Free Racers of the Night: Science Fiction Stories by Brad R. Torgersen by Brad R. Torgersen

determined that I’d find out.
    Meanwhile, there was always more clay. And there were always more bricks.

    Nominally a jail tale, “Bricks” is both a story of redemption, and a look at the less glamorous side of potential interstellar colonization. Any people who manage to arrive on another world circling another star, are going to be starting from scratch. And there won’t necessarily be any virgin forests to tame, as in the case of the Earth’s ancient humans who crossed oceans to settle new lands. Odds are, if there’s any life at all, it’ll be primitive. Perhaps, too primitive to be useful. So what will our hypothetical colonists use for building materials, if there’s no wood?
    Once upon a time, I was handy with a potter’s wheel. I know enough about clay—and the processes for turning clay into variously useful things—that it occurred to me that bricks would be an essential component of any interstellar colony’s industrial economy. Assuming said colonists landed with only the land and some water to work with. No major plant life, nor developed mining and smelting of the sort we’re used to in the 21 st century. All of that stuff will come later. In the meantime, they’ll have to have something to build with.
    So I conjured images of millions of earthen bricks baking in the sun. But wait, earthen bricks aren’t as dependable as actual clay bricks, formed and fired. How do you fire bricks if you don’t have wood, coal, or a natural gas supply available?
    There are already experimental solar power fields on Earth designed to collect and focus sunlight. When in use, these solar fields can generate a tremendous amount of heat in a very small, focused area. Aim enough rays at a stone kiln—and imagine that the sun’s light is even brighter, more intense, and longer-lasting than it is on Earth—and you have your firing solution. But who among colonists—or their descendants—is going to agree to do such work? It’s not glamorous, it doesn’t take a lot of education, it’s difficult and dirty, and it’s going to potentially take you far from civilization; if said civilization has decided to build far from the equator.
    “Bricks” first saw print in Bryan Thomas Schmidt’s anthology Beyond The Sun, albeit in a shortened and somewhat modified form. It got some nice mentions in several reviews. I hope nobody who read the story in that book, minds me re-rendering the story here, in this book. I always did like my protagonist in this story. In my time in the military I’ve known some solid people who, for whatever reasons, ran into trouble with the law while young. Not everybody who goes to prison is the kind of person who should stay there. And especially on a colony world, where human life is rare and valuable in ways it might not necessarily be otherwise, how would the colonists decide to deal with criminals? And how might a criminal convicted of a major crime find his or her way back into society?
    Such questions pretty much drove the plot of this story.
    ***

Guard Dog
    (with Mike Resnick)
    A passive sensor pinged hesitantly, and Chang came alert. He felt his way through the familiar diagnostic routine, verifying the status of thousands of different shipboard components. As expected, everything was functioning. The sole minimal change was that his available fuel had decreased.
    Chang had never been told exactly how long his fuel would last. In fact, there had never been any mention of refueling, nor rearming. This would have bothered him, prior to being crippled in combat. But now it was simply a fact of life. He knew he was disposable; had known it when he’d blinked twice for yes during the Watchfleet accessions interview in the hospital ward. It was still better than the alternative.
    Another ping, this time a bit stronger.
    Adrenaline began to surge.
    The threat. Where was the threat?
    Chang’s head and spine were plugged into the core of an armored, spherical spacecraft hovering at a