by Tia LaBeau
“Freda,” I say shoving my way into the apartment. “What’s going on?”
She hurriedly closes and locks the door behind me. I see why all the waterworks almost immediately.
The Governor’s son is lying on our kitchen floor, in what I assume to be a pool of his own blood.
I run over to him. I put my finger on his neck to see if he has a pulse. There isn’t one. “Oh shit,” I whisper. I turn around. Freda’s crouching down on the floor. She’s sobbing. I can hardly understand a word she’s saying. She is muttering something. I stand up. There’s blood on my hands. I wipe it off on one of the pants legs of my new suit.
I go over to Freda and grab her. “It’s okay. Tell me what happened. Did you call security?”
“No,” Freda says.
“Why not?”
“That’s the Governor’s son lying there.”
“I don’t care who that is,” I say. I shake Freda. “He hurt you, right?”
“Uh, yeah, well yeah.”
“Okay, then, so it was self-defense.”
Freda’s eyes widen, but she doesn’t say anything. I pace the floor. The Governor’s son is a high profile person. Besides her tears and his dead body, I don’t know what’s has happened here, but I can sort of guess.”
Whatever happened, it will be her alive word against his dead one.
“Tell me what happened.”
“He tried to rape me,” Freda says. “So I stabbed him. Over and over because he was hopped up on something and he wouldn’t die.”
I try to figure out what to do. I try to think about the Governor, who is he? Well, for one thing, I know he’s an exploitative sonofabitch. He’s got a lot of creds and a not so good reputation with the people. Rumor has it that he bought the election. He has a horrible reputation with females, and many have accused him of misogyny. I’ve heard of people missing, dead because of some perceived slight. The guy’s basically a fucking monster, but I never see him on the block, so I haven’t really worried about him...until now.
He has basically sues or frames anyone who speaks out against him, taking whatever meager belongings any of them have credit wise, family wise, he doesn’t care. So his son was a chip off of the old block, hey, but if the Governor says that his son is an angel, then he’ll pay others to say the same. At least that’s what I think based on what I’ve heard. And not only that, but he’ll want revenge against my sister, even if it was his son that was in the wrong. And I’m not gonna let that shit happen.
I don’t know what to do. I can’t bear the thought of my little sister being locked up or even worse, being executed for defending herself. For a crime like murder, the death penalty is imminent. Mars is already crowded. The judicials don’t see a point in allowing dangerous criminals a place on the planet, or any other location in the system for that matter. And even if somehow she gets a fair shake from the system outside of the Governor, there’s still his shady ass to deal with.
Private security firms can be bought off to say whatever the highest bidder wants them to say in the Mars Juris system, but there’s some legit one, some legit people.
I can call Mr. Drek, but then as soon as I call him, Mr. Drek will be required by Martian law to report the news to the next of kin.
Freda might have the opportunity to tell her story first, but the Governor can manipulate the security firm. If what he wants everyone to believe that his son was murdered by some poor, nasty, credit hungry, fledgling little Martian girl, then the Governor can make that all happen by paying the right security firm to say so.
My stomach hurts. I have to do something. I glance over at Freda, and she’s still shaking and sobbing. I go over to her and wrap her in my arms. “They won’t believe me,” she says. “I can’t go through that again. Telling that stuff to all those people.”
What she meant was that she couldn’t go through reporting another sexual assault. She was assaulted before by her phys ed teacher in upper school.
It’s one of the many reasons I’ve been so protective of her all along. The incident happened when she was fourteen years old. There was no penetration involved, but even still, it was a terrible incident. We had to report it to the authorities. I made her tell her side of the story. I wanted to make sure that the bastard teacher couldn’t do a thing like that again, using his power to feel up on teenaged girls.
Freda’s has always been a bit fragile, but she fought for herself this time. I want to ask her how far the asshole got into the attempted rape, but she’s so delicate, I don’t want to put her through the trauma of having to recount all the details right now. If we get her to a medicenter, we could maybe prove that she was hurt, except I see no evidence of trauma besides the emotional.
“Are you hurt? Like did he hurt you anywhere? Bruise you?”
“He socked me hard in the stomach,” Freda says.
She lifts up her shirt. There’s a bruise in the middle of her belly. I go to her, inspect her. She has a bruise on her hip too, and in the center of her back.
We could go to the hospital for these bruises, but then how would it look when everyone finds out that we left the Governor’s dead son on our kitchen floor so that we could go to the hospital for a couple of raspberries?
All I can think to say now is, “Let’s get some ice on that stomach and back.” Freda doesn’t move, so I go back into the kitchen while she stands in the foyer.
The Governor’s son is sprawled out on the floor. He hasn’t moved. There’s enough room in the kitchen for me to step around him, but I’m wary of his blood getting on my shoes. I stop mid-step as I realize why I don’t want to get any of his blood on my shoes. It’s because I don’t want to be implicated in his death. At the same time, it occurs to me that that’s what I should want.
I have to make it look like I did this. It’s the only way to make sure that my sister has any chance at a good life. I should have listened to my instincts. I shouldn’t have left her at that bar alone. If I had been there, she wouldn’t have even had a chance to invite the Governor’s crooked son back to our house.
I continue to the freezer as carefully as I can. My legs are shaky, and I feel almost like I might pass out as if there is not enough oxygen getting to my brain. I snatch a clean dish towel from the counter, still being careful not to step in any blood. I can’t wet the ice bundle in here because there is too much blood by the sink.
I leave the kitchen, go to the bathroom. I turn on the water here in the bathroom and wet the bundle. I don’t even bother to look at myself in the mirror. What does it matter what I look like now? My life is over.
I go back in the living room. Freda is rocking back and forth on the couch. I put the ice pack to her her stomach. She winces.
“It’s okay,” I say. “I’ll take care of this.”
“What do you mean?” she asks. “What are you going to do?”
“Come on,” I say. “You should lie down.”
I help her off of the couch and into her bedroom. She keeps it so cute in here. It’s not a very far cry from what it looked like when she was twelve. She still has stuffed animals on her bed, a pink bedspread, posters of the pop star YoYo. If only I could turn back the hands of time, I’d go back and miss that interview, and my sweet sister would be here, in her bed, able to relax without a dead guy waiting in our kitchen.
I have some pills that my doctor prescribes to me. I’m supposed to take them to calm myself down when things get too overwhelming. I think I ought to get some and give Freda one. They’re basically sedatives.
I go into my room, lie down on my bed, and close my eyes, deciding not to give her the sedative after all. I may need her conscious later.
I know that I can’t stay here for long. I’ve got to call a security firm. If I call them and say that I did kill the Governor’s son and then take off, then my sister will have a chance.
I figure I can rehearse a story with her, make the comm, and then run after that. I won’t have much time to get out of Rim Rock, and
getting out of Rim Rock would be only the beginning of my journey. Getting out of Rim Rock would not be far enough.
The Governor would scrape Mars for my whereabouts no doubt. I wouldn’t even dare go to the moon, or Earth, even the Jovian system wouldn’t be far enough for me. I’d have to get as far away as possible. Perhaps I’d need to get as far out as Cygnus, which is 500 light years away.
I inhale deeply and decide that if I can get as far out as Cygnus, I may be okay. Even if I’m not, I’d much rather I suffer the fate of the Governor’s wrath than have his terror rain down on my sister. I get up out of my bed with resolve. I go into Freda’s room. She’s sitting up on her bed.
“He posted a picture of him and me in my bed on the networks,” she says.
“Let me see,” I say.
She hands me her comm. I look at the picture of the two of them. I learn from his profile that his name is Zeid. The way he’s got his arm hooked around her neck bothers me. Freda’s smiling, but I can see in the way Zeid is holding onto her that he couldn’t have given two fucks about her.
“See what he wrote underneath?”
“Chilling with my new Boo.” I read aloud.
“He was so nice to me at first, and but then he got mean and so nasty. I told him to stop being so rough and to take it slow, but he became infuriated. He said ‘nobody tells me what to do,' and he punched me in the stomach. I got free, so I ran to the kitchen. He came in behind me, punched me in the back, and when I turned around, I punched him in the nuts. While he was down on the floor, I grabbed a knife out of the kitchen drawer, you know, hoping that would scare him off. And he was like ‘you stupid little cunt. I’m going to fuck your face off and then I’m going to kill you, and I snapped. I stabbed him. If I hadn’t stabbed him, he was going to take it from me, then kill me, Cleo. I had to do it. I had to.” Freda starts sobbing again.
“Lie down,” I say. I tuck Freda beneath the pink comforter. “Listen to me, I’m going away, but before I go, I’m going to comm my new boss at Rock security and tell them I’m the one who killed Zeid.
Then I’m going to run. I want you to say that Zeid came over. You two fell asleep together. When you woke up you realized he wasn’t in your bed, so you went to see if maybe he was in the bathroom or the kitchen. You found him in the kitchen in a pool of blood. That’s it. When I comm Rock, I’ll tell them that you’re still asleep. So you discovered Zeid dead in the kitchen, went looking for me and found me gone.”
Freda pushes up. “No, Cleo. You can’t do that. We can comm Rock Security, and I can tell them what really happened. They’ll believe me, right?”
“They might, but that won’t stop the Governor from telling everyone a different story. Of course, a guy like the Governor of Mars isn’t going to want to believe that his son tried to rape someone, and he won’t especially like the narrative that he tried to rape a low-class Martian girl.”
“I’m not low-class,” Freda says.
“I know that, but we don’t have the most creds in the universe, and to people like the Governor, we’re low pay. He has a reputation to protect. Plus, Furmi senior plans to run for Governor again, I bet, and I don’t think he’ll want this situation to tarnish his reputation or jeopardize his chances for a win.”
“Cleo, you can’t do this. You’ve done enough for me already. You basically gave up your whole teenage and now adult life to take care of me.”
“So. Of course, I did. And I didn’t give it anything. I just lived life a little differently from most of my peers.” I try to crack a smile, but my face hurts trying it, so I don’t get very far.
“If you leave, I’ll tell them the truth and then you can come back,” Freda says.
“No!” I shout. I grab Freda by the shoulders. “Please, don’t disobey me. Do what I say. When I call Rock, I’ll say it was self-defense, and that I thought Zeid was an intruder. I don’t think it will matter much, but at least there will be a different narrative on record somewhere unless the Governor manages to buy off Rock too. I’ll be long gone, though. Here’s to hoping they never catch me.”
“Where will you go? How will I get in touch with you?”
“We’ll have to stay out of contact for a while,” I say. “But I’ll figure out a way to contact you when I think it’s safe enough to do so. I have creds. I’ll transfer some to you right now before I make that comm. I’ll have to get some phys cred too.”
I won’t have many credits left once I leave her enough to get by for the next six months, but hopefully, I’ll have enough to at least reach the Jovian system. Maybe I’ll make my way to the moon Io. Then from there I’ll head even further away.
“I can’t live without you, Cleo,” Freda says.
“You can and you will. Don’t let me down. Now pretend to be asleep for a while, at least until I’m gone.”
Freda slinks back down underneath her girlish bedspread and pulls it up to her chin. I dare not look back at her as I walk out of her room or I may not have the courage to go.
It’s not that I’m afraid of running or getting caught. It’s that my time to protect my sister has been cut short. I will not be here for her anymore. She’s going to have to take care of herself. I hope that the story I tell the Rock will keep her safe. Zeid’s death will no doubt make the system news, so I’ll be on the lookout to see how the story develops. I shut the door on my sister’s childhood.
I go in my room, make the credit transfers, print out phys creds for myself, pack a bag, and change out of my suit. I guess I won’t be needing it now.
I change into a pair of black stretch pants, a gray pullover, and a put on a pair of purple comfy boots. My bag only has one other change of clothes in it, a toothbrush, a hair brush, and a small stuffed animal which I used to keep on my desk before. It’s a little pink teddy bear that Freda gave to me after our parents died. It’s a keepsake that I will always cherish.
I pick up my comm, call Rock security, and ask to be transferred to Mr. Drek. The robotic receptionist puts me on hold. When Mr. Drek gets on the line, after what seems like a forever amount of waiting, I tell him the story I told Freda to tell, but with more details. I tell him that I thought Zeid was an intruder and that I killed him.
Of course, Mr. Drek tells me that he’s sending a unit over and that I’m to remain in place until they get here. Of course, I don’t listen.
Location: Asteroid Belt, Population: 123,344
I sit in my space mobil, scouring the dailies on my tablet for the latest news in the belt. I’ve been working in the asteroid belt as a miner for only a year. I only came from my planet, Sewvi six months ago. Soon, Sewvi will exist no more. Everyone is being evacuated that wishes to leave it. According to the dailies, today marks the last day that evacuations directly from Sewvi will take place.
The system that Sewvi exists in will be dead soon. Its two stars will swallow each other and cause such a cataclysmic event that Sewvi will get sucked right into it. The two stars will become one and turn into a supernova that will destroy all that is around it. Eventually, all of this will turn into a black hole.
The event is predicted to be some time away, but it is now that all the creatures from our system must be evacuated. That includes plant life, and wala life, which is life similar to what the humans call animals.
The planets in my system, which began evacuation seven years ago, include my home planet Sewvi, the planet Partrox, a planet called Edenu, the planet Havenu, the moon Yaywah, which is thought to once have belonged to Havenu, the planet Chigara and its seven moons, the planet Githra, and the planet Mastiva.
All who wish to move from our system, which we call Protos, will do so. There are only a few other evacuations left in rest of the system. I believe they will all be evacuated by the end of the Jovian calendar.
Unfortunately, my parents wished to stay behind. They sent with me all our family’s treasures. My wish is to use these treasures to stake a claim on one of the smaller asteroids in the belt where I can mine palladium and
sell carbon. The only problem is that the law prohibits Protean immigrants from purchasing land within the larger human-run system called Teros. The only way around such a restriction is for a Protean to marry a human.
Before we came, there were no other beings in these systems besides the humans. They’ve been generous to open up their systems to us where only they have existed, but I am not too keen on their policies regarding a Protean’s ability to procure land.
If I were to procure myself a human wife, I’d be able to take my treasures and use them to purchase a decent sized asteroid with healthy reserves. I have my eye on the asteroid they playfully call Gargantua 27654. It is not as large as its name suggests, but it does have abundant reserves. My younger brother Yumi is off at advanced school on Mars. It is my wish to be able to pass on a great fortune to him, and if I have offspring, I’d also like to leave them land and credits in the billions behind. There is one way to grant my wish.
Every day I see the Ad which reads:
Moon Company Brides
We can provide you a human bride. Even if you are far away in the belt, or even if you are not human, you may qualify for one of our prime human wives. Contact us at ab-n-jk-l12n for an appointment and application. Your bride awaits.
The dailies are translated into all the languages spoken in the human systems along with the languages from Protos. I learned a few of the Teros languages when I was in the advanced grades on Sewvi. We were given the option to study them in lieu of the exodus from Protos.
I am twenty-eight in Teros years. Unlike the humans and those on other planets, Sewvians stay in compulsory school until the age of twenty-four. I only just got out of school, and may I say that I didn’t find it to be pleasant. I am happy to be away from it, but I am not happy to be away from my planet or parents.
My parents chose to stay behind on Sewvi to live out their last days. They have no desire to migrate to Teros. I have learned that Teros system extends from earth to about 500 light years away from it. Past that is where the natural gateway to Protos lies. Soon it will be gone.