"And when will Earth be ready to go to war?" Hopkirk asked.
"Not soon enough," Hikcet replied.
***
The space-lanes were being overhauled, made bigger and less secret and while they were traffic was rising along them leading to queues and delays. There was a lot of equipment to bring in in order to update all of the Earth's communications. It was made harder by having to have everything done by Humans, but there was also another issue.
You see, various people with the Universal Trading Network had tried to get Earth into space. They had prompted and suggested and left bits of tech lying around, trying to make it seem like Earthens had thought of it themselves. They had even planted the idea to reach the moon in the hope that this might spur Earth to unite, push further out and discover the UTN on their own so they didn't feel like a fat kid in gym class. They had not, however, given them the best technology, rather old stuff in fact. This was partly so the Earthens could feel like they invented stuff, but also so that Earthen radar and the like wasn't actually good enough to detect other alien craft. This meant that other races could visit Earthen spas without detection and was why spaceships were spotted regularly everywhere except on radar. This now had to be rectified without the Humans feeling too dumb. No one wanted to mention how they hadn't come up with this in the first place, and the technicians tried to be positive about Earthen technology and then suggest how to make it better. Like suggesting to a young Picasso that maybe he should paint both eyes on the face rather than one on the torso.
Once this was in place Earthens would learn something very important to the plot of this story. That they were on the very edge of the known Universe and indeed this would be why, finally, Earth had to be brought into contact with the rest of the Universe.
***
Meanwhile, having left the Lancastrian galaxy and a short shopping spree, Jason and Milk were now in the city of Columbino on the planet of Tacker in the Jincti galaxy. Tacker was an oxygen based planet which meant that it thrived. The problem for Humans in space is their insistence on oxygen. Most other races can breathe in oxygen as well as other atmospheres. Oxygen is like water, it might not be your favourite drink, but everyone can drink it.
Jason Wellgood was having his first real experience of the different races of the Universe as he and Milk walked through a bustling market. The market itself was a lot like Earthen markets, many stalls with wooden roofs lined the streets and people and shouting filled every inch. The city was filled with skyscrapers, though not in this part, but a floating skyway ran overhead leaving the market in shadow. Strange looking birds flew through the clear blue sky high above the sillily tall buildings.
All around them were Oncolutians, Tarancorts, Reutorgians, Enthusians, Albertines, Carutes flying along in their goldfish bowls, as well as Adjuvitics with their metaphorical foreheads and impressively large real foreheads that sloped up to join their completely bald, nearly perfectly round heads.
There were large vaguely man shaped creatures that reminded Jason of elephants, though they had tiny ears and their trunk-like nose only hung to their breast and was wider than a elephants, starting as it did at their cheeks. The Victorians called these Merricks as no one could pronounce their actual name.
And there were Humans, mainly Humans it being a Human galaxy, and that suited Jason as it was much easier to take in the other races if you could then have a good long stare at another Human being. It's strange to look at all these races and while thinking they look weird you realise that you are just as weird looking to them. That after five years on Earth of looking normal you are now not necessarily normal looking to most of the Universe. That you are just another race in a Universe full on them.
Milk pulled Jason through the crowds quickly in hope of not bumping into anyone who might want to kill them. And the truck stop had proven quite how likely that event would be. Already the trucker must have told at least two people that Chase Darkstaar was back, and they had probably already told two people each and so on and so on, and Milk wondered just how long such news would take to get to the wrong ears. I mean the appear-out-of-a-dark-alley-and-shoot-you kind of wrong ears. And then how much longer would it take to reach the keen ears of the Laikans? The problem with the plan, one of many really, was that when the Laikans found out Chase was out and about, and what he was doing, it could hasten the approaching WAR, add a nice dash of desperation to their efforts to take the Universe. But then, worse in Milk's mind was the fact that the Laikans would probably start a massive operation to kill Chase before they started their WAR. Valkswagon.
Milk pulled Jason down a seedy alley with, at this time of day, dark neon signs displaying their offerings. All of which appeared to offer women of whatever race floated your boat. One bar had an open door with a red velvet curtain hanging across the entrance and Milk pushed it aside and walked in thankful that Jason, being behind him, couldn't see the trepidation on his face. Then he stopped in the dark bar and turned to Jason.
"As your friend I should warn you that you will probably get slapped at least once in here," he thought for a moment, "actually so will I."
"Great, well foreknowledge, forearmed and all that. What is this place?"
He looked around; there was a dimly lit bar against the far wall and a round stage with floor to ceiling poles in the centre of the room. The rest of the room included tables and chairs on the floor and booths along the walls. Above them there was a balcony that rolled around the whole room. The air had a musk of sleaze to it.
There was no one around.
"This way," said Milk and walked towards the bar and then past it into a dark doorway. They climbed the stairs and in the gloom Milk nearly ran into a Human woman walking down them. She nearly screamed and then slapped Milk.
"Told you," he sighed.
"Who the hell are you?" she shouted angrily at them.
"It's us," Milk simply stated.
"Us? Us?" she was still angry it seemed. "Who the hell is us?"
"Why don't we go down stairs and have a drink, princess?" Jason said, though he didn't know why, or why he had called her 'princess'.
"What do you mean, 'go down?'," she abruptly stopped. "No, no it can't be, you're dead aren't you?"
"Well, I will be if I don't get one of your fine Chokdee cocktails," Jason said still not knowing why he was opening his mouth, and really wishing he wasn't. "And a Ventrwistian coffee for Milk here."
"Milk? Oh no, no it can't? yes, yes, I think I need a drink too, go downstairs," she flustered.
***
Milk and Jason sat at the newly lit bar with their drinks. The bar, as with all such bars, looked worse fully lit. The woman stood behind the bar with a short of Carute whiskey. She looked at them as they looked at her. She was tall and pale and had long thick red hair. She was beautiful, but her life read clearly in her face and her eyes had, if not a thousand yard stare, then around five hundred.
Suddenly, whip fast, she slapped Jason.
"Told you," said Milk as Jason reeled.
"How dare you come back here after all this time," she fumed.
"Well, erm, not really my fault, you see?" Milk stopped him with a kick.
"Julianna," Milk said in what he hoped was a placating voice. Not easy when you're a seven foot slab of muscle, "we need your help."
She barked a laugh.
"Now I've heard it all! The great Chase Darkstaar needs my help!"
"Listen, the last time we were in here, didn't Chase spend the evening with you?"
Julianna looked at Jason. "You don't remember?"
Jason didn't really know much about women, but he knew that if he got this answer wrong, whatever reason they were here for would be lost. She seemed a bit pert and upset in her question. 'Hmm?' Jason thought.
"How could I forget? It was with you, we hired a private room and drank and danced and talked and laughed. It was a night men take to their graves."
He waited, she didn't speak, he thought he
had blown it, Milk thought he had blown it, they both tensed ready for a slap.
She laughed again. "How many times do I have to tell you your charms don't work on me, Chase?"
"So it was you?" Milk asked tentatively, he had to get this right.
"Shut up, Milk, who else here would Chase spend time with on a special occasion?"
"Special occasion?" Jason asked.
"You were off somewhere, never coming back, saying you loved me.
"Look what's going on here? You reappear after five years and you come here acting all strange and out of sorts."
"Julianna, we need you to do it again. Re-enact that night."
"We do?" asked Jason incredulously.
"Yes, we do. How much, Julianna?"
As she looked at both of them, she wondered what was going on. Chase was a mean bastard most of the time, but she had seen his good side. More than once he had saved girls here from savage punters, but now she could see a scared, bewildered side. That worried her. Whatever had happened over the last five years had taken a toll on Chase and if Chase could break, then something was very wrong. She couldn't say why, but she was scared.
"Free if you level with me," she finally said.
Milk let out a disappointed sigh. "Come on, how about we double the usual amount. Just an hour."
"No, you pay with the truth or you can leave now."
"Er, Milk, do you think we can have a word," he nodded his head over at the stage. "Just a moment, er, princess."
The walked over to the dark stage.
"What the hell is going on, Milk?"
Milk sighed and Jason noted he was doing that a lot lately.
"Actually this was your idea. After you hid the Trimedian you laid a trail of clues from the location to Earth so that if you experienced one it would jog your memory to the next. And this was the last clue, the last place we went before Earth. At least I think it was, we got pretty drunk that night."
"Man, I was pretty smart. No, wait, you're telling me that having sex with this woman is the key to opening up my memory?"
"If that's what you did, I wasn't there thankfully. But maybe not, you said that the sights, sounds, smells of this bar were unique and that the, and I quote you here, 'the time with a strong, sexual woman,' would easily jog your memory."
"Man, that sounds like sex to me. Then we need to tell her the truth?" Jason asked uneasily.
He'd always been uneasy around women, never had the right thing to say, he didn't think he could pull this off and started to hope there was another way.
"Well a version of the truth. We can't have it get out that you are not Chase Darkstaar, but a wimpier version of him."
"Thanks," things were looking grim. "But you're right, I'm not Chase, what if I can't, well, you know?"
"You were Chase in the truck stop; try to be Chase with her."
"Oh great, no look there has to be another?"
"No, there isn't. This was your plan and if you decided on it, then it must work, you were that kind of arrogant guy."
"I was a bastard, wasn't I?"
Milk looked down at his feet and then back up at his friend of five years.
"Listen, Jason, I told you that before we went to Earth we weren't really friends and that was true, but on Earth we did become friends. I know that we need to bring Darkstaar back, but I don't want to lose that friend either," he looked back down at his feet.
Jason looked at him and then over at Julianna finishing off another glass of Carute whiskey.
Taking a cue from Milk he sighed.
"Let's do this."
***
In space, it seems, everyone goes for dimly lit, as the room Jason and Julianna were in was indeed dimly lit. It was also a very tattered maroon colour by the look of things and contained a number of sofas around low tables. He thought it was probably good that it was dimly lit.
"So what do we do now?" Jason asked.
"What's going on Chase?"
"Maybe we should have a drink," he suggested and poured them both a shot.
This was weird, Chase pouring drinks for her, but then he had done it too on that last night together.
"What do you remember of me?" Jason asked pouring another drink.
"That you weren't like this. Where have you been for the last five years?"
"Answer the question, dammit," he demanded and she saw the old Chase flash across his face.
"You were a mean bastard, I guess you had to be, but you were always nice to me, well, mostly, and to the girls here. You never really talked about your work, until that last night when you told me some of your 'hits', you weren't proud, but you weren't sorry for all that you did."
"Such as?"
And she started to relate some of his life's work and through the stories and the alcohol it all started to swim back, in and out of focus.
Her cell phone turned itself on to relay the latest gossip; Jason's phone, still back on Earth, would get the information two days later and wish it had been taken into space. It kind of missed its owner.
"Can I have a cuddle?" Jason asked when she was finished and half the bottle was gone."
"You said you would tell me the truth."
He gave a big Milk-like sigh.
"I'll tell you some now, the rest later. It's complicated, but basically I lost my memory five years ago and ended up on Earth. I'm getting it back now and we're trying to do things that will jog my memory and being with you was one of the last things I did before I lost my memory, so I need to recreate that night, I guess."
He looked into her face and felt sorry that he was using her.
"I won't do it," she stated bluntly.
"What?"
"I won't do it; I won't bring Chase Darkstaar back into the Universe. I won't be responsible for the deaths you will bring."
"Oh, I'm not going back to being a Hitman, I've spent five years not being Chase Darkstaar. Anyway, I do remember things, and we have a deal and I remember you never go back on your word."
She sighed. It was contagious.
"OK, let's do this and then you tell me the rest. I know you're holding out on me."
They hit another shot and she cuddled him. She felt good in his arms, sensual, but demanding. Strong yet supple.
***
Milk sat downstairs nursing a Jonny Skyewalker whisky. He was worried. He didn't like Chase, but had grown to like Jason. Jason was his best friend and he didn't really want to lose him to Chase. But then they needed Chase to find the Trimedian. Valkswagon.
A woman walked behind the bar and poured herself some Ventrwistian coffee. She looked up at Milk and took a sip of her drink.
"Hello, Milk, long times no see. Another whisky?" she said completely unfazed by his reappearance after five years.
He looked up at her; she was short with a blonde bob that the tops of her ears stuck through. She was Elvin in her looks and completely naked.
"Hello, Lustria," he said dejectedly and she put a fresh drink in front of him.
"Why the long face?"
"Long story."
"Huh," was all she said, but kept looking at him quizzically. "Sometimes we have to do things we don't want to, to try and get to something better. Trust me, I'm a bar girl," with that she walked around the bar, squeezed his shoulder and disappeared upstairs.
***
Chase stood in his underwear with a bottle of Jonny Skyewalker whisky in his hand while Julianna sat on the sofa nursing a shot. He was still undressed so she could trace the lines of his scars, though they had healed up a lot because of the Earthen atmosphere, while they talked about the past. But now he was standing, impatient, somewhere in the last hour, in what they had done, and in the talk of life in space and the old days, he had come back.
Ahh, it felt good to be back, thought Chase, he could feel energy course through his body like he hadn't for five years. Time to drop the Indian and get back out there into the Universe, have some fun, spend some cash. And the Trimedian? We
ll, if they were stupid enough to entrust such a task to someone such as himself, then that was their fault.
"So what's the rest of the story?" Julianna asked.
"Forget it, it's not interesting," he said and took a swig.
"You told me you would tell me the truth, that was the deal," she retorted forcefully.
Hmm, he should kill her too, but she had always kept her word to him and he should do the same, maybe he would kill her after.
"OK, OK, I'm on a secret mission to retrieve something, what I can't tell you. I hid it five years ago and had my memory wiped and now I need to get it back so I can retrieve it."
"And is it working?"
"Oh yes, princess, oh yes, you can tell anyone you meet that Chase Darkstaar is back."
She coughed back a sob.
"I told you I didn't want to bring that bastard back."
He looked at her angrily, what a stupid weak woman. But then something tugged at his soul; he should kill her, he didn't need people knowing he was back, they might try and kill him and that would put a dampener on his fun. And yet, and yet, he couldn't do it, it wasn't right.
Damn, what was he thinking? His mind began to twirl and he rapidly dressed. He slipped the gun Milk had given him into the holster at the small of his back and thought again of using it, erasing witnesses. But again he couldn't, his mind was foggy, he couldn't think.
He stormed out and down the stairs. His mind started to clear and he again thought of getting rid of Milk and getting the hell out of Dodge.
As he entered the bar his hand slipped around to the gun, but as he began to draw he watched his friend and stopped.
Yes, his friend.
The guy who had stood by him for five years on Earth. Who had left everything to look after a man he couldn't stand. They had had some good times in those five years and now Chase could understand why Milk had been so childlike on Earth, in wonder of everything from playing the drums to roller coasters. He was a mean drummer too.
He slipped the gun back into the holster and walked forward.
"Milk."
Milk looked up. "Who am I talking to?"
"It's me, Jason," said Jason.
"So it didn't work?" Milk's face was an odd combination of disappointment and joy. A hard combo to pull off, disajoyment.
The Trimedian Page 6