* * *
Hadrian awoke, his head throbbing, his skull feeling cracked open in a dozen places. Someone was stroking his hair. He blinked his eyes open to find himself cradled in Galk’s lap.
“Lieutenant, you can stop that now.”
“Huh? Oh. Yes sir. Sorry, sir.”
Hadrian sat up, found himself sharing a cell with Zulu, Galk and Nina Twice. He glared at Nina. “What was wrong with your lap, anyway?”
She blinked at him. “He got there first, sir.”
Rising shakily to his feet, Hadrian said, “New protocol. From now on, only female crew members are permitted to cradle the captain’s head in their laps when he happens to be unconscious, or just needy. Understood everyone?”
A trio of ‘yes sir’s’ answered him.
“Right. Excellent.” Hadrian studied the cell. Two walls were solid iron bars from floor to ceiling, facing a corridor with a door at each end. The remaining walls of the cell looked solid. A small window was set high up on one of them, from which sunlight slanted down, forming an elongated rectangle of light on the floor.
Into that rectangle now rose the shadow of a chicken’s head atop a thin neck.
Hadrian stepped back and squinted up at the window. “Tammy, you’ve gotten taller.”
“Just my legs,” the chicken replied. “And look at you all, a sorrier foursome I’ve never seen. By the way, Spark is still sitting where you planted him, Hadrian. Maybe now you’ll reconsider my offer to upgrade its processor. Oops!” The head darted out of sight, even as one of the doors clanged open and into the corridor strode two locals, holding between them a woman wearing a mid-length woolen skirt, a buttoned-up blouse of white cotton, sensible shoes and her black hair done up in a knotted bun.
“Back off from the door,” one of the locals snapped.
Hadrian gestured and he and the others edged toward the back wall, as one of the guards unlocked the cell door and pushed the woman into the cell. The door clanged shut behind her. Moments later the two locals left.
The woman straightened her skirt and patted her bun. “This is, of course, all a misunderstanding. Things will get sorted out, I’m sure.” She now regarded Hadrian and the others. “You’re not part of the Census Team! Are they now preying upon their own? Well, given the difficult circumstances of their upbringing, I suppose it was inevitable.”
“We’re not from around here,” said Hadrian. “You must be a Dimcrutch.”
She straightened. “Senior Assessor Bleedheart, Census Team Ninety-Four, Project Salvation Compliance. This is the last enclave of the Pub holdouts left in the world yet to comply with the Seven Steps to Salvation, and as you can see, in their benighted ignorance they remain in a wretched state.”
“Yet here you are,” Hadrian said with a sympathetic smile, “in a cell.”
She frowned. “An ambush, committed by the misguided. Until the Billionaire’s arrival, all was proceeding as planned—”
“Using nukes? Some compliance.”
Her frown deepened. “Miscalculations are to be expected, given the project’s scale. The essential philosophy remains sound, of course.” She then sighed and seemed to relax. “But yes, you have a point, and since it seems that this last enclave insists on responding with violence and the threat thereof, resettlement seems the only option.”
“Resettlement? To where?”
“Well, that is to say, the resettling of their constituent molecules in a drift of ashes over a blasted landscape.”
“You mean you plan on nuking this place?”
“Not me! Such decisions belong to the Committee. I am simply predicting their response to my imprisonment. Sacrifices are often necessary, to serve the greater good. The Committee will grieve for us all, I’m sure, but needs must.”
“And if we broke you out?” Hadrian asked. “Got you back to your Census Unit? Can you call off the nukes, Senior Assessor?”
She tapped her lips thoughtfully. “Possibly, but no. I can’t possibly go anywhere with you if you haven’t filled out the relevant forms, and alas, they burned my Essential Binder, if you can believe that. But this highlights the essential quandary. These last Pubs refuse to fill out the proper forms, and without the forms filled out properly we are unable to determine their needs, thus preventing us from initiating the appropriate social assistance programs.”
Hadrian nodded, and then said, “What if I told you that it’s the Billionaire who is your roadblock here? He’s convinced these Pubs that their little island of ignorance is in fact a paradise.”
“We have no contingencies to account for the Billionaire,” Bleedheart admitted.
“Tell you what,” said Hadrian. “We’ll take care of him. We’ll get you back to your people so you can get yourself a new Essential Binder, which no doubt will contain the relevant Break Out of Cell forms. We can successfully mitigate this situation, Senior Assessor, without the need for nukes.”
“Granted,” she said, “nukes are a somewhat heavy-handed means of mitigation, although an end to all the arguments would be a relief. Even so, I will do what I can, should you extract me from this cell and, most importantly, promise to fill out the necessary forms as soon as possible.”
Hadrian turned back to the window. “Tammy?”
The chicken head popped back into view. “Yes, I’ve been listening. Hadrian, we both know how this is going to turn out. Are you sure you want that on your conscience? Better the nuke, maybe?”
“Captain Rabidinov has exceeded even Affiliation protocols—”
“Debatable,” Tammy cut in. “He does have seniority over you, after all. I foresee a legal battle of epic proportions.”
“My problem and I’ll handle it. Now, can you break us out of here?”
“For some strange reason this building is made of adobe and plaster, and since I left my Deathray Eyes back on the ship, I’ll have to peck, and peck, and peck, and–”
“Never mind. Just bring me Spark.”
“Intransigent Command Limitator! I warned you! It won’t listen to me!”
“Fine. Move away from that window. Zulu, you and Galk position yourselves below the window and make for me a ladder. Nina, you can hold me up with your hands planted firmly on my—”
“I have no tools,” said Zulu. “For the ladder, I mean.”
“No, use your body, Zulu. There, beside Galk. I’ll step up onto your thighs and then your shoulders, and then you, Nina—”
“I won’t be able to reach that high, sir.”
“Then climb up behind me—”
“Getting heavy here,” gasped Galk.
“—right, like that, and your hands go—”
Zulu groaned. “I’m—ow—my leg!”
Hadrian felt them all collapsing beneath him and reached up frantically, managing to hook his hands on the sill of the window, where he dangled against the wall. “Push me up! Push me up!” Two hands planted themselves firmly on his buttocks. “Galk if that’s you—”
He was pushed upward, and now he found himself crammed partway onto the window’s sill, his head thrust out and looking at a snarled, overgrown backyard crowded with old washing machines and refrigerators. Hadrian hung there for a moment. Standing to one side and regarding him with cold chicken eyes was Tammy, properly in scale except for the seven-foot-long legs.
“That looks awkward,” observed Tammy.
“Oh yeah? You checked yourself out lately?”
“I’m sorry, I left my eight-foot mirror back in my cabin.”
Hadrian drew a breath and loosed a sharp whistle.
“Hah!” crowed the chicken, “I’ve recorded that!”
“Nice try,” grunted Hadrian, struggling to hold on. “Digital compression won’t pass Spark’s False Signal Filter.”
Clanking sounds and then Spark pelted round a corner and skidded to a halt beneath the window. “Haddie? No! Haddie’s head! Where is the rest of Haddie?”
Tammy’s legs doubled in height suddenly, and from high above th
e chicken peered over the trailer and said, “Rabidinov’s on his way, Hadrian. He’s halfway across the compound. You have twenty-two seconds.”
“The cops are coming, Spark. You know what to do.”
“Save Haddie’s head! Engaging Peaceable Program Provocation Override! They Started It First, Your Honor!”
Hadrian felt himself slipping. “Go to it, Spark!”
He heard the mechanical bark even as he slid back and then fell from the window’s sill, landing on the floor in a crouch. He gave Senior Assessor Bleedheart a thumbs-up then wheeled round even as the outer door opened and into the corridor strode Rabidinov.
“You,” he said in a growl, “Hadrian Sawback. Your 2IC won’t comply with my orders. She’s insubordinate and I’ll have her up on charges pronto! In the meantime, she insists on talking to you. So, this is how it plays out, Sawback. Tell her to obey my commands, or I kill … oh, that one with the baseball cap. Then the girl, and then—”
“Yeah yeah, I get it,” Hadrian replied.
“So you are the Billionaire!” Bleedheart hissed, stepping up to the bars to glare at Rabidinov. “You’re not a Pub!”
“That’s right, sister,” Rabidinov answered, baring his small teeth. “They’re my minions. My unwitting drones who believe everything I tell ’em. Why, I can feed them shovelfuls of shit and make ’em smile and ask for more! I promise them the moon and make sure they settle for the gutter! I make ’em suspicious of smart people, educated people, enlightened people, the whole outside world that’s full of do-gooders and well-wishers and all those other bleating sheep baa baa baa!”
“Evil man!”
“What of it? It’s an evil world, sister. Dog eat dog–”
“Speaking of dogs,” cut in Hadrian, even as the wall behind Rabidinov exploded in a cloud of dust and a hail of plaster and adobe.
Rabidinov cursed and, ducking down, ran for the other door. He kicked it open and vanished outside.
Through the giant hole in the wall and into the corridor trotted Spark. “Master? Haddie! Head back on body!”
“Nice blast, Spark, but wrong wall. Burn out this here lock.”
Red lasers shot out from the guard dog’s eyes, melting the lock until it fell away in a smoldering clump. The door swung open on its squealing hinges.
Hadrian turned to Galk. “Escort the Senior Assessor to the barricade. Take Nina with you. Zulu, you’re with me and Spark—we have to hunt down Rabidinov.”
“What about me?” Tammy asked from just outside the hole in the wall. The chicken was now back to its normal height.
“Well,” said Hadrian as he headed down the corridor in the wake of Rabidinov, “as soon as you show some pluck, do let me know.”
“Oh ha ha.”
“Go on, Galk, and knock down that barricade while you’re at it.”
Galk hesitated and drew off his baseball hat, wiping the back of his wrist across his brow. Then he spat a stream into the dust. “Aye, Captain, we can do that.”
“Did that take some thought, Galk?”
“No sir. Just that, that horde’s likely to come in here with enough Assistance Programs and Education Incentives to drown a planet full of Klangers, only unlike the Klang these poor suckers ain’t got a knife up a sleeve. You see, sir, I now figure I know these folk. Worked it out, I mean. The aliens who kidnapped my forefathers raided places like this all the time. If it wasn’t for the crossbreeding with the Conspiracy Nerds—who were right, by the way—why, I’d be no different from anybody in this trailer park.”
“You feeling sorry for them?” Hadrian asked.
“Kinda, sir.”
Hadrian nodded. “Fair enough. So, what do you think happened here? On this planet?”
“Same aliens as made my home planet of Varekan, sir. Only, an earlier version. Maybe a prototype. Wrong cocktail mix though. I figure they snatched mostly couch potatoes watching one pathetic channel every night, along with maybe some rebel crowd whose definition of freedom never went farther than the right to shit on other people.” He shrugged. “So they abandoned it.”
“Hmm, could be. And the Dims?”
Galk shrugged again. “Who knows, maybe the alien kidnappers accidentally snatched a tree-huggers’ camp.”
“Possible,” Hadrian conceded. “What an unholy mess.”
“Yes sir.”
“I mean, imagine a world full of hatred and ignorance and idiots and bullies and all of it dumbing down generation after generation of persistent stupidity—why, that’d be almost as bad as the Affiliation!”
“Yes sir,” and Galk gestured to Nina Twice and then the Senior Assessor once and they all headed off.
Back outside, Zulu let out a low cry and ran over to his cavalry saber, which had been left lying in the dirt. He lifted it up and whipped it back and forth. “Sir! I am now armed once again!”
“Excellent, Zulu. Spark, Tracking Mode. Rabidinov. Go.”
“Infrared Mode! Sonic Triangulation Mode! Seismic Detection Mode! There he is, Haddie, over there!”
Hadrian looked over to see Rabidinov standing in the middle of the street directly ahead. Behind him was the back side of the first trailer they’d seen, the mother and her husband and their children all gathered in front of it, armed with baseball bats. “Good work, Spark. Zulu, with me.” He approached the other captain.
“What’re you going to do now?” Rabidinov demanded. “Fist fight? Here’s mine!” He pulled out his stick with the nail in it. “I got corporate backers just waiting to hear from me! Surrender your ship now or I’ll brain ya for a laugh!”
“I have been wondering, where’s your crew, Captain?”
He jerked a thumb. “Fuckin’ turncoats. I’ll get them, just you wait!”
When Rabidinov advanced on Hadrian, Zulu leapt forward, swinging his blunt saber. It knocked the stick out of Rabidinov’s hand.
“Ow, fuck! Gimme that sword!”
Zulu leapt back, assuming an en garde position. “Try and take it!”
Rabidinov lunged forward and wrested the saber from Zulu’s hand. “Like this?”
“Ow, you twisted my wrist!”
Spark barked. Rabidinov spun and threw the saber. It bounced off of Spark’s head.
“Oh,” said Hadrian, “now you’ve done it.”
Spark barked twice more, then fired a barrage of beam weapons. Moments later the trailer behind Rabidinov fell in a cloud of dust around the hapless parents, making them duck while their children scattered like cockroaches from an oven.
“Fuck!” cried the man, tearing at his own shirt. “My Castle! Oh well, gotta get me another, I guess. YoHo, collect up the runts and take them to the Special Shelter!” He then moved forward and knelt before Rabidinov. “Mister Sir Oh Lord High King With Loads of Extreme Wisdom, how ’bout I get my brothers and cousins and we teach these unsportin’ terrists a lesson they’ll be too dead to forget?”
“Yes,” said Rabidinov. “Gather the 1st Freedom Loving Army of God’s Justice at once! And soon, Billyjimbob File-Under-Hopeless, we’ll have Marines on our side, delivering Depleted Payback on every weepy hugging mutha out there! Hoo Reilly!”
“Hoo Reilly!”
After Billyjimbob had jogged off into the chaotic warren of the trailer park, Hadrian sighed and eyed Rabidinov. “Really, Captain?”
“Really what, you weasely little toad?”
“This the best you could do? With all that technology and know-how at your disposal?”
“I couldn’t kill them all! I tried, believe you me! Battlefield nukes right back at ’em! Master-Blasters! And all they ever did was offer concessions! There’s millions of the buggers out there, living underground in Sustainable Colonies with everybody smiling and hugging and being all fuckin’ sympathetic! They can do whatever they want and nobody pays for nothing! Where’s the Freedom in that?”
“I’m taking you into custody.”
“No you ain’t. I’ve just decided, I’m bigger than you. I’m going to beat you up becau
se hey, might makes right.”
“Now you’re in for it, Hadrian,” said Tammy as the chicken ambled up behind Hadrian. “It’s what it all comes down to sooner or later with you humans. Who punches harder—”
Spark barked two quick barks and then a beam lashed out.
Captain Rabidinov glowed momentarily, then turned into a small pile of ashes.
“Self-Defense Protocol Murderous Intruder! Designated Too-Stupid-to-Listen-to-Reason. See Legal Disclaimer on Autonomous Actions by Guardomatic Unit (including Germane Shepherd, Marks I to III, Yapper-Head-Off Ratbag Mini/Midi/Maxi/Tiny, all variants, and Head-On Train-Chaser Dingo/Pitbull/Healer/Shitzer models, all variants) in Owner’s Manual, Version 23.2.”
“Or,” said Hadrian to Tammy, “who punches first. Well,” he added with a sigh, “that was depressing.”
Zulu jumped forward and retrieved his saber. “Captain! I’m armed again!”
“Excellent, Zulu.”
There was a distant scream, then a rumble.
“Here they come,” said Tammy.
Galk and Nina Twice came running up.
“Sir,” said Galk, “Senior Assessor Bleedheart just led the first wave of Dims at the 1st Freedom Loving Army of God’s Justice.” He spat. “With predictable consequences.”
“It was horrible!” cried Nina Twice. “They kept saying ‘We know you’re racist homophobic Nazis but we forgive you!’ Over and over again! And then—and then—”
“They trampled them,” said Galk.
“Right,” said Hadrian, sighing. “Thank goodness they didn’t use nukes. Well, time to displace back to the ship. Tammy?”
“On it, Captain.”
A few moments later, they all stood in the Insisteon Chamber. “Think I’d better put a quarantine on that planet,” said Hadrian. “Terra’s not ready for them. Not yet, anyway.” Hands on hips, Hadrian drew a deep breath. “Let that be a sobering lesson to us all. When the world is full of nothing but trailer parks crammed with ill-educated nitwits chugging beer and scratching their asses, the meatheads in charge will have won.” He paused. “On the other hand, a planet full of mewling pro-education social justice warriors will, if left alone, establish a utopian model civilization with no conflict, no inequality, and no room at all for sociopathic billionaires sucking blood from the tits of the poor—and if that ever happened, why, it’d be canceled after three seasons!”