Wrath of the Lemming-men (8 page)

‘What utter toss!’ Carveth exclaimed, and she clamped a hand over her mouth. ‘Sorry, I meant to think that, not say it. But I mean, that’s daft. Next thing you’ll say they built the pyramids.’

‘Actually, they didn’t,’ Alan replied. ‘The Egyptians did that, then someone’s alien ancestors forged poor-quality evidence of themselves building the pyramids, for a laugh. Not naming any names, Suruk the Slayer.’

Suruk chuckled. ‘Indeed.’

‘I remember when they discovered it,’ Smith said. ‘The greatest hoax since the Nazca Indians faked Erik von Danniken.’

Carveth looked at the others. ‘Not convinced,’ she said.

‘There is one more thing,’ W said. ‘I never realised what this meant before, but. . . well, we keep records on the larger corporations, in case they turn against the interests of the Empire. It didn’t seem like much at the time, but Lloyd Leighton, the co-founder of Leighton-Wakazashi –was a Morris dancer. Oh, and he also spent billions looking for the Vorl so he could turn them into a bioweapon.’

‘Wait a moment!’ cried Smith, clicking his fingers. ‘The documents in that Ghast lab had a symbol on the top – Leighton-Wakazashi’s headed paper!’

W nodded. ‘There is possibly a link between Leighton- Wakazashi and the Vorl – and when I say
possibly
, I mean
definitely
. It is up to you to find out what it is. We will have to infiltrate the company, discover their plans and find out what they know about the Hospitable Tipplers and the Vorl. And when I say
we
, I mean
you
.’

‘Infiltrate Leighton-Wakazashi?’ Carveth said. ‘How? They have some of the smartest people in the galaxy working for them. No offence or anything, but the only one of us with any sort of university qualification has a degree in Creative Dance.’

‘Interpretative Dance,’ Rhianna said.

‘Right. So if none of us can work there, we’re stuffed, right?’

Smith had been thinking, slowly rubbing his chin. ‘Not exactly,’ he replied. ‘Even if none of us can be workers, there’s one of us who can be a product, isn’t there?’

Slowly they turned to look at Carveth, like the turrets of a dreadnought lining up to civilise a hostile spaceport.

She sighed, well aware that there was no getting out of this. ‘For the record,’ she said, ‘Bugger.’

‘You make the tea,’ Carveth said. ‘I’ll be in the cockpit having a sulk.’

Smith was just stirring the pot when she called down the corridor.

‘Boss! Come and have a look at this!’

He put down the spoon and hurried to the front of the ship. Suruk slipped out of his room and joined him.

‘Listen,’ Carveth said, toggling the radio.

‘You have – one – saved message,’ the data recorder said, ‘left – today – at ten thirty-six a.m., Greenwich Standard Galactic time. Message is as follows.’

The voice was cultivated and hard, infused with a sneer.

‘So, the great Captain Smith, eh? No doubt you’re feeling very chipper after your little soiree at the theatre last night. Well, the hand of the Ghast Empire reaches even to this pint-sized paradise! We, the Legion of Ghastists, have captured a certain lady of the stage, and I can assure you that if you and Miss Rhianna Mitchell are not at the Municipal Freight Depot at midnight tonight, the next train she takes will have a permanent sleeper car! And bring none of your freakish allies. It’ll take more than your pet monkey-frog to get you out of this!’

The radio went dead. ‘Scum!’ Suruk growled. ‘How dare he call Carveth a monkey-frog? Only I may do that!’

‘Um. . . do we know this guy?’ Rhianna said.

‘Know him?’ Smith replied. ‘Not personally, but I know his type well enough. . . a Ghastist: a traitor not just to mankind but to the British Space Empire, a person willing to kiss the stercorium of Number One in exchange for the chance to bully his fellow man. The Ghasts are filthy enough, but a man who’d willingly do their dirty work is beyond despicable. I’d gladly shoot the bugger myself – but he has a woman captive and we must rescue her.
Then
we can fix him, good and proper.’

‘Call me a cynic, but does this look like an obvious trap?’ Carveth said.

Smith opened the weapons locker and took out his Civiliser. ‘It may be, but ask yourself this: can we leave a woman to die at the hands of Ghastist thugs?’

‘Maybe?’ Carveth said. ‘Just a thought.’

Smith passed her a pistol. ‘Let’s go.’

It was raining heavily. Rhianna put her umbrella up.

Behind them, the city smoked and steamed.

Carveth looked up at the gates. ‘Well, I’ll stay here then, shall I? You might need a rear guard.’

‘And I shall wait with you, Piglet,’ Suruk said. ‘To make sure the rear guard does something other than guarding its rear. Ten minutes and I will advance from the road. I shall be taking heads.’

Smith and Rhianna passed under open gates, into a compound. The automated station stretched away from them, its greenhouse roof disappearing down the tracks.

The night turned its windows black, winking like polished steel where the moonlight caught them.

‘Well,’ Smith said, ‘we have to go inside.’ He looked at Rhianna and felt tenderness towards her, which irritated him. ‘Be careful,’ he said.

‘Okay,’ Rhianna said, and Smith opened the door and they walked in.

The roof was made of glass panels: the moon caught the frame and threw slanting bars across the floor. They stood on the platform, in the pitch dark just outside the moonlight. Wallahbots rested against the walls. In daylight they would load pallets onto the trains, their boilers and cogs polished and gleaming – now they looked thuggish and hunched.

A locomotive waited at the platform. It was only the engine, but even that was huge: three times man-height, its funnel the size of a castle tower, a monocorn-catcher jutting chin-like from the front. It looked like the helmet of a gigantic knight.

Rhianna ran to the edge of the platform, skirt flapping, and pointed. On the tracks in front of the train was a figure, unconscious and bound.

‘Look!’ she gasped. ‘There’s a woman tied to the train tracks! That’s terrible – oppressive gender stereotyping at its worst!’

‘It’s Lily Tuppence, the Nightingale of Mars!’ said Smith, and a light flicked on before them.

There was a bridge across the train line, and on it stood a man in black. His hair was harshly parted and gelled down flat: he had a hard jaw and a devious moustache. It was the man from the music hall.

‘Ah, Captain Smith!’ he cried, and he flung out his arms as if about to introduce a show. He turned to Rhianna.

‘And our new ally, the lovely lady.’

‘She’s not your ally and she’s not lovely!’ Smith barked back, immediately regretting it.

The man laughed. ‘I am Egbert Tench, supreme leader of the League of Ghastists and future Dictator of Earth.’

‘You’ll let that woman go, or there’ll be trouble,’ Smith said.

Tench tutted and raised his hand: he held a small metal box. ‘I have only to press this button and the engine springs to life. Of course, I’d rather not see blood spilled. I happen to be vegetarian, you know. All the best dictators are.’

Rhianna was glaring at Tench, quietly boiling with righteous fury. As Smith was opened his mouth to reply, she called out, ‘Vegetarian? I’m a vegan and I love nature, so up yours, buddy!’ She raised a finger at Tench.

‘Rhianna!’ Smith exclaimed, a little shocked. ‘I’ll deal with this: now shush–’

‘Don’t you shush me, Isambard! I will not be silenced—’

‘No! Look around.’

Rhianna glanced left and right. Men had crept out: stubble-haired thugs with beer bellies and braces, with faces like uncooked pastry draped over knobbly meat.

They held crowbars and rounders bats. A tall hard-faced woman in shiny black gear struggled to hold a bull-terrier on a length of chain.

‘Now then,’ Tench began, clearing his throat, ‘No doubt you are wondering what I want. I shall tell you! I want only to help the British people. For too long aliens have been taking what’s ours by right. Do you know, eighty percent of low-paid menial jobs have been stolen from us by colonials? Aliens have robbed the British people of almost all work in the sewer industry! It’s time for a change, time to throw off the shackles of democracy and frolic joyfully in the sunlit pastures of an unceasing, brutal dictatorship. It is time that the British people learned to stand up, to speak for themselves, to have their own say, which is why I’ve been given an important message by the Ghasts for you.’

‘Look, Tench,’ Smith replied, ‘I’ve heard enough of your Gertie-talk. You said you have a message. What is it?’

‘Ah yes. Here we are.’ The Ghastist waved his hand and a light flickered in the roof. Smith glanced up and saw a holographic lantern mounted there.

The word ‘Pantechnical’ appeared about a metre from the ground. It played a little tune. ‘It’s just warming up,’ Tench said. ‘It does that.’

The image faded and a ghost appeared in front of them.

They could see the wall through the shimmering apparition, but its outline was clear: a huge red insect in a black trenchcoat, like an ant rearing up. The neck was scrawny, the head bulbous and heavy-brained, marrow shaped. Antennae protruded from holes in the helmet: under the brim was a scarred, narrow face. One of its eyes was a lens.

‘We meet again,’ said 462. He took a step forwards: his arms were behind his back, all four of them, the manipulating limbs and the great mantis-claws that rose from his back like broken wings. But Smith was used to that. What surprised him was the creature’s lurching gait, dragging the right leg behind him.

‘It is a pity we met so briefly on Urn,’ said the Ghast. His mechanical eye glinted as he smiled. ‘We had so little time to talk before you so brusquely knocked me off that Martian war machine. So little time for us to discuss the small matter of my missing eye.

‘Were I more expendable, I would have been pulped for my injuries and fed to the praetorians by now. However, I have become a commander of stature. I have, shall we say, considerable weight behind me these days.’

‘That’ll be your big red arse,’ said Smith. ‘I believe we’ve discussed this before.’

‘Yes, yes, have your little English joke. I think we have conversed on my stercorium for the last time, Captain Smith. I do not think you will make so many jokes when we next meet, when you will sorely regret making me limp!’

‘I made you permanently limp?’

‘You certainly di—’ The Ghast’s small, yellow eye narrowed. ‘Oh, how amusing. You think to use my limp-ness to make some wordplay about puny human reproductive organs, eh? No, I do not think I will give you the pleasure of making a play on my genitals. Thanks to you I now suffer from uncontrollable stiffness in my lower regions. But enough! In time you will pay, Smith. And besides, it is not you I am here to speak with. You are too far gone to be reasoned with.

‘You, Rhianna Mitchell! Yes, you. The British Government seeks to use you as a tool for its war-mongering. You could be so much more than that. You know, as I do, that your powers are too great a gift to squander on these weaklings. You know, as I do, that direct action is the only way to change the galaxy! Join us, and I will give you the power to set the world to rights!With the Ghast Empire by your side, you can force the galaxy to accept peace and love, marching at the head of an indestructible legion of storm-hippies! Your enemies will be crushed under your plastic sandal! With us, you would no longer be a child of the Earth, but its queen!’

‘That’s not true,’ Rhianna said. ‘Gaia created us all equ—’

‘Oh no.’ 462 shook his head. ‘I think not. You know what a lie that is. Look deep inside yourself. Tell me, all the times that you’ve tutted at people who read tabloids, shaken your head sadly at those who eat steaks rare, lifted your nose at people who prefer electric guitars to acoustic ones – did you really think you were created equal then?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Rhianna. ‘You represent a vicious tyranny – but then Dylan did totally sell out when he went electric. . .’

‘And you get a trenchcoat,’ 462 added.

‘No. It’s wrong.’ Rhianna shook her head as if to clear it. ‘It’s wrong. I don’t wear leather.’

‘She’s her own woman and she’s not interested!’ Smith snapped.

‘Think about it.’ The projection shrugged and turned. ‘Tench? Remove these idiots!’

It vanished, and for a moment there was an awkward silence.

‘Well? Get ‘em!’ Tench yelled, and his men ran in, cursing and bellowing. Smith drew his gun and let a shot off at Tench, who was prodding the controls to activate the train, then ducked as a thug tried to break his head with a crowbar. Rhianna jumped down and started to untie the woman on the tracks. Tench ran over the bridge, towards the doors. Smith shot the man with the crowbar and drew his sword.

Glass shattered above – a skylight hung down like a broken jaw – and Suruk dropped onto the platform, cuffed Tench across the head and flung himself onto a Ghastist armed with a rounders bat.

Lights boomed into life along the train. Tench scrambled upright, holding a Stanford gun.

‘Good God!’ Smith cried, seeing the would-be Dictator of Earth about to spray them. Rhianna took a deep breath and closed her eyes, exhaled and made a humming sound. Bullets tore the air but none of them found their mark. Suruk’s spear flashed, there was a howl of pain and blood sprayed the wall.

Blue light pulsed into the station and a great metal figure clanked onto the platform, steam pouring from chimneys on its back. A lamp spun on its armoured head.

‘Dead or alive, you’re all nicked, sunshine!’ it declared, and it pulled a truncheon out of a compartment in its leg and piled into the fight.

‘Eat lead, copperbot!’ Tench yelled, loosing half a dozen shells into the front of the thing, and in a flurry of sparks the machine lumbered forward and bashed the gun from his hand.

And then, suddenly, that was that. A body fell in the corner and Suruk stood up, looking quietly satisfied. One of the thugs dropped a cleaver and raised his hands.

The police robot chuffed towards the doors, pushing a handcuffed Tench before it. ‘Evening all,’ it intoned.