Space Captain Smith (23 page)

‘Though it’s nice of you to try and pick it open.’

They sat back up and the waitress brought them drinks. On the radio, ‘The Safety Dance’ ended and another song began.

‘Ah, Men Without Hats,’ Dreckitt said, ‘where are you now? You know,’ he added, ‘that reminds me of something.’

‘Oh yes. What’s that then?’

‘Someone gives you a baby-skin handbag and pair of shoes. What do you do?’

‘Um,’ said Carveth.

‘Pure baby-skin. Are you repulsed by the gift? What’s your emotional response?’

‘Do the bag and shoes match?’

‘How should I know?’ Dreckitt said.

‘Well, you asked.’

‘It’s a hypothetical question.’

‘You mean you’re not really giving anything away free?’

‘No. The bag and shoes don’t match, by the way.’

‘Oh.’ Carveth went back to her drink. ‘That’s terrible!’

she exclaimed. ‘I reject the bag and I say how bad it is to make things out of babies!’

‘You’re an android,’ Dreckitt said.

‘No I’m not.’

‘Yes you are.’

‘Am not.’

‘All the evidence points to it,’ he said.

‘Am not. Not not not. If I was an android, I’d be making a much better job of arguing my way out of this. I’d use logic and stuff. Explain that.’

‘You’re a renegade android that’s violated its programming and is on the run from its designated duty,’ he replied. ‘Who knows what sort of systemic malfunctions the violation of your primary rationale has caused?’

‘That’s what
you
say,’ she said, and she stared huffily at the wall.

‘Polly?’ he said. ‘Miss Carveth?’

‘What now?’

‘Got you!’

‘Oh, tits!’ she said, wishing she’d kept hold of the gun. This was just typical. The date had been going fine and now he’d turned out to be an android bounty killer. Bloody men!

‘I knew you weren’t a real human being,’ Dreckitt said, leaning back in his seat. ‘Several things gave it away. Firstly, you seem to be dressed as Alice in Wonderland. Secondly, using my special training, I seamlessly inserted questions into our conversation that would betray the kind of emotional response a biological human would give, thus revealing you to be synthetic. And thirdly, you’re obviously not the real Daisy Chainsaw because I own their first album.’

‘Good, isn’t it?’

‘Yeah, not bad. But let’s get back to the whole bountykilling thing.’

‘Oh, yes. Perhaps we can work something out. Do you accept sexual favours?’

‘I’m not going to kill you, Polly.’

She blinked. ‘Would you accept them anyway?’

Dreckitt gave a brief snort of amusement and said,

‘Polly, let me tell you something. I’m an android too. And not a good one. Truth is, I’m nothing but a two-bit grifter with a cheap suit and a big piece – that’s a gun. I’ve got nothing to offer the world except a hard-luck story and a hand-cannon – which is also a gun, so don’t get any ideas. I’ve not got much to thank my creators for – no friends, no family. But I am glad I’m not saddled with an overactive sex drive and a lemming’s instinct for danger. I’m through with killing my own kind. Finished.’

‘You didn’t answer my question.’

‘You can go, Polly. I can’t say you’ve got much of a chance, kid, and it cuts me up to tell you that.’

At the far end of the bar, some sort of commotion was going on. A group of police was attempting to enter, their armour catching the bad light of the bar. A waiter was remonstrating with them, waving his hands. The police looked at one another, their visors blank. They made Carveth think of androids more primitive than herself, automata.

Dreckitt reached into his coat. ‘Trouble,’ he said. Suddenly the waiter folded and dropped out of sight: he’d been punched in the gut. A baton whirled and hit something out of view that Carveth knew would be his head. Dreckitt stood up. ‘There’s a back door,’ he said, nodding towards the rear of the bar. ‘Go, Polly.’

The raiders, more like stormtroopers than what she thought of as police, were busy irritating people at their tables: tipping drinks on the floor, knocking plates down, pulling customers out of booths and shoving them against the wall. Carveth got up.

‘Wait,’ Dreckitt said.

She looked at him.

‘A pair of androids like us don’t add up to a whole load of bits in this galaxy,’ Dreckitt said. ‘But I reckon you deserve to get out of here more than me. They screwed me over on this, and now I reckon I might just screw them back. Come here, sister,’ he said, and he grabbed her and held her close. ‘Gimme some interface.’

He kissed her fiercely then let her go. Dreckitt drew the Assassinator. ‘Run, Polly!’ he said, and he lifted the huge pistol in both hands. ‘Run!’ Then: ‘Hey, you!’ he called, and as Carveth ran for the rear door, she heard the gunfight begin. Half a mile from the
John Pym
, Smith drew the Civiliser and held it in the folds of his coat. The security forces of the Republic of Eden would be armed, but so was he. Fifty yards away, he heard sounds. A mercenary soldier stood in the corridor that led to the ship, his back to Smith. He wore army gear, customised to a level that would have had him court-martialled back home, with sunglasses and driving gloves.

This would take some skill. Smith turned the Civiliser around in his hand.

The man was listening to something on his headset. Smith bashed him with the butt of the gun, and for a disappointing, confusing moment, the man just stood there and said ‘Huh? What’re you doing?’

‘Knocking you senseless, my good man,’ Smith said, and hit him again, and the man went down. His gun was much bigger than Smith’s. It looked like an air-powered dart-gun, probably loaded with tranquillisers. Useful for riot control, although without the loud banging sound Smith would have expected Gilead to enjoy. He decided to stick to the Civiliser. Smith stashed the plotting computer by the side of a battered vending machine. Taking a pen from his pocket, he scribbled a few M’Lak characters onto the plastic. They would look like graffiti to an untrained eye. He drew his gun, crept to the edge of the corridor and peered around.

In the shadow of the spaceship an odd scene was being played out. A dozen armed men stood in a ring around Rhianna and Gilead, who were arguing bitterly.

‘… and you come here in your stupid little fascist hat and start oppressing people with your jumped-up mercenaries, with no moral right or authority—’

‘I bear the Word of the Lord!’ Gilead yelled, while Rhianna continued to rage at him. He looked stupid, huge and vastly arrogant, as usual, and he had twelve armed men on his side. On the other hand, at least he wasn’t trying to cop off with Rhianna again.

‘–No appreciation of the rights of other people, just your narrow-minded militaristic diktat forcing people to conform to your oppressive stereotyped—’

Blimey, thought Smith, struggling to keep up with the torrent of left-wing invective, perhaps he was better off on his own. If Rhianna kicked off like that about being detained by enemy soldiers, what would she be like when the time came for her to do his ironing?

‘–ruined this planet and all the other ones your tinpot junta owns. Your dictatorial regime spits in the face of Gaia and denies the natural truths that have turned your so-called Eden into a wasteland. You have no love for Mother Earth—’

‘I have heard enough!’ Gilead cried. ‘Take this pagan Jezebel away!’

‘Not so fast, Gilead.’ Smith stepped out into view, and Gilead’s men turned around, covering him. The huge barrel of the Civiliser pointed straight at Gilead’s head. A dozen guns pointed at Isambard Smith.

Gilead looked no more surprised than usual. ‘Well, well. Captain Spiffy. I’ve already got your friend and now I’ve got you too.’

‘Let the woman go, Gilead. She’s part of my crew, and you’ve no right to detain her here.’

Gilead snorted with contempt. ‘What’ll you do, arrest us? Me and all of my men?’

Smith said, ‘No, your men can go free. But I’m taking you in, Gilead. Don’t make me use force.’

‘Force? Hah! You know nothing of force. I shall wipe you away! You shall be scattered and cast asunder to gnash your teeth on stony ground!’

Smith said, ‘You shout a lot for a God-botherer, Gilead. Haven’t you ever heard that the meek shall inherit the Earth?’

‘I
am
the god-damned meek!’ Gilead bellowed. ‘Take him down!’

Something hit Smith in the side. Rhianna screamed. Gilead drew a truncheon and bashed her over the head with it. Smith fired: the shell hit Gilead in the chest and threw him onto his back as half a dozen darts appeared in Smith’s flank. Gilead was shouting something.

Smith stepped forward and cocked the hammer. It was as easy as juggling rhinos. He tried to lift the gun, and found that the air had turned to porridge.

‘I’m… going to… settle your hash, you… complete…arse… wipe,’ he said, with great difficulty. His record seemed to be playing at the wrong speed. He looked down: the darts protruding from his leg reminded him of bunting. ‘Balls, you’ve drugged me,’ he added, and like a felled tree toppled over onto his side. The last thing he thought as he hit the floor was, ‘Bollocks, that’s a solidlooking floor.’

They caught Carveth easily. She was trying to trick an ammo-dispenser into accepting Adjusted Sterling and had resorted to thumping the machine to get her way. Two policemen concluded that she was some kind of transvestite dwarf, itself a capital crime in the Republic of Eden. They were surprised when she turned out to be a woman, but they took her in anyway.

She was led into a little room where some armed heavies prodded her into a seat. On the opposite side of the desk sat a big, hard-eyed man with his arm in a sling. He had a blandly handsome visage without defects or personality, the Dairy Milk chocolate of the facial world.

‘My name is John Gilead,’ he said, ‘Captain in His Wrathful Lordship God the Merciless Annhilator’s space fleet. I have captured your friends: Rhianna Mitchell, a communist agitator and subversive, and Isambard Smith, an imbecile. My men are currently searching the nest of fornication you call your ship.’

‘I’ve never heard of either of them,’ Carveth said. ‘Naff off and let me go!’

One of the guards jabbed her with his gun. ‘Watch your mouth, little lady.’

‘You can stick it too.
Sum civis Britannicus
, tit-face!’

The man jabbed her again, hard. ‘Hey! Do the words
head
,
your
,
blow
and
off
mean anything to you?’

‘A good night in?’

‘Leave it!’ Gilead said. ‘I know how to get results. The bar you drank at was bugged. We know who you really are. You’re Polly Carveth, a renegade android.’

‘No I’m not!’

‘Because you are company property, I’m prepared to hand you back to the people who created you instead of having you killed out of hand.’

‘In which case I am her, actually. I was just lying back then.’

‘Good. Then we are agreed. Tomorrow Mr Devrin gets you back.’

Carveth thought about it for a moment. The idea of returning to the Devrin corporation made her feel unwell. Didn’t this mad bigot understand exactly what that would entail? There had to be some other option, surely.

‘Look,’ Carveth said, leaning forward, ‘can we just talk about this? You’re a moral, God-fearing sort of man, right? Pro-morality, anti-fun, that kind of thing? You realise what you’ll be sending me back to, don’t you? Sex. That’s what I was made for. Tons of it: steamy, nonmarital, dirty sex. You can’t condone that, can you?

That’s why you have to let me go, to escape all that sin and get back on the path of righteousness or something.’

Gilead rubbed his chin with his left hand. ‘Hmm. You’ve got a point there. If I hand you back to the Devrin corporation, you’ll merely lapse into depravity. You’re right, I can’t do that.’ He shrugged. ‘Drug this heathen. Lock her in their ship and launch it into the sun!’

‘Well,’ Carveth said as the dart-gun fired, ‘I suppose it was worth a try.’

Smith came round without his trousers on. His head still hurt from the sedatives and his first instinct was to congratulate himself on a good night’s drinking. He looked around to see if any girls were involved and saw only Captain Gilead standing on the far side of the cell.

‘Damn!’ said Smith.

‘Well, looky here,’ Gilead said. ‘How the mighty’s belt has fallen. Welcome to my ship, Captain Smith.’

‘Gilead, you worm! Go to hell! But give me my trousers first!’

‘Oh no.’ Gilead grinned, showing his improbably even teeth. ‘You’re going nowhere. Well, you are going somewhere, once you’ve told us a few things about your crew. Somewhere rather special, where you’ll learn some piety. We’re going to bring you closer to the Lord.’

‘I won’t have to go to church, will I?’

‘Oh no.’

‘Phew.’

‘We’re going to crucify you.’

‘Ah. Not phew at all, then. I mean, that’s hardly brotherly love, is it?’

‘You’re not my brother,’ Gilead replied. ‘You’re a Heathenite. And a fool.’

‘Oh really? Well how about you, the maddest loony in Loonyland? And how can I be a fool if I’ve outwitted you and your little helper Corveau, who was also a fool? If I’m a fool and I outfooled your foolish minion, who was the bigger fool for appointing him: the fool who killed him or the fool who made that fool his fool?’ Smith’s voice had been rising through this sentence and now he stopped and blinked, a little surprised to find that he was no longer talking. ‘Eh? Got you there, haven’t I?’

‘What the hell are you talking about?’

‘You’re a prat. Besides, keeping me here is pointless. I’d sooner smear my testicles with cheese and entrust them to a gang of hungry mice than squeal on my crew.’

‘Humn,’ Gilead said. He turned to the intercom.

‘Control, do we have any hungry mice on board?’

‘They’re using them down the corridor,’ a voice replied. Gilead shrugged and turned back to Smith.

‘I was telling you that you’re stupid,’ Smith said, ‘You look stupid, you act stupidly, you come from a stupid regime and you follow a load of stupid beliefs. So leave my crew out of it and bugger off.’

‘I don’t understand,’ Gilead said. ‘Why do you have any respect for those losers?’