BChapter 2- "Failure"/B

The world of Zallus Prime can, with no exaggeration, be described as a living inferno. Grating, glassy red sand plains cover the vast majority of the planet's surface, punctuated by two small, shallow oceans, and a few handfuls of razor-sharp volcanic mountain ranges.

The near-zero degree axis of rotation, combined with an almost deadly proximity to the Zallun home star ensure that most of the globe is baked without change of season, while the ice-bound polar caps are merely reverse-temperature versions of the sandy deserts. .

Few, if any, wonder that some of the hardiest creatures in the Federation of Races are to be found on this deity-forsaken rock in the Southern Rim. One such creature is known, in the Zallun tongue, as the zchek'zelk. Lanky, lean and incredibly fast, these four-legged plain-runners are prized for their soft— but surprisingly durable hide— and for their meat, which is some of the healthiest anywhere in the Federation, particularly sought by the masses of weight-obsessed Derivians.

Matt Sarray's zchek'zelks weren't lean, and neither was his family ranch a parched, barren wasteland. In fact, Celus VI—locally known as "Soliven"— was about as extreme an opposite of Zallus prime as black was to white. Verdant, rolling hills spread endlessly across the world. Streams and rivers wove an elaborate web across the entire surface of the main continent, and the skies were overcast as often as not.

Where Zallun shrubs hid themselves, small and scrubby, in caves, seeking refuge from over a dozen hours of blazing sunlight, the trees on Soliven stretched heavenward, rockets to the stars, as they competed with thousands more of any of a thousand different kinds of trees. A well-balanced abundance of sunshine and rain worked the magic of growth, and Soliven's frequent rains were warm and welcome, as they meant life, a temperate climate and, for most of the population, money.

For Matt, the rain only meant misery. That the skies had chosen to open now, during his trek to check the herd, left his mood damper than the sadly-reduced expanse of grassland that was the last remnant of his family's ancestral landholding.

Cranking the throttle to a fully open position, he roared his all-terrain vehicle off a small ridge, finding as much pleasure as possible in his second-long flight, before the wide tires planted themselves in the soft ground again, fanning wings of mud to either side, drenching him and his ATV in a rich, red slurry.

IGreat. Another pair of overalls ruined. Gonna take an hour to clean that stuff out of the gearbox, too. Just had to rain today, didn't it?/I

He filed his murmurings away in the good-sized portion of his memory he had specially set apart for holding grudges, complaints, and things he just didn't want to let go of. There might not be all that many head left, out of the two hundred zcheks his grandfather had imported, but he still felt the need to check on them, in the fading hope that he might be able to miraculously turn around the failed gamble his granddad had gotten into, and grumbling could always be done later.

There was plenty for Matt Sarray to grumble about; at least in his opinion there was plenty. With the early and unexpected demise of his parents in a freak accident aboard a starliner (they had finally saved up enough for a honeymoon, once upon a time, and Matthew's mother's father had been kind enough to take three-year old Matt for a week), he had been left to the care of an old man who never had proven his love for the boy. Not in Matt's view, anyway.

Gryser "Doc" Lanza was one of the hardest-working men on Soliven, and had made well sure that his Matthew would inherit that same work ethic. With Grandpa Lanza's death only four years behind him, a now twenty-two year old Matt had finally recognized that there might just have been a good reason the old man had turned his life into a never-ending boot camp. That didn't make him feel any more cared for.

With time, though, the young man had learned that "Doc" worked hard for more reasons that just building character, however. Gryser was a risk taker, and having failed more often than he had succeeded, the elder Lanza had to hustle to make up for it, and that meant squeezing more out of less.

Which was exactly what had landed a secretly star-struck Derivian kid on a four-wheeler, in the middle of a mildly torrential thunderstorm.

A mere six months before his death, Gryser had decided to take his two, largest gambles of all time. The first notion involved prospecting for hidden fuel deposits he seemed convinced were riddling his three hundred-square kilometer ranch. The second "brilliant scheme" involved importing ten-score zchek'zelks in an effort to cash in on a niche market that he felt still had more than enough room for competition.

"Look at it from an economics viewpoint," Doc had told his grandson. "Supply and demand. All it is, my boy. People want the bounders, and they have to get the stuff from half a galaxy away.

"We get our own herd going, fast, strong, and in secret, and we can corner the market within a season. 'Sides, you gotta figger that if the critters can grow in that frelling fire-pit of the Zallun, they'd multiply like tree-sondas, here! Plenty of food, water and space for 'em.

"Yep. I reckon we'll have over a thousand before the year is out."

The year came, the year went, and Doc was again proven wrong on all counts. The first idea ended up costing him his life, when his home-built drilling rig (he refused to listen to a teen-age grandson's suggestion to just rent one) struck a shallow and unexpected artesian well, and the pressure had fired the drilling shaft back up the borehole and straight at grandpa's head. He was dead before Matt could get him home. And now, with his grandfather dead, the boy found himself saddled with the diminishing returns of a diminishing herd.

IA thousand before the year is out. Right, grandpa. I've got twenty-seven, now. Thanks loads./I

The problem with the zchek'zelk had come as a cruel irony of life. All two hundred of them had arrived on-planet just a week and a half before the old man had taken the shaft to his temple. That whole next week and a half, Gryser had openly gloated, to his grandson, about how well the "critters" were eating, and the oft-taken trip to visit his "running gold mine" certainly seemed to bear out his idea. The scrawny-looking beasts started bulking up almost immediately, as they grazed at what must have seemed to them a never-imagined paradisiacal buffet, and profits looked guaranteed.

The zcheks kept eating. Long past the time Doc had stopped eating forever.

Centuries of living on next to no food— and even less water— had built the long-limbed beasts into extremely efficient food processors, storing every last particle of food and drink for use during the harshest of climactic conditions imaginable. When those conditions never arose—as was to be expected on Soliven— the storage didn't taper with the decline in need.

It was only three months before the first of the zchek'zelk had perished of obesity.

With the increase in fat content, the herd's overall health took a serious and sudden down turn. Much larger calves caused unnatural complications in the birthing process, and an uncomfortable number of females died in calf bearing. Added to that was the decreased energy levels in the males, brought on by having to carry a significant amount of extra weight, and breeding season saw a pitiful amount of mating; the males were simply too lethargic to mount the females.

Other health complications arose— too many more than Matt could, or cared to, remember. The area's virgin market for the zcheks was left virgin, and the Lanza ranch became a laughing stock, as the "universal weight-loss animals" suddenly found themselves suffering from the very same conditions most people looked to them to help cure.

An attempt to sell the leather of the dead animals met with equally disappointing results. Matt's grandfather had never taught him anything about leather preparation, and by the time he could get the dead zcheks skinned, and their pelts hauled to the town's tannery, they were simply too dry and cracked for anything but disposal.

Thanks to Doc's narrow-minded focus on fuel drilling and animal husbandry, the rangeland remained just that. Not even a crop to sell. Only the small, ranch house garden still existed, after grandpa had put the old family fields to the torch, clearing the ground for more suitable grazing crop, and were it not for that, Matt really had to wonder what he'd be eating, from day to day. A staggering string of debts hadn't died with his grandfather, and the bankers— used to getting their way amongst the largely uneducated Solivenese populace— merely shrugged off his request for lenience, telling him he'd best find a way to come up with the whopping one-point-eight million in already over-extended loans, or consider himself financially ruined. And that, quite bluntly, was that.

Matt had called in as many favours as he thought right, and even sold off the larger portion of the ranch, but even with that, he had only managed to shave off a third of a million from his crushing burden; and still, no succor was in sight. A friend of his, who knew something about money, had appraised every last thing Matthew had in his possession, down to the very shoes on his feet. The resulting net value offered no hope. In fact, Matt was on his last tank of fuel, and was wondering how he was going to justify the cost of using any of it, just to remind himself how doomed he really was; even his best and brightest schemes had done little to reverse the downward spiral of the zcheks.

IYou know what? Forget the zcheks. I should just slaughter the lot of them see if I can't get enough to get a ticket outta here. Eh, it's a big enough world. Heck, maybe I'll just go to Evedra, hide out there. Maybe take up with the fishermen, change my name. No one'd ever expect that. They think I feel I just can't bring myself to leave this place.

Yeah. Sure a whole bunch to make me wanna stay, isnt' there?/I

With that, he let off the gas, his ATV trundling to a lazy stop. Matthew took a brief look around, hoping to spot the herd through the growing darkness. Luckily— though not surprisingly, any more— they were just where he had left them, most of them too exhausted to do anything but roll around in the mud. Matt dropped the vehicle into gear, and rode over to the rotund, horned animals, and did his preliminary check for any newly dead.

Sure enough, three had died, since last week, though the ones left alive seemed a bit healthier, leaving him some gladness that his idea to mix diet pills with their food had paid off; sort of.

"So how'm I gonna get all you fat, lazy things clear back to the house, if you can't even get off the ground?"

He was met with some blank stares, a few moans, and the sound of a few of them still trying to rip up some grass for dinner.

"Sorry sight, the whole blasted lot of you, you know that?" He shook his head, and looked back at them. "Shoulda just brought the shotgun and finished you all off right here. Bah, none of you are probably even worth the shells it'd take to do it."

He kicked at a loose piece of turf, near his feet, but the kicking and "pep talk" did nothing to encourage the zcheks to do any more than turn their heads. He frowned deeply, and pulled his jacket tighter around him. A cold breeze had just joined the wind, and merely standing did nothing to help keep him warm.

"You know what, all you? This is it. I'm leaving, and you all can just sit here and eat yourselves to death, because you know something? I just plain don't care anymore. I'm tired, I'm wet, I'm cold, I have next to nothing in the bank, and I've eaten nothing but home-grown vegetables for the last seven weeks. Not even any kooroo spice. Do you have any Iidea/I how bland fetza tastes without a bit— a Ilto/I— of seasoning? It's like eating chalk. Maybe you should try it. Might just get you to stop eating."

He stared at several of the creatures, in turn, but every one refused to lock eyes, and most just responded by looking away entirely, though some added a pathetic bleat to it.

"Listen to me. I'm talking to a bunch of cattle. I must be losing it."

Frustrated beyond anything he'd felt before, Matt stomped back to his bike, hopped on and got it going again. It was time to put a little life in his life. It was time to head for Tanner's Barn.