The Guns of Two-Space (42 page)

The crew tried, in their rough, sailor fashion, to be kind and supportive to their passengers. Toward the end of each short voyage, the captain always held a special meal for them. The settlers were assembled for a dinner in their honor on the upperside waist and Melville always offered a toast to them. A toast that was shared wholeheartedly by his officers and crew.

"Here's to you, my fellow adventurers," he said, "and to your new lives as a part of this new frontier world. My brothers and sisters, you are the future. Work hard, live well, be happy and fertile, and keep your powder dry! I hope that someday we can meet each of you again. Until then, may God bless you and keep watch over you."

Then Brother Theo sent them forth with an ancient blessing upon their new home. "'Blessed of the Lord be this land, for the precious things of heaven, for the dew, and for the deep that coucheth beneath. And for the precious fruits brought forth by the sun, and for the precious things put forth by the moon. And for the chief things of the ancient mountains, and for the precious things of the lasting hills.'"

And these Words from a man of the cloth were a great comfort to their passengers.

In the end, Words and respect were all they had to give.

For Cuthbert Asquith XVI, one major benefit of the long trip had been a chance for target practice. And some more practice. And still
more
practice.

He had railed and sniveled at the thought of learning to shoot, but now he was surprised to learn that he actually enjoyed it! Shooting well was a joy, and once he started to practice, he could feel himself relax and his aim improve.

He had spent some time with Brother Theo and Daniel, benefiting from their tips and learning to shoot well, but he found that the most improvement simply came from practice. It was like the hoary old joke from well before the Crash:

"Hey buddy, can you tell me how I can get to Carnegie Hall?"

"Practice!"

Even though Carnegie Hall didn't exist anymore, the philosophy (and the joke) still applied.

So Asquith tried to enjoy a little shooting during every day of this interminable trip through the alleys and backroads of Westerness. He didn't stand watch, nor had he any assigned tasks as a paying passenger, and the library had palled during his first month onboard. (If you could use the term "library" to describe several shelves of classic science fiction, reference manuals and texts, and a few torrid romance novels that no one seemed to claim but were nevertheless well-thumbed and -read.)

To Asquith, the choices were fairly slim: spend each day writing and drinking until he could no longer write, or find some outside interest to fill his day.

He told himself that he already had one full-time vice called writing, and a second full-time vice of drinking would interfere with his first vice. So it was clear to him that he needed to fill the void with other interests, and pistol shooting had done wonderfully well. (Not to mention, he still remembered the incident as a young man when some so-called friends had recorded images of him at a party experimenting with some of the miscellaneous intoxicants available on Earth. The imagery had convinced him that looking like a fool was quite embarrassing, and had played a strong part in his initial decision to take the drastic step of traveling off Earth!)

Asquith was having his monkey reload his pistol, using the technique that Ulrich had taught him. And, in keeping with the coxswain's "request" Asquith only practiced this in secret, shooting from the little coxswain's private area. He found that he quickly got used to the smell of the pigeon coops and the laundry. After a lifetime on Earth, it almost felt like home.

He relaxed and took a deep breath, then let it out part way and held it as the first pistol came up and the front sight came into focus on the center of the target suspended out from the side of the Ship. He touched the nipple on one barrel and then the other <>
Crack!
<>
Crack!
Then he laid the muzzle of the pistol on his shoulder and his monkey rapidly reloaded while his left hand gun came up <>
Crack!
<>
Crack!
With all four rounds grouped nicely at the black spot in the center of the silhouette.

For Asquith, the hardest part of learning to shoot with either hand had been the coordination of twisting his one good eye so that he could see clearly down the sightline of his left pistol. At one point he had tried something called a "border shift" where, after firing with his right hand, he attempted to juggle and shift the two guns from hand to hand.

Right in the middle of this maneuver Ulrich appeared from out of nowhere. Ulrich's monkey snatched Asquith's pistols out of midair while the crazed coxswain screwed his own pistol onto Asquith's nose.

"Now, ya ain't gonna do somethink so stupkid agin, are ya?" snarled Ulrich. "Da Ship moves! An' da fightink moves. So ya
don't
wants yer gunsk outa yer hands. Got ik?"

"Heeere kittykittykitty!" added his parrotlet.

The little lunatic was like that: he and his feral monkey would show up out of nowhere, make a point, and disappear again. He wasn't malicious, but for some reason known only to God and Ulrich himself, he seemed to approve of Asquith and his shooting.

As his right gun lined up on the target he was reminded quite forcefully of their resident psychopath when he felt a rock strike the back of his head.
Whack!
Asquith's head bounced forward with the impact and he pivoted, the pistol arcing around in front of him.He felt a blow to the inside of his right arm as his pistol was smacked aside, and he felt that damned cold muzzle socket itself onto the end of his nose again like it grew there!

"Damn it, Ulrich!" he said with a whiney nasal intonation caused by the blockage of his nostrils. "What in the hell are you playing at? That hurt!"

Then his mind caught up with his body which had frozen cross-eyed staring at the barrel of Ulrich's pistol. The coxswain's monkey (looking feral and vicious as always) had its head beside Ulrich's, smiling a malevolent upside-down smile and flipping a little dagger between four hands.

Ulrich's parrotlet was bobbing happily on top of his monkey's head. The bird hopped onto the front sight of Ulrich's pistol, looked Asquith in the eye, and said, "I'm Spike! I taste like chicken!"

The coxswain laughed quietly as he removed the pistol (and the bird) making the gun disappear as the bird fluttered back up to his shoulder. "Ya know, yer responsk was pretty good there. If'ink I waskn't ready ya'd 've 'ad me in yer skights. I likesk that, I does I does."

"So why'd you do that?!"

"Yer gettink better wit' dem piskols, so's I figgers iks time fer ya ta learn how ta shootsk under combat condish-kins," replied Ulrich.

"Pray tell me, sir, whatever do you mean?" Asquith replied sarcastically. Ulrich was an interesting character, and Asquith had come to realize that the man, while he was as dangerous as a pissed-off cobra (and likely twice as fast) seemed to enjoy passing on these tidbits of combat wisdom.

Ulrich looked at him seriously. "See, ta captaink, he's damned good 'n ta furball. Fightsk like he's sum kinda crazy man, but he fightsk smart. He gotsk the best sit-yew-ational awarenessk I ever seed. But 'e needsk someone to watch 'is back. I kin cover him mosk o' da places he goes..." He paused and Asquith could have sworn he almost looked shy.
Shy? Ulrich?
 

"But 'e can't alwaysk take a bodyguard wit' 'im. You, now..." He paused and smiled—a very small, very nasty smile, but a smile nonetheless. "But you goesk wit' 'im most places. So, da better ya doesk, da better da oddsk are my captaink has some backup wut might keepsk 'im alife.

"So, I seen hows yer shootink an' yer pretty good at it. Yer fask, yer accurate, 'n yer monksk dewink good too." Ulrich's monkey
eep
ed quietly in agreement, without interrupting the steady juggling of its dagger from hand to hand to hand. His parrotlet, bobbing happily on the monkey's shoulder, echoed the sentiment.

"But ya gotsk ta git some sit-yew-ational awarenessk. So's I gotsk just da' t'ing fer it." He held up a leather strap, then folded it in half, put a small stone in it, and swung it rapidly in the air.

Something wizzed past Asquith's ear. He spun and looked, and there was a large ragged hole in the target, next to the small group of holes his bullets had made. He spun back to look at Ulrich.

Ulrich smirked malevolently. "So'sk yew'n yer monk 'r gonna keep on practicink, but I'm gonna add sumpthink. I'm gonna be shootink at ya wif dis liddle slink. So'sk if'fn yer monk ain't payink attention, yer gonna git hurt."

Asquith stared at him aghast. "Ulrich, have you completely lost whatever tiny bit of mind you possessed! If my monkey's loading my pistols he can't be looking at you, and those rocks hitting my head are liable to kill me! I know that Brother Theo says what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, but
killing
me won't make me stronger! And I am not going to be a bodyguard for Melville! I'm just shooting for the fun of it!"

Ulrich flat out laughed (something the entire crew would have been shocked to know he was even capable of) and said, "Naw, dese won'k kill ya! I gotsk some 'o da dumplinsk 'at Jones made fer ta lieutenant an' ta Guldur. Dese'll jist git yer attention! An' yer monk don't needsk ta see ta reload. Li'l sucker gotsk hands ta spare, ya see?

"So yew jist keep shootink. Yer monk'll watch yer back
an'
reload. 'E's jist gotsk ta practice it, ya see?

"An' yeah ya ain'k no bodyguard. Ya ain'k gotsk da eye fer it!" he added, smirking at the reference to Asquith's single eye. "But ya might be jist a mite bedder'n nuthink."

Asquith thought about it, ignoring Ulrich completely as he did. He turned and looked over the side at the vastness of two-space hanging in widespread panorama around him. His monkey
eek
ed for his attention, and when Asquith looked at it, it nodded its head and flourished its belaying pin in one set of hands and a bullet and ramrod in another pair.

Asquith smiled and scratched its head gently. "So, little man, you think we should learn this as well, hmm?" He turned back to face Ulrich and his monkey again, catching sight of an anxious look on the coxswain's face before it changed back to the vicious leer he was used to seeing.
God help me, the man is serious!
Asquith thought.

"All right, you sawed-off psychopath, let's get on with it! If you're going to ruin my morning of shooting to teach us a new trick we might as well do it right!"

"Aye, 'ats da spirik!" said Ulrich. "Give a man a fishk, an' 'e'll eat fer a day. Teachk 'im ta fight, an' 'e'll feast on da meaty marrow of hisk foes fer a lifetime!" Ulrich smirked as Asquith tried to digest this morsel of psychotic wisdom. Then the coxswain's hand blurred forward launching a dumpling at Asquith. "
Crack!
" resounded from the belaying pin in his monkey's hands as it screeched loudly in surprise.

"What in hell!" Asquith screamed, shocked and surprised that Ulrich had launched a dumpling at his head the moment he agreed.
Dumpling hell!
he thought.
That's a rock, I don't care what Broadax thinks!
Then he was even more surprised to find that he had a pistol in his right hand. But his final and most significant surprise was to find that his pistol had been smacked aside and that damned muzzle was screwed onto his nose again.

"Ya know, yer gettink purdy good at haulink out yer piskol when yer surprisked!" Ulrich praised him. "Jist 'member when yer shootink yer fair game fer me from now on!" he chortled as he sidled back toward his personal empire of laundry piles and pigeon coops.

"I tell you, the man is absolutely bug-nuts crazy!" Asquith whispered to his monkey as he turned back toward his target. The monkey
eek
ed fervently in agreement.

He glanced around and made sure Ulrich was nowhere in sight.

The pistol rose again to the target < "
Crack!"
<>
"Crack!"
followed by a resounding
Whack!
and an "Eek!" from his monkey.

"Damn it," muttered Asquith, not even bothering to look, "this is going to take some getting used to." His monkey muttered quietly in agreement. Where was that crazy coxswain? He glanced around again, still not seeing the man or his monkey.

The rest of the morning continued on in the same way, punctuated by the sound of gunfire, resounding
Whacks!
and the occasional "Owww!" followed by an apologetic "Eep."

As Asquith could attest, the acquisition of a new skill, no matter how laudable, could involve considerable pain, not to mention the odd knot on the head!

"What doesn't kill us makes us stronger, huh?" he muttered resentfully. <> "
Crack!"
<> "
Crack!"
 

"That man is nuts!"

"Eep!" replied his monkey in fervent agreement.

A typical visit was their stop at DunFoundIt!

DunFoundit! was the dull runt of a sickly litter of ports. The capital city was DunDidIt! and (according to the port guide) the local cemetery was named DunLostIt! The local citizenry were very insistent that the proper pronunciation and spelling
did
include the exclamation point.

As they approached the Pier a one-masted lugger, laying proud claim to a solitary 12-pounder and crewed by militia men, approached in a somewhat uncertain fashion.

"Personally, I think they're drunk!" Fielder said in a musing tone.

"Drunk, hmmm? Truth to tell, I think I'd prefer that to what I fear is the real culprit," Melville responded sadly.

"Incompetence combined with lack of practice?" Fielder hazarded a guess.

A sigh. "I do believe so," Melville responded glumly. "I know they're focused on survival and making the planet's development profitable, but is it too much to ask for them to at least spend
some
time drilling in two-space? Or at least to find someone reasonably competent to drive the boat?"