Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets: The Official Movie Novelization

CHAPTER SEVEN

Lumwak’s duty shift at Siruss’s “shop” was not due to begin for over an hour, and he was permitting himself a much-needed break. The pay was good, excellent in fact, but Lumwak could not help but notice the high attrition rate of the crime lord’s “staff.”

Lumwak considered himself a bit of a philosopher— something unusual among the Kodhar’Khans. And after three years of working for Igon here in Big Market, he had formed a philosophy about it. He leaned back in the café seat, sipping something sludgy and potent and wonderful while his enormous gun—which ensured his privacy; few wanted to chitchat with someone who had his weapon out and obvious—lay on the table within easy reach, and examined his thoughts as he watched the tourists bustle and buy.

There were three kinds of people who came to Big Market per Lumwak’s philosophy. One was the original, intended customer base: tourists, with too much money and too much room in their homes, who wanted the delight of visiting a thousand worlds without the hassle of, well, actually visiting a thousand worlds.

The second group was composed of those who made money off the first group. This group had subsets. The first was the merchants, who supplied the goods to the eager, greedy tourists. The second was comprised of those who preyed on them—pickpockets, muggers, that sort of riffraff.

The third group was physically located in Big Market— and this made Lumwak chuckle to himself, because “physically” was a relative term—but had little or nothing to do with the business conducted within the confines of the compound. His employer was one such member of this group. Oh, Igon sold antiques, yes, and made a respectable income through the legitimate business. But his primary business was smuggling, and at that, he excelled.

Lumwak took another contented sip, musing on the concept of what was real, and what was not. Was this drink real? This café? In a manner of speaking, yes, but one could make the argument that it wasn’t.

Was he real? What about the theory of the soul, of—

An alert began to beep on the small screen he wore around one wrist. Reality asserted itself quite solidly as the words flashed up with the urgent order: Seek and destroy. Top priority. Target’s photograph follows.

On the tiny screen, a photo of a humanoid Sleeve appeared. The Sleeve presumably concealed a hand with fingers—probably five, or fewer—curled around a gun pressed to the throat of Lumwak’s employer. Lumwak recognized the angle—this image had been taken from Security Camera 4A in the boss’s back room.

He looked up just in time to see the selfsame Sleeve float down the street in front of him.

Lumwak was a philosopher. And his overriding philosophy was entirely centered around what was best for Lumwak. He fully intended to be the one to slow this running Sleeve—and the person attached to it—way, way down.

He grabbed his weapon with both hands, sprang to his feet, and took off after the disembodied Sleeve.

Valerian was fit, but he had been running at top speed—as top a speed as he could reach while his Sleeve-encased arm slammed into unwitting merchants and knocked over virtual merchandise—and he really hoped that he had shaken his pursuers. He risked a glance over his shoulder. There was no sign of the Kodhar’Khan thugs. Panting, but still moving, he said, “I think I lost them!”

“Good,” came Laureline’s voice.

Valerian allowed himself a smile. He glanced down at himself, and the smile faded—because he could glance down at himself. The spray was wearing off, and parts of his body were now becoming visible.

He swore.

“What was that?” Laureline again, a hint of humor in her voice. “I didn’t quite copy.”

He looked up from the sobering sight of his left foot, right kneecap, and three of the fingers of his left hand and his heart kicked.

One of Igon’s guards was in hot pursuit—and carrying an enormous weapon. Valerian knew exactly what it did, and all of a sudden he felt up to running at top speed again. But even as he turned to flee, the guard opened fire.

Valerian was struck, and he knew he was about to go down.

The weapon was specific and, in a way, merciful. Law enforcement often used it to bring down criminals, enabling a speedy capture that ensured little to no harm befell either party. But it would be no mercy to Valerian. Igon Siruss obviously preferred him alive… and that was not a good thought.

It fired thousands of steel ball bearings at the target— the cumulative weight of which would eventually cause the unfortunate target to slow and eventually collapse, unable to move. Valerian knew he was lucky. The goon could only target the Sleeve, not his entire body.

But it proved to be enough to get the job done.

Abruptly, his arm felt as though it weighed a metric ton. He kept running, stubbornly, doggedly. At first he was able to lift the arm on its own, then he had to hold it up with his good hand, and, finally, his body surrendered. His weighted arm plunged down to the ground, and he followed, lying flat and gasping as he struggled to lift the unliftable.

The guard approached, taking his time. Well, why should he rush, I’m not going anywhere, Valerian thought with morbid humor.

“You know,” the bodyguard said affably, his deep, growling voice almost pleasant, “the way this weapon functions can serve as a metaphor. One of these tiny metal spheres would be completely unnoticeable. A few hundred will slow you down. A few thousand—well, now, here we are, aren’t we? The right number will slow anything. Which illustrates the point that so often, when we stand alone, we cannot succeed. When several join together, however, that’s an entirely different story.”

Valerian couldn’t believe the bodyguard was taking the time to spout such platitudes. Stuck where he was, unable to move, he imagined he was a captive audience in all senses of the word. Maybe that was why. Probably no one else listened to this guy.

But even as Valerian mused, the guard had given him an idea. For all his words about how one alone couldn’t succeed… the guard was trying to take him by himself.

In the time it took for Igon’s goon to meander toward him, Valerian had already spotted a means of escape. A grate a few inches away opened to something below. He didn’t know what, and right now, he didn’t care. Slowly, both to not attract notice and, well, because he couldn’t move quickly even if he had wanted to, Valerian forced his Sleeved arm over the grate.

Then, with an effort that made him grunt and the sweat pop out afresh on his forehead, he lifted the Sleeve with his other arm as high as he could, and then let it fall.

“Perhaps my friend, had you not been acting alone, you and I would not now be—hey!”

For the briefest of instants, as his superweighted arm smashed through the grate, Valerian allowed himself to snicker in triumph. But, too late, he realized that not only did the Sleeve pull him down to the next level—it took him through the next level.

And the next… and the next…

Crash.

Crash.

Crash.

By the fourth floor, Valerian had figured out that he needed to align the rest of his plunging body with the implacably weighted Sleeve arm. By the fourteenth, he had almost mastered the position. But by the time he landed hard on the twentieth, and had realized, somewhat to his surprise, that he wasn’t going to be treated by a twenty-first floor awaiting him, he was more than grateful that the unexpected and painful ride had come to a halt— jarring though that halt had been.

Valerian caught his breath and looked around. Still slightly addled from the twenty-story-floor-smashing spree, he tried to orient himself and get his bearings. Which, Valerian discovered, was kind of hard to do when you were in the middle of a virtual reality toy store, which in itself was a whole other world.

He felt positively bombarded by color. Swirls of purple, blue, green, fuchsia, bright yellow, orange, and every single combination of color therein assaulted his eyes. Clothing that he assumed to be costumes of some sort hung on a rack on one wall. Mimic masks, which took a scan of one’s face and turned it into a variety of alien faces, were piled on another shelf. A floating scooter of some sort hummed along six feet over his head. Figurines of various galactic heroes cluttered one wall, while toy weapons were stacked up against another. Games, balls, spaceships, candy, you name it, if it appealed to anyone under the age of ten—and, he had to confess while looking at some of the figurines, a little over ten—it was here in rainbow-vomit glory.

His dizzy gaze and bemused brain were both sharply redirected when something soft, squishy, and foul-smelling landed on his visor with a plop.

A sound that was unmistakably alien, and also unmistakably giggling, reached his ears as he wiped it off, wrinkling his nose at the stench. It was, lamentably, exactly the substance he had suspected.

He turned to regard the small Da child, who gazed at him, still giggling. He looked like a toy, too, about two feet tall, round, soft, and peachy-pink. His eyes were very tiny, as was his mouth, and there was no noticeable nose. He wore a yellow hat, and orange and yellow overalls. His three-fingered hands were closed about a bright orange and red toy gun. It operated, on a much simpler scale, the same way as the Mül converter did. You put something in the top, and it came out the barrel of the gun in large quantities.

In this the “something” was—

“I got you!” the child said triumphantly, his tiny mouth barely moving. “You’re all poopy now!”

Valerian forced a smile. “Very funny,” he said, wiping his hand on the floor, “but I’ve got something even better. Watch this.”

Fishing inside his shorts pocket, he took out a small device. One-handed, he maneuvered the scanner. In two seconds, it had analyzed the cluster of ball bearings on his arm and reproduced one. Valerian tossed the small metallic ball to the young prankster, who caught it deftly with his mitten-like hands.

“Here you go, kid,” he said, grinning. “Put this in your gun. It’s way more fun.”

Elated, the child did exactly that, and just in the nick of time.

Junior came barreling through the door. Almost three times as tall as the small Da, he was fast and he was angry. His small remaining eye glowed with rage, and he would be on Valerian in a heartbeat. Junior was so focused on killing Valerian with his bare hands—or at least roughing him up pretty severely before handing him over to Pops— that he didn’t draw his weapon.

But the kid, the wonderful, marvelous, poop-gun-toting child, turned to the intruder and gleefully opened fire. Though much healthier looking than his father, Junior appeared to lack Igon’s sinister cunning, because all he could do was stare in slack-jawed confusion as thousands of tiny ball bearings sped through the air to fasten themselves on his metal armor. He grunted, baffled, as the weight forced him to drop to his knees.

“So long, Junior!” Valerian exclaimed cheerfully.

He hit a switch on another small piece of equipment he’d fished out from his kit. All the ball bearings on his Sleeve, every last one of the tiny, cursed things, flew across the room to latch onto Junior’s already laden shoulder plates.

The weight of two rounds of ball-bearing fire, plus Junior’s own weight—which had to have been considerable—was too much for the floor. With a crack that sounded like a groan, it gave way, and Junior dropped down to the floor below. Valerian strained to listen and heard the satisfying sound of another crack, and then, more faintly, another.

After being so horribly weighted, his muscles were quivering on the Sleeved arm, which felt like it was about to float away. Valerian got to his feet and went to the kid, clapping him approvingly on the shoulder.

“You’re right! That was fun! Who do we shoot next?” the child exclaimed gleefully.

“Hey now,” said Valerian sagely, “there’s a time for everything, son. Don’t you have homework to do?”

The child’s face fell. On impulse, Valerian wiped another stinky gob from his visor and dabbed it onto the child’s face. The child gaped, then took a deep breath and let loose a mighty wail and began to sob.

“Go on. Go on home. Run to mommy. Get yourself cleaned up!”

He heard a sound behind him. Turning, Valerian looked up…

…and up. Before him towered a being that was obviously the same species as the poop-anointed, sobbing child. In fact, its proportions were almost identical—right down to the soft shape, large head, and tiny eyes and mouth.

Except it was seven feet larger and probably weighed as much as Junior.

Valerian felt the blood drain from his face as he blurted out, “…Mommy?”

Her tiny mouth went from the size of a fingernail to the size of Valerian’s—no, Junior’s—fist. It occupied the entire lower half of her face, showcasing an impressive set of sharp fangs.

From that enormous mouth came an equally enormous bellow that left Valerian’s ears ringing. He wasted no time pelting out the door as fast as his legs would carry him.