Space Captain Smith (9 page)

Smith was finding it difficult to concentrate. In the last fifteen minutes he had celebrated his continuing existence by drinking three bottles of beer. As a result, his vision was slightly uneven and his front marked by a stripe of spluttered lager. ‘So what do you reckon?’ he managed, quickly turning back to his bottle as it began to froth. ‘Do you think there’s something wrong with her?’

‘My considered medical opinion? She’s a killer mentalist with knobs on.’

‘She might just be trained.’

‘Trained in what, psychic ninja death? Why should she be? She’s the first ninja I’ve met who spent their free time listening to whale noises. That said, she
is
the first ninja I’ve met full stop.’

‘Well, it does seem odd that a pacifist who works in a health food shop might turn out to be some sort of mystic assassin.’

‘Well, yeah. I doubt they get many samurai attacks at Veggie-world. Besides, it wasn’t quite like all that. It was more… it’s not easy to describe.’

‘Go on.’

‘It wasn’t martial arts. It was more that things changed around her. She suddenly seemed to be in the right place at the right time. Not that she disappeared or anything like that. Blimey, I’m an android and
I
can’t work out how to explain this.’

‘I think I understand.’

‘Smith, those void sharks. She was meditating all through that and they didn’t attack us at all.’

‘Yes. But I don’t see… hold on… no… what’re you saying?’

Carveth sighed. ‘I’m not sure, Cap. It’s too strange for me to describe properly. I’m an android, a simulant. I’m pure rationality. I don’t even drink alcohol, let alone believe in magic powers. Well, not much alcohol. But what if she’s right? What if she really is in tune with nature or something?’

‘I see what you mean.’ Smith frowned, rubbing his chin.

‘My God. Think of the unholy power you could unleash with such abilities. It would be just like Doctor Dolittle all over again.’

‘Yes, I suppose so. You do know that was just a book, right?’

‘Figure of speech.’

‘But you remember that bit in
Snow White
when all the animals come out and dance around with her?’

‘I don’t watch children’s films.’ Smith shrugged and stood up. ‘I’ll have a talk with her, see if she wants to say anything. Good work with the shotgun back there, by the way. Bagged a couple of good’uns. Thanks for that.’

‘No problem,’ she said, and her shaking hand reached for another bottle of beer.

Suruk was bidding his comrades goodbye in the corridor. Smith glanced through the open hatch and caught a glimpse of their ship; crudely painted with symbols he could not recognise, the walls hung with trophy racks. ‘Good plan back there, Suruk. You saved our skin.’

‘I thank you. Besides, I have always owed you a debt.’

Suruk drew a machete. ‘Now, if you do not mind, the skull one of these alien stormtroopers will make a charming paperweight.’

Smith left Suruk to it and knocked on Rhianna’s door.

‘Hi, who’s there?’

‘Smith. Can I come in?’

‘Sure,’ she said, and he walked in. Rhianna was sitting up on the bed, reading a book about Tibet. The room smelt of joss sticks. She had brought cushions with her, it seemed – a choice that seemed both offensively new age and irritatingly feminine. The cushions had swirly patterns on them that seemed subliminally to invite him to throw them out the window.

‘How’re you?’ she said. She looked very Bohemian, in an insipid way, and he rummaged through his mind, trying to establish who it was that she resembled. ‘Well,’

Smith began from the doorway, unsure of how to approach this situation, ‘that
was
exciting, wasn’t it?’

‘You can close the door,’ Rhianna said.

‘Right.’ He closed the door and stood in front of it. She pulled her feet up and patted the end of the bed. ‘Sit down if you want.’

‘Absolutely.’ He sat down. Smith suddenly realised who Rhianna reminded him of: Miss Brooke, his art teacher when he had been eight, and the first woman to whom he had ever been attracted. He had discovered this attraction shortly after Miss Brooke had found him stealing pencils, for which she had slapped him across the back of the head and paraded him in front of the class. He hoped the incident had not affected his psychological development. It would be unfortunate if he were only able to achieve sexual satisfaction by culminating a relationship in front of an audience of twenty jeering eight-year-olds.

‘Well, that was something. Always good to have a crack at some alien types. Most of the time they deserve it, too.’

She nodded.

‘Dangerous sort, your Ghast. Ferocious and organised. No moral fibre, though,’ he added, feeling for reasons he could not pin down that he was digging himself into a hole that he could not yet see. ‘Your Ghast’s like your foreigner, you see – clever enough, in a low cunning sort of way, but ultimately not the ticket, not at all.’

Rhianna raised a finger. ‘Can I just stop you there, bearing in mind that I
am
a foreigner?’

Ah, so that was it. His satisfaction in having located the hole was mollified by the knowledge that he had just jumped into it. ‘You don’t count, of course,’ said Smith. ‘I mean, it’s not like you’re French or anything. You’re just … just… unusual, that’s all.’

‘That’s sweet of you.’

‘Thanks.’ Smith was wary of being called ‘sweet’: like many men, he had always interpreted it as a euphemism for ‘emasculated wimp’. Yet from Rhianna the usual undertone of being a spineless, easily-manipulated cretin was not there. He wished he knew how to deal with women. Life had not offered him much opportunity. Most of the girls on the Captains’ Training Course seemed to have stepped from the work of either Tolkein or Wagner – sometimes, cruelly, both.

‘I mean, my point is that your Ghast is not the right type at all. Were any of us bound to fall into his hands, he would treat us without a shred of decency. Whereas, of course, were you bound and falling into my hands, you can rest assured that I would never think of behaving indecently with – to – you. Quite.’

‘Uh-huh?’

‘Absolutely. So do you have magic powers?’ he demanded, going in for the kill.

‘Does Wicca count?’

‘Baskets? No.’

‘Then no. Why?’

‘I just wondered.’ A more subtle approach was required. ‘Rhianna, when you go for walks, do animals come and dance round you?’

‘Like in
Snow White
?’

‘Exactly.’

‘No. Isambard, did you get hit out there? In the head, perhaps?’

‘No, I’m fine, thanks.’

‘Thank you for defending me.’ She shifted position, folding her legs under her, which had the effect of sliding her towards him slightly. Smith wished this conversation could be carried out in a larger room, preferably around a table and through intermediaries. ‘I owe you, and your crew. Thank you.’

‘Not at all,’ he said. ‘Not at all. And don’t think you have to repay me in any way, financially or, otherwise. You are a guest on my ship, and your passage will remain free from my interference.’

She moved slightly, towards him. Smith sprang upright and lurched to the door. ‘Right, see you later,’ he said, and left.

The M’Lak ship was gone, and so were the Ghast bodies. There were only clues left to hint at the fight that had happened here: the wreckage of a couple of crates, patches of melted metal where stray disruptor bolts had hit the walls and the stain of oily Ghast blood on the floor. Smith hastened to the cockpit.

‘Well, I think that covered it,’ he announced, dropping into to the captain’s chair.

Carveth was studying a clipboard. ‘You were gone a while. Did you pump her for or in exchange for information?’

‘Yes. Apparently she’s not Snow White and she isn’t magic either. Although she may be lying, of course. Didn’t think of that. What’ve you got there?’

‘It’s a list of all the things wrong with this ship.’

‘Bad news?’

‘They could bring it out in paperback. That torpedo hit us hard. We’ve got serious damage to the thrusters, heatwarping in the secondary camshaft and the right-side emergency jet’s completely knackered. We can’t thrust, our shaft’s bent and we’ll probably never shoot off from the right hand again.’

‘What sort of engines do the thrusters use?’

‘Multi-stroke Wankel-rotary. Why?’

‘Just wondered.’

‘But that’s not the worst of it. We’ve got no Supralux.’

‘What does that all mean?’

‘Well, we don’t have a hope of repairing the damage unless we reach civilisation. But we can’t move between systems and at our current state we won’t get home for about thirty years.’

‘Blast!’ said Smith. ‘We should have asked those Morlocks for help.’

‘Are you kidding? They’d have given us a push straight into the sun. I don’t know what their ships run on, but I wouldn’t want to share jump-leads with them.’

‘Good point, I suppose. What about the Ghasts?’

She shrugged. ‘I don’t know. If they’re anything like I think they are they’ll be sorting themselves out ready to come back for another go. You know, we could really do with a mechanic.’

‘Aren’t you the mechanic?’

She frowned. ‘I’m the pilot. I can’t be flying this thing and sticking it back together at once. Don’t you know about spacecraft design?’

Smith shook his head. ‘Nothing bigger than Airfix, I’m afraid. Balls: out of the frying pan and into the fire.’ He sighed and checked Gerald’s water. ‘What do you suggest?’

‘We’ve got no options. We’ll have to put down at the nearest civilised world and see what they can do. If not civilised, then we’ll have to make do with inhabited.’

Smith nodded. ‘So we can make planetfall?’

Carveth said, ‘Fall in the sense of dropping out the sky, yes. I’ll try and steer us down, but we sure as hell won’t be getting up again without a boost.’

‘Right. Well, I suppose that’s all we can do in the circumstances. Soon we’ll be in Republic of Eden territory. They may be a bunch of trigger-happy fanatics, but they’re mad enough for the Ghasts to stay out of their way.’

‘How do you mean?’ she said.

‘I’ll show you on the navigational computer. If I can find which bank of consoles it is.’

‘There’s a machine for locating it.’

‘What, a satnav for the satnav?’ The console bleeped, and Carveth pointed to a screen on which a threedimensional mock-up of the galaxy spun slowly. Smith zoomed in on their position.

‘We’re still in New Fran’s space, right?’ he said. ‘The sooner we cross the border into Republic space the better. The Franese are so wet they wouldn’t raise a finger if the Ghasts started a war in their territory. But if the Ghasts start destroying neutral ships – like us – in Republic of Eden territory, they won’t be welcome at all. The Republic’s so heavily policed that the Ghasts won’t dare attack us once we’re in their space. You see?’

‘That’s smart,’ Carveth said. ‘But you know it’s a bad week when you’re looking to those tossers to keep you safe. Still, what choice have we got?’ She sighed. ‘Right you are, Boss. I’ll set us a course straight for the border. Into the fire it is.’

462 sat in the captain’s chair of the
Systematic
Destruction
, drumming his pincers on the armrest. A minion stood beside him, polishing his helmet. 462 reached up and prodded the intercom.

‘Praetorians to bridge!’ he barked.

‘We obey!’ voices yelped back. He settled back in his seat and gloomily sipped at a glass of reddish liquid. It was pulped Ghast, made from one of his servants who had failed to display the requisite level of efficiency while performing some task. Behind him, hooves clanged on the floor as his personal guards arrived. His helmet-polisher cringed.

They were the Ghast elite-caste, bigger and darkercoloured than the crewmen who scurried about on the bridge trying to look busy and avoid being noticed. Under their helmets they had no faces, as such: just piggy little eyes and teeth. Their antennae stood to attention.

‘Damage report!’ 462 ordered.

‘Damage severe, Glorious One! Craft mauled by M’Lak rabble! We fought them off, but they have caused extensive damage to secondary systems. The engineers report difficulty in repair.’

‘Shoot the engineers,’ 462 replied instinctively.

‘We obey!’

The praetorians spun around, their hooves crashing down, and took one marching step away, coats flapping. The helmet-buffer breathed out again.

‘Praetorians halt!’ 462 yelled.

They stopped, stock-still.

‘You can turn around,’ he added.

The brutish heads faced him, waiting for him to speak. 462 bared his fangs in an evil smile. His eyes narrowed slightly. ‘Cancel that last order,’ he said. ‘
Threaten
to shoot the engineers.’

‘A brilliant plan! Always we obey the genius of our commander!’

462 reflected that it was ideas like this that elevated him above the crowd.

The intercom burst into life with a trumpet-blast of martial music. ‘Glorious 462, this is adjutant 7835—’

‘Spare me the time. Your batch number is unimportant.’

‘Of course! The Republic of Eden craft
Fist of
Righteousness
approaches. Shall I hail the puny human scum?’

‘No.’ He stood up and pulled his coat closed. ‘I will communicate with the weaklings myself. They shall be of use to us. After all, it is only proper that allies should speak face to face.’ He chuckled to himself. His laughter grew in pitch and volume and, out of fear, the surrounding crew joined in like an orchestra backing its first violin. The bridge rang with cackling: it echoed around the weapon-racks, the huge picture of Number One, the banners and posters that decorated the walls.

‘Your helmet is shined,’ said the minion. ‘Further orders?’

462 stopped laughing and looked at him. ‘Prepare for victory!’ he replied, and, laughing again, he strode off to meet his guests.

The
John Pym
’s working engine stuttered into life, a lonely, flickering light at the side of the ship. Gradually, the spaceship built up speed and swung towards the tiny Alcesdis system, at the very edge of Republic of Eden space. In the window, a blue dot appeared. Through the binoculars, Smith saw that it looked like a reshuffled Earth. The Haynes manual helped Carveth divert power from the broken engines to the working one and the ship approached in a loose, long arc until the whole of the window was taken up by cloud and the nose-cone glowed red as they began their descent onto a world called Paradis.