On the Spacefront
by Jeff Gaba
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Table of Contents parts 1, 2, 3 |
part 1
The drafty Hiring Hall smelled of the fifty or sixty ragged figures who waited with an air of sullen disappointment. Some sat on cheerless gray benches; some milled around and muttered curses to one another. They were all Spacers, the lowest figures in the hierarchy of commercial interstellar transport. It was the Spacers who moved weightless cargo in freighters, who pushed meaningless buttons, and who generally filled in the cracks in the system of moving cargo from one star system to another.
Throughout the galaxy, in almost every port, there were groups of Spacers who had lost their berths on starships and were living in poverty, trying to get a job that would take them home. As a group, they were a scruffy lot, and very little attention was paid to them. Terrans held them in contempt on the rare occasions that they even thought about them.
At exactly mid-day, a figure at a large table at the center of the hall picked up a microphone and spoke to the group. “06352, 10112, 80158 and 30333. That’s it for this run. You guys get over to the weigh station. The rest of you, get out. The Union will let you know when the next freighter is due.”
The lucky, nameless four picked up their duffels and headed to a door in a corner of the hall. The rest of the group continued to mill around or headed out the large door that led to the street. A few yelled out the Spacer saying that traditionally closed the hiring sessions: “Stinkin’ union!”
Inside the weigh station, the four stared at a bored woman sitting behind a table. “You guys know the drill,” she said. “Strip and get weighed. Then go back outside to the Hiring Hall and wait by the Port Exit. Your kits will be waiting in your bunks when you’re on board. Now move it! Gravity don’t wait.”
* * *
He awoke to blackness, a vista of stars and a wave of nausea. Fortunately for him, he was not floating in deep space but sprawled on a bed in a cheap hotel. He sat up, grabbed his head as pain pierced his skull. “Oy,” he muttered. He glanced over and saw a naked green woman climbing out of the bed. “Oy vay,” was all he could muster.
“I had a nice time, Boyo, but now I’ve got to go,” the green woman said and started picking up her clothes from the floor. For a moment, Bloom puzzled over his name: was it Boyo? But he rejected the thought as, very slowly, he began to regain some of his senses.
“My name is Bloom,” he thought, “Professor-Doctor Martin Bloom. But what the hell am I doing here?” He glanced over at the naked woman standing in the center of the room. He clutched his head again as he thought he saw the thick black hairs on her head begin to weave and twist of their own volition. He wasn’t at all surprised when he realized that hairs on other parts of her body were also moving. He shook his head as he wondered whether he had just slept with Medusa. He was sufficiently out of it that he checked to see if any part of him had turned to stone.
He was interrupted in his inspection by the sound of a door closing. The green woman was gone, and a quick glance showed that his pouch was gone as well. He muttered an ancient Terran curse when he realized his communicator and money had just walked out the door. He would have gone after her, but standing up did not seem an option at the moment.
“Time to take stock, Bloom,” he thought. He was certain he was Bloom, and that was something. He was a little unclear on what planet he was on, but he was sure it was a long way from Terra. “Sigma V, I’m on Sigma V,” he announced to the empty room. He felt some satisfaction when he realized what planet he was on. The green female humanoid with hair-like symbiotes was a dead giveaway.
He tried to focus on what had happened in the night, but the effort only brought on more headaches and nausea. He was reasonably sure that no one had drugged him. But if this was Sigma V, there were plenty of things that he might have drunk, smoked or snorted that would account for his condition. He certainly hoped he had enjoyed it.
He finally lurched out of bed and found some surprisingly dirty and ragged clothes that he assumed were his. Dressed, he picked up a pile of loose Terros, the common galactic currency, that the woman had thoughtfully left behind. At least he could afford a cup of coffee.
Down in the bar, he ordered the coffee and tossed some Terros to the bartender. Feeling almost Human, he wandered over to the reception desk to see what he could find out. But the rat-faced clerk apparently couldn’t remember anything about him, the green woman, the planet, or the state of the galaxy. Wandering back to the bar, he ordered a shot of Quixel. When it came, he knew he really was on Sigma V; there was nowhere else in the galaxy you could get that swill. Bloom lifted the glass and smiled at the bartender: “Hair of the dog and all that.” He drank it down and his world came into a little sharper focus.
Bloom finally remembered where he was living, and he headed to the hotel door to find his way to the small flat he had rented in a sleazy neighborhood near the spaceport. He was almost at the door when two large, uniformed men entered and walked towards him.
“You’re coming with us,” one said and grabbed Bloom’s arm. The other walked over and talked quietly with the bartender, then he slipped behind Bloom and grabbed his other arm.
“It would certainly please me, if you would resist,” the big man said. Bloom looked back at him. “Not possible, I find you irresistible,“ Bloom said. Bloom still couldn’t remember what had happened the previous night, but it had apparently been even better than he imagined.
* * *
Professor-Doctor Martin Bloom sat in the small, bare jail cell and pondered his life choices. His musings were cut short when the cell door opened and a woman in a corporate uniform entered the cell followed by a jailer. Bloom was reasonably certain that the woman was Terran, but he couldn’t imagine what species claimed the jailer. The woman motioned the jailer to leave, and he heard the door clank shut as she turned and spoke to him.
“Dr. Bloom, I am Investigator Stark, and I work for the Corporation. That’s all you need to know.”
“Hey, I am a Shareholder. Don’t I have a right to an Accountant?” Bloom imprudently started the conversation.
“Of course, you are,” Stark said and smashed her fist into his face.
Bloom crumpled to the floor with blood flowing from his nose.
Stark rubbed her fist. “And I can bring in a few jailers and have them beat the living shit out of you. Right now, you are in my jurisdiction, and that means your ‘rights’ are pretty much defined by how much I like you. Are you likeable, Dr. Bloom?”
Bloom got to his feet and then slumped back in his chair in the cell. The blood had largely stopped flowing from his nose. “My mother used to like me,” he said.
Stark smiled a not very appealing smile and said to Bloom, “I’m going to talk to you just a little, and then you are going to talk to me a lot.
“Dr. Martin Bloom. Terran citizen. Professor of Anthropology at the University of Betelgeuse. Legally in residence on Sigma V as part of a somewhat obscure research project involving Spacers. Living in a rat hotel near the spaceport. Presently occupying a jail cell and in as much trouble as I care to make for him. That is your current situation. Do you understand and agree?”
“I’m happy to agree,” said Bloom, “but I can’t say I understand. What the hell did I do last night that got me here?”
Stark again smiled her unappealing smile. “What you did last night is quite your own business, Dr. Bloom. Whom you did it with and whom you otherwise consort with are mine. Tell me about the woman.”
“Not much to tell, except that she had nice wavy hair,” Bloom replied. “I have very little memory of her or last night. I vaguely recall going to a bar with some Spacers, and I assume I met her there. I also assume she is not going to win any Sigma V award for virtue; although I seem to remember now that there are other awards she might win.” Bloom wiped some of the blood from his face with his sleeve. “Perhaps it’s time you tell me what I’m doing here?”
“Tell me about your Spacer friends, Dr. Bloom.”
“Since you know who I am,” said Bloom, “I assume you know my work here. I’m studying stranded Spacers here on Sigma V, and they have, to a certain extent, tolerated me in their circles. I don’t know what illegal activities they may be up to, and if I did, I wouldn’t tell you. Anthropologist-subject privilege, after all.”
Stark, for the first time, smiled a genuine smile. “Privilege? How punctilious you are, Dr. Bloom.” With that, she again slugged him in the mouth and, for the second time that day, Bloom saw blackness and stars. It took a few shakes of his head before he could focus again.
The woman pulled up the only other chair in the cell and sat facing him. “All right. A little exposition may be in order. Sigma V is a shit-hole planet known for only two things. First, its location has made it a major spaceport for transshipment of goods around the galaxy. Second, it is the sole known source of Fermium Plus 3, a very valuable mineral that is the source of great wealth for the Corporation. Put those two facts together and you’ll have a reason why you are dripping blood all over the floor of this cell.”
“Are you seriously suggesting that my pitiful Spacers are engaged in smuggling to such an extent that it affects Corporation profits?” Bloom asked.
“Bravo, Dr. Bloom. You look terrible and smell worse, but your intellect is as advertised. Yes, smuggling is going on, and it has caught the attention of the Corporation. We suspect that Spacers are involved, but we haven’t been able to figure out how they’re being used. How much do you know about flic drives, Bloom?”
“I know that’s what got me here,” Bloom replied. “Starships using flic drives can travel faster-than-light. No flic drive, no interstellar travel. Something about using gravity waves. My relativistic physics is a bit rusty.”
“Close enough,” Stark said. “But to operate safely, the mass of the starship has to be precisely known. Everything that enters a ship is weighed before transit. All cargo is inspected and sealed before loading. Bad things happen if there is extra mass on the ship.
“This should make smuggling impossible. But it’s happening, and we need to know how. We know a great deal about the smuggling operation, but we cannot figure out how they are getting the stuff through interstellar space.
“And that’s where you come in. You are already embedded with the Spacers, and not many Terrans can say that. For some reason, these lowlifes have let you in to study them. So, study away, Professor-Doctor Bloom, and figure out how they are involved in the smuggling. And maybe, just maybe, we’ll let you off the planet when you’re done. Otherwise, you’re going to be living on a diet of Quixel and green women for a very long time.”
“Forgive me for stating the obvious,” Bloom said, “but wouldn’t it be easier just to bribe a Spacer to get the information?”
“It is obvious, Dr. Bloom but, for various reasons, bribing a Spacer has not produced satisfactory results. Hinas leave so little remains behind after they’re done with a carcass. Let us all hope you are more successful.
“When you learn anything, you can reach me here at the corporate jail,” she said. With that she stood up and called for the guard. “Guard, continue to persuade this Shareholder to cooperate and then throw him out.”
* * *
Copyright © 2025 by Jeff Gaba
