“Lift!” Nora bellowed again.
“Lift,” seconded Cole, taking another drink.
MaryAnn wandered by a few meters away, her attention focused on the construction and the microphone in her hand.
“The brave creatures of Yrnameer have set to the task of defending their idyllic community,” Cole heard her saying.
“MaryAnn,” he said, calling out to her. She turned, spotted him, and waved back with a smile. He returned both gestures. There, that was more like what he’d been hoping for.
“You gonna help, or are you just gonna sit there and flirt with your little sweetheart?” said Nora, who staggered by carrying a heavy load of wood.
“You know, you’re very sexy when you’re sweaty and jealous,” said Cole. Ha, he thought, Good one, mentally raising his glass to himself. Nora scowled and stomped off, shaking her head.
“Sheriff?”
Cole twisted in his seat. It was Joshua, accompanied by a gralleth that shambled along next to him. The gralleth was about half as tall and four times as wide as Joshua, covered entirely in shaggy fur. Cole had seen him at several of the meetings, but hadn’t had a chance to speak with him.
“Sheriff, this is Grilleth,” said Joshua.
“Pleasure,” said Cole. He wasn’t certain, but he thought Grilleth the gralleth nodded back at him. Cole knew there was a head and two eyes in there somewhere, but he wasn’t sure where.
“Did you find anything else?” he asked Joshua.
“No, sir. Same old hunting weapons, a few sidearms. And, uh, Grilleth here says that his kind are, well, they’re very accurate in throwing their—”
“Yeah, I’ve seen that before,” said Cole.
Grilleth made a long rumbly sound.
“No, no need to demonstrate,” Cole said to him. “I’m sure it’ll come in very handy when the time comes, though.”
Grilleth made a few more rumbly sounds and waddled off. They watched him go.
“Can they really throw their—”
“Yes. It’s quite something,” said Cole.
Joshua watched the townsfolk struggling to place another fence post.
“Do you think we have enough people?” he asked.
“Nope.”
“Do you think the traps will work?”
“Nope.”
“And we’re short weapons.”
“Yep.”
“So … what do we do?”
Cole smiled at him.
“We improvise,” he said.
Then he took a very long pull from the bottle of shersha.
That evening Cole knocked on MaryAnn’s door.
“Hi,” she said when she opened it.
“Hi,” he said back.
They hadn’t had a chance to speak since their near-kiss experience. Now, in the silence, that seemed like a long time ago.
“Can I come in?” said Cole.
She hesitated, leaning against the half-open door. “Cole,” she said, “what happened between us was … well, it was … Cole, with everything that’s going on—”
“MaryAnn,” said Cole evenly, putting a gentle hand on her shoulder, “it’s okay.”
She smiled in relief. “It is?”
“Of course,” said Cole. “In fact, I’m glad you feel that way. That’s why I came by. We’ve all got a big task ahead of us. This is life or death. It’s now or never. I’m going to need every ounce of concentration and focus to try and keep this town safe. You understand, don’t you?”
“Yes, of course,” said MaryAnn.
“I’m glad,” said Cole with a grave smile. “I’m so glad.”
As soon as he was around the corner Cole angrily kicked a wall and then limped rapidly in a small circle, swearing.
“Foot okay, Sheriff?”
Nora, observing him from across the street.
Cole shot her a murderous glance and hobbled off, muttering darkly.
˙ ˙ ˙
Time continued to pass in a very nonmontagelike fashion. The fence grew. Holes were dug. Stakes were sharpened and covered with protective padding. Cole forewent the sun umbrella and comfortable chair to supervise the weapons training and drills. There were several accidental discharges, sending people diving for cover. After less than a week there were six superficial bullet wounds, and one new hole added to the already well-perforated town sign.
At one point Cole heard a sharp crack and looked up just in time to see Geldar the sembluk soaring through the air like an errant fly ball, the result of Peter the ‘Puter spinning around too quickly with a two-ton log. It was a blow that would have killed anyone not equipped with a six-inch-thick shell. As Geldar shrank from view Cole had a repeat of the impression that he should know him, but then Geldar disappeared over the rooftops and Cole forgot about it again. After that, Peter was relegated to tasks that could be accomplished with no one in immediate log radius.
The townspeople, joined by a shared goal and hard labor, grew even closer. Cole and Nora, divided by their opinions regarding strategy, tactics, and whether or not he was an idiot, grew further apart.
There was one minor bright spot: despite his recent conversation with MaryAnn, he was making progress with her. He could feel it.
Every day he’d maneuver so that he would casually encounter her when they’d have a few moments alone to chat—keeping it light, not trying too hard, keeping the content breezy. The professional sparing a moment from a vitally important task, always upbeat and cheerful despite the grim nature of the threat that loomed. Then, before the conversation could flag, he’d break it off, apologizing with a smile, needing to get back to work. Leave her wanting more.
Every once in a while he’d catch Nora looking at him, or watching him talking to MaryAnn. Each time she’d immediately shift her attention to something else, her face impassive.
During his last encounter with MaryAnn she asked him, “Do you ever get scared?”
He took the time to look off into the distance as if he were remembering old battles, and heaved a deep sigh. “Everyone gets scared,” he said, his gaze still fixed on the horizon. “It’s what you do with it that matters.” Then he turned back to her and gave her the apologetic smile. “I should …”
“Get back to work,” she said.
He smiled and nodded, then turned to go.
“Cole …,” she said, after he’d taken several steps. He turned back to her. She smiled. “Nothing. Sorry.”
He smiled again and gave her a little salute with two fingers. It was so working.
Two hours later and he had completely forgotten about MaryAnn, Nora, the village, Runk, and the entire situation.
It was the afternoon. Cole was picking bits of soil out of his hair, the remnants of a clod of dirt he’d taken direct to the face courtesy of an exasperated Nora. He’d later retaliated with a playful nudge that sent her into one of the deeper and more muck-filled pits.
As he was prying loose a stubborn pebble from his left ear he spotted Mayor Kimber walking toward him with a clipboard, chatting with Geldar. Watching the sembluk, Cole once again had the fleeting sensation that there was a tantalizing piece of information dancing just beyond the borders of his consciousness.
“Afternoon, Sheriff,” said the mayor when they were near. “Things seem to be progressing nicely.”
“Quite nicely,” agreed Cole. “Careful with that!” he called out to no one in particular.
“Oh, by the way, Sheriff, have you had a chance to meet Geldar?”
“Can’t say I have. Nice to meet you,” said Cole.
“Pleasure’s all mine, Sheriff Cole,” said Geldar, and Cole wondered if he had imagined the slightly amused emphasis—Sheriff Cole. And as he pondered that, the information danced its way across the border.
It couldn’t be.
Impossible.
“Well, we don’t want to distract you,” said Mayor Kimber without irony, and the two continued on their way, Geldar giving Cole a little salute.
Cole watched
them walk off.
Geldar the sembluk. If that was his name, and that’s what he was. Probably. Almost certainly. Then again, thought Cole, maybe he and Bacchi weren’t the only criminals hiding out in the village of Yrnameer. And if so, there might be something else, something so valuable … Impossible.
“Three aces,” said Bacchi.
It was evening. Cole had called an early halt to the construction efforts and sent the exhausted townspeople home. He and Bacchi were once again on the porch, playing cards, Cole distracted.
“Three aces, Cole,” repeated Bacchi.
“What? Oh, right.”
“You know, you could at least put up a struggle and make it interesting,” said Bacchi, dealing another hand. “You’re not even paying attention.”
Cole grunted and buried his face in his cards, but what he was seeing was Geldar. He’d watched him surreptitiously for the remainder of the day, staring at him, hoping for some insight. Why hadn’t he thought of it before? Because it was absurd, that’s why. Could it be him? No, of course not. And even if it was, that didn’t mean that he actually had the thing. Ridiculous. A sembluk. Geldar the sembluk.
“Sembluk,” said Bacchi.
Cole looked up, startled. “What?”
“I said, there’s that sembluk.”
Cole followed his gaze. Geldar was ambling down Main Street, carrying a few cloth shopping bags in his hands.
“You ever see a sembluk before?” asked Bacchi.
“Not before coming here, no.”
“Remember that guy, Stirling Zumi, the one who told everyone that he’d trademarked the trademark symbol?”
Crap. Of course Bacchi would be wondering the same thing. Keeping his voice neutral, Cole said, “Sure. Said he collected a royalty each time something said ‘TM,’ had everyone investing in that gigantic pyramid scheme. Are we playing, or what?”
“Biggest one ever, they say,” said Bacchi, shaking his head in admiration. “Suckers bought in, thought they’d be making a slice of his profit. Except, of course, there is no profit. He makes billions, everyone else gets screwed.”
“Whatever. Two cards.”
Cole didn’t tell Bacchi that he’d met Stirling before. He’d worked for him briefly, helping Stirling launder his ill-gotten gains by shifting some merchandise from Point A to Point B, the two planets Cole hated the most. Cole remembered him as a fat, loudmouthed guy with greasy, slicked-back hair, a human who liked to drink and take stupid risks and brag about it.
“Billions, they say,” repeated Bacchi.
“What’s your point?” said Cole.
He also didn’t tell Bacchi that he already knew what his point was.
“My point is, they say he went kind of crazy. Got all spiritual, gave it all up. Gave away most of his money, ran away. And you know what they say he did, so that no one would ever be able to find him?”
Turn himself into a sembluk, thought Cole.
“Turn himself into a sembluk,” said Bacchi, with a triumphant little smile.
“You believe that nonsense?” said Cole.
“It’s true!” said Bacchi. “I hear humans can do that! Won’t make you into a cannibal or anything!”
“Hmm,” said Cole, doubtfully. “I’ll raise you.”
“And here’s the other thing,” said Bacchi, dropping his voice.
Cole already knew about the other thing. The diamond.
“A diamond. They say he didn’t really give it all away—he kept enough to buy a neutron star diamond.”
A neutron star diamond, the ultimate status symbol. Just a tiny microscopic speck, the remnants of the core of a neutron star after the mining companies were done with it.
“One of those things, they’re worth one hundred million, easy. They say you can barely see it, but it weighs tons,” said Bacchi.
“Yeah, I heard that.”
“So …,” said Bacchi.
“So?”
“So …,” he repeated, gesturing with his nose toward Geldar, who was getting closer.
“Oh, c’mon,” said Cole.
“Could be. This is the perfect place to hole up! Who would come looking for him here?”
“Bacchi, you know what I heard about that guy, that Stirling? That the Saden syndicate caught up to him and made him into something spreadable.”
“Yeah, I heard that, too,” admitted Bacchi.
“So …,” said Cole.
“Could still be him,” said Bacchi.
“Mm-hm. Pair of sixes.”
“Three of a kind.”
“Crap.”
“Hey,” said Bacchi, trying to talk without moving his mouth as he shuffled the cards, “he’s coming over here.”
Cole looked up. Geldar was now ambling toward them.
“Hi, there, Sheriff,” said Geldar when he got close. “Can a guy play some cards?”
Cole had been working very hard over the past several hours, devising a strategy to cultivate Geldar’s trust and elicit the truth. It would be a subtle, multistep process, one requiring a surgeon’s skill and patience.
Midway through the first hand, Bacchi started right in, stomping all over Cole’s beautiful, sterile operating theater with crap-encrusted work boots.
“Soooo,” began Bacchi, utterly failing to keep his tone casual, “where you from?”
“Oh, you know, here and there,” said Geldar. “Raise you two.”
“How long you been here?” said Bacchi.
“Mmm … a little bit now.”
“What did you do before you came here?” pressed Bacchi.
“Oh, this and that,” said Geldar with disinterested equanimity. “Yourself?”
Bacchi shifted uncomfortably before answering. “This and that.”
Cole sat back, annoyed.
“What about you, Sheriff Cole?” asked Geldar.
There it was again, that whiff of emphasis. Maybe it was him, daring Cole to guess.
“Illegal things, mostly,” said Cole.
“Oh,” said Geldar, sounding a bit taken aback. “Oh. Ha ha ha!”
“Ha ha,” said Cole.
Geldar lay down his cards. “Flush.”
Cole tossed his in, followed by Bacchi.
“Look at that,” said Bacchi, indicating Geldar’s hand. “All diamonds.” He looked at Geldar hopefully. Cole scratched his ear and looked away.
“Excuse me?” said Geldar.
“All of your cards … are diamonds.”
“Uh … yep. That’s what makes it a flush, right?” said Geldar.
“Get a flush with diamonds, you have to be a real star.”
“Let me see, is it my turn to deal?” said Geldar.
No. It’s not him, thought Cole. He couldn’t imagine the Stirling he knew responding like that: the sincerity, the hint of honest confusion. Plus, look at him: the shell, the sluggy skin, the three eyes … who would do that to themselves?
They kept playing, Bacchi not letting it go. When Geldar won three hands in a row, Bacchi said, “Wow. You just keep winning. It’s like your … trademark.”
“I think I just got lucky a few times.”
“Maybe you’ll get another flush with diamonds.”
“I suppose that’s possible, but not very probable.”
“Hey, look—I’m stacking my coins in a pyramid.”
“Yes, I see that.”
Geldar’s voice had acquired the cautious, patronizing tone reserved for the cognitively or emotionally challenged. More than once he glanced at Cole as if seeking some enlightenment regarding Bacchi’s behavior, or at least moral support. Cole shrugged apologetically.
“These coins, they’re so silvery,” said Bacchi. “Like sterling.”
“I think maybe one more hand and I should call it a day,” said Geldar politely. It wasn’t him. Cole knew it without a doubt.
Then Geldar lost the next hand, and said, “Oh, paxeration.”
Cole had no idea what the term meant. All he knew was that he’d only heard it
once before, when Stirling Zumi had slopped some wine on his white silk shirt.
Holy farg. It was him.
After Geldar left, Bacchi said, “You may not have noticed, but I was doing a little interrogation thing there.”
“Really.”
“Yep. It wasn’t him. There’s no way.”
“I’ll take your word for it.”
˙ ˙ ˙
Cole walked slowly back toward the ship that night, his head whirling. So Geldar was Stirling. And if something that improbable was true, why not the other rumor as well? The sheer thought of it was staggering—something so precious, right here in the middle of nowhere.
His heart was thumping with excitement. He had to find some way to divine if Stirling actually had the diamond, and if so, how to go from ascertaining that fact to attaining the item.
Yes, he’d still be in a village that was about to be flattened, on a planet he couldn’t escape. But somehow he knew—he just knew— that if he could get his hands on that diamond, everything would somehow work out, that Runk and this absurd situation and all the petty obstacles before him would just fall away, and there would be a new Cole: a Cole who didn’t have to scrabble after crumbs, a Cole who had everything and wanted nothing. A wealthy, happy Cole. A Cole with MaryAnn by his side.
But he was getting ahead of himself. That shimmering future would never materialize unless Cole could confirm that Stirling indeed had the diamond. But how to do that without raising suspicion? How would he ever be able to—and then he stopped dead in his tracks.
“Yes,” whispered Cole.
Yes. That’s how. It might take some time, and the results might be negative, but it would work. Yes.
He started walking again, jaunty now, grinning, almost laughing. “Yes,” he said again, and pumped his fist. As he passed the diner, he glimpsed his ebullient reflection in the large picture window and nodded to himself, the smiling Cole with a potentially glorious future.
And then he stopped dead again, the smile vanishing along with that glorious future, or any future at all.
Through the window he could see MaryAnn sitting at the counter, a half-finished meal in front of her.
That was not what made him stop. It was her companion. Sitting next to her—or, more accurately, covering the five stools next to her—daintily sipping tea, was Kenneth.
The Sheriff of Yrnameer Page 21
