Theatre of the Gods

by M. Suddain

  But there would certainly be a trial first, because that was how things were done, and because the Pope also loved a trial. He’d arrived back at his palace as excited as a small boy on Festivus Day. His aides, who had been frantically searching for him, were astonished to see him step out of his small taxi-craft with the Devil Girl he’d vowed to kill. And now here they were. The courtroom was packed. Lenore stood in the dock. The Pope was in his jet-bath. ‘Do you deny before this court that you are not guilty of blasphemy, treason, gluttony, simony, parsimony, rosemary, thyme and other mortal sins?’ The judge was just making sins up. He knew that at least some of these sins were kitchen herbs, but his job was to put on a show. ‘Do you not admit this isn’t so?’

  ‘Um. Yes?’ said Lenore. The court exploded into shouts and jeers.

  ‘So you admit it! Do you, or do you not, admit you just admitted it?’

  ‘Um. No.’ The court erupted again. Hats were thrown. Spittle sparkled in the air. Outside, beyond the broad glass dome, the sprinkled stars above the smoking ruins of Diemendääs appeared to laugh.

  ‘Do you know,’ said the judge, ‘that to admit to such a crime means certain death? But to deny your guilt will also lead to death?’

  ‘Well, then what is the point of saying anything?’

  This time the clamour was deafening and joyous. A shoe hit the step below the witness stand. ‘To death!’ they cried. ‘To death with the Devil Girl! Out into space with her! Out, out, out, out, out, out, out, out!’

  ‘Yes, yes. Can we please hurry this all up? Roberto will be arriving soon. He is waiting behind the moon with all the naughty shrubs.’

  The jeers abated as an aide ran into the room and smashed a gong. ‘Excellency!’ he said. ‘Forgive me for gonging, but it’s a matter of utmost urgency.’

  ‘Can’t you see we’re having the trial?’ said the Pope as he adjusted the position of a nozzle on his jet-bath.

  ‘Your Holiness, we are under attack.’ The Pope stood up suddenly and all in court averted their eyes.

  ‘A space attack? How big is their army?’

  ‘Extremely small, Holiness … One ship.’ Laughter in the court.

  ‘How big is this ship? Vast?’

  ‘It is rather small, Excellency,’ said the aide, again trying not to look.

  The Pope looked confused. ‘One ship?’

  ‘Yes, Holiness. A stealth ship.’

  ‘A stealth ship? How did we see it on our radars?’

  ‘We did not, Holiness. The men on board left their radio on and we could hear them arguing. They appear to be on their way to rescue this girl.’

  VENGEANCE

  It was astonishingly ironic that two of the most powerful minds of their species had come up with arguably the worst rescue plan ever conceived.

  ‘Attack formation!’ cried Fabrigas Two – the younger. They had argued about which ship to steal. F1 had favoured the fastest ship available – a short-range courier craft, as fast as a mid-range fighter – while F2 had wanted the strongest craft – an armoured diplomatic carrier, as slow as a domestic rhinoceros. In the end they compromised and went for invisibility – discovering in a disused bay a small naval stealth craft designed to sneak up on smugglers. They had been fighting for control of the helm since leaving the docks. Both men put their case. F2 had argued that he was younger and therefore the more able pilot. F1 had responded that he had much more piloting experience, and that F2 had recently been shot with a small cannon. So F2 had capitulated, though he was still barking orders. ‘Attack formation?’ said F1. ‘What do you mean attack formation? We’re only one ship! Just let me fly for goodness’ sake. We’ll head for the main space palaces and trust they don’t notice us. That’s where the girl will be.’ They were approaching the outer defences of the Pope’s great fleet when their radio crackled into life and they heard a voice say, ‘This is Commander Murial of the Fleet of the Nine Churches. We can hear you arguing. Change heading and leave this sector immediately or you will be destroyed.’

  *

  The court assembled to try Lenore for her crimes had watched through the great windows as a tiny ship approached the first ring of defence. It hadn’t gone well. Soon the craft was streaking off, trailing smoke, pursued by a thousand fighters. It was unclear who was piloting the ship on this suicide mission, but it was clear that they were as mad as a bucketful of kittens. Now several dozen grappling ships were in pursuit. Their long steel ropes terminated in hooks which swung in wide and deadly circles. It wouldn’t be long before one of them sank its hooks into the fleeing ship and pulled it in.

  But Roberto would soon be here. Yes, Lenore could feel it. Soon the fun would begin.

  *

  Prince Panduke caught up with Kimmy in the Dedals within the mountain. He had seen the great iron giant wreaking hell and had immediately gone to get his jet-packs. ‘You stole my iron giant!’ was the first thing he said.

  ‘It’s good to see you too,’ said Kimmy, as she pushed her glasses up her nose. ‘We left her safely by the entrance.’

  ‘You left him by the entrance. We have to get you into hiding,’ said the prince.

  ‘No, we have to get you into hiding,’ said Kimmy. ‘They’ll be out to arrest you.’

  ‘No, we have to get you into hiding. I’m here to rescue you.’

  No one quite knew who had built the Dedals and why. But they had been used at various times to smuggle people in and out of the city, to act as refuges during aerial bombardment – such as the one they could hear below – to conduct secret meetings, rites and rituals. The tunnels appeared to travel down towards the core of the mountain under which the city stood, holding here and there a door or drain, and now and then becoming tiny black rooms or wide, spooky arcades.

  Now Panduke and Kimmy were deeper than they’d ever been, and the tunnels had shrunk to hardly the girth of a person, and there were no doors to be found. ‘Where are we?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Panduke. ‘These are the secret tunnels.’

  ‘So we’re lost?’

  ‘No, we are in Diemendääs.’ He put his hand against the mossy stone. ‘And right now I’d rather be lost than found.’

  ‘Shhhh,’ said Kimmy. ‘Listen.’ They were so deep now that they could hardly hear the explosions. They had turned a corner into a narrow corridor that stretched to vanishing. There was a point of light in the blackness; looking down the tunnel was like staring into a great eye. Far away they heard a soft shuffle, like someone jogging on sand, and then a foggy shape materialised at the far end, moving quickly towards them.

  ‘Run!’

  The prince had already left. They ran as fast as their short legs could manage, driven on by fear, but the figure in pursuit was fast and gaining on them with every stride. Panduke stumbled and fell, Kimmy tumbled over him, and suddenly the footsteps were upon them. They scrabbled onto their backs but the corridor behind was empty. ‘A ghost!’ hissed Panduke.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ said Kimmy. They stood and turned in the direction they’d been running. They both let out girlish screams. The man who stood before them was extremely short and very muscular. He had a tremendous head of bright red hair, well oiled, and a well-lubricated moustache. He wore a red-and-white-striped leotard – the kind worn by circus strongmen – and a pair of strange rubber shoes. He was not at all out of breath, despite having run the better part of a mile in less than three minutes.

  ‘Sir!’ barked the man. ‘I greet you with all humbleness! On behalf of His Majesty’s Secret Service, it is my duty to inform you that His Highness, the Emperor, is missing, presumed dead. I have no time to explain further developments. Please follow me.’

  *

  It was hopeless, their rescue attempt had been a disaster. They could outrun the smaller fighters, but the pursuit craft were closing. ‘They mean to board us then,’ said F2. ‘Well, they’ll get a fight.’

  ‘Yes. A fight,’ said F1. He could see the craft closing fast, the grappling chains lea
ving silver hoops in the blackness. He knew that once they were boarded it would come down to a hand-to-hand fight, and an old man and a one-armed youngster were no match for the bearlike guardsmen. ‘We might have a chance if we head for that small moon,’ said F2.

  F1 laughed loudly. ‘The moon, yes, what a grand idea!’ Bespophus, with its armies of ravenous dinophytes, shone brightly in the distance.

  They felt the whole craft groan as the first of the grapples punctured their outer shell. ‘Prepare to fight to the death!’ cried F2 as he pulled a hooked cargo-staff from the wall.

  ‘You’re halfway there already,’ muttered F1, but there was no time for another argument. They heard the docking port being wrenched away. The hatch to the bay above fell open and two heavy shapes dropped into the cabin. One said, ‘On behalf of the Pope, surrender or die.’

  ‘We won’t go without a fight,’ said F2. ‘Good heavens, what’s that out there?’

  A black shape approached fast from the left, its wings spread like a bat as it dived towards them. Rocket wings, incidentally, are not meant to be used in space. Only a mad person would try it. The Black Widow spiralled into the open docking bay. She threw off her rocket wings and took a few heavy breaths.

  BATTLE STATIONS

  On the bridge the Pope was hopping mad. ‘Get them! I want them alive so I can kill them!’ He leaped around the bridge and pulled at levers that did nothing but let out pre-assigned noises. The crew had been forced to put these in after the Pope had almost steered the palace into a sun. The levers gave the Holy Father the illusion of piloting his palace without giving everyone else the constant fear of dying.

  ‘Yes, Your Holiness.’

  They had now pulled back far enough from the planet to be able to activate their Glory Hole: the artificial black hole into which their prisoner would be cast. Making a Glory Hole is unbelievably complex. At the heart of a purpose-built battle station is a chamber containing a small glass bead filled with isotopes. At the given hour powerful lasers are fired at the bead, instantly creating a tiny artificial star. This miraculous baby star is then forced into collapse, tearing an orifice in space and time, and creating a miniature black hole. The subsequent black hole will grow quickly to envelop the battle station, so the entire engineering crew must be fired away in powerful escape pods. What remains when the rubble clears is a relatively small, but not unterrifying, vortex. It is a fantastically difficult, dangerous and expensive process, but the Pope would have it no other way.

  On the giant screen above the navigator’s station they could now observe the silvery whorl of their new Glory Hole. On the far side the bombardment division was still clustered around the planet, while between the planet and the Glory Hole (a minimum safe distance away from both) was a cluster of green dots – the main fleet of battle palaces. And curling away from that like a swarm of angry hornets was a stream of smaller dots, the pursuit fleet – they had moved to intercept a single tiny dot.

  ‘We’ll throw them into the Glory Hole, too!’

  ‘Of course, Your Excellency. Our men are boarding their craft as we speak.’

  *

  ‘Come to Papa, gorgeous,’ said the first priest. They were an intimidating sight in their black turtleneck sweaters and shiny black stomper boots.

  ‘You come to us, handsome!’ said F2 as he twirled the cargo-staff in his hand. ‘That’s if you can take it.’

  ‘Oh, we can take it, sweetie-pie,’ said the second priest as he smashed his clenched fist into his palm. ‘We can take it good.’

  ‘Well, if you want us, come and gnn—’

  F2 swallowed his sentence as a pair of long legs came through the hatch above, coiled around the thick necks of the two papal guards, and gently smashed their skulls together, thus mercifully concluding a slightly weird exchange. The Black Widow had been trained by the very best teachers to dispatch her victims with whatever she had at her disposal: a candlestick, a loaf of bread, her shapely legs. Her own shiny boots gleamed as she dropped to the floor beside the two unconscious guards and scanned the ship’s bewildered occupants. ‘Could you have made more of a mess of a simple rescue mission?’ she said.

  It took a few seconds for the Fabrigases to even register what was happening.

  ‘What in heck is happening?!’ said F1.

  ‘We don’t have much time. We’ll take my rocket wings,’ said the Black Widow. ‘This ship is about to fall apart.’

  ‘Take your rocket wings? To where?!’ said F1.

  ‘To their command station. To Lenore. And we have to hurry. I am … short on time.’ She glanced at her Lasiotek Magnesium Chronograph wristwatch.

  ‘I’m staying here,’ said F2. ‘I’ll try to draw those fighters away.’

  ‘That’s suicide!’ said F1.

  ‘As opposed to your mission?’

  ‘Fair point,’ said F1. ‘Well, goodbye, young me.’

  ‘Yes, goodbye, old me. It was surprising to meet you.’

  ‘Ah, to be young again. When you reach my age almost nothing will surprise you. Oh, I could tell you some stories.’

  ‘If we’re both alive in forty-five minutes,’ said the Black Widow, ‘you can tell me as many boring stories as you like.’

  *

  Panduke and Kimmy had been guided through the catacombs of Diemendääs by their moustachioed stalker – whose name was Lamont, and whose full name was Special Agent Jerman James Lamont. Special Agent Jerman James Lamont had jogged off ahead of them, keeping a measured gait, his spine rod-straight, his body perfectly balanced, and when they came to an open culvert in the floor he would leap into the vaulted ceiling, sometimes hanging with just a finger in a crevice, and with his free hand he’d grab each child and fling them lightly over the creek before springing down to resume his gentle jog, and everything he did he did with a ‘Hup! Hooo … Hup!’ When they came to a stream where a small punt waited he helped them in, ‘Hup! Hooo!’ then pushed off from the stone jetty with an oar and began to row them down the black river in long, easy strokes, his oars gently cutting the steamy water, ‘Hut … hut … hut …’

  Soon they sailed out of the tunnels and into a bunker filled with countless ships of war.

  ‘So this is where Daddy keeps his fleet,’ said Panduke. ‘I always wondered.’ A group of generals waited on the shore, medals gleaming in the artificial light, and each of them bowed to the prince, and to Kimmy. Lamont helped the children out, then stood by the boat, stretching. A general stepped forward. He had so many medals on his chest that when he bowed they tinkled like a wind chime. ‘Your Highness,’ said General Spatz, ‘we salute your bravery and cunning. In the mysterious absence of His Royal Highness the Emperor the Royal Air Fleet now places its warships at your executive command, as per our city’s constitution. You may now give your orders, either to surrender unconditionally to the Pope, or to attack.’

  Prince Panduke had looked from the general to the ships, their mighty cannons, the racks of ammunition stacked beside them. Then he’d looked at Kimmy and whispered … ‘Awesome.’

  And so here they were, on the command deck of the Diemendääs fleet as it tumbled from the surface in a hopeless assault against the Pope’s forces. The prince could see his city below – now a flaming glow upon the surface of the planet – and he could see that their fleet, the one which had looked so fearsome when stacked in bunkers underground, looked trivial when set against the black hulks of the Fleet of the Nine Churches, and the music in his skull was the timpanic drumming of his blood, topped with shrill, discordant notes of fear. Kimmy was there, and she was dressed in a naval jumpsuit that made her look fierce. ‘Highness, we are in position. Your order?’ said General Spatz.

  The prince looked at Kimmy, then back at the general.

  ‘Hit them with everything you’ve got,’ he said.

  *

  ‘It is the city’s war fleet, Holiness,’ said Cardinal Mothersbaugh, as the first wave of fire hit their forward defences. ‘They are small but heavily armed. They h
ave destroyed the bombardment division.’

  ‘Crush them,’ said the Pope. ‘Wipe them all out, and then destroy the rest of the city. Turn the parts we haven’t bombed to ruins. And then destroy the ruins! And then throw that girl into the Glory Hole! I don’t like her. She has funny skin!’

  ‘We are in a tactically weak position, Holiness. We outnumber them ten thousand guns to one, but we have our backs against the Glory Hole. We will suffer losses. We could perhaps move to –’

  ‘We must perform the execution! That’s why we’ve been sent all the way here. What did you think this was, a holiday?’

  Mothersbaugh did not think this had been a holiday, although he had been on holidays that were far worse. ‘They are positioning their heavy guns to fire on our palaces.’

  ‘Then get us behind the laundry palace! They can’t hit us if we’re behind a laundry palace!’ And Mothersbaugh had to admit it was a pretty good idea.

  *

  ‘I’m not going on those,’ said Fabrigas when he saw the Black Widow’s rocket wings.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because they are not meant to be used in space. Because they have no life-support equipment and they tend to blow up when struck by space debris. And because I don’t want to.’

  ‘Nonsense. Why are you sulking?’

  ‘I’m not sulking. Why would you want to know? I’d only bore you.’

  ‘Oh for the love of … Here, you can sulk all you like inside this,’ she said as she handed the old man a crash helmet with a visor and oxygen mask. Then she slipped her own mask on, slung the rocket wings on her back, and threw a harness around Fabrigas’s waist. ‘Try to stay limp,’ she whispered in his ear. Fabrigas hardly had time to gather himself before the Black Widow stepped backwards out of the hatch, and then they were tumbling end over end in space. Fabrigas saw their ship retreating quickly into the distance. Then the Black Widow hit ignition, and suddenly he saw their pursuers racing towards them at an unbelievable speed, their steel hooks slicing the air.