Intergalactic Terrorist (New Dimension Book 1) (17 page)

    Forlus, who had been about to make his own move on Giblet changed his mind and took a step back, allowing a number of the new starters to take his place.

    Stort had to give some credit to the new starters. They were willing to work. Enthusiasm and excitement seemed to fill their minds when on duty. Feelings that Stort had completely forgotten ever existed.

    Foolishly they confronted Giblet. The Dwarf, now becoming annoyed by the fools, swung wildly yet with extreme accuracy towards them.

    Stort closed his eyes as the axe connected with several of the new starters. When he opened his eyes again most of his men were cowering behind him. Four of the new starters lay on the ground. Two of them had arms missing, one had a leg missing and one poor sod was missing a head.

    “Shit,” Stort muttered. He knew
he
would have to sort this out. Somehow, even though in his position he should have an office job, sorting out the paperwork, he seemed to be the one who had to get into the thick of things and solve the problems.

    He approached the Dwarf who was laughing and thrusting his axe into the air in victory, unaware of the tall, pale man now standing next to him.

    “Excuse me,” said Stort. The Dwarf turned to look up at him and was met by a hard fist in the face. It was a punch that sent a loud
crack
out across the city, scaring pigeons five miles away, waking a sleeping baby ten miles away, collapsing a house of cards and seriously annoying the maker of it who was just about to beat the galactic record twenty miles away.

    Giblet staggered for a second. He whistled a tune his mother used to sing to him as a baby and blew a raspberry. “Down I go,” he spat mid raspberry and fell, face first to the floor.

    Superintendent Stort prodded the Dwarf with his boot, that was in no way scuffed, to check he was definitely out cold. “Silly little man. Does he not know how much harder it is for me to get one of my men to inform a sentry officers family of their death?”

    The crowd cheered and began chanting Stort’s name over and over. Rexan Stort blushed. At least he would have done if he could get any sort of colour to those pale cheeks. He slowly waved a hand in the air, more to stop the crowd from chanting then to acknowledge them.

    “Thinker,” he whispered to his best officer, eyes still meeting the crowds, a fake smile plastered on his face.

    “Yes sir?” Thinker said, still rubbing his lack of nose.

    “Get the little man to the cells,” Stort continued, “and clear this bloody crowd before I shoot the lot of them.”

    “Already on it sir!”

    Stort nodded, waved some more to the crowd then turned his back on them. The smile instantly dropped from his face and he sighed. Grumbling he lit another liquorish cigar and began puffing on it. He hated this job.

Behind the stall, Charlie looked on with admiration. Greebol did not look so impressed.

    “That Stort is good,” Charlie said. “Did you see the way he punched that man in the face? Whack! And he was out like a light!”

    “Yes,” Greebol replied, “they call him iron fist.”

    “Why?”

    “Because his first is like iron. Obviously.”

    Charlie and Greebol watched as the small man was handcuffed and dragged away from the market place. Charlie was confused. The little man looked very much like a… but it couldn’t be… could it?

    “You know what species that fellow is?” asked Greebol.

    “He’s not from my dimension,” admitted Charlie truthfully, “he’s not from yours?”

    “Never seen one before in my life. But notice how the Sentry and the crowd did seem to know even though it is obvious he is from another dimension. How very confusing.”

    “Can we go now?” Charlie asked. “I still really need a pee.”

    “Then let us go! Onwards! I know the perfect place!”

    Greebol jumped up from behind the market stall and rushed off. Charlie rushed to keep up with him, more excited that he would get to urinate then he ever thought possible.

    He just hoped that this ‘perfect place’ was an actual toilet.

Chapter 19

An expression commonly used is that one
knows something like the back of their hand
. Charlie Pinwright often disputed this. He was sure that he didn’t actually know the backs of his hands very well. He, of course knew the vague colour of his skin and that his left hand had a weird mole shaped a bit like a spring onion. And of course he knew the obvious, that each hand had four fingers and a thumb, each sporting a nail on the end, which at the moment were a little dirty. But put in a ‘pick out the back of your hands in a hand line up’ Charlie was not sure if he would be able to.

    Greebol on the other hand (no pun intended) seemed to know the backs of his hands like he knew the streets of Baggus. He could walk these streets
and
pick out the backs of his hands with his eyes closed. Even with the fake blue Lampan gloves covering them.

    From the market place they had taken a left down Big Swede Street, a right onto Cabbage Lane, another right onto Rotten Meat Avenue, down a number of smaller alleyways that also seemed to have food references in the title and finally a left onto Soggy Biscuit Road.    

    It was in Soggy Biscuit that Charlie had finally been allowed to visit the toilets!

    It wasn’t the café that Greebol had mentioned. Apparently the toilets in there shouldn’t be entered unless you were really, really desperate or immune to catching a number of skin popping diseases. Instead they had entered public toilets that smelt like a rotten fish and looked a bit like one too. Two knobs to enter, which, Charlie noted, Greebol didn’t pay. Instead he used a coin shaped like two knobs on a string so he could pull it back out of the slot again afterwards.

    Now, stood in the toilets, Charlie was not entirely sure he wanted to pee any more.

    “What are these?” he asked with uncertainty, pointing towards a number of strange looking holed objects on the walls that had some vague similarity to urinals.

    “Urinals,” Greebol responded, stepping over to one. Charlie stared at these alien urinals. Some were extremely wide, some were very small. One was so high up you’d have to have a ladder to reach it.

    “That one would be for the Mush-Kin,” Greebol pointed out upon seeing Charlie’s confused expression. “You would be surprised at the lengths of some of species penises. Surprised at the location of many too.”

    Charlie reluctantly stepped over to one that he believed he could reach and peered inside. 

    A little curly black hair stared back at him.

    Charlie sighed.

    Even out here in the far reaches of space, he could still not get away from urinals with little black hairs in them. Charlie didn’t even know how those hairs got into the urinals. Personally he never did anything when going to the toilet that would result in one of his ‘personal’ hairs ending up inside.

    Still, it made him feel a little more like being at home.

    Relief.

    Oh the relief!

    It is too hard to put into words the relief that Charlie felt at that exact moment. We’ve all been there. We know the feeling. There is no real need to go on about it.

    Now, Charlie had no interest in looking at another man whilst they used the urinal, but for some reason unknown to him, he always took a sideways glance. It was one of those things that could never be fully understood. There was no reason for it and he in no way received any pleasure from it. Still, he did it.

    This was no exception.

    He quickly turned away and cursed himself for doing what he always did but never wanted to. He wasn’t entirely sure but Greebol seemed to be holding two things in his hand. There were definitely two streams.

    Very disturbing. Very, very disturbing.

    As Charlie shook and then went to wash his hands, the room drew noticeably darker.

    “What time is it?” Greebol asked, seeming a little confused.

    Charlie looked at his watch. It was an old digital watch, popular in the eighties that not only told the time but also the date, the temperature and your heart rate. It in no way told you the time on an alien world far, far away from Earth.

    “Well it’s four thirty in England,” he said.

    “Hmm,” said Greebol looking at the watch, “we will have to get that thing updated with galactic time.”

    Charlie disagreed. If numerous dimensions had collided then Greebol’s ‘galactic time’ would surely now be obsolete. Surely all time-types should be taken into consideration. Including Earth’s.

    “It is too dark outside,” said Greebol. “Something must be going on.” He rushed out of the toilets and back out onto Soggy Biscuit.

    Charlie sighed and followed. It seemed something was always going on.

Soggy Biscuit Road was long and wide. It was the largest street in Baggus. Numerous shops, bars and banks could be found here. It was also one of the ‘posher’ areas of the city. In the eastern side of the street, the wealthier civilians lived. Lesser folk who wandered into the street were treated with mistrust and suspicion. Needless to say that Charlie and the ‘fake’ Lampan were classed as ‘lesser folk’.

    But at the moment, no one seemed to be bothered by the scruffy man and his somewhat plastic looking blue friend. They were all staring upwards.

    Charlie and Greebol followed suit.

    They gasped.

    Above them, high up in the sky, was the largest, scariest, shiniest, most impressive spaceship that Charlie had ever seen. And from the look on Greebol’s face, he too was thinking the same thing.

    The ship was silver in colour and smooth. In fact smooth was a poor way to describe it. This ship was beyond smooth. Not a single line, scratch, dint or dent could be seen in its hull. No windows, no doors, no insignia of any kind. It was just one long stretch of silver. Long was also a poor way to describe it.

    Charlie and Greebol had no idea what shape this ship was as it stretched the entire sky, blotting out the sun. It was like a giant silver sheet had been cast over the housetops. A vast difference between the run down, ramshackle buildings and the uber-smooth, uber-sexy ship.

    Charlie was worried. Yet even as the panic began to set in, he noticed the people of Soggy Biscuit looking back down to the ground and continuing their business as though nothing was out of the ordinary.

    “This is out of the ordinary,” said Greebol, still staring upwards.

    “Come on then mister spaceship spotter,” Charlie laughed nervously, “what type of ship is that?”

    “Again, I have no idea. It must be from another dimension. Notice how the people seem to be ignoring it. As though they have just accepted it is here. Similar to the way they just accepted that small little fellow back at the market place.”

    “I don’t follow,” Charlie admitted.

    “It is as if they believe they already know what that spaceship is,” Greebol clarified, “yet they cannot. Somehow… when the dimensions collided… not only did it change space but also the people living in it. No one here seems to realise that anything is wrong.”

    “Then why do we?” asked Charlie.

    “That is a good question.” Greebol seemed to ponder it for a moment before shaking the idea away completely. “Not for us to worry about Charlie,” he said. “We shall let the experts deal with that. Onwards!”

    “What about this gigantic ship over our heads?” gasped Charlie in disbelief of Greebol’s lack of interest.

    “Again Charlie… let the experts worry about that. It really is none of our concern.”

    “And what exactly is our concern Greebol?”

    Greebol grinned. “Money of course! Back to work... we have cargo to deliver and we are already late.”

    Reluctantly Charlie followed Greebol back down Soggy Biscuit and through some of the side alleys, further into the city. He almost had to run to keep up. The smell down this maze of alleyways was much stronger.

    “Who hired you to kidnap the professor?” Charlie called to Greebol. There was no answer. Perhaps he did not hear him.

    “Where are we going?” Charlie tried again.

    Greebol paused briefly. He turned and looked Charlie in the eyes.

    “My friend,” he said with a grin, “we are going to church!”

Chapter 20

Sleep is a curious thing. It is another of life’s little mysteries. Every living creature needs to sleep. Every living creature. No exception.

    Of course some creatures sleep for longer or less than others. The Dung Rats of the gassy planet Bak-ed-bea-nes live for six years and for five and three quarters of those years they spend in a state of unconsciousness in a deep, dark, damp hole in the ground. A pointless life some would say, but to the Dung Rats, that quarter of a year is glorious! They eat well, play a lot and make lots and lots of babies. 

    Alternatively the Large Footed Dancing Porcupines on the half world of Styma, live for over five hundred years due to a complex but nutritious diet of cabbage, worms, tuna fish and whatever is left in the bottom of the can in the bins. Sleep occurs for them for only one hour every two years. As amazing as it sounds to live for that long, having such little sleep to break up the days actually makes life very boring. When it is finally time to die, the Large Footed Dancing Porcupines welcome death with open arms. At least the ones who haven’t already learned how to tie a noose around their necks many years earlier.

    Although we all know why we need sleep, what actually happens to us in a sleeping state is still somewhat a mystery. The fact that living bodies simply shut down is for many somewhat disturbing.

    The Umfians have a terrifying fear of sleep. Probably because the majority tend to sleep walk, sleep talk, sleep fight, sleep kill and often sleep die. They are such an unpredictable and violent race that their sleep is just as unpredictable and violent. On numerous occasions (probably too many to mention) an Umfian has gone to sleep one night and woken up dead in the morning. This is sometimes due to their volatile sleeping patterns but often because a rival Umfian has slit their throat in the night.

    The Wizards believe that sleep is irrelevant and just wasted time when they could be learning and practising new spells. Therefore they have spent many years trying to perfect a spell to keep them awake, although not quite managing it often resulted in Wizards randomly falling asleep during the day. This can cause many complications, especially to Genira Vest, a Wizard attempting to use magic to fly. Needless to say Genira Vest is no longer with us.

    Humans on the other hand enjoy sleeping. Most look forward to it and it is actually the highlight of their days. Humans are especially fond of dreaming, as in their dreams they are transported away from their normal, mundane lives and can exist in a danger-free world of adventure. Of course for one particular Human who now lives in an actual world of adventure, where the danger is very real, dreams would give him the chance to be back in his normal, mundane life.

    For a Gumthar, sleeping is neither a joy nor a chore. It is just sleeping. And dreams are just dreams. Nothing less and nothing more.

    This was true of one particular Gumthar who lay in his softer than cotton wool bed, wrapped up in his softer than feathers quilt next to his not so soft and actually harder than old cheese wife. This particular Gumthar dreamt of praise and applause. He dreamt of impressed handshakes, words of congratulations and admiration. In other words he dreamt of things that he never experienced in his real life. It was a dream that he would not care for when he woke, but was thoroughly enjoying it at the moment.

    Little did he know that very soon he would be rudely awoken from the dream and his pleasant sleep and be forced to deal with something he in no way had any idea how to deal with.