The First One's Free

by TS Hottle

  Did they? Kai asked himself, knowing Tishla would be wondering the same thing. It’s all our immunologists can do to keep ahead of the parasites.

  “Just so you know,” said Tishla, “my master is not Jod. We’re not going to believe this is just going to blossom into the lush garden of our creation myths. Not without some evidence first.”

  “To follow your metaphor,” said Marq, “the giant in question is Juno. And Juno is the one giving you the gift. Freely. We would actually consider it a favor if you took this tuber for your own purposes. We only ask that you let us see the results of your work.”

  “And why would you do something like that?”

  “You are familiar with the concept of the free market?” When Tishla nodded, he said, “Such markets are not so free when more established entities rig the market for their own purposes. Juno is simply looking for new ways to compete.”

  Kai wondered why he did not completely believe that. He could see from Tishla’s expression she wasn’t buying it either.

  3

  It took a day to find Marq’s ship. Kai noted with amusement that the asteroid where it lay anchored looked very much like one of the tubers.

  He had debated about sending someone to look, perhaps sending Tishla herself and a team of Palace Guards, but ultimately decided to go himself. He could trust his premier not to stage a coup, but he could not trust his guards not to kidnap Tishla for themselves.

  They guided their jump ship toward the asteroid and found Marq’s ship on the far side. Kai admired Tishla as she worked the controls. Even her flight suit could not hide the lines of her body. Though she was focused on the controls, a stern expression on her face as she studied the alien craft for a means of docking, a smile started to form on her lips.

  “Do I make your tongue swell?” she said playfully.

  To Kai’s surprise, it was swelling a little. “Sometimes, I wish I could keep you beyond your term of indenture.”

  “You know what to do, Lattus.” The smile had now fully formed. “You know what I want.”

  “And if I could give it to you, I would.” He leaned back. “But you and I both know the Oligarchy will never allow me to marry a servant, even when she’s become a Free Woman.” He reached over and stroked her arm. “There is no shame in being the mistress of a High Born.”

  “There’s no legal standing in it, either.” Her smile had vanished. “I’m going to use the collapsible collar to dock with the ship. If that code he gave us is genuine, we’ll be inside in under five minutes. Watch the thrusters for me please.” The smile returned. “I mean, may I ask Your Excellency to watch the thrusters, Master?”

  “Yes, dear.”

  A wide cup-like structure blossomed on the launch’s underside as Tishla positioned it over the docking port on Marq’s craft. The thrusters fired wildly from multiple sides of the launch in a pattern only known to the guidance system.

  “Two hundred drekas and closing,” said Kai as the launch drew closer. “One-fifty… One hundred drekas.”

  “Slowing to ten drekas per second,” said Tishla, her tone now nearly mechanical. “Slowing to five.”

  The thrusters beneath the craft now fired almost steadily as those topside made short bursts to push the two craft together. The cup on the underside touched the alien craft’s surface and sealed itself against it, enclosing the docking port.

  Without asking, Tishla grabbed a shock pistol and a dagger. “Stay here.”

  Kai would never get used to his concubine barking orders, but then, she had not agreed to be indentured to have a life of servitude. When Tishla broke protocol, Kai’s people knew to pay attention. So did Kai. “If the ship is empty…?”

  “That’s just it. We don’t know that it’s empty beyond a bunch of alien roots in the hold. For all we know, Marq was hired by a rival.” She pressed her lips thin. “Kill you, and they can claim Essenar for themselves, for whatever bizarre purpose they would want to.”

  “And you,” said Kai. “They could claim you.”

  “Oh, no, Kai. They wouldn’t claim me. I’d be executed for allowing you to walk into a trap.”

  They would, too. Part of the terms of indenture, at least to High Borns, was to defend one’s master with one’s own life. Failure was punishable by death.

  “And if they didn’t execute me,” she continued, “I’d simply kill myself. I’m not a prize.”

  “You are to me.”

  She unstrapped from her seat and kissed him. “That’s different. We agreed to this arrangement. Most indentureds have no choice. It’s either servitude or a life of ignorance and poverty. Now, my Master, allow your servant to check the ship.” Tishla never could call Kai “Master” without an undercurrent of sarcasm in her voice.

  “Yes, dear.”

  *****

  Marq’s ship came to life as Tishla slid through the docking ring. Once again, Kai found himself monitoring her from afar. He seemed to do that a lot since Marq had arrived on Essenar. This time, he sent a mini-drone to follow her, allowing him to both see and communicate with her.

  “Kroy, it smells in here,” she said once she cleared the alien ship’s airlock. “These Tianese smell like wet bird.”

  “Why didn’t we smell Marq?” asked Kai.

  “You didn’t smell him. Sire.” She turned back to the drone long enough to flash Kai a playful grin. “I had to sit across the table from him.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Hey, that’s what I signed on for. Be your companion, resident brain, and alien sniffer.”

  The corridors of Marq’s ship were narrower than those of Kai’s people. They also had a more utilitarian look to them, conduits and control surfaces along the wall. Not a single item to indicate family affiliation. The drone picked up some writing on the wall that the translator rendered as “Property of Dasarius Interstellar.” Was Marq the property of Dasarius Interstellar or the ship? Did his race even engage in that type of servitude? Primates, as a whole, were all over the map on that topic. Most space-faring races did little beyond contracts of indenture or apprenticeships. Some, Kai knew, engaged in chattel slavery, though not many. It was too lopsided an arrangement to be of any use once a race mastered higher technology. Rumor had it the Tianese did not even have a formal caste system, let alone any system of servitude worth mentioning. Those apes, Kai mused, must live in total chaos.

  Tishla stumbled and had to steady herself a moment. “I’m all right. The air in here has more nitrogen than we’re used to. I just need a moment to adjust.”

  And it smells like wet bird, Kai thought. “Do you need a breather?”

  “No, papa,” she said, an edge creeping into her voice. “And I didn’t forget my rain shoes, either.”

  She looked down at the glove on her left hand, reading a map that Kai had displayed on the launch’s console as well. “If I’m reading this right, the hold is this way.” She walked past the drone and toward a darkened section of corridor. As she approached, lights flickered on ahead of her. “Well, nice to be welcomed.”

  After a few moments, she found her way to a bulkhead that opened when she spoke the alien word panra. The bulkhead split and separated into the walls. The lights inside came on with loud clangs, indicating a primitive type of electrical circuit. Just the thought of it made Kai nervous. How did these people get around space without blowing themselves up or getting shocked?

  Tishla stopped at the entrance. “I’ve found the hold.” After that, she just stood and stared.

  “Tishla?”

  Still she stared, saying nothing, her back to the drone and, subsequently, Kai.

  “Tish? What’s wrong?”

  “If that alien isn’t lying about the roots,” she said, “there’s enough here to feed the capital and its environs. We can grow enough from the skins to feed the rest within three turns.”

  If. That’s why he purchased Tishla’s indenture contract. It paid for the education that would allow her to determine whether the alien was telling
the truth.

  “That’s good,” said Kai. “Because if he is lying, I will cut him down myself in Capital Square.”

  4

  “It’s starch,” said Marq as he and Kai walked through the square. “All primate species, at least those we know about, need starch. Most need protein as well, but in famine conditions, starch will do as a temporary fix. I noticed no livestock on this world. Did you not import them?”

  Around them, workers (many of them rioters only a few days before) labored to clean up the square. Never a spectacular place to begin with, it had been reduced to a scarred moonscape of shattered glass, scorched walls, and broken masonry. Patches of red appeared on the pavement in places. Kai wondered if Marq knew it was blood.

  “Today is a rare day on Essenar,” said Kai. “It’s not raining. The only places it does not constantly rain on this world are the deserts, the polar caps, and out to sea. It’s too damp to grow the grains and grasses needed to feed livestock, or we would have planted them decades ago.”

  “So places like the deserts and sea and ice caps, I take it, can only be populated by normal citizens with the resources to adapt there.” He looked around. “Our ancestral homeworld once had an entire continent set aside for criminals. Seems like a waste, really. If you despise someone enough to kick them out of your homeland, why not dump them on an island somewhere and let the criminal nature solve the problem on its own?”

  “Welcome to the island,” said Kai. “Worlds more hospitable are reserved for, as you term them, ‘citizens,’ though our society is not so egalitarian.” He watched as a man and his daughter boarded up the window of a shop on the far side of the square. The man did not own the shop, but had been one of those who burned it. What might that man have been capable of, Kai wondered, if the weather on Essenar had permitted normal food production? With a large enough population, farming could be automated to allow cities to grow. “We need more than these wonder roots you’ve given us, Marq. We need grains that will grow here. Can you do that for us?”

  Marq laughed that strange alien laugh of his. “Governor, this load of tubers was lost through an error in logistics by my employers. I learned your world had a problem and saw an opportunity to show you what Juno can do for you. But my people have a saying, one that dates back to before we left our ancestral world.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “‘Only the first one’s free.’ The tubers in their present form can feed you. For that, I am deeply pleased. You know how to grow more from the skins, and I will explain to you how to pollinate the flowers so you can harvest seeds. All I require in return is the data from your results of your efforts, which will be of great benefit to Juno, and passage to Laputan space so I may return to my people. If you are successful, I wish to do business with you. Grain might be a good place to start.”

  In a nearby alleyway, a woman used a hard rake to push rubble out into the street for collection. Kai recognized her as the owner of the shop where the man and his daughter had boarded the window. The alleyway ran between two shops some distance from the woman’s, the owners of both killed in the riots. Kai may even have put one of them to the sword.

  “As you can see,” said Kai, “business is not the main focus of my people. These people were exiled here, ostensibly to give them a chance to build a new society. But we still have our wealthy classes, warriors of rank, legal experts, clergy, and so on, who tend to hoard resources needed elsewhere. And there is no profit motive to explain it. The market does not dictate their position.”

  “Heredity does,” said Marq. “I’m familiar with the concept. Tell me, though, Governor. Aren’t you one of the wealthy class?”

  “Wealth has its own burdens. The difference between a good man and an evil one often lies in whether he recognizes that.”

  “It’s often the hungry man who changes things. What might these people do given a chance to feed themselves and build something more than a few scattered settlements?” Marq asked, echoing Kai’s earlier thought.

  Kai watched the woman gather up what she had swept in the alley and dump it in a canister that once served as a fuel tank. Her shop, like the two flanking the alley, existed only because someone of the Merchant Caste granted them a franchise to sell imported wares. They were a captive market. “I suppose they would throw off the caste system or force their way into the various castes. As of this moment, they have no place in our society. In some ways, neither do I.”

  “And why is that?”

  Kai looked around the square. It should have been teeming with people enjoying the fruits of Essenar. Instead, they simply moved around what little the established worlds would send them. “My people, for all their vaunted nobility, are warriors. I, however, did not so much conquer Essenar as take it off the hands of another family. It’s not really an admirable way to acquire property in our society.”

  That made Marq smile is strange little smile. Which unsettled Kai.

  5

  The slim black missile made a screeching noise as it scraped against the side of its hole. Around it, workers shouted at the crane operator to stop. The missile, really a ship-mounted torpedo left in a cave for storage, swayed precariously on the cables lifting it. Large rocks surrounded the opening in the ground where it had lain hidden for decades.

  Douglas Best put a wet handkerchief over his face as the hot wind blew a cloud of dust up the mountain, momentarily obscuring the missile from his sight. The crew foreman, clad in a white desert suit and facemask, rushed over to him.

  “I’m sorry, Minister,” he said to Best. “You may want to leave. We think we punctured the fuel tank lifting it out.”

  Best would have sighed, but sighing would have meant a mouthful of sand. “How many more of these things do we have?”

  “Including this one?” said the foreman. “Seven. If this one blows, you’ll have to chase that warhead all over the Mother’s creation to find it.” He smiled through his mask. “At least it’s not armed.”

  Best took little comfort in that.

  The crane lifted again, and the missile made a groaning noise that turned Best’s insides to jelly. He decided to heed the foreman’s advice and walked back to the awaiting tracker. Luxhomme was waiting inside.

  “You could have been out there supervising,” said Best. “Has this outfit ever handled weapons of mass destruction?”

  Luxhomme, a gaunt man with a pencil-thin mustache, smiled that strange little smile of his. “I am supervising. It was you, Minister, who insisted on coming to the site in person. By the way, until the crops begin to take, you might want to carry a facemask with you next time you come. 978-0765309402d is not the most forgiving planet.”

  Best marveled that Luxhomme had memorized the planet’s name, a catalog designation from a forgotten survey some forty years earlier. It sounded almost musical with the lilt in his voice. He had told Best he was Etruscan, but the accent suggested someplace else. Metis maybe?

  “You heard what my colleagues have named the star, haven’t you?” said Best.

  “I believe an imam serving in your legislature proposed the name ‘Hell’ as a joke,” said Luxhomme. “Funny thing about legislative pranks. They sometimes get passed into law.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  Luxhomme rapped on the glass partition between himself and the driver. “Take us back to the inn.” To Best, he said. “So here we are on a desert planet orbiting a star about to be called Hell. Maybe they’ll call the planet ‘Perdition.’”

  “That’d be original,” said Best. The Compact, the loose confederation of human worlds and their colonies, had no fewer than two dozen planets called “Perdition,” mostly airless rocks or volcanic hells sharing a system with some more hospitable and better named world. “Let’s go all the way back to our roots. We’ll call the satellite ‘Moon’ and, just to keep it consistent, this place ‘Planet.’”

  Best watched the landscape change as the tracker jostled down the side of the mountain, the broad expanse o
f desert plain opening up before them. In the distance, Best could make out dark patches in the sand, perfect squares of gray interrupting the relentless tan of this world. “Mars won’t supply us bots to tend the farms,” he finally said. “They want too much money.”

  “Strange how a socialist world wants money when they supposedly have no use for it,” said Luxhomme.

  “Socialism costs money,” said Best. “Even where money ‘doesn’t exist.’” He leaned back into his seat and closed his eyes. He really did not want to talk to Luxhomme. The man made his skin crawl. Best only suffered him because it was Luxhomme that had proposed the plan to convert old military reserves into colonies. 978-0765309402d had been just such a planet. Best’s native world of Jefivah had no colonies of its own. The conversion of the military depots had provided a way to get three of them for free.

  Well, not free. Behind them, a company contracted by Luxhomme’s JunoCorp struggled to keep an antiquated missile from spewing chemical fuel all over the mountain peak he and Best now descended. In the distance, the dark patches indicated where desert kelp, an invention of JunoCorp itself, grew in seemingly impossible conditions. Above, a ship hired by Luxhomme’s employers waited in orbit to take the nukes off-world.

  That last part bothered Best. “I still don’t entirely understand. Why wouldn’t the Navy just establish a presence here? It’d be cheaper, and the military could keep control of the weapons without going to the expense of hauling them across interstellar space.”

  Luxhomme gave his thin little smile. “Oh, come now, Mr. Best. We’ve been over this before. The Polygamy Wars. Since then, no colony may keep weapons of mass destruction, only the core worlds.”