Chronicles of Isambard Smith 05 - End of Empires

by Toby Frost

  ‘Maybe,’ Suruk replied. ‘On the plus side, they might fight us to the death instead.’

  Smith picked his way carefully past the yellow wreckage. Two huge pine doors stood at the end of the room, inlaid with polished brass. Suruk turned the handle very slowly and pushed the door open far enough for Smith to slip inside.

  A white marble hall stretched away from him, lined with columns. Statues of great financial automata stood at regular intervals, each twice man-height. Light streamed in from above.

  He paused. Voices filtered down from the far end of the hall, echoing and faint. Smith squinted: a man stepped out from behind a column thirty yards down, gesturing angrily at something, then disappeared from view.

  Some sort of argument seemed to be going on. If he could get closer, Smith would be able to hear the details. He’d just need to do it quietly.

  ‘Good morning, sir!’ A bankbot rolled out of a niche in the wall. ‘Do you wish to make a withdrawal? Simply type your code into the keypad on my chest, and I’ll dispense your money from my navel slot.’

  Smith whipped around, startled. The thing looked wildly out of place, all blue steel and idiot grin. ‘What? No, I’m fine. Really.’

  ‘Of course, sir,’ the robot trilled. It reached around its body. ‘Shall I print out a receipt with that?’

  ‘Certainly not!’ He took a step down the hall. Suruk followed. A moment later, the bankbot rolled after them.

  ‘As a robot, may I recommend our alternating current account?’ It pushed its hips out. ‘Shall I print some leaflets?’

  Suruk leaned over. ‘Depart, bankbot, or you will experience a fiscal crisis in your assets.’ He raised his spear. ‘This crisis.’

  ‘Well!’ the robot exclaimed. It drew back into the wall.

  Smith and Suruk crept forwards, towards the remaining robbers.

  A voice came from between the pillars. ‘You’ve got to be bloody kidding,’ the man was saying. ‘You must be mental if you think I’m doing that. I came here to rob this place, not die in it.’

  Smith looked around the pillar. He could see a tall man in a raincoat, a scarf tied across his face like a bandit, half a dozen rolls of paper under his arms.

  The man took a step backwards. ‘I didn’t join up for this.’

  The voice that replied was hard and quick, with a slight American accent. ‘Typical fleshbags: your notion of sacrifice is… lamentable. I’ve met vending machines with more loyalty than you. Slept with a few of them, too.’

  A gunshot cracked out. The robber collapsed, the paper scrolls rolling out of his grasp. Smith dashed forward, saw that the man was dead.

  A spindly man in a paisley frock coat stood with his back to Smith, a revolver smoking in his gloved right hand. An enormous stovepipe hat sat low on the killer’s head. There was something wrong with him, Smith thought, but he could not quite tell what.

  ‘Gentlemen, a word of advice,’ the murderer said. ‘Never send a man to do a machine’s job.’

  ‘You there –’ Smith began.

  The figure spun, and a blade flew from its fingertips. Smith pulled back and Suruk’s spear cut the air. Metal clanged against the spear. Smith glanced down, saw a hatchet skidding away across the floor, and in a rush of cloth the dandy shot past them, out of the door. A crash of metal came from the far end of the hall.

  Smith holstered his pistol. He walked to the dead robber and picked up one of the rolls of paper, folded it up and stuffed it into his pocket.

  The bankbot stood behind them. It held up a piece of paper. ‘Statement, sir?’

  ‘Very well,’ Suruk replied. ‘This bank is foolish and I shall not be returning. Will that suffice?’

  * * *

  ‘Fierce fighting today was reported around the Andorian Rivera, as Imperial troops clashed with Yull bent on pillage. Reports suggest that the lemming men were unable to make off with much loot due to small pockets of resistance. At home, a raid on the Imperial Automated Bank ended in disaster as four men and a stolen construction robot were slain. A number of posters were found at the scene, proclaiming the attack to have been carried out by anarchists seeking home rule for Ravna –’

  Smith turned the radio off and put his model kit down. The Space Empire was fighting a two-front war, and while the Ghasts were the more obvious threat, the Yull were continuing to drive along the Western fringe. It was not a pleasant mental image, the thought of lemmings pushing up the British flank. We are at bay, Smith thought, like a... thing that’s at bay a lot. Some sort of boat, perhaps?

  He got up to clear his mind from the glue fumes and wandered into the living room. The place was a bit of a mess, he reflected: although Suruk was surprisingly neat, the only thing Carveth was good at putting away was cake.

  She was sitting on the floor, a large black box in front of her. It looked like a small safe. Two wires ran from the box into the back of the television.

  ‘I got this from the bank,’ she said as he approached. ‘Thought it might be useful.’

  ‘I hope that’s not a deposit box,’ Smith replied.

  Carveth sighed. ‘This is the data recorder from that construction robot that was trying to rob the bank.’ She snorted. ‘As if I’d make off with a box full of stolen money.’

  ‘Well, good.’

  ‘I threw the box away. The stolen money’s in the biscuit tin.’ She turned the wires slightly.

  Rhianna put her head around the door. ‘Is the TV broken? Let’s make our own entertainment!’ she added, glancing at the guitar propped against the wall.

  ‘We’re fine thanks,’ Smith replied quickly. ‘Look.’

  The screen flickered into life. Suddenly they were looking at two huge robots: hulking, top-heavy machines patched up and customised to the point where their original function could no longer be discerned. Numbers scrolled down the left side of the screen.

  ‘Right,’ the robot on the left said, addressing the screen, ‘here’s the plan. You and the boys go down to the bank, break in and bring us the money. Then you leave the evidence behind and bring the loot to either me or Rom here.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said the robot on the right. ‘Like what Ram said. Then the rozzers’ll go lookin’ for the wrong people, and we’ll split the cash. You can get a new coat of yellow paint, maybe some new buckets for your arms. Maybe you won’t have to work construction at all anymore.’

  ‘Don’t be soft, Rom. He’s a JCB. He wants to be in construction.’

  The right robot lumbered around to face its colleague, like a howitzer swinging into position. ‘Who’re you calling soft? That does not bleedin’ compute.’

  ‘Nor does your face. Sometimes, Rom, I find it hard to believe that we share the same motherboard.’

  ‘Leave it out! My motherboard is a saint and you know it!’

  ‘Bollocks. Your motherboard’s had so many new screws that –’ He did not finish his sentence, because his colleague punched him in the head. With a sound like an avalanche in a junkyard, the robots leaped on one another.

  ‘Upload this to your hard drive, you bastard!’

  ‘I’ll reboot you in the arse!’

  The screen went black.

  ‘Wow,’ Rhianna said. ‘That was brutal.’

  ‘Wait a moment,’ Smith said. He pulled the piece of paper from his pocket. ‘Those robbers dropped this.’ He unfolded the paper, frowned, and held it up for the others to see.

  SMASH THE SPACE EMPIRE!

  LIBERTY FOR RAVNAVAR!

  Will you stand by while jackals and hyenas gnaw on the seat of power? Will you let Capitalist lapdogs gobble your privileges? Rejoice, Ravnavar, for the Imperialist octopus has sung its swan song.

  The day of revolution is upon us! Cast off the jackboots of the oppressor! Beat the yoke of tyranny! For from the melting pot of the city the simmering wrath of the people shall boil onto the streets!

  POPULAR FIST – UP THE PEOPLE!

  ‘Hmm,’ said Smith. ‘This sounds like red revolution. Either that or th
ey want us to take our shoes off and make a cake. Have either of you heard of Popular Fist before?’

  ‘Nope,’ Carveth said.

  ‘Sorry,’ Rhianna replied. ‘I guess they’re kind of... not popular enough.’

  ‘Well,’ Smith said, ‘it looks as if they’re linked to this bank robbery. We ought to find them and discover whether they’re behind all this subversion.’

  Carveth got up. ‘I thought those robot gangsters were behind it.’

  ‘Curious,’ said Smith. ‘There’s obviously something going on here. The question is, where? And to a lesser extent, why and how? And arguably, who? Or whom.’

  Rhianna said, ‘Hey guys, I’ve got an idea.’

  ‘Splendid.’

  ‘Let’s go to Robot Row!’

  Smith looked at Carveth. The android shrugged.

  ‘Robot Row,’ Rhianna said. ‘It’s famous. It’s a totally authentic street market in the old quarter of Ravnavar City, with traditional market stalls and ancient indigenous pickpockets.’ Her eyes, usually slightly glazed, lit up. ‘Let’s all go! We can look round and maybe get some information on what’s really happening in the city.’

  Carveth pulled a face. ‘It sounds dangerous.’

  ‘Well, Polly, they do have ice cream.’

  ‘I’m in.’

  * * *

  The suns blazed down on Robot Row, as half a dozen species brushed shoulders and tried to steal one another’s wallets. Stalls lined the street, offering goods of varying legality. The still, hot air was full of noise and the smell of greasy food. M’Lak and human policemen patrolled the streets. On the right, a woman with an eye-patch sold candy floss and fighting knives. On the left, a fat bearded man argued with two naval officers on shore leave, who were trying to buy Selluvian Brain Spice, illegal on fifteen worlds. As Smith passed by, a scuffle broke out as one of the sailors accursed the spice merchant of cutting his wares with mango chutney.

  It was often said that you could purchase anything on Robot Row, although home delivery was less easy to arrange. Carveth paused in front of a stall advertising low-key imports and tried to order six kilos of Battenberg cake and a pony, and was discreetly led away by Smith.

  ‘Careful, chaps,’ he muttered as they slipped through the crowd. ‘There’s more pickpockets and flick-knives here than on a school trip to Paris.’

  A moment later, he felt fingers brush his own, and he turned, ready to belt the thieving little bugger. It was actually Rhianna, trying to hold hands. Smith let her warm, dry hand clasp his, feeling slightly exhilarated at having a proper girlfriend but unsure what to do next.

  Suruk slipped out of the crowd: years of hunting had made him very good at going unnoticed. ‘I have been on a fact-finding mission,’ he announced. ‘The main fact is that haggling is much easier when you are carrying a spear. I like it here,’ he declared, as a trio of soldiers passed by, eating rehydrated tikka pies. ‘The stall-keepers offer their wares at knock-down prices, once you have knocked them down a few times. Furthermore,’ he added, raising his voice to a loud snarl over the sound of the crowd, ‘I have discovered how to find these dangerous anarchists.’

  Carveth sighed. ‘That shouldn’t be difficult. They’ll try to recruit you.’

  ‘Not so,’ Suruk replied. ‘We shall find the Popular Fist by eating ice cream. Over there.’

  Under a wide awning, a brass robot in a striped jacket and a straw hat was tightening the screws on its false moustache. Below the waist, it was all wheels, gears and freezer boxes.

  ‘Ice cream!’ Carveth’s eyes seemed to grow in both size and intensity. Something like bloodlust glinted in them.

  The robot swept its arm towards a table. ‘Giuseppe’s Traditional Ices, ladies and gentlemen. From Yorkshire bitter to Columbian coffee, we have every flavour for you: brewed in a vat and spurted out of a nozzle, just like back home.’

  ‘Just point it at my face!’ Carveth cried.

  ‘Three cones, my good fellow,’ Smith said. ‘And some sort of bucket for my pilot.’

  The robot dispensed three cones and a sundae glass. ‘Shall I do a Flake on those, sir?’

  ‘I think we’re alright, actually.’

  They sat and watched several worlds go by. A butterfly dragon swung down from the sky, stared at them for a moment, and disappeared in a buzz of wings. On the far side of the street, one of the Ravnavari Lancers bobbed past on the back of a shadar, the crowd sensibly parting before his mount.

  Smith leaned back in his chair. He found the sight of Rhianna eating ice cream strangely fascinating, and didn’t want her distracted.

  Suruk suddenly clapped his hands over his mandibles. He screwed his eyes shut and shuddered.

  ‘Suruk, what is it?’ Rhianna asked, leaning forward. ‘Are you okay?’

  The alien grimaced. ‘The ice cream,’ he replied. ‘I have sensitive fangs.’

  ‘Ooh, that’s bad,’ Carveth said. ‘Which teeth is it?’

  ‘My canines,’ Suruk groaned. ‘All forty of them.’ He sat up. ‘I will live. Pain is an illusion to a true warrior.’

  ‘So,’ Carveth said, finishing her sundae, ‘all this stuff on that poster about oppressed masses and all that. Are there any?’

  ‘Hundreds of years ago,’ Smith replied, ‘but not now. Back in the over-empire, Britain was exploited by a small gang of crooks. But then the people overthrew the underlings of the over-empire under whom they had been overcome – something like that – and established the guilds we have today. Nowadays, no British citizen is oppressed, regardless of race, creed or class. We have aliens and robots for that.’

  Carveth looked at Suruk. The alien gestured at the ice cream vendor, mimed the bill, and nodded surreptitiously towards Smith.

  ‘Mazuran,’ Suruk said as Smith rummaged in his pockets for change, ‘sometimes, the art of the hunter lies in knowing not when to strike – but when to wait.’

  His hand shot out. Suruk snatched something from the street, lifted it up and dumped it onto the table: a robot no bigger than a football, its seven mismatched legs soldered together from scrap. It flailed like an upturned crab, gears clattering.

  ‘And so the prey is snared,’ Suruk said.

  ‘Ease off, guv’nor!’ the scrapbot warbled. ‘I wasn’t doing nothing!’

  Suruk reached out and flicked a switch on the machine’s underside. A tiny panel slid back, and a stream of coins tinkled onto the tabletop. ‘Oh, indeed,’ the M’Lak said. ‘This device was following us,’ he explained. ‘No doubt it intended to steal our possessions.’

  ‘Leave it out!’ the robot protested. ‘I’m just tryin’ to provide for me young peripherals, what’s been struck down by the cockney virus. I’ve done no ’arm!’

  Smith scowled. ‘Nonsense. I’ve had my valuables pinched in a crowd before. Very discomforting business. Right, then… spill the beans.’

  ‘Not the beans! Don’t send me back to the canning factory, guv’nor, please!’

  ‘You used to work in a canning factory?’

  ‘I used to be a can! It’s no life for a robot, being full of beans.’

  Rhianna leaned forward. ‘It’s okay. We’re looking for a bunch of guys called Popular Fist. Do you know them?’

  ‘No, miss. But I know someone who might.’

  ‘Then you can take us to them,’ Smith said.

  Carveth glanced over her shoulder. ‘Good idea. You guys go and check, and I’ll keep watch. And I’ll be in disguise, hiding my face behind several ice cream cones.’

  ‘No, you’re coming with us,’ Smith replied. ‘Remember that time you said you’d rather be dead than fat? Well, you might not end up dead today. But if you keep eating…’

  ‘Oh, alright.’

  Smith nodded to the ice-cream robot. ‘Thanks. And you didn’t see us, if anyone asks.’

  ‘Of course. I saw nothing, sir. I was preoccupied with a blockage in my pipes.’

  ‘I could help with that,’ Carveth added.

  The robot rolled b
ack, adjusting its straw hat. ‘Madam, please. Have you no dignity?’

  Smith reflected that, having seen Carveth eat, the robot ought to know full well how much dignity she possessed.

  * * *

  ‘This way, squire,’ said the pickpocket. They wove their way through the crowd, past hawkers of weapons, tools, services and food for a dozen species. Suruk was carrying the thief by two of its spindly legs. ‘Take a left at the next stall,’ the robot squeaked.

  ‘He’d better not be leading us into trouble,’ Carveth said. ‘I can hardly run away from anything after all that food,’ she added grimly. ‘I don’t trust his sort.’

  ‘But he’s a robot, just like you,’ Rhianna replied. They passed a stall advertising the services of Martin Poole: ratcatcher and master pie-maker. ‘Don’t you think of robots as part of the same, er, ethnic group as yourself?’

  ‘What? I’m an android. He is a tin can propped up on cutlery. I can’t have feelings for anything that doesn’t look like a person.’

  ‘Except for your electric toothbrush,’ Suruk put in. ‘Quite often at night, I hear a revving sound –’

  ‘Shut up, Suruk.’

  ‘Just here,’ said the pickpocket. ‘On the left.’

  They looked at a dark and narrow doorway. Steps led into a dim room, strewn with cushions and drug paraphernalia. ‘Careful, men,’ Smith said. ‘This looks like the dwelling place of either hardened criminals or media studies students.’

  He took the lead. In the weak light, he made out ports in the walls, where a variety of down-at-wheel scrapbots lurked. Three automatons lay sprawled in a corner on standby, slowly passing round a cable connected to an opium simulator.

  ‘Boss!’ the pickpocket called. ‘Boss, it’s me!’

  A head slid out of an alcove on a jointed neck. Following it came long, slender arms built from angle-poise lamps. Each ended in spindly fingers, like an insect’s legs. It was wearing three pairs of fingerless gloves.

  ‘What’s all this?’ it demanded.

  ‘We have your scrapbot,’ Smith said.

  Part of the furniture seemed to come alive. A heavy body rose up with a whine of servos and turned to them. Its head was a metal skull, painted with a chipped Union Jack. Massive nail guns clacked like pincers. ‘Give,’ it grunted. ‘Or I’ll smash yer.’