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If, after you have read this, you would like to see chapter two, email me at xetheare@yahoo.com
One Man’s Trash
Simply put, I’m a junk dealer. My name is Darwin and I’ve heard all the jokes about my name. I wasn’t available at the time of my naming nor would I have cared. If I were to take my mother’s word for it all I wanted to do was eat.
Well, that was somewhere around thirty years ago, but I haven’t gone by Earth time in so long that I’m really not sure how old I am. Under one gravity I am about a meter and a half tall and about 85 kilos, and relatively healthy considering the kinds of rations I’ve had to endure and all the times I’ve had to go without exercise (I’m currently on the rebound form being stranded for about six months, only half a light year from Bellvello system).
I might actually be attractive; at least, women don’t find me repulsive. But, I think it’s more of a natural charm I have that makes it easy for people to approach me. In my business, more formally known as galactic merchandizing, it pays to have a bit of charisma. I don’t consider myself dishonest, but there have been times when, in order to make ends meet or just simply to survive, I’ve had to convince people to buy things they don’t really need or fudge sensor data on an asteroid, the location of which I was trying to sell.
As far as where I’m from, technically I was born and raised on Earth. I did spend quite a bit of my youth actually on the ground, but as I got older, and the more money our family made, I tended to stay on terra firma less and less.
My dad was a propulsion engineer at Boeing, so naturally when I turned fifteen I got my own planet hopper. I know, most guys that age, if they had their own hopper, would be hanging at Mars or Ganymede, but I spent most of my free time sifting through the asteroids and watching the robot factories mining all the big chunks.
Mom is still a graphics artist and makes two or three million goes a year making movies and games. I hardly ever see her, even when I’m in Sol, cause she lives down on Earth and I hate dealing with the UN, They think everything is a weapon. I have to dismantle nearly all my AI (artificial intelligence) systems and leave them and my droids at a lockup, and I have to agree to have tracking devices placed on everything. Plus, there’s the old saying, “The net never winks.” Besides all that, there’s the totally obsolete 48-hour quarantine. They say it’s to check for diseases, but that can be done in two seconds with a handheld scanner.
I Love Mom and I talk to her on the net all the time (she sends me dozens of movies every year), but I really don’t want to subject myself to another interrogation.
But alas, one more excuse not to visit Earth that I rarely tell anyone about:
The GSA (Global Security Alliance) is still looking for Matt Granger. How was I to know he was a crook? Besides, what 17 year-old kid would have turned down a class IV long-range jumper’s license and the opportunity to pilot a 108-kiloton frigate?
Everyone kept saying what a shame it was for Granger to take advantage of me, but I still think I got a great deal. Of course the GSA confiscated the frigate when I got back and my license was yanked after the initial investigation but since I had claimed salvage rights (a hint from Granger) and no charges were filed on me the frigate was returned after thirty days. And, since no one could prove I hadn’t legitimat