by T S Hottle
EPISODE 4
Four weeks of life on Amargosa found JT working the hay fields regularly. His arms and back no longer burned with pain at the end of the day. If anything, they rippled with muscles. No one could blame JT for admiring himself in the mirror after a shower. And if the looks she gave him were any indication, he was pretty sure Lizzy Parker enjoyed the changes as well.
His skin didn’t burn as badly when exposed to the sun now. It had turned a deep tan, though when he took his shirt off, it still looked almost white where the sun did not reach it. Now he understood why, despite centuries of warnings not to bake oneself under the sun or ultraviolet light, people still wanted to tan themselves.
Once in a while, his plan to escape to Tian crossed his mind. Now, however, it was something he’d get around to. Eventually. The Parkers had a summer harvest to finish. He could worry about bolting when the Valles Marineris arrived. Then it wouldn’t be Mr. Parker’s problem.
Or would it?
Occasionally, he’d be asked to hack a tractbot. He preferred working on the machines than in the fields, whether mechanically or cybernetically. Quan was always reminding him of the consequences of doing anything improper and the hands continually harassed him for being from Earth. The machines stayed mercifully silent. Unfortunately, the last day of that first month found him working the field with the lot.
The hay bale hit JT in the chest hard. He had been hit by four of them already. This fifth nearly knocked him off the farm wagon. It had been two days since John Parker left for Riverside. JT had been doing baling with Quan during that time, working with a hand named Patel.
The first hay bale Patel threw extra hard JT took as a joke. He laughed it off. The second came with a scowl. The third and fourth times, Quan warned Patel he risked a day’s wages if he did not stop goofing off. On the fifth, JT barked something in response that caused the tractbot to stop. The wagon, just smart enough to follow the tractbot’s lead, stopped as well.
Patel stood on the back of the baling unit attached to the tractbot. “What’s the matter, Earth man? Can’t handle real work?”
“You almost knocked me off that time,” said JT. “That was deliberate.”
Quan turned and watched the exchange from his perch in the tractbot’s seat.
“You should learn to work for a living, rich boy. Out here, no one feeds us. We have to grow our own food and feed ourselves. They do that on Earth, rich boy?”
JT caught Quan’s eye and stopped himself from leaping at Patel. After all, both men would have gone into the baler, and while the machine was smart enough to stop if someone fell in, it still had a lot of small, hard parts that would have sent them to the nearest hospital, fifty kilometers away in a town called Juniper Springs. Instead, JT said, “Really? If you’re so independent, why are you working someone else’s farm, dirt muncher?”
Patel jumped from the baler onto the wagon and tackled JT. They landed against the hay already stacked on the wagon. JT had anticipated Patel’s move and rolled with the impact. By the time they stopped moving, he was on top and throwing punches. Patel’s breath reeked of a local whiskey distilled from a native plant. As JT hammered at Patel’s face, he wondered if he’d have such a good position if Patel had been sober. The knee into his groin blasted the thought from his mind as he sat up straight and groaned. Soon, he lay in the fetal position, Patel now raining blows onto his head.
The fight stopped abruptly when Quan grabbed Patel by the shoulders and threw him off the wagon. The big ex-Marine stood over JT and pointed at him, wearing an expression that told him to shut up before he even opened his mouth. Easy enough. He was all too happy to lie still and silent while the cold pain in his belly dissipated, never mind the excruciating throb between his legs.
“That’s the third fight you’ve started in two weeks,” said Quan, now standing at the edge of the wagon like a general addressing his troops. “And it’s the last on this farm. You’re fired.”
JT could not see Patel, now on the ground and probably sitting there like a drunken idiot. “But that Earth boy…”
“Was doing his job. I saw you. I even warned you. You almost knocked him off the wagon. Now what do you suppose Constable Parker would have done to you if he’d have been hurt?”
If? thought JT. My balls are on fire. Define hurt.
“Get off this property,” said Quan. “And don’t come back. The sun’s still in the west, and you’ve already downed a bottle of red.”
Patel got up, made some sort of obscene gesture JT did not recognize, and staggered off toward the edge of the field.
Quan turned to JT. “And you.”
“I’ll be all right,” JT groaned. “Just give me a…”
“Suck it up and walk it off, maggot. You’re done for the day.”
“Huh?”
“Go home, Earth man. I’ll get some real workers to finish this for me.”
JT rolled off the wagon and landed on his feet. The pain from Patel’s knee blow did not go away, but walking made it feel better somehow. He made it a point to walk in the opposite direction that Patel had gone. In his short life, JT Austin had learned never to pick a fight with an angry drunk.
***
Riverside lay nestled between three tall mountains at the end of a tidal estuary. Though smaller than Lansdorp, it had taller buildings, partly in attempt to cram its population in as small an area as possible while leaving the surrounding land either untouched or open for farming. These close quarters made Riverside appear to be Amargosa’s largest metropolis, though it only ranked fourth in size out of the planet’s five major cities.
Despite its small population, with only 30,000 people currently registered as residents, Riverside had a thriving tourist trade. That is, as thriving as a world with only two million souls could expect. So it did not surprise either John Parker or Lucius Kray that their superior, the Deputy Attorney General for Amargosa, insisted on summoning all the police chiefs and constables to Riverside. Nor did anyone really protest the destination, only the time away from their posts.
The scenery and the amenities did little for Kray. He had come to Amargosa years before to get away from large cities and civilization. Dagar Township had seemed perfect for that. In a way, Riverside almost seemed like a step backward.
Nonetheless, the meeting gave him a platform and an opportunity to pitch his idea one more time. So three days after arranging the cleanup of Varnal Wallek’s farm, Lucius Kray stood before the collected heads of Amargosan law enforcement, a handful of representatives from Mars, and Governor Croix.
“Ladies and gentlemen, it costs us nothing more than weapons to do this,” he said. “Everyone in this room – every chief, sheriff, and constable – has some military experience. That’s a rule in Martian law enforcement. Colonial Guard will not be enough. The Marine garrison will not be enough. Ladies and gentlemen, if every citizen is armed and knows where to turn when something like the Polygamy Wars happens again – and it will happen again – then we are prepared.”
“And if this threat never materializes?” This came from Galorn, the representative from Mars’s Interior Ministry. “Then what? We will have handed military-grade weaponry to a bunch of civilians who have never seen a day of combat. Sounds like a recipe to bring about another Polygamy War-style conflict, not prevent one.”
Kray resented Galorn, sitting there in his exo-skeleton so he could handle Amargosa’s .85 G gravity. What did this off-worlder know? His world shared a system with humanity’s backwater cradle. “Sir, with respect, Mars, Earth, and the rest of Sol do not have to worry about these threats. We evolved on Earth, and Mars has been a viable world almost as long as humans have been traveling in space. You’ve never had to worry about your colonies attacking you the way Deseret had to. And you have no guarantee any of the core worlds’ colonies won’t make a move on ours. We on Amargosa are vulnerable in a way core worlds, especially our oldest core worlds, are not.”
“Who do you expect to attack y
ou, Constable Kray?” said Galorn, the sarcasm dripping as he spoke. “Jefivah?”
“Jefivah is a core world,” said Kray.
“It likes to think so. So… who? Aliens?”
“Possibly. What if the Laputans become aggressive again?”
The room filled with a silence that hurt Kray’s ears. He found himself in a staring match with Galorn.
“It would seem,” said Galorn, “that your brother officers have more immediate concerns, Mr. Kray. Thieves, murderers, vandals, rapists. Criminals, Mr. Kray. We do not pay police officers to fight wars for us. History has shown that’s a very good way to start one.”
Kray glared at Galorn, wishing the man’s exoskeleton would fail, leaving the Mars-born to crawl helplessly in gravity nearly three times what the dome dweller could probably handle. He wanted to hear Galorn beg for pure oxygen to feed his overtaxed muscles. And he wanted to deny him that oxygen just to hear him beg. Instead, he said, “Thank you all for your time,” and left the podium and the room.
In the corridor, near the door to a smaller conference room, Kray spotted Leitman chatting with one of Governor Croix’s flunkies.
“You keep trying,” said John Parker, who had suddenly appeared behind Kray. “You know all able-bodied Amargosans are in the Colonial Guard. Right? We have the weapons stowed away and a communications chain if the worst happens. All you have to do is send out a township-wide alert, and the reserves are activated. You can even create informal units if the capital is taken out or the Marine garrison is cut off from the rest of the planet.”
Kray pointed at Leitman, who now favored the governor’s flunkie with that insipid little smile of his. “Do you know that man?”
Parker studied Leitman for a moment. “Yeah. Works for a newer genetic modifier. Keeps trying to get me to look the other way on GMO permits.” He pressed his lips thin. “Oily bastard. Wouldn’t trust him if he told me the sun rises in the west. Not without a compass.”
Kray had to decide if this was a good or a bad thing.
***
JT had walked for an hour before realizing he was heading north. A month on the planet, and he still could not reconcile the time of day with Amargosa’s backward rotation. He found himself walking alongside a third field covered in a dark green vine that looked like ivy. It almost seemed to move as it lay there. If someone fell in, he thought, they would find themselves swallowed by the stuff.
Still, someone had cut a foot path along the edge of the field, and the main road between Dagar Township’s settlement and Harlan’s ran along the far side. As long as JT remembered that the sun moved east, not west, he could find his way home from there.
As he rounded the field, he noticed the path became wide enough to accommodate personal vehicles, tractbots, and any other machinery humans needed for flatland farming. In fact, the path now followed a low ridge between the field and a wooded area to the right. JT began to jog now that he could see a way back. He might even hitchhike back to Harlan’s settlement and have Sarah Parker pick him up.
The gunshots caught his attention.
He looked off to the right and saw several people holding KR-27s. They were shooting up an old vehicle JT had heard called a “rover” or “land rover,” depending on who was talking. The automatic weapons fire chewed up the vehicle’s body as the shooters sprayed it. A big man stood off to the side, his arms folded, nodding in approval. JT couldn’t move. He had never seen such a thing before. Oh, he’d seen KR-27s in use, but that was at a firing range with his father. This was out in the open, and not one of these people wore a military uniform.
The big man looked up and spotted JT. “Hey!”
JT did not even think. He ran down the path as fast as he could. When bullets started biting into the ground around him, he dashed into the trees to the right, hoping to find cover. He had no idea how long he ran or to where. He only focused on the voices behind him, the shouts and calls to “Get that kid.” His only hope was to keep running until they lost interest. Except…
The creature in the clearing screamed as it nearly collided with JT.
***
Kray decided to sulk at the bar. Riverside had dozens of them, all of which seemed to cater to tourists. The house specialty drinks had umbrellas or slices of some off-world fruit. All the ales came from other worlds, not a single ale from the Plains or even up north where the locals made a strange brew from the bark of some conifer that grew like a giant weed near the pole. The one bar he settled on, located nowhere near his hotel, at least served an ale from his native Ares. Now those people knew how to make an ale. Early in his stint in the Marines, he had considered moving back to Ares or to nearby Tian to become a brewer himself.
“So how’s our crop coming along?” said a familiar male voice with a lilt to it. “Everyone on board?”
Kray turned to see Leitman holding a mug of that same Terran swill he was drinking the night they met. Since Leitman had his stupid smile in place, Kray pasted on a grin of his own. “Well, if it isn’t the devil himself.”
“Does anyone believe in the devil anymore?”
Kray gestured for him to take the stool beside him. “All but three people in Dagar are on board. One’s getting ready to leave the planet. One wanted to squeeze us for more money. He’s been invited to farm elsewhere and left the planet.”
“And the third?”
Kray shrugged. “He’ll join. Where are my weapons?”
“They’re coming. Now, about this third one. Why isn’t he planting creeper?”
“He’s growing food for winter so he can leave his field fallow during the cool season.”
Leitman had been sipping his beer and revealed a frown when he lowered his mug. “There won’t be a cool season for the farmers of this world.”
Kray laughed. “And why not?”
“War is coming, and sooner than you think. You’ll want to be ready when it does.”
Now Kray understood what he must have sounded like to the others. “If you’re so well-connected to have this information, why don’t you tell the government yourself?”
“The same reason you keep getting shot down, my friend. It’s been fifty years since one core world tried to poach another’s colonies. And The Compact wants to forget the Polygamy Wars ever happened.”
So did Kray, actually. “Then which one of our sister worlds wants to attack us?”
“I never said the enemy was human.” He took another sip, then handed Kray a card. “This is my hotel. Come on by this evening. There’s someone I want you to meet.”
***
The thing looked like a… a…
JT did not know what to make of it. It was a short-haired thing with high, pointed ears and a long snout, like a deer, but not quite. Or maybe it was like a deer. JT had never seen one outside of a textbook or a meal. The creature came up to his chest in height and stood on two hooved legs. A third leg extended behind it. From the look of bulging muscles in the third leg’s thigh, JT guessed he did not want to be on the wrong side of it.
JT pivoted left to get around it. The creature did the same. When JT went right, it went right as well. They tried to dodge each other a couple more times before the beast let out a high-pitched wail that threatened to burst JT’s eardrums. He charged it, pushed it aside, and made for a tree he had spotted while staring down the creature. The animal, whatever it was, wailed even more loudly, toppled on its side by JT’s blow.
Clambering up the tree, he soon found himself above the reddish leaves looking down on the clearing. The beast cried as it struggled to its two feet, its third leg now more of a hindrance than a help. JT’s pursuers emerged from the woods and surrounded the creature.
“Well,” said one of them, the big one who had first spotted him, “look at this. I didn’t know gosalope ventured out this early.”
“Be nice to have some game for tonight,” said another of the shooters.
The creature wobbled on its forelegs as it tried to find an opening. It reminded
JT of a mouse he once saw that had been cornered by three cats. He had seen cats go after rats before, but rats were large, smart, and evil looking. Mice were generally a minor nuisance to be chased off with hypersonics and poison bait. He felt sick when he saw the mouse torn to pieces by the cats. The… gosalope? Is that what these things were? He felt sorry for it even though he knew he might have to hunt one before he left Amargosa.
This did not look like a hunt. One of the shooters took out a small handgun and shot the gosalope between the eyes. It cried out once before collapsing to the ground. The one who shot it laughed.
“Should we dress it here?” he asked.
“Naw,” said the big one. “Let’s take it back to my farm and divide up the meat.”
“What about that kid?”
“He can find his own.”
The three men laughed as they hoisted the slaughtered creature onto their shoulders and headed back the way they came.
As the sounds of their raucous laughter faded, it occurred to JT he had two problems to solve. First, he had lost the main road. Once on the ground, he would have to regain his bearings before he could find it again. Which brought him to his second problem.
He had no clue how to get back down.
***
Naturally, Leitman had an entire suite on one of the upper floors to himself. Juno’s representative had expensive tastes and expensive appetites. On his way out of the elevator, Kray passed one of the expensive women to whom Leitman had availed himself. She wore a rather formal dress for late afternoon, a clear sign in Riverside that one made one’s living with their body. Or maybe she was a hostess at the conference. Kray wondered if she had an intimate services license or merely gravitated toward money and power.
Or had Leitman simply charmed her out of her rather expensive-looking dress?
“Colonel!” Leitman spread his arms wide as Kray entered the suite’s dining room. “Come on in. I’m having a seafood spread sent up along with some wine.”