[03] Elite: Docking is Difficult (8 page)

Phoebe stopped chewing her lip and sat up straight. She had come to a decision.

‘Okay – here’s the deal,’ she said. ‘I’ve got some leave saved up. I’m going to call the station, let them know I’ve decided to take a few days off. My boss was on about me working too hard, anyway.’

‘So you’re not going to turn me in?’ said Misha.

‘Not yet. Not until we know what’s in that box, at any rate.’

‘Won’t you have to explain about your ship getting blown up?’

‘I’ll tell them it’s in the garage getting an ammonia leak fixed. They won’t notice for ages. Our division’s administrative record-keeping isn’t the best.’

‘I’m confused,’ said Glen. ‘Because I stopped listening. What’s happening, exactly?’

‘I’ll tell you what’s happening,’ said Phoebe, giving the Lenslok box a resolute thump. ‘We’re going to solve the Cliff Ganymede case ourselves, get my career back on track, and show those homicide division gits who’s proper police.’

‘What’s in it for me?’ said Glen.

‘It’s a chance to make up for your wicked pirate ways?’

‘I’m not keen.’

‘Please, Glen, this is
important
.’

‘Tell you what,’ said Glen, rubbing his chin. ‘I’ll help out if we can agree to forget the, frankly pointless, details of who said what to who or which one of us had sex with which ski instructor, and you’ll let me take you to dinner.’

‘I don’t think that’s a great idea.’

‘Deal-breaker.’

Phoebe rolled her eyes and decided to cut her losses. ‘Fine. Once we’re done, I’ll let you take me out to dinner. One dinner.’

Misha’s shoulders somehow managed to slump even further than they already had done.

‘Well then.’ Glen poured out some SynBrandy, and bubbles of it floated across the cabin. ‘To the new crime-busting gang! Phoebe, Glen and – what was your name again?’

‘Misha.’

‘Yeah, Phoebe, Glen and Maurice. Muzzletov!’

‘YOUR ALL DICKS,’ said the hen.

‘Sorry,’ said Glen, ‘I accidentally nudged the switch back on.’

‘How do we actually
do
it? Solve the murder, I mean?’ said Misha, after they’d finished toasting their impending success for a moment.

Phoebe stopped feeling quite so upbeat. She hadn’t ever worked a homicide investigation. Police training, before you specialised, was limited to the basics. The best way to accept bribes. Proper procedure for carrying out an effective frame-up. How to obscure your ID signal during a riot so you couldn’t be identified if you got a bit too zealous with the ion cannon. The usual day-to-day bits and bobs. But she’d read enough pulpy detective fiction during her department’s interminable personal development seminars to be hopeful that Ganymede’s murder would involve a couple of gigantic, easy-to-spot contrivances, like killer twins, or a code carved onto the back of a turtle, or a rare bee.

‘Well,’ said Phoebe, doing her best to sound like she knew what she was talking about, ‘The first step is always to talk to the last people to see the victim alive. Nine times out of ten the murder was done by the person who found the body. Wasn’t that his agent?’

‘Recently fired ex-agent,’ said Glen, scrolling through an old news report.

‘So there’s your motive,’ said Misha, keen to join in and show off his grasp of police terminology.

Glen tapped some more stuff into the computer. ‘Marty Zeevon. Let’s see where Marty is … ah, bingo. He’s making an appearance at something called GanyCon.’

‘What’s GanyCon?’ said Phoebe.

Glen pointed to the screen.

‘“The system’s premier Cliff Ganymede Fan Cruise”,’ he read out loud. ‘“The GanyCon cruise has now been running continuously for sixty years aboard the luxury liner
President Lindsay Lohan
, and offers fans of Cliff Ganymede’s books, games and long-running show the chance to buy merchandise, mingle with the stars of
Galloping Ganymede!
, attend inspiration workshops, discussion panels and, until his recent untimely death, listen to Cliff himself give motivational talks.” Here, look, there’s an online brochure.’

‘“Marty Zeevon In Person – Remembering my time with Cliff”,’ read Phoebe, scanning through the events page. She looked at her watch. ‘He’s on tonight. Can we get there in time? Does this thing have hyperspace?’

‘It’s an
RX1
. It has hyperspace coming out the wazoo,’ said Glen, typing in the coordinates, and flipping a switch to power up the drive plant.

‘I can’t believe we’re going to GanyCon!’ said Misha, perking up a bit. ‘I’ve always wanted to see it. I heard they had a life-size statue of Cliff built out of rare collectible soaps.’

Glen arched an eyebrow. ‘Are you a
fan
, Misha?’

Misha realised Phoebe was staring at him, and tried to look a bit less excited. ‘Well, I mean, I’ve read the books. I watch the show. I wouldn’t necessarily say I was a
fan
. I’ve got two, maybe three resin dioramas.’

‘Of course, it’s a non-docking independent ship, so I have no jurisdiction there,’ said Phoebe, reading through some more of the brochure. ‘We’ll just have to hope they’re nice people.’

‘They’ve been on a
fan cruise
for sixty
years
,’ said Misha, ‘They’ll be the nicest people in the galaxy!’

The hyperspace jump was worst for Misha, because he was new to it and so hadn’t known what to expect.

‘Oh god,’ he said, holding his head in his hands as the universe folded and unfolded itself like a really big, boring piece of origami, almost instantaneously popping them out at their destination.

‘Don’t worry,’ said Phoebe, giving him a consoling pat on the shoulder. ‘That sensation of total self-awareness and of seeing your entire life in the third person goes away after a few seconds.’

‘You know, I never get that,’ said Glen. ‘Maybe I’m already
too
self-aware.’

‘I don’t think it’s that,’ said Phoebe.

‘HEN IS HORRIFIC,’ said the hen, a single avian tear dropping from its beady eye.

The
President Lindsay Lohan
, in lazy orbit around the boiling magenta surface of Jodrell Three, filled up most of the observation window now. She was large enough to take up an entire double-page spread in the
Gollancz Bumper Book of Space Going Vessels
. According to the blurb, she had six spas, a steam room, five restaurants – including one run by a celebrity chef – and a contemporary décor that demonstrated ‘a love for elegance and a passion for today’s modern lifestyle’. She could even boast onboard gravity, thanks to the spinning circular deck set into the middle of the giant trapezoid hull. As they coasted towards her, Misha was irritated to see that, even though the
Lili Damita
had a perfectly good docking computer, Glen insisted on flicking the settings over to manual, and proceeded to slide into a parking spot with textbook ease. ‘Smooth like substitute nutrient paste,’ said Glen, winking at Phoebe, who just stared at her nails and turned a bit red.

‘I hope they validate.’ Glen examined his ticket stub as they rode the lift from the parking terminal up to the ships’ arrivals lounge. ‘Ten credits for a half-hour stay? And they call
me
a pirate.’

‘Nobody calls you a pirate, Glen,’ said Phoebe, with a sigh.

‘Clean clothes are fun clothes, Phoebe Clag,’ chirped the lift’s automatic advertising system. ‘Laundry facilities available on level two.’

‘One weird trick to increase girth, Misha Bulgakov,’ it added, after another quick body-scan.

‘We should start taking the stairs,’ said Misha, glowering at the holo-fac display.

A stately rotating hologram of Cliff Ganymede’s head stared down at them from the middle of the chintzy lounge, messages of condolence scrolling through the air beneath it. A couple of bored bellhops loitered by the ticket desk. Various props and pieces of
Galloping Ganymede!
memorabilia were dotted about the place.

‘Oh, wow, look at this,’ said Misha, pointing to a big fibreglass egg looming by some baggage trolleys. ‘It’s the Roc egg from season three, episode six, “You Can’t Fry A Hyper-Omelette Without Breaking Free From Self Doubt”. And here’s the Cup of Creative Empowerment from season nine!’

‘So what’s the deal with this Cliff Ganymede guy, anyway?’ said Glen. ‘Why’s he so popular?’

‘He was the first person to really try to meld the two genres of “self-help” and “spaceport thriller”,’ said Misha enthusiastically. ‘It’s actually a brilliant idea – you get to transform your drab life into something much more dynamic and goal-orientated, whilst at the same time reading about Thargoid invasions and smuggled narcotics.’

‘Sounds dumb,’ said Glen. ‘You know what’s a good TV show? That one where they do surgery to make people look like zoo animals.’

‘Hi,’ said Phoebe, walking up to the ticket desk. ‘Three tickets to the Ganymede convention, please.’

The man behind the desk laughed. Then he looked apologetic when they didn’t laugh along with him. ‘I’m sorry, I thought you were doing a funny joke. The convention is sold out. There’s a twelve-year waiting list.’

‘The thing is,’ Phoebe leant forward, and dropped her voice to a whisper, ‘we’re here to investigate a murder.’

‘Sorry,’ said the man again, as unmoved as if he heard that six times a day. ‘Perhaps you’d be interested in one of the other events? Are any of you in plastics? There’s a plastics symposium on deck three. Or, if you’re fans of Zargella Lombard, the movie star, she’s doing a cabaret this evening. I hear there’s an amazing bit where she duets with one of the singing civets of Proxima Five. It’s actually a very cruel process because the “singing” is just a side effect of their unsuccessfully trying to digest Lavian gin berries. That’s what makes it so brilliant. Your hen would get in half-price, by the way.’

Phoebe pouted. She hadn’t been expecting to fall down at the very first hurdle. ‘This sort of shit never happened to the Three Investigators,’ she said, scowling.

‘Do you think we could break in?’ suggested Misha, trying to be helpful.

‘I don’t fancy our chances much.’ She jabbed a thumb towards where a security robot with a laser for a face bobbled about near the doors.

‘Leave this to the G-Dog,’ said Glen, cricking his neck, and striding over to a small crowd of people standing behind a velvet rope. They were all holding up little signs, waiting for recent arrivals.

One of the signs had ‘Cliff Ganymede Theatre Troop’ written on it. It was being held up by a girl in a T-shirt emblazoned with the slogan ‘BE AN AUTHENTIC LEADER, NOT A THARGOID CLONE’.

Glen walked straight up to her, and stuck his hand out. ‘Hi there,’ he said.

‘Are you with the theatre troop?’ said the T-shirt girl, looking him up and down.

‘Yes, we are. Theatre. Greasepaint. Roar of the crowd. All that stuff. I’m riddled with neuroses, because I’m an actor, and she’s quite easy,’ he pointed to Phoebe, ‘because she’s an actress. And this guy’s here too for some reason.’

‘Oh! Well, what a relief!’ the girl beamed. ‘You’re even slightly early.’

‘Yeah, about that,’ Glen sauntered back to the ticket desk. He leaned over and read the man’s name-badge. ‘Hey, Dan. There’s a chance another lot will turn up here claiming to be the
real
theatre troop, but they are, of course, impostors.’

‘Impostors?’

‘Terrorists,’ whispered Glen conspiratorially. ‘You should neutralise them before they have a chance to activate their exploding shoes, or whatever it is they use these days. Aim for the head.’

‘Thanks,’ said the ticket booth man, smiling. ‘I’ll let security know to be on the lookout.’

‘I like your hen – is that an actor thing?’ said the girl, ushering them towards the big double doors at the far end of the arrivals lounge. ‘I’m Denise, by the way, society treasurer, and I’ll be looking after you. Actually, I don’t want to boast, but this performance was my idea.’

‘Well, it was a
great
idea, Denise,’ Glen fixed her with the full-beam of his grin. Denise blushed, swiped an ID at the security bots and took a deep breath. At the same time she pulled a pistol from her belt and flicked off the safety.

‘Can’t be too careful,’ she said, with a grimace. ‘Stay close, just in case.’

They stepped inside a vaulted function room, built on such a gigantic scale that it made everyone feel as if they’d been hit by some kind of impossible shrink-ray. Aside from the size, though, it was kind of disappointing. If the décor had maybe once demonstrated a passion for elegance and today’s modern lifestyle, it now looked, to Misha’s dismay, as if all it was demonstrating was a passion for bloodstains and bullet holes. There were lots of stalls and merchandise booths, but most of them were on fire. The statue built out of collectible soaps was half melted. A few hollow-eyed convention goers loitered around, buying hats and bandaging wounds, but they all seemed twitchy and shell-shocked. There were evil-looking scorch marks all over the place. It smelled of explosive and discharged plasma rifles and death.

‘There are more corpses than I’d expected on a fan cruise,’ said Phoebe, nervously looking at a big stack of body bags piled up in one corner.

‘Sorry,’ said Denise. ‘Somebody should have put those in the incinerator by now. It’s been a difficult time, as you can imagine. I can’t tell you how important it is that this evening’s performance goes well,’ she added, guiding them through the smoking wreckage. ‘The peace treaty was only signed last week, so things are still pretty fragile.’

‘Peace treaty?’ repeated Phoebe, confused.

‘I’m afraid the shipping wars have been going on for as long as anyone can remember,’ said Denise with a nod, as if that explained everything. ‘But it’s so exciting to have you here! We could have just used avatars, I know a lot of people say you can’t even tell the difference nowadays, but I think it’s so much better to use actual actors. You can’t fake the twinkle in the human eye, can you? I just know that you’re really going to bring the piece alive. Obviously when Cliff died so unexpectedly we were robbed rather of a
Galloping Ganymede!
season finale, so the hope is that this enactment of what it might have been like will help bring about a much needed sense of closure for everyone.’

A small gaggle of fans inched in their direction, but Denise shot a warning stun blast above their heads and they backed away. She swiped the trio through another door. ‘Right, this is your dressing room. The show doesn’t get going for another two hours, so you’ve got a bit of time to relax.’ She frowned, suddenly noticing something. ‘Where are your costumes?’

‘We had some trouble on the way over,’ Glen rolled his eyes. ‘Asteroids. Bloody asteroids, man, am I right?’

‘Oh well, I suppose that shouldn’t be a problem, it’s not like there’s a shortage of the stuff around here. I’ll have some delivered to you. Who is playing who? No, wait, let me work it out. Obviously, you must be Princess Francine, because she’s the woman one–’ Denise nodded at Phoebe – ‘and of course you must be “Clive” Ganymede, that goes without saying, because of your easy charm and toned musculature.’ She grinned at Glen. ‘So I suppose you must be Skrag? Ganymede’s ratty, but well-meaning, half Thargoid ward-come-butler?’

Misha pulled a face. ‘Yes, that’s me, I guess.’

‘I’ve got to check on a delivery of commemorative plates. Anything you need before I go?’

‘As it happens, there is, Denise. We were hoping we might get a chance to have a quick word with Marty Zeevon?’ said Phoebe.

‘Why do you want to talk to Mister Zeevon?’

‘Actor stuff,’ said Glen. ‘I think speaking to someone who actually
knew
Cliff would really help me inhabit the character.’

‘Of course! But I’m sorry, Mister Zeevon won’t be arriving until the after-show party. You’ll be able to see him then. He’ll be doing a signing along with the talk. So, anyhow, hope you break a leg tonight! Is that what we’re meant to say?’ Denise smiled apologetically at Phoebe. ‘That wasn’t supposed to be a reference to your freakish cybernetic limb by the way.’

She gave them a cheery wave and disappeared back into the hall. Phoebe slumped onto a couch.

‘Well, that was weird,’ she said.