by David Garnet
He didn’t want to end his life here. But Kiru was his life. She was everything to him.
“I won’t give you up,” he whispered. “You’re mine.”
“No,” said Kiru, squeezing his hands, “you’re mine.”
Norton glanced over his shoulder. Now Grawl’s gun was also aimed directly at him.
“I love you,” said Kiru. She kissed Norton lightly on the lips. Catching him off balance, she suddenly twisted him behind her.
There was a blast of blue lightning.
Kiru was hit. She dropped.
“Kiru!” yelled Norton, sinking to his knees and clutching her body.
No one could have her now.
“She’s dead?” said Diana, and she sounded surprised. “Why did he use lethal?”
Jumping down from the table, Grawl made his way over to where Kiru lay. Norton stared up at him, his eyes full of tears and hate.
Grawl put the barrel of his gun against Norton’s forehead.
Wayne Norton closed his eyes.
The universe ended.
ANOTHER END
Norton reached out for Kiru’s left hand and slipped what he’d found onto her third ringer. It slid across her fingernail, past the first knuckle. With a slight push, it went over the second knuckle. A perfect fit.
“… I affirm you are now wife and husband,” Diana concluded.
Kiru was staring down at her finger, at her wedding ring. A broken seashell, forged by the elements into a polished circle, it glinted in the light, ruby and amber, like a gemstone.
“It’s…” Kiru kept gazing at the shell, lost for words.
“We’ll get a real ring later,” said Norton, “a gold one.”
“… the most wonderful thing anyone’s ever given me,” said Kiru. She looked at Norton, and she smiled. “Not that anyone’s ever given me anything.”
“Duke Wayne?” said a voice behind them.
Norton turned, looking at the creature standing on one leg. Tall, plump, small-beaked face craning forward, dark eyes at either side of its head, enormous wings folded across its back, the grey-feathered alien held its other clawed leg forward, offering a package.
“Who are you?” demanded Diana. “How did you get here?”
“Delivery for Duke Wayne,” said the courier.
“Is that you?” said Kiru.
“Well, yeah,” said Norton, trying to remember. “I used that name. Once.” He looked at the box. “What is it?”
“Don’t know, pal,” said the alien, its head bobbing backward and forward. “If you want my professional opinion, I’d say a bouquet. If you want my professional advice, I’d say open it. Sign here.”
Norton wondered why he was being sent a bouquet. Because it was a mistake, he assumed. It should have been for the bride.
“Just there,” said the avian courier. “First-digit print. Ah. No first digit. Never mind the receipt, pal.”
The creature gave the package to Norton, waddled away, spread its wings, flapped them, then took off, soaring upward.
Norton was about a hundred yards from the edge of the water, and he heard a distant splash. He turned, but his view was blocked by the conference pyramid. Although the courier had already vanished amongst the orange clouds, Norton glimpsed a trace of light high in the red sky—in the opposite direction. He kept watching the heavens, kept listening, but he saw nothing else, heard nothing more.
“What is that?” said Diana, gesturing toward the package.
Norton shook the box. It was light, didn’t rattle. He handed it to Kiru.
“Now you’ve had two things,” he said.
“Must be my lucky day,” said Kiru, as she started unwrapping it. “In spite of getting married. It’s not a bouquet. Ow!”
Instead of a bunch of flowers, Kiru was holding a bundle of thorns and nettles. She put a finger to her mouth, sucking at the blood where she’d been pricked.
“Did you hear that?” said Norton, inclining his head toward the sea.
“No,” said Kiru. “What?”
He thought he’d heard another far-away splash in the ocean, and he stared up into the sky. When he looked back, he realised most of the banquet guests had already left. Almost the only ones still seated were the strange seven from the Galactic Tax Authority. Diana stood on the far side of the table, opposite where Norton and Kiru were standing.
That seemed to be it. The wedding was over without the cake being cut. Norton didn’t care. The best was yet to come. It was time for the honeymoon.
He heard a crash behind him and he spun around. One of the autocams had dropped out of the air. There was another crash, then another, as all the cameras smashed to the ground.
Something else caught his eye. The wedding cake. It had moved. Then it suddenly burst open. A small, wide shape sprang up from inside.
“Grawl!” screamed Kiru, and she grabbed hold of Norton, clinging on tight.
Grawl was wearing a gangster suit. Instead of a tie, the heart-shaped silver amulet hung around his neck. The crown of the cake was balanced on top of his hat, the two tiny figures twisting and tilting as he turned around. Cradled in his arms was a gun.
The alien tax delegates gazed up at him. Grawl knocked the hat off his bald cranium, then looked across at Diana.
“I’m dissolving the partnership,” she said.
Standing on the table, Grawl took aim.
“Nobody move!” shouted a voice which echoed around the plaza. “Drop that gun!”
Grawl’s dark suit became speckled with bright white spots, the targeting beams from a score of weapons focused on him.
“Drop that gun! Now!”
Grawl obeyed, letting his weapon fall to the table.
The square was surrounded by an army of small, broad figures, all heavily armoured and heavily armed. They looked familiar.
“What are they?” said Kiru.
“What are they?” said Norton.
“Algolan hailstorm troopers,” said Diana.
“They’ve come to kill me!” gasped Kiru.
She was still holding onto Norton, and now she held him even tighter. Kiru had been terrified of Grawl, but that was nothing compared to her fear of the Algolan soldiers.
“Why?” said Norton.
“Because they think Janesmith is here,” said Kiru.
“So?” said Norton.
“They think I’m Janesmith,” said Kiru.
“Why?” said Norton.
“Because Travis made me say I was.” Kiru looked at Diana. “It’s his fault. Her fault.”
The troopers marched nearer, closing the noose on those who remained in the plaza: Kiru and Norton, Grawl and Diana, the seven alien tax assessors.
“Is that how you treat our gifts of affection, Duke Wayne?”
Norton spun around. One of the Algolans had stepped within the ring of bronze-plated armour. Taller and slimmer, this had to be the commander. Clad in black battle armour, instead of a ridged helmet the figure wore a circle of barbed spikes on her head.
Her hair was white, her ears were pointed, her face was oval, her skin was blue, her feline features dominated by her huge, sloping eyes.
“Who’s that?” said Kiru.
“Janesmith,” said Norton. “The real Janesmith.”
Kiru clutched him even tighter. “She’s here because I pretended to be her.”
“Silence!” ordered Janesmith, gesturing at Kiru with a gauntleted fist. “Pick those flowers up. Give them to Duke Wayne.”
“Do it,” Norton whispered, “and move away.”
Kiru bent down for the nettles and thorns. “Ow!”
Janesmith glared at her.
Kiru handed the bouquet to Norton, then slowly stepped back.
Janesmith kept looking at Kiru, before her gaze took in the seven seated figures, then Diana, until she finally gazed at Grawl. She growled with pleasure. Grawl was still standing on the table, and he stared down at his spats, not meeting the Algolan’s huge, sloping eyes.
/> “This is a nice surprise, Princess,” said Norton. “What brings you here? Just passing by?”
“Our imperial warfleet brought us here,” she said. “But your information is obsolete. We are not a princess. Our sister Marysmith is dead and the throne is ours. We are the Empress of Algol.”
That explained the black spikes; it was her imperial crown. Norton wondered what the usual protocol was. What did one say to an empress?
“Er… congratulations.”
Janesmith halted in front of Norton, staring at him.
“Turn around,” she ordered. “This deserves a long painful death.”
“What!” said Norton, and he spun back to face her.
“Who’s your tailor?” said Empress Janesmith, gazing at Norton’s suit. “The fabric makes a mockery of the classic design.”
“Er… yeah,” Norton agreed.
“Nobody move!” yelled the echoing voice again. “That means you! Or you will be nobody!”
Diana must have tried to make a discreet exit, because she was now in a different position. She froze instantly.
“You are not of noble blood, we understand,” said Janesmith, looking away from Norton so she didn’t have to see his outfit. “You attempted to deceive us.”
“No,” he said. “Never. Not at all. It was a misunderstanding.”
“It’s of no consequence,” said Janesmith.
Norton heard another distant splash and turned his head, guessing what it must have been. An Algolan hailstormer had dropped out of the sky and into the ocean, immediately sinking below the surface because of the weight of his armour.
“Your soldiers are drowning,” he said.
“They live only to die in our service. Would you not willingly die for us, John Wayne?”
“You know who I am?”
“Yes. You are why we are here.”
Norton said nothing, slowly considering what the Algolan had said. He was the reason she was here; she had come for him.
The new Empress of Algol had travelled across the galaxy to find him.
“But,” he asked, “why…?”
“We are the Empress,” she said. “We need an Emperor.”
The universe dissolved. Every planet and every atom was shattered. Wayne Norton was left totally alone, shivering in ultimate zero.
Emperor of Algol…?
“That was the idea,” said the Empress of Algol. “An alien Emperor. A virgin Emperor.” Her gaze travelled to Kiru. “But we’ve changed our mind. We don’t need you, what we need is—”
She paused, turned, pointed a chain-mailed finger.
“—Grawl!”
“Grawl?” said Norton. “You know Grawl?”
“We have had the honour of knowing the most handsome being of all,” said Janesmith, gazing up at Grawl.
Grawl was still standing on the table, within the demolished ruins of the wedding cake, his arms raised in surrender. Janesmith glanced away as if dazzled by his radiance.
Norton suddenly realised why the Algolan troops seemed so familiar. Small and squat, they were like armoured versions of Grawl. Janesmith had claimed that she was ugly and that Norton was deformed, but Grawl must have matched the Algolan ideal of the perfect male.
“Grawl,” said Kiru, hesitantly, “is going to be Emperor of Algol?”
The Empress growled, and Kiru stepped back.
“Show us your genitals,” Janesmith said to Grawl.
And Grawl cowered down. A look of total horror, of ultimate fear, contorted his face. It was an expression he had never shown before, a feeling he had never known before.
“Let’s go, our love,” said Janesmith.
Grawl jumped from the table. He grabbed his gun—and turned it on himself. Before he could fire, he was rushed by a group of Algolan troops. They dived on him to prevent his suicide, then carried him away.
“You shouldn’t have left,” Empress Janesmith said to Norton. “You don’t know what you missed.”
Norton was glad he didn’t know. He remembered what he’d seen, briefly, when Janesmith had been naked. Whatever lay ahead of him, for Grawl it was a destiny worse than death.
Janesmith gestured contemptuously, dismissing Norton. Her eyes passed over Kiru, ignoring her. She stared at the palefaces for a few seconds, then focused her attention on Diana.
“You are someone of importance on this world?” she said.
“Yes, yes, I’m—”
“We will establish a diplomatic embassy here,” said Janesmith.
“Great, great,” said Diana. “I look forward to a lasting and cordial relationship.”
“You will be our puppet. This world will become part of our empire.”
Then the Empress of Algol turned. Escorted by the rest of the bronze hailstormers, she strode imperially away, vanishing between the spiralling red buildings on the far side of the plaza.
Norton sighed with relief, threw away the bouquet of brambles, took Kiru’s hand, and led her to one of the tables. They sat down, and he poured two overflowing glasses of wine.
“That was Grawl,” said Kiru, swallowing half her wine in a single gulp.
“I know,” said Norton, swallowing three-quarters of his. “We came here in the same escape pod.”
“You were with him all that time?” said Kiru. “Why didn’t you kill him? You knew what he tried to do to me.”
“He saved my life,” said Norton, and he downed the other quarter.
“What kind of pathetic excuse is that? Why didn’t you tell me he was on Caphmiaultrelvossmuaf?”
“I thought he was dead. I didn’t want to upset you.”
“Upset me? Upset me!” Kiru finished her wine.
“He’s gone now,” said Norton, refilling both glasses. “He must have liked you.”
“Liked me! What? He wanted to kill me!”
“No. Not exactly. He didn’t want you dead.”
“He wanted my soul to be dead. He wanted to replace it with the… the essence, the being, of someone else.”
“Yeah,” said Norton. “Someone important to him. And he chose you, chose you to hold the most important person in his life.”
“I should be grateful?”
“I wonder who it was? Someone who loved him.”
“Who could love him?” said Kiru.
“Janesmith,” said Norton. He gazed up, imagining the Algolan warfleet encircling the planet. “How do they know each other?”
“It’s a small galaxy.”
“You’re not curious about whose spirit was in Grawl’s silver pendant?”
“No! I don’t want to think about it.”
“Who would love him?” said Norton. “His mother?”
“Grawl never had a mother,” said Kiru.
There was movement at the next table, the table where Kiru and Norton had originally sat, and where the Galactic Tax Authority representatives were still seated. At exactly the same instant, they all stood up.
“Considering your recent behaviour,” one of them said to Diana, “we may have to renegotiate the terms of our partnership.”
It seemed Diana hadn’t thawed out since being ordered not to move. She was standing in the same place, as if stunned by everything that had happened. All she could do was watch as the seven palefaces started to leave, following each other in a neat line.
But then she opened her violin case and pulled out a gun. As the aliens filed away, Diana took aim.
Watching in disbelief, Norton realised she wasn’t going to give them a warning or tell them to stop. One by one, she was about to shoot them in the back.
Norton leapt to his feet, dashed forward, yelling out an instinctive warcry.
“Geronimo-o-o-o-o!”
Diana’s head turned, then her gun followed.
But she was too late; Norton was on her, deflecting the barrel, grappling with her. She was strong, very strong. He couldn’t hit a woman. Except she wasn’t a woman. Not all the time. He was Colonel Travis. And Norton socked him on th
e jaw, knocking him to the ground.
Kiru picked up the gun, jerked out the ammo charge, threw the weapon back down.
“Tough stuff, Wayne,” she said, admiringly.
“That’s me,” said Norton. He opened his right fist, wiggling the thumb and three fingers. “I’m just a Stone Age man.”
He watched the delegation from Hideaway. They hadn’t glanced back, hadn’t missed a single step. They disappeared out of the plaza.
“What was that you shouted?” asked Kiru.
“Geronimo,” said Norton. “Not to be confused with Gino and Rico and Pedro.” He looked down at Diana, at Travis. “Does this mean we can’t use the honeymoon suite?”
Diana/Travis rubbed her/his jaw.
“What are you all staring at?” she/he said. “Get everything neat and tidy and put away.”
Norton glanced around, seeing the Caphafer restaurant workers behind him.
“Clean this mess up,” ordered Diana/Travis.
“No,” said one of them.
“No,” said another, then another, then all of them.
“No, no, no, no, no,” they chorused.
Norton felt a drop of water on his head. When he peered up, another drop hit his face. It was beginning to rain. Red rain was again starting to fall on the island.
The Caphafers’ tore off their blue bikinis, throwing them down at Diana/Travis.
Remembering Kiru’s earlier words, Norton glanced away, not wanting to discover what the natives had under the lower halves of their bikinis.
As the amphibious aliens turned and headed for the sea, Kiru watched them and she smiled.
“Are they going on strike?” asked Norton.
“Permanently,” said Kiru. “They’re the Caphmiaultrelvossmuafan Liberation Army. Or maybe Navy. It’s their world. They want it back. Come on.” She reached out and took his hand, leading him away from the square.
“How do you know all this?” asked Norton.
“I’ve made friends with them while I’ve been swimming.”
“Where are we going?”
Norton was becoming suspicious. He slowed down. The route they were taking led only to the ocean.
“Where else can we go?” said Kiru.
By the time they reached the shoreline, it was raining heavily on land as well as sea. Kiru swiftly peeled off her white bikini.