Steven Campbell - Suck My Cosmos

Unless they weren’t Colmarians at all.

There were other empires outside of the former Colmarian space. They may have been Dredel Led. Robots. Dredel Led could look like anything since they were just machines. In the past, I had seen some appear like Colmarians—though pretty bad imitations.

A Dredel Led might be able to shrug off an explosion like that, run away, and then hurdle a wall.

They may also be mutants like me. But mutations were wildly unpredictable and different. Two guys with the exact same set of mutations was an almost impossible concept. Besides, it was the Colmarian Confederation that had forced mutations on its citizens. And the Colmarian Confederation was extinct. Mutants were slowly dying out and those guys looked far from old.

Of course, they could be something totally different. It was a big galaxy. Some wall-jumping, bomb-ignoring species that happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

When I reached my front door, it was opened automatically by my butler, Cliston.

Cliston was a Dredel Led. He was my most prestigious claim to fame seeing as how everyone had forgotten all my past exploits. Well, they didn’t really forget them. Everyone who remembered had died of old age.

Cliston was built to be a butler. Literally, he was designed for it. He put out numerous pamphlets and manuals that other butlers used as their handbooks. He was the most famous butler on Belvaille, which was saying a lot.

He also took most of my money. Not for his salary, he spent it transforming my home and office to adhere to his exacting standards.

In appearance, Cliston was large and wide at the torso, his body forming a kind of inverted pyramid. His arms and legs were much more narrow and cylindrical. He had eight dexterous fingers on each hand and he was quick on his feet. His face had just two robot eyes and a speaker for a mouth. He was of course metal. His only ornamentation was black and white horizontal pinstripes across his frame.

“Sir,” he said, in his deep, proper, robotic baritone.

“Cliston,” I answered.

He closed the door behind me and removed my jacket.

“I detect sweat and smoke, sir. Would you care for me to launder your clothes and draw a bath?”

“Something to drink first, I think.”

“Very good, sir. And sir, should I call a medical technician for you?”

“No, I’m not hurt,” I said.

“It’s just that I noticed you missed the toilet today whilst urinating. Some splashed on the floor. It’s my understanding that Colmarians past the age of ten are more than capable of depositing waste properly.”

“Sorry, it was a late night that’s all.”

“And you were unable to bend over with a cloth and clean it up? Perhaps your back is injured?”

“I didn’t see it.”

“Maybe your vision is in need of correction? I understand that Colmarians sometimes require glasses.”

“No, I’m fine. Just a drink.”

“Very good, sir.”

He said it all without sarcasm. In fact, it was said with the utmost concern and dignity, as he always spoke and was only capable of speaking. But his point was clear. Cliston ran this house and I was just a tenant.

He could get a position at any mansion in the city. In fact, I suspected a number of my jobs came from curious nobles who wanted to stop by and see Cliston and his handiwork.

My apartment was quite grand. I never felt completely comfortable, however, because any time I wanted to let loose or slouch, a mechanical cough reminded me of my manners. I had a bit more leeway in my office since Cliston didn’t visit it as often.

He returned with a drink, perfectly made, and handed it to me while I sat in my stiff-backed golden chair and stared at a painting I didn’t understand and never would.

Cliston lingered after serving.

“Yes?” I asked him.

“I would like to congratulate you on securing a new assignment, sir.”

“How did you…thanks.”

“I would also like to take this opportunity to mention that you require an arch lez lounge.”

“I don’t even know what that is!”

“Then you shouldn’t object too much to having one,” he said.

“I haven’t been paid yet. I’m not sure I will. I have to think on it.”

“Please let me know when you have payment.”

He turned to go about his work.

“Cliston.”

“Sir?”

“Do you know of any Dredel Led that still make themselves look like Colmarians? Like with prosthetics and such?”

“No, sir. Despite our similar racial backgrounds we do not all know one another any more than all Colmarians know one another.”

“Alright. Thanks.”

I sat there in my fabulous home contemplating all the ways the city had changed.

The whole System had changed.

It used to be Belvaille was alone in the Ceredus System. Just a space station and countless Portals that allowed instantaneous ship travel to other parts of the galaxy.

Ceredus had been renamed Belvaille System and instead of being alone, there were now thousands of ships permanently anchored here. They all belonged to Sectors which corresponded to Districts in Belvaille. Belvaille had five Districts, each administered by a City Councilman. Extend the District lines out into space and those became the Sectors.

District and Sector were really synonymous, but it was another way to impose class distinctions. If you lived in one of Belvaille’s Districts, you were more prestigious than if you lived outside the city in the comparable Sector.

There was a mad scramble for resources when the Colmarian Confederation dissolved. You were worth exactly as much as you could grab and hold on to.

The Belvaille System was the nexus of that prosperity and it was solely because of the Portals.

If there was a planet that mined copper on one side of the galaxy and they wanted to trade it, or manufacture it, or sell it, they had to bring it to Belvaille. Even if it wasn’t directly refined here on one of the many factories floating in space, it would need to come here to use the Portals to reach its final destination.

And any ship that used the Portals had to pay tolls and taxes.

The amount of wealth that changed hands every day in the Belvaille System was astronomical.

I had once thought Belvaille was doomed and that the galaxy itself was headed for ruin. Yes, countless star systems had been laid to waste and others lost forever when their Portals were destroyed. But the galaxy wasn’t as pessimistic as me and it had recovered handily.

Belvaille was a square space station fifteen miles by fifteen miles. The population was probably a half-million. I wasn’t sure the population in the Sectors outside of the city. A billion, maybe?

The Belvaille space station was the height of technology. All the best scientists and engineers had been employed to rebuild and refurbish it and now it was the unofficial capital of the new Colmarian Empire.

Though no one used that name.

That was one thing people were decidedly tired of: empires. It was empires and alliances and factions that had caused the civil war.

People were happy to elect their city officials, who were invariably wealthy nobles. The simple reason for that was because no one made money in government. It was where you went when you had too much money. There were politicians who had taken office fantastically rich and left paupers.

There were no natural resources in Belvaille System itself. There was a small, distant planetoid that was used to grow some food, but other than the Portals there was nothing here. No star. Nothing. All the raw materials had to come from planets connected by Portals.

There were thousands of ships waiting to be admitted officially into the Belvaille System. You didn’t just show up and get welcomed. No. It was a long process and they wanted to make sure we had the facilities to accommodate every new addition and that the applicants had something to add to our society. They also had to divide up the newcomers into the appropriate Sectors without creating too much of an imbalance.