The Road to Damascus

by Richard D. Ramsey

  “That’s hardly a defence.”

  “How about this? You place three people into a penal colony without a shred of hard evidence and this port furthers its reputation as one being hostile to traders. Your visits and commerce are already down. Other freight captains will no doubt talk and I know how you business types hate that.”

  Sometimes it’s all about speaking the language.

  The magistrate, obviously perturbed, stamped three dockets and said, “You’re all free to go.” Halleluiah, the lord must have been standing by my side on that one.

  Outside of the magistrate office, I brushed myself off and looked at Captain Stark. He was shorter than I, but very intimidating. “It seems you need fresh crew.”

  He began to walk away from me. “I don’t need new crew. I have a few left.”

  “I’m registered.”

  He kept walking, Jenna was not far behind.

  “You owe me one!” That stopped him dead in his tracks.

  He turned and walked back to where I was standing, his feet heavy on the ground. “Do you know how to read a cargo manifest?”

  “No, but I’m a fast learner.”

  He stood there looking and not saying anything for a moment.

  Finally. “Let’s go. I’ll get you some quarters. I want to be out of here as soon as possible.”

  And that, my friends, is how I found my way onto the Damascus.

  2

  I grew up on a planet called Earth in a little community called Brantley, Florida. My mother was such a wonderful angel. I guess all mothers are in the eyes of babes. Now that I know the kinds of things my parents engaged in, I can’t say that I’m especially proud of them; but when I was a young man you could never have convinced me that she had ever done any wrong. One thing I remember most from my childhood was a book of Grimm’s Fairy Tales. It was a large collection of stories from my planet’s history that usually had some sort of lesson attached to it. There was one in particular, however, that really made an impression on me as a boy. In fact, it gave me nightmares for many years. It was the tale of the willful child.

  You see, once there was this little boy who was very willful and he never did what his parents asked. After a while, God became displeased with him and let him become very ill. Every doctor in the land tried to help him, but they could not. Their medicine just could not make him better. So, the little boy died and his family lowered him into a grave. They began to spread dirt across him and his little arm reached upward out of the ground. They pushed it back down and covered it again with dirt, but it was of no use. The little arm burst forth again and reached up out of the ground. Then, the mother came forth with a strap and beat the little arm, but it would not yield. Day and night she spanked the little arm until finally; it went down into the ground and stayed there. Even though I knew this lesson, it never stopped me from blazing my own path. Even sometimes when it seemed I was covered in dirt, I still had the undying urge to push my arm out, even though I knew it would be strapped.

  ***

  The Damascus was an old grandfather of a ship on the outside, and the inside was no better. Strictly a utility vessel, nothing here was made for aesthetics or comfort. There were four cargo bays, every one about the size of a basketball court. Each one had its own separate climate control and bay doors. They were completely separate units, accessible by a long elevated walkway from the cockpit or hallways aligning the engine room in the center. The crew quarters and common room were located directly under the cockpit and the galley. I tell you, comfort was not designed into the vessel. My assigned space actually had two bunks in it, but I was the only one there which suited me just fine. The room, if you could call it that, was not much larger than my prison cell was all those years ago. The difference, I had to tell myself, was that I could come and go as I wished.

  Understanding a manifest wasn’t too hard and it didn’t take long to learn. I had to inventory the freight and make sure it was secured properly. In bay three, I had to make sure the climate controls were adjusted according to the required specifications. It was filled with some sort of medical equipment we were taking to Alpha Centauri station. Two of the other bays were full of various crates and containers, ready to be brought to whoever was on the other side of the order.

  That hot shot pilot I told you about before? It was Jenna! I had never heard of a woman who flew freight before, much less an Inillian. Most cargo pilots were big burly men that would just as soon pound you in to the ground as give you the time of day. Pilots with her skills usually flew shuttles and jets, but there she was on the Damascus. Her appearance didn’t seem to fit, but her personality did. She always seemed to have something better to do than be sociable.

  The first evening we left dock she came knocking at my door. I had been reading from the book of Psalms. I tucked my Bible up under my mattress before I opened up, I didn’t want it to be found. The back cover had been torn off a year before and I had to be careful to not rip the pages. They were so thin and delicate. Jenna’s fur had turned into an easy brown. I was sure her emotions would be easy to read as her coat changed color with each one, but I didn’t really know what any of her many hues meant yet. Aside from the fur, Inillians had hair on their head, too; just like humans. It also changed color to match the fur. Jenna’s was shoulder length and straight, almost covering her left eye. Her hair had been tied back at the port; I hadn’t seen it down before. Needless to say she was striking. Her eyes were a deep green that caught your gaze and didn’t want to let go.

  “Is the freight down?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  She shifted her weight from one foot to the next and sighed. “Is all of the cargo secured to the floor?”

  “Oh, yes. I made sure of that.”

  “And you did your double checks? I’m about to engage the cruise engines and I don’t need loose materials bouncing around in the bays.”

  “Yes, ma’am. I did everything Captain Stark showed me.” I smiled at her, trying to lighten the mood.

  “Show me your manifest.” It was going to take a while to earn her trust.

  I gave her my tablet indicating my double checks tying every last piece of equipment to the floor clamps. She almost seemed to lighten up to a dark yellow as she read over it.

  She thrust my tablet back at me and said, “Very well. We’ll be going to cruise momentarily; I suggest you strap yourself in.”

  Going to cruise was rough, but once you got there it was smooth sailing.

  The next morning I went to bay four, which was the empty one, so I could learn more about the climate controls without putting the cargo at risk. The temperature control was pretty cut and dry, but the humidity settings were a bit more complex. They were tied into the thermostat with some kind of protocol that I couldn’t quite grasp, but it was coming to me. In every bay there was this one dial located under a plastic box that I wasn’t quite sure about. It was unlabeled except for little hash marks going in a circle. There was only one way to tell what this did, I turned it.

  If you’ve never been on a starship, you don’t know about the residual hum. It was there all the time, a sound made by the engines. It wasn’t a great nuisance; your body had a way of tuning it out after a couple of days. When I turned this dial, I suddenly became aware of the hum growing much louder. The next thing I noticed was my knees getting weaker. I thought I was having a stroke, but then I realized it was a self contained artificial gravity module. I quickly turned it back to where it was. The hum went away and my legs grew all of their strength back!

  Without warning, a voice boomed from the upper walkway. It startled me with my newly refreshed ears and I nearly jumped out of my skin. It was Captain Stark. “Stop that!”

  “I was just familiarizing myself with the environmental controls.”

  He hurried down the steps to where I was standing. “Gravity setting is not an environmental control.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I was just trying to learn the ship.�
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  The captain seemed perturbed. “You don’t need to learn this ship. Listen, I’ll carry you through three more space docks, and then my debt to you is repaid. We’re done.”

  I wasn’t sure how to respond to that. “Alright, just please talk to me before you drop me off at some random port.”

  “Okay, but don’t touch anything if I haven’t shown it to you.”

  “Yes sir.”

  That was pretty much my experience with the rest of the crew. They really didn’t communicate with me. The cook brought me my meals to my quarters; I didn’t eat with the staff. There were times I would walk through the common room and all conversation would stop until I left out the other side. It wasn’t that I wasn’t a member of their crew; it was that I wasn’t a freight worker. Oh, I had a freight registration with the Transit Authority, but that didn’t mean much to those folks. They had spent untold years flying cargo from one end of the galaxy to the other and if you hadn’t lived the same lifestyle, then you were an outsider. It was as simple as that.

  The first two days at Alpha Centauri station were very busy and hectic. We unloaded the medical supplies and some containers out of bay two and took on a load of mining equipment bound for a distant colony on the other side of Betelgeuse. I say we, but it was mostly me loading and unloading. I could really start to feel my age. My old body wasn’t used to that type of hard manual labor. It took me longer than it should have, but I got done what I needed to get done. All four bays were packed to the brim and I had the long and tedious task of inventory before we launched. It was a welcome relief from the heavy labor.

  The freighters that went into deep space usually had a cook. Most of the time they were just a crewman assigned to do the cooking rather than a true culinary artist. I’ve heard that they would draw lots before taking off to see who would have to prepare the food with each mission. David Jessup was a tall and slender man who cooked full time and actually seemed to enjoy it.

  He came to me while I was inventorying bay two and handed me a pad. “I need these items moved up to the galley tonight.”

  I looked at the list and surprised myself that I remembered where some of the items were. “Y’all are no doubt taking advantage of my free labor, here; aren’t you?”

  He grew a large self satisfied grin that seemed to extend from ear to ear. “Yep, Captain Stark has given us permission to delegate any tasks to you!”

  “Lovely. I have lots of freight to inventory; it may be tomorrow morning before I can get this to you.”

  David closed his eyes and shook his head. His nose almost seemed too large for his face and it looked comical seeing him do this. “No good, I need this tonight. We’re all going on shore leave since you’re taking so long and I have to have this stuff in the galley when I get back.”

  “You’re all leaving?”

  “What’s wrong? Afraid to be here by yourself?”

  “No, I just didn’t think ya’ll would trust me enough to watch the ship by myself.”

  He laughed out loud at that. “We don’t! Jenna and Captain stark have the keys. You won’t be able to leave this ship or take off with it even if you wanted to!” He walked away laughing and shaking his head.

  It was not going to be an easy job.

  After taking the crates up to the galley, my arms felt like wet noodles. I needed to take a break. It only took a little time of idleness before my curiosity got the better of me. I hadn’t really been to the upper deck except for when Captain Stark had showed me around and then told me I was not welcome up there. The galley was on the port side of the ship and a dining hall was located just past the hallway on the starboard. On the bow end (that’s the front for you land based folk), was the cockpit. It was locked up tighter than a solitary confinement ward.

  As the short hallway went further back a ways, it teed off and there were doors that lead to the upper walkways of the cargo bays. In between the two rows of bays was the engine room, it spanned two decks and it was locked up tight, also. They sure didn’t plan on letting me get anywhere close to anything sensitive on this ship.

  Enough exploring, I had work to do.

  I went back to bay four; there was a fresh load and lots of paperwork that went with it. The room was terribly quiet. I was so used to the residual hum that I missed it when it was gone. Every sound I made seemed to echo in the mostly filled chamber. My hearing had always been very good, that’s part of the reason I was able to pick up the guitar so quickly. I loved sound, but I respected silence. The absence of noise always seemed to make it easier to get closer to God.

  I took a moment to pray since no one was around. It seemed like a good time.

  In the still of the stockroom, I thought I heard voices. Whispering voices. Maybe one of the crew had stayed behind. I called out, “Is anyone here?” The voices stopped.

  I thought maybe I was just getting old, hearing things. I read somewhere that people could start hearing voices if they were alone for long periods of time. I was lonely, but on the ship I was far from being alone. I went about my work and didn’t give it a second thought. Until I heard it again.

  Now, the first time I wasn’t sure if it was my imagination or not. The second time, I know I heard someone talking. It was coming from the bow end of the cargo bay. I thought I was alone on the ship. I had been all over the upper deck and what wasn’t opened had been secured from the outside. The same with the crew quarters below, all locked from the outside. There was no way any one of the crew had remained on board.

  There it was again, a whisper; a loud whisper. I couldn’t tell if it was male or female, but it was definitely a whisper. I called out again “Who is that?”

  Silence.

  Quiet.

  I wasn’t far from the bow wall, so I made my way to it and placed my head against the metal panel there. It was cold against my ear. Patiently, I listened.

  I was so engrossed in listening for voices that I didn’t hear the footsteps coming into the bay. When my visitor spoke, I jumped and yelped a little. Just a little.

  “Who are you?” It was an inspector for the Transit Authority. He was wearing the typical blue jumpsuit they wore with his institutions patch on the left breast and right sleeve. It was a circle, a triangle and a square laid on top of one another. It was supposed to be a symbol of cooperation, but it had become a heavily loathed image amongst traders. He had a small electronic data pad and one hand and the other was resting on the barrel of his rifle. A strap kept it secure about his shoulders.

  “I’m Jacob Mozel. I work here. I didn’t think inspectors were supposed to come aboard without the crew present.” This was starting to make me uncomfortable.

  “You’re present and I’m making an inspection, so that makes it official.”

  “Yeah, but it seems you didn’t know I was here before you came into the room.” Maybe I shouldn’t have said that, but I was always a willful child.

  His hand moved from the barrel of his gun to the grip. “Is that your cargo manifest?”

  I nodded and handed it to him. I sure didn’t want to escalate things at that point.

  He reviewed it carefully. Without looking up, he asked a question. “Are you carrying anything from Mo’ak?”

  I started to have an idea about where this was going.

  A voice. The same whisper from before. It was faint and unintelligible, but it was a voice nonetheless.

  My Transit Authority friend looked up startled. “What was that?”

  I knew that if I didn’t play my cards right this could end badly. “What was what?”

  “Don’t play games with me. I heard something. It came from behind that wall.”

  He walked over to the panel I had been listening to when he came in and placed his ear against it. “What’s behind this panel?”

  I swallowed. I didn’t know what was there, but I had a pretty good idea I didn’t want him to find out. “A fuel cell I think. I don’t know.”

  He placed his data pad in a pocket and
pulled his rifle into position, pointing at me. “Why did you have your head against that wall?”

  “I have an earache that hurts terribly and the metal is cool against my skin.” My mind was racing trying to keep with this conversation.

  “Open the panel.”

  “I don’t know how.”

  He pulled out his data pad again, pushed a button and spoke into it. “This is Marcus. I think I have something on The Damascus in the fourth cargo bay. I’m requesting back up.”

  The situation was going from bad to worse. Marcus holstered his pad once again and pointed to the wall with the barrel of his gun.

  “I’m telling you, I don’t know how. We really should call Captain Stark.”

  That idea got shut down real quick. He made me kneel down on my knees, put my hands behind my back and he placed me in a pair of plasticuffs. He then proceeded to run his hands all along the wall, seemingly looking for a way to remove the panel.

  The Transit Authority must train their men well, because it only took him a few minutes to find a lever that I didn’t even know was there. He pushed it in and a pair of large handles came out of the wall. The panel came out easily on tracks and slid to one side. Behind it was a well lit room. I think I was more surprised than he was.

  He poked his head in, looking left and the right before entering. Through the door, I could see the corner of a bunk suspended against the wall with a sheet hanging off of one side. It all suddenly made sense. I didn’t know what to do, but the Mo’ak prostitutes did.

  Four of them jumped on Marcus before he had a chance to react. He stumbled back a few steps and fell to the ground with a heavy thud. More girls came from the room. Most just stood there in disbelief, but two jumped on him and held him down while the others clawed at his face like wild animals.