God Emperor of Didcot (4 page)

‘Forgive me, Lord, for I have wind,’ Carveth added.

‘Two, four, six, eight, what do we appreciate? Crusade! Give me a C! Give me an R!’

‘Let’s go,’ Carveth said. ‘We’re not learning anything helpful here, and the mission briefing says that our contact has a swimming pool.’

They turned and slipped through the crowd, Suruk leading the way. People moved out of his path: although free citizens, M’Lak rarely came to Urn, and the sentient population was almost entirely human. Around them, the crowd still gawped at the demagogue.

‘I wonder why anyone would listen to a load of arse like that,’ Smith said.

Suruk shrugged. ‘Humans are stupid.’

‘Maybe, but not
that
stupid. You wonder what anyone could see in him.’

They emerged beside their car, a Crofton Imp that Smith had hired at the spaceport. Smith drove, Carveth sitting beside him and Suruk
stretched
across the back seats, next to Gerald’s shaded, air-conditioned cage.

The landing on Urn had gone surprisingly well. The most notable form of local fauna, the allegedly man-eating sun dragons, had failed to appear. This was fortunate, as they were apparently invisible to radar and stored vast quantities of static electricity that they spat at anything passing through the stratosphere, which they clearly considered as their territory. Now the
John Pym
was tucked out of sight between two larger, better ships, which seemed to make up the entire Urnian merchant fleet.

Smith pulled out into busy traffic, and the sleek, dusty little car slipped between rows of domed office blocks.

Carveth rolled her hat up. ‘I don’t like this place,’ she declared. ‘What kind of people call their capital city Capital City? That’s the most stupid place name outside Thisland.’ She looked over her shoulder, towards the Church of the Grand Annhilator. ‘So, you religious, then?’

‘Me?’ Smith dialled up the destination on the onboard computer and typed in their course. He sat back, hands resting on the steering wheel in case their car changed its mind. ‘C of E,’ he said, ‘I suppose. There might be something, but if it’s anything like matey boy’s god back there, I’m not sure I’d want to be on its side. I just try to be a good sort and hope I can talk it over with whoever’s on the other side, if there is one.’

‘I think it’s generally assumed that God’s an alright bloke,’ Carveth said. ‘As for me, though, I’m atheist. I refuse to follow any god.’

‘It is probably mutual,’ Suruk observed. ‘I doubt any deity would want you traipsing after him, continually demanding thinness and male concubines. It would lower the tone.’

‘That’s rich coming from you. You worship a stick.’

‘I do not "worship" anything. I honour my ancestors, whose valour I see enshrined in the weapons I wield. Anything else would be absurd, and my spear agrees with me.’

‘Well, I’m a free agent,’ Carveth declared. ‘I kneel before no man.’

‘I shall not lower myself to comment on that,’ Suruk said.

The Grand Hyrax closed the doors behind him and the cheering crowd became silent. He took a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his brow. ‘How was that?’

Two men watched him from the side of the room. There were biscuits and coffee cups on the table. ‘Not bad, not bad,’ said one of them.

The speaker was youngish and slim, neat and groomed in contrast to the Hyrax’s tattered robes and potent odour.

‘I think you put up a strong performance there, Steve. But you’ve got to remember that you’re addressing confirmed party stakeholders here. It won’t be half as easy to work a crowd that considers you a deranged tyrant.’

The Hyrax reached into his beard and rubbed his chin. ‘Why not?’

‘Focus groups suggest that the proles are going to want reassurance on key touchstone issues: health and schools, for instance, pensions too.’

‘Well,’ said the Hyrax, ‘that’s easy. Once we’re in charge, God the Annihilator will provide us with health so we can fight his crusade. Obviously, schools won’t be necessary, except to tell children to obey me, and to go on crusades. And as for pensions. . . some sort of crusade, maybe?’

‘I think people are worried that we’re a one-issue party,’ Calloway said.

‘That’s the point,’ the Hyrax replied. ‘There won’t be any other issues to worry about once everyone is dead. Or any voting. The unimaginable suffering I intend to impose upon mankind will make all other issues unimportant. Problem solved.’

Calloway frowned. ‘That might take some spinning.’

‘Hell, I like it!’ the third man said. He sat in the shadows, a rug across his lap. He leaned across the table to the coffee pot, and the rug fell away.

His body was a robot’s: the spindly, stripped-down body of an old-fashioned mechanical android, painted in army drab. The metal stopped at the base of the throat.

From there, a thickly muscled neck led to a jutting slab of brutal, chiselled jawline. Above the jaw was a Caucasian face that cosmetic surgery had left angry and permanently surprised, the face of a beach-bronzed Adonis for whom kicking sand in people’s faces had never been quite enough.

‘You see?’ said the Grand Hyrax. ‘
Gilead
likes it.’

‘Oh, I like it alright,’ Gilead said, his voice dreamy. ‘Everything you say is right, especially the suffering bit. These people stole my body; they deserve to pay. Every day a hundred things remind me how much I owe the British Empire.’ Out of instinct he scratched his crotch, leaving scratches in his paintwork. He glanced down. ‘See what I mean?’

‘I see,’ said Calloway.

‘Yeah.’ Gilead paused, the coffee pot tilted at his cup. ‘All I need is the call from my uh, sponsors, and we’ll be good to go. And then this place will be ours.’

‘Mine,’ the Hyrax said.

‘It will belong to the New Eden, with you as governor.’ Gilead explained. ‘This rock may not look like much, but it’s the right hand of the British Empire. Once we’ve got control of it, we will squeeze – and squeeze – until we’ve choked the life out of these godless bastards and paid them back for what Isambard Smith did to me.’

‘You choke someone around the neck, not the right hand,’ Calloway observed.

‘You choke them how I say,’ Gilead retorted. ‘When Johnny Gilead plays hardball, if you’re not rolling with us, then you ask how high. Remember that next time you doubt the word of the Lord, because the word of the Lord is
strong
.’

He raised his hand and crushed the coffee pot in his metal fingers. From his metal chest a female voice said, ‘Compression damage imminent.’

‘We hit them very soon, and then they stay hitted,’ Gilead said. ‘Once our new allies are ready, all your people need do is take the missile grid and this planet belongs to us.’ The pot buckled; coffee ran down his steel fist, onto the table and the cups. ‘My cup runneth over,’ Gilead said. ‘It’s a sign.’

‘It’s going on the carpet,’ Calloway said coldly. ‘Which is presumably a sign that you’re a fool.’

‘Still,’ said Smith, as they turned into the suburbs, ‘leaving aside these religious madmen and the coup they’re obviously plotting, it is quite a lucky assignment because we’ll be able to see Rhianna again. Once we’ve foiled the Crusadist uprising, I thought I might take her some flowers and see if she’d like to go out for dinner sometime.’

The car rolled past broad lawns and long, wide houses. Mowing machines slowly drew stripes on grass. The children of Imperial bureaucrats threw balls for retrievers, spaniels and fat Labradors.

‘It’s a good plan,’ Carveth said. ‘Of course, you’ll have to find her first.’

‘Oh, I’ll find a way.’

She sighed. ‘I only wish I could be so confident about my own situation.’

‘I’m sure you’ll meet someone sooner or later,’ Smith replied. ‘There’s probably plenty of single men on a world like this.’

‘Most of them have a pulse,’ Suruk observed. ‘You will be spoilt for choice.’

Something went
ping
on the dashboard and a needle sprang up in one of the dials. ‘Looks like we’re here,’ said Smith, and he turned the car into a wide gravelled drive.

Ahead, shining in the hard sun, the front of a huge white house loomed up like a glacier. Long windows winked as the light caught them. A striped awning threw shadow across a pool. Wallahbots rolled across the lawn, clipping the hedges and plumping the pillows on the sun loungers.

‘Well,’ Carveth said, ‘it’s nice to know that the Security Service’s budget is going where it’s needed.’

Smith stopped the car and they got out. One of the wallahbots turned from its work and waddled over to them, gravel crunching under its stumpy legs. A little panel slid back in its domed head and a probe scanned them. It said, ‘Wooty doot-doot?’

‘I’m here to see the owner of the house,’ Smith said. He glanced left and right to make sure that he was not observed, and added pointedly, ‘Birds fly south for the winter.’

‘Woo,’ said the wallahbot. ‘Woo doot doot Pimms?’ it asked, and the dome flipped back to reveal an array of bottles.

‘Bit early for me,’ Smith replied, and the wallahbot’s dome closed up.

‘Fair enough,’ it said. ‘I’ll just see if the master’s at home. Wait here please. Woodle-oo.’

Smith watched it stomp into the house and said, ‘How do I understand those things?’

‘I’ve no idea,’ Carveth said. ‘I thought it was a flip-top bin.’

A sprinkler system hissed into life across the lawn. A small, weasel-like man strolled around the side of the house in a sports jacket. His eyes were half-closed, like a lizard’s, and there was a cigarillo between his long fingers.

If he got any more languid, Smith thought, he would fall asleep and topple into the shrubbery.

He smiled. ‘You must be Smith. Pleased to meet you. James Featherstone.’

Smith shook hands. Featherstone nodded at Suruk.

‘Is this your boy?’

Smith looked at Suruk. ‘No,’ he said, puzzled. ‘Do we look similar?’

Featherstone said, ‘Boy as in
servant
. Any decent spy has servants.’

‘He’s not a servant, he’s my friend. I hope that’s not a problem,’ Smith added, giving Featherstone one of his hard stares.

‘Not at all. I rather like the fellow. His mouth has a cruel twist. And I must ask, who’s this perky young thing?’

‘Hello,’ said Carveth. ‘I’m Polly. Nice house.’

‘Polly Carveth, my pilot,’ Smith explained.

‘It’s bad to have women on a job: they have to be kept in order. Women are always trouble to someone,’ Featherstone said, with the air of one reciting a proverb.

He raised an eyebrow and blew out smoke. ‘The only question is, Miss Carveth, are you going to be trouble to
me
?’

Carveth grimaced. ‘Which is more platonic: yes or no?’

Featherstone laughed lightly. ‘Come with me, Smith. We need to talk about your being here. Your moon-man can bring in your things. In the meantime, your people are quite welcome to use the pool, so long as the alien doesn’t turn it green. The little woman’s
very
welcome.’

He turned and passed gracefully through the French windows. Smith frowned and glanced at his crew. Behind him, Carveth mimed nausea and Suruk kicked the suitcases over.

‘As soon as this cretin is of no more use to us. . .’ he growled.

‘True,’ said Smith. ‘He seems a little on the, ah, louche side. Can’t say I’m impressed.’

Carveth patted her pockets. ‘Has anyone got the keys to the ship?’

‘I thought you had them,’ Smith said.

‘I gave them to you.’

He sighed. ‘You had them, Carveth. This is a professional mission, you know. We won’t look like good spies if you lose the spaceship keys on our first day here.’

Irritated, he strode into the cool of the house. Featherstone was prodding buttons on an enormous machine as it coughed ice cubes into a cocktail shaker.

‘Cocktails make a man keen,’ Featherstone said. ‘What do you take?’

Smith thought about it. He would have preferred a gin and tonic, or a pint of beer, but one of the most important arts of the spy was looking the part. ‘The one with the little umbrella,’ he said.

Featherstone’s eyes stared at him from under their heavy lids. The exhaled smoke did not quite freeze in mid-air. ‘They
all
have a little umbrella,’ he said.

‘One of those, then,’ Smith said.

‘I suppose you’ll want it stirred next,’ Featherstone said crossly, and he poured some liquid into a glass. Outside, Suruk had taken the champagne out of the ice bucket, filled the bucket with pool water and was enjoying a drink from it. Smith tried his cocktail. It tasted like the venom of an alcoholic snake.

Featherstone watched Carveth climb onto the sun lounger and wriggle about to get comfortable. ‘That little pilot of yours,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘She’s got an attitude on her. You know what you ought to do?’

Smith was too busy adjusting his face to his cocktail to reply.

‘You ought to throw her across your lap, pull her britches down and thrash her bare arse till she squeals for mercy,’ Featherstone said, with relish.

‘She’s only lost the keys,’ Smith replied. ‘Bit harsh, isn’t it?’

‘Nonsense, my dear Smith. Harshness is the only language women understand. My own wife was like that when I met her: a wild filly, secretly yearning to be broken, and then ridden. One night,’ he smiled slyly around his cigarillo, ‘I seized her roughly after dinner, threw her against the wall and told her I knew she longed to surrender to my manliness.’

‘What happened then?’

‘She hit me with a toaster. But that’s not the point, Smith. A firm hand is the answer, preferably across the backside. They love it really.
Vae victis
.’

Smith frowned, sipping reluctantly at his cocktail, trying to work out whether Featherstone had just revealed a shocking truth, or whether he was just a sleazy little git.

‘So,’ he said, deciding on the latter, ‘you’ve been watching things here for a while. What do you think of this Hyrax chap?’

Featherstone frowned. ‘Well, there’s no doubt that the fellow is well organised. He has a simple agenda, he promises all things to all people, and he has a large number of fanatical followers. In short, he’s one of the chief political players on the colony – in fact, the
only
one other than the governor.’