Until you’ve seen trans-metal in action it is almost impossible to imagine what it is like. Its transmission back into the deck of the dock was invisible to the naked eye, no matter how closely you might scrutinize the process. The computing power necessary for the redistribution of the metal at the molecular level is staggering, Bren says. Absolutely beyond man’s wildest dreams. I tried not to think about it too much. It was just another of those things you took for granted, like the fact that Last Chance would hold atmosphere in a vacuum. You took it for granted because you had no other options. It lowered us to the level of the deck and the platform was no more. It had vanished as if it had never been.
The huge bay which we were in appeared to be open to the vacuum of space, but gravity shields were old news. The warp field and environmental gravity Last Chance possessed were variations of the same technology. It was the first time in a long time I had seen space with my own eyes, however, and not just transmitted through a video feed. You forgot how magnificent it really can be. Or how dangerous!
The environmental gravity field the Kievor Trade Station produced was individualistic to each separate being. I might stand directly next to a Martin, a heavy world biped not dissimilar to a human, except that the Martin’s musculature made the Earth gorilla look scrawny and weak, yet not be affected by the triple Terran Standard gravity the Martin was experiencing, and it unaffected by the single Terran Standard I was experiencing. The atmospheric content and consistency worked the same way as well. Each individual alien experienced the exact atmospheric concentration it needed while next to it another breathed a completely different atmosphere, all without visible evidence. Or mostly without visible evidence. Some of the atmospheres these different aliens lived in were thick enough to be visible. They could be seen as clouds around these and it was always good to keep just the slightest bit of distance between you, in case you couldn’t breathe methane or other such toxins.
Other technologies weren’t quite so evident. The Kievors used immense energies to power this vast synthetic world, from the trans-metal and individualized gravities and atmospheres to the gravity shields which held vacuum at bay within all of their huge docking bays (and remember that there are thousands of such) to the immensely powerful weapons they could bring to bear when forced to do so, and everything else of wonder upon the Kievor Trade Stations, yet no one outside of the Kievors themselves knew what type of energy source they commanded. What energy source could generate this kind of output.
The Kievor Trade Stations were also as mobile as Last Chance herself, despite their bulk. More so, if the stories were true, but there were no obvious means of locomotion. No fusion engines. No warp arrays anywhere visible. Nothing that was understandable, anyway. The computing power necessary just for the trans-metals action went so far beyond human ken that it was pointless to continue adding up the things that went beyond understanding. Humans could not begin to understand, and it was as simple as that. We were technological babes in the woods compared to the Kievors.
I don’t think of any of the things which can go wrong within the Kievor Trade Station any more than I think about Last Chance’s puny hull holding out vacuum while we are aboard her. The Kievor’s systems will work and my stay here will be an enjoyable one. Tanya, Coto and I walked through the dock and out a huge bay doorway into a wide hallway that is the beginning of the Trade Warrens (imagine leaving the front door of your space habitat open to space but yet not worrying that the computer operating the gravity shield system would suddenly have a glitch, even momentarily, and let your entire atmosphere out into space), and you begin to get an idea of the Kievor’s enormous technological superiority.
Immediately we were amongst every conceivable kind of gawking creature. Gawking at us because bipeds are a relatively rare evolutionary creation. We were the only bipeds in the immediate area, in any case. What were in evidence were lizards and reptiles of every imaginable stripe. Lizards which walked on all four feet. Lizards who crawled on all fours but which could rise and walk on their hind legs. Lizards which could not walk on all fours, built like the raptors of Earth history. And many more. Of every imaginable build and look. None exactly the same. Of all colors and patterns and strange bone structures. All sharing one common trait, however, though they represented completely separate evolutionary lines of development, from entirely separate worlds; that their large predatory mouths, most full of large predatory teeth, and razor sharp killing claws. Predators all. The alpha predators.
Reptiles had once dominated Earth, as well, but a massive meteor strike had ended the reptiles rein on Earth and given rise to the mammals from which man had sprung. Without that meteor strike man would never have evolved and some variety of lizard would have claimed dominance of Earth and climbed to sentience in man’s place. Reptiles were Mother Nature’s most successful design, though certainly not her only winning design. Any type of living creature could reach sentience under the right circumstances. All that was needed was time and the right conditions.
The Kievor Trade Station, though a completely synthetic world, is like many developed worlds you will find almost anywhere, except that it is populated by the citizens of thousands or maybe even hundreds of thousands of other worlds. Manufacturing, retail, services, housing and carousing! Vice, avarice, greed, gambling, biological engineering, theft and murder! All under one roof. A lawless land where Charles Darwin’s theory of The Survival of the Fittest had found a fitting home.
Tanya and I were like two children in a new toy store. A new toy store just chock full of goods!
“Grubenstugels?” I asked Tanya as we moved towards a lift.
“Where else!” She said.
Grubenstugels was a popular bipedal bar I often frequented. I mostly avoided human places now because I was too well known and because humans often weren’t the easy marks that many aliens were. I had a few credits left in my Kievor account (redeemable on any Kievor Trade Station) that I hadn’t spent the last time I was in (spent or lost being the same thing), enough for a friendly game or two, anyway. I had found that the rougher the clientele the less astute they seemed to be at the card tables. It wasn’t a rock solid rule but it had held me in good staid so far, and Grubenstugels was one of the roughest. Winning at the card table in Grubenstugels was only half the battle, however, because then there was always collecting, a none too guaranteed assurance in a place like Grubenstugels. That was part of its charm though.
I always asked for docking as near to Grubenstugels as could be arranged to save travel time. Our dock was line of sight to the lift and only slightly farther beyond on the other end, dropped by the lift, to Grubenstugels itself.
The lift arrived and we stepped in when it opened for us. I punched in six-ninety on the lift's keypad, Grubenstugel’s level (in human numerology, of course, the keypad adapting to its occupants), and the door closed and it took us to our destination. It made no noise nor did it even seem to move. The door closed, a moment later it opened, and we were there.
We left the lift and walked among the teeming crowd towards Grubenstugel’s entrance, advertised by a simple electric sign. Quaint and antiquated but charming. Tanya drew stares from the passing aliens of the bipedal design. In her state of near undress it was obvious just how hairless we humans are. In the bipedal races we humans are nearly unique in our hairless-ness. Strangely enough, Coto drew almost no looks at all, as if he were the normal one, and we the oddballs. I guess we were.
“Marc Deveroux, you old devil!” Growled Grubenstugel when he saw me. “You dare show your face here? You have some nerve, I’ll say that for you!” Grubenstugel spoke Galacta flawlessly. He was a master linguist of some expertise, but in his line of work that was a requirement. I had no idea how many languages he spoke but it might have been thousands. The better linguist the bartender the better the business. On a Kievor Trade Station, anyway.
“What could you possibly mean?” I asked innocently as I bellied up to the bar and took a seat on a plas-st
eel stool. Everything in Grubenstugels was designed and built for endurance. He didn’t smile. Frankly, I wasn’t sure he could.
Several of the patrons sidled away as Coto worked his way through the crowd, following me at his own leisurely pace and enjoying the disturbance he created. I gave looks to several aliens who did not look to be appreciating that fact that they had to move out of Coto’s way, letting them know that bothering Coto meant bothering me. My blaster was loose in its holster on my hip.
“You left a hell of a mess the last time you were here.” Grubenstugel growled. “You owe for cleaning services.”
I just shrugged. Owing and paying were wholly separate issues. Coto didn’t like Grubenstugel’s tone of voice and with barely a flex of his legs leapt up upon the bar to stand between us.
“No bugs on the bar!” Grubenstugel ordered.
“Tell him yourself.” I replied easily, barely able to hold in my grin. Grubenstugel hated bugs, something to do with the variety of poisonous ones on his own home world, and really hated big ones, like Coto. I wasn’t really sure about the poisonous bugs and his home world story and suspected his dislike for bugs had more to do with the parasites that plagued furry bodies and that were passed around among the furred alien races when and where they congregated. I have heard that it is a constant battle for the furred kind, especially when not all furred kind is quite as diligent as others at eradicating their own infestations.
Grubenstugel looked poisonously mad at my rebuke. For a brief moment I thought he would grab the blaster on his own hip and begin shooting. The holstered blaster was the only adornment Grubenstugel wore, not needing clothes over his furry body. I had no way of knowing what other weapons he might have on his person. If there were more, and most likely there were, they were hidden in his heavy pelt.
“I don’t like your bug!” Grubenstugel growled further, his hand dropping so far as to hover over the grip of his blaster.
“I’d be very unhappy if you killed Marc’s pet.” Tanya said at my side, ever so sweetly. “He dotes on it so!” Since only a blind fool would miss the menace in her innocent statement, and Grubenstugel was neither blind nor a fool, and he knew Tanya, his hand moved away from the grip of his blaster. Ever so carefully.
“Human women do not know their places!” Grubenstugel told me, ignoring Tanya. I think he liked uppity women, of any species, even less than he liked big, vicious, poisonous bugs.
“You’re free to show me my place, dear Grubenstugel!” Tanya said cheerily. “Big brute like you, I might even enjoy myself!”
“You would never be satisfied by your human man again.” Grubenstugel bragged.
“I don’t have a man and I doubt you could satisfy me.” Tanya replied. “Don’t forget, dear, you aren’t wearing any pants.”
I think we would have seen the blood rush to Grubenstugel’s face if it hadn’t been for the fact that all his fur was in the way. As it was his face went through a contortion of fury worse than any I can ever recall seeing cross his features, and this hardly the first we had ever baited him. Coto even crouched, sensing the onslaught, but it didn’t materialize, lucky for Grubenstugel.
To hide his fury and embarrassment from our amused faces he turned away and began making my drink, an Old Home whiskey and water. He always remembered what I drank, no matter how long in between visits. His kind had remarkable memories, one of the reasons they made such good bartenders and linguists. He finished making it and slammed it on the bar in front of me, spilling half the drink and walking away without bothering to ask for payment.
Tanya and I grinned at one another as Grubenstugel went into a room behind the bar and began yelling at his wife in their native language, which neither Tanya nor I understood. Immediately the wife came rushing out to serve Tanya, who smiled serenely as the Druela woman meekly took her order and served her drink, some alien concoction that smoked a little as it was put on the bar in front of her. It looked like baby puke to me, green and yellow and brown swirls that didn’t quite want to mix together completely. Tanya took a large, unladylike gulp before offering her eye up to the hand held scanner the Druela woman held out to her. She didn’t try to charge for my drink.
If Druelas could smile, I think Grubenstugel’s wife would have. The grimace she threw our way, her imitation of a smile, I believed, did little to enthuse me, but I suppose it was her way of thanking Tanya for putting her husband in his place for once.
“I can’t imagine being built like that,” Tanya said, indicating the departing Druela woman (the fangs and obvious musculature), “and still putting up with a mouthy man!”
“Human men are just too soft!” I quipped.
“Marc,” Tanya said seriously, “you’re the one man who could possibly subdue me, if you ever had the nerve to try!”
I looked at her and then down at her drink, which was still only missing the one gulp. “That must be a powerful drink, because you’re starting to talk crazy!”
“Oh Marc, you’re so stupid sometimes!” Tanya said, but then the look on her face and the mood which had engendered it vanished and was gone as if it had never existed, and the Tanya I knew was back. I could tell by the set of her features, the hard glint in her eyes. I think I breathed a sigh of relief.
Grubenstugels was a large, rectangular establishment. The unseen living quarters in the rear would fill out the square design that predominated over the Kievor Station, but by the look of the establishment, they hadn’t saved much of the space for themselves. In space, and even within a Kievor Trade Station, space went for a premium and seldom was ever wasted where it wasn’t necessary.
The place was full, as usual, and the wife was busy serving drinks with no help from Grubenstugel himself, who was still in the back, licking his wounds.
At least twenty tables suffered under the onslaught of pounding fists, slapped down cards, bones and other pieces of various games of chance and skill. Numerous kinds of money were in evidence everywhere and a video display on the far wall ran constantly through the exchange rates, but you could still end up waiting quite a while to see yours, since so many races, like mankind itself, had numerous types of currency all within one race. That was why I always dealt with Kievor Credits, because they stayed stable.
I picked up my drink and took a sip while I scrutinized the various games and the stakes that were being wagered, looking for the easiest game to get out of with my winnings (it only took money, in one denomination or another, to get in) but wasn’t always that easy to get out. That I would win I took for granted. It was the getting out after, with both your winnings and your nads intact, that sometimes took some doing.
My attention was drawn to a table of loud, black furred aliens. Carnivores not long from the forests of whatever planet they hailed from, and from the looks of them the intelligence to match, I guessed, come to the Kievors to sell the mineral wealth of their world for a song and a dance, most likely. By their looks I seriously doubted they had even developed space travel on their own, but had been boosted along by some other enterprising race that were probably at that moment strip mining everything not nailed down on the bear looking race’s world. It has always been my own dream to discover some as yet unknown species and claim rights to all her mineral wealth for myself, but alas that has only so far been a dream, and I have been forced to work for my living instead. I saw pleasant, profitable work at the bear's table, however. They were playing a variation of a card game I had practically invented, so I left the bar and moved towards their table, my credit voucher ready in my pocket.
I had almost gotten to their table when I heard my name yelled from the corridor entrance-way;
“Marc Deveroux!”
I tuned to look, the most charming smile on my face I could muster.
“You bastard! You son of a bitch! You’ve got some damn nerve!”
I stood there with my stupid smile plastered across my face, it getting harder to maintain by the moment, as the love of my life, Cheryl, came storming up to me,
and despite myself, I couldn’t react, as she slapped me hard across the face, the report reverberating throughout the already thunderous establishment, silencing everyone.
Silence ensued while everyone turned to examine the weak human who was being embarrassed by the female of his own kind (let’s just say it doesn’t happen in too many alien cultures!) I felt their looks and knew most of them were expecting me to kill her, and when after a moment I did not, I began to hear alien snickers and laughter, all at my expense. They weren’t laughing with me.
I looked around then, trying to find anyone bold enough to look me directly in the eye and laugh directly in my face, because though I wasn’t about to kill Cheryl, that rule wasn’t in effect for anyone else. Especially none of these.
Coto was creeping along the floor so I waved him back. I think he had a basic understanding of the situation anyway. Bugs were ruled by their Queens, weren’t they? In any case, none of the patrons of Grubenstugels thought it prudent to test my mettle just at that moment, humans being known as volatile and remorseless killers anyway, and not just our men (don’t ask me where they would get an idea like that), so I ignored them and turned back to Cheryl;
“Now that’s no way to greet your man!”
Cheryl was wearing double blasters over her Kievor uniform, a dark blue two piece business suit outfit (and very stylish I might add) and I saw her fingers twitch in anticipation as she imagined returning me to the disparate molecules from whence I had originally come.
“My man!” She said incredulously. “Of whom do you refer?” Cheryl is so beautiful when she is mad. Her lips compressed into a thin line, her eyes slitted, and her face turned furious red, clearly visible even under her dark complexion. I swear I could see flames dancing in her black eyes. Cheryl is a brown skinned beauty with all the heat and passion common to her ancestry and was in no way amused by my antics.
Chronicles of a Space Mercenary Page 8