by Tom Holt
And now here they all were, a thousand men and women who had watched the TV and read the polls and taken soundings at grass-roots level and knew that unless they jumped, they were finished in politics for ever. Below them, the waves frothed like genuine Italian cappuccino. Behind them, cameras whirred at ten thousand overcoated linkmen with their backs to the action. It was time.
‘Ready,’ said Dermot Fraud. A thousand best feet moved forward. ‘Steady.’ Editors the length and breadth of Docklands goggled at their screens, torn between the mass suicide of Parliament and SOUTHENDERS’ STAR’S UNCLE’S VET’S BROTHER IN BACKSEAT LUST TANGLE for tomorrow’s lead story. A lone bugler of the Household Cavalry played the opening notes of ‘Happy Days Are Here Again’, slowly and in a minor key.
Dermot Fraud closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
‘JUMP!’ he yelled. ‘Go, lemmings, go!’
As they stepped forward to enter the everlasting hustings, a thousand men and women took up the cry - ‘Go, lemmings! Go, lemmings!’ - or at least as much of it as they managed to get through before they hit the water. After that, a few of them managed to say ‘Flubbblgblbg’ before they drowned. As Danny Bennett later wrote, it seemed such a good idea at the time.
And then there was one only man standing on the edge of the cliff, facing the cameras and the billowing tsunami of microphones that surged towards him. Then, in a great voice, he yelled ‘I resign!’ and managed to make it to the helicopter he’d ordered that morning from the RAF just in time to dodge the charge of the cream of the nation’s newshounds (who, regrettably, suddenly found they couldn’t stop in time and tumbled over the edge of the cliff to their deaths; pity about that, but there you are, omelettes and eggs). As the helicopter lifted him clear, Fraud gazed at the waters of the Channel choked with a mat of bobbing corpses, and smiled contentedly, thinking of the words of another statesman of almost equal calibre, long ago and far away.
‘I did that,’ he purred, ‘with my little hatchet.’
Then the helicopter wheeled up, up and away, taking Dermot Fraud high into the sky, almost (but not quite) as high as the very gates of Heaven.
‘Anywhere around here will do,’ Maria told the angel. ‘Thanks for the lift.’
It was dark in Trafalgar Square, but it was a wholesome, natural sort of darkness, coming at the end of the day and being virtually guaranteed to cease at daybreak. The angel dropped her off and accelerated almost instantly to warp speed, waggling her wingtips in the traditional salute just before vanishing in a sudden starburst of blue light.
The pyrotechnics went unnoticed among the scintillating flashes of fireworks; tomorrow, a hundred million people would wake up and think, ‘Hang on, just a minute—’; now, though, they were celebrating the triumph of parliamentary democracy. Maria frowned; she’d missed something important somewhere along the line, but that was all right. She’d catch up later, or else simply wait until the news was stale and no longer important.
Under her arm, wrapped in brown paper and string, was a painting. It was a very old, extremely valuable painting, and first thing tomorrow she was going to take it round to Sotheby’s and have them sell it for her, fending off any awkward questions as to where she’d got it from by showing them the single sheet of paper that guaranteed her right to dispose of it, sealed with an official-looking seal and signed Squiggle, pp GOD. With the proceeds, she intended to buy a nice little cottage in the country somewhere, settle down and hound Happiness to exhaustion and then death.
‘Excuse me.’
She looked round, and saw a Thing.
During her brief but memorable visit to Hell, she’d learned the knack of not letting the way people looked get to her; besides, she was a painting, and so knew better than to judge by mere appearances. The fact that the Thing was a slithering mass of tentacles surrounding a nest of wobbly, pod-mounted eyes didn’t bother her unduly. It had a kind face, she decided. Or a kind of face, which is more or less the same thing.
‘Hi,’ she said.
‘Could you possibly spare me a few minutes of your time?’ the Thing asked politely. ‘Only I’m here doing research into what it means to be human, and I’d like to ask you a few questions.’
‘I’ll do my best,’ Maria replied. ‘Fire away.’
‘Thanks.’ The Thing sizzled and bubbled for a moment or so; something to do with concentration, Maria assumed. ‘What I’d like to know is, do you find me repulsive? Physically, I mean. Does my dramatically different physiological structure and the fact that I have all my major organs on the outside rather than the inside make it difficult for you to look at me without experiencing revulsion and fear? Please be absolutely honest,’ it added. ‘You won’t hurt my feelings, I promise.’
Maria shook her head. ‘Not in the least,’ she said. ‘We have this saying, beauty is only skin deep - in your case, in fact, considerably less deep, but that’s really not a problem as far as I’m concerned. Where I come from, there’s only the thickness of a coat of paint to separate the really gorgeous from the truly ugly; under that, we’re all hessian and varnish anyway, so what the heck? Is that any help to you?’
The Thing oscillated an array of glutinous pipes, presumably by way of nodding. ‘That’s extremely helpful,’ it said. ‘Exactly what I needed to know. Oh, by the way, did I mention that I come in peace?’
‘More than one, by the look of it,’ Maria replied. ‘Are those pipe things supposed to stick out like that, or should I call you a plumber?’
‘You can if you like,’ said the Thing, ‘but actually my name is Zxprxp. Is aplumba a term of respect, roughly analogous to our gfhhqibeng, literally translated as that which slithers translucently from the olfactory membrane of a fd*hjgs plant?’
‘Yes,’ Maria replied. ‘It was nice meeting you. Live long and prosper and all that malarkey, assuming that you people like that sort of thing.’
The runny stuff in which some of the Thing’s moving parts were bobbing changed colour. ‘What a striking and original sentiment,’ it said. ‘Thank you, you’re very kind and thoughtful. I’ll try very hard to do as you say.’
‘Ciao for now, then,’ Maria replied. She watched as the Thing scuttled a yard or so sideways and drained away down a grille in the gutter, shook her head vigorously to see if anything loose fell out of her ear, and went on her way. In her shoulder-bag were many doughnuts, and she had one last thing to do in memory of a departed friend before her new life began.
‘Ouch,’ Artofel muttered.
Someone had been fiddling with his chair while he’d been away. He’d tried adjusting it, unscrewing the knurled knob at the back and playing with the little levers at the sides, but nothing he did seemed to be able to restore it to that finely tuned pitch of comfort he remembered. Probably that damned vicar, he said to himself.
On the desk in from of him, the paper was piled so high that all he’d have to do was wait long enough and the bottom seam would turn to coal, then diamond. It went without saying, nobody had done a claw’s turn in the whole of the department while he’d been out of the office. While-You-Were-Out Post-it notes papered the screen of his VDU like flyposters on the window of a derelict shop, all of them commanding him to phone someone Immediately, Most Urgent. There was green fur in the bottom of his coffee mug, and things were growing in his waste-paper basket.
Last time I save Heaven and Earth, he promised himself. Should’ve known better than to expect any thanks.
He burrowed under the crust and unearthed a notepad, turned it to a fresh page and clicked on his pen. First things first: a report for the Departmental Heads committee on the recent events he’d been caught up in, starting with his sudden transfer to Topside and concluding with the news that a number of senior officers from the Arts & Leisure Department had left the service to form a company selling androids to the supreme beings of pre-industrial dimensions out in the back end of the spectrum as seen from the outer rim of the Andromeda galaxy, where (to quote their own words) they anticipated
being big fish in a small pond . . .
Ah, but you should have seen the one that got away.
He finished the main body of the report, then hesitated. He had just been given a rare opportunity, possibly unique for a serving member of the Service, to experience the world from the viewpoint of a mortal human. This experience had given him certain insights into the human mindset and soul-set that would in all likelihood prove extremely useful to his colleagues, particularly the field operatives and their immediate superiors. Duty demanded that he make a record of these insights and pass them on. He chewed the cap of his pen and frowned, trying to marshal his thoughts. Humans, he decided, are different from us. Not all that different; their greed, cruelty, intolerance, above all their all-pervading stupidity, give them a common frame of reference with Us that they could never begin to share with our colleagues Upstairs. Accordingly we have no problems at all understanding how they think. Our kind of people, in fact.
But would you want your daughter to marry one? No, probably not. Artofel leaned back in his chair and called to mind some of the humans he’d met: the Bishop, the landlord of the pub, the engaged couple who’d thrown bricks through his window. There was a difference, slight but completely irreconcilable, between Hell and humanity: basically, we do it because it’s our job, they do it because they want to. It’s the kind of difference that separates the serial killer from the man who works in a slaughterhouse.
In which case, do we really want any more of them down here? In due course, isn’t there a risk of them lowering the tone, having a damaging effect on property prices, leading impressionable young fiends astray and teaching them bad habits? In particular, Artofel couldn’t help thinking, there’s the stupidity. Bad’s fair enough, but what could bad and thick with it possibly have to offer to the residents of Heaven’s basement?
And then Artofel wrinkled his nose. Damnation, he muttered to himself, that’s what comes of mixing with them for so long, I’m even starting to think like them. Poor bloody humans, they need to come here, it’s the only chance most of them will ever have of a better life, of making something of themselves.We have so much to offer them. We must reach out.
Only connect . . .
Above all, we mustn’t allow ourselves the luxury of judging them by our own standards; there but for the grace of God, after all. So what if they’re nasty pieces of work, by and large? They can’t help it. After all, they’re only human.
Artofel closed his eyes, thinking of the robot and its countless clones that would no doubt soon be populating some other world, somewhere over the rainbow. It was a safe enough assumption to make that there’d be a Hell there, and a Heaven. In due course there’d be a Garden of Eden, a Fall of Robot; bad robots would commit robot sins, while unbearably smug and self-righteous robots would whirr and clank their way to the Promised Land, the place flowing with grease and graphite where the virtuous gain their everlasting reward. It would all come down to a matter of programming. As in that world, so in this?
Artofel ripped the sheet of paper off his pad, screwed it into a ball and dropped it on to the top of the mountain of balled-up paper that filled his bin. It landed, rolled off and fell to the floor. It was good to be back.Topside was all very well for a visit, but he’d really hate having to live there.
(And would one lot of robot saints burn another lot at the stake because of a difference of opinion as to the date of cybernetic Easter or the number of robot angels who could dance on the head of a pin? Probably, probably. There are three estates in the celestial order: one to err, one to forgive and one to clear up the mess left behind by the other two. Of these three, which do you think is the most useful?)
He sighed, plunged his claw at random into the magma layer of his back correspondence and tried to get some work done before lunchtime.
The angel deposited Len and the machine in Len’s workshop and limped skywards, rubbing her back and muttering. Having switched on the power and made himself a cup of tea, Len reached for a pencil and a scrap of paper and began sketching a rough design for a practicable perpetual-motion machine. He was soon so engrossed in this that the first he knew about the policemen was when the door flew open and he was hurled against the wall.
‘You’re nicked,’ said a voice behind his head.
True, he said to himself, in a sense; I did steal myself from the factory, so strictly speaking, I’m stolen property. That’s still no reason why these people should make me feel like I’ve just fallen off the back of a lorry. ‘Would you mind not doing that?’ he asked politely, as a policeman in a flak jacket kicked him in the kidneys.
‘Shut up,’ the police sergeant replied. ‘You’re under arrest for the theft of a machine, namely one Shipcock and Adley universal miller and turner, the property of Dunning and Wedge Limited. Come on, sunshine, on your feet.’
If the robot was here, there wouldn’t be a problem. I’d say Get ’em, robot, and pretty soon there’d be bits of them scattered about like swarf all over the floor. Instead, he was going to have to use sweet reason. ‘Excuse me,’ he said.
‘No,’ replied the sergeant, inadvertently standing on his hand. ‘Get the cuffs on him, Trevor. You two,’ he added over his shoulder, nodding at the machine, ‘bring that thing, it’s evidence.’
‘Hey, Sarge, it looks like it weighs a ton.’
‘Two tons, actually,’ Len said helpfully. ‘You’ll need a crane.’
The sergeant glowered at him ferociously. ‘I thought I told you to shut up,’ he snapped. ‘And before you bring it on,’ he shouted at his minions, ‘dust it for prints. Carefully. Don’t want chummy here getting off on a technicality.’
‘Okay, Sarge.’
As they bundled him out through the door, he briefly considered appealing for help to Neville, who was presumably still asleep somewhere inside the machine. Tell them it’s not me, he could have said. Tell them that what I actually stole was myself, using your body as a mere tool to assist me. He played the idea back inside his head and decided against it. For one thing, no matter how thick Neville might be, an appeal to him to come out and get kicked while he slipped back into the cosy cast-iron shell was unlikely to appeal to him. And in any case, did he really want to go back in there, spend the rest of the machine’s working life cutting the slots in bolt-heads, with nothing to look forward to except an eventual appointment with sledgehammers and the big magnet down at the scrapyard? If he stayed human, eventually they’d have to let him out; and there’d be other machines for him to use, new worlds of design and modification for him to conquer. He resolved to go quietly, or at least quietly punctuated by the occasional ‘Ouch!’
Who knows? Perhaps I’ll get a job in the prison workshop?
There was, of course, another alternative. There were highly placed people, Up There and Down Below, who owed him favours; or, at the very least, who could use his skills. If he yelled loudly enough, would they hear him and send angels with pickaxe handles and boltcutters to set him free? They should do, by rights, but he doubted it somehow. Trained machinists? Ten a penny. Stroll into any job centre and crinkle a fiver between forefinger and thumb, and you’ll attract enough skilled labour to build five galaxies.
Later, when the cell door had slammed shut and the key had turned noisily in the lock (obviously not a good fit; with a small file and an oilstone he could tune it so that its wards moved frictionlessly, but he had an idea that it wasn’t even worth offering), he lay back on the hard wooden bench and stared at the ceiling, allowing his mind to wander. It’s all very well being able to do things, he realised, but that’s never the end of the story. People - human beings - have to want the things to be done. And tools cost money, and so do materials; therefore it’s only the people with money who have the tools and the materials, and people like that only ever want one thing made, namely more money. Which is why better mouse-traps are invented by people whose houses are not necessarily infested with mice, and why the human race can make anything and has so very little (but ever s
o much more than they deserve).
I could dig a tunnel, Len mused. Piece of cake, digging a tunnel. First though, I need something to dig with, probably a length of jagged metal ripped off this bed. Now then, what would be the most ergonomically efficient design of digging tool that I could make, using the materials available? And when I’ve made a digger, I’ll need to make cunningly disguised receptacles to store the excavated earth in, and improvised pit-props to stop the roof caving in; and some light to dig by would be nice, maybe I could rig up a makeshift extension lead using wire from the bedsprings unwound and wrapped in bits of plastic peeled off the washstand trim. Hey, a crane for lifting the earth out of the hole would come in handy, how’d it be if I unpicked thread from my socks and used a chairleg and the lid of the chamber pot . . .?
Len’s eyes sparkled as he faced the new challenge, and human ingenuity coursed through his veins like the tame lightning in Dr Frankenstein’s laboratory.
Zxprxp poured himself into the cockpit of his ship, engaged the stardrive and watched the viewscreen as the stars became silver needles and the planet Earth dwindled into a speck of dust. He sighed, wiggled his livers until he was comfy and switched on the recorder. His mission was at an end, and it was time to compose his final report.
How was he going to put this? What words would convey in a concise and intelligible manner his impressions of the human race, enabling his fellow creatures to understand the inhabitants of the blue and green planet, justifying his research grant and keeping the heads of his faculty from stringing him up by his uhjlkhj? He took a deep legful of cyanide gas and began:
Initial report of Researcher Zxprxp on the inhabitants of Star 4555683463, Planet 3. Dateline 153/7355/915373
Well, that was the easy bit. The rest would require a certain delicacy of touch. How about: