Fiction River: Moonscapes (8 page)

Or maybe they’d just find a way to erase their collective memory banks. It had worked with a child’s toy, after all. If nobody could prove who was to blame for all the damage that had been done, then nobody could ever be held responsible.

The Paqil sat on the seat next to me, watching me, big brown eyes blinking. I thought about all the things those eyes I had seen. I knew the Paqils couldn’t speak, but the pleading way the bear looked at me, it was as if it were trying to speak to me. Those eyes were like moons themselves—big and luminous, always present, seeing everything even if they weren’t seen in return.

I told myself not to get involved. It had been a lot harder making ends meet since my Calfan days, and Strawn was willing to pay a good chunk of change. If Strawn’s wife wanted to press charges, she surely could have. That she hadn’t so far wasn’t surprising, since most of the abused women I had known—and I had known plenty in my old life—kept going back to their abusers for more. If she didn’t press charges, nothing I said would stick, and Strawn would do his best to ruin me. A man with his connections could probably do a good job of it, too.

But I thought of the girl. I thought of the way she looked at me as she handed me her drawing. I thought of Linna.

I waited until I landed, then called Strawn on the pod’s vid. He answered dressed in a white robe, hair slicked back.

“You get the toy?” he said.

“Yep,” I said. “I’ll be on Trenton in thirty minutes. Can you meet me at the landing station?”

He frowned. “You can’t come to the house?”

“I’ve got someplace to be on another planet, and the stepdock’s right here.”

“All right,” he said reluctantly, and clicked off.

I boarded the transport tube and was whisked around the city on an invisible platform, ending up at the base of the big grassy hill that led to his estate. No one was there. The tube depot was set in a grove of the trees with the rippling, scarf-like leaves. A black iron gate, the first security check, blocked the path that led up the hill. With the bear tucked under my arm, I hid behind a tree not far from the depot.

Twenty minutes later, the gate opened and Strawn, dressed in a tight black turtleneck and black pants, crossed the road and stepped into the tube.

I walked up to the gate, placed my hand on the scanner, and said my name. A few seconds later Meladine spoke.

“He said he was meeting you at the platform,” she said.

“I wanted to talk to you first,” I said.

The open connection on the intercom produced a low hum.

“It will only take a minute,” I said. “It’s about your daughter.”

“What about her?”

“Can I come up? I’d rather talk in person.”

“I don’t know ...”

“It’s important.”

She didn’t answer. I was about to speak again when the gate buzzed open. I walked inside, jogged up the steep grassy hill, hand-checked past the second security gate, then hoofed it up the steps to the mansion. I was breathing heavy in the thin air and sweat made my shirt cling to my back. The front door opened and Meladine appeared, wearing a cream-colored dress that fell to her ankles and a thin white sweater with long sleeves. I realized that neither of the outfits I had seen her wearing revealed much skin.

“Covering bruises?” I said.

“What?”

I took a moment to catch my breath, then held up the toy. “I saw what the bear saw.”

She crossed her arms over her chest, hugging herself. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“He beats you.”

“He ... he just has a temper. It’s something we’re dealing with.”

It was what I expected her to say, and changing her mind wasn’t why I was there. “I don’t care about that. I just need to know if he’s hitting your daughter.”

She touched her throat. “Alexa?”

“He ever laid a hand on her?”

“No! No, he’d never do that! He’s not that kind of man.”

“But he’s the kind of man who hits his wife?”

Her blush was an unnatural one, reddening her ears and her neck but leaving her cheeks pale. Another side effect of the bioshaping, most likely.

“Mister Duff,” she said tersely. “This is a
family
matter. I assure you that if he ever,
ever
, so much as laid a finger on Alexa, I and my daughter would be gone in an instant. And he—he loves us! He may have flaws, but he really loves us!”

I didn’t know what to say. On some level, she was probably right. He probably did love them. After all, why else would he keep erasing the bear’s memory rather than just get rid of the toy altogether? But just because he loved them didn’t mean he was good for them. It didn’t mean he could control his urges. My own urges may have been different than his—I never laid a hand on my wife or child, and never would—but it was becoming clear to me that Strawn and I were more alike than I cared to admit.

“What’s going on here?”

It was Strawn. I turned and there he was, coming up the steps like a hulking ape. His jaw was set, and his hands were clenched into fists. Those fists looked as big and solid as barbells.

“Just having a word with your wife,” I said.

He continued upward until he stood on the same step as me. “I came back because I forgot the money, and I find this ... I don’t remember hiring you as a family counselor, Dexter.”

I smiled. “Consider it a free bonus.”

“You betray my trust, sir. Go inside, Meladine.”

She closed the door without a word. The two of us stared at one another. The wind picked up, rippling the yellow leaves. His white hair, like packed snow, didn’t stir at all.

“Give me the bear and I’ll forget this transgression,” he said.

“Why did you erase its memory?”

“That’s not your concern. Give me the bear.” He held out his hand. “I paid you to do a job, and you’ve done it. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll hand it over.
Now
.”

He reached for it. I took a step back. With a growl, he threw a left haymaker at my head. I saw it coming, but he was faster than I thought he would be, and he managed to clip my jaw. It was like being hit by a sledgehammer. Tasting blood, I staggered and tripped on the step, falling on my hands. The bear rolled away.

My ears were still ringing, but I saw his right foot surging toward my chest. I twisted away and grabbed his leg and sent him sprawling backwards. The anger took hold of me then, a white hot rage that lit up my body like an electric current. I was on him in a flash, a whirlwind of fists pummeling his head. After the first few blows, he lay limp, but still I punched on, the blood darkening his face.

“Don’t hurt my Daddy!”

Alexa’s girl’s cry hit me like a bucket of cold water. Breathing hard, my eyes stinging with sweat, I stopped hitting Strawn and looked up. She stood in the doorway, her dress the same yellow as the leaves and shimmering in the same silken way. She cradled the Paqil against her, pressing its face against her chest.

A memory slipped out of the black recesses of my mind: Linna’s face, the last time I saw her. Covered in blood on the floor of our apartment. Eyes glassy and unblinking. Then I remembered something, something I had long since forgotten. She had been holding a teddy bear of her own that day. It hadn’t been anything as fancy as a Paqil, just a simple brown teddy bear with black satin paws and blue buttons for eyes. She had carried it everywhere with her—and it was cradled in her arms when I found her, its head turned toward her chest just as this girl was doing with her bear. Turned away so it wouldn’t see.

Strawn moaned. I looked at the bloody mess I had made of his face. He may not have hit his daughter so far, but someday he would. Or worse. Once I left, he would do his best to ruin me, but it would all be worth it if I could somehow make him into the kind of father his daughter deserved. But no matter how many times I hit him, it wouldn’t change his nature, and there was no way I could be there watching his every move.

I grabbed the scruff of his shirt and pulled his face up to mine. He blinked at me, his eyes full of hatred.

“Here’s the thing,” I said. “I can’t make your wife go to the police. But this bear is watching, you see. And that means
I’m
watching. I had a few tweaks made to its programming. If it runs again, it runs directly to me. It’s also now got a pulse-feed set up to the nex-links, and that pulse stops the moment the bear is destroyed or is inactive for too long in some box or someone even tries to tamper with it—which means I’ll know. Got it?
I’ll know.
Plus I’m coming back here for a little unannounced visit. It might be in a few days. It might be in a few months. You won’t know when. And I’m going to take this bear to someone who can show me what it’s seen. If I find out you’ve been hitting her, or your little girl, or somehow you still managed to get the bear’s memory wiped, I’m going to hurt you. I’m going to hurt you
bad
.”

It wasn’t fear I saw blooming in his eyes, so much as recognition. It may have been a hollow threat coming from another man, but he knew it wasn’t from me. After all, my reputation preceded me.

I lowered him to the ground. Alexa continued cradling the bear, her dress billowing around her legs. I watched her, thinking about Linna, thinking about all the ways I had let her down.

The evening light was fading, the wind turning cool. I started down the stairs, thinking about taking a vacation, despite my bleak finances. I had been on precious few vacations in my life, but I imagined that somewhere out there was a warm beach under a hot sun, with an endless stretch of blue ocean that could wash away even the worst of my memories. And there would be a moon in the sky. And it would be a good moon—always present, always watchful, always reminding me that there were more important things in life than money or power.

“I’m an important man, Duff!” Strawn shouted after me. “You’ll regret this!”

I didn’t turn and look at him, but I spoke loud enough for him to hear.

“Maybe,” I said, “but at least I won’t regret it today.”

Introduction to “
The Payment”

The average writer flirts with a few careers before turning to full-time writing, but Maggie Jaimeson is no ordinary writer. She’s had careers in everything from family and marriage counseling to software design and development before settling (for a while) in academia. Maggie also managed to publish a lot of science fiction short stories between 1979 and 1989, then turned to non-fiction. In 2004, she returned to fiction. As a full-time novelist, she routinely crosses genres, writing everything from SF and fantasy to romance and suspense.

About “The Payment,” she writes, “Throughout history those who do not conform to the norms of the day are killed, imprisoned or shipped to faraway places. When faced with writing a story for
Moonscapes
, I immediately thought of the isolation of traveling to an unknown place and how one survives. Some find great freedom in isolation while others search for blame. Exploring that juxtaposition interests me, and ‘The Payment’ is one part of that journey.”

The Payment

Maggie Jaimeson

Carrie James stood stone straight in the center of the courtroom. A spotlight illuminated her small frame, dressed in prison grey for all to see. She kept her face rigid, refusing to show emotion no matter what the sentence.

The Popess, flanked by the twelve judges of the church, stood on a platform that rose high above Carrie’s head. It was built to intimidate. It was built to make sure the criminal understood there was no escape. A large screen projected the room to the worldwide cast.

The Popess stepped to the microphone to pronounce her sentence. “For the crime of refusing a marriage contract we find you guilty. For the crime of killing your assigned husband we find you guilty. For the crime of heresy against the church, and specifically against the holy office of the Popess we find you guilty of treason. You are hereby sentenced to spend the rest of your natural life in the service of the Plutonian moon, Charon. Your name has been stripped from our records. Henceforth, you will only be addressed as the Prisoner of Charon. You are allowed twenty-four hours to say goodbye to any family before your launch.”

The lights dimmed as the Popess and her judges exited. Then Carrie was returned to the cell. She had no one visiting. Her mother was too embarrassed by her daughter’s crimes. Friends had long ago abandoned Carrie when she refused to marry her assigned husband. It didn’t matter that he was seventy and she only twenty-two. It didn’t matter that he was a violent man who took what he wanted and never cared about her. All that mattered to her family and friends was that the word of the Popess was the word of God, and to go against the word of God was treason.

***

There was not a sound in the pod except the constant click and whir of the air filters and the bots checking attitude, adjustment, speed. Carrie peered out the view window situated above her sleeping couch. The stars rushing by had slowed in the past two days. They now appeared like a fine snow that covered the sky with a frozen, silvery moss.