SALVAGERS

BOOK EXCERPT

***

SALVAGERS

A Novel by John Glenn Burke

***

How rich would you be if you lost all your money?

Dax Goodman, the last surviving Doctor of Theology, finds himself marooned on a frontier outpost far from Earth on a space station that is the ultimate expression of unrestrained, Godless capitalism. His money and possessions lost, his financial situation quickly spirals out of control, causing his travel permit to be revoked until he pays back the money he owes.

When his doctorate is mistaken for a medical degree, he is compelled to work as a medic on a grungy salvage ship crewed by eccentric, seemingly suicidal harbour workers until he can find his way home.

***

Engineer Arbutus Eaton felt mildly disturbed as he stood in the opened doorway of a business-class cabin of the Interstellar Transport Ship Hammond. He looked around the comically too-small room with considerable discomfort. It wasn’t the relative grandeur that made Arbie uncomfortable. He had seen such things before. The kind of opulence wealthy, planet-born passengers needed to make themselves feel less anxious about travelling the admittedly frightening expanses of space. He could kind-of understand that.

Like most space-born humans, Arbie usually had a problem with organics of any kind. The golden-brown, faux-wood walls of the cabin would ordinarily have caused him some discomfort, to his eye looking dirty and rectangular when compared to the machine-formed contours of the plaz-steel walls he had grown up with. This had to do with life and death, really. Organics didn’t hold up very well in space, being too easily broken down by radiation and magnetic fields. But he understood that the wood-textured plaz-steel walls were just a poor substitute for wood, and so they were not the immediate cause of his anxiety.

No, what really disturbed Arbie Eaton most was the planet-born human sleeping in the stateroom’s almost full-sized bed. Plastered on the wall like bug splatter on a windshield, the man slept fitfully under the zero-gravity restraints, his body angled to take advantage of the longest axis of the sleeping surface, his bare feet protruding from under the covers and dangling over the edge. Arbie had to crane his neck sideways to get a good look at him.

Arbie had never really had a problem with planet-born humans per se. The space station had more than a few of them, and most were all right. True, their habits sometimes made him cringe. They ate food grown in dirt, with bugs and bacteria crawling around in it. Some even bragged about eating organic food, which meant there were no chemicals to kill the bugs, and no genetic modifications to enhance the nutritional content. He had even heard that some of them ate animal flesh, though he didn’t really want to think about anything so disgusting. Some even wore chemical perfume that made them smell like flowering plants, something he could never really understand. They changed clothes sometimes every day. And almost all of them insisted in showering repeatedly, something he thought was excessively wasteful, especially when it came to a precious resource like water. Besides, the risk of drowning in a zero-g condensation shower seemed foolish, all for the dubious pleasure of smelling like an organic.

Some of these planet-born humans even claimed they missed walking around, unprotected, in open spaces on the surface of a planet, feeling the unfiltered rays of the sun penetrating their skin. He had even seen some whose skin had temporarily turned brown from the exposure. The very thought of unprotected open spaces above him caused him to shiver. He took great comfort in being able to reach up and touch the ceiling, even one made of fake wood.

Nothing about the engineer fit with the pseudo-art deco of the elaborate stateroom. Tall and skinny like all space-born humans, Arbie had been forced to remove his head gear and hunch his shoulders to stay clear of the ceiling. Despite only being in his mid-thirties, long exposure to radiation had created an intricate roadmap of lines on his angular face. Most of the gear he wore was home made. His personal gravity unit, mounted in its harness near his centre of mass, looked antique and worn; polished like an old bronze door handle. An elaborate, slightly over-sized, plaz-steel mechanical arm was attached to his shoulder with a composite nylon and plastic harness that looked as if it was bolted directly to his chest. A tan, simulated-leather glove covered the metal and electric components of the hand, making the artificial appendage appear almost real at first glance.

Arbie had always worn the title of ‘harbour rat’ with a small amount of pride. Like most of them, he didn’t experience a shower nearly as often as planet-born humans would have liked. Since his working clothes were anti-bacterial and self-cleaning, he saw little need to change them. And, because of his job, there were few occasions where work clothes were not appropriate. Given time, the stains would eventually fade away, though, lately, there hadn’t been much time off to allow the clothes to do their work.

Arbie didn’t particularly enjoy being disturbed by unexpected planet-born humans where there shouldn’t really have been one. Fortunately, he had the perfect cure for any sort of consternation he might experience while navigating the stresses of his job. With precise dexterity, he used his mechanical hand to pull a large marijuana joint from his pocket. He wet the cigarette in his mouth, lighting it from an electric match that popped out from a cavity in the wrist. He took a long, deep drag on the cigarette, allowing the effects of the smoke time to settle into his lungs. He cleared his throat, hoping the unwelcome passenger would wake up before his boss arrived. There was no response.

The biometric scanner on his belt beeped. He ignored it.

The remote sensor in the medical scanner was based on a simple principle: it scoured the electromagnetic fields of a ship for the distinctive electrical impulses generated by the Vagus nerves that regulated the heart beat and breathing in human beings. The half-metre long nerve that regulated the sinoatrial node in the heart was like an antenna that ran from the brain to the heart. It produced the strongest patterned electromagnetic signal in the human body, making it relatively easy for the scanner to recognize and amplify. Since each person’s electrical pattern was as unique as a fingerprint, it was an ingenious method of remotely identifying and tracking someone. But, for some reason, this particular planet-born human’s electrical signature didn’t show up on his scanner at all; yet another reason why Arbie was slightly disturbed with what he had found on the ISTS Hammond.

The scanner beeped again. He sucked another drag of the joint.

Arbie’s experience had given him some confidence in his abilities as a medic, but it un-nerved him to think that there might be a flaw in the design of the biometric scanner, since he depended on the device as a substitute for actual medical training. Decades earlier, when he had initially applied for work off-station, an error in the paperwork had listed him as a medic. Medical databases had become so sophisticated that there was little need for him to have any actual medical knowledge, so he simply learned the basics on the job. The sight of blood had never really bothered him and his engineering skills offered him enough physical dexterity to take care of any surgical procedures that might arise, which was extremely rare.

While he certainly wasn’t a qualified medic, he wasn’t an Engineer in the conventional sense, either. He had learned how to build things in the most practical way possible, by actually building stuff. He wanted to be a ship’s engineer mostly because he enjoyed the idea of getting stoned and wandering about in the silence of space, which is exactly as dangerous as it sounds. Hardly one with the patience to sit long in a classroom, he had simply taken the engineering test, failed it, but kept a copy as a guide for his research. He expanded on his practical skills and burned through the second test with relative ease. As a result, he became the only flight officer at the Midway Station who was certified as both medic and engineer. His boss loved this of course, since he only had to deal with one crew member and pay one salary. As the engineer of the commercial salvage tug Arnot, Arbie’s practical skills had proven far more valuable than any conventional engineering training could have.

Another drag. Another beep.

Arbie cleared his throat louder. “Flockin’ sheep,” he said quietly. A curse. His boss wasn’t going to like this.

In the bed, the unwelcome passenger stirred a bit but still didn’t wake up.

“Awwh, do us a favour! What kinda bloody effen balls-up is this?”

The angry voice behind him belonged to his boss, Captain Sedric Sharples. Another harbour rat, Sedric looked like a refugee from a bad sci-fi movie. Space-born, with an indeterminate commonwealth accent that Arbie was convinced had to be a put-on; Sedric’s face showed the years of radiation exposure even more than most. His flight suit looked like it had never been washed, stretching the considerable abilities of the micro machines that had been assigned to clean it. A crudely-built leg brace caused Sedric to walk with a visible limp. Arbie sometimes suspected that it was the brace—and not a bad leg—that caused the limp. Despite Arbie’s repeated offers to build him a new one, Sedric had stubbornly refused. Over the years, Arbie had come to see a certain integrity in his boss’s complete and persistent lack of concern over people’s impression of him.

Pushing his way into the now overcrowded room, Sedric bent over the unwelcome passenger, his face an exaggerated expression of disgust, the image to which Dr. Goodman finally woke up.

***

Dr. Dax Goodman had been dreaming about pirates. The kind of pirate with an eye patch and a tree branch for a leg. As a result, he wasn’t sure if the face he saw in front of him as he opened his eyes was part of his dream about pirates, or another invasion by actual space pirates. As he processed the image, which took a remarkably long time, he wasn’t sure if there was a reason to be concerned. The man was so close to a parody of a pirate that he had to assume that he was still dreaming. While this manifestation from a fictional past didn’t have an eye patch, his left eye appeared remarkably unsteady, as if having an argument with the right eye about where they should be looking. The man’s teeth were relatively intact, unlike many of the admittedly limited number of pirates Goodman remembered, but the man’s twisted sneer looked ready to growl out “Arrgh, matie!” or some similar cliché at any moment. While he didn’t wear a tricorn hat, the man’s hair appeared at a loss what to do without one. After a long moment, it finally settled into Dr. Goodman’s mind that the face in front of him wasn’t a dream-induced parody of a pirate, but a real live human being.

“Ahhhhhhh!!!!!”

“Arrrrrrrrrrgh!!!!!” the pirate captain replied, not to be out-shouted. He then turned on his companion, a painful screech of metal proving the man’s leg was not wood—as many pirates allegedly were—but encased in some sort of metal prosthesis, well rusted. “I thought you said this grotty scow was abandoned?”

Goodman thought the pirate captain sounded not-quite British, but not Australian or South African, either. He tried and failed to remember the word for British pirates. He knew there was one. Maybe this is what a real space pirate looks like?

“Thought it was abandoned,” the Pirate Captain’s mate replied, offering little reaction to his boss’ anger. “Biometrics said there weren’t no heartbeats. Nothin’. Be kinda wotty for someone to stay on a ship plunging into a star.”

“Who’s that toff gorby, ‘en? What kinda skive medical officer you supposed to be?”

“A really bad one.” his partner said, taking a small drag of his smoke. “You know that.”

“Thank God you’re here,” Goodman said, finally finding the right sequence of facial muscles that allowed him to smile. “I thought I was dead for sure.” The two ratty men who hovered over him might well be pirates, but at least they were mostly human, ignoring the parts of each of them that were obviously mechanical. He felt there had to be at least some chance to negotiate with them. Anything was better than trying to negotiate with an uncooperative corporate computer. “I’m Dr. Dax Goodman. I’m—”

“Well, he’s frozen, ain’t he?” the pirate captain’s partner said with a smirk. “Maybe he’ll make a deal?”

“I’m runnin’ a bloody salvager, not a rescue ship!” the pirate captain shouted back with some dismay.

“You see my ship’s about to crash into the sun,” Goodman said, hoping the urgency of his predicament would get their attention.

“No purchase, no pay! Remember that?” the pirate captain lamented, ignoring Goodman in favour of berating his partner. “Been telling you that donkey’s years!”

“Now you mention it, I seem to remember you saying something along those lines,” his partner said calmly, a slight frown on his face. Using his mechanical fingers, he delicately picked a small amount of tobacco from the tip of his tongue.

“Please help me,” Goodman pleaded. “I’ll give you whatever you want.” Still no response. He hoped they weren’t as deaf as the captain’s shouts in the confined space of the stateroom suggested. They evidently neither heard him nor saw him. “Ah, excuse me.” He waved his hand in a futile attempt to get their attention. “Who are you people?”

“We could just kill him?” the captain’s mate suggested casually. “I mean, he’s dead anyway, right?”

The pirate captain looked at Goodman, considering this for a moment.

“Just a suggestion,” the captain’s mate said through a cloud of pot smoke.

“Keep yer bloody suggestions to yerself!” the Pirate Captain yelled before he scowled and stomped noisily out of the room, his rusty leg brace protesting with a loud squeak. He kicked aside Goodman’s neatly stacked baggage outside the door.

“Whatever ya say boss,” his partner said. He puffed his joint, dragged deep, and followed him out.

Goodman realized they were leaving without him. “Wait, wait! Where are you going?” He scrambled out of the gravity restraints, maddeningly trying to activate his personal gravity unit. Once his Gecko deck shoes were planted firmly on the floor, he was finally able to grab his robe and chase after them. He finally managed to get out of the stateroom just in time to see them turn a corner. Robe only part way on, he tried to gather his belongings as he shouted after them: “Excuse me! Will you wait? Please!” He activated the Artificial Intelligence of his luggage so that they would follow him. The unnecessarily intelligent bags held all his worldly possessions. When he left Earth for the alien planet, he had purged everything, little of what he owned then being of much use where he was headed. Clutching the bonsai, he scrambled down the corridor in pursuit of his would-be rescuers, his luggage frantically following him on their magnetic wheels.

The two men had made their way to the same bulkhead hatchway where Goodman had been abandoned once before. Now blasted away even further, the open hatch revealed the corridor of a different—but only marginally better—ship now jutting off at a completely different but equally crazy angle as the one before. The sound of escaping air was alarmingly loud and it looked like the bulkhead’s hatch was no longer functional.

The pirate captain continued to berate his partner as they easily navigated the transition between the angled decks of the two ships. “All you had to do, mate, was make sure there was nobody aboard. You’re just playing silly buggers with me.”

“Biometrics showed there weren’t nobody aboard.”

“Where’d that munter come from, then, eh?”

“Who knows, boss.”

“Well he’s thrown in a spanner hasn’t he?” the pirate captain said, throwing up his hands. “And now it’s all a shambles. The whole lot’s down the pan and I’m in it for the difference. Why’d I keep a foggy bastard like you around, anyway?”

“‘Cause nobody else will put up with ya, boss,” Arbie, ignoring his boss’ fury. He blanked the joint on his tongue and smiled.

The pirate captain took a moment but wasn’t able to counter the claim. “Arse!” He switched his gravity unit back on and righted himself in the corridor of the other ship and stalked away.

“I still think we should just kill him,” the captain’s mate said calmly before following his boss up the crazily angled deck.

Meanwhile, Goodman struggled down the corridor of the Hammond, trailing his luggage, the magnetic wheels of the suitcases bumping unevenly over the bent floor panels. “But . . . wait! You can’t just leave me here!” he yelled. He was determined he was not going to miss a second opportunity to escape his fate on the Hammond. Taking only his carry-on bag and the bonsai tree, he delicately navigated the transition to the artificial gravity of the other ship. Unfamiliar with the controls on his gravity unit, he was unable to quickly orient himself to the new gravitational field. Activating the magentics on his carry-on bag, he attached it to the wall near the mangled bulkhead. He crawled to the companionway of the other ship, placing the bonsai carefully on the floor and activating the magnetic base. By the time he regained his footing, the two men had disappeared.

Goodman felt a sickening sensation as the floor of the companionway moved under him. Then the movement stopped and nothing happened for what felt like an eternity. Maybe they heard him finally? His carry-on bag remained tantalizingly close, just a few yards away. All his money and his travel documents were in that bag. He decided to risk it. “Wait! Let me get my things!” He rushed to the companionway’s air-lock, but the hatch slammed closed in front of him. He ran into it with full force, sprawling back onto the deck in a daze. As he struggled to get up, a jolt threw him off balance again as the companionway retracted from the transport ship’s hull.

“My bags! They’re still on the ship!”

Still dazed, Goodman scrambled to the hatchway window. The ship powered up its massive engines and flew off, scattering the trail of debris that spewed from the open hull of the now derelict ISTS Hammond. He could only watch helplessly as virtually everything he owned was sucked into the vacuum of space.

***

Salvagers, A Novel

By John Glenn Burke

415 pages. Available in hardcover, paperback, or Ebook

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SALVAGERS

BOOK EXCERPT

***

SALVAGERS

A Novel by John Glenn Burke

***

How rich would you be if you lost all your money?

When his doctorate is mistaken for a medical degree, he is compelled to work as a medic on a grungy salvage ship crewed by eccentric, seemingly suicidal harbour workers until he can find his way home.

***

Salvagers, A Novel

By John Glenn Burke

Available at Chapters/Indigo:

Available at Apple Books:

Available at Amazon.com:

Available at Amazon.ca:

Available at Indiebound:

Available at Barnes & Noble:

Available at Rakuten/Kobo:

Available at Smashwords:

Available at Kindle:

When his doctorate is mistaken for a medical degree, he is compelled to work as a medic on a grungy salvage ship crewed by eccentric, seemingly suicidal harbour workers until he can find his way home.