Interstellar Caveman

by Karl Beecher

  “And then what?” demanded Grizzel.

  Spudge wasn’t sure. “You know, um… show people that non-believers don’t want to be pushed around. If we all stick together—”

  He stopped abruptly, because Grizzel had grabbed his collar with one chubby hand and wrenched the skinny junior towards him.

  “Now you listen here,” began Grizzel.

  Spudge had seen him angry before—pretty much every day actually—but this was different. With Grizzel, anger usually meant a loud voice and flailing limbs. But his voice had gone suddenly quiet, his hands were steady as a rock, his face deep red, his expression somewhere between fury and a sort of pleading. It was far more frightening.

  “If you go down there,” continued Grizzel. “All you’ll end up with is broken bones and no job. This is just young bucks getting mixed up in things they don’t understand. And this isn’t just idle talk on my part. I saw the exact same thing twenty years ago, before you were even born: non-believers marching. There was blood in the streets, but nothing changed except a lot of good men had their lives ruined. Sure, the Moderates got into power and gave us a few extra crumbs off their table, but it wasn’t worth the price.”

  Finally, Grizzel let go of the collar and stepped back. The blood drained away from his face.

  “Nothing’s going to change, Spudge. The world’s rotten, and the quicker you realise that, the better. You’re a good lad, you’ve got a good spirit, but your head’s too much in the clouds. You’re at a point in life where you’ve got some hard lessons to learn, about how to survive in this world. Learn them, because you’ll sure as hell get nowhere trying to change this place.”

  Grizzel shuffled to the door. “Now get back to work,” he mumbled over his shoulder. “There’s a lot to do, and it’s just me and you on the evening shift.”

  Spudge was left alone in the room, shaken, staring at the empty doorway. He felt numb. Grizzel’s outburst was one more example—albeit an extreme one—of something that Spudge had noticed recently. The older generation of techies were getting more serious with him.

  Back when he was fresh out of school and new in the job, Spudge had found their cynicism kind of funny. It made him laugh watching these grown men hurl insults at whatever had got them hot under the collar that particular day. It had even been easy laughing off their jibes when Spudge’s upbeat personality and naivety became their target.

  But, as Spudge was becoming an adult, they no longer felt like good-hearted jibes. They were taking on a harder edge, as if intended to chip away at his nature. It felt as though the techies were starting to lose patience with him. Their impromptu ‘lessons’ on the ways of the world were changing and growing more frequent. The key phrase had morphed from “you’ll understand when you’re older” into “you’d better get this in your head now.” It’s time to wise up and become one of us, they seemed to be saying.

  With Grizzel’s words echoing around his head, epitomising everything about the older techies’ attitudes, Spudge realised he didn’t altogether like the idea of doing that.

  But what other choice did he have?

  He saw sudden activity on the little screen. Things were happening at the hospital. Several trucks each bearing the police logo raced onto the scene and screeched to a halt. Their back doors swung open and officers, dressed in full riot gear, poured out and formed into ranks.

  Things were starting to get ugly.

  35

  Tyresa shuddered. It might not be warm down here, but it certainly wasn’t the cold giving her the chills right now.

  She’d been in some creepy places in her time: long-lost catacombs, ancient burial chambers, spine-chilling shrines in the dead of night. Although unsettling, they’d never bothered her to any great extent. Anything that had once been living in those places had long since died and turned to bones or dust.

  But this place was different. The dead here were fresh, some probably still warm, as though their spirits had not yet wrenched free of the flesh.

  Why, thought Tyresa, why arrange a meeting in a morgue?

  It wasn’t that the place was gruesome. Like the rest of the hospital, it was clean, sparse and functional. The strong smell of chemicals hung in the air. Three empty tables stood in the middle of the room. Nothing surprising. But along one wall was a series of square, chrome doors. She knew exactly what lay behind those doors. Not a pile of bones, but squishy, fleshy cadavers.

  Perhaps Tyresa’s contact in the Abraman underground resistance was taking revenge on her. When they’d spoken earlier, he’d argued adamantly in favour of meeting in a remote place far from the hospital. Tyresa had been just as adamant that she couldn’t stray too far from Colin. After some persuasion, he bitterly agreed to send a colleague to meet her at the hospital instead, an operative with the unlikely codename ‘Dad-Joke.’

  Still, if it had to be the hospital, a meeting in the morgue made some level of sense. Security was very light down here—the dead caused little fuss—and few living people ventured down here, since the processing of corpses was mainly done by machine. Even though Abrama generally resisted excessive automation and the undesirable jobs generally fell to non-believers, allowing atheists to handle recently deceased believers was a scandalous idea.

  Whatever. It all ensured privacy.

  Tyresa sat on the floor with her back against one of the tables to conceal herself from the doorway. It was deadly silent in the room. Not even the hum of machinery or the muffles of distant voices in the corridors. Ade, stationed just outside the building to keep a lookout for people coming and going, kept radio silence.

  The only thing Tyresa heard was the far off murmur of crowds, a thought which nagged at her. Should she really be able to hear them from this distance? The morgue was housed in a smaller building behind the huge hospital, which meant the crowd must have been making a hell of a racket. Also, she could have sworn the noises had grown louder while she’d been waiting in this miserable basement. Was it just her hearing growing more sensitive? Or had the crowds grown even larger? Or angrier?

  Or both?

  Just as she thought she heard sirens in the distance, the door to the room gently squeaked. Then Tyresa heard slow footsteps approaching, getting closer to the table. She hugged her knees closer to her chest. She wanted to look, but did not dare risk it.

  Then, the noises stopped. She couldn’t hear anything, but she could feel someone’s presence. Who was it?

  “I can see you,” came a voice.

  It was a woman. Tyresa held her breath and remained absolutely still.

  The voice came again. “Doctor Jak, I can see you in the refrigerator door.”

  She looked at the chrome doors lined up against the wall. Her fuzzy reflection was on perfect display for anyone coming in the doorway. Dammit, what a rookie error! She peered at the equally fuzzy reflection of the stranger, but could make out no details. Her cover was blown, so she may as well come clean. What could she say if the stranger asked why she was here? She got lost? She enjoyed hanging around dead bodies?

  Tyresa rose slowly and found herself face-to-face with a nurse dressed in the typical outfit: square white hat and long white dress down to her ankles.

  The nurse looked back at Tyresa and said, “It’s kind of dead in here, isn’t it?”

  “What?” said Tyresa.

  The woman fired a knowing grin at Tyresa. “Sorry, that was a dad joke.”

  “Who are you?”

  “Dad-Joke.”

  This was the contact! Tyresa remembered that the joke was the code phrase. “Oh, right, um…” stuttered Tyresa, trying to remember the pre-arranged response. “You wouldn’t believe people are dying to get in here, right?”

  The woman seemed to ponder for a moment. “Hmm,” she said. “I think I tell them better.”

  “You’re Dad-Joke?”

  The nurse nodded.

  “Sorry,” said Tyresa, surprised. “It’s just, with that codename, I was expecting…”

  �
�A man? Well, looks like I’ve cured you of that notion1. Anyway, I’m not a real nurse.” She brushed down her uniform. “Just ‘borrowed’ this for the occasion.”

  “I’ve heard of women in Abrama getting involved in this game,” said Tyresa, meaning espionage. “But never actually met one.”

  “There aren’t many of us. If I get caught, I’ll be punished twice as hard as a man.”

  “Hmm, I can imagine.” Tyresa felt a pang of sympathy.

  “Anyway, let’s get down to business,” said Dad-Joke. “Time is short. I’ve got to go back soon and help with the blood donors. Such a draining experience.”

  “Maybe we ought to leave out the jokes for now.”

  “What’s wrong with you? Irony deficiency?”

  Tyresa rubbed her eyes. This could turn out to be a long meeting.

  She explained how the Alliance government wanted to learn about key officials who might be members of the True Origin Society. In return, Dad-Joke revealed how her organisation had already identified numerous suspects. Apparently, the Society had been busy. Few of the people under suspicion were high-ranking, but there was a good number of them in mid-level positions across the board: junior ministers, prominent professors, a reputable lawyer here and there. If these people were indeed members of the TOS and they were coordinated, then the Society certainly had the potential to steer Abrama in directions of their choosing.

  “Impressive work,” said Tyresa. “Do you have anything I can take back with me?”

  “Check your slate,” said Dad-Joke. “You should have received a message with a list of profiles attached.”

  Tyresa took the slate from her jacket pocket. A message had indeed arrived for her a few moments ago.

  Dad-Joke continued. “They’re all there. Civil servants, teachers, doctors…”

  “Doctors?” said Tyresa, scanning through the list. “They’ve even penetrated the medical profession?”

  “Oh yeah. Not surprising, really, they’re a very conservative bunch our doctors. There’s even one here at Saint Barflet’s. That’s why I’m at the hospital in the first place. He’s one of the targets I’m monitoring.”

  “You’re kidding.” Tyresa had a sinking feeling. Colin would be a magnet for a TOS member in the hospital. She scrolled hurriedly through the list. “What’s his name? His name?”

  “Gunga.”

  Sure enough, Doctor Gunga’s profile was there on the list.

  Tyresa’s stomach tightened. She leaned forward and grabbed Dad-Joke by the arm. “Tell me what he’s been up to. Anything suspicious?”

  “Nothing suspicious exactly, but something that might interest you nevertheless. He recently pulled rank to get himself put in charge of your friend Colin Douglass, which apparently caused a bit of a fuss.”

  Tyresa thought for a moment. What could Gunga be up to? His motivation might have been relatively innocent. He might simply have wanted the honour of treating Colin, but Tyresa’s gut told her there was more to it than that.

  “Do you know anything about Brock T. Hanson?” she asked.

  “Hanson? Funny you should mention his name. Take a look at the list.”

  Tyresa looked through the names. Sure enough, there his was. “You think Hanson is True Origin Society?”

  “Ye. In fact, we suspect he has a leadership role.”

  “So he and Gunga are connected?”

  “Possibly, indirectly, at least. Don’t forget, a lot of people are in the TOS, and most don’t even know each other.”

  “But Hanson seemed to know Gunga when we arrived.”

  Dad-Joke shrugged. “Hanson knows everyone. He’s one of these evangelist, wanna-be politicians. He likes to make sure everyone knows him. Lots of acquaintances, few friends, if you know what I mean. If you want my guess, he’s trying to raise his profile by making out he’s friends with a prophet, and then he’ll run for Governor or something. It’s not the first time he’s tried and failed for office. If he’s not careful, the whole thing will blow up in his face, judging from that nasty crowd outside.”

  “The crowd?” Tyresa had almost forgotten about them. “Why, what’s happening?”

  “I saw it on my way here. It’s getting bigger and uglier. Last I heard, the police were on their way to get them under control.”

  She couldn’t put her finger on why, but Tyresa sensed something ominous. She had no evidence that anyone posed a threat to Colin—beyond praising him so much that his ego would inflate and burst his head open—but something was definitely going on. Something in her mind told her to get back to Colin’s side and stick to him like a tractor beam until they were off this planet.

  Tyresa gave Dad-Joke rushed thanks and a warm farewell before bolting from the room.

  “No problem,” Dad-Joke called after her. “But if you trip and break a leg, don’t come running to me!”

  A moment later, Tyresa was outside and dashing towards the rear of the colossal main building, the air filled with the sound of voices. She wanted to get a closer look at them before rejoining Colin in his room.

  Breaking into a run, she buzzed Ade on her wrist computer as she went.

  “Ade, come in, Ade!”

  No reply. She kept trying as she ran along the side of the hospital.

  “Ade, are you there?”

  The channel was definitely open, but she heard nothing apart from the crackle of static. Where the hell was he?

  Then, as she turned the corner and came to the front side, what she saw made her forget all about Ade.

  The crowd had indeed grown.

  On the pathways and lawns surrounding the hospital, there must have been several hundred people. The quivering mass was loud with voices and buzzing with nervous energy. Tyresa sensed an angry division in the crowds.

  The hospital security men stood between the crowd, and the building numbered no more than twenty, perhaps representing all the security the hospital possessed. They were spaced out pathetically thin and looked nervy. Dealing with a troublesome patient was their typical duty. Mass crowd control went far beyond their job description.

  Keeping close to the building were groups of hospital workers. Dozens of white-coated doctors and uniformed nurses bunched around the main entrance, rubber-necking anxiously at the proceedings.

  Tyresa heard shouting from the crowd and saw some people pointing in her direction and yelling. Seconds later, a bunch of them broke out into a run and made a dash for her. The nearest security man flung out his arms, trying to hold them back, but three or four of the crowd broke through and hurled themselves angrily towards Tyresa.

  From the furious looks on their faces, they weren’t after an autograph.

  36

  Marvellous, thought Tiffin, just marvellous.

  For once, he wasn’t being sarcastic.

  His plan had worked out even better than he’d hoped. The angry crowds outside had brought the hospital close to panic mode. Thanks to the stink they’d caused by making Colin’s private conversation go public, he and Mokk now moved through virtually empty corridors.

  Hospital security had been turfed out in its entirety to guard the building. Most of the medical staff who weren’t rubbernecking outside now cowered behind locked doors inside the various wards and offices. Occasionally, Tiffin peered in through an open door and saw people pressed up against the windows as though their faces had been glued there.

  This all meant Tiffin and Mokk had the hospital corridors pretty much to themselves. They had both disguised themselves as a precaution—having helped themselves to a couple of ambulance driver uniforms from the basement—but the Inspector doubted anyone would have glanced at them twice even if they’d been dressed as clowns.

  Eventually, they arrived at the door to the neurology department. Tiffin double-checked that Mokk was clear on the plan for dispatching the guard outside Colin’s door. He double-checked a second time after correcting Mokk’s inevitable misunderstandings.

  Mokk went to open the door, but Tiffin
stopped him.

  “Not yet, Mokk. There’s one element of the plan I haven’t told you yet.”

  He took Mokk’s shoulders firmly in his grasp. The trainee was a pathetic sight. The arms of his baggy uniform were so long that only his fingertips pointed through the cuffs, and the trouser legs had been rolled up so far the bottoms almost reached back up to the knees. Mokk peered back at his commanding officer like a loyal puppy.

  If Tiffin had possessed any empathy, he might have felt bad for what he was about to say.

  “Dearest Mokk. Now comes the time for you to play your role in this great chess game we’re engaged in.”

  Mokk’s face lit up. “Great!”

  “Unfortunately for you, your role will be that of a pawn…”

  Mokk’s face fell. “Oh.”

  “… performing a sacrifice.”

  Mokk’s face almost fell off. “Oh.”

  “At the end of Douglass’s corridor is an elevator. It leads down to a back entrance that emerges right beside the ambulance depot. Once we’ve secured Douglass, I will lead him down there and take him away in an ambulance.”

  “Uh-huh,” said Mokk, waiting for the bad news.

  “I need time to get him to the spaceport and into our ship without anyone raising the alarm. Therefore, you will stay behind in Douglass’s room and make sure nobody discovers he’s gone until I’m safely away at warp speed.”

  “You mean…” Mokk gulped. “You’re leaving me here?”

  Tiffin squeezed his shoulders. “Temporarily, Mokk,” he said as though he were persuading his girlfriend they should take a cooling-off period. “Your actions here today will ensure that our mission comes to a successful conclusion. Once I’m safely away, I’ll contact you, and you can hide out somewhere here until we send a ship to pick you up.”

  The young trainee didn’t look enthused. He needed bucking up to ensure he performed his duty.

  “Just think of what will await you after you return,” said Tiffin. “Your certificate for one thing. I’ll fast-track your graduation.”