Space Captain Smith (11 page)

He stood there, the hot night air close around him like a blanket, and realised where his anger really came from. Fleet control had set him up. He had been given this mission not because he was a brilliant captain but the opposite. Khan had chosen him as the kind of fool who would negotiate space with the casual grace of a toddler in a bathtub, leaving so many bubbles in his wake that the Ghasts could not fail to notice. Then the Ghasts would make their move, and then the
Tenacious
would spring on them, save the day and reveal the predatory attacks the aliens were making on Imperial shipping. And in the process, save the idiot crew of the
John Pym
from their own stupidity. It was not him who was supposed to protect Rhianna at all. He had never been expected to do anything except look like an easy target. That knowledge stung.

‘Boss.’ Carveth approached, a beer bottle in each hand.

‘Fancy a bribe?’

‘Please,’ he said. He took the bottle she held out.

‘Thank you. You’ve not poisoned it?’

‘Absolutely not.’ She waited until he took a swig and said, ‘Spit isn’t poisonous, is it?’

Smith whirled around and she grinned at him. Smith forced a smile back.

‘You know, you’d be right about all of this,’ she said,

‘all this stoned on the job stuff, if I really was a pilot.’

He stopped smiling. ‘What? I don’t understand,’ he said.

‘I’m not a pilot – at least, not a qualified one. My documents are forged. I’m self-taught.’

‘I don’t see what you mean.’

‘I’m a fake, Smith.’

‘But you’re a simulant. You’re built to be a pilot. They wouldn’t make you otherwise.’

‘They made me for a purpose,’ she said. ‘But it wasn’t that.’

He took a very small step back from her, turning a little. The sword was on his belt; he could draw it more easily with his right side facing her. ‘Then what are you?’ he said.

‘I’m a sex toy.’

‘What?’

‘I’m a custom built sex toy.’

‘But you – you can’t be. I mean, you don’t look sufficiently…’

‘Inflatable?’

‘No, that’s not what I mean. You don’t look like you’d be… sufficiently…’

‘Attractive?’

‘No, no. That’s not what I meant at all. No. You’re not unattractive in the slightest – you’re just, well –
different
. I didn’t mean to imply that you wouldn’t be attractive enough to qualify as – sod it, yes, that’s exactly what I meant.’

He looked at her. Carveth was watching him keenly, as if worried that she might miss him do a trick. ‘Well?’ he demanded. ‘What?’ It seemed profoundly unfair that he was now feeling the need to apologise for having criticised faults that were self-evidently true. How did women manage that? ‘It’s just that I… ah… happen to look upon you as a crewmember, and I find it difficult to envisage you not as a fully rounded person, but as a mere sex object.’

Carveth stuck her hands out like a cartoon robot and made a huge O with her mouth. ‘This help?’

He shuddered. ‘Rather too much, actually.’

She lowered her arms. ‘You’re right, though. I’m hardly
my
type, let alone anyone else’s. I was developed for one particular man. They custom-made me according to answers to a questionnaire. Apparently I’m exactly the girl he was looking for. Except for the hair, of course. I dyed that over the sink.’

‘I did wonder.’

‘So there you go. I overheard them discussing it: they talked about it outside the tank they grew me in. First chance I got, I overpowered the head scientist and got out. Luckily there were some items of restraint nearby.’

‘But what about your pilot’s licence?’

‘I forged it.’

‘But it has a signature from the Ministry of Trade.’

‘Me.’

‘And a picture of the Minister.’

‘Me in a hat.’

Smith stared at her in the growing dark. Never had she looked so sincere, or so pretty, strangely enough. She had never talked like this before: the jaunty, facetious part of her was gone, lifted up like a shell to expose the rawness beneath. ‘I believe you,’ he said.

‘I just thought I’d mention it. I mean, the Ghasts’ll be looking for us, and, well, it’s good to get it off my chest.’

‘That’s quite alright,’ he said.

‘Sorry to piss you off.’

‘Don’t worry about it. You’re a very good pilot, by the way.’

‘I downloaded the information straight to my cerebellum. Well, most of it. I was in a hurry.’

‘Who ordered you to be made?’

‘Paul Devrin, from the Devrin Corporation. They’re rich beyond anything either of us will ever know. There are planets that they run. That’s how he was able to get away with it. Apparently he’s so depraved no normal woman will sleep with him. Typical, eh? The man I was made to meet would freak out the Marquis de Sade.’

She sighed. ‘So, er, there you go. Let’s get back, shall we?’

‘Did they mess with your mind? I know simulant personalities are pre-built.’

‘I’m not sure. I’m surprised how independently-minded I am. Perhaps they did tamper with my head.’

‘Probably just dropped you on it.’

‘I don’t know. I have a feeling there is something there, some kind of behavioural inhibitor. Sometimes I find it difficult not to make innuendo, for instance – not just sexual stuff, but anything childish and crude. I’ll be talking normally, as we are now, and all of a sudden it just flops out in front of everyone. Before I know what’s happening it’ll be gushing in full flow and I’ll have made such a mess that it’s hardly worth trying to zip up again.’

‘True. So is Carveth your real name, then?’

‘In as much as any.’ She shrugged. ‘I chose it myself. Pollyanna Carveth. What do you think?’

‘Very good. Fancy building someone, a real person, just so you can do perverted things to them. Now that,’ Smith said thoughtfully, ‘that is the lowest thing I have ever heard of anyone doing.’

‘Apparently he can go much lower, once he’s got the right props.’

‘Well, as far as I’m concerned, you’re
bona fide
. You’re the pilot, and that’s that. Although I’d appreciate it if you would download the rest of the pilot’s manual.’

‘Cheers, Boss.’

‘If ever we work out how to get out of here, I’ll do everything I can to see that you don’t go back.’

‘And I’ll make sure that we do get out of here. So we’re friends again?’

‘Yes. Let’s go and have a drink, shall we?’

‘Aye aye, Captain,’ Carveth said, and they turned back to the ship.

Morning jumped on Isambard Smith and bashed him awake. Suddenly he was alive again – too much alive, for the colours of the sitting room burned into his head as though he’d fallen asleep against a neon sign. He staggered upright like a poorly animated marionette and his brain shifted alarmingly inside his skull. Something fell off the front of him and stupidly, like the living dead, he turned round to see what it might be. It was Carveth’s boot. Carveth herself was stretched out on the sofa opposite. So why was her boot on him? He remembered their argument last night. Had she given it to him as a token of friendship or, more likely, mistaken him for a doormat?

Perhaps she had simply flung it at his head. That seemed like a satisfactory explanation. Like the sole survivor of an apocalypse emerging from underground, he wonderingly surveyed the wreckage around him and decided to leave it well alone. It was Carveth’s mess and so she should clear it up. It was probably hers, anyway.

In the bathroom he started brushing his teeth, then discovered that the toothpaste tube looked very similar to something of Rhianna’s called
Balsamic Foot Salve: For
Calloused and Hard Skin
. He resumed his search for the toothpaste with renewed urgency.

Teeth cleaned, Smith decided to get some air. Yes, that seemed like a good idea. He reached the main airlock before he remembered that opening it would sink the ship. Lucky one, that, he thought as he stepped back from the door. You can’t fool me. I’m the captain. Sharp as a razor. He shambled towards the hold.

Rhianna’s door was open and she slept, fully clothed, on top of her bed. She looked pretty, apart from the small pool of dribble that had accumulated at the corner of her mouth. There were three empty bottles on the shelf. Odd, Smith thought, that she would drink. Ah yes: it was that organic stuff he’d bought on New Fran.

Wasn’t organic beer supposed not to give you hangovers? What charlatan had said that? He left the room. In the hold he climbed the rungs, swaying on them like an old salt approaching the crow’s nest in a storm. Hot light caught his face as he struggled out onto the roof of the crippled ship.

Suruk crouched on the roof, his back to Smith. The alien was looking out across the lake, almost totally immobile. The air was fresh and seemed to carry in it a little of the life-force that had oozed out of him and been replaced with beer. On a small island in the lake, a heron peered quizzically into the distance, surrounded by reeds.

‘Greetings, Mazuran,’ Suruk said.

‘Hello,’ he ventured.

‘I knew your footsteps. It is a fine morning, friend. I find that the rhythm of life flows well in a place like this. All seems connected.’

‘It’d be better if my brain wasn’t pickled in hurt.’

‘Indeed.’ Suruk stood up smoothly. ‘How are the females?’

‘Asleep.’

‘Did you spawn with them?’

‘Certainly not!’

‘Humans. You have a very complicated breeding system.’ He shrugged. ‘Being asexual certainly has its advantages. I do not have to bother with lengthy courtship rituals.’

‘Must be good,’ Smith said, rubbing his head and staring across the water.

‘It is. Although at times I have returned from meeting fellow warriors and asked of myself, “What time do I call this, reeling in drunk to my own bed? How can I be the humanoid I married years ago?” ’

Smith pinched his brow. It sounded like the plot of a Phillip K Dick novel he had once tried to read. ‘Don’t. You’re making my head spin. We’ve got to work out how to get this ship repaired.’

‘True. But there is a more urgent problem, Smith.’

‘Really? What’s that?’

‘Listen.’ Suruk cocked his head. Smith listened and, in the stillness of the morning, he heard it too: the sound of a boat engine becoming louder as it approached. ‘Friend or enemy, Mazuran, they come for us.’

The boat was small and low, hardly larger than a rowing boat. A tubby black man sat in the bows, steering the craft. Behind him, a thin white man in a baseball cap took a drag on a rolled cigarette and glanced left and right, a rifle hanging from his shoulder.

By the time they drew close, Suruk had gone. ‘Don’t hurt anyone unless I say,’ Smith said as Carveth and Rhianna joined him, hoping that Suruk would hear. Carveth had the shotgun. ‘Here, Boss. Just in case.’ She slipped him the revolver and he pushed it into the back of his trousers.

‘Hey there!’ the pilot of the boat shouted over the chugging engine. ‘How’re you doin’?’

‘Hello!’ Smith called back. ‘Very well, thank you, except that our ship won’t fly.’

‘Wondered what got you down here,’ the steersman said. ‘Crash land, did you?’

‘That’s right.’

He cut the engines. The thin man threw his cigarette into the water. ‘We’re the law,’ the thin man said.

‘Police?’

‘They don’t bloody look like it,’ Carveth muttered. 

‘Local militia,’ the thin man said. ‘If that thing sinks, we get salvage rights.’

‘Now, Francois,’ the black man said. ‘That’s no way to say hello. He’s right, though. My name’s Andy Delacroix, and this here’s Francois Laveille – my deputy. Welcome to Paradis.’

‘Careful, men,’ Smith whispered sagely. ‘They may not be trustworthy. This Francois fellow sounds rather French to me.’ He cleared his throat and declared: ‘I am Isambard Smith, captain of this ship. This is my crew. We need to get our ship running again,’ Smith called. ‘Do you know of any shipyards that could help us get into orbit?’

The two men looked at one another and conferred. Francois shrugged and spat into the water. Smith turned to Carveth. ‘Definitely French,’ he said.

‘You’ve got what’s known as a problem,’ Andy called back. ‘Sure, there’s places you could get fixed up, but you won’t be able to get off-world without payin’. And there’s a tax on that.’

‘A tax?’

‘Air pollution,’ Francois said, and he gave a short, snorting laugh. He took off his cap and studied the inside.

‘Hell,’ said Carveth.

‘This is a bad thing, right?’ Rhianna asked. Francois nodded. ‘You people want to get off-world, you’ve got to get past the defence grid, otherwise you get a missile in the tailpipe. And the man who controls the grid’ll want to squeeze you people till your pips squeak.’

Andy nodded. ‘My deputy is right. For the right price, we could fix up your ship ourselves. But it would be useless to you ’less you pay Corveau to let you go. And he’s a hard man to bargain with.’

‘Who’s Corveau?’ Carveth demanded.

‘Some other Frenchie,’ Smith said.

‘
Governor
Corveau,’ Andy replied. ‘You don’t wanna argue with that guy. He answers straight to Edenite authority.’

Smith frowned. He had spotted Suruk, pressed against a tree that overhung the ship. Slowly, like a spider, the alien was crawling out across the branches, ready to drop into the boat.

‘Could you take us to a shipyard?’ Smith asked. Francois grinned. ‘We can take you to the next best thing. Hop on in. That’s what I do, see, repair machines. We can take you there right now.’

‘I thought you said you were militiamen.’

‘God no. That’s just what we have to do.’ Francois looked at his rifle and shrugged. ‘You don’t think I carry this round for fun, do you?’

The boat chugged and spluttered along the length of the lake, keeping close to the shore. Smith and Carveth stood at the back, watched by Francois: Andy, in his role as captain, steered. Carveth carried the shotgun, and the revolver was stashed in Smith’s belt, hidden by his coat. Carveth leaned in and whispered, ‘Is this a good idea?’

The engine hid her voice from the two men.

‘Which part of it?’

‘Pick one.’

‘Probably not. But we don’t have any choice.’ Smith glanced up and saw that Francois was watching them, his rifle lying across his lap. ‘Look, we need to get the ship running as fast as possible. These people may be able to help.’