The Rettosians were coming to Belvaille.
The Rettosians were an empire distinct from the Colmarian Confederation.
Their entire race looked like they were perpetually melting. As if a normal Colmarian had been made out of wax and was being heated. Yet they never slumped or exhausted themselves. They just oozed. They were a well-established race and it was very peculiar for them to be visiting a place such as Belvaille, which was far from their empire and of no strategic importance.
They were sending a whole diplomatic envoy. For what purpose, it was unknown.
The station went into high gear, however. We expected them to arrive within a few weeks and we wanted to have all our operations, legal and otherwise, in order.
The Rettosians had a reputation of being snobby and only preferring the finer things in the galaxy. They wouldn’t stand a dirty casino—at least that’s what we expected.
Even the Knuckle Squads stopped knuckling once word got out about the impending visit. The soldiers marched wherever they went and they wore their dress uniforms.
I was eager for the ship to arrive, as I hoped that might help our current problems with the Adjunct Overwatch.
Time passed and we finally got word the Rettosian ship had passed the Portal. It was only a matter of it navigating the last bit to Belvaille and docking.
“Hank,” Delovoa whispered to me on his tele.
“What?”
“The Adjunct Overwatch is here.”
“Where?”
“My house. In my living room.”
“Now?”
“No, in the future, I’m a time traveler. Yes, now,” he hissed.
“I’ll be right there!”
I hustled to the train as fast as I could. This wasn’t how I had planned things.
“Adjunct Overwatch Monhsendary, what are you doing here?” I asked, as he emerged from Delovoa’s home. He had three soldiers accompanying him.
“Where I go is none of your concern,” he replied.
“But shouldn’t you be welcoming the Rettosians? They’ll be here any moment.”
He squinted at me, as if I were some perplexing creature.
“Just because we spoke once, do not think we are on familiar terms. Go back to your home or your place of employment before I have you chastised.”
The soldiers puffed themselves up, showing they were ready for a fight. I didn’t have time for this.
I reached into my jacket and pulled out my four-barreled shotgun.
The soldiers drew faster and fired at me.
Blam! Blam! Blam!
“Ow! Ow! Ow!”
I aimed carefully and fired a tube of buckshot at one soldier, roughly in the legs. He screamed and fell in a bloody mess.
The soldiers unloaded now and I covered myself with my arms.
“Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow!”
When I heard their guns clicked empty, I looked up and pointed my shotgun at another soldier.
“You want to do this the easy way or the hard way?”
He began to reload his gun.
“Really?”
I fired another buckshot tube, this time aiming for the chest, which was partially covered by his arms and the gun he was reloading.
He went down without a sound, his arms and chest mangled.
I pointed the shotgun at the last soldier.
“Same question.”
He dropped his gun. So two out of three soldiers had some level of common sense.
“What is the meaning of this? This is treason!” The Adjunct Overwatch declared. As if he was shocked that he wasn’t the most popular guy in the city.
“Delovoa!” I yelled.
I had seen him peeking from his doorway.
“Yes?”
“Tie this guy up,” I said, indicating the last soldier.
Delovoa looked at him. The soldier looked at Delovoa.
“No.”
“What? Come on, I need to get going.”
“I’ll have tea with him. Would you like some tea?”
The soldier blinked, gazed at his injured companions.
“Sure,” he said, as if there was a choice.
He walked over to Delovoa’s front door.
“Alright, we’re going to be moving now, Adjunct Overwatch,” I said.
“And what if I refuse to travel with you?”
Just then we heard an unholy shrieking.
The soldier who had reached Delovoa’s door was clawing at the air, fell to his knees, and wore an expression that will haunt me until the day I die. He then collapsed face first on the ground.
“By the way, that’s what the nerve toxin looks like when it’s used on a Colmarian,” Delovoa said absently.
I pulled the top of my shirt over my face and dragged the Adjunct Overwatch down the street. He allowed himself to be pulled, not wanting to hang around any lingering nerve toxin.
I was riding in the train with a gun to the head of the Adjunct Overwatch of the city.
I had already broken his wrist because he got saucy. As we rode, though, I realized this was a rather crappy idea. I wasn’t going to get very far with this hostage.
“Don’t move,” I warned him.
I got out my tele and called up Tamshius.
“Yes?”
“You need to attack City Hall right now.”
“What? Are you insane?”
“Do it! Get every boss you know and every thug you can find or we’re screwed.”
“They got heavy weapons at City Hall. Not going to last long in a frontal assault against the entire Navy.”
“You just need to hold out until the Rettosians get here.”
There was a moment of dead air and then:
“On it.”
Hopefully that would clear out all the soldiers from in front of us.
“What do you plan on doing with me?” Monhsendary asked.
“You’re going to greet the Rettosians like I said.”
We were in the belly of Belvaille’s port and I was working feverishly to tie Monhsendary to one of the many machines that were used to handle the coming and going of ships.
“Why do you care so much if I am here to meet the Rettosians?” he asked.
“I don’t. There are no Rettosians.”
“Then who is coming on that ship?”
“No one. We faked the tele message. We couldn’t fake a Navy one or we would have said some big Admiral was coming. The ship is filled with explosives.”
“What? How do you know that?”
“Because we hired it. And bought it. And planned all this. The ship is going to dock and blow this port to pieces.”
“Why?” he asked.
“So the Navy won’t ever put any confidence in it again. We won’t be able to get supplies or do trading for a year or so, but we’re willing to make that sacrifice.”
“This is pointless. We’ll know it was you.”
“No, you won’t. Only six people in the galaxy know of this. Five of us will go to jail for life if we ever speak of it, and one person,” I pointed at Monhsendary, “is going to die. We have copious documentation that the port needed repairs—you just ignored it. This is what happens when you refuse to negotiate.”
I finished the knots and hurried away.
“You’re a murderer!” He screamed at my back.
“Yeah, you were wrong about us. We’re not just thieves and fornicators. We’re killers.”
HOW DELOVOA GOT HIS BRAINS
Intelligent life did not normally evolve on planets like Delovoa’s home world, Shaedsta. It was gray, flat, small, and relatively inhospitable.
The beings that evolved there were also gray and small and inhospitable.
For millennia, the intelligent life that called Shaedsta home didn’t know their planet was anything other than awesome until they finally reached the stars and settled on the planet two orbits over, Shaedsta-2.
Shaedsta-2 was bigger, vibrant, and saturated with oxygen and nutrients.
It gradually turned the colonists larger, smarter, and better in nearly all ways than their non-numeric brethren.
Anyone capable of leaving Shaedsta and surviving on Shaedsta-2 did so, as the original home world became a refuge for the meek and stupid.
Delovoa’s parents were small. His grandparents were small. Delovoa himself was tiny. He could not survive the rigors of space travel, which were rather brutal in those early technological days of Shaedsta, let alone the increased gravity on Shaedsta-2.
The Colmarian Confederation, in its great and forever expansion, enveloped the Shaedstan people when Delovoa was only seventeen years of age.
As part of Colmarian Confederation policy, all citizens underwent genetic manipulation in order to give rise to spontaneous and random mutations. Mutations which could be used to defend the Colmarian Confederation against its many adversaries, since it couldn’t do so militarily.
The vast bureaucracy of the Colmarian Confederation decided that those on Shaedsta would not be mutated. They were too insignificant compared to the residents of Shaedsta-2 and not worth the expense.
This was, for those remaining on Shaedsta, a rather nasty kick in the face. Not only were they rejected by their own species residing two planets away, and who tended to be brighter, healthier, and more attractive, but they were rejected by their new empire.
At this point, Delovoa only had two eyes, a round head, slight build, and was in all ways a normal Shaedstan. Which was to say, exceedingly unremarkable. Even if he were to become the greatest athlete and scholar on his entire planet, he would still lag behind the average person on Shaedsta-2.
Add to that having no access to mutations—which the Colmarian Confederation promised could only ever be beneficial—and Delovoa found his future prospects truly depressing. But he was clever and ambitious…as much as his sub-species could be. And unlike most of his countrymen, he was excellent at telling falsehoods. In fact, he prided himself on the ability to not tell the difference between reality and his own untruths.
The main mutation facilities were to be set up on Shaedsta. The toxic chemicals and potential for catastrophic results were deemed best left to the throwaway planet.
“Do you know what goes on here?” the tall and handsome Shaedsta-2ian asked.
“No,” Delovoa lied.
“Have you ever worked as a janitor before?”
“Yes,” Delovoa lied again.
“Can you lift this?” The large man handed Delovoa a bucket of water carefully. As if he was afraid it might rip the arms off the smaller Shaedstan. But Delovoa managed.
“Sure. And I’m a hard worker, sir,” Delovoa lied for the third time.
“Go to the examination room. You’ll have to be tested regularly.”
“Thank you!” Delovoa said.
He turned to leave the room and passed another hulking Shaedsta-2ian.
“Leave the bucket,” the man called after him.
Delovoa put it on the ground, saluted, and left.
He could hear the men laughing at his back.
“Dumb Native,” one of them said.
Natives. That’s what they called those who had remained behind. Only twenty generations and the Shaedsta-2ians looked like a completely different species. Or more like adult versions, while Shaedstans were stuck in gawky pre-puberty.
The doctor at the examination room didn’t even ask Delovoa to stand or sit or take off his clothes. He did it for him. He picked Delovoa up with one hand. Forced open his mouth. Turned him upside down. And basically handled him like a spoiled kid abusing a doll.
Finally, he checked his arms.
“You can’t do any drugs or drink, you understand? Drink alcohol. You still need to drink water or you’ll die.”
Delovoa was already humiliated by this ordeal and was regretting coming here. His racial meekness was, paradoxically, asserting itself.
“I understand, sir.”
“If I see you’ve been taking any drugs or stealing anything or sleeping on the job, I’ll have your hide.”
“My hide, sir?”
“Skin you,” the doctor snarled.
“What do you want with my skin?”
“I’ll fire you, so don’t do those things! You’re only here because we’re required to hire Natives. And there are plenty more who want this job.”
Delovoa knew there weren’t. There weren’t many left on Shaedsta and none wanted to work at the giant, high security facility, with its army of Shaedsta-2ians marching around reminding them of how inferior they were.
The installation did so many checks because they were worried the Natives would hurt or otherwise contaminate themselves. Or worse, interfere with the mutation process for the billions of Shaedsta-2ians who had to be processed.
Still, it was relatively informal. When the doctor saw Delovoa, he tended to batter and poke and twirl him around looking for anything out of the ordinary.
Fortunately, this wasn’t very often because Delovoa worked at night and the doctor tended to be in the afternoon. Still, Delovoa dreaded their encounters.
Delovoa was amazed by the facility. He explored it as best he could while still working. He found the machines they used to administer mutations. The machines to monitor the process. The long-term therapy areas. Everything associated with turning Colmarians into mutants, the Confederation’s greatest scientific achievement.
But it took a month for Delovoa to find what he was really looking for:
The actual mutation drugs.
His goal, the reason he was subjecting himself to these daily indignities, was so he could give himself some of the Colmarian Confederation’s guaranteed beneficial mutations.
Unfortunately, the Confederation had exaggerated their success rate. A significant number of all mutations were negative. And an even greater number were so slight as to be useless.
But more importantly, the process of mutating someone was incredibly involved. You had to perfectly match their genes and introduce the mutagen slowly.
Delovoa didn’t know that, however, as he was just a janitor. A Shaedstan janitor well below average intelligence and not remotely capable of understanding the intricacies of forced mutation.
It had taken him another month to finally get the passcode for the door. Always mopping the same floor as scientists walked in.
“Ah!” Said one biologist, after he slipped on Delovoa’s preternaturally polished floor. “Go work on some other hallway, stupid Native!”
“Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.” Delovoa said, bowing.
It was only because his species was so routinely ignored that he had been permitted to investigate as he had. He was very nearly invisible.
Delovoa entered the mutagen storage center one night and found himself surrounded by literally millions of samples. The complexity of it all was crippling, and Delovoa found himself curled into a ball on the floor, coughing and drooling instinctively.
The Shaedstan defense mechanism was to play sick and diseased, so predators would be afraid to eat them.
Night after night Delovoa would enter the storage center, gradually gaining more courage.
His dream was that he would mutate himself into a form strong enough to survive on Shaedsta-2 where he could have a normal life. The kind he read about in the new tele stories that featured Shaedsta-2ian love affairs, and Shaedsta-2ian adventure series. No one wrote about Shaedstans. They would only appear as an adjective now and then to describe someone particularly dumb or small or worthless.
But coming this far, Delovoa didn’t quite have the courage to take that final step. And he wasn’t sure what the final step should be. He was not a biologist or doctor or engineer or any of the hundred or so high tech professions required to instigate the mutation process.
What concerned him most, however, was getting caught. It was Shaedstan instinct to stay away from danger, because playing sickly wasn’t a very good last defense.
If he took the drugs the doctor would know. Or the scientists. Or someone
. And then what would they do to him?
“Come here, Native,” the doctor said.
Delovoa almost jumped out of his skin. He had been staring at the mutagen storage area, daydreaming.
“Yes, sir,” Delovoa bowed.
He ran over and the doctor peered into his eyes, nose, mouth, ears, lifted him up, checked his arms, pulled down his pants, checked his knees, calves, feet, thighs, buttocks.
The doctor let him go and moved on.
Delovoa slowly collected himself and looked up the hallway. He saw one of his fellow Shaedstan janitors lying on the floor. He was playing sick. Seeing Delovoa so mistreated had triggered the other janitor’s defensive instinct.
It was then that Delovoa decided for certain he did not want to be like this. Even if the mutagens killed him, he would try.
Two nights later he got the opportunity.
He snuck into the storage area and was again confronted by the library of gene formulas.
Delovoa reached up and grabbed a random sample. It was in its own sealed, mechanical container. Delovoa had earlier stolen a syringe that he knew could administer the containers and he put the sample in.
But where to apply it? His arm? His chest? The doctor might see those.
He felt the top of his hairy head.
His hair! It would cover any injection marks.
Delovoa took a deep breath and injected himself at the back of his skull.
He woke up on the floor an hour later, his head throbbing, his vision blurred. He quickly replaced the sample and hurried out of the mutagen center, running into walls and doorways along the way.
After three months, Delovoa had injected himself eight different times with eight different samples. He was getting better at the procedure.
Of course, the “procedure” was completely incorrect. The mutagens were never meant to be injected directly into a subject. The mutagens also shouldn’t be randomly chosen. And only one was supposed to ever be used per patient.
Delovoa’s DNA was busy sliding around and fighting with itself when he bumped into the doctor.
“Native. What’s wrong with your head?” he asked.
Delovoa felt his skull, which was tender and bruised. He didn’t know it, because mirrors were not tools regularly used by Shaedstans, but his eyes were starting to become misaligned on his face, the shape of his cranium was changing, and his hair was falling out in patches.
Hard Luck Hank: Delovoa & Early Years Page 6
