“Quiet, QUIET!” Donal’s got a voice on him too, when he sees fit to use it. “First of all, are you shot, Fletch?”
“Amn’t,” I say grumpily. “They’ve got horrible aim.”
“Right, everyone CALM DOWN! They can’t get in for another …” Donal looks at his watch. “Six hours. That’s how long it is until the truck goes out again. Until then, they’ll be cooling their heels outside, same as we were when we first got here. So we’ve got time to plan our counter-attack.”
Brave words.
But when he and I are alone, sitting in the crutch of the big tree facing the airlock, Donal confesses that he hasn’t got a plan. “Apart from hiding until they go away.”
I stare at the airlock. We can hear them banging on the outside of the dome. They can’t break in ahead of schedule. No one can defeat Denebite automation … but in another five hours and five minutes, Denebite automation will open up the front door for them.
“We could hide until they go away,” I say slowly. “This place is fecking huge. There’s no way they’ve got the manpower to search it properly. But …”
“If they give up and go away, there goes our only chance of getting home,” Donal quietly acknowledges.
I nod. They’ve got the Bogtrotter, and if they can’t fly it away, it is a sure bet that they will blow it up for sheer spite. So much for Gordon’s hours of patient work.
“Our best chance,” Donal says, “and it’s probably our only chance, is to capture one of their ships.”
I stare at him, glad we’re alone. “Seriously, Donal? Capture one of their ships? With this crew?”
Donal’s face grows whiter. He doesn’t have any real grasp of the possible. That’s why he is an explorer and not a pirate. I hate myself for dragging him into this.
“You got any better ideas?” he says truculently.
“Erm. No.”
He stares at me. I do a big shrug: sorry.
And then he bursts out laughing, this pal of mine, who’s never held anything against me, even when we got caught shoplifting from Dunnes Stores and I lied to the guards that it was his idea. “Yeah, well we’ll just have to give it a go then, won’t we?” he says.
I will get him and the others safely off this planet if it kills me. He and Harriet will have their Treetop condo.
“Well,” I say, “we might be able to pull it off. But it’s going to take everyone doing as they’re told, no messing about …”
The growly squeals of Care Bears interrupt our discussion. We crane out of the tree. Three full-grown CBs are running full tilt down the road from the charging station. One is a female, with an infant clinging to her chest fur. The other two are males, carrying forcefield bubbles in their paws.
A maintenance robot stalks after them, gaining ground.
“It’s chasing them!” Donal says.
The Care Bears sprint under our tree. The female trips over the big branch we left lying there. She rolls like a furry ball, ending up on her back with baby on her chest.
The maintenance robot catches up with a spidery leap.
A laser beam lances out of its thorax, exactly the same shade of blue as my lightsaber’s beam.
The two male Care Bears thrust their forcefield bubbles into the beam …
… as it bores into the helpless infant.
“Aw feck!”
With a cry of disgust, I leap out of the tree and slash the maintenance robot in half with my lightsaber.
“Baby-killer!” I shout at the robot’s twitching halves.
“So you do believe they’re sapient,” Harriet says sadly behind me.
The infant is dead. Its mother keens over its body. The males press close to her, shaping their now-deflated bubbles into silvery ornaments, which they lay on the poor little corpse.
“Bloody hell,” I say. “They’re making those in the baby’s memory.” I am shaken; would dolphins do this? Elephants build graveyards …
“I gather this is the first time you’ve seen a cull,” Harriet says. “It’s a population-control measure, I assume. All fully automated. The Care Bears have no way to resist. But as you can see for yourself, they’ve developed ways to memorialize their dead.”
All those ornaments hanging at the doors of their shacks stand for dead babies. No wonder they were upset when the treecats stole them.
“King Herod’s got nothing on the bloody Denebites,” Donal says. Suddenly he explodes, “I hate this fecking place!”
The male Care Bears are pawing at the bisected maintenance robot, as if wondering will it come back to life. They glance at my lightsaber with a hopeful surmise.
Donal’s right. This isn’t the Garden of Eden. It’s a Denebite zoo, or maybe a jail. I could destroy all the maintenance robots, but then the dome would break down. There are a thousand other tasks they do that keep the place running.
Harriet slides her hand into Donal’s. “Have you thought of a plan?” she says, wincing at another bang on the outside of the dome.
Donal takes a deep breath. “Well, sort of …”
CHAPTER 13
Time for action.
The dumper truck trundles down the road from its parking garage and noses up to the airlock.
Donal and I are sat high up in the same tree as before, hidden from the ground by the abundant leaves. The others are scattered in other trees nearby. We killed time by going for one last swim and collecting as much fruit as we could carry.
The dumper truck rolls silently into the airlock chamber. It closes.
The bashing on the outside of the dome stops.
The dumper truck usually spends fifteen to twenty minutes outside. We stare at our watches.
Again the airlock opens.
Twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two individuals in red-and-navy-blue spacesuits leap out of the dumper truck’s skip and stare around wildly.
These must be Special Delivery Sam’s elite troops. They grab some of the force field bubbles that are lying around, throw them at each other, and exclaim in American accents. Donal and I shake with silent hilarity. It’s like watching a replay of our own arrival, minus the spear-hurling Care Bears. I could take out a few of them here and now if I wasn’t dying of laughter.
But they’re armed with laser carbines and shotguns and fairly soon they calm down. A tall, curly-headed fella gives orders. “OK, let’s split up … Annika, Jesse, you guys hang out here. Everyone else pair off and search the dome. Those goddamn punks must be here somewhere.”
“Is that Special Delivery Sam?” Donal whispers into my ear.
“No clue.”
“Have you never seen a picture of him?”
“No. But that can’t be him, can it? He’s supposed to be at least Finian’s age.”
“He’s probably leading from the back,” Donal whispers.
The Samites jog under our tree and scatter into the forest.
They’ve left their spacesuits lying in a heap in front of the airlock.
I nudge Donal and point.
He nods, his face bright with hope.
Jesse, a rangy black lad, and Annika, who looks as Swedish as her name, sit down on the spacesuits. They chat a bit, speculating if the airlock will ever reopen, or if they’re stuck in here forever—it’s déjà vu all over again, honestly. I feel like shouting down to them, ‘Don’t worry, the truck will be back in twelve hours and seven minutes,’ but our plan, such as it is, depends on the fact that they don’t yet know the timing of the truck’s runs.
Annika wraps some force field bubbles in a spacesuit for a pillow, and curls up for a nap. Jesse lights a cigarette.
The smoke curls up to us. It makes me crave one. Jesus, I gave up the fags fifteen years ago.
But it’s purgatory sitting in this tree, not making a sound, not daring to move, with our fecking spacesuits on, all but the helmets …
… for another twelve hours.
Six hours into our wait, Donal drops off to sleep, the jammy bastard.
Jesse and A
nnika exchange radio updates with their friends. I earwig. The other Samites have discovered the Care Bears of the Lost Planet. The CBs of the LP have thrown spears at them and run away, surprise, surprise. Now the Samites have shelved their search for us, and are in full cry after the CBs. I hope they don’t find the village.
T minus 4 hours 37 minutes. This is worse than a transatlantic flight. I occupy myself by coming up with exercises to pass the time.
Flex legs (careful not to dislodge any leaves or twigs!)
Scratch inside spacesuit
Undo spacesuit seals to scratch the really itchy places
Take spacesuit off (leaves and twigs!)
Ah God that’s better.
Make top ten list of best rock albums
Top ten actresses I would like to sleep with
Top ten places I wish I was now (all of them are far far away from Omega fecking Centauri)
Top ten candidates for the name of my planet when I finally get it
I have to abandon that exercise partway through. It’s too depressing. It seems so very, very unlikely that I will ever have my own planet now.
More radio updates provide a welcome distraction. The Samites found our camp by the lake, and some of those bloody MRE packets. “Stay alert,” says the leader over the radio. “This Connolly’s a crazy fucker. Runs in the family, I guess.”
Ha ha ha from Jesse and Annika, although I don’t see what’s so funny.
Pray
30 seconds later:
“Donal. Wake up.”
“Mmph,” Donal says.
I clap my hand over his mouth.
Something moves in the canopy above us.
The furry face of a CB pokes down through the leaves.
Ah, the poor wee thing’s been stuck up here with us all this time, scared to go down the tree …
The CB turns around, showing us its naked pink bottom. It grunts.
Jesse and Annika are on their feet, staring up. I pray they can’t see us through the leaves.
The CB’s anus stretches. A glint of silver emerges.
I stare, gobsmacked, as the CB shits a fully formed force field bubble onto Donal’s head.
So that’s where they come from.
“Ah Jesus,” Donal’s awake, wiping his face. The new bubble must have been sticky.
“They’re Care Bear poop!” I whisper. “That’s why there’s always thousands of them lying around!”
The bubble drifts down to the ground.
Jesse shoots it.
I am charmed to see that it continues on its drifting course, unaffected by shotgun pellets. Gordon was right: solid objects do go through them if they’re moving fast enough.
“Another lovely, lovely force field,” Annika says, running after it.
Jesse laughs in embarrassment. “Why’re there so many of them around here, anyway?” he wonders aloud.
Ah my lad, I think, if only you knew. We were swimming with them, playing football with them … we mended our ship with Care Bear poop. That’s disgusting!
Donal is cracking up as the truth sinks in.
“T minus twelve minutes,” I whisper to him. “Get ready.”
We daren’t use the radios to alert the others. We just have to hope they’re watching the time, too.
T minus eight minutes, and the curly-headed leader of the Samites strolls out of the trees, eating a date-pear.
The luck of the Irish strikes again.
Donal curses under his breath. I whisper, “Don’t panic! Don’t panic! We can take them all!”
“They’re just kids!”
Yes, and I have sat up here for twelve hours hearing about the vintage Gibson guitar Jesse wants to buy, and Annika’s boyfriend troubles, but— “I’ll do it, OK? I will do it!”
“So what’s the deal, Sam?” Jesse says. “You figure we’re stuck in here?”
THIS is Special Delivery Sam?
“Meh,” says curly-head. “That truck went out once, it’s gotta go out again.”
T minus six minutes.
There’s no time like the present.
I slide down the tree at the speed of sound. Glad I took off my spacesuit. What I lose in protection I gain in mobility. I’ve got my lightsaber in my bare right hand. Halfway down the tree, I slash the beam across the clearing on maximum range setting, catching Annika in the leg, oh Jesus I’m sorry, love, and Jesse is shooting up at me and I slash at him. The beam takes the side of his head off. I hit the ground screaming for him, because he can’t scream anymore.
“Fuuuck,” Sam says, staring at the bodies of his friends. He belatedly connects me with the carnage. His gun starts to come up.
“Don’t move,” I say, swaying. My lightsaber scribbles gouges in the dirt at his feet.
He drops the gun. He’s got a brain on him, this one.
“You are my prisoner, is that fecking clear, arsehole?” I snap.
Donal slides down the tree. The others come running out of their hiding places. Harriet screams. Someone else breaks into sobs. Through all this I hear the heavenly noise of the dumper truck’s tires squelching on the road.
Sam’s eyes dart all over the place, then fasten on me again. “I was supposed to make sure you were dead,” he says.
I shrug. If I open my mouth, I’ll puke. I can’t believe I killed them.
“My dad is gonna murder me,” Sam says. “I guess Finian was wrong, huh?”
“Wait.” I can speak without puking, after all. “What did Finian say?”
“Oh, he said you were crap in a fight.” Sam laughs morosely.
I’ll fecking show him, I think, and then— “Hang on, he’s alive?”
“He also said you were a total douche.” Sam rolls his eyes. “It’s like, thanks, oh legendary piratical one. Now he’s got my mom convinced this Fletcher Connolly character is a threat to her entire empire. So I blow you off the Railroad, but that’s not good enough, so I have to chase down the wreckage of your ship and grind it into infinitely small pieces of interstellar debris …” He says this last part in a sing-song, and I realize he’s mimicking his mother. I always assumed Special Delivery Sam was a man, but evidently she’s a woman. And this is her son. “So I come all the way out here to finish the job, and now you’ve SHOT two of my FRIENDS!”
The dumper truck rolls into the clearing, straight over Annika.
Sam Junior winces. “But,” he says, “I’m willing to overlook that. You found the force fields, right? I can’t believe how many of them are just lying around here. Those things are freaking currency, man. So here’s my plan. We grab as many of them as my ships will carry and light out for Arcadia. What do you say?”
“Whisht!”
“Yeah, I know they can’t be reverse-engineered. But imagine how much they’d go for per piece.”
This lad’s talking my language, I think for a fleeting instant, and then Donal yells, “Fletch, come on!”
The truck’s inside the airlock. Donal’s jammed this end with the same old branch wedged crosswise. The others are changing into the spacesuits left behind by Sam’s party. Sam watches this operation with mounting horror.
“Oh yeah,” I say to him, “and you can’t use your radio to communicate with anyone outside the dome. But I expect you’ve already found that out.”
I squeeze into one of their spacesuits. Gordon covers Sam with my lightsaber while I’m doing up the seals. Donal’s begging Harriet to leave the treecats.
“The whats?” Sam says, looking at the cat carriers that, I now observe, the girls are loading into the dumper truck.
Everyone doing what they’re told.
No messing about.
Oh sure, that’ll be no problem, says Donal, ever-optimistic.
“We are NOT taking the FECKING treecats!” I roar. I jump into the truck and hurl the cat carriers out.
And I’m not quite sure what happens next because it starts with Harriet punching me in the groin, and these spacesuits of Sam’s, being fancy A-tech ones, hav
e nothing to cushion the blow.
Sprawled on the truck bed, blinking through tears of pain, I see blurry shapes leaping over me. There’s a melee in the entrance of the airlock, some trying to get out, others trying to pull them back.
I never see who kicks the branch away.
But I’m pretty sure that one of the South Africans—Adriaan, the quiet fella, who’s always showing you pics of his kids—did it on purpose.
The airlock slams shut.
“You asshole,” Imogen hisses in the dark, to me, I assume.
A quick roll call confirms that we’ve lost Harriet, Vanessa, Jasmine (one of the Australian women), and Donal.
CHAPTER 14
The dumper truck rolls out onto the plain. According to its ponderous habit of many millennia, it tilts up its skip and tips us out.
I’m still reeling from the shock of losing Donal and the three women. Not to mention the agonizing effects of Harriet’s right hook.
We can’t go on with the plan. But we are going on with the plan, whether I want to or not. There were dozens of people gathering up bubbles when we emerged, and now they’re all around us, wanting to know what we found inside the dome, “Did you waste ‘em, Sam?” and “Where are the others?” because if we were Sam’s raiding party there should be twice as many of us.
I know I’ll give the game away as soon as I open my mouth. It was supposed to be Donal who handled this part. He’s got the gift of the gab and he can do a wicked American accent.
Hopelessly, I say, “Well, guys, I’ll give you the good news first. There are millions of force field bubbles lying around here, as you’ve discovered, and those things are freaking currency, man …”
Oh Jesus, I sound like a jackeen trying to talk gangsta.
A hulking Samite picks me up and shakes me. “Say what, asshole? Who the fack is you, anyways?”
Kenneth pipes up. “Hey, is that Doug the Shiv?”
Consternation among the Samites.
“Who’s that? Where’s Sam?”
“In there,” says Kenneth, the traitor, the survivor off the Hellraiser who we kept around knowing full well that he used to be a pirate. Thinking, wrongly, that he’d been scared straight. Believing in his ramen-eating, crap-music-loving, double-digit-IQ persona. Feeling sorry for him.
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