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Stories from the Verse
A Dozen Verses
Chapter 24: Cooper 80
Table of Contents
Previous chapter: Slade 258
Now fed, and with his stomach making weird noises as it tried to digest the food pills, Brian began walking around. His curiosity led him past closed doors in the corridor into a tubular room that ran the diameter of the spaceship, through a hatch, and into the room where he had fought the pirates. A patch on the wall covered where the pirates had burned their way in.
Through that hatch and he was in the long room where he had first arrived. Aiming carefully, he pushed off and flew down the length to the far end over a hundred feet away. Passing a brown, bulbous individual who was moving slowly, he smiled, and introduced himself while asking the obvious question.
“Ah, Brian, Toko, this is Storage Bay C. You and I are heading toward B, then A, then the Reactor Area.”
“So from the back to the front--”
“Aft to bow, tenderfoot, although considering your fight, I’m not sure you deserve that title. But it’s aft for back to bow for front. Might tick off a sailor otherwise.”
“Oh, sorry.”
“Oh, I’m Plutonian. We don’t get upset about anything really. But others might.” This was a whole new rabbit trail, and Brian could not resist it.
“You’re really from Pluto? Born there? How long would it take you to get--where are we anyway?”
Brian landed a bit roughly on the bulkhead, or wall, as the Plutonian still drifted toward him, now catching up.
“Indeed. I was born in the shade of an ice volcano. From where we are now, hmmm, about two to three months. Distances in the Outer System are greater than the Inner System. Also, it does matter quite a bit if things are lined up. Imagine if you were in the orbit of Mercury on one side of the Sun, and on the far, exact opposite, side you needed to get to Jupiter. But if both are on the same side, it’s a lot shorter trip.” The Plutonian landed lightly next to the hatch, and offered Brian a hand through. “We, on the other hand, are a week out from Mars and passing above the Asteroid Belt which is why we got hit by pirates. They do love the Belt.”
Guided by the Plutonian, Brian leapt across the next bay area, which was similar. Rusted in spots, patched holes here and there, this one had some boxes tied down.
“Is this a merchant ship?”
“I know what you mean. Yes. We mostly do large midrange valuables, and sometimes passengers. Also we drop off buoys if we can get a nav run by one of the local governments. But we are almost empty. We had a very good run out to Saturn, but on the downside nothing to send elsewhere unless we wanted to wait a month, and Saturn is expensive, more expensive the longer you wait.”
“So the pirates would have gotten nothing.”
“Not nothing, a ship is still something, but yes.”
As they approached the next bulkhead and hatch passing several other sailors on the way, Brian wondered aloud, “So do we go somewhere to drop off the pirates in jail, or--”
The Plutonian chuckled.
“Oh, no, we tossed them out the airlock.”
Cooper felt sudden nausea and bit it back, aware that such a mess would be a problem in space.
“Angle! The Lunarian with me. He was innocent.”
“Yah, yah, Terri, calm down. We didn’t space him. We saw him help you, and he had a good manner, and a broken sword. No, we’re going to swing by Luna, I think, and drop him off. Maybe. Or he might sign on with the crew. We could use a good ironman as an assistant. Our guy is good, but he needs to sleep sometimes.”
Brian breathed out in relief. He had liked the kid. As to the others, well, he would not have done it, but it was done. Besides, they had known the price when they chose their path. Still, he preferred gentleness and mercy when it could be given.
“Why don’t you just imprison them?” he asked as they passed into Bay A which was half-full with boxes and other containers tied to top and all sides. Only down the center was a five foot diameter circle kept clear.
“Oh, you’re one of the pro-slavery reformers? Eh, I suppose we could, but really enslaving people is a whole lot of work. You have to spend all your time making sure they’re not about to backstab you. Add in the regular beatings and it's very much a hassle.”
“Spoils the mood on ship too,” said one passing manling. “I served on one of those oh-so-noble slaver ships. It was awful. You had to watch those villains all the time, and not a real moment to rest. Much cleaner to just space the pirate scum. That way I can sleep peaceful-like, without a dagger under my pillow.”
“I--,” Brian fumbled, out of his depth in a world where slavery was regarded as the morally superior but impractically noble notion. As he did not like to lie, at all, he just closed his mouth, and kept his incredulity to himself.
There is a behind-the-writings look at the thoughts, influences, and ideas of this chapter, along with eleven other sequential chapters of this novel, in mark Joseph "young" web log entry #525: Character Battles. Given a moment, this link should take you directly to the section relevant to this chapter. It may contain spoilers of upcoming chapters.
As to the old stories that have long been here:
