When it was free, Delovoa froze it again. I really hope he didn’t suddenly lose his voice.
Delovoa walked in front and ZR3 followed him. I was behind them both.
We encountered a number of people along the way, but if I was scared of seeing it, normal, squishy people ran away screaming.
It took us hours to reach the southwest and be able to see the tops of the Therezians.
I went ahead of the group now, scouting for cover. I moved from shadow to shadow. It was amazing that the Therezians had only been here a short while and already I had developed the finely-tuned instincts of a cockroach.
We got as close to the Therezians as we felt safe and could see the Portal monoliths clearly.
Delovoa motioned me to step back.
He gave what sounded like a very complex set of instructions to ZR3.
Immediately it took off at a run towards the Portal. ZR3 running was a frightening thing. It was so heavy it actually created dimples in the sprayed roadwork that covers Belvaille. But for all that weight, it was incredibly fast.
There was what must have been a hundred-foot Therezian right in front of us and ZR3 ran straight up to it and began attacking its toes.
“What? Does it have a chip on its shoulder or something? It went after the biggest one. I thought you said to destroy the Portal.”
“There is no ‘Portal’ in ancient Colmarian. It’s ancient Colmarian. I did my best.”
It was hard to see what was going on because it was so distant.
“Are we far enough back that if that guy falls down he’s not going to land on us?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
It seemed like long moments passed.
“Did it stop or something?”
“I thought it was hitting him, but it can’t be. I’m not walking under a Therezian to give it new orders.”
We were confused about what ZR3 was doing because the Therezian had not responded. Slowly, the giant looked to the left. It then looked to the right. It then looked down. It stared down at ZR3 as if it was amazed anything could be so small.
It bent down and picked up ZR3 in its left hand and examined it closer.
“Oh man, that guy is going to get punched in the face!” I said.
“I hope it doesn’t attack all of them before it reaches the Portal,” Delovoa added.
Suddenly, the Therezian raised his right fist and brought it down into his left hand. It sounded like a sonic boom. Maybe it was.
The Therezian then made a flicking motion with his left hand.
Streaming overhead, backlit by the latticework, a million fragments of what was once ZR3 twinkled in the light and vanished into the city beyond.
Delovoa and I were quiet for some time.
“Huh,” I concluded.
CHAPTER 70
“You’re still alive. So I take it your mission was a success?” Garm asked.
The two of us were in her office at City Hall. I was seated and had my legs spread out in front of me. I really wanted someone to bring me coffee.
“It was only successful in that Delovoa and I survived.”
“That’s not much to show for it. What’s wrong?” she asked, seeing my expression.
“We released ZR3.”
“Uh oh.”
“No, one of the Therezians punched it and broke it into little tiny ZR3 pieces. Like it was a stale cracker. Did you find the Quadrad?” I asked.
“Finding two people in a city is hard enough. Finding two Quadrad is near impossible.”
“Do you know why they stole the device? I mean, what’s the point if they can’t leave?”
She took a deep breath.
“Quadrad contracts are a big deal. If they were hired to get it, they’re going to get it, regardless of what condition the station is in. That’s why I didn’t want to let them out of our agreement. Now they’re free to do anything.”
“So how are we going to find them? If we can figure out the disintegrator maybe we can start zapping away our problems.”
“You might try Tamshius,” Garm said with great difficulty.
“How would he know anything?”
“He comes from my solar system.”
“So is everyone on this station Quadrad except me?”
“He’s not Quadrad,” she said, insulted. “He’s from a completely different planet. Our planets…didn’t get along that well.”
“Ah, so that’s why you guys were always fighting.”
Tamshius qua-Froyeled had been the biggest gang leader on old Belvaille back when Garm was the official Adjunct Overwatch. The fact they disliked each other caused quite a few problems.
“I don’t like him because he’s an arrogant chauvinist who thinks we’re living back on his home world. But if anyone has a spy network here it’s him. He always seemed to know what I was doing. And still does.”
“Won’t hurt to ask. I always liked him.”
Tamshius was no longer a big boss like he had been, but he’d managed to keep several casinos, some restaurants, and clubs.
I waited in the lobby of one of his casinos. Despite the riots, things looked undisturbed except a general increase in security.
One of the guards finally came over to me. I didn’t know him.
“My brother died in your little assault on the corporation,” he said. He looked like he wanted me to mouth off.
“I’m sorry for your loss. None of it went as planned. We were tricked.”
The guard seemed to consider that and then waved me through. I had to take off my shoes to walk to the back office.
I was wearing my Therezian hair booties and they had a lot of lacing. It took me several minutes to get them undone and the guard came to check on me several times. Probably wondering if I didn’t know how to tie my shoes.
“Greetings, Hank. It has been far too long since you have honored my house.” Tamshius said, bowing.
He was an elderly man, thin, with splotched skin. He had tufts of white hair that stuck out like squares on the sides of his head. He was dressed in expensive cloth-of-gold robes that seemed to practically crush his tiny frame.
His office looked like a museum, with artwork, and weapons, and outfits from, I assumed, his home planet. I looked at them closer now because I just couldn’t see Garm being connected with anything remotely like that. It was all so formal and stylized. Sure, the two of them originated from different planets, but presumably they had some things in common being from the same solar system.
He lit an incense stick which had a particularly putrid aroma. I tried not to crinkle my nose.
I found Tamshius’s rituals more elaborate each time I visited. I wasn’t sure if it was because as he got older he felt more comfortable repeating what he grew up with, or he was inventing it as he went along.
He unfurled a mat left to right on the ground in front of me and right to left in front of him. He motioned to me as he sat down cross-legged.
I wasn’t sure I could sit like that. And I was less sure I could get back up.
“Um. Can I move this over?” I asked, indicating a small tree in a metal planter.
This took him by surprise, but he nodded.
I dragged it over, making a horrible racket.
I then positioned myself roughly above the mat and let her rip. I got my knees about halfway bent and then I fell on my back.
After considerable scooting around, I managed to get into a seated position. I held onto the planter with one hand and had one hand behind me holding me up.
Tamshius, as polite as he was, looked at a loss for words. Probably because I almost landed on him when I fell.
“So,” I started. “How have you been?”
“We live in trying times. But never has it not been thus.”
“Yeah. I suppose you heard the Portals are down. Maybe even completely destroyed.”
“It is a grave misfortune. I ponder what we have done to deserve such punishment.”
“Thing is, I might have a
n idea how to save us.”
“Hank,” he said, holding his hands together, “always you have been selfless in your services. Your sacrifices will surely earn you many rings in heaven.”
“Thank you. But let’s not get too far ahead. I may require your assistance,” I said carefully. I didn’t want to mention Garm’s name directly because it usually sent him into a fury.
“I am your humble servant if it may remove us from our current tribulations.”
“I need to find two women on the station.”
He cocked his head.
“Are they in my employ?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“You may consult my staff, but I do not see how I could provide any insights beyond your own.”
“Well, they are Quadrad—”
Tamshius jumped to his feet, his face red. He started cussing in what I took to be his native tongue as he ran to his desk.
I figured he was going for a gun and I leaned on the pot to stand, but I knocked it over and fell on my back again.
Tamshius stood above me with an electrical device and it made various noises.
“Shh,” he said to me.
He walked around the room with the device as I kept trying to stand.
“The room is clear,” he said finally.
“Clear of what?”
“The Quadrad are an evil blight. Long have my people suffered their depredations. They are lacking in any nobility of spirit. I had to confirm you weren’t under surveillance.”
“Oh. So, I’m trying to find them because they have something of mine that…they have—”
“They stole it you mean! You do not have to honey your words, I know well their ways.”
“Sure, they stole it. And I think it might help us if we can get it back. I just can’t find them.”
Tamshius grew suspicious.
“How is it you knew to question me?”
“I was told you came from the same solar system. I hoped you might know of them.”
He relaxed back into anger.
“Oh, I know too greatly and at great cost. I may be able to assist you, but you must take Hor-kan shi-jo,” he spat.
“I don’t know what that is.”
“Our most solemn oath that you will not ever reveal the source of my help.”
“Sure.”
I held up my hand in a promise.
“It is a ceremony.”
Of course it was.
An hour later I was being fitted for robes. They had to be of a certain cloth harvested during a certain month from a certain region on his home world.
Several hours after that, in my new robes, I was kneeling next to a small brass idol with five hands and three heads. Tamshius walked slowly around the room lighting candles of various colors while chanting.
It occurred to me that he could be making all this up. Like once I left he would have a good belly laugh about having me do all this.
He still hadn’t told me anything and I had no clue what he was going to say. At the end he might go, “They have pale skin,” or something else I already knew.
Tamshius wrote the contract, asked me if I swore on my ancestors and my ancestral home.
I swore.
He then signed his name, pricked his hand with a six inch metal rod with two prongs and dabbed his blood on the contract.
Hmm.
I signed my name. I picked up my own metal rod. I poked myself with it and the prongs bent.
“Do I have to use this?” I asked.
“Shh,” he shushed me.
He rang a small gong and leaned in to whisper while it was still ringing.
“You may lance your genitals as well.”
“What?” How was that the next best solution?
He rang the gong again.
“It is a sign of sincere commitment,” he said.
“I’m not stabbing my private parts.”
Tamshius seemed disappointed. He then opened his mouth and pointed inside it, shrugging his shoulders.
I took the rod and tried to straighten the prongs. I poked my tongue, but it didn’t exactly want to stay still and my tongue was pretty tough. I put it against my gum where my cheek connected and jammed it, rubbing the area with my finger, but there was no blood.
I had a pale sister shove a dagger in my mouth and it didn’t do much. This little olive fork wasn’t going to cut me.
“Can I—” I reached over and flicked the gong with my finger, which I could see annoyed Tamshius, “can I use something else? This is too flimsy.”
He sighed then reluctantly nodded.
How was I going to do this? I didn’t want to shoot myself just to get a drop of blood.
I know.
I pointed to the gong. He rang it.
“Can you order me a whole Chilatae?”
“The reptile?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
“Now?”
“Yeah.”
You could just see all his dreams of a respectful ceremony were already out the window. With as much dignity as he could muster, which was considerable, he stood up and spoke into his tele which he kept on his desk.
He then returned and sat in front of me. He entered what appeared to be a meditative trance for the next thirty minutes while my food came.
There was a discreet knock at the door and Tamshius got up and answered it.
He handed me a container about a foot square and sat back down.
Inside was a cooked Chilatae. It was a relatively large water reptile that we cultivated on Belvaille because it was easy. They grew in aquariums. I wasn’t sure where it originated from.
I picked it up and started eating.
Without ringing the gong and with mouth open, Tamshius warned me urgently.
“You’re supposed to take it out of its shell first!”
I shook my head.
I chewed as hard as I could and sure enough, I felt a sharp pinch in my front upper. I scraped the area with my finger and got some blood.
I held it up to Tamshius to confirm.
He seemed like he wanted this whole ordeal over so he just nodded.
I wiped it on the contract.
Chilatae was kind of black and savory, so I was wiping saliva, blood, and black gunk from the reptile.
Tamshius covered the contract with a protective sheet. He walked around dousing the candles while halfheartedly chanting.
“Now let me show you my trick,” he said with a grin.
CHAPTER 71
Tamshius had a vault. The biggest, meanest, most secure vault I had ever seen. It took him twenty minutes to open it.
I was expecting some loot or magical talismans but inside it was filled with complicated technical equipment.
“With this, I can record tele communications.”
“No way! You can hack teles?”
“Only messages sent.”
“That’s incredible. How does it work?”
“I did not invent it of course. I understand that messages are like ripples in a pond. If they bounce and return, they can be decoded. But not all messages do that.”
“So you have every tele ever sent?”
“Only this vicinity. And only for a short time period.”
I couldn’t believe this. He was plucking our most sacred transmissions out of the air. People had been trying that for ages. I wonder if that’s what Naked Guy had done when he knew I spoke to the Navy.
“If I send a tele right now to someone, you could record it?”
“It may be possible. It would have to bounce enough times. It can take days or weeks or never.”
No wonder he knew Garm’s plans. He had been listening to her.
“Would you have any transmissions from the Quadrad?”
“Only if the accursed women made any and they were recorded. But as I said, I only store a limited duration.”
“Can you look?”
“I require their names and any other information on them you can pr
ovide.”
I realized I didn’t know their names.
I stepped out of the vault to call Garm.
Figures. They had pretty, flowery, girly names. Either their parents didn’t know their little girls would grow into assassins or the Quadrad were ironic jerks.
I gave them to Tamshius and saw he began using the equipment himself. This struck me as incredible that a boss of his stature, not to mention age, was doing grunt technical work. That told me this machine was a secret even to his closest advisors. They must view him as an oracle with all the information he mysteriously knew.
I looked at the screens for a bit, but it was all commands and programs and nonsense.
There was only one seat inside the vault so I rested on the floor.
As hours passed I realized that this was one of the most valuable things on Belvaille. Just think, you could take this machine to Ank, the financial capital of the galaxy, and make infinite money. And here I was sitting on the floor because my knees hurt and I didn’t want to bother learning anything new.
“They sent one message.”
I used the vault door frame to stand and went over.
Only the audio was available.
They said they had the device and were awaiting instructions on how to reprogram the Portal. They were going to drive a tank through so they would be protected. They were on one of the freighters.
It was sent two days ago to an undetermined recipient off-station.
“What should I use to fight the Quadrad?” I asked Delovoa.
“Your hands,” Garm answered.
We were in Delovoa’s basement, working out a plan.
“I’ll never catch them!”
“You’re not supposed to. I’ll be fighting them.”
“What’s the point of me blundering around?” I asked.
“They have to keep moving because if you do catch them, you can break them in half. You’re just a distraction.”
“Delovoa should come too. He could help,” I said.
“They’ll just kill him.”
“No, thanks,” Delovoa said, after hearing that.
“I’ll get a shotgun then,” I said.
“They’ll take it from you and use it on me, or just destroy it. Hank, you’re of no value in this fight other than what I said.”
Hard Luck Hank: Basketful of Crap Page 26
