Philip Palmer - Debatable Space

I take a freshly squeezed papaya juice, stiffened with old-fashioned Earth rum. Lena sips purified water, visibly horrified to notice there is a floor show featuring a snake, two naked women and a man with two penises.

Alliea tells a story about a boxing contest which Rob fought in a mining ship. His opponent had gone to the trouble of having metal knuckles surgically inserted under his skin. His gloves went over the steel knuckles, but every time Rob took a punch on the jaw there was an audible clank. Rob protested and asked for a metal-detector check of his opponent’s knuckleware. But the referee was entirely corrupt and allowed the contest to continue. Rob’s jaw was broken in four places but he ducked and weaved and kept landing body punches. Eventually the referee was blinded when the miner vomited blood in his face. Rob seized this moment and with twenty consecutive powerful punches he beat the referee to death then nodded to Alliea to throw in the white towel and concede defeat to the miner.

Alliea had, of course, bet against Rob. It was a triumphant payday. But not, Alliea explained with a sly grin, not, on account of Rob’s shattered jaw, a night for cunnilingus. We laugh at the vulgar punchline of her story, which she tells with a glorious economy of phrase. Damn, I think I’m in love with this woman. I always have been, in fact. I fear that on occasion, at some deep and warped subconscious level, I’ve allowed Rob to be in greater danger than was strictly necessary, in the hope he’d die and leave me his woman.

Now he’s dead and his woman isn’t available after all. Alliea is in mourning. I’d forgotten she came from one of the Community of Christianity planets, and belongs to a sect that ritually celebrates the mutilation and execution of the Christ Prophet. I’m an Anti-Secter myself and I’d always assumed that religion had been discredited after the horrors of the Church of the New Millennium all those years ago. But Alliea’s people colonised their planet with zeal and Baptist and Methodist ideals, and Alliea still has some of their juice in her blood.

But how can you remember and love the man you loved, when he’s dead and gone? Isn’t it time she moved on and forgot the bastard?

I swill another papaya and rum, struck with a sudden melancholy. Harry’s telling one of his stories now. It’s the story of an epic run he made across the surface of his home planet during one of their interminable wars. Harry was a national hero then, though now he’s a pariah, blacklisted and under sentence of death.

Brandon is listening intently, chipping in with witty asides that bolster Harry’s story. Kalen is slightly detached, in her ethereal way. I wonder why I have never desired Kalen. Is it because of her cat genes? That slight air of aloofness she carries?

I realise I am drunker than I ought to be and I pop a stim pill.

Jamie attempts a story. He quickly flounders. He has no adventures to tell, he is a child-man who lives in his own head. He starts getting resentful and angry as he realises no one is interested in his inane rambling, but nonetheless we keep up a show of attention and responsiveness. Because he may be a brat – but he’s our brat, and we love him.

Lena is soaking it all up. I can tell she likes the camaraderie, the storytelling, the easy assumption that we are a gang, and we go everywhere together.

Kalen turns to Lena. “What’s your story?”

“I’m not a great raconteuse,” Lena says easily.

“Neither is Jamie. Boy that story sucked.”

“Fuck off, I was just getting warmed up.”

“Tell us about the Bug Wars. Tell us about how you led humanity.”

“Nothing to tell. It’s in the history books.”

“Your role is traditionally underplayed.”

“That’s because I didn’t do too much.”

“You’ve always been a heroine for me. For one woman to have done so much.”

“You’re fannykissing me, please don’t.”

“Uh-oh.”

“I once went to a planet,” says Brandon, “where sex was…”

“Hostiles, two o’clock.”

Lena looks blank. I shift and see Black Jack’s men moving in on us.

“You got a problem?” I call out.

“We have unfinished business.”

“A trade’s a trade,” I say, reasonable. “ Caveat emptor.”

Black Jack throws a knife at my throat. I catch it and throw it back. He catches it by the blade.

“We can settle this in the tournament hall,” Alliea suggests reasonably. Two of Black Jack’s crew swing at her. She ducks and comes up punching.

Kalen is flying through the air. Black Jack has never seen a cat-human before and can’t quite believe her flared nostrils and hissing technique. And she’s fast too.

I move in punching. I take some killer blows to the head and fall to the ground. Panicking, I use a ring laser to cut a hole in the floorboard and I fall through and crash on to a card table below. Damn! I’ve broken my back. I clamber to my feet, fighting past the pain, using meditation skills to engage my leg muscles despite the vertebral snap.

I look up. Lena is watching, amused, detached, as the brawl continues around her. Jamie bites and kicks and shocks Black Jack’s men with the power in his tiny frame. Brandon and Alliea work together smoothly as a team. But Kalen is the dangerous one, with her long-limbed kicks and effortless fingerstrikes.

Black Jack steps to one side. Takes Lena’s head in his hands. And kisses her. It’s an overt proposition: join my crew.

She nods and smiles and takes his hand. This isn’t entirely going to plan.

A random punch hits Lena, and suddenly exasperated she strikes out and shatters an arm. Black Jack beams, and leads Lena away. The man with two penises is doing things that no lady should ever witness, but Lena stares at it unflinchingly.

And I feel a garrotte around my throat. My enemies have followed me. I am barely able to move. The garrotte bites in. Kalen sees and dives down to help, but suddenly she has a knife in her throat.

Lena watches it all, amused.

Harry is there, and bites the head off the man who is garrotting me.

Black Jack whispers in Lena’s ear. She gives him a second look. He is swarthy, bearded, repulsive. This is a man who used to kill babies to liven up those dull winter evenings.

Lena suddenly backs away. Harry and Kalen are dragging me out of the saloon. We are defeated, retreating. Lena follows us. Black Jack scowls and grabs her and his men secure her with brutal armlocks.

I am looking away as Lena launches her counterattack. I hear screams and cries behind me.

Eventually I am aware of Lena at my side.

“That must hurt like the very devil,” she murmurs to me.

“I’ve had worse,” I tell her.

We leave. The moon is high in the sky, blazing out purple gases. The bitter wind whips us. We head back for our ship.

Flanagan

“That went badly,” says Brandon.

“Yup,” I reply.

“Hsss,” groans Kalen, her larynx transplant still raw and painful.

I am consumed by a black melancholy.

This is what happens when you try to play God. I had a game plan mapped out that involved Black Jack, Lena, and an all-out fight. Lena would see us struggling and would come to our rescue, cementing the bond between us. Black Jack was, of course, paid in advance to pull his punches so that no one was in any severe danger.

But ten years ago I shafted Black Jack on a booty trade. He has nursed his grudge since then, and took this opportunity to beat me and kill me. As a result, I have a smashed spine and half-severed head. Lena did in fact – eventually! – rally to our cause. But it wasn’t part of the plan that I should have a broken back. Pain surges up and down my old and battered body. I long to die, to release myself from self-inflicted torment.