These Foolish Things: The Complete Boxset

by J Battle

  'No, Neville. I'm good to go.'

  I swung the disruptor with a deft flick of the wrist and sliced through the cable.

  Then I turned and gripped the weapon in both hands; ready for anything.

  The light flickered, and then steadied.

  'Is…that it?'

  A mechanoid rushed into the room, waving his weapon about in a most impolite way. I sliced off its arm and punched my fist right into its head. Then I tossed it to one side and prepared for the next attack.

  It didn't come.

  I heard a scream; a human scream then, and I was off. I raced from the little room, down the side corridor into the main passageway.

  Within seconds I was in the centre of all the action.

  To my left, Melinda was down, sobbing over her left arm which was hanging by just a few tendons. Frank stood over her, fending off the attacks of two of the robots, but he looked to be on his last legs. To the right, the rest of the team was surrounded; fighting valiantly but obviously in a lost cause.

  'Ready, Neville?' I asked, but I didn't wait for an answer.

  With inhuman speed I attacked the mechanoids to my left. I sliced and ducked and sliced, and they were both tumbling to the ground; useless lumps of metal and crystal.

  I squirted across the room and reappeared behind a robot that looked as if it was about to finish off Regina. I took off its head and cut a diagonal slice from its body. As it fell, I squirted two metres to the side and did the same to another.

  My next squirt took me to Jim's side. He was bleeding from a cut on the forehead, but otherwise his body-armour had kept him safe.

  I put my arm around him and squirted us out of the room and into the corridor. As I pulled my arm away, I was back in the room, with four of the machines bearing down on me. They didn't stand a chance.

  I laughed as I threw myself forward. Too fast for them to guess where I was going to be, with my super-dense dermal nanos to protect me from any stray blows, I was a whirlwind as I tore through them.

  Within seconds there wasn't a single machine standing.

  I lowered my weapon, and I stood heroically in their midst.

  (It should be noted that this sequence has been shortened in the interests of heightened drama, and because I couldn’t bear to list Neville's 37 separate instructions of left, right, up, down, back, forward etc. etc. etc. Or describe the 17 separate squirts that Phil undertook in the period of 57 seconds in which the combat was completed. It was quite impressive, and more than a little surprising. N.F.)

  I savoured the moment for a short time, and then I went to see to my team.

  'That was…something,' gasped Frank.

  I nodded, because he was right.

  I bent over Melinda to check on her injuries. Her nanos were doing a fine job; at least her arm was now in one piece, and the skin and bones would soon be healed.

  She looked up at me, and she sort of nodded at me. I think she was very close to actually smiling at me. But she didn't; that would be asking for too much.

  'Philip.'

  I ignored him. I didn't get many moments in my life like this.

  'Philip, please pay attention. LOrd is still active. The task has not been completed. The danger is not yet over.'

  'OK, ' I said, 'don't let me enjoy the moment. Just butt in whenever you want, like you usually do. OK. Send everyone back to Ing's ship, and can you bring up the scan of the planetoid we were shown earlier?'

  I don't know if it was the adrenaline, or my supercharged nanos, but I felt like a true man of action. I decided that I'd better get on with it before the feeling wore off and all I'd want to do is find a nice dark corner to hide in.

  As my team squirted to safety, I studied the display that Neville had superimposed across my field of vision, and tried not to think that they were leaving me all alone to face the danger.

  'Ah,' I said, because it felt like an 'Ah' moment. 'I thought I spotted another door at the end of the corridor.'

  The top left segment before me changed to an image of the corridor, and there was the door.

  'That explains why the guard was in the corridor and not it the power room. It was guarding both rooms.'

  With hardly the need for a word between us, we squirted to the doorway in question.

  'Take care,' said Neville, softly.

  He was preaching to the converted.

  Fortunately for all involved, the room was empty, apart from a big box-like device with lots of flashing lights.

  'What do you think it is?'

  'I would say that is it a back-up battery, to keep LOrd running until its main power source is back in action.'

  'OK, ' I said, as I put my disruptor in my pocket.

  I took a quick walk around the battery to make sure that I hadn't missed anything, but it was all just as it seemed.

  Back where I started, I said, 'Ready, Neville?'

  'Whenever you are, Philip.'

  There was probably something of a smile on my face as I bent and pulled out the plug, and then the lights went out.

  Straightening in the darkness, I said, 'Home, I think, Neville.'

  'Well done, Philly-babe,' said a voice I had hoped that I would never hear again.

  Chapter 18 Then, two cherries short of a scone

  Julie had tried contacting Phil but, wherever he was he must be out of range, she thought(something like 100 light years out of range. N. F.).

  Still, you can do this, she told herself. All she had to do was squirt there, have a chat with the ex-Mrs. Masters, persuade her that the dog would be better with her true owner, and then return with the little mutt. How hard could it be?

  She double-checked the stationery cupboard because, despite everything, Sam was better than nothing.

  He was still nowhere to be found.

  She retrieved her coat and her bag, and then she walked quickly to the first set of lifts.

  13 floors down, she walked out into the once busy thoroughfare of Deansgate. Now, with the lack of traffic on roads due to the ubiquitous squirtbooths that everyone used, she could have laid herself down in the middle of the street and had a bit of a snooze, and not been in any danger at all.

  However, she was all about the business at hand, and there was no time for an impromptu nap.

  The squirtbooth sent her to Manchester's Intergalactic Squirtport, where, after an inexplicable (not that anyone tried to explain it to her) wait of nearly two hours, she was squirted to New Queensland, one of the more recently settled planets.

  She stepped out into the cool mountain air of her first alien planet, and she took a deep breath. She could see for what seemed like hundreds of miles across the deep valleys and lower peaks that were scattered below her. Just above her head hovered clouds that could have been a welcome party, with their multitudinous colours and shapes.

  She stepped out onto the red soil (red, due to the high iron content) and looked around for some means of transport.

  A young boy trotted up to her; all smiles and unruly hair.

  'Can I offer you a lift?' he asked, as if it was the most natural thing in the world to offer a stranger a lift on his strange alien beast.

  It was about horse-sized, if a horse was twice as long as you might be used to, and it had rather more legs than seemed entirely necessary, even given its extended length.

  'He won't bite you, miss. And even if he did, he wouldn't hurt much, 'cause his teeth are tiny and blunt.'

  'Oh, I see. Can you take me to this address?' She held her arm so that he could see the display on her wrist-top.

  'I can take you there, Miss, but your wrist-top won’t be much use here, Miss. No Web and the magnetic field is a bit off, so even radios don't work right.'

  'I'll be OK; I'm not stopping long. How long will it take to get there?'

  'Well, it’s down the side of this mountain, and then up the side of another, so that'll take us most of the day, miss. 'Course we won't be going all the way down, because no-one goes into the valleys.'


  'Why not?'

  'It's not safe. Now, if you put your foot there, I'll hold him so he doesn't move, and you can get onto the middle saddle there.'

  Settled in the saddle, and with the boy sitting before her, she felt a little more relaxed than she had been at first sight of the beast.

  With a rolling undulating movement, they began their journey.

  ‘It’s a fine day for a trip like this,’ the boy tossed over his shoulder, by way of conversation.

  ‘It’s beautiful,’ Julie sighed, as her eyes watched the mosses and grass turn slowly to shrubs and low trees as they worked their way down the shallow slope of the mountain.

  After an hour or so, the descent suddenly became steep and dangerous, with loose rocks tumbling off the edge of the path, disturbed by their ride’s many hooves.

  ‘We’ll not go down any further, Miss,’ said the boy. ‘He’d be fine on his own, but he’s likely to toss any rider if he reckons it’s too steep. We’ll be going that way now, anyways.’

  He pointed to a long knuckle of bare rock that stretched across the valley between the two mountains.

  Perhaps 20 metres from its top, a wooden walkway was attached to the vertical wall.

  It didn’t look at all safe to Julie.

  ‘That won’t carry this…’

  ‘No, we’ll be walking. On the other side, we’ll be taken the rest of the way by his brother, or his sister; I can never tell.’

  Julie looked down into the valley. It was green and inviting, and the descent looked manageable.

  ‘We’ll be taking the walkway, Miss, unless you want to travel alone.’

  ‘No, I’ll come with you, if you’re sure it’s safe.’

  ‘Well, if it ain’t, we’ll only find out by falling, as my father used to say.’ He looked a little sad at the thought.

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry, did he…?’

  ‘No, Miss, he’s OK. Just my mother told him to stop saying such stupid things and he reckoned it was better to do as she says.’

  Close up, the walkway was sturdier than it had appeared from a distance, and the journey across to the other mountain was uneventful, which was just the way Julie had wanted it to be.

  On the side of the new mountain, they found a beast that could have been the twin of the first creature, held by a boy who was certainly the twin of her guide.

  Mounted again, and after waving to the first boy, who was trotting across the walkway without a care, she began the last part of her journey.

  Just as the sun looked about to say goodnight, they came into a little village of whitewashed single-storey buildings.

  Julie dismounted and stretched.

  ‘Will you wait for me?’ she asked.

  The boy shook his head. ’No, Miss, we don’t travel at night, not around here. It’s a bit close to the valley below, and I’d like to be much higher before I went out at night.’

  ‘Is there a hot…?’ It was a stupid question, so she stopped. There was hardly likely to be a hotel in a tiny place like this.

  She would have to be even more charming than she’d thought, and persuade Mrs. Masters (ex) to put her up for the night.

  ‘Will you come for me in the morning?’

  The boy frowned. ‘I’ll come, Miss, and if you’re here I’ll take you, but can you pay me for today now, in case…’

  ‘In case what?’

  ‘Oh, nothing, Miss. In case you forget; that’s what I was trying to say.’

  ‘OK,’ she said, as she opened her purse. ’And there’s a bit extra for yourself.’

  With the boy gone, she walked up to number seven and knocked on its cute little door.

  The door swung open before she could even take her hand away.

  ‘About time too. I’ve been waiting for days for you to come. Where is the idiot, anyway?’

  Phil had described her as tall, elegant, and in her early middle years; and he’d said she’d had an air of desolation about her; a surprisingly subtle observation from her brother, given that he probably spent most of the time with his eyes on her breasts.

  All that could be said about the figure before her now was that she was still tall, and the air of desolation was doing overtime. The elegance and the early middle years looked a long way behind her.

  ‘Mrs. Masters?’

  ‘Ex.’

  Julie held out her hand, and gave her a full 1000-watt smile.

  Both were ignored.

  ‘I suppose you want to come in,’ she said, turning away and leaving the open door behind her.

  Julie looked around at the empty streets, and then she followed her.

  The gun was a bit of a surprise.

  ‘What…?’

  ‘Just sit over there dear, will you? And don’t make a nuisance of yourself. This works just as well with you dead, so I’m happy either way.’ There was a sudden brightness in her eyes, as if she was actually enjoying the situation.

  Julie stared at the little silver gun for a moment, before she complied with the instruction.

  ‘Good, now just put your hands through those handcuffs…behind you, not in front.’

  ‘What is this all about? I’m supposed to be here about a dog.’

  ‘Yes, dear. He did tell you that, didn’t he? It was just to get Phil here, of course. But you’ll have to do for now. I dare say he’ll be along soon enough to rescue his little sister.’

  ‘He doesn’t know where I am. He’ll never find me here.’

  ‘Well, of course Strange is going to tell him where you are. We’re not going to wait for him to blunder on the location all on his own. That could take years.’

  ‘Strange won’t be able to contact him. He’s off-planet and out of contact.’

  ‘He’ll be back, I’m quite sure. I don’t mind waiting.’

  ‘But…why are you doing this? What has Phil done to you? It wasn't his fault your husband was killed. And he never told anyone about the gill-juice Strange took. Really; he barely told me about it.’

  ‘He never told anyone about it? Is that what you’re saying, dear? What about the book?’

  ‘What book?’

  ‘In Favour of Fools, of course. He tells the full story there.’

  ‘But…that’s ridiculous! No-one ever read it, for heaven’s sake.’

  ‘I think you may be wrong there, dear. Of course, no-one paid for it, but he’s made it free now, and thousands of people have downloaded it. We have to hide out here on this dump of a world, with no proper civilization or shops, because thousands of people know what we did, and now the We’ve Got All the Money AI is bound to be chasing us for their cut, and my husband’s old gang won’t be far behind.’

  ‘But, what are you going to do to Phil?’

  ‘My dear, so innocent. What do you think I’m going to do with Phil?’ She raised the gun and mouthed ‘kpow!’

  ‘What good will that do you? It won’t change anything.’

  Mrs. Masters (ex) smiled then and, despite the gun being waved in her face, Julie thought that it might be the most frightening thing she’d ever seen.

  ‘What good, my dear? Why, it will make me happy.’

  Then she giggled, and Julie felt the chill run right through her bones.

  Chapter 19 Then, I have missed our little chats

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Oh, Philly-babe, just the usual.’

  Then she was right beside me, hanging onto my arm with both hands and smiling up at me.

  ‘Neville, prepare to squirt,’ I said, out loud, just so she could hear me.

  ‘Don’t go yet, please. You haven't heard the news yet, so you can’t go.’

  ‘What news?’ I asked, very much against my better judgement.

  ‘Oh, shall we find somewhere to sit and have a drink while we talk?’

  ‘No, just get it over with. I have other places I need to be.’ Just then a nice long cool pint of lager appeared in my head; just the thing for the hero of the hour. No; the hero of the decade; the
hero of the century.

  ‘Don’t be a spoilsport; I went to a lot of trouble.’

  ‘Just say the words you came to say.’

  ‘Well, there’s this species, and they are called the Minloggies, and they don’t like bipeds (and that means you, silly, just in case you didn’t know).’ She seemed to snuggle up closer to me; I tried to move away, but her grip was unyielding, despite my super-cool muscles.

  ‘So, I told them where you all lived, and they decided to go there and do something nasty.’

  With a display of incredible power, I tore myself loose from her grip.

  ‘What are they going to do?’

  ‘Oh, they’ve already done it. Around each of your planets, they’ve located a mini-black hole; held in a Tlorestie containment field.’

  ‘Why would they do that?’

  ‘I told you; they don’t like you.’

  ‘But…we haven’t done anything to them, so why…?’

  She sort of sighed at me then.

  ‘Philly-babe, you know when you go to a shoe shop?’

  ‘What?’ I couldn’t see where this was going.

  ‘And you’re buying a new pair of shoes?’

  ‘Yes…?’

  ‘Well, that’s the problem. If you needed four shoes, or eight, or 26, that would be just fine. But two?’ She shook her head, as if she was making perfect sense.

  ‘So, what happens next?’

  ‘Don’t be so glum, Philly-babe. I’m just having a bit of fun.’

  ‘So, what happens next?’

  ‘Oh, it’s just some idea they have about bipeds staying on their own planets and not infesting the rest of the universe with their monkey-brained antics.’

  ‘Is this all true?’ I asked Neville.

  ‘We are too far away from settled space to be able to verify her statements, but I give it a 96.7% chance that she is telling us most of the truth.’

  ‘What can we do about it?’

  ‘From here, nothing.’

  ‘What do they want us to do?’ This was to Millie.

  ‘If you clear your people from all but three of the planets (this includes Earth) and close down the Squirtports, then you will be left unmolested.’