Hard Luck Hank Screw the Galaxy(55)

Figures.

He returned with a long, rust-colored tube with some valves on one end.

“Try this. Point it that way, hold your arm out, and press this.” He handed it to me and got well away.

It felt big, far too big for my boots unless I made some very adventurous fashion changes to them.

I tried to press how he indicated and nothing happened.

“Like this?” I asked, turning slightly toward Delovoa to demonstrate. He practically dove into the next room.

“Watch where you’re pointing that,” he snapped. “You got to push the two together.”

I tried, nothing happened.

“Is it broken?”

“No. Or I can’t remember, maybe you have to push one then the other,” he said, from a safe distance.

“Well there’s three,” I began. Then whoosh. A four-foot ribbon of orange flame shot out of the end of the tube.

I had not been expecting that and my vision was momentarily spotted. When I blinked my eyes clear, I noticed the cuff on my jacket was melted.

“Hey,” I said.

“Pretty cool, huh?” Delovoa answered proudly. “I’ll sell it to you for a grand. And I’ll fill the first ten uses for free.”

“This stupid thing melted my jacket,” I said, showing him the proof.

“It’s hardly singed. But yeah, I couldn’t stop it from venting some gas out the rear.”

“Why didn’t you tell me? I could have burnt my hand off.” I checked and my right hand did indeed have some chemical residue on it.

“Nah. I mean it would hurt my hand, but you fought a Dredel Led.”

“And you want to sell this for a thousand? No way. I’m the only person who could possibly use it on the whole station. I’ll give you a hundred if you cut this barrel three inches.”

“It’ll burn your hand even more. And it won’t be as narrow a flame. I’d recommend only taking off an inch. But 250 and you got a deal.”

We shook.

“I want some other guns, too. In case this doesn’t work out. I’m sure you got some little pistols.”

“Sure. I got guns like this big,” he said, holding his fingers up.

“What am I going to do with that?” I said. “I’d be better off throwing it.”

“I’m just telling you what I got. If you want power it’s going to be big and it’s going to be noticeable. But let me go grab some of my smaller stuff and we’ll see what we can do.”

He hurried off into his lab while I poked at my wrecked jacket. It was getting hard to find clothes with the Portal embargo. I’d soon have to start going to some tailors and get custom fit.

As I fretted about the state of my clothes, I saw another sheet covering a large upright rectangle in the far corner. It was maybe eight feet tall, four feet wide, and three feet deep. I wondered if this was one of the cabinets Delovoa talked about earlier.

I pulled on the sheet to see what was underneath. I tilted my head and stepped back to try and make sense of what I was seeing. Then I screamed.

Delovoa ran back, carrying a tray full of pistols.

“What?” he asked, alarmed.

I had my back against the wall, directly across from the thing in front of me. I couldn’t even point.

Delovoa turned.

“Oh, don’t worry. It’s old,” he said, indicating the giant robot standing in front of me.

It was a Dredel Led. But unlike the others, it was massive and not remotely designed to appear like us. Its arms were square pillars that hung below its knees and ended abruptly with no hands. Similarly, its legs were thick rectangles with jointed knees and flaps at the bottom, representing some kind of feet and/or toes. It didn’t have a head or neck at all, but the front of it bulged and a dark hole in the center was reminiscent of an eye. The whole of it was gleaming white and there were no noticeable rivets or bolts or seams. In simple, yet large black letters on its right front was stenciled “ZR3.”

I couldn’t even respond. This thing was at least three times the size of the Dredel Led that had knocked me stupid across Belvaille.

“No, look,” Delovoa said. And he walked up to the massive robot and rapped his knuckles on its hull. It didn’t make a sound, other than Delovoa’s flesh, it was too solid. “It’s inert. I’ve had it for twenty years.”

“You,” I began softly, “own a Dredel Led?”

“It’s not a Dredel Led, I think. It was probably from when Colmarians used robots. It’s ancient.”

“Why would you have such a thing?”

“I wanted to take it apart. Learn from it. Maybe sell some of the technology, you know. I think we have way too many rules regarding what can’t be owned.”