Chapter 05 - Morning Dance.

The imperative to pee is too much for me, so I abandon the cosy warmth of my bed early. Zero six hundred hours UCT, or company standard time. Adopted to ensure all accounts are filed at the same time, where ever you are in the solar system. I still use it from years of familiarity, even though I no longer work in the Mars conglomerates. The alarm chimes shrilly in the bedroom. Shame I've been up for ten minutes already. I glance left to a set of icons on my HUD, computer augmented reality, I reach up into thin air to grip an icon in my thumb and fore finger. “Pinch!” I mutter, squeezing lightly on thin air.
The “Tooth Hygiene” nano buzz with activity in my mouth. I feel the ozone of the converted plaque grow and open my lips to release the gas build up with a small hiss. Just clearing up the ravages of the night before. Halfway through activating my teeth nano, I berate myself for not scheduling the job on automatic again, and not having the luxury of not having to think about it every morning. I smile subversively to myself. “Some day, some day I'll remember to sit down and sched a whole raft of little jobs like that!”
I tap the mirror wall in front of me and transparent images of solar weather radar, news feeds, and transit routes are super imposed over my image. Hotspots for the next few months are predicted against schematics of my mornings up and coming journey. Sling potentials, gravity corridors, space lanes to avoid and those to traverse.
The speakers in the walls (the walls are the speakers actually) begin to pipe a mixture of “cool classical” from my antique music database, randomly sorted, to try and listen to some of the rarer tracks I’ve collected. Hendrix begins to play 'little wing'. Again I smile wryly to myself. “Silly old bugger. Still using a bathroom after all these years. Nano covers all aspects of hygiene, but you still can't get out of the habit of standing in the bathroom each morning to clean your teeth and have a bath!”
As I say the words “bath” the taps activate and begin filling the antique bathtub, chiming stats on perfect temperature mix and volumes, beginning to calculate water usage, costs and add them to my budget to be deducted from my monthly credit, off setting the bath against drinking water and updating stats on recalculated re-syc thresholds. “Not this morning stupid twat!” I chuckle to myself.
“Cease!”
The water stops flowing, the music stops playing and the lights go out in the sealed windowless bathroom. For a moment I am standing alone in the dark, with only the familiar hum of the engines vibrating through the floor.
“Bath that is. Lights on. Music proceed! Bath empty!”
The lights flicker and return, the way only neon does. The music quietly ramps back to the pre-set volume, and the bath develops a plughole, empties, and auto cleans itself.
Shaking my head and laughing quietly to myself, I turn round, I touch the icon on the wall, which appears by the door. The door slides open.
As an after thought I flick my eyes to another icon on my HUD, it becomes central and I pinch it between my finger and thumb.
Again the fizz of ozone as body nano cleans and repairs ever inch of my skin. “Not that I wouldn't prefer a bath to that!” I shudder involuntary as the sensation tickles on the edge of abrasion all over my body.
Stepping back into the bathroom and briefly splashing some water on my face and head at the sink, then towelling off the excess nano, hair, and any remaining residue from the “bath”. My hair constantly trimmed to a close shave and my goatee neatly barbered by eN-tech.
The piped music follows me through into the kitchen area. Lights flicker into life as I move through the small utility room. Stopping briefly to remove two slices of bread from the freezer I place them in the toaster and activate it. My cup foams and fills with hot tea at my touch. Again a slight shudder. “I will get used to that at some point I'm sure.”
I sip at it tentatively as I pass back through the utility room to my lounge.
All the doors purposely left set open so I can walk easily between rooms. An attempt to remind myself how much room I have. There are families of ten or more living, in the pre-habs planet side, in less than half the space than I've managed to secure with the Lady Jane Grey. The down turn in the off world hauling market about fifty years ago meant I was able to purchase two reasonably large units and tether them together as one ship.
My mind wanders back to the days on Mars, living in the pre-habs. Huge organically grown skeletons of plexi-steel. The nano build all the utilities into the infrastructure and add standard utility couplings. Massive shells to house thousands of units can be grown in weeks. Then housing units are flown in and slotted into the spaces, attached to the utility feeds, as tenants (usually corporate landlords) rent space in the framework. Large container boxes of housing units are slotted in then occupied once activated.
The Martian archaeologies are something to be seen. Huge magnificent monoliths towering up into the sky further than the eye can see. Magnificent only if seen from above. View them from the perspective of most of the tenants, from below, and hope leaches away. Without hope there is no reason to continue to live. Hope drives wishes and gives reason to continue. If it wasn't for the constant rain. It is dark at the bottom of the stacks. The towers so high that they tear the sky itself, and she can do nothing but weep all day and all of the night long. Constant rain, day and night. It gets in everywhere. Constant rain, constant damp, everything.
The understacks at this time in the morning are less dangerous than at most times of day. Too late in the morning for the rape gangs to be around, too early in the morning for the murder gangs to be up. I smile, it wasn't actually that bad. I was stopped once by a group of would be muggers, but the piezo charge set in my coat stopped most of the would be assailants dead in their tracks. One buzz of that and they began to think twice about trying anything again. If needs be I was licensed to carry the two military grade tasers, I used to wear tucked warmly under my jacket as well. Again waste disposal accountancy had its perks when you contracted to the military.
I find myself, now, sitting amongst the debris of my life, vids and memory units piled on every surface I can find, bits of hardware, retained to fix others, at some indefinite point in the future, circuit boards from previous upgrades not yet recycled. Stims in racks at one end of the room. Ornaments, careful selected, then almost randomly abandoned on shelves around the room. There is actual order to the place. You just have to know what the order is.
Listening to the pod DJ and her “crew” mutter banally about today’s dockside traffic, politics, sports headlines. “A hope to the under educated, a promise to the ungifted!” I mutter.
“If it wasn't for the need for the human touch, a basic need for interaction, DJ's would have finally run their natural course and become extinct years ago.” I think to myself.
“If only!” I add.
Picking up my shirt off one of the ample chairs I slip it over my tee shirt and it zips itself to a comfortable neck line. Digging around under various sized sheets of clear plastic, I retrieve my regulation black dungarees, and put them on. Finding my boots in the hall by the door I slip them on and run my finger up the seal to seamlessly complete them. They fluctuate for a moment adjusting themselves to my feet then meld with the ankles of my dungarees to complete one unit.
The belt from the banister at the end of the stairs is an affectation but it makes the placement of my utility pouches more convenient. The antique glasses just make me look more intelligent. So I keep telling myself. They are, of course, next to completely pointless with modern corrective surgery, performed non-invasively, just by taking a mixture of retro engineered viruses and nano pills.
I carefully pick up two or three memory blocks from the pile on the floor, units I've spent most of the evening before preparing. As I touch each one its icon appears on my HUD, more, an icon lights up “vids” for the first, the second “pod”, the third “tools of the trade”, software hacks (some my own), tools , and my favourite AI interface. Locking them into my belt they interface with my personal net. A couple of piezo units I had fitted into my hip joints years back provide more than enough power for all the hardware and bits and pieces I run most trips.
A military style jacket hangs on the banister end where the belt was. I slip another pod unit into an inside pocket whilst throwing the jacket around my shoulders. An id badge materializes on my breast pocket declaring name rank and bar code, with the obligatory unflattering picture.
With a reluctant sigh I pick up my attaché bag. A nebulous black hole as far as I am concerned. I fold an item and place it on top of the thing and it just sinks in. No opening. No organisation. The whole thing is an extra light alloy mixed with nano. Place a memory unit on it and it will hold it securely and properly organised until you request it again. Personally assigned to me, no-one else can access anything I put in it. There are probably high level police and military overrides but apart from that my ident chip is the only one that can retrieve from it. Bonded for life with a brief case. One of the vague advantages of some lower grade military crap that I ship each trip, does mean I have access to some pretty cutting edge toys.
Picking up a couple of the plastic sheets, one A3, one A4, I fold them, they bond on themselves, sealed, and I lay them on top of the bag. They sink like a woolly mammoth into the black of the tar pit. Leaving no discernible trace of any intrusion.
On top of a book case at the end of the room six jack plugs wait. Intentionally selected the night before. I pull a clip out of a jacket pocket and clip each into place. Lifting each reveals their names in close proximity. Lifting the last I pause, “The City” flashes next to the jack. I smile and almost reverently place it into the clip. Slipping the clip into an inside pocket in the jacket. “Six should be enough for the trip I think.” I grin.
Placing my hands together, palm on palm, I bow to the symbol of two swords crossed on the east wall. I turn and bow to the symbol of the sun on the south wall. I bow towards a large chalice on a shelf on the west wall. Then bow to a sphere on the north wall. Smiling I step into the lounge again and face the huge head of a leaf encrusted man, the head of a man whose rosy cheeked cherubic face is framed by grapes, and the face of a beautiful woman. I bow again. “Thank you and bless you. Please look after the house for me and keep a watchful eye on me whilst I am away.” The three heads bow back, all smiling.
I place the cup in the kitchen. It empties and cleans itself.
I retrieve a greatcoat from the end of the banister and drape that around my shoulders, over my jacket. Again insignia and rank badges, ID and a certain amount of intricate embroidery, in red, resolve themselves and settle in the structure of the coat.
Facing the door I sigh. “Enough pissing around. Time to get on with it.”
Placing one finger of my left hand on the door to the air lock I drag two from the other hand down and open them. A screen appears on the door between them, growing with the gesture I am tracing. “Corridor monitor”
An image of the corridor outside flashes onto the screen. Sweeping from left to right then back again. No one is about. A small voice chimes “Corridor clear for two hours”
“Thank you!” The screen disappears.
Not that I don't like my neighbours. I get on fine with the ones each side. It's just some of the ones further down the corridor, itinerant traders and their children, I don’t trust as much.
I tap the release code into the door lock icon. The door dissolves. Stepping out I reach up to pinch the locking icon. The door seals itself back into the framework. The windows around the outside of the units disappear. The main quarters of the ship hermetically seal. The entire house unit is pumped with inert gas. “See you in about six hours” I kiss my fingers and touch where the door was. A trace of my fingerprints remains glowing on the door, and then dissipate like electricity running across circuits through the face of the door.
Inside four rooms, four clicks, in each room a tennis ball sized piece of metal falls from its socket in the roof with a satisfied plop. Each one acquires six legs, scanning and monitoring clusters sprout as the head of each grows from the body. Cameras adjust round the heads, six forward, two back, like metallic insect heads, each scampers, not unlike land locked crabs, to their allotted position and log into the ship net. “Security activated!” The smooth voice of my mesh mutters. 

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Chapter 04 - The God Emperor of the Four Deaconates Verses Batak Inc.

“You've been out of circulation for quite a while if you've not heard of The God Emperor of the Four Deaconates Verses Batak Inc.”
“I was not born Sol, and a lot of the work I have done for Uncle is not in the area, if you know what I mean.” again the lizard smile, I feel a cold chill.
“I suppose it all came to a head in my younger years. Batak Inc were one of the first adopters of the Junis Project. They invested heavily and even completely financed one of the Initialiser vessels. As such they got rights to whatever the probe and it's offspring returned to earth. Their CEO Roger Batak himself even managed to get his DNA accepted as clone templates for the Junis model sixes that would eventually master the extraction and distribution of resources back to earth. Time passed. Roger himself being immensely wealthy went from clone stock to clone stock. By the time the allotted resources should have been returning to Batak Inc he was wearing a Junis eight clone hybrid body. A couple of hundreds of years had passed. Batak Inc had diversified and consolidated, and was now one of the major families in the Sol colonies. Batak himself was a really big player.”
“Well fairly miffed at the lack of return on his ancient investment, and seeing the huge pay back some of the other smaller families were getting from lesser commercial enterprises, mostly conglomerate investment cartels, he raised an army. Tech had moved on a pace, so fairly soon they dropped into the expected deaconate ready for a bit of a scrap. You know a small planet side war. Possibly a year or two, nothing too expensive. Only to find the clone children of Batak had fought amongst themselves, and the one survivor had destroyed two brothers, and a sister, and announced himself The God Emperor of The Four Deaconates.”
“The God Emperor was not exactly pleased to see the Batak contingent. To cut a long story short, after some eighty years of pitched battle, across planets, and even systems, the Batak Legions lost everything to the God Emperors battle seasoned troops. Batak himself was captured, bound and sent before the God Emperor to plead for his worthless life. In his moment of ultimate triumph the God Emperor bent to receive the plea for mercy from his makers own lips. What the God Emperor had not allowed for was the Black Rod Protocol. Batak whispered a simple pre-prepared phrase into his ear, the God Emperor seceded all rights and symbols of authority to Batak, simply handed over the keys to the four deaconates he controlled, fell to his knees and went into a coma. Batak had him carted off for clone fodder to his private vats.”
“Nowadays you would probably consider it only a minor inter faction skirmish.”
“It's the first instance where there were signs that there may be problems with the Junis Six. Junis Corp denied there was any problem with any of the rest of the sixes. Quietly instigating the Purge of the Long Knives that lead to the eights destroying then replacing every six they could find. Unfortunately the eights were not as efficient as they should have been and some sixes escaped to spread the word throughout all the thirty six deaconates. The eights realising their error instigated the hunter killer class, the nines, all armed with the ultimate weapon, Bataks Black Rod Protocol. Become known as the Black Rod themselves they led legions into the stars and still continue the battle to this day. Many of the sixes don't want to give up the power and possition they have aquired.”
“In the incidents wake the Hub Temple instigated a rigorous testing of any inbound or outbound space traveller. From the slate you just passed me you were tested inbound only a few months ago, so the legislation doesn't apply. I on the other hand rarely leave the Sol system, and haven't in the last hundred years or so, and must therefore submit myself for personal testing before we can leave.”
“I will bid you good night and retire to my chambers.” I stand, bow, and leave up the stairs in the corner of the common room.

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Chapter 03 - Room Without a View.

We stand eyeing each other suspiciously for a minute as data streams from mesh to mesh. So this is the infamous Bonetta Smith, artisan, artist, and rumoured to be one of Hassan’s greatest assassins. She holds sole command of his inner cadre, the hand picked, personally vetted inner body guard of his inner body guard. She's a young fifty if even that, but like most of the higher echelon her looks wouldn't put her past twenty, re-juve and augmented surgery. The Smiths can afford the best, and they don't scrimp on the credits. I realise I'm staring, she smiles, I blush, and suddenly feel very old.
To stem my embarrassment I scan the hull. I whistle through my teeth.

“The gods, and your uncle’s grace, have been very generous. I was just having the standard nano shielding patched. This is very high grade. E M plate, reaction seal, bio steel, the works. I must thank Hassan.” I bow towards her again, she being the nearest representative of a very generous man.
“You'll find Uncle Hassan is a particularly lavish individual. If you please him he will reward you well. If not.” she pauses.
“Well let’s say the clone banks of Antilia Five are always more than grateful for the produce to resequence for parts.”
I shuddered involuntarily. There was no coming back from being butchered by the techs for spare part surgery. Antilia Five did very well out of the war, and certain families who required a certain flexibility with bills of lading when shipping clone stock.
“Bits of people have been known to turn up all over the known galaxy after upsetting him.” She smiled, again an almost reptilian action, as though she had read a book about the action and not completely understood the purpose.
Feeling ever so slightly uncomfortable with whatever covert actions this young lady had been involved in. What ever she had seen and done, I for one did not wish to know, and whatever disaster she was being sent to pre-empt, or cause, I wanted to deliver her and be away from there as soon as possible.
I turn to hide my growing discomfort. Flicking across the stats still scrolling across my HUD about the new skin. The Lady Jane would be more than happy with this upgrade, it was almost atmospheric grade. The unseen edge of the airlock door glows in my view as I look at it. I gently stroke the door. DNA is recognised. Sparks like electricity spread out and settle, cycling round the edge of the, now, visible door. A moment passes whilst the crew areas re-pressurise, and security disabler gasses is removed from the atmosphere. A sigh as the inner and outer pressures equalise and the door slides seamlessly open.
I motion for her to enter. Huge organic LED panels flicker into life and the corridor to the crew common room becomes illuminated. She glides in, hand trailing behind her, gently brushing the wall as she goes. She gets as far as the first frame half a meter in. Her hand touches the frame and she almost recoils. Then, with her eyes closed, she gentle runs her hand up the support.

“Wood! Real wood! Oh my Señor Gaud, you are a man of particular and refined tastes! I can see now why Uncle Hassan likes you.” This time the smile she gives me is warm and genuine.
“The Martian economy was going through a boom and the hauler I bought it from was in a particular hurry to cut his losses.”
“You did extremely well out of the deal.”
“You can take any of the four crew rooms on this level, there's a galley in the common room, and each crew room has its own bathroom. You have run of the ship, the common areas, and the main decks. I have the upper state rooms and the suite there, behind the bridge. Please make yourself comfortable.”
She pirouettes as she enters the common room, the hub to the four anti chambers that are the crew quarters. The LED's here are set as beading to oak panels. The room has three large arm chairs and a sofa placed around a large table, set at knee height. Central to the room is a large antique and LED black ironwork chandelier, not only a dozen individual light sources but LED piping around and along the ironwork arms and stem, matched by similar wall lighting. A large chain anchors it to the ceiling and another to the floor.
As the light raise above ambient level she gasps. She runs over to one of the two bookcases and reverently lifts out one of the antique books.
“Paper?” She asks.
I smile and nod.

“Wait until you see the wine cellar.”
She gently opens the book and flicks through the pages.

“Uncle has a few. But not this many.”
“A long time collecting. Now where is your luggage?”
“One moment.” She raises her hand and touches the left side of her temple, closing her eyes.
“Three bring my trunk in now.”
There's noise from the end of the corridor and a large burly man in black fatigues pushes a large black box almost as large as himself into the ship. Sliding it on a zero friction plate he brings it to a halt in the middle of the room, bows and waits.
“Put it in that one please.” She waves in the direction of one of the rooms.
“You won’t mind if I use one as a dressing room will you Señor Gaud?” It is more an instruction than a question, but protocol demands, as I am the captain, so outrank her on my own ship.
“There's only the two of us this trip, so you can use as many as you feel you need.”
Again the man bows and slides the box into the indicated room. As he comes back he hands a slate to Bennetta, bows again and backs out of the room and leaves the ship.
“Here.” She hands me the slate.
I take it and it immediately starts to download to my mesh.
“Formax!” I mutter without thinking.
“Yes Formax. Is that a Problem?”
“It's out of system. That means sleeping for the majority of the trip, if you don’t mind suspended animation, and it will require the correct documentation.”
“Again I ask, that's not a problem, is it?”
“No, no it just means I have to make a personal trip to the Hub Temple of Bureaucracy. Not something I relish, but as needs must.”
“In person, can't you just net the request?”
“Not since The God Emperor incident.”
“I'm sorry I've been out of Sol politics for a while, what?”

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Chapter 02 - Water and Solitude.

Hassan the water vendor is an acquired taste. Ex-military, very abrupt at times, but an impartial man, I have dealt with him for years, and he has always traded fairly. Very difficult to find in some sectors, a good, fair, trader.
Food and water, the basic fundamentals of life, are not good things to run out of either. There are too many little space wrecks orbiting distant stars with the desiccated, starved, crew still sitting at their posts. Most of them completely robbed out and useless now, but by tradition the bodies remain untouched. Big bad voodoo to even move them, incur a curse even. Too many are the stories of the dead visiting the grave robbers to drive them space crazy and leave another husk of a ship forever orbiting some minor asteroid or planet. This myth frequently backed up by the instances of more than one craft orbiting the same desolate piece of rock.
Personally I like to think it's statistical probability that the stupid, and ill prepared, would all congregate round similar destinations if they are attempting, if somewhat unsuccessfully, the same route, and come to a, I would say sticky, but think of it as an awfully dry, end. You can't have too much food and water on the ship, cutting corners is not a viable option. A mistake of a few degrees in navigation can send a ship off of its course by thousands of miles. If you're trying to hit some small piece of rock in the vastness of space that little mistake can take days, if not sometimes weeks or months, to rectify. Better to be over cautious than over optimistic and, fundamentally, dead.
The family Smith where early adopters of space trading. Accepting all manner of grants and licenses from the Pan African Space Consortium many centuries ago. They hold monopolies on many of the water trading franchises across many major star systems. Hold them with a vice like grip that the centuries, and many interested parties wishing to take them from them, have seen them maintain their grip.
A high security compound in the trading district. Well guarded and washed with sensor arrays, very little could get in here without them knowing who and where it is. Still I am cautious I don’t want to upset the water traders, to be left high and dry is almost as instant a death sentence as to open an airlock in deep space.
Hassan is an amazing sight himself, a huge bulk of a man, a veritable giant. Military service having required many augmentations and gene therapies to produce an efficient, robust killing machine. As head of the clan Sol, though negroid, he sports an albino gene splice to mark his eminence of seniority. I have heard he had to kill three brothers and an uncle or two to take the clan headship. Some say it was always his plan, that should he survive military service he would use the gifts they had given him to take his place as head of the clan. Though his position demands he have a small retinue of body guards I doubt the success of any attempt on his life. Scarred both ritually and in battle, he presents an awe inspiring, terrifying, ghostly aspect.
“Ramadan Gaud! It impresses me that my Martian brother is still alive, and not the smear over the hull of some anonymous cargo crate from Cygnus colony!” He booms as I enter the room.
His hand dwarfs mine as we shake hands. “Hassan, you do me great honour meeting me to trade personally. I'm sure there's many more important things you could be doing with your time.”
“Ramadan. Not only would I consider it an insult on my part, but I enjoy your company. And I trust your opinion more than many of these frightened toadies that fawn like sycophants, fighting like spoilt children for every minute of my attention.” He smiled, whilst lifting a large bottle of spirit and two glasses onto the desk between us.
Along bottle, almost half a meter tall, more like a small basketball with a spike rising from the top. A pale blue green liquid languishing within, moving in an almost viscous, lethargic way.
He pours two glasses.
I savour the aroma of mine, raise an eyebrow and ask. “The 'Sing 47'?” He nods.
“Please a glass of this is worth more than half my trades with you so far. The Martian Sing vineyards haven't had such a good harvest in the last two hundred years!”
“Again it's your company, and what you're going to do for me that I value!”
“Ah ha! Now the catch.”
“Ramadan, you insult me.” He smiles as cat would to a mouse it is about to eat.
“I have a favour I need to ask.”
I sip the liquor and wait for his pitch.
“I will give you the water you ask for plus half again, for nothing, gratis, but I need someone transported. Someone rather special to me.”
“Hassan, you know I have minimum armaments and weapons. You'd do better sending them via one of the deep space liners, with a large complement of your body guard. I refuse to believe you of all people can't afford that?”
“It's not a matter of price. It's a matter of trust. She is my niece. For years now she has lived in my household, as a guest, to ensure here fathers continued loyalty to me. Recently one of my uncles unfortunately passed away, and I need someone loyal to hold the office of that branch of the family.”
“I only have room for two or three people in my rig!”
“Not a problem. She will travel alone, incognito. I have already dispatched a compliment of my personal bodyguard to ensure that conditions are favourable for her arrival.”
I felt a cold chill run down my spine. The politics of water were often bloody and particularly Machiavellian. I realised Hassan was annexing more of the franchise under his control.
Again the predatory smile. “I take it we are agreed then?”
Only the terminally stupid would turn down an offer like this.
“Yes, yes. One run, one delivery.” Again we shook hands.
“Finish your drink, don't worry. Have another if you wish. I must attend to other matters. As you will appreciate things are a little hectic at the moment.” He stood, bowed slightly to me. I stood bowed lower to show due respect.
He stopped at the door looking back, earnest for a moment “Ramadan, you can refuse if you want, I will not hold it against you. Many would shy away from matters of family politics amongst the Clans Smith. It is because I trust you and count you as a true friend that I ask you to do this for me.”
I bow even lower. “No I can do this. And thank you.”
He leaves. One servant remains. He looks me in the eyes.
“You sir are greatly honoured. I've not heard him say such to any others. He sees something in you he likes. Possibly the fact that neither of you fit quite properly in the roles you choose to take.”
“Honoured yes, but let’s hope I'm not letting myself in for something I can't handle.”
He pours me another glass and leaves with the bottle. I sit for a while pondering what exactly have I just done.
The big problem with flying solo is, obviously, the solitude. Three months in a large four bed roomed house hurtling through space with just you sitting in it. I can sit and listen to the continuous drone of the air filters pumping recycled air round the ship. I can live with that vague buzz from the engine that vibrates through everything you touch or sit on, even with the best inertial dampening you still feel it through the very air. At times I can discern patterns, modulations, subtle changes in notes, fluctuations in the harmonics between the filter pump and the engine. Sometimes a bearing may stick or squeak. I like to think of it as the soul of the ship singing to me. I have been known to sit and listen for hours, even to the point of humming the tunes myself.
In an attempt to stave off this space madness I get Lady Jane to automatically record anything she can pick up on the station wavebands, music, gossip, news, anything. Then she randomly plays it back to me over the next few months. I also have intelligent agents scouring the station webs and inter-links for any new movies, games or mesh, based on previous choices and tastes. I'm quite proud of my collection of turn of the millennium films and books. My library has extensive mesh enhancement. I have many films converted to mesh environments so I can explore the outer story lines, histories, and step into the actors, and authors, lives as well. I spend hours just plugged into my mesh playing and watching, sometimes even extending stories for weeks or months just to see where the plot would have gone if left to develop. Other times I just sit in the lounge watching the originals projected onto one of the walls in good old fashioned 2D. Other times I'll amuse myself by tuning into the latent radio signals that are bouncing around the solar system. Dependant on our distance from certain planets, depends how far back in time you can listen, and watch. From a historical point of view it's fascinating. If you go far enough out you get to see some of the very first experimental mesh widecasts, original tri-dee, and even really early television. I even hear some academics have calculated the speed of certain radio signals and travelled out to meet them to record them for posterity.
So you can see I have a lot of mechanisms in place to stave off getting space fried. Well trying to, but if you were to see me bouncing round the ship singing filter pump songs or talking to the fridge you may speculate it could be a bit late.
So why am I telling you this?
In some way to try to explain my reaction to what happened next.
Here I am, strolling away from the Café Venue, being a fully adapted Martian I'm not as tall as many of the others but I'm a lot wider and stockier, so am making my way quite nicely away from the explosion of violence that was the Venue. That is now being urgently attended by copious amounts of riot geared, and stun stick waving station militia. Transport for the soon to be incarcerated making its way slowly down the boulevard, sirens screaming and lights flashing.
This all being a bit too hectic I am making my way back to the Lady Jane Grey to sleep. Whilst in dry dock I have special pass to continue using her as my abode. The skin work being handled be millions upon millions of nanites who ensure the process doesn't breach the integrity of the hull. It will take a week for them to eat the old hull and excrete the new one, and for it to harden properly under their protective skin, so I am happy I don't have to spend hard earnt credit on station side doss holes just to be able to breath whilst I sleep.
So nicely pacified by a days gentle drinking, good food, slightly less processed than I'm used to on board, a fight avoided, and six months water nicely brokered and to be delivered in the next morning cycle, I saunter round the corridor to see her sitting there. A frail thing. About my height, so short, without the bulk. Bright red hair, and the albino splice. I nearly crap myself. If she's a pink eye like Hassan then she's almost as important as he is. She stands, bows slightly, I return the gesture with slightly more respect.
“Here the waters loaded, nine months worth, and the skins hardened. I signed for it.” She hands me the dockside slate.
“The sins complete. It wasn't due to cook until the beginning of next week!”
“I think you'll find Uncle Hassan has had something to do with expediting things. Amazing how quickly things get done when he enquires about them round here.” She smiles mirthlessly.

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Chapter 01 - View From SolDock Five.

There she sits, glinting in the reflected light of the nearby sun. Dry dock, Soldock Five. The Lady Jane Grey, she makes me smile with a glow of pride. Beautiful probably only to my eyes, the black and silver paint job showing all my Pagan icons and effigies. Much to the annoyance of the local Tabernacle, SolDock Five has a very vocal minority Christian workforce. Sod them if they're refusing to handle the job. I'm getting it cheaper through some of my Buddhist connections any way, and I prefer it that way. I don't trust the god botherers to do a proper finish, I'd pay double for the Buddhist Union or Hindu Brotherhood to do the job anyway. I'm having the hull re-sealed for her ten year service, it's going to cost me a couple of mil, but it's worth every penny. Micro asteroids pierce the skin regularly, of course the auto sensors re-seal the hole quick enough to prevent explosive decompression, but much like a bicycle tyre too often patched the hull becomes weaker as it becomes more and more sealant and less and less hull plate. I can't allow the Tabernacle to purposefully do a shoddy job in the twisted idea that they may just be eliminating another godless heathen from the space lanes.
So here I am, up on the recreation deck. I've found a bar that overlooks the dry dock that she is being re-worked in. Cold beer in hand, hot meal nicely tucked away in my stomach.
She may only be a class three tug, limited in licence and tonnage, though physics itself dictates a limit on what I can move. I'm part of a dyeing breed. The new deep space catapults slowly putting the long haul riggers out of business. Huge magnetic tubes, aligned with the far reaches of space, shoot cargo at unimaginable speed to its destination like big cannons pointing into the void. Cargo lined up at one end is systematically fed in and slight variation in magnetic field sends it in various directions. The things are relentless, titanic, and fully automated. They make up the majority of the major space lanes now, constant flow of unmanned cargo bullets. You don't get in their way if you can help it. Most of the work now is the scheduled catching at the other end. Time and place, you go and wait and hope the inertia has bitten into the speed of the thing enough to hook it and engage retro thrusters to slow the damn cargo brick down sufficiently to be able to guide it to it's eventual destination to be broken down and shipped on as goods elsewhere.
I say last of a dying breed but that's just an affectation. I always wanted a rig all my life, so when I retired I sold the house on Mars and invested all the proceeds and the money from my pension into the rig, plus a couple of small investments I'd managed to build up. I couldn't afford one of the big interstellar deals, luckily it turns out, with the decline, so opted for a class three. I ply my way between certain solar stations and some of the outlying colonies. The Catapults being too expensive (and too powerful) to operate within the solar systems. I contract to catch one of the bricks maybe one or twice a month. That seems to cover my expenses. I don't think I could afford to do it as a serious job though. I make a small profit, just enough to make it worth my while. It's more an enthusiast practicing his hobby than a business man trying to take on Interstella Solar Mining GmBH.
It's getting to the point where most of us are either retired office jocks looking for something to do, or the burnt out, rejected, long haulers with no-where else to go. Downsized and emasculated, the long haulers, now and again one of them looses the will to go on, and just doesn't stop the brick, just puts the tug in the way. Not a nice way to go but a quick one. The cargo itself is almost indestructible so no real damage , or loss of profit, there. Just a bit of a shock to the rest of us as we sit there watching it happen. I've only seen a couple in the past few years I've been playing at the job, but you know what's happening. The position of the tug, the angle of approach, the attitude of the catcher. After a while you have a feeling for what's right, and you can see, or feel, when it's wrong.
Enough of this maudlin. I sit and glow with pride at my own little space ship. Part ship, part camper van, part floating apartment, part office cube. Actually a bit bigger than the condo on Mars. Command deck, lounge, galley, bathroom and toilet, and four state rooms. I can take passengers if I want but spend most of the time by myself, it suites me that way. The galley's huge, well the walk in freezer is about three times my old kitchens size. Of course you need quiet a bit of space to store six months worth of food and water etc. Beer, wine, spirits, you know the story. It all works by feeding coolant external to the hull into radiators in space. Much cheaper than expanding and contracting gasses, and fine because she never breaks atmosphere. Larder, fridge, freezer, wine cellar. It does for all functions. I've even converted one of the rooms into a library. I keep my collection of antique books, some of them even printed on paper, with my turn of the millennium classic films, all with me were ever I go. The water tank is a room in itself. I keep expecting to find alien eco systems in it every time I have to clean it.
The nasal, guttural drone of the local patois from two local dock workers at an adjacent table distracts me for a moment. Less English than many of the varieties I hear in my travels, I'm finding it hard to understand what it is they are finding so amusing. From the body language and mime in the conversation I'm guessing that a work mate trapped in some stupid, careless, accident seems to have lost a limb, the mock squealing and crying is obviously a great source of humour to his fellows. I'm sure the dock, or union, insurance will cover the bio rebuild for the dismembered individual. The dock workers stop talking, and I realise I've been staring and they have noticed. I tip my glass in their direction and smile. They grunt and nod back then continue to talk as I look out on the hustle and activity in the boulevard below the balcony.
I've chosen the Café Venue for a couple of reasons. First the excellent view of the dry dock, next the view over the Boulevard Hersham Star, so I can sit and watch the ebb and flow of humanity, if you can call some of the meta humans you get out here humanity, hybrids with animals that long since ceased to exist on their home worlds. The metas are an attempt to perpetrate the DNA to the future. A guilt payment for the terraforming and stealing of their home world’s resources, capitalist imperialism on a galactic scale.
Café Venue's not the most salubrious of locations, it's cheap, it's clean, and it's not quiet as ramshackle as some of the section twenty five industrial sector eateries. Please don't get me wrong, I'm not against eating ships rat, I just like mine to be cooked properly, with a nice sauce and some veg on the side. Section twenty five is more shanty town than anything else. Bolted on the side of the station almost like an after thought. Grown like a carbuncle from the constant influx of people from far and distant places. Silted like the slow part of the stream, having travelled light years at incredible speeds the flow of humanity slows down and sediment begins to form around the ports and cargo depots.
I can spend all day sitting here on the balcony. Quietly watching the flow of people. Quietly drinking their beer. My credit's good, and I only need to restock for a short haul, three months this time so plenty of slack in the budget.
If you sit still long enough the rest of the world starts to speed up around you, like some time-lapse scene from an old movie, the people start to move faster and faster, and you begin to see the patterns of the movement emerge. The lines of least resistance begin to appear. The pathways that people use subconsciously appear through the market below.
After a few hours I get bored. I've read all the vids I brought with me. I'm up to date on the SolDock politics, who hates who, who's in this season, who's out, who's killed who, and who tried, the new tech that's being sent down from Cygnus, and some of the other distance colonies. I may have enough from the next run to have some of the tech on The Lady upgraded after the next run.
I rise from the table. The waitress brings over the slate with my bill prominently displayed. I place my thumb on the bottom corner for fingerprint authentication and she scans the chip in my neck. A facsimile of my thumbprint appears on the bill where i touched it. Funds transferred, bill paid and a copy automatically picked up by my slate to transfer to the ship board accounts. Everything nicely logged and catalogued for the tax taken from any transactions undertaken in the industrial district. A different rate would apply if I had done the same thing in the habitat section. Downstairs and through the bar, out onto the street, hassled by vendors, bumped by fellow customers all eager to reach whatever bargain they have set their heart on today. as I move away from the Café Venue I hear the all to familiar sound of breaking glass and shouting as fight breaks out inside.
Now I need to find a water vendor to fill the tanks enough to give me six months grace before I have to start drinking re-syc again. Nothing quiet comes close to drinking your own re-cycled bath water, and sweat condensed out of the environment filters, let alone the toilet, but I try not to think about that.

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Chapter 00 - Introduction to Junis Redux.

My understanding of post-modernism at its most basic is everything is reducible to text. To comprehend anything one must first reduce it to words, to understand context one must textualise (I'm probably making words up here as usual) the content. Reducing it to text makes it more easily able to be manipulated. The experience essentially beyond words is corrupted in the analysis, in the attempt to understand. Schroeder’s cat, the beautiful day, the perfect kiss, become less for the attempt to describe them. The Zen axiom, he who knows does not talk, he who talks does not know. The past is the most recently, most commonly, accepted version of the lie. The past is fiction, the present is fiction, the future is fiction. Much like a political election, given time everyone wins, in their own way, despite who was elected.

History is lies, with each analysis, fact is re-work to fit another point of view. Fiction is lies, just enjoyable lies, with the imposition of the suspension of disbelief.

With a limited (finite) amount of symbols, the alphabet, accepted language (the dictionary defining proper words) mathematically there can only be a limited (calculable) number of permutations. Thus everything has to eventually have been said. The post modernist ideal of text, history, being reducible and manipulatable to any degree. Westside Story is Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, reworked, repositioned, to music. Kurosawa's Ran is Hamlet, set in feudal Japan. Even the Matrix is elements of Ghost In The Shell rework with live actors. Roland’s first Harry Potter follows Ursula la Guins Earthsea story too closely for comfort in my opinion.

I don’t claim any of this is original. I am under the impression that some of the ideas are my own, and the structure and re-creation are my own. It's not what you steal it's what you do with it.

With the news that native born English speakers now make up a minority of those who use the language, I would have written all the dialogue in Chinglish (or Singlish, Hindlish/Hinglish) but for the fact that it may alienate all the reader(s) I have (yes I mean singular). Mainly because the thinking amongst those who know is that the English language is moving in this direction. So interstellar society will probably be speaking hybrid breeds of English and (my own preference) Chinese using the native Chinese sentence structures.

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