* * * *
The inside of the car was one of luxury. Lars Best was not a large man, but he looked it due to the way he was sprawled across the seats. One arm was draped across the top, the other idly waving in the air as if he was listening to music. He had one leg up on the seat, his foot twitching every now and then, and the other leg stretched straight out and almost reaching the facing seat where Morgan sat. It was as if he wanted Morgan to know it was his car and his area and he was going to use as much space as he possibly could. The man who sat next to Morgan was known as “BDC” and he was overweight to the point of being unsightly, and it meant that Morgan had little room.
“Morgan,” Lars said with a welcoming smile. He switched between staring at him and not looking at him at all. “I know how your business has fallen on hard times and all that. I feel for you, I really do. You think I have no compassion? Is that what you think, that I can’t be here to help my friends?”
“Lars, I think there has been a misunderstanding,” Morgan started.
“No misunderstanding.”
“We finished our business together. That was what was agreed.”
“Yes, we finished our business. That’s right. All fair and content. And now you’re off to Ancia where you won’t have to see me again.”
“If there’s a flight.”
Lars was amused. “Why would there not be a flight?”
“There’s a rumour the flight’s been suspended.”
“For what reason?”
“I don’t know that.”
“You don’t know.”
“I was looking around for some answers.”
“I know nothing of any flight suspension. And if I know nothing about it, then it doesn’t exist. You can relax, my friend, the rumour is false. Whoever you heard it from, knows nothing about the ship or its crew. There will be a flight.”
Morgan nodded and decided to push his luck. “This has been planned for a long time. I am ready to go. Myself and my family are all prepared to be on that ship, and leave as soon as it’s ready.”
“I’m not interested in asking you to miss your flight.”
“No? Then why …”
“In fact, I’m pleased you’re going. That’s brave, taking that step, and not waiting for the official UDE ships to have a seat for you. The thing is, I have something I need you to do. Without going into all the details, which I’m sure will bore you, my history with TC and his friends is long, and to put it in short verse, I have little trust for the man. I know you weren’t expecting such a comment, and I know he’s viewed by most people as the greatest pilot in space history. Just know, I know him a little better than most people. That’s right. I knew him when he was just another struggling space cadet with big dreams, big talk and no money. Our relationship is built on respect. He lets me do what I’m skilled at, and I let him fly his ship around as much as he pleases. How could it be any other way? I’m not about to get behind the wheel of one of those. Especially not an old one like the Burning Star. The same, I don’t think TC would enjoy much about my job. He doesn’t have a knack for violence and death threats. Nor does he enjoy seeing the dismembering of people who annoy him. I’m thinking, as soon as he clears Earth-orbit, he’ll think he’s free from me. And that’s just Earth-orbit. Ancia? How can I reach him all the way to Ancia? That’s what he thinks.”
Lars laughed at the thought and BDC gave a deep chuckle like he was genuinely amused.
“Then, what’s this about?” asked Morgan.
“Well, since you are using my port to make your farewell flight into the heavens, I require something back.”
“Your port? How can this be your port?”
“What, you think it’s TC’s?” Lars laughed. “No, since you were trespassing on my property, you owe me something back.”
“What is it? You want me to put a land claim at Ancia for you? Is that it?”
“Ancia? I don’t know anything about Ancia. If I wanted a piece of Ancia, I would go there myself. I probably will one day, if I put my mind to it. But from what I hear now, there’s not too many luxury apartments up there, so I think I’ll be waiting a while. I’ll let people like you do all the hard work, and then people like me will come and take our pick of what we want.”
Morgan remained expressionless, but inside he was angry at the thought of a thug like Lars arriving at Ancia and thinking he can throw his weight around and ruin everything that had been built.
“No, I need you for something less dramatic,” Lars said as he stopped waving his hand and used it to point at Morgan. It unnerved Morgan all the more because he left his hand there in mid-air, pointing like it was a weapon aimed at him.
“You want me to do something to TC on Ancia?” Morgan asked, growing more horrified at what Lars might suggest.
“Relax, will you?” Lars said easily, and returned to that idle waving, that Morgan also started to find scary. “I said it was less dramatic. If I wanted anything to happen to TC, you think I’d ask you? I want you to be my eyes. BDC here, he’ll give you what you need, the equipment, recording and signalling devices, and show you how to work them. You message me now and then, day to day, whatever you think, let me know how TC is treating you, that sort of thing.”
“You want me to message to you how the voyage goes?”
“It’s communication equipment, Morgan. What else would you do with it?”
“You just want feedback, about the flight?”
“I have interests on that ship besides TC. Just want to know how it goes with him. Long way to Ancia, after all. Anything you don’t like about the way he’s acting, that sort of thing. Don’t give me a space opera, just anything you think might be suspicious or out of character.”
Morgan took the small devices from BDC and went to step out of the car.
“Wait on,” Lars said thoughtfully. “On second thought, tell me everything about everyone. Anything that pops into your head, I want to know. Won’t be so hard. Not like you’ll have anything else to do. I hear those long flights are endless monotony, drives most men crazy, to drink, or pills, or rope around their throats. Have a nice flight.”
* * * *
It had been a good four hours, but Jupe’s anger had not subsided all that much when the door finally opened for him, answering his pleas. When he saw TC in the doorway, blocking it, Jupe’s anger turned livid. He saw in TC’s face the satisfaction of his achievement, like he had cornered and trapped his prey, not worried that he had left the dirty work to Thax. But Jupe also saw something more worrying, that TC had no intention of letting him go, and the consequences of that was unthinkable. He remembered that TC had always liked to joke about getting all the people he didn’t like and entice them onto the ship before locking them away in some small and nasty room. Then he would take them far out into deep space, so far that the sun was nothing but another pinpoint star, and then he would get to see what they were really made of. It was well known that when TC took his ship that far out, he considered himself the only lawmaker.
“You’re kidnapping me!” Jupe shouted.
“Just behave,” TC said like he was expecting his son to say that. “You’ve spent so long off surfing and whatever, you’ve never grown up. I’m going to put a stop to that and force you to grow up, whether you want to or not. Forget about arguing, it’s all been arranged. There’s no way out, so don’t make yourself a pain, okay?”
“But my friends. I have a girlfriend, Geb. I can’t leave her like this.”
TC was not moved. “Do you have any idea how much potential you have? I had nothing like those kind of opportunities. And you just spit it up in my face and treat me like nothing, and go off and play your little surf games with your puny girlfriends with puny names like Geb.”
“You don’t know her! You shut up about her!”
“Let’s get one thing straight here. I am the captain, I am in charge, you are nothing. That means you don’t shout at me, ever.” He leaned in close, studying his face. “Th
at better not be a tear. Is that a tear?”
“At least send Geb a message.”
“What’s her real name?”
“I don’t know. We just call her Geb.”
“That sounds like a deep relationship. How long you known her?”
“About a month, I think. Why does that matter to you?”
“Even if I was going to send a message, which I’m not, how would I know who to send it to? Sure, I’m betting there’s not too many girls out there carrying a name like that around. Although we can probably narrow it down a bit to anyone willing to hang around with unambitious surfers. And what will we say? ‘So long, girl, off to find out if I’m a man or not in the wide black yonder. When I get back you’ll be sixty and I won’t be.”
“I was so right about you.”
“Just so you know, you can leave when we get to the T. Do whatever you want, stay at the T and be a man, or go home with your tail between your legs. Whatever you choose, one thing’s for sure, you won’t be the same person you are now, some whiny little boy wasting his life away. Next time I’ll see you, we’ll be in space, so do some preparations and whatever, you know the drills. If you’ve forgotten them, better get remembering.”
TC stopped and looked at him quizzically, to see what his next move would be.
“What if I don’t?” Jupe offered, shaking with fright at what he was hearing. “Did you not think that I might like my life?”
“Surfing?” TC asked with a disappointed sigh. “How could you think that was something to be proud of?”
He didn’t wait for Jupe’s abusive reply and slammed the door shut.
* * * *
It did not help Morgan that his car was more luxurious than Lars Best’s. As he drove to the landing bay, the memory of being in that car intimidated him more than the man himself. The strongman BDC had been polite to him, and when he laughed at Lars’ jokes he actually did seem to be amused. Morgan had tried to think of it as a normal Monday morning office meeting, and he hoped that’s how they saw his reactions. Neither did it help that the request from Lars was not at all difficult. It was something he need not share with anyone else, and he reasoned that Lars had asked him only because he happened to be there at the time. Lars could have asked anyone. More than that, through the entire exchange, there was always that thought in the back of Morgan’s mind that Lars had no ambition to go to Ancia. It was the same with BDC, or anyone else that Morgan knew of from Lars’ camp. That would mean that once Morgan became established on Ancia, he would be able to give Best no further thought.
He looked out the car’s window and knew that behind the tall fence sat the Burning Star. Knowing Lars had his trust, and probably wouldn’t do anything to him anyway, Morgan remembered that there was a more realistic presence of danger.
“Keep away from the Wilson brothers,” he announced to his family who were in the car with him. “You hear me, children? You too, Taylor. They work for Johnny Beggs, and they’ll be with us on the voyage, but we have no need to interact with them. I shall be reminding them, and Beggs, that I will not permit them near any one of you.”
“If you don’t mind,” his wife said as she continued to write notes in her journal, “I prefer to make my own judgement calls on people I have yet to meet. Anyway, I am sure someone like Johnny Beggs would have working under him only the very best of help.”
A tall and glamorous blond, Taylor-Marie had retired from modelling six years ago, but she was still constantly obsessed with her appearance. She knew that people treated her like she was not smart, but she was aware of more than she let on. They did not discuss it, but Morgan could guess that she knew that the ship was not part of the legal transports to Ancia. Like him, she chose to view it as a necessary evil to get them to the new world. Plenty of her friends would have killed for such an opportunity, and she knew that it would not be to her advantage to show Morgan up, or confront him on why he was being secretive and putting his family in danger. Ancia was the new in-place, and to be given the chance to go there was not something to take lightly. She knew not to share any details of the flight with any of her friends. It was enough for them to know she was going, and they would need to wait for their chance.
“Why are we going so slow?” Westminster Calp asked his father, having correctly gauged that their car was slowing to almost walking pace. He was nine and as curious as any boy his age, the middle of Morgan’s three children. Of them all, he reminded Morgan of himself, and he hoped to carefully groom him to one day take over as head of his Ancian empire.
“We are driving as fast as we are allowed, West,” said Morgan. “There are always traffic restrictions near flight-control bases.”
“We should be able to go as fast as we want,” the boy demanded. “Don’t they know who we are? We are going to own Ancia.”
“You’re just scared,” his sister Maddison chided. She was twelve but acted at least five years older, always copying Taylor-Marie’s fashion and way of talking, although she was not her birth-mother.
“Scared of what?” asked West.
“Of Ancia. You think there’s monsters there. That’s where the space aliens live. You can’t sleep at night, thinking they’re going to get you.”
The youngest child, seven-year-old Dorrington laughed at West’s suffering from the taunts of his sister. He was an adventurous child, who often got himself in trouble for finding new places to explore and hide.
“I’m serious about the Wilsons,” Morgan said to Taylor-Marie, ignoring the fighting like it was not really happening, as he always did. “Just watch that they don’t get too close to the equipment. That is what I am most weary of.”
“What are they going to do with it?” she asked with her sarcastic tone. “Try terraforming the ship?”
Morgan then lost his cool and yelled at the children who were still fighting. “Shut up! You’ll need to act more dignified than this. We’re off to start a brave new world. It is an opportunity few have, to begin anew. You will not mess this up for me.”
There was an uncomfortable silence, and they all became aware of the sound of the Burning Star’s engines being tested, and that made them realise that the big day had finally arrived and they were soon to leave their world.
“You are greatly privileged to be given this chance,” Morgan continued, before bellowing, “so you will act like you appreciate it!”
Morgan did not notice Dorrington beginning to cry, hurt that his father did not notice his excitement and joy at being about to step onto a spaceship that would take him to a new world.
* * * *
Jupe was allowed access to the flight deck and surrounds, including the crew’s small sleeping quarters, but he could go no further. The passenger area and hold were off limits. He knew that any protest would mean his confinement to the small side room he was first locked into. Neither TC nor the Wilsons would give him an ear about his plight, and he sensed their mirth at his fate. He had always disliked being around the Wilsons, but for his father to do such a thing made him realise that he had under-estimated how much he despised TC. No better than Thax and Cuthbert. Or worse, since they had not done it to their own sons. For them it was like some sick practical joke, to rip him away from his life and force him to spend the next few years aboard this ship. It was no matter to them that he had told no-one he would be going near the ship, especially his girlfriend Geb. It was true that he had only known her for one month, but he liked her and wasn’t ready to let her go just yet. Not without any explanation. If he could send her a message, and he was near to the ship’s comlink, he knew that she would just read it as a cowardly way to break up. It made it worse to know that The Rad One and a few other surfers had their eyes on her.
He positioned himself before a small viewscreen that showed the main passenger seating, and studied the faces of the people that TC had somehow managed to convince to travel with him. He felt for them, partly in mocking and partly in sympathy. Most experienced and highly trained spacefarers
became nervous when about to leave the safety of the Earth’s atmosphere, but for these people it would be something beyond terror, which was about the worst state to be in for a space flight. Jupe waited for TC to give them a prep-talk, wondering if the presence of his kidnapped son would be mentioned. But when he saw TC rush past him and talk in technical terms with both of the Wilsons, he realised that he was paying the passengers little, if no, attention.
“You’re launching without telling the passengers?” Jupe asked him, incredulous.
“They know,” TC said with a passing glance. “Would they be here if they didn’t? When you get on a spaceship, you’d probably think you might—I don’t know—go into space?”
“You don’t give them a speech first? You’ve done this hundreds of times, but it’s the first for them. Don’t you think you should warn them of what’s to come? Isn’t that what a captain does?”
TC groaned, looked over Jupe’s shoulder at the viewscreen and turned on the microphone switch.
“Listen up, people,” TC announced. “We’re off now, so if you’ve forgotten anything, or haven’t said farewells to anyone, then tough donuts, it’s too late for that. The engine’s going to get kind of loud, but don’t worry about it. It may explode into a fireball size of a mountain, but if it does, don’t worry, since there’s nothing you can do about it, and you’ll be dead before you can process a thought. But it hasn’t happened before, so probably won’t happen this time either. I’ve put a few more band aids over the leaks, so that should get us through.”
“That’s what you say to them?” Jupe asked, barely able to believe his ears.
“It’s a one-way flight,” TC said to him as he switched off the microphone, still not really looking at him, “so I guess I don’t need to feel concerned if they don’t want to fly with me anymore. Or what? Did you want me to make them feel comfortable? Then you can have a go.” Then his anger flared at him, out of nowhere. “Nobody ever made me feel comfortable!”