Astro-Nuts Read online

  “I’m not a bloody magpie! Just because I don’t know the specifics of its function doesn’t mean I haven’t been informed of the danger its existence poses to my home world.”

  “Yeah, well . . .” Banks mused, smacking his lips. “You were also informed of the danger my existence poses to your home body. Which one are you fonder of?”

  “M-my . . . Me?”

  Banks grunted. His thin wrinkled lips twisted into a slight smirk.

  “But I don’t have it anymore!” He pleaded. “I . . . I sent it home in a cargo capsule! Because I knew you would come and I wanted to take precau—”

  Banks silenced him with a kick to the stomach. Hugh whimpered as he curled into the foetal position. A steady finger, pale as a corpse, pointed downward at him.

  “I mighta believed that if you opened with it. But you’re too late, and now I’m getting impatient. You feeding me bullshit only wastes my time and sours my neighbourly demeanour. Now, you either tell me where you hid it, or I’ll put a hole in your face and go back to my original plan of finding it.”

  “Please! I have children!”

  “Oh, please; a third of these kids are Indian.”

  “My wife is Indian.”

  “Oh really? And what about these ones? You got a Chinese mistress?”

  “N-no, we’re just . . . Mormon?”

  Banks snatched his rifle off the desk.

  “Shit.” Hugh hissed. “I should have grabbed that while you were pilfering my condiments.”

  “Don’t worry. It’s got fingerprint recognition, so it wouldn’t have worked anyway.”

  He dug the muzzle into Hugh’s eye socket. The would-be spy clenched his teeth.

  Click.

  Hugh opened his non-obstructed eye just in time to see Banks flipping a switch near the sights.

  “Heh, forgot to turn it back on.” He chuckled. “Let’s try that again.”

  “WAIT.”

  “Hrm? Suddenly remember something?”

  Hugh was panting now. His eyes were bloodshot and sweat poured down his artificially tanned face. His formerly parted hair and well-tended suit were the farthest they had ever been from presentable, but such petty inclinations were the least of his worries now. In fact, given the juncture this interaction had reached, the more pathetic and helpless he looked, the better.

  “I . . . I have money.” He offered.

  “Oh, for god’s sake.” Banks scoffed, looking around the room. “In my fifty years of doing the dirty work, you think nobody has ever pitched me that crap before?”

  “But I have rather a lot!”

  “That’s good. Hopefully it’s enough to put thirty-three little Mormon kids through college.”

  “Oh god! Stop! Stop! It’s in the drawer! It’s in the bloody drawer!”

  Banks retracted his laser rifle and looked at the desk.

  “You’ll have to be more specific.”

  “Bottom drawer.” Hugh gasped, trying to push his heart from his throat back into his chest. “Right side.”

  Banks nudged the drawer open with his foot. Liquor bottles clinked as they shuddered back and forth. At first, he raised an eyebrow and opened his mouth, but rather than making comments or accusations, he decided to take a knee and reach inside.

  One by one he picked up the bottles. After inspecting the labels, he gave them each a gentle shake. Most of them responded with the sloshing of fluid, or occasionally with no sound at all. Either way, he would discard each one onto the floor next to the shattered scotch. As the booze stock began to dwindle to the final containers, the gnarled poker face of the interrogator began to show foreboding tells like flared nostrils. That is, until the second-to-last bottle produced neither slosh nor silence, but instead a cadenced clinking, like Gordon Ramsay’s swear jar. Banks turned the bottle over in his hand.

  “Fireball . . .” He mumbled, reading the label. “You come straight here from spring break?”

  “I didn’t procure it for my consumption, you cretin.” Hugh grumbled. “I suspected my pursuer would have too much class to even touch the bottle and would instead pick one of the others if he made it this far.”

  “You got a strangely high opinion of hired killers.”

  Hugh frowned.

  “I wasn’t expecting a hired killer. I was expecting someone like myself. A consummate professional who refrains from brutish tactics, only performing them when necessary. Someone who relies on wit as their primary weapon.”

  “Riiiiiiight.” Banks said with a nod. “Well, we used to use guys like that. But they always ended up getting shot by hired killers.”

  A burst of blaster fire echoed through the room, followed by a soft thud and slow footsteps toward the door.

  2.

  SPACE TRUCKIN’

  GOOD SPACE MORNING, LADIES and gentlemen of the SS Jefferson. This is your captain speaking. Can anybody guess where we’re going? That’s right, we’re still homeward bound back to everybody’s favourite marble orbiting Earth! Looks like we’ve got some good space weather ahead of us, so strap on your belts and put those tray tables up, and in a few moments, we’ll boldly go where only a couple billion people have gone before!”

  “Tim, honey, you really don’t have to use the PA system. We’re all sitting right here.”

  “I know, baby, but it helps me feel more like a captain. Not just a boss.”

  Captain Cox rose from his roomy chair and let his vintage microphone retract back into the ceiling between him and Kim. Despite being second-in-command, his wife always let him do the honours. Although a man of average height, average build, and average amount of forehead creases for a fellow in his early fifties, he prided himself in greeting each day with enough energy to make a puppy tell him to calm down. Head held high and pouty lips idly sipping from his “Universe’s Best Space Captain” mug, he strolled across the bridge of his beloved vessel. Both his long blond hair and his coffee-stained bib dangled down when he stopped and hovered over his first crew member.

  “Well, good morning, Miss Wang.” He greeted his pilot sweetly, putting his free hand on her shoulder. “How was your night?”

  “Myeh.”

  Not bad. It might not have been the most spirited response, but it was at least almost a real word this time. A marked improvement over the haughty grunts she would often offer.

  “Well that’s good,” the captain chirped, taking the opportunity to rest an elbow on the back of her chair. “Why don’t you tell me about it!”

  No response. The excessive amount of caring contained within the question seemed to overload the teenager’s affection fuses and shut her down. Her dark eyes and perpetual pout remained transfixed on the screen in front of her, and the captain, despite his proximity, appeared to cease to exist. Cox had to be careful how much he meddled, as she was known to remain motionless for hours sometimes if bothered too much, all the while stubbornly staring forward with a constant stony focus on her unexpressive face.

  “Aaaaand he doesn’t stick the landing,” the captain mused between sips. “Very well, miss mysterious! Your secrets shall remain safe for another day. Buuuuuuuuuut . . .”

  He forfeited formality and took a knee, hushing his voice before using her first name. “Look, Whisper . . . Did you at least take my advice and have some shore leave back at the asteroid? I know they aren’t as fun as planets or moons, and the miners can be drunk and kind of molest-y, but I bet they’d have some interesting stories! Or . . . I don’t actually know, they kind of freak me out too. This is getting a little hypocritical.

  I’m just saying you really can’t stay cooped up in this tin can all the time. It’s bad for ya.”

  Success! His compelling words breached past her mighty wall of aggressive ignoring and drew the young lady’s face back around. Her resting expression could have been more promising, but it was a start.

  “Oh my god. Really? Tin? You think the ship is made of tin? ’Cause we’re totally flying through space in a baked potato. Yep, definitely n
ot titanium or anything.”

  “Titanium, huh! The only metal strong enough for space.”

  “Okay, it’s not just a big hunk of titanium. Like, there’s alloys and stuff . . . ”

  “Well, I will definitely keep that in mind for future analogies.” Cox smiled and used his hand to muss her black hair like she were some kind of rascally child. “And hopefully you’ll keep my advice in mind and get out for real at our next stop. I heard those weird sounds coming out of your quarters again last night. I don’t know what you’re always doing in there, and frankly, I don’t wanna know.”

  He got to his feet and continued his rounds. His cup was empty, but he continued to sip nonetheless in order to maintain an air of aloof worldly wisdom. The differences between a boss and a captain were not so unlike the differences between a father and a dad, after all. No matter who his crew may have waiting on their respective rocky-bodies of origin, once aboard this ship they were all family. As the patriarch of the family, it was his job to supply equal and adequate doses of both love and discipline to help his surrogate children grow into happy, healthy space-people.

  The fact that Donald, his communications officer, had already grown into a self-sufficient thirty-something man with his own set of beliefs and opinions made filling that role a little bit more difficult. And occasionally awkward.

  “Morning, Donny.” He took a knee next to the slouching space-receptionist. “Hope you’re not too hungover this morning, hey, big guy? Be honest with me. Didja get out and score some tail?”

  Donald snorted. His small, half-closed eyes rolled upward under his low-hanging brows while one hand reached up to scratch at the tangled ball of black curls perched atop his spherical head.

  “You think I went out there?! Everybody knows asteroid mining camps are where fugitives go to lay low. All it takes is one screengrab of me sitting within five feet of someone on some government’s shit list and then poof! I’m hanging upside down in a retrofitted bathroom somewhere in Guantanamo Docking Bay being used as a test subject to develop a new strain of AIDSbola! No thanks. Sooner we’re back in transit, the better.”

  The captain nodded.

  “Classic Donny, always usin’ your noggin’! Say, buddy, we got any messages?”

  Donald sighed as he minimized Half-Life 3 to check. His greasy fingers smeared the touch screen as they thumbed through the hundreds of tabs he had open until, finally, he arrived at the message center—the only piece of software meant to be installed.

  “Uhhhh, let’s see . . . There’s something here from some chick named Doctor Pia Dickinson.”

  “Huh?” Kim raised her head from her e-book, brushing long brown hair away so she could see. “That’s not our doctor. Who is that?”

  “Was I not supposed to read that out loud?” Donald asked with all the concern of a man asking how his mother-in-law was doing. “Whoops.”

  “No, no, that’s just Pia from college! It’s nothing; she’s just been wanting to show me her lab. Do we have any other—” His voice trailed off. “Wow, Donny . . . We need to get IT to check out your spam filter when we dock. There’s a lot of, uh, spam making it into your inbox here.”

  “If we’re gonna do that, can we get me a real computer that’s not an antique? I didn’t even know they still made displays you had to touch. I can’t even eat while using this thing.”

  “Sure thing, buddy.” Cox acknowledged. He tried to muss Donald’s dark curly hair too, but retracted it quick enough to dodge the catlike swat of the lad’s pudgy hand. “Just write it on the list.”

  Donald groaned.

  “I’ve had it on the list for months. You’ve never even looked at it.”

  “Whoa there, space cowboy. I’m not sure what you’re thinking of, but I’ve had a list posted outside my captain’s quarters since the day I hired you guys, and nobody has ever written anything on it.”

  “ . . . You mean that piece of paper? I thought that was part of your antique collection.”

  “Noooo!”

  The captain clenched his fists with conviction, ignorant to how much he was overreacting.

  “Penmanship is a dying art, Donny! It’s like a visual representation of the sound of your voice. It’s beautiful. Cultivate it. Share it!”

  “ . . . Or we could just program a reminder for our next stop like normal people.”

  “Just do this for me, Ensign! Think of it like team building.”

  “Did you just call me ‘Ensign?’”

  Cox nodded to himself with a cheeky grin as he turned away. Another morning pep talk nailed. Encouraging but unflinching, with just a smidge of informative: the perfect recipe to erode negativity. He’d have a Grand Canyon’s worth of erosion worn into ol’ Donny before the kid even knew it!

  With one to go, he turned to the last chair on the bridge. Rather than speak, however, he decided to keep this pep talk to himself. He knew it would have no effect. Few conversations ever went anywhere when conducted with empty chairs.

  “Uhhhh, Kim, honey? Looks like we’re missing a soldier.”

  “She’s down by the reactor.” Kim replied without looking up. “You know. Where she always is?”

  “What’s she down there for?! I told everyone to get to their stations.”

  Kim shrugged.

  “That is her station. She’s our engineer.”

  “Well, yeah . . . but everybody else knew I meant to get to their station on the bridge.”

  “That’s because we don’t have multiple stations.”

  “Well, look at you, making points and knowing answers!”

  Kim smirked at him, then went back to her ebook while Cox clapped his hands together and whirled around the bridge, taking in all his surroundings.

  “Well, alright!” He addressed nobody in particular. “This is good! This can work. At least now we have a spot where Willy can sit.”

  The three of them all looked up from what they were doing.

  “Who?” Kim asked, breaking the silence.

  “Willy! Our new—oh . . . crap, I forgot to let him in!”

  He dashed across the room, leaping over Ms. Wang’s terminal then skidding across the floor. The resulting crash into the wall only served to stop him long enough for him to check his hair in a mirror before punching the doorway’s entry code—to the tune of “Funky Town”—and opening his arms wide as it slid open.

  “Heyyyy, there he is! Come in and meet everybody!”

  Kim’s jaw dropped as Cox carelessly led the tall and rather heavyset fellow with a scraggly beard and matching brown bedraggled ponytail inside. With an arm around the man’s shoulder, he showed off his pride and joy. They marched over to the vacant chair, ignorant to Kim’s subtle attempts to get Cox’s attention, and the captain practically pushed him into it.

  “Why don’t you get up and introduce yourself?” Cox suggested.

  “Hello,” the man offered sheepishly as he struggled to rise. “Uh, I’m—”

  “This is Willy Padilla!”Cox interjected, patting his shoulder hard enough to make him sit again. “He’s our newly assigned security guard, here to keep us all safe while we deliver this sweet, sweet . . . Uh, what are we carrying again?”

  “Rhodium.” Kim answered flatly. Her lips were pursed and her arms were folded, but Cox was too excited to notice.

  “Rhodium! Delicious! So yeah, Mister Padilla here will be flying with us for the next few days as we race across the galaxy with our precious cargo.”

  “Tim!”

  Like a herd of spooked animals, everyone else on the bridge snapped their heads in Kim’s direction. The first mate gave them a weak smile and then addressed her captain slightly more affably.

  “Can I have a moment?”

  “Oh yeah, sure! That’s a good idea, actually. Let the crew mingle without worrying about being judged by the boss man. I gotcha.”

  “Just . . . just come here.”

  Confused but obedient, Cox shrugged and gave Willy a finger-gun-gesture before follo
wing Kim into the conference room, a room that never got used, because every conference seemed to just take place right there on the bridge. Once inside, Kim punched the same code as before to shut the door behind them.

  “Tim, what is tha—”

  “Baby, lemme just stop you for one little second.” Cox interjected. “This is sounding to me like the beginnings of a stern talking-to, and you and I both agreed we’d turn off the gravity during chats like these to help ease the tension.”

  “No, honey, I know . . . but this will just take a second.”

  Her voice trailed off as she watched him fiddle with the wall terminal and her dark hair began to float around. She crossed her arms as her captain gently pushed off the floor and whizzed around the room whilst kicked back in a reclining position. After a few moments of gazing through a window into the sea of stars, he beckoned her upwards, lips curled into a welcome smile. With a slight sigh, she kicked off the floor and glided after him.

  “Tim, why am I just now hearing about that man on our ship?”

  “You mean Willy? I told you, he’s security. Y’know, to keep us secure! Think of him like a weasel; he’ll keep out pests, but he won’t steal your socks.”

  Kim frowned.

  “Look, I’m as surprised as you are!” He qualified. “I didn’t think we’d get him until our next dispatch. But the boss man paid to have him meet us at the asteroid. I couldn’t just take off without him!”

  “We’ve never had security before. Why now?”

  Cox shrugged as he walked up the wall into a backward somersault.

  “I don’t know, really . . . I guess with Earth and Mars doing all their extra bickering these days, it’s got the guys down at the depot worried about their shipments. Maybe they think we might accidentally smuggle insurgents or something. And let’s not forget space pirates. You know we’ve had a couple close calls.”

  “It was nothing we couldn’t handle.” She huffed. “But fine, we need a security guy. What about our agreement that you wouldn’t hire new crew without me vetting them first?”