Excerpt: Here there be Monsters

Casey leaned her head on the smooth pane of plexiglass that covered one wall of the apartment and closed her eyes for a brief moment to shut out the strains of the past four hours. She hated to argue about emotions. Her eyes flicked open and she breathed heavily onto the smooth surface causing it to mist momentarily with condensation which was quickly dissipatetd as micro-sensors in the glass picked up the changes to the ambient temperature and adjusted for it by streaming thin air currents across the surface to restore.
Casey smiled to herself and took her head from the glass, taking a draw from her cigarette and letting the smoke hold in her mouth before greedily inhaling. She reflected, as she blew streams of smoke from her nostrils that the would have hated the environment sensors just a few years ago. She would have despised the efficiency in taking away condensation that she might want to draw rude words in, or regaled people at the waste of energy and effort in having such systems. Unfortunately that last point was invalid as the systems that controlled environment in this place were as efficiently energy balanced as possible. Nothing was wasted. Even the moisture that she exhaled would be extracted and re-used by the system.
Casey's eyes took in the view and once again she failed at blasé and was marvelled by the scene before her. The planet Earth. Home of humanity and centre for Accord politics rolled lazily in its orbit. A blue-white marble lined with silver streaks of vast cities and be-speckled with hundreds of floating cities, like the one she was currently stood within, hanging in a cloud of low orbit. She had heard that there was more than one trillion people who lived in the Sol system. A figure that she would have scoffed at, that was until she came here and saw the sprawl of humanity's home system.
There was a bang to the side of her and Casey looked around. The small occasional table in the room had been kicked over by the rooms other occupant Jack Temple. She let the smile that was still on her lips stay for a moment before removing it and replacing it with a neutral expression. She raised one eyebrow, an action her mother had always found annoying, and inhaled once more on her cigarette.
“Was that absolutely necessary?” she enquired.
Jack snarled and opened his mouth to retort, but he stopped himself before doing so. He suddenly smiled viscously and picked up the end of the table and threw it at the wall. The table made a loud bang and a cracking sound as one of the legs was broken, “about as necessary as that, love” he growled.
Casey looked down and then walked to the mess of the table and retrieved the ashtray that had been sat upon it. It was cracked but not yet broken. She snubbed out her cigarette and put the ashtray to one side.
“Aren't you going to say anything,” he mocked.
Casey could hear the strain in his voice, the aching for her to say something to provoke him further or to bring him down from his tantrum peaks, but she had no care to do either. He had to bring himself out of this one. “What would you like me to say?” Casey asked.
“I'd like you to say you're staying.” his voice was a growl, “I'd like you to say that this was too hard, that you couldn't leave me, that you needed me,” his voice raised in pitch, “I'd like you to say that I mattered one shit to you.” he finished at shouting volume.
Casey sighed and crossed her arms across her chest feeling cold and tired. “I've never liked that word,” she said in a manner that she instantly recognised as her mothers, “you know I don't like it. You also know that we have gone through this already, but since you want to hear it again, then I will oblige. No, I cannot stay, we both know that and I told you this when I first moved in that it wouldn't be forever.” she sighed and lit another cigarette, she might as well finish the pack it would be her last for some time. “This is too hard, and all of this noise and fury serves nothing Jack,” she looked into his eyes and had to bite back the tears that suddenly welled up inside her. She inhaled on the cigarette once more and turned away to wipe the stray moisture that threatened to smear her face.
“As for leaving you,” she paused and looked at his features. The brown tousled hair that already had small flecks of grey, why was it that grey hair was distinguished on a man and merely a sign of weariness on a woman. His smooth chin and strong nose that made him look so handsome in profile, like a character from a heroic holofic. She tried not to look into his rich green eyes, they had melted her heart when she first saw them, now they bore into her flecked with anger and pain. Jack had a great mouth, that she yearned to kiss just to see that easy smile of his once more.
“Leaving you is not easy, but it is something I have been doing since we first met and you know that.” she paused and took another draw on the cigarette, then rotated her head to try and ease the knot of muscles that had bunched at the back of her neck. “And I do need you, Jack, but that doesn't change a thing and you know it. How do you think I feel about losing you?” She stared at him trying to quell the anger and the sorrow that threatened to consume her once more. “As for the rest,” she sighed, “you make your own mind up on that as frankly i don't care to answer it.”
“You can be a single minded bitch sometimes, you know that?” he snarled.
She raised her eyebrow once more, “I told you a long time ago that word was honorific in translation,” she said.
“Not the way I intended it,” he retorted.
“That's your choice,” she put the cigarette out, “I am going for a shower, you might want to clear the mess of the table up or maybe you could try throwing other bits of furniture at the walls, I really couldn't care either way. It seems nothing I say is going to matter at this point so i may as well say nothing.”
Casey walked into the bedroom to the sound of a crash of glass, probably the ornamental vase they had found in a market in Singapore, and his words of “shitting arse.” She really did despise the use of that word. It was a common term for Sol, but where she came from the use of it was a sign of someone with no manners and little regard for the feelings of others.
She had hoped that this would have been easier, but she had known that it was going to be hard. She steeled herself for the fight but hadn't fully realised the toll it would take on her. She loved Jack. She loved his laugh, his words, his healthy and attractive body. There was a lot to like about him which is why he had so many friends and admirers. It would be easy for him to fall into another relationship, if that's what he wanted, easier than it was for her. This, in spite of the fact of where she was going to be for the next three years of her life.
Casey looked at herself in the mirror as she walked into the bathroom. She shrugged, she looked a mess. The row of the day had made her eyes red and her cheeks sallow. Her long hair was in disarray and she looked like she needed at least twenty hours downtime. Oh well, she sighed to herself, she didn't have twenty hours she had two hours. Then she would be embarking on the career path she had chosen for herself many years ago. A path that she hoped would one day fulfil her dreams and maybe let her understand more of the life that her father had once enjoyed.
Casey started the shower and set it to use warm water with no programme. She placed her head beneath the fast jets and let the water rain on her closed eyelids. This was the closest she could get to the sensation of rain. She smiled as strong memories of her home ran through her mind. She missed her home. She missed the sun on her face and the warm rains of the long summer. She missed the wide open spaces and running in long fields of wheat.
Casey knew that to many Terran's she was just an Outer, not at least an uneducated one as she had scored in the top three percent for her region. The fact that she had attended her final schooling and training at fleet headquarters in the Sol system was testament to her abilities. But, she was still an Outer. A girl born on the backwater Outer Rim worlds of the Old Frontiers. The first colonies.

“Kimberly Claire,” the voice shouted into the dusk and was lost to the vast open air. “Kimberly Claire, you come in here this moment or I am setting the guard bots on you.” The woman calling sighed, where was that child. She looked at the monitor system on the wall, it indicated that she was still in the first twenty acres not in the open fields. The panel also showed that she had the dog with her, which was a comfort. She tapped her feet impatiently and folded her arms, the panel wasn't very sensitive so wouldn't show any motion back towards the house for a few seconds. She was about to raise her voice to call again when the light moved. Good. The girl was finally coming in, that she could at least enjoy.
“Kimberly Claire,” she called again as the light indicated she was in the yard at the side of the house.
“Coming mom” said in the lazy tones of youth.
Kimberly rounded the corner and came into full view of the porch where her mum could see her. She looked so tall, her mother thought, and so pretty. Yet she was still a gawky, stringy ten year old with a easy smile and loose sense of timing. Her mother sighed at the state of her hair. That thich crop of cornsilk coloured hair that refused to be tied back and would always work itself free of whatever style it was placed in to reside in its natural tangled state. It didn't help that her daughter was a full fledged tomboy of quite the worse order. She was so like her father that it often made her mother weep, he would have loved to see her like this, he would have indulged her in anything she wished and turned her to more devious deeds than her current nature permitted. But, he would have loved to see her grow up, and now it was just her that had the pleasure and the heartbreak of raising a child.
Her mother waited until she reached the steps before uncrossing her arms and opening the screen door to the inside, “and where exactly have you and Max been?” she looked back at the cross-breed dog whole sensing her mood was not bouncing around and yapping in his normal over-enthusiastic state.
Kimberley shrugged her shoulders and smiled at her mother, “around, you know, here and there, scoping stuff out.”
Her mother raised her eyebrows and then frowned as her daughter raised her single eyebrow. it annoyed her when Kimberly did that as it was a trait of her fathers. One the girl surely couldn't have picked up in the short time that she knew him. Could mannerisms be genetic, her reasoning really suggested that they couldn't, and yet Kimberly shared so many of his traits that it often drove her to distraction and sorrow. “Where exactly were you scoping?” her mother used the vernacular phrase with obvious distaste.
“You know,” said Kimberly, “about.”
“Have you been climbing trees in the orchard?” asked her mother.
“Mom,” Kimberly rolled her eyes and smiled, “I have been just wandering with Max.” the dog barked reflectively at Kimberly's use of his name and ran into the kitchen to check his bowls for food. Kimberly followed him and then grabbed him in and scratched his ears, “do you want some burp biscuits or far...”
“Don't you finish that sentence,” Kimberly's mother interrupted her.
“I was going to say far out food,” responded Kimberly.
“You were not,” said her mother, “now go wash and change your clothes, they are filthy. You might also want to brush the apple leaves out of your hair, strange how those trees lose their leaves in entirely the wrong season.”
Kimberly's face went briefly red and then she smiled wolfishly at her mother, “oops,” she said “I'll go wash. Come on Maxxie boy” she called and ran up the stairs with a dog bouncing about her in obvious glee.
Kimberly's mother sighed and started to arrange the table, she would be cooking for five tonight as Sam and the boys would be coming over. This was going to result in another stupid argument between Kimberly and Charlie, Sam's eldest, she knew. he had become quite dominant in the past three months, ever since turning thirteen. it was as if someone switched a key in his head from cheerful to angsty and his whole demeanour went with it. She knew that was a little unfair, but he was hard work. Boys always were, he really needed a mother and an older sister. What he got was her and Kimberly, a girl three years his junior and light years his senior in brains and attitude. It wasn't his fault, it was Kimberly, the girl excelled in almost everything she put her mind to, including mischief and sheer contrariness.
Oh well she thought, at least Sam would provide her with some more amusing stories about life in the big city as she termed it. The big city was the colonies one and only spaceport and was located two hundred miles east of her farmstead. it was home to the world's largest population, a stunning three thousand people lived there. She knew that to many people in the vast sprawl of worlds that number wasn't even a city block, but here it was a city.
She smiled to herself as she started to prepare the nights feast. Their world may not boast the levels of technology and population of others, but the air was clean, not artificially cleaned, the food was fresh and not processed, and children could run in fields with little to worry them except the product of their own mischief, and she knew of few worlds that could boast that.
“Kimberly Claire”, she called up the stairs, “don't let the dog in the shower and make sure the rooms are ready for Sam, Charles and Dominic.”
There was a pause and the sounds of hushed voices, “he's not in the shower mom,” called Kimberly.
“Max,” she called, “din dins.” there was a loud bark and a wet dog raced down the stairs and past her to the kitchen, yapping appreciatively and wagging a tail that flicked water everywhere. “You can mop the floor as well,” her mother called.
“Can't the bot do it?” called Kimberly.
“It could,” her mother responded, “but it isn't going to, you are as you made the mess.”
“Technically the shower and Max made the mess,” came Kimberly's voice, “and you didn't entirely help.”
“Kimberly, I am not arguing with you, do as I say. They will be here soon. Oh, try not to argue with Charlie tonight okay, or at least keep it to a minimum.”
“I don't argue mom, he argues, i win.”
Kimberly's mother sighed and went back to the kitchen. Yes, you win she thought but winning isn't always the best thing to do. She looked at the expectant face of Max who was sat diligently next to his bowl, his tail tapping a beat on the cupboard to the side, “and what do you want?” she asked as he barked gleefully at her.