by Toby Frost
‘Sirs!’ the Chinese ambassador interjected. ‘This is an important treaty. Please have some decorum.’
‘Pardon my language,’ Sann’di replied. ‘One forgets one’s no longer on Polaris. I shall mind my cant. Now then, we’ve had a vada at your treaty, and while it’s generally bona I couldn’t understand some of the words.’
‘It’s mutual,’ W muttered.
Sann’di picked up his papers with one insubstantial hand, using static to rifle through the pages.
‘Ah yes. If you could just turn to Sub-section 5, Paragraphs 7-16. I wondered if you could clarify the meaning of “rum business”, “Johnny Moonman” and, turning to the section entitled Practises Outlawed by Common Assent, “bopping the natives”.’
*
462 sat back in his chair and activated the viewscreen. The Systematic Destruction had powerful scanners and could pick up Edenite propaganda broadcasts; 462 studied them to make sure his beloved allies weren't getting above themselves.
A new Supreme Leader had been elected by the Edenites. He called himself Mike Simple, and was entirely trustworthy because he was, by his own proud admission, too stupid to deceive the electorate. Spontaneous celebrations had already been organised. 462 flicked through the channels and saw a tank surrounded by a mob of whooping cultists. Half a dozen hanged bodies dangled from its main gun. He squinted at the strange human faces, with their noses, hair and lack of antennae, and realised that it wasn't important whether the Edenites were furious or overjoyed: they were in a hysterical frenzy, and that was all that mattered. Mike Simple probably was just an actor reading out his lines – or, rather, forgetting them for added authenticity.
462 spent a moment coaxing the sneer out of his mouth and dialled up Lord Prong. As the bioscreen changed view, 462 reached out and took a refreshing sip of freshly-pulped minion. For a moment Prong appeared on screen without sound, clearly unaware that he was being watched: he looked confused, mean and rheumy-eyed. Strange, 462 thought, how the most pious Edenites resembled angry tramps. The entire human race made his antennae curl in disgust, but New Eden invoked a special level of contempt. If I stay much longer among these weaklings, he thought, I will pick up their body odour.
Prong seemed to be trying to speak directly into the camera lens, revealing teeth like a castle wall that had been hit by a cannonball. Behind him, Leniatus the bodyguard banged two wires together. ‘Is there a mouse?’ Leniatus asked happily. ‘I want a mouse.’
And I am missing a lemming, 462 reflected. Ambassador Quetic was gone, lost not just in the workings of the Pale Horse, but, 462 now realised, in the nightmarish place from which it drew its energy.
A hideous fate, perhaps, but one that left 462 conveniently in charge. Which was fortunate, judging by the trouble Prong was having in activating the radio.
‘Eh?’ Prong barked. ‘You do what? Talk into this? Can anyone hear me? ’ he screamed into the microphone. 462 snarled and yanked his helmet off, nearly deafened by the reverberation. The helmet quivered in his hands.
‘I hear you,’ 462 replied, grimacing. The old fool clearly had no idea how the volume controller worked.
‘Say what?’
462 silently mouthed a sentence and watched as Prong turned up the volume dial. 462 flicked the button on the in-seat propagandatron. Glorious Number One bellowed out from a nearby speaker, announcing the stockpiling of new trenchcoats and sounding like a cross between a sparking electrical cable and an angry Pekenese: ‘ Blak anarak-stak shak –’ Prong jolted as if he had pressed either the cable or the dog to his nose. He grappled with the controls, muttering about filthy modern music, and managed to bring the volume down to manageable levels. 462 concealed his amusement by pretending to have found some new insignia inside his helmet.
‘What the hell do you want?’ Prong said.
‘Information. I require an update as to your search of the sector.’
‘Nothing as yet. You'll know when we find anything.’ He reached for the off switch.
‘Attention, Prong!’
The hierarch paused. ‘What now?’
462 narrowed his eye. ‘Do not fail me, Prong. I would be most disappointed to think that you were not giving this mission your most strenuous attention.’
‘What in Tribulation makes you think that I'm not?’
‘You have a cup of cocoa at your side and are wearing a tartan rug across your knees. My knowledge of puny human biology informs me that you are about to have –’ 462's voice dripped with distaste – ‘a little nap. I was not aware that your duties as Grand Mandrill included snoozing.’
The meaning of this filtered from Prong's ears to his brain, then soaked into his face. ‘I'll thank you not to question me. I have divine right. And don't you go thinking I'm slack. Not ten minutes ago I conducted a fierce purge, I’ll have you know.’
‘You are not required to update me on that.’ 462 took a sip of minion. ‘You will quicken your search. Wrong me, Prong, and you will have sung your swan song.’ He scowled, reflecting that it was much easier to threaten people in languages that did not rhyme. ‘Scour this quadrant. Threaten your men. Put your bifocals on.. do whatever you must. But locate that device or I will begin to suspect that you no longer serve the greater glory of the Ghast Empire.’
‘Glory?’ Prong snorted, setting his tufts of nasal hair a-quiver. ‘Hogwash. Think you're something special, sonny? You know as well as me that it's nothing to do with glory, same as it's nothing to do with piety.’
‘What?’
‘Ah, come on. I'm not stupid. You happen to be addressing one of the greatest scholars of the sacred Book of Eden –’
‘Silence. The fact that you have memorised some inconsequential pamphlet –’
‘Pamphlet? That's holy writ you're talking about! I should know, it was me who writ it!’ Prong coughed into his palm, wiped it somewhere out of view and grinned. ‘You're kidding yourself with this “for the Ghast Empire” stuff. You’re in it for the killing, just like me. It's not the praying, it's the hating that counts. Why else would we change the Book of Eden every three weeks if not to catch people out?’
He chuckled and the sound was like liquid trickling down a leaky pipe. ‘What could be more satisfying than to make people miserable? To see all those little smiling faces start to cry? To see humanity, in all its greatness, and grind it – crush it – make them crawl through their bellies in the dirt? When they bow to the Annihilator, they bow to me! Dance, puppets! Hee-hee! It's the hate that matters… spreading it, shouting it, seeing 'em burn because of it –’
462 flicked the switch. Either Prong or the failed minion had left him with a bad taste in the mouth. What rubbish, to equate his struggle for the Ghast Empire with the self-righteous savagery of the hierarchs of Eden. If Prong could, 462 thought, he would make being born into a sin punishable by slow death. It was nothing like the inevitable conflict between insect and mammal that would decide the ultimate fate of the galaxy. He felt the need to cheer himself up: a couple of hours of Number One ranting about tank production ought to do the job.
462 paused, his pincer next to his presentation set of collected speeches, arranged from Angry contempt to Zealous fury. To his surprise, he found he actually wanted peace and quiet. He glanced around the room. Assault Unit 1 lay in its basket. The praetorians were watching a propaganda film in their barracks, which ought to keep them quiet for the next hour. Right now, they would be snarling along to If you’re loyal and you know it, salute the screen.
Assuring himself that it would only serve to enhance his efficiency, 462 pulled his black duvet out of the storm-assault locker and tucked himself in under the image of the antennaed skull.
*
Fifteen thousand miles away from Wellington Prime, Carveth gave Smith his first lesson in flying the John Pym.
Ten minutes later, while eating his mid-morning digestives, Smith decided that he was getting the hang of this. The main controls were pretty easy to master: it appeared that the ban
ks of flickering diodes above his head were the equivalent of lights on a Christmas tree; useful in establishing a mood, but otherwise without much purpose. Even Gerald, who was a pretty good arbiter of threat, was scurrying happily in his wheel.
Chaperoned by HMS Chimera, the Pym passed one of the system’s outlying planets, a dead moon circled by a halo of asteroid debris.
‘How am I doing?’ he asked.
Carveth sipped her tea. ‘Well, don't go calling yourself elite until you've actually landed on something. You'll find it's a lot more difficult when you've got Suruk leaning over your shoulder shouting “Ram them!” every time you pass a service station. Still, you're doing alright. Oh, and don't get crumbs over the controls.’
‘Righto,’ said Smith. ‘ A minute to learn, a lifetime to master, as Othello once said.’
‘You've got to keep checking the instruments,’ Carveth explained, ‘as well as the screen and the manual. The instrument panel is vital: the moment you don't think you don't need it is the moment you really do. Like deodorant.’
Up ahead, the grey bulk of the Chimera began to slow down. It had been their escort this far: now that they were away from the space station, the Pym would make the rest of the journey inconspicuous and alone.
The intercom crackled. ‘Good morrow and God rest ye,’ Chumble boomed. ‘We seem to be moving away from one another, like an urchin parted by fate from his mysterious benefactor. Sadly, now is our moment of departure.’
‘Got a hangover, by any chance?’ Captain Fitzroy put in. Her voice threatened to break the John Pym’s speakers. Smith flinched from the intercom.
‘Fine thanks,’ he replied, turning the Pym into its set course. ‘Just coming round.’
‘Out like a light, were you?’ Captain Fitzroy replied. ‘I thought as much. Damn, Smitty, you ought to see how we used to drink back in the old days. Me and the girls fixed up a still in the dorm radiator.
We used to go bonkers the night before and still be on the field for lax practice before breakfast the next morning.’
Carveth leaned down beside Smith's ear. ‘I think she's speaking English,’ she whispered.
‘I know it's hard to keep up with the best ship in the fleet, and the best crew,’ Captain Fitzroy continued, ‘but do try. Come on, Saggy. Mummy loves you. Up on my lap.’
‘I think she's talking to her cat now,’ Carveth said. ‘At least, I hope so.’
‘See you back at the ranch, Smitty. And Carveth.. put him through his paces. Show the boy no mercy.’ Chuckling, she signed off.
The cockpit door opened and Smith twisted around in his seat, nudging the control stick. He quickly rectified it before the John Pym could execute a barrel roll.
‘Greetings!’ said Suruk, striding in. ‘Behold the spawn of House Agshad!’ He thrust an enormous snarling toad at Carveth, who yelped and scrambled out of her chair. ‘Also, we are running low on biscuits.’
The Chimera drew away from them, beginning the patrol arc that would bring it back to base. It slowly disappeared from the windscreen, as though they were leaving a metal island.
Suruk kicked one of the emergency seats down and squatted on it like a gargoyle. ‘The spawn grow strong,’ he declared. The toad surveyed the room as if deciding whether to devour the cockpit or use it as a latrine. ‘Soon, they will be throwing size.’
Carveth slipped a spanner out of her pocket, just in case. ‘Throwing size?’
‘Of course. Have you never heard of toadball? Or the honoured custom of hurling one's spawn at the enemy? It helps the young to get ahead.’
‘Braaak,’ said the spawn, eyeing Gerald’s cage.
‘Just keep him away from me and my hamster,’ Carveth replied. ‘Here's an idea. . why don't we open the portal to Hell and throw all of your horrible frog-children through it? That’d be a nice day out for the kids.’
‘I shall give it thought.’ Suruk gazed out of the window. ‘Ah, it is good to be back in space again, sailing the galaxy. To feel the absence of fresh breeze once more, to gaze upon the deficiency of magnificent views, to take in the lack of atmosphere. Useful as the treaty must be, it is bold deeds, not flowery words, that stir the soul. I tire of extraneous circumlocution.’
‘Deeds, eh?’ said Smith. ‘Well then, why don’t you make the tea?’
‘It is Piglet’s turn.’
‘No it’s not,’ Carveth replied. ‘Firstly, I’m teaching the captain how to fly the ship and so I’m needed in the captain’s chair. Secondly, I’m in the captain’s chair so I get to say so. Thirdly, I put the kettle on.’
‘Nonsense,’ Suruk replied. ‘It is surely –’
‘Flapping your mandibles isn’t going to make the tea.’
‘Crew, stop arguing!’ said Smith. ‘Suruk, it’s your turn to make the tea. Unless you want to steer us through this asteroid belt.’
Suruk growled, stood up and left the cockpit with his spawn. Smith heard him stride down the corridor. A door opened, and Rhianna’s voice said ‘Hey, Suruk, how’s things? What’ve you got there –’ before she shrieked and slammed the door.
Smith sighed. He had known since primary school that girls didn’t like frogs. Although, recalling the leathery thing squatting in Suruk’s hands, like a cross between a small demon and a very old Cornish pasty, he wasn’t so fond himself.
He flicked a button that, to his relief, started the radio.
‘. . Oh aye, ‘tis a dangerous business an’ no mistake. Remember, if you don’t weed it out, it’l get hungry and come after you, and it’l bring its friends too. You’ve got to creep up arn the bugger and shoot its stinger arf before it can attack. If that thing hits exposed skin, you’re as good as dead. Then pul yer machete and go to work.’
‘Thanks, Jed. That’s all from Gardener’s Question Time for this week. Next time, we’l be coming from Venus itself but, until then…’
Smith glanced back down the corridor. He heard metallic noises: hopefully, it was Suruk stirring the tea.
‘…And now: the shipping forecast. Andromeda, Epsilon Eridani: supernova, four rising five – moderate, becoming very rough. Scorpio, Betelguese: comet, class 7 easing 5 receding by 19.00. Taurus: meteor showers light – ’
‘One day, I’m going to pull Suruk’s leg too much and he’s going to pull my head off.’ Carveth leaned back in the captain's chair.
‘I doubt it.’ Smith steered carefully around a passing asteroid. ‘But I’d check your bed for frogs before you go to sleep tonight.’
*
In the hold, Suruk yanked open the engine room door and drop-kicked his spawn inside. About two dozen beady eyes glared back at him from the gloom. He slammed the door and quickly turned the key in the lock. Although the number of spawn had reduced, they were much bigger on account of having devoured one another. Suruk was not sure that it would make them any easier to handle; it was as though many piranhas had condensed to form several sharks.
As Suruk was about to leave the hold, his boot snagged the loose end of one of the canvas straps used to hold the mirror down. He stood there for a moment. It occurred to him that he ought to tuck it away before someone tripped over it. He approached the mirror silently: half so as not to alert the others; half to catch it unawares.
Surely it would not hurt to have a look. He didn’t doubt Carveth’s story, at least not the basic facts. Why shouldn’t the mirror lead into another dimension? Things like that happened every day. The humans did not understand it, but the line between the normal – the flying-through-space-and-fighting-other-species normal – and the mystic was extremely thin. The mundane and the epic could co-exist.
After all, Carveth was mundane. Suruk, on the other hand, was epic. He smiled behind his mandibles.
Just a little peek. He would lift the top and glance underneath, the way the little woman did with boxes of chocolate. Maybe he would sample a little of the netherworld – just a tiny bit – and then push everything around so nobody knew what had happened. He loosened the other straps and then,
very carefully, eased the mirror up a few inches – then a few more. He looked over his shoulder. Nothing.
The mirror lurched under him. Suruk glanced down and a huge clawed hand shot out of the aperture. Fingers the length of human arms flexed like the legs of a monstrous crab. Something snarled beneath the floor. Suruk twisted to the left as he drew his knife and he saw a head pressed against the gap between mirror and floor, as if rising from a trapdoor: a buck-toothed mixture of dragon, insect and turkey on the end of a neck as thick as an anaconda. Suruk heard beating wings, felt and smelled rank breath blasting against his side as it groped for him.
He slashed the hand across the palm and, with a screech, the massive arm whipped away. The mirror slammed against the floor and, for a second, Suruk feared that it would shatter and that this new source of entertainment would end.
‘Hey, Suruk. You okay down there?’
He sprang upright and found himself looking at Rhianna. She was wearing a loose top and a long flowing skirt and looked as if she had popped her head out of the top of a collapsing tent. ‘Greetings! I am fine. How are you?’ Suruk said innocently. ‘I had just dropped an item on the floor and was looking for it. It was a skull. A very small skull,’ he added, impressed by his own improvisation.
‘Cool,’ Rhianna said. She frowned. ‘Suruk, you know about spiritual matters, right? Mystic tribal stuff?’
‘Killing things, you mean? I dabble.’
‘When I look at this mirror, I can't help get a weird feeling. Do you think it's what Polly says it is?’
‘Almost certainly.’
She looked down, dreadlocks flopping forward like the limbs of a dead spider plant. ‘It must be dangerous. Maybe we should get it off the ship now.’
‘Because it is dangerous?’ Suruk frowned. ‘If that is true, we both should leave as well.’
‘How do you mean? I'm not dangerous. I abhor violence in all its –’
‘We are dangerous in different ways. I am a warrior who has devoted his life to honing his skills, rising from a brutish hatchling to a seasoned master of the arts of battle. You are more like a cow that has swallowed a bomb.’