“Thanks. That’s been bothering me for days. It’s easy to compensate now that I know the cause. Any time you want to switch to my crew, you let me know.”
Bryce held up his hands in a stopping motion. “No, thanks. Like it just fine right where I am.”
Jaron couldn’t see why this would be a natural niche for such a man.
“You can do me a favor though.” The bartender wiped at the already meticulous counter.
“As long as it doesn’t remove an even higher percentage of fruit from my biosystem.”
Bryce laughed and Jaron found it easy to join in for a moment. It was a nice sensation. He sipped from his beer.
The bartender raised his dark eyes to stare straight at him. “I ran into someone earlier, or rather she ran into me. What can you tell me about Officer Ri Jeffers?”
Chapter 20
10 January 1 A.A.
“I don’t understand.” Jaron wanted to shake the man beside him. He had spent the morning touring Bryce throughout the biome.
“Why would you rather tend a bar than work in here? In here there is life. The corridors are cold and dead.”
Bryce clapped him on the shoulder before sitting on a root bulge of the Bowdichia and leaning back against the trunk.
“I’ll tell you what, my friend. Why don’t you quit being a fancy-pants gardener and come work for me in the bar?”
“Don’t be absurd. You have a gift, an understanding of the life in the jungle, that only Robbie of my whole crew can match.” Jaron paced back and forth across the bare forest floor. The yellow dirt cushioned his stamping stride.
The man spread his hands wide. “I also have a gift with people. They come to my bar to relax and let off steam. Do you realize that, except for some low-level computer fraud and some damn fine meals, my bar is the first thing I have ever achieved on my own?”
Jaron stopped and faced him. A tightness across his forehead pulled at his temples.
“You are telling me,” he struggled to speak slowly and calmly, “that the ragtag lowlife that wanders the corridors is of more importance than the last jungle in known existence? How can you be so short-sighted?”
Bryce’s face darkened as he rose to his feet. He was actually a very tall man. His brown eyes looked down upon Jaron and he suddenly felt quite small. Bryce pointed past Jaron’s shoulder toward the distant hatch.
“Those people out there in the corridor are also the last of their species. And what is far worse for them is they know it. It terrifies them. Your precious trees don’t understand what they have to lose.” He dropped his arm to his side with a slap.
“There is life out in those ‘dead corridors’ as you’ve call them time and again. There is so much of it that it presses against the mind in the dark and narrow spaces. Officer Ri Jeffers feels it, everyone does. Even you, though you may not realize it.
“Come to my bar some evening and watch the people as they come to roost at sunset. They are not so different from your parrots except for one little thing, they know exactly…” Bryce poked him sharply in the center of his chest to emphasize the word, hard enough to hurt, “…exactly what is happening to them.”
Jaron could not speak as Bryce walked away into the jungle. He pressed his fingers to his throbbing temples, but he could find no words. Those people were not his parrots. No matter where they came from, those people were not as important as his parrots. Their lives were their own problems. The whole jungle depended upon him.
# # #
Bryce bolted from the middle of the jungle before he said anything more. Bryce Sr.’s words had threatened to pour out of him. Worse than the old memories, they were words prompted by his own anger and beliefs. And yet they were still the Old Bastard’s words from his first days debating with James Wirden why they must rule the planet. With energy and food long since solved, the removal of country, religion, and finally race, would bring about the end of wars and allow proper worldwide resource management.
Bryce lost track of the trail and crashed through the undergrowth. He threw his arms up to protect his face as he plunged ahead.
The lines he’d drawn so carefully around his own soul were blurring even as he fought against them. He no longer had to reach for his parent’s memories, they came easily. Even the Old Bastard’s emotions threatened to overwhelm him. Maybe it was finally coming true. Maybe all of his parent’s hopes were living on in him, consuming him until nothing was left in this body but Bryce Randall Stevens Sr. No longer a bartender in a bar, rather the greatest villain of the modern world.
He stumbled over an arching root and sprawled into the dirt and leaves.
People were important. He had to admit agreeing with his parent on that. But his mother had taught him more. She always spoke of love and understanding and finding the joy in those around you, and reveling in it. Hiding in a jungle would not please her one bit, but he’d bet that she’d like his bar. He could see her slide up to his bar in one of her immaculate, sexy pantsuits, nudging in between the dirty ag-workers and ordering a cold one. He had to hold out against his implanted memories for her sake, for her belief in the existence of more.
He arrived at the western ramp, but the huge lock separated him from his bar and the one hatchway that would get him home. He looked back to the jungle, but he’d rather be caught by security than face that stupid, short-sighted scientist again. He’d strangle the man with his own hands. He stared back at the huge door looming above him at the head of the ramp.
Trapped. He leaned his cheek against the cool metal and closed his eyes against the inner voices. Images swirled about in his head. Voices that had previously confined themselves to nightmares shouted at him. He felt them stab like perfect, glistening knives plunging deep into his brain. He could feel the blood as their little blades poked and prodded inside his head.
“Cull the weak and the stupid and what is left shall be set free to rise above its sodden past.”
“Your mother was too weak, she ruined you for my purposes. I should have chosen someone stronger, or hired a brain-dead nurse to suckle you so I could shape you myself.”
“You can’t hide from me forever, you know we are too much alike.”
“All my hopes live on in you.”
“No!” Bryce slammed his palm against the door. “No! I am not like you. I am not you, Old Man. I am me. I will make my own choices.”
He collapsed to the ramp.
“I need you, mother. You left too soon.” He beat his forehead against the door and wept for her death as he had not done since Perry had dragged him half-drowned from the ocean years before.
“I need you!” It was little more than a whimper.
“I’m glad to hear it.”
Bryce spun and smashed his elbow against the edge of the lock. As he doubled over and clasped it against him, he focused on the large woman at the base of the ramp. She was burly in a solid, Russian way. The ethnicism still existed despite Bryce Sr.’s best efforts to erase country boundaries. Her hand dwarfed the massive machete she held loosely by her side.
“Um, hi.” It was not his most brilliant opening. He gently wiggled his elbow feeling for possible fracture.
“I’m Robbie. I work here.”
“Bryce. I’m—”
“The bartender. Yeah. I’ve seen you. Do you always come to the jungle to talk to yourself?” She walked up the ramp and racked the blade and her commpad. When she cycled the airlock door, he gratefully stumbled in beside her.
He forced a smile, but it was weak at best.
“No. Usually I reserve that until I’ve had a few too many beers in my, um, apartment.” He gingerly straightened his arm as she cycled the outer door and he was free of the jungle. The pain was starting to ease.
“Well, you’re welcome anytime.” She paused and leaned in until her hazel eyes were less than a hand’s-breadth away. “
I enjoy watching the male of the species beat themselves senseless. It improves the race.” She laughed loudly and punched his shoulder hard enough that he stumbled into the corridor wall. The Old Man would have loved her.
She walked down the corridor in great, broad strides, singing some song about when men can have babies then women of the world will laugh and sing. It had the distinct rolling rhythm of a sea chantey and he could have hummed along easily. He was not in the mood.
Bryce walked back to R4U. Ignoring the early patrons, he thumbed into the back room. Let them wait for Jaz to show. And if she didn’t, to hell with them. He checked L0, but heard no running sounds. He dropped through and closed the hatch. Level Zero was almost as empty as he felt.
# # #
Jaron peered around the corner. R4U was barely half full, and thankfully Bryce was nowhere in sight. He wasn’t ready to face the man just yet. It had taken all day to admit it, but Bryce had been right. Homo sapiens was no less valid a species for study and concern than Myiopsitta monachus; humans and monk parakeets, there was a good contrast to help him keep perspective.
He ordered a beer from the silent woman who assisted Bryce and moved to the farthest corner of the bar. He leaned his chair back against the wall and sipped the heavy lager. He would have preferred an ale, but had taken whatever the woman gave him and flipped a credit in the jug.
Most of the worker shifts didn’t end for another half hour but already there were a number of people drifting up to the bar. They purchased a beer and slowly circulated until they found a familiar face. Those who failed, perched along the bar and watched newcomers. A few chugged back the first beer and ordered another before joining the circulating flock.
By the time the work shifts were over, the place surged with ag-bay workers in their dirt-smeared shipsuits. Even three of his own crew flowed in the mix. Of course, Jaron didn’t keep them to a fixed schedule as long as they got their work done. They were mature, responsible individuals.
Odd. No juveniles in this flock busy preening their feathers for a mating ritual. It had made a great spectacle each spring as he walked along the Orinoco River. Here, if there was any mating ritual, he couldn’t spot it. The women were drinking as heavily as the men. There wasn’t even any gender clustering.
Bryce emerged from the back room. Without even scanning the bar, he began pulling beers and lining them up. Moments later, a large group arrived and scooped them in hand. The credits rattled into the counter jug like a thousand tree nuts knocked loose in a wind storm onto his lab’s roof. Bryce certainly knew his flock. R4U was now beyond crowded and still more people flowed in to join them.
Jaron was trying to make sense of the groupings, but realized that he’d have a better chance if they were all parrots. In a way, they were. The large, confident macaws and cockatoos rapidly took the tables and, having chosen their perches, moved little. The small, quick parakeets circulated from place to place, often never coming to a true rest. The Amazonas were showy and laughing, the life of any group they were with; impressed with themselves, even if no one else was.
“Mr. MacAndrews. Mind if I join you?”
He hadn’t even seen Ri Jeffers enter. “Sure. Though any spare chairs have long since migrated to other tables.”
Ri set her beer on the table and flipped down a seat that was attached to the wall. He hadn’t even noticed it hanging there.
“What brings you here?” A macaw beyond her shoulder faced down a parakeet that was flitting too close to his table. The man fluttered off to another table.
She sipped her beer. “A bit of research. Shall we observe together?”
He nearly choked on his next swallow. “Am I that obvious?” He had to repeat himself before he could be heard above the noise of the dozens of conversations he hadn’t noticed prior to that moment.
She shook her head and shouted back at him. “Takes one to know one. I learned young to watch people carefully, so I understood what they were going to do before they did it.”
“I’m only just learning that now.”
She nodded and turned to watch the crowd. It was rapidly becoming a throbbing nest it was so crowded. Nests of chicks, so pushed together that there seemed nowhere to grow, yet these were fully mature Homo sapiens jostling against one another until he could feel the dangerous static charge in the air.
“I haven’t been here when he’s open. Is it usually this crazy?” She was shouting but he still had to concentrate and watch her lips to hear.
“I’ve seen worse.”
She leaned in and cupped a hand behind her ear.
He could only shrug against the noise and waggle a hand indicating this was about normal. Jaron wished he’d chosen a perch farther from the masses, but there wasn’t anywhere to go now. The crowd was filtering into the small empty spots between tables and pushing out into the corridor. Several had settled to perch against the far wall. Someone nearly trod on his feet before leaning down to shout his greetings at the next table over.
Ri reached out and slapped the broad buttocks that were almost in Jaron’s face. The huge man spun to face him. Jaron banged his head against the wall as he tried to remove himself from the range of the man’s glower and the fist he was sure was only moments behind it.
She shouted at the huge man. “Go put your butt in someone else’s face.”
He narrowed his eyes at her for a moment before grinning broadly. “You betcha, little lady. Sorry.” He turned back to his friends, but this time he squatted to get his head down to their level.
Jaron rubbed the back of his head and nodded his thanks. Pecking orders. Moment of conflict to determine who was the alpha-parrot. Males frequently faced one another down, but the females controlled the roost and the males left them to their all important show of power. He took a careful sip of his beer.
“What are you smiling at?”
He leaned close enought to Ri so that he could be heard. “I have just concluded that I am not an alpha-male.”
She burst out laughing. The woman who rarely smiled was suddenly laughing aloud until she was quite flushed.
He was debating whether or not to feel offended when she recovered herself and patted his arm.
“But a good, strong man nonetheless. It would be a lousy world made of only alpha-males, or alpha-females for that matter. We all have our place.” She knocked back the rest of the beer though her speech was already distinctly slurred.
Wisdom was coming from unexpected quarters of late. CO2 cycles and species analysis from a bartender. Now a drunk liaison officer discussing gender balancing within an intraspecies subgrou—
“Jaron.” A great hand clapped down on his shoulder and the other thudded a half-full beer onto the small table almost upsetting what was left in his own mug.
“Hi, Bryce.”
Someone rose from the next table to get a round of refills and Bryce reached out a long arm and snagged his chair. The table’s other occupants were about to protest until they saw who it was. They glanced at their friend’s back retreating toward the bar, laughed, and offered a quick thumb’s up. He nodded his thanks and pulled his newly-captured seat into the small space between the tables.
“Survival of the fittest,” Jaron shouted in his direction.
Bryce acknowledged with a raise of his mug. “Have you enjoyed watching my parrots come to roost?” Bryce’s face was close to him, Jaron could smell the beer on his breath. Of course, the whole place reeked of it.
“It is observable. I didn’t believe it would be.”
Another of Bryce’s hearty slaps crashed onto his shoulder. This time he grabbed on and shook Jaron until he felt like a leaf in a friendly wind.
“Good. Good, my friend. No hard feelings?”
“No. You have made me change a hypothesis and proven it with concrete data.”
Bryce laughed and turned to Ri. “Welcome back to
my bar, Biologics Liaison Jeffers.”
He was suddenly steadier and much less drunk than he’d appeared a moment before. Perhaps he was sober after all.
She shook his proffered hand. “Thanks.”
“My bar is not always a sleepy little place.”
“My, such a fine and lofty domain.”
Jaron’s thoughtful fellow observer was suddenly more animated than he had ever seen her. Far more than in dozens of meetings they’d shared in the jungle biome, both of them filled with the quiet awe of wonder at the miracle being wrought inside a plas chamber surrounded by hard vacuum. A bright, quirky smile spread across her face and the thin eyes narrowed even farther. He almost didn’t recognize her.
Bryce was grinning at her. “It’s not much, but it keeps me honest.”
“Or at least moderately so.”
He acknowledged her barb with a smile. He looked toward the bar and held up three fingers. Jaron couldn’t see through the bodies to the other barkeep.
“One of the prerogatives of being the boss is that I get to make up the rules.” He knocked back the rest of his beer with a single swallow. The dark-skinned, silent woman delivered three fresh mugs and cleared off the old ones.
“Thanks, Jaz.”
She barely nodded before returning to the bar.
Ri reached for her credit pouch. Jaron belatedly followed her example.
Bryce waved it aside. “Told you already. I’m the boss. New rule for the evening: beer is free at this table. Next time I may charge you double to make up for lost profits, though. Just a warning.”
Ri laughed and pushed her hair back behind her ears as she leaned forward.
“Why a bar in a hall? And why not a larger place with a real storefront? There’s several just down the corridor.”
She was very close to Bryce; actually flirting with him. Jaron had never witnessed such a thing before, at least not at such close quarters. It always seemed to occur at a distance. Robbie kept telling him he was just oblivious, but not this time. A Homo sapiens pre-mating ritual was actually happening right before his eyes.
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