Michael D. Britton

GOING TO THE DOGS

by

Michael D. Britton

So much for the planet.

As the debris from what used to be Gerlax Prime approached my skiff from behind, I punched the throttle and accelerated to G-50 in a heartbeat, outrunning the hurtling chunks of rock.

The explosion of my business partner’s home world shrunk into the distance behind me, a trillion tiny sparks expanding into the blackness of space.

Franco was probably one of those little flaming points of light, fizzling out, becoming interstellar dust.

Maybe one day his atoms would help form a new star, or a planet – or become part of a beautiful nebula.

Regardless, the universe will be better off without Franco’s atoms running around in the form of a man.

A slimy, deceitful, cretinous thug of a man, who killed my wife.

#

It all started just over a week ago, when Anna suggested we go with Franco and his girlfriend Selas to Yoro Beta, a so-called “pleasure planet” in the Georgian System.

“It’ll be fun, Hilo,” she said.  “We’ll have a great time, Hilo,” she said.  “We can let your brother run the store while we’re gone,” she said.

Reluctantly, I agreed.  My brother Shentu isn’t the brightest laser in the array, but he’s responsible, if plodding.

So I said, “Fine.  But we can’t be gone for more than a week.”

“A week!” she shrieked.  She was smiling and clapping her hands together like a little girl.  “I figured you’d say we could only go for the weekend!”

And so she started packing.

I called up Shentu, and a couple days later, the four of us – me, Anna, Franco and Selas – hopped in my skiff and off we went.

Straight into the heart of darkness.

#

Things were going fine the first couple of days.

We played pencha and a few rounds of julinga hoops, swam in the purple waters at the palm-lined beach, enjoyed massages from beautiful Yorans, purchased useless souvenirs, ate delectable meals – everything you’d expect from Yoro Beta.

On the third day, Franco insisted we visit the dog races.  The girls didn’t want to go (and frankly, neither did I).  The girls got to go visit an art gallery, while Franco dragged me to watch eighty kilo quadruped creatures called jackos chase around in a circle.  Franco called it the dog races because it reminded him of something he’d once seen on Earth.

So we arrived at the racing dome, a huge complex filled with tracks of various kinds (everything from insect races to hoverslips to four-wheeled combustion vehicles), and Franco said, “Here, Hilo, take this thousand tabs and place a bet for me – Vernal Equinox in the third race.”

I said, “Why don’t you place it yourself?”

He said he had to run to the restroom and the betting window was closing.  “Besides,” he said, “it’ll give you some experience outside your sheltered little life.”  Then he disappeared into the crowd.

I was left literally holding the bag, and the clock was ticking, so I did as I was asked.

“A thousand tabs on Vernal Equinox in the third race,” I said.

“A thousand?  Good luck, buddy,” said the short, copper-skinned man behind the glass.

“Why you say that?” I asked.

“I take it you’ve seen the odds?  A thousand tabs is a lot to lay down on a fifty-to-one shot.  But it’s your money.”

Actually, it wasn’t.  He handed me a ticket and I made my way to the observation levels.

I met up with Franco there.  “Hey, what’s the deal with this fifty-to-one jacko you’re betting on?” I asked.  “I mean, how can that be the odds, anyway?  I’m no mathematician, but it doesn’t look to me like there are even fifty animals in the race.”

“There aren’t,” said Franco, lighting up a cigarillo the size of a toothpick.  “They run ‘em ten at a time.  But ol’ Equinox only has three legs, so he’s not so highly favored to win, see?”

“Three legs?  You bet on a three-legged jacko?  With a thousand tabs?  What are you smokin’, anyway?”

Franco just laughed.  “Martian cigarillos, my man.  Finest in the galaxy.”

The “dogs” lined up for the third race, and Franco and I shoved our way through the smelly, sweaty bodies to the front of the viewing deck.  A snapping sound, and the creatures were off and running.

Or, in the case of Vernal Equinox, off and limping.

“I can’t believe they even let that thing race,” I yelled over the throng.  “Shouldn’t they just put the poor beast out of its misery?”

“Keep watching,” yelled Franco without taking his eyes off the track.

A moment later, the oddest thing occurred.  The jacko in the lead, a dark brown animal with white spotting in its hind quarters, suddenly lurched toward the outside of the track, crashing into the jacko in the number two spot.

The two tumbled together, legs flying in all directions, and the rest of the tightly grouped pack – except for the far trailing Vernal Equinox – all piled up like a hover wreck.

As the animals scrambled and whimpered in a pile, Vernal Equinox limped along, slow and steady, and passed the mess on the far outside edge of the track.

The confused creatures in the pileup never really got reoriented – they just stumbled around in a daze and licked at their wounds – and Equinox hobbled the rest of the way to the finish line unchallenged.

“You see that?  You see that?” Franco grinned at me.  “I just made a quick fifty grand, my man.”

“How did you know that was going to happen?” I asked.

“What?” he asked.  “Know?  Know what?  What are you talking about?  I didn’t know anything.  You just get instincts when you’ve been doing this for a while.  Now come on, let’s go collect my winnings.  I’ll buy dinner tonight.”

Something smelled very unpleasant – and it wasn’t the jacko droppings.  But I let it pass for the time being.

Later that night, Franco showed up at our door right when we were about to go to sleep.

“We gotta leave.  Leave Yoro Beta,” he said.

He was sweating, but it was cool in the climate-controlled hotel.

“What are you talking about? What’s the matter with you, Franco?” I asked.  “Come in here for a minute,” I said, opening the door all the way.

“No – no time!  I’ve got a shuttle waiting out back to take us up to the orbital.  How fast can your skiff go, anyway?”

Franco looked like he was hopped up on Stimmies – he couldn’t quit dancing back and forth, like he had a hot foot or something.

“What did you do?” I asked with an intentionally accusatory tone.

“Nothing.  Now let’s go.”

Anna came to the door with a sheet wrapped around her body.  “Where’s Selas?” she asked Franco.

“She’s uh, gone.  And so should we be.  Let’s go.”

I looked over at my wife, then said to Franco, “Give us five minutes,” and then I slammed the door in his face.

“What’s the matter with him?” asked Anna.

I moved to the bedroom and started getting dressed, throwing things in a suitcase as I did.  “I have no idea – he won’t say.  But he is Franco.  Which means he probably rubbed someone the wrong way, stole something, or tried to bribe an authority.”

“Why is he such a screw up, Hilo?” asked Anna, as she followed my lead and started getting dressed.

“He’s your cousin.  You tell me.”

“But you work with him.  Does he pull this kind of crap all the time, in business?”

I zipped up my case and started to tie my shoes.  “All the time, I’m always having to clean up after his messes.  You know that.”

“Yeah, but you never indicated he was a criminal, just sort of lazy.”

“He’s taken lazy to a whole new industrial level, Anna.”  I grabbed her suitcase and started for the door.  “To support his laziness, he works like a horse to find shortcuts, freebies, handouts, and not-so-legal schemes that will, theoretically, allow him to retire young and do nothing with the rest of his pathetic life.”

Anna took a few seconds to primp her auburn hair in the mirror.  “Then why do you put up with him?”

“He’s your cousin,” I said.  “I just didn’t feel right kicking a member of your family out of the business.”

“Well, let me ease your conscience,” said Anna.  “Feel free to kick away.  The little jerk is ruining our vacation!”

The business was a pretty solid startup (five years and running), that involved interstellar trade arrangements.  We basically brokered deals and set up transportation, provided insurance.  All above-board stuff – at least when Franco wasn’t involved too heavily.

Last year we finally turned a decent profit, and that’s when we bought our new home and the skiff.

This was actually our first vacation since our honeymoon six years ago.  I just had a hard time leaving the business in other peoples’ hands.  Especially Franco’s – which is one reason I agreed to this – he’d be coming with us.

A loud, urgent knock came at the door.

“Five minutes are up.  C’mon!” Franco’s muffled voice said.

I groaned and hefted the suitcases.  Anna opened the door for me, and we headed out.

#

Once we were back in the skiff and clear of the Georgian System, Anna spoke to Franco.

“Tell me what happened to Selas,” she said.  “Why’d she leave?”

“We had a fight,” Franco said without looking at Anna.  He just stared out the front at the stars and fiddled in his pocket.  He pulled out one of his cigarillos.

“Ah-ah-ah,” I warned him.  “This is a no-smoking skiff, buddy.  Forget about it.”

It wasn’t brand new, but the skiff was a pretty high-end model – red pleather seats, lo-shag carpets on the floor and walls, view-roof, aft sleeper with optional therapy bed, and a KG-rated engine.  I didn’t want Franco stinking it up with his nasty habit.

Franco put away the cigarillo, pouting.  “Your trouble is you’re all work and no play, Hilo.”

“And you’re the reverse,” I said.  “Now I want an explanation – something better than ‘We had a fight’ – and I want a heading.  Where are we going?”

“I’ll give you the heading first, then I’ll explain on the way.  Take us to the Zilibi System.”

“Zilibi?” I asked.

“Yes,” said Franco.  “I’m going home.”

I frowned at Franco, engaged the KG-drive and we gradually accelerated into slipspace.  En route to Franco’s home world, Gerlax Prime, he told us a story that I knew was a pile of jacko crap.

It was so incoherent, it was clear he was actually shaken, because he was off his game.  Usually, his lies were at least plausible.

Gerlax Prime was a small planet – about the size of Earth’s moon – and the only habitable rock in the whole Zibili System.  At the time of Franco’s birth, it was a thriving little colony of about four thousand people.

Then Franco grew up, swindled his way into some money, and bought up the planet.  And he kicked everyone else off – expelled his own people.  Instead, he populated the settlement with robotic servants, set up his own little demented kingdom.

Then he got into financial trouble and had to mortgage everything.  He lost everything except the deed to the planet.  A few years later, he came crawling to me, looking for a job.

I was always a sucker for hard luck cases.

If only I’d known at the time that it wasn’t luck that was against him, but the cold hard consequences of stupendously dumb decisions and actions.

Franco quit telling us his tale about half way there.  He didn’t finish the story – it didn’t make enough sense to have an end – he just stopped talking after one of his ridiculously contorted sentences.

I swear the man missed his calling as a politician.

We flew the rest of the way in silence.  Anna went to the back bunk to sleep.

As we eventually arrived at Gerlax Prime, Franco spoke up.

“Set us down in the hills behind the castle.”

He called the main building on the edge of the settlement the “castle.”  It was his home.  But trust me, it was not a castle.

I set down in a small clearing in the woods a few hundred meters from the edge of the deserted town that was now known, egotistically, as Francoville.

“Now what?” I asked.

“I need your help.”

“I kinda figured that,” I said.  “But if you want anything more than I’ve already done for you – by the way, you owe me for three kilos of molecular accelerant – you’re going to need to start leveling with me.  The truth.  Now.  Or Anna and I leave you here to rot.”

Franco put is head in his hands and sighed heavily.  “Fine.  Here’s the deal.”  He looked up at me, and he actually had tears in his eyes.  I’m pretty sure they were real.  “I tried, Hilo, really I did.  But I just couldn’t handle it.  Living the clean, normal, boring life.  Working.  Ugh.  I just couldn’t take it anymore.  I needed a way to amass my fortune again, and buy back the life I had here on Gerlax.  Sure, it wasn’t perfect, but at least it was my life.”

I just stared at him.

“So, I, uh, I started appropriating some small items from some of our customer transactions.  Just little stuff, here and there – nobody missed it.  And I only took the stuff on the list.”

“What list?” I asked through a clenched jaw.

“The list the scientist guy gave me.  The guy working for Puffy Listerman.”

“Puffy Listerman?” I asked, my eyes popping.  “The crime boss?”

“The one and only.  He’d hired the scientist to build a device that could be used to remotely control another individual who’d been implanted with a companion device.  It was pretty rudimentary, really, just enough to alter certain – outcomes.”

“Outcomes.”

“Yeah, like, well – like the races.”

“Like on Yoro Beta.”

“Exactly.  Puffy was paying me a small cut to supply the parts, but it wasn’t enough.  So, I figured I’d just borrow the completed device for a little while – just long enough to score enough to rebuild my modest empire – and then return it.  At the dog track, I fed the favorite some food that had a little pea-sized transceiver in it.  During the race, I activated the remote in my pocket, and it sent a simple command – well, you saw the result.  It worked perfectly!”

Franco smiled.  I didn’t share his glee.

“Sorry,” he said.  “Anyway, before I had a chance to use it again, Puffy’s goons showed up, and they weren’t happy.  They scared Selas off, and, as you know, we barely escaped.”

I digested his story.  I knew he was, for a change, being truthful.  “So, what’s your plan to remedy this situation?”

“Well, -”

“What’s going on?” asked Anna, emerging from the back and rubbing her eyes.  Strands of her long dark hair were sticking out in various directions and sticking to the left side of her face.

“Trouble,” I said.  “Your cousin has really got himself – and now us – in deep this time.  He was about to tell us how we were going to get out of this mess.”

Anna sat down and stared at Franco, shaking her head slowly.  “Franco?”

“I do have a plan.  We need to get inside my compound – I have some things we’ll need.  I wanted us to set down out here, in case Puffy’s men come looking for me here on Gerlax.”

“Okay, we go into your ‘castle’ and get some stuff.  Then what?  How are you going to fix things with Listerman?”

“Puffy Listerman?” asked Anna, putting the name together.  “The head of the Solar Eschelon?”

“Uh, yeah,” said Franco, looking a little ashamed.  “That one.”

“Why are you mixed up with the biggest organized crime syndicate in the galaxy?” asked Anna.

“It’s a long story,” he said.  “I already told it to Hilo.  He can fill you in.  Right now, we need to get inside and get my – uh, my stuff.”

We hiked in through the woods and entered the castle through a rear entrance.  Everything was covered in dust, but Franco’s security system pass codes still functioned.

The so-called castle was a four story stone building built from the granite-like rocks found nearby.  The interior layout was designed as an administrative building originally, but when Franco moved in (simply because it was the largest building on the planet), he’d done a fair amount of remodeling, taking out walls to create a huge gaming room with pool tables and other recreational equipment that was now covered in dust.

It was as if he’d never really grown up.

“Come on – this way,” he said, leading the way down a stairway that led to the basement levels.

We arrived at a vault, which opened by the touch of his palm and a voice-access password.  Franco stepped in and grabbed a case of cash off a shelf, and four laser weapons.

“Here,” he said, handing one to Anna and me.  “Just in case.”

Anna looked at the weapon and then at me.  “Hilo?”

I took a deep breath.  “Just take it.  You never know what might happen.  Are you ready, Franco?  Let’s get out of here – I’m getting kinda spooked.”

“Oh, no worries,” said Franco, tucking his gun into his waistband.  “If anyone comes, they’ll trip my perimeter sensors and -”

“Franco Barberi.”

The deep voice of Puffy Listerman stopped us all in our tracks.  I turned slowly to see the tall, hefty goateed criminal in a business suit standing at the foot of the stairs, a laser rifle leveled at my wife’s cousin.

“P-Puffy – I mean, Mr. Listerman!” said Franco, trying as hard as he could to smile through his pant-wetting nerves.

“You insult my intelligence, Barberi.  And you hurt me, personally.  Using my tool, before I even had a chance to use it myself?  It’s not nice to take a man’s toys.”

He made his point by blasting a hole in Franco’s left shin.

Anna let out a little scream, and I grabbed her and crouched down near the floor.

For Franco’s part, he just winced as his legs gave out and he squatted on the floor in the same spot he had stood.

“Who are your friends?” asked Listerman, reaching into an inside pocket with his spare hand and sliding a cigarillo into the corner of his mouth.

“Nobody,” whispered Franco.  “Just – nobody.  I mean, they weren’t involved in – in what I did.”

“And what did you do, Barberi?”

“I – I stole from you, Sir.”

“You know what the penalty is for turning on me?” asked Listerman, lighting his cigarillo.

“Death,” Franco whispered, even quieter than before.
“Not just death!” boomed Listerman.  “Death to you and your whole planet!  That’s why people don’t cross me!  Now I’m going to have to blow up your whole blasted planet!”

I don’t remember making a conscious decision to do it – it was like my body just took over, and I pulled my weapon out from behind my back where I was hiding it, and fired on Listerman.

I’m a businessman, not a gunfighter – so I missed completely, frying a hole in the wall to Puffy’s right.

But the gang boss somehow got bewildered, and instead of firing on me, fired at Franco, who’d already dove behind a chest near the back wall of the vault.  He popped up and fired at Listerman, just as Listerman was firing at him.

Franco’s weapon flew out of his hand as a powerful laser struck the barrel.

Anna and I looked for a place to take cover, but there was none.  Then Listerman turned on us.  He took aim at me and fired, just as Franco, who’d recovered his weapon, fired at Listerman.  He hit his rifle, throwing off his aim – and causing him to shoot Anna square in the chest.

I screamed “No!” as the angry Listerman turned back to Franco, to find he’d escaped out a secret door in the back of the vault.

Intent on taking down the man who’d double-crossed him, Listerman took off after Franco, disappearing into the black doorway and not even looking back at me and Anna.

I dropped to my knees beside my wife, but there was nothing I could do for her – she was gone.

I scooped her limp body up in my arms and carried her up the stairs, made my way out of the castle, and into the woods to the skiff.

I lay her on the bed in the back, turned on the Med-Aid Stasis field – in the hopeless hope that she could somehow be revived – fired up the engines, and lifted off.

I looked down and saw Listerman’s ship – a shiny brass-colored cruiser.  Beside it, two men were doing something to a metallic black sphere about ten meters in diameter.

A meson bomb.

Listerman had been serious – he really was going to blow up the planet.

But he was still in the castle, engaged with Franco.

As I reached the upper atmosphere, I targeted the meson bomb with my rear matter destabilizer.

Boom.

No more Gerlax Prime.

No more Puffy Listerman.

No more Franco, the little creep.

As the explosion became a tiny point of light behind my skiff, indistinguishable from the other stars, I plotted a course for home to bury Anna.

“Hilo.”

A whisper from the aft compartment.

I turned to see Anna weakly raising her head.

She wasn’t dead!

The stasis field had begun repairing the damage to her chest tissues.

So much for the planet.

But at least I still had my Anna.

THE END