The spaceship service area was next to the main docking concourse. Merchants had set up shop all over, in shipping containers and in alcoves recessed into the spaceport wall and next to airlock doors and, in some cases, right out in the open. I ran past workshops, cargo holding areas, fuel storage and dispensing centers, spare parts dealers, and power generation equipment, zigzagging around shipping containers that seemed to have been strewn about at random and hopscotching over the array of tubing and cables that ran every-which-way, covering the ground like thick black three-dimensional scribbles.
There were fewer pedestrians here. It was mostly humans along with a healthy dosage of female sagisi who used their packs of drones as free labor. The other races were all represented but in lesser numbers. There were more machines than there were in the docking concourse. Fewer creatures meant I moved more freely but, at the same time, I had to be more cautious to avoid getting run over. There was an occasional short-stop or stutter-step to avoid forklifts or fuel trucks but I still managed to pick up my pace. Fluffy was still bogged down in the crowd at the concourse when I neared the far edge of the service area.
Another wall of shipping containers marked the edge of the service area. The deafening roar of a furious grindle split the air just as I rounded the corner. The implant in my head translated it instantaneously.
“I’m gonna fuck you up, Jobs!”
My anxiety-level was jacked through the roof. Every instinct I possessed was screaming to add to my lead but I forced myself to take a breather instead. My body felt like it was coming apart at the seams. I was drenched in sweat. It seemed like every muscle in my body was cramping. The nausea in my stomach was steadily growing and, when I swallowed, I tasted bile. I wanted to curl into a ball and die... anything to cure this horrific feeling that had a grip on my entire being... but, of course, I didn’t. I knew what the cure was and I knew that it was somewhere up ahead. I took a few deep breaths to get my wind back and then pushed forward.
The middle of the Promenade was a giant laydown yard for abandoned shipping containers. I ran past stacks and stacks and stacks of them, shipping containers to my left and shipping containers to my right, reaching up to the ceiling of the dome, randomly arranged so that the collection of stacks resembled a sprawling unintentional labyrinth. So much stuff had come onto this planet over the years and only starship fuel had gone out... that and the smorgasbord of illicit goods and services that were traded here on a daily basis. The planet did not export anything bulky or fragile enough to need to be packed in a ten-ton metal box... so the containers accumulated. There were old containers, new containers, containers that gleamed in the overhead lights, containers that were so covered with dents and rust that they were little more than scrap metal, containers of every age and condition imaginable. They had all been converted so they could be occupied, stacked on top of each other, anchored in place, and connected with walkways. Some had been hooked up with plumbing and electricity, some had little more than burning garbage in metal trash cans for heat. I ran past rows and stacks of offices, shops, living spaces, diners, bars, and miniature warehouses, turning left then right then right then left, hoping to lose Fluffy in the maze.
The glut of pedestrians thinned out a bit here. The maze was not generally used as an avenue for getting from Point-A to Point-B. There were quicker and easier routes for getting around the spaceport. The creatures I passed all either lived or had business here. There were very few grindles. They could not fit comfortably into the containers and the walkways could not support their weight. There were few kabebes or hammangs either. Neither would operate out of the stacks by choice. Kabebes were tunnel dwellers. They were found mainly on the lower levels of the spaceport. Hammangs were a wealthy race. The creatures that occupied the shipping container maze were usually among the poorer inhabitants of the spaceport. Like everywhere else, it was mostly humans here. I passed a few sagisi scurrying across the walkways or clustered around containers. There were also a lot of yandocs around. There were constantly a few of them zipping from walkway to walkway in the air above my head.
After a handful of turns, I came to the end of the shipping container maze. I had not seen Fluffy for half an hour. It seemed as though I had given my biggest debt collector the slip for the time being. I heard a faint agitated grindle-roar from somewhere off in the stacks. It might have been Fluffy or it might not have been. He was far from the only grindle on-planet and they all sounded the same to me. They were an angry people.
I entered the industrial sector of the Promenade... the epicenter of the brown work that went on in the spaceport. My senses were instantly assaulted from all sides. A biting chemical odor filled my nostrils. Brief brilliant flashes of white and blue light flared up from random spots around me. The growling rumble of heavy machinery was a constant backdrop. Every so often, the scream of grinding metal or the boom of large things colliding with other large things would erupt from somewhere in the chaos of machinery, drowning out all other sound. The painful noise would assault my ears for a second or two then vanish as abruptly as it had appeared and the growling rumble would retake its place as the soundtrack of progress.
I made my way past fuel ore refining facilities and power generation equipment. There were plenty of both, of all sizes, ranging from small self-contained operations that could fit into shipping containers up to immense amalgams of steel, conveyor belts, gears, and turbines that towered over the Promenade. Power for the spaceport and fuel for the ships that came here were the main commodities produced on-planet so the bulk of the factories were dedicated to one of the two. The demand for both was so high that even the smallest operator could set up shop and stand a fair chance of turning a profit... so long as one of the larger operators did not target them for this planet’s version of a hostile takeover. Miscellaneous brown work operations filled in the few vacancies left between power and fuel. Most of these manufactured repair parts for the array of vehicles and equipment that came through the spaceport: spaceships, mining equipment, cargo handlers, fuel transports, refinery waste transports, land and air passenger vehicles.
I cut through the middle of the throng of grimy and grease-stained creatures. Humans made up the majority of the workers, both the facility operators and those patronizing them. Other species were heavily represented as well, like pretty much everywhere else in the spaceport. There were female sagisi operating facilities with their packs of free labor and yandocs performing maintenance on things that wingless creatures could not reach without assistance. Kabebes brought in loads of unprocessed ore from deeper inside the Promenade, where ramps and stairwells and tunnels led down to the lower levels. Miners from the other races all came from the direction of the spaceport main gate. I moved casually, like I had business here, and none of the brown workers looked at me twice.
The adrenal overload I had experienced during the foot chase was wearing off. My brain began constructing coherent thoughts again. I visualized the route I meant to take, the destinations I meant to visit, and the tasks I meant to complete. The spaceport’s main gate was just beyond the industrial area. It was within sight of the Big Staircase, a gigantic circular deceptively-named ramp that corkscrewed down thousands of feet into the ground, leading to all the lower levels beneath the Promenade. Evelin’s Café was just beyond the Big Staircase. I was almost to my primary destination and none too soon. The dope sickness was reaching crisis-levels. I felt like I might vomit at any moment and, once I started puking, there was no telling when I would stop.
A colossal fuel ore refinery loomed to my right. It was a hulking monstrosity of soot-blackened metal that rose up to almost scrape the ceiling of the dome. A constant mechanical growl emanated from within it. Periodic bursts of yellow flame and chemical stink spewed from vents in its upper reaches. It inhabited the space to my right for a long time.
I finally passed the far corner of the refinery where a booth equipped with a heavy-duty scale and purity-testing equipment had been set up. I mo
ved alongside a long line of tired and dirty creatures waiting for their turn to sell their ore. There were humans with carts, both motorized and muscle-powered. There were sagisi leading packs of drones, each carrying little bags of rocks. There were kabebes riding rats weighed down with overflowing sacks. There was even a team of four grindles, pushing a gargantuan cart made out of a shipping container mounted on top of a set of tank treads. It was filled to the brim with unprocessed ore and must have weighed twenty tons. The various brown workers did not occupy my mind for long. They had their business here and I had my business several hundred yards up ahead. I picked up my pace.
The roar of an angry grindle erupted from behind me. My translator implant did not convert it into something I could understand. The roar had not been language. It had been pure rage. I guessed that someone had tried to cut a grindle in line... which meant that someone was about to become blood pudding. I glanced at the grindle brown workers I had just passed, ready to take evasive action if the fight came my way.
I did not see the source of the commotion... not at first. The grindle miners appeared to have been caught off-guard, like everybody else... well... almost everybody. Three of the grindles were staring at the fourth. The fourth grindle was staring at me. I realized my mistake. I had not passed four grindle brown workers. I had passed three grindle brown workers and one grindle green worker... a green worker named Fluffy.
I ran and Fluffy ran after me. The industrial area became a blur. I dodged around hulking masses of metal and weaved through mobile meat-bags. I did not spare the effort to see details. Fluffy was furious. His footsteps shook the floor beneath me. Wind rippled my clothes as his massive hands grabbed at my back. His roars filled my ears, blocking out all other sound. His putrid breath filled my nostrils, making me long for a simpler time not too long before when I only had to breathe toxic refinery fumes.
I reached the edge of the industrial area. The thoroughfare that led to the main gate was a few paces ahead. I plowed through a flock of yandocs, sending them flapping up into an agitated clusterfuck, shrieking curses at me in their high-pitched language. I ignored their indignation and kept going.
Behind me, Fluffy ran into the whirlwind of yandocs. His roars became even angrier, something I had not thought was possible, and the screeching of the yandocs changed from agitation to terror. I shot a glance over my shoulder. Fluffy was stumbling around in the midst of a cloud of sentient bat-lizards, roaring and swatting at them as they fluttered about. One of Fluffy’s gigantic hands connected with a yandoc as it whizzed by his face. Blood splattered and the yandoc dropped to the floor, bounced once, then lay still.
I did not stick around to watch any more yandocs die. I sprinted onto the thoroughfare, hoping to increase my lead while Fluffy was distracted.
The thoroughfare was an open roadway that ran between the Big Staircase and the main gate. It was the most orderly area on the Promenade. Two lines of creatures, some in vehicles and some walking, moved in opposite directions along the road. The vast majority of them were brown workers, either bringing in loads of fuel ore or going out to get more.
Fluffy got past the yandocs and came after me again. My plan of heading straight for Evelin’s Café did not seem like a viable option anymore. He would catch up with me long before I got there. However, the Sheriff’s Office was nearby, on the other side of the thoroughfare, just inside of the giant airlock doors of the main gate. If I could reach it, the sheriff or his deputies would keep Fluffy from beating me into paste.
I weaved through the line of outgoing traffic and angled to the right, toward the Sheriff’s Office. It was just over a hundred yards ahead, in an alcove recessed into the Promenade wall. Behind me, Fluffy crashed through the line of outgoing traffic, knocking a small cargo hauler on its side and sending pedestrians fleeing in all directions. I broke into an all-out sprint, hauling-ass down the narrow corridor between the two lines of traffic. Every shred of my dope sick body screamed in protest but I did not stop. I dug deep, reached down for a level of resilience I had believed that I had lost long before, and managed to speed up. Fluffy roared as I pulled away.
The Sheriff’s Office came up on my left. I cut through the line of incoming traffic, narrowly avoiding getting run over by a cargo truck. The five-pointed star on the double doors in front of me was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. I gripped the knob and threw myself against them... and they did not budge. It seemed as though the sheriff and his deputies had business elsewhere.
Fluffy plowed through the line of outgoing traffic, scattering pedestrians and vehicles once again. His eyes found me, saw that I was cornered, and he skidded to a halt. He looked as bad as I felt. His enormous chest heaved over and over as he tried to suck air into his lungs. His impossibly-muscled arms and shoulders moved up and down in time with his chest, making him look like his upper half was bouncing on his lower half. The scales that coated his body were a much paler shade of green than they had been when I first saw him at my office. His long flat lips were pulled back, revealing rows upon rows of jagged teeth. Several long tendrils of drool dripped from his lower lip. He had no actual nose, just two vertical slits above his mouth that looked like gills. The force of his breath made the flesh beside the slits flap like flags in a windstorm every time he exhaled. Only his eyes seemed untouched by his exhaustion. They were two perfectly-round bulbs that jutted half out of his face like they were getting ready to make a break for it. There was no fatigue in those eyes... only pure rage.
Fluffy’s only clothing was his grayish diaper-thing and two weapon belts slung in an X across his chest. He pulled a blade as long as my arm from one of the belts and stalked toward me.
I was cornered. There was nowhere to run. I drew my revolver and aimed it at him. I knew it would not kill him. The chemically-propelled bullets inside it did some seriously nasty shit to most creatures but grindles were notoriously durable. It would probably only piss him off even more... but... fuck it... I was all out of options.
Fluffy closed in. The blade in his hand looked very sharp. I was gripping my pistol so tightly my hand was shaking. He closed to within twenty-five feet, took a step and was within twenty feet, took another step and was at fifteen, then at ten. I aimed at one of his eyeballs and prepared to fire.
A bolt of bright white light streaked over our heads, followed a split-second later by the quacking-fart sound of an energy weapon firing. We both froze.
“That’s far enough, Fluffy,” said a voice.
A human moved around from behind Fluffy, into my line of sight. He was wearing blue coveralls and a cap of the same color, both emblazoned with miniature versions of the star that marked the double doors behind me. The spaceport sheriff had arrived and he had an energy rifle aimed at the center of Fluffy’s chest... halle-fucking-luiah.
“This motherfucker owes my boss a lot of money!” Fluffy roared.
“This motherfucker owes everybody a lot of money,” the sheriff said. “That doesn’t give you the right to tear my Promenade to pieces trying to collect. Do you know that you left seven corpses between here and the docking concourse?”
“He ran,” Fluffy said.
“I don’t fucking care if he danced his way here! You don’t pull that shit on my Promenade! You’re lucky I didn’t catch you mid-rampage. Now get the fuck gone or I’ll burn a hole right through you,” the sheriff said.
“I’m gonna tell Lord Fairfax about this,” Fluffy said.
“Yeah... so am I,” the sheriff said.
Fluffy stared at the sheriff for a moment. The sheriff stared back, rifle at the ready.
The moment broke. Fluffy looked at me. “This isn’t over, Jobs,” he said.
“Obviously,” I said. If I had been feeling better, I would have probably added a parting shot or two. However, I felt like liquefied shit. All I wanted to do was shoot up and then take a nap. So I simply returned my revolver to its holster and kept my mouth shut.
Fluffy walked away. He cut through the line
of incoming traffic, crossed to the outgoing lane, and cut through that one as well. He did not knock anything or anyone over this time. The sheriff kept his rifle trained on the grindle until he disappeared into the crowd on the Promenade.
When Fluffy was gone, the sheriff turned toward me. He advanced on me, rifle up, with a mixture of anger and frustration in his eyes. He stopped a couple of paces away. The anger left his eyes, leaving behind only frustration flavored with a touch of fatigue. He lowered his rifle.
“Hey Solomon,” the sheriff said.
“Hey Anton,” I said. “Sorry about the mess.”
Chapter 4
Sheriff Anton Kabamas was one of the shorter humans I had met in my travels. He stood a smidge under five-feet-tall. That did not impede his ability to project the authority of his position, however. What he lacked in height, he made up for in bulk. His chest was nearly twice as broad as mine and his forearms were as big around as my calves. His muscles looked like they wanted to burst out of his uniform. Coveralls were loose-fitting on most creatures who wore them. Anton’s coveralls looked like they were one bad washing away from being a leotard. He had always gone above and beyond when it came to physical fitness, even way back before either of us arrived on this shithole, back when we used to be in the same line of work. He was even bigger now than he had been back then. I guess he thought maintaining order in a lawless spaceport required more muscle than killing indigenous species in the name of the Great Bank did.
“Where are all your guys?” I said. I had never seen the Sheriff’s Office completely unmanned. They usually had at least one deputy standing watch.
“A few are out on calls. The rest are cleaning up the mess you and Fluffy made,” Anton said.
Odd Jobs Page 3
