The Price of Water

Posted on Thu 25th Jun, 2020 @ 4:45am by Yuliette Marayan Dr.
Edited on on Fri 24th Jul, 2020 @ 6:43am

727 words; about a 4 minute read

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

With lunch in her belly, Yuliette felt so much better about the world. She also felt a little guilty about being so difficult with the kind Ferengi when he’d only been curious about her. He didn’t seem like someone who would have collected the reward for information for her capture. But she didn’t really know anything about him in particular, or Ferrengi in general aside from their four lobe brain structure and unique dental and ear care. She frowned. Would she have to avoid talking to anyone? And why, oh for the love why, had she said her name was Julie? That was about the stupidest thing. Have you seen a small half cardassian woman named Yuliette? Oh you mean Julie? Frag, who was she kidding. She wondered if she'd be shot or hung. Or something more fitting, like the way her father was rumored to have dealt with insurgents. She shivered and felt chicken and lentils suddenly not sitting so well in her nervous stomach.

Focus. Back to the present. The future would be what it would be. She’d been after a water filter. This pass through the Drift, she paid closer attention to the conflicting signage until she located Findley’s again. She let herself inside and looked around.

“Hey, Miss.” Oritz greeted her from the counter. “You’re back.”

“Yes, I needed to ask: Do you have water filters? For drinking water from tap?”

“I think we have a few in stock.” Oritz disappeared into the stockroom leaving Yuliette to roam the store.

A familiar piece of equipment caught her eye. It was a health monitor. There was no power to it, but she depressed the buttons anyway, as if there were. In a display case beneath the powerless monitor were a row of refurbished tricorders, most of them models from last decade. One of them was a med corder that looked serviceable. It even had the attachments and case that went with it. It also came complete with a price tag on it at which Yuliette huffed. A few months ago she could have picked it up without a second thought and given it away it without a third. Now? It may as well have been some Betazoid crown jewels for that price. She couldn’t afford it. Oritz came back with a box under his arm.

He started to ring her up for the filter and read out the price.

“I’m sorry, that’s… I don’t have that much.”

Oritz looked at a loss for words. “Sorry, Miss.”

Findley emerged from the store room. “What are we sorry about— oh hey, it’s Miss.”

“She wants a water filter but she hasn’t got the slips.”

“Have you got 10?” Findley rested an elbow on a display stack. “We could rent it to you. But I need ID.”

“No.”

“No, you haven’t got 10, or no you haven’t got ID?”

“Do you know anyone that buys seeds?”

“Beradas!” Oritz said snapping his finger.

“Shut up. You can’t send *her* to Beradas.” Findley rubbed the stubble on his chin, trying to think. Yuliette noticed some characters and shapes inked on the back of his hands and over his knuckles but they weren’t familiar to her. “Hey, I repaired a seed scanner for one of the Mothers last month. If you talk to her, she can probably run your seeds and certify them, then they’re almost good as cash with a lot of folks around here.”

”Mothers?”

“Yeah, it was Granddame Elery. You got that map I drew you?”

“Uh, yes, I think—” Yuliette produced it from her bag and Findley added more lines and another address to his original crude map of The Zodiac.

He extended the map back to her. “Granddame Elery is a little off her rocker, okay? She’s on pain management.”

“She’s in pain?”

“Some kind of degenerative disease thing. But she’s had it as long as I’ve lived here and hasn’t bought the hydroponics farm yet, so— startin’ to think it’s just an excuse for all the tokin’ that old bird does.”

“Thanks for this. I’ll be back for the filter.”

“We’ll hold it for you. Miss.” And with his grease pencil Findley wrote on top of the box: Hold for Miss.

 

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