The Days of the Golden Moons (The Two Moons of Rehnor, Book 5) (5 page)

Chapter 10

Jerry

“So
then, this pterodactyl thing started circling above us like a huge vulture,
just looking for one of us to pick off and go eat.  I told Katie we needed to
get the hell out of there, and she was all for it, but the ambassadors were
insisting they had to reach some kind of agreement first.”

“I
see,” Tuman said thumbing through the sandwich case for his favorite tuna fish
salad sandwich.  I already had my veggie sprouts.  I had thought about skipping
a sandwich and eating just Tempeh with greens and maybe some melon for
dessert.  At the last minute, I went back to my sprout sandwich.  I was a
creature of habit, unfortunately. 

Tuman
and I had been meeting a couple times a week now for lunch.  He and I would
pick up sandwiches or sometimes he would get a hot lunch like a fish taco or a
burger, and I would get some soup.  I never looked at his burger with envy, not
even once.

“I
guess Ron had them all figured out already though because the agreement they
reached was with him.  A few months later, Altaris became part of the Empire,”
I continued my story.

“Ron?” 
Tuman tossed every sandwich in the case aside.  “I guess I’ll have to have egg
salad today.  The tuna fish salad always sells out first.”

“Maybe
next week, we should eat lunch earlier,” I replied, getting my iced green tea
out of the refrigerated case.  “Yeah, we all called him Ron back then.  None of
us knew.  Well, we knew he was weird, but none of us had any idea he’d end up
as this.”  I held up the coin I would use to pay for my lunch.  It had Ron’s
face engraved on it which by itself was pretty weird.

“Mhm,”
Tuman responded as we headed over to the cashier.  “I have changed my mind.  I
think I would rather have chicken.”  He turned around again and went back to
the sandwich case.  I followed him and waited while he thumbed through the
sandwiches yet again.  I was thinking about my afternoon appointments, the
pregnant mother who was coming for yoga instruction and the old guy who needed
some honeysuckle tincture for his arthritis when a voice behind me called my
name.

“Dr.
Moonbeam,” he said.  “You are a fraud!  I am dying, and it is because of you!”

I
turned around, and there was the Talasian with the case of acne.  His acne had
gone from bad to worse.  Maybe it wasn’t acne after all.  He was now completely
covered in white pustules, some of which appeared to be swelling, bursting, and
oozing greenish pus.  Behind him stood two other Talasian guys, friends of his
who looked like they were ready to blame me for his condition as well as the
lack of world peace. 

My
first thought was that there was obviously an underlying mental disturbance in
this guy that was manifesting itself in his skin.  My second thought was that
my jaw hurt really badly after his big fist connected with it.  I fell on the
floor and banged the back of my head against the sandwich case.  Damn, that
hurt. 

Laying
there on my back, I woozily watched as Tuman took a knife out of his pocket and
showed it to the Talasian.  The Talasian wasn’t afraid as he and his buddies
all took out guns.  Tuman, fortunately, wasn’t stupid and backed into the
sandwich case, arms raised in surrender. 

I
thought about the Talasian and his acne, and I remembered once reading about a
variant of impetigo specific to Talas which could spread to the brain and cause
madness and violence.  There wasn’t a flower or yoga position that could
counteract it.  This guy needed some serious meds. 

“What’s
going on here?”  The owner of the store cried, racing over to us.  One of the Talasians
grabbed him and held his pistol to the guy’s head. 

“I’m
going to shoot, Dr. Moonbeam and then we’ll shoot you,” the sick Talasian
declared, now pointing his guy at my own head. 

Strangely,
I was very calm.  Maybe it was because I was already concussing and my head
hurt like hell or maybe it was just the years of Spaceforce training finally
kicking in. 

Tuman
had tried to sneak away until the third Talasian pointed his gun at my friend. 
I saw Tuman’s eyes flicker to the right and though my own vision was blurry, I
inconspicuously glanced that way too. 

In
the corner of the deli, crouched behind the cheese counter, a woman was
creeping, a large stick like a broom handle in her hands. 

While
the Talasian was raving about acne in his brain and the other guys were taking
bets on who would bleed more, the woman slipped behind the bread counter and
past the beverage cooler to come up behind the guy holding the grocer.  She
made some kind of a scream, the martial arts kind of
Hi Ya
and whacked
the broom handle down on the Talasian’s head. 

The
Talasian spun around, dropping the grocer and fired his pistol at the produce
guy, fortunately missing him.  The woman screamed again and leapt into the air,
knocking the Talasian in the solar plexus with her feet and then following up
on his neck with stick, first one side then the other.  The guy dropped his gun
and clutched his stomach and then toppled over completely as the woman snatched
up his pistol from the floor.  In the meantime, his buddy who had his own gun
trained on Tuman, turned around to watch this and ended up with Tuman’s knife
at his throat.  Tuman grabbed the gun away from him and forced him to the
floor, sitting on his back to keep him down. 

“Drop
it!”  The woman said and aimed at the pustuled one. 

“I
need to kill him,” the Talasian said.  “If I kill him the acne in my brain will
go away.”

“Not
likely,” the woman replied.  “Just drop the gun and then go to a real doctor.”

“Hey,”
I protested.  “I am a real doctor.”

“Shut
up,” the Talasian said and turned his gun back on me.

“Last
chance,” the woman called.  “Drop it now.”  The guy on the floor by her feet
let out a groan so she whacked him with the stick again and he shut up.  “Drop
your gun.”

“No!” 
The chamber clicked.  I didn’t care.  Really.  My head was hurting, and I was
watching this from some higher plane.  I imagined that the woman with the Talasian’s
gun was Katie who had come to rescue me from wherever she had been hiding. 

A
gun shot sounded, and my head hurt even more.  I was sure I was dead now.  I
was floating above the grocery store, gazing at my veggie sprout sandwich, the
sprouts falling out and crawling across the linoleum like little worms. 
Someone was screaming.  It might have been me.  There was warm sticky blood on
my face.  I swiped at it with my hand and looked at it curiously.  It was
greenish, turning yellow.  Talasians bleed green, I considered.  I bleed red. 
This couldn’t be mine.

“She
shot off my hand!  Help me, Doc!  I’ve lost my hand!”  The Talasian was yelling
and shaking me so even though my head hurt, even though I was probably dead, I
tried to sit up and look at his hand.  Yep, she shot it off.  Was there a Yoga
pose for losing a hand?

“Dr.
Moonbeam,” Tuman said.  “Help the man.”  I caught my breath and tried to focus
my attention on the bleeding stump of the pustuled arm.  “You need to make a
tourniquet.  Use this.”  Tuman took off his shirt and using his knife, he cut
it into shreds.  I started to wrap the stump to staunch the bleeding as a bunch
of police and medics came in.  I did a pretty good job considering I didn’t
have any sealant or even a medical kit.  The medic himself complimented me as
he fingered the bump on the back of my head while the Talasian was loaded onto
a stretcher.

“Well,
I used to be in Spaceforce,” I bragged.  “After that I was head of ER
operations at SdK Rozari.”

“Did
you treat them with flowers?”  The Talasian yelled as the medics carted him
away. 

I
refused to go to the hospital as my dizziness was abating, and my head hurt but,
not beyond anything a skullcap tincture couldn’t resolve.  The other Talasians
were handcuffed and escorted out, and then Tuman, the grocer and I were taken
outside to speak with the police.

“Where’s
the woman?” I asked the officer as we sat down at my favorite picnic table. 

“The
sandwich lady with a broom handle?”  The guy smirked.  “Took out three Talasians
bad guys while the three of you stood around like numb nuts?”

“I
took out one of them,” Tuman shrugged.  “Sort of.”

“Does
anybody know who she is?” I asked, my heart suddenly beginning to race.  I
tried to remember what she looked like, but my vision had been foggy and she
had some kind of hairnet or scarf on her head.

“Yeah,”
the grocer replied.  “She works for me.  Her name is Anna King.”

“Anna
King?” I repeated.

“Anna
King,” Tuman smirked.

“Anna
King.”  The officer jotted into his tablet.  “Where does she live?”

“In
a beach shack down that way.”  The grocer pointed.

“A
beach shack?” I said.

“Anna
King, that’s very clever,” Tuman chuckled.

“I’ll
need to go talk to her.”  The officer stood up.  “She’s got to make a
statement.  The Talasian may file charges.”

“She
saved my life,” I protested.

“I
know,” the officer replied.  “The prosecutor will take that into account.  She
won’t be charged.  We’re under Rehnorian law now.  In the old days, she might
have gone to jail for this.”

“I
have a feeling she is about to,” Tuman said.

“What
does that mean?”  The officer asked.

“I
suggest you contact the Imperial Guard before you approach her.”  Tuman glanced
at the courthouse.  “They are looking for her.  If you go there without them,
she’ll run away again.  I think we are all tired of her running away.”

I
looked at the courthouse banner with Katie’s face smiling down on us, and then
I put two and two together and came up with five.  I took a coin back out of my
pocket and now studied Ron’s face and then Tuman’s.  “Your famous nephew,” I
concluded.

Tuman
just smiled.

Chapter 11

Katie

The
Talasian got off a shot which fortunately missed Charlie, the produce guy, but
scraped across my arm on the way there.  It wasn’t deep, but it was bleeding
and hurt like hell.  I probably needed some sealant, as I dripped blood all
over the sand as I stumbled toward my shack. 

At
one point, I stopped and ripped up my apron, tying it around the wound and
tightening the ends with my teeth.  The blood quickly soaked through.  I got
home and sat down, propping my arm up on a stack of books and pressing the rest
of my apron against it to try and staunch the bleeding.  To make matters worse,
this was the same arm and about the same place that I had been shot at once
before by Prince Akan.  I had a feeling this wasn’t the only old wound I had
just opened up. 

Heavy
footsteps sounded on my front porch, and a half a second later someone was
knocking.

“Go
away,” I yelled in English.  “Leave me alone.”

“Open
the door,” a man said.  “Quickly, before they come.”

I
was too tired to get up, and I didn’t want to move my arm, and I wasn’t about to
open the door anyway.  “Get the hell off my porch,” I cried.  “If you try to
break in, I’ll shoot.  I still have the gun.”

“Please,”
the guy said.  “I just want to help you.  Anna?  I promise I won’t hurt you. 
There’s blood on the steps.  I’m a doctor, I can help.”

A
doctor?  I didn’t think there were any doctors in this town except for that
quack Moonbeam whose Holistic Health Center was right by the beach.  “Do you
have any sealant?” I called.  “I just need some sealant.”

“No,
I don’t but let me take a look.  At least I can clean it and wrap it.  If I
have to, I can stitch it.”

“Oh,
damn,” I sighed.  It was hurting like hell, and I didn’t have a lot of strength
to argue.  Frankly, I was getting tired of fighting.  I was tired of running. 
I was tired of arguing and I was tired of making sandwiches.  Maybe it was time
to go back.  “Alright, come in, the door’s unlocked.”

The
door opened and Dr. Moonbeam walked through.  He knelt on the floor by my feet
and gently removed the apron bandages. 

“I
can fix this,” he said softly and looked into my eyes.

I
looked back into his and nearly passed out. 

“I
told you, I’d always take care of you, Goldie,” he said.  “And I will.”

Chapter 12

Tuman

When
I first came to Derius II, I believed myself to be on the far reaches of the
galaxy.  I thought myself beyond the grasp of my family and especially my
nephew.  Like a great octopus though, he reached out in all directions, and
whether he knew it or not, sucked me in to one of his tentacles.

I
had an octopus this morning.  It was delivered to me by a fellow fisherman, and
I had paid him five precious dollars for it.  I was going to cut it up and put
it on my iced table to sell to the blue tourist people who came to the market
and desired such a thing.  Personally, I found octopi absolutely revolting. 

I
had just set the great ugly creature upon my chopping block and was proceeding
to skin off the outer layer when Dr. Moonbeam happened upon me and invited me
to join him for lunch.  Happy to have an excuse not to dissect the octopus, I
placed it carefully back in my cooler and set out with this odd human fellow. 
He had far too much hair on his face and far too little on his head.  He had a
nervous habit of pushing his glasses up his nose every few moments even when they
had not slipped at all.  He also had a tragic fascination for my niece, the
Empress, whose picture adorned the town square though she, herself, had long
since disappeared.

I
watched his face closely whenever he began to relate a story to me of my niece
and himself and their lives in the Allied Spaceforce.  It was obvious, though I
hoped not equally as apparent to everyone, that he had loved her.  Even now,
his feelings were plainly written upon his face.  It was interesting too, how
he spoke of my grand-nephew, the Prince Shika, with both adoration and devotion
choking his voice. 

I
was conflicted then on what to do about him for I knew the secret to her
whereabouts.  I had fished the coast and these waters for many years and nearly
nine years ago, saw the spaceplane that crashed in the ocean not far from these
shores.  I felt the wave that brought the woman and the Talasian man ashore as
it rocked my boat and sent me flying from my chair.  It also tossed one of my
best reels into the water.  I headed ashore to where the two bodies had washed
up, but before I could anchor and launch my tender, the police came and took
them away. 

I
did not know who they were or how they came to crash on this planet until early
this year when the Emperor became our overlord, and it was announced that his
lady was here.

I
saw her the first time whilst I was still out at sea, fishing the waters by the
cottage that sat directly on the shore.  I had seen this cottage many times
throughout the years, and I had watched the tenants as they came and went.  It
was the perfect location for someone to hide away, and had I neither boat nor
marina to settle in, I would have chosen exactly that spot. 

When
she arrived at the cottage, I knew her instantly for her looks were quite
famous by then.  Even so, she was known to me in a way I could only say,
resonated in my soul, as if we had met in a past life.

I
did not believe in coincidence, where we are and where we have been is all part
of a great plan.  I was here on Derius for more than twenty and five years,
separated from my wife and children, my father and brother, and all that I had
known, solely for the purpose of awaiting her arrival so that I might assist in
changing the galaxy yet again.

Dr.
Moonbeam had preceded me to the steps of the cottage, and I could hear his
voice inside.  There was blood on the porch, and the door was slightly askew.  I
pushed it open further and went inside.  The doctor was stitching the lady’s
arm with a needle and thread as she sat in a chair clutching tightly to a half
gone glass of beer.

“All
done,” the doctor said, now dabbing at the wound with a cloth.  The lady winced
and then swiping at her tears, she looked up at me and cried, “Now who the hell
are you?”

Before
I could answer, she made a move for the gun which lay on the table next to a
pile of bloody cloth.  The doctor reached for it quicker and snatched it from
her grasp, tossing it to me.  I removed all the bullets from the chamber and
then pocketed them, putting the useless pistol upon the kitchen counter.

“Give
that back!”  She ordered, pulling away from the doctor and rising unsteadily to
her feet.

“No,
you don’t, Katie,” the doctor declared, pushing her back down.  “No more
playing with guns for you.”

“My
playing with guns saved your life, Jerry.”  She spat angrily, and then turning
back to me, she waited for an introduction.

“This
is Tuman,” the doctor said, rising to his feet.  “He’s an in-law of yours.”

“Rekah’s
father,” she said, the fire having died from her voice.  “I see the resemblance. 
There’s some ibuprofen in the bathroom.  Would you get me some please, Jerry? 
And an ice pack?”

“I
can mix you up a tincture with white willow bark.”

“No,”
she snapped.  “Just get me some pills.”

She
turned back to me when the doctor had left the room.  “You’re the guy with the
fish stand, the one who always wants the tuna sandwiches.”

“Ay
yah.  You make delicious sandwiches.  The grocer will sorely miss you.”

She
closed her eyes and swallowed the pills the doctor handed her whilst I went to
the kitchen and made up the ice pack.  “Were you spying on me?”

“I
have lived here twenty-five years longer than you have.”

She
nodded.  “But you called them?”

“Of
course,” I replied and went to the window to look out.  There were people far
down the beach near the town though they appeared to be moving in this
direction.  News travels fast in small villages where excitement is rare, and
tourists are plentiful.

“Why?”
she asked.  “Why would you turn me in when you don’t want to go back there
yourself?”

“Someone
has to stop him from invading Rozari.  Better you than me,” I said.  “I
couldn’t stop him anyway.  He never listened to me.”

“He
never listened to me either,” she replied.  “My influence on him is overrated.”

“You
need to try,” the doctor said. 

She
studied the doctor’s hairy face. 

“Why
are you here, Jerry?”

“I
went looking for something,” the doctor shrugged, “And, I was on a path, and
the path turned and I didn’t like it, so I turned around and went on another
path and here I am.”

“I
haven’t a clue what you just said,” the lady responded, her brow furrowing.

“I
didn’t understand it the first time I heard it,” I remarked.  “I don’t
understand it now either.”

“Are
you coming back with me?”  She asked the both of us. 

I
nodded.  It was time after all for me to go home.  Moreover, if I left now, I
could avoid carving up the octopus.

“I’m
going to stay here awhile longer,” the doctor replied.  “If you show up after
all this time with me, I’m liable to be executed even though all I did was sew
up your arm.”

“No,
Jerry.  I won’t let that happen,” the lady insisted.

“I’m
not about to risk it.  Furthermore, I kind of like it here.  The other day, I
was meditating, and I realized that I’ve spent practically my entire adult life
chasing after something I was never going to catch.  Right now, I’m just going
to settle down, stop running and plod along this path to see where it takes
me.”

“Good
thinking,” I said.

“This
town needs a good doctor like you,” the lady said.

“Yeah. 
I probably should add a little bit of conventional medicine to my practice
too.  Sometimes, things like sealant and ibuprofen are kind of useful.”

“Thanks
again, Jerry,” she said and reached up to kiss the doctor’s forehead, which was
about the only place on his face that was not covered in hair.

“Thank
you, Goldie,” he replied.  “You can repeat the ibuprofen every six hours as
needed.  Once you get picked up by the Empire, have somebody take out my
stitches and redo the wound with sealant otherwise you’ll end up with a nasty
scar.”

“I
am already well scarred,” the lady replied and then turned to me.  “Tuman?  If
you’ve got a cell, will you please call Thad and order us a spaceplane?”

“Of
course, Madame,” I replied as a knock sounded on the door.  I stood up to admit
in the Imperial Guardsmen.