The Trading Post

A story of speculative fiction

This Substack was inspired by an essay I wrote arguing that a Catholic imagination and stories of speculative fiction go hand-in-hand. It’s the worldbuilding inherent in good speculative fiction that lends itself to a religious imagination that sees all things as consequential.

The very act of engaging with a work of science fiction, fantasy, horror, or some other speculative genre means the suspension of belief in what is—what we know and expect from our own lived experiences. And that means the reader or viewer must then be observant. Any detail or stray scrap of information becomes essential to understanding this new world and this new way of being and relating.

All those stray scraps of story matter.

You can read my essay, “Catholic Worldbuilding and the Ignatian Imagination,” here.

And so, every now and again, I’m going to start sharing some speculative fiction of my own here. Just scraps, really. Little pieces of storytelling that I hope point to something, that welcome you into a wider world and invite you to look around.

I love writing fiction—and I’d love to hear what you think. Are you interested in more? Is something in the story falling flat? Feedback, excitement, whatever—please share it!

At minimum, I hope you enjoy it. There’s more to come.

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The Trading Post

The thing about the Elypisan Trading Post was that it was way too clean. Pristine. Glistening. Words like that. Everything was blistering white.  

And there was a line. A veritable queue. Perhaps the only one left in the entire galaxy. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen such a thing. Creatures big and small waiting patiently. Barely even small talk let alone threats and snarls.

Inyez didn’t trust it. These weren’t her people. She’d never been the one responsible for getting information before, finding new contracts and contacts—that’d been Penn’s job. Inyez had always waited with the ship, the Blue Bird.

But those days…well. Whatever was left of Penn was either deep in the side of an icy mountain or coming out the wrong end of a warlock. Who could say which—and who could say which fate was better. Either way, he wasn’t going to be helping Inyez any time soon.

A mental shrug. She missed him. He’d been a considerably better companion than A7—though A7 insisted on keeping the Bird in better working condition. She appreciated that. And people moved on. At least, they moved.

Unlike this line.

Inyez had expected dirt and grime and shadow. A squeaky barstool tucked under a rusted table covered in a mysterious liquid. Something sticky, most likely. Green or brown. Gruff beings from across the galaxy throwing one another sideways glances, weapons of every sort evident and on display. Maybe a fight. The baring of teeth.

You know, a trading post.

Not this bureaucratic hallucination. Orderly, regulated nonsense. Soft music piped in from unseen speakers. Her clothes—the tattered blue robes of her once-prestigious station—would have fit in well at the sort of trading post she’d imagined. Here, she just looked dirty.

Well, she was that: Dirty. She smelled, too. She looked a mess. Auburn hair tossed about as though she lived in a wind tunnel. Her mismatched eyes bloodshot, weary. She felt a mess, too.

The perfect vibe for a real trading post. Another mental shrug.

She wished there were at least windows, wished she could stare out into space. That was the best part of a space station, after all. And she always felt so much more comfortable out there than in here. It didn’t matter where here happened to be. As a rule, she liked it less than there.

And this here was too brightly lit, too white, too eerily quiet. She swallowed hard.  

Finally, the line was moving.

Inyez felt for the jar tucked within her robes, the would-be good she’d brought to trade. She didn’t have much these days. Not after having had to leave Bosnap IV in such a hurry. What with the place coming to pieces all around her and everything.

Those poor Bosnapians—sucked into space. If they’d been lucky.

“Proceed to stall number seventeen.” A mechanic voice, shrill and whiny.

Inyez was close enough to the front of the line that she could hear the announcements. Things were really moving now.

She wondered what the creatures around her had brought to trade. A spidery being ahead of her had its arms full of burlap bags. She swore the bags were moving. Shaking. Maybe even sobbing.

The tall yellowish amphibian thing a few spots in front of her was pushing a hover-cart. The crate it carried was sealed and still and huge. That would get some good information, Inyez thought. If that’s what the amphibious creature was after.

Because that’s what made the Elypisan Trading Post so special. If special was the word.

Everything’s worth something, Penn used to say. And the Elyps are the best ones to give you the something you’re looking for.

Inyez had always rolled her eyes. Shrugged. She was just along for the adventure of it all. Penn had set the course. Made the contacts. Found the magic.

Taught her to wield it.

Taught her what it meant to wear those blue robes in a time when the monasteries had fallen and the wars had been lost and the galaxy was fracturing into just as many pieces as Bosnap IV.

But now Penn was gone. Her training stalled. And she was here based on nothing more than the fact that she’d been here before. Well, the docking bay, at least.

She felt for the jar again, felt its warmth against her hand. Wondered again about the ragtag collection of creatures around her, about what had brought them to this place, what they hoped to leave with.

She wondered if they wondered the same about her: What she was hoping to leave with. She wondered as much herself.

“Please proceed to stall number three.”

And just like that, it was her turn. She drew up those ragged robes, walked steadily across the gleaming floor, her old boots making barely a sound, to stall number three.

Each stall was a simple capsule shape, white—of course—with a single window. At that window stood two Elyps, disconcerting-looking creatures whose faces were bound up in white cloth. A single hole revealed small, toothless mouths. And where their eyes must have been were oversized pairs of goggles—black straps with yellow spectacles.

Inyez produced the jar from beneath her robes, placed it on the window counter. “All that’s left of Bosnap IV.”

A solitary fairy—or, what Inyez had come to call a fairy—flittered about in the jar. A warm, golden hue exuded from within the small glass container. It was some sort of energy, Inyez had deduced, something that kept the very fabric of reality together. This one and thousands of its friends.

Fairy seemed like an easy shorthand. But power was what it actually was—if a person could just figure out how to wield it.

“The real thing?” This, from the shorter of the Elyps. Its voice was high-pitched and sounded almost staticky. Its eye scopes seemed to be studying the jar.

“Yeah,” Inyez replied, unsure of exactly what the creature meant. “Obviously,” she added for an unknown amount of good measure.

“We must be sure,” the other Elyps said. “So rare. So precious.” A beat. “So valuable.”

Inyez shrugged. “Wouldn’t unscrew the top.”

But the Elyps’ gloved hand reached past the jar and tugged at Inyez’s robes. “The real thing,” it said again. But this time, with confidence.

“My robes?” Inyez asked. “I’ve got more on the ship. But the fairy—that’s got to be worth way—”

The Elyps didn’t seem to be paying any attention. The shorter of the pair had produced a comms device and was pushing buttons. The other was simply staring.

Staring at her.

Inyez felt something run down the back of her neck. Sweat? Panic? Fear?

“I’ll sell the robes,” she found herself saying. Her voice was shakier than she’d have preferred, so she leaned forward, trying to appear intimidating. She wished she hadn’t been forced to leave her own weapons—her pistol, her tricked-out staff—on the ship. She wished she actually had learned real magic. “What are they worth to you?”

“The real thing,” the Elyps was saying again.

“The real thing,” the second intoned.

“Mistress.” A7’s grating voice spoke through her own comms device. “I’m detecting a concerning spike in your heart rate. I presume you are not yet dead though perhaps nearing such a state.”

“The real thing,” Inyez said instead. She found herself nodding like a fool. “What will you give me for it? For them?”

“They’re not interested in blue monk robes,” said a voice behind her. “They’re interested in a blue monk. The real thing.”

Don’t turn around, she told herself. Act casual. Calm.

“The blue monks are gone,” she said, her eyes still trained on the two Elyps in front of her. “Dead and worthless.”

That’s when the hand grabbed her from behind, rough and tight around her left arm. She spun, prepared to land a blow directly into the nose of whatever being had been so brazen as to touch her.

Unfortunately, the creature was covered in armor and a full head taller than her, so her punch hit roughly where the thing’s belly should have been. But instead of a soft belly her fist bounced off metal plating.

“Ouch…”

There were two other armed creatures flanking the first. “Not worthless at all,” the first said. “Quite a bounty, in fact.” Another beat. “For the real thing.”

Inyez struggled against the creature’s grip. Struggled to free herself. But all she did was further irritate the creature, further force it to tighten its already tight grip.

A bounty for members of a dead religious sect?

It was clear that the kind of scene she was attempting to make was not approved of in the Elypsian Trading Post. What with all the order and the quiet and whatnot. That miserable queue was still in place, its patient members turning a blind eye to her troubles, each being focused solely on what they’d come to give—and to get. The troopers were hastily trying to move her off to the side, undoubtedly into some hidey hole from which she’d never return.

She swallowed hard, tried to focus her mind. But instead, she was flailing. Her free arm desperately grasping at the window counter, at the Elyps, at—

She heard the jar tumble from its precarious place, heard it shatter. The silence of the place took a deep breath, the stillness holding on for as long as it could, and then—

That single tiny fairy fluttered out of the glass shards. One beat. Two beats. And light—blinding, blistering, whiter-than-white light.

The line of creatures bent and broke as every living thing in the place attempted to shield whatever its species considered eyes.

Inyez broke free from her captors, pushed the first into the second, ran.

“A7, get the—”

“Already prepared to depart, Mistress. And your heart rate has not improved.”

Inyez grinned. She wasn’t any wealthier or wiser for having made this stop, but at least she wasn’t dead.

*

The so-called fairy followed the blue-clad woman as she raced for the station’s exit. It continued blinking its light, radiant and stunning. It was happy to have helped—or, as close to happy as such a being could feel. It was fond—or, something near to it—of the blue woman. Sad for her, too. A tragic existence, this blue woman led.

And so, the fairy followed behind, ensuring the blue woman’s escape.

And then it hid on her ship.

Because everything was worth something. And this fairy thought that this blue woman might be worth something very special indeed.  

Photo by Lucas Kapla on Unsplash

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Thanks for reading! I’d love to hear what you think.

Here’s some more writing of mine that you might be interested in…

• Curious about what happened to Inyez on Bosnap IV? You can read the story, “The Queen of Ash and Space Dust” over at The Stygian Lepus.

• Check out my top ten Star Wars planets to visit this summer (again, a wee bit of speculative writing) over at Dork Side of the Force.

• Finally, on the spirituality side of things, here’s a reflection on why we need ritual in our everyday living as part of my “Now Discern This” weekly column.