The last time I’d seen the inside of the fight ship, Jack, Kim Jones, Roger Abbas ibn Spralja, the Mek, and I were in the process of escaping it by means of stolen ships. From space, the exterior looked about the same. Tem brought us in rapidly and docked the shuttle inside like the fighter pilot he used to be. Tem was such a good pilot that we swayed, but didn’t jerk around in our seats. He’d brought us in the back way, because the spectators caused too much traffic with their comings and goings through the ‘front door’. The Mek had taken advantage of Klon’s being in orbit; rather than being enslaved guards, they were in the audience cheering and spilling snacks instead of wrangling bloodied, half berserked slaves into cages. Ahhh! Progress.
Air cycled into the dock as Tem powered our shuttle down, and Jack and I unsecured ourselves and stood up. Tem came back and opened the shuttle’s hatch and stepped out.
A white, furry alien stood on the deck. It was about six and a half feet tall, had a heart shaped face with one bulbous red eye in each lobe, and a red bulb where the point of the nose would have been. The eyes were golden. The creature kind of resembled a bat in shape and silhouette.
Sha-kaka! came to me unbidden from my memories.
I greeted the being in trade speech.
The bat grunted a greeting back at me in the same language. Its four limbs were very short and clawed. It stood with the arms out to the side, and the feet about a foot-and-a-half apart, looking much like a kite. I appraised the beast by looking it up and down as I would have had I still been a fighter, and received an approving expression and a preening posture in return.
I’d noticed that two huge furry balls hung down between its legs, almost brushing the floor. Later I learned from Klon that they weren’t testicles, but fat storage, and, in fact, the red bulb of a “nose” was the thing’s sex organ. Sex organs on the face! Talk about being skull fucked.
You gotta love nekkid aliens.
“I am Lukan,” Lukan said from behind the bulb.
I didn’t have to translate as Jack knows trade speech, but I introduced him. He was standing quite still. I didn’t think he’d be afraid, but he’d had some bad experiences on this ship. Jack lost some of his team here, I remembered.
Jack nodded at Lukan and introduced Tem. Lukan had a hard time looking down at Tem, as if his spine wouldn’t bend.
Lukan said, “Klon has asked me to lead you to him.”
Take me to your leader, I thought. Tem nodded. “Excellent,” I replied as a dark shadow came swiftly up the shaft behind Lucan, pushing him roughly aside and grinning hugely at me.
“Ghee!” it growled.
“Klon!” I yelled back.
“I could not wait,” he said in heavily accented English, with a growl accompaniment.
He grabbed me in a bear hug and I cringed at what I imagined would be the greasy, rank smell of him, but he smelled of hair conditioner. Vanilla.
He pushed me back and held me at arm’s length, his claws not quite tearing my blouse. His scary face stared into mine.
He was closer to seven feet tall, muscled like a gorilla but with a body more like a human’s, covered by a pelt so dark brown it appeared black. The hairs were long, about seven inches in length, and threaded with grey, a lot more than I remembered. I knew his back hair, though we couldn’t see it, would be silver, and even longer. His skin, which was visible on his hands, feet, and part of his face, was a velvety looking medium-grey color, and leathery. But his eyes, deep blue feline irises, the pupils horizontal instead of vertical, held worlds more twinkle in them as well. Two slits in his face were his nostrils, and they could flair or close tight at will. His face was as lumpy and scarred as mine.
“I get away from duty,” he bellowed in terrible English. My eyebrows rose involuntarily. He laughed at me. “Ghee, I am Suit, now! Businessman,” he boomed and laughed. “We are all,” he swung his club of an arm around and grabbed Lucan’s shoulder, pulling him closer, “entrepreneurs,” he sigh-growled in a satisfied way.
“I’m astonished, Klon, and pleased! You remember Jack? And this is our pilot, Tem.”
“Ambassador and little Mek pilot, you are so welcome. Your visit will be pleasant. Not like before.”
I felt Jack physically relax beside me, but Tem seemed to take this all in stride. He’d probably talked to the Mek who had already visited the ship, or maybe he’d taken in a show himself.
“Much to say, in my imperfect English,” Klon bellowed, so I explained to him I would translate. He and I commenced to speaking in Klon’s guttural language. He pulled me ahead, explaining the business in detail. I glanced back at Jack, Tem, and Lukan, and Jack smiled and waved me ahead.
Klon took us on a tour of the ship, but at some point he and I lost the others. He showed me the new visitor suites, which had been the cages Jack and his team had suffered in before. We were walking down a familiar hallway when Klon growled and pushed our way through a group of gawkers. We stood in front of my old cage. I followed Klon in until stopped by a thick velvet rope between metal stands, like in a museum, or at the theatre where you line up. Beyond, my cage was exactly the same.
“Klon, what…?”
“You are famous, Ghee. Visitors want to see your cell. Look.”
He knocked the left stand into the right one. As they both crashed to the floor, he pulled me through my old prison, past the smoked wall, and into my old garden. The sound of the crowd hushed a bit. The grass seemed the same, but the tree was young.
“We had to replace the old tree. It died soon after you escaped. But this one will be here for a long time.”
I sunk to my knees in the grass, facing the tree like old times. It barely registered in the back of my mind that the crowd was making very little noise. They hadn’t advanced in to my old quarters but still stood behind where the barrier should have been. For many decades I’d knelt or sat here, contemplating my tree which had grown old and gnarled before me, as I had before it. For over fifteen decades this body had fought on this ship and healed in this room.
“Thank you for bringing me here, Klon. I’d almost forgotten.”
“I forget too, sometimes. I have my own memory place. In it, I remember the Klon I don’t want to be anymore, and I am better now because of those memories.”
“Yes.”
“I have one more thing to show you, and then we’ll go enjoy the show.”
Klon struggled to lift his mass up off the grass carpet and I wondered how old he was. He moved a bit like an old man, but then, life in an arena can age you quickly. The injuries accumulate. I felt a little stiff myself.
He stared at me for a moment, and I saw something kind in his eyes.
“You are so ugly,” he growled.
“Excuse me? Do you have a full length mirror?”
We laughed as we walked back through my old bedroom. The crowd was now totally silent. Klon rearranged the velvet ropes and stanchions after we went through them and I noticed for the first time people capturing still and moving images of us with various devices. Klon pushed aside those individuals who were too stupid or paralyzed with fear to get out of his way. When we’d moved through the majority of them, he turned around and roared. No one followed us any further.
“Your face,” he said when we were out of earshot. “Ugly. I never realized before.”
“How could you know?” I asked.
“Exactly,” he agreed. “Cherish and Ravish are symmetrical.” He glared at me again, then laughed. “I wonder what my clan would think of my lumps and scars.”
“They could hardly tell. You’re mostly covered in hair.”
“They would not like my gentleness.”
Klon? Gentle? I chuckled.
“So much killing has made me… desire softer things. Makes me a nicer…” he growled out his species name.
I stopped. He stopped and faced me. I reached up and put one hand on each of his hairy cheeks. His fierce eyes at that moment seemed to be hiding a giant, somber, old man.
“I know what you mean, my friend.”
We continued to walk.
“So, who are Cherish and Ravish?’ I asked.
“The sexers.”
Of course.
“They are just like you, but pretty.” He glanced sideways at me. “Kitty and I talked about orbiting some planets at the same time, but decided we would only do this for high population planets or systems, otherwise we cut into each others’ profits. We organize our schedules so we visit planets at different times, to let the peoples rebuild their disposable incomes so they can spend more on us.”
Klon had just said disposable income, for cryin’ out loud.
“Sounds smart. Who’s Kitty?”
“She owns the sex ship. Kitten LeMieux.”
I laughed out loud.
“What?”
I took a long time figuring out how to translate her name into Klon-ese. I had to find out if his people had pets, anything similar to cats. He finally got the joke.
“I think they all have fake names. Also, Cherish and Ravish have tattoos, like yours. I have tried to find the other sexers’ names in my English-Trade Speech Standard Dictionary to learn if they mean anything nasty. Some are scandalous.”
I pictured Klon in a smoking jacket with a pipe, in an overstuffed chair, peering through reading glasses at a large book, looking for dirty words.
He said something and I had to shake my head to clear the vision.
“What, Klon?”
“This.” He palmed a pad on the wall and the door in front of us slid open. Inside was something like a small version of a twenty-first century server farm, or one of those large, antique, original Earth computers. Lights blinked, things spun and other things clicked over. A loud hum filled our heads and the floor vibrated annoyingly. The machine took up the entire large room, and cool air flushed in from grates low in the walls. Vents in the ceiling worked hard to remove the heat.
I questioned Klon with my eyes.
“This has five servicers that are robotic, and as far as we can tell, they service each other as well. We don’t mess with them, or it.”
He gestured at the thing. I walked around hugging the walls while getting a lot of hot air blown at me.
“What is this,” I asked.
“Guess,” Klon said.
“Okay. I guess it runs some function of the ship.”
“All functions of the ship.”
“Right. Shipbrain,” I answered.
“Yes, though more. Try again.”
“I have no idea, my friend. What is it?”
“It’s Spauch.”
It’s Spauch, echoed in my brain. It’s Spauch.
My mouth literally fell open.
“No,” I exclaimed.
Klon addressed what looked like a speaker panel on the thing in his native language.
“What are you?”
The stupid computer replied to Klon in his tongue, “Spauch Brand Accounting and Managerial System model number…” and pronounced a string of numbers and letters.
“This is Spauch?” I’m afraid I shrieked a little.
“Yes,” Klon answered calmly. He was staring at me. “Its origin language is Tzlotzl.”
“A Tzlotzl computer!”
“Yes.”
“This is what we were afraid of?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll be damned.”
“Me, too,” Klon agreed icily.
I stared in awe for a full minute. I couldn’t speak. How had this happened? How had a computer become the thing we’d all been afraid of? We could have escaped at any time had we been aware; we had all worked against each other and there’d been no one to stop us from up and leaving, except ourselves.
“Do the Mek know?” I asked. The Mek had been enforcing a system of slavery they’d despised when they hadn’t had too. I didn’t know if they could handle the truth.
“No. We decided not to tell them.”
“We?”
“The Board of Supervisors.” I laughed again, but with more reserve. “You’re a Supervisor, right?”
“Right. Will you tell them?”
“No, Klon. I’m not telling them this.”
Klon relaxed just like Jack had earlier. What a nasty revelation this had turned out to be.
“Now, we will have fun.”
We weren’t too far from the entrance of the private box he took me to which overlooked the arena. Jack and Lukan already sat in plush recliners, but not Tem. Jack took one look at me face and almost dropped his drink on the table as he lurched up and asked anxiously, “What’s wrong?”
I smiled. “Wrong?”
“You look like hell,” said the Diplomat.
“Thanks,” I replied cheerily. I babbled on distractingly about the changes Klon had made to the ship and the crowd at my pen. Jack’s worry decreased. An alien barker entered the ring and began to shout at us. Translators blinked on the table and we each picked one up and stuck the button onto the skin behind our ears, quietly speaking a few lines so the translators could determine our language.
“Ladies and Gentlemen, boys and girls of all ages… ” the circus master said over and over again as all the alien spectators adjusted their translators.
I watched Klon pick up something about the size of a deflated basketball, covered in dark hair like his, though shorter, and set it on his shoulder. The furball proceeded to slowly move around his body until finally settling in his lap.
The show was terrific. Pam had been right, and some of the fighters were Mek. In fact, one was Tem! Tem came out from the left pen like I used to, pounded his chest, and raised his arms to the crowd. He was wearing skin-tight blue trunks, and nothing else.
“Klon, that’s our pilot,” I said with some concern. Klon grinned and spoke English for Jack’s benefit. “Only fight to tap out!” he growled.
A froggy came into the arena from the right.
“Klon!” I said with growing irritation. I found myself perched on the edge of my seat, adrenaline flowing through me.
Klon looked at me. “This okay, Ghee,” he said, still in English. “Froggies in on it. They have intelligence, and we give ‘em lotta feed.”
Shit, I quietly breathed, but the froggy didn’t unhinge his beak and swallow our pilot. He pretended to want to, though, and I damn near peed myself as he pretended repeatedly to miss, barely. Tem did get hold of the hopper several times and the action turned hilarious. The frog bounced around the arena with Tem holding on, trying to apply an arm lock to the ridiculously thick neck. Eventually, Tem wore out, lost his grip, fell off, and had to tap out, his breath going deeply in and out of his wide chest. They got a huge round of applause.
During the fight, I noticed the retention net, which had been stretched over the ring to keep the froggies in after Spauch had started buying them, had been replaced with a solid, clear dome.
“Klon, you replaced the net.”
“Yeah, to keep spectators from throwing stuff on the fighters. You remember?”
Oh, yeah, I did remember the sticky drinks and food, and sometimes nastier things. I didn’t get a lot of that during my fights, but some of the others did.
Intermissions broke up the action between each fight, and we sampled the snacks Klon and Company had provided. Some expensive delicacies presented, including Faire products. I asked Klon what he’d paid for them, and the price was high. It’d been through too many hands, so to speak.
“I can get you a better deal, Klon,” I smiled, “if you tell me what that thing is on your lap.”
Klon looked down. He replied in his language.
“This is my spall. My… mmm. You say ‘wife’. We are mating.”
“Now?” My voice hit the high octaves.
“No. She just gets comfy there.”
“What’s her name?”
“No name. She’s not intelligent. Just spall.”
I translated for Jack.
“So, you’re starting a family,” Jack said, “Congratula
tions!” Jack shook Klon’s enormous hair-backed hand and even ventured to slap his back, which made a muffled thud. Jack grabbed his drink and toasted Klon’s imminent family.
Klon was impressing me with his worldliness.
The spall was the thing Klon had likened to a cat earlier when I was trying to explain Kitten LeMieux’s name, but I hadn’t heard any noise come out of the little beast yet.
Aliens. What are you gonna do?
“I thought you used the sexers?” I asked.
He answered in his terrible English. “Not as customer, no, they too small, you know. Spall made for this, biologically speaking. Is mostly reproductive parts. Very expansive,” he bragged. “But me and Cherish and Ravish have make a friendship. They are much like you, Ghee.”
He changed the subject. “So, you decide to fight, right?”
“Right.” How could I say no?
“What about Buster?” Jack asked.
“Buster?” Klon asked. He gently stroked his wife.
“B-4ST327R. She arrived at KekTan recently. She’s like Ghee, too.”
“Four of you in arena together! Oh, I want to see. I cannot wait! You must travel with us. We will rake in the money hands over claws.”
“You mean ‘hand-over-fist’, Klon.” I thought perhaps his word was more accurate. “But wait. I don’t even know any of them yet.”
“Leave that to us. Lukan is our best recruiter. He’ll shuttle to KekTan and talk at Buster. Exciting!”
It was interesting to experience Klon in his new role.
Jack kept looking back and forth at us, as we talked. He seemed a bit… stunned.
I had a wonderful time. By the end of the evening Jack was drunk, though he handled inebriation well. Tem had showered and changed and met us on the flight deck. Klon had wrapped one arm around me and one around Jack and didn’t seem to want to let go. When he did, our new best friend Lukan tried to hug us, too, but he made a bad job of it. He, too, was quite drunk. Tears streamed from his eyes. I didn’t think he was crying, but he did seem quite emotional.
Klon informed us that Lukan had had a disastrous final fight, and afterward, his entire spine had been surgically fused. They’d done this in a rush to save him. He’d died once after the fight and twice during the procedure. Lukan really was very sweet. I think he suffered from the same disease that all we old, broken down killers succumb to - an excess of kindness.
After lengthy goodnights, Klon shoved us into our shuttle after Tem and tried to follow, not wanting to let us go, but he couldn’t fit his enormous self in. Klon and Lukan stood sniffling and waving while Tem went through his checklist and powered up our little ship. The hairy nightmare monster and our newest friend were forced to leave the deck so the air could cycle out. When the outer hatch opened, Tem lifted the shuttle, gently boostering us out of the Trakennad Dor. He flew us safely home.
Chapter Eight
Dual Duplicity