Folks who visit this planet say ruins are ugly. To me, it was always just part of the landscape.
A century ago, they terraformed this planet, and that went just fine, but just when they were building all the infrastructure, the economy crashed, the main investors pulled out and everything just plain went haywire. Now this planet had empty office buildings, never-occupied shops, factories that were silent, dams that did nothing and even fenced-off city limits for a city that never got built. A hundred years later, there was no one on left on this planet except for farmers, the tradespeople who served them and the bandits who preyed on both. The folks who'd first colonized this planet had expected it to be the next New York City, and instead they got Kansas. Life's funny like that.
The bandits tended to like ruined buildings like the one in front of me, so I kept my ten-shooter handy as I stalked into a dusty old office park. Being the only girl in the family, I was always the one who got sent out to go scavenging. On this planet, women who get caught by bandits might get roughed up and robbed, but nothing more. A man, on the other hand, could be taken advantage of in a way that was much more insidious, because he could be injected with a chastity serum.
The way those serums worked, any man injected with it would 'imprint' on the woman who did the injecting, and—this isn't polite to talk about, but it's true—he wouldn't be able to get an erection for any other woman, no matter how hard she tried. If you were a man, and some woman injected you with the serum, you had two choices: marry her or spend the rest of your life sexless. If you were fool enough to send your son out into the wilderness, it was likely he'd disappear and wind up being used as a breeder by some bandit woman. It was a life I wouldn't wish on an enemy.
I wasn't looking for much in this building—just a few lightbulbs because mama's homestead was running low on them, keyboards if they were handy, a nice chair for me and whatever other knickknacks were lying around that I thought someone from the family might like. Closer to home, all the ruins had been stripped by peddlers, and the valuables were hoarded for resale, but this building was so far out in the sticks that maybe it was still untapped.
It didn't look so good when I first went in. The lights and computers had been taken, and even the windows were either broken or gone. No chairs either, I was disappointed to see.
"Someone there?" said a worried male voice.
Instantly, I was on guard. I had been about to switch on my flashlight so I could see finer details, but now I decided that stealth would be better as I crept down the aisle toward the voice.
"I thought I heard someone," said the voice. "I'm not armed, I promise." Whoever it was, he was shot through with fear.
When I rounded the corner and found the source of the voice, I wasn't sure what I expected to see, but what I was shocked anyway.
It was a young man, maybe in his mid-twenties, which made him about my age, sitting on a crate, his arms stuck straight up in the air as if he was surrendering. And he wasn't wearing a stitch.
A still-active light in the ceiling shone on him like a spotlight. I could see he had a thin but solidly built chest with a flat but muscular stomach that made me think this man did a lot of work but didn't get a lot of food. His long, thin arms were limp above him, and as I approached, I could see his wrists tied together by a rope fixed to the ceiling. He pressed his legs together, tight.
He saw me before I could say anything. He fixed his eyes on me, and I saw a delicate-featured face looking at me from under slightly wavy hair that came down to his chin. His skin was pale—I guessed he didn't spend a lot of time in broad daylight—but his hair was jet-black, so dark that even under the harsh glow of the one light, it didn't reflect anything.
His jaw worked for a moment, then he mastered himself. "My hands are tied," he said. "Let me out, please!"
"Don't worry, friend," I told him, "I'm not gonna hurt you. How'd you get in this fix?"
"My friends, they thought I was stealing from them—I wasn't, I swear—and they left me like this."
He didn't bother to mention what his companions expected would happen to him, but he didn't have to.
"It's lucky you're safe," I said, as I holstered my gun and started picking at the knot that held his wrists. At the same time, I looked over both shoulders just to make sure we weren't being watched. I saw a slick black gun barrel poking out of the shadows.
I drew my pistol as fast as I could.
"Relax," said a new, harder male voice. The gun barrel lowered to point at the ground, and out of the shadows stepped another man. Like the prisoner, he was thin and topped with black hair, but this man was stoop-shouldered and a little ruddy in the face. His right hand held his shotgun, while his left held up a little white cloth. "I'm not going to shoot you."
"That's a pretty big gun for a guy who doesn't want to shoot me." I glanced at the tied-up man. "And you've got a lot to answer for, leaving this guy like this!"
"I didn't leave him. The story he told you was a lie we made up. This is my cousin, and I've been watching him since the moment I saw you coming."
"Then what the-" I almost cursed but stopped myself. "What were you doing tying him up this way?"
With his left hand, he pocketed the cloth, reached up and undid the knot. "Call it a secret test of character," he said. "If you'd tried anything, I would've shot you. But instead, you did the right thing. Now that we know we can trust you, I want to offer you a deal."
"You strung him up as bait!" To be raped, or worse! The sheer ruthlessness of it took my breath away.
"Hey, we didn't have much of a choice," said the younger-looking man, as his wrists came free. "We need something, and we have to make sure it's from someone who..." he shrugged. "...you know, someone with a conscience. I'm Mick, by the way. My cousin over there is named Terrance." He flexed his wrists, then arched his back and stretched his arms, giving me a good look at him from the waist up. As soon as he finished stretching and saw me staring, his arms closed defensively around his body.
"Sorry," I muttered, looking at the ground. "I'm, uh, Veronica."
"Now," said Terrance, putting away his shotgun, "About that deal."
"This deal you want must be pretty urgent," I said, "for you to try something like this. This is crazy, do you guys know that?"
"Yeah, I know," said Mick sadly. "I have Tereshkova's."
Tereshkova's. A disease unique to this planet. It was said that more drifters died to Tereshkova's than to gunshot wounds, and that's saying a lot.
"It's still in phase one," said Terrance. "That means that if we get him to a medical bay within the next two months, he'll be fine. But it will mean putting him under."
Now it started to make sense. In a world with no public hospitals, if you didn't have a medical bay yourself, there was nothing to do but find someone who did and ask nicely. In a demented sort of way, his little test made sense too. As depressing as it was, there were very few women out here in the ruins who would've helped him without also taking the opportunity to inject him. With a chill, I wondered how many would-be rapists had gotten themselves shot trying to get their hands on him.
"I promise we'll make it worth your while," Mick volunteered.
"Of course," said Terrance. "We can barter for it, work it off, pay you... we're not asking for charity."
By the look in his eyes, I could tell he was worried I'd demand to give one of them a chastity serum, but he didn't have to worry about that. I wasn't about to take advantage of someone's terminal illness. It almost offended me that he thought I would. I shook my head, wondering what awful, awful kind of people they were used to dealing with.
"Hear us out," said Terrance quickly. "You'll make a big profit, and you'll be safe. There's ways we can guarantee-"
"Oh no! That's not what I meant!" I put up my hands. "Yes, I'll do it. Mama has a medical bay, and she'll let you use it."
Terrance's shoulders perked up a little. Mick beamed.
"Cousin," said Terrance, "I think we finally got our break. Let's get you dressed." He looked at me. "You won't regret this. We can discuss payment with your mother when we arrive."
The idea of payment still made me uncomfortable, but I said nothing. I just holstered my gun.
We spent the whole day walking, or driving the bouncy truck across the wilderness, watching for a good path but also watching for bandits. Eventually, we got onto a ferry to get across the big lake, and we had a moment to rest.
It was a cold, clear, moonless night, and the temperature was nice, so we sat up on the deck of the ferry as it eased its way across the water. I sat with my legs tucked into a sleeping bag, my back propped up against my truck, staring up at the stars. Mick sat beside me. He looked up too, although he seemed distracted. He kept looking over at Terrance, who leaned over the guardrails, scanning the dark horizon.
"Hey," I told Mick, "You've got nothing to worry about now. I take this ferry all the time, and I can tell you security is pretty tight."
"Oh," Mick looked embarrassed. "I know we're safe here. These days, bandits don't go after barges anymore. They prey on people who travel in ones and twos."
I finished his thought for him. "Like you did."
"Yeah."
"It must have been so hard."
Mick drew up his knees and folded his arms over them. He sighed deeply. "You know..." He paused for so long that I thought he had dropped it. Then he went on, "Some of the time, I was more afraid of Terrance than of what some woman might do to me." His voice caught. "I mean, Terrance didn't abuse me or anything like that. He would've done anything for me, and I knew it. But I was worried I'd become like him. Do you know he's killed people?"
"People?" The plural struck me.
"I only saw it the one time, but... yeah." Another sigh. "Something went out of him. He used to be a nicer, friendlier guy. Now he's less like that."
I knew it was improper to touch him, but I couldn't restrain myself. As gently as I could, I put a hand on his. To my delight, he didn't flinch.
"Once we get me fixed up," he said, "we can focus on getting back on our feet. We weren't always scavengers, don't you know. I made him promise me that once this blows over, we can start over. Just... leave all the bad stuff behind."
I wanted to say something to encourage him, but there was something beautiful about the silence between us, and I didn't want to break it. I just squeezed his hand, a silent promise that everything would turn out alright.
* * *
That was half a year ago. The operation had gone just fine, and now Mick was as good as new. For payment—I still didn't like that word!—Mama had told the boys that they had to work here at the farm for a year. By the looks on their faces, it was clear they'd been expecting a much higher price. Even then, the deal was better than they knew. I didn't tell them so; I decided I'd let them find out by themselves.
