The Man From Earth

By Ted Stetson

John Gentry was sent to prison for a murder he didn't commit. There is only one way for him to prove his innocence; escape from prison and catch the real killer.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ted Stetson
• Release date: Nov 29, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370803972

Ted Stetson

Ted Stetson is a member of SFWA. He was born in Brooklyn and raised on Long Island and went to Seton Hall and Hofstra. He graduated from the University of St. Thomas, Houston, Texas. He was awarded First Place by the Florida Literary Arts Council and First Place in the Lucy B. McIntire contest of the Poetry Society of Georgia. His short fiction has appeared in Twisted Tongue, MysteryAuthors.com, Future Orbits, State Street Review, and the anthologies; One Evening a Year, Mota: Truth, Ruins Extraterrestrial Terra, Ruins Terra and Barren Worlds. His books include: Night Beasts, The Computer Song Book.

Book preview

Chapter 1 – Assassin

An old space freighter pulled into the Epsion Indus system and parked near the Wagon Wheel space station. The K5 star provided .14 suns of illumination. A worn space bus carried passengers to the space station hub. After docking; Arturians, Trifidians, and pig-faced Scrofians went their separate ways.

A tall Scrofian stepped into a restroom and locked the door. The pink eyes inspected the room and made sure there were no security cameras. Then he put his right hand under his left arm, tugged a tab and pulled off the fat arm with the three-fingered hand revealing a five-fingered human hand. Then he pulled off the other rubber hand. He lifted off the Scrofian head with the blunt pink nose and tiny pointed ears, then the Scrofian body suit.

The earthman rinsed off, took clothes from the duffel bag and dressed like a hardtack rancher. He ran his fingers through his gray hair as he checked himself in the mirror. Strong chin and iron blue eyes, he looked like any earthborn space traveler, not like a father fighting for his son's life.

He shoved the bio-suit in the duffel bag and keyed into his communicator that he, Thomas Gentry, had found the evidence to free his son. He stepped into the spoke and walked down the spiral hallway to the crowded main concourse. When he passed ladies wearing the new latex skintight clothing he politely looked away. He surveyed all men with wary caution. Every now and then he paused at a wall map as if to check his location and glanced behind him. As he neared the hall of the courtrooms his communicator buzzed that the judge couldn't see him until after lunch so he settled into a nearby café to wait.

The Dallas Café was a small, quick serve coffee shop. Thomas sat at the counter where he could watch the pedestrians walking by. Secretaries on break, shoppers, business people—mostly Scrofians and Arturians and Trifidians from nearby worlds.

Thomas picked up a paper map of the five spokes and started folding it into squares, a nervous habit from the old days.

He had just ordered something to settle his stomach when a yellow warning light in the ceiling started flashing. Over a loudspeaker a voice, meant not to instill panic, said: This is an alert, only an alert. Two ships, possibly Pirate Dromon's scouts, have been spotted near the solar system.

Damn pirates, a slender gray Arturian at the counter said, his backward bending legs and elbows jutting out every which way

Diners hurriedly paid their bills. When the waitress didn't come fast enough some patrons threw credits down and rushed out. Soon the concourse filled with individuals hurrying this way and that. Out a nearby window, spaceships could be seen firing up their ion engines and jetting away.

The gray Arturian growled, Rats leaving a sinking ship.

Thomas didn't reply. He checked the waitress station and realized they had left; he wouldn't be served any time soon, if at all. The long-limbed Arturian reached over the counter, grabbed a steaming pot of java and refilled his cup. He motioned to pour java into Thomas’s cup. Thomas shook his head. He might as well wait in the judge's outer office. He stood and picked up his duffel bag.

As he was leaving the cafe the tall gray Arturian put his hand out to stop him.

What's the hurry? How 'bout having a drink?

Some other time, Thomas said and turned to walk away.

Too good for me, are you?

He started to answer when he saw the alien reaching for a hidden knife. If he hadn't been so tired he would've picked up on it sooner. He tossed his duffel bag at him and ran up the concourse. He'd only taken a few steps when pain pierced his back. He lost use of his legs and tumbled to the grass green carpet.

The Arturian was quickly beside him.

Where it is?

Where's what? Thomas coughed, spraying blood.

You know, the Arturian said.

Where you won't find it.

Tell me and you’ll live.

Go to hell.

Then it's your son who will pay.

Thomas’s blue eyes opened wide, but didn't reply.

The Arturian shook him until he realized he was dead. He took the knife coated with Bizz venom and put it in the sheaf up his sleeve. Then he shoved the body aside, stood up and picked up the duffel bag.

Hey you! Stop right there, a Space Fleet patrolman said.

The Arturian started to run away, taking long powerful loping steps. He hadn't gone far when the patrolman opened fire and his dead body crumbled to the green carpet.

The patrolman talked into his button mic as he hurried forward. Found Gentry. He's dead.

*****

Chapter 2 - The Catcher

Epsilon Eridanus System, Holle 4, Crystal Mine.

Called Hell by the inmates, the penitentiary sat on one of the most volcanic planets in the explored universe. The prison, a modified troop transport ship, had been dropped on the only stable piece of ground available. Still, because of the incentives, there was a waiting list of 'volunteers'.

***

Wearing a heat protective ceramic environ suit prisoner number 9543 stood inside a large bucket and looked down at rising jets of steam. Sweat rolled down his rugged face. He could hear his breathing in his earphones, he sounded scared; he was.

A mile away a glowing stream of lava geysered into the air and exploded. The sound was deafening as the ground tremble. A bucket swayed on the long crane.

Taking a breath, he said, Into the belly, and the large bucket started lowering into the poisonous steam. He gripped the cable tightly as if the ceramic bucket might suddenly break.

The bucket slowly descended into the gorge between high cliffs where blistering heat from the volcano swirled upward in poisonous gray-black clouds, the boiling poisonous clouds billowed; sometimes resembling demonic faces. The outside bottom and the rim of the bucket started to glow red from the heat. In the red molten river, lava geysered upward spraying steamy gray sulfur clouds against the granite walls. Rumblings of boiling lava echoed up and down the gorge like a symphony in hell.

Suspended from a cable was a large barrel-bucket made from heat resistant ceramic and lead. It swayed in the powerful updrafts. On the cliff edge, a half mile above the river of lava, an old refurbished crane perched on the edge of the cliff as the operator feverishly worked the levers to lower the swaying bucket.

In the kerraniam bucket a man, a Catcher, wore a specialized heat resistant ceramic suit with its own cooling system and oxygen supply. One chrome-gloved hand grasped the handle of the bucket and the other held a catcher's pole—a long pole with a ceramic-kerraniam net at the end and a chain attached to the main cable in case something happened to the Catcher or the bucket.

As the heavy lead shielded bucket descended closer to the boiling lava, it bounced around more and more in the hot updrafts. Sometimes a geyser of lava shot upward and hit the bucket with a loud slapping sound and the bucket would bounce around, but as long the Catcher's environ suit was not breached, he was okay.

When the bucket came close to the river of lava, the crane operator stopped the winch and waited for instructions from the Catcher.

I'll take it now, said the rough voice of John Gentry over the intercom. His hand moved to the hand controls and he pressed a red down arrow and now the bucket descended even more slowly toward the glowing red molten river.

None of the convicts standing near the crane watching, warned him not to go too low, nor told him to be careful. Everyone knew the risks, knew the work here was so dangerous they were expendable; each and every one had volunteered to work in this hell to reduce his sentence.

The bucket rocked and John held the handle and pressed the square button to stop its descent. He glanced around the hell hole he was in. If only he could ‘catch’ a ‘good’ crystal, he could get pardoned and go home. Everyone else on his team would get reduced sentences. His missed his family. His mother had died and his brother was murdered. His pa was the only one left and he missed him a great deal.

His hand poised over the triangular button as he looked over the side, gazing through the helmet's thick glass plate; the only part of the suit not covered with protective material, and studied the glowing red molten stream just a few meters below. The molten lava in crystal mines was hotter and more deadly than normal lava.

In the red glow from the lava John's face looked unearthly, and the sweat pouring down his rugged face looked like blood. He breathed in the cool air blowing at his mouth as wipers on the face plate struggled to keep the glass clear.

Suddenly a stream of lava shot up and passed within inches of the bucket and John leaned back, breathing a sigh of relief. The bucket rocked from the steam, but wasn't hit by lava. His heavy breathing amplified over the microphone in the environ suit sounded like he was panting.

Close, the Arturian crane operator, Or'gon said, his voice small and tinny over the cheap speaker in the suit.

Now you tell me, John said.

Or'gon had told John that convicts didn't make friends in this hell hole, that he didn't want to know his name because he wouldn't live long enough to call him by it. It was better not to know the name of someone who would be dead by the end of the week. But Or'gon and John had become friends. John had been doing this for a month, an old veteran at the mines. Every day of work at the mines equaled one year in normal penal time.

At the end of a month Or'gon had kidded John that he had only three months to go. They both knew that few convicts lasted that long. John had been convicted of murder, which carried a sentence of a hundred Earth years.

John could wait; he wanted to get back home. His dad wasn’t in the best of health. He hoped there was still time to go fishing with him. He loved their time fishing together in a mountain stream or on a lake. He also wished his mother and brother were alive. He sucked in a big gulp of air, now was not the time to get misty-eyed.

He looked over the side of the bucket at the boiling lava. He had studied the documentation before volunteering. Studied the films of the lava pits before putting on a Catcher's suit. Lava boiled rapidly just before a crystal rose to the surface. Usually the more rapidly the lava boiled the bigger the crystal. Usually, not always.

The lava really started to boil now and he gripped the Catcher's pole with his right hand, his left hand poised over the round white rapid ascent button, ready, waiting; his heart thumping, racing, sweat streaming down his face.

Get out of there, Or'gon said, as the rising steam blocked off any topside view of the bucket. The boiling lava seemed to rise up all around the bucket like it was going to blow with him in the middle.

John didn't have to look up to know that his alien friend sitting in the booth of the crane was watching through special binoculars.

A minute. He stared over the side of the bucket at the red lava. It was boiling more rapidly now and the poisonous steam was rising quicker, bouncing the bucket around, the acid peeling away the heat proof ceramic, fogging up his face plate, making the wipers on his face plate swipe faster and faster, until they started to melt.

Over the intercom Or'gon growled, Two guards just walked in. Warden wants to see you.

Tell 'em to come on down. John heard the loud angry grunts of the Scrofian guards in the background.

On the small speaker inside his suit he could hear Or'gon arguing with the screws. The one lobe Scrofians didn't understand ‘no’ or anything except following orders. He'd bet they were arguing with Or'gon about their going down to get him, they didn't understand a joke. Was he disobeying an order and should be shot, or was it disrespect and he should be thrown into solitary?

Leaning over the side, John watched the lava boiling, the Catcher's Pole ready. He wouldn't have much time if he was right. If he was wrong, it would be solitary again; too many solitaries and he would be transferred to another dead-end rock in another solar system.

The boiling lava was bubbling up, the overheated bubbles bursting with a deafening sound; fountains of superheated steam rose up, rocking, eating away at the kerraniam ceramic bucket. The facemask wipers were failing, the acidic steam corroding the working parts.

Sorry, Or'gon said over the intercom and the bucket started to rise.

The screws had given Or'gon an order and he had to follow it or else. Knowing Or'gon they were probably holding zap sticks against him.

John's hand shot out and pressed the override button and the bucket stopped rising. An alarm klaxon started blaring. He couldn't hear the klaxon, but saw the red light flashing on the bucket control panel, and knew the screws were running around, unsure what to do. Was the klaxon because of the override or because the sensors warned something impossible was about to happen?

He pushed that out of his mind and stared at the boiling lava, blinking the sweat out of his eyes. Something was going on in the lava river. Something extraordinary was about to happen. Something unusual was going on.

Suddenly the lava stopped boiling.

He pressed the rapid descent button and the bucket plummeted downward toward the glowing red river of lava.

John! Or'gon said over the speaker, his voice worried.

In the center something was coming to the surface. Was it a huge gas bubble that would wreck the bucket and kill him or was it a crystal, a chance at riches and maybe even a pardon?

He readied himself, extending the pole when all at once the boiling lava moved outward as if forming a ring and the center became still like the eye of a hurricane. From out of the white-red center rose a jagged shape. It bounced around just under the surface like a cork in a stormy sea. The moment it touched the air it gave off a blinding white light, making the inside of the pit so bright, it was like everything had been painted black and white.

John's insides quivered but he was ready with the Catcher's pole. He lowered the pole and shoved the net into the red-hot lava and scooped up the crystal. The instant the crystal came out of the lava, the lava under it that had been pushing it upward, and burst like a large red soap bubble filled with TNT. The explosion rocked the bucket and he lost his hold on the Catcher's pole. It dropped a few millimeters before the emergency cable engaged and reeled in. He heard a crack, the massive bolts holding the handle to the bucket had been eaten away, and as the bucket started to fall he reached up and grabbed the handle still secured to the cable. He pressed the rapid ascent button and cried out when his protective glove melted on the handle.

The thick cable reeled in as the heavy bucket plummeted into the lava and red molten lava splashed up, exploded upward, hitting the handle, the walls of the gorge, the cable . . . everything. The lava hit the walls with such force the rocks exploded in a metallic cloud obliterating any view of the bucket and cable.

More lava geysered up curling around the suit hanging from the handle and the crystal in the chain basket and coated the crystal with lava, covering up the blinding crystal light.

The giant spotlights on the side of the gorge illuminated only rising clouds of gas. The pit was obscured by the hot steam. The cable appeared to disappear into the swirling steam clouds.

Or'gon shouted over the intercom, JOHN! but there was no reply. A stream of lava geysered up and the men near the edge jumped back. Or'gon gazed up at the end of the crane. The cable was slack. The walls of the gorge glowed fiery red when the heavy bucket splashed into the river of lava.

Though he couldn't see it, Or'gon knew what had caused that big a splash. Both his Arturian hearts skipped a beat, and he lowered his gray eyes and breathed out, sad that another Catcher had died in the mines. He listened to the static on the intercom. The man from Earth was gone, dead.

Ugene Or'gon was an Arturian from Antares 5, and appeared almost human with his long thin legs and arms. He had a human sized trunk, but his knees and elbows bent opposite of humans and his hands had two opposable thumbs and three fingers. His pale gray eyes were three fingers apart, but his thin-lipped narrow mouth with small flat teeth almost looked human. Arturians were hairless, mostly green-skinned, but some were grayish or blue with a DNA so different from Earth humans, they said to be almost reptilian.

Because Or'gon was born on Antares 5 he had gray skin, gray hair and gray eyes. In his misspent youth he'd developed a taste for wine, good food and music: the finer things in life. Too much taste, he said, was the reason he was a criminal.

Raynekk, one of the convict crew standing by the edge, gave the hand signal that the bucket was gone. Or'gon had lost a friend.

Or'gon watched the thick cable feeding across the spool, the brushes and water cleaning it, the spray showering the rocky ground with acid, eating depressions in the rocky ground as it made its way back into the molten river, steam rising up over the edge.

He reeled in the last of the cable and raised the crane, watching the steam boiling about the end. Yes, the bucket was gone, as empty as an Arturian dream . . . but what was that?

Skron, one of the guards said and Or'gon shouted over his bony shoulder, It's coming up.

The guards grunted angrily, pointing zap sticks at him.

Or'gon glanced at the instruments on the panel. They showed John's environ suit had been breached. Down next to the poisonous lava that could mean anything. His oxygen could be gone. If the lava or acidic steam had touched his skin, he would be horribly disfigured.

The guards grunted again and Or'gon motioned that the cable was coming in.

The guards, Scrofians, were short, bulky beings with round bald heads and pink skin. They had two brownish-yellow eyes, but their eyelids closed vertically instead of horizontally like earthmen and Arturians. Two holes in a bump for a nose and a very wide mouth full of large flat teeth. They had four small ears like cones, two on each side of their head. Even if they weren't guards, and weren't from the Dumbbell system, the convicts would probably call them pigs.

As the bucket neared the ledge, Or'gon shouted everyone to move back. When he barked, convicts from two dozen different solar systems cleared away from the staging area.

He quickly pressed the levers and pedals to shorten the crane and the cable end rose up through the steam mist.

Hanging onto the end of the bucket handle by one hand—he couldn't believe it—either John was still alive or his protective glove had melted to the handle. That had happened before; he'd brought in more than one corpse like that and shivered at the memory of their shriveled burned bodies.

Yes, his glove had melted to the handle and he was reeling in another dead man. It wouldn't be the first time an exploding lava bubble had destroyed the bucket, killed the Catcher, and reclaimed the crystal.

The crystal? He had been so concerned with John he hadn't thought about the crystal. He swung the steel chair to the side and worked a different set of levers and handles, causing a second cable to wind up on another giant roll.

Working the levers and handles, Or'gon quickly swung the motionless environ suit over the staging area and with acid spattering from the cable and convicts running for cover, he lowered the end of the crane and the automatic hoses sprayed everything with recycled water.

Carefully he lowered the motionless suit to the ground, stalactites of cooling lava hanging from the bottom of the Catcher's boots, a sure sign to him that he was dead.

Without waiting for someone to radio the information he shoved his way past the guards and raced down the stairs of the crane and ran, with his strange long stride, to the blackened protective suit lying on the ground. Maybe John was not completely dead, maybe he had only third degrees burns, or sulfur burns in his lungs.

By now the Catcher's pole and basket were coming up on the other crane and everyone had forgot about the dead man and rushed to take a look, but Or'gon didn't care about that or about the credits. He was suddenly sure that his friend, his only friend in the galaxy, was dead.

Or'gon came closer and saw that indeed the protective glove had melted to the buckle handle. He couldn't remember anyone living after that had happened. He recalled once the body inside had been turned to charcoal and paled at the memory of what that thing had looked like.

His steps slowed and he came up to the motionless suit lying on the rocky ground. John! he shouted above the roar of machinery, above the thundering lava river, but there was no answer. He nudged the leg with his foot figuring if John was alive he would grunt, move, curse, especially if he was injured, but he did not move. The suit was so still he knew they would have to bury another Catcher in his suit.

He kneeled down next to the body, tears in his gray eyes. He hadn't cried since his mother died, but now he was about to cry for his friend. Never make friends, he reminded himself. Friends always die.

He gently reached down and brushed the gray lava dust from the thick glass face plate, but the face plate crumbled and he jerked his hand back, glancing away afraid to see his friend's horribly disfigured face.

He opened his gray Arturian eyes and glanced down; expecting to see a charred mess, but the face was only superficially burned on the right side. He seemed to be unconscious. Maybe he was only injured, a few years in the hospital and he would be. . . .

Suddenly the eyes blinked and opened, the blue eyes looked up at him. He was alive. John went to speak and coughed.

Or'gon carefully lifted the protective head covering from John. It was so disintegrated from the heat, he was certain it had melted to John's head and that he was pulling away half John's scalp, but when he pulled the helmet off, John was alright. His brown hair was plastered to his head with sweat—the sweat may have saved him—but he seemed fine.

John blinked his blue eyes and grinned at him, that big ear to ear smile some earthmen use.

You're alive? Or'gon said, his twin purple tongues fighting over the Earth words.

You call this alive?

Or'gon stood up and helped John to his feet. He feared he was injured in some other way, but as the earthman got slowly to his feet, Or'gon could tell that he was unharmed.

It's a miracle you're alive, Or'gon said.

If you hadn't been so fast with that cable, John said in his rugged voice, I wouldn't be.

Or'gon didn't know what to say, he didn't think his actions had helped at all, but maybe he had. He had been so worried about John he had not thought about what he did.

Or'gon didn't know what to say. For half a century he had cared more about drugs than for another being, but here on this penal planet where the food tasted like bostaurus shit, he had found a friend.

John limped over to the other convicts, who stood in a circle admiring something; even the Scrofian guards had appreciative looks on their ugly faces.

Or'gon wondered how John had managed to stay alive, how had he breathed in such an inferno? He kneeled down to inspect the half melted protective head covering. Inside was a small clear tube that supplied oxygen and looking closer Or'gon saw the fragments of a chipped tooth. John had locked his jaw around the tube to breathe. He passed out?

He hurried over to ask him, but as he got closer he heard the convict crew shouting, cheering.

The whole crew was gathered around the ceramic chain basket encased in a solid globe of rock hardened lava.

Raynekk, the pirate convict, was pointing at the sensor device in his hand; on the back of his thumbless hand was the tattoo of a dragon. The readings were off the scale. The crystal inside was huge. Everyone in the crew would benefit from catching such a large crystal. Credits would be deposited in everyone's account, enough credits to have time taken off their sentences.

Great going, John, Raynekk said, a tan Trifidian, from Lower Sagittarius 4, with long narrow crevices for ears, a slender three slit nose, brown eyes, and long straight tan body hair. Some of us can buy our parole now, and get out of this hell hole.

The men patted John on the back and he was grinning, trying not to show that his knees were still shaking.

It dawned on Or'gon that this would give him enough to get him out of here. He was finally free. He turned to look at John and the smile left his face. He would leave the only friend he had in the galaxy. John's penalty would not allow him to buy his way out.

Skring duk mun, the head guard grunted and John turned. Or'gon had forgotten John still had to see the warden. What the hell was so important it interrupted hazardous duty? Had some upper level court increased his sentence? He doubted John was going to be pardoned; that didn't happen in this sector of the galaxy. If anything, he would be punished for some infraction the warden had come up with. Maybe the crystal would change the warden's heart. He wouldn't bet on it, but maybe it would. Stranger things had happened in hell.

*****

Chapter 3 – Escape

Warden Skring sat behind his tan plastic civil service desk. A thick violent man, patience was not his best characteristic, he'd been a prisoner here until his accident, afterward he was made a trustee, then a guard and for the last twenty years, he'd been warden.

The accident had required the surgeons to rebuild his whole skull and from his bald head to his jutting jaw, the left side was burnished aluminum. Civil Service did not give enough insurance credits for the many surgeries necessary to rebuild his face to resemble his human forefathers, but over the years he had saved almost enough for the extensive operation and recuperation. For weeks he'd been debating retirement or the operation. He studied his face in the small hand mirror he kept in the desk drawer, touched his mushroom nose, the bumps under his eyebrow, his twisted mouth. Frankenstein’d had it easy, he thought, as he stored the mirror in the desk.

When prisoners arrived, he was the first human they saw and spoke to. If they weren't impressed with the danger of working here, one look at his face and many requested reassignment.

Skring's cold brown eyes gazed at the preliminary reports on the crystal Gentry had found. Man discovered the first crystal in a volcano on Hawaii, then in a mine in Mexico, then more on Titan. Since then, man had been searching for crystals to enable space travel.

Once this crystal was refined, smelted, cut and polished, it would give Warden Skring more than enough credits to get the operation, have his whole face look human again, but now he was not sure he wanted it. Now he was thinking maybe he would keep this ugly face he'd grown accustomed to and retire to some peaceful world.

A knock on his door brought him out of his reverie.

IN! he barked.

The door slid open and the smell of sulfur and fear, the stink of the pits, overpowered the air filters as two guards in gray jumpsuits entered with the tall earthman between them. The one-lobed guards would stand there until they fainted from malnutrition, but Gentry looked like he wouldn't put up with any insolent talk from them even if his shift in the pits had taken its toll. The dull brown eyes of the guards looked at the Warden awaiting their next orders.

The right side of Gentry's face had been bandaged and his right hand was bandaged. The Warden's hand went up to touch his own steel jaw.

Infirmary do a good job? Warden Skring said.

Insisted I stay bandaged for a few days, Gentry said. Want to keep me for observation.

Why do you want the pits so much?

I can use the credits.

Rest do you good, Skring said, aware of what was going on. Gentry's find had made everyone many credits. He would be treated like a hero for a while.

You wanted to see me? What's so damn important that these pigs almost got me killed?

Scrofians, Skring said shaking his head, as if that explained their one-lobe minds.

Gentry waited, staring at the ugly face, at the man the cons said had sold out long ago.

Skring took a breath. How was he to tell him? Brown hair, blue eyes, tall and rangy, with shoulders that echoed hard work, Gentry looked like an Iowa farm boy and had that earthly innocence about him.

Where you from? Skring said.

It's in my file, Gentry said.

I'm asking you.

Born on Sol 3.

Earth?

Place called Texas.

Seemed to remember hearing about that place, lot of hard cases come from there.

Wouldn't know about that.

"Been out