Hard Luck Hank Screw the Galaxy(54)

“I’ll take it apart. Try and learn from it.”

“It’ll blow up!” I shouted, putting down a small machine gun.

“That’s an old wives’ tale. Things don’t just blow up.”

On top of all our problems, I didn’t need him tinkering with alien guns.

“No thanks,” I answered.

“Hey, come take a look at this,” he said, smiling. He led me to a long, broad table with a sheet on it. He waited for me to get close by and, still wearing that goofy grin, he whipped the sheet off.

“Ah.” I jumped back as fast as I could.

“Haha. You’re the fourth person that’s done that,” he said, truly enjoying himself.

It was the Dredel Led. What was left of it. Delovoa had put all the pieces back in the rough approximation of where they were originally, before Wallow had dismantled it. It was just so much loose scrap.

“Take a look at this,” he said, getting a tool in place above the heap of junk.

“I’m not getting anywhere near that,” I protested. “I didn’t know they kept it.”

“Of course. Garm had me collect it all. You think they were going to throw it in the trash? The Navy is coming to examine it. Just come here and look. It can’t hurt you.”

I warily eased my way around the table and looked. I peered through a magnification lens at a piece of the robot.

“This is ten times magnification. This is thirty. This is 200. This is 550. Sorry, some dust from the sheet.”

Each click it seemed like we were looking at a little city. And you’d think that was as small as it could get and then it just kept getting smaller. Little cities inside cities.

“What is that?” I asked, amazed.

“I have some theories,” he said vaguely.

“Do you know how this thing works?”

“Some. I mean, I know what metal this is. It’s really strong and there are no imperfections at all, but as for what’s inside it, I doubt any Colmarian could tell you.”

Even though it was in pieces, I couldn’t suppress a chill seeing it. As if one of those arm fragments was going to reach out and grab me.

Delovoa was a real brain. No one else would have nerve enough to pick up all that debris, let alone store the damn thing in their house.

“Hey,” I said, remembering one of the reasons why I was here. “Could you get rid of some delfiblinium?”

He gently replaced the sheet and gave me an odd look, his several brows furrowing.

“You have some?”

“Maybe.”

“Well, other than blowing it up, you might try storing it. I’m building these shielded cabinets for Garm to hide stuff in. Should block most scanners, though no one can really scan for delfiblinium. What, did someone give you a few micrograms?”

“Something like that. You know how explosive it is by any chance?”

“That stuff is celestial. I think the government uses it to nudge comets around on their orbits, you know, to clear Portals. No person could really do anything with it. You probably don’t have delfiblinium. People say all kinds of things. I could take a look at it for you.”

“That’s okay,” I said, trying not to sweat. “I think it’s nothing.”

“So you need anything else? I’m kind of having a fire sale.”

“That’s what I wanted to hear. I want two guns. Hidden in my boots. Just one shot is fine.”

“The shotgun I made you is pretty compact,” he said.

I took it out in demonstration.

“This is snub, but it’s huge. You can’t even carry it in a pistol holster let alone in a boot. I just need something for close range. A few feet.”

The near-fight with Ddewn had got me thinking. I’d never carried knives or anything before. I’m too slow to use them properly. But if I start grappling with multiple people and I lose my shotgun, I want a way to buy some more time. And everyone knows I’ve got that shotgun. If I get some pistols, that’ll be my secret until I need them.

“Anything hidden won’t stand up to a scanner,” he said.

“I know. I don’t plan on going through any.”

“Oh,” Delovoa said, brightening. “I have the perfect thing.”

He ran off into the depths of his lab. I checked out the different guns arrayed nearby. It was good to keep abreast of all this stuff, as it started in labs like this and ended up in fights soon enough, though I wasn’t sure how that would work with the military coming. Did they really expect us to be unarmed?

“Do you know what the policy is for weapons in real Colmarian cities?” I yelled to Delovoa.

“I think each one is different,” he yelled back.