Space Captain Smith (13 page)

‘Suruk the Slayer, doom purveyor,’ the alien proclaimed, kicking the hatch closed behind him. His first thumbs were hooked over his belt, his tusks lowered in a friendly greeting. ‘Son of Agshad Nine-Swords, grandson of Urgar the Miffed. I offer you my hand in friendship and my blade as a warrior. You name it, I’ll maim it.’

Andy chuckled. ‘You learn yourself all that?’

‘It’s teach. And yes, I did.’ Suruk bowed. Thoughtfully, Andy shook his head. ‘Well, he sure is something. What, I’m not quite sure. Thank you, Mr Suruk. And I’m Andy Delacroix, victor of absolutely nothing. Over there’s Francois Laveille, lord of the lawnmower. It’s a pleasure, all of you.’

‘Thanks,’ said Smith. ‘It’s good of you.’

Francois wandered over, half a sandwich in his hand. He stood there, studying the four of them, his mouth moving slowly as if chewing the cud. ‘So now,’ he declared, ‘which one of you’s ship’s engineer?’

‘Me,’ Carveth said. ‘At least, I’ve been in the engine room.’

‘Any chance of the tour?’

‘Why of course,’ she replied. ‘Hop on.’

Smith watched as Francois climbed onto the
John Pym
. Then he turned and walked up the bank with Andy, Suruk and Rhianna at his side.

‘Here,’ Andy said, gesturing to a plastic table and some chairs. ‘’Fraid it’s probably not what you’re used to, back in your ship.’

‘Well, it’s not rusty, but I can get used to it.’ The four of them sat down in front of what seemed to be Andy’s house: a long metal building like a scaled-up, polished Nissen hut. It looked at once ancient and advanced, like a 1950’s idea of what the future might be. Marie strode over. She was tallish, with handsome features and quick, clever eyes. ‘You people hungry?’

Andy slapped his large belly, setting his T-shirt rippling.

‘Sure am.’

‘Food’ll take a little while. We should be ready about four.’

‘Thank you,’ said Smith. ‘Very good of you.’

‘That’s alright. Besides, this is the only place you’ll get something to eat outside Dulac, and that’s a half hour away.’

‘A town?’ Rhianna said.

‘About the only one. I’m being a bad host.’ Andy stood up, walked to a cool-box and opened it. ‘Y’all drink beer?’ He set four beers on the table, took out a penknife and opened one for Marie. She wandered back inside. Andy swigged and sighed. ‘Ah, that’s good. Dulac’s the only real settlement on this whole rock. Most of the rest’s just farms, and most of them’re automated. Only two things happen round here, to be honest: farming and wrecking. They say living on Paradis is like getting cheap breast implants: you stay put and you just get weighed down – try to run, and you end up with two black eyes. As for us, we stay put. We live off of repairing the farm machines, most of the time.’

Rhianna was examining the label on her bottle. She shrugged and took a cautious sip. ‘So, if you don’t mind me asking, how come the names of everything here are French?’

‘This used to be a French world,’ Andy said. ‘Back in the war – War of Disarmament, that is – the Republic of Eden grabbed a hold of it and haven’t let go since. If I had my way, we’d be with the United Free States, but that’s how it goes. The Republic must think four thousand people on a rock like this is worth something.’

‘It is if they can get ships down here,’ Smith said.

‘True. We’re on a trade route, and you’d be surprised how many touch down near Dulac for supplies. They’ve got a shuttle pad there and everything. Then the crews find that they’re locked into the missile grid, and if they want to get out, they have to pay up. Simple, but nasty.’

Smith frowned. It reminded him of the stories he’d heard about wreckers in Cornwall. He’d read about it in a Daphne du Maurier book: something about gnomes in red coats wrecking boats with killer birds. That kind of stuff.

‘But dammit, that’s not on,’ Smith said. ‘It’s a dirty trick to pull on a man. Why doesn’t someone send a warship and bomb the place from orbit? Dreadnought diplomacy: that’s how we’d do it in the Empire. Teach the buggers some courtesy. Or just blow them up.’

‘No way. Governor Corveau’s got serious backing.

’Sides, wouldn’t that be a breach of airspace?’

‘Ah. That. Good point there.’

The dog stood up and wandered over. Rhianna leaned over and beckoned it, and it flopped against her side.

‘It’s sewn up tight,’ Andy said. ‘More’s the pity. You okay with the dog, there?’

Rhianna glanced up and smiled. She looked pretty, Smith thought. ‘Oh, I’m fine. My cousin’s got a dog. All he does is lie around and scratch himself.’

‘My cousin does that too,’ said Smith. ‘So, how should I go about meeting this Corveau fellow, then?’

‘Meeting him?’

‘Of course. I’ll need to persuade him to let us go. Or is he off-world?’

Andy shook his head. ‘He’s here alright. There’s no way of leaving, even for him. The Democratic Republic’s careful who they give interstellar travel to.’

‘Then perhaps we could arrange to give him a lift to somewhere better.’

‘They wouldn’t like it.’

‘They wouldn’t see.’

Andy laughed. He threw the dog’s toy across the grass and it bounded after it.

‘You don’t like the governor, do you?’ Rhianna said.

‘Nope, not one bit. He’s everything about Eden that I don’t like, and I don’t like anything about it anyway. They’ve always hated me and Marie being together, so I reckon I’ve got a right to hate them back for it.’

‘Why don’t they like that?’ Smith demanded. ‘You seem like a reasonable sort.’

‘Take a look,’ Andy said, gesturing at himself. ‘See what’s wrong?’

Smith looked at him closely. ‘Well, you’re a bit of a fatty, I suppose.’

‘I think he means on account of him being black, and Marie being white,’ Rhianna said. ‘I’ve heard that the socalled Democratic Republic of Eden isn’t fond of inter-racial marriages.’

‘Oh yes, so you are!’ said Smith. ‘You know, I really didn’t notice that. Very sharp, Rhianna.’

‘We ain’t even married,’ Andy said, grinning. ‘That’s a trip to hell twice.’

For no obvious reason, Suruk had pushed almost all of a beer-bottle into his mouth. ‘Humans are stupid,’ he declared, pulling it out. ‘Petty prejudice does not interest my people. A wise warrior once told me: “Respect your brother M’Lak, no matter what shade of greenish-grey he may be.”’

‘Those are beautiful words, Suruk,’ Rhianna said.

‘–“Then, while various races of stupid human are fighting one another, you can steal their goods. And cut off their ridiculous little heads. And laugh. In their blood.”’

‘Those words are also’ – she groped for the right word – ‘honest.’

Suruk shrugged. ‘Many colours of skin are there, many different shades of face. But if you look within, deep inside a person, human beings are all alike. Red and squelchy.’

The alien chuckled. Andy looked into his beer. Rhianna said: ‘Um, has it got colder out here?’

Smith slapped his hands together. ‘Right then, on a slightly less alarmingly macabre note: where do we find this Corveau chap?’

Meanwhile, Carveth was showing Francois around the ship. ‘This is the cockpit.’

‘Hell of a ship you got here,’ Francois said, ducking through the door.

‘It’s not so bad. It goes pretty quickly, when it’s going. Through there is the Captain’s cabin, this door here leads to mine – no, don’t open that – and that one is, well, it’s full of skulls.’

‘Whoa,’ said Francois, gazing into Suruk’s room. ‘This where the alien guy lives, huh?’

‘Yes.’

‘This his little shrine?’ Francois pointed to a small pyramid of bones piled in front of Suruk’s spear, the weapon of his ancestors. ‘He’s like a samurai, right?’

‘More like a raving nutcase, but there’s probably an overlap.’

‘Whoa. That’s
beaucoup
serious.’ Francois bent down and picked up a shallow, rectangular dish, full of carefully raked sand and little pebble-shaped objects. He lifted one out. ‘This his little Zen garden?’

‘I’d put that down, if I were you.’

‘Sacred, huh?’

‘Not exactly. It’s his litter tray.’

They left Suruk’s room, Francois wiping his palms on his overalls. ‘Now, through here is the engine room,’ she announced, opening a small door beside the entrance to the living room. ‘It’s down these steps. Careful.’

He ducked down and followed her into a dim, red corridor. It looked like something from a submarine: twin rows of pistons stood still on the edges of the room, waiting for the second to plunge down and fire the Supralux drive. A long rod stretched down the last third of the engine room, bent out of shape and covered in soot. Copper-coloured boilers hung above their heads. From one, a shorted and blackened control panel dangled on half a dozen wires. It smelt of burning. 

‘Looks like you got it bad,’ Francois said.

‘They had us over a barrel,’ Carveth explained.

‘Sure looks that way. Still, I reckon I could get the outside jets goin’, no problem. Never seen a Supralux drive up close before, though. How’s it work?’

Carveth frowned. ‘Well, it’s pretty complex. Basically, it’s a tacheon shunt that causes acceleration up to maximum realspace velocity, and from then on, the plotting computer adds or decreases mass to regulate speed relative to mass index. In layman’s terms: it just works because it does, alright?’ She reached up and pointed to the burnt-out console, dangling from the roof. ‘Thing is, that’s the device that does the plotting.’

‘So it’s that thing that makes the drive work.’ Francois scratched his head, loudly. ‘And without a new plot device, you can’t fly.’

‘Not faster than light.’

‘That stuff’s way beyond me. Who did this to you, anyhow?’

‘Ghast raiders. One of their warships attacked us without provocation, so we were forced to crash-land in neutral space.’

‘Attacked you?’ The bad, red light threw Francois’ face into hard relief. ‘How come?’

‘It’s a long story. But if you want to know I’ll tell it to you just like it happened.’ Carveth crossed her arms and leaned against a bulkhead. She took a deep breath, hoping that she was not about to have one of her sexbot moments. ‘Well, we were cruising, hardly looking for action at all, when suddenly the Ghasts jumped us from behind, stuck a torpedo up our back end and blew our motors out. They must have seen that we were exposed at the rear because they stuck out their tube so they could come inside, but the captain ordered us to get our tools ready and beat them off if they tried to enter us by force. They all came at us at once down the passage, but what with Smith shooting off from the hip and me pumping my piece for all I was worth, we were able to give them a good seeing-to until they had to withdraw. We were knackered, though. We could hardly pull off, let alone thrust, so we saw this lake and decided to dump in the water until we were able to repair the ship and get it up again. That’s pretty much the size of it.’

‘Ouch.’ Francois took off his cap and smoothed his hair.

‘And you’re still walkin’?’

‘Stiff upper lip, my friend. Stiff upper lip.’

Andy finished his beer. ‘Corveau is no problem to find: he’ll be at his house in town, holding court. That’s what he does pretty much every weekend of the year. But he’s one
menchant
son of a bitch. He’s had men killed before, I know it. You’ll get to see him easy, but if you want to get away, or even argue with the man, that’s a different story. He has a lot of people, and whatever decent guns there are on this world, they’re his. Not that we don’t keep our own pieces, but he’s got serious stuff and men to hold ’em.’

‘What kind of house does he have?’

‘A pretty fancy one. I tell you, the place is plush. It’s got grounds all done out, and more staff than anybody could use for anything. He must have a few spare asses to need so many people to wipe his butt.’

Smith glanced at Rhianna to make sure that she was not offended. She smiled.

‘Sees himself as a little king,’ Andy said. ‘People come to him to get their noses browned, looking to get some money off of him. Most of the cash that gets made farming goes to him as well, as protection money, pretty much. There’s a lot of folks who’d like to get shot of Corveau, but most of ’em ain’t brave enough to try.’

Smith nodded understandingly. ‘It happens a lot abroad.’

‘Plus, if you’re thinking of waltzing in there strapped, forget it. The dress code’s black tie and no weapons. It’s a strictly no-tools do.’

‘I need no weapons to slay with my hands,’ Suruk declared. ‘I
am
a tool.’

‘Quite,’ said Smith. ‘But we won’t be going in to kill. I don’t want a bloodbath.’

‘Like on your lawn at home?’

‘No, that’s a birdbath. Because, Suruk, I am a civilised, cultured person who objects to mindless violence. We’re going to talk to this Governor fellow, and ask him nicely if he’ll lower the missile grid to let us through. And if he doesn’t—’

‘We tear off his limbs?’

‘Well, alright then.’

Andy’s barbecue was excellent, and that evening Smith and his crew walked back to the ship drunk and full. Crickets and frogs made the warm night noisy, and above them the stars glinted, tiny but bright, as if to remind them that home was still there, and that they were a long way from it.

‘Whoo!’ Carveth cried, delighted to hear her own voice echo around the lake and hills. ‘This is really something!’

She slipped, and Smith caught hold of her. ‘Blimey, Cap, I think I might have overdone it. The stuff they brew here’s pretty strong. I never would have thought you could squeeze so much alcohol from a single cane toad.’

‘It seems you can. How many fingers am I holding up?’

‘On which of your many hands?’

They climbed onto the ship with difficulty. Smith helped Rhianna and Carveth on board and Suruk climbed up on his own. Smith watched Rhianna open the hatch and climb inside, the alien following, and Carveth watched him doing so.

‘Careful on the rungs, Rhianna. And no more knife throwing!’ he called after them.

A hand touched his arm. Carveth stood back a little, her neat little head tilted to one side like a puzzled bird.

‘You like her, don’t you?’ she said quietly. Carveth seemed very sober and still, or perhaps Smith’s wobbling vision was in sync with her wobbling body.