Debatable Space (12 page)

We are clossse to my home. My flame burnsss brighter.

Alby is flickering and flashing like a wild fire. I can’t tell if he’s excited and emotional with homesickness, or if he’s
masturbating.

Alby is my dearest friend, however strange that seems. He is weird, unfathomable, terrifying to be with, but useful if you
have a tobacco habit and need a light. He is also the only member of my crew who likes my jokes. (However this may be because,
as an alien, he doesn’t know any better.)

And now we’re approaching his home – the vast and glorious artificial sun called , known to humans as Flare. This is the home
of the flame beasts, created by them after these energy-eating ravening sentient plasma-flame entities had devoured their
own sun. Their new home of Flare is a star larger than most solar systems. In the process of creating it, the flame beasts
are estimated to have eliminated 4,556,767,699 species of life, including twelve possible-sentient species. This was not from
malice but from oversight; at that time, it hadn’t occurred to the flame beasts that planets could be anything other than
fuel.

The flame beasts are an immensely powerful species. They cannot be attacked, invaded or intimidated, and any attempt to declare
war on them would be futile. To bomb or fusion-blast them would be like throwing fingers to a hungry lion. They are immune
to all disease, and cannot be affected by any poison or micro-organism.

They do have their own natural processes of decay and death, which are poorly understood. But essentially, the flame beasts
are unkillable, and infinitely gifted. Every flame beast can speak every human language. And every flame beast is familiar
with every detail of what happened in every century, every year and every month of human history. The flame beasts speak Mandarin
Chinese and the click language Xhosa without impediment; in every other human language they have the characteristic flame-beast
sibilance.

And yet, it seems, there is much that humanity can teach these beings. For the tragedy of the flame beasts is that for millions
of years they have existed in a state of tedious stasis. Ennui, despair and inertia enveloped them. But since their first
contact with humanity the entire species has been invigorated, and the flames have had a new lease of life.

And this is because, from human beings, the flame beasts have learned all about art, ballet, drama, opera, classical music,
popular music, pyrotechnics… and soap opera. The last of these arenas of human endeavour has, to the astonishment of
many academics and scientists, proved the most addictive of all. The community of flame beasts has become an avid devourer
of the great and prolific long form drama output of the human colonies. They are passionate, knowledgeable and completely
besotted with the folly and the stupidity of human nature, as exemplified in shows such as
The Magellan Girls
,
Paxos: The Early Years
,
Martin Devonzi and His Marvellous Amazing Family
, and a myriad others.

And so, as part of my barter, I come armed with a disc containing 400 hours of
Argon
, a sophisticated, sexy and often hilarious soap opera about a world in which time is lived backwards. The sex scenes are,
trust me, to die for.

It’s time. I suit up, and join Alby in the airlock. We exit on the lee side of the ship, using the hull as a sunshield to
protect us from the impossible glare of the giant sun. We are soon joined by a delegation of flame beasts, who arrive in the
form of a series of shooting stars. The stars become sparkles, which explode into a series of multi-coloured supernovae. The
sky crackles and explodes with colours and swirling fiery shapes.

Then the lights become a cloud, and the cloud becomes a complex pattern of light flashes. I can follow some of what the flame
beasts are saying. I know that a small flash followed by a large flash followed by a small flash implies negativity. I know
that a shimmering series of complexly patterned flashes alternating at the rate of 0.01 seconds per flicker denotes scepticism
merged with irony with an undertow of courtesy, thus:

(and so on, and so forth.)

But as for the actual content of the flame-beast language – that is beyond any human comprehension. It is clearly some kind
of binary or trinary code, but no human-built computer has ever been able to crack it.

“What do they say?” I ask Alby.

“They agree to the barter,” Alby tells me. “They will retain Lena as their prisssoner under the sssupervision of a Flare Elder,
namely mysssself. In return they accept your gift of drama offeringsss, but they also ask you to particccipate in a long-term
training programme for our ssspecies in the hissstory, technique and sssstylisssstic philossssophy of the music known as bluessss
and boogie-woogie.”

“That’s not possible!” I exclaim, startled.

“It’sss a prerequisssite. Your expertissse precedesss you.”

“Then… I’ll do my best.”

“If you betray the bargain in any way, my people pledge a blood feud and will destroy you, your crew members, your family
and your descendants in a methodical way for a period of one hundred human years.”

“Fair.”

“I feel a pang. I yearn to be with my kind.”

“Will you stay?”

“Perhapssss.”

“We need you.”

“I know.”

The sky explodes again, with light and beauty.

Alby laughs with joy. And I shudder, for his laughter is like the sound of snakes sliding down your oesophagus, and mating
in your colon.

I strum a chord. Gently, letting the notes hang in the air like whisky on the palate. We are in the ship’s situation room,
the acoustics are better in here.

“What’s the matter at the mill?” I say to Alby.

“What’sss the matter at the mill?” he repeats patiently.

“I got corn to grind. But I cain’t,” I tell him.

“And why iss that?” he asks me, intrigued.

“’Cause the mill’s done broke down.”

“The mill hasss done broke down?” Bafflement suffuses Alby’s every syllable.

I strum another chord, and sing gently:

“I got some corn

And I put in a sack

Johnny went to the mill

But he come right back.

What’s the matter at the mill?”

“That’s when you come in,” I tell Alby.

“What’sss the matter at the mill?”

“
No that’s my line. Your line is: ‘
It’s done broke down
.’”

ALBY
:   “
It’sss done broke down.”

ME
:   
“What’s the matter at the mill?”

ALBY
:   
“It’sss done broke down.”

ME
:   
“Well people are a talking all over town

      Telling me that the mill done broke down.

      I cain’t get no grinding.

      ’Cause the mill’s done broke down.”

US:
   
“What’s the matter at the mill?

      “It’s done broke down.

      “What’s the matter at the mill?

      “It’s done broke down.

      “Tell me what’s the matter at the mill?”

I feel a haunting pang as our voices merge. Alby’s natural tones have modulated into a rich, evocative bluesy groan. I strum
my acoustic guitar loudly, crudely, simply, from the heart.

In Alby’s world, of course, there is no such thing as ground corn. There are no mills. There is only energy and fusion and
an eternal flickering flame. But I know that once, just once, in the history of his people, disaster struck. The flame beasts’
native sun was fatally depleted. Their sun broke down. It is their only significant piece of history, their only natural disaster.

I bathe in the light and heat of my best and least likely friend, this mercurial, pedantic, infinitely loyal walking ball
of fire. I segue into a wild, angry, sad guitar break, and then Alby chips in with his own bold improvisation:

“What’ssss the matter with the sun?

It’sss done broke down.

What’ssss the matter with the ssssun?

It’sss done broke down.

I can’t get no

Tell me what’sss the matter with the sssun!”

Harry and Jamie challenge me to a poker game. I spurn them initially, but then begin to weaken. I am getting bored of my state
of captivity.

“But no card counting,” Jamie warns me. “We know you have that remote computer in your head. But that’s against the rules.
We play the old-fashioned way.”

I smile and accept the challenge.

I don’t need a computer. I am, innately, a brilliant card counter. Ha! This new generation, they’re used to having surgically
implanted computer chips to help them with their calculations. But I grew up in an era where we learned mental arithmetic
in school. I was taught my times tables! And I have a naturally retentive mind.

So even now, after all this time, despite a few lapses, I can control my memory like a fluid supple living thing. I can choose
to forget whole swathes of past, keeping only the record of them in my computer data chips. But when I want to recall a fact,
it will appear immediately, without hesitation. It is a skill that has allowed me to retain clarity through all these hundreds
of years.

And I am bound to win this game, of course, because these two are so easy to read. Jamie is a man in the body of a child,
but he has nonetheless the
soul
of a child. He is over a hundred years old, but chose to have his puberty retarded in order to retain that precious, special
clarity which only young children have. As a result, Jamie thinks more intensely than others, he feels more intensely. But
he is frozen at the cusp of manhood, able to dream and desire, unable to deliver. It makes him edgy, dangerous, and desperate.

With Harry it’s different of course. If I were naked and raging, with unwaxed hairy legs, and with my arse sticking up in
the air, then
maybe
, just maybe, he might regard me as a female of the species. But in my present beautiful, perfumed, civilised state – no chance.
Harry is a Loper through and through. He was banished from the community of Lopers for eating his own father (an act of barbarity
that is so typical of these lower types.) But though he is forced to belong to the world of humans, Harry is more wolf than
man; more pack animal than team player. His humanity is just a façade he assumes.

Flanagan is oblivious to all this. But I can smell it on Harry. I know that he would long to devour his Captain, to eat him
limb by limb and bite up his eyes, and to savour with his last bite the desperate death rattle in Flanagan’s quivering larynx.

So I have no sexual power over Harry, but I can smell his every emotion, almost his every thought.

“Raise you five, see you five.”

“I’ll see you five and raise you another ten.”

I win, and win again. At the end of the game, both Jamie and Harry are looking sheepish. Then I get a sudden whiff of something
from Harry. An emotion I haven’t felt from him before. I glance at Jamie – and catch the same emotion in his eyes.

Pity.

“We’re surrendering you to the custody of the flame beasts,” Harry explains. “They will guarantee your safety. When the ransom
is paid, you will return safely to civilisation.”

He’s lying. I can’t smell it now, but I just know it. Why else would he be looking at me so kindly? Why else… ?

With a sudden surge of horror, I realise the ghastly truth. They let me win.

I could have told you that, if you’d only asked.

“Shut the fuck up!” I scream at the voice in my head. Then I realise I have spoken it aloud. Jamie and Harry look at me kindly.
The boy and the beast.

They have been humouring me. Because they know I’m doomed. These two sad, pathetic specimens are being nice to me, because
they feel sorry for me.

I stifle a sob.

I dine with our prisoner, the cold and beautiful Lena.

I notice some interesting things. She’s fussy with her food. She talks to herself, without realising what she is doing, though
that may simply be her way of communicating with her remote computer. She drinks large schooners of sherry, and even larger
glasses of red wine. She picks at her food. She farts openly, without any attempt at concealment. She is taciturn, never asks
questions. But when she does speak, she’s appallingly garrulous. She regaled me for several hours with stories of her time
as a crime fighter in ancient Earth. A man called Tom featured frequently. The stories were rambling, but fascinating. But
my, she did go on.

She is very opinionated, about everything. Society has decayed. Courtesy is a forgotten art. Television has gone downhill.
Young men lack sexual charisma, they are just “boys” now, in her eyes. When she pours herself a glass of wine, it doesn’t
occur to her to pour me a glass. At one point, she falls asleep when I am talking. I am halfway through a sentence, and she
damn well cat-naps off. Then she wakes, farts briefly, and continues with one of her stories from half an hour previously.

She is, in short,
old
. Everything about her, apart from her sleek and sexual body and her shimmeringly wonderful face, exudes withered and arid
age. She’s selfish, self-contained, cautious, cowardly, bigoted, small-minded, self-pitying, spoiled, self-indulgent, arrogant,
uninterested in the feelings of others.

Was she always like this? I can’t tell. But I do know that she has wrapped herself in so many comfort blankets that she can
no longer feel the air around her. She is cocooned.

I try to explain the reasons behind my course of action in kidnapping her. My ideals, my political imperative. She mocks me
mercilessly at this point.

“You’re just a pirate,” she tells me. “A savage!”

“I’m a soldier of fortune,” I reply mildly.

“You’re a butcher. You let that beast maul and bite me, for the sake of a grisly display to intimidate my son. And I saw what
you did earlier, on the merchant ship.” Her bitter words hang in the air. “I saw you behead two men!”