“Get out, ya daft bugger. Unless you want to record this for posterity. You know, as a memento.”
Moses left the room without further argument.
THE VICE POLICE CAME UP in the elevator just a few minutes later. Moses rushed ahead to meet them, but backed off when he saw that both officers had their stun-sticks drawn.
“What seems to be the problem, Off—”
“Shut. Up,” the lead officer said. He had the humorless expression that seemed to be standard issue along with those stun-sticks. “There’s illegal drugs in that room over there. And debauchery. You are under arrest, friend. Mortal Sinning, and Fourth Degree Immorality.”
They shoved him up against the wall, and Moses felt a set of polyplast restraints locking around his wrists. Then they pulled him along toward his dad’s room, where the loud music had started again.
The lead officer didn’t bother with the formality of trying the door handle first. He raised a hobnailed boot, and kicked the door open. Then he went in, stun-stick raised.
“Freeze, sinner!”
There was an ear-splitting boom, and the cop froze in place, the remnants of his stun-stick raining onto the dingy floor.
“Freeze yourself, ya jackass,” Amos shouted back. “Hit it, lady! We’re busting out of this joint.”
There was a sound like a vacuum cleaner engine straining at a clogged intake hose, and then Amos’ bed came shooting into the hallway, knocking the lead cop down on the way out. The second officer looked dumbfounded—the expression seemed to come naturally to him—at the sight of an anti-grav bed with an armed centumquinquagenarian and a barely-clothed Martian whore on it. The .45 in Amos’ hand looked much more impressive than the stun-stick the second cop was holding. The bed took a sharp left turn and shot down the hallway, the music from Kendra’s media player blaring, Amos whooping and hollering all the way. Moses heard Kendra’s silver-bright laugh just before the bed crashed through the window at the end of the hallway and dipped out of sight.
There was a moment of absolute, stunned silence in the hallway.
“You have got to be shitting me,” Moses said.
The first cop picked himself up off the floor. The remnants of the stun-stick were still dangling from his wrist on a lanyard. He snatched up his hat, put it back on his head, and went back into Amos’ room. The second cop followed him, dragging Moses along.
The cake was still on the floor, an extremely obvious violation of celestial dietary law. The nightstand’s drawer stood opened and empty. On top of the nightstand, there was a large toolkit in a worn nylon pouch, a glass that still had amber-colored liquid in it, and a half-eaten piece of cake. The lead cop walked over to the nightstand, took a whiff of the glass, and made a face.
“Alcohol,” he said. “Firearms. Whores. Cake. Someone’s going to do a lot of time for this. Fifty to life, and eternal damnation.”
They walked down the length of the corridor to the broken window. Moses peered outside, expecting to see a mangled mess of retiree, whore, and anti-grav bed. Instead, there was nothing below but the smooth concrete of the parking lot. He thought he heard faint Martian pop music fading into the distance.
Moses suppressed the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose. He fished the credstick out of the back pocket of his overalls with shackled hands, and held it out to the lead officer.
“Take out whatever you need,” he said. “And I’m sure you’ll want to secure the evidence in the room, too. Would be a shame if someone made off with fifty pounds of Martian sugar cake. That stuff must be worth tens of thousands.”
The cop looked at him with an unreadable expression. Then he snatched the credstick and looked at it. He took out his PDA, put the stick into the transfer receptacle, and checked the balance. Then he took off his hat with his free hand, and scratched his scalp.
“Unlock those shackles, Sam. This gentleman here is obviously just an innocent bystander. Sorry for the inconvenience, sir.”
“NOVEMBER ZERO EIGHT ONE Five Zulu, Gateway Control. Declare cargo and purpose of your trip.”
Moses turned around to face his passengers and put his finger in front of his headset’s microphone.
“Gateway, Five Zulu. Cargo is vacuum cleaner spare parts. I’m making a service run to Olympus City.”
It was a Saturday, and clearance came quickly. The controller sounded exceedingly bored.
“Five Zulu, Gateway Control. You are cleared for departure as filed. You are number three in the transit queue. Go with the Lord.”
“Thank you, Gateway.” Moses turned off the audio feed and punched his departure code into the Alcubierre drive’s navigation panel. Then he sat back with a sigh.
“I hope you’re aware that I’m only compounding my troubles,” he said over his shoulder. “Transporting a fugitive from celestial justice and an illegal sex worker from Mars through the customs blockade.”
“Pleasure engineer,” Kendra corrected him.
“I don’t know why you’re still all tense, son,” Amos said. “Everything turned out fine in the end, didn’t it?”
“Dad, I had to spend the rest of your credstick buying off that cop. There’s nothing left on it. You’re broke. How are you going to live on Mars?”
“Oh, no worries. Kendra here is going to put me up for a little while, until my residence papers come through.”
“Don’t tell me you’re both madly in love, and that you’re getting married. Because that would be too much for my delicate digestive system right now.”
Kendra laughed. Moses had decided a little while ago that he could listen to her laugh all day long.
“No, we’re not. I don’t make it a habit to date customers, let alone marry them. And your dad’s a bit too old for me. No offense,” she said to Amos.
“None taken,” he said. “Kendra is going to be my sponsor for my asylum application. Once that comes through, I’ll get a Mars living stipend.”
Moses raised an eyebrow. “Asylum? On what grounds?”
“Religious persecution.”
“What?” Moses laughed. “You’re an atheist, Dad. Which denomination are you claiming?”
“Hedonism,” Amos said. “I’ve been a life-long practitioner.”
The transit light turned green, and Moses pushed the “Engage” button on the Alcubierre panel.
“Lord knows that’s the truth,” he said as they shot off toward Mars.
AN UNCHANTED SWORD
Jeff Stehman
Mathos strolled into town with a jaunty step, thumbs hooked in his sword belt, seeking his fortune. He tipped his cap to an old man sitting on a porch and whittling. The old man just shook his head.
Two armed men stepped into the street and waited with crossed arms. Mathos smiled as he approached. “Good day to you, and a fine day, isn’t it?”
“What, pray tell, are you?” The speaker wore a sword, while a morning star hung from his companion’s belt.
“I, pray tell, am a traveling swordsman,” replied Mathos. “See? I have a sword at my hip,” he rattled the sword, “and you may have noticed I just now traveled into town.” He turned and pointed back the way he’d come.
“Oh, a smart lad. I’m Trent. This is Fercos.”
“Mathos. Pleasure.”
“And your sword’s name?”
This gave Mathos pause. “Pardon?”
“Your sword. What’s its name?”
“It…doesn’t have a name.”
The two men shared a look and burst out laughing.
Mathos’s grip on his hilt tightened. “What’s so funny?”
“Your sword,” said Fercos, “has no name,” and he laughed harder.
“And if it has no name,” said Trent, “it has no enchantment. And if it has no enchantment …”
“You’re as good as dead!” Fercos finished, still laughing.
“Well, I’m glad you find my death so amusing, but you haven’t seen my skill with a blade.”
“Laddie,” said Trent, “a sword without an ench
antment is no sword at all.” He drew his blade and held it aloft. It burst into flame. “This is Fire of the Sun.”
Fercos pulled out his own weapon and waved the spiked head under Mathos’s nose. “This is Bringer of Sense to the Senseless. Would you like to see how it works?”
Mathos eyed the evil green shimmer on the club. “Um, no, thank you.”
“Sayer!” Trent called to the old man on the porch. “What’s the name of your knife?”
The man held it up with a smile. “Deft Hand. She’s a beauty when it comes to detail work.”
“You see, laddie? Even our old men are armed with enchanted weapons. What could you possibly—”
“Trolls!” came a cry from up the street. “Trolls are attacking!”
Chaos erupted, with people running hither and thither. Fercos grinned from ear to ear.
“Ha!” said Trent. “Best run along, laddie. Only an enchanted weapon can pierce the hide of a troll.” He and his companion turned and raced up the street. Sayer hobbled after them, knife in hand.
Mathos stood his ground, unsure what to do. A need for enchantments had never come up in his daydreams. It seemed a waste to run needlessly to his death, yet equally a waste to run away from his first adventure. Well, if his only choices were forward or back, he’d defy fate by staying put!
The cries of battle changed in timbre. Less warriors’ ecstasy, more screaming in terror. Soon the sounds of battle faded. A hulking silhouette appeared out of the smoke ahead. A great brute of a troll with a shaggy mane lumbered into view. It looked down at Mathos and smiled. It was a pointy, bloody, and altogether unpleasant smile.
“Hello, there,” said the troll. “Bad day for you lot, what?”
A second troll sauntered up, picking its teeth with a whittling knife. “I gotta say, Burt, this thing is really good at digging out those stuck bits of bone.”
A third troll tromped up, morning star in hand. “I found a back scratcher.” It proceeded to demonstrate the weapon’s use with many a pleasurable and rumbling ooh and ah.
A fourth troll bounced up carrying an arm. Or rather, carrying a sword impaling an arm lengthwise. The searing flesh hissed and spat. “Hey, I found one that cooks lunch!”
“Yep,” said Burt, never taking his eye from Mathos. “Bad day for you.”
“I don’t understand,” said Mathos, wondering if he should reconsider defying fate. Some fast footwork might be in order after all. “I thought enchanted weapons …”
“True,” said Burt, “been many a year since trolls had the upper claw in these parts. But our shaman finally got tired of us bellyaching and brewed up the old switcheroo potion. Worked wonders, and now nothing enchanted can pierce our hide.”
“Switcheroo?” Mathos brightened. “Really?”
“So what you got there?” asked Burt. “A sharpness enchantment I hope. I could use something to fillet sturgeon.”
Mathos smiled and drew his sword. “This is A Goodly Length of Steel.”
THE REAL THING
Don Sakers
“By rights, your species should be all but extinct and your planet totally uninhabitable.”
The Ran’chit, three meters tall and the general shape and color of a giant cockroach, loomed over Jane with its clicking mandibles a hand-span from her face. Its breath reeked of week-old garbage and rum. It had been at the bar when she arrived, chain-swilling rum-and-colas—the preferred drink of bugs everywhere. Then something set it off, and it approached her. The other patrons, aliens all, turned politely away. With a sigh, Jane wondered what she’d done to deserve this.
Sixteen light-years with a bum portside stardrive and a misbehaving waste disposal had left Jane with a headache only scotch could cure. With docking complete and cargobots unloading her ship, she holed up in the spacer’s bar. She intended to sit in a corner and wait for her head to match the station’s spin, while hoping something would turn up for tonight. Something male and reasonably intelligent, if possible. Instead, half-an-hour into her program, a more-than-slightly-blotto insect with an attitude the size of Saturn’s rings was breathing rum-scented rot into her face.
“Humans.” The Ran’chit’s translator managed a disgusted tone, a perfect counterpoint to its clacking mandibles. “We should never have given you the stardrive. You should have been left to extinction on your own miserable Earth.”
The bartender glanced at Jane, its metal face impassive. She shook her head slightly. This time of day, she was the only human in the place; all around the bar, others drew back in obvious anticipation of a spectacular fight.
Going up against a Ran’chit’s six razor mandibles, armored hide, and legendary speed was fairly low on Jane’s list of priorities. She stood, facing the Ran’chit squarely. “Friend,” she said, “I have no quarrel with you, and I hope you have none with me. I drink to your health.” She raised her drink while the alien listened to its translator. But before she could take a sip, lightning-fast claws closed over her wrist.
“You stole our empire,” the Ran’chit snarled.
Jane swallowed. No simple way out of this one. Those claws could easily sever her wrist, and the creature’s face with its compound eyes and multiple mouths was already too close for comfort.
She yielded to the pressure, letting her captive arm go limp while at the same time moving her free hand toward her pocket. “I repeat, we have no quarrel. Kindly withdraw your appendage, and we will share ritual drink together.”
“The only drink I desire, Human, is your blood.”
That was it. A clear threat, witnessed not only by a dozen aliens but by the bar’s servbots. The Compact was satisfied; Jane could act freely.
She pulled her free hand from her pocket and swung a small spray-bottle up to the Ran’chit’s face. Before it could react, she squirted a few dozen milliliters right onto its antennae.
The creature released her, drew back, and huddled in upon itself. “I am sorry. I beg your forgiveness.”
Warily, Jane returned the bottle to her pocket. Ran’chit Queen-juice was powerful stuff; the poor bugs had no choice but to obey, even worship, the one who wielded it. Best thing Earth ever came up with. For the next few hours at least, this Ran’chit was hers.
“You are forgiven. Return to your place.”
It whimpered, a shriveled hulk of a bug cowering from her voice as it slinked back to the bar. For an instant, Jane felt sorry for it.
“We did take your empire, after all,” she said. “But look what you were doing with it. Running around trolling for mature industrial races you could give the stardrive to. So when their planets became uninhabitable, you’d have another few thousand slaves.”
The Ran’chit cocked its head and looked for all the world like a sad-eyed beagle. “It was our destiny. So we had done for ages. So we did with your folk.” The translator sounded wistful. “Humans did not follow the rules. Your Earth should have fallen victim to greenhouse effect. So went every other world we know.”
Jane crossed her arms. “Yeah, well, it didn’t happen to us. We beat the greenhouse effect.” And with millions of human traders to contend with, rather than a few thousand, your empire just couldn’t take the strain. Poor bugs, you never had a chance.
And once synthetic Queen-juice came along, well, you literally had no choice but to sign the Compact. And open the rest of the galaxy to Earth’s trade. Now the slave races are free and we all live happily ever after.
Except the bugs, drunks and dreamers, fewer of them every year.
The Ran’chit stared morosely into a half-empty glass. “How did you do it? No industrial civilization escapes the greenhouse effect. You burn fuel, pouring carbon dioxide into your atmosphere; you clear land, destroying plants that remove the carbon dioxide; within two centuries your planet’s carbon balance is demolished and runaway warming takes your world.”
The bug waved at the viewport, and the white-shrouded planet beyond. “Dead planets, all of them. Except for Earth. Earth survived. Earth still burns c
arbon-based fuels. How do you do it?” The bug sounded desperate, the living embodiment of every bug in the galaxy asking the same question. How?
Jane sipped her scotch. “It’s a simple question of carbon dioxide.” It wouldn’t hurt to tell the poor bug; between the rum and the Queen-juice it wouldn’t remember anything tomorrow. “The other greenhouse gases don’t matter, there are too few of them. You’ve got to get rid of the excess CO2.”
All eyes, ears, and antennae in the place were on Jane now. She felt like an ancient priestess declaring the words of the gods. If any of you had known this, she thought, your planets might be alive today.
“By the end of the twentieth century we knew the trouble. All we had to do was figure a way to get excess carbon dioxide off Earth. Then you came along with the stardrive, and we had our answer.
“Earthers have always known what to do with our excess. If you can’t eat it, burn it, or sleep on it…then you sell it.” She shrugged. “That’s all there was to it. We shipped our carbon dioxide off into your empire, more every year. And we followed in person. By the time you started to wonder what was going on, we were already in charge.”
“Sold it?” The Ran’chit looked as if it were trying very hard to blink. “You sold your carbon dioxide?” It finished its drink with one gulp and a shudder.
“That’s right,” Jane nodded. “It was only a matter of finding the right product. It helped that we picked something that was habit-forming for Ran’chit as well as humans.” She signaled the bartender. It glided over on gleaming treads. “Let me buy you another. We’ll drink together, and then I have to go.” To another bar, another station, another world. Because, brother bug, I don’t want to be around when you wake up from this bender.
The Ran’chit held out its glass, still lost in thought. “Sold us your carbon dioxide?”
Jane nodded at the bartender. “Another scotch, straight up. And a rum-and-cola for my friend here.”
The bartender inserted a nozzle into the proffered glass, and a succession of liquids flowed. First rum, then heavy brown syrup, then finally tonic…spectacularly, gloriously effervescent tonic, foaming and bubbling, overflowing the glass.
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