The Travelers 3

by Lee Hunnicutt

  Beth and Anne looked at each other. Beth mouthed, “Wow!”

  Both Jack and Sonny started to move towards the stranger to protect Zoe.

  Beth put her arms up across their chests and said, “Look at Max.”

  Max was lying on the floor in a sphinx like position, his fore paws out in front of him. He watched everything that was going on. He was calm and panting.

  Beth said, “If Zoe was in any danger, Max would be all over this guy like flies on cow flop. He’s calm and collected.”

  The boys sat back down.

  The stranger swept Zoe up into his arms. She put her arms around his neck and her head on his shoulder. He carried her to the back of the saloon and up the stairs and into one of the rooms.

  Victoria fanned faster.

  As he carried Zoe away, Anne called softly, “Don’t worry about us. We’ll find our way back.”

  Beth looked at her like she was an idiot.

  On the way back to Mac’s casino they were all abuzz with the events at the bar especially with Zoe and the stranger. The women could not stop talking about it. They talked about Zoe’s conduct but their main topic was the Adonis. Victoria told of how she had a hot flash and went weak in the knees at “the kiss”. When she mentioned “the kiss”, Beth and Anne chimed in.

  Jack and Sonny walked behind them completely forgotten by the women. The women were beside themselves and chattered on all the way to the casino.

  The boys were disgusted and didn’t say a word on the trip back. Besides they couldn’t have gotten a word in edgewise if they wanted to.

  Once back in Mac’s penthouse, the girls sat on the large porch overlooking the city, ordered drinks and continued talking.

  Sonny and Jack excused themselves and went to their bedrooms. The girls didn’t even know they were gone.

  As the boys walked to their rooms, Jack said, “Did you see how Anne took care of that Viking?”

  “It was amazing,” said Sonny.

  “It was, but I think she enjoys that sort of stuff a bit too much.”

  “She does.”

  “Somebody needs to talk to her about that.”

  “Yeah, somebody. Good night Jack.”

  “Good night Sonny.”

  When Jack woke up the next morning, he looked over and Beth was still sleeping. He gently shook her awake.

  She said, “Go away.”

  “It’s time for breakfast.”

  “No it isn’t. I just got here.”

  “You stayed up all night?”

  “Yes, now leave me alone.”

  Jack went out to the balcony. MAC and Pete were already there drinking coffee.

  Jack sat down and ordered coffee, three scrambled eggs smothered in chili with a side of bacon and buttered toast.

  About that time Sonny showed up. Jack told the bot, “Bring him the same thing.”

  Pete said, “Well boys, did you have a good time?”

  Sonny said, “I don’t know if you could call it a good time. The best I can say, it was unusual.”

  “I’ll second that,” said Jack.

  “Zoe gave us a great tour of the city,” said Jack. “All of you did a fantastic job of designing, building and laying out the city. It truly is paradise.

  After seeing most of the city, Zoe took us to the seedier side of town.”

  “Don’t tell me,” said Mac, “the Skull and Cross Bones.”

  “Yeah, she did and when we got there the place was taken over by Vikings. Tell me how and why did you name them Vikings?”

  “When we name a planet, we try and name them to places on Earth that the planet looks like. That doesn’t always work so we just give them names we are familiar with.

  Their planet has brutal, long winters followed by long mild springs and summers. If they didn’t have a long mild period, the planet would be uninhabitable to humans. Also, the inhabitants were extremely war like.

  About a thousand years ago one tribe became so powerful they conquered the whole planet. This brought about a contentious peace. The ruling tribe was constantly putting down uprisings for about two hundred years but in the end the world was at peace. They could then turn their efforts to other endeavors besides war. Their focus now was art, literature and science but all along they clung to their warrior heritage so we called the planet Norway and the inhabitants Vikings. Individuals still settle their disputes through force of arms, trial by combat.

  It may be a bloody way to settle disputes but it sure saves on legal fees. No lawyers.

  Because their world was at peace, science and the arts could flourish and during this period of enlightenment they develop FTL before everybody else in this part of the galaxy.

  They began raiding the other planets. They colonized these planets. After a hundred years some the colonies were in revolt and interplanetary war broke out. These wars lasted for over two hundred years.

  Exhausted by constant war they signed a truce with their colonies and have now formed a commonwealth.

  The upside was many of the more advanced planets in this part of the galaxy developed FTL and improved weapon systems. If this Viking war hadn’t broken out, they would have subdued all of the planets in the archipelago.

  To tell the truth, I don’t know if that would have been good or bad.

  Anyway, that is the long and short on why we call them Vikings.”

  “Well”, said Sonny, “they may be war like but I just call them bullying assholes. Joyce warned them straight up that we were her friends and she would brook no nonsense off of them.

  She no sooner had that out of her mouth when one of the brutes came over to us and gave us a ration of shit.”

  Sonny went on to tell Mac and Pete what happened.

  Mac said, “That little girl did that?”

  “She’s tougher than she looks. You don’t ever want to cross her.” And he told them what happened outside a restaurant in 1875 San Francisco when she killed four thugs and wounded a fifth.

  “But what really threw us with Zoe and the Viking, was what happened next…”

  After hearing the story, Pete said, “Asger... About seventy years ago we were here at Mac’s Place. Zoe liked to wander the city by herself with Max. She would always end up at the Skull and Cross Bones. She said it was her kind of place.

  As you know it caters to a rough crowd. She would sit at the bar talking to Joyce or the other bartender Bryan the Hammer. Zoe to say the least is a good looking woman and inevitably some moron would end up hitting on her. If he or she wouldn’t leave her alone and got handsy, she’d beat the living daylights out of them.

  I think that is why she went to the Skull in the first place. Deep down, I think she liked the attention and secondly she likes beating people up. She knew she was like honey to flies.

  She never hurt her victims really badly, a broken nose, a few missing teeth, stuff like that.

  Joyce knew what was going on but Joyce is as violent as Zoe. In order to run a place like the Skull, she had to be.

  She and Zoe were kindred spirits. Over the years they came to be like sisters.

  Well one night about twenty Vikings came in. After a few drinks some of these clowns lined up to hit on Zoe. She politely turned down the first two and when they didn’t take the hint, to say the least she incapacitated them.

  The rest of the men and women in line saw what she had done to their friends and they jumped her. According to Joyce, she demolished them within a few seconds. There were eight Vikings rolling around on the floor groaning.

  The other twelve Vikings got off their bar stools and lined up in front of Zoe and Max who was now standing beside her with his hackles up snarling…

  One particularly large and ugly drunk stepped forward and said, ‘We are going to rip you apar...’ Max was on him in a flash and grabbed him by the crouch. His teeth didn’t penetrate the leather but he did crush the Viking’s manhood. While holding on to the crouch, he gave his head a quick back and forth shake. The man screamed, fe
ll to the ground howling in agony.

  Max’s actions gave the rest a pause to consider their next move or whether to go back and belly up to the bar. About that time a large man pushed his way through the line of pissed off men and women.

  He was the most beautiful man Zoe had ever seen.

  The man turned and addressed his comrades, ‘Leave her alone. Pick up our fallen and take them back to the bar and have a drink.’ He then turned to Joyce and said, ‘Joyce please call the medics and have them care for my friends.’

  Joyce nodded in the affirmative.

  The Vikings grumbled but collected their fallen friends and went back to the bar.

  The man then said to Zoe, ‘After all of this excitement you’re bound to be thirsty. Can I buy you a drink?’

  Zoe smiled, ‘I’d love that.’ As he walked towards Zoe, Max walked over and sniffed him.

  Zoe watched him and saw the concern in his eyes. ‘Don’t worry, he’s just trying to get to know you. He knows the danger has passed.’

  ‘He was magnificent. Is he always this protective?’

  ‘Yes, he’s really quite gentle but if you mess with me or any of his friends, at the very least he will maim you and at the most kill you.’

  “The next morning Mac and I were sitting right here enjoying our coffee when Zoe finally dragged in and when I say dragged in I mean literally dragged in.

  She plopped down in the chair you’re sitting in.

  Mac and I were shocked. She had a black eye. One side of her face was red and swollen. She had dried blood in her nose and she had bruise marks on both arms.

  I asked her what happened.

  She hung her head and wouldn’t answer.

  Mac said, ‘You look like you’ve been pulled through a pipe.’ Mac and I looked at each other and back at her.

  I asked, ‘Where did this happen?’

  She said, ‘None of this is your business. Leave me alone. I knew you would react this way.’

  Mac said, ‘I bet it was at the Skull.’

  I called Max and asked him to take us to where this happened and show us who did it.

  Zoe stood up, pounded the table and said that what happened to her was consensual and that ‘he’ whoever he was, got the worse end of the deal.

  Mac asked, ‘You let him beat you up?’

  ‘We beat each other up.’

  And I said, ‘That’s sick.’

  ‘Well, I enjoyed it and he seemed to enjoy it too. So what’s your problem?’

  I said, that we were still going to check this guy out.

  Zoe said she was going to go with us.

  In unison we said definitely not. I said, ‘If this guy checks out as you say he will, nobody will get hurt but if he beat you because he likes beating women, he won’t live to see tomorrow.’

  Mac glared at her and said, ‘Stay!’

  Zoe glared back but didn’t move.

  Mac said, ‘Before we go, how come your nanobots didn’t throw up a protective force field to keep you from this beating?’

  She looked subdued and said she had turned the force field off.

  Both Mac and I were stunned. Mac asked, ‘You can do that?’ Zoe replied, ‘I can but you can’t. I’m a synth, part machine so I can communicate with the nanos.’

  We took a shuttle to the Skull. Joyce was at the bar. Service bots were busy cleaning the place up. Every table had between two and six Vikings passed out with their heads on the tables. Several were sleeping it off on the floor. Six or seven were asleep on the pool tables. The bots were dragging them off the tables and floor to the far corners of the bar, stacking the bodies up against the wall. Other bots were cleaning the blood, broken glass and mess off the floor and the tables.

  Joyce and Bryan The Hammer were wiping down the bar and setting up for the day to come.

  Mac asked her, ‘What happened here? It looks like a war zone.’

  ‘It was a war zone. These morons not only try and beat up the locals and other customers, if they can’t find someone to fight they fight among themselves. Brothers, sisters, best friends, it doesn’t matter. When they sober up they’ll go to a regeneration station and get patched up and start the whole cycle again.

  When I know they are in town, I tell the locals and tourists to come here at their own peril. Some local and tourists who come from war like cultures come anyway because they enjoy a good brawl as much as the Vikings do.

  I don’t understand it but sometimes life long friendships and bonds are formed. Tonight these guys and gals who were trying to beat each other to a pulp will be buying each other drinks and telling jokes.

  Go figure.’

  I said, ‘If I were you, I’d throw the lot of them out and tell them never to come back.’

  ‘That’s what every other bar in town has done. Once that happened, I realized I could corner the market and became the only bar to welcome them but I charge them a fortune and they happily pay it. They only show up once a year for about a month and then everything goes back to normal.’

  ‘We’re here to find out what happened last night.’

  ‘I was wondering when you were going to get around to that.’

  She told us the story about Zoe demolishing the Vikings that were disturbing her. Disturbing her, I thought, what an understatement. She took particular relish telling about Max munching on the last guy’s crouch.

  She then told us about one Viking that pushed his way through the line of, for lack of a better word, snarling Vikings intent on doing Zoe bodily harm.

  He asked her politely if he could buy her a drink and she let him.

  After one drink he invited her up stairs and she went with him. Joyce said she went upstairs to check on her and heard bodies and furniture being slammed around so I called through the door if everything was all right. All of the noise ceased and they both said in unison that everything was OK so she didn’t give it another thought.

  The next morning Zoe came limping down the stairs all beat up.

  Joyce said she jumped the bar and started for the stairs but Zoe stopped her and said things got a little rough with her and the Viking. After Joyce came to know him by his name, Asger, ancient Norse for God’s Spear, Zoe said she had a great time so Joyce just brushed it off as rough sex.

  I asked where was this Asger guy was now and she pointed over to a conversation pit in a darkened corner of the saloon.

  There was a long couch, a round coffee table and five overstuffed chair in a semicircle facing the couch. We went over, and propped up with his head on the arm of the couch was a very tall white haired man. His face was swollen. Both eyes were black. His nose was badly broken and his lip was split and swollen.

  When he saw us, he mumbled through swollen lips, ‘I’ve been expecting you. Zoe told me you would be coming. You must be Pete and Mac. I’d get up and greet you but it’s too painful to move. I think my ribs are broken.’

  He looked over and saw Max and called him. Max dropped his head and walked toward him wagging his tail slowly.

  Asger patted him on the head and scratched him behind the ears. Max flopped down on the floor beside him.

  I looked at Mac and said ‘Well, if Max likes him, I guess he’s OK. Besides it looks like he got the worse end of this deal.’

  Mac said, ‘You’re right, she beat the crap out if him. By comparison, her injuries are like stumping your toe.’

  He then asked Asger, ‘How did this happen?’

  ‘Except in combat, I have never abused or hit a woman. When we got in the room, she initiated the roughness and I just went along with it. What a woman, I think I love her.’

  All Mac and I could do was look at each other.

  Mac called to Joyce, ‘Joyce, you and the Hammer join us. Bring two bottles of your best panther piss and five glasses. Have Sweet Thing take over for you at the bar.’

  She brought a great single malt, Glenmorangie, Grand Vintage Malt 1989 which cost about $700 a bottle back on Earth. And for me, she brought a $300 Jo
se Cuervo Reserva de la Familia.

  Mac said, ‘I don’t know why you drink that cheap rot gut cactus juice.’

  All I did was pour me a glass, raise it to him and smile. For the next few hours we drank and got to know Asger. We started telling stories. Some were really funny especially the barroom stories that Joyce and The Hammer told.

  Asger held up his hand and through pained laughter begged us to stop. He said it was too painful to laugh. He then began to cough and spit up blood.

  I called out to Shawn to have a regeneration chamber and technician brought to the bar and to bring it fast. It got there in about ten minutes. We gently placed Asger in it and let the tech do her work.

  We finished our drinks, bid our farewells and asked Joyce to call us as soon as Asger exited the chamber. Back at Mac’s place, Zoe had just gotten up and joined me and Mac on the deck.

  She plopped down in one of the chairs. She looked dejected and said, ‘OK, beat me up. Have your warped fun at my expense.’

  Mac said, ‘Do you think so little of us that you think we would kick you while you were down? We love you Zoe and we are concerned. We have never seen this side of you before. Well, when you were in Texas, Pete may have.’

  Thinking of Texas, and what happened last night, she covered her face with her hands and sobbed, ‘I don’t know what came over me.’

  It broke our hearts to see her like this. Mac got up, took her hand and led her over to the couch. He sat her down beside him and pulled her close to him and kissed her on the top of her head. She put her face on his chest and sobbed inconsolably.

  I couldn’t help myself. Tears came to my eyes and said, “We met Asger and really liked him.”

  As soon as it was out of my mouth, I knew I had said the wrong thing.

  This made her sobbing sound more like a howl.

  Mac glared at me and I think if he weren’t holding on to Zoe, he would have killed me if he could have caught me but I’m faster and quicker than he is.

  I was trying to explain that we no longer were going to kill him for beating her up but I knew all I would be doing was digging my hole deeper.