Hard Luck Hank: Prince of Suck (9 page)

Valia and Hobardi reclined on a couch in
another room as I stood there trying to catch my breath. The mutant was
impassive in his sunglasses. Valia had really taken over the situation and was
flirting in her dominant manner with Hobardi, who looked almost like easy prey.

I took a moment to squirt some food into
my mouth, which helped. I’d been told in no uncertain terms that I looked
“disgusting” while I was eating the greenish paste. Which was fine, food didn’t
need to be pretty.

“Right,” I began. “I need you to rescind
the Brotherhood Commandment.”

I think everyone had forgotten me.

“What?” Hobardi asked.

“Your Brotherhood Commandment. ‘No
member of the Order shall harm another member of the Order.’ It makes policing
this city impossible.”

Hobardi smiled serenely.

“I merely interpret the Will of the
Prophet,” he said nonsensically.

I couldn’t call him full of crap in his
own temple, but he had made the Commandment specifically to make it difficult
for my Kommilaire. His Order had their own police force and they sure as hell
didn’t dispense brotherly love—unless it was compassion that led them to speed
their adversaries into the blessed afterlife.

Already I had instances where my Stair
Boys had refused to act against other Order members and it had caused people to
get hurt. I couldn’t have external groups exerting influence from within the
Kommilaire. Not only did it make our jobs that much harder, but it might make
us lose that last hair of credibility which turned the citizens on us.

“I think you want to work with me on
this. I can’t protect you, otherwise,” I said.

“Protection? We are a peaceful
religion,” he said, flanked by his mutant bodyguard, in a part of the city
blockaded by his paramilitaries.

“Maybe we can do something for you,”
Valia said, dragging her fingernails across his jawbone and making him raise
his head like a cat being stroked.

“Are you planning on running for Governor
in the election?” he asked me.

“No. Who the hell would want that job?”

“Me. I want you to back me for the
position.”

“I’m not backing anyone. No one even
knows what the job does. What if we decide the Governor has to sweep the
streets?”

Hobardi paused to think of another
angle.

“If you’re not backing anyone, then help
with the Olmarr Republic. They’ve kidnapped a member of my personnel. I want
you to get him back.”

“How do you know it was them? People go
missing all the time. Despite our best efforts, this is still a dangerous
city.”

“They told us they had him right after he
disappeared.”

“Oh. That seems odd. Why would they take
him? Who is he?”

“A member of my church. Two Clem.”

“Two Clem?” I asked, surprised. “The
actor? He’s still alive?”

Two Clem had been a big shot celebrity
like a hundred years ago. I mean really famous. Funny hair and funny pants and
starred in dramas. I had never seen his work but I had pulled a job for him
once back when Belvaille was in the state of Ginland. I hadn’t thought about
him much since then, but I assumed he was dead or had left Belvaille or both.

“Yes, he’s alive,” Hobardi answered,
irritated. “He’s a very important figure for the Order. Especially in
communicating our message off-station.”

“What?” I said, honestly confused.

Then I remembered that the Sublime Order
of Transcendence had actually managed to spread to places other than Belvaille.
The religion was such a joke that it was hard for me to imagine anyone taking
it seriously out of the poverty-stricken confines of gullible Belvaille.

I suppose it made sense that he would
use a celebrity, or former celebrity, to help him endorse his wares. I wonder
if Two Clem actually believed in the Order. Two Clem didn’t like to share the
spotlight and neither did Hobardi. Seemed an unusual fit.

“I can talk to the Olmarr—” I started.

“I don’t want you to talk. I want you to
get my people back and kill Peush,” he said, who was the leader of the Olmarr
Republic faction on Belvaille.

“Who do you think I am?”

Hobardi leaned forward on the couch, his
eyes hard.

“I think you’re Hank, and I know exactly
who you are.”

http://www.belvaille.com/hlh3/hobardi.gif

I was at my apartment trying to trim my
toenails.

It wasn’t as easy as you might think. I
couldn’t reach them for one. Not even close. And there was nothing that could
cut them. If I shot them with a high-powered rifle, I’d just have mashed
bullets all over my feet.

I had a file I was using. But it took a
long time and was tiring. I could get someone else to do this, I guess, but I’d
just feel like a pampered idiot having someone else hack away at my feet for hours.

The doorbell rang and I was thankful to
put off my foot duty for a bit.

MTB was outside in his gear—though I
don’t think he ever took it off. He probably showered with a gun.

“Boss, there’s trouble at the radio telescopes.”

“Whoa. Round up who you can,” I said,
indicating the apartments on the street, “we’ll leave in five.”

The north edge of Belvaille was
completely dominated by some relics of the Colmarian Confederation: giant
telescopes.

The old empire had used them to spy on
the activities of neighboring species. Now they had taken on a completely
different role and were used as broadcast instruments.

Belvaille was of strategic importance for
many reasons, but the telescopes were a prime one. I don’t know how they did
it, but they could transmit data maybe a quarter of the way across the
galaxy—as long as there was a single Portal hop in between.

So we were the media hub of the…whatever
the Colmarian Confederation had devolved into.

Various parties put out propaganda,
news, and entertainment shows. The telescopes were in operation every minute of
the day and their use was extremely democratic: if you could pay an outrageous
fee to the city, you could use the telescopes.

MTB could only get about ten people,
including Valia and himself.

“What’s wrong with your toenails?” she
asked, looking down.

“Shut up, new guy,” I said.

We took the train north.

When we approached the installations, it
was obvious there was trouble. There was a huge crowd of armed men in the
street facing another huge crowd of armed men.

Totki were on one side, as evidenced by
their array of spears. Hong was whipping them into a frenzy as usual.

The other side I guessed to be Olmarr.

The Olmarr Republic concerned me more
than any of the other groups. Despite what Zadeck said, I did keep some track
of the goings-on outside of Belvaille. The Republic had successfully unified a
fair number of planets and even whole solar systems under their administration.

And they considered Ceredus, the solar
system that Belvaille resided in, their capital.

The Olmarr were not done with the civil war.
They weren’t tired of it like everyone else seemed to be.

I didn't know how to identify Olmarr.
The Sublime Order of Transcendence wore robes and headdresses and other garb.
The Totki were all of the same rough ethnic traits and styles and tended to
live in large communities.

The Olmarr were an idea.

An understanding that there was some greater
region of space that should all be aligned based on archaic historical
precedence. They specifically made it hard to identify themselves. It was why I
couldn’t think of how to find Two Clem. He could be anywhere, assuming the Olmarr
had truly kidnapped him.

My Stair Boys elbowed through the
gathering and I saw Peush, the head of the Olmarr Republic on Belvaille.

“Hank,” he said, smiling wonderfully.

He was a tall man, middle-aged, with medical
implants on his face and neck. He also had a beautiful speaking voice. A
valuable attribute when your job is to broadcast speeches across the galaxy.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“They racist! They going to threaten
us,” Hong cut in.

“They are Blocking the Waves,” Peush
countered, which was an official crime. You couldn’t interfere with telescope
transmissions.

Peush had about fifteen men with him,
armed variously with clubs and chainsaws. But Hong had what looked to be over twenty-five.

“You try and get us killed! Read this,”
Hong thrust a dog-eared stack of papers into my face.

“What’s this?”

“That his speech.”

I read the first few sentences:

The Totki are sand
rats. They spread disease and eat our food and provide no value to our great
society. They must be eradicated as sand rats are, for they are not Olmarr and
are not people.

There were about thirty pages past that.

“Where’d you get this?” I asked.

“Don’t matter. We protect ourselves,”
Hong answered.

“Is this your real speech?” I asked
Peush.

“I have no interest in his delusions,”
he said calmly.

That wasn’t really a denial.

“Yeah, but is this your speech?”

“Hank, may I have a word?”

“Watch them,” I told my Stair Boys, who
took up positions between the two groups.

I walked some distance away with Peush.

“Hank, we consider you a hero. You
helped instigate the rise of the Second Olmarr Republic. Your name is mentioned
liberally in the Noconeir.”

I so didn’t care what that was, and gave
a weak smile. But then I realized this was the stuff I had to care about. I
couldn’t just brush it away.

“What’s the Noconeir?”

“It is the entire history of the Olmarr
Republics. First and Second.”

“Sounds long.”

“If you connected the words end-to-end
it would extend from here to the planet Ue’wantasha.”

“Must use big words.”

“The point is, Hank, why are you
bothering yourself with those things? It’s their kind that brought about the
decline of the First Olmarr Republic. They weakened our purity until we became a
Confederation. A failed Confederation. You of all people know how bad the
original empire was.”

“Maybe, but I don’t know anything about
Republics.”

“I’d be happy to give you a copy of the
Noconeir.”

“I don’t have time to read a book that
spans solar systems. And how truthful is it going to be? How many eye witness
accounts do you have from that long ago?”

“A number of libraries and computers
still exist, and we researched their archives diligently. You’re respected on
the station, Hank, you shouldn’t be walking around every day dealing with this.”

“No?” I asked, humoring him.

“You should be taking advantage of your
wisdom and experience, sitting in an office, telling others what to do. Eating.
You should be Governor, let the young people handle security.”

I smiled.

“Young people like your Olmarr
Republican guards?”

“I’m not suggesting that, but we do have
many disciplined and principled members who would be willing to assist. Just
say the word and we would back you. You have to know that you would easily win,
and you could give up all…this.”

I looked over to Hong, who was doing his
best to stretch the forty feet so he could overhear our conversation.

Peush was a tough character to figure
out. I knew Hobardi was full of crap. I knew Hong was a zealot for his people.
I had no idea where Peush was. Did he believe all this Second Republic stuff?

“Do you know Two Clem?” I asked him, and
I looked closely for a reaction.

“The actor?”

I saw nothing to betray further
knowledge. Hong was easy to bait. So was Hobardi, who didn’t even try to be
serious. But Peush was calculating and collected. Even if he knew, even if he
was carrying Two Clem on his back right now, I’m not sure he would have
betrayed his poker face.

“Come on, let’s talk to Hong,” I said.

We walked back and I got the men
face-to-face, though I stood nearby.

“I am losing my allotted broadcast
time,” Peush complained.

“So what!” Hong fired back.

“How about this, you give your normal
speech, but with a Totki observer?” I offered.

“I am not going to be censored,” Peush
stated.

“How about you have me present while you
give the speech? I mean, I could do that anyway, in the name of public safety.”
I turned to Hong. “Does that satisfy you?”