Breaking Ranks

Braun: The Dung Hauler

Deck B2

Port Agricultural Section of the Tranquility

As far as disguises went, this was a masterpiece. My face was dirty, my clothing ragged and speckled, my countenance grim and my very spirit just a hair above collapse. In short, I was the very picture of a dung hauler. All stooped shoulders and self-contempt. The locals seemed pretty convinced as well, giving me a wide berth and wrinkling their noses as I approached. And these were passengers! Bearded barbarians who would refuse to bathe, and that's just the women I'm talking about.

All in all, this was not turning out to be a plush assignment.

"Oh, you've got to be kidding me," I muttered to myself.

Of all the bazaars in the Agricultural Section, this one had a Bridge Officer poking around, flanked by two of the costumed Seraphim. Thugs in black armor, though here they fancied themselves as something above human. I kept my head low, my spirit sinking even further as I felt my chances evaporate. Something in my bearing must have shown, for the Bridge Officer approached, looking trim and alert in his old-fashioned blue jumpsuit.

"You there!" he said to me in a commanding voice.

I began to wonder how I would die.

Torture, almost assuredly, unless he meant to have the Seraphim fire at once. Crucifixion possibly. This was the first day I had ever seen horses and so I found myself rooting for being drawn and quartered. It would be something to talk about, anyway... ah, but I would be dead.

"Ye...ye, yes my lord," I stammered, bowing low. I wish I could claim it was all an act.

"Ghastly smell," the Bridge Officer commented.

"You get used to it, my lord," the trader commented cheerily, an entrepreneurial sort from what passed for the closest hab complex around here. Villages, I believe they are called.

Our sub-section's Recyling Tanks had been on the fritz for decades and the Mission Commander had grudgingly allowed this more inefficient method of waste disposal. It was that or face yet another open revolt and so the Bridge took the easy route. Just so long as no sneaky Engineering types like myself use it as a way to spy in the Agricultural Section.

"Want to make an offer, my lord?" the trader asked. "I'm a steadfast follower of Regulations, I am indeed my lord, and if your lordship desires-"

"No, no," the Bridge Officer said, peering into the rough-hewn wooden cart laden with buckets of Engineering filth. Not including myself.

The trader had nothing to worry about. He'd been kept out of the loop about me and accepted me as a new dung hauler easy enough. Bridge Security might inspect his goods from time to time but they tended to leave the passengers alone. No doubt he was pleased to see the Seraphim as there was always the risk of a bandit attack.

Though he would be less pleased to find out a spy was hauling dung for him. Will he be tortured too, I wonder?

Let's find out.

But what's this? Oh, the Bridge Officer is pressing a bit of metal into my hand. I raise my head slightly, ever so slightly, and look at it. Eyes wide, wider than it deserves, but the man wants an act and who am I to disappoint? It was acting that got me into this mess, and by the Twelve, acting would get me out of it.

"But, but," I stammered. "A silver coin? From his..." What's the term? Holiness? Honor? Not majesty, certainly. Lord? But the Bridge Officer saves me from this line of thought with an airy wave of the hand.

"It is nothing," he says, "for a loyal servant of the Mission Commander." He quirks an eye down at me and I hold it until I remember to look away. "You are loyal, aren't you?"

"Oh, ever so much, your, your..." Oh Twelve damn it, what's the term? Astronauticalness?

But the Observer has turned to address the crowd now gathered in the bazaar. "Good, good! Even the lowest among you is worthy of the Mission Commander's blessings. Stay loyal! Follow Regulations! And you shall be rewarded, in this life or the next."

There is a scattering of applause at this, as if at a traveling magician, and the Bridge Officer looks quite pleased with himself. Well I suppose he might be, buying goodwill a coin at a time. I reflect on the fact that all I have done since arriving in the Agricultural Section is help give the Empire a bit of goodwill in this land.

The exact opposite of my orders.

Well there's nothing for it, though I have the feeling that if my handler was watching she would like to draw and quarter me right now. I suppose it's a good thing we don't have horses up in Engineering.

I have sensitive ears, an asset in my line of work, and so I hear one of the Seraphim muttering about how they're glad they can lower their helmet's olfactory senses. It's a sloppy comment, even if not a single passenger in the whole bazaar would understand. But they are pretending to be descended beings, and yet in reality they are just surly and bored guards complaining about the smell of yours truly.

They should be careful. You never know who might be listening.

When the Imps have left and the bazaar settled down a bit - though I am given to understand they never really settle down to anything like upperdecker standards - the trader grins down at me. He is seated on the coach of the horse-drawn wagon we are using for the transportation of dung and I supposed he means this as a beneficent smile.

"That was a lucky thing that just happened. Coin from an Imperial Observer! My, I suppose that might be the most exciting thing in your life."

He's right in a way, and yet very wrong. So very, very wrong. But I smile up at him, in what I suppose to be a subservient smile.

"By the Twelve! What a thing! I never saw a thing such as this!" I am trying out my gutter Ag Sec accent, a crude slurred blend of underdecker moonshiner and Second Deck machinist, and it appears to pass muster.

"No, I don't suppose you've ever held that much money in your life," the trader says with a chuckle.

I continue smiling. Haha, fuck you. I'm no noble but my family is prosperous enough. Wealthy enough to buy me a commission anyway. I think they had it in mind that I would operate turrets or drones or maintain the centuries-old combat robots or something like that. It had come as a shock to them when I had gone the espionage route.

But then, there were a lot of things they didn't know about me.

"Let's get going," the trader said, and we began our slow-moving progress through the bazaar. I tucked myself into the back, settling myself next to the sluiced human feces that would, I was told, fetch a reasonable price at farms throughout the Agricultural Section. No, this was not my favorite assignment. But it was my first day of reconnoitering the Agricultural Section and here I was, filthy but alive.

"Blessed by the Twelve, you are." The trader gave me an encouraging look as we trundled along. "Keep at it and someday you'll be chief among my dung haulers."