by Alan Black
Tasso stared at Otto and glared at the doctor. “You shot me full of nanites without my permission? What if I didn’t want machines running around inside me and chewing up stuff?”
Valenzuela shook her head. “I didn’t shoot you full. That was a small starter group. Tasso, you’re sixteen and you already have clogged arteries. These nanites will begin to clear the plaque from your system. No. Don’t protest. Your grandparents would be alive today if they’d had these few simple nanites.”
Tasso grabbed another tissue, wiped his eyes, and blew his nose.
Valenzuela said, “Don’t worry about the leakage. That’s the nanites disposing of the toxins and excess plaque. Drink a lot of water … oh, crap. Nothing for another three hours, but when the time is up I want you to drink as much water and clear fluids as you can keep down. It’s a bit of a poorly designed side effect, but it’s necessary in the long run.”
Tasso said, “Grandpa always said we didn’t need such foo-forah. He said it was too expensive for ….” His voice trailed off as he realized his grandparents couldn’t have afforded such medical care. Food, clothing, and shelter were always a barely met priority. “Never mind. Thank you both for your attention to my health.”
Valenzuela shrugged, “Save your thanks for after the rest of the nanite treatments. We have to do this another six times.”
“Oh?” Tasso asked.
Otto laughed, “Yep. And each one hurts worse than the one before.”
“Oh,” Tasso said with a serious lack of enthusiasm. “Maybe I won’t be on board long enough to get another shot.”
Otto said, “That’s for the captain and you to discuss. The doctor and I are going to make you healthy whether you like it or not, but whatever it seems like to you, Doctor Valenzuela has taken a special interest in you, so you get her personal attention for as long as you’re on this ship. And since I’m her personal physician’s assistant, you get my attention as well. Come on, greenhorn, I’m missing a party down on Deck E, so hustle it up.”
Tasso grabbed his bag and followed Otto as closely as he could. The man moved with surprising speed for such a large man. They took so many twists and turns that Tasso would have gotten lost again, if he had figured out where he was in the first place.
They reached the hallway’s dead end. Tasso couldn’t see any way to go. Otto punched a button and stood facing the wall. In a few seconds, doors slipped open to reveal a small room that was about twice the size of Tasso’s bedroom at home, so he didn’t feel claustrophobic when he followed Otto into the room. He did feel a bit hemmed in when the door slid shut. He looked around. There weren’t any windows and the only door had become a wall. Otto pushed a button on the wall. There wasn’t any sound or sense of motion, but when the doors slid open there was a completely new hallway. Tasso grinned to himself. He’d taken his first elevator ride and hadn’t freaked out one little bit.
He was anxious to take another ride and study the elevator as he followed Otto down the hallway. The big man stopped in front of a wooden door. Tasso reached out and touched the door. It certainly looked and felt like wood. He wondered if the door was real wood or the titanium and ceramic blend Anisa told him about.
Otto rapped on the door with his knuckles. The door popped open a few inches as if the knock released a magnetic latch. The man pushed the door open the rest of the way. He propelled Tasso through the doorway, grabbing Tasso’s bag off his shoulder. Otto set the bag on the floor inside the room.
The office was large and much more comfortable than Moffatt’s office. There were chairs and tables scattered about the room. The walls held holos of oddly dressed people, strange creatures, and various memorabilia. There were three people in the room. A woman was sitting behind the desk, reading from a dataport and occasionally making entries. There was a man and a woman in the corner, laughing over something Tasso couldn’t see from the doorway.
Otto smiled at the woman sitting at the desk. “Hey, boss! Here’s your greenhorn.”
The woman looked up from the large dataport inset in the desk. “Thanks, Otto.” She pointed at Tasso and pointed at a chair in front of the desk. “Park it.”
The man in the corner shouted, “Bodacious! You gotta see this score, Lil. Rosa ran up a new high in Sim-Trader. She owned a whole moon by the time she finished.”
Tasso looked at the woman in amazement. A whole moon? How could anyone own that much!
The woman behind the desk saw his expression. She shook her head. “It’s a vid-game. Rosa is a good first officer and a good trader, but in real life she would Saturday-night away any profits long before she could accumulate enough wealth to even buy a bungalow two blocks from the beach on a backwater planet.”
The two in the corner laughed. The woman said with a grin, “Maybe I should buy an upgrade to Sim-Trader that includes the cost of drinking, poker, and hookers to offset the income.”
The captain looked back at Tasso, “You’re the problem du jour? You’re Tasso Menzies, right? I’m ship’s captain, Lilianna Rojo. The first officer there is my baby sister Rosa Graham. That big goof is my little brother and our ship’s purser, William Rojo. Don’t worry about getting our names right for now. It’ll come to you over time.”
Tasso nodded, “Yes, Captain.” He was surprised this woman looked so young. He was sure he remembered Freddy saying on the observation deck that the captain was his grandmother. She was exceptionally pretty, with large dark eyes, olive skin, and warm soft-looking lips. He realized he was staring at her and almost missed her next sentence.
“Tasso, huh? That’s an unusual first name, or maybe it’s not on Saronno. Your file says your real first name is just Tass.”
“Yes, Captain. It’s just Tass, middle initial O. Before I was old enough to talk clearly, I kind of jammed them together and it stuck. I don’t know about it being an unusual name. I’ve never heard of anyone else called that except ….” Tasso let his reply fall away.
“Dammit. I hate it when people don’t finish a sentence. Now you have my curiosity stirred up. Except who?” Captain Rojo tapped her dataport, opening and reading a report that hovered above her desk. She turned to her brother. “Billy, how come his entry papers don’t mention his middle name, not even the initial.”
“Rush job, Sis. You know I didn’t have much choice here.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know. We’re going to have to see what we can do about it. I don’t like extortion, even if it gives us profit on the backend.” The captain looked back at Tasso. “It’s your turn, Señor Menzies. What’s so unusual about your name that you don’t want to share it with us?”
Tasso shrugged, “Well, my mother insisted I be named after my father, Tass O. He wasn’t from Saronno, so I don’t know if the name is unusual somewhere else.”
The captain asked, “And what does the O stand for?”
Tasso should be angry and upset that a stranger was prying into his personal life. He wasn’t upset, partly because she was the boss and had a right to know who and what was on her ship. He wasn’t upset, mostly because he was too hungry and tired to get upset. He could remember what he last ate and when, but he’d lost track of time and didn’t know how long it had been. His last sleep was between his mother’s and his grandfather’s graves. The night had been fitful, more from emotional turmoil than from real worries about Ol’ Ben. He wondered if nanites could also take out excess emotions as well as excess toxins.
Tasso sighed. “Captain, my father was a spacer. He got my mother pregnant and ran off.” He remembered his uncle’s statement. “Or was killed. I guess it depends on whom you ask. Anyway, I never knew him. However, even though he left her, my mother loved him and wanted me to carry his name. Tass Ortiz. Maybe the O stands for Ortiz and maybe not. Mother never said.”
The captain looked startled. “Ortiz? Well I’ll be a suck-egg mule. Dang, boy. You might be one of us. Ortiz, huh … Tass … Tass isn’t a usual name for a Texican. Was it your father’s name or a nickname?”
Tasso shrugged. “I don’t know. Mother didn’t like to talk about him after he disappeared. She said he’d answer all of Grandpa’s questions when he came back … except he never came back.”
The captain stared at the ceiling for a while. “Tass Ortiz … Tass … Ortiz … I know the name from somewhere.” She looked at her brother. “Billy, run a data search on the name and see what you can turn up.”
Bill Rojo shook his head, “Not me. Come on, sis. Can’t you get one of your assistants to do it? How about Rosa doing a data search? She’s your first officer.”
Captain Rojo shook her head. “As near as I can see, this is your mess, Purser William Jennings Rojo. Yes, I can see you didn’t have much choice but to take on Señor Menzies. Nevertheless, it’s still your problem. Do a little data search and keep your big sister happy. You have data miners on your staff and if you have any still on duty, get them on it. If not, at least get a search started until we can dig further.”
“Aye, aye, Captain,” Bill Rojo said, throwing her a mock salute. He pulled out his dataport and began entering search parameters.
Captain Rojo turned her attention back to Tasso, “It probably won’t come to much. Ortiz is a common name on a dozen planets, but if he was from New Texas, we should be able to get a line on your father. We keep an extensive database, family being what it is and all. You said he left and didn’t come back? I’ve known a few owl-hoots in my time who take that path with back-planet girls.”
Tasso nodded numbly. He couldn’t imagine anyone not loving his mother. He shrugged. “Uncle Bruce said the man died, but I didn’t hear anything about his death until a few hours ago, this morning? Yesterday? Whenever it was I saw my uncle last. Grandpa always said the man left and the older I got the less my mother talked about him, until she finally refused to speak about him at all.”
The captain looked at her dataport readout. “Other family is deceased?”
“Everyone else I know of is dead except my Uncle Bruce. Grandma and my mother have been gone for a few years. I buried Grandpa by myself yesterday.”
“Yesterday? I’m sorry for your loss, Señor Menzies. Let’s see, and your Uncle Bruce signed you up for a trainee cruise?”
Tasso shrugged, “I don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing. Uncle Bruce and some man named Moffatt did some data-work and had some guys bring me here.”
The captain called up a picture, letting it hover over her desk. “This is your uncle, Bruce Menzies?”
“Yes, Captain. And the other fellow is that Moffatt guy.”
The captain shook her head. “That ‘Moffatt guy’ is the elected Saronno Planetary Governor Aric Moffatt.”
Tasso looked surprised. “I didn’t know Uncle Bruce ran in such high circles.”
Bill Rojo looked up from his dataport. “Really? Captain, this boy’s uncle runs the Saronno Produce Lobby Associates. They’re the group who controls chiamra spice pricing and quotas as well as any other thing growing in or on Saronno dirt.”
Tasso shook his head. “I don’t know anything about Uncle Bruce. He didn’t come around the farm much, um, mostly never. It was Grandpa and me running the farm.”
The captain nodded. “Is it a big farm?”
Tasso shook his head, “Not really enormous or anything. We have about a hundred and sixty square kilometers of land north of the McWithy Range.”
The captain looked shocked. “You have a hundred square miles? And your Uncle Bruce inherited it and dumped you here?”
Tasso said, “No, Captain. I mean, yes it’s a hundred square miles of land, but most of it is untillable. It’s canyon, rocks and hills. It’s good for growing native fauna, but not much else. We do have one small valley with enough dirt to grow about eighty acres for crops and such. I inherited, not Uncle Bruce and I get to take control when I turn eighteen.”
Captain Rojo glanced back at her dataport, “And that will be in another year and a half standard, give or take a few months.”
Tasso said, “Fourteen standard months, Captain. Then Uncle Bruce has to turn title over to me. But, I need to be back much sooner than my birthday.” He did some mental calculations in his head. “Since no one will be there to help me, I need to be back in about ten months to begin pinching off the buds on the top of the chiamra plants or they won’t sprout spice blossom or grow seeds. If I don’t start then, I won’t get through all eighty acres in time. The harvest is in about twelve months ....” His voice trailed off when he saw the expressions of surprise on the three spacers.
“You have eighty acres of chiamra planted?” the captain asked.
Tasso nodded. “The plants were starting to sprout into seedlings when Grandpa … when he … well, when I buried him between Grandma and my mother. I know it’s not much, but it’s about all of the land we can plant. We keep breaking rocks in our spare time, expanding the field. It doesn’t add much land per year.”
Bill Rojo stepped up to the captain’s desk. He handed her the display from his dataport so she could allow it to hover over her desk. “Sis, if our educated guess about chiamra spice production on Saronno is correct, eighty acres should equate to about this much profit.”
Tasso couldn’t see the data on the display from the scrambled backside, although from their expressions, the captain and the purser could read it well enough from the front. “I know it’s not much and with the pricing of chiamra dropping, it should cover about enough for us to replant next year and get us a few staples to get by until the next harvest.”
The captain looked at her brother and at her first officer. Tasso could see some understanding pass between them.
“I don’t know why Uncle Bruce sent me here. I know when I was a child I wanted to go to space. Maybe he thought going to space was what I still want. I don’t know, maybe he didn’t know what else to do with me.”
The captain nodded. “Yeah, and he dumped you here. Well, I’m sorry, Menzies. As much as we’d like to get you back to your crop, we couldn’t do it in ten months even if we wanted. We have contracts and commitments that make such a timetable all but impossible. And we aren’t scheduled to get back to Saronno for another two years standard.”
Tasso said, “But two years? My crop—”
“Your Uncle Bruce will have to take care of your crop,” Captain Rojo interrupted. “I’m sure he will. He’ll have to hold your farm for you until we get you back. Now we have to figure out what to do with you until then.” When Tasso started to protest again, she threw up her hand. “No, Menzies, don’t argue with me. We cannot turn this spacecraft around for one farm boy and his chiamra crop no matter how important it may be. We have three thousand people on board this ship whose incomes depend on meeting our contracts and there are ten times that number of people back on New Texas who trust us to keep our schedules and our word.”
Tasso nodded. His eyes were watering, but he couldn’t tell if his tears were frustration at being sent away from home for two years or if the nanites were still working on his toxins.
From her place on the couch, First Officer Graham said, “Lil, I know I’m supposed to be in charge of our trainee contingent, but I don’t know what to do with our new recruit. His records don’t show any schooling whatsoever. They don’t show any specialized spacecraft skills or any skills at all. He’s far too big to send to kindergarten with the niños pequeños. I can’t even tell what his reading level is or if he can read. How am I supposed to place him on a work roster? We’re going to have to run a complete—”
Tasso interrupted, “Of course I can read. And Grandpa schooled me a lot.”
The captain said, “Yes, I’m sure he did. We aren’t questioning your intelligence or your grandfather’s teaching abilities. Nevertheless, we don’t have a reference to know what level of education you have had. The knowledge and skills for life on a ship are quite different from what you may have needed to know on a farm. You may have more to unlearn and relearn than you imagine.”
Graham said, “I can run him through a bat
tery of exams for education levels. Doc Valenzuela needs him for more medical procedures anyway before we turn him loose. What do we do with him the rest of the time?”
The captain shrugged.
Bill Rojo looked thoughtful. “Put him in Aunt Aggie’s attic. Tio Gabe is always claiming he doesn’t have any help.”
The captain looked shocked. “I wouldn’t toss a yankee carpet-bagger into that mess with Tio Gabe, much less a young man who has the potential to be useful someday.”
Graham said, “Someday is the operative word, Lil. You have to assign this greenhorn somewhere. Our uncle may be about half-senile, but he isn’t dangerous. Helping Tio Gabe clean out the attic will keep this boy out of trouble until we figure out what to do with him. Where else do we send stuff that’s too valuable to throw away, but don’t have any need for right now?”
“I got something,” Bill Rojo said.
Graham laughed, “What? Gas or your normal brain farts?”
Bill stuck his tongue out at First Officer Graham. “No. I’ve been running some database searches on the name Tasso Menzies and all of its various iterations. And I think I have a valid result.”
The captain looked at her brother. “Okay, spill it.”
“Well, Lil,” the man replied. “I wasn’t getting anything at first, but I reset the perimeters to check for data fifteen to eighteen years old. The name Tomas Ortiz showed up in a number of inter-planetary broadcasts for a missing person.”
“Tomas, not Tass or Tasso?” the captain asked.
Bill smiled. “Yep, mi hermana. Tomas Ortiz, and it might be the same man. Nickname was Tas, just one s. I guess he couldn’t pronounce Tomas as a niño and it got shorted to—”
“Tomas Ortiz!” Captain Rojo shouted. “Now I remember! I knew I’d heard that name somewhere. The messages are from Ortiz Freightliners, right? Someone’s grandson dropped off the map. I don’t remember if it was Saronno, but it was this region of space. Any updates on your missing person reports?”