“Easy, Rusco,” said TK.
“That’s nutso,” scoffed Wren, shaking her head. “Either one or all of us is on some kind of drugs.”
“No trip,” I growled. “It was real, right down to my bursting lungs.”
“Your eyes went wide and staring, as if you were a ghost, fading fast. My hand passed right through you,” she said.
TK muttered, “Phase shift, to some far world. Could have been any one of the desolate planets out there.”
The old man placed a hand on my arm. “Can’t let this get into devils’ paws like those after you.”
“Like who?” sputtered Wren. “Some rich, wicked little buyer trips out to his favorite planetary resort for holidays? I’m shaking in my boots, TK.”
“No, you fool! I mean, by installing one of these devices on a drone or a mechnobot, they can blast any city or space station to smithereens and come back out of it without a scratch. An army of these could—well, make ruin of what’s left of the populated worlds.”
Wren scoffed. “Yeah, just like these bug-like things you talk about that are now extinct. Fat lot of good this tech did them in taking over the galaxy.”
“The details of the Mentera’s demise are lost in time.”
My trembling reverie came to an end. “Let’s just keep it out of anybody’s hands for now.” I shuddered to think what a brute like Baer would do with it, or who he might sell it to. He’d talked about some star lord wanting to buy it. It now dawned on me what had happened to Mitch, the guard back there. The phaso seemed to work its mischief when some combination of the alien script and its surface was touched. He’d gone to one of those worlds, but without the device, he couldn’t get back. I only managed to get back because I had a firm grip on it. Mitch didn’t.
I couldn’t help notice the hungry look in TK’s eye as he studied the disc, despite his gallant words. I quickly gathered the strongbox up from under the conference table and locked up that evil, little treasure. I kept it clasped in my arms, thinking to hide it away somewhere on the ship.
Mumbling, rubbing hand on chin, I stepped back a few paces, while he rubbed his brow with a dirty cloth. “I’d better start fixing that drive. All of you, leave me alone. Sit on your thumbs, swap tales, play tiddlywinks, I don’t care, just don’t distract me. I need space and quiet to concentrate.”
“Sure thing, pops,” I said.
“Billy! Change up the batteries. Load the spares that I charged yesterday. We’re going to need more juice to incite the Barenium.”
I granted the old man his space. Leaving him to his tasks, I wandered through his workshop, staring in a daze at the maze of machinery. Wren was at my heels.
“So what’s it like out there?” she asked. “Always dreamed about going to the planets.”
“Lot of poverty and corruption. Believe me, you haven’t missed much.” She was all for asking a bunch of questions, but I waved her off. My mind was preoccupied with Baer’s bounty hunters and if more would be on their way.
Some time later TK came to us, rubbing his oily hands with a soiled rag.
“So, I did a full scan and mustered what I could. The Barenium’ll take time to settle in those canisters. I’m guessing about eight hours. We give it a try after. If it starts up first shot, we’re lucky, if not, we’ve got ourselves a problem.”
“Let’s hope it starts up then.” I wished it was sooner, but realized the settling was out of my hands.
We edged back out of the workshop, the bright light stinging our eyes. “So what now, professor?” I asked him, squinting under the glare. The sun looked as if it had not dipped a degree in the sky.
“Time to eat,” he said. He and Billy ratcheted up the tarp. “This way.” He pointed a forked hand to another place, far away from the workshop. “It’s a forty hour day on this world, so it’s easy to get hungry.”
I could see the method in TK’s madness, keeping his residence far from work, in case one of the ‘mad boys’ happened to stumble on his crib. He’d have a temporary place to lie low in, if that wasn’t compromised too.
Chapter 8
TK had made his residence in the side of one of the dung piles, like an igloo of crud, indistinguishable from the rest of the other compost.
I stepped closer to the fifty-foot-high gummed mass, recoiling at the sudden cloying stench that hit me, but a skittering sound had me turning around wild-eyed. Aiming my blaster at two mean-looking scorpion-like knee-high crab things scuttling across the sand straight at us.
“Fuck! What are these things?” I got off a shot, but didn’t do any significant damage.
TK let out a shrill whistle, his finger to lips. He slapped down my weapon before I could get the next shot off and waste it too. The creatures bobbed back, springing on their spindly, segmented legs a foot away. They hissed and clicked, barbed stingers coiling over their scaled backs. The pincers out in front looked like capable clipping machines.
“Protection,” TK explained. “Come on, inside.”
I realized the scorpion dung at the side of the mound was the source of the smell. Gingerly I stepped around it, eyeing the six-legged crustaceans with a wary eye. Clear translucent exoskeleton, eyes perched on stalks, armored carapace, one could see right through to the lungs pumping, heart beating, and some black red, kidney-shaped organs.
I shivered and Wren ducked in a defensive crouch, muttering some foul words under her breath.
I whirled to another sound, my blaster lifting. A mummy-like shape hobbled out of the shimmering heat
