Backwards

by Rob Grant

  Hope sighed and reached under the bar for the bottle. 'Won't do you no good, Will. When you wake up, you're still gonna be you. Still facing away from your problems.' The thick brown liquid glopped into the tumbler. Carton eyed it lustily. Lived a minute or so anticipating the groove that first sip was going to cut through the crust on his tongue. He reached for the glass.

  Carton hoped it was firecrackers popping outside, but he knew there was small chance of that. It was gunfire. No question, really. Still, he reached for his glass...

  Through the bar mirror, he saw young Billy burst through the double doors. 'The Apocalypse boys is here!' he panted.

  All eyes turned Cartonwards.

  'They's askin' fer you, Sheriff.'

  Canon didn't look back. He said, in a cool, casual voice: "Well now, Billy. You tell those good ol' boys the sheriff'll be right out,' hoisted his glass and tossed the liquor down his grateful throat.

  He barely smiled, touched the brim of his stetson in Hope's direction and wheeled round to face the doors. He measured his stride across the bar room: not too fast, so as to look compliant, and not too slow, so as to look afeared. Would have pulled it off, too, if he hadn't wandered too close to the moose's head and snagged the collar of his long coat on its horns, yanking him off his feet and planting him on his rear end for the fourth time that morning.

  He picked himself up with all the dignity he could muster, strode to the saloon doors and burst out into the brutal daylight.

  There were four things that ruled out any gunplay on Carton's part. First off. they had their backs to the furnace of a sun, and Carton had to squint just to make out their silhouettes. Second and third: they were mounted, and there were three of them. And fourthly: Carton had the shakes worse than two porcupines on their honeymoon night.

  The three brothers leaned easy in their saddles. It was War Apocalypse did the speaking. He tapped a forefinger on the brim of his hat. Sheriff,' he said, all polite and proper.

  Carton nodded the greeting back. 'Right neighbourly of you boys to drop by. How can I be helpin' you all?'

  War's voice was soft, almost a whisper; a cold hiss of a voice that cut right through to Carton's spine. 'Well, see now. Sheriff, brother Pestilence here has a problem.'

  Carton glanced over at Pestilence, who batted absently at the buzzing host of insect pests that seemed to be his constant company. 'And what would that problem be, friend?'

  War's whisper cut in: 'Seems you're standing right exactly where his bullets would like to be.'

  In the roaring hot silence of the street. Carton swore he could hear the ticking of his own pocket watch. 'Well now, strikes me that's easy solved.' He took two slow steps to his right and faced them again. That more accommodatin'?'

  War hissed a small chuckle. 'Ain't that just the durndest thing? Now you're standing just where my bullets want to be.'

  Carton tugged his stetson low over his eyes. 'No problem, boys.' He took another two slow steps and faced them. 'How's that?'

  War twisted in his saddle. 'That OK by you, brother Famine?'

  The fat horseman tore another greasy mouthful from the plump chicken leg in his hand and mumbled a single syllabic that started and ended with 'm' and had a guttural middle. Whatever the word was meant to be, it was unambiguously negative.

  War sighed and shook his head sadly. 'I've got to figure you're doing this to just plain provoke me.'

  Carton saw their shoulders drop, caught the glints of steel before his world erupted into a deafening nightmare of exploding lead.

  Three men, six guns, thirty-six bullets.

  TWO

  Djuhn'Keep was not best pleased. All his meticulous planning, all those months of careful preparation were now threatened with failure because of the one factor he had failed to accommodate.

  Luck.

  Dumb luck.

  As a natural precaution, he had tracked the last survivors of the highly enjoyable death race as they'd been flushed out of the docking bay.

  Most of them had careered off into the bleak, black wasteland of deep space.

  One, just one of them, had ricocheted against a rogue asteroid, and his new trajectory put him on a collision course with the human vessel.

  There was every good chance, still, that the survivor would simply shoot by them, tantalizingly close, but lacking any kind of manoeuvrability, not close enough.

  Still, Djuhn hadn't come this far to leave anything to chance.

  There was no choice. He could no longer afford to wait for the human to come to him.

  He would have to go to the human.

  * * *

  Pizzak gripped the human's oxygen pipe and squeezed.

  He just couldn't believe his luck.

  He'd been hurtling through space, with only a slow, icy death to contemplate, when he'd noticed a green spot in the distance.

  As he sped towards it, the spot became a vessel. It could only be the human ship.

  His delight deflated when he realized he was going to miss it.

  Not by much. Just enough to taunt him for the rest of his freezing days.

  Then, as the ship loomed closer, he saw there was another, much smaller vessel tethered to it.

  And the cord that linked them together had been directly in his path.

  He'd only had one shot at grabbing the cord, but it had been enough. From there, it was a simple matter to clamber down the tethering line towards the green ship's hull.

  At that point, there had been a problem.

  How was he to gain entry to the vessel?

  He could hardly knock on the airlock door and coo: 'Yoo-hoo! I'm your worst nightmare, please let me in.' On the other hand, if he simply tried ripping his way through the hull, the sudden release of pressure would likely enough have killed everyone on board, which would have been no fun at all.

  That was when he'd noticed the upside-down buttocks.

  A pair of robotic buns, jutting out of a hole in the hull.

  He'd crawled over to the curious sight, and pressed his ear against the hull. He'd heard what sounded like welding work going on. In between there were a few snatches" of conversation — enough for Pizzak to glean the gist of what had happened. There'd been some kind of breech in the hull, which they'd plugged with the mechanoid, and now they were walling him in.

  What an infinity of delights he'd experienced when he'd heard the human was coming outside to release the mechanoid.

  Giddy with excitement, he'd waited until the last panel had been fitted, grabbed on to the buttocks and pulled.

  It had taken a surprising amount of effort, and when the mechanoid had finally come free, he could see why: he'd had to snap a girder to break the bastard loose.

  He'd briefly contemplated torturing the astonished mechanoid, but time had been against him — the human could be on his way at any moment — so he'd simply launched the sad wretch into space and climbed into the hole.

  The human's face!

  Pizzak hurled back his head and roared a silent laugh, muffled by the vacuum of space.

  It had been worth all the trials, all the pain and suffering just to see the human's expression when he'd grabbed him.

  Pizzak peered at the face again, and noticed the human was turning blue inside his helmet, so he released the oxygen pipe. You had to be so careful with these creatures. Their grip on life was so frail, so fragile. You had to brutalize them ever so gently if you wanted to prolong their demise.

  He slipped the magnetic clamps off the human's gauntlets and slid them over his own knuckles, then he released the human and slapped the back of his helmet, sending his unconscious body floating gently towards the airlock door.

  A thrilling wave of anticipation swept over him, and he began to scramble across the hull after his slowly drifting prize.

  The airlock door was in reach now. Pizzak grabbed on to the door wheel and slapped the human's helmet again, just enough to stop his motion, leaving him bobbing gently before the entrance.

&nbs
p; They would have to let them in, now. According to the data they'd wheedled out of the dim-witted computer, there were only two left: a hologram and a creature who was evolved from cats. Pizzak couldn't see that sad line-up providing much resistance. The best possible scenario was that they'd surrender without a struggle. Then he could pilot the craft back to the captured mining ship, and dispense of them at his considerable leisure.

  There was, of course the small matter of Djuhn'Keep. Zooming helplessly through space, Pizzak had cooked up quite a gourmet feast of prospective deaths for that tumorous backstabbing deceiver, that cowardly blight on agonoidkind's pride, that smear on the reputation of all decent, straightforward, honest murderous psychopaths.

  First things first, though. Securing the human vessel was the priority now. But as Pizzak's hand snaked out to turn on the human's throat microphone, there was a flash of flame and silver, and something hit him.

  The impact was slight, infliction-of-pain-wise, but powerful and surprising enough to tear his hand loose of the door wheel and send him careering off away from the ship.

  He screamed a noiseless 'Nooo!' and looked down at the gauntleted hand around his waist.

  There was another human!

  Another human had attacked him!

  Attacked him!

  Him!

  This one was equipped with a jet pack, and the jet was still flaring on his back, driving the two of them out into space.

  The human released him, but they were still only inches apart, hurtling along at the same speed, in the same direction. Away from the human vessel.

  The human's hand moved towards his jet-pack control pad, trying to fire a burst from his chest jet, which would separate him from the agonoid, and launch him back ship-wards, leaving Pizzak speeding endlessly away in the barren, dark eternity of the stars.

  Pizzak reacted quickly, but the human had the advantage of surprise, and the flame licked out of the chest jet just as the agonoid made his grab.

  As the human roared backwards, Pizzak's desperate fingers scrambled to find some purchase. Just as the heinous creature was almost clear, Pizzak's thumb and forefinger managed to clamp around his boot, and with the jet's impetus, they both lurched up and back.

  The agonoid's thin lips drew back in a metal-toothed parody of a grin. He hauled himself closer to the human and grabbed his knee.

  In a few more seconds, he would be close enough to rip the jet pack off and take it for himself. Then he would poke a thin finger through the human's helmet and watch his features bloat in the vacuum of space, until his head burst in a spectacular gory display of blood, bone and brains.

  * * *

  Lister came round, woozy and disoriented to find himself facing Starbug's outer door.

  He looked down, which was a mistake, because there was nothing underneath him. He was bobbing in space, like a helium-filled balloon the morning after a party.

  Even in his addled state, he realized that bobbing around helplessly in space was not a good thing to be doing, and he struggled to recall how he'd managed to wind up there.

  And then he remembered. That face. That razor smile. The agonoid.

  Where was the agonoid now?

  He tried to look around, but his body wouldn't turn, and his field of vision was limited by the edges of his helmet.

  Getting back inside Starbug seemed like a neat plan. He stretched out for the airlock wheel.

  It was out of reach.

  Not just a little bit out of reach — a good arm's length.

  He looked down at his chest and saw two alarming things. Firstly, he wasn't wearing a jet pack. Secondly, his oxygen level was astonishingly low. Less than seven minutes of air left.

  Why hadn't he bothered to put on a jet pack? Why had he gone for this damned space walk in the first place?

  Because in his foolhardy, adolescent bravado, he'd wanted to impress Ace.

  Pathetic.

  Just as he was thinking that unless somebody came out to haul him in soon, Dave Lister had crunched his last poppadom, the airlock wheel span, and the door began to open towards him.

  And that was good, so long as it wasn't the agonoid who was opening the door.

  Light flooded out of the airlock, and before Lister's pupils could contract sufficiently for him to make out just who it was in there, a hand grabbed his chest harness and hauled him in.

  The door wheeled shut behind him, and as oxygen hissed into the airlock, Lister's sight grew accustomed to the glare, he found himself looking at a familiar jagged-tooth grin.

  The Cat lifted off his gold cone-shaped helmet and started speaking, but Lister had to tug his own helmet off before he could hear him.

  "... up there in a hurry, buddy.'

  'What was that?'

  'I said: the bad-assed robot dude who grabbed you has gotten hold of the guy who looks like goalpost head...'

  The inner door span open, and without waiting for the Cat to finish, Lister dashed out and up to the cockpit. He lurched up to Kryten's station and craned over the viewing screen, but could only make out two tiny figures in the distance. He called out to Rimmer: 'What's going on?'

  Rimmer didn't look up from his screen. 'Hard to say. They're moving so fast I can't track them if I zoom any closer.'

  'Are you in radio contact?'

  'I was, but he keeps cutting out. I think there's a loose wire. I think...'

  The radio barked to life: '... bug. Can you read me? Repeat...' Ace's voice was calm and unflustered.

  Lister flicked on the microphone. 'Got you, Commander. What's happening?'

  'Doesn't look too clever, old Christmas cake. Didn't quite manage to shake the dervish off quick enough. Little perisher's got a hold of my leg. He's climbing up for the jet pack.'

  'Listen — I'm already suited up. I'm going to grab a JP and come out after you. Can you hold him off till I get there?'

  'That's a negative, old biscuit barrel. Can't let the swine grab my pack — we'll all be finished. I'm going to try and unhook the harness.'

  'Are you mad? Lose the jet pack, you'll be stuck out there permanently.'

  'It's the only way, Davey lad. Damn! He's grabbing for it ... Just got to...'

  There was a long whistle of static. Lister jabbed pointlessly at the microphone switch. Then a small flare erupted close to the two figures on the viewscreen. Slowly, it arched up and away from them.

  'Did it!' Ace yelled with delight. 'Blasted it off into the great unknown. Looks like my dancing partner's pretty cheesed off about it.'

  Lister enhanced the viewscreen image. Rimmer was right: they were hurtling along at a hell of a lick, and he just managed to glimpse the struggling pair as they flitted across the screen. The agonoid had clambered up to Ace's chest.

  The static died, and Ace's voice crackled in. '... trying to kiss me or something. He's got his mouth pressed to my helmet... I think he's trying to speak to me...'

  'Just hang on!' Lister yelled. 'We're coming to get you.'

  'Shouldn't bother, if I were you, old cucumber. We're going far too fast for your old rust-box to catch us. Any case, the sweet-talking brute's apparently got some extremely short-term plans for my future. Ah, well. To be honest, I doubt he'd have been the most scintillating chap to spend the rest of eternity with. Looks like I'll be signing off now. Smoke me a kipper, lads — I'll be back for...'

  Then there was a pop, and the roaring of a terrible wind, then a muffled, wet explosion.

  Then there was just a deep, abiding silence.

  THREE

  Kryten was trying desperately hard to put a positive spin on things.

  He was caroming backwards through space, without any means of manoeuvring, and his internal heating system would run down within fifteen hours, freezing him solid on a permanent basis. That was provided he didn't slam into an asteroid and get splattered like a fly on a motorway windscreen before then. Furthermore, a psychotic agonoid was undoubtedly aboard Starbug by now, and was probably torturing the crew in ways that
would have given the Marquis de Sade bed-wetting nightmares. Even if the agonoid had been overcome, which seemed most unlikely, there would, by now, be less than two hours' worth of oxygen left on board.

  All right. OK. That's the situation, Kryten told himself: now look at the bright side.

  He spent a good few minutes drumming his fingers on the girder that was welded to his chest. He couldn't find a bright side.

  This wouldn't do. Of course there was a bright side. They'd been in worse fixes than this before now.

  Hadn't they?

  His fingers drummed away again.

  All right, they probably hadn't been in worse fixes than this.

  He tried to think of how things might turn out in a best-case scenario.

  After a dozen or so best-case scenarios had concluded with the death and destruction of all parties, Kryten decided to try and stop thinking altogether.

  Suddenly, he felt a thunk! in his back. While he was still trying to feel behind him to find out what had caused the thunk!, he felt himself jerk upwards. He craned his head back as far as it would go, but he could only make out the rear jets of an unfamiliar ship.

  Someone had harpooned him, and was now dragging him along on the end of a tether. As far as Kryten could tell, he was being towed back in the direction of Starbug.

  This was either very good, or very bad.

  Either he'd been rescued, or...

  But he really didn't want to think about the 'or', so he went back to trying not to think at all.

  FOUR

  'All right.' Rimmer turned away from the screen and faced the others. 'He's dead. There's nothing we can do about it.'

  Lister crumbled into the seat and flicked off the view-screen.

  Ace was dead.

  He'd sacrificed his life for David Lister. 'He was worth a dozen of me,' Lister mumbled.