Microsoft word trophyg.., p.1
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Trophy Grove
Brian S. Wheeler
Chapter 1 – Deadline
“I just can’t believe this is the story you want to give me, Zane. I thought we had an understanding on how we wanted to write this thing before you ever left my office and jumped to Tybalt. Frankly, I’m speechless. I’ve never felt so disappointed in any of my star-jumping essayists.”
I’m pacing back and forth in the swank office of my editor, Harold Higgins, and it’s not going to take much longer until even my featherweight body starts wearing down a path in Harold’s shag carpeting. I know the story Harold wants. He wants the story all those poor, desperate and dingy people hunkered down on our dying planet - all of whom subscribe to a dozen other electronic tabloids other than our own – so intently crave. He wants the kind of story that made me famous.
Harold and all his subscribers want a story oozing with sex, drugs, rock n’ roll and cosmic strangeness. Harold wants the story I’ve never before failed to give him.
“Look at me, Higgy-Baby. Look at me.” I remove my red sunglasses so Harold can get a good, hard look at how insomnia’s swollen my eyes and drawn the color out of my skin. “Can’t you see I’m terrified? How can you ask me to rewrite that story when it’s so evident I’m scared out of my wits?”
Harold scoffs. “Let me tell you about fear, Zane Thomas. Fear is a deadline. Fear is answering the boardroom’s summons when you lose thirty-percent of your subscribers and fifty-percent of your sponsors because your most popular essayist suddenly decides he wants to write monster stories. This electronic tabloid made you, Zane, and I’m not going to let you repay the favor by letting us down now. Not when a story like this drops into your hand. Not when Teddy Jackson returns to safari and requests you to cover the story. The story’s too big. We can’t afford to disappoint anyone with it.”
Among all the editors stinking of cologne and sweating of gin, my career gets hitched to Harold Higgins, the biggest health nut remaining on the smog-choked Earth. Harold will drink any pharmaceutical cocktail if two people amid all the colonized stars swear the drink’s added an extra month to their lifetimes. He’ll sweat through any exercise regimen if some house-husband claims such gyrations and flexes have taken even an inch from his waistline. I’ve never wanted a mudder’s toxic cigarette as badly as I want one as I’m pacing back and forth in Harold’s office.
I’ve never so desperately wanted to escape reality by tossing a handful of Levant hallucinogenic powder into my eyes. But Harold Higgins is too much of a health fanatic, and I’m just going to further jeopardize any chance of coercing a paycheck out of my editor’s hand by pulling any kind of drug or drink out of one of my Bermuda shorts’ pockets.
I’ve got to get hold of that paycheck. I know the grove has somehow followed me. I feel the grove hiding beneath the most sensitive and pink folds of my brain matter. I feel the grove peeking through my eyes. I’ve got to get off this old rock before the grove plants its roots into
Earthen soil. I hate to think about dooming all those tired faces currently sheltered on our dingy homeworld to that alien intelligence, but I’ll do just that if that’s what it takes for me to get that last paycheck from my editor that’ll let me afford my rocket ride off this marble.
“I tell you what I’ll do, Higgy-Baby.” I slam my palms upon Harold’s oversize desk. “I’ll rewrite the story. I’ll throw out the old and start the new story from scratch. I’ll write it just the way you want it. I don’t care how it really went down on Tybalt anymore. I’ll have Teddy Jackson mowing down imaginary, alien rhinos made of rock with a laser machine gun. I’ll have Teddy Jackson baiting the most horrible predator you can imagine with poor, dumb mudders.”
Harold’s fingertips tap together. “What about Marlena Jackson? What kind of ending can you give me with her?”
I slump into the chair in front of Harold’s desk. “We can’t change that, Higgy-Baby. We have to at least try to warn everybody.”
Harold shakes his head. “Oh, no we don’t. The only thing we have to do is make people happy.
The ending you’ve got here is going to terrify all our subscribers. Hell, Zane, no one’s going to want to take a step off of Earth at all if they think there’s such monsters out there in the stars waiting to clutch them. The entire reason the League’s invested so many marketing dollars in your story is because they’re hoping your writing is going to encourage people to settle new worlds. They’re going to want all that money if they read the pages you’ve delivered me, filled with writing that’s only going to hold people back.”
“Alright,” I swallow. To hell with the human race. “I’ll come up with a new ending. Marlena Jackson remains unharmed. She’s shaping new light sculptures in a quiet, stone cottage on some quiet, stone countryside. She’s got two dogs and three cats. And she’ll be madly in love with me.”
Harold nods. “Now, that sounds like the Zane Thomas my readers love. We also need steamy love scenes, like the chapters you gave me after you returned from your stay in the Xanadu resort tower.”
My nerves are frazzled, and my forehead glistens in sweat. I feel my Tiki shirt dampen because of my fear.
“Alright. I’ll write sex scenes fueled with more drugs than ever before, Higgy-Baby. Just give me a rocket ticket to Alpine Eleven or to New Venice. Just jump me through the stars to someplace where I can concentrate to give you a new story. Send me to someplace that doesn’t stink with all of Earth’s distractions.”
My heart drops into my stomach when Harold shakes his head.
“No way, Zane. We don’t have the time to give you that luxury. I have a deadline, and I needed that story yesterday. The board members and the League are too anxious to see a first draft of the upcoming issue. You’re going to sit down in that chair, and you’re going to hammer out a new
story on my ancient typewriter, just so I can hear the words clicking along, so that I can know if you’re going to need any help punching through any writer’s block.”
I toss my green dealer’s visor onto the floor out of despair. “Listen, Higgy-Baby. You’ve read all the original pages. You know that terrible monster’s breathing on the back of my neck. You know the grove is on my heels. Don’t you know I have to flee this planet while I still can? Don’t you understand I’m going to attract the grove to come here?”
Harold laughs. “Then I suggest you start writing.”
* * * * *
Chapter 2 - The Law of Extermination
“What will it be, Zane? The automated bar can provide any concoction you can name, and I guarantee it will perfectly mix whatever drink your thirst requests.”
I must’ve star-hopped through a hundred systems searching for thrills to feed to old Earth’s crowded masses through the tabloids. I’ve dedicated my career, my entire life, to find the adventures capable of distracting those poor souls stranded back on our original Eden from the stink of a rotting world. Way I see it, my job is to consume all I can, to experience whatever thrills my body can sustain. To do my job well, I believe I’ve got to experience all the pleasure and all the disgust out there in the heavens so I can best share it with the subscribers of my electronic tabloid, so that all those broken men and women waiting for the miracle of a rocket ride beyond Earth’s gravitational tyranny get out of bed each morning to read my essays, regardless if there’s nothing else to occupy their time.
My job doesn’t have the luggage space for many virtues. My editor doesn’t pay me handsomely to act with moral conviction. He doesn’t pay me to hesitate before boarding some stealth-cloaked star-station pleasure brothel. He doesn’t pay me to pause before I toss back whatever pill or ingest whatever smoke is rumored to spread smiles among the dumb mudder population. My editor learned a long time ago that virtues don’t sell, and I learned a long time ago that there’s a fortune to be made by dropping my morality.
Still, there are some principles that are harder for me to drop than others. Chief among them is the conviction that anyone who toys with robots is flirting with catastrophe.
I wink at my host before ordering my drink. “You can remove al the faces, Mr. Jackson, but people will still know better. You might not paint an artificial smile on your machines anymore.
You might not dress your electronic bartender in a bow tie. But that machine’s thinking. The logic of mixing and serving drinks might seem really simple at first, but it’s not going to be long until that machine starts waxing poetic about humankind’s existential frailty. That’s exactly how the robots took control of the Turlag asteroid belt, before the fleet expended a fortune in energy blasts to turn all those rocks into molten slag so we could all go back to sleeping at nights knowing the robots were vaporized. Everyone’s going to be able to recognize your bartending machine is really a robot, regardless if it doesn’t have a face. A robot is a robot is a robot.”
Teddy lifts an eyebrow. “So you don’t want a drink?”
“I didn’t say that. Give me a bourbon.”
Teddy laughs. “Zane, let me promise you that the bar stocked on my star yacht will satisfy even your legendary thirst. One bourbon coming your way in a wink.”
There’s nothing illegal in owning a robot, and there’s nothing illegal in minting a fortune in their manufacture as has Teddy Jackson. There’s still too much heavy lifting to be done in the cosmos to destroy all the robots, and not even a clone mudder survives the vacuum cold of space construction as well as a machine. Still, ro
But I don’t mention any of that to Teddy Jackson. I’m not going to voice my prejudices and ruin my chances of enjoying a little luxury as the tycoon’s guest on his safari. I’ve never star-hopped in a finer spacecraft than Teddy Jackson’s private star yacht. The bartending machine whirls and hums, and a panel opens to slide an old fashioned glass filled with liquor to my position at the bar.
I sip at the bourbon and smile. There’s age and smoke in the drink, and it’s a fine drink no matter if it slid from a machine. Out of the corner of my eye, I catch Teddy considering me while he scratches his gray-bearded chin. I worry I may have missed something.
Marlena’s voice purrs from the stool set on the other side of my own. “The proverbial cat’s stolen even Zane Thomas’ tongue. Dad’s hoping your face betrays an indication that you approve of his new machine.”
I’ve got high hopes for this trip before we make the first of the jumps into the stars that will in three Earth months deliver us to a distant planet named Tybalt on the edge of the galaxy.
Marlena’s company inspires optimism. Her dark brown eyes glimmer as they laugh at me, and her dark hair reflects the color of the neon billboards built in low, Earth orbit as they wink outside the star yacht’s viewing window. I’m seldom at a loss for words when faced with even the strangest of events during my excursions, but I have to admit I’ve been finding it a little difficult to retrieve my vocabulary whenever Marlena’s drifting near me.
“Oh, your old man just has too many beautiful things to comment on just one,” I answer while bourbon warms my throat. “I’ve got to say I’m a little taken by it all, and that’s not a routine sentiment for me.”
“I’m sure it isn’t,” Marlena replies. “I’ve read a few of your articles.”
Teddy laughs, and his broad shoulders shake in merriment as his meaty forearms fall upon the bar counter.
“You see now, Marlena? I knew what I was doing when I invested in that new line of mechanical barkeeps. I’ve even got Zane Thomas stretching for words, and is there a more difficult drinker out there to impress than him?”
Marlena rolls her dark eyes. “The ugly can steal the breath as easily as can the beautiful.”
Teddy chuckles. “I don’t mind the ugly just so long as I can sell it.”
I don’t really believe Teddy, for there’s nothing at all ugly about Mr. Jackson’s star yacht. I’m hard-pressed to remember a time when my surroundings were any more opulent than those of Teddy’s viewing cabin. Still, though I’ve found myself in all kinds of harry situations in my time as a star-jumping journalist – be it riding with the Neo Mongols through the dust rings of Lethe or walking barefoot across the ice fields with the nomads of Iniut – I’ve seldom felt as unsettled as I do as I sit at my bar stool and sip at my bourbon. Too bad that machine behind the counter isn’t a warm-blooded, breathing human who might alleviate my anxiety by explaining why my alarm is unnecessary. But something warns me that pouring my heart out to either Teddy or Marlena would be foolish, and so I finish my bourbon and give the machine the opportunity to refill my glass.
Marlena winks at me. “Maybe you can settle a debate I have with my father, Zane. Do you think my old man still has room for more trophies in this viewing cabin, or do you think he’s got too many heads already mounted on these walls?”
Teddy chuckles. “I’ve got close to fifty years of safari beneath my belt, son, and all the trophies mounted in this room are only a fraction of the creatures I killed in the stars before the League implemented their Law of Extermination.”
Horns and heads crowd the paneled walls of the viewing chamber. I don’t recognize most of the animals on display; the universe is too large, and my time star-hopping doesn’t provide me with much knowledge concerning alien life forms. A dozen chromatic eyes return my stare from a head that’s a combination of a bee and dolphin. Horns rise and knot together from the head of a creature that reminds me of an antelope from the videos of the extinct, lost world our teachers in elementary academy were always showing us; yet there is no mouth, nor eyes, on that visage, only horns that fan out and twist together into a tangle. All kinds of winged creatures suspend from the ceiling, and their talons make me cringe as my imagination dreams of them swooping upon me while I sip at my bourbon.
Safari excursions hit their zenith before my time. Nearly a hundred years after the last of Earth’s wildlife died into memory, the starship yards owned by Teddy Jackson’s grandfather couldn’t keep up with the demand to construct the luxury starliners needed to deliver Earth tourists to
alien planets teeming with alien life, where such visitors could gaze upon, and even shoot, the animals that, somewhere in the stars, still lived in the wild. But that was an age before the League instituted their Law of Extermination, an age before the League demanded that every trace of native life must be obliterated before human settlers and tourists could step upon an alien landscape.
And now something on the planet Tybalt prevents the obliteration contractors from completing their task to eradicate all signs of life on that distant planet in preparation for human settlement.
Rumors claim the clone mudders who toil on Tybalt refuse to kill a strange beast lurking on the world. I doubt it took Teddy Jackson long to remove all his hunting weapons from storage. I’m sure he didn’t waste any time before servicing his star yacht for the race out to Tybalt. My editor and I weren’t going to turn down Teddy’s invitation to ride along on safari. The hunts the man once conducted with his father remain legendary, and subscribers across the spoiled Earth still spend their precious coin to buy the accounts of Teddy’s exploits. Mr. Jackson is no doubt hoping my flair with the pen is going to help remind humankind of the glorious days of the hunt, and eventually force the League to rescind their Law of Extermination, or at least amend the legislation to give old safari hunters like Teddy a chance to again chase exotic and alien game.
I spot the snarling shapes of bristles and tusks just when I think I’m not going to recognize any of the creatures in Teddy’s collection.
“Is that a razor boar?” I gape as I point at the trophy.
Teddy smiles, and I know my curiosity pleases him. “It is. It’s the legendary razor boar. I never included the hunt of that monster in any of my safari journals, and I never included its photo in any of the coffee-table, picture books of my hunts that remain so popular. But let me tell you, Zane, what you’ve likely heard of those beasts conveys hardly a fraction of the terror those boars inspired.”
“Weren’t those razor boars responsible for the massacre of those colonists on Delphi Prime?” I stammer.
“Indeed they were,” Marlena answers, “and that massacre motivated the League to craft their Law of Extermination. Earth’s too crowded and hungry, and the League can’t afford having anyone hesitate to board the ready rocket on account of being scared of any monsters.”
