-SALOON AT THE EDGED OF EVERYWHERE-

Chapter Seven

As Ox used a draping tentacle strand to scoop up the chips and rake them towards himself, he mumble-rumbled something about a maneuver named after a Xxo named Xxx, and driving in his enemies front ranks.

The Prince and the Baron took the time between hands while Jimmy shuffled the cards, to pour more beer into the shot glasses Rufus had provided. These had proved to be the perfect size for the Bat’s small, clawed fingers.

It was at that moment a sort of alarm began to sound. Or more accurately many types of alarms began to sound. Lights flashed in many spectrums. The predominant colors, as seen by Rufus, were shades of red. A single word was sounded, over and over, in what must have been many languages. Mixed in with the unfamiliar words and sounds was one word that Rufus could not help but to hear.

Warning!

Well, that’s helpful, thought Rufus.

Suddenly the warning strobe light show and cacophony of sounds stopped for a moment, to be replaced by the normal door chime set of lights and sounds. It took Rufus just a moment to understand that someone was at the door to his room.

He leaped up and touched the wall, and the panel slid apart to reveal a small mob of life forms in the enlarged corridor. The door did not seem to be able to figure out quite how large an opening it needed to make, and after choosing several it gave up and slid away completely.

“We got trouble,” said the mob in Ned Perkin’s voice.

It was just about then that Rufus noticed Ned Perkins standing at the front of the pack. Rufus simultaneously noticed that Ned was holding a large, black, pump-action shotgun across his chest.

As his eyes took in more details, he just became more confused. Behind and to the side of Ned he noticed Candybar. She had a huge cleaver in one hand, and a bloody scratch on her left upper arm. Behind her were three Qualm, bobbing and bumping into each other like balloons in a swirling wind. The rest of the crowd was made up mostly of assorted patrons and staff of the Saloon at the Edge of Everywhere.

There was Mof, the head cook. He was an already rather ugly alien who at some time had been horribly burned in an accidental fire. He said he liked working with humans because they had no idea how he was supposed to look. “They just think I’m ugly, but they don’t feel sorry for me,” he was fond of saying. He was five feet tall, completely hairless, and very fat. His orange flesh tended to droop and sag, giving him the appearance of a half melted candle that had once been shaped in the form of a smiling Buddha. In less than a month he had mastered greasy spoon-style Earth cooking that would put most cooks back on Earth to shame. And he was carrying a very large kitchen knife in one of his big hands.

Rufus was forced to return his attention to Ned, who was shouting over the alarm sounds again. The lights were making it hard for Rufus to concentrate.

“We got big trouble,” Ned loudly emphasized. “A pack of renegade aliens hijacked a luxury cruise liner and used it to sneak onto the Hub. They busted into the saloon and commenced to shootin’ up the place with some kind of dart guns. I pulled old Betsy here and let ‘em have some buckshot. That set ‘em hightailin’ it back out onto Mainstreet.”

Rufus tried to take it all in, but ended up shaking his head. A shotgun named old Betsy? A pack of renegades? Commenced to shootin’ up the place? Hightailin’ it? Ned was getting way too in to this wild west saloon thing.

“Where did you get the shotgun, Ned?” was all he could think to ask.

“I brought it with me in my suitcase when I first came up here,” Ned replied, seeming slightly puzzled by the question.

“But how did you happen to have it handy, Ned?” Rufus thought this a reasonable question to ask.

“Well, I keep it under the bar, Rufus,” said Ned patiently. “I would’ve thought you’d seen it when you were cleaning up.” This Ned said with an air of disappointment.

“What are we going to do?” asked Rufus.

“We are gonna fight back, that’s what we’re gonna do. We need all your weapons. We only had time to grab a few things as we ran out the back way.” Now Ned sounded very determined.

“Weapons? I have a guitar, Ned.” Rufus said this with a liberal sneer at the idea of owning a gun.

“Well what about those, you young idgit?” Ned was sounding less patient now as he indicated the wall behind Rufus.

Embarrassed, Rufus turned and glanced at the rack of knives on the wall behind him. Rufus liked edged weapons, and had collected a few dozen over the years. He even practiced with them frequently, but still did not think of them as real weapons.

“A lot of those are cheap knockoffs, Ned. Just for show.” Now Rufus sounded defensive.

“Well ‘they’ won’t know that, will they?” said Ned, striving for patience once again.

“Ok, but I want them back after…” Rufus didn’t have time to finish that thought. Ned was past him and handing a knife to anyone who had a way to pick it up and use it. Rufus nodded at Ken Bower, who played old-timey music on the saloon’s ancient piano, and was now fingering the edge of a replica Marine Corps KA-Bar combat knife.

“You’re right, Rufus, this is a piece of crap,” Ken said with a wink. He grabbed the blade and wiggled it. It was loose in the handle. Ken had a room down the hallway from Rufus, but had been at work during the attack. Ken went on speaking. “All I have is some steak knives,” he admitted sheepishly.

To Rufus’s surprise, VarnTa, Jimmy, Frodo and Gollum all calmly walked to the wall and grabbed knives of various sizes. The Prince and the Baron both picked out smaller knives for themselves. Mr. Toad declined.

Ox just mumbled, “No thank you,” followed by a very frightening low rumbling growl.

Rufus shrugged.

“What the hell,” he muttered as he opened a drawer in the dresser by where his bed would be if he needed it to be there. Inside he found one of his good knives. His favorite knife. The one he practiced with the most, an expensive and wickedly large fighting blade. He took the small sheathed knife he always wore on his belt off, and replaced it with the much larger one.

He gave a lopsided grin and shouted, “Let’s go kick some alien ass.” Nobody seemed to be listening. Rufus noticed the Professor standing by where the door usually was.

“Would you like a knife, Professor?” he asked.

“No thank you, my boy. I believe this will be of much more practical value,” said the Professor, glancing down at the blanket-wrapped triangular shape he held close to his belly. He gave Rufus a sly wink.

“Great,” Rufus sighed. He continued silently to himself; now we have a wizard and his crystal ball to go with the rest of my J. R. R. Tolkien theme.

Candybar came up and gripped Rufus’s arm “We’ve got to go back and find the Warlord,” she hissed fiercely.

“Why? What good could he do?” mocked Ox in a cutting tone.

Candybar did not let go of Rufus’s arm. She continued to speak. “When we retreated through the kitchen, he was gone. We have to go back for him.” Rufus couldn’t tell if she was demanding or pleading. He nodded as he pulled her to his bathroom area and opened what he thought of as his medicine cabinet. He took out some bandages and a sterile swab and began bandaging her arm.

“Did you get shot?” he asked, feeling very concerned.

“No,” she shook her head, “I just caught it on the edge of the stove.”

Before he could think of anything else to say, Ned once again took charge. He yelled, “We ain’t goin’ back ‘till we have us a battle plan, Missy.”

Rufus thought this was wise counsel, despite the folksy way in which it was delivered.

“What do we know about the bad guys?” he asked. He paused for breath and to gather his thoughts. “First we need to know something about them. What they want. Who they are. And most importantly, where they are right now? We need a spy.”

He stopped suddenly and swung his gaze to Gollum, who was standing next to Ssseeeet and fingering a copy of a British commando dagger.

“No,” Rufus stated firmly, smiling at the little figure. What we need is a scout.”

Gollum’s large, luminous, pale blue-green eyes met his, and the diminutive creature gave him a rather fierce smile back. The eyes glowed like fog-shrouded lanterns, and sharp little teeth gleamed.

“Can you find out how many of them there are, where they are, and what they are doing, without getting caught, Gollum?” Rufus asked seriously, crouching to one knee and putting a hand on the Scout-Helper’s small, thin shoulder. This is the first time I ever really talked to him directly like this, Rufus realized belatedly. I don’t even know his real name.

Gollum cast an eye at Ssseeeet and got a double eye-bob in return. He returned his gaze to Rufus and nodded solemnly. “It will be my pleasure, Rufus. It is, after all, what I do,” he said in a squeaky but very serious tone of voice. Then he jogged off down the hall, still clutching the commando knife.

Rufus paused to think again. He had casually studied military history for most of his life. He had read all the works of the great military thinkers of Earth, and watched countless documentaries, not to mention just about every war movie ever made. He still lugged boxes of books with him whenever he moved, and even played military war games on his computer. All that time with the History Channel is finally going to pay off, he told himself.

He had another idea. He turned to Ned and said, “We need to find a Reporter.”

“A Reporter, now that’s a right good idea,” Ned declared.

“Right, if there’s a Reporter or two hanging around, we should be able to get some real-time information,” Rufus responded proudly. He continued, “It’s that kind of out-of-the-box thinking that I’m good at. That’s why you came to get me, Right?”

Ned glanced quickly at Candybar.

“Well,” he said with a shrug, “we knew Ox was playing cards with you, and, well, we sort of figured, you know, he’s big, and he is a trained soldier after all.”

The alarm system chose that moment to cease, which definitely added to the uncomfortable silence to a large degree.

“Hey, I was in the Navy,” Rufus blurted. Then he went on with a rather demoralized tone, combined with a waving away gesture of one hand. “Whatever.”