by Martyn Winters
Part 1
Landing Town looks shabbier than usual today: worn name-hoardings over the shops, and a wash of baked soil across the walkboards, which kicks up into dust with each footfall as I amble up Main Street, thinking to myself I need a good steak and a beer to rid me of the taste of the farm. And that, for the time being, is my plan.
“Heya, Ianto,” calls a shrill voice. Tom O’Malley waves from a tub of muddy water sitting in his yard. His hair, a riot of ginger, is the only real colour to be found here, unless you count brown.
“Hey Tom,” I call back. “Goin’ down the square. Wanna come?”
“Nah. I’m going to keep cool here,” he says, splashing the brown water.
This is the most sensible thing someone of Tom’s colouring could do right after Spring-End Downpour. The next few weeks will be hot, as Visram’s star bakes the ground hard again. It’s too hot to work, but soon, as the summer rays fade behind the high clouds and fresh winds gust in from the ocean, I will be back in the fields, digging the ditches washed away by the rains. Old man McMichael will then haul out his planting machine and sow the crop of Steak-plant, which we harvest just as the rains start again. Then we’ll load up his old truck and haul the protein pods to the market.
The following week or two is downtime for me. If I wanted to, I could get a job in the factories where the pods are boiled, puréed into a paste, then flavoured and moulded into steaks, pasta, bacon, fruit, beer, or whatever is selling.
Mostly, though, I sit in my window watching the thick drops thud against the soil, washing away my ditches.
When I was a kid, my father told me we discovered pretty early on in the colony’s history that boiling the pods is the only way to make them edible; applying any other heat source will result in you ending up in a box with your synapses turned to mush by the neurotoxin they produce.
I’m not a scientist, but the Xenobiologists say it’s the plant’s way of making good fertiliser, as the fauna consuming the pods drop near the plant during the hot seasons.
No one knows how we discovered the boiling trick, but local mythology attributes it to a happy accident. A farmer attempting to extract the poison to kill the local equivalent of rodents, by boiling down the pods, found his cats happily munching on the fleshy residue a few hours later. I’m not sure about that; it sounds apocryphal to me, like much of the Prestimanchora mythos.
I haven’t eaten the untreated flesh, but I’ve been told it tastes something like a chicken. Come to think of it, I’ve never eaten chicken either; they all died within weeks of the first landing, long before I was born. That’s just one of the planet’s problems, and it has so many it’s a surprise we still have a colony.
After the downpour, the air is thick with the aromas of the mash factory. In town, it’s like walking through a spice shop, especially the southern end, where the docks meet the sea, and the warehouses empty last season’s cargo into trucks bound for the vats on the other side of town near the freshwater streams running from the mountains. Most find it too heady and stay indoors until it is over. Me? I like to wander around and talk to whoever is about. My dark skin protects me from the sun, and the spicy air doesn’t affect me as much as it does others. I enjoy the weeks between the rains and the start of the summer growing season, although the tail end can get a bit frenetic as we adjust the house stilts to prevent them from getting overgrown and prepare the farm machinery for digging and planting.
Some regulars appear, and I always try to make their acquaintance. The Shamus can often be found walking her beat, her boots clip-clopping on the walk-boards in the cool hours before sunset, her silver shield of office a polished reminder that the rule of law is still observed even in our impoverished circumstances, and her ancient sidearm a notice of what happens when it isn’t.
“You okay, Geinwen?” I call out to her. She smiles and tips her sunhat, then passes the time of day for a few seconds before moving on, making her rounds.
Then there are the trader girls of Atlee Street, who buy and sell just about anything that isn’t nailed down. They yell and yank at my sleeve, promising me the world if I have the coin to pay for it.
There is also a white-haired old guy who sits on the bench outside the medical centre in Landing Town’s square. He’s there rain or sun, his pressed trousers, clean shirt, and neatly cut hair a contrast to the rest of us. He’s immaculate, and I ask him about that.
“I like to shine,” he says.
Of course, this was before the Hansons moved into their little cottage on the corner of Morristown Street, with their loud jazz music, Mrs Hanson’s bright, floral-print dresses, and her promising smile. It was before the hungry years, and even before the day I found Willa Green.
That morning, I saw Willa, happy and lively as usual, eating at Tony Allardyce’s café. From across the street, I can smell the bacon cooking on Tony’s griddle, and I wander over and peer through the window. She’s chatting animatedly to Pippa Don, both resplendent in their Patryck Day regalia. They glow with happiness. I nod as I pass, trying to show interest without being uncouth. But Willa declines with a look that tints my sunglasses, so I go away disappointed, but not unexpectedly. Willa is out of my league. Or, at least, she was.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
***
The old guy—everyone calls him Mister Amlos—came on one of the last supply ships, just him, a suitcase, and a small bag containing something he calls a laptop. He sits on that corner, greeting passers-by with cheery waves and a nod of his white-hatted head. He is a fixture most never notice.
But he is fascinating to me; a sense of continuity assuring me of the rightness of where I am. We came here to escape from the old arguments on Earth. Most of us, anyway. Mister Amlos, though, he just wants to explore.
“I used up my quota of new,” he says. “And I needed a fresh source. So, here I am.”
I sit with him there on the old bench, kicking the dirt, listening to the cries of the K-Kawkaw birds down by the lake, and chewing pungently scented GM-Tabac. I ask him if he plans on exploring any more. He looks dejected, shakes his head, and says, “It’s all the same.”
Then he smiles with a distant look and says, “At least I’m far enough away now,” and leaves it trailing like there is another story he isn’t ready to tell me yet.
On that day, though, he’s unusually talkative, like something has changed. “In my younger years, I was a wild boy, always running around doing things people frown upon. But that wasn’t enough. As a result, my exploits became increasingly extreme. Then one day I went too far.”
I feel like a priest listening to his confession, but I bought into the conversation’s drift and prompted him to tell me more.
He lit a smoke and held it up before his face. “They used to call this a filthy habit until they found out how to eliminate health risks and the smell.”
He contemplates that for a moment. “It’s not, though. Of all my habits, it’s the one that gives me the most peace.”
“Back in the day, Jimmy Sweitzer used to sell them at a cut rate around the back of Marley’s Barbershop. He brought them from out of state in that old Buick of his. How he kept it running, I dunno. But that’s Jimmy for you. He was a man of means by any means.”
As he says this, his wide face wrinkles into a grin, and he pushes his hat back to reveal his neatly cut silver hair.
“Jimmy saw something in me and asked me to go with him.”
“So, we all pile into the Buick and take off for the interstate. We were barely past Bob Oldman’s chicken farm when Jimmy pulled four guns from a bag under the driver’s seat.”
I glance at Alscyn Thomas, who has joined us. His brown eyes are wide at the mention of guns.
“The two other guys were Col Lineman, an ex-boxer who used to hang around hustling for beer near Olsen’s Gym in the east quarter, and Minton Skanes, a university dropout who fancied himself as a heart-throb. Claimed he was an actor.”
“The plan was to tail a Chesterfield truck to a roadside and jack it. ‘Best not to be greedy,’ Jimmy says, ‘just fill the trunk and get outta there. Nice-n-clean.’”
“So, that’s what we did, ‘cepting the truck driver got brave and went for me, so I shot him.”
“Did you kill him?” I’m not sure I want the answer, but curiosity drives the tongue sometimes.
“No,” he replies, “I’d never fired a gun before, and I was shaking like a leaf. I just squeezed the trigger and put a bullet through his shoulder.”
“But here’s the thing,” he says, “and there’s always a thing. It’s like a subtext to life. He fixes me with a look and says he won’t forget me. I took it to mean ‘thanks for not killing me’, but he didn’t mean that at all.”
“We got back to Jimmy’s place and loaded the cartons into his lockup. Jimmy tells us he’ll deal the cigarettes out over the next few days and give us our cut. But that was the last we ever saw of him.”
“Col Lineman was all set to look for him, but Minton was more cautious. He said, ‘When has Jimmy ever stiffed us?’ Col growls, ‘There is always a first time.’ Me, I’m thinking about the guy I shot. I guessed he wouldn’t be able to do anything for a while, but what if he has friends?” He looks at Alscyn and me with those pale blue eyes, pushes his hat back again, and wipes his broad brow with his hand. “He did, as it turns out, and WHAT friends.”
A shadow of something like pain passes over his face, and he hesitates. “They came in black SUVs. Almost a cliché. If they’d been wearing Brooks Brothers suits, I’d have probably laughed out loud. But they didn’t. They came in combat fatigues.”
“What’s an SUV?” Alscyn asks, his voice barely a whisper.
“It’s a vehicle. Bad guys use them to intimidate.” He digs into his pockets and pulls out a photograph.
He points at the photo with a thick index finger and says, “That’s an SUV. Only these were black, with darkened windows. They look menacing and with good cause, too. The guys who got out could handle any situation without pausing for water.”
That phrase stuck with me. I’d like to handle anything without pausing for water, but the truth is, I’m just a skinny kid who digs the soil for a living down on McMichael’s farm in West Torpha County.
“What happened next?” Alscyn asks.
The old man grimaces. “Well, I could see this was turning into an easy gateway to bad outcomes. So, I did the best thing I could do in the circumstances. I had a few dollars stashed in a can under the crawl space in my block. I grabbed that and a change of clothes, then hightailed it.”
“Where d’you go?” I ask.
“I knew Bob Oldman kept some quadbikes in a barn, and there was a big ol’ battery around the back. I reasoned I could get there by nightfall, steal one of the bikes, make my way up the Interstate, cross the state line, and park up in a ten-dollar motel until sunrise,” he says, drawing his lips into a thin line.
“What I didn’t reckon on was those guys were real pros. They figured out where I’d go and caught up with me about five in the morning. Four of them burst through the door like it was matchwood and started beating on me with baseball bats,” he says, his eyes filling with tears. “Before I blacked out, I realised they weren’t going to stop until I was dog meat.”
“But you’re still alive,” I say quietly.
“Yes,” he says, his eyes going distant. “That’s when I discovered the curse.”
“The curse?” Alscyn and I chorus.
“Yeah. I didn’t realise what it was at first. That took a few more beatings,” he says, shaking his head. “When I came to, my attackers were all dead. They were lying across the furniture, battered and bruised, with blood caking their clothes. I’d never seen anything like it and vomited on the bed when I saw I’d been lying on someone’s tongue, which seemed to have been ripped from his mouth.”
“What happened?” I gasp.
“The curse,” he responds. “It happened a few more times when they caught up with me. One even took a potshot at me from a water tower, only for his gun to explode in his face.”
“What’s the curse?” I whisper.
“It’s like this,” he says. “Whenever someone tries to harm me, it bounces back on them. I have no idea why. All I know is I left a trail of bodies strewn across three states.”
“What did you do?” Alscyn asks, his eyes like barrel-lids.
“Well, even then, the cops started taking an interest, so I kept moving. Eventually, I got wise and got myself a new identity. I took it off one of the corpses, a guy who looked like me, only chunkier. Fortunately, they don’t show arm muscles on driving licences. So, I took his wallet and phone, thumb printed it from his dead hand and changed the lock code, then accessed his bank account. That bought me a flight to Europe, where I signed on for the off-world migration programme.”
“Wait a minute. You’re telling me that it bounces back at them if someone hits you?” I ask sceptically.
“Sure,” he says. He pulls up his sleeve. “Give it a try. Pinch my arm.”
I reach over tentatively, my finger and thumb poised, raptor-like, hovering over his arm. I do and don’t want to do it, but he nods encouragingly. “Go on.”
My fingers close on his arm, and I pinch and twist. The world turns inside out, and I can feel the hurt of someone digging their nails into my bicep. Howling in pain, I jump back.
He points at the livid red welt on my arm with a trembling finger. “See. That’s what happens, and I can’t control it.”
“Whoa,” says Alscyn, examining the mark.
“Yes,” he says sadly. “They figured it out quickly and sent me a message saying they accepted I couldn’t be harmed, but they would like to use my talents.”
“Did you help them?” I ask.
“No, I couldn’t. I was wild, but I wasn’t a purposeful killer, and that’s what they would have used me for. So, I kept running and hiding. But these guys don’t give up, and they started threatening to kill innocents if I didn’t comply. So, I figured I could only conceal myself by hiding in the future.”
“What do you mean?”
“I signed on for the last trip out here, a place beyond the reach of the Redlines. The only way is the old-fashioned method—continuous acceleration—with all its time dilation implications. I figured thousands of years would have passed back on Earth when I arrived, and I would be long forgotten.”
“And were you?”
“I thought so,” he pauses momentarily. “But a couple of nights ago, I thought I saw the flash of a portal opening in the night sky. Then my laptop started picking up network signals. My best guess is a ship is orbiting the planet, and that can only mean they’ve found a way to extend the Redlines out this far.”
“But if thousands of years have passed back on Earth…” I let the sentence trail. I don’t really understand Relativity and time dilation; I just took it as read that it is a real thing.
“You don’t know these people. They’ve been conducting their business for millennia and would do anything to discover the secret of my curse,” he says. “But on the other hand, it might be a route back to Earth. I don’t have many years left, and I’ve had enough of running. I want to go home and live out my last years where I’m meant to be.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Wait,” he says, standing up and brushing off his trousers. “Wait and see.”
With that, he strides down Main Street to his cottage at the end of town.
“Don’t breathe a word,” I say, turning to Alscyn, who’s bubbling to tell everyone he meets. “Or you’ll answer to me. Just this once, keep a lid on it.”
He nods, but I’m unsure. Even though I doubt anyone will believe him, and I’ll deny everything, but I’m sure someone will hear it and wonder.
I look him in the eyes, and doing my best to appear sombre, I say, “Promise, Alscyn. Otherwise, there’ll be a lot of trouble landing on you.”
He nods again, and mollified, I walk slowly over to Tony Allardyce’s café to get my steak and beer before returning to the farm and my waiting chores.
***
The next few days are a whirl of preparation for the planting, mainly in the cool shade of our barns, where I service the farm machinery ready for the post-deluge stage of our cycle.
I almost forgot about Amlos as tiredness, sleep, and work coalesced into one, and I didn’t hear anything from Alscyn, who had his own task list at his parents’ store. There weren’t any landings, not that I know of, anyway. So, the enigmatic ship Amlos said was orbiting the planet remains a mystery, one I promise to investigate once I have some downtime. How I will do that escapes me, but before I fell asleep, I read about wireless networks in the old electronics manual my father had gifted me before I left home.
I’ve been working here for two years now and hope to secure an apprenticeship in a trade, such as working with wood, cooking, or repairing electronics. I’m reasonably sure I can find something. The community is good like that, a legacy of the first colony president.
“No knowledge is secret knowledge,” Visram Prestimanchora declared when he accepted the leadership. VP was keen on sharing things, so when the time came to elect our leader, he shared the presidency with Don Jones, a sharp-witted younger man who was the enforcer in the relationship.
It was Don who renamed the colony after its founder. VP would have been too modest to name an entire world after himself.
New Galway is our original name, but looking at the old videos of Ireland, it couldn’t have been more different from the old Galway. The latter is a lush, wet place, a far cry from our semi-arid conditions, interspersed with torrential downpours every four months.
The downpours are the reason I dig ditches. A farmer’s most important task is rerouting water from the streams running off the mountains to the fields in the dry seasons. Without them, we don’t get a harvest. It’s backbreaking but essential work.
It’s also the reason I found the dead, broken body of Willa Green buried beneath the clay in a shallow grave at the southern end of McMichael’s field, a note pinned to her chest saying, “Come home, Bobby Amlos, and all this will stop.”
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