Day of the Dogs

by Andrew Cartmel

  "I get it, but who cares?" said HMK. "Spare us the linguistic insights and fill my plate, buster." Middenface winced as he sat down on a raised bank of plantings. He wished HMK wouldn't be so openly rude to their boss. It was embarrassing. He set his plate on his lap, impaled the big lump of steak with his fork and began to saw through it industriously with his serrated knife. Footsteps grated on the pebbled ground behind him and he looked up to see Johnny standing there, tall and grim in the night.

  "Why so serious, pal?" said Middenface. "You should be down there by the coals getting a helping of steak."

  "Suddenly I don't have much of an appetite," murmured Johnny.

  "Why's that, partner?"

  "I can't help feeling something's not quite right with this situation," said Johnny. Middenface sighed. But before he had a chance to begin lecturing Johnny about his perpetual paranoia and his inability to ever relax and take it easy, there was a scream from the barbecue pit. Johnny spun around to see what was happening and Middenface followed, standing up so suddenly that his plate tumbled from his lap and his steak plopped in the dirt. There was more screaming now and both men ran towards the barbecue.

  "All right!" boomed a deep, powerful voice. "Everybody freeze." Middenface stared in astonishment. At first he had thought the voice was coming from the direction of the barbecue pit. Now he realised it was coming from the pit itself. There, protruding among the glowing orange coals, was the helmet of what looked like a space suit. The black visor of the space suit jutted out of the coals, reflecting their hot light. Close to it, the barrel of a gun was poking out. As Johnny and Middenface watched, the helmet and gun continued to rise out of the barbecue pit, displacing and spilling coals. As the helmet cleared the surface, the shoulders, arms and torso of the suit were revealed. Middenface realised that it wasn't in fact a space suit after all but a kind of high temperature excursion suit like the ones used by furnace workers in nuclear power installations. The figure in the suit was rising out of the barbecue pit, holding a gun on them, shrugging and shedding a rattling shower of small glowing coals. The astonished party of revellers stood and stared at this bizarre apparition.

  "How the hell..." said Middenface.

  "Must have been buried in there, waiting for us," murmured Johnny out of the corner of his mouth.

  The figure from the pit stood up, knocking over grills on either side, spilling meat and vegetables into the flames it had stirred up. "Who are you?" demanded Asdoel Zo. "How dare you ruin my barbecue? Do you have any idea how much those steaks cost?"

  "Shut up," said the booming voice. The gun was pointing at Asdoel Zo now. "I've got no quarrel with you but if you get in my way I'll do you some damage, all right?"

  Johnny moved fractionally closer to Middenface and spoke out of the corner of his mouth. "Do you have a gun with you?"

  "No, I never thought-"

  "Neither did I," muttered Johnny in disgust. "I guess they've got the drop on us."

  "And as for your barbecue," said the figure in the furnace suit, "Why should I give a damn if I ruined it? Do you have any idea how uncomfortable it was lying in there for hours, peeking through my periscope, waiting for you to finish marinating your goddamned rack of lamb or whatever the hell you were doing?" A sudden kick from the figure sent one of the heavy grills rearing into the air amid sparks and fragments of coal. Vegetable-laden skewers flew through the air, shedding their load of impaled titbits, one narrowly missing Middenface and another landing at Johnny's feet.

  There was silence for a moment after the grotesque figure's petulant outburst. Then Hari Mata Karma spoke up. "You said you've got no quarrel with Mr Zo."

  The gun moved to cover HMK. "That's right, girlie."

  "Very well. Then who do you have a quarrel with?"

  "Her!" said the figure with a venomous hiss. The gun moved and pointed to Stella Dysh.

  "Her?" said HMK, with what sounded suspiciously like delighted amusement in her voice. "And what exactly does your quarrel with Ms Dysh entail?"

  Middenface was trying to keep up with what was going on. The revelation that the gunman in the coals was only after one of their party had at first provoked a profound wave of relief in him, followed by shame at the cowardice of his own reaction and a determination to do something about it. But what? Just then, he noticed that Johnny was moving, with stealth and caution...

  "It entails taking her out of here and popping her back in that undersea prison where she was rightfully incarcerated in the first damned place."

  "You want to put her back in prison?" said Asdoel Zo.

  The gun swung back to cover the billionaire. "What are you sonny, some kind of parrot?"

  "No," said HMK nonchalantly. "But if you want a parrot, we have several up at the house."

  "You be quiet now, sarcastic girlie," said the gunman. "Like I said, I ain't got no bone to pick with none of you others."

  "Bone to pick. What a delicious turn of phrase," said HMK. "And so appropriate to the occasion. Barbecue. Bone. You see what I'm driving at?"

  "I see what you're driving at, all right. You're trying to distract me or rile me, or make me careless, girlie."

  "And I love 'girlie'. It's so complimentary to a woman of my modest but inexorably advancing years."

  "But you ain't going to distract me or rile me. And if necessary I'm going to plug you one, right in the guts. If you're lucky I'll use a non-lethal round, but even one of them means you're taking your meals through a tube for the foreseeable future. So just shut up."

  Surprisingly enough, HMK did indeed shut up. The figure turned the gun back to Stella Dysh. "None of you interfere and none of you'll get hurt. But I aim to take this one back with me."

  "Sorry," said Johnny Alpha, "but I can't let you do that." As the figure swung the gun in his direction, Johnny suddenly kicked the steel skewer that was lying at his feet. He kicked it upwards so it bounced into the air at shoulder height where he grabbed it, turned it and threw it with great force and accuracy. The figure in the heat suit was still trying to point the gun at Johnny when the sharp end of the skewer went right through its forearm.

  There was a snarling scream, amplified by the suit's helmet, and the gun dropped among the coals as the figure clutched its impaled arm and, all at once, seven Strontium Dogs pounced.

  Stella Dysh grabbed the fallen gun from among the coals, cursing as she burned herself. But she ignored the burns and turned to the other Strontium Dogs who were busy dragging the figure out of the barbecue pit by its heels, Ray and Bel each holding onto one leg. The figure in the suit was kicking and punching, but its attempts at resistance were hampered by the steel skewer protruding from its right forearm.

  "Nice shot, Johnny," said HMK.

  "Went right through the suit," said Middenface.

  "Those suits are designed to resist heat, not mechanical force," said Johnny. "Now let's get a look at our gatecrasher."

  "Yeah, let's get a look," echoed Slim Drago. His big fingers fumbled at the helmet release for an instant before he snatched them back. "Ow! It's hot!"

  "Well it would be, Slim," said HMK sardonically. "It's been buried in a pit of burning coals for several hours."

  "Here, let me," said Johnny. He snapped a pair of heat-resistant gloves out of the box Asdoel Zo had used earlier, pulled them on over his hands and reached for the release catches on the helmet.

  The helmet came off with a rush of refrigerated air, scented with cheap shampoo and liniment, revealing the wizened face of a scrawny old woman. Her sparse, silver hair was drawn into a tight bun over the strange ridges and bumps that rose on the back of her skull and ran down her spine, marking her as a mutant. Her bloodshot, brown eyes gazed up at them in fury. She opened her cracked, thin lips and revealed uneven, yellow teeth. "Well, what the hell are you staring at?" Without the amplification of the suit's speakers, her voice was high and frail and querulous.

  "It's Granny Haxer," said Hari Mata Karma.

  "Who?" said Middenface. He couldn't
believe it.

  "Granny Haxer."

  "She's a little old lady."

  "Hence the Granny."

  "But she had seven of the toughest bounty hunters in the spiral arm at gunpoint."

  "That's right, sonny," cackled Granny Haxer, a long thread of saliva spanning her mouth. "And don't you forget it."

  "That's because she too is one of the toughest bounty hunters in the spiral arm," said HMK.

  "Why thank you, girlie," said Granny Haxer. "Now if you don't mind, I've got a great big whazzing steel skewer sticking through my arm and I'm bleeding right copiously in this expensive rented suit."

  "Yeah," said Slim Drago. "The poor little old lady's bleeding in her suit. We gotta get her some medical attention."

  "A bit less of this old lady stuff," snapped Granny Haxer. "I'm a paid professional like the rest of you."

  "Medical attention?" said Stella Dysh. "She was going to drag me back to that hell hole of an underwater prison planet. I say we forget about her wounded arm. I say we just roll her back into the barbecue pit but this time without her suit. Let her fry in there."

  Granny Haxer chuckled. "You're a girl after my own heart, Ms Dysh. Fry old Granny, huh? I reckon you wouldn't get much eating meat off a tough old bird like me."

  "It would serve you right for ruining my party, though," said Asdoel Zo, who was holding a cannabis cigar between trembling fingers, puffing on it to calm himself in the aftermath of the unexpected violence of the last few minutes.

  "Sorry about that, mister," said Granny Haxer with patent insincerity. "I sure enjoyed your little speech about the history of the barbecue, though. I had a heat resistant surveillance device down there as well as my periscope." But Asdoel Zo wasn't listening. He moved away, puffing on his stogey, walking back to a cluster of cacti where his gardening girls were waiting to make a fuss of him.

  Meanwhile, Hari Mata Karma, who a moment earlier had been glaring furiously at the old woman, turned to glare at Stella Dysh. "What's all this about a hell hole of a prison planet? Ever since Johnny rescued you from there you've been bitching about it and saying you wanted to go back."

  "If she wants to go back, I'm the old gal to take her," rasped Granny Haxer.

  "Don't be stupid," said Stella. "I never want to see that dump again."

  "You've certainly changed your tune," said HMK.

  "A woman has a right to change her mind," sniffed Stella.

  "That's right," said Slim Drago, smiling worshipfully at Stella. "A woman has a right to change her mind."

  "Oh, shut up, you oaf," said HMK.

  "I hate to interrupt," said Granny Haxer, "but I'm still bleeding here with this meat skewer through my arm."

  Johnny Alpha leaned over the old woman, studying her with his eerie eyes. "Sorry about that, Granny."

  "Hell, don't be sorry, son. It was a great throw. I should never have knocked those skewers where you could reach them. It was my own damned fault. Bad temper is my abiding sin, it's true. I got a mite tetchy waiting for all those hours in that pit full of hot coals."

  "Why did you do that?" said Middenface. "Why hide in a ridiculous place like that when you could just have come up to the house to get us?"

  "Would I have caught you with your pants down like that if I'd just moseyed up to the house?" cackled Granny Haxer.

  "No, I suppose not."

  "I'm still bleeding here, children."

  "We'll see that you get full medical attention in just a minute," said Johnny. "First, I've got a question."

  "Fire away, son." The little woman stared up at him with amusement gleaming in her eyes. "I'm just lying here pumping out my life blood through that gaping hole you tore in me. No need to hurry or nothing."

  Johnny smiled. "You said you were a paid professional like the rest of us."

  "Did I?" The merriment faded from Granny Haxer's eyes.

  "Yes you did."

  "I don't recall."

  "My question is, who paid you?"

  Granny Haxer rolled her head and stared at Stella Dysh. "The same party who paid me to put her away in that watery prison in the first place. As soon as they heard she'd been sprung they hired me to catch her and take her back."

  "And who is 'they'?" said Johnny.

  Granny turned her head back to look at Johnny. Her eyes were guileless and sincere, her smile sweet and affable. "No idea at all, son. Anonymous client approached me through a computer communication. Paid me the same way."

  "And you never thought to ask who they were?"

  "Never asked, never wondered. Now either carry me up to that big house and patch me up, or take me out onto the lone prairie and leave me alone so I can die in peace."

  "It's a ridiculous idea," said Hari Mata Karma.

  "I don't see why," said Asdoel Zo. "And Johnny's with me on this, aren't you, Johnny?" He looked across the room at Johnny Alpha, who nodded but remained silent.

  "Oh, for God's sake," said HMK, looking at Middenface for support.

  Johnny, Middenface, HMK and Asdoel Zo were sitting on the leather chairs and sofa in Zo's study. The other Strontium Dogs had turned in for the night and Granny Haxer was lying in a sedated sleep in one of the numerous guest bedrooms with med robots tending to her. Asdoel Zo cleared his throat and rose from his chair. "Anyone care for a night-cap?" He walked across the room to the old, roll-topped desk and opened it. Inside was a well equipped mini bar. Middenface was startled. The last time he'd seen the desk opened it had contained a communications console. He reminded himself that Asdoel Zo could afford the most ingenious and baffling gadgets that money could buy. It might not even be the same desk as last time.

  Zo reached into the bar and selected a bottle. "Bourbon, anyone?"

  "Stop trying to change the subject," said HMK.

  "I'm not." Zo put the bottle on a lacquered wooden tray and added glasses and a small ice bucket. "I'm just trying to promote a rational and civilised discussion."

  HMK snorted. "If this discussion was rational we wouldn't even be considering the possibility of hiring this insane old bitch as part of our team. And if it was civilised we'd be discussing ways of shipping her back to whatever retirement home she was snoozing her senile snooze in before she turned up here to spoil the barbecue. Your barbecue, I might add."

  "Bourbon?" said Asdoel Zo, lifting the bottle. It looked like a very old and very expensive bottle. Middenface felt his mouth water. "I'll have a wee dram," he said.

  "Excellent. Johnny?"

  "No thanks," said Johnny Alpha.

  "Got to stay sharp, eh?"

  Zo turned back to the bar in the roll-top desk. He winked at Johnny. "Worried that someone might spring on you if you let your guard down and have a little intoxicating drink? Worried you won't be at your best?"

  Johnny smiled a thin, tolerant smile. "Always pays to be sharp. You never know when someone might be popping out of a pit full of coals brandishing a gun at you."

  Asdoel Zo laughed appreciatively as he delved among the glinting bottles. He poured two drinks and gave one to Middenface.

  "Right," said HMK, "now that everybody who wants a vile drink has got a vile drink, what's all this nonsense about allowing that old crone to join our posse?"

  Johnny looked at HMK. "When we were out by the barbecue, you seemed to have quite a bit of respect for the 'insane old crone'."

  "Respect? What do you mean?"

  "Didn't you say something about her being one of the top bounty hunting professionals?"

  "So what if I did. She is, isn't she? Of course I've heard of her. Haven't you heard of her?"

  "Sure," said Johnny. "I've heard of her. Never seen her before, though."

  HMK scowled. "I am merely pointing out that this woman had us all at gunpoint a little while ago. And Johnny threw a meat skewer at her wrist. Now suddenly, with her drugged to the eyeballs upstairs, you're holding a conference about making her a member of the team."

  Asdoel Zo shrugged. "I think she'd be a valuable addition to the poss
e."

  "I see," snapped HMK. "And what arrangement would you make with her? Join us as soon as she's finished dragging Stella Dysh, a fellow valuable posse member, back to jail?" Middenface noticed that Stella, who earlier that evening had been thoroughly reviled by HMK, had suddenly been promoted to the status of valuable posse member.

  "Johnny and I have already discussed that," said Asdoel Zo equably.

  HMK turned and stared at Johnny. "You have, have you?" she said in a reproachful tone.

  "Mr Zo can just buy out her contract," said Johnny. "If Granny Haxer's amenable, she can simply notify her previous employer that she's no longer working for them."

  "She could be a useful member of the posse," said Middenface.

  "She did get the drop on seven other Strontium Dogs," said Johnny laconically.

  "Seven. That's another thing," said HMK. "If she joins us there won't be seven of us in the posse any more."

  Asdoel Zo suddenly laughed. "Is that what's bothering you? That there will be eight of you instead of seven."

  HMK shrugged diffidently. "Seven is a good number for a western adventure, you should be the first to appreciate that."

  Asdoel Zo laughed again and shook his head. "By God, that's all that's bothering her. She isn't worried about Granny Haxer being potentially treacherous or dangerous or a spy planted among us. She's just upset that there won't be seven of you any more."