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Stories from the Verse
A Dozen Verses
Chapter 31: Slade 261
Table of Contents
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Slade was now standing in front of the person--alien, and he was not at all certain what kind of alien--who in the parlance of his own time and place would have been called the Godfather, the head of the crime syndicate. He wasn’t too worried about being attacked; the guards were all dead or fled, at least to the best of his knowledge.
The alien addressed him.
“What is it that you want?”
“Someone put a contract out on me, and I want it canceled.”
“And you think I can do that?”
“If you can’t, you’re a rather insignificant head.”
He thought the creature snorted, or the alien equivalent. “I’ll grant you that. Indeed, it’s my contract--but it’s there for good cause. You killed several of my people, including my best assassin.”
“I did. Of course, you didn’t actually know that before right now, because all you knew was that they were sent to kill my friend, he’s missing, and I’m still alive. But indeed, they killed him, for the very stupid reason that he was an honest man and a man of his word, and they tried to kill me, so I figured that once they were dead the score was even.”
“I obviously did not think so.”
“I guessed as much when others came after me, and after the first several I decided I would have to get to the root of the matter. After all, you endangered my wife, and I can’t allow that.”
“I thought they failed. No one brought me proof of death.”
“There are two good reasons for that. One is that no one was left to bring you anything. The other is, Derek is a verser. You can’t kill him, you can only send him to another universe--and when he goes, everything goes with him. So there was nothing to prove he was ever here, other than his record as a champion combatant in the tournament.”
“You are here to kill me?”
“No, at least, not if I don’t have to. Derek didn’t really like this world, anyway, so you sent him on to something else. I’m only here to get you to stop trying to kill me. It would be different had you killed my wife. Then we wouldn’t be having this conversation, because you would already be dead, and your organization would be in shambles because no one would be willing to fill your seat.”
“So what makes you think I won’t kill you now?”
This time Slade snorted. “You can try.”
The Godfather apparently recognized the futility of his threat under the circumstances. “All you want, then, is my word that I am recalling the contract.”
“That will do,” he said.
“Consider it done. It might take a few days to spread the word to everyone who is hoping to collect, so keep a watch for a while, but for my part, if you stop your war against us, you can live.”
Slade nodded. “Nice doing business with you,” he said. “Sorry about the mess.”
He turned and headed out the door.
Shella was waiting for him as he reached the street.
“How did it go?” she asked.
“About as expec--“
At that moment he was hit by some kind of powerful blast, what he suspected was a sonic disruptor of some sort, which tore apart his body and ended his time in that world.
At least, he thought, my killers won’t get their expected reward.
As to the old stories that have long been here:
