CHAPTER 10
Cade rose from a nap.
“Sam?” he called.
But Sam was out, Abby was chatting on a social media channel, and Mabel was watching a documentary about the birds of Avia. Cade headed out alone.
He hated using the AI but the only way to signal someone was outside was through the network. Knocking didn’t work since the doors were totally soundproofed.
“Ring the bell,” he said, holding up the phone thing.
It took a moment, but the door dilated and Parker emerged.
“Secret meetings, I like it,” Parker said. “We gonna break someone out of jail?”
“Something like that.” Cade grinned.
They walked briskly to the playground. The meeting wasn’t, in fact, secret, but it was meant to be discreet. Specifically, what the self-appointed Mount Moriah of Pegasus Church Building Committee, comprised of the congregation’s deacons, wanted to do was prepare a proposal for Pastor Mickey.
The five men of the committee stood among the planting beds where green carrot leaves poked out, hinting at carrots that would be ready soon. Cade didn’t point them out to the other men; he felt a little embarrassed by them.
Each man shared a candidate location he’d found. They’d discussed up front whether this was something they could entrust to their AIs, and agreed that the choice of a building needed to be approved by the spirit. It felt wrong to simply send their AIs out as brokers to find a building.
Instead, each man had spent hours looking himself, asking friends, walking around the station, and poking through posts on the social media channels. The slidewalks effectively extended the range any parishioner could walk, and no one was infirm or needed a wheelchair, so they agreed that any building within two kilometers of the playground where they met was fair game.
But two kilometers’ distance in a three-dimensional city grid took in a large number of buildings.
Each man presented his suggestion. It had turned out that the space station didn’t include any purpose-built churches. Parker suggested a warehouse. Diaz advocated for a cafeteria. Richter wanted a large storefront. Klein insisted that he’d seen every available option within walking distance and found them all wanting; they should continue to meet in the open air, and aggregate resources for something other than a building.
“Like a colonization drop?” Cade asked.
“Could be, I suppose,” Klein said. “Really, I was thinking of a soup kitchen or something like that, but we don’t really need those.”
“Yet,” Diaz warned.
“We could get a printer,” Klein. “Make some missionary tracts.”
“Warn people about the evils of tabletop roleplaying games?” Parker arched an eyebrow.
“Or print the first Pegasus edition of the Bible.” Klein pushed out his chest proudly. “Someone’s got to.”
“You signed up for colonization?” Parker asked Cade.
“Yeah,” Cade said. “I figured you probably all were.”
Parker was, as it happened. Diaz, Richter, and Klein were not.
“You can’t stay up here forever,” Cade said.
“The colonization drop isn’t to sign up to be a farmer,” Richter said, his thin yellow face narrowing to a pair of pursed lips. “It’s to sign up to be a pioneer. My great-great-grandparents did all that stuff, having babies at home, amputating their own limbs when they were injured. I’ll wait up here, and once the tigers and bears have been driven into the wilderness, and the land is safe, I’ll come down.”
“No appetite to subdue the land with a Bible and a plow?” Parker’s eyes twinkled.
“I will exercise my dominion by thoroughly preparing,” Richter said. “I’ll study from orbit. I’ll screw up my resolve. And in due course, I will bring my Bible and plow down to join yours.”
Cade proposed a warehouse, too, though not the same one Parker had discovered. The men discussed their options, whittled them down to three, and then set about learning what units of the various buildings could be acquired.
* * *
“Hey, partner,” Tim said carefully. “How’s it going?”
“Nothing’s worked out, man,” Jason said ruefully, putting on his full sad face. “Every plan I had was a bust.”
“Dangit,” Tim said. “Please tell me you’re pulling my leg. We’ve got everything invested in this.”
“Sooo, I came up with a new plan and it’s going great,” Jason said. “Jewel, brief him on the shrimp trap and load system we worked out.”
Jewel used the drone and previous footage to show Tim the shrimp trap/load system while he nodded.
“That’s . . . brilliant, Jay,” Tim said, nodding his head.
“Who’s the best . . . Timmm?” Jason said. “Who’s the best?”
“You’re the best . . . asshole,” Tim said, grinning. When they were working together, Jason had taken nearly every opportunity to introduce him as “Some call him . . . Timmm?” “We still haven’t worked out distribution marketing and sales for which we have no budget.”
“Videos for marketing,” Jason said. “While I’m down here I’ll have the drones capture video of, well, everything. I’ve got video of shooting the big croc, we’ve got one of an elephant swatting a drone which is sort of funny. We’ll get some more, elephant babies are always popular, and slug on something about Brandywine Foods.”
Jason changed to “announcer voice.”
“‘At Brandywine, we go to extremes to bring you the best in fresh foods.’ ‘No baby elephants were harmed in the harvesting of this food.’ Something like that. With a connection to a website where they can order food by the case. ‘Just ask your AI about shipping options!’ Lower prices for bulk shipping. Shipping cases is two credits apiece, door to door. At first it will be entirely unsorted. Especially the shrimp. Disclaimers on that subject: ‘These shrimp are live, unsorted, of various sizes and will jump out of the case. May also contain fish, crabs or small crocodiles. Caution when opening.’”
“I’m not so sure about that one . . . ” Tim said, chuckling.
“No, seriously,” Jason said. “I know we’ve got a lot on the line but I’m of the opinion the marketing should be lighthearted. People are stressed. Introduce a little levity. Bottom line is that distribution is more about getting people’s attention. And videos will do that. But. We need to wait until we’ve got the stuff on the station.”
“Getting back up will be easier,” Tim said. “There’s mostly deadheads coming up and it’s not much for one of the ships to even cross a long distance on the planet for a pickup.”
“Which brings up another subject,” Jason said. “I brought twelve full containers of coffins with all but two loaded with cases. I wasn’t sure how this was going to work and I figured better safe than sorry.”
“Which are costing us some money,” Tim said. “We can handle it, but . . . ”
“Have you been being paid by the gubmint for surveying?” Jason asked.
“Haven’t gotten the check, yet,” Tim said. “But I’ve gotten the notice that there will be one shortly. Which will pay for the containers . . . ”
“I’ve pulled out all the coffins to fill the conexes with cases,” Jason said.
“So, what are we going to do with the coffins?” Tim asked.
“Wait for me to get there,” Jason said. “There’s butt-ton food down here. There’s herbs, greens, shrooms and masses of game. Predators probably won’t bring much but there’s buffalo, deer, probably wild hog. I don’t think we want to ship elephant. Some people on the station will probably go for it but it might cause some . . . negative publicity with the Westerners.”
“Yeah, no elephant for now,” Tim said. “You’re saying load a ship with the coffins. First or . . . ?”
“Just coffins,” Jason said. “They can be lashed together into an ersatz conex. Herman and Alfred can lift them into the ship or stabilize them at least. The coffins have contragravity. So . . . not right now but how much would it cost for a six pack that’s willing to try it rather than deadhead?”
“I’d have to see,” Tim said cautiously.
“The cargo system on the station can handle it,” Jason said. “I checked. Log guy. And we can lift it that way. Just need a pilot willing to hover for a bit longer than usual.”
“How long?” Tim asked. “Those guys are busy as a one-armed paperhanger. Six packs especially.”
“Thirty minutes, max,” Jason said, overestimating in his limited opinion.
“That . . . might be doable,” Tim said.
“They’re flying back deadhead,” Jason said. “They’ll want a load. Offer food.”
“You’re giving away our money and our investors’ money,” Tim pointed out.
“There’s just one problem with it,” Jason said. “Who’s going to buy meat by the coffin? We’ll have to sell that for quite a bit. I was thinking of selling a case of shrimp for around twenty-five credits.”
“That much?” Tim asked.
“Most people won’t buy it for personal use,” Jason said. “Some, yes. But they’ll buy a case to resell most of it. But a coffin? That’s literally going to be a ton or so of, generally, meat. I’m going to load the veggies and fungi in cases. So, who’s going to have the credit to buy a ton of meat? There are no distributors, yet, right?”
“No,” Tim said. “So, what’s the answer? You usually have one when you present a problem.”
“We break it down to cases on the station,” Jason said. “Then distribute as in the shrimp: by the case. Slightly lower price for bush meat.”
“We’d have to hire people to butcher and prepare it,” Tim said, frowning. “That takes money.”
“All I’ll need is about five hundred kilos, maybe a thousand, of flexmet,” Jason said. “And we can get that. In two days, I’ll have at least two conexes of shrimp. Varying weight, varying all sorts of ways but we should be able to get about twenty-five credits for twenty-five kilos of shrimp.”
“Put that way . . . ” Tim said, nodding. “I’ll have to crunch the numbers to see if that’s profitable, though. We need at least three times what our costs are. That’s standard business. Preferably more since we’re in high risk.”
“Bet that twenty-five credits is more than three times costs,” Jason said. “This has been cheap compared to Earth. The labor is mostly drones, flex and tractors. We then buy the flexmet and rent a warehouse-type area on the station. All we need is cooling, it’ll need to be cold as hell, power and water. Oh, and six cases per coffin. With that we can reprocess the meat into cases and distribute as per the shrimp.”
“Two days,” Tim said.
“I can have a six pack with much shrimp as well as game and flora in two days,” Jason said confidently. “But it doesn’t have to be in two days. So, you’ve got flex on the timing.”
“I’ll put out the word,” Tim said. “Anything else?”
“Not here,” Jason said. “Going well and we’re going to make butt-ton credit.”
“Sounds good,” Tim said. “I’ve got three other companies I’m working with so . . . ”
“Out here,” Jason said, disconnecting.
He looked around at the forests and river and nodded.
“Jewel, go to full harvest,” Jason said. “Survey only as they’re harvesting. No elephants, I’ll hunt the carnivores tomorrow. We’ll lift the containers with those last. All the mushrooms the drones can gather. Does this set up need Herman and Alfred continuously?”
“No,” Jewel said. “The containers and flexmet can share power. But it will need Herman about every five to six hours, depending on the amount of shrimp processed and crocodiles.”
“Crocs,” Jason said. “How could I forget crocs? Okay, Herman stays here. He can manage the charging and crocs. Send out a team of four drones and Alfred along with coffins. Have them decapitate, butcher and skin anything that’s a major food animal. That’s mostly the ungulates. Deer, hogs, buffalo.”
“No elephants,” Jewel said.
“No elephants,” Jason replied. “Leave the heads and most of the organ meat. Just keep kidneys, hearts, livers and lungs for now. Separate the king’s loin on all of them and put that in cases. We’ll keep those for bribes, friends, et cetera. You know what a king’s loin is, right?”
“Yes,” Jewel said.
“The rest of the drones are harvesting edibles,” Jason said. “I need to go through all the potential edibles. We keep that up as long as it works. What am I missing?”
“Drone on the nets or Herman?”
“Drone,” Jason said. “Herman may need to be mobile. Four drones here including the harvester drone. Don’t we have a damaged drone? Vultures?”
“Yes,” Jewel said.
“Can that one hang on to the flexmet at least?”
“Yes,” Jewel said. “It had one of its motors damaged but it can attach to flex.”
“That one, then,” Jason said. “As part of the four here. That’s eleven gathering with four hunting and four here as backup. Should work.”
“Make it so?” Jewel asked.
“Not yet. First things first. We need to rearrange the camp again. Can we fill two conexes?”
“Yes,” Jewel said.
“Elevate my conex with those two,” Jason said. “Put it in the middle so there’s a porch at each end. That way I can see again and there’s some wind. Make sure that Alfred is fully charged before leaving, ditto on the drones. Have him return whenever they get a full load or when he’s at eighty percent charge. There was something like bay leaf.”
“Yes,” Jewel said.
“Have the drones collect some of that and some of the dark brown peppers and bring it back right away,” Jason said. “I’ll need it for the shrimp. Now make it so.”
He got out of the way while the rearrangement occurred then went back to his conex as the drones and Alfred disappeared into the woods.
Then he started working his way through the rest of the “potentially edible” flora.
Most of it was flowers. There were three cases of those alone, a rich-smelling mix of red, green, purple and orange. He didn’t generally think of flowers as edible and had Jewel set them aside. After some thought he had her tell the drones to pick some of the prettier ones that were also common. The women associated with the company—women were investors, too—would probably like them. Six cases, one coffin, maximum.
Then he started on the herbs and spices.
Some had potential medicinal uses. More were potentially useful in cooking. Many were known species and he had those added to the harvest list. With the unknowns, he went through each one, checking smell carefully then taste.
Of the hundred and twelve potential herbs only four seemed worth harvesting. One had a lemony taste like lemon grass, another tasted a bit like thyme and he named that Chindia Thyme.
“Jewel, got a minute?” Jason said as he was tasting.
“I am always . . . here . . . ” Jewel said.
“Was that a cultural reference?” Jason asked. “I sort of recognize it.”
“From a British TV show,” Jewel said.
“We need to set up care packages,” Jason said thoughtfully. “Enough for all the investors in the company, notable persons we need to schmooze like Richard and Monica, and about twenty additional for general schmoozing. Shrimp, king’s loin when we have it, a bit of the crocodile meat, shrooms. We’re going to be putting most of the edible plants and mushrooms into the care packages but lean for volume towards proteins. By which I mean shrimp, fish and meat.”
“Recognized that,” Jewel said. “Flowers?”
“Yes,” Jason said, nodding. “Small package of flowers. Each type of stuff will need to be packed with flexmet. . . . ” He frowned. “We probably don’t have enough spare, do we?”
“Recommendation,” Jewel said. “Rather than packing it down here, you’re planning on doing a repackaging facility on the station. Repackage it there.”
“That works,” Jason said, nodding. “Christ, we’ll probably need nearly a full container. I can see where Tim was worried about that.”
“You probably don’t need a full case for everyone,” Jewel pointed out. “Tim took as low as ten-credit investments. Half a case there. But there’s a two-credit charge for shipping and there’s a small cost to the flexmet.”
“We’ll figure it out on the station,” Jason said. “But make sure part of my account is some full care packages and make sure one goes to Sheila.”
He played around with the flexmet of the containers and created a drawbridge to the surrounding ground-level containers as well as an extended winch to drop to the ground and lift up to the conex. He changed the straight prison-type bars on the conex to a complex screen from an image of traditional Indian screens. Better. More homey. He made a note to Jewel to change it to thin screen when the sun went down. There were already some bugs getting into the conex and he figured it would be worse at night. He had a Coleman lantern and he made another note to get some sort of powered light for at night. His fuel wasn’t going to last very long. For tonight, he was pretty sure he’d be going to bed at sunset.
He decided for once to not be lazy. He always tried to find the most efficient way to do things: i.e., lazy. And that combined with the technologies was well on the way to making him a lot of money. But instead of getting drones or Herman to tote, he abseiled down to ground level and walked over to the shrimp catch area to get dinner.
There were three closed cases on a bed of flexmet extended from the conex and the catch net had only a small group of shrimp in it.
“Is this working?” Jason asked, gesturing at the shrimp and the cases.
“The loading is sporadic,” Jewel said. “There’s sudden bursts of shrimp then it slows down. But we’ve already loaded half a conex so it’s not going badly. It’s currently slow.”
“That should change once the run firms up,” Jason said, opening up the nearest container.
It was half full of very active shrimp. In addition, there was a very pissed-off fish of a species he thought he recognized.
“Is that a barramundi?” he asked. He formed a glove of flexmet, added some grip to it and snatched the fish out of the case. “Close.”
“It is,” Jewel said. “Good catch, pardon the pun.”
The fish was about as long as his arm—it barely fit in the case—and was going nuts. He extended a small knife from the flexmet and neatly pithed its brain then cut its throat.
“I said just leave the bycatch but I was thinking of small fish,” Jason said. “Try to pull out anything this large.”
“Will do,” Jewel said.
He set the dead barramundi on the flex and pulled out about two pounds of shrimp from the container, sealing them in a container of flexmet.
Not being lazy was all well and good, but . . .
“How much trouble to clean that?” he asked, pointing at the barramundi.
“No tribble a’tall,” Jewel said. The barramundi was absorbed by the flex then a moment later two fillets popped back out.
Jason thought about that for a moment and shuddered.
“What’s wrong?” Jewel asked.
“I was just thinking about every compartment being nothing but flexmet,” Jason said. “The container I’m sleeping in being flexmet. And hackers.”
“We’re more than slightly resistant to hacking,” Jewel said.
“It’s one of those things I’m not sure that most people should realize,” Jason said. “And I can handle it despite my trained and experienced paranoia.”
He wrapped the fillets in more flexmet and carried them back to his hooch.
Dinner was more pan-fried fungi, blackened barramundi, and the pièce de résistance, two pounds of shrimp boiled with bay leaf and some peppers, dipped in melted margarine alas, with a dessert of more strawberry bananas. Afterward, Jason sat on his riverside porch looking west upriver. Two pounds plus of shrimp had been too much and he continued to nibble as he viewed the scene.
The sun was descending over Chindia Mons and the birds were calling their last weird calls before nightfall. One of them had a WRACK! WRACK! WRACK! call that was as loud as a Led Zeppelin concert. On the far side of the river a herd of water buffalo were loading up on water, keeping a cautious eye on the river for crocs. Further upriver were elephants and deer. Shrimp were jumping to avoid predators like bala and barramundi and a school of bala suddenly broke the surface in a swarm as some larger predator targeted them. A croc was in view, sculling upriver, and the buffalo were keeping a particular eye on it. The wind had died to a light zephyr and in the distance, he heard the cough-cough-cough-roar of a male tiger pronouncing its territory.
He realized he’d been going since hours before dawn. Shiplag was kicking in. But evening on the Benton was too pleasant to go to bed, yet.
That was until he suddenly jerked awake, grabbing his hat and rifle.
“Yeah,” Jason muttered, stumbling to his feet. “I could sleep.”
* * *
Cade rose early and went out to weed the carrots.
They didn’t really need it, they were carrots, not livestock that needed to be fed. There were weeds that somehow made it into the planting beds, but mostly just simple clusters of grass to be plucked, and not very many. But he’d found that his ability to rise early with no alarm had attached flawlessly to the artificial day and night of the station, and that pleased him.
He was also pleased by the dull ache from work in his arms and shoulders, by the calluses on both his hands, and by the general smell of soil he seemed unable to shake. It was better than the smell of metal and recycled air.
With more than a little help from Abby, he’d figured out how to make the flexmet plumbing collect human waste. Apparently, there was now a vat of nightsoil percolating somewhere unseen in the walls and growing by the day. He hadn’t used it yet, but he’d need it soon enough for fertilizer. He also had flexmet tubes watering his crops on a fixed schedule.
He stepped into his denim overalls—the best clothing humankind had invented, tough and utilitarian—and noted that Sam’s bed was empty. Cade strapped on his head-mounted light. He sighed. Some people were starting to get jobs. Mabel worked full-time as a seamstress. Abby earned credits as something called an “influencer,” which, as far as Cade could tell, meant that she photographed cute or weird things with her phone and talked about them. Cade tended his carrots—he was up to six planting beds now—and waited to hear when he and the family could go down to the planet.
He also tried to do his duty as a deacon. On Earth, that had meant visiting the sick and the imprisoned, like Matthew said, or the widows and orphans, as James would have it. Precious few people were imprisoned on the space station so far, and none of them from Mount Moriah. There weren’t many orphans, and the widows were all sprightly twenty-year-olds with new leases on life. Parishioners did get sick, but they generally got sick like young people—a flu would knock them off their feet for a day, and then they’d be right back.
Still, Cade and his fellow deacons tried to visit people who seemed to need it. As the carrots ripened, he started bringing little carrot bouquets.
But Sam hadn’t found a job. Cade had given up trying to get him to work in the garden. All he admitted to doing was hanging out, which increasingly happened late at night, and increasingly resulted in him coming home smelling like alcohol.
Cade had never loved Julie Larsen’s politics, but he’d have listened to a hundred Bernie Sanders-inspired rants about how we only need one kind of automobile if it meant he could have Sam back.
The door cycled open silently and Cade walked to the garden area. At “night,” the space station halls were dark, but sensitive motion detectors lit up dim ankle-height floor lamps just before and after him, so he walked in a soft bubble of visibility.
He walked the short distance to the playground and the planting beds. Turning the corner into the large chamber, his boot squished something soft beneath its sole and he stopped.
Dirt. There was dirt on the ground.
Cade turned on his headlamp. The dirt from the planting bins was scattered and heaped about on the floor. Carrots lay in the mess, some simply yanked from the ground, but others chopped up or stomped into pulp.
Cade felt punched in the stomach. He staggered to the wall and leaned against it, inhaling deeply to try to control his sense of surprise and violation. His eyes stung and he blinked away tears.
Why was he getting so emotional over carrots?
Cade slapped his own cheeks and told himself to get a grip.
Then he got down on his hands and knees and started scooping the dirt back into the planting beds.
* * *
“Tim,” Jason said, gnawing on the leg of a bird.
It was afternoon of day two on the ground and things were going well. Shrimp and fish were loading, crocodiles had slowed considerably, and he’d had enough time and the situation was clear enough that he could do a little light hunting. So, he broke out his Winchester 12 gauge and decided to do some bird hunting.
“You’re eating fresh food while your partner in crime still has to put up with print?” Tim asked.
“I didn’t bring much prepared food with me,” Jason said.
“What is that, anyway?” Tim asked.
“Polly’s Parrot,” Jason said, wiping his chin. “Turns out, parrot’s really tasty. This type eats fruits and it’s like fruit-infused chicken.”
“Polly’s Parrot,” Tim said. “Seriously.”
“Jewel keeps pestering me about naming stuff,” Jason said, shrugging.
“So, on your video marketing idea,” Tim said. “One has already gone viral, ‘Crocodile Dude.’”
“‘Crocodile Dude’?” Jason asked.
“Somebody took the drone video of you killing that croc, put it to the Mission: Impossible theme and did a voice over about ‘Crocodile Dude,’” Tim said. “No idea who, just some random person who came across it. I think that’s stealing a likeness or something, but it went viral. There are plenty of videos coming up from the planet, but not many of a madman hunting crocodiles with a child’s cap gun at point-blank range. It’s gotten sixteen million individual views according to the AI that’s tracking it.”
“Oh,” Jason said, wiping his chin again. “Is this a good thing?”
“You are probably the most famous person in the Pegasus system at the moment,” Tim said. “Other than, you know, Dewalt and the mysterious Gavin. Marketing wise . . . the co-founder of Brandywine having the brains God gave a gnat . . . might work or might not.”
“‘At Brandywine we go to extremes . . . ’” Jason repeated.
“How’s the load going?”
“At the current rate, we’re going to need another twelve pack,” Jason said. “And lots more conexes.”
“I expect some Polly’s Parrot in the load,” Tim said. “I could do with some fruit-infused chicken.”
* * *
The male tiger was old for a breeding male and covered in scars from battles to hold his territory. He’d be driven out soon and die not long after in less productive territory. He’d spread his genes.
Jason still felt a slight pang as he stroked the trigger.
The tiger was also huge, what people had started calling a megapredator. Based on Jewel’s calculations he was nearly thirty percent larger than the largest Siberian on Old Earth. The polymer-tipped copper round struck true, hitting right behind the left foreleg. And it was an expanding penetrator, the best round he had for this.
But the big male still didn’t die immediately. The tiger spun and bit at whatever had attacked him then galloped into a thick stand of Happy Trees.
“Dang, dang, dang,” Jason muttered. “I need a bigger rifle. Jewel, remind me to get a rhino-skin outfit made as soon as we’ve got rhino skin and somebody who can make it. And a bigger rifle.”
“Will do. The bigger rifle was already noted. Several times.”
It was the third day after his conversation with Tim and they didn’t have six conexes loaded, they had the equivalent of fifteen including all the spare coffins. The shrimp had run more strongly at night and by day two on the planet they’d already loaded six conexes just with shrimp. The drones and Alfred had been busy, bringing in game, veggies and fungi day and night. Besides water buffalo and deer there were wild hogs in the area and three herds of giant hogs had filled one entire conex. Last but certainly not least in terms of tonnage: The Benton river was swarming with crocodiles and as soon as you took one out of the territory, more moved in. Leaving Herman in place had turned out to be a necessity not a notion.
The original plan to bring in a six pack had evolved to a twelve pack and it was bringing in more conexes. Jason had convinced Tim, after some consulting with the AIs, that he could run things from the station for now. Since the satellites indicated more runs on inlets and rivers to the south, they’d also sketched out notional plans for more shrimp/game harvest camps.
He had to be back to camp soon. The twelve pack was supposed to arrive in a couple of hours. But he felt like it was meet to take the big male tiger before he left. Removing the primary predator would mean more game meat for people.
He knew better than to chase a wounded tiger into the brush. The glasses had tracked the round and it should have hit the heart. But that didn’t mean the tiger was going to die immediately.
The flip side was you never let an animal suffer. He could send in a drone and cut its throat easily enough. But Jason felt this should be more personal. The old male deserved that respect at least.
He wasn’t going to be stupid, though. A professional hunter had written a long story about how he’d prepare to go into thorn after a wounded leopard. It was several thousand words and it mostly involved stopping to have a cigarette. Then slowly putting on the next piece of protective clothing. Then stopping to have another cigarette.
Jason had given up smoking a long time ago. And that was going after a medium-sized leopard, not a megatiger.
“Jewel, send in a drone to track it,” Jason said, still lying on the tree limb. “Have it hold as far back as possible. Don’t startle it. They’ll pass away faster if they don’t have adrenaline going.”
That was the nature of any animal, even humans. When first attacked, shot, wounded, the adrenaline flowed. Adrenaline and other biochemicals released in trauma constricted blood vessels, holding as much blood in the system as possible despite the injury.
It was when an animal slowed down. When they felt safe, even if injured, and calmed that the blood vessels opened up and they’d bleed out.
Cops had been shot in the arm and never even realized they were hit. Then when they calmed down, they started losing blood so fast they died of shock and blood loss with medics standing right in front of them.
In hunting dangerous game, it was a balance between not letting it suffer, ensuring it died a decently quick death, and not getting yourself killed.
He needed a bigger rifle. The .30-06 was a great all-around hunting round but it was a .22 on Bellerophon.
“What’s the market for big game rifles now?” Jason asked,
He’d checked that enough that he suspected Jewel was getting tired of it.
“As before,” Jewel said, a touch snippily, “the lowest price is a .458 Safari 70, used, slightly battered, needs some work, going for fifteen thousand credits. All the early deals were snapped up in the first week.”
He abseiled down from the tree and considered the view from the drone. The tiger was about two hundred meters away in heavy brush. Not much in the way of thorns, fortunately.
But it wasn’t dead yet. It was lying on its side, panting.
Jason made his way through the woods, keeping his head on a swivel and watching where he put his feet. One broken branch and the tiger would probably dial back up. Better to keep it calm.
He’d learned how to adjust the goggles using facial expressions and a hint of biofeedback. He switched back and forth between views of the surroundings. He kept the goggles enhanced but still looked carefully. Enhance did not work as well for snakes, it in part used thermal, and there were nine types of poisonous snakes in the area including Indian king cobras.
He also switched from time to time to the view from the other drones, including the one behind him. He still wasn’t sure the drones and Jewel were entirely intuitive on what to consider a threat and what to ignore.
He got to a point about fifty meters away where he could see the tiger through enhancement. It was still alive and getting closer was probably not the best call. The brush was thick but he had a shot on the head. The problem was how much it would be deflected by brush.
He adjusted the scope for the range and put another round into the back of its head, just above the spine.
The tiger jerked and was still. But the goggles indicated that the round hadn’t achieved full penetration even at fifty meters. So, it was probably just knocked out.
Respect or caution?
He set the rifle down and drew the .44 Magnum. At this range it was the better choice.
He kept a careful eye on the beast as he closed, soft footed, making sure he wasn’t breaking branches. If it spooked, he was going to be in a world of hurt.
It was still panting faintly as he closed. Ten yards was close enough.
This time the bullet penetrated and the tiger finally lay still.
He knelt by the massive beast and patted it on the flank.
“You lived well, old man,” Jason said. “May you go to the summer lands . . . ”
* * *
When Cade called the police about the vandalism, they didn’t have much to offer him.
“Consider putting up a fence with a lock,” the officer said. “Flexmet can produce both those things, and also the key.”
“If flexmet can produce a key,” Cade pointed out, “can’t flexmet also pick the lock?”
“There’s no perfect solution,” the policeman agreed. “Even on Earth, there wasn’t. No matter how tight you lock something down, someone might find a way to get at it.”
“What about surveillance cameras?” Cade asked. “Everything is a TV screen, isn’t it? Is it also a camera? Is there closed-circuit-TV-style footage of the park I could see?”
“I don’t think everything’s a TV,” the officer said. “But even if it was, there’s no surveillance video to look at. At least, the station doesn’t have any. You can ask individual shopkeepers in the area.”
“Why is there no surveillance?” Cade asked, but he knew the answer himself. “Because this is the right-wing space station, and we take personal liberties seriously. Am I right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Nuts.” Cade considered. “But you said you could go look at what surveillance footage the local businesses might have?”
“No, sir, I said that you can do that. And they might cooperate with you.”
“You’re not going to investigate a crime?” Cade demanded. “No policing at all, that’s what we got? What kind of Randian hellhole is this?”
“Remind me again what got vandalized,” the officer said.
“My planting beds,” Cade said. “Flowerbeds.”
“Rare flowers?” the officer asked. “Really valuable crops?”
“Carrots,” Cade said. “The soil got thrown all over.”
“Sir,” the officer said, “what has happened to you is a crime. I am personally aggrieved at the destruction of your carrots, not least because I haven’t seen an honest to God vegetable since I arrived here, and I could really go for a little Vitamin A. But you will not be surprised to hear that I have more serious crimes to investigate. I wish you luck.”