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Authors: Julie E. Czerneda
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too recent lava flows. The largest of these, branched like some nightmare version of a fallen tree, became the site of Minas’ capital and only shipcity, Fishertown.
Why Fishertown? According to locals, the first beings toland here had chosen the site because the main valley swooped down to the ocean, and the Humans on board, tired of being spacers, had had visions of setting up an industry based on fishing. Had they bothered to investigate before venturing out on Minas’ huge waves that fine sunny day, they would have discovered the local aquatic fauna took great exception to any disturbance and were large enough to express that opinion. Later settlers wisely avoided such conflicts, taking the name of Fishertown as a reminder of exactly who was considered prey here. There was an illicit, though somewhat amusing, trade involving luring tourists to the ocean and collecting their insurance.
The real economic boom was in supplying cheap freight service between the Fringe mines and their markets. Each new wave of arrivals had plunked their starships findown on the lava of Fishertown’s valley and declared themselves a shipcity. As space to do this without tipping over was limited, captains defended their miniature territories fiercely. The infrastructure to dock and service starships had thus evolved in a “first come, first grab” procedure, in which the best land had been claimed by the earliest, and most desperate, arrivals while the margins were eventually settled by those who saw an opportunity to expand their holdings from secure outsystem power bases. The latter could afford quality equipment and tugs.
From the air, without clouds to hide it, I could see the end result. The core of the broadest part of the valley contained a motley assortment of ships, some permanently (and thankfully) grounded by age and disrepair. A few straight avenues marked where space had been left for docking tugs to bring ships in and out. Over the years we’d been here, those avenues had gradually diminished, creating a prison for ships unable to launch by themselves. The entire area was aptly, if irreverently, referred to as the Dump.
To the north of the Dump, winding up two branches of the main valley of Fishertown’s shipcity until the mountainsides closed in and funneled the storm winds too violently for safe flight, lay the area controlled by companies such as the Tellas Conglomerate and Largas Freight. Theland wasn’t the best, but ships arriving in those landing areas were given first-class welcomes, from modern docking tugs to fully serviced parking and reasonably secure warehousing. At a price. This was still the Fringe, after all.
Surrounding the valley, the land rose in abrupt, raggedtoothed cliffs, but closer to the ocean, there were foothills suitable for construction. Clinging to the lowest of these was a blight of buildings containing those who were able to flee the Dump, if not Fishertown; higher was the strip housing commerce and the minimal amount of industry here: most specializing in the repair and maintenance of ships, or brokers such as ourselves. Highest of all were those elaborate, inset structures housing those who had made fortunes here and expected to keep them. The truly wealthy didn’t live on Minas XII at all, but there was no lack of an upper class who believed themselves such.
You’d know it was mostly Human without even seeing one
, I thought, as I usually did when we flew in from this direction and I could see the entire mess. Other species tended to cooperate rather well when in small numbers and failed to do so when crowded. Humans seemed to require a critical number massed together—and all the associated problems—before bestirring themselves to organize more than a tolerant anarchy.
Minas XII wasn’t populous enough yet, apparently. Aircars were the only mode of transportation able to reach anywhere in Fishertown, although trying to land amid the wrecks in the Dump was considered somewhere
Why Fishertown? According to locals, the first beings toland here had chosen the site because the main valley swooped down to the ocean, and the Humans on board, tired of being spacers, had had visions of setting up an industry based on fishing. Had they bothered to investigate before venturing out on Minas’ huge waves that fine sunny day, they would have discovered the local aquatic fauna took great exception to any disturbance and were large enough to express that opinion. Later settlers wisely avoided such conflicts, taking the name of Fishertown as a reminder of exactly who was considered prey here. There was an illicit, though somewhat amusing, trade involving luring tourists to the ocean and collecting their insurance.
The real economic boom was in supplying cheap freight service between the Fringe mines and their markets. Each new wave of arrivals had plunked their starships findown on the lava of Fishertown’s valley and declared themselves a shipcity. As space to do this without tipping over was limited, captains defended their miniature territories fiercely. The infrastructure to dock and service starships had thus evolved in a “first come, first grab” procedure, in which the best land had been claimed by the earliest, and most desperate, arrivals while the margins were eventually settled by those who saw an opportunity to expand their holdings from secure outsystem power bases. The latter could afford quality equipment and tugs.
From the air, without clouds to hide it, I could see the end result. The core of the broadest part of the valley contained a motley assortment of ships, some permanently (and thankfully) grounded by age and disrepair. A few straight avenues marked where space had been left for docking tugs to bring ships in and out. Over the years we’d been here, those avenues had gradually diminished, creating a prison for ships unable to launch by themselves. The entire area was aptly, if irreverently, referred to as the Dump.
To the north of the Dump, winding up two branches of the main valley of Fishertown’s shipcity until the mountainsides closed in and funneled the storm winds too violently for safe flight, lay the area controlled by companies such as the Tellas Conglomerate and Largas Freight. Theland wasn’t the best, but ships arriving in those landing areas were given first-class welcomes, from modern docking tugs to fully serviced parking and reasonably secure warehousing. At a price. This was still the Fringe, after all.
Surrounding the valley, the land rose in abrupt, raggedtoothed cliffs, but closer to the ocean, there were foothills suitable for construction. Clinging to the lowest of these was a blight of buildings containing those who were able to flee the Dump, if not Fishertown; higher was the strip housing commerce and the minimal amount of industry here: most specializing in the repair and maintenance of ships, or brokers such as ourselves. Highest of all were those elaborate, inset structures housing those who had made fortunes here and expected to keep them. The truly wealthy didn’t live on Minas XII at all, but there was no lack of an upper class who believed themselves such.
You’d know it was mostly Human without even seeing one
, I thought, as I usually did when we flew in from this direction and I could see the entire mess. Other species tended to cooperate rather well when in small numbers and failed to do so when crowded. Humans seemed to require a critical number massed together—and all the associated problems—before bestirring themselves to organize more than a tolerant anarchy.
Minas XII wasn’t populous enough yet, apparently. Aircars were the only mode of transportation able to reach anywhere in Fishertown, although trying to land amid the wrecks in the Dump was considered somewhere
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