by Mark Wandrey
As he got over the surprise, he found he liked the way the colony had evolved over the years. In particular, he liked the food. Valais was evolving a sort of Spanish seasoning style; lacking large crops of vegetables, they tended to garnish fish with…more fish. Refreshing after Earth, where meat was rare, and more often than not, fake.
He also liked the way the city was laid out. Following a theme, he thought, it felt a little like a Spanish villa with meandering streets and most buildings only three or four stories tall. The starport sensors and security towers were all taller, of course. As the city moved from semi-industrial, it wrapped around the mountain to the north. When you were in the center of town, the starport was up against the volcano’s cinder cone.
The street lights came on, and he realized he’d better be thinking about a place to stay, so Murdock took out his slate and accessed the planet’s AetherNet. He liked what he saw immediately. “Hell of a lot better than the barracks last time I was here,” he said. He indexed his location against available lodging and found a place just a few blocks away for another five credits, which included breakfast. “I’ll find some work in the morning,” he decided and reserved the room.
One of the planet’s moon was becoming visible as the sky darkened. Just like he remembered, it was a rich, blood red from the system’s sun. Yeah, I can live here, he thought as he lit the stub of a cigar and puffed contentedly.
“Stop those sons of bitches!”
Murdock turned toward the yell and saw several people running down an alley toward him. Further back, a pair of women were in pursuit. He stepped into the center of the alley.
“Move it, asshole,” the man in the lead snarled as he approached. Murdock took a half a step back and to the side. The guy grinned and bolted for the opening. He had just enough time to look surprised before Murdock clotheslined him with a forearm. The dude slammed to the ground, his head smashing against the pavement with a satisfying whump.
The second man cursed and threw a roundhouse punch at Murdock’s face. Murdock exhaled smoke at the man as he easily ducked under the clumsy swing. The man backed away in confusion at the cloud of noxious smoke, and Murdock brought his right up into the man’s crotch, grabbed a handful of junk, and squeezed. The guy screamed and folded like a bad poker hand. Murdock came around with a hammer blow to the back of his head, ending the fight.
The two women who’d been chasing the men skidded to a stop. Both looked at their quarry, then at Murdock, who was chewing the stub of his cigar, a curl of smoke rising from it, and brushing dust off his pants. He hadn’t put his duffle down. They couldn’t seem to decide if he was a threat and were further mystified by the cigar.
He put his hands up, palms toward them. “I’m a good guy,” he said, “just thought you could use some help. You did yell for help.” The older of the two women came close and looked down at the two unconscious men.
“I kinda hoped someone would stop them, not murder them,” she said, shaking her head.
“They’ll live,” Murdock said. The younger girl stared at his cigar, her eyes getting big when he exhaled some smoke.
“What is he doing?” she asked the older woman.
“Smoking,” she said, obviously amused. A crowd of locals was quickly forming, and a pair of men were running toward the commotion from a block away. Their mannerisms had “cop” written all over them.
“I better go,” he said.
“Wait,” the younger woman said. “Mom, he can help.”
“Help?” the older woman said. “How can he help? He kicked those guys’ asses in two seconds.”
“Exactly!” the younger woman said.
“What’s going on here?” the first cop to arrive asked. He took in the scene; the unconscious men, Murdock, the unconscious men, the women, the unconscious men, Murdock. “Holy shit, who beat those two up?” He looked back at Murdock, who puffed a small cloud of smoke. The man’s eyes got wider. “You do that?”
Murdock considered his options. If this had been Earth, he could thump the cops and just disappear. On a little colony like Valais, it probably wasn’t as easy. He didn’t have enough credits to jump on a ship and take off, either. The other cop showed up and took the scene in. Murdock sighed. “Yep.”
“He’s not local,” the new cop said, equally amazed by the unconscious thugs and the cigar.
No shit? Murdock thought. He decided the stogie was one too many distractions and put it away.
“We better arrest him while we figure this out,” the first cop said. Murdock immediately thought of the customs people. Oh, this was going to go great.
“He works for me,” the older woman blurted.
The cops looked at her in amazement. “Are you serious, Miss Dresdin?” the older cop asked. “This guy can’t have been here for more than a day.”
“Probably just came off the Columbus,” the younger cop said.
“I’m saying he works for me,” she said, her voice firming up. “I hired him earlier today. I pay him…” her eyes darted around as she thought.
“Fifty credits a day,” Murdock said. She looked like she’d been gut-punched. After a second, she nodded her head. The younger woman, her daughter, grinned.
“Fifty credits a day?” the older cop said incredulously. “For what?”
“Doing what you can’t do,” Murdock said, and kicked one of the men still lying on the ground. The man grunted feebly.
“You watch your mouth,” the younger cop snapped.
“That’s what I said to your mom when she was blowing me last night.” The kid spluttered and turned red, then took a step toward Murdock. The older cop grabbed him by the back of his uniform jacket.
“Calm down, Neil,” he said. “That dude would probably fold you up and mail you to Earth. Miss Dresdin, you sure about this?”
“Very,” she said, though her voice betrayed less than certainty.
“Do you want to press charges against these two?”
“Yes,” she said, “they poured sulfur all over two bins of prime scallops.” She took out a computer chip and held it out to him. “Here’s the camera footage.” A ground car marked “Atlantis Sheriff” pulled up and several more cops got out.
“Very well.” He looked at Murdock. “And you better make sure to file the employment record first thing tomorrow morning, or I’ll think you were lying to me.” Her face turned bright red and she nodded. One of the other cops who’d just arrived came over, and he gestured from him to the lady. “This officer is going to take your statement and help you swear out a warrant on these two for vandalism.”
“Vandalism?” she blurted. “They were trying to ruin my business.”
“That’s the best you can hope for. The magistrate can’t ignore direct evidence. If you try for something like sabotage, I guarantee the whole thing will disappear.”
“Fine,” she said, and started explaining what had happened from her point of view. Murdock improvised when it was his turn. The two men showed up and, while she was distracted with a customer, ruined the shipment of seafood and ran. Murdock said he’d just gotten off work and happened to still be in the area.
“They both took a swing at me, so I leveled them.”
“I’ve seen these guys around,” the cop taking the statement said. “Imported muscle. You took them both out single handed?”
“I used both hands,” he said, and winked. The cop laughed. “When that one wakes up, buy him a bag of ice for his rocks and tell him no hard feelings?”
An hour later, he was following the two women down the alley, where he finally got a look at the business he was working for. His new employer, Miss Dresdin, spun on him once she was sure they were alone.
“Fifty credits a day?” she snapped and pointed a finger at his face. “Are you crazy? The two guys I’ve been paying get five credits a day each!” She was at least forty centimeters shorter than him, but she dressed him down like a drill sergeant. He’d have been lying if he said he wasn’t turned on by her
. Lean, well built in all the right places, with medium-length blonde hair. Quite a woman.
“Where were they when those punks ruined your merchandise?”
“Playing cards in the stockroom,” the younger Dresdin said.
“Shannon, you stay out of this.”
“Mom, you said yourself you were afraid they were working for The Front all along!”
“The Front?” Murdock asked.
“The ones trying to destroy the fishing industry,” Miss Dresdin said.
“And our business,” Shannon said, and pointed to their sign. “Shell Game Seafood,” the sign said. Murdock grinned, nice name.
“Let me guess,” he said. “The current government tacitly approves?”
“More like looks the other way,” Shannon said.
“Tell you what,” he said to the mother. “Fire those two assholes, and you pay me twenty-five credits a day for the week.” She scowled. “If I don’t solve your little problem by the end of the week, I’ll just take ten credits a day and give the rest back.” She snorted, then looked back down the alley. A medic van was parked there, and medics were working to revive Murdock’s victims.
“Twenty a day, and I’ll throw in all the seafood you can eat. I have a partnership with a restaurant down the alley.”
“You might regret that five credits, but sure.”
“That’s reasonable,” she said. “What happened to the fifty a week?”
He looked around the alley, which was crowded with small wholesalers and businesses catering to the fishing industry, just like hers. “Oh, I think I can make a little side money.”
“That sounds fair,” Shannon said. “Right, Mom?”
“It’s worth the risk,” the mother agreed. “I never did hear your name.”
“Call me Murdock. And you?”
“Sheela Dresdin.”
“Pleasure is all mine,” he said. She smiled at him for the first time. Yeah, real pretty. “See you at 6:00 a.m. tomorrow, Murdock.”
“Count on it,” he said, and headed up the alley. The one whose nuts he’d crushed was conscious as Murdock was walking by. He pointed at the older merc.
“You’re going to regret this,” he said, then groaned.
“Oh?” Murdock asked. He stopped and looked at the other guy, whom the medics were still trying to evaluate. They were about to try nanites. “When you get back to your bosses, tell them to send more assholes next time. I need the exercise.” Then he turned and walked away. The cops watched without comment. Yeah, Murdock thought as he walked toward the room he’d booked, I think I just might like this place.
* * * * *
Chapter Six
Murdock woke to the call of seagulls and the smell of cooking eggs. He rolled out of the sack, pulled on the last of his clean clothes, and went down the stairs. The room he’d rented via his slate had turned out to be with an older couple who were leasing out rooms as more of a bed and breakfast. They’d been surprised to see the huge, surly merc show up at their door well after dark, but had still showed him to the room and bid him a good night.
After a week on the good ship ECS Columbus, in low gravity and basically hot-bunking with four other stinky colonists, the bed in a decent-sized and immaculately clean room brought to mind of his last hospital visit. He was a little surprised not to wake up to the smell of antiseptic instead of eggs and toast.
“Good morning, Mr. Murdock,” the wife said as he emerged from the stairs.
“Murdock is fine,” he said as he looked around the kitchen. A number of plates and bowls laden with various steaming dishes waited for him. “Am I early?”
“Early?” the elderly matron asked and laughed. “No, Mr. Murdock, everyone else was up and gone over an hour ago. I saved some food just for you.”
“Really?” he asked in amazement. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“Don’t think nothin’ of it,” she said and pulled a chair out for him.
Living most of his life on Earth and around mercs had left him completely unprepared for this level of generosity. He sat. She put a plate in front of him, a set of utensils, and told him to enjoy. Then she was off into the kitchen. Murdock did what any lifelong soldier would do when faced with a heavily-laden table of homemade food. He dug in with vigor.
Somewhere between the second and third helpings, she stuck her head in and disappeared, to come out a minute later with another plate of biscuits. He mumbled something about it not being necessary, and she waved away his concerns. Possibly because his mouth was so stuffed with crab cakes she didn’t understand.
“Enjoying Margaret’s cooking?” He looked up from finishing off the eggs to see the husband standing there.
“I didn’t get your names,” Murdock said and held out a hand.
“Jerry Sharp,” the man said, taking the offered hand. His grip was iron hard and heavily calloused. He wore coveralls and smelled of the sea. “Wife’s Margaret, been married just now forty years. We met on the transport coming here aboard the Columbus.”
“No shit,” Murdock said and laughed. “That’s the tub I came in on. My name is Murdock.”
“Just Murdock, huh?”
“I prefer it.”
Jerry shrugged. “No surprise Columbus brought you here,” Jerry said and poured himself a cup of tea. “Valais has been on Columbus’ route since she was commissioned. The captain is the son of the man who took us, of course. His father and most of the crew died in a reactor incident, going on ten years ago.”
“Those tubs are safer than the kiddie pool,” Murdock said. “Reactor incident?”
“Yeah,” Jerry said, his face darkening.
“Something tells me there’s more to the story.”
“Nothing that would interest you,” he said, clamming up.
“Why would you think that?”
“You’re a merc,” Jerry said, pointing at Murdock with his steaming tea cup. “I would have been too, but my VOWs sucked; decent physicals, shit paper tests.” Murdock grunted. He’d had stellar physicals, and good mental tests. “You guys are just here to cash in on the carnage.”
“Some things aren’t like they appear,” Murdock said and got himself some tea too. There was still some porridge and biscuits. He eyed them for a second, then decided he’d better leave a little space. So he just filled a mug with deep, dark tea and casually introduced it to the creamer. “I’m retired.”
“Retired?” Jerry said, skepticism all over his face.
Murdock leaned on the counter and sipped the tea. Tasted Indian, unless he missed his guess.
“You guys make millions.” Jerry said, “Why would you retire?”
Murdock took another pull off the tea, shrugged, and told him.
“Holy cow,” Jerry said after the story was over. Murdock checked his watch and nodded. He had half an hour still. “And you just decided Valais was a good place to retire?”
“I’ll tell you something nobody else here knows,” Murdock said. Jerry looked curious. “I was here twenty-nine years ago as part of Triple T.” Jerry looked genuinely surprised.
“You’d have to be darned near as old as I am,” he said.
“Oh, probably older. After that was over, we got to enjoy your planet. I never forgot how nice it was. Always liked the ocean.”
“We have plenty of that,” Jerry quipped.
“Fine by me. Anyway, I said after it was over I’d come back here and retire. I realize now, it probably wasn’t over, was it? Twenty-nine years ago you folks were just getting ramped up on bringing Earth life here. You’d brought stuff like crabs, cod, and other critters like that before?”
“Kinda like that,” Jerry said with an odd expression.
“Twenty-nine years ago, you were bringing in the first whales and shit. Nothing wrong with that. The Union doesn’t give two fucks what you do with your world, as long as you don’t fuck it up. The Science Guild has files on how to pick stuff from your planet to introduce. You guys were helping this planet, if I re
member. It lacked diversity, and the stuff you brought in went wild.”
“Very much so,” Jerry agreed. “We had a few extinctions, then many other native flora and fauna flourished. The fish we named a Kraken is an example of one that flourished. Some natural, or unnatural in this case, selection really helps biological diversity. Without it, many species just stop evolving. The red star here doesn’t give out enough radiation, so natural mutations are rare.” Murdock nodded and finished his tea.
“Only the Earth government wasn’t too damned thrilled with you guys, was it? The problem was, they couldn’t stop you from getting animals. You had allies on Earth, some in governments that weren’t signatories to the Articles of Union. But you also had enemies. An environmental group pressured the government there into hiring mercs to come here and stop you. Seems they liked conservation only as long as it stayed on Earth. Figured you were meddlin’, or something.”
“It wasn’t ‘proper’ for us to be moving species to alien worlds,” Jerry said, as if he were reading from a book. “‘The combination of alienating said species from their natural biomes and damaging the alien biosphere is unconscionable.’”
“Blah, blah, blah,” Murdock said, and Jerry smiled back.
“What’s better?” Jerry asked. “Save a species by the best means available, or allow them to go extinct? Valais is perfect for this sort of project. It will never have as large a population of Humans as Earth, not by a fraction. Even if we keep building floating towns at an ever-increasing rate, it would take a thousand years to get a hundred million people here. Union tech is clean, so little pollution. Add to it that the planet isn’t suitable for massive-scale agriculture, and it’s practically a planet-sized preserve.”
“Won’t hear me disagreeing,” Murdock said. “Besides, if the Union don’t care, we probably shouldn’t. I remember reading this planet had been settled several times before, and probably none of the critters here were native anyway.”
“A few were,” Jerry said, then shrugged. “We’re doing some research on the fossil records; it’s a slow-going process. Not easy doing it 5,000 meters down.”