Fourgy Swims Uphill

   He's ranch managering. Being the only person around, he figured that he must be the manager. He sure felt like a manager after three days of lavish ranch tours, with special introductory meals of export quality exotic ranch foods. Now, on day four, he's having an office day. At the computer, well actually together with a small gang of computers huddled together in the bottom of the boat. Boat drifting office work, here and there as the wind blows across the main lake, next to the home ranch buildings. Bathing in the delightfully fresh wind, his face says it's wonderful to be in the light of Uphill's sun. There's a UAV up in the air monitoring herds of grazing animals. He quite likes watching it's video pictures of the rangelands, but the computers keep interrupting. They keep displaying their stuff instead. One computer analyzes the numbers and kinds and ages and sizes and health of the animals, then throws whole spreadsheets of numbers out into images in the air in front of Fourgy. Another computer combines the first computer's analysis with reports on grazing conditions and forage quality and herd movements, and shows them in a virtual display just off the left side of the boat. Still another computer has a display off the right side of the boat, its showing spreadsheet financial projections for the next few weeks compared to last year and the year before. All is good, all managed to the hilt.

He notices a bit of seaweed in the water, a computer notices his distraction and tells him, “Yes, Earth seaweed. A genetic variant adapted for Uphill.” The shape and the color of the seaweed remind him of the trick flimsy, so he reaches into his pocket, brings the flimsy out and grins at it.

    The main part of his secret instructions, the printed flimsy, self-erased most of itself while he was holding it in his hand, probably in Mmhm's office, well before he had a chance to read it. When he finally looked, he was left with a standard travel voucher, and looking around for his mistake. He was saved by the computer. Another copy had been wirelessly copied into his personal computer, and then hid most of itself most of the time. That part of the trick bugs him, it bugs him that Mmhm had the capability to invade his personal computer, and displayed it by slipping stuff past his computer security barriers. It bugs him even more that most of the secret information is still buried behind software that continued to hamstring him with don't yet need-to-know restrictions.

    He grimaces at the seaweed, Mmhm had told Fourgy to come and 'sniff the airs', looking for somebody gone missing, but not much more. That was fine, he needed time to adjust to ranch life, and to learn the ropes, but he also needed more information. Yes, the standard robot-guided tour package showed him a big ranch populated with a huge mix of animals and plants, exotic foods for alien eating aliens. Yes, 3D videos showed him that such exotic foods are a human speciality in this region of space. Yes, the food was great. Yes, he had eaten tidbits of dozens of species of animal and plant. Tasty wonders. The two hour history lesson showed him a ranch that was basically a human tinkered critter ecosystem chomping down on the original mostly plant ecosystem. He looked over at the ranch buildings, thick-walled, low, compact. All made of a kind of local compacted sod, more or less floating on a kind of boggy rangeland. Yes, the place had nice green tech. Everything ran on solar and wind energy. Apparently, just like other Uphill Ranch Company operations here on Uphill, the place had just enough automation to run itself.

    There are two pieces of seaweed now, and it looks like a third piece is floating up from below. He looks around, no other seaweed in the area, and grins. The seaweed is special for him, a manager's special, his grin widens.

    He lifts a hand to reach out to grab a piece seaweed, and the boat tips. Eyes widened, he freezes and involuntarily swallows. His heart starts a deep heavy thumping as he thinks about it. The boat tipped too much for a simple arm movement. Carefully moving just his eyes around, he studies the water on both sides of the boat. It's all calm and peaceful, just some wind ripples, a few boat ripples, and the little growing patch of seaweed. He shivers, as he lets his hand drop back, the air has a chill in it now. No manager's special, instead a change of plans. He's not going to reach out over the side of the boat, he's going back to shore. Then he's going to get familiar with the ranch gun. After he hauls in his net. He's a hunter and a fisherman, and his gear goes home with him.

    He brings the net in, he's after Earth brown trout, genetically adapted for here. Because he's a country person, he prefers to catch his own catch. Besides he's never eaten trout before, and nets are more efficient catchers than hooks. The net brings in two beautiful brown trout and a shoe.

    Intrigued, wide eyed, and needing to be on shore, safely off this lake, he picks the shoe up. Shoes weren't on his menu for the day nor shortlisted for the net. It's stuffed full of soggy local spagh grass so it won't float worth beans. His eyes narrow, it's torn with tooth or claw marks. A computer analyzes it, then pops an enlarged 3D image of it up into the air in front of Fourgy, with, “McNab's left shoe. The marks suggest that he kicked something in the teeth, just before it ripped his shoe off.”

    Fourgy boggles at the analysis, so thorough and so fast. He notices that another part of the display indicates that McNab was the third guy of five in a row to have recently gone missing at this ranch. He notices a little symbol next to all five, that clues him to ask, “and all five worked for Mmhm?” The computer says, “yes. Just like you.” Then it marks a slot for him at the bottom of the list.

    Fourgy had never seen a needle gun before, and the idea of something that would spit streams of sub-light speed metal needles out to jab holes in things on distant horizons was intriguing. Doubly so on a wide-open treeless bog planet like Uphill. Not that a gun had been necessary, there weren't any predators on the livestock. But people had started disappearing, and maybe there were people predators, so hefting it made him feel a fair bit better.

    He tried it and it worked splendidly. Yes, even deadly for critters on the horizon.

    So naturally, being a gun nut, he took the gun apart, for 'deep maintenance', and started poking around. After two days unsuccessfully trying to put it back together again, and feeling tired, short on sleep, neglectful of the ranch, and more than a bit uneasy at having no gun, Fourgy reached out for help. He ordered some tiny replacement parts from the ranch machine shop, telling those computers his idea of rebuilding a different more simple form of the gun. He also assembled most of the local tribe of computers and enlisted their help. Even as he started his explanations they started yowling and blinking together, while chattering nonsense to him. He figured that meant things weren't good. When things quieted down, they first gave him hell about breaking things, then declared an emergency, and bypassed some normal restrictions. As he had experienced with previous guns, they became a communal it with the gun's software. As a side effect of iting itself, it told him that the original ranch family had been scared silly by a sudden wave of very odd events, had suddenly become very fond of the gun, then had abruptly evacuated off planet. Also, all five of the past five ranch managers had disappeared after showing increasing care for the gun. He was boggled that this gun's software held such secrets, then realized that it was 'target data' stored by the rifle's scope.

    The it then negotiated more with itself, specifically the rifle's software, and after some lower level bickering, unearthed even more information. The other Mmhm agents had all disappeared at night during various kinds of ruckus, while carrying the gun, and none had managed to fire the gun. He nodded, at night it would be easy to step into a bog hole, drop out of sight, tangle with the spagh grass and drown, or whatever. The trouble was, first, that the bodies should have been easy to find, and, second, they were Mmhm agents, fully expecting trouble. Third, the ragged shoe. Fourth, maybe a tippy boat. And now the gun.

    Above and far away, Wilm is gleefully remotely watching Fourgy, completely unknown to Fourgy and his tribe of computers. He's safely stationed in front of a bank of computer screens inside a retired space freighter, now the space station that serves as Uphill's surface-to-space transit place. He's a Navy tech, part of the small Naval patrol that protects the Uphill star system. Given the recent troubles, he's been assigned to monitor, to watch over, some troublesome ranches on the planet's surface. People have been disappearing from some ranches, and the problem is getting worse, edging towards being a plague, and worse yet, it's cutting into Uphill Company profits. He richly appreciated Fourgy fishing in the boat, because Fourgy is a worm on the hook, bait for Wilm and the Navy catching the whatever the thing is that is taking people.

Wilm figures that Fourgy has cornered himself. The gun is too complex to put together again, and when    Fourgy figures that out, there's going to be a big reaction. Wilm has a fresh bag of freshly ordered popcorn at hand as he watches Fourgy.

    Fourgy gets the new gun parts and fits things together. The computers growl. The core drive on the gun is ancient. It's core power source is a war surplus military blaster from centuries ago, deftly reworked in more recent years to drive needles down the long accelerator barrel of the ranch rifle. Fourgy has discarded parts from the ancient blaster mechanism, then added back other different new parts, and incorporated some weird software. He's poking at changing ancient ways, standard parts, long known to be right. The computers tell him so, in no uncertain terms. He nods, and takes the mechanism apart. They're happy. He polishes some of the parts and tests fits, and reassembles it. The computers whine. The process repeats itself, more intensively each cycle.

    Wilm is intrigued and grinning, his computer says that an internal software switch can now tell the gun to fire without using the needle mechanism. That's nifty and illegal, Uphill civilians aren't allowed to have blasters. Then his computer points out that the blaster mechanism has been altered, with unknown effects. Then later, when Fourgy finally lifts the gun and swings it, Wilm's computer does some kind of a recount and sputters that too many rifle parts have been left behind on the working table, so its analysis is suspect. Both have missed the growing teamwork, and synergy, between Fourgy and the computers.

    Fourgy tests the gun, and smiles. That makes him feel a lot better, safer, and sleepy, so he takes a nap, with the gun.

    Wilm isn't disappointed, just thoughtful. Based on recent history, the gun won't help any. He's caught onto the idea that Mmhm's men are some kind of fire and forget. Nobody comes and checks when they go missing. His software routinely captures their personal identity information when they access the electronic door codes to the main ranch house. It's Navy software that ensures they aren't aliens mimicking humans, or much more often in such matters, just light-fingered humans. A little side effect for Wilm is that he hauls in information that allows him to access their financial accounts. He now raids their bank accounts just when they disappear. Fourgy has a nice new bundle of money, that puts him in line to be Wilm's retire rich and go home worm.

    Fourgy wakes as the gun starts whining, rising in a crescendo, like it's going to blow up. He scowls at it, and suggests, “if you're going to amok, and disperse my atoms, just do it, don't disturb me first.” It stops whining and quietly says, “we have an emergency. Go into an inner room.” Fourgy looks around. It's dark outside and the room is dark, evidently he's slept some hours. The normal ranch alarm systems haven't gone off. He says, “show me.” His computer pops up a glowing red night image showing many animals crammed up against a fence. It adds, “fence seven is stretching, with the crush of animals. The fence is electric but it's solar-powered and failed when overloaded with a surge of migrating sheep.” Fourgy nods, he knows about the problem from his training, it happens seasonally, and it can maim valuable herd leader animals. The situation is known and normal, and it's close by, so he grabs a noisemaker, a flashlight, and hops out the door, gun in hand.

    He trots off across a field, given their solar-power most of the vehicles are dead or recharging, useless at night. A little UAV, unmanned air vehicle, is doing infrared, see-in-the-dark, sweeps watching over him. He feels good to be outside after days cooped up struggling with the rifle. He pats the rifle, and trips. Splat into some kind of muck that shouldn't be there.

    Jungle trained, where tripping and falling is normal, he simply rises, then checks the UAV imagery. It just shows him, one solitary human, no other lifeforms close by, so things are okay. He changes route a bit and trots ahead. He falls again, rises, and takes more care, again changing his route a bit. Trotting has become a slip slide process now.

    The gun starts whining, with the recent revisions it can sense that the guck splashed onto it is starting to jam the needle firing mechanism. Fourgy nods, he can feel the stuff tightening on his clothes, it's starting to make it hard for him to jog. He stops to check with the red-light flashlight. As he flicks the flashlight on, he again steps aside, and hears running footsteps. Someone or something, he corrects as he listens, some things, are following him. The flashlight just shows blackness. He switches to white light on both the flashlight and the UAV.

    Wilm leans ahead. He can see that Fourgy has turned off the night time infrared systems. Fourgy's team of computers at the ranch buildings have instantly reacted and setup flares at the ranch buildings. Wilm remotely, and he figures quite rightly, resets everything to infrared. Fourgy gets a white light flash of a black being, just as Wilm's instructions reset his flashlight to infrared, and blindness.

    Fourgy fires, a full burst, shooting at what he hears. Something grabs him around the legs. He drops the flashlight, and rolls to one side. Firing again at incoming footsteps. Then he fires again as the UAV lights up the area. The computers have overridden Wilm and reset things to white light.

    Wilm sits back. They can't do that. His override was military, civilians can't touch it.

    Fourgy is now fighting sleep. Something is forcing him to sleep, while in a firefight.

    The computers sense Wilm's work and Fourgy going to sleep.

    Wilm escalates to a higher authority level, and resets to Infrared. The computers override back to white light, and also jot Fourgy with an electric shock from his gun.

    Fourgy swears at his now jammed gun. Then he forces himself to push through the thickening gluey muck, and his sleepiness, then untangles a bola from his legs. More fast footsteps are coming in, but even in white light from the UAV, he can't see them yet.

    Wilm has gone to the limits of his authority. He passes the matter up to his boss, who is busy eating lunch.

    Fourgy's trapped. Sleepy and guck tethered. Gun jammed. Deadly attackers. Some nut remotely resetting the systems. So he thumbs the gun and it resets to blaster mode. He scowls, thinking about it. He thumbs it again, into a new area beyond Navy knowns. Monitoring software yelps a gun safety violation, escalating right to Wilm's desk. Wilm jolts ahead in his chair. The software reported the safety violation then abruptly disappeared. He nods as he works it out, Fourgy has had it. Something got him. Wilm empties Fourgy's bank account.

    Fourgy has simply applied an old pirate trick, one that resets the blaster, dumps the reporting software, and reduces the gun's life to hours instead of centuries.

    His first blast explodes three attackers and ignites some vapour floating above black guck now coating the spagh grassland. He blinks as the vapour explosion jolts past his knees, and turns to watch it go. The light of the flash shows him more attackers and they get huge beam blasts. He does a sweep and takes out the rest.    Now he has some range grass fires lighting the night. He notices that the fires are burning as much on the black guck as on the grass, but the black guck is starting to sink back down into the sphag grass.

    Lunch wrecked, Wilm's boss has two attacks on his plate. He's suddenly had a 'pirate attack' and an alien attack, reported together from the same place at the same time, on the planet's surface. Fourgy's blaster firing had a distinct and long-known signature that was automatically remotely diagnosed as 'pirate' behaviour.          Worse some new activated anti-pirate software is reporting a hot link and trail to all-too-well-timed financial irregularities on his same plate.

    Fourgy coughs in the growing smoke, resets the gun to overload, throws it down a bog hole, and runs for the hills. After some time, there's a big blast and he ends up swimming uphill in a kind of tidal wave.

    As he enters Mmhm's office reception area, Nicole gives Fourgy a newspaper, and shows him an article on Uphill. In the article the reporter is interviewing the new ranch manager, Wilm, about his job on the newly renamed Crater Lake ranch on Uphill.

    Fourgy studies the picture, this is the first time he's seen Wilm's picture. Wilm collected a lot of money from him and other guys. Wilm and his boss had tried to pin piracy, of all things, on Fourgy, but, with obvious and undeniable electronic trails leading up to Wilm's chair, then landing on his boss's plate, the Navy had seen the claim as a spurious attempt to cover things up, so it did the same.

    Fourgy grins as he reads that researchers, tourists, and government officials are starting to visit the ranch, looking to see and chat with the newly discovered smart aliens. He's willing to bet that those talks will bog down. He figures that it's a safe bet that the lake, and that whole ranch area, are going to need to be restocked with both brown trout and aliens after the blaster blast. Just like his bank account got restocked with everything Wilm had.

    Nicole desk growls as Fourgy puts the newspaper down on it. He steps back, and the desk rolls aggressively ahead, then again. Finally three false charges, growling a bit each time. A side panel opens and some kind of mister elevates itself. Fourgy leans ahead to check it out. He's even about to sniff it when it squirts him in the face. Suddenly half-asleep and drooping, he recognizes the smell and starts to wonder, when the Thurip, the splotchy blue-green-mildew one, arrives. Suddenly angry, the Thurip reaches over to rip the mister out by the roots, but the mister squirts purple slime at the Thurip, and retreats back inside Nicole's desk.

    Fourgy sits down, boggled, and fighting to stay awake. Nicole, red-faced and obviously upset that her desk has attacked Fourgy, comes over to check on him, while the Thurip skretches and yeeps on the floor. She then kicks the Thurip, just as Mmhm's office door opens and part of Mmhm bulges out to watch the commotion with several dozen eyeballs.

    “Weeelll?” Mmhm chortles.

    “Okay, okay” she responds. She takes a vase of flowers off her desk, pulls the flowers out and pours the water over Fourgy. He vigorously shakes his head. She then throws the flowers onto the Thurip, and it eats one with huge oversized slurps. Nicole's desk starting humming, happy that the flowers are gone, tank desks don't do flowers, too wimpy.

    Fourgy stands up. Still a bit out to lunch, he asks, “now?”

    “Yyeessss!” Mmhm responds from several mouths. The sound of several phantom hands rubbing together forms a background. “Pleasse, come in.”

    Fourgy knows enough to be very wary and wide awake when he enters Mmhm's office. Mmhm is a dangerously alien boss, so he feels a bit suckered, and insecure. He puts on gloves and activates his snazzy new Uphill critter hide jacket and it transforms into a fractal camo hunter's model. In this setting it even incorporates a special new design razzle dazzle minimal infrared signature. Fourgy's oblivious that several of Mmhm's brains run amok when most of Fourgy suddenly disappears. Other brains still on the job try squinting dozens of eyes into the chaos, but they only see Fourgy's brown boots thumping along under a mist topped by his sleepy head. They signal to retreat back into the office, but Mmhm's a gas bag, and with parts amok, he's slow to shrink.

    Nicole notices that Fourgy hasn't put his gas mask on. As you know, humans do a lot better if they wear gas masks when visiting gas beings. She bangs on the desk and firmly says, “gas mask!” The Thurip burps loudly. The desk growls and opens a side panel. Fourgy turns to look, then stumbles ahead. He thrusts his gloved hands out, right into part of Mmhm extending out to meet him.

    In the middle of all this, dozens of sniff sensors on Mmhm's surface have sniff detected someone lovely arriving in the mist just ahead, a pheromone reaction, and are reaching out to meet them. Unknown to them and to Fourgy and to much of Mmhm a whole swack of other sensors on Mmhm's skin are gawollying in horror, they detect that a dead member of their own species is arriving as some kind of ghoul mist jacket.

Fourgy's gloves rip into Mmhm's love extenders. Fourgy has experienced Mmhm's boxing jabs, superfast squirting arms, hitting him before, so Fourgy prepared ahead. The backs of his gloves have several rows of spines erected and extending out defensively. They cut right into Mmhm, and Fourgy's head follows. Without a gas mask, he's instantly gassed sick and pukes inside Mmhm. Swarming in glee, the love sensors pucker around Fourgy's head.

    Fourgy is gassed, choked, and gasping wide awake. He starts thrashing his hands trying to get out, stirring up Mmhm's insides. Mmhm erupts and everts onto Fourgy, leaving part behind just like some lizards leave their tails, then rolls over and behind his desk. Fourgy puts on his gas mask and tries to sit down, but the chair has just been stewed by a whole eruption of new juices. What with all the commotion and given Mmhm's security precautions, it senses some kind of end-of-the-world alien, maybe even a pirate, and starts to whorble. Worst of all, it knows that some oddball, human, alien called Fourgy is scheduled to arrive about now, and that creature threw the chair into the ceiling during its last visit. Its feet squeal as it backs away.

    Fourgy decides that Mmhm's innards taste good. Sort of like a nice light airy milkshake well-shaken. Mmhm can see that in Fourgy's face as he licks bits up inside the face mask. Feeling somewhat disarranged, and seeing a well-kept secret being licked away, Mmhm squirts several air arms out and batters the keyboard desktop. Lost in licking, Fourgy's face lights up with the idea that maybe the alien attackers on Uphill taste good too.

    The desk twirps and tweets, then extends a printed flimsy. Fourgy's right there, no erasing message hassles this time. As he grabs it, it speaks to him, “Go now. See Nicole for instructions.” Fourgy nods, stops to watch Mmhm slide through his hole in the wall, then leaves through the door.

    Nicole is standing, arms crossed, watching the Thurip jump up and down on her upside down desk. Fourgy's eyebrows go up and down, the Thurip has a big slug blaster, some ancient hand gun, at the ready. He goes up to Nicole and asks, “do you think I could get a job like that? Providing reception area tank-desk technical support?” She grins, and says, “no way. You're too human.” She points at the Thurip, “this is training. Somebody did non-authorized alterations on the tank-desk and the Thurip is gently suggesting that the desk evade such things in the future.” As she speaks a panel opens behind the Thurip and an arm reaches up to grab one of the Thurip's ankles. Well aware of such antics, the Thurip stomps then grabs the arm and beats it several times with the hand gun. When the arm relaxes, the Thurip rips it out by the roots and throws it against the wall. White flags sprout here and there on the desk.

    Nicole claps gleefully, “Good for you!” Just as Fourgy joins the clapping, the Thurip grins. Both of them freeze. The new victory teeth-jaw-eye configuration is genetically designed to freeze food species, like humans, in place for dining. It says, “I have something for you.” Then lifting the desk by one leg, it reaches under and kicks something.

    The room darkens and the desk groans. Both humans and the Thurip kick the desk. A display starts. A small space vessel is travelling through an old debris field, and scanning a big device on its left. Fourgy nods as he recognizes it. It's his main under-the-hood mission, the kilometers-long space gun. Nicole points at one of the big balls spaced regularly along its side, and says, “they've cleaned the spark and transcender nodules.” She points at a reading showing next to each ball and says, “and activated them.” She purses her lips and says, “they're in good shape. Better that we can make or buy. Or steal.” Fourgy grins at the 'or steal'. He's intrigued that the receptionist knows more about the gun than he does. The Thurip proudly says, “yes! Now go fire the gun.”

Fourgy Leaves Home, claws out

Naturally, Fourgy was, as normal, completely innocent. Sort of a drive-by innocent. As he rode out of the jungle and up to the city gates the two guards shook their heads. It was too late in the day to be outside the city wall. Then, eyebrows raised at seeing his take, they grinned at him and his cargo. He grinned back as one guard silently held his watch up and tapped it to show the time. The other started cranking away closing the gates. It was almost Threshold. They could all feel the dank night closing in.

Fourgy appreciated, as he rode down the street, that everybody had already taken shelter and bolted their doors. It made cycling faster and easier. He passed the pub, noticing that it was much busier and noisier than normal, and turned into his alley. Nearly home, his garage door was opening for him. His eyebrows popped up at the crash as the back door of the pub smashed open. Two fighters spilled out, swinging wildly. He swerved his bike to go around, but fate bit. The closest fighter fell back and in doing so, his right hand fell onto the back of Fourgy's bike. Right into a dino claw. Not good. It was a Red Bloodsucker claw, freshly harvested and still very active. The claw hungrily snapped closed on the man's hand, tugged, and started sucking. Well, as you probably know, Bloodsucker claws tug a bit to pump a bit, as they suck in through each claw's nostrils.

The man yelled and jerked, in pain and disbelief. You don't, well I don't, normally bump into Red Bloodsucker claws on the back of bikes in the alley. His commotion pulled the bike down with him. Sprawled on the ground, Fourgy turned over and looked back, just as two more of his fresh got Red Bloodsucker claws flopped over, following gravity, and sunk themselves into the man. As the yells soared into shrieks the fourth claw sniffed the smell of the blood pumping out of the back ends of the other claws and started snapping its claws together. Each claw was really a big dinner-plate sized paw, plus three long front claws and one nasty back jabber. Each of the four claws was about half as long as a man's arm. Which explains why, as you know, full grown Red Bloodsuckers can easily pick up a man with one paw. We're snack size. It also meant that the claw tips snapping together were easily loud enough to put the shivers in small mammals like humans.

Fourgy winced at the new shrieks. It was now Threshold and on this jungle world, Malay IV, shrieks after Threshold advertised free live dinner to all wild and jungly. He looked up and around in the gathering dark; a thousand kinds of winged nightkillers would arrive first. Uneasy, he checked the pub door, broken open by the offworlders. Not good. An open doorway to a whole pub full of wonderfully wiggly food - people. If a feeding frenzy developed, the noise and smells would draw in the big feeders. He swallowed hard. Amok waves of the big jungle dino-monsters could easily swarm the two guards and the wall. That's why people bolted themselves inside at night.

The shrieks changed. The other man was helping pull at a claw. Fourgy nodded. The claw would sense the struggling and inject flesh eating digestive poisons. Yup, just like that. No more shrieks drawing in competitors.

He reached over, selected tendons, and pulled, releasing the claws one-by-one. He raised his bike.

The surviving drunk stood back, slowly taking in the changes. Small fight. Guy on bike. Dead buddy. Claws out, and leaving the scene. He bellowed,“You killed Mike!”

By now other men had arrived at the door and were shooting blasters into the sky. Splats of this world's variety of bats and other horrid little winged creatures started showering Fourgy.

Fourgy shuddered and checked, the claws were all fine, so he pushed off. The drunk yelled “No way! Damn you!” He lurched ahead and grabbed for the bike. The fourth claw was delighted to shake hands. Finally getting its turn with a very nice juicy grab. Lunch at last.

A battle-grade blaster beam exploded a trail across the alley in front of Fourgy. In the sudden quiet they could hear masses of incoming alien things hooting, yumyuming, and barumphing. The shooter, another offworlder, called out, “Whoa right there, fella!” A whole swack of tourist battle-grade blasters started firing, lighting up the dark with serious overkill, as they happily blapped early birds.

Fourgy got that sinking feeling, as it sunk in. A pub load of friends off some tourist spaceship. Rich tourists drug-pumped for high gravity so they could visit a famously hard to reach dino world. Armed with influence, gravity-drugs, booze, guns, and ornery. All ornery in the back alley.

He breathed deeply and, unseen to others in the dark, reset his long barrelled hunting blaster resting on the frame of his bike. Harvesting the claws had been a three hour stalk-to-kill, survive-and-run, battle. Fourgy had fought off becoming lunch for a small pack of Red Bloodsuckers. They'd had a lot of fun hunting him, for too long. He had been the mouse for some cats. Here now, he was tired, standing in a growing shower of nasty gore under a blaster-as-fireworks light show. A full aroma blood bath, announcing dinner to incoming creatures. Two more beam blasts flicked past him.

He yelled, “you can't have my claws!”

The fourth claw jerked, then tugged and sucked at the man's hand and arm, adding a sudden new layer of screams to the party.

Three oversize beam blasts splatted chunks of claw around. Another ripped at Fourgy's hat.

Hats are special. Locals at the back of the crowd joyfully starting clubbing tourists.

Then a beam hit the frame of Fourgy's bike, the tires blew, and his blaster replied.

The Captain was clearly unhappy. No matter what he did, he was gonna get bit with this one. First things first. Deal with this dang critter-bit kid. He scowled as he looked at Fourgy's mass of bandages and torn clothing, normal for someone who survived a night flyer swarm attack. Well, this one still had his eyeballs. He scowled at Fourgy's gun, evidently a gunsmith kid. He sighed, the gun had fired a special beam, like a three dimensional spider web. As you know, it's called a spider beam, and the technology is privy to pirates. It's a shan zhai trade secret, that's very handy for zonking a whole room, alley, passage way full of pirate clients, or swarms of incoming birds, all in one blast. The problem was that firing it spat the word 'pirate' into a lot of minds. Kind of like, 'hello everybody, here's a home world for pirates'. He scowled at Fourgy. A beam guaranteed to produce skads of unwanted visitors of the worst kinds, for years ahead.

Just about as bad, the Captain scowled down at a crime-scene picture of a very long tailed six-legged black cat, stunned with it's gawd awful fangs still sunk into some dead guy's leg. The spider beam had stunned a whole lot of tourists, bats, locals, and other awed odd creatures. Including this nasty bit of work, a thing cat secretly living in his village. It was probably some envirogenetic mutant: half-Earth, half-Malay, half-space cat, more than hinting at some kind of horrid future. The jungle was winning, probing every which way and winning.

For his part, Fourgy was happy. He was getting a free trip off planet – a famously expensive journey for locals. It was easy to tell, he was alive and still inside the wall. He rubbed his hands together. He was taking a rich man's load of freshly cooked Red Bloodsucker claws to sell off planet. Sure he was itchy in reaction to getting beam bathed and critter bit and yelled at, and itching to go.

The Captain grinned back as he saw Fourgy's hand rubbing, thought bloddy little pirate, and decided to smile at him. Malay IV doesn't have jails. They kick you out of town – into the jungle, off-planet, or into a (secret, don't tell) pirate ship. You have to be on the ship first before you get a chance to try walking a pirate ship's plank into space. Fourgy was too innocent for the jungle and too young to be a pirate, so that left off-planet.

Oh, I forgot. Yes, for small stuff, they rope you up and kick you out into the street at night, watch the critters chew on you for a while, then pull the rope back in. If it's the normal small critters, they get both the whole rope and you back. In his case, Fourgy was already chewed up and had to go out of sight, beyond questions about spider beams and pirates. Off-planet was hiding in plain sight, normal for pirates.

The Captain's grin broadened as he thought about it, then announced. “I'm going to send you to Mmhm.” Fourgy's smile dropped as his head lurched forward with a kind of “huh?”

“No. Mmhm.” The Captain continued, “you're already street chewed. You're too jungle smart. Too young for a ship. So Mmhm's it.”

“Who's Mmhm?”

“You'll find out when you meet Mmhm.”

The Captain paused, then popped an image up into the space between them. It was a big long thing. Fourgy analysed, a big alien space thing surrounded by a huge amount of space debris. Old battle remains of some kind.

“I'm going to ask Mmhm to send you to see this gun.”

Fourgy had just settled back. He jerked ahead again with a “huh?” He'd figured out that the thing was over three miles long. A really big gun.

The Captain smiled again. The gun was secret, and telling Mmhm that he knew about it, via Fourgy, was a way of covering secrets with secrets. Perhaps also a way to learn a bit more about the bloddy thing. Like where it was in space.

Mmhm's place was a big space city. Can't tell you it's name, what, or where, but it's hidden in plain sight in an unusual orbit between two stars that circle each other. Hint: close to a space village of workshops that makes weird stuff in the special double-pull gravity region between the two stars.

Of course Fourgy didn't know all that, he was just prepared and delivered. First, groomed spiffy and space trained during the journey. He even learned what a tie was, how to tie and wear one, and several other uses for ties. Then, at the end of his journey, he was dressed in dirty coveralls and dumped as a no-name drifter in a cargo delivery area for the city. Something electronically linked up with his personal computer then guided him here and there, up and down, almost randomly round and about, through the city. Guiding him through at least six weights of artificial gravity. He couldn't tell if they were trying to lose any followers, confuse him, had a bonkers guidance computer, or were just seeing how long he could go without a bathroom. He did learn that the eddy currents between differing levels of artificial gravity could wreak havoc on flesh. That was the only clue he got that his guided trek would have killed the average Earth human. He also had no clue that the offworlders he's stunned had all come from this space city. The computers refused to name the city, so from his observations, he decided to call it Burpara, short for bureaucrat's paradise. A not bothered by real contact with clients and not-so-many humans paradise. As far as he could tell from his walkabout, nobody did any real work, they just managed numbers and diagrams and each other.

Finally, on the third pass through an area reserved for gas giants, they suddenly diverted him down a maintenance tunnel, and into Mmhm's reception area. A confused looking, good looking confused, normal Earth, 1G type, young lady was just settling into a twice too big chair behind a big front-half-of-an-army-tank-shaped desk. Minus the turret, after all she was a receptionist.

“Hi!” They grinned as they said it together. Humans seeing humans naturally bond in alien space. She continued to lower the chair to her size, so he stepped ahead. The entire top surface of the desk was some kind of alien keyboard with dozens of keys of all sizes and shapes. His computer indicated that the desk was newly installed, and that she'd put her coffee cup on the Delete key and her purse on the Smugfrd key. She touched something and the desk's rubber tracks rumbled ahead, leaving her out of arms reach of anything. They both grinned as she rolled her chair ahead. The desk rumbled away. Fourgy moved aside, then reached out to stop it. His computer beeped at it. Deterred, the desk first swerved away, then grunted twice, and continued on to thump into the wall. Evidently it didn't like her.

Fourgy turned back from watching, and said, “Hi, I'm Fourgy!

She frowned, “4G?” He nodded. She added, “a 4G world?” He grinned and nodded.

She looked him up and down, then said, “I'm Nicole Money.” She looked dubiously at the desk, now starting to alternately snort and whimper as its tracks chewed bits out of the wall. Then she continued, “they just assigned me here to receive you, but things are a bit out of hand.” She shrugged, looked over at the 3D display riding the whimpering desk, and said, “I think you're an hour early from what they told me, but what the heck. You might as well go on in.”

Signage indicated that Mmhm was a gas giant, and the office would have leakage, so he put on a light air mask, knocked, then opened the door. It opened a hand width, something mewled like it needed help, and the door slammed shut.

He looked at Nicole. She was frowning and said, “I think there's a problem. Try again.” He nodded and tried again. Nope, it slammed shut again. This time he thrust his weight into it and forced the door wide open.

His mouth dropped open. The whole office was pulsating, a huge multi-colored, floor to ceiling, pulsing space. Huge masses of spots and lines and blotches came and faded and travelled about, bouncing off the walls and ceiling. When he poked it, some blotches started roaring, all together like a flock of deranged vacuum cleaners. His head jerked about as he studied it-them-whatever, then he nodded. It was all in a bag. Maybe two gas bags. One more blueish on top, and one more pink on the bottom. The bottom one was making strange noises that came and went in time with a series of vertical rainbow colored ripples. Maybe, you've probably seen the pictures, like a booster rocket about to burst when it tried lift something too big. You might know some of the other odd noises, one just like a vacuum cleaner trying to eat a sock. Plus, other noises, such as the normal ones you get when gas bags scuffle about on office carpets, with at least three kinds of mewling all at the same time.

Something tried to hit him, but just slid past his face. He stepped back, suddenly wary and conscious of being way too slow. It tried again. He went into a boxer's crouch. Another jab. The whatever was jet fast but had a lousy aim. Again. This time he ducked aside, feeling silly at being way too slow. But he'd seen enough to recognize that the gas bag was jabbing squirt-arms of gas at him.

His eyes popped wide open as eyeballs formed on the surface and looked at him. Maybe two hundred eyeballs at the same time, in several sizes. Worse than cross-eyed though. No wonder it-them had a bad aim. Then it-them made a noise like an orange going through a blender. Several arms squirted at him, but this time he feinted and grabbed one.

Nicole came up alongside him, shrieked at the sight, and flapped her arms in the air.

Jolted, he decided that things were getting serious, so he tied the arm in a knot, like one would with an inflated balloon.

The ceiling started to crackle and buckle as it was forced upward, then dozens of arms flung out in all directions. Just like some kind of angry spiky sea creature.

One hit him in the chest, spinning him half around. Then it grabbed Nicole's gas mask, but she grabbed the arm, knotted it, and took her mask back.

Evidently unhappy with the new commotion, the bottom part, or bottom bag, started making noises like a chattering flock of small birds chasing a squirrel. Both bags, top and bottom, contracted together, sinking back into the room, Fourgy followed, looking for a boss of some kind. For all he knew they'd just eaten Mmhm. The bottom bag slid out from under and flitted through a round doorway that opened half way up the left wall. The remaining bag, now seriously shrunken and wrinkly, rolled back over the desk and sat down. It was still breathing heavy everywhere, in time with a set of jet-arms that were tapping at the top of its desk.

Fourgy's computer announced, “meet Mmhm.”

Uh oh, he'd poked his boss, while his boss was with somebody. Could have been a date, lunch, his wife, dental work. He shrugged, and said, “hi! I'm Fourgy”

Nicole snorted through her gas mask, said, “have a good meeting,” and left.

Mmhm started cascades of noises of some kinds, from some places, a bit like a mud fight in a sewing factory while unhappy squirrels chittered at the commotion. Some parts of Mmhm were trying to rescue his now deflated knotted parts. Other parts were squirting a serious amount of colored gas into the air.

Fourgy's computer listened, and sniffed and studied the gases. Particle filter warning lights came on, then it said, “Mmhm says hi, and why do you want to die young? Where is your mother? You're early. You can't see the gun yet. How do you like the gravity? You wanna be lunch?”

Fourgy blinked, he was hungry, and asked, “which gun?”

A big 3D image popped into the air between them. It showed the same huge space gun Fourgy had seen before. “Oh, yeah.”

Mmhm started puffing, this dumb kid knew the secret, then switched to rapid whole-body waves flowing down to the floor. Overloaded space booster launch mode again. The computer said, “if Mmhm turns green or coughs, Mmhm'll kill you.”

Mmhm's desk started rumbling ahead. Mmhm coughed, and a jet arm flashed past Fourgy and cracked the wall. Fourgy squatted, grabbed the remains of a chair that had been squashed flat in the ruckus, and flung it up into the damaged ceiling. Bits fell, but the chair hung up on something. That worked. Distracted by the debris, Mmhm turned blue, then orange, and finally mottled along with some nifty low growling. Oblivious, the desk kept going, and turned to follow Fourgy as he stepped aside.

Fourgy asked his computer, “how do I stop the desk?”

It replied, “bark.”

“Huh?”

“Bark”

“Like woof? Woof!” He barked, and it stopped. Boggled, he considered it. A voice controlled desk. Well, tank desk. He smiled, he was lucky. Dogs are extinct on Malay IV, all eaten, so it was luck that he remembered how to bark. He woofed for practice.

A slit opened in the top of the desk and a plastic document extruded. Fourgy grabbed it, but before he could read it, his computer said, “my electronic copy is a travel document. For you. To Hefty Seven. It's a heavy gravity ranch planet.” It paused and sniffed the room for clues, then added, “you are being sent on a training exercise.” It paused as it sniffed for awhile, red warning lights indicating that it's dust filters were overloaded were full on and blinking, then it said,“Mmhm says the last person sent there disappeared. He says your job is to sniff about, spray some gas, sift the airs, and ride the great gas back here again.”

Mmhm jiggled and grinned, a huge Cheshire cat grin, some other mouths formed, opened and spoke, squirting gas more or less together in a group, “go now.” Fourgy nodded. The tank desk responded by rumbling ahead.

Fourgy stepped back and turned to go, then stopped as the desk smashed into the wall going full tilt. The room shook and the chair fell. Mmhm meeped. The desk's rubber tracks started screeching against the wall and the thing reared up. Thup! Thup! Thup! Big suction cup feet walked it up the wall. Halfway up, it stopped and opened out, just like a flower opening. Intrigued, Fourgy studied it then nodded. It offered a whole mass of on-the-wall desktop services to air borne gas bags like Mmhm.

Out in reception a Thurip was chiding Nicole. Her desk had returned to position, with a quirk. It had opened up, the top had raised, inverted, then split into three leaves that had spread into a kind of shield for a belt-fed 40mm grenade launcher. It was now showing a serious piece of work for such a small space. He walked up to see what kind of grenades it used in such a small space. Nicole gave him a worried look and said, “they're worried about a pirate attack. Imagine pirates attacking here. Anyway, that's why Mmhm has abandoned the outer office and is trying to setup something up here.”

The Thurip was one of the splotchy blue-green-mildew ones. This one was lot worse smelling than the normal battle cleanup ones that we all see on the streets everywhere, selling remnants and souvenirs. Apparently it had a side business providing tank-desk reception area technical support.

Nicole said, “I just tried to send a memo and that pipe thing”, pointing at the grenade launcher, “blew three holes in each door.”

The Thurip nodded in satisfaction and said, “demo rounds. It's good to ensure quality and optimal performance despite arduous circumstances.” The Thurip reached over and delicately started spray cleaning Fourgy's computer filters, the warning lights changed from red to purple. Purple was off-scale, an unknown color, so Fourgy pulled back. The Thurip grinned, an ancient space scavenger species double Fourgy's size, and said, “it's okay. It's a free treatment. The colour? It likes my scent.” They all grinned, and the computer reset its lights to all green, good to go.