Vyyda Book 1: The Haver Problem (12 page)

Rooms weren't terribly expensive at The Wheel, Dorsey had been told, but once you ran out of acceptable currency, there was no pity to be found among those who ran the place. 

              "They'll have you on a transport out to the nearest
pleph
within the hour," one man familiar with The Wheel claimed while Dorsey worked beside him in a cargo molka laundry.

             
Whether one called them plephs, relocation centers or refugee outposts, they were to be feared.  Easy to find oneself there, damn difficult to muster the resources to get out.  No one could say how many had succumbed to hunger or sickness in such outposts, scattered across U-Space.  And if lack of resources didn't get you, hard-edged criminal types passing time there would try.

             
Still, Dorsey regarded The Wheel as the best chance to improve his lot.  He resolved to be a translator.  Better pay, better treatment and a chance to frequent the more civilized levels of U-Space.

             
Dorsey selected the least expensive accommodations The Wheel had to offer:  ten square meters, floor padding passed off as a bed and one clean towel per week. 

             
He stashed his belongings, washed up in the communal bathroom and began registering for interviews.  The enormous "exchange room" (once an area in which hostesses latched onto clients) perpetually spun with activity.  Interviews for all available jobs occurred there and hopefuls would bide their time waiting to get their chance.  Even when most interviews were done for the day, scores of job-seekers would congregate and swap stories of failure and near-misses.  The "end of the line" smell that wafted through the space hit Dorsey upon arrival, complementing the corroded ceiling plates, mismatched tables and chairs and metallic surfaces covered with a thin layer of pale green paint.

             
"How many languages?" he was asked in his first interview by an overworked, beleaguered representative of a trading company searching for translators. 

             
“Three,” Dorsey replied, listing them off:  English, French and Spanish.  He was dismissed out of hand.

             
Dorsey told the next interviewer that he'd mastered four languages, brazening his way through a few half-correct phrases in Btawn (a mixture of Spanish and Chinese infrequently spoken by a handful of people on Hyland.)

             
Again, no job.

             
"Nobody cares about Btawn," the interviewer told him, moving on to the next candidate.

             
Although Dorsey had enough currency to stay for three additional evenings, he didn't have anywhere else to go from The Wheel should nothing materialize.  That is, he had nowhere to go other than the nearest pleph.

             
Shortly after his fragmented Btawn had been rejected, Dorsey looked across the room to find his successor in the interviewee seat shaking hands and smiling broadly – a deal struck, it seemed.

             
A meal was in order.  He could only afford one each day, but the disappointment of two failed attempts might be blunted by getting something to eat.  Unfortunately, the local fare went down even worse than the poxy food on Hyland – no small feat.

             
There were also various alcohol-based concoctions available for despondent souls, but they came dear for anyone on a strict budget.

             
Dorsey ordered a cup of Sipchinn Stew, as it was named.

             
Finishing not quite half of the tortuous blend of unidentifiable ingredients, Dorsey began making lap after lap along the edge of the Exchange Room, hands in pockets, searching for signs of hope among the ongoing activity.

             
He should have been comforted by the appearance of most other hopefuls in the room.  Their clothing, blank expressions and broad shoulders told him they'd be even less likely to land a position than he would.  They were definite
thumbheads
in this strictly skilled-worker market, where no "hard-hands" need apply.

             
Engineers and numbers people, translators, trained food preparers and comms mavens were in demand at The Wheel.  Dorsey could easily pick out the serious contenders.  He was even able to instinctively separate the engineers from everyone else.  They just had a look about them.

             
And that got Dorsey to thinking.

             
The truth was that in U-Space, it didn't matter who you were or who you thought you were.  All that counted was who you could convince everyone else you were.

             
The survey of the deserving candidates in the exchange room caused Dorsey to reconsider his own apparel, which he found wanting.  The common gray-weave combo that he wore wasn't distressed with signs of physical labor, but also did not meet the look of the high, wrap-around collars, striped pants and pinchback shoes that were common among the more prominent set.

             
With only two scheduled interviews remaining, Dorsey had no intention of reducing himself to a "last chance". 
To hell with caution
.  He didn't know what the consequences of larceny on The Wheel would be, but determined he had little choice. 

             
Moving slowly along the corridors of the more expensive rooms, Dorsey knocked, waited for an answer and then pretended to have made a mistake if anyone opened the door.  When there was no response, he'd fiddle with the cheap lock until either finessing it open or prying it apart.  Even still, half a dozen room locks proved too much for him.

             
It was only after an hour of break-ins (within mere minutes of his next scheduled interview) that Dorsey's efforts bore fruit.  He broke into the room of a man passed out in his underthings, the whiff of alcohol forceful.  Strewn across the floor were a pair of pants – nicely made – shingletop shirt (slightly out of style, but better than his own gray, coarse weave) and the sort of pinchback shoes that Dorsey had long yearned to own.

             
None of it fit well, but he took the things anyway.

             
Using every shred of guile, invention and desperation at his disposal, he sat down at the stained pink table for his next interview, twisted his body into a position that he deemed least likely to give away the poor fit of the clothes and answered the first question that came his way:  "How many languages?"

             
"Seven."

             
Skeptical though the third recruiter seemed, he took Dorsey's word and brief demonstration (which was mostly fairly convincing put-on) of fluency.  At that, Dorsey became the newest translator for Pekk Traders Interplanetary.

V              V              V              V

              And so it was with an evolved sense of the “facts of life” in U-Space that Dorsey sat in the triangular room on Kovetkoh, across from Tomas Witt.  Harebyer and the other inside men played sentry, wandering the corridor outside, prepared to deflect anyone who might happen along.

             
“You’re fluent in, what is it?  Eight languages?” Witt asked as one of his first questions.

             
“Nine,” Dorsey replied.  It was one of the few truths he'd tell that day.  Six new tongues added to his repertoire in the course of work at a handful of jobs over eight years, translating and archiving.

             
“Nine is good.  Nine is better,” Witt said with a weak smile, as if getting through the interview was a struggle for him with the quivering appendage. 

             
Why had they sent this man?

             
“And you were educated at Pasteroneous School,” Witt stated as fact, but seeming to wait for some reply from Dorsey.  Dorsey’s answer didn’t follow immediately, as the tremor in the older man’s right hand had oddly shifted to the left.

             
“Yes, that’s right.”

             
“Very disturbing to hear what happened to it.  How long had you been gone before Dirty Water reduced it to rubble?”

             
“Three years.”  Dorsey knew his math had to be quick, looking Witt directly in the eye.

             
“Did the demise of Pasteroneous have anything to do with your cultivating an expertise on modern criminal organizations?”

             
There was now a slight twitch in Witt’s right eye.

             
“In part.”

             
Witt waited for a moment before speaking again.  “It sounds as though there’s more to that story.”  The tremor was back in the right hand again.

             
Dorsey cleared his throat and leaned back in his seat, determined to pay no more attention to the roaming infirmities on display across the table.  Just as he was about to address Tomas Witt’s prompt for more information on modern criminal organizations, the filter between his brain and mouth finally gave out:

             
“I’m sorry,” he said, “Are you having…a difficulty of some kind?”

             
“What do you mean?” Witt asked, the twitch in his eye triggered again.

             
“Running the risk of getting too personal…you have a persistent set of tremors.  I just…”

             
“You what?”

             
“Wanted to make sure you’re okay.”

             
Witt smiled.  “Tell me about Dirty Water.”

V              V              V              V

              Dorsey was slightly dismayed to learn that Tomas Witt and Sykes were interested in having whoever they hired teach a healthy load of classes on contemporary criminal organizations and the cultural impact of such groups.  Languages would account for less than half of his teaching.

             
“Do you know about the man you’d be replacing?” Tomas Witt asked as the interview was winding down.  The tremors and twitching had stopped.

             
"I don't think so."

             
“Ladd Bankenshoff.  Maybe you've heard of him.”

             
Dorsey had.  "He wrote about corruption among settlements...advocated for organized solidarity against criminal enterprise."

             
"You read it?  You're a reader?"

             
"Of course," Dorsey replied, taking only a little affront to the question.

             
“He was a close friend of mine.”  Witt’s manner seemed suddenly different.  Warm, in a way, yet no-nonsense and clear.

             
“Was?"

             
"I suppose word hasn't reached this area yet.  Ladd didn't mind taking chances.  We don't know if it was Dirty Water, Slowe Staine...or someone else."

             
Dorsey reflected on it.  Before he could stop himself, he murmured, "It wasn't Dirty Water."

             
"You're sure about that?" Witt asked.  Dorsey looked up, caught off-guard.  Had he given too much away?  Finally, the older man smiled.  "Of course you are.  You have to be...if you'll be effectively teaching the students at Sykes."

             
“Does that mean…”

             
“I have the power to hire anyone I believe would be an adequate replacement.  The problem is, no adequate replacement exists.  However, I can say that you come closer than every other candidate I’ve seen in the past six months and I’m tired of traveling around to conduct these interviews.”

             
Witt extended his hand.

             
When the basic details were ironed out and the older man was ready to leave, Dorsey couldn’t resist asking a question:

             
“I was wondering…”

             
“You want to know why I appeared on the edge of a seizure most of the last hour?”

             
Dorsey nodded.

             
“No opportunity to see you in front of a class.  It’s good to know how someone will manage to stay on topic, remain focused in the face of an unexpected situation.”

             
"I see," Dorsey said.

             
“Besides, it’s fun to watch the reaction of the person sitting across the table.”  Witt smiled once more and was gone.

8.

Tell Me A
bout Dirty Water