Stars & Empire: 10 Galactic Tales Page 35

  When she was about five yards away, she’d reached into a pocket of her navy blue vest. Her eyes met his, and then she was extending her hand toward him. In her hand he could see his used electronic unilets card. He’d left it back at the desk. He didn’t think he needed it anymore. They were disposable, after all.

  “You left this at the desk,” Dawn said, and now there was a forced smile on her face.

  “I’m sorry … um … listen, I just…” Jed indicated with his head toward the vending machine, but Dawn cut him off before he could say anything about the extra unilets.

  “Yes,” she said, interrupting him again and nodding her head, “that’s all right. Everything is as it should be now. Just take your card and make sure you don’t miss your bus.”

  “But, I…”

  “Yes, sir.” She raised her hands this time. “Everything is as it should be.” Her eyes grew wider, as if she were trying to tell him to shut up and just accept things the way they are. “Just take your card and go get on your bus, sir.”

  “So…”

  “Listen, sir. Everything is fine now. You needn’t worry about a thing. I’ve got to get back to the desk, but … everything is as it should be, so have a great trip.” She forced the card into his hand, and when she did, he noticed that she was handing him more than just the card. There was also a small, folded piece of paper, and something else. Something heavy. It felt like a large coin. He didn’t look at it.

  Not knowing why he did it, but intimidated by the discussion and not sure what else to do, Jed put the card, paper, and coin into his pocket quickly and without argument. He looked up at Dawn and tried to smile, and he noticed that she smiled back. And then she turned and was striding back toward the check-in desk …

  In the men’s restroom, he examined what Dawn had given him.

  There was a note.

  Don’t say anything about the extra unis to anyone. I can’t explain everything right now, but trust me. If you’re in trouble in the City, ask at Merrill’s Grocery Supply for Pook. Just ask for Pook. Put the gold coin in your shoe, and only pull it out in an emergency. There are no metal detectors anymore since bombs and guns won’t work on transport anyway. Unless you get searched, they won’t find it. Flush this note when you’re done memorizing it. Dawn.

  Now he was on the airbus to West Texas, and he could feel the heaviness of the gold coin in his shoe, and somehow the extra unis in his wristband seemed to have an extra weight all their own as well. I feel guilty, Jed thought, and I don’t know what I’ve done wrong. Maybe I should tell someone about the unis and the gold? No. Getting caught with extra unis that don’t belong to you would mean automatic deportation. If he did something stupid, he’d never make it to New Pennsylvania. How was he to know what was stupid in this world? For all he knew, everything he did was stupid. He began to imagine the Transport Police storming into the airbus to haul him off and send him to exile in Oklahoma.

  Despite Jed’s best attempts to put them out of his mind, crazy ideas started to flood over him. Maybe I can spend them all at the SGT station when I get there … maybe I can give all the extra unis away … maybe a Quadrille dealer will sell me some drugs and then I can flush them all down the toilet like I did with Dawn’s note … None of his ideas were workable, and most of them would get him deported. It wasn’t a far trip from West Texas to Oklahoma. Not far at all.

  -o0o-

  The airbus floated silently through the air, and Jed tried to occupy his mind by looking out the window at the ground way below. The polarized windows and the altitude combined to make the view seem not … quite … right. But he’d never been this high before, so he wasn’t sure how things were supposed to look.

  Every now and then, looking down, he could see scars on the earth—remnants from the wars—and at one point they passed over what used to be a great city, but from thousands of feet in the air it looked like it was now a massive pile of burned rubble and debris. He wondered why people hadn’t fixed up the cities again in the dozens of years that had passed since the wars. Maybe they left everything destroyed like that just to remind everyone how bad the wars had been, and so that the people would be thankful to the Transport Authority and the government for keeping everyone safe and secure.

  “Hey, little Amish boy, you ever been up this high before?”

  It was Slicked-back, and he spewed the words, giving the impression that he really didn’t care what the answer might be.

  “No, sir,” Jed replied.

  “Yeah, I think it’s funny that you Amish get to travel and fly and do everything the rest of us get to do … only you don’t have to live by the same rules as everyone else.” As he said this, he pointed at Jed’s wristband and snorted. He looked around as if everyone else agreed with him, but most of the other passengers seemed to be on the Internet in their heads.

  Jed didn’t know what playing by the rules had to do with them being up this high, but he figured that Slicked-back was only looking for trouble and a reason to spew. Jed just ignored him and looked out the window.

  “That’s not very polite, Amish boy. I’m talkin’ to you. How come you people don’t have to get implanted TRIDs like everyone else? What makes you so special?” He was raising his voice now, and a few of the other passengers looked over, interrupting their music or videos or chats to see what was going on right there on their own bus.

  Jed hadn’t noticed it, but when Slicked-back began his little rant, a large Hispanic man sitting toward the back of the bus had gotten up, and during the one-sided conversation had been walking forward up the aisle. Now Jed noticed him, and he wondered if this giant of a man was going to give him grief too.

  Just as Slicked-back finished his last little broadside, the big Hispanic man leaned over to Slicked-back and spoke to him clearly and concisely.

  “Do you want to get sent to Oklahoma?”

  “What’re you, a Transport cop?” Slicked-back said with a snarl.

  “No, friend, but we’re about to be over Oklahoma, and if you’d like me to throw you out of one of these windows, then you keep bothering my friend.”

  Slicked-back didn’t reply; he just kicked his feet across the aisle and pushed himself back in his seat. The big man smiled and nodded his head.

  “That’s right, little man. Now I’m going to talk to my friend. You should take some Q and chill out so that you don’t make any permanent mistakes.” He stepped over to take the seat next to Jed, but before he did he leaned back over Slicked-back’s face and whispered to him. Slicked-back didn’t respond, but he slowly drew his legs back so that they weren’t blocking the aisle.

  -o0o-

  “I’m sorry that some people feel the need to attack things they don’t understand,” the big man said. “I’m Jerry Rios.” Jerry stuck out his hand and Jed instinctively clasped it with his own.

  “Jed. Jedediah Troyer. But you can just call me Jed.”

  “Okay, Jed. Glad to know you,” Jerry said with a smile and a nod. He sat down next to Jed and crossed his long legs.

  “What did you whisper to that guy as you walked by?” Jed asked.

  “I told him that if his legs were still across the aisle when I walk back to my seat, that I’d remove them and feed them to him.”

  “Apparently he believed you,” Jed said as he looked over at Slicked-back.

  “It’s good that he did,” Jerry replied somberly. “I don’t make idle threats.”

  Jed looked at Jerry to see how serious the young man was. He was serious.

  “Anyway,” Jed said, “there’s no eating on the bus.”

  Jerry broke down laughing and eventually Jed joined him. Slicked-back just looked up at them and grunted his displeasure.

  CHAPTER 4: Among the English

  Jerry was a little older than Jed, maybe in his mid-twenties, and he looked like someone who was not to be messed with. Talking to Jed though, he was personable and friendly, and the younger man was happy that Jerry had been there on the bus when Slick
ed-back decided to get aggressive.

  “Where’re you headed?” Jerry asked.

  “I’m a pilgrim. I’m traveling to our colony in New Pennsylvania to live.”

  “Well then!” Jerry replied, smiling broadly. “We’ll almost be neighbors. I’m heading to New PA too, but I’m heading to the City. I’m not a country boy.”

  Jed stared at Jerry for a minute and blinked several times before he could answer.

  “Um … Oh. Uh, I didn’t know … that the English … I mean—”

  Jerry laughed heartily. “Hey man, don’t worry about it. I know that your people call all of us outsiders the English. It’s just strange for me to hear, because I’m as far from English as a man can get!”

  “I’m sorry, Jerry. What I meant was that I didn’t know that any … non Plain People … were also colonizing New Pennsylvania.”

  “Oh, sure! You didn’t think they were going to let you people have the whole planet, did you? Besides, someone has to eat all of that food your people produce!” Jerry laughed again in a friendly way, and Jed was compelled by Jerry’s gregarious manner to laugh along with him.

  “I guess I just never thought about it,” Jed said. “In my world, we only talk about the colony that our people are starting there, so I just never considered that there would be others.”

  “Well, if you look around, Jed, you’ll see that you’re the only Amish guy on this bus, and I’d guess that most of us are going to West Texas SGT so that we can catch our transport to New PA. That should tell you that there are probably going to be a lot more of us there than there will be of you.”

  “I guess it’s always that way.”

  “Well, from what I hear, it won’t be bad,” Jerry said, shrugging his shoulders. “I’ve read a lot about the colonization process, and it seems that there’s plenty of land and countryside to go around. They say that New PA is almost the same size as Earth, with similar gravity, weather, and all that stuff as this planet, so I figure with such a tiny population, there’ll be plenty of room to stretch your legs … without having to block the aisle.” Jerry winked again and glanced over at Slicked-back. The man was obviously on the Internet in his head now, because he just stared blankly into the distance and hardly moved at all.

  Jed looked sheepishly over at Jerry before speaking. He wasn’t sure how exactly to ask what he wanted to ask, but now that he had an honest-to-goodness English fellow here to talk to, he felt like he should take advantage of the education.

  “So … how do I say this … you don’t look like you’re on Quadrille or on the Internet in your head.” Jed smiled a little. He thought that he’d made it sound like the Plain People believed that all English were on Quadrille and the Internet all the time. He wanted his interrogation to be taken as benevolent, and he wasn’t sure whether he’d said it right. Jerry didn’t seem to be offended.

  “Oh, Jed … I don’t mess with that stuff. But I’m unique in this world. When I need to, I get on the Internet the old-fashioned way. I’d walk down to the IntSta—the Internet Station—near our house a couple of times a week to check email. Frankly, I don’t know why they even have the IntStas any more. No one uses them, except a few weirdos like me. Even the ultra-poor have the BICE … do you know what that is?”

  Jed shook his head.

  “The BICE is the Beta Internet Chip Enhancement. That’s what you call ‘the Internet in the head.’” Jed noticed Jerry looking at him, and his new friend saw the confusion on Jed’s face, but Jed nodded anyway as he tried to keep up.

  “Listen, Jed. I’m sorry to be using all of this stupid technology jargon with you. I know your people don’t use too much of it. Let’s talk about something else.”

  “No, please. I’m fascinated, and I mean to learn all that I can. I just have to slow down a bit and try to understand it all. I think I’m getting it. There are so many terms to learn. I just got the hang of a whole new vocabulary just for this trip, so you can correct me if I’m wrong on any of this stuff. I studied a lot before I left home. I know that TRIDs are Transfer IDs. I know that unilets are your kind of invisible money.” He was now counting off the terms with his fingers. “Hey, and I even know that the term unilets comes from what was once called the LETS, which meant Local Exchange Trading System. Then, when the UN took over the money system after the wars, it became UNILETS for United Nations International Local Exchange Trading System. Now, thanks to you, I know that the Internet in the head thing is called BICE, and the Internet that is not in your head is at a place called an IntSta.”

  “You’re doing okay, Jed!” Jerry said, slapping him playfully on the back. “Now I hope you’ll get to your colony at New PA and forget all about this nonsense out here in this world. Especially the TRIDs and the BICE and the unilets. Those are just people-control systems. After the wars, everyone was willing to give up whatever freedom they had left just to stop the violence. So now we have TRIDs and unilets … and they have this stupid BICE system that ties it all together so that the power apparatus can control everything down to the minutest detail. It won’t be long and the BICE will be mandatory, just like the TRIDs and unilets. I hate the unilets system.”

  “Why do you hate it?” Jed asked.

  “Unis are now just an international currency, governed and regulated by corporations and the international banks. The great wars, which were caused by the collapse of national banks, drove everyone—everyone but you Plain People, that is—to conclude that the only way to prevent massive swings in the values of currency and markets was to have a centrally regulated form of money. The unilet became that currency. In the end, the mechanism designed by so-called “patriots” to free people from the grip of the banking cartels became the tool used to codify and deify the single currency as the de facto monetary unit of the whole world.”

  Jerry looked around, leaned into Jed, and whispered conspiratorially. “That’s why I’m going to New PA, buddy. When I get there, I’m getting my TRID removed. Heck, I might even try to get into the AZ to visit you there. Maybe I’ll even convert and become one of you!”

  Jed laughed. He really didn’t think that Jerry was serious, and as the big man turned to glance out the window, the smile kind of faded slowly until his face communicated more of a wistful look than anything else. The look reminded Jed of Dawn.

  -o0o-

  “In Europe, a long time ago, our people were persecuted horribly. But after a war, or when some king somewhere discovered that his people were nearing starvation, he would open wide the doors of his lands for our people to come in. We’ve always been prized for our industry and hard work and productivity. For a time, we’d be given tolerance and protection … and things would remain that way until our numbers would multiply, and the people, no longer starving, would grow angry at our successes, and then the kings would banish us, or allow us to be persecuted again to the point where we would have to flee. Then we’d be off to homestead in some other land. There was always another king somewhere with land who wanted us to come and work the ground in his kingdom.”

  Jerry sat and listened intently. They’d arrived at the SGT Transport Facility in the desert of Loving County, Texas, and now they were sitting in the gate area waiting for their turn in Medical. Medical was their last checkpoint before they could board their ship for New Pennsylvania.

  “And now the newest new world is a whole other planet!” Jerry said. He whistled softly and shook his head. “I guess some things never really change, do they?”

  “Jerry Rios!” The name crackled out of the speakers and frightened everyone in the waiting room. Most of the people had the BICE, so there was no need to actually call those people’s names over the loudspeakers. With the Internet chip in their heads, an alert would indicate to them that a medical station was opened and waiting for them. For the Plain People, and those few like Jerry who didn’t have a BICE implant, the old-fashioned building-wide announcement was used.

  “Jerry Rios to Medical, please. Jerry Rios.”

&nb
sp; Jerry stood and reached over to shake Jed’s hand. “I guess this is where we part ways, Jed. We probably won’t see one another again until we disembark at New PA. They take us straight from Medical to our pod, so … I guess this is it. Have a great trip, buddy, and I’ll see you on the other side.”

  “Okay, Jerry. Thanks for the nice conversation.” Jed squeezed his hand and smiled. “I hope you have a great trip too, and Lord willing, we’ll talk when we get to New Pennsylvania.”

  Jed sat back down as Jerry hurried off toward the main desk. Most of the people had already gone through their checkup and preparation at Medical, and only a few travelers were left in the waiting area. Slicked-back had been one of the first ones called, over an hour ago, and Jed was glad about that.

  Jed hadn’t had the opportunity to see everyone who was going to be on the trip. The SGT station was a confusing and cavernous facility, and people were seated all over the place. Without access to the Internet queue, to Jed it looked like people would just randomly stand up and head off to Medical, and while he’d been talking to Jerry, maybe two-thirds of the passengers had loaded onto the ship without him even noticing. Now, there were only a few travelers left in the waiting room.

  “Jedediah Troyer! Jedediah Troyer to Medical, please. Jedediah Troyer.”

  -o0o-

  Jed was poked and prodded and tested, but, all in all, the process proceeded quite rapidly. The only painful part was when a catheter was inserted into his bladder. He wasn’t sure if that process violated the Richmond Ruling, but the doctors explained to him that it was necessary in order to be able to drain his liquid waste during the trip. He didn’t understand every word they said, but it seemed pretty straightforward. After the catheter was installed, he was given a large glass of an orange liquid, and he was told to drink it all down. This was supposed to “clean him out” for the trip, they explained.