On The High Seas

I stared long and hard at the choices in front of me. An elbow in my ribs from the being behind me in the queue reminded me that deliberation was not a desired trait in these circumstances.

"Oh, my." I said to the server, safe I the knowledge that he couldn't understand a word I was saying, "What a decision to make?" I smiled and glanced up at the towering blue-grey behemoth with the ladle. "Should I go for the ever-divine 'Nutritional Base #1' or should I try the exquisite 'Nutritional Base #2'?" I patted my lips with a paw. "Decisions, decisions..."

I received an elbow from the being behind me and I rounded in anger. I was looking forward to venting my spleen at someone who would be unable to understand anything other than the tone of voice. I was surprised to see a familiar face.

"Malcolm!" I exclaimed at my surprise to see a coney in the midst of all this alienness.

"Hullo." He said with a smile, "Can't Buy Me Lunch.." He said, half-singing.

I laughed, "True, so true." I replied.

"I.." He hesitated for a second, "I never got your name?"

"Buck Herbert." I said stretching my hand out to him. We shook hands. Then I was suddenly overcome with the joy of seeing a fellow buck. I threw my arms around him and hugged him. Suddenly, embarrassed, he pulled away from me.

"Sorry," I said, "It's been two months since I could speak to anyone." I cast a glance at the server, still waiting for my choice. "Well, two months since I could speak to anyone who understood."

A grumbling noise was now being emitted by the three or four beings behind me in the queue and the server was tapping his ladle in a slowhand rhythm.

I turned back to the counter and pointed at the slop I had come to term 'Nutritional Base #1' He ladled two scoops in a bowl and handed it to me. I turned away from the counter, back to Malcolm.

I must admit I wasn't too surprised to see Malcolm. The last, and only, time I'd seen him he was in trouble with the security forces on Gortumixal.

Now we meet in that system's penal colony. None too surprising.

"I've just eaten." He said as we walked from the serving counter, "But I'd love to sit and chat for a bit." He looked wistful for a moment. "It looks like neither of us are going Home soon."

I could hear the capital "aitch". It spoke of homesickness. The word filled me full of desire and anger. There are many people who can say "home" as if it just means the place where you sleep. Malcolm meant more than that. I felt more than that.

Home.

Maybe. Someday. Once my sentence is served. I wish I'd understood enough to work out when that would be...

"How did you get here?" Malcolm asked as we sat down. I took a mouthful of Nutritional Base #1 and grimaced.

The slop we were given here was bulky, filling and, probably, full of goodness. This didn't mean that it tasted good. I was sure that this was the cheapest way of feeding us. I just wished they'd let us decide what to eat.

Every crime was assigned a value. The prisoner worked to pay off this value. Their board and lodgings came out of their wages. Our wages. Once your Debt To Society was paid off, you were free. So, in the long term, eating this cruel-gruel was helping me get out of here quicker. Didn't mean I had to pretend I liked it.

"Things were going really well for me." I began. Malcolm looked at me with the look of a man who hasn't heard their native tongue for a long time. I spoke with the pleasure of being able to converse for the first time in months. I had learnt a few words of Galactic Standard, but every single one was an expletive.

---*---

I was assistant chief engineer on our ship. I conied the starboard guns when we flew and learnt how the engines worked when we were docked. Our ship was undermanned, but we were getting a constant stream of work and we were adept enough. The work may not have all been completely above-board.

Well. Some of the work may have been above board.

Some of it...

We flew 'No Questions Asked' cargos. We escorted unnamed people to meet other unnamed people at unspecified places. We even boarded and looted a couple of freighters. The trick there is secrecy. Have you seen the size of a space-going freighter? One ship we flew into! Parked inside a cargo hold and filled ourselves up with a fraction of their load.

I'd come to an agreement with myself. I'd drawn a line to tell myself what I could participate in. Genocide I would object to. Piracy? No; especially when the scale was such a minute fraction of the businesses we were robbing.

We landed at Gortumixal. Our captain had a business meeting, but the crew wasn't invited to that, so we had been granted the privilege of two day's rest and recuperation. We didn't complain.

The captain left as soon as we landed. I had some tasks in engineering to complete with Vestock and we'd agreed to meet up with the others in a bar they all knew.

Re-aligning the conversion filters took nearly two hours, so the ship was deserted by the time we left.

We were chatting as we stepped down the ship's exit ramp and quite unaware of what was going on around us.

Suddenly I was surrounded by a large group of security guards, weapons pointed at my head. I could see Vestock's rear disappear off into the distance.

One of the guards spoke to himself, "Suspect apprehended, sir." I assume his implant responded because he stepped forward and reached for my wrists.

"You will come."

"Quietly." I said as bravely as I could. I was glad this happened now rather than after a few drinks. With a clear head I wouldn't tackle six or seven people. With a few bevies inside I might have put up a fight.

My hands were shackled and the guards led me away.

---*---

Malcolm interrupted my story. "Look!" He said pointing. Three guards were leading a hooded figure through the canteen. "That must be the new catch." Malcolm leant in close, "They say it's the Dark One himself!"

"Dark One?"

Malcolm nodded, "He was trying to organise a coup. Not just of a planetary government, but of the whole Alliance!"

"Dark One?" I shivered. I'd met someone you could call that.

"Um.." Malcolm continued, "I hear he's going to be confined to solitary for the next five years! Think of the interest he'll have to pay off on his Debt!"

"Good." I said, very quietly to myself. I thought I saw the figure being led twitch his head towards us. I flinched. I couldn't tell for sure, but he was the right height and size to be Lord Fader. "Keep him in."

"What?" Malcolm asked.

"Nothing. Just muttering to myself."

"So, what were they charging you with?"

---*---

I was a little confused at first. They took me to a cell for questioning. Two guards stood each side of the exit and a short, grey, alien came in to talk to me.

"Piracy is an evil thing!" he said. I looked confused. I hoped I looked confused. He tutted and looked down at a small screen he was holding. "We have incontrovertible evidence of your acts of piracy."

I tried the 'usual' "I was just following orders!"

"Pish!" The alien said. (Pish? Who's he kidding!) "Anyway, your pleas will be heard in the proper time at the proper place. However the evidence of your crimes will be removed beforehand." The door opened and an autodoc was wheeled in. He pointed towards the coffin-like device.

Suddenly it hit me! They were going to remove my implants! I'd be helpless! I jumped up and backed towards the far wall, shaking my head. "Nonononononono!" I said, over and over again. The grey alien seemed to smile and motioned the two guards towards me. Those two were definitely smiling.

I was picked up, kicking and screaming, and thrown into the autodoc. The lid was shut and I head a hiss.

I woke up alone in a cell. Very alone. Tentatively I tried to access any of the implants. Nothing. No status from the power converter in my rump. No folder listing from the memory implant. Nothing when I closed my eyes and sub-vocalised commands.

I shook, scared. They had taken my lifelines away! I wouldn't be able to understand a word they said!

I cried myself back to sleep.

---*---

They had wired me to a temporary translator, like the first one I'd worn when my captain wanted to speak to me. I sat in a clean court of silver and glass, listening to the charges.

"It is certified by this court that the individual known as Buck Herbert was knowingly implanted with five implants. Upon reaching the end of the thirty-day trial period the accused then, knowingly, failed to recompense the nanoware firm Trundul Annoco for his use of their intellectual property. This misuse of nanoware is irresponsible and damaging to us all. Depriving a firm of their rightful royalties will halt innovation and could restrict the application of new science to the bettering of life-kind everywhere."

I could see my implants, housed in protective coverings, sitting on the judge's desk like tiny ping-pong balls or marbles.

---*---

"None of your shipmates helped?" Malcolm asked. I shook my head.

"I assume they decided that appearing in court in my defence would jeopardise them rather than help me."

"Nanoware piracy." Malcolm's turn to shake his head, "I'd never have believed that of you."

I grimaced. "My debt is the cost of the implants and three month's maintenance and legal fees. And so on." Then I remembered. "It's not three months. I have to keep paying back the maintenance until I leave. Then I have to keep paying the maintenance or else they'll get me again." I shook my head. "No one told me it cost to have these implants!"

Malcolm sat up straight and sung

"The evidence is incontrovertible,

"There's no need for the jury to retire.

"In all my years of judging I have never heard before,

"Of someone more deserving the full penalty of the law!"

He laughed, "You'll probably find that you are never able to fully pay off your Debt. That's the way they like it."

---*---

Cola shut the journal. She scratched the back of her head - it was itching furiously. "I think I understood some of that." She said to herself. "Funny, he never told anyone here he'd been in jail."

She was glad she'd taken the time to read some of the journal. Today has been a very bad day. Nothing had gone right and she'd seemed to argue with everyone.

"I gave the Pear away." She said to herself, quietly. "But it's Gilchrist that's got it." She patted the journal. "I hope I can find what it's useful for." She slid the journal under her bed, where it clinked against a large bag of pound coins. "Besides collecting beetles." She laughed. "At least Lotte got the treasure."

She thought back to the look on Lotte's sodden face and she handed the bag of gold coins over. Gilchrist had helped her, which was very good of him, to look after Lotte so. Cola shut her eyes and tried to hold back the tears that wanted to flow as she thought of Lotte's words. "I hope that's enough money for you, Your Majesty. Your servant wishes to rest now."

Cola hadn't been able to say anything as Lotte turned away and padded off.

At least the warren's financial straits were no longer dire. She pushed back a small laugh as, unbidden the words of Private Investigations came to mind, and the feeling of aloneness the song embodied.

The sound of the most boring bass line known to humankind (Low E for how long?) and Knopfler's guitar and his mournful lyrics filled her head.

---*---

And what have you got at the end of the day?

What have you got to take away?

A bottle of whisky and a new set of lies

Blinds on the windows and a pain behind the eyes