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“Argh!” Talsin yelled as he enter the slapwood and ceramic-crete house, kicking the stool by the door they normally used to remove their boots across the mudroom. “I hate that woman.”
“It’s okay boss, we’ll get her the next time,” said a member of his gang, coming in after him. Larrie always sucked up. “Kill her good.”
After securing the airlock, Maizee and Adman looked at each other before dropping their eyes, the woman in question had cost them a quarter million in rustling today after nearly four day’s work to get everything in place but killing women carried a steep price if anyone found out. Not a conversation they wanted to butt into, and with that quick look, they agreed to let Larrie calm the boss down, bless his bootlicker soul.
They dropped to the floor to remove their boots. Prairie kept a lot of critters in its mud, and everyone knew, no matter how stomping-mad they got, to not bring no dirt into the sleeping quarters. A single earbitter egg could wreck a day worse than a dove on her monthly.
Talsin righted the stool and sat, pulling off his deep treaded boots with his pleaky-leather gloves. “The bitch is worth more to us alive than dead.”
“Fine then, we get her and the bounty too!” Larrie smiled through his breather and scraggly beard. “Upgrade the pass-thru with that kind-of coin.”
“Nah, you don’t get it.”
Everyone slid the boots into the lower decon area, then dropped their hats, breathers, and gloves into the upper area before heading to the pass-thru. The unit was built to handle a family of four, meaning a grown man, woman and their gov-approved knee-biting offspring, so four sturdy bullmen didn’t fit none too well, but running it twice in a day-cycle strained the batteries and usually meant the air conditioning wouldn’t kick in until mid-day after the batteries got replenished from Prairie’s white star. Meanwhile the house would bake like a tin can, making it impossible to get a good day’s sleep. Upgrading the pass-thru, or at least the energy storage, would be as welcomed as the fall rains.
“We need her to keep running around.” The boss snapped the controls on and they all breathed deep as the green mist and gas filled the pass-thru chamber. Each in turn shook their pants and jacket as best they could in the tight quarters. The lights cycled purple, yellow, and red. Finally natural white, imitating Earth-light showed overhead at the end of twelve minutes. Ain’t no one talked during the double-handful of minutes as the sensors had broken from a leak during the spring rains and registered any sounds after the cycles started as distress and would stop and toss them back into the mudroom and ain’t no one wanted to fill their mouths and lungs with Scheele’s Green more than they had to.
The stripping room hamper in the center filled with denim, pleaky-leather chaps, flannel, and mint-thread shirts as the men undressed. Maizee tapped it to start the cleaning and infusion process once everyone was down to their BD suits. Prairie manners, and as rough riding as Talsin and his crew were, they abided by manners, said no one talked to each other, or really looked at each other while starkers. The pass-thru shower could only handle one full-grown man at a time, but the final decon only took a quick rub to get the oil everywhere. Adman went through first as he had dinner chores. Bossman oiled down second, Maizee with the dishes, setup and washing, third. And finally Larrie, since tonight was his night off chores.
He came through, stroking the oil through his beard as best he could, envious of Maizee’s genes which kept his chin clean even after a week outside, to find the boss combing extra oil through his hair, shaping it. All of them needed time with razors and scissors after the past week outside except Maizee who braided his straight black hair like his ancestors did back on Earth and kept it under a skullcap while outside. The doves back in town loved playing with his waist length hair when they had extra coin to spend. After Larrie pulled on his houserobe, he asked, “Why do we need Silver around? We should just collect the bounty and let her be sent polar.”
“As annoying at that bitch is to me, she is three times as annoying to the sheriff and his kin. Equal rights for the doves and catalog women and all that.”
Larrie grunted.
Talsin tilted his head one side to the other in the mirror, checking out his pompadour. He switched to the pick and worked out the matting the breather had knotted into his goatee. “We just need to figure out how to keep her out of our business, while she does her business and distracts the sheriff from our business.”
(words 820; written 5/18/2024; first published 7/21/2024)
