Skid

by Keith Fenwick

  Noslow led Bruce and Sue into a plush suite where Inel was in the habit of entertaining his favorite courtesan. “You will be comfortable here while you await Inel’s summons,” he said.

  Noslow was stunned to see them here, believing them long dead, and angry that Inel had kept their continued existence from him. He had always been against the idea of utilizing organic material in an attempt to feed Skid’s population, despite the looming famine. Inel had always followed his advice in the past, and he had believed he had in this case.

  Noslow had understood that what there still was of the organic experiment had languished under the incapable hands of Cyprus, Toytoo and the others.

  “You know how to order what amenities you may require,” he said, gesturing to the panel set discreetly into the wall adjacent to the door.

  “Yeah!” Bruce yawned, too tired to care, as Noslow beat a hasty exit.

  How he could use the sudden appearance of the offworlders to the benefit of his masters? After first believing their presence might mean disaster, Noslow was now having second thoughts. That they were still alive could provide his people with an unexpected but valuable bonus when they assumed their rightful place in the universe.

  Bruce tried to open the door after the quaint little man had left them, only to find it locked. “Doesn’t want us to go walkies,” he remarked. He flopped face forward onto the bed, hiding his head in the pillow for a moment before turning over and groaning. It had been a long day and he was still quite drunk. He opened his mouth as if to speak, yawned again instead and was instantly asleep.

  Sue smiled indulgently at him, leaned over to brush a stray lock of hair from his face and then planted a kiss on his forehead. She looked about her for a few minutes and then lay down beside him. After what seemed only a few moments, she too fell asleep.

  Toytoo gazed upwards, searching for the aircraft he could hear overhead, marveling that it had arrived so quickly after his summons. Everything was working out better than he could ever have hoped. Not that he had planned anything. He had just taken advantage of some favorable events, and everything seemed to click into place. Fate was on his side.

  Cyprus had been the only one of his team to venture out into the darkness and had reported that the offworlders had driven off in their vehicle after dumping Inel’s body in the moving water. In stating he had seen this happen, Cyprus stretched the truth a little. He had certainly seen something tossed into the river and had assumed it was Inel. Inel was certainly nowhere to be found, and the offworlders could be dealt with at their leisure. They weren’t going anywhere.

  Toytoo smiled smugly, wondering what was taking the pilot so long to land. The aircraft would transport himself and his followers back to Sietnuoc, back to an extraordinary meeting of the senate he had already called, where Toytoo would promote himself as Skid’s savior in its hour of need. He was gratified that his followers, including Inel’s former associates, anticipating their triumphant return to Sietnuoc, had gathered around him, while allowing him the space that befitted his new position of authority.

  The pilot would have to be reprimanded severely for delaying his triumphant return to Sietnuoc. What was he doing? Surely he could see the landing area? Toytoo was suddenly assailed by a nagging doubt that he could not identify as the aircraft slowly descended. No, the pilot was merely being careful, Toytoo decided impatiently.

  Too late Toytoo noticed the markings; not that it would have made any difference. His last thoughts were that this wasn’t the transport craft he had summoned from Sietnuoc, as a blinding pulse of light flashed from the belly of the overhead craft, searching him out as he stood transfixed like an opossum caught in the glare of a car’s headlights.

  Microseconds later, Toytoo and all his followers were dead, their bodies seared by a powerful laser, the air full of the stench of charred flesh and burning hair until it was dispersed by the light breeze wafting over the hill.

  The aircraft landed and a single figure emerged, scanning the area for any surviving life forms. Apart from Leaf, who had emerged from the house and stood as if frozen to the spot, amid the bodies that were being consumed by a large drone, no one had survived the operation.

  Myfair curtly ordered Leaf about her business, which was to remain at her post and, satisfied with his work, reboarded the aircraft anticipating his reward for pushing the right button for once.

  Back in Sietnuoc Inel sat impassively at his desk. The threats to his wellbeing that had been posed by Toytoo and his followers had now been removed without a trace. Myfair and his crew would be sent on the return mission to the offworlders’ planet, which would remove them from the reach of any inquiry over the disappearance of Toytoo and his followers for as long as necessary.

  Once the offworlders had left Skid, Inel would move his entire administrative structure into the wilderness in order to encourage other Skidians to follow his lead. They would have to if any of them wished to live. Like Cyprus and Toytoo before him, he was supremely confident of his abilities to operate the offworlders’ organic plant without their presence. Skidians did not require any assistance from outside to solve their problems. All they needed was information in a form that was comprehensible to them, the sort of data the behavioral experts at the medical center should have obtained in about five minutes from the offworlders.

  “How are the offworlders, Noslow?”

  “Under sedation at present. The behavioral experts have completed their work.”

  “Good, good. Their transport is prepared?” Inel rubbed his hands, satisfied with his early morning activities.

  “The crew is aboard and ready to depart.” What Noslow did not add was that he would also be aboard the craft and would attempt to divert it to his home planet once it was in flight.

  “Fine.” Inel’s thoughts moved on to other pressing matters. “Where are the latest reports from the synthofood plants?”

  “Here, sir. As you can see, I have attached a summary including reports from other relevant sources. Production appears to have stabilized at 15 percent of requirements, and a scientific group at Nalgor reports they have found a promising antidote for the virus.” Noslow was lying, of course. His reports were always positive though he knew better than anyone on Skid that the scientists were unlikely to find the antidote to the virus that had infected the synthofood plants – the virus he had planted all those long months ago on the orders of brother Pyro back on Celcious B.

  The synthofood supply situation was now critical. While production appeared to have stabilized, almost all the strategic synthofood reserve was now exhausted. Within a couple of months, if not weeks, the population, already beset by inexplicable shortages of many items, would starve to death. Noslow did not concern himself with this catastrophic prospect. His masters on Celcious B had promised to take good care of him well before that time came.

  Soon now they would unveil their intentions. Besides, with a bit of luck he would soon be aboard the patrol craft, returning the offworlders home, and if he had anything to do with it, diverting them to Celcious. After his people landed on Skid, Inel and the other so-called leaders of Skid, self-styled rulers of the known universe, would be dealt with in the same way in which Inel had just dealt with Toytoo and his team. The Celcions would then commandeer some of the interplanetary freight vessels that plied the route between Skid and Celcious B to carry their small army of conquest to Skid and re-establish their birthright as rightful inheritors of the universe.

  The Skidians will rue the day they put my people into slavery, Noslow thought. They have deluded themselves that they could foster the development of an intellectual community on Celcious to help them rule without it eventually wheeling to snap at the hand that fed it. Noslow himself was a product of this delusion, destined since birth to be senior adviser to the ruler of Skid, fated to be the instrument of Skid’s downfall.

  Epilogue

  Message: Source Central Transport Operations. Due to unforeseen circumstances all interplanetary traf
fic will cease from 2810/TA until further notice. End.

  Pyro glared angrily at the screen. There had been far too much of this sort of thing lately. Without the necessary transport their crusade was only half-complete, and they were now ready to assume full control of Skid. Unfortunately they had to get there first, along with their invasion force that was now camped around one of the staging points waiting for transport.

  Furiously Pyro pressed several keys on his keyboard, seeking clarification from the duty operator of the priority message that was still flashing on his screen. He waited impatiently for an answer for several minutes, and then his screen, connected to the Central Transport Operations network, went blank.

  Trying to keep at bay the growing panic that was rising in his throat like a live thing, Pyro feverishly transmitted an encrypted message to his brother Noslow, his most senior agent on Skid, in the hope he could allocate the necessary transport for them.

  He had not long to wait for the reply, but it was one that none of his carefully planned schemes had allowed for.

  Returned mail: User unknown

  Tuesday, 11/09/2 …

  Bruce slowly emerged from a dreamless stupor, disorientated for a moment until he recognized the oddly unfamiliar sight of his bedroom. Feeling almost too fragile to move, he groaned in the expectation of severe discomfort and, clamping his eyes firmly shut, tried to will himself back to sleep.

  However, among other things that conspired to prevent him dozing off, the dogs barked wildly outside. Had he forgotten to feed them again? It wouldn’t be the first time.

  “Shit!” he muttered, opening his eyes again slowly. He carefully slipped out of bed so he wouldn’t wake … Wake who? he wondered. Her name was on the tip of his tongue, and he saw, rather felt, his face pressed into a mass of long, dark hair. But of course there was nobody else in the bed, just an elusive image in his mind and a name he couldn’t pin down.

  “Must have been a great dream,” he grunted.

  His head throbbing mercilessly, he stood unsteadily by the bed and stuck a hand out against the wall to prop himself up. A sledgehammer seemed to be knocking against the inside of his skull, and although it was spring, he felt unusually cold. As if he had been dumped nude in the middle of the Antarctic.

  “Oh God!” he groaned, trying to recall how he had come to be in this state and discovering to his horror that he couldn’t remember. What had he done now? Everything since teatime the night before was a total blank.

  “What’s going on here? I didn’t have anything to drink last night. There’s no booze, or women, in the house.”

  Bruce was not a hundred percent about the beer. He could have sworn that he and a neighbor had polished everything off in the fridge a few nights before. He was certain there wasn’t a woman around, though. He steadied himself against the wall, his stomach also feeling decidedly unsettled. Then he stumbled through to the kitchen expecting to find a heap of empty cans on the table or in the lounge.

  Nothing.

  “Must be crook then,” he decided. Something he’d eaten.

  “Those bloody oysters, I knew they were off,” he muttered rubbing his stomach and remembering the feed of oysters he’d had the day before, wondering if he was going to vomit.

  Bruce glanced at the clock over the fireplace. Five twenty-nine, 10.9.2 … He automatically checked his wristwatch and found he did not have one anymore. Where did that go? “Geez, I must be going nuts.”

  He was sure the previous day was the tenth. He checked his diary that lay open on the table. Sure enough, today must be Wednesday the eleventh – there was an entry dated the tenth. He switched on the radio and caught the beginning of the six-thirty news for Tuesday the tenth. He shrugged his shoulders. He must have had a real binge and jumped a day in his diary, or maybe he was finally going nuts.

  The streets of the once-proud city were strewn with bodies, victims of the recent food riots. Fires raged through the now-empty buildings. Those who still had the energy and the inclination tried to avoid the flames. But most were too weak to move. Anyway there was not, as far as most of them knew, anywhere else to go.

  Within weeks of the offworlders’ departure from Skid, the synthofood plants failed completely, and Skidians were rudely introduced to famine and to fending for themselves in the manner of their ancestors. Many Skidians, on learning of the developing catastrophe, simply willed themselves to death, unable to cope with the unthinkable, while others killed themselves more quickly and violently to escape the painful and lingering death that awaited them. Others rioted in anger, fear and desperation although they had no target for their waning energy. Their protests were futile. There was nothing left.

  Inel bravely attempted to operate the organic plant once the offworlders had departed and to generate interest among his fellow Skidians in the potential of this form of food production. However, it was a case of too little too late.

  If only! Inel raged. If only he had listened and encouraged the offworlders in their work, taken the time to learn from them. Been brave enough to implement the wide-ranging changes to Skidian society that would have saved more than the handful of them who would now possibly subsist on the few organic plants they had hastily established in the wilderness outside Sietnuoc. Organic plants modeled on the offworlders’ ‘farm’ as monuments to their collective folly.

  Initially Inel had been confident he could save more than the small group he had gathered at the organic plant, encompassing many of the ideas advanced by Bruce. Unfortunately, before he had a chance to test his theories, Inel met his end, skewered,on the horn of a female ivop and jammed against the railing as he tried to catch her calf in the yard.

  “Bruce made it all look so easy,” he spluttered, coughing blood all over his old friend and confidant, Noslow, who held him in his arms as he lay dying.

  Noslow nodded. This was not how it was supposed to be, he moaned quietly, oblivious of the female ivop who was charging across the yard at him with her head lowered.

  Sue pulled off the road into the parking lot where many of her fellow travel agents had already gathered. She rested her head for a moment on the steering wheel, slightly nauseous all of a sudden, and cast her eye over the group. Most of them were suitably, if a little excessively, dressed in all the latest designer outdoor gear, as if it made them instant outdoor types. The clothing was brightly colored, and there was a profusion of sunglasses and bulging bum bags; everyone had a smartphone in one hand and a bottle of water in the other.

  They were shod in fashionable boots, wore bright woolly hats and had the inevitable cameras slung carelessly around their necks. The brief bout of nausea passed, and Sue did not give it a second thought as she got out of the car. Bending over to pull the pack off the back seat, she suddenly felt lightheaded and straightened up quickly, bumping her head on the roof.

  “Bugger it!” She put a hand over her mouth and looked around to see if anyone had heard her use the obscenity. Then she stopped suddenly in her tracks, feeling as if she had been here before. Which could not be right because she never had.

  Sue shook her head. She had been feeling a little odd these past few days, imagining against all reason that she was experiencing something like morning sickness. That could not be right either, because she had been celibate for almost a year now. Celibate, if she discounted the intensely vivid dreams of her and a phantom lover she had been experiencing over the last few nights, that is.

  “Must do something about that,” she said to herself as she wandered over to the group of tour operators in time to catch the final instructions of their guide before he led them off into the forest.

  The End

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