by Brian Hughes
It wasn’t, she had to admit, the best of distractions. But oddly enough it appeared to work.
“What on Cenapod Major is that?” A finger was raised towards the set, Cissy attacking it with a bandage.
Allison sagged with the release of energy normally associated with punctured space-hoppers. This was much more convivial turf.
“That’s a ‘Television Set.’” The tone of her voice was slightly condescending but filled with the sort of good intentions that eventually lead to the bloodiest revolts. “It’s where we ‘Earth People’ get all of our information from. Very educational thing.”
She patted its top as though it was some sort of cube-shaped puppy. “For example, did you know that the clitoris is the only part of the human anatomy designed specifically for sexual pleasure?”
If Allison had deliberately set out to commit a Faux Pas then she might have been better suited to dancing naked round Hogan’s armchair. At least that was less subtle and would have probably put Hogan off sex for the rest of his life. But she’d been watching some very educational programmes of late and the words had tripped off her tongue before her brain had had time to analyse them.
Jealousy reared its ugly head in Cissy’s features.
“The clitoris...” Allison stumbled blindly on. “...Many scientists concur, is a left-over from evolution and dates back to a time when all humans were still androgynous. Whether or not it was intentioned, it therefore becomes the only anatomical appurtenance specifically used for pleasure. That’s because women on our planet, I suspect, are more in tune with sex than men.”
“And I suppose men’s nipples are just bolts to keep the chest in position?” Hogan thought for a moment before staring back at the television. “To be honest, Allison, when I said, ‘What’s that?’ I was actually referring to the massive mound of blubber on ‘the television’.”
There are some gargantuan women in America. The one on the Ricky Lake Show was of the sort that would have bitten the head off a whale for a snack.
“Oh…she’s American,” Allison explained. “They’re very emotional people.”
“They’re very massive people. She looks like she’s swallowed a Zeppelin.”
“There’s nothing wrong with fat people, Marshal.” You’d have had to strain your ears to discern the cruel inflection masquerading as the politically correct in Cissy’s voice. “We should give them all the support we can.”
She pulled the tourniquet a little tighter than it ought to have been.
“In her particular case, the best support would be a steel girder. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a woman with a pregnant face before.”
“A lot of these people have psychological problems. That’s what makes them...” Allison struggled for a less insulting word. She wasn’t sure why but she took this subject personally. “Overweight.”
“The only psychological problem she’s got is how to stretch her mouth large enough to fit an Artradian Moose in it sideways. Antlers and all!” Hogan frowned as the woman on the screen prodded her henpecked husband. “And judging by the volume of her voice that shouldn’t be too difficult. How come she’s got an extra band of head beneath her chin?”
“Now, now. It’s not their fault...”
“Isn’t it? You mean they force feed people on this God forsaken planet?”
“No…” Allison stumbled over her words. “I just mean that we ought to try and help them...”
“How about putting them on a diet?”
Although not one for understanding sarcasm, Allison could detect the trademarks of a bigot. And like all people whose opinions are the only ones that really matter she set about the conversion of the ‘moral deviant’ before her.
“I suppose empathy is something you don’t have much time for in space?” she ventured.
“Not at all. I just find it difficult to empathise with such a self-indulgent, overweight cow.”
Cissy thought it appropriate to throw in her own tuppence worth at this point.
“If you really want to talk about self-indulgence, Commander, shall we start with your favourite topic? Vis-à-vis yourself!”
“Cissy...” Hogan turned to be confronted by a pair of frog’s eyeballs that were much closer than he’d expected. “I don’t know why you want to defend the disreputable idiots who run this bloody world.”
“Because it’s MY planet. And they’re MY people!”
“Well…by the look of your teeth, that’s open for debate. On the other hand, not every ugly duckling grows up to be a swan. Some of ’em just grow up to be ugly ducks.”
Whatever it was that had been rapping on the inside of his skull for the past five minutes now broke through and announced itself to the rest of his brain. Hogan momentarily fell silent.
“Speaking of hideous monsters...what happened to that Tachyon bomb I gave you?”
“Ah...” Cissy’s brain slipped gear as well. Only hers bypassed second and went straight into reverse. “I er...well...I...left it on the space-craft?”
“WHAT? OF ALL THE BLOODY STUPID...”
A violent crash from the back garden chopped the sentence in half. The sound of metal falling into a deep pit rattled round the apartment and stole a heartbeat from each of its occupants.
The three of them stared questioningly at one another.
“What the bloody Hell was that?” Cissy’s china cup tumbled from her fingers as she scrambled to her boots.
Three-Nine-Five was having a most disagreeable day.
It had started out bad when his down-time had been curtailed to go off hunting some escaped smuggler across this damp and miserable planet. Water meant little to a sentient robot, other than rusting its joints. It was difficult to understand what the Old Ones found so important about the stuff.
The day had grown considerably worse when, after close scrutiny of one of the indigenous life form’s breasts, the aforementioned life form had head butted him in the groin and sprinted away.
And now the adventure had just realised rock bottom.
Three-Nine-Five had plunged down some bloody stupid hole that some bloody stupid life form had dug in some bloody stupid garden. He was coated from head to toe in unctuous mud.
As he tried to climb out of the crumbling burrow his fingers cut several deep grooves in the loose soil. Hushed voices approached reaching his earthy prison in snippets.
Peering up, Three-Nine-Five was confronted by a trio of faces enshrouded in the fine blue mist of night. Three silhouetted pillar-boxes poking themselves over the edge of the hole. For a moment they exchanged astounded glances before the largest of them spoke.
“An Empirical Guard!”
The rounder, more organic, head shuddered. Then clicked her fingers.
“So that’s what this was for...I had to buy the bucket and spade especially. Four and a half pounds from Ardwick’s. Quite reasonable really.”
Now the head with its own personal cat-flap explored the ground near by.
“Have y’ got a rockery, Allison? I could drop a boulder on it!”
It was fortunate that the guard couldn’t understand this. To Three-Nine-Five it was just a series of groans. Not the cleverest of species he had to admit.
He gazed down at his mud-lacquered boots.
A species pretty good at digging holes in their gardens, however, for no particular reason.
Hogan steepled his fingers into an arch, bent them backwards and then sprawled facedown on the grass.
“I’ve got a better idea,” he said.
He grappled over the crumbling lip of the hole, his fingers floundering in the darkness with minimal success. Several times they made contact with a ducking head. Eventually he secured a hold and gave a tug.
Three-Nine-Five emerged headfirst, flailing and shrieking, his false hair on the edge of being torn from his skull. Allison and Cissy watched as he was dragged onto the patio.
Seconds later something cold was levelled at his metal muzzle. His eyes loomed up into the
barrel of a semiautomatic plasma gun. It was empty but, as Cissy correctly surmised, he wasn’t to know that.
Hogan pulled back his cuff and extracted a cable from his bracelet. Then he crouched over the prostrate robot, sweat dripping from his nose.
“Hold still, old chum. This won’t hurt a bit...” All that could be seen through the shadows were the whites of Three-Nine-Five’s eyeballs.
Hogan had been wrong.
From the amount of squealing it hurt a great deal. It was difficult to tell exactly what was happening, Hogan’s hunched back blocking the view. But, whatever it was, it involved plenty of leg kicking and something electronic that went buzz from time to time.
At length he knelt upright again, grinning at Cissy who was crouching beside him with her hands on her knees.
“What have you done?”
“Patched ANN’s neural network into its brain. Now we don’t have to put up with its inane chattering anymore.” He ran his fingers along the wire to the back of Three-Nine-Five’s head. “I could have translated it all myself but I thought you might like to hear what excuses he’s going to make!”
Cecilia had never interrogated anybody before. She’d seen it done on the Humphrey Bogart films that her mother had made her sit through. However, she threw herself into the task, clicking back what she suspected to be the gun cock. Half of the handle collapsed in her palm.
“Right! What exactly is...?”
She didn’t complete the sentence. There was an immediate high-pitched chattering from her frightened victim. Several moments later the translation crackled out of the tiny speaker on Hogan’s wrist.
“Private Three-Nine-Five!” The guard looked up apologetically. “Sorry...but my name is the same as my number.”
“How come the Great War has ended up on Earth?” Cissy threw as much menace into the words as she could.
The guard swallowed and tried to back away from her dentures.
“I’m not allowed to reveal that information. Pain of death, sort of thing.”
The gun barrel circled his forehead before it suddenly shot off out of sight.
“There are worse things in life than death!” Cissy was starting to enjoy herself.
Her little adventure was taking a turn for the better. It was amazing how much fun could be had without leaving one’s hometown. Of course it helped if the rest of the universe was going to drop in from time to time. She caught a glimpse of Allison trembling nearby and for the first time in her life felt in control.
“Why are you hunting Commander Hogan?”
The guard fell silent. Its eyes began to roll around its skull resembling the reels of a slot machine. Cissy’s grim expression dropped. She turned to stare at Hogan who shook his head.
“Don’t worry. He’s just accessing his information banks.”
Moments later the rolling slowed. The Empirical Guard blinked twice before attempting to refocus.
“I don’t think you’re going to like this, Commander.”
At the same moment that something metal prodded his groin, Three-Nine-Five felt Hogan insert a persuasive finger up each nostril.
“Not as much as you’re not going to like this...”
“Well...” The robot swallowed, struggling to break the news as gently as he could. “According to the data-banks, and this has nothing to do with me you understand...”
His head was lifted off the floor as a painful bolt shot through his nose.
“Apparently, Commander…you’ve been dead for forty years!”
Chapter Twelve: The Truth Unfolds
At this juncture I’d like the reader to accompany me across the dark wastelands of the Greyminster night. We’re about to find out what’s become of Amanda Duck and to accomplish this I require your undivided attention. Because tonight we’ll be entering Amanda Duck’s soul.
First off we must cross the old town itself.
Over the bowing rooftops once more, weaving a path through the cluttered chimney pots. Looking down on the rat’s maze of narrow, twisted streets.
Some parts of the town are eclipsed by shadows passing soundlessly over the harvest moon.
Other parts sparkle in patches of silver where the moonlight hits the damp slate rooftops.
There it is! Patternoster Row, with its horribly exaggerated buildings. Down we head.
Past the girder arm that overhangs the street like a gibbet, a leftover from the days when the buildings were used as a wharf.
Patternoster Row was once a storage depot for Victorian traders, filled to the brim with exotic spices. But now, in its dotage, it lies dormant and grim, with hollow brick features.
Down through the walls we go. Walls which turn dark red as we pass through them. Down through the floor with its intricate modern wiring and its mouse droppings.
Down into the depths of the cellar where Amanda Duck groans beneath a dripping waterspout. The cellar runs the length of the terraced houses, pungent and foetid.
And now we approach Amanda’s head.
Welcome, dear reader, to the great Human Intellect.
Let’s check out the route before going further.
This is a map of the brain. (Editor’s note: Actually it’s not. For reasons of economy the illustration has been removed. I only hope that the reader has a good imagination.)
Not a human brain, it must be said. No, this is the brain of a baby chicken.
Exactly who goes around slicing baby chickens’ brains into segments we shall probably never know. However, if you take a good look you will notice one vital ingredient missing.
Self-awareness!
Chicken or human, scientists the world over still have no idea where the self-awareness is located. As far as they know it might be in the big toe. The soul is elusive. Apparently weighing just under one quarter of an ounce, it has been known to stop and pose for photographs shortly after the physical body dies. At the moment, however, Amanda’s is still anchored. We’ll make our entrance through the parietal lobe.
Hold onto your spectacles! We’re going in...
The first thing we notice is how dark it is down here. Hardly any signs of life at all.
Only suggestions of Amanda’s self-awareness prick through the darkness in tiny beads. Somewhere between the boundaries of counting sheep and the eternal nonsense of dreams lies No-Man’s land. An intricate collection of words and images where logical thought goes out of the window.
She could feel them coming. They felt archaic, as musty as mothballs.
She felt herself growing. It felt good and Amanda knew it.
But that was all Amanda knew.
“It’s a terrible shame about Amanda Duck...”
Cissy stuffed her hands into the pockets of her khaki trousers and kicked a stone, the barrel of the bazooka dragging along the pavement behind her. “So how come they went and did that to her?”
Hogan shuffled along beside her.
“Bollocks to Amanda Duck, what about me? Don’t I bloody count for something?”
“What about you?”
Cissy stopped in the glow from Walker’s Bookstore window and frowned. The sort of frown that said, ‘Of all the selfish bastards in the world and I happen to be stuck with the greatest of them all.’ Even if Hogan wasn’t of this particular world, it was the words ‘selfish’ and ‘bastard’ that mattered.
“So you’ve discovered you’re a robot? So what?”
“I’m dead, y’ freaky f...”
Cissy brought a finger up to his lips and stamped her foot down hard, crushing the half-formed swear word beneath it.
“No you’re not! You were dead! Now you’ve got an unlimited life span. There are people on this planet who’d give their hind teeth for that!”
“With clockwork parts? Knackered clockwork parts, thanks t’ your mother and her stick! There’s probably no room for real organs in there! What about my digestive tract? What happens when I eat? I’ll probably end up shitting whole chickens or something!”
“And
no!” Cissy interrupted his angry flow, cutting it off at the source. “No you don’t bloody count! You were the one who crashed into the Earth. You were the one who was smuggling those creatures across the galaxy! You killed Mr. Brasswick! And Henry Higginbotham!”
For the first time since all of this had begun Cissy had mentioned Henry’s name. It smarted in her mind. Her eyes started to moisten.
“My God!” Hogan stopped in his tracks, flabbergasted at the thought that had just entered his head. “I’ve got bionic bollocks!”
“Will you shut up about your stupid problems!”
“Stupid...?” The words became confused, tripping over each other like primary school children fleeing a fire. “Have you any idea what this is like? I’m hooked up to their central computer for Christ’s sake! Have you any concept of what it feels like to discover you’ve been dead for forty years and all of your brain patterns have been downloaded into an artificial neural net?”
“Of course I don’t know what it’s bloody like, do I? And to be perfectly honest I don’t bloody care!”
Several more words tottered to the precipice of Hogan’s mouth, peered over his teeth, and decided they’d be better off staying put for a while. The two doleful figures trudged on in reticence down the High Street.
He was dead! That’s what the robotic git had told him. No, sorry, not Robotic! ‘Corporeally challenged,’ that’s what Allison had said. To make matters worse he’d been killed in an incident off the tail end of Andromeda involving several Old Empire scout ships and a cargo of novelty hand-grenade lighters. What a bloody pathetic way to go!
The scout ships had pulled up alongside, enough firepower amongst them to blow the top off Orion. It was a wonder they’d managed to find anything left of his body at all. Just the odd strand of DNA wriggling through the cosmos.
And if that wasn’t enough the Empire Guards had picked him up, downloaded his memory into three Bio-Gel bags and rebuilt him. Out of crappy machinery made from gateposts as part of the War Effort surrounded by Neo-Flesh (the galactic plastic surgeon’s equivalent of Astro-turf). Hogan felt cheated. Short changed from life by the great Colonel Vosh and his company of hooded, mechanical minions.