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

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Pati marched into Nancy’s office first thing Monday morning. The building was empty, making Pati afraid she’d arrived too early. Making her way through the building, she arrived at Nancy’s door and knocked. Nancy let her in.

It surprised Pati how tired she looked. Her clothes were clean and unwrinkled, so she hadn’t been sitting at her desk all night. The look on her face suggested otherwise. The redness in her eyes did as well.

Despite her obvious exhaustion, Nancy launched into a long dissertation on needing to wait to release any information contrary to their defense. The fatigue she showed did not match the energy she put into the argument, which couldn’t really be called an argument because she did all the talking. When she had finished, Pati could only agree.

The door behind Pati slammed open.

“Where were you!” Joe Tate screamed.

“Who said you could come in here!” Nancy screamed back.

Pati backed into the wall on her left to get out of the line of fire. Joe had a red in his face that Pati learned in Ireland meant he was close to crazy. His eyes were bulging out, and some of the veins in his neck and head were noticeable. Her instincts were to not get in his way.

But what if he attacked Nancy? She would feel the need to jump in and help, except she would stand little chance of holding him back. Damn, there were way too many Earth immigrants here!

Joe slammed the door behind him and stomped up to Nancy’s desk. He didn’t note Pati’s presence in any way. “You were supposed to meet me,” he said at slightly less than a yell. “Meet me an hour ago, and you didn’t show up. What the hell was I supposed to do?”

“That doesn’t give you the right to come storming in here. Now get out!”

“We’re settling this, right here, right now.”

“We are not doing anything until you get out of here.”

Joe shook his head at her. His face seemed even redder than when he walked in; the veins, even more prominent. He leaned forward and put his hands on her desk. “If you try to make me leave, you will regret it,” he said.

“You will already regret this,” she said back. “I’m not afraid of having you arrested.”

Pati caught a slight smile in his profile, “You know, I’m not worried about that. What can they do to me?”

Nancy fidgeted, which was the most unusual action Pati had seen so far in this high-decibel verbal battle. Pati waited for her reply because in the time she’d known Nancy, she was as skilled with the word as a samurai with the sword. For some reason, she was speechless.

“What do you want to do?” Joe asked. His voice seemed less violent, almost giving her an opportunity to negotiate or compromise. His body seemed less tense, the red had gone from his face, and the veins were no longer visible. Pati sensed he would not be violent.

“I asked you to leave,” Nancy replied.

“That’s all you got to say,” he said.

“We got nothing to talk about, I mean, it’s not like you’ve tried to hide your intentions. I know you want to go back to Earth,” she said.

“I’ve never said that,” he said.

“No, but you go to the gravity clinic every month. That’s a lot of pain to take for someone who plans to spend the rest of their life with me.”

“That doesn’t mean I plan on leaving.”

“What else could it be? And since I can never visit Earth, it’s plain you’re going to leave me anyway.”

“Look, I—”

“This is not about me, it’s about you waiting till you have the right time to leave. You keep acting like you want us to stay together, but you only want me until you’re ready to leave. Why should I respond to you when that’s what I can expect will happen?”

Joe stood up straight. All the aggressive energy that dissipated from his body about a minute ago had built back up. He raised his hands off the desk as he stood straight, put them on his hips while he stared at her, and then he brought his hands up. Pati sensed an animal about to spring.

“You act like this arrangement has been good for me,” Nancy continued. “You would work all the time—”

“How else can I make a living?” His fists clenched, tightened, and opened again.

“We make a living, not just you. There’s more than enough money for us both, so you must be trying to save up to go back to Earth, where I can’t possibly live.”

“You could, if you tried,” Joe gritted through his teeth.

“I’m not going to go through that torture. You knew I couldn’t go to Earth when you asked me to marry you; now you want to change everything just because you’re a failure here on Titan. All the other immigrants that come here become successful, and somehow you’re the one who can’t make it, and you want me to follow you like a puppy dog back to Earth when you’re the one with his tail between his legs!”

Pati saw the moment he began his lunge across her desk to throttle her. It was like slow motion when he first went back on his heels, and then the legs would spring, pushing the rest of his body into a leap—but the door slammed back open.

“All right, nobody move,” the first man in the blue jumpsuit said. He was one of two, and although shorter than the other, he stood as tall as Nancy. Both had tranquilizer handguns attached to their black belts. However, it was their size and Aryan facial features that physically dominated the room. “We had complaints about the noise, folks,” he added.

Joe stopped and then stood straight up, seemingly innocent.

“Thank you for coming, constable,” Nancy said. “You’re the two new-hires from Earth, correct?” Nancy mentioned earlier she kept an eye on the police force enlisted to protect and serve Karakorum. If she didn’t know these two by name, she knew where they came from.

“Yes, ma’am, we are. I’m Constable Reich, and this is Constable Shultz. We’ve been here on Titan the last six months. Constable-Sergeant Jones had us patrolling the buildings in this area, and we heard shouting. Do you need any assistance?”

He looked at Joe after he posed the question. Joe had initially looked in their direction when they walked in. Joe then turned back to look at Nancy and kept looking at her during the conversation.

“That depends,” Nancy said. She looked at Joe, “Are we done?”

Joe looked at his feet and exhaled. “Yeah, we’re done,” he said. He turned and walked past the constables who moved out of the shorter man’s path. Joe walked out the door and turned left toward the exit.

“Will he be back after we leave?” Constable Reich asked.

“No, he won’t be back,” Nancy said.

“Good, we’ll follow him out, and if he tries to return, we’ll intervene,” he said. He walked out, followed by Constable Shultz, who shut the door behind him.

“I’m sorry you had to see that, Pati,” Nancy said. She sat down, looking more exhausted than she did before.

“Can you go home?” Pati asked. She’d seen this back home in Dingle, except it was her older brother who couldn’t go home. Fortunately, he stayed with their parents till it all blew over, and they got back together.

“Yes, he didn’t come home over the weekend, so I don’t expect he’ll be there tonight. I’ll probably change the entry permissions when I get back.”

“I’d thought you’d have to get the court to allow that,” Pati said. “I mean, you’re a great lawyer, but I have trouble believing even you could pull that off.”

Nancy seemed to think for a second, and then said, “He lost his job right after we visited the spaceport. That and his absence will give me the legal standing I need.”

It was a cold statement, and apparently, Nancy’s ability to hold back her feelings were finally breached. She looked down and sobbed. Nancy put her arms on her desk and sunk her head into them, crying, weeping, and trying hard to stop, without success.

Pati’s dormant maternal instincts kicked in.