Aareschlucht was a corvette-class ship named after a famous gorge in Old Switzerland, which had an even more impressive equivalent on Neu Schweitz. Both gorges cut through mountain valleys in-between craggy Alps on their respective worlds. Both were dangerous and beautiful places that moved a great deal of water downhill very quickly. Like its namesake, Aareschlucht was built for movement at great speed, and little else.
Aldo Moreno had signed onto Aareschlucht after Droad’s urging, and he’d never regretted a decision more intensely in his life. How Droad had talked him into this fool’s errand was beyond him. He stood in awe of the accomplishment. Aldo had never before thought of Droad as more than an unusually capable and dedicated politician, but now he stood corrected: the man was a sly devil with a silver tongue dipped in honey.
Aldo hated the ship. He hated the smell of stale, canned air. The monofilament filters and carbon dioxide scrubbers worked tirelessly, but they could never quite remove the odors of the other crewmen. There was no such thing as a fresh breeze, something he had enjoyed and come to take for granted after long years wandering the mountain cantons of Neu Schweitz. Even the water was fouled with a chemical taste. Everything was recycled, even the shitty paste the crew called food. He suspected it was their own waste processed by algae in the tanks that never stopped churning below decks. The taste of waste never quite left it, no matter how it was seasoned, baked or stewed.
So many details Droad had left out of his description of this ‘adventure’! Cryo-sleep would have been a blessing, but no, it was denied to them all. There were no pods aboard for the purpose. He and sixteen other crewmen were forced to spend the year-long voyage fully awake in a living space no larger than a city restaurant, and nowhere near as comfortably appointed.
Perhaps it was partly due to his discomfort, but Aldo found himself not getting along well with some of the Aareschlucht’s crewmen. The man he was ostensibly supposed to guard was an elderly fellow named Roland Garant. This at least turned out to be an easy job, as the man stayed in his quarters most of the time and only came to drink in the ship’s saloon at odd hours.
Ambassador Garant was far from the most irritating of the lot, however. The ship’s Captain was named Stanley Knox, and Aldo developed a desire to kill him after the first months in space. The man was pompous and intolerable. Perhaps Droad had fantasized that Aldo and he might get along-but that was not to be. Certainly, they had some interests in common: the Captain liked cards and carried a duelist’s sword, traditions Aldo himself adhered to. Knox also liked to brag and swagger, traits Aldo likewise enjoyed when the mood struck him.
The trouble began as a result of a disagreement concerning the females aboard the ship. There were enough of them to go around-Droad had apparently made certain of this. Of the seventeen people aboard, precisely eight were women. Aldo had to admit there was a certain wisdom in this calculation. At worst, only one man would be left out. But the imbalance became apparent in a second grim truth that hadn’t been properly weighed: only three of the women were young and attractive. The most interesting of that select group was none other than Joelle Tolbert herself, the very girl Droad had had a dalliance with shortly after the aliens had been driven from the Kale system.
Joelle had light hair that shone in even the dimmest light. Her eyes were big, round and blue. At first, she had rejected Aldo’s advances. This met with the obvious approval of Captain Knox, who had been regularly losing at cards to Aldo, and who had begun to sneer at him in the passageways. Knox set about wooing Tolbert himself, and at first, Aldo had turned the other cheek. If the girl preferred this fop, it was her loss. He promptly set about bedding the other two attractive women aboard. For several long months, this had served to pass the time. The ladies were like a balm on an open wound. Unfortunately, every other male aboard the ship constantly pestered them with their crude advances. In time, everyone aboard discovered Aldo had been courting all the best women, and they became typically annoyed with him-most importantly, the ladies themselves scorned him. He soon found himself with only the plainer women left to choose from.
He found this irritating. Normally, when faced with this situation, he would have picked up his few belongings, strapped his power-sword to his belt and exited the region, looking for fresh game. It was a procedure he’d followed a dozen times before. Now, however, he was trapped within the curved hull of this cursed ship. There was nowhere else for him to go.
His mood soured with each passing day. He spent time with the women who would have him, but the injustice burned in his mind. He was accustomed to enjoying the best of everything. It wasn’t the women themselves that bothered him-it was his pride and his competitive nature that caused his discomfort. The growing, inescapable stink inside the ship didn’t help matters, either. His mood grew ever darker, even as the others’ felt their spirits rising. As they finally reached a brief coasting period, a slice of time that was to last less than a month, matters came to a head.
Late one night in the ship’s saloon, he shared a table with several of the crewmen and played cards. Aldo was a skilled veteran at games of chance, and played extremely well both fairly and unfairly, but as a matter of choice he’d not yet dealt an uneven hand to his fellow crewmen. After all, they were as stuck on this mission as he was, presumably all equally taken in by Droad’s sweet words of heroism and sacrifice. Tonight however, compounding his already dismal mood, he found himself losing every game. Stanley Knox, who squatted in the corner seat, had experienced the opposite fortunes. He’d won nearly every hand and hooted with pleasure as he pawed his winnings.
Aldo decided to realign the Captain’s thinking. He dealt him a losing hand and leaned forward predatorily as he bet hard against the man. He made sure he swilled his own drink and became suddenly loud, appearing off- balance.
Knox eyed Aldo. He knew his cards were not the best, but they were not inconceivably bad. He pushed his luck, trusting to good fortune, as it had not let him down all night. He met Aldo’s bet and raised it. Several crewmen folded. They sat back, sensing tension as Aldo raised the bet to the house limit. The table fell silent as the Captain matched and called.
Aldo threw down his cards, keeping his face blank. He appeared interested only in what the Captain had in his fingers-despite the fact he already knew what every card face showed.
Seeing Aldo’s cards, the Captain’s expression fell. Aldo knew triumph, and his nose rose slightly higher as the Knox threw up his hands and tried to play the matter off as no great deal. Aldo felt a grim touch of satisfaction, but he also felt a tingle of regret. The man had not flashed with rage. He had not shouted and cursed. He’d simply taken his loss and gone on. It was admirable, and Aldo felt the rat for having cheated a good man.
The matter may have passed as an unfortunate wrinkle in time, but for the watchful eyes of the ship’s Lieutenant. As Aldo reached his hands out to scoop up his winnings, the Lieutenant’s hand latched onto his wrist.
Aldo looked at the man in shock. “Explain yourself, officer-and know that I’ve killed for less.”
The Lieutenant stared back. There was concern in his face, but not outright fear. “I saw something. I ask that you relinquish your winnings on this occasion.”
“Why should I?”
“Out of a sense of honor.”
Every eye was upon Aldo. Few of them liked him. He’d bedded every attractive girl on Aareschlucht and several less attractive ones as well, only to move on to the next. He could hear their thoughts: was he a cheater at cards, as well? The Lieutenant in particular had never liked him. He was an ill-favored man with a face that resembled a mask of twisted meat and hair that seemed oily and lank even immediately after a shower. Aldo knew the girls tended to dart away when he made his clumsy overtures.
“What was it that you saw, Lieutenant?” Captain Knox asked. He had a deep voice that rumbled when he spoke.
“I would rather not say.”
Aldo withdrew his hands from the pot of coins and threw them up into the air. “Very well!” he said. “I don’t want there to be hard feelings. I give back the credits. You may divvy up mine as well.”
“Well, there’s no need to-” began the Captain, suddenly embarrassed.
“No, no,” Aldo said. “I don’t want to sully this fine mission with misunderstandings. I’ll simply-”
“There has been no misunderstanding,” interrupted the Lieutenant.
“There most certainly has been,” Aldo said, “and I intend to repair matters.”
“You cheated,” blurted the Lieutenant. “You dealt the Captain’s hand from the bottom of the deck, while the rest of us received cards from the top.”
Aldo froze, as did everyone else around the table. The Lieutenant was stone-faced. An open accusation of
