Hard Vacuum: Short Episodes In The Future

One Man's Treasure is Another Man's Trash

Allan Counter waddled into his trophy room, followed by the stupefied servant, Aman-ris. "You like artifacts? I have the most impressive collection."

Aman-ris was just prior railing with madness over the insulting situation he'd found himself in as the servant of wealthy fools. His mention of his lost artifact had infused the noble with action. Lord Counter seemed to awaken suddenly from his drunken stupor and into a too often rehearsed role as a sort of tour guide to his own decadence.

"What do I care for your junk? You think because your fellow fools place a value on such trash that is grants you a sort of power over them? My device was one of true power!"

"Tut, tut, slave. Look here. This is an original Kalbich digital painting. Even the emissaries of Ur were jealous when they saw that I had outbid them. Why just the news that I had purchased it had gotten me invited to several high profile balls..."

Aman-ris could not contain the gurgling growl of frustration. He gripped at his scalp as if to prevent his mind from fleeing. He looked about this new room of Lord Counter's. It was a shrine to brainless consumerism. The digital painting that was being presented looked nothing more than feces spread in squares over a textured ground. There was nothing pleasing about it. There was no skill in its creation. Yet it no doubt demanded a high price among the elite jesters that controlled the universe. "How is it that such incompetence can attain so much?" he looked about the room for an escape.

He froze. It was there, on the far side of the room. It sat on a table among plasti-sim replicas of primitive Ubaidian pots. Just tossed there carelessly as if it were one of the valueless bagatelles that filled the room. He smacked himself in the forehead and dragged his hand down over his open mouth.

"What? What is it, servant? Are you ill?"

Aman-ris pointed at the artifact on the table with a shaking hand. He had lost the command of his own speech.

"What? That?" Counter waddled over to the little table in the corner and picked up the corroded metal rod, about as long as his forearm. "This isn't very valuable at all. It's just a curiosity. This is just a relic from old Akkad. You see, long ago, people used to reproduce sexually, and the women used to..."

"IMBECILE!" Aman-ris launched himself at the fat man with mad furry. Counter cried out as his sharp claws gouged into his face. The fat man's balance was still unstable with drink, and he toppled over onto the table, which broke under his weight. The servant pounced atop him, his hands clutched around his neck with the strength of one who fought with all the emotion of rage and survival.

In a short time, Allan Counter's body was motionless. A gem on his bracelet blinked with a dull, purple light which signified that somewhere else in the star system, a cloning vat was birthing his successor, upon contingency of his death.

Alone now in the room, Aman-ris pried the alien, metal rod from the fat man's cold, dead hand and raised it over his head in triumph.