Sideshow was leaning out of the window obviously looking to see where they had gone. Bruce gave her a cheery wave and wandered off through the trees.
The meadow rolled gently away into the distance and was dotted with small groups of trees. It reminded Bruce of the some parts of the English countryside, an artificial scene that had evolved over thousands of years of man’s influence on the landscape, but nevertheless an easy one on the eye. Except that there was no sign of any habitation, no sign of life at all, which made the scene somehow intimidating, as if they were trespassing into an off-limits area. Or on the other hand, Bruce thought with a shudder, where all wildlife had been purged by a nuclear accident, toxic chemical spill or some other man-made cock-up.
Bruce was a little relieved when a bird winging its way overhead alighted on a branch to regard them, cocking its head as if to say ‘what is this passing below?’ “You know,” he mused, “for a place so rich in plant life, there aren’t many animals about.”
“I hadn’t really noticed,” replied Sue, who turned around every few moments to check for signs of pursuit. “What do you mean?”
“Well, on earth, a place like this would be teeming with life. Anything from birds to insects, rabbits to farm animals.”
They walked on while Sue considered this observation. “Oh,” was all she could think of to say.
By the time they reached the river about fifteen minutes later, Bruce had done enough walking. He didn’t mind walking as a rule but not just for something to do. “This’ll do,” he said, sitting and watching the water with interest, after catching a glimpse of something that could have been a fish. “Someone’s bound to catch up with us at some stage. I suppose we shouldn’t make it too difficult to find us.”
There wasn’t really anywhere to go, and he had made his point. Sue pouted as Bruce rolled another smoke but sat beside him anyway, dangling her feet in the water.
A series of ripples spread from the point where something had disturbed the surface of the water.
“Hey look, there’s a fish. Thought I saw one before!” Bruce pointed to another set of ripples and even Sue thought she might have seen it.
“What are they going to do when they catch up with us?” Sue asked, as she watched the widening ripples and tried not to let the acrid cigarette smoke upset her too much.
“Dunno. Wouldn’t worry about it too much, though. You see, I’ve formed this theory,” he responded with some confidence. “I reckon this place is a few cents short of the quid, know what I mean?”
Sue shook her head. Sometimes Bruce seemed to speak a language all of his own.
“Can’t you explain in a language I can understand?”
“Okay,” he replied tiredly. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but there’s a feeling of …” The word he sought remained elusive. “Put it this way: you’d think a group of people who could fly through space and snatch four people from earth would have no problems making tobacco, wouldn’t you?”
“And don’t forget those dogs of yours,” Sue reminded him, changing the subject just as he started to get his thoughts together.
“I wonder where they are?” Bruce considered their plight momentarily. “The Skidians must be having all sorts of problems trying to analyze them.”
“Aren’t you worried about them?”
“Nah. They can look after themselves. I know for sure that one of them’s okay, anyway. Look, we’re getting off the subject. Don’t you get the impression there’s something terribly wrong with this place and that there might be some connection between whatever’s wrong and us being here?”
“But what have we got to offer them?”
“Not a lot really, unless they’re planning to run a farm or need someone to organize a holiday. Which, given Sideshow’s earlier statements, is unlikely …” His voice trailed away for a moment. “Actually, that’s it! You know what I think? I reckon they’re having trouble producing food, and they want us to sort everything out for them. Bloody hell!”
“I’ve never heard anything so stupid. They must be able to get what they need from somewhere else. One of those other planets they talked about.” Sue decided Bruce was losing his marbles.
“But doesn’t Skid produce food for other planets as well? Or most of it.”
“Oh,” Sue clapped a hand over her mouth. “Remember what they said? About the people on earth being such efficient producers of food because our population is so large and still growing?” Sue was belatedly catching on. “They can’t have done their homework very well, though, eh? That’s if we’re right, of course.”
“Yeah,” Bruce grunted.
“Do you really think so, Bruce?”
“Well it’s the most attractive idea I’ve had so far.” He flicked his cigarette butt into the water. “But I reckon we’ll find out soon enough. When they do find us and they’re all smiles, I’ll bet you anything you like I’m on the right track. If not, then we might be stuffed. But I reckon the Skidians, technological master race or not, have made a bit of a cock-up somewhere along the line.”
“Cock-up?”
“A mistake.”
“Oh right, a screw-up!” Sue felt happier than she had been since finding herself flung together with this oaf from down under.
Suddenly deciding she looked almost spunky when she smiled, Bruce leaned across and gave Sue a platonic peck on the cheek.
“Watch it, sonny,” she whispered, giving Bruce a queer look and wondering why her stomach seemed to have tumbled over all of a sudden.
Bruce reddened, wondering what sort of worm had entered his brain this time. “Imagine,” he began, trying to cover his embarrassment, “if they’d picked up some peasants from outback India or Peru or somewhere else poor and primitive. They should count themselves lucky that they’ve at least got us.”
Sue sighed and rested her head on Bruce’s shoulder. “I hope you’re right.”
“Yeah,” was all Bruce managed.
Both lapsed into a silence punctuated by deep sighs as they contemplated the darker side of their prospective futures and the sudden emotional tension that had developed between them.
“It’s nice and quiet here, isn’t it?” Sue suggested, at last breaking the silence.
“Unnatural, I’d say. I still find it weird that there’s hardly any birds or insects and no big animals.”
“We saw a fish before.”
“Yeah, but only one. Which brings me to another question: Why don’t they grow food rather than make it?” Bruce tried to sort out his own confused thoughts and for the moment missed the nub of the Skidian’s problem.
Sue bounced up and down like a child with her hand up in class. “I know! You’re right. They’re having problems with their synthetic food production systems, and they need us because it has been so long since they’ve had to it, they don’t know how to grow food. That’s why they need us! For some reason they want to learn how to grow food.”
The drone of some large insect began to invade the peace of the riverbank and was increasing in intensity. When it sounded like a swarm of angry bees Bruce looked around to find the source of the noise so he could get out of the way.
“Over there,” Sue pointed to an object coming into view over the trees.
“Well that didn’t take long, did it?” Bruce got to his feet and watched the aircraft approach.
Sue rose and hung onto his arm.
“Don’t worry,” he tried to reassure her, feeling her fear like a bitter metallic taste in his own mouth. “Don’t worry. They need us, remember?” he repeated, as much for Sue’s benefit as his own.
Twelve
The aircraft hovered for a moment overhead and then landed a few feet away, its undercarriage jutting from its elongated ovoid body from just behind a pair of stubby wings. As the whine of whatever propulsion system powered the aircraft ran down, a ramp fell out of the fuselage and two familiar figures emerged.
Bruce heaved a sigh of relief as Mulgoon and Cyprus stood cautiously
at the entrance and peered anxiously around. They didn’t appear too happy about something. He’d half expected a squad of storm troopers to appear at the door.
“Greetings, friends!” Mulgoon called with a hint of a frown as he walked towards them.
Bruce turned to Sue, raised his eyebrows and shrugged his shoulders.
Mulgoon continued forward until he stood in front of Bruce, while Cyprus, managing to hold his smile, kept a little further back.
“If we had known you wished to travel in the wilderness we would have taken you ourselves.”
“Aw, thanks, mate,” replied Bruce, trying to make light of the situation. “We was just going for a bit of a wander.”
“Pardon?” Mulgoon glanced at Cyprus, who shrugged his shoulders unhelpfully.
“We have been for a walk,” Sue translated for their benefit.
“Greaser,” Bruce whispered sourly.
“Thank you. If you would care to accompany us, we will conduct you on a local tour.”
“Fine,” Bruce said, sensing they had little option. “Come on, Sue,” he said tugging her into the aircraft.
Mulgoon indicated two rear seats in the cabin, and Cyprus joined Mulgoon in seats facing the offworlders as the craft climbed into the sky.
“We didn’t get far, did we?” Bruce peered out of the window. “That’s where we started,” he said, pointing out a long, low building. “At least we’re not going back to the medical facility.”
The medical facility lay at the edge of a vast built-up area that stretched away as far as the eye could see.
“Wow!” Sue exclaimed. “It’s enormous! How many people live here?”
“Sietnuoc has a population of 102,631,987 inhabitants as of yesterday,” Cyprus answered.
“That’s incredible. Is Sietnuoc the biggest city on Skid?” Bruce wrapped his tongue around the name with difficulty.
“Oh no, Sietnuoc is the smallest of our cities. Ndgar is the biggest, with approximately 651,000,000 inhabitants.”
“That’s almost incomprehensible. Can you imagine a city that size, Bruce?”
Bruce shook his head. “Nah. The biggest one I’ve ever seen wasn’t a patch on this.”
On the other hand what he could see of the city did vaguely resemble a suburb of any large New Zealand city. What he assumed were houses were scattered in neat patterns along streets. However, unlike any terrestrial city, there was no evidence of multistory buildings or tall industrial chimneys spewing smoke into the air. Nor did there appear to be motorways clogged with vehicles. In fact, few vehicles of any sort were in evidence on the streets.
Bruce was about to comment on this when a vast empty area, that looked as though it could once have been an enormous car park, came into view, surrounding a structure that could only be some sort of sports stadium or entertainment arena. Unless it was some kind of Skidian factory, of course.
“See there, Sue. Looks like a rugby ground or a football stadium, eh? Wonder what it’s for?”
Cyprus ignored the question and began to point out various landmarks and other points of Skidian interest. “The large open area below us is our senate.”
Bruce recognized it as the place where they had first arrived on Skid.
“We call it the Onofeti. Myfair, fly towards Smrakra,” Mulgoon instructed. “We might be able to give our guests a glimpse of a Stim event. Stim is one of our major cultural events,” he explained proudly. “As part of your introduction to Skid we must take you to an event soon.”
The craft circled the large stadium but they were at such a height that they couldn’t see much.
“Can you see what’s going on, Bruce?”
“No, they could be playing anything from bull rush to tiddlywinks. Some kind of ball game, though, by the looks of it.”
After circling the stadium several times Myfair swung the craft back onto its original course.
“How big is the city?”
Mulgoon gave Cyprus a significant look. Already they had both tired of fielding questions from the almost offensively curious offworlders. Why could they not just accept things, without this ceaseless search for answers about matters of no great importance?
“Here,” said Cyprus curtly. He produced two tablet-like devices from beneath his seat and handed them one each.
Bruce turned his tablet over, wondering how to switch it on.
“Anything you might wish to know about Skid has been programed into this tablet; it has full access to Skid’s data networks.” He did not add, ‘within reasonable bounds’.
“How does it work?” Sue asked. “Can I get my email and check my Facebook status?” she asked, hoping for some way to get word of her plight out.
The tablet had an empty screen on one side. It could have been made by any one of a number of familiar terrestrial manufacturers but had no maker’s label.
An impatient expression flitted across Cyprus’s face: these primitives had trouble with even the simplest device. He snatched it roughly from Sue’s grasp and pressed his thumb into a coin-sized depression below the screen and a number of icons appeared on the screen.
“Once you have activated the tablet, you simply ask your question or relay your request. You can also use it as a communications device.”
“You call these tablets?” Bruce asked.
“Yes, of course,” replied Mulgoon. Again he imparted this information so proudly that Bruce wondered if he had a major role in the device’s development. He had not. He simply took much pride in what some Skidian had developed generations ago.
Bruce wondered at the similarity between these devices and those he was pretty familiar with from home. He looked at his tablet feeling a little self-conscious about asking an apparently inanimate object a question.
“How big is this city?” Sue beat him to the draw anyhow.
“The city known as Sietnuoc has a population of 102,631,987 persons and covers an area of almost fourteen million hectares,” answered a melodic female, though obviously artificial, voice.
“You can also use the tablets to deliver instructions to your assistants. They are also programed to supply anything you may require during your stay here.”
“Assistants?”
This was something new.
“Yes,” Mulgoon continued. “Now that you have been allocated individual living quarters, you must have assistants to see about your business.”
“Oh, that’s nice.” Bruce digested this interesting bit of news. His very own servant?
“Let’s see how useful this thing really is.” Bruce racked his mind for an obscure request. “I want a couple of pairs of short strides and some T-shirts. I’m sick of walking round in a dress,” he explained to nobody, “and, oh, some jandals too.”
Mulgoon frowned. “What are you saying? You are most difficult to understand at times.”
“It’s not my fault if you can’t talk proper and speak English as she is s’posed to be spoke, is it?”
“Don’t worry, I can’t understand him most of the time, either,” Sue said, trying to diffuse the sudden tension in the air and ingratiate herself with the Skidians at the same time.
Mulgoon and Cyprus sounded a little edgy because they felt, correctly, that Bruce was insulting their intelligence somehow. Bruce ignored the Skidians and shoved his tablet into a pocket he’d just discovered in the voluminous sleeve of his robe.
“Big, eh?” he said to Sue who was staring moodily at the city still passing below.
“A bit disappointing, really. Looks like any other big modern city I have ever seen. The suburbs, I mean. Not spacey at all. Wonder how they get around.”
“Funny, but I haven’t seen any large buildings except for the senate, the medical center and the sports arena. No factories, shops or anything.”
These observations were not appreciated by the Skidians. “Our people live in ordered, well-planned communities, not spread haphazardly over the planet like your own,” Cyprus informed them defensively.
“Yeah, but look here.” Bruce tried to explain himself without offending the Skidians any further. “Some of the cities on earth, especially where I come from, look a lot like this one.”
“But they’re not very big,” Mulgoon insisted.
“No,” said Bruce sharply, impatient with the pedantic attitudes of his hosts, although the disagreement wasn’t worth getting hostile about. Size and appearance evidently meant everything to the Skidians. The bigger the city, the better it was, and it seemed nothing else mattered.
He watched from the window as the cityscape was abruptly replaced by the open, empty countryside, as if some town planner had drawn a line in the sand that could never be crossed. Nothing artificial seemed to exist beyond that boundary.
“We are conveying you to an archaeological site you may find interesting,” Mulgoon said after a few minutes of silence.
“What sort of site is that?” Sue asked.
Bruce couldn’t have cared less. Archaeology, like architecture, wasn’t on his list of interests.
“We were hoping you,” Mulgoon indicated both of them with dramatic wave of his beefy arms and cleared his throat loudly, “might be able to help us in analyzing the importance of the site and the artifacts contained there.”
“The plot thickens,” Bruce chuckled. It wasn’t the sort of thing he’d expected. But what did he expect? He no longer knew.
“The site was discovered recently while technical staff recovered an expired weather satellite. The crater made by the satellite’s impact uncovered the ancient structure we are going to visit.” Mulgoon cleared his throat again as if embarrassed by this admission of a failure of Skidian technology.
“Do your satellites often fall out of the sky?” Sue asked maliciously. “Are we safe in this aircraft?”
Neither Skidian chose to respond and Mulgoon continued, unabashed.
“Our historians have discovered many sites of antiquity which give us some insight into ancient life on Skid.”
“What part of the planet are we crossing now?” Bruce asked the tablet that he had retrieved from his pocket.
Skid Page 9
