Children of Steel (33 page)

"How in the hell is being stuck up here a
good idea?" interjected Gabe.

"Yeah, explain that part to me too. I can't
seem to figure it out either." I replied.

"Easy, not only does the Clan get to make
both a lasting impression on you
and
a good impression on
everybody else for keeping their people in line. But let's face it
Raj, if there was ever a place where you were going to get in
trouble, its New Johannesburg.

"Anyway, do any of you think we're going to
stay there longer than we absolutely have to? I bet the Captain
gets us out of there as quick as possible. Our next stop will
probably be someplace where we can all take leave and relax, the
Captain's no idiot, I bet he wants a break himself."

We all sat there and thought about that a
while, it made a lot of sense even to me. Suddenly I didn't feel
too bad about missing out on going down to the planet, if I lost my
temper while I was down there, I really would be in trouble. I
guess Balizar and the others really were worried about me. I
decided then and there that I wasn't going to let my temper get the
better of me again. Sure it was good during a fight, but I had to
learn to put it away afterwards.

"Rudy, I'm glad I've got such a smart WSO," I
said with a smile, "I wouldn't have figured out even half of that.
Thanks."

"Hey, we Possum's didn't survive this long by
being dumb!" He laughed, something I hadn't seen him do much, "We
don't have the strength or speed of the rest of you, it’s brains
that keep us alive."

"Now don't go blowing your own horn to loud,"
Gabe grumbled. "Somebody else might just get tired of the
music."

We all laughed at that, and headed back up to
the flight room, and the poker game. I didn't play anymore that day
though; I spent the time looking through the ship's information
banks to see what I could learn about controlling one's temper.
There turned out to be quite a lot, guess I wasn't the only one
with this problem.

As our shift ended I got my gear stowed and
had started to leave when the Chief called me into his office, he
hadn't been playing cards today with the rest of us either.

"Yes Sir?" I asked as I entered his office,
closing the door behind me.

"I just wanted to let you know that the Tiger
Clan is grateful that you didn't file a formal complaint against
Marcus," he said with a sigh, "even though that idiot probably
deserves it. He's been in more trouble than everybody else we've
got combined. I also want to say that I'm sorry I didn't stop you
before you left here yesterday. I should have known better myself,
but after your trashing Marcus so thoroughly, I didn't think you
had anything left." He gave me a smile then, "I know about your
punishment and I have to agree with your Clan on that one, I'd hate
to see you turn out to be like Marcus, that's for sure!"

"Thank you sir," I answered. "But don't blame
yourself, it was my own fault."

"Be that as it may, as the Chief of Shuttle
Ops and head of my own Clan, I'm supposed to know about such
things. Oh, by the way, I have to admit that I'm impressed that you
were able to beat him. Marcus is a pretty damn good fighter, there
aren't that many onboard who could."

"I just hope I don't have to do a rematch any
time soon Sir." I said with a slight smile.

"Don't worry, he's not interested in one
either. He's got a lot of respect for you now." he smiled again as
he said that. "Okay Raj, that's all. Dismissed!"

I saluted and left the flight area. I stopped
and got dinner then, bringing it to back to my room. I thought I'd
take Rudy's advice to heart and keep as low a profile as possible.
I then went back to my studies on the ship's computer, using my
desk terminal.

It was tough for the next week, I was on for
twelve hours then off for twelve, during which I was supposed to
stay in my quarters. Of course it ended up being more like ten
hours, Balizar let me continue to exercise and practice with Herza,
as long as it was in private however.

Herza was both happy and mad. Happy that I
was able to win the fight, mad that I acted like 'a complete ass'
afterwards. She did come to my quarters the night before she went
down to the surface, which was nice. The girls were pretty much
leaving me alone right now, Balizar hadn't told them to, but he had
dropped some hints about this being 'punishment', Herza decided to
risk it just that once though.

Unloading took two whole weeks. I spent a lot
of time working in the holds doing physical labor, at the shift's
end most of the work force went down to the surface. I was stuck up
here alone of course. It wasn't too bad, and from what I heard most
people couldn't wait to leave.

Some of the other fallout from my fight with
Marcus turned out to be rather interesting indeed. I found that
many of the Tigers on board were a lot more friendly, especially a
few of the females. I suspect it was a combination of respect and
curiosity; I was after all larger than the average Leopard, closer
to a Jaguar actually, so I found myself gaining a few more friends.
Rasha was the name of a fairly cute 'little' female Tiger who
became extremely close, she was about six foot two, and weighed
around two hundred pounds. She was little by Tiger standards, but I
must admit it was a different experience to be with a female nearly
as large as myself.

I didn't see Marcus or his 'friend' for the
entire time though; I guess they were being restricted like myself.
Rasha did tell me that he wasn't really mad or holding a grudge
against me, I was glad to hear that. Fortunately most Tigers aren't
into holding grudges.

I did get to fly a sortie down to the
surface; I think the Chief just wanted to give me a little slack. I
didn't spend more than an hour on the planet, just long enough to
unload. But it did a lot for my morale to look at the open sky. I
avoided talking to the locals as much as possible, the one time I
had to I could tell the regular company types from the homegrowns
with out even looking at their uniform. They were pretty obnoxious,
at least to animen.

After it was all unpacked they gave everybody
a three day break, fortunately for me, I was assigned bridge watch
and some other duties that still had to be taken care of. If I had
had to stay in my room for those three days I probably would have
ripped the place to shreds.

They started the reloading right after that.
They only loaded up three of the modules, detached two and left the
last empty. That took another week and at the end of that time my
confinement ended, but by then we had shuttled most of the people
back up and my duties kept me here, with the rest of the shuttle
and work crews. So except for that one brief trip during the
unloading, I never got down to the planet again.

The trip back up to jump took only a week
this time, we were carrying a lot less weight now and it showed.
Once in jump, the word was passed that we would only be on jump
drive for a month, and that we would be getting at least one week's
leave at our next stop, Lyceum.

As for my studies during my punishment, I
came across several different approaches, but none of them really
seemed to be anything that I could use. One thing which I found
mentioned fairly often was meditation, I really didn't see how it
could work as it was something you did in quiet by yourself. But a
lot of the different books said it helped so I figured I'd try it
and see, I didn't see how it could hurt.

At the Clan meeting that took place after we
had entered jump, I mentioned it to Balizar, to see what his
opinion was. He was surprised that I had decided on that approach,
but thought it was a good idea and was happy that I was trying to
improve myself.

My sixteenth birthday came later the next
week and as there weren’t any special duties going on, they even
threw me a small party. It was fun, my last birthday being a pretty
lonely affair as everybody had already shipped out. I was also
surprised to get a present from Balizar, he had gotten me a set of
throwing stars, and promised to start teaching me to use them.

I found the throwing stars to be extremely
interesting. I already knew how to throw a knife of course, having
learned in advanced combat school, and I was pretty good too. I had
heard about throwing stars before, but had never seen any. I could
see where they would be easier to carry than a knife, they were a
lot smaller and you could carry quite a few in a pouch. Also you
didn't have such problems as to whether to throw from the blade or
the handle.

Balizar was true to his word, and started
teaching me how to use them the next day. By the time we had
reached breakout, I had become fairly proficient. Further practice
I knew, would allow me to draw and throw as quickly as Balizar did.
He was able to place three into a moving target in about a second,
it was pretty impressive to watch.

Our arrival at Lyceum was, as usual, without
incident. By the time we had made orbit the crew was in
particularly good spirits. It seemed that Lyceum was a very popular
planet with animen; its main trade was in knowledge, research, and
high tech equipment. I failed to see why this would make the place
so popular, but Rudy said I'd see once we were there.

As for our unloading operations, Lyceum had
very strict quarantine rules. All equipment going down to the
planet had to be inspected and run through some kind of
decontamination, dependent on the nature of the cargo. We ourselves
were subject to a physical, and our personal equipment inspected.
Not that anything was illegal on the planet; they just didn't want
any foreign organisms introduced to their ecosystem. It seemed that
Lyceum had a very favorable one and many of the native species had
not evolved very far.

They also wanted to make sure that their
population was as disease free as possible. This process took about
ten hours, and took place right after we had off loaded what cargo
we were delivering into the space docks.

As I walked from the shuttle to the
orientation briefing, I looked around at the local conditions. The
temperature was about ninety degrees, and the local area would best
be described as tropical. It was very comfortable, with a nice
breeze that seemed to always blow. We were on an island, the
majority of the locals having established all of their population
centers on the numerous islands that made up the planet. There was
only one major land mass that could be called a continent, and it
wasn't very large either.

At the briefing I found out the reason for
crew's high spirits.

"Welcome to Tri-Star Mining and
Manufacturing's Lyceum installation!" Began the Otter who was
giving the orientation with a decidedly upbeat tempo. "For those of
you who have not been to Lyceum before let me start by going over
the list of proscribed substances on the Planet: None! The list of
local taboo's: also None!

"The only way to land in real trouble here is
to commit a violent crime against someone else, the basic law of
the land is that you may do as you please as long as it doesn't
hurt someone else," she paused a second then added with a smile,
"Unless of course they consent!"

There were a few snickers in the room at that
remark.

"What about weapons?" asked somebody from the
back of the room.

"Knives and such are okay, but I'll tell you
right now it's a waste of time. As for firearm's, you have to take
a proficiency test if you wish to carry one, again you're just
wasting your time."

"Why is it such a waste of time?" I inquired
curiously.

"Well there really isn't much violent crime
here on Lyceum. You will see quite a bit of the local's carrying
knives and such, that's part of the reason there isn't too much
violent crime. Another reason is that everybody has a very high
level of education here, which is this planet's trademark, as well
as their biggest trade, knowledge. Thirdly, violent crime is
severely punished, it is the belief of the locals that the people
who practice violent crime aren't civilized, and don't deserve the
benefits of civilization.

"Needless to say it works fairly well. You
are entitled to defend yourself of course, but if the court
believes you were excessively or unnecessarily violent in that
defense you may find yourself in a little trouble as well."

"What about ani-basher's?" asked someone
else, "are they a problem here"

"No, hate crimes are illegal. You can say bad
things about people all you want, but if you follow through on it
you may be sued for suppression of civil rights and a hundred other
things.

"The people here like to think they have an
informed, open, and intelligent society. You will find yourself
with the same rights as everybody else, the only real prohibition
here is that engineered people, read 'crèche born', are not
automatically entitled to vote or hold office. That's just to keep
any company from stacking the elections."

"So in other words most animen can't vote
here." I turned and saw it was Terease asking this question.

"Not unless they are paid off, and pass a
selection committee. But don't worry about that, even human
immigrants have to pass the committee."

"Sounds pretty good," I heard somebody say in
the back.

"One last thing before I let you go," she
added, "Contracts are considered to be very important here. As you
have a contract with the company, I wouldn't suggest trying to jump
ship. They'll just turn you back over to us for the appropriate
fine. That's it, enjoy your stay." She waved and left the room.

People started to either leave then or
congregate in small groups. I ended up with Mist, Gabe, and
Dave.

"Well, didn't I tell you this was a nice
place?" said Dave.

"It really does sound different," I admitted.
"How about we go check it out?"