Salvagers

By John Glenn Burke

Dax Goodman, a Doctor of Theology, finds himself marooned on a frontier outpost far from Earth on a space station that is the ultimate expression of unrestrained, Godless capitalism. His money and possessions lost, his financial situation quickly spirals out of control, causing his travel permit to be revoked until he pays back the money he owes.

When his doctorate is mistaken for a medical degree he is compelled to work as a medic on a grungy salvage ship crewed by eccentric, seemingly suicidal harbour workers until he can find his way home.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tellwell Talent
• Release date: Jul 12, 2020
• ISBN: 9780228830085

John Glenn Burke

John Glenn Burke is a writer and designer. He lives in Vancouver, Canada.

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Salvagers

Copyright © 2020 by John Glenn Burke

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Tellwell Talent

www.tellwell.ca

ISBN

978-0-2288-3007-8 (Hardcover)

978-0-2288-3006-1 (Paperback)

978-0-2288-3008-5 (eBook)

To my good friend Ricardo,

who I inadvertently convinced that I am a genius,

despite all evidence to the contrary.

PART ONE - BUSINESS

The real measure of your wealth is how much you’d be worth if you lost all your money.

CHAPTER 1 - ADRIFT

If you think this universe is bad, you should see some of the others.

— Philip K. Dick

Dr. Dax Goodman could not escape the irony that there was not a lot of actual space in space. Since leaving Earth more than ten years before, he had come to learn that interstellar travel could only be described as thoroughly claustrophobic. It wasn’t that there were no interesting places to go in space. Technology had advanced to the point where there was hardly anywhere in the local star cluster that you couldn’t visit if you were determined enough. But, out of necessity, every human environment in space was finite and basic economics required that the living environments for human habitation be as finite as possible. The maintenance costs of oxygenating, heating and cooling huge volumes of pressurized atmospheric gas in large open areas was prohibitive and unnecessary, not to mention far too easily compromised. It was far cheaper to restrict a ship’s compartments to a manageable volume and the ship’s inhabitants accordingly. This economic argument was perfectly logical to everyone involved, with the possible exception of those who were actually required to tolerate the confinement during the journey.

Goodman couldn’t recall anyone sufficiently warning him of the prolonged confinement the journey required. He felt someone should have explained this to him in more detail before allowing him to venture out into the expanse. Maybe he had been off sick that day. Admittedly, he had endured a lot of sick days during micro-gravity training, an exercise notorious for making sea-sickness feel like a warm bath. He certainly thought his current situation was even more claustrophobic than normal, as he was presently stuffed between two large-diameter conduit pipes in a narrow access cavity behind a service hatchway under the deck of a super-luminal space transport. Adding to his misery, the stout branch of a dwarf pomegranate bonsai tree dug into the back of his neck. He wouldn’t say he particularly enjoyed having the gnarled tree branch pressing against his spine, but there was almost no room to adjust the position of either the plant or his head, so he was forced to endure the discomfort.

He wasn’t unaware how ludicrous it might look for someone to be travelling partway across the galaxy with a dwarf pomegranate bonsai tree. But the tree was very old; in fact many times older than he was. The tree had been a gift from a Zen master he had met in Kyoto when he was young. He had tended this tree his whole life, refusing to go anywhere without it. It was a constant reminder of the tenacity of life, and the lavish care he offered it was central to his meditative existence. His spirituality was embodied by the tree, and he could not comprehend living without it.

Only minutes before, he had reasoned that stuffing himself and the bonsai tree into this access cavity was a good plan, but on reflection it now appeared a bit rash. Once the hatch had closed, he found he couldn’t see what he was doing in the darkness, with only the faintest line of light leaking around the edges. He also found couldn’t really move around much, making any attempt at finding a comfortable position almost impossible. And, as an afterthought, he finally realized he had no idea how to open the hatch from the inside.

Goodman lamented the unfairness of dying stuffed between two large-diameter conduit pipes in a narrow access cavity behind a tiny service hatchway while surrounded by the unimaginable vastness of space. Of course, he had not really imagined dying in space at all. Cautious to the end, he had refused to travel on the newest super-luminal transports, ones that made the trip from the alien planet to Earth in half the time. The Interstellar Transport Ship Hammond was comprised of tried and true technology. It wouldn’t complete the voyage as quickly as the newer ships, required to stop and restart halfway through the journey in order to compensate for accumulated navigational errors. Navigation between stars was notoriously complicated, where the planets were moving, the stars were moving, and space itself was moving. Making such large jumps across interstellar distances was quite dangerous, amplifying the probabilities of quantum indeterminacy to alarming levels.

Goodman lamented that all his precautions had been futile. On leaving the alien world, he had been convinced his journey had been a great success. But, had it been? On some level, he knew the travel drugs administered during long-duration space flight were designed to convince passengers of exactly this; an effort to make them more docile for the long trip home. It was standard procedure for passengers to be sedated in transit, enduring their super-luminal journey in a kind of pleasant daydream, induced by proprietary prescriptive pacifiers that had become closely guarded industry secrets. In the months it took to travel even to the nearest stars, a conscious passenger wandering around a cramped ship with nothing to occupy them was a real danger. Every company’s cocktail of sedatives had been custom designed to keep the passengers sedate, sedentary, and stimulated. Most passengers’ compartments were little more than an over-sized closet with a sleeping surface on one wall and a Sensory Immersion Cell on the other. When not sleeping sixteen hours a day, the passengers were intravenously fed and their waste extricated while they were taken on blissful journeys of discovery via the direct neural stimulation within the Cell.

Not more than fifteen minutes had passed since the euphoric hallucinations of those travel drugs wore off and the computer politely informed him that they had arrived at the Midway Space Station’s star system. At the time, he had no intention of crawling into an access cavity under the deck, even when he opened the door to his travel compartment and found the corridor filled with electrical flashes and smoke. Even as he crawled along the deck in the smoky corridor—disoriented and on the verge of panic—it was still unlikely that he would have thought his best course of action would be to curl up in an access cavity. In fact, it would never have occurred to him to stuff himself between two large-diameter conduit pipes in a dark, narrow access cavity behind a service hatchway under the deck of a super-luminal transport with a dwarf pomegranate bonsai tree for any reason except perhaps one: space pirates.

Before leaving Earth, a friend of his had warned him of the possibility that his transport ship might be attacked by pirates. Goodman hadn’t really taken the idea seriously until now. Government and corporate reports had spoken of the elaborate security measures implemented since the Midway Space Station had become operational, assuring potential migrants that the wild-west days of space travel were long over. He had always found these pronouncements mildly disturbing. It was a danger he had been repeatedly assured was now completely under control; perhaps too often to be truly reassuring.

On exiting his sleeping cuddy, he had heard two loud voices echoing in the corridors. His first thought had been that they certainly didn’t sound like rescuers, more engaged in arguing with each other than looking for survivors. And while he couldn’t make out everything they said, he did manage to pick out certain phrases, like gonna get caught and steal the water and passengers dead. The voices were apparently coming from some distance off, but where? The other side of the wall? Under the floor? The thing about space ships was that it was nearly impossible to tell where a sound was coming from. For many reasons he didn’t fully understand, the walls tended to be rather thin. The ballistic materials that lined the substructure were good for stopping micro-meteorites, but they were lousy at sound absorption.

On hearing those malevolent voices, his face had twitched under the emotional strain of the transition from hope to panic. Sitting up from his prone position on the floor, he looked up and down the corridor for an escape route, but didn’t know which way to go was best. It was then that he noticed the service hatch in the floor. Examining it carefully, he found the release mechanism and it opened smoothly, revealing an unpromising hiding place between the conduit and the machinery. Stuffing the bonsai through ahead of him, he had struggled through the opening. Since then, as long minutes ticked by, he began to doubt that he had actually heard anything at all.

How the hell do you expect to be a pirate when that’s the best you can do?

Hey, get off my back! a second voice said, hardly distinguishable from the first. Yer gonna get us both killed.

They really were pirates! And they were getting closer! Goodman pulled himself tighter into the cavity, but this only served to drive the tree branch further into his neck.

Who da hell suddenly put you in charge, anyway? The second pirate again.

Get drenched, why don’t ya, the first pirate said as they stopped outside the hatch. We damn well had to do something. I thought to myself, why’s he not jumping in here? He’s always got such sopping great ideas. How come he’s never puttin’ them into action?

Yer just jealous, the second pirate said. Least my ideas are better than yours.

Well, if you thought this was so damp then why didn’t you just say something?

You mean, why didn’t I tell you that right away? the second pirate said. Oh! Wait a minute! I think I did, Gary. Right from the start!

Look, I told you. Don’t use my real name.

Who the hell’s gonna hear? Everybody on the effen ship is dead, aren’t they?

Well, that’s hardly our doin’, is it? Gary said.

For Goodman, it took a moment of fearful comprehension for this to sink in. What did they mean: everybody on the ship is dead? He wasn’t dead. He knew enough to know that it didn’t work that way in space. A failure usually meant everybody died. It didn’t seem likely that he would have survived while no one else had. He scrambled furiously to open the hatch, fumbling in the darkness over the apparently simple locking mechanism.

Anyway, just don’t use my real name, okay? Gary said as the pirates moved down the corridor.

Well, okay, Gary. What’s your watty plan, GARY?!

Look. I’m warning you.

We got the fuel from the escape pods, the second Pirate said as their voices faded away slowly. That’s better that last time. Let’s just dump this piece of crap into the sun before somebody finds us here,

Not until I find some water! Gary said, dejected. I’m not leaving this caper dry.

You’re in a fine one today, aren’t you?

Just don’t call me Gary, okay?

Why not?

I don’t like Gary. It isn’t . . . I don’t know. It isn’t dangerous enough.

Then what am I supposed to call you?

Adolf, Gary said this with a surprising amount of confidence, as if he had thoroughly thought the matter through. I want to be called Adolf.

Get drenched, his partner scoffed. There’s no way in hell I’m calling you Adolf.

By the time Goodman finally got the hatch opened and scrambled from his hiding place, the pirates had disappeared. Awkwardly securing his Gecko deck shoes to the central contact pad of the floor, he staggered to a junction in the corridor, fighting the kink in his neck. Hello? he said, spinning around wildly. Then louder. Hello!? He steadied himself with a hand on the wall as he tried to get a grip on the situation. Oh, God! They mean to send us into the sun. Me. They’re going to send me into the sun! Yanking the bonsai from the recess in the floor, he spun himself in circles, immediately failing to find any place to flee. Moments later, he was brought up short by shouts coming from the other end of the corridor. He pressed himself against the wall and closed his eyes, wishing himself invisible.

Geez, Gary. It’s the cops!

Stop calling me Gary!

All right! Adolf, then!

Oh, why don’t you just shut up!

Goodman opened his eyes in time to see the pirates rushed toward him, maintain their balance with a hand on the low ceiling’s handrail. Tall and thin, they were obviously Space-born. In their late teens or early twenties, the pair looked like brothers. Or twins. Or even the same person, somehow. Clones? What would a pair of teenage clones be doing here? But he had little time to contemplate what this meant before they rushed past him.

Who the hell is that? Gary yelled.

How the hell should I know? the other pirate yelled back.

The two pirates disappeared around a corner in too much of a hurry to investigate why their abandoned salvage wasn’t completely abandoned.

Ah, excuse me? Hello? You can’t just leave me here. The bonsai tree still in hand, he followed them down the corridor. Hello, Gary? Ahh . . . Sorry, A-A-Adolf? ADOLF!

Goodman rounded the corner and stopped short. It took a moment to comprehend the sight that confronted him. Beyond an opened bulkhead hatchway, at a crazy angle, the corridor of a completely different ship had haphazardly merged itself with the Hammond’s corridor. The artificial gravity of each ship—being on different planes and angles—created such a bizarre image that his mind couldn’t process. Especially since the two pirates were sprinting up the mismatched corridor as if running up the wall.

After a moment, Goodman became aware of the unmistakable sound of escaping air. He looked around to find the source, but it seemed to be coming from all around him. As the pirate’s ship unceremoniously unsealed itself from the transport ship, the computer sensed the hull breach and the hatch violently slammed down from above, millimetres from his nose and toes. He was momentarily stunned by the sudden silence. Blinking rapidly, he refocused his eyes out the hatch window that now perfectly framed his face. As the pirate ship peeled away, it sucked debris from the Hammond along with it. The engines fired and the pirate’s ratty looking vessel was hundreds of kilometres off in seconds. He watched his only hope of rescue shrink to a small point of rusty-red light.

The silence continued.

Less than a minute later, Goodman jumped back from the window when—with no sound and no warning—a much larger ship passed, surprisingly close. It was obviously military and bristling with every form of weaponry imaginable. Painted on the stern in large, no-nonsense, military-style letters was the name: ISGS Curtis Lemay. Without hesitation, the enormous floating gun platform headed off into the blackness after the pirates.

More silence.

Goodman’s lungs hurt. He realized he’d been holding his breath since the air began escaping from the corridor. He willed himself to let out the spent air from his lungs. He took a cautious breath. Then another. The silence stretched on.

Dr. Dax Goodman? A vaguely feminine voice emanating from a small screen near the air-lock, the ship’s computer voice sounded disconcertingly like an old-time schoolmarm.

He glanced briefly down at the screen. Yes?

Are they coming back?

Ah. I don’t know.

He thought that maybe the computer should know this better than he would. He had been perpetually disappointed that artificial intelligence had progressed so little, even with the input of alien technology. He had long ago resigning himself to the idea that computers were dumb and probably always would be. He allowed the silence to stretch on, hoping the computer would return the favour. He watched through the hatch window as two tiny dots waged a silent, one-sided battle more than five hundred kilometres away. He was intrigued by how it looked like an antique video game he had once seen in a museum. But the battle didn’t last long. Predictably, after a series of cannon blasts from the larger dot, the smaller dot disappeared. With a bright flash, the large ship had fired its engines, dashing off out of sight

Dr. Dax Goodman? the computer said in what he had learned was its artificially cheery corporate sales voice.

He steeled himself against it, making every effort not to look down at the corporate advertisement he knew was playing across the screen beside the hatchway. Yes?

It seems your flight will not arrive at the Midway Space Station at the scheduled time. We apologize for any inconvenience. We have been authorized, through company policy, to offer you a free upgrade to business class.

What? An upgr—? He finally turned to look at the screen. Wait a minute. There’s no one else alive on the ship. Why not first class?

We’re sorry, but company policy does not allow an upgrade from an upgrade.

The computer’s tone had changed slightly, managing to say this with a precise note of both cheeriness and condescension. Goodman took a moment to resent the subtly of it. It must have taken decades of research to create the particular timber and tone of voice that was able to both appease a client and put them firmly in their place.

Wonderful, he muttered.

Deciding he currently had no patience for this marvel of modern corporate manipulation, he wandered down the corridor clutching the bonsai tree, searching for his scattered belongings, loathing the moment he had ever set foot on the ship.

Dr. Goodman, the computer said. We are pleased to inform you that, as a business class passenger, you are entitled to a complementary bath. Shall we prepare a bath for you?

Goodman stopped, flabbergasted by the question. Seriously? But then he saw the hopelessness of antagonizing himself even further. Yeah, sure. What the hell.

***

The business class cabin of the ISTS Hammond had not exactly been what he expected, but it was certainly an improvement over his passenger cuddy. The design of the room was mostly for show, since its occupant would ideally remain delightfully unconscious through most of the trip. Still, some passengers must have felt the necessity to pay exorbitant fees for facilities they clearly would not need, and any self-respecting corporate entity would be only too happy to take their money without shame. The compact design cabin combined efficiency and economy, though it was less effective when it came to functionality. Mounted vertically on the only solid wall was an almost full size bed. A carefully designed depression in another wall formed a desk that had proven almost useless. The Sensory Immersion Cell was top-of-the-line, of course, with a resolution far exceeding the cognitive abilities and attention spans of the humans who were the intended users. The wood-like plaz-steel walls provided some relief from the unrefined plaz-steel and ballistic nylon of the ship’s corridors, hinting at organic surfaces found on Earth.

Dr. Goodman lay in the steaming water of a not quite full-sized bathtub, a luxurious towel over his face. He was too large for the tub and his bare legs protruded from the water and flanked the sides. He hummed tunelessly and without emotion, getting some small pleasure from the indulgence despite his situation. The tub was intimately unsatisfying. Whatever was keeping the water in the tub was making the stuff feel sticky and distracting. He had no idea what kind of alien methodology was preventing the water from becoming an awkward blob floating in the middle of the room and he didn’t want to think about it too much. It would take away from what little pleasure he was getting from the experience. He missed gravity in a wistful way he could never have thought possible. He missed the solid feeling of his feet planted on the ground. He missed lying on a proper bed—one that wasn’t attached to the wall—where his full weight could sink into the mattress. He missed having a proper shower, with cool, fresh water cascading down onto his face.

The biggest luxury during space travel would have to be any quantity of liquid water. During spaceflight, liquid water was a very awkward, heavy substance that tended to stay suspended in mid-air while it found its way into any number of essential, delicate electronic devices. Most water in the Earth’s solar system wasn’t terribly useful as it was frozen as hard as steel from being so far away from the sun. It took vast amounts of energy to melt it and, once melted, it was almost impossible to move. And, once moving, it was almost impossible to stop. And, once stopped, any given sun in any given solar system tended to strip away the water’s constituent molecules until it ceased to be water, becoming a diffuse cloud of hydrogen and oxygen gas, which was even more useless than the super-cooled ice from which it had started.

It had turned out that liquid water, so abundant on Earth, had always been vanishingly rare in the rest of the galaxy. Creating liquid water and containing it within a protective magnetic field had become the backbone of the inter-stellar trade system between Earth and the alien world. Humans harvested and transported the water using technology provided by the aliens that made it possible to ship it across interstellar distances. It had been a business bonanza that had made those controlling it immensely rich and powerful.

As Goodman mulled over the series of events that had led him here, it was difficult to see what exactly he had done wrong. No longer under the influence of the travel drugs, it was apparent his experiences on the alien world could only be described as disappointing. His pleas for charity, altruism and spiritual enlightenment had been drowned out by the loudly proclaimed certainty that monetary profit alone was the sole meaning of life. The inhabitants of the alien world had a genuine zeal for capitalism that had far exceeded his ability to convince them of the dubious benefits of the selfless world he was proposing. Despite the alien’s derisive attitude toward his mission, they had been cordial and helpful. To his surprise, he had even managed to learn some of their languages and customs. But in the end he was discouraged with how little progress he had made before he was required to leave. Undaunted, he made a pledge to his bemused handlers that he would return some day, either in this life or the next.

With a long sigh, he set the towel firmly in mid-air above him, staring at nothing a metre in front of his face. He was almost resigned to the fact that the stubborn computer was apparently bent on doing absolutely nothing about his fate. Almost. He tried to formulate a new approach.

Computer, is there not even the smallest chance they will hear your distress calls?

We’re sorry, Dr. Goodman. The signal is being blocked by the body of the brown dwarf star known as ‘Red’. It would be two hundred and fifty days before our orbit allows us to contact the Midway Space Station.

Um. I thought not. A pause. After a moment he had another thought. Isn’t there . . . I mean, there must be some kind of manual control, right? For emergencies and such?

Space travel is very complicated. the computer said, its condescension level increasing dramatically. It would be unlikely that any sort of manual control could be devised that would not make any given emergency situation even worse.

So you think things could be worse, then?

Oh, yes. During space travel, the possibilities of injury and death are endless.

You know, I’m a pretty handy guy. What if I went up to the flight deck? I could, you know, give it my best shot. What harm could it do, really?

We’re sorry, Dr. Goodman. Passengers are not allowed on the flight deck.

Not even upgraded business class passengers?

It is far too dangerous for unqualified personnel to be allowed on the flight deck. Insurance costs would rise, increasing the cost of your ticket. This policy is in place for your benefit. The computer’s condescension level had increased to alarming levels, causing a strain on its otherwise perfectly smooth voice.

Gee, thanks, he said, placing the towel over his eyes again.

Dr. Dax Goodman?

Yes?

We’re obligated to warn you again that the ship is about to plunge into that brown dwarf star.

Goodman’s moan suggested he was well aware of this but he didn’t move.

We recommend that you reconsider your decision not to abandon ship.

I thought the pirates took all the fuel for the escape pod.

They did. The computer’s voice lowered in a pathetic interpretation of sad.

Then I can hardly escape, can I?

This is true. The chances of your survival are vanishingly small Then the computer’s tone returned to that of the corporate sales pitch. But you will survive longer in the pod.

And how long would that be, exactly?

It would be approximately three days and four hours before the pod’s power is depleted and you will freeze to death. The estimate came across as far too cheery.

And how long if I stay here?

Approximately three days and two hours. This time the computer’s tone was carefully modulated, obviously trying to discourage the idea but coming across as childishly manipulative. After which ship’s reserve power will be depleted and the heat from the sun will melt the hull.

I’ll stay here if it’s all the same to you, Goodman said. At least I’ll be warm.

That is your choice, of course.

So then there’s nothing I can do?

Would you like to run naked and screaming around the ship again? It seemed to calm you the last time.

Maybe later. If it were possible, Goodman would have slumped further, but he found he had reached the slump limit of the tiny bathtub.

***

Engineer Arbutus Eaton felt mildly disturbed as he stood in the opened doorway of a business-class cabin of the Interstellar Transport Ship Hammond. He looked around the comically too-small room with considerable discomfort. It wasn’t the relative grandeur that made Arbie uncomfortable. He had seen such things before. The kind of opulence wealthy, planet-born passengers needed to make themselves feel less anxious about travelling the admittedly frightening expanses of space. He could kind-of understand that.

Like most space-born humans, Arbie usually had a problem with organics of any kind. The golden-brown, faux-wood walls of the cabin would ordinarily have caused him some discomfort, to his eye looking dirty and rectangular when compared to the machine-formed contours of the plaz-steel walls he had grown up with. This had to do with life and death, really. Organics didn’t hold up very well in space, being too easily broken down by radiation and magnetic fields. But he understood that the wood-textured plaz-steel walls were just a poor substitute for wood, and so they were not the immediate cause of his anxiety.

No, what really disturbed Arbie Eaton most was the planet-born human sleeping in the stateroom’s almost full-sized bed. Plastered on the wall like bug splatter on a windshield, the man slept fitfully under the zero-gravity restraints, his body angled to take advantage of the longest axis of the sleeping surface, his bare feet protruding from under the covers and dangling over the edge. Arbie had to crane his neck sideways to get a good look at him.

Arbie had never really had a problem with planet-born humans per se. The space station had more than a few of them, and most were all right. True, their habits sometimes made him cringe. They ate food grown in dirt, with bugs and bacteria crawling around in it. Some even bragged about eating organic food, which meant there were no chemicals to kill the bugs, and no genetic modifications to enhance the nutritional content. He had even heard that some of them ate animal flesh, though he didn’t really want to think about anything so disgusting. Some even wore chemical perfume that made them smell like flowering plants, something he could never really understand. They changed clothes sometimes every day. And almost all of them insisted in showering repeatedly, something he thought was excessively wasteful, especially when it came to a precious resource like water. Besides, the risk of drowning in a zero-g condensation shower seemed foolish, all for the dubious pleasure of smelling like an organic.

Some of these planet-born humans even claimed they missed walking around, unprotected, in open spaces on the surface of a planet, feeling the unfiltered rays of the sun penetrating their skin. He had even seen some whose skin had temporarily turned brown from the exposure. The very thought of unprotected open spaces above him caused him to shiver. He took great comfort in being able to reach up and touch the ceiling, even one made of fake wood.

Nothing about the engineer fit with the pseudo-art deco of the elaborate stateroom. Tall and skinny like all space-born humans, Arbie had been forced to remove his head gear and hunch his shoulders to stay clear of the ceiling. Despite only being in his mid-thirties, long exposure to radiation had created an intricate roadmap of lines on his angular face. Most of the gear he wore was home made. His personal gravity unit, mounted in its harness near his centre of mass, looked antique and worn; polished like an old bronze door handle. An elaborate, slightly over-sized, plaz-steel mechanical arm was attached to his shoulder with a composite nylon and plastic harness that looked as if it was bolted directly to his chest. A tan, simulated-leather glove covered the metal and electric components of the hand, making the artificial appendage appear almost real at first glance.

Arbie had always worn the title of ‘harbour rat’ with a small amount of pride. Like most of them, he didn’t experience a shower nearly as often as planet-born humans would have liked. Since his working clothes were anti-bacterial and self-cleaning, he saw little need to change them. And, because of his job, there were few occasions where work clothes were not appropriate. Given time, the stains would eventually fade away, though, lately, there hadn’t been much time off to allow the clothes to do their work.

Arbie didn’t particularly enjoy being disturbed by unexpected planet-born humans where there shouldn’t really have been one. Fortunately, he had the perfect cure for any sort of consternation he might experience while navigating the stresses of his job. With precise dexterity, he used his mechanical hand to pull a large marijuana joint from his pocket. He wet the cigarette in his