Automatic Assassin

  Chapter 4

  The magnificent throne deck of Sultan Gukkool had been hastily repaired. Fresh flowers hung from the golden buttresses that framed the immaculate sky. The dancing girls got an extra high dose of pleasure drugs and so were able to dance over the trauma of the recent attack.

  Gukkool stroked his beard. He looked at himself in a little mirror. Was he too fat? Not fat enough? Or was fat not even important now? Was it all about nose length or number of fingers? His people were not keeping him up to speed. He was sure that the other sultans had better people and that they looked better too. That was probably why he had been targeted for assassination. And now he would have to hold a council of sultans and they would probably give him a hard time about his security procedures and how he was letting the sultans down and how it would probably have been better if he had died in the attack and then they could have reformatted his planet with its vulgar font choice.

  The other sultans hated his font choice. Well, Gukkool’s Mom had loved that font and had smiled when she saw the photo of the planet that had her name tastefully drawn out in lakes across its surface. The other Sultans should get over it. Since they were all basically illiterate it was unbecoming to even have a favorite font, if you thought about it. Which Gukkool did. He was a thinker among sultans.

  "Bring him in!" shouted Gukkool and so it was done. The jugglers stopped juggling; the broncotron was turned off.

  The plascrete cocoon was floated in, coaxed by two bare-chested, hormonally adjusted bodyguards with smooth skin, bald bodies and disturbing pectorals. Disturbing to all except the Sultan and probably his mother.

  Gukkool stretched his bow. He never missed a flying squid or a concrete-trapped eyeball. He took out two arrows, all he would need. He had an idea that he was amazed it had taken him forty years to discover. An arrow that split like a fork at the end, spaced for the typical eyeball spread.

  He called over counselor Chang to discuss this plan and Chang took it with his usual spearmint efficiency. "We shall commence the measurements my Sultan.

  As they lined up the target and brought in the mysterious children to witness the barbarity, Gukkool started to consider how rarely he would be able to actually use the binocularrow. Firing it at hired hands was beneath tacky. Perhaps he would have to slacken his security procedures so that more would-be assassins made it on board. And then...Pwing!

  The little boys were crying, but in a very fetching and kittenish way. The little bitch was still steadfast. He'd see how she held up when the first drops of eye jelly spattered.

  Gukkool looked up at the killer's face. It was just as he would have wished it to be. Tan, aquiline, fiercely, intelligent, nice hazel eyes.

  "Well, hitman, don't beg for mercy but if you tell us who sent you I'll make this quick."

  "I can't do that," he replied somewhat surprisingly. Gukkool was sure he would be silent until death.

  "And why is that?" Gukkool asked.

  The hitman replied, "Because no one sent me. I am the automatic assassin."