“Get in!” Bruce’s yell echoed around the plaza, and one of the guards glared at him as though he had committed some grievous sin.
The guard brandished his stave at the dogs as they got in behind, and they were suitably cowed, for the moment at least.
The procession finally entered the lobby of the building and stopped in front of a massive door of polished metal.
“Wow!” Sue seemed to snap out of her daze. “It’s magnificent!”
“Yeah,” Bruce muttered under his breath. He looked up and noticed the rough plaster finish on the ceiling as though the builders couldn’t be bothered finishing off that bit because it was too hard to reach. It wasn’t that flash or even as magnificent as it could have been in his view.
One of the guards approached the door, rapped twice upon it with his stave and stepped back.
“You’d have thought aliens who can build a spaceship that can fly faster than the speed of light could be a bit more imaginative in their building, wouldn’t you?” Bruce suggested, peering around critically at other examples of shoddy workmanship that caught his critical eye.
“Don’t be so negative,” Sue said. “Nothing bad can happen to us here, I’m sure of it.” Her spirits were suddenly noticeably brighter.
Bruce decided she was a yo-yo, up one minute and down the next. He couldn’t see what she was suddenly so optimistic about. The place was starting to give him the creeps.
To disguise his anxiety, he pulled out his pouch of agar, and rolled himself a smoke with difficulty because his hands were shaking and damp.
“You can’t smoke in here!” Sue hissed as he lit up. “Put it out.”
Reluctantly Bruce frugally pinched off the glowing tip and put the cigarette back into the pouch. He wasn’t about to argue with Sue this time. Perhaps she was right, although neither Cyprus who stood alongside them, nor their guards, had shown any disapproval.
Bruce tapped his foot nervously, waiting for something to happen. After a minute or so one of the doors creaked slowly open and their guards ushered them inside.
They found themselves in a room like a large lecture theatre, with rows of benches stretching upwards away from them. Hundreds of men and women were chattering away, gesticulating at them. On a low stone bench facing the tiered rows, six large, white-haired men dressed in purple robes sat imperiously and turned to stare at them.
The guards withdrew leaving Sue and Bruce to stand doubtfully in the doorway, bewildered by the sight of so many people staring at them, nervously wondering what might happen next. Cyprus seemed to have disappeared completely as if by magic, then Bruce caught sight of him making his way to an empty seat beside some other Skidians who looked vaguely familiar.
“I feel as if I’m a goldfish swimming around my bowl, watched by a hungry cat,” Bruce whispered to Sue, who reached out and gripped his hand.
“Can you work out what they’re saying?”
Even amongst those closest to them, whose voices they could clearly hear, nobody seemed to be using the strictly formal English the other Skidians had used on the ship, as far as Bruce could tell.
“No,” he replied, “but I can see one of them from the ship. Over there.” Bruce pointed. “Second row, third from the left, by the big fat woman.”
“I can’t see him, they all look the same to me … oh yes, I see him now.”
Bruce cringed as she waved at Cyprus.
“Geez woman … how long will this go on for, I wonder?”
No one had appeared to usher them to a seat or give any other directions. Bruce sensed the entire crowd was waiting expectantly for something to happen, for them to do something, as if it were part of a test.
He noticed an empty bench on the other side of the room. “Let’s go and sit over there,” he suggested, pointing to the bench. “C’mon,” he insisted, when Sue remained rooted to the spot.
“No, they would have already told us if we were supposed to.”
“So what? We’re supposed to be difficult, remember?”
Knowing Sue would just argue the point, Bruce took a firmer grip of her hand and dragged her across the floor in front of the six old fat men sitting at their bench.
“See? Nothing happened,” he said as he pushed her down. “Hello?”
Maybe he was wrong. The crowd had hushed and every eye seemed to stare at them accusingly.
“Now look at what you’ve done!” Sue whimpered.
Their guards stood mouths agape, as the offworlders committed the almost unforgivable sin of passing in front of the ruling council without bowing respectfully.
However, after several moments the sound of excited voices regained their former pitch.
Bruce gave Sue a knowing grin as they both relaxed slightly. He pulled out his pouch of agar, determined to have a smoke to pacify his nerves. Shaking off Sue’s restraining hand, he lit the cigarette he had extinguished a few moments earlier and bowed his head self-consciously. Again the chatter abated, although not totally this time. Bruce looked up, half expecting to be told off, only to find that every Skidian in the place, bar their escorts, was following his lead. They had all taken out their own pouches and were busily rolling up cigarettes.
Bruce and Sue watched open-mouthed as the chatter stopped almost completely and the Skidians puffed away happily, cigarettes dangling from one nostril or the other. Bruce could not suppress a chuckle at this incredible sight.
“Look at them, Sue.” He hated to miss a dig at her. “Maybe you should take up smoking like everyone else.”
“No way,” she retorted angrily.
One by one the Skidians stubbed out their cigarettes on the benches before them and the butts were cleaned up by small drones moving along the benches as unobtrusively as only drones could.
Once the butts had been cleared away, one of the six big men, who sat on the bench beside Bruce and Sue, rose and began to speak. He grasped a baton in one hand and slapped it in the other from time to time as if to punctuate his remarks, which neither Sue nor Bruce understood.
Heads nodded wisely, and the speech was punctuated with loud grunts from the audience. Bruce couldn’t tell whether they were dissenting or agreeing.
“Greetings, friends.”
Sue nudged him and Bruce suddenly realized they were being addressed.
“I have just introduced you to the members of Skid’s governing body and formally opened this extraordinary session of our senate.”
The speaker who had turned to face them now turned back to face the rows of Skidians. “After the last session to discuss …”
Bruce had trouble understanding everything the man said.
“… we decided to dispatch a patrol ship to the carbon-based planet 100083L situated in the Lani system to obtain material for research purposes.”
Sue gripped his arm tightly, and Bruce felt his own optimism fade. So their fate was to be guinea pigs for Skidian scientists to play with after all.
“From the background material that has been supplied to each of you, you will note that most of this planet’s population, examples of which you see before you, is involved in food production. Furthermore, as the planet’s population is expanding at an incredible rate, it would be logical to assume that this growth, no matter how primitive it might be, can only be sustained by efficient food production systems.”
“Ha! What a load of …” Bruce managed to suppress a guffaw, but not before the speaker had paused to glare at him.
“Be quiet, you fool!” Sue hissed, nudging his ribs.
“Okay, keep your hair on. I just can’t believe what he’s saying. I’ve just realized they’re not as clever as they’d like to think they are.”
“Shut up, will you? Everyone’s staring at us,” Sue whispered urgently.
“Initially, four offworld specimens were transported to the patrol ship along with three other unidentified creatures. Two specimens were dispatched, due to their infirmity, after the patrol ship had been detected in the planet’s air space by
local surveillance systems.”
“That’ll cause a stir. Another UFO sighting.”
“If only the authorities knew how accurate reports of UFO sightings really were,” sighed Sue wistfully.
“Nobody could have done anything about it, even if they knew we were on board!”
“At that stage it was deemed inadvisable to linger in that proximity, so the patrol vessel returned to Skid. Initial analysis of the offworlders indicates …” The speaker who would later be introduced as Inel, Skid’s supreme leader, paused to glance at the handheld unit he appeared to be reading from before continuing. “… that the specimens are of limited intelligence and are emotionally unstable, riddled with primitive hostilities and prejudices.”
“Bollocks!” Bruce yelled, unable to contain himself, reinforcing in the minds of most the initial assessments of Mulgoon.
“Bruce!” Sue hissed. “Shut up or you’ll get us into trouble.”
“Trouble! Shit, girlie, look around you!” he said desperately. “We’re already in it up to our eyebrows.”
“Despite this lack of sophistication, this primitiveness …”
Bruce was beginning to feel like some lower form of life.
“… for our sakes and the sake of Skid, not to mention the other inhabitants of our system, I hope they will still be able to assist us to solve the crisis that confronts us at this time.”
None of which made any sense at all to Bruce.
“Oi, one day you might find out we’re not as basic as you’d like to think we are,” Bruce shouted, unable to restrain himself any longer.
Inel interrupted his discourse and glared at the offworlder who had the audacity and bad manners to speak out of turn.
“Now we have had a chance to meet our guests, they will be conducted to the Central Medical Facility for further evaluations.”
“I wonder what’s really going on here.” However, Bruce’s question was lost on Sue, who had been gripped by a terror that rendered her speechless and incapable of movement at the mention of medical tests. Something about the place was completely out of whack with reality. Is this guy a few cents short of the dollar or what? he wondered, reminded of a slightly ineffectual schoolmaster imploring an unruly class to pay attention on the last day of term.
Bruce would later discover that Inel, misguided as he was, was not the absent-minded, ineffectual and weak figure he seemed on first impression.
Upon discovering that Toytoo and his crew had taken the unprecedented step of attempting to bring offworlders back to Skid, Inel had initially been stunned. After he had assessed the potential of their scheme he found time to wonder at their unusual audacity in actually thinking and doing for themselves an almost unheard-of feat. It would never do for anyone to get too used to thinking for themselves if he was going to remain in control of events on Skid.
Soon news must leak out to the general population about the synthofood production crisis, and despite a tradition of obedience, Skid might fall into a state of chaos from which it might never recover once the news became public.
As he watched the offworlders being led away by members of his personal guard, Inel hoped the offworlders could show them how to produce food organically, or better still that the scientific community would discover a cure for the virus that was ravaging the synthoplants. He realized that by accepting their unprecedented and illegal presence on Skid he was also admitting the desperateness of the situation. A bold move that could not only signal the end of his reign, but also the end of Skid as he knew it, and the planet’s role as the most powerful planet in known space.
Eleven
For a moment Bruce was thoroughly disoriented as he tried to work out what was going on. This wasn’t his bed! Where am I?
After thirty or so confused seconds he remembered where he was and discovered that he was lying on a hard, white bed, clad only in a scanty cream loincloth. “Bloody hell!”
Slowly his brain rolled into action and he vaguely recollected leaving the debating chamber. How long ago, he had no idea. What had happened between then and now was a bit of a mystery, as if a fog had settled over his mind.
Bruce didn’t remember one of the Skidian guards placing his stave under his nose and firing a jet of gas into his face. A whiff of the gas left victims temporarily senseless but fully mobile so they could be led away docilely or herded like sheep.
The room was bare except for the bed and painted in what those running a mental institution would call a soothing shade of green. There was no sign of any clothes, dogs or, more importantly for the moment, any smokes. No bedside table and jug of water, no curtains on the window, flowers in a vase or, to his relief, any medical equipment either.
Bruce ran his hands over his body, the inside of his elbows especially, for telltale needle marks but could find none.
They can’t have started their tests on me yet, he decided, unaware that an exhaustive series of tests had been completed while he was unconscious.
He rolled off the bed and shook his head to clear a brief giddy feeling as his feet hit the floor. Somewhere outside the room an alarm bell rang but it didn’t concern him. He was more interested in the view out of the window and the possibility of making himself scarce.
Trees dotted a field that rolled away towards the horizon, split in the distance by the lazy winding course of a river that sparkled in the sunshine.
Quite a pleasant, bucolic little scene, he thought, searching for a window catch so he could get out. There was none, and nothing he could throw through the window either.
“Oh well.” He shrugged his shoulders, returned to bed and lay down.
He must have dozed off again for he had a dream. A nightmare almost, about an immensely fat woman who sat in a chair and watched over him while he could only lie there, unable to escape her menacing gaze.
Suddenly his eyes blinked open and he was horrified to find the face staring down at him. A fat, gross face, with little piggy eyes set too close together, above a number of chins that wobbled each time the head moved.
The nightmare hadn’t done the woman any justice at all. She had enormous arms and mammoth bulges pressed against the front of her robe as she glared down at him. What a monster!
Smiling grotesquely, the woman asked, “How do you feel now? I hope our testing procedures were not too exacting?”
“You’re finished then?” Bruce replied, quite relieved.
“Of course, due to your cooperation they were a simple formality.” This was a euphemism for Bruce being knocked unconscious so he did not know what was going on and wouldn’t have been able to do anything about it even if he did.
“Shit, I wouldn’t have been if I’d have known what was going on.” Bruce was taken aback by a clear little voice in the back of his head telling him the Skidians could and would deal with him exactly as they pleased and there wasn’t a lot he could do about it.
“What about a feed then?” Bruce demanded.
“Feed?”
“Yes, you know, food. I’m hungry.” Bruce rubbed his belly to emphasize the point. Not that he had a particular craving for anything but a nicotine fix. Then he would work out how to get out of this place, find the dogs and, well, Sue, he supposed.
“Certainly. I will convey you to a dining area,” said the woman, finally having understood his requirements, “if you will dress.”
“Fine.” Bruce jumped off the bed. “Where are some clothes?
“In the closet.”
“What closet?”
With a condescending smile, no doubt recalling she was dealing with a primitive being, she opened a closet by pressing an inconspicuous dimple on the wall and then stood aside to allow Bruce to pull a robe over his head.
Bruce then followed her from the room, noting carefully where she placed her hand to open the door.
The woman looked like a quivering mass of jelly as she waddled along an empty white corridor trying to keep pace with Bruce as he strode ahead of her. Bruce chuckled at th
is unlikely vision and she turned with a questioning look in her little piggy eyes. He raised his eyebrows and shrugged, tactfully deciding to keep his thoughts to himself.
Somewhere a dog barked. Bruce suddenly realized he hadn’t seen them since he’d walked across the plaza and into the senate building. At least one of them was okay. It was Can barking. There was a distinctive pitch to her bark. This one meant: ‘I can see food. Give it to me before I bite your hand off!’
The woman paused, swaying slightly as if it took a few moments for her considerable bulk to come to a standstill. “How can we stop that terrible noise? Your companions respond to no known form of communication.”
“Have you tried feeding them? Failing that. Pheeep!” Bruce whistled piercingly. “That usually does the trick.”
The woman jumped in surprise, bringing her hands to her ears and almost but not quite tumbling to the floor in the process. Bruce would have hated trying to help her back to her feet.
“You have some degree of control over them?” she croaked, amazed at the noise emanating from the mouth of someone who was almost Skidian, after all.
Bruce nodded. “Some. They are mine. I’ve had them all since they were pups.”
“Pups?”
“Yeah. Babies, you know?” Bruce cradled his arms and made a rocking motion. The woman gave him a dubious stare and then continued down the hallway.
A little further on she stopped and placed her hand against the wall where Bruce discerned another slight depression. How the hell she had found it on an otherwise blank wall Bruce couldn’t understand. A door slid open, revealing a large room filled with easy chairs set around low tables. Sitting in one of them was Sue.
“Hi,” she said diffidently, unsure of Bruce’s feelings towards her. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, no worries. Why, should there be?”
Sue’s breast heaved with an emotion that eluded Bruce. She did seem pleased to see him, though, he noted, wondering why.
“You’ve been out for three days now. I was getting a little worried about you. That’s all.”
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