Steven Campbell - Suck My Cosmos

I stared at it for maybe five minutes.

I couldn’t tell where I was, where I was going, or what language the sign was written in. Ships weren’t nice square things. They had all sorts of levels on levels and split levels and levels occupied by cores and fuel tanks and water reserves and solar ballasts.

Forget it, I’ll just wander and look for people.

After maybe two turns, the clean, orderly ship became filled with junk. Giant metal bars, bolts, tools, wiring. There was one corridor I had to turn sideways and squeeze past crates.

Then in another area the ceiling was open and thick cables were hanging down to chest level. I wasn’t going to walk past that and risk getting electrocuted.

I turned around. Where was everyone?

Was this the ship’s defense strategy? If you could get past all these booby traps you could actually talk to someone?

I saw another set of directions and I almost laughed. It didn’t even have the same dimensions as the previous one. It was like they were describing different ships. And there were all sorts of strange codes everywhere.

The flooring I walked on alternated between aluminum, steel, steel mesh, some kind of tiling, and then:

“Oof!”

I fell through the floor and landed on the level below. It was only about a seven-foot fall, thankfully. I looked up and saw there was a panel missing from above. I hadn’t seen it because the floor above matched the one below and it sort of blurred. And it was also kind of dark.

“Hey!” I yelled. “Anyone here?”

I was wearing a good suit, foolishly thinking I was actually going to be speaking to Colmarians at some point instead of getting lost in the belly of a ship. This suit was not made for walking. Or moving. Or falling through floors.

I was sweating when I finally turned a corner and walked past a room and saw a man grinding away on a piece of metal with a big drill. He wore coveralls, goggles, and ear protection as he maneuvered the slab this way and that and poked holes in it.

I waited for him to be done, as I didn’t want to get closer to the loud drill, but he just kept drilling and drilling. Finally, I waved politely. Then waved impolitely. Then I walked in and hopped up and down waving my arm and Gravitonic gun.

He saw me and stopped the drill, took off his ear muffs, and stared a while.

I would say his skin color was oil and dirt. Maybe somewhere underneath that grime he actually had skin, but it hadn’t seen light in years. He had a thick, bushy black mustache and I wondered if it had once been white. Or at least not so black.

“Who you?” he asked, seeming not so much impressed as bewildered.

“I am Hank. I’ve been sent to talk to your people.”

“My people? What people?”

“Are you alone on this ship?”

“No. ‘Course not. Lots of people.”

“Yes. I’m sure. And they can speak, right? They have mouths and ears.”

“Yeah,” he said grudgingly.

“Then I would like to speak to them.”

“All of them? There’s like four hundred-odd Machinists on this boat.”

“Do you have any leaders? Heads? Bosses? Big guys? Gals? Anyone with less gunk on them than average?” I asked.

“The Master Machinists.”

“That sounds about right. Where can I find them?” I questioned.

“I don’t know. They move around like anyone else. Might be asleep for all I know.”

Why was it so hard getting information here?

“Let’s pretend you wanted to contact them. You,” I said, pointing so there was no confusion. “How would you get in touch with one?”

“I’d tele them.”

“Thank the Arches, I was beginning to think I would have to use telepathy,” I said.

“What?” he asked.

“Nothing. What are their names and numbers, if you don’t mind?”

I was standing in a large room with eight Master Machinists.

I was standing because it gave me a position of authority, and because my suit wasn’t tailored for sitting.

The Machinists looked kind of like fat rodents who had been rolled in grease and put into coveralls and overalls and boots and goggles and thick eyeglasses and gloves. They were the least fashionable people I had ever seen in my life. The bums in old Deadsouth had these guys beat for taste.

They were ugly as well. I mean, I know that wasn’t their fault. But they had flat noses and weak chins and bulging foreheads and every combination of physical traits that would make you not find someone attractive.

It was like a requirement or something. Master Machinists were master misshapen.

I was not the most handsome man in the galaxy by a long shot. But I could have been a runway model on this ship. They could put up posters of me and I expected it would stop traffic as the cross-eyed denizens stared in awe at my beauty.

The Machinists sat around a big table, curved from all the tools and equipment on its surface. There were piles of hardware all over the room and a giant black column that stood in the center that made it hard for me to see everyone at once.

The Master Machinists were all sitting as far away from each other as possible and didn’t know where to put their legs or their hands and fidgeted constantly. They also perpetually sniffled, coughed, and otherwise picked at themselves.

I guessed I was the first real visitor these people had in a long while.

“Hi,” I said with a smile. “I’m Hank from Belvaille.”

I waited for any recognition or questions or anything, but they just kept snuffling and snorting and digging in their ears. One guy was working on a small piece of electronics absently.

“I’ve come here with an offer,” I continued. “I’m requesting that you all…stop doing what you were doing and start doing…the other thing.”

I motioned with my hands as I said it, hoping that helped. I had no clue what I was saying of course, but I hoped they did.

No one said a word. Or at least not a Colmarian word. Maybe they spoke in coughs and throat clearings.

“Does, uh, that make any sense?” I prodded.

“Does what?” a Master Machinist in a brownish jumper asked. I got the sense his clothes used to be bright orange in some bygone era.

“What I said. To do the other thing,” I clarified.

They just sat there.

“You guys were under Ray’Ziel’s jurisdiction, right?” I asked.

“He’s dead,” another man said.

“Yes!” I said, happy someone had at least understood that. “He’s dead. But he had given you instructions. Or his people did. Or his people’s people.” I wasn’t sure how far down the line these Machinists were, but I suspected very far. “So you can stop doing what Ray’Ziel said to do, and do…the other thing.”

“But he’s dead,” someone in the corner stated.

“So you’re not doing anything because your City Councilman has died?”

“We don’t need a City Councilman,” a man with a beard so long he tucked it into his belt said.

“Of course you can work without a City Councilman. Just work on the other thing. Maybe you had two things you were working on?”

“There’s no Tech Sector City Councilman,” said a man with a voice so ragged it sounded like he had a mouthful of glass.

The scientists who worked in the Education Sector liked to call it “Tech.” They wanted to be thought of as professionals and not teachers. Of course, no one else cared what they wanted.

“Well, there’s still a City Council,” I smiled.

“Not for Tech Sector.”

I stood there quietly for a beat.

“Do you think just because Ray’Ziel died that you’re somehow out of Belvaille’s influence?”

“We got no City Council,” the brown jumper said.

I shook my head, trying to get the soot out of my ears.