by Gary Hoover
They all began walking toward the rear door, and Jeff pulled a jacket from a hook near his cot. After pulling on the jacket, he reached for his gun belt and baseball bat. Out of the corner of his eye, he could sense Dave watching him as he wrapped the belt around himself and began fiddling with the buckle. “Are we allowed to bring guns?” he asked.
“I wouldn’t be going if we couldn’t,” Dave said as he reached for his own belt. “Heh, heh, heh.”
Chapter 16:
The town was surrounded by a very tall barrier. From a distance, it looked similar to a chain-link fence, but as they got closer, Jeff saw it was a more solid grid of vertical and horizontal steel bars each about one-half inch diameter.
It looked fairly sturdy, but Jeff had seen some of the creatures that lived in the forest. “Is this thing strong enough to keep everything out?” he asked Dave while grabbing and giving the fence a shake.
Dave put his hand on the fence and considered it. “Probably not, but it’ll probably at least slow them down enough to give someone a chance to shoot ‘em.”
Dave pushed a button and a buzzer sounded.
After a few moments, a door in a small shack on the other side of the gate creaked open. An old man exited and looked at their group. Jeff expected a surprised reaction from the man when he saw four humans along with lizard and bear creatures, but the man didn’t blink. He shuffled slowly toward them and twisted a latch on his side of the gate.
“Five MMUs,” he said in a hoarse, frail voice as he swung the gate open.
Dave fished in his pocket and handed the man a plastic card. Jeff had learned that the plastic cards served as currency. Artimus had given Jeff a healthy supply before he had headed back to Caesurmia. After Dave had handed over the card, he walked past the old man and headed into the town with the others following.
“There’s a place down there on the right that’s got good food and, sometimes, music. Anyone hungry?” Dave asked as he pointed.
There was a non-committal murmur from the group.
“Well, I’m hungry. Let’s get something to eat.”
Jeff had learned that Dave was always hungry.
“Nice gun. I’ll give you one thousand MMUs for it.”
Jeff was startled by the voice which was high-pitched and had a very strange accent. He turned and saw a felear behind him and to the right. The felear was about six inches shorter than Jeff and about his weight, but it moved with a grace that indicated strength and athleticism far greater than Jeff’s.
Jeff looked at Baldwin. “One thousand MMUs. Is that a lot?”
Baldwin nodded. “Way more than it’s worth.”
“Should I do it?”
“Remember what Dave told us.”
Jeff nodded. “I guess that’s why you’re The Raja.” He grinned as Baldwin’s expression quickly turned sour.
“Sorry, not interested,” Jeff said with a shrug to the felear.
The felear nodded. “Oh, what’s this?” he asked, indicating the baseball bat hanging from Jeff’s belt. “Is it for sale?”
Jeff shook his head. “Sorry.”
The felear nodded. “My name’s Kroft. Let me know if you change your mind.” He extended a hand.
Jeff assumed he was supposed to shake, but he wasn’t sure. He cautiously extended his own hand. The felear shook it, then waved a farewell and headed his own way.
“Well, he seemed nice enough,” Jeff said to Baldwin.
“Yeah. Maybe that’s how they’re so good at scamming people.”
The main road through town was unpaved, and the buildings were, for the most part, flimsy corrugated steel shacks. A few buildings seemed more substantial, but even those ones didn’t appear to be well maintained. Jeff could see roughly ten to fifteen people, but the streets were mostly empty.
There were a number of very large dogs. Some looked to weigh several hundred pounds and stand at least four feet tall. Some seemed to be with people, others seemed to be wandering about on their own, but Jeff didn’t see any leashes. One man was walking with what appeared to be a large chimpanzee-like animal.
While nobody was blatantly staring, Jeff felt there was a great deal of interest in and scrutiny of the new arrivals.
Near one building, Jeff was a little surprised to see a couple of pheerions. Dave nudged Rasp. “Hey, greenie, looks like some of your buddies over there. How come you’re so much uglier than them? Heh, heh, heh.”
Jeff glanced at Rasp. His eyes were fixed forward. He didn’t react to Dave and didn’t react to the pheerions.
Dave nodded and pointed to indicate they had arrived at the eatery. A man with a particularly large dog was entering just ahead of them.
The first thing Jeff noticed, as he walked through the doors was a stale, musty smell. There was also a smoky odor. It was similar to tobacco but with its own unique aroma. It was dark, and Jeff could see the glow of several pipe bowls.
As Jeff’s eyes adjusted, he was able to take a look around. There were large, wooden tables that were rough and splintered. The seats were mostly benches, but there were some mismatched wooden chairs and even a few metal ones spread throughout. The only real decorative features seemed to be the heads of various animals. Jeff recognized two heads immediately. One was a giant mantis head and the other a giant snake head. Similar animals had nearly killed him shortly after he arrived in the foreign world.
He didn’t recognize most of the other heads, but nearly all of them shared the characteristic of being very frightening. Jeff had fooled himself into believing he had seen the worst the forests had to offer, but he realized now there were far more animals out there that he hoped never to encounter.
Jeff could sense a general distrust from the others in the room. As a result of his enhanced senses, he could hear bits and pieces of conversations which he felt sure were not audible to others in the group.
‘What are they up to?’
‘Look, there’s a pheerion with them... and a brune.’
‘Don’t like the look of this. Maybe we should just get out of here before trouble starts.’
Oh crap!
Jeff realized that there was another animal head he recognized – a brune like Benji.
He looked at Benji, afraid of how he might react. Benji had seen it and was looking at it, but he didn’t react strongly.
Jeff suspected that Benji knew where he stood in this society and found himself wishing he had the same advantage.
Chapter 17:
Jeff shifted the position of his small wooden bench and tried to get comfortable. He looked around at some of the other patrons and felt a strong, collective mood of distrust mixed with curiosity coming from the townspeople. He didn’t know if that was part of the unique powers of perception he seemed to have or simply the obvious interpretation of the sideways glances and more straightforward glares and scowls.
Roughly ninety percent of the humans were men. Jeff had no idea which felears or pheerions (there were about ten felears and three pheerions) were female. The human females looked as tough as the men, and Jeff noticed many of the men eying Nahima with clear interest.
At least half the people there had large dogs or other animals with them, and many of them were dining alone.
Jeff noticed a table filled with men wearing black hooded jackets, and he had the uncomfortable feeling that they were paying particular attention to his group.
There was also a very tall, thin man with a scraggly beard looking directly at them with a sour expression. Jeff noticed that most of the people he looked at quickly looked away when his eyes met theirs, but the tall, thin, bearded man stared right back at him. After a brief moment of eye contact with him, Jeff turned his own gaze down.
“I urinated in my pants earlier.”
That pronouncement had been made by a wild-eyed old man with stringy hair and shabby clothes.
“It was warm... and nice... at first, but now it’s cold... and smelly. My name’s Aldous,” he said, extending a hand. Jeff looke
d at it for a few moments before reluctantly shaking it.
“Hey, can we get some food over here?” Dave shouted over his shoulder, ignoring the man.
“Buy me a meal, and I’ll tell you a story,” the man said, looking directly at Jeff. He apparently sensed him to be the most sympathetic.
Jeff looked at Dave who was rolling his eyes. “Sure, sure, whatever, as long as I can–” He looked over his shoulder again trying to spot a server. “GET SOME FOOD.”
“Allow me, fine sir. I’m very familiar with the food here, and I’ll make sure you get the best fare.” The man shuffled away at a brisk pace and cornered a waiter.
He spent several moments speaking to the waiter, pointing at the table and making a number of broad, sweeping gestures with his hand. The waiter had an unpleasant expression that seemed to grow even more so when he glanced over at the table. Jeff didn’t see the waiter speak a word, but the disheveled man nodded, bowed several times, and then hurried back to the table.
“All taken care of. Soon you will have food very fitting people of your stature.”
Considering that they hadn’t been treated with any real hospitality since they had arrived, Jeff was hoping for food that was a little better than their ‘stature’.
“Now should I tell you my story?” the man asked with a smile that revealed yellow, jagged teeth.
Dave looked at him with an expression that likely wouldn’t have been much different than the one he would have had if the man had said: ‘Should I put worms in your pants now?’, but Dave’s lack of enthusiasm didn’t seem to dissuade the man.
“Once, there was a great king.”
Dave buried his face in his hands. “The food better be here soon.”
“He didn’t have a large castle or festive court. He didn’t have stacks of gold or lavish tapestries.”
Dave sighed loudly, drummed the table with his open palms and then leaned back in his chair. He craned his neck to try to catch a glimpse of the waiter.
“But he did have... magic powers.” Aldous made a flourish with his hands to emphasize that last point.
“With a wave of his hand... ” Aldous lowered his hand to a foot above the floor and wiggled his fingers. “Flowers would sprout from the ground. Another wave… ” He raised his hands to his chest with palms up and again wiggled his fingers. “And dust turned to insects. Another wave... “ He raised his hands over his head.
“Seriously, if I don’t get some food over here soon, I’m not going to be responsible for my actions,” Dave said to no one in particular.
“And the insects turned to birds,” Aldous continued unperturbed.
“The king spent his days in quiet study and the land, the plants, the animals, and the people flourished.”
The waiter arrived with a tray full of wooden bowls and dropped one loudly in front of Dave, then worked his way around the table. When he got to Benji, he maintained a safe distance and threw a bowl on the floor.
How rude, Jeff thought, but Benji didn’t seem to mind as he dropped to all fours and, with a few quick bites, emptied his bowl.
“But there was another king,” Aldous continued, “from a faraway land. That king wasn’t nearly as kind or thoughtful as the magical king.”
Jeff poked at the contents of his bowl with his wooden spoon. It was the least appetizing thing he had seen and smelt since he had been in jail. It had a thick, pasty amorphous consistency. He took a small bite, spit it out nearly immediately, dropped the spoon back in the bowl, and pushed it away.
After seeing Jeff’s reaction, Baldwin pushed his untouched bowl toward the center of the table.
“Heh, heh, heh, what a couple of floweries,” Dave said, food spraying as he shoveled it into his mouth.
Rasp seemed to be enjoying his and Nahima, while clearly not enjoying hers, refused to give Dave the satisfaction of seeing her appearing overly squeamish.
“This other king,” Aldous continued between mouthfuls, “craved the power of the wise king. And though he hadn’t earned it and didn’t deserve it, he decided to steal it.” He looked around the table with a wide-eyed grin to see how everyone reacted to that last bombshell, but he was disappointed to find no particular reaction.
“So he crafted a plan in which he would befriend the magical king, lure him to his home and then... SNATCH... ” He made a sudden grasping motion in the air. “His power.”
The waiter appeared again with a roasted animal on a platter. It looked something like a very large opossum but with a particularly long, narrow and frail-looking snout. The waiter dropped it loudly at the center of their table, and the sight of it made Jeff nauseous. There were patches of singed hair scattered across its carcass. One eyeball was missing but the other was burnt and damaged, leaving a black, oozing trail running down the side of the animal’s head. Its mouth was gaping and its tongue hung limply out one side.
Dave pulled off a leg and tossed it to Benji, then tore another off and kept it for himself. Rasp tore into the side, and something yellow oozed out from the spot he tore away.
Jeff looked away. “Then what happened?” he asked Aldous.
“Oh, nothing important,” Aldous said as he ripped a leg off for himself.
Chapter 18:
Artimus shifted uncomfortably in his chair as the make-up technician ran a brush across his cheek. “I think this just illustrates that we were never meant to be on video broadcasts.”
Codi held back a laugh. “You’re such a baby sometimes. You should be thankful we were able to get this spot on such short notice. Are you set on all the key details we want to hit?”
“I think so. I hate these interviews, though. I always get thrown off of my plan.”
The technician removed the bib, indicated with a gesture that Artimus was done, and then stepped away.
Codi extended a hand and helped him out of the chair. “You’ll do great, you always do,” she said with a smile. She leaned in to kiss his cheek but stopped short.
Artimus wasn’t sure if it was shyness or concern about smearing his make-up that held her back, but he found himself a little disappointed and a little surprised at his own disappointment.
A stagehand led him to the set. The host, Tom Parker, greeted him and shook his hand. Artimus had been on the show many times before, and he and Tom had a good, ongoing, professional relationship.
“Father Winfred. Good to see you again,” Tom said with a broad smile. He gestured toward a chair. Artimus nodded, turned, sat down and tried to relax. He looked around the room and made a conscious effort not to fidget. I have no talent for these things.
There were no visible cameras or other obvious clues to indicate it was a set. Tom prided himself on creating an atmosphere in which guests would feel comfortable, as if they were simply chatting with a friend.
“If you’re ready, we’ll get right to it,” Tom said.
Artimus was familiar enough with the way Tom worked to know that he liked to be as spontaneous as possible and record everything. He didn’t do pre-interviews or anything else that might throw off the natural flow and spontaneity.
“Well,” Tom began. “It’s been a while since we last spoke, and I think it would be an understatement to say a lot has happened since our last conversation. Could you tell me, in your own words, about your involvement in the battle between the Doclotnurians and the pheerions?”
Artimus shifted in his chair and tried to consider how to word it. He didn’t really want to talk about the details, but he had anticipated that he would be asked. He wanted to share some details to illustrate the danger of the situation, but he didn’t want to get into some of the more sensitive details.
“I... uh... I felt... very strongly, as I stated publicly at the time, that we needed to help the Doclotnurians, but I couldn’t convince enough other people of that. So I decided I should go and see if I could offer some small bit of help.” Artimus shrugged.
Tom gave him a probing look. “I think you’re over-simplifying things a bit.
Prior to leaving, you helped Jeff Baldwin, who claimed to be The Raja–”
Artimus cut him off sharply at that point. “Jeff never made any such claim.”
Tom made a conceding gesture, and there was a slight pause as each of them re-evaluated the situation.
I’ve got to control my temper better than that... be more pleasant, Artimus told himself.
“Do you believe Jeff was... is The Raja?”
Artimus wasn’t happy with where things were going. He wanted to minimize any discussion about Jeff, and Tom had jumped right to it.
“I think Jeff is very special, but I’m not prepared to make any grand pronouncements. I don’t want get caught up in a speculation game.”
Tom nodded and paused to allow his audience to absorb what had just been said.
Artimus realized that his refusal to deny that Jeff was The Raja would get people talking, but he felt he needed to go that far at least.
“Where is Jeff now?”
Damn it!
Artimus squirmed uncomfortably. For a brief moment he was tempted to jump up and flee, but he worked to calm himself. “He’s trying to find his father.”
Tom nodded. “How is he trying to do that?”
“I think I would be violating Jeff’s privacy to say any more than that.”
Tom drummed a forefinger against his lips. “We’ve heard reports from the battle, but I think we’d be very interested in hearing about it directly from you. Can you tell us about your involvement?”
Artimus realized that, as Tom had mentioned, much of the battle was already publicly known, so he could discuss those details without giving anything away.
“Jeff and I went with some other people–”
“Your children?”
Artimus nodded. “They were there, and I also met up with some old friends. We went to where the pheerion ships had anchored and tried to find weaknesses in their defenses.” Artimus paused and tried to consider what non-information he could provide that would satisfy Tom enough for him to shut up and move on.