The Fourteenth Adjustment

by Robert Wingfield

  Spigot stood in the loading bay, freshly showered but looking tired and ravaged. There was a pile of boxes in front of her.

  “You took your time. How was it?” said Tom, kindly. “You have performed us a great service.”

  “I have performed, certainly,” said Spigot, wavering on her feet. Tom caught her.

  “What happened?”

  “It seems that the good ship, Ahoy, was also carrying a passenger contingent of gong-farmers who had been on board for the last few years. That ship doesn’t have the Doku-drive, so relies on the conventional power of nuclear fusion to make it go. Very slow. They will be travelling for a few more years before they get to Glenforbis, so were making the most of the opportunity.”

  “You could have said ‘no’.”

  “They gave me a bumper sticker, and the Skagan diktat does not permit me to say no. I had to remain until everyone had been given the correct greeting.”

  “But you got the provisions.”

  “Only when I showed them the Doku-Blaster I found in the hold. I haven’t tried firing it yet, I didn’t need to. I’ve no idea what’s in the boxes. I can’t see straight at the moment.”

  Tom tore at the tape sealing the first carton. “Ow, it was booby-trapped. I cut my finger on the cardboard. This does not bode radiantly for ourselves or the Ahoy. Pete, are you ready with those guns?”

  “Give them a chance,” came Pete’s voice on the ship’s communications network. “See what’s inside first.”

  “Is there something wrong with the guns?”

  “Nothing, but I’ve just got to complete my daily objectives for the ‘Great Borrow Manual’ game I’m playing. If I stop now, the system will kick me out, and it was a real pain getting the Galactinet link in the first place. I had to take the navigation systems offline to get enough bandwidth.”

  “Without navigation, how do we know where we are?”

  “We are here, obviously,” said Pete sarcastically. “I’ll switch back over when I’ve done the objectives. So, what’s in the boxes?”

  “Clothing,” said Tom. “Tweed suits, hats and shoes.”

  “Tweed is this year’s most fashionable material for footgear, even though it itches like mad,” added Spigot.

  Tom tipped the box out on to the bay. “Looks like a few sets. At least we have changes of outfit now.”

  “Great,” said the Magus joining them. “These are excellent, if a little large.” He regarded one of the suits. “It might need taking in a bit.”

  “I think I recognise these items,” said Spigot, walking stiffly over to the pile. She stripped off and put on one of the uniforms. Tom politely looked the other way while she did so, but the Magus watched with interest.

  “Very nice,” he said eventually. “It seems to fit you rather perfectly.”

  “It’s the make,” said Spigot, referring to the label. “It is designed to expand or contract depending on the wearer. Maximum load 120 kilograms.”

  “Not suitable for most people on Glenforbis, then,” said the Magus.

  “I think that’s why they were prepared to part with them without too much of a struggle. They are keeping the larger sizes. Do you like the hat? It was Kara’s.”

  “At least it’s something to wear,” said Tom. “I wonder what else there is.”

  “I’ll open the boxes and find out,” said the Magus, putting on a pair of thick gloves as a precaution. “Hopefully, there’s some provisions in here too.”

  Spigot regarded herself in one of the polished panels in the loading bay. “I think we need a name for ourselves now,” she said pensively. “Smartly and expensively dressed, to strike fear into the ‘Sapristi Main’.”

  “The Sapristi main what?”

  “No, this area of space is next to the Sapristi Mainland, and hence ‘the Sapristi Main’.”

  “Right, so we are delivering terror into this area of space then? Not quite what I had in mind.”

  “We can cause panic in name only,” said the Magus, inspecting the label on a jacket he had pulled out of another box. “The return of Neckbeard and the Burberry Pirates. We won’t need to fight; the mere show of our flag will be sufficient.”

  “And we will pay them back, when I get my company released,” said Tom.

  “Of course we will,” said the Magus, patting him condescendingly on the arm.

  Homesick

  In which the Skagans take to their beds.

  S

  pigot looked up sadly from the seed catalogue she was studying. “Too much do we roam; Two-Dan, I miss my home.”

  “I thought we had drummed that nonsense out of you.”

  “It’s the call of the planet. I think it might be propagation time.”

  “But you lot are always mating.” Tom smiled, remembering his experiences with the Skagan woman, Tanda, the second-in-command of the remnants of that once proud and psychopathic race, and also his recently departed security force. “That’s what makes you so much fun.”

  “There’s more to life than war and shagging... I can’t believe I said that.” Spigot shook her head, her shoulders sagging dejectedly.

  “Me neither, and what’s all this about mating? Every time I spoke with your glorious leader, Vac, I tried to suggest you should really have some progeny to save the Skagans dying out, but he never took the hints. Nice seed catalogue by the way, but it says ‘Wartime Edition’. Are you at war?”

  “We always like to be… when there are enough of us.”

  “But not now. There aren’t many left.”

  Spigot sighed and shook her head. “Can we go home then?”

  “We have to return to Glenforbis first, to see if the Magus can drum up some help from his old contacts. He says there are many who owe him favours from his days as a private investigator. We also need to restock on doku hair for the engines. After that, perhaps we can drop you off on our way to the hexacat planet. We need the whiskers for activating the drive. Perhaps we can find a mate for Cat there too, and stop him doing things with the surviving cushions, and digging up the AstroTurf in the loading bay. We are going to need to have that thoroughly cleaned when we next dock, if we are going to attract back the Swedwayland crew.”

  “I really need to go back to Skagos.” Spigot sighed.

  “Do you think you could keep the engines going until we get there?”

  “I suppose so, but my heart is not in it. I’m not motivated like I used to be. I’m not going to relish it.”

  “Would it help to get shagging again? I can call Groat, although he looks as though he is suffering too.”

  “It’s the Call. We can’t function properly when the demand for coupling happens.”

  “And how often do we expect this?”

  “Once in a generation.”

  “And how long is a generation?”

  “No idea. I’ve never lived one.” She gave a sob and threw herself dramatically on the floor. The ship rocked. “Did I do that?”

  “No, we are being attacked.” Pete’s voice came through the intercom. “Leave it with me.”

  There was a roar as the doku-shunt battery discharged, and a flash of light came from outside the ship.

  “What was that?” shouted Tom, as he opened the door of the gunroom.

  “It seemed like some unmanned ship that sneaked up on us,” said Pete, spinning on his chair. “It whacked us before I even knew it was there. The shunt took care of it, though.”

  “Any damage?”

  “As I said, I obliterated it.”

  “No, I meant damage to the Fortune.”

  “No idea. I’m still breathing, and my Hyper-Wars game hasn’t CTD.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Blown out, shut down, crashed, screwed itself, considerably tediously died, but nobody seems to know what CTD stands for... at least, nobody over the age of twelve.”

  “I would ask those kids who design the websites for software downloads
, then. They know about everything, except usability and the fact we don’t want to have our systems analysed and speeded up.”

  “CBA.”

  “I don’t know what you mean, and I can’t be arsed to ask while we’re being attacked. Nice one on sorting the drone out, though. I’ll go up to the cockpit and find out what’s going on.”

  “Yeah, right,” said Pete, now fully immersed in his game again.

  Tom pressed past the chickens and joined Groat at the helm. “Must you wear that steel faceguard?” he said. “The feather keeps tickling my nose.”

  “Can’t drive without it,” said Groat absently.

  “Any damage?”

  “Not while I’m wearing this helmet,” said Groat.

  “No, I mean to the ship.”

  “Pete destroyed it. Didn’t you see the explosion?”

  “No, I mean this ship. The one you are driving.”

  “Oh that. The lights are still on, so I guess not.”

  “If Spigot can work on the engines, we should get over to Glenforbis as quickly as possible.”

  “I agree,” said the Magus, squeezing in beside them. “That drone hit us with something like our own weapons. We are only still alive because it was so small. I think it may have been a prototype. I didn’t recognise the logo on it: ‘STOP’. We lost the auxiliary rest room in the attack. Luckily, Suzanne was in the toilet at the time.”

  “We seem to have enemies, even out here,” said Tom. “Could it have been that freighter we held up?”

  “I don’t see how,” said the Magus. “We parted on good terms. They were even interested in signing up for our resistance against the car-parking expansions. Apparently, they had been denied season tickets for the Letsby Cowboys matches, or was it that they couldn’t afford it? I wasn’t listening.”

  “Letsby Cowboys?”

  “A Sapristi team comprised mainly of plumbers and roofers. Their home ground is next to the police station in Letsby Avenue, and is the first of the triple-decker playing fields ever to be built. Planning permission was granted on the understanding that it could be used for car parking on alternate Fridays, when the farmers’ market wasn’t there, but only by rich people.”

  “Thank you for that,” said Tom. “I’ll store that in the ‘Things to forget as soon as possible’ section of my memory. Can you set a course for Glenforbis, Groat?”

  “I suppose so.” The Skagan slumped in his seat. “Is it really worth bothering?”

  “You too. What’s the matter?”

  “I need to go home. It’s the Call.”

  “Spigot mentioned it. We will go to your home, I promise. Glenforbis is on the way, if you can get the ship moving.”

  “If it will make you happy.”

  “Ecstatic.”

  “Can someone let me out please?” Suzanne’s voice came through the intercom.

  “Where are you?” Tom left the others to restart the ship.

  “The toilet. I went for a dump and a roll-up, and then there was this big explosion. Honestly, I didn’t eat too many of those beans.”

  “Don’t open your door. The rest room took a hit.”

  “So I’m stuck?”

  “Until we land and can get you out.”

  “But my fags, and the booze and cakes were in the rest room.”

  “You are going to have to manage without.”

  “For how long? I’ll starve in here.”

  “Is the water still on?”

  “Yes.”

  “You should be able to cope.”

  “I shouldn’t have to. You could save me. That’s what decent captains and husbands do.”

  “How long until we get to Glenforbis?” Tom addressed Groat.

  “Sometime... oh, I don’t know,” said the pilot. “Do you really want me to look at the controls and make an approximation?”

  “Would you like me to do it for you?”

  “You’re not really qualified... I suppose I’ll give it a go.” Groat half-heartedly jabbed a few buttons. “A week,” he said. “Give or take a month.”

  There was a wail from the intercom.

  “Can we go any faster?” said Tom.

  “If I make it go faster, I suppose so.”

  “Can you?”

  “If you want.”

  “I want. Make it go faster, now.”

  Groat pulled the control lever and the ship accelerated. “That’s all it will do,” he said, “and the engines will probably burn out, and the ship will explode and we’ll all die horribly... which will be a relief.”

  “Fine,” said Tom. “How long to Glenforbis now?”

  “Two days, give or take a kilo-milli-metre, if we don’t fall apart.”

  “Suzy, did you hear that?”

  “Two days or die horribly? Yes, I did.”

  “Can you last that long?”

  “I’ll have to I suppose. I could always binge-watch ‘Have I Got Pointlessly Interesting Cats in the Attic’, I suppose. I have a couple of hundred episodes to catch up on.”

  “I’ll leave you to it.”

  “We have arrived,” announced Groat’s depressed tones, some five hours later, “not that it matters, but you did ask me to let you know.”

  Tom and the Magus joined him in the cockpit.

  “What do you want to do now?”

  “I’ll ask for permission to land,” said the Magus. “They know me here, so it shouldn’t be a problem. Groat, can you patch me through to ‘Traffic Control’?”

  “If it will help.”

  “Trust me, it will. This button here?”

  “I suppose so.”

  The Magus pressed it, and a piece of toast popped up out of the flat-screen microwave. “Hello, this is freighter, The Black Empress Kara’s Good Fortune requesting permission to dock,” he said into the egg-poacher.

  “Is that the Magus? This is Traffic Control.” The answer came back at him via the cockpit refrigerator.

  “Yes, it is I. Can I land?”

  “Not here.”

  “Why not?”

  “We’ve got no runways.”

  “I can see three from here, although there seems to be something on them.”

  “That’s what I mean. We outsourced runway maintenance to some foreign bunch called STOP, because they were cheaper than our own runway sweepers, but they seem to have converted them into car parks. We haven’t been able to get anything down for the last week. Apparently, if we pay to reserve all the spaces, STOP say they will clear the vehicles out of the way, and then we can resume normal operations. Where are we going to get that sort of money?”

  “We are working on it. Are you still in touch with Herr Gottstein?”

  “Yes, he actually owns the airport now. Hasn’t been able to leave because of all this. Says his cigar supply is running short.”

  “Get him to meet me at my place.”

  “Gottstein? A friend of yours?”

  “He was a client from when I was a detective. I solved a number of cases for him, and a couple of grips and a portmanteau. We can rely on him for support.”

  “We could, if I could find you somewhere to land.”

  “We don’t need one,” said Groat tiredly. “I can just drop this crate where you want.”

  “My estate then?” said the Magus.

  “If you insist. Point it out on the map.”

  Fresh air flooded into the ship as Tom released the outer hatch—as fresh, that is, as was possible on Glenforbis, with its dung mining industry and intensive bovine presence. However, compared with the odour of chickens, sweat and hexacat droppings on board, it was almost a relief. Tom released Suzanne from her cubicle, expecting to be thanked, but she charged past him and grabbed a handful of cigarettes from a drawer in the ruins of the coffee table. She stuffed the lot in her mouth. There was a strong odour of toilet freshener.

  “Don’t just stand there; give me a light.” She looked around
desperately.

  “You smell... nice.”

  “I have washed, of course. Being stuck in there for that long, I didn’t want to seem rancid. And the Eastern Block Toilet Deodoriser works splendidly under arms. Now give me a light.”

  “Oy,” said the Magus. “Smoking outside is banned, on account of the methane levels in the air. Light up and it will be more than your cravings that are removed.”

  Suzanne gave a wail, and then pointed. “And what’s that?”

  “My house.”

  “No, I mean that haze of spray and hooves and horns charging down the field towards us.”

  “Probably my guard-doku.” The Magus shrugged. “They will be fine once they recognise me... I hope.”

  “I’ll get back in the ship,” said Suzanne. “Call me when it’s safe.”

  “I’ll join her,” said Tom. “I remember what happened last time something charged at us. You left me to die.”

  “It’s perfectly safe,” said the Magus uncertainly, as the thundering herd bore down on him. He turned to run back to the ship, but was quickly swamped, and disappeared under a press of bovine bodies.

  “I should have told him they didn’t look friendly,” said Tom. “Fortunately, I don’t lose many friends that way… well, he would have been a friend if I had liked him. Are we trapped now? Will we have to shoot our way out?”

  “No problem.” The Magus reappeared, climbing on the back of one of the beasts. The others were clamouring around, trying to nudge and lick him. “I think they remember me.”

  “Is it safe?”

  “They think I’m their leader,” said the Magus. “They are not stupid. There are times I think they understand everything I say.” One of the beasts nodded, and twitched its head at Tom as if to invite him out. He descended the ramp hesitantly.

  “Climb aboard,” said the Magus, indicating some of the beasts. “These guys are offering to take us up to the house.”

  The doku left them at the front door of the Magus’ mansion, and began browsing the topiary.

  “There doesn’t seem to be as much vegetation around as I remember,” said the Magus, “and my herd isn’t so large. What’s happened here?”