A Fistful of Trouble (Outlaws of the Galaxy Book 2) Read online

  Happy was still smiling. I guess situations like this were where he’d earned his nickname.

  “Don’t expect your robot pal to save you this time,” the old man said. He held up a device that I recognised immediately. It was the kind of remote control that the old pirate Jack Sterling had used to deactivate Floyd. Of course, a robot scavenger would have access to such a thing.

  I looked from Happy Hawkins to his security robot and back to Happy. I grinned as if I liked these odds. I grinned even more when I saw his smile falter.

  “Kill him!” Happy yelled.

  “Gladly,” I said. I lowered the pistol and brought Floyd’s cannon round. I had one shot. And for once, it was all I needed.

  The cannon was meant to be used by a hundred and fifty-pound robot soldier. The recoil almost dislocated my elbow and it knocked me backwards on my ass. I’d aimed for a spot just under the security robot’s breastplate and the blast was angled up slightly. The robot’s upper torso was carried up and back into the trailer, clattering inside. Its legs stood where they were for a moment and then pitched forwards. The skull-like head bounced back out of the trailer and rolled to a stop near my left boot.

  Happy didn’t look so happy now. Floyd had his massive hand wrapped around the scavenger’s throat. The old man’s eyes looked like they were about to pop out. Happy’s skinny clown-bots both stood with their hands above their heads.

  “Don’t kill him,” I said.

  “Am I allowed to damage him?” Floyd asked.

  “Let me think about that,” I said. I held my breath and climbed up into the trailer to see what else Not-So-Happy was hiding. I was relieved to see that there were no human remains in there. But it did look like a robot mortuary had been dynamited. There were mechanical limbs and torsos and heads scattered everywhere. A sort of repair shop had been set up at one end of the trailer and there were some more or less intact robots hanging on a rail – presumably these were to go on display for sale at the next town Happy pulled up in. It wasn’t going to be much of a beauty pageant. The stench was coming from a barrel of artificial flesh that had been stripped off an old android. Who knew that it rotted like that? And apparently the maggots loved it. I’d seen enough.

  Happy and Floyd were standing exactly as I’d left them, like contestants about to begin some sort of murder-themed ballroom dance.

  “Put his feet back on the ground,” I said.

  Reluctantly, Floyd did as I asked, but he kept his hand around Happy’s neck.

  I took the remote control from the old man’s numb fingers and held it up for Floyd to see.

  “Recognise this?” I asked. “Aren’t you glad I gave you that upgrade?”

  “You disconnected two wires,” Floyd said.

  “And you told me I was wasting my time because no one else would have one of these things.”

  “You were right and I was wrong,” Floyd said. “It had to happen eventually.”

  “Apology accepted,” I said.

  “What are you going to do to me?” Happy croaked.

  “What are we going to do with him?” Floyd asked.

  I looked the old man up and down. “He doesn’t look like he’d make good eating,” I said. “We should probably just let him go.”

  “You don’t want him as your personal slave?”

  “Nah,” I said, “I’ve got you.”

  “No, you really don’t,” Floyd said.

  “If you want a house robot, take one of mine,” Happy said.

  The two clowns looked startled by this offer. One pointed at the other. That one shook its head and pointed back at first one.

  “Have them both, if you want,” Happy said.

  The two skinny droids might have been fun to have around for a while, but eventually I’d probably want to shoot them and that would just be a waste – of two good bullets.

  “Go inside and fetch that barrel of dead skin,” I said to the clowns. “Take it out there and bury it.”

  The robots went off to work, chittering merrily.

  “Mr. Hawkins,” I said, “it’s been nice visiting with you. I wish you happy trails.”

  Floyd let go of him and the two of us started walking away.

  “I’m not going to forget this!” Happy yelled after us. “If I ever see you two again I’ll...”

  “You’ll what?” I turned, pointing Floyd’s cannon at Happy’s truck. He didn’t know it was juiced out.

  Happy put his head down, muttering something at his shoes.

  “I don’t think you made a new friend today,” Floyd said when we got back to the Trekker.

  There was a roaring sound behind us and a long insulting blast on an air horn. Happy’s truck pulled back onto the highway and rumbled away, belching thick black smoke into the air. I hated to think what he was burning. One of the skinny clowns leaned out of the side door and flipped us the bird.

  “Just one more reason to get off this stinking planet,” I said. I was still trying to get the smell of rotting android out of my nostrils. “We’ll stop at the next town we come to. I need a bath.”

  “I was wondering how to broach that subject.” The rear suspension of the Trekker dipped as Floyd climbed on board.

  “Please don’t do that thing with your head,” I said.

  He rotated his head to face me. “What thing?”

  “Never mind.”

  Chapter Three

  “What’s wrong?” Floyd asked. I had slowed and was staring at the wing-mirror.

  “I thought I saw something.” It had been a flash of light, like the sun reflecting on glass or polished metal.

  Floyd scanned the area behind us, employing whatever array of sensors military robots were equipped with forty years ago. Chances were he could see things I couldn’t. “I’m not registering anything – apart from the robot seller. He’s pulled off the road again.”

  We’d passed the raggedy robot trader’s truck about half an hour ago. Floyd had given him the finger which made me smile.

  “Probably shredded another tyre,” I said.

  “Do you think people really buy robots from him?” Floyd asked.

  “Some people can’t afford anything better,” I said. Saphira wasn’t a wealthy planet. Aside from rare mineral mining, it had nothing going for it. If anyone here came into money the first thing they bought was a ticket for somewhere else. I’d been on the planet for almost two years and during all that time I had wanted to leave. Floyd had been on the planet longer than I’d been alive, but he was a robot so it didn’t really count. Robots view time differently.

  “I’m going to need to recharge soon,” Floyd said. “There’s a turn-off up ahead.”

  He had big batteries, but the juice didn’t last forever. Especially when he poured it into the cannon. The turn-off was a narrow dirt road and a hand-painted wooden sign pointed the way to ‘Cootersville’. Cootersville didn’t even appear on the map on my dashboard screen.

  “Let’s press on and see if we can find a place that actually has electricity,” I said, pressing down on the ‘go’ pedal. “It’s only twenty miles to the next town.”

  For the whole twenty miles, I kept glancing in the wing-mirror but there was nothing to see. I was probably just being paranoid. Probably.

  “Did we drive backwards?” I asked. The town we had driven into looked very much like Vulture’s End. This shouldn’t have surprised me because every desert town we’d been to looked like this. It made me feel like I was living the same day of my life over and over again. If I’d been travelling alone, I would have worried about pulling my scams in a town that I’d already targeted – but with Floyd at my side I was safe. He remembered everything. Even the stuff I’d prefer he forgot.

  You are now entering Cicada City the sign had said. The ‘city’ part of the name only indicated that the locals had delusions of grandeur. If its whole population turned out for a football game they’d have enough players for two teams. But no referee and no hotdog seller. I might be exaggeratin
g. The ‘cicada’ part probably meant bugs would keep you awake all night and locals would say things like ‘try one, they taste like popcorn when you toast them.’

  I wanted a hotel that could provide a hot bath and my preference was for windows with glass in them. I’m getting soft, I know. When I saw one that advertised ‘air conditioning and real whiskey’, I thought I’d died and gone to paradise. It also had ‘parking at rear’ so I turned down the side street and went around the back. There was space for half a dozen vehicles and a covered area where you could park your donkey. Hay was fifty cents a bag. When I parked the Trekker the total number of cars in the lot was one. Slow week.

  “I’d like a room with a bath,” I said.

  The man at the hotel desk looked up, smiling. His face clouded when he saw Floyd standing behind me. “We don’t allow his kind in the rooms,” the man said. He had a face like a greyhound and his front teeth looked like they were doing a can-can. There was a sign on the wall behind the desk that said ‘No pets or robots.’ We’d seen this anti-robot sentiment a lot, so I wasn’t surprised by it. Disappointed but not surprised.

  “Is there a repair station nearby,” I asked, “I need to take him in for a service.” A decent engineer might keep Floyd overnight – that way I wouldn’t have to put him out back with a bag of hay. He hated it when I did that.

  “Down the street and to the right,” the hotel-keeper said. “Be careful down there, it’s the rough end of town.”

  I made myself not smile at that and filled out the registration card he slid towards me. I decided to call myself Quincy Quigley.

  “Will you be paying in local or Alliance dollars, Mister Quigley?” the hotelier asked, as casually as he could.

  “Which would you prefer?” I asked, pulling out a mixed bundle of notes.

  The man smiled, showing me his crooked teeth again. “Would you like me to send anything up to your room?” he asked, handing over the brass key.

  “Just the hot water for my bath.”

  “It’s piped into the room, sir.”

  Hot ziggety, I really had died and gone to the good place.

  “Dinner?” I asked.

  “Served between six and eight pm, today’s menu is on the nightstand in your room.”

  This made me smile some more so I tipped him ten dollars to add to his dental repair fund. “Have my bag taken up for me, would you? I’ll go out and lose the robot.”

  “Very good, sir.” He looked up at Floyd and scowled but his expression changed when he thought of something else. “You’re not one of those gentlemen who likes to have sex with a robot, are you sir?”

  “No, why?”

  “Madam Fifi has one, if you want to try it.” My expression told him what I thought of his suggestion and he quickly continued. “She’s got real people too, of course. Her place is down the street – near the marketplace.”

  “Thanks, but I don’t need to pay for it,” I said.

  His expression said he wasn’t convinced by that. “Of course not, sir. If you need anything else, please ask for me. I’m Horace.”

  “I’ll see you later, Horace.”

  He smiled at me again and I pressed another five into his sweaty palm. The sooner he could afford that dentist the better for us all.

  Chapter Four

  We walked down the street towards the rough end of town. If there was some sort of border that marked where it began, I missed it.

  People stared openly at the big blue robot beside me and their expressions weren’t friendly. It made me uncomfortable, even though I knew Floyd had no feelings to hurt. I’d never understood where this prejudice came from. I’ve been chased by robots and shot at by them – on lots of occasions – but regarded this as a professional hazard. I did my job and they did theirs – I didn’t hate them for it. And I wasn’t afraid of them because they were machines that looked like people. I was afraid of them because their bullets hurt when they hit you and had the potential to kill you.

  As the sun set, the streets grew quieter. Couples strolled arm-in-arm and single men scurried by on their way to the hotel bar. There were a couple of girls on a corner looking for a man – married or single – who wanted a bit of fun for an hour. It was basically just like any other small town.

  We’d once tried to disguise Floyd in a poncho and a big sombrero, but it didn’t really work. When you’re eight feet tall, it takes more than a fake moustache to hide the fact. At some point, I was going to have to talk to him about moving into a different robot body. Something less conspicuous. But not until we were off Saphira. Here his size had some tangible benefits. And so did the cannon. We’d just have to put up with the scowls from the backwoods folk.

  A man changed his path to give us a wide berth. Sure that he was well beyond arm’s reach, he spat on the ground in front of Floyd and hurried away. If I took a few thousand dollars from this town I wasn’t going to feel guilty about it.

  A tarnished silver-coloured robot waddled down the street on the other side, its elbows sticking out like wings. It looked very much like the sort of robot Happy Hawkins peddled, fit only for the tin-foil factory. But what did I know? One man’s scrap is another man’s vintage classic. I could hear the robot chattering in an old-fashioned English butler sort of voice as it scurried along.

  “Oh my, I’m late. Master Louie won’t be pleased at all... Oh my!”

  The robot stopped suddenly as three men stepped out of the shadows and blocked its path. The men all carried bats and they didn’t look like a softball team.

  “What do we have here?” One of the men said. “A curfew-breaker! You know unaccompanied robots aren’t allowed out after sundown.”

  “No, no, there has been a mistake,” the robot said. “I must rendezvous with my master. There are still seven minutes until curfew.”

  “Are you calling me a liar, boy?” The man began swinging his bat backwards and forwards at his side and his two stooges copied his example.

  “Oh, no sir. But I think that if you look at your watch, you will see that...”

  The man swung his bat in a wide arc and brought it down on top of the robot’s domed head. The blow left a good-sized dent.

  “Please, don’t do that, sir,” the robot said. “My master will be most displeased if I am damaged.”

  The man laughed and swung the bat again. His two companions joined in. They all managed to rain down blows without getting in each other’s way. Something told me they regularly spent their evenings this way.

  Floyd stirred beside me and I knew he wanted to go to the robot’s aid. I took hold of his arm and pulled him back into the shadows. We both knew it was a bad idea to attract the wrong sort of attention. My own hypocrisy made me uncomfortable. If the victim had been human, we would have gone to help him. The silver robot fell to the ground and curled into a ball to try to protect itself.

  “Stay here, don’t go scaring the locals,” I said. I needed Floyd to remain out of sight until the roughnecks had departed. Not for his sake, but for theirs.

  A middle-aged man rushed out of the barber’s, soap still on his face and a white towel draped across his front and around his neck.

  “What the heck is going on here?” he said. Or words to that effect. His eyes were bulging with rage and his neck was a dark red. Master Louie, I presumed. He looked from his battered robot up to the men who had done the battering. I saw him swallow and his shoulders sagged as his anger vanished and was replaced by fear. He looked down at his robot and aimed a kick at it.

  “What are you doing down there blocking the path, you worthless piece of scrap?” he asked. “Can’t you see these gentlemen are trying to pass by.”

  The three thugs grinned at each other. They stepped over the fallen robot and swaggered away, laughing.

  The unshaved man continued to berate his robot until he was sure its attackers had passed out of earshot. “You know better than to put yourself in harm’s way like that, you tin-plate idiot. You got exactly what you deserved and
let it be a lesson to you...”

  The man carried on talking as he helped the robot get back on its feet and ushered it into the barber shop. I waved Floyd out of the shadows when the street was clear.

  We passed another of the heavily made-up girls and she flashed a smile at me, thrusting her breasts in my direction. I didn’t acknowledge her, not wanting to do anything she’d regard as encouragement. The next thing I knew, I was face down in the dirt. She had tripped me. Hell of a way to get a man’s attention. I expected her to leap on top of me and charge me for the privilege. I picked myself up, hiding my blushing face from a couple who were passing by.

  “Oh, my! I’m terribly sorry,” the girl said.

  “It’s nothing,” I muttered.

  Her hair was done up in coppery red ringlets that jiggled when she moved. She was wearing a tight bustier with laces up the front and her skirt had several layers of ruffles; it was long at the back and cut short at the front. If it had been any shorter I could tell you what colour panties she wore. Assuming she wore them. Not that I was giving her too much attention. I tried to avoid looking at the swell of her creamy white breasts that looked like a couple of pillows trying to get out of a coffee can.

  “I’m Harmony,” she said. “You’re not hurt are you?” She brushed dirt off the front of my shirt and squeezed my arms, checking for injuries.

  “I’m just fine.” I pulled away from her. Only my pride was bruised.

  “Yes, you certainly are,” she said, getting in closer. “Why don’t you let me buy you a drink – by way of an apology.”

  “That’s really not necessary, ma’am.” I was starting to feel a little flustered. Her perfume must have been one of those with pheromones in that make you feel light-headed.

  “My, what beautiful brown eyes you have,” she said, tracing her finger down my cheek and then stroking my lower lip. My face felt tingly.