Goldstein

by Troy J. Grice

  After mumbling to each other, Brooks spoke again. “The Council has taken your position into consideration. Mr. Moore,” he continued while holding a stem of his glasses, “in light of your numerous declarations during this trial about the invalidity of this court and your desire to be turned over to the National Police, we think you’ll find the sentence for your crimes to be to your liking.”

  “What is it? Hard labor?”

  “That might be one aspect of it.”

  “Detention?”

  “That is very likely.”

  “Death?”

  “That is possible.”

  “So you’re going to put me in a labor camp and then execute me?”

  Signaled by a vibration in his multi, a burly man of six and a half feet sidled up to Devin’s side. The man rolled up his sleeves revealing his tattooed forearms, covered in a sprawling Gadsden snake. He was the Sheriff—the sole, elected law enforcement of the Colony.

  Devin began to come to the realization of what his sentence was going to be. His head dropped as he was overtaken with the dread of it. He didn’t seriously expect to be executed but this might actually be worse.

  “Have you named a custodian for your property?”

  “What?” asked Devin, distracted by his grim thoughts. “I uh...I don’t have anything worth worrying about.” His mind began to race. He needed a plan. He had to figure out how to escape since it was increasingly unlikely that the NaPol gods were going to save him.

  “I believe we have nothing more to do here except carry out the sentence,” concluded Brooks. “Sheriff, will you take Mr. Moore to the river?”

  Ryland put his massive paw on Devin’s shoulder.

  “Get your damn hands off me, pig!” Devin barked. “I’ll go peacefully.”

  “Fair enough,” replied the sheriff.

  Devin, weighed down by his jingling chains, turned towards the gallery facing their condescending glare as he lumbered out of the hall. He was followed by the sheriff, Mr. Brooks, and a dozen or so gawking colonists.

  The procession made their way to a utility truck where Devin was helped into the back. The sheriff got in next to him. The gasoline engine roared to life and they motored slowly out of the cobblestone plaza and onto a paved thoroughfare. The road was flanked by stone and log row houses which were capped with whirling wind turbines and smokeless chimneys. Ice still coated the narrow alleyways and shaded surfaces between the buildings. The snow had receded into the cooler places but the road itself was dark and wet from the thaw.

  As they drove out of the plaza, the tightly packed storefronts and houses of the village gave way to small industrial and agricultural kwanset huts tucked into the dense spruce and budding birch trees. Inside their arched plastic skins, articulated robot arms were knitting textiles, sowing seeds and scribing millions upon millions of nano-processors.

  The road took them by several construction sites. Construction was an ever-present phenomenon in Goldstein. Cranes and scaffolds and robotics were the predominant feature of the colonial village skyline.

  An excavation near the road had made a deep scar in the tundra and an elegant spider web of steel lattice rose up from the pebbly mud. Steel was an unusual and fantastically expensive commodity in Goldstein. ‘BROOKS’ was emblazoned in black on every beam.

  The site was alive with a mixed crew of brown, smooth-faced Natives and pale, red-bearded Anglos buzzing around the hive-like foundation, hoisting and hanging and welding and riveting. They were building a laser fusion reactor. It was rumored that some venture capitalists from Hong Kong were bankrolling the project.

  The road wound on, down into a gauntlet of birch trees. Down for two miles past a scrap yard and a quarry, dropping a hundred meters in altitude along the way. Down through the pulse-emitting field array that fenced the inner colony from human and animal intruders with an invisible beam of coma-inducing microwaves.

  Brooks keyed some digits into his multi unit and a segment of the field turned off. They drove through the invisible fence to the banks of a meandering gray river where the truck stopped and the driver turned the engine off.

  “Get out!” The sheriff rudely barked. Devin held his chains up with an expression of helplessness etched in his face. The sheriff huffed and summoned the driver to help Devin out. The three of them along with Brooks walked down to the stony banks of the river.

  “So you’re really going to do this to me?” Devin asked.

  “You did it to yourself, thief,” the sheriff replied.

  “Isn’t there another way, Brooks? I can make things right. You know me. Give me a chance.”

  They gathered around a dilapidated wooden rowboat pulled up onto the shore. Devin felt even more dread. “You know this is a death sentence,” he exclaimed.

  “A slow death by starvation,” added the sheriff, mockingly, as he unlocked Devin’s shackles. “You shouldn’t have broken The Law. Now get in.”

  He palmed his 9mm as Devin slowly climbed into the tiny boat. But Brooks stayed the sheriff’s hand. Devin took a seat in the boat and pretended to row. The sheriff tossed him a thermal which hit Devin in the face as he pulled on the oars. Devin scowled back while he rolled it up and tucked it under his seat. He had given up. There was no getting out of it. He wondered how long he would last. Would the animals get him first? The cold? Hunger?

  “Well, what the hell are you waiting for? Shove me in, you bastards,” Devin ordered.

  “Hold on,” Brooks intervened. “You know, this need not be a death sentence…”

  “Right…” Devin replied without enthusiasm.

  “You can still be pardoned. The Council has signed off on it.”

  “I’ll be dead before I get to McGrath.”

  “Probably,” Brooks continued, “Certainly if you give up. But things aren’t as hopeless as you insist. Just make The Delivery and you’ll be pardoned.”

  “Deliver what?”

  “Here, catch…” Brooks tossed Devin a leather satchel which landed with a thud at Devin’s feet but before Devin could open it and look inside, the sheriff grabbed hold of the splintery boat with his massive hands and shoved it off into the gray, swirling water.

  “...And I better not see you back here unless you deliver it!” the sheriff shouted.

  “Deliver what?” Devin asked again. “To who?”

  “It’s all there, in the satchel. Don’t worry. Just read the instructions,” Brooks shouted. “They’ll find you. Make The Delivery and you’ll be pardoned. Then we’ll come get you.”

  Devin began to row. “Maybe I’ll come back and make a delivery to you,” he blustered at the sheriff as he rowed the bobbing boat through the icy gray water.

  “I’ll be waiting for you,” replied the sheriff as he fastened the snap on his holster. “Watch out for those moose, they kill more people then bears, you know!”

  The three stayed behind on the shoreline until the current swept the frantically, haplessly rowing Devin around a bend and out of sight. He was an exile, now. If he was to return, the mandatory colonial response would be to shoot him dead on sight which was not a problem because most people carried guns at all times. But that had never happened in the thirty plus years of Goldstein history. Several dozen exiles had tried to return either overtly by groveling on their hands and knees, or covertly by slipping into the perimeter when the field was down but the vast majority of colonials lacked sufficient ruthlessness to shoot them. They were, however, always disciplined enough to maintain the total boycott of exiles. And with no possibilities to exchange with the colonials for food, shelter, or clothing, the exiles would soon give up in frustration and drag their starving, emaciated, carcasses back into the wilderness. Sometimes, usually not more than two miles from the perimeter, their half-gnawed skulls would be discovered by hunting parties.

  Brooks took a moment to ponder Devin’s fate. “Would he make it?” he asked himself. There was something in Devin’s persona that gave Brook’s hope. Devin was a loner and ment
ally tough. That gave him a better chance than most. Brooks imagined him washing up on shore somewhere fifty kilometers downstream, hungry and shivering. Would someone find him? Would someone help him? We’ve got to give him a chance, Brooks thought.

  “Do you think the son-of-a-bitch’ll make it?” asked the sheriff.

  “You mean make it or make The Delivery?” asked Brooks.

  “Yeah...”

  Brooks didn’t answer. the Sheriff as he placed a call on his multi.

  Chapter Three

  “Cheechako! Cheechako! Wake up!”

  Devin’s eyelids peeled open just as a stick was being jabbed into his ribs.

  “Cheechako! Wake up!”

  A blurry face appeared hovering over him. Devin rubbed his eyes. His back ached. His left arm was numb. His neck was stiff.

  The hovering figure’s features came into focus. It was a round, brown, indigenous face. Clean shaven. It was wearing a faded ball cap with a hard fold down the middle of the brim. The head was attached to a bearish frame. The Alaska Native was all shoulders and a big barrel chest and a little chubby.

  “Are you okay? Can you talk? Can you walk?” asked the Native.

  “I don’t know,” Devin replied while rubbing his kinked neck and shivering. “Where am I?”

  “Here, let me help you.” The Native dropped his poking stick and pulled Devin out of the dingy.

  “I can’t stop shivering,” Devin complained.

  “It’s cold for April, that’s for sure.” The native replied while steadying Devin on the shore. “If we get any more of this global warming we’re all going to freeze to death.”

  Devin chuckled. The Native clutched Devin’s bicep but Devin shook him off.

  “I can manage…” he snapped. Devin tried to straighten himself up but a sharp cramp in his abdomen bent him over at the waist.

  “Get your bag or it’ll be gone before you come back.”

  “Huh?...wait...yeah, can you hand it to me?”

  “Sure thing, Cheechako.” The Native plunged his massive forearm into the dingy and grabbed the leather satchel. “Follow me.”

  “Follow you where?”

  “Follow me to my house. We need to get you in front of a heating element.”

  Devin was too tired, too hungry and too cold to be concerned. If it was a trap, so be it. He was a dead man either way.

  The two walked up the shore of the river across the muddy beach which was littered with broken beer bottles and knots of fishing line. They climbed up over the rooted bank.

  “Will my boat be safe?” Devin asked as he looked back noticing that it had been snared in some sort of dragline.

  “No,” the Native answered. “It’ll probably be someone’s firewood tonight.”

  The two continued slowly down a path that wound its way through dense spruce dressed in dreary webs of black moss. There were still banks of slushy snow that drifted in the shadier areas. Devin noticed a faint buzzing sound as they walked through the gray mud of the path. They stopped. Roth removed a small device that resembled an archaic garage door opener. He pushed its clunky white button. The buzzing noise ceased. The Native pointed up to a towering spruce tree.

  “See my array up there, Cheechako?” He asked.

  Devin couldn’t make anything out in the dark, dense evergreen. Apparently some sort of field emitter was tucked in there somewhere.

  “Yeah, sure,” Devin answered.

  They walked another ten meters down the path to a tall stone which stood unnaturally upright. The Native pushed the button on his garage door opener and the faint, buzzing tinitis returned to Devin’s ears.

  “Force field!” The Native proudly proclaimed.

  “Of course,” Devin acknowledged.

  “Actually it’s just a microwave field. If you cross the threshold you get real hot.”

  “What’s it for?”

  “Keeps the moose out.”

  “I’ve seen them before.”

  The Native stopped and turned to Devin. “Where?” He asked with intense curiosity.

  Devin didn’t answer.

  “You know, in Goldstein, they have a field there that is much stronger. I’ve heard it will stop your heart if you keep going through it.”

  Devin didn’t take the bait. They continued on up the path past a battery of silicon panels aimed almost horizontally.

  “Are you impressed with my solar array?”

  “Very,” answered Devin. “How many kilowatts?”

  “A whopping zero for six months a year.”

  “And in the summer?”

  “Slightly more than zero. But when it’s clear I get ten thousand or so. They’re eighty five percent arrays.”

  “Where did you get them?”

  “Government subsidy.”

  “And the microwave array? Not the government, I imagine.”

  “I found those parts lying around somewhere.”

  “Right,” Devin responded. “By the way, what’s your name?”

  “My Athabascan name or my American name?”

  “Your American name, I guess.”

  “My name is Rothschild Smith.”

  “Rothschild? Were your parents bankers or something?”

  “No, but mom was an accountant. Pop drove a truck. They’re dead, now. If you would like, you could call me by my Athabascan name.”

  “And what would that be?” Devin asked as his cramp subsided and he was finally able to stand fully upright.

  “Roth.”

  “Roth?” laughed Devin.

  “Roth Smith.”

  “Well, it’s good to meet you, Roth Smith.”

  “Good to meet you, Cheechako. Although it seems you are not Cheechako,” Roth offered as he extended his massive, calloused paw to shake Devin’s hand. “What’s your name?”

  “You can keep calling me Cheechako for now,” Devin replied as he shook Roth’s hand.

  “Okay, Cheechako.”

  The two walked for another hundred meters or so, through the frozen mud and black spruce until they came to a clearing. There, stood a box-like, faded, plywood cabin with chipping white paint and badly leaking rain gutters. The gaps between the roof shingles were filled with thick green moss.

  As they walked towards the cabin a pit bull came charging out from around the back, healing at Roth’s feet. Roth patted him on the head. Devin reached down towards the dog but the dog started to snarl.

  “Don’t take it personal. He hates everyone,” Roth explained. “I like him, though.”

  “Good watch dog?”

  “Yeah, and he ate cats.”

  “He hates cats?”

  “No,” Roth replied, “he ate cats. Any dog that eats cats is all right by me.”

  Roth walked up to his porch and opened the creaky door. The two stepped inside leaving the dog to guard the porch. There was one, dimly lit room. A flickering, florescent fixture cast a bluish pall. An iron stove and a small, buzzing refrigerator was on the wall to the right. On the door was affixed a peeling, smiling, Gaia label. A white pine table with two aluminum folding chairs stood in the center of the room. Against one wall was a single bed. It was unmade with tangled wool blankets and a silvery mylar sheet.

  Devin hobbled over to the table and took a seat.

  “Please, sit down,” offered Roth, ex post.

  Roth went to the buzzing refrigerator and took out a bottle of water. Then he reached into the cupboard and produced two masonry jars and a packet. He tore open the packet and dumped some white, powdery contents into the jars. Then he topped them off with the water from the fridge.

  “Do you have anything stronger than that?” Devin asked.

  “Like vodka, maybe?”

  “Yeah,” replied Devin shivering. “Like vodka.”

  “No,” he answered as he slid one jar to Devin and then walked over to the wall and adjusted the thermostat.

  “Why don’t you fire that stove up?”

  “No fuel. Besides, it’s illegal, an
d the smoke might draw attention.”

  “Illegal? This fluorescent bulb is illegal. So’s your dog, and your field array. You don’t seem too worried about those. What are you really worried about, Roth?”

  “Nats,” Roth answered as he sipped the contents of the jar. It was rehydrated milk.

  “National Police? Out here in the bush? I wish.”

  “Nats and bandits. They work the same beat shaking down the locals.”

  “Don’t you have guns?”

  “Guns?” Roth laughed. “No guns except for hunting. Guns are no good against nats, anyway. They’re expert at dealing with people with guns.”

  Roth handed Devin the mylar sheet from his bed and took a seat across from him at the table. “Are you surprised to find an Eskimo who doesn’t have vodka.”

  “I thought you were Athabascan, not Eskimo,” answered Devin.

  The rusty heating element began to tick as its electrified coils warmed and expanded.

  “So,” he continued, “are you from Goldstein?”

  “No, actually I’m a tourist,” Devin replied sarcastically. “The travel brochure promised me a wilderness adventure with gray water rafting.”

  Roth chuckled. “Seriously, I’ve never seen anyone come downstream in such a...how should I say...rickety boat. Not at this time of year, anyway, at least not anyone who wasn’t coming from Goldstein.”

  “What’s it to you?” Devin asked.

  “Well, if you were from Goldstein and I was a patriotic type, I might find you to be worth something.”

  “Worth something to who?”

  “Who do you think? Napol,” Roth answered after taking another gulp from his jar. He wiped away a milky mustache with his flannel sleeve.

  A faint odor of burnt dust emanated from the ticking register but there was still no perceptible heat coming from the coils.

  “They don’t care about colonials anymore,” Devin explained.

  “They don’t? What makes you so sure?”

  “Because they haven’t been around in a while.”

  “How do you know that?” asked Roth.

  “Simple, no dragonflies, no drones, no tacticals lurking about. Nothing.”