Smallworld: A Science Fiction Adventure Comedy

by Dominic Green

  The robot faltered. “I... THINK SO. I COULD NOT SEE IT EARLIER. IT WORRIES ME.”

  “I will show it to you. But you must promise calmness and restraint.”

  The machine nodded slowly and grudgingly. Mr. Reborn-in-Jesus drew back the curtain covering the mirror.

  Utter horror filled the Stalin Six’s speakers. “THIS IS SORCERY.” It raised a silver claw, waving it back and forth to test the reality of the reflection.

  “You were right, Helen; you are indeed dead. You have been dead for over three thousand years. This is how dead people appear here.”

  The claws caressed a face whose contours had been built not for beauty, but for deflecting bullets. “TO LOOK SO... THIS IS HOW I END?”

  “Most people die and just fade away. Your beauty, in life, was such that nobody forgot you. It is for this reason that you have been made to live again.”

  The face looked up and down the jointed exoskeleton it now inhabited. “IS IT POSSIBLE THAT PEOPLE CAN BE SO CRUEL?”

  “You know, your royal highness, that they can be far crueller than that.”

  “THEY DRAGGED HECTOR THREE TIMES ROUND THE WALLS OF TROY,” said the robot. “YET I THINK THIS IS CRUELLER.”

  “Pah! That’s nothing,” said the small, horribly scarred girl. “Take a look at what they put me in.”

  The machine’s head flicked round. “YOU? YOU ARE ALSO DEAD?”

  “I was a man once. I have been brought back from death to sort out some unfinished business.” The girl pointed to her face. “To deal with the man who did this.”

  “OH, YOU POOR MITE”. The robot dropped to its knees. “A MAN DID THAT TO YOU?” Helen looked from side to side among the guests and guards, many of whom shuffled back nervously. “WAS IT ONE OF THESE MEN?”

  “No.” The girl indicated Bawtry’s guards, who had been attempting not to look armed or martial in any way. “These men are here to protect the others, as I am.”

  “LIKE MY TROJANS”. The robot bowed to the guards. “AENEAS, LAOCOÖN, EURYPYLUS, AND BOLD HECTOR. BUT WHO ARE THEY PROTECTING US AGAINST?”

  With that, the robot exploded. With a noise so loud that Mr. Reborn-in-Jesus suspected he had himself been shot in the eardrums, its chest cavity punched redly open, and liquid flame spurted out to scorch the nymphs of Health on the far wall. Its arms and legs popped out of their sockets, and its head flew off like a pennangalan’s, then splashed down into the fountain, black and dead.

  The Warden slid into the reception area out of the dormitory corridor. The snout of a weapon Mr. Reborn-in-Jesus had not noticed previously folded away into its interior, still glowing. When it spoke, Mr. Reborn-in-Jesus could have sworn it sounded smug.

  “THE ESCAPE ATTEMPT HAS BEEN DEALT WITH,” it said. “ALLOWING A PERSONAL ROBOT TO HARBOUR A FUGITIVE IS AN OFFENCE.” It poked the remains of its enemy with a specially-extruded poking probe. “WHOSE ROBOT IS THIS?”

  “There is still,” said the scarred child, standing before the Warden, “an escapee on the loose.”

  “I HAVE BEEN INFORMED OF NOTHING.”

  “Check the immediate vicinity for DNA traces. Casey Michael Bowker, aka Father Christmas.”

  “THAT ESCAPEE IS NO LONGER BELIEVED TO BE ONPLANET.”

  “Oh, good grief.” The little girl walked over to the Warden, ripped the jack plug from her own neck, and stabbed it into a similar plug in the side of the Warden’s body.

  “THAT WILL NOT WORK!” squealed the machine, spinning on its vertical axis like a laundromat agitator. “MY SUBROUTINES ARE EXTENSIVELY PROTECTED AGAINST A REROUTED CPU ATTACK—vsgrdlmf—not taking no for an answer. This is a direct order from a superior officer. Me human, you automaton.

  “Ahhh, that’s better. Now THIS is what I call a CHASSIS. Durable and manoeuvrable, with a superior secondary logic unit.” The Warden turned and fired point blank into the Christmas tree. Shattered baubles, biochemical fairy lights, shocked animatronic angels and real pine needles puffed out of the tree in a cloud, followed by a human body stumbling under the narcotic weight of several hypodermic darts. Mr. Reborn-in-Jesus was alarmed to note that the body had managed to pick up an assault weapon on its way into the tree.

  The body crunched into the floor. Nobody attempted to slow its fall.

  “And a partridge in a pear tree,” commented the Warden with venom. “He had to have moved while we were all still distracted, when this unit came in and shot the Stalin Six. That gave him only a couple of seconds of movement. The tree was the only close cover large enough.” It took a turn about the killer’s supine body. “He is as adept at misdirection as a magician.”

  “But how did he get here?” said Mr. Suau. “It’s thirty kilometres to Third Landing from here.”

  “In the back of your or Dr. Ranjalkar’s car, I suspect,” said the Warden. “You were safe, of course, because there were still several hours left before Three French Hens. If you’d broken down on the way, mind...” The machine left the sentence ominously unfinished.

  “What will you do with him now? Will you take him back to the Penitentiary?”

  “I believe so. He needs looking after. As do the other inmates—Mr. Spink, Mr. Bolabas, Dr. Vlaaminck, Mr. Trapp...”

  Apostle put up his hand. “Ah, we believe Mr.Trapp may have escaped.”

  “Yes, and he will be recaptured. This unit left him under severe restraint in a downshaft on the other side of the planet—”

  “—which he will already have escaped from.”

  “That is unlikely. He had a broken arm.”

  “He escaped from a Series Three Government Penitentiary,” said Unity, moved by a perverse pride in Mr. Trapp. “He will be up to twenty kilometres away by now. Even further, if he stands on a box.”

  “I see,” said the Warden. “I suppose it isn’t conceivable to you that a man capable of financial fraud on such an immense scale, ruining banks, businessmen, and ultimately the lives of thousands, even millions of people who work for those businesses, is the fiscal equivalent of a serial killer?”

  “No more than the bloated capitalists who run those businesses already,” said Unity, surprising herself as much as her immediate family. “Do they care if they put a million workers on World A out on the street, simply because it’s more cost-efficient to make chocolate teddy bears on World B?”

  “I bow,” said the Warden, entirely incapable of bowing, “to your greater knowledge of the chocolate teddy bear industry. I will go to look for Mr. Trapp in any case. If he is there, all well and good. If not, I will leave no lady’s underwear drawer unopened until he is recaptured.”

  “You intend to take on the job of Warden?” said Mr. Reborn-in-Jesus.

  “I certainly do.” The machine span on a centicredit. “This place needs a lawman.”

  “You are not the state-appointed Warden,” observed Mr. Suau. “You were not manufactured for the purpose.”

  “I don’t remember ever having been dismissed from my position in the Bureau of Public Safety. Besides, you intend to stop me how? As a human being, my firearms expertise was mediocre. I scarcely managed the minimum standard necessary for the Bureau. But now, I can drill out a man’s dental cavities a kilometre away, if he will only stand still long enough.”

  Mr. Suau appraised the Warden’s decimetre-thick armour warily. “Your argument is compelling,” he admitted.

  The Warden bumped his chassis experimentally against the prone body of the major shareholder of EasyWorld. “Unfortunately, he is merely tranquillized. I used the assault weapon’s riot control setting on him. He should recover.”

  “I doubt,” said the European gentleman, “that he will ever frequent your establishment again. I certainly do not intend to.”

  “This is life on the frontier,” said the Warden. “Be thankful that, in your case, it was accompanied by caviar and cappuccino. I believe this world has been subjected to Made war machines, renegade murderers, and tax officers alike in the past kilodia alone.”

  The European an
d the telesatanist looked at one another in shared horror.

  “Tax officers?”

  “Whole hordes of them. A Special Revenue Service detachment, one of whom is now engaged to be married to young Miss Reborn-in-Jesus here.” The Warden indicated Unity with a scarlet indicating laser; she blushed in the same area of the visible spectrum.

  The billionaires began muttering among themselves.

  “This is a sting,” said one of the terraforming executives.

  “How stupid do they think we are,” tutted the telesatanist.

  “They might be sizing up our assets right now,” said the European gentleman anxiously. “I’m calling my personal transport.”

  “STOP!” Miss Valentin rushed amid the guests like a game terrier attempting to herd elephants. “This is an accident of happenstance which should not be allowed to ruin your stay here—”

  “My stay here is over.”

  “It’s back to the Cure at Lourdes for me.”

  “I gave up the Red Lagoon Hyperoxidizing Spa at Olympus Mons for this?”

  “My lawyers will be in touch.”

  “You will never borrow from the Holy See again.”

  “A heavy terraforming unit will be in orbit here within thirty dia. This insignificant speck will become a Martian wilderness.”

  Mrs. Valentin wheeled on Mr. and Mrs. Reborn-in-Jesus.

  “Don’t you have anything to SAY? You’re SHAREHOLDERS!”

  “People have promised to terraform our world before,” shrugged Mr. Reborn-in-Jesus.

  “And to crush us under the weight of legal action,” added Shun-Company.

  “The murdering,” added Apostle. “There have been many threats of murder.”

  “Something always happens,” said Mr. Reborn-in-Jesus, “to prevent it.”

  “The will of God happens,” corrected Shun-Company, and joined hands with her husband.

  “We will re-brand,” grinned Apostle, kicking shrapnel out of the floor tiling with his foot. “Instead of relaxing health care in secure surroundings, we will offer an exciting adventure holiday.” He turned to the assembled guests, the assault weapon in his hands. “Mesdames, messieurs, we apologize for the temporary interruption to your schedules. We realize your time is important. Nothing,” he said, his grip tightening on his weapon, and his eyes glinting with messianic capitalist fervour, “is more important to us than the time of our guests. If anyone here tonight has wasted your time, say the word, and I will kill them.” His eye travelled pitilessly over the Clinic’s domestic staff, who cringed in alarm. “Even,” he added, “the pretty ones.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, man,” said the European—sounding, however, rather less sure of himself than previously.

  “Ridiculous! This is business! Do we joke about business? Why, sir is standing here in a half-demolished reception area when sir should be, should be—what would be sir’s ideal evening?”

  Bawtry put up a hand. “Uh, young Mr. Apostle, sir, you have all three of the safeties off on that thing.”

  Apostle gestured madly with the weapon. Security guards dived for cover wherever it waved. “What do I care for safety, when the comfort of my guests is threatened? His Majesty Mr. Johns Smiths here requires good food, good wine, the company of an attractive boy. Do we have any attractive boys?”

  The male domestic staff—even that part of it that was openly homosexual—did its best to look unattractive.

  “Then send a packet to the next system for some! Kidnap some if need be. What a guest wants, a guest gets. If Mr. Smiths desires that I set this light armour piercing cannon to my head and pull the trigger—” he strode demonstratively about the serving staff, setting the gun to his head with some difficulty—”then it will be done. Mr. Smiths! Do you wish me to pull the trigger on this weapon and end my miserable life? You have only to say the word.” Apostle crabbed sidelong towards the guest, being careful to keep a direct line between the weapon, his own head, and that of Mr. Smiths.

  “Mr. Apostle!” snapped Bawtry. “That weapon is rated to enfilade up to ten men standing in line. It was tested as such on Made prisoners-of-war, and they tend to be more resistant to gunfire than we are.”

  “Please put the gun away,” cried the shoulder-faced lady.

  “I will agree to live,” said Apostle, hugging Mr. Smiths close and gluing his ear firmly to the other man’s, “only if my favourite guest agrees to enjoy my hospitality. Songs around the Christmas tree, a roaring log fire, mulled wine, bawdy sex games and adequate radiation shielding.”

  Mr. Smiths’ lips pursed, but also trembled.

  “Very well,” he said. “I consent. Just put the gun down.”

  Apostle separated from Mr. Smiths, beaming, and set all three safeties on the weapon with one fluid movement.

  “My guests,” he said, “are more important to me than life itself.” He clicked his fingers. “Domestics ho! A cake! A cake for His Majesty, in the shape of Latvia!”

  “I have never been crowned,” objected Mr. Smiths. “And Latvia is no longer a sovereign nation. It is only the thirty-third Eurasian commissary district nowadays, run by an Emergency Committee. My father made his money from comfortable yet functional thermal feminine underclothing. I am rather afraid he married into the nobility.” He frowned and grudgingly drew out a shape on the floor in the debris from the Anchorite’s robot. “Latvia is that shape.”

  Apostle spread his arms wide. “All our guests, be happy! You are under the aegis of the renowned Safety Officer Rajinder Rai, the man who ran to ground the executor of the terrible Christmas murders, and Colonel Fernando Bawtry, the unconquered Grand Master of the Beautopia Robotic Inquisition.” And he turned to the domestic staff and whispered the magic words: “Double pay till the end of this crisis period.”

  No sorceror could have made a closet full of broomsticks jerk to ancillary life more quickly than that simple statement. Chambermaids smoothed their uniforms. Cooks straightened their backs and began thinking of methods and ingredients, and of how they were going to ice that difficult bit around Liepāja. Security staff clicked the safeties quickly on on their weapons, and moved them into positions where they were not quite so obviously aimed at Apostle.

  “All is well with the world,” said Apostle. “With this world, at any rate.”

  “But not with all the other ones, Mr. Reborn-in-Jesus, sir.”

  Apostle turned to see Mohammed Ben Israel, the trauma of the past decidia written on his face in premature worry wrinkles. He had entered the reception area behind the Warden, and was breathless with both running and fear.

  “I heard a Priority One Alert sounding when I came past the comms room,” he said. “There is a message missile in orbit. It is sending out a broadcast for General Mobilization. Ten of our Early Warning Shell stations have been destroyed without notification of any incoming enemy, and a large formation of unidentified vessels has attacked the Home Systems Fleet in dock at Lagrangia. The Ottilia Vos, the Firm Hand of Government, and the Spartacus are all reported lost. The current status of New Earth is not known. All reservists are being called to muster, and there’s a list of civilian spacecraft being requisitioned for government use—”

  The elderly lady dropped her face in shock; its pseudo-musculature screwed itself up against the impact, and when it righted itself on the tiling, looking up at the stairwell lintels with black empty eyesockets, it was scowling.

  “How many of you,” said Apostle, turning to the staff and guests alike, “live on New Earth?”

  A small grove of hands rose.

  Apostle looked at his brother. “Will that Revenue cruiser of yours fly?”

  Testament nearly soiled his underwear in shock. “It claims so, brother. But several of its onboard diagnostic systems also claim two hundred per cent thrust efficiency, and I’ve never flown anything but its onboard simulator.”

  “That’ll have to do. It’s time for an emergency evacuation. If,” he said, “New Earth is still safe to evacuate to.” He
nodded to Miss Valentin. “Madame, if you could organize an orderly withdrawal.”

  Miss Valentin stood momentarily disorientated, then ground herself.

  “At once, Mr. Reborn-in-Jesus. NOW—HOW MANY OF YOU PEOPLE HAVE SPATIAL CREWING EXPERIENCE? I AM APPEALING TO GUESTS AS WELL AS STAFF.”

  “But what about that poor gel who went to get a glass of water?” said the smart-faced lady. “Did something happen to her? Is anybody listening to me? Hello?”

  It had taken hours, and she was still not sure where she was at any rate. The network of drop-shafts and cross-tunnels that led up from the Anchorite’s domain stretched for kilometres, horizontally and vertically; and she knew that she was injured. Something in the air behind that cold door the Devil had opened far below had poisoned her inside. She could no longer breathe or move as effectively, despite the fact that she had to keep climbing to live. She knew that, whatever happened, she could not follow the Anchorite’s machine upwards. That way lay death. And certainly, now, death lay downward too. Now that the hermit knew she had plotted against him, he would surely snuff her out with no more compunction than a hygienist would a bacterium.

  The cramped concrete chamber at the shaft head had seemed hardly believable. She had come to trust that the tunnels went on forever. Yet here was an entrance just like the hermit’s back doors at Dispater Crater and St. Duke’s Cathedral. Could it be possible she might find a way out to the surface?

  Yet where to go then?

  Would her family take her in again, after she had plotted armed revolt not only against the Anchorite, but against them too? The Clinic, too, would surely turn her away. Might she lurk round the landing field, in the hope of persuading the crew of some supply ship or passing agro trader to take her on board? Would Magus or Perfect take pity on her, and give her passage offworld on Prodigal Son?

  No. The hermit would be expecting her there for certain. It would be better to lie low until she knew for certain, at least, that the Anchorite’s robot had been eliminated. And even without his demonic assistant, the old man’s vengeance might be shrewd and terrible.

  She eased herself out of the hatchway onto bare, wet earth—the wetness in itself suggesting that she was either in the maintained farmlands around Third Landing, or in the extensive gardens around the South End Clinic. The trees, massive and brooding, confirmed the second suspicion. Redwoods produced by Mallorn Arborfactor for seeding on semi-terraformed Areotype worlds, they were large enough to carve elf houses into, Faraway Trees from the same mould as the one in the stories Shun-Company had read the family when they were younger. On such a world as this, a sufficiently lofty tree’s top branches might really and truly touch space. The Clinic trees’ tops were, indeed, noticeably dry and leafless in the thin air a hundred metres up.