The following excerpt is from Aebris Rising, which was released on May 23, 2023.
1
All good fishing stories start with the phrase “So, there I was.” It’s the way of the world, the way narrators from the dawn of man have done things. Or the dawn of woman. Or the dawn of whatever it is dawned first. Homo habilis, the handy man, some 2.4 million years ago. Did they start stories?
Did they fish?
Surely they fished.
So, there I was on the Magnum Asinum Mare some light years from the dawn of that first storytelling man…or woman. All I wanted to do, mind you, was fish. It was my time—to be away from the hell that was the prison kitchen, away from the nagging expense reports and other piles of useless managerial paperwork that clogged up the circuits on my work pad, away from that godawful smell. You don’t get much of an opportunity to get away, not on the Amesware Abyss or any other prison mining rig on this watery rock known as Minor Pales. No, the company makes sure you’re well-employed, and if that means you don’t get time off, so be it. At least the local prisoner union—UPW 31—had negotiated a working day no more than sixteen hours with two fifteen minute breaks and twenty minutes to eat. It was not the same on other rigs, or so I had been told.
I had this coming. All of it, I suppose. But before I get ahead of myself, I’ll go back to the beginning, back to when it all started.
Where was I? Right. On the Magnum Asinum Mare, or about to be. I was actually in a pleasure craft I’d leased for the week, one of those sleek models that holds ten for a party or a safe trip back to the company’s home platform Prospect Shallows (provided there was enough fuel and at least two way stops along the way), two to three (sometimes four) for a quick outing on open waters, or one (never two) for a fishing trip.
I dialed up the harbormaster. “Amesware Pleasure Seven out with one.”
The crackle of the radio hissed in my ear. I could have used the earpiece, but the ancient radio sounded more authentic to my planned vacation, like a blast from a past I’d never experienced but watched on film. And I had a lot of time to watch films in the prison library. What else was I going to do?
“Amesware Pleasure Seven, this is Harbor One. Deliver your manifest and stand by for release.”
I did as requested. The manifest was easy: one name—Levi Hurley—but the stand by was unacceptable. Interminable, as my pop would have said. I’d been waiting almost a year for release. I pressed the comm. “How long?”
“Stand by.”
Jerk.
While I waited for my craft to be released into the water below, I ran through my itinerary, counting off on my grungy fifty-three-year-old fingers.
One: fish.
Two: eat.
Three: sleep.
Four: repeat as necessary.
I figured I could do that for four days, five tops. I had a newly serviced outersuit, my collection of three ancient Earth fishing reels, a spool of nanocarbon line, my pop’s old tackle box, and some fish offal from the kitchen I could use as bait. I quietly wondered if Homo habilis had the proper equipment. Maybe they just fished with a pointy stick.
“Amesware Pleasure Seven, state your destination.”
Christ. Ninety-seven percent of Minor Pales is one big ass ocean, and the only things that resemble land are the two frozen poles. I stifled as much sarcasm as I could. “Destination Magnum Asinum Mare.”
There was an audible sigh on the radio, which when coupled with the crackle sounded a little like static derision. “I figured that much, Levi.”
“Mason?” I looked up at the ceiling of the pleasure craft—no, fishing boat—stupidly thinking I could see through the three titanium layers of protection, the bottom of the mining platform and directly into the harbormaster’s office.
I could not.
“Who did you think would be up here?” Mason’s voice was scornful. “Got to make the day’s wage since you stole it from me.”
I swore to myself, then pushed the comm. “It was a fair game, Mason. No one forced you to play poker with me.”
There was a slight pause during which I imagined multiple expletives spilling from Mason’s mouth without the comm triggered.
“Amesware Pleasure Seven, state your destination.”
“Destination Magnum Asinum Mare.”
“Specific destination?”
As much as this part of leaving the rig irritated me, I realized I had no specific place in mind. I just wanted to fish. I said as much. “Where the fish are.”
“Fish are everywhere. Please enter your coordinates and stand by for approval.”
As my pop would have said, Christ almighty on a corndog stick. Quickly, I glanced at the navigation map displayed on a terminal in front of me. I could go anywhere, really. The leasing office said I only had authorization to travel for one hundred kilometers in any direction by contract, but given how much fuel these sorts of vessels did not contain, that was a pretty generous estimate of the capability of the Amesware Pleasure Seven. Most excursions were no more than two or three kilometers from the rig.
I closed my eyes and stabbed the map with my finger. Opening them, I read out where the computer estimated my finger landed. “Forty-two fifty-three west by eleven thirty-two north.”
“Enter it into the terminal.” Mason sounded more irritated than before. “You know the rules.”
I did as instructed, then waited. How long did it take to approve a fishing trip to the middle of nowhere?
One minute, thirty-three seconds, apparently.
“Your request has been denied,” Mason said. This time I heard the sick bastard’s smile through the radio.
I hit the comm with my thumb. “Denied? How can the company deny it?”
“I don’t make the rules. I just follow them.”
Bullshit. Mason followed very few rules.
“Hold on,” I said. I returned to the terminal and looked at where my finger had landed. Apparently, it was in the middle of a restricted area, a mostly transparent gray box around it.
“What about forty-nine sixteen west by eleven forty-one north?”
“Enter it into the terminal.”
Another wait. I looked at the clock in the upper right corner of my heads-up display above the dash. I had so far wasted thirty-one minutes of my vacation waiting to be released into the ocean. The response about my new destination took a few seconds less than before.
“Approved.” Mason sounded depressed, beaten. It reminded me of our last poker game.
“Thank you. Can I go now?”
“Release in ten.”
I quickly buckled myself into the pilot’s seat. Being dropped into a swirling ocean in a tin can from nearly four hundred meters up is not pleasant. Of all the advances humanity had made over the last thousand years, you would think they would have devised a cushioning system for situations like this.
Mason’s voice came over the speaker. “Release in five.”
I clenched my hands on the armrest, digging my nails into the hard plastic.
“Four. Three.”
My stomach noticed the drop first, followed by my head as Mason released the clamps early.
Bastard.
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All text copyright 2023, Benjamin X. Wretlind
