by Mark Zubro
Joe raised an eyebrow, “Thready-ness?”
“Yeah, and then use it to sew up the boxing material to contain sand for pillows and cushions.”
“You sure that will work?” Joe asked.
“We can try.”
The inspection ship landed. The door slid aside and a group stepped off the spacecraft onto the hangar’s apron. Mike was pleased that the heat was in full misery mood. Wasn’t hard to predict. The weather had been the same since their first day.
Some places, Mike knew, had a line of greeters at rigid attention. He glanced at the other two. Brux stood at rigid attention. Joe kind of slouched and scratched. Mike and Joe held hands.
An entourage of fourteen men and women followed a figure in a white tunic out of the ship. He strode to them and said, “I am Fash. I expect a proper greeting for the subcommittee on Colony 6743-0A.”
Mike said, “Greetings and welcome to Colony 6743-0A.”
“Stop that!” Fash screamed.
“Stop what?” Mike asked.
Fash pointed a trembling hand at Mike and Joe’s entwined fingers. “That.”
Mike had looked Fash up on the Hrrrm equivalent of Wiki. Many in the Religionist faction had fearful respect for Fash. He alone had raised one hundred trillion dollars for the cause. It wasn’t only the money he raised. It was also the fearsome power he wielded as one of the leaders of the most powerful religious sect in the universe.
Fash was a theoretician of the Religionists, which had a membership of well over a hundred billion at this end of the galaxy. Its members had long been in the majority on over one third of the inhabited and settled planets. On these they rigidly controlled the politics. They were absolute theocracies except when making money got in the way. Then cash conquered all. In researching their history, Mike thought it was amazing how often religion had found convenient theorists to perpetuate itself and let rich members get richer. Five years before Mike’s arrival they had become the swing vote in the imperial Senate.
One of the main tenets of their program was removal of all homosexuals from the galaxy. Extermination was the preferred method. When the Senate came up with the solution of exiling all the gay people to worthless planets at the far end of their part of the galaxy, they were reluctant at first, but had thrown their support behind it with a vengeance as a first step toward their final goal.
Mike smiled and said. “Make me.” He took out his communicator and held it in his left hand. Using the tips of his fingers on that hand, he caused a blue aura to surround the three of them.
Fash said, “I won’t put up with this.”
“Or what?” Mike asked. “You’ll exile us.”
“We’ll have you executed.”
“The laws of the empire have changed?” Mike asked. “Or have the laws of physics changed and now I have less power than before? You tell me. You’re not invited. You’re not wanted.”
“We can cut off your supplies and kill people in the camps if you don’t cooperate.”
“Your plan is to kill us all eventually anyway,” Mike said. “If you’ve presented the worst, and it’s not going to be immediate for us, why don’t you save us from all of your frustration and just tell us what the hell you want? If we can meet your needs, we’ll think about it.”
“You are less than low-life prisoners. You are dirt and scum.”
Mike was fed up. He stood stock still. His deep voice thrummed. “If it is necessary, ladies and gentlemen, to begin your visit on a rude and uncivil note, then perhaps we could begin with an etiquette lesson.”
The committee members had come to a stop at the command in his voice. His confidence in himself had grown through his experiences and the not inconsiderable presence of his implant and communicator. Mike advanced on them. They drew back until he stopped. Mike lowered his voice but kept a note of command in it. “You may not like us. We may not like you, but we will be treated as human beings, with common courtesy and full respect. Or you will get back on that space ship now and there will be no tour.”
“How dare you?” Fash hissed.
Mike smiled pleasantly. “I dare because if you don’t show some civility, I will blast all of you and your ship into oblivion. The three of us will be protected by this aura.” Mike deepened the blue around Brux, Joe, and himself. “You’ve all heard what happened to Bex.”
From the looks they gave his communicator and him, he was sure they had. Mike paused long enough to catch the eye of each of the interlopers. Then he said, “Now shall we start again or do you prefer to stop permanently?”
Fash’s face turned an angry purple. “You wouldn’t dare.”
A man from among the other visitors stepped forward from the group. He said, “I am Osm. Excuse our ill manners. Thank you for greeting us.” He held out his hand to Mike. Most of the others in the group followed suit.
Fash recognized an effective threat when he heard one. When it was his turn, he allowed his hand to touch Mike’s for the merest fraction of a second then said through gritted teeth, “Shall we get on with it?”
“Sure,” Mike said.
As the group moved off to begin the tour, they were joined by several of the other colony sector leaders among them Karsh.
As the others began to walk off, Brux pulled Mike aside. “How did you get away with that?”
“Magic?” Mike suggested.
“What if they’d just gotten back on their ship and closed this place down?”
“Then they would have,” Mike said, “but they didn’t. Remember, Brux, they have a stake in this too. They’ve invested enormous quantities of time and money in this. They desperately want to get rid of us. It gives us a sliver or leverage.”
“That and your magic communicator.”
“Doesn’t hurt.” Mike quoted Paradise Lost, “Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven.”
“What’s that?”
“The product of an English class I was forced to take in college. A guy named Milton wrote it, a poet who died hundreds of years ago.”
“Sounds like a smart guy to me,” Brux said.
Joe said, “We’d best catch up to them so they don’t wander off and get lost.”
“Here? How? Where?”
“We can hope.”
They caught up with the group as they reached the apex of the bridge.
A woman named Luf was speaking to Fash in a low, mellifluous voice. “Mr. Chairman, we’ve come to see what they’ve done with our investment.”
Mike was surprised to recognize Luf among the group. She was the leader of the tangerine faction in the Senate. Mike hated her for her blindness, prejudice, and leadership in destroying the lives of gay people in this part of the galaxy.
Investment? Twisting words to new, strange definitions. He’d suspected all along they were Republicans or it turned out Republican was an intergalactic meme.
Fash said, “This behavior will go on our report.”
Mike gave an inward sigh. Taking names and putting things on someone’s permanent records didn’t seem to stop with fourth grade teachers on either side of the galaxy.
Mike found it depressing that unimagined advances in technology had not led to great wisdom among these people. His hopes for humanity handling it any better dimmed with each advance in technology he saw and each slide into nuttiness he experienced.
They plodded along for two hours. Brux led the way. Mike thought he must have been practicing boring as he explained what they were doing in excruciating detail. They came to the old hall left over from a previous expedition where Grith was creating his mural. One of the members of the committee lingered behind to examine the new drawings. Most were just outlines, some more detailed than others. About twenty feet had been in filled in with vibrant colors.
The man said, “Those scenes with Kluth are marvelous, and these Death Ball scenes are quite realistic. They aren’t from other colonies that were here probably centuries ago. These are from recent matches.”
“One
of the men is drawing them.”
The man stopped in front of what looked like two players in a death grip. Mike stopped with him. The man said, “I remember this game. They both died.” Without pause or change in tone and without looking away from the mural, he said, “I am Lon from Girn. He has a message for you.” The man did not look at Mike, but gazed from player to player on this section of the wall. The other members of the committee and colonists rounded a corner. Still the man stared at the wall. “The people who are sympathetic to your cause are trying to slow the whole process down. They’re trying to get the idiots to see the error of their ways.”
“Thank…”
Lon cut him off. “There isn’t time. Just listen.” Lon moved one slow step at a time from image to image. “These are exquisite. Unfortunately, the slowdowns are causing unrest in the camps. People are dying there.” He finally looked at Mike. “We are in agony. We cannot overcome the laws. If we delay them, the people being collected in some of the camps, begin rebelling. When they rebel, they die. If we hurry, they become prisoners there or eventually here. We are not having the effect we want. If we stop trying to slow it, they might be less likely to die here. We don’t know what the humanitarian thing is.”
They came to the end of the mural and turned the corner. The other members of the committee and colony reps were about fifty feet down a new corridor.
“I’m sorry,” Lon said. “There is nothing for us to do.” He began to speed up to catch up to the others. They halted again when they got to the Story Wall that Eph was creating.
“What is this?” Lon asked.
Eph had finished the first entry, his own. It was about two feet by two feet square. The indentations in the granite seemed to sparkle. Mike explained.
Lon said, “I’ve heard of this process for creating carvings, but I’ve never seen it. It’s a very new process and very expensive.”
“We have a specialist in creating it.”
“Aah, that makes it easier.”
At the end of the tour, they all gathered on the ship under the huge overhang on the mesa landing area.
Fash said, “This is only a brief visit. We want to keep you uncertain, off balance. We want you to be wary of us.” He paused. “We don’t want to stay any longer than we have to. Being with you people is difficult enough. That’s why we have some of your own governing you. No one wishes to be contaminated by you. That’s why you run the detention camps. Also we have spies in the camps and in the colony. They give us valuable information. I can now reveal another reason why we are having this inspection. I have heard hints that there have been stirrings of independence talk in the colony.”
“That’s absurd,” Joe said. “Independent to do what? Independent to be prisoners?”
“Nevertheless, any such stirrings must be stamped out instantly. The spies will report. We will observe. Any trouble makers will be crushed.”
“Who are these spies?” Joe asked.
“Some were straight men who volunteered. They are martyrs to the cause, and they are being extremely well paid. When they rejoin their families, they will never want for anything. We also bribed a few of the gay ones.”
“But do the straight ones have to, must they, you know, do things with them?” This from another Religionist, who had been introduced as Yok, a woman who looked to be in her eighties.
“We hope not, but they have been well trained. It’s for a cause. The same as ours. It is a small price to pay but a necessary one.”
“Won’t it be dangerous trying to speak to them alone?” Joe asked.
“Yes,” Fash said. “That’s why I will take care of those communications myself. I will speak to all the members of the colony separately before we leave. No one will know which ones are spying for us.”
Joe said, “That will take hours.”
“Each one will come in to my presence and the spies will download from their communicators to mine with their reports. It will take a few minutes each. A few hours at most.”
Mike desperately wanted to know who the spies were, but Fash was decreeing. “So, no more meetings. It has also been reported that you’re changing the designs of the rooms. We saw that for ourselves. That must stop. You must adhere to the charter precisely or people in the camps far beyond your aura to protect will die.”
The usual threat that worked so horribly well.
They set Fash up in the most dilapidated old communications shed with the least air-conditioning. Brux organized the other colonists to go to their meetings with Fash.
Several hours later, the committee and the colonists gathered at the colony entrance end of the bridge. Karsh and several critics were among them.
Fash asked, “Is there any way to speed up the progress you’re making?”
Mike said, “We have met our scheduled quota, that we have men and materials for.”
“So you have,” Fash said. “But we’re going to increase your quota.”
“Now, wait a minute,” Mike began.
“There’s really no point in arguing,” Fash said. “The next shipment of prisoners will begin at a random interval. I have no idea when it will start.”
Mike burst out. “Impossible.”
Fash said, “The new colonists will be brought in. If there isn’t room in the colony then they will have to survive on the surface until there is room.”
Mike agonized. “They’ll die from the heat or in the rainy season from the floods. How many are you sending?” Mike didn’t mention the dribs and drabs of prisoners that had been arriving with some of the supply ships.
Fash didn’t answer him. “You have no choice. No matter what power you have, the ships will leave them and go.”
Mike protested. “This is murder.”
“It is a necessity,” Fash snapped. “Those camps have to be emptied quickly. You’re lucky you’ve had this time to begin to get organized.”
Joe placed a restraining hand on Mike’s arm.
Lon asked, “What is it that makes the process here so difficult?”
Mike turned to her. “Other colonies have the positive support of their backers and or the central government.”
Some committee members shifted uneasily.
Fash said, “Enough, there is no room for discussion. The decision was made to send you the new colonists. That’s part of the reason we came. We decided to tell you in person, and also take the opportunity to see what you’ve done. Frankly, Mr. Carlson, I am impressed by your progress. I’d never have expected your kind to be able to do so well at such physical labor. I assumed you’d get here and spend your lives in licentiousness.”
Mike replied, “Necessity makes any kind of people do remarkable things.”
Fash gave Mike a hard look. “So it does, Mr. Carlson.” He paused. “At this time we’d like to walk around without your kind supervision. The committee feels it can benefit from independent inspection. You can resume your regular duties. It won’t be necessary to see us off later. We’ll make our own way.”
Mike shrugged. If they wanted to walk around there was nothing he could do about it. Mike said, “Please feel free. If you have any questions just use your communicators.” The colonists watched the committee members wander off.
Brux said, “They look like humans, walk like humans, talk like humans. I wish I could believe they were.”
Mike said, “They weren’t born loony-tunes Religionists. Somebody had to recruit them and fill them with that much perversity.”
Brux said, “Fash is the most sick heterosexual I have ever met and that counts the time I met one who had murdered seventeen babies.”
Joe asked, “You actually met such a guy?”
Brux said, “It was some heterosexual who couldn’t have kids of his own. So he decided no one else could either. So he killed other people’s babies. Heterosexuals are so sick.”
“Maybe he’s just another lonely mixed up human being,” Joe suggested.
“Watch your tongue before your mother wa
shes your mouth out with soap. Really! Comparing us to them. I never!”
Karsh and the others clustered around them. Karsh snapped at Brux, “I’ve been listening. Would you stop that effeminate horseshit for five minutes?” He’d rarely spoken the entire time they were with the committee.
Brux swiveled to face him squarely. One hand planted on an accusatory hip, the other, with wrist as limp as possible, pointed. He said in a deadly sultry voice, “Fuck you, asshole.” Brux turned and swished away.
Karsh spoke to his back. “I don’t like it. I never liked it. It’s fake effeminate horseshit. He didn’t even try to cover it up in front of the committee. Did you see the way that limp wrist of his flew while he explained the communications system? I was mortified.”
Mike said, “I’m more worried about the spies.”
“Nothing we can do about them,” Karsh said.
An hour or so later without any notice, the committee left.
Mike and Joe headed to the communication room. Brux was running his fingers over wide sets of controls. He looked up for a few seconds then returned to his work. He spoke as his fingers worked, “I’m already on it.”
“How did you know what I wanted?”
“I’ll do all I can to make sure any spies can’t communicate with the rest of the universe. I can control most signals going off the planet unless there’s technology I’m unaware of.”
Joe said, “The police and spy stuff can be pretty sophisticated.”
“As am I,” Brux said. “Leave me to it. I’ll take care of it.”
And Mike knew he would. Unless he was the spy. Mike didn’t want to go there. At some point you had to trust someone.
Just as Joe and Mike turned to go, Brux asked, “What are we going to do about the rules Fash mentioned and the need to adhere to the charter?”
“Nothing,” Mike said.
Brux raised an eyebrow. “All of that?”
“And less.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
“Cak, the asshole, is doing what?” Mike shut off his digger. He was minutes away from the end of his regular ten hour shift.
“Cak, the asshole, as you put it so well, is organizing opposition for the next meeting,” Joe said.