Pete was in his med suite. I noticed that he was developing the habit of checking all of the med supplies when he was thinking something over. "Good work today Pete," I said from the door. Not wanting to intrude if he wanted to be alone.
"Thanks, can I ask you something?" Pete inquired.
"Sure." I replied.
"How would you feel about turning one of the spare rooms into a library? A large portion of the crates that Willow had are filled with books, and I know how Mark and Gabriel like to read..." he trailed off.
"I'm sure everyone could benefit from having a library on board. Were you thinking of a place just to store the books or of a place that would be comfortable for reading as well?" I asked.
"I hadn't gotten that far. I was waiting to talk to you first." Peter said.
"I appreciate that." I realized that it wasn't his first instinct to get approval before making a decision. "There is a good sized dining room to port, behind the mess. We obviously don’t use it, seein’ how we all just eat in the mess. It has separate tables for crew and passengers and such. Maybe we can take out all but one table. Have Mark install shelving and get some of the arm chairs out of the spare rooms we aren't using. How's that sound to you?" I suggested.
"That sounds good." Pete agreed.
"Are you doing ok?" I asked, wondering when I became so concerned about other people's feelings.
"Yes." He said in a surprised tone. "I think I am."
"You have a good night then. I'm turning in. Don't count supplies all night," I said in parting.
When I got to my quarters Ell was already asleep. I would need to have her look at the correspondence in the morning. I got ready for bed as quietly as I could. As I lay next to my wife I marveled at how easily she fit into my life. I was able to fully relax and fall asleep.
The Waylay Approaching Ramses Supermax Space Station -Day 350-Jason Singer
The last few days had been running smoothly. Pete, Ell, and I had been spending a few hours together each day. I think Pete appreciates that I’m making time for him and he has really started to warm up to Ell. She always makes sure to give me and Pete privacy to talk by ourselves. Having her here has brought me and my brother closer together.
The library is starting to take shape. Everyone was happy about the idea. The extra tables had been moved out the same day I told the crew, and we all enjoyed raiding the extra rooms for comfortable arm chairs to add to it. The shelving is taking more time. Mark put up shelves on one side of the room before we ran out of supplies on board. The rest of the library would have to wait until we resupply on New Ireland. All of Willow’s large collection of books had been moved into the library. Mark and Gabriel brought their additions to the library as well.
Ell looked into the unknown person that had contacted me with a message marked personal, and came to find out that the contact had been William's, her brother, brother-in-law, Neil Allister. Apparently, Neil was unaware until recently that his sister Lydia, Ell's sister-in-law, had a child. He was inquiring as to the whereabouts of his niece, Echo. Ell was hesitant about contacting him but didn't feel like it would be right to keep him in the dark about his own family. After we discussed it at length, we decided that we would tell him we were following William's final request; in which he asked that Ell be appointed Echo’s legal guardian. Hopefully we won't have to worry about him interfering in Echo’s future with the law on our side.
We were an hour out from Ramses Station; the maximum security firm that ran it had decided to use a space station instead of an installation on an uninhabitable planet like most of the other prison firms did. After we transferred our bounty into the firms’ care we wouldn't have to keep up with the nightly watch rotation anymore. It was a safety measure that we always employed when we had a bounty on board, but fortunately we have never experienced a situation that needed it. Better to be safe than sorry.
The transfer of a prisoner at this station was the most streamlined I had ever seen. You connected airlocks; the prison places a convict holding container in the airlock. Once their side was sealed again you would open yours and bring the holding container onto your ship. You placed the prisoner into the container; it sealed, scanned the prisoner’s DNA for identification and scanned for any prohibited items. After the indicators showed all was good, your fee was transferred to your ship electronically with a hold until the container was back in the airlock. Once your door closed and their side reopened, the hold on the payment for the transfer was lifted and you could be on your merry way.
I made sure the prison doctor had all of Peter's medical notes on Liu. I didn't want there to be any problems with the transfer. I knew that other bounty hunters would bring in their bounties with even more damage, but this was the most one of mine had ever been injured. They promptly sent back a message saying that it would not be an issue.
The transfer was quite easy and everything went according to plan. I’d have to keep Ramses Station in mind the next time we were nearing the Beta Sector. With Liu off of the ship Ell seemed to be less on edge than she had been, but she hadn't totally relaxed. So I decided to have her select our next bounty. Maybe she would feel better if she was in control of who we hunted.
The morale of the crew was high, as it usually is when we are heading for a port with ship leave to follow. It was no secret, I was looking forward to the peaceful and friendly atmosphere that I had enjoyed the last time I was on New Ireland. It was back before I had hired any crew, I had to stop off there for supplies. It was interesting to see where my mother’s mother had grown up. The rolling green hills had stone fences and walls that looked as though they had almost grown up from the ground themselves. The people had been warm and inviting. The buildings had an old weathered look to them. I’d been told that when the planet had first been settled the claimholder had required anyone who came there to build in the style of tales from Old Earth. The planet ended up looking much like some of the fairy tales and great epic stories of Old Earth.
Anyone that didn't care for and maintain the planet would lose their stake. There were only a few larger market towns and only one major spaceport on the main continent. Ships would sometimes land on one of the smaller islands that dotted the one large ocean or make a delivery directly to a farm, but other than that the only sky traffic was to the one spaceport.
New Ireland's main export was foodstuffs, fine wool cloth, and hand crafted items. They had many fine craftsmen that followed the old ways, left behind by many other planets. Yet the quality of their wares was much better than what you could find mass produced elsewhere. I wanted Ell to get some new clothes for herself, as well as Echo. Also, I’d be looking for something for the two of us to mark the fact that we were actually living as marriage mates now.
The marriage tradition on New Ireland was of a hand fasting. The two mates would wear a braided cord around their left wrist to symbolize that they were bound together. I wanted to get something similar for Ell and me.
Wanting to have the library completed before we left New Ireland, I gave Mark funds to cover the purchase of the shelving materials. The addition of the library would be a good way for the crew to grow closer together. Sharing stories was something that had helped draw Ell and me together, it was also what Mark and Gabriel had bonded over.
Ell pointed out that New Ireland might be a good place to find a botanist. The Waylay’s air cleaning system was helped in part by a biosphere of plant life that had long been neglected. It was so overgrown that a specialist was our best option at this point. With New Ireland being a planet that generally focused on agriculture, it was ideal for obtaining plants that would also supply us with fresh produce, as well as clean air. I made sure all of the crew understood we were looking to take on another member if we found someone who could handle the responsibility. If we couldn't find anyone that wanted to crew with us, we would need to keep a lookout for someone that could at least tame the biosphere, in the green bay, while we were there.
Neil Alli
ster Journal Entry One -Entry Date: Unknown-
To say that I had come far from my childhood on the planet of Fell would be an understatement. Being born in a world colonized by a family who claimed their bloodline reached back to the nobility of Old Earth, and whose ruler, Lord Imperator Thorn, was a tyrannical, paranoid last heir to the throne, wasn't an ideal beginning. The smallest of infractions would merit severe punishments. To be out a few minutes past curfew, late for work, or marrying someone in secret (unless you were nobility of course) could all land you in Gallworth Prison for a lengthy stay. If you were lucky, a cold, damp, rat infested cell was comforting compared to the horrors of the confession chambers.
I grew up in the poorest district of the Capital City of Fell, Port Arthur. So it's no wonder that my father was a low born, opportunistic pig. Conversely, Mother, while known to be a compassionate woman, was naive. She felt pity for the scoundrel and married him because he told her that he would provide her with a comfortable life. If you call your first two children dying from disease due to malnourishment, because of being too poor to afford food due to father's gambling debts, not to mention his out of control temper... if those were the ingredients of a "comfortable life" I don't know what planet that man was living on.
By the third child, my brother Philip, Mother found ways to earn enough coin to pay for our family to eat. She pedaled household wares (no doubt some of which were personal or priceless family heirlooms). She had to work early mornings to clean vomit off of pub floors. Mother also offered to be the neighborhood chambermaid. Even though what she earned was a miniscule amount, she still had to hide what she could from my father. Though she had hoped that Philip would be the only child for a while, it wasn't long before my father made sure that the next child was on the way. Lydia was the next to be born.
I was the last child that Mother gave birth to, not because she wouldn't have had more... but because she died before she could even hold me. So it was left up to my father to name me. He named me Neil. Apparently, he got his inspiration by getting drunk, looking out of our apartment window and seeing "Neilson Leviathan Hunting and Processing Plant" on the side of a factory building. Obviously, he was quite the poet.
Though my father wasn't much of a role model, he made it a point to act high and mighty. He lectured his three children about the strict class system of Fell, and how we would never be Lords or a Lady.
My brother Philip took after my father and it wasn't long before his hereditary and learned behaviors bore rotten results. Thief, liar, and bully were the most generous descriptions of Philip. He was more commonly known as "Jackal" on the streets as he emulated the movements of one whenever he was up to no good, which was often. It was surprising that his long list of infractions didn't land him in trouble with the law sooner. Because he was a felon, he mostly stuck to the shadows and I didn’t see him often.
Never knowing Mother, Lydia was the closest thing to a comforting maternal substitute that I would know. She did the best she could to protect me from the harshness of our world, always trying to distract me with a game or story when there was violence in the streets, body bags of those who died of illness were being thrown off the piers, or whenever our father took us to public executions. After a while, everything seemed like a joke or a game to me.
When I was seven years old, Lydia disappeared in the middle of the night. She had only been fourteen. The next morning when I woke, I remember my father already having a bottle of gin in his hand, singing and laughing about how "fate smiles upon the righteous." I remember asking where Lydia was and crying. His laughter stopped, he grabbed hold of me, the alcohol on his breath was strong, and then everything went black. I woke up in a sack in our closet that night. I remember my head hurt terribly and felt congealed fluid which must have been blood, and passed out again. Since then, I have suffered from frequent and severe headaches, with occasional blackouts. I learned my lesson though, never to complain or ask my father anything after that day and we never spoke of Lydia again.
Until I was twelve my father made me peddle items on the streets to earn my keep. So I quickly became good at it, using my imagination, always saying creative things to get the best trades. In fact I became such a smooth talker that people wanted to be my friend after we were done trading, even though I knew I was always getting the better end of the deal. It's not that I didn't care about any of them; I just knew I had to be clever to survive. I realized that I could use friends of friends to expand my trade deals, giving one time bulk deals, all to gain more coin... and though gambling was a low life activity, I knew it wasn't so for me because I always knew how to win. Like my father often said, "take from the dishonorable, give to the redeemed." While my brother was known as the "Jackal" of Barrington Street, I was dubbed the "Little Banker Gent" of Barrington Street.
But speaking of the "Jackal," my brother Philip started making rare visits to our home. I thought it was odd that he would only sneak into my room when my father was asleep. He would steal something and whisper to me "quiet Neil, don't tell the old man I've been here or else I'll get a thrashing. It'll be our little secret." I felt special in that my brother would trust me, so I never told my father.
Though my trade was going well it wasn't surprising that most of my earnings were taken by my father, but I managed to set up a secret stash of my own. Philip and my father had a lot in common when it came to taking what didn't belong to them.
But sure enough, that awful man had to ruin that too. When I was thirteen I was in the middle of making a deal that would feed me for a month when I heard that familiar yet dreadful voice yell across the street at me "boy, get over here!" I ended the deal abruptly, but in a way that I wouldn't lose my current customers as future clients. Still knowing what my father was capable of if I didn't obey immediately, or dared to question him, I ran across the street to him.
He informed me that we were going to take a trip and that I would find out more when we arrived.
After about an hour of walking, leaving the space docks and industrial district behind, we passed the market and trade areas of the city, even passing the patrician’s housing district with lush courtyards and well-dressed citizens gazing about. We finally came to a long street which ended at a wide iron gate surrounded by formidable towers. My father knocked on a main door to the left of the gate. A straight backed, furrow browed servant dressed in expensive clothing answered the door. He simply said in a condescending voice "Yes?" sizing both of us up. My father grabbed me by the collar and said, "I've brought the boy that your master sent for." The servant looked me up and down, and then looked back at my father, this time in a stern yet confirming statement "Yes." My father pushed me in passed the door, while trying to get a good look into the entrance of the estate. The servant resolutely held him back like an out of control dog. "Mr. Allister, compose yourself, here is your money, now go pursue your debauchery and ill spent life somewhere else."
At that my father’s eager and impatient expression quickly changed, looking at the money. He had the same look on his face that he had the morning after Lydia disappeared. Then he said the phrase which burnt a hole in my heart the morning that my sister was gone. "As I always say, ‘fortune smiles on the righteous”," his laughter pealing out. In that moment I hoped never to see him again.
The servant, Taylor Everett, showed me to my new quarters, a small room above the kitchen. He informed me that the next morning I would be introduced to Count Mondragon and I should try on some of the different clothing in the trunk. Everett then turned to leave the room, but before closing the door said “Let us get something straight, in this house the Count is our Master, but among the servants, I am yours. Do not embarrass me tomorrow, or there will be consequences. Are we clear?" I affirmed my understanding. That set the tone for the rest of our relationship.
Count Mondragon was a man in his late fifties who wasn't easily impressed by anyone. He had heard from several of his dock foremen in my district about the "Little Banker Gent" of
Barrington Street. The Count had been in the market for a while for an accounting clerk, and decided to buy one. I was now his property.
Over the next four years I worked in the Count's estate and various warehouses around Port Arthur. I learned that the Count was heavily involved in interplanetary slave trading. Hybrids, a sub species having human and fauna genetics were the main commodity of his business. Wanting to impress the Count and do my duty, I found ways to double or triple the holding capacity on slave ships to maximize profit. There were several problems that I encountered in order to accomplish this, particularly the increased stress which such tight spaces caused the Hybrids; However my fortune was about to change.
It was a day that I will never forget. I had awoken in my room at the estate from one of my terrible headaches. I had been dreaming, but it was vague and probably just another nightmare of my brutish father. I sat up and realized that it was already late in the evening, so I decided to head down to the Mondragon warehouse on the docks. There was an infirmary there which was closed by now, but I was sure to find a remedy to soothe my discomfort.
Upon arriving in the infirmary, it appeared empty of all medical staff, but then I noticed what looked to be a male child no more than seven years of age, lying in a bed with bandages over his eyes. I quietly approached him, but he didn't seem to notice I was there. I could tell that there were fresh scars that went down his face and up his forehead, far beyond the edges of his bandages. But this boy didn't look normal. He didn't look like any human or Hybrid that I had ever seen.
Once he noticed my presence, the boy spoke up and seemed frightened, "who's there? Please, I'll do whatever you want, just don't hurt me!" It seemed that he might cry, if not for the damage done to him that lay hidden underneath his eye bandages.
Alpha Dawn: Book one of the Teragene Chronicles Page 9
