Vladimir chuckled as he walked over to the
bed, grabbed a carryall, and deftly threw it to land at my feet. It landed with
a thud and a metallic rattle, so I judged it to be quite heavy. He then turned
to another carryall and pulled out two plastic cups. He set them on the table,
pulled out a bottle, and poured some clear liquid into each, handing me one. I
took a sip and coughed.
“What is this?” I asked between coughing
fits.
“It is very good Russian vodka, comrade.”
“Really? Are you sure about that, comrade? I
thought vodka was supposed to be tasteless.”
“The very good Russian vodka is not. Look in
the bag, Drew,” he said, pointing down at the bag at my feet. I set the cup on
the table, picked up the bag, and carefully set it on the table next to my
drink. Then I unzipped the bag and looked inside. Perplexed, I reached inside and
pulled a holster out of the bag that contained a desert eagle pistol. I looked down into the
bag and found two other holsters containing pistols. I looked up at Vladimir as
he sat down on the bed.
“What the hell?”
“It is a sign of good faith and a gesture of
trust. Take the bag with you and lock it away somewhere safe.”
“I don’t think that’s necessary. Or do you
know something that I don’t?” I said jokingly.
“No. We are no threat to you; of that I can
assure you. You have our undying gratitude for saving our lives and putting
your own lives at such risk to do so. It is merely a gesture of trust. There
has been too much politically and religiously motivated distrust between the
peoples of Earth for too long, and look how that turned out.”
“Well said, and cheers!” I said as I raised
my cup.
I took another tentative sip of the vodka
and didn’t cough as violently as I had the first time. I guessed that my throat
was getting used to it. I would have preferred rum, but we had left it all back
on Mars, and besides, I wouldn’t have wanted to offend our guests. So I took
another sip—it was more a hiccup than a cough this time.
“I only brought them with us because we were
unsure of whether there might be unfriendly Martians that we would have to
defend ourselves against,” Vladimir said, and I laughed.
“Tread warily, my Russian comrade.
Technically, my crew and I are the Martians now.”
He burst out laughing. “Yes, I suppose you
are—and soon we will be. Beep beep!” he
said as he raised his index fingers to
either side of his head to look like antennae.
“There is something else I should give you a
heads up about in advance. We have established no government on Mars. Crew
members have the right of self-guidance, freedom of choice, and decision
making, as long as their decisions don’t adversely affect or endanger their
fellow crew members. If there is a possibility that something may affect
others, then we hold a general meeting with the rest of the crew to consider it
and a vote is held. That, however, has not occurred to date.”
“Good, that suits me just fine! There has
been far too much oppressive governance on Earth for far too long, as well! Oh,
by the way, I forgot something,”
Vladimir said as he reached behind his back
and produced a pistol, which he held out toward me butt first.
“This is a Tokarev nine-millimeter pistol;
it is my personal choice.”
I took the pistol from him, finished the
last of my drink with great care, and gave him my cup. “Well, I better mosey on
along and let you unpack and settle in. I might pop up to the bridge and see if
the ship is still heading in the right direction and isn’t about to crash into
anything large.
I stopped beside the desk and looked back at
Vladimir with raised eyebrows as I reached for the weapons bag. He smiled and
nodded his head, so I picked it up with my left hand, gave him a casual salute
with my right hand, and smiled as I left. I went straight up to the bridge and
checked the monitors. Every readout was a nice green color, so I carried the
weapons bag through to my quarters and dumped it in the closet on top of my own
weapons bag. Then I hit the button to slide the door closed and hit the red
button to lock it. Now someone would need my personal code in order to open
that door…or a bloody big sledgehammer swung by a bloody big bloke for a bloody
long time. Only Mel and I knew the code. I jumped when I heard a voice behind
me.
“What was in that bag?” Mel asked.
After my feet returned to the deck I turned to answer:
“Why do you always sneak up behind me like
that? Its a bag of pistols Vladimir gave me.”
“Why? Didn’t he think you had enough of them
already?”
“He doesn’t know I have any. He gave me his
crews’ pistols as well as his own as a sign of trust and faith.”
“He would; they are all a nice crowd. I
don’t think they are any threat to any of us.”
I leaned back against the cabinet and
crossed my arms.
“I totally agree with you. He offered them
up on his own. I told him it wasn’t necessary, but he insisted that I take them
and store them in a safe place, which you just surprised me doing.”
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