“The Cold Ones,” one of them replied, with the hint of a smirk. “You haven’t guessed?”
“Liar!” I shouted at Fisk, my heart sinking. “Who owns you? Lexa?”
“I am owned by no one here but my employer, Galactic Enterprises.”
“Then why?”
“Has no one told you who commissioned the sabotage of your vessel?” he asked. “In all this time? I’m surprised to find so much discretion here.”
“Sabotage?” I asked, feeling lightheaded. “Who would want—?”
“My employer did not want yours to gain a foothold on Greenleaf 43.” He shrugged apologetically. “Business at this scale requires unpleasant things of us all. Gentlemen,” he said, nodding at my captors. Then he turned and walked away as if I were a bundle of celluboard left for the recyclers.
~o0o~
My captors neither spoke again, nor exhibited any perverse pleasure in their work, but their grip never wavered until I was locked into an unfurnished, corrugated metal holding cell not far from where I’d been delivered. I was soon visited there by a new if equally laconic man who handed me a drab paper jumpsuit and demanded my clothes and few possessions in exchange. I was not allowed privacy, but he kept his hands to himself, showing no sign of prurient interest while I changed. When I’d finished, he gave me a bottle of water and some refreshment stand chips, then turned to go.
“How will I be killed?” I asked as he reached for the door.
“Killed?” he said over his shoulder.
“That’s what you do, isn’t it?” I said, trying to sound brave for some reason. More reflexive realtor training, I suppose.
“We let people think so.” He turned back to face me. “But in fact, little of what you’ve been told about us is true.”
“I’ve been told nothing,” I said in frustration. “People keep mentioning you guys like you’re the ultimate nightmare, but they never tell me what you do. You’re a resource, I take it?”
He nodded. “A sort of Waste Disposal resource. We dispose of those who prove too useless to merit the space and air they consume here, or too troublesome to those in power. We let the general populace imagine what they will, of course, because that scares them more effectively than anything else, but we don’t really salvage organs here, or hoard gold teeth. There’s not even any killing, unless we’re left no choice. That’s up to you, of course.”
“Then how do you—?”
“You’ll know soon enough,” he said, turning away again. “Let your current troubles suffice, Ms. Sandstrom, and rest while you can.” He passed through the door, which locked behind him.
I sat down against the wall, seeking some comfortable position on the metal floor, and pondered the long list of mistakes that had landed me here. No wonder Lexa hadn’t prevented my flight. She’d known there really wasn’t any place for me to run. Now I was to be “disposed of”, without being killed?
“This one?” said a voice outside my door.
“Yes, sir. She’s in there.”
My cell door clicked open once again, and a man I recognized walked in, looking as dapper and respectable as ever.
“Why, Mr. Jones,” I said, beyond surprise by now. “I don’t suppose you’ve come to rescue me.”
“I rarely offer second chances, Ms. Sandstrom. Never third ones.” He closed the door and leaned against the jamb. “What a lot of trouble you have been.”
“So what brings a man of your importance here?” I asked.
“I sometimes check on my employees’ work, especially when such important guests are involved.”
“Your employees? You run this resource too?”
“No one outside our membership is allowed to know that, but yes, I oversee both immigration and emigration here. You slipped past me in one direction, but I really couldn’t let it happen twice. It’s quite crucial to us all that you be thoroughly misplaced before Astoria’s rescue mission arrives.”
“They’re coming then?” I asked, with less enthusiasm than I might have felt if I had still hoped to be around for their arrival.
“Oh yes,” Jones said. “They’ve been quite stealthy about it, but they’re on their way, and with a military escort.” He shook his head. “Accidents won’t be viable this time, I’m afraid. We must let them dock, and seem quite as appalled as anyone to find you’ve disappeared. Rest assured, however, that we shall leave no stone unturned in our attempt to discover your abductors. Examples will be made of ... well, all kinds of people by the time we’re finished finding out what happened to you.”
“And what is going to happen to me?”
“As you may know, Ms. Sandstrom, our corporate leaders here on Longhorn 6 abhor waste of any kind. Merely killing even very undesirable people results in nothing but expense without profit. On the other hand, there are numerous corporate clients out there desperate to reduce the excessive expense, labyrinthine regulatory burden, and endless documentation associated with any legitimate labor force. In places like Longhorn 6, Galactic Enterprises has found a way to address these problems quite profitably, by hiring people like me to harvest useless, unproductive individuals and convert them into an astonishingly valuable commodity. As I believe you have been told, Ms. Sandstrom, we’re not here to kill you. We are here to offer you a brand new, immensely more productive life on Steele 17, a lovely planet in the—”
“I know very well where Steele 17 is!” I gasped, shooting to my feet. “It’s a strip-mine in the Chlorite system! You’re selling me into slavery?”
“No, Ms. Sandstrom. Galactic will be doing that. I am just a humble middle man conveying self-selected candidates like yourself for their consideration.” He stood away from the wall, and put his hand to the door. “I did give you a second chance, my dear. And for a while I was almost glad I had. What a shame.” He shook his head like a disappointed father. “Perhaps they’ll need a realtor on Steele 17 as badly as we did.”
He left me then, gaping in dismay. I had wanted off of Longhorn 6—but not this way.
~o0o~
Eventually exhaustion prevailed and I slept on my cell floor. Sometime later, a hand on my shoulder nudged me awake. Robbin bent over me, a finger to his lips.
“Come. Quietly,” he whispered. “We’ve only got a minute.”
Seemed like I was always following this man. I climbed stiffly to my feet. Whatever he meant to do with me now could hardly be worse than slavery on Steele 17.
I followed him into the corridor and found the two men who’d brought me here sprawled face down on the floor. I looked back up at Robbin in astonishment, but he shook his head and waved me urgently past them. He seemed to know where he was going, stopping only to peer around corners or listen at doors before proceeding. We finally stopped at a floor hatch, where Robbin took something from his pocket, shoved it against a key slot, then pushed the hatch door open and waved me through ahead of him. We climbed down into a poorly illuminated crawl space, through which we hurried in a crouch.
The cramped passage snaked on endlessly. Twice we had to freeze and hold our breaths as running footsteps passed above us. By the time Robbin helped me up into some blessedly taller service corridor, I had an awful crick in my neck.
“Where are we going?” I finally dared to whisper.
He just waved me after him around two more corners to a room lined with wall-lockers full of grimy coveralls and jumbled tools.
“Put this on,” said Robbin, handing me a set of coveralls before pulling on his own. Then he rummaged around and produced two welding helmets. “Don’t forget to tuck your hair inside,” he said, handing me one before donning his.
“What are we doing?” I asked again. “Did Lexa send you?”
“Lexa won’t be sending me anywhere but back to the Cold Ones, after this.”
I stopped fiddling with my helmet and looked up in surprise. “You did this behind her back?”
“There was some other way?” His voice was muffled by the helmet, but his tone was unambiguo
usly grim. “Astoria’s headed here to get you,” he said. “ETA five days. Lexa’s spitting sparks about it.”
“I know,” I said. “Adam Jones told me.”
Robbin’s faceplate snapped around toward me. “How would you have talked to Jones?”
“He came to my cell. He’s the Cold Ones’ boss.”
“No shit!” Robbin exclaimed. “That’s info worth a fortune.”
“How did you find out where I was?” I asked.
“Called in a lot of favors,” he said. “You’re not the first stray I’ve helped, you know. It pays to make friends—even here.”
“So, if you’re at odds with Lexa, where are we going?”
“I’m not sure yet,” he admitted. “I was lucky just to find out where you were before they killed you. Haven’t had a chance to think much further. But there are places we can hide until your ship comes in.”
“Then what?” I asked. “For you, I mean? Where will you go?”
“With you, of course. I’ve just crossed Lexa badly, and cold-cocked two Cold Ones. Can’t very well stay here now—not breathing anyway.”
I shut my eyes, thankful that the helmet hid my face. How would he feel, I wondered, when he learned that even after this, I still didn’t love him? “Actually, they weren’t going to kill me,” I said, half-apologetically.
“Oh, really?” he asked skeptically. “I’ve never heard of anyone returning from delivery to the Cold Ones.”
“They don’t,” I said. “Adam turns them over to Galactic, who sells them to corporate interests looking for free, unregulated labor. I was slated for sale to Steele 17.”
Robbin simply stared at me.
“None of you knew this? Really?” I asked.
“But the stories,” Robbin said, sounding stunned. “Everyone’s heard—”
“—what everyone else assumes or invents,” I finished for him. “The Cold Ones just let you all believe yourselves.”
“’Til they’re so scary, we don’t even want to think about them, much less snoop. It’s the perfect curtain.” Robbin shook his head. “If people here knew that Adam was selling even the worst of us to Galactic, they’d riot. He’ll want us dead now even more than Lexa does. We’d better keep moving.” He grabbed a hand torch off the bench beside us and handed it to me. “Just act like you can’t wait to weld something.”
~o0o~
For three days we snuck from hidey-hole to hidey-hole. Robbin seemed intimately familiar with every service hatch and ventilation shaft on Longhorn 6. He was an accomplished thief as well. We ate better on the run than I had ever eaten at the resource—and for free.
Early on our fourth day, Robbin found us a small, unoccupied living module where we could sit in plush inflatable chairs before a simulated roaring fire on the virteo screen.
“Why do you help people like me?” I asked him. “What’s in it for you?”
“There’s an ancient myth from Earth about a bandit king named Robbin Hat,” he said, sheepishly. “Ever hear it?”
I shook my head.
“My father did,” he said. “He loved to tell it to me when I was little. He named me after Robbin Hat, who stole from the rich and gave to the poor.” Robbin shrugged. “My dad tried to be that kind of thief, I think. I guess I’ve always wanted to be too.” He stretched out lazily, wiggling his bare toes before the virteo fire as if it were actually warm.
He had never seemed more charming to me than he did at that moment. “Robbin,” I said, “I’ve been thinking about what Adam and Galactic have been doing here, and if we tell Astoria—”
The sound of a keycard in the door brought us both to our feet. We whirled around to find ourselves staring at the barrel of a snub-nosed scrap gun—the kind used by people who don’t mind a mess.
“What a cozy place,” Lexa said to Robbin, her face a mask of cold fury. “Your realtor find this for you?”
Robbin just looked blank, then dropped his gaze. “How’d you find us?”
“If your network was better than mine,” she said contemptuously, “you’d have been my boss, and I’d have been your toady.” She glanced at me with even greater disdain. “Her I saw coming, Robbin, but I never thought you’d stab me in the back. You know what Adam thinks of me by now. I’ve gone from trusted confidante to laughing stock.”
“Adam’s always thought you were as clueless as everybody else here,” I said, recklessly. “He as good as told me so when he dropped by my cell to see how well his Cold Ones were doing their job the other day.” Taunting her was suicidal, but Robbin had said that our new information about Adam was worth a fortune. I hoped she’d think so too.
“What crap are you barfing up now?” she growled.
“Adam is the Cold Ones’ boss,” I said. “Or hadn’t he mentioned that? He uses them to harvest slave labor here on Longhorn 6, for Galactic to sell off on other planets. That’s what really happens to the people they ‘dispose of’, but I’m sure Adam’s already shared that with you too. He says it’s very profitable. Does he kick back any of that wealth to trusted confidantes like you?”
“What an inventive mind you’ve got in that pretty head,” said Lexa. “I almost hate to blow it off.”
“It’s true!” Robbin insisted. “Jones is in Galactic’s pocket, and I’ll bet slave labor’s not the only way he’s sold us out to them. How do you think he’s held so much power for so long? He plays both ends.”
“Why should I believe you either?” Lexa snapped, pointing her gun back at him.
“Adam said he would be making examples of a lot of people after Astoria comes,” I pressed. “Scapegoats to explain my disappearance. How much you wanna bet that you’ll be one of them?”
“Shut your fucking mouth!” she yelled, her gun on me again. But I could tell we had her, and began to talk as fast as—well, a realtor.
“Galactic sabotaged the Fleetness.”
“What?” Lexa blurted.
I looked her in the eye. “If you don’t believe me, ask Major Fisk. I think he arranged it personally.” Lexa’s jaw went slack, and I decided it was time to bet everything. “Galactic and Astoria are quietly at war, Lexa, and Astoria’s been losing. Can you imagine what they’d give for what we know about Galactic? They could destroy their biggest rival overnight. Forget Procurement. Astoria could give us rule of this entire station!”
“Or I could kill you both and let Astoria hand everything to me,” she said.
“Your testimony is just secondhand hearsay,” I told her. “I’m the only direct or credible witness, and Astoria won’t pay for what won’t hold up in court.”
“None of that’ll matter anyway after Adam fingers you for Mara’s kidnap, Lexa,” Robbin interjected. “Incriminating you discredits your testimony and saves his neck. You can’t think he won’t see that. I’d be pissed at us too, Lexa, but come on.”
“It doesn’t matter how we do this,” Lexa said. “Adam will—”
“Adam will go down in flames with his partner, Galactic,” I cut in. “Help us hide for one more day, get us onto that ship alive tomorrow, and let Astoria set you up for life. Or shoot that thing and go back to your trusted confidante for a pat on the head. That’s the deal. Take it or leave it.”
~o0o~
The rest, as they say, is history. Lexa held up her part of the bargain easily enough. Jones was so sure of her that he never thought to look for us under her skirts. Rumor has it he was last seen shortly after Lexa got us aboard Astoria’s transport, screaming away from Longhorn 6 in a small private craft. His Cold Ones have vanished into legend here as well.
Galactic Enterprises is history too. And, as expected, Astoria has rewarded us lavishly enough to make even Lexa blush.
It’s been six months now, and I’m finally getting used to my new routine here. Robbin is my second-in-command. Lexa... Well, Lexa works for us. She’s our top enforcer now; number-three dog in Longhorn 6’s food chain, and damned well paid for what she does. Not all she might have hoped for, bu
t considering that I knew enough to have her clapped in chains for life if I had chosen to share her history with Astoria too, I think she’s content.
Am I bummed to find myself still stuck out here on Longhorn 6? Not so much. I live in the former Station Master’s palace now, and spend my days administering Astoria’s new construction project. Longhorn 6 already orbited a star. It just had no planets, so Astoria has decided to build a very nice one. I can see the work progressing from my window, without even getting out of bed. And when it’s done and ready for settlement, its first on-site brokerage will be mine.
Robbin is still trying to convince me to be his Maid Marianne, but I haven’t decided. One way or another, he’ll be fine.
And so will I.
The Hippie Monster of Eel River
The submission guidelines for Close Encounters of the Urban Kind called for “when urban legends meet alien encounters.” Thankfully, it also said that the urban legends could be invented by the author. I ran with that, setting this story twenty years after my novel Eel River, the events forgotten and mythologized, ready to terrify a new generation. Close Encounters was published by Apex in 2010.
_______________
Krystle leaned over the bathroom countertop, the fake-wood-grain surface pressing against her hipbone as she got as close to the mirror as possible. She paused, holding the liquid eyeliner a fraction of an inch from her eye, waiting for the tremor to stop. Probably she should have done this first. Another example of planning ahead, as her mother loved to go on and on about.
Planning ahead. Krystle planned ahead just fine, thank you very much.
She willed her hand to be still, and it finally obeyed, at least long enough for her to draw thick black lines around both eyes. It quivered a bit at the end of the left eye, but the mascara would hide the raggedness.
“Christina? Are you almost done in there?” Her mother’s voice was accompanied by a sharp rapping. The thin wood of the bathroom door bowed inward with the force of the old woman’s fist.
“Krystle,” the girl muttered, and then more loudly, “Jeeeezus! Can’t I have some privacy in my own bathroom?”
Eastlick and Other Stories Page 14