BOOK FOUR - !BONER
CHAPTER FIFTEEN - “HAPPY
HOUR!”
It doesn’t happen that
afternoon but, after another Minturian week has flown
by – another trip to the Quottledrome, another “tip”,
another win… Turp and Broonzy
wait, this time, waiting and watching for Rateyes to
meet his connection before laying down their own bets, small enough not to
attract attention… another payout of four soys and drizzit to Gargareeva, four more
nights at Klub Ras-al-Gool, four more dark nights of Guns, Money and Walter
knocking at Bahrbra’s door and Al with his door open,
staring out into the hall of the Andromeda… a circuit round the construction
sites and rawthpits and pawnshops where snakers’ and maintenance gear can be had – cheap – and,
finally, another transport out of Die… a battered hovervan
that smells like it has been used for transporting carcasses to the meatpackers
in some prior life…
Neither Turp nor Broonzy careless enough
to ask about the disposition of the Chevette…
Anyway, after all the rawth and cool twilights on the stoop of the Andromeda in
the bad air with Quaia and a couple of heathers she knows… sometimes Marina,
picking at the scabs that cover her new, badly etched tats… after all that,
they’ve ventured out onto the desert highway and Junkyard Tony’s Emporium once
more and, after inspecting the boner, Tony’s own trailer and his family of knafes… Argy and Bargy, Victoria, Phil…
“I follow the antedispersal royals,” explains the grimy junkman, laying
another dead soldier to rest. “So gorl me…”
Rateyes,
Broonzy, Turpin and Tony have been gorling a case of Minturian Extra
Ale in the filthy, crowded trailer. The
four knafes have been slurping their rations… dogs
with near-human faces, but plenty of something extra in them, Turpin worries,
maybe alligator… slurping ale, they’ve been, from a common, wooden trough that
the junkyard lord has set out for them.
Tony is tired after a long day, with plenty to drink now, but it’s
lonesome in the junkyard, and the talk just streams from his lips in low,
guttural ejaculations, like barking, almost.
“…now, you got a collector
or something… likes to keep old starships in his back yard for the kids to
crawl around in? C’mon Rats, known you
for… haawwk!... years I
have…”
Rateyes
smiles, raises a finger to his lips. “Confidential!”
“Some big-time shurt,” Tony rambles on.
“Intifaq… boneships
are sixteen ways illegal.
“Ayy.
Tony…” Rats plays along, “…if I had to get the thing off Doobydie…
not on its own of course, I'm thinking about getting a towing contractor, and
not wanting to attract attention like I'd get at the passport or the cargoport… anyway, well, might you happen to know of some
little enterprise out of the way, within a couple hundred kilos, where I could
land and take off without questions…”
Tony kills off another soldier, belches. “’Scuse me. What you’re talking about… that’d be… lemme think a min!” he grows surly, so vexed that Turpin
momentarily fears that the junkman might have a change of heart, sic the knafes on them. But
then, Tony smiles like a sunrise. “
“Pronto.
“Aegelweiss? Pile of rawth is right!”
Tony sighs, shakes his head, stupidly and Broonzy
kicks Turp under the table as massive canine jowls
grind some nonexistent bone and the junkman slumps, but then recovers. “The Regency gets it condemned as one of
their usual scams… then they send the
inspectors in and… presto!… it really is a pile of rawth!”
“You don't say?” Broonze pretends curiosity.
Tony shakes his head, up
and down, then sighs again with the effort and slaps himself along the
chin. “Cooling system's shot. Oh it can
land and take off… but probably the next time it tries to perve
a snake something busts and the continuum gets ruptured. Ugly! Everybody inside
gets either pulled wide apart or squeezed down to the what atoms would be
without the spaces between, depending on the coming or going, but the time's so
jammed up that it takes, like, a couple hundred thousand years before they die. To them – their time, even though anybody
looking think it instant-like, Saw a qubatt
on that, I did, hundred thousand years screaming in agony but nobody can hear
you. And it jams up the snake too… makes
it useless! One more trip an’ everybody
goes squish!” the junklord grins, clasping his hands
together. “Shoulda been gormed
years ago, faq?”
Turpin and Broonzy look at each other across Tony’s cluttered cardtable, the color draining from their faces so abruptly
that Turp lunges for another can of ale, just to hold
up and hide his fear. Broonze,
though is resolute in curiosity…
“What about the drives?”
he ventures. “Seals… other parts…”
“Didn't
hear a jammin’ thing about 'em.” Tony belches again,
sucks more ale. “Cargoport
was so hot they shipped it right over here… think they're jammed because Qamlah filed this claim. Tried to sell it back to 'em for fees and considerations, but the company knew that
bird was bad so they wouldn't take it… who knows what's gone on inside. Captain must’ve got his license offa pizzle
box. I gotta
wait sixty days… well, fifty seven now, before I can even start taking it
apart. But I guess I could move it, if I had to…” he adds, in a tone that
portends more skilk crossing palms…
Tony rips the cap off of
another bottle, drains it, and his chin slumps on his huge chest; within
seconds he is snoring, horribly… the mutant knafes
pile up at his feet and begin snoring in unison. Rateyes reaches
over, prods the sleeping junkman, then takes a list out of his pocket, hands it
over to Turpin…
A shopping list, Turp deduces…
“See if any of this rawth's still on board, and what sort of shape it's in. You
two know the bird better than I would… I'll stay here with Drunkie.
He comes to I'll make some sort of noise and you say you were outside, looking
for a place to bwaawl and then feed him another.
“You're kosping, right?” Broonzy says,
reading the list that Turp’s holding, upside down
“Kosps
don’t cost drizzit,” Rats snaps back. “Got light?”
Turpin notices a
pencil-laser among the junk on Tony's desk and appropriates it.
“Won't
notice.
Big, stupid knafes all around and full of ale,
so one of ‘em mistakes it for a meatstick…”
“Get gone!” Rats waves the snakers off.
Turp’s
corporate card still works fine and, within moments, he and Broonzy
are wedged into the engineering crawlspace, checking off the components of the Aegelweiss drive against the list of removables
that Rats has drawn up, shining the pencil-laser across an array of
phantasmagorical machinery and circuitry – some of it charred and blackened
through misuse and neglect. But plenty
of the guts seem to be in good shape…
“All
jammin' here!” Turp
adjudicates. “Hardly anything's gone…
think it's compatible with what you'd find in a boneship?”
“Same company made 'em. Un-jammin'-believable!”
Broonzy grinds his teeth, feeling lightheaded - though the snakers
have been careful to let Tony and his knafes consume
the varker’s share of ale. “I had the tools, I
could start taking this rawth out tonight!”
“Tools cost soys. Even on the shadow market…”
“I know,” Broonzy clasps his head, which is beginning to ache. “I know!”
“Rats’ll
just have to stay lucky at the Drome.”
They clean up the quarters
of Aegelweiss, card themselves out and pick up Rats,
who’s fallen asleep too. After an
uneventful return; Rats leaves the hover in a Regency lot and they mag over to al-Gool, where they
can safely lift drinks to the restorion of the still
unnamed boneship.
The from has loosened
Rats’ tongue the way that ale had caused Tony to spill his Tony-ish secrets… the gambler is sloppy and earnest, as it
seems. ”What say you guys start working
for me. unofficially…”
(lowering his voice until the bartender drifts away on
an errand). Can't pay Guild wages, intifaq?… but I ain't gonna ask for your QI. Take
care of your rent and refreshments, now and again, ten soys
a week… half a Gargarday off. Course you’d have to stay over a few nights
at Tony’s...”
Broonzy
shakes his head. “Works for a monk like Turp, maybe, but a man has needs… ten soys
won't even get me into the sims…”
“Fix you up,” Rats
smiles. “Not saying you couldn't do
business on the side. In fact, something's floating around, I hear, could break
your way. Good money…”
“Put my name in the hat!” Broonzy bellowed, waving for another drink…
“There is,” Rateyes cautioned, “an element of risk, however…”
Broonzy
gulps his froom so quickly that Turp
could swear he sees steam roiling out of the snaker’s
nose. But he’s been drinking, himself,
of course.
“Ain't
that always the case?” Broonzy rasps.
go
BACK