“Because I’m the King of Earth.”
Loren snorted. “Oh please.”
Draven cleared his throat. It was a sound that suggested anything else currently going on should probably stop.
Cal and Loren both turned to the oldest of the Nostro siblings and smiled anxiously.
“Anyway, a pleasure to meet you, Loren,” said Cal. “Great name. Great service. Thank you for the drink. I’d tip you, but I have no money.”
The Nostro’s all glanced down at the bag of credits still sitting on the table. Cal pretended not to notice.
“You’re welcome,” said Loren, nodding curtly. She placed the other glasses in front of the Nostros, then backed towards the door. “I’ll be right outside.”
Draven dismissed her with a wave of his hand, then raised his glass to his lips. He was about to take a sip when Cal interrupted.
“I’d like to propose a toast.”
The Nostros all looked confused. “A what?” asked Esera.
“A toast. It’s something we do back where I come from,” Cal explained. “It’s like this thing you say to mark a special moment.”
“Very well. If you must,” said Draven, making very little attempt to hide his displeasure.
Cal raised his own glass. “To family,” he said. “Especially, and I hope you’ll indulge me here, to my dad, the previous King of Earth. Kind. Funny. And he had this special room in the palace we all lived in where he spent most of his days. You know? A special place he liked to just go and be by himself that wasn’t really public knowledge, but we all knew about.”
He wiped an imaginary tear from his eye and raised his glass towards the ceiling. “Happy trails, Dad.”
The others looked either confused or uncomfortable, it was tricky to say which.
“Can we drink now?” Draven asked.
“Sure, knock yourself out,” said Cal, but Draven hadn’t bothered to wait for an answer. He glugged a third of the gloopy red liquid, swirled it around in his mouth, then swallowed it.
“What is that?” asked Cal. “Tomato juice?”
“Would you like a taste?” asked Esera, her eyes wide and innocent. Cal watched Draven’s black tongue catch a trickle of the stuff that was about to dribble down his chin, and slowly shook his head.
“Know what? I’m fine. I’ll stick to whatever this stuff is,” he said, raising his glass. He took a deep breath, then knocked the stuff back in one gulp. He smacked his lips together a few times, then failed to hide his disappointment. “It’s water. It’s fizzy water. Well, that’s not going to take the edge of anything.”
“One more thing, before we start,” said Draven. His fingertips glided across the surface of the table until a pulsing red circle appeared. He tapped it lightly and the air seemed to shimmer. Behind Cal, Mech’s arms fell limply to his sides. He tried to look down at them, but his head, like the rest of him, refused to move.
“A low-level electromagnetic pulse,” Draven explained. “It temporarily blocks any hidden comm-devices and disables any weapons. Your manservant will remain alert, but physically immobile. This will prevent him trying to stop us devouring you if we win.”
“When you win!” Cal corrected, then his eyes narrowed. “No, wait. I got that the wrong way around. If. If you win.”
He glanced back at Mech, then looked round again as a small pile of cards was stacked on the table in front of him. Before he could reach to pick them up, two plastic cups were set on either side of the stack, one upright, the other upside-down.
“OK, so…?”
A white-painted wooden sphere was placed on the upturned bottom of the wrong-way-up cup. Cal picked it up, tossed it from hand to hand, then set it down again. He nodded, trying to convey the impression he fully understood what was going on.
“Well, that all seems in order,” he said, before being interrupted by Sliske sliding a pile of rectangular metal chips in front of him, along with a small mirror, two stubby pencils and a breathtakingly detailed drawing of a horse. Or something not a million miles away from one, at least.
Cal watched the youngest of the Nostros expectantly, but no more game pieces seemed to be coming his way. “Well OK, then,” he said, picking up his cards. He thumbed through them, his frown deepening. “Uh, these are all blank.”
Draven and the others appeared momentarily confused. “Yes?”
“Of course they are,” said Sliske. “What did you expect?”
“Well, I mean…”
“He doesn’t know how to play!” Esera realized, her eyes blazing with excitement. “You don’t, do you? You don’t know how to play!”
Cal snorted. “What? No. This? Come on. With the ball and the cups and the little mirror? And the, you know, the drawing of a horse? Get out of here. I’ve played this a thousand times.”
“Good. Then you can make the opening move,” Draven informed him.
“Uh, what? No. It’s fine. One of you guys can go first.”
“Please,” said Draven. “We insist.”
“Seriously, it’s fine,” Cal said, then he jumped as Sliske slapped a hand down on the table.
“We insist.”
Cal hesitated. He licked his lips, which were suddenly lacking in anything resembling moisture, and swallowed noisily. “Well then… yay. I love going first.”
He looked from his cards to the assortment of items assembled on the table in front of him. Everyone else seemed to have the same set-up, although the balls were all different colors, and the space horses were striking a variety of quite unhorse-like poses.
“I’ll be honest, I’m a little rusty,” Cal said. “So…”
He reached for the ball, watching the others for their reaction. All three chairs creaked as the siblings leaned forward. Sliske’s tongue darted hungrily across his lips.
Cal withdrew his hand. The sense of disappointment from the Nostros was palpable. He took that as a sign that he probably shouldn’t touch the ball anytime soon.
He thumbed through his cards again and was disappointed, if not entirely surprised, to discover they were still blank. He glanced at the back of them to make sure he had them around the right way, but the other side was completely featureless, too, so he wasn’t sure how anyone was supposed to tell which way they went.
“Just double-checking – which version of the rules are we playing?” he asked. “Because there are so many different variations, I’d hate to get the wrong one.”
“The standard rules,” said Draven.
“The…?”
“We’re playing the standard rules,” Draven repeated.
“Right,” said Cal. “Right! Great! Standard. Just the standard, everyday rules. Nothing unusual or out of the ordinary. Just the run-of-the-mill bog-standard—”
“Hurry up!” Sliske barked. “We don’t have all day.”
“Or do we?” asked Cal, smiling hopefully.
“No. We don’t.”
“Right. Yes,” said Cal. “Fair enough.”
He looked at his cards again. Still blank.
Still fonking blank.
“OK,” Cal muttered. He rolled the word around in his mouth for a while, then said it again. “OK. So I think I am going to…” He inhaled slowly through his nose. “Pass?” he said with an upward inflection that was one part confusion, two parts ‘Oh shizz, I’m about to be eaten alive.’
There was silence from the others, then Sliske banged his fist on the table, making the ball fall off his cup.
“Gah!” he spat.
Directly across from Cal, Esera nodded her admiration. “Well, well, well. It seems that you have played this game before after all, Earthman,” she said. “Perhaps I misjudged you.”
“What?” Cal squeaked. He closed his mouth, which had dropped open, cleared his throat, then sat up straighter. “I mean yes. Yes, perhaps you did.”
He watched as Draven made his move. It involved turning one of his cups over and moving it to the other side of his stack. Cal let out a low whistle of
appreciation.
“Classic,” he said. “Classic move.”
He lifted his drink, remembered it was water, and set it back down again without taking a sip. Across the table, Esera was writing something on one of her cards.
“So that’s why they’re blank!” Cal said.
All eyes flicked to him. He shifted awkwardly and produced a grin from nowhere. “As we are all already aware,” he said.
The scratching of Esera’s pencil began again. Whatever she was writing, she was taking quite a long time over it. Cal seized the opportunity.
“So, what did you guys think of my toast?” he asked.
Sliske didn’t acknowledge the question. Draven nodded politely. “It was very interesting,” he said.
“I know. I mean, dads, right? Don’t you just love them?”
Sliske and Draven exchanged glances, but said nothing.
“My dad, the old king, he loved that secret room of his,” Cal continued, gazing off into the middle distance and smiling wistfully. “He called it his special hole. No. Wait, not that. That would’ve been inappropriate. He called it his, uh, his private man’s area.”
Cal consider this. “No. No, that’s actually worse.” He shrugged. “Know what? I forget what he called it. The point is, he loved that little room of his.”
Feeling himself floundering, Cal struck out for the shore. “So, uh, what about your dad? Does he have a special private man’s hole? I mean, a place where he hides away out of sight?”
Esera’s pencil stopped. All three Nostro children fixed Cal with cold, steely stares.
“What is this?” Sliske demanded, his voice dropping into a low hiss. “Who are you?”
“What? Who, me?”
A trickle of sweat meandered down Cal’s back. He dug around in his portfolio of facial expressions until he found one that conveyed surprise, confusion and absolute innocence all at the same time. At least, that’s what he thought it conveyed. In reality, he looked like a badly constipated glove puppet, but luckily no-one who knew him was around to see it.
“I told you. I’m the King of Earth.”
“Why are you asking about our father?” Esera demanded.
“I wasn’t!” said Cal. “I mean, no, obviously I was, but it was just conversation, you know? Chit-chat.” He laughed. “It wasn’t like I was pumping you for information to try to find out where he is, or anything!”
The silence grew heavier. Cal softly cleared his throat. “It… it really wasn’t that.”
Esera went back to writing. The point of her pencil pricked the growing bubble of tension, and both Sliske and Draven relaxed. She finished with a flourish, then turned the card face down so no-one could see what she had written.
“Done,” she announced.
“High time,” Sliske muttered. He picked up his little mirror, breathed on it, then replaced it on the table with a clunk.
All eyes fell on Cal. It took him a moment to realize why.
“Oh! It’s my turn. Right.”
He looked down at the assortment of items in front of him, gave them all due consideration, then raised his eyebrows. “Uh… pass?”
That uncomfortable silence returned. Cal’s heart bongoed inside his chest. It was Esera who spoke first.
“Oh, you clever boy,” she whispered.
“It appears we have a tactician in our midst,” Draven added.
Even Sliske appeared impressed. “Well, this just got interesting,” he conceded.
“This could be a long game,” said Esera.
“Ooh, I know!” said Cal, sitting bolt upright. “We could pass the time by talking about, I don’t know, let’s say our family history, for example.” He caught the darkening expressions on the faces of the others, and quickly switched tracks. “Alternatively, maybe we could take it in turns to describe the layout of our houses in detail.”
Cal gestured at the room around them. “I mean, this place looks interesting. Do you do tours, or…?”
“Do you ever stop talking?” Sliske demanded.
“No. No, he don’t.”
The voice came from directly behind Cal.
Cal closed his eyes and exhaled slowly.
“You said he couldn’t talk,” Draven intoned. “He talked.”
“Yeah,” Cal sighed. “Yeah, I just said that to annoy him.” He raised his voice. “But you had to go and blow it, Mech. You had to go and blow it.”
“Hey, fonk you, man,” said Mech. “You were totally giving the game away.”
“I was not!” Cal retorted. “They didn’t suspect a thing. Did you?”
“What are you talking about?” Draven snapped.
“See? I totally nailed it. You’re the one who spoiled it. You let me down, Mech. And yes, I’m going to say it, you let yourself down.”
Cal crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair. “Ah well, I guess we’ll just have to do it the old-fashioned way. You can beat the shizz out of these fonks and get them to tell us where their dad is.” He flashed the Nostros a grin. “Sorry, guys. Kind of. Actually, no, I’m not sorry. Between you and me, I’m actually kind of looking forward to watching him pummel you.” He pointed to Sliske. “Especially him. That guy’s just unpleasant.”
“Uh yeah,” said Mech. “I mean, I would do that. Except, I can’t move.”
Cal’s smile fell away. “Huh?” he said.
“The EMP thing. I can’t move my arms or legs,” Mech explained. “Sorry, man.”
Cal’s eyes went wide as all three Nostros slowly got to their feet.
“Oh,” he mumbled. “Well, isn’t that just great?”
THREE
TRUE TO HIS WORD, it was Sliske who made the first move. He lunged across the table, his jaw appearing to unhinge itself until his mouth looked big enough to swallow Cal’s head wide.
“Splurt!” Cal yelped, shoving his chair backwards. The bag of money he’d deposited on the table became a rubbery sledgehammer that solidified as it whanged Sliske between the eyes. The youngest of the Nostro clan spat out a staccato, “Gu-gu,” as the bridge of his nose exploded, then he crashed backwards over his chair and landed in a less than dignified heap on the floor.
Esera ducked the hammer as it turned on her, then caught it by the handle and swung it at Cal’s head just as he jumped to his feet. It became a feather pillow just in the nick of time, but still packed enough of a wallop to knock Cal off balance.
“Hey, watch what you’re doing with him!” Cal protested. A dozen metal spikes burst out from inside the pillow case and through Esera’s hand. She screamed as they became spinning drill bits that chewed through her flesh and bone, and it took all Cal’s effort not to throw up in his mouth. “Or he’ll do that.”
Esera tore her hand free, then tossed the pillow across the room. Cal was following its flight when Mech’s voice barked at him.
“Look out!”
“Huh?”
Cal turned and saw Draven hurtling towards him. The elder Nostro hit him like a small, very localized hurricane. They stumbled toward the door, which snapped open at their approach. Cal grabbed for the door frame, missed, and suddenly found himself on the floor, pancaked beneath Draven’s weight.
“You dare try to deceive us!” Draven spat. “Say goodbye, King of Earth.”
“Wait! Wait!” Cal cried. “I have to tell you something.”
Draven’s jaw kricked open.
“Wait, don’t! I’m serious! It’s something you should know.”
“What?” Draven growled, although thanks to the unhinged jaw thing it came out more like, “Wha’?”
“That game of yours totally sucks. It’s literally the worst thing I’ve ever played. And I’ve played Monopoly. Twice,” Cal said. “Also, brace yourself.”
The scuffing of approaching footsteps caught Draven’s attention. He looked up just in time for the sole of Loren’s boot to crunch into the center of his face. Hissing in pain, he made a lunge for her leg, but the butt of a blaster pistol cracked him on t
he forehead above the eye, and he was suddenly much less interested in grabbing her than he had been a moment before.
“Get up. Slowly,” Loren said, a blaster trained on Draven’s head.
“I’d do what she says,” Cal told him. “She will shoot you. Hell, I’m amazed she hasn’t shot you already.
Draven did get up, but not slowly. He seemed to bound straight upwards onto it feet, yanking Cal up with him. His arm wrapped around the Earthman’s throat as he pulled Cal in front of himself like a human shield.
“Let him go,” Loren warned. “Now.”
“You heard her,” said Cal. His eyes flicked to Draven’s wide mouth, with all those teeth lurking inside. “And you can shut that thing, too. It’s unsightly, and flies could get in.”
Draven’s jaw bones ground together as he clunked them back into place, but he made no move to release Cal. “Who are you?” he asked. “What do you want?”
“Relax, Dravey – can I call you Dravey? Relax, Dravey, we’re not here for you. We’ve come for your old man. That’s why I was working you for information earlier. You probably didn’t notice.”
“We noticed,” said Draven.
“Well, obviously you’re going to say that now,” said Cal.
“Let him go, or I will shoot your face off,” Loren warned.
“Loren, don’t. I’ve seen how you aim a spaceship, and it doesn’t fill me with confidence,” said Cal. He turned his head a little so he was addressing Draven again.
“We’re here to bring your old man to justice. See, Mayor…” Cal clicked his fingers a few times. “Loren?”
“Smuna Clastres.”
“Yeah, that guy, he wants rid of your dad. Something about him being a big mass-murdering monster? I don’t know, I kind of glazed over for a while,” Cal said. “But he wants rid. The mayor. And he’s paying us to do the ridding. Handsomely, I might add.”
“We had a deal,” Draven seethed.
“Uh, no we didn’t.”
“Not you and I, you idiot. The Gorf. We had a deal with the Gorf. Clastres is unwise to try to alter it.”
“Yeah, they told us about that,” Cal said. “But here’s the thing. The deal’s over. It’s off the table. It’s no longer an option. It’s—”
Space Team: The Time Titan of Tomorrow Page 2