The Criminal Streak Read online

  “But how do people survive here? What do they eat?”

  “Anyone with money can buy at the local stores which are owned by businesses in the megalopolis so the prices are high.”

  “Where do the rest get their money?”

  Georg shrugged. “Anywhere they can. Some steal it from neighbours, some go into the megalopolis to steal.”

  “What about the ones who have no money and can’t steal?”

  “They meet the dole train.”

  “What’s the dole train?”

  “There’s some sort of group in Megalopolis One that feels sorry for us and they ship out any worn clothes that people donate or food that has passed its expiration date. It comes by train and is thrown into that stretch of land you walked between the station and fence. Anyone who wants some … well, you can imagine the fighting that goes on.”

  “How did you get your job?”

  “The owner is a friend of mine. He worked for the previous owner until he’d learned the business then he killed him and took over. He hired me as a bouncer, janitor, dishwasher, and bodyguard.”

  “Could I get on there?”

  “Maybe when I own it.”

  Jawn shuddered. He’d heard, but hadn’t believed, that the unwritten law here was if you could take a building or business from another and hold onto it, it was yours.

  Their conversation was interrupted when Oli stuck his head in the doorway. “Come on, it’s time to go to the fields.”

  “Go where?” Jawn asked.

  “The fields,” Georg answered, donning the cloths once again.

  Jawn had never read anything about there being fields in the Fringe. What could they grow here without protection?

  “I thought no one went out during the day.” He really didn’t want to risk being in the sun. He’d heard of people who had died from being out in the sun too long.

  “Those of us who have a crop to look after do.” Georg stood at the doorway. “Are you coming or not?”

  Jawn quickly put on his hat, the cloths and his shirt and went out into the glaring sunlight.

  “It’s time to start learning the other business in the Fringe,” Georg said.

  “What business?”

  Georg grinned slyly. “You’ll see.”

  Out in the yard the people he’d been introduced to the night before were waiting in the centre area. He could see that they were all dressed as raggedly as the ones on the streets. Their bodies, however, weren’t as skinny and their faces weren’t as gaunt as those he had seen but they all looked in need of a bath.

  Some of them had hats while others used pieces of rag on their heads and backs of their hands. When they all were assembled, Oli led them between the old relics of machinery deeper into the Tech Dump. Rather than ask more questions, Jawn decided to wait and see where they were going.

  Chapter Four

  Royd walked into the Taproom and headed to Zudo’s usual table in the back corner. He was to meet Zudo here to discuss the idea he’d had when he and Gwin had left the fifth planet. If things went right, he would make a lot of money and get back at the Space Organization at the same time.

  Royd reached into his pocket and took out the metal scroll he’d printed. He studied it, making sure that he hadn’t left out anything. Although he’d never had any dealings with him personally, he knew Zudo didn’t have the patience to waste time on a scheme that was only half thought through. Everything looked in order. While he waited, he ordered the local brew. Not many people liked it, but he did.

  He watched Zudo and his henchman Thanis approach the table. They sat and Zudo immediately got down to business. “What have you got for me?”

  Before answering that, Royd gave Zudo a rundown of the problem that had faced his planet. “Our megalopolises can’t continue to be built up and down because of the weight they are creating on the lower levels. The Leaders have decided to expand them sideways into the Fringes where most of our prisoners are sent. Since we can’t move them all to our orbital prisons, a poll of the people was taken by the Leaders as to what to do with them. There were given the choice of incorporating them back into society, sending them out into the dead lands to fend for themselves, or finding another planet whose inhabitants would accept them. On the first poll the third option was picked but the Leaders couldn’t find such a planet. For the second poll the Leaders added sending them to an uninhabited planet to start a colony. This one was the unanimous choice. I’ve just completed the mission to find such a planet.”

  “And?”

  “I was sent to five. The best one is about two weeks travel by clipper from here.”

  “So?”

  “So, we had to stop and fuel up on Lodigan and here on our way there. Larger spaceships carrying hundreds of passengers will have to do the same as well as buy supplies on both planets.”

  “I see,” Zudo said. “Do you have any figures?”

  Royd pushed the scroll across the table. On it were the amount of fuel used by the clipper between their planet and Lodigan, between Lodigan and Pidleon and between Pidleon and the planet. Royd had calculated the amount a larger ship would need and then multiplied it by the number of ships that would be needed to transport the prisoners. He’d also taken the time to figure out how much fuel the different makes of spaceships would use and he’d shown the amount of food consumption depending on the number of prisoners sent.

  Zudo scanned the scroll. “You said there were five planets. How can you be sure your Leaders will chose this one?”

  “Because they will go by the report I write.”

  “Who else was with you?”

  “Just my exploratory officer, Gwin.”

  “And what does she have to say about it?”

  “She has no say.”

  “When will the decision be made?”

  “When we get back I will write the report and submit it to the Leaders. It will be discussed at the next Assembly of the Global Alliance and a planet will be chosen then.”

  “How much of a share do you want?”

  “I’m doing all of the work so I think it should be seventy-five/twenty-five.”

  “I’ll be supplying the fuel and food and doing the paperwork. Sixty/forty.”

  “It is my idea and without me you have nothing.”

  “Without me, you have nothing.” Zudo glared at him.

  “Then it should be fifty/fifty.”

  Zudo nodded. He rolled up the scroll and handed it to Thanis who put it in a pouch belted around his middle. “Let me know when the Assembly is so I can attend,” Zudo said, standing.

  Royd nodded and watched Zudo and Thanis leave. He could hardly contain his excitement. If Zudo was going to attend the Assembly that meant he thought the idea was worth looking into. And he was getting fifty percent of the take. It was way more than he had hoped for. Usually, Zudo took the larger percentage of any deal, based on his ability to control the situation. But this was different. Zudo knew nothing of the Space Organization on Royd’s planet.

  Royd drained his glass and ordered another. While he waited he scanned the room. He did a double take when he saw Gwin sitting at a table with three aliens. What was she doing here? Was she spying on him? Had she seen what he was doing on the clipper’s computer and followed him here to the meeting? She seemed engrossed in the entertainment on the stage but that could be for his benefit. Should he go up to her and try to find out what she’d seen or sneak out? He decided on the latter. It was too noisy to talk and he had the flight home to quiz her.

  He didn’t have to wait that long, however, to find out what she’d seen.

  “Who was that man you talked with last night?” Gwin asked the next morning. She was making them some sandwiches from the fresh bread and cheese she’d bought the night before.

  Damn, she had seen him. Royd shrugged as he checked the control panel prior to lift off. “Just a guy,” he mumbled.

  “It seemed an intense conversation. What did you talk about?”

&
nbsp; Why didn’t she mind her own business? “As captain of this ship I am not obligated to explain my actions to you but I will say that it has to do with finding a fuel and food supply for the fleet that will be sent out to colonize the planet.”

  “Isn’t that a little premature? We haven’t given our report and a planet hasn’t been selected.”

  “It will be this last one.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “I just am,” Royd snapped.

  They lifted off Pidleon and made a tension-filled, three-week trip to Lodigan. Royd took over the flying of the clipper and the only time they talked was to check direction and instruments. Unlike Pidleon, Lodigan had had its own body of inhabitants when it joined the federation. They only stopped long enough to refuel then began the last leg of their journey. They’d been gone five months.

  * * *

  As usual, Mikk left his apartment early, arriving at work an hour before everyone else. As soon as he entered the building he headed to the sixth floor to check on the chambers. It wasn’t that he mistrusted the alarm that would ring on the pager he had strapped to his arm if something went wrong with the instruments. It was that this was his project and he wanted to maintain control over it. He didn’t want a machine deciding to shut it down or to change settings. When he was satisfied that everything was in order, he headed down the hall to the design room.

  “How are your five Mr. Freezies?” Beti asked, looking up from her drafting table.

  “So far, so good,” he replied, as he did every morning. He didn’t mind that they made fun of his project, calling his volunteers Mr. Freezie, Popsicle Woman, and Iceman. He was experimenting on extracting minds and freezing the bodies in hopes of finding a way to send the minds to occupy the bodies of natives on other planets. Some of his fellow scientists envied him for having been assigned the cryonics operation but most of them had offered suggestions as well as help if he needed it.

  “Has the plow come back from the manufacturer yet?” Mikk asked. When it had been decided to find another planet, the Leaders determined that convicts in the orbiting prisons should be the first ones sent. If they survived the experiment and prospered for three years, then instead of being sent to the prisons in the spaceships, murderers and drug dealers would go to the planet. The Leaders also hoped this would be a deterrent to the rising crime rate since nothing else seemed to be working. All scientists and designers had been asked to design primitive farm tools and implements for the convicts to use on their new world. Mikk was helping with some of those projects.

  “It was waiting for us when we arrived. Tyl’s putting it together now.”

  “Good.” He walked into what had been named the invention room for this enterprise. There he found Tyl kneeling on the floor with an assembled plow lying in front of him. He looked up.

  “I think we interpreted the description wrong. We’re going to have to change the design a little.”

  Mikk crouched beside him. In their historical research, they’d found an album someone had put together full of faded pictures of early farm implements. In it were photographs of tractors, seeders, balers, and combines. From these pictures, however, he and his colleagues had determined they would be too large to transport. Smaller versions were discussed but it was decided to go back even further in their history to find what was used before those mechanized farm machines were invented.

  Mikk had volunteered for that task. He always enjoyed reading about their planet before the asteroid hit. Mikk had found references to various hand tools but no photographs. Going by description only, they’d designed a shovel and rake which when tested on farm soil proved to work. These they’d sent on the exploration for a planet mission. After that they’d developed a scythe, sickle, and hoe. But all of these wouldn’t allow the prisoners to set up any kind of large grain or vegetable farming. So Mikk had found write ups about plows, harrows, seeders, and harvesters, all of which were pulled by horses or oxen. However, since there were no horses left on their planet, they had discussed the problem of what would pull the implements. They’d come up with two choices. Cows were already on the list of animals to be sent so they could be used, or the convicts themselves could do the work.

  With that in mind they’d gone ahead and designed the harrows, seeder, and harvester. They’d sent the sketches to a manufacturer and the prototypes had come back quickly. When they were tested and had worked they’d been sent back to the manufacturer for production.

  But the plow had been harder to design. There were different types, each with one or more working parts called bottoms. The one they’d finally chosen was a walking plow, which meant a person walked behind it holding the handles so that it wouldn’t fall over sideways. Because more than one bottom meant harder pulling, their walking plow had only one.

  “What’s the problem?” Mikk asked.

  “We didn’t design the landside long enough to sit in the furrow made by the share.” Tyl stood and lifted the handles of the plow. When it was standing upright Mikk scrutinized it.

  According to the description the bottom of the plow had a share, a moldboard, and a landside, which were bolted together and attached to a frame. The share, in the front, was supposed to slice the land into what was called a furrow. The moldboard, behind the share, broke up the soil and threw it aside. The landside rested on the ground at the base of the furrow to help steady the plow as it was moving. Mikk could see that the landside had been built shorter than the share and therefore would not sit on the base of the furrow.

  “That’s the only problem?” Mikk asked.

  Tyl nodded.

  “Okay,” Mikk stood. “We’ll send it back with new instructions.”

  “Hopefully it won’t take too long,” Tyl said, starting to take the pieces apart. “Our deadline is almost here.”

  “We’ll make it.”

  Mikk looked around the room at what they’d accomplished so far. Against the four walls leaned stacks of shovels, hoes, rakes, scythes, and sickles. On the floor were pieces of harrows, seeders, harvesters, and grain grinders with their various instructions for assembly. The rest of the implements were stored in a warehouse near the Space Station.

  Besides farm equipment, they’d designed shelters, and the axes, saws, hammers, and nails to make them. Working with the botanists, they’d selected a large number of grains and vegetables, some of which had been sent on the mission, that they felt would be the hardiest. The difficult part would be getting the people, who were used to food appearing on store shelves or from guards, to grow these seeds and prepare the food themselves.

  Chapter Five

  Jawn glanced at the rusting machinery as he followed Georg and the others along well worn paths through the dump. Although he’d read about the technology age, he had no idea what any of the equipment would have been used for. Since the Great Change, which began as soon as the damage caused by the asteroid was assessed, all companies had been forced to get rid of their machines and hire employee to do their work.

  “Why are these things still here?” Jawn asked. “It’s been hundreds of years since they were thrown away.”

  “Plastic doesn’t deteriorate,” Georg explained. “It gets brittle and may crack, but it will never disappear. And anything metal doesn’t rust in this constant heat.”

  Soon they arrived at an area where tall plants with large leaves grew in groups under the overhangs of the machinery and single plants thrived under protective plastic covers in small areas in between. Some of the equipment had cracked and had to be propped up.

  “What are you growing?” Jawn asked.

  “Tobacco.”

  “Tobacco? So you’re the one who supplies it to the megalopolis.”

  “We’re only one of many.”

  Because of the atmosphere in the megalopolises, smoking of any kind was quickly banned and none of the land was put into tobacco growing. But demand always creates a supply and soon those with the money could secretly buy tobacco from dealers who w
ere growing tobacco in the Fringes. Pipes were made from dust and chemicals stolen from building sites in the big city. They were cumbersome, but usually lasted the buyer’s lifetime.

  Selling and buying tobacco was made illegal but that didn’t stop the trade. In university, Jawn had met a number of users who smoked in the privacy of their apartments. He’d been to tobacco parties where everyone had spent the evening passing pipes around the room. He’d even taken a few puffs himself, although he’d never gotten hooked.

  “Don’t the police raid the Fringe to stop the growing?”

  “They used to, but they’ve found it more lucrative to let us sell it.”

  Georg led Jawn past some of the workers who had begun loosening the soil around the plants. While they watched, people with pails of water walked past them.

  “Where are you getting the water?” Jawn asked, thinking of the long walk to the pipe.

  “The ones who originally started the business here almost two hundred years ago dug a well,” Georg said.

  “So why don’t you drink this water instead of going to the pipe?”

  “It makes us sick. We only use it when we have to bath and wash our clothes before going into the city for a run.”

  “Why don’t you keep clean all the time?” Jawn asked, thinking of their dirty bodies and clothes.

  “Because we don’t want to appear different from the others here. Difference invites trouble.”

  They went further into the dump where they found another collection of plants, though these were shorter. Workers here were breaking off the flowers growing on the tops.

  “What are they doing that for?” Jawn asked.

  “It makes the leaves grow bigger and heavier and we get more product. Come with me,” Georg said, continuing along the path.