Bonshoon: A Tale of the Final Fall of Man

by Andrew Hindle

  “Hey now-”

  “It wasn’t entirely Zeegon’s doing,” Sally came to his rescue. “I did look into the idea from a security and tactical point of view,” Zeegon gave her a grateful look, although he was still painfully aware of the way Janya had predicted the Rip’s next moves. “If he wants to thank anyone, he can send me a memo.”

  “Rest assured, Chief Tactical,” Glomulus smiled at Sally and Zeegon in turn. Zeegon suppressed a shudder.

  “I’m still not entirely clear on how much use incendiary devices on his wrists are going to do when he has his hands around your throat,” Janya said with her usual lack of regard for who was actually in the room, “or inside your ribcage. But I’m sure it’s something that you have looked at from a security and tactical point of view.”

  Zeegon left Z-Lin attempting to defuse the hideously awkward situation, returned to the bridge and slumped at his console. They were still at relative speed, still very much in running-away mode rather than running-to, so there hadn’t been much need for him at the controls. He wondered how Cratch was ever going to work as a medic, when most of the crew were too scared to go near the guy.

  He realised he’d been putting off coming to the helm.

  Zeegon picked up the little picture of Ital. It had fallen onto the floor when NightMary had blown Mater up, Sally had told him, but she’d replaced it and it was undamaged. He looked at the picture unhappily. Then he looked away. He put it on the console, looked at it for a moment, then looked away again. He reached out and picked the picture up.

  You having doubts, Pendraegg?

  And on the heels of that thought:

  I had that dream again.

  He pocketed the picture, then reached around to the back of his toolbelt.

  Ital picked up the noddyhead from her bedside table.

  “He was called the Lonely Knight, did you know that?” she said. “Sir Greyblade of the Ladyhawk. He was the last of the Burning Knights, and he stood with sword drawn against Karl the Bloody-Handed Himself, when He was thrown into His Angelic prison.”

  Zeegon sniggered. “That’s the biggest load of crap I’ve ever heard.”

  “Me too, but Sally gave it to me. She got it on Þursheim, when she started on the trail of the Ripper. They say Greyblade was of the Elvenfolk, and they were supposed to have helped settle Þursheim. I don’t believe that either, really, but he’s a Saint there. Patron Saint of the lonely,” she held up the little figure. “Sally picked up this noddyhead as a good luck charm. And I want you to have it, if you ever need something to remember me by. If you’re ever lonely. I’m a security officer, I know the score. Just take it.”

  “Good enough for me,” Zeegon said, pulled the little black-plumed knight from his belt pouch, and set it on the console.

  ZEEGON (NOW)

  Zeegon woke up in the medical bay, with no clear idea of how he’d gotten there. The first thing he saw was the tall, pale shape of Glomulus Cratch leaning over him, which didn’t do his feeling of disorientation and dismay much good.

  “Phlebh,” Zeegon said.

  “Cottonmouth should clear up in a few seconds,” Cratch said. “We had to go in and fix some damage to the larynx.”

  “What happened?” Zeegon asked when his lips and tongue started behaving properly.

  “Don’t you remember?”

  “Last thing I remember is Bunzo clapping on about how cheeky we are and how there would have to be consequences,” Zeegon frowned. “Did he attack me?”

  “Maybe it’s for the best if you don’t remember,” Glomulus said. “Apparently you were doing something in one of your workstations, and some machinery of yours went haywire and wrapped you up and gave you a good squeeze.”

  “My machinery?”

  “Some semi-articulated extra-vehicular something-or-other,” Glomulus waved a hand. “I don’t know.”

  “My exo-suit / PIV hybrid?” Zeegon said. Cratch shrugged helplessly. “That’s just a prototype, it wasn’t functional at all.”

  “Did it have a command uplink?”

  “Well … yes,” Zeegon blinked. “Holy crap.”

  “I know. That Bunzo, so crafty.”

  “Did it – was I – am I hurt bad?”

  “Pshaw. You just had all your ribs broken and a couple of bits pushed into your lungs,” Cratch said dismissively. “You passed out from the pain. Wuss.”

  Zeegon grunted. “Well, thanks for saving me anyway.”

  “Actually it was Janya who dug you out,” Glomulus said, nodding his head to point out something on Zeegon’s other side. Zeegon turned carefully and saw the tiny scientist sitting in an armchair in the corner of the room. She was, unsurprisingly, reading a book. “She figured out that you’d most likely have been taken by one of your own machines,” Cratch went on. “You know, the sort of melodramatic act Bunzo would enjoy.”

  “I – well, thanks,” Zeegon stammered, then sat up too fast, and winced. “Boonie,” he gasped.

  “He was in the machine too, either because he was nobly trying to help you or just because Bunzo was a nasty ol’ sadist,” Cratch said gravely. “He was pretty broken up. Janya pulled him out as well. I told her, ‘I’m a doctor, not a weasel repairman’,” the Rip chuckled. “You know what she told me?” Zeegon shook his head. “She said, ‘you’re not a doctor either. Fix the fucking weasel’.”

  Zeegon looked at Janya, who looked … well, she didn’t actually look up from her book, which was more or less to be expected. “Thank you,” he said. She waved a hand, and he noticed it had a patch of dermal stimulant tape over it. “Was the exo-suit still all psycho when you went in?”

  “No,” Janya said coolly, turning a page, “Boonie bit me.”

  “And you still got Glomulus to fix him?”

  “Any frightened or injured animal will instinctively lash out at a perceived attacker,” Adeneo said, finally folding her finger into the book, closing the covers and looking up. “It’s a last-ditch survival instinct. Boonie attacked you the first time you met.”

  “Are you going to ask about where we are and whether we’re all going to die?” Glomulus asked. “I have to admit, I’m a little disappointed you didn’t lead with ‘where am I?’. Although your devotion to your furry friend is admirable.”

  “Oh, uh, right,” Zeegon said, “I’m, yeah, I’m interested in all that, just – where’s Boonie now, please?”

  “Goodness sakes,” Glomulus said in mock exasperation, “I’ll go and get him.”

  “It looks like only about a quarter of the mini-whorls in Yojimbo’s hold went critical,” Janya said, as Cratch strode from the room and Zeegon had another try at sitting up. “Either just because the codes had corrupted, or because the Godfire itself had decayed over the years, or because Bunzo was fast enough to actually defuse seventy-five percent of them in the split-second between the command and the activation.”

  “Well, shit,” Zeegon grunted.

  “Either way, it was a big bang,” Glomulus said happily, stepping back into the room with a long white-wrapped bundle in his arms, “and it made a very decent-sized hole in Horatio Bunzo’s Funtime Happy World’s crust. Not to mention a definite hole in his communications relays and ability to keep us from going to relative speed,” he presented the bundle to Zeegon like a waiter showing off the label of a particularly expensive bottle of wine, and Zeegon grinned when he saw the Boonie’s sharp, mossy little face peeping out of the bundle. “Sir’s weasel.”

  “So he’ll be alright?” Zeegon asked, drawing Boonie in carefully and feeling the animal’s long, warm weight. He seemed to be in one piece, although a stretch of his serpentine body was stiff with some kind of brace. Boonie growled good-naturedly.

  “He’ll be fine. Ribs and back, same as you, and a couple of sharp bits of metal needed to be removed from his haunches. A week or two and he’ll be right as rain. Tough little rodent.”

  “Hey, he’s not a rodent. He’s a mustela, from the order carnivora, not rodenta,” he glanced at J
anya. “I looked it up.”

  Janya twitched an eyebrow. “Quite right. Except of course you meant rodentia, not rodenta.”

  “So we got out,” Zeegon said. “Again.”

  “We got out,” Janya confirmed, standing up, “and this time without an exile lockout. We docked with Bitterpill and waited to see if there would be any repercussions while we reinstalled our guns and Bruce synced back up. No loss of data, either, which means we should be able to file an official report.”

  “Ooh,” Zeegon enthused. “Resetting the counter to zero on that last-reliable-official-information thing, huh?”

  “Depending on the classification level, yes,” Janya said, although he could tell she was pleased. “Bunzo seems to have survived, although his planet is a mess and his network is in shambles. The Bunzolabe’s automation was so complete, though, he was able to keep the planet from falling out of orbit and he’ll probably even be able to curb the climate shifts if he wants to. But even so, there’s no sign that he’s coming after us.”

  “So much for his grand prophecy about dying by Godfire,” Glomulus remarked. “Call it half-fulfilled. At best.”

  “But this is definitely going to be the last time we go in there, right?” Zeegon stressed. “We’re not going to be the ones to try finishing the job?”

  “It’s certainly the last time I’ll be going in there,” Janya said. “There may not be any such thing as luck, but there’s such a thing as pushing it.”

  “Right,” Zeegon relaxed a little.

  “Never really did find out why the old boy had such a bee in his bonnet about getting me out of the brig, though,” the gaunt medic noted. “Still, I suppose some mysteries just aren’t worth chasing.”

  “Right,” Zeegon repeated, a little uncomfortably, aware that Janya was looking steadily at Cratch and that he was in between the two of them. “So,” he went on, “my ribs?”

  “Just regrown with some print-stock and a bit of crete fibre,” Glomulus replied. “Your gradual transformation into the Tin Woodman proceeds apace. One day you and Bunzo are going to pass one another going in opposite directions along the human-machine spectrum, and on that day I do hope you’ll high-five.”

  Zeegon pulled himself upright, still holding Boonie, and stepped into the pair of slippers beside the bed. He was wrapped in a voluminous white coverall not unlike the bundle of sheets the Jauren Silvan weasel was swathed in. Janya stood up too, and they all headed out into the medical bay proper.

  “And what about the aki’Drednanth?” Zeegon asked. “They were a fat lot of help. Did they just sit there in the oxygen farm the whole time?”

  “Nothing much they could do against an electronic mind,” Cratch crossed to one of his habitual seats, perched on it and studied the nearby diagnostic console. “That’s why Bunzo wasn’t really afraid of them, I suppose. Although I understand that they provided some sort of safe communication between the ship and Thorkhild – or Maladin, I suppose we have to call him, although personally I can’t think of anything more preposterous … still, the aki’Drednanth were able to provide comms that Bunzo couldn’t hack, just like Bunzo had a mind that the Drednanth couldn’t-”

  “Back it up,” Zeegon interrupted. “You said ‘Maladin’,” he frowned. “And also ‘Thorkhild’.”

  “Full report and debriefing in three hours,” Janya said, heading for the door without looking back. “You’re in for a treat.”

  “Alright – anyway – speaking of official reports and the first real data in three hundred years, what about our mission?” Zeegon insisted, turning to Cratch when Adeneo continued serenely on out the door. “Did we get the information we wanted, about the aliens or the missing ship or anything? Did the Captain go and talk to Bunzo? Did the Captain actually do anything at all?”

  “The good Commander says we got what we came for,” Glomulus said with a shrug that made his bony shoulders look momentarily like hunched, folded wings. “You know she doesn’t keep me in the loop about that stuff. And if you don’t know about the Captain’s actions, imagine – if you can – someone with even less information, and that person would look something like little old me. But as our Head of Science said, full debriefing in three hours. As full as we can probably hope to get, anyway. As a matter of fact I have yet to actually receive my invitation…”

  “Yeah,” Zeegon tilted his head side to side to work off some of the lingering stiffness, tugged his medical robe into position more securely, and headed for the door. “Well, thanks doc.”

  “Any time. Oh, Zeegon,” Cratch added. Zeegon turned a bit gingerly, and the medic pointed. “Don’t forget your belt. Decay and Sally would probably demand you destroy it if you left it here alone with me. The rest of your clothes were wrecked but we figured you’d want that.”

  “Oh, thanks,” Zeegon crossed to the table where his tidy little toolbelt was lying, took a moment to juggle Boonie, then lifted the belt with another wince. He hefted it in his hands. “Feels heavy,” he said, and glanced at Boonie. “But then, so does this tubby bastard.”

  “Yes, all your muscles are going to be a bit wonky for the next few hours,” Cratch told him, returning to his study of the console. “Nothing to worry about, but if things are still noticeably more difficult to lift than they should be by this time tomorrow, come back and see me,” he looked up, and smiled. “You know where I live.”

  GLOMULUS (NOW)

  It was funny, Glomulus reflected. The tangled foolishness people got themselves involved in. Often through no fault of their own. Cause led to effect led to cause, and did any of it make sense? Not really.

  Take Janus Whye, for example.

  Glomulus had received baffling special dispensation to be out of the medical bay for counselling, of all things. He’d really only put it together when he learned they were headed back to Bunzo’s. Janus had been ordered by Clue, who had been ordered by the Captain, and had the whole thing been to provide Glomulus with an alibi for Dunnkirk’s meticulous murder? He thought so. Not because the Captain wanted to protect Cratch, but because the crew was going to need him, even more so than usual, and their first move after a murder took place in the medical bay would have been to lock him up, possibly after blowing off his hands and feet.

  As it happened, this time he had only needed to perform a minor procedure on their helmsman and his pet weasel, and treat a bite from the latter. A lucky escape for everyone, indeed, and a mighty blow struck against the immortal mechanical spectre of Horatio Bunzo.

  Of course, about that … there had also been the unique operation he’d been asked to perform on Dunnkirk’s body. That would have been pretty difficult for him to do from the brig, as well.

  And that had led to this, and this had led to the next, and Bunzo’s rage had led to Glomulus’s bracelets, and Zeegon’s injury, and all of it came around in a horrible, wonderful dance.

  He was sitting in the medical bay, waiting without much expectation to see if any of the mission-end reports or debriefing material found its way to him. Contro had probably been at the meeting but he had left his watch in a pocket of another cardigan somewhere, and so Glomulus had not been able to tune in on the watch’s feed. Typical.

  Sixty-five times – sixty-six now, if you counted Bunzo reacting badly to that little joke about his wife – he’d had his hands blown off. It took him about two months to fully break in a new pair, at least before he’d programmed his augmented sets which never really fully broke-in at all. Same for the feet, although now the feet were still only on set sixty-five. Two months of discomfort … it was lucky, in a sense, that usually they weren’t even slightly broken in by the time the next guy blew them off. Otherwise he’d calculated that it would have been eleven years of back-to-back hand-regrowth therapy.

  Glomulus had time to make those sorts of calculations.

  Instead, he’d been out of the brig and saddled with the bracelets and anklets for less than nine months all-told, before their encounter with the universe-hopping Artist and his
bizarre star drive. His last mishap with the subdermals had actually been a few weeks before that, even. Since the Artist and Jauren Silva, and again excluding the events in the Bunzolabe, he hadn’t actually been pruned once. Basically, the entire series of sixty-five had taken place over the course of about seven months.

  In fact, the majority of them had taken place in the first three or four weeks, after he’d patched up Janus and the rest of the crew’s minor ailments following their first run-in with Bunzo. His macho little stand about the automated-detonation house arrest thing had accounted for a significant proportion of them, he admitted to himself with a wince.

  The month or so after they’d first escaped the Bunzolabe and were all getting used to the new living situation, yes. Those had been the days and weeks of stab-stab, pop-pop.

  Not that Glomulus had done much stabbing. That last incident, with Sally and the concealed knife, might have looked like a stabbing was imminent but it had really been carefully orchestrated to make her detonate, so he could test out his new hand configuration. And, as luck would have it, he hadn’t been pruned since. Maybe they were actually getting to be more of a team.

  It was lucky, because as Janya had told him, his new schematics had been wiped and any new limbs fabricated from the able-stock on the Tramp would be back to his own inborn specifications. Strong, fast, effective … but not enhanced. He was back to factory settings.

  But it hadn’t been the Tramp’s systems that had restored him this last time, had it?

  Glomulus looked down at his hands, marvelling quietly. He’d been surprised to find that the hands Bunzo had re-grown for him had been his augmented hands, just as they had been the moment before detonation. They hadn’t been taken from the reset template, but off some sort of molecular snapshot, just as Bunzo had said. And that hadn’t been all.

  Glomulus reached down nonchalantly and pulled out the heavy bracelet from the console storage slide. Sally had let him keep the extras, after triple-checking them and declaring the mechanisms to be completely harmless. The notch where the small sensor-and-detonator capsule was meant to be was a hollow scoop in the side of the metal.