2000 Light Years from Home (James London)

by Iain Benson

  “Nice of you to warn us,” Mary said. “We can start getting prepared.”

  “Would you like me to send you the date of the invasion, and where it will happen?” Wishbone asked. “I don’t mind you knowing as it will have very little impact on the final outcome. In fact, if you could bring all your weaponry to one place, it will make it so much easier. It took three days to do the Middle East, I’d rather not have to wait that long.”

  Strains of Hall of the Mountain King came from the mobile phone on the table besides Wishbone. He picked it up and glanced at the screen. “Ah,” he said, “Sorry about this ladies and gentlemen, we’re taking Russia today, and it would appear there’s a slight hiccup. I will just have to make a short phone call.”

  “They are proving too great a power?” Murray asked, with a sardonic smile. “They’re quite a formidable force.”

  “No, no, nothing like that,” said Wishbone. “I was hoping to be able to test a new adaptation for my soldiers, but the Russians have surrendered after half an hour. That is such a disappointment. Perhaps the Chinese will prove more of a challenge at the weekend.”

  Wishbone picked up the handset and quickly typed a message asking Janet and John to increase production.

  “I must say,” said Curr. “These soldiers of yours look remarkably alike. Are they clones?”

  “In a manner of speaking,” Wishbone replied, putting the phone back down. “These two have identical DNA, but more in the manner of twins than clones. Cloning would suggest that I cloned them from something.”

  While Wishbone was talking, Murray had produced a handgun from his shoulder holster and fired at one of Wishbone’s soldiers. The bullet thudded into the panelling off to the side of the soldier Murray managed to hit. Even while the deafening noise and gun smoke were dissipating, one soldier had moved into position to secure Wishbone and the other was beside Murray removing the weapon from his hand. For good measure, the gun was crushed.

  “Whereas,” Wishbone continued as though nothing had happened, “they’re a kind of amalgamation. For example, they’re bulletproof. A small dash of armadillo provided that trait.”

  “Genetic engineering?” Mary Curr said; surprise evident in her voice and from the extra arch to her left eyebrow. ”Impressive.”

  “Not particularly,” Wishbone replied modestly. “Mammalian DNA is so malleable, I could probably throw in marsupial and it would still work, and save me having to provide clothing with pockets.”

  Wishbone arose and addressed the assembled dignitaries in Arabic. “If you can get your relevant leaders to write something along the lines of ‘We hereby give notice that Kyson Wishbone is in sole charge of our country’ that would be most useful. You’ve got until the weekend.”

  “And if we don’t?” asked a Jordanian prince.

  Wishbone shrugged. “Then by Monday, you won’t have a country. I never liked this idea of parcelling up bits of land and installing absolute rulers over it. It’s a guaranteed way to keep people fighting over the imaginary lines that they call borders. Perhaps that was why you did it? It does focus the small people’s minds quite a lot. Who knows, this time next month, you may all be thanking me when you have ‘Earth’ instead of two hundred and odd countries.”

  “You can’t win,” Mary Curr replied, also in Arabic. “The people will rise up against you. Nationhood and sovereignty are important to them.”

  “They can try,” said Wishbone. “But let’s face it you can’t even agree how many countries there are among yourselves. Is Monaco a country? FIFA think so, but the UN and Wikipedia don’t. Even China’s contentious. There are countries that only recognise Taiwan.”

  Wishbone threw his hands up and shrugged. “You’re all just mental when it comes to these lines that have to get redrawn all the time. But don’t worry, that won’t be a problem in a few weeks. How does the United States of the People’s Republic of Earth sound to you? I’ve been playing with names to call you. Wishbone’s Dictatorship, whilst accurate, lacks certain finesse.”

  “You will be stopped!” Murray shouted as Wishbone headed out of the door at the back of the room with his soldiers right behind him. “There’s always a hero when you need one!”

  Wishbone paused before leaving. “You watch too many movies, Mr Murray. Where is your hero?”

  Chapter 5

  In which London is thrown into space

  London woke up to his third day of incarceration. It started much like his first day and his second day. Xia was trying to teach him the language spoken by everybody else, Vera had managed to get hold of a rubber ball from somewhere and had taken to bouncing it off the wall.

  “I don’t know what I would have expected out of an alien prison,” London admitted while they took a break. “But boredom probably wasn’t it.”

  “It is a cruel and unusual punishment,” Xia admitted. “It has you almost gagging for something to happen. You have to remember, I’ve been here for about twenty days longer than you. I was at the point of throwing myself into space until you arrived.”

  “What’s the galaxy like?” London asked. “Have you seen much of it?”

  “I saw a fair bit early on,” Xia said. “The milk smugglers who kidnapped me delivered all over. I also saw a fair bit while Vera and I were looking for his enemy. It’s probably not as exotic as you would think.”

  “Is there a planet where all the tubs without lids live?” London asked. “I have a lot of lids, and no tubs. They must be somewhere.”

  “My parents had a Chinese restaurant in Rome,” Xia said. “So I know what you mean, we always had more lids than tubs. However, no, there isn’t.”

  “Is there a desert world with two suns?” London asked. “Or, perhaps there is a thick jungle planet?”

  “Yes,” Xia conceded. “I’ve not seen them. Most of the places we’ve been to tend to be similar to this place. They tend towards a lot of buildings, space ports, places to sleep, places to eat. That’s what is really needed in a world, I guess. There’s not much point in living in a place where it’s hard.”

  “True enough,” London said.

  They were about to restart their lessons in Galactaranto (as London thought of it), when four insect guards and a tic-tac marched in a straight line across the room towards them.

  “I think escape time is coming up,” said London, indicating with a nod of his head the phalanx approaching.

  Xia rattled off something in Galactaranto to Vera, who curled his lip over his nose, and replied.

  “Vera’s ready,” said Xia. “I’m not sure that it will work, but like you said, we’re going to be thrown out of an airlock, so why not?”

  The tic-tac stopped at the group and looked at Xia, then at London, then back again. It took a small device out of its pocket, glanced at it. It looked back at London, back at Xia.

  “Umpire frangible otter, Xia,” said the tic-tac.

  “He asked which one I am,” Xia translated.

  In Galactaranto, London replied “I am” as did Xia.

  The tic-tac looked at the two of them again.

  “Um pyre frangible otter, Xia?” it asked.

  “Karen,” said both Xia and London.

  The tic-tac rattled off a series of instructions.

  “She bought it,” Xia said. “We’re both to follow her.”

  “It’s a girl?”

  “No,” Xia replied as they got to their feet and followed two of the insects, with the other two bringing up the rear. “They don’t really have genders, they lay eggs and then other Kurian fertilise them. They have egg wards and when they feel like fertilising an egg, they go in.”

  “I’m not sure I want to see that,” said London.

  “It’s worse than you think,” said Xia, seemingly relishing in putting London off his lunch. “You see the black hairs on their heads? That’s where they release their, for want of a better word, pollen.”

  London almost got to see the previous day’s lunch again. He’d touched Warsnitz’s ha
ir. No wonder he, she, it’d giggled.

  There were a dozen more insects were standing on the other side of the door in case there was a mass rush of prisoners to the currently open exit. However, the prisoners were bored so witless, they could have left the door open and nobody would have escaped. Not until after they’d been fed anyway.

  The corridor was as long and featureless as London remembered. There was nowhere to hide; a room of guards at one end and a prison at the other. They walked down to the control room.

  “Half kicking curtain,” the tic-tac in the control room said.

  “Mitchell cabin,” the other replied.

  “Otter Xia?” the control room Kurian asked.

  “Karen,” London and Xia replied, looking and grinning at each other.

  The two tic-tacs had a brief rapid conversation that sounded like a dolphin ordering pizza. In the end, an arrangement was reached and London was ushered out with Xia and Vera.

  “Laminate,” the tic-tac said.

  There was a strange assurance from the insects and the tic-tac that they would not try and escape. They were not shackled, and though they had four insect guards, they didn’t seem particularly alert.

  “Aren’t they worried we’ll try and escape?” London asked.

  “I shouldn’t think so,” Xia replied. “We’re on a space station, remember? They can fairly easily find you again.”

  “It’s a rather large space-station,” London said. “People can hide in New York city for years without being found. And this place is bigger than that.”

  “I wouldn’t really know,” said Xia. “I’ve never been to New York. This is not a big station. There are bigger ones. Some are much bigger.”

  “Even so, there must be a lot of places to hide.”

  “They can see where life signs are,” said Xia. “That plus everywhere is monitored, yes, they will find you.”

  “Well, I suppose that is the point,” London said.

  Vera said something to Xia, she replied, and the lip curl smile returned.

  “We’re nearly there,” Xia said to London.

  On cue, the doors opened.

  “Ready?” London asked.

  “Ready,” Xia said.

  The doors opened onto a silvery corridor stretching in both directions. London took out his gun and shot the pipe at the junction of ceiling and wall. He had no idea what it carried, but pipes always carried something important. London got lucky; it was the heating control duct that he hit, part of the system that kept the entire station at just below a comfortable temperature. The corridor was flooded with hot, misty air. London ran left, Xia and Vera ran right. The insects were blinded by the heat, and did not know which way to run or shoot.

  London had got lucky, but elsewhere on the station, they were suddenly without heat and needed an extra blanket that night.

  The momentary confusion allowed London to get away from his captors. He knew a few words in Galactaranto, and Xia had shown him how to read some of the signs. Once he’d put some distance between himself and the insects, London skipped sideways, his head tilted, eyes squinting, looking at the walls from the corners of his eyes. Eventually he saw the elevator symbol. London waved at the door open symbol. The elevator was present. Unlike on Earth when every elevator is consistently on the floor furthest from where you call it.

  “Nostril hair,” said London running into the elevator. His best chance of evading capture as long as possible was to head to the more populous and criminal areas of the station. And that meant leaving the administration section.

  Xia had given London a brief lowdown on the station. She didn’t know it well enough to give him directions, but he knew the word for ground floor and that he had to head to the left on leaving, avoiding public transport.

  There was a chance, London knew, that the insects would be waiting at the ground floor for him as he came out, at which point the whole escape plan would be over very quickly. The builders of the station had a distinct inability to build cover into any of their structures, the elevator was no exception. London crouched and readied himself. There was no sensation of moving in the elevator, the doors closed, and sometime later the door opened again, he could have gone up or down to the ground floor, or even sideways, there was no sensation.

  No insects waited as London erupted from the lift into a large concourse. There were insects around, scattered about the high ceilinged room. There were queues of aliens against one wall, booths of some description in the middle and the outside – if that word can be applied in a space station – through a long set of open doors. London could hear no alarms nor see flashing lights and there was no sign of any rushing aliens.

  There was always the chance that Xia and Vera were the focus of the hunt. After all, Xia had mentioned that the reason they’d not been seen quickly was that there was something special about Vera. He couldn’t worry about that right now, he had to become as hard to find as possible, without being impossible to find. London spotted a globe shaped device in the ceiling that he felt was a camera. He shot it out, hoping this would ensure the insects concentrated on finding him first.

  London emerged from the admin building onto a street. It felt like it was outside. On either side of a moving walkway, buildings rose up into the murky darkness. Somewhere up there were the spacecraft that could take him home. There were a lot of obstacles between him and such an escape though. Language, directions and being hunted were just three of the more pressing ones.

  London discovered that moving walkways had similarity with those in human airports, in that groups of people in no particular hurry blocked it completely. This forced him to stop jogging, leave the walkway, sprint past them and get back on again. He had no way of knowing if he was getting unusual looks from the other pedestrians, as every look they had looked unusual to London.

  There was a preponderance of the tic-tac aliens on this station, with a scattering of other species. One looked like a reared up slug, another looked like a multi-coloured pompom. London though that the latter looked cute.

  “I heard that,” London thought for no apparent reason. The thought confused him enough to slow down momentarily.

  After keeping moving for about half an hour, London reached what was obviously the less salubrious part of the station. That bit of the city that students are warned about during Fresher’s week. The bit where the people who used to live “over there” live, because “over there” now has a continental style café and artisan bakery. It was a melting pot of colour, styles and smells. None of the smells were pleasant.

  Fortunately, it was the kind of area where nobody attracted any attention on the off chance that they took displeasure at the attention and introduced the attention giver to their own intestines. London was able to leave the walkway and melt into the crowd. The buildings were still tall, stretching up beyond the limits of vision, but here at ground level there was a general feel that there was less maintenance going on. The buildings themselves were a mixture of residential and retail.

  A variety of odours on the artificial breeze made London think of food. Having nothing approaching local currency, London had to ignore the messages coming from the vicinity of his stomach. He believed he could probably beat one of the tic-tacs in a fight. For a start, he could probably throw them far enough that by the time they got back to him, they’d have forgotten what happened.

  London passed under a building’s overhang glancing at the array of electronic equipment on sale at a market stall. He didn’t recognise any of it. Eventually, London found another of the globe devices that looked like a camera. London went and presented himself to it. If Xia was right, that meant that they now knew exactly where he was. When he felt that they had seen him, London backed away from the camera and ducked down between two buildings.

  Away from the main street, even the light was afraid to go. The narrow alley was lit from the light spilled from the windows of ground floor apartments and bars. The light from the latter cast some garish
shadows across the road. With it cycling beyond the range of London’s vision, he was occasionally thrown into darkness.

  “Ninety storage,” called a voice from a side alley. London saw one of the slugs like aliens. He shrugged and kept walking.

  He didn’t really have a destination in mind, not yet. His short term plan was staying ahead of the insects. Much like a fishing trip in Scotland really.

  As he got deeper into the warren of streets, there was more of the insect race, as he couldn’t tell police from civilian, London ducked inside a bar.

  He had expected a mixed bag of aliens drinking and smoking from exotic looking glasses, but there was instead a rather orderly establishment. There were insects on one side of the room and tic-tacs on the other. One or two were blissed out on milk, but the vast majority appeared to be having cordial conversations.

  However, it did feel like a piano had just stopped being played, as every head in the bar turned to look at him. London looked around. There was a circular bar in the centre of the room, booths all around the walls and scattered tables. There were maybe a dozen customers.

  London walked up to the bar. “I’d like a glass of water, please.”

  “Python?” said the barman.

  “No, I don’t want a snake. I would like a glass of water.”

  “Dandy.”

  “Dandy?”

  “Dandy.”

  “Why didn’t you say so?” London replied.

  Two insect bouncers came out of a back room. London weighed them up. They didn’t appear to be armed. He was, but didn’t have that many bullets. He might need them later. He held his hands up, palms facing the two bouncers, hoping that this wasn’t a massive insult in this region.

  “Okay, okay, I’ll go,” London said, backing towards the door.

  His progress was stopped by what felt like a wall. He looked around and up at one of the insects. It was wearing the little insignia that suggested it was one of the guard insects and not just a bouncer.

  “Okay I won’t go,” said London. “I’ll stay here.”