"...I can feel the surging of the energies through the weave. The tribespeople you get to make this must be psychic, I can still see their auras intermingled in it, this must be a labour of love - it's amazing the things we Westerners have forgotten..."
"Mmm. Yes. Fascinating." And the tribespeople are so psychic they haven't figured out it's not a good idea to chew on the kitchen knives. And some of those who have do it anyway. "So you're ordering how many?"
"I have a good feeling about these, I think they'll enhance the chi in any room they're hung in. Did I ever tell you about the feng shui of the house I lived in before I started this business? Awful, awful, awful. The fights my partner and I used to have! Oh, they were -"
"I'm sure they were appalling, but please, Marigold -"
"Oh, Marie, please. I like to think I'm friends with the people I deal with. Why, there was one gentleman who -"
"Marie, then. How many were you willing to order?"
"Now, now. No need to get strung out over this, let peace fulfil you."
"I would be much more open to peace if you would place an order, please. It's getting a trifle late."
"Oh, silly me! Is that the time? Honestly, sometimes I think I've been abducted, the way time flies! I think a gross will start us off nicely, at those prices. We'll see where we stand after that."
"Thank you very much, Marie. We'll have that delivered in two days."
"I am looking forward to that very much, Josh. May your angel be watchful."
"Yours too, Marie. Good-bye."
Josh hung up, took a deep breath, and began to bang his head lightly on the desk. After several bangs, he straightened up, and made some modifications to the spreadsheet in front of him. "One gross. I bloody hope she can sell them. She sure can talk."
His official position was 'Human Liaison Officer'. His duties were to, well, deal with humans for the Ewoks. In practice, he found that Yarg defined 'dealing with people' to include 'dealing with money', 'dealing with laundry' and 'dealing with ordering pizza'. Duties which no-one else seemed to have. This was in addition to his normal unofficial duties of heading off blood feuds, avoiding stray blaster fire, and ducking whenever the Ewoks rediscovered they could not build siege engines.
As far as the Australian Government was concerned, he was partners in Native Crafts, a small business dealing in handmade merchandise. He had quit his casual job at a petrol station late in the year 2000 after an unexplained extended absence, but had gone into partnership with one Nicholas Coghlan to start the business. The business had only recently climbed into the black, but its customer base was steadily growing.
As far as he himself was concerned, his head was aching, his eyes were sore, and he was sick to death of talking to the kinds of people who ran some of the smaller craft shops.
"Stuff it," he declared out loud. "I'm going for a run."
********
It took him three hours to get ready. Not because the preparations were complex - it simply required a change of clothes and a warm-up routine - but he had been interrupted a lot. The longest interruption had been the swarm of Ewoks who had challenged him to a game of Quake 3. Josh was still unsure how it had been installed on the network of New Republic computers around the flat, but many of the Ewoks were yet to figure out how to actually control the game. Nonetheless, they had the urge to, as one Ewok put it in a chat session, 't35t t|-|3iR 5k1llz'.
Josh didn't want to think about how they might have learned l33t-speak. But it had cut down on the blood-feuding.
That, along with disarming a catapult before it snapped and saving the neighbour's dog from the Ewok Insomniac Hit Squad again, meant Josh was more than a little sore as he headed out into the night for a jog.
******
Josh heard voices up ahead as he approached the footbridge over the creek. He couldn't see the source, thanks to the trees and bushes planted along the edge of the creek, and he couldn't quite make out the conversation, but there were at least three male voices. A group of men at this time of night could mean trouble - with the R.E. [1] open relatively nearby, it was possible that they were drunk and looking for a fight. Still, he knew from experience that if he ignored them, chances were they would ignore him.
He crossed the bridge, the wood thunking loudly under his feet. The group of men were standing in a small huddle some distance to his right, and Josh flicked his eyes back straight ahead, ostentatiously paying no attention.
"Hey! That's the guy!"
Josh turned his head to the sudden cry just in time to notice movement in the darkness - close, and fast. He ducked his head instinctively and a bottle smashed on the blade of his forehead.
The next thing he knew, he was back on the bridge. He was off-balance, leaning heavily on the guardrail, not high enough to get back on his feet easily. The entire right side of his face was warm and wet. There were three men bearing down on him, and one was almost on him.
Bracing himself on the guard-rail, Josh lashed out with one foot, toe pointed, to catch the first man precisely in the groin. The man slowed abruptly, doubling over, so Josh lashed upward with both feet, catching his assailant hard on the jaw and forcing the man upright again. As his feet reached the top of their arc, Josh flicked them out, and used the motion to bring himself to his feet. The maneuver was clumsy, and severely scraped his shoulders and back, but Josh was free to act before his attacker recovered.
Josh charged the man, right hand to the throat and left hand to the crotch. One heave, and his attacker vanished over the railing of the bridge, crashing into the undergrowth below. Snarling, Josh turned to face his other assailants.
The man next in line had pulled up short at witnessing the fate of his comrade, holding a cricket bat half-heartedly above his head. He quickly recovered his nerve, swinging at Josh as the soldier closed.
Josh caught the bat in both hands, wrenching it free by spinning to his assailant's left. In the same motion, he let the bat slide through his hands until he had it by the handle, and brought the blade of the bat smashing into the back of his attacker's head. As the man fell to his knees, Josh backhanded the bat into the side of his head for good measure, knocking the man to the ground.
"Chill, man," said the third man, backing off, holding his arms up placatingly as Josh stalked towards him, cricket bat in guard postion. "The guy just wanted us so he could talk to you, that's all."
"The guy? What guy?" Josh kept advancing, forcing the man backwards further.
"The guy who -" The man broke off, looking over Josh's right shoulder, his expression unreadable in the dim light. "Wha - what's that?"
Josh was already dancing off to the left before the man finished speaking. A spear materialised out of the night and caught the stranger in the throat. Two more flew out of the darkness and thunked into the man's chest, and he keeled over.
<"Are you hurt, warrior?"> came an inquiring yub.
Josh rubbed a hand over his face and looked at the dark stain on the palm. "Nothing worth worrying about. Let's get these three back home and see what we can do about some answers." He took a step, tried to keep his balance, and added, "But maybe not too quickly."
********
We really need to get this holocomm fixed. Sci's face never shows up except as static.
"What is it, Captain?" Sci's hologram pulled back as it studied Josh's face. "Are you all right?"
Josh nodded, careful not to dislodge the bacta patch on his forehead. "I am, Major. But we've had a situation here. I was attacked by three men earlier this evening. I was running through the park, one of them yelled 'that's the guy' and glassed me. Unfortunately, I -"
"'Glassed'. They hit you with a glass?"
"A glass beer bottle, yeah. One of them threw it, it smashed on my forehead -" Josh gestured at the bacta patch - "then they attacked me. One of them claimed that the reason for it was that someone wanted to talk to me."
"Do you have any idea who?"
"None, and I don't even have a description of the guy. You see, ah... all three of them are dead."
"Dead. That's something of an overreaction, isn't it?"
"One of them managed to break his neck in a two-metre fall. The other I'd slugged around the head pretty hard, and the Ewoks didn't tell me he'd stopped breathing until about fifteen minutes after he had. The third one some Ewoks speared while trying to act as my bodyguard. It was the third one who told me what little I know."
The hologram sighed, then asked, "Were they ETs?"
"I don't think so. The ones that spoke all had local accents, and they all had Queensland driver's licenses. So either they were locals or they've got friends in high places..."
Sci fell silent for a moment. "This is... odd. Is it possible they had the wrong person?"
Josh shrugged carefully, trying not to upset the bacta patches on his shoulders. "I guess. It's not like we had an in-depth conversation or anything."
"How were you going to proceed?"
Josh shrugged again, and winced as a bacta patch dislodged and peeled off a half-formed scab. "Feed 'em to the Ewoks. Keep an eye out. I reckon it's pretty clear any opposition we have wouldn't send an attack this pissy."
"You're going to feed them to the Ewoks?"
"Yup. Unless you want mysterious dead bodies with mysterious spear wounds turning up around here, or have me drag around those dead bodies in my car. I'm pretty sure you don't want me involved in a coronial inquest, or better yet, charged with manslaughter, would I -"
"All right, you've made your point - not that you needed to. It just seemed a little strange. However, I think I should get you to stay a while in Ground HQ, let things cool off a bit."
Josh glanced around his room, and sighed. "Yes, sir. We've got a few big orders coming soon here, though, so I would like to keep in touch over here."
Sci nodded. "Understood. But couldn't Nick handle it?"
"I think he's at our New Hampshire branch at the moment. I'll get in touch, and let him know, but, well... Yarg doesn't like him handling customer relations. Still, Yarg'll have to live with it, I guess."
"Indeed he shall. I'll send the Gaia for you."
"I'll pack. Terra Five out."
[1] The Royal Exchange Hotel. www.rehotel.com.au, if memory serves. :)