Senescence (Jezebel's Ladder Book 5)

by Scott Rhine

  “The river is lower than I’ve ever seen it,” Grant muttered.

  Stu stared around him at the crowds, his trademark confidence waning as he sat on the curb. His breathing seemed to be off.

  As Laura set up the reflective panel, she scanned the crowd. The adults were all male, agrarian, and slightly hostile.

  Grant seemed puzzled. “What would divert that much water?” He nudged Artemis. “Ask some of these people what’s causing the drought.”

  Laura tried to look at the situation from Stu’s point of view. Until a week ago, he had never met anyone but sterile, friendly scientists. Now he was surrounded by ten times more people than he had ever seen. A few were coughing or scratching with possibly infectious medical problems. He couldn’t be more vulnerable or out of his element.

  Before she realized what she was doing, she had taken Stu’s hand to reassure him. “They’re all people, each just as frightened as you are. Focus on one person at a time.”

  Stu squeezed her hand, concentrating on her until the fear passed. Whispering, he said, “Thanks. Please don’t tell the others I panicked. I owe you one.”

  Hans barked over Laura’s earpiece, “Keep that light on Artemis!”

  Laura had to hustle to keep up.

  Artemis spoke fluent Arabic as she interviewed several male natives, and Grant translated their replies into English offscreen. That way the star was prominently featured center stage, and the Egyptian replies had a male voice that viewers could trust.

  “Upriver, the farmers grow qat,” a farmer said. For the sake of the rest of the team, Grant added, “which is a mildly narcotic leaf popular in Yemen.”

  Hearing Grant pause, the farmer continued. “The market for it is better than cotton, but the crops take too much of our water.”

  “What are the lines for?” asked Artemis, first in English and then Arabic.

  “Everybody is hungry.”

  The second cameraman focused on Stu, whose face was a study in compassion. “Commander Zeiss says, ‘To a starving man, a piece of bread is the face of God.’”

  Sif snorted. “That’s originally from Gandhi—an odd hero for such a famous criminal.”

  Pulling up fact sheets on his sleeve, Grant provided Artemis with the pertinent background. “A full third of the world is undernourished right now. About 25 percent of the people here between fifteen and thirty are unemployed. That’s nothing new. Ask them why people are starving in the Nile Valley now?”

  Artemis did so seamlessly. The arrogance she showed elsewhere vanished when she was on the job.

  “Storms and insects ruined the wheat,” explained a second farmer. “Although, our yields would still have been enough if Canada hadn’t sent all its potash fertilizer to China.”

  A farmer who spoke English broke in, “Fortune Foods doubled its prices the week before I lost my crop. Still, we must buy it because algae is the cheapest food we can get.”

  Laura knew her family grew the seaweed crops in the Red Sea and Mediterranean, competing tooth and nail with tourism for the beaches. The Egyptian government and international charities would bear at least half the cost of the food relief. Conveniently, the company had recently acquired a bank chain in Africa specializing in unsecured microloans to the poor. The timing did sound suspicious, but the evening news would still herald this as a corporation bailing out another struggling government.

  While she pondered this coincidence, Stu approached the English speaker and the ten-year-old girl playing in the dirt at his feet. She wore a purple ribbon in her hair. “Your daughter is beautiful.”

  “Sixty pounds, she is yours.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “That will feed the rest of my family for a month, sahib. You are rich and clean. She will eat well. Stay in nice hotel.”

  Stu floundered. “Isn’t that … illegal?”

  The farmer shrugged. “We all have to eat. She will probably starve if you leave her.”

  At that moment, their handler arrived to shoo them back to the bus. Grant had to drag Stu away from the girl and her father.

  As Laura tried to fold the gear for travel, a sudden gust of wind seized the reflective panel and knocked her off her feet. Worse, her headgear blew away. Jogging back toward the waiting bus, Laura struggled to keep up with the others. People held out hands for money. The men in the vehicles and shops stared at her bright, blonde hair. Shit. Don’t act like prey. Be like Artemis.

  Several strangers offered to carry the equipment for her. The further she got from the group, the worse the attention became. Men began to bump against her. Finally, the camera operators noticed and flanked her for protection.

  Sweaty and exhausted, Laura trudged the final few meters.

  Stu said, “I don’t understand. If the girl can’t leave with us as an adoption, what was the money for?”

  “You said she was attractive,” Grant replied, leading him onto the bus.

  When Stu didn’t pick up on the hint, Artemis said, “Sex, you moron. He was selling her to a rich stranger to molest.”

  Stu bolted for the bus doors, but the team restrained him as the bus pulled away. “Next stop Giza, one of the ancient wonders of the world,” called the driver.

  Listening to Stu’s turbulent emotions while she stowed her equipment, Laura wanted to hold him.

  “Somebody needs to help that girl,” Stu shouted like an accusation.

  Hans sat in the seat next to Stu. “We have to pick our battles. Trying to save everyone is like invading Russia. There’s just too much of it. This episode is supposed to spotlight the increasing common practice of child brides and human trafficking. In ancient Greece, it was common for thirty-year-old men to finish their mandatory military service and marry sixteen-year-old virgins. However, in underdeveloped agricultural countries, girls wed as early as twelve and thirteen.”

  “They become baby factories,” snarled Sif, “with no chance at an education or economic mobility. If they die around baby number ten, the forty-year-old husband finds another broodmare.”

  Grant tried to calm Sif. “People in the third world claim they need to do this because of high infant mortality and poor medicine. We can’t hammer them about pure family size, or we’re hypocrites. Until recently, US farmers had huge families.”

  “How about the age?” asked Sif, her voice dripping acid. “There’s no way a twelve-year-old girl is happy about marrying some leathered, old dirtbag in his forties. This is institutionalized rape!”

  Holding up a hand, Grant said, “I don’t agree with the practice, and neither does the US State Department. However, we have to tread carefully about the age thing. The age of consent in most of the US is fourteen in limited circumstances. The Hispanic community celebrates the girl’s fifteenth birthday as ‘open for business.’ A lot of this is cultural. I mean, even the Virgin Mary was twelve or thirteen when she was betrothed.”

  Freya leapt out of her chair. “Are you saying Catholics are worse?”

  Grant stood nose to nose with the angry woman. “That’s what the community is going to accuse us of if we don’t temper our message. I tried to talk about the societal cost of large families with a priest, and he objected to my advocating contraception.”

  “We’re off track,” Hans warned. “How can we stop some segment of this child-bride market without offending local officials?”

  “Find anti-slavery laws that might apply,” suggested Themis.

  “Beating the shit out of the buyers,” Artemis offered.

  “Breaking kneecaps and hiring hit men are unacceptable strategies,” Grant said. “We have to hold the moral high ground. This is about winning hearts and minds—changing the culture.”

  Hans jumped on the bandwagon. “Exactly. We want parents to teach children that selling children is wrong. Failing that, the media should instruct ignorant adults. We need a slogan that local leaders in all areas can support. We need the Egyptian culture to condemn some aspect of the situation.”

  “No ch
ild labor,” Stu said suddenly. “With all this unemployment, someone using underage workers would be taking jobs from the people already holding on by their fingernails.”

  “We could work with the child-labor theme,” Themis said. “Hell, if you added the word ‘foreign,’ the perpetrators would be lynched. We could even stage a few protests if we print up the banners. People around here love a good protest.”

  Nodding, Hans said, “Yes. Turn up the heat on the officials, and get them to ban labor for children under fifteen or non-citizens. In fact, we could even stir up a buzz against workers imported from other states in Egypt. Nemesis, find me a sweatshop we can air on the evening news. Once the rallying cry is out, we can hit family businesses where the young wife works. Once husbands and girls are in police custody, we can give the girls a choice between being deported to a safe location or returning to their husbands. We can hide the rescues in the noise.”

  “We should target new wives without babies,” Grant said. “We don’t want to be accused of stealing mothers from their children.”

  “There’s a Doctors without Borders ship on the river,” Laura said. “We might be able to use them to help with the shell game and transport.”

  Grant turned to Stu. “We can’t save them all, but that makes the successes even sweeter. Welcome to the team.”

  ****

  The first morning, Freya paid Laura a visit over breakfast. Laura tried to be social. “Hi. My mother and I were just debating whether aliens gave the Ancient Egyptians Pages. What do you think?”

  “Salome, thanks to the bruise you gave me, I can’t have any close-ups this episode. I won’t even be able to flirt in the hotel bar.” The huntress wasn’t glaring, though; she was smiling.

  “What did you do?” Laura asked, suspicious.

  “I got you promoted from lighting assistant to production assistant,” Freya said vindictively. “If I’m not getting any, neither are you.”

  Kaguya had to explain it to her when the huntress left. “Men and women had different floors on the hotel, and Stu doesn’t drink. So you have to hook up with him in your spare time during the day. Running errands for the whole show, you’ll be lucky to have time to sleep. Stars are always PMSing about something. Coordinating with the local government is going to be the killer, though.”

  “No big deal. I deal with bureaucracy all the time at work.”

  Her mother raised an eyebrow. “Everything takes longer than normal in Cairo, even parking permits. There’s no way we’ll close this deal in a week. Freya torpedoed you, baby.”

  ****

  The conditions in the Cairo slums were deplorable, but Laura enjoyed that sweaty, back-breaking filming more than any work she’d done in years. Filming for more than the usual week bothered many crew members because any slip in schedule could mean a delay in airing the next episode and a loss of audience share. Grant told everyone not to worry about the lost time because he was working on a special report. Laura was certain that the extra episode would be an investigative piece on the secrets of Sanctuary gleaned from hours of conversations with Stu.

  During the day of filming, Laura finally got to spend a few minutes with the ambassador. She waited on a rooftop with binoculars, searching for some sign of the local police so she could cue the camera crews. The tar stuck to her shoes as she paced. She had stopped sweating, and her tongue felt like bacon. The police had scheduled the raid for eleven, and it was past one now. “I’m in hell,” she muttered.

  “Mo says you have to treat all this like a fishing trip, not a footrace.”

  She jumped. Stu was on the fire-escape ladder right behind her.

  “You look like you could use a drink,” Stu said, handing her an ice-cold bottle of orange soda and pressing it against her wrists. “My dad showed me this trick. It cools your whole body.”

  It certainly gave me a shiver. Laura licked her lips. “Do you have an opener?”

  “Yeah. Here.” He popped the cap for her.

  Her first swallow was so heavenly, she guzzled the refreshment. As she tipped back the bottle, condensation drops fell on her throat and slid toward the V in her shirt.

  Mesmerized, Stu watched the droplet’s journey.

  She sighed. “Ah. I needed that. You, sir, can have any favor you like.”

  “Actually, I did ha-have something I wanted to ask you.”

  “Yes?”

  “Distressed Egyptian farmers and the residents of Sanctuary will be forever in your debt for this.”

  Laura placed the chilled bottle against her forehead, afraid this might be sunstroke. “Huh?”

  “You handle paperwork. I found two farmers with teaching experience who I’ve invited to visit our ship. I want them to help our biosphere improve crop yields, but they need exit visas. Hans said you were Wonder Woman when it came to this stuff.”

  I need to brush up on old comics. “Yeah. Fighting for our rights by standing in lines.”

  He sat down on the edge of the building wall. “Together, we saved twenty girls. We shipped those girls to a Saudi branch of Mom’s STEM girl’s school—with scholarships. I don’t know how you managed it.” His smile and honest admiration made the whole week worthwhile.

  “So you’re going to stick around for another show?” she asked.

  “You bet. Isn’t that a police motorcade?”

  “Shit! Places,” Laura shouted into her headset.

  Chapter 21 – Sample

  Stu’s fame opened new doors for the Ballbusters team. For the first time ever, they were invited to Saudi Arabia. Several princes wanted to court Stu and fish for hints about Sanctuary’s advanced technology. After the plane departed from Cairo airport, the team gathered in the meeting room to familiarize Stu with recent facts about the kingdom. The team had distributed the remaining German beer because it wasn’t allowed in the strict Muslim country. Stu seemed to enjoy the bonding experience.

  “As one of the few remaining monarchies …,” Grant began.

  Laura quietly excused herself. She had done business in Riyadh recently and didn’t need the background. Instead, she changed into a cooler pair of shorts and a cotton halter top. I must have lost five kilos from sweating in the last week. She transferred two bottles of cold water from the fridge into her explorer bag. In the computer nook, she sat under an air vent while she searched her mother’s bank records.

  From what Laura could tell, her grandfather had spent his portion of the 2-percent funds on acquiring water rights, food production, and anything likely to be scarce. Her mother had funneled every dime into a non-profit called NERO—the Near-Earth Rescue Organization. After the space war, people had recognized the need for non-governmental emergency-response teams like the Red Cross. To raise funds for its operation, NERO charged for safety inspections and repairs and issued insurance policies on all off-planet missions that passed certification requirements. The organization was huge, one of only five authorized for space exploration.

  Evidence in hand, Laura approached her mother in the first-class section of the plane.

  “How are things going with the boy?” Kaguya asked, sipping her tea.

  “I’m flirting from a distance. I can tell I turn him on, but he avoids being alone with me.”

  “That means he’s weak. He’s afraid his feelings will prevent him from completing his mission. Press in.”

  Laura waved away the advice. “I know how to seduce a man. I’m here to ask you about NERO.”

  “It’s a quality organization that does a lot of good.”

  “No doubt. Why did you start it?”

  “When your father returns, his ship may be damaged. I needed a reliable corps of people to save him and reunite us.”

  Placing a blueprint on the tray table, Laura said, “Most of your funds went to a specific project—a doughnut-shaped transport. It’s huge. What is it for? Fortune’s aerospace division built it, but I don’t have access to the files.”

  Kaguya looked her daughter in the eye. “The st
ar drive is in the center for maneuverability. Officially, it’s a hub for other craft to dock at for provisioning and repairing—a way station.”

  “Why is it three stories tall?”

  “I designed that ship to fit precisely into the landing bay of Sanctuary. It can carry all the people and equipment Conrad and I will need for another twenty years of exploration.”

  My mother, the mad scientist. At least she’s consistent.

  Her curiosity satisfied for the moment, Laura wandered back to the meeting room to catch the tail end of the briefing.

  Hans summarized, “The first prince wants to show off his estate on the Persian Gulf. After a welcome feast, we’ll visit two other sites and end in Riyadh. We’ve agreed to film Princess Nora’s University as well as the STEM college. They want a PR piece about how benevolent Saudi society is toward women.”

  Sif snorted. “By leading the world in honor killings of their daughters?”

  “No public criticism,” Grant warned, “or we’ll never finish the episode.” He eyed Artemis. “We negotiated the same simple head covering on the crew, men and women. So there’s no discrimination.”

  Hans continued, “Because we have contraband on board—yes, Artemis, I mean your sex toys, porn, and gun collection—we will be stopping in Haifa for the rest of the day to offload.” A cheer went up from the crowd at this surprise announcement. “Blow off some steam on the beach because I need you all to be on your best behavior. The Saudi police are very diligent and don’t have my sense of humor.”

  “This is my territory,” Artemis said. “Everybody is invited to my uncle’s beach house.”

  The crowd dispersed quickly, leaving Laura alone with Stu and Mo. Throughout the whole plane, doors to bathrooms and cabins banged shut.

  Stu paced the meeting room uncomfortably.