Chronicles of Isambard Smith 05 - End of Empires (17 page)

‘It’s a pony!’

They peered through the bushes. The blue pony walked slowly towards the waterside, leaning back on the slope. It knew something was wrong, Smith saw. He looked at Rhianna and found that she was frowning in concentration, fingertips pressed to her temples.

Smith’s calf muscle began to ache and he shifted position. A branch crunched under his heel.

The pony glanced around, mane flapping, its wide eyes alarmed. Carveth said, ‘No, don’t –’ but it whirled and rushed into the undergrowth. Leaves fell behind it like a curtain, and it was gone.

‘You scared him away!’ Carveth exclaimed. She turned, and looked Smith in the eye. ‘Don’t 
ever
scare ponies.’

Her intensity surprised him. Smith replied, ‘No I didn’t.’

Suruk gave a polite little cough, and pointed.

The jungle burst open before them. An enormous tusked head pushed through the branches, followed by a body the size of a rhino’s. The skin flickered, as if poorly tuned-in, and became paler as the creature emerged. Its eyes, mounted on stereoscopic cones, swivelled like gun turrets.

A moment later, a voice came from its back.

‘Frote! Frote, stop that at once!’ The rider, who had been knocked prone along its spine, sat up and blinked behind his spectacles. He smoothed his jacket, and adjusted his helmet. ‘Hello?’

Suruk stared up at the rider, at once astonished and appalled. ‘Morgar? What are you doing here? And do the Ravnavari Lancers know that you are impersonating them?’

‘Suruk? Good lord.’ Morgar took his glasses off, stared at the lenses, and slipped them back on. ‘Well, fancy that. Whatever brings you here?’

‘Bringing deadly vengeance to the scum of Yullia, of course. But why are you in that uniform?’ Suruk demanded. ‘The last time we met, brother, you spoke at great lengths about under-floor heating. Is there great demand for warm towel-rails in the jungles of Andor?’

‘Actually, I am a Ravnavari Lancer.’ Morgar peered down disapprovingly, like an old schoolteacher dealing with an irritating question. ‘I was commissioned to design a new restroom suite. As such, I ride with the lancers.’

‘Bah!’ Suruk said. ‘I have never heard of such nonsense.’

Morgar gathered the reins and sat up. ‘Well, stranger things have happened in the army. Our medical orderly used to be a professor of French literature. He told the colonel that he liked looking at Balsac and they had him checking the squaddies for bollock-rot.’

Suruk shook his head. ‘They must have asked for warriors used to sitting in command. You thought they said “commode” and signed up.’

A smallish dragonfly, no longer than a man’s arm, flew past. Frote opened his maw. There was a wet crack, and his tongue flicked out, hit the insect and whipped it into his mouth. Frote crunched it happily, while Carveth pulled a face.

Morgar folded his arms. ‘And what have
you
done, then?’

‘I?’ Suruk said. ‘Well, I slew many lemming men, took many skulls, and joined the great quest to rid this planet of the conniving Yull. Oh, I also had children, but I got better. Perhaps I could leave some of my spawn in one of your charming bidets.’

Morgar adjusted his glasses. ‘Suruk, do I detect a whiff of jealousy?’

Smith thought that Suruk was being rather sniffy about it all. The old warrior had always regarded his brother as somewhat effete. Perhaps Morgar was turning over a new, bloodstained, leaf. ‘Well,’ Smith said, ‘good on you, Morgar. It’s not many who get to ride with the Lancers. On which subject,’ he added, ‘shouldn’t they be with you?’

‘What?’ Morgar twisted round, looking behind him. ‘We’re out on patrol. The others must have – oh, bugger! Frote, get after them.’ He yanked the reins, and the shadar lumbered round. ‘Quickly, Frote!’

The beast rushed at the nearest tree, and in a moment had swarmed up the trunk. Morgar yelped, apparently as surprised by this as the onlookers, and Frote bounded upwards, incredibly nimble for a creature of its size. The shadar bounced out, suspended in the air for a moment and, as it grabbed a new tree, its skin flickered into a deep, striped green. ‘I’ll send you a postcard!’ Morgar cried from somewhere high above them, and he was gone.

‘I worry about him,’ Suruk said.

‘I’ve got to admit,’ Smith said, ‘he’s not the most obvious person I’d imagine joining the Ravnavari Lancers.’

Rhianna shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I think it’s good that Morgar’s pursuing an alternative career choice – even if it is in a constricting patriarchal hierarchy dedicated to the preservation of the imperialist hegemony.’

‘I saw a pony,’ Carveth said. ‘Hey – Morgar had better not be chasing them or anything, because he’ll have me to answer to.’

* * *

They pushed on upriver, drawing ever closer to the source. Smith picked over the files as they advanced and the journey seemed to blur with the data, as if the further into the jungle Smith was, the closer he got to Wainscott’s brain. Which, to judge from the twists of the river, put them somewhere in his colon.

Rhianna meditated, and fortified her psychic powers by listening to a lot of Pink Zeppelin. Carveth moved from her bedroom to the cockpit and no further. Suruk retreated to the hold when he was not on watch, practising with his spear.

They passed a shuttle wing, jutting out of the water like the fin of an enormous shark. A family of wholks lumbered through the shallows, sifting the water for nutrients and squirting it out of the holes in their tails. A four-winged razorbird landed on the roof and was promptly slain by Suruk. It began to rain.

Smith entered the cockpit and sat down next to Carveth. She was almost invisible under a duvet. In the hamster cage, Gerald’s wheel rattled.

‘Everything alright?’ Smith asked.

The duvet moved slightly. ‘Okay. Can we eat Wainscott’s cake, please?’

‘No. I can take over if you want some air.’

‘God no. Never get off the boat, that’s what I say. Except for ponies.’ She looked round. ‘Hey, what’s that?’

Smith took out the binoculars. ‘I don’t see anything.’

‘No, listen.’

Smith paused, straining to hear anything over the rumble of the engines and the squeak of Gerald’s wheel. But there was something – very faint, but something like music.

‘I’ll check,’ he said.

He strode to the hold, climbed the ladder and opened the hatch. Suruk crouched on top of the ship, motionless in the hot air.

‘I heard –’ Smith began, but Suruk raised a hand. The alien looked up, at the forest canopy and the sky above them.

‘Jets, Mazuran,’ he said. ‘Jets and Gustav Holst.’

And suddenly ships roared above them, tearing out of the sky like meteors, twisting in flight. There were three of them, British fighters, Hellfires, and over the sound of thrusters there roared
Mars, Bringer of War
.

The fighters sank down in the sky, and the lead vessel dropped below the treeline, into the gap over the river. Blue fire flared on its undercarriage. The river slopped and rippled from the jets, as though huge creatures thrashed beneath the surface.

The music was almost deafening. Someone had stripped the missile pods off the wings and replaced them with enormous curling funnels, like gramophone horns. Smith could feel it: the Planets Suite played at such volume that the sound seemed to push through his flesh, into his bones.

The volume sank to a bearable level, and a voice barked out of the speakers.

‘What ho! Thought I recognised that crate. What happened, your ship fall out the sky or something?’

Smith looked at Suruk, and they both realised who they were addressing. It was the Hellfire of Wing Commander Shuttleswade, the one that Carveth had piloted at the battle of Wellington Prime. They were speaking to its onboard computer. In the cockpit, Shuttleswade raised a hand and waved.

‘Been blasting the lemmings,’ the ship explained. Its landing gear unfolded, glistening chrome against the drab fuselage. ‘Look at this. They rigged me up new landing legs. Should be able to kick a few furry arses with these! So, where’s the girlie?’

‘Carveth? She’s driving. Look, we’re supposed to be on a secret mission –’

‘Ah, say no more! I’ll let the chaps know.’

‘No, it’s a secret.’

‘Right you are. We’re out strafing the Yull. They’re gathering their chaps, you know. We’ll buzz them a bit, slow them down and all that. Like the music? It irritates the hell out of the furries! You heading that way?’

‘Yes,’ Smith called.

‘Watch yourself. The forest’s crawling with lemmings. Good hunting, chaps!’

The thrusters roared, and the ship rose into the air. It turned and shot off to the southwest, music parping from its sides. Smith was pretty sure that he could hear the autopilot humming along.

Rhianna stood blinking at the bottom of the ladder, a roll-up smouldering in her hand. ‘Thought I heard something,’ she said vaguely. ‘Is it raining?’

* * *

Up ahead, a scout-walker lay in the shallows like a giant metal chicken. The Union Jack stencilled on the side had started to fade. The exposed cogs were clogged with silt. One of the legs had been twisted at the ankle by an explosion. The pilot lay on the bank, in an advanced state of deadness.

‘He must have trodden on a mine,’ Smith said. ‘Or a lemming.’

They passed the walker very slowly, as though shuffling past a coffin. Carveth said, ‘The Empire’s stuffed, isn’t it?’

‘Certainly not! Whatever gives you that idea?’

She said, ‘I don’t know. I just… well, I wonder if we’re going to win.’

‘Of course we’re going to win. We’re British, for God’s sake. We have the finest soldiers in the galaxy. We never surrender and never give up.’

‘The Yull won’t give up, either.’

‘That’s because they’re stupid lunatics. We’ll just have to shoot them all. No loss there, as Suruk would say. We have moral fibre, you know.’

‘They have lemming spirit.’

‘Humans.’ Smith looked around. Suruk stood in the doorway, arms folded. ‘Is that a skull up ahead?’

‘Probably,’ Carveth said grimly, and turned. ‘Bloody hell,’ she said, leaning into the windscreen, ‘what
is
that?’

As they turned the river bend, a huge white ball appeared. It was around twelve feet tall, slightly embedded in the ground. Smith saw dents in the front of it.

‘Is that something’s skull?’ Suruk asked. ‘And does it have any friends we could fight?’

Smith said, ‘Slow us down, Carveth.’

‘Gladly.’ The engines rumbled down.

Smith adjusted the binoculars. He saw features on the front of the ball: a crude shelf that formed scowling eyebrows, and two glaring holes under it. As he took in the grinning mouth and the beard the size of a cow-catcher on a western train, he realised what it looked like: a mask from ancient Greek comedy, grinning over the waterfront.

‘It’s a sculpture,’ Smith said. ‘I think it’s meant to be Wainscott.’

Carveth sighed. ‘Really? That? I think I need a drink.’

‘I remember him being somewhat smaller than that,’ Suruk observed. ‘And less cheerful.’

‘I suppose he’s been having fun,’ Smith said, and he could not keep the apprehension out of his voice. He swallowed. ‘Bring us in,’ he said, getting up. ‘I’m going to get the weapons. And the gin.’

* * *

Suruk opened the hatch and hot, smelly air flooded the hold as if they had unsealed a box of rotten fruit. Smith climbed out, already feeling the prickling of sweat on his back, and helped Rhianna out. She wore an unusually practical outfit: ancient combat trousers, with a green poncho over the top. She resembled the sort of person who might have given spiritual advice to the Picts.

The stone head looked like a vast snowball. They walked along the spine of the
John Pym
, climbed down the wing, and stepped onto damp, soggy land.

‘Is this a vine, or a snake that’s asleep?’ Carveth asked, pointing.

Suruk prodded it with his spear. ‘Vine.’

At the top of the river bank, where the trees became really thick, the sculpture of Wainscott grinned down at them like a drunken giant. Something about it made Smith uncomfortable – no, he decided, that was not quite right. Everything about it made him uncomfortable.

Suruk made a clicking noise. Smith glanced round. ‘Mazuran,’ said the M’Lak. ‘Company.’

His beady eyes flicked right. Smith looked, and saw a row of beetle people, each the size of a bull, about fifty feet away. They stood further downriver in a motionless row.

‘Do you think they’ve seen us?’ Carveth whispered.

‘I’d expect so,’ Smith replied. He cupped his hands around his mouth. ‘You there, beetle people! Hello!’ He looked back to his crew. ‘Wave, everyone.’

They all waved. The beetle people didn’t respond. Smith put that down to them not having hands.

He pointed at the sculpture. ‘Jolly good, this! Well done! Very, er, naïve.’ He turned to the others. ‘Who’s the chap who makes those blobs?’

Rhianna said, ‘Henry Moore?’

‘Moore!’ Smith shouted, pointing. ‘Moore!’

As one, the beetle people turned and slipped into the forest.

Carveth watched them go. ‘Either they’ve taken offence, or they’ve gone to make you another one. Assuming that they made it.’

‘I think it’s amazing,’ Rhianna said. ‘The simple alien people, producing this authentic art.’

‘Actually,’ Smith replied, ‘I think Wainscott might have made it himself,’ Smith replied.

‘Oh. Well, in that case, it’s kind of creepy.’

A man stepped out from the trees – not as if he had been hiding there, but as though he had just stumbled upon them all.

He wore a Panama hat and combat gear. An enormous pistol was strapped to his right thigh, and a flat-sided bottle of whisky to the left. It was empty. Bizarrely, he had drawn a tie and lapels onto his breastplate, and it was that and the stubble that made Smith recognise him.

‘Dreckitt,’ he said.

‘Rick!’ Carveth exclaimed.

Dreckitt looked them over for a moment, as if they stirred a dim memory. Then he said, ‘Yeah, sure. Good to see you fellers. You especially, lady,’ he added to Carveth. His voice seemed to firm up as he spoke, as if he was coming round.

‘How are you?’ Carveth asked.