In our last installment, Captain Meteor told off the universe and bolted after a being he holds responsible from killing everyone on the planet Tiamore.
Chapter Three: The Captain Meteor Experience
I have absolutely no idea where I am. First day of survey. I am out of food.
Funny how not being blown to a singularity stimulates the appetite. I am in a dimension of stagnant air, dust, darkness and no crackers. I am not this neat. Normally there’s something in here. Not even a candy wrapper.
Pop it.
The canopy lifts. There is a slight disparity in air pressure. I have discovered a universe of dust. However, there is a draft.
Glow.
The sloping skin on the sides of my craft are now radiating a soft emerald halo. Revealed about us is a room. A store, in fact. I am still at a loss to explain the noise the kinetic inhibitor made. If that’s what it was. I have seemingly run through the portal at 1/4th the speed of sound, only to come to an instantaneous and mostly silent halt. There’s more than a little something wrong with that.
I would take the ship’s status, but that’s not a read out that I have right now. I think I can turn the ship’s front skids left. Everything else is iffy. Also I don’t need to bounce out signals, so it’s all manual until I know more.
If it is a store, it has no merchandise. Walk around of the ship is first. Check on my triangular queen of space. Right front skid, ok. Prow, nice and pointed up. Left front skid, crumpled. Typical. Left rear tread array, all three wheels properly aligned and tread loop intact. Right rear tread array, all three wheels properly aligned, tread loop broken and melted into floor. That’s a new one on me. Floor is concrete. No, it’s marble. Marble veneer at least. No, it’s marble. Ivory with rose mottling. Very pretty, except for the part where I melted tread loop into it. Although it is filthy.
Not much of a housekeeper, are you Sulfur? No sign of additional equipment. Did I break your only transmat teleporty? I am so very sorry. Why don’t you come on out and Captain Meteor will make it up to you?
No response to my hollow threats. Possibility that he is behind a very tall counter. Counters topped by fence of metal bars. Behind the counter is a large round opening without a door. Ceiling is fifteen feet up. Lots of marble showing. Ceiling is marble with several prongs jutting down out of it, probably some sort of power connection.
No apparent sources of illumination. Or sign of any sort of power being used.
Door to area behind counter is grey, metal, cage-like, probably painted steel. No doorknob or latch or handle. Hole there makes it seem as if such has been removed. Door is open.
Area behind counter has no furniture. Marble floors less filthy, as if carpeting or runners may have been present. There are four stations here. Each one has an area for the clerk to be standing and an indentation before them on the counter. Evidence of drawers having once been on this side, one at each station. Whatever it is they were selling isn’t present.
Passive sensors report some four hundred thousand low powered broadcast transmissions from separate sources in my immediate area. It seems I have a sensor problem.
Large circular opening leads to a small room which is lined with compartments for what seem to have been drawers of various sizes. Entryway is a foot and a half thick. Evidence of extensive balancing required to hold now missing door in entryway.
On floor in room, mattress with blanket and linens on it in a disordered manner. Dozen or so small bottles beside it on floor. Also on floor, commercial level spaceman’s tool kit, TransFile manufacturer’s brand, in the somewhat rare original carrying case.
Tools are powered and have been used. No evidence of having been recalibrated since time of manufacture. Brain box in kit has listing for jury rigging an atorec, but no evidence that such has ever been accessed. Confiscating kit.
Bottles. Various sizes. Palm sized. White, translucent brown, clear. Thirteen of which contain pills. All have labels, mechanically printed, which I cannot read. One bottle half filled with thick pink fluid. Cannot get stoppers off bottles without breaking them. Seems pointless, however I should note that some bottles have raised symbols on the tops, which I also cannot read. Bottles themselves are made from some sort of pliable, resin material.
Bedding does not seem to smell. No signs of stains. Found square cybernetic transfer module in bedding, seemingly medical in nature. Monitor of some sort. What seems to be dried fluid in valve. Confiscated.
No food. Left your stinking spaceman’s tool kit and used bile duct bypass monitor behind, but not even a candy bar. I will kill you twice, Sulfur.
Placed confiscated items in aft hold of my vehicle. Checked vehicle’s sensors. Still reporting hundreds of thousands of transmissions, reportedly mostly voice. Diagnostics indicate ship’s systems are at 20% function which is well below the trust threshold for sensors.
Wall across from counters is covered from waist high up with boards, seemingly made from compressed natural fibers. Similar to what I saw at the saw mill, but boards are a composite laminate of fibers and glue. Are nailed into what I judge to be a large window frame. Similar boards covering what seems to be a pair of doors next to window. Offhand, I think they are closed for business.
Draft is coming from a narrow short hallway next to room with circular opening. On floor before metal door at end of hall are shattered remnants of boards. Draft coming from missing window in transom.
In a hurry, Sulfur? I hope not on my account.
Unlocked rotational bolt device. Lowered blast shield of helmet. Not sure how my dark blue skin and glowing gold eyes are going to go here. Doorway leads to narrow avenue. Road seems to be concrete slabs. It is night or very dark here. Hear numerous sounds. No stars in sky, probably due to prevalence of artificial illumination.
Stepped out into alley. Ordered helmet to lock door behind me. Lock clicked. Ordered helmet to unlock door. No response. Door is firmly secure.
Excellent! Now that I have given Sulfur my spaceship, let’s see what else I can do!
Activate floaty thing belt and float seventeen feet up to roof of building. Maybe there is another way in?
No. Roof is flat. There is actually a grate of metal bars in front of the front window. The same with the two front doors. There do not seem to be any other windows. The only other entrance to the building is the one I went out of.
I knew that I was not going to be able to get my ship out of the building by conventional means. I could always charliq a wall, but that’s being destructive. Not that having Honey inside there is going to be exactly good for anyone’s business.
Helmet reports door is now unlocked. Seems to be a bit of a delay. Relocked door. Unlocked door. Relocked door. Unlocked door. Relocked door. Unlocked door. Relocked door. Ok. I am now happy.
It is night and I am on the roof of a one story building which has other one story brick buildings to either side of it. The door I left by empties into a narrow service avenue. The building faces a rather broad diagonal street. Held up on pylons at the center of this street is a catwalk of some kind. This is the tallest structure in the immediate area.
In keeping with procedure, mine, I seek the highest ground immediately available. A one second burst of flight later and I am there.
It is not a catwalk, or at least only incidentally a catwalk. Sets of metal beams arrayed in twin lines run at the middle of the platform, which extends for miles. Most of the platform is made from thick fiber planks, seemingly a common material here.
I am struck by the similarity of this planet to the one I have just come from. They also had these tracks. The tracks are for trains of large vehicles.
A look down from the platform and into the street shows more vehicles, also somewhat similar to what I had seen before. These have lights on them, two white spotlights in the front and a pair of red ones on the rear. That’s different. The vehicles on the other planet didn’t seem to have lamps. Not that I ever saw one functioning.
From what I was able to ascertain, the people of Tiamore were not big on going out at night. That could have been because of Sulfur. These people have no problems being out at night. Haven’t seen one full yet. Just shadows in vehicles.
I hope they have snacks.
The city’s avenues are laid out in grids. There seems to be a larger avenue every six streets or so. The catwalk is running at something of a diagonal, so it is hard to say.
On the other side of the tracks, somewhat ahead of me, is a more illuminated, broader section of platform. It is hooded. Seems to be attached to a building or a staircase. Many signs and boxes around the area. Possibly a place to wait.
Making my way across the tracks, I can see that there are three rails per set. One rail seems to carry current. Have noticed lots of wires aloft.
Lights in the waiting area are of various sizes, all aloft, all seemingly for illumination. Electric. Wired. Very advanced.
I have made contact. A little box with a lens is pointed in my direction. I take a step right. It doesn’t move. Looking around, I spot several others, none of them particularly hidden or seemingly actively tracking.
A mechanical voice speaks and I freeze. The helmet searches but finds no consciousness to connect the voice to. I can’t really talk to machines. I need a brain.
There is a distant rumble. A claxon sounds.
I am not immediately arrested, which is a good thing. In fact, the entire situation seems rather indifferent to my presence. This is a fairly large city.
Am I visibly armed? Yes, I am. Silly me. Still have the nightstick strapped to my leg. I suck the nightstick into my right arm.
That might alarm whoever is watching through the cameras, but I have a subtle feeling that I should get over myself. I have only done this sixty other times on sixty other inhabited worlds. If this is a police state, it’s rather lackadaisical.
A three car train with a white top and a green bottom rumbles into view. I catch a glimpse of the person operating it, but just a glimpse. They have a head and probably two arms. Good. Might even be able to use the bonded substance to impersonate them.
The train comes to a halt and I come to the white doors. They fold apart in a curious way and I enter. Interior is lit to the extreme and white to begin with.
I am having a helmet problem. The blast shield is amplifying light as opposed to deadening it. I sit down on a low chair, seemingly made from the same material as the bottles that I found. Very uncomfortable—and I don’t care what your anatomy is like.
They couldn’t be that much different from me. My ass fit in the seat. Perhaps their rear ends are void of nerves?
The man in the enclosed compartment one car ahead of me could care less that I am here. Unless I set myself on fire, his only concern is reading signals. This is the fifth trip he has made this evening down this line. At slightly before dawn, his shift will be over. He hopes that he can find a store to replenish the chemical in his personal vehicle, since it has run dangerously close to being out. And other such thoughts.
I am starting to be able to read the signs in here. There are translucent signs covering the curved lighting array which runs above the windows. At first I thought they were unmatched designs, perhaps seasonal festival decorations. Most of them are fairly dire warnings, each offering some form of cure. Nothing immediate or personal, unless you are a person who has these problems, I guess.
We lurch away. We rumble. We clank. A round something in the ceiling says something unintelligible and we slow. We haven’t gone that far.
It dawns on me what this is. Where I am from, we call it the crawler. It doesn’t go anywhere you want to be, really. Just around where you want to be. But it goes all the time and makes all of its stops. Of course, where I am from the system is so intermittent and its stops so remote that it has become an afterthought. Here, it rides on an elongated exalted pedestal, its venerated pylons interrupting the avenues below.
We stop. I can see figures through the door’s glass. Time to be motionless. This is personal contact one.
Zeds. Three of them. Two male. One female. Impressment age. Not in military dress. Not in a uniform mode of dress at all. They enter, laughing. The three sprawl into seats facing me.
They flash their teeth at one another. Not Zeds. The off pink skin threw me. The teeth make it certain. White teeth. That may be hard for the bonding substance to duplicate. Then I see their fingers. Five. Not webbed.
I ball up my hands to conceal my four fingers.
The two men are talking about someone they have just seen and are not taking much notice of me. The female, who has substances painted upon her lips and eyelids, has taken note of me, but has no hostile intent.
From what I can gather, someone named Dave has made an ass out of himself and the two males cannot stop from commenting. Dave puked on himself at a tavern and then washed his upchuck off by pouring the remainder of a pitcher of beer down his shirt. Perhaps his manner was more amusing than his actions?
These three people are wearing highly machined natural fiber, dyed and configured by mechanical processes. This is all worn in layers, the open buttoned shirts above a tighter fitting pull over. The woman has upon her head a tilted stretch fiber hat. All three are wearing blue, rugged pants, but that is the only sign of uniformity. Only the female has a case with her, a small black bag with an animal hide handle.
As is true of Zeds, or all Araks for that matter, the males and females closely resemble each other. In this instance, the males are larger. This is true of most Arak types. None of the three physically resemble each other. Not sure if the female is dominant nor which of the males is dominant. Given the technology level I am seeing here, anything is possible. This doesn’t have the feel of a tribal society. These three do not have the feel of a familial grouping. Probably an advanced culture. Probably ancient.
Not sure if they are Zeds or Araks of any type. Closely resemble Arak Betas, of which Zeds are a subset. Near Zed, Arak Betas, seemingly warm-blooded.
We go. We stop. We go again. The doors came open, but no one came in and no one left.
The female has attempted to make eye contact with me. Not to draw my attention. Just out of curiosity.
I am not sure what the hell I am passing for.
She waits until there is a lull in the men’s conversation, leans in my direction and asks “Excuse me, are you in a band?”
Here goes. This vocalizer worked on thirty-three other planets. Why not here? I hope it has the acoustics right, otherwise it’s going to sound like I am talking out of my belt. Which I am. I also hope that I sound more like one of the men than her. “A musician? I have been accused of worse.”
One of the men, Andy, says “Base player.”
Steve agrees. “Gotta be a base player.”
“Then where’s his base?”
Adrian
asks.
My instrument? I played it yesterday. Which compartment did I put it in? It’s in the bandolier. I am wearing gloves, so perhaps they won’t be so prone to count fingers. I remove the box and tune it way down.
I play about seventy seconds of my Night Under The Springs composition. I made it a point to tilt the device towards me so that they couldn’t exactly track my plucking of tiny strings.
“Whoa. Way cool,” Andy says.
Steve says “It’s one of those things that Jap guy invented. I saw it on U-Tube.”
I carefully, but quickly, put it away.
Adrian says “That was very nice. Sounds sort of like an obo.”
“Sax,” Steve says. “Alto sax. How many voices you got in that thing?”
“I depends upon my mood,” I explain. That’s what the monk who gave it to me told me.
“Street performer?” Steve asks.
“That has the smell of ‘begger’ all about it. Let’s just say one step up,” I say.
“Nothing wrong with paying your dues, dude,” Steve says.
“Other than the street, where is the best place to pay these dues?” I ask.
Andy says “It’s a little late to be going to a gig. It’s 12:35, man.”
I say “You know us musicians. We sort of keep our own time.”
“You got kind of a WNUA new age jazz thing going there,” Steve says. “I don’t know.
Rush street
?”
“
Rush street
it is. Am I headed in the right direction?”
“Wake and bake, dude?” Steve asked.
I let that go.
Thankfully
Adrian
explained “Yeah. More or less. It would be a bit of a walk.”
“I just need the right stop and the right direction, really.”
Nice folks. Very helpful. Two stops later Steve asked me what I really did for a living—quickly adding that he thought I was a gifted musician and all. I told him that I had just gotten out of the army and that I had been wandering ever since. Which is true. If you define ‘just’ as twelve years. Not to dwell on things I can’t do anything about.
The cover of darkness has been very helpful. I got away and out of the light as soon as I could. When standing, my contours and posture are not at all like the natives.
Not that it is my intention to attempt impersonation. But it is an option. Once I have Windy channeled, she can perform wonders with my appearance. Her and Honey have made me look like all sorts of things. Currently I am coming off as “bird-like”, per Adrian’s impressions.
Oddly accurate impression. More of a bird-frog. That said, with a little filling in of the chest, shoulders and aft, plus a some alteration in my movements, I might be able to pass as one of them. Right now I rather accurately resemble someone attempting to look like a space alien. Oddly not evoking much fear.
Midway into the trek to Rush Street I am mistaken for a motorcyclist. I have achieved a location near the eastern boarder of the city, a shoreline. The man who mistakes me for such is riding a motorcycle. These people are gifted with acute empathy and a tendency to project.
The man calls to me from the street “Hope you locked it, baby.”
“Indeed,” I say.
“They’ll throw it right on a truck and steal it.”
“Thank you. Would you happen to know the names of those two largest buildings?”
“That’s the
Handcock
Building
and the other one’s
Sears
Tower
.”
“What does Handcock do?”
“I honestly don’t know what they do. Sears is a store.”
Good. Not the
Tower
of
Torture
or the Hall of Vengeance or
Temple
of the Doom God. All good signs, so far. The resemblance to the northern central portion of Tiamore is striking and eerie, though. Right down to the inland freshwater sea. Same flat, spongy land. Same time of year.
I asked the squat, bald man on the two wheeled machine one last question “Do you know a place on
Rush street
where they play WNUA jazz?”
“Now? The Back Room. Open until four,” he says, and then adds “I like that station.”
The Back Room is a long shaft of red bricks, leading to a square room. The man at the head of this rather extended hall had a darker complexion than those I had seen on the train. Like the man on the motorcycle, he was also bald and also growing hair above his lip.
“Man, that’s a hell of a get up. Can you play?”
“The people on the ‘El’ seem to think so.”
“They’re going to take a break in the set in about five minutes. You go in there.”
The man at the other end of the corridor just laughed. “Well, that’s making an effort. Just the suit.”
Three men were on the stage, one behind an arrangement of drums and cymbals and two with what at first glance seemed to be exaggerated stringed rifles. I sat on a stool and tried to take in as much of what it was they were playing as I could. Obviously, even with everything I had at my disposal, aping the form this quickly would have been impossible. I was focusing exclusively on the range of acceptable sounds. And then I gave up on that.
The room held thirty people, sixteen male, fourteen female, all adults. Seven were employees, serving or making drinks. Three performers. The rest, probably patrons.
The dark skinned man behind the drum kit stood up and the music went silent. One of the rifle players, also a dark skinned man, came to the microphone and said “Back in fifteen.”
He then waved at me. We met at the edge of the stage. Like the others, he laughed at my appearance. “Wow. That’s something. What’s the name?”
“Captain Meteor.”
He went to the microphone and said “Ladies and gentlemen, the Captain Meteor Experience.”
Before taking the stage, I asked him “Do they throw things?” referring to the audience.
“Not usually.”
Damn. I was hoping for snacks.
I faced the audience as the other performers had and withdrew my instrument. I then proceeded to play the entirety of Night Under The Springs, virtually without modification. It was the best I could do. Although I have played it a hundred times, I had never done so in front of an audience. The piece itself was inspired by a drowning incident I had several years ago. The melody is based upon a noise my ears were making at the time. The base line and rhythm are from the machine which pumped out my lungs.
The monks said playing would help me. What it is I seek has yet to appear, but I am getting better at playing. I have several compositions, but this is the one I know the best.
The tune did not overstay its welcome. I had their thorough attention. They were wide eyed with their mouths partially open. I thanked them and left the stage. As I left, they banged their hands together.
My parents would have been so proud of me. Not that they ever were anything but. But this is the type of thing that they would have most approved of.
I did not get a step from the stage when one of the other musicians, a man named Reynold, stopped me, saying “Hey, you’re going nowhere.”
Skip, the percussionist, added “You gotta sit in.”
A woman from the audience, a seeming friend of the band, said “Oh, come on.”
I did not know what to say. Then the person with the four stringed rifle, another dark skinned man named Carey, stood before the amplification input and said to the crowd “Give it up for the Captain.”
“I mean, can you?” Reynold asked. “Or is that thing like programmed?”
“Only by my soul,” I said, which brought a laugh. In retrospect, I think he was inquiring as to whether or not my instrument was electronic.
On a deeper level, everything here was programmed. The lights on the streets were programmed to change colors at certain intervals. The train I rode in was commanded by a remote system which churned the track’s signals. Unthinking objects swarmed in circles about the heavens, chirping back predestined missives. Their personal radios contained devices to help them remember the exchanges of other devices. Even their money rode on electronic bands, which could have posed a problem. Luckily, there was a back up system to their currency.
Not that obtaining money was my primary consideration. Just doing something peacefully with aliens can be a challenge in and of itself. Violence, force, is the universal language. Music is something of a refinement. In each case where a people has music there was always a variety of it.
I was also lucky that my band mates were playing set pieces. That, I can pick up with telepathy, since there is a preconceived plan and pattern to it. It helped that they all had the same idea of what the pattern was. There is so much nuance to a purely improvisational form that I would have been lost and, worse, out of step. Per standard procedure, mine, if you can’t play, at least don’t distract.
They also had a fairly good idea of how I should sound, or more specifically what part I should fill. The trio lacked a wind instrument. I was a sax. Or a flute, at least on “Birdland”. It was that part, but not that exactly. I went between what Skip and what Reynold expected. I changed the sound based on their approval. Not that we spoke on stage. Rather, I just read their minds.
Not to say that my performance was all that good. At least in my estimation. My instrument lacked the presence of the guitars or the percussion set. It was just a “Gameboy”, apparently a programmed entertainment device. The novelty of my uniform, which got quite a few up close looks, made up for this, I think.
I am happy it went off at all. My best initial reception by a group of aliens, ever.
At four o’clock the liquor license expired. This was the context for us discontinuing the concert. Lights came on and people began to grab their coats and throw paper on the tables. Many of the patrons had cards which were slid into a little blue box. That worried me, since at first I thought that was the only money.
I had spent quite a bit of my time on stage attempting to ‘match’ my current inventory of trade goods. I noticed that most of the women had rings on their fingers and dangling jewels on their ears. Gold or silver plated, most of it. They also had diamonds, of all things, prominently displayed. Even here, diamonds would have to be rather common. They must have liked how diamonds look. All said, I had enough matches.
Skip began a conversation, seemingly on my behalf, with the place’s balding, pasty faced manager. It began with “Four in the morning and no one left. Two people came in and both had more than the minimum. On a Tuesday. In October.”
The man, Stu, projected to me from behind his counter “Hey Cap, I’m paying you, ok?”
Yea. I just shook my head.
“Fifty,” Skip said to Stu.
“Out of yours, then,” Stu said. They went back and forth and settled on thirty-five.
A moment later, Skip pressed a roll of green paper into my hand. Hugging me, he said “Best I could do.”
The universal payment for an itinerant musician is enough for a filling meal and transportation back to whatever hole you undoubtedly live in. Here and in nine galaxies. I had a feeling Skip had done a little bit better than that for me. Not wishing to press my luck that much further, all I said was “Thank you.”
Skip, who actually sold boots for a living, asked me “Where did you get those kicks?” More than that, he dropped to a knee and felt them. “Lambskin?”
I didn’t want to lie, so I tried to change the subject. “I noticed yellow isn’t in. I have four sets of these.”
Reynold, who was putting his guitar into a black case, asked “What’s your cell, Cap?”
“I will have one by tomorrow,” I said, being a bit optimistic. With Honey at 20%, that was a guess.
Reynold then hands me his card. It has his exchange on it. His self-declared profession is ‘Promotions’. This isn’t his actual profession, but yet another sideline, a nebulous vaguely music-related one. Like Skip, however, he is an actual salesman. He tells me “Call me. I think I might have something for you Thursday or Friday.”
From what he is thinking, which I have absolutely no real context to judge, he does seem to have some sort of possibly potentially money making opportunity. I thank him again.
Carey wants to know if I am from
California
. My answer: Isn’t everyone?
Carey also offers me a lift home, but I decline.
I went back out the long front hall of the Back Room. Yellow vehicles plied the street, but otherwise activity was muted.
By this point I was entirely convinced that whatever Sulfur was doing on Earth, it wasn’t overt. He hadn’t seemingly launched any attacks on these people. I wasn’t certain he was even on Earth. I had run through a Voliant Wave event and I was still alive. I would have to settle for that. At least for today.
It was important that I formulate a strategy to obtain more information. I went and got a ‘gyro’ instead.
The place was called Tuggy’s and I am guessing that 4:20 AM is not its most busy time. There was only one person in the restaurant when I entered. I told the person behind the counter that I would have what the other customer was eating. This was perhaps a mistake.
Gyro platter. Onions on the side. In short, my favorite: mystery meat, indifferently formed and liberally spiced. One whiff of the spice let me know that I would have urgent need of a lavatory shortly. At that moment, I didn’t care.
I raised my visor, which caused a little bit of a start. The yellow beams from my eyes bathed the paper oval where the mound of brown strips of meat and white vegetable parts were strewn. At least the sight of my blue face--with its lack of a nose, two glowing trapezoidal eyes and scruff of fleshy tubes from the mid-point down--did not cause anyone to go screaming in panic. Quite the contrary. The man behind the counter bellowed “Dude! You got it down!”
I love this sort of food. Sadly, since I have attained a certain age point, it doesn’t quite love me back.
Chapter Four: Kismet Undiluted
Chicago
,
Illinois
,
Lake Street
. Day two of the survey.
Illinois
is one of the 48 contiguous states of the republic of the
United States
.
Chicago
is the governmental seat of
Cook
County
. Other than that, I have absolutely no clue as to where I am. Honey’s systems are now at 25%. Repair should pick up velocity some time soon.
Mind you, I have it on the estimation of a damaged piece of equipment as to what condition it thinks it is in and when it estimates it will have repairs completed, to itself. That fairly much explains my entire day.
Had I the chance to do it all over again, I would have just stayed in the bank all day.
I am not going to find what I have been seeking. Instead, the god and gods in their heaven and heavens, above and below, have led me here. Per standard procedure, mine, I do not fight fate.
Which is to say that it has dawned on me that running willy-nilly through a Voliant Wave event, no matter how noble my motivation may have been, was not, in all probability, the smartest thing I have ever done. And to think, gaining this insight only took me a day.
I should have taken the day off, if only to ascertain whether or not my systems are going to repair themselves. As it is, I have no benchmark as to the repair’s real progress. Even if I thought I was in immediate danger, shutting Honey down and hunkering in the bank would have been the smart thing to do. Using Honey’s systems, which are broken, has not aided in their repair and may have led me to make some erroneous conclusions.
Case in point: Sulfur used his mind zapping device twenty-eight times today. Each time within about fifty miles of here. I should have a map of his day’s discharges by tomorrow. As it stands, I have the total count of discharges, the time intervals and the distances, but no directions. I also have no way of tracking it live at this point.
None of that may be true. What am I really tracking here? Assuming the sensor is even functioning, I am tracking the discharge of the mind zap weapon’s battery. I am tracking the discharge of a plasma capacitor. First, I didn’t get all that good of a look at Sulfer’s weapon. It may have an entirely different power unit. Second, I have no idea if the Earth people have a device which might also show as a plasma battery discharge. In short, I have nothing. I have no evidence, even to this moment, that Sulfur is on Earth—or has ever been here.
I do not have to have been sent to the right place. Sulfur may have left the Voliant Wave event in another place and time altogether. Per the brain box in the tool kit, something is completely wrong. Let’s face facts: life is sometimes just a string of incidents only tangentially related to each other. Justice can be denied. I could be in this place entirely because I was spat here randomly.
Thanks to today’s activities, I have considerable circumstantial evidence that I have blindly stepped into the middle of deeply complex something. And that the cascade of events may overwhelm the feasibility of my acting with anything resembling a thoughtful strategy. And other happy thoughts like that.
As a starship captain, as the operational leader of the Shadow Fleet, as a Space Police officer, I should be very upset with myself. I would not accept this behavior even from a civilian spaceman. And I did not accept it, even from the lovely Toovy, who leapt before she looked as a habit. Nor did I study her fantastic reflexes for extricating herself from such situations. Nor do I have those reflexes.—What I wouldn’t give to be in the presence of the disreputable Toovy right now, if only for the sex.—As a monk, I am taught that it is the god and gods in their heaven and heavens who one trusts responsibility for formulating the thoughtful strategy. As a monk, I am merely the guardian of the noble purpose. I’ve only been a monk for twelve years. Maybe I should get with the program? It’s really all I got. Now.
If that is the case, I at least have the noble purpose down. I was able to vocalize it late in the day: “I am hunting the murderer of the people of Tiamore. I am here to expose the perpetrator, and optimally, to end the perpetrator’s existence. At the least, I am here to make sure the perpetrator is in no position or condition to commit additional atrocities.”
Miles Nasus asked “Are you sure that’s all you want?”
Per Mister Nasus, I am Elvis and he is the Colonel. The Colonel is going to help Elvis get what Elvis wants. If Elvis gets what Elvis wants, the rest belongs to the Colonel. If this means I wind up playing three shows a night in Vegas, I don’t care. I don’t actually have any plans beyond snapping Sulfur’s neck.
Miles Nasus is at least as involved in this situation as I am. On which side, neither of us can figure out as yet. In exchange for becoming my exclusive agent in all things, Mister Nasus is willing to abandon his role in the conspiracy, whatever it might be. This was entirely his idea.
Finding Mister Nasus was my last significant action of this day. By the time I found him, my walking around persona had attained a fully human sheen. I was no longer bird like. I walked like a man. My head no longer twitched. When I lifted my blast shield, a human face showed.
Or I would have settled for that. To be entirely descriptive, I was a somewhat idealized human: more a human as seen in advertisements than one actually seen walking around on the streets. I have bulging biceps, washboard abs, a contoured posterior. The blonde haired, blue eyed face with a fence of perfect teeth that shows has been lifted from a Latin television Novella. (Specifically, The Rich Also Cry.)
So the tanned Surfer Dude Space Cadet winds up meeting a Gucci Government Agent. I promised Mister Nasus that I wouldn’t go into the specifics of how I tracked him down, other than to say I had run across his name several times during my day’s investigations.
Miles Nasus maintains an office on the 44th floor of what the locals call the Standard Oil Building, a giant squared fluted marble column of a thing. For purposes of demonstration, I decided to contact Nasus in person while in full spaceman regalia. I appeared not as Captain Meteor, but rather as Young Doctor Sexybomb wearing Captain Meteor’s uniform.
Up until I reached the Standard Oil Building’s security desk, no one gave me a suspicious look. As long as my blast shield is up and I am smiling at everyone, there is nothing threatening or extraordinary about me. I am obviously an actor, probably out to distribute pizza coupons. This was a thorough turnaround from my reception this morning.
What was good context outside, became a nuisance once inside the Standard Oil Building. Security was about to pounce on me, so I made a bee-line to the reception desk. I was carrying something, so I could have been a courier, a bike messenger. The metal box in my hands was the Transfile tool kit, which I intended to present to Mister Nasus.
The security people were not that leery of me, probably because I walked up to their main desk. I waited in the line with the other people at reception. My patient demeanor deodorized whatever dissonance my appearance may have otherwise caused.
The blazer clad security man behind the elevated curve of a counter asked “And you are here to see?”
“Captain Meteor for Miles Nasus,” I said.
He punched a few keys and after an abbreviated ring-buzz, heard “Captain Meteor? Send him up.”
I am then pointed in the direction of the correct bank of elevators. Yesterday evening on my way back to Lake street, I discovered that I had no monetary problems. As long as there are ATM machines, I have ample forage. Having conquered the ATM with slight effort, playing with the phones is as simple as breathing.
Miles Nasus never got that phone call. That wasn’t Nasus the guard heard.
The receptionist in the quad of offices Nasus shares received a summons to come down and sign for packages. Again, the phone call is a fiction created by my helmet. She was waiting for the elevator as I stepped out of it. If need be, I could trap her in the elevator.
Having gained the office quad, I walked past the abandoned reception desk and straight to the door marked “Nasus Consulting, SC.” I unlock the door, step through, close the door and lock it—all without using my hands.
Miles Nasus is a well built man in a grey Armani suit. He has an olive tan, perfectly capped teeth and a thick mane of shoulder length jet black hair. Initially he had his back to me, his concentration focused on an array of four computer screens. He was actually not expecting me, nor anyone. In the four years that he has been in this office, Nasus had yet to receive a single visitor.
He was what I expected of a Secret Policeman, right down to the hiding in plain sight part. Like myself, he is a former government agent. At that moment he was making his living pimping out a gaudy Top Secret security clearance.
He was more or less what I was looking for. Protecting the populace from Sulfur is by rights the job of the human government. And the humans have lots of government. It is my hope that someone like Mister Nasus will be able to hit the right part of the government with the right stick for me. Controlling the flow of access is the Secret Policemen’s art.
Although I was expecting Nasus to have a mercenary bent, the Elvis and the Colonel analogy was a new one on me. Fine. If he gets me to Sulfur, I’ll be his trained space monkey. I should say that it is one of Mister Nasus’s objectives to keep me contiguous and not surrounded by formaldehyde. Apparently my earning potential is much higher as something other than a dissection subject. Or Mister Nasus is deeper than he seems.
Our agreement is far in excess of anything I was aiming for. All I was attempting to accomplish in this first meeting was to establish my credibility—as person from outer space. Even with telepathic reach, I wasn’t sure what to make of Miles Nasus from the onset.
When I first entered the door to his office, I knew that he had heard the door click. Not being the easy to spook type, he didn’t immediately turn around. Instead one of his hands was moving under the armrest of his chair.
I said “Mister Nasus, you put the key that you are looking for in your wallet two days ago. But if you insist on going for the pistol in your desk, I can unlock the drawer for you now.”
I unlocked the drawer. He watched as the lock turned, propelled by an unseen force. I had his full attention.
After briefly detailing how I had come across his name and blown his cover, I presented him wit