Lipstick Overkill, Prologue

The universe is a big honkin’ empty place.

What makes it big is self-evident. Everywhere one looks, there it is. What makes it categorically empty is the fact that the space occupied by objects with mass and weight is far outweighed by the space that is completely unoccupied. Or it would be outweighed if weight were an issue, which it’s not in space. Because there is no weight in an empty vacuum.

In this big honkin’ universe are a lot of galaxies, clusters of stars and rock and dust and all sorts of other things swirling in a giant maelstrom of gravity and cosmic rays. Spinning and swirling, swirling and spinning, these galaxies are about a gazillion in number. So it was theorized by the late astronomer Hugo Gazil. He postulated that it was possible to count to a finite number the number of galaxies. But since his postulate was published posthumously, he never had an opportunity to test his hypothesis, and no one has it high enough on their priority list to follow in his footsteps. He is, after all, dead, and who wants to go there?

At any rate, among these gazillion or so galaxies, there is one in particular that commands our attention. Those of you who wish to focus your attention on another galaxy will simply have to wait for the next bus. This particular galaxy was home to a particular solar system. And in that particular solar system was a particular planet. A planet so old, even the plants had forgotten its name. Although they still knew each other quite well, actually.

On this planet with the forgotten name, a race of beings flourished and languished. How they flourished and languished at the same time only a gifted scientist like the late Hugo Gazil could begin to hypothesize. Nevertheless, they did so. And they did so with great skill. This race of beings called themselves the Gumdums. And one of the reasons they flourished while languishing is because they had a gene that allowed them to do both at the same time. Their success at flourishing came because people from around the galaxy would come to this planet with the forgotten name to watch the Gumdums languish. Hence a successful languishing business was born that spread all over the planet.

The difficulty, however, is that this planet with the forgotten name, home to the languishing Gumdums, was not a very good place to hide. Tharaz Mahney was finding that out in the worst possible way: someone had found him.

Mahney was running through the streets and back alleys of the main city of Hur, trying to evade capture that he knew was imminent. Why he kept trying to evade what he already knew was a foregone conclusion was a line of reasoning in the same category as hiding on a planet where one cannot easily hide, or answering one of the Imponderable Questions. In short, Mahney was a moron who didn’t know any better, but he was too much of a moron to know how much of a moron he really was.

The portly, sloppy vagabond of a little slob was wearing an old T-shirt and pants he’d picked up from the refuse bin behind the spaceport in a fleeting hope that it would work as a disguise -- even though it made him stand out worse than he had before, for the Gumdums were a particularly neat race of beings. His shaggy hair flowed around his head like a broken halo, flying around hither and thither and yon with a freedom that Mahney would no longer enjoy. He ducked between two hovercraft parked illegally in a blue zone, dove between two blue refuse receptacles, and fetched up against a blue quartzium door at the back of a posh (what on this planet of languishers wasn’t?) restaurant called the Blue Phigziriffin. Breathing heavily in a manner different than his usual heavy breathing he employed in his prank calls to the city leaders on Puscha, he tried to collect himself before the authorities collected him, something his peanut-sized intellect was just now warning him might happen very soon.

It was sooner than he expected.

The blue door opened behind Mahney and a hand reached out and landed on his shoulder. Spinning around -- for he was spun and had no control over it -- he came face to face with an angel.

A light-haired human female drifted through the dark portal, her hips wrapped in a blue gauzy swirl of light frothy fabric. Layers and layers wrapped around her legs. Her tunic was a dark blue leather, with a pocket just above her waist. Her bare arms were light and supple, and Mahney could just imagine those light and supple arms wrapped around him. But it was the woman’s face that held his attention for the longest time. Surrounded by an aura of gold, her smooth young face held his heart in a vice for what seemed like forever wrapped in an evermore.

It was only five seconds. Then he recognized her.

She was one of the dancers at last night’s Festival of Paper. She’d been lithe and graceful and had focused quite a bit of attention on Mahney. Of course, Mahney had been too drunk to realize she’d been paying too much attention to him. It should have set off alarms, but remember, Mahney was a moron.

The dancer stepped down into the alley, and Mahney knew instantly that dancing was not her primary occupation. The young woman tilted her head and looked at their captive. “I had a feeling you would be here.”

“Oh? Whatsoever possibly made you think that?” Mahney figured he had nothing to lose making small talk. He figured the longer he made small talk, the longer he might stay alive. Mahney fidgeted, which is what frightened, sloppy, small-minded morons do when they’re frightened. And Tharaz Mahney was frightened out of his wits. So he didn’t have any wits left to keep his mouth shut.

“I think it was when you told that barkeep on Tralus Prime that you were going to try to hide here.”

Mahney knew he shouldn’t have trusted that three-armed weasel. Bad enough he had three arms. But he ought to have known better than to trust anyone who looked like a weasel.

The clouds rolled in and it suddenly got very much darker.

Her blonde hair swirled now in a frenzy, almost as if it had a mind of its own, as she stepped into the slight wind dancing through the alley. “Well, they don’t call him the Information Broker for nothing. My source is very reliable.” The dancer came close and looked at Mahney straight in the eyes. And that’s when he recognized her a second and more meaningful time.

“You’re Lib--”

“Sshhh.” She waved a finger at him. “Mustn’t get excited, now, Tharaz. I need information that you have. And I need it now.” She held his gaze for a moment, then leaned in very close. “I need to know where the Cup is.”

Stuttering, stammering, overwhelmed by her beauty and celebrity, Mahney melted into a slobbering blob. His mind was on overload, and when certain chemicals in his brain met other chemicals in his brain, and when those chemicals met the adrenaline that was rushing up into his brain, the resulting paroxysm was so ghastly, it cannot be recorded here.

Needless to say, Mahney died a blubbering, blithering idiot without divulging the information.

She looked down at the body and sighed. She didn’t turn as a shorter, dark-haired female dressed very much the same as the blonde walked out from the darkened doorway and said, “Well. I didn’t see that one coming.” She pocketed a small silver hold-out blaster she’d been holding close to her hip in case things went awry. Which they had, just not in the expected manner.

The blonde sighed and leaned against the back of the Blue Phigziriffin. She ran the fingers of her left hand through her golden tresses and sighed again. “All that work. I was so close.” She looked down at the body of the late Tharaz Mahney as she straightened. “You know, sometimes I hate this work. It’s so monotonous. Get to the bad guys and find out what they know before the other bad guys kill the bad guys who know what you want to know.” She shook her head. “It’s always something.”

She sighed again, then headed off in the direction of their hotel near the spaceport.

Robbi Riggs watched her stalk away from the alley like a cat with too much energy. And she wondered for a brief moment -- and not for the first time -- what it would be like to be Liberty Lovejoy, Intergalactic Space Babe.