A Place of Darkness
The sense of the special is best acquired early on a Friday evening by taking a cab out over the East River and entering downtown from the Starship Docks. The area is a good bit south of the entertainment sector, but it is the only bit of the docks which looks like something from a science fiction film. Glitz and illusion set the scene for the evening and the starships still pander to the expectations of their passengers. The ten kilometers of docks to the north are the foul reality of space travel. Scarred ships and broken, drunken crews. Not nice.
Do I work hard? I think I do and something exhausts me during the week. Best to stay subjective on this one. I earn the money I bring into the city on a Friday. I work a filthy job and I deserve a sense of majesty when I throw off the equipment and head for the showers. Friday is all ritual.
Blackie, our foreman, lets us finish up early and I use this time to sleep. An hour before preparations is enough to take that edge off exhaustion. Enough to have me burning till Saturday sunrise without the need for stimulants. Never the stims. Alcohol and tobacco. No stims. And only Earth alcohol and tobacco. It’s worth the extra. The filth they grow and brew on this world isn’t palatable even when you’re stoned.
Preparations vary but let us take tonight as representative. The showers at the mine face take care of the worst of the grime but a shower at home brings back memories of similar preparations on Earth. Probably the only memories I would want of Earth. Fresh, expensive water and scents used sparingly. Music requires to be blasting the apartment without mercy. Earth bands are my normal preference but lately some excellent performers have been playing the entertainment district. Industrial rock music in the local language but well delivered. Tonight Rammrod graced my sound system and stirred all the right primal triggers. I dressed as smoothly as some extinct big-cat.
Plain pants, Martian. Striped frock coat, Arcturan. Jointed steel boots, Terbian. Ray-ban shades, antique. A full-length mirror presents my own image to me. The issue, as I gaze into this glass, is not whether I am beautiful but do I feel beautiful. There have been many Friday’s when my own banality has overwhelmed me to the extent that I have ordered in pizza and beer and have sat alone watching ancient action vids into the early hours of Saturday. No such doubts tonight. I look and feel splendid.
No alcohol prior to departure. The night is loaded with promise, but early resort to the bottle too often results in an ignominious and untidy homecoming. The best drug in the early evening is confidence and tonight I am brimming with it.
I took some fresh brewed Earth coffee and stood by my front room window. Sipping the aromatic brew I was forced to smile. For all my loathing of Earth I had to concede that its produce was really the only stuff a human could palatably consume. I clarified my reasons for coming to Galan as I looked out over the city and they had nothing to do with coffee or alcohol or tobacco. I have the most profound respect for the Earth as the cradle of humanity. I came to Galan to escape the damned Terran culture. That damned stifling sense of purpose and nobility.
I grew up on Earth before we took to the stars. I loved that old world with its endless conflicts and endless promise of better things to come. When the starships first went up I had nothing to do with it. I stayed on smelly old Earth and reveled in its gritty imperfection. But then the first colonists started coming back, all dewy eyed about Earth and horrified by the hardships on the colony worlds. I smiled cynically at the time but the real horror was yet to come. The colonists had brought back, not only a refreshed love of the Earth, but a burning desire to remake Eden and to turn away from their half-built colonies.
The result was dreadful, so I, and many others, left and headed for the colonies the tree-huggers had abandoned.
Galan is the rear-end of this sector but its occupants are identifiably human. The bulk are like me. Unwilling conscripts to Eden. A vast number, though, would be unhappy in heaven. With the unwilling came also the unhappy, the unsettled, the psychotic, the terminally bewildered. Humanity-concentrated but with the rosy and drippy hearted removed from the mix.
My cab arrived at seven, driven by Rex who knows I tip well early in the evening and even better at the end when I want out of downtown fast. Or occasionally on Saturday morning when getting out can be a matter of life or death. He’s a gem and has saved my wretched hide several times with his nick of time Saturday morning pick-ups. He is also a filthy, drunken, poker-addicted piece of shit but, hell, everyone in Galen has their cross to bear.
Speaking of crosses, the cab always lifts over St Christopher’s as we take to the skies. A beautiful wooden construction lovingly tended by a team of six priests and perhaps twenty permanent staff. The church of the patron saint of the traveler. I’ll bet the good Christopher never expected his charges to have travelled so far. No one attends services but their soup kitchen has a regular clientele and I’m told the brothers are as good at cooking as they are at loving their lost flock. I throw a few bucks their way from time to time. It is, after all, a lovely building to have opposite the apartment and it has to be tended.
Rex loves the mad swing out over the East River. A filthy radioactive bubbler in the middle of the channel totally screws police and air traffic signals so the cabbies get to do what they like. Rex knows the score. He can be only as nuts as it takes to get me nearly sweating. These Terbian steel boots throw on a light coat of rust if you look at them too long, so no sweating. At least not early in the evening.
Tonight’s shenanigans involve strange loops over the bubbler. I find this more uncomfortable than frightening as the downward part of the loop has the effect of negating gravity, so I am floating off my seat with my gut climbing towards my throat with a clear view of phosphorescent green boil-off filling the forward screen. Then the climb and I am pressed hard into the seat. Rex is getting a smaller than usual tip tonight. Not much smaller. I might need him tomorrow morning.
Eventually his enthusiasm wanes and we swing south towards the star docks which blaze in the night. Galen is a bright night-time city but these docks are overwhelming.
“Looking good, tonight, Mr. Jenner,” Rex croaks. At least forty cigarettes a day pass through that throat but Rex long ago took a liking to the local tobacco, God help him. He is a fox. He saw my discomfort with the repeated dives on the bubbler and is trying to crank up the tip again. Bless him. I relent, thinking again of early tomorrow morning. It is entrenching itself in my head that I will see daylight before I see home. This is good and bolsters my already immense confidence.
The security staff always complain about Rex dumping me inside the starship dock but, as always, I parry their complaints with a few bucks and a roguish smile. This is where the fantasy begins as I swan out through the main arrival gate, feeling like some well-travelled worthy dropping in on Galan for a look-see.
Key to Friday is a comfortable start and that is best attained by meeting with friends. The Cathouse is ten minutes from the starship docks and Lewis is already at the bar with Carl and Carl’s new girlfriend, Caitlin. Lewis swears that Caitlin is a man but never in front of Carl. I’m inclined to agree. It’s not that she isn’t pretty. She is actually stunning but she’s also Arcturan and determining the sex of those almost-humans is notoriously difficult. Each to their own is my mantra but xeno-homosexuality just isn't my thing. In any case, at the end of the night Saturday comes and he/she/it becomes a seldom re-encountered memory.
Carl is in love and I would suggest that Caitlin is too, so good luck to them. Lewis has his football head on and has, I’m told, demolished three large local whiskies already. I grimace when Carl tells me this. The stuff is almost pure ethanol. I guess Lewis won’t be coming dancing later on. He is fine at the moment, though.
“…I tell you, the key to that team is that big running back. The quarterback couldn’t throw a ping pong ball without straining his wrist.”
I haven’t a clue what he’s talking about but I find his enthusiasm pleasant to roll with.
“I haven’t been following the league this year,” I admit, “is it true they are trying to get an Earth team to come out?”
I smile as this interest animates him and he begins to detail the background to the proposed tour and the problems the WFL are putting in its way. I prefer rugby but the game isn’t played on Galan and I rely on occasional vids from my father on Earth.
The local whiskey seems to suddenly still his tongue and Lewis stops talking and his head hangs over the bar. He mutters something I can’t make out but I nod anyway,
“Too right, friend.”
I get talking with Caitlin who is a terrible flirt, regardless of her reproductive status. It’s her way of speaking which seems manly but in truth I can’t pin down the exact thing about it which makes me wonder. Carl just laps up the guys in the bar lusting after his woman. The good nature in the place is splendid and it’s almost possible to forget that this is Galan. A brief peek out of the window reminds you very quickly. The armed bouncers on the other side of the revolving glass door are pushing some drunk revelers out onto the road with the muzzles of their rifles. I smile. If that cretin with the red cap on says one more word…
The machine pistol opens up for a second. A rapid spitting of Teflon bullets and red is on the tarmac with his lungs alongside him. The bouncer is now pointing at red’s friend. I can almost hear his words. He uses the same phrase every time this happens.
“No, shit-for-brains, YOU call the meat wagon and, if I see any of you again, I’ll just start firing.”
Evil Eric the bouncer. Hired because he likes to shoot people. His reputation isn’t completely deserved. He only shoots if threatened but something about him always seems to get some people threatening to come back with a gun, friend, crowbar, flame-thrower. And that’s all Eric needs to legally waste the idiot.
When we leave a half hour later, Lewis has recovered a little but he’s complaining that the world seems to have taken on a green tint. Fool. That stuff will blind him eventually but he says he likes the taste. The corpse is still on the road but it has been pushed into the gutter. Unfortunately the remains of the lungs and heart are still where they fell being pureed by every passing vehicle. Not nice. Red’s friend is nowhere to be seen.
Place of Darkness is a Goth dream, or a nightmare to anyone with no gothic sensibilities. Built entirely from the crashed remains of a starship which had been fleeing back to Earth, it is dark, damp and metallic. It is also acoustically perfect and is the favored club of most home and touring bands. The clientele is mixed but the place is robustly guarded and a Friday is a good night if you want to see someone blown away up close. I tend not to but that has more to do with the cost of my wardrobe than any misguided sense of humanity.
Rammrod are playing as we enter. A thundering piece called “Grandma” sung in their native dialect. Most of their stuff is in Standard English but they save the really troubling stuff for their own language.
Carl and Caitlin are having a small spat at the end of the bar. I’ve caught her/him looking at me in an unmistakable way several times on the walk up to the Place of Darkness. I would normally be kind and put it down to her being simply human but of course she’s Arcturan. I guess any species is powerless in the face of a truly good-looking man like myself. I have to admit, though, as the alcohol starts to warm me, that I am not in the mood for an Arcturan tonight. They are almost human but they are clingers and huggers. Tonight is a night for a little measured coldness and only a human female can provide this in the way I like it. Regardless of age, size and attractiveness there is a cold arrogance in the human women of Galan. Their humanity is a source of pride and they despise their Terran counterparts whom they regard as weak, simple-minded and under the thumb of Terran men. And they come with my tested seal of approval.
I have, of course, made a cursory sweep of the bar but it is hard to identify the humans from the dozen or so other species represented. The humanoid form is extremely common in the galaxy. The differences tend to be subtle and often quite alarming if you go off with some stranger without ascertaining what they are first. I smile, thinking of poor old Lewis and his first encounter with a Cetian. God, that was ugly, even for a Cetian but, hey, the boy was rubber-legged and nearly brain dead from more of that damned local hooch. It would be a sweeping generalization to say that all Cetians are concerned only with implanting their eggs in any available body cavity of any available humanoid. A generalization, yes, but a common enough occurrence to insist that care is taken with any amorous stranger. Galan abortion protocols insist that any viable lifeform is taken to full term. Not a comfortable prospect if your Cetian lover has opted for your bladder as a suitable repository for its offspring. I grimace at the thought but take some comfort from the fact that the sheer ugliness of Cetians tends to ensure that other species avoid them. Mind you, Lewis, that night, had been suffering from an extremely exaggerated form of “beer goggles.” He still swears blind that “she” was gorgeous. Another shudder in my guts is quickly quelled by a straight shot of good Earth bourbon.
Diagonally across from me a girl is sitting. Far enough away that she won’t notice my attentions unless I make them too obvious. This is good, and necessary. There is no way to identify a human woman except by ruling out identifying features of other species.
Her blonde hair seems real so no chance of her being an aboriginal Galan. They have a very clear ridge along the top of their heads. Arcturan is a possibility. I look along at Carl and Caitlin who are kissing and are obviously back in love. Good. Back to the girl. I down another drink and smile as I experience my own form of beer goggles. Getting prettier with every drink but is she Arcturan? As I look her shoulder strap slips. As she lifts her arm to fix this I spot hair under her arms. Not exactly a clinching moment but Arcturans tend to be paranoid about body hair. Almost as bad as Terran women. Fortunately the humans on Galan have no such foolish vanities.
I run through as many variables as I can think of and quickly come to the conclusion that she is probably human. She is also pretty and I know that this is not the bourbon speaking. I made a point of grading her earlier in the evening. A nine. The prettiness isn’t perfect but a heavy chest brings the score up a little.
I walk to Carl and Caitlin and break up their increasingly passionate clinch.
“I’m taking a wander. I’ll meet you back here when the main band come on, OK?”
Lewis acknowledges me with a forced drunken wink and a wobbling thumbs up. I can’t help but smile. Such a nice guy with such a tragic need to get zonked all the time. No compulsions at my end, thank God.
As I move round the bar I’ve caught her eye and return her stare without flinching and without my smile shifting even a millimeter from enthralled and happy to smug. It’s a hard thing to do but I’ve had mountains of practice.
***
There are some nights when you know that it’s in the bag so you can relax and take your time about getting into the sack. A dangerous time this because it’s where falling in love sometimes hides. There is less closeness in sex than there is in a quiet star-lit conversation. The stars have their uses in this regard as they are the most effective distractions Galan has. The suns are rather disappointing but the rich star canopy is bright enough to read by.
She is called Rain and she claims to be human. It is an impossible point to argue but there is something about her which says otherwise. I can’t quite place it. A drifting elegance in her walk which I’ve only ever noticed before in Cetians, for all their ugliness. Her blatant beauty speaks against this. A solidity in her actions which might be Arcturan. I stop these lines of thinking. Sweeping generalizations are all fine when you are sober. I am not and I allow myself to drift with a gently sozzled enjoyment of the night.
The unhurried night moves along and we go to the roof of the Place of Darkness. Access to this refuge of cool quiet costs a little but it is second to none as a place to unwind and chill out.
Rain stands on the unguarded edge of the roof and looks out over the western industrial zones to the bare hills in the distance. The starlight is adequate to make out some features on their slopes but she is waiting for the smaller of Galan’s suns to rise. In time it does, a small, pale blue disc which is scarcely brighter than the starlight. Debate has raged since the tree huggers first arrived as to what Lucifer actually is. We call it a sun and leave it at that but there is precious little heat, light or nourishment in its anemic glow. Not a favorite sight of mine but Rain is enthralled by it. She sways a little on the edge and I lean forward on my seat under the main antenna. My sense of relaxation is adequate enough now that I would be quite happy to forgo the coming passion for the curious thrill of seeing Rain fall from the buildings edge. The cold visceral moment passes and I smile at the thought of Rain falling.
She is telling me about her home and the description is vivid and warming. Somewhere inside, though, I am conscious that she is being deliberately vague on some aspects. The farm she describes in delicious 3D but detail of the world is non-existent. I listen closely to her little anecdotes, hoping for even the tiniest hint of where mama and papa’s farm is. Anything, even the specific color of the rising sun can give away a lot but nothing escapes her guard. I have discovered that asking too specific a question can pop the bubble of a perfect night. We all have our secrets, very often for good reasons. This continuing disquiet about her species will have to be set aside. She is human. I have decided.
I check my timepiece. The main sun, Inferno, will rise in less than two standard hours. I want this Friday night deal done and away before Rex starts looking for my transponder. Rain is amenable and bright. Too bright I feel and wonder if she has taken something to keep her going. Like her race this is hard to tell so we call one of the club’s private cabs which picks us up on the roof.
The trip east usually amuses me. The residential areas are an insane mixture of styles and sizes. Always an interesting view. Rain is staying at the Palace Hotel, a nice place and moderately expensive. This adds to the mystery of her origins. She could be a traveler, but really who cares? I want this done and I want to be watching dad’s latest rugby tape by lunchtime.
I think Rain noticed my growing boredom because from the moment we enter the hotel room she is all over me. In moments I am unceremoniously stripped and inside her. I like this girl. She does all the work and seems to be enjoying the task. I relax and allow myself to drift with her movements, allow myself to build to a point of release, vaguely aware of her exaggerated movements, but just given over to the effortless enjoyment of the evening. Life can be so good sometimes.
***
Inferno is blazing through the unshaded windows when I waken some hours later. Rain is gone and I rise with some stiffness and pad to the toilet. I feel prickly and dirty but this is often an effect of cross-species sex. Hell, it happens often enough with the filthy human wrecks on the refuse docks. Now that Saturday has come I can dispense with the myth that Rain is human. All she is now is gone. It is in the shower that I notice the thin but persistent trail of blood from my backside.
“Shit,” I hiss and finish washing quickly. Before I start dressing I pack some toilet tissue between my cheeks and call Rex.
“I’m hovering round the Palace, boss,” he says coolly. “Can’t get an exact fix on your transponder.”
“It’s a west facing room, I’ll be on the balcony in a few minutes. This is a code red, Rex.”
“Another one,” he sighs into the com-link. “You gotta take better care of yourself, Mr. Jensen. I’ll be waiting.”
Five standard minutes later we are heading back into the empty weekend industrial sector. I have an appointment with an abortionist. Again.
***
As weekend stories go this one is pretty tame. I got caught is all. Doctor Niemand tuts, as he always does when examining my lower quarters. I am face down but I can imagine that long Filhallion face of his screwed up and showing half concern and half humor.
“She must have liked you, this one.”
“How do you work that one out, doctor?”
“Well she could have planted the eggs in your bladder or worse, your lungs. Now that is damned near impossible to extract.”
“I’ve seen the horror films, doc.”
He is laughing lightly.
“Perhaps she was giving you the opportunity to voluntarily gestate the little bastards and perhaps bring them up as your own.”
His laughter grows and would be infectious if I didn’t have several items of medical equipment up my rear-end.
“You are one sick son of a bitch Niemand. Have you any idea how I ended up in bed with a Cetian?”
“Two ideas, young man. Which would you rather have? The low version or the high?”
I sigh.
“It’s been a low start to Saturday and it’ll probably get lower when you bill me. Let’s keep it low.”
“Cetians are paying good money on the northern docks for plastic surgery. Good money, unemployed physicians, good cosmetic work. The place is crawling with beautified Cetians, everyone a fine-looking human specimen.”
Well, Friday night was going to be a more sober experience from now on. I turn uncomfortably to Niemand who is preparing another ghastly looking implement.
“And what’s the high version.”
He pauses for a moment.
“The high version of how you ended up in bed with a Cetian is that you are a witless prick with little regard for your own health or safety. Think on it, boy. If you didn’t know me the authorities would insist that you carried these little bastards and then paid for their upkeep and sterilization. I’d recommend you stick to orange crush in future and find a nice girl back on Earth.”
As Doctor Niemand approaches with that awful looking implement I shudder at the dreadful prospect of a life back on Earth. I grit my teeth, close my eyes and prepare a dream of next week at the Place of Darkness.
End
The sense of the special is best acquired early on a Friday evening by taking a cab out over the East River and entering downtown from the Starship Docks. The area is a good bit south of the entertainment sector, but it is the only bit of the docks which looks like something from a science fiction film. Glitz and illusion set the scene for the evening and the starships still pander to the expectations of their passengers. The ten kilometers of docks to the north are the foul reality of space travel. Scarred ships and broken, drunken crews. Not nice.
Do I work hard? I think I do and something exhausts me during the week. Best to stay subjective on this one. I earn the money I bring into the city on a Friday. I work a filthy job and I deserve a sense of majesty when I throw off the equipment and head for the showers. Friday is all ritual.
Blackie, our foreman, lets us finish up early and I use this time to sleep. An hour before preparations is enough to take that edge off exhaustion. Enough to have me burning till Saturday sunrise without the need for stimulants. Never the stims. Alcohol and tobacco. No stims. And only Earth alcohol and tobacco. It’s worth the extra. The filth they grow and brew on this world isn’t palatable even when you’re stoned.
Preparations vary but let us take tonight as representative. The showers at the mine face take care of the worst of the grime but a shower at home brings back memories of similar preparations on Earth. Probably the only memories I would want of Earth. Fresh, expensive water and scents used sparingly. Music requires to be blasting the apartment without mercy. Earth bands are my normal preference but lately some excellent performers have been playing the entertainment district. Industrial rock music in the local language but well delivered. Tonight Rammrod graced my sound system and stirred all the right primal triggers. I dressed as smoothly as some extinct big-cat.
Plain pants, Martian. Striped frock coat, Arcturan. Jointed steel boots, Terbian. Ray-ban shades, antique. A full-length mirror presents my own image to me. The issue, as I gaze into this glass, is not whether I am beautiful but do I feel beautiful. There have been many Friday’s when my own banality has overwhelmed me to the extent that I have ordered in pizza and beer and have sat alone watching ancient action vids into the early hours of Saturday. No such doubts tonight. I look and feel splendid.
No alcohol prior to departure. The night is loaded with promise, but early resort to the bottle too often results in an ignominious and untidy homecoming. The best drug in the early evening is confidence and tonight I am brimming with it.
I took some fresh brewed Earth coffee and stood by my front room window. Sipping the aromatic brew I was forced to smile. For all my loathing of Earth I had to concede that its produce was really the only stuff a human could palatably consume. I clarified my reasons for coming to Galan as I looked out over the city and they had nothing to do with coffee or alcohol or tobacco. I have the most profound respect for the Earth as the cradle of humanity. I came to Galan to escape the damned Terran culture. That damned stifling sense of purpose and nobility.
I grew up on Earth before we took to the stars. I loved that old world with its endless conflicts and endless promise of better things to come. When the starships first went up I had nothing to do with it. I stayed on smelly old Earth and reveled in its gritty imperfection. But then the first colonists started coming back, all dewy eyed about Earth and horrified by the hardships on the colony worlds. I smiled cynically at the time but the real horror was yet to come. The colonists had brought back, not only a refreshed love of the Earth, but a burning desire to remake Eden and to turn away from their half-built colonies.
The result was dreadful, so I, and many others, left and headed for the colonies the tree-huggers had abandoned.
Galan is the rear-end of this sector but its occupants are identifiably human. The bulk are like me. Unwilling conscripts to Eden. A vast number, though, would be unhappy in heaven. With the unwilling came also the unhappy, the unsettled, the psychotic, the terminally bewildered. Humanity-concentrated but with the rosy and drippy hearted removed from the mix.
My cab arrived at seven, driven by Rex who knows I tip well early in the evening and even better at the end when I want out of downtown fast. Or occasionally on Saturday morning when getting out can be a matter of life or death. He’s a gem and has saved my wretched hide several times with his nick of time Saturday morning pick-ups. He is also a filthy, drunken, poker-addicted piece of shit but, hell, everyone in Galen has their cross to bear.
Speaking of crosses, the cab always lifts over St Christopher’s as we take to the skies. A beautiful wooden construction lovingly tended by a team of six priests and perhaps twenty permanent staff. The church of the patron saint of the traveler. I’ll bet the good Christopher never expected his charges to have travelled so far. No one attends services but their soup kitchen has a regular clientele and I’m told the brothers are as good at cooking as they are at loving their lost flock. I throw a few bucks their way from time to time. It is, after all, a lovely building to have opposite the apartment and it has to be tended.
Rex loves the mad swing out over the East River. A filthy radioactive bubbler in the middle of the channel totally screws police and air traffic signals so the cabbies get to do what they like. Rex knows the score. He can be only as nuts as it takes to get me nearly sweating. These Terbian steel boots throw on a light coat of rust if you look at them too long, so no sweating. At least not early in the evening.
Tonight’s shenanigans involve strange loops over the bubbler. I find this more uncomfortable than frightening as the downward part of the loop has the effect of negating gravity, so I am floating off my seat with my gut climbing towards my throat with a clear view of phosphorescent green boil-off filling the forward screen. Then the climb and I am pressed hard into the seat. Rex is getting a smaller than usual tip tonight. Not much smaller. I might need him tomorrow morning.
Eventually his enthusiasm wanes and we swing south towards the star docks which blaze in the night. Galen is a bright night-time city but these docks are overwhelming.
“Looking good, tonight, Mr. Jenner,” Rex croaks. At least forty cigarettes a day pass through that throat but Rex long ago took a liking to the local tobacco, God help him. He is a fox. He saw my discomfort with the repeated dives on the bubbler and is trying to crank up the tip again. Bless him. I relent, thinking again of early tomorrow morning. It is entrenching itself in my head that I will see daylight before I see home. This is good and bolsters my already immense confidence.
The security staff always complain about Rex dumping me inside the starship dock but, as always, I parry their complaints with a few bucks and a roguish smile. This is where the fantasy begins as I swan out through the main arrival gate, feeling like some well-travelled worthy dropping in on Galan for a look-see.
Key to Friday is a comfortable start and that is best attained by meeting with friends. The Cathouse is ten minutes from the starship docks and Lewis is already at the bar with Carl and Carl’s new girlfriend, Caitlin. Lewis swears that Caitlin is a man but never in front of Carl. I’m inclined to agree. It’s not that she isn’t pretty. She is actually stunning but she’s also Arcturan and determining the sex of those almost-humans is notoriously difficult. Each to their own is my mantra but xeno-homosexuality just isn't my thing. In any case, at the end of the night Saturday comes and he/she/it becomes a seldom re-encountered memory.
Carl is in love and I would suggest that Caitlin is too, so good luck to them. Lewis has his football head on and has, I’m told, demolished three large local whiskies already. I grimace when Carl tells me this. The stuff is almost pure ethanol. I guess Lewis won’t be coming dancing later on. He is fine at the moment, though.
“…I tell you, the key to that team is that big running back. The quarterback couldn’t throw a ping pong ball without straining his wrist.”
I haven’t a clue what he’s talking about but I find his enthusiasm pleasant to roll with.
“I haven’t been following the league this year,” I admit, “is it true they are trying to get an Earth team to come out?”
I smile as this interest animates him and he begins to detail the background to the proposed tour and the problems the WFL are putting in its way. I prefer rugby but the game isn’t played on Galan and I rely on occasional vids from my father on Earth.
The local whiskey seems to suddenly still his tongue and Lewis stops talking and his head hangs over the bar. He mutters something I can’t make out but I nod anyway,
“Too right, friend.”
I get talking with Caitlin who is a terrible flirt, regardless of her reproductive status. It’s her way of speaking which seems manly but in truth I can’t pin down the exact thing about it which makes me wonder. Carl just laps up the guys in the bar lusting after his woman. The good nature in the place is splendid and it’s almost possible to forget that this is Galan. A brief peek out of the window reminds you very quickly. The armed bouncers on the other side of the revolving glass door are pushing some drunk revelers out onto the road with the muzzles of their rifles. I smile. If that cretin with the red cap on says one more word…
The machine pistol opens up for a second. A rapid spitting of Teflon bullets and red is on the tarmac with his lungs alongside him. The bouncer is now pointing at red’s friend. I can almost hear his words. He uses the same phrase every time this happens.
“No, shit-for-brains, YOU call the meat wagon and, if I see any of you again, I’ll just start firing.”
Evil Eric the bouncer. Hired because he likes to shoot people. His reputation isn’t completely deserved. He only shoots if threatened but something about him always seems to get some people threatening to come back with a gun, friend, crowbar, flame-thrower. And that’s all Eric needs to legally waste the idiot.
When we leave a half hour later, Lewis has recovered a little but he’s complaining that the world seems to have taken on a green tint. Fool. That stuff will blind him eventually but he says he likes the taste. The corpse is still on the road but it has been pushed into the gutter. Unfortunately the remains of the lungs and heart are still where they fell being pureed by every passing vehicle. Not nice. Red’s friend is nowhere to be seen.
Place of Darkness is a Goth dream, or a nightmare to anyone with no gothic sensibilities. Built entirely from the crashed remains of a starship which had been fleeing back to Earth, it is dark, damp and metallic. It is also acoustically perfect and is the favored club of most home and touring bands. The clientele is mixed but the place is robustly guarded and a Friday is a good night if you want to see someone blown away up close. I tend not to but that has more to do with the cost of my wardrobe than any misguided sense of humanity.
Rammrod are playing as we enter. A thundering piece called “Grandma” sung in their native dialect. Most of their stuff is in Standard English but they save the really troubling stuff for their own language.
Carl and Caitlin are having a small spat at the end of the bar. I’ve caught her/him looking at me in an unmistakable way several times on the walk up to the Place of Darkness. I would normally be kind and put it down to her being simply human but of course she’s Arcturan. I guess any species is powerless in the face of a truly good-looking man like myself. I have to admit, though, as the alcohol starts to warm me, that I am not in the mood for an Arcturan tonight. They are almost human but they are clingers and huggers. Tonight is a night for a little measured coldness and only a human female can provide this in the way I like it. Regardless of age, size and attractiveness there is a cold arrogance in the human women of Galan. Their humanity is a source of pride and they despise their Terran counterparts whom they regard as weak, simple-minded and under the thumb of Terran men. And they come with my tested seal of approval.
I have, of course, made a cursory sweep of the bar but it is hard to identify the humans from the dozen or so other species represented. The humanoid form is extremely common in the galaxy. The differences tend to be subtle and often quite alarming if you go off with some stranger without ascertaining what they are first. I smile, thinking of poor old Lewis and his first encounter with a Cetian. God, that was ugly, even for a Cetian but, hey, the boy was rubber-legged and nearly brain dead from more of that damned local hooch. It would be a sweeping generalization to say that all Cetians are concerned only with implanting their eggs in any available body cavity of any available humanoid. A generalization, yes, but a common enough occurrence to insist that care is taken with any amorous stranger. Galan abortion protocols insist that any viable lifeform is taken to full term. Not a comfortable prospect if your Cetian lover has opted for your bladder as a suitable repository for its offspring. I grimace at the thought but take some comfort from the fact that the sheer ugliness of Cetians tends to ensure that other species avoid them. Mind you, Lewis, that night, had been suffering from an extremely exaggerated form of “beer goggles.” He still swears blind that “she” was gorgeous. Another shudder in my guts is quickly quelled by a straight shot of good Earth bourbon.
Diagonally across from me a girl is sitting. Far enough away that she won’t notice my attentions unless I make them too obvious. This is good, and necessary. There is no way to identify a human woman except by ruling out identifying features of other species.
Her blonde hair seems real so no chance of her being an aboriginal Galan. They have a very clear ridge along the top of their heads. Arcturan is a possibility. I look along at Carl and Caitlin who are kissing and are obviously back in love. Good. Back to the girl. I down another drink and smile as I experience my own form of beer goggles. Getting prettier with every drink but is she Arcturan? As I look her shoulder strap slips. As she lifts her arm to fix this I spot hair under her arms. Not exactly a clinching moment but Arcturans tend to be paranoid about body hair. Almost as bad as Terran women. Fortunately the humans on Galan have no such foolish vanities.
I run through as many variables as I can think of and quickly come to the conclusion that she is probably human. She is also pretty and I know that this is not the bourbon speaking. I made a point of grading her earlier in the evening. A nine. The prettiness isn’t perfect but a heavy chest brings the score up a little.
I walk to Carl and Caitlin and break up their increasingly passionate clinch.
“I’m taking a wander. I’ll meet you back here when the main band come on, OK?”
Lewis acknowledges me with a forced drunken wink and a wobbling thumbs up. I can’t help but smile. Such a nice guy with such a tragic need to get zonked all the time. No compulsions at my end, thank God.
As I move round the bar I’ve caught her eye and return her stare without flinching and without my smile shifting even a millimeter from enthralled and happy to smug. It’s a hard thing to do but I’ve had mountains of practice.
***
There are some nights when you know that it’s in the bag so you can relax and take your time about getting into the sack. A dangerous time this because it’s where falling in love sometimes hides. There is less closeness in sex than there is in a quiet star-lit conversation. The stars have their uses in this regard as they are the most effective distractions Galan has. The suns are rather disappointing but the rich star canopy is bright enough to read by.
She is called Rain and she claims to be human. It is an impossible point to argue but there is something about her which says otherwise. I can’t quite place it. A drifting elegance in her walk which I’ve only ever noticed before in Cetians, for all their ugliness. Her blatant beauty speaks against this. A solidity in her actions which might be Arcturan. I stop these lines of thinking. Sweeping generalizations are all fine when you are sober. I am not and I allow myself to drift with a gently sozzled enjoyment of the night.
The unhurried night moves along and we go to the roof of the Place of Darkness. Access to this refuge of cool quiet costs a little but it is second to none as a place to unwind and chill out.
Rain stands on the unguarded edge of the roof and looks out over the western industrial zones to the bare hills in the distance. The starlight is adequate to make out some features on their slopes but she is waiting for the smaller of Galan’s suns to rise. In time it does, a small, pale blue disc which is scarcely brighter than the starlight. Debate has raged since the tree huggers first arrived as to what Lucifer actually is. We call it a sun and leave it at that but there is precious little heat, light or nourishment in its anemic glow. Not a favorite sight of mine but Rain is enthralled by it. She sways a little on the edge and I lean forward on my seat under the main antenna. My sense of relaxation is adequate enough now that I would be quite happy to forgo the coming passion for the curious thrill of seeing Rain fall from the buildings edge. The cold visceral moment passes and I smile at the thought of Rain falling.
She is telling me about her home and the description is vivid and warming. Somewhere inside, though, I am conscious that she is being deliberately vague on some aspects. The farm she describes in delicious 3D but detail of the world is non-existent. I listen closely to her little anecdotes, hoping for even the tiniest hint of where mama and papa’s farm is. Anything, even the specific color of the rising sun can give away a lot but nothing escapes her guard. I have discovered that asking too specific a question can pop the bubble of a perfect night. We all have our secrets, very often for good reasons. This continuing disquiet about her species will have to be set aside. She is human. I have decided.
I check my timepiece. The main sun, Inferno, will rise in less than two standard hours. I want this Friday night deal done and away before Rex starts looking for my transponder. Rain is amenable and bright. Too bright I feel and wonder if she has taken something to keep her going. Like her race this is hard to tell so we call one of the club’s private cabs which picks us up on the roof.
The trip east usually amuses me. The residential areas are an insane mixture of styles and sizes. Always an interesting view. Rain is staying at the Palace Hotel, a nice place and moderately expensive. This adds to the mystery of her origins. She could be a traveler, but really who cares? I want this done and I want to be watching dad’s latest rugby tape by lunchtime.
I think Rain noticed my growing boredom because from the moment we enter the hotel room she is all over me. In moments I am unceremoniously stripped and inside her. I like this girl. She does all the work and seems to be enjoying the task. I relax and allow myself to drift with her movements, allow myself to build to a point of release, vaguely aware of her exaggerated movements, but just given over to the effortless enjoyment of the evening. Life can be so good sometimes.
***
Inferno is blazing through the unshaded windows when I waken some hours later. Rain is gone and I rise with some stiffness and pad to the toilet. I feel prickly and dirty but this is often an effect of cross-species sex. Hell, it happens often enough with the filthy human wrecks on the refuse docks. Now that Saturday has come I can dispense with the myth that Rain is human. All she is now is gone. It is in the shower that I notice the thin but persistent trail of blood from my backside.
“Shit,” I hiss and finish washing quickly. Before I start dressing I pack some toilet tissue between my cheeks and call Rex.
“I’m hovering round the Palace, boss,” he says coolly. “Can’t get an exact fix on your transponder.”
“It’s a west facing room, I’ll be on the balcony in a few minutes. This is a code red, Rex.”
“Another one,” he sighs into the com-link. “You gotta take better care of yourself, Mr. Jensen. I’ll be waiting.”
Five standard minutes later we are heading back into the empty weekend industrial sector. I have an appointment with an abortionist. Again.
***
As weekend stories go this one is pretty tame. I got caught is all. Doctor Niemand tuts, as he always does when examining my lower quarters. I am face down but I can imagine that long Filhallion face of his screwed up and showing half concern and half humor.
“She must have liked you, this one.”
“How do you work that one out, doctor?”
“Well she could have planted the eggs in your bladder or worse, your lungs. Now that is damned near impossible to extract.”
“I’ve seen the horror films, doc.”
He is laughing lightly.
“Perhaps she was giving you the opportunity to voluntarily gestate the little bastards and perhaps bring them up as your own.”
His laughter grows and would be infectious if I didn’t have several items of medical equipment up my rear-end.
“You are one sick son of a bitch Niemand. Have you any idea how I ended up in bed with a Cetian?”
“Two ideas, young man. Which would you rather have? The low version or the high?”
I sigh.
“It’s been a low start to Saturday and it’ll probably get lower when you bill me. Let’s keep it low.”
“Cetians are paying good money on the northern docks for plastic surgery. Good money, unemployed physicians, good cosmetic work. The place is crawling with beautified Cetians, everyone a fine-looking human specimen.”
Well, Friday night was going to be a more sober experience from now on. I turn uncomfortably to Niemand who is preparing another ghastly looking implement.
“And what’s the high version.”
He pauses for a moment.
“The high version of how you ended up in bed with a Cetian is that you are a witless prick with little regard for your own health or safety. Think on it, boy. If you didn’t know me the authorities would insist that you carried these little bastards and then paid for their upkeep and sterilization. I’d recommend you stick to orange crush in future and find a nice girl back on Earth.”
As Doctor Niemand approaches with that awful looking implement I shudder at the dreadful prospect of a life back on Earth. I grit my teeth, close my eyes and prepare a dream of next week at the Place of Darkness.
End