by Toby Frost
He pulled one down at random, a brick-sized paperback with a dragon on the spine: Dragonriders of Urn, prelude to All the Teas of Urn. He replaced it carefully in case its sequels fell down and killed him.
Next to it was a scholarly work on gender politics. Smith knew little about gender politics, although his grandfather had once told him that voting Liberal was for girls. He turned, not quite sure what he was looking for but pretty certain that he wouldn't find it unless Rhianna was hiding in the cupboard.
Something made him approach her bed. He stopped before the little table beside it, handcrafted by simple robots in an authentic traditional production line. He felt no more certain of what he sought but knew that he was slightly warmer. He wasn't looking for the apparatus on the top – part hookah, part alchemy experiment – either. Smith sat on the bed, which smelled quite nice, and decided to go to sleep.
After a busy day infiltrating the Edenites, foiling their evil plans and stealing their stuff, he deserved a rest. Soon they would be in Colonial Space, where things were done properly and he’d be able to hand over the weird mirror to the security services. And then he would see Rhianna again.
He closed his eyes.
The instant Smith awoke he knew something was wrong. A moment later he realised that the ceiling lacked any model spaceships. He sat up, remembering where he was. There was a curious smudge in the air beside the door. He rubbed his eyes and the smudge leaned forward and held out a hand.
Smith was hardened to the horrors of space and so he didn’t leap back much more than two feet.
It was a Vorl, one of the ancient energy-creatures with whom the Empire had struggled to strike a pact.
But what was it doing here? And then the shape coalesced and he gasped as he recognised its dreadlocks and face.
‘Help me, Isambard! Can you tell me if this is working okay?’
‘I suppose so,’ he replied. ‘Either that or my brain isn’t. Are you.. Rhianna?’
‘Yes,’ the shape replied. ‘Kind of. I’m like Rhianna’s mind, projected astrally to you. My physical body is meditating. But my psyche has reached out. Finding your mind was really difficult.’
‘Well, I am a long way away.’
‘Um, yeah. Something like that. So, Isambard, speak to me.’
‘Hello.’
“How’s it going?”
‘Fine thanks. Mustn’t grumble.’ Smith instinctively glanced upwards, then realised that there was no weather on the John Pym to talk about. ‘Did you get to your place alright?’
‘Yes, thank you. I can’t tell you where it is, but I’m cool. I'm with the Vorl. They’re teaching me to unlock my psychic powers.’ The blur made a vague weighing-up gesture, as though describing the balance on a pair of speakers. ‘It’s very spiritual.’
‘Smashing. We found the ship that blew up the convoy.’
‘Really?’
‘Absolutely. It was the Edenites who made it. We raided their planet and blew a load of them up.
There was this one chap, and he came running at me, so I just pulled my Civiliser and – blammo! – right between the eyes. Burn that at the stake, you savage!’
The blur folded its arms and sighed.
‘It advanced women’s rights,’ Smith added. ‘Honestly. Am I going to see you soon, old girl?’
‘I’ll try, Isambard. I have to go and talk to some people about peace.’
‘But that’s what you do here. Even when I’m trying to shoot them.’
Rhianna sighed. ‘Can’t anything be done without violence?’
‘I suppose so. It depends if chaps are going to be reasonable. Just be glad you weren’t around two hundred years ago.’
‘What happened then?’
‘The overthrow of the World Government, of course. By 2300, Earth was a terrible place. Britain hardly covered the British Isles, let alone anywhere else. A few people milked the globe dry. The rest of the world had gone to hell. By 2325, the most popular fast food in London was other Londoners. People would murder you for the toffee in your mouth. When the World Government fell, we had to reconquer Earth from the colonies in. All except for Woking, that is. Which is precisely why –’
‘Kiss me, Isambard.’
‘But you’re made of air.’ Still, he thought, if she was up for it, the fact that she didn’t have a substantial form needn’t stop him. He stood up, leaned over and kissed the smudge that constituted her head.
‘I think that was my cerebellum,’ she said.
‘Sorry, leaned in a bit far.’
Smith put a finger through her chest, and felt a slight resistance. He tried again with both hands.
‘Isambard, what’s that?’
‘It’s not me.’ He glanced down and checked that indeed it wasn’t.
‘I think it’s Polly,’ Rhianna said.
Smith listened. It was probably nothing. Chances were, Carveth was just singing along to the radio. She tended to listen to popular music, although a recent purchase of the greatest hits of Nine Inch Marilyn And The Angry Kids had made him worry that she was entering some sort of android adolescence. She was quite strange, he reflected, combining in one small body the logic of a robot with the complete lack of logic of a girl, her childish obsession with very small horses mixed –- but not too mixed, thank God – with the sexual appetite of a woman of twenty-eight. Well, several women of twenty-eight.
He looked at Rhianna. ‘I think it was nothing.’
‘Isambard, I have to go. My powers are waning, and it’s nearly dinner time.’
‘Oh, righto.’
‘Be careful, Isambard.’
‘Will do. You too, alright?’ He stepped back and waved.
Rhianna’s form condensed for a moment, so that he could make out her dreadlocks and jazz cigarette, and she smiled. ‘Blessed be.’
‘Carry on.’
‘Oh my God!’ Carveth cried from the far end of the ship, ‘The mirror!’
Smith glanced round, said ‘Cheerio!’ and ran into the corridor. He tore down the passage, socks pounding on the metal floor, charged through the airlock door and fell stumbling into the hold. He had no idea what to expect – images flickering across the surface, lights firing up along the frame – and he stopped still, looking towards the mirror at the far end.
Carveth stood in front of it, her back to the glass, looking over her shoulder at her reflection.
‘Look at what it's done to me!’ she said.
Smith looked at her. She seemed much the same as usual: shortish, average build, in combat trousers and utility waistcoat, her shirtsleeves rolled up and her hair pulled back into a functional ponytail.
‘You look about. . normal,’ he ventured, suspecting that this was dangerous territory.
‘But,’ she said, ‘my arse. .’
‘It's usually like that,’ Smith said. ‘It's not that it looks fat, of course –’
But he was too slow, because by then she had howled with despair and run from the room.
Smith shook his head and examined the mirror once more. He saw nothing odd about it. In fact, the image didn’t look bad at all.
Glancing round, he saw Suruk beside him. ‘It is undoubtedly strange,’ the M’Lak observed.
‘Maybe there is something in the frame.’
‘Perhaps. I know – why don’t I whip the back off and have a look?’
The alien frowned. ‘Are you qualified to do that? The warranty may be grievously voided.’
‘Of course I am – I’m a chap. Suruk, stand clear. You are about to witness the strength of DIY knowledge.’
‘I am unconvinced by this plan, Mazuran. Do you recall the time you tried to fix the television?’
‘I don’t remember anything going wrong then.’
‘That is because you were unconscious. Come. You are no less of a warrior for leaving it.’
‘Well, all right then. I’ll just see if –’
‘Boss?’ Carveth called from the cockpit. ‘I’m technically not spea
king to you because you were rude about my arse, but we’ve just been hailed.’
‘Really?’ He left Suruk with the mirror and rushed to the captain’s chair. ‘Who by?’
‘Them,’ Carveth said, and as she pointed at the top of the windscreen, a huge spaceship flew overhead.
Silent, battleship-grey, it slid over the John Pym like a steel sky. The ship was roughly the shape of an arrowhead, each side covered in missile batteries, torpedo hatches and turrets the size of castles; each turret brandishing a pair of immense railgun cannon. It was as though the Pym flew upside-down over a militarised city.
Lights and portholes glinted. Rows of striplamps intersected to form a glowing Union Jack the size of a football pitch. On the dreadnought’s flank, a lion that could have swallowed the John Pym glared at a rearing unicorn slightly bigger than a dinosaur. Between them were the words HMS Chimera.
‘Bloody hell!’ Smith whispered. Here was something genuinely sacred, a flying cathedral blasting its righteous message across the galaxy, leaving entire systems civilised in its wake. Smith’s own ship seemed tiny by comparison, a tick on the back of an elephant.
‘Carveth,’ he said, when his ability to speak had returned, ‘hail the dreadnought!’
‘What shall I say?’
Smith could see her point. It was hard to know what would be a worthy greeting for such a mighty vessel. ‘Well, try starting with What ho.’
Carveth transmitted the signal, and as it rattled through the mechanisms and out into the ether, Smith sat back and waited.
A calm, nasal voice came over the intercom: like most warships, the Chimera was large enough to have its own self-aware logic engine. ‘Good afternoon, John Pym,’ it said. ‘My name is Dave.’ Smith leaned back in the captain's chair, finding that the voice, despite being quiet, made him slightly uncomfortable.
‘Do you mind if I call you John? Did you.. seek me out, John?’ it asked, hissing a little over the s’s. ‘Do you want me to participate in exchanges, liaisons. . docking with you?’
“Er,” said Smith.
Another voice came over the radio: deeper and far more hearty. ‘Hush, computer. My most sincere apologies, gentlemen and ladies. Theophilius Chumble, at your service. Do enter our hold and make yourselves most welcome at this most non-specific yet festive time of year!’
Carveth grimaced. ‘Ten to one they’re the same bloke.’
‘Bring us in,’ Smith said.
*
A van rolled down the main service corridor of Wellington Prime. Above it, rows of pistons gleamed. The cart turned left into one of the buffet halls; Pimms sloshed around in the drum behind its cab.
W stalked through what was to be the main ballroom for the conference. It had once been a processing room for metal waste and, until a few days before, the setting for a vast slot-car track that Governor Barton had built in his lunch breaks. Now, wallahbots buffed the brasswork and a robotic fork-lift rumbled by, loading speakers onto the little stage. A couple of technicians hung from straps in the rafters, arguing about some detail of the circuitry.
The governor himself leaned over a self-propelling workbench, touching a soldering gun to a spherical, probe-like machine. Barton had thrown himself into the preparations with real gusto. He had already rigged up smoke machines from a spare crowd-control mortar and was currently converting one of the Service’s interrogation drones into a hovering glitterball.
A young lady android stood at the rear of the room, ticking off items on a clipboard. She watched the workers carefully, almost sternly, but as W approached she looked around and smiled.
‘Morning.’
‘Dawn. How goes it?’
‘Tolerably,’ Dawn said wearily, and she drew a neat line through one of the items on her list. ‘It’s the usual level of barely-controlled lunacy – pretty standard for the Service, I’d say. We’ve got all the life-support gear wired up for the aliens and they’re just putting up the signs telling them how to queue. As for the entertainment, we’ve got Maurice E. Smith and his Good Time Big Band. They ought to be fun.’
‘Good. Have you seen Wainscott around?’
‘He’s supervising the installation of the curry machines. Which means testing them.’
‘Thanks. I’ll go and find him.’
Unpleasant experience had taught the diplomatic corps that it was vital for everything to arrive at the same time, and for everyone to know what to expect. On the Empire’s first meeting with the huge silicon-based creatures of the Telemachus Cluster, a shipment of nibbles had arrived two weeks before the Imperial deputation. The Silicoids, who had been informed that humans were pinkish and comparatively small, mistook a box of frozen chipolatas for the Imperial ambassadors and spent some time trying to work out whether their visitors were in cryogenic storage, snubbing them with some elaborate ritual or just plain dead. Then they thawed the chipolatas and ate them. Protocol experts were still divided as to whether this was an act of war or elevenses.
W strode into the cafeteria, hands jammed into the pockets of his tweed jacket. The acting head of security, resplendent in large beige shorts, sat between two brightly lit vending machines while he shovelled curry from a paper plate.
‘Ah,’ Wainscott said, looking up. ‘Just testing the machinery. At the moment I’m favouring The Spice Is Right, although The Spice Must Flow is squirting out a good Jalfrezi at the moment. Try a bit?’
W dabbed his bony finger into the sauce and licked the tip. ‘Hmm, seems a bit bland.. no, I’m tasting it now – bloody hell!’ He coughed, spluttering until he was nearly bent over double. W clawed himself upright and flopped against the wall, eyes watering, until he had recovered enough to speak.
‘That’s not curry, that’s bloody venom. Can you spare another spoonful?’
‘Sorry, this is work. I’m checking the potential throughput of the cafeteria,’ Wainscott explained.
‘With a bellyful of this stuff, throughput should be pretty damned quick. Don’t suppose you’ve got any security problems – interplanetary anarchists, that sort of thing?’
“Nothing as yet.”
“Oh well. Never mind.” Wainscott returned to his breakfast and W strode away.
*
Space, although subject to the Royal Mail, had no right way up and hence the John Pym synched itself to dock with HMS Chimera with the wary precision of an amorous porcupine. The docking tube was only one of a mass of protrusions from the warship's hull, most of them weapons, and it was necessary to get the manoeuvre just right to avoid stepping out of the airlock and straight down a gun barrel.
The John Pym’s airlock door squealed open and a tall, fat man stood behind it. He had that sort of hearty fatness that Smith instinctively associated with John Bull and Friar Tuck, and as Smith stepped into the docking tunnel the man stuck out a broad, meaty hand.
‘Good day sir, good day! Theophilius Chumble, android and first mate of this fine vessel. Are you Captain Smith, if I may be so bold?’
‘Well, yes,’ Smith replied, slightly thrown by Mr Chumble’s verbosity, and his hand was shaken violently.
‘Excellent.’ Chumble bowed deeply to Carveth and doffed his hat. ‘And a good day to you too,
young miss. Are you a niece of this gentleman, or has he rescued you from a life of shame?’
‘I’m Polly Carveth, simulant. Nice to meet another android. And this is Suruk.’
‘Greetings, portlybot,’ Suruk said. ‘May your corpulence be matched only by your joviality.’
‘Most kind, most kind,’ said Mr Chumble. ‘This way, if you would.’ He turned and they followed his voluminous britches down the corridor.
At the end of the passageway, a red light flared into life. The speaker crackled under it.
‘Good evening, Mr Chumble. Are these the visitors?’
‘That they are, Dave.’ Chumble glanced at Smith. ‘Ship’s logic engine,’ he added.
‘They sent a visitor, to me?’ Dave whispered. ‘How. . quaint. ’
Chumble turned a dial on the wall. Nothing happened. ‘Would you be so good as to open the airlock, Dave?’
‘Hmm.’ The red light flickered. ‘Maybe, maybe not. But you’ll have to help me first. Tell me: what’s your favourite Goldberg Variation? Hurry now; tempus fugit. ’
Chumble frowned. ‘You will open the airlock now, sir, or I will remove your Bach appreciation circuits and cause you to spend the rest of the month enjoying nursery rhymes. By thunder, sir, I’ll reboot you so hard you’ll weep every time you try to go to line ten. Now open –’
‘How very kind,’ said the computer, and the door slid open.
‘We purchased him cheap,’ Chumble said. ‘ Very cheap.’
‘So where's your captain?’ Smith asked. The docking tunnel opened into an entrance hall, furnished with leather armchairs and thriving aspidistra. A large painting of a sailing ship hung on the far wall. It was blasting a broadside into some sort of foreign vessel.
‘Captain Fitzroy is sadly unavailable, sir,’ Chumble said. ‘I am informed, sir, that she is currently occupied by a matter of great importance.’
A door to the side burst open and a woman strode in. She was tall and blonde, in her mid-forties, somewhere between athletic and gaunt. She wore a jacket cut much like Smith's but navy blue and copiously decorated with medals, and an exceptionally short pleated skirt and long white socks. ‘Morning!’she announced, and she walked across the room, opened the door on the opposite wall and stopped. She looked round. ‘Chumble, are these the new fellows?’
The android patted his stomach and rocked on his heels. ‘They are indeed, Captain. Substantially yes.’
‘Gosh.’ The captain took a step forward, peering at the newcomers. Suddenly, she saluted, springing up onto tiptoe. ‘Felicity Suzanna-Marie Fitzroy, captain in His Imperial Majesty's Space Fleet.
This is the Chimera – best ship in the fleet, best crew in the fleet, and best damned gal captain too. Am I right, Mr Chumble?’
‘You most certainly are, ma’am.’
‘That's what we like to hear. Now, new bugs… who's running your show?’