Chapter 1

“Spaceships are overgrown buses without the windows” Pyotr Kaminitzky grumped as he sat in the belly of the aged hulk. He felt crammed into a ridiculously small seat on a dirty, all too public, transport. The thought of five more months of little privacy had Pyotr fuming even more.

Pyotr considered himself a man of specific talents: he could count. He could count a lot of items or a lot of one item. He was so good at counting that he could determine what was not counted, that is to say, what was missing from the tally. After producing reams of hardcopy from his own spreadsheets, Pyotr knew in his heart of hearts that he was a master forensic accountant, a man who could solve the mystery of the stolen government property. Surely his logical brain could decipher the most obscure facts and place them in elegant tables of clarity.

In the first days of shipboard confinement, he easily compiled the accounting procedures that were necessary to calculate the cost of one the emperor’s behemoth transport ships and its maintenance – to himself. The imaginary screens of data columns spun through his imagination. Using his vast, numerically predisposed imagination as he understood his capabilities, he calculated at he would require at least twelve hours of introduction to the methodology and at least twice that amount of time to demonstrate conclusively the necessary categories derived by that methodology should he be given the opportunity to present to his colleagues. What an honor that would be!

Pyotr was the consummate bureaucrat in the Emperor’s civil service. He conjured an image in his imagination of a storeroom with all of the hardcopy in storage cases stacked on shelves that disappeared down rows beyond his eyesight; he had seen such rooms many times before and even filled a shelf or two of one stack in one row with his own work.

He sighed, letting go of his foolish dreams. Shifting his vast bulk in the uncomfortable and unyielding seat, he squirmed in one of the small lounges that peppered the passenger hallways of the large transport. Tired of the minute compartment the crew called a cabin, he sought refuge in the larger room where he might find a bit of conversation.

Most of those who stuck their heads in the door chose not to enter. Left to his own entertainment, Pyotr mulled over the difficulties of giving a monetary value to standard transport seats when the utilization of strategically placed units was higher than other units. Such complications brought a rare smile to his blubbery lips. In such vast numerical balances there was a philosophical beauty; a perfected abstraction of human creation.

As he generated his numerical thoughts with the accompanying grunts and pops of his mouth, he failed to notice a woman enter and take a seat across from him in the lounge. When he did take note, she was sitting across from him. She sat in her seat for only a moment though. His stomach woke up, adding to the wet, organic sounds that had been emanating from his mouth. She quickly changed seats to the far corner of the lounge and dove nose first into her digital novel.

Pyotr gave her his finest raised eyebrow combined with the quietest nuanced esophageal grunt that he could manage as he took full note of the distain on her face. She grimaced when he shifted his bulk trying to get comfortable again. Responding with quick reciprocal contempt for her lack of manners, he promptly discounted the proffered distain as he always did. Looking for a new way to pass the time, he counted his minutes until he felt assured that a balance of mutual disinterest had been achieved, at least on her part. Only then he gave her figure an appraising glance with a professional eye.

She was certainly a fellow bureaucrat, of that he was certain. Pyotr believed that with his superior deductive reasoning, he did not have to take the shortcut of acknowledging that every passenger on this part of the ship was a civil servant in transit to the Septimus system. No indeed, he applied his powers of observation. He scrutinized her less expensive fabric cut in the latest style, the no nonsense hairstyle, and the sparse use of cosmetics. He nearly guffawed as he ogled her bust and its outlandish proportions, obviously an inexpensive breast enhancement. ‘She must have had a supervisor who liked big boobies,’ he mused as he tried to shake the unseemly thought from his brain.

For her part, she fired off a dirty look at her unwanted lounge companion for disturbing the unspoken truce of ignoring the other.

Deciding that he had endured enough condescension for the moment, Pyotr heaved his frame into a standing position and pulled his underwear out of his butt crack. He stood tall, above average but left little impression of height with his sagging weight. He even had a great head of hair but all anyone else noticed was his puffed jowls. A mid-first shift snack came to mind as he wandered out into the hallway with a smacking of his lips.

‘Given half a chance, Pyotr is a nice guy; after all, what else does a fat turd have going for him?’ Pyotr contemplated for the umpteenth time. The loneliness was returning.

He was AC-05 grade bureaucrat, which meant he only had to compete with about 5.32 million other AC-05 grade grunts for positions and promotions. AC-01 civil servants were data entry grunts and AC-15 people were ministers. The next grade up, AC-06, simply looked unobtainable and, adding insult to injury, the pay jump was miniscule. The difference was that a 06 grade and above was guaranteed employment until retirement age; 05’s were given thirty years and then a probable heave ho no later than age fifty-one. He was just about thirty Old Earth years old and already he knew the opportunity for promotion was shrinking rapidly.

No one grew up wanting to be a civil servant and few turned their academic pursuits towards becoming a government accountant in this day and age. The only enticement was available employment in an unstable and dysfunctional economy that favored the well-connected. Pyotr understood from the start of his career that government accountants were considered kin to scurrying roaches in abandoned tenements. They may be necessary to the smooth running of a galaxy-spanning empire but no one had to like them. Bureaucrats like him were an easy target to squish. Hell, AC’s did not much like themselves and they did swarm like insects.

His only glimmer of hope was his new position in the Septimus system. A lot of positions had suddenly opened up at this provincial capital and he had immediately put in his request for transfer. He was going to “retire” an AC-05 grade civil servant in his present job; there was no hope of advancement and even if there was, it was not going to go to him. He was nice enough but he was fat and apparently annoying after long periods of time in the same room.

He suppressed the urge to fart but could not hide the effort from his face. He was upset at his display of gastric distress on his mug but tried to let the feeling dissipate. His therapist had admonished him time and again to let the little things go. At least no one had seen him in this quiet stretch of corridor.

He could not let go of his pique without a parting thought. ‘When a pretty woman has gas, everyone feels embarrassed for her. When I pass gas, people just get grossed out,’ Pyotr groused under his breath at the injustice of it all. He was not the only gas producing digestive system in the galaxy; every human body generates intestinal gas. He stifled that worn complaint too and turned to more productive ideas. He also ignored the earthy smell that enveloped him for a moment.

Something had happened at Septimus, a scandal perhaps or an unauthorized strike if he was lucky. The ministers would have locked out the dissenters and sent out a call to usher in a new flock of eager workers. However, if the circumstance was theft, extortion, bribery or the like, then the “new” procedures put in place to prevent such recurrences would be a pain in the neck to live with for some time before the incident was forgotten.