Disaster Visitation

by Travis Perry

Lieutenant MacBane showed up for the meeting just in time, ushered quickly into the building adjoining the mayor’s, taking his seat among half-dozen key players at the conference table. He was too late in fact to hand off his “package” to Mayor Jonzn prior to the disaster-relief committee meeting. This put the mayor in a rather foul mood.

After  what “up abovers” in Avenir, in space, and on Sheba and Quatermain called “The War” (because it had been their only one), which the landsiders and undersea dwellers called “The Great War” (because there had been others on Eclectia), the Peace Council had been established to provide for a common legal system, with common police and military service, throughout all the diverse settlements in the system. Since Avenir had won the war with the help of the spacers, naturally the Peace Council met there and represented Avenir and spacer interests more than any of the people dwelling “down under.” All combined undersea colonies had exactly one representative on the council, the same number all landside colonies had. One.

The Peace Council directly controlled peacekeepers and through them, the enforcers. They also appointed governors to each significant individual location, in all regions: on the ground, underwater, and in space. The governors employed “ministers” to assist them. But these appointees did not replace native local governments and institutions where they had already existed...

“Our first item for the agenda should be the Avenir Gratitude School. Avenir has paid over two hundred thousand credits to establish this groundbreaking institution, yet all we’ve got for our troubles is a floor, four walls with doorways and windows, and a ceiling. We’ve gone through three contractors, and costs keep overrunning—”

“Hey, first off, this is bidness for the education committee, which meets next fiveday,” snarled Jonzn. “Second, maybe if you paid in real coin like everyone else uses, you’d get better results than you do with your useless Avenir credits!”

The governor’s eyes opened wide. “Useless! My dear mayor, any of the over two hundred and thirty merchants and vendors on Avenir will fully redeem all payments made in credits, plus your local money market allows transfer to your backward hard currency, if your contractors insist—”

“At a substantial loss!”

“This is by no means our fault, Mayor. If the Avenir Investment Ministry’s help is of no interest to you, AIM can just as well send monies to other backward areas. Such the Zirconia orphanage, for example—”

“Not that Avenir has an orphan problem,” said MacBane, rolling his eyes, chewing an unlit cigar.

The governor didn’t even glance at the official from Zirconia—his eyes remained fixed firmly on Jonzn’s. “Are you saying I should recommend to the Peace Council that AIM withdraw its assistance?” The governor leaned back in his aluminum frame padded chair that he’d brought with him to the meeting. Apparently the wrought iron chairs around the mayor’s polished brass conference table weren’t good enough for him…

Jonzn hastily changed his sneer into the best smile he could manage. Avenir credits were unfair—they benefitted the up-above economy at the expense of everyone else—and they didn’t amount to all that much real money. But they were a lot better than nothing and his people needed everything he could get for them. “Look, I’m sorry, Gov’ner. Had a bad mornin’. Didn’t get my lava tea this day. Of course we both want and need your help down ‘ere.” In the back of his mind Jonzn was wondering if he could start a rumor that would work its way up to the council and get this skyscrubber of a governor fired.

“In my opinion—” said MacBane. He didn’t finish, because at that moment the tsunami warning siren sounded over the city of Adagio, the signal to close the watergates, the only things protecting the city from certain destruction.

Jonzn squeezed his round belly out from underneath the table and ran for the door to his office. There, panting from the short sprint, he picked up his landline phone and dialed the main engineer house at the gates. Sweat drenched his head for reasons that had little to do with running.

“Tell me you got the gates fixed!”

“No, sir! The west gate is still open and won’t close. I repeat, the west gate is still open!”

Runaround

By Edward M. Erdelac

Considine stared at himself in the mirror. Puffy, sutured flesh peered out from beneath the stark bandage over his left eye, where a shard of Brendermeyer’s femur had torn a gash. His blue eyes looked sunken in their bruised sockets, and the second degree burns on his neck and chin were an angry red.

Not as angry as he felt, though. In this case, what was inside him was much worse than how he looked.

He was on a hefty dose of pain suppressants, but not so heavy as the clinicians had prescribed. He needed a clear head.

He had nearly shared Brendermeyer’s unfortunate end. Luckily Jelly hadn’t skimped on the cabin safety measures when he’d last refit the craft.

“You alright in there, Stanlon?”

Gorsh. To have to deal with him now. He gritted his teeth. Gorsh would expect questions, and he had them, but he was loathe to waste time listening to Gorsh’s non-answers.

But he had to keep up appearances.

He opened the door to Gorsh’s private restroom and stepped out into his posh office, with its Peace Council sigil on the wall and its massive viewport gazing out at the planet below.

Plush rug, chrome desk, tasteful art. Yes, Gorsh, you’ve done well for yourself.

“Have a seat,” Gorsh said, motioning to a comfortable chair in front of his desk.  “I’ll get you a drink.”

“Not with the pain suppressants, no thanks,” Considine said, limping over to the chair and easing slowly and agonizingly down into it. The fabric was like a scouring pad on his tender leg, even through his trousers.

“You sure you’re alright?”

“Don’t sound so disappointed, Gorsh.”

“Don’t be stupid. You nearly checked out. We were partners once. I’m concerned.”

He poured himself a drink of greenish fluid and downed it in a gulp.

Considine leered.

“What’s so funny?” said Gorsh.

“You. Still at the libations after all these years. Yet you’ve got a seat on the Council, and my sobriety, where did that get me?”

Gorsh smiled slightly.

“Never too late to start thinking about your career,” he said, offering the bottle once more.

“I’d rather smoke,” he said, pulling his singed pack of kelpweed cigarettes out of his pocket.

“Oh God, don’t tell me you’ve taken up smoking that seaweed garbage.”

“It’s an acquired taste,” Considine admitted, knocking one loose and pushing it into his lips. “Light?”

“I don’t want my office smelling like a fish market,” Gorsh said, settling in his chair.

“All heart, like always,” Considine said, replacing the cigarette and sighing.

“You’ll want to know, we have a lead on the bomber,” Gorsh said.

“I don’t want to hear about your leads. I want to know why he isn’t in custody, when he did the deed in front of you and two of your crack full-time Enforcers.”

“The bay was on fire, Stanlon,” Gorsh said, opening his hands. “My first concern was to get you clear of the wreckage.”

“Convenient,” Considine muttered. “Alright, what’s your lead?”

“We had an incident that caused some anti-Enforcer backlash a little while ago. There’s a sort of fringe dissident group operating on Avenir now. The Pigkillers….”

Considine’s mind wandered. Pigkillers. Terrorists. Just as he’d suspected, Gorsh’s lead was a damned smokescreen. He already knew the identity of the bomber, just as Considine did.

It was Orin Bantry, Morgenstar Munition’s star employee and Aloysius Morgenstar’s personal go to it guy by way of detonite.  Considine had smelled the stuff when they’d confiscated it from Croix in Zirconia, and he’d smelled it again when it blew Brendermeyer to pieces.

Somebody should have told Orin to stop wearing that stupid company cap.