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Hubcap balanced a cue stick on his palm, heavy end up, watching with surgical focus and trying to figure out which ceiling vent was making the troublesome breeze while he did his level best not to think about his partner convalescing in the medical ward. There were precious few distractions here in the common room. Hubcap would have liked to be doing something worthwhile, but Vic had told him and the camera crew to stay put for now.
Vic herself was in a side room making a report to headquarters, something that Hubcap did not envy her. The authority figures back Earthside would be worried — about Elliot’s well-being, about time lost in filming, and about the medical costs. Hubcap was happy to steer far away from that little room and the video screen full of unhappy faces.
It was much better to practice his balancing tricks and watch the camera crew take turns at being horrible shots at the antigravity billiards table.
“I’m gonna get the blue one,” Graham promised. “Easy pickings.” He lined up his cue stick like a rifle, much to the amusement of a pair of locals following the action from a nearby table. They laughed when he missed the ball he was aiming for, and knocked Dale’s away from the target as well.
“Oh, come on!” Dale said. “Now I have to go for the one hiding way over there.”
“After my turn,” Tarja reminded him. She aligned her own cue and made a passable shot, one of the first that hadn’t prompted at least a snort from the peanut gallery.
Then her follow-up landed only the cue ball in the tiny gravity well that passed for a corner pocket. Other balls clacked against each other and bounced silently off the force field at the table edges, coming to rest in a very different arrangement. Dale crowed in delight and stepped up to take his turn.
Hubcap put down the cue stick he’d been playing with, considering showing up the humans, then a dark-skinned man approached him with concern for Elliot. This wasn’t the first local to do so. They all showed a gratifying level of worry as far as Hubcap was concerned, though he hoped this wouldn’t hamper their filming efforts later. Apparently there was an official memo posted that the guests would not be allowed to do anything that dangerous again, never mind the insurance coverage.
“I heard what happened,” the man said. “Is he gonna be okay?”
“Yeah, he will.” While Hubcap assured him that the lesser star of the show would be fine, several other worker types entered the room and joined the conversation. Hubcap made sure to learn all their names before steering the conversation elsewhere. Other ways to get hurt was always a fun topic. The locals gladly obliged.
“One of the little predators tried to set up camp in the main hangar last year,” said the man who’d introduced himself as Booker. “A hopscotch burrower. I thought I got it pinned with a tarp, but the thing turned its head sharp like, and tore out a chunk of my leg.” He lifted a pant leg to show where a pale gouge marred his shin. “I squealed like a dying rabbit and bled all over the floor, and couldn’t walk right for the longest time.”
“Hey, at least you didn’t lose anything important,” said Salome, making a rude gesture with one of her silver fingers.
“Oh, tell him that story!” Booker urged. Salome needed little encouraging. Her story included machinery in the wrong place, and uneven footing.
“Now wait a moment, go back a bit,” Hubcap said. “You were out killing what in the garden?”
“Oh, did nobody tell you about the supergophers?” Salome asked with a grin. “You’ll love these guys. They eat our crops, and small animals besides, so they’ve been known to attack people’s feet. You usually have to kill them with a shovel,” she said matter-of-factly.
“A shovel,” Hubcap repeated while the others chuckled. “A regular shovel, or some scary razor-sharp space shovel of death and destruction?”
“While one of those would be nice, I’m afraid that all we have is the regular kind,” Salome told him. “Though we have been known to sharpen the edges of them, just in case. You just have to be careful not to hit anybody with the sharp edge.”
“Yeah,” chimed in another voice pointedly. “It kind of hurts.”
“Ha, yeah Ramón, show him your scar.”
The young man did, though claiming that a bite from one of the creatures would have been worse. Others agreed. The conversation and show-and-tell continued, gaining Hubcap both ideas for things to film later, and credibility with the rough-and-tumble workers when he finally began matching their stories with anecdotes of his own.
“You know, that reminds me of an encounter I had with a hippo about nine years ago,” he said casually. “People tend to underestimate them, but those buggers can run like horses, and they have teeth like rebar. One tore this leg clean off once...”
By the time the camera crew finished with billiards and moved on to magnetic darts, Hubcap had cemented his reputation as a past master of dangerous situations. It wasn’t surprising, then, that when someone called from a doorway that the last opportunity for “skeet-boom” was happening, the group hustled Hubcap along with them.
“You’ve got to see this,” Salome told him. “You did jetpods yesterday, right?”
“Yes,” Hubcap said, dragging his feet. “Are they going to go boom now?”
“Only once they’re launched far away,” she said. “Totally safe. Ish. Anyway, this is the last of the extra pods for a while, and lunch break only goes so long. C’mon, the side hangar’s not far.”
Hubcap did a quick danger assessment, then glanced at the door to the communication room. It was still closed on Vic’s conversation with the bosses. The game of darts was in full swing. Experience had taught Hubcap that he didn’t want to be anywhere near magnetic things designed to be thrown, even if he did have an insulation layer to protect from magnet damage.
He knew his coworkers. He would absolutely get a dart to the head the moment his back was turned.
“Hey guys, I’ll be in the side hangar if you need me!” he called. Graham gave him a thumbs-up. Hubcap opened a leg compartment, pulled out a small headcam, and snapped it to his forehead. “Lead the way,” he said to Salome.
She fairly ran down the hallway on the heels of Booker and the others, urging Hubcap to keep up. He did, narrating as he went for the benefit of the camera. Just in case this little adventure was TV-worthy without getting anyone in trouble. It did sound like the kind of thing done on lunch break because the workplace safety rules weren’t enforced when the workers were off the clock.
He asked about that, and got an “Oh it’s fine,” that didn’t do much to convince him that skeet-boom was officially permitted. He made a mental note to find out for certain before submitting the footage.
Then they arrived, trotting out into a hanger with space for only a few vehicles, none of which were anywhere in sight. Instead, several deep purple jetpods were gathered by the door, along with a dozen people and supplies that didn’t make sense yet. Hubcap’s nostril sensors alerted him to the scent of combustible fuel.
As Booker loudly greeted the others, Hubcap started to piece it together. The mangled trash can strapped to a stack of tires was a launch platform. The length of pipe with one end capped was a firearm of the potato launcher variety. The box of pottery shards was ammunition. And the colorful stuff — was that fireworks?
“Just in time!” said a beefy man of the sandy-blonde variety. “You can help us load up!” He stepped forward and held out a hand to Hubcap. “I’m Zack. Sorry about your friend. He’ll be all right, yeah?”
“Yeah.” Hubcap shook his hand. “In good care, and only slightly dented. Now what sort of ill-advised shenanigans do we have going on here?”
Minutes later, when a jetpod was rocketing into the sky in a deafening blast of steam, and Hubcap was helping aim the potato launcher full of sharp things, he was reasonably sure that he was filming something worth putting in the show. If this sort of tomfoolery wouldn’t draw in more viewers, then he would eat Elliot’s hat.
At any rate, it kept his mind off worrying about his wounded friend. And that was just as important.