Galactic Dreams

David turned away from the thing on the floor, still unmoved by what he had done.

“Don’t you understand, Father? Barre and his Panstentialists are indeed a terrible weight. Many suffer and freedom is abridged, and all the other things that are wrong, that we know should not be. But don’t you see the difference? You yourself said that things would change after Barre’s death. The world would move on. So how is his crime to be compared to the crime of bringing this back into existence?”

He shot his father quickly and efficiently before the older men could realize the import of his words and suffer with the knowledge of what was coming. Torrence screamed and ran to the door, fumbling with terrified fingers at the lock. David shot him too. But not very well since he was so far away, and the bullet lodged in his body and made him fall. David walked over and ignoring the screamings and bubbled words, took careful aim at the man’s twisting head and blew out his brains.

Now the gun was heavy and he was very tired. The lift shaft took him up to his room and he had to stand on a chair to take teddy down from behind the books on the high shelf. The little furry animal sat in the middle of the large bed and rolled its eyes and wagged its stubby arms.

“Teddy,” he said, “I’m going to pull up flowers from the flower bed.”

“No Davy … pulling up flowers is naughty … don’t pull up the flowers.”

The little voice squeaked and the arms waved.

“Teddy, I’m going to break a window.”

“No, Davy … breaking windows is naughty … don’t break any windows …”

“Teddy, I’m going to kill a man.”

Silence, just silence. Even the eyes and the arms were still.

The roar of the gun broke the silence and blew a ruin of gears, wires and bent metal from the back of the destroyed teddy bear.

“Teddy … oh, teddy … you should have told me,” David said and dropped the gun and at last was crying.

SPACE RATS OF THE CCC

That’s it, matey, pull up a stool, sure use that one. Just dump old Phrnnx onto the floor to sleep it off. You know that Krddls can’t stand to drink — much less drink flnnx, and that topped off with a smoke of the hellish krmml weed. Here, let me pour you a mug of flnnx, oops, sorry about your sleeve. When it dries you can scrape it off with a knife. Here’s to your health and may your tubleliners never fail you when the kpnnz hordes are on your tail.

No, sorry, never heard your name before. Too many good men come and go, and the good ones die early, aye! Me? You never heard of me. Just call me Old Sarge — as good a name as any. Good men I say, and the best of them was well, we’ll call him Gentleman Jax. He had another name, but there’s a little girl waiting on a planet I could tell you about, a little girl who’s waiting and watching the shimmering trails of the deep-spacers when they come, and waiting for a man. So for her sake we’ll call him Gentleman Jax, he would have liked that, and she would like that if only she knew, although she must be getting kind of gray, or bald by now, and arthritic from all that sitting and waiting but, golly, that’s another story and by Orion it’s not for me to tell. That’s it, help yourself, a large one. Sure the green fumes are normal for good flnnx, though you better close your eyes when you drink or you’ll be blind in a week, ha-ha! by the sacred name of the Prophet Mrddl! Yes, I can tell what you’re thinking. What’s an old space rat like me doing in a dive like this out here at galaxy’s end where the rim stars flicker wanly and the tired photons go slow? I’ll tell you what I’m doing, getting drunker than a Planizzian pfrdffl, that’s what. They say that drink has the power to dim memories and by Cygnus I have some memories that need dimming. I saw you looking at those scars on my hands. Each one is a story, matey, aye, and the scars on my back each a story and the scars on my … well, that’s a different story. Yes, I’ll tell you a story, a true one by Mrddl’s holy memory, though I might change a name or two, that little girl waiting, you know.

You heard tell of the CCC? I can see by the sudden widening of your eyes and the blanching of your space-tanned skin that you have. Well, yours truly, Old Sarge here, was one of the first of the Space Rats of the CCC, and my buddy then was the man they know as Gentleman Jax. May Great Kramddl curse his name and blacken the memory of the first day when I first set eyes on him ….

“Graduating class … ten-SHUN!”