George Martin - Old Mars

Tyr repeated the question to the refugees, who answered him with confused expressions and bewilderment.

“They don’t understand,” Tyr said. “None of them have ever held or used currency before.”

In Praxis, all things were held in common, apportioned by the ruling Hegemony to each according to his needs. At least, that was the theory. In practice, most of the population lived in crushing poverty, assuming that it was simply their lot in life.

“Ask them what they have of value ,” Jason clarified. “They must have traded something precious to this merchant in exchange for passage—jewelry, heirlooms, goods. How much of that is left?”

Tyr relayed the question. The refugees looked from one to another, then answered.

“They gave everything they had of value to the Vendish merchant,” Tyr translated. “They have nothing left.”

Jason slammed a fist into the open palm of the other hand, seething with frustrated rage. He was angry at the Vendish merchant who had agreed to ferry the refugees and angry with the refugees themselves for clearly being duped.

“This ship wasn’t sailing them to freedom in Vend!” Jason shouted. “They were heading toward slavery !”

Tyr answered in a low voice, speaking for himself, not for the refugees. “Captain … Jason … they’ve been through so much already …”

“No,” Jason shot back, “they should know. You know what I’m talking about. Tell them !”

Tyr’s mandibles quivered, the native equivalent of a sigh. And then he turned back to the refugees, and in patient tones explained to them the reality of the situation.

Jason could follow little of what Tyr was saying, but it hardly mattered since he could guess. It was well-known on the sand seas that it was against the law in Vend to be a vagrant. And anyone who set foot in the waters of Vend was considered a vagrant if they could not establish proof of residency. Anyone who was apprehended on charges of vagrancy could buy their way out if they had sufficient funds to secure lodging. But if not, they would be arrested on the spot, declared guilty without a trial, and sold into indentured servitude. In theory, an indentured servant could eventually earn their way to freedom; in practice, it never happened.

It was easy to see what the master of this galleon had intended. The few trinkets and baubles he’d taken from the refugees might have had some minor value, but the real prize would come when they reached Vend. It was a common practice for the portmasters of Vend to make deals with ship captains to “arrange” for an unwanted or problematic crewman to be arrested for vagrancy, with the portmaster sharing the proceeds from the sale into indentured service with the captain who had supplied them. Some pirate captains even engaged in the practice, taking prisoners from among the crews of ships that they defeated and transporting them north to be sold into service. It effectively amounted to a kind of slave trade, but one that was entirely legal under the laws of Vend.

So the refugees had sailed away from one form of oppression, and had been heading right toward another.

From the howls of despair that they began to make, Jason could tell that Tyr had managed to get that point across.

“So what shall we do with them, then?” one of the pirates asked, once Jason and Tyr were back above deck.

The Argo had sailed up alongside the galleon, as the winds that had whipped up the sandstorm gradually died away, and now the entire crew had been made aware of the nature of their “plunder.” It simply remained to decide what they would do about it.

“What is to decide?” another pirate asked. “They are none of our lookout. The wind and the sand-sharks will see to them soon enough.”

Jason had to admit that the crewman was right about one thing, at least. From the deck of the ruined galleon, he could see the signs of sand-sharks skimming through the fine grains of desert sands, searching for prey. If the refugees were foolish enough to try to travel across—or rather through —the sands, they would not last long. Even assuming that their portable dispensers had enough water within them to keep the refugees from suffocating and desiccating in short order, the sand-sharks would make a meal of them soon enough.

But while that crewman, at least, seemed perfectly content to leave the Praxian refugees to their own devices, it was clear that others among the pirates were not as sanguine about the possibility. And his first officer in particular.

Tyr clutched the drystone pendant that hung from his breather, a haunted look on his face. Jason imagined that he must be remembering his own family and friends whom he had been forced to leave behind when the two of them escaped from a Praxian prison half a lifetime ago, and thinking about what horrors they might have endured because of their faith in the years since. In the faces of the despairing refugees, Tyr no doubt saw all of those people reflected.

“We could return them whence they came,” another said.

“Back into the oppression they narrowly escaped?” Tyr scoffed. “We would be condemning them to agony and death. Perhaps instead we could ferry them on to Vend. At least there they would have a chance at life.”

Another crewman made a gesture that carried much the same nuance as a human spitting on the ground in disgust. “At least the Praxians believe they serve a greater good. Those Vendish devils serve nothing but their own profits .”

“It would be a mercy to kill them ourselves and be done with it,” another pirate put in.

A ripple of nods among the other crewmen showed this would be an acceptable solution to the ethical dilemma for many of them.

Life on the red planet was hard and had produced cultures that tended to make hard decisions. But life on the sand seas was harder still.

“No,” Jason announced. “They’re coming with us.”

The crewmen all turned to him, some with confused looks, some with expressions of defensiveness.

“Come with us to where ?” Tyr asked. “You don’t mean to return them to Praxis, do you? Or ferry them to Vend? Either way you’ll be consigning them to oppression, death, or worse .”

Jason crossed his arms over his chest and shook his head.

“No, they’re coming back with us to Freehaven.”

The angry muttering from some of the crewmen made it clear this was not a solution they would have preferred. Jason hoped that it wouldn’t come to a vote.

Every member of the Argo’s crew had signed the Articles of Freehaven, the list of rules and regulations that governed the life of pirates on the red planet, both aboard their ships and at home in Freehaven. The Articles outlined, among other things, how plunder was to be spread among all the members of the crew, with a portion being set aside to contribute to Freehaven’s community coffers, to be doled out to residents in times of need. But perhaps more important, the Articles also specified who would lead, both ship and community, and when.

Jason was the captain of the Argo because he had been elected to the position by the crew, though they were technically the crew of the Sand-shark’s Tooth before Jason became her master and gave the ship a new name. Likewise, the headman of Freehaven was the captain who had been elected by the community at large to govern them.

But simply because Jason had been elected once did not mean that he held the post for life. Just as he had challenged the authority of his ship’s previous captain, so too might his crew challenge his. One method would be for enough of the crew to be dissatisfied with his command that they mustered the quorum necessary to call for a vote and simply elected a new captain. That was how Jason had come to command.