Debatable Space Read Free Page B

appalling catastrophe, there was mourning throughout the inhabited universe. Emails of condolence came from the
     remotest planets in the human domain, and the Government of Earth declared a day of mourning, in respect and homage to the
     dear departed.
    Then the conspiracy theorists started up. They whined and whinged and sent hysterical and fantastical texts and emails across
     the galaxy, in their usual (hysterical, fantastical!) fashion. According to these nutsos, the asteroid strike had been predicted
     decades before. But the Galactic Corporation decided to
let it happen
in order to give Pixar a more interesting and mountainous geography.
    And thus, according to these insane, delusional conspiracy theorists, the powers that be knowingly allowed tens of millions
     of humans to die in order to landscape a planet.
    All sensible folk scoffed at these wild allegations. The Cheo himself gave an interview and carefully disproved every one
     of the claims made against his administration. He was astonishingly persuasive and charismatic, and his approval ratings soared.
    But I believed every word. I knew, from my own experiences as a child on Cambria, that there is literally
no limit
to the evil of the bureaucrats who run the Corporation. They are heartless, ruthless, entirely without remorse or humanity.
     They are infinitely blessed, infinitely powerful, but they are also savage, bloodthirsty, murdering, raping, greedy, profit-drenched,
     psychopathic monsters.
    No limit whatsoever.
    And so I watched the news coverage intently as, after the asteroid struck, the Galactic Corporation began its rescue operation.
     Survivors of the collision were forced to burn their dead for fertiliser. Galactic Corporation engineers moved in to reshape
     the planet as a global resort. The ice caps were melted to create a warm brilliant sea. Continents were broken up into islands
     with picturesque coastlines. The prevailing Pixar sentient species (a two-headed earthworm) was exterminated, and replaced
     with new species including colourful flying parrots, dolphins, herds of Purr (catlike herbivores) and genetically engineered
     clawless koalas from old Terra.
    I left Pixar, and I played a gig on a space liner in a neighbouring solar system. My Spanish guitar with hip-hop rhythms was
     an unqualified success. I sang a blues song too, about an asteroid miner who lost his heart, his lungs, his liver, all four
     limbs, his ears and his eyes in a series of terrible accidents, replacing them in turn with ramshackle and fairly unreliable
     prosthetic equivalents, and whose sad lament was entitled “
At Least I’ve Still Got My Own Balls
”.
    I went down a storm, but I couldn’t help feeling I was in the wrong line of work. After all the horror and injustice I had
     experienced in my childhood, after the trauma of losing my wife and family in what was meant to be one of the civilised parts
     of human space, I was still trying to make a living as a
rock star
… ?
    So I loaded up the ship’s lifeboat with a year’s supply of stolen vintage wine, and made my escape. I was an outlaw from that
     day on.
    And now, I’m Captain of a pirate crew.
Alliea
    Rob was an unlicensed boxer, I was his manager, as well as his lover, as well as his wife.
    They were scary days. Boxing was a capital crime, thanks to the Cheo’s latest edict. I guess he was afraid that the enslaved
     masses of the Universe would be driven into revolution and dissent at the sight of two men dancing around a ring hitting clumps
     out of each other.
    We travelled from planet to planet, and Rob would fight all challengers. He would fight two men in a single ring. He would
     fight women, he would even box with cyborgs, and beat them. He had an astonishing capacity to take physical punishment coupled
     with natural speed and grace and a remarkably fluid upper body. He was, some argue, one of the greatest boxers there has ever
     been.
    His greatest fight was against Eduardo Muñoz. Rob was