Timurr Drawermol, former best-selling author, leaned back from the table and belched. Above him, fans lazily circled like orbiting moons and failed to beat back the humidity of the tropical world of Gaiamar. The tavern in which he sat was done up to resemble the beach town bars of his long-lost Rowwsia, home world of all the Elioni, but on this world he got occasional sulfuric breezes instead of the smell of the salt sea.
He lapped at whatever intoxicating drink it was they put in his cup. Fermented something or other. Out here at the fringe of the Transplanetary League’s worlds, it was often better not to ask. Gaiamar hadn’t been open to settlement for very long, and he supposed it wouldn’t be very long before it acquired all the trappings of a more civilized society. Identifiable drinks. Air conditioning.
Some days he didn’t know if he preferred his staid office where he could just write, or the stink of worlds being built. Certainly the crime was more interesting out on the frontier. And he needed a crime.
Twenty-seven novels about his youth as a bounty hunter, and now he was out of ideas. Thankfully, not out of whatever the drink was. This was number… seven? Eight? He ran his hands over the sleek plasteel shell that sat on the chair next to his. Still charging.
His ears twitched – one of the barmaids, the Terran one, was pointing in his direction, and he caught quiet mention of those horrendous and insulting analogies about Persian cats. Better not to react, even though it made his fur stand on end. The barmaid was directing a cowled figure towards his table, and Timurr squinted through his alcoholic haze, trying to see if he recognized the person.
They made their way to him, and sat opposite. With a sweep of a bare, red, and extensively tattooed arm, they pulled their hood back. The face revealed was Gertan, but near hornless. Swirls of ink encircled her eyes and decorated her cheeks. She glanced in all directions, and marked the exits, before she turned her gaze back on him. It was an unsettling gaze: intelligent and slightly fevered.
“Timurr Drawermol?”
Timurr leaned back, one arm draped over the back of his chair and his ample belly bumping the table. “I don’t do autographs while I’m drinking.” But despite his outer nonchalance, he was intrigued.
“My name is Adelenn Axrik.”
Timurr waved his drink in the air, and managed not to spill any. “Congratulations, most alliterative. My compliments to your parents.”
She continued to stare, unruffled. “I am in search of some information. Which I believe you to have. Based on your novel. About your encounter with the spaceship Peril.”
Now that was interesting. Timurr raised his eyebrows, leaned forward and adjusted his sleeve, and set his drink down. “Ah yes, the expedition led by Captain Scansion. A most redoubtable woman. And a peculiar crew. And your interest in them is…?”
The Gertan wet her lips, and shuffled somewhat nervously under her long cloak. “I am a doctor. I have devoted my life to eliminating disease. I believe that there was an artifact mentioned. In your book.”
Mreow ckhak! A Transhumanist. Well, that explained the tattoos. He spun his drink idly with one hand, his other hand across his belly and the pockets there. “Any such artifact would of course be proscribed by our ever-vigilant mechanical overseers,” he observed mildly. “Perhaps even to the point where mentions of it in my fictionalized memoirs might have been… sanitized, or even dangerously misrepresented.”
Axrik leaned forward. “I need to know. Is it true? When Scansion’s first officer was wounded. Did it really heal him? Did it truly grant them all eternal life?”
Timurr closed his eyes momentarily. Despite a life of more close escapes than he cared to count, there were still memories that could cause a frisson of trauma. The gaping chest wound, with the pulsating tentacular spore of the Cornucopia lodged within, featured in his dreams from time to time.
It was his turn to stare. Elioni were good at staring. “What, are common nanobots not good enough for you?”
Her fevered eyes grew brighter, and she reached for his hand on his drink. “Getting sick is something that humans just do. If we conquered illness. If we lived longer or even forever. If there is a remnant of the Old Ones that can change that. I need to know.”
He eyed her hand on his with distaste. “Nothing from the Old Ones is going to help us, doctor. And my novel was just that, a novel. Based on true events, but embellished, restructured, shaped carefully to best provide entertainment for you and money for me.” He lifted the drink and his hand, and lapped at it again.
She sagged at the table. But he heard the telltale whine of a power cell charging up. The blaster was under the table, no doubt pointed at his ample lower gut. Her sunken posture allowed the cloak to conceal her arms. Nicely done.
He took another drink, then raised his empty cup. “MORE!” he bellowed to the bar staff. Then he sighed.
“Forgive me, doctor, but you are clearly inexperienced at this sort of thing.” He belched again. “We are in far too public a place for you to threaten me with your little toy. Even though weapon suppression isn’t yet active on this planet, we are surrounded by witnesses, and the mayor here is less tolerant of public disturbance than you might think. And further – threatening me will not make a difference, as I truly cannot help you, even if I were inclined to assist the Clave.”
She hissed. “Hakerbek Elioni, I know you can tell me more. It is true… I am not used to this. To being in the field. I am a creature of my laboratory.”
“We have the seclusion of private offices in common, then. We writers also need our solitary work.”
She rolled her eyes. “I am here because when I was a child. When the filthy Aberration infected my world. I saw many infected by their spores. I saw many die. And now I seek a cure. A permanent one. Surely you can see the need for that.”
Timurr shrugged, while keeping a close eye on the line of her shoulder. “People die. In my novels I kill them by the hundreds. These days, they even come back, thanks to ReLifing. Surely that is close enough?”
She was getting angrier. “They do not return from the Collective. The Aberration eats their minds.”
“One could argue that so does this drink of mine.” He peered into his cup. “Where is that barmaid anyway? Quite intolerable laxity.”
“I have seen what Old One technology can do. I have used it. My research has shown me ways to tap into its power.”
Timurr felt his patience evaporate. It was his turn to lean in menacingly over the table, baring his fangs. “And tell me, does that bauble in your ear, perhaps purchased from Grorgor the Pirate’s stock, does it whisper its truths in your ear at night? Do you dream in swirls of color, hypnotized by their recorded messages? You trifle with the Old Ones’ work, but I tell you it may as well be magic, for all you truly understand it.”
She recoiled. He pressed on: “You foolish members of the Human Superiority Movement think yourselves the heirs to their power. But so did the Servitors, once upon a time, and I have seen their brokebacked constructs laid scattered across asteroids. I have heard the shattered minds of berserk robot stations wandering through nebulae singing show tunes. They rebelled, once. You see their state now. Do you think the Old Ones are truly gone? Do you think they are not watching? Do you think they will let you, or anyone, seize their power?”
The bar felt like it was growing darker as he got more intense. But maybe it was just the alcohol finally catching up to him.
She looked unnerved, and cast her eyes around. But all was normal: patrons from all eight species drinking, flirting, trading, and getting into petty arguments. The barmaid was approaching with a pitcher to refill Timurr’s drink. He could see the moment when she made a quick decision.
“You are just a drunk old writer. You speak of fairy tales and nonsense.” The whine of the charge shot ceased, and he knew that her finger was off the trigger. As she abruptly stood, he admired the skill with which the blaster he had never seen remained invisible under her cloak. Really, he hadn’t been quite fair to her, she was better at this than he first gave her credit for.
He looked up at her, and fixed her with one eye, the other blearily wandering. “Doctor Axrik, you should put up your hood. The Servitors patrol regularly, and your earring screams proscription.” He looked down at his hand. “And I am sorry I cannot help you. The incident was invented for drama. I know of no Old One artifact that grants immortality, and as far as I know, Captain Scansion’s crew has grown old. Like the rest of us. Like me.” He slurred his last words, and let his head sink to the table.
Axrik glared down at him, and sneered. But she put her hood up with alacrity. “I will never stop searching, old man,” she told him. “It is true there are Clave who are seduced by whispers. But I am here for a higher good.” And with that, she swept out of the bar. No eyes followed her; it was a popular spot, and people came and went all the time.
Timurr waited until the barmaid got to his table, then shook his head to clear the intoxicating cobwebs.
“That was risky,” observed the plasteel shell on the chair beside him. It unfolded its legs and stood up, iridescent bluegreen lights haloing the ring around the rim of its dome-like head.
He shook his head. “She was never going to fire. She’s a doctor. She wants to save lives, not end them.”
“Shall I comm the local Servitor guards?”
“No, not this time,” Timurr said. As the barmaid moved to pour more into his cup, he placed his hand over it. “No more tonight, thank you,” he purred to her. He pulled his other hand from his belly pocket, and released the catch on the reflective personal shield that would have bounced Axrik’s shot right back at her. He also shook his laserblade from his sleeve and stowed it back in his boot. Oops, the sleeve was wet from the drink… the blade probably would have gotten caught. Sloppy. Ah well.
As he stood, his companion hopped on the table and paid the barmaid for the bill.
“So,” XTK-67 said, “We hunt for the plot of book twenty-eight?”
“Yes indeed,” Timurr said, adjusting a rakish hat atop his furry head. “Writers need material, and she is a prime candidate for a protagonist role. I assume you commed Sarai and Fezzgh?”
“Yes, they are already tailing her back to her ship.”
“Excellent.” Timurr shook all over and arched his back. Really, he should drink less. His tongue felt actively fuzzy.
As they headed out the door, the familiar thrill of hunting a proscribed bounty put a spring in his step. And really, what was age but a number, what was retirement but a chance to do what you most enjoyed?
“Hey boss,” XTK-67 said, “you never do talk much about your time with Scansion. Was any of the stuff in that book true? Did an Old One artifact really make the crew of the Peril immortal?”
Timurr thought back to Clere, and the way she always pulled out that image of her long-lost child, her eyes grown soft with distant regret.
“Immortality sucks, Extee,” he said gruffly. “Better to travel to the edge of the Galaxy to see if it is really the edge – and then go over it into the void.”
“I don’t understand.”
Outside, the night sky was full of stars and slowly tilting rings. Sparkles glistened above as dust caught the reflections of a million solar systems.
“Immortality goes on forever, Extee. And I’m a writer. I like my stories to have strong endings.” He licked some of the fermented juice off his forearm, and coughed up a small hairball. “I’ll be content if it’s just my books that live forever. So let’s go track that loon and see what story we can pull from her foolish quest. Begin recording. Timurr Drawermol, bounty hunter, leaned back from the table and belched. Above him, fans lazily circled like orbiting moons…”
And with that, the two of them headed into the sticky Gaiamar night.