Priest and Pariahs

by J. Alan Veerkamp

  Keeping an eye on the sensor reading, he could see the tremors were creeping to the top of the Santa Claus’s structural stress limits, beyond which actual damage could result. All entertainment aside, it was time to be a hero.

  Reaching over to the console, Priest tweaked the control on the often-forgotten inertial dampener. The devices were built throughout the vessel to absorb the G-forces from travel within an atmosphere. However, no one ever appeared to remember you could turn up the power on the system. He pushed the slider upward with a surreptitious little finger and the ship began to settle.

  “There we go.” The shaking became little more than a soft rumble. “That’s the sweet spot.”

  Priest leveled the ship on course and eased back into his seat, the dampeners removing all the difficulty out of the flight path. An ache persisted in each of his cheeks from the fierce grin he couldn’t wash away.

  “Thank you, Priest.” The relief in the captain’s voice was clear.

  He shook his head. “Not a problem. You just have to know how to ease him down.”

  “I wish the other pilots could land the ship as smoothly.”

  Priest shrugged. “Don’t worry, Captain. You know I’m happy to take us up and set us down each time.”

  Priest made a mental note to return the dampener control back to its previous setting once they landed. He only used that trick every few times to keep others from getting suspicious. The other men were just as skilled. No need to give away his trade secrets if it meant he kept his position as head pilot.

  Once the ship was safely in port, Priest raced back to his quarters to grab his bag. The whole crew would be off-ship for four days before leaving to complete the next leg of their contract.

  He unzipped his luggage and took a quick inventory. Clothes, toiletries, and a few simple odds and ends were accounted for to keep him occupied. From the outer pouch, he pulled out a deck of cards with their metal holder and a matching flat cylinder small enough to fit into the palm of his hand.

  From the deck case, he extracted a few cards as the holographic surfaces became a five of spades and a six of hearts. Pressing his thumb to the button on the cylinder changed the cards to a king and queen of hearts. The remote and card deck were working perfectly.

  He acquired the infamous deck on the ship’s last trip to Luxorian when he caught a bar owner using them to cheat in a high-stakes game. For promising not to narc him out, he gave up the deck to Priest. The irony was Priest himself got caught trying to use them in a game of poker on board when the new cook, Erron, joined the crew, but no one back on Alpha Centauri knew about it. This little deck of cards had a special use on this trip.

  After shutting down the deck, he stowed it and the remote in his bag and dashed for the exit. His vacation was about to start.

  BLOWING OUT THROUGH his pursed lips, Arbor Kittering scrubbed his undersized hands on his pant legs. His palms refused to stay dry. He was so nervous. This job interview was too important. No other employer had been willing to return his application requests and his currency was dwindling. Despite his exceptional tech-coding skills, the mistakes he’d made in the recent past had smeared his reputation. All he needed was a fresh opportunity and he'd have the chance to undo the damage.

  Reaching into his shoulder bag—that always appeared too large for his size—he pulled out a small metal rectangle. With a flick of his wrist, it snapped out, expanding into a small step stool. Climbing on top of it in the middle of the men’s restroom gave him a better vantage point in the mirror. Without it, if he stretched out to the tips of his toes, his chin would barely reach the standard counter height, and he had no intention of doing anything of the sort. He had some small amount of pride left.

  Such was the life of a dwarf in a universe full of normals.

  Arbor was accustomed to the odd stares of folks trying not to be obvious. Some were fine, but others treated his condition as something communicable. As if achondroplasia was catching. If it were, he would run rampant through crowds in public transports, touching everyone he could reach, in a millisecond.

  He was fortunate not to be more disfigured. A disheveled thatch of mud-brown hair helped reduce the appearance of his pronounced forehead. Thankfully, his head was not grotesquely large. His limbs were short in proportion to his torso, but the possible spinal curvature was minimal. Growing up, his research brought him a battery of medical images with conditions beyond his ability to stomach. It made him thank whatever gods he didn’t believe in. His life could have been much worse, but it had also been far from easy.

  Occasionally, he would meet a person who was fascinated by his unusual stature. It was often exhausting, but he couldn’t blame their morbid curiosity at times. How could you not gawk at something so abnormal, which barely existed beyond obscure medical histories in the last few centuries? From his Subspace Link research, only four cases of dwarfism were cataloged in the last fifty years. It wasn’t surprising. Medical technologies were more than capable of detecting and correcting the birth defect well before a child was born.

  After checking the time on his handheld pad, he smoothed down his clothing with his stubby fingers as best he could, trying not to grimace at the juvenile style. Hopefully, no one would notice. With his funds so low, he was forced to shop at secondhand stores in the husky children’s departments. There was no currency to spare for custom-altered garments anymore. The fact did nothing to reinforce his self-confidence.

  Damn, he really needed this job.

  Hopping down, Arbor collapsed and collected his step stool, then stowed it in his bag. He shook himself to bolster his courage and headed for the door.

  Space Station Alpha was alive with activity. Travelers crowded the walkways between businesses, and Arbor dodged person after person in an attempt not to be trampled. He refused to watch their facial reactions as they leapt to one side. Looks of surprise never got easier with time.

  Galaxy Diner was only a few shops away but felt like kilometers. It was a simple little restaurant chosen for the interview. At this time of day, it would be quiet enough to talk, and their pricing was cheap enough he could afford to eat.

  Ignoring the odd stare from the host, he spied his party. The man sitting at the booth was large, imposing, and ruggedly attractive. The tight, dirty-blond hair and face matched the holos he’d been sent of Captain Marc Danverse of the Santa Claus. The man sitting next to him was stocky and muscular, yet smaller than the captain. This was Mac Smith, looking way too young to be the ship’s head tech.

  Arbor waved to the pair to get their attention and pretended not to notice how the captain’s expression flattened. Mac smiled and beckoned him forward. He took a deep breath and said a silent prayer.

  After climbing into the chair opposite them, he received a different vibe from each man. Mac appeared delighted to meet him, which was fortunate, because he was very easy on the eyes. Danverse appeared uncomfortable when Arbor had to nearly crawl across the table to shake his hand, but was polite regardless.

  The next half hour was something standard. Questions and answers of a normal variety went back and forth easily enough. Danverse and Mac spoke of how the Santa Claus was populated with all non-hetero men who often repeated their yearly work contracts. They all cared for and lived on the ship with the structure of a small town. Arbor was nervous but found handling the details surrounding his skills the easiest. It was the personal queries that set him on edge.

  And Danverse asked the first that could take a bad direction. “So why the Santa Claus of all places?”

  Arbor swallowed and answered his best. “Well, I haven’t had much luck finding new employment recently. The idea of being on a ship with a community of non-heteros sounds really appealing. Living off planet would be a nice change of scenery.”

  “You realize that living and working on board a cargo vessel is not a luxury appointment. Living in space for weeks at a time may not be the best fit for someone your size.”

  “Marc!” Mac pale
d in shock.

  Arbor raised his hand in an attempt to calm Mac, who was nothing short of offended by the captain. “It’s a fair comment, Mr. Smith. My ma is a naturalist. She pretty much hates technology in general and would rather do everything in her life without it. If the entire planetary cluster were reduced to third-world conditions, she’d be only too happy. She believes people are too spoiled in this generation. Before I was born, Ma found out I had achondroplasia, and she refused the procedure to correct the bone growth deficiency.”

  “She knew what would happen and allowed it? Why?”

  “Because she believed I should be whatever nature intended. She’d only been medically scanned because my grandpa and grandma insisted.”

  “That kind of sucks. No offense.”

  “It’s just my reality. She wanted me to be an artist when I grew up.” He spun both hands back to front in the air as he chuckled. “Do these hands look like the hands of an artist to you? I can’t even draw a crooked line. You can imagine her horror when I showed a talent for data coding. It was the ultimate lesson in irony. We fought about it, but she got over it, more or less.

  “I was really good at it, but I still had trouble. One potential office refused to hire me because they thought I wasn’t right for the company image. The job was coding in the back offices. I never would have seen the public during working hours. Captain, I learned a long time ago that this whole universe isn’t made for any adult my size. I make do, but it’s not always easy. It would be nice to finally find somewhere I can really fit in.”

  “With your skills, why do you think job hunting’s been so hard?” Danverse’s attention had never wavered throughout the interview, but at this moment, his question had a laser-like scrutiny.

  Arbor squirmed in his chair. He’d hoped to avoid this line of his history but had known it was unlikely. Dwarfism was an easy scapegoat for his troubles, but if Mac and Danverse were as thorough as he suspected, they already knew the answer.

  “My prison record is as much of a turnoff as being a dwarf to most employers. I’m assuming you’ve already read the charges.”

  “Yes, we have. Data hacking and falsifying government files. Mac’s even read the magistrate’s transcripts. I’ve never been the one to read novels. I’m all about the highlights. So, I prefer to hear your version.”

  “Where should I start?”

  “How about why?”

  “There was this guy—”

  Mac snorted. “Isn’t there always?”

  Arbor couldn’t help but snicker. “Yes, I think there always is. His name was Arthur. He was wealthy and attractive and I couldn’t believe he wanted to date me. You can probably imagine, men don’t line up for someone like me very often. So, I made him work for it. Three months, no sex.”

  “Did he do it?”

  Arbor sighed in recollection. “Yes. Yes he did.”

  “So what happened?”

  “Once I finally gave in, a vid of us having sex showed up on the Link. It was his proof to win a bet with his friends that he could bed a midget. Apparently, fucking me was worth ten thousand credits.”

  Danverse winced. “Ouch.”

  “You were in love with him, weren’t you?” Mac was polite but supportive.

  “Enough to hack his financial data records and delete, not steal, all of his money. Then I broke into Cluster Authority files and added him to the Most Wanted List as a violent pedophile. After that, I staged an arrest alert while he was at his nephew’s birthday party. I’m told it was very humiliating.”

  “Damn! You don’t fuck around when someone crosses you.”

  Arbor shook his head. “I’d never broken the law before. When the authorities came, I didn’t fight and I told them everything. My history was clean and the magistrate wanted to go easy on me, but they were all major offenses that couldn’t be ignored, so they gave me ten years.”

  Danverse chimed in, knowing more than Arbor had hoped. “But you only served five months and you’re out with no parole conditions. Good behavior?”

  A wave of sadness slumped his shoulders and forced him to avert his eyes. “Someone realized I shouldn’t be in there.”

  An awkward lull came over the trio. Arbor’s forehead creased while following the amber faux-marble line in the table surface. Coming up with another sentence was a study in random incoherence. Chest tightening, he drummed the table with anxious stubby fingertips as he tried to forget all of it. Was it suddenly hot in the restaurant?

  “Those details aren’t important.” The subtle sympathy underlining Danverse's words surprised Arbor—it didn’t seem like the captain from what he’d seen so far—and calmed his pulse.

  Mac chimed in. “Did you bring a sample of your work?”

  Relieved over the change in subject, Arbor nodded as he rummaged through his bag. “A lot of my effects were confiscated to pay my fines, but I managed to keep this. It’s the pad I use for just about everything.”

  After pulling up the raw code on the screen, he handed the small pad to Mac, who scanned the object with reverence, his eyes flitting back and forth as he read the lines of data.

  “This isn’t the standard operating system on this device, is it?”

  “No. The standard OS doesn’t work well for me and I’m too impatient for updates. I hybridized the code to run smoother and clean out the bugs in the system. It’s still fully compatible with all known tech languages, so I don’t need other devices for most projects.”

  A delighted smile lit up Mac’s face as he turned to Danverse. “I want him.”

  Please let there be a double meaning there. Mac was attractive and someone he could talk to about data streams and algorithms without watching their eyes glaze over. He was also seriously attractive. Had he said that to himself already? He hoped he wasn’t blushing.

  Danverse glanced between the two men, his scowl breaking Arbor’s daydream. “I’m a little concerned about your ability to play well with others. The men can act like thoughtless adolescents from time to time. We have a nice little community built for ourselves, and I like it that way. I don’t want a bunch of unnecessary drama breaking out in the ranks.”

  A growing fringe of despair welled inside Arbor as he watched another opportunity become splintered glass around his feet. The more he heard about the Santa Claus, the more he looked forward to being a part of it. Where would he turn next? He was nearing the end of his options.

  Danverse continued. “Even so, I do believe in second chances. I think our whole crew was based on it, and it’s a good thing. Remember that when you sign in for duty in three days.”

  Arbor’s eyes went wide as he nodded like a smiling fool. “Thank you, Captain. I’ll be there.”

  “And one thing… As you will be reporting to the head tech, you will be serving under Mac.” Danverse leaned forward and his brow arched in command. “But you will not be under Mac. Are we clear?”

  Well, shit. Given the way Mac rolled his eyes in embarrassment, Danverse and Mac were together. “Duly noted, sir.”

  Chapter Two

  “I’M ALL IN.”

  The gruff man across from Priest pushed all of his chips into the center of the table. Cyber green numbers on the scorecard pad tallied the value, and Priest knew he could more than match it. This would be the last hand of the game.

  The other four men watched with anticipation. After being eliminated earlier, all of them sat frozen, allowing cigar ash to build and ice to melt in their drinks. The bar’s owner, Chuck, was probably sorry he’d allowed Priest to host the game in his back room. The game’s stakes were reasonably substantial and he was the first to go down.

  The five cards Priest held in his hand were basically garbage. In a normal game, the entire hand would have been folded long ago. He’d bluffed the guy into bidding everything he had, and it was time to make the payday happen.

  Priest scrubbed the card edges against the perpetual two-day scruff on his chin, reached into his pocket, and felt the deck’s remot
e control. The subtle button was smooth under his thumb as he caressed its edges.

  “You got something in your pocket, Priest?” Chuck's eyes narrowed as he leaned forward.

  “Yeah. My nuts. Wanna scratch ’em for me? Or, better yet, blow on ’em for good luck?”

  A round of snickers erupted through the room, and Chuck backed off with a chastened grin. None of the men here would take him up on it. They were all hetero, and Priest wouldn’t approach any of them under normal circumstances. All of them were coarse and brutish—not really his type. While he might not turn down a night of fun experimenting if any of them asked, Priest preferred men who didn’t have the ability to physically hold him down and have their way with him.

  Without changing his expression, he thumbed the remote and watched the holographic surface of his cards re-draw themselves into three queens and two other off-suits. The deck would give him a winning hand based on what was available and unplayed. He only used the remote at key points to keep suspicion down, and made a point to reach into his pocket all through the game, whether he won the hand or not, to make the action look expected.

  Priest pushed his pile of chips into the center to meet his opponent’s. “Show ’em, baby.”

  The fine sheen of sweat on the man’s brow gave away his confidence as he threw down three tens and an ace. When Priest showed his superior hand, his opponent’s face fell. The rest of the men whooped and groaned in sympathy.

  Clamping his jaw shut to control his grin, he raked in his winnings, not wanting to appear too eager. Priest was fit and no little guy, but these men were brawnier and he had no interest in fighting his way out of the room. Chuck gave him dirty looks even as the credits were transferred to his account, and sour looks came from most of the men even as they congratulated him.

  The last opponent reached across the table and shook Priest’s hand. “Good game, man.”