by D. Tolmach
He downed his champagne. “Her name’s Vax, and she’s . . .”
That’s when the timpani drums started up, indicating that the show was about to start. Pritchard put out his cigarette and stumbled back into the hall to find his seat, leaving Lou alone with her cigarette.
Damn. She didn’t know exactly what she thought she could find out from him, maybe where Vax was hiding out, but that was a long shot. All she knew was she wouldn’t be able to relax until that psycho bitch was finally dead, and she really wanted to relax.
* * *
The pre-debate show was headlined by Andromeda Mayday presenting the heavily anticipated new song “Tsurik fun toyt (un beser vi alts!)” from her upcoming solo album of the same name, but first you had to sit through an hour of stand-up comedians, speeches, skits, lesser musicians, and an address from the president thanking everyone for doing their civic duty by watching the debates.
Finally, the lights dimmed and, after a silent beat, the orchestral string section started playing a quiet and dramatic minor chord. After enough anticipation had built up, a clarinet fluttered a melancholy melody and a young Andromeda appeared, a girl in rags wandering Port City alone at night. The audience erupted in applause, but it died down quickly as she started singing, no one wanting to miss a single note. Her lyrics told the story of a young orphan busking for spare change before she made her way to performing in bars and whorehouses until she finally met Tombstone Wolfram and became a galaxy-wide star, her affair with a roguish drug-smuggling spy that ended with him blowing himself up to evade capture by the Galactic Union, and her life as a refugee on the Qbik space station and subsequent death at the hands of Icy Lou. The song, becoming more and more upbeat, traced her rebirth as a cyborg and the destruction of the Qbik by the Galactic Navy, and then her escape into the void and her meeting with the Cosmic Void monks, at which point it had a full-on big-band swing rhythm.
When it ended, the whole hall was standing, clapping for a good ten minutes and throwing flowers at Andy’s feet. After the last note died out, the backdrop rotated around, revealing the fifty-three men and women running for president of Andromeda behind podiums.
“Ladies and gentlemen”—the emcee stood on stage before the politicians with his hands up—“welcome to the main event: the presidential debate! As you all know, the presidential elections are in five short years, and these are trying times for our galaxy. Before we get to introduce the brave souls willing to take responsibility for the fate of democracy in Andromeda and our very way of life, I’d like you all to meet our celebrity judges.” From the side of the stage, seven people walked out smiling and waving to the crowd and TV cameras, all of them Andromedian movie stars, musicians, and writers except for Karlatte, the sole Human on the panel.
“Our first question goes to you, Senator Finkworth: as we are all very aware, a refugee crisis is brewing. What—”
That’s when another Senator Finkworth appeared in the middle of the stage, fucking his senior assistant from behind. There was sudden confusion as everyone looked at each other, trying to figure out what was happening. Finkworth, in shock, ran from behind the podium and tried to stop whatever it was that was going on, but he fell through the hologram. They disappeared and another figure appeared on stage, his face in the shadow of a large hood.
“Good people of Andromeda”—he spoke with a thick Human accent and removed his hood, revealing a scarred face with a muttonchop beard—“if you are seeing this message, it means that I am dead.”
Pritchard and Karlatte had the exact same thought at the exact same time: holy shit, it’s fucking Gerrard.
Every cell in Lou’s body turned to ice before she realized I have to leave right now and headed straight for the nearest exit to hail a taxi.
Andy, who had programmed her brain to simulate the effect of taking two really powerful hits of acid, looked at the druid with his face melting on the holomonitor in her dressing room and thought whoa before turning it off and putting on a minimal house record and zoning out watching Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey with the volume turned down.
* * *
“I bring a message of peace from the Galactic Union, as well as a warning. There are aliens living among you, Human terrorists who have fled justice in the Milky Way with the purpose of sowing the seeds of confusion and chaos in your galaxy. Some of them have physically altered their appearance to appear Andromedian and infiltrated the highest levels of your government to manipulate the machinations of your great democracy. For example, this woman”—Lou appeared again, frozen on stage—“you may know her as Loux, senior assistant to Senator Finkworth, but in fact she is Chief of Security Icy Lou from the Qbik space station, a terrorist base that was used to commit attacks on innocent civilians of the Union.” The blue-skinned Loux was replaced by a selfie of Icy Lou and Andy. “This is what she used to look like, with her friend and accomplice, Andromeda Mayday.”
The entire building shook with the collective gasp.
“She has collected extensive data on all your politicians and is using it to blackmail them to do her bidding. Her endgame is ensuring that the Human quote-unquote refugees are allowed into Andromeda so the Humanification of the galaxy can begin.”
There were more gasps as the audience members looked around to see who else among them was a Human in blueface. Pritchard and Karlatte looked at each other and read each other’s minds.
We gotta get outta here.
* * *
“Well, I’ll be.” Gustav, Rikki, and Vax, like everyone else, had stopped what they were doing to watch the debate. “See, Rikki, I told you we couldn’t trust the Humans.” Gustav turned to Vax, who was handcuffed to a chair in his living room. “We found your blackmailer.”
“Yeah, brilliant detective work.”
“So what do we do now, Gus?”
“Yeah, what do we do now, Gus?” Vax mockingly snarled. “What do you think your chief’s gonna say when he finds out you knew all along there was a Human plot to take over the galaxy and you had the evidence—and me—locked up here?”
“She’s got a point, Gus.”
“Shuddup, Rikki. For now we watch the rest of this clusterfuck and see how it plays out, and then we decide what to do.”
* * *
Pritchard put on his sunglasses and shrank deeper into his seat as he felt the surrounding Andromedians glaring at him. Gerrard was still talking, and one by one the holograms of every presidential candidate at the debate were being shown doing various hypocritical things that would make them unfit for public office. There was a ping on his communicator that startled him, a text from Karlatte: We have to leave now.
* * *
She was still at her seat onstage, trying to block out the passive-aggressive murmuring of her fellow judges and call Andy, who wasn’t answering. Finally, her gaze caught the mirrors of Pritchard’s glasses, and she motioned at him to follow her backstage. Pritchard stood up and almost fell back into his seat under the stares of a sea of blue faces watching him accusingly, but they still hadn’t made up their minds as to what to do about all this, so they grumbled impolitely, something about Humans, and shifted their knees so he could make his way to the aisle, awkwardly whispering sorrys and excuse mes. He climbed onto the stage just as Gerrard was saying, “As for Senator Jorg Jargis, there were no recordings of him doing anything illegal or improper. He seems to be a rare politician of very high integrity. His wife, however. . .,” and he ended up cluelessly standing right next to the hologram of him and Vax.
Jorg’s normally tranquilly turquoise face had turned a darker, belligerent blue, and his eyes were red with an anger the Humans had never seen in the normally easygoing Andromedians. “Kill them!” he shouted, throwing down his podium and running toward Pritchard. As he lunged murderously at her ex-boyfriend, Karlatte hit him with a left hook as hard as she could in the nose, breaking her hand but dropping him like a wet bag of Mercurial sand. Having been given the order, the rest of the Andromedians took to thei
r feet, turning into an angry, shouting mob and making their way toward the Humans. She grabbed Pritchard’s leather collar with her good hand and dragged him behind the curtains and through the exit door backstage, wondering why it was always up to her to rescue everyone.
* * *
Well fuck.
The presidential suite was in disarray. There was still no signal from the reptoids, and she was now forced to make another decision without any instruction at all.
“Madam President, we’re getting a call.”
“Finally . . .”
“It’s coming from outside the galaxy.”
“The Milky Way?”
“Most likely, yes.”
“Turn on the translatebot and answer.”
The woman who appeared before them had long dark hair, and both her outfit and the way she held herself brought to mind an evil dominatrix posing as a sexy librarian. She was stroking a cat that had once been named Bertha, but that was neither here nor there.
“Greetings from the Galactic Union of Autonomous Planets. I am President Vildana Dianae.”
“Greetings from Andromeda. I’m, um, President Dax.”
“I assume you’re aware that several highly dangerous wanted criminals have taken up residence in your galaxy. We officially request your assistance in expediting them back to justice before they can do even more harm.”
“We are . . . attempting to apprehend them at the moment.” She glared at the Secretary of Defense, hoping he would take that as an order.
“Also, we understand that you have accepted applications for asylum from a myriad of terrorists who are now being processed in the Cosmic Void Gate. I assure you that these are no less dangerous criminals, and you are to likewise extradite them or, if that fails, liquidate them immediately as well. Any failure to do so will be treated as an act of aggression against the Galactic Union.”
* * *
President Dax made herself a cup of coffee. She was indecisive, not stupid. She knew that the refugees weren’t terrorists, at least not all of them, and the ideals she was raised with and her role as the figurehead of the cluster’s oldest democracy, farcical as it may be, made her cringe at the thought of executing billions of sentient creatures or sending them to their deaths without at least a proper trial. But now she had to choose between that and getting into a war with a vastly more powerful enemy that would cost the lives of far more of her own people. And her people wouldn’t be in the mood right now to risk war over a handful of Humans who had been behaving rather badly in their adopted galaxy.
Life was so much easier when all she had to do was parrot the talking points of the lizard people.
* * *
The Lupine space pirates had been particularly hurt by Blargus Orion’s baseless accusation that they had taken Andromeda Mayday as a sex slave, sending the station that aired his show a tersely worded letter demanding an immediate apology under the threat of organizing a galaxy-wide boycott of his sponsors. Orion, of course, took this all very badly and went on a weeklong tirade on the threat of piracy and wolves in general, calling them a flea-ridden cosmic scourge that needed to be spayed and neutered out of existence. Their feud finally ended with the hairy marauders storming his set while he was on air, dragging him into their ship, and making him walk the plank right out of the airlock as soon as they reached low orbit.
First off, they didn’t have sex slaves. That would be the Equine space pirates. Second, they were Ms. Mayday’s biggest fans and were on very good terms with her. In fact, they had hired her to play several concerts on the hidden moon base their ship orbited, and she found the whole experience to be very pleasant and the pirates themselves just charming, even if their constant howling was a bit much.
So when Andy and her friends needed a place to hide out, she called Captain Klyk, and he was more than happy to take in the fugitives.
When the Andromedian Bureau of Investigation finally tracked them down, there was a tense Mexican standoff that threatened to become a bloodbath of epic proportions before she, Pritchard, and Karlatte realized that there had been enough suffering on their behalf and turned themselves in.
Intergalactic Shitstorm
“Why do I get the feeling you’re stalling, Madam President?”
Frankly, Dax was getting irritated by the more and more frequent calls from President Dianae as the months went by. She was a professional politician, though, so she ensured that the irritation didn’t come through in her voice. “Madam President, I’m not stalling. As the leader of a galactic superpower, you know as well as I do you can’t set up an extensive internment system and arrest this many people overnight. Our investigators are working to take care of the situation as quickly as possible. We’ve already detained almost seventy-five percent of all registered Humans in Andromeda, and we are holding Icy Lou in solitary confinement.”
“I take it you’re showing your famous Andromedian hospitality to my personal liaison.”
Dax looked at the large unsettling man in the red scarf surrounded by fully armored Human troops. “Of course.”
“And what about Mayday?”
“Our people are closing in on her. My attorney general assures me that it’s a matter of hours. I promise you that after she is determined to be guilty of the charges against her, she will be handed over to you.”
“More stalling?”
“We have a thing called due process here in Andromeda.”
“Yes, well, I have a thing called the Galactic Navy, and it’s chomping at the bit to test its battle readiness on a new enemy.”
* * *
“For fuck’s sake, Ms. Lou, you’ve started one hell of an intergalactic shitstorm.” The president looked at her prisoner shackled to the table. “Thanks to you, the Galactic Navy has invaded the Cosmic Void Monastery, arrested the clergy, and slaughtered all the refugees waiting to go through the Gate. Now I’ve got President Dianae breathing down my neck. She wants me to hand over you and your friends or there’s going to be a war. What exactly did you want to accomplish with all this cloak-and-dagger bullshit?”
“I was trying to help my people.” She looked for a moment at the bearded, red-scarfed Human in a fedora and trench coat who had introduced himself simply as the Enquirer in the services of the government of the Galactic Union of Autonomous Planets.
“Really?” President Dax finally let her sarcastic streak show. “According to our psych eval, you’re a perv that gets off on recording people having sex without their knowledge and a megalomaniac control freak.”
“Tell Dianae she can have me.”
The Enquirer spoke up. “Oh, I will, but she wants Andromeda as well.”
“No, not Andy, just me.”
The president opened the door to the interrogation room and let in the guards. “For once in your life, you’re in no position to make any demands, Ms. Lou.”
Vacay
If you were, say, strolling casually down a well-lit uptown brick pedestrian street, the kind with black iron lamp poles and ivy everywhere, arm in arm with a loved one, and happened to come across alluring posters of a happy family frolicking in white sands under the words Soak in the Fun: The Sombrero Galaxy! or a couple laughing heartily while climbing stepped pyramids in a rain forest with the title Large Magellanic Cloud: Finally Find Some Meaning in Your Empty, Pathetic Existence taped to the glass of a storefront, you might think to yourself, hey, that could be me! What do those jerks have that I don’t? The answer, of course, is a team of makeup artists, hair stylists, wardrobe coordinators, and managers, plus the fact that they aren’t actually related, so it’s easy for them to pretend they like each other. Then you might start feeling inadequate, remembering the last time you took your family on holiday to Sirius B (you can’t afford Sirius A on your paycheck!) and your eldest almost broke his neck diving into the hotel swimming pool to impress a local tart and your youngest barely escaped being carried off by a hummingbird. If you’re feeling particularly reckless and have some time to k
ill, you might step in and sit down with a travel agent behind a large desk who would offer you a cup of tea or coffee and a handful of brochures and ask whether your passport is up to date and when it was you wanted to leave.
She’ll take one look at you and search for the cheapest economy-class travel packages in her computer for a few minutes, before finally giving you two options for your exotically extragalactic dream vacation: you can either take the shortcut or the scenic route. The scenic route isn’t, in fact, very scenic and takes millions upon millions of years to traverse, which is millions upon millions of years more vacation time than most people are granted, so the vast majority opt to pay a little extra and pass through the Cosmic Void Gate, which, however instantaneous, requires standing in line for six days each way at passport control in the Logarithmic Intergalactic Mechanophysical Bridge and Observatory. Since you only get two weeks of unpaid vacation a year, this will give you a grand total of two days to soak in the fun or finally find some meaning in your empty, pathetic existence.
The night before you leave, your middle child will come down with a fever and you’ll get in a shouting match with your partner over whether or not to leave at all as you begin to wonder if your high-school sweetheart is single and what’s the best way to find them on social media.
When you finally get to the baggage check-in area, it’s peak refugee season and you end up in a snaking, labyrinthine line behind Henri Livshits and his infinite smelly Human family fleeing political repression, which adds another two days to the whole process.
On your way to the bathroom you accidentally spy your son fingerbanging Livshits’s teenage granddaughter near the lost-luggage desk, but you don’t have the heart to stop them because youth is as fleeting as it is beautiful, and, hell, at least somebody is having a good time on this disaster of a vacation that was all your spouse’s idea. Tears well up in your eyes and you collapse against the concrete wall as you realize that you don’t remember the last time there was illicit fingerbanging—or banging of any sort—going on in your life.