Chapter 44

Demetri was pleased the couple were so forthright.

“Did you know that they have been stealing our livestock to sell? There are thousands of animals running free, but they take our domesticated animals, the lazy bastards.”

“That’s pirates for you. They are all about the easy score and not having to work too hard to get it. Do you have mines, particularly gems or gold, and are their shipments being hit too?” James asked.

Demetri chuckled, “Not now. They did try, but the main gem mines are closer to Blue Waters. The Nobles down there don’t take kindly to thieves or unwanted guests. Even we have our share of undesirables.”

“They froze up one of those small ships with fans, and it fell out of the sky. If they fly too close to Blue Waters, their fan-driven ships start to wobble in the sky, so they don’t go there at all now.”

“They call them lingers, back on Earth,” James told Demetri.

“Thanks, so what are you planning to do to the pirates?”

“How many of them are on the planet? How many of your people live with them? And, how many other people do they have over there?” Dusty responded.

“All good questions,” Demetri responded.

Shrugging, he replied, “I’m not a hundred percent sure of these numbers. I think about fifty are people from your Earth that work for Fahra. I know that about twenty of the men have wives because the women come and shop here in the markets.”

“I’m not sure whether those women are with them by choice or not, but I do know that the men who claim them as wives don’t share them with the other men. Half of the married men are also the Captains of the spaceships and their officers.”

“Some of the men and wives work in the offices that Fahra has in one of the big ships. Others do maintenance on the ships and handle the stores and prisoners when she has them on the planet.”

“I think some of them were originally prisoners that they kept. She lives in that ship, as do most of the married people and the crews who work on her flyable ships.”

“Some of the single people live in the old freighter that is beside Fahra’s. It is also where the people they bring down here are placed.”

“They use the other old freighter that they gutted for storage when they capture a ship. The working freighters park in front of that ship to unload. At least ten locals work for her, but they don’t live on that side of the river.”

“They are not popular with the other locals, but it’s work. Several people here don’t mind bartering goods with Fahra, and they even supply her with the coin to spend here by buying the goods she has on offer.”

“Many are hypocrites as they won’t buy her goods, but they will sell to her and her people knowing that she only has money to spend because others brought her stolen goods.”

“Money talks,” Dusty offered.

“Yes, this is true of our society, too. We may have magical people, but most of the people are not. We also have our share of pirates, but they are called by other names.”

“Not everyone can be good, or at least not all of the time, and we all make mistakes. We all look at the world from our own point of view. What one considers intolerable or bad, another may not.”

“Yes, we face that all of the time as Police Officers. One country or even a community may consider a certain offence needs a punishment, but in another community or country, the act may be ignored, or the punishment may not be equal to the same offence there,” James told Dimitri.

Dusty added, “Even murder is not treated the same in every community. On the moon that orbits Earth, for example, killing someone is punishable by the offender being spaced, especially if they breach a dome while doing it. On a planet with an atmosphere, there is no such offence. One always had to take the circumstances and the intent into consideration.”

“Yes, when they first arrived, we were happy to buy their interesting goods. It was only after we realised how they obtained some of them that the attitudes of many changed. Others didn’t care,” Demetri shrugged.

“They said they were simply buying goods that were for sale. At least they didn’t buy the people the pirates had for sale. That is abhorrent to all of us,” Demetri informed them.

“To us, too,” Dusty replied.

They sat and talked for a bit longer about their different societies.

Demetri wanted to check on the women.

When he came back, he said to Dusty, “What did you do to them? When I went in, they both woke up. They said they were thirsty, and they wanted to go home.”

“When I asked them how they felt, they both smiled at me and said they felt great, never better. I asked about what happened at the tavern they looked at me blankly. They both then said they had been drinking and felt ill, and they assumed that was why they were at my clinic. I had to let them go home.”