Steven Campbell - Hard Luck Hank - Screw the Galaxy

“And you want to sell this for a thousand? No way. I’m the only person who could possibly use it on the whole station. I’ll give you a hundred if you cut this barrel three inches.”

“It’ll burn your hand even more. And it won’t be as narrow a flame. I’d recommend only taking off an inch. But 250 and you got a deal.”

We shook.

“I want some other guns, too. In case this doesn’t work out. I’m sure you got some little pistols.”

“Sure. I got guns like this big,” he said, holding his fingers up.

“What am I going to do with that?” I said. “I’d be better off throwing it.”

“I’m just telling you what I got. If you want power it’s going to be big and it’s going to be noticeable. But let me go grab some of my smaller stuff and we’ll see what we can do.”

He hurried off into his lab while I poked at my wrecked jacket. It was getting hard to find clothes with the Portal embargo. I’d soon have to start going to some tailors and get custom fit.

As I fretted about the state of my clothes, I saw another sheet covering a large upright rectangle in the far corner. It was maybe eight feet tall, four feet wide, and three feet deep. I wondered if this was one of the cabinets Delovoa talked about earlier.

I pulled on the sheet to see what was underneath. I tilted my head and stepped back to try and make sense of what I was seeing. Then I screamed.

Delovoa ran back, carrying a tray full of pistols.

“What?” he asked, alarmed.

I had my back against the wall, directly across from the thing in front of me. I couldn’t even point.

Delovoa turned.

“Oh, don’t worry. It’s old,” he said, indicating the giant robot standing in front of me.

It was a Dredel Led. But unlike the others, it was massive and not remotely designed to appear like us. Its arms were square pillars that hung below its knees and ended abruptly with no hands. Similarly, its legs were thick rectangles with jointed knees and flaps at the bottom, representing some kind of feet and/or toes. It didn’t have a head or neck at all, but the front of it bulged and a dark hole in the center was reminiscent of an eye. The whole of it was gleaming white and there were no noticeable rivets or bolts or seams. In simple, yet large black letters on its right front was stenciled “ZR3.”

I couldn’t even respond. This thing was at least three times the size of the Dredel Led that had knocked me stupid across Belvaille.

“No, look,” Delovoa said. And he walked up to the massive robot and rapped his knuckles on its hull. It didn’t make a sound, other than Delovoa’s flesh, it was too solid. “It’s inert. I’ve had it for twenty years.”

“You,” I began softly, “own a Dredel Led?”

“It’s not a Dredel Led, I think. It was probably from when Colmarians used robots. It’s ancient.”

“Why would you have such a thing?”

“I wanted to take it apart. Learn from it. Maybe sell some of the technology, you know. I think we have way too many rules regarding what can’t be owned.”

“It’s a Dredel Led!” I yelled. How was it that Delovoa didn’t see the insanity of owning this? Did he somehow grow up with different folk stories as a child?

“No, it’s not. Why would Dredel Led write Colmarian letters on the front of one of their people?” he asked, indicating the ZR3.

Delovoa had his arms crossed, his hip cocked. He spoke to me like I was being irrational even though in the very same room sat the shattered pieces of a Dredel Led which had casually taken so many lives.

“You jerk, this could have been the reason why those other two came. They might have been looking for it.”

“It’s been sitting down here gathering dust for years.”

“It could have taken them that long to get here. You don’t know. It might have radioed for help.” I was starting to doubt how intelligent Delovoa really was.

“If it was operational, it would have killed me long ago. I’ve taken every kind of saw, torch, beam, and hammer to it I could. I could never get it open.”

“You’ve been sitting down here banging on it?”

“I did, but that was a while ago.” He moved over and peeked into its front eye-thing. “I was going to access it from here. If I could extend my torch, I might be able to slice out some parts. But I never got around to it.”

Delovoa was clearly insane. I was in a room with two Dredel Led and I was apparently the only one concerned.

“What,” I started, trying to keep myself calm, “are you going to do with it?”

“Nothing.”

“The military is going to want to see it!” I screamed.

“It’s not a Dredel Led, Hank. They’re not going to care.”

“Not going to care? So you think they’re going to walk down here, take a look at this broken one, notice that one standing there, and not ask you anything? Do you really believe that?”

“No. I’m not going to show them. I’ll hide it.”

“You’re not going to hide it,” I said forcefully.

“It’s just an antique. It’s like your pistol. There’s all kinds of stuff like this around. It’s not evil. It’s just scrap.”

“Then you don’t mind losing it.”

“No. I paid a lot for it. It’s not going to attack anyone. Watch.” He took a small hammer from a table and began beating on the Dredel Led all over. It made me extremely nervous.

“Quit it. You don’t know what that thing is or what it can do.”

“It was probably some heavy mover of some kind. It doesn’t have hands, so I figure its forearms went into sockets and it pushed or pulled or carried something.”

“That’s silly. Why not use a tractor instead?”

“No Dredel Led is going to write on itself,” he repeated.

“So you feel safe just because it says ‘ZR3’?”

“ Yes. ”

The voice was languid. Almost sleepy. It was deep. Slow. And it came from the mountainous white Dredel Led standing against the wall.

Delovoa and I stood in front of his statue of a robot for an hour, scared witless. But the Dredel Led didn’t move. We finally got up the courage to try and ask it questions, but it didn’t answer. The only sign that it wasn’t carved from inert metal was that when someone said “ZR3,” it would answer.

At the very least, it didn’t sound menacing. It didn’t answer with attitude. Each time it seemed as if it was being roused from a deep sleep.

Another hour of that and we decided there was nothing we could do. Well, I decided that. Delovoa wanted me to stay, but I’d had my fill of robots already. If every tool he owned had failed to scratch the thing, what was I supposed to do?

So I left for home and went to sleep.

I woke up and briefly everything was fine. Then the sleepiness wore off and I realized the sheer number of ways that I could die. My cube of delfiblinium could blow a hole in our space station; Delovoa’s Dredel Led could come to life and smash us all; the Navy could blast us from space; angry gang members could choke me to death; Jyonal could get a headache and melt all our faces by accident.

I never used to think about dying. Never. Not once in a century. Other than the occasional, “I wonder when I’ll croak.” Now the possibilities were so varied I could hardly keep track of them.

I used the bathroom and did my morning rituals. I then crossed into my living room for some breakfast when I noticed Garm was sitting on my couch. She was working on her tele.

“Hey Garm. What are you doing here?” I asked. I figured she had heard about Ddewn or ZR3 and was probably going to shoot me again.

“Just letting you get some sleep,” she said, not looking up.

“I was going to get some rations, you want any?” I asked warily.