Falling Sideways

by Tom Holt

  It would, of course, all come out right in the end.

  The police would catch the real murderer, or Mr Yaxley would find the crucial evidence that would prove his innocence, or three samite-clad women in a white-draped barge would pull up alongside and offer him a lift as far as Avalon. It never crossed his mind for an instant that it wouldn’t all sort itself out eventually. After all, he wasn’t guilty, he hadn’t done anything wrong...

  Suddenly, for some reason he couldn’t figure out, the dog stopped growling and started barking furiously. Terror, like tea spilled on a document-strewn desk, flooded his mind and soaked into his instincts and reac­tions, reducing them to soggy impotence. He tried to say, ‘There now, good boy,’ but nothing came out except Ggg. He tried to breathe, but it was like inhaling custard.

  Then the barking stopped, and something started licking his ankle.

  ‘Ggg,’ he reiterated. By way of reply, he heard the soft slap of tongue on leg and various nuisance-phone-call noises. It’s possible, he caught himself daring to think, that maybe I’m not going to die after all.

  Very slowly and tentatively, keeping his legs straight, he reached down with his fingertips until they made contact with fur. Then he checked his position and gen­eral status; he was leaning so far back that his balance was nearly compromised, suggesting that the dog (assuming it actually was a dog, rather than, say, an amorous orc or a really big earwig) stood no higher than eighteen inches off the ground, if that. ‘Nice doggie,’ he whimpered, and something like warm, wet sandpaper flicked across his knuckles.

  At this point the People’s Front for the Liberation of David Perkins issued a statement. This development, they felt, was interesting and possibly significant, in that something that had promised to be unspeakably awful had turned out not to be so bad after all. Did this, they asked themselves, suggest a new trend? Would future historians of David Perkins look back at this moment and identify it as the point at which the tide of misfor­tune ebbed, turned and went out? It was, they concluded, still too early to make any firm predictions; but they were encouraged and optimistic, and maybe it might be an idea to quit standing in the middle of some stranger’s lawn and go and find Brother George.

  He took a step towards the light. The dog bit him.

  The yowl of pain was, of course, entirely instinctive. It also must’ve unnerved the dog almost as much as it star­tled David; the jaw pressure tightened, even as David instinctively tried to snatch his hand away, with the result that as he raised his arm, he could feel the weight of a squirming, kicking animal dangling from his hand. Just then, a powerful light came on, and he saw a small Dalmatian puppy swinging in the air like an old-fash­ioned pub sign.

  ‘Here,’ yelled a voice, ‘you leave that dog alone.’

  ‘Get it off me,’ David shouted, as the dog tried to swim in thin air. Every jerk and wriggle transmitted itself directly through the puppy’s teeth into the bitten part of his hand, making him feel as if he was being torn apart by teams of wild My Little Ponies, or eaten alive by Disney characters.

  ‘Put that dog down now,’ the voice continued, ‘or I’ll smash your face in.’

  (At this point the PFLDP was unavailable for com­ment.)

  A torch blazed in his eyes, and a hand clamped down on his shoulder and started shaking him about. Each was duly transmitted down into the swinging dog, with a corresponding sharp increase in pain and suffer­ing. He tried to explain the situation, calmly and rationally, but those poxy instincts of his were monopo­lising his voice for screaming purposes and refused to get off the line.

  All in all, it was a relief when something bashed him over the head and put him to sleep.

  CHAPTER SIX

  You were teasing him,’ said a voice on the edge of David’s consciousness. ‘Stands to reason: if you tease a young dog, it’ll bite you. Besides, he was only being friendly.’

  When he opened his eyes, the first thing that struck him was the ferocious whiteness of the light. It was Super Persil, fresh-snow-in-Antarctica, processed-bread white, and it dug into his optic nerve like a needle.

  ‘Poor thing was frightened out of his wits, getting shaken about like that,’ the voice continued. ‘What you should’ve done was keep perfectly still and said some­thing nice and reassuring to him. He really picks up on tone of voice.’

  David’s first assessment of his surroundings suggested that he was in a hospital: clean, sterile white plastic sur­faces, the steel-framed bed he was lying on, the soft hum of the unfamiliar machines surrounding him. But it wasn’t a hospital. He had no idea how he knew that, but he knew.

  ‘Where am I?’ he asked.

  Sound of a tongue being clicked. ‘Yes, Max is fine, thank you so much for asking, he’s running about quite happily and playing with his little rubber bone. Sorry, did you say something?’

  ‘Yes,’ David replied. ‘Where am I?’

  ‘Ah,’ said the voice. ‘No, don’t try to move, I’ll come round where you can see me.’

  David hadn’t bothered trying to turn his head to look at the voice’s owner, because he knew perfectly well what he’d look like. This one had an eyepatch too, but it was made out of some kind of shiny white metal, with two blinking red lights in the middle.

  ‘You’re George,’ David said.

  ‘That’s right,’ said George. ‘How are you feeling?’

  ‘More or less all right,’ David replied. He traced the source of the pain that was making its presence felt up and down his nervous system, and found it was coming from his heavily bandaged right hand.

  ‘It’s all right,’ George went on, ‘it’ll heal up just fine in a week or so once we’ve taken the stitches out. Which is more than could’ve been said for poor Max if you’d fallen on him, like you did your best to do. Can’t have missed him by more than a couple of inches, poor little mite.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ David lied unconvincingly. ‘Was it you who hit me?’

  George nodded. ‘That’s all right, too,’ he said. ‘Mild concussion, a scalp cut; of course, it bled a lot, scalp wounds always do, but it’s no big deal. You’ll be fine. You’d better get some rest now. I’ll bring Max in to say hello when he’s feeling a little stronger.’

  George stood up.

  ‘Excuse me,’ David asked, ‘but you didn’t tell me where this is.’

  ‘Later. When you’re up to it.’

  This time, George got away before David could ask another question. An automatic door purred open and shut somewhere out of his line of sight. The machines carried on humming, presumably because they couldn’t remember the words. David thought about sitting up and looking round, to see if there were any clues that might tell him where he was, but decided to postpone the investigation till later, when he wasn’t feeling quite so woozy.

  Anyway, he thought, I’m not in prison. I’m in a plain white room on my own and I don’t think I’m allowed to leave, but I’m not in prison. Always best to look on the bright side.

  He lay back and closed his eyes (just to rest them, of course). Something about the gentle vibrations coming up through the bedframe made him think that if he didn’t know better, he could easily believe he was moving. He emptied his mind (he found it strangely easy to do; just pull the plug and let the jumbled, disor­derly thoughts gurgle away) and—

  —Woke up sharply out of a horrible dream: a thor­oughbred nightmare, not just the usual going-up-to-do-the-reading-at-morning-assembly-with-no-clothes-on thing but something truly twisted and horrible. For a moment there (in his dream) he’d managed to convince himself that he was a seriously wounded fugitive from justice, tied down on a bed in the belly of a flying saucer that was whisking him away to some totally alien world. Hairy stuff.

  ‘Hello?’ he called out.

  One of the machines beeped, and some fitment or other swivelled round on its mounting, levelling an array of flashing lights at his head. He wasn’t sure he liked the way it was looking at him, as if it was trying to decide between mint sauce, m
ustard and horseradish.

  ‘Hello?’ he repeated. ‘George, are you there?’

  No reply; but two more machines pointed things at him, and a third made a high-pitch modem-squeal noise. At some level, its tone of voice reminded him of his mother.

  This is silly, he thought. Admittedly, he wasn’t feeling at his best and brightest, but he was pretty sure he could stand up. He slid to the side of the bed and swung his feet towards the floor. It was a surprisingly long way down before his soles made contact with the steel plating of the deck.

  (Steel plating? Deck? Geography wasn’t his strong suit, but as far as he could remember, Mr Yaxley had been driving west, along the A4. True, he didn’t know exactly where he was, but he was prepared to bet a flyer he wasn’t more than six miles from Slough. Wonderful place, Slough, it holds the gorgeous West in fee and the man who’s tired of it is tired of life, but it’s not a seaport. What was this place, anyway?)

  ‘It’s all right,’ he said to the machines, ‘I’m just going to stretch my legs.’

  One of the machines started barking at him.

  He stopped dead in his tracks. In the fallout shelter at the back of his mind, the PFLDP reassured him that it wasn’t really a dog, it was just an electronic gadget pro­grammed to make a noise like a dog — a very accurate reproduction, admittedly, close your eyes and you’d swear you were being pinned down by an enormous bull terrier with red eyes and white frothy drool dribbling down its jowls — and although there were any number of things in his immediate environment to be afraid of, this wasn’t one of them. On an intellectual level, he accepted that this view was perfectly logical and his fear was irra­tional. On an intuitive level, he nearly wet himself.

  ‘Now what?’ George’s voice, somewhere behind a par­tition or bulkhead. ‘All right, all right, I’m coming.’

  A door whirred open. ‘Over here,’ David shouted, over the woofling noises. ‘Help. Please.’

  ‘Oh, for crying out loud,’ said George. ‘All right, Fang, that’ll do.’ The machine immediately fell silent, twinkled some lights and printed out a sheet of clear plastic embossed with unfamiliar symbols. ‘What are you doing out of bed?’

  ‘I was just ...’

  ‘Well, don’t.’ George picked up the sheet of plastic, glanced at it and clicked his tongue. ‘That’s no good,’ he said, ‘we’ll have to do them all over again. All right, back on the bed.’

  David did as he was told. ‘Will you please tell me where I am?’ he asked. ‘That’s not unreasonable, is it?’

  George sighed. ‘If you insist,’ he said. ‘You’re on board the survey ship Uuuuurk.’ He looked at his watch. ‘By now, we’re probably a few hundred uurk from the outer spine of the Casserole nebula.’ He grinned. ‘Bet you wish you hadn’t asked.’

  Although David had had his suspicions, he’d dis­missed them as the after-effects of concussion or latent insanity. ‘We’re on a spaceship,’ he said.

  ‘That’s right, yes.’ George frowned. ‘You mean Humphrey didn’t tell you?’

  ‘Humphrey?’

  ‘My brother, Humphrey Yaxley. He sent you. Didn’t he?’

  David nodded. ‘He said he was taking me somewhere I’d be safe,’ he added quietly.

  ‘Safe.’

  ‘From the police.’

  George nodded slowly, twice. ‘Well, he was right about that,’ he said. ‘Absolutely no danger of running into the fuzz where we’re going, so I guess you could say it was safe. In a sense. I mean, it all comes down to pri­orities, really, and what you’re most afraid of.’

  David realised that he couldn’t move his toes. ‘How do you mean,’ he said, “‘in a sense”?’

  George looked away. ‘I’m afraid it sounds to me like my brother wasn’t entirely straight with you,’ he said. ‘Well,’ he added, ‘he’s a lawyer, asking him to be straight with anybody’s like trying to get a nuclear bomb to join CND. Anyway, I asked him to find me someone — a vol­unteer, naturally, and someone with no close family.

  So you’re on the run from the police, are you?’ David nodded.

  ‘Shrewd thinking,’ George said, chewing his lower lip.

  ‘I mean, the best way to make sure somebody’s not going to be missed is to choose a subject who’s known to be doing his best not to be found. What was it you’re supposed to have done?’

  ‘They think I killed your brother William.’

  ‘Oh. Bill’s dead, is he?’

  ‘Apparently.’

  George shrugged. ‘Plenty more where he came from,’ he said. ‘Now, would you mind lying a bit straighter? Thanks.’

  Strange family, David thought, as George tapped a few keys on a pad. He’d known stranger, mind, includ­ing his own. ‘I didn’t do it,’ he added.

  ‘Sorry, do what?’

  ‘I didn’t kill your brother.’

  ‘Ah. That’s all right, then. Now, this won’t hurt a bit.’ A machine whirred and something on a folding metal arm, like a self-propelled dentist’s drill, started to move towards him. David jumped up like a startled rabbit and huddled on the far edge of the bed.

  ‘Calm down,’ George said crossly. ‘It’s just going to scan you, that’s all. It’s done it once already, while you were asleep.’

  The arm jerked a little closer, and stopped. George muttered something under his breath and tapped some more keys.

  ‘You’re examining me,’ David said.

  ‘That’s right. Don’t worry,’ George added reassur­ingly, ‘you won’t feel a thing.’

  ‘I won’t?’

  ‘Of course not, we aren’t butchers. All the intrusive procedures and amputations and stuff are done under anaesthetic.’

  For some reason, David didn’t find this quite as reas­suring as presumably he was supposed to. ‘Mr Yaxley never said anything about this,’ he muttered. ‘What’re you going to do to me?’

  ‘Ah.’ George looked uncomfortable, as if he’d just discovered a hedgehog in his trousers. ‘Well, that’s why I distinctly told Humphrey I wanted a volunteer. I’m going to have to explain that volunteer doesn’t just mean not-dragged-on-board-kicking-and-screaming. He sometimes has difficulty with the finer shades of meaning. Professional hazard, I guess.’

  The metal arm pounced like a cat and stopped an inch above the top of David’s head. He found that he couldn’t move at all. ‘Answer the bloody question,’ he whispered.

  ‘Do I have to? It’ll only make you miserable.’

  ‘I can live with that.’

  ‘Oh, you won’t have to. Not for very long, anyhow. Really, I’d rather not say; you see, panic and fear and anger and all that sort of stuff, they all have quite marked effects on the chemistry of the brain, and that really screws up the accuracy of the data. The same goes for elation and euphoria, of course, though I can’t see that being too much of a problem.’ He sighed. ‘I’m going to be so cross with Humphrey next time I see him.’

  David could feel his eyelids drooping, and remem­bered what George had said about anaesthetics. ‘That’s enough,’ he said. ‘I’m not a volunteer, so leave me alone and turn this thing round immediately.’

  George raised an eyebrow. ‘So you can go back to Earth, you mean?’

  ‘Too bloody right.’

  ‘Would that be such a good idea?’ George said, shak­ing his head. ‘I mean, if the police are after you—’

  ‘Doesn’t matter. I want to go home, now.’

  ‘Sorry.’ George pulled a stern face, though it was pretty obvious he wasn’t happy with the situation. ‘I really wish I could help you, but it’s out of the question. You’ve got no idea how rigid the Uuuurk are when it comes to paperwork.’

  ‘Who the hell are the — what you just said.’

  ‘The Uuuurk,’ George repeated. ‘My bosses, the people who built this ship. You see, I’ve already filed a requisition order, so as far as they’re concerned the experiments already been done. If I abort it now, I can’t go back to them for any more funding. This is all Humphrey’s
fault,’ he went on, scowling horribly. ‘I sup­pose he thought he was being clever, but if he’d just stuck to doing as he was told—’

  ‘I couldn’t give a toss about your funding.’ David meant it to be a shout, but it came out as a comic little squeak, Donald Duck doing a Bugs Bunny imperson­ation. ‘You can’t just kill me for the sake of some rotten science project. I’m a human being.’

  George nodded. ‘That’s precisely why I can,’ he said. ‘Of course there are safeguards, pages and pages of them. You thought Homo sapiens was anal about rules and regulations, you should see the Uuuurk directives governing the humane treatment of lab specimens. Every time I try and deal with all that stuff, I end up wishing I was the one in the tank . . . Buggery,’ he added, ‘look at these endorphin readings. You’ve gone and got yourself all worked up and upset, I won’t be able to get anything useful out of you for at least six hours. Are you feeling hungry? I can get you a sand­wich.’

  It occurred to David that if he were to say yes, the best possible outcome would be that George would go away and fetch it, affording him an opportunity to escape, and the worst possible outcome would be that he’d get a sandwich. ‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘What’ve you got?’

  ‘Ham,’ George replied. ‘Cheese and pickle. Or I could do you toasted cheese, if you’d rather.’

  ‘That’d be great. Thanks.’

  ‘Don’t mention it,’ George said. ‘Least I can do, really; and it’s sort of traditional, the hearty breakfast and all. Meanwhile, you lie back and take it easy, try and think pleasant, calming thoughts. Summer meadows, stuff like that. I won’t belong.’

  ‘Please don’t rush on my account,’ David replied. ‘Really.’

  George nodded. ‘Remember,’ he said, pausing in the doorway, ‘summer meadows.’

  ‘Summer meadows,’ David said. ‘With buttercups and cowslips.’

  ‘Whatever works best for you.’