Toxicity (27 page)

“What’s a cowboy?” said Svool,
uneasily.

“Many, many years ago there was a
place called The Wildy Wild Wicked West. It was very wild. And wicked, I
presume. There were lots of horses and men who ate beans out of pans. They
would dance around fires showing their bare behinds and whoop and holler and
make love to their sisters. Sometimes, they would fight injuns.”

“Injuns?” said Lumar, eyes
narrowing sceptically.

“Yes. Injuns.”

“What’s an injun?”

“I haven’t got a clue,” admitted
Zoot.

“Hey, well, that doesn’t sound
too bad,” said Svool, breaking into a grin. “Because
we’re not injuns!”
He
pushed past Zoot, waving both his arms in the air, a wide smile on his open
face, his golden curls tumbling behind him. “Hey there, friends, are we so very
very glad to see you! You see, our starship - that’s a big floaty thing in the
sky -” he made a shape with his hand and mimed a big floaty thing in the sky, “it
crashed in the sea with a
SPLOOSH!
and we were stranded here, on this
heap of toxic shi... on this lovely world of yours.”

The horses had slowed, their
hooves stomping dry dust, and Lumar noted they had formed into a semi-circle,
with the biggest rider at the centre. He had a cruel scar running from temple
to jaw; it looked angry and purple, like it had only recently healed. The man
rubbed it absently, his eyes fixed on Svool, his mouth narrowed into a cruel
bloodless line.

The horses stopped, a couple of
them pawing the dirt.

Svool was still jabbering, “...so
as you can see, we’re here in this fine village, a-ha-ha-ha, and I suppose it’s
your
village, anyway we was wondering if you could see it in your hearts
to be kind, and generous, and give us a comfy place to sleep for tonight,
preferably with a double bed for me and the little green lady here,
nudge-nudge, you never know your luck, and then you could maybe pack us up some
generous supplies and maybe supply some transport, a groundcar or groundvan
would be just perfect, and we’ll make our way to the nearest city, which I
believe is called Organophosphate City, which is a very strange name if I may
be so bold.”

There was a long, curious
silence.

The seven mean mounted riders
looked down on Svool. The biggest man, with the scar, glanced up and his eyes
passed expertly over Lumar, and she would have reddened if her skin hadn’t been
green, for his eyes mentally undressed her, then moved on to Zoot. With the
PopBot, he showed no surprise. Lumar had reckoned him to be a heathen,
brainless, backward local on an idiot metal horse; now, she revised her
impression. He was dangerous. Very dangerous. They all were. And her eyes
picked out the guns.

“How do, Sheriff,” said the big
man, his voice a slow long drawl. “I’m General Bronson, but you can just call
me General Bronson.”

There was an undercurrent of
laughter from the men, and this wasn’t the laughter of a few guys having a bit
of fun; these people were killers. Yes, they were dressed in outlandish clothes
and were misplaced in this jungle environment; but they were killers all right.
Lumar’s hands tightened on the staff.

“Hi there, General Bronson!”
beamed Svoolzard, grinning like the village fool and flapping his hands around
like they were chicken wings. Lumar recognised his danger immediately. Svool
did not see their menace; he heard the laughter, and being the egotistical
maniac he was, immediately thought they were laughing
with him.
It did
not occur to Svool that somebody could laugh
at him.
“So then, what I
believe I need to do at this juncture is point out that, tush, I am
a little
bit famous,
I know, I know, my name is Svoolzard Koolimax XXIV, Third Earl
of Apobos, and yes, it’s me, I’ve been on the cover of
GGG Time Magazine,
and
my books have been best sellers across the entire Quad-Galaxy, and you may
recognise me from the many vidbox recordings I’ve done, everything from my own
poetry, which of course is my personal favourite, to several famous
reimaginings of some of the
Great Classics,
as they are humorously
known. It was indeed
I,
gentlemen, who rewrote Shakespeare’s entire
collection of Sonnets, I know, I know, I don’t need thanking for that little gem;
I reworked T. S. Eliot’s
The Wasteland
so that it, you know, made some
sense, and I have also been instrumental in the redrafting and modifying of
Tennyson’s
The Lotus-Eaters.”
He coughed, stepped his legs apart, and
thrust one hand out before him as must any great orator, and before Lumar could
stop him, Svoolzard boomed in a loud crooning voice:

“Branches
they bore of that enchanted stem,

With
quite a bit of flower and fruit, which they gave

To
each, and whoever received those bits of flower and fruit,

Tried
to eat them,

And
tasted the gushing of the waves, as if drinking water,

And
far, far away they did seem to dance and jiggle

On
alien shores; and if a friend did speak,

His
voice was thin, like voices from a very long way away,

And
they looked like they were asleep, yet awake!

And
lo!

Music
in my ears like a beating heart, there was. Hurrah.”

So lost was he in his recital, in
his brutal murdering of Tennyson, that Svoolzard failed to see General Bronson
slowly draw his hefty black pistol and point it straight at him.

Awaiting his applause with
rapturous expression, Svool
finally
opened his eyes and his mouth
dropped open.

“Say another word,” drawled
General Bronson from around his cigar, “and I’ll shoot yer fucking teeth out
the back of yer head.” He hawked and spat on the ground, and sighted down the
pistol.

“Ah...” began Svool, and Lumar
hurried up and kicked him in the back of the shin. Her eyes shifted right to
Zoot.

“I’ll handle this,” said the
PopBot quietly, and drifted forward on a stream of ions so that he was directly
between Bronson’s gun and Svoolzard’s head. The PopBot surveyed the large man
on the large metal horse.

“I suggest you put down your
weapon,” said Zoot.

“Get out of the way, you little
bastard.”

“I’m warning you; if you continue
to pursue this course of action, I assure you, you will regret it.”

“I’m warning you; if you continue
to pursue this course of action, I assure you, you will regret it,”
squeaked one of Bronson’s men in
a high falsetto, and they all sniggered.

“Right,” said Zoot, but before he
could do anything, Bronson
fired.
There was a
WHAMP
sound, but no
bullet, and Zoot dropped from the air and spun a few rotations in the dirt,
before lying still.

The band of cowboys burst out
laughing, and Bronson levelled the gun at Svool once more. Reaching forward, he
adjusted a tiny switch on its body. “Throw down the pretty sword, boy, and I
won’t switch this beast to metal bullets and, as they say,
fill yer full of
lead.”
General Bronson stared down his long nose and longer pistol at
Svoolzard and Lumar. He looked extremely mean, and like he meant business,
which he probably did.

“I’d better do as he says,”
muttered Svool.

“Coward,” muttered Lumar.

“Hey, he has a gun!”

“Yeah, well, I have a -” she
turned with awesome speed, as if to hurl the sharpened stick like a spear.
There came a
crack
and a whip caught the top of the staff, dragging it
from Lumar’s stunned hands. A second crack of the whip caught her cheek,
slicing through green skin and sending blood trickling down her face. A
cigar-chomping, narrow, evil face grinned at her, and the man with the whip
jumped down off his horse.

“She looks like she needs a
horse-whippin’ to me, Bronson,” said the man, and spat a glob of brown glob
onto the dirt. “And then, yee har! We’ll have some fun with this pretty little
green lady!”

“The only fun you’ll have with me
is when I shove my fist down your throat!” She snarled. But the whip cracked,
even as Lumar leapt with cat-like speed and grace. The whip was faster. It curled
and snapped round like her like a live electric snake,
humming.
The whip
plucked Lumar from the air and deposited her at the man’s feet, trussed up and
hissing.

He knelt. Leant forward. And
kissed her.

Lumar struggled, kicking in the
dirt, and Bronson strode over and kicked his man in the head, so that he
tumbled sideways with a grunt, lying alongside the seething figure of Lumar and
staring up at the General with angry eyes.

“What you do that for?” snapped
the fallen cowboy.

“Leave her be,” said General
Bronson, and gestured to Svool. “We have this one to deal with first. And he’s
a dangerous bastard, I can tell.” He hawked and spat, then chewed down on his
cigar.

Now all seven riders had
dismounted from their curious metal horses. The man in the dirt climbed back to
his feet. Lumar was hissing and snarling on the ground, but Bronson kicked her
in the face, and she was quiet.

All seven riders pulled out their
pistols and pointed them at Svoolzard, who visibly paled, and lifted his hands,
and took a step back. “Whoa,” he said, “what are you guys doing? Do you know
who I am? Do you
know
how famous I am? Do you
know
the kinds of
poetry I write? The wonderful novels I have created? I have
film deals
in
the pipeline! I am going to
act
in my own movie! I am... I am a
genius!”

“That may be so,” said Bronson,
coolly, looking down his levelled pistol, “but you took up the position of
Sheriff in this here town, and we don’t want no Law Makers coming and taking
away our business.”

“What? Sheriff? Eh?”

“You put on the badge, son,”
snorted Bronson. “Now, you represent the Law. Now, you
are
the Law.”

“I am the Law?” squeaked
Svoolzard. “Trust me, my friend, trust me when I say this: I am
not
the
Law. Or even the law. I have no interest in the police. Or sheriffs. I have no
interest in criminals, you can go on and about and do whatever the hell you
like, I won’t arrest you, I can’t arrest you, how could I arrest you? I have no
gun.”

There was a
thud
as the
gun landed at his feet.

“Pick it up,” said Bronson, drawing
a second pistol.

“What?”

“Pick up the shooter, son,” said
General Bronson, and his cigar chomped from one side of his mouth to the other.

“Ha-ha,” said Svool.

“If you think this is a laughing
matter, Law Man, I’ll shoot your fucking nose through the middle of your face.”

The manic grin fell from Svool’s
features as if dragged by a charging horse. At last, the severity of the
situation kicking him in the balls, he stared at Bronson, then at the other six
riders in their dust-stained ancient clothing.
What madness is this? What
craziness? Who are these bloody lunatics? Where did they come from? What’s
going on? What do they bloody well want from me? All I want is sex and drugs
and gorgeous-girlfriend-sex-honey. I didn’t want none of this shit; I
still
don’t want none of this shit; I’m a lover, not a fighter! I’m a genius poet,
not a gun-toting wildy wicked wild west sheriff. Oh, God. Oh, hell. By the Holy
Mother of Manna, how do I get out of this crap?

“Pick up the gun.”

“No.”

“Be careful, Law Maker, or you’ll
make me angry.”

“Will you
stop
calling me ‘Law
Maker,’” snapped Svool, his eyes flashing angry. “I am
not
a sheriff! I
was captured by some little pygmy cannibal things, and they burnt all my
clothes, and I came into this damn village or town or shithole or whatever the
tox it is, and I was wearing fucking
leaves,
man. You understand that?
Leaves
over my nuptials. And the first damn house I went into had these clothes,
right, so I put them on rather than be naked. But I’m telling you this, I didn’t
want to take on no responsibility for being the sheriff of this here town, and
I’m not
going
to take on the responsibility of this here town! So there.”
He practically stomped his foot in indignation.