Counting Out My Daemons

Cola sat on her bed with a bounce.

She had Herbert's journals.

Not just the notes. The journals. Properly typed and bound!

She leafed through the pages, scanning them and looking for anything that might pop out as being different to the hand-written notes.

She shook her head from side to side and sighed a couple of times as she skimmed through the first few chapters. Good. She'd read them in nearly the correct order. That funny one about Lord Fader was definitely from further on in the book.

She found what appeared to be the "next" place and started reading.

"Today we landed on my first new planet"

---*---

The planet was called Gortumixal. Well that's the noises that my translator-implant made. I decided to refer to it as "Gort" and informed my implant of the fact.

We have landed for some R'n'R. I asked if we could have G'n'R instead and was ignored by everyone.

Spiron has some knitting to take care of. I tagged along after Bov and Marm as they headed out into the spaceport.

I was going to follow Richard, to try to see if I could actually talk to him, but he headed off as fast as, well, a rat off a sinking ship. I was sure he was a real Rat, not just some alien that looked a little like a rat. So if Earth was interdicted and Contact was not permitted how come he had ended up on TB before I did? I have tried to talk to him numerous times and he always seems to get away from me.

I suppose if Earth is interdicted that means that he and I are some form of criminal.

Bov and Marm were rushing away from me through the crowds at an amazing rate. This space port was more Cosmopolitan than Casablanca. There were so many different races I had to stop my implants identifying them all. Bov and Marm appeared to be one of the few races that had six limbs; most races seemed to correspond with the Coney average. Well, most things (sorry, people) I saw had just two identifiable arms and two identifiable legs. Most races appeared to have a body, a head and two eyes and one mouth. Many races had tails of all sorts, Although I don't think I saw any tail as pleasant as my fluffy ball of a tail. Bov had promised that he would take me to the intergalactic equivalent of a Pub. As I hadn't had any carrot beer for over two weeks now I was nearly frothing at the mouth in anticipation. I was trying to keep up with Bov and Marm but was falling behind as I kept getting distracted by the amazing sites there are to see in My First Spaceport.

Suddenly an un-translated voice cut through the surrounding hubbub.

"Coney" I heard someone shout. I stopped. They must mean me! I looked around, trying to search for the bellower.

"Buck!" came the voice again.

"Where's that voice coming from?" I said to myself. Although I hadn't consciously activated them my implants realised I was focussing on the sounds and started throwing directions up on my eyes.

A large yellow arrow appeared in the air in front of me. It wasn't really there but was projected on my eyes by my ocular implant. I was about to turn in the direction of the arrow when I thought of a very useful task for my implants. "Keep track of Bov." I sub-vocalised.

I turned in the direction of the yellow arrow and saw a buck's head bobbing up and down in the crowd rushing towards me.

A rabbit pushed out of the crowd in front of me. He was young buck, very light haired, and he looked a little worse for wear. He wore a gigantic smile.

"You're a buck?!" He said with a question mark and an exclamation mark. I made a mental note to tell him that my English teacher would disapprove of his speech patterns.

I nodded at him.

"A real Coney?" he asked again, then jumped at me. I was unable to get out of his way and he gave me such an authentic bear-hug I checked him over for a honey-pot.

"Am I glad to see you?" He said. I didn't answer for two reasons. One he was mixing statements and questions in a grammatical mess and secondly because he was still hugging the air out of lungs.

He let go of me. A little, anyway.

"Are you.." He paused. This was a question he didn't know the answer to and it seemed to confuse his synapses. "Are you going home?"

It was the last question I thought I'd be asked. I shook my head. There was nothing for me at home.

"Please," he said, his eyes turned to saucers, "Please tell me you're going home?"

"I've only just left." I said with steel. "I'm not going back there anytime soon."

"Please. Take me with you." He was starting to get agitated. "I can't stay here much longer I'll go insane." He shut his eyes and I took a deep breath.

"I'm not captain of a ship or anything," I told him, "I'm only a gunner and I don't have much say with the skipper." His crest fell so far I thought I heard it hit the ground. "Yet.." I added, then hated myself for it.

"You're going to?" The rabbit was cheered, "Oh please come back for me. It won't be as bad as the last time. I can take it now."

"The last time?" I hesitated to ask him to expand on this.

He looked at the floor and seemed to examine his feet for an eternity of two seconds.

"I.." he hesitated, "I.."

"Eye Moosie?" I attempted.

"I.." Then he gathered his courage up, "I had a bad reaction to the Translation." Then he was off again, "I hitched a lift with a teaser and we were going to see the Twelve Worlds of High Technology together. But. Well. It wasn't that bad, I didn't hurt any body and I didn't cause much damage to my cabin. And look.." He held his arms out at me. "Look they've healed nicely haven't they?"

My hackles had raised.

"Take me with you please?" He pleaded.

"I can't" I said quietly. Luckily there was much more weird behaviour around than his. There was no chance of drawing a crowd.

A red dot started flashing in the corner of my eye. I sub-vocalised and it expanded into a picture of a Keystone Cop - the universal sign for "Police On The Way"

I twitched to the right and could see three uniformed aliens (Well to tell you the truth they probably weren't technically aliens in this place, I was.) coming our way. I stepped back from the rabbit.

The police burst through the crowd.

"Now then, Malcolm." Said the lead one, "You've been a naughty boy again." He turned his left eye to me (disconcerting!) "Has he been any bother sir?" The other two took hold of the rabbit -presumably Malcolm.

"No, not at all" I said. I hoped they wouldn't see that we were the same species. I didn't fancy having to return with them.

The policeperson nodded and they started to leave when Malcolm broke free and lunged at me his front paws outstretched.

"TAKE ME WITH YOU!"

The police took hold of him and I heard a noise like an electrical discharge. Malcolm sagged and fell unconscious.

The officer in charge turned to me to, hopefully, apologise.

I was gone. I ducked down in the crowd and triggered my implant to lead me to Bov and Marm.

I found them glass-eyed in a dark building filled with a wide selection of aliens at different states of comatose. Bov pushed a small glass half-filled with a clear liquid in my direction as I sat down then turned to his brother, "See I tol' you he was intellllll. Intella. Untl. Clever."

I pulled the glass towards myself. I looked up and made sure that the police had not followed me. I took out the piece of paper that Malcolm had pushed into my hands at the end.

I unfolded it carefully.

"Wasssat?" Marm asked, reaching for the paper.

"Nothin'." I said and I slipped it into a pocket.

I had read the two words at the top. "Treasure Map". I decided that I wanted to be in a private place before I examined it.

---*---

"Cor." Cola said to herself. "And I thought I was the interesting plot line."