Read Online Rude Astronauts by Allen Steele - Free Book Online
Authors: Allen Steele
Tags: Science-Fiction, Anthologies
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again.”
“That was all?” I asked.
Bob, smiling and slumped over the bar, looked at me and shook his head slowly. “Well … not quite. See, I taped a note on the back of Lenny’s suit, where he couldn’t see it or take it off. It said, ‘To the Bill Casey Society … take your drunk stool pigeon and shove him!’ I didn’t sign it, but I think Lenny let ’em know who the author was, and I don’t think they appreciated my sense of humor.”
Neither did Skycorp, which was how Cowboy Bob lost his contract bonus and got nailed with a couple of fines which deflated his payroll. He ended up on the “unhirable” list with the major space companies as a result of the Free Beer Conspiracy. When the hammer inevitably came down, he alone took the pounding.
“But y’know what, Al?” he said as I half-carried him towards the door. “I don’t give a shit. Y’gotta have a sense of humor. Flatheads like the Casey jerks … they don’t have a sense of humor, goddamn fanatics. Following me, telling me I gotta keep my mouth shut. I pissed on them from a considerable height, and I’d do it again if I could …”
Bob threw up in the bushes behind the bar, then passed out in the shotgun seat of my car after mumbling directions to his house. I concentrated on keeping my vision straight as I carefully drove down Route 3 towards Cocoa Beach. It was a quarter past midnight when I drove over the Banana River causeway onto Route A1A, cruising through the beachfront commercial strip of Cocoa Beach. The night was black as space, wet and humid like the inside of a dog’s mouth, neon-glittering like the old visions of the high frontier.
A couple of units, a pump and a ladder, from the Cocoa Beach Fire Department screamed past us in the left lane as I passed the old Satellite Motel. Bob, snoring in the depths of his drunken sleep, paid no attention, nor did I until we passed the commercial zone and headed into the residential part of town. Then the stranger, the guy who had lingered in Jack’s near Bob and me while he was telling me the story, oddly came to mind, for no particular reason. Remembering him, I also recalled something Bob had told me about Lenny Gibson, how he used to hang around in the Skycan rec room, attempting to eavesdrop on conversations. I began to feel uneasy. For no particular reason.
As I turned the corner onto the residential street where Bob told me he lived, I spotted the fire trucks again, parked in the street in front of a small white Florida-style stucco house, practically identical to all the other white stucco houses lining the road. The house was ablaze with fire shooting through a collapsing roof and the firemen directing streams of water through broken front windows, while people stood around beyond the piles of hoses, watching the blaze. I slowed to a stop behind the trucks and shook Bob awake.
“Hey, Bob,” I said. “One of your neighbors has his house on fire.”
Bob’s eyes cracked open, and he stared through the windshield at the burning house. He didn’t say anything for a few moments, just stared.
“It is one of your neighbors’, isn’t it?” I asked, feeling an unseasonal chill.
Cowboy Bob didn’t look at me, nor did he laugh, but his mouth twisted into a sad, angry sort of smile. “What did I tell you?” he whispered at last. “Fanatics. No goddamn sense of humor.”
True story.
The Return of Weird Frank
T HIS IS A WARNING , the only one you’ll get, so don’t take it lightly: this is a truly bizarre and ugly story. In all probability it is a lie since it was told to me second-hand in a seedy Florida barroom, the last place one should ever expect to hear the truth about anything; if it isn’t a lie, then human affairs are even more depraved than you may have imagined.
If you’re searching for a nice, soothing yarn which will make you sleep easier tonight, snug and secure in the knowledge that people are essentially decent and that, even in the frontier of
“That was all?” I asked.
Bob, smiling and slumped over the bar, looked at me and shook his head slowly. “Well … not quite. See, I taped a note on the back of Lenny’s suit, where he couldn’t see it or take it off. It said, ‘To the Bill Casey Society … take your drunk stool pigeon and shove him!’ I didn’t sign it, but I think Lenny let ’em know who the author was, and I don’t think they appreciated my sense of humor.”
Neither did Skycorp, which was how Cowboy Bob lost his contract bonus and got nailed with a couple of fines which deflated his payroll. He ended up on the “unhirable” list with the major space companies as a result of the Free Beer Conspiracy. When the hammer inevitably came down, he alone took the pounding.
“But y’know what, Al?” he said as I half-carried him towards the door. “I don’t give a shit. Y’gotta have a sense of humor. Flatheads like the Casey jerks … they don’t have a sense of humor, goddamn fanatics. Following me, telling me I gotta keep my mouth shut. I pissed on them from a considerable height, and I’d do it again if I could …”
Bob threw up in the bushes behind the bar, then passed out in the shotgun seat of my car after mumbling directions to his house. I concentrated on keeping my vision straight as I carefully drove down Route 3 towards Cocoa Beach. It was a quarter past midnight when I drove over the Banana River causeway onto Route A1A, cruising through the beachfront commercial strip of Cocoa Beach. The night was black as space, wet and humid like the inside of a dog’s mouth, neon-glittering like the old visions of the high frontier.
A couple of units, a pump and a ladder, from the Cocoa Beach Fire Department screamed past us in the left lane as I passed the old Satellite Motel. Bob, snoring in the depths of his drunken sleep, paid no attention, nor did I until we passed the commercial zone and headed into the residential part of town. Then the stranger, the guy who had lingered in Jack’s near Bob and me while he was telling me the story, oddly came to mind, for no particular reason. Remembering him, I also recalled something Bob had told me about Lenny Gibson, how he used to hang around in the Skycan rec room, attempting to eavesdrop on conversations. I began to feel uneasy. For no particular reason.
As I turned the corner onto the residential street where Bob told me he lived, I spotted the fire trucks again, parked in the street in front of a small white Florida-style stucco house, practically identical to all the other white stucco houses lining the road. The house was ablaze with fire shooting through a collapsing roof and the firemen directing streams of water through broken front windows, while people stood around beyond the piles of hoses, watching the blaze. I slowed to a stop behind the trucks and shook Bob awake.
“Hey, Bob,” I said. “One of your neighbors has his house on fire.”
Bob’s eyes cracked open, and he stared through the windshield at the burning house. He didn’t say anything for a few moments, just stared.
“It is one of your neighbors’, isn’t it?” I asked, feeling an unseasonal chill.
Cowboy Bob didn’t look at me, nor did he laugh, but his mouth twisted into a sad, angry sort of smile. “What did I tell you?” he whispered at last. “Fanatics. No goddamn sense of humor.”
True story.
The Return of Weird Frank
T HIS IS A WARNING , the only one you’ll get, so don’t take it lightly: this is a truly bizarre and ugly story. In all probability it is a lie since it was told to me second-hand in a seedy Florida barroom, the last place one should ever expect to hear the truth about anything; if it isn’t a lie, then human affairs are even more depraved than you may have imagined.
If you’re searching for a nice, soothing yarn which will make you sleep easier tonight, snug and secure in the knowledge that people are essentially decent and that, even in the frontier of
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