by Toby Frost
‘I think you should turn back into Doctor Jeckyll,’ Carveth said.
‘At least you humans no longer need that paper bag.’
Suruk chuckled and Smith winced at the memory. In those days aliens had been rare in human territory, and Suruk had been obliged to hide his face for fear of causing women to faint. He had drawn a smiley face on the bag to reassure passers-by, but it had still attracted attention. At Cromwell Station a youth had stolen the bag, and a crowd had mistaken Suruk for a horrible monster – if that was a mistake. Smith had been forced to fight through the howling mob to reach Suruk and rescue it from him.
‘Memories, eh?’ Suruk said thoughtfully. ‘Urchin tastes like rat.’
The doorbell sounded, jolting Suruk from his reverie.
‘Wonder who that is?’ Carveth said, and she stepped into the corridor. A weird sense of foreboding made her shiver. She peered at the filthy window, saw movement behind it, shrugged, spun the wheel and pulled the door open. ‘I should have known,’ she sighed.
Rhianna was on the doorstep. Her hair was not in dreadlocks any more: it fell around her head like a black cloud, remarkably un-lank. To Carveth’s surprise she was not wearing anything tied-dyed: she had on a long, shapeless white dress, like a nightie or an elongated smock. There was some dark stuff around her eyes, which made her look a bit mad. The overall impression was of a minor romantic poet who had woken up craving laudanum, or someone confused into thinking she was an elf.
‘Hi,’ Rhianna said.
Carveth looked round: Smith stood behind her. ‘It’s Rhianna’s ghost,’ she explained.
‘Oh,’ said Smith. ‘Um, hello.’
‘Hey, guys.’ Rhianna had a soft New Francisco accent, at once dreamy and sincere.
‘Hello,’ Smith replied, warily.
‘Yeah, hi,’ said Carveth.
‘Can I come in?’ Rhianna asked. ‘The rain’s kind of puddling in my flip-flops.’
There was a moment’s pause. ‘Of course,’ Smith said, stepping back, and Rhianna entered in a swish of damp, voluminous cloth.
‘Wow,’ she said. ‘Are you guys going somewhere?’
‘To a show,’ Carveth replied. ‘Why’re you here?’
‘Well,’ Rhianna said, slipping off her sandals, ‘it’s really strange. I was working last night, helping with – well, you know, research – and I had this amazing premonition that I’d find you here. And then they gave me a tube map.’
‘So you had a premonition that you were going to use the tube?’
‘Yes.’ She looked a bit crestfallen, and added, ‘But it was really spiritual.’
‘Why did they send you here?’ Smith asked.
Rhianna sighed and stretched, and for a moment the damp dress clung to her taut body. She stopped stretching, and she was back to normal – but that image of her lingered, seared into Smith’s mind. He’d slept beside her, once.
‘I don’t really know,’ she said. ‘They said we were being briefed tomorrow?’
‘Well, welcome back,’ Smith said. ‘We’re all very happy to see you. Aren’t we?’
‘Oh yeah.’ Carveth nodded. ‘Look really close and you’ll see me jump for joy.’ Smith nudged her, and she added, ‘Nice to see you. Your room’s still as you left it. I’ve watered your pot plant, although a few of the leaves fell off. And got smoked.’
‘Cool,’ Rhianna said. ‘I’ll only stay here tonight, if that’s ok. I didn’t bring a change of clothes.’
‘Never stopped you before.’
‘So, what kind of show is it?’
Carveth shrugged. ‘It’s a variety show. Old tradition of the native indigenous tribesmen of Britain. There’s dancing from other cultures, called the Can-Can, and then there’s some old general talking about bringing culture to the spiritual alien folk.’
‘That sounds fascinating,’ Rhianna said. ‘Will there be poetry?’
‘Does Roll out the Barrel count?’
*
In the dark of the auditorium, Smith felt alone. They sat in a box, looking across the tatty magnificence of the red and gilt hall to the stage and its faded curtains. The hall seemed to exude friendliness, as if its air was thicker and softer than outside.
The show opened with mechanical cherubs descending from the roof and playing a fanfare. Then Lily Tuppence came on and praised the soldiers of the 112th Army for their victory over the lemming men. Once the cheering had died down she sang a song about moonlight, accompanied by holographic birds.
Smith could imagine Rhianna singing to holographic birds, although probably as a result of self-medication, and hopefully not in front of anyone he knew.
The main act came on: two sprightly young women in army jackets who sang witty songs. They were both pretty, and started off with a routine about a novice soldier learning army ways. They were joined by a man with a large, extrovert moustache, and all three broke into song:
‘I couldn’t get my pole to stand, so I asked a lady friend And she worked it back and forward until it was up on end
I asked her ‘What’s your secret?’ and this was her reply, ‘You’ve got to get the flagpole standing if you want the flag to fly!’
Smith glanced to his right. Rhianna was at the end of the row, legs crossed, watching the performance with intense, scholarly interest. In the dim light of the auditorium she looked almost luminous. Her skirt had ridden up, showing an interesting expanse of ankle and calf. That looked delightful, thought Smith, and immediately there came the stinging knowledge that her delights were no longer his.
The flagpole song reached its climax, and one of the girls sat on the man’s lap and jumped back up, to cheers from the audience. They looked like a fine pair, those girls, thought Smith, no doubt up for a bit of manly hi-jinks. He took out his rifle-sight, which he’d brought to get a good view of the stage. He looked left a bit, toward the audience – and a man stared right back.
He was in a box nearer the exit: a tall man in black, with heavy eyebrows and the sort of moustache favoured by villains in silent films. He was holding opera glasses and as soon as Smith saw him he slipped them into his jacket and Smith spotted a flash of steel under his left arm.
A gun. This armed man had been watching them. For a moment Smith thought of telling the others, of clearing the hall, perhaps, and realised what chaos that would cause. No: he’d have to take this fellow alone. The man stood up, realising he’d been seen, and Smith turned to slip out of the box into the corridor.
‘And now before the interval, Ladies and Gentlemen, be upstanding for Land of Hope and Glory,’ a voice cried from the stage.
As one the audience stood. The armed man froze, his escape blocked by standing bodies. Smith froze too, torn between the need to pursue this villain and the duty to sing the Imperial anthem. Music started, and Smith shuffled sideways as he sang, past a baffled Carveth, into the aisle and back towards the doors. The man in the box was doing likewise, as if reeled out on a fishing line.
‘Maketheemightieryet!’ Smith garbled, and he turned and rushed out of the hall, into the sudden light of the corridor. A dark figure scurried down the steps and out of view. Smith bounded down the stairs after him and burst into the foyer.
‘You!’ he demanded, turning to the nearest wallahbot. ‘Did you see a man come through here?’
‘Ices?’ it replied, and behind it the front door swung closed. Smith cursed, crossed to the telephone on the wall and dialled up the number for W. He left a message and trudged up to the bar. He’d lost his prey.
*
Five hours later, Carveth opened the door, tripped on the lintel and stumbled inside. A light blinked into life above her head, and she opened her arms and greeted the ship with a verse from Do I Have To Get My Bits Out to Take the Turing Test?
‘Goodness,’ Rhianna said behind her. ‘I never knew British culture was so. . . vibrant.’
‘I’m drunk,’ Carveth said. ‘I need another drink.’ She stumbled off down the corridor as if on a listing boat.
Smith closed the door and watched Rhianna stroll towards the lounge.
Smith did not know what you said to a girl who’d slept with you and then left. He had a strong suspicion that one was supposed to say nothing, and with that came the grim, sad certainty that whatever he said would be wrong.
He entered the living room and made himself busy by putting the kettle on.
‘It’s very sad about those indigenous people,’ Rhianna said from the doorway. ‘Evicted from their homeland, forced to dress up like that. . . did the British annex the Pearly King’s home planet?’
Suruk loomed up behind her. ‘That was interesting,’ he said. ‘I got Lily Tuppence’s autograph, and she got to keep her skull.’ His mouth unfolded and he yawned. ‘Now, I must retire, or else I shall be all weary and enraged in the morning. Sleep well, puny humans.’
‘Me too,’ Rhianna said. ‘I need to meditate. Blessed be, everyone.’
Carveth watched them disappear into their rooms.
She closed the sitting room door behind Rhianna.
‘Blethed be,’ she said in a falsetto, adopting the expression of a bad statue of the Virgin Mary. ‘If that woman gets any more on my tits she’ll start to graze my chin.’
‘Really?’ Smith felt a sudden burst of liking for Carveth.
It was good of her to stick up for him: good of her to take his point of view, to see that Rhianna was lucky to be let back on board after dumping him.
‘Of course,’ she said. ‘Getting all sniffy just because I sold her grass. Oh, and she let you down. You ought to get yourself someone better.’
‘Maybe,’ Smith said. ‘But where?’ He sat down on one of the dining chairs, feeling saggy and old. ‘I hate to say it, but I could do without Rhianna being here right now.’
‘I know,’ Carveth said, removing the ship’s Malibu from the drinks cabinet, ‘The space ship just got a little more spaced.’ Frowning, she filled a glass. ‘Come on, boss, perk up. Just because she took your pocket battleship on its maiden voyage doesn’t make her the only woman in the world. With a smart uniform like that you’re sure to find some strumpets.’ She took a swig. ‘Suruk’s on the warpath.’
‘Less of a path than a motorway,’ Smith said. ‘He’ll be civil enough – probably stay quite quiet, to be honest –but God help the lemming that gets in his way. How’s Dreckitt these days?’ he added, weary and keen to change the subject.
‘Me and Rick?’ Carveth took a huge breath and sighed heavily. ‘Well, I don’t know. We met, we loved, and we passed, like two really dirty ships in the night. But the funny thing is, I miss him. I mean, I’m programmed to be promiscuous, and yet... Relationships aren’t easy, even when you are. Malibu, boss?’
*
In his room Suruk crouched on his stool in near-darkness, the dim light glowing on the polished skulls of his enemies. He was alone with the spirits.
The House of Urgar is few now, oh ancestors, he thought. Our once-mighty clan has been thinned by war, feud, battle and, in the case of several of its more irritating members, me. I have seen many of my clan die. Helped, on occasion. Now, we are but two: Suruk the Slayer and Morgar the Trendy Architect. One of us must avenge you, my Father, and it will not be the one with the set square.
I disappointed you, Father. I did not become what you hoped. I grew to be a warrior, but you wanted a doctor, or a lawyer or something. I brought honour to our house, when you wanted cheap legal advice and perhaps some stolen medicine.
Suruk snarled. Agshad had been murdered in cold blood. That sort of underhanded viciousness could only be expected from the Yull. Yes, he would have to find this Colonel Vock and settle the score with him in some appropriate manner. Death was too good: rolling Vock in the litter tray would be a step in the right direction. He would think of something suitable. And then, once the Colonel was destroyed forever and the blood of the Yull ran like water, he might even enrol at law school.
*
The next morning, a man came to collect them with a password and a car. He was a small, nondescript creature, and had he not been in the doorway it would have been easy to forget that he was there.
He stood in the airlock and declared, ‘My aubergine is prickly.’
Smith consulted a scrap of paper glued to the underside of his chair. ‘Birds fly south in the winter,’ he replied.
‘The car’s outside,’ said the man. ‘I’ll have my people watch your ship.’
Paragon was coming to life. The roads were full of cars and autocabs: little trains crawled between great buildings on rails like stitches across the sky. A thousand chimney-stacks were belching smoke as they drove by.
‘Magnificent,’ Smith said.
As they rounded the corner, a row of warbots strode past, all racing green and polished brass, dwarfing the cheering citizens around them. ‘Siege units,’ the driver grunted. ‘Heading to the spaceport. Grand things.’
‘Worthy enemies,’ Suruk said, his tusks bumping gently against the window. Ponderous and vast, the Empire was going to war.
The car drew up in front of the Great Museum. It was the size of a cathedral, studded with pterodactyls instead of gargoyles. The statue of a bearded man stood over the entrance, gazing across the mighty city from the fortress of learning: it could have been Darwin or God, Smith thought, or perhaps W.G. Grace.
Their guide flipped a switch and the car doors opened.
‘Go on in,’ he said. ‘Your contact’s waiting in the reading rooms.’
The museum was cavernous: its entrance hall could have housed a battleship. They bought tickets and ices from a bored man in a box like an oversized Punch-and- Judy stall, and strolled through the vast hall, licking their ice creams.
The reading rooms were at the rear of the building: to reach them, they had to pass through British Natural History, British Military History, British Social History, and Abroad. Natural History was full of dinosaur skeletons – some of the biggest dinosaurs came from Woking, Smith was pleased to note – and led up to a mural carved into the wall six times man-height. It showed an ancient warship ramming an Aresian death-walker on one side of the doors, and on the other, great figures of history being told about the Empire by a Common Man.
The historical section showed how great citizens had helped lead humanity forward. Here was a section on Henry V and his peasant archers, there Cromwell and Disraeli.
‘I don’t know about all these exhibits,’ Rhianna said. ‘All history seems to be about Britain.’ She peered through the glass at a robotic model of Francis Drake, busy playing bowls against other robots. ‘I don’t think it’s right somehow.’
At her side, Suruk nodded. ‘I agree. They should let him out for food.’
‘That’s not what I meant, Suruk. It’s not the real Francis Drake.’
Suruk looked shocked. ‘Do his captors know?’ He pointed. ‘Look, Mazuran!’
The alien stepped over to a large glass case, and as one they gazed upon the portly, striped-suited man inside. He stood behind a desk, a map of Europe spread before him, his face a mask of determination, a cigar jammed between his teeth.
‘The greatest warlord of the First Empire,’ Suruk said, awed. ‘The mighty Alfred Hitchcock.’
‘I think you’ll find that’s Churchill, actually,’ Smith said.
Suruk nodded. ‘He looks rather fat to have fought in so many different places,’ he said. ‘Did they carry him from the beaches to the landing grounds?’
Smith glanced at Suruk, annoyed. The alien was spoiling the atmosphere: the presence of such noble history, along with Rhianna in that white dress, was making him feel rather keen. He felt like blasting hell out of a bunch of filthy Ghasts, then getting Rhianna to dress up as one of the Bronte sisters and giving her a damned good—
Someone coughed, and he looked round and returned to reality. Rhianna wasn’t his, there were no Gertie within range, and a tall, thin man with a teacup in one hand was smiling at him. ‘Ah, Smith,’ W said. ‘Come to look at the
exhibits?’ He stepped forward and shook hands with them. ‘Rather pleasant here, for a city. Come along. We’ve got a lot to do.’
They followed him through the last hall to the reading rooms. Statues of great authors lined the way: Shakespeare, Milton, W.E. Johns. They passed through the main reading room, past shelves and computer screens displaying images of shelves, to a small door at the back marked ‘Warning: raw sewage – danger of drowning’.
‘Helps put people off,’ W explained, and he opened the door.
He ushered them into a cupboard. There was a coat hanging from a peg in the wall: W pushed it aside to reveal a lens. He put his eye against the lens and the room shuddered and sank into the ground.
The spy turned to face them, which was difficult in such a small room. ‘What you are about to see is absolutely secret,’ he rasped. ‘You must never, ever, tell anyone about this. Were information to be leaked about this facility we would have to kill you. I can’t even tell you why it would be necessary to kill you, but even if I did tell you why it was necessary to kill you it would then be necessary to kill you just because I had told you it was necessary. So keep it under your hat, alright?’
‘Righto,’ said Smith.
The lift hit the bottom with a rough clang. W nodded, and Smith pulled back the mesh door and they stepped into a dark industrial corridor. The air smelt of grease and burning. Something whirred and hummed behind the walls.
There were windows leading off the corridor, and as they passed them, Smith caught glimpses of the rooms behind. One showed a plush little study: in a leather chair sat a suited man, his head swathed in bandages. In the next, two scientists were connecting sensors to a wardrobe.
As they reached the end of the corridor there came an odd rushing, roaring sound, and a shimmering white balloon bigger than a man rolled past, chased by three scientists. ‘Heel!’ one of them called, but the thing rolled on, and they were lost to view.
‘Up here,’ said W. He opened a door and led them into a cluttered office. A full-length picture of the king and queen with their pet lion hung behind a messy desk, at which sat a fat man doing a crossword. As they entered he stood up and put out a podgy hand.
