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Category: Sub Category: Short Stories |
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HIPPIES(part one)
Sardo Bortant shoved back the visor of his helmet as he reached the top of the sand dune.
What he saw before him was a blurred vista of a bowl-shaped valley strewn with boulders and sand and smaller rocks. He shook his head to clear his vision as the sweat dripped down his forehead and into his eyes.
The scene lain out before Bortant's eyes was the remains of an ancient canyon. Wind and time had worn the walls around the rim away. The valley seemed a maze of hot sand and stone. Nothing moved except the wind blown sand. By all accounts this place was as dead as the dark side of the moon.
Bortant glanced at the evening sun, now low on the western horizon. He estimated that it would be forty-five minutes before the sun would disappear, leaving him in total darkness. Thirty minutes after that he could do his job, return to the ship and get out of this dreadful place.
As he waited, Bortant thought about that morning three days ago when he had been given this assignment. He had reported to work half an hour late as usual, grabbed cup of hot imported coffee from the machine, sat down at his desk and closed his eyes. He had just about slipped back into a sweet sleep when the small metal box on his desk screamed at him.
"BORTANT! GET YOUR LAZY ASS IN HERE. NOW!"
After twelve years on the Federation Alien Police Board, under the same boss and having an inherent tendency to disregard punctuality, Bortant had no problem recognizing that tone or voice. He sat up quickly and gulped half of the now warm coffee from his cup. Rubbing his eyes, he stood and marched into the chief's office.
As Bort entered the room, he saw the chief bent over a video screen. He was mumbling something. The chief was poking some buttons and shaking his head in frustration. Bort cleared his throat loudly. The other man turned and stared at him for a while. Bort was nervous with his hands.
"Bort," said the ominous voice, "I like you." Now Bortant was really nervous. "Ya' had a good record up until a few months ago." "Then you started mess'n up." He pointed a crooked finger at the screen. "In the last three months, you've been later for work twenty-two times and I get reports every day say'n you've been drinkin' and screwin' 'round all night." Sardo belched lightly. The chief was not amused.
"Well, I've got a mission for you. As you know, the Old Earth's sun is doomed to go super-nova in a few hundred years. All animal life forms have been ordered by the Council to be evacuated and transported to this solar system. But, one of our unmanned probes detected a life form on Earth last night while you were out boozin' it up." The chief paused and then started in again with a grin. Bortant felt sick in his gut from the bottle of Jack he made love to last night.
"The good news is, I'm sending you to check it out. It'll give you a seven days to dry out and me a week of R and R." "Report to Spaceport fourteen tomorrow morning for your orders and destination coordinates. They'll be waiting for you."
Bortant started to say. "Why me?" But he knew the answer, so his only protest was a low grunt.
"You better be there." The chief said. "If you're not, I'll send security to find you and it'll be a month in the brig, before I fire you." "Now, get out of here and go home."
Sardo Bortant went back to his desk and drank the cold coffee there and went home. He knew why he had been screwing of course. He was bored shitless. For the last two years he'd been glued to that desk shuffling papers and updating data base files. He sure missed the old days running down criminals on Mars or nature freaks living in the blazing deserts of Earth.
The Council had brought him in from the field after he fried three hippies hiding out in a sun -dome on Triton. Something snapped in him when he saw the fear in those three pairs of eyes. The only thing left was a pile of smoldering flesh. He never regretted it except that they stuck him in a freakin' office. They told him it was to hide him from the press and to avoid a scandal.
" Like there was a free press anymore." He thought. He would have quit, but the money was so damn good, not to mention the benefits. Besides, he had several bad habits to support.
Believe it or not, the next morning at seven, Bortant was at the spaceport on time. He was even a little excited about the mission and especially happy to be away from that damned office.
He was going back to space again, even though that life form blip on the probe was probably just a mistake or a lone jackrabbit. "Might have to fry some rabbit." He slapped the hundred round blaster strapped to his leg.
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