On our quiet last day, Diligua and the station’s technicians activated the wind turbines. This ingenious system dispensed a fine mist inside Yggdrasil and the fog invaded the large windows separating the pastoral town from the vacuum.
With the humidity, Ali’s haircut had doubled in volume, giving her a Bob Ross vibe. Benàn and I both enjoyed seeing her like this before she threw her iron cup at us. Despite the lack of gravity, it almost tore off my right ear.
“The mist will only last a few days. It’s good for the skin,” Alàn preached while finishing cooking tofu on the gas stove. “Just like the mud and—”
“Alàn—” Diligua cut him off before her reprimand got interrupted by a knock on the giant mushroom’s door.
It was strange because since the beginning of our stay, nobody had come to visit Benàn and his family. From the yardman’s expression, this didn’t bode well.
“Enter!” Diligua shouted as she slid off the wood table to face the unexpected newcomer.
The wooden door opened slowly before a man in a beige raincoat rushed inside. Water was dripping from the edges of his round hat and long pointed nose. He wiped his blond mustache from the back of his sleeve before plunging his gold circled gray eyes into each of ours. When he met Alàn’s gaze, he gasped, flabbergasted. “What a shock! What they say is true!” he shouted with a thick English accent, hands on his hips. “Marcellàn Iron Fists lives on this moldy stone!”
Marcellàn? Was he referring to the pirate? Marcellàn Iron Fists who pulverized his opponents with the strength of his knuckles? That Marcellàn would be Alàn?
Ali didn’t seem to make the connection. She was for the moment too busy digging into her meaty dagmal, the bottom of the bowl almost stuck to her forehead.
“I don’t know what ye’re talkin’ ‘bout,” coldly replied our host.
“Cut the crap, old fibber!” the visitor laughed. “I’m responsible for some scars on your back.” He opened his coat, revealing an AAJ’s badge and the stock of a rifle with a scope hanging from his shoulder.
I recognized him. We were looking at Nigel Hemingwest, a second-generation bounty hunter. Obnoxiously famous for his gross blunders from which he had always come out as white as snow.
“Marcellàn, who fought bare hands in his shiny red titanium armor, relegated as a petty gardener! This is beyond prodigious!” Hemingwest continued, taking a step towards the table.
He was stopped by Diligua, a sharp knife ready: “If you’re not here for any Yggdrasil-related business, I’d appreciate it if you’d get the hell out!”
Hemingwest stumbled backward, hands up, but visibly amused by the situation. “Lovely wife!” But the chauvinist’s smile faded as he looked at Ali who had now put her bowl back on the table. His eyes lingered for a moment on her own badge. “Anyway, I see that the bounty is already coveted…”
My partner wiped the tip of her nose with the back of her hand, also revealing her .50 caliber, before granting her unexpected opinion on the matter: “We ain’t give a shit about the dollar-credits. Alàn has offered us shelter and food. No harm will come to him from us.”
Hemingwest opened his eyes wide. It must have been a long time since he had been so dissed but unfortunately that was Ali’s trademark. Also, my associate indicated that she wouldn’t fulfill a contract, which was uncommon for an auxiliary; unusual and punished by a severe reprimand if the high authority got wind of it.
“Is that so, lassie?” Hemingwest squeaked before turning to Benàn’s father. “I’m no fool, Alàn the florist. I’ll be waiting for Marcellàn and his armor at the foot of the Big Tree for a duel tonight. A legend like him can’t refuse, even if he has pissed calcium for twenty years by living in low gravity! Otherwise, the whole system will learn where his pitiful family is hiding—rightly or wrongly!”
And Hemingwest left by slamming the door.
“Well, that explains all the praise for Marcellàn coming from Benàn!” I said to Ali, breaking the awkward silence.
“There’s no way I’m goin’ to accept this cursed challenge,” Alàn grumbled while sitting.
In front of him, Benàn had risen, red with anger: “Ye’re goin’ to let him humiliate you like that?”
“Can’t you see that your father has moved on?” his mother spoke in the same tone.
We didn’t say a word. Ali grabbed me by the paw before leaving the table. She had judged that the rest of the conversation had nothing to do with us. But when we arrived at the front door, Benàn passed us and withdrew first, visibly furious at Diligua’s answer.
“This Hemingwest klaphat hasn’t turned over a new leaf and I know him, he won’t let go,” Alàn grunted with his palms compressed against his eyes.
“We ignore if he doesn’t have any evidence. But if he does, I’d bet he has nothing solid and he’s attempting to bluff us…” Diligua said, trying to reassure her husband before we closed the door.
Outside, against his mother’s flying Solex, Benàn was tearing off pieces of brown moss covering the ramp of their fungal home. His anger had subsided and his eyes filled with tears when he saw us: “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you who my pa was… but you were bounty hunters…”
“All fathers have secrets,” I replied. “Yours is worth a lot of dollar-credits. And Hemingwest is no joke…”
“My pa hasn’t wrestled for decades,” Benàn explained. “And yet, even with porous bones, he could crush this rat’s skull if he wasn’t such a coward!” I noticed he had lost most of his Nordic accent.
“Your father is anything but a coward, you know…” Ali intervened, sitting next to him. “He’s just doing what parents do… trying to protect you.”
“Is he? Then why does he refuse to fight? Why did he stop his life as a pirate and adventurer? Why does he prevent me from leaving?” Benàn shouted as he stood up. “Because he’s a fraud!” Crying, he subsequently swam in the void before disappearing into the fog.
“What a brat!” my human grumbled.
“Don’t blame the boy,” said his father, who had joined us. “He also inherited a bad temper… certainly from his mother.”
A cast-iron cup coming from inside the house brushed against his head before getting lost in the mist.
“What are you going to do?” I asked.
“This afternoon? Spud the contours of the water recycler. And if ye’re not ashamed to help an old pirate, I can employ you for that last job,” he said. “As for tonight? Absolutely nothin’. Hemingwest could wait for the Ragnarök that I wouldn’t give him satisfaction.”
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We worked alongside Alàn for the rest of the day. But not without concern because we had no news from Benàn. By dinner time, the teenager was still missing, which worried his mother, and rightly so.
“Alàn! Alàn!” The voice came from outside. The station storekeeper, Erik, stood below. “Alàn! You’re not gonna believe your ears!” he continued after we had joined him. “The pirate Marcellàn is on Yggdrasil… and he’s fighting Nigel Hemingwest!”
“He what?” the real Marcellàn roared.
The old pirate immediately jumped and grabbed the flying Solex before his wife took control of it. The machine unfolded its broad black wings and made its turbine roar then took off, forming a tunnel in the fog. Ali and I chased them to the foot of the Big Tree as it was there, in the center of the station, that Hemingwest had set its cruel rendezvous.
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