The Young Insect…The Cyborgs…And Me…..

The cyborgs and I sat huddled in the bubble domes, with the constant vibration of the lane surge pulsing up from the tanker hull. We were falling from station to station, getting a free ride between the close packed stars of the galactic center, the gigantic colorful fans of cosmic dust clouds swirled around us. This tribe all came from the same machine producer, and it was hard to tell them apart, the only thing really different from one to another was the scrimshaw they carved into their exoskeletons....esoteric glyphs that indicated the lines they had run on in the past....or deeds they had done for the betterment of the tribe. They tapped into the tankers, and ran whatever it was the machines were shipping through filters and stills, and poured that into themselves for lubrication. My AI sang songs and told stories of human space for their amusement, and in return they provided hydrocarbons for my purloined food machine. I learned that this line was headed out towards the frontier, where the machine culture intermixed loosely with some biot empire....they showed me videos of arid moons with large clusters of bubble habitat spreading like blue froth over the rocky surface. Strange looking insect-like creatures flew around in open framework reaction jet vehicles. They said that others like me had been seen there before.
Camping out with a dozen cyborgs on the after deck of an automated chemical tanker isn't too bad of a trip, after you get used to it. Somebody had told me once that you can get used to anything. The cyborgs had a couple of bubblecraft, pretty much the standard flying saucer looking thing, and they had unpacked their gear and set up bubble tents, for more living space. They mostly sat around playing a game that involved varicolored dice and a ping-pong ball, or carving on each other. The cyborg who handled most of the chemical processing started playing with the food unit one day, and discovered that if he poured a particular sugar analog concoction into it, he could get it to dispense pretty decent 150 proof rum. So after that, I spent a lot of time drinking rum and cola, trying to get good at the dice-ball game. Weeks went by.......As we got closer to the insect realm port, the cyborg chief told me that we would probably have to split up when we got there. They had a registered clan logo, and valid bar-codes, but my only ID showed up as "transient biot of unknown origin". They didn't think they would have any trouble getting through Imperial Insect quarantine at the port, but I might have some trouble. Or maybe not, he didn't know for sure. So they decided to fix me up with my own little bubblecraft, and let me take my chances. The chief talked to the tanker shipbrain, and got it to fabricate a couple of large lens shaped pieces of light hull material in it's machine shop. The bottom piece would be solid black, and the top piece was transition glass. They stuck the two pieces together, programmed an entry hatch, and loaded in spare parts from their hoard of stuff in their craft hold. They put in a small gravatron drive, a driver's seat, a chemical toilet, and my food machine. A large plastic bladder held a good supply of carbon-based food syrup, and could double as a water bed. Down in a gravity well, soft biots needed something to sleep on. So it looked like I was pretty well set up for when we got to port in a couple of more weeks, roughly.
My little flying saucer dropped off the tanker, and settled into the traffic stream towards the spaceport. The driver's module came complete with a navigation bar, and comm suite...so eventually I got a signal from Port Authority..."Unknown small craft, follow only marked vector to Quarantine Zone". I stayed on mark approach to the space station orbiting above the insect city below on the rocky moon....The gravatron motor whirled rapidly as the landing dock got closer and closer....touchdown in Imperial Insect jurisdiction is accomplished. I wait for further contact. The dock bay cycles atmosphere, various light bars blink and strobe....binary code scrolls across the comm screen....I am told to exit the vehicle and follow the yellow line on the deck to Immigration. After a short walk, I find myself in a small office with a creature facing me over a wood-grained counter. The insect people are taller than me looks like, and have multiple limbs and eyestalks. The immigration official aims some eyestalks at me, and some at a screen array. There is a chrome speaker box on the counter, which starts speaking in my language...."You are a human biot in transient status?" I reply in the affirmative. "Very good, I'm giving you a temp visa with a pending. You may move your vehicle anywhere in the transient zone between the spaceport and the city limits, but you may not leave that zone under any circumstances without official sponser. You are not eligible for food stamps or free medical, and you have no recognized civil rights. Failure to abide by local laws and regulations may result in death. Have a nice day."
Well, that had gone pretty well, I guess. The "death" part was a little disturbing....I would have to try to keep my nose clean, as it were. Back in my flying saucer, I turned on the comm and an advert popped up: "Happy Paradise Vehicle Park and Sanitary Facility! Many available clean modern spaces! Full hook-ups! Cable ready! E-Z quick credit terms! Imperial law prohibits discrimination by race, religion, gender, or species." And so on.....There was a marker already there to follow, so I let an autopilot program take over, and after the bay doors opened, my little craft coasted down towards the surface, through a maze of orbiting shipping, towards the huge flat spaceport area. Outside the spaceport fence, there were lots of parking lots, with all manner of small craft and bubble tents in rows. The program settled me down into Space 38 in Happy Paradise. Luckily for me, the Imperial Insect economy was is a boom cycle, and credit really was E-Z. As soon as I had landed, a pop-up came on the comm and offered me an account with First Insect Trust and Savings. I put my first, middle, last as Estaban Mickey Mouse, and my 9 digit SS# as 123-4567-89. Within 30 seconds I had access to a 10,000 Imperial Credit Unit line, and it would only cost me 10 ICU a month minimum payment. So when the vehicle park manager came around in a golf cart, I charged six months all at once, and got a slight discount.
A few weeks later, I was sitting out in front of my space, eating a churro my food machine had made. A young insect was watching me, a female I think. She asked me what I was eating, and I asked her if she wanted a bite. She wiggled any eyestalk in an affirmative manner, so I broke a piece off for her. She said she really liked it and asked for more. I went inside and programmed more churros. Pretty soon, I had a whole crowd of kids wanting churro bites. A mother insect came along and asked for a whole bag of them, because her kids were driving her nuts asking for them. I got her a bag, and she got a little coupon book out of her purse and tore off a sheet of little stamps. I asked her what that was, and she said they were food stamps, of course. The light bulb lit up above my head, as it were. Over next to the fence at the far edge of the transient zone, there is a place called the Free Market and Duty-Free Shop Plaza..(don't mispronounce it as "flea" market, or the insects will get upset)...anyway, I got myself a thermal chest, and let the food machine run churros for an hour or so, and went off in the morning to see if I could get a spot at the Free Market. I found one on the south wall, number five. When security came around, they said that was OK, since it was far enough away from the established vendors who sold cotton candy and popcorn balls. For a nominal fee, I reserved my space for a week. It went great, by a little after lunch time I was sold out, and I had a stack of food stamps, and some nylon coins in my pocket that looked like varicolored guitar picks. Maybe I would actually be able to pay First Insect the 10 ICU a month.