A novel by Matthew Jarpe  •  Home  •  About the Author  •  About the Book  •    •  Short Stories  •  

By Matthew Jarpe

About an equal number of Terrans lived inside and outside of the Enclave. The shtetl was home for families, conservative businesses, neighborhood hangouts. The Boulevard was where the young and hip did their thing. Vega Ring was a big structure, spinning in orbit around Vega’s gas giant. The Boulevard ran all the way around the outer rim, connecting the various Enclaves. It was about thousand kilometers long and had about three fourths of Earth gravity. The whole thing was filled with argon to a decent pressure and kept just above the freezing temperature of water. The only thing humans needed to survive there were breathing masks. And here, almost everyone had to wear masks. The Boulevard was the great equalizer.

Finn stood on the street and found his eye drawn, as it always was, to the vast ceiling sweeping up to either side. It always made him feel like he was standing at the bottom of a deep valley. The walk in either direction looked like an uphill trek, but of course it wasn’t. He walked over to the Human Condition, the bar where Loni worked.

Most of the Terrans lived clustered around the entrance to the shtetl. The bars around here were mostly Terran normal, and the patrons were almost all Terran. The few who weren’t were Ptang and Loloft, the Terran’s atmosphere buddies. As Finn left the airlock and folded his mask into his pocket he spotted the two slender Ptang right away. He let his eye rest on their forms and hit the activator stud in the roof of his mouth. Soon, a voice whispered their names in his left ear. He could never tell the Ptang apart. These two were clients of his, so he greeted them warmly.

‘G’nith, Bidli, how are you guys? Slumming in the Terran bars, eh?’

G’nith turned two of his eyestalks to Finn and paused. He was probably checking his own pattern matcher to find out what Terran was throwing sound waves at him. ‘Finn/color swatches/designed our office. ‘Slumming’ is hard to translate. We are absorbing Terran culture. Possible trip to Earth in our future. Business takes us that way. Eager to see a well decorated planet.’

Finn laughed. ‘It isn’t all well decorated, I’m afraid. Parts of it are positively gauche. So, do you still like the office?’

‘All of our friends are jealous,’ Bidli said. ‘We have created much status for ourselves.’

‘That’s good, Bidli, but do you like it?’

‘We always like status,’ Bidli said.

Finn caught sight of Loni in the back room and said goodbye to his clients. He leaned in the door frame for a minute, watching her work. She was doing a table dance for a couple of construction workers. They were starting to get a little rowdy, pretty drunk for five in the evening. One of them reached up to grab her g-string and the bouncer started moving over to put a stop to it.

Finn held up his hand. ‘I’ll handle this one, Jorge.’ He caught Loni’s eye as he walked up behind the two men. He dropped one hand on each of their shoulders. ‘You boys having a good time?’ Loni stepped off of the table onto the chair, out of harms way, and retrieved her cut off T-shirt.

‘Hey, back off, asshole,’ one of the guys said. He stood up and pulled back a fist. ‘We paid for her.’

Finn winked at Loni. ‘I’ll see you in back, sweetheart.’

‘Mr. Finn,’ the other one said. The fist dissolved into a sweaty, floppy thing that fluttered against the first guy’s chest.

‘Mr. Finn, I didn’t know it was you. It’s dark in here. I didn’t know.’

Finn smiled. ‘Relax, guys. I’m not going to do anything to you. Just remember, you pay to look, not to touch. Next time I won’t be here, and Jorge isn’t going to be as gentle as I am. He’s programmed in crippling martial arts. You treat these ladies with respect, understand?’

‘Yes sir,’ they both said, and stumbled off to the bar. Finn waved at Jorge and followed Loni into the back room.

The girls were always happy to see him. He said hi to the ones he knew, introduced himself to the new ones, and found out Loni had gone up to her apartment. He climbed the stairs and knocked on her door. The door flew open and Loni wrapped her arms around his neck. Their mouths came together and her tongue asked if it could come over to play with his. When they finally came up for air they had landed in the pappazan chair that was too big for the room, and Finn’s shoes and tie were on the floor.

‘Can you tell I missed you?’ Loni asked. ‘You didn’t have to stop those guys. Let Jorge do it, it’s his job.’

‘When Jorge does it, people get hurt. Big guys don’t let little guys push them around. Jorge has to make them bleed before they see things his way. When I talk to them, they’re just afraid they’re going to get hurt. It works better.’

‘Too bad Jorge can’t do it your way.’ Loni climbed over him to the edge of the big chair and danced into the kitchen.

‘He’ll get a reputation sooner or later. Maybe I can teach him a thing or two.’

‘Some guy was asking around the other night about you, wondering if people were afraid of you. He should have been there today.’

‘What guy?’ But Finn already knew the answer.

‘I don’t know. Old country, black hair, lots of dough. You want to eat? I didn’t know you were coming by.’

‘I had a rough day. We can order in.’

‘I’ll make something. You sit. Tell me about your rough day, honey.’

Finn hauled himself out of the chair and sat on a barstool so he could see into the kitchen. ‘That guy who was asking about me is Hans Van Leiden. He’s an underboss, like me. Sottocapo. From the old country, like you say. He says he speaks for the old man, and he’s making some trouble.’

Loni stopped chopping and put down the knife. ‘What kind of trouble?’

‘Ah, he wants to be the boss. And he’s got 50 thugs frozen on the transport he took in. He’s requested living space for them from the Provost. She has no idea who he is, and she’s probably going to let him bring them in. That’s going to be bad.’

‘Do you have any way to stop those guys from getting thawed? Take care of them before they’re a problem?’

Finn scratched his chin. ‘We don’t have anybody onboard that transport we can trust. No legitimate business up in the hub, no way to get someone in.’ Then he remembered something. ‘Hold on.’ He pulled out his phone and dialed. ‘Jerry, you hear anything about a flood in the station hub? I heard there was some damage in the passenger processing facility. They’re going to need new carpet and stuff up there. Get that contract. … Doesn’t matter, I want that contract. Whatever you have to do.’ He hung up and put the phone away. ‘Good idea. Easier to deal with the Dutchman when he doesn’t have an army of his own.’

‘This guy can really speak for your boss 26 light years away?’

Finn shook his head. ‘The whole idea is ridiculous. We’re doing things our own way out here. We have to evolve or get swallowed by the Conglomerate. The Families are so conservative. It takes them decades to change direction. You know it used to be that you had to be a full blooded Sicilian to get made?’

‘How long ago was that? You can’t find a full blooded anything any more.’

‘I was one of the first non Sicilanos to get made. There were some real mutants at the top before they dropped that rule.’

Loni put a plate of stir fry in front of him and handed him a fork and a glass of wine. ‘Hey, are you going to kill those guys in the transport before they can thaw them out?’

Finn took a bite of his vegetables and shook some soy sauce over them. ‘That’d be the most efficient way to take care of the problem. Why, does that bother you?’

She came around the counter and sat next to Finn on the other bar stool. She’d put some blue sweat pants on at some point, not her best color. ‘I guess it shouldn’t. I mean, that’s the nature of the business we’re in, right?’

‘Business I’m in, sweetheart. Don’t start thinking of it as your job, too, just because I talk to you about it. You’re a dancer. Your business is to entertain men.’

Loni smiled. ‘Do you want to hear about the entertainment I have planned for you tonight?’

#

There was a knock on Finn’s door. He used his brain implant to scope out who it was, then said ‘Come on in, Jerry. What’s up?’

Jerry opened the door and sat in the easy chair across from the desk. ‘We got the construction contract for the hub damage. They’re going to start work next week. I’ve got Bogs and a couple of the guys up there checking out the job. Should be fine.’

‘That’s good, Jerry.’ He leaned back and put his feet up on the desk. ‘Anything else?’ Jerry wasn’t one to stop in with routine status reports. He came around to the business at hand eventually.

‘That phone system we boosted from the Ptang office job, we can’t fence it.’

‘Oh? Looked like Llinling make. Big demand for those.’

‘It is,’ Jerry said. ‘Only it isn’t a phone system. I did a little poking around inside. It’s a data storage device, a special one that they send with some of their long range starships. It’s unique.’

‘Ah, well, they’ll want it back, I suppose. I think we can sneak it back into the office. Go in to replace a defective wall panel or something and maybe find it dropped behind there. I’ll figure something out. You think they’re already looking for it?’

Jerry shrugged. ‘Could be, but I haven’t heard anything. You know the Ptang. They keep things quiet. They like to scheme in the background rather than confront directly. They’d never come out and ask us. The Llinling, on the other hand, might want to find it. They never really sell anything, they sort of lease. They feel responsible for the stuff even after it’s out of their hands.’

‘We can handle the Llinling. We have before. I’ll see about getting the thing back into the office.’

‘One more thing, boss.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Like I said, I did some poking around in that data storage device, and, what I found, see, I think you ought to see this.’ He pulled out a printout from his coat pocket and spread it on Finn’s desk. ‘This looks like a shipping schedule. These data storage devices are all synchronized in the Ptang home system and they use them to coordinate arrival times of starships at different systems. Every Ptang knows where every other Ptang is and when they’re due to arrive.’

Finn peered at the list. The departure and arrival systems were in some alphanumeric code translated from the Ptang language. The times were in Ptang designations that meant nothing to Finn. But there was one piece of information that was obvious on the schedule. ‘Whole lotta ships coming into this one system at the same time,’ Finn said. ‘You got to wonder if that system has the facilities to handle that kind of a deluge. You thinking maybe we can use this information somehow?’

Jerry tapped the arrival code on the schedule. ‘That’s Sol. They’re going to Earth.’

Finn didn’t say anything for a while. He picked up the schedule and leaned back in his chair, pondering it. Finally, he dropped the paper on his desk and stood up. ‘That looks like an invasion, Jerry.’

‘That’s what I was thinking, boss. The Ptang are schemers. This time it looks like they’re scheming against us.’

#

Gvetta’s was one of the more cosmopolitan restaurants on the Boulevard. They served Terrans, Ptang, and even a few Loloft. Finn shuddered at the many Ptang eyes that swiveled to watch him enter, Loni on his right arm. Now that he knew what they were up to, their interest in all things Terran took on a sinister feel. But he had made a date, and he intended to keep it.

Loni had let Finn dress her tonight, and she looked spectacular. Every Terran male in the place tracked her across the room. He had gone with a silk off the shoulder gown, slit up the front and back to show off her dancer’s legs. It was a sea green that went perfectly with her olive complexion and deep brown hair. She wore only a string of pearls and no makeup. Her figure held up the silk folds admirably.

Their waiter was a Terran, one of the many people who had emigrated to the space colonies looking for adventure only to find themselves stuck in some menial job. He perked up when he recognized Finn, and soon a fleet of busboys was dispatched to load their table with delicacies.

As soon as they were alone, Loni put down her wineglass. ‘I heard that 35 people died in some kind of accident in the hub facilities today. Terrans. That’s awful, isn’t it?’

‘A shame,’ Finn said. A shame they’d only gotten 35 of them. That meant the Dutchman had 15 soldiers to terrorize the Terran enclave with. One would have been too many. ‘I hope they fix the problem soon. I’ve got three qualified decorators scheduled to come out of cold storage this week.’

‘They came out here to work for you?’

‘No. That would have been a trick. I can’t plan my business 4 years in advance. I’m going to make them an offer once they wake up. If they refuse, they can go back on ice until they get to the colony planet. But I don’t think they will, not with my benefits package.’

Loni went back to her shrimp scampi while Finn nervously eyed the group of Ptang sitting at a nearby table. Did they really think they could just take the Earth? Weren’t there legal protections associated with membership in the Conglomerate? Could they get away with this?

He and Jerry had gone over all of the repercussions that afternoon. They both felt that they had to tell someone, but whom? Talking to the authorities would be breaking omerta, the code of silence. A message back to the old man would beat the Ptang ships by almost a year, but what could he do? They could at least warn him to get off of the planet, but what about the rest of humanity? What did the Ptang have in mind for the 3 billion humans still living on Earth?

Then Finn remembered the massive Krchaitch contract. Hundreds of ships being built in the shipyards of Vega Ring, each a unique construction like all Krchaitch works. And each one being filled with row after row of freezer units. Millions of them in each ship. Suddenly, he knew what they were for. They meant to evacuate the Earth, and use the planet for themselves.

Loni was waving her hand in front of his face. ‘Hello? You ready to order? Waiter want’s to get this thing going.’

‘I can come back,’ the waiter said, backing away.

‘No, no,’ Finn said. He looked again at the table of Ptang, at their lime-green skin and their tangle of spindly limbs and eye stalks. ‘Give me a plate of spinach linguini with marinara sauce.’

The waiter snapped his data pad closed and backed away from the table. He ran into Hans Van Leiden, rebounded, and veered toward the kitchen.

The Dutchman stood over their table, his breather mask still hanging around his neck, pointing a finger at Finn and shaking all over. ‘You. You’re gonna pay.’

‘Am I?’ Finn did a security sweep of the restaurant with his implant. His men were in place and had a clear shot at Van Leiden. Van Leiden’s men were at the door and had a clear shot of the whole room. There was an autocop three blocks away. Finn forced himself to relax. Van Leiden wanted to take over his operation, not destroy it. For a new underboss to take over from a respected one, well, that had to be done with finesse. Van Leiden had not gotten into his position by being stupid, so he probably knew that. Killing Finn in a crowded restaurant wasn’t the way to his objective. He wanted Finn to quake in his shoes and undermine his position.

‘Let me give you a little advice, Hans. I suggest you get your ass back in the freezer and wait for the next transport back to Earth. Try not to let me lay eyes on you. That’s the smart play for you.’

Van Leiden leaned in close. For a moment Finn thought he was moving in for the kiss of death, but fortunately he didn’t go in for that sort of theatrics. ‘You’re not going to have to worry about that, Finn. You’re going to be dead.’ He straightened up and walked for the door.

Finn got the silent signals from his men. They were prepared to take out the Dutchman on Finn’s orders. Finn told them, just as silently, that it wasn’t necessary. Finn didn’t need to prove anything. If Van Leiden took the freezer, or if he simply disappeared before he could hurt anybody, it would make no difference to Finn’s position in the Terran enclave. He watched the Dutchman and his men leave the restaurant.

‘Sorry about that,’ he told Loni.

‘Are you kidding?’ she said. ‘That was great. He threatened you and you just sat there. Mr. Stonewall. You’re amazing Finn.’

‘That doesn’t scare you, then?’ The rest of the patrons in the place were starting to turn back to their food, aware that they were staring at the Man. Only the Ptang kept a few curious eyes trained on the scene.

‘Do you think I came all the way out to Vega to be a stripper? Hell, no, Finn, I came out here for adventure. Then I find out when I get here that there isn’t all that much adventure to be had. There aren’t even any good jobs if you don’t have an education. They didn’t tell us that back on Earth. Being around you is my only chance for some action on this station.’

‘You don’t think mingling with aliens is adventure?’ Finn dug his fork into his newly arrived green pasta smothered in red sauce.

Loni glanced around the room. ‘No offense, if any of you can hear me or understand me, but once you’ve seen your first couple hundred aliens, it gets old.’

Page 2 | Page 1 | Page 3 | Page 4