Trophy Grove Page 5

  Chapter 5 – Scalping Faces

  Teddy Jackson’s star yacht is as comfortable and cozy as any starship I’m ever going to have the opportunity to ride. Yet even a star-hopping veteran like myself gets to feeling a little claustrophobic after a few nights in the stars. Any starship gets to feeling cramped and small – especially when you’re sleeping with the captain’s daughter. So the air that greets us as we take the last step off of the landing platform makes me draw a deep breath, regardless if it carries a strong stench of the mudders along with it.

  “What’s that smell?” Marlena’s face wrinkles.

  I laugh. “That’s what a mudder town smells like.”

  “Why do they smell so bad?”

  Teddy chuckles in his silly, pith helmet. “It’s not the mudders themselves that smell so bad. It’s their stew.”

  “I don’t understand,” Marlena growls.

  “You’re smelling what the mudders eat,” I explain. “You’re smelling their bubbling stew, a concoction of synthetic proteins that’s far less expansive than anything even the most desperate of Earth citizens put on their plate. It tastes pretty terrible, though I’ve almost eaten enough of it by now to at least tolerate it. It’s the only food the mudders ever know, so they don’t have any problem with it. The mudders don’t eat for pleasure. They only eat for energy.”

  “But that stench,” Marlena presses her hand against her nose. “Hasn’t anyone offered them something more palatable?”

  “Don’t you dare,” Teddy frowns at his daughter. “The last thing I want to worry about while I’m on this safari is getting a lawyer out here to get you out of the prison the obliterators throw you into after they learn you did something as foolish as suggest to the clones that they add something to their diet other than mudder stew.”

  “You’ll be surprised how quickly you get used to the smell,” I wink at Marlena.

  “So what’s next, Dad? Is it on to the hunt?”

  Teddy shakes his head. “Not yet. We still need something.”

  That surprises me. “We don’t already have everything we need?”

  “We have all the foodstuffs we need to keep us off the mudder stew,” Teddy replies, “and we have more than enough equipment and ammunition. But we’re short on information.”

  I whistle. “And information never comes cheap from a bunch of mudders. They’re bred and trained to keep their mouths shut.”

  Teddy nods. “Maybe so. But a mudder’s information will be honest, if you’re able to get it. I don’t want to depend on only what the obliterators tell us.”

  Teddy stomps off towards the yellow tape that forms the flimsy cordon distinguishing where interplanetary League law ends and obliterator jurisdiction begins. Marlena hurries to keep pace at her father’ side, but I shout at Teddy’s back before continuing.

  “Aren’t we going to power up the robotic sentries? I thought you’d have your best models at the ready to give us a little protection.”

  Teddy waves his hand for me to follow. “I thought you didn’t like robots, Zane Thomas. Besides, you know better. I’ve read your stories about all the sex, drugs and rock and roll you’ve shared with the mudders. We wouldn’t have the chance to ask a single question if we came to the mudders escorted by an armed robot.”

  Teddy’s right, but my courage still wishes we wouldn’t leave the landing platform without a pair of Spartan sentries rolling aside of us. I certainly know I don’t want to be left alone on a world still groaning in the obliterators’ first phase of colonization, when the mudders and machines scrape a world clean so that it may be rebuilt according to humankind’s preferences. The last story I wrote concerning the mudders didn’t shine a very complimentary light upon them, because I don’t worry about selling tabloids to illiterate mudders. A mudder never learns how to read anything more complicated than the simplest clone-symbol instructions stamped on a blueprint. Still, my journalistic instincts scream to me to be very careful about crossing paths with anyone my pen paints in a dim light. Robots or not, my sneakers squeak as I hurry to catch up with Teddy and Marlena.

  No League customs agent waits beyond the yellow cordon to stamp our passports and inquire about our business. The obliteration contractors know the mudders are capable of protecting themselves well enough, and there’s no real loss to their bottom line should a mudder or two meet a violent end in a work camp that’s short on police forces. Thus resources aren’t wasted to check what few parties land on the mudder camp landing platforms. Unchecked, the mudders have built their cardboard and plastic shelters right up against that landing area’s cordon, so that one automated supply rocket exploding as it lifts from its launch pad would throw the entire mudder town into flame. The mudders never drive a mag vehicle, for the obliterators’ trucks carry the mudders to whatever work site waits for them. Without any need to make room for cars and trucks, the mudders have stacked their cardboard shanties so closely together that we have to proceed single file through the maze of streets. Without proper supervision, the mudders build everything crooked, and I wonder about the instinct that guides Teddy to take the turns that he does through all the pathways.

  The number of mudders sleeping in the street, with half-empty bottles of mudder gin gripped in their hands, surprises me. It’s the time of day when the all the mudders should be mobilized in the field to eradicate all the traces of Tybalt’s original world. The mudders can turn self-destructive when they’re not working. All the stories I’ve handed to the electronic tabloids about my time attending the wild mudder parties have always skyrocketed to the top of the best-seller charts. I’ve never met anything that drinks as much as a mudder who doesn’t have to work in the morning. We keep stumbling upon slumped mudders as we progress through all that cardboard and plastic, and I occasionally catch the glimpse of a mudder face peeking at us from some corner in our pathway. I suspect that the monster Teddy comes to Tybalt to hunt is responsible for keeping so many mudders away from their labor.

  “That looks ugly.” Marlena points to a splatter of blood on a cardboard wall in front of us.

  Being the consummate hunter that he is, Teddy can’t resist the urge to dip a finger in the red fluid. “It’s still dripping. It’s got to be fresh. And there’s a trail winding along the ground.”

  Once more, I shout at Teddy’s back as the gray-bearded man hurries to follow the blood splatter.

  “You sure you want to go stomping ahead without calling for one of the robotic sentries? We might find out that something more than a mudder is doing all the bleeding.”

  Our pursuit takes us through only a couple more twists and turns before we nearly stumble into the back of a man who’s got a handheld bolt cannon aimed squarely at a panting mudder’s forehead. Burn scars cover much of the man’s arms, and his dark beard is flecked with other scars. Guns, knives and wicked gizmos dangle from the man’s backpack and cargo pants. I’ve rarely seen men with shoulders as wide as those belonging to the man in front of us, and I know we’ve tripped upon a mudder bounty hunter at the end of his hunt. I take a breath. Bounty hunters, never famous for their congeniality, are least friendly when found at the end of a trail.

  The bounty hunter doesn’t let one eye stray towards us as he keeps that gun levelled upon the mudder’s forehead.

  “This mudder’s ring belongs to me.”

  Teddy nods. “We’ve no intention of challenging your claim to it. We’re not here on the business of collecting renegade mudders.”

  The bounty hunter has good reason to keep his concentration trained on the mudder’s forehead. He’s injured one of the larger clone templates, one of the heavy-lifting models that stands a little over seven-feet tall with all the mudder muscle and power required to carry components where mag lifts and trucks cannot reach. A bolt from the bounty hunter’s hand-cannon protrudes from the mudder’s chest, and I admire the mudder’s efforts to make it as far through the cardboard streets as he did with such an injury. I know as well as that bounty hunter tha
t the mudder remains dangerous. The clone field models are as quick as they are powerful, and it wouldn’t take much of an effort for that mudder to snap any of our necks if his massive hands settled upon any of us.

  “Then what the hell are you here for then?” The bounty hunter growls.

  “We’re here to do a story.” I answer.

  The hunter smiles at me. He recognizes my shirt, shorts and sunglasses.

  “You’re Zane Thomas, the furious scribbler of the galaxy’s ragged edges.”

  I wink. “In the flesh.”

  “Man, your stories about the city burns of Helios was amazing.” The bounty hunter keeps his gun aimed squarely at the clone’s forehead. “Who knew writing could still spark the imagination?”

  “I did,” I answer, “but thanks. Mind if we asked you some questions?”

  The man pulls the trigger to his bolt-cannon, and the mudder’s neck snaps against the plastic wall behind him as a ten inch bolt drives clean through the mudder’s forehead and pins the clone to the building. Regardless of the risk, work as a mudder bounty hunter doesn’t soon make one wealthy, but there’s always work to be found as long as a hunter possesses a decent star-jump engine to travel alongside the obliterator ships travelling through the stars with their supply of clones. Mudders labor in the most demanding and dangerous of jobs, and foremen never hesitate to put mudders in jeopardy during any process of wildlife eradication or settlement construction. The obliterators’ clone breeding vats are always belching out mudders quicker than the pace of demand, and so mudder workers are easily, and cheaply, replaced. Obliteration and construction crews have no need for injured mudders. None of the contractors want to waste resources feeding the cheep stew to mudders who cannot work on account of a twisted ankle or broken limb. It’s common practice to simply kill hurt mudders in the field rather than spend any investment in medical care.

  Sometimes, mudders hide their injuries long enough to finish their work shifts. Once returned to their cardboard shanties for their night’s worth of rest, those mudders sometimes try to hide in the crowded work camps, where they scrounge what scraps of mudder stew they can for their growling stomachs. The obliteration and construction crews don’t hesitate to post contracts for missing mudders the moment their clones fail to appear for morning labor.

  Marlena’s face goes pale, and I grab her elbow so her buckling knees don’t drop her onto the ground. She’s looking at those bloody brain bits pasted to the plastic behind the dead mudder. Poor Marlena. She hasn’t spent enough time with the clones to realized she’s only looking at cheap mudder parts, no matter how all that gore looks just as red and pink as any that might explode from our bodies.

  Teddy nods at the bounty hunter. “You shouldn’t have any problem claiming that contract with a shot as clean as that. Mind if I asked you some questions?”

  The bounty hunter removes a giant knife from his belt. “Nah. I don’t mind, but I just jumped into this system, so I don’t know how much I’ll be able to tell you. Let me claim this ring, and then I’ll talk shop.”

  “What’s he doing?” Marlena’s whisper cracks as the bounty hunter begins his work.

  “He’s taking his trophy.” Teddy answers.

  The companies that genetically engineer the mudders stamp two blue rings around every mudder’s right eye before a clone is allowed to take its first step out of the birthing canisters. An outer ring of zeroes and ones relates the date and year of each mudder, its template model, and its expected working life – good information to possess in times when disputes concerning mudder warranties arise. An inner ring of hashes, when scanned by a clone engineer, details all the genetic tweaks and modifications unique to that clone – helping a buyer understand what jobs a clone might be best suited to complete. Those dual rings around a mudder’s eye helps humanity differentiate the difference between a man and a clone, so that it’s highly difficult for a clone to slip into the ranks of humanity’s population. Clones discovered to have altered their rings in any manner are executed without hesitation, and many a colonial planet reserves the hangman’s gallows for anyone found guilty in helping a mudder conceal its face rings.

  Unlike humans, clones share common sets of fingerprints, and thus an examination of those face rings is the best method to identify individual mudders. I don’t mind watching the bounty hunter work his knife as he cuts into the mudder before pealing away a patch of the clone’s face that includes the blue face rings. I don’t think any less of Marlena for refusing to glance in the direction of such work. It’s easy to forget that mudders aren’t human before you spend enough time around them. All the inner muck beneath the skin looks the same as ours. But after a while, you start seeing all the viscera for what it really is, just motor oil and parts that happen to be tinted the same red as a human’s blood.

  “You do fine work,” Teddy remarks just as the bounty hunter sets his patch of mudder face into an ice bag slung over his shoulder. “The obliterators shouldn’t have any problem reading those rings before rewarding your bounty.”

  “Yeah, I’ve learned the obliterators will use any excuse they can to keep from paying the full sum posted on their contracts. That’s why I still use an old knife. The blade gives me more control than the laser scalpels the rookies pack in their gear.” The bounty hunter cleans his blade on the dead mudder’s tan work pants. “I do appreciate when someone recognizes the care I take in dressing my trophies. You said you were looking for some kind of information?”

  Teddy nods. “How much have you heard about the commotion regarding the mudders and the native wilderness? How much do you know about whatever’s making the obliterators pause in their work?”

  The hunter laughs. “You can come out and ask me. I’m a big boy. You can ask me anything at all about the monster.”

  “What do you know of it?” Teddy’s eyes narrow as he presses.

  “Nothing,” the bounty hunter chuckles. “The mudders keep real quiet. But I can tell you this, there’s something lurking on that borderland between the obliterator’s scraped landscaped and the orange wilderness. I’ve never known the mudders to be afraid of anything, being how fear’s an emotion that’s been bred out of them through all those generations of clones stepping out of the birthing canisters. Yet fear has flooded this mudder work camp. The mudders are hiding from their work in numbers I’ve never seen before, and most of the mudders don’t have an injury to use as an excuse. Bounty hunters from all over this sector of the galaxy are jumping to Tybalt. I’ve never seen so many bounties posted by the obliterators.”

  Marlena forces herself to face the bounty hunter. “Have you tried returning the healthy clones to their contractors?”

  The bounty hunter scratches his chin. “Though that’s a dangerous proposition, I tried at first, didn’t want to upset the contractors by unnecessarily harming their equipment. But I was warned no to bring a living clone back to the obliterators if I wanted to keep collecting paychecks on this rock. They made it real clear they expected me to kill the healthy ones just like I kill the hurt ones.”

  “Why?” I ask. “I know the obliterators can easily afford new mudders, but that doesn’t mean the companies that hatch them are giving clones away for free.”

  Teddy again scratches his gray beard. “The obliterators don’t want frightened mudders spreading any more fear through their clone ranks. The price for a handful of mudders is nothing compared to what it might cost the obliterators if they have to get rid of an entire batch of the laborers.”

  The bounty hunter sheaths his knife. “Well, I can tell you that the fear’s spread all the same, no matter what the obliterators might say to the contrary. More and more mudders are going into hiding, and more and more bounty hunters are jumping this way.”

  “You don’t have anything else about what’s got the mudders so scared?” asks Teddy.

  “Not a thing,” replies the bounty hunter.

  “Do you know where the mudders might be drinking?” I ask.

>   “I do, but you got to promise you’ll be real gentle with the gin joint,” the bounty hunter answers. “I’ve invested a good amount of coin in planting some mudder informants in that joint, and I’d sure regret losing any of them just as more competition arrives.”

  “If you read my stories, you should understand I know my way around a mudder gin joint.”

  The bounty hunter shakes his head. “Your stories, Zane Thomas, are the reasons why I haven’t already told you where to find it.”

  “I could offer you a Spartan robotic sentry.” Teddy interjects. “That should more than make up for anything you might lose to the competition should your informants be compromised.”

  The bounty hunter’s jaw drops. “You’re not serious.”

  “I’m very serious.” Teddy scribbles something on an ancient, paper notebook he takes from his vest’s pocket. “Here’s my number. Go to the working camp’s landing platforms and show this note to the crew that greets you at the private yacht, should be easy to find surrounded by all the ugly supply runners. I’ll phone ahead of you and let them know you’re on your way. Call that number once my crew delivers your new robotic friend, and then you can tell us where to find that mudder gin joint.”

  The bounty hunter smiles and forgoes any farewell to hurry away in the direction of the spaceport, gripping his that piece of notebook paper so tight that his knuckles turn white.

  Teddy shouts at the man before the bounty hunter can disappear around a corner.

  “And don’t forget you’re not going to want to arm that Spartan until I reset its calibration and security settings! I can do that from my phone, but I’m not going to do it until I find whatever information you provide us is legitimate!”

  The bounty hunter vanishes and leaves the three of us alone with the carcass of that mudder that leans against a plastic shanty. We take several more twists and turns through the work camp until we find ourselves in a bit of a clearing, a good place to wait to hear back from the bounty hunter. It doesn’t take long until Teddy’s phone buzzes, until we have the directions we need to locate the mudders’ gin joint.

  I keep quiet as we make our way through the narrow streets. I’m no longer the young man I was when I first started my career as a writer for the electronic tabloids. A mudder’s strength might never fade, but I’m well aware that I don’t have the same constitution I once did. That concerns me, because I’ve never visited a mudder gin joint without throwing myself to the drink.

  And considering the impressions I’ve already made about what we might find frustrating the obliterators on Tybalt, I’m afraid I’m going to have to do my best to preserve a very sober mind.

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