The Spaces in Between Read Free

doing.”
    The monitor displayed an unusual starship orbiting a puke green planet. The ship was surprisingly yonic in shape. Yonic? That’s the polar opposite of phallic. I don’t want to go into how, but you could guess how the ships docked.
    This was our destination: the museum starship Asterix.
     
    3
     
    “I feel like Hunter S. Thompson,” I said while looking at the fat green creatures covered in boils and ties mingling around the bar. “Though these lizards are pretty calm after getting their booze.”
    “The Draco,” Cameron corrected. “They are the bureaucrats of the stars, and the administrators of this museum. The starship is orbiting their home world Baa for repairs and to change shifts for the next year.”
    “Don’t you think you might be a tad bit conspicuous being the notorious Pirate King and all while the museum is closed?”
    “The Draco are far more anal than even you, and would never, ever close the museum short of an emergency. It passes through war zones on a regular basis all the while charging full admission. Their spiritual aptitude is worse off than most Earthlings; I’ve made it so they’d never notice me as anything unusual. Or you at all.”
    Cameron took a sip of his deep space equivalent of rum and coke.
    “So what exactly do you need me for again?”
    “Well most people that end up here on the Astral are mathematicians, scientists, and all purpose dorks,” Cameron said, “I’m the exception. I’m not technically inclined at all. What you were supposed to do was figure out one of the tour computers for me. Now we have to find one of these guys that can speak something like English.”
    “Well, what am I supposed to do about the computers being down?”
    “Well, you fix it, computer guy.”
    “With what?” I punched through the glass of Cameron’s drink to emphasize my lack of substance. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed someone looking at us. He wasn’t looking past me like everyone else in the room; we actually made eye contact.
    I don’t know why I didn’t notice him before. In a room full of drunken lounge lizards a nine-foot Japanese man with hair down to the small of his back still stands out. Dark half moons hung under his eyes. He was crouched over a low bench at the center of the room stabbing a chopstick into sand somehow captivating an audience of drunken lizards.
    I tried to nudge Cameron, but failed miserably since my elbow passed right through him. Fortunately, he still noticed this gesture.
    “What is he doing?”
    Worry suddenly flared in Cameron’s eye.
    “ Kuso ! A geomancer? Here?” The man stood up – he was the tallest thing in the room. He broke through the disappointed crowd straight towards us. Cameron’s hand darted to the flintlock pistol nestled in his sash. Light condensed around the Geomancer’s hands while the Pirate King produced his gun.
    The hammer fell on his antiquated gat. The only report was a blinding light, and for a while I stopped dreaming.
     
    4
     
    I expected to wake up in my hospital bed or maybe an embedded dream, but no such luck. I was still literally chained to the dream. I couldn’t pull the reins from my subconscious. I was in another completely sterile corridor – apparently I had been dragged along with Cameron.
    Down the hall walked the tall man and a Draco whose gimp mask either indicated a very high or low ranking – there was obviously no in between when it comes to gimps. They were conversing, not in English, but I still knew what they were saying.
    “The gun we pulled off him defies all analysis,” Commander Gimp said, “It all looks Atlantean, but we couldn’t get a peep out of him in torture. We allow you to be here as long as you don’t bring this Atlantean vs. Lemuria shit on board, Tsuen.”
    “I assure you this man is not Atlantean or Lemurian,” Tsuen said. “This is something a lot direr.” Tsuen glanced at me. Why does that Pirate glow with the light of God? My dumbfounded