Deathship (The Outsider Series Book 1)

by Steven Oaks

  “They can attach the hose I assume you are also using over here,” I said, directing him to the side of Athene just behind where I had exited. The disguised panel slid open, and was ready for docking with the black tube that excreted the dead into her bowels.

  “Come on boys, lets get this thing loaded” Derick shouted over his shoulder at the open door from which he had stepped from. From this opening spewed forth the same black clad workers I had seen the first two stops as they dragged behind them the midnight dark pipe. While I could not see their faces, their movements did not seem as depressed or fatigued as those at the other facilities. Only in comparison did I even notice that those first laborers had exhibited any emotion. But the jovial nature of Derick seemed to be shared with those he worked with.

  “If I might ask Derick, if the facility here is so popular why do your employees still wear the black uniforms and cover their faces?” I asked.

  “While it is a popular idea here, it isn’t the case everywhere, or with everyone. There still have been threats, though not many. I want to protect those I work with. Also it is a uniform, wear it with pride. I can see you are dressing well yourself. Some of these lads can’t afford the clothes you and I are wearing, and they still want to stand tall with their shoulders straight and their heads held high. You can’t expect a man to do so when he only has clothes that make him look a slob. With these to wear we all can look smart and be able to be proud of the work we do,” he said loudly. His full smile creased lines into his face while he slapped my back.

  “You keep saying men and lads. Are there no women working here?” I asked.

  “Oh there certainly are. However, I don’t think a woman should have to handle the dead themselves. I only let men do the actual loading and unloading. You can’t expect a woman to do that, it would be unchivalrous. I’m not saying women aren’t just as smart and strong or anything, I just take unkindly to women being used in such a way,” he said, tapping the ash off the end of his cigar causing a cloud of dust to swirl in the wind.

  “You’re the one in charge here, and I’m not going to tell you how to run your operation, but I will say I find that attitude a little outdated. Don’t you think a female would like to have a job just as much as these males?” I asked, somewhat angered at his apparent sexism.

  At that he lost his smile. “Listen, you do your job, and I’ll do mine. I was hired on to make sure things run smoothly. As I see it we are operating that way, and I see no reason to change. There are women here, I just don’t have them doing manual labor or dealing directly with the bodies. They are our accountants and secretaries. Heck the person who is second in charge here is a fine young lady who assists me better than any man ever has. Don’t go trying to play the sexist card at me,” he said heatedly.

  “As I said it is your place to make these decisions. I was just curious to your reasoning. You’ve explained and I will except it. I do find slight flaws in your logic, though you seem to be doing it out of a gallant reflex.” I said, then I stuck my hand out again for a handshake. “It was good meeting you, and I shall see you again another day. Now however, I think I should attend to supervising the loading process aboard my ship, if you will excuse me,” I said.

  He nodded his head with a contemplative look to his face, and slowly took my hand into his large warm grip. “Michael, you are a strange one. It was interesting meeting you. But word of advice, you should relax a little. This is not the end of the world,” he said, gesturing around him with his free hand that held the still lit cigar. “In my experience you will live a happier life if you don’t go butting your head into everything you find wrong with the world. Sure there are issues I find distasteful, but if I were to worry about them constantly I would have died long ago of stress,” he said with a large smile.

  “Thank you for the advice Mr. Mahoney. I shall contemplate it,” I said, removing my hand from his to gave him a slight bow, and turned around to walk back to Athene.

  As I entered and the door closed behind me, I asked, “Athene what do you make of our friend Derick?”

  “I think he means well and genuinely seems to be a good person to work for, at least if you are male. He does seem to limit what he thinks a woman can do. Or perhaps a better way of putting it would be he limits what he thinks woman should be allowed to do. I think he would look unkindly on women being treated poorly, and yet he does not seem to see he might be doing that himself,” she said.

  “I see it much the same way. It is unfortunate we didn’t run across another to recruit into our cabal. At least he didn’t try to poison me,” I laughed.

  “You have not given anyone an opportunity to poison you again. Though you might have had some second hand smoke from him,” she giggled at this idea.

  “While I don’t smoke, I have smoked a cigar now and again in my life. They are rather pungent most times, but his was pleasant smelling. I wonder if he lit it up just for me or if he wanders around the facility waving his smoke around at everyone, like some caricature of Mr. Moneybags,” I said. Walking over to a chair to sit lounging with my left leg over the armrest.

  “You seem in a better mood now Michael,” Athene pointed out.

  “While I don’t agree with his ideas of gender equality, I still found his good humor to be contagious. I’m almost sad I wasn’t able to stay around to talk with him. He seemed like a fun person to just pass the time with,” I said.

  “Do you know what he is doing now? He is out there talking with all the black clad people. He is even helping them hook up the tube,” she said.

  “Well at least he doesn’t think he is too good for some manual labor himself. Now I feel I’ve judge him rather harshly, though I still don’t think he should only hire men to work certain positions. But I do have a question. Why do they hire so many people to work here or at the other facilities? It seems it would only require a few people to pull a tube up here, but each time there were four or five of them dragging it out.” I said.

  “I would think most of them are doing double duty as security, and might just be interested in seeing one of the Outsiders ships up close. When I siphoned out the containers of the dead at the last building it seemed they were all interconnected in a tube inside the building. It would be a very simple task to load them into the line of dead for us to pick up. I am unsure whether they are prepackaged before delivery or if they are put into the containers here. If the later is the case they may need quite a few to handle the placement of the bodies into them. This is mostly conjecture as we do not know if what was in the Columbus building was standard, though it does appear from our limited interactions they standardize several things. Take for instance my ignorance of what the other pilots flight paths and number of stops are. You happen to only be stopping at four places today. While I could see within the hangar there were only fifteen other ships. That would mean, if you based upon population, your four stops would be somewhat average when you look at the spread of where people are living across North America. I am unsure why they would have so many in use as tomorrow we will likely not have anything to do, though many will die if the average death rate is to be believed,” she said.

  “At least it will be a shorter day. I think perhaps we will only hit one or two states a day at this point. It seems they can handle storing the local dead population for a month at each stop we made. It could also be they’ve scoped out a number of places for humans to colonize and want pilots to be prepared. They could also expect a number of us to quit in the first few days and want to weed out those they don’t find qualified to handle the situation. The only way to do that would be to gather more than you need to do the task. When you find the best, keep them and get rid of the rest,” I said pondering aloud.

  “If that is the case I hope the incident in Ohio does not count against us,” she said.

  “I don’t think it
will. In fact I think it might give us bonus points. It was an unexpected situation and we were able to gather our cargo without noticeable issue. In fact if the edited version of my conversation with Jennifer is used, it will show that I am able to convince those that stand against the Outsiders to cooperate with them,” I said.

  “Well that reassures me slightly. As for why we would be deployed here in the Midwest could be we are some of the first deployed. Also they could have wanted us to start in a region you would be familiar with. North America is small compared with the Eurasian continent and it may be likely we will be asked to travel across the oceans and help them at times,” she said.

  “I did think fifteen ships for such a small population was a bit excessive. Do you know how many ships in total they have in each hangar or how many they made at all?” I asked.

  “I am unaware of the total number. However checking the memories of the me that came before this personality it seems there was a large number produced at the time of my creation. Precise numbers are not available despite my knowledge of their construction. It seems the ships were made on demand and sent to the hangars awaiting pilots to install a personality type,” she said in a frustrated voice.

  “That’s okay Athene. I can’t expect you to know everything, even though you seem able to dig up the most obscure knowledge. We shall have to wait and see. Now do you know what we are expected to do with all these bodies when we are done with this last stop? I mean precisely. I know we have to meet up with the Outsider’s ship, but do you know anything more than that?” I asked.

  “We will fly a predetermined flight pattern up to their ship. At that point my assumption is we shall be hooked up to a tube similar to what was done here, and be unloaded via it. I would hope it does not take as long to unload as it did to load, but we shall see,” she said.

  “Well I’m not looking forward to that. I only want to get some rest. I’ve not been doing all that much but talk, and I suppose being poisoned, but I’m feeling like this day is going on for far too long,” I said with a sigh.

  “You could always take a nap. It is not like I will not be able to handle the loading right now,” she said, with a smile in her voice.

  “Yeah I know. I’m almost entirely useless in this endeavor, but I had hoped to at least observe the majority of today’s transactions. But maybe a nap is called for. Wake me up before we leave, I want to watch us leap up to meet the Outsiders ship,” I said, beginning the short trek to the bedroom. I really was quite tired. I stripped off most of my suit trying to keep it from wrinkling too much and laid it across the chair in the room. I seem to fall asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow. The world faded away for a short time and I found a certain peace in rest.

  In a time seeming far too short, Athene woke me saying, “Michael, we are nearly done loading. Would you like to come to the control room?”

  I rubbed my eyes tempted to stay where I was, but I did wish to see this to the end. “I’ll be right there, just let me get some clothes back on,” I said.

  I quickly pulled the suit back on and made my way up to the waiting chair surrounded by screens showing the outside world. When I looked out I could see Derick was still outside holding a familiar pack of papers for me to sign. It looked like he was expecting me to come back out and say goodbye.

  “Athene, I think I should say our farewells to Derick before we head out. I don’t want him to think I was being purposely rude. That and I have to sign paper work,” I said, with a yawn.

  “Okay Michael. I shall hold off on flying away for now,” she said with a little giggle.

  I ambled towards the living room to put on the overcoat at the door, did a quick check on myself in the mirror, and found myself acceptable. My hair was somewhat tousled, but as it was still windy outside I did not waste much time on it. Looking like this I left without trying to straighten it.

  “Michael!” Derick shouted over the wind that seemed to have picked up in the time I had lounged inside. “As you can see we were able to handle today’s cargo and got you all loaded up promptly.” He stuck his hand out for a handshake and I took it. It seemed he had run out of cigars for now, but he still had his smile intact. He then offered me the papers in his hand and a pen he pulled out of a pocket on his vest.

  “Good job Derick. You can tell your people today was an excellent example of proficiency. I hope we won’t have to have you filled to capacity again. I’m likely to be back much sooner to pick up next time. Today was for both of us an endurance test, and you are done. I still have my last little stop to unload though,” I said, looking down at the paper work to sign my name.

  “Good luck to you on that. If this stop is anything like the others it will take you quite some time to unload, unless you have some secret method for doing so,” he said with a mysterious wink.

  “No secrets as far as I’m aware. Luckily Athene here,” I said, patting the nearest part of her, “has all the creature comforts of home locked away inside. Which is lucky for me as I plan on taking part in the colonization plan. Flying between the stars will be faster than we humans have been able to devise, but it will still take time,” I said, smiling and handing the paper and pen back to him. He simply folded it all away and tucked them in between his vest and shirt.

  “Oh you are one of those people. I’m far too old to get any excitement in that idea. I am so used to Earth living anywhere else seems too much a bother. I like my creature comforts and I don’t imagine they will be available on any other world for quite some time.” As he said this he had slapped his large belly to show what he meant.

  I smiled, “Oh I know what you mean, but like I said Athene here is the best place to be. I will have luxuries the colonists themselves won’t have, as unfair as some might see it. They’ll have to make do with the colonial life until they are able to produce such comforts beyond food and housing. Another reason to be thankful I am one of the pilots selected. I shall be able to see each world without much of the hassle of daily labor. Though that does hold a certain appeal to me. Perhaps while I’m waiting on my ship to be full of the deceased I’ll go out amongst the people and help them till a field or raise a barn,” I said, flexing my muscles to show that I could work as well as anyone.

  He laughed, “Well if they allow you to work with them I think you’d have the best of both worlds. The joy of making, and the ability to relax in comfort.”

  “I can’t imagine why they would not let me work along side them,” I said, losing some of my smile.

  “Oh don’t take it the wrong way. It’s just most people aren’t fond of your position, or mine for that matter. Perhaps jealousy would be the appropriate way to explain. You will be able to outlive all of us now with the Outsiders help. Not only that but you will be the only one who has the luxuries of home. You won’t have to work away in the mud just to survive, and that could lead to some tension,” he said.

  “I hadn’t thought of that. Lets hope they understand I’m just lucky and am there just to do the job I was given. There are certain privileges you get when you are given higher positions, which I think you know about. Better pay for harder work and all that Mr. Mahoney. As the facility manager here you should be making a fair amount more than the employee’s underneath you,” I said, with a half smile.

  “Oh I do make a good living, but I worked for years to get here. It cost me a wife and kids as they disowned me after not coming home several nights a week. Just so I could make sure things were running smoothly. I certainly put huge effort into getting it up and going,” he said, with a sad smile. “You on the other hand, if you will pardon me, seem to have just fallen into this line of work. Unless they’ve already made you young once more. But your bearing is of one as young as you look,” he said, with a grin.

  “I suppose it was luck, or I have something they were looking for. I am indee
d as young as I appear, though I have mostly taken care of myself physically. Perhaps I didn’t earn the right to live in such a way, but I am not going to look too closely at the horses mouth,” I said, grinning wryly.

  Once more Derick gave one of his explosive laughs, “Right you are, comrade. There is nothing wrong with taking advantage of a situation. But you might want to consider the horse you were given closely. There will be hardships for one such as yourself. You have taken a job that will ostracize you from the majority of humanity and you will likely only find companionship from those who share in your work,” he said.

  “If I might ask, what did you do before you started working here?” I asked curiously.

  “Oh I was a politician. Nothing like a senator or congress man, but a small town Mayor. I retired a few years ago away from its trappings, but I found I still had things I wanted to do. The Outsiders gave me the opportunity to work with people once more. Especially working in this building,” he said using his thumb to point behind him. “I’ve always felt it was a shame to not be utilized. I find a bit of pleasure in that. But do not let me keep you with my ramblings. Just keep in mind you are no longer viewed as a normal person. You have become something more in their eyes. Some might think you a traitor to humanity, and others might think you have cheated the normal life cycle and will be jealous of the things you are able to do. I don’t think it will be an easy life, but if what the Outsiders say is true, it will be a long one. Maybe even a very lonely one as you watch those you know and maybe love die of old age as you continue on as a young person. I do not envy you. But I don’t hate you for it. I hope you will come to think of me as a friend. You will need one, though I may not be around very much longer to help you. This damn cancer is eating away at me even as we speak, but I won’t let that stop me trying to help anyone I can,” he said, with a bitter smile.

  “Cancer? Why are you not in a hospital or taking it easy?” I asked, shocked.