by JL Curtis
Shutting the door gently, he walked slowly back to his bedroom, scratching as he listened to Canis and Cattus eating nosily and Urso cracking the bone outside. He shivered as he thought of what they could do to him, or any human. Finally dropping off to sleep, he was visited by one of his many nightmares, this time with the sound of jaws tearing flesh.
Tick Tock
Fargo sat in the eating nook, staring out the plas-steel window at the striations of rock, nearpine, and nearoak on the far side of the canyon. Without realizing it, he was idly thumbing his ID chip from active to retired and back to active, his thoughts in turmoil as he sipped one of the few cups of real coffee he allowed himself on a monthly basis. Being this far out on a rim world like Hunter, a pound of coffee often cost more than five thousand credits, if it was even available; hence the few times he let himself actually enjoy, nay savor, a cup of real coffee. He even went so far as to brew it himself, rather than using the installed autochef.
Canis lay at his feet, growling at the chew toy Fargo had filled with a treat as she tried to figure out how to extract the treat, radiating frustration. Cattus padded slowly in from wherever she’d been dozing, stretched and yawned as only a cat can, and put a paw on the sill, raising her head slowly to see what held Fargo’s interest. Not sighting any prey, she dropped back to the floor, slapped at Canis, and padded out of the room, radiating contentment.
Fargo sighed and took another sip of coffee, not willing to admit to himself he was bored, bored, bored. He’d been planning for this retirement the last ten years, and now after six months, he felt like he was slowly going nuts. After all, he was physically only eighty-five years old, according to the Barycentric Coordinate Time that had been adopted almost eight hundred years ago, so with his basic longevity treatments, he knew he was good for probably another fifty-sixty productive years. Due to his service in the Terran Marines, and now his enforced semi-retirement from the GalScouts, he’d spent a number of years in relativistic space and was almost nine years younger than his sister, now. That wasn’t helping his mood either, as he needed to drag the liteflyer out and go down to the spaceport-cum-village at Rushing River and pick up supplies.
Even though he loved her, Luann’s perpetual bossiness always grated on Fargo’s empathic sense, along with the occasionally high pitched voice. But she was the only family he had in the entire universe, so he put up with it. Well, that, and she’d managed to get his land claim filed, this ranger cabin prefab assembled, and basic furnishing completed with the credits he’d sent her for the last twenty years.
Finishing the last of the coffee, Fargo slid the cup across to the autochef, which swallowed the cup without a sound. Fargo always expected the autochef to burp, but that never happened. He wished he’d known how Diez had programmed it, idly wondering if someone on Hunter could duplicate it. Pushing himself up, he walked to the front door and strapped on his 6mm pistol, checking to make sure he had a full charge, and that the safety was on.
Slapping his pockets, he verified he had his vibro knife, light, and locator in their usual places. He grabbed a medium weight jacket and put it on over his faded GalScout coverall; pulling the door open, he called calling, “Canis, Cattus, out.” Grabbing the toy from Canis he said, “No, not taking the toy out. House only.”
Canis looked up at him and rolled her lips, radiating frustration as Cattus slipped silently out. Projecting calmness Fargo said, “You can finish playing with it when I get back, dummy.” Canis wagged her tail and stalked to the edge of the porch, saw Cattus sitting at the base of the steps licking a paw, and promptly launched herself at Cattus, knocking her tail over teakettle. Cattus came up yowling, and the fight was on. Fargo just shook his head at the two nine month old animals, and stepped around the two as they rolled, yowled, barked and generally tried to pin each other down.
Fargo went to the storage shed, thumbed the door open, and pulled the liteflyer out by its tail. Reaching in, he keyed the cargo configuration sequence and let the liteflyer unfold itself and complete the Built in Test (BIT) checks as he mentally cataloged additional things he might need. He pulled two rolled up Silverback pelts and a nearelk pelt from the stack on the bench, and dumped them in the back of the liteflyer. Thumbing the gun rack open, he pulled a scoped 16mm rifle from the rack, checked the load and power pack, safed it, and carried it to the liteflyer placing it in the rack he’d built for it. Closing the storage, he said into his wrist comp, “Lock, secure house and perimeter.”
The house AI responded, “All buildings locked, perimeter secure standby for liteflyer departure. Winds nominal, turbulence at canyon mid-point above nine thousand feet. No spacecraft arrivals or departures in the next twenty-two hours. Spaceport security is at bravo.”
He turned back to the animals now laying side by side and panting; he projected, “Visit pack, guard, protect.” His empathy allowed him to get a pretty good feeling for their mental states, and a fuzzy kind of feedback, but he still wasn’t sure what good if any his trying to project commands to them did. Of course he was still trying to come to grips with his new telepathic capabilities which was another reason he didn’t like dealing with Luann. When he touched her, she sprayed thoughts like a damn water hose, and some of them he really didn’t want to know. He’d always known, intellectually, that women were different, but damn… At least up here, he didn’t have to worry about that.
Canis and Cattus both trotted out of the clearing toward their respective pack’s ranges, and he heaved a sigh of relief. He didn’t sense Urso, but she was a roamer anyway, she might already be with her sibs. Turning the liteflyer around, he climbed in and quickly checked the BIT again, confirming everything was green. Closing the canopy, he fired it up, and launched down the little runway and over the edge of the canyon, exhilarating in the feel of flight, smiling for the first time today. A niggling thought in the back of his mind was why he now enjoyed flying, since he’d always hated it before. Was this Diez again, he wondered.
An hour later safely on the ground at the field adjacent to the spaceport. He reached in the back, pulled out the three pelts, and thumbed the lock on the liteflyer, then started walking toward the village.
Omar, as he was known due to his large bulk, the Arcturian sergeant of the space port guards rattled to a stop in his patrol vehicle and squeaked a greeting that his Galtrans projected to Fargo’s implant as, “Ho, lieutenant of the retired, ride to the village you would like?”
Fargo nodded, replying, “Ho Omar, appreciated is the ride,” as he hopped into the cab.
Omar spared one eyestalk from the road to look at the pelts and asked, “For trade, pelts? Much credit your family gains with hunter prowess? Danger to self without reward is not health.”
Fargo untangled that translation in his mind and thought for a minute on how to respond. He finally decided truth was the easiest saying, “Hunting to put food on the table and fuel in the flyer is good. Stopping predators,” pointing to the Silverback pelt, “saves lives for those that travel the Green.”
Omar sounded like he was having a coughing fit, but the implant translated it as laughter and the fact that Omar had no desire to go into the Green. Stopping in front of the trading post, Fargo thanked Omar for the ride, grabbed the pelts, and climbed down from the patrol vehicle. Steeling himself, he walked slowly toward the doors, which dilated open automatically as he got within one step. Walking through, he noted the smells of the hundreds of things Luann and Mikhail had for sale and trade. He sensed Luann and Mikhail in the back in their living quarters, then felt a soft quiet push of mischief off to his left. Smiling, he quietly placed the pelts on top of a handy counter, and kneeled down waiting. Ian, Luann’s oldest, came charging around the corner of the counter yelling, “Unka Fargo, Unka Fargo!”
Fargo grabbed him and swung him high, much to Ian’s delight, and squealed as Fargo tickled him. Setting him back on his feet, he leaned over the edge of the counter, “Hello, Inga. Do you want to say hi to me?”
Inga, smil
ing shyly and wringing her hands said, “Hello Uncle Fargo, I are- am, pleased to see- that you-”
“That I’m here, Inga? You have been studying haven’t you?” He asked as he picked Inga up, giving her a quick hug. “And you’re almost as big as Ian now.”
“Is not, I’m still bigger,” Ian shouted.
Taking one of the pelts off the counter, Fargo handed it to Ian, “Inside voice, Ian, inside voice. Here, help uncle carry these please.”
It was all Ian could do to pick up the pelt. As he staggered down the aisle with it, Fargo sensed Luann’s harried approach, mixed with curiosity and worry. Picking up the other two pelts, he carried them and Inga back to the main counter, sitting them all on the counter as Luann came out of the back.
Luann came quickly through, giving Fargo a quick perfunctory hug and immediately saying, “You got a sealed box from the Scouts, it came under courier orders, and it’s still locked up at the port. They would only release it on your thumbprint.” Looking down at the pelts, she continued, “Have you been hunting more Silverbacks? You have a death wish or what? Don’t get me wrong, these are worth a fortune, but those damn things are known for hunting down the hunters. You want these on credit, or you want to sell them off to the spaceport guys?”
Fargo thought for a minute, “Put them on credit. I’d rather they go to a trader than one of the spacers, because they won’t give you or me a realistic price. Anything new down this way?”
Mikhail walked out of the back, radiating satisfaction, “’Lo, Fargo. I see you’ve been cheating death again,” shaking hands with Fargo he continued, “Got a few visitors in, including a bunch that claim they are hunters; but they look more like spacers, to me. Oh, and there was a Taurasian in asking for you by name.”
“A Taurasian? That’s strange, the only ones I knew were in the GalScouts. Matter of fact, I lost one on my last planeting. He was the sifter on the team,” Fargo said.
Luann dug around in the counter drawer, finally coming up with a datachip, “He said to give you this, and he’s a med something or other. He’s up with Doc Jenkins at the clinic, I do remember him having those same kinds of trunks you brought back.”
Bouncing the datachip in his hand Fargo cocked his head, “Well, I guess I better go find out what’s going on. Can I borrow the runabout to go up to the clinic, and then come back for lunch?”
Mikhail flipped him the dongle, “Sure, I’ll have your order pulled by the time you get back.”
Fargo pocketed the datachip and looked around for Ian, “You want to take a ride, boy?”
Ian popped out from behind the counter, “Can I? Mom, please?”
Luann started radiating anxiety, sighed but finally said, “I guess. You mind Uncle Ethan, and you do what he tells you, understand me? And remember to get the honey from Nicole.”
Ian scuffed the floor, “Yes, momma.” Grabbing Fargo’s hand he headed for the door, pulling Fargo along in his wake. Hopping into the runabout, Ian fastened his belts, and put his hands in his lap. Fargo chuckled, and drove them quickly to the clinic.
The clinic, like most of the rest of the village was a prefab expanded from the cargo containers that had contained the med unit everyone jokingly called the doc-in-a-box. It was an advanced remote/ruggedized Med-Comp field unit that was the standard for homestead worlds, and really didn’t even need a technician to support it. Hunter was lucky in that they actually had a real doctor who’d taken a homestead payback after he’d retired from the GalPatrol. He was a crusty old genie from Earth four, who’d taken the full med modification sixty years earlier, and had last served on a GalPatrol cruiser that had patrolled the rim worlds.
Fargo took Ian’s hand as they walked slowly from the parking area, “You feeling okay Ian? Don’t need to stick you in the box, do we?”
Ian shook his head violently, “No Unka, I feel fine. I don’t like the box, it makes me stay still.”
Fargo laughed as he punched the dilator for the entry, stepping through with Ian at his side. Doc Grant met them at the inner door, and Fargo was once again struck by how much Doc looked like Santa Claus with the beard, pipe and belly. “Fargo, what can I do for you? You’re not due for anything that I’m aware of?”
Fargo replied, “You’ve got a Taurasian med tech here that asked for me.”
Doc turned, “OneSvel, you have a patient,” he said. The Taurasian could be heard thumping through the clinic, causing Ian to cower a little behind Fargo. When OneSvel came through the inner door he projected, You don’t know me, follow my lead. The GalTrans said, “Mister Fargo, we are OneSvel. We were crèche mates with DenAfr, and I honor you for returning DenAfr to us.”
Fargo bowed to OneSvel, “It is with honor I greet you, OneSvel,” he said. Realizing there were multiple things going on, he said, “Doc, can you excuse us for a few minutes?” Nodding his head toward Ian, who was goggling at the big Taurasian.
Doc nodded back and looked down at Ian, saying, “Come on boy, let me check you and see how many scratches and infections you’ve got today. You damn kids get into more stuff…” Taking Ian by the hand, Doc disappeared into the rear of the clinic. OneSvel and Fargo stepped into one of the examination rooms, and sealed the door.
Fargo dropped into the examination chair as OneSvel reoriented to Fargo and his GalTrans said, “May we connect with you?”
“Yes.”
OneSvel extruded a pseudopod from the host and gently touched Fargo’s temple with the microfilaments. Fargo thought, Why the obfuscation of our relationship? And what are you doing all the way out here? I thought you were happy on X-ray being a doctor at GalScout base.
As they communicated telepathically, they continued to carry on a basic conversation concerning DenAfr, and how his ashes had been returned to the crèche with honor, in case anyone was listening.
OneSvel’s mind touch was soothing. We are here on orders. We left a datachip with your family unit that is encrypted with the latest information from headquarters. There is a strong possibility the Traders have a base somewhere in this star system, or within one jump of here. The colonel asked me to come here and verify you were not wiped, and if you were to reprogram your modes, codes and data. I can tell you are fully programmed and your med nanos are all at full capacity, except the psychotropics. He chittered, “Have you been having nightmares?”
Fargo said, “Yeah, some. It’s usually about losing my team, or my Marines. Not every night, but a couple a month.”
OneSvel chittered, “You are spending too much time isolated. Humans need interaction with other humans. Wait here.” OneSvel disappeared into the back of the clinic and came back moments later with a long needle attached to a micro injector clasped in one pseudopod. Fargo grimaced, and OneSvel said, “You know this is the only way, unless I put you in the box.”
Fargo pulled down his shipsuit and sighed, “I know, but dammit, I hate needles.”
OneSvel chittered a laugh as he positioned the portable holoscan and stabbed the needle into Fargo’s armpit, penetrating eight inches to the medpack and the fill port for the psychotropics. As the micro injector filled the medpack bladder, OneSvel linked again, projecting, Take these tabs, one of these will give you the appearance of a low grade infection which would require a visit here, if you need to link to me. This makes things easy. Please review the chip and do as you see fit.
Fargo thought, What does the colonel expect me to do by myself? And you didn’t answer why you don’t want it known that I know you.
OneSvel replied, “We are to be your contact point and cut out to Gal. There should be an encrypted communicator arriving shortly via courier for you. We have the twin to it, and it is secure from any monitoring capability on this planet. We have also been issued a portable FTL communicator tuned to the sideband of the node in this star system, so that I can report back to headquarters. Why are we here? Because we volunteered. We had heard many stories from DenAfr of the planet groundings you and the team did in scouting new worlds, and we decided w
e needed to experience some of that, how do you say, excitement?”
Fargo sighed, Honestly, most of the time it was just boring mapping and sampling, OneSvel. Not a lot of excitement there.
OneSvel thought, Maybe for you, but DenAfr was always excited, there was always a chance for a new compound, or a new element. For us, that would get our name added to the book of honors on Taurus.
Fargo took the tabs, placed them in one of his pockets and thought, How do they expect me to go wandering around the star system? I need some kind of reason for that.
OneSvel responded, You have a reputation already as a hunter of exotic skins that is already extending beyond this star system. You know how much you should be paid for those skins, and are not happy with the credits you’re receiving here. Part of the information on the disk are locations within this star system and one to two jumps for furriers and others that buy at much closer to retail values.
Fargo shielded his thoughts for a couple of minutes, then projected, Interesting concept, but if I’m going to do that, I’d need a lot of pelts to make it worthwhile, and make financial sense for me to travel like that.
OneSvel thought, There are three containers of pelts and furs currently in diplomatic hold on the local space station that are authorized for release to you. They are confiscations from this sector, and the assessed wholesale value is about one million credits.
Fargo whistled, “A million credits! Damn, what if I sell them?”
OneSvel couldn’t smile, but the humor came through his thoughts. Well, you would obviously have to pay up to the assessed value to GalScout, less your travel costs. We know you are not rich, but a significant profit could be gained to your advantage.