8. Part V - Ereneren (Doomsday Comet and the Twelve Moons of Beledde IV)

“Sunscreen,” read the sign. “60,000 cr”

Phyllisphyllis leaned her chair back slightly and looked up at the umbrella above her. It was striped with black, white and violet, though the violet was really just from where tears in the fabric revealed the sky. It was a very old umbrella, and it depressed her.

“Nine years,” she said to her cat. “Nine whole years.”

Her cat said nothing, as it was quite dead. It had been mounted and stuffed a long time ago and now stood on a wooden shelf under the counter, where it stared with a perpetual expression of dull-eyed affront at Phyllisphyllis's knees.

“If I don't get a sale soon,” Phyllisphyllis continued, “I'm going to have to raise the price. Again.”

She leaned her chair forward and looked out across the flat, cracked expanse of dirt and mud around her. Any customers?

No, it appeared not.

She leaned back again. She hadn't expected any, but leaning forward and backward in her rusty old folding chair was the only exercise she got, so she tried to do it regularly.

“At this rate,” she said to the cat, “I'm never going to get off this rock.”

There was a white plastic bin sitting on the ground beside her. She reached down and peeled up the corner of the lid, peered inside with one eye, then took a wooden stick from where it lay on the counter and stuck it through the gap she'd made. She sloshed it around a bit. When she removed it, the end of the stick had a fresh coat of some viscous, white substance that was probably, if her sign was to be believed, some kind of sunscreen.

She sniffed it, wrinkled her nose, then set the stick down again.

“It's still good,” she told the cat. “Hasn't dried out yet.”

She leaned her chair forward again. The expanse of dirt and mud hadn't changed. At least, it hadn't as far as she could tell. She was so used to this view, she honestly wasn't sure if she was looking at it, or just remembering it. She saw the same thing whenever she closed her eyes.

It was always the same: Unchanging, unending, hopeless. She might just as reasonably expect a raincloud as a customer.

She started to lean back again, but stopped. She squinted. A shadow? Was there a raincloud after all?

---

This is the eighth story in a series about Doomsday Comet and his journey across the moons of a distant planet called Beledde IV. This story contains: A cautionary sign, a kazoo, a sunscreen saleswoman, rudeness, a series of canals, and some dark motivations.

Doomsday Comet and the Rogue Asteroids were a galaxy-wide phenomenon, their single, eponymous album topping charts in every system. There's nobody who hasn't heard of Doomsday Comet, and there's nobody who doesn't love his music – except for Doomsday Comet himself.
The eccentric musical genius who led the band now wants nothing to do with his fame. When he speaks of his fellow band-mates, he mutters darkly, cites infamous deeds, then quickly changes the subject. Whatever the circumstances surrounding the album's production were, he doesn't care to be reminded of them - which is hard when those hits find air-time wherever music is being broadcast, those melodies stick in the heads of every sentient being to have heard them.

These stories follow the misadventures of Doomsday and his companion, a monk from a space station monastery, as they journey between the moons of a backwater gas giant called Beledde IV. Doomsday only wants to find some peace and quiet and to enjoy himself as a tourist, but between his persistent fame, his penchant for getting himself into trouble, and the distant presence of a strange and ominous saxophonist who has been shadowing him for unknown reasons, his experiences on the moons rarely go so smoothly.
But that's okay, he's a brilliant musician: He knows how to improvise.

You shouldn't need to have read the rest of the series to appreciate this story, with the exception of the prologue, which you can download for free here, and Part VII: Mannatgranoa, which you can get individually or in the Outer Moons Bundle along with the rest of the series' first half.

You can find out about the series and subscribe on a roughly pay-what-you-want basis to receive the stories as they're released at www.patreon.com/DeepwaterCreations, or pick them up individually here.

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