by S E Zbasnik
CONTENTS
Title Page
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Series Order
Dwarves in Space
Family Matters
Free Radicals
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FREE RADICALS: DWARVES IN SPACE Copyright © 2018 by S.E. Zbasnik.
All rights reserved. No part of this book my be used or reproduced in any manner without explicit permission of the author except in the case of quotations embedded in critical reviews. Any resemblance to people, creatures, or rather tasty pies is purely coincidental. I tried to form my own parallel universe where it did exist, but the chipmunks kept catching on fire and exploding. Chipmunks are not team players.
CHAPTER ONE
A finger tapped against the polished desk trying to snag the attention of the banshee working behind it. It seemed unlikely she'd get any attention soon, her drab clothing and particular odor of burnt wiring and chemical showering pegged her for what she was -- a hand for hire. Variel rapped out another ditty from an ogre show tune on the metal before returning to the woman working the host duties.
“How long…?”
“It will be a few more minutes,” the banshee interrupted. The gold plate beside her nail polish proclaimed her to be “Deathgrip” but Variel couldn’t in good conscience spit that nom de plume out. Rather than argue with the woman, she stepped away from the desk and surveyed the room for the fifth time.
Most of the delicate foyer was designed around the tree, an ancient gnarl of branches splayed across the top, the trunk painted in rainbow colors with ribbons trussed up around the vibrant teal leaves. Small waterfalls fed the pools around its roots, the expensive chemicals tumbling from the mouths of nude statues of various species. The troll was particularly disturbing in ways that were impossible to explain.
It was rare to find a tree on a space station, rarer to find one outside of a “state controlled arboretum” for the rich. But the Pistil & Stamen wasn’t your typical pleasure palace.
“Vampire kiss? What’s a vampire?” the grating voice of a dwarf broke the soothing ripples of the cycling water. Orn wouldn’t put down the menu he swiped from the wall. He cycled through the various options for someone with enough coin and not enough shame to ask for.
He stopped the perusing to eyeball his captain, his dangling feet kicking into the back of the white stones around the tree. She suspected people weren’t supposed to sit there, but that was Orn’s problem. “Well?”
“It’s a human thing.” Variel answered, wafting her hand to cut through the rising perfume of the tree. “Like a sexy ghoul that hates tanning.”
Orn gagged, “A sexy ghoul?” His mind drew up those introverted monsters flocking on the edge of society, most of their flaking bodies shrouded in cloaks. “What in the galaxy is wrong with you humans?”
“Hell if I know,” Variel answered, not in the mood to play the dwarf’s games. He wasn’t even supposed to be here, not that that ever stopped her pilot.
“Humph.” Orn returned to his menu searching, “How about a Djinn Sandwich?”
Variel shrugged her shoulders. She lost track of the euphemisms once he flipped past the corporeal species page.
“Perhaps we should ASK that OTHER customer sitting over THERE?”
The lone ass taking up a velvet chair didn’t shift as Orn’s voice rose, only the tremble of a souvenir paper betrayed that he even heard the question. It was enough to encourage the bored dwarf regretting his choice to trail along on this drop off. “Hm, ‘Threading the Needle’ that sounds like something an ELF would ENJOY, eh Cap?”
She sighed theatrically, in some delusional hope that it would discourage Orn, and returned to her vigil. The banshee picked at her grey hair and knotted another pink and white ribbon in it. Half of her greyscale mane was awash in the pleasure palace’s logo.
“What about this ‘Folding of the Laundry?’” Orn asked, jumping to his mighty four foot stature and rounding upon the seated occupant.
Slowly the paper lowered, the foreign material crinkling as a set of yellow eyes observed the dwarf. “I suspect they will genuinely take your laundry and compress it for you,” the baritone voice dripped with capitulation.
Variel failed to hide the smile creeping across her face as Taliesin succumbed to the dwarf’s nonchalant face. The truth never appeased her pilot. She’d been surprised to find their onboard assassin discreetely waiting in the lobby but nowhere near as entertained as Orn when he spotted the familiar sheen of well dusted boots. Shoes far too expensive for a wandering peasant were the easiest way to spot an infiltrator; assassin’s trained extensively in the art of camouflaged footwear.
Naturally, the easily bored pilot zeroed in on the elf and wouldn’t let him go until something new and shiny came along to distract him. “Our lord and mighty joins us at last,” Orn smirked, shaking the menu off of his PALM. “What brings you to this house of ill repute?”
“I wouldn’t let Madame Pollen hear you say that,” Variel said over her shoulder, trying to inspect one of the waterfall statues as she eavesdropped. Taliesin folded his arms across his dark chest and aimed the megawatt glare of the gargantuan elven eyes upon the dwarf.
Orn clapped his hands once and smiled wide, “Oh goodie, a guessing game!” He templed his gloved hands together and tapped them against his thick lips, “I’m gonna guess you’re here to…assassinate someone!”
“You are the only one in my immediate vicinity,” Taliesin pointed out, trying to bare teeth that meant nothing to the dwarf with the new toy.
Orn waved his dismissive hand, his mind already concocting a theory, “Yes, you were sent to kill a dignitary with a penchant for,” he paused as he scrolled back through the menu, “being ‘shown the error of his or her ways’ by receiving a ‘thrashing from the puckered wood of a cygnacious branch.’”
The assassin blinked slowly, not allowing a thought to mar his black-white marbled brow.
“And what better way to kill this dignitary who was accepting kickbacks to finance the non-corporeal invasion of Ogre space than by dressing like a leather fairy and infiltrating a brothel?” Orn ended with his hands splayed out as if he just finished an impressive dance routine.
Taliesin rubbed the narrow bridge between his eyes as he weighed his options. “If I deny it outright you shall claim…”
“It’s all a government coverup.”
“Yes, that is what I assumed.” For a moment Taliesin uncovered his eyes and looked towards the only human, hoping for a rescue, but she was actively staying out of it. She would pay for that later. “It is classified,” the elf finished.
Orn leapt about as if he found a forgotten sugar scapula in the bottom of a pocket. “I knew it!”
“Yes, congrats, huzzah for you,” Taliesin muttered, rattling the incognito paper and trying to disappear behind it. A voice trickled across the false marbled floor, up their legs, and into the brain. All three heads snapped around trying to find it while also rubbing the tickling sensation off their tongues.
“Forgiveness please for my lateness. I was assisting with a problematic client.” The voice’s owner undulated through the privacy false wall, her roots smudging up what was probably an h
our’s worth of gnome work polishing the floor. Her arm branches lightly tapped against the tree as she passed beside it, a loving caress to remind each other they both still exist. Only a pair of eyes floated from where the face would be on most corporeal species, a mouth and nose unnecessary for the dryad before them. Madame Pollen was not what one expected to find running a spaceside brothel, but she wasn’t typical for a dryad.
Generally, they preferred to remain in their homeworld forests, invisible within their trees or however dryads existed when not in a somewhat solid form. They also almost never took a gender, dryads being as hermaphroditic as the trees they embraced. But Madame Pollen was an adventurer and traveled the galaxy with her sapling strapped to her bark. She found a sense of kinship and joy in providing pleasure for all these species that seemed to enjoy pollinating so much.
Various shades of pinks and whites highlighted the twisting ashen bark across her body. A thin silk shift was stretched and pulled across the midsection, decorated with a rose print. It felt more scandalous to find a dryad with clothes on than one naked. A few of the ribbons were tied to her head twigs, hiding amongst the teal leaves of her “hair.”
Variel slipped on her freelance smile and lifted up the black box she’d carted around for an hour across a stifling space station. She didn’t want to know what its contents looked like now. Madame Pollen’s eye knots burned with joy as a branch extended out of her chest to curl around the box. Orn failed to hide a shudder of horror.
“You have retrieved it?” she asked. The voice was formed from vibrations out of her roots and translated by the bugs in their ears. The computer selected a honeyed tone, like a spinster aunt greeting a beloved relative and offering them sweet tea, but the heart still felt the bass of the root thumping, giving even the sweetest old lady an edge.
“Yes, though after waiting so long I’m uncertain if it’s still in a solid state,” Variel said, mentally adding ‘Not that I won’t still charge you full price.’
But the dryad didn’t seem to care, “No matter, no matter. The videos have already been wired to your account.”
Variel blinked, “They have?”
“Of course,” Madame Pollen placed a branch around Variel’s shoulder. “I put my faith in you. That is a powerful force.”
“Riiight.” She didn’t struggle against the branches hugging around her neck. It was rare to find a client that paid, much less early. “If you don’t mind my asking…” Variel was about to break rule one of her business: never ask the client what the job’s for, “why butter?”
“The merfolk are hosting a convention on fish scale itch or some such malady in a day. It is a particular, popular kink to bathe in butter. A very pricey kink.”
The forced smile twitched as Variel swallowed down asking why fish people got their rocks off bathing in the human equivalent of meat tenderizer. She’d seen enough of the universe to know when to ask questions and when to back off, perhaps while firing wildly to make certain nothing followed. Madame Pollen passed the butter back to the banshee, who took the leaking package with the same disgust Variel felt through customs as it began to soften.
A branch still remained upon the captain’s shoulder as Madame Pollen whispered to her, “You have been a great assistance to me in such a short time. I was in dire straights before your arrival. I gladly offer any of my services to thank you properly.”
Unfortunately, a dryad whisper is on par with a troll bellow and Orn jumped to his feet, wiping greedy hands on his pants, “Now we’re talking. What services are ‘properly thanking?’ None of this ghoul shit.”
Taliesin rose as well, a different emotion coating his face as he asked, “Yes, precisely what services are you offering?”
The dryad seemed to notice the others crowding her foyer for the first time, “I did not realize you brought assistance.”
“I didn’t,” Variel said truthfully. About the only way Orn helped was by trying to convince her ‘margarine was good enough, how was a tree going to tell the difference?’ “They sort of followed me.”
“I see…well, you are all welcome to partake of the bountiful options,” Pollen continued as Orn rubbed his hands together, “together.”
“Together?” Orn asked, horror replacing excitement.
Pollen lifted her glued on eyebrows, “‘The more the merrier’ is the colloquialism, yes?”
Orn choked on his own rising bile as Variel tried to prune the branch off her shoulder, “It’s generous and all, but this is very…”
“Awkward!” Orn shouted. “I don’t want to be within the same sector as the Captain in…” his words faltered as his brain refused to conjure the image.
“I am sorry,” Madame Pollen responded, confused by the prudish dwarf. It was difficult at times for the sexless to understand sexual morals. Sometimes Variel had issues with it and she'd been involved in the dance since she was 16.
Variel watched the relief cross Taliesin’s face when Orn opened his fat gob, “You have yer little human fun in their Captain, take lots of pictures, but I am out of here.” He yanked upon the elf’s sleeve, getting a momentary yellow glare. “Come on, stabby boy. We can find you someone to kill outside the red sash district.”
Taliesin opened his mouth then closed it again, unable to find a proper response. Orn pulled upon his sleeve a few more times. In his frustration, Taliesin yanked his arm away and glared into Variel’s eyes. She lightly shrugged her shoulder and gestured towards the inquisitive pilot. What can I do?
As Orn turned towards the door, Madame Pollen pulled the captain with her, a list of options she’d sat through from the dwarf undulating across the floor. The phrase “Chocolate Gnome Pile” translated in their brains before they vanished through the false wall.
“Are you coming or what?” Orn yelled through the door portal. Taliesin flexed his fingers, his claws extending as he stomped after the dwarf.
CHAPTER TWO
Taliesin kept his face emotionless and his lips pinched as he exited the Pistil & Stamen for one of the open shopping districts on the Whisper. Supposedly, whisper was a slur against the non-corporeal races, but the elf didn’t understand it. Much of human custom escaped him; too much. His claws punctured into his fists bunched behind his back. The dwarf beside him did not notice.
Orn kept up background chatter about whatever thought flitted through his cavernous skull, occasionally nodding his head to a set of sirens giggling over something shared upon their PALMs, or dodging aside of the wheeling waterchair filled with a mermaid. The tan scales of her body shimmered in the light refracting through the water and shields, distracting the dwarf for a moment.
“What was I saying?”
“I do not care,” Taliesin answered truthfully, stopping himself against a swooping bannister above the vast shops on the deck below. He tried to unclench a tic in the back of his jaw, but it only tightened more.
The dwarf fished one of his numerous sweets out of a pocket on his chest and popped the tablet as if it were medicine. His eyes rolled towards the elf watching him and he held a candy up. “You want one?”
“No,” Taliesin said, before adding, “thank you.”
Orn shrugged, “Decorate yourself. Soooo…” he stretched the ‘o’ out until the elasticity of the vowel was uncertain to snap back, “whatcha think the Cap’n’s up to?”
“I do not wish to contemplate it.” Taliesin closed his eyes and lifted his head back as if that could shut off the creative center of his brain.
Orn laughed, causing the candy to dangerously rattle at the back of his throat, but he survived the outburst. Nudging the elf in the hip, he said, “I hear that.” After shuddering at the image of his captain in any state other than neutered, the pilot sighed wistfully, “Still, I’d have been tempted if I had the coin. What about you, boy?”
Taliesin was uncertain why the dwarf insisted on calling the elf that had almost two centuries upon him ‘boy,’ but, like most of Orn’s life, it did not cause any obvious damage so h
e was allowed to continue. “What of me?”
“You elves is all rich.”
He made a very unelfy snort, “We are not.”
“Well, you assassin types are. Got to have the big bucks to afford all that black,” Orn said gesturing to the standard fare of anyone in the guild. It wasn’t a requirement per se, but a uniform helped to calm those around you. And, if there was a need for subterfuge, it provided an easy balance.
Of course I am not an assassin, I am wearing linen in a paisley print.
Silly me. Come in. Sorry, you dropped your really big knife.
“Rich and carefree, that’s the life,” Orn said.
“I never claimed to be rich nor free of care.”
The dwarf carried on as if he didn’t have an audience, “See, you can march right on up to that talking tree and say ‘I’ll take a number 5 with extra jelly’ an’ no one’d even bat an…do drydads have eyes?”
No one knew why Orn insisted on calling them drydads, but after attempting to correct him thrice, Taliesin accepted the dwarf preferred his slander. “There is nothing stopping you.”
“Hi, my name’s Orn. I fly this hunk of shit ship named after half its letters fell off. Clearly we’ve never met before or you’d know my wife, about 120 pounds of pure malice. And that’s on a good day.”
Taliesin shrugged, the rarely exercised cruel streak in his soul rising to the surface. He was in a foul mood and despite any evidence, he suspected some of it was the dwarf’s doing. If Taliesin hadn’t attempted his surprise, none of this would have happened in the first place. “If you prefer ‘hand loose and fancy free’ there is no law impeding your choices.”
The dwarf ignored the loose hand crack as he fiddled with one of the ties around his shirt, “Now, I ne’er said I’d be better off single. Convincing Fer to marry me’s the best thing I’ve ever done.” He paused in his romantic reflections and added, “possibly also one of the stupidest.”
