“At the risk of teaching my granny to suck eggs, that doesn’t matter. Look, I assume explosive materials are not commonplace on Geretimal. So what was the bomb made of? Where could the criminals have got it from? Are records kept of sales of explosives? Are companies that use explosives missing some? Forgive me but isn’t that basic detective work?”
“Why do I have the impression you’re trying to teach me how to do my job.”
“Certainly not. I wouldn’t dare. Let’s say I’m gently reminding you of things you already know but may have overlooked.”
She gave a brief laugh. “Very delicately put, Sir MacAdam.” She paused. “You realise that, after your broadcast, I immediately had every piece of information we have about you reviewed.”
“I would have expected no less.”
“After I had reviewed it I was puzzled. I couldn’t reconcile the being in the reports with the one on the trivee. How, I asked myself, could this being who has handled what was a very difficult situation with dignity and aplomb, including a possible attempt on his life, descend into hurling vitriol at all and sundry? It was that dilemma that permitted you to speak to me. Sir Respectful-Veneration speaks highly of you, you know?”
“He is a thoroughly professional investigator. Please give him my regards.”
“I will have to denounce you in public, you realise?”
“That was my plan.”
“Your plan?”
“Yes. By making myself unpopular, I hoped to draw your, and the other authorities’, attention away from petty squabbling and focus your attention on the one thing that I desire above all others; the capture of those beings responsible for the murder of my lover and a very close friend.”
There was an indrawn hiss of breath. “Ah. That explains much. Sir MacAdam you are either a very brave being or a very foolish one. Either way, your plan might just work and I, for one, will bend every effort to make it so. While I will deride you in public, privately I might just recommend you for a medal.”
“I want no medals, Madam. Just catch the criminals, that’s all I ask.”
“Sir MacAdam, you may rest assured that I will do just that.”
I was very relieved. If there was one person I needed lined up behind my magnet, to use Julian’s analogy, it was the Interpellator Supreme and the fact that I seemed to have succeeded was pleasing indeed.
Most of my ship-mates were gathered in the dining room.
“How are you this morning?” Lorca asked.
“Surprisingly cheerful. I’ve just had a very interesting conversation with the Interpellator Supreme. She’s on our side.”
“By all that’s holy,” Honesty-in-Trust exclaimed. “How did you manage that?”
I shrugged. “I simply explained why I’d made the broadcast and what I thought she should be doing.”
“Just like that?”
I grinned. “Well, it was a little tense for a while. Fortunately she was already predisposed towards me. I apparently made an impression on the investigator looking into the poisoning incident.”
“See, I told you you affected people,” Lorca said with a grin.
“I seem to recall you did. Rather forcefully.”
“It worked, didn’t it?”
“It did. I’m very grateful. I needed a kick up the backside.”
Hermes took Honesty-in-Trust back, openly landing at the port though he took off again immediately Honesty-in-Trust had disembarked.
The others seemed glued to the trivee. I was indifferent to the news broadcasts. I had done what I could and only time would tell if I’d been successful. I’d done my bit and now I just wanted to go. But I couldn’t leave yet. There was still Lorca and Jarmasin and Triss and Lashak’ka. They were due to go home but couldn’t leave until we knew what the arrangements were. Barbita didn’t know so it was up to the Chairman and he wasn’t speaking. The girls were edgy and unsettled. I couldn’t blame them. They were stuck up here not knowing what would happen to them. By unspoken mutual consent I slept alone.
Sir Blaggis Hringe contacted me next morning. He looked drawn and haggard and seemed even more nervous than usual. Sir Sacred-Trust-in-God would accede to my unreasonable demands. He would be leaving within the hour. I repeated my instructions about the maximum number of people who could accompany the Chairman, protectors, and the travel arrangements. Sir Hringe demurred and tried to negotiate. I gave a tired sigh.
“Sir Hringe. Your Chairman has tried to cheat me on a number of occasions and failed. My conditions are not negotiable. Now, you can do as you please, but if they are not met in full, you can sit in your steegee and rot for all I care, for you will not be setting foot on this ship. Do I make myself adequately clear?”
He muttered something about being unreasonable and rung off.
Somewhat to my surprise Sir Sacred-Trust-in-God did as I’d bid. Five beings, including the Chairman and Sir Hringe, stepped out of the steegee into the landing area and, amazingly none of them were armed. The Chairman did, however, object vociferously to having to pass through the detection device Hermes had rigged up. He climbed the steps and tried to force the door. Julian, apparently having felt inventive, sounded a very loud and raucous alarm and kept repeating, ‘Unauthorised attempt to enter ship’ continuously until the Chairman’s associates urged him to descend.
I decided to meet him in the main hall. This was not a social visit and I wanted to make him as uncomfortable as possible. Hermes and the girls stood discreetly in the background.
He was almost incandescent with rage as he stepped through the doorway.
“This is an outrage,” he shouted waving his finger at me. “I will have no more of it. I plucked you from the obscurity of your backward planet. I brought you here and made you a household name. I gave you fame and fortune. I gave you everything. And how do you repay me? You blackmail me. You threaten me. You belittle me. You deliberately thwart me at every turn. You go on Galactic trivee, despite my express instructions not to, and demean the Commission and everything it stands for. Every task you were required to do, no matter how trivial, was met with insolence and intransigence. You have fought me every step of the way. And now this. Fifty three beings dead because of you. The pride of Bartimarm destroyed. My Commission wrecked. My career ruined. And all because of you. You, you ignorant, unwashed, ungrateful, pusillanimous savage.”
A red mist blurred my vision. Even now, after all that had happened, he was denying everything.
“Oh, no, Sir Chairman. I’m not your whipping boy. You can’t dump the guilt for your incompetence on me. It’s your Commission… your responsibility. You are the being in charge. You are the one who tried to murder me. You are the one who has threatened and belittled and treated me like dirt beneath your feet. You are the one who broke our contract even before I arrived and tried to do it again and again. If you had once… just once… treated me honestly… if you had, just once, treated me with respect… if you had, just once, accepted that you had some responsibility toward the beings you con into this cesspit you call a lottery, you might not be in the mess you’re in now. Your mess, not mine. And as for the hotel... the blood of these fifty three beings is on your hands, not mine. You killed them as surely as if you had planted the bomb with your own hands. You are the mass murderer, not me. You murdered my true love. You murdered my friend. You…” I drew a shuddering breath. “You make me sick. Take your smug, self-serving, self-righteous carcase out of here before I forget I am a civilised being. Get out of here and take your lying, cheating, back-stabbing sycophants with you.”
I stood, trembling with the violence of my emotion, as the Chairman started back, a look of incomprehension on his face. He looked round helplessly at the stony faces of my friends and saw no succour there.
“You cannot…” he began. “I am not…”
His shoulders started to slump then he straightened, his mouth set in a thin line and he glared down at me before turning on his heel and striding off. His entourage turned to fol
low him, Sir Blaggis Hringe, looking nervously between him and me. One member of the group hung back and turned to me when the Chairman and the rest were gone.
“Sir MacAdam, a word.”
“What?” I snapped.
“You should know that not all the Commission agree with the, er, ex-Chairman’s point of view. Your pilot has my contact details.”
He turned and hurried after the group.
I sank to the floor and put my head in my hands. I wanted to weep. I wanted to curl up in a ball and shut the hated galaxy away. I wanted to turn the clock back and pretend all this never happened. I had been reasonably content with my lot; I had a home, a steady job, my cats. Then Hermes descended on my doorstep and my world changed forever. I had achieved much… but at what cost? Whatever I might say about the Chairman’s culpability, none of this would have happened if I hadn’t been a stupid, obstinate Earthman who insisted on his ‘rights’. Ultimate blame might fall on the Chairman’s head but I shared that blame. Flerrionna and Taragis would still be alive if I had been a good little Lottery Winner and had done what I was told. I might have been dead or dying, but they and fifty one others would have been alive.
Lorca handed me a drink. I took a large swallow, feeling the fiery liquid warm my throat and stomach. I looked up and studied the faces of the beings with whom I’d shared the last, traumatic, week. They were watching me and seemed to be a trifle nervous. In their faces I saw concern and sympathy and… love. They were my friends, my colleagues, my companions. I wasn't alone. I looked each of them in the eye. None of them flinched, but met my gaze steadily. Whatever the future might hold, I wouldn’t face it alone. Perhaps something would have happened whatever I’d done. The Commission had been rotten to the core before I arrived. If it hadn’t been me, something else would have happened to destroy it and, hopefully, my recent actions would go some way towards repairing the damage. I drew a deep breath, pulled myself to my feet and attempted a smile.
“Right,” I said. “Where do we go from here?”
The End
About The Author
Harrison Park reluctantly admits to more years than he would like. A Scot, residing in Edinburgh, he is a family man of long standing. After several decades of writing IT proposals and designs, he turned his hand to fiction – and realized the distance between them was small. ‘I Won a Spaceship’ is his first book.
Other Books Published by Direidi Publishing
Books by Big Ed Magusson
The Ugly One
A Mall Tale
A Babe In The Night
One-Eyed Dick, Nellie the Whore, and the Spring of Perpetual Wood
I Met My Old Lover by J Strickland
I Won A Spaceship Page 63