Brenda slapped Oisin’s little green hat. “What the frag is poteen?”
His smile was even more foolish than usual. “Tis bathtub whiskey ma’am.”
“Bathtub whiskey?”
“Home distilled. So it is.”
He grabbed another deep slurp before anyone else got chance. Staring at the sky though half-closed eyes he began to sing.
“Oh, Danny boy, the pipes…
What happened next had even Big Brenda clapping her hands over her eyes. The sight of a naked leprechaun, capering around the sundial and playing a loud tune on his fiddly-diddly, isn’t something you easily forget.
No matter how hard you try.

©jj 2022

Roguing Thieves is a previously unpublished Fortune’s Fools story by E.M. Swift-Hook.

Pan didn’t go back to Central.
She’d filed her resignation to Rota there and then and mailed it. By wedding a citizen of Central, Jennay had secured that same right for her adopted children, they no longer needed Pan for that. Jennay’s happiness had opened the way to her own.
For the next three years, she was living as a freetrader.
Home became a neat two berth, system flight capable, planet hopper. Big on cargo capacity for its size but lacking on just about every other front. Tolin, his looks almost perfectly restored and his body having regained its tone, was back to his old carefree self again. The memory of the fire on his previous ship that had maimed his face and nearly taken his life, seemed to be receding from him. Some days Pan almost fancied she could see the old sparkle back in his eyes.
It was a gloriously irresponsible lifestyle compared to the heavy weight of box ticking and regulation which working for Rota had been. As long as they picked up and delivered their chartered cargo of goods and passengers within the window of time agreed, they could set their own agenda. It felt like one long romantic vacation, seeing the sights of the galaxy and getting paid to do so.
Other freetraders were less fortunate. Where Tolin owned their ship outright, others had to pay off cripplingly high loans. Where Pan could run whatever maintenance was needed herself, others had to pay premium rates to keep their vessels space worthy. Despite that, Pan found the freetrading community were mostly good people to know. They might be close-mouthed and competitive when it came to trade contacts, but they would look out for each other, pass on tips and warnings and help out a friend in need.
Which was why she was not that surprised when Tolin asked if she would mind helping out some old friends of his who had a ship that needed some work.
“We go back a long way,” he told her as they lay tangled together in the bed that filled their entire tiny cabin. “These guys helped me a lot when I was starting up. Now they’ve hit some bad times. They can’t afford to get their ship patched up and until it is, they can’t fly and make money.”
It was something that they had both seen before and Pan had sometimes been able to help out. She could also see this meant a lot to her man, but she didn’t want to promise something she couldn’t deliver.
“I’ll take a look, of course,” she said, “but it depends what the problem is. If whatever I need to fix it is too expensive for them, there’s not a lot I can do.”
Tolin rolled over to drop a kiss on her lips.
“Thanks, love. I think you’ll be fine. They’ve got access to a full-on maintenance bay, just need someone who can use it.”
Which probably should have rung an alarm bell somewhere.
But it didn’t and six days Coalition Standard Time later, they were docking on a dust world.
The winds of the broken biosphere, ripped across its surface hurling dust, grit and larger objects at rock gouging speed. If the planetoid ever had a name it was not mentioned on any navigation chart. This was marked as an empty system, no inhabited worlds and none listed as fit for human exploitation.
“It was an early-expansion stop over,” Tolin explained as they slipped down through the tumult, relying on the gravity shielding of the dock below to protect them from the highwinds and debris. “From back when they couldn’t make the full run from Central to the Middle Worlds in one jump. The Coalition abandoned it a long time ago as there’s nothing here but the dust. Dek found it and him and a bunch of his friends use it as a sort of base.”
Pan did a rapid calculation. “Early-expansion? That would make this place at least three hundred years old. I can’t think they will have much in the workshop to help out with modern vessels.”
Privately she was thinking that any environment capture settlement that old on a planetoid like this was going to be a dangerous place to be. The risk of some system failing had to be horrifically high. But as the ship settled into the dock she tried to push those thoughts away. They were here now and the sooner she had a look at this ship, the sooner they could be on their way.
But Tolin knew her well. “I think you might be surprised. They had an engineer here for a while who equipped the place and fixed it all up for them. So I don’t think you need to worry about the life-support giving up.” He no doubt meant to reassure her, but as the grating clunk of an archaic locking system secured the vessel, Pan found herself far from comforted.
The outer hatch opened and a man bounded in. There was no other word for it. He was a bit below average height, with a slight frame and wiry muscles. He seemed to be fired by nervous energy, bobbing on the balls of his feet.
“Tols. Great to see you again and this must be Panvia?”
His head turned sharply as he glanced between them. Like a bird’s. From his face Pan reckoned him anywhere between thirty and seventy, the prime of life, but his eyes as their gaze switched rapidly between Tolin and Pan, looked ancient. Pan had seen the same cold and weary expression on too many of the older freetraders. Those who had fought too hard and done too much of the bad stuff, just to keep flying. Those who had turned to smuggling when legal ways of paying their loans and dockrents had dried up.
Tolin was smiling, but something about it felt forced.
“Yeah. Pan, meet Dekker Loxly. We go way back.”
Dekker stepped in and slapped Tolin on the back, hard enough to make him need to take a small sidestep to keep his balance. He might look smaller than average but Pan realised he was strong enough despite that.
“That’s right, Panvia. Me and your man here, we’re like brothers. Blood brothers. Isn’t that right, bro?”
Tolin nodded, but his smile seemed to be fading as he did so. Dekker bounded back and gestured to the main lock with one hand.
“Now you’re here, let’s not waste any time. I’ll leave you to make yourself at home in the maintenance bay, Panvia, and me and Tols will go and catch up on old times a bit and sort out what we’re doing.” He flicked up a screen and shared it to Pan. “This is all we have on the tub that needs patching. Hope you can fix her up.”
Pan wanted to protest, but something in those eyes held her tongue. Tolin was already following Dekker from the ship but turned briefly to give her an odd ‘get on with it’ look which seemed to carry a silent warning. And that was the only reason she bit back the sharp retort that had been burning her tongue.

There will be more Roguing Thieves next Sunday…

Let’s pretend
That it’s all gone away
Let’s pretend
That everything is fine
Let’s pretend
And let’s go and make hay
Let’s pretend
That all is now sunshine

Close your eyes
To what everyone knows
Close your eyes
To what is happening
Close your eyes
And away it will all go
Close you eyes
Until truth is biting

Block your ears
To the figures that rise
Block your ears
To the struggling breath
Block your ears
To the desperate cries
Block your ears
To the high toll of death

Turn away
After all it’s not you
Turn away
From the consequences
Turn away
And who cares if you do?
Turn away
And hide in pretences

Let’s pretend
That it’s all gone away
Let’s pretend
That everything is fine
Let’s pretend
And let’s go and make hay
Let’s pretend
That all is now sunshine…

E.M. Swift-Hook

Hengist’Dog’Gethick is one of the stars of the science-fiction show Starways Pathfinders.

Dog was half drunk and wondering if he should have accepted the invitation to join his best friend in the dive bar on thirty-three. Teram was the kind who liked to go slumming — said it kept him grounded. He ran the family salvage company and was the hands-on type who liked to do the work at the sharp end. His idea of a good night out was to go drinking with his hard-core salvage crews.
“They are good people, Dog — and they would be made up to meet you.”
“No. They would be made up to meet Sub-Commander Arlan Stude, not Dog Gethick, jobbing actor.”
Teram did not deny it, just rolled his shoulders as they took the glides down.
“They won’t recognise you anyway without that uniform and the sexy half-mask,” he confided. “But you got to know what you are to these boys. They won’t miss an episode. You are like their hero.”
Dog shook his head and altered course to avoid his towering bulk blocking the way for a couple with a baby.
“It’s all crap. Just kids’ stories in grown-up words. None of it real. Not like it’ll ever happen. I don’t see the real Strands ever funding a space exploration mission. They’d not see profit in it.”
Teram glanced up at him.
“You don’t get it do you, Dog? It’s not that it’ll never happen — everyone knows it’ll never happen. It’s that it shows something bigger than this.” He gestured to the buzz of humanity around them. “These are people penned into the cage this city’s become — you, your show, it opens the doors of that cage for a while. Opens the doors and lets in hope. More than hope. Real belief in a future that can be more than this.”
That was too much, and Dog shook his head. “I’m an actor, not a fucking messiah.”

The bar was not as bad as Dog had thought it would be. It was well ventilated and the people who were vaping whatever noxious substances sat in a side room where an androgyne gyrated naked on a podium. Teram’s crew sat together by the one window which offered not so much a panorama of the cityscape of the kind Dog had at home, but more like a murky glimpse into the bowels of the world — dark and lit by sudden flares.
“So, what do you do, Dog?”
Someone had to ask, and lulled by the strong spirits and the rough but good-natured bonhomie, Dog almost forgot himself.
“I’m an actor.” He remembered in time and quickly added, “Used to do that commercial for Eatin’ Quix delivery?”
That met with a few nods of recall and the topic moved on. But it was too much to expect Teram to let it lie for long.
“So, what did you guys make of the latest SP? You think they will find those Kyruku?” His eyes slid to Dog and he winked. “Makes you think. Aliens and all.”
Dog said nothing as the men around him speculated. “Ain’t no fucking aliens. If there were, we’d have met ’em by now. Stands to reason.”
“Yeah. But The Golden Strand is headed ’cross the fucking galaxy, not just round the block and home; it’s different.”
“Different? You see that view screen they get to see stuff on? Huge thing. Dream of that for our ship. What you say, boss — when we getting that kind of tech?”
There was laughter, and Teram laughed loudest of all.
“What if it was for real, though?” someone said. Dog had not picked up the names; he’d tried, but the faces were too similar — worn, weary and bleak. He recalled an odd conversation he’d had with Heila a couple of days before: she’d been going on about her fans, her people. Well, he guessed these were his people. Gnarled by life before they hit thirty, running on dreams and stardust and the false hope held out by the allure of each episode of Starways Pathfinders.
“What if? You kidding? I’d sign up in a second.”
“Yeah. Think of it. The freedom of the stars. Going where no other fucker’s ever been.”
“Be like, you’d be alive. You’d matter. You’d be doing something — something good.”
Heads nodded and someone called another round of drinks. Dog stared out of the window at the inky sludge that coated it, dulling the grim sights it would otherwise expose.

This is an extract from ‘Star Dust’ by E.M. Swift-Hook, originally published in The Last City.

Life is for endings, and also beginnings
The sweetest befriending, the fierce joy of winning
The shape of a kiss that lives on in your head
Though the lover’s dismissed and the romance long dead
There are moments of pleasure, and hours of pain
With things we might treasure washed out by life’s rain
And the bumps in the road that batter our minds
Make our insides feel cold, and we find nothing rhymes
Even so we must follow the path at our feet
There is no time to wallow, no word for defeat
From the hour we are born, callous fate us disposes
But if we fear the thorns, we will not smell life’s roses

©jj 2022

Admirable advice from Madame Pendulica’s mystic moggy!

As the feline companion of a world-famous astrologer, one is in a unique position to offer help and solace to the hapless humanity who visit one’s human with their sad little problems.
Stops for a while to lick anal sphincter (or rear leg if we are being prudish).
Ah yes, where was I? Human problems, as solved by the wisdom of cat.
‘My husband doesn’t love me any more.’ This cri de coeur from Mona of Winchester elicited an outpouring of the usual wishy-washy claptrap about the incompatibility of certain star signs from she who floats round in bits of handprinted cheesecloth. None of which is any help to anyone – least of all a sad woman who appears as if she owns a lot of pairs of nude court shoes and too many rubber gloves.
Had she turned her guileless orbs towards the source of true wisdom, oneself, the poor, silly human might have been a little bit surprised by the answer.
The unloved Mona’s tale of woe and protestations of wifely perfection leaned heavily on how well she keeps his house, how she serves drinks and snacks to his friends when they visit, and how she never fails to do her marital duty every Friday night.
Even a neutered feline (more of which cause for hatred later) can see that this is precisely not how to keep a human male interested.
One’s own advice would be rather more realistic…
Take off your apron, Mona, and stop equating cleaning with affection. When the male returns from work, pour both of you a big glass of wine and order in a takeaway. When his mates come to watch football, leave a crate of Budweiser and a bucket of snacks and take yourself to see a male stripper. And when he wants a Friday night special tie him up and whip his pink bottom.
You might find out that, indeed, he no longer loves you. You might even find out you no longer love him.
Whatever the outcome, you’ll have had a bit of fun along the way.
Ambles off in search of tuna…

Ailuros the Mystic’s Mog predicts she will be offering more advice next week!

According to Granny, it all was Big Bigger’s fault, but Brenda tended towards blaming Chiggers and his bosom buddy Oisin…
What is clear, however, is when exactly it started.
Big was in trouble, again, and he was skulking in the rhododendrons with bottle clutched to the sweaty mound of his belly.
When his name was called from the back door, he heaved his ass off the ground and ran, leaving his half-empty bottle behind him.
Chiggers led the dash, but Oisin snatched the bottle out of his stubby fingers.
He put it to his mouth and groaned delightedly.
“Poteen.”

©jj 2022

…for a moment the silence was blissful. Then the screaming started…
Writing team Leo and Mike Johnson have their day disturbed when a body turns up near their house.

Newspaper columnist and successful travel writer, Mike Johnson, lingered at the breakfast table, feeling pale and fragile. Over the roar of the vacuum cleaner from upstairs, she could vaguely hear her husband, and illustrator and business manager, Leo, on the phone in his office. He didn’t sound pleased. She sighed inwardly. Leo in a snit was more than she felt able to cope with right now, and she debated just getting in the car and buggering off for a couple of hours. Too late. He poked his hard-edged and handsome face around the door, and she waited for the explosion; but it was okay – he was grinning and his golden, eagle eyes were sparkling.
‘Job done. They are putting back the correct picture to head chapter four of Bogg and Scrat do Dorset.’
Mike processed that.
‘Good. Sorry. I’m not with it this morning. I have a mother of a headache and my guts feel bad too.’
Leo’s mood changed instantly, to genuine concern, and he came over to put a cool hand on her forehead. ‘You taken a painkiller?’
She shook her head and he disappeared into the kitchen, returning with a glass of cold water and a couple of pills. He put them down beside her and moved to the bottom of the stairs.
‘Ro. Can you do some quiet cleaning please? Mike’s got a head.’
The roar of the vacuum cleaner stopped, and for a moment the silence was blissful. Then the screaming started. Leo rushed to the window.
‘What the fuck is that?’
Ro galloped down the stairs.
‘It’s them kids. In the tents on the other side of the river. They’re all over by the swimming hole. Screaming.’
‘Yeah. I get the screaming’ Mike’s voice was rueful. ‘How about somebody goes and tries to find out what’s going on?’
Even as she spoke Leo went. His long-legged lope took him out through the French door to the gate in the garden wall in no time at all. He motioned the dogs to stay and was gone. Ro turned her attention to Mike.
‘You OK?’
‘I think I might be in a minute. Leo got me the industrial strength painkillers.’
‘Did you go to see your Dad yesterday?’
Mike nodded.
‘I dunno why you put yourself through it. He don’t know you’re there.’
‘If I was sure of that I wouldn’t go. But I ain’t. So.’
through the garden door and ran across the grass. He looked far from his usual urbane self, and his face was the colour of porridge.
‘There’s about fifteen hysterical females out there, and a body floating in the swimming hole. Can I bring the young ones in here? I think they need to get where they can’t see the floater.’
Mike nodded. ‘Yeah. Bring them inside. We’ll feed them ice cream. A few calories should help with the calming down process. Has anybody called the police?’
‘No. They haven’t got a mobile.’
‘Teenage girls without mobile phones?’
‘Weird ain’t it. But this is some sort of religious retreat. Supposed to be good for their souls.’
Ro snorted and dragged a battered iPhone out of her pocket. ‘Yeah. Finding a floater will really have done them the power of good.’
From Shall we gather at the river? a hard hitting murder mystery thriller by Jane Jago which is available for 0.99.

Because life happens…

The secret of life you will find
Is simply to try to be kind
If you’ve got to be vile
Then go venting some bile
In private and no one will mind

E.M. Swift-Hook

God had abandoned them.
Or so Jakka’s brother Akari said. She lay back on an outreaching tree branch and contemplated the heavens. Streaking tendrils of orange and pink played across a vast sea of pale blue as the second sun sank beneath a distant wall of mountains.
So beautiful was the evening sky that it had always served to reinforce her devotion to Syri, as did many other natural wonders of her world. But the last season had been harder than any the Vandorian people had known, leaving many dead or battling starvation. Had Syri lost sight of them from his tower? Had they angered him? These and many other questions haunted her thoughts as she struggled to justify the blatant neglect of her people.
Rain hadn’t fallen for the better part of four cycles, and the crops they had counted on to sustain them into the cold times had not survived the drought. What was more, the local herds had all abandoned the region, making it impossible to hunt without an extraordinary cost of provisions and energy, neither of which Syri had granted the tribe’s hunters.
Ignoring the grumbling of her stomach, Jakka leapt down from her perch and started home. Reaching the safety of her village’s bordering walls before nightfall had become essential in recent times, as many dangerous creatures from the region, now desperate for meat, had taken to hunting Vandorians, who had traditionally been avoided for the dangers of tackling such a prize. But alone, equipped with only a few arrows for her bow and a single obsidian blade, she would be no match for several attackers.
She upped her jogging pace to a full run.
“There you are. Mother’s going mad with worry.” Akari was waiting for her by the gate and raised his hands with obvious impatience before ushering her into the village. “As if she didn’t already have enough to worry about, you seem to relish forcing her to contemplate whether or not you’ve become a meal.”
“I didn’t mean for it to get so late. Anyway, I’ve reached adulthood. It is no longer mother’s task to worry for my safety.”
“One who had truly reached adulthood would never say such a thing.”
“I … You’re right … of course. It’s just that I’ve always gone to the arct tree to think in the evening. I won’t let fear take that away from me.”
“No one said you can’t go there to think. The issue is that you wait until second sun has set before you come home. It’s too dangerous.” He grabbed her quiver and gave it a shake. “How do you expect to defend yourself with so few arrows?”
“Okay, I get it. I know you’re right. I’m sorry.”
“Are you?”
Exhaling her animosity, she closed her eyes and nodded. “Yes. I am. I would come home sooner but it has always been during the setting of second sun that I have felt the most connected to Syri. How can I hope for him to hear my pleas if I am disconnected?”
Akari’s expression hardened. “Jakka, Syri has—”
“—abandoned us? Yes, I know what you think. And you know I don’t believe you.”
“Look around. No god would allow their creations to suffer in such a way. If things go on like this, we will all be dead by the end of this rotation. We will not survive the cold if Enuni herds don’t return to this region.”
“The rain will come, you’ll see. Syri is just testing our faith. He gives us so much, and we give little in return. Is he not entitled to test our devotion to ensure we are still worthy of his gifts?”
“We did not ask for this, Jakka. Don’t you see? We were put here for his amusement, and he has grown weary of us. Do you not grow weary of things you once loved? When was the last time you wove arct branches?”
Hurt by his words and unable to conjure a valid response, Jakka stormed away. She entered her hut and ran to her mother, sobbing into the supportive shoulder that had always been there.
“Akari has lost his faith. The things he says are horrible.”
“I know, dear. I have tried to speak with him, but he is angry. Ever since starvation took your father from us, he has been cold and empty inside. His bitterness is all he has to feed on now.”
“Why won’t it rain? Why is Syri doing this to us?”
“Because we have become complacent; assumptive of his many blessings. Tell me, last rotation, how often did you feel compelled to engage in your dedications?”
Shame tugged Jakka’s eyes to the floor. She shifted her feet, searching her mind for a response that might shed a better light on her answer than reality would. Disgraced by the only reply available, she said, “Maybe once a cycle … if that … ”
“And you were not the only one. Many became complacent in the gifts bestowed upon us. Well—now we are made to pay for a lacking gratitude.”
“I have apologized so many times, though. I have beseeched him to have mercy—to forgive us for our many faults. And still, the drought continues. We will not survive much longer if things go on like this.”
“Perhaps it is his will that we die. After all, he gave us life, and he can just as well take it away.”
Too disturbed by her mother’s words to find a response, Jakka went to her bed and curled up, weeping fresh tears of fear and sorrow until sleep brought reprieve.

From ‘The Suns Set’ by Ian Bristow, one of the stories in the SciFi Roundtable‘s anthology Gods of Clay.