Hard Luck Hank: Prince of Suck

by Steven Campbell

  “You’ve seen this assassin?”

  “Oh, yeah. On more than one occasion. And there was nothing I could do. But look, help me out here. I am struggling with this election. My Kommilaire are leaving in droves. I can’t maintain law and order in the best of times.”

  “How will me lying about Judge Naeb help?” he asked.

  “Besides removing the worst judge and a terrible candidate, and stopping the Totki intimidation squads, it will be hot! Belvaille’s longest-serving judge up on murder charges. We don’t even have a government yet and we have our first political scandal.”

  “A fake one.”

  “Do you think I always give the most appropriate punishments to only guilty people? I do what I can. Only good things will come from this. People will be entertained. And entertained people are less likely to murder each other. We have a perfect bad guy for them to hate.”

  Rendrae sat there for a long while.

  I said what I could say. I thought it best to ease back and wait.

  “I’m not going to milk it,” he said finally. “I will start it but I won’t keep making up lies just to keep it going. If it has legs, and I imagine it will, then other people can report on it.”

  “Great! That’s all I ask.”

  Rendrae stood up.

  “Why do you have all these statues in here?” he asked slyly. “And don’t say it’s because you’re a collector. I’ve known you too long.”

  Now it was my turn to pause.

  “Because I have about one heart attack a month, usually in the mornings, and I can’t stand up on my own without them.”

  He looked at me momentarily in the face but then dropped his gaze and headed out my front door.

  CHAPTER 30

  I was waiting on the first floor of a building in the southeast for the owner to come down.

  All around me, Po servants twirled and flipped and scuttled.

  Po were the slave species of the Boranjame, who were the most powerful empire in the galaxy. At this point, though, that wasn’t saying a whole lot.

  Po looked like a big pile of spaghetti. They were about five feet tall, had no torsos, heads, feet, no anything really. They were just arms and hands. They moved so erratically that it was dizzying to look at them.

  I wasn’t sure if slaves were legal on Belvaille. I suppose if it started becoming an issue we’d have to make some decision. But I wasn’t about to tell the only Boranjame on the station and within light years he couldn’t have his attendants.

  The Boranjame, for the most part, lived on ships. They didn’t actually have any planets they called home. As they continued to grow in physical size, each Boranjame would make its ship larger until it had a world-ship that rivalled planets.

  Flying around on a ship the size of a planet that was capable of destroying and strip mining other planets tended to make you a species that no one messed with.

  Fortunately, during our war, the Boranjame didn’t take advantage of the galaxy-wide chaos and mostly sat in their region of control, which was the entire outer rim. When a solar system had been decimated by the civil strife, they poked in, gave everyone a chance to leave, and tore the planets apart to upgrade their ships.

  Belvaille’s only Boranjame, Zeti, had sent a Po messenger to come get me. The Po, having no mouth of its own, communicated by manipulating sound boxes with its many hands.

  We had a lot of species on Belvaille. But most of those species were just as bad off as the Colmarians and I didn’t feel much need to be nice to them. I believed it was in the best interest of all life everywhere that I be at least courteous to Zeti. Just in case he had any influence over his larger brethren.

  I’d been on a world-ship in the past. If the Boranjame simply felt like conquering the galaxy and destroying every inhabited planet, there was really nothing to stop them at this point. It would just take a long time.

  Back in the vestibule, a group of Po suddenly scuttled forward and then parted, showing Zeti floating in their midst.

  Zeti was hard to describe. He was about four feet long, three feet high, and three feet wide. He hovered a small distance from the ground, how, I’m not sure.

  He was crystalline. An insanely complex series of interlocking, rotating, spinning, crystal disks and plates and pieces. He was colored a light blue and translucent at the edges. Like the Po, he had no features at all. He was almost like a million dancing snowflakes of sizes ranging from inches to feet.

  If the Po were disturbing to watch because of their movement, the Boranjame was hypnotic. He was quite beautiful.

  I didn’t actually know if Zeti was a male or female. I had met a Boranjame prince, so presumably they had genders, but I wasn’t going to ask and risk offending Zeti.

  To my slight alarm, I noticed Zeti was maybe a foot larger than when I had last seen him. Boranjame never stopped growing as far as I knew. In some theoretical future, Belvaille would be too small for him.

  “Hi,” I said good-naturedly.

  The Po finished setting up speakers and other electronic devices which the Boranjame used to speak. I wasn’t sure if he also used them to hear, so I repeated myself.

  “Hi.”

  “I would like to vote,” Zeti said.

  His voice, which was purely synthesized, was masculine and sounded like a young man’s.

  “Vote for what?” I asked, confused.

  “For City Council and Governor,” he replied.

  Did he call me out here for this?

  “Sure,” I said. “I don’t think that will be a problem. Anyone on Belvaille can vote…I guess. I haven’t thought about the restrictions yet. Maybe you have to be a certain age? But you would qualify.”

  “I would like to vote now.”

  “Now? Well, we don’t have the final candidate list. And I don’t even know when the elections will be held. And we don’t have the voting machines.”

  “I do not have hands.”

  Oh, yeah. How are the Keilvin Kamigans going to vote? They’re gas clouds. Maybe attach a kite to them?

  “You can tell me your choices at the election. Will that work?”

  “I would like to vote now.”

  “But the list isn’t ready. And I don’t know all the names off the top of my head.”

  “I know the names.”

  I patted my chest, ruffling my guns. As if I expected to find a pen and paper there. As if I had carried a pen and paper in the last forty years. As if my fingers were capable of using a pen and paper.

  “I don’t have anything to write on,” I apologized.

  “Here are my votes.”

  One of the Po was suddenly undulating in my face. It held a form out to me in its tendril. I took the page and looked it over as the Po retreated to its original position beside Zeti.

  Names were listed in exquisite cursive handwriting.

  “This is Garm’s list,” I said.

  “What is a Garm’s list?” Zeti asked.

  “These candidates are all dead,” I explained.

  “They are?” There was no great inflection in the voice but the voice wasn’t really a voice. It was generated from speakers and wasn’t biological in origin. For all I knew he could really sound like a puppy and be trying to bark at me and those Po practical jokesters made his voice sound like this instead.

  I felt like I was missing something. I decided to hazard a guess.

  “Have you spoken to Garm?”

  “No,” he said immediately.

  “Have you spoken to her people?”

  “No.”

  I was out of ideas. Maybe Boranjame liked dead politicians. But it wasn’t really my job to question why people cast their particular votes. That was the whole point of an election, right?

  “Well, I guess that’s it, unless you have anything else. I’ll save your votes for the election and make sure they’re counted. Thanks, Zeti.”

  “And thank you, Supreme Kommilaire, Hank of Belvaille. May you riddle through your current tribulations
lest your species be shackled in an age of despair for ten thousand years.”

  The Po swarmed on Zeti and they all retreated as quickly as they appeared, leaving me standing there stunned.

  http://www.belvaille.com/hlh3/zeti.gif

  CHAPTER 31

  “Who wants taxes?” a man asked on the loudspeaker. “What I earn should go to my family.”

  “Our family,” a woman’s voice chided. “We’ve survived the civil war.”

  “And Belvaille is growing better with every passing day,” the man continued.

  “Why would we want to change what is working?” she asked. “Return to the old Colmarian Confederation and its abuses? Our children don’t deserve that.”

  “Garm’s Choice candidates are endorsed by the owner of Belvaille, who has seen the city through the worst times the galaxy had to offer,” the man said.

  “All the candidates pledge to increase public works projects, increase employment, increase law enforcement, and keep Belvaille the shining star of the universe.”

  “Vote Garm’s Choice for me,” a little boy said.

  “And me!” A little girl added.

  I stood in my living room listening to it.

  Can they do that?

  Did they have a real family hanging around talking about the election on the loudspeakers? No, they must be paid actors. But who paid them? And why?

  I opened my door and saw MTB and Valia waiting for me.

  “Boss, did you hear the commercial?” MTB asked.

  “Is that what they’re called?”

  The loudspeakers had advertising. Buy your clothes here. Eat your breakfast there. But advertisements for people—dead people—seemed really unusual to me. But I guess this was New Belvaille.

  “What are we doing, sir?” Valia asked.

  “Stuff I used to do.”

  We were in the storeroom of a large club.

  Three gang bosses were with us. We were standing around a crate of goods that was under a tarp and that was the source of their disagreement.

  “So let me get this straight,” I said, “your partner woke up today, the day this shipment came in, and decided to die?”

  “He was murdered,” a woman said angrily.

  She was an attractive lady whose beauty had faded a bit with age, but she could still pull off some charm. She was the wife of the deceased and her name was Lisedt.

  “He’s gone is the point, Hank,” one of the other bosses, Dimi-Vim, said. He was the boss I had worked out the club music issue with some time ago. He still wore his quarter inch of brown hair all over his body.

  “I’ve got this contract proving that I paid for half of this. That makes me majority holder,” aRj’in said. He was still in good physical shape and still none too friendly.

  I looked at the contract.

  “Get me some light, I can’t see what I’m looking at,” I complained.

  “Hank, that’s an old contract,” Lisedt said, “and it doesn’t matter because he was murdered anyway. By one of these two!”

  Valia hunted around for lights.

  “What do I have to gain by killing him? He owed me money,” Dimi-Vim demanded.

  “If the contract is old or not it doesn’t matter unless there was a new contract,” aRj’in said.

  “They’re trying to take over my business and want to strong-arm me. I’ve been through more gang wars than both you pukes put together,” Lisedt fired.

  “Just…all of you shut up for a second,” I said.

  I looked over at Valia, who was making an awful lot of racket in the back but wasn’t shedding any light.

  “Boss, you got a torch on your back,” MTB offered.

  “Oh, yeah. Get it.”

  He rummaged around through my various packs and containers and found a handheld flashlight.

  He put it on the tarp and turned it on.

  “Damn, that’s bright,” Dimi-Vim said, moving away.

  It was a gang contract, but not like any I had ever seen and I had seen thousands. I couldn’t make sense of it.

  “What is this?” I asked.

  “I told you,” Dimi-Vim said to aRj’in.

  “Look here, this part,” big aRj’in leaned in.

  I read it.

  “This is like, legal crap,” I said.

  “That’s what I told them,” Dimi-Vim reiterated.

  “Shut up,” aRj’in fired.

  “It’s old, anyway,” Lisedt repeated.

  “He got an adjudicator to write it,” Dimi-Vim explained.

  I handed it to MTB to see if he could make sense of it.

  “Adjudicators aren’t even allowed in the Athletic Gentleman’s Club,” I said, confused.

  “We…made the contract somewhere else,” aRj’in said weakly.

  This was just breaking so many protocols. I spoke my frustrations out loud.

  “How am I supposed to settle this? This isn’t a gang contract. It’s some adjudicator thing. Adjudicators only apply to us Kommilaire and I completely ignore them at least half the time. Belvaille’s been doing gangs and gang business for over two hundred years. Why would you try and change that?”

  The gang bosses looked uncomfortable.

  “My husband said he didn’t want to,” Lisedt chimed.

  “But he signed it. You all signed it. Besides, we’re not just ‘gangs,’” aRj’in said distastefully.

  I took the contract from MTB and tore it in half and then half again.

  “Split it three ways evenly,” I concluded.

  They all started to protest loudly, but I was louder.

  “You wanted me to settle this, I’m settling it,” I barked. “You want to go to an adjudicator and get him to throw a lot of fancy words around then do that and stop wasting my time. You guys don’t touch each other for six months after the separation. Lisedt takes on all the assets—and liabilities—of her husband.”

  Everyone was a little unhappy.

  Another successful negotiation.

  CHAPTER 32

  I heard accounts that the Totki were accelerating their “investigations.”

  I wasn’t sure if Hong was doing it because he enjoyed it, he really thought he was going to randomly find Su Dival’s killer, or the Totki Clan demanded it. In any case, I had to bring those blue-toothed, yellow-skinned Totki back into the fold.

  I notified Rendrae that I was going forward with Judge Naeb and to meet at Courtroom Three Street. I also tipped off some other media sources through my contacts, making sure it couldn’t be traced back to me or my Kommilaire.

  I was the last one to arrive at the street.

  “What’s going on, Hank?” one of the reporters asked.

  “My goodness, I was about to arrest Judge Naeb for accessory to murder,” I said woodenly.

  Rendrae rolled his eyes.

  “Who was murdered?” another reporter asked helpfully.

  “Su Dival!” I responded with flourish.

  Gasps.

  A few gunshots rang out from Judge Naeb’s office building and everyone crouched down.

  “I had better go apprehend him,” I said. “I will take one journalist with me to record the incident. Any volunteers?”

  Every reporter except Rendrae raised their hands and stood on their toes.

  “Rendrae,” I said. “You’re cool under pressure. Would you like to come?”

  “No,” he answered sourly.

  I looked around at the other reporters.

  “Um. I think you should. It will help the…” but I had nothing to add.

  Rendrae reluctantly agreed and as I pretended to be entering a dangerous zone, Rendrae merely plomped along behind me, obviously irked at the charade.

  In Judge Naeb’s office, MTB and Valia waited with Judge Naeb bound and gagged in the corner. They had been firing their guns now and then to keep it interesting. The story was being reported live on the loudspeakers.

  “Now what?” Valia asked.

  “Judge Naeb commits suicide,�
� I said.

  “What?” MTB asked.

  “Well, I mean, we help him,” I clarified.

  “Boss, can I talk to you in the hall for a second?” MTB asked.

  “Uh, sure.”

  “What are we doing?” he asked, once we had reached the hall and closed the door.

  “Taking care of the Totki situation. And the Judge Naeb situation. And the disgruntled population situation,” I said, not sure why he was bringing this up now.

  “But why kill him?”

  “Because if this went to a trial, he would say I told him to run for office and he didn’t kill Su Dival.”

  “But that would be true.”

  “Yeah, but that doesn’t help anything.”

  “Boss, we’re not executioners.”

  “Says who?”

  “You! You told me that when I joined the Kommilaire. It’s what I tell all the new recruits.”

  “Oh. Well, things change.”

  “You’re killing a judge,” he said.

  “A sucky judge.”

  “A sucky judge to placate a sucky clan, Boss. And sucky or not, this is how the government works.”

  “What government? When have we had a government?” I asked, exasperated. “Do you think laws matter? Do you think trials matter? When has a trial ever saved a life?”

  “Lots of times. Just because we’re hard on people who break the laws doesn’t make us kings.”

  “I’m not a king. I don’t want to rule anything.”

  “Yeah, you always say that, but you’re killing a judge. Who can judge you for that? Who gets you in trouble or ships you to the Royal Wing? Is this not breaking the law?”

  “Why are you suddenly sticking up for the Totki and the worst judge on Belvaille?”

  “Boss, I just feel like we’ve lost sight of what we’re supposed to be doing.”

  “Why didn’t you bring this up earlier?”

  “Because I didn’t know you were going to kill him!”

  “But he’s a crook. He’s been taking bribes for decades. He lets criminals free. He makes it legal to point guns at me. And the Totki are going to start killing people soon. If we give them Naeb, it’s done.”

  “If you gave them 19-10 it would be done, too.”