Exodus: Tales of The Empire: Book 2: Beasts of the Frontier.

by Doug Dandridge

  “And have you had any contact with Mr. Murphy since that night?” asked the detective.

  “None,” said Cornelius, knowing he was telling the truth, but still nervous under the scrutiny of the other men.

  “It would be a good idea if you kept your distance from Mr. Murphy,” said the Baron’s man. “That’s all. We’ll call you in if we need to talk with you some more.”

  Cornelius walked out of the room with mixed feelings, fear and anger. This was supposed to be a free society, where people could live their lives as they liked. But it’s a lie. Live like a free man and they can slap you down. Maybe not legally, but they control the economy. Maybe it’s not such a bad idea, leaving the core worlds and going to the frontier.

  An incoming call chirped on Cornelius’ link as he was flying home. The connection showed him his father as on the line. Wonder what he wants. I’m going to see him in a few days anyway. Hope the hunt isn’t off. “Hey, dad. What’s going on?”

  “I have some bad news, Cornelius,” said the sad voice of his father. “It’s your sister.

  “What happened to her?” asked Cornelius with a sinking feeling. She got caught, her and Larry. How the hell did they think they could get away with it.

  “The police came for her today at her job,” said his father. “And Larry as well. They were arrested for illegal procreation.”

  “Do you know what’s going to happen?”

  “I don’t know, son,” said the elder Walborski. “I’ve contacted a lawyer, but what he told me really doesn’t get my hopes up.”

  “Mind wipe,” said Cornelius in a quiet voice.

  “We can hope not, but I’m afraid that’s a possibility.”

  “Are you still going to do the hunt?”

  “I’m obligated to it,” said his father. “If you want to bow out, that’s fine. I can get another man to help.”

  “No,” he said, shaking his head, then looking at the cityscape passing below. “Katlyn lost her job with the Baroness, and I need to make up that loss.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” asked his dad.

  “Was there anything you could have done about it?”

  “Maybe,” said his dad quickly. “Probably not. I don’t know. Did the Baroness say she was going to blackball her.”

  “That was the impression I got, dad.”

  “Then probably not. At least not at the moment. Give me a little time and I might be able to get her on with someone else.”

  The next day his father got in touch with him again, and gave Cornelius the news he had been dreading.

  “Mind wipe,” said his father in a hushed voice. “She’s gone to us.”

  “Didn’t take them long, did it?” said Cornelius in a growl.

  “The evidence was irrefutable,” said his father with a sob. “She was pregnant, and there was only one way that could have happened. So they aborted the baby and took away her memories, and those of Larry. We’ve lost her, son. The body is still alive, but there is nothing there that connects her to us. I’m glad your mother isn’t here to see this.”

  And I wish she was, thought Cornelius. Mom had died years ago, in an aircar accident that hadn’t left enough of her around to reconstruct, unless they resorted to cloning, which, of course, was highly illegal. Cornelius still missed her terribly, as he was sure his father still did, as he had not sought any kind of female company since her death. But his father also had a point. The sentence would have ripped the heart out of their mother. Mind wiped offenders were given new personalities, with new lives, and families were not permitted to have contact with them.

  Katlyn took it no better than he did. “It was a stupid thing to do,” she said, tears in her eyes. “But to kill her like that. And the baby.”

  “If they let anyone get away with it, they wouldn’t be able to stop unlicensed reproduction.”

  “You sound like you’re defending the assholes,” yelled Katlyn, glaring.

  “I’m not defending them. Hell, they just took my sister away from me. I’m just saying how things are, and how they will stay, as long as we remain here.”

  “Your poor father. God, what he must be going through.”

  And she didn’t take the hint about remaining here. Maybe we need to pack up and move to the frontier. Hell, the Fleet protects it, and there are troops on every planet. Maybe not as many as here, but enough to keep the pirates away, and that’s really the only worry we would have out there. “Have you thought about leaving New Detroit?” he asked her.

  “Not really. Maybe for a developing world. At least they have some civilization.”

  And a couple of hundred million people who have already gotten all the good stuff. “We would do better on a frontier world. Get some land, turn it into more land. Maybe even be rich someday, and have lots of kids.”

  “And I heard that frontier worlds are dangerous,” said Katlyn. “Almost no medical facilities, and everyone walks around with guns. No, I want no part of them.”

  After Katlyn went to bed Cornelius tapped into the net and routed some vids to the trivee, letting it immerse him in another world. He started with a map of the Empire, looking at how the worlds were situated. Of course the center of it all was the Supersystem, the eight stars in orbit around a black hole, each with two or more habitable worlds. And all with the same restrictions as New Detroit. And out from it in a globe to two hundred light years, the core worlds, ninety-eight worlds in the same class as New Detroit, all populated to the legal limit. And out from them, the twelve sectors, all of them with some contact with an alien polity. Sectors I and IV with the least contact, meaning they were also the least likely to be invaded. And ten thousand developed, developing and frontier worlds in those sectors, with more being opened all the time, or terraformed to be compatible with human habitation.

  Next he scanned down a list of frontier planets in sector IV, looking for those with low enough population that they would be considered true pioneers. One on the list caught his eye, a world with less than a hundred fifty thousand inhabitants, that had been colonized for about thirty years. So they know enough about it that there shouldn’t be any surprises. And it’s on the short list of planets under consideration for a Fleet base, which means more security than most frontier worlds. Sestius IV. Doesn’t even have an Archduke yet, only an appointed Governor.

  He linked into the trivee and let a vid of the planet fill his room. The small city loomed ahead, then the farmlands around it, with actual livestock. Real food, he thought. Not just tank grown protein and factory processed vegetables. The vid moved out, and he was surrounded by a lush jungle, then a plane, with massive creatures grazing on the grass like ground covering or the trees at the edge of the open area.

  He finally delinked after what seemed like mere minutes, before he realized that hours had gone by. I don’t have to work tomorrow, he thought, remembering the images he had been immersed in. And that place doesn’t look so bad, especially if it becomes a Fleet base. Now, I just need to talk Katlyn into it.

  * * *

  This day they were hunting bigger game, the twelve ton Hexa-Buffalo, the beasts that were one of the reasons the King Tigers grew so big. A lot of people thought herbivores were the gentler animals, spending their days as they did cropping grass or watching for predators. Cornelius knew better. He had hunted these beasts before, and if given his choice he would rather have gone after the tigers any day. Again he carried a military grade particle beam rifle, an emergency weapon for the possibility that one of the noble born asses might botch his shot.

  “You be careful out there,” his father had told him before the party split up, his father with the other men who would approach from downwind, using their scent to move the herd in the direction of the shooters.

  “You too,” said Cornelius, giving his dad a hug. He was the last family that the young man had, or at least the last genetic relation that actually knew who he was.

  Humphrey was on this hunt, still wanting that big trophy
head to mount in a study, so he could lie to his friends about how brave he was. There were two other nobles, including the Duke himself. Cornelius knew that the Duke was a skilled hunter who could be depended on to stand his ground and make a good shot. Still, he wished the Marine Captain was taking the place of either Humphrey or the other noble, a young man whose frightened eyes tried to look everywhere at once.

  “There they are,” whispered the Duke, coming up beside Cornelius. He nodded back, having already spotted the herd, including a magnificent bull, as large as any that the young man had ever seen.

  “Who takes the first shot, my Lord?” asked Cornelius, watching as the herd began to move their way with a lowing sound.

  “Let Baronet Kroger have it,” said the Duke, motioning at Humphrey, who was looking wide eyed at the large animals, sweat pouring down his face.

  “Yes, my Lord.” Cornelius made his way over to the Baronet, then motioned for the man to squat down while he went to a knee. “That big bull is yours, my Lord. Make sure your weapon is set to maximum accel, and only fire when I tell you.”

  “I know what I am doing,” said the fat man. “Don’t tell your betters what they must do.”

  “Again, my Lord. Only fire when I tell you to. Those are the Duke’s orders, not mine. If you have a problem with them, I will ask him to come over and tell you himself.”

  “Insolent swine,” whispered the man, trying to look fierce as he turned his eyes on Cornelius, and only managing to look scared.

  “Here he comes,” whispered Cornelius, looking over his own scope at the big male. He’s fifteen tons if he’s a kilo, he thought. Too good a trophy for this bastard. And I don’t want him too close, in case this son of a bitch doesn’t bring him down. “Fire,” he said to the Baronet. Nothing happened, and he saw the big bull tearing at the grass with all six hooves, then start trotting their way. “Fire, damn you,” yelled Cornelius, taking his eye off his scope and glaring over at the noble.

  Humphrey pulled the trigger, and Cornelius knew something was wrong by the way the rifle recoiled. It was a high end hunting rifle, and had grabber units built into it to take up some of the recoil, but still should have pushed the man back more than it did. The man fired again, and the rifle again barely bucked.

  “What the hell did you do?” yelled Cornelius, pulling the rifle hard out of the man’s hands. He looked in disbelief at the velocity setting, which was the minimum the rifle was able to send a shot down range.

  Another round cracked by at high velocity, and Cornelius looked up and out to see a cow by the bull go down to her knees, while the bull and the rest of the herd turned tail and took off at a run. More shots, and some other beasts were hit, none hard enough to bring down. Cornelius brought up his weapon and tried to get a shot at the bull who was leading the herd toward his father. But there was too much dust, too many other darting forms. He took a shot and killed a smaller bull, but only a kill of the dominant male could stop them from the charge.

  “Goddammit,” he yelled, jumping up and running after the herd, fearing the worst. The herd charged to the wood line and in, taking cover, all but the dominant bull, which was stomping and ramming his horns into something on the ground.

  “Good God, no,” yelled Cornelius, seeing his father’s rifle on the ground near the bloody mess that in no way resembled a human being. He brought his rifle up and shot the bull, a narrow beam that burned a hole through the hindquarters and out the chest, dropping the beast. He stumbled up to look down on the bloody meat, splintered bones, and torn rags that had been his father, tears rolling down his cheeks. The other men in the beating party gathered around, looks of disbelief on their faces. The elder Walborski had been a fixture of the hunts for decades, and to be taken in such a manner was beyond comprehension.

  The Duke and the other men came up a minute later. The Duke looked like he was about to cry as well. But Baronet Kroger only had eyes for the big bull. “My trophy,” said the man, all smiles. “He will look fine mounted on my study wall.”

  Cornelius turned, grief becoming rage in a second. He walked over to the man and slammed his fist into the fat face, knocking the Baronet to the ground. “This was your fault,” he screamed at the man. “If you had checked your rifle and made sure that it was set right, this bull would have been killed. But you didn’t have the brains for that, you stupid son of a bitch. I’m going to…”

  Cornelius stepped forward, then brought his other leg back for a kick. Two of the beaters grabbed his arms and held him back, while the Baronet held his hands over his face, trying to protect himself.

  “Calm down son,” said the Duke, putting a hand on Cornelius’ shoulder. “This is a tragedy, but it will do you no good to get violent.”

  “I will have you thrown in jail,” yelled the Baronet, pushing himself up to a sitting position. “You assaulted me, and I will see that you serve time in a labor camp.”

  Cornelius pulled at the men holding his arms, but they were strong and would not give him an inch.

  “Go home, Cornelius,” said the Duke, patting him on the shoulder. “I will make sure that your father’s remains are brought in for cremation.”

  “I want him arrested, now,” yelled Kroger, getting to his feet.

  “Don’t worry about jail,” said the Duke. “You’ve been through enough.”

  Cornelius nodded and walked away, still steaming inside with a murderous rage. Someday I’ll see that son of a whore by himself, and he’ll die. Even as he thought that he knew it would never happen. Men like Kroger, the privileged, were always protected. The best he could hope for was to be stunned by security and taken to jail.

  * * *

  “You no longer work here,” said the shift leader as Walborski tried to go to his station.

  “What do you mean?” asked Cornelius in shock. He had taken a couple of shifts off to attend his father’s funeral, then set his dad’s affairs in order. But that was all according to company policy, and had been approved ahead of time.

  “I’m not really sure what happened, Walborski,” said the shift leader. “It came down from management that you were no longer to be allowed on the line. I guess that means you were terminated.”

  “Terminated?” said Walborski, still in shocked disbelief.

  “I am really sorry, Walborski,” said the foreman, shaking his head. “It’s not up to me, and, I guess I shouldn’t say anymore.” The foreman turned away, still shaking his head.

  He’s worried that he might lose his job, thought Cornelius as he turned away. And I really can’t blame him. This isn’t a free society. We’re only free to cut our own throats with our actions.

  Later he tried to get in touch with the Duke, but was turned away. Calls to the employment services did no better, and he soon found that he was not employable on this planet. And then all the money in his and his father’s accounts disappeared, and he knew that the enemy he had made on that hunt was getting him, and he had no way to get back at the Noble bastard.

  * * *

  “What’s wrong?” asked Cornelius as he came in the door of the apartment and saw Katlyn sitting on the couch, crying, the big cat in her lap. He had been fruitlessly searching for a job, taking public transport now that the aircar was gone. And the answer had been the same at every venue. He had the skills that robotics factories were looking for, but he had a black mark on his record.

  “The apartment manager informed me that we have to move out by the end of the week,” said his wife, tears rolling down her face. “What are we going to do?”

  “I don’t know. It looks like I’m sunk on this world. All I have to look forward to is a life on the dole.”

  He thought for a moment and looked at his wife. “I’ll give you a divorce if you want. So you can find, you know, someone with some prospects.”

  Katlyn stood up and put her arms around him. “I don’t want someone with prospects. I want you.”

  “Then I don’t think we can stay here,” he said, looking into her e
yes. “I wouldn’t be satisfied just existing.”

  “And where would we go?”

  “To the frontier,” he said, a smile crossing his face. “To the land of opportunity. What say we give it a try. How would you like to become a Marquise?”

  “I’ll go anywhere you do,” she said, sitting back down and stroking the cat. “As long as we can find Big Tom here a good home before we go.”

  * * *

  The freighter didn’t look like much, even to someone who had never been in space before. It was a hyper V tramp, thought to be good enough to haul prospective colonists to sector transshipment points, where they could be loaded up on other ships to get to their final destinations.

  Cornelius could tell that Katlyn was terrified as she looked at the cryo chamber that was to be her resting place for the next four and a half months. It would be transferred to another ship with her in it.

  “I’ll hold your hand while they put you under,” he said, holding her. “And I’ll be there when they wake you. Look, it’s got to be better than spending a third of a year sitting in cramped quarters for the voyage out.”

  “It’s OK,” she said, in a voice that told him it was anything but. “Help me into the thing.”

  That looks like a coffin, he thought as he helped her to step into it. Medical staff started to attach sensors and push tubes into her veins, while he stood over her holding her hand. Before he knew it she was unconscious.

  “We find it better to put them under as soon as possible,” said one of the techs, while another pumped nanites into her body. Cornelius knew they would scour her cells of ice crystals before she came out of cryo, and repair any damage caused by freezing. Then the lid was lowered and sealed, and his wife was quick frozen while he looked on with some anxiety.

  “Look,” said the tech who had been talking to him. “This is old, tried and true tech. The founders used it for a thousand years to come into this space, without a loss. Well, maybe closer to five hundred years ship time with dilation. But the point is that it works, and works well. And we’ve improved it in the last thousand years. So your wife and you will awake in a new system.”