Loic Monerat & The Lizard Brain Spice Smuggling Syndicate by Chris Herron, Greg Provan (book club suggestions .TXT) 📖

planet’s surface, Loic realised it must be because they didn’t intend for him to leave again, and that Sarkraa would probably want to keep him close-by, like a pet, to torture at her will. This unpleasant thought caused him to lurch once more, and the detainees shoved him forward roughly, unsympathetic to his plight.

 

The beaten and bloodied smuggler looked around at a planet rarely glimpsed at surfacelevel, at what would probably be the last place he ever saw. The sky scudded with almost-golden clouds that fringed with a fiery-red anger in places, sparking and spitting with the occasional flash of lightning, a perpetual drizzle hung in the air. The stench was that of peat, sulphur, and bogs, it blitzkrieged the senses like a battalion of tiefighters on full throttle. The conditions reminded Loic of a rainforest planet he had visited once; hot, humid, exploding with biodiversity and all manner of venomous, dangerous creatures. None more dangerous perhaps than the one whose palace he was being escorted to right now.

It was a short trip by hovercraft to Sarkraa’s abode. The only Hutt palace Loic had seen was Jabba’s on Tatooine, it had been derelict and disused when Loic had seen it, shortly after the gangster’s demise, and this one looked no different in structure. A stocky, oxidised building, with a main rounded body and some minarets poking up from it like antennas. The building reminded Loic of a squat, disgusting Klatooine Toad sitting on its sowlike haunches, belching. The Weequay entered through a tradesmen’s entrance round the side and Loic was escorted immediately to the dungeons, to await his audience with Sarkraa. Before locking him in his cell they delivered him a fearsome blow to the back of the neck and he was rendered unconscious, spreadeagled on the straw-covered, dusty floor. In the abysmal void of his subconscious Loic swam through a black ocean of memories, dreams, visions, all aswirl in his head like the mottled stars of hyperspace.  

  

‘Now hold the gun steady, aim, breathe, relax, fire.’ Luc Courleciel Monerat told his scrawny, bony, trembling son as the child raised a training-blaster, pointed, and obliterated a holographic tin can from atop the garden wall. ‘Good shot Loic! We’ll make a soldier of you yet!’

 

Laid out all grey and ashenfaced in his coffin as young Loic followed the funeral procession, an entourage of weeping, desolate mourners, his mother wailing at his side clutching his newborn little sister. His father floated up ahead in his casket as it proceeded to the crematorium, he was resplendent in his uniform with medals and insignia and his walrus-like white moustache was trimmed and combed. He looked peaceful, it was the first time Loic had seen him without a frown, all the wrinkles and furrows had magically left his face. Soldiers lined the sides at the cremation, he was given a military send-off and Loic could still hear the cacophony from the 100-blaster salute ringing in his ears, and his sister’s baby sobs, wrapped in their mother’s arms.

 

His sister, the soldier on top of her, rutting away, Loic, watching, ashamed by his own tumescence, peering guiltily through the gap, sweat stinging his eyes. Her cries punctuating the constant hum of the nightly traffic of the city. The grunting of the trooper, pants round his ankles, belt uncoiled like a bullwhip, trailing across the floor, a battlecry as he unloaded his clip into Loic’s sweet, sweet sister as she wracked and convulsed.

 

The hermit on Draethos, Jaster Durane, the runaway royal from the planet Csilla, he had spent decades living in those caves, he had shown Loic the ropes, where to find food, what plants to avoid eating, how to dodge the predatory, bigtoothed, endogenous Draethos inhabitants. Loic saw Jaster now, in his humble cave, seated around a campfire, wrapped in his furs and blankets, smoking from his potent hookah. He had introduced Loic to all manner of psychoactive plants which grew on that planet. The dimexymethelene bark, which, when dried and smoked produced dimension-hopping powerfully-intoxicating effects, could even make you force-sensitive for a very limited time!

 

Jaster, with his smooth bald head and forked red beard, took a deep, long inhale of his hookah and, after holding it a while, blew the smoke out in vermillion-coloured rings that danced in the heat of the fire and dispersed in shimmering ethereal cobwebs. Jaster looked directly at Loic with his piercing blue eyes and flashed a yellow-toothed grin in the firelight, ‘Loic,’ he said gently, ‘Loic, it’s time to wake up. Come on, we’ve got to go…’

He woke face down on a urine-soaked floor. As he pushed himself to his feet pain engulfed his bruised frame. Mercifully, he was no longer cuffed. His primary concern, even more so than escaping imprisonment - and an inevitable gruesome death - was dehydration. Was there a better sensation than quenching thirst? Loic did not think so. He took stock of his cell; cold, dank, dark stone, no bed to speak of, no company but two rat-like creatures who fought over a maggot-ridden bone in one corner. The front of his cell was rows of bars and a door presumably latched from the outside.

 

The time for self-pity was over. Yes, he had endured a lot, He could forgive himself his recent decent into despair. Perhaps a breakdown was unavoidable, no man should face the Hound’s Tooth, but Loic was not prepared to give in. His father had endured myriad unutterable sanity-shattering plights in the wars he had faced, and he had faced them like a man. While he would never reach the heights of honour scaled by his vaunted father, a Monerat he remained. There had to be a way out. There was always a way through, that is what Jaster told him as they played Dejarik, but the lesson was not only applicable to holo-chess, but life itself.

 

He needed to calm his mind. Sitting cross-legged on the musky floor he closed his eyes and began the breathing exercises Jaster had taught him. His chaotic mind railed against his efforts. How long had he been unconscious? Why hadn’t he been brought before Sarkraa by now? And the constant torment of his parched throat. He let these thoughts roll past his mind like clouds scudding past a blazing sun. He had to go deep, deeper than dehydration, deeper than panic and fear. Slowly his muscles relaxed, and he fell into a trance.

 

The fire moved as though in slow motion; the flames cast no heat. Jaster sat across from him robed and hooded. ‘This isn’t real.’ Loic whispered in his mind.

 

‘No, of course not. But what did I teach you when we ingested the bark? When we left our bodies to visit the edge of human mortal cognizance, we shared the same rapture, the same reverie. Now part of me will be with you always.’

‘I’m in a right pickle this time.’

 

‘Yes, but if you are smart, quick-witted, you will find a way through. Time has little meaning here,’ he ran a calloused hand though the sluggish flames, ‘think…’

 

Loic opened his eyes and got to his feet. First and foremost, he needed water. He could not think, or act, while dizzy and lightheaded. He moved to the bars and called through, ‘guard?’ Again he called, but no-one came. There was a cell directly across from him, empty. There were more cells further down the passageway but whether they were occupied with other unfortunates he could only guess. He could not remember, when the Weequay dragged him to his cell whether they had passed a jailor. He should have paid more heed. There was always an accursed jailor, surely? He called again, ‘hey guard, get down here you scum!’ The act of shouting was like rubbing sandpaper on his moistureless throat.

 

‘No more noise.’ Loic could hear steps coming down the passageway. He sighed, inwardly congratulating himself. ‘I’ll beat you bloody.’ A grey-faced Kadas‘sa’Nicto slid into view brandishing a cruelly-barbed spear. Loic knew the race well, ill-tempered, cruel, and slow-witted. Every Hutt crimelord in the galaxy had dozens of them in their employ. ‘One more noise I spike you.’ Loic, did not doubt the creature. Gibbous obsidian eyes, a face of protuberant horns growing in seemingly random directions, flattened scaled nostrils that flared angrily, not the most amiably-faced fellow Loic had ever dealt with.

‘Friend, I need water.’ In reply the guard smacked his spear against the bars, but Loic had been expecting such a manoeuvre and moved his fingers in time. The viscous brute was not stupid enough to poke his weapon into the cell.

 

‘Another noise I’ll gut you sore.’ As the guard moved back up the passageway Loic called to him.

 

‘Don’t you want this?’ The guard stopped but did not turn. ‘It’s Amaralite. It is yours. All I want is water.’ The jailor turned, suspiciously. Loic stretched his arm through the bars and presented a glittering purple gem between thumb and forefinger. That got the jailor’s attention. he shuffled back, warily fearing a trap.

 

‘Amaralite?’ He quizzed sceptically.

 

‘Amaralite.’ Loic agreed.

 

‘Give me. I get water.’ Loic was expecting that response.

 

‘Water first.’

 

‘No deal.’ The guard moved as if to walk away but Loic knew he had him.

 

‘Hold on. Look, you do not like me, I know that, Sarkraa does not like me. But all I want is some water before I die. This Amaralite here,’ said Loic, holding the gem up to the feeble light, ‘it is yours. It is no good to me where I’m headed. You may as well have it, all I want is water. This was my father’s stud, he was a great man, like you a great warrior, I will give it to you just for some water, that’s all I want.’

 

‘Give here I give water,’ the jailor insisted stubbornly.

 

‘Now look, I know the game, I have been locked up before, many times. I’ll give this to you and you’ll come back with a bucket of piss. Look, you bring water and leave it at the door, and I’ll toss you the gem. No tricks.’

 

‘No tricks?’ The Nicto wanted to believe.

 

‘No tricks,’ Loic promised solemnly. The guard nodded and stepped out of sight. His brief solitude in the cell had given Loic time to take stock. He remembered pocketing his ear stud as he entered the spice den back on Eriadu – it seemed like a lifetime ago. He also remembered, as he brained the security guard in the turbolift, he helped himself to the contents of his pockets. It was instinctual, he had not given it much thought, until now, as he cast his gaze over the purloined items satisfactorily.

 

He realised Sarkraa had been sloppy. She should have had her guards search him before throwing him in the cell. She was also sloppy enough not to upgrade the centuries-old dungeon under her palace. Bossk had never thought to search him, but the Trandoshan had delivered him now and was no doubt haggling with Sarkraa upstairs - perhaps that was why Loic was afforded this time to hatch his escape. He heard the iron-shod boots of his newfound friend returning, and with those steps the paradisal noise of water slopping.

 

‘Now, give me the Amaralite.’ The jailor was standing with a dubiously-dirtied container. But Loic could see through the plastic that it was indeed filled with water.

 

‘Come now friend, we had a deal. Leave the tub at the bars and I’ll toss you the gem.’

 

‘I can get gem when Sarkraa kills you.’ The Nicto persisted. Loic would have loved to dash the brute’s stupid head off the walls till his thick skull cracked open, but instead he smiled.

 

‘Maybe, if one of your men don’t see you take it from my dead body and fight you for it. Or maybe Sarkraa will feed me to the Nexu. You could pick through mountains of shit and you may get the gem, but you will need to get into the Nexu’s pit to find it. But you are a crafty warrior, the canniest Kadas‘sa’Nicto of all time, I can see