by Toby Frost
Dreckitt reached into his coat. ‘Trouble,’ he said. Suddenly the waiter folded and dropped out of sight: he’d been punched in the gut. A baton whirled and hit something out of view that Carveth knew would be his head. Dreckitt stood up. ‘There’s a back door,’ he said, nodding towards the rear of the bar. ‘Go, Polly.’
The raiders, more like stormtroopers than what she thought of as police, were busy irritating people at their tables: tipping drinks on the floor, knocking plates down, pulling customers out of booths and shoving them against the wall. Carveth got up.
‘Wait,’ Dreckitt said.
She looked at him.
‘A pair of androids like us don’t add up to a whole load of bits in this galaxy,’ Dreckitt said. ‘But I reckon you deserve to get out of here more than me. They screwed me over on this, and now I reckon I might just screw them back. Come here, sister,’ he said, and he grabbed her and held her close. ‘Gimme some interface.’
He kissed her fiercely then let her go. Dreckitt drew the Assassinator. ‘Run, Polly!’ he said, and he lifted the huge pistol in both hands. ‘Run!’ Then: ‘Hey, you!’ he called, and as Carveth ran for the rear door, she heard the gunfight begin. Half a mile from the John Pym, Smith drew the Civiliser and held it in the folds of his coat. The security forces of the Republic of Eden would be armed, but so was he. Fifty yards away, he heard sounds. A mercenary soldier stood in the corridor that led to the ship, his back to Smith. He wore army gear, customised to a level that would have had him court-martialled back home, with sunglasses and driving gloves.
This would take some skill. Smith turned the Civiliser around in his hand.
The man was listening to something on his headset. Smith bashed him with the butt of the gun, and for a disappointing, confusing moment, the man just stood there and said ‘Huh? What’re you doing?’
‘Knocking you senseless, my good man,’ Smith said, and hit him again, and the man went down. His gun was much bigger than Smith’s. It looked like an air-powered dart-gun, probably loaded with tranquillisers. Useful for riot control, although without the loud banging sound Smith would have expected Gilead to enjoy. He decided to stick to the Civiliser. Smith stashed the plotting computer by the side of a battered vending machine. Taking a pen from his pocket, he scribbled a few M’Lak characters onto the plastic. They would look like graffiti to an untrained eye. He drew his gun, crept to the edge of the corridor and peered around.
In the shadow of the spaceship an odd scene was being played out. A dozen armed men stood in a ring around Rhianna and Gilead, who were arguing bitterly.
‘… and you come here in your stupid little fascist hat and start oppressing people with your jumped-up mercenaries, with no moral right or authority—’
‘I bear the Word of the Lord!’ Gilead yelled, while Rhianna continued to rage at him. He looked stupid, huge and vastly arrogant, as usual, and he had twelve armed men on his side. On the other hand, at least he wasn’t trying to cop off with Rhianna again.
‘–No appreciation of the rights of other people, just your narrow-minded militaristic diktat forcing people to conform to your oppressive stereotyped—’
Blimey, thought Smith, struggling to keep up with the torrent of left-wing invective, perhaps he was better off on his own. If Rhianna kicked off like that about being detained by enemy soldiers, what would she be like when the time came for her to do his ironing?
‘–ruined this planet and all the other ones your tinpot junta owns. Your dictatorial regime spits in the face of Gaia and denies the natural truths that have turned your so-called Eden into a wasteland. You have no love for Mother Earth—’
‘I have heard enough!’ Gilead cried. ‘Take this pagan Jezebel away!’
‘Not so fast, Gilead.’ Smith stepped out into view, and Gilead’s men turned around, covering him. The huge barrel of the Civiliser pointed straight at Gilead’s head. A dozen guns pointed at Isambard Smith.
Gilead looked no more surprised than usual. ‘Well, well. Captain Spiffy. I’ve already got your friend and now I’ve got you too.’
‘Let the woman go, Gilead. She’s part of my crew, and you’ve no right to detain her here.’
Gilead snorted with contempt. ‘What’ll you do, arrest us? Me and all of my men?’
Smith said, ‘No, your men can go free. But I’m taking you in, Gilead. Don’t make me use force.’
‘Force? Hah! You know nothing of force. I shall wipe you away! You shall be scattered and cast asunder to gnash your teeth on stony ground!’
Smith said, ‘You shout a lot for a God-botherer, Gilead. Haven’t you ever heard that the meek shall inherit the Earth?’
‘I am the god-damned meek!’ Gilead bellowed. ‘Take him down!’
Something hit Smith in the side. Rhianna screamed. Gilead drew a truncheon and bashed her over the head with it. Smith fired: the shell hit Gilead in the chest and threw him onto his back as half a dozen darts appeared in Smith’s flank. Gilead was shouting something.
Smith stepped forward and cocked the hammer. It was as easy as juggling rhinos. He tried to lift the gun, and found that the air had turned to porridge.
‘I’m… going to… settle your hash, you… complete…arse… wipe,’ he said, with great difficulty. His record seemed to be playing at the wrong speed. He looked down: the darts protruding from his leg reminded him of bunting. ‘Balls, you’ve drugged me,’ he added, and like a felled tree toppled over onto his side. The last thing he thought as he hit the floor was, ‘Bollocks, that’s a solidlooking floor.’
They caught Carveth easily. She was trying to trick an ammo-dispenser into accepting Adjusted Sterling and had resorted to thumping the machine to get her way. Two policemen concluded that she was some kind of transvestite dwarf, itself a capital crime in the Republic of Eden. They were surprised when she turned out to be a woman, but they took her in anyway.
She was led into a little room where some armed heavies prodded her into a seat. On the opposite side of the desk sat a big, hard-eyed man with his arm in a sling. He had a blandly handsome visage without defects or personality, the Dairy Milk chocolate of the facial world.
‘My name is John Gilead,’ he said, ‘Captain in His Wrathful Lordship God the Merciless Annhilator’s space fleet. I have captured your friends: Rhianna Mitchell, a communist agitator and subversive, and Isambard Smith, an imbecile. My men are currently searching the nest of fornication you call your ship.’
‘I’ve never heard of either of them,’ Carveth said. ‘Naff off and let me go!’
One of the guards jabbed her with his gun. ‘Watch your mouth, little lady.’
‘You can stick it too. Sum civis Britannicus, tit-face!’
The man jabbed her again, hard. ‘Hey! Do the words head, your, blow and off mean anything to you?’
‘A good night in?’
‘Leave it!’ Gilead said. ‘I know how to get results. The bar you drank at was bugged. We know who you really are. You’re Polly Carveth, a renegade android.’
‘No I’m not!’
‘Because you are company property, I’m prepared to hand you back to the people who created you instead of having you killed out of hand.’
‘In which case I am her, actually. I was just lying back then.’
‘Good. Then we are agreed. Tomorrow Mr Devrin gets you back.’
Carveth thought about it for a moment. The idea of returning to the Devrin corporation made her feel unwell. Didn’t this mad bigot understand exactly what that would entail? There had to be some other option, surely.
‘Look,’ Carveth said, leaning forward, ‘can we just talk about this? You’re a moral, God-fearing sort of man, right? Pro-morality, anti-fun, that kind of thing? You realise what you’ll be sending me back to, don’t you? Sex. That’s what I was made for. Tons of it: steamy, nonmarital, dirty sex. You can’t condone that, can you?
That’s why you have to let me go, to escape all that sin and get back on the path of righteousness or something.’<
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Gilead rubbed his chin with his left hand. ‘Hmm. You’ve got a point there. If I hand you back to the Devrin corporation, you’ll merely lapse into depravity. You’re right, I can’t do that.’ He shrugged. ‘Drug this heathen. Lock her in their ship and launch it into the sun!’
‘Well,’ Carveth said as the dart-gun fired, ‘I suppose it was worth a try.’
9 Cultists Filched My Trousers
Smith came round without his trousers on. His head still hurt from the sedatives and his first instinct was to congratulate himself on a good night’s drinking. He looked around to see if any girls were involved and saw only Captain Gilead standing on the far side of the cell.
‘Damn!’ said Smith.
‘Well, looky here,’ Gilead said. ‘How the mighty’s belt has fallen. Welcome to my ship, Captain Smith.’
‘Gilead, you worm! Go to hell! But give me my trousers first!’
‘Oh no.’ Gilead grinned, showing his improbably even teeth. ‘You’re going nowhere. Well, you are going somewhere, once you’ve told us a few things about your crew. Somewhere rather special, where you’ll learn some piety. We’re going to bring you closer to the Lord.’
‘I won’t have to go to church, will I?’
‘Oh no.’
‘Phew.’
‘We’re going to crucify you.’
‘Ah. Not phew at all, then. I mean, that’s hardly brotherly love, is it?’
‘You’re not my brother,’ Gilead replied. ‘You’re a Heathenite. And a fool.’
‘Oh really? Well how about you, the maddest loony in Loonyland? And how can I be a fool if I’ve outwitted you and your little helper Corveau, who was also a fool? If I’m a fool and I outfooled your foolish minion, who was the bigger fool for appointing him: the fool who killed him or the fool who made that fool his fool?’ Smith’s voice had been rising through this sentence and now he stopped and blinked, a little surprised to find that he was no longer talking. ‘Eh? Got you there, haven’t I?’
‘What the hell are you talking about?’
‘You’re a prat. Besides, keeping me here is pointless. I’d sooner smear my testicles with cheese and entrust them to a gang of hungry mice than squeal on my crew.’
‘Humn,’ Gilead said. He turned to the intercom.
‘Control, do we have any hungry mice on board?’
‘They’re using them down the corridor,’ a voice replied. Gilead shrugged and turned back to Smith.
‘I was telling you that you’re stupid,’ Smith said, ‘You look stupid, you act stupidly, you come from a stupid regime and you follow a load of stupid beliefs. So leave my crew out of it and bugger off.’
‘I don’t understand,’ Gilead said. ‘Why do you have any respect for those losers?’
‘They’re not losers,’ Smith replied. ‘Well, I’ve never actually seen them lose at anything. They’re my crew. I rather like them.’
‘Well, I wouldn’t bother. They’re probably dead by now,’ Gilead said, some of his confidence returning. Smith studied him coldly. ‘You know, Gilead, I’ve met people like you before – generally after I’ve paid a showman. You’re not as smart as you think. You’ll slip up, just like everyone else who tries to mess with the British Empire. They all get it wrong somehow – forget some detail, make some tiny error, invade Russia – and then it’s all downhill from there.’
‘I doubt it. It’s you who makes the mistakes. Hell, you’re so stupid even if I told you the truth you’d be too dumb to understand.’
‘Why don’t you try me?’
‘Alright. The reason we want Rhianna Mitchell is that she is an angel.’
‘Well, that’s too bad. Kind sentiments, but I can assure you she’s good as taken. It’s the moustache, you see.’
‘I don’t refer to fornication. I mean an Angel of the Lord.’
Smith had no drink to splutter into, and no trousers to splutter his drink on, but he tried anyway. ‘What? What?
Are you mad? Well, yes, obviously, but really, man, really.’
‘I knew you wouldn’t understand, being an unbeliever.’
‘That’s bloody ridiculous! She’s not an angel – she’s more like an art teacher, if anything. She works in a health food shop, for Heaven’s sake – more burning weed than burning bush, I can tell you. I mean, religious interpretations differ, but I can’t remember Gabriel having a toke between annunciations, can you?’
‘We shall see. Soon we will be beyond Republic space, and then only God will ever know what happens to you – and God’s on my side. Once I’ve finished with you, the Ghasts will use their technology to draw Rhianna Mitchell’s spirit from her pagan body, whether or not her corrupted will resists. And then – then the Republic of Eden and the Ghast Empire will be invincible, with the Angel of the Lord marching on before!’
‘What utter bollocks. It’s us who’ll win. We humans will save Earth from the Ghasts, just you wait.’
‘Huh. You see, Smith, you’re making a basic mistake. You assume that I don’t want the Ghasts to conquer planet Earth. But that’s where you’re wrong.’
‘But why, man? Why sell your people down the river like that?’
‘Not my people!’ Gilead cried, and suddenly he was enraged. ‘ Your people: unbelievers, blasphemers, unarmed fools bleating about civil rights and democracy! That pansy crap is over! These are the End Times, Smith. The apocalypse is coming and it is coming in the form of the Ghasts. It is my sacred duty to hasten that day of weighing-out, and the powers of Rhianna Mitchell shall aid me in my divine quest. And then, when fire and destruction envelops the sinful Earth, the righteous shall ascend, and eternal life and a whole host of angelic handmaidens shall be mine.’
‘Oh dear,’ said Isambard Smith, and a cold certainly swept over him. ‘I’m going to have to settle your hash, aren’t I?’
Carveth awoke to the sound of whooping. Somewhere behind her head, people were hooting and yelling, celebrating. There was an angry, triumphant note to their voices. They didn’t sound like friends.
She opened her eyes a crack. The ceiling was very bright. She must be looking straight up at the bulb. It must have quite a wattage, she thought. Then she noticed that she was sitting upright and looking into the rapidly growing sun, and she became rather more concerned. She was tied to the chair. Crap. She squirmed around, silently, and discovered that she could not escape. Well, she thought, that’s just great. You go out on a date, your date turns out to be a robot assassin with baggage and then, just when you think it can’t get any worse, religious fanatics shoot you into the sun. I want to go home. Boots rang on the metal floor. She froze.
‘Alright, let’s move. We’ve done good, but it’s time to go.’
‘But we’ve not looked properly, Boss.’ This voice reminded her of a violent, outsize idiot and probably belonged to one, the sort of dim-witted thug who would chew a bit of straw inside his space helmet.
‘We’ve looked.’
‘But there might be guns, Boss. We could keep ‘em.’
‘Take the guns for ourselves, you mean? Yeah, maybe. Alright. Me and Zeb’ll check the rooms and the hold. You look in here. But we’ve got orders to be out in five, alright?’
‘Yep!’
One set of steps faded away down the corridor. Carveth heard someone stomp around behind her, then slowly became aware that somebody was leaning over her shoulder.
‘Hey, I can see down her dress! I can see her dirty pillows, Boss! That you, Boss?’
‘Not exactly,’ Suruk the Slayer said, and there was a sharp, messy crash as he took the man by the throat and threw him scalp-first into the ceiling.
Carveth opened her eyes. Never had the tusked, piranha-toothed nightmare of Suruk’s face looked so welcome. ‘Hey there!’ she said.
‘Good day,’ he replied. ‘Enemies are on board the craft. Would you care to join me in slaughtering them?’
‘Cut me free, would you?’
‘Of course.’ She heard his knife hiss through
the rope, the cords fell away from her and she sat forward and rubbed her wrists. ‘What’s going on?’
‘Smith and the shaman woman are gone. Our enemies explore our vessel, despoiling it with their quest for loot. They have programmed a course that will take us into the sun. Soon they will call a shuttle from their own ship to collect them. We must slay them.’
‘This whole sun thing bothers me,’ Carveth said. She glanced at the instruments. ‘That’s a big sun alright. Where’re the guns?’
‘Stored in the hold. The enemy have the keys to the box, but they do not realise that it contains our weapons. We will have to ambush them and retrieve the key. In the meantime, I have acquired this cudgel.’
He pulled a rather familiar-looking item from his belt: a foot-long piece of black rubber, rounded at one end.
‘That’s mine!’ Carveth said.
‘Indeed. I did not realise that you were skilled in hand to hand. It is an excellent club, and if I flick this switch in its base, it massages my palm and imitates the voice of the bee.’
‘Can I have that back, please? That’s the closest thing I’ve got to family. Look,’ Carveth added, ‘I’m just slowing you down, right? Why don’t you go on ahead and get some killing in, eh? I’ll just stay here, and, um, do useful stuff.’
‘Humn. Your remaining hidden may be of use to me, cowardly one. Go into the captain’s room and see if there is a firearm. He may have concealed a weapon there.’
‘Alright.’ Carveth doubted that Smith was sufficiently organised to do this, but the idea of a gun was a good one. Preferably a really big gun that could be operated from a long way off.
‘I, meanwhile, shall slay my enemies. Good hunting.’
‘You too. Be careful.’
‘Fear not. I am renowned for my cunning in war. It has been said that I put the ‘savvy’ into ‘mindless savagery’. And arguably the ‘canny’ into ‘cannibalism’, but that might be stretching the point.’