by Yoss
Praise For
A Planet For Rent
By Yoss
“A Planet for Rent is the English-language debut of Yoss, one of Cuba’s most lauded writers of science fiction… Yoss’ smart and entertaining novel tackles themes like prostitution, immigration and political corruption. Ultimately, it serves as an empathetic yet impassioned metaphor for modern-day Cuba, where the struggle for power has complicated every facet of society.”
—NPR, Best Books of 2015
“This hilarious and imaginative novel by Cuba’s premier science-fiction writer gets my vote for most overlooked novel of the year. Yoss’s book imagines a world where Earth is run as a tourist destination by capitalist aliens who have little regard for the planet or its inhabitants. A Planet for Rent is a perfect SF satire for our era of massive inequality and seemingly unchecked environmental destruction.”
—Lincoln Michel, VICE
“In prose that is direct, sarcastic, sexual and often violent, A Planet for Rent criticizes Cuban reality in thinly veiled terms. Cuban defectors leave the country not on rafts but on ‘unlawful space launches’; prostitutes are ‘social workers’; foreigners are ‘xenoids’; and Cuba is a ‘planet whose inhabitants have stopped believing in the future.’ The book is particularly critical of the government-run tourism industry of the ’90s, which welcomed and protected tourists—often at the expense of Cubans—and whose legacy can still be felt today.”
—The New York Times
“Can one Cuban author boldly go where none have gone before and inspire American readers? Heavy metal rocker turned science fiction writer José Miguel Sánchez (known by his pen name, Yoss) believes he can… Science fiction fans… will be interested in the way Yoss addresses important questions about the future: Who are we? What does it matter to be human? And, what is our place in the universe?… Yoss’s novel is part of an international literary canon of science fiction classics that makes invisible walls visible by showing everyday readers how inequality segregates people by class, politics or ethnicity.”
—NBC News Latino
“The best science-fiction writers are the peripheral prophets of literature—outsiders who persuade us to explore an often uncomfortable vision of the future that shows us not only what might be, but also what should never be allowed to happen, thereby freeing our imaginations from the shackles of our blind rush toward so-called progress. One such prophet lives ninety miles off the coast of Florida, in Havana, and goes by the name of Yoss… Some of the best sci-fi written anywhere since the 1970s… A Planet for Rent, like its author, a bandana-wearing, muscly roquero, is completely sui generis: riotously funny, scathing, perceptive, and yet also heartwrenchingly compassionate… Instantly appealing.”
—The Nation
“What 1984 did for surveillance, and Fahrenheit 451 did for censorship, A Planet for Rent does for tourism… It’s a wildly imaginative book and one that, while set in the future, has plenty of relevance to the present.”
—The Bookseller
“Devastating and hilarious and somehow, amidst all those aliens, deeply deeply human.”
—Daniel José Older, author of the Bone Street Rumba series and Salsa Nocturna
“A compelling meditation on modern imperialism… A fascinating kaleidoscope of vignettes… A brilliant exploration of our planet’s current social and economic inequities… Yoss doesn’t disappoint, sling-shotting us around the world and the galaxy… Striking, detailed… Yoss has written a work of science fiction that speaks to fundamental problems humans deal with every day. This is not just a story about alien oppression; it’s the story of our own planet’s history and a call for change.”
—SF Signal, 4.5-Star Review
“Interesting and entertaining… deeply tied to the island nation’s politics with a satirical edge.”
—io9
“[Yoss’s] work is modern, dynamic and yet deep and thoughtful… It’s wildly inventive, imaginative fiction, with a real edge to the writing—there is an energy to the prose that is almost tangible and to get all this through a translation is nothing short of remarkable.”
—SFBook.com, 5-Star Review
“Cuba has produced an author capable of understanding science fiction by writing it like it’s rock and roll. Yoss is a thoughtful author who simply seems to understand his work and science fiction better than many of us.”
—Electric Literature
To Vicente Berovides, professor of ecology and evolution.
To Yoyi, muse of the first version of XXXX… G from back in 1999, in which laketons were still continents, a version now lost on account of… better leave it there.
To Elizabeth, my real-life Cosita, who inspired me to write this second and, I hope, truly definitive version.
Contents
Super Extra Grande
About the Author
About the Translator
Super Extra Grande
“boss sangan, sludge al frente and a la derecha, ten centímetros knee,” Narbuk peevishly announces through my ear buds.
His voice reminds me unpleasantly of a screechy old machine in need of a lube job. But that’s not the worst of it. Worst is, he seems to go out of his way to mangle the grammar and syntax of the Spanglish language, stubbornly dropping prepositions and mutilating verbs like he’s doing a bad impression of a native in a third-rate holoseries.
Regardless, the Laggoru can monitor my progress from a distance, and the radar he’s using gives him the overview of the situation that I want.
The spot he’s guiding me towards flashes blue on the 3-D virtual map of the tsunami’s intestines, which I can see superimposed on the upper-right-hand corner of my helmet’s visor. Doesn’t look promising to me, but in the lower-left-hand corner I see Narbuk’s face, looking like a hypertrophied iguana, insisting, “Boss Sangan, please mira, check. Ves now. Si the damn bracelet of the gobernador’s spoiled wife be there, us probablemente leave.” For variety’s sake, he now starts in on the complaints. “Agua here smell muy strange después del morpheorol y el laxative. Hoy not be buen día for el tsunami bowel cleanse.”
You have to prep before you can operate. In this case, to tranquilize the “patient” before I started exploring its innards, we dissolved enough morpheorol in the water to sedate a small city for a whole week.
Good thing morpheorol doesn’t really affect humans.
But we never expected it would take almost half a day for the critter to absorb the sedative through its gills. If we’d known, we’d have injected it intravenously.
I feel like reminding Narbuk that I’m the one taking the risk of traveling through the tsunami’s intestines while he’s lounging around and following my “inner voyage” over remote imaging from out there. Why should he care if this was a good day for giving an eighteen-hundred-meter-long animal an intestinal cleanse?
As if any day would be.
Hey, a guy could turn that into a pretty good joke.
But no point wasting time working it out. In spite of his, let’s say, dietary restrictions, Narbuk will always be a Laggoru, and Laggorus just don’t get irony.
Not because they don’t understand our language well enough. Narbuk isn’t the best example here; some of them even speak it better than half the humans in the colonies.
It’s just that in their culture, things either are or they aren’t, and that’s that. No nuances or shades of meaning for them. That’s why they have about as much of a sense of humor as a rock does.
Funny thing is, that’s exactly what makes them so hilarious to be around. Not that they ever get why the people who hang out with them are always cracking up.
That’s why, among other reasons, they’re so appreciated in the
Galactic Community.
I was really lucky I could hire Narbuk and even luckier I could keep him. Hardly an hour goes by when he doesn’t set me rolling with laughter. Besides, I have to admit, he is really sharp. Three years ago he didn’t know any more about veterinary biology than I do about classical Cantonese linguistics, but today he’s an incredibly productive secretary-assistant.
Quick learner.
Be that as it may, today I’d better warn him to keep it under his hat. There’s too much at stake to risk letting him ruin it with his bellyaching. Governor Tarkon must have at least half a dozen of his men eavesdropping on our frequency. The three or four Amphorians that hang around the dry dock might be listening in, too. We’re pretty near their area of influence, true enough, but I still think it’s kind of suspicious to find them here.
So I warn Narbuk, “Wátcha tu tongue, lagartija. This is an op oscuro.”
Then I aim the vacuum hose at the chosen spot, praying that the jewels we’ve been hunting for all day will turn up here, inside this clump of sludge.
Of course my prudent command to watch his tongue has the opposite effect on Narbuk.
“Op oscuro, Boss Sangan? La criatura es almost two kilometers de larga, central island naval repair dry dock, much many soldados when no hay guerra? Oscuro impossible. What me decir bad? Me doubt el Gobernador Tarkon only now discover tercera esposa very much spoil, no muy smart,” he insists. Narbuk is as indelicate, undiplomatic, and tactless as every other member of his species. And just as genetically incapable of taking a hint. “Bien educated, muy smart mujer no drop wedding bracelet cuesta millones de solaria. No drop bracelet al sea, no drop tsunami mouth.”
Bingo! The intake of the portable vacuum hose finally dislodges the object in question from the monster’s intestinal mucus, and…
Another disappointment. The clot of sludge doesn’t contain a platinum wedding bracelet inlaid with Aldebaran topaz but the semi-fossilized skull of some small local fish, which the tsunami no doubt swallowed thousands of years before we humans invented the González drive. Or even the wheel, most likely. These animals are really long lived. In fact, so far we haven’t seen any of them die except from accidents. Possibly only the laketons of Brobdingnag are longer lived.
Shit. How much longer am I going to have to slog through the… the shit of this oversized sea worm?
“The tsunami debió haber startled her when it yawned en su cara and ella found herself mirando at its lovely fangs de veinte metros,” I say, trying to stand up for Mrs. Tarkon out of sheer racial solidarity. Though I kind of doubt her “carelessness” was just an accident. From the little I know of female psychology, she most likely felt bored and left out while her husband was dealing with a thousand and one emergencies, and she wanted a little attention. “Olvídalo and keep your eyes en la imagen del radar. Ya debíamos haber encontrado the trinket. I’m getting cansado of this business.”
Tsunamis have a pretty rapid metabolism for such huge invertebrates. Not even six tons of morpheorol will keep this worm out of action much longer—and I’d really rather be as far away as possible when it wakes up. I don’t think it’s going to thank me for this trip through its guts, or for the eleven tons of laxative we first gave it. Orally, of course. An enema would have been too much to ask.
“Job es job,” Narbuk philosophized. “Que worth es, worth es well. Yo hope que el pago is generous, compensate very mucho dirty trabajo.”
“Te voy a dar some ‘very mucho dirty trabajo,’ you half-bit Kant. Keep your trap cerrada, or la próxima it’ll be you down the critter’s gullet,” I threaten jokingly, then trace a wide arc in front of me with the vacuum hose, the way a soldier from centuries past might have mowed down half a dozen enemies with rapid-fire tracers from his laser blaster.
Someone might say that wasting time playing games during such a serious mission is tempting fate. But the fact is, after six hours of running around inside a digestive tract that fancies itself a labyrinth, and wading sometimes shoulder deep in crap and gastric juice, and getting your hopes up every time you inspect a lump of indeterminate gunk you find stuck to the mucous membrane, anybody would have given up believing in good luck. And would be feeling sick and tired.
What did I say. Same song, second verse: no bracelet.
“Gimme algo de data, assistant,” I tell Narbuk, then wait for his reply. “Según the map, diez more minutes, y I should be coming out the back end… Pero if I don’t have Mrs. Tarkon’s precious platinum bracelet, tengo miedo que I might be better off quedándome in here.”
More than my reputation is at stake. The governor’s bodyguards didn’t look all that friendly. And forget about the Amphorians. Those helmets of theirs make them look like two-legged bulldogs. Methane-breathing gear on a human world? That gives you something to think about.
Offended, Narbuk replies, “Boss Sangan, me sorry but no can do that. You por favor knock self out si necesita, but animal me da very mucho allergy.” As always, he’s oversensitive to any allusion I make to his peculiar problem. “Me Laggoru banned y no como meat because no hunt. Tú sabes.”
The reptilian Laggorus are also famous throughout the Galactic Community for eating nothing but meat they’ve hunted themselves. And they hunt without energy weapons or projectile guns or gizmos of any sort, using nothing but their terrifying fighting claws. Old-school, straight-up predators.
But of course, just my luck, the assistant I hired is the only vegetarian wacko of the whole lot.
And he doesn’t get why I think he’s funny.
Sure, could be worse. Narbuk doesn’t eat meat, but he’s as good as the best of them at handling the retractable steel claws Laggorus use for hunting and fighting. With him by my side, I’m never afraid of a bar brawl.
Not that I’ve been to many bars lately. But when I do go, there aren’t many guys who dare to tangle with me.
I admit, I don’t know the first thing about karate-do or judo. Or wushu, baguazhang, pencak silat, krav maga, or any other secret martial art. I hardly even have to resort to my fists.
As Sun Tzu wrote thousands of years ago, the best strategy is not the one that grants victory in battle, it’s the one that lets you win without even fighting.
Intimidation, in a word.
And it turns out I’m a born expert in that art.
The good old-fashioned art of fear.
Faced with that, almost any opponent will opt for the equally ancient and effective martial art of turning tail and running.
Hey, don’t think I go around threatening people or putting on childish strong-man demonstrations, like smashing stuff or lifting heavy objects with one hand. The truth is, I don’t have to do a thing.
Let’s just say, I’m a little taller and bigger all around than your average human.
In fact, quite a bit taller and heavier than the average Homo sapiens.
The honest truth is, very few humans are bigger than me.
So what usually happens with most of the hotheads out itching for a fight is, they take one glance at me, and—after practically falling over backwards trying to look me in the eyes—they whisper something to their buddies and go back to staring down the other big guys at the bar.
They never bother Narbuk, either. Not only because his species has a reputation for being quick and lethal with their claws (they don’t keep them for show).
Turns out, while the Laggoru weighs barely half as much as me (these reptilian guys are really slim), he’s also four inches taller. A real giant among his kind, as I am among mine.
That was another thing for us to bond over from the beginning.
It’s definitely nice to hang with someone who doesn’t constantly make you think you’re freakishly large by human standards, and who genuinely understands when you complain about the crap that seems to have been made with dwarves in mind.
The hell with statistical ergonomics. We big people have rights, too.
If you disagree, go find yourself a tag-team partner. The Lagg
oru and I challenge you, here and now. Or wherever, whenever.
Before long, Narbuk and I were inseparable buddies. My mother always told me to hang out with the biggest guy around. Not bad advice, I admit. Just a little hard to do when you yourself are always the biggest guy around.
As if the problem of size weren’t enough, there’s also the matter of sex…
That’s a long, complicated story.
Before the Laggoru came along, I had two other secretary-assistants. Both females.
So the jealous sorts can run their mouths off about my supposed misogyny…
Enti Kmusa, the first assistant I hired, was a human from Olduvaila. A direct descendant of the Maasai people, she was tall and skinny, like most Homo sapiens individuals who grow up on low-gravity worlds. Almost as tall as me, in fact. The Maasai were a famously tall ethnic group to begin with.
Slender, elegant, almost feline, especially in the way she walked… That was Enti. I could easily imagine her trekking across her great-great-great-great-great-grandparents’ ancestral savannah. I called her “my black panther.” And I have to say, exotic as she seemed at first, with her pure black skin, her large, dark eyes, her shaved head, and her filed teeth, she was also incredibly beautiful.
She was also organized and efficient, and she exuded natural likability from every pore. The largest creatures in the galaxy didn’t scare her or make her foolishly squeamish. As a result, clients began to swarm my office.
They came from all over, from every race.
But that was where the problems started, too. The lanky, stunning descendant of the Maasai had, let’s say, some minor prejudices against the other intelligent species of the Milky Way.
No matter how much energy the Human Section of the Galactic Community Coordinating Committee spends trying to fight racism (now that it’s finally been convinced to give up denying there is such a thing), it seems this complex problem will continue to haunt us humans for centuries.
