A Gluttony of Plutocrats (The Respite Trilogy Book 1)

by Ella Swift Arbok

  An old man wearing a red-and-blue uniform with a badge naming the Abused Turkeys Trust shook a can toward Dick as he was leaving. Dick sidestepped but stumbled against a table.

  The collector from the misfortunates’ charity had returned, her dour expression suggesting little success. Almost at the exit, she held the can to me and her eyes to the can.

  Dick fumbled in his pocket.

  I took a coin from mine and held it to the woman.

  Her eyes widened. “A cupro? Thank you, Lemuel Oneway.”

  Dick dropped a coin into the same box. “Not a fashionable choice, but why not?” He pushed through the door.

  Sy gave a coin to both and a smile to me. I had my money’s worth.

  Chapter 7

  A group of young people pushed past us as we prepared to leave. I’d seen a couple of them around the office.

  One young man stopped in front of us. “We’re off to the dance. You two want to come?”

  Sy shook her head. “Six o’clock run for me. You go, Lemuel.”

  “No, I’ll walk you home, if you don’t mind.”

  “I’ll manage on my own.” She pushed through the door then turned, holding it open. “We need to talk. But don’t get any ideas.”

  We crossed the square, leaving it by the east road. Dick hadn’t been honest about it being on my way.

  For a world-class athlete, Sy was a slow walker, but I had no desire to rush her. Dempster always left a key under the doormat.

  Little color remained in the sky. Streetlamps were few. After half a mile, the road bridged a tributary of the Craggle. Ahead, it continued unlit to the bay.

  I hesitated. “It’s almost dark. Is there no other way?”

  Sy pointed to the horizon. “See, over there? That’s a full moon peeking through. You should get into the habit of checking.”

  We halted on the bridge. The road swept to the north, toward the bay. A footpath ran southward.

  I looked around, noting landmarks—a broken bench, a fallen tree. “I used to run, on Earth. Long distance. Not world class, but good.”

  Sy laughed. “I guessed. You did well on the stairs, the first day. I’ve always had to slow down before.” She gazed at the stars then turned toward the bay. “See there on the water, boats bringing cobblestones and cotton. When they’ve unloaded, they take coal on board and head north. Once, before I was born, this would all have come on barges along the Craggle Canal, the other side of town. Then a man known as Ernst Heyho cut a canal through the Northern Isthmus, creating a much shorter sea route. He raised funds through a consortium of senators and others in the know. They grew very rich indeed.”

  “Why are you telling me this? I don’t care about your wealth.”

  “So, you know he was a relative. I’ll never see a cent of his money, but that’s another story. I see similarities with the consortium Senator Wellar set up. Did you know Draco are his agents? And I’m in Trading now, looking for clients. Lemuel, I asked about the chairman for a reason. Certain staff members are allowed credit to trade, and this afternoon, your name was added to the list. Orders from the chairman’s office. Credit to the extent of one year’s salary.”

  A thousand cupros of credit? And I had done no more than agree to some future favors. I didn’t have to use it, but a little wealth could do no harm. “He said nothing to me.”

  “Your decision, but if you do, do it soon.” Moonlight glistened on her cheek.

  We took the footpath, followed a broad wooden bridge across the Craggle, and headed back westward, soon passing Revelation Bridge. A ragged line of houseboats lay along our side of the river, with one set apart from the others. Silhouetted against the paler water, potted plants decorated its roof. Despite the gloom, I knew it had recently been painted.

  Sy put her hand on its railing. “This is it. This is my home, at least for now.”

  I didn’t need to read its name. I had seen Respite’s Respite before, from across the river. “Cozy. Well, I suppose I’ll be leaving.”

  “Yes, you must.”

  I put a hand on her shoulder. With encouragement, I would have moved closer. I didn’t get any, but she didn’t push me away. So, maybe I did. “Well, pleased to know you, Ensayada Heyho.”

  She tilted her head. “Is that a line?”

  “It wasn’t meant that way, but feel free to use it—if you’re ever attracted to someone with that name.”

  I started to leave but hesitated. “Do you run alone? I’m out of training, but I’d love to get back into form.”

  Sy stepped onto her houseboat and turned. “Lemuel, this time in the season, I can’t change my patterns or pace for anyone. You can try the Sunday long run, if you feel up to it.” She stood back. “You know there’s a shorter way home.”

  I laughed. “Across Revelation Bridge and straight onto the square? Yes.”

  She brushed the back of her hand against mine. “Well, pleased to know you, Lemuel Oneway.”

  Overnight rain brought some relief from Friday’s oppressive heat.

  I had slept little, disturbed both by rumbles of thunder and by intrusive memories of Bandstorm’s words. If he knew my ship had gone, National Security must know. What to do? I had to visit the landing site and be seen there.

  With no further need to report to the police each day, I had time on my side. I dressed for a run but planned to walk most of the near-marathon distance.

  Cobbles showed through the grass and weeds of the little-used canal path. From time to time, a pleasure boat passed me. Apart from a wave from a child, alone on the upper deck of one, I received no more than a glance.

  My worry that I wouldn’t recognize the clearing from the riverside proved baseless. Many of the trees from the clearing to the river had been felled and lay where they fell, or had been trimmed and stacked in piles. A wooden hut, with dark cloth draped over its windows, occupied the center. A blackened circle of ground through which green shoots had already sprouted revealed the site where my craft had stood.

  I ran around the hut and rapped on the door, which hung without fastenings on wooden pins. No answer. I shouted. I banged again and then eased the door ajar. No one.

  Inside, a scraggle of bedding showed it had been occupied. Cups and plates, and a towel that didn’t invite close inspection, lay scattered. Also binoculars, notepad, and a pencil.

  I picked up the pad and wrote a note in capitals: where is my ship?

  I left my note inside the hut, but it wasn’t enough.

  I hurried home, showered, dressed, then followed afternoon shadows to the police station.

  Cragsby stood behind the reception desk. He raised himself onto the balls of his feet then settled back as I approached. “Oneway, you don’t need to be here. You should’ve been told yesterday.”

  “Officer Cragsby, I’m here to report a theft. Someone has taken my spaceship.” I had his full attention.

  Wrinkles around his eyes suggested he struggled to suppress a laugh.

  Seated at a desk behind him, a young female officer had less success.

  Cragsby picked through a pile of report pads and turned to the back desks. “Who’s got the Lost Spaceship pad?”

  When the young officer had recovered her composure, she peeked in a drawer and faced Cragsby. “Sorry, Mu-Mu. I used the last three this morning.”

  Cragsby leaned forward and winked at me. “I think I’m in with a chance there.”

  I did not want to hear about his love life.

  He pulled a Lost Property pad in front of him and picked up a pencil. With a knife from his pocket, he cut flakes from the pencil’s end. “Name?”

  A tough question, which I should have anticipated. I knew it as just as the landing craft, but I didn’t want it revealed that there was a larger ship in orbit. “It’s referred to by a serial number, but I call it Newton.” Keep it simple. Something I would remember.

  Cragsby laid his pencil on the pad and sighed. “Your name, sir.”

  I gave my name and spelled it
.

  The form itself covered the bare essentials: description of the missing item, where and when it had been last seen, value. I had to downplay that last one. “Five thousand cupros, maybe a little more.”

  Cragsby tore two pages from the pad and handed me the second. “Keep this. It’s your record. Now, who on Respite knows how to fly a spaceship?” He took a pad of lined writing paper and copied the reference from the form. He added the date. “Well?”

  By the time Cragsby had recorded every fictitious fact I volunteered—why it was as easy to control as a car, why I left its key under the welcome mat, how the charred circles of its departure proved I hadn’t taken it—I felt I had done enough to satisfy Bandstorm and his ilk.

  On Sunday morning, I jogged the mile and a half to Sy’s houseboat, rapped on its side, and called her name. No answer. Could she have left already? I hadn’t brought a watch.

  I tried again.

  A curtain moved. Sy’s sleepy face appeared. She opened the portal. “Why so early?”

  “You said six.”

  “Huh?” She rubbed her eyes. “Eight o’clock on a Sunday.” She closed the portal and let the curtain fall back.

  Idiot. I should’ve checked. What to do now? Come back at eight, or go for a run on my own?

  Before I could decide, the cabin door opened. Sy stood half in, half out, tousle-haired and bleary-eyed. A fluffy pink garment hung from her shoulders to the deck. “I’m awake now, more or less. But I’m going nowhere without a coffee.” She stepped inside. “Stay there. You can come in when I’m dressed.”

  By the time she let me in, the aroma of coffee filled the cabin.

  A fitted bench on one side provided the only seating. I sat. Low cupboards, a stove, and a basin. The bare essentials. Another door beyond. I had never been on a boat before. I don’t know what I expected.

  Sy wore short, threadbare shorts and top cut away around the arm holes, fraying at the sides. She had her back to me as she poured her drink from a steaming pot. Strong arms, strong shoulders, plainly displayed in her light clothing. Such dedication. The shorts did nothing to disguise the firmness of her buttocks. I turned to the window

  She folded down a table from one side and placed our cups on it. She sat beside me and blew across hers. “Those shoes. Not the best I’ve seen.”

  I glanced down. Bright orange may not have been the current trend, but I didn’t think she was concerned about fashion. “Not good?”

  “They’ll do, I suppose. No, wait.” She scrambled through a couple of cupboards and found an old pair, dark-brown. “Try these. They’re about your size.”

  I tried them on. They fit well. Who had left running shoes in her houseboat?

  I went outside and tested them against the ground, a gentle jog. They were better than the ones I had removed.

  With a towel thrown over one shoulder, Sy went through a routine of calf and thigh stretches as she explained her plans. “Sundays are an easy day—a jog to Ramblers’ Bridge, then an eight-mile run. I aim for forty-nine minutes. Can you manage that?”

  Ten body years younger and over the ergonomic tracks of Earth, I’d have had no trouble with that pace. Now? “First time may be tough.”

  “Up to you. There are three bridges before I turn. And I won’t wait.”

  We paused at Ramblers’ Bridge—me a little breathless, Sy glowing. She dropped her towel over the rail, and we set off.

  By the second bridge, I’d started to feel the strain. It was only the sight of another bridge ahead that made me struggle on. But when Sy ran past that third bridge, I admitted defeat.

  Sy ran on, her stride elegant and effortless. She raised a hand, a token wave in acknowledgment of my departure.

  I’d kept pace with her for about three miles. So, at a steady pace, she’d be back in about twelve minutes. Time to recover and to look around.

  A wooden pier ran along one side of the bridge. Across the river, to the north and east, hills rose into the distance. The land had rows of trees and some cereals. From a rocky outcrop, a stone building more substantial than Draco Trading dominated the view. A snake of piko trees wound up the hill. A road, perhaps.

  Through the woodland on the west, the side we had run along, a rutted path ran between trees. A decaying signpost pointed along it: “Raphael Farm and Children’s Home. Boat link only.” So, there we such places on Respite. The mystery of the disposables grew more mysterious.

  A hundred yards along the path, a metal-framed gate, taller than me and headed by a roll of barbed wire, suggested strangers weren’t welcome. It was padlocked. To either side of the gate, a stone wall with a similar barbed heading reinforced the message.

  Got it. I’ll stay outside. But I’ll take a look.

  It wasn’t a farm, although crops grew in fieldlets too small for a commercial enterprise. An educational establishment? Two boys, early teens, emerged from a stone farmhouse, with buckets. They walked a few steps, emptied the contents into a chicken enclosure, then returned to the house—all without a smile or a word to each other.

  I headed back to the river. When I saw Sy round a bend on the far side, I ran across the bridge and turned toward the town, a hundred yards ahead of her. From the speed she thundered past me, I suspect she took that as a challenge.

  I reached Ramblers’ Bridge, breathless.

  She sat on a step, watch in one hand, towel in the other, perspiring freely but with breath enough to talk. “Forty-nine oh eight. It’ll do.” She nodded down the path. “Ready? You can set the pace.”

  Sy wiped the towel across her face and under her arms and threw it to me.

  I wiped my face and neck. “Sy, do you know Raphael Farm?”

  “Ronnie Bile has an office there.” She stood. “Come. We’ll split at the square.”

  Chapter 8

  In orbit, a ship that Respite’s science couldn’t begin to understand maintained readiness. It could take me back to what remained of Earth or to anywhere else I chose at a moment’s notice. All I had to do was to reach it.

  The ship had other talents. It could manufacture almost any goods of metal or fabric, capturing designs from an unskilled operator or using designs from its stock.

  There were restrictions though, imposed by the morally controlled legal system of thirty-fifth-century Earth. All but the smallest defensive weapons required justification. Anything harmful to the environment would be difficult.

  Orbiting separately, maintaining a line of sight with Cragglemouth, my landing craft waited with baited fuel catalyzers, ready, if I spoke the word, to come and get me.

  Knowledge—old Earth knowledge—could make me rich in my new home once I checked the patent laws, but that could take years. At an age when most men would have established a degree of security, I arrived, a stranger in a strange land, penniless in the local currency.

  My decision to invest in the Wellar Land Consortium had been made in my sleep, and by midmorning the day after our run, on the second floor of Draco Trading, Sy completed the purchase papers, signed in my awkward hand. She insisted on having a form of sale on file, signed but not dated. The fact that the land had quadrupled in value in its twenty-five days of trading made me hesitate, but still I risked six months’ salary, on credit.

  In the evening, back in my room at Dempster’s, where I seemed after a month to have drifted into permanent lodging, I examined the newspapers with more than my usual interest.

  They contained nothing to justify Dick’s warning. His only article related to the modernization of Barford’s main port, which had been authorized after lengthy opposition. Apart from a few words suggesting the money could have been better spent helping the misfortunates, it contained no hint of irony or criticism.

  On Tuesday, his restraint impressed me, as did my own good fortune.

  a dam for the molotaver, by Dick Ovid

  Yesterday, a 400-million-cupro project was announced simultaneously by representatives of Elysium’s parliament and Eden’s senate. A proposal, sig
ned by representatives of the two states, set aside funds for an eighteen-month investigation into the project. If approved, work to build a dam across Elysium’s Molotaver River will commence early in 2629, providing water to irrigate forty thousand square miles of the nation’s arid center.

  An experimental hydroelectric generator, with an annual capacity estimated at between 5,500 and 8,000 MWh, could begin supplying energy by the end of 2634.

  There followed a couple of paragraphs of detail—exact location, time scale, other potential benefits. Then the Wider View branched off into Dick’s trademark territory.

  Such cooperation between two countries still at war raises a question that affects us all. Can peace be far away?

  By a fortunate coincidence, much of the land traded by Senator Wellar’s newly formed consortium falls within the area of potential irrigation. Some citizens of Eden are already benefiting from this exciting project.

  Dick didn’t say as much, but what he didn’t say carried a convincing eloquence. Wellar knew this announcement was coming. He and his cronies—and me, Lemuel Oneway, refugee from Earth—might grow rich from this insight.

  It gave me comfort to see my investment succeed so soon, but at what risk? I didn’t want another brush with Respite’s law. Time to speak to my scarf.

  I took it from my desk drawer and made the necessary folds.

  Soon, Newton’s face appeared. “Lemuel, it’s you. A joy as always.”

  “Newton, are you still monitoring news?”

  “When I’m not walking in the park or partying with friends. What else?”

  I turned the newspaper to let him see. “You’ve heard about the dam in Elysium? Eden is at war with Elysium, a fact just one of the papers has mentioned. Is this a genuine project?”

  Newton took a pair of eyeglasses from his pocket and leaned forward. His brow furrowed. His eyes moved, as if examining the paper. “I have worked out a contour map of the land, but place names are hard to pinpoint. I need coordinates and the baseline for those coordinates. Also, you must provide the coordinates of your current location.”