by Toby Frost
He turned to the lift guard. ‘The delivery men come?’ he demanded.
‘Yes sir.’
‘They made the delivery?’
‘Yes sir. From the factory.’
‘Alright.’ He opened his wallet and took out a random handful of notes in New Yen, Freeland Dollars and Adjusted Sterling. ‘You didn’t see them come, alright?’
‘Yes sir.’
‘You take this and have a good night. You tell anyone, and you’ll have a very bad morning. Got me?’
‘Yes sir.’
The doors opened into the long, red corridor that ended with one door – his. In recesses along the way there were works of art that he felt reflected his personality: a statue of a bullfighter, the bust of a Roman emperor, a photograph of Henry Ford. Two guards waited outside his door with the permanently startled expressions of people whose job gives them a substantial discount on plastic surgery.
‘Good evening sir.’
‘Hey,’ Devrin said. ‘Anything happening?’
‘Nothing,’ said the other guard.
‘My package arrive?’
‘Yes sir. The team from the labs left two hours ago. They left a message in your entrance hall. We scanned it for poison and explosives.’
‘Excellent. You two take the night off, alright?’
They looked at one another, and although neither had a way of telling, for once their surprise was genuine. Devrin watched them get into the lift. There were still several dozen men guarding the lower levels of the building. He was safe. He swiped the door with his card, blew on a neural scanner and put his eye up to a lens. The door swung open, and his shoes clicked on marble as he walked in.
A big, heart-shaped box of chocolates sat on a plinth. He looked at the card on top of it. ‘Your friend is in the guest bedroom. Have a good time! Best regards to you and your dad – the biolabs.’
Devrin shrugged and entered his own room. He took off his suit, undressed to his boxer shorts – new and silky – and his sock-suspenders, then strolled into the bathroom, thoughtfully sniffing his armpits as he went. Of course, it did not matter how well he smelt, or how he looked. It would be a success no matter what. But he had his own personal pride to think about, and he put on some extra aftershave and a fresh dose of deoderant. He even used the bidet.
In his dressing gown, slippers and underwear, Paul Devrin left the bathroom rubbing his hands together. This was going to be good. He stopped in the hall to look in the mirror, checking his teeth for broccoli. ‘Yeer!’ he said to his reflection. ‘We are gonna get it awn!’
He picked up the chocolates and put them under his arm. Straightening his lapels, he took hold of the door handles and threw the doors apart. ‘Hey, sexy lady! We are—’
He stopped dead. There was the enormous bed, the bottle of champagne cooling in a silver bucket on the bedside table. But it was not right. A plate lay smashed on the ground, surrounded by raw, scattered oysters. More important, however, was the fact that the person on the bed was a middle-aged, portly man in a white scientist’s coat and no trousers, gagged and bound. Someone at the delivery firm had got their wires very crossed about Devrin’s special tastes.
The man was writhing and making moaning sounds. Paul realised that this was not for his benefit.
Devrin ducked down and took a gun from behind the nearest pot plant. He stalked over to the bed and pulled a stocking out of the man’s mouth.
‘Doc Petersen!’
‘God dammit!’ cried the man. ‘Damn woman got free!’
‘Got free? What?’
‘She brained me with a plate and stole my keycard. And my pants.’
‘What about the rest of the team?’
‘They’re in the wardrobe. She took their ID and passes too.’
Paul said, ‘But, this isn’t supposed to happen! She’s supposed to obey my every wish! I told them to get me my dream date, not a fat naked scientist!’
‘She must have realised, sir. She must have realised what we made her for, then planned her escape. I’m sorry, sir—’
‘You will be! I’m calling my father! And Waldo!’
Devrin strode out the room, leaving Petersen prone behind him. He snatched an antique cellular phone from a plinth and switched it on.
‘Security? Put out a coded message to my father on Cerberus Three. Tell him I’m going to need a bunch of men and a load more money, maybe even a ship. And get me Waldo, up here, now! Tell him to pull his best man off whatever job he’s got and get him ready to do some serious work. Then I want this place gone over with a fine tooth-comb, atom by atom. Make that an atomic toothcomb.’
A tiny, startled voice made its way up the line. ‘Sir, um, alright, sir.’
‘You are going to locate my ladybot right now, and you will either bring her back to me or shut her down!
Nobody gets to keep my stuff! I want her found!’
‘So, er, who is this bird, then?’ Carveth said. Smith had been dozing in the captain’s chair. Having returned from the roof, he had promptly retired to his cabin and slept for several hours before wandering in to do the same at the helm. He had been dreaming about fighting off an enormous sock, and was quite relieved to be awake again. ‘Sorry?’
‘This Rhianna Mitchell. Who is she then?’
Smith rubbed his head. ‘I’m not sure, actually.’ He groped for the roster sheet, and Carveth put it into his hand. ‘It says here that she helps run a health food shop and hydroponic garden centre. Apparently she’s actively involved in meditation – is that possible? – and is secretary of the Society for Preservation of Endangered Alien Life. I wish I’d known about that before I shot three void sharks this morning. Are they endangered?’
‘Not before this morning. She certainly sounds like a bucket of fun. Why’re we transporting this lentil princess, anyway?’
‘I don’t really know. Perhaps she’s put up the cash to charter a ship instead of waiting for a liner and buying passage like anybody else.’
‘Very expensive, that. You don’t make that kind of money selling mung beans. And she can hardly be running from the law – everything’s legal on New Fran as it is. To be honest, I’ve been planning on adding Mary Jane to the crew roster myself.’
‘Who’s that? Sounds like an aunt.’
‘More a soul-mate. Never mind.’
‘Rhianna Mitchell may be a dissident. There’s a lot of people coming to the Empire from the neutral states these days, what with the Ghasts re-arming and everything.’
‘True.’ She took a swig of her tea. ‘Ugh! If you ask me, as soon as those spidery buggers have enough ships, they’re coming straight for Earth.’
‘They’d better not. If they make for London they’ll find something special waiting for them, and it won’t be a souvenir T-shirt, that’s for damned sure. Bloody Ghasts. That’s the trouble with aliens – they’re all bloody foreign.’
Carveth shook up the paperweight, watching the snow swirl around Parliament. ‘These neutral colonies are in serious trouble if it all kicks off,’ she said. ‘Still, I don’t think we’ll be in any danger with this Rhianna woman on board.’
‘No?’
‘Of course not. If they thought there would be trouble, they’d send something decent to pick her up, not this bucket of rust.’
‘Good point. I thought it was supposed to have a refit before we left.’
Carveth shrugged. ‘It has – of a sort. It’s got a new supralux engine fitted – a big one. We go twice the speed in half the style. Shame they couldn’t put a half-decent drinks machine in at the time.’
‘That’s odd.’
‘Well, yes, it is. In layman’s terms, this ship probably used to fly like a pig. Now it flies like a pig with a firework up its bum. I’m not sure which is better.’
Smith nodded. ‘Well, it’s all a bit strange, if you ask me. You don’t know anything about this mission, and I’m the captain and I don’t either. Doesn’t that strike you as surprising?’
‘Half of it certainly does. Still, I suppose we’ll find out when we get there. Would you mind taking the controls while I ablute?’
‘Not at all. We’re on course, aren’t we?’
‘Oh yes. Just watch for trouble. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,’ she added from the door. ‘And don’t crash the spaceship, either.’
2 Smith Meets Some Gentle People
The needle dropped in the speedometer. In the civilised tones of a BBC announcer, the ship’s computer said, ‘We are now approaching the target destination. Deceleration has been commenced.’
Carveth returned. ‘What’s going on?’
‘We’re getting close. The retros are on.’
‘Great.’ She sat back down. ‘You want me to say hello?’
‘Please do.’
She unclipped the microphone. ‘This is the John Pym, British Empire commercial light transport vessel 28 – dammit, they’ve put me in a queue.’
‘Let me try. Put it on the speaker.’
Carveth flicked a switch. Light, insipid music filled the room. ‘Bossa Nova,’ Carveth said.
‘At least it’s not that bloody Strauss again. I suppose we have to wait.’
Suruk entered the control room. ‘Ah, music,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘Am I interrupting a mating ritual?’
‘No!’ they replied.
‘Is that our destination?’
‘Yep,’ the pilot said. In the windscreen they could make out the shape of the colony. It was the shape of a starfish trying to mate with a can of beans. Down each of the starfish’s arms, little grey shapes were anchored to the station: spacecraft, many of them several hundred metres long. Smith squinted at the display as they drew closer. He could recognise many of them, representatives of the human Great Powers and the alien races of Known Space. Most would be refuelling, for New Fran made much of its money from providing services to ships and their crews. One of the arms of the starfish was reserved for repairs, and the ships there were dotted with white specs that were space-suited men.
‘There’s a Morlock ship there, Suruk,’ Smith said. The alien peered through the windscreen. ‘Indeed. No doubt they are readying themselves for battle and warfare further on. I see no other reason why they would want to linger at this cowardly place, unless they are currently sacking it.’
The M’Lak ship was red, shaped like a huge cone with an engine at the rear. There was a screw thread running around the cone. As tended to be the case with Suruk’s people, they had adapted human technology to fit their way of war: the cone was for ramming, the screw thread designed to help it tear deep into the guts of an enemy vessel. The nose of the ship would then drop off, allowing a horde of fighters to spill out and engage the crew in a boarding action before returning to their own craft, usually with a selection of heads in a bag.
‘I look forward to speaking with them,’ Suruk said. The muzak stopped. ‘Hi there! This is New Fran traffic control,’ a woman’s voice announced. She had the gentle American accent characteristic of the Franese. ‘I’m 39 Summer, and I’ll be your traffic controller today. Is that the John Pym I’m talking to?’
‘Certainly is,’ said Smith. ‘We seek permission to dock, please.’
‘Permission is granted. Your personal computer reference is being fed to your ship right now. Your ship will lock with our central computer and begin autodocking. Please stand by at the controls in the event of manual correction being necessary.’
‘Do you have a gift shop?’
‘We do indeed. You’ll find shopping facilities in the central hub, above the residential drum. We would remind you that although marijuana is legal on New Fran, hassling people isn’t, so take your fascist attitude problem somewhere else, okay? All major currency is accepted apart from M’Lak barter-trophies.’
‘Thanks.’
‘No problem. You have a good time, now, John Pym.’
‘I’ll try,’ Smith began, but the radio was silent. He glanced at the pilot. ‘Carveth? Engage the docking computer.’
‘Docking computer engaged.’
‘Bring us in, Miss Carveth.’
‘Us brung in.’
The ship yawed slowly, and as New Fran came closer Smith saw the happy pictures painted onto its iron-grey sides. Lights flashed above a connecting tube on which were painted the words ‘Peace – friendship – understanding’. This was going to be a tough place to stomach. Carveth took the crew roster down from the wall and tested a biro on the back of it. ‘Right then, who wants what at Duty Free?’
They closed the ship door behind them and trooped down the connecting walkway in a group. ‘I hope Gerald is alright in there,’ Carveth said.
‘The beast is well,’ Suruk replied. Despite Smith’s requests, he carried four knives in his belt and his sacred spear. ‘It grows plump.’
‘Captain, tell him he can’t eat my hamster.’
‘Crew, stop eating one another,’ Smith said, not really listening. ‘Now, I believe this fellow is coming to talk to us.’
A man waited at the end of the passage. He was short, in an open-necked, collarless shirt, with a neat little beard and curly blond hair long enough for Smith to regard him with suspicion.
‘Hey there,’ he announced. ‘You must be Captain Smith, right?’
‘That’s right.’
‘It’s a pleasure, sir. My name is Chad. On behalf of the Free State of New Fran, I’d like to welcome you to the Free State of New Francisco.’ He frowned, aware that he had got his standard greeting wrong, and said, ‘Well, hi. If you’d come with me…’
The corridor opened out into a massive hall. Light, shapeless music wafted from speakers mounted in the roof. A frieze ran around the walls, showing children of the nations and species of the galaxy holding hands or, where appropriate, tentacles and claws. Soft-headed nonsense, Smith thought. There should be a picture of aliens building a railway and learning how to vote, with a dreadnought in the background to remind them to keep at it. It occurred to Smith that if it were it his son holding hands with a Ghast on one side and a Frenchy on the other, the boy would be getting a striped arse in no time at all. Luckily, and surprisingly (to his mind at least), he had neither wife nor son.
‘I’m glad you like it, man,’ Chad said at Smith’s side. ‘It shows like all the children of all the different races who have visited New Fran living in harmony, laid out in a like – what’s the word, it starts with an M—’
‘Menu?’ Suruk said.
‘Mural. Over there is the check-in desk. Now, is there anything you need?’
‘Refuelling,’ said Smith. ‘It’s to go on the Valdane Shipping Company standing order. I’m here looking for a friend of mine. Can I go through?’
‘Of course. And you friend, and – whoa. Sir? Native lifeform? I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave your knives and spear behind.’
Carveth leaned in to Smith. ‘Why the hell did he bring them?’ she whispered. ‘He knew there’d be trouble.’
‘The M’Lak are a young and confident race,’ Smith said. ‘When they think there’s hunting to be done, it’s hard to curb their enthusiasm.’
‘Touch not my weapons, fool,’ Suruk said crossly. ‘This spear contains my ancestors.’
Chad’s manner became noticeably colder. ‘Thin, are they?’
To their surprise, Suruk pulled the blades from his hips and boots, heaping them on Chad. Carveth peered at the mural, craning her neck to take in the dancing children.
‘Children, eh?’ Suruk said, passing Chad his last knife.
‘I don’t like them, but I could eat a whole one.’
Chad put the weapons in a locker and rejoined them.
‘Now then,’ he said, a little less certainly, ‘how can I help everyone?’
‘I’m fine,’ Smith replied. ‘Suruk, you’re coming with me.’
‘Yes. Let us hunt this woman together.’
‘Carveth, it’s up to you. You can come along or meet us back here in six hours’ time.’
The simulant frowned. ‘I’ll have a look round on my own. I’ll check the bars, in case she’s hiding in some cheap booze.’
She watched them walk off: the upright space captain and his lanky, savage friend, each as alien to this place as the other. Carveth reached to the back of her head and unfastened her ponytail, then shook her head to loosen her hair. She turned to their guide.
‘Hello Chad,’ Carveth said. ‘I am now officially off duty. Now that Thunderbird Two is safely docked and the muppets have departed, I think you can help me.’
He blinked. ‘Uh . . . alright. What do you need?’
Carveth smiled, which made her look friendly, eager and conspiratorial. ‘Well, Chad, I have a problem. By a curious technical error I have a spare rolling mat and a lighter which is rapidly gathering dust because there is nothing to roll or to light. And you look just the kind of man to assist. Can you point me to the duty free?’
Chad dumped his armful of knives on the desktop.
‘Well, that’s a relief,’ Chad said. ‘At least some of you English are sane.’
Carveth stood at the counter in the duty-free shop and started to unload her basket. ‘I’ll have these six bottles, this, these special biscuits and two packets of rolling paper, please.’
The attendant stared for a moment at the pile of goods in front of him. ‘It’s a long trip,’ Carveth explained, patting her pockets for her card. ‘Hell, it must’ve fallen out.’
‘You looking for this, little lady?’
She turned. It was a big man who spoke. He wore the uniform of a fleet she didn’t recognise, and even if he had been in civilian clothes he would have looked out of place: too solid, too muscular for the Franese. Not bad, she thought. Not bad at all, considering that this was Day One of the trip.
‘Where’d you find that?’ she asked.
‘It fell out your pocket.’ His mouth did not open very wide when he spoke, but he had fine features. ‘You’re not from round here, are you? British, right?’