Canto 26 – The Duke with the Curly Mustache
A quick search of three hardened underground structures that Dana Cole knew about yielded nothing but empty rooms and crying concubines from Nefaria’s harem. It wasn’t until the densitometer in Trav’s gloved hands booped out the presence of a hidden chamber that they found something of value.
“We can cut through right here,” said Goofy pointing.
Tron used his pulse-laser as a cutting tool and made a new door in the wall. As the slag fell inward, the adventurers found a prison room with three disheveled prisoners within. One was a handsome, curly-haired adult with a handlebar moustache. The other two appeared to be young boys, though one of those was a Lupin Freak and the other had pointed ears and extra-large eyes.
“Are you rebels?” asked the man with the moustache.
“Of a sort,” confessed Tron. “We are corsair raiders, come to take the treasures of White Palm. Who would you be?”
“You’ll not get a ransom for me, if that’s what you’re thinking.” The man’s lantern jaw was set in a hard line. His blue eyes flashed with resolve.
“We didn’t come here for that,” said Maggie. “We came to get revenge on Count Nefaria, and Goofy here killed him.”
“Nefaria’s dead?” asked the man, stunned. “I thought no one would ever catch up with that snake.”
“Please, kind sirs… madam, are any of you a medic?” asked the Lupin boy.
“I can put my hands on Doctor Courtney Blake,” said Tron. “Why?”
“Hassan here is wounded, and his leg is infected.”
Maggie the Knife kneeled beside the wounded boy. She gently peeled away the torn and bloody pants caked to the wound. “Oh, gawd!” was all she could say.
“Get Courtney Blake,” Tron commanded of Sheherazade. The dark-skinned beauty moved swiftly back up the tunnel.
“What is your name, son?” Maggie asked, looking at the white-furred dog-boy.
“I am called Sahleck Kim. The Peri here is called Hassan the Elf. Our friend and master is called Duke Han Ferrari.”
“Duke Ferrari? The Duke of the planet Coventry?” asked Tron. “I thought you said you weren’t worth any ransom. Coventry is one of the most densely populated worlds in the Galtorr Imperium.”
“Yeah, well,” said the Duke, “they don’t want me back. The Imperium paid Count Nefaria a hefty fee to dispose of me permanently.”
“Why would they do that?” asked Maggie.
“I’m the leader of the Revolutionary Star-World Brigade. We have been working towards a reversal of the last Unification War, trying to split our planets away from the Galtorr Imperium.”
Tron laughed. “Now there’s an idea whose time has come. You have any forces on your side?”
“We have troops aplenty, but no space fleet. The Imperium holds a lock on that. Independent space fleets have all been decimated or incorporated into the Imperial Space Navy.”
“They haven’t decimated my fleet yet, though they’ve tried real hard,” boasted Tron.
“How many ships are in your fleet?” asked the Duke, a new fire of revolution beginning to spark up in his blue eyes.
“Tron! The boy is going into a coma!” cried Maggie. “Without immediate attention, he’ll die.”
The boy, a Peri Freak created by Faulkner Genetics to be a living, creative computer, was trembling and sweating as he appeared to be asleep. Any thought of other things left both Tron and Duke Han Ferrari.
“Where’s that medic!” roared Ferrari.
“Dr. Blake!” shouted Tron into his commo dot, “Get here now, or face my wrath!”
As if by magic, the pirate doctor appeared wielding mini-computers and med-robots. In no time the leg was amputated and the Peri saved.
Catch a Falling Star 
The 13th Sense
I know that you are probably thinking, “What the heck are you thinking, Mickey? There are really only five senses!”
And I am probably thinking, (ignoring the fact that I should know for certain what thinking is present at least in my own stupid head), “Oh, I think you are probably wrong about that,” considering carefully that I should only think this and not say it out loud, because people get mad when you suggest that you are smarter than they are.”
Besides the five senses we all claim of sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell, there is also that one people often refer to as “the sixth sense”, and by that phrase they don’t necessarily mean that you “see dead people who don’t know they are dead”. Instead, that sense is kinda like a sense of intuition. A feeling that you simply know what is about to occur, or you know something about something that you could only really know if you have ESP… Or if you are Spiderman, it is your “Spider Sense”… wiggly lines radiating from your comic-book head.
And what about the sense of hot and cold? Or the sense that you can’t breathe the air in the same room with your cigar-smoking Republican uncle? You know, the one with all the toxic opinions you are forced to listen to too often? And there’s a sense of contentment. Or the sense of happiness. A sense of dread. There are all kinds of senses that your magnificent stupid-old brain constantly responds to that you really haven’t been counting.
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Of course, I am not writing about any of those today. I am writing about that old “Sense Number Thirteen”, the sense of certainty that every pessimist lives by, the sense that your natural daily bad luck won’t kill you today, but only because it would all be over and prevent more suffering tomorrow if it did.
Yes, it is Sense Number Thirteen that makes you prepare yourself for the worst, because you simply have the sense that it is destined to happen. I dread going to the mailbox. I know I will hate what I find there. This week I found a letter from the IRS, who has already accepted my 2017 return and the first installment of my tax payment, suggesting that they may reopen my case in order to determine if I owe them more money. And I got the hospital bill that I have been dreading because I cannot afford to pay it.
I dread walking the dog also because there are two pickup trucks, one black and one silver, that routinely roar through the 30-mile-an-hour neighborhood doing sixty or seventy. One of them is going to run over my dog while she has me on the leash, or maybe even run over one of neighbor Frank’s grandchildren. Anyway, we are preparing by organizing a neighborhood petition and complaining to the police. The Thirteenth Sense really screws with my life. But it forces me to prepare.
The hospital payment department told me that they are going to send paperwork that will help me pay the debt by forgiving part of it since I am already bankrupt over medical bills. I was taken pleasantly by surprise by that. I have so far successfully avoided thinking about the IRS. Those jack-booted shock troops apparently aren’t going to show up at my door until next week. And the police cruiser has been on our street twice already since I last talked to Frank, and they put out one of those speed limit signs that shows you in bright red lights how much over the speed limit you are going.
So, there’s the saving grace. A pessimist gets to be happier in the long run than the optimist. By preparing for the worst, the pessimist is ready for the bad thing to happen, and either deals with it as it comes, or is pleasantly surprised at an outcome devoid of extra suffering. A pessimist is never taken by surprise for the worse. I’m glad I have a 13th Sense. It helps me be a HAPPY stupid old pessimist.
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