“Oh wow!” Shelly Shaw exclaimed. “Just a few days ago I would hardly have believed this was possible, and yet here I am!”
“Yeah, here we are,” Bruce muttered unenthusiastically. Now he was really going to be in for it. Sue would be beside herself with jealousy, and justifiably so. What had seemed like such a good idea a few moments ago was actually a bloody stupid thing to do. This would just confirm any of Sue’s suspicions about his immaturity and that maybe he simply couldn’t really be trusted.
“Where are we?” Shelly Shaw asked, looking at the control console.
“I’m not sure, to be honest; somewhere in orbit around Earth but I’m not sure how far out.”
Dr Shaw looked around the control room, which was about the size of the family room in her house. “It’s not very big, is it? I imagined something much larger somehow.”
“Yeah, now I think about it, they utilise space really well; these things aren’t that much bigger than a standard three - or four-bedroom house.”
Shelly Shaw strolled around the control room casually trailing her fingertips along the wall. Bruce struggled to take his eyes off her. He noted with some relief her nether regions and what he could see of her legs appeared as exquisite as the rest of her.
“You know this room is almost oval, don’t you? I mean it looks square but it is an oval. Interesting.”
Bruce snapped out of his little daydream. Shelly Shaw the scientist was on the job. She was not interested in him in the slightest, only in what he represented and what kind of advantage she might be able to gain for herself by leading him on. She probably had a lot of experience in that field. Her attention was on the spaceship, not him.
“Ha-ha,” Cop sniggered. “Serves you right.”
“Shut up, you senile old prick.”
“Who are you talking to?” Shelly Shaw asked.
“This know-all, talking, fucken dog!” Bruce exclaimed, aiming a kick at the old dog, who easily dodged the foot aimed in his direction. “And I know you won’t believe it, but it’s true. The Skidians did something to his brain and gave him a degree of sentience and the ability to communicate via some kind of wireless interface. Fucked if I understand it. He has just enough brains for him to get ideas above his station, and now he’s more arrogant and fucken useless than ever.”
Shelly Shaw looked at the dog, who cocked his head in a quizzical fashion at her, and then she looked at Bruce. “You are kidding, right?”
Bruce could almost hear her think. Who does this guy think he is fooling? It was quite a comical scene really – the hardnosed old heading dog with his head cocked slightly to the left, one of his ripped ears flopping back over his head and a little smirk on his face. Cop looked as innocent as a new-born babe, looking as if butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth.
“Bruce, the dirty old goat, has been ogling you ever since we got here,” Cop told Shelly.
Shelly Shaw jumped in alarm, and Bruce laughed at her more than a little guiltily.
“You senile old shit. I’ll boot your arse if you carry on like that! The dog thinks he is human, but he’s still a dog,” Bruce said, meaning to reassure her. “I told you he was smartarse.”
Suddenly Shelly Shaw looked a lot less certain of herself. She seemed to realise, somewhat belatedly, she had placed herself in a vulnerable position. She was alone with a man she knew very little about, who now didn’t appear as harmless as he had at first. More importantly, she had no escape plan.
“I think I want to go now,” Shelly said, staring uncomfortably at Bruce and backing away from him as far as she could get. She had clearly lost what little interest she had had in the space patrol ship for the moment and wanted to get as far away from Bruce as she could.
“Yes, well, I am not surprised!” Cop told her.
In a flash they were back in the conference room. Shelly Shaw looked a little flustered and Sue gave Bruce a suspicious glare.
“Are you OK, Shelly? Dr Roach asked.
“I’m fine thanks,” she lied unconvincingly. “I’m just a bit overwhelmed, that’s all!”
Overwhelmed about what, Bruce wondered.
“Right,” he said. “I need to go, I think. We have established I can at least access the ship and I’m confident if I can access it, I will be able to do something about the asteroid. OK?” He looked across at the old doctor who was giving him an odd look.
“I know you guys want to get this resolved as quickly as possible but may I remind you again Sue and I have a wedding reception to attend. Whatever happens, if we don’t get there soon, the rest of our lives, well mine at least because I get the blame for everything, won’t be worth living.”
On cue a mobile started to ring. Bruce looked around to see what was going on then realised the ringing was coming from his pocket. He fumbled for the device and answered call.
“Where are you?” demanded and angry voice that could be heard right around the room. “We’re all waiting and your father and your best man are getting drunk. If you don’t come soon they will both make idiots of themselves and embarrass me.”
“OK, Mum, be there soon.” Bruce cut the connection. “See what I mean? We need to think about what is going to happen after I deal with the asteroid as much as what could happen before I can blow it to bits or nudge it off its trajectory.” Bruce surprised himself with the profoundness of his comment and, after a moment, the rightness of it. From the glances between the two doctors, the general and the Vice President, it was clearly hitting home that whatever happened over the next few hours, the world had probably changed forever in ways none of them could even begin to envisage.
Bruce heard one of the dogs tearing at the carpet and realised what had just happened, which sort of killed the moment for him, and no doubt would for the others when they realised what the noise heralded.
“You dirty rotten scoundrel, Punch,” Bruce yelled at the dog as he finished his business in a corner of the room with a satisfied, good-natured doggy smile on his face.
“If that isn’t an excuse for getting out of here, I don’t know what is,” Bruce declared, standing up and heading for the door.
“What has that dog been eating?” someone asked.
Bruce reckoned whatever Rangi Tauroa had been feeding the dogs must have been half rotten. Not that it would have worried Punch much; the dog looked extremely pleased with himself.
“Go after them, Wisneski,” the general instructed tiredly. “And keep a good eye out for any trouble, and you too, Dr Shaw, and we will reconvene in the morning.”
“What about …?” someone began to ask, indicating the dogs, as Bruce walked out the door.
He thought hard for a moment and then waggled a virtual finger, thought what he hoped was the right thought, and in an instant they disappeared. Hopefully safe and sound back in their kennels before Rangi had been aware they were gone.
“Do you know where we’re going?” Bruce asked Wisneski as they walked past the guard to the limousine. “Because I don’t.”
Wisneski nodded. “Yes. We have had the hotel staked out for days.”
Four
On the short trip to the hotel where the reception was being held Wisneski and Shelly Shaw sat up the front of the limousine while Sue, Myfair and Bruce sat in the back silently. Bruce kept looking over the front seat at Shelly Shaw while he guzzled another beer. Meanwhile Sue, who could see what he was up to, was not happy and if looks could kill, both Shelly and Bruce would be long dead.
Then they were there. However, something looked out of whack to Bruce – there were a lot more cars outside the reception area at the hotel than he remembered from the church, along with a couple of rental vans. They couldn’t all be buddies of Wisneski’s and whatever agency he worked for, could they? And there weren’t supposed to be any extras beyond a couple of people who were not able to get to the church service. The Clarks, supported by his mother, were quite keen to keep the numbers low and a solid cap on the flow of alcohol. His old man and Trev were lucky
to find enough beers to get them tipsy.
As they pulled up in front of the hotel there were a few bemused-looking people lurking around the edge of the carpark, including someone who looked vaguely familiar who was having a furtive smoke and staring into his mobile.
It couldn’t be, could it?
Bruce gulped the last of his beer and tossed the bottle in the bin at his feet.
Despite the fact that Sue was clearly grumpy with him, she had a bit of a smirk on her face all the same, as if she knew something he didn’t. Well there was a first time for everything. Catching sight of the limousine, the smoker tossed his cigarette away and hurried back inside.
The first thing Bruce noticed as they rolled to a stop and he got out was there was a lot of noise coming from the ball room adjacent to the hotel’s reception area. It was music, loud music blasting out that took him a moment to recognise. The sort of racket heard at a young farmers’ do back home. Loud, classic Kiwi rock, to be precise, which was a sound quite out of place in this town.
“What the fuck?” For a moment Bruce wondered whether he was in the right place or had stumbled into a rock concert instead of his wedding reception. But there was no doubt. “What’s going on here?” he asked nobody in particular as he pushed through the door into the hotel’s ball room.
Bruce walked into a totally unexpected scene, one that took him straight back home. Rural, small-town New Zealand had somehow come to Portland, USA.
The room was heaving with people and it was incredibly noisy. Where the bloody hell had they all come from? Bruce could not imagine Sue’s family were enjoying the din one little bit. Sure enough, he caught sight of them sitting rather stiffly over in the corner at their table. Though, clearly some of the younger members of the clan seemed to be enjoying the music by the way they were tapping their fingers on the table. No doubt some of them would get up and boogie later on, although he could not imagine the oldies, including his own mother, would. The old man might, though, if he had enough beers in him.
Bruce looked around for his parents as Sue went over to check on hers.
He saw his father talking to someone who looked remarkably familiar. Hey, that’s Brian Dalgety, Bruce thought, as he made his way over to the two men.
“Hey, Bruce, how are ya, buddy? Have a beer, mate!” someone slurred in his ear, intercepting him and draping an arm across his shoulder while wiggling a beer bottle under his nose. Bruce frowned as some of the liquid splashed on his shirt.
“How are you, mate?” someone else asked, slapping him on the shoulder.
Then someone else ambushed him and planted a big, sloppy kiss on the side of his face.
A light flashed in his brain and Bruce recognised them all now. They were the boys from the rugby club back home. But what the hell were they doing here?
Then his father caught sight of him and beckoned him over. “BJ here decided to organise a trip to the Sevens in Las Vegas,” Cyril explained. “I found out about the time you told us about you getting married so I suggested they could stop here on the way and give you a bit of support, like at the reception. What do you think about that for an idea, son?”
“I think it’s a bloody fantastic idea, thanks, Dad!” All his adult life Bruce had had visions of how he would like his wedding to go. Here, marrying into a new family so different from his own that they might as well be from different worlds, he had expected a fairly dry affair. Quite apart from being teetotal, Sue’s old man was quite a testy, introverted old bugger and he had sort of set the scene for a pretty low-key reception. Bruce had decided he would have to wait for the older Clarks to leave the reception before he could let his hair down properly and have a few beers, which was why he had been so keen to chug a few back in the limousine, preloading like a teenager about to get out on the town.
In some ways he felt sorry for the old bugger. Bruce was pretty sure Rufus Clark, Sue’s father, would never come to terms with the idea his daughter was not only marrying a white man, but she was marrying a white man from a culture he could probably never, in his lifetime, ever hope to understand.
Bruce thought Rufus Clark, somewhat perversely, seemed to get on with his mother far better than with his father. This seemed odd to Bruce because Cyril Harwood was far more liberal and outgoing than his wife by nature and far less concerned by colour and ethnicity than she was. She was actually quite a racist old tart in the casually condescending manner of a northern redneck.
However, his mum and Sue’s dad appeared to share similar religious convictions which transcended the other barriers which, under normal circumstances, would have put them at loggerheads. In fact, they seemed to get on okay, after a fashion, despite their unfortunate introduction a few short weeks earlier. Attending the local branch of their church with the Clark family while her husband and son went out for breakfast seemed to animate his mother in a way he hadn’t seen when she came home from the local church back home. Maybe that was it. Maybe they were drawn together by some kind of shared religious conviction. Though as far as he could work out, the happy-clappy evangelical church Rufus and the Clark clan attended was a far cry from the staid, old-style Methodist church his mother was in the habit of attending.
Bruce had always harboured visions of copying the sort of weddings friends and family he had been invited to in his youth, or what he could recall of them through an alcoholic haze. A short service in the local church, or perhaps even by a celebrant if he could get away with it, followed by a boozy reception in the local hall, then a quick getaway to a decent holiday.
Which contrasted with the kind of celebration that – as far as he had known up until a few minutes ago – was actually going to be his lot. With Rufus setting the tone of the event there was no chance of a secular celebrant. The service had been long, loud and exceedingly boring, full of irrelevancies for modern life. Bruce had understood little of messaging and completely disagreed with the bits he did comprehend. The content of the sermon seemed dated in this day and age and more than a little contradictory, especially the bits about the sanctity of marriage and premarital sex, considering the presence of little Bruce gurgling away happily on some old duck’s knee in the front row who had been introduced as Mrs Pratt. Mrs Pratt was Sue’s neighbour and somehow seemed to have become an unofficial nanny.
He had also assumed apart from a celebratory bottle of wine or two the reception would be largely dry, which was why he’d stashed a few bottles in the limousine and a few more in the hotel room he was going to retire to later on after a few beers in the bar. He had also made sure there were at least a few beers for the groom’s side of the main table.
“Hey, it was a great idea, Dad. Really,” he told his father as someone thrust a beer in his hand and slapped him on the back. “How did you get that past Mum and the Clarks?”
“Your mother and I talked about it before we came over and set it up with the Clarks. I don’t think they had any idea what they were letting themselves in for – including your mother. I said BJ was organising the trip and your mother assumed some of his cronies were coming over, not this lot of hoons,” Cyril grinned.
Bruce watched Sue make her way toward him through the crowd, blushing and smiling uncertainly when someone gave her a friendly slap on the bum and someone else whistled in her direction. Some of the boys were already a bit unruly; some of them had probably been on the turps for hours and there was bound to be some kind of trouble later on. Still, Bruce was glad they were here.
He glanced across at his new in-laws’ table feeling a little guilty, as they would be a bit uncomfortable and were possibly feeling left out of proceedings, so he wandered over to say hello.
Rufus sat with his wife Shirley and the two sons and their wives. The younger kids were sitting at another table with some of the other young Clark relations, giggling and pointing at the mob of boozy, young white and brown men and their girlfriends from a part of the world few of them had ever heard of before Bruce had come on the scene.
“We
ll this is bit of a surprise,” Bruce said as he sat down at the table beside Rufus Cark. “I didn’t expect this lot when I left the church earlier on!”
This was a far more pleasant surprise than some of the other goings - that had come up during the day and which he probably should not be discussing with anyone for a variety of reasons. Like finding out there was an asteroid headed for Earth, discovering he now had access to a spaceship that could be the means to deflect the asteroid’s trajectory or destroy it.
However, blowing it to bits was apparently not really an option – that would just mean instead of one big lump heading for Earth there might be thousands. He would have to ask the doctors and the old general about that again because it didn’t make a whole lot of sense to him.
“Yes, your father mentioned that he had invited your local rugby team to the reception, this was not quite what I was expecting. I expected to see some high-performance athletes, not a bunch of drunken oafs on holiday.”
“Come now, Rufus, this isn’t the time or the place.” His wife began petting his arm. “It’s not just about us. Bruce has a right to have his friends and family here as well.”
Bruce suppressed a chuckle. You could hardly call any of this lot close friends or family. Oh, he had spent years with some of the group at school and working around the district, and even university with a couple of the guys, but none of them could be called close friends.
The statement brought him up short. He realised for the first time he had no close friends. There were lots of acquaintances but there was nobody he could call a best mate and maybe discuss his feelings about Sue, for example. There were subjects he felt he could not discuss with Sue and that was not a good sign. The realisation made him feel suddenly inadequate, and he recognised the onset of a bout of melancholy. Why was it he mostly felt this way when he had a beer in his hand?
The Lifeboat Page 5
