The Fourteenth Adjustment

by Robert Wingfield

  “There aren’t any,” said the Magus. “It was advertised as a four-seater, but the back seats are so tight that they didn’t think it was worth giving access to them.”

  “We have to get in. We never leave an employee behind.”

  “Apart from Amber, Mrs Tuesday, Mr Errorcode and all other remaining staff,” said Suzanne, as she squeezed through the narrow space between the front seats. “I’ll pull you in.” She took hold of Tom’s head and dragged him through the gap. They lay wedged together closer than Tom had been with anyone since his lover, Caryl, left him.

  “It won’t start,” said the Magus, as he struggled to operate the ignition key behind the steering wheel.

  “Switch it off and back on again,” said Pete.

  “Glad to hear you’re remembering your old skills at last,” said Tom. “We will need your engineering expertise to keep us flying.”

  “Yes, I’m starting to recollect,” said Pete. “It’s remarkable how constricting these trousers are. Have you enough room in the back?”

  “No,” said Suzanne.

  “Neither have we,” said the Magus. “Now, Pete, wind down the hexacat whiskers into the doku-mat to get the engine going. I hope that shuddering I can feel in my back is the machine ticking over.”

  There was a shriek as a hexacat was expelled from the exhaust.

  “I guess that’s where the ship’s cat went,” said Tom, his nose pressed on the tiny back window. “I guess continuously having his whiskers pulled out to build doku-drives wasn’t much to his liking. Here kitty-kitty.”

  The hexacat regarded him with suspicion, and then shrugged and leapt into the car, settling himself down by the floor pedals under the Magus’ feet.

  “Come on then, old friend,” said Tom, “let’s go. If this thing will fly, get it to fly, like now.”

  “Are you ready then, Pete?” The Magus glanced at the engineer.

  “I’m winding the hexacat actuating whiskers into the doku-mat drive unit to trigger the release of energy.”

  “We can see that,” said the Magus, “and we explained how it all works in the last book, where I discovered the answers to everything, except how to cure my excess of body hair.”

  “Hang on,” said Pete, spinning the actuation wheel.

  The passengers were thrust back in their seats as the Pointless careered along the track.

  “Will it take off?” Tom closed his eyes.

  “There’s a sharp curve at the end and then a steep ramp to launch us,” said Pete. “It’s been designed especially for this type of vehicle and drive unit. We’ve used it dozens of times.”

  “How many of those has it actually worked?” shouted Tom, as the rail noise increased and the car approached the turn.

  “This will be the first,” said Pete. “I pointed out that there may be something fundamentally wrong in the design, but Vac said it would work eventually if we kept trying. Law of averages, he said.”

  The car hit the end corner and slewed around, catching the ramp centrally and then went spinning upwards like a loose Catherine Wheel out through the bay doors and into open air.

  “I’ll connect the secondary drive,” shouted Pete through clenched teeth. “I’m connecting the secondary drive.”

  “We can all still see what you’re doing,” said Tom.

  Pete sighed. “Look, it’s vitally important to announce out loud everything I am doing with the controls,” he said with exasperation, “for the main reason that, advanced though they are, nobody has yet thought to connect the switches with some sort of recording device, or a light that comes on saying, for example, ‘Secondary Drive Engaged’. I will factor that into my next designs, now you’ve mentioned it.”

  The car shuddered and continued spinning up into the atmosphere, scything its way through a small squadron of TBP attack planes, and then was in outer space. The spinning slowed as the Magus struggled to maintain control.

  “I’m deploying the stabilisers,” he said. Two struts with wheels on the end extended from the sides of the car. “That should keep us more steady. Which way, Boss?”

  Tom managed to get his head from between Suzanne’s legs and peered through the front space-screen. “Anywhere quickly,” he said. “What’s the nearest inhabitable location?”

  “No idea,” said the Magus. “This machine was never fitted with asteroid-nav, but we could try landing on that thing, there.”

  Directly ahead of them, a spec glowed. As they approached, the spec slowly turned into a space cruiser, a hideously ugly space cruiser.

  “I suppose we should talk to them,” said Suzanne. “Perhaps they’ll be amenable to negotiations. Failing that, can we defend ourselves?”

  “Two problems,” said the Magus. “One, we haven’t got any transmitter in this car. We had to remove it to give the passenger somewhere to put her legs, and two, the prototype ‘doku-shunt’ gun it was fitted with was used as the model for all the other ships we built and is currently in the company museum.”

  “I thought I said there were to be no armaments fitted to our ships,” said Tom’s muffled voice, his head now wedged under Suzanne’s armpit. “Will you please keep still?”

  “I’m trying to see,” said Suzanne. “That ship looks familiar.”

  “It should do,” said Pete. “It’s the Fukeds Belle, only I really don’t remember fitting those gun batteries along the side.”

  “Assuming that’s where all the Skagans went, how do we talk to them?” said Tom.

  “I don’t think we can,” said the Magus. “And from what I remember about Skagan battle tactics, they shoot first and only ask questions if there is anything left to ask questions of.”

  A voice echoed inside the car. “You there.”

  “How are they doing that?” The Magus shook his head. “We don’t have any communications capability.”

  “I think they are so close that shouting is working,” said Pete meditatively. “I’ve never considered that as practical, otherwise we would have fitted speaking tubes.”

  “Who’s that then?” said Tom.

  “It’s us.” The voice was vaguely familiar. “Attention unidentified abomination of scrap metal. This is the independent goods reallocation ship, The Black Empress Kara’s Good Fortune. Stand down or you will be destroyed.

  Tween Space

  In which Kara does the washing-up

  F

  ar away, in another universe or another reality or somewhere else entirely, the perfection that is Kara-Tay, erstwhile pleasure android, erstwhile Empress of the Universe, erstwhile doing the washing up, was cursing that the dishwasher had broken. After the last service, the systems in her aging Time-Cylinder were starting to show problems, and a slight religious undertone. She should have known better than to use the ‘Ninth Day Opportunists’, worshippers of Clarkson, Patron Saint of Powered Wheeled Vehicles, on a ship which clearly had no wheels; but they were cheap. The recently-fitted ‘flappy paddle’ power controls made her relocations somewhat difficult, and in consequence instead of a quick trip to the shops to stock up on pizza for the SCT engineering team, she had found herself rematerialising inside a strange environment, which was described on the readouts as ‘Tween Space’. This had a generally purple tinge, and confused the controls; how do you find a way back, they reported, when you haven’t any reference to determine where you started from?

  There was no immediate panic. Despite having to freeze the pizzas to stop them going off, Kara knew that when she did get back into External Space, she could simply set the Time controls for a moment after she left, and therefore the engineers would be able to continue working, without realising they hadn't had a break for the last three months, and the pizzas were of considerable vintage. Production had to continue to meet the demand for flying cars. The basic materials were there in the form of the Hynishota range of affordable, but unimaginative, vehicles, but the customisation required love and hard work, and plenty of carbohydra
te and fizzy sugar.

  Kara regarded her ‘dish-pan’ hands with disgust. Her skin might have been impervious to most things, but the washing-up liquid, while it removed the grease and burnt-on stains to give that bluey-white, squeaky clean, autumn-fresh smell, sort of cleanness, also played havoc with her outer covering. She dried her hands on a cloth, itself already starting to dissolve, and wandered across to the regeneration unit.

  “Just the hands this time,” she muttered, thrust them into the chamber, and operated the starter with her nose. There was the sound of someone shaking marbles inside a cardboard tube, and a brief burst of ‘Jessica’ by the ‘Allman Brothers Band’, and then a green glow played over the inserted members. The hands returned to their original smoothness, but Kara noted, with slight concern, that the machine energy levels were fluctuating. She pressed a newly-fitted lever at the side The chamber gave a roar, a cloud of smoke and then settled down to purr nicely. She switched it off and let the extracts clear the room, while she went back down into the control section of the cylinder.

  A light was flashing on the command console. It had the image of a stick with sparks coming out of the top. Kara peered at it and pressed a few of the controls. Nothing happened. She rummaged under the console and drew out a tattered manual; ‘Reconditioned Time Cylinder Workshop Manual’ it proclaimed on the greasy cover. She flicked through the pages and discovered the description for the new control panel the maintenance crew had fitted on a piece of brushed-aluminium, bolted to the console. Each of the warning lights was detailed, and this one had a page to itself.

  “This auburn light, Emergent Hadron Distress Beacon,” it said. “Safety device trigger if other system jamming hadron waves. Without hadron beacon, humble Time Cylinder unable translocation with somewhat exactness. Bless you. Best options in any or all combinations are:

  Switch off engine and revert. This do master reset and clear down impulsive memory.

  Use target distress beacon as beacon and apply homing techniques to scrutinise perpetrator.

  Punch owner of distress beacon and advise that they should keep emergency channels free unless are in real distress.

  Effect rescue should perpetrator be actually in distress and not just having pressed wrong button by misfortune.

  Switch off automatic homing beacon and proceed on glorious way. Use monkey-wrench provided in useful maintenance kit if perpetrator not cooperative.

  Press Restart button to effect desirable action.

  Go on pilgrimage to Wonder Wall on Planet Out. Take waterproofs.

  “I suppose I should see what the distress is about,” said Kara.

  She set the large control on the panel to position 2 and pressed the ‘Restart’ button. The ship rumbled as the mock-turbines, fitted purely for the sound they made, cut in, and then the Time Cylinder materialised on a planet suffering from frequency absorption in all but the 400-445 nanometre wavelengths.

  The navigation unit reported, “Outside appearance honestly of indigo and violet and atmosphere thick, as are reported to be the indigenous species.”

  Kara adjusted her optical sensors to improve her vision and stepped outside. She was instantly surrounded by a group of the aforementioned species, throwing themselves on the ground in front of her and rubbing dirt into their hair.

  “Hi,” she said. “Is there a problem?”

  “It speaks, it speaks Archangel.” A susurration went through the assembly. “It’s a bloody miracle.”

  “It’s not a bloody miracle,” said Kara, “it’s the automatic translation circuits and the forcing of air across a set of piano strings I use as vocal chords.”

  “Piano. Another miracle. Perhaps it can replace the middle-C string on our broken Steinbeck.”

  “For Phoist’s sake, stand up. Is there someone in charge?”

  “The Great Archangel,” muttered the assembly. “It knows the Great Archangel; a real god, to be sure. We are at your mercy, o great one.”

  “My mercy is going to be swift and violent if you don’t get up and stop grovelling,” said Kara, slapping the monkey-wrench into her palm. “I want one of you to speak for the others. Who will it be?”

  The tribespeople remained prostrate. Kara took one by his immaculately ironed collar and dragged him upright. He tried to avert his eyes.

  “You, what is your name?” She shook the man. “Tell me or I will be applying my wrench to your private parts, if you have any. Where are they by the way?”

  The man pointed down to where Kara was swinging the wrench near his lower regions. “All my parts are public to you, o merciful one. I would consider it the highest honour if you apply your monkey-wrench to any part of my body.”

  “You can speak then. Good. What is your name?”

  “Alas, we are too unworthy to be honoured with names. The only name here is the Great Archangel. This world of ours is called the Great Archangel. That up there,” he said, pointing at the swirling sky, “is the Great Archangel. This here,” he said, indicating the dusty ground, “is the Great Archangel...”

  “I think I understand,” said Kara, releasing his collar. “Nice ironing of the shirt, though. Very smart.”

  “It is our duty to always present an agreeably starched archangel,” said the man. “The Great Archangel demands it.”

  “Then I must meet the Great Archangel,” said Kara. “Can you take me there?”

  The man looked confused. He stared at the sky, then he stared at the ground and then he stared at where his private parts might have been.

  “Not that or this or even those,” said Kara. “I need to see the Great Archangel who must be obeyed.”

  “Ah, then you will probably be advised to follow me. It is my duty to return to the Great Archangel under even the lamest of excuses.”

  The man set off through the thick atmosphere, and Kara followed, now closely flanked by the rest of the tribe. She gave them sharp looks, but each time she did, they put their hands in front of their faces and muttered, “The Great Archangel.” As she scowled and shouldered her monkey-wrench, some of the men also shielded their private parts, as a small act of genital preservation.

  The native village was dilapidated, even by care-home for the elderly standards, but at the end of the dirt street through the middle was a magnificent palace, built of polished limestone blocks, and it was to this that the tribe led Kara. They were met by two more men, slightly less grubby, and armed with primitive stone clubs. These new ones regarded the monkey-wrench with interest and tried to take it off her. She pushed them away and they fell to the ground, moaning.

  “We beg your forgiveness, o clean one. We did not mean to cause offence. We have been instructed by the Great Archangel that you will now be seen. Please follow us into the atrium.”

  “Why don’t you get up?” said Kara, after a few minutes trailing the guards as they dragged themselves along the floor.

  “It is not permitted in the Great Presence.”

  “I’ll show myself in then, thank you.”

  To gasps of horror from behind her, Kara strode up to the door, leading, she presumed, to the atrium, and shoved it open.

  Belle

  In which Pete doesn’t get a pizza

  S

  uzanne struggled to straighten her leg, “How the hell do we stand down?” she said. “I can’t even get upright at the moment.”

  Tom whimpered. “Your foot, if you don’t mind.”

  “I don’t mind, but aren’t you going to do something?”

  “Stop the engine perhaps?”

  “It is stopped,” said Pete. “I think the Belle, or whatever it’s called this week, is matching our speed. Mr Magus, do you think you can park in their cargo hold? Someone’s left the door open. If we’re in there, they can’t shoot at us, can they?”

  “Do it, Magus,” said Tom.

  “But what about all the standing down and stuff?”

  “If I knew what that was, we might try i
t, but probably go for Pete’s plan to get away from their artillery.”

  “And then we can ask them in person,” said Suzanne helpfully.

  “Right,” said the Magus, “I’m turning the wheel.”

  “We don’t need to know that. Just park, if you would be so kind.”

  “Yes, Boss.”

  As the car settled gently to the floor of the cargo bay in the Belle, the doors behind them drew slowly together, and the hanger lights came on.

  “Can we please get out now?” panted Tom. “I really can’t breathe.”

  “Do you think the bay will be pressurised yet?” Pete looked worried.

  “Hopefully,” said the Magus, “or that rather statuesque lady over there with the automatic rifle is simply an illusion. She looks familiar though.”

  “It all looks familiar,” said Tom, finally getting his head free. “This really is the Fukeds Belle, somewhat upgraded. And that is Spigot, one of our engineers from SCT. I also knew her from the first Skagan War, or at least the first Skagan war I was involved in.”

  “First Skagan War?” said Pete nervously. “I thought there had only been the one.”

  “Where the Skagans are concerned, there will always be another, and with this ship, I can see how it’s going to start.”

  The Magus opened his door and they gulped in the fresh air. Pete got out and started to drag Suzanne through the gap between the front seats. Tom shoved her from behind and then climbed out after. By now, the Magus had already greeted Spigot, and clothes were starting to be removed, in the first of the traditional greeting processes.

  “Stop it, you two,” said Tom. “Spigot, I thought you were going to destroy us.”

  “We would have done,” she said, looking slightly embarrassed, “ but I couldn’t work out how to fire the guns.”

  “I’m pleased to hear it, but don’t you have anyone in the crew who could help?”

  “I am the crew,” she said. “I’m engineer and cleaner too.”

  “But there were enough people when you rescued me from the planet Out during our last ventures. As I recall, you had the entire Swedwayland Ladies’ Football team on board, and the reserves and the second reserves.”