Prophet Margin (24 page)

Wulf became aware that he was still holding the sock, arm tensed above Cheez's gaping mouth.

"No!" a familiar voice shouted. "Put it down! Wulf, whoever he is, whatever he's done, he doesn't deserve that!"

"J-Johnny?" he said.

The reunion, as fond as it was, suffered various indignities. Safe aboard the
Peggy Sue
, and pulling slowly away from the asteroid with its growing tail of bodies and oceanic ice-crystals, Johnny and Wulf struggled to bring each other up to date on their various hardships.

For a start, and despite Wulf's earnest attempts to dissuade him, Johnny had insisted that Cheez accompany them. "Can't just leave him here, big guy," he'd apologised. "He's just a kid."

"He's just der moron," Wulf grumbled, to no avail.

The upshot was that Johnny's account of his visit to earth and subsequent struggles upon YoCassok were frequently interrupted by shrieking cold-turkeyisms and senseless wails of horror. It was only when Cheez came upon one of Kid Knee's concealed stashes of gigaGin (this one stuffed into the autodeploy life pod mechanism, incidentally), that his detoxified woes eventually halted.

The second impediment to the various details being recounted was Roolán, whose attempts to make an impression on Wulf were crushed against his Viking impatience. The big man couldn't be bothered to wait for the youth to write down, and quickly got cranky when Roolán kept interrupting Johnny's accounts by waving bits of scrawl-covered paper in his face. Just as Johnny reached the part about the hypershark, Roolán started flapping his pad in an excited attempt to impress Wulf with how it had been him who'd saved the day - at which point the Viking decided to announce that he didn't believe a "little worm-boy" could do so much damage just by shouting, and that he thought Johnny knew better than to take in every waif and stray he came across.

To which Roolán responded by telling Wulf to piss off. Out loud.

So after the various headaches and nosebleeds had been allowed to settle, and with Roolán and Wulf sulking, Johnny had finally been able to continue with the story.

At which point the final impediment to a successful recounting came to the fore. By the time that Johnny was recalling Stix's attack, a persistent source of inaudible mutterings from somewhere around shin-height was growing in volume.

"Got back to the city in pretty bad shape," Johnny was saying. "That's when we stopped by the Swandive votel, just in case, and they said there was a message waiting."

"Ah," Wulf nodded sagely, "was hoping it would be so. Addressed it carefully, but wasn't sure of der direction."

"You got it bang on, old friend."

"
Snecksakes, you two should just get a room.
"

Johnny looked down.

"Did you... ah... did you say something, Kid?"

Kid Knee shook his leg innocently.

"Right. So anyway, we played it back when we got to the ship." Johnny cleared his throat and parroted Wulf's heavy accent, "'Viking to Johnny Veerd-eyes. Beach resort becoming der cruise. Holiday-from-Hell. Vish you vere here. Really, really, really, really vish.' Clever, that."

"Ach, you are thinking so?" Wulf preened, giving a playful wave of dismissal. "Wasn't sure if it would being working."

"Well, we headed out here straight away."

"
Yeah, anyone woulda thought you'd sent him a coded proposal."

"What was that, Kid?"

"Nothing, nothing."

"Well, anyway, it's good to have you back, big guy."

"Is good to be seeing you too, Johnny."

"
Oh, pass me a bowl. I'm gonna puke..."

"Kid, what
are
you muttering about?"

And so on.

All of which irritations and impediments contrived to make even the "long-story-short" version last well beyond what the ship's AI assured its passengers was midnight. It was therefore in the midst of universal tiredness and three-way sulkage, that the hunters' gloom at losing their prey manifested.

"Well," Kid Knee yawned, "so much for Grinn. Reckon Stix'll be well ahead of us by now."

"What do you mean?" Wulf scowled, tinkering with a variety of tools in a doomed attempt to remove his helmet. The Kid had already exhausted every smutty joke on the subject, and Wulf was beginning to despair of ever removing it.

"The trail's dead," the headless man said, unscrewing his hipflask. "We're out of leads, sort of thing. No more clues. Wouldn't expect a Viking to understand, right Johnny?"

"Supposing meaning of what?" Wulf's brows bunched.

"I think you'll find it's 'what's that supposed to mean?'" Kid Knee smarmed. "Sounds much more menacing."

"You heading right for der Sternhammer silencer, no-head-weirdo! I give it to you, cool as der cucumber!"

Wulf dropped his screwdriver and began to loosen his boot. The Kid took another cowardice-banishing swig of grog.

Johnny wasn't listening.

"Yeah," the Kid whined, skating past the shoals of wind-up and straight into the lagoon of trouble. "What
is
it with the cucumber thing? I always meant to ask."

"You be quieting or-"

"Maybe I should ask Johnny, eh? Seen his cucumber recently, Johnny?"

"You asking for it, worm-freak ma-"

"Guys," Johnny said, quietly, still not turning to face them. "Look."

"But, Johnny, the big lug's calling us frea-"

"But der worm-man is thinking we are more than j-"

"Guys," said Johnny, not listening. "Look." He was staring through the cockpit window, transfixed. "Kid, you said we haven't got any more clear trails to follow, right?"

"So?"

Johnny smiled. "They don't get much clearer than that."

Through the thickened plexiglass, several million tonnes of former-holiday-resort tumbled end over end towards...

Well, towards somewhere.

Blip
.

++INCOMING Sub/S TRANSMISSION++

++IDENT: UNKNOWN++

++ACCEPT_____?++

Blip.

"This is the Splut Mundi control computer. To whom am I speaking?"

"Sorry. Splut what?"

"Splut Mundi, sir."

"Is that a planet?"

"Correct, sir. To whom am I speaking?"

"The name's, uh, Gamma. Frankie Gamma. A planet, eh? Right."

"Can I help you, Mr Gamma?"

"I, well, I'm not sure. It's a slightly odd situation. I don't want to cause a panic."

"Sir, I am a series-3000 colony control AI with self-regulating negemotion protocols. I do not panic."

"Right. So, are there many people on Splut?"

"Approximately two million, sir. More of the Boddah's faithful arrive every day. What would be the cause of this theoretical panic, sir?"

"Look, there's no easy way of saying this, so... Well, there's a gigantic out-of-control asteroid heading your way. We ran a vector-projection using the ship's computer and yo-"

"Sir, did you say an asteroid?"

"Yeah. A big one."

"I see. Goodness."

"Look. Have you got any... any orbital defences, maybe. Or nukes? Nukes would do it."

"Nukes sir? No. Why would we require nuclear weapons?"

"To blow it up! It'll kill you all!"

"Yes. Sir, it's nothing to concern yourself with."

"You wh-?"

"Thank you for the news, sir. The first sighting of the Holy Mountain. The prophet shall be highly pleased."

"What the sneck are you ta... Have you been expecting this?"

"Of course. I'm afraid I must sever this contact now, sir. I have many duties to perform."

"Wait!"

Blip.

Johnny turned to look at Wulf.

"Sound like they are being waiting for it," the Viking shrugged.

"No shit." Johnny sunk into the pilot's seat. "Okay, let's think this through. So Grinn sends an assassin to disrupt the aste-"

"Was not being an assassin, I think. Just der woman with - how do you saying - der brain cleaning?"

"Brainwashed?"

"Is right. Very-empty-eyes. Also, she is looking like der... der snob. Und also, her head is popping before she is dying."

"Her head blew up?" Johnny exchanged a significant glance with Kid Knee. "Just like Standing Algie."

The Kid briefly looked green. The memory of Standing Algie's gore-splattered end burned bright.

"Right," Johnny continued. "So Grinn sends this woman to do away with Koszov and sabotage the asteroid."

Wulf nodded. "And to be aiming it for der peoples of this Splat-planet..."

"Who don't sound too worried about it. That's the other thing. I keep hearing this name 'Boddah'. Who the hell is Boddah?"

Wulf waved a dismissive arm. "Ach, is just der weirdo god who is saying all der history is lies."

Johnny stared at him.

"How do you-"

"Ach, just some of his peoples tried to be killing me at... at der... PastCon..."

Wulf's voice trailed away.

"They tried to kill you?" Johnny said.

Wulf nodded, face clouding.

"And this meteor, Grinn's gone to a bunch of trouble to move it. And it's heading right for them? And they want it to?"

Another slow nod.

"So Grinn's doing favours for these Boddihsts?"

"I, I suppose."

A thought hit Johnny like a well aimed train. "Sneck," he breathed, the morass of confusion clearing away like rising fog. He looked at the Kid. "Harvey told us Grinn got religion in Macrojail,"

"A-and?"

"And we never asked which snecking one!"

EIGHTEEN

A small panel bearing a communication grille and a two-way transmitter bleeped. Stanley Everyone stiffened.

After two days of hard work, the rig was coming along nicely. All the heavy lifting was complete, the foundations had been tested, the struts were in place and, vitally, the specialist equipment had been correctly mounted. All that remained was a few fiddly electronics, and Stanley could handle those himself.

"That will do," he said, speaking into a small remote control. The initiates, vacant expressions turning in his direction, paused in their various menial exertions. "You may return to the city. You've been meditating in your cells all this time. Yes?"

"Yes master," they droned, dribble dangling like bungee cords. They quickly clambered aboard an old hov-speeder and shot towards the horizon.

Everyone took a deep breath and depressed the "answer" switch on the comms panel, forcing the quaver from his voice.

"Yes sir?"

"He's late," the voice said: a feline purr, thick with cotton bud warmth and sickly sweetness. "I expected some sign by now."

"I see."

"You see?"

"Y-yes, I-"

"I don't care about you seeing, Stanley. I want to know what you're going to do about it."

"H-he's on his way sir, I'm sure of it. I left the holy book, just like you said. He's not stupid. I, I'm sure he'll be here."

"For your sake, I hope so."

"S-sir, we have a little time, don't we?"

"No, Stanley," a tiny undertone of venom played at the edge of the warm cadence. "We do not have a little time."

"B-but I th-"

"The asteroid has been sighted. We have one day. He has one day."

Stanley wiped sweaty goo from his eyes. "He'll be here." he said firmly.

"We shall see."

"Yes. Y-yes, he'll be here." He couldn't think of anything else to say.

"Activate the equipment at once." Stanley could almost hear the smile in the voice.

"Y-y-yes sir."

The comms channel closed with a crackle.

Stanley gawped for a moment, viscous slime pouring off him. Shaking, he snatched up a screwdriver and dived into the morass of cables around the base of the equipment, pausing only to shake a blobby fist at the sky.

"The book, Alpha! The book!" he yelled. "In the bloody desk drawer! I mean, what do you want? A snecking neon sign? 'Dangerous villains on Splut Mundi - Come Get Us!'

"Get a snecking move on, you weird-eyed bastard!"

On the cusp of the void above Stanley Everyone, shielded behind layers of atmospheric ionisation and bristling with apparatus, the
Slinky II
performed the technojargon equivalent of holding a drinking glass against the wall and listening.

Nestled inside, sporting a pair of headphones that utterly failed to complement the brown-and-dusty fashion statement he sported, Stix twisted thin lips into a smirk, watching Everyone's tantrum.

"Alpha ain't comin'," he hissed, fingering the holy book he'd taken from Everyone's desk.

A quiet chime from the vocal analyser confirmed what he'd already guessed: the voice on Everyone's comm matched the file-ident of Mr Grinn.

On the screens, Stanley scrabbled to connect cables around the vast equipment his teams had been unloading from his ship. Looking a little like a row of bus-sized cannons on pintle mounts, albeit with crystalline covers, Stix could only guess at their intention. He shrugged, not caring. It didn't matter what they were for - he'd found his prey, and without Alpha's lead.

With enormous satisfaction, and a little smugness, Stix piloted his craft away from the empty steppe where Everyone toiled and followed the tiny hov-speeder that was wending its way across the grassland towards the city, where Stix knew he'd find his prize.

"Grinn," he whispered. "Comin' for ya."

Abrocabe Zindatsel was polishing off a bowl of gruel with only a minor twinge of nostalgia for the feasts of Badgerspleen and Narsukkian nipplecandies he used to enjoy, when Biggie Bolster sauntered into the dining cabin.

"Ah, Abrocabe," he smiled, rubbing at bleary eyes. "How did the, ah..." his voice dropped, "operation go?"

"Good," Abrocabe replied, coiling his trunk. In truth the loss of his hair was causing him frequent twinges of regret, but a reassuring conversation with Sianne had left him certain that the Memory Purger brought him closer to Boddah's purity and a pleasant bout of nookie (totally in accordance with the guidelines within The Book, of course)
¹³
had been enough to cure the most persistent gloom.

^{13. A galactic survey concerning the attitudes towards sex of various religions demonstrated that twenty per cent preached the exclusive use of a single "Holy Position" (or alien equivalent), thirty-four per cent had used the phrase "Abstinence is the best contraceptive" in their literature at some point, and a staggering ninety-one per cent regarded procreation as being "a bit taboo", despite their holiest records being jam-packed with raunchy tribe-on-tribe action, incest, pornographic "creation" mythologies and sexy nuns. No conclusions were drawn.}