Garbage Star (Galaxy Mavericks Book 4)

by Michael La Ronn

  “Cool,” Eddie said, running his hand through Dylan’s hair.

  He gave his wife a hug and kiss.

  “How was your trip?” Alma asked. She studied him.

  “Good,” Eddie said. “You and Josie really baled up some cardboard.” He looked around at the bales of cardboard and aluminum cans, impressed.

  “You weren’t here to get in the way,” Alma said, smiling.

  Normally Eddie would have had made a witty remark, but he couldn’t think of anything. The image of the dead body flashed back into his memory, and he felt sick.

  “Listen, why don’t you all go back home. Papá and I will clean up the ship and meet you inside.”

  Mama Tonia sniffed again. “That smell, mijo. It just smells so bad…”

  Eddie laughed nervously and took his grandmother’s hand. “Está bien, Mama Tonia.”

  Mama Tonia sniffed again. “Alma, do you smell that?”

  Alma nodded. “Is it fire?”

  “Nah,” Eddie said as he led his wife, son and grandmother toward the exit of the plant. “I’ll see you in a little while.”

  He kissed his wife and rubbed her shoulders. Then they left the plant and disappeared into the night, walking across the desert toward their pod home in the distance.

  Eddie slammed the door and ran toward the ship, where his dad was watching him incredulously.

  “What was that all about?” Delfino asked.

  Eddie motioned for him to follow.

  Delfino’s eyes widened when he saw the back of the broken airlock and bay doors.

  “Ran into a little problem,” Eddie said.

  “You didn’t get attacked by an Argus, did you?”

  Eddie told him everything that happened. Delfino listened with curiosity and concern. Then, he smacked Eddie lightly on the back of the head.

  “What’s the matter with you?” his dad asked. “Since when did we get into the business of transporting dead bodies?”

  “Seemed like a good idea at the time,” Eddie said, rubbing his head.

  “We’re in the waste management business, not the human waste management business, Eddie.”

  Eddie shrugged. “We have to do something about it now.”

  “They didn’t follow you, did they?”

  “Don’t think so. I tricked them.”

  “I don’t like this.”

  They walked to the airlock and hopped inside the ship. Delfino covered his nose and coughed.

  “You get used to it after a little while,” Eddie said. He opened the hatch on the closet and the dead body tumbled out across the floor.

  Delfino jumped nearly two feet in the air.

  “Hijo de…”

  “What are we going to do?” Eddie asked.

  “No,” Delfino said, “What are you going to do?”

  Eddie gulped.

  It was true; his dad would have left the body on the spaceship, and he would have readily given the body to the white ship. No questions asked. His dad never liked to start trouble. Always preferred to follow the rules—exactly unlike his grandfather, Benito.

  Sometimes Eddie thought he was more like his grandfather than his dad. More willing to take a chance, stand up against authority.

  “I don’t know what to do, Papá,” he said.

  Delfino pursued his lips. He folded his arms and studied the body and the broken ship.

  “Seems like this guy was murdered,” Delfino said.

  “Yeah,” Eddie said.

  “We better call the police,” Delfino said. “It’s their problem.”

  “Yeah, umm…”

  “What is it?”

  Delfino’s posture stiffened.

  “The bad guy might have my corsair,” Eddie said.

  “So?”

  “I might have left my key in the ignition, and there’s a tiny chance that they might have my address and personal information.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Eddie shrugged and gulped. “Papá, honestly…truly…sincerely—I don’t know. A lot happened and I don’t know whether the ship got blown up.”

  “What have you done?” Delfino asked. “You’re going to get us all killed.”

  Delfino studied the ship and paced around it.

  “My mistake,” Eddie said. “I wasn’t thinking.”

  “Maybe we need to start traveling in twos,” Delfino said. “First, your cousin getting attacked by Arguses, and now this. It’s getting more dangerous. This kind of stuff never happened in your grandfather’s heyday.”

  Eddie patted the spaceship.

  “We’re gonna have to scrap this baby, huh?” Eddie asked.

  “We need to protect the family. Go to the house and get some rest. I’ll call cousin Ted. He should be able to help.”

  Ted was a distant cousin. He was the sheriff of the Refugio Police Force—a joke of a law enforcement division. But they were GALPOL-certified and they had connections.

  Delfino grabbed Eddie’s shoulder and squeezed it.

  “Eddie,” he said, “What you did was stupid. But we’ll deal with it.”

  Eddie nodded. “How is Papa Ito?”

  Delfino frowned.

  “What is it?” Eddie asked.

  “Maybe you should go see him,” Delfino said.

  Eddie turned and ran out of the recycling plant, into the warm, balmy night.

  Chapter 10

  The desert night was warmer than usual. The sun was still sinking into the horizon, streaking the cloudy sky with the last red and orange glimmers of twilight.

  Eddie loved Refugio’s cool desert nights—they were more comfortable than the cold air of the garbage ship.

  The rocky soil threw up a small cloud of dust as he walked toward a glittering pod in the distance. Glancing up at the sky, he beheld the navy blue night, speckled with stars and clouds. Reader IV took up half the sky with its giant body and rings. The rings were especially lustrous tonight, and they formed red and brown bands that almost divided the sky in half.

  Eddie put his hands in his pockets as he walked.

  A lizard darted from underneath him and scurried away.

  A transplant. Lizards seemed to do particularly well on Refugio, so much that they were a delicacy. Because mammals didn’t adapt to the planet’s desert climate and could only survive in controlled climates, Refugio needed another food source. Entire lizard farms sprung up all over the continents as a sustainable food source. Refugio became famous for its lizards, which residents used as an export commodity and for tourism.

  Eddie didn’t care how good they tasted (they were okay)—no lizard meat, no matter how well-cooked or seasoned, could ever replace carne asada or carnitas.

  Grilled lizard—or as his culture called it, lagartija asada—just wasn’t the same. Not on a tortilla with a smoky sear on the meat. Not even with peppers and chiles, which were easily grown on Refugio. Everyone still called it carne asada, as if calling something by another name made it taste better. But not to Eddie.

  Beef and pork were expensive and often had to be imported. So everyone eventually got used to the taste.

  He watched the lizard scamper off, then continued.

  As he approached home, he realized just how much things had changed since he had come to Refugio.

  He stopped and studied his house.

  A silver, bean-shaped pod made from metal. A long, glass sliding door led into the living room, which was lit up. He spotted a television playing.

  Another pod lay just behind—Mama Tonia’s and Papa Ito’s. Eddie, Alma and Dylan lived together with his parents in their cramped, two-room pod.

  Pod-shaped living. Not his favorite.

  Back on Traverse II, he’d lived in a home. With a foundation. That was the best part about an Earthlike planet.

  But the soil on Refugio was brittle and rocky and didn’t support a foundation.

  He kept telling himself that one day the family would be able to make enough money to expand the pods. Once the mortgage was paid
off, there were a lot of things they’d be able to do.

  But they’d learned, above all, to be frugal. Everyone on the planet had, to a certain extent, if you took out the drunks and good-for-nothing’s.

  In the pod, he spotted Mama Tonia moving around in the tiny kitchen. She was making him a plate. From here he could already smell the lizard carnitas.

  Smelled good. Smoky and salty.

  Mama Tonia motioned to him. She set a plate on the kitchen table and said something, even though he couldn’t hear her.

  Eddie waved. Then he jogged past the pod toward Papa Ito’s.

  ***

  Papa Ito’s pod seemed bigger than the rest of the family’s though it was the same size. With his wheelchair, he needed more space. Combined with Mama Tonia’s feistiness and intense desire for independence, the family pooled its money and had a separate pod constructed for them.

  Eddie tapped the sliding door glass and it opened automatically.

  A blast of humid air hit him and he walked inside quickly.

  They kept the air humid for Papa Ito’s health. His constant sicknesses required delicate air.

  Eddie moved through the darkened pod. The living room lights were turned off, but the television was on.

  Financial news.

  “Eddie,” a frail voice said.

  Papa Ito was sitting in his wheelchair in the kitchen. His hair—what remained of it—was a tangled mess on his head. His lips were chapped and looked as if no amount of water would quench them. He wore a ripped t-shirt and basketball shorts, and he had brown eyes the color of desert mountain rock. He had a fistful of pills in one hand and a glass of water in the other.

  “How was the journey?” Papa Ito asked.

  Eddie hugged Papa Ito and kissed the top of his head.

  “Papa Ito, que pasó? How are you feeling?”

  Papa Ito grunted.

  Eddie glanced at the news. Two anchors spoke as a ticker scrolled below them. Markets were down. Glass prices were down slightly too.

  “I feel like the market,” Papa Ito said.

  “Is the medicine working?” Eddie asked.

  “So-so,” Papa Ito said, wheeling toward the television. His arms, once toned, were like pale sticks. He slid into place next to the couch and swallowed his pills.

  “Is your nausea better?” Eddie asked. “Do we need to call the doctor to increase the dosage?”

  “It’s fine.”

  “Papa Ito, we have plenty of money from the legal settlement. Enough to pay for exactly this kind of thing.”

  “We need to save that money,” Papa Ito said. “Don’t spend it on me. Spend it in Dylan.”

  Stubborn as ever.

  Eddie knelt in front of the wheelchair.

  “We sued Macalestern, and we won because of their negligence. They’ll never sell spaceships with faulty radiation rings ever again. You always taught us to take care of family. That’s what we’re doing.”

  “I’m done,” Papa Ito said. “I’m a lost cause.”

  Tears watered in his eyes but he kept them back.

  “Tell me: how was la estrella this time?”

  “Still the same,” Eddie said.

  Always the same, just as it would be for six billion years. Yet Papa Ito always asked the question.

  His star of life.

  “Bueno,” Papa Ito said. “Still giving us life after all these years.”

  La estrella nearly killed him through a slow leak in his ship’s radiation ring over ten years. But he never accepted it. “Men killed me,” he would always say, “not one of God’s creations.”

  “Did you run into any adventure?” Papa Ito asked, a sly smile creeping across his face.

  “No, just trash.”

  “Oh.”

  “I’m worried about your health,” Eddie said. “We need to take you back to Gargantua. The doctor there, he spoke Spanish, remember? And he gave good medical advice—”

  “It’s permanent radiation sickness,” Papa Ito said. “That’s my diagnosis. It’s quite simple.”

  “But we don’t know what it is exactly,” Eddie said. “No one had ever seen your symptoms before.”

  “I should have been dead a long time ago,” Papa Ito said. “That I’m not is God’s doing. But sometimes…it’s a miserable existence.”

  Eddie said nothing.

  “I dream of home,” Papa Ito said after a while.

  “We’ve made Refugio home,” Eddie said.

  “You will never know,” Papa Ito said. “what it was like to live on a planet. And live peacefully, where you got along with everyone.”

  “Isn’t that what we do on Refugio?”

  “It’s not the same,” Papa Ito said.

  “It’s why you fought,” Eddie said.

  Papa Ito nodded. “And I have no regrets. I—”

  Papa Ito began coughing. Eddie patted him on the back and handed him the glass of water.

  Papa Ito drank a small sip and sighed.

  “I should lay down.”

  Eddie helped him out of the wheelchair and onto the couch.

  It was always a bad idea to leave Papa Ito alone. Mama Tonia never left Papa Ito’s side; they must have been fighting tonight.

  He walked over to the kitchen counter where an intercom was recessed into the wall. He hit a button.

  “Sí?” Mama Tonia asked.

  “Papa Ito is resting on the couch,” Eddie said. “Can someone come and sit with him?”

  “I’ll be over, mijo,” Mama Tonia said. “Your food is getting cold.”

  Papa Ito coughed again.

  Eddie filled a glass of water at the kitchen sink and brought it to Papa Ito. The old man’s eyes were illuminated by the TV.

  “Cardboard prices are down,” Papa Ito said. “Damned shame after all the work the girls did this week.”

  “It’s okay,” Eddie said. “We’ll hold onto the materials for a few weeks. Prices always go up.”

  That seemed to cheer him up.

  “You always had more sense than your father,” Papa Ito said. “Why is it that you don’t want to run the business again?”

  Eddie fidgeted. He saw himself in his grandfather’s eyes, in the wrinkles on his chin, the slight curvature in his lips.

  He saw his father, just as decrepit in a few years. And Alma. And everyone he ever loved.

  Even though the garbage ship technology had advanced rapidly since the lawsuit, there was always the heightened chance that Eddie himself would suffer this same fate, from radiation. Or worse.

  He didn’t want to put Dylan through that.

  It was a way to make a living, but no way to live.

  Eddie looked away.

  Papa Ito grabbed his arm. “Tell me you’ll at least think about it.”

  At that moment, the sliding glass door slid open and Mama Tonia entered with a frown on her face.

  “Benito, turn off the television,” she said in a stern voice.

  “What else am I supposed to do holed up in this damned house?” he asked. “What am I paying cable for if—”

  Mama Tonia turned off the TV.

  “Go and eat,” she said.

  Eddie knew from the tone in her voice that they were fighting. He looked back at his grandfather.

  “I’ll think about it, Papa Ito,” he said, not meaning it.

  But Papa Ito’s eyes brightened. “Thanks, Eddie.”

  Mama Tonia sat on the couch and gave him more water.

  Eddie lingered, watched as his grandfather sipped water painfully and coughed. Then he slipped out of the pod, into the night.

  Chapter 11

  Eddie entered his home pod.

  Smelled like home. Alma had lit two candles on the dining room table, and from the looks of the dishes in the sink, everyone else had eaten already.

  The table was set for one.

  He sat down, feeling a hunk of metal shift in his pocket.

  The dead man’s pendant. He took it out and laid it on the table.
/>
  He ate quickly. Lizard carnitas and tortillas, with tamarind soda and carrot sticks (because Mama Tonia believed in combating cholesterol if only a little bit).

  The food was good. All the flavors were there. He wiped his mouth and pulled out his phone, found the number to the clinic.

  Just as he dialed, Alma entered with Dylan just behind her. Seeing him on the phone, she frowned.

  He knew she wanted to talk to him.

  But the phone rang.

  “Hello, this is Refugio Northwest,” a male receptionist said.

  “Dr. Martin, please,” Eddie said.

  “She’s gone home for the night,” the receptionist said. “Anything I can help you with?”

  Dylan toddled over to Eddie and jumped in his lap.

  “Hello?” a male receptionist asked.

  “Sorry,” Eddie said, positioning Dylan in his lap. “I’m calling about my grandfather, Benito Puente. The doctor prescribed him pegfilgrastim two weeks ago, but he’s still experiencing severe weakness and fatigue. I’m wondering if Dr. Martin needs to change the dosage.”

  “I can send her a message,” the receptionist said. “But she is attending a doctors’ conference and won’t be back until the end of the week.”

  Eddie sighed. Dylan reached for his fork, but he slid the plate away.

  “Are you telling me there is no one in the office that can take a look at my grandfather’s dosage?” Eddie asked.

  “I’m looking at his medical records now,” the receptionist said. “Dr. Martin is the only one in our office with the level of radiation expertise that Mr. Puente requires.”

  “Can you page her then?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Well, can I have her cell phone number?”

  “I cannot give that to you, sir.”

  “Then what can you do?”

  “I can relay a message to call you when she returns—”

  Click.

  Eddie hung up on him.

  “What’s wrong?” Alma asked.

  Dylan bounced on his lap. He had the pendant in his hand. Eddie smiled weakly and handed the boy a napkin, tried to take the pendant away. But Dylan screamed and jumped off his lap, running down the hallway to the bedroom.

  “Dylan!” Alma said. “Come back.”

  “Papa Ito’s symptoms are getting worse,” Eddie said. “It’s got to be the medicine.”