Hard Luck Hermit

Corey contemplated the offer for a moment. He wasn’t even sure what a bounty hunter was, really.

“Do I have to answer right away?”

“Why wouldn’t you?”

“It just seems like a lot to jump into,” Corey protested. “You guys ran headfirst into a room of like two-hundred killer slavers and mercs. I don’t know if that’s the kind of lifestyle I want.”

“I would consider that incident unusual, but fair play,” Kamak said. “The money’s good.”

“Yeah, hold on,” Corey said. He turned to Tooley. “Is the money good?”

“Hey, you hold on, I just told you the money’s good, why are you asking her?”

“Because she doesn’t like you,” Corey said. Tooley nodded twice. “She’ll tell me the truth.”

“Pay varies from job to job,” Tooley said. “But I’ve never gone hungry, and when all the bills are paid I usually got a decent chunk of cash leftover to stash away for my own starship. There’re worse gigs out there in the galaxy.”

“Far superior ones as well,” Farsus said. “Like a Priest-Lord of Tanogg, who awake every morning to a legion of concubines gilding their genitalia in brushed gold as preparation for the day’s ritualistic copulation.”

“That does sound better,” Corey agreed.

“Well they ain’t hiring,” Kamak said. “Believe me, I checked. So since that gig’s off the table, how about this one?”

“I don’t know. Do I need to be registered to be a bounty hunter?”

“Not so long as you’re with me.”

“Or literally any other registered bounty hunter,” Tooley added.

“He doesn’t know any other registered bounty hunters,” Kamak said.

“You sure changed your tune quick,” Doprel noted. “Give Corvash some time to think about it. He’s had a long day.”

“That’s true,” Tooley said. “We got a swap or so before we hit the nearest station. Let him sleep on it.”

“Sleep sounds nice, but I don’t know if I could,” Corey said. He’d been awake for probably fifteen hours at this point, not counting however long he’d spent unconscious with the slavers, and yet he didn’t feel tired. All the excitement and confusion of being flung into space had his mind and his heart racing. “You got any kind of space sleeping pills or anything?”

“Legally speaking I can’t carry that kind of stuff on my ship,” Kamak said.

“We got the next best thing though,” Tooley said. Her shining green eyes lit up with excitement. “This’ll be fun. We got an Uncontacted with us, time for a science experiment.”

“Oh, is this the part where you probe me?” Corey said. Nobody laughed. “Human joke, we have a thing about getting probed by aliens, it’s, uh-”

“Perverts,” Tooley said. “No, Corey Vash, we’re going to be performing a much more important experiment.”

She kicked her heel on the table again, and summoned another one of the blue bottles, which she raised up into Corey’s hands.

“How much alcohol does it take to get a ‘human’ blackout drunk?”

The four humanoids stood around every side of the table, facing each other down in a four-way standoff. Each had a bottle in hand, and an ever-growing stack of empty bottles in front of them.

“Not even wobbling,” Tooley said. “But you might as well be dancing, Kamak.”

“Rules don’t say nothing about wobbling, princess,” Kamack said. The participants of the drinking game were only disqualified when they fell. “I’m embracing the flow. Feeling the buzz and riding it all the way to victory.”

“I am immovable in the face of this intoxication,” Farsus shouted. He stood opposite Corey in the face-off square, and had yet to so much as tilt to one side. “The Torokoro are a hardy people! We hunted our dinners in caverns choked with methane! The weakling toxins of these beverages are no match for my natural resilience. I shall endure!”

“Humansh ain’t no slouches either,” Corey slurred. “There are...there’re entire species of plants that tried to develop painful defenses against us...and we eat them anyway! And we enjoy it! Grind up all the peppers and bottle the juice, sell their toxins as hot sauce!”

“Your people stare death in the face and draw sustenance from the pain, I love it!”

Farsus pounded his chest and let out a holler that turned into a belch. Every participant wrinkled their noses in disgust and then downed another bottle.

“Hey, hey, Gentanian’s ain’t no slackers in that department. The Boakso are the deadliest predators on our planet, covered in poison quills, and my ancestors, my ancestors, they hunted down those bastards, and cooked their meat on skewers made of the quills,” Kamak taunted. “Little dash of poison in the meat makes for great seasonings!”

“Hail the mighty hunters,” Farsus screamed, and every participant drank to it. “Tooley Keebur Obeltas! How did your ancestors brave death itself to slake their appetites?”

“I, uh, hold on,” Tooley said. She wobbled for a second and muffled a long belch. “Okay, I good. Oh right, I know. A long long, long time ago there were mostly these really really really big birds on my planet. But we didn’t have ships or flying yet. So when we hunted them, what they did was, they would climb up on top of the cliffs where the birds lived, and watch, and wait, and wait, and then, then when the birds started to fly, the hunters would jump on ‘em! From above! And get them with spears!”

Farsus let out a rousing cheer that nearly knocked Kamak off his feet, but he stayed upright.

“How many died in the pursuit of this mighty meal?”

“Uh...I don’t know. It was way long ago,” Tooley said. “A lot, I guess?”

“We drink to the numberless dead!”

The quartet of drinkers let out an exuberant “yeah!” and downed another round of bottles. The plastic containers clattered to the floor and were quickly replaced.

“So did the caveman versions of you have like, gliders?” Corey asked. “Or did they just hop in the direction of a bird and pray?”

“I don’t know, man, that was like twenty thousand thousand years ago or somming. Something.”

“Ah, you’re slipping up,” Kamak said. “You always mess up words right before the fall.”

“Use that mouth for drinking, not talk,” Tooley commanded, and the contestants downed another round.

“Do you guys do this a lot?”

“Only mostly sometimes,” Kamak said. “Special occ-occ-coccasions.”

“Does Doprel ever join?”

The hulking alien had apparently retreated to his private quarters for the duration of the game, but wished them all good luck before doing so.

“Oh, his species has different chemissssssss...brain stuff,” Tooley said. “He couldn’t get drunk if he wanted to.”

“How horrifying,” Corey mumbled.

“We shall drink to his lamentable existence!”

At Farsus’ cry, another round bottomed out. Farsus nearly stumbled, but caught his footing at the last minute and stayed upright.

“I don’t know if you noticed, Professor Corsmash, but Doprel ain’t exactly built like the rest of us,” Kamak said. “He’s all different on the inside too. He’s got...bug guts. To match his bug face.”

“Okay, yeah, that makes sense,” Corey said. “But then why do we all look the same? Ish. Sort of. I mean you’re red and she’s blue and you’re...sort of the same but like, very bad. Bald.”

“We are all of us Kentath renegades-”

“Retrogrades,” Tooley corrected.

“Yes, retrogrades, thank you for this correction, my beloved companion,” Farsus said. “A once mighty race that dominated the universe, laid low by their own hubris. Before the plague consumed their species, they seeded the known universe with genetically engineered variants of their own kind, to undo the genetic homogeny. Homogeneity? Homogenousness?”

“He gets it, Farsus.”

“Yes! The boy comprehends! Tragically, the central command was consumed, and the various offshoots were never united under a common banner, left to redevelop their own civilizations, scattered like dust across the cosmos.”

“And that’s why most of us out here in the universe look the same, and got the same parts,” Kamak said. “We’re like cousins, except twenty-two billion times removed.”

Corey wobbled from side to side and processed the information. That would topple more than a few centuries of scientific understanding and religious doctrine back on earth. Corey focused on something else instead.

“We got all the same parts?”

“Yeah, but they’re usually all jumbled around in there,” Kamak said. He pointed to his own chest, then shifted his finger as he spoke. “It’s like this, Fartsus’ got his heart in the center of his chest, but mine’s down here, and his kindeys is over here, and mine...well it should be here, but I got shot in a kidneys a while back and I’m not sure that guy put it in the right place, he might’ve-”

Kamak had leaned back to better display his abdomen, and in doing so, sealed his fate. The captain’s arms flailed and he let out a panicked cry as he toppled backwards, but could not catch himself in the end.

“The captain has fallen,” Farsus declared. “We drink to honor his memory!”

“I’m alive, numbnuts,” Kamak snapped, as the rest drank another round.

“But you’re out,” Tooley sang. “Lie down and sleep it off, Cap, I want you sober when I rub it in.”

Kamak let out a few angry grumbles as he rolled over and tried to pull himself onto the couch to pass out properly.

“Final three, okay okay okay,” Tooley said. “You humans can hold it together, Corvash.”

“And I’m doing this on an empty stomach,” Corey boasted.

“Is that relevant to your intoxication, or are you requesting a snack?”

“I could go for some crackers or something, but I don’t think you guys got any food in arms length of me,” Corey said. “And if I move I’m definitely going to fall over.”

“Oh ho, he admits weakness,” Tooley said. “Let’s see how much longer you can hold out. Again!”

Another batch of bottles were downed in a flash. It was difficult to tell where the breaking point was crossed, but Farsus certainly crossed it. He fell backwards like a brick, landing halfway in a chair, completely unconscious by the time he hit the deck.

“And then there were two,” Corey said.

“Might as well just be one,” Tooley said. “You know I’m winning this, right?”

“Like hell you are,” Corey snapped. “Again.”

Tooley complied, and she raced Corey to the bottom of another bottle. He slammed his own down on the table and summoned another in the process.

“Again!”

Another round passed in no time flat. Tooley could feel herself about to vomit, and the retching sensation nearly knocked her off her feet, but she endured.

“Okay. Okay okay stop, we’re stopping stop stop stop,” she said.

“You giving up?”

“No. No no, just, pausing, giving it a minute, let it hit the brain, hit the- hit the tummy,” Tooley said. “Give it a second. Tell, I don’t know, tell a story or something.”

“Stories of what?” Corey asked. “My homeworld’s a ball of dust, all covered in...fuckers. Bad fuckers. Just all fuckers, in every direction. Nothing special.”

“That is super super cool,” Tooley said. “My place sucks too. Do you want to kill people on your planet? Mine is kind of bad bad bad but I diecided I don’t want to kill anybody there. Do you want to kill anybody on your planet?”

Corey stopped and looked at the pile of empty bottles in front of him.

“Again.”

Tooley shrugged and down another bottle alongside Corey. As the last drops of alien alcohol hit his system, Corey finally crossed a threshold of drunkenness he’d never crossed before, and on the far side of absolute inebriation, he found his answer.

“Yes.”

Then he collapsed backwards, and everything went black.