The Sirens' Last Lament Read online

  Chapter 3 - Silicon, Plastic and Sequin

  “I held a plate back for you, Gunner. I made sure the grunts didn’t get their paws on all that prime rib until you got the chance to enjoy your share.”

  “You’re the greatest, Mic.”

  “Well, if anyone on this rock deserves prime rib, Gunner, it’s you.”

  Mic always slaves in the kitchen in earliest hours of the morning to provide us all with something special for our Sunday meal in the commissary. Sunday’s the one day out of the week when none of us staffing the Ganymede penitentiary need to execute a prisoner. Mic’s always got a stubby, unlit cigar dangling from his mouth. His apron long ago lost any sense it may have ever been a clean white. The cook’s fingernails are always haggard and long, and they have a way of attracting your attention to the grime that covers the back of Mic’s hands. But none of that bothers any of us guards and executioners who line up at Mic’s smorgasbord. We’re all too excited to see what wonder Mic might have fried up for us in the morning to worry about sanitation.

  I always linger in my apartment before I make my way to Mic’s cafeteria for that Sunday meal. Everyone I work with does his and her best to get acclimated to the sight of my broken face, but I know my features still disturb the most veteran of us no matter the effort. I hate thinking how my face might turn a stomach and ruin a meal Mic’s worked so hard to prepare for the end of the week. So I linger in my apartment and wait, giving everyone plenty of time to enjoy their plates of pesto and pasta, of pork chops and greens, of cheeseburgers and french fries. My face remains absent for most of the meal.

  And so Mic always holds something special back for me. Mic makes sure my plate never turns cold. I think he understands why I’m always so late into the cafeteria.

  “There’s something else held back for you too, Gunner.”

  The smell and the sight of that prime rib on my plate makes my mouth water, and I turn my jawbone side of my face away from the cook so Mic doesn’t have to watch the drool run out from my knotted lips.

  “What else is there?” I ask. “I haven’t so much as dreamed of prime rib since I first shipped out to pursue the cultists all across this solar system.”

  “Me and the gang’s got hold of a six pack of your favorite brew.”

  I can’t help but smile my garish grin at Mic. The chef does his best not to flinch.

  “Joker Throne Ale? How’d you get hold of it?”

  “Some of the ladies and gents have been tossing some of their Poker winnings into a collection to cover the cost of shipping that ale all the way out to Jupiter. The beer itself didn’t cost much anything at all.”

  Ripping one from the cardboard container, I turn and lift a bottle towards the gathered diners. Few might stare back at my grinning face, but everyone roars and applauds. We’re a tightly knit group on Ganymede. Most everyone enjoying Mic’s cooking is, like me, veterans of the war we’ve waged against the Black Sun Temple. Many of them, like me, bear terrible hurts from that conflict. Plastic prosthetics replace many a missing limb at those tables. The war still burns in the dreams of most who gather at our meal tables. Like me, many of those diners have been attending to this penitentiary’s killing business for years, always finding a reason, an excuse, to sign on for another tour and delay for a little while longer the time when they will be forced to return home. Like me, those at Mic’s tables would prefer to isolate their injuries on Ganymede rather than confront their reunited loved ones with terrible scars.

  “To Jupiter! To the red-eye king!”

  The diners stomp at their tables. The mighty planet looms beyond the thick glass of the cafeteria’s viewing window. After so much time administering to our executions, Jupiter feels no more alien to us than had Earth’s moon.

  The cafeteria calms after I take my customary seat at my private table. Mic’s prime rib is wonderful. I’m in no hurry to clean any of its juices from my chin. It’s hard for me to eat without making a mess of things. It often hurts to chew. Hot spices can burn terribly. When the pain gets bad enough, I subsist on milkshakes and vegetable blends. But the prime rib is too good on this Sunday, and I wince through whatever pain shoots through my nerves.

  Mic’s meal doesn’t last long, and I’m finished before I can pop open a second beer bottle. I sigh. Even on Sunday, our penitentiary’s grim business cannot go completely unattended. I nod to Rachel, our station’s lead engineer in our business of execution, and the young woman stands from her table to approach the giant television mounted opposite of the wall through which Jupiter’s red eye stares upon us all.

  “Did the transmission make it through in one piece, Rachel?”

  Rachel nods at my query. “Came through on schedule and crystal clear. We haven’t suffered any Black Sun jamming for months now.”

  I sip from my beer. “That might be a sign the space marshals are running out of cultists to deliver to us. Our supply of temple members to kill might finally be running low.”

  Everyone remains quiet. None of us take pleasure in the our work, but few of us enjoy thinking what it will mean when this penitentiary kills its last prisoner before locking its doors, when we’re all forced to return home to struggle to reacclimatize our scars to communities with little experience when it comes to war.

  “Go ahead and play it then, Rachel.” I don’t mean to sound so loud, but my voice echoes off of the walls because everyone else is so silent. “Doesn’t do any good to put it off. Let’s see what Mr. Hardcase and his gameshow have in store for us this week.”

  Rachel taps a remote, and all of us wince as the theme song to Mr. Hardcase’s gameshow jangles and bangs in the cafeteria. We’ve all been spoiled by listening to what the sirens play. Musicians of much caliber had been hard to find on Earth for a very long time. Musicians of any skill are near impossible to locate back home since the cultists destroyed the Starship Diana and doomed themselves to our killing chambers. So that gameshow’s theme song sounds terrible to our ears, and the garish, golden graphics bathing the television in light do little to soften the notes that fall onto the cafeteria floor like lead dumbbells.

  The camera pans across a studio audience crammed into rows of narrow seating. The flesh of lower arms and old chins jiggle and shake as the audience cheers for the bell-bottomed, corduroy-coated host who skips out from behind the stage’s crimson curtain. Jackson Hardcase’s polished teeth gleam as he removes a tall and slender microphone from his jacket’s inner pocket. He waves at the crowd and bows to the opposite side of the stage as a lithe, tall, silicon and plastic, suicide blonde saunters into the camera. The crowd murmurs and awes as the blonde’s bosom bows to them while the sequins of her tight dress stretch against her hips.

  I wish I could tell Rachel to mute the television’s volume. I wish none of had to look upon Jackson Hardcase’s face smeared in fake, orange tan. But our duty forces all of us to watch. Our duty forces all of us to participate in this entertainment on a level no one in that gameshow’s audience can appreciate.

  Jackson Hardcase winks at his hostess. “Hannah, I don’t believe that dress does you justice.”

  Hannah giggles and shrugs. The crowd roars as the gameshow lights their fire.

  Jackson lifts a hand, and the audience settles to listen. “Oh, Hannah, a dress like that is a dangerous thing for a man of my age.” Jackson’s orange face glows as Hannah leans upon her high heels to kiss the host’s cheek. “It’s been too long, Hannah, since I’ve had the chance to view you in a dress like that, babe. I’m afraid our gameshow no longer tapes as often as it has over the last few years. Our space marshals conduct their business with too much hard skill and cold efficiency. One catch after another, they slowly purge our solar system of the Black Sun Temple scourge. Sadly, their success means that the faces of those cultists appear less often on the giant television above our stage. The space marshals execute their duty, and so our supply of prisoners to face our brave executioners on Ganymede dwindles.

  “I’ve no reason to do
ubt that our space marshals will succeed in the task we’ve handed to them. I’ve no doubt that the marshals will bring every monster responsible for the loss of our cherished Starship Diana to justice. But soon, we must all admit, such success will result in the inevitable cancellation of our gameshow. We’ll be better for it, but, Hannah, seeing you in that dress sorely reminds me how badly I’m going to miss it.”

  I pull long and hard at my beer as I watch that camera pan across the faces in the crowd. None of those faces are smiling now. Spectators raise their hands to their eyes to wipe away the tears. They don’t cry for any of the killing we execute. They only cry for the loss of their entertainment.

  “But the end is not here yet,” and Jackson Hardcase twirls as the last curtain behind him slides open to reveal a trio of smiling contestants standing behind lecterns. “The space marshals haven’t found all the cultists just yet. Once more, our contestants will compete to determine the manner of execution our find friends on Ganymede will deliver to those stinking members of the Black Sun Temple.”

  Hannah floats to the first lectern, behind which stands a man who looks barely beyond pubescence, with a face sore with fresh acne, with forehead that glistens and burns as Hannah places an arm around the contestant’s narrow shoulders. I want to hate that face for standing behind the lectern. But I can’t. That face reminds me too much of the face that I, and many of the others seated at our tables, wore before we pursued the Black Sun Temple into the stars, before fire and war scarred us all.

  “Who is your man there, Hannah?”

  The young man stammers into the lectern’s microphone. “My name is Alex Saboka.”

  Jackson claps. “And where are you from?”

  “I’m from Illinois.”

  Jackson winks. “And I hear you have a special hobby, Alex.”

  Alex pulls his stare out from Hannah’s cleavage and faces the camera. “I do. I collect insects. I’ll go anywhere to find the right kind of beetle. I’ve visited five continents while collecting cockroaches. I mount them all in glass boxes.”

  Hannah looks ready to swoon in love.

  Jackson whistles. “Tell me, Alex, isn’t it hard to find creatures to mount these days?”

  Alex shakes his head. “Oh no, Mr. Hardcase. It might be hard to find any kind of other animal in the wild these days. It’s very illegal to hunt almost any kind of creature to mount it upon a wall anymore. But the bugs multiply like never before. The bugs are getting stronger and stronger. It’s all I can do to just keep up with all the names of the new bugs we keep discovering.”

  Jackson shakes his head in wonder and again faces the crowd. “Now, don’t you all think he’s a fine contestant? A man who has experience in the termination of bugs. A fine background, if you ask me, to bring to our gameshow.”

  The crowd again applauds.

  “I’m Ruth Baxter!” The woman behind the second lectern shouts towards Jackson Hardcase a step before Hannah can reach her. “I’m a housewife from Manitoba. And in my free time, I work as hard as I can to bring the Lord’s message back into my community.”

  Jackson removes a handkerchief from his jacket and wipes at his eyes. “It must be difficult to pick up the pieces and rebuild after what the Black Sun Temple did to our fine churches.”

  Ruth nods. “It sure is. But the reception I get from regular folks really lifts my soul. People are ready to listen to the Lord again. They’re ready to believe again that He’s coming for us. The Black Sun Temple shouted only for a moment. They could do nothing to quiet the Lord’s compassion.”

  “Still,” Jackson intrudes, “you must relish the opportunity to win a say in what manner of punishment one of those cultists will have to face on Ganymede.”

  Ruth grins at her rival contestants. “I sure do, Mr. Hardcase. I’ve hardly been able to sleep, I’ve been so excited thinking about what I’m going to do to one of the condemned if I win this game.”

  Piety sweeps through the assembled audience. My beer tastes very bitter as I watch each member of that audience stand and thunder applause for Ruth Baxter’s devotion. I scan the cafeteria. Everyone looks ill.

  Jackson milks the crowd’s fervor, lets the passion shudder into climax before slowly raising a hand to still the crowd before bringing his slender microphone back to his mouth.

  “Folks, we already have two fine contestants.” Jackson’s stare somehow seems to look into the eyes of every audience member. Somehow, Jackson’s stare carries through all those cold miles between Earth and Ganymede to even look upon my broken face. “But trust me when I tell you that our third contestant is no less special. Folks, let me introduce you to Mavin Brisco.”

  “That son of a bitch Jackson wouldn’t dream it!” Mic yanks the stubby cigar from his mouth long enough to growl. “That boy doesn’t look any older than twelve. Ganymede’s no place for a child. They can’t actually be thinking about putting that boy aboard a freighter headed out here.”

  I shake my head. “They know they’re running out of time. They have to milk all the ratings they can get. I wouldn’t put anything past them, Mic.”

  While all of us in the cafeteria mumble, the studio audience flickering on the television gasps in wonder. The camera focusses upon Mavin Brisco’s face. No scars blight any inch of his face. There’s not a hint of a beard on that boy’s chin. There’s not a clue as to where an age spot may surface on the skin, or where a wrinkle may one day fold the flesh. That face is too pure for that gameshow. It’s too innocent for our kind of business. I think it speaks terribly for mankind that any of us would consider exposing young Mavin to the executions conducted in our chambers. Mavin smiles, timidly, at the camera. My jaw aches as I smash my teeth to prevent myself from abandoning my duty and meekly turning away from the television.

  Hannah brushes her shape against Mavin. I’ve never denied that Hannah, however much plastic and silicon enhances her skeleton, is not beautiful. I’ve never denied that Hannah can stir my blood. But I’ve never wanted to crush her face as badly as I do as I watch her press against that boy.

  “Go ahead and tell us all how old you are, Mavin.” Hannah runs her fingers through the back of Mavin’s hair.

  “I’m eleven.”

  Jackson Hardcase nods. “Now, before anyone might say that eleven is too young for our show, Mavin, why don’t you tell the good folks watching at home why you’re here.”

  “I’m here to help kill monsters.”

  Rachel jumps from her table and stomps back towards the television. Her hand clutches at the remote control. I don’t fault her for the impulse to silence it all. I wish I could just let that glass go black.

  “Let it play.”

  Rachel turns and glares at me. She shows no signs of flinching. She must so hate me at the moment for what I’m asking her to bear that any of the fear she harbored for my visage has evaporated. She glares at me, and I’m proud of her.

  “I said let it play, Rachel.”

  “But you can’t take this garbage seriously, Gunner.”

  “I take it very seriously.”

  Rachel tosses the remote onto my private table. “But a boy? A child? They can’t really consider sending him out here. I’ve always suspected that gameshow was a sham. That boy grinning behind that lectern proves it.”

  “It’s no sham to us.”

  Rachel clenches her hands into fists. “It’s even more terrible if it’s no sham. What have we become if we escort children into those killing chambers? What will those children become? It’s madness. However you look at it.”

  “It’s not our call, Rachel.”

  “And whose call is it? Is it the judge’s call? The jury’s? Or is it Jackson Hardcase’s call to maintain his ratings? Can we even trust them? How do we know they send the guilty, and not the innocent, to us? Is a black sun tattooed upon a bald head all it takes to condemn a man to death? Why do they decide? None of them have bled like we have, Gunner.”

  “We are executioners, Rachel. We have to let that show
play, and we have to watch. And we will carry out whatever kind of killing that game commands of us.”

  Rachel speaks reason in a solar system gone mad, but she understand nothing will pull my sanity back from the brink. So she stomps back to her table with no further argument, leaving the television’s remote control with me.

  On the television, Hannah’s body is alive in pixelated glow.

  Jackson Hardcase winks at the boy. “Go ahead and tell everyone what happened to your father, Mavin.”

  “The Black Sun Temple killed him.”

  “Tell them how, Mavin.” Jackson Hardcase urges with a whisper. “Tell them what happened.”

  Mavin pauses. I wonder if he’s been coached to wait a moment before answering to harvest the greatest dramatic effect.

  “He was killed aboard the Starship Diana. And he played the cello.”

  The studio audience roars. The camera floats above those angry faces in the crowd. Men pound their armrests. Women’s lips shape foul curses. Jackson Hardcase knows how to manipulate his audience. He knows how to draw power, and ratings, from his masses who purchase his tickets and assemble in his audience with the hope that they might be called upon that gameshow host’s stage to determine the method of murder deserved by the condemned. Is Rachel right? Is Mavin Brisco, and his story, only a kind of a prop employed to summon emotion? Has all of it become so manufactured? Would Jackson Hardcase be so afraid to rely on tricks when the space marshals neared the end of their search?

  “Ah,” Jackson Hardcase’s face suddenly fills with nostalgic melancholy, “isn’t the grand Starship Diana what it’s all about?”

  Simple as that, the transition on the television is so smooth. The stage, and Jackson Hardcase, and Hannah fade out, replaced by the documentary film footage played at the beginning of every episode of that gameshow. All of us on Ganymede need no repeated history lesson regarding the fate of the Starship Diana. All of us in Mic’s cafeteria have given too much of ourselves to forget it. Our knowledge of the war waged against the Black Sun Temple is unfiltered; and yet, we are forced to once more sit and watch that documentary unwind at the start of another gameshow, a documentary sliced and edited by hands never touched by war. Once more, we watch the documentary, and accept as best we can that such a story justifies our executions.

  * * * * *