Unfortunately, just like our hosts, we arrived too late and the fight was already over. We could only witness the cruel aftermath: Hemingwest, who had disappeared, had mercilessly crucified his victim on the gigantic white trunk with huge cactus thorns.
"That's grim," Ali commented, chagrined by this turn of events.
"To say the least…" I added.
Thanks to the clan, Alàn and his wife were able to quickly take down the exoskeleton from the tree. As I thought, inside lay Benàn, shot from behind.
"Alàn? I recognize these colors and this symbol! Is this the armor of Iron Fists?" asked a technician in a brown work suit, wiping the blood out of the breastplate picturing a black raised fist.
"Is this ye boy, Alàn?" Wondered the Nelwyn of the garage. "What is he doin' in a pirate's exoskel—!"
"Enough!" Diligua bellowed as Alàn was frantically removing the second spaulder.
Livid, the gardener took his son's body in his arms. On his knees, he cried. His tears mingled with the droplets from the haze. "What have I done, Diligua? What have I done?" he sobbed as his wife came closer to hug their son too.
We subsequently left on foot to the tinder house after Diligua had collected the bumpy pieces of armor. But there, we ran into another surprise. Hemingwest was waiting for us near the access ramp, leaning against the trunk of a butterfly tree and polishing his rifle threatened by humidity.
"Ye!" shouted Alàn, putting his son in his wife's already-busy arms.
"What? You can only blame yourself, Alàn the florist!" Hemingwest barked while stepping back. "You're the one who should have been in armor under that tree. Not your foolish child! As far as I'm concerned, I was just doing my job—giving you a chance on top of that!"
Alàn wanted to punch the murderer but Diligua stopped him immediately: "Marcellàn! Not here. Not now." Dropping the red armor's plates, Diligua transported Benàn's body a few meters further, at the foot of the wall against which their house was fixed. Alàn moved silently towards it without adding anything more; unlike his wife: "He will meet you under the tree. Tomorrow. At dusk."
Hemingwest withdrew, a smile up to his ears.
The funeral service was brief. Contrary to galactic custom, Benàn was buried in the soft earth of Yggdrasil. For his final journey, he was dressed in his father's armor. There were no cross nor stone; just a rhodiola with yellow petals the mist could never hide. To say goodbye to their one and only child, both parents finally sang a sorrowful cantilena.
"I heard Diligua cry the whole night," my partner said the next morning as she was folding our luggage on the bunk bed. "We should have done something. Did we fuck this up?"
"Poor woman. But it's not like Marcellàn was a saint. Regarding us, it was nothing but a truce," I answered. "You know our way. Staying out of the duel was our choice and the right thing to do."
"That's just another fancy way to say we fucked up…" she sighed. "The boy didn't deserve that."
I could see anger in her eyes. But also, a glimpse of sadness. It wasn't something I was used to. My ruthless partner truly seemed to be affected by Benàn's death. "These—these kinds of things sometimes just happen, Ali…"
"Hemingwest still went too far," she said after a short silence. "If you can leave him to us, Alàn…"
"Definitely not." The former pirate, who until now had been listening to us from afar, entered the room—eavesdropping was apparently a habit of his. "I'll take care of this," he declared. "My mistakes. My boy." He grinned. His eyes were still red with pain, but he was smiling. It was also the first time we saw him without a trace of dirt on his face or hands.
"But how are you going to do without your armor?" I asked.
We had the answer in the evening. Alàn, the father and not Marcellàn the pirate, was waiting for his opponent at the foot of the Big Tree. Dressed in white, Diligua watched from afar. She remained dignified in public despite her grief. All around the improvised arena, the community of Yggdrasil waited anxiously.
Hemingwest was late and the crowd began to express their dissatisfaction. Only Alàn remained calm as a monk, searching for his foe in the fog that was finally dissipating. It was before a spark followed by a gunshot ignited the white foliage where Hemingwest had hidden for his ambush. The deceiver must have used the same strategy the day before. The gardener was hit in the right shoulder and fell to his knees. Then, a second bullet struck him in the middle of the left thigh, knocking him against the ground.
"Alàn!" cried Diligua as she ran to him.
Hemingwest, delighted with his ploy, let himself slide down to the roots not without tearing a whole chunk of bark with his reinforced gravity boots. With the rifle stowed in his holster, he exalted as he prepared a fatal stab. "Is that all Marcellàn can do without his cumbersome armor? I wasted my time! A miserable slimy snail out of its shell, that's what you are now!" He laughed at his joke and was the only one. But that was short-lived.
Helped by his wife, Alàn had recovered. Left shoulder and leg backwards, fists clenched in front of his jaw, his body moved into a fighting position.
Hemingwest swore and threw his knife, which slithered into his opponent's forearm. The latter withdrew it immediately before tossing it into the peat slightly further. With a quick gesture, the bounty hunter then grabbed his rifle and leaped about ten meters back. His reflex was too slow because the pirate was already on top of him. The following rain of punches met with little resistance. Right after, Hemingwest was knocked to the ground with a sweeper, but not without giving back a few blows. When he tried to get up, Alàn gave him an uppercut then a hook that pushed his right cheekbone through the nasal walls. Hemingwest spat out teeth and crushed flesh before escaping inaudible gurgling noises. The murderer was being reduced to a bloody mush by Alàn's long trained gardener's knuckles.
One never truly knew if the stories were authentic or if the exploits of these legends of yesteryear were pure fabrication. But on that day, the greenskeeper reminded Yggdrasil what a freebooter's fury was. Alàn remained a real brute even without his armor.
"Have you had enough?" roared Alàn, grabbing the killer's throat. "Because I want ye in yer ship, and far from here in the next half-Martian hour!"
Hemingway nodded slowly in approval, risking losing what was left of his cervical vertebrae. But when Alàn turned away from him, the bounty hunter had his rifle in his hand again.
"Watch out!" I yelled.
Fortunately, Ali was even faster. She had fired instantly and her projectile had hit Hemingwest's fingers, tearing off his index and thumb. He wanted to scream in pain but Diligua silenced him with a last kick to the gut. She then ran back to her husband, and they just went home.
Shortly after that, the onlookers had abandoned the scene. Neither of them would talk about this fight or acknowledge the presence of a certain Marcellàn on their rustic station.
"Where are you going?" I asked Ali as she started walking with a determined stride.
"Make sure 'these kinds of things' won't 'just happen' anymore," she answered.
I smiled. Caring about others was dangerous but I couldn't blame her as she has come a long way on this subject. It wasn't mine to decide for her if it was right or wrong. Besides, we were then personally involved. Nigel Hemingwest was still breathing the filtered air from this haven of paradise. After that disaster, it was a luxury we couldn't afford.
With the surviving fingers stuck in the dirt, the bounty hunter had started crawling to the hangar where our respective ships were parked when we fell on him. Actually, it wasn't difficult to follow his tracks because of the bubbles of blood and the urine's smell that he had sown in his path.
"What the hell do you want from me?" he stammered as he replaced his incisors at each syllable. "You're finished once the Alliance is informed of your treason!"
As my human sat on his back, with a heel against his neck, I climbed on his hand while he tried to grab his rifle under his coat. "The Alliance is far too tolerant nowadays," I said. "Because of sleazeballs like you, we have a tainted reputation."
"Even worse than criminals," my partner added. "And we don't have stories singing about our deeds. Something I'd surely like to."
"What the fuck are you talking about?" screamed Hemingwest, the nose in the mud.
"Ali. Stay focused, please."
She cleared her throat before pursuing: "I don't know what doggone protection you got, but let's make a deal, Dick Nose. You don't tell anyone about this story and we'll forget your new little blunder that cost this young boy, Benàn, his life and dreams."
"What? Screw you, punks! My brothers are goin—"
My sapiens smashed Hemingwest's skull with her foot before placing the still warm barrel of her gun at the base of his neck. She then declared: "Who cares about your brothers, may they be Vito Corleone or cousin Vinny. Am I right, Lee?"
"Indeed, partner."
Without further hesitation, yet a few punches in the nose, the bounty hunter finally accepted the arrangement. A minute later, he was gone.
The next day, Diligua came to say goodbye once the Kitty was completely repaired and ready for flight. She entrusted us with some equipment from her son's ship as spare parts, his virtual reality console and the jet-pack my associate had worked on.
"Where are you heading to? If it's not indiscreet," she asked us while finishing screwing a last rivet badly tightened under the wing of our beautiful Swallow.
"Towards the belt… Ceres," I replied through one of the cockpit's opened windows as I was checking the improved IR module. "Even if 'the dream has faded', we can still hunt down gnarly guys, sleep under the gaze of the nebulae and, why not, pursue the majestic Lady Goldsun on Pluto!"
Diligua smiled. "All the same! Why do you have to run after chimeras?"
"Because we suck at gardening," concluded my sapiens.
The airlock closed, the control computer greeted us. As for the engine, it hummed as its first day.
Back to business!