Nobody said Rock Hauling would be easy. Throughout settled space, terraforming is the fuel that drives the interstellar economy. For some worlds, this is easy. For others, lacking resources, or on the periphery, this is an unattainable dream. Throug...
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CHAPTER VII Carcosa II
"You know, that rat's walking free now." Carcosa scowled at the empty room as he said it. He'd thought putting it into words and voicing it to the chill silence of the cold-storage locker would make him feel better. It didn't.
He was leaning against a bulkhead wall, rolling a small ricepaper cylinder in between two calloused fingers as he talked. "I don't know what you would have wanted. Probably to not die in the void. But I guess that's all of us." He frowned down at the little cylinder. The just-off odor of synthetic marijuana mixed strangely with the crisp, metallic almost-smell of cold air. There was just a hint of coppery sting in the atmosphere. "Captain said he couldn't justify keeping Braden locked in a chair. Something about some damn Colonial law." His lip curled down, and he slid the reusable filter into the joint, then glanced aside at his silent companion.
Weldo's body had been strapped upright to a cargo slab that would usually hold crates of perishables. Acceleration hadn't been kind to it. The various little burns they'd made were uncomfortable enough when you were strapped down into a G-chair and suffering through the G-forces protected by gel and implants. On this slab, he'd basically been crushed repeatedly. His belly was squashed in, and one of his eyeballs had swollen, the dark, sickly red of a popped vein spiderwebbing the sclera. His skin was pulled tight against his bones, and the airtight cloth mask over his mouth and nose to prevent leakage was red with fluid. At least he hadn't started to rot. They'd filled his body with antibacterial packets to stave off the tiny necrovores that living creatures always brought with them into space. No use wasting good protein, if things went pear-shaped.
He patted the dead man's cold, skinny shoulder. It was cold as mountaintop stone. "Way I see it, we should have spaced him. Incompetence like his got you killed. Some adage from the Lost Homeworld. Eye for an eye, or something." He lifted the joint to his lips, but didn't light it. Here in cold storage, surrounded by crates full of valuable perishables or freeze-dried foods, any smoke alarms would see him covered in retardant foam quicker than a blink.
He didn't know if Weldo would want revenge. He was past caring about it anyways. But Carcosa was still alive, and the way things were done in his youth had been different. Colemon wouldn't care. The man ran a tight ship, but he'd turned a blind eye to infractions in the past. Carcosa wouldn't be booted off the ship if he decided to space one bad demolitionist who everyone hated now anyways.
Braden had been let go. He gripped the joint tighter, almost crushing the delicate paper. A month of travel time had elapsed already. They were nearly a third of the way back to Tylo. It had been 'inhumane' to keep that void-sucking idiot strapped in a chair for any longer. He'd have developed all sorts of health problems without frequent exercise. So now Braden had been left to wander the ship, earmarked for the shittiest assignments and excluded from respectable gatherings. Truth be told, Carcosa suspected he wasn't the only one entertaining the idea of lynching the man. People had liked Weldo. And Braden had always been whiney and full of complaints. Everything got more extreme on long-hauls, and emotions were no exception.
