"You, if you're willing. I may have just lost my date."
She smiled. "Sorry, not for sale. You'll find that out in the hallway, loverboy. How about some alcohol instead?"
"I'll take a glass of Terran rum, no ice, and a shot of Heraclean grog if you've got it."
Her eyebrows raised at the mention of the grog. "That's quite an order, mate. Better sit down after that shot. At least you know better than to get a pint."
As she stepped away to work on his order, Dirken noticed a branded "A" on the underside of her wrist.
"Say, what's that symbol?" he yelled over the music.
She put the glasses down in front of him and leaned into him. "What did you say?"
"That symbol." He pointed to her wrist. "What is it? I've seen it somewhere."
She started to open her mouth, but the Tau Cetian yelled at her with his species' characteristic polyphonic voice, "Hey, bitch. Where's my drink? I've been waiting forever!" He reached out and grabbed her sleeve.
She reacted immediately, yanking him first forward, then pushing him backward, all in one smooth motion. The Tau Cetian went flying backward into the crowd with a yelp and crumpled to the floor. The aliens around him laughed and kicked at him until he got up and slunk away, cursing in his language.
When Dirken looked back, the bartender was at the far end mixing another drink and smiling at a customer as if nothing had happened. He decided not to bother her further. He plopped ten UW chits onto the counter then pushed his way back through the crowd to the middle of the room.
Eow and Dimitri were nowhere to be found.
"Well, shit. The bastard ran off with my girl!" he said to no one in particular. Or was it her who ran off with him? How much sex could she manage in a day? The thought made him chuckle. Probably more than me, to be honest. He shook his head. She's not 'my girl.' What the fuck is wrong with me?
He downed the shot of grog. It smelled and tasted like overripe bananas and burned his throat, but the aftertaste was sweet like candy. He put the shot glass on a table, then looked around some more.
At the back of the room were gambling tables. As he watched, a fistfight broke out between a Rigellian and a Proximan, jabbering at each other in their own languages. The Proximan, who was in an atmospheric suit and helmet, nimbly hit the Rigellian with each of his six arms, but then the Rigellian got one of his flap-like arms past the Proximan's defenses and hit the Proximan's helmet, tearing it off. The Proximan retreated without his winnings, coughing and cursing, and struggling to get his helmet back on so he could get back to the hot sulfur dioxide atmosphere he needed to breathe.
On a dais at the very back were two massive Eridani with their own hookah. Dirken grimaced. The Eridani were basically gigantic maggots, each easily six meters long and two meters in diameter. They had a dozen beady black eyes arranged around a circular mouth. Their bulging white, translucent bodies rolled in segments back to their ass, and they moved with a slow, worm-like motion. Four long tentacles extended from under their mouths to manipulate the hookah tube. On the dais with them was a Morlani translator and a female Aquarian centaur guard decked out in mirrored armor to deflect lasers and armed with sword and blaster.
In the water of the Eridani's hookah swam a six-legged Nüwan "frog," known for exuding a toxin from its skin that would kill any human and most other species. But the Eridani species was famous for their strong tolerance for poisons of all sorts, and the frog toxin gave their smoke an extra punch. It was this tolerance that made their species the galaxy's premier chemists, and the Eridani society had quickly grown rich from their development of chemical substances, most notably explosives and drugs, both the legal and illegal sorts. Grimmag Ruby-Eye came from a long line of mafia dons that exploited this reputation and traded in drugs that were banned on the United Worlds Federation planets and hundreds of others. He had made a name for himself by expanding the empire and branching out into other "goods," but that decision didn't sit well with other crime syndicates. Open warfare had broken out in many sectors.
"Dirken Nova!" someone called out over the crowd in a metallic voice, pulling him out of his thoughts.
Dirken turned and spied an avian species sitting at a gambling table. A Corthian. Blue-white feathers. Orange bill as long as Dirken's forearm. Feathered wings that ended in three-digit hands.
One of those hands held goron'oc cards.
The other held a blaster… pointed at Dirken.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
'TAKTRAK
Dirken instinctively pulled his own blaster, too, sloshing the glass of rum in the other hand and spilling half of it. They eyed each other, then the Corthian lowered his blaster and clacked his bill in a staccato rhythm with a shrill whistle — a form of laughter for the species — and stood up, one winged arm raised.
Dirken relaxed and holstered his weapon as the Corthian gave him a quick hug.
"You're a crazy one, 'TakTrak!" He tried to make the clack-and-whirl at the beginning of the Corthian's name even though it's pretty much impossible for a human's mouth to reproduce correctly, coming out more as a click-tock sound. He felt it best if he didn't try again.
"Friend Dirken, old rogue," 'TakTrak said, his clacking, chirruping language translated into Terran by his translator necklace. He guided Dirken to an empty chair at the table. A mosaic of triangular goron'oc cards, each a different color, were arrayed in the center of the table with various types of currency sitting atop each card, as well as a small pile of coins in front of each player. "What brings you to this tumbling corner of the galaxy?"
Dirken ignored the dried smear of purple blood on the metal table and took a seat, setting down his rum. Across the table were two other smugglers. Seated next to 'TakTrak was a very muscular, scowling, human woman with an eye patch and missing ear, whom Dirken knew from prior run-ins was Feleesha, pilot of the Raptores. Next to her sat a gray-haired Umpba named Orn'itc whom Dirken knew made mafia runs to the outer systems. The furry, simian species with a bat-like head was rarely seen off their home planet. Orn'itc frowned at Dirken, one huge hand down near his weapons belt. Dirken kept a wary eye toward him since, under the table, the Umpba might very well be holding a knife in one of his prehensile feet.
"Well, 'TakTrak old buddy, I'm just dropping off a friend and getting a few repairs, that's all."
'TakTrak made his clacking laugh again. "Just dropping off a friend, he says!" The Corthian looked toward the other two, but they didn't share his laughter. "No one just drops off a friend in the Witch's Tits. It is not exactly an interstellar transport station! Or do you think Grimmag Ruby-Eye is a bus pilot?" This got a chuckle out of Feleesha.
Dirken nodded. "Yes, well. And how about you? I've never known you to make mafia runs."
'TakTrak shrugged. "You should know I will go anywhere I can make a profit." He turned his unblinking eyes to his cards for a moment, then back to Dirken. Dirken saw him covertly swap a green, triangular goron'oc card for a yellow one that had been in his waist pouch. "I have to make a coin here and there, you know. But this time I'm just stopping over on my way to pick up a VIP."
The Umpba snorted. "Get on wit duh game!"
'TakTrak tilted his head toward the Umpba. "If you really want to lose so soon." He laid down each of his four cards around the tile mosaic on the table, completing a star pattern, and placed two Proximan iridium coins on each one.
Feleesha whistled in response. "Too rich for me. I fold."
Their eyes fell on Orn'itc. The Umpba shook and grunted. He threw down his cards, grabbed what was left of his pile, and stomped away.
'TakTrak reached up and pulled the coins off of all the cards and toward his pile. "Another win today, Feleesha! Perhaps we'll be able to get that railgun fixed, eh?"
"Or," Dirken said, gingerly placing his left hand on 'TakTrak's wrist, his voice low, "you could pay me back for that cargo you lost near Epsilon Indi." Dirken's right hand was near his blaster handle. "Ten thousand UW chits."
'TakTrak st
opped raking in his money and turned his head toward Dirken, clacking his bill in annoyance. Feleesha tightened all over, her hands moving toward her lap. Dirken shot her a look and shook his head. "Hands on the table." She raised her hands back up and did as told, her one eye watching him carefully. He also had to worry about 'TakTrak's very sharp, long bill, like a heron's, capable of taking out an eye.
"Dirken," 'TakTrak said, his words slow and careful, "I told you I did not 'lose' your load of Cygnus hash. There was a fire in our hold. It nearly killed me and my crew."
"I know. But that's not my problem, is it? You still owe me."
'TakTrak's eyes darted to Feleesha, then back again to Dirken. He shrugged and clacked in laughter. "Fine, fine, my friend. It is all okay." He took his feathered hands off the winnings. "Take what is here. Must be at least five hundred chits-worth. It is a start. I will pay you the rest after I go back to my ship." The Corthian waved a hand at Feleesha, and the pilot relaxed a bit.
"I knew you'd be understanding," Dirken said, pulling the currencies to him and filling his pockets.
"Besides, old rogue," 'TakTrak added, "I need your help with my next client. Come visit me on the Raptores and I will give you the details. My new client is very rich." He cocked his head and added, "The currency you just put in your pockets is a tiny sum compared to what he will pay me. He has even requested the sexiest escorts, well-trained and waiting to pleasure whoever comes on board."
Dirken stood, drained the last of his rum, and said, "I'll pay a visit to that ship of yours here in a bit. Always good to run into you… old buddy." He backed away, watching them carefully, hand on his blaster.
'TakTrak leaned back and nodded. "No hard feelings, friend Dirken. I always pay what I owe."
Dirken turned and stepped through the other gambling tables toward a back entrance. When he looked back through the smoke, 'TakTrak and Feleesha were talking, heads close to each other, watching him as he left.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
WANDERING
Dirken stepped out of the lounge, still glancing back to make sure he wasn't followed, whether by 'TakTrak or by anyone who might have witnessed how much currency he'd just pocketed. He didn't see anyone.
In the corridor outside the back of the lounge, the temperature plummeted again, so he rubbed his arms to stay warm. He'd definitely found the hub of activity. There were so many people milling about, in fact, that he had to watch carefully lest he bump into them. In this place, that could lead to the sort of trouble he didn't need right now.
Stalls lined the corridor. To his right was a food vendor. Fresh-roasted meat of some mammalian creature hung from hooks along the edge. He inhaled the scent of it, his mouth watering. Also displayed in the stall were baskets of pickled striped mushrooms from Tesla. Off to the side were dried spike-tailed Orgrossian lizards (a favored snack for Reptilocs, but poisonous to humans) and live fire maggots wiggling in a basket (a must-have snack for Corthians and Tau Cetians, eaten like popcorn). Just five chits for a dozen!
Dirken bought a couple skewers of the roasted meat without asking what animal it was, one for him and one for Yiorgos, and continued down the corridor. To his right was a heavily-guarded stall openly selling drugs that were illegal in most systems. The many different pills and potions were neatly labeled and bagged. They even had "Black Hole," a thick, tar-like narcotic that worked on Pleiadeans the same way that opioids did with humans (though "Black Hole" was immediate death for humans). There was also "Eros's Finger," a viscous, clear liquid which, with only one drop taken straight or mixed into drinks, would make the user horny enough to screw anyone or anything. Dirken had once seen a human man take it and immediately start screwing a Globoscian — a blood-red, gelatinous species with translucent skin, free-floating organs visible in the interior, and numerous eyes that wander around the thin membrane of its skin. Since Globoscians don't have any orifices (they reproduce by budding, eat by absorbing through the skin, and excrete waste through a mucus-like slime), Dirken still wondered how the man pulled it off. The Globoscian, for its part, merely tried to wobble away, amoeba-like.
The floor shook. Dirken froze as the goods in a nearby stall swayed and rattled. But the mini-quake was over before he even realized what it was. Everyone else barely reacted, apparently used to such little quakes in the comet. He composed himself and tried to act like it was nothing.
Gnawing on one of the skewers of meat he'd bought, he spied a weapons stall and wandered in. Two Pleiadean guards with pulse rifles watched him carefully, but Dirken ignored them. A Reptiloc with a black cloak stood behind the counter, an array of large knives and swords to his left, and a wall display of rifles and blasters behind him. A thin security field shimmered in front of the weapons.
The Reptiloc adjusted a translator necklace, then spoke to him, his words initially coming out as a swirling, high-pitched hiss and crackle that no human could reproduce, but it was translated by the necklace into metallic Terran. "I see you have a Gree-tech blaster. Impressive! But old and battered, it is. Perhaps I could interest you in trading up to a new Jen'torian Tempest?" He gestured to a chrome-like blaster on the wall behind him, slightly larger than his own. The tip of the gun had a radar-dish appearance. "Instant incineration, and just as powerful as that old blaster on your hip, it is. Illegal in most systems because of its power!"
Dirken took another bite. "No thanks," he said with a full mouth. "I'm attached to this one. But I need a couple more power packs for it."
"Hmm. Those are costly. Also highly illegal in most systems, they are. But…." He paused as he seemed to size up Dirken. "I happen to have three of them. Are you paying in United World chits?" Dirken nodded. The Reptiloc continued, "Four hundred chits each, but I will give you all three for ten hundred."
A thousand chits for three Gree-tech power packs was a decent deal. But haggling was part of the game. "A thousand chits? I paid less than that at Greely Station. I'll give you eight-fifty."
The dealer made a hacking sound and rolled his eyes. "That would be stealing, it would. But prepared am I to be reasonable. Eight hundred fifty if you also sell me those." He pointed a cracked and yellowed claw at Dirken's wrist.
Dirken looked down at his forearms. "Oh, these bracelets?"
"Not bracelets," the dealer rasped. "I know they are mirror armor."
Dirken pressed the button on one of them and it expanded into a full vambrace that covered his forearm with mirrors to deflect laser fire. "You have a good eye," Dirken said, "but I think I'll keep them for now." He pressed the button again and it refolded back to a bracelet.
"Pity. Then nine-hundred fifty for the power packs. My last offer, it is."
Dirken eyed something else positioned on a shelf under the guns. "I'll pay nine-fifty if you also throw in one of those stun grenades."
The Reptiloc made a high-pitched whirl. "Again with the stealing! With that, the price goes to eleven hundred."
"One thousand… ten-hundred, and not a chit more."
The Reptiloc blinked his nictitating membranes. "Very well, Terran. But you take this one." He reached under the counter and placed the power packs on top… along with a neon pink stun grenade the size of a deck of cards.
Dirken groaned. "Fine." He handed over the currency and took the items. He could just see himself in a pitched battle with pirates and throwing a hot pink grenade in their midst.
Leaving the weapons stall, Dirken checked again for anyone following, then stepped over a dried pool of pink blood, hardly looking at it as he gawked at a brothel. Standing outside were a human man, shaved hairless and wearing only a red thong and a collar attached to a leash, and a Rigellian woman, her skin red- and yellow-hued, her eight ventral flaps beckoning to him. She looked his way with unblinking eyes arrayed around her pear-shaped head. "Come here, sweetheart," she said in perfect Terran from the mouth at the top of her head, the little tentacles there waving. "You haven't lived until you've let a Rigellian give you head."
Dirken stopped wal
king. He knew very well how it felt, and her invitation to experience it again was very tempting. He was flush with money, after all.
Then he remembered Yiorgos's warning not to go gambling and then "slipping away with some floozy." He'd already done the gambling part… sort of. But his will was good. He was still a bit spent from the flight with Eow, after all. With a shake of his head, he kept walking.
"Ohh!" the Rigellian moaned. "You know you want it! I see it in your eyes, sweetheart. Come back for the experience of your life."
Dirken moved on. The crowd thinned out, and soon Dirken found himself in a series of apartments carved into the dripping innards of the comet. There wasn't much to see, but as he turned to head back to the hangar, he passed one apartment with an open hatch. Peering inside, he saw through a transparent inner door to an atmosphere that swirled with visible waves of vibrantly colored gases. High heat emanated from the doorway along with a sulfur smell. This was an apartment for a Proximan, a species that liked hellish temperatures and high pressures and was known to vacation on Venus. He couldn't help but be nosy, and stood there for a moment peering through the haze inside. Two Proximans, stripped of their atmosphere suits, were rolling together on the floor. Oblivious to his presence, they rolled through the mist and came to rest against the transparent door. The purple male stuck out his long, dark blue tongue, wrapped it around the neck of the light blue female and squeezed. She moaned in ecstasy, her own long tongue whipping back and forth across his face. She raised her pelvis, exposing herself to his two, eel-like penises. Prehensile, they undulated and searched out her vaginas, entering as he thrust himself. She moaned and increased the frequency of her tongue whips. He shivered, then from wide pores over his hairless body a thick stream of clear slime came pouring out of him, dripping onto her and coating them both until they rolled back the other way, back into the haze, leaving a trail of goo in their wake.
The First Nova I See Tonight Page 11
