Part one can be found here.
Chapter 3
The moment he stepped onto the hard greenish dirt of the planet Tarsec, Gerald knew it would be perfect. The planet was the most densely populated of all in the Palao star system, and in terms of services and amenities, was surprisingly well catered for. There were a whole host of sensory augmenting movie theatres and games halls, as well as luxurious bath houses full of jacuzzis and automated robotic massage rooms. There were also bars and clubs, of the kind that every self-respecting planet could produce.The first thing Gerald did was establish a stronger link to Lark, so that he could walk around with the A.I.'s advice in his ear. He didn't want to be alone, something that was rare for a man of his demeanor. But, he was usd to a shallow form of company from people when he wasn't travelling, because of the chiselled features genetic engineering had gifted him. It was just a shame that the same engineering hadn't done anything much to his body, so he was forced to work out a lot.
It wasn't long before Gerald found a real estate agent and rented an apartment under one of his many aliases. It was there that he went next, to check that the key the young woman had given him worked, even though he knew it would anyway. Nothing was defective these days, but he still felt like he had to make sure everything was as it should be.
The next port of call was the spaceport. It was a slightly aged chunk of metal and glass, which had begun to rust somewhere in the last few decades by the look of it. It wasn't nearly as bad as the pile of spacejunk Gerald had been forced to stay at before, but he found the aged look disconcerting. His expertise was in mechanics, and he'd have to spend a lot of time in that spaceport, earning money to fund the next journey in a few months' time, if he was lucky.
By the time he re-entered the apartment he'd rented, it was early evening, and all Gerald had the energy to do was lie down and sleep. Outside, most of Tarsec did the same, which others woke up to begin the long night.
The planet had a full day-night cycle of about 30 hours, meaning that people without genetic engineering found the towns and cities rather difficult to adjust to, but most enjoyed the extra time of day, because sleep was something most people needed little of. So for people other than Gerald, who could stay in bed for extended periods of time, the night was the time to get out and drink, meet people, and ultimately have fun.
This behaviour stemmed from the rather strange way Tarsec had been populated, and somehow pulled itself up out of the ground. Initially it had been one of the now defunct UN camps, which catered for refugees from interstellar warfare by setting up self-sufficient places for them to live. They had never been meant to be permanent, but when the UN had been bakrupted, millions of people had been stranded in these camps.
The saving grace of these people was that the UN had somehow sourced a host of full atmosphere planets, which had meant that local and imported plants and animals could be farmed with relative ease. One thing had led to another, and within two centuries, Tarsec was a fully functional Class 3 planet with a wide range of services and enough trade routes to sustain the living standards at a very high level.
In other words, Tarsec was a miracle. Since the start of mainstream space travel, nobody had been kind to one another. The universe was out there, but also expensive enough that it was every man for himself. Bonds were lost, and in the end only small groups of friends endured the split together. But for refugees who had lost everything, surviving was all they had. So, as a result, the refugee planets had become some of the most powerful in the entire universe. They thrived against adversity.
Gerald, however, wasn't aware of just how powerful they were. It was just his luck that as well as being powerful, UN camp planets, as they were known, were among the most peaceful in the galaxy.
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