Steven Campbell - Hard Luck Hank - Screw the Galaxy

Chances were the Navy would want to see what was left from the wrecked Dredel Led. And that was in Delovoa’s basement. And standing next to it was a fully functional Dredel Led. People tend to notice things like that.

Delovoa might be the dumbest person in the galaxy for buying that heap and bringing it to the station, but he’d be in for a world of hurt once the Navy found out. I doubt they even had a criminal category for what he did. More importantly, it might reflect poorly on the need for the continued existence of Belvaille.

I went over late at night. He was still huddled in the corner. His beard was long, his hair was wild, and he looked thin. ZR3 stood over Delovoa like a bulky jailor or extremely possessive boyfriend.

“Hank!” Delovoa cried out. “Have you figured a way to get rid of it?”

“No,” I replied with difficulty. Delovoa was truly pathetic and it pained me to be the bearer of bad news.

“Can you at least talk to me a bit? What’s going on outside?”

“The Navy is here. Maybe. Not in force yet, but they might have put some advanced scouts on the cargo ships to see what we’re up to.”

“Oh yeah? Would they do that? What do you think? Would they?”

Delovoa was animated at having some actual conversation. When I dropped off food and such, I usually left immediately, as I didn’t like standing this close to a working robot with undeclared intentions.

“We need to move you, Delovoa. We can’t let the Navy see that.”

“So you just want to move me to some other basement?” Delovoa was horrified. “Have this thing standing next to me forever? Why? Let the Navy handle it. I’m sure they can.” Delovoa, while not a boss, was a respected member of Belvaille and enjoyed financial success. His current living conditions must be quite grueling for him.

“Delovoa, they’ll lock you up for a million years—if you’re lucky. Not to mention Garm will get in tons of trouble for not reporting it.”

“I don’t care.”

“We can talk about it another time. We need to get you two out of here.”

“We’re not a couple. This is my home.”

“Delovoa, think. You know this is true,” I said calmly.

Delovoa seemed defeated.

“Okay. Where are we going?”

“I have an apartment in the southwest we can use. But it’s a long walk. It should be about the last place anyone looks.”

He gathered up his meager things—a blanket and cot he had been sleeping on, a small bag of foodstuffs—and then walked past the robot and towards me on the ramp.

As soon as he reached the bottom, ZR3 turned and followed, each thunderous step reverberating through the floors.

Outside his house I checked the street and the area was clear, so I gave the signal for Delovoa to continue. The real trick was moving this robot all the way across the city with no one noticing. If anyone saw, that would certainly get people talking, which would alert any Navy spies that were here and render all this subterfuge pointless.

I crossed the road and waited for him. Delovoa stood in the door frame looking tiny. He had been in his basement so long he seemed almost afraid to step over the threshold.

But that fear didn’t last long as he bolted out and ran up the street away from me.

ZR3 literally burst through the doorway, wrenching huge chunks of metal frame. It then pounded after Delovoa, each step resounding like a blast from Garm’s artillery gun. It was amazingly quick, that Dredel Led.

I stood there with my mouth gaping watching them go, trying to comprehend just how bad things had become.

After a few stunned seconds, I hurried after them as they sped into the distance. Delovoa was fueled by his manic desire to escape his robot watchman. ZR3 was fueled by whatever ZR3 was fueled by.

Both of them were far faster than I was. The good news was it was no trouble tracking them. All of Belvaille is made of metal. The roads, however, are sprayed with some kind of semi-tacky composite material.

Every few years the higher traffic roads near the port got dissolved and reapplied. It’s incredibly hardy stuff. The city had a few monolithic tracked vehicles we used to transport infrastructure equipment and even they didn’t damage the roads much.

But ZR3 was practically punching holes with every step. I didn’t know how anything so relatively small could be so heavy. Or how it could even support that weight.

But such philosophical questions were a rather low priority at the moment. I could see people were waking up as lights turned on from apartment windows. ZR3 clanging past likely knocking folks out of bed.

Thirty minutes later I was now well behind them, and a few people came outside to ask me what was going on.

“Nothing,” I said, running past.

My yellow shoes, as predicted, didn’t last a few turns and I was wearing one around my ankle as the other flew completely off.

I couldn’t tell where Delovoa was going at first, as he seemed to be choosing streets at random. Occasionally, I’d see buildings with their corners twisted from ZR3 brushing past.

Delovoa’s destination slowly became clearer so I took a few shortcuts.

Inside my apartment, Delovoa was in my kitchen helping himself to some of my rations and ZR3 was standing on what was once my couch.

“Did you know you have a huge block of delfiblinium sitting here?” Delovoa asked casually.

I wasn’t spending a lot of time at my apartment now that it was being systematically smashed apart by a giant, handless robot.

Delovoa was being stubborn by not leaving and knew I wasn’t about to threaten him with his hulking twin nearby. He was trying to force me into somehow solving his problem by making it our problem.

But if worse came to worse, I’d just move. He could keep the Dredel Led and my delfiblinium, and wouldn’t that be a nice chat once the Navy came knocking? But he seemed to be cooling down overall. I think he was just tired of sitting in his basement, and at least my place had easier access to a shower and food—even if it did mean my walls got hammered.

I visited Grever Treest to say I wouldn’t be able to help him with his drug storage issues, but he didn’t care. He had effectively used futures trading in the drug market by waiting a mere couple months during the purge and sold out everything at substantial profits. That entire room of drugs was gone.

He asked me if I wanted a complimentary chafze from his private store, some of the last on the station. I politely declined.

But he tipped me fifty credits for stopping by and asked where there was a nice neighborhood to move to in the north.

I should have been a drug dealer.

It was pretty late at night and I had just watched some animal fights at Lodaire deLon’s place. He was a boss who would train the strangest animals in the galaxy to fight one another in front of betting crowds. It was considered high culture by many on the station.

I wasn’t sure if I was going to stay in a hotel tonight or go back to my apartment and sleep next to a robot.

As I was deciding, a petite woman with a bob haircut and businesslike manner approached me.

“Are you Hank?” she asked in a squeaky voice that made her sound pubescent.

“Yeah,” I said.

“I’m Two Clem’s assistant,” she said, shaking my hand.

There were various kinds of celebrities on Belvaille. Everyone that lived here knew Garm. Many criminals probably at least knew of me. There were some fairly famous galactic-wide crooks in hiding here. And then there were a handful of genuine celebrities, people famous outside the tiny confines of Belvaille for acts that weren’t even illegal.

Two Clem was a real celebrity. He did… all the celebrity stuff. Music. Acting. Clothes. His own brand of pet. I don’t know. Things celebrities did.