Beyond the Horizon

Chapter 3

They walked the long avenue leading into the city of Perth on the garbage planet Corolla Tertius in the constellation Coronis Australis. On either side of the avenue stood slatted fences, little obscuring what lay beyond them. Mountains of junk soared in haphazard profusion, eclipsing any sight of the horizon. The gray, sultry sky seemed inadequate to contain the voluminous discard, the detritus of a hundred thousand occupied worlds.

Corolla Tertius had been Jack"s first stop after stowing away on the garbage scow from Alpha Tuscana when he was twelve years old. Undeniably, the garbage planet held a comforting familiarity for him.

The mountains of refuse on either side of the avenue appeared to be moving. Upon closer inspection, the refuse itself wasn"t actually moving, but hordes of scavengers were. The gleaners, they were called, picking through recently-dumped scow-loads of garbage for materials that might be recycled or reused.

Jack had been among them when he"d first arrived on Corolla Tertius, happy to explore what had been dumped here as garbage. One person"s junk …

“How come we"re walking?” Misty asked, flitters whizzing past both ways on the avenue.

“"Cause Jack can"t even afford a taxi, much less all the gowns, jewels, staff, and what-not that an arriving princess will be expected to wear, not to mention the fuel needed to get to Torgas Prime.” The stench of garbage on either side was nearly overpowering.

She glared at him from under her brow.

“I said I"d get you there, right?” he asked, annoyed.

“Yeah?” Her voice looped upward, the question audible.

“So you can trust me to do that, Princess Misty Circi, or you can ask someone else.” He didn"t expect her to understand all the variables and hurdles, but he did expect her to have some patience.

“All right, I just might.”

He raised an eyebrow at her, stepping around what was clearly a gear casing for a landing strut. Must"ve fallen over the fence, he thought, the fence bulging precariously from the weight of junk it tried to contain. “Just might what?”

“Trust you,” she said, smiling with that perfect, classic face.

A face that opened the joy in his heart. He didn"t know why, but just looking at her gave him hope and instilled in him a sense of redemption and purpose.

He"d had little enough of all three in his life.

Ahead was a warefront—the front of a warehouse—whose shoddy appearance lent itself to the idea that it might have grown out of the junk behind it. The smell wasn"t any better inside than out.

A weather-beaten, toothless derelict looked up from a glasma counter in better shape that he was. “That you, Jack?”

“Sure is, Busby. Look at you, workin" the counter. Moving up in the galaxy!”

The two men embraced. “What brings you back, boy?” He threw his working eye toward the girl, the glasma one remaining fixed to Jack"s face.

Jack was surprised he had a prosthetic. Only then did he notice that the iris was a vertical almond-shape, probably from a stuffed, big-game cat. “This here"s Misty.”

“I"m a princess!” she piped up.

Busby giggled openly. “What"d you do, Jack, marry a Queen?” He threw his head back and laughed, blackened stubs where teeth should have been. His face had the puckered lemon look of the chronic edentulous.

“Not quite,” Jack replied. “Hey, I got a half-a-load I need to sell. What"s your rate today?”

Busby"s hand shot up toward the sign, the forefinger missing its last joint.

“A quarter galacti per ton? Last I was here it was four bits, twice that.”

“It"s the market, Jack. You know the song and dance.”

Every choreographed step of it. At that price, he wouldn"t even fill his tank. He didn"t have much hope of cajoling Busby to up his payout.

Misty tugged on his sleeve.

He looked down at her, saw her glance toward his pocket. Could I use the cube and have him triple his price? he wondered excitedly.

The swirling misery inside Busby"s head flooded through Jack.

He stopped himself. Busby had taken Jack under his wing when the twelve-year-old orphan had been dumped from the garbage scow with the rest of its refuse, had shown him how to spot valuable glean, how to keep from being sucked into giving away what he"d collected, how to outsmart the other gleaners, who were as likely to steal his pickings as to find their own.

“Show old Busby your teeth,” Jack whispered, nodding toward the trash collector and hoping he didn"t get jealous.

Misty looked at Busby, smiling slowly, widening it until a full rictus had plastered her face.

Busby laughed again, joy in his eyes. “I can"t tell you how good it is to see you, boy, how much I enjoyed having you at my side. How about four tenths per ton, Jack? I could do that for you.”

“What a charmer,” Jack told Misty as they were climbing into the taxi outside. To celebrate, they went to the fanciest restaurant on Perth.

Shredded banners hung limp in the stench-filled breeze, a stench replaced by the smell of roast beast, when the wind was right. The warped and stained wooden benches barely held their weight as they wolfed down real food, probably made from the pig-sized rodents who fought with the gleaners over loads newly dumped from the bellies of scows, the roast beast a far sight better than the flavored mush synthed aboard the ship and served in their own edible bowls.

Downtown Perth looked little different from the outskirts. The buildings were taller and the streets were cleaner, but the architecture was similar if more chic. Fancy dilapidation, the motif was called, a high-class garbage dump.

Under a statue of Captain James Stirling, who"d named Perth in the 110th century following the Diaspora, Jack and Misty fed the birds their leftovers, giggling and watching the antics as pigeons and seagulls fought over the scraps. These citified birds were far smaller version of the ones who flocked above the dumps in all directions around Perth, scattering only when a scow descended from the skies.

The inscription under the statue amused them both: “In the name of God, the Father, and his Majesty King George III, I do hereby consecrate this ground as the first free settlement in all of Coronis Australis, may its residents long enjoy clean living.”

“Do you think he knew it"d be one big garbage dump?” Misty asked, and they both dissolved in laughter.

Jack stopped suddenly, sitting up, the feeling of being watched dropping dread like a lead weight into his bowels.

Half a dozen people strolled leisurely through the square. Streets bordered all four sides, their sidewalks somewhat crowded.

There, at one corner, a man looking away. At another corner, a woman browsing something in her hand a bit too intently. Jack didn"t need to look toward the other two corners.

“We"re being watched,” Misty said.

He still found it disconcerting how well she knew his thoughts.

“Who are they?”

“Oh, variety of possibilities. Maybe the collection company hired by my first wife to get her spousal support. Half a dozen worlds think I owe them various fines—I"ve never been arrested on Corolla Tertius, I swear—so it can"t be here. And well, I am a few months late on my Salvager payments. Come on.” He stood and strode aggressively toward the man who"d looked away.

They despised confrontation, these collection agents. It was what they least expected and most feared. A hostile target was a dangerous target. Oh, yeah, they call them recipients, Jack thought. Euphemistic confabulation.

Misty a step behind him, Jack strode resolutely at the man.

He half-turned as though interested in something else.

Jack collided with him, knocking him to the ground. “Sorry,” he said. He wasn"t and kept on walking, crossing the street and turning west toward the spaceport.

He ventured a look back.

The man and two collection companions stood watching him from the corner, brushing the dirt off him.

Jack took the next turn, walked half a block, loped up an alley, then stepped to the curb and hailed a taxi.

“That happen often?” Misty asked, settling in the back seat beside Jack.

“Makes life interesting,” he said. “They"ll probably have agents at the spaceport. Only way they could have tracked me here was my landing. They"re all public information.”

“All landings?”

“Listen, kid, I don"t make enough money to bribe every space traffic controller who happens to handle my landing requests. We"ll have to think of some way to avoid them. I know you don"t have much experience in this type of thing but if you"ve got ideas, I"d like to hear them.” If this is that same collection agency, he thought, they probably know most of my tricks.

“Since they probably know most of your tricks, it"ll have to be something original.”

He snorted, bemused by her. “You a mind-reader, kid?”

“My name"s Misty, and it"s Princess Misty to you, Mister.”

Jack roared with laughter, loving her cheek.

“You want any help or not?” she asked in mock pique.

“Of course, my Lady Princess Misty.” He inclined his head toward her.

“That"s what I thought, so check the cheek, pal.”

“Yes, m"lady.”

They shared a laugh as the taxi pulled to a stop across from the spaceport entrance, as instructed.

Duty free shops selling mostly memorabilia crowded the area outside the spaceport entrance. Why memorabilia might be marketable on a planet as forgettable as Corolla Tertius was a mystery to Jack. He ducked into a shop to browse.

He checked his palmcom to see if the Scavenger had been refueled yet. In a hurry to leave, he hadn"t had the chance to alert the dockmaster. He keyed in the request, and an autoreply alerted him to a twenty-minute wait.

“How does this look?” Misty had draped a boa over her shoulders. It trailed to her feet in a cascade of glittery tendrils, like a furry worm.

A display of mock official uniforms stood behind her.

Jack smiled. We"ve got a little time, he thought.

* * *

I hoped she can do this, Jack thought, following Misty at a respectful five paces, a manservant cap pulled low over his brow, a uniform-looking suit decking him from head to toe, sans insignia.

They"d fashioned a tiara from a bracelet, found a sequined evening gown to modify to her size, and snatched the red pumps from a girl-sized doll.

She erased his every doubt in the first encounter.

“Boy,” she said to the youngish valet at one concourse door, “My fool servant—” she gestured vaguely over her shoulder in Jack"s direction —“has not only lost my port pass and credentials, he didn"t even have the wherewithal to alert my father, King Quantus of Fornacis Secondus, of my predicament. Can you show him what competence is and get me a shuttle out to my yacht, please?”

The valet perked right up. “Certainly, Lady—”

“Princess Misty Circi,” she said, and then turned on Jack. “Fool!”

He cringed obediently.

The valet jumped to do her bidding.

As they were en route to the posh side of the spaceport, Misty asked the shuttle driver to take them to the opposite end, where all the independent traders were relegated. The driver glanced askance at her.

“The fool servant of mine even forgot where we parked!” She cuffed him for emphasis, sitting behind him in the back seat.

The driver threw a pitying glance in Jack"s direction and banked the flitter.

“Right here is fine, driver.”

They"d seen a shadowy figure slouched against a landing strut two spaces over from the Salvager. Their paltry disguises weren"t likely to work on people who had a profile on Jack. Their disguises might be thick, but that profile was pretty thick, too.

“All right, miss genius, what now?” Jack asked, peering toward the Scavenger from behind a cargo transport five spaces over. They"d spotted two additional collectors surveilling the Scavenger.

“Why don"t we walk right up to the ship and say it"s under contract to King Quintus?”

“They"ll recognize me, even in this suit,” he replied.

“Not if you exert a little influence.”

“Eh? What do you mean?” He saw her glance at his pocket. He kept forgetting about the cube. And he didn"t owe these hired pests an electron"s worth of anything, unlike Busby, who"d helped him out when he was young. “All right, let"s try it.”

She led the way.

He admired how good she was. Stars above, what am I thinking? She should be practicing her social graces, not trying to finagle her way past a debt collector!

Cap down, gaze on her feet five paces ahead, he followed.

The nearest surveiller intercepted them at the Scavenger hatch.

“Jack who? You must have the wrong ship. The one"s under contract to King Quintus of Fornacis Secondus. There are at least three other ships here named "the Scavenger." And at least two others by the name of "Salvager." Get out of my way!”

You don"t see me, Jack thought, feeling the bewilderment. You must be mistaken. Check your records.

“Uh, pardon, your Ladyship, I must be mistaken. I"ll check my records. You would mind waiting white I do so?”

“Sorry, I"m already late. If this i***t servant of mine hadn"t lost my port pass and credentials, I"d have left long ago. A princess can"t get decent help these days, I swear!” She kicked Jack in the shin. “Dolt!”

He cringed and cowered, holding his leg, and hopped over to the gene-lock to palm it.

The surveiller stepped aside. “Pardon, Lady Princess.”

They stepped into the ship, and the hatch slid closed.

They fell into their seats, laughing to the point of tears, and Jack started the preflight checklist.

“You were wonderful, Misty!” he said, guiding the ship into orbit, still giggling.

“I was, wasn"t I?” she said, grinning at him. “I"ll make a damn fine princess!”

He wondered where she"d learned to curse like a sailor.