by Randy Dyess
“I haven’t seen your boyfriend in here today,” Mel said to Cindy as they straightened up the café after the breakfast crowd had left. “You two fighting again?”
“He’s not my boyfriend—we are only dating, and it’s not serious,” Cindy replied. “I don’t know why you keep insisting that we are a thing.”
“Because you’re about to turn sixteen. It’s strange that a girl your age doesn’t have a boyfriend.”
“That’s because I don’t intend to stay here much longer. Why get a boyfriend when I’m going to leave here as soon as I can?” Cindy asked. She would turn sixteen in a few months, which meant she would legally be treated as an adult worker. Like poverty stricken girls for centuries, teenage girls dreamed about finding someone who to take them away from their miserable farm life to one of excitement and glamour. Cindy had her dreams, and her dreams did not include a nineteen-year-old boy who wanted to stay on Candus.
“Yeah, right; any boy who goes twenty blocks out of his way to eat breakfast at a place like this only does it because of a girl. You might not think it’s serious, but I bet he does. He’s here five or six times a week. There are a lot of places a lot closer to his dojo.”
“Oh, give me a break,” Cindy replied. “He knows I want to leave. We’re only having a little fun before I find a way to get off this planet. I’m sure he understands that we can’t be anything more than friends. I’m turning sixteen soon. Sixteen means I can start finding a way off this dusty planet.”
“You should give him a shot. He’s educated, owns his own business, is not controlled by a corporation, and he’s good-looking, as well. How many boys like that do you think are on a planet like this? How many girls do you think would love to find someone like him?”
“That’s the point! I don’t want to find someone here, or someone who wants to stay here. His education and business will not get him off this planet. I need to find a way off and getting serious with someone who wants to stay here, will not help. He knows I don’t want to stay here. If he was serious about finding someone, he wouldn’t have a problem doing so. We’re just having fun until I can leave. We have years left to find someone to settle down with. Getting married at sixteen is only for farm girls. Not girls like me who want a different life.”
Mel walked back into the kitchen shaking his head. He stopped and turned around, “I know you have your dreams and dreams are good to have, but you can’t jeopardize your future. Michael is a good man and you could have a good life here with him. You should snap him up while you have the chance.”
“I will not settle for a life on a dusty planet! I want off.”
*****
A few hours later, Cindy was sitting in the café, waiting on the next rush. I wonder what it’s like, she wondered as she looked at the picture of a gorgeous couple getting into the latest-model hover car. They’re so happy. Life on a core planet, like Metros, must be so glamorous.
She often spent what little money she could hide from her parents on holo-vids that showed life on the inner-core planets. Candus was as far away from them as you could get in human-colonized territory. Workers were tightly controlled by the corporations, and the average person didn’t have much hope of ever improving their lives or their children’s lives. No one living on an outer-rim planet would ever come close to the lives shown on Cindy’s holo-vids. After all, living on core worlds cost more in one month than someone like Cindy could make in two years of hard work.
“Whatcha lookin’ at, girl?” Mel asked as he came out of the kitchen. “Still dreaming of the day you can get off this rock and go somewhere else?”
Cindy looked up from her data pad and replied, “Why can’t I go somewhere else without having to spend more money than I can ever make? This place is so boring and dirty. Candus City is backwater, compared to New Metros or Dalla.”
“Look, I never said you had to stay here and work for me for the rest of your life. If you want to leave here, why don’t you do something about it? Stop dreaming about those fake lives in your holo-vids and make a plan.”
“Like what? I’d never be able to save up enough money to move to a core world. What can I do? I was born here, my parents were born here, and my grandparents were born here. My family has been here since the day they discovered and settled this dirty rock. I’m a twentieth-generation potato farm worker and my kids won’t be any different.”
“If you believe life would be better somewhere else, it’s possible to get off this planet. Others have,” Mel said.
“How? How can I get off? The only way is to marry someone who can leave. Or marry someone and settle a new world. But, you still end up on a corporate world.”
“A pretty girl your age could always sign up for a cruise ship. You’re a hard worker when you’re not day-dreaming—working on one of those ships would be a breeze for someone like you. The pay is decent, and they provide everything you would need during your contract. A few contracts on one of those liners and you’d have enough money saved to do something besides marry a potato farmer.”
“I don’t know. Mary Lou tried to get a contract on a cruise ship and she was turned down. Why would it be any different for me?”
“For one thing, you’re a lot better-looking than she is. They want pretty girls, not ones who look like boys. For another thing, you have experience working for me. Most girls your age have only dug up potatoes, or chased sheep and cows across pastures. You also don’t sound like a back-country hick when you talk, whereas Mary Lou sounds like she has never seen the inside of a classroom. With your work experience and the good reference, I’ll give you, you’ll have a chance.”
Cindy brightened up at his news. “You think? You believe I’d have a chance to land one of those jobs? I don’t even know anyone who has worked on a cruise ship before? How do I even go about it?”
“Go talk to Mrs. Wellington at the clothing store around the corner. She spent twenty years on cruise ships and worked her way up from being a maid to being in charge of all the maids on a grand liner. She saved enough money to buy her store and live without financial problems for the rest of her life. You could do the same.”
“Mrs. Wellington? I didn’t know she worked on a cruise ship. Why would she ever come back to a place like this?”
“Living on a core world is not as glamorous as you think it is. I spent ten years off-world.”
“You made it off Candus? How? What happened to make you come back?”
“I joined the Terran Marines right out of school. I spent most of those years trapped on outer-rim training planets, but I did spend five years serving with the Terran Navy.”
“Why did you leave the Terran Marines? Being a marine must have been better than living on this dusty rock.”
“During the last year of my enlistment, I was part of a group of marines assembled to attack a pirate base. My platoon was decimated during the battle and a lot of my friends were killed. I blame the Terran Navy and the Terran Marines. I left as soon as my enlistment contract was up.”
“Why? What did they do to make you leave like that?”
“It wasn’t what they did, but what they didn’t do. The Senate and the military command had not upgraded our equipment in over six hundred years. When we assaulted that pirate base, we did so with inadequate equipment, and a lot of marines paid for it with their lives. If they would have just given us left-over equipment from private security forces, we would have been able to take the base without losing so many good marines. They just didn’t care about us. We were all outer-rimmers and didn’t mean anything to them. My men were expendable.”
“I don’t understand. Why didn’t you get better equipment?” Cindy asked. “Every farmer knows that newer equipment performs better than old equipment.”
“That is true for farming equipment, but with no wars in over six hundred years, there’s no market for military equipment. Corporations and the Senate will not pay for research into new designs without a market. Only the Terran Navy gets ne
w equipment, because their ships are supported by corporate donations. If some officer’s family wanted to donate a new ship for their son to be captain on, the Navy would gladly accept it. Marines are not so lucky—no one supports us with donations. No wealthy, spoiled brats would ever think of becoming a marine officer; Terran Naval officers are the only people in the military who are treated well.”
“I saw a bunch of Terran Navy officers when I worked the mayor’s party. They were so handsome and dashing.”
“Right,” Mel responded. “Stay away from those guys. They’re just a bunch of rich, spoiled, useless jerks. Let me tell you about the Terran Navy: you have to buy your way into it. A slot at the naval academy costs more than the combined yearly income of everyone on Candus. After playing and partying for four years, you then have to buy your way into the fleet. Your rank depends on how much you pay for your slot and not on your abilities or experience. There are actually a few people who became admirals straight out of the academy. I hate thinking about how much money they had to spend. More than this planet makes in ten years, I bet.”
“Well, how did you get in, then if you have to buy your way in?”
“Marine grunts, like I was, have to apply and earn the spot—same with some of the navy crew. There are only twenty or thirty people on each ship who actually run things. The ships are automated and you only have to keep the systems up and running.”
“I thought each ship had hundreds or thousands of people on them?”
“They do: the rest of the enlisted are used to wait on the officers. Each officer has at least four enlisted crew members assigned as their personal servants, and some have even more. Being a servant to one of those punks is not something you’d want to do.”
“I’d join up with one of them, if they asked me. They’re so handsome. Being with a navy officer would be a great way to get off this planet.”
“You’d find yourself used as a play thing, and when they were done with you, you’d be traded to another officer. If no one wanted you, they’d make up some lie about you, fine you for every cent in your bank account, and drop you off at the nearest port without any money and no way home. You’d have to do horrible things to get back here. The last thing you want is to get involved with an officer. Nothing would ever come out of it, they already have wives lined up from some rich family or through a political connection. You’d never last.”
“Is that what happened to you? Did they use you up and then dump you after you left?”
“No. I spent my ten years on active duty and left. Took my money and went to live on Era—”
“Era,” Cindy interrupted. “That’s an inner-core world! Why would you ever leave and come back here? Why would anyone leave an inner-core world?”
“Everything there was so expensive that I had to live in a closet-sized room in the sub-basement and eat beans out of a can in order to survive. I couldn’t find a good-paying job without local references, and the jobs I could find didn’t pay enough to live on. I spent half of my savings in less than a year just trying to survive on Era. I barely made it back here with enough money to buy this place.
“The amount of money it takes to live on an inner-core world is beyond your imagination. You have to take these things slow and set your sights on making life better for your kids. My kids will go to an inner-rim planet for school, and theirs will go to an outer-core planet for school. In four or five generations, the McKinsey family will be living on an inner-core world. It takes time to change your family’s future.”
“Maybe, but that doesn’t help me today. I want off this ball of mud, and I can’t wait generations.” Cindy went back to looking at her data pad, thinking about going to talk to Mrs. Wellington. She wanted a better life, and she wanted it now.
Chapter 8
“Well? What are you going to do about it?” Jason Jakob asked his training partner and friend, Michael Lee.
“I don’t know,” Michael said. “Every time I try bringing up the subject, she gets angry. I don’t know how to talk to her about it.”
“Oh, come on, man, you should be able to think of something to say to her. Doesn’t she know you own a business? How many people on this dirty, little planet can say that? Even in this so-called free city, most people don’t own their own businesses. Doesn’t she know how much better her life would be if you and her became an item?”
Michael Lee was a rare person on a corporate-owned planet, because he owned his own business. His father had spent twenty years as a marine, saving almost every credit he earned. Once he was too old to continue, he came back to Candus City and opened a martial arts dojo. People on Candus did not have the opportunity to use medical nanites to keep them healthy and in shape, so the dojo offered them a fun way to exercise and stay healthy.
“She knows I own this place, but she doesn’t care. She’s always talking about leaving the planet,” Michael said. “She won’t take the next step in our relationship unless I can find a way to leave. She’s been dreaming of getting off Candus almost her whole life.”
“Everyone here has the same dream, but how many of us follow through? Has she even considered ways to leave?”
“I don’t know. She hasn’t said what her plan is.”
“There you go. Isn’t she about to turn sixteen? She should have already figured it out by now, if she wants off. When she finally figures out that it’s easier to dream than actually do it, she’ll change her mind.”
“That might be true, but it doesn’t help me move us forward today. I understand she’ll have to make up her own mind, but how long will that take?”
“What difference does it make?” Jason asked. “You two still see each other whenever she has time.”
“I feel like something is missing. Most of the people I grew up with have already started families. I need someone to take over the dojo when I’m old, and that’s going to take decades of training.”
“It may be time to cut her loose, then. I know of a lot of other girls who would be happy to start a family with a business owner. Living here and working in a dojo would be paradise compared to marrying a potato farmer.”
“You think? I know I’m not good looking—”
“You could look like a lump of coal and it wouldn’t matter,” Jason interrupted. “Almost every single girl and a few married ones on this planet would jump at the chance to marry a business owner and move into town. You grew up in Candus City—you don’t know what it’s like away from here. This might be a backwater city, but compared to a life in the potato fields, this is glamorous. All you have to do is pick one; they’ll come running.”
“I did pick one. It didn’t work.”
“Pick another one, then. Cindy might be about the only person on Candus who doesn’t recognize what she has right in front of her face. She’s a nice girl and all, but if she can’t figure out what life’s really like, you shouldn’t have to suffer for her stupidity.”
“She’s not stupid, but I hope she’ll figure it out.” Michael said as he walked into his dojo.
“Whatever, man,” Jason followed him. “I just hope she doesn’t mash your heart to much before then. You deserve to be happy, too.”
*****
The two friends started putting on their protective gear. Over the years, Michael had learned multiple forms of martial arts and exotic exercise routines from his dad, but the one he loved most was a form of sword fighting called Kenjutsu. After his dad had showed him an ancient Japanese sword, which had been handed down from father to son for nearly a thousand years, Michael was hooked. He had spent thousands of hours practicing with practice swords while secretly wishing he could use his family’s sword. Even after a millennium, it looked brand new.
He had spent a lot of time reading historical sword-making texts to try to find out how they made swords that would stay sharp for thousands of years. While he was known throughout the galaxy as one of the best sword-makers alive, he wouldn’t stop until he could duplicate the ancient sword-maki
ng technique.
Jason finished putting on his gear and walked out onto the training pad. The two friends bowed to each other before taking their stances. Michael focused on his training partner and friend as they stared at each other across the wooden floor. “Don’t hold back this time,” he taunted Jason. He almost always won these bouts and liked to urge Jason on. Michael was better at the sword than his friend, but Jason was better at ground fighting.
