JUSTICE comes to BEANTOWN

by Dallas White
Copyright 2005

CHAPTER 1

Even though it was night and I could see almost nothing via the freighter's one small viewing monitor, I had a bad feeling about the planet below. Its rugged terrain looked promising in the purplish cast of the evening sky, but I knew full well that jagged mountains alone would not turn my Old West fantasy into reality.

Captain Selpiyan, commander of the cargo ship Junok, had graciously allowed me to come onto the small and cluttered command deck to view my destination prior to arrival. Once I peeked at the viewscreen, he advised me to strap in for landing.

After doing as I was told, I again took the creased and worn printed paper brochure from a pocket of my reproduction satin brocade vest and eyed the picture of an old-time cowboy atop a galloping steed. My sweaty thumb prints had defaced the edges of the colorful sunset, but there was enough of the image left for me to mentally visualize the wonders and excitement that awaited me on Padura-3.

The ship's jerky descent made both my stomachs lurch. With a gulp I looked up and hastily stuffed my brochure back into my vest. All I had of my dream was that one brochure - and my friend Chagall's repeated assurances that everything would be just as I had hoped in Padura-3's working and authentic Old West settlement, Beantown. But a little voice inside me kept telling me all was not well. And the queasy feeling in my stomachs only intensified my fear that I had made a terrible mistake resigning my commission on Earth to come here.

Thinking back, I chastised myself. From the beginning I should have realized this planet was not the amusement haven Chagall had proclaimed it to be. There were no reports from travelers who'd enjoyed the frontier ambiance of Beantown, and no holovid ads extolling the wondrous thrills and dangers to be experienced here. I'd been forced to book passage to Padura-3 on a lumbering, antiquated cargo ship because passenger transports did not travel this sector on their normal routes.

The popularity of any planet offering physically real role-playing facilities could be measured by the frequency of tourists arriving. I knew that. Yet, as far as I could tell, I was the only incoming individual, and I was not here on tourist status. I had put in for a civil-service stint, believing that a job here would leave me plenty of free time to relive the wonders and dangers of Earth's bygone frontier past. But as the ship I rode plummeted downward like a meteor hurtling out of control, I realized no matter what might be in store for me on Padura-3, I would be stuck on this forsaken desert planet for four long years.

Chagall, my level-three clerk-assistant and constant companion at the Intergalactic Federation's Offices of the Interstellar Commerce Commission, had been all too eager to talk me into my voluntary transfer. And I had been equally eager to let him convince me. "Filling the job of Justice of Commerce in Sector D-008-159-285 will be a big promotion for you, Passonne," he had urged as he stuffed imported duppetcakes into his cavernous mouth. How he could devour so many of those sickening sweet treats at one time, I would never understand.

"It does not matter that the term is four years minimum. It does not matter that you will be stationed on a sponsoring planet thousands of light years from here, with no leave to return until your term is done. While you are Justice, you will have ultimate power on your sponsoring planet. You will inspect the planet's exports, set local prices, and decide interstellar market values. You will make or break that planet's commerce with your decisions. You will have every businessman catering to you, begging for the privilege to bribe you to ensure that his products will bring greater prices than those of his competitors. In effect, you will own the planet. That is power, Passonne. Real power."

"But I do not seek power, Chagall," I had told him truthfully.

"No, Passonne. I am sure you do not. But you do seek adventure - that I am sure of. And as Justice of Commerce on Padura-3, you will find adventure to match - exceed - your special dreams. You will find the thrill of a simpler, harsher existence where men live by their wits and brute strength rather than by automated food replicators.

"Think of it, Passonne! A vicious gunslinger will shadow you through the dusty streets of your station." Chagall had grabbed my arm to get my attention, but he already had my attention. "Whiskey-drinking cowpokes will grumble as you jail them after a night's rabble-rousing. You will wear the Interstellar Commerce Commission badge of authority like a marshal's star. And saloon girls dressed in low-cut, ruffly dance-hall dresses will fawn over you, begging you to favor them with your wit and engaging smile - and," he added with a wicked glitter in his beady dark eyes, "whatever else you might feel compelled to bestow upon them.

"Think of it Passonne," he commanded again with a sweep of his fat hand through the recirculated air of our shared office cubicle. "The women will have hair on their heads - and below. You will find none of Earth's fashionable female baldness in Beantown. And neither will there be mandated anaphrodisiacs to stifle the urges deep within them - within you. For once, Passonne, you will be free to exercise your sexuality to the fullest extent. And that is more than any of the rest of us left here on Earth will be able to say!"

"But I am not interested in being promiscuous," I had told him truthfully.

"Oh, Passonne, you poor innocent! Of course you are not interested now. But once you free yourself from the shackles of civilized society, your wants and needs will change. In Beantown you will stroll down the street in your stylish old-fashion replicated satin vest and woolen breeches, and tip your black Stetson hat at the ladies while they ogle you and giggle behind their fluttering lace fans. It will be sinfully simple for you to seduce each and every one of them at night by the light of an oil lamp, on the softness of your genuine feather bed."

I remembered frowning at him. He made it all sound so bewitchingly enticing, so incredibly easy and pleasureful. But there was the truth to consider. A ladies' man I was not. My romantic experience was sadly lacking. Yet Chagall refused to allow anything to dampen his passion for stirring excitement.

"Every single women with a beating heart will fall at your feet, Passonne. Trust me. With one look at you and your generous manly endowment, they will swoon."

It was then that I scowled. Chagall was forever teasing me about an aspect of my anatomy I was not eager to expose to the rest of the world. Sometimes I suspected him of petty jealousy, but Chagall was Chagall, and I could not fault him for it.

"By night, Passonne, you will mount countless women and weather love's frenzied ride to the glorious finish! And by day you will sit proudly on your chair of honor as Justice, with no one to answer to - not even your own conscience! You will lord over Beantown's admiring inhabitants and mete out frontier judgment to any and all who dare cross you. Beantown will be your town, Passonne. You will be a prince of passion and king of the Old West. It will be just as you have always dreamed - perhaps better."

"Ah," I sighed wistfully. "You paint a pretty picture, Chagall. But I do not think this Beantown could be nearly as wild and uncivilized and easy to master as you make it seem. Where did you get your information?"

Where, indeed? That was when Chagall handed me the brochure, which he said had come over the transom from Beantown, along with the urgent request for a new Justice of Commerce to replace the recently deceased Justice.

"Look, Passonne!" he proclaimed, fluttering the brochure in front of me. "How quaint it is, printed on paper, no less! See the pictures. These people, these 'cowpokes' of Beantown ride real horses and herd real cattle. Cattle raised for food - for food, Passonne! What more needs to be said? These people are true primitives. This is your destiny, Passonne, this place called Beantown. Take your fill of its western lore and its unique freedom. In four years, when you return here, you will be a fuller, richer, happier man. And you will have your pick of level-one clerk positions - maybe higher."

"I am not interested in a promotion," I had told him truthfully. "I do not want any added responsibility."

"All the more reason you shall have it, my dear Passonne. Is that not the way bureaucracy functions at its best - to heap responsibility upon those who do not want responsibility, to advance those who do not yearn for advancement, while leaving empty-handed those of us who desire such things?"

Chagall had watched me intently with his beady eyes enshrouded in the flesh-pleated sockets of his eternally sweaty face. "We are a dying breed, you and I, Passonne. We are the faithful and the reliable. The clerks without whom the world would not go 'round. We do our jobs without the knowledge or gratitude of those we serve. And yet we do it. Why, Passonne? Why? For the hope, the dream, of one day moving up to attain real power, real glory. And you, my good friend, have the chance to realize that dream in four years and to live your other dream now, today. Accept the position, Passonne. In your heart you know you want to go out there and live the frontier challenge."

"I don't know, Chagall," I had said. I remember shaking my head with doubt. I should have gone with gut instinct and heeded my doubt. But Chagall would not stand for that. No, Chagall had reminded me of my secret passion, my one sustaining love that got me through the endlessly boring days of a level-two clerk-assistant in the Offices of the Interstellar Commerce Commission. While I sat on my cushy chair, mumbling speculative trade analyses to the computer and shuffling statistics for my faceless superiors, I dreamed of straddling a silver-pommel saddle strapped atop a golden gelding - a real horse - responsive to the slightest flick of my hand on the reins. I lived for the squeak of leather against leather, the grit of hot dust on my sweaty neck, the thrill of the wind whipping through my unsprayed white hair as I galloped across the open plains. And Chagall knew that.

"It is not everyone who has the courage to leave the comforts of Earth, Passonne, to brave the frontier for the good of intergalactic commerce. You are a man of dreams, of vision, of inner strength. You are the man who can do this, Passonne. I'm telling you, you will go to your death regretting the lost chance if you fail to take advantage of this singular opportunity. The commission to Beantown was meant for you, and you for it. You know you have always wanted to do this, Passonne. So do it. Swallow your doubts and worries and do it!"

And so, finally, I did it. With a faltering signature I traded my comfy job and my assigned living cubicle for a Federation commission on Padura-3. I endured two weeks of intensive training detailing my new duties as Justice of Commerce. I studied the few available reports about Padura-3 and was not surprised to learn that its meager resources gave it little worth as a hotbed of trading in the eyes of the Interstellar Commerce Commission. Gradually I began to wonder what, exactly, I would do on Padura-3 for four years. Listlessly I listened to my instructor's warnings against all the pleasureful out-world indulgences Chagall had so cleverly described to lure me into my decision. And with grave reservations I packed up my few belongings and left the familiarity of my life of the past twenty-five years spent on Earth.

For the next four years I would be Justice of Commerce. I would become part of Beantown, the frontier, the badland, the place where danger lurked in the eyes of a red-eyed, whiskey-drinking gunman, the place where skill with a six-shooter meant the difference between life and death. The rusty water pumps, the ramshackle wooden buildings, the dusty main street serving as the stage for shoot-outs and horseback raids, would become the sights of the place I would soon call 'home.' And as the freighter Junok, delivering me to my destiny, made a rocky landing, I began to think that perhaps I would enjoy this adventure despite my lingering misgivings.

I convinced myself as I grabbed my luggage that the folks of Beantown would eagerly welcome me to their way of life. They would teach me their pioneer secrets of survival that helped them brave blizzards and sandstorms and deluges and droughts. They would teach me to fish and hunt and shoot a gun - a real gun, not a holographic representation. They would teach me to sit astride a swift and noble steed. Yes, it would be glorious! And I would take to this godforsaken dusty hellhole like a frog leaping into a pond.

But the moment I stepped off the Junok's cargo ramp, I knew I'd been had.

The wide paved walkway leading from the shipping warehouses was lit with overhead runner lights. Beyond lay modern low-slung buildings whose frontages were landscaped as finely as those found in any port city on Earth. Although the darkness beyond the immediate docking vicinity prevented me from surveying the condition of the outlying land, I knew in my heart that it was not the barren, scrub-brush-infested terrain I had hoped to see. I knew it was well-irrigated and expertly tended to maintain a lovely lush green.

And if the land and buildings of Beantown were tended with civilized care, life in Beantown would be equally civilized. No drunken brawls in the saloon for me to break up. No gunfights in the middle of Main Street for me to head off. No wild rides through the arid outland for me to enjoy. And no lusty wenches for me to wrestle at night. My job as Justice of Commerce would be just as boring and civilized - and passionless - as the job I'd left on Earth. The only difference was, I'd be stuck on Padura-3 for four long years while Chagall, my supposedly faithful friend and level-three clerk-assistant, filled my position as level-two clerk-assistant back on Earth!

It was at that moment I finally wised up. I knew Chagall had always derived secret enjoyment from calling me 'innocent' to my face. I now realized that, all the while, he had really been itching to call me 'fool.' Because, apparently, I was.

It was at that precise moment, as I stood on the edge of Beantown and looked toward the bleak darkness ahead of me, that I knew. All my carefully laid plans and valiant hopes and secret dreams literally didn't amount to a hill of beans.

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