Schlock! Webzine Vol 2, Issue 24

by Campbell, John L; Palumbo, Sergio; Betzer, Albert; Dawson, Zak

  ***

  Esteban noticed the animal coming out of the hole so he hurried up to it. He had been thoroughly following his trip through the underground burrows, thanks to a sensor that showed a small picture, displaying the Ground Breaker’s course. There was a metallic protuberance around the small creature’s neck - it was a video camera that was capable of high-resolution footage, usually lasting longer than 24 hours, even though the alien animal wasn’t aware of it, of course.

  The underground caverns of Isolation Expanse went deep into the surface of Desert World 5972, a planet almost completely fallen into desertification. This planet was much smaller in size than Mercury – a planet orbiting Earth’s Sun – more than 500 light years away.

  There were some fossilized remains down there, the bony leftovers of the alien race once living on the surface, but all of its members had gone long ago. Now only the Ground Breakers existed on this world, not related to them in any way, even though some evidences would testify that in the ancient times they were the usual house pets of the individuals who ruled the planet, before their unexpected disappearance.

  Their civilization had never advanced beyond what was known as Prehistoric Times on Earth, as all the representatives of that people became extinct when the Bronze Age was still in full growth in Western Europe and the Middle East, so no human had ever been able to see or meet one of them in person.

  Probably many xenobiologists and archaeologists would have found such remains of great value, but there was something more valuable and interesting than those down there which was: furs!

  The Fur Hunters had come here by chance, after a tip-off: an interplanetary call received from an employee working for a mining facility on the main rock in space nearby. Simply named Asteroid One, the natural satellite was actually half as large as Earth’s Moon, in the belt of debris spinning to the extremities of this small system. His four-man unit had been assigned a survey-orbiting mission, but dissimulated a sort of malfunction in order to get to the surface down there (just to have a look, you never know…) and had discovered the furry indigenous animals living on Desert World 5972, mainly in the underground.

  They had noticed some remains of the ancient alien species once living there, too, but those finds proved to be too poor and fossilized to be of any use, even for sale. Actually, under common circumstances their team would have reported at once what they had found, on the other hand they weren’t even supposed to be there, as their company hadn’t planned any research on the surface and they hadn’t been given permission.

  The employee’s team had taken the opportunity to go there only because they had been asked to have a look around the planet’s moons in search of mineral data, nothing else, but they chose to try a descent in order to discover something valuable for themselves. The brief survey had proved unsuccessful, but something good had came of it: the Ground Breakers.

  As soon as the employee saw the first of them, he admired its fur and understood at once how valuable such a creature could result for someone he knew well. So the message had been sent the same day to the right person on the other side of the space sector and then the Fur Hunters had arrived soon thereafter.

  Actually, primitive planets, the same as natural alien settings inhabited by animals, were protected by interplanetary laws. But the company occupying Asteroid One was too much involved with mining and getting the most out of their investments in such a far outpost in space, so they didn’t care nor pay too much attention to what was happening on that desert world in the same system. So the Fur Hunters’ spaceboats were certain nobody would intercept them or stop their course, nor would anyone interfere in their business on the surface.

  The Ground Breakers lived in some very crowded conglomerations, a sort of burrows buried deep inside the surface, so they wouldn’t be easy to get without difficulties. Other than that, the Fur Hunters were not miners and didn’t have the machines necessary to destroy wide portions of the territory in order to have the underground put in plain sight. Even Robotrippers - the sort of machines used to explore and scout the caverns beneath the ground - didn’t work well, as they were flexible and small but were unable to go too deep and resist the assaults made by the packs of small creatures which stayed on guard at the border of their burrows just to defend the species’ colonies. The Ground Breakers possessed some strong teeth and talons that easily got the better of any robotripper’s armor within a small period of time.

  First of all, the Fur Hunters needed to locate exactly where the biggest burrows were and then act accordingly, of course. That was the problem.

  One among his men (a party of unscrupulous, uncouth adventurers-spacemen) had also suggested to him that they could deviate an asteroids’ course and let it hit the surface, in order to have those caverns finally exposed. That would have made it much easier to get at the caverns.

  True. But even though the mining company facility didn’t care about what happened on that unimportant planet, their instruments would have noticed it from afar, as asteroids didn’t change their course in space by chance, and that wouldn’t be good for his party’s business.

  Other than that, they needed the furs intact, not destroyed or burned because of the asteroids’ fiery path.

  Also, they weren’t allowed to put expensive and huge devices on site, searching the underground, nor were they able to place a modern satellite orbiting the world for the same purpose. Their need for secrecy curtailed all that sort of showy expedience, without a doubt.

  “So what?” Esteban had been thinking to himself for a long time, tensely smoothing his hairy arms.

  As a single creature, any Ground Breaker looked small and weak, but all of them together could prove a very worthy opponent even for a strong man in armor. On the other hand, a single animal’s fur was negligible, but a great deal of them could be considered a fortune on earth, capable of turning you into a very rich man quickly. The Ground Breakers’ natural coats were most commonly some shade of brown in color, although many had beautiful markings that were black, grey, or white. Their composition seemed to be perfect to keep them cool during the warm days and comfortable over the course of the icy long nights. Their fur was so peculiar, sparkling, glossy and fashionable that any wealthy human (or alien) female would have likely paid a fortune to buy a coat made from them, on a multitude of planets.

  So, their only way to reach the exact burrows of their prey was by playing it clever of course. And the fur hunters had proved very good at that so far.

  Actually, the Ground Breakers hadn’t a name for themselves, only the one they had been given from the Earthmen who came here to grab their own kind just for money. Scientifically, they looked like a sort of murids, likely evolved from some smaller jirds – like animals, not so different from the ones still living in Asia in the last centuries, apart from the number of legs and the larger size anyway.

  Esteban had started playing with one of those creatures just by chance, one evening, while testing the spaceboat engines, then the dark-haired pilot and leader of the party got the idea that really changed everything and gave a start to all that.

  The Fur Hunters needed to know where the most valuable burrows were hidden, the more promising areas where their dwellings were inside those tunnels underground. They lived under the surface, but they weren’t able to go too deep because the temperatures down there were too hot. Even though they were capable of living in such places, no human being would ever be allowed to, anyway.

  As the robotrippers were of no use there and as they couldn’t try anything too sensational, there was only one other opportunity that came to Esteban’s mind in the end: the Ground Breakers themselves.

  One indigenous animal only was able to explore those tunnels, find the right way and let the men of the spaceboats figure out all the details they were looking for. A specially well trained Ground Breaker, appropriately stimulated and tempted, could easily do all that on behalf of them, for sure! The small creature would quickly make the importan
t data available and report everything back to them – in exchange for the right amount, the correct dose, so to say. So Esteban opened his bag at his belt and took a little blister out of it.

  “Good little boy!” the man said, in a dialect that clearly revealed his Mesoamerican origin and accent, slowly handing it to him. “You’ve really been a very good little boy today!”

  Down, at the giant creature’s feet, the alien animal was waiting silently. As soon as he opened it, the smell went out and reached the Ground Breaker’s senses.

  If he had been a bit more intelligent, if only he were smarter, the animal would have soon understood that selling your next of kin, the betrayal of your home dwelling or even someone else’s burrows from his own species, revealing the secret passageways to the hidden tunnels of such communities was evil. He surely would never have been forgiven by his own kind, surely, if only they had known.

  But this was an aroma too strong, a reward too tasty, something no one from his own species on that world had ever been able to create or even thought of. His sense of smell was overwhelmed, immediately winning over this small creature who was subject to the same - as if nothing else existed on his planet.

  The bar was bigger than usual, but the Ground Breaker was sure he deserved at least a double portion this time, two colonies had been found at the same time thanks to him! And he received his dose, in the end…

  Its taste was wonderful, nothing any animals on this planet had never savored over the course of their past life, before that first meeting with those strange creatures, could be compared to it…their senses would have been overrun, at the smell, and they would have become obsessed as well.

  The alien creature turned the snack bar over in his furry hands, he wasn’t able to read what was written on that as it was human language, of course he didn’t know that. But he remembered the name, he had been listening to the words of the Earthlings pronouncing that at times, and he was able to easily remember the name.

  The name of the dose was: Chocolate…

  THE END

  NOAH’S ARRANGEMENT by John L Campbell

  The boy awoke groggy and squinting into the darkness, not certain why. Moonlight crept through an opening in the curtains, revealing a small desk with a few battered textbooks, a torn Green Day poster pinned to the wall above it. Red light from a bedside digital clock cast the room in a dull glow. It was 3:07.

  “Ahem.” The sound came again from the end of his bed.

  The boy sat up and peered at the thing perched on the footboard like a chubby white parrot, little toes gripping the wood. It looked like a plump little person, hairless and sexless, its skin a smooth alabaster, except in a few places where coin-sized gray moles grew. No more than eighteen inches tall, it squatted and fidgeted, small fingers laced together. Its head featured a pair of curling white ram horns tucked beside its small pointed ears.

  “Noah Benefield?” it asked, its voice high and nervous. A short, hairless tail curled around its body in a jerky motion, and the creature caught it and played with the tip distractedly.

  Noah pressed back against the headboard, about to cry out for his mom before he realized the evening’s Jack Daniels would have her in a coma until morning.

  “Devil,” he whispered.

  The creature’s dark eyes widened with pleasure. “Imp, actually, but thanks.”

  Noah glanced at his nightstand, looking for something to throw at it. Nothing useful. He could give it a good kick, but his feet were trapped under the covers. Suddenly he was afraid the thing could read his mind, and he tensed, waiting for it to attack.

  The imp just blinked at him, and played with his tail.

  “You are Noah Benefield?”

  Noah nodded.

  “Good, right house, check. I’m Dante.”

  The boy only stared.

  “Um…” the imp’s forehead creased as he thought. “…uh, give me a moment, it’s my first assignment.”

  “Sure,” said Noah, easing out of his bed, keeping his eyes on his nocturnal visitor. He stepped towards the corner, where a hockey stick wrapped in black tape was leaning.

  “I’m here in response to your request,” said the imp, still perched on the footboard.

  Noah stopped, his fingertips touching the hockey stick. “What request?”

  The imp closed its eyes and pressed a little palm to its forehead. Then, in a perfect imitation of Noah’s voice, said, “I wish I could make stuff happen.” It smiled with little pearly teeth, eyes still closed. “That was on June tenth, three-oh-one in the aftern…”

  Noah swung the hockey stick like an MLB All-Star, cracking the imp in the side of the head and blowing it off the footboard. He bolted for the bedroom door. “Mom!” He ran the short distance down the dark hallway, gripping the stick, and burst into his mother’s room. “Mom!” he screamed. He heard heavy snoring, and the lump under the covers didn’t move. “Mom!”

  “She can’t see or hear us,” said Dante, perched on the headboard above her.

  “Why?” demanded Noah. “What did you do to her?”

  “Nothing,” said the imp. “I can’t be held responsible for the distilling process of Tennessee whiskey.” He rubbed the side of his face. “I think you knocked out a tooth.”

  “I’ll do it again! What do you want?”

  The imp held up his small hands in surrender. “Wait, this started badly. I’m here for you, because you wanted it.”

  “I don’t want anything, except for you to leave. Get the hell out of here.”

  The imp sighed and vanished, and a moment later Noah heard a rattling noise from the kitchen. He looked at his comatose mother, then left and pulled the door shut.

  Noah found the imp squatting on the kitchen counter and folding ice cubes into a dishtowel, the freezer door standing open. He shut it and watched the pale creature press the ice pack to the side of his head with a soft moan. Noah still held the hockey stick.

  “Look,” said Dante, “this is pretty simple. I’m here to help you do things, the things you’ve always wanted, dreamed about, fulfill your desires.”

  “Grant wishes?”

  “Not exactly, I’m not a genie. It’s a quid pro quo situation.”

  “Huh?”

  The imp adjusted the dishtowel, wincing. “You tell me the stuff you want to do, and I help you do it. For each thing I help you with, you give me something.”

  “Like what?”

  “Small things.”

  “What kind of small things?”

  “Depends on the situation.” The imp shrugged. “Might not even be a thing, might be a small service. The point is, I help you, and you make little payments.”

  “Like my soul, right?”

  Dante’s eyes widened. “The big enchilada,” he whispered, then shook his head vigorously. “Way out of my league. I told you, I’m a beginner. These are more like…venal corruptions, and probably nothing the average thirteen-year-old wouldn’t do all on his own.”

  Noah leaned against the doorway. “Give me an example.”

  Dante sat down at the edge of the counter, letting his little legs swing, heels bumping against a cupboard door. “Okay…how about Brooke Simmons?”

  Noah stared. Brooke Simmons was a ninth-grader who looked like a college girl and probably dated rock stars. She had starred in more than a few of Noah’s locked bathroom door fantasies. “What about her?”

  “Hypothetically…suppose you want to see her naked? I can make that happen, for a price. Maybe I decide that means you start a rumor that you saw Jimmy Dunworthy using his cell phone to take pictures of other guys in the locker room.”