The young man was tall, lanky, and had a mop of dark hair than ranged from large and wvy to shaggy and unkempt, depending on the occasion. Today, it was shaggy, and his oculars that made the eyes beneath his hairline seem twice their diameter when he wore them. Sitting at the workbench/table, a frown crossed his face as he looked at the gadget he’d been tinkering with for the better part of the last hour.

When the door sounder gently chimed in his hab, he didn’t look up from his work. “Hello, there,” he said, his eyes still intent on his project. “What’s the countersign?”

“Huston, I don’t have time for this!” Dallas’ voice blasted through the tinny com set above Huston’s worktable. “Just let me in.”

Huston took off his oculars with his left hand and rubbed his eyes with his right. “Countersign, then.”

“I said I don’t have time for your tech-and-dagger crap, Huston!”

“If you had just given the countersign to begin with, you’d be inside by now.”

Dallas let loose with a barrage of verbal abuse so loud, profane and ultimately impotent in effectiveness that Huston Morgan had no doubt it truly was his youngest brother at the door.

But he felt the need to make him squirm, just a little more. To that effect he waited until Dallas finished his tirade and a full count of three before he said, yet again:

“And the countersign is…?”

“Houston! I. Have. a. PROBLEM!”

Huston smiled and looked at the door. “Gertie,” he said to the air, “Confirm identity of my guest.”

“Your guest is your brother, Dallas Morgan, third child and son of your father, Texas Morgan, and your mother, Liberty Hope Morgan. Shall I open the maglocks?”

Dallas had already begun yelling a new barrage of frustrated screaming at his oldest brother when the door opened, surprising him enough that he actually paused in his yelling.

Dallas looked in through the doorway, feeling for some reason that this place wasn’t as safe as it usually was for him.

“Huston?” Dallas said. The large entranceway in front of Dallas split into two large stairwells that curved upwards toward the second floor of the generously sized hab. Two more hallways curved around to the left and to the right.

“Dallas,” said his fraterMajor’s voice from the hidden speakers in the ceiling, “do you plan to come in or stare at my floor all night? If it’s the latter, I’ll be maglocking the door again in three, two, one…”

“Alright, alrightalirghtalright! I’m in! I’m in!” Dallas said, leaping across the threshold and landing with a booted thud! onto the floor.

In his basement workroom, Huston saw a red warning light flash on one of his consoles. Furrowing his brow, he looked at the image of his brother on the screen as he walked through the foyer.

“What’s got you up this late, fraterMinor? Usually you’re up to mischief with your friends at this hour, not making surprise visits to semi-estranged family members.”

Dallas was already making his way down the long hallway. Knowing and following the way he’d gone dozens of times at family functions that had been held here, he was walking more purposefully than he’d ever done at one of the boring, stale parties Huston had thrown here at Pater’s request. “Maybe,” Dallas said to the air, “I just felt like rekindling all those wonderful memories I have of us growing up together, Huston. Didja ever think of that?”

“Sure. I think of that. Right after I finish reading fairy princess stories to little Palin before she goes to sleep.”

“She likes fiction, still?”

“Not as much as you like fantasy.”

“You’re sure I have an ulterior motive for being here, then?” Dallas said. He’d arrived at a pillar that opened up at his approach, exposing the hidden staircase.

“Of that I have no doubt. But I do wonder about one thing, Dallas.”

“And that is?” Dallas said, walking down the spiral staircase in the semi darkness. The lights from below gave just enough lumens for him to see where his feet should go.

“Why exactly did you come to my hab tonight, and bring a laser sword. One that is rather primitive by today’s standards, but still quite effective in a fight or an assassination?”

If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

“How’d you know, Hu?”

“With the tech I have in this house, with my wife and daughter sleeping here at night when they aren’t staying over at my soros-in-law’s house, and given I’m heir to the head of the House of Morgan, you think I’m not going to have a wep-scanner covering every entryway of this place? One good enough to tell me that the piece you’re carrying is an unknown brand, made of parts and alloys of adamantite that’s over a century old?”

“Well,” Dallas said, now at the bottom of the stairs and seeing his brother face to face, “that’s kind’ve why I came here.”

“To kill me, hide my body and take my place as heir?” Huston was smiling, but his right hand had quietly strayed to a secret spot underneath the table.

“No!” Dallas yelled, striding over to his brother’s worktable and trying to ignore the many bizarre tech inventions and experiments on other tables and benches around the basement room.. “Hu, you’re the second person today who’s accused me of trying to take over a brother’s spot.”

“Really? Who was the first?”

“Pater.”

“Interesting. Was he wrong, too?”

“Yes! He thought I was trying to take Austin’s place.”

“So, wrong about Austin, right about me?”

“No! No, look, I- why is your hand under the table? No, no. Look, I’m- yes, I’m a little scrambled right now. A little upset. I’ve got great-Grandfather’s sword, and-”

“How, Dallas, did you accomplish that?” Huston’s voice had suddenly gotten very quiet.

Dallas breathed. “I stole it. From Pater’s trophy case outside his office. I busted the glass and-”

“That glass was over a century old, Dallas.”

“I know, but he-”

“You’ve stolen from our Pater, Dallas. Do you know how serious that is?”

“Pretty serious, I guess. But listen-”

“No, Dallas, you listen, for a change. You haven’t stolen an egg from your girlfriend’s restaurant- that’d get you an hour of community service. You’ve stolen a priceless heirloom from the head of the House. You’re looking at anywhere from a year to a decade on Golgotha, or worse, depending on how much you’ve upset him! In fact you- oh, no.”

“What?”

“Just you being here means I could get in trouble, too!”

“Does it, now?”

Now Huston did react, taking his hand out from under the table and holding his head. He stood up from the workdesk and began pacing back and forth while talking. “You’re here. You’ve stolen property. If I know about it and don’t report it, I get in trouble.”

“Pater may smooth it over.”

“No, that’s not likely. If he did that and it’s known, then he might lose support among the local commerce lords, and a whole lot of commoners like your girlfriend besides.”

“But if it’s private property, he could just choose not to press charges.”

“Dallas, we can’t take that chance.”

“We, or you?”

“Both. Wait- I have an idea- first, why are you here, anyway?”

“I’m running off. Leaving. Greener pastures, and all that.”

“Our pastures are quite green.”

“Not after sunset. You know the ecology out here; I want to go someplace where you don’t turn into an ice cube after sunset, and you have to wait for the grass to regrow for an hour after the sun comes up.”

“I see. And…what brought about this very, very sudden desire to enjoy more verdant local fauna? Did it have anything to do with thieving Great-grandfather Bowie’s sword, by chance?”

“I told Pater I was going to marry Secunda.”

“He didn’t take it well, I imagine.”

“He took a swing at me.”

“I can understand that. Well, here’s what I can do. How are you planning on getting out of this fortress and off this rock?”

“I’m taking the Galatine.”

Huston looked for a very long ten seconds at his youngest brother.

“What?” said Dallas, just as the pause become uncomfortable.

“Dallas, there are easier ways to commit suicide in a futile, public and very embarrasing way.”

“Huston…”

“Have you thought of slapping a Red Star Commissar in front of his men?”

“Hu…”

“Or piloting a freighter through the Big Thicket asteroid belt?”

“Hu…”

“Or, if you want a quicker route, there’s always juggling live fire grenades.”

“Huston, I don’t have time to bat this around! This was fun when we were kids, but I’m in serious trouble here and I need your tech to get past the defenses and get offworld.”

Huston paused.

Dallas kept talking. “Hu, c’mon! Fatership aside, you’re still happy in your marriage, right?”

“Of course.”

Well, who helped you when you wanted to court Oakley, but you didn’t have the first idea how to talk to her?”

Huston sighed. “You did, Dallas.”

“Who got his hacker friends to find out the finer points of her research on her project? Those…particle, atomic things…whatever they are…”

“Up quark-exclusive hadron electrons.”

“Yes, that’s it! Who did that so you two would have something to talk about besides the price of soybean on the fourth moon?”

“You, Dallas.”

“And who…”

“All right, all right, Dallas. You made your point. And yes, I remember what Pater taught us: ‘A debt unpaid is a promise made.’ I just didn’t think I’d be paying my debt to you by helping to steal. And steal not one, but two things. Two century-old symbols of our house and heritage.”

Dallas smiled. “Thank you, frater. Oh, and one more thing.”

“What’s that?”

“I’m stealing three things.”

TO BE CONTINUED...