Steven Campbell - Hard Luck Hank - Basketful of Crap

“But you’re naked.”

He didn’t answer. He seemed to be done with the conversation and went back to his papers.

I struggled with what I had been told. It wasn’t logical at all.

“Why are you doing this? What is the ultimate purpose?”

Without looking up he answered.

“I have never seen a galactic civil war.”

“Civil war? What’s that have to do with anything?”

He turned to me again.

“The Colmarian Confederation is too big and too diverse to ever fight about one issue. Or even a dozen. But there are thousands of petty hatreds and rivalries across the empire. They are only held in check by the Navy and a relative power balance. By giving each side the means to destroy the other, they will take the opportunity. And with so many battles erupting, the Navy will be powerless to stop them all. Once they begin, it will pull in neighboring systems and concerned parties. And even other empires will see their chance to carve out pieces of the Colmarian Confederation.”

I stood there in shock.

“But why? What do you hope to gain from that?”

“I have never seen a galactic civil war.”

“Millions of people could die.”

“No. I believe many billions will die.”

“But how will you profit?”

“I have never seen a galactic civil war.”

“Seen? That’s it? You’re doing this because you haven’t seen it before?”

“Yes.”

I was dumbfounded. I was lightheaded. I couldn’t feel my feet.

In my life on Belvaille, I had long ago given up simple terms of right and wrong. No one got up every morning, stretched, and said to themselves, “Time to do something bad.” People did what they did for reasons. Usually really good reasons by their own reckoning, just maybe not good reasons according to others. But this was horribly wrong.

“You’re…evil,” I managed.

“There is no such thing. If there was, I would know.”

I didn’t know what to say. It was just so out of my realm of understanding. Was it possible? Was this an ugly joke?

He saw me stammering.

“Would you like to hear my story? I haven’t told it in a long while.”

I made the briefest of nods.

“I was born ages ago on a primitive world without writing or even language. We existed in small tribes and ate what food we could scavenge from vegetation or carrion. After some time I noticed I was different from everyone else. It wasn’t just that my eyes were unusual, but much more. I did not eat, sleep, grow sick, tired, or age. I could do the same things that I saw others do, but I could not experience them. I was like a shadow, mimicking my people.”

“Due to my longevity, I eventually became the chief and we prospered. We grouped with other tribes, eventually becoming a nation. Over millennia we developed architecture, art, and all the sciences of a learned species.”

“But I grew more and more disenchanted. After so many generations I had seen everything they could possibly do. They made the same mistakes over and over again no matter what I counseled.”

“Finally I grew tired of it and left my people to seek a solitary life. Occasionally, groups would come to worship me or destroy me or otherwise harass me as a god or demon. I never changed and they never changed.”

“When our star began to glow, I was relieved. I knew that I would at last have rest. I had been with my people since we lived in mud and straw and had seen them reach powered flight and global communications. However, as a species, they had not advanced at all.”

“Our planet was destroyed by our star. Obliterated completely.”

“Yet I somehow survived.”

“I floated through space for untold eons, until the light from my dead star faded from view. It would have been so much easier if I had gone insane. If I heard voices and saw visions, but I was incapable of even that transformation.”

“I remained the same.”

“Eventually I was tugged into the orbit of a planet. I broke through the atmosphere of a dead world and I waited. I waited so long. Long enough for life to evolve and grow. Then once again I had something to watch and interact with. For as monotonous as mortals inevitably are, they are tremendously more interesting than barren rocks or space.”

“That is what I have done ever since. Attempt to find things I haven’t seen or create them. I have never seen a galactic civil war.”

When he was done I stood there shaking. I knew what I had to do. But I wanted to confirm it.

“So you’re willing to kill billions of people just to view something different?” I asked.

“Yes.”

I loaded an HE shell into my autocannon as fast as I could. I felt it would do more damage than a canister and wasn’t sure I could hit so small a target with an AP shell.

Kachooom!

I was on my back. I was paralyzed. Not by the weight of the gun or the concussion, but by a thousand slivers of steel stuck in my skin. I couldn’t move my face as the skin was frozen in place by all the needles. My eyes were closed and I generally did not feel very good.

I just hoped that I had killed Naked Guy.

Suddenly I heard a voice above me.

“Did you not understand my story?”

With overwhelming difficulty I managed to crack one eyelid open. Naked Guy was staring down at me.

“If I was capable of dying,” he said, “I would have killed myself billions of years ago.”

As I lay punctured with shrapnel, I could hear the bustle of civil war preparations going on around me.

There wasn’t much I could do. It seemed the high-explosive shell had lodged enough metal into my muscles that I was lacerated like an insect in a collection case.

I tried to move my left hand to get my tele. The splinters dug into me with each twitch and I gave up. Just lying here wasn’t incredibly painful as long as I didn’t move and took shallow breaths. Maybe they would sweep me out with a broom after a while.

My feet seemed to be fine. I could wiggle my toes without pain. That was a slight triumph since it proved my new boots worked. The center of my chest, which had been blocked by my autocannon, also mostly escaped injury. I had turned my face down when I fired so my chin and nose were cut up as well as the top of my head.

It felt like I lay there for an hour, though I doubt it was that long. I reached the conclusion that the soldiers weren’t going to do anything about me. Why should they, I wasn’t exactly a threat. I was going to have to use my tele.

I carefully shifted my hand to my pocket. I could feel the shrapnel cutting me.

Finally I had my tele out and dropped it on the ground beside me.

Now what?

I swiped around with my finger. I think I accessed every application in the galaxy before I finally got someone.

“Hank?” I heard a voice answer. They could tell it was me based on my tele.

“Hroo dis?” I said as best as I could.

“What?”

“Who you?”

They hung up.

I realized my tele was facing the ceiling and having a face full of shrapnel sounded an awful lot like being drunk.

I got three more people, all of whom I couldn’t convince to talk to me for more than a few excruciating sentences.”

Finally I got one of Garm’s offices and had them transfer me to her tele.

“What?” she answered.

“Hoshpial!” I gargled.

“You’re at the hospital?”

“No. Dake me.”

“Where are you?”

“Dono.”

I did my best to tilt the tele around.

“Are you standing on your head or something?”

She’s making jokes!

“Hoshpial!” I yelled again.

“Hank, where are you?”

“Sou’eash.”

“That doesn’t tell me much.”