‘Sorry.’
‘What?’
‘No can do,’ replied the King awkwardly. ‘It’s a bit late for all that now, mate. You should have thought about it before you came.'
‘What the hell do you mean?’ Asaf growled. ‘You got me here, you get me out. And while we’re on the subject, what the fuck was all that stuff with that damn bottle?’
‘How about,’ said the King — he was disappearing, fading into the pale sunlight that streaked down into the hold through an unfastened hatch — ‘a nice egg and tomato sarny? Or I can do you pilchards.’
‘But...’
The King had gone, leaving behind him a few airborne sparkles and a memory of the word ‘sarny’. Overhead, the unsecured hatch slammed shut, and Asaf heard the sound of bolts shooting home. He sat for a moment, speechless with rage and confusion. Then he shrugged, folded the corner of sail into a pillow and lay down.
‘I hate pilchards!’ he shouted, and closed his eyes.
*
And here’s the latest, warbled the television, on the nuclear tests story. And we’re taking you live to our man on Pineapple Atoll. Danny, can you hear me?
Philly Nine grinned, propped his feet on the footstool and used the handset to turn up the volume.
Loud and clear, Bob, chirruped the reporter, who had replaced the studio set on the screen. Behind him there was a view of blue skies and coconut palms. And the latest seems to be that we now have confirmation of the existence of the giant ants. The giant ants have, in fact, been sighted. By me. I saw them.
The reporter seized up and stood, gazing into the camera lens. After a gentle prompt from the studio, he continued.
So far, he said, we’ve sighted sixteen of the giant ants. They’re big, like twenty fret tall at the shoulder, and they’re making a real mess of the landscape, I can tell you. Also, attempts to deal with them by way of aerial dusting with ant powder and dive-bomb attacks with kettles of boiling water have proved basically futile. A spokesman for the World Wildlife Fund who chained himself to the leg of one ant in protest against these culling attempts has been eaten, but otherwise there are no reports of casualties.
It was the studio’s turn to say something, but nothing was said. The reporter, by now smiling disconcertingly, continued.
More importantly, the diplomatic exchanges over how these ants came to mutate so drastically is really beginning to hot up. I think all the superpowers are now in agreement that the mutation was caused by clandestine nuclear weapons tests, although I should add that there haven’t been any seismic readings to confirm this theory. Where everyone seems to disagree is over who actually did the test. In fact, everybody is accusing everybody else, and the situation really is beginning to get a bit fraught. In fact, we could be looking at the end of the multilateral disarmament initiative here, so for anybody out there with a redundant coal-cellar, the message is, start taking bookings now, because...
As the screen hurriedly reverted to the studio set, Philly Nine lay back in his chair, closed his eyes and smiled.
I did that, he told himself smugly, with my little hatchet.
WHOOOOOOSH!
The carpet streaked across the sky like a flat, embroidered meteor, skimming off satellite dishes and the older pattern of weather-vane as it went by sheer force of air displacement. The wonderful aerial view available over its side was wasted on Jane, who was lying flat on her face clinging on to two clenched handfuls of carpet. Justin had blacked out.
‘Where to, lady?’
Jane looked up, received an eyeful of fast-moving air and ducked down again. However, she saw enough in the fraction of a second’s viewing time she had before the air-blast sandpapered her eyeballs to confirm to herself that there was nobody else on the damn rug but herself and the wimp. The voice was, therefore, entirely her imagination.
‘No, I’m not. I’m your automatic pilot for what I hope will prove to be a relaxing and pleasurable flight to the destination of your choice.’
‘Bugger off.’
‘Pardon me?’
‘I said bugger off,’ Jane barked over the howling of the turbulence. ‘I know you’re just a hallucination inside my head, and I’m not standing for it. Go on, hop it, before I set my subconscious on to you.'
There was a pause. If it’s possible for a pause to sound hurt, it did.
‘You’re the boss,’ said the voice (and for some reason, it didn’t have to shout; it was as clear as a bell over the background noise). ‘However, I feel I should point out that I’m not in any way a figment of your imagination. If it helps you to relate better, you can call me George.’
Jane set her jaw firmly. She refused absolutely to be drawn into conversation with her own unbalanced mind sitting on a flying rug doing close on Mach One at just above rooftop level over Croydon. Especially a part of her own unbalanced mind called George. Never lower your standards for anyone, as her mother used to say.
‘To explain,’ George continued. ‘The rectangular object you took to be a book is in fact a state-of-the-art carpet navigation system, compatible with all leading designs of magic floor coverings. Once installed on the carpet of your choice, the system automatically activates the carpet’s propulsion and guidance systems, and receives directional input direct from your brainwave patterns by telepathic interfacing, made possible by our revolutionary fifth-generation textile chip technology. You said get me out of here fast, so...’
‘I did?’
‘You thought it,’ George corrected itself. ‘And that’s good enough for me. Your wish is my—’
‘NO!’ Jane howled. ‘Not another one!’
‘Pardon me?’
‘Look.’ In her wrath, Jane knelt upright, oblivious to the enormous volume of nothing directly below. ‘I have had it up to here with bloody genies, all right? My wish is not your bloody command. To hear is not to obey, 0 mistress. Got that?’
‘We copy.’
‘Good. Now get me down off this bloody contraption, fast as you like.’
George said nothing. The carpet continued flying straight and level, only appreciably faster. Had Jane been in the mood, she could have glanced down and seen an Alp, real close.
‘Are you deaf or something?’
‘On the contrary,’ replied George affably. ‘All our products have new enhanced sensor capability uprated to provide for instantaneous spoken inputting. This feature alone—’
‘Then do as you’re told and put me down!’
‘Sorry.’
For a count of maybe three Jane was, literally, speechless; partly because she was so angry she couldn’t speak, partly because something small and airborne flew into her open mouth, and the momentum of the collision nearly knocked her over the side. She struggled to her knees again and thumped the carpet with her fist.
‘What d’you mean, sorry? I told you—’
‘You told me,’ George interrupted, ‘that your wish was not my command, and that when I heard I shouldn’t obey. You got it?’
‘But look, I didn’t mean...’
‘Sorry. But you’re the sentient being, I’m only a computerised guidance system. Policy formulation’s down to you.’ George paused, as if for effect. ‘You guys are supposed to be good at that.’
‘But...’
‘Further clarification,’ George continued, as they missed one snow-capped peak by a few thousandths of an inch, ‘would, however, be appreciated. For example, when you say something, do you want me to ignore it completely or do the exact opposite?’
Jane blinked twice. ‘Do the opposite,’ she said quickly. ‘Don’t put me down. Fly faster.’
‘Thanks.’
The carpet flew on: same course, same momentum, Jane screamed and clouted it with the heel of her shoe.
‘Just checking,’ said George. ‘You told me to do the exact opposite, I’m programmed to disobey all orders, therefore I ignore you. That right?’
‘No. Yes. Both.’
‘Thank you.’
; The carpet flew on.
Kiss sat bolt upright. He felt as if a truck had just ploughed into the back of his neck.
Someone was calling him — someone frightened, in danger, in need of protection. No prizes for guessing who.
Bloody woman!
Moon of his delight, entrancing vision of sublime loveliness who gave a purpose to his existence, yes; but bloody woman nevertheless. What, he asked himself bitterly as he searched for his left shoe, has she gone and done now? Locked herself out of her car? Forgotten which level of the multi-storey she’d parked on? Something, he felt sure, like that.
Without dawdling, but without unduly frantic haste either, he dressed and put on his curly-toed shoes. As if, he muttered, he didn’t have enough to do. Clean handkerchief. Where in buggery are the clean handkerchiefs?
Let there be clean handkerchiefs. Problem solved.
Not, he added, that we’ll be able to do that for much longer. Oh no. And who’ll come whizzing along across the tops of the clouds then whenever she’s at the station and wondering whether she’s left the gas on?
Pausing only to collect the milk off the doorstep, he somersaulted up into the sky, looped the loop and traipsed away through the empyrean.
Jane looked up.
On a scale of one to ten of Sensible Things To Do, that was maybe a Two; above putting your hand in a moving circular saw or enrolling in law school, but definitely below, say, investing in gilt-edged stock or leaving a burning oil refinery. She regretted it almost immediately.
Before the regret set in, however, making her stomach turn over like a well-tossed pancake and tightening her intestines into a small knot, she saw a broad, gently undulating expanse of sand. It might have been a beach somewhere, except that beaches tend to have blue edges, and this lot didn’t. In fact, it didn’t seem to have any edges whatsoever.
The desert.
Which desert, Jane neither knew nor cared. All that registered with her as relevant information was that she was probably a very long way from Haywards Heath.
‘Help,’ she said.
Said rather than screamed; she was, at heart, a reasonably practical person, and there was nobody who could help her as far as the eye could see. That was assuming that Justin, who was beginning to come round, wasn’t likely to be much use. On the basis of her experience of him so far, that seemed a pretty safe assumption.
Now then, she reassured herself, don’t let’s go all to pieces. Kiss’ll be along in a moment, he’ll switch this blasted thing off and we can all go home. My wish is his command, after all. And, she remembered, it was his bloody gadget that got her into this mess in the first place.
Having nothing better to do, she reflected for a while on that. Of all the stupid, careless things to do, she mused, leaving something like that lying about. She looked at the device, which was sitting smugly on the top edge of the carpet. Perfectly reasonable to assume that it was a book. It looked exactly like a book: pages, spine, covers, the works. What sort of an idiot leaves something like that lying around, just begging innocent passers-by to pick it up and leave it on carpets?
Not, she added quickly, that she didn’t worship the ground he stood on (or, to be accurate, more usually hovered about six inches over); but that was either here nor there. Being absolutely adorable and gorgeous is no excuse for rank carelessness. She’d have a word or two to say to him when he finally condescended to show up.
Yes, and where in blazes was he, anyway? Genies, she felt sure, were capable of moving from A to B at the speed of light; and here she had been, for what seemed like hours and hours, stuck on top of a fast-moving flying tapestry over a desert. She’d have expected prompter service from the electricity board.
‘Grrng,’ said Justin.
It was, as far as she could remember, the most sensible thing he’d said since she’d met him. She turned round, smiled, and said, ‘It’s all right.’
Justin blinked and lifted his head. ‘The shop,’ he said. ‘Uncle.’
‘Everything’s under control,’ Jane said, as reassuringly as she could. ‘One of your carpets took off, with us on it, and I think we’re over a desert somewhere, but my genie’ll be along in a minute and he’ll take us home. So long as you don’t look down...’
Justin, of course, looked down.
‘AAAAAAAAAGH!’ he observed.
‘Well, quite,’ Jane said, ‘my sentiments exactly, but there’s no need to worry, honestly. You see, it’s a magic carpet.’
'A ma—’
‘Or at least,’ Jane amended, ‘it is now. I put a book on it, you see.’ She turned up the smile a notch or so. ‘I expect we’ll all have a jolly good laugh about this as soon as we get back home again.’
‘Your genie?’
‘That’s right,’ Jane replied. ‘No, don’t back away, you’ll fall off the edge.’ The carpet wobbled vertiginously as Justin converted his shuffle backwards into a lunge forward. ‘There now, you just lie still and everything will be-’
‘Put me down,’ Justin said, with a degree of urgency in his voice. ‘Put me down put me down put me down!’
The carpet juddered slightly.
‘Your wish is my command, O Master.’
Suddenly the world was at thirty degrees to itself, and Jane felt herself slide forward. The book, also; it flopped over and was just about to plummet over the side when Jane, stretching full length, managed to catch it. She wasn’t sure she understood any of this at all, but it seemed reasonable to assume that if the book fell off the carpet would lose its supernatural capacity and turn back into an ordinary domestic floor covering. And ordinary domestic floor coverings as a rule don’t fly.
‘Ah,’ said Jane. ‘You again.’
‘Mistress.’
‘Look, I know we got off on rather the wrong foot back there in the shop,’ said Jane, ‘but I think it might be a good idea if we made friends and started again, don’t you? Before we fly into a cliff or something.’
‘There are no cliffs on our projected route, Mistress.’
‘Look ... Look, forget about cliffs. Just don’t take any orders from him, all right? He’s not quite...'
‘Mistress?’
Justin was staring at her, wondering perhaps why she was talking to the carpet. Could he even hear the bloody thing, she wondered. ‘All right,’ she whispered, ‘you do it your way. Only for pity’s sake, do look where you’re going.’
‘Our fully automated guidance systems,’ replied the carpet huffily, ‘are computer-aligned to ensure a comfortable, incident-free itinerary. State-of-the-art LCD displays let you know at a glance-’
‘LOOK OUT!’
The carpet swerved viciously, just in time to avoid the ground. Jane opened her eyes again, to see the carpet apparently on top of her. And then, after a heart-stopping roll, underneath her again.
‘Sorry. I mean, systems error.’
‘Shut up and fly.’
‘To hear is to—’
There was an uncomfortable twentieth of a second.
‘Don’t,’ Jane hissed, ‘even consider it.’
‘But you said—’
‘I’m warning you.’
‘Your express wish,’ said the carpet, flustered, ‘was that I ignore anything you tell me to do. Your wish is my command. Oh, sugar!’
The carpet hurtled groundwards. Jane shrieked.
‘Mistress?’
‘Don’t worry about it,’ Jane said quickly. ‘When I said look out, you ignored me. Very sensibly, however, and quite independently of anything I may have coincidentally said, you decided not to crash and took appropriate action. Got that?’
‘Yes, Mistress,’ said the carpet gratefully. ‘Although strictly speaking I should ignore that too.’
‘You just try it.’
‘Sorry?’ said the carpet. ‘Did you just say something?’
The carpet levelled, and Jane patted a hem. ‘That’s the spirit,’ she said.
‘Excuse me.'
Jane looked round and s
aw Justin, clinging with both hands, his face buried in the pile. ‘Yes?’
‘I don’t want to be a nuisance,’ Justin mumbled through the fabric, ‘but do you think we can go home soon? Uncle will be...’
Jane wasn’t listening. She was looking, unbelievably, down.
‘Gosh,’ she said.
Underneath the carpet was the sea — a huge, flat blue spread, extending from horizon to horizon. Jane considered for a moment.
‘If we jump,’ she said aloud, ‘we’ll land in the sea.’
‘I can’t swim.’
‘I can. And you’ve got to learn sometime.’
‘Why?’
‘Because ...‘ Jane searched her mind for a reason. ‘Because it’d be very handy if, for instance, you were sitting on a carpet miles above the surface of the sea and somebody were to push you off.’
‘Who’d do a thing like?’
‘That depends,’ Jane said firmly, ‘on how co-operative you were being at the time.’
You would think, reflected Asaf bitterly, that after escaping from a small glass bottle, escaping from a ship ought to be a piece of cake. Not a bit of it.
Wearily, he lifted the cask of nails above his head and tried once again to use it to smash through the battened hatch. By dint of ferocious effort he managed to deal a featherweight biff to the objective before his arms crumpled and the cask fell heavily onto the deck at his feet, narrowly missing his toes.
For one thing, his thoughts continued, although I didn’t know it at the time, I probably had help getting out of the bottle — well, I definitely got help — whereas they want to keep me on the ship. Also, he couldn’t help reflecting, the bottle hadn’t been surrounded by deep, cold water; and the ship was.
That is, he parenthesised, always supposing I actually am on a ship and this isn’t all some sort of tiresome metaphysical illusion, the sort of thing Captain Kirk and the crew of the Enterprise seem to spend most of their working hours in. The bottle now, that probably was an illusion.
Bloody small illusion; and they might have had the decency to illude the ink out first. Then again, he was beginning to feel that whoever was doing all this to him had a fairly limited imagination.
Djinn Rummy Tom Holt Page 18