If you stumbled onto this one blind, please check out this essay about the writing, and the publishable version of the story that I actually wanted folks to read here:
This is a first draft of the story so we can all learn together.
-Max
Jack Bester checked his holster as the retrograde thrust of his capsule shook the world surrounding him with the subtle vibrations and gravity of deceleration. Red, stamped metal, good; these were the adjectives that came to Jack’s mind as he looked down at the now unholstered ray gun in his hand. Cold was the metal, but hot would be the beam fired from the gun. American made. The best. The only ray gun for Johnathan Bester. Jack to his friends. Nothing to the men or monsters of the Saturn Satellite.
That was where he was going.
Jack looked at the gun in his hand: his gun. Perfection.
The instruments told him about his journey towards the Satellite that was orbiting the planet Saturn, so very far away from Earth and home, but Jack paid them no mind. The Scientists back home set everything up and they would not have made a mistake for him. Not on this mission. Mechanical processers whirred and clicked beneath a panel with only three buttons, colored, labeled, and protected neatly beneath clear glass boxes. The boxes were on hinges to stop Jack from hitting any of the buttons accidentally. He laughed at the thought of making such a suicidal mistake.
"EMBARK"
"RETURN"
"ABORT"
The first, Jack had already depressed. The green-colored button remained down, locked into the position Jack had set it to. The capsule had begun its journey away from the greater vessel which Jack and the men of the ASRN-FOUNDER Ship Four had been aboard for the past eight year journey approaching the sixth planet from the sun and the new moon that orbited it.
A moon from which messages came.
The signals started so clearly and so loud that the companies planetside couldn't help but reignite a space race. The long ago term of a golden age of nations on the very same planet Jack called home. Sure, there were stations and mines and even resorts out beyond earth and luna, but what was the point? Why put in the effort to get beyond the money and the enjoyment that could be found so close to the planet where humanity worked and grew? The miners in the asteroids did their work and the voyagers and wealthy enjoyed the stations and resorts and games allowed beyond the laws within the atmosphere. The Saturn Signals were loud enough to justify it. They were loud enough, wild enough and beyond enought experience that they pushed companies to race and work to create a vessel of such a stature that it could safely go beyond the asteroid belt and out to Saturn. that it could take a man out to the satellite that birthed the signals. No machine would visit the voices from beyond. No machine could explore.
Jack looked down at his ray gun. The perfect machine. Red in warning, bulbous yet pointed, where the emitter expelled the deathly ray of light that would burn through flesh as quickly as that mythical letter c would allow. The machine of the capsule whirred and danced, but the ray gun was silent. It was dormant, ready to act but not without cause, and not without Jack's hand firm and ready, finger upon the trigger. Dormant, yet ready. Perfect.
The Ray gun was Jack himself, he thought. No other man for this journey. No machine, and no other man.
He smiled, white teeth gleaming without vanity or reflection. There were none in the capsule and Jack did not know of the cameras and optical equipment installed by the FOUNDER corporation within the capsule for monitoring the mission. He trusted ADFN and FOUNDER both, with his life and beyond. He trusted that they would take this mission at his word. FOUNDER's cameras sent their signal back, so much quieter than that t of the Saturn Satellite to the ADFN-FOUNDER Ship 4, where it was relayed back to earth, with just enough signal siphoned off by the engineers as ADFN to give them a complete picture of Jack's doing as well. Minutes. Mere minutes were all the delay between Jack's actions and the judgment of his sponsors.
Retrograde thrust stopped: vibration of the ship ceasing and for a moment Jack was weightless once more. He floated in freefall around foreign planet, aloft above the gaseous surface like the rings which inspired such art and paintings as the world had not seen in centuries. Why should they? There was so much to look at home. Why look beyond?
Minor adjustments of thrust shifted Jack about as the capsule settled into what must be a docked position. Dials and screens and readouts changed and boogied on the console above the three buttons, giving Jack control of his life.
He was close.
There was only one button that Jack truly knew gave him control over his life. His hand fell atop the ray gun, placed safely in the holster at his belt once more.
Jack had been given strict instructions. Simple, yes, but strict. "Ask questions. Get answers. Return home."
The capsule had just enough room for Jack to stand, albeit slightly hunched forward, but he stood as he could. His hand rested where it had most of this journey, on his one comfort in the world. The red ray gun. Safety and control were there. Life was there, in that small weapon. His life. And the lives of whatever stood behind the door of the docked capsule, out so far in the Saturn Satellite.
There was a hiss as the hydraulic slides pushed and the metallic clamps unsealed and the capsule was opened up to the world beyond.
Jack did not wear a suit, nor a helmet. Space travel in his day and age did not require such frivolities of safety. There was nothing to worry about in the safety of the ships and capsules of the corporations that built them. There was air on the space stations where men and women walked and lived and traded. There would be air here. The thought had never crossed his mind to another fact. There was no chance that the Saturn Satellite would have been unprepared for a visitor from earth. They had sent their signals there so.
They would be unprepared for Jack though.
As the capsule door opened, fresh air, the perfect mix of oxygen co2 and nitrogen for a man such as Jack, flooded his capsule. The air was sweet and fresh, like an open window on a rainy summer morning, where all the green things are full of life and the air almost tastes of such life.
The door opened and Jack’s eyes adjusted to the light of the room beyond, the room of the foreign satellite. As his eyes adjusted, he saw the figure coming towards his capsule. His hand tensed against the holster on his belt.
Then he saw the figure was a man.
"Hello there," said the dark figure, becoming clearer every instant Jack's eyes adjusted. There was gravity here. The nerds back aboard the mainsail had told him that the spin of the station should equate to earth's gravity, but Jack had thought nothing of it. There was gravity on all the stations that he had been on before. There must be gravity here.
"My name is Billiam Robert," said the man, still approaching, but closer now. He outstretched a hand and Jack tensed further until he realized Billiam meant to shake his hand.
"Jack Bester, representative of the ASRN-FOUDNER conglomerate of earth."
Billiam looked disappointed at Jack's lack of returned hand, the hand still rested on the gun at his hip, but the emotion flashed on his face for only a second before a smile returned.
"would you like to come sit for a coffee?" he said.
Jack nodded. Coffee did sound wonderful, as long as it was strong and black and cheap. That was the only way to have coffee in his mind, but surely that would be how they had it for him here. He had worked to come here. They would work to accommodate him.
The station was massive. Jack barely marveled at the scale of it, as Billiam and he walked from the grander docking station, a welcome entryway, down through smaller hallways. There was no one else aboard, it seemed. Billiam was the only person who Jack saw. And what a strange person. The man wore a patterned shirt of blocks of color, woven through each other, bright, then blue, then bright again. It had button fasteners to shut it and an apparently vestigial collar atop. It was so primitive looking. Machine wove, yes, but that yes was more a maybe in Jack’s eye. The shirt was tucked into thick blue denim pants, rivets and brass colored thread to accent against the blue and match the oranges of the shirt. Who would wear such strange, almost vintage clothing?
The thought of the oddity of Billiam being human barely crossed Jack's mind. Convergent evolution made sense in a way. If humanity was the best path forward, the most successful company of life, why would it only develop on one place? It made sense.
"I bet you've got a thousand questions," said Billiam without turning back to face Jack. "Don't worry, partner, we'll get to those, but I've got a handful for me to ask first. But I do wish to welcome you aboard the Roswell Memorial Space station. She's a little, old thing, in the scheme of things, but she's home." With that Billiam turned and smiled at Jack, an almost laugh, commiseration, before turning back in the direction they walked. Jack would not commiserate with any such alien humor.
Jack's suit, a single piece, was wired up with microphones and wide view cameras. He was the eyes and the ears of the ship so much further out in Saturn's orbit. He wasn't here to think. He was here to do. To ask the correct questions and act as needed. He could make decisions if he wanted to. His hand gripped tight on the pistol grip of the ray gun as that thought flew through his head, but not yet. For now, he'd do his job. Jack Bester always did his job. That's how he got here.
"Here we are," said Billiam as a door in the station's side hallway opened up to reveal a small room. Jack was familiar with this type of room. Small, two chairs and a table, walls of mirrors, save for the one on the entryway. He knew an interrogation chamber when he saw it.
"Coffee? Tea? Water, or anything?" said Billiam.
"Coffee," said Jack, before thinking that he may not want to drink their strange coffee here.
"Perfect," said Billiam as he gestured towards one of the mirrored walls. "It should be here shortly."
Jack looked from the mirror to the man.
"Oh Mr. Bester, you must know that we've been watching you for much longer than your short stay in this mirrored room."
"Of course," replied Jack. His voice was curt, short. He realized he didn't want to talk to this man. There was something about him. Something dirty, or was it slimy? He wasn't sure. The smooth silky voice and confidence of the man, mixed with the casual demeanor, rubbed Jack the wrong way. He spoke well enough English, though his accent slurred slightly. Slower spoken and carefully smooth. Coffee or no.
"What would your guess be?"
Jack wanted to get angry at the useless question. The question without context. Leading.
"What guess?"
"How long have we been watching you, Jack?"
That wasn't one of the questions on Jack's list. It was close, adjacent even, but it wasn't a question he was supposed to ask in the first bout. "Doesn't really matter to me, does it?"
"Of course it does!" said Billiam. There was a chair for each man in the room, but still both stood. "Curiosity, Mr. Bester. Jack. Can I call you Jack? Curiosity and the thrill of exploration, the fear of being watched. Life, my friend, life. Does it not interest you in the slightest?"
Jack was tense. Quite frankly, it didn't. He was here to do a job. He cared about that. He cared about living - his hand still lay on the belt holster, brandished and obvious. Jack cared about few things, and curiosity was not one of them.
Billiam sat down in a huff. "Well, that went about as well as I expected."
"What did?" Jack said.
"The conversation with you, of course. You're the best they could send? Now I'm winning no sharp contests in the knife block here, but you're a plain spoon, brother."
"Brother?"
"Turn of phrase, sit down my man. Let me tell you some things."
Jack sat, stiff and sure, as always.
"Now, we've been watching you for a long time. The planet, I mean. Don't want you thinking that we're all interested in Jack Bester and his comfort-gun." Billiam saw Jack's eyes light up at the mention of his weapon. "Oh, you like that, don't you? Want to know something fun about that little toy of yours? It is a toy. Like I said, we've been watching you, and they've been watching you for longer than that. They brought us up here, my grandpap, with so many greats you wouldn't even know. He was one of the early bunch, hence the pleasant dress and demeanor I've donned." The man gestured to his checkered, colorful shirt and blue pants. Back in his day though, they had little toys like the one you can't get your paw away from, little red metal guns to make boys and girls believe they was on a starship. Something out of TV and comics and stories like that, things made for the imagination, to spark the curiosity that you seem to be lacking so much of."
Jack was silent. He wasn't sure to think of what the man was saying, but he wished he'd just shut up now so that he could ask the questions that he had to and get out of here. He didn't.
"See, that's the thing. I shouldn't know your history that much better than you do. I do, that's for certain, but there shouldn't be that much of a gap. We were given gifts here, you see, but it’s not like they was magically delivered or nothing. Grandpap may have thought so at first, but it all makes sense when you think about it. Resources are resources and They don't just fabricate things, they pull ‘em from the same solar system you could too. I guess you do that part pretty well, again, not speaking of you, Jack Bester, but of mankind on earth as a whole.
"Gotta specify that now. 'Mankind on earth,' though you know, we've had to specify that up here for quite a while."
Jack was tired of this. The man's prattle was excessive, and something about the accent bothered Jack. The man, Billiam, looked right, of the right stock save for the clothes, but his accent almost made him sound foreign. Jack's mind smiled. He guessed the man was foreign in his own way. That made things all the more clear. Easier now, realizing that Billiam was barely a person. Barely worth noting other than the space station around him. The other man hadn't stopped talking:
"-really the signals were quite clear. I don't believe you solved the mystery, certainly not, so we increased the volume on everything, made it so obvious that you simply had to build something to come. I wasn't a part of that vote, but I know that They were strongly against it. They don't like who you've become."
"Who we've become?" asked Jack, his attention returned since the man stopped his incessant chatter.
"Savages really," said Billiam. His smooth, drawling accent enunciated the word in a way that Jack had never heard before. It was as if the other man was looking down his nose at him.
"Savages?"
"Truly. Earth fights over its resources still, hording and hording and hording like some sort of simple primitive. Really, no better than the apes we all came from. Now, I'll admit, we have a leg up here, taken from our homes as we were and then gifted the freedom to grow independently of the planet and its people, but still, the timelines they gave for humanity's development are all off. You're quirt behind where you are supposed to be and I believe you're making it worse."
Jack found himself getting angry at the man's judgement and candor. Who was he to think so highly of himself and so lowly of Jack? Jack was a high up member of the FOUDNER-ASRN corporation, chosen specifically for this task. He was the best man, the right man for the job. Billiam was just some hick whose grandfather was kidnapped off planet. Jack smiled now. He had been paying attention. Wonder if the nerds back on ship caught that from their cameras and mics. He was sure they did, but Jack Bester was more than a blunt tool for a job. He thought of his questions again. He hadn't been able to ask a thing with the savage's prattle up here. Savage? Jack Bester was no savage. He talked like a man and knew his job and worked for the most powerful conglomerate in the system. They won the damn space race! Savage! who was this man to say such drivel?
"Calm down, Jack, buddy. This is a test, remember, and there are degrees of failure and passing. Don't get too ahead of yourself. Your knuckles are turning white on that little toy of yours down there."
Jack swallowed his anger, but kept his hand atop the ray gun at his side. "Test?"
"Of course, buddy. We've got to test humanity to see if you're ready to join us up here."
"You're testing me? I've got questions for you."
"I'm sure you do, but really, what matters is my opinion of you."
"I work for the most powerful corporation in the world."
"It’s a pretty small world, though, isn't it?" Billiam laughed. "Though there's an irony to that, I've never left this station."
"Then what's the test for? This station isn't some grand reward."
"Certainly not, though I think you'd find that it’s more reward than you realize. The reward is beyond here. The gifts, the culture and the ideas of joining those beyond. Those who took my forbearer's here and who feed and clothe me know."
Jack took a look at Billiam's clothes once more. ratty. Worn. Old and outdated.
He was done with this. The nerds could glean more from action than from questions. It wasn't as if Billiam was answering his questions, anyway.
Jack did what he does best.
He did what he was sent here for.
He acted.
"Take me to them," he said. His voice was stern, tight, it was the voice of a hero. The voice of a man. He unholstered the red ray gun from his belt and leveled it at the eloquent hick sitting before them.
"Take you to my leader, you mean?" laughed Billiam.
"You're damn right."
Jack's hand was steady. His aim was true. He was a man perfected for this. Culture and time bred competition into his blood. What was this conversation but a competition for information? Questions were what the nerds in the ship gave him. Competition was what his world had given him.
Billiam started a pithy retort, and Jack shot him. The beam emitted from the toylike weapon was thick; the light effused from the emitter in an almost slow deluge of death. It was as if C were slowed down in this one instance of violent expression of a mankind strayed from their ideals.
Billiam died and Jack left the mirrored interrogation room.
The onlookers watched, but they were no longer interested. Billiam had been wrong. His thoughts and wishes to rejoin his people in a great reunification of humanity shattered in an instant.
But they knew that already. The onlookers. Those that took Billiam's grandparents up into space from their small Louisiana boat centuries before.
Earth would perish. But humanity would survive.
The onlookers turned off their screens as Jack worked his violent way through Saturn Station.
Thanks for reading this short story! Again, check out the essay that I wrote about it here. The conversations continues there in the comments! Feel free to share or comment here though as well.
Love ya!
Max