Eventually it spat him out like a cherry stone, and he staggered forward into the inner circle, where he suddenly remembered to pull his flushed features into a big smile to greet me. “Jacques McKeown. I would like to read a prepared statement from the Ritsuko City Council.”
The hubbub grew silent, but for a few people asking if anyone knew what was going on and the subsequent shushing. Sanshiro grandly produced a rolled-up piece of expensive notepaper and held it vertically before him like a medieval herald bringing news of the battle.
“Jacques McKeown,” he repeated needlessly. “We, as the elected representatives of the people of Ritsuko City, acknowledge your act of selfless courage and heroism that was the removal of Terrorgorn’s body from our midst, and . . .” He read ahead a few lines, then switched to a whisper. “Did he defeat Terrorgorn?”
“Apparently,” said Honda, bored.
“And defeating him once and for all,” resumed Sanshiro in his announcing voice. “As enforcers of Ritsuko City’s laws, we hereby issue a full and complete pardon for any crimes you may have committed during or related to the abovementioned act of heroism.”
“Oh,” I said as the flashbulbs started up again. “Um. Thanks.”
Honda had sidled close and was squinting at the text of the document as Sanshiro proudly displayed it for all the cameras to see. “So that’s the official pardon, is it?” he asked, with the tone of an uninterested tourist inspecting a museum piece.
“Yes, Honda, this is the one,” hissed Sanshiro through his photogenic smile.
“I notice it’s made out for someone called Jacques McKeown.”
“What are you blithering about now? Of course it is!”
Honda produced a piece of paper of his own from his back pocket, this one sweaty, crumpled, and from a printer that was probably due for a new cartridge. “It’s just, while we’re in the mood, I’ve got a little prepared statement of my own.” He mimicked Sanshiro’s grand posture halfheartedly. “ ‘Frobisher. After I send this, I have to pretend to be Jacques McKeown . . . I’m sending you this to let you know that I’m totally, totally not really Jacques McKeown, and I’m just pretending to be to get one over on some of his stupid bracket fans.’ Sent from the cockpit of the private vessel Neverdie, as registered by its owner, at that time known as Dashford Pierce.”
“What?” barked Sanshiro, his expensive piece of notepaper crumpling in his two fists. “He didn’t write that. You didn’t write that, did you?”
“Do you deny that you authored this statement?” droned Honda, as if he were reading aloud an instruction manual for a new appliance.
Plying, plying Frobisher. I was willing to bet that he had thought showing that email to Honda had been doing me a favor; he was exactly that kind of inconveniently reliable. I subtly leaned into Honda’s space, and tried to talk as quietly as possible without moving my lips. “How plausible would it be if I did?”
“Not very,” he whispered in reply. “We can tie this email to your ID chip in . . . I stopped counting at forty-seven ways.”
“Right.” I leaned back, took a breath, flicked the little switch in my head, and spoke at full volume. “Yes, I wrote that. Of course I wrote that.” I rolled my eyes like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “I was about to make a huge public appearance, and the last time I went public, all the star pilots, er, overreacted. A bit,” I finished lamely, because I was only becoming more conscious of the dead silence, and the lack of flash photography. “I was nipping it in the bud.”
The moment hung by a thread as Sanshiro stared with mouth agape and shoulders slouched, before he promptly straightened his posture and closed his mouth with a pop. “Of course! Nipping it in the bud. That just makes sense. Doesn’t it make sense, Honda?”
“Perfectly,” said Honda, disappointment writ large across his reasonable face. “Forethought is important. I often have to remind myself to think very hard and take a good long look around before continuing with what I’m doing.”
I took a look around. Not surprisingly, a hostile atmosphere was brewing around the cluster of star pilots back in Salvation Station, with Robert Blaze at the head, his arms folded and head tilted forward like a disapproving nanny. Warden, meanwhile, was standing with the interested pose of someone watching a friend pick a fight in a crowded bar, body tensed and ready to flee at the first sign of danger to themselves.
Sturb had vanished, presumably because the presence of the police didn’t mesh well with his whole “intergalactic fugitive” thing, but Derby was still there. He was wearing a very similar expression to Honda’s: skeptical eyebrow up, mouth tight, wordlessly recommending caution.
“So just to confirm, just for the official record,” said Honda with agonizing slowness. “You, the individual also known as Dashford Pierce, are Jacques McKeown, the author?”
Half an hour. All I had to do was not get arrested or lynched for half an hour, which was how long it would take to get to the Oniris recruitment office and sign up. After that it wouldn’t matter how many doints thought I was Jacques McKeown unless the company filled the new ship’s entire complement with autograph hunters. “Yes,” I said, decisively.
Honda shifted his weight. “No take-backsies?”
“Yes, I think we’ve all heard quite enough of your conspiracy theories, Inspector.” Sanshiro moved to my side and slapped a hand around my shoulder like an insecure boyfriend at a crowded party. He gestured to the assembled press. “All right, you lot, Jacques and I will be holding a proper conference in the spaceport convention room and you can get all your pictures and questions there. Move aside, please.”
“Um, only if it doesn’t take too long,” I said as he began to propel me forwards. “I need to—”
“Yes, we have a really very important lunch meeting planned with Mr. Burdinson’s people,” said Emily from Blasé Books, appearing at my other side. “And after that, we need to sit down and go over some opportunities that are really very worth considering . . .”
Soon I was being carried inexorably along on a wave of human traffic. I tried to look back, to shout a message to Derby or Sturb, but I didn’t see them amid the sea of faces, and respectful hands swiftly steered my shoulders back on track.
Chapter 31
The newest reconnaissance vessel of the Oniris Venture fleet, loaded with a full complement of former star pilots and evil scientists, was launched three months later. After being constructed in the sky directly above Ritsuko City, its hydrogen engines—boosted by a little something Davisham Derby had cooked up—flashed a brilliant blue as it sped off toward the nearest trebuchet gate, bound for the very edge of known space.
I watched them go from the balcony of my luxury penthouse apartment, propping my chin up with one hand. In the end, there hadn’t been time to go to the recruitment office after the press conference, the lunch meeting, the afternoon-tea meeting, the dinner meeting, and the drinks that my publisher had decided were needed to celebrate the previous three meetings. And then, before the recruitment office could even open the following day, I was informed that the three-week signing tour of all Luna’s colonies was about to start.
The Oniris ship was already nothing more than a twinkle amid a star field full of the brackets, but I was determined not to let it get me down. After all, a bunk on a deep space recon ship wouldn’t have been as nice as this apartment. It was only the second-tallest building in Ritsuko City after Henderson Tower, but that just meant it was on the classier side of excessive.
I cast a look at the Henderson Tower, it being a prominent fixture of my new million-euroyen view. The spaceport on its roof had been lit up constantly for the last few days with a steady stream of ships coming and going. This was another thing I was determined not to think about.
I turned away, passing through the balcony doors back into the apartment. I grabbed a glass from the kitchenette to make myself another cocktail.
It was still warm from the dishwasher and its contents would taste faintly of chemical cleaner, but I found that this gave me a pleasantly nostalgic feeling.
On the whole, things could certainly have been worse. This “living a lie” business had been easier than expected, so far. All I had to do was field the daily phone calls, agree to whatever the publisher thought was a good idea, and be as cagey and taciturn as possible while people wrote it off as the antisocial attitude of the auteur genius. Remembering of course to always be completely vague when asked about future works.
And the rewards were staggering. The lap of luxury, good eating, and a constant stream of money. As I sat on my crushed-leather couch in my fur-lined dressing gown, dug my toes into my thick-pile carpet, and sipped aged whiskey with subtle notes of bleach, I could feel that I was probably mere days away from starting to enjoy it.
My phone rang. I tilted my head back, let my mouthful of drink slide all the way down my throat to my gut, counted three more rings, then answered.
“Hi, Mr. McKeown, it’s Emily. We’ve got New Dubai Radio on the line, are you up for an interview?”
“Sure,” I said, without even token enthusiasm, but my other plans for the evening had consisted of mainly sitting around drinking myself numb. “What about?”
“The new book, of course! It came out this morning; didn’t you get the comp copies?”
I glanced at the door. A rectangular box had indeed been delivered a couple of days ago and was still sitting on the welcome mat, but I had assumed it to be yet another round of reprint editions. Normally I’d want to read through it before I tried to bluff my way through an interview, but on this occasion, I was in the mood to be even more cagey and uninformative than usual. “Right. Put me through.”
After some clicks, thumps, and a brief snatch of light jazz, I heard the voice of an aggressively energetic young person. “Hi, Jacques, I’m Raj, I’m producing the weekly review show on New Dubai Radio. In a moment the host, Phara, she’ll introduce your book and we’ll cue you in, okay?”
“Okay,” I said flatly.
“Can I just say, big fan. Really liking the new direction.”
“Okay,” I repeated, wondering what he meant.
Another few moments of clicks and nondescript sounds and his voice was replaced by that of another aggressively energetic young person. “. . . And now, bit of a treat for all you highbrow-literature fans, we have the man himself on the line, Jacques McKeown. Jacques, welcome.”
“Hi,” I said, injecting what I felt was the right amount of self-important contempt.
Phara pressed on, unconcerned. “So, let’s start with a brief summary of the plot. Interestingly, it’s set in a more contemporary era, after the invention of Quantunneling, and our hero Jacques McKeown has fallen on hard times, selling day trips to tourists from Ritsuko City Spaceport.”
“Yeah,” I said, not really listening, but then my subconscious sounded the alarm. “What?”
“From there, he’s enlisted by a mysterious femme fatale–like figure to chauffeur the son of a dangerous crime lord, and, well, I won’t spoil the rest, but they end up going through all kinds of scrapes together. So, first of all, what was it that made you want to take such a dramatic change of tone?”
By now I was on my knees on the welcome mat, trying to rip the tape off the rectangular box. “Um, you know,” I replied, flustered. “You’ve got to, er, grow up sooner or later, and all that . . . trac.”
I finally opened the box, releasing the sharp odor of freshly printed books, and pulled out a copy of Jacques McKeown’s latest. In contrast to his previous works, this one wasn’t called Jacques McKeown and the Div Disaster or anything along those lines, but was simply entitled I Know Who You Were.
The cover depicted a star pilot, but instead of standing with legs wide enough apart to admit a Parchalian buffalo, hotties clinging to each leg, he was standing with his back to the viewer, gazing up at a huge, colorful star field that seemed to envelop him with its cosmic vastness. I couldn’t help noticing that his cap and flight jacket were of types and colors very similar to the ones I used to wear.
“And many fans are already divided over the, er, tone of the ending,” continued Phara. “It’s certainly more downbeat than usual. Grimmer, maybe. Gorier, certainly. Are you at liberty to tell us if this really is the canonical death of Jacques McKeown? Spoiler warning.”
I flicked through the pages, and after noticing a couple of standout references to the planet Cantrabargid and to Zoobs, I realized what the book’s title meant. I Know Who You Were. It wasn’t an avant-garde new direction for mainstream star pilot lit. It was the real Jacques McKeown finally making contact with the outside world.
He was sending a message. One that would be seen by billions, but was intended for the only person who understood it. Jacques McKeown knew who I was. And by the sound of it, he had an unpleasant fate in mind for me.
It eventually penetrated my thick coating of cold dread that the voice on the phone was waiting for a reply. “Uh, maybe,” I stammered out. “I hope not.”
“We all hope not,” said Phara. “Now, a lot of readers have suggested you may have taken some inspiration from Flowers Dying in Electric Lights by Geranium Pleasant, arguably the original progenitor of star pilot literature. I believe we have her on the other line right now. Miss Pleasant?”
I braced myself. I had a feeling it was going to be a long publishing cycle.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ben “Yahtzee” Croshaw is the sole creator of Zero Punctuation™, a popular weekly game review on the Webby Award–winning Escapist online magazine, for which he also earned the 2009 IT Journalism Award for Best Gaming Journalist. He was born and raised in the UK, emigrated to Australia, and then emigrated again to California. In his spare time he designs video games and emigrates.
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