“Please. I don’t care about God.”
“I love my husband very much.”
“Good for you.”
The alien blew out a gust of wind. “You must avenge me.”
Dan yawned. “Avenge yourself. I’d be happy to loan you a blaster, but Chou’s an Earth Citizen, so that wouldn’t look good. But surely you could find some way, a poison chalice, or your ceremonial killing knives.”
“No, vengeance is not mine, but the Bible says you bear the sword. You must do justice.”
Dan leaned forward. He had more boats to look at. “Alien, forget it.”
“No, you are God’s minister. You must do justice.”
“You’re a broken music implant, alien.”
The alien stomped and shook a fist. “You must do justice.”
“Padre, get her out of here.”
Father Michael folded his arms. “She’s not a child. She can handle herself.”
He flounced out. Coward.
The alien whimpered and clasped her hands. “Please, my husband never hurt anyone.”
“I don't care.”
“Chou stole our ship and without it, I’m destitute and stranded here.”
“Again, I don’t care.”
“Avenge me.”
“No, now get out of my office.”
“I'll be back.”
Dan grunted and returned to his moon yachts.
~}~~~{~
Dan manipulated the data on his wallscreen using his Igloves’ holographic keyboard.
The alien slipped in. “Do justice, for you are the minister of God.”
Dan pointed a gloved finger at the door. “Get out and stay out.”
“This is a public place. Father Michael said I have the right to be here.”
“He’s correct. You could appeal to a United Planet Court. Unfortunately, the nearest United Planet Court is eight star systems away, so I’m the judge, and I consider this an obstruction of the operation of the marshal’s office.”
She glowered. “Avenge me.”
Dan jumped up, grabbed her arm, and pulled the alien across the floor to the detention cell. He pressed a button to deactivate the forcefield and tossed her inside. “Cool off.”
He turned the forcefield back on.
She slammed her fists against the forcefield. “Avenge me! Avenge me!”
“Computer, soundproof jail.”
The woman’s frog tongue protruded from her mouth with the silent screams.
Dan smiled. “Good old twenty-third century technology.”
The gray woman formed letters with her arms like she was a cheerleader at a Space Polo match. A-V-E-N-G-
Dan glanced away, glowering. He stomped back to his desk.
A few minutes later, he glanced over at the forcefield. She was pacing now, her lips pressed together into a thin line.
She fell and flopped all over the ground. A seizure. He gulped. He didn’t even know what to do with one of these things. If he got a dead prisoner in here, the paperwork was going to kill him.
He needed a doctor. “Computer, transport Father Michael Pilchard, emergency code eight-seven-bee-three-four.”
Father Michael, the only on-board doctor, raced in wielding a tennis racket, and wearing a pair of white gym shorts. He squinted and blinked. “Marshal, I really would rather you not do that.”
“It’s an emergency. Your little annoyance got herself thrown in a detention cell, and now she’s having some type of seizure.”
Father Michael sped to the cell. Dan lowered the shield. The woman writhed on the floor towards them. She jumped up and pointed a finger at Dan. “Do justice.”
Dan scowled. “You faked this? All right, that’s it. You get out of detention, but I’m going to set the bio-detection scanners at my office door, which will kill you if you step inside here.”
~}~~~{~
The salty perfume of french fries and greasy burgers permeated Rosie's Earth Cafe, a small on-station joint set in the robotic silver architecture of the mid-twenty-second century. Dan settled into an uncomfortable iron booth and hunched over the plastic menu. Personally, he preferred the padded seats back in style on Earth, but real food was worth a little discomfort. Better than choking down another computer-generated facsimile of a burger from his office food generator or any of the dozen weird places that catered to the aliens’ tastes.
Footsteps came closer and stopped behind him.
Dan flipped through the menu. “I’ll take baby back ribs and an order of McDonald’s fries.”
“Avenge me!”
Dan whirled and glared at the crazy widow. “You get out of here or I’ll have you thrown out.”
The alien wagged her tongue at him and stormed out. A waiter rushed over. “So sorry, sir.”
“Baby back ribs and McDonald’s fries.” Dan grunted and looked out the window, to a promenade deck decorated to resemble a brick city street dotted with maple trees.
The alien marched into the middle of the street and held up a sign with “Do Justice, Marshal” written in six languages. Half a dozen people stopped to gawk at her.
Great, she’d draw everyone on the station here.
The waiter brought the steaming food. Thick barbeque sauce soaked the baby back ribs, real butter drenched the broccoli, and enough salt saturated the French Fries to preserve them through a nuclear winter. It was enough to make his mouth water—usually.
Dan stared at the plate, at the sign outside, and the growing crowd. Couldn’t a man even eat in peace? “Waiter, give me a container to take this home.”
~}~~~{~
A continuous beeping at his door awoke Dan in his quarters at 0300 hours. He shuffled across the white carpeting, past the salamander-shaped pink couch, to the door, and hit the button. The door slid up into the wall.
The persistent devil of an alien widow stood outside. “Avenge me.”
“Go get to sleep.”
“I can’t sleep while justice isn’t done for my husband. Neither shall you.”
Dan screamed and punched the button to shut the door.
The beeping continued incessantly, all night long.
~}~~~{~
Dan strode through the gray halls of the Space Station loading docks. A nine-foot-tall green Merrickian approached towards him hauling a quarter ton of wheat. Dan stood aside. The Merrickian leered and sauntered on past.
Father Michael ran up. “There you are, Marshal. I’ve been looking all over for you.”
Dan grunted. “Sorry you found me.”
“First of all, I researched it, and a bio-detection scanner is a device that scans for lifeforms in general. It’s not used for office security.”
Dan chuckled. “Give the boy in the black suit a gold star. Let him who hasn’t made up technobabble to sucker a layman cast the first space rock.”
“I’ll have you know I’ve got a report ready to send out detailing your failure to investigate the death of Pul Chezero.”
Dan sighed. “I’m going to get Chou right now.”
“Because of my complaint?”
Dan shook his head. “The day I take action based on the fear of a bad report from a part-time medical adjunct is the day I turn in my space blaster.”
“So God did get through to you?”
Dan laughed. “Oh, give me a break! I’m not afraid of your precious bronze age deity. That alien is exhausting me with her constant demands. I’ve got to give her justice before she drives me crazy.”
They walked down the corridor and took a right at a dock that had Ben Chou's name on it in green letters. Chou climbed the steps into his ship.
Dan waved. “Chou! Your flight’s been grounded. Get over here.”
Chou climbed out of his spaceship and trotted across the departure bay. “Marshal, I’m not carrying contraband. At least none that I’m not willing to pay the appropriate fees for.”
Shucks. He could have put that money towards his moon yacht. Dan cleared his throat. “Chou, y
ou’re under arrest on suspicion of murder and grand theft.”
“I’ve not killed anyone. Only a few aliens.”
“Intergalactic law doesn't make a distinction between humans and aliens. You don’t get open season on any species. And if they’re capable of speaking a discernible language, it’s murder.”
“Maybe, but I have a few more hunts left in me. ”Chou raised his hand and on it was an illegal palm blaster.
Was that what Chou shot the widow’s husband with? Dan reached for his blaster.
Chou fired. Dan flew backwards, banged into a hard metal surface, and the world vaporized.
~}~~~{~
Dan took a breath as he lay stretched out on a firm mattress with all the softness of carpeting. His head and chest felt like a Merrickian had stomped on him. He opened his eyes. A medicine cabinet lay three or four meters away. To his right, a machine monitored his vital signs. Oh great, the infirmary. Hopefully, he wouldn’t have to eat here. Infirmary food made retail computer-generated food edible.
Father Michael leaned down over him. “Marshal, welcome back. We weren’t sure you were going to be rejoining us for a while.”
“What happened to Chou?”
Father Michael opened his suit jacket and showed him a holstered taser. “Self-defense. A deputy remanded him to a detention cell and recovered Tella’s spaceship.”
Dan groaned. Saved by the priest? Better to have died than have to live this down. “How long have I been out?”
“Three days. You’re alive, though with that blast, the odds were against you. But I have my own theory as to why you recovered.”
“Oh let me guess. Your prayers.”
“No, not mine, Tella’s. When she found out you’d been critically wounded trying to bring her justice, she prayed for you. You wouldn’t believe it. I’ve never seen anyone pray so constantly. She was here for sixty hours straight.”
“Padre, I believe it.”
~}~~~{~
Adapted from Luke 18:1-8
And the Lord said, “Hear what the unjust judge saith.
And shall not God avenge His own elect, who cry day and night unto Him, though He bear long with them?
I tell you that He will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless when the Son of Man cometh, shall He find faith on the earth?” —Luke 18:6-8 (KJV)
~}~~~{~
“No! He can’t!” she shouted.
Master Tok grunted in confusion.
“I can’t let God do it. I have to avenge them!”
“Was vengeance the lesson you saw? Not seeking God?”
“Easy for you to spout advice! To show a vision that quotes from a Holy Book! You don’t understand…this is my burden…they were my parents.”
“And they were my friends.”
Gizile looked at him. He stared off to sea, his face drooping. The flame inside her fizzled. “I…I’m sorry,” she said. “But do you think that God…”
His expression didn’t change, but there was a twinkle. Two minds with but a single thought. He gestured downward again.
“GET OUT,” came a voice from the pool. Gizile jerked back around. The vision had already begun.
~}~~~{~
Dry Places—Travis Perry
“GET OUT,” the voice boomed.
Out the door tumbled Gusano, indignant.
It wasn’t really a door; it was an entryway, but it didn’t have hinges or a doorknob or any of the usual “door” things. Nor did Gusano really pick himself up from the sand and dust himself off.
It wasn’t really sand and he didn’t really dust himself, but it was something like that. It was a dry place, much like a sand-strewn desert, and Gusano separated his being from the dryness, swipe by swipe, in preparation for escaping the area.
Gusano swore a stream of profanity. He trotted away from the alien entity behind him, the one who’d been his home for several years now.
He hated this dimension. Well, it wasn’t really another dimension in the sense of length, width, height. It was more like “Another Dimension” as done so often in Science Fiction.
There was no sun, yet the sky blazed hot, no real sand, yet so gritty. Gusano thirsted for anything to quench the dryness in his throat, yet there was nothing to drink.
“Too bad you can’t die of thirst here!” he muttered. His trot had become a trudge.
He could see other aliens partly submerged into the landscape, immense, nearly translucent beings, whose slow thoughts sparked like bright lights in their cavernous heads. Gusano knew if you could catch one of these sparks, you’d know what the creature was thinking. As if he cared.
The only thing Gusano cared about was getting out of this dryness and the only way to do that was to find a door into one of the aliens. He didn’t care about exploring, though the appeal of adventure was partly how he’d gotten himself into this mess. They’d promised adventure, “a Great and Noble Struggle,” along with glory. Gusano would get his proper due.
He kicked the dryness, “sand” flying. He’d like to kill the seven jerks who’d talked him into this. Seven guys he’d thought were intelligent and competent. So he’d gone along with the Plan. Then they’d abandoned him.
He imagined himself killing them slowly, one by one. He couldn’t decide which he’d kill first. Or if he’d like to do them in simultaneously. He treasured these thoughts. A knife in the gut to this one. Strangulation for that one. Boiling for the biggest. He replayed it over and over as he walked, changing the details, trying to find a formula that would satisfy him. Not that he would actually be able to do what he dreamed of, anyway.
Gusano realized that his kicking and imaginary fighting had him stumbling like a madman.
“So what,” he answered himself. “There’s no one here who can see me.”
He stopped in front of one of the alien beings. He groped around for the door and found it, but it was locked. And he didn’t have the key. Gusano swore again.
The being never noticed his presence; it just elephantinely continued doing whatever it was doing.
These were aliens in one way, but if you could slow yourself down to their speed and see things through their eyes, they experienced the world much the same as Gusano. So in a way, they were not aliens.
He stumbled away from that one, and on to the next nearest alien. He couldn’t get in there either. He tried another, still no luck. Off in the distance, he saw a fourth. Maybe, just maybe, it would be unlocked.
With each step, heaviness weighed him down so he felt like he sank in the “sand” like the aliens. He gave up and plopped down to rest. But the “sand” scorched too hot to be comfortable. He rolled over several times, trying to find a cooler spot, but there was none. He staggered to his weary feet again. Loneliness made him wish anyone could be there with him—even if it were one of the seven.
A thought of his old home drifted into his mind with a pang for the lost luxury. Maybe I should go back where I came from. Maybe the voice that drove me out is gone now.
And he still had the key.
He trudged through more blazing “other dimension,” a glimmer of hope in his heart. Maybe he’d find some rest after all, some coolness. When he got back to it after an indeterminate amount of time, he saw the being had moved, but not far. For a brief moment, he was filled with fear that the lock had changed. But it hadn’t—he was in.
There were membranes that marked different areas inside the alien, different rooms if you will. When he’d lived there before, he’d kicked these around quite a bit. And he’d captured thoughts and thrown them around, just for fun. And tracked in dryness, too.
Now the place was neat and clean, back the way it was when he first moved in. It was a big place too; he’d forgotten how big.
It was comfortable, but its uncluttered size reminded him of how lonely he was. This loneliness drove him outside, where he whispered a message into the dry wind.
The knock came, he couldn’t have said how much later. He nervously opened the door.
/>
The seven stood out there.
“Hey, fellas!” said Gusano. “I thought I’d invite you over to my place, all fixed up and cleaned out—just to, just to let bygones be bygones, you know? I think you’ll like it.”
“Oh, don’t worry yourself about that,” answered the biggest, “I think we’ll LOVE your place. It even comes with its own little live-in slave!” A wicked grin spread across his face.
Gusano swallowed, hard.
~}~~~{~
“When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walks through dry places, seeking rest; and finding none, he says, I will return unto my house whence I came out. And when he comes, he finds it swept and garnished. Then goes he, and takes to him seven other spirits more wicked than himself; and they enter in, and dwell there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first.”
—Luke 11:24-26 (author’s translation)
~}~~~{~
Confusion overwhelmed her. “What was I to learn from that? That evil longs for vengeance?”
Master Tok considered her question, his finger tracing a circle in the cold sand. His eyes met hers. “How does evil consider itself, child? As evil?”
Her conscience aroused itself and Gizile found herself performing a quick inventory of her own trespasses. She silently recited a short prayer and calmed.
“I am sorry, Master Tok…for my behavior.”
He merely grunted.
“Perhaps,” she said, “it would be better for all if I did grow old enough to learn to use the ring. I will do better. My emotions will not overtake me again.”
She heard a mutter, and turned. But her master was still-faced and staring at the clouds.
The sound of water rushing into the pool made her turn back. When the ice had formed, she saw a man at a table. A man weeping. She felt a tug at her heart and at the corners of her eyes.
Another muttering from her master. She tuned her surroundings out, and allowed herself to be absorbed into another vision.
~}~~~{~
The Assistant—Keven Newsome