Slow Boat to Fast City

By Sean Demory, A.E. Ash, Marshall Edwards and 2 more

It’s 1958 and the night sky of Mars sings to a hot-jazz tune played by a quartet of slot machine, rocket engine, laser fire and broken bone. The Outfit and the corporations run Mars, keeping the mines running and the Strip humming. Deputy Marshals ride between the waystations and the city, bringing rough justice to the roughest beat in the solar system. Barsoomist rebels fight a hit-and-run war, staying one step ahead of the law and the Mob, knowing they’ve got miles to go before they sleep and deals to honor before they’re free of the yoke of Terra and their own all-too-human biology. An army of chancers, either too clever or too foolhardy, make their way through occupied space in search of a bit of green. And in hidden valleys and lost caverns, the old masters of Mars awaken, peer out with tar-black eyes and prepare to up the ante.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Mar 31, 2015
• ISBN: 9781329145887

Sean Demory

Sean Demory is an author living in Kansas City, Missouri. Production of his first novel, "Zobop Bebop," was funded through Kickstarter and the book is scheduled for release in October 2012.

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Slow Boat to Fast City

Slow Boat to Fast City

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations and events portrayed in these stories are either products of the authors’ imaginations or are used fictitiously.

SLOW BOAT TO FAST CITY

Copyright © 2015 by Sean Demory

Edited by Sara E. Lundberg

All rights reserved.

Published by Pine Float Press

Kansas City, Missouri

First Edition: May 2015

ISBN 978-1-329-14588-7

Cover art by Jeff Hui. Used with permission

Preface

The Space Wars began on May 9, 1945, when the Red Army stormed the walls of Berlin and saw Nazi space arks streaming through the sky from the Brandenburg Airport.

One jury-rigged Allied space program, six years and 60,000 casualties later, the inner solar system is at a simmering peace. Queen Elizabeth II has added Luna to her dominions, the Reds have turned the asteroid belt into a new Gulag Archipelago and French plantations are carving order out of the green chaos of Venus.

And Mars? After dragging Hitler and his inner circle to Nuremberg from their ramshackle Valhalla on the summit of Olympus Mons, the Americans opened Mars to all comers. The first wave of settlers came looking for solitude and struggle, building New Deseret, Nicodemus II, Barsoom and a score of other waystations in the wastes.

When the big money came, though, the desert bloomed. The Strip, a superhighway linking the Olympus elevator and Elysium City, glows day and night with the light of a thousand spaceports, ten thousand factories and a hundred thousand neon-lit Outfit-run boomtowns catering to zero-g roughnecks, factory workers, commodity traders and soldiers on leave.

Some of the first-wave colonists embraced the coming of civilization, lobbying for off-ramps and spurs from the newly built railway system. Others, though, took a harder stance, responding to any intrusion from outsiders with rapidly escalating violence and covert support from Soviet agents provocateur… and, rumor has it, some more mysterious allies the homesteaders met in the arroyos.

It’s 1958 and the night sky of Mars sings to a hot-jazz tune played by a quartet of slot machine, rocket engine, laser fire and broken bones. Hard-eyed grifters wearing dresses that are shorter and tighter than their Stargirl haircuts watch the spaceports and casinos, looking for the next mark who’s found a quick fortune in the void and needs help losing it. Deputy Marshals ride between the waystations and the city, bringing rough justice to the roughest beat in the solar system. Barsoomist rebels fight a hit-and-run war, staying one step ahead of the corporations’ hired guns and the Marines. An army of chancers, either too clever, too desperate or too foolhardy, make their way to the Red Planet in search of a bit of green.

And somewhere, in hidden valleys and lost caverns, the old masters of Mars awaken, peer out with tar-black eyes and prepare to up the ante.

Schlomo Saves The World

Sean Demory

When Schlomo ran over the Martian, he was thinking of hot chicken soup, a slice of apple pie with cheddar cheese melted on it, and Doris, the waitress from the Corner Inn who wore Cuban-heeled stockings under her uniform and always gave him a Danish before he left.

The Martian had the bulk of a good-sized cow. Schlomo didn't see it. His head was stuffed up and he was thinking of the mole over Doris' right eyebrow and the mole on her collarbone and the mole on her hip and playing connect-the-dots again if he could ever kick this goddamned cold.

Schlomo was not thinking about the two bullethead welshing gonif sonsabitches in the back of his truck when he hit the Martian. They didn't deserve much thought anymore. He'd done something to his shoulder when he'd killed them, so he was not looking forward to the digging. He could sink them in Carnegie Lake, maybe. Sink the bodies, drive back to Grover's Mill, and get Doris to baby him for a bit before the long drive back to the city.

The truck bucked when he rolled over the Martian. He could feel it begin to tip and pulled hard right to stay on the road. The truck shuddered, and he could feel the wheel jerk in his hands.

Bent axle, Schlomo thought as he heard bleating from the road. This fuckin' day.

Schlomo grabbed the whippet gun from the passenger seat and went out to put down whatever he'd hit. Bigger than a deer, that was for sure.

He could hear it bleating as he walked to the back of the truck before he felt the tentacle around his waist. Fast, strong and thicker than his thigh, it twisted him around. He saw the bulk of the Martian ooze out from under the truck, came face to face with oil-slick eyes bigger than his head and a twitching mouth-nose-asshole-beak that snuffled and clicked at him as it held him upside down.

Schlomo sneezed in the Martian's face. Right in the mouth-nose-asshole-beak.

The Martian reared back, squealed and grunted and squeezed. Schlomo could feel a rib pop, saw stars, and had enough presence of mind to raise the whippet gun and pull both triggers before he started to