Learning the Hard Way 2

by H. P. Caledon

  “No, no.” Keelan held out his arm for her to take. She sized him up before taking his arm and showed him down the next crossing street.

  “Where are you from?” she asked without sounding overly interested in the answer.

  “From far away. My captain fired me for having an affair with his daughter in the cargo hold. Guess how embarrassing it was to get caught. So now I’m looking for a ride home.”

  The woman snickered and walked a bit closer. He glanced her way and felt his body react to her presence. That was not part of the plan either! But he hadn’t had sex in more than a year now. That thought didn’t help his resolve. He only needed a guide, he told himself again, as if his body cared.

  “Which end of the freight docks do you need?”

  “Don’ care, I have to start somewhere,” Keelan said.

  “Well, we’re there. It’s the orange zone.” She pointed toward a huge gate at the end of the street. To each side ran a tall fence. Lights shone on the portal and revealed a dirty orange color. He could see the freighters through the fence even though it was dark, but only the first few rows.

  Keelan stopped and looked at her.

  “Anything else?” she asked and stepped closer.

  His body’s reaction became stronger, and he hesitated to give her the money for the company as his guide.

  She looked at the money in her hand. “You sure?” She put her hand on his thigh.

  He gasped and cleared his throat. “No. I’m not sure.”

  She smiled and gently pushed him backward into an alley.

  Chapter Six

  Keelan walked into the orange zone, ready to look for a freighter. He smiled to himself and looked over his shoulder at where he’d just left the woman. But of course, she was gone.

  The sun had just broken the horizon, and the tempo on the docks sped up as ships took off or landed and cargo was loaded or unloaded.

  Keelan stopped by a transporter and scouted the dock. He did know what ship to choose because a big ship would mean a lot of people on board and thus a bigger risk of him being recognized—if he was wanted in that big a radius, that was. Another disadvantage was that he wouldn’t be able to slip away if he was on a ship with a big crew. If it was a smaller ship, then maybe he had a chance, at least at neutralizing the threats.

  Such a ship was being loaded, and they were just about done as far as he could see, so he approached the man directing two other men in their work.

  “Good morning,” Keelan said and stopped as the man turned and took in the sight of him.

  “We don’t bring hoppers.” The guy turned his back to Keelan again.

  “Good, because that wasn’t my question.” Keelan was about to leave when the man turned to look at him.

  “Then what was?”

  Keelan shook his head and left. “Die from curiosity!”

  Fifteen minutes later, his stomach reminded him that it had been a long time since he’d had a solid meal. The soup had certainly passed his system. Not far from where he stood, he noticed a diner.

  Maybe someone there knows who’s going to Silliton.

  Keelan went in, looked around, and nodded to himself. It was a motley crew of all species and races both in the booths and at the counter. Keelan chose to sit somewhere between the two entrances and with a third exit through the kitchen. He took off his jacket and ordered breakfast and coffee which he enjoyed while listening in on peoples’ conversations. Maybe he would get lucky.

  A pack of varanuides—a big, scaly species with uncommonly overdeveloped torsos—came in and sat down not far from him. One of them came to stand next to Keelan.

  “Excuse me, have you heard of anyone who’s going to Silliton? I was abandoned,” Keelan said. The varanuide looked at Keelan. He looked young.

  “Uhm, we are,” the varanuide said. Keelan turned in his chair and nodded at the pack.

  A more weathered-looking one left the table and joined them, smiling less than politely. “I’m sorry, we don’t have room for one more.”

  “Okay, thanks.” Keelan turned to mind his plate again. The two varanuides left, and the chair disappeared beneath Keelan, who even managed to pull his plate with him as he crashed to the floor.

  One of the varanuides yelped while the rest left the table to come to their aid. Two hauled Keelan up and apologized profusely while the others closed in on the little one. And that was when Keelan noticed the tail. It was a youngling—only the younglings still had their tail as far as Keelan remembered. Apparently, he’d accidently swiped the chair away from under Keelan with his tail.

  “It’s okay, accidents happen. But if you’d knocked over my coffee you’d have been harder to forgive.” Keelan winked at the big kid before he wiped at a new stain on his shirt.

  “Please, let us pay for your food. And more coffee.” The weathered varanuide put his arm around the young.

  “Uhm, thanks.”

  The waitress showed herself, and Keelan and the varanuides ordered. The varanuides paid and moved to the other end of the diner.

  Keelan enjoyed his free food and coffee even though it frustrated him that he’d finally found someone going to Silliton, but that they didn’t want to take him. He left the diner and found a place to sit so he could scout both up and down the freight dock. He wasn’t ready to abandon the idea of finding a freighter. The only other alternative he could think of was to steal one, but that wouldn’t exactly cover his tracks.

  The varanuides left the diner, and two of the adults left for the freighter with the young while the weathered one approached Keelan.

  Maybe they changed their mind?

  He didn’t dare hope, though.

  “We really don’t have room for you. We don’t have any quarters to offer you,” the varanuide said.

  “I don’t need more than a blank spot to lie on. Even if that means in the cargo hold,” Keelan said.

  The varanuide looked thoughtful for a minute. “You can sleep on the sofa in the common room. I am the captain. My name is Koolmok.”

  “Dean Pen,” Keelan said, not knowing where the hell he got that name. Then he remembered. The first juvenile penitentiary he was sent to on Verion four was called Dean Pen—short for Dean W. Hatchburry Juvenile Penitentiary.

  “Can you pay for food?”

  “I can work.”

  “We already loaded.”

  “Unload?”

  “Okay. If you stay and help us unload when we land. And you can help move the cargo into place now.”

  “You have my word,” Keelan said.

  “A human’s word. Never did mean much,” Koolmok muttered.

  Keelan looked at the captain, angry at having his word thrown back in his face.

  Koolmok gasped. “You’re a minority!”

  Keelan looked away, ashamed.

  “Evo-race. Where from?” Koolmok inquired.

  “I have no idea. I was found abandoned by rat hunters.”

  “Behind the Mining-steps?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What do you do for work?” Koolmok asked and showed Keelan back to the freighter.

  Keelan shouldered his bag and followed. “I’m in between jobs. I want to go home, but I have a few things to take care of on Silliton first.”

  “Home? Verion four?” Koolmok persisted. Keelan noticed the youngling’s eyes on him as they stepped onto the freighter. “Where did you grow up?”

  “Institution. I’m...” Keelan really didn’t want to tell them more, but lying to that species was not easy.

  “You don’t want to share your childhood experiences. We respect that.” Koolmok turned and walked up the ramp.

  They showed Keelan his space before taking him through the rules on the ship. He was logged into the computer as a hired help and was given a pillow and a blanket.

  He then helped the youngling and its adé, which to Keelan’s knowledge was the parent who gave birth to the young. Or in their case laid the egg. The other one was then the ada. Keelan didn�
�t know more about their reproductive systems as he also understood that the species only had one gender and that pregnancies were a result of hormonal balances or cycles. He forgot which, or was it both?

  The youngling’s name was Saleek, and he was twenty-two Earth Years old. In human years that would make him about eight or nine. And if all varanuide younglings were as much of a hand full as that one, Keelan understood the reason why varanuides by nature were so patient regarding children.

  The freighter’s startup window was given eight hours later, and Keelan felt relieved to be on his way away from Motáll. But he was not too thrilled about the young Saleek’s attention. He asked so many questions and was mischievous. Keelan thus found it difficult to find the peace and quiet that he needed. Some of it he found by spending a lot of time in the cargo hold where he thought about his plans, again and again, to make sure he had it all ready.

  “Dean?” someone yelled from upstairs. Koolmok came down moments later. “Are you down here?”

  “Yes. Just needed time to think.” Keelan scrambled to make his whereabouts known.

  Koolmok pulled a crate closer and sat. “You’re not used to children. Saleek is very fond of you and used to getting attention. Our species is like that. I’ll talk to him about it, though.” Koolmok patted Keelan’s knee. “Dinner is served.”

  Keelan nodded and smiled, gratefully. “Thanks.”

  Koolmok pushed the crate back into its place, and Keelan followed him upstairs. Saleek kept glancing at Keelan during dinner while Keelan tried to avoid being part of the conversation.

  “Dean, do you have any children?” Saleek asked. Koolmok glanced at Keelan and seemed to weigh the situation.

  “No, I don’t,” Keelan said.

  “But you’re going to, right?”

  Keelan looked at Saleek and smiled. “Takes more than one to make a kid.”

  “Don’t you have a mate?” Saleek seemed to have lost all interest in his food.

  “Saleek, eat,” Koolmok said quietly.

  “I can’t answer you, Saleek, I never thought about making a family before,” Keelan said and regretted it as he now had the entire pack’s attention.

  “No plans for futures?” asked Saleek’s adé.

  “Just mine for now. I have nothing to offer a child,” Keelan said while contemplating why varanuides referred to a child as a future.

  “If you can love a child, then you have something to offer it. To raise a future demands a sacrifice from your side. A sacrifice for which you will receive the most important gift of all.” Koolmok caressed Saleek, who purred a deep rumbling sound.

  Keelan smiled. “Yeah, well, I’ve seen too many wasted destinies grow up because someone couldn’t sacrifice what was needed after all. I won’t subject anyone to that.”

  “Is that why you don’t have a pack?” Saleek asked, looking sad.

  “Didn’t have that where I grew up.” To Keelan’s luck, they didn’t delve any further into it, but Saleek didn’t regain his appetite that night.

  Keelan cleaned the kitchen by himself, once again to be alone, and he pondered the ill fortune in the fortune of ending up on that particular freighter. He should have known that a pack of varanuides would try to be sociable all the time—such was the species.

  Koolmok came to stand in the doorway. “I’ve talked to Saleek and the others. You’re not the first young man we’ve met whose misfortunes in childhood have reached into their adult social lives. You are a loner. We understand and respect it.”

  Keelan thought he detected sadness in Koolmok and didn’t want to seem ungrateful, but before he could think of a way around it and something to say, Koolmok spoke again and thus derailed his train of thought.

  “Do you like to read?”

  “Huh? Yes.”

  “Come to my room afterward. I have some books you may borrow. You can even use my room to be alone during the day.” Koolmok turned and left Keelan with a bitter taste.

  Over the next nine weeks, Keelan read almost half of the captain’s books. At least the ones in a language he understood. Saleek didn’t ask such intimate questions anymore, and Keelan noticed the drop in conversation when they ate. When Keelan left Koolmok’s room during the day, it was like the pack also tried to keep a physical distance from him or ignore him. It wasn’t what he’d wanted, but he found it safest.

  Keelan sat at the desk in Koolmok’s room and read when Koolmok rapped at the door and entered.

  “Our window is in two hours.”

  “Thanks,” Keelan said. Koolmok left the room, and Keelan put the book back in its place and packed his things. As he exited the room, he found the common area empty, so he made his way to the hatch leading down to the cargo hold. But he stopped as he heard Saleek ask a question.

  “Isn’t he coming down to help?”

  “Saleek, when you become older you’ll learn that not all human children are supported in their upbringing. It’s sad, but Dean is a result of such an upbringing,” Koolmok answered.

  “Some are less fortunate. They spend their entire adult lives in prison because no one showed them the respect and love they needed as a child,” Saleek’s adé said.

  “So the humans in prison are just children no one loved?” Saleek asked.

  Keelan chose to enter the cargo hold at that point to help. “Think there are more assholes than exceptions in there.” Keelan smiled tentatively at Saleek and began helping with the cargo. Saleek smiled back and didn’t ask any more questions. It also pleased Keelan to notice that the pack didn’t keep the kind of distance they had during the trip.

  During the landing, Keelan kept his eyes on the way the captain maneuvered the ship. The landing was soft, and Keelan once again got the mental image of how the prison transport had just plummeted. It couldn’t have taken them that long to figure out something was wrong once daytime hadn’t been accompanied by a lot of people trying to fix what he’d reported was wrong and thus landed in a repair dock to get fixed. He was excited to get his hands on a news update.

  But he kept his word and helped unload the cargo.

  “You kept your word. Good luck with whatever it is you need to do.” Koolmok held his hand out.

  “Thank you.” Keelan held his hand above, palm up and no physical contact, like a varanuide had taught him when he was sixteen and had tried to pick the varanuide’s pockets. Other than learning how to greet a friend according to the varanuide customs, Keelan had also been given fifty credits and a smile for being caught trying to steal. Had he been an adult or just farther along in his puberty it would probably not have gone as well.

  Saleek pushed his way through and hugged Keelan, who had to remind himself that the creature his own size hugging him was just a child.

  “Have a good life, Saleek, and take care of each other, okay?”

  “I will, Keelan. You take care of yourself, too.”

  “I will,” Keelan promised and left. He cast a glance over his shoulder as he reached the gates to the spaceport and waved to them. All four stood where he’d left them and waved at him.

  Quirky kid, but smart.

  Keelan left the main roads, as they were still too populated for his liking. He hid in a shack in the backyard of some huge building complex and waited for the night to settle on Silliton so he could move freely in his attempt to track Mike or Cecil.

  His thoughts kept going back to the varanuides and their seeing him off. He wouldn’t have thought of getting such a warm farewell when they had tried to avoid him for nine weeks. He especially thought about Saleek’s farewell. A tight hug and Keelan, take care—

  Keelan? Had the kid called him Keelan?

  For a second he felt paralyzed, and he recapped the incident again and again in his mind. And yeah, there was no doubt in his mind—Saleek had called him Keelan, and the others hadn’t seemed to think it weird. Keelan rubbed his face and noticed to his irritation that his hand was shaking. So he’d made the news after all—which he hadn’t watched with them beca
use he couldn’t function socially in a pack.

  The conversation he’d overheard in the cargo hold suddenly made sense. The only question for him was whether they’d turn him in or not.

  Darkness had fallen before Keelan came out from hiding and made his way back to the spaceport. Saleek’s knowledge of his true identity had bothered him all day—so much so that he hadn’t managed to sleep. The freighter was still there, but he had no intentions of going down there and knock to ask if it was just his brain playing him when he remembered Saleek calling him Keelan.

  Instead, he went into town and looked for Cecil. Equipped with only poor knowledge of the planet, he walked the streets until he found a tasarik bar and played a few games while talking with the other patrons about a bit of everything. He wasn’t much smarter when he left, but he did find out that the slave market was open in three days. Two-hundred credits poorer than when he went in, Keelan left the bar in the early hours and made his way back to his hideout.

  Slave market in three days. Wonder if Cecil will make an appearance. I have no knowledge of slave markets, but if you’re tracking a collector, then it has to be the place to look for one. They gotta stay up to date with the market too, don’t they? If a market like that evolves, that is.

  Keelan slept a bit more that day and ventured out again shortly before dark. He was hungry and bought some food which he took with him to a rooftop of a building close to the spaceport. From there he could scout as far as the darkness and lights allowed him in either direction while he ate and enjoyed the diversity of the foods’ taste. He was certain that he’d missed some flavors and was definitely going to make up for it.

  As he finished, he looked down onto the street. Not many were out that time of night. On the other side of the street, he saw a trashcan, so he crumbled up the wrapping and chucked it in that direction, but the wrapping ended up on the roof of a transporter next to it instead.

  “Oops.” Keelan laughed. The rest of the food he stuffed into his backpack. Then he stood. He had to find the place where the slave market would be held to do a little research.