“That’s the damnedest thing,” Klein laughed bitterly. “The news editor from Der Spiegel received the email with the data on Kinderaugen, but they couldn’t make any sense of it! Apparently the data was encrypted in some way that means that it couldn’t be ‘read’ except on machines given verified clearance by the Düsseldorf Treasury Department. Der Spiegel couldn’t access the data unless Treasury allowed it, and they weren’t about to put their asses on the line to try to save a cop killer.”
Klein watched as a cruel smile spread across Cashman’s face. “That’s good to know, because it means you haven’t got any leverage over my boss.” Klein could only listen to Cashman as a sickening realization dawned in his mind. “You didn’t think that Dorfman had only cops on Earth working for him, do you? He pays a shitload more than any marshall staying clean on this rock ever got, even Jim Stafford. And after you found out about Kinderaugen, he’s been offering good money to see you dead. Of course, I’m not going to kill you now. You told me everything about the dirt you had on Dorfman, and I made you a promise to give you the antibiotics in exchange for that information. Of course, bringing a man back alive from that debacle with the Locals looks better on my permanent record, and I didn’t make you a promise that you’d live forever…”
Klein finally blacked out from pain and exhaustion as Cashman leaned in to give him the injection from the medkit.
Two days later, Klein had only a nasty scar on his leg and an occasional tingling pain to remind him of his encounter with the Locals. His mind, however, was considerably less healthy after learning that he had not escaped the reach of Dorfman and the Kinderaugen conspiracies on Domremy. He had called Ragatti into his room, and was preparing to make an important call back to Peebo. Ragatti had noticed his nervousness and paranoia, and was feeling unusually anxious herself as a result.
“Klein…why have you been so nervous since you returned two days ago? Have I done something that frustrated you? Is there something about this settlement that you dislike?”
“As a matter of fact, there is something about Site 89 that’s pissing me off, but it’s not anything you did – or.anything you can control. I really need to talk to Peebo now, and I’ll tell you what I can after I talk with him. But right now you need to start packing your things.” Klein got his phone out and called up Peebo, who was stretched out on his couch after a hard day’s work on the farm.
“Peebo, this is Klein. I’ve called to find out how your tomatoes are doing. The tomatoes around here are all rotten.” Ragatti thought Klein must have actually lost his mind to waste time talking about the garden with his old landlord, but she didn’t realize that the Religious Dissenters had developed their own code language, Crop Talk, and that Klein had been permitted to learn bits of it. Rule One of Exile Life: all communications are monitored, recorded, and compu-analyzed. He had just told Peebo that an emergency had arisen.
“I wish I could send you some of these crummy tomatoes to see if you could find out how to make it better. I bet if you looked at just one, you’d know what to do.”
“Well,” replied Peebo, “I’d certainly like to have a look at one of them tomatoes. Of course, I might have to keep it around for a while before I figured it out.”
“That’s exactly what I want you to do. But you might have to send it along somewhere else, too, if that doesn’t work out. You and the boys might have to decide where to go next with it.”
Peebo could hear Ragatti’s indignant yelling in the background as she threw clothes into her travelling bag. He knew exactly which “tomato” Klein was referring to, but couldn’t guess what had broken up their domestic arrangement. “Why should that fruit go bad all of a sudden, Klein? It never gave anyone trouble as long as I’ve known about it!”
“Peebo, it’s maybe not about the fruit, it’s about what’s happening to my own digestion. I can’t talk about it over the phone, because it’s a bit disgusting and I don’t want you to get indigestion, too, but it’s best you just don’t waste any time talking with me and see to the harvests yourself. I don’t want to pass on any rotten fruit to anybody because I’m too stupid to grow anything right.” It’s best that no innocents suffer because of something I’ve done.
“I know why you’re a mankiller and no gardener, dammit! But you can count on me and you don’t have to fancify any details about using the outhouse where I’m concerned. Shit is shit!” You’re my friend, you don’t have to hide anything else from me! That’s what Peebo is saying.
“You may know I have no green thumb, but you don’t know why, and it’s better if you don’t pick up any of my bad personal toilet habits.” In other words, for your own safety, it’s best you don’t know more. “Please, take care of them tomatoes for me, because I’m sending a jar of them out of this settlement by regular mail.” Peebo will meet her discreetly at the station first thing tomorrow.
“I’ll do it, Klein,” Peebo said with sadness and confusion in his voice. “I hope you get over those toilet problems okay. Domremy needs more mankillers like you.”
Klein tried to reassure Peebo. “I’ll be fine. I know what I’m doing. Talk with you soon,” and hung up. He looked at Ragatti’s face and saw an expression of anger and disgust at what she perceived as Klein’s betrayal of her. Her hands were trembling with rage, and she was barely holding back a desire to let loose a loud scream.
“Ragatti, this isn’t what it looks like. My feelings for you haven’t changed. It’s just that if you stay here, things will be worse for you than you could possibly imagine.”
“How could it possibly be worse?” Ragatti yelled indignantly. “Do you even know what it means to be a Forlani woman rejected by a male? To be -- what do humans call it—“turned away” -- that is one of the greatest insults you can possibly give us in our culture! Did you even think what the other Forlani here or in Stafford Station would say about me, how quickly the rumors would spread? I would be considered lower than the most pathetic, low-born female from…”
“No, Ragatti. I don’t know, and I don’t pretend to understand Forlani culture from what little experience I have of it yet. What I do know is the people I’m up against here in Site 89, and I know that if you stay here, you’ll be dead sooner or later. If you value your life, you’ll get out of here on the train first thing tomorrow and go back to Peebo’s farm. But whatever you do, you can’t stay with me any longer. I’m not safe anymore-for you, for Peebo, or for anyone else who knows me.”
Ragatti angrily stormed out of Klein’s room, leaving him alone with a nagging pain in his leg and the dangerous uncertainties of a future working for a man who was conspiring to kill him. Klein decided to go down to the bar and squander his paycheck on some cheap Site 89 Special beer. The skunky stuff was so intensely vile and sour that Klein avoided it whenever he possibly could, but now was the right time for libations and Site 89 Special was all he could afford. It’s gonna be a rotten night, Klein thought as he sat down at the bar and ordered the first of four glasses of Site 89 Special.
What Klein didn’t know was that a good measure of Ragatti’s distress was coming from the fact that she would have to report what had happened to a certain someone back on her home planet. It would take a lot of tact and trouble to redact and send the report through secure channels and she was already expecting a blistering reply, since she had failed in such an important mission.
Ragatti herself could not have been more astounded when she received the coded answer a few months later through a new consort sent out to the communal house where she was then living. “Praise to you, wise and competent Ragatti, for your faithful service. Do you not realize that your Like-Male did the only possible thing under adverse circumstances, and that you could not help him more? Prepare yourself in physical and spiritual beauty, for you will soon be called to the court of a very eminent lady, where you will rejoice with some of your sisters and where you will be preferred.” Ragatti couldn’t believe she would soon become exalted and perhaps even someday become a
Minor Wife herself, which often happed at court. She could not have guessed that Entara would become so powerful so quickly, to be able to offer her such a reward. She wished she could apologize to Klein for her ungracious scene, though she knew she must never communicate with him again on her own initiative.
Erica Duquesne was looking over some stats on the grain harvest yields on Domremy when she was greeted by the unwelcome sight of a smirking, self-absorbed Bill Hollingsworth standing in the door to her office. “Hello Bill,” Duquesne greeted him. “You’re looking happy today. How are things going for you?”
“Excellent, Erica, excellent,” Hollingsworth responded. “I’ve just gotten the Board of Directors to approve my special request for Domremy. It will make this division immensely more profitable once it’s been carried out. I have big plans for Domremy once this goes through.”
“What is this special project you’ve been planning?” Duquesne asked. “You’ve been going on about this project for several weeks now, but I still have no idea what it is. Since it’s been approved and we’re going to be doing it anyway, I think we’d benefit if you made it public now.”
Hollingsworth had the self-conscious smirk of a man who felt he was on top of the world on his face. Duquesne felt herself practically gagging on the fumes of Hollingsworth’s sense of empowerment, as if the weasely executive was a ferret in heat. “Erica, this is our new project. Frontier Heroes of Domremy! We send out a film crew to Domremy, and we use them to capture the colonists as they go about their ordinary jobs – farming, ranching, fighting these ‘Local’ creatures. Put some slick editing into it, use it to assemble a narrative with compelling characters, and we’ll not only have a massive ratings success, but also a tool to fuel tourism and immigration to Domremy! We can use this program to finally get a decent class of people to immigrate to Domremy, and we’ll finally monetize the planet better than using it as a simple penal colony!”
“Bill, this planet is barely subsistent as it is. 94 percent of the population is still convicts, many of them there as a result of violent crimes, the rest for some form of Dissenter activity. Do you really think people like that want to be filmed, especially if all the money from it goes to the corporation rather than giving them a cut? They’ll see a bunch of film crews and interns there with a life that looks great compared to theirs, and they’ll start feeling envious, maybe even murderous. And that’s not even mentioning the fact that this planet is still crawling with Locals, and has weather patterns that are unpredictable to us, and…”
“Of course there’s a risk,” Hollingsworth said. “All business has a certain amount of risk, business involving dangerous alien worlds more than others. But think of the potential upside! The Heroes franchise has been trending downwards for years. That last installment – what was it, Heroes of Jamestown – that barely made back its budget, even with all those OptiCon sales and promotional partners. By turning it into an Actuality program and making it about current events, rather than about some event in the past that isn’t relevant to our audience anymore, we could revitalize the franchise at only a fraction of the budget Jamestown had!”
Duquesne had seen this before. Hollingsworth had entered the state he so eloquently called “the Zone,” in which became so intoxicated by his theories for success and the seeming infallibility of his hypothetical schemes that nothing could possibly dissuade him. She could only listed to the rising crescendo of excitement in his voice as he described commercial tie-ins with clothing and firearm companies about “The Domremy Experience,” leaving the task of actually managing the risk of the project to her. He won’t listen, Duquesne thought. This project is his baby, and whenever he gets it into his head that a project is a sure thing that he can shepherd through like this, he won’t listen to criticism. Until it’s too late, of course.
Chapter Three
Before the sun rose over the horizon in Site 89, Cashman had called a meeting of his crew to order. Since the events that had become known as the “Great Storm Massacre,” Cashman had sent a request for more men to fill the ranks of his crew. Some of the men were fresh off the transport ships, and though they had been debriefed and instructed in the proper methods of protocol and respect for rank on Domremy, Klein could hear the sounds of men grumbling and cursing under their breath, unhappy that they had been called into a meeting at the crack of dawn. “I’d better not be hearing that shit, people,” Cashman said. “You’ve all been called here because something important is about to happen here in Site 89. A film crew from Earth has been sent by Hyperion Corporation. They will walk with you, and they will record events around town that are, in their mission statement’s words, ‘both mundane and extraordinary’. That means if the Locals make a raid on the town, the film crew will be there, trying to shoot every minute.” Cashman could hear a solitary muttered curse from the back of the room.
“Doing everything within your power to help this film crew is mandatory,” Cashman continued. “Not only is it good for our PR, but we’ll be getting a considerable stipend for doing this. And the more helpful you are to the crew, the more generous the stipend. They’ll only be here a couple of months before they leave to go film at the other sites, so you’d better be on your best behavior. Any violations and you’ll be doing night watch for as long as I want to assign it to you.” The grumbling abruptly ended.
“Anyway, they start setting up equipment around town tomorrow. They expect to film mainly in town, so we won’t have to go far out into the wilderness.” Klein could here several of the men breathing sighs of relief, no doubt at the fact that they wouldn’t have to risk a repeat of the Great Storm Massacre. “They’ll need armed guards for their filming sessions, and you’ll be paid well if you volunteer. If I don’t get volunteers, I’ll choose armed guards by lottery, and those chosen won’t get any extra money. Mark my words, this show will get filmed, no matter what you think of it. Got it?” The men nodded their heads, dreading the “welcome” they would have to give the newcomers the following day.
The film crew arrived at 8AM, coming in on the train that had dropped Klein off months ago, before its schedule had inexplicably been reduced. Now, for the moment, everything was back on time. All of Cashman’s men were there to be introduced to the film crew, including Klein. The men stood at attention as Klein called out their names and described their duties. Klein noticed that Cashman introduced him to the film crew last, as if he was ashamed to work with him. “And this is Klein, he’s our mankiller,” Cashman said unenthusiastically, and then whispered something to the director of the crew that was inaudible to Klein. The director then introduced himself.
“Howdy y’all, my name’s Spenser Eckhart!”
The men in Cashman’s crew stood in total silence at the director’s cheery introduction. What felt like half a minute past by in silence. Cashman finally turned and glowered at his men expectantly. They squeezed out a stumbling and poorly synchronized “Howdy Spenser!” in response. Spenser continued with his introduction, “Me and my crew are gonna be filmin’ the new program, Heroes of Domremy, in this town, which is…”
“Site 89,” Guzman, one of Cashman’s new recruits who was standing next to Klein said in a bored monotone.
“Site 89, eh?” Spenser continued. “Well, we will just have to give this little ol’ town a name by the time we’re through! But I’m getting ahead of myself. We’re gonna need some help setting up recording equipment. Anyone want to volunteer, take a step forward.” For a solid minute, no man stepped forward. Then Cashman turned on his withering glare again, and one man stepped forward first. It was Mark Hyams, a tall, blond, blue-eyed man who was one of Cashman’s new crew. “Sure, I’ll do it,” Hyams said, his face twisted into a smile even more awkward than Spenser’s. Four additional men from Cashman’s crew – Harris, Aleksandrov, Byrne, and Guzman – stepped forward to volunteer for Spenser’s request. No one else came forward, much to the chagrin of Cashman, who wanted the introduction over with as quickly as possible. Cashman deci
ded to vent his frustration on the man who had become his favorite target. “Klein will be your sixth worker from my team. That should be enough to help get you set up.” Klein sighed at the task that awaited him, knowing that on a deep psychological level, his mind was better suited to handling the sudden adrenaline rush of a Local attack than the boring physical grind of moving heavy equipment around.
Klein had been setting up the filming equipment over the course of the morning and the afternoon. During this time, he had come to know the personality of Spenser Eckhart quite well. Spenser always went out of his way to seem like a folksy, relaxed “good ol’ boy,” but his affected performance did a poor job of disguising his true nature. The man was a slave driver who could put even Cashman to shame -- he made his crew work continuously through the blazing heat of the Domremy afternoon with no lunch break, and would obsessively focus on the smallest, most irrelevant details of the filming equipment’s condition. Klein winced at the fate of Aleksandrov today, who had been chewed out for 10 minutes for the unforgiveable sin of scuffing the paint on the bottom of one of the “tower cameras,” stationary cameras mounted on a tripod that could swivel around on remote control and offer a panoramic view of the town. The man’s one redeeming feature was that he was not a hypocrite—absolutely no one was safe from Spenser’s incredible drive, not even Spenser himself, who had not taken a second to eat or relax during the installation of the filming equipment. This knowledge offered little comfort to Klein, whose previously injured leg had begun to feel strained once more after carrying a particularly heavy tripod into the center of town. Klein could hear Spenser going off on another tirade to one of the workers, and the anger he had accumulated over the course of the morning and afternoon finally overwhelmed his patience. I’ve had it with this sawed-off little asshole of a film director coming down to this planet and treating us like shit, he thought as he walked in the direction of the noise. If I pull this off right, I might even get something of benefit out of this…
Life Sentence (Forlani Saga Book 1) Page 7