Before they left the Lepper for their next destination, Talos and Dactyl came to an agreement. The Quatten would have authority over anything to do with apprehending the Fo’wo’s, the aviarman would have ultimate say on anything to do with the Sequi and its crew.
“What kind of place is Wism?” Craze asked as they exited the portal of cobalt light. He hoped the planet would have a medical facility in order to find the laser they needed to assess the stash of chocolate-mealworm bars.
Talos stared out the view panel, following route beacons set out from the Lepper, punching in course corrections.
Terms of the truce with Dactyl stated the captain would answer first. “Never been here before.” His right eye and lips twitched rapidly.
Craze knew the tics were purely genetic manifestations and didn’t rely on those to figure out Talos’s real feelings on the matter. He checked the aviarmen’s hands, which remained steady and out of his hair, the captain’s true tell-all. If Talos wasn’t hyped-up nervous, Craze saw no need to get wound up either. He leaned back in his chair, letting his legs stretch out long. “Nothin’ to worry about, huh?”
His concentration on steering the ship, Talos was slow to answer. “It’s just a place.”
Dactyl clucked in disgust. “Yous can’t wander about the Edge so ignorant ‘n keep breathing. Wism is a horrible place loved by cut-throats, traitors, ‘n dastards. There’s plenty to worry about.”
That wasn’t at all reassuring. Craze gathered his legs back under him, sitting straighter. His hair stood up. He had to pet it for three whole minutes to get it to settle down. “Shit.”
Dactyl crossed his short arms over his wide chest. “Unlike Mortua, it has a breathable atmosphere without a dome, but barely. We’ll all be wheezing ‘n needing frequent rest. It’s a dark place, almost always in the shadow of its planet. That ringed orb over there.”
The planet loomed lifeless and colorless with a ring that looked as if the globe had weakly expelled its last breath, a wimpy effort at generating interest. The moons around it didn’t inspire anything greater than a sneer of contempt.
Craze didn’t want to visit any of those worlds. “Wism is a moon?”
“Yup. Covered in black sand. Nothing but black sand that seeps into places yous don’t want it,” Dactyl said.
Craze shifted his weight tugging on the legs of his coveralls. “You have some sort of plan? I mean we just not goin’ to march
in there like we did on Mortua. Right?”
“We gonna swagger this time.” Dactyl seemed no taller standing, putting on his long brown coat, pulling at the lapels to settle the fabric around his wide body. He straightened his holsters.
Maybe the Quatten wasn’t serious. For several minutes Craze waited to see if the lawman would crack. Dactyl’s expression never wavered. Not once. Dammitall, he meant what he said.
“We got nothin’ to act haughty over,” Craze said.
Dactyl rubbed absently at his left arm, something he did often enough that it made Craze wonder. Old injury? Something else?
“There’s them bars yous took from Mr. Slade’s Emporium on Elstwhere,” Dactyl said. “Possession of chocolate gives any Backworlder the right to boast.”
Shit. How’d he know? Dactyl might make the aviarmen give the stash away or turn it into the Backworld Assembled Authorities.
Craze sucked in his lips, organizing imaginary bottles on a gleaming future shelf. Rum with rum. Short to tall. Spiced to dark.
Talos ran a hand through his shock of blue, mouth pursing. He glanced at Craze. Craze shrugged.
Dactyl chuckled. “I wasn’t sure until now that yous took some. Yous all just ate a meal of guilt. It seeps out of yous every pore.”
“The stuff concealing the frizzers was mealworms,” Craze finally dared to say. “Isn’t anythin’ to swagger over.”
“Not every bar was. When yous have docked ‘n secured the ship, meet me down at the hatch.” The lawman climbed down the ladder, leaving them to wonder.
Great news and misfortune all grotesquely entwined to hear not every bar was a mealworm cake. A mere few genuine
chocolates represented a major fortune. The rub was whether they’d be allowed to keep any. But, hey, the patroller didn’t know how many bars they’d taken. No reason they had to fess up to the whole lot, and way out here, Craze imagined Dactyl’s disappearance could be easily arranged, especially if Wism was as rotten as he claimed.
Craze and the aviarmen smirked at each other. Craze pumped his fist in the air a couple of times.
Lepsi whipped out his tab and sang in a bare whisper. “Eat that Federoy. You a stupid boy. Eat that Federoy. Face full of hemorrhoids.”
Craze laughed at the inane rhyme, which encouraged Lepsi to get more outrageous. The aviarman stood, repeating the lines, swishing his hips, smashing the image of his brother against his backside.
Talos joined in the high jinks, beating the stale, smelly air inside their vessel with a raised fist, grinning. “Fortune keeps twisting our knickers. Huh?”
A shrill signal blasted over the Sequi’s speakers, stopping their revelry. It was a warning from Wism that coming any closer without contact would be considered a hostile act. Talos opened a communications channel to the docking facilitator.
Music blared over the speaker with the greeting. “Identify.”
“Sequi, small passenger transport, coming from... Elstwhere.” Talos raised his voice to be heard over the clamor on the other end. “Request docking.”
“For what purpose?” The reply sounded gruff and rancorous, wary and suspicious.
Talos took his prized “Carry On” pin out of his pocket, and placed it prominently on the console where its comforts could be easily seen. It kept the quiver shaking his hair out of his words. “Trade ‘n shelter.” He barked it, matching crusty with crusty.
A dry cough cut through the din of bad singing and out-of-tune instruments. “Shelter from what?”
Talos didn’t blink when blurting, “The Assembled Authorities. Bastards tailed us to Elstwhere. Heard we can lose them here.”
Snort. “Must have something good to trade?” An iota of interest leaked into the last couple of syllables.
Talos let out a long, slow exhale. “Better than good. Bars wrapped in stamped gold foil.”
“Shut it!” the dock facilitator yelled at the merrymakers on his end. An abrupt hush fell. His next sentences echoed clear as fresh-scrubbed air. “If you lying, we reserve the right to shoot you. Take Slot 12-24.”
The threat was unmistakable. Craze gulped, hoping the rest of the bars weren’t mealworms. Wism wouldn’t be forgiving.
Talos didn’t break, sounding as confident as a sunburst. “Aye. Meet you at the bar.”
When the connection cut, Craze asked. “How’d you know there’s a tavern? Thought you’ve never been here.”
“It’s a constant out on the Edge.” Talos steered the spacecraft toward the cluster of shadowy moons. “There’s always a bar.”
Good to know that when folks came out of the Lepper they expected a drink. Craze nodded. “Soon I’ll have the best one the Edge has ever seen, a true destination.”
“With folks coming from all over to trade their wares,” Lepsi said, assisting Talos in guiding the vessel.
The aviarmen brought the Sequi in low, skirting over the ebony sands swirling into a dusty wake beneath their passage. Craze watched as particles glistened when caught in the ship’s lights, dancing and winking like flirtatious gals. The landscape stretched in soft undulations of fine grit, gentle wave after gentle wave of black without variation until the Sequi began the approach to the docking facility. There the sands ended
abruptly in an oasis of bedrock, dipping into a steep canyon. Along the ravine walls glowed spots of orange and yellow, the lights of an austere city. A rickety bridge linked the two sides, but Craze didn’t see any movement. It was as if they headed to a ghost town. The Sequi braked and turned for a ledge protruding from the rock face.
“They live in caves?” Craze said. “Doesn’t history say the Fo’wo’s once lived in caves? Before they became civilized? Hrrmph. Depends on one’s definition of the word I guess.”
“Ain’t that the truth,” Talos answered. “Barbaric horde of inferior genes is all they is.”
“True as the Lepper’s blue.” Lepsi nudged the ship closer to the walls, openings gaping like hungry mouths and flaming eyes. “Looks like a huge skull about to swallow us.”
A very unhelpful observation, Craze thought.
Lepsi rubbed at a tic under his eye. “You did a great job getting us a landing, Talos. However, I’m worried we won’t live up to their expectations. What if the first bar they open is mealworms?”
“We give them the opened one we know is chocolate,” Craze said. He remembered the rough crowd in the bar on Elstwhere, friends of the Jix who probably called Wism home. “Put on your darkest clothes before goin’ to the hatch. Black if you’ve got it.”
Craze went down to his bunk, switching out his cheery red suspenders for forest green ones, and his white shirt for a caramel-colored one. It was the darkest shirt he had. Lastly, he put on the gray duster, wishing he’d selected a black one instead.
At the hatch, the aviarmen smeared cleansing gel mixed with dirt into their hair and onto their shirts. It darkened them, but they were a far cry from black. Dactyl had on a black hat with all his brown. The effect was lacking, but Craze couldn’t fault them for it. It was the best any of them could do
The lawman handed them each a holster complete with a revolver. “Strap ‘em on,” Dactyl said. “This is one of them Backworlds where bullets rule. These folks won’t hesitate to use theirs. Try to avoid such a situation. ’N whatever yous do, don’t smile or get too surly. Surly enough will do.” He rubbed at that left bicep again, facing the hatch with a steely mien, as if he could wrestle the rocks and win.
Craze wasn’t sure what surly enough meant, but he figured not behaving the coward was part of it. He thrust his chin up and hooked his thumbs on the holster strapped to his hips, mimicking the Quatten. The hatch slid open. Despite the show of bravado, his knees knocked, threatening to give out.
