“Jesus. They’re happy to see her,” said Cal.
“Yeah, but I don’t think…” Loren began, then she spotted Cal’s hat. “What are you wearing?”
Cal looked down at his shirt, shoes and pants. “Just the usual. Why?”
Loren tutted and shook her head. “I’m not even going to give you the satisfaction,” she said, turning back to where Soonsho was practically drowning in people. “As I was saying, I don’t think she’s so excited to see them.”
Sure enough, Soonsho was trying to smile, but it was more like a rictus of terror. And no wonder. The men in the crowd whooped and hollered and screamed her name as they squashed in towards her. The women spoke in dull monotones, taking care not to lose control of their voices.
“OK, fonk this,” said Miz. She flashed her claws, bared her teeth and let out a guttural animal roar that caught the attention of the closest Cantatorians. The crowd stumbled aside at the sight of her, making room for Mech to march through, knocking and yanking the stragglers out of his path.
Soonsho grabbed for his arm when he reached her and he lifted her clear of the throngs. Those at the back of the crowd, who couldn’t really see what was going on, continued to push forwards. Those at the front of the crowd, who could see Mech and Miz really very clearly indeed, began pushing backwards.
By the time Mech had deposited Soonsho back on the ramp, the crowd’s whole tone had changed. The people in the middle of the crowd had decided they didn’t particularly enjoy being squashed from both sides, and had elected to voice their concerns by punching the faces of anyone within reach.
“Well, that turned ugly fast,” said Cal.
“I guess they must’ve really missed her,” said Loren.
“Guess so,” said Cal. He looked at Miz as she padded back up the ramp, then gestured to Soonsho. “Is she OK?”
Miz cocked her head and lifted her ears. A scowl of annoyance set up camp on her face. “I can’t hear her. There’s too much other noise going on for me to—”
A sound, like all the forks in human history scraping across all the plates at the same time, rang out. Miz hissed and clamped her hands over her ears. She staggered into Loren, who struggled to hold her upright. To everyone’s surprise, it took Miz a full five seconds before she wrenched herself angrily from Loren’s grip.
“You’re welcome,” Loren said, and her voice carried far across the heads of the suddenly silent crowd.
As one, the mob had craned their necks upwards to watch a circular metal platform sail by above them. On it stood a man and a woman, dressed in what were arguably the most garishly elaborate outfits Cal had ever seen. The man wore a skintight red and black jumpsuit which left very little to the imagination on the crotch front.
Despite his evident lack of shortcomings in the downstairs department, he nevertheless seemed to be overcompensating for something with his choice of accessories. His upper-body was fitted with enormous metal shoulder pads that curved upwards like rhino horns. Fixed to his back were two long curved blades of red metal. At first, Cal thought they were wings, but they were too short and thin for that. They were more like the pincers of a giant insect, rising a clear couple of feet above the man’s head.
His head itself was mostly covered by a tall, hammer-shaped helmet – also red – with a large black gemstone set in the center like the glassy eye of a cycloptic shark. He wore boots and gloves of a shiny black leather-like material.
Despite the flamboyance of his outfit, a number of symbols on his tightly-clad thighs seemed to be deliberately designed to draw the eye straight to his crotch.
Cal whistled softly through his teeth. “Jesus. It’s like a baby’s arm.”
“What?” said Loren.
“Hmm? Oh, nothing.”
The woman standing beside the man, holding his hand, was possibly even more of a fashion-disaster. She wore a long shapeless dress that bunched around her neck like the top of a sack, then sort of slumped all the way down to the floor. It was the same metallic red as some of her partner’s accessories, but had the appearance of fish scales.
She wore no helmet or other accessories, but her eyes were ringed with thick black lines which might well have been drawn on in Sharpie by an enthusiastic toddler. From the eyes down, her face was a mess of odd-looking piercings. Each piercing was a small metal pipe, inserted through the walls of the woman’s nostrils and several places in her cheeks. They were perfectly symmetrical on both sides of her face, and judging by the lack of visible scarring on her skin, had been there for quite some time.
As the disk passed silently above them, the members of the crowd all knelt and bowed their heads. Soonsho tried to do the same, but the angle of the ramp made kneeling tricky, so she sort of half-crouched, instead.
“Rise, child,” the man said, almost as soon as Soonsho began to move. His voice was treacle in Cal’s ear. It made his skeleton vibrate and resonated through his lower intestine. To his surprise, it wasn’t unpleasant. “It is we who should be genuflecting to you. And to those who have returned you to us.”
The disk lowered until the man and woman stood just a little higher than Cal and the others. “I am the Conductor of Cantato Minor,” he rumbled, his one black gem eye fixing on Cal. “The Conductress and I give thanks to you, Captain.”
“He ain’t the captain,” said Mech.
“Well, technically I am, so…” Cal said. He gave the Conductor a relaxed salute. “No problem, chief. Just happy to see her safely home.”
“And to collect the reward,” Mech added.
The Conductor nodded slowly. “Of course. It is a small price to pay to have Soonsho back with us. The reward shall be yours. It is well-earned.”
“But first, shall you join us in celebration?” asked the Conductress. She spoke without moving her lips. Instead, the words whistled and hummed out through the pipes in her face, so the sound seemed to emerge from the air around her, rather than from the Conductress herself. “We would feast in your honor.”
Cal looked to the others. “I’m sure we can do a celebratory feast in our honor, right?” he said. “I mean, it’d be rude not to.”
“Sounds good,” Loren agreed.
“Works for me,” said Mech.
Miz, who had been rubbing her ears, and opening and closing her jaw to try to force the high-pitched ringing out, noticed the others watching her. “What?” she asked, far too loudly. “Why are you all looking at me? Weirdos.”
Cal turned to the Conductress and smiled. “A celebratory feast sounds awesome. Count us in.”
* * *
While Cal might have had his reservations about their fashion sense, the Conductor and Conductress sure knew how to rally a welcome committee.
Soonsho had joined Cantato Minor’s rulers aboard their disk, while a larger, more industrial-looking floating platform had been brought in to ferry Cal and the crew away from the landing bay. They proceeded – the smaller disk in front, the larger one a respectful distance behind – through the ship-sized doors of the landing area, and out onto a long, curved avenue beyond.
Once outside, the full splendor of the planet made itself apparent. The ground was a shimmering sheen of metallic red. It covered the wide streets, the raised sidewalks and the walls of the long, squat bungalows that ran along either side. Each of the buildings were several hundred feet long, with numerous doors and windows dotting the walls at regular intervals.
Side roads ran down the gaps between the buildings on the left, connecting this street to an identical one running parallel alongside it. On the right, the walls of the mountain rose steeply up from behind the houses and disappeared into the purple-tinted clouds far overhead. The base of the mountain had the same red shine as the rest of the place, but near the clouds the surface was blackened and scarred.
Lining the sidewalks on both sides of the street were thousands of Cantatorians. These ones wore far simpler outfits than their leaders. They had a certain ‘properness’ to them – shirts with high co
llars, skirts with long hems – and it was surprising to see such a conservatively dressed crowd react with such near-hysterical gusto.
The men were cheering and whooping and punching the air. They jumped around, hugging each other and roaring their approval as the procession passed them by.
The women were far more restrained, and most of them simply applauded. Many of them wore red metal clamps across their mouths, presumably to stop them losing control of their voices and accidentally doing anyone any damage.
The men were more than making up for their silence, though, and the streets hummed with a full-blown party atmosphere.
“Wow. This kid is popular,” said Mech.
“They’re partly cheering for us,” Cal pointed out. He waved to one man, pointed to another like he was a long-lost friend, then blew kisses to anyone who wanted them.
“Well, they ain’t looking at us,” said Mech. “They’re all too busy looking at Soonsho like she’s the second coming of Kroysh.”
“They’re just glad to have her back,” said Cal. He pointed to another man, laughed like he’d just been told a joke, said, “You know it, buddy,” for reasons that weren’t really all that clear, then went back to waving.
Loren frowned. “Then what’s with the guards?” She gestured into the crowd. Every fifteen feet or so, a uniformed Cantatorian stood facing the wrong way near the front of the line of spectators.
“It’s a public gathering. Emotions are high,” said Cal, shrugging. “You saw what they were like back there. They couldn’t get enough of her.”
“Yeah. Maybe,” said Loren.
“So, where are we going?” asked Miz, her voice booming right behind Cal’s head. Even Splurt jumped, briefly becoming a green blob again, before resuming sombrero mode.
“And where are her parents?” Loren wondered. “Shouldn’t they be here?”
“We’re going to a party,” Cal said, ignoring Loren and raising his voice so Miz could hear him. He pointed to one of his own ears. “You OK?”
“What?”
“ARE YOU OK?”
“Am I gay?” Miz said. “Not recently. Why? Would you like me to be?”
“No, I wasn’t… Forget it,” said Cal. “Also – interesting.”
Up ahead, the Conductor’s disk skimmed low above the street, then glided elegantly into a smooth right turn. The disk the crew was on followed, and they found themselves headed for a set of towering metal gates. Unlike pretty much everything else in sight, the gates weren’t red. Or not as red, at least. They had a sort of coppery tone which, while possessing a certain orangey-redness, was nothing like the other, more common, shade of red.
Well, to say it was nothing like it was an exaggeration. It was similar. Not exactly the same, but close.
Unless that was just the way the light was shining on the gates which, Cal thought as they swept on through them, was a definite possibility.
There were no crowds beyond the gates, just an expanse of shiny metal ground, a grand and imposing copper-colored palace (not just the light, Cal decided) and two lonely figures waiting anxiously in front of the open doorway.
The Conductor’s disk swooped down and slowed, but Soonsho didn’t wait for it to stop. She hopped off and ran, her feet slapping the cool metal as she sprinted towards her parents and threw herself into their arms.
All three of them collapsed to the floor, a tangle of limbs and tears and long silent sobs. Cal’s disk lowered and touched down onto the ground beside the Conductor and Conductress. They both nodded to the crew, bowing their heads in gratitude. The Conductor smiled. The Conductress might very well have, too, but it was quite hard to tell with all that shizz in her face.
“Once again, you have our thanks,” the Conductor intoned.
Cal doffed his sombrero. “Don’t mention it.”
“Please. We would be grateful if you joined us inside,” said the Conductor, gesturing to the door. “The celebration – and your reward – await.”
He and the Conductress walked ahead, still hand in hand. Cal waited until he reckoned they were out of earshot. “They seem nice,” he said. “Although, tell me I wasn’t the only one looking at his junk.”
“You definitely were,” said Loren.
“He definitely wasn’t,” said Mech. “Holy shizz, that thing was huge.”
“I know, right!”
“What was huge?” bellowed Miz.
“Sshh, shut up!” hissed Cal. The Conductor glanced back over his shoulder. Cal smiled and waved until the Conductor faced front again.
“What was huge?” Miz asked again, in a voice that was only marginally more quiet than last time.
“Nothing,” said Cal. “Just… his helmet. No, not… I mean, you know, his metal hat.”
He puffed out his cheeks and gestured after the Conductor and Conductress. Behind him and the crew, the towering copper gates closed with a barely audible click. “Aaaanyway,” said Cal. “Shall we?”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Although Cal wasn’t entirely sure what sort of celebration he’d been expecting, it certainly hadn’t been the one they got.
Calling it a ‘celebration’ at all, in fact, felt overly generous. It was a small gathering, at best, with Cal and the crew joining Soonsho, her parents, the Conductor and Conductress, and a couple of attentive but bored-looking servants for drinks and nibbles in a vast and otherwise completely empty ballroom. It was all in stark contrast to the cheering mobs outside.
One of the servants waved a tray of nibbles under Cal’s nose. He reached for one that seemed to be some kind of biscuit with a fishy-tasting paste on top, then thought better of it.
“Actually, no, nine’s my limit,” he said. The waiter nodded, but didn’t smile, then continued on around the other guests.
Cal sipped his drink – a clear sweet liquid with a charcoal aftertaste, like soda drunk from an ashtray, and tried not to think too much about that very image.
Soonsho stood with her parents, as was to be expected. She was saying nothing, which was also to be expected, but neither of her parents spoke, either.
Next to them stood the Conductor and Conductress. Neither of them were eating or drinking, which was a pity, because Cal wanted to see how the Conductress managed to drink anything will all those pipes poking out of her mouth and nose.
He was staring at the metal tubes when he realized the Conductress was watching him. He smiled at her, then pointed to his own cheeks. “Nice… face stuff,” he said. “Looks good.”
“Thank you,” said the Conductress, the words humming out through the pipes.
Cal smiled awkwardly, raised his eyebrows a couple of times, then took another sip of his drink.
The others weren’t faring much better at the small talk. Loren and Miz both nursed their own drinks and took in the room in slightly embarrassed silence. Loren had initially turned the drink down, explaining she didn’t like to drink and fly, but the Conductor had assured her the beverage wasn’t alcoholic, which had disappointed Cal no end.
Mech stood with his arms folded, an impatient look on the non-robot part of his face. He’d tried to bring up the reward at least twice since they’d arrived, then had gone in the huff when Cal had told him to stop going on about it. Now he just glared at the Conductor, as if he could siphon the reward money from his pockets by force of will alone.
“So—” Cal began.
“I was—” said Loren, at exactly the same time. They both stopped.
“No, you go,” said Cal.
“It’s fine, what were you going to say?” said Loren.
“No, please, it was nothing, really.”
“Nor was mine,” Loren insisted. “Please.”
Cal nodded. “Right. I was just going to say… this is a nice room.”
“That’s what I was going to say,” said Loren.
“Really? Ha. What are the odds?”
The Conductor and Conductress both looked around the room. Soonsho and her parents did the same.
/> “I suppose it is,” said the Conductor.
“Right,” said Cal.
Everyone sipped their drink.
“Did you decorate it yourself, or…?”
“Oh, no,” said the Conductor.
“No,” said Cal. “No. That makes sense. I’d imagine you’d have people to do that.”
“Yes.”
“Good,” said Cal. “That’s good.” He gestured to the waiter. “I think maybe I will have one of those fish things, after all.”
The waiter brought the tray over. Cal studied the offerings for a few seconds, then picked one of the smaller ones. His stomach was still around ninety-eight percent filled with banoffee pie, and there wasn’t a lot of margin left over for error.
Mizette drained her drink and set the empty glass on the waiter’s tray, squishing several of the fishy-snacks. “I’ll have another of those,” she said, her voice still a little louder than normal. “In fact, bring me two.”
The waiter bowed and scuttled off. The Conductor and Conductress both eyed Miz a little warily, but didn’t pass any comment.
“How are the Greyx?” asked the Conductor.
Miz shrugged. “I don’t know. OK, I guess.”
“I believe you recently lost Graxan,” said the Conductress. “That must have been a blow. He was a wise ruler.”
Miz rolled her eyes. “Don’t even get me started.”
“He was her dad,” said Cal, before adding, “We don’t talk about it,” in the quietest whisper he could manage. Ironically, it was so quiet only Miz heard him, even over the ringing in her ears.
“I see,” said the Conductor. He bowed to Miz, just briefly. “Our condolences, Your Highness.”
“Ooh, and don’t even go there,” said Cal, before Miz was able to respond. “Just call her ‘Mizette.’”
More silence fell. The waiter returned with Miz’s drinks. She downed one in one gulp, then held onto the other.
Mech cleared his throat very deliberately until he caught Cal’s attention. He gestured with his eyes towards the Conductor and tried to arrange his facial features to convey the phrase, ‘Ask him about the fonking reward.’ Impressively enough, he managed to do just that. Cal shook his head at him, then went back to gazing awkwardly at nothing in particular.
Space Team: Song of the Space Siren Page 15
