by Unknown
“Yes. Maybe it has something to do with losing the comms. Maybe I am the kind of person who needs communication.”
“That’s funny, because I think I’m the opposite. Back home, I was addicted to painkillers and all sorts. Now I think my problem was too much communication. I made up a word for it: finity…”
“You didn’t make that up. It’s a real word.”
“Well, there you go then. Of course if you asked Zeke, he’d say we’ve got the life everlasting to look forward to, and Francis probably believes in reincarnation or something. But I don’t believe in any of that. So I was stuck with finity. Until I came here.”
“I thought they gave you meds for your issues.”
“I haven’t taken my meds since we launched. They didn’t combine well with the magnesium tablets.”
She walked with her eyes on the stars. The one compensation of the polar night, these shone steadily, innumerable, guilty of nothing, more beautiful than anything on Earth. Time vanished.
Suddenly, a ruddy flickering light threw the sled’s shadow over her. The Roquentin was putting on one of its periodic fireworks displays, as if bidding them farewell.
Raphaella stopped walking. The sled whanged into her calves. Her knees—turned to jelly by hours of strain—threatened to buckle. She clung to the sled. “Deet?”
No answer. He was lying on his back on the equipment, head hanging off the edge.
“Deet!”
“S…sorry. I was…was asleep…”
She turned his oxygen regulator up to full flow. At that rate he’d burn through his tank in a few hours, but hopefully it wouldn’t matter.
Inch by inch, she got the sled turned around. They’d come about ten kilometres, she estimated by her wrist pedometer. She started to haul the sled back towards the lights of the Roquentin.
“They were right,” she muttered to herself. “He can’t make it. But that’s OK. We’ll just go back to the ship and wait. It won’t be long.”
Left foot. Right foot. Left. Right.
“They’ll come and get us. They will.”
Lightning in the Martian night. A beacon that the Chinese would see from kilometers away. A working nuclear power plant. They’d want it. They’d come get it.
Hopefully, before Raphaella and Deet died.
“We’re human, aren’t we? All brothers and sisters, aren’t we? They’ll come.”
Finity Copyright © 2014 by Felicity Savage. All Rights Reserved.
Illustrations Copyright © 2014 by Duncan Long. All Rights Reserved.
Where the Space Pirates Are
by John M. Whalen
“I want you to take me to where the pirates are,” James Joyce Jameson, famous author and Holovision raconteur said, as he took a dainty sip of aperitif from a crystal goblet. “I’m told you know Esteban Romero personally.”
Frank Carson sat back in his chair and gazed across the table at the small, thin, wiry looking man sitting across from him. They were in a space port lounge orbiting the planet Tulon. Through the window behind Jameson, Carson could see a giant oil tanker just breaking free from the planet’s gravity as it hauled another shipment of Tulon Crude. People were madly killing each other back on planet Earth, and they needed the oil to keep the machines of war running, so they could go on living and killing.
“Why do you want to meet Romero?” Carson asked. “He’s a dangerous man.”
“Research,” Jameson said. “As you may know, I’ve written several pirate novels. Best sellers. Perhaps you’ve read one of them?”
“Can’t say I have,” Carson said. “I don’t read today’s best sellers. Books aren’t what they used to be. I prefer the old classics.”
“All those words?” Jameson said. “How do you have the time? So bothersome. The new Brain Wave Books are much more convenient.” Jameson polished off his drink and poured another from a decanter. “Publishing has changed a great deal in the last 150 years,” he said. “It started in the early 21st Century with e-books. They eventually replaced hard copy, bound books. Of course the transition was made possible by the fact that people really didn’t have time to read. And with the average attention span dwindling to about nine milliseconds, Flash Fiction became the rage. Whole stories in 500 words. They eventually got them down to one word. But that only worked because of Brain Fusion technology—the mini, computerized Brain Book Reading Unit.
“For example, most romance novels now contain only one word: LUST. But the reading unit wirelessly transmits an entire tale of lust to the brain in half a nano-second, giving the reader a complete erotic experience. My book, Pirates on the Rim of the Dark World, has only one word: Treachery! But the unit sends a complete tale of treachery on the outer rim in such vivid detail you can taste the ozone in the air.”
“From just one word?”
“It’s the data encrypted into the reading unit as backup that makes the difference. That’s where the real work of an author lies.”
“Fascinating,” Carson said. “What do you mean `research’?”
Jameson set his glass down and leaned forward confidentially. “To be frank, Mr. Carson, my books, well written as they are, are only the purest of fiction. When I began them I knew nothing of pirates or space travel. All I knew was that a pirate is a romantic character. A swashbuckler. A man of derring-do. Everything I knew about pirates came from other books.”
“Is that what you think Romero is? A romantic hero of some kind?”
“He certainly cuts a dashing figure,” Jameson said.
“That’s what the media made of him. The truth as always lies in a different direction. I wouldn’t call Esteban Romero a hero. But he does have a certain code he lives by and he’s not like most of the others. At least he and his Black Vulture crew attack only League ships. The other space scum who call themselves pirates prey on unarmed ships. They hijack ships, cargo, crew, and hold them for ransom. Space pirates in general are the lowest form of life in the Universe, Mr. Jameson. The ones working around the Tarnesian belt raid villages and kidnap young girls, some 12-13 years old and sell them as sex slaves—that is the ones they haven’t raped or killed themselves. Your romantic notions of piracy couldn’t be further from the truth.”
Jameson cupped his hand around the glass goblet on the table. “Nevertheless, Mr. Carson, I have to meet Romero. You see, my editor barely green lighted my last book. She said there wasn’t enough authentic detail. She can be a bitch when she wants to be. I need to get to where the pirates are. See what they’re like, watch how they operate. Then I’ll be able to feed better data into the reading unit and come out with a better novel.”
“Tell you what, Mr. Jameson,” Carson said. “Why don’t I save you a lot of time and expense. I’ll give you the one word that would be perfect for your next book.”
“What word is that?”
“Garbage.”
Carson started to get up.
“Please, Mr. Carson,” Jameson said. “Don’t leave. Really, I’m in a bind. I have to do this, or my publisher will cancel my contract. Sales of my books have started falling off. They won’t stay with a loser. I understand you’re able to move around Romero and his men unmolested. You saved his life once.”
“That was a long time ago, before he turned renegade.”
“That’s all right. I am prepared, Mr. Carson, to pay you one million Universal Credits to safely take me to Romero and back. I only need a few days with him. A million UC’s for just a few days of your time. What do you say?”
Carson gave the writer a cold look. Almost a look of contempt. The word popinjay popped into Carson’s mind. He thought about the offer. Maybe a dose of reality would do this popinjay some good, he thought. Then he wondered where he got the word popinjay from.
“All right,” he said. “I’ll take you. But two days. That’s all I can spare.”
“Excellent,” Jameson said. He picked up his goblet. “Let’s drink a toast.”
Carson picked up his glass of Synth-Sc
otch.
“To piracy,” Jameson said.
“To authenticity,” Carson replied.
Later the two men climbed aboard Carson’s Gull Wing Strato-Sled, The Corvette, which sat on the spaceport’s landing dock. Jameson carried a small duffle bag, and Carson stowed it behind the seat. He did a quick rundown of the take-off checklist, started the engine, and they lifted off the runway. Once the coordinates for their destination were punched into the onboard navigator, he hit the launch sequence button, and, with a flash of blue light, they entered Hyper-Space. Carson let go of the controls and set the autopilot on.
Jameson took a Mini-Comm-Port out of his bag. He held the recording device out closer to Carson.
“I’d like to ask you a few questions, if you don’t mind,” he said. “You know, get some background details?”
Carson frowned. “I’m not going to talk into that thing,” he said.
Jameson turned it off. “Very well,” he said with hint of exasperation in his voice. “Then just tell me, how you came to save Romero’s life?”
“You want the whole dog and pony show, eh?” Carson shook his head. “I guess that’s what you’re paying me for.” He shifted in his seat and stared out The Corvette’s windshield as he began. “We were both pretty young at the time,” Carson said. “I was in a bar one night in Carbonville, down on Tulon. A poker game. I didn’t know Romero. He was just another privateer having a night on the town. He was good at cards. Cleaned everyone at the table out, including me. One of the players didn’t like that much. When Romero picked up his winnings, the fellow pulled a laser knife behind his back. I shot it out of his hand before he could throw it. Romero was grateful. Little did I know that night I saved the life of a man who would be wanted throughout the galaxy for some of the worst crimes ever committed.”
“Are all the charges against him true?” Jameson asked. “I always thought the League just took whatever case they couldn’t solve and blamed it on him.”
“There’s some truth to that,” Carson said. “The League definitely has it in for him. They’re nothing more than a bunch of corrupt politicians. It’s kind of a private war between Romero and The League. But they’ve got all the power.”
Jameson was quiet for moment. Carson sensed something, some inner tension, almost fear, within the writer. Jameson swallowed hard. “Yeah, they’ve got all the power,” he said.
Two hours later The Corvette slammed out of Hyper-Drive and Carson saw the purple sphere of the planet Sarna floating in black space ahead. They had journeyed to the back end of the Jerulian Star System,
“This is it?” Jameson said. “This is where he’s been hiding? Of all the places!”
“It’s mostly jungle,” Carson said. “Impenetrable. You can hide anything down there from the League’s Search Beams.”
There was a sudden blinding flash of light, a deafening explosion and The Corvette rocked. Carson cut off the auto pilot and brought the bucking ship under control. Ahead two small Tri-wing fighters seemed to slide into view from nowhere, as they let their Invisi-Shields down.
“Romero’s ships,” Carson said, activating The Corvette’s laser weapons system.
“Stop where you are,” a female voice ordered. Carson hit the intercom.
“We’re friends,” Carson said. “My name is Carson. Where’s Captain Romero? I’ve come to pay your captain a visit.”
There was a brief pause. “Turn your weapons off,” the woman said. “Follow us unless you want to be blasted into vapor where you stand.”
One of the ships began a dive toward Sarna and Carson followed. The second ship waited for The Corvette to pass and followed close on its tail. As they lowered toward the planet, Carson wondered who the woman in the ship was and what had happened to Romero.
It was near dusk on Sarna, as Carson followed the pirate ship down to a small clearing cut out of the dense purple jungle that covered the planet.
“I’ve seen purple plants before, but never a whole purple jungle,” Jameson said, gaping out the window. Giant trees towered in the violet light of twilight, their purple and magenta branches shrouded in a thick blue mist as the last rays of Sarna’s orange sun fell behind the horizon.
“The vegetation is different from what you’re used to. There’s no chlorophyll on Sarna. There’s plenty of rain but not that much sunlight. Enough to make the vegetation grow but not enough for complete photosynthesis. The plants take nourishment more from the water in the soil, which is rich in phosphates. That’s what gives it the purplish color.”
“Interesting.”
Moments later Carson and Jameson stood with their hands up in the clearing where The Corvette had landed, surrounded by a circle of ten scruffy-looking men. An assortment of weapons were aimed at them. A tall, shapely woman with long auburn hair broke through the circle and walked toward them. She wore a black leather outfit that emphasized every curve of her body and she moved with the slinky grace of a jungle cat.
“Throw your weapon down,” she ordered. “Carefully. Kick it over here.”
Carson used two fingers to remove his blaster from the holster Velcroed to his leg and dropped it on the ground. He kicked it toward her with the toe of his boot.
“Where’s Romero?” he asked. “I’m an old friend of his.”
“Silence!” the woman shouted. “I will ask the questions. What are you doing here? Who are you?”
“My name’s Carson. This is James Joyce Jameson. He’s a writer. A famous author.”
The woman’s brow creased in a deep frown. “A writer? What does a writer want here?”
“Research,” Carson said. “Now if you wouldn’t mind telling Romero we’re here—”
The woman stepped closer to Carson, her angry eyes looking him up and down.
“Esteban is not here,” she said. “I am Lee-la. Esteban’s second in command. I am also the woman he loves. When he is not here, I am in charge.”
“Romero left a woman in charge?” Carson asked incredulously.
The woman’s eyes flashed angrily. “And why not?” There was a flash of movement and suddenly Carson felt the point of a dagger just under his chin. “You find this difficult to believe?”
Carson gulped. “No, ma’am,” he said. “Just surprising, that’s all.”
“You had better watch your tongue, if you would not lose it,” Lee-la said. She lowered the blade and turned to Jameson. “And you. What do you write?”
“I write space pirate novels,” Jameson said. “I asked Mr. Carson to bring me to meet with Captain Romero. I want to talk to him. Interview him for research for my next book.”
The woman gaped at him incredulously. “You came here to make research for a book?” She turned to the men standing around them. “You hear this? This famous author came here to do a book about us. Can you believe anything so foolish? Eh?” She laughed and the men laughed with her.
“Enough!” Lee-la shouted. Her eyes widened and her nostrils flared. She stepped closer to Jameson. “You know what, Mr. Author. I do not believe you, or your friend here. I do not think you came here to write a book about us. No. I think you came here to spy on us. I think you came for the League. I think you wish to betray us to them!”
“No!” Jameson said. “It’s not true.”
“Seize these men,” the woman ordered. “Take them to the stockade. We shall investigate this further.”
Six burly men grabbed the prisoners and marched them across the hearing toward a trail that ran deep into the darkening jungle.
With torches blazing, the ancient city buried in the jungle seemed as much alive as it must have thousands of years ago when the original inhabitants, a lost race half ape-half human, dwelt there. The stone masonry of the buildings and courtyards bespoke of an intelligence, but what had happened to the ancient race that had built the city was now only a mystery.
A small palace, now crumbling but still serviceable, stood in the center of the city, surrounded by smaller buildings in which pirates n
ow lived. Now however, most of the present day inhabitants of Sarna’s lost city stood in the vast chamber that served as a meeting hall. Lee-la sat before the throng on a raised dais in what was once a throne carved from stone. Standing at the base of the dais, Carson looked up at the haughty pirate queen and tried to say something. But the shouts of the motley mob behind him drowned him out.
“Quiet!” Lee-la shouted. “The prisoner is trying to speak. Let us hear what he has to say before we execute him.”
“I was just asking where your captain is,” Carson said. “If we could see him, this whole matter could be cleared up in an instant.”
“Captain Romero is not here,” Lee-la said. “I already told you that.”
“Where is he? When will he be back?”
“He’s on a raiding party,” Lee-la said. “He should have been back days ago. We’ve had no word from him. I think he has run into trouble. League trouble.”
She stood up, her eyes fierce. “But why am I telling you something you probably already know? If you are spies for The League you already know what has happened to him.”
Jameson spoke up. “I assure you, madam, we have nothing whatever to do with the League. I am an author, as I told you. I came here to get to know what pirate life is really like.”
Lee-la stared at him, her black eyes almost amused looking. “You are an absurd character,” she said. She turned to Carson. “How is it you knew how to find us?”
“I’ve been here before,” Carson said. “You weren’t here then. But some of these men must remember me.”
She turned to the crowd. “How about it? Anyone know this man?”
“Aye, Lee-la,” a big, swarthy fellow shouted, stepping forward. “I know him. His name is Carson. He’s a gun for hire. Not much better than a pirate himself.”
The woman looked back at Carson. “Is this true?”
“Part of it,” Carson said. “The gun for hire part.”
She glanced back at the man who had spoken. “Does Captain Romero call him friend?”