Titanium Texicans

by Alan Black

  He kissed Anisa a dozen more times during the football game. Watching Gordo crash into the opposition was fascinating. He cheered and yelled until he was hoarse. Every time he looked at Anisa, her lips were there.

  CHAPTER 29

  TASSO KNEW it didn’t matter how happy Anisa made him with her kisses, he was still boiling about Captain Delgado Rojo calling him an Ortiz. He didn’t care if the spaceships were swapping cargo and switching lanes. He knew he should be happy because the plan had a slim chance of getting him back to Saronno by his eighteenth birthday. The captain said there were no guarantees, but they were going to try. They hadn’t switched for him. They’d changed so they could meet with the Ortiz Freightliner Spaceship Miranda. They’d changed because Marisol Ortiz was a powerful woman with business contacts they wanted and needed. But she wasn’t his grandmother. Grandma’s grave was next to Grandpa on a rocky ledge guarded by Ol’ Ben.

  His sleep was fitful on Sunday night, so he got up early and went to the attic. Work helped. Tasso slammed his fist against the side of the agricultural-processing plant. He wanted to keep his mind on reading the manual, but he couldn’t focus.

  Three days after his meeting with the two spaceship captains, and he was still angry with Captain Delgado Rojo. The man wasn’t at fault, but Tasso wasn’t an Ortiz. He was a Menzies, born and raised. He was from Saronno, not a Texican. He was a chiamra farmer, not a space-bound trader. So what if he’d spotted a potential cargo in the Kaduna adobe bricks that had everyone going google-eyed! Anyone would’ve seen the same thing if they’d looked. Noticing the adobe bricks was no big deal.

  He bolted the platform of used crating material to the sled so it could be used to move the military equipment closer to the hatch for uncrating, and he was ready by the time the security detail arrived. The sled was a little twitchy, but he showed them how to make it work. They floated load after load of red striped crates to the open spot. The detail was happy even though it was Monday morning and they were back at work. It’d been a good weekend for most of the crew. The security detail was so happy that Tasso left them to their work. He was angry and wanted to stay that way for a while. Keeping his anger up was easier when he was alone. No matter how he tried to remain alone and keep his anger at a decent level, it didn’t seem to work.

  Tio Gabe came by to check on him. “Be respectful to your superiors, if you have any,” Tio Gabe said. He wandered off, not saying anything else.

  Tasso sighed and looked the quote up. In a rare moment, Tio Gabe had quoted a real person named Mark Twain. Except the author was not really Mark Twain. He was Samuel Clemens. In that regard, the quote was from someone who was both fictional and real at the same time. That was unusual, but Tasso still didn’t know what the old man meant. He went back to working on keeping his anger level up, when Gordo came clattering over a mountain of crates.

  “I’m looking for a three-bar nexus input terminal key,” Gordo said without preamble.

  Tasso shrugged.

  Gordo showed him a picture on his dataport. Tasso took him over near quadrant ZZ-001 to a scrapped pile of old refrigeration units. The part Gordo needed was still in place because Tasso had stopped working in the back corner to dig into the agricultural-processing plants. A quick test proved the part was still viable.

  “I’d kiss you if it wouldn’t make Cherry jealous,” Gordo said.

  “I’d let you kiss me, but it’d make Anisa jealous,” he replied.

  Gordo laughed. “And from what I hear, that makes Kendra as jealous as a green-eyed ogre.”

  Tasso didn’t get the reference, but he was surprised Kendra was jealous of Anisa and him. “I like Kendra. I really do, it’s that she isn’t … well, she isn’t Anisa.”

  Gordo nodded. “That would be a hard choice, Tasso. It’d be a matter of deciding if you liked dating a pretty girl with raven hair or dating a pretty girl with raven hair. Such a dilemma! Anyway, thanks for the three-bar nexus input terminal key. You’ve saved me once again.”

  Tasso nodded. “That’s what I’m here for, amigo.” As he used the Spanish word for friend, it set his teeth on edge. He wasn’t of Spanish decent. He was raised Scottish and he didn’t know the Scottish word for friend. He made a mental note to look it up after Gordo left. However, once the man went back to the maintenance bay, Tasso climbed his way back to the ag-unit, completely forgetting to look up anything.

  Before Tasso even returned to the manual, another deep male voice interrupted him, “Help! I’m so lost in here.”

  Sighing in frustration and climbing a stack of boxes, he looked down. He didn’t know what to expect, but he was surprised to see the captain and the purser. He slid down the pile to them rather than climb down. A small avalanche of packing material followed him collecting at his feet.

  “Captain,” he said. “Purser Rojo. It’s good to see you both. How may I help you?”

  “Stop lying to me,” the captain said. Her smile took the sting out of her words.

  “Captain Rojo, I don’t understand. I’ve tried to be as truthful with you as I know how to be.”

  “Except now,” she smiled. “You’re no happier to see Billy and me in your private playroom than if we were a couple of cold turkey turds in the tater salad.”

  Tasso shook his head. “I’m sorry. The attic isn’t mine. It’s yours and you have every right to be here any time you want.”

  She smiled. “I know, but good people always make their work their own. They take ownership and pride in what they do. And the really good ones resent anyone coming in to tell them to do what they’re already doing.”

  Tasso was confused. “I’m sorry you’re unhappy with my work. I’ve always tried to do what you tell me—”

  Bill said, “You’ve been obedient and more, Señor Menzies. We’re not here to cause you problems or to criticize anything you’ve done. We’re here to thank you for what you’ve already done for us, for this ship, and her crew. The only way we’d be happier is if you really did play wide receiver on the trainee team. Gordo says you’d be a natural.”

  The captain said, “Enough football, Billy. We had two games over the last weekend. That should be enough, even for you. Now, Trainee Menzies, I gather something is bothering you.”

  Tasso shook his head.

  “Nonsense. You can talk to me or I’ll order you to go talk to a therapist.”

  Tasso frowned. “A what?”

  Bill laughed. “A therapist. She threatens to send me to one all the time. We have a couple of head shrinks—” He saw the confused look on Tasso’s face. “No, not that kind of head shrinking, a psychologist or a psychiatrist? That doesn’t mean anything to you? They’re people who want you to talk to them about all of your problems and feelings. How you never had any privacy from your sisters until you were twelve and how your older sister was mean to you and how you were the middle child and treated terribly!”

  Tasso said, “Why would I talk to anyone about my problems?”

  Bill laughed and pointed at his sister. “That’s exactly my point.”

  The captain said, “You talk to them because they help you. Keeping things bottled up causes things to explode. When you talk to professionals they help you understand why you feel the way you feel. So, you can tell me or you can talk to them.”

  Tasso blurted out. “I’m not a Texican. I’m a Scot. I was born and raised that way. I’m not a spaceman. I was born on a farm and raised that way. This Ortiz woman isn’t my grandmother. My grandmother is dead and buried next to my mother.”

  The captain nodded in understanding, “Life is change, Tasso. Change isn’t easy. We don’t want you to change from what you were. We hope you’ll change and grow into what you can become.”

  Tasso almost shouted, but he could hear his grandfather telling him to respect his elders. He tried to keep his voice calm, though it cracked with anger. “You aren’t doing what you do for me. You’re doing it for you. You had no interest in getting me home until this Ortiz woman wanted you to b
ring me to see her. Now you can’t get there fast enough.”

  “Are you unhappy with us?” the captain asked.

  “I’m … no … I mean, I like it here. I really do. I can’t say everyone has been nice. You know not everyone here likes me. That’s okay, not everyone on Saronno likes me either and that was home. This isn’t home.”

  The captain said, “Fair enough. You’re right. We didn’t have any interest in getting you home when you first came aboard. Think about how you came to us. What remained of your family sold you off! You were half-starved, wearing rags, your home had been taken from you, and the only people who cared about you were dead: buried at your own hand. Think about it, Tasso. Would you send a child back into that?”

  Tasso said, “I’m not a child.”

  “Yes, you are!” she said emphatically. “That isn’t an insult, although most young men your age think it is. I don’t have any greater responsibility than to take care of the young people placed on my ship. Yes, it benefits this ship and our whole shipping line to go to Saronno at this time, but it benefits you also.”

  “You just said you didn’t want to send me back into that life.”

  “It’s not the same life you left. Things have changed. You’ve changed. Tasso, you’ve changed us. We’re not taking you back to your old life. We’re going together, our futures are tied. You did that. You’ve reignited a fire in us. You reminded us of why we chose this life. On Kaduna you told your friends ‘humans don’t always pick the easy way or the easy place. Independence doesn’t come about in a paradise’. Yes. I heard. I reviewed your whole trip into town on Kaduna. You reminded me why I should’ve gone. This,” she waved her arms around trying to point at everything at once, “this whole thing, this spacecraft full of my friends and family isn’t just a business. It’s an adventure we’re all in together.”

  “I didn’t know you listened in on my every conversation. I knew La Dueña Dunstan does to protect me from Armando Cruz and his friends, or is it to protect them from me?”

  Bill said, “Cruz is gone. We had him transferred to the Araña Rojo before we lifted from Kaduna. The captain just wanted to view your trip into town. And we don’t listen to everything La Dueña Dunstan has to say.”

  The captain laughed, “I should hope not, or Rosa Graham would’ve found out that young Menzies here kissed her daughter.”

  Bill shouted in surprise, “You did what?”

  The captain laughed. “Relax. This is Tasso. Remember he has a thing about scoundrels who mistreat young ladies. I’m sure he was and will continue to be a real gentleman. Rosa has nothing to worry about.”

  Bill chuckled, “Not from Tasso, but Anisa is another story all together.”

  Tasso didn’t want to mention some of the ungentlemanly thoughts he’d been having. He simply nodded.

  The captain said, “I want you to feel free to come to my office any time to talk. No therapists at this time, but you have to talk to someone, and I can’t leave it up to Tio Gabe.”

  Tasso shrugged. “Tio Gabe already gave me good advice today. He said, ‘be respectful to your superiors, if you have any’. I guess that’s as good advice as any I’ve ever gotten. It’s sure better than Grandpa, who just said to respect your elders. Grandpa’s advice doesn’t give you any leeway if your elders are idiots. Not that you’re idiots! I was thinking of Bruce Menzies.”

  The captain said, “Is that one of Tio Gabe quotes from somebody?”

  Tasso nodded, “Mark Twain.”

  “Who?”

  “I don’t know much, Captain. Some writer from Earth who is only partly real, I have to look up more on him later. However, it’s good advice even if the guy isn’t real. I think Tio Gabe knew I was feeling angry, and well … feeling a little bit used for my elder’s purposes that didn’t have anything to do with me. I was wrong. I’m sorry.”

  “There’re enough apologies to go around, okay? Let’s move on! I do have a business question. Do you really think the agricultural-processing plants might be functional? I got a response back from the manufacturer. They deny these units even exist, so they’re ours to use or sell.”

  Tasso gestured for them to follow him. Rather than go over the mound, he took them the long way around to the ag-unit. He plopped himself onto the chair by the manual and dialed up the wiring schematic in chapter nineteen, pointing to a series of wires on the diagram.

  Bill said, “Okay, Tasso. Try to explain what we’re seeing and tell it to me in simple terms as if I were a lowly purchaser and not some hot-shot mechanic or the captain of a spaceship.”

  Tasso said, “Yes, sir. I’m sure you recognize this series of electrical connections as the power control for the command input module.”

  Bill looked at the captain and shrugged, “Yeah. I can see that. So?” He obviously didn’t recognize what he was looking at.

  Tasso said. “The idiot at the factory couldn’t read his own schematics. He left out this piece of ground wire and then put in the whole array backwards. It’s an easy fix as soon as I get a piece of ground wire that fits.”

  The captain said, “How long will it take you to get the ground wire and fix this?”

  Tasso shrugged, “Um … maybe fifteen minutes.” He pointed off to one side. “There’s a stripped out flitter back there I’ve been using for spare parts. It has a ground wire that’s a perfect fit.”

  Bill laughed. “Perfect. Perfect. Perfecto.” He was so excited he fell back into Spanish.

  “Sir?” Tasso asked.

  Captain Rojo said, “You’ve stirred up some kind of radical attitude in my baby brother. All of a sudden he’s ready to start a rebellion on a dozen planets.”

  “Justo es justo, mi hermana,” Purser Rojo grunted. “Fair is fair. What my sister is saying is that we’ve seen injustice on more than one planet! Saronno isn’t an isolated incident. I’m tired of being a part of it.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Captain Rojo said, “You know the chiamra farmers on Saronno are being cheated on the price of their crop and we, the freighters, are paying over inflated prices. The co-operatives and large conglomerates like Saronno Produce Lobby Associates keep the farmers, like you and your family, in what amounts to nothing less than economic slavery. The profit all goes to some rich intermediary. That situation isn’t unique to Saronno. What Billy wants to do is get one of these agricultural-processing plants working. We can give our planetary agent the ag-unit and set them up as a buyer and the shipping agent. We’ll get a lower price if we buy direct, and the farmers will get a fair wage.”

  Bill said, “This whole thing is your idea, Tasso. You said we should do this. Now it rides on getting one of these agricultural-processing units working.”

  Tasso said, “Just one?” He patted the machine. “This is number four. I have the other three already running. All we need to do is test them.”

  The captain said, “What kind of test?”

  “We put something in one side and run it through to make sure that what comes out the other end is what we ordered. This is a commercial unit that will process anything from raw ore to garden weeds.”

  “Then you would certify it for use?” the captain asked.

  “I guess,” Tasso said. “But if you want to take it to the farmers, it might be a good idea if we mounted all four on sleds, flitter frames, or maybe even commercial grade shuttle carriages, if we could get something strong and wide enough. That’d make the units mobile. You could go from farm to farm during harvest time instead of having the farmers travel to a central location. Most farmers on Saronno have to make multiple trips to the processing plant. Going to them should be more efficient. You’d just have to shuffle containers of product back and forth—.”

  Suddenly Tasso’s dataport blasted “This is Security Sergeant Rodriguez. Señor Menzies, we need your expertise up by the attic’s main hatch.

  “Hold on, Sergeant,” he replied. He looked at the captain. “I don’t know, maybe you could set up the processin
g right at the spaceport … no, the Saronno government controls the spaceport and I don’t think they or Bruce Menzies will be too happy when you cut them out of the middle.”

  “Tasso!” Rodriguez’s voice blared. “Come on, amigo. I have a bunch of people sitting on their thumbs, waiting for you to check out if this cannon works. Quit screwing around and come on up here.”

  The captain reached up to answer the sergeant’s call, but Tasso interrupted her by responding to the security officer. “Sergeant, please go ahead and test the cannon without me if you’re in a big hurry. Just let me know so I can get to an escape pod in case you blow a hole in the side of the ship. I’m meeting with someone, and I’ll be there a soon as I’m done. In the meantime, you can get your thumb-sitters to unbox the rest of those red striped crates to see what you have.”

  “Trainee Menzies,” Rodriguez’s voice changed to an official tone. “As a crewman, I’m ordering you to come here. I’ve a piece of dangerous equipment that needs review. You’re a trainee; you don’t have important meetings, so you and your girlfriend can both shag your lazy butts up here, on the double.”

  Tasso tried not to laugh at the expression on the captain’s face. “Sergeant, that cannon isn’t dangerous unless you pull the trigger. Do not pull the trigger. However, I’ll come to the hatch as quickly as I can.”

  The captain shrugged. “Billy and I have the answers we came in for, except two. Question one: can you get these units mobile in the next month?”

  Tasso shook his head, “No, Captain. I have one old flitter platform and one pallet sled. I don’t know if the flitter platform is even viable. There may be more stuff buried in here, but at the rate I’m going, it’ll be years before I get the attic cataloged, cleaned up, and repaired or scrapped. To get the agricultural-processing units mobile, I need more lifter equipment, plus I really don’t have enough knowledge to balance a load this size on lifters.”

  She nodded, “Well, fortunately I have a whole crew and the resources of this whole ship. Let me see what I can put together for you.”