Trigun Fan Fiction ❯ Children of the Pebble ❯ From Somewhere Out Of Nowhere ( Chapter 9 )

Children of the Pebble

By “Clinesterton Beademung”, with all of love.

 

Disclaimer: “Trigun” © its respective creators and owners. I do this for fun, not profit. So there.

 

Comments and criticism welcome.

 

Chapter Nine - From Somewhere Out Of Nowhere

---

On Inepril 14th, 132 F.A., at approximately four o'clock in the morning, a square of metal fell from the sky above September City.

The first eyewitness account came from the mother superior of the Sisters of Perpetual Grace, who awoke to a motion in the earth that knocked her from her bed. In the convent's backyard she found a square hole in the ground, twenty yarz on a side, where the convent's chicken coop used to be. Thirty of the birds were killed. No report on the number of eggs lost was filed.

The astonished constables at the scene relayed the convent's call to city hall, whereupon the city government contacted September's contingent of Plant engineers and sent them to investigate.

The engineers determined that the artifact was made of hullmetal, yet showed no signs of the damage or re-entry scoring normally found on deorbited remnants of the Fall. The edges were sharp and perfect, the surface glassy and smooth, as if the plate had emerged that morning from the Old Earth forge that had created its countless millions of ruined replicas. “I was afraid to touch it, it was so beautiful,” one engineer reported.

Subsequent examination of Plant A-3's activity logs showed a correlation between the time of the event and a power diversion to a little known and less understood subroutine in the Plant's diagnostic systems. The consensus among those present was that the problem was beyond their collective knowledge and experience and there was no known way, short of shutting down the Plant, of preventing such a thing from happening again. This finding was presented to an emergency meeting of the September City Council. The vote to shut down the Plant and contact the Marius Breskin Cantackle Industrial Union was one vote short of unanimous.

Elizabeth closed the binder containing the city's report and tossed it aside, pleased to learn September had such site engineers, nominal colleagues, who knew what they didn't know. She stretched in the command chair, satisfied with the progress of Plant A-3's maintenance and diagnostic cycle. The senior members of her team shouted orders to their new crop of apprentices and the kids obeyed, putting away tools and breaking down test equipment.

She needn't have bothered with this. Elmore Ettiore, her most experienced engineer and her second in command, had brass enough to say as much. “You're just taking up space and making the children nervous,” he'd said. He was probably right. Any one of her apprentices had enough knowledge to sit in this chair and watch indicator lights turn green.

Repairing a Plant was like parenting at times. There were Plants that responded to straightforward single-key commands like a proper machine, others that seemed to argue and pose alternatives, requiring a labyrinthine navigation of the command paths and control algorithms. This one had pouted like a spoiled toddler. If Elizabeth hadn't known better, if she weren't absolutely sure this was nothing more than a mechanism, albeit one so advanced and mysterious it might as well be magical, she could've sworn that her ministrations amounted to nothing more than giving the little monster a spanking and sending it to bed without dinner.

That'll teach you to throw hull plates around, she thought, watching the idiot lamps on the maintenance panel blink. Was it sulking? She didn't care, as long as it started behaving itself. She would know in another twenty minutes.

“Long day, boss,” Elmore said, flopping into the seat beside hers. He smelled of solder and burnt insulation, the perfume and cologne of their profession. “Why don't you take a break, let me or one of the kids do this?”

“I am,” Elizabeth said. “This is me, taking a break.”

“You work too hard. It's starting to show, if I may say so.”

“That may be, but I'm afraid we don't have much choice.” This year's class of apprentices was the smallest in the Union's hundred-year history.

Elmore snorted and crossed his soot-streaked arms. “Someone needs to have a talk with those Inepril people,” he said.

“They never did strike me as terribly bright.”

“That's what scares me.”

Elizabeth waited out the Plant's foul mood until all the status indicators stopped blinking and turned green. The apprentices—boys fresh out of December Academy, except for one young woman from the Max Simon School for whom Elizabeth had high hopes—filed past, grimacing and perspiring under their loads of luggage and equipment. Elizabeth thanked them in silence. No bunch of whiners, these kids. Not at all like this petulant Plant.

A red switch labeled ONEIROSTAT protruded from the control panel. Elizabeth lifted the safety cover, flipped the steel toggle from STANDBY to ENABLE, and snapped the cover closed. The toddler was on its own.

“And that's that,” Elizabeth said.

“Good work, boss.”

“Couldn't have done it without you, El. Unfortunately, I'll have to from now on.”

Elmore laughed. “Fired again? Only the second time this year.”

“You should be so lucky. No, I just found out this morning, before we left. The Union's giving you a team. Congratulations. And El?”

“Yes, ma'am?”

“It's just Elizabeth now, all right?”

“Yes ma'am, just Elizabeth ma'am.”

Elmore retired to a restroom to clean himself up, and when he emerged Elizabeth followed him to the exit hatch, squinted into the late afternoon suns. Elmore stood close to her and offered his arm.

“Join me for dinner on the steamer, Elizabeth?” he said.

“Why, Mr. Ettiore,” she said, “I'd be honored.” Elizabeth curled her hand around his bicep, let it rest on his thick forearm. She opened her parasol and reflected, as she did after every successful job, on how good it was to be the top Plant engineer in the world, to stroll down a sidewalk of a great and vibrant city in the company of—a good-looking man, she was surprised to discover. On the job he was all greasy hands and hard work and shouted orders, but out here he carried himself with such quiet, noble dignity that her ever present crowd of admirers parted like the wind on a sand steamer's bow before him.

Elizabeth studied his calm face from beneath her hat brim. Yes, very good looking indeed. Competent as hell, too, but that didn't seem important now…

Through the handle of her parasol Elizabeth felt something strike it, as if fingers were drumming the taut fabric. Elmore stopped, held his hand palm up and looked at the sky. She was about to upbraid him for his juvenile prank when she noticed the townspeople doing the same, searching the sky, supplicants begging for who knew what. Moisture darkened the street and sidewalks. A pleasant scent, like laundry drying on a clothesline, filled the air.

Elizabeth lowered and closed her umbrella. Two drops of water dribbled from the tip.

“What was that?” Elmore said, wiping his wet palm on his coveralls.

“I don't know,” Elizabeth said. She and her handsome escort resumed their walk to the steamer dock. The minute they were home she'd be speaking to the Union Board. A chunk of metal appearing in midair was one thing, but water was another. If the Plant had caused this it was a new phenomenon that merited close study.

Elizabeth ground her teeth. Her work, and the Union's, just became much harder. Those fools in Inepril, and that renegade engineer they'd hired, would have much to answer for.

 

---

 

“I must say again, marshal, this is quite a surprise.”

Maryanne lowered her battered luggage to the dusty floor.

“I apologize for that, Mister Mayor,” she said. This was as much a surprise for her as it was for him. Why couldn't the Service let her career die in peace?

“I hope you'll forgive us for the state of your accommodations,” the mayor said. He tucked his thumbs into his vest pockets. “We sent our request to December six months ago and received no advance notice of your arrival.”

Maryanne wandered the spacious room, appraising her new home. Her orders were tucked into a side pocket on her satchel. As she drew clean lines in the dust on the kitchen table she was tempted to pull the documents out and check to see if the Service had made some horrible mistake, but—no. If the Chief Marshal had wanted her badge and gun he would've asked for it.

“I'm sure you'll agree that's hardly enough time to give our new marshal a proper reception,” the mayor said.

Maryanne caught a hint of movement reflected in the battered chrome of the faucet, but it was only her host smoothing back his oiled and perfumed hair. She understood and expected the inevitable diplomatic machinery that would be part of the town's official welcome, but this pampered dandy with his waxed moustache and expensive suit was as pretty and appropriate as a fine portrait in an outhouse.

Another eighteen years to retirement, she thought, fighting to relax, waiting for the inevitable. Did the man think her that stupid?

The mayor smiled a courtly smile. “Perhaps if you're not to busy,” he said, approaching, “you might care to join me for dinner.”

“No thank you, sir,” she said, willing her host to be reasonable. “It's been a long day and I'd like to get settled.”

“Of course, dear lady, of course. But I believe it's important for our town's latest resident to establish…cordial relations with the local government as soon as possible.” The mayor slicked back his gleaming hair. “And we have a fine three-star restaurant and hotel just two blocks away.”

Men, Maryanne thought. They were all the same. Except one. Well, maybe two…

“Two and a half,” Maryanne said.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Two and a half stars, Mister Mayor. I read the brochure on the bus from May City. And I doubt your wife would approve.” Maryanne held her gaze on the deep notch on the mayor's swollen and glistening ring finger. Must've cost him half a jar of hair gel getting the thing off, and fast work, too.

The mayor shoved his left hand into his pocket. His right rose in a gesture of conciliation.

“My dear young woman, we're both adults here, are we—”

“Marshal.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I'll thank you to address me as marshal.” And just in case the man couldn't take a hint she let her hand float near the butt of her Marlon special. At least she was allowed to carry her own sidearm again. “We're both professionals here. Are we not, Mister Mayor?”

The mayor's Adam's apple bobbed up and down. Maryanne let him sweat it out, watching him calculate the consequences of his actions, given that he was alone with a woman who was not his wife and could make up any story she liked—after he was dead and cooling on the floor. No jury in the territory would convict her, his eyes seemed to say. She watched in satisfaction as the mayor swept the silk handkerchief from his coat pocket and mopped his brow.

“Yes, marshal,” he said. “Of course, of course. Well, now that you're settled in, I'll just leave you alone, then.” He moved to leave.

“One more thing, sir, if you please.”

The mayor stopped at her doorway, flinched as if there were a knife at his back.

“Where can I find the town sheriff?” Maryanne said. “I'd like to meet him.”

The town's leading citizen seemed to shrink. “I'm sorry to say that our beloved sheriff died in the line of duty.”

Maryanne accepted the news with equanimity. Such was the life. Interesting. He'd been alive when the town sent its request—

“I'd still like to meet him,” she said.

The sheriff's granite stone was just where the mayor had told her it would be. She removed her hat and offered her fallen comrade a moment of silence. She knelt and brushed the mounded earth with her fingers.

I'll do my best, she told him, then stood. As she put on her hat she read the identical stone next to the sheriff's.

Beloved Wife and Daughter, it said. Two names, two dates. The final dates were the same.

Maryanne let the ache pass, waited for the anger as she followed the footpath back to the churchyard. She slammed the iron gate closed behind her and turned up the street toward home. Men tipped their hats, women nodded in greeting as she passed. She didn't care, as long as they didn't try to talk to her.

Back at her new home Maryanne searched the shelves and cabinets. Over the sink she found a bottle of December City sipping whiskey, half-empty by the look and sound of it. How nice. The town was sparing no expense to make her feel at home.

Maryanne selected a coffee cup from the folded dishtowel by the sink and poured two fingers worth. On the front porch she considered getting comfortable in the rocking chair, but that was the wrong message to send to the good townsfolk. Old before her time, they'd say. She lifted her watch from its pocket. Ten after five. Back in December, this would be rush hour. She'd be heading home about now, walking to her apartment, ready to shed that awful uniform she'd had to wear on desk duty, anxious to call Jerrik the moment she laid hands on the phone. And if he was waiting for her, she'd let him help her undress—

“Hey, no cutting!”

Maryanne set her cup of whiskey aside. Between the jail and the Last Chance Saloon a crowd was forming, drawn to incipient violence like ants to a dropped piece of candy.

“Wait your turn, Kostelecki…”

“Wait yours, fatass. I was here first.”

From the gathered mass of people one man's head protruded above the rest. He lifted a wooden bucket and poured water into his gullet, over his head and face. He made a shoving motion. The crowd backed away.

Every town had three kinds of people, Maryanne thought, getting to her feet. The drunk, the idiot, and the bully. Watching this behemoth Kostelecki wade through the crowd made her think this man was all three at once.

Her term in her new office didn't officially begin until noon tomorrow. The mayor was going to get a bill for her time. She approached the throng.

“Please, friend, just take your water and go—”

“Straight to hell.”

“You tell him, Fatty!”

“Piss off, Burnnock.”

“Please, mister, my boy is thirsty…”

At the edge of the mob a man turned back and looked. Maryanne let her hand fall to her pistol. Word of her arrival spread by shoulder taps and harsh whispers, and the crowd dispersed and reformed on the sidewalks.

At the sight of the town well, Maryanne could come no closer.

Unaware of her presence the town drunk-idiot-bully Kostelecki roared stupidity and impotence at a dust-covered man facedown in the street and the boy beside him. The boy's body thrummed anger. His cherub's face was fury red.

Maryanne stood where she was, and after the fallen man's brave and foolish son had crossed the distance between himself and his father's assailant and just before Kostelecki had taken the boy's head in his hand and thrust it aside like a rotten apple Maryanne drew her Marlon special, aimed it at the sky and pulled the trigger. The report left Maryanne the only one standing.

“Evening, marshal,” said a spectator from under his raised hands when the echo died.

“Good evening, sir,” Maryanne said. She holstered her weapon. “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. As you may have heard, I am the new territorial marshal of Cornelia, and I look forward to getting to know all of you. Although I could've established my office anywhere in the territory, your good mayor was persuasive enough to convince me to set up shop here. Why? Because both the mayor and my immediate superiors assured me this was a nice, quiet, peaceful place to live.” Kostelecki, still prone, held his hat over his face with both hands. “This is a nice, quiet, peaceful place to live, isn't it?”

“Y-yes, marshal,” the bully said.

“Isn't it?” she said to the crowd, who agreed with nods and whispered courtesies. “Good. That will make my job much easier, and you will not find a more grateful peace officer anywhere in the world if it stays that way. Understand? Thank you. Now, please forgive me for disrupting your evening.” Maryanne moved to check on the boy, but the well was between her and the action. The boy's father made it to his feet, pounded dust from his son's clothing and ruffled clouds of it from his hair. The boy let his father take his hand and with the other, he waved his thanks to her.

Maryanne waved back and turned to go home. With a shaking hand she searched her pockets for a handkerchief. She sat on the porch steps and took a long drink from the coffee cup.

The street in front of her house was packed earth, and the evening suns played their shadows across the bumpy, uneven road. Like finding shapes in the clouds, Maryanne could almost imagine a set of footprints running from the porch to the alley between the bank and the old hotel.

She looked closer. Not one set. Two.

Maryanne knelt in the street. Yes, two sets of prints moving away from the porch. One set, the larger, came back—

There it was again, only this time the owner likely male, was walking north. Tall, judging by the length of the stride. The weight on the toe and ball suggested he was pulling something heavy. Yes, two parallel tracks, like a cart or travois.

Maryanne followed the trail around the corner and didn't stop until it faded, on the edge of town. When she turned back, the townspeople, still as statues, were watching her. Under the force of her gaze they scattered, intent on their small town business.

The first marshal of Cornelia Territory wiped dirt from her hands. Maybe this job wouldn't be as boring as she'd thought.

 

---

 

Arithmetic makes me hungry, Milly thought.

Columns of figures ran the length of her legal pad, refusing to be reconciled. Darn numbers. Why couldn't she make them behave? She should've had an answer the second the problem was written down.

Milly swept the eraser shavings from the bottom of the page. She had to concentrate. This page held all the payroll figures for the last week and everything had to work out before any of the laborers could be paid. In less than an hour an army of sweaty, tired, thirsty wranglers and reapers and plowmen would be thundering through her back door, minds filled with the taste and feel of that first cold beer after work. If she disappointed them the family name would be disgraced forever, and Thompson Farms, long a hallmark of agricultural excellence, would become the butt of every bad joke told in the territory for the next hundred years.

Her pencil slashed a ragged hole through the paper. Darn. Scaring herself didn't help, either. Then again, arithmetic wasn't the same as hiccups, now was it?

Milly decided this page of figures was damaged beyond repair. She wadded the lead-torn, eraser-burnt paper into a ball and tossed it into her wastebasket.

At the kitchen sink Milly filled a glass with water and drank deeply. The day was hot but the afternoon was hotter, and not even the network of ceiling fans her grandfather had installed thirty years ago offered much relief. Chickens pecked at the silent yard outside the window. The wind carried the noise and smell of the pigsty north, where the only evidence of activity out in the fields was a dwindling stand of late planted wheat. Mr. Fletcher was nowhere to be seen.

Milly refilled her glass and carried it back to the table. So quiet with everyone gone, even Mom and Dad who'd taken their first vacation in almost five years. Dad had left her with homework, accounting exercises that she would need to master.

“And who knows, Milly love,” he'd said as he'd thrown his last piece of luggage into the runabout, “this farm might be yours someday.” She'd smiled and waved as her parents disappeared in a cloud of dust down the old north road.

Right, Dad, she thought. Nine elder brothers and sisters had a stronger claim on the land than she ever would.

Milly heard a knock on the back door. She returned to her seat. “Come in,” she said.

Mr. Fletcher, the first farmhand Dad had ever hired, clomped down the back hall. He swept off his sweat-stained hat, wiped his brow on his shirtsleeve.

“Evening, Miss Thompson,” he said, and proceeded to summarize his day's activities. Milly listened, impressed with so hard a worker. Why, he packed almost as much work into a day as she did. Or used to do. Dad and Beatrice said she wasn't allowed to work in the fields anymore. They made her promise.

“That last bit of second summer wheat will be cut and bundled by noon tomorrow, ma'am,” he said. “Or I can stay late and finish it tonight, if you like.”

“No thank you, Mr. Fletcher, that won't be necessary,” Milly said, and opened the battered black strongbox beside her. She fished through the compartments until she found a short brown envelope and extended it to him. “Thank you for all your hard work today.”

“My pleasure, ma'am,” Mr. Fletcher said, tucking his wages into a pocket on his coveralls. He put on his hat, touched the brim to her. “See you tomorrow.”

Milly waited for the footsteps to fade and the back door to close, then counted out Mr. Fletcher's wages. She slipped the bills into another envelope and laid it on the loaded revolver in the bottom of the strongbox. She locked the box and hid it under her big big sister's bed.

When the suns went down and her ample dinner was tucked away into her tummy, Milly passed the evening in front of the satellite receiver, jumping from one program to the next, laughing at the punchline of a joke she hadn't heard or tapping her feet to a song for the few seconds it lasted until the soap commercial. When that got boring she moved to the floor in front of the bookcases, selecting books by the look of the binding or the cleverness of the title, and no matter which book she picked her mind read the words before she opened it.

Dad needs some new books, she thought. Too bad Meryl wasn't here. She'd show her old boss a trick or two of her own. Milly left the pile of books where it was and headed for her room. Long day tomorrow.

Milly dressed for bed, and as she buttoned her pajama top she let her hand glide over her abdomen. A void lingered there, as if she'd eaten not Meryl's delicious healing soup but a heaping mound of hot buttered nothing, a mirage a starving man might imagine on an empty plate. Yet this was no hunger for food, and when she tried to remember what might've filled that empty place within, the memory shattered on her mind like a soap bubble on her upturned palm.

Milly climbed into bed and drew the blanket up to her chin. The Fifth Moon shone like a great bloodshot eye through the window at her feet. She turned on her side, and the deep creak of the bed's springs sounded like distant rapid gunfire.

---

Author's Afterword

Sorry about the delay, folks. I intended only to take a couple of weeks off, but one thing led to another and weeks became months. But I'm back and ready to go to work again!

Aine of Knockaine: I'm not sure why CotP hadn't been reviewed on MM.org, either. Thank you for amending that regrettable situation!

To all others who've reviewed and/or patiently waited for more, I offer my thanks!