Remember the plot I was spinning the other day, about the industrial crew trying to negotiate for the mining rights to the lodestone that makes wizardry work on a planet in the back of beyond, and the sorcerers' guild won't have a bar of it? Well, the plot thickens!
Meet the LaCoste cousins. Third or fourth cousins, a lot alike and a lot different. There's the bad boy, and the good boy. As usual, the bad boy is a lot more interesting, a well as devilishly charming. Imagine Johnny Depp in skin tight shiny black leather ... he's the ultimate bad boy, Randolph -- Randy for short. He was bored out of his gourd with the goody two shoes environment on his homeworld by the time he was 19, and when a crew of independent prospectors happened by, he ran away to space with them. (Mel Keegan would call this a Freespacer crew, and I'm going to borrow that term. It's drawn from the Hellgate books, and it refers to human industries and activities way beyond the settled, colonized and organized frontier. Kind of like the Old West, before the railroad and telegraph, where the law was what you could get away with, till somebody bigger and tougher bopped you to bring you right back into line!)
So here's Randy, who ran away to space eight years ago, when the Freespacers came by the first time ... and here's the good boy, Adam, who ... didn't. He went to college, joined the Guard and got to be a Captain by following orders and doing all that boring stuff about being in charge, and being a slave to honor. Now, it's a safe bet that Randy and Adam have a history. Just what that history is, I leave to your own imagination -- but you knooooooow it doesn't run along the lines of pruning begonias and taking library books to unfortunate old ladies in the hospital!
Now, eight years ago, when the Freespacer crew negotiated with the Sorcerers' Guild to get the mining rights to the lodestone, and were told "No!!" in no uncertain terms, they pushed off like good chaps and took this for an answer. But in the years since Randy's been with them, he also has risen to the rank of Captain ... and the station has nothing to do with the Palace Guard. The Freespacers are back, and they want those mining rights --
But to get them, Randy needs to go through Great Uncle Damon, the Grand Poo Bah of the Guild, who is also Adam's Great Uncle, and through Great Aunt Jocasta, who is the Chairperson of the Scryers' Association, Inc., who is also Adam's Great Aunt. Now, Damon and Jocasta would have their butlers toss Randy straight through the door (without opening it first), much less listen to a word he says. But they love Adam, who's always been such a good boy. So Randy figures, he can used Adam to get to the Oldsters...
But Adam isn't having any of this. And --
"Oh, no you don't, Randolf, you're not going to weasel your way around me like that!"
"Like what?" Randy demands innocently, though he's already sprawled out nekkid among the myriad plants in Aunt Drusilla's solarium...
Did I say, the plot thickened?!
The Guard costume started out red and I decided to change it to blue ... I think blue works better on Adam. But the black leather Freespacer costume looks fantastic on Randy, so that'll work just fine.
If I were actually writing the story, I'd have all kinds of comedic situations where the two have to swap costumes and pretend to be each other to get out of trouble, and somewhere along the line, Adam would get a yen to run away to space, and Randy would come around to being "good" and wind up in charge of the city guard --
Now, I'm not saying this situation would last for long! But imagine this:
There you go, there's the cover to this rib-tickler of a science fiction cum fantasy romp with a gay element ... as if Douglas Adams and Oscar Wilde co-wrote an SF script for Johnny Depp and Ben Barns.
Whooooo ... now, there's an idea!
Jade, 13 June
