Ticklers

by David Fletcher

  Then his craft broke through a cloudbank and the Godhead became visible. And Scanderpram's dribble dried in a flash.

  It was, as Command had told him, a big floating head. But they hadn't told him just how big. It was gigantic. And if it was a spacecraft, despite its unconventional, not to say its unique design, then it was the biggest spacecraft ever built - by a comfortable margin.

  Scanderpram's excitement had flipped into reverse, but his training ensured his behaviour remained firmly in drive - and he began to conduct a businesslike appraisal of the subject of his mission. As he did so the remainder of his squadron arranged themselves into a covering formation and waited - and, no doubt, wondered.

  The craft, he observed, was a very faithful representation of a humanoid head above a slightly truncated neck. It wore an expression somewhere between pompous and pained. But it wore no glasses. Not that Scanderpram registered their absence as a positive feature. After all, how could he? He hadn't ever met Kanker. And there was no way on Shrubul he could ever have known that it was Kanker's likeness, albeit a Kanker's likeness with the spectacles cast aside - presumably in the interests of vanity.

  And vanity must have played a leading rôle in the conception of this thing in the first place. How else could anybody recreate his image in such preposterous proportions? Scanderpram was reading his cockpit range console. It told him that the head was almost thirty miles “high” and about twenty-five miles from earlobe to earlobe. By engaging its π function, it then went on to tell him that its surface area was about 2,400 square miles and its volume an incredible 11,500 cubic miles. This wasn't a spacecraft; this was a moon - a pretty ugly-looking, pompous-faced, man-made moon, but definitely a moon. And quite definitely a moon with a purpose. But what purpose? Perhaps a close scan of its surface would tell him.

  Scanderpram engaged his vessel's epsylon imager and started to observe the head. And what he saw sent a shiver down his air force spine. Because what he saw were plasma domes. But not just five or six of them, as one might find on most battle cruisers, but millions of them. The whole surface of this improbable moon was covered with them; one dome touched the next, rank after rank after rank. Even its eyes were pimpled with a solid phalanx of domes. It was amazing beyond belief.

  The technology of a plasma dome is fairly simple: the automatic discharge of a plasma pulse in the direction of anything that comes within about five thousand metres of its surface. It is the ultimate defence system - and completely indiscriminate in its defensive habits. Whether it's a spacecraft, an I-speed missile, an ion bolt, or even another plasma pulse approaching, the dome will neutralise it in an instant.

  It has just one drawback: its appalling drag coefficient. No matter how much they tried, the plasma dome designers had yet to produce a working dome that didn't affect the performance of whatever military craft it was bolted to. It was something to do with plasma leakage and its interaction with any adjacent matter - even the minuscule levels of matter found in the deepest of deep outer space. Scudders couldn't cope with any at all. And screwing more than about ten domes onto your average battle cruiser could reduce its top speed dramatically - enough anyway to give an un-domed opponent a killing advantage - despite your own dome defences. It was a question of balance: plasma dome security versus a sustainable speed requirement. And the answer was generally 'no more than ten, thanks', and it was always 'rather less than a few million, if you don't mind'.

  Either the head's designer had solved the plasma leakage problem, or more probably, thought Scanderpram, he didn't give a shit about speed - not the tiniest turd. If this hulk could whiz through hyper - and it must be able to if it arrived on Shrubul's doorstep so suddenly - then why would it need any “normal” speed anyway? This was not a craft intended to fight, it was a craft intended to intimidate. And to intimidate with impunity. Nothing was going to get through that barrier of plasma babes, nothing. The head was invulnerable and insuperable. And Scanderpram had a horrible feeling that his assessment would soon be confirmed - beyond any reasonable doubt.

  He was right.

  Back on Shrubul, Command had failed to elicit any sort of response from the crew of the strange head-ship - despite repeated and insistent challenge. Its size and its silence were already intimidating. And all they could think to do now was to mount a more aggressive challenge - courtesy of their airborne squadron. This would need presidential authorization, of course. But that wouldn't be a problem. Indeed, it came within minutes of their asking. Old President Pretzel had been conducting the affairs of state from a toilet seat for the last two hours now, and was happy to let anybody do what they thought they should do - just as long as it didn't involve him. Christ, he'd only a few weeks in office to go. And he'd already started to dictate his memoirs… And well, it just wasn't fair, a giant head in the sky. How could he have prepared for that? And what could he possibly do anyway? Heck, he was only the president…

  So the order was given to Scanderpram to take his squadron in for a close formation assault - on the chin!

  Not a single missile or a single ion bolt got through. And two of his fighters flew far too close to the head and paid the price. The plasma domes were spot on in their performance - and Scanderpram was spot on in his appraisal of the head's invincibility, its immunity to ballistic infection.

  It was hopeless. Shrubul really was in trouble, deep, deep trouble. And soon it would get much worse. And Dabida would have to change his assessment of the day. There was confrontation in the air after all.

  46.

  Kanker was sitting in what he chose to call his “mote”. It had, he thought, the right connections, both with the biblical (and hence the stuff of deities) and with the eye. For this “mote” was in an eye. It was in the right eye of his Godhead, a tiny speck no bigger than a scudder's cabin - at the very centre of the mile-wide pupil of that outsize optic organ.

  It was his “control cabin”, a one-man room, secured behind a transparent wall, and with a view of the cosmos through a patch of that pupil. And it was here where he and he alone could control the major functions of his major space vessel, where he could pull the levers of his floating Olympus: a high-tech throne-room from which he would rule not just his high-tech Godhead but the whole of supposedly high-tech civilisation. But a civilisation not high-tech enough nor clever enough to frustrate his own ambitions, his modest demands for the keys to the universe, to be acknowledged as its supreme leader, its absolute ruler, its god-on-high. And soon they would all understand and then they would acknowledge these demands. And if they didn't they would pay the price. They would feel the breath of God - and they would perish - in suitably biblical style.

  And now it was time to introduce them to their fate, to make clear to all his subjects just how much Kanker merited their subservience. Now that the so-called authorities on Shrubul understood their hopelessness, it was time to educate a wider audience on that planet not just of his Godhead's defensive capabilities but of its terrible offensive capabilities as well. And if all went to plan - which, of course, it would - he would have not just Shrubul as his prize, but within days, every populated planet in the universe. They would all see how useless it was to resist. Shrubul's trouble was to serve as just an example of what would happen to any world that chose to stand against him. Not that any would. And Kanker was quite sure of that.

  He addressed them directly. He used a communications intercept to capture every public broadcasting system on the planet. His holo-image appeared in Dabida's living room just as Dabida was about to watch the third round of Shrubul's annual ballroom dancing tournament. Dabida was not amused, and very soon he was more than a little cross.

  'I am Kanker,' began the sermon from the mote, 'and you must listen to me very carefully.'

  For those like Dabida, unfortunate enough to have the visual as well as the audible interruption to their day, this opening statement was accompanied by Kanker's normal impassive expression. Only a slight backward tilt of the head betrayed the pompos
ity that was much more obvious in the tone of his voice.

  'Many of you will know me as the leader of the Intergalactic Chivalrous Knights' League,' he continued inaccurately. 'I am its Senior Knight. But let me make it very clear that what I have to tell you has nothing to do with the League, nothing to do with it at all. It is irrelevant. It is of no significance. In fact, I renounce my rôle as its Senior Knight with immediate effect. The League has no importance and henceforth is of no interest to me. I decree it no longer exists.'

  'Crikey,' said Dabida to himself, 'this chap's nuts. He must be. There's no way they'd make anybody like that the Senior Knight of the League. Just look at him. Looks like a bloody accountant…'

  'However, what very much does exist,' linked Kanker very neatly, 'is my Godhead. The image of your new master which hovers… no, which looms above your miserable little planet…'

  'Your new master?' coughed Dabida. 'This man's a joke. He's not real. Who the hell does he think he is?'

  'Let me tell you about it,' continued a grinning Kanker. 'I am very proud of it. And I want you all to know just how remarkable it is.'

  He paused, grinned more widely than ever, and then embarked on a description of the Godhead as though he was trying to sell it to a prospective buyer.

  'The Godhead can be controlled by one person - me. Quite remarkable when you consider it is a vessel which displaces more than 11,000 cubic miles. Yes, I said miles. It is the largest vessel ever constructed. And the strongest. As your puny air force has already discovered, it is the most impervious to any assault. And I mean any assault of any kind. The surface consists of a matrix of plasma domes. Just over fifty-four million of them to be precise. And there isn't a thing in the universe that can get past them. Try a few cluster bombs if you like. And I mean the big ones; you know, the thermite jobs. Because I can tell you now: they won't do a thing. Even their shock waves won't cause a problem. You see, the matrix of plasma domes is flexible - ingeniously pliable. And it will simply yield and not break. So you see, you couldn't overcome my defences in a million years - no matter how hard you tried…'

  'But why should we want to?' suggested Dabida. 'If you're that mad you can keep the damn thing for yourself…'

  'So it is safe to assume that the Godhead is invulnerable,' continued Kanker. 'And its owner - that is me - is at liberty to use it as a platform for whatever purpose he chooses. That is, for whatever purpose I choose. And the particular one I have chosen involves an ingenious new use for dust - you know, that special dust that to date we've only ever used for D-lastic! Can you imagine it, you peasants down there? Such a mundane use for such an awe-inspiring commodity. Because that, you little people, is exactly what it is - when it is used properly. When the Godhead breathes it into your nice clean atmosphere and blots out your sun. Not just for a few hours, but for ten or more years. There's enough dust in the Godhead to kill your silly little planet and twenty others like it. Do you hear? Do you understand? The Godhead is full of godly dust. And unless you do exactly what I ask, the Godhead will smite your world with its breath. Just one gigantic puff and your world will be shrouded in a vast cloud of… of blessed incense. And your sun will become a memory. And life will become a dream. Because, dear citizens of Shrubul, everything on your world will shrivel and die. And I mean everything. There won't be one of you left to wait for the clearing of the skies. Not one of you. And there's nothing you can do about it. Nothing. You have to submit. You have to throw yourselves at my feet. Your new Lord. Your new Master. Your new God!'

  By now, impassivity and hints of pomposity on Kanker's face had been overtaken by a wide-eyed grimace, the sort Dabida could only associate with the trouble he got from his piles after a curry. But he knew Kanker was unlikely to suffer from the same affliction, and that in his case the expression was more to do with lunacy than agony. And that was a bit of a problem. Because anybody who could impose himself on Shrubul's broadcasts like this and suspend some monster spacecraft above their planet with apparent impunity, might just be telling the truth about its other facilities - like this dusty halitosis thing might be for real. Well no, there was no might about it; the more Dabida thought about it, the more he became convinced that the threat was a serious one. And that worried him - a lot. Even more than a confrontation with old bum-face next door.

  Kanker's face had subsided into a gloat, and he concluded his address in a sneering whisper.

  'You have twenty-four hours to comply. By then I want to receive confirmation of the unconditional surrender and complete demobilisation of all your armed forces and an official acceptance of my absolute authority over your world. Anything less than this will result in my breathing on your planet. And remember: breath is death!'

  Then his image was gone, and Dabida found himself looking at the results of the Lattinmerrican section of the tournament, and the disappointment on the faces of Jeremy Budding and Angela Pallaver, who had been tipped to take top spot but had finished only fourth. It would certainly put them out of contention for the overall tournament title… if the tournament were ever finished…

  Mind, it wouldn't be the end of the world, would it?

  47.

  Renton was not himself a ballroom dancing enthusiast - neither as a spectator nor as a participant. As a schoolboy he'd had the normal passing interest in the dresses worn by the Lattinmerrican ladies. But that's where his interest had ended. He'd not even attempted to master a social waltz facility; his legs simply wouldn't allow it. They could just about cope with the basic steps in a straight line, but corners and turns were beyond them. The only ballroom they could ever have managed would have been a very long one - with a finishing post at its end. Funny then that when he slept the night before their raid on Kanker's dust world, he should have dreamt of that strangest of all ballroom antics: the formation dancing event. And more peculiar still that the formation dancers were all wearing those dreadful space-helmets, those plastic globes that he so much despised.

  Just as well though. Because, in due course, it had given him an idea of how to break through the Godhead's defences, an idea based on the jumbling up of formation dancing and protective headgear. And nobody else had come up with anything. They'd all learned everything there was to learn about the Godhead: its construction, its defences and its ghastly breathing habits. But none of them could spot any weakness, not the tiniest chink in its armour. It really did look like a menace that was truly “untouchable” - until Renton's idea. Dippy, difficult, daring and dangerous, but there again, the only idea in town. And the one that the team had adopted - without further ado.

  And now they were all returning from Kanker's dust world. The whole Pandiloop contingent in its fleet of scudders. And they were heading straight for Shrubul and a meeting with the Godhead. And Renton's idea would be put to the test.

  He was scared like he'd never been scared before. For not only was his own life about to be put on the line, but the lives of all his colleagues were going to be there too - there on that line with him. It was a terrible responsibility, a responsibility that frightened the hell out of him. And he could handle it in only one way: by resorting to some soothing list making. Yes, he would embark on a list of what was good in his life and what was bad. Standard practice and guaranteed to relieve his anguish - or so he hoped.

  The good things first. No question about it. He had to start with his family of friends: Madeleine, Boz, Meitchars, For-bin-Ah, all the Pandiloop troopers, and now Grader. And they were a family. Their shared experiences and their shared quest had brought them that close together. And now they were bound together - not by blood, but by trust - by their absolute trust in each other. It was just unfortunate, thought Renton, that such relationships were only ever forged on that “anvil of adversity”.

  But philosophy later. It was time to move onto the second good thing on his list. No problem: Meitchars' redemption and the resurrection of his spirit - and his humour. Since he'd removed the cancerous growth at the centre of the League, he was a c
hanged man. All his superb knightly qualities remained, but now in place of melancholia was a real relish for life and even the emergence of an impish streak. When Renton checked his kit before stepping onto Kanker's dust planet, he found it contained a tin of furniture polish and a yellow duster, hardly what you'd have expected from Meitchars in the past. But now it was different.

  And so to the third major “good thing”: Renton's ability to live up to his rôle as a knight - or at least up to most of it. And the bit that was missing was for the second half of the list. For now it could wait.

  Instead he could register his coolness in combat, his prowess as a pilot, his increased regard for others (his maturing chivalry), and now his contribution to problem solving: his inspirational solution to the riddle of the Godhead. But this led straight into the bad list. And like it or not, that's where he'd now have to go. Forget the other goodies like the absence of headaches and Madeleine's super new hairstyle; this listing workout was for serious stuff only. He wasn't sure why, but there was just no room for the lighter bits. Maybe because the heavy bits were so bad, so frighteningly bad. And the first was his harebrained plan to breach the Godhead fortress. What could be worse? A perilous, untested venture, which risked the lives of every one of his dearest friends. And it was his doing. He was the instigator. No matter how much the others agreed, it was still his idea. And as time went by, he was less and less convinced that his stupid idea would work. He could kill them all. It would be that easy. In fact, he could kill them all but survive himself. And that would be terrible. Them dead and him alive. It made him shudder. No wonder this listing countenanced no levity. It was weighed down by the heaviest weight of them all: the possible death of his closest friends. And however noble the cause, that was an awful burden to bear.