Space Captain Smith (18 page)

‘You seem unable to provide a location,’ said 462.

‘No, I know alright. I just don’t want to touch a computer that’s come out of your spaceship’s anus.’

462 turned to one of his praetorian guards. ‘
Ak! Ak
snak nicnak!
’ The praetorian saluted and strode off. ‘I have ordered light refreshments for us,’ 462 explained.

‘So, where will our quarry be?’

‘He’ll need to sort out his ship. The light drive will need repairs.’ Gilead smiled. ‘There’s only one place within range that’s got good enough facilities. Deuteronomy.’

‘I have not heard of it. What planet is that?’

‘It’s not a planet. It’s a city, the capital of one of our production worlds. Callistan 4. Up there.’ Eager, he jabbed the screen, then looked at his fingertip. ‘Ugh, mucus. Do you have a handkerchief?’

‘Deuteronomy. I look forward to paying this Callistan 4 a visit. Ready the port officials. Be there in person. You will bring him to us.’

‘Now listen.’ The Ghast’s tone galled Captain Gilead. ‘We’re partners,’ he said. ‘I don’t take any orders here.’

‘Oh yes you do. There are no equals here, only hierarchy. There is always one who gives the orders and one who takes them. Your sect is wise to side with us, Captain Gilead. Very soon we will be giving the orders to the whole of the galaxy. If we’ve not decided to destroy it instead. We will have our territory, and you will receive the help you need to carve you own little empire, in the shadow of our own.’

An aide appeared at the side of them, holding a tray. 462 took a transparent, unwholesome-looking device that squirted reddish liquid into his mouth. Gilead’s drink came in a plastic cup. 462 watched him take a sip. Gilead smiled. ‘Your alien food isn’t bad. Kind’ve like a smoothie. Anyhow, it’s
you
who are lucky to be coming along with
us
. Soon, my friend, those of us made in the Image will begin our great crusade to wipe impiety and disobedience from every settled planet in the universe. The galaxy will burn from the light of a billion roasting heathens, and we shall cast them asunder like the Moabites, to gnash their seed on stony ground.’

He had been staring out the window while he delivered this speech, rapt with the notion of barbecuing people. A hissing noise behind him made him turn and he saw that 462 was sniggering.

As much as his face could, he looked offended. ‘What’s so damned funny?’

‘Your naïve religious fanaticism amuses me. You fail to understand that there is no great power behind the universe. There is only force. Force, and the ceaseless struggle for survival between all living things.’

‘Cut that out. That sounds like Evie talk.’

‘Of course. The survival of the fittest. That is how space should be run. You or I are greater than the servants you see around us and deserve to triumph where they fail. The rulers must prey on the ruled. It is for that reason that you and I are currently drinking the pulped remains of one of my minions and not the other way around.’

‘Phflawgh!’

‘But it is vital that you capture this man – and his crew. We must have the woman who travels with him.’

Gilead nodded grimly. ‘I know how important she is – better than you do.’

‘Good. Then you understand that you must use every resource you have to succeed. This is serious business, Gilead. There can be no room for error. Remember, it is no mere childish game we play.’

‘Miss Carveth? In the boiler room, with a piece of piping,’

Rhianna said, pointing down the corridor.

‘Righto,’ said Smith, and he strolled down, opened the door and put his head inside. ‘Carveth? Coming up for Scrabble?’

She was staring up at the remains of the plotting computer, a section of tubing in her hand. ‘Up in a minute, Boss. I seem to have some pieces left over from the repairs. What we technicians call a “Lego moment” .’

The other three were waiting around the table in the living area when Carveth arrived. ‘Right,’ she said, ‘let’s get cracking, eh?’

‘We will,’ Smith said a little gloomily, as if he had something unpleasant to announce. ‘But first, Rhianna has something to say.’

They were silent. The only noise was Suruk crunching nonchalantly on something.

‘That’s right,’ Rhianna said, leaning over the table.

‘Firstly, I want to thank everyone for dealing with the problems we’ve experienced so far in a professional way. Now, while I don’t necessarily approve of violence, or consider it a solution to problems rather than a problem in itself, I’d like to thank everyone here for looking after me during my time on this ship. Thanks, everyone.’

Smith looked flustered. Carveth caught his eye and waggled her eyebrows, conveying some message whose details he could not read but whose main thrust he knew to be crude. Suruk looked unconcerned and rooted in a little bag for something else to eat.

‘Well,’ said Smith, ‘that’s very good of you. Thank you, Rhianna. Very decent. I mean… I, and I think I speak for all of us when I say “I”, do try to—’

‘We rock out,’ Carveth said. ‘Anyone second me on that?’

‘Rock,’ Suruk said.

Carveth nodded. ‘Motion carried. We’re all pretty super. If anyone’s feeling bashful about that, I’ll tell them they’re great and they can tell me back. Next point?’

Looking a little surprised, Rhianna pushed her hair behind her ears and said, ‘Oh, well, I thought now might be a good time for us all to talk.’

The other three studied one another suspiciously, as if a visiting sleuth had just announced that there was a murderer in the room. ‘Talk?’ said Smith, in the manner that one might say ‘Bugger an owl?’

‘Yes. I thought that now, while we’re together, would be a good time for us to share whatever feelings we might have, that we might want to air with the rest of the group.’

‘Does this involve emotions?’ Smith said warily.

‘Yes, if you’d like.’

‘Er, no, I’m fine thanks.’

From the vantage point of his stool Suruk said, ‘I constantly want to kill things. Is that an emotion?’

‘It could be,’ Rhianna said. ‘Is there something you’d like to say about that? Something you’d like to get off your chest, to share with the rest of the group?’

‘It is brilliant.’

‘Okay, silly question… anyone else? Polly?’

‘Fine, thanks,’ Carveth said.

‘Mustn’t grumble,’ said Isambard Smith.

Carveth slapped her hands together. ‘Well, that’s that. We’re all great. Let’s get on with – oh, wait a moment. There
is
something I want to say.’

Rhianna nodded. ‘Okay. This is your space. Take your time.’

‘Are you an alien?’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘Look,’ said Carveth, ‘I’ve been thinking, right? I’m a simulant, an android, and I’m not too bad at thinking. It’s something that’s been dawning on me for a while. I reckon there’s something really wrong with you and I think it’s time we knew the truth.’

Suddenly Rhianna looked afraid, frozen. Her face hardly moved as she spoke. ‘I don’t really see what you’re getting at.’

‘Well, I’ve made a list. Hold on.’ Carveth pulled a bit of paper from her back pocket and unfolded it. ‘Right. This is my list of all the weird things you’ve done. Ready?’

‘Ready, I guess,’ she replied.

‘One. When the void sharks attacked us the second time, they suddenly pulled away just before the captain went out to deal with them. You were meditating at the time.’

‘I don’t see—’

‘Nor did I, at the time. Now, onto the next. The fight with the Ghasts. When they tried to board us, you were next to me. One of them got close, and was about to attack me with its claws. Remember that?’

‘Yes, I do.’

‘Something happened then, something weird. I can hardly explain it: it was as though a ripple ran through the universe and sort of shifted everything around. Like a burp in the space-time continuum. Do you know anything about that?’

Rhianna shrugged. ‘Why should I?’ She sounded defensive, hurt.

‘You were there. You did it. You made it happen.’

‘Hey, I don’t have to take this! What is this, Fascist oppression hour? Why should I be called to account because of your negativity?’

‘Easy on her, Carveth,’ said Smith.

‘I am easy.’

‘This the galaxy probably knows,’ Suruk said.

‘Back off, frog. I just want to know the truth, on the off chance that Rhianna is a space monster in disguise. I think that’s pretty reasonable. Now, may I continue?’

‘I shall hear you out,’ Suruk replied. ‘Then possibly knock you out, but go on.’

‘Next, that whole knife-throwing thing. What’s all that about? I leave the ship for ten minutes, and I come back to find you’ve grown a force field. Not natural. And what’s more, either Suruk and Captain Smith are a pair of absolute chronic idiots or you’ve done something to their minds to make them think it’s all perfectly normal and above board. Eh?’

‘I didn’t do anything to their minds.’

‘Well, alright then. But you are immune to knives, and that ain’t right. And, the cap tells me that you stood in front of him in that gunfight down on Paradis and that Edenite officer bloke fired a whole magazine at you and none of the bullets hit. That’s not just weird: that’s Kate Bush territory. Explain that.’

The ship hummed around them. The three faces turned to her. Slowly, Rhianna opened her hands and shrugged. ‘I don’t know,’ she said.

‘You don’t know?’

‘I really don’t. I mean, I’ve always believed in Karma. Does that help at all?’

‘You must have been doing some bloody good works in your past life to turn bulletproof,’ Carveth replied. Smith said quietly, ‘Rhianna, have you always been able to do this?’

‘Always?’

‘As in “all your life”,’ Carveth put in. ‘Look, I don’t know what you really are, but I’ve got a shortlist. And none of the options is looking good.’ She turned her piece of paper over and peered at writing on the back of it. ‘Here’s my shortlist. One, you’re an alien; two, an assassin reprogrammed by the government – it happens, I saw it on TV –

or, three, some sort of magic person with psychic powers.’

‘Oh, please,’ Rhianna exclaimed. ‘Enough persecution already, little miss witchfinder. Come on, do I
look
like an alien?’

‘You might be. An alien could look exactly like a person except for some extra stuff stuck on its head. The difference could be very small.’

‘Unlikely,’ Suruk said.

‘Rhianna,’ Smith said gently, ‘can you remember anything from your past that’s been like this? Have you always been able to do unusual things? Your parents, for example. How about them?’

‘Well, they were hippies. They fled the Republic of Eden just after the War of Disarmament. They ended up on New Fran, but first they went to Earth and followed the old 1960’s trail: Woodstock, Tangiers, Morocco, Brighton, Skegness – they didn’t really do maps.’

‘I see. What else
did
they do?’

‘Acid. And they looked into crystals and stuff. They were Vorl nuts.’

‘What, little round things?’ Carveth said, screwing up her face in puzzlement.

‘
Vorl
nuts,’ Smith said. ‘Vorl is the name of an important alien race.’

‘No wonder I’ve never heard of them,’ Carveth said. She sighed. ‘I don’t see the connection. Who are these Vorl, anyway?’

‘The guardians of space,’ Rhianna said quietly. ‘The most advanced race our galaxy has ever seen. Creatures so attuned to the cosmos that they became one with it, free from the constraint of earthy bodies, free to live forever amongst the stars.’

Suruk had been listening with his head tilted to one side, quietly crunching. ‘I have heard of such things,’ he said. ‘The floaty woman speaks only half the truth. There are many legends spoken of the Vorl: we of the M’Lak believe that they once walked amongst us. To those who they called friends, they gave honour. But to those who they called enemies, who sought to bend their power to evil ends, they brought doom. It was said that they could throw down lightning from the sky itself, and melt the very flesh from a man’s bones as if it were wax. Of course, they said it about the M’Lak, not men as such, but the point remains.’

Smith shrugged. ‘It’s all nonsense, if you ask me. There’re two very good reasons why nobody’s found the Vorl: firstly, space is infinitely vast, providing a sentient being with limitless opportunities to hide, and secondly, they’re not real. I suggest we just get back to repairing the ship and forget all this made-up science-fiction stuff. The positronic versifier won’t transfibulate itself, after all.’

‘Perhaps my parents knew something about the Vorl,’

Rhianna said. ‘I guess that would explain why the Ghasts are after me.’

‘Perhaps the storkoid left them a little bundle under the cosmic gooseberry bush,’ Carveth said. ‘Perhaps you
are
a Vorl.’

‘Stop that,’ said Smith. ‘Look, Rhianna. What Carveth says is true: there’s no doubting that you have special abilities, which make you… special. That’s fine by me. It’s variety that makes the Empire great. That and dreadnoughts. And tea.

‘When I was at school, one of my best friends was unusual. He used to eat crayons, but we all thought he was smashing. He’d always have people round him, in spite of him being, um, special, especially if he was eating a crayon at the time. We’d all say, “Look, there goes Crayony Dave again”, and everyone would laugh, and so would he. Everyone was happy. So you see my point.’

Rhianna said: ‘You want me to eat crayons?’

‘Goodness no!’ Smith laughed. ‘It’s that you may be weird as hell, but you’re one of us, no matter what you are. In all honesty, even I don’t know what you are myself!’ He laughed again, in what seemed an oddly silent room. I hope to God you’re not psychic, he added to himself. That could be embarrassing. Especially what with you being a very fine bit of filly indeed. God, the number of times I’ve thought about parping your boobs… If you’re listening, Rhianna, I didn’t say that. ‘And besides, the fact is that whatever your parents’ connection to the Vorl may be, it seems that someone out there thinks you’re worth capturing. Beer, anyone?’

He stood up and fetched new bottles. Smith lined them up and began to open the caps. ‘It doesn’t really matter, though, in the long run. The fact is, you’re a woman in need of help and you’re on my ship, and if anyone wants to kidnap you while you’re on board, they’ll have to fight their way past me first. I’m sure the crew agree. Right, crew? Crew?’