Greenie 012

Ranger Salomon grinned with joy as he handed Roy his pet owner’s license.

“I have registered Partner, since we have no idea what it is, I wrote Black Dog into the species field.” Martha thanked the ranger and said,”I understand Bob, your son, is my son’s best friend and I found out Roy had spent many nights and eaten many dinners at your home.” The ranger leaned back in his swivel chair and said,”Roy is always welcome in our home, he is more like a brother to Bob than just a friend and Roy has been more than helpful in quite a few instances for the Ranger service, by helping me find things out there.” Martha looked at Roy and said,”I know more about the Lighting Bolters than my own son, but what I’ve heard about him over the past few days has made me very proud. But what I wanted to say is that I would like to invite you, your wife and Bob to dinner. Now I am not a very good cook but I hoped you would accept invitations to Marcello’s in town.” Marcello’s was the finest and most expensive restaurant in Ant Hill and the Ranger winked at Roy and then said.

“I am delighted to accept. I don’t think my Sarah has been out for a nice dinner in a long while and I am surer she will be as happy as I am.” Roy still could not really believe how much his situation had changed in just a few days and slowly he accepted the fact that it was indeed true and not just a dream. The Ranger got up and walked them to the door.

“I am glad it all worked out; you know the news of teenagers going outside unprotected made quite a splash in the news. It turns out you are not the only ones going outside, but so far no one else managed to get friendly with local life forms.” The Ranger’s office was in the South Wall Tower, an inward curving building following the curve of the protective dome. The right wall was transparent and allowed a magnificent view over the lake and the distant Jungle shore. His mother stepped into the cabin of the Inter City Transporter after Roy and said.

“Since I forgot your birthday and we are in town, is there anything you’d like?” Roy shook his head.

“No Mom, they don’t sell anything here I need or like.”

“Roy I really mean it, it is not a trick and while we are not exactly rich, we earn decent salaries, a young man must have something he wants. Not that I could ever match that present you got from your Uncle Sam. I just found out what a Cerberus goes for.”

“Mom, you actually talking to me, I can go outside and I can keep Partner, there isn’t much else I want. Besides, I am really a Greenie and the things I like aren’t sold in town but at Ma Swanson’s.”

“Then let us go there and you can get something a real Greenie needs.” While traveling on a slide belt to the Flyer Hangars, others waved and several kids cheered his name and Roy felt quite uneasy about this sudden popularity and he wondered if it was better the way it was, with his friends meeting in secret and his parents knowing nothing.

Inside Ma Swanson’s boathouse main building was a cluttered sales room with show cases displaying weapons. Several models of protective Armor suits highlighted with spot lights stood here and there. Armor suit parts for a hundred models and makes stacked in high shelves. A big Flyer ArtiGrav Lifter module, way too big for anything on Green Hell, stood in one corner. Gary, one of Ma Swanson’s sons leaned over the service counter, chewing something and talking to Sabari Dohr, an old Saresii who lived in one of the Research Outposts and kept mostly to herself (or himself, no one of course knew for sure) discussing something with Gary. The mangled armor arm of a Krauss- Armor Walker was between them. There were a few tables and simple chairs in the middle of everything. Trond Iveland, one of the Cities Service Engineers and a sixth generation Greenie sat there with the only Klack living on Green Hell and they were playing Eggs and Grubs, an old Klack strategy game. The whole place smelled of metal, lubricants and coffee. Ma Swanson herself stood by one of the tallest shelves directing her thin husband standing on a reach-all-platform trying to get something from the very dusty selection of refurbished parts as Eric and his mother entered from the Flyer garage air lock. She turned and waved at Roy and said,”Roy go climb up there and show Clarion where we keep the Mark 87 Actuators, that half blind Ninja Weasel I got for a husband keeps pulling the 89′s.”

Roy had no need for a Reach-All; he climbed up as fast and as nimble as a Moolax.

Ma Swanson gave his mother a glance.

“And you are?”

“I am Roy’s mother, Martha Masters.”

Ma Swanson stemmed her fists into her hips.

“Roast me an Ult. I never saw you outside your suit.” She snapped her fingers.

“Of course the yellow and green AEGIS Seven with the Sniffer Sensor attachment. I’d recognized you in your suit right away!”

From above, Roy fished a plastic film packed metal part from the top shelf and said, looking down,”Mama, I mean Ms. Masterson knows everything there is about any suit there is on Green Hell.” To Clarion he handed the package.

“There it is your 87 Maffay Actuator, should fit that busted arm of that 91 suit. They went back to the old length in 91.”

Ma Swanson looked up and scolded her husband.

“That’s what I tried to tell you for the last ten minutes.”

Clarion Swanson barked back with a grin on his lips.

“Not my fault Maffay changes the bloody things every year.”

Ma Swanson said to Martha,”You have a good boy there, Ms. Masters. Always willing to lend a hand, courteous and respectful to others; not as common today, mind you; not as it used to be when I was a girl.”

Martha was certain it had a lot to do with Roy hanging out with Sam Brown as she hardly had spent much time in teaching her son anything. She felt even more thankful to the black man than she had before.

Clarion tossed the part back to Roy who was already back on the ground and then carried it over to Gary and the Saresii.

Martha said to Ma Swanson.

“I am looking to get him a birthday present. Would you know what he likes?” Clarion who descended on the Reach All bugged in,”We already got him a new Vibro Machete and he doesn’t need much in terms of Suits.”

Martha frowned while she watched as Roy helped repairing the Suit Arm.

“It looks half of Green Hell remembered my son’s birthday but we, his parents completely ignored him.”

The Saresii padded Roy on the shoulder while she leaned over watching the repair progress.

Ma Swanson said,”Paying a little attention to him is all you need to give him. Well, that and the freedom to roam this crazy ball of ours.”

Martha blinked surprised as the small husband of Ma Swanson held a cup of tea right under her nose saying,”Might as well settle down Dr. Masters, when Gary and Roy start fixing things, they don’t stop till it’s done. Besides you might like to get to know us a little.”

Roy had heard what Clarion had said and turned,”We’ll be done in a little while, Mom. If Maria were here we’d be done by now of course but I think we should be able to get it done in 10 minutes.”

Martha smiled and sat down at the other free table and was joined by Ma Swanson, also with a cup of tea. Her husband served a plate of butter scotch cookies he baked himself and was famous for, at least among the locals. Martha was still surprised about this so different atmosphere compared to the meetings of her Institute colleagues. It was as if she had travelled to a different world and yet was only a few kilometers from Ant Hill or her home. The tea was delicious; the china cups looked delicate and would have delighted Paul as they had the appearance of Pre Astro Terran wares. The cookies melted in her mouth and Ma Swanson told her about the day she saw Roy for the first time in her store. In her story he was just about eight or nine and had, all by himself and alone, crossed the Jungle. As incredible it was to her to know Roy navigated these deadly forests now, it was even more astounding to hear that he did that as a child.

The Service Mechanic on the next table just lost his second game to the Klack said,”It’s alright for Roy and the others to do it, but the ranger making such a big affair out of it will regret his decision!”

Martha actually had seen the man before; he was, if she recalled correctly, one of the Institutes Environmental systems maintenance technicians. Until now, such people were barely registered by her and only important to make sure the temperatures and moisture conditions in the Specimen holds were maintained correctly. She said,”Why would you say that? The Ranger seemed to be a sensible man and found a solution for both sides.”

The man helped his Klack friend to reset the white and red egg and grub shaped playing pieces for a new game and said without turning,”It will make those who aren’t Greenies think this is a Kindergarten World after all. The last time it happened, eight beings died out there. I like Green Hell just like it is, a few scientists in Power suits, a small but slowly growing Greenie Community and no Off Worlders coming with all sorts of crazy ideas about hunts, sports or challenges.”

The Klack wiggled his antennae and used one to nudge a white Grub piece into the correct brood chamber starting position and said via his Voice Box glued to his thorax.

“I bet ten bottles of fine Klackt Honey Water that we won’t have to wait long and someone will try to emulate the Children. Even for Roy, this is still Green Hell and not Para Para.”

The Saresii who had been quiet until now said,”I lived here for 300 Standard Years and I am out in the Jungle almost every day in a very good Armor suit. I think of myself knowing these Jungles and yet I have the feeling it turned more dangerous recently and not less.”

The Saresii pointed at the Power suit arm Roy and Gary were fixing.

“That’s a Maffey Armor suit, there should be nothing out there to do that, and I have been bitten, tromped on, slashed and stung by pretty much anything out there and the suit handled it with no or very little damage. Yet a Hydra Centipede bit me this morning and crushed the Lattice reinforced Armor-Plast likes cardboard.”

Martha forgot she had half a cookie in her mouth and said while chewing.

“Even the largest Hydra Centipedes should not exceed a mandible bite force of 600 kilos per square centimeter.”

The Saresii agreed with a nod.

“Indeed and I was bitten many times before. Unlike Roy who can spot their lairs twenty meters away, I still step into their traps. The Armor suit is Green Hell certified and should handle over 1000 kilos of shear pressure. That Centipede did not just bite through the outer layer; it severed the chrome steel rods of the actuator. I was only saved by me being able to shoot the beast before it penetrated the inner layer and sever my arm as well.”

Martha said,”May I ask what are you doing out there all these years? I never heard about you and I don’t think you are part of the Institute, right?”

“I was one of its former local directors but I retired over 80 years ago and Green Hell has put me under its spell. I doubt I will ever leave.”

The Saresii brushed her long silver hair back and then added,”I am conducting private research out there, sort of a hobby of mine.”

Martha thanked Clarion with a nod as he refilled her cup and said to the Saresii,”I’m beginning to realize the community of Green Hell holds as many secrets to me as does the nature out there. I begin to regret having accepted a posting on an Explorer ship, with so much undone here.”

Gary and Roy finally finished the repair job and Martha said.

“Are you sure you don’t want anything here?”

Roy pointed at a show case.

“I am saving for that H&K Raketen Pistol. It packs more wallop than my Thompson and could take care of an Insecto or a Stomper if I would ever need to.” He said to Ma Swanson.

“How much more do I owe till it’s mine?”

She punched with her finger around the input display of her PDD and said.

“With the twenty Credits you earned today we are down to 890 credits.” To Martha she said,”He is a fine Greenie. Won’t take the bloody thing as a present and wants to work it off.”

Roy said with a disarming smile and shrug,”Uncle Sam always says if you really want something you got to work for it.”

“But Mothers can buy their sons, things. Even if I should disapprove buying my teenage son a weapon.” Martha pulled her Credit strip.

“We’ll take it.”

Harlex followed her down the landing ramp of the Yacht. He had not seen the two Petahrians nor had he seen anyone else aboard while they traveled to whatever place this was.

The Shuttle had landed right next to a number of dome shaped buildings. Sitting forlorn in an otherwise empty, stark looking landscape of gray and brown rock, these building were at the edge of a simple Duro Crete landing field.

They walked through the short connection tunnel and she explained,”You might not recognize that tiny sun, but it is Maxwell.”

“Maxwell?” This was the name of the sun and the system where Green Hell was.

“So I guess this must be Desolate.”

They reached the Dome pressure doors and she said as they slid aside.

“You are dead Harlex. You died during a Shiss Raid on a Penal Colony. That means you can’t simply stroll through travel control and swipe your CITI, but Intersystem travels are not checked due to the fact that Green Hell and Desolate do not have their own governments and theoretically are part of Harper’s Junction.”

Harlex felt cold sweat running down his back, once again reality has caught up with him, and he was a criminal now. The mass murder had been in the background. Pretending to be a Playboy with all the fine trappings of luxury life was great aboard the yacht, but he never was a real criminal or so he thought. All pretenses was gone, he was a criminal. The worst kind, accomplice to a mass murder, a fugitive and now he officially no longer existed as a Union Citizen. All rights and privileges were gone. He could be murdered, robbed, beaten up and no one would care and if the Federal Police would catch him, he had no rights to a lawyer or a fair trial.

He followed her almost like a robot, automatically while he looked to the left and right and hoped no one would recognize him.

Not that he had ever been to Desolate and there were only a handful of beings in the small lobby. No one really cared about him or the woman.

They passed a small automated Swine and Dine Restaurant and a tiny Wuerg & Koetz Delicatessen store. It was apparent she knew where to go. She turned and said,”Don’t look so gloomy! You are halfway home!”

“I’ll never be home again. I sold my soul to you. After this is done I am still dead and a Non Cit.”

“There are attractive places in Free Space for someone with money!”

He climbed a flight of stairs after her, leading to a second tier concourse in the dome shaped space port building.

“I don’t want to spend the rest of my life on some lawless planet and constantly in fear.”

Her face was cold as she looked down at him from the top of the stairs.

“Spending the rest of your life on a lawless planet is far preferable from your fate if you disappoint me and our mutual employers.”

There were doors in equal distance, the stenciled names and logos identified them as small businesses such as: Desolate Ice and Rock Mining, Vasco’s Forwarding Agency, Desolate Real Estate and others quite similar.

Harlex doubted she ever really was a Science Institute scientist but kept what he wanted to say to himself. She opened the door to a business called

“Desolate Temp Labor Agency” and waved him to follow.

The office was as bleak and gray as the planet was outside. A worn down carpet, a Dura plast table and a row of plastic chairs, the simple kind. Very large and very sturdy in case a Saturnian or Perthanian would look for work and needed to sit down. There was a primitive desk and a few printed posters showing various beings being very happy at what looked like bone breaking work.

Behind the desk sat a fat man. Harlex had never seen any humanoid so ungainly fat. The man’s face looked tiny in the globs of fat filled skin sacking around his neck. The man also smelled very unsavory, like the locker room of the saw mill at the penal colony. Just like in a cheap virtu story, the fat man was busy eating something big, reddish colored and dripping with greasy gravy and it was obvious he didn’t like to be disturbed. He waved his grease glistening hand at a back door,”It’s in there.”

The machine sitting in that back room, Harlex and every Union citizen could recognize. It was a CITI implanter, complete with the big Federal seal and the blazing red warning not to tamper or misuse it.

The act was, according to the seal, an act of treason ratified by the Assembly and offenders had the choice between hanging and shooting.

He gasped,”How did you manage to steal that?”

She said.

“Not knowing things is a very good trait in our line of business and not asking questions is a habit you need to learn fast.”

The fat man appeared,”I am the elected Major of Desolate, you idiot. This machine is not stolen. You are in an official Union Citizen Office and the machine is genuine. No one can steal those!”

Harlex still felt like a Union Citizen and hearing that there was a corrupt Union Official was even worse to his senses than a stolen CITI implanter. He said

“If there are more like that there could be Kermac Agents and who knows what creeping all over the Union!”

The woman actually slapped him across the face and hissed.

“Don’t think and don’t ever mention that to anyone.”

The fat man said,”He is too stupid, are you sure he is not an Agent?”

Harlex’s cheek burned from the hard slap and the growing anger,”You need me, I don’t need you.”

He walked to the door.

“Where would you go, Harlex?” she said with an amused tone in her voice.

“The next GalNet terminal, maybe a Judge will give me a reduced sentence or a pardon if I deliver them a bunch of Spies and Crooks.”

The door didn’t open, even after he pressed the manual release.

The fat man said,”I don’t even think we need him anymore. It turns out Green Hell has changed much or the stories were exaggerated, they have teenagers running around in the Jungles without any armor at all. It was all over the news. If a bunch of kids can do it, then our team in suits should have no problem.”

She said,”Nonsense, I have lived there. The stories of Green Hell are all true, no one survives out there!”

The Fat man snorted and activated a Field screen.

“System display News, Green Hell, Teenagers roam free.”

An unseen projector beamed an insubstantial two dimensional energy field into the room and on it the logo of Gal one appeared. They all watched the event of the teenagers arriving at Ma Swanson’s boathouse along with their Pets.

Ieshia Yeager asked tonelessly,”Did our Employers see that?”

The fat man shrugged,”It was on Channel one, most of the Galaxy has seen it.”

To Harlex she said,”We put you on ice until we know if we still need you or not.”

She pulled her weapon and Harlex remembered a stinging sensation, then nothing.

Celyciia, the Federal Police officer of the Recksnostal precinct was on her way to the interrogation room where she had the Warden of Penal Colony 23. Phil Decker the old detective wanted to question the Warden and not eat him, as she now knew. They had returned from Planet Parajia after over two days of detailed investigation. She was completely fascinated with this man who had lived on the Human world Earth before they even knew there were other sentient life forms in the Galaxy. He wasn’t arrogant or aloft like she thought one of these Immortals would be, he acted like a college and treated her with respect. She thought they had taught her well at the police academy but the experience and the eye for detail the old detective had was nothing less than amazing.

Her precinct was responsible for a dozen colonies in a 55 light year radius. It was a quiet corner of Union space. Very few felony crimes that required Federal Police assistance, no Pirate raids.

She had taken over from a retiring Garbini who had served for almost 60 years. Before she was transferred here, she served in the COREG department on Planet New Hampshire. When she was promoted and her old supervisor asked her what she wanted to do, she had told him that she wanted to transfer to CID and do real police work. That was three years ago and when she arrived the old Uniforms, used to the same chief for a long time, didn’t like the fact that a Saresii was replacing the well liked easy going Garbini. She managed to break the ice somewhat, but even after three years, she still was the new one and the outsider. That she was the one in charge didn’t help. However she did like her new assignment very much. Recksnostal was a tidy, growing Colony and a pleasant Garden World.

Most of the cases they had to deal with were not much different from what she used to do for the Commercial Regulations Enforcement department. One Company accusing another of bugging in on their mining claims was the most common call. Nine of the twelve Planets had local police for all the day to day stuff, two were Neo Quaker Colonies and the only crime there was arriving late for Sunday Service and until now she didn’t even know there was a Federal Penal Colony at the fringes of her precinct.

At first the case, as brutal as it appeared, was considered a done and shut case of a Shiss Raider attack and all initial evidence pointed to those scaled lizards.

At almost the same time as she got the report for the raid she was called from Headquarters Pluribus, telling her to wrap up the case as fast as she could and close it. Someone up the line basically wanted her to write up a report saying it was a Shiss Raid and close the case. She would then increase patrols for a few month to look for any other Shiss raiders and the case was filed and buried. After all, the victims were only a bunch of convicts anyway.

But somehow her instincts told her that there was much more to this than it appeared. Convicts or not, they were sentient beings and murder was murder and the raiders had killed over 500 convicts. Even if Shiss Raiders did that, they needed to be caught and dealt with. The very fact that Shiss Raiders operated almost 1000 light years from the nearest Shiss World should be alarming in itself.

She had reached the Interrogation room and found three of her colleagues standing outside, staring at a field screen. One of them Sergeant Ruddick, almost 30 years with the Federal Police said to the other two,”It really is the old Gumshoe. I didn’t know he really existed.”

As he noticed her approach there was something like respect in his face and he said,”Lieutenant, we have placed the suspect in the room as you requested. Mr. Decker is already inside.”

She was a Saresii and everyone always assumed she was a telepath, and ninety percent of all Saresii were indeed so gifted, she was not. Her Psi talents were called Telekinesis, revered on Sares but quite useless for a Policewoman. Everyone knowing her was aware of that, the Thauran Warden siting across the Old Detective however did not know that and only saw a Saresii enter the room. He immediately put his hands in a completely useless gesture against his temples and said,”I know my rights; you are not allowed to read my mind!”

Decker said,”She could if she has a court order. Or we simply assume you are a traitor, scan your mind to the deepest level and then dump you somewhere on that Penal Colony, not as Warden of course.”

The Warden crossed his arms.

“I don’t know what this is all about anyway. Neither me nor my guards did anything wrong and I am an employee with the Justice Department for over eight years.”

The man from Earth looked at the blue skinned Thauran,”Eight years, Warden of a Prison Colony, taking bribes from the prisoners to run businesses, taking a share from the shroom wood logs shipped off planet and every other crooked deal you have made, landed you in a position where you could not say no.”

Decker slammed his flat hand on the table between them,”Of course this was a set up and whoever set you up was confident you knew nothing about their identity or you would have died in the raid.”

The Saresii woman said,”The raid would not have been possible while the Warden and his guards were on the planet. Even the one thousand year old watch towers would have reported any approaching ship long before they could jam the towers and the Warden could have called for help. There is a Fleet base only 14 light years from here, but if he doesn’t know anything useful we simply turn him over to the PSI Corps, they will know everything he did since he left the womb of his mother and I am sure they can find enough to hang him. Traitors collaborating with enemies won’t have to fear long drawn out trails.”

Decker got up,”You’re right. He doesn’t know anything, let’s have lunch.”

The Warden was visibly pale,”PSI Corps, what has the Army to do with this?”

“Shiss raids on a Federal Installation are Fleet business and since you are not talking, they will have the PSI corps take you apart.”

He nodded defeated,”Yes, of course.” He then said,”I might not be important enough to be killed or know anything, but I do know the guy who approached me, right here on Recksnostal. He might know something!”

Decker grinned,That’s a start.”

As they left the interrogation room Decker said to the young Saresii woman.

“You caught up fast, with the good old Good cop-Bad cop routine.”

“There is a routine?”

“What are they teaching you at the Academy?”

She used her fingers to count:

“Psionic Crime Enforcement 101, Crisis Management, Federal Law...”

The old Detective rolled his eyes and said.

“I was afraid of that, but you do know what’s next right?”

Now it was her turn to roll her eyes in a very Terran Human way and said,”Of course, we haul in his contact and grill him, and I don’t mean eating him.”

“No, we send in our Blue friend to make contact and see what happens.”

She smiled,I know even how you old policemen called that on Earth. It is a Stake In however don’t know what kinds of stakes are used.”