by David Coy
Eddie slowed down to a crawl as he went across the front of the first row. He and Bruce were looking for something. Bruce leaned over the seat to look out Eddie’s window. They didn’t see what they were looking for, and Eddie turned down at the end and headed down the side.
“How can you tell which ones they are?” Mike asked.
“Our names. Our names are on the side,” Eddie answered.
“Really?”
“Yep. Look. Right next to the door—those little signs. See ‘em?”
Mike had to look a little but found the neat name tags right where Eddie said they were.
“Here we go,” Eddie said and stopped the truck at the two backmost shelters. Mike strained his eyes and saw his own name under Bruce’s in bold black letters. He could scarcely believe it. Their shelters were as neat and clean as any of them, maybe cleaner.
“Home!”
“Yeah!”
“Closest ones to the jungle, though,” Peter said.
Eddie got out his ID badge and ran it through the reader next to the door handle. There was a quiet click as he pulled the door open.
Bruce opened the door to the other shelter, and Mike followed him in, the grin still trying to bust out of his face.
“You want the front or back bedroom, Mike?”
“I don’t know. You pick. I don’t care.”
“Then I’ll take the front, if you don’t mind.”
“Sure. I don’t care.”
Mike went back outside and retrieved his bag from the back of the truck. He didn’t want to seem too excited by the whole thing and stiffened his face as he walked back in past Bruce. He carried the bag to his bedroom and put it down quietly and neatly next to the bed. The bed was built into the wall, and there was a screened window right next to it half way up. He slid the window open to get some air.
The room was small but big enough for Mike. There was a closet in one wall with built-in drawers and a sliding door. The door had a big mirror on it. A clear window in the ceiling provided a skylight about a meter square. He looked around for some way to open it but couldn’t figure out how.
The little bathroom was neat and laid out with the sink and toilet on the same wall. When he turned on the light, it took him a cold-sweated minute to realize that the noisy buzzing above his head was a ventilating fan and not a big bug somewhere. Mike tried the hot water spigot and washed down some dust and dirt in the sink. The water was very hot. Another big mirror above the sink in the bath made the room seem much larger than it was. His shower was also built-in, and he slid the door back and smiled at it. He put a single, wrapped bar of soap he found on the shower floor in the tray where it belonged. He tried the water in the shower, too, just to make sure it worked okay.
The mirrors were streaked and dirty, and ground-in dirt covered the smooth floor. The wall areas around the light switches and door slides were filthy with oily dirt. He could take care of all that later.
There was another closet adjacent to the bathroom that had a sloppy stack of dull-white towels in it and some sheets and another light blanket. Mike picked up one of the towels and smelled it. It had a sweet, clean scent to it. He put it back and straightened the pile as best he could.
Heaven.
First things first—and that was a shower. He stripped out of his sweaty clothes, turned on the water, adjusted it until it was just right—a little on the cool side—then stepped in. The feeling of clean, cool water beating on his neck and back filled him with a feeling of absolute luxury. He stood in the running water until it chilled him.
He dried himself with a clean towel, then hung it up neatly on the rack to dry. He started to sweat again almost immediately and tried again to find a way to open the window above. When he still couldn’t find a way to do it, he turned the fan back on in the bathroom. If it was okay to do it, he figured he could leave it on all the time. He hoped the towel would dry in the wet air.
He had three sets of underclothing to his name and three sets of cottons. He pulled his clean clothes out of the bag and laid them out. The dirty clothes went into the wireframe hamper next to the closet. He wasn’t sure if the company would provide laundry services or if there were a washing machine in the shelter. He’d have to find out.
When he picked the hamper up to move it, the folded legs came apart in his hands. He leaned the crippled thing against the wall to fix later.
Before he got dressed, he stretched out on the squeaky bed and flopped on it a little to test it. It was every bit as good as the one on the transport. The pillow was thin but firm and felt just fine. He pressed his face into the mattress and smelled it. It smelled clean and new. The wall next to the bed was soiled as if the last occupant had slept with his body against it. He wondered why someone would do that and made a mental note to clean that spot, too.
He got up and put on his clothes. He gave his boots the once-over with a special rag he had just for that purpose. He hoped he could get a new pair of boots soon; the ones he had were hurting his feet something awful. He was putting them on when Bruce knocked on the door.
“Yeah?”
“We’re going to the store for some stuff. Wanna go?”
“Sure, but I don’t have much credit in my account.”
“I can spot you some if you want. Come on.”
Eddie found the store on the map, and they decided to walk since it wasn’t too far from the shelters. It was far enough. The thought of another long hike in his tight boots made Mike almost beg off. He would have except that there was nothing at all to eat in the shelter. There would be no free meals from here on out, and it wouldn’t be right for Bruce to buy food for both of them and haul it back.
It was nearing dark, and the heavy dusk came down like a green blanket on the landscape. Their path would take them right along the jungle. Mike knew Peter was still antsy about it.
“It’s getting dark. Maybe we should wait until morning,” Peter said. “You know what Joan said about the nighttime.”
“Oh, come on. We can make it,” Eddie said.
On the way over, Peter stumbled once or twice trying to keep his eye on the green wall of jungle and the ground ahead at the same time.
The store was well-stocked and laid out well, everything nice and neat, but it still seemed dirty to Mike. It was a quality he couldn’t quite pin down. Eddie introduced himself to the clerk who ran the store. He was a chubby guy named Davis, and Eddie spent some time talking to him. It was time well-spent; the store would be one of their most frequent stops. Eddie was smooth at getting to know people and finding out what made them tick.
Mike ambled around the store, gathering up the bare essentials in the way of food. He didn’t want to seem like he was taking advantage of Bruce and his offer to help him out. He stopped at the boot rack and looked at a couple of pairs.
“Wait ‘til this time next month,” Eddie whispered over his shoulder. “We’ll get all this stuff for free.”
Mike wasn’t sure he knew what Eddie meant. Few things in life were free, really. He hoped Eddie didn’t mean what he thought he meant.
When they left, Davis put a candy bar in each of their sacks and smiled sideways at Peter Ho. Mike thought that was weird.
“He’s a good guy,” Eddie said when they got outside. “A real good guy.”
They stepped out of the store into a puddle of light. The distant lights in the warehouse cast faint shadows at them across the irregular terrain and did little to thin the murky blackness beyond their range. Big noisy bugs had been attracted to the lights above the door and banged against it aggressively, their wings buzzing against the wall.
“Now we have to walk back in the dark,” Peter said.
“Whoops,” Eddie replied sarcastically.
“Look at the size of those mothers,” Bruce said, ducking away from imagined flying attackers. “They’re huge.”
They scampered away from the light and its buzzing, bumping visitors.
Peter felt the darkness around him
like an evil embrace and could almost feel the jungle oozing life. He drifted away from the group at a tangent, just to put more distance between himself and the things he knew were squirming in that black foliage. He wasn’t watching the jungle anymore; he was afraid to match its black gaze with his and kept his eyes cast down.
Strange buzzing and chirping and hissing noises came from the foliage, constantly now. They hadn’t seen a living thing but people since they arrived, but now, the air was filling up with small flying things that bumped into them in their flight, bouncing and popping off their chests and legs and making them slap at their faces and necks. Something stung Mike on the face, and he slapped at it, caught it and squished it in his fingers with a little cracking sound. He wiped wet off his cheek and hoped it wasn’t blood. “Dammed bugs,” he muttered.
They started to double-time it. They were discovering firsthand what the other residents already knew—night was not the time to be outside on Verde.
Something about the size of a cat raced in front of them making a quick clicking sound. It stopped and changed direction once or twice before heading out into the clearing in a fast straight line.
“What the heck was that?” Mike asked.
“I don’t know, but it’s gone now,” Bruce said. “And that’s all I care about.”
Eddie screamed at the top of his lungs.
Everybody jumped. Peter went stiff as if he’d been shocked and dropped his groceries on the ground.
Eddie laughed, and Mike and Bruce finally joined in—but not Peter.
“That’s not funny!” Peter yelled.
“Sure it is!” Eddie laughed. “That’s why I did it!”
They helped him pick up his groceries, and Eddie patted Peter on the back.
“Scared ya, huh?”
“Yeah, you scared me.”
When they got home, Mike made sure the doors were closed tight. He didn’t want to wake up at night with bugs flying around his room. When he double-latched the door, Bruce nodded at him in agreement.
Mike and Bruce heated some meals in the cooker and ate them without talking. Mike had half of a package of cookies and some milk for dessert. After they ate, they put the rest of the groceries and stuff away and checked out the washer and dryer near the back entryway. The refrigerator was small but held all it had to for the two of them. Mike put his personal supplies in the cabinet in the bathroom and thought about cleaning it up some, but he was too tired. That was a chore he could do at any time.
Mike washed up, brushed his teeth and got ready for bed. When he turned out the light, it was pitch dark in his room; almost too dark to sleep. He’d heard there were two moons that made the night seem almost like day and wondered where they were. He got up and turned on the light in the bathroom as a night-light. He didn’t like it too dark where he slept.
The workday was over. When he lay down on the bed, the sounds coming from the foliage drifted in like odd music. He heard an occasional bug bump against the screen and was glad it was closed. It had cooled down quite a bit, and he pulled the blanket up around his shoulders and settled his head in the pillow.
With his belly full and clean sheets under him and with some light in his room, he felt secure and at peace even though he was billions of kilometers from Earth. He liked the shelter and felt right at home in it. He would do well here. It was good to have friends and people around who were good to you. If he worked hard, more good would come to him. His dad had promised it. He would work hard and be thankful and good would come to him.
Hard work pays off, he reminded himself.
In all he was doing okay, except for the boots. He was outgrowing them fast. By the time he reached his thirteenth birthday later in the year, the boots would really be too small.
He could buy a new pair next month when his credit came in.
5
Del Geary watched the stuff being unloaded from the shuttle and wondered if there was anything in the shipment worth stealing. The problem wasn’t getting the stuff; that was easy if you had the balls. The problem was getting it sold. There weren’t that many people on-site yet so there wasn’t much of a market. Most of the stuff was building materials and supplies anyway; nothing that snapped anybody’s socks. There was plenty of other stuff like clothes and kitchen shit coming down, but the things you could buy for practically nothing didn’t make good contraband, especially in a small market like this one— not now. Plus, there was always the risk you could wind up selling a box of plastic plates to the guy who reported it missing after you stole it. The community was too closed, and there just weren’t enough people yet.
He ambled toward the dock to get a closer look at the new Number 10's.
You never knew.
He didn’t get too close to the containers—that would be too obvious. He walked over to the dumpsters and checked to see how full they were; that was his job after all. He picked up some packing material and scraps of shit from around them and tossed them in, while he sneaked glances at the containers. He knew the color codes on the sides pretty good.
Same old shit.
He swept the smaller stuff up into a pile, scooped it up with his hands and put it in the dumpster.
There. Nice and neat.
An Expeditor drove toward him with a lift stacked with containers. Geary stood back and watched, then started giving useless, joking hand signals as the driver placed his load.
Down. Down. Up a little. Come on. Come on. Down. Down. That’s it.
He smiled at the kid driver.
“Perfect, man! That’s perfect!” Geary said.
“Couldn’t have done it without you,” Eddie Silk said.
“You guys got a lot of stuff coming down, huh?”
“A lot,” Eddie said.
“Anything worth stealin’?” Geary said with a big, crooked grin.
“Nothing I’d steal,” Eddie said smiling back. “Where you from?”
"Fuji."
“Hey, me, too. I don’t think I saw you there, though.”
“Well, I was there—I swear to God, I was, officer.”
“It’s a big place,” Eddie smiled.
“Yep.”
“Do you know Tap Porter?”
Geary cocked his head, just a little, like a dog that’d heard a call to dinner.
“Do you?” he asked with a smirk.
“Yeah, he’s a good friend of mine,” Eddie said with an even bigger grin.
“No shit. Ain’t that a coincidence?”
Tap Porter had been the biggest fence for stolen goods on Fuji. Anybody who was in business on the planet knew him.
“What’s your name?”
“Eddie. Eddie Silk.”
“Hey, I’m Del Geary,” Geary said and stuck out his skinny hand. When Eddie shook it, the fingers felt like stiff wire.
“Glad to meet you,” Eddie said.
“How long you been here?”
“Couple of months now. You?”
“A week, give or take.”
“Hot sonofabitch, ain’t it?" Geary said.
“Yeah. Damned if it ain’t,” Eddie agreed.
Geary figured this could be a real stroke of luck if the kid was willing to play ball. He couldn’t do any better than to have a partner who could give a personal inspection of the manifests of every Number 10 container that came down. Their business relationship was already taking shape in his mind. The kid could tell him where the goods were and when the best time to snatch them would be. He could snatch the stuff and store it, keeping the kid in the clear. The kid could stay away from the docks and the warehouse and keep the suspicion off himself.
Perfect.
“You got a crew?” Geary asked.
“What kind do you mean?”
“A crew, you know, more guys like yourself,” Geary said acting stupid.
“Yeah. I got a lead deal when I signed on.”
Eddie looked over his shoulder and gave a wary look around.
“Hey, that’s great,” Gea
ry said.
“But I don’t like too many partners. Sometimes the fewer friends you have the better. What about you?” Eddie returned the query.
“One or two partners is all you need,” Geary said. “Too many goddamned partners’ll fuck you up.”
“You gonna be around later? We could talk.”
“Talk about what?” Geary said all big-eyed and innocent.
Eddie glanced over his shoulder again.
“Business,” he said grinning.
That was it. The kid was a crook. Before the month was out, they’d be taking a cut of the good stuff and building up a regular store for the future. By the time the project got really rolling, they’d have some of everything-worth-selling safely stashed away. Markets were developed around the supplier with the lowest prices. You couldn’t supply goods any cheaper than by stealing them.
They agreed to meet out in the open down by the truck pool at nine o’clock.
After Eddie drove away, Geary slapped his skinny hands together. “Yeah!” His hands had so little meat on them, they barely made a sound.
The next thing was to find a place to stash the goods. His shelter was out—not enough space and his roomy was too straight to risk it. He’d have to find somewhere else. They might not need a big place to start, but it never hurt to plan big. On Fuji, he and his partners had three whole shelters crammed with some of virtually everything that had any retail value.
There were at least fifty thousand people working Fuji. It’d be years before there was anything like that on Verde. Everything was too visible. He’d have to find another way, another place to stash the goods.
If he had the money, he could bribe the Riggers to put him up a hidden shelter somewhere, maybe in the jungle, but that could cost a fortune. It would be a while before he had that kind of cash.
