by Karl Beecher
Tyresa was incredulous. “Help them? How?”
“If these people think I’ve been sent by their god, maybe they’ll listen to me. If I claim to be this prophet, maybe I can convince them that their god wants them to change their ways. Liberate the women. Emancipate the non-believers.”
Her eyes widened in disbelief. “You’re not serious.”
“Why not?”
“Because that’s insane, that’s why not. You’ve no right to take advantage of people like that and go telling them how to live. Besides, they’d soon smell a rat. You don’t know anything about their religion for starters.”
“Well…” ruminated Colin. To be honest, he hadn’t anticipated that. “I’m sure I could read up on it.”
Tyresa laughed. “It’s not just a case of learning it, you have to really believe it. Maybe you didn’t know, but they have faith tests here. It would hardly be convincing if the prophet failed his own test and turned out to be a heretic.”
“Ah,” said Colin. He had anticipated this. “That’s the clever part. I don’t have to really believe in order to pass their tests. The tests are bogus.”
“What?” This seemed to be news to Tyresa. “Who told you that?”
“Somebody in a position to know, don’t worry about that.” Colin decided to keep Doctor Gunga’s confidence. “They’re not real faith tests, they’re just brain scans looking for certain emotions. And you can fool them, if you know how. The whole religion thing on this planet looks to be one big hypocritical racket.”
“Geez,” gasped Tyresa. “I never knew. That’s awful.”
Colin nodded. “I’m sure lots of people around here genuinely believe, but I also get the feeling there’s plenty of others who cheat their way in. In fact, I suspect there’s a whole rotten system of favours and backhanders and things like that.”
Tyresa paused a moment, but still sounded unconvinced. “But if that’s true, you’ll be just one more fraud among many.”
This wasn’t going quite as well as he’d hoped. Tyresa had this annoying habit of pointing out flaws in his plan.
“Well, no… not quite,” he stuttered. “I’d be doing it for a greater purpose. To help them.”
Before he’d even finished speaking, Colin could tell that sounded weak.
Tyresa’s face screwed up in disbelief. “What? You mean you’d be telling them the ‘noble lie’? There’s no such thing, Colin. There’s just truth and lies. You think you deserve to be at the top of the pile because your lies are ‘better’ ones?”
“Tyresa, I swear to you, I’m not in this to enrich myself. If I can fool them, they might listen to me. I could give them… oh, I don’t know… edicts from God. Commandments for them to get their house in order.”
“I don’t believe this,” she huffed. “A few days ago, you were in the depths of drunken despair. Now you’re setting yourself up as a would-be king of kings!”
Colin hesitated. He hadn’t expected this response. Sure, he’d predicted Tyresa would be resistant at first, but he thought he’d had the germ of a good idea. He assumed that Tyresa would recognise that soon enough and help him iron out a few of the wrinkles.
She wasn’t so much ironing as she was ripping things to shreds.
Maybe he was, after all, being too desperate to find a place for himself. Explaining his plan out loud made it sound a lot worse than when it was inside his head.
“You think it’s a bit unrealistic?” he asked.
“Unrealistic? If I didn’t know better, I’d say this disease of yours is starting to turn you crazy.”
“There was no need for that.” Colin brooded and played idly with the bed covers. She didn’t need to be this harsh with him. “I just thought… I could…”
Tyresa leaned over him. “It’s not happening. As soon as you’re cured, you’re out of here.”
The words echoed around Colin’s head.
You’re out.
A memory flashed into his mind, as hot and real as though it had happened only a moment ago. His last day of work, inside Jane’s office. Being told he was obsolete, that there was no longer a place for him. That he was out.
Once again, he was being pushed out by someone who claimed to know better than he what was good for him.
Something inside snapped. Anger erupted, and the words came out without thinking.
“Excuse me,” he bellowed, “but you’re my escort, not my boss. Don’t order me around.”
Colin was surprised by the volume of his own voice. He half-expected Tyresa to yell back twice as loud or even throw a punch. But she didn’t. She just quietly raised an eyebrow. In fact, she looked almost impressed. It was scarier than being yelled at.
“I’m responsible for you, Colin,” she said witheringly. “But you’re right, I’m not your boss. The more accurate role I have here is your mother. No offence, but you’re a child in this galaxy, Colin, you know nothing about how it works. And until you’ve grown up and learned, you’ve got to stick by me and listen to what I tell you.”
“I think I’ve done rather well,” retorted Colin with folded arms. “I’ve only been here a few days, and already I’ve got half a planet worshiping me. And I know why you want me to stick with you. It’s because you need me to prove your theories.”
He’d hit a nerve there, judging by how Tyresa rolled her eyes.
She sighed. “All right: yes. I want you to help me investigate your planet. In return, I’m helping you to get acclimatised. What’s so wrong with that?”
“It would have been nice to be asked first, rather than bossed around.”
“Sometimes, you’re impossible,” she groaned. “I’m busy saving your life, and you’re complaining I’m not polite enough?”
The door slid open before he could respond, and Ade entered. He stopped and surveyed the situation in the room.
“Have I arrived at an inopportune time, ma’am?” he asked.
“On the contrary, Ade, this is the perfect time. I think I ought to step out.”
“Before you go ma’am, I just received a message for you.” He handed her a slate.
Tyresa read through it. “Okay… Good… They want to meet at seventeen hundred hours… Oh, geez, have you seen where they want to meet me? Ah well, at least it’ll be private.” She handed back the slate. “I’m going to go check out the location, Ade. I need you on lookout during that meeting. Be there fifteen minutes beforehand, right?”
Colin tried to think of something to say to make her stop, but left it too late. The door closed behind her.
It occurred to Colin that he may possibly have messed that up a tiny bit.
Tiffin rested his head against the wall behind him and broke into a broad smile. The conversation he’d just heard was a goldmine.
He had a specific time when both Tyresa and Ade would be out of the room, leaving Colin alone.
He had a mob outside the hospital that was growing bigger and, apparently, moodier as time went on.
He had Colin, the Abraman’s flavour of the month, insulting their religion and their society.
And he had those insults recorded for all to hear.
Tiffin began to cook up a plan so crafty, so devilish, and so nefarious, he shivered in perverse delight at the thought of it.
He heard approaching footsteps and reached for the proton pistol laying on the floor beside him.
As the footsteps came closer, he heard a whispering.
“Darn it,” rasped the voice. “Which aisle were we in?”
It was Mokk, no doubt scrambling to remember between which of the endless clothing racks their headquarters was located. Eventually, he popped his head around the right one. He looked flustered and was carrying two plates.
Food at last!
“Where have you been?” asked Tiffin.
Mokk was apologetic. “Sorry it took so long, Inspector. I got lost. But I swiped these from a catering trolley.” He plonked the two plates onto the floor.
Tiffin rubbed his h
ands in anticipation. The plates each had a plastic lid on them. “What are they?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t looked yet.”
No matter. Tiffin was so hungry we would have eaten the hind of a Cygnian snorgborger. He lifted one of the lids.
There was nothing on the plate.
Actually, that quite wasn’t quite true. There were the tiniest morsels of what looked like leftover steak meat and a few crumbs of Procyan turnip, all lovingly coated in dried out flecks of gravy.
“Mokk. This meal has already been eaten.”
Mokk lifted the other lid to find his plate similarly empty. He looked up nervously at the Inspector and braced himself. But Tiffin’s joy was so strong it overrode his anger. He grabbed Mokk’s head in his hands.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said with a maniacal smile. “After today, we’ll eat like kings. I’ve got a plan, Mokk, a dirty, stinking plan!”
Tiffin grabbed the communicator, then jumped to his feet. Mokk threw his plate aside and did the same.
“We don’t have much time,” declared Tiffin. “Let’s go!”
“Where are we going, sir?”
Tiffin held up the communicator, which held a recording of Colin’s last conversation. “We’re going to talk to some local reporters about their current favourite news story. I’ve got a scoop for them they’re going to love!”
34
Spudge walked into the tool room, whistling idly to himself.
He scanned the rows of wall-mounted, oil-stained drawers, all stuffed with tools, spare parts, and the occasional box of biscuits. He ignored the faded writing on the drawers’ labels; the contents had long ago ceased to match the descriptions. He opened the drawer labelled ‘Beta radiation cladding.’ Inside it lay a paper bag of sugar and a bundle of spoons.
Despite its name, the tool room was used mainly as a gathering point for mug-wielding technicians to gossip and trade dirty jokes. It was empty now because the time was almost seventeen hundred hours; most of the older technicians were just finishing work. Spudge, meanwhile, still had three hours of an evening shift to go.
He was stirring the sugar into his steaming mug just as Grizzel ambled into the room. Something had clearly got him excited. Maybe they’d finally refilled the vending machines.
“Oi, Spudge,” he said. “What was the name of the bloke from Ceti? The one that came with the woman and the robot?”
“The ones that came in on the Turtle?” Spudge momentarily racked his brains. “Colin, I think. Why do you ask?”
“Ah-ha! So it is him! He’s on the news. Looks like the silly bugger’s stirred up some right trouble.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“He’s been slagging off Abrama something rotten! There’s crowds outside the hospital baying for his head.”
This Spudge had to see. Having already met the off-worlders and learned about them from Ade, he thought this seemed very out of character. But then, he had a habit of giving people too much benefit of the doubt.
He tossed the spoon aside and stepped over to the corner of the room, where a rickety, old, metal table stood. On the table lay a scattering of hand-tools—which the technicians used to stir their drinks when they’d run out of spoons—and a little media player. It was a battered old black box about the size of a shoe, which usually served to play background music, but could call up any information from the interweb. Spudge connected to the news service, bringing up a little holoscreen above the box. He peered closely at the grainy image.
He recognised a suited reporter, talking to the camera. Over one shoulder towered the huge hospital, Saint Barflet’s. Over the other, a large crowd of people probably numbering hundreds were gathered. Some of the people were shouting and chanting angrily. Between the crowds and the hospital stood a row of thinly-dispersed and anxious-looking security guards.
The caption on the screen read, Outrage at ‘prophet’s’ remarks.
“Holy moly,” muttered Spudge. He turned up the sound.
The excited reporter described how a smaller crowd had been gathering outside the hospital mainly made up of admirers who believed that a patient, Colin Douglass, was actually a prophet who’d been sent to fulfill an old and obscure prophecy. However, everything changed when the news services received an audio recording purporting to contain the voice of Mister Douglass. The recording contained admissions by Douglass that he was acting fraudulently and that he was, in fact, nurturing a secret hatred of Abrama.
Spudge heard as the news service played snippets of a recording.
“It’s a horrible society,” came the sound of Colin’s voice.
“I quickly decided I hate this place,” another snippet sounded.
More followed, like an evil revolutionary’s greatest hits reel.
“The women are just property of the men. The non-believers are a horribly sat-upon underclass who get the crappy leftovers.”
“The whole religion thing on this planet looks to be one big hypocritical racket.”
“I’m sure plenty of people around here do genuinely believe…”
“… and you can fool them, if you know how.”
“I know I’m not a prophet, but they think I am.”
“If I claim to be this prophet, maybe I can convince them that their god wants them to change their ways.”
“Liberate the women. Emancipate the non-believers.”
The snippets finally ended.
Spudge stood there, his mouth hanging open. He couldn’t believe it. The man, Colin, had seemed perfectly nice when Spudge had met him. So too did the woman and their android. They were here as guests… of Hanson of all people, the epitome of conservative religion1 . And now they were hurling abuse at Abrama and its religion?
Spudge was also surprised and confused at his own reaction. He ought to have been angry. He ought to have hated those words, spoken by an ungrateful off-worlder. But, as Colin’s quotes echoed around his head, he found he wasn’t angry. How could he be, when they had such a ring of truth about them.
Grizzel shook his head and sighed. “The believers are going to go nuts over this.”
The reporter continued, going on to say that the crowd had swelled since the release of the recording, but most of the newer arrivals were outraged Moderates.
That made sense. In religious matters, Moderates tended to be suspicious of the more ‘magical’ interpretations like miracles and prophets, but they had no less national pride than their Conservative colleagues. Paradoxically, this led to the Moderates being far less tolerant of Colin. They saw him simply as a blasphemous, fraudulent interloper who should be sent packing. They had no conflicts of interest to cloud their judgement.
The situation was therefore tense, the reported explained. Though no violence had so far broken out and the two sides kept their distance from each other, strong words continued to be slung across the divide. Crowd dynamics were always hard to gauge, but the reporter judged the mood overall was turning against Colin’s supporters. Some of his Conservative defenders had either switched sides or deserted the field completely, presumably finding it hard to reconcile their beliefs with his indefensible utterances.
As astonishing as this news was, the situation only became more bizarre and shocking when the reporter revealed what had happened in the last few minutes.
To everyone’s surprise, several groups of non-believers had turned up at the hospital. Their appearance had left everyone confused about what they might be doing here, until the reporter finally had the bright idea to go and ask them. He explained that the non-believers—mostly young manual workers in tatty uniforms—had come to support Colin and defend him against those wanting to kick him off-world. Evidently, these young non-believers had found themselves a champion in Colin after hearing his critiques against Abrama’s policies towards heretics.
Spudge watched the crowds, speechless. He’d never seen anything like it in his life. Non-believers actually being interviewed on the news and staging demonstrat
ions!
The reporter signed off by saying that police were now on their way to take control of the situation.
“Those idiots,” scolded Grizzel. “Bloody idiots, getting mixed up in believers’ affairs like that.”
Grizzel’s words took a moment to filter through Spudge’s awe and arrive into his consciousness. “‘Idiots’?” he echoed. “They’re only taking a stand.”
Grizzel wagged a finger at the screen. “As soon as the police arrive, they’ll get their heads beaten in. They should learn to stay out of things.”
“But they’re right!” exclaimed Spudge, surprised at the intensity of his own feelings. “Colin’s right. It is unfair what believers do to us. We’ve got a right to say it.”
“It’ll do no good,” replied Grizzel, no less determinedly. “All they’ll get out it is a thrashing. And a good thing, perhaps. Maybe it’ll knock some sense into them.”
“But they’re standing up for me and you, too.”
“Don’t talk stupid, lad. The only thing they’re doing is making life harder for the rest of us. Every time the police see us non-believers now, they’ll have one hand on their buzz-truncheons just waiting for an excuse.”
“We should go down there too,” Spudge blurted out.
Grizzel looked horrified. “What are you talking about?”
Spudge couldn’t keep up with his own thoughts. He kept letting things slip before he could check them to see how much trouble they’d get him into. “Go to the hospital and stand with them. We’re non-believers too. Surely if enough of us go down there, it’ll make a difference. The more of us there are, the stronger the point is made. They couldn’t beat up everyone if there were enough of us.”
“You’re bloody mad! One disturbance and you want to go marching in solidarity,” said Grizzel, putting a name to the unfamiliar thing Spudge was feeling his way towards. “And what if the police start whacking heads? You think you’ve got a chance of hurting them when they’re dressed up in riot gear?”
“I’m not talking about starting fights. I don’t want anyone to get hurt. Just going and standing with them.”