Passion's Price -- a short story

Passion's Price
copyright (c) 2009

The snug alcove behind the bookshelves in Daddy's office had always been a sanctuary. Natalya Schur could look up through the skylight to see the ark segments comprising Rousasdorpt Laager, a steady silver necklace against the moving diamond stars. Peace Park glowed emerald through its transparent roof, almost a kilometer away. She waited.

Vines and fig trees belong together. In the multi-tiered park, each family had its own leafy grape arbor, backstopped by the muscled trunk of the Mediterranean fig. Harsh sunlight diffused through the broad leaves of the companionable plants. Laughing children made aprons for themselves of the fig leaves, while thrifty housewives harvested young grape leaves.

Oldest son Friederich Schur walked to one of the 3 by 5 meter family parks. Georg paused in his work of pruning and shaping the grape vines. Shaggy heads bowed together, bearded jowls assumed matched black scowls. A pool of stillness spread as neighbors assiduously attended every man to his own vine, his own fig tree. As Fred and Georg strode out to the airlock, a buzz of speculation arose behind them.

August Schur, baby of the family, tended his beloved chickens. One by one he moved their cages to fresh plots of sterile lunar aggregate topped with kitchen slops, then released his animated tractors to do their work. A countenance of genial simplicity topped a hulking two-meter frame.

"August." He turned towards the lock, and straightened up from his task.

"Georg, what happened? Something bad?" Georg had always been his favorite brother. Georg was the one who had patiently coached him in the elegant verbal networks of the catechism. When August could finally recite the last answer, Georg had escorted him to his first communion, a child of 16, surrounded by rejoicing 7 year olds, wearing white liturgical robes.

"Family problem, August.” Georg explained. “We need you at home."

"Ivan, you have visitors." Ivan Schur started at the summons and, frowning, turned away from his work station. With the twenty other people in the office, he looked towards the door. Fred, Georg and August stood, awaiting him, with a gravity suiting a major crisis. Ivan suddenly thought of their sister Natalya.

"I'll be back when I can," he told the others in the software development group. "Something's wrong."

In another office, software testers looked up from their endless game of "break the code" as the four brothers eclipsed the doorway. The click of fingers on keyboards tapered off, the muted buzz of conversation faded out.

"Dan Johnson?" Ivan asked, quietly. In a corner of the room the contractor, whose Appalachian heredity showed in a rangy, darkly handsome face, tried to become invisible. Supervisor Jack Maurais pushed his rotund bulk forward.

"You got business here?" he asked.

"Family business, with Dan Johnson," Ivan replied.

Jack scowled. "Dan's got another two years to go on his contract," he said.

"You'll be compensated," Ivan replied. "We'll put it on his tab."

"Georg, what did Dan do to Natty?" August asked. Somehow, the simpleton knew.

"Nothing she didn't ask for!" retorted Dan, putting on a bold front. "Ask her yourself. Or, I can give you times, dates, and lots of juicy details!" He smirked towards the door, then towards his co-workers. The guys he tortured code with, polished off six packs with, had moved millimeters away. Fred and Ivan were crossing the room with grim strides.

"You're not going to let them take me, are you?" Dan asked, stunned. "Hey! I thought we were a team." Caspar and Christaan looked at a point midway between themselves and the quarry. "Can you just hold them off for a minute?" The co-workers' unease soured into disgust. They rotated away in an unrehearsed drill of disdain.

"Don't make this any harder on yourself than need be," Friederich said. "Father said to bring you in alive. He didn't say anything about counting bruises. You want to walk or be carried?"

With a sneer at the room, Dan gracefully unfolded his angular frame and walked towards the door, boxed in by the brethren. Things did not look good for this guest worker from old Earth.

The Schur estate was one of the oldest pillars of Rousasdorpt. Over the generations, the family had linked together six ark segments. The oldest one, the family manor, housed archives, a library, a university, a tithing hall. Chestnut trees lined the winding walk to the inner structure, pruned to tapering heights that teased the eye with forced perspective.

As each air-tight door closed behind him, Dan’s tension grew. Finally, the party entered the salon and stood before the patriarch. Johannes Schur sat behind the heirloom silicate desk, waiting, examining the inset display for the necessary numbers. After a few moments he looked up.

"Mynheer Johnson," he began, formally. "Do you know our customs here? The ones you agreed to abide by when you signed that employment contract? Such as earnest money?"

Dan snorted. "Bride price, you mean," he said. "Hell, why buy the cow when the milk is free? I never had to pay for it before, and I'm not paying for it now."

August snapped a sudden open-handed blow across the side of Dan's face. Red finger marks bloomed towards purple, and blood poured from nose and lips. August whimpered, looked bemused at his stinging hand, then glance towards Georg. "Did that bad man just call Natty a cow?" he asked.

"Easy, boy," Georg said. "We’ll talk later. But you can't leave now. We need you here. Back away now, easy now."

The troubled giant breathed deeply and stepped back from the figure slumped on the floor.

" Jesus H. Christ!" Dan exploded. "What kind of damned cattle are you boors anyways?"

"Boers who love our sister," Georg snapped.

Johannes drummed his fingers on the desk. "Let’s get back to business," he said. "Dan, you have two ounces on reserve. About a month's wages. You still owe 30 ounces on the contract that brought you here. Let's look at the numbers. Fred, get Dan a napkin, please; he's bleeding on the carpet." Ivan helped the guest into the chair, while Fred brought the square of snowy cloth. Cotton. A costly luxury.

Johannes resumed his account. "Let's see. Earnest money is by custom equivalent to two years' wages. Enough to endow the bride with a home of her own. You don't seem to have that. You do seem to owe that. What should we do?"

"Who said anything about marrying?" Dan mumbled around swelling nasal passages.

"No one has, yet," Johannes said. "Let's see. Ernest money for a defiled virgin is 50% higher than customary for undamaged goods. No option of divorce, either. Think you could live with that?"

"Where the hell am I going to come up with that kind of money?" Dan snapped. "I don't even like the little ... snitch that much anyways.

"She loved you," Johannes said. "She gave you something you had no right to take. Did you consider that when you had your little thrill?"

"So what?" Dan asked. "If she thinks I'll mortgage three years' wages just to get welded to her forever, she's as crazy as you are."

A muffled sob broke out of the alcove behind the bookshelves. Natalya walked into the office, and paused before the chair. "You said you loved me," she said. "I thought you knew what that meant." She covered her face and rushed from the room.

"I do not like you, Dan," August said. "You made Natty cry. I do not want you in our house."

Johannes nodded.. "I agree with my son," he said. "Mynheer Johnson, we are selling you, to cover past and present obligations. They say there's plenty of room on Mars. Work hard, save your pennies, and you might have your bills paid in another ten years. You told my daughter that you loved her. Now, you get to buy her a well furnished home. Not that you'll ever see it. You won't be coming back. We don't want you in our family."

Johannes pressed a button on the desk. The door opened, and a bailiff and a buyer walked in. "You made up your minds, yet?" the magistrate asked.

"He knows what he owes," Johannes replied. "Present him with the available contracts, and place the money in our account."

The prisoner staggered out the door, to look an new future in its bleak face. August, Georg, and Johannes clustered around the desk to sort out the tangled emotional residues. Ivan and Fred drifted off together to price the available models and delivery schedules for ark segments. They would do what they could to help their sister rebuild her life. In another few days, they'd have some options for her to consider, a hope chest 150 meters long to prepare for a better day, a better man.