Mean Something
by Alex Sobel
I’ve never seen this man’s particular set of garments before, but I’ve run into enough men of God’s over-the-top outfits to pick one out of a crowd.
“This is Mr. Marquez,” Lena says, placing a hand on his back, gently easing him toward me. His robes are long, showy, a sickly light green color that likely has esoteric, symbolic meaning. The robes have metal embellishments, shiny, gold colored if not actually gold. Still, something expensive. Meant to communicate wealth, good favor with someone powerful.
“He has a job for us,” Lena continues. “Says our rate seems fair.”
“Pleasure to meet you, Mr. Leroy,” Marquez says, reaching out to shake my hand, an antiquated greeting. I reluctantly shake back. “You have a reputation here.”
It takes a moment to remember where “here” is, what planet we’re currently stranded on. ROC2230, if my memory serves me.
“I hear that a lot,” I say, because I do, a stale line from old movies that everyone thinks they’re the first to use on me.
Lena backs up from Marquez, smiling dramatically, teeth showing. She knew how I’d react when she brought him over, knows my less than simpatico relationship with holy men. Being hunted as a child will do that. But Lena also knows that the Vesper doesn’t have enough fuel in the tank to get off this planet and we’re too broke to buy any, so we’re a bit on the desperate side.
“Yes, well, I’ve heard your name around,” Marquez says.
“Good things?”
A smile, devilish. “You see the way I’m dressed, know my position, yes? I see you eying my robes. So, you know that I serve all people, no matter their path.”
Some kind of dodge, clearly. I can’t decide if it’s meant as diplomacy or insult. “You have a job for us, yeah?”
He nods, gestures toward the chair in front of me, sits. “Mr. Leroy, I…”
“Raph is fine,” I say.
Lena is still grinning behind Marquez. I’ve gotten good at reading intended messages in her teeth. Right now they say: you’re doing great, don’t fuck it up.
“Mr. Leroy,” he continues. “Have you ever heard of a man by the name of Damian DeLorde?”
“DeLorde? Is he your God? The name seems a little on the nose…”
“He founded ROC2230,” Marquez continues as if he hadn’t heard me. “He was a poor man, came from an abusive family, a cruel father. But DeLorde was able to escape when he was a very young man, worked hard to be able to own his own craft. He didn’t want to go somewhere else with men like his father. So, he came here, unsettled. He wanted to start something new.”
“Unmapped?”
“Surveyed, but red-dashed.”
“Red-dashed? What’s so bad about this place, seems pretty livable to me?”
“Have you ever heard of the ostonite?”
I nod. “Big thing, horned, vicious. Mostly gone, yeah?”
He closes his eyes, a sensitive subject. “You are correct, they’re near extinct. But once this planet was covered in ostonites, hence the red-dash at the time.”
“Delorde didn’t care?”
“Desperate men are stubborn men,” Marquez says, knowing that I would know exactly what he means. “DeLorde for all his blessings was not the best pilot, so when he came here, he crashed his craft. He survived but lost most of his resources. It had been enough to help him survive for a few months.”
“Live off of ostonite, then.”
“Exactly what he thought. But ostonite skin is thick, hard to penetrate, and he had lost his weapons in the crash. All he had was an antique gun on his person, a gift from a kind woman he’d left behind at home. But he was desperate, had to try. So, he hunted an ostonite, found a good spot to shoot from, took his time, aimed, and fired. Nothing. Fired again. Nothing. By then, the ostonite had noticed and had begun to charge him. He had one shot left, one chance left to kill it. And do you know what happened?”
I look over at Lena, whose smile has turned into a confused, but encouraging smirk.
“I’m guessing a miracle,” I say.
“The ostonite drops dead, a perfect shot. Enough meat to last him, to help keep his strength up, to build a society.”
“Okay, great story,” I say, not asking about the inconsistencies, how he was able to save the meat from going bad, how he could continue to kill ostonites without any more weapons, if he even had a water source. Myths tend to flatten out the details. “I’m guessing you’re getting to the part where you need us?”
“The meal he made with the dead ostonite was a soup from local plants. Glee pods, potatoes, seight grass. None of these things taste particularly amazing on their own, but in a pot with ostonite meat, cooked together…”
He closes his eyes and I see him drift elsewhere, some place he’s never been.
“You’ve never had it?” I say.
He takes a moment before gently shaking his head. “No, the ostonites have long been hunted out of existence here. Partly because of the ritual.”
“Alright, I’m getting the picture. You want us to go snag an off-world beast so you can make your God-stew? Got it.”
Marquez smiles, as if I were joking, as if he were in on the joke.
“No, no. You misunderstand the nature of the ceremony. God had blessed DeLorde, allowed him to kill an ostonite with antiquated weaponry. Something like this,” Marquez says, pulling an old six shot from under his robe, setting it on the table in front of me.
“Revolver?” I say, keeping a straight face. He withheld the gun, wanted a reaction. I’m not willing to give it to him.
“It became important for our people, to those seeking favor with God, to seek out and kill an ostonite with their own hands, using a gun like this. It means nothing if the ostonite is brought to us or killed with modern weapons.”
I use two fingers, push against my right eye, my one real one, hoping the pressure will relieve the headache I can feel spreading.
“So, where are we going?”
“Not far.”
“We’re a bit fuel strapped at the moment, even if traveling within sector, so throw in a fill up on top of the fee and we can make it work.”
“Half a tank,” he says, his tone lower, his authority showing, the voice he uses when he preaches. “I’ve seen your ship, half a tank is enough to get you there and back and then some.”
“The Vesper has, historically, run smoother when she’s full.”
Marquez leans back, suddenly amused by me. “Fine, I’ll fill your craft up, but the second half comes out of your earnings.”
I glance over at Lena for her thoughts on the deal. She grins. This time, her teeth say: like we have any other options.
Most people have a hard time sleeping on the Vesper, but Marquez is out as soon as he puts his head down. “Must be the levity of his clean conscience, the purity of his spirit,” Lena says, stepping into the cockpit.
“You’re baiting me,” I say, not even looking up.
“But you’re getting all hot about it, so it’s working.” Lena sits next to my, proceeds to bite her fingernails in flat, staccato chomps. It’s what she does just before asking me how I feel about the gig.
“So how do you feel about this gig?”
I finally look over at her. “Do I ever feel good about a gig?”
“Thought today might be the exception.”
“Nope.”
“Me neither, honestly. This planet we’re going to seems shady as shit.”
I ease the Vesper around the remnants of an abandoned ship. Any other day I’d stop for the salvage, but I don’t think Marquez would approve. “It’s a preserve for endangered animals, Lena.”
“They say they’re a preserve, but then let people pay to kill the animal they’re supposedly saving?”
“They use that money to then pay to keep the rest of the animals fed and sheltered. It feels wrong, yeah, but it does make some kind of logical sense.”
“Sacrificing a few to save the rest?” she says, yanking at a particularly stubborn nail.
“Better than all of them dying off forever, I guess.”
“I don’t know. Doesn’t sit well with me.”
“Hey, I pushed aside my ideological issues for the pay. Guess we’re both gonna have to make a sacrifice.”
Lena makes a slight growl in her throat, agreeing, but not happy. “All this for an ingredient. Most of the time, the act of having to cook the food isn’t worth it to me, nonetheless paying a couple of sharks to take me to some planet to kill a thing with an old ass gun.”
“My dad liked to cook,” I say. “Hobby.”
“I don’t think I’ve seen you cook once. Clearly not passed down through the genes.”
“It was comforting to him, the repetition, the routine. I tried, cooked with him, helped him in the kitchen, but it always felt tedious to me.”
“Well, don’t tell Marquez,” Lena says, “but I’m pretty sure that’s an appeal of going to Church, too. The ritual made holy.”
Ritual, tradition. Comforting, necessary.
“Still,” I say, “I can’t help thinking that we’re about die over a bowl of soup.”
“Welcome, welcome,” an asparagus-shaped Gleon says when we land.
He’s smiling, but I know what a terrified smile looks like. I don’t blame him. The people who come through here looking to hunt rare creatures are most likely skilled, deadly, and worst of all: rich.
“My holy,” the Gleon says to Marquez, a slight bow at what I assume is his waist, though I’m never sure at what point a Gleon’s torso ends and their legs begin.
“You’re the one I spoke to about the arrangements?” Marquez says, his voice firm, untrusting.
“Yes, my holy. I’m thrilled to have you here on Saturian. Can I get you all food? Drinks? Other things? Or are you anxious to get on with your hunt?”
“It’s a ceremony, not a hunt,” Marquez says, causing the Gleon’s eyes to blink rapidly, always one at a time.
“Of… of course, my holy. Follow me, we’ll get you anything you need to make this sacred ceremony perfect for you and agreeable to your god.”
“More like it,” Marquez says to me before following the Gleon.
I follow at a slight distance, Lena at my side but always a few steps back. She hates having anyone at her back.
The Gleon brings us to a small building, reinforced windows, looks like a bomb shelter. When he swipes his hand over the keypad and lets us in, I see it’s an armory, cases of weapons filling the entire room. An old man sits behind a counter, hunchbacked, looking like he hasn’t moved in decades.
“Ostonite,” the Gleon says and the man, in one swift motion, swivels his chair back unlocks a case and holds out a pristine looking hunting rifle.
“We don’t need it,” Marquez says.
“Excuse me?” the Gleon says. In response, Marquez flashes his antique pistol. “I can’t recommend you use that. I’m not even sure it’s strong enough to pierce ostonite flesh.”
“My son, have you ever heard…” Marquez begins, but Lena cuts him off, grabs the rifle from the old man.
“He doesn’t need the story. We’ll take just take the rifle as back up, holy man,” she says.
“Very good,” the Gleon says, his eyes apologetic, like he’s sorry that he’s had a part in the event that’s going to kill us.
Lena takes point during the trek, a dozen clicks ahead of Marquez and me.
“Your… friend,” Marquez says, looking for the right word to describe our relationship, unsatisfied with his choice. “She was upset when she learned of the nature of this job, yes?”
I know Lena’s skill set, know she can hear us all the way back here. Still, she doesn’t give it away. “She was a hire-out for a long time, since she was a kid. Distance combat, good for territorial skirmishes.”
“Isolated?”
I nod. “All distance fighters are, except for their usitere. You ever see one?”
“I have not.”
“Usiteres are cats, big things, loyal as hell. They were meant to protect snipers, keep an ear out for approaching enemies during combat. Lena’s usitere’s name was Kawna”
“Since you have no large cat on your ship, I can assume Kawna didn’t make it?”
“No. But that’s not my story to tell,” I say, looking again for Lena to make any indication that she can hear us. Nothing. She’s a pro.
“You know,” Marquez says, swatting away a bug that’s settled near his eye, “there is a place in paradise for our beloved animal friends.”
“Glad to hear your god has at least one redeeming quality.”
“Why do you hate God so much, Mr. Leroy?” Marquez asks.
“Never said I did, I just don’t believe.”
“No need to pretend, I saw the way you looked at me, my wardrobe. I hired you anyway. Has God hurt you? Do you feel like your prayers haven’t been answered?”
Lena finally looks back at us, squinting at me: give him the short version.
“Your people don’t like me much.”
“The people who have persecuted you, made accusations about your state of being, your soul? Those aren’t my people, Mr. Leroy.”
He catches me off guard. Most people can’t tell that I’m a partial.
“We shook hands, Mr. Leroy. I know a synthetic body part when I feel one,” he says. I squeeze my hands together, both, the real one and the synthetic, pretend they’re the same, that they’re both equally me.
“I’m not like that, the true God is not like that,” he continues.
“Maybe not you, but being a child and getting hunted by people who say I don’t have a soul, all in the name of God? That tends to sour someone to the whole God concept.”
“God concept,” Marquez repeats, chewing the phrase between his back teeth. “Meaningless. God isn’t a concept, he’s everything. He’s this forest, he’s the ostonite, he’s…” Marquez pauses, digs in his pocket and pulls out a small piece of paper with some writing on it. I see a few food items, some directions. It’s the recipe. He wrote it out, is carrying it around like a religious relic.
“God’s in this,” he continues, gesturing with the piece of paper. “This food, this life-giving meal that allowed one man to survive, to start our society, to allow for my great grandparents to be born, leading to me, and my own journey to God.”
“He didn’t start a religion because of some soup.”
“No, perhaps not. But it fed him, got him through, allowed him to live for one more day,” Marquez says, putting the paper back in his pocket. “And that, if nothing else, has to mean something.”
It takes a little over an hour to track down the ostonite. They’re aggressive predators, not made for hiding, so it’s standing in a clearing, slurping from a small, murky pool of water.
Marquez immediately goes to grab for his gun, but I reach out a hand to stop him. “Plan first, shoot second,” I say.
The ostonite is huge. I’ve seen images, but the context never compares to something right in front of you.
“What are we thinking?” I ask Lena, who I know already has a plan.
“It’s in a clearing, which makes for a clearer shot, but it’s also harder to get close unnoticed. I say we wait it out, try to get in front of it when it’s done drinking, use the plants and shit as cover. I bet it’ll walk right into us. Marquez takes his shot, with me set up with the rifle as a backup.”
I nod. Good of a plan as any. I look over at Marquez, whose face has screwed itself into a tight grimace. “Why not shoot from here?” he says.
“Because you won’t come close to hitting it,” I say. “Not a problem for Lena, but I’m not even sure I could take it from here and I have quite a bit more experience than you, holy man. Especially with that piece of shit gun you have. It only has three shots, not gonna waste them at this distance.”
He looks disappointed, but nods in agreement. “Follow me,” Lena says. “Stay low, stay quiet and you’ll be fine. You staying here, Raph?”
“Keep on the comms, I’ll be your eyes on this end. You got the rifle?” She raises it up for me to see, motions for Marquez to follow her.
I crouch down, find a comfortable spot and watch. I watch them move slowly through the brush, circle the clearing I watch them staying low. I watch them keeping quiet. I watch them being smart and careful and follow the plan.
Then I watch Marquez stand straight up and bolt toward the ostonite.
That son of a bitch.
I run after them, but they have a big head start. Marquez stops about thirty taps short of the ostonite and raises his gun. This action registers as a threat to the ostonite, who lets out what sounds like an angry sneeze and starts turning toward Marquez, presumably to charge. Thankfully it’s back heavy and takes a moment to shift its weight.
Before Lena can get there, I hear the six shot go off. The ostonite, which has turned completely. is rearing up to charge. I can’t tell if the bullet missed or the impact doesn’t do any damage, but either way, it’s pissed.
I’m getting closer when I see Lena raise the rifle to fire, steadying. Before she can get the shot off, Marquez grabs the barrel of the rifle pulls it toward him, yanking the unprepared Lena to the ground.
He holds onto the barrel of Lena’s rifle and raises a single hand with the antiquated gun towards the ostonite. I won’t get there in time to do anything, not that there’s much to do. Marquez has time for one more shot and the best I can hope for is that it works, that he hits and kills the ostonite.
But of course, that doesn’t happen. No god, no grace, no miracle. I watch as he fires the gun with no effect, only to have the ostonite ram him on the left side, propelling him sideways.
Fuck. The ostonite stops at the other end of the clearing, trying to turn its weight around to make another charge. I see Lena lying on the ground, turned away from me. I don’t know if she was hit by the ostonite, so when I reach the spot where the ostonite rammed them, I rush to check on her first.
“You okay?” I ask, hoping she’ll be in good enough shape to take a shot. When I touch her shoulder I hear a grunt and a cough as she turns toward me.
“Alive, but…” she begins, holding her right hand up, a deep gash across the palm. “You’re gonna have to do it.”
Shit. I look down for the rifle, but see it’s in multiple pieces. “Marquez’s gun,” Lena says, pointing at the ground. I reach down and grab it, the unexpected weight of it. One bullet left. One shot.
“I can’t shoot with this thing,” I say, but see the ostonite has already turned itself around to charge again. I drop to one knee, left elbow resting on the raised leg.
“Forget it,” Lena says, coughing. “Just run.”
I admit I consider it for a second, running into the brush, saving myself. But it’s Lena. I think about me, the way I am, the things I can do, and what she adds to that. The idea that two people who are useless on their own can somehow come together to make up something that works.
I don’t nod, don’t flinch, just aim the way I always have, but this time I pray, not to God, or at least not to Marquez’s God. But to something, to anything that’ll listen.
And when there’s a crack and a scream and the ostonite’s body falls hard onto the ground. It takes me a moment to realize that it was me who pulled the trigger, that I wasn’t in danger anymore, that the ostonite is dead. I’m not sure if I’m grateful or angry or blessed or nothing at all.
“Hell yes,” Lena says, collapsing back to the ground. I move to check on her, but she waves me off. “I’m good, check on Marquez.”
Doesn’t take my nursing training to know he’s not going to make it. He’s gasping, short, desperate wheezes, blood from his mouth. I kneel next to him. Broken ribs, internal damage. I tap on his chest, feel hyper resonance on his left side, deviated trachea. Tension pneumothorax, collapsed lung.
“Hold on, I can help,” I say, but he grabs my arm, stops me. “No,” he says with a barely there voice. “This. This is okay. You did good. God wanted this.”
“God dammit, Marquez, you’re dying. Why did you run out there like that?”
“God…” he says, between wheezes. “God protects.”
“But he didn’t. He didn’t protect you.”
“Then… not meant for me.” He smiles and I can see it, an understanding of where he’s going. Whether he’s right or not seems like a trivial detail. His certainty is all that matters. “You… you killed it. Favor. With God. Make… it. The soup. Eat it,” he says, reaching up, handing me the piece of paper with the recipe on it.
I want to tell him no, reiterate that I don’t believe in this crap, but I don’t have it in me. I take the paper from his hand.
“I’ll make it,” I say, not sure if I’m telling the truth. Doesn’t seem to matter, I don’t think he hears this part. His chest is still, silent.
He’s already arrived wherever he’s going.
The speed and efficiency with which the Saturians gather the bodies and the fact that both Marquez and the ostonite are presented back to us in the same “Big Chill” freezer bags for transport tells me that they aren’t strangers to people dying during the hunts.
“Come and see us again,” the Gleon who welcomed us says after the bodies are loaded on the Vesper.
“You know we shark, right?” I say, annoyed by his friendliness.
“Takes all kinds,” he says, handing me a physical credit. “And we pay out for referrals.”
Back in the Vesper, I flash the card to Lena who’s sitting in the copilot seat, one ice pack on her bandaged hand, another on her likely concussed head. “How much you think is on this?” I ask.
Eye roll. “I’d bet not enough to cover the fee we’re no longer collecting from a dead holy man.”
I flip the controls on standby and wait for the Vesper to warm up, remembering the full tank of fuel that Marquez paid for, trying to hide how grateful I feel for that small mercy.
“He seemed at peace,” I tell one of the men at the church when we return Marquez’s body. He’s wearing the same garments as Marquez, except his are the color of ash.
“He passed in the name of service,” the man says, smiling, turning to walk away.
“You wouldn’t be interested in, like… buying the ostonite, would you? I still have it. Completely preserved.”
His eyes are pitying, like I’m the one who lost someone today. “You made the kill, my friend. It belongs to you, your blessing. It would do no good to me.”
“Yeah… figured you’d say that,” I say, pulling out the credit that the Gleon had given me and Marquez’s recipe. “In that case, anyway you can tell me where to go to get some of these ingredients?”
I wake Lena up when the soup’s done. “Shit, I finally got to sleep,” she says turning over.
“I made dinner,” I say. “And you need to stay awake, anyway, you have a concussion.”
She squints a single eye, pushing her cheek out toward her ear. She accepts the bowl, examines the contents. “Honestly a little scared to eat your cooking.”
“Just eat it, damn. Commentary unnecessary.”
She takes a single, reluctant bite, her lips sliding out like she’s tasted something unexpectedly sour, then shrugs, goes in for a few more bites. “Honestly, this isn’t bad. Hope for you yet, my friend.”
I wonder if there’s a special way to be doing this, if I’m supposed to say a prayer first, if there’s a way to make this holy or that part’s already done, if killing the ostonite was the deciding factor. I take a bite, a mouthful of all the textures, the glee pods, potatoes, seight grass, and ostonite meat together, the elements adding up to something more than they could ever be on their own.
“Tasty? Lena asks. “Good enough to turn you into a man of God? Renounce your life of sin?”
“Wouldn’t go that far,” I say, wiping a little off my chin. “But it is good.”
And I mean it. Not the best thing I’ve ever had, but good. It’ll feed me, get me through, allow me to live for one more day.
And that, if nothing else, has to mean something.
_______________
Alex Sobel is a nurse and writer (when he finds the time). His stories have appeared in publications such as Clarkesworld, Electric Literature, Apex, and Diabolical Plots. He lives in Toledo, OH with his wife.