Golden Voiced Getharis

1

The city loomed through the sand-haze, lurking walls burnt by blaring red sun. Young found his bedraggled gait drawing him alongside long flowing clothes that stank of wealth.

“Still looking are you?” she said without turning.

Well, he wasn’t looking down, kicking a rock reminded him what pain was.

“Fuck me!” the rag tied over his mouth did little to muffle him.

“I beg your pardon?” The woman's head slowly revolved on her perfect neck, they were side by side now. 

“Sorry I….Don’t usually begin conversations like this” He stopped gawking at her golden perfect skin. “You're from Getharis!” the corners of her mouth rose in a half smile at this. Sad, Young thought. 

“So my initial thought was correct..” she said. Each word was clipped, refined oil. 

Young, not for the first time in his life, felt scummy. “You’re a traveller. You do walk as though you're not used to this gravity” She said, turning her head to regard the closing walls. 

“I’m more of a gravity taster” Young said, his stomach felt light as it was. “What brings a Getharian all the way out here?” he said, lifting goggled eyes and staring through the red haze.

“Oh.. business. Always business” Turning, she examined him for a second time. Young wished she would take her goggles off so he could see her eyes.

“One assumes you have a pass, to enter this…. fortified place” languidly raising an arm forward. 

“Well, usually I rely on my devastating charm and good looks” She seemed not to move or give any sign she had heard, just continuing to look at him. “But erm….

I’ll think of something” Turning to look forwards again, they neared the towering gates.

His back hurt from the shuttle journey, he had the wrong boots on for walking in sand. Even though he had not been walking for long, he was tired. Been off world too long, needed to get his strength up. Needed a lot of things. 

“One assumes that, if not beforehand, now would be a good time to think of something?” They were approaching the gate, there was a que. There were big guards. 

“Hey I haven’t seen one of these guys for ages!” Young bounced back and forth on his painful feet “You could take on a whole town with one of these guys!” 

The ‘guys’ were three man-heights, giant torsoed robotic walkers, gun turrets. They are bound to have some scanners, Young thought, super clever scanners with lights and rays and bleeping blooping noises. 

“What is your name?” she said suddenly, it was her turn next. The man in front of her was babbling about lost relatives, his kit searched for contraband and his pass scanned. 

“Can I assume by that statement you don’t expect to see me again?” Young shifted again on his metal boots. Shame, they were so good in space. “I’m offend-”

“-I tend not to frequent the holding cells in these sorts of places, I rarely like to be restrained” She pulled off her goggles now they were out of the wind, revealing two greenish pink eyes, large and searching. 

“I’m uhm” Pulling his goggles off too, Young tried to piece back his brain cells “I’m Young” He blurted out with little grace. 

“Good for you” she said with the same sad smile “I am so very old”  

“Wait!” He moved to grab her, but she swirled effortlessly aside. “What’s your name?” he said.

She walked through, waving her pass, it looked different to the others Young had seen in the queue, and was gone. 

Young’s forlorn gaze was shoved roughly aside with a hand in his back, pushing him forwards. He turned to look up at the flanking machines, which revolved at the waist to face him. 

“Fuck” he said. 

“Present Your Pass For Inspection” The voice of a judge's hammer slamming home.

“Yes! My pass. Of course my pass.” Young began patting his numerous dust-sealed pockets. “The thing is, and it's a small thing really, I was hoping for human guards, or humanoid I suppose. They're so much easier to well….persuade if you catch my drift?” Young's eyes darted around crazily.

“Is that guy trying to bribe a fucking robot?” a voice came from the queue, a few others rose in protest, there was one short laugh. 

Young's hand, which had been glacially searching his pouch, found the little round thing and the little button on the little round thing. 

“Present Your Pass For Inspection” A huge metallic step drew both of the sentry robots to within a metre. 

“Thanks boys, that’s about the perfect distance” Young pulled out the little round thingy, his pet name for it being the ‘brainblaster’. He pushed the button. 

“Eat sand fuckers” 

Tearing screaming noises and a violet light.

Then he was gone. 

2

It’s name was almost unpronounceable by most standards, It was more inclined to use its own translator, designed by Itself. The translator was a metal disk displaying a vidi screen, using images and voice messages, it could usually convey what its master meant. Despite their language being incredibly complex. It was the only one in existence.

Its species name was also unpronounceable to most. It was both male and female, resembling a green slug-like body which extended into multiple limbs and facets. The eyes on Its insectoid head were huge, the mouth small, leading to an expression of innocent surprise. This helped a lot with negotiations.

It began to pack up its wares, incredibly nimble limbs folding, packing gently and turning off various objects. It had made a respectable living as the only being in existence able to trade with Its home world. A unique spot in the market. Nobody else could understand them, let alone trade with them. Attempts often resulted in execution. 

It possessed an incredibly developed sense of smell, tasting the air currents from miles away. Hearing and taste were beyond most species capabilities, which is why It isolated a lot of the time, close to the city gates. At night It would roam the peaceful nighttime desert.

Maybe it would do that tonight.

Jerking its head up, the mandibles writhed. ‘Smells like something’ the translator blurted, whilst flashing images accompanied each syllable on the vidipad; a galaxy, a desert, metal, ape.

Then a man appeared in violet light vomiting all over Its face and covering the translating machine in bile.

3

“Ohfuckohfuckohfuck” Kicking the door out, Young slammed into the black paving. Inhumane shrieking came from inside. Some unintelligible alien creature he had never seen before, must be pretty stupid if all it can do is wave its arms about screeching. 

Young tried to get to his feet and half succeeded, he vomited on his boots and tried to move forwards. Resembling a mauled crab, he bounced off walls and people.

He must get inside, the sentries would only be disabled for a few minutes. Rounding the corner, he saw the gate. So close! He had not gone far. Unpredictable fucking stupid beautiful bastard thing. 

His body felt like it had been thrown through a black hole. Weakness flooded through his legs and he fell over again. Commotion from the gates was reaching his ears now, through tar, he heard a series of metallic thumps, he felt them in the ground too. 

“Looks like the boys are awake!” He said to no one. People were looking. People everywhere. Sirens, approaching fast. He turned another corner, legs almost working now. 

“Oh yes!” his eyes beheld market square, a huge market square. The perfect place to hide. 

There were police emerging from the crowd. They hadn’t seen him yet. They were wearing exoskeletons, huge and deadly. 

Young tried to think. Think. OK, can’t think. Brain not doing good enough, brain fried. Time to do the honourable thing, the thing he should have done as soon as he illegally bypassed their security systems. Run like hell. 

4

Young exploded into the bar, panting. As one, the dispassionate crowd seemed to scan him, then dismiss him as boring. 

“This is more like it,” he breathed. The bar was actually a huge marquee, he had stumbled through the vast market choking on dust, before opening the tent flap at random.

There was a long counter filled with every kind of wanderer. At one end, a spiralling swarm of tentacles suckled at multiple drinks. Young could hear them from here, nobody else seemed to notice the noise.  

There was one head which had not returned to their drink. A blank visor regarded him from a lone drinking table. Young pulled off his crusted goggles, letting them fall down to rest on his neck. In the distance, the quick warbles of warning sirens. They were coming.

Seeing no other option, he tried to amble nonchalantly over to the lone drinker, who hadn’t moved. No one was sitting on any of the tables adjacent either. The visor inclined minutely at his approach. 

“Er.. Howdy” Young crashed into the table, his body half toppling over it. An armoured glove stopped him from actually falling, pushing him towards his seat. Young was still breathing a little hard, but forced himself not to show how ragged he felt underneath his clammy skin. “What brings a…..” His eyes tried to find a gender beneath the slick looking armour. “What brings you here, friend? 

“Waiting” The visor didn’t move, the stranger sat with both hands flat on the table, beside a slightly smoking tankard. The voice was flat and barren. 

I sure could use something to steady my-

“Drink?” The visor said. 

Young still couldn’t tell if he was speaking to a man or a woman, but a drink’s a drink.  He nodded gratefully and another steaming tankard broke the descending silence. The barman skittered away quickly. 

“So… what are you waiting for?” Young’s hand had fallen below the table, as his other reached for the tankard.  The visor was silent, so he took a long drought of the fizzing splendour before him. His eyes had deep black gouges under them from lack of sleep and he was a little pale from his perilous teleportation. But, his eyes blazed with a raven’s fierceness.

The visor still didn’t move, but one hand slowly reached for the tankard, dunking in a drinking tube from the depths of his armour. Young watched the orange liquid race up the tube, into the unknown mouth. He watched with a smile as the drink drained away.

He took a drink from his own tankard, the nuclear bomb hit the back of his throat and he gasped. 

When he looked up there was a pistol pointed at his face.

5

“Oh” He said. 

“Yes” The visor finally moved and the armoured figure reclined a little on the creaking chair. “You had ‘fugitive’ written all over you when you scrambled in here” The metallic, clipped voice rang with satisfaction. 

“I did?” Young couldn’t help glancing at the gun, held steadily at the spot between his eyes. 

“Y’see… I simply had to wait for your bounty to come in. I can’t do anything until your bounty comes in, right? Otherwise I don’t get paid and” Little sounds that must have been laughter came from the helmet “You walked right over to me and uh…”

“Yes?” Young said.

“What was I sayin’?” the gun had drooped a little, his other gauntleted hand reached up to touch his face, but there was a helmet in the way. 

“You see,” Young said, somewhat more relaxed as the gun fell from the hunter’s fingers. “You had ‘Bounty Hunter’ written all over you, I was thinking of killing you, but as you had a drink literally begging to be drugged..” Young shrugged and picked up the gun.

Young stood up as the helmeted head slammed face first into the table.

Then two armoured goliaths broke through the tent wall.

They were at least twelve feet high, humanoid robots, if humanoids had laser cannons instead of arms.

Young fired twice, but was already running when a bullet took him in the shoulder. 

Scrambling round the bar, jumping through the opposite tent flap as the whole structure swooned down around him. Screaming panic, a thousand drunk protests and, as he finally realised when he looked up, nowhere to run two. 

Four more of the armoured warriors stood in the whispering sand.

“Oh, I really didn’t want to have to do this” Young said, reaching down. 

He pushed the little button.

To appear in a flash of violet and a spray of vomit. Managing to push himself onto one knee, he turned.

“Oh” He said.

That was the trouble with these things, so damned unreliable. Young was only thirty metres from the guards, but they hadn’t seen him yet. Groaning deeply, young tried to surge to his feet, only managing a sort of knee jump into the nearest wall. 

Young’s legs scrabbled at the base of the wall and, scraping his face up the crusted sandstone, he rose.  

Sprinting in a triumphant beeline across the road, zig zagging heavily, he clamped his hand over the shoulder wound, hissing with pain. 

Then he was hit by a hovercar. 

6

Cascading into the ground, the air rushed out of his lungs. 

Movement, he could actually hear the robotically altered voices of the exoskeletons , so close. Young couldn’t breathe. There was a sound of a door opening, then a voice, possibly the best voice he’d ever heard. 

“You are a dangerous, reckless fool Young”  a silken liquid voice, coating his body in wonderment. Young realised he was falling asleep. Forcing himself onto his elbows, he was immediately sick again. “Get in, for god's sake!” A strong grip. He pushed with his legs' final strength and was half dragged into the floor of the car, which immediately began to move. 

“How could you possibly think this was in any way a plan?” Hands tried to pull him upright, swiftly giving up. Young was in the footwell, trying to open his mouth without gagging.

Something hissed and he realised medi-spray was entering his shoulder wound, it went numb.

He finally drew a ragged breath. The pounding behind the eyes was very bad now, hammers of pain sang all over.

“It’s the golden-voice Getharis” Young said, passing out.