The Money Star

by Jon Lymon

  Remnant was muttering to himself, regretting all past misdemeanours while Bettis fake-wrestled with the controls. DT fanned his fingers in front of his face and peered through the gaps, unable to believe that Bettis was still in control. The Baton Uric was shaking and rattling, the nuts, bolts and blowtorched joints that held her together straining under the pressure exerted on them by the unwelcoming Martian atmosphere.

  “Hand over to the computer, now, please” DT yelled. He reached for the autopilot button but couldn’t find it amid the shudder and shake. He fumbled the dashboard until Bettis slapped the back of his hand.

  “Get off. You might press something you shouldn’t,” Bettis shouted.

  “That’s what I’m worried about you doing.”

  “I know what I’m doing.”

  “Explain it to me then, because this doesn’t feel like we’re coming in to land at Heathrow on a still summer’s evening.”

  “I warned you that Martian landings were tough.”

  Bettis had no idea what the computer was doing other than taking them down towards the surface. All he could see through the windscreen was brick dust and the occasional flash of star-lit sky.

  Remnant was dry-retching the chilli con carne he had not enjoyed several hours before. The shuddering of the ship rattled his wisdom teeth, the pressure in the cockpit weighing down his nasal column so much that his top incisors and canines felt ready to shoot out of his gums and through his bottom lip.

  DT made another lunge for the dashboard, hitting the plaster-covered autopilot button.

  “Nooooo,” Bettis yelled as he fought with the control stick. The Baton Uric was rocking from side to side like a man drunk on a gallon of Gates.

  “You’ve switched the autopilot off.”

  “What?”

  The Martian crosswinds wailed, looking to take down these alien arrivals. The ship cleared the dust clouds, revealing the Martian surface below, more brown than the red the crew had expected.

  “Crew seats for landing,” Bettis shouted, a little pointlessly as everyone was already seated.

  The dotted lights of a small runway glowing on the Martian surface were up ahead. Bettis eased the speed of descent.

  “I want the autopilot back on,” DT pleaded, his scrunched shut eyes close to tears. Remnant still gripped the arms of his chair almost to the point of their ruin, whispering apologies to all those he had wronged during his life. He hadn’t finished going through the list by the time the Baton Uric’s wheels touched the Martian surface.

  Bettis wrestled with the control stick, trying to keep the vessel from flipping forwards. The runway was well used, scarred by snake-like skid marks. The ship rattled along its surface as Bettis lifted the wing flaps to slow her down. Remnant’s teeth shuddered in his mouth. DT gripped his glasses and Bettis strained to keep hold of the violently vibrating control stick.

  When all aboard felt the sensation of the ship slowing to a speed that didn’t feel deadly, a wave of relief swept over them.

  DT, who often found himself welling up after long journeys back on Earth, opened his eyes and discovered this trip magnified those emotions thirty-six million times. His tears were uncontrollable. He hugged Bettis even before he’d taxied the ship to a halt under the oxygen dome in front of a giant hangar where a pair of SEC fighters were parked. Next to the hangar was a digital forty-eight sheet poster sporting a middle-aged woman’s smiling face welcoming them to Mars and hoping they would make their stay a long one.

  The sensation of not being in motion for the first time in months took some adjusting to. Each man looked at the other, the hum of the Baton Uric’s now silent engines still echoing in their ears.

  “We made it. We bloody made it.” Remnant was the first to speak. He wanted to get out. Experience something firm underfoot. DT mopped the corners of his eyes with the tip of his silk tie. He too yearned to feel the crunch of rock under his shiny shoes.

  Bettis sat in the pilot’s seat staring ahead. Remnant felt like hugging him, but could see the man wanted a moment to reflect on the enormity of what he had achieved.

  “Well done Mitch,” he said.

  Bettis was unmoved, his nerves still frayed.

  “See, you can do it,” Remnant added. “You don’t need computers, you just need confidence.”

  Bettis resented advice from anyone, most of all from a crew member he couldn’t abide. But being as emotional as the others at having landed, he was gracious enough to swivel in his pilot’s seat and force a smile that didn’t include his eyes.

  Remnant knew right there and then that the pilot of his ship still wanted him dead.

  30

  They cruised past dark frames of unfinished skyscrapers, and cranes frozen like extinct dinosaurs, their long, skeletal necks peering down at a surface devoid of life. Either side of the periodically tarmacced road a few neons flickered. A Starbucks. A Hilton. A Shell. But outnumbering the established Earth brands were those for fuel companies that hadn’t yet made a name for themselves on the mother planet. Garish combinations of flickering coloured light bulbs decorated the entrances to these independent fuel stations that each offered the same fuel at the same price, the only differentiator being the extras that came with purchase. Free freeze-dried food here. Free engine ‘once-over’ there. Free ship wash. Free map of the solar system. One station even claimed no purchase was necessary to claim a free gift with purchase.

  All the stations the Baton Uric cruised past sold liquid hydrogen ready-mixed with liquid oxygen for rocket propelled ships.

  “Are you sure it’s just liquid hydrogen we need and not oxygen as well?” Bettis asked.

  “That’s what we filled up with back home, that’s what we need to fill up with here,” said DT.

  “No one seems to stock it on its own,” said Bettis scanning the neons.

  They drove past huge warehouses stacked to their corrugated iron roofs with the same dehydrated meals they had brought with them from Earth. After passing two warehouses because Bettis couldn’t make up his mind which one he liked the look of best, they pulled in at a third and selected more freeze-dried spagbols, chilli con carnes, jam sponges and apple crumbles.

  “Do you do anything else?” DT asked, hoping to introduce a little variety into his diet. The sales assistant pulled a face which suggested it was a question he’d been asked many times before. “You can have whatever you like, as long as it’s on our shelves,” he said.

  Once DT had paid and the sales assistant had loaded the boxes into the bare cupboards in the galley, and waited for a tip which never materialised, the Baton Uric continued its cruise down the main street in search of a fuel station that sold pure liquid hydrogen.

  “There’s one.” Remnant pointed to a flickering neon announcing RDM Fuels, Purveyors of Pure Liquid Hydrogen for Advanced Nuclear Powered Ships. For the crew, the vision was the equivalent of seeing a water fountain in the desert. The station’s forecourt was dominated by a huge fuel tanker that was once silver but now riddled with red dust and rust marks which suggested it had taken up permanent residence, delivering fuel straight out of its long, oval tank, negating the need for underground storage.

  A middle-aged woman watched them turn in and she approached the ship, her stride way more confident than it should have been. It was a walk that immediately reminded Remnant of Elena. He slid open a side window in the cockpit and peered down at her.

  “I guess you boys have come looking for a good time, huh?” she called up, smiling at Remnant who was instantly smitten by her good looks and American twang.

  “Who’s asking?” Remnant replied, wondering if his positive reaction to her was because she was the first woman he had set eyes on for nearly four months.

  “We have come here to refuel, that is all,” interrupted DT, peering over Remnant’s shoulder. “So no funny business, just a tank full of liquid hydrogen, please.”

  The woman stared at DT a while. She’d seen a few men like him recently. You could always spot
the guy funding the mission. Always in a rush, never with time for banter.

  “Lemme guess where you’re off to. A bright thing in the sky about twenty million miles from here, am I right?”

  “We’re going to make ourselves filthy rich, darlin,’’ said Remnant who was yet to take his eyes off her.

  “That’s what they all say,” she replied, clearly unimpressed. “Everyone sounds so excited when they’re on the way there. Don’t hear so much from the guys on their way back.” She connected the huge nozzle from the tanker to the Baton Uric and DT breathed a little easier as he felt the vibration of fuel filling the vessel’s parched tanks.

  Remnant was keen to keep the conversation going. “So, exactly how many have made it back?”

  “None that I’ve served so far. Fact is, you’ve done well to get here, guys. Still an engine like yours will certainly help.” She gave the ship the once over with her eyes and nodded her respect. “You’ve still got a ways to go though, of course.” Her eyes flicked to the fuel gauge on the side of the tanker. “Knew someone who told me a shortcut once. Said it would shave weeks off the journey, there and back.”

  “Short cut?” DT was incredulous. “There are no short cuts in space .We fly as the crow flies.”

  “Crows don’t fly out here. Your Earth rules mean zip.”

  “The laws of physics are relevant wherever in the world you are.”

  “You’re not in the world, and you’re assuming that space is flat.”

  “Of course space is flat. Black and flat, like my stomach.” DT lifted his vest. Four months of inactivity had seen a paunch and a few extra hairs develop in the vertical hedge from his belly button. He quickly pulled his vest back down.

  “That’s what scientists used to say about the Earth,” she told him.

  Remnant caught a glimpse of the girl’s namebadge. “So, Aurora, tell us more about this shortcut.”

  “Sorry guys. Got a job to do.” She checked the readings on the gauge and pressed a button to halt the flow of fuel.

  “That’ll be 58,000 dollars.” She rattled the tip of the fuel nozzle against the side of the ship’s tank spout, more out of habit than a generous attempt to add a few more drops to their tank.

  DT fumbled in his pockets and passed his card to Remnant who dropped it out of the window into Aurora’s hands.

  She pointed to a small sign on the tanker’s roof. ‘We Don’t Take Nothing But Cash’. The message was illiterate, but its intention quite clear. DT kissed his teeth.

  “Where is the nearest cashpoint, please?” he asked.

  “Hmmm. That’ll be about thirty-six million miles thataway.” She pointed in the general direction of Earth, then handed back the card to Remnant.

  DT felt a stab of pain. “I have nothing else to pay with. Have either of you got cash?”

  “Are you having a laugh, mate?” asked Remnant. “All I’ve got is my electron.”

  “US dollars only, guys.”

  “You will have to ciphon the fuel out,” said DT.

  “What?” said Remnant.

  “We will have to find somewhere that accepts cards.”

  “Lemme save you the trouble of looking,” said Aurora. “Not one fuel station on this planet accepts cards. And no one else sells pure liquid hydrogen.”

  “I don’t care. Suck it out. Take it all out.” DT was adamant.

  “No can do, I’m afraid. Once it’s in, it’s in. No good to anyone else second hand.”

  “What a load of rubbish,” said Bettis who had been watching the scene unfold with increasing impatience.

  “I could call the boys out to settle this?”

  “Bring them on,” said Bettis.

  Remnant shook his head and DT placed a calming hand on Bettis’ shoulder. “Let’s not get hasty here, Mitch.”

  “No, fuck her. Let’s take a look at these ‘boys’ she’s speaking of. See if we can’t give them a seeing-to before we head off.”

  Aurora shrugged her shoulders and directed a piercing whistle at the hut from which she had earlier strode so confidently.

  “Let’s teach these Martians a lesson, eh?” Bettis looked enthusiastically at Remnant and DT. Bettis had often found himself in potentially violent situations in foreign lands on stopovers. Get a few beers down him and the mouth started spewing forth expletives and threats and empty promises of bodily damage to anyone prepared to take him on. Plenty had taken him on, and all had won. Bettis made for a poor fighter, too eager to go on the offensive without any thought for the defence of a vulnerable jaw.

  And now, ambling towards them across the Martian surface, in no particular hurry but with a very specific intent, were a trio of the universe’s very worst lifeforms. Degenerates indeed. Injurious to the eye. DT was already assessing how damaging the stone-like fist one of them possessed would be to his ribcage. Remnant feared being thrust to the front, as the only one with a tattoo and criminal connections, so surely the most adept at handling himself.

  Bettis had avoided looking at his future foes for as long as possible, but the fact that DT was close to tugging his shirt off his shoulders forced his head to turn. It immediately turned back. Intense fear instantly pulsed through Bettis as he caught sight of them. They were disgusting. They could not be human. He didn’t want to use the term ‘mutants’ for fear of causing offence. But they were mutants. Revolting. Repulsive. Worse still, all three looked like they could handle themselves and wouldn’t mind losing a tooth, eye or even a limb in the course of combat.

  “Call them off, call them off,” he yelled.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to teach them a lesson?” Aurora was trying not to laugh.

  Bettis shook his head. Aurora directed the mutants to halt their approach towards the ship.

  “Is there an Option B?” asked DT.

  “Sure. I’m a reasonable gal. There’s one big favour you guys could do for me.”

  DT knew what was coming. “No way.”

  “Promise to show you that short cut? And you can drop me back here on your return, with just a little bit of diamond by way of a thank you.”

  Bettis shook his head. “You’ll add extra weight and use up more fuel.”

  Aurora beckoned the three mutants to come closer. “Awww, come on. You guys won’t appreciate the diamond when you see it. Takes a gal to do that. And I got all the fuel you need so I’ll pay my way.”

  “I don’t think it’s a good idea. I think we should go,” said Bettis.

  “We can’t go anywhere. We haven’t paid,” said DT, neatly summarising the situation.

  “Doesn’t look like we have much choice,” said Remnant.

  DT leaned forward to whisper to him, “Come on. Do something. You told me you could handle these types of people.”

  Remnant glanced at the trio again and grimaced. “I could maybe take one, you could keep another one busy. That still leaves one for him,” he said, nodding in Bettis’ direction.

  “Well, that leaves us with no choice.” DT sighed and straightened up and turned to face Aurora.

  “Welcome aboard, Miss, Mrs, Muss…”

  “Call me Aurora.”

  She ran back into the hut like an excited schoolgirl preparing for a school trip. The three mutants remained staring at the crew, Remnant wondering if he should engage them in a conversation. He pulled a fake smile, but it produced no reaction. He thought about the disappearing napkin trick which had served him well for years, but he had no napkin.

  “What’s the weather like around here?” he asked, cringing at the crassness of his own question. The mutants’ glare did not falter. Then Remnant pointed beyond them to Aurora rushing back out with an inexpensive bag that must have been pre-packed, ready and waiting for such time as three fools rocked up.

  When she walked into the cockpit, Remnant noticed her cheeks stained with tears.

  “You OK?”

  She swiped the tears with the back of her hand and smiled. “Let’s just get out of here,” she said.
/>
  After brief introductions were made, Bettis fired up the engines. “Are we leaving right now?” the pilot asked. “I wouldn’t mind having a quick look around.”

  “Not a chance, my friend,” said DT. “We’re not here to see the sights.”

  “I wouldn’t mind giving me old legs a stretch,” said Remnant.

  “No, there isn’t time.”

  Remnant pointed to his cockpit seat and directed Aurora to sit in it.

  “What will you do?” she asked.

  “Hold on tightly.”

  The ship taxied back towards the airstrip. Aurora waved goodbye to the three mutants and blew each of them a kiss.

  “Where did you find them?” Remnant asked.

  Aurora heard him but chose not to answer, and Remnant let it drop, fearing further questions would offend.

  “Has this place got a name?” he asked her.

  “It was meant to be the Martian equivalent of the Las Vegas strip. But as you can see, it didn’t quite pan out that way. We all know it as Gasoline Alley.”

  “Even though no one sells gasoline?” DT asked.

  Aurora nodded. “Just one of those things.”

  There were still no signs of life outside. The whole area was waiting for the diamond prospectors to arrive en mass and bring new hope and wealth to a frontier town that had been deserted by its founding fathers in its infancy.

  Bettis pointed to flashing red traffic lights up ahead.

  “What is it, a level crossing?” DT asked.

  Remnant tapped DT’s shoulder and pointed to a huge, elegant ship coming into land.

  “Now why couldn’t Edgar build something like that,” said DT in awe of the size and grace of the incoming vessel.

  The crew sat in silence as the majestic ship slid into land and touched down with hardly a skid or shudder to report.

  “Why couldn’t we get a pilot as good as that?” Remnant quipped.

  “That does not look like a vessel someone has made in their garage,” said DT.