by Ian Cannon
Ben said, “Tremus, his home.”
“Ah. What happened?” Norg asked.
“There was too much activity.”
“The Cabal?”
“Yes.”
“And then?”
Ben said, “Molta-Danora, but—”
“Let me guess,” Norg said holding up a big, tri-fingered hand, “too much activity there, too, eh?”
Ben looked down, said, “Yes.”
“But being Molta-Danora it wasn’t Cabal, I assume,” Norg said poking for information.
Tawny said, “No, not Cabal.”
“Who?” Norg asked.
They didn’t answer, weren’t too sure how to answer.
“Ahhh,” Norg said coming to conclusions in his mind before looking down at Tubs. The Tremusian was unconscious, but comfortable. “You should have come to me first, my friends,” Norg offered.
Looking around the place, Ben couldn’t argue. He admitted, “Yes, we should have.”
“I am curious, though,” Norg said. “Activity here, activity there. That’s never stopped Tawny and Ben Dash from asserting their goals.”
They looked at each other, said nothing.
Norg made a knowing grin. Yes, there was more to Tawny and Ben’s visit than they were yet saying. He motioned for them to follow and moved for the exit saying, “Come. We have much to discuss, don’t we?”
Norg made his way back through the big igloo sections of his habitat pushing things out of his way or placing them gently to the side as they cluttered his path, into the main thoroughfare and back into his main living hovel. The place was always homey and warm, very inviting with its endless assortment of antiquities from the solar twin system—a Paxxian percolator over there, a standard Stathosian steamer over here, a piece of Pendulosi mech art to the other side. Most of his bits were pieced together second-hand, preserved from the trash bin and left humming or ticking away. Norg’s big Dekkoran mesquite stump where he lounged, served as a center piece with tight, shifty seating placed around for guests. It provided the hovel a pleasant feel—a place to visit in relative comfort.
He invited Tawny and Ben to take a seat as he went to his percolator and gingerly checked its heat. It steamed and hissed with a new brew. As he poured a delicate-looking cup of steaming tea and turning to offer it to his first guest, he said, “Tawny, my dear.”
She took it with a grin and cupped both hands around it, feeling its warmth.
Next, he poured again and handed to Ben, saying, “Benjar.”
Ben did the same sniffing its deep, decadent Dekkoran spices.
Norg took his own and shuffled to his stump, saying, “You two know of my affinity for you. You are here because of that affinity. I would have it no other way, and it warms each of my hearts to know you’ve come to me seeking shelter.” He took a sip with his big tortoise beak, licked his chops with that fat, black tongue and groaned as he sat down. “But … you have not been forthright.” He eyed them judgmentally and said, “There’s trouble, and I assume it has more to do with than an injured Tremusian friend, yes?”
Ben lowered the cup and admitted, “Yes.”
Norg grinned and wiggled deeper into his seat careful not to slosh his hot tea. “Oh, exciting. I smell fun around the corner. Rare, indeed, thus my affinity grows still yet. What’s the situation?”
“It’s bad, Norg,” Tawny said sipping lightly.
He tilted his big head and said, “Bad, is that all? There is no remedy for bad except for good, but I assume good is far from the remedy you seek so … specifics, dear friend.”
She sighed, said, “It’s the Guild.”
Ben added, “They’ve been attacked. Our contacts have been … exterminated.”
Norg’s eyes widened with interest.
Tawny sneered, “It was Raider’s Bay.”
“Are you sure of this?” the old Dekkoran asked.
“Has to be,” she insisted.
“Ah, the Knaves’ Blade at Raider’s Bay, eh?” He sipped and savored momentarily. Shifting his gaze back up he said, “Now there’s a lot—bunch of cutthroats and pirates. Raiders and marauders. A dirty, ugly hive of villainy. Scum, I say.” He lifted a slow finger to the air and said, “But with one good virtue.”
“What’s that?” Ben said, his doubt surfacing.
“They’re honest. The truth does not scare them. They celebrate it, in fact. The Knave’s Blade know what they are. They make no excuses, no bones about it. If they love, they love. If they hate, they hate. If they’re going to kill, they kill. It makes them predictable. That’s what you find at Raider’s Bay. That, my friends,” he sipped again for dramatic affect and smiled with a Dekkoran grin, “…is the Knave’s Blade.”
Ben and Tawny switched a look before Ben said, “At least, that’s the assumption.”
“A wise one at that. Tell me, what do you know?”
“If it was them, they’re not finished,” Ben said.
“Oh, and what makes you say that?”
“They hired someone. Someone we know.”
“Not a friend, I take it, yes?”
Tawny said with certainty, “No, not a friend.”
“Mmm?” Norg said shifting his gaze to her, then back to Ben. “Bounty hunter?”
Ben inhaled big and said, “A Krutt.”
Norg offered an affected, interested sound nodding his head slowly once as if a realization had suddenly come to him. He finally said, “An efficient people, the Krutt.”
Tawny asked, “You have experience with them?”
Norg grinned and said, “You know me, Tawnia my dear. I have no experiences to sing of. No song, no dance. It keeps me off the grid.” He tapped one of the exposed nostrils on his beak the way a Golothan or a Raylon would tap their nose, signaling a secret.
Ben grinned at him, said, “But we’re not singing, old friend.”
Norg sipped and set the tea cup down. “No, we’re not, are we? So, let me tell you. The Krutt—they come from a molten world, a mountain of smelt swimming through our system. It rains liquid sulfur from bloody skies. The Krutt live and breathe at three hundred degrees. An impressive lifeform, to say the least, like the Molosian lava roach. Hard to kill. Harder still to catch.”
Ben grunted his agreement. “Tell me about it. He has a technology. I’ve only seen it once before, and that was the last time we encountered him.” Norg looked at him, waiting. Ben said, “A matter transporter of some kind.”
“Ah yes,” Norg said. “The famous Krutt transportation technology.” He reached behind his head with great effort and slowly pulled down a hookah pipe on a draw tube, saying, “It’s not a secret. The war has been trying to procure the tech for centuries. Can you imagine—the matter transportation of eMrockets, plasma reaction triggers, neutron warheads … in an instant? Very bad, Benjar.” He pinched the long, silver pipe into his beak, struck a match and lit the thing, his beak gesticulating around it stiffly to initiate several puffs. Once a wisp of smoke lifted over his big bald head, he flicked the match away, landing it perfectly into an incinerator tray and emitting a quick—zap. He leaned back pondering their conversation and continued, “With matter transportation the war would lose the manifold of time. That which has raged for millennia would end in a moment. Of course, so would everything else. Everything … gone in an instant.” He puffed and blew. “The Krutt know this. So does the Imperium. So does the Cabal. That is why the Krutt remain a non-partisan specie. And they’re a mystery to most. No one wants to know them, and they want to know no one. It’s mutual segregation. But there is a truth behind the Krutt technology, a truth unknown, my friends.”
Ben squinted, said, “What?”
“Matter transportation is an ersatz artform. An incomplete science,” Norg said. “If the galaxy knew of its imperfection, the Krutt would become indentured into the war, possibly to the Cabal, perhaps the Imperium. It’s a flawed technology at best. And that is what we will use to our advantage.”
“It’s flawe
d?” Tawny said leaning forward, tea cup in both hands.
Norg took a puff, inhaled, took his time. They waited. He finally said, “Turning matter—living, breathing matter—into frequency, and then back into matter? A dangerous proposition. If one were to decompose beyond a breath, beyond a blink, beyond the most nominal neural motion, there would be nothing left to re-compose, if you will. Solids diminish by the microsecond. Life, by the nano.”
Ben put it together, said, “So, transport from one point to another has to be instantaneous.”
Norg pointed the pipe at him, said, “In deed. Time and distance play against the user. If one were to travel an inkling too long, one would not travel at all.”
“What’s the range?”
“Before thought itself moves forward. Matter transportation is a defense mechanism. Nothing more. It’s more a jump than a journey. It travels at the speed of light, yes, but it works against the constant of thought. How far will a light beam go before the brain’s next wave? A thousand miles? A single klick? A tick in time? Who’s to say?” He grinned through that broad, old beak, clearly impressed by the technology … and its shortcomings. He said, “Perhaps it’s best not to ask, eh?”
“The Krutt don’t seem to mind,” Ben said.
“The Krutt have nothing to lose.”
Tawny asked, “Norg, you said our advantage?”
“Indeed,” he responded. “If we know where your Krutt friend transported from, we must also know where he transported to, within reason, yes?”
She leaned back, thinking.
Ben muttered, “That doesn’t tell us much.”
Norg gave him a reserved look and said, “It may yet.” He puffed. “But let’s return to what we do know.”
“Which is?” Tawny asked.
“The Knave’s Blade. Why them? What is your relationship?”
Tawny and Ben met eyes. She attempted to hide her grin but failed and had to look away. To her, it was an old story full of humor, perhaps a comedy of errors. Ben cringed, took a sip from his tea and put the cup aside to begin his story. He said, “Axum—leader of the Knave’s Blade, kind of a cutthroat, real nice guy—we, uh, have a history.”
“Oh, the excitement grows. Do tell,” Norg said turning giddy like a child at a campfire.
Ben began, “It was five years ago, universal. We picked up a job. Our first. It was simple. A benevolency run. Med supplies to Dionesse.”
“Ah, the water world,” Norg said. “And the cargo?”
“It was a shipment of Lyzantra.”
“Of course,” Norg called. “Lice eggs from Tadon.”
“Right. The Dionessians use them for medicinal reasons. There was an outbreak, some sort of atmospheric pollutant. They needed the Lyzantra and—”
Norg interrupted with a hand in the air stopping the story and saying, “Don’t tell me. A Malybrian got involved.”
Ben looked up midsentence and said reticently, “Yes.”
Norg chuckled moving his big body up and down in quick, huffy motions. He asked, “Did he intercept your cargo?”
“How’d you guess?” Ben asked dryly.
“Oh, something about Lyzantra being a hallucinogenic compound for those beastly tauran lizards. Makes sense, eh?” He held up one hand indicating the Dionessians and said, “Medical purposes for one specie,” the other hand representing the Malybrians, “a recreational escape for the other.” He took a puff on his hookah, blew out, and said, “Go on.”
“Right. Well, this Malybrian was a member of Knave’s Blade, straight from Raider’s Bay. He cornered us, so we ended up playing a game of Bakka with the Malybrian’s boss.”
“This Axum fellow?” Norg said waving the hookah in a guessing gesture and leaving tiny circlets of smoke in the air.
“That’d be the one,” Ben said.
“And?”
“We win the hand. Axum doubles down.”
“Yes?” Norg said, interest growing.
Ben sighed aloud and said, “We play another hand. This time, he cheats.”
Norg grabbed his cane and smacked it on the floor as if to declare—I knew it!
Ben continued, “Long story short, we call him out. He doesn’t like it. We make off with the yield and the Lyzantra, on the run, I might add. Axum ends up with a very upset Malybrian.”
Norg erupted into boisterous, slow-rolling laughter—“Hahaha!”
Ben gave him a defeated grimace and said, “He’s had it in for us ever since.”
Norg settled from his laughter and drew off his pipe squinting an eye at Ben, thinking. He finally said, “And for that, you think he’s gunning for you now?”
Tawny interjected, “We popped up on his radar.”
“How much yield?” Norg asked.
Ben said, “Eight thousand.”
Norg gave them both a doubtful look and said, “Eight thousand. That’s not much.”
Ben shrugged, “Lyzantra’s cheap, what can I say?”
Norg drummed his big, fat tri-fingers together pondering their story. He stopped the drumming and said, “Knave’s Blade has been known to hold grudges, but this … I’m skeptical. Eight thousand yield is a punchline, a lesson. This Axum would respect you for your action more than despise. Axum was toying with you. You were both green horns at the time, and Guilder wormdogs, as he’d say. No. If Knave’s Blade was on to you for the job, it wouldn’t be Axum.”
“Then who?” Tawny asked.
“Have you considered the Malybrian? Perhaps you bruised his ego.”
She leaned back in her chair and said, “Korok. We hear he’s dead. Took a blaster to the face.”
“Ahhh,” Norg said in discovery and taking a puff. “Which leads to the next question. Who is on to you, then?”
Ben said, “Axum did leave us a hail package. It was … unfriendly.”
“Very unfriendly,” Tawny confirmed.
“Because they’re an unfriendly lot,” Norg said logically. “But it says nothing of whomever might be hunting the Guild now. And therein lies both my relief for you, my friends, and my concern.”
They both asked, “Why?”
Norg put the hookah away allowing it to zip back over his shoulder on its draw tube and propped both of his big hands on the head of his cane allowing it to support the weight. He said, “This isn’t the Knave’s Blade, and that’s good. So, who is it? Who could it be lurking in the void searching you out? We don’t know, and that’s bad.”
Norg shifted over and pointed out the porthole window of his hovel and said, “Look out the window. What do you see?”
Tawny grinned with familiarity. This was one of Norg’s favorite games—guess the metaphor. She said, “Foreverness.”
He thrust the cane at her emphatically and declared, “Yes!”
She made a subtly surprised face.
Norg continued, “We are microbes on any given world, each one rich and layered with culture, architecture, phenomenon. And yet each a tiny dot on any holomap, swallowed in great frothing waves of older, bigger stuff. It’s a stage atop a stage atop a stage, eternal and forever. The point? Nothing is ever what it seems to be. It is a rare happenstance to look upon a thing and see it for what it is.”
He shifted the tip of his cane from Tawny to Ben, and back. “Your problems are not at Raider’s Bay. And your enemy is not Axum, nor the Knave’s Blade.”
Tawny and Ben looked questioningly at each other. Ben said, “The Krutt, then?”
Norg replied, “Dare I say, not even the Krutt. He is only an instrument of your enemy.”
Ben crossed his arms. “Then how are we supposed to move forward?”
“Use what you have, my friends. That’s why you are here. I am a resource, am I not?” Norg said presenting his little hovel. “But there are other resources at your disposal.”
Tawny said, “Who?”
Norg smiled—another pause for affect—and said, “Axum.” He looked at them both and continued, “He can play a larger role in the unfolding of this m
ystery than you might think. Perhaps he is not done with you yet. But my sense is that you are not done with him, either.”
Tawny shook her head doubtfully and said, “He won’t help us, Norg. We’ve already tried that.” She sipped her tea.
“Yes he will, my dearest Tawnia.” He gave her a knowing, secretive wink.
She hesitated, cup-to-mouth, and lowered it to her lap, intrigued by his notion.
Norg said, “As for the Krutt—you know who he is. If you want answers, you only need to know where he’ll be, and when.”
Ben asked, “And how do we do that?”
Norg said, “There is a way. And I will show you.” He turned slowly and looked out his porthole window. This time, there was no metaphor in his meaning. He was looking up into his big, rotating field of junk.
Norg lumbered through the northern passage of his sprawling complex with his footsteps thumping on the steel floor, his cane ticking rhythmically with each stride.
“You two know me. I am, and have always been, a hoarder. I hoard, yes. Why, you ask?”
Following behind, Tawny and Ben gave each other a curious look but kept quiet.
“Because I like a small solar system,” Norg answered his own question moving through a hatch and carrying on. “It’s more ascertainable that way, more accessible, right? Unfortunately, our solar system is quite large, isn’t it? Two suns. Thirty-five living planets. Hundreds of others, all dark, cold and full of oar—oar for the war—hahaha!”
The remark made his guests grin modestly to each other from behind and continue to follow.
“But me,” he went on, “I like keeping my old bones planted firmly on terra firma, see?” He tapped his cane against the floor highlighting his point. “Swishing and kabooshing through the great void—blech! Doesn’t interest me in the least. But, it does create a conundrum, don’t you know.” He turned and asked over his big carapace, “How am I to enjoy a solar twin system so expansive and vast, whilst not going anywhere? Hmm, well, there is a solution. If I choose not to go out into the solar twin system, I must bring the solar twin system to me, see?”
