Above His Station (19 page)

‘I wouldn’t get too excited,’ said Astrid, doing that tail-copter thing of hers again and flying up to join us. ‘Whilst you two were snoring like warthogs I decided to pay my father a visit.’

‘Well, I’m glad about that,’ I told her. ‘I’ll bet he’s been worried sick, hasn’t he?’

It is a little known fact that snakes can frown. I know this because I have seen it.

‘You misunderstand me, human,’ Astrid said. ‘I went to see if I could get some more information on his reasons for being on Puck, not for a social visit.’

And then it was my turn to frown. ‘But didn’t Arbitrator Bloch say that everyone thinks you’re dead? I would have thought the least you’d want to do is let him know that you’re okay.’

‘And then what shall I tell him when he asks why I am here? Just casually drop it into the conversation that I’ve been helping out an Earthman – a member of the very same species that he’s just gone to so much effort to destroy? Are you insane? He’d think I was a traitor to my kind!’

‘Oh, I’m sure he wouldn’t,’ I said. ‘I know if one of my children was presumed dead, I’d be thrilled to bits to know they were alive and well.’

‘You’ve never met my father, have you?’ asked Astrid.

‘It might not surprise you to know that up until yesterday evening you were the first alien snake that I’d encountered. The first alien full-stop, if it comes to that!’ I said.

‘If my father is currently here on business,’ continued Astrid, ‘I do not wish our reunion to be sullied by politics…I had enough of that growing up. He must know nothing of my being here until after the hearing. Are we clear on that?’

‘Of course,’ I said, tapping the rat’s back to get it to say the same. ‘So…what are you going to do? Hide in this room and lock the door? This hearing could last a week!’

‘I can amuse myself easily enough,’ replied Astrid. ‘I’ve been living in a twelve by six tank for years; to me this apartment is like a mansion! But don’t worry about me…it is yourselves that you need to be concerned with.’

‘Oh?’ I enquired, not at all liking how that sounded.

I looked at the snake and saw an expression that reminded me of when Molly would have some gossip about one of the neighbours that she was dying to spill.

‘Whilst it was night I thought I’d investigate the SLETVDTC complex a bit more thoroughly,’ Astrid began. ‘My new best friend on the front desk was incredibly helpful and he informed me that my father is here with his full cabinet of officials, which can only mean one thing. He’s come armed to the fangs for a legal battle, which also means that his visit was not a friendly heads-up, as Bloch assumed.’

‘So why is he really here?’ I asked.

‘I don’t know,’ replied Astrid. ‘But whatever it is, I’m sure that it’s connected to that behind-closed-doors meeting that he had with the SLETVDTC High Council. The only problem is, that was a couple of days ago now so there’s no way we can learn what it was all about…unless we do some snooping around and find some answers.’

‘
Snooping?
’ cried the rat. ‘Listen, this ain’t
Scooby-
fucking-
Doo
, okay? We’re here for one reason, which happens to be fixing our planet – not to go
snooping around
for clues to whatever Daddy may or may not be involved in!’

‘No, wait a moment, let’s hear Astrid out,’ I said, trying to influence a bit of calm on the rodent. ‘Like she said, this is all a bit fishy. If he’s the Prime Ambassador what’s he doing here? Didn’t Bloch say that the Asclepians were well within their rights to attack the Earth? If that’s the case, why go to the trouble of showing up at all? And if it really was legal, why did they feel the need to cajole the High Council? The more I hear, the more I think that Astrid is right. There’s something else bubbling under the surface, I just know it.’

‘Yeah, it’s called wind,’ said the rat. ‘That’s all it is. Just a load of hot air and assumptions, when what we really need is to get to grips with this case and what I’m supposed to do! That’s way more important than fishy-smelling snakes!’

Astrid hissed at the rat and it scarpered off the bed and over to its chair. ‘You know nothing of what you speak! My suspicions tell me that whatever my father is up to will have a direct result on the outcome of the hearing, so it’s within our best interests to learn more. Don’t worry your little whiskers about it. Just leave it to me and I’ll come back to you once I’ve got some dirt.’

‘Do you really think you’ll find any?’ I asked.

‘Only if I look in the right places,’ said Astrid. ‘I know how my father thinks. He’ll have covered his tracks, but I’m sure I can sniff something out in due course.’

‘All right,’ I agreed. ‘Just don’t do anything stupid.’

‘More stupid than going behind my father’s back for an Earthman and a rodent?’

‘You know what I mean,’ I said, giving her a smile. ‘Just be careful, hmm?’

‘I will,’ nodded Astrid. ‘Oh, and by the way…I bumped into Bloch downstairs earlier. He told me to tell you that he’s submitted his approval to the High Council, which means that with any luck the hearing should be in the next 2 to 3 days.’

‘
What?
’ squawked the rat. ‘How am I supposed to get ready in 2 days?’

‘You can thank me later,’ said Astrid. ‘And whilst I was downstairs, I also bumped into an old friend of mine. We met at an interstellar conference in the Cyprinus Cluster and she was always jealous of my close association to the A.R.S.E.’

I looked at the rat and it didn’t even flinch, either because it had decided to be a bit more mature about the whole thing, or because it was so petrified about the impending case that it didn’t have time to crack jokes. For whatever reason, I was thankful for it.

‘Taisho does some legal consultancy work for the SLETVDTC on occasion and she’s agreed to give the rodent some tips on being an Advocate,’ Astrid said. ‘She’ll meet you in the Sunken Garden at the rear of the offices just after lunch.’

Whilst I thought this was rather good news, my furry companion did not.

‘And who is this ‘
friend
’ of yours exactly?’ it demanded. ‘How do we know we can trust her if she’s another slimy snake like you?’

‘
Rat!
’ I snapped.

‘Taisho isn’t an Asclepian,’ said Astrid. ‘She’s a Nereidian, from one of Neptune’s moons. She has nothing to win or lose by agreeing to aid you, and offered purely as a favour to me.’

‘Which,’ I butted in before the rat could open its mouth, ‘we’re both incredibly grateful for, aren’t we?’ No response from the rat apart from a sulk. ‘
Aren’t we?
’

‘I s’pose.’

‘Good!’ said Astrid, sliding off the bed. ‘That’s all settled then. Make sure you pay close attention to what Taisho says, rodent. An entire world is relying on you.’

The rat gulped. ‘Don’t remind me.’

14

Missing breakfast completely due to not knowing what the blessed time was, the rat and I had an early lunch down in the SLETVDTC cafeteria. The rat had a child-sized omelette and I had a passable interpretation of a lasagne. The texture of the meat was a bit odd and I wondered if I had chosen the vegetarian option by mistake and got that awful
Quorn
stuff that tastes like those polystyrene packing chips you get when you have white goods delivered. Yet I chose not to complain for the reasons listed below:

1.
  
All meals were inclusive in our room rate (which happened to be completely free as we were involved in official SLETVDTC business).

2.
  
The cafeteria was situated on one of the lesser moons of Uranus and we were a very long way from any cows, so what did I expect?

3.
  
The chef was a bloody huge bug-eyed alien with muscles that looked like he was trying to smuggle watermelons up his shirt.

And perhaps the most valid reason of all:

4.
  
I’m British.

I found that as long as I washed each mouthful down with a glass of water, I was able to convince myself that nutrition was far more important than nourishment. You’d be amazed how adept I’d become at convincing myself of all sorts of things over the past couple of days.

*

After lunch, the ever helpful Serge on the front desk directed the rat and I to a long corridor leading off from the foyer in the opposite direction to the lifts, and out through the double doors at the far end was an expansive lawn that led into a beautiful garden, with aesthetically pleasing borders and beds populated with all sorts of flowers - none of which I recognised. I assumed they were indigenous to one of the nearby planets, because nothing could grow on Puck without assistance. With the glass dome above my head I was suddenly reminded of the Eden Project down in Cornwall. I’d never been there myself, but I’d seen pictures in magazines and things. The place was very humid, and it could almost have been a normal, well-tended garden found in many a stately home throughout the country - had it not been for the sky-full of stars above my head. Every now and then different sorts of spaceships flew past and around the dome, which was exciting. It made me think that I’d made it all the way into outer space without the need to get into a rocket or worry about the lack of gravity and what-have-you. And then I felt a bit down about that, I won’t lie to you. Although Astrid’s transcendental thingamabob was extremely quick and efficient, I think I would much preferred to have travelled to Puck in a spaceship. As I was briefly reminded of the smell of sick on my anorak, I think that the rat would have preferred an alternative mode of transportation too.

The garden was tranquil, and with the rat on my shoulder I followed the crazy paving pathway until I got to a sign that read ‘SUNKEN GARDEN’ with a helpful arrow pointing to the right.

‘This must be the right place,’ I said.

‘And I thought it was the snake that was supposed to be the brainy one,’ said the rat.

‘Come along, you,’ I said, ignoring its sarcasm.

*

Following the sign, it led us away from the main garden and along a path carpeted with leaves. The colours were so rich, like the most intense autumn ever seen back on Earth. Copper and russet, almost fluorescent greens and pale ambers. The smell of moisture in the air reminded me of home too, specifically of the forest where Molly’s ashes were scattered. Even though I was a long way from home (1.6 billion miles, give or take a few yards) I could swear that I felt Molly’s presence with me. I was curious as to how she felt about recent events. No doubt she would have a few choice words to say about my furry companion’s foul language, but on the whole I hoped that she would be proud of me. I certainly wanted her to be, especially if I managed to save the Earth. Now surely that would be worth a gold star in anyone’s book.

We walked through an archway of interlocking branches. Even though a little bit of sunlight was able to get through (considering our distance from it) it wasn’t quite enough to illuminate the path fully, and so I found my pace slowing, cautious of every step. Following the natural curve of the path to the left, a few minutes later we found it.

I could describe the sunken garden as the most tranquil place on Earth, but then I wasn’t on Earth was I? I found myself looking at an old wooden gazebo with a slanted roof and a nice bench beneath it. I had seen many of a similar type along the South Coast, most notably Eastbourne, Bournemouth and Boscombe. It was so quintessentially British that it took my breath away. In the centre of the sunken garden (true to its name, down a few moss-covered steps) was a rectangular pond with a water feature, and swimming about within it were at least twenty koi carp of all sorts of colours and variations. Above the gentle trickle of the water feature, every now and then one of them would pop its head up out of the pond and blow bubbles.

‘We should have brought some bread,’ I said, tickled pink.

‘You shouldn’t feed bread to fish,’ the rat told me. ‘It makes their stomachs all bloaty and it can be murder passing it out the back end. Like trying to shit bricks, apparently.’

I was about to ask the rat how it was such an expert on the digestive systems of fish all of a sudden when it occurred to me that it really didn’t matter.

‘So what are we supposed to feed them then?’ I asked instead.

‘Anything but caviar,’ was its reply.

I scowled at the creature. What was the point of it being around? Why couldn’t I have had a companion that was actually of use to me? If it was supposed to be helping me in my quest, then it was doing a poor job of it. Not even the thought of this being a ‘quest’ made me feel any better. Growing up I always wanted to go on a quest, but I thought those sorts of things died out years ago. You always see it in the old films; a jolly good quest to rescue a princess, or find lost treasure or something. In the films it all ends happily ever after, but it’s a fact that reality fails to conform to the rules of Hollywood.

‘So where’s this Taisho woman we’re supposed to meet then?’ asked the rat.

Before I could answer, someone said ‘I’m right here’ and so I spun around expecting to see exactly that - a woman. But there was no one there.

‘I’m Taisho Sanshoku,’ they said again.

Quite fed up with this, I yelled out ‘Stop playing games and show yourself!’

‘A human…acting true to form and giving orders, I see,’ said one of the koi carp, its slender white body decorated with random patches of orange and black. ‘I’m guessing that Astrid forgot to mention that I’m Nereidian.’

‘No, she said that part,’ I admitted.

‘It’s the part about you being a fucking
fish
that must have slipped her mind,’ added the rat.

‘I’m not a fish,’ said Taisho. ‘I’m a-’

‘Nereidian, yeah we got that bit, love,’ said the rat. ‘So, listen…we don’t have all day, so just tell us what you know about being an Advocate and we’ll let you get back to blowing bubbles, eh?’

Several of the other carp then swarmed around Taisho until she was lost within their jumble of bodies.