QSFer David Gerrold has a new queer sci-fi book out: Praxis.
A lifetime in the Labor Corps-or colonize a new world. For Jamie and José, not much of a choice. But Praxis wouldn’t be easy. To survive there, you had to depend on each other. And that requires honesty that few possess. Praxis is a bold experiment in society building, a monosexual colony, with no promises of survival and no return trip. But it’s got potential. You just have to build a new civilization-on the other side of the universe.
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Excerpt
It wasn’t a riot. It was a celebration. Our team won. They won the big one. It was important. It was the first time in living memory that the team came home with the flags, the trophies, the rings. So of course we hit the streets.
It’s traditional to celebrate. Get drunk. Smoke dope. But this was special beyond special. It was time to get fucked up and go wild. Break a few windows, start some fires, flip a couple police cars. That’s not a riot. That’s a party. We earned it. We deserved it. We’re the champions. Boo-yah!
In the morning, the lawyers explained it to me, there were two of them. They wore shiny suits and hard expressions. The law didn’t see it the same way I did. According to the law, it was a riot and I’m a bad person.
So they gave me a choice. The same choice they give everyone. Pay a large fine. Very large. Or else join The Labor Corps. Three to five years, depending on the assignment. That’s not really much of a choice, but it isn’t supposed to be. The law sets the fine by your projected income (and in my case, that’s somewhere on the south side of nothing) but even if you have an income, the fine is always going to be more than you can afford. The judge has no incentive to make it easy on you. Not while the state can show a profit on your conviction.
The Labor Corps is supposed to be a way to repay your debt to society, but it’s really a for-profit arrangement. The Labor Corps buys criminal indentures from the state. That makes it government-sanctioned slavery.
I’m not stupid, slavery is about economics. If labor is cheap enough, you can build pyramids. The Labor Corps builds pyramids—or anything else anyone has the money to pay for. There was a lot of talk about it in the lockup. There’s nothing else to do in there but talk. Or sleep. Or masturbate. Alone or with a friend.
The courts are backed up like a cheap toilet, so they arraign prisoners on a first-come, first-served schedule. If it’s a party weekend, you can be in lockup till Wednesday or Thursday.
Somewhere in there, you get ten minutes with the lawyers. They’re not there to defend you. They’re there to explain why you’re going to the Labor Corps. You have no choice, they say, make it easy on yourself, plead no-contest and you’ll get three years instead of seven. As soon as you realize you have no choice, you agree and they send you back to lockup to wait for sentencing.
In lockup you hear the rest of it. There are no three-year or seven-year sentences. The Labor Corps pays your fine and owns your indenture. They put you to work, whatever you can do—they don’t mistreat you, but they do bill you for your bed and your laundry and your meals. They bill you for cigarettes and candy bars and jumpsuits and shoes and underwear and sick calls. So it works out that you never quite pay off your bill. The Labor Corps isn’t an indenture, it’s a lifetime career.
Except maybe not.
There was a big black guy sitting against the wall, looking hard and skeptical. I didn’t know what he was in lockup for, but he had a wristband like the rest of us, blinking red and flashing text and numbers. His name was Mickey, but everybody called him Big Mick.
Big Mick was saying to someone, “Nah. Don’t have to indenture. Request emigration.”
“To where?”
“Anywhere. Go through a portal.”
“A portal? Yeah, right. The other side of nowhere.”
“Portals buy indentures, thirty cents on the dollar. Cheapest way out. You go, you only pay back the thirty.”
“To where? Nordhel? Heavy-gee ice-world? Chip blocks off glaciers so Midwest farmers can water their beans? Then we get to buy the beans? Or maybe ammonia mining on some nameless rock—live inna tunnel where everything smells like piss? Work inna pressure suit, eat soylent and shit green? Uh-uh.” That was a big guy, covered with a red tiger-tat, outlining the left half of his face. “Rather be digging new Sahara canal. Not hafta pay for my own oxy.”
Big Mick shrugged. “Your choice, gospodin. Some people want other.”
“Yeah? Name six.”
“Just one. Praxis.”
“Never heard.”
“Private-financed. Six dry holes, lucky on the seventh. Yellow star. Point nine gee. Oxygen-rich. Post-Jurassic. Can’t get better.”
“It so good, whyn’t you go?”
“Not taking everybody. Need specific skills. But I’m apped and good to go. Just waiting. Two-three days, I’m outa.”
“Yeah? Maybe. What they need?”
“Carpenters, plumbers, electricians, engineers, geologists, farmers, dishwashers, trashmen—anybody who wanna work. Building a colony from ground up.”
Tiger-tat wasn’t impressed. “Issa catch. Always a catch.”
Mick said, “Maybe. But still sound good to me. Planet has loopyh orbit. Go from inner rim of Goldilocks zone to outer edge, maybe past, but life survive. When hot, is too hot. When cold, is too cold. But not impossible. Least that what they say. It have one big continent, one big ocean. Lotsa islands. Thirty-six axial tilt—so hot at equator it have scorch belt across middle of continent. Uninhabitable. But north and south, issa useful climate. Poles are temperate, some good ice, but not enough meltwater for whole continent, so large areas of scrub and desert. Not paradise, but possibilities.”
“But it has shirtsleeve zones, right?” asked a smaller man.
“Two,” said Big Mick. “North and south. But two very different ecologies because of separation. Some big animals. Watch where you step, you be okay.”
“Not sound too bad,” said the smaller man.
“No listen anymore,” snapped Tiger-tat. “Dissa recruiter!” He jabbed a finger at Big Mick. “You think we stupid? How much a bounty you get for us?”
Author Bio
David Gerrold is the author of over 50 books, hundreds of articles and columns, and over a dozen television episodes. He is a classic sci-fi writer that will go down in history as having created some of the most popular and redefining scripts, books, and short stories in the genre. TV credits include episodes from Star Trek (“The Trouble With Tribbles” and “The Cloud Minders”), Star Trek Animated (“More Tribbles, More Troubles” and “Bem”), Babylon 5 (“Believers”), Twilight Zone (“A Day In Beaumont” and “A Saucer Of Loneliness”), Land Of The Lost (“Cha-Ka,” “The Sleestak God,” “Hurricane,” “Possession,” and “Circle”), Tales From The Darkside (“Levitation” and “If The Shoes Fit”), Logan’s Run (“Man Out Of Time”), and others. Novels include When HARLIE Was One, The Man Who Folded Himself, The War Against The Chtorr septology, The Star Wolf trilogy, The Dingilliad young adult trilogy, the Trackers duology, and many more sci-fi classics. Additionally, the autobiographical tale of his son’s adoption, The Martian Child, won the Hugo and Nebula awards for Best Novelette of the Year and was the basis for the 2007 movie, Martian Child, starring John Cusack, Amanda Peet, and Joan Cusack. Online at gerrold.com.
| Author Website | https://www.gerrold.com |
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