Angry Young Spaceman by Jim Munroe Page A

“Then I wouldn’t know.”

    “OK, but it’s not really fair, because you really can’t see it happening. Who’s your best friend back home?”

    “Wing Lau,” he said.

    “OK, so what would you do if you found out Wing was having an affair with her?”

    A bunch of guys foamed out of the bar in front of us. One of them had his tentacles all over a girl, but still had the time to gawk back at us. He yelled something at us everyone else found really funny.

    “That’s different,” Matthew said, his face troubled. “That’s more of a betrayal. Plus everyone knows.”

    The guy in front of us said something else in our direction.

    “Shut your fucking pus-hole!” I advised at a high volume, feeling adrenaline rush in to replace the energy yelling had expended.

    Matthew’s eyes popped out. “Sam, take it easy.”

    “I’m kind of in the mood for a fight,” I told Matthew by way of explanation. “I haven’t scrapped for weeks .” Half the group ahead of us were hurrying to get away, half were lagging behind. The wise-ass was staring at me. “What you looking at, chump?” I called.

    “I suppose it doesn’t matter much what I actually say , huh?” I said to Matthew, enjoying his discomfort. Perhaps whoring wasn’t to my taste, but there were other parts of the night I was well acquainted with. “Yea, verily,” I bellowed at the wise-ass, “’Tis better to give than to receive !” I looked at Matthew. “That’s the kind of accent the English pugs would use,” I said, educationally.

    “Man, they’re slowing down...”

    I smiled, folding up a nice fist to give the wiseass’s weak chin, and walked straight for him.

    “Hello,” said one of his companions, with his tentacles twined in polite greeting. He was wearing glasses.

    “Hello,” I said dourly, feeling my righteous anger start to soften and droop.

    “My friend, he is drunky. He is so sorry.”

    “Damn,” I said.

    Matthew offered Glasses a hand to shake.

    Drunky had gone to join his maulfriend who stood with the other girls a little ways ahead.

    “Shall we go?” Glasses asked.

    I shrugged. When you don’t know where you’re going, any direction’s good as any. I shoved my hands in my pockets.

seven

    I pulled the door closed behind me and inserted the card-key. It took me a second to find the slot in the dark. It gave a reassuring “click” and I slipped the card into my pocket.

    As I walked out, I realized that if I lost it, I could not get into my own apartment. How strange. I stuck my hand to feel if it was in a deep enough pocket, enjoying the bumpy texture of the key as I did so.

    When Mr. Zik had given me the key originally, I had flipped it over, thinking that a password for the apartment’s security system would be on it. But all it had on it was a scribbled note in Octavian.

    “Key?” I had said, wondering if it was a language thing.

    Mr. Zik had taken it from me and walked outside the apartment. I had followed. He had showed me how the key worked, locking it with deliberate slowness, then opening it.

    I had nodded, smiling, feeling like an ass.

    “Very old fashioned,” Mr. Zik had said with his hiss-laugh. With incredibly casual speed, he passed it through a series of tentacles to hand it off to me.

    I fingered it, thinking about how Mr. Zik was so apologetic for every difference between here and Earth, as if I didn’t come here expecting it, wanting it. Even having to fumble in the darkness, because the apartment lights had to be activated by a wall switch, was a novelty.

    Outside it was twilight, but not as dark as the apartment hall. The atmosphere was a green-blue, and for some reason the motion-ripples were more visible than at any other time of day. All moving things radiated.

    I walked along the road away from the town. A saucer passed by overhead, so close that the wake swept some road debris into my hair. The saucer was trailing a round disk full of some kind of vegetable. I brushed