“For someone who purports to be antireligious, you sure pepper your speech with a number of religious undertones.” His friend smiled, flashing his pearly white teeth.
“If you’re here for lunch, piss off. I’m not going to feed you,” Blinn hissed under his breath. “Open door,” Blinn spoke with a much clearer voice.
“I’m not here to eat your food. I’m happy with what I receive from the dispensary. It knows my dietary needs and keeps me healthy. I can’t say the same for you and your diet.”
“Who are you to lecture me about diet? You know as well as I do the station puts crap inside the food to keep the population docile. That’s why we haven’t any religious fighting here. I am not going to let them experiment on me.”
Moving deeper into Blinn’s little apartment, his friend continued, “You know you sound a little crazy when you talk like that.”
Blinn moved quickly to inspect the large tank covering the back wall of his apartment. Filled with bright blue liquid, its sole inhabitant was currently invisible.
“Did your pet escape?”
“That’s impossible. She’s in there. It’s just hard to see her blue skin in the blue fluid.”
“You know I’m not 100% sure your current diet is very healthy.”
Blinn moved closer to his friend, confronting him face-to-face. “Don’t you tell me how to live my life. I’ll eat whatever the hell I want.”
From the back of the apartment, Blinn heard a distinctively female voice. “Who are you talking to?”
Blinn turned to witness a mass of blue tentacles working their way through the cage top of the aquarium. “That’s none of your business. I’ll take care of you in a minute.”
Blinn continued his 360° spin, passing a mirror and realizing he was alone in the room. He recognized himself, his human-self for the first time. “I don’t care who or what you think you are, I’m going to eat what I want to eat.”
“Can’t you understand eating its flesh is affecting your mind and your body? It’s not normal for humans to be blue. You’re blaming your implant for your insanity. I say it's your diet!”
“Shut the hell up! You don’t know what you’re talking about.” Blinn moved to the kitchen area of his small living space. It was easy to see some time had passed since the multiple layers of blue fluid were scrubbed from the wall.
More tentacles attempted to push open the barred door on top of the aquarium. Full tentacles were being assisted by amputated limbs in different stages of healing.
Blinn marched towards the back wall, ceramic chef’s knife in hand. “No one is going to tell me what I can eat!”
Blinn’s human form left before the grisly ritual began.
Knowing what was coming, writhing, attempting to break free of the cage, the tentacles flailed about, reaching for any surface to find a grip on.
“Please stop, please let me go. I won’t tell anyone what you’ve done. You’re killing me! You’re a MONSTER!” the female voice screamed in Blinn’s head.
“Shut up. Nobody is going to tell me what I can’t eat,” he said as he closed the distance with knife in hand, ready to strike.
Troubadour
The old man sat in the back-corner booth of the weakly lit dispersion unit. Smoke, both legal and illegal, clouded the view of him as he sat in the corner sipping a glass half full of amber liquid. A young man walked up to the table, his hat in hand, and looked at the old man’s face, hidden by dark glasses and the wide brim fedora.
“Excuse me, sir, but are you the man this establishment is named after? The Troubadour?” the young man asked with a shaky voice.
“Now that is a right interesting question. Why don’t you sit for a spell, and I might be able to answer it in an equally interesting way?” The old man looked up through his sunglasses, a single gold tooth shining back from his otherwise perfectly white teeth.
“Thank you, sir. I think it would be an honor if I could hear your story.” The young man slid into the booth, keeping an eye on the old man as he spoke. He swiftly pulled out a notepad and a couple of pencils, placing them on the table. “Do you mind if I take notes? I think there are more than a few people who would be interested in hearing your story.”
“What the hell? It’s not like most people around here don’t think they know the story anyhow. Maybe I should set the record straight before I get too senile to remember the whole thing.”
The old man took his hat off and set it beside him on the bench seat, his gray curly hair falling over his ears and forehead. He glanced up the bar, motioning for the usual bottle and another glass. The human waiter carried over a silver tray supporting a distinctive rare square bottle with a black and silver label, gave the young man a glass, and filled both to three-quarters full.
“Momma always said, when I popped out of her, instead of bawling like most babies, I hit a perfect C-note. I think from the beginning, I came out destined to go places and see things. You asked if this joint was named after me. Let me tell you, that’s not an easy thing to rightly tell without starting at how I came to the station.”
<=OO=>
Sixty years earlier:
The immigration inspector stood at his podium right inside the airlock from section five hundred’s ten-percent gravity loading docks. Technically, his proxy-unit, more frequently called PU or proxy for short, stood at the podium. The operator lounged on a couch, in the comfort of his own home, somewhere on the station.
Mentally, the operator went over the list of the ships scheduled to dock at the five hundred during his shift. The list presented a standard amount of automated supply ships and other cargo haulers with little chance of anyone passing through immigration until he reached two-thirds of the way down, and he recognized a trader from the Olagarros’ home world.
Few people had actually seen an Olagarro. Some called the race soul suckers or mothers-in-law, just not to their face. The race rarely left their home world, and their trade ships were rumored to carry slaves that they might snack on during the trips.
Of course, the immigration officer never believed such fairy tales, but they were great to scare children with. Strange enough, an Olagarro ship came to dock, but by the manifest, one person was departing the transport. Wouldn’t it be great if I got to see an Olagarro up close?
Most of the work on the docks had become automated. The few sentient creatures working the docks oversaw the mechs. Like the immigration representative, a proxy being operated by someone who might be kilometers away. When the insect-like Olagarro ship finally docked, there was no fanfare, no curious onlookers, only the routine mechs going about the job of unloading the containers from the ship. No one paid attention when the airlock opened for the first time in decades and out walked the creature. His head was covered by a hood, and the rest of his body was bundled against the frost. He had a modest duffle bag slung over his shoulder.
Most space-docks stayed icy due to the fact they connected with the frozen vacuum of space, and it was expensive and difficult to heat space. That was why the only ones working the docks became mechanical or biomechanical. In the long run, it saved money.
Captain Hack dodged his way down the loading dock, following the arrows towards immigration control. He expected a huge line waiting to enter the station, he searched for some sort of queue before he approached the lone immigration officer.
The immigration officer studied the bundled creature as he approached his station. He glanced between the moving target and the computer monitor which showed a printout of his vital signs, all the while checking for any indication of infectious disease, parasites, undeclared modifications, or hidden contraband. The inspector became thoroughly disappointed when the monitor flashed HUMAN next to the race.
“Did you come off that soul-sucker ship?” the immigration officer asked the man as he arrived to offer his credentials.
“If you mean the Olagarro ship that just docked, why then, yes, I did,” Captain Hack replied.
Finding it hard
to believe, the immigration officer double-checked the manifest against the slender human standing before him. “And you lived to tell about it?”
Captain Hack pondered the question—that wasn’t the question the man wanted to ask—before deciding to answer with a straight answer rather than the smartass one he had primed. “That soul-sucker moniker is entirely undeserved. I had nothing but a wonderful time while on the Olagarros’ home world.”
One would think since a proxy is a mechanical representation, certain human expressions would be near impossible to create with one. But that PU stood slack-jawed, trying to comprehend Captain Hack’s answer.
“I know it’s hard to believe, but the Olagarro actually enjoy music and the performing arts. They didn’t want me to leave when I stepped on that transport ship, but the time came for me to move on, more universe to see.”
“Because they would be missing their next meal?”
“No. If you don’t understand a people, maybe you should keep your racist comments to yourself.”
“Very well. Since you’re not ready to answer my questions about the Olagarro, why don’t you tell me the purpose of your visit here at Far Reach Station?”
“I am here to see the universe. I am here to sing the songs of days past, to drink future wines, and to find the honeys each race is willing to offer. I am the liver of lives, the dreamer of dreams, and a singer of songs. I am that person all males wish they could be and all females wish they could be with.”
“It sounds like you’re a bullshit artist.”
“Indeed, a Cretin might come to that conclusion, but I assure you, I am who I am.”
“And your occupation?”
“I am a troubadour, an entertainer, a storyteller, and a story-finder. I find adventure where I can and when I can, an actor and a player, a star and an extra, willing to do whatever I must to find the next great story and spread happiness wherever I go.”
“Ah, you’re a prostitute. You should be able to find work in the lower levels of the five hundred section. It is known for its bars and its more colorful inhabitants. I wish you luck finding work. You are kind of scrawny.” And the immigration officer handed back the passport, the necessary stamps being applied electronically to Captain Hack’s file.
Rather than argue with the petty bureaucrat, Captain Hack took his passport and bowed with a flourish before marching deeper into the station.
<=OO=>
Slipping into more of a history professor’s voice, the old man gave a lesson more than a story. “Sixty years ago, the station was still only sixty some odd Earth years old. In many ways, it was like the old wild west of Earth. People typically had to work for a living here. Life could be cheap, many of the old timers around today that were on the station lived a wild, hard life. The outer ring had just been completed. The rail system was still under construction. The lower levels were the safest from cosmic rays. The station was not all clean and happy like it is now. Today, section five hundred has a rougher reputation than the rest of the station because we are as far away from the Rankins as possible. Back then it was much more... irregular.”
<=OO=>
Captain Hack took the elevator down to the fourth deck, the lowest inhabited floor on the station. It had the most substantial gravity of the living levels, almost Earth standard. The working class lived, loved, and died there. Hack had spent the last few years with the upper levels of Olagarro society. He was ready to head back to his roots, his more primitive roots.
“Excuse me,” Captain Hack asked the first passerby.
He was promptly ignored.
“Excuse me,” Captain Hack tried again in vain. Standing on the busy main hall and trying to ask for directions wouldn’t do him any good. Instead of fighting the current of flowing people, he found the center of the closest intersection. Since there was no vehicular traffic, he only had to worry about creatures running him over. He started to do what he did best.
He activated a unique implant, its sole purpose was to project his illuminated image to everyone in a five-meter radius, basically hacking surrounding ocular implants to put a spotlight on himself. It was every street performer’s dream.
He started to sing, “Ladies and gentlemen, just stand right there and let me tell you a tale that started from this spacer port, aboard this slip of a ship. A tale of a frightful flip of a trip.” He paused singing long enough for the music to catch a few more pedestrians’ attention. “The mate was a mighty spacer man, the Captain competent and daunt… less. Seven passengers set sail that day, for a three-hour jaunt, a three-hour jaunt.”
After grabbing the attention of the local walkers with an opening song, he continued telling his story of the NSS Guppy and its spacewreck on a deserted planet. His implant broadcast music, sound effects, and even slightly altered his voice for the seven different characters directly into the surrounding audience’s ocular and auditory implants.
He continued his tale for thirty Earth minutes, long enough to keep the audience hooked and not let them lose interest. He left them with a cliffhanger, the ingénue literally hanging from a cliff. He finished the performance as the peacekeepers showed up to investigate why the traffic patterns in this section had become snarled. As the audience dispersed, he began to receive merit tips straight into his implant account from the viewers. At least I won’t starve, he thought.
Hack did a slow circle as the flow of pedestrians continued around him, a few hands slapping his back as they passed. A most elegant Prod, a full thirty centimeters shorter than him, stopped his progress. They stood in the crowd inspecting him.
“That was a pretty impressive performance,” hesh said.
“Thank you, though I’ll admit the audience seemed hungry for any sort of entertainment,” Hack said.
“There aren’t many performers on the station. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a human entertainer. Your style is very... unique.”
Hack extended his hand in the typical Earth greeting. “My name is Hack, Captain Hack. I just arrived, and I’m trying to find my bearings.”
The Prod took his hand and held it, unsure what to do with it. “My name is Alliji. The entertainers in this section tend to gather at a little bar down this way, if you are in need of a base.”
Still holding Alliji’s hand, Hack was unsure which greeting was best. Prods can be a tricky race at the best of times. Deciding on caution, Hack continued holding Alliji’s hand, only squeezing a touch as he spoke. “I do need a place to put my bag down, grab a bite and drink, and think about my next steps. If you’re free and wouldn’t mind showing me this bar, that would be great.” He released their hand after he finished talking.
“I’ve nothing planned for today. I can take you over to Eum-Yusin’s,” Alliji said, turning to lead the way down a narrowing side corridor.
Hack’s head was on a swivel as they walked down the ever-narrowing halls. He did his best to record to memory every sight, sound, and smell. Never sure when he might be able to use a memory in a song or a tale, he was incessantly on the lookout for new experiences to catalog, and Far Reach Station was lousy with new experiences.
While they strolled, Hack couldn’t help but think about everything he knew about the Prods. As a race, he would call them beautiful creatures: skin so black it almost looked blue, their hair ran from snow white to pure silver. Symmetrical humanoids: two arms, two legs, two eyes, nearly human looking. Most had high cheekbones, bright silver eyes, and turned many a head. By most standards of measuring beauty, they were a beautiful race, but there was one small drawback. They were one of the few species Hack knew of that were asexual... or bisexual. The race as a whole would change sex depending on the hormones present during courtship. So, from one day to the next, a person was never sure if they were addressing a male or a female Prod, which might lead to some embarrassing if not downright prickly situations. They even had a third pronoun to be used when a person wasn’t sure of the sex, or they were between the change… hesh. To make life even harder
, the race was female dominant, a matriarchy, not as militant or sexist about it as the Saravipian traders, but the females of the Prod species were definitely the more powerful.
“Here we are. It isn’t much, but this is where most of the entertainers meet and perform when we’re not working the streets,” Alliji said, stopping in front of a ramshackle plasticine and aluminum structure.
Hack had been lost in thought, thinking about his limited experience with the Prods, when he found himself on the cramped side corridor. Two-thirds narrower than it should be due to three stories of makeshift buildings leaning dangerously over the walkway. He was shocked when he realized the usual ten-meter-wide passage had been narrowed down to three meters by the tall shanties. The regular thirty-five-meter-high halls had been shrunk to four meters, living space stacked over his head. Hack became afraid to even consider how many people lived over him and the shoddy construction bearing their weight in this ghetto. He wanted to go back to his humble beginnings, but he’d forgotten how the other half truly lived.
“This is great. I love how much work has gone into the place.” Hack used his best acting techniques to lie through his teeth.
Alliji pushed open the never-locked swinging door. Hack followed and was instantly assaulted with the noxious fumes of body odor, multiple types of smoke, alien spices from untold dishes, and the pervasive perfume of alcohol.
Most humans would’ve been knocked back into the alley, but Hack took a deep breath, analyzing each distinct aroma as it assaulted his olfactory nerves. “This place emits an outstanding vibe. I love it here,” was all Hack said as he continued to breathe in the atmosphere flowing over him.
“I’m glad you approve. It’s the best we can do.”
“What did you call the place again?” Hack asked as he stepped deeper into the dimly lit space. He counted a few tables, with flickering electronic candles as centerpieces. He’d never seen an Earth twentieth-century dive bar, but he’d read about them, and this was the image he had.
Humble Beginnings Page 4