Titanium Texicans

by Alan Black

  Everyone was in such a fuss to push him into being an Ortiz and not a gringo. Wasn’t that worse than calling him what he was. He didn’t mind being a gringo. He’d always been one, although when you live with no one around but family it doesn’t really matter. Trying to push him into being a Texican and molding him into something he wasn’t was worse than name-calling. His mind did a little stutter step. The Lamonts called him a bastard, setting him off in a rage. He was a bastard by all definitions. Why did he mind being called a bastard and not a gringo? Both had to do with his heritage and his parents. He was only half gringo and half Texican, if this missing Ortiz man really was his father, but he was still all bastard.

  He was going to say something to Flacco, but Macias’s voice cut through the babble of the crowd around them. “Mira, amigos, I was mistaken about cleaning this place up. It would take our whole crew, including the captain, engineering, grooms, and even galley slaves, if we had galley slaves, more than a year to go through this mess. We have our work cut out for us.”

  Tasso knew she was right. He’d worked in the attic for a few months and he hadn’t even scratched the surface. There were still huge sections he’d never even seen with a cursory glance. He was glad someone else was in charge, but he knew he was going to miss working alone, doing what he wanted, whenever he wanted. He was certainly glad to have Anisa in the same general vicinity. He amended his thoughts to add he was glad Kendra was here, too. He wasn’t too happy to have Flacco and Ivan in his attic, although Ivan was with the security team and only there one day a week for his community service. One day was too often for Tasso’s tastes.

  Macias’ voice interrupted his thoughts again. “First order of business before we start getting our hands dirty. Many of you are adult crew and will not like taking orders from trainees, but Tasso Menzies is our straw boss. Take whatever he says as coming directly from me. Anyone have a problem with taking orders from Tasso?”

  A huge crewman reached around and punched Tasso on the shoulder. “Not me, jefe, as long as we get bonuses for the stuff we find like he does.”

  Tasso didn’t realize the news of his recent credit gains was making the gossip rounds. He was surprised because he knew he didn’t tell anyone about his recent riches. Having so many credits was more embarrassing than the time the cheerleaders caught him in the corridor in a wet towel. Money was not a subject for bragging.

  The crewman laughed. “He’s saved maintenance a bundle with some of the spare parts he sent us.”

  Macias nodded. “The captain has authorized continued bonuses based on standard and published rates. However, the bonus schedule doesn’t mean we’re here for treasure hunting. We’re here to clean this up and evaluate anything of worth. As most of you know, we have a mixture of crew specialties. I’m from accounting.”

  Flacco muttered, “Bean counter!”

  Tasso thought the boy was quiet enough for few people to hear him, but Macias glanced at Flacco. “Yes. I’m a bean counter. I’m here to evaluate the monetary value of the goods stored here. Hector,” she pointed at the huge crewman, “in addition to being our premier offensive lineman, is here to evaluate any parts and equipment for reuse. Also, he and his team are to work directly with Tasso, making the agricultural-processing units mobile.”

  She pointed at another trio, “Heime, Tonya, and Issy are here as librarians, historians, and data miners. Most of the rest of us are just grunt labor. We’ll share any bonus in equal portions on everything we find, evaluate, and process from this point forward.”

  She crooked a finger at Tasso. “Come here, Menzies.” She spun him around to face the crew. “I’m not climbing into this mess. You’ll bring it out to me when you find something good. So, where do we start, Menzies?”

  Tasso shrugged. He’d never been in charge before. He’d never even been in charge of himself until his grandfather died and later here in the attic. “I suggest everyone set a marker for this location in their locators. It can be easy to get lost in here. And even though I don’t always use the paths between the piles, with this many people in here, we should be careful about climbing on the stacks. Some of these piles are unbalanced, and climbing on them can cause them to slide about.” He wasn’t worried for himself as he grew up climbing canyon and gully walls. However, with this many people, things could shift quickly. “I guess we should partner up.” He glanced at Anisa, hoping Señorita Macias would let them pick their own partners.

  Macias nodded. She quickly paired off trainees with crewmembers and allowed the remaining crewmembers to partner up. She grabbed Tasso by the shoulder and said, “You’re officially my partner. I’m not going into this mess unless I have to. That’ll leave you to take an overview and go where we need your expertise. What’s first, Señor Straw Boss?”

  Tasso said, “The captain asked me to get the agricultural-processing units working and mobile. That is my first priority.”

  Hector said, “That’s for me. The captain already has the transportation department stripping down some old shuttles and retrofitting lifters to fit.”

  Tasso showed Hector where he had marked the ag-units location on the shipment spreadsheet. “I can take you there and show you.” He looked at Macias. “I really think we should start at the edge of the front clear space. Pull down a stack, sort it, process it, to see what we have and then move to the next stack. I hate to mess up this clear workspace, but we could start stacking like items together for disposal or recycling or … whatever. That way we kind of work our way from front to back with this many people.”

  Macias grinned. “Good. That’s what we’ll do. We process one stack at a time so we don’t spread the mess. Good. That means, no more haphazard looking at this and that. No one except Tasso, that is. The captain was clear he could dig into any corner he wants to look at.

  CHAPTER 32

  TASSO EVENTUALLY had Maria Macias put special locator tags on everyone working in the attic. Over the following weeks it became harder to keep track of people as they began getting volunteers coming in to work a few off-shift hours. Macias assigned a special assistant to tag everyone’s locators and partner them up before turning them loose to tear down a new stack for sorting.

  The attic cleanup project started slow, but halfway through their first stack, the cleanup crew discovered a dozen crates of fine porcelain and crystal dinnerware with platinum utensils. The team of Heime, Tonya, and Issy tracked the goods back to a shipment of disaster relief goods sent by a planet of overly wealthy do-gooders and rejected by the planet’s emergency manager more in need of rice and beans than luxury goods. The captain, the current Captain Rojo, had traded rice and beans for the goods and had the dinnerware sent to the attic, promptly forgetting about them. The bonus for finding such expensive luxury goods for everyone on the cleanup crew was substantial. Once word spread, so did a growing pool of volunteers. Each subsequent find of bonus-qualifying goods was interspersed by clusters of usable, yet unused and unexciting items.

  There were enough hidden treasures to keep everyone excited by the hunt. The hunting spirit skyrocketed when someone uncovered a chest full of various planetary coins from a recently deceased crewmember. The ship’s standing order was to put such goods into the attic until claimed by family. The ship’s operational procedures didn’t list how long something lay unclaimed before being repurposed. Their information team determined the coins weren’t going to be claimed as the crewmember didn’t have any known family and hadn’t left a will. Macias decided the coins were worthless by themselves unless you were on the originating planet. However, because they were in a collection, labeled, and in protective sleeves, they were valuable to many coin collectors.

  Hector’s crew more than doubled in size as they moved the agriculture-processing units into the clear area, unpacked them, and worked to mount them on shuttle-sized lifters provided by the transportation department. They read and reread each manual at Tasso’s insistence. It didn’t matter if they were all the same type of machine. He
insisted that if they were different models of the same machine then their manuals were different, if only slightly so. Hector’s crew worked next to the security team as Rodriguez decided to mount the cannon on its own lifter.

  Rodriguez’s team had only found one cannon, but security was thrilled with the goods found in the other red-striped crates. They uncovered handguns, long rifles, sniper equipment, and most exciting to them were crates of personal armor and anti-weapon defense systems. The majority of the red-striped crates contained non-working, second-hand military surplus, but they were sure they could get some of it working.

  They took piles of packing material to the ship’s recyclers. The waste management department finally sent a team to the attic with a huge compacter and set up a recycling site inside the attic. Tasso managed to setup a storage bin for cellulose material to refill Cherry’s extruder.

  Retro-styled used clothing was becoming fashionable as Macias had serviceable goods cleaned and offered for sale at a fraction of the cost of new clothing. Someone hung a sign over the attic’s main hatch that said ‘space’s largest garage sale’. Tasso didn’t know what a garage sale was, but he was seeing almost as many people come through the attic as he ever saw on the promenade.

  It became almost a party-like atmosphere when a few vendors set up booths with drinks and snacks for the workers and garage sale shoppers. Even though the vendors were not part of the bonus system, they were enjoying a tidy profit every time Macias posted a bonus. The smell of pork carnitas and roasted hatch chilies wafted through the attic from the front hatch to the rear bulkhead.

  All of this and they hadn’t even worked a small fraction of the way through the first row of piled goods. Macias was right; this was going to be a long task. The whole process became longer as various departments brought more goods to the attic from warehouse back corners all over the ship for storage, processing, and redistribution. Some departments gave them lists of their desired items, what Hector called their wish lists. Tasso tried to direct search teams into the stacks, attempting to fill the orders. It meant that small teams were in all parts of the attic, often finding more treasure as they searched.

  Tasso gave up sleeping on the packing material back in the far corner even though he didn’t think anyone ever went that deep into the attic except Tio Gabe and him. There was too much activity to get any rest, for him anyway. As usual, his last duty for the day was to check on Tio Gabe and on many days he left the old man asleep atop Tasso’s homemade pallet.

  Tasso’s shift in the attic was almost over, Tio Gabe was taking his afternoon nap, and he needed to go to Cherry’s soon to work his part-time job, but he wanted to see Anisa first. He knew where she was as he had her location tagged on his dataport. He still ignored the paths when there wasn’t anyone else around, and he headed straight to her location. She must have been looking for something specific since she and her partner were about three rows deep into the attic.

  He slid down one hill and scooted around a corner. He skidded to a halt and stared in surprise. Ivan was kissing Anisa and she was kissing him back. Tasso clenched his fists, took a step forward, and stopped. He took a step back and unclenched his fists. She never said she was his girlfriend. He assumed she liked him since she’d kissed him repeatedly, but it apparently meant little to her.

  Ivan glanced up and broke the embrace with Anisa. Tasso thought Ivan should be embarrassed, but somehow the other boy looked triumphant and more than a little pleased with himself.

  Anisa spun around to face Tasso. “Oh, Tasso. It’s just a kiss. It doesn’t mean anything.”

  Tasso asked, “What doesn’t mean anything? Kissing him or kissing me? Or neither of us?”

  Anisa huffed, turned away, turned back, and shouted at Tasso, “Don’t get all possessive on me! You don’t own me! I kiss who I want and when I want! I guess I don’t need to kiss you if you don’t like it.” She turned and stormed off.

  Ivan grinned. “You best watch your backside, greenhorn. That is one point for our team, but we still owe you for getting Cruz kicked off the ship. And I always collect what’s owed me.” He turned and followed Anisa out of the stacks.

  CHAPTER 33

  TASSO HANDED the last special run of packing straps to the two crewmembers from the equestrian department on Deck RR. He’d looked up equestrian and found that it meant horses, so he extruded the straps with the department designation interspersed with pictures of running horses. Since the crew request hadn’t specified color, he experimented with the color, found a setting for random colors, and let the machine run. The straps shifted color every few feet, often swirling from one color into the next. The crewmembers were clearly ecstatic, the woman even kissing him on the cheek. The man would have kissed him as well, but Tasso managed to duck behind Cherry just in time.

  He waved goodnight to the crewmembers as Cherry locked the front door behind them to close up with a sigh. Tasso smiled. Cherry’s little business wasn’t really little anymore. He sat at the extruder and began stuffing the bin full of material. His last chore of the day was to make sure everything was as neat and tidy as he could make it, but he wasn’t quite ready to quit for the night.

  Cherry and Ain might be done for the day, but he still had a whole list of special orders he needed to make and he didn’t have any reason to rush away from Cherry’s. Going to his cabin alone didn’t hold any appeal. His original plan for the evening was to meet Anisa for supper, but now he wasn’t hungry and he sure wasn’t going to go looking for her.

  Anisa made it sound like he was at fault for her and Ivan kissing. He hadn’t been spying on her and he hadn’t been kissing Ivan. She should’ve been embarrassed instead of acting like he was in the wrong for stumbling across them. He wasn’t going to go chasing after her even if she wanted him to and she could kiss anyone she wanted. In fact, she could kiss everyone but him for all he cared. He was happy being alone, even here at Cherry’s it would be nice to be alone after she and Ain went home.

  Cherry interrupted his thoughts, “We’re going to have to get a bigger place if our business keeps growing.”

  Ain’s voice floated from the backroom. “Gabby is going to move her shoe store from next door. She wants to be down by Maribell’s dress shop where Mundo’s Tacos used to be. We could tear down the wall between us. We can certainly afford the rent on double the space.”

  “Now that’s a good idea, partner.” She looked over at Tasso. “What do you think, mijo?”

  Tasso shrugged. He wanted to be supportive and enthusiastic, but that was hard to do. He was still trying to reconcile the picture of Anisa kissing Ivan, with the girl who had kissed him at the football game, with the 3D image of her many times great grandmother as a young girl dancing topless on the captain’s desk. “I like it here just the way it is. Besides, we can’t run this extruder any faster than it already runs, and we can’t keep the racks and shelves filled up as it is.”

  Ain stepped around the corner. “He is right, Cherry. We are doing a lot more business, but we still aren’t keeping up any better than we were when we couldn’t get hair ribbons delivered on time from Schnitzer’s Merchandise Shipping. We cannot run the extruder more than we do now, because then we would have to make sales to customers because we had goods on the shelves, and we wouldn’t have goods on the shelves unless we were running the extruder more. Ayeeee, why is being a successful woman so hard.”

  Cherry said, “Don’t ask me. This is the first time I’ve succeeded before.”

  Tasso laughed, “Don’t ask me either, because I’ve never been a woman before.”

  Cherry shook her head. “Well, we’re going to have to hire more help. Maybe we can get two someones. We can afford it if we can find the right people. Tasso, can you teach someone else to run the extruder when you aren’t here?”

  Tasso nodded, although his heart sank a little. This was his special niche and he was going to have to share it. He put on a smile in spite of how he felt and said, “Of course, it isn’t any mo
re difficult than running a chiamra harvester or a rock jack.” He felt … putting a name to how he felt about hiring someone else was hard. He felt untied, at loose ends, and completely unraveled. This was his job, something no one else did. He thought Anisa was his girlfriend, but he was wrong. He had a little valley home back on Saronno, and that was being taken from him as well. He no longer had a private corner in the attic or a job all his own, because the attic was full of people day and night. When he left here, he couldn’t even go to his own cabin. He shared it with Rod.

  Cherry asked, “Do you have any trainee friends who might be looking for a little part time work?”

  Tasso thought about it, but shook his head. He couldn’t name one person he thought of as a friend among trainees or crew. Cherry was his boss, but was she a friend too? Ain was distant, but friendly. Gordo maybe, but the big man was friendly with everyone. Had he been friendly with Tasso simply to get close to Cherry? He really liked Kendra, but she was more Anisa’s than his friend. Still, he wasn’t sure what constituted a friend. Growing up, he only had his grandfather. How did a person judge who was a friend and who wasn’t?

  He asked, “Can you afford to hire more help?”

  Cherry laughed. “Come up here and let’s take a look.”

  Tasso set the extruder to run a special order and walked away letting the machine spit out a long roll of special rope threaded with red and gold braids. Ain took a step back from the counter as he stepped up to it. He smiled at her and tried not to take it personally. He knew she was uncomfortable around men, but he still didn’t think acting that way was friendly.

  Cherry called up a spreadsheet ledger, expanding the image over the workspace. She pointed at a number. “See the credit level?”