Nothing But Blue Skies (31 page)

The crown prince drew a claw along the side of his jaw. ‘He said that?'

‘His very words.'

‘That's so nice.' He made a low snuffling sound, muffling it as best he could in his vodka glass, since it wouldn't do for a dragon of his standing to show his sentimental side in public. ‘Breaks his heart, did he say?' he added thoughtfully. ‘Hm. Never tried that. Wonder exactly how you'd go about—'

The dragon king cleared his throat meaningfully. ‘So you'll do that, then,' he said. ‘Keep your ears open, have a chat here and there.'

The crown prince dipped his head a little to confirm. ‘I'll get a couple of my lads onto it as well. Good at that sort of thing. Plenty of practice over the years. We'll get to the bottom of it, don't you worry. Now then, do you suppose a really sudden shock—?'

By the end of the third day, all the delegates had drunk themselves sober again, and it was time to go home. The crown prince of the south-east and the dragon king of the north-west happened to bump into each other briefly in the checkout queue.

‘Sorry to hear about your father,' the king said.

‘Thank you,' the crown prince replied, staring at the back of the head of the dragon in front of him. ‘But he's much better now. A couple of days' rest once he gets home and he'll be as good as new.'

‘That's all right, then,' the king said. ‘It could have been very nasty, I gather.'

The crown prince clenched his tail into a knot. ‘There was a case just like it seven thousand years ago,' he said. ‘Dragon laughed so much at a joke while breathing in a glass of single-malt whisky that he choked. Died of it, apparently. Dad was luckier, though.'

‘I'm sure you're relieved.'

‘You bet. It was a close call, all right.' He sighed. ‘And I suppose even the best jokes lose a bit of their sparkle after seventy centuries.' He looked round at the king, then straight ahead. ‘You wouldn't happen to know any good jokes, would you?'

The king thought for a moment. ‘Well, there's the one about how many humans does it take to change a light bulb.'

The prince looked puzzled. ‘What's a light bulb?'

‘Okay, not that one. There was a dragon, a human and a goldfish went into a bar—'

‘It's not his tail, it's the Aurora Borealis. Heard it,' the prince said sadly. ‘Never mind. If you come across any good ones you will let me know, won't you?'

‘Of course.'

‘Splendid. Now then,' the crown prince went on, ‘about that other business . . .'

By the time they'd worked their way to the head of the queue, the dragon king's expression had changed rather. The effects of the change would probably have been quite clearly visible from the air; an unaccountable tendency for a large and closely packed crowd of dragons to avoid a certain spot on the beach by a substantial margin.

‘You're cross,' the crown prince said.

‘Just a bit.' The king was gradually changing colour, from green to red, like a leaf in autumn. ‘Ever so slightly.'

The crown prince suppressed a smirk. He'd seen something like this bfore, back in the days when the dragons held two conventions; one here, in the summer, the other at midwinter, in Atlantis. That was, of course, before the dragon king of the north-west had found out what the people of Atlantis were saying about him behind his back.

‘Now then,' the prince said, ‘I hope you aren't going to do anything hasty.'

‘Certainly not,' the king replied. ‘On the contrary, it'll take quite a lot of careful planning.'

‘Ah,' the prince said. ‘Just like the last time.'

The king nodded. ‘Of course,' he went on, ‘they say it's not something you forget. Like riding a bicycle.'

‘What's a bicycle?'

‘Haven't a clue. But memorable, apparently. Once you've done it, the experience stays with you for the rest of your life.'

‘That good, huh? Must give it a try some time.' The crown prince smiled. Purely by coincidence, the dragon king of the south-east had been paying an incognito visit to Atlantis on the very day when it vanished for ever under the waters of the Atlantic Ocean. ‘Talking of diplomacy,' he said.

‘You are sure?' the king interrupted. ‘I mean, I was brought up to take geography seriously. Also there's the question of what it'll do to the Gulf Stream. Not to mention the migratory patterns of Canada geese.'

‘In other words,' the prince said, ‘you want to be absolutely sure of your facts before you commit yourself. Good idea. Well,' he said, ‘all I can suggest is that you go and see for yourself. That way, you'll know. Otherwise, there'll always be that nagging doubt in the back of your mind.'

‘You're right,' the dragon king said. ‘All right, that's what I'll do. I'll turn into a human and go to this - what did you say it was called?'

‘Canberra. On my - I mean, on dad's patch. Tell you what,' he added, ‘I can take you there myself.'

‘Really?'

‘No trouble at all.' The prince smiled warmly. ‘The least I can do for my favorite uncle.'

If it crossed the prince's mind that the dragon king of the north-west had no children of his own, which meant that if anything happened to him his throne would pass to his sister's only son, he didn't let it show in his face. His eyes may have sparkled a little, and he may have whistled a bar or two of of ‘Waltzing Matilda' under his breath, but that was probably because he was so happy at his father's lucky escape from the perils of ancient humour.

 

‘Welcome,' said the tank, ‘to Australia.'

Karen wasn't quite sure it was being completely sincere, even for a tank. The way it kept its 105mm cannon, all three machine guns and both wire-guided missiles trained on her, following her every move like a hungry dog begging at table, gave her the impression that it didn't really trust her.

‘No funny stuff,' it added, as she started to walk down the steps off the plane.

‘Not even the one about the two transdimensional creatures of pure energy who buy a lottery ticket? Oh boo. You're no fun.'

‘No talking.'

Karen wasn't having that. She stopped where she was and scowled at the tank, which shuffled back three feet in a growl of fluffed gear-changes. ‘Has it occurred to you,' she said, ‘that if you try and shoot me right now, you'll undoubtedly blow up this nice airplane I'm standing directly in front of? You won't get me, of course, because I'll duck. Now put it away and tell me what I'm supposed to do next.'

The tank let its gun droop, like an adulterer hearing a key turn in the front door. ‘Got my orders,' it said. ‘I'm supposed to keep you covered every step of the way.'

‘Oh, are they expecting it to rain? I'd have brought an umbrella if I'd known.' She walked down a few steps, then stopped. ‘Look,' she said, ‘is there actually a person in there, or am I talking to some kind of intelligent machine? Half-intelligent machine, anyway.'

There was a grinding of metal and a loud creak, and a head popped up through the turret hatch. It was very pink.

‘It must be very hot in there,' Karen said sympathetically. ‘Don't they let you have a fan or something?'

The pink man stared at her with loathing. ‘If you don't do exactly what I tell you,' he said, ‘I'll shoot. Really I will,' he added, spoiling the effect rather.

‘Sure,' Karen replied. She carried on down the stairs, past the tank and across the tarmac towards the single-storey concrete building that looked as if it might contain life forms of some description. The pink man, having shouted a few times, hopped back inside, dropped the lid and followed her, so that an observer might have got an impression of someone taking a very large dog for a walk.

‘It's all right,' she called out as she reached the door. ‘I expect I can find my own way from here.'

‘Stay right where you are,' the pink man yelled at her retreating back, as the doors closed behind her. ‘Someone'll be along to—'

She didn't have long to wait before her next escort arrived. They were more or less what she'd expected - underachievers in black boiler-suits waving machine guns around in a decidedly unsafe manner. Unfortunately, she didn't notice that the air conditioning was on the blink until—‘Aagh!' said one of them, clutching his knee and toppling over as the echoes of the three-round burst died away. The man who'd shot him jumped three paces backwards, cannoned into a concrete pillar, banged his head and went to sleep.

Not again
, Karen thought sadly. ‘Look,' she said, remodulating her voice to Schoolteacher Extra Plus. The remaining storm troopers froze. ‘You're going to have to trust me on this,' she said, ‘but if I were you I'd point your guns in a safe direction and take the bullets out. Now. Truth is, I have a funny effect on people sometimes, particularly if they get too close. If you don't believe me, ask your friend here.'

There was a moment when it looked like they were going to take her warning seriously, but it passed, like the last train home as you're running up the steps. ‘Quiet!' a storm trooper yelled. ‘No talking,' he added, just in case she thought she'd been given permission to mutter softly. ‘Now, put your hands where I can see them.'

It's all right
, Karen told herself,
the optical illusion thing only happens when I get emotional, and I'm calm, calm
. . . Unfortunately, amusement is also an emotion.

After that, all she could do was watch and try and guess in advance exactly how it would happen. The lead storm trooper reaching out to grab her, falling forward and landing on his nose was fairly predictable, as was his gun going off and the bullets ricocheting round the ears of his colleagues. And you didn't have to be Nostradamus to foresee that once the other storm troopers started ducking and throwing themselves at the ground, there'd be a fairly spectacular pile-up, with more weapons fire and a corresponding escalation of panic. The subtle touches were things like the bullet that glanced off someone's Kevlar groin-cup, zinged its way round all four walls, the floor (twice) and the ceiling in order to plug a storm trooper unerringly in the unarmoured seat of his trousers, or the shot that cut loose a power cable that fell directly into the pool caused by the punctured water main. The shot that knocked the handbrake off the fork-lift in the corner a second or so after another stray round had severed two wires under the dash, thereby starting the motor, before knocking the gear lever into drive mode and ending its journey by dislodging a six-foot length of scaffolding tube off a nearby rack at such an angle that it slid down, smashed through the windscreen and pinned the accelerator pedal to the floor was, quite simply, a masterpiece of serendipity. Once the fork-lift got going, of course, it added a wonderful new variable to the mix, allowing whoever was directing the scene to add florid little touches such as the bullets that glanced off the steering wheel from time to time, sending the fork-lift careering across the floor at top speed in a close imitation of Brownian motion. Karen couldn't really approve of having it chase one particular storm trooper twice round the building before it caught up with him and scooped him up by his ammunition belt; too showy, she thought, and not really believable. On the other hand, having the pink man in the tank hear all the gunfire and dash to the rescue, misjudging his braking distance just as he arrived at the front wall of the shed, was entirely legitimate, not to mention neatly foreshadowed by the previous scene. The sheer surrealism of having a twelve-foot-long cannon barrel suddenly poke its way through a solid breeze-block wall justified its being there, as far as she was concerned.

So far
, she said to herself as she walked away,
I rather like Australia
.

The back door of the shed opened onto a concrete yard. She shut the door behind her and looked round for someone who might be able to tell her what she was supposed to do next, but the place seemed to be deserted. There was, however, a telephone on the wall. She picked it up and waited. After a while she got tired of waiting and said ‘Hello?' quite loudly.

‘Tower,' replied a voice. ‘What's going on down there, mate?'

‘Excuse me,' Karen said sweetly, ‘but I'm the prisoner. Could you send someone down to collect me?'

By the time a nervous-looking man appeared in a small Suzuki jeep, all noises from inside the shed had stopped, even the crackle of the high-voltage cables. ‘I wouldn't look in there, if I were you,' Karen said. ‘In fact, the best thing would probably be to nail planks over the doors and leave it as it is.'

The man went and looked, nevertheless. He was a funny shade of green when he came back. ‘Jesus,' he whispered. ‘What did you do to them?'

‘Me? Nothing. It was an accident.'

‘Right.' The man looked at her for a long time, then took two steps back. ‘I got a wife,' he said wretchedly. ‘And two kids.'

‘Really? That's nice. You can show me photos of them later, if there's time. Right now, though, I'd really like it a lot if you could give me a lift in that jeep.'

The man nodded. ‘No worries,' he muttered. ‘Where d'you want to go?'

Karen smiled. ‘Take me to your leader,' she said. ‘Please,' she added, remembering that good manners cost nothing. ‘He's probably wondering where I've got to.'

The man frowned. ‘But you escaped,' he said. ‘You're hijacking my jeep just so you can turn yourself in?'

‘That's right,' Karen replied, trying not to get annoyed. ‘Quite simple, really. Now please do as I say, because I'm in that awkward transitional stage between suffering fools gladly and being glad when fools suffer.'