by Toby Frost
Oh Christ, that’s disgusting!’ He reached out and dragged her bowl towards him. ‘You are not eating any more of that.’
Rhianna nodded. ‘Well, now you mention it, it is kind of funny-tasting.’
Miserably, he said, ‘It’s foul, isn’t it?’
‘Not foul as such, no… foulesque, perhaps.’
‘I’m very sorry,’ Smith said. He shook his head. ‘All this is rather difficult, I’m afraid.’
She stood up, ready to take the bowls away. ‘Oh, don’t worry about it. I can’t cook to save my life. I appreciate the effort, though.’
‘I don’t mean that. I mean having a woman on board.’
He pinched the brow of his nose, suddenly surprised to find himself in this territory. So much for seduction, and tact: like a drunken man leaving a waterfront bar and strolling gaily off the pier, he suddenly found himself in difficult, uncharted territory. Time to thrash his way to the surface and escape. ‘I mean to say, there’s Carveth of course, but she’s not really a woman.’
‘She is a simulant.’
‘I was going to say “harridan”, but yes. Which leaves, well, you.’
She sat down. Rhianna put her elbows on the table and leaned on them. It made her look very earnest, and gave her face a serious beauty. She said, ‘Is it bad luck, having me on board?’
‘Only for you,’ said Smith.
She laughed. ‘Oh, it’s not too bad. Sure, the cuisine could be better, and the beds are kind of funny, and I get a bit nervous sometimes with Suruk and all those skulls he collects, but there’s loads of ways it could be worse, like…’ she thought about it, ‘loads.’
‘I suppose so,’ Smith said, unconvinced. She sighed. ‘Look. I think I know what this is.’
‘You do?’
‘Sure. I’m a woman, you’re pretty much a man, it’s—’
Carveth walked in. ‘Alright all. Good news is we’re on the final phase to touch down, bad news is where we’re touching down. I’ve got through to Andy’s contact on the surface, who’s called Neil, and he’s sorting stuff out. I couldn’t understand half of what he was saying, but we seem to be alright.’
‘That sounds like a pretty comprehensive “maybe”,’ said Smith. ‘Carveth, could you go out and come back in five minutes, please?’
‘Um, not really. You see, there’s a bit more. This Neil man thinks I’m the captain.’
‘What? Why?’
‘I don’t know. He just sort of got the wrong idea. I think it was me telling him that I was that did it.’ She sighed. ‘I thought it might take the heat off us a bit.’ Exasperated, she twirled her hands. ‘It just seemed like a good idea. Except it wasn’t, and now I regret it.’
Smith grimaced. ‘Just stick us down, Carveth.’
‘Right. I’ll see you in a minute,’ Smith said to Rhianna, and he got up and followed Carveth to the cockpit. She dropped into the pilot’s seat and he stood behind her, watching as the ship sank into Callistan’s ruined atmosphere.
‘You’re a bloody idiot, pretending to be the captain,’ said Smith. ‘I mean, whoever heard of a woman called Isambard?’
Carveth said, ‘You do realise I gave them a false name, don’t you? A girl’s name?’
‘Well, that’s slightly better, I suppose.’
The radio crackled. ‘Captain Daisy Chainsaw? Is that you?’
‘Or arguably worse,’ said Smith.
‘Ah, yes, yes indeed, that’s me,’ Carveth said. For some reason she had deepened her voice, as if the previous exchange had confused her into thinking that she was indeed a man. ‘We’re just on our way down now.’
A young man’s face was on the screen. He had a pointed chin and wore sunglasses with slanted lenses that made him look like a previous century’s idea of an alien.
‘Okay, that’s cool. How come you’re flying it with controls? Isn’t there a neural port?’
‘Sometimes it’s easier to do things by yourself. Space is full of incompetents.’ She turned and whispered, ‘That was in character, Boss.’
‘Way true,’ said the face on the screen. ‘These days, half of the old reality’s just a bulletin board for burnt-out squat-jockeys, you know? So, when’re you cowboys due to jack in here, huh?’
Carveth glanced at Smith, who shrugged. She turned back to the screen. "Um, both?" In the cockpit of a small, fast craft, Dreckitt studied his instructions. His android brain memorised the face of the woman called Polly Carveth. He fed her picture into the onboard computers and they showed him how she would look with different hair, glasses and a false moustache, from behind. Dreckitt committed a thousand different disguises to memory and waxed his long brown coat.
Polly Carveth seemed like an ideal target. She should be a simple opponent: small and isolated, a civilian masquerading as crew on this British ship, the John Pym. From the look of her, she would have no fighting ability and not much resourcefulness. An easy kill. Those were the best sort. Among the non-cognoscenti, it was often thought that bounty killers took a certain pleasure in their work, that they appreciated the artistry and skill that went into a difficult job. Dreckitt, of course, took no real pleasure in anything (although he got a certain grim satisfaction out of eating cold Chinese food under a flickering neon sign), but had he been capable of joi de vivre, he would have found it elsewhere. He would far rather have had a weakling as a target than a dangerous foe. Some nights he dreamed of being paid to hunt down a particularly ferocious kitten, and awoke suspecting that he was in the wrong line of work.
Bounty killers were a bad, solitary bunch, and Dreckitt had always preferred to work alone. They were brutal, amoral and fond of doing things like wearing powerful rocket packs, which made them dangerous people to fight alongside – or, more specifically, beneath. The only people Dreckitt had met who were any worse were space pirates, who although less coldly sadistic were annoyingly prone to burst into song.
Only one thing bothered Dreckitt, existential angst aside. Carveth had no history. Six months ago, she simply disappeared off the records. There was no date of birth, no record of employment, no next of kin – nothing, in fact, to prove that she was older than half a year. That smelt of android to Dreckitt, and he was not going to kill one of his own. That lawyer had frightened him. He lit a cigarette. I could get it wrong, he thought. I could mistake a human being for a simulant. I need to be absolutely sure with this one.
That meant that he would have to get close, insinuate himself with her to make sure, use the Hoyt Axton test before moving in for the kill. This was going to take charm as well as firepower. He decided to brush his teeth with toothpaste instead of whisky today.
*
Smith left Carveth to talk with their new friend. If she wanted to be captain, she could deal with all of the captain stuff, which seemed to include communicating with a man who spoke a language of his own invention, badly.
Annoyingly, but predictably, Rhianna had retreated to her room. Smith thought about going to see her and decided that there was no point, as he would only cock things up further. Somehow he needed to start a conversation with her without opening his big stupid mouth. The best bet would be semaphore, he decided bitterly. Suruk was in the hold, standing still, eyes closed. Smith had never worked out quite what he did at these times, whether he was meditating, thinking, or simply resting his brain for later use. Whatever it was, he needed to persuade Suruk to remain out of sight until they had finished their negotiations. If anything was guaranteed to spoil a delicate black-market deal, it was a frog-faced savage with a skull fixation.
As he entered, the alien turned, his tiny eyes opening to squint at Smith.
‘We’re setting down in about half an hour,’ Smith said. Suruk made his croaking sound. ‘Excellent. I shall fetch my weapons.’
‘Um, no. I’d rather you stayed on board.’
‘On board? You do not wish me to leave the ship?’
‘Well, yes. Actually, could you just sit in one of the storage lockers?’
&
nbsp; ‘I shall not.’
‘Well, could you at least stay out of sight? I mean, it’s not as if there’d be anything to do here. There’re no shops, murder is illegal – I just think you’d get bored.’
Suruk scowled behind his tusks. ‘You would rather I remained in the ship?’
‘Yes.’
‘Huh. Some holiday this is turning into.’
‘You could have plenty of fun here. You could, oh, hunt rats or something.’
‘Very well.’
‘Brilliant. I appreciate this, Suruk. It’s just that the people here are not very open-minded and may get offended by you being here.’
‘All the more reason to open their minds up, with an axe.’
‘I agree – but not this time, eh?’
‘Huh. Very well. I shall not lower the tone. You can do that for yourself,’ he added, turning away and crossing his arms.
‘Don’t be like that,’ said Smith. ‘It’s just for now. I promise when we’ve got the engine back we’ll go and find somewhere primeval for you. Alright?’
‘Primeval and brutal?’
‘Absolutely. I promise. Now, could you help me sort the guns out, please?’
8 Cyber-gangsters in Martian Death Pact!
Below the John Pym, a great iris-lock sat flush with the earth, as if some vast camera were hidden below the rock. As the ship descended, the lock slid open with a harsh scraping noise they could pick out even over the howling wind. The Pym sank down into the earth, into a massive tunnel of shining metal, and the iris closed above it. Suddenly the permanent storm was gone. The ship’s engines thrummed, echoing in the tunnel. There were pilot lights on the tunnel walls, rising in the windscreen as they went down.
‘This doesn’t look good,’ Carveth said.
‘The big rifle’s under my bed,’ Smith replied. ‘I’ve put the Maxim cannon in a cargo box, in the hold. If there’s trouble, get back to the ship and we can arm up there.’
‘Right.’
‘Offer these people the guns Andy gave us. If they seem interested, invite them into the hold to have a look at the merchandise. Then at least we’ll be able to talk to them on home ground.’
‘I’m not sure I can talk to them,’ Carveth said. The radio crackled. ‘Ho, dudes!’ Neil exclaimed.
‘You’re straight in the pipeline, five by five!’
Carveth grimaced. ‘You see what I mean? Could be Swahili for all I know.’
The ship landed, the legs folding slightly to take its weight. Smith felt the cabin sway a little, compensated by hydraulics, and he saw the place that held the ship: a great round hall walled with stainless steel. Little people moved about in tough working clothes or long coats: technicians, probably. Almost nobody’s eyes were visible: all wore dark glasses. It looked like the foyer of a spy convention.
Smith said, ‘You know what to do?’
‘Yes, I do,’ Carveth replied. She had a service revolver strapped to her hip. ‘I feel nervous, though.’
‘It’s not easy, being the captain,’ Smith replied. ‘It takes skill and talent.’
‘I wish you’d told me earlier. I wish they’d told you, for that matter.’
‘We’ll be watching you. Keep on the side, where the camera can follow you.’ Smith wore the Civiliser he had taken from Corveau in a holster under his arm. ‘I’ll be ready.’
Carveth stood up and Smith took the pilot’s seat. ‘Just in case we have to make a quick escape, this button makes us go up,’ she said. ‘You’ll know when we reach the top.’
‘The bumping sensation will be a clue, I expect.’
‘As will the subsequent plummeting and screaming,’ she added, and she smiled grimly as she walked to the airlock.
‘Let’s go.’
She pressed the button and the door unlocked. The door opened on a joyless, silvery world.
*
Smith spent the next half-hour watching the monitors in the cockpit. Rhianna made tea. Smith was on his fourth cup when Carveth returned. Three people followed. They wore long coats and sunglasses.
Smith leaned in to the intercom. ‘Heads up, chaps, foreigners on the way. Looks like a delegation from the nerd homeworld.’
Rhianna wandered into the control room. ‘They look absurd,’ she said, peering at the monitor. ‘What’s Polly making that signal for?’
‘Ah. She’s telling me I’ve got the outside speakers on. They look like very clever nerds, though,’ he added, loudly, and he flipped the switch. ‘Balls.’
The doorbell made an ugly screeching sound. ‘Best let her in,’ Rhianna said.
‘Right. To your places, everyone! Remember, the charade must be kept up at all times!’
‘You don’t have to shout,’ Rhianna said, and she wandered back into the hold. Smith opened the door. ‘Hello Carveth. Bring back some chaps, did you?’
‘That’s Captain Chainsaw to you! Step back from the door!’
Carveth strode inside, followed by her visitors. ‘Some of the incompetents you get on board, eh?’ she announced.
‘If it wasn’t for my captaining this ship would just drop out of space.’
‘It wouldn’t drop,’ the woman behind her said. ‘It would drift. There’s no gravity in space.’ She peered around, unimpressed. Her black lenses made her look like a gigantic locust, with lipstick. ‘And it’s captaincy.’
A youngish, spotty man followed her. ‘Ho,’ he said, noticing Smith.
‘This is Neil,’ Carveth explained. ‘This is Trinny, and the man at the back is Morris.’
Morris, a tall black man with a bald head, looked around very slowly and declared, ‘Your… ship. It has a certain aura, a sensibility… an odour.’
‘That’ll be him,’ Carveth said, cocking a thumb at Smith. ‘Right then, who wants to buy some lovely guns?’
She strode towards the hold. ‘Tea for me, fizzy soft drink for the delegates,’ she called back at Smith, and he turned and headed for the galley. ‘On the double!’ she added.
Smith made the tea and took it into the hold along with a bottle of some filthy brown cola stuff he found in the bottom of a cupboard. The three visitors stood around the table in the centre of the hold, on which Rhianna and Smith had laid the guns they had taken from Corveau’s men. Carveth and Rhianna stood a little way back, to allow the rebels to examine the merchandise. Suruk was nowhere to be seen, which meant that he was probably creeping up on them all.
‘Ah, there you are,’ Carveth said. ‘Here’s the drinks, gentlemen. Put them down there, Isambard.’
‘Isambard?’ Neil glanced up. ‘That’s your name?’
‘Well, not really,’ Smith replied, remembering that he was a wanted criminal. ‘It’s Isambard… Jones. Sort of a nom de plume, except that I don’t write anything.’
‘ Nom de guerre,’ Trinny said.
‘Right. But not my real name. Which isn’t Isambard either. That’s just made up.’
‘Isambard. I like it. Good handle you’ve got there,’ Neil said.
‘Thanks. I grew it myself.’
‘I meant your name, not your moustache. You know, your handle. What you use when you jack in.’
Smith’s eyes narrowed. ‘Are you getting funny with me?’
‘Let’s move on,’ Trinny said. She stood with her hands on hips, feet apart, like a superhero waiting for adulation. Under her shiny coat she wore tight shiny things, as if hit by bin liners in a wind tunnel. ‘This is what you’re selling, then.’
‘Yes,’ said Carveth.
‘I see. They could be better. But they’re not licensed, not tracked. They could be of use to us. The street finds uses for things.’
‘Yet all is traceable in the era of the zaibatsu,’ Morris said cryptically. ‘All things become elements in a whole…fragments in ice.’
‘Riiiight,’ said Carveth. ‘Super. Are you lot going to buy these guns or what?’
The three exchanged a glance. It was clear that their sunglasses completely prevented them reading one an
other’s expressions. ‘We need to confer,’ Trinny said, and they took out mobile phones.
‘Why don’t we leave you to do so?’ Smith said. ‘We’ll have our tea outside.’
‘Who are these idiots?’ Smith whispered as soon as they were in the corridor.
‘They’re not that bad,’ Carveth replied.
‘They’re complete arseheads. And why do they talk like that?’
‘The regime tightly controls all information on technology,’ Rhianna said. ‘Apparently it’s virtually impossible to get hold of any literature written after 1989.’
‘Awesome to the max!’ Neil exclaimed in the hold.
‘Mondo narly!’
‘I see,’ said Smith. ‘Couldn’t we have found anybody else?’
Carveth shrugged. ‘What do you want? These people are anti-government, for one thing. For another, the only other person Andy said was looking for unmarked guns is called Doctor Apocalypse and runs a lobster-enlargement programme from a secret island base.’
‘Fair enough, then. And calm down, Carveth; stop ordering everyone about. Just because you’re captain doesn’t entitle you to behave like an idiot.’
They returned to the hold.
‘–and I got eight on a d.12, and totally passed my saving throw,’ Neil was saying. ‘Whoa – it’s them again.’
‘We have come to a conclusion,’ Trinny announced, folding her shiny arms around her shiny cleavage with a loud squeak of PVC. ‘We think yes. We’ll give you six thousand plus information.’
‘We wanted seven,’ Carveth said. ‘How good’s the information?’
‘Good is… subjective,’ Morris said. ‘In a culture of data, information is not just money… but blood.’
‘Anyone else want to try?’ Carveth said.