by Phil Rossi
Down the slope from where he and Jacob sat, Crescent’s plump and happy cows meandered and grazed on vibrant green grass. Big collector bots moved across the field carrying bales of hay. The cows were a new stock to Crescent. Genetic engineering had graced the animals with the ability to produce three times more milk than the naturally-bred station livestock that preceded them. The bovine wonders were graciously paid for by Donovan Cortez, and upped the station’s production of all protein-related products significantly.
“Let’s go, Jacob,” Albin said, and the two men hopped off the fence.
The farm extended for almost a mile in either direction. The ceiling here was lower than Main Street’s, but still high enough to give you a crick in your neck if you stared too long. Sun globes, similar to those on Main Street but a fraction of the size, pumped life-providing light to the grass below.
Albin and Jacob drove a small hover down the slope and to the squat and angular structure at the massive chamber’s aft: the Farm. The Farm was the main agricultural plant on Crescent. All material for the station’s food compilers was processed here. Agricultural goods were packed at the Farm’s broad loading docks for export to the neighboring systems.
Albin never cared much for the farm level on Crescent, or on any other space station, for that matter. There was something that was too unnatural about it. Sure, it shared some qualities with any planet-side open range. Grass. Open space. The smell of hay and manure. But none of it was genuine. Beyond the false sky, below the artificially-grown grass, there was vacuum. It just didn’t stroke him right. It was like someone smiling and buying you a drink right before they stabbed you in the gut.
Robyn Prior sat in the front room of the Farm’s office space. Her eyes were cast down to the data terminal set in the top of her small desk. She looked up when the two men entered and her cheeks immediately blanched. Jacob smiled one of his tobacco grins and Albin lifted his hat back with his thumb before lighting a cigarette. Robyn looked back down at the terminal, but Albin placed a hand on the screen, obscuring the view. Her flinch sent a glass ornament shaped like a penguin flying to the ground, where it shattered into a thousand pieces. A small robot chirped out of a hole in the wall and began sweeping up the fragments with a series of beeps.
“Relax, Robyn,” Albin said. “Where is Jasper?”
“I… I don’t know where he is,” she sputtered. Jasper Prior, Robyn’s husband, was the owner and operator of the Farm. He was always there somewhere. Albin frowned and slid his hand off the terminal.
“Robyn, don’t make me have to go looking for your husband. I’d be forced to leave Jacob behind to keep an eye on you and, well, you know Jacob. He’s a little twitchy when I’m not around.”
Jacob nodded solemnly and then he laughed. The sharp, slightly crazed sound of it made Robyn jump again. Albin looked at her. She wasn’t an ugly woman. A little homely, perhaps. She was showing the signs of age around the mouth and eyes, but looked to be keeping things together. Jacob began wandering around the small office space, examining the various pictures hanging on the walls. Some showed the fields, some showed the facilities. Another showed an old and long-forgotten wood and shingle farmhouse on a span of countryside that likely no longer existed.
“Okay,” Robyn said at last. “He’s in process monitoring station sixteen. I’ll light the floor panels. Follow the blue ones.”
“I knew you’d be reasonable. Jacob, you stick around here. I’ll be back soon. Play nice.”
Robyn shot him a look that said please, don’t leave me alone with him. But she didn’t dare say it—Jacob, after all, was quite sensitive.
(•••)
Jasper was crying like a little girl. Albin had only had to bash his head twice against the railing to bring on the tears. He let go, and the fat, balding man fell to his knees, clinging to the rails with his pudgy arms. Below the men, the elaborate conveyance system clacked away. Albin leaned against a support pillar and lit another cigarette as he glanced around the works. The room was belts and bulbous kilns from wall to wall. It was noisy, and smelled faintly of ozone.
“Who else, Jasper? Who else you been selling Kendall’s guns to?” Albin gestured with a cock of his head to the prefab weapons that were rolling by on the belts and into the kilns for super heating. It wasn’t only milk, cheese, and veggies that came out of the farm, but guns. Lots of guns—Kendall’s magical share of the outer colonies’ black market. The operation was a big one. The steady output of weapons had become extremely useful in maintaining good relations with Darros Stronghold and his raider clans.
“No one else. Just those mercenaries. They were the first. I pulled the ad from the nexus the second there was that incident at Heathen’s.”
“You know Core Sec is sending an auditor here, right?”
“No. I didn’t know that,” Jasper slid the rest of the way to the floor. “What are we going to do?”
“You’re going to stand up, for starters. And you’re going to stop sniveling like a little girl.”
Jasper did as he was told. He almost lost his trousers when he did so. Albin caught a glimpse of the man’s underwear. They were recently stained. And now he was pretty sure he could smell shit.
“This just means more work for the rest of us, Jasper. You shouldn’t have gotten greedy. A shame you only know how to think of yourself.” Albin pushed Jasper hard. The fat man yelped like a small dog and went careening over the railing. He landed hard on the wide conveyor channel. There was an audible crack—something definitely broke. Jasper began to wail and writhe. Tears steamed out of the corners of his squeezed shut eyes. The conveyor belt drew Jasper’s wriggling body into the kiln chamber, where there was a final choking scream followed by a glare of white light. The completed weapons rolled out the other side and there was no trace of Jasper Prior—not even a filling.
When Albin returned to the front office, he found Robyn bent over the terminal desk with her suit-dress hiked up past her hips. Jacob rammed her hard from behind. Robyn’s screams were muffled by what looked like her pantyhose. The flesh-toned stockings had been shoved into her mouth. Blood trickled from a lacerated cheek—obviously where Jacob had hit her.
“When you’re done, kill her. Toss her in the kiln. I know you’re gonna make a mess, so clean the place up, too, for god’s sake.”
Jacob flashed his teeth and continued to fuck away. He really is a goddamn animal, Albin thought as he slipped out the front door. The magnetic bolts clanked as the door locked behind him. Prior Farm was officially closed for the afternoon; at least until the new management arrived.
(Part VIII)
“I just thought you’d want to know,” Walter Vegan said and inhaled through his teeth, making a wet slurping sound. Donovan Cortez tried his damndest not to breathe through his nose. Vegan smelled fouler than usual that afternoon. It was as if the ugly man had been crawling around in raw sewage. “If you don’t want Kendall sniffing around here, you might want to pay me more.”
If you’re here much longer, Vegan, no one will ever want to sniff around here, Donovan thought and actually snickered out loud. There was a rustle behind the large and obscuring canvas drop sheet that hung from the ceiling girders in the otherwise empty hangar. Ina’s head poked out of a seam between two flaps that marked an entrance. Vegan waggled his fingers at Ina and gave her a tobacco stained grin. Donovan gritted his teeth and took a deep breath. He tried to ignore the fuck-me eyes that were trained on his daughter.
“You want me to pay you more, Mr. Vegan?” In truth, Donovan wanted to hit Vegan for looking at his daughter, not give him more money. Donovan had never hit anyone in his life, but Vegan’s hungry, mongrel gaze had stirred up a deep, searing anger. For a spilt second, Donovan wondered just what he had been thinking, bringing Ina to a place like Crescent. I should hit myself, if anyone.
“There are some happenings on Crescent that have made our good mayor a little more than uneasy. These empty hangars. There are quite a few. I use them for stor
age.” Vegan made a sweeping gesture with one hand. “I’m responsible for documenting their inventory—or lack thereof. Things come into this station, I put them somewhere. Now I can’t put them in this hangar. Understand? Kendall knows that Gerald left Crescent with your pretty daughter.” He gestured with his eyes. Ina slipped out of view.
“Okay,” Donovan said and gestured for Vegan to go on.
“I don’t know what you are hiding in there. I don’t want to know. This can go a few ways. I can start storing things in here. And suddenly, your secrecy is gone. I can tell Kendall that the good doctor is hiding something. Or, you send more credits my way and I’ll keep this bay off limits for as long as you need it to be. How does that sound?”
Donovan took a deep breath. This was a waste of his time. He cleared his throat. “That all sounds fair. Ten thousand credits and you keep your mouth shut.”
“Fifteen,” Vegan countered.
“I don’t understand why you need so much of my money, Mr. Vegan.”
“I’m not going to work the Crescent decks forever, Doctor. I’m investing in my future. I plan on… ”
“Yes, fine. Fifteen thousand credits.” Donovan waved his hand dismissively. He was done with Vegan, and he didn’t care to hear what the chief of operation’s retirement plans entailed. “I have much to do. I will walk you out. This conversation is over.”
“Yes, Doctor,” Vegan’s yellowed teeth flashed in a grin. “You will have to tell your daughter I said goodbye.” Vegan looked up at the canvas drop and stared at it for several seconds. Donovan wasn’t sure if Vegan was trying to figure out what was hidden behind it or if he was trying to picture Ina back there. Cortez took Vegan by the elbow and led him away from the canvas drop.
Donovan escorted the smelly man across the length of the expansive hangar floor and glanced up at the big, trundle airlock as they went. Small stripes of reinforced glass showed slices of Anrar III’s gray-green surface. Vegan stepped through an exit bulkhead and into the narrow access hallway beyond it. He turned, his round belly brushed the wall, and he opened his crooked mouth to say something else. Donovan was certain it was nothing that he wanted to hear. He swung the bulkhead shut and locked it. Vegan smiled through the circular portal and then disappeared.
(•••)
The lifeboat took up at least a quarter of the hangar’s deck space—maybe a little more. Its curving body extended almost all the way to the cobweb-laced ceiling girders. There were several big floodlights set up around the base of the lifeboat. The ship looked like a slumbering leviathan in the glaring light of the stand-mounted halo-globes. Chalky dust from the asteroid caked the lifeboat’s long, rounded hull in places; clean patches revealed gray, pocked hull plates. The twin tail fins—both were severely damaged by ages of small impacts—jutted from the side of a wide tail section like tattered wings. Most of the hull plates at the nose of the ship were missing, exposing the ship’s skeleton. The bands of metal had been severely bent by the impact that had ended the lifeboat’s short journey centuries ago.
It was a small wonder that Gerald had been able to guide the derelict into the bay using only his small tug. The salvage captain had seemed thrilled to be rid of the lifeboat. Gerald had acted like he was afraid of the thing, but didn’t say why. Ina explained that Gerald had had a bit of a panic attack while on the derelict, but Gerald hadn’t told her why he had panicked. Claustrophobia was Donovan’s guess.
Donovan strode toward the aft of the vessel with wide, quick steps. He could hardly contain himself as he rode the small, portable lift to the lifeboat’s main loading hatch, excited to set foot on the ship for the first time.
Donovan hesitated at the edge of the lift. He squinted into the shadowy interior of the lifeboat’s boarding area and tried to imagine Anrar III’s miners and their families shuffling in procession onto the ship. Or perhaps they had fled onto the ship. He clicked on his flashlight and stepped into the darkness.
It was a straight shot to the control bridge of the lifeboat. Donovan resisted the urge to disappear down the various dark corridors he passed along the way. Ina was waiting on the bridge, he knew, and she’d give him holy hell for starting to explore without her. When he stepped onto the bridge, he saw her with her back to him at a bay of six large trapezoidal windows. The windows were arranged in two parallel rows of three; the top row was angled upward to afford a view of whatever was above the ship—in this case, the dusty hangar ceiling. The bottom row of windows looked down over the fore of the lifeboat. Ina was staring down at the collapsed nose of the ship, seemingly oblivious to his presence. Donovan walked around the perimeter of the bridge. He was impressed. Everything was remarkably intact—only a few of the control panels were charred from apparent shorts. He stepped beside his daughter and looked down through the scarred and dusty glass at the crushed nose-section.
“Dad,” Ina said. He looked at her; her attention was now fixed on him. Her delicate brow was creased.
“Yes, dear? What’s wrong?”
“How’d you know, Dad? How’d you know this lifeboat would be out there?”
Donovan knew it was only a matter of time before Ina asked the obvious. He had expected the question sooner. Ina was a curious girl. She always had been. Not to mention, she was also always vocal with him. But lately she seemed to be holding back. Her demeanor had changed since he had reprimanded her for venturing into the station’s bowels. She was keeping strange hours lately, too. There were nights when she didn’t come home, and he thought he even heard a man’s voice in the apartment on one occasion. Ina’s interest in their goals had seemed to wane, at least until the discovery of the lifeboat. That had perked her up.
She was young, and should have fun being so. She missed out on a lot with the aggressive pursuit of her various degrees, yes, but…
“Dad,” she said, regaining his attention. “Stop thinking about nine thousand things. Please, answer my question.”
Donovan inhaled until his lungs were filled and then let the air out slowly. His gray eyes flitted around the bridge. It was now or never.
“There was a good reason I didn’t tell you, Ina.” He opened his mouth, closed it, and then opened it again. “There was no scientific basis for this expedition. None whatsoever.” His cheeks reddened instantly with shame.
Ina folded her arms across her chest and leaned against the viewports. She waited for him to go on.
“The truth is, it came to me in a dream. The asteroid. The lifeboat. The coordinates. This dream… it was largely nonsense, but the details of those three elements were like crystal. So clear. So hard and real. They were right there in the front of my mind when I woke. Ina—you know I’m a pragmatist. But, the impression this dream left in its wake, it was so strong. I had to investigate further.”
“Was this a dream, Dad? Or a vision?”
Donovan raised his bushy brows and laughed. He could hardly believe he was having this conversation. He was beginning to wish he had just fabricated an answer.
“Is there a difference?”
“Of course there is a difference. A dream comes from your own head. A vision, someone else puts there for you.”
Donovan felt a chill run up his spine. He did not like her definition. It felt entirely too accurate. He also didn’t like her matter-of-fact tone. He looked back out the viewport. Long shadows draped the support struts and pooled around the belly of the lifeboat.
He felt cold and suppressed a shiver.
“It doesn’t matter,” Donovan said. It did matter, but that did not stop him from wanting to banish the thought from his mind. “What matters is that this,” he spread his hands wide, “this ship was out there, and we have a lot of work to do.”
And at that, he was excited all over again—to the point of giddiness. He had no idea where he to begin. He wanted to explore the whole vessel, every possible nook and cranny. Gone was the scientific will. Gone was the pragmatic. Now it was all about the boyish desire to go crawling around in the dust and
spider webs in search of treasure.
“Where do we start, Dad?” Ina asked him, as if she were reading his thoughts.
Donovan hesitated. “Where better to start than right here? The brain of the whole works. Let’s see what data we can get out of these computers.”
(•••)
Marisa sat on the floor of her apartment, her bare legs crossed beneath her. The overhead halos were set at their lowest so that only a diffuse, milky light filled the gray-walled room. Furniture painted only the vaguest of shadows on the gray carpet. In front of her sat the leather sheath containing the strange mallet that Naheela had given her. Marisa touched it with a fingertip and felt a stirring inside her—a pleasant warmth between her legs. She took her hand away from the object. Marisa had been repeating that routine for the past two hours. There was a purpose for the hammer; Marisa was sure of it. But the shadows in her apartment had been doing their best to make her forget and now she almost had. The shadows had new life; a life she had come to call the Black. The Black had been a phantasmal presence in Heathen’s, within the cisterns, and from her nightmares—and it wouldn’t let her think things through. The twinges in her womanhood were from the Black, and were stronger than Naheela’s hexing. They were stronger, and they felt much better.
Now she was fumbling to get the hammer out of the sheath. Destroy it, Naheela’s voice intoned. Destroy it! The words were commanding and harsh. Destroy what? Marisa thought. God, I know this is important. She held the hammer’s head between the thumbs and forefingers of both hands. The tingling started again. Hot. Wet. Marisa groaned and lay back on the floor. She placed one hand over her mouth and maintained her grip on the implement with the other. Waves of sensation swelled between her legs and then crashed over her body. She cried out each time. And each time the tide of sensation drew her further and further out into a sea of darkness. Like a rip current, it was pulling her under. Each time, the disembodied voice of Naheela was further away. The hammer struck the floor and rang with a warbling note. She climaxed into a black void.