The All New Adventures of Sarsuk's Head 3 (Patreon)

@Matt Labanc requested more of Sarsuk's head. Sure. Why not?

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Commissioner Sarsuk watched as the little geroo returned, took her seat, and folded her paws in her lap. She said nothing more. “Uh,” mumbled the krakun’s head, “perhaps you should get a pencil to write this down. Or perhaps an audio recording so you can transcribe it later? It’s a lot of data.”

Siki’s ears opened in a smile. “Later,” she said, “we don’t need those deployment things right now.”

“You … don’t?”

“Nah,” said the geroo, “for the moment, I’d really like to get to know you better. Tell me about you.”

“Me?” he asked, feeling less certain about his situation with each passing instant.

Sarsuk had—regrettably—made a career of dealing with geroo. He gave them orders. He punished them for disobedience. Hell, he punished them whenever he felt like they needed punishing, and he watched carefully for indications that they were deceiving him.

But despite all the time he had spent talking to geroo, he had never talked to them. He didn’t converse with slaves. He told them what to do, and he expected them to follow his orders. But then again, he’d never been in a situation like this before.

He stared at the furry little creature. His mouth opened slightly but no words came out.

“Oh, come on!” she laughed. “You’re thousands of years old, right? You must have so many interests and hobbies!”

“Uh…” he whispered. “I uh…” He shrugged, but of course she couldn’t see his shoulders.

Siki blinked. “Nothing?”

“Well, okay, I realize that sounds awful,” he groaned, “but you’ve gotta understand just how awful my job is. I work a full day. I deal with … people,” he said, stopping himself before he said slaves, “and by the time I come home, I’m just worn out! The last thing I want to do is more work. And honestly? Hobbies are expensive. I’m flat broke. I’m not in a position to waste a bunch of golds collecting things, or on paint and canvas, or jigsaw puzzles, or books that aren’t going to hold my attention for a moment.”

The geroo frowned. “So, when you get home from work…?”

“I just want to relax,” said Sarsuk with a sigh. “I want to watch a little television, get some rest … just kinda zone out and be irresponsible for a while before I have to get up and do it all again, y’know?”

“Oh, well I suppose if your job is that bad, I could see that.” Siki looked down and let her legs swing idly. “Family?”

He shrugged again. “My sister is two thousand years older than I am. She left the house before I was even born. I never felt like I really got to know her.”

“Parents?”

“My mom’s still alive,” he explained. “We’re not close.”

“Oh.” She bit her lip. “Cubs?”

Sarsuk shook his head.

“Well, even if you don’t do anything interesting with your evenings, there’s still weekends, right? I suppose you spend that time with friends and dating, like this Natkak gal you were chasing.”

“Nyakkat,” he corrected her.

Her eyes turned sad when he had nothing more to add. “An ex-?”

Sarsuk scowled. He’d gone out with a gal in college. Well, it was more of a single study session. Truthfully, it had been just a one-night-stand, but even now, thousands of years later, he still thought of Nokevti and wondered where she was, how she was doing.

“Not really,” he admitted, finally. If he had called Noke his ex-, then she’d surely ask him all sorts of questions about her—questions that he couldn’t honestly answer. His chin lowered slowly until it rested on the floor. He didn’t look at her.

“Are you okay, Mr. Sarsuk?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” he mumbled. “I think I’m feeling kinda depressed.”

“Aw,” she sighed, getting to her paws, “don’t be sad, Mr. Sarsuk.”

He closed his eyes a moment. “I had a crappy job, no one in my life, then I got screwed over, executed, grave-robbed, and reanimated by my enemies,” he explained. He opened his eyes and stared at the geroo. “I think I’m entitled to a little depression.”

Her ears lifted slowly into a smile. “I suppose that’s fair,” she said, “but try not to be glum. It could be worse.”

He stared at her. “Could it?”

“Of course!” she laughed with the characteristic geroo yarp, and he ground his teeth. Sarsuk truly hated that sound. “You’re sitting here with me, having a pleasant conversation. It’s not like the lio have you stretched out on the floor, sticking you with spears until you tell them your deployment data. It’s not like the pirates put you in chains and made you haul rocks out of a mine for eighteen hours a day!”

“Yeah, I suppose,” the krakun’s head finally agreed, “but this still stinks.” Though a moment later, he grinned a little. “Well, if I was being stretched out on the floor and tortured, at least I’d be able to lie down.”

“You can!” Siki assured him. “Just close your eyes. Seeing the lab makes it harder to suspend disbelief, but if you close your eyes, you can do it. Just lay back on your bed and make yourself comfy.”

“Really?”

She nodded.

Sarsuk closed his eyes and imagined laying back onto the couch. He felt around for a pillow and tucked it beneath his neck. “Y’know,” he whispered, “this is a pretty convincing illusion. It really does feel like I—” He opened his eyes, and the illusion fizzled. He was right-side-up again, his neck sticking through a hole in the wall.

He sighed. “I guess that’s going to take a little getting used to. Hrm. Well, at least if I’d been taken as a mining slave, I’d build up a little muscle tone.” He gave her a wan smile. “You never saw it, but my old body? Not the most impressive of specimens. Saggy around the middle, muddy colors, some of my scales stuck up at weird angles.”

“Well, good for you!” Siki said with a grin. “You’re getting better at this already.”

That comment set him back, and he stared at her in silence. “Come again?”

“I said—you’re already starting to focus on the positive instead of the negative.”

He blinked. “I am?”

“Well, sure!” said Siki. “You said if you were a mining slave, you’d get in shape. You’re focusing on the potential.”

He shook his head. “I was just making a joke.”

“Call it what you will,” the geroo said with a smile. “I think it still counts.”

The conversation faltered for only a moment. “I’m supposing you’re not fond of your boss.”

He shook his head. “Not so much. If I’d had a decent boss, then getting tricked into leaking the deployment data wouldn’t have been a big deal—perhaps just a black mark on my record and hurt my chances at promotion. Saqqadr really had it out for me. She’s the one who turned my mistake into a criminal investigation.”

“Ugh, sorry. Co-workers?” she asked.

“Some,” he said, “but you can’t get too cozy with your co-workers on Krakuntec. If you let your guard down around anyone—even those you think are your friends, they can really screw you over. Say one regrettable thing and they’ll use it against you to get ahead.”

“Really?” she asked with disbelief in her voice.

He nodded. He’d never been at much risk of getting too close to his co-workers, but he’d heard enough horror stories over the years of others who’d missed out on advancement opportunities for trusting the wrong “friends”.

“Wow, that’s rough. What about subordinates?”

Sarsuk squinted, staring at her a moment. “No. No one works beneath me.”

She opened one eye wider than the other. “I thought you commanded a bunch of ships?”

Sarsuk rolled his eyes. “Well, slave ships.”

“Sure, but they’re not robotic drones, right? There’s people running them.”

He opened his mouth to say, “Just slaves,” but then paused and closed it once more. He was getting too casual, too comfortable. He still needed the lio to clone him a body. He still needed to be helpful and useful. “I suppose, yeah,” he said.

“Well, tell me about them.”

Sarsuk scowled. “Is this really necessary?” he asked. “You guys wanted the deployment data, and I’ve agreed to give it to you. Let’s get that over with so we can discuss me getting a new body cloned!”

“No, Mr. Sarsuk,” Siki said, her ears frowning. “It’s my job to talk to you, and I get to decide what we talk about.”

“Look,” he growled. “I know you’re trying to do your job, but this is a lot more important than chit-chatting about friends and relatives. Now, get up off that stool, and ask Palani if I can get a new body cl—”

The geroo tapped a code into the tablet beside her, and his words stopped. He couldn’t push air through his larynx. She’d turned off his pumps, shutting off his words like switching off a light. He couldn’t even gasp.

“I want you to understand the situation here, Mr. Sarsuk,” the geroo explained, getting up from her stool. “I don’t work for you. I’m not one of your slaves. In fact, I’m a free geroo, and I can do whatever I please.”

He tried to reply, but he couldn’t.

“If I understand correctly,” she said, “after you were beheaded, you went almost a day before the pirates hooked your head up to life-support and got you sedated. I can’t even imagine that, not able to breathe for a day! It must have been horrible.”

And that’s when he realized, without the pumps, he couldn’t breathe. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t inhale or exhale. It was like he was back in the emperor’s courtyard once more.

But it shouldn’t have mattered! He didn’t have lungs, so he shouldn’t have needed to breathe, right? But not being able to was absolutely maddening! He felt like he was suffocating!

“You krakun are so hardy that I guess you can go a couple days without breathing before your heads actually die. That’s amazing,” she said, awe clear in her voice, “but your situation is different now, and you need to understand that. If you’re uncooperative, I can turn off your air, and I don’t have to turn it back on—ever.”

His eyes opened wider. Would she do that? He didn’t need the air, so he wouldn’t actually die, but the sensation of suffocating, of being caught between breaths was so horrible! He opened his mouth to beg her, but of course, he couldn’t make a sound.

“Now, are you going to show a little more respect to me and my role in this process?” she asked. “Or do I need to go on vacation for a few weeks, so that you can learn your lesson?”

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Reviewer's link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Yr-pf9oMtTMPRqC5SGA7XT4u5gylC7VGohszRRMoVek/edit?usp=sharing

Thoughts?