The Pits

Posted on Sat 20th Jun, 2020 @ 6:49pm by Yuliette Marayan Dr.
Edited on on Fri 24th Jul, 2020 @ 6:42am

815 words; about a 4 minute read

Mission: Resolution
Location: Brown Sector: Zodiac
Timeline: MD11

When she went out, Yuliette latched all three door locks. Heading down the stairwell leading out to the street, she mostly wondered what everyone else here did for drinking water. She didn’t see anyone carrying any water cans, jugs, or bladders in the street. And, unlike the people she’d worked with in the desert, most of them didn’t look like races that could go without drinking for long.

She took a closer look at the stalls and was amazed. She must have had her mouth agape because she heard the word “tourist” and turned to see the vendor who must have muttered it.

“Sorry.” She said bashfully to the vendor. “I have just never seen so much fresh food on offer from a starbase.”

“We grow it here ourselves. Here, have a sample.” He picked out a small, bright fruit that Yuliette didn’t have a word for and put it in her palm.

It was cool and smooth, like a plum. She bit into it and sighed; the juice dribbled down her chin and she had to wipe it away with the back of her hand. She laughed a little. “Wow, that’s amazing! The sugars, it’s really ripe! How do you grow these without land, atmosphere, sunlight?”

“You can get a tour of one of our aeroponics bays if you want to see it for yourself.”

“Thank you, for the sample.” She’d halfway finished it and was down to the pit on one side.

“You aren’t going to buy anything?”

“I’ll be back. I just moved in.”

“Here? At the Zodiac?” He seemed disbelieving, and his eyes focused on the center of Yuliettes forehead.

“Yes, just down ‘The Drift’ here. I’m sure I’ll be by later for something.”

The vendor smiled with some strain. Promises weren’t sales, after all. “Hey!” he called after her as she started to turn away.

“What?”

“I want the pit back.”

“The pit?”

“Yes. It’s just a sample. The seed is mine.”

Thinking that was a little odd, she polished off the fruit and gave the man his seed back. “What do you do with the pits?”

“Sell them back to the farm, of course.”

She touched her necklace, thoughtfully. “They’re worth a lot?”

“They’re worth something.”

“Who do you sell them to?”

“Beradas Marc. He’s the foremost seedsman. But I’ll save you the trouble. He won’t deal with you.”

“Why not?”

“He’s not as progressive as some people.” When she gave him a blank look, the vendor tapped his own forehead to clarify. “He doesn’t do any trade with spoonheads.”

Yuliette’s face twisted with exasperation. “Well, If I happened to have some seeds, would you buy them from me, to trade with Beradas?”

“No, sorry. He has the equipment to test for likelihood of germination and grade for quality. I don’t want to get stuck with some dead, replicated, sterile imitation I can’t resell.”

“Is there another seedsman?”

“What?”

“You said Beradas was the foremost one. Is there someone else?”

“Probably. A lot of people trade seeds in Brown Sector. I only work with Beradas.”

“Well, thanks, for the fruit.”

On her way through the Rotunda, Yuliette found it difficult to take in her surroundings. She was more than a little miffed about the anti-Cardassian sentiment that seemed to run barely under the surface of this place. “It’s not everyone,” she told herself in an attempt to calm her nerves. And it wasn’t as if the Cardassians hadn’t deserved the reputation overall. Wraiths’ sake, her own father—

She was in the Rotunda now and the distant but echoing sound of a roiling crowd punctured the air with some excitement. She looked up through one of the archway tunnels where the sound was waving from. There were posters of boxers pasted up on either side of the passage and a ticket booth in the center. She looked at all the bills on the outer wall. Tough outlines of faces in profile of men and women set to pummel one another at certain dates and times. A smaller, handwritten advert caught her eye. “Medics wanted. Inquire within.” She snorted at that. A couple of guys bashing each other in the face til one or both couldn’t keep their legs under them. That was just about the stupidest so-called sport she could imagine engaging in.

She turned away from the arena entrance and tried to locate that repair place. Findley’s. After a while Yuliette came to the end of the Drift, where the street branched into ramps. She decided she must have gone too far. A loud honk made her turn and she noticed a runaway emu (or something like it) hitched to a cart as it squawked in the face of a Ferengi...

 

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