“So many layers,” she said, as she cupped one of his man-breasts and leaned in close. “I bet they peel right off, however.”
Perhaps it was the Vem—no, it was entirely the Vem—but Nathan didn’t need a translator to understand her meaning. Or how her fingers were stimulating him in ways he never thought possible.
Eli Gallant stopped at the bar and drunkenly eyed Nathan. He leaned over it and sized up one of the ubiquitous, yet weird clusters of valves and spigots spaced along the hardwood counter.
“Can I get a drink here?” he demanded, trying to be heard over the thumping—which was now layered with a serious horn section. Or what sounded close to a horn section.
“What are you looking for?” Channy asked him, while still working on Nathan’s receptive chest.
“A drink,” Eli yelled. “A goddamn drink. Some honest to Christ pig-piss. Something. I might look like a wet sheet-stain stripped off a whorehouse bed, but I’m plenty goddamn thirsty right about now.”
Channy released a delightful giggle into Nathan’s ear. “You’re swearing. I can almost understand most of it. You’ll have to do that for Nex when he comes back. He loves to hear profanity. The more vulgar, the better.”
Eli screwed up his face. “I don’t give a—huh?”
“Good, inventive profanity is an underappreciated artform,” Channy went on. “Highly prized in the Cosmos. Indicative of a creative mind.”
“A what?”
“A creative mind. Imaginative. Intelligent.”
That positively disarmed Eli Gallant. The gun runner’s normally snarling face slackened at the compliment. Nathan would not have believed his eyes unless he wasn’t there to witness it first-hand.
“You’re saying… I’m smart,” Eli slowly got out, “because… I swear?”
“Yes. It’s one indicator. Usage of profanity is also positively correlated with verbal fluency.”
“What’s that now?”
“It means you speak quite well.”
If the first compliment took the snarl off Eli’s face, then the second one slapped him cold. He studied Channy, before slowly, almost good-naturedly, turned and smirked at Nathan. He then looked for Mackenzie, who was ogling the many lifeforms packed into the saloon.
“You hear that, Mack?” Eli said and slapped him with the back of a hand, getting the man’s attention. “Lady thinks I’m goddamn educated. And that I can speak well. Just because I can swear.”
To his credit, Mackenzie didn’t comment and went right back to his Vem-induced staring of the masses.
“You’re all right,” Eli said fondly to Channy and then regarded Nathan for only a second before returning to her. “You, uh, got a sister around? Or a friend?”
“What are these things?” Gilbert asked, leaning back so that he could be seen over Eli’s shoulders. The gun runner was pointing at the shiny metal piping along the bar that practically sparkled in the saloon’s light storm.
Channy leaned slightly forward for a look. “Those are the food and drink dispensers.”
Again, not what her lips were saying, but what the translators provided.
“Food and drink?”
“Yes. Just hold one for a second.”
Gilbert did, grabbing onto one of the protruding spigots.
Channy smiled. “Now hold on while it analyzes your bio-makeup.”
A light over the spigot flashed purple and then remained on.
“Good God Almighty!” Gilbert exclaimed, but he was smiling, and he held on.
Channy pointed at the cluster. “It’s delivering what you need. Don’t take your hand away just yet. It’s injecting whatever sustenance matches your physiology, directly into your circulatory tract.”
“Huh?”
“Wait until the light turns green,” Channy informed him, while still working over Nathan, to a point where he wanted to ask if she wanted to go find a room.
“Channy?” Mackenzie asked, despite Nathan’s not-so-subtle frown and headshake. “Where are we, exactly?”
A look of puzzlement wrinkled her expression. “You don’t know?”
Mackenzie shook his head.
“The Vem is affecting you more than you know,” she smiled gently.
Jimmy Norquay placed a hand upon Mackenzie’s shoulder, distracting him. The Vem was affecting them, with every breath. Jimmy focused on Nathan, sized up his predicament, and reached for his coat. He took a grip of the wet material and pulled.
Nathan resisted.
Jimmy pulled harder.
Nathan resisted harder.
Channy broke out into a delightful peal of laughter. “Go on with your friend. I’ll wait. Don’t worry.”
She released him as she spoke.
Nathan, however, didn’t want to go.
So Jimmy dug his heels in and hauled him away.
“What’s wrong with you?” the Metis man demanded, red-eyed and annoyed.
“What?”
“Leave him be,” Eli Gallant said, joining the huddle. Mackenzie leaned in as well.
“He’s drunk,” Jimmy said, his fist still holding onto the wet coat.
“We’re all drunk,” Eli declared. “Without taking a single drop. I swear, every breath I take is finer than the last. And, by the look of you, all of you, you’re all feeling your oats. So don’t be giving Nate a hard time.”
That got a round of blinking stares from them all. Including Nathan, who swayed on his feet and wondered if he just heard correctly. Did shit-flicking hard case Eli Gallant just defend him?
It stunned them all, until Jimmy rattled his head and leaned into their little circle.
“We have to leave,” he said, making himself heard over the music, because that’s what it was… music. Nathan realized this in a soft balloon-pop of clarity. Saloon music from the future. From the very stars.
“Right now,” Jimmy explained with roving side-eyes, watching the saloon crowd. “I’m feeling a pull.”
“I am, too,” Mackenzie said.
Eli nodded in agreement. And Nathan felt it as well. Nowhere as powerful as Channy’s touch, but it was there and easily recognized, once mentioned.
“So what?” Nathan asked.
“So we go,” Jimmy said and nodded. “That way.”
Past the gyrating crowds mashing together on the saloon’s main floor, all in sync with the booming music.
Nathan’s head rolled on his shoulders in a gesture of aww do we gotta?
But the others were already in agreement.
“Yeah, we gotta,” Mackenzie said.
Nathan sighed softly and glanced back at Channy, whose glorious legs crossed enticingly at that precise moment.
“Goddammit,” Nathan sighed again.
“I’ll tell her,” Eli said.
“No,” Nathan stepped away. “I’ll tell her. You get Gilbert.”
Eli looked at his friend, who was talking to an emaciated-looking alien, bipedal, but with orange skin, no nose, and three bulbous eyes, and wearing bright clothing of a fabric unknown to him.
Without a word, Eli stepped over to his partner’s back and slapped his shoulder.
“Oh, hey Eli,” Gilbert said. He released his hand from the green-lit spigot. “This is Buddy, here. I call him Buddy. Can’t rightly say his real name.”
At that, Buddy opened a mouth shaped like a sphincter and festered with rattlesnake teeth. An odd chuffing noise came from that opening, and all three of Buddy’s eyes narrowed in Vem-intoxicated amusement.
“You know what he just said about us?” Gilbert said.
Eli didn’t know.
“He said, he said…” Gilbert studied his saloon acquaintance. “You tell him.”
“I said you really do look like Faknahts,” Buddy said, his mouth moving as if he were ravenously gnawing at a corn cob. “Without question.”
Eli, neither fearful nor angry but comfortably numb, stared at the alien, absorbing the creature’s words.
“I’ve been hearing about these f
aulkners a couple times now,” he finally rumbled. “Mind pointing them out?”
Buddy’s eyes fluttered with mind-fried surprise. “Well, no. I can’t point them out.”
“None of these faulkners in here?”
“No, none at all.”
“Why’s that, then?”
“Well….” and at this, the creature plainly looked troubled, as if the matter of which he was being asked about was some disturbing public knowledge.
“Because you can’t,” Buddy simply said.
“Buddy,” Eli said, leaning in. “I asked you… very nicely, I might add… why’s that?”
Buddy fidgeted, no longer so happy. “Because they no longer exist.”
“No longer exist?”
“They’re all dead.”
Eli shrugged. “All right. So what? That’s it? That ain’t so bad. So why are they all dead? Something kill them all?”
Buddy’s three big eyes became sad. “Something ate them all.”
*
The Vog teleported in with a crackle of energy that flared and fizzled out along each member’s frame, as if they were absorbing the far-reaching brunt of the universe’s cosmic rays. There were ten of them, all tall and chrome, and armed to their toothless proboscises.
Snut-Snut involuntary shifted back to the alley wall at their sudden appearance. Riot suppression squad, he realized. He bristled at the thought that they hadn’t sent a more intimidating force to deal with the Faknaht lookalikes. Then again, Snut-Snut’s fragmented spinal column still felt a shudder of fear when they appeared.
He waited until the leader addressed him.
There were plenty of intimidating alien species in the known universe. Far too many, depending on who one asked. It was inevitable. Some were even quite dangerous and warlike. The Vog, however, and their insectoid hive mindset, which some ridiculed as being no greater than a virus, was without question the most frightening, the most sinister of them all.
And, even though he was expecting them, the Vog terrified the lone Ameboid.
Though Snut-Snut was impervious to the chemical Vem and its effects, this was one time he wished he could partake of its mind-numbing qualities. His moment of anger and offense had up and vanished in the Vog’s alien presence. Color was as absent from the Vog as a conscience, except for chrome, which was the only color associated with the aliens. Their flesh was chrome, as was their armor and weapons. Even their blood.
The Vog held their fearsome weapons at guard—an organic, bio-metal that no other race could wield, or would want to. The squad didn’t move for seconds, and Snut-Snut stood and stared at the formidable aliens. Not even the creatures’ eye stalks or proboscises moved. They remained motionless with a discipline that was both military and robotic.
One of the ten stepped forward then, stepping out of that solid wedge and distinguishing itself from the formation at its back.
The Vog commander stopped three paces away from the waving Ameboid. The eye stalks, protruding from an armored head, studied the informer alien impassively.
“Where is the Faknaht?” the Vog asked in its own language, which Snut-Snut’s embedded translator immediately deciphered.
If the Ameboid had lips to lick, he would have done so right then. Instead he pointed to the solid metal wall across from him. A dark, imposing section of the outer, fortified curvature that was Nex’s saloon.
The Vog continued to study the Ameboid as one eye stalk aimed itself at the indicated wall. Seconds later, the head turned, bringing the appendage back into alignment with the other one.
Snut-Snut waited, but dearly wanted to be on the other side of the known cosmos.
“Thank you for your assistance,” the Vog said, turning its body to face the wall. It stopped once in position as if some internal braking system was engaged. Without warning, the other nine troopers turned as well, all the while maintaining formation.
“Do you—” Snut-Snut started to ask.
“Leave the immediate area,” the leader interrupted, cutting off the Ameboid. “Now.”
Snut-Snut swallowed, or did the human equivalent, and thought the Vog had a grand thought indeed. He immediately backed away from the squad, not taking his eye off the bulky chrome of the armored lifeforms, who all faced that reinforced wall designed to repel any legal task force associated with enforcing Cosmic Law.
Once he was a good twenty paces away from the motionless squad, Snut-Snut turned and ran.
36
Nathan didn’t like leaving Channy so soon.
And, even as her lovely face disappeared among that energetic crowd, Nathan knew he wasn’t going to see her ever again. That made him even sadder.
Jimmy Norquay pushed his way through the fantastic collection of living, breathing oddities populating the floor. There were lifeforms of all shapes and sizes, but Nathan wasn’t moved. He was still thinking about the lovely Channy. And her six tits.
Mackenzie grabbed his arm, leading him along like a common drunk having downed far too many whiskey shots. Nathan scoffed at that. He was shitfaced on a far more potent drink than mere alcohol. He was, God help him, in love.
He stumbled upon a long snake of an appendage that ended in a multi-limbed thing the size of two cows. Mackenzie picked him up, apologized to the alien, and moved on. Eli and Gilbert were right behind them both, and they all moved in the direction where they felt the pull.
Music assaulted Nathan’s ears, pounding upon his Vem-charged brain. Light shafts burned overhead, dazzling, flashing over faces and torsos, or what Nathan assumed were torsos, in some cases. Creatures parted for the still wet figure of Jimmy Norquay. Some patted the man on the shoulders. Some patted his back. Mackenzie was there, no longer so eager to shake any hands, but accepting of the back and shoulder pats. There wasn’t an angry face among the masses, but more than a few of outright shock, as if the train robbers were the unusual ones.
“My heavens,” Mackenzie said, marveling at all those crowding around. “My sweet, sweet heavens.”
“Where are we, Mack?” Nathan asked his friend’s ear.
“No idea. But I think it’s a good place.”
Nathan agreed.
The music rose to new crushing heights, demanding all those upon the floor to dance. Nathan noticed they were walking across space. Stars and nebulae and all other manner of galactic phenomena lit up the polished glass surface underfoot. And he couldn’t recognize one star cluster. Then the crowds pushed in again, and the night sky underfoot dimmed while the light continued to flash and awe. Faces lit up and winked out, but their outlines danced onward in an incredible barn burner of a town dance.
Nathan, still holding onto Mackenzie for support, glanced ahead before looking hard to his left.
There, in the crowds, stood a man.
Or at least it looked like a man.
Dressed entirely in black, with what appeared to be cloth bands tied near his elbows and knees. His face was draped in black as well, a form-fitting head mask that covered everything except his eyes.
Those were hard and staring.
Nathan stared back before Mackenzie pulled on his arm, distracting him. When he looked back, the man in black was gone.
Jimmy Norquay stopped just ahead. He stood before some black doors whose edges were aglow in thin lines of fiery orange. There were other doors spaced out along the wall as well, but the lights outlining them shone in different colors.
The image on the door’s surface, however, resembled a man.
A head, two arms, and two legs.
“That’s the boys’ room,” Jimmy yelled. “We go in there.”
“I don’t think that’s the boys’ room,” Mackenzie said. “But we still go in there.”
Jimmy placed his hand against the door… and extended a hand to push.
It slid opened, parting down the middle.
Nathan fully expected to see the interior of a train car. He did not. Inside was a well-lit space, divided up into walled sections. The floor w
as polished marble and pocketed with grates no larger than a person’s fist, and one wall was nothing but a mirror, the length of the entire chamber, from floor to ceiling. The Vem circulated in there as well, in great cotton swirls that were pink under the ceiling lights. Aliens were present, either going into stalls or emerging from them, whereupon doors would slide open or closed.
The image on the door had resembled a man.
The creatures occupying the washroom—or what Nathan assumed to be the washroom—were not.
They all possessed two arms, two legs, and one head, but that’s where the similarities ended. Creatures, tall and short, wide and narrow moved through that floating ghost world of pink. Like outside, some of them were curious to behold, while others were downright frightening, if not revolting. Nathan believed there were two dozen lifeforms or more in the chamber, but his sense of time warped, and the plane of reality shifted.
The Vem, he thought.
They were breathing in straight whiskey shots, or at least the alcoholic might of whiskey shots, and right then Nathan’s senses became as star born as the floor he walked across. With a dream-like quality, they trudged across a twinkling, lilting plane of stars, ignoring the things along the edges. The clouds parted for them, and just ahead was an unlit sliding door that remained shut while others opened and closed.
Jimmy walked towards that door.
Nathan and the others followed, drawn by that gentle but guiding pull.
On impulse, however, he glanced back. Through a gap of bumping shoulders belonging to an inebriated Eli Gallant and Gilbert Butler, a figure followed.
The man in black.
*
Two of the Vog worked on the saloon wall, summoning alien instruments especially designed for their two-digit hands. The others took up position around them, four of which watched the alley from opposing ends.
Lines of green light flared into existence, covering a surface area upon the wall just big enough to allow passage to an armored Vog.
Thoughts were projected, and instruments adjusted.
The Vog leader watched impassively. He recalled the uploaded playback of the sighted Faknahts. He wasn’t certain the creatures recorded were indeed the race of old, but it warranted an investigation. Especially since the outerwear matched that worn by another group of mysterious creatures that resembled Faknahts. Outerwear that had a distinct, roughshod style that had been the subject of debate among Vog historians for Vog years.
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