’Neath Quicksilver’s Moon by Jaye Michael
Chapter Eight ― Gibbous Moon

¿Hasta cuándo, oh simples, amarán la simpleza, Y los burladores se deleitarán en hacer burla, Y los necios aborrecerán el conocimiento?

— Proverbios 1:22

How long, O simpletons, will you love being simple-minded, and you tricksters delight in trickery, and you fools hate the truth?

— Proverbs 1:22

There is some soul of goodness in things evil
Would men observingly distil it out.

—William Shakespeare
Henry V, act iv. sc. i.

It took more than an hour for someone to come and check on Margarita after the alarms on the life support machines started beeping furiously. By that time, Juan had stopped screaming and pounding on the glass. He had even stopped crying and wailing. By the time the door opened and two burly security personnel entered, both with guns drawn, Juan was sitting, huddled on the floor, hugging himself fiercely and staring out into space.

The medic who pushed into the room from behind the guards went first to Margarita. After a superficial check, not really even touching her green skin, he announced that she was dead. Still without touching her, he yanked the sensors off her body and told the guards to wheel her to the morgue. He did not even bother to check on Juan, instead bolting out of the room and to a sink where he began washing himself furiously.

The guards were equally unwilling to touch the green-skinned corpse, probably for fear of catching whatever had infected her. Instead, the one closest to Juan prodded him, none to gently, with his boot. “You! Get up! You’re going to wheel that bed to the morgue.”

It took more prompts, both verbal and with an increasingly more forceful boot, before Juan slowly rose. In a daze, he shambled over to the bed and began pushing it out the door with the guards jockeying about to make sure that they were able to keep as far away as possible from him or the body in the bed while still keeping them both in sight. The medic continued to wash himself, oblivious to the slow procession passing behind him.

As Juan staggered down the hall, barely managing to stay on his feet, and even less effectively pushing the bed, the guards yelled instructions. Sometimes it was encouragement, but most of the time it was curses; curses at him, his wife, their green skin and at those who had assigned them this snafu duty.

It seemed like hours, but finally, Juan pushed the bed through a set of double doors and was told to leave the bed and come back to the security room from whence he’d come. His response was to slowly sag, first until he was partially lying on the bed and then to the floor as he slowly slipped off the bed.

He lay there, unconscious, in a crumpled heap as the guards — at least the one willing to get close enough to do it — kicked him several times while they both yelled and cursed some more. Finally, the one who had been kicking him cursed and left saying he was going to get someone to move Juanito or get authorization to shoot him and put him out of his misery. The other guard cursed some more while edging further and further away from the lump on the floor. It was only a matter of minutes before he was on the other side of the double doors looking in. Even that level of supervision only lasted another minute.

About five minutes later, Juan shuddered and heaved in a tremendous gasp of air. Fighting off the lethargy that had caused him to collapse, he slowly opened his eyes. Looking about the room, he realized he was alone. A few more ragged breaths and he slowly dragged himself to his knees. Using the bed as a crutch, he struggled to his feet only to see his beloved Margarita again.

He could not help himself as he reached down and hugged her as mightily as he could while crying like a baby. It was only when there were no more tears to come that he slowly released her limp body and stood staring down at her, trying to remember every freckle and pore. Gently, he reached out and closed her eyes. The twinkle was gone. The life was gone. She was gone. His reason for living was gone. The Earthers, the rulers from that far-away place, they had killed her.

“Margarita… Margarita, mi amore. Ja que vol venjar-se. I promise you, my beloved. I will avenge you.

Slipping further into the morgue, Juan looked for a way out. Realizing he was highly recognizable, he searched for ways to disguise himself. Off to the right was a glassed in office with two desks and reporter units. Off to the right was a scrub room. Juan lurched that way.

At the back of the scrub room, past the sinks and chemical storage, was another door. Forcing himself by dint of will alone, Juan made it into the next room. It was a locker room with toilets on the right side and a multi-person shower opposite. The good news came in the form of lockers at the back of the room, but before he could get to them, he tripped over his own feet. Struggling to keep his balance, Juan fell to the left barely protecting his head as he fell against the side wall of the shower and slid to the ground with all but his feet inside the enclosure. Groaning, he tried to get up but could not; instead slipping back into unconsciousness.

“Find him, you morons.” Big Horse did not even look up from her vid screen to see if the two security guards ran from her office to do her bidding. The venom in her quietly spoken words was quite clear. They did not stick around for additional instructions.

Juan woke from fever dreams that left him shaking. Blinking several times, he was finally able to focus well enough to see where he was. Using the last of his energy, he reached up and flipped on the shower. Cool water flowed over his body as he slumped back down, again unconscious.

“Where the hell could he be? We’ve looked everywhere on base and we know he hasn’t left the base or there would be a record.”

“I don’t know? Babs will kill us if we don’t find him. Just keep looking.”

He was drowning, or at least it seemed like it. Juan rolled over and the spray of water began to hit the side of his head instead of into his partially open mouth. Spitting and coughing, he opened his eyes once again and repeated the process of figuring out where he was and why he was there. Feeling better for the first time in what seemed like ages, Juan slowly climbed to his feet; using the shower control to balance himself as he was still wobbly. Turning off the water to save precious resources, he strode, albeit a bit hesitantly, out of the shower and into the locker area where he began to check lockers. His clothes were soaking wet. Besides, he had been wearing those same clothes for at least a week.

There were some scrubs, but they were all covered with blood and other liquids. Juan was not sure he wanted to know what the other liquids were. The lockers were all locked, except one, but the clothes in there were clearly feminine, a multicolored skirt and blouse. Juan would have moved on, but there was a purse that might have E-creds. He was fairly certain that he would never get to use any of his without revealing his identity and that would result in his immediate arrest, if the actions to date of the security forces were any indication. No one had read him his rights, so he assumed that he didn’t have any.

Looking in the purse, he found an identity card. Maybe it would be someone he knew, someone he might be able to convince to help him. The card showed a holo of a pretty Anglo woman with shoulder-length blonde hair and a pretty, if tired-looking, face. The stats said she was tall, only an inch shorter than he was and with a trim figure if the weight listed was accurate. Too bad I’m not her, or at least a woman. Then, at least I might have a chance of posing as her, he thought.

Juan sighed and was about to put back the card when he began to feel strange, like he was getting sick again. Still holding the card, he rushed to the toilet and relieved himself. Feeling weak as he stood, he rested his arms on the sink and let his head hang as he took several deep, ragged breaths. Finally, feeling weak, but a bit better, he looked up — and saw her, the woman from the ID.

Before he could even take another breath to curse in shock, the bathroom door slammed open and one of the security guards stood in the entrance, staring at him.

“Um, oh. Sorry, we’re looking for an escaped prisoner,” the guard mumbled and backed away.

Juan sat back down on the toilet and held his head in his hands as he gaped at the woman in the mirror and tried to understand what had just happened.

Barbara Big Horse snapped out a question “Did you find the prisoner?”

“No, Chief. We’re still looking.”

“Don’t bother. There’s nowhere he can go except to the port. I’ll arrange for him to be stopped when he tries to enter it.”

“Should we get over to the port and watch for him?”

“No. That’s okay. You can go to the port, but that’s only necessary if you’re going to take advantage of the return ticket.” With that, Babs again turned her attention elsewhere as the two security guards stumbled unhappily out of her office and off to the nearest bar.

“We should have challenged her. We have the right to appeal.”

“Yeah, but if you’d read the contract you’d see that the only appeal on this planet is to her. Think it’s likely that she’ll overturn her own opinion?”

“No.”

“Well then, when we get back to Earth we can appeal to the Colonial Administration. Do you think they’ll overturn her decision and pay for us to come back here?”

“No, but we had to take out loans for the required return ticket. Our children will be paying them off long after we die. We have to do something!”

“Yup.”

“So why ain’t you more angry? You should be helping me figure out how to murder that smart-ass cabrona and get away with it. Hija de puta! Tortillera! Perra maldita!” Then he stopped, not expecting a reply, Either he’d ran out of insults or he’d recognized how futile he sounded. They both knew that he wasn’t about to commit murder, however justified it might be.

His comrade asked simply, “Have I ever told you about my uncle Lorenzo?”

“The one with the big farm at the far end of the valley?”

“Yup.”

He rolled his eyes and glared at him. “No. I’ve never heard of him. We’ve known each other for five years, and in all that time you’ve never said a word. Good God, man, You have an uncle?”

“Now, now. Sarcasm won’t help here. Anyway, I guess I’m going to become a farmer. That way I don’t have to use the return ticket, so I can cash it in and I’m not bankrupting my descendants.”

He thought about that for a while. It was a hard life, farming, but what life wasn’t? His sister back home was living in a squalid cubic, eight feet long by five feet wide, and depended on state rations to get by, even though she had what she called a good job. Those poor suckers with no jobs were renting what they called “Tube Quarters” on the public dime, exactly seven and one half hour’s rent on a glorified barrel in which you slept until the cleaning crew threw you out to let the next “resident” in. At least out here a man had room to stretch out and live pretty much like he wanted to, and you had your own damned bed, and you weren’ piled into a stack of two and a half-foot-wide toilet paper rolls like battery chickens. “Ya want a farm hand?”

“Come talk to Uncle Lorenzo. I’ll be working for him. Maybe he’ll want two hands instead of just one.”

“Dr. Nevrith?”

“Yes. May I help you, young lady?” She was neatly dressed in a skirt and blouse. Dan thought she looked familiar, perhaps one of the nurses from the medical building, but had no idea what she was doing here, of all places. She had more guts than most of the people he'd seen running by on the road, panicked by the rumors of the new plague, as far as he could tell, since no one stopped to chat, except this young girl, well, woman, but she seemed awfully young. There wasn't a single line or blemish on her face or arms, no frown lines, which was surprising, since most people here were on Quicksilver against their will, assigned here as hazard duty, for the sake of the profits. They had to keep the farmers healthy enough to do their jobs, so they had a hospital, and the hospital needed a staff.

“Sí. I mean, yes. Are we alone?

Dan looked up from his desk and glanced perfunctorily around the lab. Of course, it was empty. It was always empty, except when Juanito came by to visit.

“Yes, we’re alone. Again, may I help you?”

“It’s me. Juanito.”

“What?” Dan bellowed in shock. “Is this some kind of sick joke? Are you from Security, trying to check up on me? Well, I won’t stand for it. You tell that ‘bruja’ Big Horse that this is my lab and she has nothing to do with it. Now, GET OUT!”

“Por favor. Please. Dr. Nevrith. It really is me, Juanito. Something happened to me. Please. I need your help.”

“Yeah, right!” he snorted. “I said, ‘get out,’ and I mean get out. Don’t make me force the issue.”

“Please. I understand your doubt. I almost doubt myself, but it’s true. I AM Juanito. Something happened. First, I turned green and got very sick. That hija de perra, that Barbara Big Horse kept me and Margarita…” The woman broke down and started crying and whispering “mi amor” over and over. Finally, she was able to continue. “Now I look like this woman whose ID I found when I was escaping.”

Dan’s mouth gaped open and stayed that ways as her story unfolded. It was bizarre. It was impossible. However, it did match the few pieces of information he did know and Barbara Big Horse was not known for her subtlety. He had been getting nowhere with his research on the new breed of Triff anyway. Wait! There was one thing….

“If you’re really Juanito, what was the last conversation we had with each other?”

“I brought you a new Triff. You gave me 25 E-creds and promised me more if it was a new species.”

It was the right answer. Did Big Horse have the place bugged? Don’t go there. That way lies madness. “Okay, assuming that’s the right answer, which Triff did you bring me?”

The woman went immediately to the holding pen and pointed out the correct Triff from amongst the dozen or so waiting to be identified. Either this was somehow Juanito or Big Horse was much better than the petty tyrant he took her to be. Dan sighed mightily and came around from his desk to hug the woman he now believed to be Juanito, surprising himself, since he was not a demonstrative man, and she’d been infected with whatever it was just hours before, but she… he… she looked so forlorn, and they’d never treated the Quicksilver plant life as anything that could possibly be ‘contagious.’ If she were still infected, it was only a matter of time until they all were, so what the hell. He’d figure out how this happened later. “Juanito, I’m very sorry to say this… I have more bad news.”

Copyright © 1993, 2010, 2011 by Jeffrey M. Mahr

All rights reserved.

DEDICATION:

To my loving wife, Betty. She completes me.

Copyright © 2011 Levanah