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Trance's Gift - Chapter 3
Time: CY 10088 May 5166 – Day 2Location: Bathsheba spaceport Highport district
Bailey took them down to the police garage where she was given the keys to a well worn hovercraft that sported the logo of the spaceport police force on its sides. The police headquarters was located in what Harper called the ‘low rent’ district of Highport, the area nearest the spaceport. Their destination was located in Lowport on the other side of the spaceport almost directly opposite them. To save time Bailey took them through the spaceport rather than around it. As Bailey navigated their vehicle through the area Beka noticed that it had gone downhill since the first time she'd been there with her father nearly 20 years earlier. She remembered how he had pointed out that the the port was classified as a class B-4, capable of just about any and all ship repairs as well as capable of constructing all but the largest intrasystem ships, and that the Highport district was considered one of the better of its kind. The spaceport was now listed as a class C, capable of routine repairs only with no shipbuilding capacity at all, and the Highport area seemed dirtier and shabbier than she remembered it.
Even more more disturbing was what she saw when Bailey took them through the part of the spaceport reserved for Bathsheba's domestic intrasystem space craft. Portions of the landing grid were in such bad disrepair that it was almost unusable. She also noticed several of the intrasystem ships bearing the logo of the Bathsheba merchant service were in the process of being dismantled, obviously being cannibalized to keep the others operational. She suspected that it wouldn't be long before the port would be downgraded to class D. While Beka couldn’t work up any great concern for the planet and its denizens per se, the cannibalization of the ships was worrisome for another reason. It meant that Bathsheba wasn't exporting enough to pay for imported repair parts which meant fewer opportunities for independent traders like herself to carry goods to and from the planet.
Beka had never had never seen any more of Lowport than the area immediately adjacent to the spaceport proper. When she was a girl her father never let her accompany him on any of his excursions into Lowport and when she was older she never had any reason to explore the inner parts of the area. But from Trance's descriptions and her visits to similar areas on other planets she thought she knew what to expect. She was wrong. Her first indication that something was amiss was the Lowport gate . The entrance gate on the Highport side of the spaceport was what she considered a typical spaceport entrance gate. There was a perimeter fence, sturdy enough but meant more to mark the perimeter of the spaceport than as a form of security, and a check point manned by a trio of polite young women wearing spaceport security uniforms and carrying nothing but sidearms. The last time she had been on Bathsheba the Lowport gate had been more or less identical to the Highport gate. The Lowport gate was now something entirely different. The gate fence was actually two fences spaced about ten feet apart and both designed for security being heavily reinforced and topped with wicked looking spikes designed to impale anyone trying to climb them. There was a squad of guards dressed in riot gear and carrying heavy weapons. keeping watch at the gate.
"Good morning, Sergeant" said Bailey to the senior guard. "Everything quiet in Low?"
"Yes Ma'am" said the guard giving Harper a quizzical look and Beka a longer and more appreciative one. "Been that way for the past couple of days now. I guess they got tired of burning things down."
"We can hope so, Sergeant," said Bailey. "We should be back in about two hours. If we're not back in four contact Inspector Asagawo. He'll know where to look for us."
At the Sergeant's affirmative, Bailey took the hovercraft through the gate, moving cautiously to compensate for the buffeting wind which was now accompanied by a drizzle of rain.
At first the area looked like Beka remembered it. Cheap bars, restaurants selling food of dubious quality, massage parlors and various other forms of entertainment all designed to separate a spacer from his or her money. Then Bailey turned a corner and they were in a different world. It looked like an abandoned battlefield complete with rusting husks of cars that had been pushed far enough off the streets to allow passage for one car at a time. Some of the husks had been burned out while others had been blasted with weapons fire. Several of those cars had clearly once been patrol cars like the one they were in now. The surrounding buildings were in similar shape as the cars and at first seemed devoid of people until she saw some movement of a few people looking cautiously out of shattered windows.
As they proceeded further into Lowport the conditions improved. Apparently the rioting hadn't made it to this portion of the Lowport. The improvement however was only relative. Many of the buildings were boarded up with broken windows, abandoned. There were more people visible but Beka had seen war refugees that were in better shape these people were.
"Trance said that it was run down here but this looks like a war zone, " said Beka
"Hell, Beka this place looks worse than Boston did back on Earth." Harper said in a surprised tone. "The only thing that’s better here is there aren’t any Ubers grabbing people off the streets for their slave gangs."
"It wasn't this bad when Grape left," said Bailey using Trance's street name. "Things weren't great and unemployment was high but people were getting by doing day labor at the port. Then the FTA changed their hiring policy and only members of the Stevedore's Guild or bonded workers could be hired. Not many Lowporters could afford the bribes, err I mean processing fees to join the Guild and just be being a Lowporter is enough for the bonding companies to refuse to bond you. So unemployment went through the clouds and that's when things started going to Hell.
"Lately we've had riots about as often as we have rainstorms. The last one was about a week ago. It started out as a riot then got really ugly when a couple of local gangs started fighting each other. Normally we'd have let them fight it out among themselves, but when it started spreading into what passes for the business district here near the port we had to get involved before they destroyed what little economy there is in Low."
Beka nodded her head while Bailey was speaking but her mind was elsewhere. Ever since she was a little girl she’d heard her father lecture time and time again on how things were going to hell everywhere. By the time she had taken over most of the duties on the Maru she’d long since tuned out his lectures on the subject. In the 16 years since she took over as master of the Eureka Maru she had noticed the gradual decline he had spoken about but she had never felt it emotionally until now. What she was seeing now made it all hit home so hard it was like she’d been struck in the face.
The armored gates at the Lowport side of the spaceport and the war zone they had passed through had left her unmoved, as had the deterioration of the landing grid and the cannibalized intrasystem freighters She has seen all that and more. It was the people she saw on the streets that rammed point home in a way that nothing else had. These people weren't total strangers the way the inhabitants of most planets were. They were Trance's friends and neighbors, the people her adopted daughter had lived, laughed, fought, and cried with. People who she still cared about and who, some at least, still cared about her. Beka decided she was wrong about war refugees. Refugees at least had a hope of finding something better, these people were dying by inches with virtually no hope left. The planet’s economy was dying and its population was dying right along with it. The inhabitants of Lowport might be the first to succumb but the decay would spread to the rest of the planet until eventually the planet would have nothing to offer for someone like her and it would loose all contact with the rest of what was left of the Systems Commonwealth.
"This is it," said Bailey as she parked the car near a run down dwelling. They building was in marginally better shape than it's neighbors in the fact that its windows were still intact. There was also a small flower bed in which some sad looking pink and yellow flowers were growing.
As they emerged from the vehicle Beka noticed a thin little boy wearing little more than rags scrounging through a trash heap. On impulse she reached into the pocket where she had a few FTA demi-thrones.
"Don’t do it Boss." Harper said in a cold hard tone as he grabbed her arm just above the wrist to keep her from pulling out the money. He nodded to a pair of slightly older boys standing near one of the abandoned homes who had a feral look about them and were watching the younger one closely. "If you did, that kid would be lucky if he made it home."
"He’s right ma’am" Bailey agreed. "It won’t do any good anyway cause his parents will just take it and spend it on booze or drugs if nothing worse happens to him before that. Now lets go do what you came here to do"
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