Memento Mori

by W. R. Gingell

  “Ready?”

  “Ready.”

  “Stop grabbing my sleeve. Don’t you trust my work?”

  “Dunno,” said Kez. Her eyes were dark and reflective, watching the viewscreen, and her grin was a little bit fixed. “Flamin’ heck! ’Ow’d he see us?”

  “The Seventh World runners weren’t careful enough when they separated from the hull,” said Marx. Even though it had already happened, even though he already knew that Mikkel would see them, he’d been wondering exactly how it would happen. “Mikkel’s a crafty beggar—he saw what they were up to and turned the sensors on again.”

  “Oo-er! ’Ere comes the hailer call!”

  “That’s torn it,” grimly said Marx, who had felt the slight shudder of the cease and desist tug the Slider had aimed at them more or less ineffectively. “No, don’t accept the hail!”

  But Kez had already pressed the button and was grinning up at the stern-faced Mikkel displayed there.

  “What did I tell you?” that Mikkel demanded wrathfully.

  “’Allo, Golden Boy!”

  Marx sighed and sat back in his seat. “Look, kid; am I the captain, or are you?”

  “Neither of you are captain!” Mikkel said in exasperation. “You’re a thief, and you’re a bloodthirsty little swabber!”

  “Ain’t no way to talk to people who just done you a favour.”

  Mikkel looked at the same time tired and unwillingly amused. This time to Marx, he said, “You need to teach that kid that stabbing someone in the leg with a screwdriver isn’t anyone else’s idea of a favour.”

  “Know what your problem is?” asked Marx. “You don’t have a proper appreciation of time. Thought Time Corp was supposed to encourage right appreciation of time.”

  “Maybe not,” said Mikkel, “But I do have an appreciation for the creative ways in which you both end up on my sloop. You won’t be able to use that trick again. And for your information, the TCS Slider is a few RWUs from being fitted with foreign personnel filters; just you try slipping onto my craft in the future and see how many alarms you’ll set off!”

  “That’s the point, though, ain’t it?” said Kez, grinning. “’Oo’s future?”

  The hailer screen flickered briefly before Mikkel could reply. When it came back, his eyes fluttered shut just as briefly, and opened. “Control has just ordered me to fire on you.”

  “Makes sense,” said Marx. He could have kicked the Chronomatrix into gear and slipped out before Mikkel had to make the choice, but he waited just a little longer; and then slightly longer again.

  Silence stretched out from ten seconds to thirty, then to one RMU. When it lengthened to two full RMUs, Mikkel’s lips pressed together and his eyes closed again for an instant. Marx knew that expression from his own experience with Kez. It was resignation, combined with self-mockery and just a touch of bitterness.

  Mikkel wasn’t going to fire on them.

  Kez, who knew that just as well as Marx did, grinned up at the hailer screen. She said, “Thanks, Golden Boy. Be seein’ you soon.”

  CORE MEMO: Breach Investigation, Final Notes

  STATUS, CLOSED

  In the course of inquiries into the above documented Core breaches, this investigator has made findings that indicate the use of Time Corp Sloop Slider to smuggle drugs through WAOF lines.

  During the investigation, alterations to the Slider’s course were discovered to be made by one Commander Tucker, who thereby took the Slider far enough out of range of Control proximity sensors to make contact with a small craft without detection. This craft and its crew have since been captured.

  Inquiries into the activities of Captain Mikkel have been closed satisfactorily, since all information received against him was directly gained from Commander Tucker. There is no evidence of Captain Mikkel’s wrongdoing. Moreover, since the Captain was, and is currently, under order to pursue the two wanted felons he was accused of colluding with, any actions taken by him in the course of that pursuit should be considered in the line of duty and not as suspicious.

  Encounters of the Explosive Kind

  “THAT’S IT,” SAID MARX. “I’ve scraped the bottom of the barrel. I might even have gone right through to the worms.”

  “Ay? Wot’s guns an’ worms got to do wiv it?”

  Marx looked at her with undisguised wonder. “Your ignorance just keeps surprising me. Not a gun barrel, you mucky little swabber.”

  “Oi!” said Kez, and kicked him in the shin.

  “Straight to violence,” Marx pointed out virtuously. “It’s the ignorant’s first resort.”

  “Yeah, wanna know what my second one is?”

  Marx skipped out of reach of those savage little feet and held her back with one hand. Give it a couple of years, and she’d be tall enough to kick him from that distance, too; but for now it was a convenient way to keep his shins relatively free from bruising.

  “All right, all right. A barrel is an ancient kind of storage; water, wine, monkeys… You name it, they put it in a barrel.”

  “Well, if you put monkeys in a barrel you deserve to ’ave to scrape it out,” opined Kez.

  “That’s exactly the conclusion I’ve come to,” Marx said. “After all, I’m the one who put the monkey in, so—”

  “Oi!”

  “Got that reference, did you? I’m starting to think you’re only selectively ignorant. Look, kid; before I pulled you on board, I was never chased by the Lolly Men. Time Corp, yes. WAOF, local police, enemy soldiers, yes. But never the Lolly Men.”

  Kez perked up. “Ay? We’re bein’ chased by the Lolly Men? Oo-er. Ain’t we gone up in the worlds! Drug runners an’ everythin’!”

  “You’re actually proud of yourself!”

  “Didn’t ask yer to pull me on board. Didn’t ask yer to–”

  “Yes, yes, yes. Look, the Core has brought up something interesting. Do you remember meeting an Uncle Cheng?”

  “Ay? ’Oo’s he, then?”

  “One half of the galactic drug empire, apparently; they reckon he runs the Lolly Men. The other half belongs to someone called Uncle Li—well, it did until he got killed, will get killed, however it is that stuff happens in the Core. Now it’s the Li family and Uncle Cheng.”

  “Oi.”

  “What?”

  “He ain’t that bloke we pinched the drugs off, is he?”

  Marx’s brows rose. “Now there’s an idea. I wonder. They were Seventh World Lolly Men.”

  “What ’appened to the rest of them drugs, anyway?”

  “Gave ’em to a hospital I know,” said Marx briefly. “How do you feel about a short visit, kid?”

  “Wot, to an ’orspital? I ain’t goin’ to one of them again!”

  “No: Uncle Cheng. Looking in the Core, he’s a thread that keeps tangling with us, and I want to know why. Especially if the Lolly Men are his. The ones on that Fourth World station said they were there to kill us.”

  “You wanna know why?”

  Marx smiled rather grimly. “Call it that for now. Who knows? Maybe we can discourage attention if we’re careful enough.”

  “’Ow we gonna discourage attention by goin’ and botherin’ him?”

  “We’ll do it nicely.”

  “Oh.” Kez sounded distinctly discontented. “That ain’t any fun.”

  “Rubbish,” said Marx. “We’ll dress nicely and be very polite and smile. We’ll smile a lot.”

  “Oo-er,” Kez said. “Like that, is it? Orright, then. I’ll be flamin’ polite.”

  “I knew you’d see it my way,” said Marx.

  “Oi,” said Kez, some time later.

  “What?”

  “I reckon this bloke’s ’avin’ a party.”

  “What gave it away, the guests or the champagne?”

  Kez looked around the glittering room dubiously. She’d managed to bring them into the room conveniently behind a couple of potted plants, but Marx didn’t think she’d expected to see quite so many people in the room. If it cam
e to that, Marx hadn’t expected this many people. He had expected something a little smaller and more select; as far as Marx could tell, Uncle Cheng had every bigwig in the known Twelve Worlds present at his party. The party room was at least twice the length of the Upsydaisy, and three times as wide; that entire length and breadth full to the brim with guests, waiters, and far too much conversation.

  “Well…shouldn’t we come back when he’s alone?”

  “Nope. Uncle Cheng won’t attack us in front of his guests.”

  “’Ow d’you know?”

  “Bit embarrassing, isn’t it, if his security can’t keep out two uninvited guests? And if I’m right, at least half the guests here hate him. Any sign of weakness and they’ll be all over him like fleas on a dog.”

  “Fleas ain’t gonna kill a dog.”

  “No, but they’ll make the dog pretty uncomfortable.”

  “’Ang on, are we fleas or wot?”

  Marx grinned. “We’re terriers.”

  “Then wot about the fleas, cos fleas don’t care wot kind of dog they—”

  “Never mind about that,” Marx said hastily, before his analogy was stretched so thin as to become threadbare. “Look, get something to eat, kid. You’re the one who has to get us in and out safely. You’d better keep up your energy.”

  “I want champagne,” Kez said, with conviction.

  Marx emitted a choke of laughter that had just the right edge of derision to it, his gaze scouting up and down the room. “Go on, then. You’ll love it.”

  He started across the room without waiting to see if she was following. He’d already seen her face drop into disinterest under the combination of his laugh and tacit permission. Unless he was very much mistaken, Kez would not be trying champagne tonight.

  There was the scuttle of small feet behind him seconds later, and Marx banished the gleam of laughter from his eyes before she could catch up with him.

  “Oi,” she said. She was already munching on something small and expensive from her left hand, and in her right was another handful of likewise expensive food. Marx didn’t know where she’d gotten them from so quickly, but he was willing to bet there were just as many hors d’oeuvres in her pockets. “There’s a lot of blokes in suits wot weren’t in ’ere before.”

  “We must have drawn attention to ourselves,” said Marx, though it was more likely that they stood out simply because they weren’t dressed to the nines. The hovering security didn’t look like it was worried; it was, however, keeping a close eye on them. “Don’t worry, they still won’t annoy us unless we do something. Give me one of those, you little scarfer, you!”

  “They’re mine,” Kez mumbled through a full mouth; but she shoved two slightly squashed hors d’oeuvres at him anyway. “You can ’ave these ones. I don’t like ’em. Oi, this is all a bit posh, ain’t it?”

  “Very,” said Marx, pushing the pace a little. He wasn’t concerned about the security staff that were following his and Kez’s every move across the room, but he was slightly dismayed to realise that along with quite a few important businessmen and Lolly Men, there was a distinctly grey and blue tint to the crowd: Uncle Cheng had also invited a significant WAOF and Time Corp presence. Whether or not they were in Uncle Cheng’s pocket wouldn’t matter much if they recognised either Kez or Marx.

  “Which one’s Uncle Cheng, anyway? Where we goin’?”

  “That raised bit at the end of the room,” Marx said, very careful not to indicate with his chin or hand. He would rather not give away too much while there were so many people watching them. “That’s where Uncle Cheng will be. Probably in the little tent.”

  Kez made a snort that was almost lost in the noise of the crowd. “Special one, ain’t he?”

  “Think so,” agreed Marx briefly. “Hey, kid.”

  “Wot?”

  “Think you can make something explode or melt over near the buffet without getting too close to security?”

  Kez grinned. “Why didden you say so?”

  She darted back through the crowd enthusiastically and vanished between skirts, fluttering coats, and ridiculously large coiffures. From the sudden stir at the edges of the room, it was obvious to the grinning Marx that security must have lost sight of her, too. Well, she could get herself out of trouble if she needed to do so.

  Despite that, Marx couldn’t stop himself sending a glance around the room every now and then as he worked his way toward the platform at the head of the room. Kez could look after herself, but she was also very confident in her ability to do so; and that often led to trouble. He hadn’t meant to saddle himself with a problematic child to jaunt through time and space, but it had happened that way and he was quickly discovering that life with Kez made life before Kez hard to remember with any distinctness. Even that far, tumultuous past on Fourth World when he himself had been young was difficult to keep track of when he was busy trying to keep track of Kez.

  Marx caught the gaze of a decidedly affronted female party-goer and discovered that he’d stopped walking and had been staring at the female with a half-grin for the past few moments. He winked at her to affront her even more, then instinctively ducked for cover when the clam chowder exploded behind him in a shower of briny liquid. Amidst the screams, the chowder lid hit the ceiling with a ringing clang and dropped again, burying itself in a convenient pie below. Marx could have sworn he heard Kez’s particularly dry little chuckle, but it was unlikely given the amount of noise. He would have wondered how she made the chowder explode if he didn’t know she’d taken to carrying small rolls of explosive around with her lately.

  A cross-current of security swept toward the refreshment tables, clashing with the surge of partygoers vacating the vicinity, and from the corner of his eyes Marx saw a flip of tablecloth as he joined the general swell toward the top of the room. It was easier to hide his movements in that surge, and Marx was at the last step up to the pavilion before any of the suited men closest to Uncle Cheng realised the danger.

  One of those suits put a hand on Marx’s forearm as he stepped up to the pavilion. “The party’s back there, sir.”

  “I’m bringing it with me,” said Marx.

  There was a short and very undignified struggle. When it was over, the dark suit was lying on the ground clutching a sensitive part of himself and Kez was aiming a kick at said sensitive part.

  Marx grabbed her around the waist and dragged her away. “Don’t kick a bloke when he’s down,” he said. “Not when you’ve just punched him in the groin. There’s a limit, kid.”

  “He’s bigger’n’me!”

  “And he’s the one on the floor. What’s the idea? You think I’m too senile to look after one man?”

  “Wanted to punch someone,” complained Kez. “You always get to punch ’em.”

  “Keeping score, are you?”

  “Yeah. Oi. There’s more of ’em.”

  Marx wasn’t sure where they’d come from, but while he was trying to stop Kez from inflicting more damage on the supine suit, several others had appeared from nowhere obvious. There was now a semicircle of them surrounding Uncle Cheng.

  “Rude,” said Kez; and, hooking her fingers beneath the cuff of his right hand, she shifted them both in between the suits and Uncle Cheng.

  “Goodness!” said Uncle Cheng, very much surprised. He looked from Marx’s grinning face to Kez’s more than slightly smug one, and said to the suits, who were belatedly but very quickly turning around, “You can go away again. I’ll be quite safe.”

  “Think this one’s wrong in the ’ead,” said Kez, without troubling to lower her voice.

  The suits must have thought the same thing, because they split apart slowly and reluctantly. More than one of them looked back as they did so.

  “Well, well,” said Uncle Cheng, when they were more or less alone on the platform. “I was hoping I’d see you tonight.”

  “Were you?” Marx asked. “You should have sent an invite.”

  “You’re remarkably hard to pin dow
n with something as unsophisticated as a messaging system.”

  “You’re not wrong. What’s on your mind, Mr. Cheng?”

  “No, no, let’s not be formal,” protested Uncle Cheng, waving his small, gnarled hands. “Call me Uncle Cheng.”

  Marx could see Kez watching the man in fascination. He didn’t really blame her: close up, Uncle Cheng was small, wrinkled, and cheerful, his slitted eyes glinting with good cheer. He looked like the jovial old uncle his name suggested—even his whispy hair, which had been combed over a balding patch at the top, was slightly lopsided, adding an air of careless goodwill to his appearance.

  “And what,” Uncle Cheng continued, in the most casual of voices, “may I address you as?”

  “Might answer to ‘hey you’,” said Kez, before Marx could. “But we might not, either.”

  “I think your name is Kez.”

  “Lookit that!” marvelled Kez. “I’m famous!”

  “Infamous, more like,” Marx muttered.

  “You,” said Uncle Cheng curiously, “I’ve never been sure of. No one seems to have a name for you that goes back more than ten years, but I believe you’re going by Marx at the moment.”

  “Had this name all my life,” Marx said. Kez was looking up at him in startled, kindling interest, and that was a bad sign. Things that Kez was interested in had a tendency to be taken to pieces until she could see exactly how it was they fit together and worked. “Maybe your people weren’t looking hard enough.”

  Uncle Cheng’s head tilted to one side as a considering breath hissed through his teeth. “I don’t think that’s it. I’m a very good motivator.”

  “I’ll bet,” said Kez, sotto voce.

  “By the way,” Uncle Cheng said suddenly, “you don’t have any more explosive in your pockets, do you?”

  “Might ’ave,” Kez said, with a particularly sharp grin. “Might ’ave not.”

  Uncle Cheng’s affability became just a touch more wary. “It’s not considered good manners to blow up your host’s clam chowder,” he said. “I thought we were getting along well.”