Fourgys Follys

By Vic Williams

On the run after a squabble, young pirate-in-training Fourgy has a mission to meet the gas being Mmhm, and to learn more about the ancient interstellar Big Gun. Unfortunately, other ancient star species are squabbling, eating humans and eating into human space. Fourgy has to cook things up without getting cooked.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Vic Williams
• Release date: Oct 4, 2011
• ISBN: 9781466187924

Vic Williams

I'm a coach - trainer - writer, from Vancouver, Canada, with some years experience in China. I like to start things, to grow things and people. Gardening. The gardening grows into mapping, of some kinds. Scenarios, design thinking, strategy, and such. Part of growing things is improving them. Please suggest improvements at: [e-mail] Thanks, Vic

Book preview

Fourgys Follys

Published by Vic Williams at Smashwords

Copyright 2011 Vic Williams

October 6, 2011

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Contents

Chapter 1 Fourgy leaves home

Chapter 2 Swimming Uphill

Chapter 3 Butterflies to the food fight

Chapter 4 The Great Gun

Chapter 5 Titaan talk, unleashing Liz

Chapter 6 The blackhole caper

Chapter 7 Fourgy gets down to Earth

Chapter 8 Piracy in DarkSwirl

Chapter 9 Dropping in on IcePine

Chapter 10 Thurip in the stirrup

Chapter 11 The End and On

Chapter 1 Fourgy leaves home

Fourgy was, as usual, completely innocent, an adept kind of a drive-by innocent. As he rode out of the jungle and up to the city gates the two guards shook their heads. It was too late in the day to be outside the city wall, and all too normal for him. Then, eyebrows raised at seeing his take, they grinned at him and his cargo. He grinned back as one grinning guard silently held his watch up and tapped it to show the time. The other started cranking the gates closed. It was almost Threshold. They could all feel the dank night closing in.

Fourgy appreciated, as he rode down the street, that everybody had already taken shelter and bolted their doors. It made cycling faster and easier. He passed the pub, noticing that it was much busier and noisier than normal, and turned into his alley. Nearly home, his garage door had sensed him and was automatically opening for him. His eyebrows popped up at the crash as the back door of the pub smashed open. Two fighters spilled out, swinging wildly. He swerved his bike to go around, but fate bit. The closest fighter fell back and in doing so, his right hand fell onto the back of Fourgy's bike. Right into a dino claw. Not good. It was a Red Bloodsucker claw, freshly harvested and still very active. The claw hungrily snapped closed on the man's hand, tugged, and started sucking. Well, as you probably know, Bloodsucker claws tug a bit to pump a bit, as they suck in through each claw's nostrils.

The man yelled and jerked, in pain and disbelief. You don't, well I don't, normally bump into Red Bloodsucker claws on the back of bikes in the alley. His commotion pulled the bike down with him. Sprawled on the ground, Fourgy turned over and looked back, just as two more of his fresh got Red Bloodsucker claws flopped over, following gravity, and sunk themselves into the man. As the yells soared into shrieks the fourth claw sniffed the smell of the blood pumping out of the back ends of the other claws and started snapping its claws together. Each claw was really a big dinner-plate sized paw, plus three long front claws and one nasty back jabber. Each of the four claws was about half as long as a man's arm. Which explains why, as you know, full grown Red Bloodsuckers can easily pick up a man with one paw. People are snack size. It also meant that the claw tips snapping together were easily loud enough to put the shivers in small mammals like humans.

Fourgy winced at the new shrieks. It was now Threshold and on this jungle world, Malay IV, shrieks after Threshold advertised free live dinner to all wild and jungly. He looked up and around in the gathering dark; a thousand kinds of winged nightkillers would arrive first. Uneasy, he checked the pub door, broken open by the offworlders. Not good. An open doorway to a whole pub full of wonderfully wiggly food - people. If a feeding frenzy developed, the noise and smells would draw in the big feeders. He swallowed hard. Amok waves of the big jungle dino-monsters could easily swarm the two guards and the wall. That's why people bolted themselves inside at night.

The shrieks changed. The other man was helping pull at a claw. Fourgy nodded. The claw would sense the struggling and inject flesh eating digestive poisons. Yup, just like that. No more shrieks drawing in competitors.

He reached over, selected tendons, and pulled, releasing the claws one-by-one. He raised his bike.

The surviving drunk stood back, slowly taking in the changes. Small fight. Guy on bike. Dead buddy. Claws out, and leaving the scene. He bellowed,You killed Mike!

By now other locals had arrived at the pub door and were shooting blasters into the sky. Splats of this world's variety of bats and other horrid little winged creatures started showering Fourgy.

Fourgy shuddered and checked, the claws were all fine, so he pushed off. The drunk yelled No way! Damn you! He lurched ahead and grabbed for the bike. The fourth claw was delighted to shake hands. Finally getting its turn with a very nice juicy grab. Lunch at last.

A battle-grade blaster beam exploded a trail across the alley in front of Fourgy. In the sudden quiet they could hear masses of incoming alien things hooting, yumyuming, and barumphing.

The shooter, another offworlder, called out, Whoa right there, fella! A whole swack of tourist battle-grade blasters started firing, lighting up the dark with serious overkill, as they happily blapped early birds.

Fourgy got that sinking feeling, as it sunk in. A pub load of friends, off some tourist spaceship. Rich tourists drug-pumped for high gravity so they could visit a famously hard to reach dino world. Armed with influence, gravity-drugs, booze, guns, and ornery. All ornery in the back alley.

He breathed deeply and, unseen to others in the dark, reset a control on his long barrelled hunting blaster now resting on the frame of his bike. Harvesting the claws had been a three hour stalk-to-kill, survive-and-run, battle. Fourgy had fought off becoming lunch for a small pack of Red Bloodsuckers. They'd had a lot of fun hunting him, for too long. He had been the mouse for some cats. Here now, he was tired, standing in a growing shower of nasty gore under a blaster-as-fireworks light show. A full aroma blood bath, announcing dinner to incoming creatures. Two more beam blasts flicked past him.

He yelled, you can't have my claws!

The fourth claw jerked, then tugged and sucked at the man's hand and arm, adding a sudden new layer of screams to the party.

Three oversize beam blasts splatted chunks of claw around. Another ripped at Fourgy's hat.

Hats are special. Locals at the back of the crowd joyfully started clubbing tourists.

Then a beam hit the frame of Fourgy's bike, the tires blew, and his blaster replied.

. . .

The Captain was clearly unhappy. No matter what he did, he was gonna get bit with this one. First things first. Deal with this dang critter-bit kid. He scowled as he looked at Fourgy's mass of bandages and torn clothing, normal for someone who survived a night flyer swarm attack. Well, this one still had his eyeballs. He scowled at Fourgy's gun, evidently a gunsmith kid. He sighed, the gun had fired a special beam, like a three dimensional spider web. As you know, it's called a spider beam, and the technology is privy to pirates. It's a shan zhai trade secret, that's very handy for zonking a whole room, alley, passage way full of pirate clients, or swarms of incoming birds, all in one blast. The problem was that firing it spat the word 'pirate' into a lot of minds. Kind of like, 'hello everybody, here's a home world for pirates'. He scowled at Fourgy. A beam guaranteed to produce scads more unwanted visitors of the worst kinds, for years ahead.

Just about as bad, the Captain scowled down at a crime-scene picture of a very long-tailed six-legged black cat, stunned with it's gawdawful fangs still sunk into some dead guy's leg. The spider beam had stunned a whole lot of tourists, bats, locals, and other awed odd creatures. Including this nasty bit of work, a thing cat secretly living in his village. It was probably some envirogenetic mutant: half-Earth, half-Malay, half-space cat, more than hinting at some kind of horrid future. It made his skin itchy just thinking about it. The jungle was winning, probing into town every which way and winning.

For his part, Fourgy was happy. He was getting a free trip off planet – a famously expensive journey for locals. It was easy to tell, he was alive and still inside the wall. He rubbed his hands together. He was taking a rich man's load of freshly cooked Red Bloodsucker claws to sell off planet. Sure he was itchy in reaction to getting beam bathed and critter bit and yelled at, and itching to go.

The Captain grinned back as he saw Fourgy's hand rubbing, thought bloddy little pirate, and decided to smile with him. Malay IV doesn't have jails. They kick you out of town – into the jungle, off-planet, or into a (secret, don't tell) pirate ship. You have to be on the ship first before you get a chance to try walking a pirate ship's plank into space. Fourgy was too innocent for the jungle and too young to be a pirate, so that left off-planet.

Oh, I forgot. For small stuff, they rope you up and kick you out into the street at night, watch the critters chew on you for a while, then pull the rope back in. If it's the normal small critters, they get both the whole rope and you back. In his case, Fourgy was already chewed up and had to go out of sight, beyond questions about spider beams and pirates. Off-planet was hiding in plain sight, normal for pirates.

The Captain's grin broadened as he thought about it, then announced. I'm going to send you to Mmhm. Fourgy's smile dropped as his head lurched forward with a kind of huh?

No. Mmhm. The Captain continued, you're already street chewed. You're too jungle smart. Too young for a ship. So Mmhm's it.

Who's Mmhm?

You'll find out when you meet Mmhm. The Captain popped a 3D image into the space between them. It was showing a big long thing. Fourgy analyzed it, a big alien space thing surrounded by a huge amount of space debris. Old battle remains