[03] Elite: Docking is Difficult Read Free

nippier, a bit more space-worthy, do some proper long-haul trading. You know: in commodities that people actually want to buy. Commodities that don’t make them throw up all the time. You could take it easy down here. Kick back, learn space golf or something.’
    ‘Putin give me strength. This is one of your “projects”.’
    ‘I’ve given it a lot of thought.’
    ‘You mean you design logo for company.’
    ‘I’ve not
just
designed a logo,’ said Misha. ‘I did a tagline too.
Bulgakov Trading –
Outstanding in our Field
. Next to a picture of us on our farm. Farm/fields. It’s a play on words, you see?’
    Misha Senior went on staring at the road ahead. ‘Your great-grandfather farm pigs. Your grandfather farm pigs. I farm pigs. You farm pigs. Though mostly you do not farm pigs. Mostly you sit on fleshy arse, eating my cereal.’
    ‘You’re not seeing the big picture! You need more
vision
, dad. What’s so great about pig farming anyway?’
    ‘Pig farming is hard life. Second highest number of industrial accidents after mining. Good, honest work.’
    Misha rolled his eyes.
    ‘It’s not like they’re even pigs,’ he muttered.
    The pigs were not
technically
pigs. So far as anyone could tell, they were ambulatory plants, brainless, bone-free, stump-legged Triffids. A few passing botanists had theorised that the fact Gippsworld’s dominant life form relied on photosynthesis indicated the planet’s weather had, in some distant past, been less unremittingly dismal. For millennia the plant-pigs had been locked in an arms race with the sky, getting more and more efficient at extracting energy from whatever watery sunlight made it through the remorseless cloud cover, like drunks magically locating the alcohol in a bathroom cabinet. Now, if you shone a bright enough light source at their hyper-black skin they’d overdo it and explode in a gloopy shower of vegetable matter. On otherwise boring evenings, kids would sneak into the farm and try to blow the pigs up with a torch for a joke. It was the sort of fact that made it into the light-hearted ‘and finally’ column of a few nature journals, but no academic could be bothered to do much fieldwork on a place like Gippsworld, so that was as far as studies had gone.
    ‘Always you are coming up with these schemes,’ said Misha Senior. ‘It is same as when you said you would be comics artist. Or when you were going to be zoo keeper. Or when you were going to be in band.’
    ‘The band was really good. It’s hard to get decent representation these days.’
    ‘You had four omnichord players. No drummer even.’ His father shook his head sadly. ‘Awful, awful sound.’
    ‘I just think the President is right,’ said Misha. ‘We need to move with the times. In his book on
Innovating The Workplace Via Space-War,
Cliff Ganymede says a business, like a shark, must constantly swim forward, or it will be eaten by a moon whale or a squid.’
    ‘Oooff. Again with Cliff Ganymede. Always his stories filling your head with tales of exciting adventure beyond the stars. I know what it is. You feel destined for some life greater than pig farming. A life much more exotic, yes? Well. There is reason for this.’
    Misha Senior pulled the hover-truck over to the side of the road and rested his chin on the wheel. He exhaled a heavy, whistling sigh.
    ‘There is something I must tell you.’ The old man sounded tired and resigned. ‘I think maybe you have long suspected it. The truth is …’ He paused for a moment. ‘I am not your actual father, Misha. Your real father was great hero. An Elite space ace. He fought brave secret battle in the Alioth Rebellion of 3228 . When he was dying, I swore to him I would raise you as my own, out of harm’s way, but now I see: is pointless to try to fight the destiny that courses through your blood.’
    ‘What?’ Misha’s mouth opened and closed like the door of a broken elevator, except up and down, not sideways. ‘What?’ he said