“Considering you shot them through the chest and face?” said Mech. “I’d say it’s a pretty long way from ‘fair.’”
“Oh no, please, I won’t hear of it,” said Dorid. “The others will tidy those two away.”
“Others?” said Loren. “How many of you – of them – are there?”
Dorid had to give that some thought. “Oh my. Now there’s a question. A hundred, perhaps? It varies. As high as two, maybe?” He smiled, more confidently this time. “I’m afraid I don’t actually know. Less than four hundred, I’d estimate, but possibly a few more working in the lower levels. I lose track.”
“Jesus,” said Cal. “That must be some queue for the bathroom.” He shrugged. “But speaking of lower levels. The ship – your ship, I guess – got swallowed by the ground with a friend of ours on board.”
“Say no more,” said Dorid. “I shall send someone to collect your friend at once, before they begin work on the repairs.” He clenched his fists and waved them excitedly beside his head. “We cannot wait to get working on it again, after all these years. How is K-Seven-Zero Dash Nine-Three-Three-Zero-Seven Dash Zeta, by the way? Was he damaged?”
“Kevin?” said Cal. “He’s… well, I mean, he’s…”
Dorid held up an open palm. “I understand. We’ll assess the damage and discuss the best course of action with you then.”
“Uh, with us?” said Cal. “Why?”
Dorid’s face lit up. “Why, because it’s your ship, of course!” he laughed. He waddled down the stone steps and clapped his calloused hands together. “Now, is anyone hungry?”
“Dorid,” said Cal, putting an arm around the smaller man’s broad shoulders. “I thought you’d never ask.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Twenty minutes later, Cal sat at one end of a long wooden table, eating soup with a sponge. The trick, Dorid explained, was to dip the sponge an inch or two into the liquid, quickly raise it while tipping the head back, position above the open mouth, then squeeze.
The first time Cal had tried it, he’d missed his mouth completely, and almost drowned as half a sponge full of scalding hot gumbo had shot up his nose. His face, clothing and a foot or two in every direction around him looked like the aftermath of a toddler’s dinner-time tantrum, but he was starting to get the hang of it now. Still, he couldn’t shake the feeling a spoon would have made life much easier.
Loren had mastered the technique immediately, and was now confidently sponging soup into her mouth around the table on Cal’s left. On his right, Soonsho was bent low over the bowl, the sponge practically a blur as it moved back and forth from the bowl to her lips. Cal realized he had no idea when the girl had last eaten and that, all things considered, he should probably have offered her a sandwich when she’d first come aboard.
Next to Soonsho, Mizette was licking the bowl clean. The chair across from her was empty. Mech didn’t eat, and so Dorid had offered to have one of his clones take him to a repair station, and help patch up his damaged leg.
Dorid sat at the head of the table, directly opposite Cal. He had finished his soup, and was delicately dabbing the edges of his mouth with a napkin.
“This is good,” said Cal, licking the last of his broth from his chin. “What is it?”
Dorid looked blankly down at his empty bowl. “You know, I don’t have the faintest idea,” he admitted. “Some sort of vegetable, I expect. The kitchen – food preparation and whatnot – is handled by one of my others. Possibly more than one, actually.”
“Pretty sweet setup,” said Cal, nodding appreciatively. “Maybe I should get a clone to help with all my jobs.”
“What jobs?” Loren snorted.
Miz raised her eyes from her spotlessly clean bowl and licked her lips. “Oh, please do,” she said. “I can think of a few jobs two identical versions of you could do.”
“Miz, please, children present,” said Cal, glancing deliberately at Soonsho, who he was immensely thankful was sitting between them.
“Cantatorian, correct?” said Dorid, nodding in Soonsho’s direction. She looked across to him, just briefly, then back to her bowl.
“That’s right,” said Loren. “We’re taking her home.”
“Fascinating people. Fascinating,” said Dorid. “Their vocal range – the women, at least – incredible. Just incredible. They can hypnotize with their song, you know?” He smiled warmly along the table. “What’s your name, my dear?”
“She doesn’t talk,” said Cal. “Or make any sound at all, generally.”
“Oh.” Dorid looked taken aback. “A mute Cantatorian? That is a cruel irony.”
“She’s not mute,” said Loren. “I mean, we’ve heard her make sounds before, it’s just they’ve been… destructive.”
“You’ve never heard her speak?”
Cal shook his head. “No. We thought if she said anything, made a sound or whatever, she’d blow shizz up. Isn’t that how it works?”
“Not usually, no,” said Dorid. “Even the more powerful Cantatorian females can speak, although they have to be careful of their tone, obviously.” He tapped a finger on the wooden tabletop. “When you say ‘destructive,’ just how destructive are we talking?”
“Destroyed a rock guy, killed a load of gangsters,” said Cal.
“Flipped those cop cars,” Miz added.
“Yes. Flipped a load of cop cars. Big ones.”
“I see,” said Dorid. He leaned forwards on his elbows. “And how much effort did these incidents require on her part?”
“Well, we only saw the cop cars and the rock guy,” said Cal. “But not much. She just sort of, I don’t know, cheeped and that was that.”
“Oh,” said Dorid, suddenly sounded excited. “Oh, now that is interesting.”
Before he could explain what was so interesting about it, two other Dorids entered through a side door, bowed steeply to the guests, then began clearing the table.
“Thank you, gentlemen,” the seated Dorid said, smiling warmly to the others. “Most appreciated.”
“Yep,” Cal muttered, watching the clones at work. “I have got to get me some of those.”
While they waited for the table to be cleared, Cal took in the dining room. Being in there felt a bit like being inside a storage crate, thanks to the wood-covered floor, walls and ceiling. An enormous window took up most of the room’s narrow end. At least, Cal presumed so, but a heavy pair of crimson curtains had been drawn across it, making it impossible to be sure if there was actually a window there at all.
Along one of the longer walls were dozens of shelves, each one loaded with trinkets and nick-nacks. Cal had no idea what any of them were, although he thought one might be some kind of space clock, and a pretty ghastly-looking ornament could have been three duck-like things, but might equally have been one monster-like thing with three duck-like heads.
The other long wall was far less cluttered, boasting just two stuffed animal heads, a painting of a woman who looked suspiciously like an older version of Dorid, and a suit of armor fit for a king. Assuming he was a king who had recently been in an industrial accident involving a chainsaw, some superglue, and several other much smaller kings.
The mounted heads weren’t from animals Cal was familiar with. One appeared to be made almost exclusively of thin black spikes, while the other roughly broke down as twenty-percent zebra, ten-percent slug, and seventy-percent teeth.
The whole castle, inside and out, would have been more suited to an old black and white horror movie than the lair of a jovial space scientist. Cal was about to say as much, but Dorid caught the thought before he’d had a chance to vocalize it.
“I know,” Dorid said, looking around as if seeing the place for the first time. “My great grandparents built the castle originally, and it was just sort of passed down. I used to hate the place when I was younger. Used to scare the life out of me. Still does, sometimes!”
He leaned back, allowing one of the other Dorids to take his bowl. “Truth is, this is th
e first time I’ve set foot in this room for… Oh, I don’t know. Years, probably.”
He interlocked his fingers and leaned forwards, as if sharing some big secret. “But, well, the thing is, it keeps the riff-raff away. Half this planet has been scavenged. Picked clean. But this place, particularly once I’d sown the seeds of superstition and planted some rumors about the horrors that go on within its walls, has remained remarkably untampered with.”
He chuckled. “Of course, I also have a one-of-a-kind security system to defend against attack, but I rarely have call to use it.”
“So, these rumors,” said Cal. “Just what do they say?”
Dorid’s chair creaked as he leaned back again. “They tell of beasts and mutants and other monstrous things,” he said. “Nightmares, made flesh.”
“I see,” said Cal. He held Dorid’s gaze, watching for a reaction. “And tell me, doctor, just how much of that is true?”
“Uh, I’m not a doctor,” said Dorid.
“Oh,” said Cal. “Right. Really? That’s a shame, because it sounded really dramatic when I added ‘doctor’ in there.” He turned to Loren. “It did, didn’t it?”
Loren rolled her eyes and shrugged.
“Suit yourself,” said Cal. He looked along the table to Dorid. “The question still stands, though, doctor or not. How much of that ‘nightmares made flesh’ stuff is true?” He gestured around them. “Exactly what goes on here in Castle Tarkula?”
Dorid tapped his finger on the tabletop. His smile widened slowly as another peal of thunder rumbled above the castle. “How about you all come downstairs and see for yourselves?”
* * *
Cal, Loren, Soonsho and Miz clopped down a spiral stone staircase, following the glow of Dorid’s fiery torch. A warm wind wafted up from below, moaning ominously as it rushed past, as if in a hurry to get away. The torch’s flame danced and flickered, scurrying misshapen shadows up the narrow stone walls.
“So, uh, I’m guessing you haven’t heard of elevators,” said Cal. Something about the acoustics of the place made his voice come straight back to him as a scratchy whisper.
“Oh, we have elevators. Several, in fact,” said Dorid. “But – and please forgive me – taking you in one of those would grant you access to the whole facility, and I don’t yet know you well enough to allow that. Please understand.”
He glanced back over his shoulder and the shadows twisted his face into a mockery of a grin. “Besides, Mr Carver, I thought you’d enjoy the scenic route.”
Cal stopped, then was almost knocked down the stairs when Loren, Soonsho and Miz all bumped into the back of him, in that order.
“Hey, wait a minute. Wait a minute. I never told you my name.”
Loren tutted. “Yes you did. You told him all our names almost immediately after he offered us dinner.”
“I think you even gave him your date of birth,” said Miz from the back of the line.
“Oh. Oh, yeah. So I did,” said Cal. He continued walking.
“Almost there,” said Dorid. “Won’t be long now.”
The flickering torchlight, creepy castle and general Hammer House of Horror vibe of the whole experience were combining to give Cal a serious case of the heebie-jeebies. As they arrived at the heavy wooden door at the bottom of the steps, he found himself reaching for his gun, then remembered it had been confiscated, and balled his hands into fists instead.
“Where was the breeze coming from?” asked Loren. Now they were at the bottom of the staircase, they could no longer feel the warm wind. There were no obvious gaps around the door, either, suggesting it hadn’t snuck through there.
“Not sure, actually,” said Dorid, shrugging as he turned the dark metal handle set into the door. “Never been able to trace it. Not for want of trying, I should add. Now…”
He pulled aside the wooden door, revealing a chrome-colored metal door behind it. A light shone from a circular lens in the center of the door, mapping Dorid’s face with a criss-crossing illuminated grid.
Then, with a soft sshunk, the door slid upwards, revealing a long, brightly-lit and refreshingly modern-looking metal walkway beyond. Dorid stepped aside and motioned towards the open door.
“Please,” he insisted. “After you.”
Cal stepped through the door and into one of the top three largest rooms he’d ever been in. It was a vast chamber, easily a couple of square miles in size, and almost as high. The metal walkway was located fifty feet or more above the ground, with an industrial-looking elevator connecting the two levels.
The Currently Untitled sat on the ground level, resting on a large circle of slate. Dozens of Dorids ferried components to and from the ship, carrying away the damaged-looking equipment and replacing it with shiny new parts.
Cal leaned on the railing and gazed down at the ship. He’d never seen it from this angle before. He still missed the Shatner, but fonk, this thing was sexy.
“I’m rather proud of this one,” said Dorid, joining Cal at the railing. “I had a lot of fun building her. Almost considered taking her out for a spin myself, before Zertex came and took her.”
“You make ships for Zertex?” asked Cal.
“Not intentionally, no,” said Dorid, his lips thin. “I make ships for the love of it. Because I can, and because I enjoy pushing the boundaries. Sometimes, Zertex decides to take one. To show that they can.”
“Yeah,” said Cal, nodding. “Yeah, that sounds like them. Bunch of amshoops.”
“How did you get it here so fast?” Loren wondered. “The ship, I mean. After the hologram, it just sort of… fell. And then we were here.”
“Subspace,” said Dorid, as if that answered everything.
“Subspace?” said Loren, using just the right amount of emphasis to ensure he understood it answered nothing.
“Yes,” said Dorid, smiling gently and talking slowly, as if addressing an idiot. “Subspace.”
Cal straightened suddenly and pointed down to a spot near the Untitled. A little green blob was sitting on a chair there, wearing an oversized red hat. “Hey, Splurt. It’s Splurt!”
“Your friend?” said Dorid. He gestured to the elevator. “Come on, I’ll take you down.”
The elevator was an ancient-looking contraption, with mesh flooring, gaps in the walls, and – most likely – a list of Health & Safety violations a mile long. It rattled and shook as a thick cord of metal cable spooled out, lowering it jerkily to the floor below.
As soon as Dorid manually heaved the door aside, Cal bounded out, practically skipping across to where Splurt sat. Up close, the cap on his head – complete with ‘Engineer’ emblazoned on the front in gold – looked ridiculously oversized. Just from his eyes – because there was literally nothing else to go on – Cal could tell the little guy loved it.
“Look at you!” Cal cooed. He made a frame shape with fingers and thumbs from both hands, aimed it at Splurt and made a camera sound. “That’s one for the scrapbook.”
One of the Dorids smiled at Cal and came over to join him. Unlike the other Dorids working on the ship’s repairs, this one didn’t have a hat on.
“Hello there!” said the Dorid. “Friend of yours?”
Cal nodded. “I hope he wasn’t too much trouble.”
“What? No, no trouble at all,” said the Dorid, rubbing Splurt’s head through the hat. His smile widened as the others approached. “Ladies. Dorid.”
“Dorid,” said Dorid, returning the other Dorid’s nod. “How goes it?”
“Well, there was a lot of damage, and several of the systems were completely clogged with, uh, remains.”
“We had visitors,” Cal explained. “They broke the ship.”
“It’s in hand,” said the other Dorid. “Should have everything back up and running within the hour. Provided I don’t stand around here yakking all day!” He smiled and nodded at everyone again. “I’ll get back to it. Sir. Ladies. Dorid.”
“Dorid,” said Dorid.
They watched him head b
ack into the ship. “So, they’re all called Dorid?” Cal asked.
“Of course,” said Dorid. “Why wouldn’t they be? It’s their name, after all.”
“And everyone’s identical?” asked Loren.
“To a point,” said Dorid. “They have most of my memories, but not all. And, of course, from the moment they were created they began forming their own memories, based on their own experiences.”
“So, like, how do you know you’re the real one?” asked Miz.
The bottom half of Dorid’s face smiled, while the top half frowned. “I’m sorry?”
“If everyone’s identical, and all called, like, Dorid or whatever, how do you know you’re the original?”
“Well, because I remember building my cloning machine. I remember my failed attempts. The endless tinkering until I perfected the technique. I remember it all.”
“Oh, OK,” said Miz. She appeared to be satisfied by this, but that didn’t last long. “Only, won’t those other guys have those memories, too?”
Dorid blinked several times. He looked across to one of the other Dorids who was busily loading a burnt-out ship part onto a floating trolley. “Well… I mean, yes. Partly. However, unlike them, I remember everything.”
“Except the soup,” said Cal.
Dorid turned to him. “Pardon?”
“The soup. I’m just saying, you couldn’t remember what kind of soup it was.”
A flicker of irritation passed over Dorid’s face. “So? It’s soup. I’m one of the foremost inventors in this sector. In the galaxy. I create spacecraft which laugh in the face of conventional physics. You’ll forgive me if I don’t spend my time memorizing flavors of soup.” He moved off at pace towards the landing hatch. “Come. Let’s take a look inside.”
“Man. Touchy, much?” Cal mumbled.
“Well, you basically just accused him of being fake,” said Loren.
“She started it!” said Cal, pointing to Miz. He glanced back at Soonsho. The girl still looked as anxious as ever. “Hey, it’s OK. We’re getting the ship fixed, then we’re going to get you home.”
He scooped Splurt up, and the little blob wrapped around him like a backpack. “Now, let’s go see how things are shaping up.”
Space Team: Song of the Space Siren Page 9