beer.’ The captain preferred to be polite. No telling when he’d visit the prostitutes himself again. Soon if I keep sniping at Cope.

  He didn’t mean to take out his frustration on his husband. But being coddled irritated the hell out of him.

  Soon he led the crew in jumping jacks, push-ups, and running in place to wake up. A magnificent bonus to Yang-Yang nanites and Engineer’s Joy, the health foundation of his ship, was community immunity to hangovers. Lack of sleep remained a problem. And Zan looked still half-drunk from last night.

  “Captain Zan! Are you up for a trip to the rings, or will you repair to your own ship?”

  “Rings!” He tried to run harder in place, tripped himself, and stumbled. “Permission to make coffee, sar!”

  “Granted.” Ben slowed to marching in place, but waved for the rest to keep going. “Optional mission! I’m off to grab a berg. Who’s with me?”

  Everyone raised a hand.

  It belatedly occurred to the captain that he hadn’t checked his fuel status. He winced. Maybe he wasn’t ready for this. Nonsense. Catching a berg is a nothing job. And, miracle of miracles, upon checking his pocket tablet, the fuel levels looked sufficient to herd an iceberg or two.

  Joey left his hand up after everyone else dropped theirs. “Sar? Will we get paid?”

  “That’s the goal! Finish your workouts. Ten more minutes.”

  Ben jogged to his cabin to grab his pressure suit, only to find it missing. He retraced his steps to the catwalk and vaulted the rail to the suit locker by the cargo door. No luck there, either. Oh. He arrived this time on Hopeful Thrive. He rifled through the suits until he ran across Remi’s spare. Close enough. He’d retrieve his own suit later.

  But he swallowed, unnerved by his oversight. Maybe he wasn’t ready for this. He flicked his comm. “Zan, you’re riding shotgun.” He shouldn’t need a gunner, or a copilot. No, this is sensible. I froze last time in the hot seat. Training wings were a reasonable precaution.

  Ben closed the channel and then noticed Zan’s location. He already sat on the bridge. Right. Ben sighed at the vote of no confidence. Fair.

  Ben headed to Schuyler to deposit the giant berg first. Finding and catching that sucker took a couple hours. Snagging its baby brother for Poldark was trivial. He couldn’t navigate the rings without shooting dozens of similar snowballs out of his path.

  “Schuyler Control, Merchant Actual, gotta big berg for you. Hoping for payment.”

  “Merchant, you are clear to the reservoir. Baseline water level noted.” City berg delivery was measured on volume displacement. “Please be advised, payments are in arrears.”

  Ben grimaced. “Does MA pay faster?” The two cities owned the only reservoirs big enough for this one.

  “MA reservoir at capacity,” Schuyler Control reported. “How ya doing, Ben?”

  Zan tapped the moon-wide reservoir status graphic, which he’d flipped on screen.

  “Fine,” he growled. “Never better. Merchant out.” He’d been like this the whole damned day, niggling tiny rookie errors.

  As the force fields around the power complex winked out, he swooshed in more saucily than he should have, and paid as Merchant swung a bonus 20 degrees before he got the berg’s momentum under control. Normally, he loved to drop it high for maximum splash without wasting water. This time he sheepishly dropped an extra 20 meters and released the grapples slowly, for barely a ripple across the reservoir, then rose sedately.

  “Schuyler Control, Merchant Actual, clear to resume force fields.”

  “Thank you kindly, Merchant! That’s an IOU for twelve point eight million. Nice berg! I read hardly any volatiles, and only four percent rock.”

  “You’re welcome, Carl. Seeya soon. Got another for Poldark.”

  Ben banked sedately out of Schuyler airspace, then snaked above the regolith. He avoided overflying villes where possible, and flared a warning on the radio as he approached road crossings. The sky rules of the road on Mahina were rudimentary. With more people living higher on the hog, light flyers proliferated while traffic regulation lagged. But Poldark lay three rungs out from the city, 120 km East-Southeast. Soon its cultivated green blot on the landscape appeared below. Half lay fallow as usual, but rings of hedgerow trees, and the wheel-spoke wedges of hay grass, granted a verdant appearance in the lemony Dusk light. Poldark looked prosperous from the air.

  But not nearly big enough to boast its own power plant with force field perimeter and fancy pumping system. He simply stopped above the reservoir hole and looked out below.

  “Are they…?” On screen, dozens of people lounged around the rim of the reservoir, and swam in it. Bald people. Only Denali would swim in the drinking water.

  Ben flicked on the external speakers. “Berg delivery! Out of the reservoir! Give me a hundred meters!”

  “Exit for reservoir maintenance,” Zan suggested.

  Ben grimaced and applied the rewording. The immigrants didn’t move very fast. One guy dog-paddled from mid-lake. Unfortunately, Ben’s berg was melting in the meantime. He positioned it directly above the deep rift to drip.

  “Poldark mayor, this is Merchant Thrive. Berg delivery. Mayor Cotton, you around?” Ben eyeballed the reference water level and made a note of it. He’d never seen the water this low. Which added to the delay, as swimmers scaled the ladders.

  Due to the extreme evaporative rate of the bone-dry Mahina air, the moon’s reservoirs ran deep, not broad. The rim grew some yellow-dry hay grass, and a sprinkling of aspen trees. Poldark didn’t consider it a park. Mahinans couldn’t swim.

  He gave the mayor’s office a couple minutes to respond, not expecting much, then called the sheriff. “Kramer? Ben Acosta. Got your berg. Did you know the Denali swim in your reservoir?”

  “They what? Crazy bastards! I’ll meet you there!”

  Eventually Kramer and his deputies confirmed that all human beings had vacated the danger zone. Ben gently perched the berg across the rim. It didn’t fit into the hole, of course, because he’d brought the perfect size for Poldark, and ice was bulkier than water. He sketched out his carving problem and selected an approach. First he used the fine lasers to pare off one edge of the middle, dropping it into the hole. Then he shifted the berg and carved the other side, leaving a dumbbell-shaped spanner. Then he carefully rolled it and repeated, until the central bit broke.

  One end slipped into the hole to bob there. But the remaining dumbbell-end rested on it. He backed up and sliced the bobbing berg, and tugged its children to the sides, until he could nudge the final end to rest fully over the hole. Good. It wouldn’t melt level til next week when the sun was high. But all would drip into the town’s water crevice, with a half-meter to spare.

  He traded high-fives with a bored Zan.

  And he landed Merchant Thrive to collect payment.

  “Pay?” Kramer repeated incredulously.

  “Pay,” Ben agreed. “I figure 936,000 credits, including ten percent for emergency delivery.” With a sinking feeling, Ben displayed numbers to the sheriff. “You should have the money. In the water tax fund.”

  “Rego jee-zus! That’s a scary number!”

  Ben grimaced. “Should be less than six months of water tax.”

  “Really? Well, I don’t rightly know who got them credits, Benjy.” Kramer scratched his jaw. “We pay you for bergs? You sure?”

  “Kramer, I’ve delivered your be
rgs for twenty years!” But now he wondered who collected payment for those bergs. At first, surely Abel had. And then someone in Thrive Inc. accounts receivable. Later, Thrive Spaceways had a billing department. Didn’t it?

  “Well, sure, Benjy, but I thought you were neighborly.”

  “Neighborly? Kramer, it costs money to run a skyship! I pay crew, buy fuel, let alone the cost of the ship! Besides, everybody pays the water tax!” Ben pinched the bridge of his nose. “Where’s Mayor Cotton?”

  “He’s kinda senile, Benjy.”

  And why replace a mayor who couldn’t do the job? “Fine, who collects the water tax? Who do you pay it to?”

  “Comes out of my pay.”

  By now his new tenant Tovik had meandered over from the far side of the reservoir to say hi. Dad’s tenant. He confirmed the pay debit.

  Fine. Ben called Widow Wilson, since Kramer’s employer was the senile mayor. “Ben Acosta. Benjy. I’m trying to track down who has the money to pay for the iceberg I just delivered.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Ben explained his reasoning, slowly. “So you take two credits a day from our tenant Tovik here. Who do you give that money to?”

  “Nobody. Just dock his pay.”

  “So who pays for the iceberg?”

  “Not me! Or, I guess I pay water use fees on the farm…”

  Hours later, Ben enjoyed his third round of sunset drinks on the house in the downtown plaza. Poldark socialized for the weekly happy hour. Many sat around the castle-theme playground he and Dad built for the local schoolyard. He’d ferried several dozen from the reservoir in Merchant’s hold, a fun treat.

  At last, he tracked down the mayor’s last secretary, now a bookkeeper in Schuyler. This gentleman was able to locate and access the water tax accounts. Pretty much the entire tax-paying public of Poldark was now educated on how exactly the water tax was supposed to be paid, and why.

  And Ben collected the entire current value of the iceberg fund, at just over two million credits. Kramer slapped him on the back in grinning congratulations, and nearly sent him sprawling. He led the community in a cheer for their own little Benjy!