Дэвид Нордли - How Beer Saved the World

“Yes, Sir.” Jack felt that when dealing with uncompromising and efficient public officials, it’s best to keep answers short. Calling them ‘Sir’ didn’t hurt either.

“I see. Well, there should be no problem then. Unless, you have something else to tell me?” The cop let the question linger menacingly in the air.

“No, Sir.”

“Very well. Please proceed to the clinic for your mandatory health check while we perform a routine search of your ship.” Over his shoulder, Jack saw a squad of IPP cops advancing toward the Sundancer , scanners in hand. This was the part that always made Jack nervous. If just one of them decided to wash his hands the gig was up. Still, he had no choice. He walked to the clinic for the usual off-worlder’s med exam.

Of all the planets of the Confederation, Isis had the strictest health laws. Jack didn’t really blame them for that. After all, a plague almost wiped out the planet’s population within the first ten years of human colonization about a century ago. The medical and scientific types sealed themselves in quarantine and developed a cure, while the rest of the colonists died of the disease… or were changed by it. Those who caught it and lived mutated, and so too their descendants. Many folks said that mutants were filthy, crazy, and downright unstable. But Jack knew different. To his experience, mutants were just folk with no hair and jaguar spots on their skin. Still, that didn’t keep the Regime of Isis from exploiting and abusing them every chance it got. Damn shame, really.

Two hours later, Jack finished with his exam and the Sundancer’s search was over. Fortunately none of the Public Protectors needed to use the ship’s can. As the old lift-trucks arrived to unload the stuffed pandas, Jack decided to take his shore leave. Time to visit Chad.

Jack knew Chad from his Navy days. They served together on the CJS Olympus during the Tau-Ceti Crisis. Old Chad was one of those ‘spooks’ from Fleet Command who needed a closer look of the bad guys, and Jack had been just crazy enough to fly him there. The fact that Chad was of the bald and spotted set didn’t bother Jack a damn bit. A friend was a friend.

Jack knew the way to Chad’s house by heart. Just take the public tubes from the starport to the Dumpberg Station, and then walk six blocks to the old shantytown by the river.

As Jack approached the house, he noticed some things had changed a bit. For one thing Chad had fewer neighbors. A couple of lots were newly vacant and the char of fire stained the rubble-strewn ground. Chad’s house was perfectly intact but had a new steel door and a trip-wire fence. Otherwise, the outside looked like the same mud/brick/sheet-metal disaster Jack knew so well.

Chad must have seen Jack coming as he opened his front door wide. “Jack, you old nutcase! How ya’ doing?”

Jack regarded Chad’s stained, gray coveralls. “A lot better than you, shipmate! Where’s the suit and tie?” Work clothes were not Chad’s style. He had the noble bearing of a king among the peasants of the space-lanes, and usually dressed the part.

“Well, these days a mutie’ who puts on airs is asking for too much attention,” Chad said with a shake of his head. “You look like shit yourself. Come on in and take a load off.”

Jack walked past the battered porch and into the opulent living room. Chad’s missus was a fine lady from Central City. Her folks worked in the manor houses of Isis’s sovereign citizens, and she knew how to decorate. As Jack took off his old black leather jacket and draped it over a couch, he saw her enter the room with twin rug rats playing around her knees.

He could never keep them straight. There names were Ader and Adora, both cute as hell at eight years old. Nothing disarmed Jack faster than their dimples. He kept that to himself, however. Jack didn’t think he would make a very good father, not after his dad’s example anyway.

“Hello, Emma, those kids overrun you yet?” Jack said with a smile.

“Mr. Galloway, you know some people actually like raising children. A few of us even do it on purpose,” she said. Her regal smile and warm eyes beamed to him through her tan and cream spotted face. Turning to her kids, she said, “Now, go outside. It’s too nice of a day to play indoors.”

“But Mom…” the kids said in unison.

“No buts, out!” she said as she pointed at the door.

The girls turned to smile and wave to the visitor before scampering out of the house.

Jack returned the grin and waved ‘bye-bye.’ Then, the three friends sat down for some coffee and conversation on the soft couches that circled the living room.

“So, Jack, when are we going to hear the news that you’re settled down and raising children?’ Emma asked.

Jack’s eyes went wide as he turned and silently pleaded to Chad for help.

“Honey, Mr. Jack Galloway is definitely not the child raising type. He has one big kid that he looks out for, and that’s himself, and sometimes he’s not so good at that either. Like the time he got thirty days in the brig for hitting an officer,” Chad said with a roguish wink.

Emma smiled as she poured the coffee. “Smart man like you, Jack? Say it wasn’t so?”

Jack winced at the memory. “Stupid of me. The lieutenant was talking about a classified operation on the mess decks. Chad and I were doing a lot of recon flights over missile batteries back then. We found most of them through contacts Chad made on the ground.”

Chad nodded. “A lot of good people were taking big risks talking to me. If the Populists found out who tipped us off, they would’ve been happy to shoot ‘em. Jack met a few of my sources when he flew me to meets.”

“Yea, and there was this real good guy—Voss. I think you called him Voss?”

“That was one of his names,” Chad nodded as he smiled a Cheshire cat smile.

“Yea, anyway, Voss, real nice fellow. Always brought us a pie when we met him. Can you believe it? We’re meeting in a burnt out shack in the jungle and this guy brings a pie!”

“Quite a character,” Chad agreed with a chuckle. “The only people who knew that Voss was a source of mine were Jack, myself, and Lieutenant Hendri, the intelligence officer who read my reports.”

“And what a dumb-ass,” Jack chimed in. “One day I’m’ having my lunch on the Olympia’s mess deck, when this moron starts talking about our missions. Hendri wanted to impress some pretty ensign, I guess. Might have been trying to compensate for his size XL schnoze. Anyway, I tried to get him to shut up polite like, ‘Excuse me, sir. But do you really mean to be talking about that?’ I said. But this idiot was just too full of himself. Hendri says ‘Spacer, mind your damn place.’ So, I reached across the table and put my fist into his honker. It was too big a target to miss. The guy fell back in his chair with this ‘what the hell’ look on his face. Funniest thing I ever saw. Next thing I know, five marines are piling on top of me, and I’m off to the brig. God, I learned my lesson. There ain’t no beer in jail.”

“I got word from counterintelligence that there was a Populist sympathizer on the ship,” Chad said. “Jack, maybe if you hadn’t hit that little creep, Voss might not have made it to Earth. Last I heard he’s working at some restaurant and doing well for himself.”

“Selling pies?” Jack asked.

“Probably,” Chad answered.

Jack mulled it over. “Maybe, maybe not, Chad. I just wish I hadn’t had to share a cell with Petty Officer Kent. God what a whiner! But hey, thanks for the party when I got out.”

Chad smiled, “Least I could do.”

“Tell me about the party,” said Emma.