Hard Luck Hank: Screw the Galaxy (19 page)

“Hey, pal,” Jyonal said as he opened their
door.

“Back at you,” I answered with a fake grin.

He stepped aside and let me in. I was carrying
a very heavy package I hoped to get rid of. I laid it on the ground gently.

“Jyen, Hank’s here,” he called to the back
rooms.

Jyen walked in, wearing an undersized skirt
that showed off her complete lack of body fat. What was most eye-catching,
however, was the fact her skin was bright orange.

“Thanks for dropping by,” she said, giving me a
hug. “You know, I think this is the first time I’ve ever seen you smiling.”

I still had my shocked expression from having
met Jyonal at the door.

“Yeah,” I said. “My teeth keep growing.”

“You’re probably wondering why I’m this color,”
she said, twirling around.

No. But my job was to be a pet to these nuts so
they didn’t kill us all.

“Sure,” I said.

“The blue is a disguise. This is my natural
skin pigment. When they put out searches for us, they’d be looking for someone
with orange skin. They might describe other stuff, but police were going to be
looking for orange most of all. So the fact I was blue, and didn’t hide it,
made me clearly not the person they were looking for.”

“Why not color yourself like everyone else?”

“Why blue? I needed to cover it with a darker
shade.”

All that seemed a little shaky to me and it
must have shown on my face because she continued.

“Think about it. If you’re describing a
Therezian, you’re going to say ‘look for someone who is as tall as a building.’
You might also say what scars he has and hair color, but all that isn’t nearly
as important as his height because it’s so obvious. If he could somehow change
his height to be normal, he might match every other description you have of the
person, but you wouldn’t bother because he’s not the right height.”

I had to admit that seemed fair logic. And it
apparently had gotten them safely to Belvaille, though I had to wonder if her
ears wouldn’t also be a primary descriptor.

“Is that a present for us?” she asked, pointing
to the wrapped package I had.

“No, it’s the metal,” I answered, uncovering
the delfiblinium. “Turns out, heh, it’s explosive.” I shrugged playfully, as if
it was a wacky inconvenience having a comet-destroying piece of alloy at my
feet. “I was hoping Jyonal could magic it away. I can’t even remember what you
all gave it to me for.”

“For saving our lives,” Jyen reminded
sincerely.

“It’s not magic,” Jyonal said. There was
something decidedly more unnerving about him when he was sober. “I change
things almost instantaneously, but if it is explosive, there’s a chance it
might detonate. I can try, though.”

I quickly covered the metal cube.

“Nah, don’t worry about it. Shouldn’t be a big
deal. But to be on the safe side, you probably shouldn’t make any more.”

“We didn’t know it was explosive,” Jyen said.

“It’s fine. I have your guys’ paperwork.”

I handed them each a small stack of documents
and cards based on the biodata they had given me on a previous visit.

“Will it matter if I’m orange or blue?” Jyen
asked.

“No. Physical appearance never factors in. That
stuff is way too easy to change. But if Jyonal goes and makes himself a new
body again, that might be a problem. At least for the R.O.M. and Citizenry Doc.
It was pretty difficult to get all this stuff, the forgers are really backed up
because of the Navy coming. But you guys are now free to move anywhere in the
Confederation.”

“Thanks, Hank,” Jyonal said, examining the
items thoughtfully. He glanced at his sister.

“You’ve been a tremendous help, and a great
friend. But we’re not sure if we want to leave Belvaille.”

I felt myself smiling again as I thought of
what to say.

“Oh, yeah?” was all I could come up with.

“We’ve read all about the space station in
The
News
. It’s just the kind of outlaw place where we could fit in. No one will
notice us here. If we leave, we’re just going to have to keep running forever.”

“Yeah, Belvaille is at the edge of the galaxy
with just one Portal in. And we’re acquainted with the most famous person on
the station,” Jyonal added kindly.

I was going to kill Rendrae. Take this hunk of
delfiblinium and beat him on the head with it. But this wasn’t going to do. I
had to convince these guys to shove off at the earliest opportunity. They were
wanted by the military and probably wanted by the Dredel Led and who knows what
else.

We spent the night playing cards and having a
few glasses of alcohol, which I religiously refused, hoping Jyonal would do the
same. He did not.

The poor bastards, having grown up in a
laboratory, were virgins when it came to cards. I had to explain every rule. As
we played, I tried to slander Belvaille as best I could, hoping to cast it in a
darker light. I would have talked up other colonies and cities as better
alternatives, but I didn’t really know any.

After a bit, though, I overplayed my hand.

“Do you not want us to stay, Hank?” Jyen asked
astutely.

“No, no, it’s nothing like that. I just want
you guys to be clear on what the station is really like. I want what’s best for
you two. I feel like we’re good friends,” I said.

“Me, too! We have so much in common,” Jyen said
enthusiastically.

I gave her a look. I couldn’t think of two
people I was more unlike.

“Right. But still, this isn’t the best place in
the galaxy. It’s not much better than the facility you grew up in. Everyone
here is a prisoner in one way or another.”

“Well, if we left you could come with us,” Jyen
said, and she looked at her brother. “We could use your help. You know so
much.”

Jyen put her hand on mine and looked into my
eyes with those innocent blue orbs of hers.

“I’m just used to it here. And I’m old.”

“You’re not old,” Jyen laughed.

“I’m almost 300,” I said.

“You’re being silly, now,” Jyen said, making an
illegal play in the card game.

I had to think of another way of dissuading
them. It apparently wasn’t going to happen via my silver tongue. If they were
normal people, I could just hire some random goons to harass them until they
became disenchanted. But either Jyen would fry them or Jyonal would turn their
brains into delfiblinium.

Come to think of it, they were probably better
equipped to deal with Belvaille than just about anyone. At least physically.
Mentally and emotionally, however, they belonged in a zoo.

Belvaille was going to chew them up.

I caught up with the rest of Garm’s
tattletales, and like she said, it was no real problem taking care of them.

I didn’t even have to assault them, let alone
murder any. It’s amazing how unbold some people become when asked to back up
their words with action. And by action I mean getting beat up.

The guy who’d run away earlier was more of a
problem. I swear he must have been in a constant state of sprint for six days.
I’m not sure where he was expecting to go, but he did it well. It got to the
point where I was getting eyewitness accounts that only described him as
“blurry.”

But he had a home. And he had a lumpy little
wife who didn’t care much for politics or positions or what her husband was
trying to stand up to. She got him to come home, have a chat with me, and let
me explain things. It was not a hard choice for him, really.

The bonfires had started in the meantime.

Enormous, multi-block purges of illegal goods.
Whole warehouses full of stuff had been trucked out to the west and set alight.

It took everything the city had to control the
blazes, and the flames were so high I bet some of the empty, adjacent apartment
buildings deformed in the heat.

I stopped by just so I could say I saw it. I
figured if there was any distant settlement that could see Belvaille it would
have looked like a new star had entered the firmament.

They had to put the bonfires right next to some
of the big filtration pumps so we all didn’t suffocate. But they could only
burn things that could be burned, of course. Like, no use trying to burn
weapons. You’d just end up with a street full of half-melted guns and that’s
not going to fool anyone.

The fires went on around the clock. The
material that didn’t get fully incinerated at one location they threw into
another that was already burning, with the ashes and debris vented into space.

There were at least three main fires going at
once. I saw thousands of gallons of illegal liquor get thrown on like
aftershave. And you’re thinking, “Surely we could drink that?” But there wasn’t
time.

Everyone had their hands full spit-polishing
the city in anticipation of the Navy. I half expected crime to rise
dramatically as folks got in their last shots and settled old debts before we
were forced to act proper, but people were too preoccupied.

And strange as it was, there really was a kind
of esprit de corps at the station. I hadn’t heard of even a scuffle breaking
out.

Even Rendrae kept to his word and published
lots of uplifting stories about nothing of real consequence. In exchange, I
made sure Garm didn’t bother him.

Every day there were three scheduled
evacuations from the airlocks. Contraband that couldn’t be destroyed was
ejected at speed and would hopefully be far enough away when the ships got here
they wouldn’t scan them.

It turns out our ability to hide items from
detection had been grossly overestimated. We literally had square miles of
illegality and only square feet that was securable. And that was parceled
evenly among the bosses and probably amounted to no more than a few rooms
apiece.

One of the weirdest developments of all this
preparation was everyone got a new job. An official, pleasant-sounding
occupation they could tell the authorities with somewhat of a straight face.

We had to account for all these people on the
station, and it would do no good to tell them you were a smuggler’s assistant
or a fence when we were pretending to be upright Colmarian citizens.

Most people were given a job assigned to one of
their boss’s semi-legitimate enterprises. Waitresses, bartenders, cooks, etc. I
think all the bookkeepers had put their heads together to come up with this
master list.

I was made a pipe refitter in official employ
of the city of Belvaille itself. They even provided me a paragraph describing
what I did and a pair of soiled coveralls that didn’t fit.

I had a lot of people leaving me messages that
they wanted to borrow money. With the Portal closed for so long, everyone was
out of cash. The loan-shark rates were through the roof. The whole economy was
starting to break down and bartering for wares and services was not uncommon.

Then I got a tele from Grever Treest, the drug
dealer I had used to score the mounds of chemicals for Jyonal.

“Hank, can you come over? I really need to
talk.” He sounded upset. But that was the general mood nowadays. The new
normal.

I didn’t especially feel like it, but hopped on
the train. I was curious to see how Deadsouth was handling the news of the Navy
coming.

Based on the trashy streets and junkies leaning
against buildings, they were handling it like they handled anything else. I’m
not even sure they knew.

Grever checked his door and let me in. His
apartment’s décor had changed somewhat since I had last been over. It was now
absolutely filled with drugs. Piles of the stuff stacked a foot tall. You
couldn’t even see the floor.

“Hank, thanks for coming,” he said, shutting
the door immediately. He was still nervous, with darting eyes, and his hair was
a perpetual grease spigot.

“What are you doing with all this?” I asked.
“You’re supposed to get rid of it. You don’t think the Colmarian Navy is going
to notice you have a couch made out of narcotics?

“Heh, good one. Yeah, that’s what I wanted to
talk to you about. I know there’s places where we can hide stuff. But it’s just
the luminaries who have access to it. They told me to shove off even when I
offered to buy space.”

“So you figured I had access?” I asked.

“Well, you’re Hank, right?” He laughed.

Grever probably bought up all these drugs for
next-to-nothing and now he was looking to use our tenuous connection to hide it
when others couldn’t. Not a bad plan, that.

Except I couldn’t remotely hide this much. They
had given me a closet to use and I was going to put my Ontakian pistol in it.

However.

Jyonal had knocked the whole city unconscious
when he got drunk. He had shaken the city to its foundations when he got high.
What would happen if he went into drug withdrawal?

It was eventually going to become pretty
difficult to score a hit on Belvaille, and that might be bad for Jyonal—which
might be very bad for all of us.

But did he even go into withdrawal with his
homemade body? I suppose I could ask him, but I didn’t want him to get upset.

“I don’t have the room,” I said plainly. “No
one does. Not in any of the protected containers.”

Grever jumped with excitement.

“Right, but I don’t need one of those high tech
jars you all have. If they could scan for,” and he reached down and grabbed a
drug, “Dysolinol at range, there wouldn’t be any drug dealers in the galaxy.
Sure, they can scan it if they have it in their hand, but they can’t just zap
waves out and know you’re smoking. These are the same compounds in everyday
food, just rearranged. I mean, there are a few that can be detected, because
they’re so oddball, but I didn’t buy any of them.”

So he just confirmed he bought all this stuff
after knowing the Navy was coming. Jerk.

I hadn’t really kept abreast of what, if
anything, was being stored in the hidden areas, the buildings that weren’t on
blueprints and the secret caches underground. I’d heard they were even
strapping cargo boxes on the outside of the station, though that seemed awful
risky considering we’d be surrounded by warships.

“I don’t know, Grever. I can almost be certain
you bought too much, regardless of where we hide it. You might have to burn
it.”

And Grever clasped his hands together,
pleading.

“Hank, this is all my money. Every credit. If I
lose this, I’m on the street. I literally got nothing.”

“Yeah, but you made this play on your own,
selling out once the city goes dry.”

“Hank, can you check? Can you try? I will cut
you in. Whatever percentage you want.”

“Let me ask,” I said. I specifically had to
find out what Jyonal needed, which scared me to death. And I had to ask Garm
what I could use, which also scared me to death.

I hadn’t spoken to Garm in more than a week, I
knew how slammed she was trying to get the city in order. To bug her over one
drug dealer seemed incautious. But it might be necessary.

I figured I could always play it safe and stuff
my own cabinet full of drugs and feed those to Jyonal as he needed. But with
his appetite it might not last long.

“Thanks, man, thanks,” Grever said. He handed
me a packet of drugs—in gratitude, I suppose.

I was about to return it, but then I thought
this would be a good way to open the subject with Jyonal.

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll be in touch.”