by Toby Frost
Smith sighed. ‘I know,’ he said. ‘I know. She might as well be on the moon. In fact, it would be a damn sight easier if she was. We could just drop round for the afternoon then. It’s difficult to accept that she’s gone for good. She’s not an easy person to forget, you know.’
‘Not if you’ve heard her playing Bob Dylan, she’s not. Christ, she was lucky I didn’t ram that harmonica down her neck.’
Despite himself, Smith agreed. Rhianna had once stood in for an over-medicated member of Spaceport Convention, a reasonably well-known folk band, which had left her with pretensions of musical skill. She had a rather operatic voice that tended towards the squeaky, which, if not actually awful, was certainly an acquired taste.
Carveth shrugged. ‘She had her moments, I guess. She was clever, and good-looking, but on the plus side she was always good for a smoke. That woman had more grass on her than a cricket pitch.’
‘I don’t really know what to do, to be honest,’ said Smith. ‘I rather miss her, Carveth. Maybe she even liked me back.’
‘That whole trying to have sex with you thing makes me think so. Too bad you offered her tea instead. In future, remember that if a woman asks you to debag her, she doesn’t mean for you to put one less in the pot.’
‘Carveth, is there a chance you’ll ever stop banging on about that?’
‘At least I would bang on if I got the chance.’
He glanced away, staring literally into space. ‘It’s very difficult to know what to do. She just seems so far away, even if she ever was interested. Whatever chance I had, I missed it. I almost wish I could forget about her and find somebody else, but I can’t. Where else will I find someone like that again?’
‘Why not just get another one?’ Suruk said from the door. He stepped into the room and stretched his arms and mandibles and yawned.
‘Get another one?’ Smith cried, appalled. ‘She’s not a bloody cheese sandwich, Suruk. More like. . . a sandwich made of gold.’
‘So, inedible,’ Suruk said. ‘Completely useless.’
‘You know,’ Smith said, ‘it all reminds me of a song Rhianna once played. It said, “You don’t what you’ve got’ til it’s gone”. It’s only now I realise how true that is. I think it was by Motorhead.’
‘Joni Mitchell,’ Carveth said.
‘Well, same section.’
‘What, folk?’
‘No, M.’
‘Fair enough.’ Carveth turned her attention to the controls. ‘We’re nearly there. Look.’ She pointed to a speck in the left of the screen, gradually growing. ‘That’s it: the Proxima Orbiter. Funny how they all start to look like baked bean tins, isn’t it?’
Smith nodded. ‘Less 2001 than 57 varieties,’ he said. ‘It’s easy to get tired of space. It’s all rather black.’
‘Don’t feel bad, Captain,’ said Carveth. ‘I know it’s hard about Rhianna, but you’ve got to keep trying. I’ve been waiting for fate to throw me together with the right man – or any man, for that matter – but I always try to keep cheerful. You know, sometimes I think about Rick Dreckitt. I liked him. We went on a date and everything.’
‘He only took you on a date in order to kill you, Carveth.’
‘Yes, but he didn’t, did he? That’s a start, right? We could have had something there.’
‘A gunfight?’
‘Cynic.’ She typed their co-ordinates into the navigation computer. ‘Proc’s picked us up and we’ll come in on autopilot. We’ve got priority docking.’ She spun around in her chair and studied Smith. ‘Come on, Cap, put on a happy face. You’re depressing me.’
‘Just land the ship, would you please?’ said Smith.
‘Lady, gentleman and colonial life-form, you are clear to enter,’ the computer said, and with a hiss the pistons drew back and the airlock doors rolled apart.
The station docking hall was full of soldiers, full of activity and talk. Armoured men chatted with Proxima’s stevedores. Troopers carried boxes of equipment between them, jogging from electric trams to the airlocks that led into their own ships. Mechanical arms flexed from the wrought iron ceiling, loading and refuelling the vehicles.
Three Conqueror landships waited by the far wall while their turrets were checked, occasionally letting out puffs of steam like agitated horses. In the corner, an NCO argued with a clipboard-wielding simulant.
‘Convoy, from the looks of it,’ said Smith.
Technically, the worlds of the British Empire were self-sufficient, but as the war against the Ghasts intensified the battlefront shifted, and one colony after another was equipped and fortified to become the latest outpost of the Pax Britannicus Interstella. No doubt these men would end up as the garrison of some highly-productive factory-world that the Empire could not afford to lose.
An electric car rolled up beside them and a woman in RSF uniform looked them over. ‘Captain Smith?’
Smith felt the slight pang of annoyance he always felt when he saw RSF personnel. They had prestige, good pensions and, most importantly, access to Hellfire Space-Deployment Fighters, something of which he was secretly very jealous. ‘Ah, yes, that’s me,’ he said. ‘Here are my colleagues. We’re here to accept a very important mission, the details of which I can’t tell you.’
‘Great. Hop on. Don’t damage the suitcases.’
They climbed onto the back of the car and it rolled away down the long corridor to the docking offices. Smith pushed a rucksack off his lap and reflected that, although not a difficult man, he would rather have accepted the mission in something other than a luggage cart.
They passed little groups of dockers taking their second morning tea-break, as authorised by their guild. The cart rolled to a stop beside a metal door. ‘Here we are,’ the RSF woman said.
They dismounted. Abruptly, the door opened a crack and a gloomy oblong of a head was thrust into the corridor. It had a thin moustache and messy black hair, and belonged to W, the master-spy. ‘Ah, Smith, it’s you,’ he said. ‘Come on in.’
‘You’re just in time for tea,’ W said, ushering them inside.
They stepped into a large, high-ceilinged room, perhaps once a store, now an office made cosy by the vast amount of junk and paperwork lying about. On the wall there was a bad picture of someone who might have been King Victor. The desk was hidden under files, several maps and a scroll-worked computer. Behind the desk, a Factual Information Bureau poster showed a knight with a pencil moustache marching at the head of a variety of stern-looking citizens. The caption read ‘Forwards To Victory!’
The oddest item stood against the wall: a wheeled tea-urn the height of a man, made of dented, shiny metal with a tap on the front.
A small group of people in caps stood beside the massive urn, dour and serious. They wore short black coats over blue overalls and solid boots: guild uniform.
One grunted at the new arrivals; another gave them a sullen nod. A small, solid man stepped forward from the group. He wore the long brown coat and cloth cap of a high-ranking Union official. Behind his ear was a pencil of office.
‘Isambard Smith, Polly Carveth and Suruk the Slayer,’ said W. ‘This is Wilfred Hebblethwaite, assistant advisor to the Ministry of Food and the Grandmaster of the Collective Union of Plantation Production Associates.’
‘How do,’ the small man said. He shook hands with Smith and Carveth and said, ‘Does it bite?’
‘Not with my hand,’ Suruk said coldly, and they shook.
W nodded at the opposite wall. A simulant sat in an office chair, dapper and attentive. She had the refined, rather sharp features of a Type 64, one of the many models more advanced than Carveth.
‘Well hello there!’ she said, getting up. ‘A pleasure, I’m sure. Call me Hattie.’ She put out a hand. ‘Captain Smith, Mr Slayer, Miss Carveth – always nice to see a fellow sim.’
‘Hello,’ Carveth said.
‘Nice to see you again,’ W said. ‘Hope you’re all well.’ He coughed nastily into his palm, looked at it, thought better of
shaking hands and sat down. ‘I’ve called you here to discuss a rather difficult problem that’s arisen of late. But first let’s have some tea. There’s some cups over there, Miss Carveth—’
‘Right,’ said Carveth. She stood up, picked a mug off the side table and put it against the urn and turned the tap.
‘Get your hands off my nozzle!’ said the urn.
‘Bloody hell!’ Carveth cried. ‘There’s someone in there!’
‘Course there is,’ said the urn, and with a slow creak it rolled into the centre of the room. She stepped back, astonished. ‘I’m the Grandmaster,’ said the Urn. ‘Weren’t you listening?’
‘I meant for you to pass me the cups,’ W explained. Carveth sat down, looking rather shell-shocked. ‘I’ll put the kettle on. It’s important that these things are done properly.’
‘Quite right too,’ said the Grandmaster from within his urn. ‘If I hadn’t flooded my system with the stuff, I’d want a cup as well.’
‘We could tip one in the top,’ W suggested, filling the kettle.
‘Thanks awfully, but no.’
‘To business, then.’ W brushed down the leather patches on his elbows and crossed his long, thin legs. He was a scarecrow of a man: bony and unkempt. ‘Hattie. Perhaps you could give us a run-down of the situation in this sector?’
‘Certainly!’ she said, and a lens folded down from her Alice band and dropped in front of her left eye. A quick flicker of light burst from the lens and her features became hard and cold, the eyes a little distant. Hypnos, Carveth realised: the hyper-normative operating status of a top-range strategy synthetic. Hattie’s voice was quick and precise. ‘Status report, East Empire Company Sector Twelve. Full mobilisation. All available units diverted to front line to counter anticipated Ghast attack over sectorial edge. Six full divisions in immediate war zone. Fifteenth Fleet on full alert. Equipment and morale optimal. Sector defences graded A2, anticipated A1 in three standard weeks.’
‘Excellent,’ said Smith.
Hattie glanced round at Smith. ‘All defences optimal,’ she said. ‘All regular units are diverted to the sector rim. Citizen Guard units are being trained to take up local defence in the event of unrest.’
W nodded. ‘Unit strength of Citizen Guard?’
‘Fully trained,’ she replied.
‘Well, that sounds splendid,’ said Smith. ‘Should Gertie put his big red arse over the border, we’ll easily get him on the rim.’
W said, ‘But this mobilisation leaves our internal defences weakened. Were a major fifth-columnist move-ment to arise, we could well find ourselves without the manpower to put it down.’
‘Fifth columnists!’ cried Smith. ‘Those dirty traitors! Where?’
W raised a hand and coughed. ‘All in good time, Smith.
But first, a question. Our Empire hasn’t lost a major war since the Imperial Revolution and the fall of the Over-empire. Despite being civilised and amenable, we have a reputation for military success unrivalled among the Great Powers. So, what makes the Empire so good at fighting?’
Smith frowned. ‘Well, I’d say it was either a combination of superior equipment and training, or not being made up of foreigners.’
W stood up and poured the tea. ‘Close, but not so.’ He pushed their cups across the table, along with an extra one for Mr Hebblethwaite. ‘Look at what’s in your hands, and you will see the answer.’
‘China?’ Carveth suggested. ‘Is it Chinese people?’
‘No!’ W’s big hand slapped the tabletop. ‘It’s the tea! The tea is what makes us strong!’
There was a brief, not-wholly-comfortable pause.
‘Are you sure it’s not superior training?’ said Smith.
‘Watch,’ said W. ‘You, girlie. Turn the projector on, would you?’
‘I knew there was a reason I got my pilot’s licence,’ Carveth said grumpily, and as a projector descended from the ceiling on an arm, she pressed the switch. The room lights dimmed.
Elgar played. In the centre of the wall, a Union Jack fluttered. The words ‘Public Information Film – Private’
appeared across the flag. W pointed at the centre of the image. ‘Pay attention, everyone.’
The image of the flag cut to a desk: the desk in this room, in fact. W stood behind the desk. ‘Pay attention, everyone,’ he said. ‘This is a film about tea, sponsored by the Combined Horticultural Amenities Regulator and the Factual Information Bureau. Many of you may be wondering why you are watching a film about tea.’
The picture cut to a street on what might have been Ajax Minoris. A reporter thrust a coffin-shaped micro-phone at an old man. ‘What’s all this about tea?’ the old man said.
The film cut back to W behind his desk, lighting a roll-up. ‘Quite,’ he said. ‘Today, I intend to tell you about the importance of tea to our culture and its role in defeating our alien enemies. But first, a little history. Tea was discovered by Chinese people many years ago.’
‘See?’ said Carveth. ‘Chinese people.’
A picture of some ancient Chinese appeared on the screen. ‘Soon afterward, tea began to be grown in what is now modern Indastan. In the seventeenth century, tea was acquired by British colonists and taken back to England. It was not long before the custom of adding milk to tea was developed, shortly before the spread of British naval power across the Earth. This is no coincidence.’ The screen now depicted Nelson and his officers sipping tea on the quarterdeck of HMS Victory while, behind them, a rather disorientated cow was being winched aboard.
Scientists appeared on the screen, working in a cavernous laboratory. ‘These are boffins. Boffins such as these have proven, through science, that the addition of cow’s milk to tea causes a chemical synthesis, producing enzymes conducive to high levels of moral fibre. And we all know how essential moral fibre is in strengthening the morale, wisdom, bravery and downright decency of citizens everywhere.
‘Following the discovery of the proper way of drinking tea, the First Empire remained unbeatable in battle, conquering a wide range of scoundrels, despots and foreigners with the help of unlimited tea. However, the golden age of tea was not to last.’
The music became sombre, and the screen now depicted a group of feeble-looking aesthetes sipping some sort of cream-topped, sprinkle-spattered drink, like an anaemic dropping in a cup. On the edge of the picture, a pot-bellied lout swilled pop from a can.
‘During the period of decline leading to the tyranny of the World Government, tea was discouraged in what historians now see as a concerted and malign effort to poison the resolve of the Imperial People. Insidious corporations foisted unnatural drinks made of coffee and syrup on the demoralised populace. For that dark period the future of man was decided by others, until the Imperial Revolution and the fall of the Over-Empire. Now, we may rest assured that the strong arm of the honest tea drinker will never again be made skinny by the latte of foreign oppressors.’
The music changed again, this time to brisk Walton. A pair of citizens, a woman and a man, ran through a meadow hand in hand. ‘This is the future,’ W’s voice said. ‘Your future. The Empire lies in the hands of citizens like you, people ready to fight to defend democracy and decency from alien aggression.’ The man and woman had climbed a small hill, now dawn broke over them. The woman was pointing at something out of shot, while the man poured from a teapot. ‘We shall go forward and face our foes with weapons in one hand, mugs in the other. Let those who seek to oppress us remember that a storm is brewing.’
‘Jerusalem’ played, and the flag reappeared on the screen. Smith stood up instinctively, realised that no one else was standing and sat down. The lights came up.
‘Stirring stuff,’ said Smith.
‘It’s consumption of tea that makes t’army strong,’ Hebblethwaite said. ‘And, I may say, what makes your British worker the finest int’ Empire, if not int’ whole galaxy.’
Hattie nodded. ‘Statistical analysis of historical data indicates that moral fibre raises the eff
icacy of combat troops between twenty-four and sixty percent. Moral fibre is estimated as thirty percent more effective than numerical superiority, selective breeding, honour codes, religious fanaticism, and so forth.’ Her calm, dead eyes fixed on Smith. ‘The most effective factor in the development of elite troops is moral fibre.’
‘And moral fibre comes from tea,’ said W.
‘Good lord. Well, I’ll remember to have more of the stuff,’ Smith said, uncertain how he could do this without wiring himself up to a drip. ‘But where do we come into this?’
‘You need to see how tea production is managed on a galactic scale,’ W said, rooting about on his desk. ‘We need to look at the Empire as a whole. There should be a holographic projector here somewhere. . . and I put a map under it. Here we are.’
He tugged out an Ordnance Survey map of Known Space and opened it up. ‘Now, this large pink area in the middle is the Empire. At present, the main battlefront is down here, along these systems. Here, from Cerberus to Pleides, is where the main attack is expected to come, and where we’ve sent most of our heavy ships ready to meet the Ghasts head-on.’
‘Splendid,’ said Smith. He was familiar with the battlefront.
‘And here, near the border, is the Didcot System.’
Smith was particularly familiar with this dot: Rhianna was stationed there. He knew the distance from Didcot to a variety of other places, just in case he was going past and could find an excuse to divert a few billion miles from his course and drop round to say hello. He found himself smiling at the prospect of being able to look her up. Unfortunately, he had no idea of where in the system she was stationed.
W frowned. ‘The Didcot system has two settled planets: Didcot 6, which is used by Morlock settlers and, more importantly, Didcot 4. On Didcot 4, sixty percent of the Empire’s tea is grown.’
‘Can’t say I know the place,’ Smith said, surprised.