Wrath of the Lemming-men

by Toby Frost

  ‘We should find you another with which to spawn. I have an idea! We will advertise, placing cards in telephone boxes. I have seen it done.’

  ‘I don’t—’

  ‘Then, we could interview those seeking to apply. And if they are not good enough, they will die by my hand! This will discourage time-wasters.’

  ‘Thanks, old chap.’ He sighed. ‘I wish it were that easy, Suruk, I really do. Nice of you to try to help.’

  ‘I enjoy a challenge.’

  Smith sighed and stood up. It was time to feed the hamster and go to sleep. ‘Goodnight, Suruk,’ he said.

  ‘Goodnight,’ the alien replied.

  Smith put on his pyjamas and brushed his teeth. At the door to his room he switched off the corridor lights. The living room was empty, and in the hold, Suruk was practising his martial arts again.

  Smith watched the alien leap, duck, cut and roll. He could not help but be impressed, and in an odd way envious. How much easier life would be without the curse of a sex drive, where the solution to any problem was decapitation! There was an elegant lack of complexity, a simple precision to the M’Lak mind that humans lacked. He would never admit it, but sometimes Smith wondered if mankind could learn from the M’Lak. Something crashed in the hold, followed by wild laughter. Maybe not.

  It was snowing outside. Around them, Leighton- Wakazashi was keeping its secrets. And further away were Colonel Vock and 462, plotting their evil against Earth.

  An onslaught against mankind on two fronts. Without help from the rest of the galaxy, the other empires would soon collapse under such an assault. Even Britain might find winning a bit tricky. Troubled, Smith went to bed.

  *

  Carveth woke early and prepared for command. She zipped up her utility waistcoat, pulled her hair back into a functional ponytail and looked at herself in the mirror.

  ‘’Ow the ’ell am I going to do this?’ she asked her reflection.

  Then, ‘ ’Ow? ’Ell? When did I stop saying haitch?’

  She realised that the programme was running. She hadn’t the faintest idea what she needed to do but, in her subconscious, she was a sergeant major.

  On the way she bought a company newspaper and rolled it into a narrow tube. With one end jammed under her arm, her hand on the other, she strode onto the training ground.

  The androids were chatting, waiting for the course to begin. They were a mixed bunch, from a variety of lines: in once glance Carveth saw a prim, dark-haired girl in a thick fur coat, an acrobat with a stripe of makeup across her eyes, an artificial company wife in a flowery dress and floppy hat, muttering something about a recipe – even an ancient Metropole-class, gold-finished and expressionless.

  They looked quite reasonable from here, she thought, but the training programme thought otherwise.

  ‘Hatten-shun!’ she bellowed. ‘Get in a line! Now!’

  The androids shuffled into a row. Slightly astonished, and already slightly hoarse, Carveth glanced around the room. The training area doubled as a sports centre for the company executives and the lady androids stood along the baseline of a badminton court.

  ‘Right then!’ Carveth said, approaching the end of the line. She dipped her head slightly, shoved her jaw out, narrowed one eye and widened the other. ‘You ’orrible crew,’ she began. ‘You ’orrible bunch of mummies’ bots, fresh out the server room.’ She took the paper from under her arm and prodded the first android in the chest with it.

  ‘You! What’s your name?’

  ‘My name is Emily Hallsworth,’ the android said. She was wearing a long dress and a bonnet. ‘I am pleased to make your aquain—’

  ‘I didn’t ask for the bleedin’ Doomsday Book! What’s that on your ’ed?’

  ‘It is known as a bonnet,’ Emily replied. ‘All ladies of—’

  ‘Where’re you from?’

  ‘I have of late been residing at the Jane Austen Experience, on New Bath. My calling is to entertain the visitors with polite discourse and the pianoforte.’

  Carveth was finding that being in charge of an infantry unit was actually quite easy, once you got into the swing of it. ‘Ooh, New Bath, is it? La dee bleedin’ dah. Well, this is basic training now, girl. Get that bloody radar dish off your ’ed! Nah then,’ she muttered, moving on, ‘let’s see what else they’ve given me – oh my God, what’s wrong with your eyes?’

  The next android in the line wore a white shirt, pleated skirt and long socks, which was odd enough, but her features were even more bizarre. She had a tiny mouth and nose, and vast, round, watery eyes like something that had evolved in a cave. They stared at Carveth for a moment, and the girl gave an idiotic giggle. ‘Hi!’ she said, ‘I’m Robot Pilot Yoshimi! Let’s have fun!’

  Thrown, Carveth stared back. Yoshimi certainly didn’t look like any android she’d ever met – or indeed any person at all. Emily leaned over and whispered disapprovingly, ‘Manga specifications, I believe.’

  The program recovered Carveth’s composure. ‘What the bloody ’ell are you on about? Don’t give me this fun bollocks, my girl!’

  Yoshimi looked dismayed. Her huge eyes blinked. She sniffed.

  ‘Don’t get soft with me!’ Carveth bellowed. ‘What are you, a bloody schoolgirl?’

  ‘Yes!’ Yoshimi said, and she burst into tears.

  ‘Oh. Sorry,’ Carveth said. ‘Look, I didn’t mean to make you cry.’ Feeling that this was all going wrong, she stepped away and surveyed her charges. ‘Now, listen. My name is Polly and I will be equipping you to deal with the modern battlefield. The world out there is a tough, dangerous place. You may not like that. You may want to duck out, to run back to your motherboards. Well, there’ll be none of that here! You must learn to be as tough and dangerous as anything it can throw at you if you want to survive, understand? – Can somebody give her a tissue, please? – I said, Do you understand?’

  There was a mumble of assent.

  ‘What was that?’ she barked.

  ‘Yes, Polly!’

  ‘That’s more like it!’ She strolled down the line, and since there were only ten of them, soon strolled back.

  ‘Right, you lot! Hatten-shun!’ She jammed the newspaper under her arm and squinted. ‘Now, listen! It’s a hard world out there, and if you want to survive, you’ll ’ave to get wise! And Polly will make you wise! Now, first up, I’ve made a couple of little changes to your training programme. Today’s mud wrestling is off. Instead, we will be learning about the Ensign rapid-fire laser rifle, following which I will be continuing your moral education down the pub. But first, which one of you babies knows anything about Von Clausewitz’s dialectical approach to military analysis?’

  *

  ‘The Chairman will see you now,’ the intercom said, and the Deputy Director opened the office door and stepped inside.

  Chairman Brett Gecko was at his desk, adjusting his braces. Club Tropicana was playing on the stereo: as the Deputy Director entered, the music stopped.

  ‘Tell me Patrick,’ the Chairman asked, ‘have you ever considered the profundity of the early works of Wham?’

  He put his feet up on the desk and pointed at his minion with both hands, the thumbs cocked up like gun hammers. ‘I’m a busy man, so shoot.’

  ‘You wanted to talk to me about the robot girls, sir. Is there a problem?’

  ‘Course not. Problems are for wimps. There’s no such thing as problems in this company, only solutions to problems. Who solves problems? Tigers solve problems. And at Leighton-Wakazashi, we separate the tigers from the boys. Yes, Patrick, there’s a problem.’

  ‘Really, Sir? You need me to—’

  The Chairman scowled. ‘Hold that thought – call coming in.’ He lifted the phone and barked into it, ‘Hey, Carter, how’s the space-haulage game? An entire ship? Only one survivor? A woman, you say? That’s terrible. Can we get hold of a specimen for the science division?’ He put the comlink down. ‘Now, Patrick, do you remember Paul Devrin?’

  ‘He was your predecesso
r, until his C5 transport unit exploded. . .’

  ‘Damn right. He had a sexbot built, a custom job. I happened to be watching the girl androids doing their physical training today, by coincidence, and I noticed there are. . . similarities between her and the new trainer.’

  ‘They may just be built to the same basic pattern, sir.’

  ‘Get with the programme, Patrick, because this train waits for nobody! This smells like trouble to me. You know we don’t need any trouble now, what with our grey-market sales at Tranquility Falls. The ants pay well for info, and the last thing the company needs is some renegade custom-job getting in the way. I’m making an informal executive order here: wait a moment. . .’

  The Chairman leaned over and spun the needle on his executive toy. It teetered on Play a round of golf, rocked, and stopped at Order an assassination. He sat up, tightened his red braces and squared his padded shoulders. ‘Put the sleeper on standby,’ he said.

  The Deputy Chairman swallowed. ‘Sir, isn’t that a bit, well, excessive?’

  ‘This is the age of excess!’ the Director barked. ‘Get wise, Patrick. Out there, it’s a jungle, a corporate jungle full of fat cats and wolves in suits. And you know what sort animals rule the jungle? Damn right you do. Sharks. You’ve got to be a shark – a tiger shark – to ride this train. That’s why I’m sitting here, swimming in my own jungle, and you’re standing in front of that desk, whining like a little girl. Hey, am I right or am I right?’

  ‘Yes sir.’

  He clicked his fingers. ‘I like the way you think, Patrick. You’ll go far. But you can’t win the rat race if you can’t walk the walk – because it’s a dog-eat-dog world out there, and if you can’t stand eating dogs, it’s time to get back in the kitchen. Understand?’

  ‘Right,’ said the Deputy Director.

  ‘Watch this new trainer to the max. Watch her like a hawk, and if she starts poking her nose around – freeze her assets for good.’ He leaned back and put his feet back up. ‘Later. Ciao.’

  4 Sin and Synthetics

  ‘Then,’ Emily said, delicately sipping her drink, ‘Lord Hampton looked down and said, “Madam, I said that the Honourable Member needed the persuasion of a lady to stand at election.” Most embarrassing, I can assure you.’

  ‘What did you do?’ Carveth asked.

  ‘Do? I merely rose from my knees and vacated the drawing room. One has to keep some dignity.’

  They sat around a table in one of the company bars.

  This one was for lower-ranking workers, non-executives, and was called Norm’s. It had wooden fittings and stools – unlike Spritzers, the choice for more important company men, which had no seats and served only wine.

  ‘Well,’ said the artificial wife, ‘it is a woman’s purpose to make her husband happy, after all.’

  ‘ No,’ Carveth replied firmly, raising a finger. All thought of being a sergeant-major had vanished now: her mind was too busy concentrating on staying upright. Her finger meandered in her vision, and she tracked it with an effort.

  ‘No,’ she reasserted. ‘You do not have to do anything unless you want to. You get him to do it instead. That’s exactly what I’m talking about. You’ve got to listen,’ she added, her voice rising, ‘because this is feminism, right? You have a duty to great feminists like Emily Pankhurst and, um. . . Gloria Gaynor to get ahead. Because if a woman’s place is in the kitchen, a man’s place is on the kitchen table – on his back. I speak from experience here.’

  ‘It is a truth universally acknowledged,’ Emily added, ‘that all men are bastards.’ She paused and finished her Tia Maria and coke. ‘Would anyone care for a choral interlude?’

  Carveth looked over her shoulder at the small stage at the back of the bar where Yoshimi was belting out ‘Carwash’ on the singalongatron. ‘Job well done,’ Carveth said to the bottles on the tabletop.

  ‘So,’ she added, sitting up, ‘I hope you’ve learned something today, because I intend to teach you useful stuff for the real world. You there, Rachel! What’ve you learned today?’

  ‘How to operate a laser rifle and how not to whore myself to just anyone who walks past.’

  ‘Good! And with that thought I will leave you,’ Carveth added, lurching to her feet. ‘Tomorrow, we will learn some other stuff about guns and drill and all that. Goodnight, ladies: it’s been a pleasure.’

  She turned and walked out, a feeling of contentment swelling within her. I trained them well, she thought. My robot sisters.

  The door to the bar swung shut behind her. Overhead the neon sign flickered and buzzed. She sniffed and fished a map out of her pocket. Time to go to work.

  Carveth took a left, meandered down the corridor and found a door marked ‘Authorised staff only’. For a moment she wondered if this sort of work might be better done whilst entirely sober. Ah, but wasn’t that exactly the sort of thing that the company would expect? Her drinking spree was therefore a cunning ruse to fool them into thinking she was drunk, which admittedly she was, which was in turn a double bluff – or something. . . She slipped the keycard out of her thigh pocket and ran it through the lock. Apparently she was authorised.

  Carveth slipped through and closed the door behind her.

  She crept down the corridor, the carpet tiles muffling her boots. There were framed pictures on the walls: a motivational poster, a pin-up elf from Galaxy of Battles, a girl in leather smalls draped over some circuitry. The air was stale. She was in the computer department.

  As if to confirm this, voices burst out from an office to the left: two technicians, shouting over one another. One started laughing at his colleague’s stupidity as Carveth ducked down and crept under the window. She grinned at her own cleverness.

  Standing up again, she felt less clever. Her brain swayed worryingly inside her skull, slopping about in Bacardi like a picked frog in ethanol. She reached the lift, pressed the button and watched the big red digital display count up to her floor.

  From one of the offices a voice broke out in a snarl.

  ‘Liar, wicked liar! Computers don’t break, you fool! You broke it!’ The door rolled open and she slipped inside, remembered Dreckitt’s instructions and keyed in ‘sub-basement four’. The lift sank. Pan-pipes started playing The Safety Dance.

  *

  Dreckitt sat back in his chair and poured himself a shot of rye. He stared into the glass, reflecting how much whisky looked like the urine sample of a habitual whisky drinker.

  He took a sip and pulled the face he tended to pull when drinking. No matter how many times you swirled it round the bottom of the glass, Famous Teacher still tasted like tractor fuel.

  He got up and walked to the little window. It was snowing outside, pitch-black except for the lights on the landing strip. He wondered what was going on in Smith’s spaceship. Probably something cheerful. He grimaced and took another sip.

  The company radio stations played power ballads and synthesiser pop, so Dreckitt had brought his own records.

  At the moment, a warbling crooner was telling him that this was not goodbye, but au revoir. Dreckitt didn’t believe a word of it.

  Looking into the black, he suddenly realised that he was lonely. Carveth made him feel uneasy, as well as making him wince, but he didn’t feel quite so miserable when she was around. Even the perpetual rain and flickering neon of his homeworld would have been bearable with her. I ought to tell her that, he thought. Let her know she’s a doll. Maybe not: doll was probably the wrong word for a reprogrammed sexbot.

  Someone knocked on the door. Dreckitt opened it.

  A sour-faced security officer stood outside. ‘Company business,’ he said. ‘Step aside.’

  ‘I’m stepping,’ Dreckitt replied.

  ‘I’m here to search the room,’ the officer said, walking in. ‘Just a routine check.’ He took a scanner from his belt and ran it up and down the curtains.

  ‘Sure, it’s routine,’ Dreckitt said. ‘It’s routine, just like a kangaroo practising law. It’s routin
e as a two-bit grifter getting three aces against Nick the Greek.’

  The security man frowned, struggling to comprehend. ‘So, um, not routine, then?’

  ‘Damn right. Take the breeze, pal. Scram.’

  The man’s face hardened. ‘No deal,’ he said, and he reached for his gun. Dreckitt whirled, grabbed at the table and as the gun appeared he smashed the whisky bottle over the agent’s head.

  The security man crumpled like a sack full of old clothes. The smell of whisky was overpowering. Dreckitt lifted his pillow and took his pistol from underneath. ‘Too bad you wouldn’t leave,’ he said. ‘But then again, who does?’

  *

  The lift stopped and the piped music cut. As the door opened, light jazz began to play.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ Carveth said.

  She was looking across a marble hall at a bronze torso, ten feet high. It was stylised: the lack of detail made it eerie. The muscles of the chest were smooth slabs, the face featureless except for a stern brow and a bland horizontal stripe of mouth. On the statue’s plinth was one word: COMMERCE.

  Awed, she stepped into the hall. Her soles squeaked on the floor. Walnut panels stretched up the walls. Marble women stood on tiptoe at the edges of the room, holding up glowing balls. Everything was sleek.

  Carveth felt uneasy, watched.

  There was a picture on the wall beside the statue. She closed one eye to stabilise her vision. The picture showed a man in a double-breasted suit, big and healthy, staring into the camera with an expression that was at once jocular and threatening. He had a pencil moustache like W’s, but neater hair, and he looked much less ill.

  ‘Lloyd Leighton,’ said a voice.

  Carveth spun around. Emily crossed the hall in a soft hiss of skirt, her bootheels clicking on the marble.

  ‘The former owner of the Blue Moon Corporation, co-founder of Leighton-Wakazashi. He used to be the richest man in the galaxy,’ she explained. ‘Until he disappeared.’

  ‘I, um, I just needed some air.’

  ‘Of course. A fundamentally vulgar business, commerce,’ she observed. ‘Nobody of any real worth makes money. One either marries or inherits it. Lloyd Leighton made roller-coasters.’