The Sheriff of Yrnameer (25 page)

When he opened his eyes he was looking at the plant who had gestured for him to enter. His vision blurred slightly and he blinked, and he realized she was a humanoid. She was smiling at him.

“I’m Daras Katim,” she said. “These are for you.”

She handed him a compact bouquet of flowers not much larger than two fists. His gaze drifted down to the miniature blossoms, a tight cluster of intense blues and reds and yellows, and stuck there.

“Hello?” she said after a while, amused.

“Hwuh? Oh, hi. Hello. I’m Cole.”

“The sheriff. Yes, I know.”

Sunlight filtered in through the greenhouse glass that began a few meters inside the store. Cole couldn’t tell how far back the greenhouse went. He had a vision of walking in that direction and discovering that there was no end, that the foliage thickened and grew into an infinite emerald world, vibrant and alive, surrounding and embracing him, conscious of his passage. There was a very slight and not unpleasant buzzing in his ears. He shook his head slightly.

“Wow, it sure smells good in here.”

“Thank you.”

A portion of the smell seemed to emanate from Daras Katim herself. Cole blinked. She looked like a plant again.

“Now,” she said, and she was humanoid once more, “what you’re going to do is give those flowers to that young woman, that MaryAnn.”

“MaryAnn? But how …”

“I see these things.”

“But …”

“She’ll like them.”

“But …”

“No, she won’t think you’re being too forward. I know how to select flowers better than that,” Daras said briskly.

“Oh,” said Cole. He wasn’t sure what else to say. He looked at the flowers again and giggled. Daras patted him on the shoulder.

“Good, then. It’s probably best if you continue on your way, now.”

“Right. Right,” said Cole, docilely allowing her to steer him out the door.

“Bye-bye,” she said.

“Bye-bye.”

The door shut behind him.

Cole wandered contentedly down the street, swaying a bit, pausing now and then to stick his nose into the flowers and take a deep whiff. These people were
great
. Let Runk come—Cole would put him in the ground himself. He paused to let pass an open wagon drawn by two slow-moving, patient baiyos, but the wagon instead came to a halt in front of him.

“Cole?”

He raised his head and discovered that he was on Main Street. MaryAnn was sitting in the passenger seat of the wagon, the sun creating a halo around her.

“MaryAnn!” he said, with a big warm smile. “Really great to see you!” He remembered the flowers. “Here,” he said, extending them toward her, “these are for you.”

She took the bouquet from him and gave a tiny gasp. “Oh, Cole, they’re beautiful! That’s so thoughtful of you!”

She spontaneously leaned over and gave him an awkward, one-armed hug, Cole standing on his tiptoes to reach her. The driver, an older man with a sun-weathered face, stared impassively ahead, giving no indication he was aware they existed.

“Where you going?” he said when she straightened up.

“The farm. I’m doing a story on the orphans, how they’re settling in.” She put her nose into the bouquet and took a deep breath. “Wow,” she said. Then she flopped over to hug him a second time.

“Okay, then,” she said, after she sat up again, straightening her hair.

“Yeah,” said Cole, realizing they were both giggling like school-kids.
The driver chewed contemplatively on the stalk of wheat sticking out of the corner of his mouth.

“I guess we should …,” she said. The driver didn’t need any more encouragement, immediately clucking at the baiyos and tapping them with a long quirt.

She twisted in her seat as they trundled off. “I’ll be back in a few days,” she said. “Will you still be here?”

“I … yes! Yessirree!” Had he ever said yessiree in his life? What was wrong with him? She waved. He waved. He watched her take another deep hit from the flowers.

“She doesn’t know a thing about you, does she,” said Nora, standing at his elbow.

He took another deep breath. “Air smells good here, huh?” he said, and walked away, bouncing a bit as he went.

Late that night Cole was awakened by crashing sounds and swearing coming from the escape pod. He groggily trudged down the hallway from his cabin and climbed the ladder. He stuck his head up through the hatch, finding exactly what he had expected.

“I already tried it,” he said to Bacchi. “Can’t get the engines to fire,” and went back to bed.

Cole had assumed that the citizens would see the Benedict as an eyesore and want it removed as quickly as possible, but when he woke up the next morning he noticed a small text panel affixed to the exterior. It was identical in appearance to the one in the jail-house except for the content, which stated:

… and there went Cole’s eyes out of focus again. All Cole knew is that no one complained about the spacecraft, only referring now and then to the “new installation” just outside of the gate.

Cole spent the rest of the day walking around again, trying to visualize how to protect the town. At one point he spotted the sembluk in the distance and felt the same elusive flash of familiarity, but the enormity of the task at hand quickly pushed the subject out of his mind. He’d come to a conclusion about Yrnameer: the village was
easily defensible. That is, if every single person in the town was heavily armed and knew what they were doing, and if none of the bandits had weapons and
didn’t
know what they were doing.

That evening Mayor Kimber suggested a planning session, a small gathering of what he termed the “village elders.” Cole agreed, hoping they’d have some ideas. He certainly didn’t.

They originally intended to hold the gathering in the mayor’s small office, but just before the meeting Mayor Kimber informed him that they’d moved it to the town hall again—”A few more folks might be interested in attending.”

A few more folks, as it turned out, was more or less identical to the population of the town.

First there was a discussion of how, exactly, the meeting should be run; the method by which participants would be chosen to voice their opinion so that no one felt excluded; what the process would be for resolving differences of opinion—an issue whose resolution everyone finally agreed should be postponed to a future meeting; where and when that and other future meetings should take place and the manner in which members should be chosen to participate in said future meetings; and what snacks should be served. Those items settled, it was time to go to bed.

Nora attended the meeting but stayed in a back corner, expressionless, avoiding his gaze.

As everyone filed out of the hall—Nora without so much as a sideways glance—Cole pulled Mayor Kimber aside.

“I just want to run down a quick checklist with you, if that’s all right,” said Cole.

“Of course, of course.”

“Do you happen to have any heavy weaponry?”

“Oh, heavens no.”

“Right. Didn’t think so. Explosives?”

“No.”

“Okay. Skimmers?”

“No.”

“Other flying craft?”

“Uh … no.”

“How about the guy in there with the wings. He can fly, right?”

“Benny? He’s a terranian. He refuses to fly to protest the dominance of—”

“Okay. Got it. Anyone with any military training?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Do you have any fast wheeled vehicles?”

“Fast vehicles … fast vehicles … Yes!”

“Oh, that’s goo—”

“No, wait. No.”

“Ah.”

“Would tractors from the farm count?”

“Probably not.”

“Right.”

Cole was silent, nodding to himself.

“So, how do things look?” said the mayor.

“Great,” said Cole. “Things look great.”

There was one subject on which everyone at the meeting had been in agreement: they didn’t want outside help. The cure, went the consensus, would be worse than the disease: outside help would mean outside attention, which would initiate a chain of events that would inevitably lead to the destruction of the soul of Yrnameer. Better they should all die before that happened. Right, Cole? Of course, he answered, he couldn’t agree more. No outside help.

The instant he got back to the ship that night, he fired up the communication system and broadcast a general Mayday on the law enforcement band. Just like a ship, the communication had to go through bendspace, and it was more than two hours before he was able to raise any sort of response from a Control substation.

Cole, overwhelmed with relief, described the situation in detail. When he was done, the voice on the other end explained to him that there was no such place as Yrnameer.

Yes, there is, said Cole.

No, there’s not, said the voice.

Yes, there is.

No, there’s not.

“Yes, there farging well is, because I’m on the farging planet right now,” said Cole, nearly shouting. “I should farging know whether or not it exists.”

“Okay, first? There’s no need for language like that.”

“Look, please, Runk is here. Runk! Check out your Most Wanted list. He’s way up there!”

“Do you know the fine for filing a false report?”

“Well, farging come and get me, then! Fine me!”

“Again with the language.”

“Listen: I stole Teg’s ship. I’m a ship thief. You should send a very well-armed detachment to arrest me.”

“No one could ever steal Teg’s ship—he’s too handsome.”

“He’s not that handsss—listen. Please. Just connect me to your supervisor.”

“I think I’ve wasted enough time with you. I’m putting a three-month block on your voice signature and com tag. You’ll no longer be able to engage in interplanetary communications.”

The line went dead.

“Pair of queens,” said Cole.

“Three nines,” said Bacchi.

“Crap.”

They’d been there all morning, sitting on the front porch that extended along the length of the jailhouse, lazily playing cards. Passersby would call out the inevitable friendly greeting, usually including a question about how the planning was going.

“Going great,” Cole replied each time with a big grin.

It was not going great. It was not going. Cole felt overcome by a feeling of mental lethargy, unable to find a solution to what was, after all, an insoluble problem. He was hoping inspiration would arrive soon.

He wondered how MaryAnn was doing, and when she’d be back. He had dreamed about her again last night, an innocent dream, full of wonder, and had woken up feeling hopeful. Then he remembered the situation.

He lost another hand. Over the past few hours Bacchi had managed to reduce his outstanding debt to Cole by about half.

“You’re going to have to start ch-cheating soon,” said Bacchi.

“Tell me about it.”

Bacchi shuffled the cards again. “So, you think there’s some way to—kuhkuhkuh—defend this place?”

Bacchi had developed an odd stutter and a small collection of facial tics over the past few days, the side effect of his heavy caffeine intake. He’d become attracted to the owner and barista at Café Storj, and apparently the attraction was mutual, because she kept him supplied with free lattes.

Cole, curious, had stopped by to behold the poor misguided creature. He found a petite Storjan, not unappealing if one’s tastes ran toward the reptilian end of the spectrum. When he arrived she was in the midst of a belching competition with some of the clientele, and everything became clear.

“I’ll figure something out,” said Cole.

“You mean, you’ll figure some
way
out,” said Bacchi, “for yourself.”

“I’m not running, Bacchi.”

“Of course you’re not. You’ll take me with you, won’t you?”

Cole put his feet up on the rail and leaned back in his chair. “You know what you need, Bacchi? A positive mind-set. It’s all going to work out.”

A shadow darkened the small card table. They looked up to find the spindly, black-clothed townsperson observing them silently, his bony face somber. Graef, Cole had learned his name was. He was tall enough that his bald head was still slightly higher than theirs.