The Adventures of Deacon Coombs (3 page)

At the Aralian Vesper station

The deaths of Como and his dearest friend, Geor, had cast a cloud of depression and uncertainty over the Alliance. The Aralian engineer making her way into the Vesper station felt this discomfort too, as this state of affairs had touched everyone on Aralia, with Como’s funeral having been televised the previous day. It was a rare day that the Vesper station was closed, and now she, as first on duty, plugged her fluorescent card into the coding machine. The machine accepted the card key and then spat it out, and the security laser evaporated, leaving her free to enter.

She stepped down into the hall and noticed the panoramic view before her. Colorful electric particles danced on the disc in the foreground; one of the distant suns of Aralia was blooming in dusty orange, the stars of a million suns twinkling in white, silver, and red behind it. The planet Aralia, partially obscured by the disc, presented itself in shades of spectacular blue and lavender at this time of day. The vastness of space overwhelmed her. Checking her watch, she saw that the rest of the shift would arrive soon, and she had duties to prepare for their readiness.

She felt a prickliness on the back of her neck—the result of her recognition that something was odd. It was only now that she realized a peculiar shadow existed in the far corner of the amphitheater, which by her intuition she surmised should be fully lit by the light of the dancing electrons outside. Cautiously, she spied the rest of the hall. Only in this corner was there an eclipse.

Her body froze. After a moment, she slowly waddled forward toward the blackout. Objects in the corner were faintly becoming visible. Then she saw it—a well-defined demarcated line on the floor inside.

Terror struck her. Something very large and opaque was outside the control windows, blocking light from entering and causing the shadow inside. Whatever it was, it was juxtaposed against the windows of the control tower. Summoning courage, and squinting hard to recognize the identity of the object, she pressed against the skylight. She reached below the panel to flick a light switch, and the engineering control room was bathed in light. In a moment of disbelief, a shriek jumped out of her as four crazed, withered bald heads, their eyes enlarged, enraged, stared back at her. She realized now that she was looking into the byway starboard control of a trade ship that was jammed against the Vesper station outside. She was gripped with terror, constantly looking over her shoulder for the arrival of others while remaining paralyzed in her tracks.

The crazed crew now clawed furiously from inside their ship. Looking closer, she could now see that these were Aralians who had lost all their body hair. Their eyes uncharacteristically bulged from their sockets. Though she could not hear their tormented screams, their faces conveyed their tortured souls. Her Aralian hair stood on end as she dared to move to a vantage point from which she could read the ship’s name. Finally she saw it; it was the AKA
Sleigher
.

Long after she ran to summon help, the wily crew hurled themselves against the
Sleigher’s
control window, attempting to break free of the ship. In one corner of the deck, an Aralian sat quietly praying for an end for the incessant throbbing in his head, praying for an end to the nightmare that he had lived and wished to forget—a nightmare that was now about to invade his homeland.

On Jabu

How very peculiar
, she thought to herself. Quobit was sitting alone in a corner of the stark white room, sipping on a hot, dark beverage of borrow leaves. No one else was presently in the large, isolated cubicle at the Jabu Vesper station. She often sat here during her single daily break, cherishing the brief moments to unwind from her intense duties of Vespering, and sipping her favorite desert teas.

Today was different. From the first time she heard of the
Sleigher
’s return to Aralia and her friend had read to her the disturbing facts about the loss of sanity of the crew, their confinement to the facility on Brebouillis, and the mystery of where the
Sleigher
had journeyed to, an ugly thought had reared itself. Over and over she tried to justify that horrible thought while her mind kept reminding her of its remote probability. She closed her dark, sooty eyes tight. The silence allowed her to walk through the series of events of that day one by one until she arrived at that flash in time.

She opened her eyes in fear first, and then terror. Yes, she did remember the correct sequence. And something was wrong. Out of instinct, she spied the monitor on the other side of the room. Trepidation caused a chill throughout her arms and legs. Was she being watched? Whom could she possibly confide in? Whom could she share this saturnine result with? Maretz? Certainly not, for he would dismiss it. Her close friends? To be laughed at? No. Maretz’s supervisor—for her to then be personally investigated because of the outlandish corollary? No! She didn’t want to jeopardize her future career. Silence and anxiety—she would live with them.

She consumed the hot tea and was still cold. She reversed her decision; she had to tell someone. She left the break room queasy and fretting, for she knew her conclusion to be true.

Moonlight
Brings a Stranger

At Moonbeam

Waves crashed into the jagged rocks below. Deacon Coombs stood more than two hundred feet above the craggy coastline on an overhanging balcony, savoring the rising full moon, which cast intermittent rays of light across the foamy white tide. After a grueling day’s work, Deacon found the rhythmic hiss of the waves against the chalky cliffs a tonic to soothe his day’s anxiety.

He moved to place his slightly pudgy five-foot-nine frame on a recliner, and then, closing his eyes, he allowed the aquatic fury to penetrate his mind. Moonbeam had been built over eight hundred years earlier on the steep white cliffs of Dover with this isolated spectacular panorama in mind. Deacon ensured that his daily ritual included an hour of relaxation to savor these moments. A cool breeze, coupled with the sounds of percussion, sent him into a deep slumber, and as he dreamed, his right hand released the empty tumbler and it fell to the floor of the wooden carapace, where the final drops of liquid flowed between the cracks of the floor and dripped onto the rocks beneath.

Under the balcony, a sleek orange- and yellow-striped creature slithered over the cold, mossy chalk. As the tumbler hit the floor, the snake reared its head, peering upward to see the presence of the slumbering man through parallel openings between the boards in the balcony. Out of two narrow slits, it focused its luminous amber eyes as its gray tongue rapidly slipped in and out of its mouth. The asp lowered its head and meandered purposefully to the nearest post to begin its ascent.

It wrapped itself around the post, and using its muscles and scales and the friction of the wood to propel itself upward, the three-foot snake wound its way around and around the post until it peeked out from behind the pylon to espy Deacon’s motionless but snoring figure. In his state, Deacon was oblivious to anything but the hypnotic sounds of the sea. The viper traveled over the balcony, reached the detective, and slithered over his black boots, eyeing the exposed soft flesh at the base of his leg muscles. Then, holding its head high and compressing its neck so it appeared three times its normal size before striking, it punctured the skin with two sharp fangs, transmitting elixir into the veins of its master.

Deacon’s trance was interrupted. “Ah, my dear Miram, I see that you have brought me a treat.”

The snake responded by tautening all of its body muscles, standing on only the tip of its tail, bobbing its head to and fro toward him while appearing as if to smile. In his thirty-two years, Deacon’s body had suffered little abuse. His only vice was the elixir of the royal viper of Globiana, a harmless, short-lasting pleasure that acted as a sleeping agent. Miram was a gift from Geor of Globiana, where these snakes were valuable treasured exports because of their beauty, rarity, and delights.

As he slept peacefully, the snake diligently and proudly patrolled the deck for her principal, gliding gracefully in repetitive patterns, taking an occasional glance over the deck to the rocks and surf below. Her vision, while blurry at great distances, was complemented by a keen sense of smell. In addition, behind her two harmless fangs were four smaller fangs which housed deadly neurotoxins for which there was no antidote on Earth. Death came instantly to victims, as Deacon had witnessed on the sole occasion that a burglar had been the recipient of Miram’s venom.

Hours later, the moon was high but repeatedly blocked from view by streams of angry sinewy clouds racing across the heavens, signaling the first arrival of seasonal precipitation. Miram was disturbed by the sound of a stone falling to the beach below. She wriggled herself into position to see a solitary robed figure climbing adeptly, moving stealthily forward up the craggy slope with conviction. An alarm was sounded.

She hissed into Deacon’s ear. He stretched his arms, arose out of the slumber, and then, rubbing his eyes, addressed her. “What has you in a dither? What do you see down there? You are an overanxious sentry. You know that?” Deacon leaned his upper body across the rails, his eyes panning the landscape. All he saw was the usual paradise of surf and stars. As he looked upward, Pegasus became visible briefly between two strands of clouds. Suddenly his thoughts were interrupted by footsteps to his far left, at the end of the porch, where the only access to the cliffs, and eventually the beach, lay.

Miram glided over the dewy boards to take a position behind a beam at the top step, coiled and ready to strike upon her master’s command. Deacon possessed no firearms, so he glided to his left to clutch a metal bar used to bolt the doorway to the balcony. Hiding it behind his back, he asked in a commanding tone, “Who is there?”

A deep, forceful voice answered. “Villya, Mister Coombs. I am here to deliver a message to you. I mean you no harm. Please call your snake back or she will surely meet her death.”

The confident intruder continued to climb the stairs and now became visible, ascending slowly step by step, his menacing black-robed outline rising higher and higher in the murky shadows. Deacon removed the disheveled brown hair from his eyes with his hand. He saw that the intruder was much taller than he, and very muscular, as the gown was filled. The face was well hidden by the black hood, but as the stranger finally entered the light, Deacon saw two glassy, unflinching green eyes staring out of the shadows—fixated on him. The stranger was soon atop the stairs and stood beside Miram.

“I have a front entry for those whom I call friends.” Deacon was firm in his delivery.

“And I have my orders, Mr. Coombs, to deliver an urgent message to you.” There existed an eerie silence as they sparred with their eyes, Deacon straining to see deeper into the hood; struggling to guess the intruder’s identity and agenda. A motion of Deacon’s hand signaled Miram to take her place beside her master, and she did so behind his boot, her eyes fixated on the invader. Her tongue rapidly flicked as she waited for the command to attack.

The stranger spoke again. “I come here as a friend.”

“I shall decide that.”

The figure took two more steps forward as Deacon clenched the bar firmly. The visitor spoke deliberately. “Mister Coombs, it is indeed a pleasure and an honor to meet you. I bring a message of great importance to you. It concerns a matter of global security with far-reaching implications for the safety of the Alliance and our existence as we know it. The High Council respectfully asks you to attend a meeting—”

Deacon grew impatient and interrupted. “I am not an employee of the Alliance. I do not entertain cases of global espionage or political intrigue. I handle private cases only upon request by local authorities. Surely the High Council knows this if they have investigated my career.”

The visitor waited until Deacon had finished his outburst. “Excuse me, Mr. Coombs, for my entry. I shall continue. I have my orders. Your presence is requested in Liberty City, Americana, in two days. If this was any ordinary matter, I would have come to your front door and during daylight hours for all to see. My visitation here tonight must remain a secret, and thus so my message. Here”—the stranger thrust forward discs by sliding them on the balcony to Deacon’s feet—“are your travel arrangements, your lodging reservation, and, lastly, codes that will prove you are an ambassador of the Alliance.”

Deacon bent down to grasp the orders while eyeing his visitor. “What if I choose not to accept?”

“Then I shall return with new orders that delegate you to the employment of the Alliance.” Deacon had already guessed from the tone that the new orders would include coercion.

“I have found that encounters with politicians have been less than rewarding—with the exception of one called Geor, bless his soul. However, I read from your comments that I have no choice.” He opened the disc with his handheld. Time passed. The figure stood statuesque at the end of the porch, waiting for Deacon to complete his reading. “Please inform the High Council that I shall reluctantly arrive on time. You will convey the word
reluctantly
in your reply.”

“Excellent,” the stranger said with a note of elation. “Then we shall meet again in Liberty City, Mr. Coombs. Your departure from your residence has also been arranged, as well as a house sitter for your abode and pet. Follow the enclosed agenda carefully, Mr. Coombs. Do not deviate. Speak to no one of my visit; speak to no one of your absence.”

Deacon wished to cross-examine, but the visitor turned and fled down the stairs and into the midnight cover of the rocks. Deacon scoured the cliffs below and spotted the mysterious stranger dexterously bounding from rock to rock. Eventually he lost sight, so turned to open the ticket. One way to Liberty City. Open return. He seldom left his beloved Moonbeam, although inside he was bubbling. “Well, Miram, it appears that I am off to Liberty City, the one place I have always yearned to visit, with its museums of history, its libraries, and its simmering teapot of cultures. I often envision it as a living cultural museum of space travelers where one can learn firsthand of other races and species to further embellish one’s own manuscripts and fantasies.”

He looked down at Miram. She was the recipient of his feelings. “Sorry, Miram, I can’t ignore this challenge.” He glanced below, but the stranger had disappeared. In Liberty City he would determine whether his guess as to the identity of tonight’s visitor was correct.

“Deacon Coombs, you say?”

“Yes, my Lord. He is quite well known in our worlds as being a great detective.”

“You dare to bother me with such bore! He is insignificant in my plans! When we meet, if we do, I shall render him powerless, dismiss him! Go away! Don’t bother me again!”

Just as his informant departed, the evil creature smiled and hatched a plan. “Deacon Coombs. You dare to investigate me. So I will play a game with you!”