“He recognized me!”

  “I doubt so. Since the last time you two met, you’ve taken fifty pounds.”

  “Diligua!”

  Outside, against his mother’s flying Solex, Benàn was tearing off pieces of brown moss covering the ramp of their fungal home. His anger had subsided, and his eyes filled with tears when he saw us. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you who my pa was… but as bounty hunters…”

  “All fathers have secrets,” I replied. “Yours holds significant dollar-credits in value. And Hemingwest isn’t someone to be taken lightly…”

  “My pa hasn’t wrestled for decades,” Benàn explained. “And yet, even with porous bones, he could crush this rat’s skull. If he wasn’t such a coward!”

  “I guess he’s just doing what parents do… trying to protect you.” Ali intervened, sitting next to him. “I’m pretty sure your father’s anything but a coward, you know…”

  “Is he? Then why does he refuse to fight? Why did he stop his life as a pirate and adventurer? Why does he prevent me from leaving?” Benàn shouted as he stood up. “Because he’s a fraud!” Crying, he subsequently swam in the void before disappearing into the fog.

  “What a brat!” I grumbled.

  “Don’t blame the boy,” said his father, who had joined us. “He also inherited a bad temper… certainly from his mother.”

  A cast-iron cup coming from inside the house brushed against his head before getting lost in the mist.

  “What are you going to do?”

  “This afternoon? Spud the contours of the water recycler. And if ye’re not ashamed to help an old pirate, I can employ you for that last job,” he said. “As for tonight? Absolutely nothing. Hemingwest could expect Ragnarök, I wouldn’t give him satisfaction.”

  We worked alongside Alàn for the rest of the day. But not without concern, because we had no news from Benàn. By dinner time, the teenager was still missing, which worried his mother. And rightly so.

  “Diligua! Diligua!” The voice came from outside. The station storekeeper, Erik, stood below. “Diligua! You’re not gonna believe your ears!” he continued after we had joined him. “Your husband—” Alàn stormed out of the house. “Marcellàn? But—but if you’re here… who’s fighting the Englishman at the tree?”

  “Benàn!” Alàn barked.

  The old pirate immediately jumped and grabbed the flying Solex before his wife took control of it. The machine unfolded its broad black wings then dust off, forming a tunnel in the fog.

  “Uh. What do we do?” Ali asked.

  I breathed. “I have a bad feeling.”

  “Let’s bounce!”

  Ali and I chased Benàn’s parents to the foot of the Big Tree as it was there, in the center of the station, that Hemingwest had set its cruel rendezvous.

  Unfortunately, just like our hosts, we arrived too late. The decisive battle had already ended. We could only witness the barbaric aftermath: Hemingwest, who had disappeared, had mercilessly crucified his victim on the gigantic white trunk with huge cactus thorns.

  Thanks to the clan, Alàn and his wife brought down the exoskeleton from the tree. As I regrettably thought, inside lay our friend Benàn, shot from behind. Dead.

  “Marcellàn! I recognize these colors and this symbol! This is your armor, right?” asked a technician in a brown work suit, wiping the blood out of the breastplate which pictured a black raised fist.

  “Is this ye boy, Alàn?” Wondered the garage Nelwyn. “What is he doing in—!”

  “Enough!” Diligua bellowed as Alàn was frantically removing the second spaulder.

  Livid, the gardener took his son’s body in his arms. On his knees, he cried. His tears mingled with the droplets from the haze. “What have I done, Diligua? What have I done?” he sobbed as his wife came closer to hug their child.

  We subsequently left on foot back to the tinder house after Diligua had collected each of the bumpy armor pieces. But there, we ran into another grim surprise. Hemingwest waited for us near the access ramp, leaning against the trunk of a butterfly tree and polishing his rifle threatened by humidity.

  “Ye!” shouted Alàn, putting his son in his wife’s already-busy arms.

  “What? You can only blame yourself, Alàn the florist!” Hemingwest barked while stepping back. “You’re the one who should have been in armor under that tree. Not your foolish child! As far as I’m concerned, I was just doing my job—giving you a chance on top of that!”

  Alàn wanted to punch the murderer, but Diligua stopped him immediately: “Marcellàn! Not here. Not now.” Dropping the last red armor’s plates, Diligua transported Benàn’s body a few meters further, at the foot of the wall against which their house was fixed. Alàn moved silently without adding anything more; unlike his wife: “He will meet you under the giant tree. Tomorrow. At dusk.”

  Hemingwest withdrew, a smile up to his ears.

  The following funeral service was brief. Contrary to galactic custom, Benàn was buried in the soft earth of Yggdrasil, near the runes tree. For his final journey, he donned his father’s armor. No cross nor stone; just a rhodiola with yellow petals the mist could never hide. To say goodbye to their only child, both parents ultimately sang a sorrowful cantilena.

  “I heard Diligua cry the whole night,” my partner said the next morning. She folded our luggage on the bunk bed. “You think we fucked it up with Hemingwest?”

  I could sense a glimpse of guilt. Something I never witnessed in my life-long partner. “Poor woman. But Marcellàn was no saint. Regarding us, it was nothing but a truce,” I answered. “You know our way. Abstaining from involvement in their duel seemed the most honorable course of action. Let us not mourn what’s already done.”

  “Yeah… Sounds like one of your fancy ways to say we fucked up…”

  “This is my burden. Not yours.” The former pirate, who until now had been listening to us from afar, entered the room. “I’ll take care of this,” he declared. “For my boy…” His eyes remained red with pain. It was the first time we saw him without a speck of dirt on his face or hands.

  “But how are you going to do without your armor?” I asked.

  Our answer came in the evening. Alàn, the father and not Marcellàn the pirate, was waiting for his opponent at the foot of the Big Tree. Dressed in white, Diligua watched from afar. She remained dignified in public despite her grief. All around the improvised arena, the community of Yggdrasil waited anxiously.

  Alàn remained calm as a monk, searching for his foe in the fog that was finally dissipating. It was before a spark followed by a gunshot that ignited the whitish foliage where Hemingwest had hidden for his ambush. The deceiver must have used the same strategy the day before. The gardener was hit in the right shoulder and fell to his knees. Then, a second bullet struck him in the middle of the left thigh, knocking him against the ground.

  “Marcellàn!” Diligua cried. She ran to him.

  Hemingwest, delighted with his ploy, let himself slide down to the roots not without tearing a whole chunk of bark with his reinforced gravity boots. With the rifle stowed in his holster, he exalted as he prepared a fatal stab. “Is that all Marcellàn can do without his cumbersome armor? I wasted my time! A miserable slimy snail out of its shell, that’s what you are now!” He laughed at his own joke, the only one who did.

  His bragging didn’t last long. Helped by his wife, Alàn had recovered. Left shoulder and leg backwards, fists clenched in front of his jaw, his body moved into a fighting position.

  Hemingwest swore and threw his Bowie knife, which slithered into his opponent’s forearm. The latter withdrew it immediately before tossing it into the peat slightly further. With a quick gesture, the bounty hunter grabbed his rifle and leaped about ten meters back. Too slow. The pirate was already on top of him. The following rain of punches met with little resistance. Hemingwest was knocked to the ground by a sweeper, though he managed to land a few blows in return. When he tried to get up, Alàn gave him an uppercut then a hook that pushed his right cheekbone through the nasal walls. Hemingwest spat out teeth and crushed flesh before inaudible gurgling noises escaped him. The murderer was being reduced to a bloody mush by Alàn long trained gardener’s knuckles.

  One could never be certain if the old tales were true or if the feats of those Silver Age legends were woven from pure imagination. Yet on that day, the greenskeeper stirred Yggdrasil’s ancient roots, reminding us of the shape wrath could take. After all these years, he remained a real brute, even without his armor.

  “Have you had enough?” he roared, grabbing the killer’s throat. “Because I want ye in yer ship. Far from here in the next hour!”

  Hemingway nodded slowly in approval, risking losing his last functioning cervical vertebrae. But when Alàn turned away from him, the bounty hunter grasped his rifle again.

  “Watch out!” I yelled.

  Fortunately, Ali was even faster. She had fired instantly. Her projectile hit Hemingwest’s fingers, tearing off his index and thumb. He wanted to scream in pain, but Diligua silenced him with a last kick to the gut. She then ran back to her husband, and they went home.

  The onlookers deserted the scene. Neither of them would talk about this fight or acknowledge the presence of a certain Marcellàn on their rustic station.

  “Where are you going?” I asked Ali as she started walking with a determined stride.

  “Fix our fuck up,” she answered.

  Indeed. We’ve become personally involved. Despite Ali’s intervention and half-betrayal, Nigel Hemingwest was still breathing the filtered air from this haven of paradise. After such a disaster, we couldn’t afford to let him go.

  Sticking his surviving fingers in the dirt, the bounty hunter had started crawling to the hangar where our respective ships were parked, when we fell on him. It wasn’t difficult to follow his tracks because of the bubbles of blood and smelly urine he had sown in his path.

  “What—what the hell do you want from me, lassie?” he stammered as he replaced his incisors at each syllable. “You’re finished once the Alliance is informed of your bloody perfidy!”

  As my human sat on his back, with a heel against his neck, I climbed on his hand while he tried to grab his rifle under his coat. “The Alliance has become much too tolerant lately,” I said. “Because of sleazeballs like you, we have a tainted reputation.”

  “Worse than criminals,” my partner added. “And we don’t have trees with drawings about our deeds. Something I’d surely like to.”

  “What the fuck are you talking about?” screamed Hemingwest, the nose in the mud. “You’re mental!”

  “Ali. Stay focused, please.”

  My partner cleared her throat before pursuing: “I don’t know what kinda doggone protection you got, but let’s strike a deal, Dick Nose. You keep this story under your hat, and we’ll go on and forget your latest little blunder that cost this poor young boy, Benàn, his life and dreams.”

  “What? Screw you, punks! My brothers are goin—”

  Ali smashed Hemingwest’s skull with her foot before placing the still warm barrel of her gun at the base of his neck. She then professed: “Who cares about your siblings. They ain’t here. They’re only the three of us—and my very itchy finger on the trigger. Ain’t that right, Lee?”

  “Trigger discipline isn’t my partner’s forte, Mr. Hemingwest. I wouldn’t push her if I were you.”

  Without further hesitation, yet a few punches in the nose, the bounty hunter finally accepted our arrangement. A minute later, he was gone.

  The next day, Diligua came to say goodbye once the Kitty was repaired and ready for flight. She entrusted us with some equipment from her son’s ship as spare parts, his virtual reality console and the jetpack my associate had worked on.

  “Where are you heading to?” she asked us while finishing screwing a last rivet badly tightened under the wing of our beautiful Swallow. “Don’t want to be nosey or anything…”

  “Towards the belt… Ceres,” I replied through one of the cockpit’s opened windows as I was checking the improved IR module. “Even if the dream has faded, we can still hunt down gnarly guys, sleep under the gaze of the nebulae and, why not, pursue the majestic Lady Goldsun on Pluto!”

  Diligua smiled. “All the same! Why do you have to run after chimeras?”

  “Because we suck at gardening,” Ali concluded.

  Once the airlock closed, the control computer greeted us. As for the engine, it hummed as on its first day.

  Back to business!

  仕事に戻ろう！

  #04 THE TWISTED HEIST

  第04話 ねじれた強盗

  A star winked out in the vast distance, taking its entire system with it into the folds of oblivion. What was a fleeting life beside a cosmic furnace of roiling plasma? Did the brief, sentimental rituals of human existence truly merit all that commotion? I’d say no, naturally—I’m a cat, after all. The feline essence needs no shrinking before humankind or even the splendid vanity of burning stars. Mine stands singular, wouldn’t you agree?

  Miss Wall. Our most recent contract was a mere Homo sapiens: a retired forger savoring her counterfeit sparkling wine in the derelict husk of a supercargo, all under the remodeled sharp features of a former Galactic Trade Company’s pilot. Yet, for all her carefully retailored genes, an FID scan seldom lies. We pierced her disguise, and the masks, like her, finally fell.

  I’m such a talented poet.

  Anyway… Wall led a long life packed with crimes and adventures. In her youth, she was bursting with energy. And as in the universe, nothing is lost, nothing is created, everything is transformed, her so-called energy reincarnated into nice cash in our bank account.

  “I still can’t believe we scored her so easily! She doesn’t even deserve a special episode! And she falls under a traditional Martian settlement,” I exalted sitting on top of the Kitty’s ladder, one day after. “That means we can cash the reward remotely on condition the Alliance’s system approves the FID’s recovery. How excellent is that?”

  “God… Lee… you’re talkin’ to yourself and it’s only 8 a.m.,” Ali grunted below me. Floating in the hold, my couch potato of an associate had her head still stuck in the jumbo cereal box she was nibbling before falling asleep binge-watching Captain Caveman.

  “To begin with, it’s 8 p.m., Martian Time,” I huffed, looking sternly at my copilot as I drifted along into the weightlessness. “And tonight, we hypothetically have a positive balance—our debt to Blockbuster aside. Do you know what that means, partner?”

  “Shopping!” Ali shouted as she hurled herself, gliding towards the bath module with the cardboard box on the top of her head; a sugar bishop swimming after the remnant cereals that floated on her path.

  I meowed, witnessing Ms. Pac-Man in live action. “Did I just open Pandora’s box?”

  To my great regret, a story-convenient titan of a liner, shaped like a dirigible, drifted past us the next day. With her forty-eight post-nuclear Baltimore-XVIII heavy reactors, the Danaë was wrapping up her annual journey from Lunapolis to Jupiter. This gold and ivory Jovian ship, made up of a dozen centrifugal ring-decks, stood as one of the most extravagant symbols of human decadence in the entire system. She housed hotels, casinos, megastores, and amusement parks catering to every budget—whether you boarded at a port or mid-journey. Her size surpassed that of some settled asteroids, and with her came a gravitational field large enough to rival a small moon.

  “The Danaë… a true emblem of humankind’s collapse,” I said, pointing with my chin at the palace’s figurehead: a two hundred meters long verdant ceramic effigy of the Greek princess. Opening her mechanical arms, Perseus’s mother welcomed us onboard.

  “Geez… Spill the beans, Plato,” my partner breathed without caring whatsoever.

  The Kitty had obtained permission to dock and began her approach under the gaze of the giantess. I concluded: “Technos no longer erects great and beautiful things without turning them into shopping malls.”

  Malls. Naturally, our first stop.

  “Ali. I believe we should keep our meager savings for the Swallow. The dashboard lights up like a Christmas tree. Some parts need maintenance—”

  “You’re so lame with your adult talks,” my partner cut me off as she dramatically came out of the fitting room of a luxury chain overlooking the main deck. “Whatcha thinking of this? Sexy as fuck, right?”

  She spun around a couple of times. Her camisole didn’t hide a single square inch of flesh, and I subtly pointed it out to her: “It’s a bit of a back-alley Sally.”

  I took a blow on the nose which, this time, seemed amply justified.

  “Nothin’ chicer than Borderline, Lee! You’re a dinosaur. You don’t know shit about fashion. It’s crazy!”

  Irking her was entertaining, but she was right. The human females’ fads were way beyond my understanding, and I wasn’t a good adviser.

  Fortunately, the upscale shopping center where I was amassing dust had provided us with a free assistant even more servile than a decerebrate canine. As usual, the robot carrier that accompanied us flattered Ali with its unbearable honeyed tone: “I find you charming, Madame. Here we have the latest fashionable lingerie on Mars. It’s an ephemeral collection that appears to shape your discreet curves. They seem to have been chiseled by seraphim.”

  His nauseating prose achieved its goal. Ali shot me a satisfied look, which I pretended to ignore. She then retreated into the fitting room to swap back into her black suit and pink jacket.

  Displeased, I seized the opportunity to climb on the shoulders of this silly robot, servant of our servants. The last link of a hierarchy whose origins dated back to Ancient Egypt. “One more move like this and I’ll turn you into a gum dispenser.”

  The automaton apologized before my partner’s head emerged from behind the silk curtains far too fragrant for my taste. “Lee? I just checked. It’s too expensive with all those Techno-taxes. Ain’t buying it,” she declared. “Still have a last one credit card to max out. You can hail a taxicab to take us to the hotels’ ring while I browse some more in the duty-free area? You’d be a sweetheart.”