Hard Luck Hank: Prince of Suck by Steven Campbell Page B

girl.”
    “And do you remember what she was
wearing?”
    A silent pause.
    “A dress. A green dress.”
    “That was almost thirty years ago. You,”
he said, pointing at me, “were born for that job. The gods made it for you. But
you’re crap at politics. And Belvaille is politics now. That’s all the new
people talk about.”
    He smiled at me.
    “Do you know how many people I’ve killed
since I’ve been here?” he asked.
    “I suspect a lot.”
    “None. I look to you for guidance,” he
said.
    “What?” That struck me as an odd
statement for the mayor of the Royal Wing to make. I was immediately
suspicious.
    “You are the strongest person on
Belvaille but you hardly ever kill anyone. You use your head more than your
fists. It’s something I wish I had known when I was younger.”
    “Do you guys have any urgent needs?” I
asked.
    I didn’t know if he was trying to sweet
talk me, but we weren’t friends. When the Totki had put duct tape so effectively
on my eyes, it made me realize that they had been sitting around concocting
that strategy. A strategy based specifically on fighting me. How much time did Uulath
have to think about me and how he might manipulate me?
    “Ten rolls of mylon plastic and two
water filtration systems would be great. We have eight different water
containment areas based on how clean it is. The eighth one is like liquid
rust.”
    I took a deep breath and pondered his
request.
    He chuckled and wore a wistful, melancholy
expression.
    “You’re thinking, ‘What can I give them yet
still leave this place a living hell?’ You are our sun god, Hank. We fear you
like the insects that crawl around in the safety of the night.”
     
    http://www.belvaille.com/hlh3/uulath.gif
     

CHAPTER 12
     
    There was a little bit of a hassle at
the entrance to the four block district that was the Ank Reserve.
    The guards demanded I remove all my
weapons, but I had too many and I didn’t feel like it. Finally, I simply walked
past them. The guards thought better of firing on me.
    Besides, I had been personally summoned.
    The Ank were, or at least had been, the
bankers of the galaxy. They had nearly been exterminated in the war. Not
because anyone particularly bore them ill will, but the Ank were never very
populous, and when one side wanted to end the funding to the other side during
the civil war, they would attack the Ank planets. Eventually, they were almost wiped
out.
    My motto was to never take sides.
    The Ank seemed to have a motto of take
every side equally. Some people even blame the Ank for increasing the scale of
the civil war, because they funded so much of it.
    Between losing the Ank home worlds and
our teles, the financial system across the galaxy simply ceased to exist.
Barter and trade became the most common form of conducting business.
    But Belvaille still had some Ank.
    They set the rates for every kind of
good or service that existed, even dealing with the local currencies of other
planets. They also lent money, sold stocks in companies, set interest rates
based on credit ratings, set credit ratings, sold insurance, and did anything
you could conceive of that could be done with money other than maybe liquefy
and drink it.
    Prostitutes and gigolos even had costs
based on the Ank scales, which were changed hourly.
    Four enormous Boards, three stories
tall, facing each direction from the Reserve, recorded the galaxy’s prices. Thousands
of people crowded around these Boards, buying and selling commodities every
minute of every day.
    I didn’t understand any of it of course.
    But I understood that the Ank were
incredibly valuable. Before they had arrived and started maintaining a unified
system of currency, it was chaos. There was no concept of money. As soon as the
Ank said, “these four plastic cylinders are as good as a barrel of alcohol,”
people believed it right away. Because they were the Ank, and that’s all they
did.
    I was escorted into an inner building
and instructed to