GalaxyBillies

Chapter 11

Chapter 11                                                                                                                                                                                                   

Jim Bob could honestly say he was having the time of his life. These alien women were strange, it was true, but boobs was boobs. If he could see them, they were real enough, regardless of the species they were attached to.

He reclined into the pillows and let a pretty green-skinned female feed him grapes. She had flaming red hair and a scanty bikini covering her obvious assets. Yup, this was the life.

If everything were going according to plan, Zeke was probably dead by now. He’d seen the big man running from the two concubines Jim Bob had set him up with. Not much in the way of blackmail material there, but Zeke was an idiot. Lump like him wouldn’t last an hour with all these strange aliens around.

He saw Tharka come into the room.

“Hey Tharka. How are things going? Ah gots to tell you, this is a pretty sweet setup you got going here.”

Tharka’s smile wasn’t any more reassuring now that he knew her than it was before. There was something menacing in the way her tusks gleamed. “Time to settle your bill, human.”

“Ah told you, bill it to the ship, Grokmar.”

Tharka shook her head. “Doesn’t work. Apparently your ship doesn’t have that kind of credit and word over the SecNet has it that all humans are being sought out by station security.” She held out her hand. “I don’t need any trouble, so if you don’t mind, just pay your bill and go.”

Jim Bob scrambled to his feet. “Ah don’t have any money, you big goon!” He turned the pockets of his coverall out to show the truth of it. He’d been in similar situations back home.⁠ (Mind you, back home he had never been faced with an eight-foot tall, four armed, green female bodybuilder. Other than that, the idea was much the same.)  What was the worst that would happen? “If’n you can’t get it from the ship, you’ll just have to toss me out.”

Tharka’s grin was ghoulish. “Oh we’ll toss you out, but not before we get whatever value we can out of your worthless carcass.”

That didn’t sound promising. Jim Bob prepared to run just as the green girl smashed a bottle over his head.

***

Bobby John was a normal boy in most respects. He liked fishing and walks in the woods. If given the opportunity he would dig in the mud and hunt frogs and tadpoles. He even had the pre-requisite short attention span so common to little boys.⁠ (It had something to do with little boys being made from frogs, snails and puppy dog tails, none of which are renowned for good attention spans.)

What made him different was his Gift. That’s Gift with a capital-G. You see, Bobby John could fix things. Where many boys take things apart to see what made them tick, Bobby John would take something broken and make it whole again. It didn’t matter whether he had ever seen that something before or not. He could take it and its component pieces and make it work. If pieces were missing, he would find something that would do and substitute it. Whatever he put his hands to, he fixed.

It was uncanny and, ultimately, the reason he left home. It made people nervous and nervous people did odd things. Someone started whispering that maybe the ‘Gift’ was the Devil’s work. It didn’t take long before the entire community was buzzing with the rumor. Bobby John’s parents decided that their little boy might be safer if he left. Late one night they spirited the seven-year-old boy away and left him to fend for himself miles from home with nothing but the clothes on his back, a bit of food and two dollars the family had managed to save.