Salt

The scarecrow of a man leaned against the corner of a delapidated building, and searched the passers-by. A man approached and bent his head close to the scarecrow.1

“Salt,” he whispered, sibilant in the scarecrow’s ear.2

The man eyed him up and down, deciding. He looked the part. Worn clothes, two-day beard, hungry eyes, lean face, nervous. 3

“Gold?” was his reply.4

The stranger looked around, and then pulled back the left sleeve of his cloak. A gold armband glinted briefly, until he dropped the sleeve again. 5

“Follow,” was all the dealer whispered back. 6

Down the decaying alley they went. The air, this far from the vents was stale, fetid. The gray-brown of the cinderblock walls matched the haze of the air. He reached a door, unlocked it, and motioned the seeking man inside. Dark, dingy. A brazier smouldered in a corner. The dealer lit a taper off the coals, and then lit a candle.7

“Let’s see it,” he demanded.8

The seeker pulled the armband off and handed it over. The dealer bit at it, looked closely at the workmanship, and said, “weight for weight.”9

“Okay.”10

“Turn your back.”11

The man obeyed, heard a russtle and a metal clank.12

“Turn around,” the scarecrow commanded. There next to the light was a set of scales. In one pan was the arm band. In the other sat a lump of crystaline salt. From his hand the scarecrow dribbled grains of salt on to the second pan until the scales ballanced. “There.”13

The seeker pulled out a small canvas bag and tipped the pan of salt into it. No more words were spoken. The scarecrow opened the door, and the seeker melted into the dusky alley. The dealer put the scales away, and went into his inner room. Pulling a plastic bag from within his cistern he added the golden arm band to his growing hoard. 14

He was about to exit his hovel to resume his watch at the corner when the door burst open and a squad of armed LunGarda swarmed into his room. A rifle butt smashed into his face and he lost consciousness.15

When he awoke, vision blurred by dried blood, the squad leader sat at the table, while the dealer was tied up on the floor. On the table sat the scales, the dealer’s cache of rock salt, and the plastic bag of gold jewelery. The LunGarda officer looked down and pronounced the scarecrow’s doom. “You are guilty of hoarding and selling Salt. The penalty is death by exposure. The sentence to be carried out immediately.”16

The members of the squad cut the bonds and grabbed the writhing and protesting dealer, and carried him out of his hovel. Out on the street his screams drew an instant crowd, who followed the squad, forming a procession of death. When they reached the nearest airlock the guards threw the dealer in, while the squad leader entered his security code to activate the process. The outer door opened as the inner door was sealed and the dealer staggered out into the sunlight, perishing from exposure just a meter from the protal.17

The crowd, knowledgeable in these things, roared their approval, and then dispersed in small knots of gossiping ghetto dwellers. And all they gossiped about, dreamed about, argued about, lived for, was Salt. SALT, sodium chloride, their sustainer of life, the most precious mineral on the planetoid. So precious it was the colony’s currency, its lifeblood; regulated, controlled, guarded; above all, rationed. Rationed so tightly that ‘poverty’ was defined by a dietary deficiency, by one’s incapacity to obtain this mineral as a food additive on a regular basis. 18

The LunGarda squad went back to their district building to report. It was their second bust and execution that week for possession and selling of Salt. They split the gold among themselves; but were scrupulous in recording and surrendering the bag of salt to the stolen property officer. It would be returned to the colony treasury. 19

No one would miss the scarecrow; one less mouth to feed. Besides, someone else would eventually discover his source and set themselves up as a dealer. The lunar police didn’t care. They would catch the new dealers to. As guardians, they were worth their salt.20