The Fourteenth Adjustment

by Robert Wingfield

  “We might have hidden the CDs under car seats, to escape detection. It only needs the one, you know. We can duplicate it and unleash its deadly force, now we’ve cracked the copy protection.”

  “Then we have no choice,” said Tom.

  “We are glad you see reason.”

  “No, I meant that we have to run for it and hope to survive.”

  “Then we will destroy you,” said P4-E.

  “We can’t get away,” said Groat. “But I’ve checked the weather app on my phone, and today is a perfect day to die. Glory, Sex and Death! Spigot, get up here now.”

  “Fuck (is) off,” said Spigot. “I’m engaging the new emergency doku-drive. Hold tight; we will return to avenge, when we have the rest of the fleet.”

  The crew gasped as the acceleration hit them, despite the gravity compensators doing their best not to reduce their faces to red smears on the canopy, and the Fortune plunged away into deep space.

  “That should do it,” came Spigot’s voice. “Nothing can keep up with that. Is everyone okay? I should have warned you I suppose. Anyone need a palette knife?”

  “We are all still intact,” said the Magus. “I hope the doku made it.”

  “Are you going to surrender properly?” came a tinny voice.

  “What? How can you still be here?”

  “We hooked on to some of the hideous protuberances on your hull, and enjoyed the ride,” said P4-E. “Now give up. Piracy is over, in addition to being an anachronism in these modern, enlightened and traffic-regulated times. You are out of a job.”

  “Pete,” said Tom. “Can you sort this lot out for us?”

  “I’ll give it a try,” said Pete from the battle-closet, “but there are too many of them to take out in the first few salvos. Hopefully we can last long enough. Not that I’m bothered. My station is padded with pizza boxes now; I’ll be the last to go.”

  “We might join you down there,” said Tom. “Can we come in?”

  “Only if I come out first,” said Pete, “but things might not be so bad as you think.” The ship rocked as the shunt battery discharged. Several of the drones fragmented under the offensive. “There you go,” said Pete, smugly.

  “If that’s your attitude, we will have to destroy you after all,” said P4-E. “Shame. There was a reward for bringing you in alive. Okay chaps, on my signal, everyone fire. I want that ship removed from the shipping lanes... oh.”

  As it spoke, several of the other drones blew up by themselves, and the lights went out in the rest.

  “Damnit,” said the drone.

  “What’s the problem?” Tom tried to sound sympathetic.

  “I know you’re smirking,” said P4-E, “I can see you through the hidden camera on the microwave, but it seems like our temporary licence keys have expired. I knew we should have got SCT to buy legal versions, right from the start, but Errorcode said ‘Let’s save the money now. You don’t know if we are going to need to keep the strike force operational once the pirate crisis is over’. Oh why did we listen?”

  “Shame,” said Tom. “It’s what you call a ‘false economy’.

  “We have one of those back home,” said P4-E. “Every cash transaction is now something to do with transport.”

  “We’d better leave you to it?”

  “I suppose you should. The messages I am getting seem to imply that we should not switch off while the upgrade is in progress, so I can’t even reboot.”

  “Bye then,” said Tom. “Catch you next time.”

  “Not if we catch you first,” said P4-E.

  As the Fortune left the drone swarm behind. The crew heard a communication from the hold. “Is that what you wanted, mistress?”

  “That was excellent, P17,” said Kara. “Switching on the ‘automatic update’ option for the drones was a stroke of genius.”

  “Correct, mistress. As soon as the software update started, the invalid licence keys were detected, and the systems locked.”

  “I think we still may have friends in SCT,” said Tom. “Great work, P17. Are you feeling better now?”

  “A spell in the regeneration unit in Mistress’s cylinder has done me the power of good, literally. I feel like a brand new drone.”

  “You saved our doku-meat that time,” said Tom. “We need to be more careful, though. Improve our long-range detection capabilities.”

  “I don’t think we have any,” said Groat. “I’ve been relying on my eighth sense, the Skagan ability to detect possible conflict situations. I can detect those at enormous distances, but these mechanical machines don’t give off anything for me to pick up on. People and riots I can find, but drones, no. We can’t fight them all on our own, despite the glory and the sex and the death.”

  “We need to get extra support for a proper rebellion,” said Tom. “I’ll call a conference. Anyone know a nice place to meet?”

  “I don’t,” said the Magus, “but my villa is free on Glenforbis. There are atmosphere scrubbers,” he added, “in case any of you are not used to the bouquet.”

  Tom tried to hold his breath as he and Suzanne welcomed the delegation of representatives from the fragrant planet of Floribunda. The other members of the crew tried to protect them with umbrellas as a flock of stool-pigeons flew over, and did what pigeons always do when not being taken apart by Harris Hawks, and sometimes when they are.

  A doku herd milled contentedly in the front garden, chewing through a luscious stand of rhubarb bushes. The Magus had given up trying to shoo them off, and was now resigned to the fact there would be none of his favourite crumble pudding tonight. The guests, however, seemed to have brought their own provisions and breathing apparatus.

  Pleasantries (small bags containing Turkish Delight; traditionally the gifts given by the Floribundans to people they wanted to make fatter than they were) were exchanged in the entrance hall and then they retired directly to the discussions. Kara had managed to source the boardroom equivalent of her ‘Scaler’ bag at a good discount from Dearheat. Whereas the ‘Scaler’ bag would expand to fit everything that was put into it, and gypsies and old ladies had been banned from taking them to supermarkets, the ‘Scaler Suite’ expanded to fit as many delegates as entered, plus a bit left over for the overhead projector and the air-conditioning unit that, apart from reducing the air temperature to slightly above freezing, made enough noise to ensure that serious amplification systems were required. These generated so much heat trying to drown out the A-C units, that it was a continuous battle between the two of them. The real winners were the electricity company, when the bill came in, and the losers, the delegates, who heard nothing.

  The Scaler Suite was bigger on the inside than out, and thus it was that the little room off the hallway that the Magus had used for storing his badminton clubs was now the setting for the first conference of the Resistance and Free Travel Alliance.

  Suzanne joined them from the Gottstein manufacturing facility and insisted on being present. “It is about time I did something directly for the company,” she said. “I want to cash in my share, to help the victims of chocolate abuse, and I can’t do that if the company is worthless.”

  “Welcome to the first meeting of the Rebellion of Free Planets,” said Tom, when the emissaries had stopped chewing on Turkish Delight Pleasantries.

  “Can I stop you there?” said the arch-nabob of Floribunda, who was representing the delegation.

  “Pardon?”

  “Rebellion’s a very confrontational word. Can we change it?”

  “Er, I suppose so. What did you have in mind: mutiny, uprising, revolt?”

  “I more like the sound of ‘recalcitrance’,” said the nabob. “A nice relaxed feel to it.”

  “It means, ‘stubbornly resistant to authority or control’,” said Suzanne, after tapping the word into her portable dictionary amulet. “That sounds like what we are. I’m with the arch-nabob on this one.”

  “So be it,” said Tom. “To be
gin with, Arch-nabob, I hear that you have recently been visited by STOP, the parking group from Sapristi. Apparently, they have paved over one of your wildflower meadows, and are selling tickets to foreign tourists for parking their vehicles and having barbeques in your arbours and dells?”

  “That is correct,” said the arch-nabob, sadly. “Because of the beauty of our world, we are now getting more tourists than we can handle. Half-built hotels and holiday villas are now going up everywhere, and blighting our landscape with their ghastly concrete skeletons. Most of the strawberry groves have been replaced by road complexes with streetlights.”

  “Road complexes?”

  “Imagine a housing estate without the houses; just roads.”

  “Why didn’t they build the houses?”

  “We insisted on proper access to any new developments, so they built the roads first. They then realised that they were too narrow to get any vehicles down, and there would have been no parking anyway. So STOP built large car parks outside the developments. They charged so much for parking that nobody could afford, or want, to live there. As they have to sell the places before they are allowed to build them, the developers went bankrupt, and the spaces remain unused.”

  “And this ‘half-built’ thing?”

  “Apparently, the architects had been to look at developments on other holiday islands, and thought it was the norm.”

  “Couldn’t you do anything about it?”

  “We tried, but the planners had promised to make the buildings unobtrusive and vine-covered, and all the pictures they submitted backed up that assurance. By the time we realised they were a bunch of greedy, lying bastards and executed the lot, it was too late. Car parking was big business... only not for us.”

  “At least one good thing has come out of it,” said Tom, “finishing off the housing developers. Have you thought about doing the same thing with traffic engineers and estate agents?”

  “We can’t. They all belong to STOP now. They moved really fast—so fast that by the time we had given the usual twelve months’ notice for the crisis meeting, they had already changed all our laws in their favour. We have no idea what to do now.”

  “Then join us and stubbornly resist the authority and control,” said Tom. “I only have one ship at the moment, but we have a planet-killer super-moon that is nearly ready, and if we can find more small cars, we can convert them and use them to strike back at the heart of the STOP dominion.”

  “Sounds good,” said the arch-nabob. “Count us in. Send the plans over and I’ll develop training courses to get our out-of-work gardeners skilled in shipbuilding. We will take back our lands.”

  “Good man.” Tom went over and shook his hand warmly. The Floribundan looked startled. “Ah, I didn’t realise,” said Tom.

  “No problem,” said the arch-nabob. “And now we cement our friendship by sharing our traditional delicacy. It is the stuffed skin of a Bracey.”

  “Bracey?” said Tom.

  “Short for ‘bracey stool-pigeon’,” said the nabob. “As you know, these are large, sausage-shaped birds, with a rubbery outer coating, ideal for stuffing with heart, lungs, brains, liver, kidney and gall-bladders; very nutritious.”

  Suzanne froze as she poured wine for the delegates. “My Phoist,” she gasped. “That man’s got a doku’s todger on a stick.”

  There was a stunned silence as the Floribundan delegation stood up and stared at her.

  “If you are taking that attitude and insulting our food,” said the arch-nabob, “this conference is over. We will solve the STOP problem on our own, after we have been through the normal process of work stoppages and riots. You have conveyed a deadly affront upon our people. It cannot be forgiven.”

  “That didn’t go quite as smoothly as I’d have liked,” said Tom after the visitors had departed, clutching their goody-bags.

  “They liked the goodies though,” said the Magus.

  “I’m told that the ‘goody’ is a song-turtle with an enchanting voice and platinum carapace. Very rare,” said Tom.

  “They taste great when scooped out and covered in chocolate,” said the Magus. “Shame about the result of the conference though.”

  “I’m very sorry.” Suzanne actually seemed apologetic. “I didn’t realise they were so touchy. One good thing...”

  “You have lost us an alliance,” said Tom ruefully. “What could possibly be good about it?”

  “We don’t have to eat that... thing.” Suzanne shuddered.

  “Fair enough,” said Tom. “I’ll have it humanely destroyed. What do you suggest we do now? Tackle the STOP behemoth on our own?”

  “Behemoth?”

  “Like normal moths, only bigger. They are eating into the very fabric of our freedom. You can see it on their logo.”

  “We could use the Notable,” said Suzanne. “Perhaps STOP will see it and give up without a fight.”

  “Unless we can get the Skagans to forget about breeding and tax, and come along with us, we are going to be seriously outnumbered.”

  “With the Notable, we could use its fearsome weapons to show them that we are serious.”

  “Destroy the planet, you mean?”

  “If necessary.” Suzanne pouted.

  “That would be like cutting off our fingers to spite our nose. We don’t want them destroyed. We want our business back and the right to park without having to be over a certain earnings threshold.”

  “I suppose so.”

  “I think we have voiced our demands adequately. I’m sure they will listen, but first I’ll have another go to stir up the ‘Recalcitrance’.”

  Weeks later, the Fortune, now battle-scarred but mostly victorious, was in orbit around a small moon. Another wave of the pursuit ships had been fought off with help from P17, and new uncovered software bugs, presumably to be patched the following Tuesday. The parking attendants on the ground below had been banished to a small enclave to reflect upon their crimes, and make unsolicited telephone calls about personal injury and double-glazing.

  The inhabitants were now delighted to be able to leave their cars where they liked, even in their own driveways. They promised to send a force to Skagos to support the Recalcitrance.

  “I am really baffled about how the STOP drones keep finding us,” said Tom as he tried to stuff an aluminium pizza tray into a hole in the cargo bay door. “That, and the way the doku keep turning up.”

  “It is a mystery,” said the Magus, patting one of the beasts on the head. It nuzzled him, and a band of leather dropped to the floor, making a sloppy splash as it settled in a doku-pat.

  “What’s that then?” said Tom. “Some sort of control device? Is that how they keep finding you?”

  The Magus picked it up and wiped a bit on his trousers. “It says ‘STOP Finding’ on it,” he said. “That might be a clue. I thought we were over that when we removed all those transmitters from their heads. They are more devious than I thought.”

  “How many of the others...?”

  The Magus went quickly between the beasts and returned with a handful of the devices. “Most of them it seems.”

  “Cunning, sneaky folks,” said Tom. “Why didn’t we notice those things before?”

  “Unlike the aerials, these were hidden under the hair,” said the Magus. “Why would anyone go that close to a doku to discover them?”

  “It seems then, that every time they appear here, they bring the tracking collars, and thence the drones?”

  “I think STOP have realised that the doku will always follow me, and where they are, I am, and so are you.”

  “I’ll work that sentence out later,” said Tom. “We should pop over to Floribunda and drop the bands off there. Perhaps then, our fragrant chums will reconsider when a swarm of killer drones comes to visit, and persuade them they need more durable surfaces to park their cars.”

  “I’d like to do that,” said Suzanne. “I owe the Floribundans an apology. Can we cle
an the collars up first? I’ll take them as shiny presents, for decoration or something. I could always introduce them to tea and coffee, now I know how to make it without killing people.”

  “Are you sure?” said Tom. “I remember that little incident at SCT, when you made the drinks for those visitors.”

  “I was still under instruction,” said Suzanne, looking hurt. “I’m better now. Nobody has died from my brews for at least a day.”

  “That will be our next stop, then,” said Tom. “We’ll drop you and the doku off there. They should like all that lush vegetation, after the eco-system failure on Glenforbis. It will be nice to clean up the hold and get the football pitch operational again. Magus, you need to find out what Rannie is up to at the moment, and try to stop her double-dealing, selling her gimmicks to our enemies.”

  “I’m sure she has a plan,” said the Magus defensively. “Perhaps there are hidden receivers in them or something. I did make use of her ‘plant’ plant, where she had grafted listening devices into the stems of potted flowers. She reasoned that nobody ever goes too close to a captive bloom, especially the smelly ones. That’s why the only ones that survive are those on your windowsill that don’t need much water.”

  “Or perhaps she is trying to make a double profit by supplying both sides? Gottstein seems to be profiting in component manufacture for various factions of the Recalcitrance. I hear about a number of speed cameras being set on fire with petrol-filled tyres, and pulled down by the Gong Farmers with their tractors. Do you think you ought to go and find out, and perhaps suggest that she review her customer base?”

  “I’ll soon find out,” said the Magus. “I’ve received a communication from the lady herself. She is on her way to pick me up in the Spam Javelin, one of the new oxymoronic Hynishota Superbs. It’s been converted with a special ‘incontinent’ doku-drive and front shields, and goes so fast that you need to wear absorptive clothing. Apparently there is to be a conference of planets, where the future of the galaxy is discussed. I think we should attend. We may be able to highlight this car parking monopoly and get something done about it.”