Space Captain Smith (10 page)

‘We’re in the upper atmosphere,’ the pilot called. ‘It’s going to get rough. If you want to pray or use the loo, now’s the time.’ She turned to the captain. ‘Anywhere in particular you’d like me to dump the ship?’

The
John Pym
cut deep into the layers of cloud. It rattled.

Smith typed at the console, searching the
Pym
’s onboard database. Something struck the underside of the ship, rocking it. ‘I’ve got the
Rough Guide
,’ he said.

‘“Paradis boasts fascinating bars where locals meet to discuss the crayfish harvest. Downtown has been rather overdeveloped and would appeal only to package tourists.”’ The toy soldier on the dashboard fell over. A storm raged around Parliament in the paperweight as Smith searched through the pages. ‘But where are the bloody docks?’

Rhianna entered, pulled down one of the emergency seats and strapped herself in. ‘Is everyone okay?’ she asked.

‘Great,’ Carveth said between her teeth. ‘How’re you?’

‘I have every faith in your abilities,’ Rhianna replied, ducking and covering her head. The ship wobbled alarmingly. Wind buffeted them and flames lapped around the nose-cone.

‘I’ve found the map!’ Smith said. ‘We’re over land. Try to put it down just off the coast. Should there be all that fire at the front?’

‘Don’t look at me!’ Carveth shouted back. She checked the scanners. ‘This is looking bad, Cap. We’ll have to ditch into the first lake we come to. Boss, I’m passing water now!’

‘Cross your legs, woman!’

‘Emergency parachute out!’ The ship lurched as the parachute snagged the air, but it ploughed on. Carveth wrestled the control lever. At the edge of the windscreen, there was fire. ‘Collision imminent – five, four—’

‘Duck!’ Smith cried. He threw his arms around his head. The ship hit something, twisted, struck something else and smashed into the water. The impact threw him forward and the seatbelt hit his chest as if he had been tossed against a fence; he coughed violently, flopped back again and gasped before he realised that he was still alive. Red lights flashed in the cockpit, a broken siren died with a slow, parping fart and then the room was full of the sparking of the control panel over his head. Suddenly able to move again, he snapped open the straps and half-rolled, half-climbed out of his seat. Smith staggered over to the pilot’s chair and pulled Carveth back. Her eyes swam in her head. ‘What ho, Captain,’ she said uncertainly, and she groaned and rubbed her temple.

‘Are you alright?’

‘I’m fine. Look at the magic princess.’

Smith assumed she meant Rhianna and he lurched towards the door. Rhianna had curled into a ball in her seat, knees in front of her face. Slowly she unfolded. ‘Are we done crashing yet?’ she said.

‘Yes,’ Smith said.

Suruk looked around the doorframe. He seemed mildly curious. ‘My ornaments have fallen down,’ he said. ‘Are you deceased?’

Rhianna unbuckled the seat harness with numb fingers, blinking. Smith offered her a hand and she got up. Carveth had pushed a finger through the bars of the hamster cage and was wiggling it to get Gerald’s attention. Smith reflected that after what must seem an earthquake to a small animal, the last thing Gerald would want to see would be a gigantic worm come to prod him back to life. Still, Gerald’s trauma could wait. There were more important things to do.

‘I’m going to scout around,’ he declared.

‘Use the top hatch,’ Carveth said. ‘We’re floating.’

Smith paced out of the cockpit and down the corridor, pushing his way past fallen wires like an explorer passing through fronds. He crossed the lounge and stepped into the hold. Smith climbed the steps to the airlock, glanced round and was surprised to find Rhianna behind him.

‘Hello again,’ he said, taking hold of the lever that opened the roof hatch. ‘Are you alright?’

She looked slightly concussed, which was no change from the norm. ‘I’m fine,’ she said. ‘How are you?’

‘Been worse.’ Struggling to remember when, he pulled the lever and the hatch swung open, revealing a circle of shockingly blue sky. A blast of fresh air hit him like some drug too potent for his system to take on board, leaving him reeling from its purity. ‘Let’s have a look around.’

He climbed the rungs and scrambled out onto the roof, into the clean air. Rhianna followed and he leaned down and held his hand out to help her up, getting a full view of her cleavage, such as it was. As she climbed out it suddenly occurred to Smith that the ship might still be hot from entering the atmosphere and he checked lest Rhianna’s flip-flops melted onto the roof. It was merely warm, and she climbed out and stood up next to him.

They were on the edge of a lake. It was a warm day in Paradis’s equivalent of early summer and the light was hard and bright. Conifers stood on the bank. Geese flapped across the sky toward a slow-moving alien creature that looked like a cross between a pterodactyl and a handkerchief. A light breeze stirred Rhianna’s flares.

‘What a view,’ Smith said.

Rhianna stood on tiptoes and took an enormous breath, tossed her head back and threw out her arms with alarming enthusiasm. ‘God, I love being outdoors,’ she proclaimed.

‘Yes, absolutely,’ said Smith. ‘Bit of fresh air, eh?’

‘Oh, yes!’ Her eyes were closed and her sleek, elfin face turned towards the sun. ‘I really feel much closer to everything – to the world – like this. I love being in touch with nature.’

‘Well, yes. Rather pleasant, really.’ Smith agreed with her, but he felt uncomfortable in this line of talk. His own view of nature was intrinsically linked to hiking boots and the smell of waxed canvas in jaunty, masculine company. Most of the women he knew who claimed to love the outdoors were stocky beings called Hillary, who enjoyed shouting ‘Come on, then!’ at Labradors. Rhianna’s idea of getting in touch with the countryside, he suspected, might well involve getting in touch with herself in a countryside setting. This, although appealing, was rarely covered in
The Rambler’s Periodical
. He kicked and shoved his brain onto cleaner thoughts, like a riot policeman encouraging a sit-down protester to ‘move along’.

‘Alright up there?’ Carveth yelled from below.

‘We’re both fine,’ Smith called back, sounding slightly guilty.

‘Got a dinghy here,’ Carveth said. ‘I found it in a locker. You’ll need it to row to the bank.’

‘Good idea.’ Smith climbed through the hatch and back into the greasy atmosphere of the hold. A large yellow dinghy lay inflated by Carveth’s boots.

Something occurred to Carveth and she looked down at the dinghy, which was about four feet wide, and then back up at the hatch, which was two feet across.

‘Oh,
arse
,’ she said. ‘I knew I was doing something wrong when I blew it up.’

Carveth rowed the dinghy to the riverbank. Rhianna watched the other three from the roof of the ship. Smith stepped out onto dry land. Rhianna waved and he waved back. ‘Good luck!’ she called.

‘Thanks!’

‘Yeah, good luck,’ Carveth said from the dinghy. ‘You know,’ she added, ‘we’re forty miles from the nearest town on the map. Are you guys sure this is a good idea?’

‘I’m sure. We’ll try to get to higher ground and put a signal out. If anyone wants to find us, it’ll be the signal they pick up, not the ship.’

The pilot frowned. ‘I suppose so. Look, Captain…’

‘Yes?’

‘It’s Rhianna they want, isn’t it?’

He looked back at her, sunning herself on the blackened back of their ship. ‘I think so. That’s why she’s staying here with you. Out of danger.’

‘If you two need anything… ’ Faced with the novelty of expressing helpfulness, Carveth’s vocabulary ran dry. ‘You know what to do.’ She reached into the boat and passed him the shotgun.

‘Thanks, Carveth. But I got us into this, and it’s my job to get us out.’

‘
They
got us into this. The Ghasts, I mean.’

‘Yes, mainly.’ He gazed back at the ship, his eyes vacant.

‘You know, the Empire really sent us out here as a decoy, a lure to draw the Ghasts out, like a goat left out for a tiger. But the Ghasts were smarter than they thought and blew up the
Tenacious
before it could get them. So now there isn’t any hunter any more. It’s us, the goat, against the tiger.’

‘I know,’ she said. ‘But you’re doing alright, considering.’

‘Let’s get going,’ Smith said. He turned and stalked into the woods, Suruk strolling by his side.

Four hours later, Smith returned.

‘Burning,’ Suruk said.

It was approaching dusk and the light was deep and ripe. Insects made the air shudder. The white, battered tail of the ship stuck into the air like the fin of a shark that has let itself go and turned to beer and pies. On the bank, Carveth and Rhianna were sitting on packing crates. Several beer bottles and a good deal of food wrappers lay around their feet. Carveth glanced up and passed Rhianna the strange device she had acquired on New Fran, the one she had described as an ant farm. There was an odd smell in the air, like paper and spice being cooked together, a dry, herbal smell. Carveth looked up. ‘Hey, Captain. You joining us?’

Smith strode towards her.

‘Find anything? Settlements? People? Pirate treasure?’

Smith got close, and his face was hard. ‘What on Earth is this?’ he demanded.

Carveth blinked. ‘Nothing much. We’re just having a bit of… ’ she glanced at Rhianna hopefully.

‘Quality time,’ Rhianna said.

‘Right. Quality time for us ladies. You gentlemen are welcome to join us, of course.’

‘Certainly not! You are a British naval operative, and you are quite obviously drunk! You should be manning a lookout, or building a house out of sticks or something.’

He paused and sniffed the air, turning his neck as if to inspect a halo. ‘And it reeks of marijuana.’

Carveth said, ‘Among the cognoscenti, one does not pronounce the J.’

‘Well I’m not the cognoscenti, thank you, and I intend to complete this mission without being pot-crazed on blow reefers. While you have been tripping the fantastic light with Jenny Spliff—’

‘Mary Jane,’ Rhianna said quietly.

‘Whatever – I’m not a drug fiend –
I
have been out on a recce to get this transmitter set up. I have had to climb every mountain—’

‘And ford every stream?’ Carveth asked. She sniggered.

‘Right! That’s it! I’ve walked an awfully long way just to come back and find you lazing around off your head. What’ve you done to help, eh, other than get squiffed and blow bubbles in your ant-farm?’

‘It’s not an ant-farm, it’s a bong. Christ, Captain, just try to relax, would you? Calm down.’

‘I will not calm down! I am a British officer—’

‘I know that. And I’m not.’ Suddenly, she seemed very calm. The bank was silent other than the lapping of water against the ship. Far off, geese honked. ‘Please, sit down. God, Cap, if you get wound up any more your head’ll pop. Just sit. We’ll talk about it.’

‘Alright,’ he said. ‘But I don’t condone any of this, young lady android, not for one moment. And I think you’re a disgrace to your job, taking illegal substances when we have a duty to repair our ship.’

‘Can I say something?’ Rhianna said.

Smith lowered himself onto one of the boxes. ‘Well, alright. I suppose so.’

‘Why don’t we just talk it through, okay? We don’t have to fight. Come on, guys. Let’s be nice about this, huh?

Let’s just calm down, find our happy space, make a truth circle and begin to deal with our issues through dialogue instead of shouting, okay?’

‘Bollocks to that.’

‘Excuse me.’ Suruk stepped forward. They had forgotten about him, all of them. The alien seemed dignified, oddly civilised for having avoided the argument so far.

‘May I make a suggestion? Among our people there is a custom for resolving disputes of this sort so that all have an equal chance to make their point, and none lose honour by doing so.’

‘Does this by any chance involve an arena and sharp knives?’ Carveth said.

The alien said, ‘You’ve done it too?’

‘Let’s take it easy,’ Carveth said. ‘Talk first, decapitations later.’

‘Huh,’ Suruk replied. ‘There is a reason why we refer to you as
puny
humans.’

‘Captain Smith,’ Rhianna began, ‘I can understand you’re in a difficult position at the moment. But I really think you ought to make an effort to relax—’

‘She’s right,’ Carveth put in. ‘No offence, but you’re pretty anally retentive. I’d put big money that you’ve sat on a broom before and found it was gone when you stood up. If your arse gets any tighter you’ll crap spaghetti.’

Rhianna smiled. ‘Well, perhaps that’s a bit hard, Polly.’

‘Only if you’re a repressed neurotic.’

‘Right!’ cried Smith, leaping to his feet. ‘I am not a repressed neurotic and I don’t want to talk about it ever again!’

He stormed off into the trees.

‘Curious,’ Suruk said.

Rhianna started to put her shoes on. This took a lot of concentration.

‘I’ll do it,’ Carveth said. ‘You stay here.’

Smith had gone ten yards before he realised that there was nowhere to go to, but he was obliged to go thirty more before he could stop and try to work out what to do. He wondered what it was that had sent him storming out of the group like a pellet shot from a rubber band. Only as he stood here, the midges buzzing around his head, did he realise that he couldn’t tell what was driving him. Carveth’s obvious incompetence? No. He did not even think she truly was incompetent. She had made an excellent job of landing a crippled ship. No matter how irritating she might be, it was largely due to her flying skills that they had landed without being reduced to the consistency of Marmite.

Of course, that didn’t stop her from being a lazy pain in the arse.

And then there was Rhianna. Rhianna, with her nonsense about holding hands and chanting to the great pixie, her meditation and lentil food, her nice ankles and long brown hair. She meant well, of course, and that was the problem. Her motives were good – and her physique, he suspected, was excellent. And he had no idea how to get her, either. For all that it mattered, she might as well have been on the other end of the galaxy.