by Sam Renner
Shaine sits. “That really what you wish?”
Nixon thinks for a moment then says “No.”
He pauses again. “What I really wish is that I could build that machine and go back farther. Back to when we were kids. To whatever day we met so I could avoid you. We don’t meet then who knows how my life goes. Better than this. Fighting. Escaping. Running away. Sleeping on the floor of some forest.”
“Hurtful,” Shaine says.
“Don’t get all twisted up. You aren’t real. Remember.”
Shaine stands back up and turns away from Nixon, looking out into the dark of the forest. “Want to know what I think?” he asks.
“About?”
“About you. About all of it.”
Nixon stands to join Shaine. The forest’s night animals are starting to wake.
“If I say …” Nixon begins but doesn’t get to finish.
“I think even if you don’t meet me, nothing changes. You are who you are. I was who I was. And we weren’t all that different. So, even without me, you end up here, or somewhere a lot like it.”
Nixon doesn’t say anything in return. They just stand in the quiet and listen to the patter of little feet on hard dirt.
“Yeah,” Nixon says. “You’re probably right.”
He sits back down and leans against his tree. He reaches his hand up behind him and digs a nail into the soft bark and starts pulling off thin strips. He ties the end of one to the end of the next, making a long uneven chain.
He works in silence for a moment before Shaine sits and leans against the tree across from Nixon.
“You do have a plan, though, right?”
Nixon tightens one of his knots then pulls on the two pieces of bark to check that the connection is secure.
“I’m going to finish this walk tomorrow and get supplies to disguise the ship. There’s pictures of it all over the boards the bounty hunters use. I have to make her unrecognizable.”
“Physically unrecognizable.”
“What?”
“You’re making her physically unrecognizable. No matter what it looks like on the outside, the transponder will still give up her actual identity.”
Shaine’s right. He hasn’t planned for the transponder. He hasn’t made it there yet, but he’s nearly certain that no one in the little bit of civilization EHL found is going to have anything technical like that.
“So what does that mean?” Nixon asks. “Is all of this pointless? Am I wasting my time trying to disguise this ship?”
“No, it’s not a waste of time,” Shaine says. “But you do have a problem you need to figure out.”
++xxx++
Stir Crazy Shaine is just a creation of Nixon’s bored and worried mind, only knowing what Nixon knows. He’s Nixon’s thoughts manifested in the body of his dead friend, and Nixon knows that. Even Shaine knows it. Still, that hasn’t kept him from talking all night.
When Shaine finally gets quiet, Nixon asks him a question. “Did you know this would happen? All of this trouble?”
Shaine takes a deep breath. He looks up into the dark canopy above them then out into the dark of the forest.
“Did I know?”
Shaine goes quiet again, and Nixon waits out his answer.
“I mean, we don’t really know what I knew, so I can’t give you a definitive answer. But if we think it out. … I knew more than you did, for sure. I knew who I was working with. Or at least in theory, I did. I probably knew there was at least some level of danger, right?”
Nixon has his fingers interlaced behind his neck. He’s pulling his head off the ground and looking at Shaine as he talks, and he’s realizing that their relationship had never changed. Even now, with their little partnership just a memory, Shaine is putting Nixon in the hard spot. He’s shoving him out front, walking the point, putting him in the crosshairs. Literally this time.
Seriously, Shaine. Gutu Inkoa. Gutu Inkoa
And as he thinks that, Shaine and his faint light blink off. Nixon is alone in the forest. Well, not alone. He puts his head down on his folded cloak. He drifts off listening to the distant mewing of some nocturnal creature that he hopes doesn’t see him as dinner.
It doesn’t, and he wakes when the heat of the suns warm his face. The mewing from the night before is gone, and the birds have returned. He pulls his cloak back over his head and secures the blaster back into his waistband. The case is still in the pocket from yesterday. He grabs the fuel rods and picks up his journey.
He walks for half the day when the forest starts to thin out. The trees aren’t as tightly packed, and he nearly trips over the stumps that are poking up from the ground. The tops of these stumps have been worn smooth by time, but they’re even. They aren’t jagged. Someone or something has cut these trees down, and there are only a couple of reasons you do that. To build with it or burn it. Either way, it means he’s close to something.
He picks up his pace, and the forest continues to thin. The number of stumps continues to grow. He smells it first: smoke from a fire. Then he hears it: voices. Then he sees it: It’s a three-quarter circle of buildings. Behind these are more buildings, built here and there in no discernible pattern.
This isn’t a city. It’s not a town either. It’s just a collection of structures. Like something you’d find if you were among the first settlers on a new planet, everyone getting off the big ship and building a home wherever they can find space. And even though you’d just spent months or years on the big ship living in tight quarters, no one wants to get too far from anyone else just in case this new planet is full of big, green meanies. So the first settlement is a clump of structures, thrown up haphazard but with a purpose—protection.
The voices Nixon hears are coming from a handful of people in front of an arc of buildings. They are gathered around a waist-high fire pit. Smoke is rolling out of the top, and the conversation has turned animated. Nixon watches for a moment before he hears: “See something interesting, friend?”
04
“You’ve been standing here staring at my real friends for a bit of time now.”
The big man behind this deep voice has his arms raised to his chest and is working a grubby fist into the palm of his other hand.
“You’re carrying something wrapped in those rags that looks long and stiff. You’ve got a blaster of some kind tucked into your pants under that cloak. You’ll excuse me if I’m a little suspicious.”
Nixon puts his hands up, palms out. The galactic signal that he means the man or his friends no harm.
He starts to explain: “I’ve had a …”
Then he hesitates and begins doing mental calculations while he looks the guy over. Head shaved smooth. Stained shirt tucked into some kind of heavy-fabric work pant. A rubber apron around his neck. Combine that with threatening language and a threatening posture, and Nixon changes course.
“I’m no threat,” he starts over. “I have a blaster in my belt. I’ll let you hold it if that makes you more comfortable. I need some gear to fix a ship. In the rags is what I was hoping I might be able to trade for that gear. If you’ll let me, I can open it and show you.”
The man gives Nixon permission with the quick nod of his head.
Nixon lays the rods on the ground and begins to carefully untangle them from the old rags.
Their tell-tale green glow creeps out of the folds of the rags and Nixon’s new friend can’t help himself. He kneels next to Nixon, his scarred and scratched hands twitching, doing everything they can not to reach out and grab the rods.
“Are those …” he starts to ask but never finishes his question.
Nixon is already nodding. “Bastic fuel rods.”
“Where did you …” He doesn’t finish this question either.
“Traded for them. The rods for a little work.”
The man looks up to Nixon, looks him up and down.
“What kind of work does a guy like you do for payment like that?”
“The hard kind.” The
work wasn’t that hard. Dangerous, sure. But driving a flat truck full of these rods for mile after mile could have had disastrous consequences for Nixon, but this new friend doesn’t know that. If he thinks rods means Nixon is somehow dangerous or unpredictable then Nixon isn’t going to correct him.
Nixon wraps the rods back up in the rags and stands. The other man does too.
“You said you needed ship parts?” the man says, still looking at the oily ragged package lying on the ground.
“I have a list. You have someone who can help?”
The man finally looks back to Nixon. “I might. Follow me.”
The man turns and walks into the heart of the arc of buildings. Nixon scoops up the rag-wrapped rods and follows. They aren’t more than a few steps into their walk and Nixon already feels eyes on him. Watching from door ways. Watching through windows. He’s new here, and new always gets attention in a place like this, a place where things don’t often change.
Most everyone watching him is human, and something about that feels better. It shouldn’t. He knows that. It was humans who killed Shaine. It’s humans who chased him off one planet and across two others. He won’t hesitate to pull a blaster on any of them. Won’t hesitate to burn a few holes in their chests if he has to. And he knows the feeling is mutual. Still, he’s human. They’re human. He knows how they think, how they reason and react.
They pass the clutch of men having a discussion in the middle of the arc. All the talking stops. They look to Nixon’s new friend, and it’s clear he’s trying to tell them something without saying a word. Nixon sees their eyes narrow. They aren’t understanding. Then they go wide with recognition. Message received.
Nixon and his friend pass and a few steps later the other men start to follow. Nixon takes tighter hold of the rods. He puts his free hand inside of his cloak and rests it on the blaster—ready to pull, ready to fire.
They pass the halfway point of the arc, and Nixon’s new friend points to a building a little farther down the line. This walking trip takes twice the time it would have taken if this man had walked Nixon straight there, and Nixon is now realizing that the walk was to put him on display. It was so everyone could get a good look at him. “Look everyone. New guy. Size him up. Measure him out.”
Nixon looks back up to the door of the building his friend pointed to and a man steps into the doorway and leans on the jamb. He’s wiping his hands on a rag. He’s wearing a rubber apron, just like Nixon’s friend, and tucks the rag into the tied belt that’s keeping the apron cinched around his waist.
Nixon’s friend waves and the man standing in the door shouts “Did you tell him that we don’t take too kindly to strangers?”
Nixon’s friend shouts back: “I think this is someone you’ll want to meet.”
The man comes down the steps that drop from the narrow porch that extends the length of the building.
“Why’s that?” he shouts.
“Just trust me.”
++xxx++
All of this man’s boldness and bluster disappears at the sight of the Bastic fuel rods.
“Yeah, I think we can help you find some things to fix that ship,” he says through a goofy grin.
“Told you,” Nixon’s friend says.
The inside of this building is a disorganized mess. Small bits of this and that are pushed into piles on the floor. Larger items are leaned against the wall.
There’s an open door leading to the back, where things that don’t fit inside are sitting on the ground.
This isn’t a shop. It’s not organized like that. It’s more of a storage space, just somewhere that the members of this commune can bring things they don’t need or get things that they do.
Nixon pulls out his reader and taps his way to the list he created earlier. He begins reading the items off one at a time. Nixon’s friend and the man who organizes the space start picking through piles for the parts Nixon needs. And if they don’t have something that matches his request exactly they offer options that might work.
Nixon, while the two men scramble around: “You mind if I ask you guys some questions?”
“You can ask,” the shop owner says, “but no promises that we’re going to answer. Makurra isn’t the kind of place people come to if they want to answer a bunch of questions.”
Nixon notes and asks anyway.
How many people are here? A couple hundred.
All human? So far.
How’d they get here? Silence.
How long have they been here? Long enough.
Is there someone who can get Nixon food and supplies for the ship? Let them finish here.
It takes just more than an hour, but most of the items are checked off Nixon’s list. All of the small parts—the fasteners and catches and hooks—are in a couple of boxes at Nixon’s feet. The larger items are stacked near the door or have been brought out the front of the shop from the back.
“I think that’s the best we can do,” the organizer says.
Nixon looks at the gear by his feet then the gear out the door, and gives a nod. “I’m appreciative.”
He lays the oily rag-wrapped rods on the counter he’s been leaning against. “And these are yours.”
Both men look to each other and smile. Nixon’s original friend then turns to Nixon.
“You’ve got a lot of gear here.” Nixon nods that he does. “Where’s your ship. Maybe we can help you get it back there.”
Nixon almost tells them that it’s two days’ walk through the forest, but he doesn’t. Something inside of him pricks something else. A warning. Share only what you have to with these guys. No more than that. Maybe it’s the looks they’ve been giving each other. Maybe it’s that they’ve made it clear they don’t much like strangers. Maybe it’s that he sees too much of himself in each of these men, a schemer always looking for a leg up or another score. He doesn’t know what it is in the moment, he just knows that the years have taught him to listen to his instinct once it starts singing.
“I’ll have to make multiple trips.”
“Maybe not,” the organizer says then disappears out the back door and around the corner. He comes back a moment later with a float cart. It’s long and flat and just fits through the doorway. The man picks up the two boxes at Nixon’s feet and drops them onto the cart. The cart bounces and tips to one side with the new weight, but a moment later levels itself.
“You can have this. We’ve got two others and don’t use this one.”
The man kicks the back of the cart and it floats out the front door and down the steps. It stops near the stack of larger parts. Nixon and the two men load the cart. It takes a moment for Nixon to get used to the cart shifting and dancing every time he puts another metal panel or sprayer of paint onto it, but eventually he does.
Once everything is loaded he and the other men step back and look at their work. If he can keep the cart level—and that’s not his job; the cart will do that for him—then everything should be fine.
He gives the cart a nudge and it begins moving slowly away from him. He gives both of the men a wave and thanks them for doing business.
“No,” the organizer says. “Thank you.”
Nixon turns and begins to head across the center of the arc and back toward the forest that he walked through to get here. He gets a couple of dozen steps away then stops and turns back. The two men are furiously talking. Nixon watches for a moment and all of his alarm bells are ringing again. That bad feeling he’d had since he found the arc is doubled now. These men aren’t the kind to be happy with a litle. They always want more. And in this case, they want more fuel rods.
05
The two men stop talking once they notice Nixon watching them.
“Food?” Nixon asks. “Anyone here have some they’ll trade for credits?”
The shop owner points to a building still ahead of Nixon. A woman is standing in the doorway, and she waves at Nixon when he spots her.
The cabinets in EHL’s galley aren’t ne
arly as full as they were when he was back on Umel. He stops the cart and pulls his reader from his pocket. He taps and swipes his way to his credit balance. It’s not much, but it should be able to buy him a box of something dried out and packed tight, as long as he can charm the woman into giving him a discount.