God Emperor of Didcot (31 page)

‘Certainly not,’ said Smith. ‘I am a civilised man.’

‘I on the other hand, am a demented savage.’ They looked around: Suruk stepped forward, mandibles parted. ‘Let us get down to business, beard-face.’

‘Now wait a moment.’ The God Emperor paused.

‘Nobody said anything about this – this – what beast are you, devil-spawn?’

‘I am Suruk the Slayer – ta-da!’ Suruk bowed. ‘I fear no enemy in battle, for I am a bold warrior. If you are so keen to be martyred, fool, allow me to assist.’

The Hyrax took a step back. His boots scuffed on the marble floor.

Quietly, coolly, Suruk advanced. ‘Or perhaps you wanted someone smaller to kill? Some passers-by who did not see you coming, or a little woman to beat with your fists? Are you afraid, facing an enemy who will fight back? I think so. It is you who is a coward, malodorous one. Now, as the British say, come and have a go, if you think you are sufficiently erect!’

Rage flared up in the Prophet-King’s eyes. ‘Why, you hellbound infidel scorpion of the four-horned viper in the burning lake of flames of the ninth goat–’

‘Ahem,’ said Suruk, and he tapped his watch.

‘In the name of the all-merciful, all-loving god, I’ll gut you alive!’ The Hyrax lunged, and Suruk stepped aside, the sword carved the air beside him and there was a flash of steel and blood and the God Emperor fell dead. He lay sprawled across the floor, a mass of white robes, like a deactivated ghost. Suruk wiped his knife and put it away.

Someone threw a blanket over the corpse. There was a murmur in the audience.

‘Good riddance!’ a woman called.

‘He’s dead!’ Carveth cried. ‘Yay!’

Smith looked down at the body. He glanced to the right, at the free men of Urn, and among them, his crew. Smith thought: we are more than fanatical. A fanatic has to yell and scream. We simply get the job done, no matter what it is.

W resumed his speech.

‘Next week there will be elections for interim counsellors of Urn. In the meantime, Sauceress O’Varr has kindly agreed to help get things going again. The first task will be to get the tea flowing to the other parts of the Empire. Then, fuelled, with tea, we can take the fight to the Ghasts, and make space proper again!’

‘Well said!’ Smith exclaimed. ‘Hooray for tea and dreadnoughts!’

‘Silence, scum!’ one of the praetorians hissed. ‘Our indestructible legions –’

‘
Oh, do pipe down!
’ Smith snapped back, and the praetorian reeled as if struck. It snarled like a dog hit across the muzzle and shook its head, trying to clear it.

‘The Bearing,’ Sam O’Varr whispered.

‘He knows the Shau Teng way,’ Rhianna gasped.

‘Well, enough of that,’ said Smith, a little surprised by himself. ‘But look here, Gertie, if you want a picture of the future, imagine a brogue kicking a big red arse –forever.’

W nodded. ‘And on the subject of things kicking arse,’ he declared, ‘we have recently captured a large amount of rather nondescript Edenite beer and a stack of AC/DC records. Tomorrow, the tea will flow again. But tonight, my friends – disco and barbeque!’

Unlike its inhabitants, the landscape of Yullia was gentle and pleasant.

The country was almost entirely woodland, and the lemming-people lived on the forest floor or in the trees.

Status was represented by building height: the Yullian serfs lived in shacks on the ground while the nobility dwelt in fortified treehouses, linked by walkways, from which they occasionally dropped rocks upon the shacks.

Greatest of all the treehouse-castles of western Yullia was the citadel of General Zeck.

The ship that collected 462 touched down on the edge of Zeck’s estate and a ground-car took him to the citadel.

It was early autumn for the Yull and the leaves danced around the car as it slid past. But this was no idyll; there were a dozen furry heads on spikes at the gates and the peasants were furtive and afraid. The Yull knew how to run a planet, 462 thought.

He was led to the treehouse by four axe-wielding guards. The Yull were the same height as him, but bulky in their ceremonial armour. Between them, 462 was skinny and menacing. He had acquired a severe limp.

Many things had broken his fall from the Aresian war machine, but most of them had been solid and sharp.

A lift pulled by serfs took him to the highest point of the treehouse. A minion struck a small triangle beside a curtain and behind it something grunted. The servant drew the curtain back and motioned 462 inside.

The room was virtually unfurnished and pathologically neat. Beside the window was an easel, and at the easel stood a figure in a dressing gown and a Foreign Legion-style hat. The figure turned around, nose twitching.

‘
Hup-hup
, General Zeck,’ said 462.

Zeck squinted at 462. His prim head tilted from one side to the other, the large, quick eyes roving over the Ghast’s uniform. ‘Humph!’ he said. ‘A thousand greetings, Commander. I heard of your war with the contemptible British.’

‘You did?’

‘Yes!’ The lemming-man puffed out his chest. ‘As we Yull say, news travels fastest when not weighed down by a big red backside. Welcome to my home, Commander 462. Please feel free to stay here until your masters summon you to die for your shameful failure to capture Urn.’

‘It will not be failure,’ 462 said.

‘Not failure?’ Zeck laughed, a high-pitched snigger.‘Stupid offworlder, you were beaten by mangy humans and dirty M’Lak. I laugh at your disgrace! Hahaha! See me laugh at you!’

462 reflected that killing Zeck would be a pleasure. Sadly he had no guards to do it, and Zeck, like all Yullian officers, would be a dangerous foe at close range. He lurched nearer. ‘Not when I bring them a billion new allies.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You will come back with me.’

The Yull nodded and rubbed his snout. ‘Hmm. . . You seek the assistance of the lemming-men of Yull, eh?’

462 ignored the question. His scarred head slid forward on his scraggy neck, and he peered at the easel. ‘Interesting.’

‘Yes.’ Zeck pointed to the picture. ‘It is a painting of the clouds above the Aldak Valley, a place noted for its beauty and tranquillity. You could not understand the nobility of such things.’

‘And these figures in the foreground?’

‘Me disembowelling an offworlder, on top of a pile of limbs hacked from offworlders. Offworlders are cowards and must be destroyed. Stinking offworlders die slow,
hwup-hup
! Present company excepted, of course.’

‘Naturally. And it’s that which I wanted to talk to you about. The lemming-people of Yull have a legendary reputation, and you stand out among them, General. Even among the fearless warriors of Yullia, you are known as –how can I put this? – a lying, murdering, torturing psychopath.’

The warlord’s whiskers twitched with pride. ‘Well, one tries.’

‘As you know, we are currently engaged in destroying Earth. The Earthlanders are a strange species: the quieter they are, the more fiercely they fight. Several of my superiors underestimated the tenacity of Earth, especially the British Space Empire, and they have been pulped for their errors. Furthermore, our allies the Edenites have revealed themselves as braggarts and fools.’

‘So you want them killed, slowly? Gladly!’

‘No. I want you to direct your ferocity against the M’Lak.’

‘The M’Lak? Despicable scum! They fight like savages, obeying some primitive honour code. They deserve to be hacked to death!’ Zeck’s eyes flicked to the crossed axes mounted on the wall. ‘Hacked to death!’

462 rubbed his antennae together. ‘Quite. And they are entering this war on the side of Earth.’

Zeck walked to the window and opened it, taking several deep breaths of fresh air. Down below, a Yullian peasant was driving a plough-team of squol across his smallholding. General Zeck drew a knife from his sleeve and tossed it at the peasant. 462 heard a distant squeak and Zeck closed the window, looking mildly satisfied. Life was cheap among the lemmings.

‘So,’ he said, ‘you are worried that the Ghast Empire will lose.’

462 shook his head. ‘We are worried that the efficiency of our inevitable victory may be impaired. We wish to give you the opportunity of sharing that victory with us. You will attack the M’Lak worlds and the humans in the Western arm of the galaxy. In return, you will gain the opportunity to kill huge numbers of inferior offworlders and capture countless sacrifices, whom you can mangle and offer to your war-god at your leisure.

‘The time of humanity is over, General Zeck. It is the dawning of a new era: the era of the Ghast. You can be part of that. If you choose, you can guide the lemming-men of Yull towards the cliffs of destiny. All you need do is say yes, and my minions can talk to your minions, and we will sort out the paperwork and then burn it.’

General Zeck snorted. ‘Oh, I see. So, you are seriously expecting me to throw away the lives of thousands of my brave kindred, just for the sake of lording it over some bunch of wretched primates who you were going to defeat anyway? You are asking me to send my men to their deaths for the sake of indulging my own petty sadism.’

‘Yes.’

‘When can I start?’

Suruk held a skull at arm’s length, like Hamlet, while he painted glue onto its lower jaw. He stood in the centre of his room on board the
John Pym
, amid the rest of his favourite souvenirs. The banana-shaped head of a Procturan Ripper grinned at him from the mantelpiece.

A knock on the door. ‘Hey, Suruk. You coming to this do or what?’

‘One moment, little woman,’ Suruk said. ‘I shall be with you shortly.’

He reached into his bag and took out a large beard, and pressed it onto the gluey skull. Pleased with the effect, he put the skull on the shelf, next to the skull in a chef’s hat.

The Empire had never found 462, but it had unearthed Captain Gilead of the New Eden lying unconscious in a Ghast bunker. He seemed to have brained himself with his own arm. Since the Hyrax was dead and 462 appeared to have escaped offworld, they decided to ship Gilead’s head to Earth, for trial on grounds of authorising murder and waging a war of aggression.

Suruk had been put in charge of guarding Captain Gilead on the way back home. As Smith had pointed out, it was not a very difficult task so long as Gilead was delivered alive and intact for trial, without any further injuries. Although he might need a bit of a wash.

Suruk took his litter tray down and coughed a pellet into the tray. He pressed a pedal with his boot and the lid of the bin flipped up and he shook the pellets into the bin.

‘I’ll see you in hell, you hog-faced son of a bitch!’ said a voice from the bottom of the bin.

‘Undoubtedly.’ Suruk closed the bin and left the room.

Carveth was in her cabin, almost ready to go. She wore her blue dress and was checking Gerald’s food supply. The hamster’s wheel clattered and squeaked. Suruk looked around the room, with its multiple cushions and Shetland pony calendar, and felt distinctly uncomfortable.

‘Greetings,’ Suruk said.

‘Hey, Suruk. How’s things?’

‘I am well. And you?’

‘Yeah, not too bad, all considering. I’m healing up.’

‘Good, for we must speak.’

She looked at him a little closer. Her eyes narrowed, suspicious. ‘Go on.’

‘You saved Isambard Smith’s life in the battle, I am told.’

‘Oh, well, yeah.’

‘Then you did well. You are blooded now,’ Suruk said. ‘It is the custom of my people not to take a name until one is blooded in battle. When I fought against Smith, I named him Mazuran, which means “The quick brown fox that jumps over the lazy dog”. Now I have decided to give you a warrior’s name.’

‘Wow,’ she said, genuinely pleased. ‘That’s – well, that’s really kind of you, Suruk. You know, I thought my military prowess would get noticed sooner or later,’ she added, standing up a bit straighter. ‘What is my warrior name?’

‘Anorak.’

‘What? Anorak? You’re taking the piss. Can’t I be something else?’

Suruk looked as hurt as she had ever seen him. ‘Anorak is a noble name!’

‘But, Suruk, an anorak is a sort of coat nerds wear. You can’t call me that.’

‘Then perhaps you ought to reflect on the meaning of the word in my language, not its mere sound in yours.’

Carveth frowned. ‘Well, I suppose so. What does it mean, then?’

‘It means. . . “piglet”.’

‘Piglet? That’s my name? Bloody hell. Alright then, Piglet it is. But it’s Polly to you, alright? Princess Polly, preferably.’

Suruk scowled. ‘There are limits, Princess Piglet. But your M’Lak name shall be kept secret, as you wish. Now, we must go to the celebrations while it is dark and all are drunk, or else you shall find no man with whom to conduct your foul ruttings. In which case you would be –wait, I remember the very phrase – left upon the shelf like a big fat sad sack.’

*

The party was in full swing when they arrived. Beer was flowing freely, but the Hyrax’s laws had given the cityfolk a new thirst for tea. A huge bonfire had been built under the station’s water tank, and the tank had been cleaned out and filled with the precious leaf. Tomorrow it would serve the railway that ran to the plantations, but tonight it was being used as a gigantic pot.

Suruk and Carveth passed down the main street. A vendor gave them sausages from a barbecue. Men and women went by in little groups, drinking and cheering.

They had been soldiers until today, but now they were citizens again, Teasmen working for the Combined Horticultural Amenities Regulator.

‘Look,’ said Suruk. ‘Celebrations.’

Figures moved awkwardly in the light of the bonfire, each to his own time. They jerked and lurched like excited zombies, waving random hands. The British were dancing.

Isambard Smith stood at the edge of the dancers, pint in one hand, teacup in the other, talking to W but staring into the fire. As they drew near, Smith glanced round and nodded to them. ‘Hello there! How’s things?’

‘Good,’ Suruk said. ‘Although the food is a disappointment. This “hot dog” is clearly some sort of sausage. I strongly suspect that there are no notable merchants in the burgers, either. I wonder if there is any spotted dick left?’