I heard her ask the Captain this morning: “Are you totally against living in New Jersey?” And him, the coward: “I’ve not really made up my mind …” Cue nagging, sobbing, and the Captain stomping off the bridge in a huff.
As for me, I’m getting out of this life. I’ve had enough. I’m going to find myself an uninhabited planet in the Perseus arm. I’ve made up my mind. I just haven’t worked out how to tell the Captain yet.
I slide lower into the pilot’s couch. On the viewscreen in front of me, the Interstellar Railroad races away under the Hellraiser’s nose at three lightyears per hour. It looks like a ghostly ladder stretching into the utter blackness of folded space. When you’re sitting here for hours, your eyes play tricks on you—is it stretching up, or down, or straight ahead? The answer is none of the above, because the Railroad is beyond human comprehension. Scientists think it connects all the habitable planets in the Milky Way, but that’s really just a guess. We’ve been using it for forty years, and we still haven’t a clue where it came from or how it works. We don’t even know where it goes, mostly.
“Look what I found,” the Captain says. He makes a sound I hardly recognize, I’ve not heard it in so long. He’s laughing. Holding up an iPad. “Feck Off With You: Butterfly-Zilla, An Epic Poem. Fletch, did you write this?”
“Guilty,” I say.
It’s my version of crying into my tea.
“Listen!” the Captain declaims,
“We of the Skint Idjit, in the year of 2066,
hearing that others had found A-tech treasures
through dumb luck, journeyed forth with high hopes
along the unexplored Beta Aurigae Spur.
Often our Captain, Donal the Dimwit,
gave orders to the crew which we ignored,
saying, ‘Feck off with you. We shall get rich
whether or not we play blackjack on the bridge
and eat raw cookie dough out of the freezer.’
He then sought recompense for that …”
“Did you really write that, Fletch?” Harriet says.
“It’s brilliant!” Donal says, chortling as he skims the rest of the poem.
“Someone’s read Beowulf,” says Gordon from his corner.
“I was just bored,” I say.
“No, but this is brilliant.” Donal laughs out loud and starts quoting the bit where I tried to disguise the Butterfly-zillas as the bodies of our lost scouts—not my finest hour.
With relief I spot something new on the viewscreen. In the distance, the Railroad widens and splits into a tangled cloverleaf arrangement.
“We’re here!” I shout to Gordon. He raises a hand in acknowledgement. “Everyone strap in!”
I steer into the junction, narrowly missing a Boeing X-700. The Arcadia junction is one of the most heavily trafficked in the galaxy. It’s only two stops from Earth, and spurs of the Railroad fork off from here to every bleeding place. I shoot the Boeing a noseful of graywater from the Hellraiser’s toilets, which is the Interstellar Railroad equivalent of a middle finger. My spirits are lifting already.
Through the junction, we zoom onto the local loop, the section of the Railroad that encircles Arcadia. At a nod from Gordon, I hurl the Hellraiser off into orbital space. There’s a violent jolt before the inertial dampeners kick in. Harriet’s tea mug flies off the arm of her couch, and the treecats yowl.
A solid layer of yellow-gray cloud wraps Arcadia, as always. We tear through the clouds and glide down to the surface, which is bare rock, scoured by some long-forgotten alien war. The spaceport is the place where all the spaceships are standing around, colorful dots on the granite plain.
“Nice flying,” says Gordon to me when we’ve safely landed.
“I’m especially proud of my hand signals,” I say, giving as good as I get.
Gordon F. Poole, to give him his full appellation, is our stacker—the guy who operates the ship. He’s seventy-eight, dapper, and sarcastic. We borrowed him from my uncle Finian after the loss of the Skint Idjit. I don’t actually dislike him, it’s his music I can’t stand. I have had 20th-century rock ‘n’ roll droning in my ears for the last three weeks.
It’s blissfully quiet down here, despite the rumble of spaceships taking off and landing in the distance. Gordon and I are standing under the Hellraiser’s nose, wearing rain ponchos and breathing masks because the air on Arcadia is shite. Acid rain drips off the cowling of the sensor blisters overhead. The Captain prowls around, inspecting the landing gear and the chain dogs. Harriet watches miserably from the airlock steps.
“I’m just going into Tretyakovsky,” I shout to the Captain. “Is there anything we need?”
He hurries over and launches into a shopping list. It starts with black paint and ends with, “Ah, never mind, I’ll go in myself. Just pick up some lager and crisps! We’ll catch up on the footie. I’ve downloaded last week’s Galway United match, it looks like a grand game.”
Now I feel like shite.
“Going to see Finian, are you?” Gordon says when the Captain is out of earshot.
How did he guess? His IQ starts with a 2, that’s how.
“Yeah, I thought I’d drop by if I can track him down. You coming?”
“I think I’ll stay and advise Donal. He may need it if he’s going to DON’T TOUCH THAT!”
Gordon can move quite fast for a gent of his years.
I trudge off into the drizzle. It’s a long walk to the nearest terminal—independents always get the worst parking spaces. Half an hour later, my throat is itching and I’ve got a coronet of burns on my forehead where the rain always gets in around your mask. I squelch into the terminal and plod down a long, long flight of alien stairs.
Arcadia is riddled with underground bunkers, formerly Aladdin’s caves of A-tech. That was forty years ago. Now the A-tech has all been claimed, patented, and reverse-engineered, and the bunkers are home to hundreds of thousands of people who mostly work in the tech and services sectors. I met a woman here last year who’d come out to work for Samsung, and ended up driving a space taxi for the mob. That’s the kind of place this is. And they’ve put the prices of the rent-a-bikes up again. Bloody Russians! They’d charge for breathing if they thought they could get away with it.
By the time I reach Finian’s hotel, I am in a vile mood, not improved by the discovery that he’s staying at the Four Seasons on Reservoir Square. The security guards grab me as I’m about to get on the elevator. I glimpse myself in the mirrors. Dirty Wranglers, dirtier blond hair, those awful acid-burns on my forehead, my expression ugly as I give out to the security guards—I do not look like the sort of person who stays here, indeed.
But neither does Finian and yet here he is, lounging in an alien-built penthouse with twenty-foot ceilings and the telly on full blast. Him and his mates, the crew of the Marauding Elephant, have spread out across the entire top floor of the hotel. They greet me with cheerful cries of “How’s she cuttin’, Fletch?” They’re eating fancy takeaways and swearing at the big screen where Cork City is trouncing Galway United. This must be the same game Donal downloaded. It looks better here than it ever would in the gloomy mess of the Hellraiser. And there are fresh flowers everywhere, and the floor-to-ceiling windows look out over Reservoir Square, where tourists are splashing in the bunker’s de-acidified water supply. My uncle’s had his beard braided, with wee gold elephants on the ends.
I was going to buy my own planet. It wouldn’t have to be a luxury world. I’d settle for a fixer-upper.
Maybe I’ll have enough left for a second-hand world after I split the money with Donal.
“I take it Goldman Sachs paid out,” I say.
“Seven hundred million dollars,” Finian says, watching my face.
I pretend to be unimpressed. “You should have held out for ten figures.”
“They were keen enough,” he says, with his boots up on the sofa, sipping a pint. “So keen they came out from Earth themselves to get the A-tech. In a bleeding Pentagon s
paceship with anti-matter particle cannons. When the CFO of an investment bank offers you a choice between a check and a hole in your hull, you take the check. That’s a pro tip, lad.” His laugh turns into a belch. “Want a pint?”
“Sure.”
The A-tech artefacts Finian is referring to are the ones that destroyed the Skint Idjit. I called them Butterfly-zillas. They looked like Cthulhu in drag, and acted like it too. They’d vampire the energy out of anything, be it human beings, ships, or planets. I’m sure you can see the military applications.
Finian should have held out for eleven figures.
Still, $700 million is not a small sum and, as previously agreed, 40% of it will soon be mine. I was going to keep it all for myself, but I can’t do that to the Captain. He’s my oldest friend. We grew up together in Lisdoonvarna. So I’ll give him half the money—that’ll be $140 million—and he can do whatever he likes with it. I know Harriet wants him to retire from the exploration business. Then I’ll take my half and see what I can get for it in the Perseus arm.
There’s a wet bar in an alcove off the suite. Waitresses wobble to and fro on stiletto heels matching their Playboy Bunny outfits. One of them brings me a pint on a silver tray, and I nearly drop it.
The ‘waitress’ is Jacob Ruby with fake titties, lipstick, and fishnets on his hairy legs.
My uncle pisses himself laughing. “Did youse see his face? Fecking hell, that was priceless.”
“Discovered your inner service worker, Ruby?” I say.
Jacob Ruby was my assistant on the Skint Idjit. Goldman Sachs, who funded our expedition on the Beta Aurigae spur, planted him on us to protect their investment. He’s a stacker. I handed him over to Finian at the same time as I gave my uncle a bag full of Butterfly-zillas to sell for me.
The deal was that Ruby would make sure GS coughed up a fair price for the Butterfly-zillas. It obviously worked, so I’m surprised Ruby hasn’t gone running back to his cubicle. He must have liked it on the Marauding Elephant, after all.
“I’m transitioning,” he says with dignity.
Jesus, was it that bad?
“I thought he deserved his share,” Finian says, watching Ruby’s fake buttocks wiggle away. For a second I wonder if my uncle is riding that. The image is so horrible I reject it immediately, but I’m sure the force of Finian’s personality is to blame in some way for Ruby’s strange—and expensive—decision.
“Just as long as his share’s not coming out of my share,” I say.
Finian meets my eyes steadily. “I’m not giving you any of the money, Fletch.”
I knew it, I knew it. This is why I’ve been in such a shite mood. Some part of my brain knew he was going to stiff me out of my share.
“Got any particular reason for being a lying, cheating gobshite today? Or is this just another day in Finian-land?” I manage to keep my voice from shaking.
“You’ll not talk to me that way.” His blue eyes go paler, like quartz. “You can be a man about it or the lads can throw you out. Your choice.”
“We had an agreement.”
“I promised to give you forty percent. And I did.”
He gestures to my belt, where my hand has come to rest on the hilt of my lightsaber. This is not some toy out of a Star Wars movie. It’s a genuine A-tech weapon. I picked it up on the Draco spur twenty years ago, when I was working for Finian.
“I gave you that, didn’t I?” he says.
“Did you feck. I stole it off you.” Hearing these words come out of my mouth, I wince. I’ve been denying I stole it off him for decades and now he’s tricked me into admitting it.
“You stole it off me,” he repeats, amusement creeping into his eyes, “and I let you keep it.”
He swings his boots off the sofa and reaches one huge wrinkly hand inside his denim jacket. His own lightsaber pops into his hand. With the beam switched off, it looks like a ten-inch baton, decorated with swirly alien runes. A detachable powerpack swings down like a stock. It’s the twin of mine.
“This,” says Finian, “is worth at least two-fifty mil. There are only six of them in the universe and I personally know fellas who’d pay more than that to have one of their own. So if you want ready cash, you can sell yours. I’ll put you onto a buyer.”
I look around at the auld fellas. They are earwigging like mad. I decide not to provide them with any more free entertainment. “Thanks for the tip, Uncle, I’ll let you know if I’m interested.” I set down my half-drunk pint and start for the door.
“Did Donal come back with you?” Finian calls after me.
“He did.”
“Tell him to give me a bell if he wants someone to take that old F-99 off his hands.”
“Are you buying ships now?”
He guffaws. “Of course I am. What else do you think an old pirate like me would spend three-quarters of a billion dollars on? I’m equipping a whole, ahem, exploration fleet. Connolly’s Marauders,” he brags.
CHAPTER 2
The Hellraiser’s lights guide me back through the pitch blackness of an Arcadian night. My mind is filled with fantasies of grinding my fist into Finian’s face. I am not a violent man. My preferred method of dealing with danger is to pop into the jacks and wait until it’s gone. But this is something different.
I would prefer a cunning and subtle revenge, all else being equal. But all else isn’t equal. He’s got $700 million and I haven’t.
The yellow LEDs on the Hellraiser’s undercarriage shine down on anti-grav gliders heaped with DIY supplies. Donal must have bought that lot on credit. I happen to know he’s got exactly twice as much ready cash as I do: $127. All his capital was tied up in the Skint Idjit.
He’s standing by the stairs, talking to a couple of fellas in full-body breathing masks. I am about to slide past them without a word when the smell of clove vapor alerts me to Gordon’s presence.
The old stacker pulls me into the shadows behind the landing gear. “Those men are from Goldman Sachs.”
“Bollocks.”
But now I see they’re talking at Donal, not to him. He just stands there nodding and shaking his head.
“They want him to refund their investment in the Skint Idjit.”
“They can’t do that, can they?”
“I used to work for Barclays, Fletch. Believe me: they can.”
“Well, they can whistle for it. The Idjit’s gone. They can take a trip out the Beta Aurigae spur and see for themselves.”
“That’s the point. The ship’s gone; so are their chances of getting a return on their investment.”
“Then they can wait for the insurance to pay out.”
“The insurance isn’t going to pay out.”
“Oh, bloody … It’s a con game, isn’t it? The system’s rigged. They’re all in it together to squeeze the little guys dry. Blood from a fecking stone in our case. Good luck to them.”
“That’s your near-total ignorance of finance speaking,” Gordon says crisply. “I am not defending the morality of the system. I’m just telling it like it is. Donal owes those gentlemen fifty million dollars, yesterday.” The LED of his e-cig glows behind his breathing mask. He’s got this gizmo which holds the e-cig near his mouth, so he can vape without taking his mask off. I can smell it even through my own mask. “But that’s all right, isn’t it?” he says. “You’ll be able to advance him the requisite sum.”
“What’re you talking about?”
“Those hideous A-tech weapons. I know you gave them to Finian, and you’d hardly have done that without expectation of reward.” Gordon laughs dryly.
I don’t deny it. I don’t have to. “He’s given me feck all reward.”
“Are you serious?”
“Serious as a heart attack.”
I go and fetch the other lads out of the ship. The Goldman Sachs reps beat a retreat shortly after that. With wankers like those, you’ve not got to even clear your throat in their direction. Loitering at them will do the trick. But they’ve still got all the po
wer, including the power to bankrupt us. I personally wouldn’t notice the difference. It’s our other backers who’d feel it. Our families and friends, who took a punt on the Skint Idjit and have already lost that, but it could get worse …
“My dad persuaded half of County Clare to invest in us,” Donal moans, head in his hands. “The bastards’ll take their cars, their houses …”
“My parents could lose their house,” cries Harriet.
I stay silent. My family did not invest a penny in the Idjit. My dad explained at the time that he was damned if he’d pay for me to follow in Finian’s footsteps.
Kenneth, sole survivor of the Hellraiser’s original crew, has nothing at stake. But Vanessa has an apartment in Seattle that she doesn’t want to lose, and the South Africans all have kids in private school or extended polygamous families of three hundred to support, or some bloody thing, I don’t know, Jesus, I don’t know how people get themselves so entangled with others.
“We’ll just have to sell the Hellraiser,” Harriet says with finality.
That’s her mistake. That tone of finality. And the hint of a smile. It reminds us that this is what she has wanted all along.
“No,” Donal says.
He stands up. Puts on his breathing mask. Then his poncho.
We all watch him leave the bridge. He walks with such a heavy tread it sounds like he’s still wearing that exoskeleton, the one he nearly got killed in.
Harriet sobs. The others all look at me expectantly.
I grind my teeth and go after him.
“Donal! Donal! Where are you, you idjit?”
Back outside. It’s a still, perfectly black night. Thanks to Arcadia’s permanent cloud cover, there are no stars, only the pilot lights of other spaceships in the distance. At least it’s not raining anymore.
The COMPLETE Reluctant Adventures of Fletcher Connolly on the Interstellar Railroad: A Comedic Sci-Fi Adventure Page 10