by Jaxon Reed
“Let me round everybody up, and we’ll figure it all out. You two come back in half an hour.”
-+-
There was no way to escape, even if I wanted to. Near as I could tell, there was no way down to the ground without using a synthetic bird or PHUs or QCs. Or something. I asked Connie about it.
“Mainly we get around with the birds, if anyone needs to leave the station. But nobody goes too far. Sometimes the Rangers make a trip to Redwood City and back. We do have some personal helicopter units people use to go short distances through the trees.”
I nodded, making a mental note to try and find out where they kept their PHUs in case I needed to make a getaway.
But as I thought more about it, my stomach sank deeper. Even if I did escape, where would I go? Near as I could figure, Kalinowski was at least a hundred miles away. Redwood City was over a thousand. Maybe I could strike out on my own and hole up in an experiment station somewhere. The thought of being completely alone depressed me, though.
Connie didn’t notice, she was busy pointing out the sights. She hadn’t stopped talking since we left the Professor.
“This is our house. I live here with my parents and Dee Dee. Hey, Dee Dee!”
A girl’s head popped out of a window. Her eyes grew wide when she saw me.
“Who is that?”
“Come down here, and you can meet him.”
She came out a minute later, and I was struck by her beauty. Jet black hair. Light skin. Her eyes were flecked with several colors, but green seemed dominate. She stretched out her hand to shake mine.
“Diane Fremont.”
“Marcus Savitch.”
Her hand was cool to the touch. Mine was hot and sweaty.
“Do you, uh . . . do you live here too?”
“Yes she does,” Connie said. “We’re sisters!”
Dee Dee smiled, her cheeks dimpling. “Well, I’m sort of adopted. I was smuggled out of New Texas when I was three. The Cruzes took me in and raised me.”
Curiouser and curiouser, I thought. Professors and their families living out here alongside Rangers? Smuggled babies from New Texas? Surely none of this is allowed, is it?
About this time, a house cat strolled out the door. It was a big one. Black with white feet, and a white-tipped tail.
“Mr. Fluffy!” Connie reached down and scooped him up.
“Come on, Dee Dee. Help me show him the rest of the station.”
-+-
We saw only a handful of other people as we walked around. They mostly waved and went back to what they were doing, or headed toward the large building in the center. A few were interested enough in a fresh face to come over and meet me.
I made a comment on the lack of people for such a large place.
“There’s only about three dozen people here,” Dee Dee said.
“That’s right,” Connie said. “Fourteen families: The Cruzes, the Patels, the Ngs, the Rustins . . .” She went down the list, counting them off on her fingers.
“But, I thought human presence was strictly regulated out here. I mean, Jenkins said Rangers are allowed to bring their wives, but your dad is a Professor. What’s he doing out here, and how are you all here?”
“We’re not really here legally,” Dee Dee said. “The Rangers’ wives are a loophole, and it’s been exploited over the years. But there’s no record of most of the rest of us being here.”
“I see.”
But again, I didn’t see. I filed it away for future thought.
“Come on,” Connie said, grabbing my hand. “Let’s go back to Daddy.”
-+-
When we entered the large building, it looked like the entire population of three dozen people was present. Facing me from a table in the center were Professor and Mrs. Cruz, along with Ranger Jenkins and Eleanor. The rest were seated around the room. Everybody stared at me.
“Have a seat, Mr. Savitch.”
I sat, facing Professor Cruz and the rest. So . . . another tribunal, I thought. Only, with more than three people. And half of them are women. And everybody else is present, too.
“We’ve been researching your case, Mr. Savitch. Colt, read to him a synopsis of what you’ve found.”
Jenkins nodded, pulled a bit of vid paper out of his pocket and unfolded it. He held it out at arms length and started reading.
“Galactic Police, System-wide All Points Bulletin. Wanted: Marcus Savitch of Redwood, Servant of the State. Responsible for two murders. Should be considered armed and dangerous. Current whereabouts unknown. Detain or destroy upon contact. Suspect is confirmed hematophagous.”
When he stopped, all were silent, holding their breath. The last word seemed to echo around the room.
The Professor cleared his throat.
“Talk to us, Marcus. Is any of this true?”
I looked around the room. Everybody stared at me. Connie, still absent-mindedly stroking Mr. Fluffy in her lap, had a look of horror on her face as if she couldn’t believe she’d been walking around with a bloodsucker just a few minutes ago. Dee Dee had a look of concern in her eyes. The triplets were staring at me in wide-eyed wonder. One of them mouthed, “Wow!”
Well, this is it, I thought. Honesty is the best policy. If they’re going to kill me, there’s nothing I can do about it.
“Yes, I am hematophagous. I have been for about three years now. Yes, I did kill two men, but one was more of an accident and they were both in self defense.”
This brought a gleeful explosion of excitement from the triplets.
“Awesome!”
“Wicked!”
“Dude, you are bad ass!”
“Have you killed more than two people?”
“How much blood do you need to drink?”
The Professor slammed his hand on the table.
“Boys! If you cannot control yourself I will ask you to leave. Please remain silent for the rest of the proceedings.”
They murmured, “Yes, sir,” and appeared to be dutifully cowed. But when the Professor looked away, one of them gave me a thumbs up, another winked, and the other mouthed, “Bad ass!” while pointing at me.
“Why don’t you tell us your story, Marcus. Go back to how you became hematophagous and proceed through the deaths and how you came to Professor Kalinowski’s experiment station. Don’t leave anything out. We would also like to know if you’ve killed others.”
“Well, there is one more. The first one.”
-+-
Servants as young as thirteen are allowed to co-pilot cargo spaceships. Really, there’s not much to it. During testing for the different classes of ships, you have to show you can take over and successfully land in the event of an emergency. Emergencies hardly ever happen. It’s such a boring job, in fact, that it’s relegated to Servants. No one who is worth anything, or has been assigned a different role by the State, wants to have anything to do with a dull and dreary job that sends you away for months at a time.
But I loved it, because I saw it as a chance to escape from the drudgery of working in Redwood City. And there was always a layover at whatever planet we went to, a layover which allowed us the freedom to explore new places. I guess that’s a perk. Well, that and naval beer if you like that stuff.
My first trip out I stayed with a ship all the way to Alexandria and back. I was gone for months, and it was glorious. I couldn’t wait to get back out into space, and after a month of scrubbing floors and dishes in Redwood City, I felt fortunate to be assigned a flight to Orange and back.
Orange is the last planet in the Janus String. From Redwood, it’s a two week flight to Janus 29, then another two weeks to touchdown, and you’re there. I remember I was with Peterson. As the older Servant, he was senior pilot. We had a short five hour layover before coming back.
There’s even fewer people in the spaceport on Orange than in Redwood City. The largest continent is spread out in a long narrow ribbon near its equator. The temperature remains mostly in the mid to high eighties Fahrenhe
it year round. Somebody said the climate is kind of like Florida’s, only with oceans to the north and south rather than east and west. And that continent is a lot bigger. Imagine a Florida four thousand miles long stretched out horizontally along the equator, and you start to get the picture.
The bureaucrats decided there is no rush to colonize Orange, especially since they stalled out on Redwood. Other frontier planets usually became well-populated in fifty years or so after their Janus opened. For some reason, the State pulled back on Redwood, confining an all-male population to the city and strictly limiting immigration. But by that time, Janus 29 had already been activated, and now Orange was available for colonization, too. But instead of colonizing it, the powers-that-be decided to make the last planet in the string a penal colony instead.
Landing was not an issue. They don’t care who goes there so much. Leaving is a bit more of a problem. Our ship was kept under guard while planetside, in a secure area within the spaceport. Peterson and I were allowed to leave the secure area and wander around outside a few hours, with the proviso we’d be subjected to scrutiny before they let us back in. We had to sign a waiver saying if kidnapped, we could expect no help from the State in securing our release. Scary stuff, but that’s the way they operate on Orange. Nobody who isn’t authorized is going to get back into the secure area, no matter what. Evidently people had been kidnapped in the past, and the prisoners threatened to kill hostages if the gates weren’t opened.
The gates weren’t opened.
There wasn’t much in the way of sights. Every frontier planet has to find something people on other planets can use. They export things down the string in exchange for necessities coming back up the string. Orange’s big export is citrus crops. Yup, that’s where they came up with the name for the planet. The main continent is ideal for growing oranges, lemons, limes, etc.
As a penal colony the way things work is, prisoners are escorted off the spaceship and out of the secure area. Then they are never allowed back in where the spaceships land and take off. They spend the rest of their lives on the planet. They’re offered plenty of food and water, clothing and shelter, but they have to work for it. Usually in the orchards. Many of them just wander off and are never seen or heard from again. That suits the State just fine.
The secure area is a walled circle about a half mile in diameter. They placed guns on top, electronic sensors, monitor cams, some kind of impulse field that doesn’t allow prisoners to fly over if they capture a QC or something, and who knows what else is around there. The tourist channel told us nobody has ever breached the perimeter since its construction. Don’t know how true that is, but I wouldn’t doubt the State propaganda this time. The few prisoners Peterson and I met just seemed to accept their fates. I noticed their work in the fields didn’t seem that much different from Servants’ labor . . .
Where was I? Oh yes, hematophagia.
I was about to meet Peterson to begin making our way back to the spaceport. We’d spent a couple hours outside the walls looking around. There’s a large grove of Citrus sinensis outside the secure area. I’m sure it’s there for tourists, who pay thousands of credits to say they’ve visited the last planet in the Janus String. Once there, you can’t go any farther. I guess that’s worth something to brag about back home, if you have the money for it.
We’d separated, but I wasn’t too worried about finding my way back since there were helpful signs everywhere. I reached up to grab one of the oranges to take with me, when somebody clonked me on the back of the head.
Soon as I went down this guy tosses aside a hand ax. I figured he used the flat part of the ax to knock me in the head. Fortunately he didn’t knock me out, but I was dazed and down on the ground. He jumped on me and bit a chunk out of my neck.
I found the ax, grabbed it, and drove the edge into his head as hard as I could. Then I pushed him off.
About that time, Peterson showed up. He ran to help, staunched the bleeding in my neck, helped me to my feet, and we made our way back to the perimeter.
The Physician they had put a fast patch skin graft on my neck wound. It healed up in two or three days like nothing happened. No scars or anything. Before we left, their Agent went out and took a look at the body. He came back and told us the prisoner was a recluse. He rarely socialized with anybody. Lived alone. In fact, nobody had seen him in weeks. On behalf of the State, he apologized for the attack. No tourist to Orange had ever been treated this way, and they would take steps to ensure something like this never happened again, yada yada yada.
They really don’t keep track of prisoners much, once they’ve left the secure area, he explained. They’re fixed so they can’t have kids, their documents are processed, then they are shown the gate and the State kind of forgets about them. He said he wouldn’t even be filing a report on the incident, and he took my word it was a case of self defense. I don’t think he would have cared if I’d murdered the guy in cold blood. As far as the State is concerned, a prisoner on Orange is a non-entity.
When the ship reached Janus 29 a couple weeks later, I didn’t feel well. I was sweating, I had the shakes. My stomach hurt. Things got worse as we approached home. Peterson started to get really worried. He wanted to bring me straight to the Physician when we landed. I fended him off, said I wanted to go to my room first. What I really wanted to do was get to the roof.
I needed to see open air. Spending a month in a spaceship will do that to me sometimes. I love the freedom of space, but it’s nice to be able to see land everywhere. I liked to come home and stare out the glass wall at the wide open spaces surrounding Redwood City.
The sun was setting when I got up there, filling the sky with brilliant red and orange colors. I hardly noticed. I felt terrible. Shaking. Sweating. My body needed something, I just didn’t know what.
Then I saw a cat.
-+-
From there, I skimmed over the next couple years or so, telling them about feeding on cats, buying human blood in the black market on visits to New Texas, hiding my condition from everybody. Deathly afraid to say anything to anybody for fear of what would happen. I thought I had it under control, and things were going okay up until Peterson caught me drinking blood on that last flight home. I detailed the circumstances around his death, and how I tried to cover it up, then talked about my encounter with Agent Schmidt and how I found my way over to Kalinowski.
“And now I’m here.”
When I finished, everybody remained silent a moment. Expressions on their faces ranged from the wide-eyed (O’Donnell triplets), horrified (Connie), speculative (the Professor), to sympathy (Dee Dee). I gulped and waited for somebody to say something.
“Well,” the Professor said, and it was if everybody let go of their collective breaths. People scooted in their chairs, or stretched.
“Marcus, why don’t you don’t step outside for a moment and let us discuss this.”
I headed for the door. He motioned for the girls to follow me, which they did. The triplets rose as one to follow, too, but he motioned for them to stay.
On the way out the door, I heard Jenkins say, “Professor Kalinowski vouches for him.”
“Did he know what he is?”
Then the door shut, and I couldn’t hear anything else.
Dee Dee wrapped her arm around mine.
“Sounds like you’ve been through a lot.”
It was a new sensation, feeling somebody next to me like that. The warmth and concern in her voice was novel, too. I don’t think I’d ever had somebody come up and express empathy like that to me before.
Connie said nothing. She still held Mr. Fluffy, nervously patting him, darting quick glances at me.
Mr. Fluffy looked in my direction with cool disregard. He yawned. I reached to pat him.
“Hey there, fella.”
Connie pulled him away.
“Don’t you touch him! And nothing better happen to Mr. Fluffy while you’re here!”
“Connie!” Dee Dee said, with a str
ong tone of disapproval. “He’s not going to harm Mr. Fluffy.”
I nodded glumly, thinking about all the cats that I had harmed in the past.
“I promise not to harm Mr. Fluffy.”
Connie still eyed me suspiciously, and stood some distance away.
A dirty blond head popped out the door and one of the O’Donnells said, “Hey, Killer! You can come back in now.”
Evidently some sort of accord had been reached. Most of the eyes looking at me were speculative now, as if having decided I might be worth something after all. I stood before the Professor, Ranger Jenkins, and their wives.
“Marcus, you are somewhat unique, and in many ways a product of Redwood. We believe you were . . . ‘infected’ is a good word for it . . . by a Scientist who used to work here. Do you know the reasons behind the immigration hold on Redwood?”
I shook my head. No, it’s one of those things that’s just not spoken of, I thought. The State made the decision, and no one questions why. At least, Servants aren’t supposed to question why. Servants aren’t supposed to question anything.
“I see. Let me give you a little history lesson, then.”
He paused, looked around the room. Everyone seemed tense. Lips were pressed, breaths were held.
The Professor nodded, and focused back on me.
“We discovered primates in the woods.”
Chapter Six
My eyes grew big. This was a major revelation. Of all the habitable planets discovered, with all their different mammals, no primates had ever been found.
“They’re not sentient,” the Professor continued, as if anticipating the question. “We still haven’t found sentient life on any planet. We haven’t found anything remotely human, although we’ve seen lots of plant and animal life similar to Earth’s. And we’ve never found primates. Until now.
“Naturally, the discovery caused something of a frenzy in scientific circles. Once the initial exploratory teams came back with the news, Scientists and Professors up and down the Janus String swarmed the planet. All field work was performed under the auspices of New Texas A&M, the closest University. I was a Professor there. Most all of us you see here were part of the early teams. We set up twelve agricultural experiment stations around the continent, and we took lumber from one old tree that had died to create this headquarters on the edge of the forest. We were trying to get close to the most fascinating exobiological discovery in centuries.”