The Court of Crusty Killings: A Captain Space Hardcore Adventure

by Michael Ronson

  “That man… killed someone close to me-” I ventured.

  I had never been as inventive or as quick with lies as Space was. A lifetime of getting caught in inappropriate bedrooms wearing fewer clothes than necessary had taught him to be quick with an explanation or story, but I had never had to develop this skill. I felt myself stammer.

  I remembered that Jacques had a relative among the rebel prisoners and tried to tap into that. “-He killed… my sister.” I had the man’s attention, though he hid it well, so I went on.

  “It was during one of the later uprisings on my home planet and the aristocracy-the hated aristocracy-were desperate. They wanted to quell our resistance once and for all, so they brought in a man to break our spirit. That man was the Master Baker. He was young back then, more of an apprentice chocolatier or a saucier really, and he was making a name for himself. It wasn’t just bread back then; he used stews, casseroles-I hear he could do some pretty nasty things with a bratwurst-anything to get the job done. We didn’t know he was on the planet-we should have, I should have. I came home after a busy day of tearing down the system and rousing the flagging morale of the underclasses and as soon as I walked in the door, I knew something was wrong. That smell! I’ll never forget it. It was a message, you see: a message to me. It wasn’t enough that he drowned her; no, he had to make a dramatic example. I walked in the door and found her encased…” I made to hold back a tear, “encased in an enormous jelly. I’ll never forget the look in her eyes. I tried to dig her out of her wibbling, wobbling grave. Sure I did, but as I picked through the jelly and the pineapple chunks, I knew that it was all for naught.”

  I looked at Jacques to see if any of this was getting to him. He was hard to read. I thought it best to just lay everything on the line. “I’ve been following that man for years, going from planet to planet. So no, I may not have as much stake in this revolution as you do, but I do want to help you. I have done so already and I want to keep going. But what I want is the Baker. If that brings us into conflict, Jacques, then so be it.”

  He sat, rocking in his chair and frowning at me for a few long minutes.

  “Walk wiz me”, he said finally and beckoned me.

  We walked out through the partitioned-off segment of his command and out into the hubbub of rebel HQ. Every surface was a messy scrunch of papers and every conceivable space was cluttered with small holographic projectors. I suspected I could gather fragments of dozens of ploys and plots if I was just given a few minutes to inspect it all, but Jacques was walking patiently around, his hands clasped behind his back. He stopped at a workstation where a petite girl was soldering some electronics together. She looked up and saluted but Jacques stayed her formality with a wave of his hand.

  “This is Flum”, he explained. “Why don’t you tell our guest how you ended up ‘ere?”

  The girl coloured slightly and spoke softly. “I was a servant in the palaces since I was but a youngling. I worked for a contessa-I served as a footstool for many a year, as a child. My back, m’lady would say when she felt kind, was the most comfortable and warm she had encountered. I was part of a furniture set-a good job for most, except those that pull bidet duty, of course. There was a bedside table who I had a fondness of. Except as the years went by and I grew, my arms and legs got long so that m’lady’s legs were inclined to an ‘unacceptable degree’. So she had me cast down here.”

  Jacques, who had had his eyes fixed on me throughout the story, thanked her and we moved on to another workstation.

  “What brought you down here?” Jacques asked of an elderly man who was poring over some scribbled files.

  “I was employed by the Royal Gardener as a scarecow”, he explained.

  “Don’t you mean scarecrow?”

  “I wish!” he chortled. “Those guys have it easy. Birds scare easily, but cows? No way. I was posted along the royal gardens to ward off the wild and domesticated cows that wander the plots. Useful beasts, but if they want to chew cud near you then they won’t be put off with a few gestures. Especially since we were tied to posts. I’d yell at the cows to scare ‘em off, as was my job, but more often than not they’d just amble over and lick at my face with their big cow-tongues. There’s no mercy in a cow’s eyes. ‘Course they got past me easy enough, which was apparently my fault- I was a failure. I was offered the choice: be a part of the annual peasant hunt or go down the mines. I chose the place where you’re less likely to be harpooned from a hovercraft.”

  “Thank you Michel, zat is all”, Jacques said to the man, who quickly returned to his work. “We ‘av plenty of stories like zat: workers mistreated by ze gods and thrown down ze pits, but zat is only ‘alf of ze story. Some are born into zis life. Gondi!” he called over to a stooped figure, who ambled over to us. “Tell us your story”, he invited.

  “Not much to tell”, the old man wheezed. “I were born down t’mines, like my pa afore me. Worked the pits man and boy so I ‘av. I been carryin’ t’pickax since afore I could walk, most likely. Me pa told us that it were the proudest moment of his life watchin’ me take me first steps down a pit. He said he cried that day. He said the foreman who were whippin’ me when I took them steps got right emotional as well. Some say it’s cruel to have a baby down here but I can see why he and ma had me. Ye get an extra fifteen minutes on yer lunch break the day ye have a kid and the foreman gives ye tuppence and a handshake. It’s a tradition. Still, it’s been a hard road. Up at t’crack o’ dawn, shovelling solid rock for eighteen hours, then a pot o’stew and off to bed. Hard work but it’s the only life I know.”

  “Why did you join the rebellion?” I asked.

  “Had a lad of me own. I got this notion in me head that I’d quite like the boy to see the sun in his life, soft little pansy that he is. I need to give the kid a head in life that I never had and if that means stickin’ it to that new queen then I’ll just have to do that.”

  “Thank you, Dunc, that’ll be all.” Jacques looked at me, and then we slowly walked back into his little area of the encampment, where I closed the partition behind me.

  “What was that for? I know it’s bad. I’ve been out there”, I said as he sat down.

  Jacques gave a heavily accented sigh. “Zat was not for you. I ‘av to remind myself”, he said, running his hand over his face. “I do not show you zis to shame you, T-Bone. Ve all have our reasons to fight. Mine, like you, is mah see-ster. She is being held in the very prison we are set to raid. Ah care for her and Ah care for mah people, but I get so weary of all ze struggle. We just wan’ to be free-free to be something apart from slaves or furniture or the plaything of a hungry cow. Is that so much to ask? But your request strikes a chord wiz me, T-Bone.”

  Jacques stood and rested his hand on my shoulder, a ray of affection finally breaking on his flinty features. “The Baker’s usefulness is at an end after tonight, after the Hailstrom affair.. His job is complete. Our Benefactor knows zis and he will be leaving. In fact, right now he will be preparing the final move of zis game. Ah never approved of zee man, but in mah position morality becomes grey… Zee stories of mah fellow rebels remind me of the reasons we carry on. And Ah can respect your plight.

  “Ze Benefactor vill not mind-in fact zey suggested knocking that baking bastard off to elide his heavy fee, but I refused out of fear of his floury grip. So if Ah can help you get some vengeance on ze man, Ah will do so. Your actions will not hurt our cause-since he leaves tonight anyway.”

  “I sense a but”, I replied warily.

  “Do not be crass. However, nozing in this life is free. You are a fine soldier and you ‘av helped our cause immeasurably today. Ah want you by mah side as we retake our people. Do zis for me and I will lead you to ze man you seek. Do we ‘av a deal?”

  He clasped my shoulder.

  I sighed.

  * * *

  Chapter Twelve!!!!!!!!!!!!

  Investigations and Meditations in the Rainstorm

  In which Space traces
the Aplubian bloodline and makes a discovery, Funkworthy plans a breakout and a rumbling starts below the earth.

  It was raining. Hard.

  It was raining like the sky was mad at the ground. It was raining sheets of cold water like the gods had decided to drown us all in their tears. The black closed around the palace; the night draped darkness over this city of lies like a sad old maid.

  When you get in a mood like this, it’s hard not to think in metaphors.

  Depression sat on my head like an octopus, squirting inky ejaculations of fatalism into my brain like a tentacle-y symbolic hat. The case was at a dead end, or would be if I couldn’t pull something out of this last lead.

  I dawdled outside the library, blending into the shadows behind a door and looking at my reflection in the nearby window. I had picked up Snoopel’s dirty mac on the way out the door, spying the weather and knowing I'd have to brave it. It hung off my powerful frame, making me look shabby, beaten, and like Inspector Snoopel. It was worn-in, slack and brown. It felt slept in, and as I reached into the pocket I pulled out a packet of cigarettes-a brand called ‘smokes’. Hm. I lit up a smoke and stooped to pick up a hat resting on a mantlepiece. I jammed it on my head and inhaled the tar. It burned my throat and the warm pain felt good.

  The universe was telling me what way to go.

  I had been going about it all wrong, I decided.

  Looking in the distorted reflection, I didn’t recognize myself. I looked like Johnny Frenches-the hero of a series of hardboiled detective movies I had been a fan of when I was a child, back in the days when I was unaware of the blackness of the verse, when every day tasted like apples and innocence and flan. I could barely remember that now. Dirty, tired and defeated, my reflection looked back at me with a question in its eyes: how far can you fall, hotshot? A big case can warp the clues and the motives; it can even shatter the image of the man delving into the mystery and reform it anew. I barely recognized the man wearing my face. I took the mask that stared at me and tried it on. The case needed to be solved by any means.

  I entered this case like Captain Space Hardcore-conquering hero, owner of the squarest jaw west of the geometry constellation and the COAR’s shiniest medals-but now I was looking at a different man altogether. The case had gotten to me, darkened my vision, run me ragged. Now I was looking at a stranger in my reflection. Maybe it was a good thing. You need to adapt to the challenges that face you, and this twisted and incestuous plot required a lower profile kind of a hero. I decided to embrace it. I am Johnny Frenches, I thought. I took a fresh drag and lowered the brim of my hat as a flash of lightning tore the sky in two like a sheet.

  I heard the door open and fell in behind it, becoming a shadow. Carstairs had said that he was coming to the end of his shift. Perfect. I was waiting for exactly that. Light daggered out of the open door as Carstairs ventured out, collected his coat and made for the exit. He didn’t see me, but I saw him. Let’s see if we can keep it that way, I thought. I trod on his shadow as I slipped out of the swinging door after him. A good start. He turned up his collar to the wind and set off. I let the door close behind me and started off after him, stealthy as the ghost of a shadow’s whispered fart in the night.

  The wind was as bitter as an ex-wife and it howled like a dozen Pelion wolves. The rain fell like the tears of Aplubian angels on this cursed earth; it fell like all the things I mentioned a while back. I squinted against it as the ice water darted into my eyes like a million angry opticians. The whipping wind whispered in my ear like the ghost of a thousand old cases still tugging at my conscience. There were ghosts in the night, all right. I slit my eyes and walked on into the icy night, the ember of my smoke leading me onward, downward. The past is a cruel joke. I walked on down a narrow alley as the past stretched out behind me, trying to claim me.

  The Butler slipped down a side alley and, sure as fate, I followed.

  My options had narrowed down to a single one. There was guilt hovering over this city like the stink from an overflowing sewer system and every eye reflected the face of that same old devil. It was a devil I knew: we had danced before and he was a lousy partner. I was still sporting the bruised feet from our last tango. But none of the perps I had shaken down had been in league with the particular devil I was chasing. They had their demons, all right. There’s none of us innocent, but I was after a queen inflater, not a drunkard or a cheat or a tax fraud. I chased on.

  Now I was walking after both the Royal Butler and my first gut feeling. He had to be guilty, but after this investigation, I was beginning to doubt even my formidably intuitive stomach. Wanting something bad enough was like a drug: you start needing it enough and it clouds out everything else in your life.

  I had no choice, though. I shadowed the Butler and after a few twists in the road he stalled, put a hand into his coat and took out a shadowy communique. I ducked behind a bin and watched.

  There was a postbox near him and, looking around him, he slotted the package inside. I waited until he drifted off before I pounced on it.

  My hand snaked down into the throat of the hungry gullet of the letter repository. The tide was high, so I scooped the first layer of letters from on top. I tore into the first letter. A cheerful clown announced some kid called Alent's 10th birthday from the cover of a garish card. All downhill from here, kid, I thought to Alent. Childhood was a drunkard’s dream that cast a phony afterglow on the torrid misery of the universe. I tossed the card aside. The next envelope contained a love letter from a young man to the dame that had snared him. A bitter taste rose in my throat. I tore up the letter. I’m doing you a favour, kid, I thought, dames ain’t no good. They tear your heart out and stamp on it with steel-tipped stilettos only to fill the hole with bilge water and bitterness.

  The third letter was my target. ‘Dear mother, it’s Carstairs’. Bingo! ‘Mother’ was clearly code, but where was the key? The rest of the letter read in flat declamations, free of the gnomic linguistic tics that denoted hidden cyphers. ‘You may have heard of the tragic death of Queen Pompfrompulon’, he bragged. ‘I feel so sad at the loss’, he lied. ‘I am aggrieved at the arrival of a boorish investigator, who is upsetting matters.’ I grimaced at the slander being levelled at Funkworthy. There was a code embedded in these bland sentences, I was sure of it. I pocketed the letter and, while delving into the mac’s inner pocket, found a matchbook from a dive bar. I struck the sulphur tip of one, let it flare in the howling night like hope, and then dropped it into the box. The rest of the letters caught quickly and the box started exhaling a steady stream of black smoke, more lies spilling into an air already choked with them. That’s right, Carstairs, whatever other transmissions were in there will be naught but ashes within the hour.

  I dashed after the echoing steps of his passage, the wind at my back now, howling in my ears like a harpy. I caught his shadow as it stooped before a lighted edifice of a building. Another stop so soon, Carstairs? What a busy boy. A woman came to greet him and stretched her arms toward him. He deposited a large sack into her care. What fresh transaction was this? As he moved off into the fug of dark, I moved into the lamplight and read the sign of the building he had stopped at. ‘Aplubian Orphanage’. What fresh terror was this? A package gifted to a child shop by a suspected murderer?! I tore the door open and pelted down the corridor. The matronly lady carrying the package squealed as I tackled her in the back, but after a brief scuffle I wrestled the package from her and dashed back out the door. I kicked it to splinters on my exit and hurled the box out the door, where it clattered down the stairs of a nearby building. As I dived for safety, I saw the sign above this new building. Another Aplubian Orphanage? That was just bad city planning. I had no time now to retrieve it once more. I covered my ears and waited for the explosion. My only question was whether Carstairs and his revolutionary cronies would use a straight explosive or a chemical agent.

  I waited for a minute in this position in silence. I was starting to regret the haste, to be honest. Whe
n I heard the scuffling, I looked up to find the daft woman I had tackled and a gaggle of abandoned children swarming around the deadly package. I raced to them again to find them prising the lid off a wooden crate stuffed full of foodstuffs. Jars of preserves, pickled vegetables and bountiful bunches of sausages sat within the pine box. More tricks! The children were undernourished and thus easy to push aside. I picked up the box and stowed it under my arm. Who knew what yeasty poisons Carstairs had injected into these innocent looking wares? Not me, and I was taking no chances with the lives of these parentless little angels.

  “Please, mister, we’re so hungry.”

  “What are you doing, sir?”

  “I’m sooo cold, mister.”

  “Have you come to be my daddy?”

  I swatted these questions aside along with their questioning expressions and the faces they were on. Their desperate need would have been their own undoing, had Carstairs done as I suspected and replicated his regicide by piping croutons into the centre of these preserved peaches. I ran from the place and, to a lesser extent, the orphan’s questions.

  Putting the squealing appeals behind me, I jammed the nectar-sweet treats into my mouth. After all, I was not the one allergic to breaded products and I had to confirm my suspicions. The first jar yielded no results-a distraction, no doubt. But by the time I got to the second jar, my stomach protested and I hefted the rest of the box into a nearby lake. Those kids were lucky I was trailing this scum or they could have suffered an explosive fate.

  The echoing footfalls were near. I slinked down the side streets. The trash was piling up around me, the graffiti emerging from the walls as though the veneer of respectability was finally peeling away. The Butler was living in a rough part of town, which was fine by me since I was feeling more at home by the step.