Outsider

[Laowai]

The tall, late middle aged Libertonian man walked into the main bar on Planet Crete. He usually kept a low profile when he ever came here; firstly because he was all too wary of the fact that Corsairs were never overly welcome of strangers, and secondly, because he didn’t want to run into his brother in law.
He wandered over to the bar, aware that many pairs of eyes were watching him from within the throng of rowdy Corsair pilots and soldiers of various ranks. Pedro, the bartender, greeted him with a silent nod.
Matthius has been here many times before - only semi willingly - his journeys to Crete were part of the deal he had made with the devil, a pact that would bind him for life; all because he had the dubious fortune of falling in love with a Corsair woman.
Not that he ever regretted that move, not at all. He considered himself the luckiest man alive, and found his wife to be still, after years of marriage to be the most beautiful, fascinating and unpredictable force of nature he had ever encountered in all his years of space travel.
Isabel was truly the only woman for him.
The Devil in this deal was however, her brother.

“Ren.” Pedro the bartender said as he sat himself down on a vacant stool behind the aging timber bar. “Howdy Pedro” Matthius answered, his usual cheeriness only slightly muted by the glares of others around him; “Get me a Liberty Ale if y’all got one”.
Pedro chuckled, “indeed we do, it was lifted off of a Brettonian shipment just this week so I’m told”.

The tall glass of ice cold beer with an expertly poured head sitting upon its amber depths was placed neatly before him. Matthius took a long mouthful, the chill of the fluid hitting his stomach and immediately cooling him down. Crete was hot, damned hot, and not the friendly kind of hot he was used to on his native Planet Houston in the Texas system; this place had heat that would melt paint and then put its hand out and ask you to pay for the labor, the smell of danger hung everywhere in the heat haze that perpetually hung over this planet.
He put the glass down, and wiped the small white layer of froth off his top lip. He was about to try to strike up a conversation with the barman when a slap on his shoulder jogged his attention. “Hey, you trader, what do you think you’re doing here?” Matthius swiveled in his stool and found himself staring at two young, burly Corsair pilots. He could tell from their arm insignia that they were Brotherhood Titan pilots; always a cocky bunch, and these two were definitely a few sheets to the wind.
“This is a Corsair pilots bar” one of them grunted, “and you don’t look like a Corsair pilot Libertonian”
Matthius smiled, “Well son, I definitely ain’t no corsair pilot - I’m a pilot mind y’all, just flew me a load ‘o food in, best a simple trader like me can do for the mighty people o’ Crete. Course, I ain’t a pilot in the same grade as you boys, that’s fo sho.”

He had found, over more than 30 years of plying the skies of Sirius, that good natured people are almost always genuinely disarming. That’s not to say he was putting it on, far from it, Matthius was described by almost all those who knew him as one of the most jovial natured men they knew - it took an awful lot to rouse him to anger, that or a strong hangover – but, he was also, despite his brother in law’s insistence, no fool. He knew how to handle people; he wasn’t a multi millionaire many many times over with major stakes in property on several Sirius worlds for no reason at all.
These two Corsairs however, weren’t buying it, they were looking for a fight, and there were no Benitez Corsairs in the bar - Matthius knew of the troubled state of Corsair politics, and thus, knew it was also probably diplomatically tenuous for them to take on the few OPG pilots sitting in the room. A lone Libertonian trader would do nicely.
The first pilot shoved him again, only mildly rocking his drink. “Food you say? Is that so, well we know for a fact a liberty registered ship dropped off a couple of thousand illegal passengers outside capital city last week, and we’ve grabbed most of them as outcasts and Hessians, kind of convenient you being here so soon after don’t you think?”
Even Matthius could tell they were morons, but they were clearly gunning for a fight. Just when he thought he might have to resort to blows Pedro the bartender stepped up close by unexpectedly.
“You want to leave this one alone for now” he said to the lead pilot.
The Brotherhood fighter jock wheeled around, “And what the hell is it to you barman?”
Pedro didn’t flinch, “This one’s got business with an Elder.”
“An Elder?!” both Matthius and the two brotherhood pilots mouthed at the same time. The Brotherhood jock scowled, ‘Which Elder? I don’t….”

Pedro nodded toward the door and they turned. Standing silhouetted by the harsh light outside was an older Corsair wearing a combat tunic framed by one of the cloaks favored and worn by Corsair Elders. His head was shaved, roughly, and a scraggly beard and moustache hung from his chin, His eyes, barely visible through the haze, peered coldly across the room, their shape; unmistakably Kusari.

“Laowai” Pedro said unceremoniously and chuckled to himself, picking up Matthius’s glass and dropping it onto a dish rack.

The figure at the door spoke in no uncertain terms. “Get away from the Libertonian you two, this is my business”
The brotherhood pilots deferred, and reluctantly bowing their heads slightly in salute, went back to their own table.

The old Corsair approached him and Matthius was unsure of what to say. He had not spoken to his brother in law for years, and had not seen him, at more than a distance, in a similar amount of time. What’s more the man had publicly tried to kill him, and made it plain that he would like to do so many times since.
Laowai was the one who broke the silence. “I’ll keep this brief” he said curtly. Matthius nodded and raised his eyebrows in acknowledgment; aware of his movements, as if the old man standing before him was a volatile animal that might be set off by any sudden action.
Actually, up close, he noticed the similarities between this man and Isabel; The eyes obviously, but more, the shape of the face, the nose, though his wife had not aged as visibly as her brother had.
The Corsair went on. “Things have changed since my sister and I last spoke, my… station here has altered somewhat”. Ren nodded and indicated to the Elder badge clasp holding the cloak his brother in law now wore. “An Elder is it, well, y’all be right there, that certainly is different”.
Laowai glared at him, but nodded; “Yes, that has changed, and so my place, and thus, hers’ on Crete are now not what they were”
He reached into his tunic and removed a round bronze seal about the size of his hand. Gold encrusted and lined its surfaces, and in silver the words “Honour, Loyalty, Kinship” were embossed, circling over a corsair Elder motif, the same words, written in a Kusari dialect that Matthius was all too familiar with, were similarly displayed. In fact, Matthius was quite familiar with those words; they adorned a sword and a blaster that his wife owned.
They now adorned a Corsair Elder badge of office.

Laowai handed it to him. “I want you to take this to Isabel directly; she will know exactly what it means, tell her I wish to see her here on Crete as soon as she is able to come”
Matthius took the seal, and nodded. The Old Corsair continued, “You may have to bring her here yourself...” he scowled slightly but nodded “I will pay you for your work of course”
His eyebrows raised in slight surprise, Matthius suppressed the smile that threatened to break out on his face; these were the most words his brother in law had ever spoken to him without a gun pointed at his face, he wasn’t about to ruin it by seeming to enjoy it at all.
“I’ll tell her” he said simply.
Laowai nodded and turned to leave, but after a few steps paused, turned and half looked over his shoulder.
“Tell her also” he said “That our father and mother are now vindicated”.

With that he left, leaving a quite surprised Matthius Ren Clutching the elder seal.

---

http://img686.imageshack.us/img686/3289/...047770.png