Page 57 - Tales Apocalyptic and Dystopian

High Tex and the Orbies

“You just play your part. Wing it if need be. Act more brain-
damaged than you are, if any tough questions are asked. The time has
come. Don’t look at the window.”
Further conversation was impossible: a high-pitched whine
originating somewhere outside quickly segued into earth-trembling
thunder and lightning-bright flashes blasting into the building. Ottley
locked his gaze into Tex’s eyes. The Provisioner did not flinch. Ottley
tightened his muscles and waited for the phenomena or his life to
end.
Then silence, now terribly welcome to the newcomer.
“The Orbies have landed, Mr. Nye. You need not conceal your
reaction. They are not a myth.”
Ottley blinked. The Orbies not a myth? Here? Now? Then it all
became perfectly clear. How High Tex could survive out in the
middle of nowhere, actively dissuading walk-in trade. Why he set up
shop in an abandoned spaceport. And where the boy was going.
“They don’t need much down here,” said Tex. “But when they do,
both sides must pay dearly.”
Ottley had little opportunity to parse the Provisioner’s words.
Footsteps approached the door. A man opened it without knocking.
Tex did not pick up his zip gun.
Again Ottley’s eyes bugged. Again a human being baffled his mind
and senses. This one was an adult male—no mistaking those broad
shoulders and bearded face. Unlike the two bony rag-covered figures
before him, he stood hale and hearty in a shimmering fitted suit that
moved with his body. Equipment Ottley vaguely recognized as
electronic communications gear passed around the man’s torso and
poked out at ear and mouth. And he was armed. Not with any
firearm Ottley had ever faced and talked his way out of seeing
demonstrated in his direction, but grips and barrels and triggers have
a universality transcending any particular example. The Orbie’s
backpack had a tube snaking around his shoulder, ending in a
mouthpiece; from that aperture the man took frequent deep breaths.
“Who is he?”
The man spoke clearly, in an accent from a region of the former
United States Ottley, despite his endless peregrination, had never
been. He concluded its flattened vowels and clipped consonants,
derived from military communications protocols, were normal up

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