A Game of Battleships (37 page)

‘Except the witches,’ Rhianna put in.

‘You’d know about
that
,’ Prong replied, which struck Smith as harsh. ‘I suppose I could have 
escaped like that weasel 462, but no. Coming back here seemed rather more in line with my duties of 
faith. Especially since it will involve killing the unrighteous. Namely,
you.
Decadent, all of you,” Prong added, almost sadly. ‘Your men are weaklings, your women strumpets. You all deserve a good sacred 
beating.’

‘Look,’ said Smith, ‘I realise you’re angry, old chap, but –’

‘I’m not old! You keep calling me that and I’ll plug you!’ Prong’s hand wobbled as he raised the 
gun. His finger had to be weak, Smith thought. Perhaps if he could keep Prong talking for long enough, the old bugger would have to run to the toilet or lose control of his weapon. Hopefully, not both at once.

Smith glanced at Suruk. The alien flexed his fingers and nodded.

‘Right,’ Prong rasped, ‘Unlock the doors and take me to the cockpit. Then, you'll fly this piece of 
unholy junk back to New Eden and face divine justice. Because if you don’t, I’ll shoot one of your 
concubines.’

Everyone yelled and moved at once. Smith leaped aside and drew his Civiliser. Suruk flicked out 
a knife and threw it in the same motion. Rhianna ran for the door, and tripped on the edge of her skirt.

Carveth shouted ‘Tosser!’

Prong’s bionics made him astonishingly quick. He ducked and lashed out. His bony hand caught 
Carveth's jacket and in a second he had shoved the end of his gun against her side. ‘Nobody move!’

Prong snarled. Then he added ‘Ow, my knees.’ He stood up slowly, pulling Carveth with him. ‘Nice try,” 
he said.

‘I actually find the term “concubine” really offensive,’ Rhianna said.

Prong looked down. Suruk’s knife had hit him in the chest, where the organs had given up long 
ago. He had bionics for that sort of thing. ‘Just get the door open, or the harlot gets it.’

‘He means it!’ Carveth cried. ‘Just in case you’re wondering, he really means it!’

‘Give up, Prong,’ Smith said. ‘It's over. I tell you what. . once you’ve finished sewing mailbags, 
you can do the citizenship tests and, provided you’re no longer carrying on like an idiot out of the Dark Ages, you could come and live in British space. Can’t say fairer than that, can you?’

‘Shut up,’ said Prong.

‘You’d qualify for a free bus pass. You could probably get new dentures on the NHS.’

‘Shut up! Now open the door or I shoot this whore of Babylon!’

Smith shook his head. ‘Very well. Carveth, open the door. We’ll settle with Mr Prong later.’

Slowly, she took a step towards the hold door. Prong kept beside her, as if glued to her hip.

‘Victory over the unbelievers,’ he chuckled. ‘And I got to stand close to a girl. Wonderful.’

Rhianna cleared her throat. ‘Excuse me. Er, Polly?’

Carveth looked over.

‘That’s the wrong door.’

‘No it’s not,’ Carveth said.

Smith wondered how Rhianna could have made such a basic mistake. Of course, women and 
maps, but really. . The truth fell on him like a brick. ‘She’s right, Carveth.’ He pointed. ‘
That
door.’

‘Indeed, little woman.’ If Suruk nodded any harder, Smith thought, his tusks would fall off.

‘Oh!’ Carveth said. ‘Duh! What was I thinking?’

Prong shoved her. ‘You people are so stupid you can’t find your own cockpits. Is it any wonder 
you lose?’ Smith could almost smell Prong's smile.

Carveth swallowed hard and pulled back the bolts. ‘Here we go,’ she said. ‘I hope you’re ready 
for this.’

She opened the door. Smith nodded to Suruk and they crept forward together.

Prong peered into the darkness. ‘The lights are off. Wait – I can see things blinking at the back.

What are those? Stars?’

‘Eyes, actually,’ Suruk said, and he pushed Prong in.

The Grand Mandrill stumbled into the engine room. Suruk slammed the door and shot the bolts.

Prong let out one long scream. It rose up, twisted into the metal rafters, dropped and curled away

into a death-rattle. For a moment the room was silent. Then, behind the door, a new voice said,
‘Ribit!’

Other frogs took up the croaking. The four crewmembers took in the sound of Suruk’s young.

‘Should we maybe. . I don’t know. . go and see?’ Carveth said.

Suruk shook his head. ‘By now they will have stripped him to the bone.’ He glanced at his watch.

‘And by
now
, they will have eaten the bones as well.’

‘I never thought,’ Rhianna said, ‘that I’d feel pity for a vicious homicidal maniac.’

‘I do not want your pit – ah…’ said Suruk. ‘Yes, I see what you mean.’

Rhianna turned round. She looked lost, as if she had just woken. ‘Isambard, did I do the right 
thing?’

‘You most certainly did,’ Smith replied. ‘Your quick thinking saved us all, Rhianna.’

‘But I violated my principles of non-violence. And in doing so I killed a man.’

‘Maybe, but you can take solace in the knowledge that he was an absolute knob.’

She shook her head. ‘So that’s it? A man’s life is worth less if he’s a knob?’

‘Well.. yes.’

‘Yup,’ Carveth said. ‘Sometimes you just have to choose the lesser of two evils. Do you eat 
horrible diet food or scoff cake and worry about being fat? Cake every time. Tell me: who would you 
rather have around: me or genocidal, misogynist, knob-face Prong? If the answer isn’t me, don’t feel 
obliged to answer.’

‘You, of course,’ Rhianna said.

‘So there you go.’

‘She’s right,’ said Smith. ‘You did a great job.’ He put his arm around Rhianna’s waist.

Carveth came forward and patted Rhianna’s arm. ‘Thanks. You just saved us all.’

‘This calls for gin!’ Smith said.

‘Once again, Mazuran, victory is ours,’ Suruk declared. ‘Our enemies are fallen, my spawn have 
dined in style and now the females are touching one another like in that book about the finishing school that you keep under your bed. I think I shall leave you to it. Perhaps a hunting trip through the mirror would be diverting.’

He reached out, but his fingertips met only polished glass.

28th of August, 1863.

Today I closed the portal and concealed it in a wardrobe. The rest of the apparatus will be disguised as amateur photographic
gear. It seems a shame to destroy the research notes, though: with some minor alteration they might be passed of as an
entertainment for children. My cover story is perfect: I cannot see how anyone will ever suspect me of any wrongdoing.

Dodgson.

*

Smith opened the door and slipped into the conference room. ‘Well, I've never seen anything like it,’ 
C'Neth was saying, gesticulating grandly. ‘An absolute disgrace it was, terribly messy. But then, not being solid, things just go straight through me.’

‘Don't they just?’ Sann’di added.

Smith crept towards a chair at the back of the room. Captain Fitzroy waved, stood up and said 
‘Hullo, Smitty,’ in a hoarse whisper. ‘I saved you a seat.’ She looked very pleased with herself, which was understandable given that they had just won a space battle.

A certain fuzziness surrounded C'Neth. Smith wondered whether this was a sort of force field 
until he realised that it surrounded the entire room and that he had consumed quite a lot of gin. This was confirmed as his knee made loud and violent contact with a waste-paper bin.

‘Arse!’ he hissed.

‘Hallo there!’ C'Neth called. Smith froze. With a soft rumble, heads and equivalent organs turned 
to him. ‘Come in for the signing, have we? Always room for one more, as they say. Here, are you alright?

You look terribly flushed.’

‘Important fleet business,’ Smith said, rubbing his knee. ‘The Imperial Fleet never sleeps, you 
know.’

‘Not when we’re around!’ Fitzroy added.

‘I'll bet they don’t,’ said C'Neth. He formed eyebrows and raised them.

‘I’ve been doing something very important, actually,’ Smith said.

C’Neth said nothing. He seemed content to let Smith explain himself – which, now that the 
discussion had falled silent, was the last thing Smith wanted to do.

From their little tables, the representatives of the galaxy’s powers stared at him. Was he a 
drunkard, a mental patient, a laser-shocked veteran smuggled in to demonstrate the Empire’s devotion to the cause of liberty? The Yothian ambassador’s speaking-cone began to strobe red; Smith wondered 
whether this represented laughter or a warning signal.

‘Now look here,’ he said, much louder than he had intended. It occurred to him that the 
delegates were already making a perfectly good job of looking at him. ‘I can’t tell you what I’ve been up to, because it’s secret, but let me assure you that it’s been very important for everyone.

‘I think you should sign this treaty because there are
sides
here, don’t you know, and it’s time you all decided which one you’re on. There’s a war on, after all. The Ghasts and Yull don’t care if you want to stand to one side. They’ll come for us all, and they’d rather fight us one at a time. Believe me, no man is an island – except for the Isle of Man, which is an island near Ireland and not really a man although it’s got men on it. . but that’s beside the point.’

Smith had hoped that this would clarify things, but the delegates continued to stare at him.

Governor Barton leaned across and said something to Felicity Fitzroy, and she suddenly released a set of percussive snorts, like bullets being cranked through a gatling gun. Smith persisted. If she thought he was so blasted funny, she could damn well have a bit more.

‘Look…’ he said, easing a finger into his collar, which seemed to be trying to silence him like a 
boa constrictor, ‘…you may not like Britain. We may look a bit funny to you. We don’t really do 
emotions, and I know some foreign types have cooked up the idiot notion that we’re arrogant. But 
listen.. if the world was a bit more like Britain there would be a damned sight less murdering and wife-beating and stupid nonsense going on because some tinpot dictator or made-up man in the sky says so.

So there. If you stand for murder and tyranny, or if you look the other way when innocent people are 
getting done over, then the only thing I’ve got for you is a choice between hot lead or cold steel, by God!’

The translation machines did their work, perhaps a little too well, and there was a ripple of 
movement as a number of delegates prepared to vacate their seats. Smith decided to moderate his tone, 
so as not to worry them.

‘Peoples of the galaxy,’ he said, his voice softening a little, ‘at the end of the day, what matters is tolerance. Tolerance is the key, because once we start tolerating arses, the whole thing’ll go wrong. I’ve done over more evil buggers than you’d believe, and I’ll do the whole lot if needs be. Why? Because I’m not in the market to take orders from gits, that’s why. Common decency, dammit.’

He looked around, vaguely hoping that the room would break into applause and drown him out, 
or that he would at least faint and thus escape this mess. What the hell did all these people want from him, anyhow? A tap-dance routine? He wondered where he was, remembered that he had been talking 
about people he couldn’t bloody stand, and found it quite easy to carry on.

‘Do you know, the Edenites would murder my chaps because they weren’t meek enough or some 
claptrap. Well, I mean to say, you can't have that. And the Ghasts and Yull are no better: they’d do in every one of us if they could. And that’s why we need to stand firm on this. Hand in hand in tentacle, or whatever those things you’re waving at me are, so sign the treaty and let’s get cracking, eh?’

Someone tapped him on the shoulder. He turned to see Suruk behind him, smiling fiercely.

Rhianna and Carveth were at the door. Behind him, the delegates began to mutter.

‘Well, that’s just about torn it,’ Smith said, and he walked out.

*

‘Well,’ said Rhianna, ‘you said what you believed. And isn’t that the real truth?’ The crew of the
John Pym
sat on the benches outside the hall, as if expecting a doctor to emerge and break bad news.

‘It certainly came from the heart,’ Carveth added. ‘As to which end it emerged from.. ’

‘It was a bold speech,’ Suruk said. ‘Personally, I would have ended it by charging into battle, but 
each to his own.’

Ten minutes later, Captain Fitzroy emerged from the hall, closing the door behind her. She 
paused, looked down at them and let out her virulent laugh. ‘Tolerance! Very good!’

‘Yes,’ Smith said, ‘very funny. Ho ho.’

‘They signed, you know.’

Smith jerked upright. ‘Really? After all that?’

She shrugged. ‘Well, truth be told, they signed up ten minutes before you arrived. I did mean to 
tell you, but it seemed a shame to cut you off. Besides, after your little talk, I doubt they’d dare change their minds.’ She yawned and stretched. ‘Well, my work here is done. See you soon, Smitty. Keep in 
trouble and don’t do anyone I wouldn’t do.’ She saluted. ‘God save the king. Cheery bye!’

*

‘All the parties signed,’ W said. On the screens before him, the leaders of the Service smiled and 
handed round the biscuits.

George Benson polished his glasses. ‘Also, we have the device.’

‘Excellent work,’ said Hereward Khan. ‘Really excellent.’

‘It will need to be securely stored.’