Calandrx thought for a long moment. “Just remember this: Many of the people you will find out there won’t know who you are, won’t know what the Empire is… won’t have any knowledge about any of this.”
He looked up at Hunter. “But that does not mean that the lives they lead, the cultures they’ve developed, the land they work are unimportant. Indeed, those things are the most important aspects of their lives.”
“So respect them,” Hunter said.
“Exactly,” Calandrx replied. “Show them respect, and it will go a long way in helping you accomplish what you’re being sent out there to do — officially, anyway.”
Once again they were quiet for a while. Hunter sipped his wine and watched the stars above. Calandrx looked down on the brilliant city below.
“What’s the strangest thing you heard about, you know, out there?” Hunter asked him.
Calandrx sipped, thought, and smiled. “That’s like asking how many drops there are in the ocean. What isn’t strange out there? But I get your point. What’s the strangest thing I heard about besides you?”
“Exactly,” Hunter replied.
A floating city passed by overhead. More StarScrapers bolted up into the night sky.
“I heard a story once,” Calandrx began, “about a man stuck out there somewhere who was supposedly immortal. He literally couldn’t die. I always thought it to be just another Fringe legend, of which there are billions, of course. But people I trust swear that it is true.”
“Are you saying this person was ‘forever young’?”
Calandrx shook his head.
“No, simply immortal,” he replied. “He could not die. He aged, his body deteriorated. But he simply could not die. A curse, not a blessing.”
“That’s ironic,” Hunter said. “Especially with the obsession for longer life that seems to drive everyone these days.”
“That’s what made the story so fascinating,” Calandrx replied. “When I first heard it, I asked if this person was simply pumped full of Holy Blood — but that wasn’t the case. Apparently he’s been around longer than the concept of Holy Blood. They say he’s as old as spaceflight from Earth itself.”
“But that would mean, what? Five, six thousand years old?”
Calandrx laughed and guzzled his wine. “At least!” he declared.
He got up to go. Hunter gave him a mighty handshake.
“Thank you for everything,” he told Calandrx.
“Be well, old friend,” the elderly pilot replied. “And please, when you return, may I be the one you call on first?”
Hunter hesitated just a moment, but Calandrx caught on and smiled. “The first after our gorgeous ‘mutual friend,’ that is.”
Hunter shook his hand again and walked him to the door.
Calandrx started to depart, then paused a moment. “Can I give you just one more small piece of advice?”
Hunter nodded. “Please, go ahead…”
Calandrx lowered his voice in a very conspiratorial manner.
“No matter what you do, my brother,” he said, “avoid any planet that has a pyramid…”
PART THREE
The Defenders of Qez
21
The name of the city was Nails, and it was famous for selling two things: combat weapons and slow-ship wine, both in large quantities.
Downtown was a twenty-square-mile sprawl of gun shops, distilleries, and rocket pads. On a typical day, several billion aluminum coins could change hands here. At night, ray gun fights and random blaster fire were not uncommon. Even for the Fifth Arm, Outer Fringe, this was a very rough place.
There were also thousands of ‘cloud bars in Nails, and it was at one of these, the Green Star, that two of the city’s most successful arms merchants were enjoying a midmorning cup of slow tea. They were Zym Blitz and Beebee “Three Finger” Rappz. Both men were enormous; they barely fit in the chairs provided with their hovering table. Neither was armed, but standing at discreet distances away, their coteries of bodyguards were nervously eyeing each other.
The center of Nails’s weapons bazaar was just a half block away, and as their table was the most prominent in the Green Star’s outside café section, just about every person bustling by made sure they tipped their cap to Blitz and Rappz. There were many players operating inside Nails. But these two were probably the most notorious.
The Green Star was especially crowded this morning. People drinking, smoking, wheeling, and dealing.
A small army of holo-girls was hanging on the periphery, chatting with the hired heat. The slow-ship was flowing and the open-air saloon was getting so raucous, some of the holos were beginning to ply their trade right out in the open.
That’s why it was so strange when Blitz and Rappz were suddenly joined at their table by a priest.
His cassock was dirty, his feet dusty and sore. He’d walked more than forty miles to get to the city, this after having used an ancient transporter booth to pop him in from twenty-two star systems away. Blitz and Rappz just stared at the holy man for a moment. They’d seen just about everything imaginable in Nails over the years — everything except a priest.
“I’m very sorry to join you gentlemen unannounced,” the priest told them wearily. “I’m usually not this impolite.”
“Not a problem, Padre,” Blitz told him. “You look like you need a drink…” Rappz signaled for a robot waiter.
“Thank you, but no,” the priest replied. “I fear if I started drinking now, I would not want to stop.”
“Well, have you eaten recently, Father?” Rappz asked him. “We can certainly buy you a meal.”
Again the priest shook his head. “I am here not for food or drink, though I would dearly love both,” he said. “What I am looking for is help — help to save some lost souls.”
Blitz and Rappz both laughed.
“Are you sure you’re in the right place, Father?” Blitz asked him. “There are a million or so souls here, but I don’t think any of them wants to be saved.”
“These are not the souls I’m referring to,” the priest said. “The souls of my concern really are lost — or better said, they are in a lost cause. And while I can’t believe I’m actually saying this, I’m here seeking weapons…”
Blitz and Rappz looked at each other and shrugged. They’d sell to anyone, just as long as the coin was good.
“Well, then you did come to the right place, Padre,” Rappz said. “What type of weapons are you looking for?”
The priest shrugged. He wasn’t really sure.
“Well, weapons…” he said. “My friends are running out of just about everything…”
Blitz signaled for two more drinks. The robot waiter hurriedly refilled their teacups. “And get this man a pitcher of ice water,” Blitz ordered the robot.
Rappz pulled out his notebook and started with a clean page.
“Okay, Father, we understand that this is your first time buying guns,” he said. “So why don’t you just tell us the situation your friends have found themselves in and maybe we can figure out what they need.”
The pitcher of water arrived; the robot spilled a bit while setting it down on the table. Blitz responded by giving the robot a swift kick in the ass; the clang of boot-on-metal echoed throughout the busy saloon.
The priest brushed some spilled ice from his cassock, then poured himself a mug of water and drank from it greedily.
“My friends are mercenaries,” he said between gulps. “But they have found themselves on a mission of mercy…”