Life on the Frontier — Three Drinks Tonight
Life on the Frontier – Three Drinks Tonight
A Moon Dispatch
Alex takes a cut of the tips. Nils drinks on the house. The hotel visitors are the ones who have not heard the stories yet.
Lunar noir hard science fiction: Justice is personal, and backup is three days away.
Nils Carmike takes another sip and glances at the bartender. They place a cover over the straw-cup. In one-sixth g, the liquid stays where the lid puts it. He has told a few tales. Most of the newcomers were polite and well-dressed. A few hung on every word. Those are the ones he makes the stories for. A yarn does not have to be plausible. It has to be good. The tab is still open. Alex is the last person he wants to owe.
The Practice
The deal is simple once the hotel sends people to the event. Nils tells stories after each passenger landing. The visitors tip. Alex takes a cut off the tips. Nils drinks on the house.
It works because the room is small, and the gravity is wrong. Covered glasses. Straws. Earthlight on the floor. Nobody pours. Alex kills the music and raises his voice. Ladies and gentlemen — Nelson the prospector. Twenty-five years on the Moon. Stories from the early days. Nils smiles at the next level of embellishment and spends the yarn. Afterward, he collects from the patrons who waited for the end. Sixty dollars is not bad. He walks it to the bar and puts thirty in Alex’s hand against the tab. Alex slides him another whiskey.
One drink per landing was the first offer. How it actually clears is through the cut. The house drink is the other half. The math only works if the landings keep coming and the faces stay new enough to pay for a story they have not already heard.
How People Use It
Nils accepts because the alternative is a tab he cannot clear on the faces already in the room. He offered Milt once. Milt was on the first landing. Alex does not want him. Milt puts people to sleep. He does not talk about himself. The practice needs a man who will spend the yarn, not file it.
The visitors are the point. Lunadyne is increasing the numbers. There is a hotel and tourist packages. An old space hand after a landing increases the appeal of the place. They buy the drink because the story came with the seat. The crowd favorite is the one Milt hates — ice in a lunch pail, tracks across the surface. Alex wants fun rather than reasonable. Nils gives it. He does not give them the north.
Prospectors treat the bar like Nils does: a spot to be noticed and a spot where they can dispute the tab. Corporate visitors sit through one story and decide whether the second is worth the tip. Gen Miller inherits the same room. She will hear that he tells the stories to settle what he owes. She does not have to like the rate, or the name Alex puts on him when he introduces the act.
Fragile Trust
The trust is the split. Thirty to the bar, thirty kept, another whiskey that does not go on the tab. Nils does not want to owe Alex, and he takes the arrangement anyway because Alex owns the microphone. It lasts as long as the landings continue and the stories still move a tip. It does not survive a night when the fresh faces are too few to cover the cut.
Official law is not in the transaction. Sheriff Anderson may be in the room. He is not the one pricing the yarn. Backup is three days away, so a deal between a prospector and a bartender is the only contract that clears before Earth can answer a question about it. Alex still takes his half. The visitors still want the early days. The house drink is not free of charge. It is earned, and only while the hotel keeps sending people who have not heard the stories yet.
When the fresh faces are too few to cover the cut, who still drinks on the house?
Further Reading
- Thunder Moon Tussle
- The Lunadyne Incident and Other Stories
- Mask of the Joyful Moon
- Related site posts: Life on the Frontier — Straw-Cups, Character Spotlight — Nils Carmike, Lunar Signals — The Story Nils Tells Tourists
The Joyful Moon is still watching…
and the fresh faces are still too few.
— Torn MacAlester
Still riding the trails with Nils, Gen, and the whole Fabulae Lunae crew
🚀🌕
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StoriesThe stories of Torn MacAlester are science fiction, where the science is well-grounded. I intentionally made any deviations for speculative purposes. To maintain maximum realism, I restrict the scope of these deviations. |
ArticlesI write articles of science fact and science fiction. The articles here span the knowledge of modern science and the speculations of fiction. I try to caveat everything that is an assumption. You will find articles about spaceflight, the possibilities of alien contact, and descriptions of technology used in my stories. |
