Хосе Гомес - A Planet for Rent

I swear I tried to be nice to the little slut. I thought it was what she needed; she looked so nervous after one of those suicidal Xenophobe Union maniacs started a shootout. Though we neutralized him right away. And one of my agents got a little rude with her. I tried to fix things up—and, see what you get. Seems the girl didn’t like my style. And she complained to headquarters.

Happens every day. Normal procedure is, you file the complaint and that’s that. But some grodo had picked this Buca for incubation, so I was screwed. Complaints from the xenoid big fish always cause a stink in the corps—and that’s never good for us little guys. Something you’d better start learning now. Result? Sergeant Romualdo gets a full month of street patrols, night patrol every third night, and a cut in salary.

Hope nothing like this ever happens to you.

Though, if my nose isn’t mistaken, you’ll go far. Think that’s funny? Whatever. Sergeant Romualdo Concepción Pérez rarely goes wrong in his predictions. I see a very promising career here waiting for you in Planetary Security. As clear as I see your face right now. I’d even dare to bet that, if you put nose to the grindstone a little, you’ll make NCO at least in a couple of years.

Me? Been sergeant twelve years now. But don’t think I envy you for that. In this life, everybody gets as far as they’re gonna get. I have no complaints, sergeant’s fine with me. When it comes right down to it, though I’ve picked up some culture, I’m still a poor ignoramus who has a hard time reading.

But you, with the schooling you’ve got… IQ of 148, and you can tell you’re educated. Mind if I ask you a question? Just out of curiosity, why didn’t you finish your degree in fission engineering, if you were already in your fifth year and you just had two more to go?

Oh, sure, financial problems. Can I guess? Your parents were paying for college, and all of a sudden business slowed down for them… Oh, an aerobus accident? Sorry, kid… Guess you’d rather not talk about it…

Lots of guys go into Planetary Security for the same reason. As unpopular as the corps is, it’s one of the few places that’s always posting new jobs. And compared with the crumbs you get paid for any other job on this planet, our 350 credits a month isn’t so bad, is it? Especially when you think that they don’t require prior experience or training. Everything you need they teach you in the Academy, eh?

How do I know what you studied? Come on, kid, I just read your file… Sure, it’s supposedly private, only officers know the access code and blah blah blah… but being practically an oldtimer in the district gives you certain privileges, even on the computer.

Illegal? No, I wouldn’t go so far as to say illegal. Just… unconventional. If we’re going to be partners, it’s only logical I oughta be a little curious about your bio, right?

Besides, I don’t know what you have to be ashamed of, your record’s impeccable.

I could tell from the start, you were good material. I’ve been observing you for days, and I like what I see: enthusiastic kid, a little impulsive, only natural at your age. Twenty-four, right? But you think before you act. In this line of work, that’s the key thing.

Besides, I’ve come to like you, though you’re pretty quiet. Or maybe that’s why. Listen before you talk. I hate those smart-alecky cadets who graduate from the Academy and think right away they know everything because they’ve had a few practice hours on the simulators. The best school, the only school that really matters, is the street. Here in the daily grind, this is where you truly learn. Your whole life long. Tell me if it isn’t true: you never graduate from the street, and you never finish learning all its rules.

The rules of the Great Game.

Yep, Markus…. Life is a Great Game, and an agent has to know its rules like the back of his hand… especially if he hopes to advance his career, like I suppose you do. To be a winner, not a loser.

You don’t catch where I’m going? Oh, kid, come on…

I’m gonna tell you a little story to help you understand. You like stories? Good thing.

When I was a rookie agent like you, I also served with an old sergeant, like me now. I remember him like it was yesterday. Aniceto Echevarría was his name. A good guy, generous, brave. The wackos from the Xenophobe Union wiped him out, and to avenge him we spilled a lot of blood. Whoever we wanted.

How time flies. It’s been a long time since then, yeah…

Well, turns out poor Aniceto was crazy about raising fish. He read lots of stuff about it and he was always talking about exotic species of saltwater fish and freshwater fish, artificial food, live bait, temperatures, the pH of the water… And about his “little collection,” as he called it, with more love in his voice than some parents show when they talk about their own kids.

One day, two weeks into partnering with him on street patrol, he invited me over to his house, and… Stop thinking those nasty thoughts, Markus: Aniceto was all man. Me too. So wipe that little smirk off your face or I’ll get angry.

Ok, that’s better.

It was a tiny one bedroom, but beautiful. Nice furniture, full of appliances, but no glitz or ostentation. What especially caught my eye was how many huge fish tanks he had everywhere. His “little collection” was almost better equipped than the Great Aquarium of New Miami, believe me. With aerators, a gas recycling system… the works. And he had so many fish—and what fish! No lie, old Aniceto had managed to put maybe half a million credits worth of fish behind those glass walls.

And when I, dazzled by all that beauty, naively asked him how he could support such an expensive hobby on a sergeant’s pay, he just smiled. He stroked his mustache and showed me something I’ll never forget.

At the bottom of one of his saltwater fish tanks he had this huge thing. It looked like a flower with a thick stalk and semitransparent reddish petals that swayed in the gentle current of the water. A beautiful underwater flower…

But it was a voracious animal. What I had thought were petals turned out to be tentacles that could release a powerful toxin. In the middle was its mouth, always hungry.

What? It’s called an anemone? Well, if you say so… I’m a simple ignorant sergeant. What do I know about critters.

Aniceto told me to keep an eye on the anemo-thingy. It was beautiful. Really beautiful. And I thought it was even more beautiful when a mid-sized fish swam by and got caught by its lethal tentacles, torn to shreds, and gulped down in a matter of seconds. There was an innocent cruelty in that act.

The best part is that earlier, lots of other much smaller fish had been swimming around it, and nothing had happened to them.

I called Sergeant Aniceto over to show him, amazed. But he just glanced at the deal and told me, “Keep on looking. Look very closely now, Romualdo.”

And that was when I realized, Markus, that this wonderful, deadly creature was now surrounded by other little fish. Red, blue, and violet, painted like clowns. They were nibbling at the remains of the bigger fish that had gotten stuck in the tentacles, and they seemed immune to the terrible toxin. Now and then they would corner some unlucky little animal that had lost its way in the forest of tentacles, and they would devour it. The huge beast let them do it. Afterward they even hid out among the poisonous tentacles.

Oh… symbiosis, you say? Okay, then, symbiosis.

So Aniceto put his arm over my shoulders and said, “That poisonous animal is the Law. Or all of Planetary Security, if you prefer. It’s like a blind net, but it has a mind. It doesn’t care about the tiny fish, so it lets them be. Same with the really big fish, which are so strong they might cause problems. It’s just the mid-sized fish that are food. Those, it attacks.”