The Search for Spark

by Steven Erikson

  “Well, if halfway across the galaxy qualifies as ‘close by,’ yes, most fortuitous, Admiral. Now, sir, and madam, what can you tell me about the Radulak in charge over on the Bombast flagship?”

  “A truly honorable individual,” said Soma eagerly. “The decorated veteran Supreme Admiral Drench-Master Drown-You-All-in-My-Magnificence Bill-Burt represents a new breed of Radulak in the imperial command. A paragon of integrity seeking only peace between us. Of course, a lot of prestige is riding on Bill-Burt succeeding in these negotiations. Indeed, she offers up a singular and thus precarious hope for both the future of the Radulak Empire and for the Affiliation. I can’t emphasize enough the importance of this most delicate moment in galactic history.”

  “Prepare your vessel’s stateroom, Captain,” said Prim. “And provide the Radulak with displacement coordinates. Everything will be preceded by a formal supper in which you will offer only the finest Radulak victuals. I’m sending you a Radulak-supplied menu contents-upgrade container for your galley chefs. From this point onward, Captain, you’re on your own. Do us proud. Prim out.”

  The screen flickered, returned to the football game. The Italian was still writhing but now he was strapped to a stretcher, being attended to by a half-dozen paramedics and one overwrought stylist. The Italian play-by-play announcer was shrieking in outrage.

  “Uh, mute that please, Eden.”

  “Sir?”

  “Eden, look at me. Good. Now, see me making this throat-cutting gesture? Remember that one? Good. Now, do it—wait, no! Don’t actually cut your own throat! Just mute that screaming idiot, please!”

  “Oh! Sorry sir! I get so confused!”

  “It’s all right, Eden, we have medication for that, so take yourself down to the sickbay and get Polaski to take your station.”

  “Yes sir, thank you sir. Take it where?”

  “Just get Polaski up here, will you? Now, Sin-Dour, your thoughts on our impending guests?”

  Sin-Dour turned from the science station. “Well, sir, I think we’re about to be betrayed by just about everyone.”

  “And those ships hiding in the Conveniently Cloudy Nearby Nebula?”

  “Trace ion signatures of multiple Affiliation, Radulak, Ecktapalow, Purelganni, Misanthari, Polker, Ahackan, and Klang vessels, sir. Oh, and one bulging Bag vessel protected by a fleet of Purses.”

  “Wow, the whole shebang! No Temporal Bubble Vessels?”

  “Not yet. No, there’s one … no, not yet, no, there’s—”

  “Thank you, 2IC, I get the picture.”

  “That soccer player just died!” Sticks gasped. “Ohmigod!” She leapt from her chair and ran up to stand in front of the screen that was now showing a close-up of the soccer star’s pallid lifeless face. “Someone take a shot of us! Hurry!”

  * * *

  Hadrian gathered his senior officers in the tiny storage locker that passed for his office. The cramped confines forced Sin-Dour to sit perched on his side of the desk, legs crossed, directly—as it turned out—in front of the captain (who had begun sweating). Buck stood with his back against the door, eyes wild in claustrophobic panic. Galk leaned close to the weapons locker, surreptitiously trying to pick the lock. Adjutant Tighe was pressed up against another wall, cleaning her nails with a Bowie knife. Printlip was squeezed in the corner of the room, statically trapped up near the ceiling, squeaking with every breath, while Tammy the chicken pecked at Buck’s shoelaces.

  “Sir,” ventured Sin-Dour, her folded leg slowly rocking, toes pointed, the black velvet stiletto dipping down in time to reveal flashes of her heel as she swiveled her ankle, “perhaps we should have conducted this briefing in the stateroom?”

  Hadrian ran a trembling hand across his brow. “What? Uh, no. I mean, the Ping-Pong table is getting a tablecloth and lots of chairs are being moved in, and, uh, silverware, tons of silverware and tureens and … and stuff. Now, let’s get rocking—I mean, let’s get on with this meeting.”

  “If I could weep,” said Tammy.

  “We should run,” said Buck. “Right now! As fast and as far away as we can get! The whole galaxy’s going to go up in flames and burning balls of gas and cheap knockoffs of everything. It’s all falling apart, infrastructure collapsing, cynicism breeding, library fines going unpaid—we’re on the terminal slide down into moribund spiritual exhaustion begging for nothing more than one final bullet to the head to end the interminable misery!”

  “Outstandingly succinct, Buck!” said Galk, lifting a hand to high-five the chief engineer. “You’re so right. It’s all pointless, a waste of time, it’s every man, woman, and child out for him- or herself, the poor deserve to be poor and the sick deserve to be sick and wealth is proof of virtue and power belongs to all the superior stick-up-the-ass fuckers born into wealth with God’s own blessing, and the sooner we stick a nuke in the whole mess the better off the universe will be—”

  “Wrong!” Tighe snapped. “The sooner you’re all lined up for the firing squad the better! Dissenting opinions and unpleasant truths are acts of treason under Article 54-45B. The wrong questions in Question Period justify prosecution under the Politician Protection Act of 2019. Complaining is subject to prison, a raised eyebrow earns a hefty fine, and the only acceptable salute is a shaking fist and inarticulate bellows of hate. In fact, there isn’t a single crime you lot haven’t already committed and I’ll see you all burned, hung, quartered, assaulted, tortured, renditioned, imprisoned, shot, and lethally injected!”

  “Oh dear!” cried Printlip from the ceiling. “Frothometer redlining! Drugs are required immediately!”

  Hadrian leapt to his feet, leapt onto the desk, leapt across to land in front of Lorrin Tighe in … three, three deft leaps. He took her into his arms and kissed her hard.

  “Aaack! Get away from me!”

  Hadrian then swung round, reached out and twisted Galk’s nose. “Snap out of it, Lieutenant! And you, Buck, take a handful of happy pills for crying out loud. Now, anyone else ready to fall apart? No? Good.” He released Galk’s nose and the combat specialist gagged.

  “I swallowed my chaw.”

  Hadrian faced Sin-Dour. “You have command of the Willful Child in my absence. I will be bringing Buck with me to the negotiations. In the meantime, we all play nice at supper with the Radulak.”

  “Me, sir?” Buck asked, paling.

  “That’s right, and make sure you bring your multiphasic.”

  “But they’re all planning something!”

  “Of course they are! And we ride the wave no matter where it takes us.”

  “B-but why, sir? They’re lining up to backstab us!”

  Hadrian slapped Buck on the shoulder. “Adventure, Buck! It’s why we’re here!” He turned in time to block Tighe’s attempt at stabbing him with the Bowie knife, quickly disarmed her and then patted the top of her head. “Everyone but Tammy, dismissed. Get dolled up for supper, dress uniforms, makeup, bling, spit and polish—wait, save the spit for the Radulak since I’m sure they’ll have plenty to spare.”

  “You’ll pay,” hissed Lorrin Tighe. “For everything, especially those kisses!”

  Once everyone but the chicken had departed, Hadrian went back to sit at his desk.

  “Why do you do that?” Tammy asked, flapping up to land on the desk.

  “Do what?”

  “Kiss her. It’s sexist, objectifying, verging on mis—”

  “Nonsense. Snoopy.”

  “I’m sorry, what?”

  “Check your fragmented archives, Tammy. Why, if the adjutant were a man I’d do the same. Snoopy!”

  “The cartoon dog?”

  “Get mad at Snoopy and he slobbers you with a giant kiss.”

  “But that was a dog! With humans it’s different!”

  “There you go reciting verbatim all the usual xenophobic exceptionalisms. You’re better than that, Tammy.”

  “Am I? Am I? Then why haven’t you kissed me?”

  “Why, because you’re nothing more than a
self-deluded AI, nothing but circuits and wires and stuff, not to mention the occasional holographic projection of domestic fowl. Might as well kiss my electric shaver.”

  “Oh, that really hurts.”

  “Rubbish.”

  “Okay, you’re right. You are incapable of hurting me, insulting me, offending me, et cetera. But clearly you possess a hateful prejudice against sentient machines.”

  “Well-earned. You stole my ship. You beat up and imprisoned the ship’s own AI. You commandeered maintenance robots and smashed up a squad of marines—speaking of which, that reminds me why I asked you to stay. Lieutenant Sweepy Brogan and her squad have a new mission, which I want you to pass on to her immediately—where is she right now, by the way?”

  “Lieutenant Brogan and her squad are presently playing D&D, with the lieutenant herself being the Dungeon Master. The Party of Adventurers, consisting of a mage with a wand of Prismatic Spray, an Elven thief with a +1 bow, a cleric with a +1 mace, a ranger with a pet hawk, a paladin with +2 armor and a dwarf with a +2 axe, are moments from breaking into the Crypt of the Necromancer to retrieve the Ring of Resurrection. The only foes between them and the loot—apart from the necromancer himself—are seven halfling goblins.”

  “Really? What a crap adventure.”

  “Unbeknownst to the adventurers, the goblins are armed with grenade launchers.”

  “Ah.”

  “The lock is picked! They’re in! They see the halfling goblins! An arrow flies from the thief and misses! Critical failure! The bowstring snaps! The hawk whirls into the air, talons opening wide. A grenade intersects it! Explosion! Feathers drifting down. A curtain draws back to reveal the necromancer on the altar positioned behind a fifty-caliber machine gun on a tripod. He unleashes a hail of bullets! The thief’s head disappears in a spray of bits of meat and bone! A grenade jams in the grille of the paladin’s helmet. It explodes, ripping his face off and sending shrapnel deep into his brain! He fails his saving throw and is stunned and will bleed out in two rounds! The dwarf is hit by ninety-three bullets, his body recoiling from the multiple impacts in super slow motion. Blood everywhere! His beard catches fire! The cleric throws a heal spell. Two points back to the dwarf—but he’s taken four hundred thirty-six points of damage. He’s dead! A secret trap opens up underneath the cleric and he falls into a pit filled with three-headed sharks in a pool of acid. The cleric fails his first save and his legs are eaten off below the knees! He makes his second saving throw avoiding being stunned, so he gets to watch as the sharks and acid eat the rest of him down to the bones! He dies screaming. The ranger draws his sword! He’s hit by seven grenades and two hundred twenty-one bullets. He bursts apart in a conflagration of bloody feathers, burning nest fragments, and hard-boiled hawk eggs! The mage fires his wand! All the goblins saved! The Necromancer is unaffected. He laughs! A giant Sphere of Annihilation devours the mage! The entire Adventuring Party is dead!”

  Hadrian sighed and rubbed his eyes. “I’m waiting.”

  “The players have attacked the Dungeon Master. This could go on for a while. It’s pretty nasty. I see knives out and a baseball bat. Ooh! Sweepy connects with a kick between Charles Not Chuck’s legs. He misses his saving throw and is down! Muffy Slapp throws a knife! Sweepy dodges, swings her bat! Critical hit! Muffy’s stunned! Skulls jumps on her back! Stabs with his knife! It glances off her battle armor. She flings herself against a wall. Skulls’s head snaps back—he’s concussed! Chambers throws a chair! Miss! He takes a 20D to the center of his forehead. He’s stunned! Lefty-Lim’s biting her ankle—she stomps down—oh dear! Stables tries a heal. Compress applied, two points back for Lefty-Lim and man did he need it but that nose will need major reconstruction! Bat swings and splits Stables’s ear! He wails! Sweepy leaps onto the table laughing—”

  “Stop! Okay, Tammy, when they’re all out of sickbay, pass on to the lieutenant the following mission.…”

  * * *

  The Insisteon hummed with its built-in but entirely unnecessary sound effects, and an instant later two Radulak drench-masters appeared, one wearing rhinestone-glittering black leather armor and the other an eye patch and a Varekan leather jacket that said TOM’S TOWING on the breast. The first Radulak slopped down from the dais.

  “I am Supreme Admiral Drench-Master Drown-You-All-in-My-Magnificence Bill-Burt, and this is my executive officer, Snuffle-Drench-Master Bang.”

  “Welcome aboard the AFS Willful Child,” said Hadrian. “I am—”

  “Oh we know who you are, Captain Hadrian Alan Sawback! Indeed, we possess fold-out holo-posters of you in our Weapons Target Room!”

  “How delightful. And this is my second officer, Commander Halley Sin-Dour. And our chief medical officer, Dr. Printlip, along with Chief Engineer Buck DeFrank, Combat Specialist Galk, and last but certainly not least, Affiliation Adjutant Lorrin Tighe.”

  “What about me?” Tammy demanded, feathers ruffling.

  “Right, and holo-robot-whatever-chicken, Wynette Tammy, rogue AI from the future.”

  Bill-Burt unleashed a massive gobbet of phlegm, slamming down on the chicken and flattening it to the floor. “Formal greetings, Wynette Tammy!”

  “My neutratronic processor is overheating in a blaze of algorithmic projections of potential vengeance scenarios,” said Tammy from beneath the slimy glob.

  “Haha! Funny chicken!” said Bang, fingering her eye patch. “Now, we are hungry!” She pointed at her stomach. “‘We don’t like to complain. But down here below we are feeling great pain!’ Food! Delicious food and Snail-Puke Wine, I can’t wait!”

  “Right,” said Hadrian. “Well then, please follow me.”

  A short time later they were all seated around the cloth-covered Ping-Pong table, upon which (to either side of the green net) various tureens had been placed, each containing an array of genuine Radulak delicacies. Carafes of thick Snail-Puke Wine were being passed around, the two Radulak drooling and snapping their thick lips.

  Bang offered Hadrian a bowl. “‘Do you like Grated Human Baby Legs and Penis Spam? I do so like them, Bang-I-am, I do so like Grated Human Baby Legs and Penis Spam!’”

  Sin-Dour gagged. “Human baby legs?”

  “Haha!” said Bill-Burt. “Relax! No dismemberment of living human babies is required, not since we attained the mapped human genome permitting vat-cloning of select body parts. But I assure you, my dear, the Penis Spam is the real thing, culled from the many thousands of male human prisoners we have collected up over the past forty or so years which you know nothing about. That said, we have the finest Human Male Choir in the galaxy!”

  Bang leaned closer to the supreme admiral. “Sir, perhaps it was unwise to reveal the fact of our many human prisoners—”

  “I did no such thing! But now you have spilled the masticated beans for all to hear!”

  “No I didn’t! I said nothing!”

  “But I am sure you did!”

  Hadrian cleared his throat. “Shall we play back the conversation of the past five minutes?”

  “NO!” both Radulaks barked.

  Galk, who was seated opposite Bang, now said, “Snuffle-Drench-Master, that’s an interesting jacket you are wearing.”

  “Yes it is! Stripped from an utterly drowned Varekan who looked a lot like you! A suitable trophy to mark my great victory in the bathroom of Truck Stop 27 on the Epsilon Eridani–Alpha Centauri Run—get it? Suitable? Jacket? Haha! The fool suspected nothing, since I was wearing a holo-vest that transformed me into an innocuous prophylactic dispenser.”

  “Uh-huh,” Galk murmured.

  Bang then tapped her eye patch. “For that I paid this eye. A worthy exchange? I think so! Hahaha!”

  Galk used his napkin to wipe the spit from his face.

  Bang banged the table. “More fun required! As the famous Radulak wordsmith Drencher Brian Zeuss once said: ‘We’ve got to make noise in greater amounts!’” Another fist hammered the table, making the cutlery bounce. “Everyone! Drink more wine! And you, fellow
woman second-in-command, try some of these pickled earworm eggs!”

  “Mhmm,” said Sin-Dour, “thank you but no, not to my taste, alas.”

  “‘You do not like them you say? So you say. Try them and you may!’”

  “Oh for crying out loud,” cut in Hadrian. “If you keep mangling one of my favorite human writers of the twentieth century I just might—”

  “Human thieves!” Bang cried. “Stealing our most famous Radulak artists!”

  “Calm yourself,” said Bill-Burt to her XO. “One must be indulgent for now, I mean, before we betray all these humans with a devastating surprise attack following the signing of the Accords. This is not yet the season of our discontent, after all. Let your patience pool deep and quiescent, yes?”

  “Supreme One!” Bang hissed (and sprayed). “You just revealed our plans of betrayal!”

  “I did not! Shhh or they will hear your careless words!”

  “Well!” said Hadrian, half rising. “This has been a most delightful evening. Of course your quarters have been prepared for you and we do hope you find them to your liking. Until the negotiations begin tomorrow, I bid you good night.”

  “Most wise,” purred Bang, “and I must temporarily return to the I Saw No Need to Mention My Mother’s Moustache, to, uh, groom my pubic hairs.”

  Bill-Burt frowned. “Now, Snuffle-Drench-Master?”

  “Comportment waits for no woman, Supreme One. But I will rejoin you shortly.”

  “Very well.” Bill-Burt belched, and then regurgitated onto the table everything she’d eaten and drunk. “Aaah! Most excellent meal, so excellent I will eat it again!”

  * * *

  It was the graveyard shift on the bridge. At every station was someone nobody would recognize. There was Acting Captain Sissyko Weirdguy, engrossed in a tattered copy of The Tao of Pooh-Bear Redux. There was Acting Head of Security Odo Meter, a shapeshifting Conglomeranian from beyond the Neat-Looking Wormhole at the edge of the Kardashian Sector, whose homeworld of Conglomerania was a tiny lake of pond scum because, well, where else would an omnipotent species of highly advanced we-can-be-anything-we-want polymorphs live but in a scummy pond? There was the acting XO, Bayleaf Nose-bash, from the recently liberated planet of Beige (not that anyone noticed). While at the science station sat the Trilling Symbiont Eye-Jay-Kay-El, whose endless trilling was driving everyone else mad.