London Wild (100 page)

He began to feel that he should try to hunt down a newspaper and maybe learn of what had been happening in the world, if only from the herd
perspective. There had been a newspaper on the flight, but he had ignored it because usually it was little more than herd propaganda and rarely reported anything useful. Nevertheless, a newspaper might answer some of his questions as to what had happened.

The third house showed signs of a vicious gun battle
. A burned-out shell of a lightly armed vehicle was parked outside the house, still smoking as if whatever had happened here had done so in the last hour or so. There were soldiers still in the area, and from the way they were moving, they didn’t seem too sure that the residents of the house hadn’t gotten away during the scuffle. Or maybe they were worried that there might be others nearby. The house itself was a wreck. The combined arms of the assailants had demolished the entire front of the building and had also started a small fire which had since been put out. From the proximity of the nearest buildings, it had probably been a close thing that the fire hadn’t spread. The soldiers seemed to have made quite a coup with the collection of weapons that they had taken from the house. A wide selection of armaments, some of them fire damaged, were lying flat on the pavement in a neat row, just outside the house.

Myajes decided he wasn’t going to stop and investigate further. Instead he drove past the scene
, trying not to look too disinterested in what had happened whilst not wanting to give any of the soldiers a good look at him. At this time he didn’t want any unsought attention from even non-Elite soldiers.

He decided to forget calling upon individuals
; it was fast looking like a waste of effort. He couldn’t go home because of those watching the house, but maybe he could find a hotel room for a little while. Hotel rooms usually came with a newspaper, so maybe he could learn a little bit about what had been happening during his incarceration.

He drove to the same hotel that he had stayed at the day or two before he had first tried to rescue Lara. It was quite a distance from the Matriarch’s house, but he knew he could rely on their discretion. Unfortunately
, for some reason the place was closed, as were all the surrounding businesses. Indeed, here on the edge of London, the streets should have been crowded with people trying to get where they were going, and the businesses along this road and every other road should have been flourishing, and yet nothing was moving. He had escaped from his cell to find a world so much different from the one he had left.

A little frustrated that nothing he seemed to do was getting him anywhere, he started to head east again
. Every time he saw something that looked as if it might be a hotel, he stopped long enough to see if it was open and was always disappointed. Soon he found himself beyond the borders of London. Here hotels were much fewer in number, and Myajes wasn’t really too sure where to find those that did exist.

As he traveled further and further east
, he began to fear that he was headed back towards Basildon. What was worse, he might end up having to go all the way to Sou’nd before he found a place, and he had a vague recollection of February telling him that Sou’nd wasn’t safe at the moment or something to that effect.

Then
, just as he was beginning to despair of finding a suitable place, he noticed a sign for a hotel that from the street at least still appeared to be open for business. He was in luck; the place was open, and the owners were overjoyed to see him. It seemed that business had been bad for about the last week.

‘We’ve only had two other people stay here since Slim took out Sou’nd,’ the man behind the counter told him as he checked in. ‘That Slim has a lot to answer for
; he’s virtually put me out of business.’

Myajes wanted to ask more about Sou’nd but decided against it. He didn’t want to raise any suspicions about himself
, and besides, the newspaper would likely have more information about it when he reached his room.

For the third time in the last forty-eight hours
, he signed his name as ‘Murray-Phillips’ and used the identification he had taken from the dead scientist. The first time had been to buy a seat on a shuttle, the second to hire a car, and now he was perhaps stretching his luck by using it to sign into a hotel. Checking in to the hotel also used up the last of the money he had taken from the bodies. Once he eventually checked out again he would most likely have to become someone else.

Dinner With The Lomaxes

The cooking and housework had effectively become George’s sphere of operation about the Martian apartment. It was the housework that took most of his time
; cooking required no more attention than putting the food in the zapper and pressing the button on the front. All the calculations of working out the temperature and how long it needed to cook was done by the gadget’s own sensor array.

Maureen hadn’t yet been able to find herself a job
, and although Stanley was currently earning more than the two of them together had earned on the moon, when they had been on the moon there had only been two mouths to feed, and Stanley’s increase in wages didn’t really stretch far enough to pay for five people.

It
had been more than thirty hours now since February and Kitty had last been in the apartment, yet as dinner time approached for the second time since they had left, George once again prepared five meals for the family.

‘This has to stop,’ Maureen commented angrily as dinner was served.

George nodded reluctantly. Yesterday he had used the excuse for them that they had probably simply gone out for the day and were late getting back. When evening came he had argued that maybe they just wanted to sample the night life. As dinner approached for the second time since they’d left, he found he was all argued out.

‘I warned you that we couldn’t trust that February, so what happens? As soon as she gets the chance she leaves us and takes Kitty with her. I’m surprised we haven’t already heard about cat attacks on the people of Mars.’Maureen was in fine voice. ‘Maybe we ought to turn the newspaper on and see if there’s anything we missed?’

‘They left a lot of their things,’ George commented; ‘they’ll be back. I’m sure they’ll be back. All their disguise materials, their clothes, everything is still here.’

‘Do you really think so?’ Maureen pushed. ‘You think a cat like February isn’t capable of building her life from scratch if she needs to?  No, we won’t see her again
, and I very much doubt we’ll see Kitty either. They got what they wanted from us, namely passage to Mars and relative safety, and a new hunting ground.’

‘February seemed like such a nice girl,’ George defended. ‘And as for Kitty, I brought her up well
; there’s no way she could ever bring herself to kill another. I’m not even sure she’s really recovered from Jojo’s death.’

‘Really?’ Maureen commented coldly
. ‘Anyway, forget Kitty for a moment. February was a wild cat; she was never going to be someone we could really trust. We should have handed her over to the authorities when we had the chance.’

‘You know why we couldn’t
: Kitty,’ George commented.

‘Yes, I know,’ Maureen replied, ‘but where is Kitty now? I’ll tell you where she is, she’s out in the colony learning to kill with her wild cat friend. Jojo may be dead, but Kitty has found a replacement sister
, and Kitty always was very impressionable where her sister was concerned.’

‘Not that impressionable,’ George insisted
. ‘I tell you Kitty will not kill, regardless of how much pressure February might put on her.’

Stanley decided it was time to make a comment
. ‘Please dear, George is probably feeling bad enough about it as it is, we don’t need to keep going over it.’

Maureen gave him a gentle smile
and said, ‘Maybe you’re right. But this preparing of meals for two people who don’t appreciate it and who will never turn up has to stop. It’s costing us far too much. You’re only bringing in one wage, my love, and although we can probably feed three on that, we can’t feed five.’

‘She’s right there,’ Stanley
said and turned his attention to George. ‘Tomorrow, unless the girls are actually back in the apartment with us when you start cooking, don’t prepare meals for them. It’s just a waste of food, and all food on the colony has to be imported, so it’s not cheap.’

George nodded reluctantly.

‘I’ve been thinking about what we should do about those moggies anyway,’ Maureen commented.

‘Oh,’
said George, looking up from his meal. He was almost dreading anything else she might say on the subject.

‘We need to report them to the authorities, to warn the colony of their existence and the possible danger to the
population, but we can’t do so without potentially getting ourselves in trouble for harboring them in the first place.’

‘So what do you suggest?’ Stanley asked.

‘By now, George is probably wanted on Earth for not handing his moggy over before the end of the seven-day grace period. If he ever returns to Earth he could be locked up for whatever they eventually decide the mandatory sentence should be. What is worse, they might try to get an extradition agreement with the Mars admin. He could be shipped back sooner than he’d like. Coming here hasn’t saved him from a cell; it’s only delayed it. And Stanley and I could possibly even be considered accessories because we helped him leave Earth in the first place.’

‘I’m not sure I’m going to like this suggestion
,’ George offered.

‘It’s simple
, really,’ Maureen told him. ‘We inform the authorities of the cats’ existence here on Mars and tell them that for the last six or seven days we had been held prisoner. First in your home on Earth, and then they forced us to bring them with us to the Martian colony. They left us because in order to continue the charade, Stanley would have to go to work where they could no longer keep a careful eye on him, and though they still had two hostages back at the apartment, they’re cats and weren’t willing to take the chance. Besides, they no longer needed us, having gotten what they wanted, so they left.’

‘Leaving us alive and uneaten?’ George commented.

‘Well, admittedly it’s not perfect,’ Maureen commented, ‘but I think it’ll work. You didn’t hand your pet moggy in because she was holding you at gun point. It’ll fit in with their original claim that wild cats were hiding as pets too. The authorities ought to like that. We don’t need to mention that Kitty wouldn’t hurt a fly. With any luck it’ll be enough to get you—to get all of us—off the hook with the law.’

‘I’m not sure
,’ George commented. ‘It feels as if we’d be betraying them.’

‘You don’t think they’ve already betrayed us?’ Maureen pointed out
.

‘Come on,’ Stanley piped in, ‘it makes perfect sense. They’ve left us. Let’s not let them drag us down with them
.’

‘Did you two rehearse this?’ George looked from Stanley to Maureen and then back again.

‘No,’ Stanley replied quizzically, ‘Why? Don’t you think Maureen is making sense?’ Stanley commented.

‘Okay,’ George told them, ‘I’m open to it as a suggestion, but let’s give them one more day to return to us first. Let’s not betray them until we know for sure they aren’t coming back. If they aren’t here this time tomorrow then I’ll go along with your suggestion.’

‘You won’t regret it,’ Stanley told him.

‘How do we explain to the authorities why we waited? It’s already more than twenty-four hours since we could have reported them
,’ Maureen asked.

‘I’m sure you’ll think of something,’ George told her. He then got on with his meal
, signifying he would compromise no further.

The Captain’s Opinion

It was a large room, certainly the largest that Charles had seen since his arrival on the moon
. Considering its dimensions and the placement of its satellite rooms, it had most likely been used for things like wedding receptions and birthday parties back when the moon had been open to the general public. The room had been hurriedly painted white about a week and a half earlier, and they had used a special odorless paint so that the room was usable as soon as it dried. Despite that there was a funny smell in the room, and Charles couldn’t help thinking that it might be of Eschiff origin.

For the last week or so the room had played host to the almost daily meetings that were being held between the Eschiff and the humans. To help officiate this
there was a strategically positioned large square table. The three world leaders sat at the far side from the entry door with the French President, Pierre Hugot, taking the middle seat and the American President, Ian Davison, and the English Prime Minister, James Perry, sitting on either side of him. Although the French Premier seemed to have the center spotlight, there was no perceived hierarchy between them and each was as equal as the other two in these talks.

Standing just behind each world leader and supposedly at ease
—although their eyes were constantly on the move, watching everything that happened in that room and at the same time keeping an eye on every nook and cranny for those not invited to the meeting or for listening devices planted by foreign powers—were two bodyguards. These bodyguards also seemed to keep a careful eye on what the bodyguards of the other two world leaders were doing the whole time during the meeting, none of them trusting the others any further than they absolutely had to.