Beer Run

By Richard Quarry

Utah? Yeah, Utah. In the era of Mickey Mouse ears, black and white TV, and a really snazzy pink '57 Imperial. Not a real promising place to sell beer, seeing as how the whole state is dry. But that's the task facing the crew of the tramp time-freighter Karen N, stranded with a cargo of 10th-century Frisian mead they hoped to sell as a trendy microbrew in 2013 Seattle. And if they can't unload the highly illegal cargo, Captain Rathford, DeShawn the Clown, and Maybe Esme will stay here forever. Or until a local lynch mob ends their saga at the end of a rope.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Richard Quarry
• Release date: Feb 21, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201266462

Book preview

Beer Run

UTAH?

Utah, Captain Rathford confirmed uneasily.

DeShawn sighed. When, Utah, exactly?

Uhhh .... Captain Rathford displayed a weighty frown sodden with do-or-die resolve as he ran his hands over the control levers, trackballs, and touchscreens of the pilot’s station.

And exactly where, said DeShawn, tapping up the answer himself on the chronometer screen and wincing as it came up 1957, "are we supposed to be?"

Uhhh ... Seattle?

Seattle, 2013. How could you miss so badly?

The flesh of Captain Rathford’s square-set jaw crinkled as he tried to set it manfully. The gyro-couplers must have been destabilized when we passed through—

A perky voice from further back in the cockpit interrupted what would in any case have been a lame explanation. The Model 4-U lander did not have gyro-couplers.

"Oh co-oool. Hey guys, check it out."

DeShawn swiveled around. On one of the monitors set high along the side of the cockpit a group of children with black disc-shaped projections projecting out from either side of their heads pranced about with inanely happy expressions, singing in iambs. The image came through a grainy, wavering field of blue-gray.

Black-and-white TV.

Wee-eird, proclaimed Maybe Esme, the ship’s good luck piece. Esme was one of those strange attractors who could twist the time stream in their favor — maybe. In Esme’s case, a lot more maybe than most.

I don’t suppose, DeShawn asked Captain Rathford, that we have enough fuel for another run?

Captain Rathford’s hyper-manly pose disintegrated into a sullen pout as he reverted to his true nature, a superannuated arcade rat who had never done anything in his life but play video games and pilot tramp freighters. Ah, not exactly.

So we’re marooned here. Fifty-six years and fifteen hundred miles off course.

Maybe Esme, who thought the Captain hotness on a stick, came to his defense. Oh, tough string beans. 2013 or 1957, what’s the difference? Everyone drinks beer.

No, Maybe. In fact they don’t. Utah happens to be dry.

I’ll say. Esme glanced over the screens displaying their surroundings: rolling expanses