“And he’s done an exceptional job!” Garlidan countered.
“Exceptional because he hasn’t been killed, or jailed, or worse! You’ve led him down a garden path strewn with the debris of his own planet. One that led only to a choice between global notoriety and utter disaster. You forced him to become a hero to his own kind, when he sought no such fame or danger. He was just an engineer, for heaven’s sake,” Eliria said. This scolding had been percolating in her mind for some time, and it felt good to properly chastise this selfish dilettante for his excesses.
Seemingly by way of a retort, he brought out a small wooden box from inside his jacket. Its color was that of deep amber, and its gold surround was polished to a gleaming shine. Garlidan opened it to reveal a faintly glowing cube of red stone.
“A Red Cube,” Eliria observed, outwardly unimpressed. “Does it read the future? Or perhaps make a good pot of herbal tea?”
Garlidan held it briefly between thumb and forefinger. It was barely two or three inches across and in this prevailing gravity it felt unexpectedly heavily, as though leaden at the core. It took a while for Garlidan to notice that it was also slightly warm to his touch. He placed it snugly back in the box.
“It contains everything that a burgeoning, space-faring civilization needs to know in order to spread throughout its local star systems.” He fixed her with a meaningful gaze. “Without destroying itself in the process.”
“I imagine that Paul’s society would find that very useful indeed.”
“Precisely,” Garlidan agreed.
“And where will it be found?” Eliria asked. She took the Cube and turned it between her fingers, watching the module’s lights play against its surface.
“It will be with someone,” Garlidan explained, accepting the Cube into his palm and returning it to the box, “who will stand guard over it. Until such times as she receives a visitor with the right password.”
Eliria watched Garlidan seal the box. “Who?” she wanted to know.
He slid it back into his robes. “I have a mission for you. One of the greatest importance.”
She smiled. “You would not be here otherwise.”
They relaxed together in a pleasing 0.7g roll as Garlidan explained his plan. Eliria made notes on a small, personal lectern. Telesto, snugly clamped to the ship, began producing construction robots which would soon follow a complex building plan. Some of their calculations required the additional power of the ship’s computer but none took very long. Eliria and Garlidan were both relieved at this brevity, as a mix of tiredness and old-fashioned lust threatened to derail their work. “Not too old to join me in my sleeping bay, I hope?”
It was a perennial joke; Garlidan’s age was a matter of speculation, a fact he rather enjoyed. Indeed, he had knowingly fanned the flames, encouraging several planets’ populations to believe him to be immortal, and others that he was over a thousand years old. Only one of these, he smirked to himself, was true.
“Certainly not,” Garlidan ensured her, and a process began within him, the likes of which even Eliria had never seen before. The lines on his heavily tanned face began slowly to recede, and to vanish back into his skin. His hands lost their gnarled appearance, paper-thin skin quickly losing its transparency and becoming younger and healthier. Hair re-grew at Garlidan’s temples and crown, augmenting the small shock of white which had adorned his scalp; blackness leached back into the hair strands from beneath, and in moments they were a strong fibers once more, now jet black from root to tip. His eyes shone with the ecstasy of rejuvenation, with the glee he found in transforming his appearance so completely and quickly.
And, Eliria quickly found, so very attractively.
Only three minutes had elapsed but a century had fallen from Garlidan’s beaming face. He had lost weight, gained muscle tone – a firm abdomen now rippled under his gown – and his manhood began to feel the remarkable anti-ageing properties of this much sought-after treatment, standing firm and flushed with excitement for the first time in many months.
An hour later, their first love-making gently completed, the couple floated happily – and stark naked – in near zero-G. Eliria’s body was a model of womanly perfection: slender, with beautifully proportioned curves in all the right places, smallish and deliciously pert breasts and nothing more than a dusting of soft, manicured hair hiding her femininity. The only blemish was a very recently-acquired bite mark just below her shoulder blade, where Garlidan had seen fit to mark his territory. After they had both cum, deliciously and together, she laughed at him for the anachronistic act. “All alone in an entire solar system, a hundred light-years from any other, and still you men feel the need to express ownership.”
“Perhaps,” he admitted. “Or, equally, maybe I just like biting you.”
She lunged at him, baring her teeth, and the two chased each other throughout the ship, gnashing fangs and swiping claws like dueling foes on the savannah. Their second fucking was an animalistic act, the modules of Eliria’s station resounding for the first time with unconstrained joy.
By the time they awoke together, they were no longer quite alone in their orbit.
***
Chapter 16: Recruitment
Qelandi Spaceport
Julius arrived at the docking bay on his noise-machine bike and parked in the same spot as the day before, hoping its ear-splitting racket would bring the ship’s crew running, even if to complain. He leapt off the bike excitedly, but was distraught to find the Orion’s shuttle and her docking bay quite deserted.
He decided to wait, sitting on his bike and considering his future. This had preoccupied him of late, so much so that it was all he thought or dreamed about. He knew now that his destiny lay among the planets and stars of the galaxy, and not on a tiny, barren moon of sand and relentless heat. If he’d suspected this before, his meeting with Mesilla had confirmed it absolutely. As he had done all week, he listed what he felt were his ‘push’ factors, the growing number of reasons why he should leave. Certainly this list had become far longer than the list of ‘pull’ factors keeping him on Qelandi. But one of these troubled him deeply: what did The Five want him to do?
Their messages had always been confusing, but never more so than since reaching his majority. For example, he reminded himself Qelandi’s capital city provided him with access to every illicit substance in the system, but The Five had expressly forbidden his people ever to try them. Fate had placed in his path legions of beautiful women, some of them smart, courageous star-travelers like Mesilla, but those same Five Stars had forbidden him to respond to the most basic male urges. The Five had even shown him numerous ships which could hasten his departure, but there was, as yet, no invitation even to step aboard, let alone head off into the unknown. The means existed, but their permission was lacking. He loved The Five for their support of his people, but grew weary of their vagueness and their ceaseless, impossible tests.
His ponderings were interrupted by a click. Turning, he found a gun pointing at his head from six feet away.
The gunman cleared his throat and said, “Morning.” He raised an eyebrow. “I’m Zak.” Immobile and scared, Julius glanced nervously at the shuttle, hoping that the gesture might connect this sudden stranger with the Orion. “Oh yeah, she’s mine. I’m Captain, didn’t anyone tell you?”
“Not really met anyone yet,” Julius spluttered. Then, somewhat quieter, “Except for Mesilla”.
“Oh, really?” He stuck the gun in his belt. “Did you fuck her?”
Julius squirmed, his first movement in a half minute. “No, we just talked a little bit. We only met once, yesterday.”
Zak grinned. “Slow work.” He strode past Julius’ bike and pressed a button on the shuttle’s outer hull to lower the rear ramp. “Nice rig you’ve got,” he said, motioning to the bike. “Stolen?”
Julius smiled and shook his head. “For a second I thought you were going to ask if I’d fucked it.”
Zak gave a loud laugh and waved Julius up
onto the ramp and into the ship. This modest, five-crew shuttle served as their means of conveyance to the surfaces they visited. Julius followed Zak into the relatively cramped interior and exchanged the basics. Zak asked direct, specific questions and was glad to receive fulsome, honest answers. “So, you’re smart, you’re a quick learner and as far as I can ascertain, you’ve never put a foot wrong, morally speaking.” He glanced intently at Julius’ crotch for a bizarre second.
“No immorality in these pants, Zak.”
“No drugs?”
“Of course not.”
Zak hooted. “Why not? They’re awesome!” They headed down an access corridor which connected the ramp to the shuttle’s cockpit. “You ever flown in a freighter?” Zak wanted to know.
Julius suddenly felt vulnerable, and not a little guilty. “No, I’ve actually never been in space before. Although, I’ve always wanted to.” He briefly wondered what the Professor back in his tiny village would make of it.
Zak shot him a glance. “Well, consider this an interview for your first space flight. We’re going about a light-year into the belt.” He glanced the youth up and down. “You’ll have had two birthdays by the time we come back.”
Julius stared amazedly at him, as though he’d promised passage into paradise. At the same time, there were other emotions, deeper needs which were might now, finally, be satisfied. Something existential, even; perhaps his whole reason for being. The Five want me in space. They will it, and I will go. A warmth filled him and there was an exhilarating sense of elements clicking into place, at long last.
“Is everyone on shore leave?” he asked.
Zak flopped into the tall, leather-backed pilot’s seat and let out a long sigh. “Who’s ‘everyone’?”
Julius sat carefully on a pull-down seat by the starboard wall. “Your crew?”
Zak hauled himself upright. “Well, son, if you call this battered old Captain, an overweight engineer and a cute girl a ‘crew’, I’d say they were probably finishing errands before our departure.”
“And why are you heading into the belt?”
“Work.”
“What kind?”
For the most part, Zak explained, they transported rare but unprocessed mineral ores, hastily extracted from planetary surfaces by robot mining operations. These machines dug down and broke up subsurface rock using thousands of small, controlled explosions. Many-armed digging machines then roamed the earthquake-wrecked seam and tipped the ore into massive hoppers. In some cases, these were flown directly to the client, hence the need for Orion’s giant cargo modules. Those with less time (or more money) could have the ore processed on-site; Zak’s customers were usually in a hurry. Each trip required numerous glide descents through the atmosphere, the laborious attaching of a single, massive module to the shuttle’s underside, and a worryingly hectic liftoff as the shuttle struggled to haul the module into orbit, where it would dock with the others.
The Orion had been shrewdly captained. Zak worked the local ore markets like a born salesman, allowing him to make a number of exceptionally lucrative investments and broker deals both over and under the table. His crew’s loyalty was based on something more than their massive paychecks, although in this business it was naive to make assumptions. Enough of their former crewmen had vanished into the blackness after a particularly shady deal or a transfer which went south. And there was still a great deal of empty universe.
“You’ll travel a lot,” Zak told him, “but you won’t ever do anything that’s terribly unsafe. Most of the time, you’ll be boring high-G surfaces making sure the machines aren’t fucking up.”
“Sounds entrancing.”
“You’ll also be involved with negotiations, bribery and extortion.”
“All in a day’s work,” Julius quipped to hide his jangling nerves.
“And there will be extremely frequent use of illegal substances.”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way.” His knees were jelly, though he stood straighter to hide it.
“Excellent”. Zak brought a small metal pipe from inside his jacket pocket. “Help yourself.”
Julius went pale. Then he stood and said, “Look... Zak, could we slow down a second?”
The older man smiled faintly, as if expecting this polite refusal. “Sure, what’s the problem?” He brought out a lighter and began warming up the barrel of the pipe with a slow, left-right motion. “First time for this, too?”
“Er, yeah,” Julius replied, trembling a little. “I’ve done a lot of new stuff in the past few weeks but this would really be breaking some rules for me.”
“And who applies those rules?”
Julius straightened his back. “The Five.”
Zak cracked up laughing. Julius watched – confused and bemused – as Zak chortled with such gusto that he had to set down the pipe for fear of spilling the purple seeds in its bowl. It took long moments of laughter for the crinkled captain to regain his composure.
“Well, for the love of fuck,” Zak exclaimed. He was actually clutching his belly in that curious spasm of welcome pain which follows a really good hoot. “The fucking Five?”
“Please don’t insult their names.” Julius was genuinely taken aback. Not only had he never heard anyone speak of The Five so casually, he had never once heard someone use their names in profanity.
“Why the fuck not, Moon-boy? Will they strike me down? Or will they perhaps turn my home planet into a dried-out wasteland like this sodding place?”
“This is my home!”
“And I can see why you’re so desperate to leave it!”
Julius took two bold steps towards the Captain, furious but uncertain. “You’ll not speak about The Five that way in front of me. I’m not afraid of you.”
Zak’s expression fell. “OK, OK, just take it easy. I’m only having a laugh and a joke, aren’t I?” He patted the jump-seat for Julius to sit down, and resumed warming up the pipe with his heavy, blue-flamed lighter.
Reluctantly, Julius sat. “Sorry. I’ve never really done an interview before,” he admitted. “Are they all like this?”
Zak almost lost it with laughter again, but held things together this time. “No, not exactly, but then again this isn’t your routine interview, now is it?”
“I need a job and passage into space,” Julius said simply. “I’m smart and I learn fast. I’d like to move past my religious beliefs and figure out how we might help each other.”
It was perhaps the most grown up thing Julius had ever said, and he felt proud to have held his own amid the oddest circumstances of his life. “Help each other,” Zak repeated, as if trying out the concept. “Well, I agree that you’re a good catch, and I know you’d make a great crewman.” He chewed it over. “But I need to see proof of your abilities before I do something as crazy as boosting you into deep space with us.”
Julius stood proudly. “What would you have me do, Captain?”
Zak grinned broadly, as if relishing this chance to test the young man’s abilities. “Kid, I need you to be resourceful, and I need you to be fast. Above all, I need you to be unseen. Can you do that?”
Julius felt a growing confidence, as though The Five truly wished for him to undertake these tasks. Resourceful? Hadn’t he spent his whole youth gathering elusive plants, not to mention scavenging water from the least likely of places?
“I’m ready,” he said.
“Great!” Zak suddenly jumped up, his lazy couch-potato demeanor instantly gone. “Take this.” He handed Julius a pale yellow Ident Card with a gold strip down its length. “I can’t possibly show my face in the Bazaar. Too many,” Zak grinned, “previous incidents. But you’ll slip in and out without notice. We need some Qelandi rum for our trip,” Zak said, smiling. “Grab us as much as they’ll let you have. I imagine it’ll be a while until we’re back here.”
“And this card will provide the credit?”
“Sure it will. Just don’t come back without plenty of rum. OK, Moon-boy?”
The Bazaar was a mile to the south, a semi-subterranean maze of shops, brokers and providers of services both respectable and insalubrious. Julius rode the bike to the Bazaar’s huge, arched entrance and tossed a boy two coins to keep an eye on it. There was incredible bustle to the place, which was a sprawling mini-architecture of courtyards and narrow passageways, some so crowded with people and goods as to seem impenetrable. Julius wondered whether a map of the place even existed; the traders seemed to share an institutional memory of ancient directions and a subtle, hidden geography. Despite the crowds, though, there was a purposeful order to the place.
Julius slid into a line of colorfully-dressed traders who were making their way into the Bazaar, and followed them into the domed main courtyard. Beyond this light, open space were the warrens which comprised the Bazaar itself. Under the dome, cafes served food and drink, with musicians and dancers performing atop raised platforms, the better to appeal to the throng. Julius took a sharp right turn, leaving the saffron-gowned traders behind, and quickly followed the main artery passage in a slow curve to the left.
Alleyways jutted off the main artery, leading to specialist shops of every kind. He passed signs for healers, potion-makers, fortune tellers, science advisors, journey planners, repair shops and even a couple of strip clubs. Finally, towards the end of the artery, he took a left turn and was faced with an alleyway crowded with red-brown sealed flasks, ranging from small phials to massive urns. This, he knew from past experience, was the ‘Aisle of Rum’.
Three traders looked particularly busy, and Julius joined the small crowd at the nearest one, all of whom were motioning or whistling for the trader’s attention. This rotund, sweaty store-owner was occupied with a client who had insisted on tasting the rum before completing purchase, and was taking his time about it; his ornate, metallic chest piece gave him away as a mercenary, or perhaps an escaped convict, neither of whom were unusual in this uniquely tolerant city.
“Six flagons. Send them to my ship.” Within seconds, a smooth transaction was complete and the trader’s son set out on yet another delivery trip in his motorized cart.
Clarion: The Sequel to Voyage (Paul's Travels) Page 18