God Emperor of Didcot (12 page)

‘Which just goes to show,’ she added, ‘that if you’re going to take a long beam without proper protection, you’re best off getting it in the rear entrance.’

‘Hmm,’ said Smith. ‘So what do you suggest we do?’

She shrugged and turned the page of her magazine.

‘Land on the nearest standard-grav world and have a look. At worst I’ll have to do a bit of welding.’ She tapped the navigation console, causing the needles in several dials to spin wildly. ‘We’ll be passing Didcot 5 soon and I’ll run a scan: if that’s no good to land on we’ll have a look once we get to Suruk’s place, Didcot 6.’

‘Righto. How long will the repairs take?’

Carveth sucked in air. ‘Ooh, let’s see . . . Give it, say, an hour to check the hull, two hours max to spray on new sealant, fifteen minutes to suck on my teeth and tell you it’s tricky – about four hours ought to do it.’

‘Four hours? Are you sure it’ll take that long?’

‘Call it five.’

Smith took a sip of tea. He tasted it, swallowed, and thought: this stuff is precious now. How long until our reserves run out? With Urn blockaded the army could not be kept in tea. Without the forces to liberate Urn the Empire would be slowly wrung dry – and then its moral fibre would break. The people of the Empire would be left helpless and, without spine, no more capable of defending themselves than foreigners. We have to work fast, he thought. The fate of the Empire rests on our skill.

Suruk strolled in, put his face close to the windscreen and looked out into space. ‘Are we there yet?’

‘Few hours yet,’ Smith replied. ‘We’ve got to do some repairs first. What’s that you’re reading, Carveth?’

She held up the magazine. ‘This month’s
Girl Android
,’ she said. ‘“Ten Sexy Ways to Improve Your Processing Speed”.’

‘Why?’

‘Oh, no reason.’ She shrugged unconvincingly. ‘Just thought I might. I mean, you never know, right?’

‘She wishes to spawn with the other simulant,’ Suruk said.

‘What, Dreckitt?’ Smith replied. ‘Ugh. He struck me as a low sort of fellow. Not the type I’d want my crew dealing with. I take it you’re giggling at the absurdity of the idea, Carveth?’

‘Oh, of course,’ she said, grinning behind her magazine.

She frowned. ‘On an unrelated topic, do I look fat?’

‘Of course not.’ They looked around: Rhianna stood in the doorway. She entered in a swish of tie-dyed fabric. ‘Body image is just a construct, Polly. You should be happy with yourself no matter what your size.’

Carveth checked the scanner and sighed. ‘Which sounds very much like “Buck up podgy”, if you ask me. I need to lose some weight.’

Rhianna picked up
Girl Android
and shook her head wisely. ‘This is really terrible,’ she said, flicking through the pages.

‘Bloody right. Four pounds fifty and there’s not even a photo story.’

‘Polly, have you ever heard of Body Fascism?’

‘Some disgusting alien practice, no doubt,’ Smith remarked. ‘Insult to nature, your Ghast.’

‘No, not exactly. It’s what happens when we adopt a restrictive concept of beauty and try to fit every type of person into one narrow stereotyped image. There are many different, diverse sorts of woman – one could be thin, or, um, larger, or—’

‘Attractive?’ Smith suggested. He felt that he was getting the hang of this.

‘None of which stops me weighing far too much,’

Carveth said.

Suruk turned from his study of the stars. ‘You’d be lighter if I cut your head off,’ he said. ‘How about that?’

Smith looked over his shoulder. Rhianna was sleek and alluring. Her midriff was bare, which was something not often seen in the Empire. Somewhere or other she had discarded her shoes. ‘You look nice,’ he said.

She smiled; something inside him softened, and something on the outside did the opposite. ‘Thanks. You know, I’m glad to be back aboard.’

‘I’m glad you’re glad to be aboard,’ he said.

‘I’m glad that you’re glad,’ she said.

‘Bleargh,’ Carveth said.

Rhianna smiled over them all, like a saint. ‘I’m going to have a little lie down, if nobody minds. I could do with a rest after this morning.’

‘Of course,’ Smith said. ‘Do you need any help?’

‘I’ll be fine, thank you,’ Rhianna said, and she pattered back down the hall.

Carveth watched her go. ‘It’s alright for her,’ she said. ‘Just look at her arse; it’s not like some sort of horrible bus accident. Me, I only have to walk past a scone and I turn into a barrage balloon. You can stop looking at her arse now, Cap.’

‘Sorry,’ Smith said.

‘Besides, you’re forgetting that she’s a scary freak.’

Carveth peered into Gerald’s cage. ‘Leaving aside the fact that she once turned into a great big ghost, she’s un-reliable. Whatever powers she may have, she can hardly control them.’ She squeezed Gerald’s water bottle thoughtfully. ‘What we need is an army. Like Suruk’s people.’

‘Indeed,’ Suruk said. ‘Excuse me.’

He turned and left the cockpit. Carveth watched him go, heard the door to his room swing shut. She peered at Smith. ‘What’s up with him? He’s run off as though I let one fly.’

‘Strange,’ said Smith. ‘I’m not sure what’s on his mind. Oh well, how long ‘til we can land somewhere and sort out these repairs?’

‘Didcot 5 should be alright to land on. We’ll be coming into high orbit in about three hours. Ooh, what’s that?’ A light flickered on the dashboard. ‘That’s odd. There’s a message coming through.’

She pulled down the communications monitor and watched as the message tapped its way across the screen. The printer chuffed and tapped the message out onto a roll of tape.

‘Well,’ she said, reading from the tape. ‘Looks like there’s an automated beacon down there. Let’s see. . .
Please land on this planet
.’ She glanced around. ‘From the sounds of it, it’s just a repeated signal, being given out by a machine. But it’s nice of them to say that, isn’t it?’

‘It certainly is.’ Smith nodded at the planet in the centre of the navigation screen, striped with intermingling gas layers. It looked like a ball of raspberry ripple ice cream.

‘In that case, we ought to accept its offer.’

A science officer’s goggled features appeared on the inter-com, its antennae waving. ‘Glorious commander, I request an audience!’

462 glanced up, irritated. On his desk was a bucket of water and a bag full of kittens, but now that would have to wait. He put the bag down and prodded the intercom.

‘Enter.’

His guards showed the scientist in. Ghast scientists looked very much like drones, except that their coats were white instead of black. The scientist twitched and sniggered as it came in, a common habit among its caste.

‘All hail Number One!’

‘All hail,’ 462 said, sourly. ‘Sit.’

A bio-chair unfolded from the floor, engineered to take the special stresses of Ghast anatomy. The scientist flicked out its lab coat and stercorium and sat down.

462 said, ‘You have interrupted my nutrition hour. This had better be good news, minion.’ He pointed up at the picture above his head. Although the room was human in design, the motivational poster was newly added. It showed a sunset with Ghast characters underneath. ‘Read it out.’

The scientist swallowed hard. ‘T
eamwork: what we do
to avoid being shot
.’

‘Quite. I hope you have been productive.’

‘Yes, Glorious Leader, indeed. We have been most pro-ductive – but – but our results have been unsuccessful. We have compelled our praetorians to drink tea, to bathe in it

– we have even sucked out their blood and replaced it with warm tea – but to no avail. We cannot give them moral fibre. It is impossible.’

‘Rubbish! I was sent to this wretched world for a reason, not to hear you make feeble excuses about impossibility!’ He paused, trying to remember. ‘Maybe there is some other way. DNA splicing, selective helio-stranding, perhaps? Can one mate with a teabag?’

The scientist shook its head. ‘No, Mighty One. Even the humans cannot breed with tea.’ It giggled involuntarily, and looked sheepish. ‘Excuse me.’

‘Go. Continue your work. I will send you more praetorians if you run out.’

462 watched it leave. Idiots, he thought. Perhaps the research would become a little less impossible if he had a few technicians shot.

Grinning at the idea, 462 picked up the bag, only to find that it was empty. In the confusion, the kittens had got loose.

A drone slipped in, and passed him a message and scurried out. 462 read the message, screwed it into a ball and spat out a long, complex curse as he strode to the door.

Two praetorians stood guard outside. ‘Follow,’ he said.

They took a staff hover-car from the Ghast compound to the old Senate house, now the Hyrax’s palace. The new regime had started as it meant to continue: there were bloodstains on the street outside the palace, and armed thugs muttered slogans as they watched the road.

The praetorians shoved aside a pair of robed Crusadist guards. ‘Get me Gilead,’ 462 barked, and he turned up the collar of his trenchcoat against the sun. A cultist led them inside, and at the top of the stairs 462 pushed him out the way and strode into what had been the office of the governor two days before.

He interrupted an argument. Calloway and the Grand Hyrax were yelling at one another across a mahogany desk. Calloway looked round and cried, ‘Thank God, someone sane! Tell this madman that he can’t have his way!’

462 was not greatly interested. ‘What does he want?’

‘He wants to abolish talking,’ Calloway said. ‘Talking!’

‘Not talking!’ Spit had gathered in the Hyrax’s beard.

‘Only speech! Listen, idolator, and learn the truth!’ He jabbed a grimy finger at Gilead, who sat by the wall, sullen and brutish. ‘He is not a true Edenist! He rejects my sacred laws! Oh Holy Annihilator,’ he cried, gazing at the ceiling, ‘thank you for making your humble servant such a genius! All praises to the Annhilator, through me!’

‘He wants to ban talking!’ Calloway cried.

The Hyrax nodded and tugged a wad of hair from his beard. ‘Aye! Banning speech will cause misery, and misery is piety! For everyone else. Words are engines of sin, and thus I shall reduce sin by banning all words, except for “The Hyrax is great”. How can people sin then, if every time they speak they must sing my praises? How will women call me a grubby little sleaze
then
?’

462 looked at Gilead. ‘Well, well, Gilead. I allow you to run this planet and yet already I find you humans squabbling like. . . little squabblers. What is wrong now?’

Gilead stood up. His bullish head on his robot body made him look like a lump of corned beef on the end of a fork. ‘Nothing’s wrong,’ he said. ‘We just need to iron out a few. . . er. . . creases.’

‘Creases?’ 462 shuddered with fury. ‘Creases? You should be crushing this planet, and you argue about puny human speech?’

He paused and his vicious eyes moved to the window.

All four upper limbs behind his back, he gazed across the city and his voice became distant. ‘I have just been informed of two disturbing developments. Firstly, the human ship which escaped during the raid on the space-port was the
John Pym
, the vessel of Isambard Smith. I am disappointed that you did not tell me, Gilead.’ He turned, and the bright sun caught on his metal eye. ‘I wonder: did you fail to tell me because you did not consider it important enough, or because you feared my response?’

‘Now look,’ Gilead began. ‘I hate that hellbound denier as much as anyone—’

‘And secondly, your men fired on mine! How dare you!’ he shrieked, and the room froze around him. Even the Hyrax was still, staring at the Ghast with wide, frightened, angry eyes. ‘Your morons shot at my troops! The praetorian legions are under
my
control! Nobody may throw their lives away but me!’

‘They got confused!’ Gilead protested. ‘You unbelievers all look the same!’

‘The same? How –
how
– do I look like a pink moron with two limbs too few and a moustache?’

‘Maybe we can come away with some positive action points from this,’ Calloway suggested. ‘These issues would seem to impact on—’

462 drew his disruptor pistol and pointed it at Calloway’s nose. ‘Shut up.’

Calloway made a small, terrified noise. ‘Oh my God,’ he squeaked. ‘I just touched base.’

462 shot him. The spin doctor spun on the spot, fell against the wall and 462 shot him three times more.

‘Consider yourself downsized, Mr Calloway.’ 462 holstered the pistol. He looked around the room. ‘Things must change, gentlemen. Until now there has been too much. . . how do you say it in English. . . pratting about like a great big fanny. No more. I myself will deal with the
John Pym
. In the meantime, let this corpse be a lesson, Grand Hyrax. There will be no other incidents like this.’

462 turned to the door. His praetorians waited for him there, ready for violence.

At the doorway he looked back. His eyes had narrowed into cunning, venomous slits. ‘I have read your new laws. Pathetic. Pointless edicts about women. A waste of time.’

‘Don’t forget fairy-sin,’ Gilead put in. ‘We need to get tough with fairies.’

‘I am not interested in semantics, Gilead.’

‘Them too. Big-nosed heathens.’

462 clenched his fists and mouthed a short prayer to Number One. ‘Fine. Have your little religious tyranny, but remember, both of you: I put you here, and soon you will pay me back. The Ghast Empire let you take this world. We made you – you in particular, Hyrax. We made you. Don’t forget it!’

The ship cut through the lower layers of cloud into a savage storm. ‘Bit bumpy!’ Carveth said, and the
Pym
rattled, sending the dashboard ornaments into a frenzy of nodding.

‘Hold it steady,’ Smith said. ‘Got somewhere to land yet?’

‘Thought I’d try somewhere flat,’ Carveth replied. The scan was distorted by the storm but, even so, it looked like strange, untrustworthy ground. The land undulated into weird, wind-blown shapes: hills, crevices and thin, curving pillars that could pierce the underside of the ship like a spike.