Empty Space

by Alan Black

  Fugget held a door open for York, gesturing for him to enter. “I don’t call them dogs pets. They’re your critters, woman, not mine.”

  York’s eyes adjusted to the inside lighting quickly. He could see Vesper standing guard over his valise in the middle of the floor, her tail wagging so hard her back feet could barely keep purchase on the carpet. He liked the place immediately, although the room was the messiest he had ever entered. Old-fashioned books were scattered about, interspersed with pictures, pillows, and curios of all kinds. The room hadn’t been dusted lower than Mimi could reach without bending over and no higher than Fugget could reach without using a step stool.

  Just inside the door, set into a recessed wall cabinet, was a row of weapons. Half a dozen long guns, both rifles and shotguns, and more than a few handguns hung on pegs. He was startled to see them. Being in the military didn’t give Master Chief Fugget the authority to keep personal weapons and certainly never to put them on open display. Everyone had a right to be protected by the military and the police, yet even police officers had to turn in their weapons before going home after their duty shift. Normal citizens didn’t need weapons as the police were only a call away.

  Fugget noticed his look and said, “Be careful with those, York. They’re probably loaded.”

  “Probably? You don’t know? Isn’t that dangerous?”

  Fugget nodded. “Yes, sir. They’re all very dangerous. I know whether they’re loaded or not. So does Mimi. If you think they may be loaded then you won’t be tempted to do something dangerous with them.”

  “Keeping a loaded gun in a private home is dangerous and illegal. Not keeping personal weapons is a part the Republic’s constitution, even on Liberty.”

  “Yes. They are illegal and I won’t admit they exist.” He pushed a light switch sideways in a direction the switch wasn’t originally designed to turn. A door slid shut over the guns. Even York couldn’t see where the recessed cabinet had been. Fugget pushed the switch back the other way, opening the cabinet again. “They are dangerous, but they’re less dangerous than waiting for help when the slavers swoop down, when a pterodactyl comes hunting the dogs, or when one of our homegrown roving road gangs bent on raising hell come to visit. Slavers can come and go quicker than the police can come to help. You should know the scenario. Planetary road gangs are much slower and a rightly aimed shotgun easily dissuades them. Besides, Mimi and I could be drafted as police posse at a moment’s notice and it would be inconvenient to have to run down to a central armory to grab a weapon.”

  York wanted to argue, but as a budger he knew from experience that the police were often too late to do anything more than write a report on the crime. The statistics were well known that police response times in New Hope budger slums were multiples of what they were in upper class neighborhoods. Variable response times were only right since the upper class paid the taxes paying for police. Many of the upper class could even afford to hire private security. Far out in farm country on a poor planet like Liberty, the response times could be hours. Still, poor protection didn’t give anyone the right to take the law into their own hands. A volunteer civilian-police posse sounded like a fancy name for vigilante justice.

  He smiled and nodded, knowing he was hypocritical to criticize anyone for taking the law into their own hands. He’d been forced to mete out justice himself more than once. He’d just never used a gun to do it. Making guns illegal was a good thing or some of the creatures he’d removed might have been able to protect themselves and thereby avoid their own demise, living to continue their deviant ways. Somehow, it felt nice to have such dangerous weapons laying around available for anyone’s use, should the need strike.

  York never had a home of his own to use as a standard of comparison. Nevertheless, the Fugget’s home felt like one. Harp and Sadie Brown’s cabin on the Gambion had a similar comfortable feel. He followed Mimi down a short corridor and even the tiny room she ushered him into was comfortable, yet cluttered. In the corner was a large stack of what looked like unfinished, abandoned craft projects. There were even a few scattered rocks of unusual shapes and colors laying about as if they sprouted from the dust. He smiled, knowing having rocks everywhere was a clear sign no one would object to his removal of the small stone he had salvaged from the shuttle field.

  Vesper jumped up on the bed, settled in and growled at the other dogs, chasing them back out of the room. The dog looked at York with adoring eyes. He had seen both Fugget and Mimi scratch various dogs behind their ears, mostly whenever a dog got close. It looked like a habit or a conditioned response rather than a rational, thought out touch. He scratched Vesper behind the ears and she rewarded him with a lick.

  Leaning on the door jam, Mimi said, “Be careful, York or Vesper will adopt you.”

  York smiled, “Well, getting adopted would be a change.” A few children had been adopted from the orphanage he was raised in, but adoptions were mostly babies of some exact phenotype. According to the pictures he’d been shown, he was an ugly baby. As he grew up, adoptions shifted to pretty young girls and polite young boys. Even though he was neither a girl nor polite, he used to wonder why he’d never been chosen. On the other hand, adoptions passed by so many children he didn’t take it personally, well, not too personally, certainly never personally enough to hunt down any prospective parent who passed him by.

  Mimi gestured toward the front of the house with the nod of her head. “You can get settled in later, York. Let’s relax some.”

  He followed Mimi back out to the front porch. Fugget pointed to a chair in the shade. He silently offered York a drink by simply using the longneck of his own brown bottle to point at a cooler filled with beers. York shook his head. He didn’t like alcohol, having tasted it more than once and determined the whole category of drinks wasn’t for him.

  Mimi handed him a long tall glass filled with fake ice and some dark brown liquid. “Summer coffee?”

  York settled back and sipped the drink. The coffee wasn’t just iced. He was able to identify the ingredients, a strange mix of chocolate, bubbles, sweetener, peppermint, and of course, coffee. It took all of his discipline to keep from guzzling the concoction and asking for more.

  He glanced around him looking up and down the short row of buildings lining the road near the shuttle field. There were a couple dozen buildings, different from each other, but each so much like the others they obviously were made by the same people for the same purpose. There were a number of people sitting on their porches enjoying a respite from the noon sun. Some buildings along the road clearly looked liked stores displaying various items. There was a cluster of buildings across the road behind the first row of buildings: warehouses, processing facilities, dormitories, and homes.

  Even though there wasn’t a cloud in the sky and no wind, dust was in the air and it settled onto everything. There were a few people stirring about, yet far fewer than York had seen on New Hope at anytime of the day or night. A shuttle floated over their heads and eased down onto the field behind them. Neither Mimi nor Fugget bothered to get up.

  Fugget said, “That would be Rafe and his boys from down south. They’re half a day late as usual.”

  Mimi replied, “Be nice. They may be slow to start, but you know once they get to work they’ll do more than their fair share.”

  Fugget laughed, “I ain’t complaining. I’m just saying.”

  “Do you need a refill, York? You might as well get one, I’m going to get one for myself. How about a sandwich or burger for lunch? I already have some salads made, if you want.”

  York offered his glass for a refill, refusing any food. He turned to Fugget and asked, “I thought there weren’t any towns or cities on Liberty. This may be small, but it’s definitely a town. What gives?”

  Fugget said, “This town is temporary. It’ll become Saorsa City tomorrow morning when the government train shows up.” He tilted back in his chair and slapped the side of his house. “This and every other place along this road are
floaters. We come and go as we please. We may spend a week alongside a pretty waterfall up in the Torso Mountains or a month on a black sand beach next to the Calm Sea.”

  “You chose to park on this hot dusty road?”

  Fugget shrugged. “We have the freedom to go where we want, but living this way isn’t free. Mimi and I are here to give the Altamonts a hand with their hay harvest. Picking up odd jobs on the migrant worker circuit provides us with a decent living. My work as a bug exterminator provides me contracts with farmers and ranchers all over the planet for computer and database repair and restoration. Plus the government offers me some fairly lucrative contracts to track down and arrest black-hat hackers.”

  He pointed at stores across the street. “Those folks take their businesses with them as they travel about, going from farmstead to ranch to station taking goods to their customers. Permanent buildings like some of Altamont’s homes require a special permit on Liberty, even most of his buildings are floaters he moves about as necessary.”

  “What about mining and manufacturing on Liberty?”

  Fugget laughed. “Mining on most planets leaves ghost towns when the ore deposits ran dry. Not on Liberty, miners just take their buildings with them to the next boomtown. Manufacturing is limited at this point, since we’re mostly an agribusiness planet. Much of what we need we trade for. Factories get special dispensation if they must be stationary. Most folks figure ways to be mobile, moving their plants and warehouses as needed.”

  York nodded. He couldn’t see such the system working on an industrialized planet, but Liberty was a third level colony, considered barely habitable by most of the Republic’s citizens. “What about a main spaceport.”

  Mimi said, “Didn’t you wonder why you came down in a shuttle and landed on a field? The reason is because we don’t have a main space port. Shuttles come and go, landing and taking off wherever they want.”

  Fugget smiled, “Letting shuttles land where they want bugs the government as it helps smuggling more than hurts it. It’s hard to tax what you can’t catch. Don’t get me wrong, the government does need some money. However, on Liberty, family and volunteers, as much as possible, handle taking care of orphans and the disabled. Living on a colony world isn’t easy and we have more than our share of orphans and disabled. The government sponsors a couple of homes for kids and those with special needs. Mimi has a cousin running an orphanage west of here in the Ferguson district … or that’s where they were the last we heard. They move about like the rest of us. Orphanages especially keep on the move as they’re afraid they might become slaver targets if they sit still too long.”

  York said, “You could stop smuggling by putting in one small spaceport.”

  Fugget said with a shrug, “More than one of us picks up a little extra cash from smuggling. I know for Mimi and me, it isn’t money we need. What money we do get is extra we can send to her cousin’s orphanage directly without having the government taking their cut, getting the cash to the source of the need. Smuggling or not, most of us don’t want crime, ghettos and all manner of evil coming with urbanization. Even Captain Altamont says when he gets both his girls married off, he’s going to burn their house to the ground and move into a floater.”

  “He would leave his farm behind?”

  “Lord no! He’ll just float from one section to the next depending on whether he is rounding up cattle, harvesting corn or doing work at his brewery.” He raised his beer in reverence at the word brewery.

  Fugget pointed high in the sky. “That looks like a military shuttle. I imagine it’s from the Gambion. Originally, we didn’t expect them until tomorrow. This morning we got word they were early.”

  Mimi put another drink in York’s hand and glared skyward. “Early, but not this early.” She reached inside the door and flicked a switch. A large panel covering the front and side of their floater hinged up and away from the building creating a huge shaded area. Covering the walls and the bottom of the ceiling panels was a rainbow array of handmade goods. There were handbags, knapsacks, rucksacks, daypacks, backpacks, and shoulder bags of every size and color. The mixture of decorative throw pillows hanging from the ceiling included pillows so vulgar they looked like a pair of women’s breasts to pillows with old biblical quotations for the pious. There were handmade silk flowers of every variety and hue. Racks of quilts in every size, shape, and patchwork pattern took up most of the remaining space.

  York started to say something, but people on both sides of the street interrupted him by throwing switches on their own floaters. The variety of goods was amazing, yet there was little overlap in products on display. One place had wood carved statues of all sizes and styles. Another place had banners, flags, and kites. The place next to them had chimes and swirly things designed to change color and shape through wind and solar movement.

  Fugget said, “It’s good the air is still today. It can get loud when the wind blows and we’re parked this close to the Wilson’s place. When all those wind chimes let loose at the same time, it’s liable to drive a man to drink.” He proved his point by draining his beer and popping the top off another one. The bottle was an old style twist off cap. It wasn’t the newer, label button cap release style having the cap attached to the bottle by a long filament thread. The man carefully tossed the free cap into a can nearby, avoiding littering, thus defeating the need for the cap attachment in the first place.

  York asked, “Where is the Gambion crew staying?” He was hoping to locate Harp and Sadie Brown. He was still disappointed they hadn’t answered any of his messages, in spite of that, he was willing to forgive them and move on, should they have an acceptable reason for not replying.

  Fugget shrugged in answer to the question. “I don’t know. Maybe Captain Altamont offered them the use of one of his barracks or maybe they’re going to shuttle back and forth, sleep in tents or sleep in their shuttles for all I care. Just so long as they bring their spare cash with them.”

  “Cash?”

  Mimi gestured at the display of goods. “This is one small way we can bring a little off world income into our economy. We don’t get many visitors, nevertheless we hope to send this batch home with bags of goods and empty pockets. If I can’t sell them a quilt then I hope they drink themselves under the table guzzling Altamont’s rye whiskey and fill their bellies on O’Neil’s Chinese cuisine.”

  York asked, “Did you make all of this?”

  Mimi said, “No. I trade some of my quilts with some other folks for what they make. Swapping things around gives us all a little more product variety when we get the opportunity to make a few sales.”

  Fugget said, “My wife makes the best quilts on the whole planet. They’re good, strong, and warm, so well made you’ll want to pass them along to your great grandchildren. In fact, York, she made you a special—”

  Mimi slapped him on the back of the head. “You spoiled my surprise, you big goof. Ah well …” She went into the house and returned quickly with a large quilt. She spread it across York’s lap. “This is our gift to you.”

  Patches of cloth in every color blue under the sun covered the quilt. Some colors were so blue York didn’t even know what the color was named. Hand stitched on the few rare white patches was his name. He didn’t know what to say, even if he had the words he still wouldn’t have been able to speak. His throat choked up almost to the point of closing. He’d never been given such a thing before and he felt embarrassed that he had nothing to give them in return.

  SIXTEEN

  York almost laughed at the cluster of Gambion’s crew rushing from the shuttle field. The lower ranked ratings rushed from the field into the middle of the temporary town with wild abandon. The top enlisted ratings walked quickly as if getting far away from a military shuttle was a relief all of its own. The few officers in the group moved into the street, failing miserably to put on an air of dignified comportment. There were some families scattered about the mix, parents with children of all ages hoping to spend a few hours
on a planet away from shipboard life. More than one child looked at the high, clear blue sky with skepticism, hoping for a deck overhead.

  York looked at each person. He didn’t recognize anyone. There were a lot of people on the Gambion and Liberty wasn’t a high-value planet worth wasting a rare liberty pass on. He didn’t know how long the ship planned on spending in orbit. He wasn’t familiar enough with navy life to know how many people were given access to a liberty planet.

  A man across the street from the Fuggets shouted. “Cold beer!” The man obviously had more to say, yet other words weren’t necessary. Gambion’s crew immediately swamped him. Liberty coats bedecked most of the military personnel. The heavy duck cloth coat design was to keep the wearer warm in cold climates and cool in hot ones. Each coat was ankle length, tan and festooned with patches, streamers, and souvenir pins from past liberties. The older hands were positively gaudy. York noticed a younger crew woman searching desperately for something she could buy to add to her bare liberty coat.

  Mimi shouted. “Hey, spaceman apprentice! No charge for your first liberty patch.” She waved the woman over to a stack of goods.

  York was dressed in his everyday black work utilities. He didn’t own a liberty coat and was sure he didn’t want one. Not all of the officers wore coats. Older officers with families wore civvies of every style and color. Fugget said, “Well, if Mimi is going to go to work, I might as well too.”

  “Need a hand?” York wasn’t sure what help he could be since he didn’t know what a hay harvest entailed. However, he was a quick study and could pick up the technical side of most anything quickly enough to be of some assistance.

  *-*

  York woke up the next morning long before the sun was up. He could hear someone moving about the Fugget’s kitchen, but he wasn’t ready to crawl out of bed yet. The big black dog Vesper lay with her head on his chest, staring at him with big dark eyes, waiting patiently for him to wake up. Whenever he was close to the Fugget’s floater she was either at his feet, in his lap or trailing along behind him.