Space Captain Smith (4 page)

‘Not before this morning. She certainly sounds like a bucket of fun. Why’re we transporting this lentil princess, anyway?’

‘I don’t really know. Perhaps she’s put up the cash to charter a ship instead of waiting for a liner and buying passage like anybody else.’

‘Very expensive, that. You don’t make that kind of money selling mung beans. And she can hardly be running from the law – everything’s legal on New Fran as it is. To be honest, I’ve been planning on adding Mary Jane to the crew roster myself.’

‘Who’s that? Sounds like an aunt.’

‘More a soul-mate. Never mind.’

‘Rhianna Mitchell may be a dissident. There’s a lot of people coming to the Empire from the neutral states these days, what with the Ghasts re-arming and everything.’

‘True.’ She took a swig of her tea. ‘Ugh! If you ask me, as soon as those spidery buggers have enough ships, they’re coming straight for Earth.’

‘They’d better not. If they make for London they’ll find something special waiting for them, and it won’t be a souvenir T-shirt, that’s for damned sure. Bloody Ghasts. That’s the trouble with aliens – they’re all bloody foreign.’

Carveth shook up the paperweight, watching the snow swirl around Parliament. ‘These neutral colonies are in serious trouble if it all kicks off,’ she said. ‘Still, I don’t think we’ll be in any danger with this Rhianna woman on board.’

‘No?’

‘Of course not. If they thought there would be trouble, they’d send something decent to pick her up, not this bucket of rust.’

‘Good point. I thought it was supposed to have a refit before we left.’

Carveth shrugged. ‘It has – of a sort. It’s got a new supralux engine fitted – a big one. We go twice the speed in half the style. Shame they couldn’t put a half-decent drinks machine in at the time.’

‘That’s odd.’

‘Well, yes, it is. In layman’s terms, this ship probably used to fly like a pig. Now it flies like a pig with a firework up its bum. I’m not sure which is better.’

Smith nodded. ‘Well, it’s all a bit strange, if you ask me. You don’t know anything about this mission, and I’m the captain and I don’t either. Doesn’t that strike you as surprising?’

‘Half of it certainly does. Still, I suppose we’ll find out when we get there. Would you mind taking the controls while I ablute?’

‘Not at all. We’re on course, aren’t we?’

‘Oh yes. Just watch for trouble. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,’ she added from the door. ‘And don’t crash the spaceship, either.’

The needle dropped in the speedometer. In the civilised tones of a BBC announcer, the ship’s computer said, ‘We are now approaching the target destination. Deceleration has been commenced.’

Carveth returned. ‘What’s going on?’

‘We’re getting close. The retros are on.’

‘Great.’ She sat back down. ‘You want me to say hello?’

‘Please do.’

She unclipped the microphone. ‘This is the
John Pym
, British Empire commercial light transport vessel 28 – dammit, they’ve put me in a queue.’

‘Let me try. Put it on the speaker.’

Carveth flicked a switch. Light, insipid music filled the room. ‘Bossa Nova,’ Carveth said.

‘At least it’s not that bloody Strauss again. I suppose we have to wait.’

Suruk entered the control room. ‘Ah, music,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘Am I interrupting a mating ritual?’

‘No!’ they replied.

‘Is that our destination?’

‘Yep,’ the pilot said. In the windscreen they could make out the shape of the colony. It was the shape of a starfish trying to mate with a can of beans. Down each of the starfish’s arms, little grey shapes were anchored to the station: spacecraft, many of them several hundred metres long. Smith squinted at the display as they drew closer. He could recognise many of them, representatives of the human Great Powers and the alien races of Known Space. Most would be refuelling, for New Fran made much of its money from providing services to ships and their crews. One of the arms of the starfish was reserved for repairs, and the ships there were dotted with white specs that were space-suited men.

‘There’s a Morlock ship there, Suruk,’ Smith said. The alien peered through the windscreen. ‘Indeed. No doubt they are readying themselves for battle and warfare further on. I see no other reason why they would want to linger at this cowardly place, unless they are currently sacking it.’

The M’Lak ship was red, shaped like a huge cone with an engine at the rear. There was a screw thread running around the cone. As tended to be the case with Suruk’s people, they had adapted human technology to fit their way of war: the cone was for ramming, the screw thread designed to help it tear deep into the guts of an enemy vessel. The nose of the ship would then drop off, allowing a horde of fighters to spill out and engage the crew in a boarding action before returning to their own craft, usually with a selection of heads in a bag.

‘I look forward to speaking with them,’ Suruk said. The muzak stopped. ‘Hi there! This is New Fran traffic control,’ a woman’s voice announced. She had the gentle American accent characteristic of the Franese. ‘I’m 39 Summer, and I’ll be your traffic controller today. Is that the
John Pym
I’m talking to?’

‘Certainly is,’ said Smith. ‘We seek permission to dock, please.’

‘Permission is granted. Your personal computer reference is being fed to your ship right now. Your ship will lock with our central computer and begin autodocking. Please stand by at the controls in the event of manual correction being necessary.’

‘Do you have a gift shop?’

‘We do indeed. You’ll find shopping facilities in the central hub, above the residential drum. We would remind you that although marijuana is legal on New Fran, hassling people isn’t, so take your fascist attitude problem somewhere else, okay? All major currency is accepted apart from M’Lak barter-trophies.’

‘Thanks.’

‘No problem. You have a good time, now, John Pym.’

‘I’ll try,’ Smith began, but the radio was silent. He glanced at the pilot. ‘Carveth? Engage the docking computer.’

‘Docking computer engaged.’

‘Bring us in, Miss Carveth.’

‘Us brung in.’

The ship yawed slowly, and as New Fran came closer Smith saw the happy pictures painted onto its iron-grey sides. Lights flashed above a connecting tube on which were painted the words ‘Peace – friendship – understanding’. This was going to be a tough place to stomach. Carveth took the crew roster down from the wall and tested a biro on the back of it. ‘Right then, who wants what at Duty Free?’

They closed the ship door behind them and trooped down the connecting walkway in a group. ‘I hope Gerald is alright in there,’ Carveth said.

‘The beast is well,’ Suruk replied. Despite Smith’s requests, he carried four knives in his belt and his sacred spear. ‘It grows plump.’

‘Captain, tell him he can’t eat my hamster.’

‘Crew, stop eating one another,’ Smith said, not really listening. ‘Now, I believe this fellow is coming to talk to us.’

A man waited at the end of the passage. He was short, in an open-necked, collarless shirt, with a neat little beard and curly blond hair long enough for Smith to regard him with suspicion.

‘Hey there,’ he announced. ‘You must be Captain Smith, right?’

‘That’s right.’

‘It’s a pleasure, sir. My name is Chad. On behalf of the Free State of New Fran, I’d like to welcome you to the Free State of New Francisco.’ He frowned, aware that he had got his standard greeting wrong, and said, ‘Well, hi. If you’d come with me…’

The corridor opened out into a massive hall. Light, shapeless music wafted from speakers mounted in the roof. A frieze ran around the walls, showing children of the nations and species of the galaxy holding hands or, where appropriate, tentacles and claws. Soft-headed nonsense, Smith thought. There should be a picture of aliens building a railway and learning how to vote, with a dreadnought in the background to remind them to keep at it. It occurred to Smith that if it were it his son holding hands with a Ghast on one side and a Frenchy on the other, the boy would be getting a striped arse in no time at all. Luckily, and surprisingly (to his mind at least), he had neither wife nor son.

‘I’m glad you like it, man,’ Chad said at Smith’s side. ‘It shows like all the children of all the different races who have visited New Fran living in harmony, laid out in a like – what’s the word, it starts with an M—’

‘Menu?’ Suruk said.

‘Mural. Over there is the check-in desk. Now, is there anything you need?’

‘Refuelling,’ said Smith. ‘It’s to go on the Valdane Shipping Company standing order. I’m here looking for a friend of mine. Can I go through?’

‘Of course. And you friend, and – whoa. Sir? Native lifeform? I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave your knives and spear behind.’

Carveth leaned in to Smith. ‘Why the hell did he bring them?’ she whispered. ‘He knew there’d be trouble.’

‘The M’Lak are a young and confident race,’ Smith said. ‘When they think there’s hunting to be done, it’s hard to curb their enthusiasm.’

‘Touch not my weapons, fool,’ Suruk said crossly. ‘This spear contains my ancestors.’

Chad’s manner became noticeably colder. ‘Thin, are they?’

To their surprise, Suruk pulled the blades from his hips and boots, heaping them on Chad. Carveth peered at the mural, craning her neck to take in the dancing children.

‘Children, eh?’ Suruk said, passing Chad his last knife.

‘I don’t like them, but I could eat a whole one.’

Chad put the weapons in a locker and rejoined them.

‘Now then,’ he said, a little less certainly, ‘how can I help everyone?’

‘I’m fine,’ Smith replied. ‘Suruk, you’re coming with me.’

‘Yes. Let us hunt this woman together.’

‘Carveth, it’s up to you. You can come along or meet us back here in six hours’ time.’

The simulant frowned. ‘I’ll have a look round on my own. I’ll check the bars, in case she’s hiding in some cheap booze.’

She watched them walk off: the upright space captain and his lanky, savage friend, each as alien to this place as the other. Carveth reached to the back of her head and unfastened her ponytail, then shook her head to loosen her hair. She turned to their guide.

‘Hello Chad,’ Carveth said. ‘I am now officially off duty. Now that Thunderbird Two is safely docked and the muppets have departed, I think you can help me.’

He blinked. ‘Uh . . . alright. What do you need?’

Carveth smiled, which made her look friendly, eager and conspiratorial. ‘Well, Chad, I have a problem. By a curious technical error I have a spare rolling mat and a lighter which is rapidly gathering dust because there is nothing to roll or to light. And you look just the kind of man to assist. Can you point me to the duty free?’

Chad dumped his armful of knives on the desktop. 

‘Well, that’s a relief,’ Chad said. ‘At least some of you English are sane.’

Carveth stood at the counter in the duty-free shop and started to unload her basket. ‘I’ll have these six bottles, this, these special biscuits and two packets of rolling paper, please.’

The attendant stared for a moment at the pile of goods in front of him. ‘It’s a long trip,’ Carveth explained, patting her pockets for her card. ‘Hell, it must’ve fallen out.’

‘You looking for this, little lady?’

She turned. It was a big man who spoke. He wore the uniform of a fleet she didn’t recognise, and even if he had been in civilian clothes he would have looked out of place: too solid, too muscular for the Franese. Not bad, she thought. Not bad at all, considering that this was Day One of the trip.

‘Where’d you find that?’ she asked.

‘It fell out your pocket.’ His mouth did not open very wide when he spoke, but he had fine features. ‘You’re not from round here, are you? British, right?’

‘That’s right.’

The man nodded. ‘It’s a nice place, Britain, apart from the god-hating apostates. That and that democracy thing.’

He seemed a little uptight to Carveth, but he was nicelooking. ‘Oh, I agree,’ she said. ‘Apostates, eh? Running around, messing up the larder, eating cheese . . .’

‘You don’t know what an apostate is, do you?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘Do you want to buy me dinner?’

‘No,’ said the man. ‘I’m looking for a ship, the
John
Pym
. You know if it’s docked here?’

‘Yes,’ she replied, ‘that’s my ship, as it happens, with me in. And bunks.’

The man in uniform nodded. ‘You know where the captain is?’

Carveth frowned. ‘Hmm. I don’t know if I should tell you that.’

He shrugged. ‘Well, perhaps I can persuade you to tell me later, over a drink. Or maybe after that.’

‘
Well
… in that case he’s in the main hall, looking for Rhianna Mitchell. Hey, wait, don’t go! There’s loads more I could tell you!’

Smith paced away from the annoying dock officials, Suruk at his side. People moved out of his way. It seemed to Smith that he moved twice as fast as anybody else: the people of New Fran were like ghosts, wafting past as if carried on a gentle breeze. They were an insipid bunch, he thought, weak of spine and flaccid of upper lip. To his left, a woman – possibly their equivalent of a schoolteacher – was telling a group of children how the colony was an important meeting point for the nations of space, a welcoming neutral ground where issues could be resolved without the need for violence.

‘You are displeased,’ Suruk said.

‘Yes,’ he replied, ‘I am. I don’t like this place.’

‘I am surprised. I thought that humans longed for comfort.’

Smith frowned. ‘It’s not comfort, Suruk. It’s more… I don’t know. It’s nonsense, all of it. Weedy nonsense. All this being one with the galaxy. Sissy stuff. You think the Ghasts believe that?’

‘No.’

‘Of course not. They’d annex this place in a second if it wasn’t for our dreadnoughts. Everyone here would be slaves before they could blink – and the Ghasts give even less of a toss about their precious galactic harmony than I do.’

‘I would not be a slave.’

‘No, not you or I. We’d have a job to do. But there’s too much faffing around in the world these days, not enough standing-up to alien aggression. The Ghasts need to be hit damn hard, and then hit again once they’ve got back up. And then some sort of long-term slapping programme needs to be introduced. Look at this,’ he added, pausing by a group of small trees set into the floor.