by Marko Kloos
“Yeah, but we haven’t been down there in six months. I always pet the grass when I pass some. Our line of work, you never know when you get another chance.”
I watch her with amusement. Then I drop my pack and kneel next to her to do likewise. The grass is soft and pliable, the earth underneath firm and cool. It occurs to me just then that none of the colony moons I’ve been to in the last few years have had any grass on them. When every gram of interstellar cargo is worth its weight in platinum, you don’t waste hold space hauling seeds for decorative plants. You bring seeds that can be turned into food or fuel.
Halley gets up and brushes her hand on the pant leg of her fatigues.
“Earth,” she says. “It has its nice little corners, doesn’t it?”
“Some,” I agree. “Give it time. We’ll find ’em and burn them to the ground.”
Our destination is on Liberty Falls’ Main Street, just past the old-fashioned redbrick library and the town offices. It’s a small restaurant in a building that looks like it was built before there was a North American Commonwealth. I know that the place, like half the shops on Main Street, is thoroughly modern inside and just looks like it’s two hundred years old. There’s a blackboard easel outside by the curb that has the specials of the day written on it in colored chalk. Out here, you can still get food that isn’t made with soy and shit, and the people who live here can afford meals that would cost a PRC resident a month’s worth of black market goods and a commissary chit besides. Even with the fate of the planet teetering on the edge of a sharp blade, there are still those who eat real beef in places where the cops aren’t even armored, and those who eat reconstituted crap in neighborhoods where the cops carry more gear than your average Spaceborne Infantry grunt.
“Ready for another dose of family?” I say. Halley pretends to check her nonexistent makeup in an imaginary mirror, then gives me a curt and pilot-like thumbs-up.
“Going in hot,” she says.
The inside of the restaurant has a vaguely last-century Mediterranean flair to it: stucco walls, cozy little nooks for the tables, and rustic-looking tables that would be worth tens of thousands if they were made of real worm-eaten antique wood and not its synthetic imitation.
Inside, there are no guests yet. A tall, slender man with a graying regulation-length buzz cut is wiping down tables with a rag. He’s wearing a server’s apron, and the sleeves of his shirt are rolled up neatly, revealing tattoos on his lower arms. He looks over to the door when we walk in and smiles.
“Well, look what the cat dragged in.”
“You don’t have one, Chief Kopka,” I reply.
“Health and sanitation regulations,” he says. Then he shakes out the rag he’s holding and drapes it over a shoulder. He wipes his hands on the apron and comes over to us.
“Good to see you, Master Chief,” Halley says, and gives him a curt hug.
“And you, Captain,” he says. “Still not used to Fleet sailors walking around with ground pounder ranks. You should be called a lieutenant. And wear bars instead of stars.”
“Pay grade’s the same,” Halley says. “That’s all that matters.”
“I thought you weren’t going to be in until tonight?” Chief Kopka asks.
“We got two seats on an earlier shuttle down to Burlington,” I reply. “Easier getting spots going down to Earth than coming back up.”
“Place is empty,” Halley observes. “Did you run out of food?”
Chief Kopka makes a pained little grimace.
“Sort of. We don’t open for breakfast anymore, just lunch and dinner. I haven’t been getting enough eggs and dairy in. The local stuff is getting stretched pretty thin.”
“I need to figure out how to say ‘Stretched Pretty Thin’ in Latin,” I say. “That’s pretty much our new motto now.”
“Sit down, you two,” the chief says. He gestures to one of the empty booths. “Can I get you some coffee, make you an early lunch? Kitchen’s warmed up.”
“We had food out at Burlington before we hopped on the maglev,” Halley says. “But I wouldn’t turn down a cup of real coffee.”
“How about you, Andrew?”
“I’ll take a cup,” I say. “And some cream if you have any.”
“Not a problem.” Chief Kopka walks over to the kitchen door. Before he reaches it, someone else comes out of the kitchen with quick steps.
“You’re here,” my mother says. “Why didn’t you tell me you were coming early? I would have picked you up from the station.”
“That’s precisely why I didn’t tell you we were coming early, Mom,” I say. “It’s called OpSec. Operational security.”
“What, I’m going to pass your location on to the Lankies or something? Give me a break.”
Mom comes over to where we are standing and hugs first Halley, then me. She looks relaxed and content. I asked Chief Kopka to get her out of Boston just before things went all upside down last year with Lankies raining down on North America in their pods ejected from a dying seed ship breaking up in Earth orbit. The chief not only got her out of the metroplex in time, he gave her a job at his restaurant and a place to stay. She now lives in an apartment that’s smaller than the welfare unit she had in the PRC, but she can breathe fresh air and touch real trees as often as she wants. Her clothing isn’t extravagant, but it’s clean and tidy and even fashionable, a far cry from the stuff she used to wear out of necessity.
“Sit down, the lot of you,” Chief Kopka says. “I’ll be right back with some coffee.”
We sit as ordered. Mom eyes our sidearms that clank against the backs of the chairs.
“You can take those off and put them in the office in the back if they’re in the way,” she says. “The chief has a safe back there.”
“No can do,” I reply. “Gotta have those on our person at all times.”
“Even out here?”
“Even out here,” Halley confirms. “Last year, those pods went all over the place. Most ended up in PRCs, but a bunch landed in middle-class ’burber towns. Cops with stun sticks fighting Lankies. You can imagine how that turned out.”
“We saw some of that on the Networks,” Chief Kopka says as he returns to the table with a steel carafe and a fistful of mugs, which he is holding bunched together by the handles. He puts the mugs down and starts pouring coffee. “At that point, I was wishing I had something with a little more pep than that stun gun back in the office. That thing’s good for nothing.” He slides into the booth next to Mom and pours himself a cup as well.
“A pistol isn’t much better than nothing,” Halley says.
“Against a Lanky, maybe. But I’m not too worried about those tearing down Liberty Falls. We get PRC riots again, next time they may spill farther north than Concord.”
The coffee is as good as I remembered it. There’s a world of a difference and a twenty-fold price increase between the soy brew they serve in the military and the stuff here in the chief’s little restaurant that is brewed from actual ground beans. Of all the decadences this upper-middle-class eatery has to offer, the coffee is among the cheapest, but my favorite by far. It tastes like liquid civilization.
“How long will you stay?” Mom asks. “Is your training job over?”
“Just a short leave,” I say. “We get two and a half days for Earth leave. Then I have to report back to the Depot to prepare for the next batch of recruits and meet my new drill instructors.”
“That’s not a lot of time,” Mom says with a slightly dejected expression. “They are working you to death. After all you have done.” She glances at my left hand, resting on the table next to my coffee mug, and averts her gaze again.
“Someone’s gotta train the new people, Mom. And there aren’t all that many left who can.”
We talk and drink coffee without having to watch the clock for once. The chief excuses himself to get back to the kitchen once we’ve briefed him on the big picture and the little bits and pieces of news that make him feel like he’s tie
d in to the rumor network sufficiently. Mom uses her privileged Network access for military dependents to forward messages to the chief’s old shipmates, and we fill in the gaps whenever we’re down on Earth for leave. Everyone is starved for information down here. They all want reassurance they won’t die tomorrow or next week.
We’re on our third or fourth cups when Chief Kopka’s place starts filling up with the first lunch customers of the day.
“I have to go back to work for a bit,” Mom says. “I’ve been spending too much time chatting as it is.”
“The chief is fine with that,” I say.
“Yes, but I’m not. I have to feel like I’m actually worth the room and board, Andrew. Do you two want some more coffee? Something to eat, maybe?”
“I’m good,” Halley says. “If I have any more, I’ll start humming like a rail gun.”
“I’ve had my fill for now,” I agree. “Let’s give these folks their table back and go get some fresh air.”
“Copy that,” Halley says and gets out of the booth.
“Don’t worry about lunch,” I say to Mom, who collects our coffee mugs and wipes down the table. I feel vaguely guilty for having my mother clean up after me like I’m living at home in the PRC with her again, but she waves me off when I try to take the mugs from her.
“Go for a stroll with your wife and let me do my job, Andrew.”
“All right, Mom. See you in a little while.”
We walk out of the restaurant, Halley in the lead as usual. When I reach the door, I look back to see my mother watching us from the doorway of the kitchen, a little smile on her face. She turns around when our eyes meet, but I can see that the smile doesn’t leave her face as she walks into the kitchen.
“Look at them going about their day,” Halley says.
We’re walking down Main Street, our romantic little stroll slightly encumbered by the alert bags slung over our shoulders. It’s a cool and sunny day, and the clean, cold air is biting my lungs just a little. Halley pats me lightly on the back when I cough.
“Catch something from the boots at Orem?” she asks.
“Nope. It’s the air,” I say. “Too cold and clean.”
“Ah.” She chuckles softly. “I can’t decide whether that’s funny or sad.”
“What, me coughing?”
“No, your system so used to breathing shit. Think about it. Most of your life, you’ve been sucking down either dirty PRC air or the filtered and recycled air on spaceships. Your lungs can’t handle the clean stuff anymore.”
“You should go to New Svalbard sometime,” I say. “If it’s still there after all of this. Cleanest goddamn air in the universe. The place is so cold that it never thaws, not even in their summers. It smells like absolutely nothing.”
Halley smoothly maneuvers around a civvie family with two kids who are standing on the sidewalk in front of one of the shops. One of the children looks at her, mouth agape. Halley winks at the little boy and cocks an imaginary pistol with her hand. The boy’s eyes wander from her face down to the holstered pistol on her hip.
“Don’t see that around here too much, do you, kid?” she murmurs when we are well past the family.
“They don’t need ’em,” I say. “Hundred klicks from the nearest shithole, one way in and out, and lots of cops to guard their ’burbs.”
“We might as well be on a Lanky planet,” Halley says. “We’re total strangers here.”
“At least they like having us around now.”
“’Course they do.” Halley grins without humor. “When your trash is full, you’re damn glad to see the garbage crew. Doesn’t mean you’re going to invite them to your dinner party.”
I look back at the family walking down the street, away from us, on the way to some shopping or leisure, maybe a stop at Chief Kopka’s restaurant for a long lunch. Even their moderate middle-class wealth is an unobtainable level of luxury for a PRC rat. When I was younger, I would have been resentful to the point of hatred. Now I understand that they are no more responsible for their station in life than I was for mine when I was eighteen and living on two thousand calories of soy and recycled shit every day. Our old grievances are tiny and pointless with the Lankies at the gates.
“We chose to be the garbage crew,” I say. “If you signed up to get dinner party invites from the civvies, you picked the wrong career.”
“Don’t I know it.” She hooks her arm into the crook of mine and pulls me closer to her. “My husband, the levelheaded idealist. I like it when you get all principled.”
“I don’t have those. Well, except for maybe one. Don’t let dumb-ass junior officers get you killed in the field.”
Halley lets go of my arm and taps the rank insignia on my shoulder with her finger.
“Mark my words, Sergeant Chip-on-My-Shoulder. One of these days, you’ll be wearing officer stars, too. And then you’ll get to roll your eyes at know-it-all NCOs.”
I bark a laugh.
“The day I accept an officer commission is the day you’ll see a parade of Lankies tap-dancing down Broadway.”
We walk up and down the length of Main Street with our gear bags and our out-of-place attire. It’s April, and the day is cool and pleasant, a light breeze from the west carrying the nothing-scent of clean air and melting snow from the Green Mountains. It’s not quite as unspoiled as New Svalbard, but it’s the closest thing to it on this continent. No wonder the middle-class people are so protective of their little suburban enclaves, unsullied by the uncouth, unwashed masses from the PRCs. But the people that live here aren’t the elite. If they were, they’d have left with the Exodus fleet last year.
When we get back to Chief Kopka’s restaurant, it’s well past lunch, but the place is still busy. Mom is busing tables, and the chief is in the kitchen, preparing plates and filling orders. He has two waiters who are ferrying meals from the kitchen to the dining room.
“I have the guest room ready for you if you want to lay your heads a bit,” the chief says when we walk into the kitchen.
“Thanks, Chief,” I say. “We won’t take it up longer than we have to. Going back up to Luna in the morning.”
“That soon? Getting bored of fresh air and good coffee already?”
“Not now, not ever,” Halley says. “No, they’re firing the big gun on Agincourt at the test range tomorrow, and we have an invite for ringside seats.”
“Very nice,” the chief says, a bit of envy in his voice.
“You got a second?” I ask the chief, and nod toward his office in the back of the kitchen area. “Got something to give you.”
“Sure.” Chief Kopka puts down his bread knife and wipes his hands on a towel hanging from the handle of the heating unit in front of him.
We walk over to the chief’s office, a tiny space just big enough for a chair, a desk with a network terminal, and a few high-mounted shelves with stacks of analog printouts on them. There’s a big security locker underneath the desk, the “armed” light on the biometric lock blinking an unfriendly red.
“Hope you’re not going to try to pay me,” the chief says. He sits down in his chair.
“I’m not paying you.” I close the door behind me and kneel to open the lock on my alarm bag. “I got you a little souvenir from the Fleet.”
“Oh?” He watches as I open my alarm bag and take out a small box. It’s laminate, tough enough to survive a building falling on top of it, and fitted with a separate DNA lock. It’s a portable version of the security locker under the chief’s desk. He raises an eyebrow as I put the box on the desk in front of him.
“Go ahead and open it,” I say. “Lock’s coded to your DNA.”
He puts his thumb into the recess for the DNA reader, and the lock of the box snaps open with a click. The chief opens the lid and takes a look at the contents, and his eyes widen in unconcealed surprise.
“I thought those were all under lock and key,” he says.
“We issue those like new socks now,” I reply. “Everyone�
�s armed all the time when they leave base. New rule since last year.”
He reaches into the box and pulls out a standard-issue M109 pistol. With practiced hands, he releases the disposable magazine block and checks the chamber of the weapon to verify that it’s not loaded. Then he aims it at the floor of the office, away from me, and pulls the trigger to check for function. The electronic firing module emits a sharp click that would have been a loud bang if there had been a round in the chamber.
“It’s coded to you. Well, to me as well because I signed it out. Technically, I am just staging it here for emergencies. Plus seven full magazines.”
“How the hell did you get my DNA profile for the lock?” the chief asks.
“I know a guy in Neural who was in tech school with me,” I say. “He got your profile from your old Navy personnel file and copied it to the lock when I signed out the gun.”
“Pretty sure that’s very much against the regulations,” the chief says.
“Pretty sure I very much don’t give a shit,” I reply, and he flashes a grin without taking his eyes off the weapon.
“Keep that in your security locker,” I say. “Don’t get it out unless there’s a major emergency. But if you do get it out, you make those shots count. Protect yourself. And your family. And my mom. You keep them safe. Whatever it takes.”
Chief Kopka nods solemnly.
“It’s not a fléchette rifle or a rocket launcher,” I say. “It won’t do much good against a Lanky or someone wearing hardshell battle armor.”
“It’ll work a lot better than the dumb little stun gun I have in that desk drawer,” he says. “And it ain’t the Lankies I’m worried about.”
Halley and I spend the afternoon in Chief Kopka’s guest room above the restaurant. We hear the din of conversations and clattering silverware from below on occasion as we make ourselves comfortable on the not-quite-big-enough bed in the room and watch Network shows with half an eye as we talk. Sometime around dinner, there’s a knock on the door, and the chief brings in two plates with bread and cheese and an almost-full bottle of wine, along with two glasses.