Titan's Plague: The Trial by Tom Briggs (story reading .txt) 📕

Pati McLear felt the sting of her husband’s slap across her face. She did not collapse from the blow, or even look away from his stare. She wiped her cheek with her left hand. “You should know better than to hit me,” she said.

Richard McLear stood back a step and exhaled. He put his hand on his hips. “I know. But you shouldn’t have provoked me,” he said. Richard was just under two meters tall, had a mass of ninety kilos, was thirty-five years old, and other than his brown hair balding, seemed a young man.

Pati stood a head shorter than Richard and weighed half as much. With black hair, and tearing blue eyes, she looked her twenty-four years. Her preference for wool clothes, along with her height, marked her as an Earth immigrant. “You can’t stop me from talking about the problem,” she said. “We’ve been through this a hundred times and I’m not getting anywhere with you. You promised six months ago that we’d be leaving to visit Earth, today, and not only are we not going, you’ve done nothing to prepare so we can leave six months from now.”

“I’ve been busy at work. With the new line of freighters, I have to attend every launch ceremony. My brother can’t do it all from up there,” he said, pointing to a ceiling five meters above the floor. They stood in the great room of their mansion in the city of Karakorum, on Titan, the primary moon of Saturn. The great room was larger than ten meters square, floored with real hardwood and surrounded by beige walls. The furniture, which could seat a double-digit audience, was a brownish-red, synthetic fabric. A style popular on Earth.

“And your brother’s been to Earth in the last six months, missing no work that I can see.”

“Who do you think was left in charge while he traveled? This business is the only reason people exist on Titan. If anything happens to McLear Industries, we can book trips back to the inner system and live off relief funds.”

“Why can’t it be his turn to stay here and we go back to Earth.”

“I’m working on it, but there are too many commitments for the both of us.”

“Did you talk with him about it?”

His face tightened and he gritted his teeth. “You leave that to me. I’ll decide when we go back, and we’ll go as soon as I think it’s possible.”

Pati stepped back into his space. “You’re scared of the gravity treatments, is that it? You can’t take the pain anymore.”

His face turned red. Because he was born and raised on Titan, and its human-positioned satellite of Picus, his complexion remained light and European-based. The red increased with his breathing.

“Are you just going to stand there? Answer me.”

He shook his head. “You stupid little bitch. How dare you talk to me that way. You would still be back in that peasant village if it wasn’t for me.”

“Great, you’re back to that superiority of wealth you like to throw in my face. You know, you never used to do that, Richard. You used to treat me equally, even when you were pissed off. In the last year, it seems you never want to even associate with me unless it’s an occasion where you need a wife.”

“Because you haven’t shown yourself to be good for anything else.”

“And just when have you given me the chance to do that?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know how many times we let you work with—”

“Work with you! You drag me up to Picus, have me sit at a desk all day with nothing to do, and then take me back here. Just because you pay me doesn’t make it work.”

“You’re not good for anything else!”

Pati felt her blood boil. She tried so often to help out, but it didn’t help that she hadn’t received an advanced education in business, physics, or engineering, areas Richard and his brother excelled in due to their upbringing. A situation Pati didn’t have available to her, or at least hadn’t known would be important if she married a McLear.

“Now, you say something,” Richard said. “Tell me where I can employ you. And no, you’re not working in the shipyard or factory.”

Pati wouldn’t leave his space. She purposely stayed within arm’s reach. “Insulting me won’t get me to back down,” she said. “You brought me to Titan, you asked me to marry you, and you followed through with it when I said yes.” She backed away a little, still staying within his reach. “I can be productive; I just need your help to go in the right direction.”

His facial expression hadn’t changed. “All you’re good for is siring the next McLear heir.” He then smiled in an evil way. “And, I’m not sure you’ll be good for that either.”

Pati felt her own face tighten, and heat rush into it. “I doubt you’d be able to manage the task, anyway,” she said.

In a quick movement, he reached across with his right hand and threw a backhand across her face. She felt the knuckles contact her right eye socket and even saw stars as he struck her.

Pati didn’t think. She clenched her right fist and hit him with an uppercut to the chin. Pati watched him lift up, and then fall back to the ground. She regretted the punch immediately, even more so as his head struck one of the steel supports. The resulting clang told her the situation was not good.

“Oh, no!” Pati said. She rushed to his side, where his body lay crumpled on the hardwood floor. He was unconscious, with blood flowing through his brown hair.

“Medical bot, now!” she screamed.

A tracked metallic robot moved in from the kitchen. Shorter than Pati, it could reach up to Richard’s height if needed for treatment. Since he lay on the floor, it lowered itself slightly. It held a scanning monitor over his head, then moved it down the rest of his body.

“Massive head trauma,” the machine voice said. “Calling emergency medical services, which should arrive in the next three minutes.”

“Will he be okay?”

The machine waited. “Indeterminable, at this time.”

“You have to do something.”

“Will comply,” it said. It reached down with another of its two limbs and touched Richard’s head where the blood was. Pati couldn’t see exactly what was happening due to the blood, and after a few seconds, the robot retracted the limb.

“Bleeding is stopped,” it reported.

“Oh, good.”

“So, has his heartbeat,” it added.