by Mark Zubro
At one of their first training meetings, Mike had said, “Millions could die following this program.”
The Senate’s representative had shrugged, “I don’t care whether you live or die, I’m just doing my job.”
Joe had clamped his hand on Mike’s arm to keep him from dragging out his communicator and frying the guy where he sat for his callousness and unconcern.
After droning on with a list that Mike already knew most of, Zmond turned and pointed at Mike. “Do you have any idea how many people are trying to kill you before you get to your prison?”
Mike said, “All of them?”
Zmond laughed. “Good answer and more true than I’m sure you’d care to believe. I don’t care if you live or die. We all know how much power you have so you can’t be killed.”
Joe said, “Why not just abandon the ship and leave us stranded and blow us up from afar?”
“They’re working on that.”
Joe added, “Or have someone on board with a bomb strapped to himself or herself. The whole ship could just go up in one big kaflooey.”
“I am not willing to be a martyr to anybody’s cause. Bombs were checked for. The self-destruct mechanism on the ship has been coded so that only I can activate it.”
Joe said, “Which gives you power.”
“Of a sort, just not enough. No scenario has been presented to me connected with the self-destruct which does not involve my demise. That attack fiasco was touch and go.” He wiggled his fat. “But I love having that kind of power over people. Want me to use it?”
Mike said, “No.”
“I thought not.”
“What about another attack on this ship?” Mike asked.
“Do you have any notion of how big a fleet surrounds us right now?”
Mike and Joe shook their heads.
Zmond led them to the ship’s control room. The captain manipulated a handful of the vast array of black dots that served as computer keys for the controls. A computer screen came to life.
Mike saw dots as numerous as the stars but all inching in the direction he presumed they were headed.
“Where were they before we were attacked?”
Zmond shrugged. “I can’t explain the ways of the universe.” He squinted at the nearest monitors. “My best guess is if you’re going to be saved, it will be because there are so many factions. If one group blows us out of the sky, all the other factions turn on them.”
Mike would rather be attending to the million last-minute details that they needed to handle than this fool. They returned to Zmond’s cabin. Interminable harangues later, it finally ended with Zmond falling asleep in his own chair. They all left.
CHAPTER NINE
Late that night, alone in the ship’s observation room, Mike and Joe looked out at their approaching prison. There was a lot of brownish red surrounding gray and white.
Joe said, “What a dump.” He looked at Mike. “Do I have the quote right?”
“I’m afraid so.” Mike and Joe had watched together what their friends had considered the ‘gay essential’ old movies. This included a lot of films starring Bette Davis.
Mike and Joe watched the alternating shades of gray, caused by the vast shadows of the mountains over the plains.
Joe said, “It’s uglier than all the pictures.”
Mike said, “I don’t know. The gray shadows reflect differently from the mountains onto the plains, the mountain valleys among themselves, and then the sun on the tops of the mountains and on the plains. There’s beauty there.”
Planet 6743-0A was one of five in the Tiflian system, the only one judged habitable by an unfriendly galaxy. Habitable meaning in this case the atmosphere on the planet was not lethal to living creatures. The rest of the planet’s environment was another issue.
All native plant and animal life had been destroyed by previous expeditions. No EPA here Mike had thought when he’d been told this. He had learned that an earlier colony had gassed the whole planet. The environment was harsh to begin with, but there had been indigenous plants and animals. One benefit Mike had presumed would be there would be no bugs, not a scrap of mosquitoes.
It had enormous planet-spanning mountain ranges of solid granite separated by vast plains of endless sand. Water existed in rivers far under the plains, brought to the surface with massive pumps, or in vast storms in the rainy season that turned the deserts to oceans of Mississippi flood-state rivers.
The planet was two times the size of Earth with twice the land mass of his home planet but with less actual habitable space. Mike and Joe had pored over the documents from previous attempts to colonize the place.
In the immense valley where the first gay colonists were to be set, the climate went from blistering hot, arid desert to rain forest to arctic blizzard. In the warm months it didn’t rain at all. In brief cold months there was snow. In the temperate months in between, it rained.
The day here was two hours longer than that of Earth.
In the highest reaches of the mountains, it stormed every day. In the coldest months in the mountain there were weekly if not daily blizzards. The year on 6743-0A was fourteen Earth months long: one month of various kinds of precipitation, followed by five months of arid heat, then three months of complete soaking, and then five more blistering hot ones.
Hrrrm had been colonizing for thousands and thousands of years, so there were ways. Living inside the mountains was possible and the only year-round livable option.
Colonization of new planets and exploitation of their resources was a huge source of income in this part of the galaxy. A successful colonization could mean millions, perhaps billions, and maybe trillions of dollars in profit.
Successful, Mike had found out, usually meant they’d found a planet with valuable resources; liquid zukoh was the most vital, hardest to find, and most profitable.
As they watched the planet they were heading for grow, Mike asked, “How many people normally start a colony?”
“It depends on how much money they have, how much money they want to make, and what the planet in question has in the way of resources. It could be just one guy. One of Mulk’s ancestors way back went by himself to some obscure place and came back rich.”
Mulk was currently the richest man in the galaxy. Over the millennia, the family had only gotten richer.
Joe continued, “Or it could be thousands who believe in the same cause and want to create a utopia. One hundred, like we’ve got, is the usual size of the first wave sent to begin colonizing a planet, prison or not. We really aren’t starting from scratch because other colonists have tried on this place. Normally a well-funded colony exploration team had two years to prepare. Even the most shabby planners take over a year to assemble provisions and stuff they’d need.”
Mike asked, “Why’d they keep trying to colonize the place? Must be worth something to somebody.”
“Or somebody’s dreams of greed gone bad. Poor decisions? Bad luck? Was every expedition out of Western Europe exploring the world they didn’t know a success?”
“I guess not. You don’t hear much about the failures.”
“I guess it’s the same here.”
Mike was a mixture of fears and freedoms. The responsibility of being in charge and being plunged into another life-altering set of circumstances disconcerted him, but he’d been through more disconcerting intergalactic things than anyone on Earth. He’d weathered all the previous storms and surprises. He hoped he was up for the next.
They turned to each other. Mike took Joe’s hands in his. Their bodies were outlined against the vastness of the stars of the galaxy behind them.
Mike spoke in his quietest voice. “You’ve given up all you were and all you had for me.”
Joe said, “All I am is still here. Sure, I miss being a cop, but that wasn’t my identity. That was my job. Finding you and finding love with you, that’s what’s important. Sure, my implants are slightly different. I now know way more about farming and agricultur
e than I ever imagined. But cop or farmer, I love you.”
Mike pulled him into a fierce embrace. “And I love you.”
Back in their room, they packed.
Neither one had much. The clothes Mike had been wearing when kidnapped from Earth had begun to deteriorate, and he’d taken to wearing the tunics and pants that were the basic dress of the people of Hrrrm.
Each colonist had been given what was called personal choice materials. They could bring fifty pounds of items with them. Zmond had had them weighed when they entered the ship and had told them they’d be weighed when they got off. Their packs could also be inspected and random things removed at any guard’s whim.
Mike found what little he owned easy to pack. He hadn’t noted any duty free shops in his prison on any of his journeys to and from his cells or ships. He didn’t know if they even had such. Much less, he had no cash equivalent to what they used on Hrrrm to buy anything with. All he had of a personal nature were his clothes from Earth and what he’d had in his pockets when he’d been taken. They hadn’t given him a second to pack. He kept these safely bundled together. In none of his prison cells had he been allowed to keep anything. On Earth he’d have loaded an electronic reading and listening devices with all of his favorite books and music, kept an iPad with all the pictures of his family and friends, and maybe taken the miniature silver animals his Aunt Rose still gave him for his birthdays. He had quite a menagerie by now, thousands of light years away.
Joe had even less. Everything he’d had when they were taken from Earth, including his clothes, was gone.
They offered to take small oddments so the other men could have a bit more in their packs.
Mike pointed to the small pile of items the others had given them to put in their bags. “You know,” Mike said, “this stuff isn’t very gay.”
“Were you expecting the place to look like a drag bar at two a.m. on Halloween in Chicago?”
“Well, no.”
“Or were you expecting feather boas, color swatches, and rainbow flags?”
“It just doesn’t seem very gay.”
“You wanted to transfer some Earth-like clichés to here? Or you were expecting gay clichés to be universal?”
Mike said, “I’m not sure what I expected.”
“Think, if you were given a few minutes to pack your stuff at home, what would you take? Or if a fire alarm sounded what would you rush to save? Not your feather boa.” Joe ran his hands over several of the items. “These are personal items that, my guess is, don’t have much to do with being gay but have a lot to do with being who they are, and what makes them comfortable. Or maybe simple reminders of better times.” Joe patted his arm, “We’re not creating a gay world, filled with and safe for clichés. We’re creating a world safe for gay people. I know you know this.”
“You’re right.” Mike had realized this from the outset of their exile.
Early on they’d had to make a rule that they’d take one small thing from each man. They had a few of what looked to Mike like what on Earth would have been snowflake globes. The ones he had were multiple shapes with stark and beautiful scenes, usually of the person’s home world.
Extra clothes weren’t much of an issue. They got what their captors gave them, and all others were confiscated. Stones, and baubles, and spoons, and forks, and coral from the depth of the sea. Anything precious, the guards would have stolen. Minor things precious to their owner were permitted.
CHAPTER TEN
A soft whoosh sounded behind Mike. From it he knew the prison ship was gone. He didn’t look back. What was the point? He took a breath of unfiltered air. It smelt of burnt garlic and burned his lungs as they had predicted. The atmosphere wasn’t deadly, but it wasn’t healthy. After two years of terraforming it was supposed to be normal.
Or so they said.
Cleaning the atmosphere was one of their prime goals.
Mike tripped after his first few steps. He was moving faster than he thought. Then he remembered another bit of information. The gravity here was a trifle less dense than Earth so moving would be easier. He had no idea how significant that was, or if it was at all.
The bright sun shone straight overhead. They’d landed just before noon. The heat felt like the middle of the day in high summer in the Mojave Desert. A heat that took your breath away with an arid breeze that gave no relief but added another layer of misery.
Mike and Joe stood in the center of a mesa on which several large space craft could land. Half of it was covered in a mammoth hanger-like dome with moat-like ditches around it. Mike had read that this was necessary for landings in the rainy season. The mesa had been created by some previous expedition leveling a foothill. Small bridges spanned the moat from hangar to mesa.
On the far side of the mesa, near the back of the hangar, was what looked like a two-car garage. The entrance to a stairway that went down through the mesa was inside it. Those stairs led to a tunnel under the plain, which came up just inside the entrance to what would be the colony’s city. The underground path could be used in the rainy season instead of dragging supplies over the bridge in the deluges that poured from the skies.
An immense freestanding span led to the actual colony entrance. The bridge was as wide a three lane freeway, as long as a football field, and arched to a height of four hundred feet over the plain. Mike didn’t know the physics or thermodynamics of how a thing could freely stand over such a chasm, but he figured the people of Hrrrm with a hundred thousand years of written history and advancements in science far beyond that of Earth, would have figured out how to build such a wonder.
The far end of the bridge ended with a series of ramps worthy of a southern California interchange in downtown Los Angeles. One lane went left twenty feet and ended at the beginning of a road that led down to the plain fifty feet below. The center lane continued for twenty feet then spread onto a flat space the size of a mini-mall parking lot. The lane to the right rose in a gentle slope thirty feet but ended smack against the side of the mountain. Mike couldn’t tell if it was a failed road higher into the mountains or was supposed to have been a possible second entrance to the colony.
The actual entry way was on the far side of the forty-feet by fifty-feet parking-lot-ish area.
The mountains towered far into the distance in each direction. He turned his back on them and looked out from the hangar to his left, right, and dead ahead. The plain spread for miles of total flatness.
Mike and Joe walked to the edge of the mesa. They looked down the vast slope and then gazed out beyond it at their new world. The slope looked as if when they had shaved the mountain to create the mesa, the builders had dumped the excess dirt over the side. The slope before them was scarred with deep rivulets.
The two men stared onto the plain. Nothing moved. Not a tree, plant, or critter, a desert at high noon.
There were no fences or barriers of any kind. The prisoners could walk into the nothingness and keep walking until they died. Any colonists could sit down right here and never move and die of starvation.
Mike and Joe put down their packs. Mike put his right arm around Joe who put his left around Mike. Together they let their eyes roam over the terrain.
Mike said, “It’s a good thing neither of us is given to freaking out at dramatic, emotional moments.”
Joe said, “We’d need Meganvilia to set a level of proper hysteria for this.”
Meganvilia was a drag queen with a flair for the wildly dramatic who they knew on Earth.
Mike snorted. “Meganvilia? He’d have opened a bar, held a fundraiser, and led a protest march in the time we’ve been here. He was a loaves and fishes kind of guy.”
Joe said, “I’m not feeling hysterical or freaked out. Worried, concerned, fed up, angry.” He leaned over and gave Mike a peck on the cheek. “And in love with you.”
Mike clutched him more tightly with his arm. “It’s more of a mix of fears and freedom. No Bex. No Captain Zmond. No guards. And we’re likely t
o die if we can’t make this work. As Gimli said in the Lord of the Rings movie when they’re about to embark for Mordor for the last battle, “Certainty of death, small chance of success. What are we waiting for?”
They both turned and faced the mountains that were to be their home. Mike had to crane his neck to see the tops of the towering black, gray, and white peaks and crags stretching beyond sight north and south. Huge thunderheads hid the highest peaks. Mike could see streaks of lightning, but the storm was too far away to hear the thunder.
Inside the mountains space for their one hundred had been prepared. They had little time to dig out rooms for thousands more.
Mike lowered his gaze to the mesa top where the men were fanned out behind them shuffling and staring. He wondered what the others thought. Mike hoped any incipient freak outs could be nipped in the bud. No doubt they were entitled to any upset they wished, but hysteria would not help. They’d already had Krim’s attempted suicide on the ship. In tough, tense situations Mike preferred the James Bond approach as opposed to the Barney Fife reaction. He hoped he could manage the first.
Mike and Joe picked up their galaxy-class, combo backpack and duffel bags. They strode purposefully toward the mountains. Mike found himself humming.
As they neared the bridge, Mike paused and said, “I’m going to beat this place.”
“Good,” Joe said.
“But it’s more than that, Joe, it’s,” he paused and gazed at the surrounding desolation. He saw the black shadows of the barren valleys contrasted with the sun glowing starkly on the ash-gray mountains. He turned and looked over the plain, saw the hard sun-baked sand, the essential desolation, and he knew why he felt light-hearted. “Because I am free at last. They can’t do anything more to me. This is the worst, and in this place there is no one, no human who hates me because of what I am. I no longer have to live in fear. They have done their worst, and I’ve survived.” Mike’s eyes gleamed as Joe caught his gaze.
