The Forgotten Planet
Chapter 10 — Making Lemonade

Adan was sleeping soundly when Maxine and I came to. Russell was nowhere to be found, but Max and I figured the angry giant was out trying to track down the Servine thief. After coming to an agreement of sorts with Max, I woke Adan by dumping a cold glass of water on his head. That was, unintentionally but fittingly, followed by a black and tan dog with questionable hygiene licking the water off my brother’s face. Adan sputtered and shoved Poochy away.

“Dammit Poochy, leave me alone,” he said, scowling at the dog.

“Morning sunshine,” I crooned sweetly, then tossed him a towel so he could remove the now equal parts water and dog slobber from his face.

“Was that really necessary?” he asked, already knowing the answer.

“Not at all,” I replied, after a brief chuckle.

“I wanted to wake you up in an entirely different way,” Maxine said, with an air of disappointment, “but your brother insisted on the water.”

Adan shot me a glare. “Seriously?”

It was really more an accusation than a question, so I just shrugged and smiled.

“My way was faster and less... distracting. Anyway, while you were out we discussed our mutual situation and came to a compromise.” At this point, he started to smile and I’m betting he was hoping that I had sold him to Max as some sort of concubine. I quickly dashed his hopes. “We figured that it would be in both of our best interests to team up and replace Earth together.”

Adan looked from face to face a few times, then pinched himself on the arm. He looked up, frowned, and then pinched himself again for good measure.

“Damn,” he said solemnly when he realized he wasn’t going to wake up from this nightmare.

“At least I’m not a dream,” Maxine said, extending a helping hand. Adan took it and she hauled my brother to his feet.

“There is that,” he replied, though only partially mollified.

Russell returned moments later, sweating and breathless. He steadied himself against the wall with a hand.

“That little minx is fast,” Russell said in between deep breaths. “I couldn’t replace any sign of her.”

“That’s ok,” I said, tapping my head. “I’ve got all the data up here.” I meant in my implant, not my brain. Not that Russell cared about that particular distinction.

“Vance won’t give a damn about the data,” Russell spat as he picked his fallen cap up from the floor. He dusted in off before pulling it tightly over his thinning scalp.

“Well, I don’t give a damn about Vance,” I retorted in an admittedly childish tone.

“Vance wants the disc-”

“Apparently it’s called a record,” I added helpfully. I was sure I saw the eye twitch that time. He looked at me and held my gaze for an uncomfortable amount of time before turning to Max.

“Vance wants the record, and we can’t go back to him empty handed,” Russell said to Maxine, apparently not wanting to participate in any witty repartee with me. “We’re going to have to bring him something better than an artifact from ancient Earth made out of solid gold and hope he doesn’t have us both killed anyway.”

“Russ,” Maxine asked, “What if I told you that we came with a better plan?”

“We?” He asked quizzically, looking from face to face. “We who?” He sighed and massaged his brow. “Why do I have a feeling I’m not going to like this?”

“I for one absolutely hate the idea,” Adan added. He looked at Maxine and amended, “well some of it anyway.”

“That actually makes me feel slightly better,” Russell replied.

Adan scowled but remained silent.

“Like you said,” Maxine explained, “We can’t go back to Vance. And we’ve discussed leaving Palance in the past. Well, there’s no time like the present.”

“And do we,” Russell said the last word like it physically pained him, “have a destination in mind.” Maxine opened her mouth to speak, but before any words left her mouth, Russell added, “And if you say Earth, I’m going to shoot every last one of you.”

Maxine closed her eyes and took a deep breath before answering, “If we did replace… it, then it would be the score of a lifetime.” I noted that she didn’t say Earth, she only implied it. “There’s bound to be a treasure trove of artifacts in the orbital wreckage alone.”

“More likely we’ll be one more vivid example of why you don’t go chasing fairytales. And besides,” he looked at me, “didn’t you say the disc-”

“Record,” Adan said with a smile.

A very deep breath later he continued, “-the record was wrong about the location? That nothing showed up on the star chart?

“I think there’s something fishy going on there,” I answered. I heard Adan say conspiracy under his breath, and I pretended I didn’t hear him. “The other landmarks that were on the record match current star charts perfectly.” With a focused thought, I projected a 3D image of the Orion-Cygnus arm of the Milky Way from my workstation’s projector. I walked into my lab pointed out the pulsars and the blank spot where the Terran sun should have been. “I’m positive Sol will be there. The charts are just wrong.” Or had been manipulated. I still wasn’t sure.

“Could it just be programmer error?” he asked. Then, when I stupidly answered with string of unprintable words, he held up his hands and amended with, “Easy there big guy.” I hate being condescended to, but Russell’s big and mean and since he hadn’t killed me after cussing at him or, for that matter, shooting him with a lightning gun, I felt I owed him a little condescension. He continued, “Fine, for arguments sake let’s say that you’re right. How exactly are we supposed to get there? Your calculations put Earth in the Gould Belt, which is over 12,000 light years from us. Hell son, it’s 25,000 light years from the core. We’re not going to replace any traders or pleasure barges with that system on their itinerary.

“Well, after our last job Adan and I probably have enough saved up to buy a used Pintera...” I said carefully.

“You’ve discussed our finances already?” Adan asked with an edge to his voice. I ignored him and pressed on.

“...and if we pool our resources, we can probably afford a hardened trader vessel with some halfway decent engines.”

Russell arched an eyebrow and said to Maxine, “We just met these clowns – I don’t even know their last name...”

“It’s Castell,” Adan said. “We come from a handsome and nomadic people that began their storied existence as noblemen in the bustling city of Catalonia-”

A story I’d heard many times, the voracity of which I remain dubious of.

Russell continued unabated, “... and now we’re going in halfsies with them on a spaceship that we’re going to fly to a system that isn’t on any map.”

“It does sound kind of silly when you put it that way,” I agreed.

Maxine sniffed and gave me an irritated look, before pressing on. “Listen Russ, worst case scenario – the handsome one lacks depth and the smart one isn’t as smart as he thinks he is-”

“Oh, I’m probably smarter than I think I am,” I interjected. Honestly, the line sounded better in my head.

Max pursed her lips and shook her head slowly at me. Her eyes attempted to bore a hole in my skull, and it was a force of will on my part not to go and hide behind the couch. “At any rate,” she finally continued after mercifully pointing her intense eyeballs back at Russ, “we can sell the ship and go our separate ways. If this doesn’t work out, there’s always the Cabal...”

She let the thought hang in the air, and the big man gazed off in the direction on our wrecked front door for an anxious few moments. In my mind he was weighing the idea of a team-up against the hassle of disposing of me and bro’s lifeless corpses. Then his shoulders slumped, and he sighed and I knew we had him.

“The way I see it, there’s a big problem with your plan.” Russ waited a moment for effect before continuing, “As far as I’m aware, there aren’t any gates that open anywhere near that sector.” And he was right. According to the standard star maps that lacked a location for Earth, there were no stabilized wormholes coming or going anywhere near that system. There probably were plenty of them in actuality, but I didn’t have another golden record with corresponding wormhole coordinates as a reference. If only we knew someone with a point-to-point wormhole generator. Russell continued, “Even the fastest A-Drive would take, what...” He looked at me for help.

“One thousand four hundred and twenty-seven years at ten times the speed of light.” I left off the hours, though I could have given it to the minute without using any of my internal machinery. Just sayin’…

Ten times the speed of light sounds really fast, and it is – relatively speaking. Ants are huge relative to atoms, but nothing next to the mass of a planet. Or, think of it this way: the next closest star to Palance’s red sun is Millaya. It’s five light years from Palance, which in simple terms means it takes five years for the light from Millaya (which moves, by definition, at the speed of light) to reach our planet. A ship with a C10 A-Drive running nonstop would make that distance in a little under half a year. So, it’s fast, but not that fast in galactic-travel terms. That’s why we really needed a wormhole to reach Earth.

“Now I’m not planning on dying anytime soon,” Russell said, “but I think living another fourteen hundred years might be a stretch.” Then he grinned, and the look was more sinister that cordial, “Plus, I’d likely kill you all within the first week.”

I figured a week was giving Adan far too much credit, but I kept that thought to myself. “What if I told you I have a prototype for a point-to-point wormhole generator?”

That earned me a scowl. “I’d say that you sound like a snake-oil salesman, son.” I mean, I couldn’t disagree, but I somehow kept my face neutral. Russell continued, “Are you telling me you’ve done what generations of scientists from all the major and minor races collectively couldn’t?”

“Well, I don’t want to brag...” That’s not entirely true, but he didn’t know that. Adan rolled his eyes. I stepped over to Betty and gave her flank a love-pat. “Well, she’s real alright, and she’s fabulous.” I looked at Adan and said, “We had a successful test just this morning.”

“That was a success?” Adan mumbled.

“I’m willing to give a demonstration,” I said. Adan got a panicky look on his face. “That security deposit is gone bro,” I added.

He sighed and said, “I’ll be standing behind the island if anyone needs me.”

…

After the light show and the inevitable blown fuses and flaming dog feces, Maxine and Russell stood quietly staring at the north wall that had, moments earlier, flickered in and out on our old blue ranch house. The mercs both looked dazed. Maxine broke the silence first. “Holy Fuck,” she said calmly.

“So, with just a pinch of exotic matter,” I explained, “Betty will be able to hold the portal open long enough for a starship to pass through.” To be fair, this was a hypothesis, but I didn’t think going into the finer points of the scientific method would help my cause. I knew for a fact that giving odds certainly wouldn’t. “The ship will have to be traveling at a minimum of 8C to supply the kinetic energy needed to open a portal all the way to Earth,” I added.

“And you know where to get this exotic matter?” Maxine asked.

Her dark eyes bored into me in a way I didn’t like, and my ’Seven began filtering stress hormones out of my blood and ramping down my vagus nerve so my heart wouldn’t explode out of my chest. I fought to maintain eye contact while lying.

“Sure, I’ve got a few avenues to pursue, but they’re all off-planet.” This was closer to guessing than a hypothesis. I knew tachyon particles were a known commodity, but they were nothing more than a scientific curiosity. They turned out to be a bust for time travel and faster-than-light travel, so applied science labs had lost interest in working with them ages ago.

Russell finally found his voice, “Son, if the lizards knew you had this, they’d kill you.”

Then something in his face changed, and when he looked at Max, it suddenly crossed my mind that I needed to start carrying a weapon. It wasn’t hard to guess what was going through his mind. The only question was how many dollar signs he was imagining. Adan saw it to, because he’d retrieved the old pistol from whatever kitchen cabinet he’d stowed it, and it was naked in his hand and pointed vaguely at chest height as he made his way towards us from his hiding spot in the kitchen.

But then Max pursed her lips and shook her head, and I could see the tension ease around Russel’s eyes. He nodded and said, “Ok, we’re in boys. But I do have a question-” He turned and saw Adan standing next to me with the cowboy gun in his hand, and he swallowed hard. “Are we gonna have a problem, son?”

“That’s completely up to you, pops,” Adan answered.

They glared daggers and looked twitchy at each other until Maxine stepped in between them.

“We don’t have any problems whatsoever, Adan,” Max cooed, resting a hand on his arm. I was surprised when he didn’t melt into a pile of slush. “And it seems to me we haven’t officially christened our business relationship.”

“Max, we don’t have time for this...” Russell added, with a look that can best be described as disgust.

I was expecting hardy handshakes or calls for a round of bathtub whiskey, but suddenly all the tension lines in Adan’s face smoothed out, and his voice went all husky. “You know, I was just thinking the exact same thing,” he said. And then they held hands disappeared upstairs.

I looked at Russell and asked, “Should we go too?” He just glared at me, and then it clicked. “Oh! No, I, no I get it now.” I’d forgotten how procreation-driven most humans are. Then I realized what he thought I’d propositioned him, I blushed so hard my cheeks felt like they were about to internally combust. “Um, I didn’t mean-”

He clapped me on the shoulder, and I almost tipped over. “I’m flattered kid, but dudes aren’t really my thing. Besides, I need to liquidate some accounts and pack before nightfall. Vance isn’t a patient man. Trust me when I say we don’t want to be here come morning.” He took off his hat and ran a hand across the remnants of his hair. “You know any ship dealers?”

“None that I trust,” I answered.

He nodded. “The ones I know are on the lookout for you fellas anyway. Same with the bullet trains and the local space jockeys, so going to El Baño or Ocean View isn’t an option.”

“I was expecting to buy something in orbit,” I answered.

“The station’s probably our best option,” he agreed, “and I doubt Vance will be watching the elevator. But we’ll need travel papers.”

“I know a guy,” I answered.

“Is he good?” Russell asked.

I nodded. “Juan’s he best. The paper looks perfect, and he must have access to a Salarian demographics server, because his work’s guaranteed to hold up to a database cross-reference scan. It’ll cost a K-note apiece, but it will get us through all the travel checkpoints.”

“Dammit Poochy,” Adan yelled, “quit humping my damn leg.”

Russel and I shared a smile. He clapped me on the shoulder so hard my molars loosened and said, “Here’s to hoping he doesn’t stop with your brother’s leg.”