Prophet Margin (5 page)

Roolán made placating gestures, keeping his mouth firmly shut.

"We've told you and told you and told you I don't know how many times and you're a wicked boy for disregarding us like this and after everything we've done for you and all the sacrifices we've made and I don't know what we're going to do with such an ungrateful little brat and-"

Roolán guiltily wondered if he might get an early reprieve if she collapsed from lack of oxygen. No such luck.

When her energy ran out, two hours of venom later, Roolán's ears were ringing. She finished, in between gulps of a restorative pork pie, with a curt: "We'll see what your father has to say... Get to your room."

The slugcat regarded him from its patch by the hearth with heavy lidded amusement.

His father beat him black and blue, which was something of a let-off from the usual black-and-black, and by the end of a very long evening he fell asleep with his parents' angry shouts marching like soldiers through his dreams.

"You can't talk, understand? You've got no voice! You're a mute! You can't TALK!"

On Splut Mundi, Abrocabe Zindatsel stepped from the decorous interior of his Palacecraft and ran jewel-encrusted eyes across the horizon.

"Mm," he grunted, displeased with the ramshackle huts that form the whitewashed city. It spread from horizon to horizon: a morass of identikit architecture with a bulging temple at its centre. It was hardly the sort of splendour he was used to.

Still. Sacrifices would have to be made. That was, after all, the whole point.

His wives disembarked behind him, variously stepping or slithering as their biology allowed. At his last count there were somewhere in the region of two thousand, five hundred of them - mostly female. In the field of romantic entanglement, Abrocabe had two advantages over most males: First, as a Xangrebbian - a species sporting a dextrous spinal cord, a long and manipulative nasal protrusion, and various other prehensile assets - he was blessed with the ability to pick his conquests with impunity. And second, as one of the most colossally rich individuals in the galaxy, it seemed ludicrous to waste time and effort on emotional pursuits when he could simply pick a face from a catalogue and marry its owner.

This sort of willy-nilly decadence had been a defining fixture of his life until, one night, the Lottery Ritual provided him with Sianne Grunjohki - wife number 1067 - as his chosen bed-mate.

The nocturnal acrobatic exertions that he anticipated never materialised. When he awoke the following morning it was not to find crumpled sheets and interesting scratches, but to a complete spiritual reawakening.

Sianne, it transpired, had occupied her time in Abrocabe's harem by seeking spiritual improvement. Using his library and twenty-four hour high-speed 'net access, she'd discovered, researched, and immersed herself in "Boddihsm". That night, the 'pillowtalk' had been a decidedly serious business.

As he liked to joke to friends: he'd welcomed her into his room as an unfeasibly wealthy gigazillionaire subspace tycoon with hedonistic tastes, and he awoke a new man.

The attraction to Boddihsm was this:

Nothing you had ever done mattered.

Like many of the galaxy's most affluent individuals, Abrocabe kept in his quadravalvic heart a tiny secret. In a cosmos packed to the back teeth with peasants, peons, pilferers and poverty, where ninety-three per cent of sentients recorded their quality of life as "snecking unbearable," where all the unpleasant reminders of life's arseholish tapestry were smeared across news channels, it was hard being inconceivably privileged. The sensation at the back of Abrocabe's subconscious was this: guilt.

And Boddihsm had stamped on it until it was gone.

Behind him, Sianne slipped her arm around Abrocabe's waist and nuzzled against the back of his neck. "You've done the right thing," she said, smiling. "Coming here. Bringing us."

"Mmm." A group of boringly-dressed acolytes was hurrying up from the little city to meet the new arrivals. "I know," he said, flashing a diamond-dentured smile in her direction. "It's just going to take some... Getting used to."

The rest of the harem had come to see the wisdom of Boddah's Way without much persuasion. The simple fact was that with Boddah, you couldn't lose. Everything was excused. Everything was out of your hands.

Everything, put bluntly, was a cock-up. Discovering that one had no personal liability in the dreadfulness of the galaxy, that nothing you had ever done was your fault, had a sort of comforting charm.

Boddihsm was the fastest growing religion in the galaxy, appealing with a special urgency to the rich and the famous. It was an urgency that was steadily increasing.

The call had gone out to the faithful: Come to Splut Mundi, it said. Bring everything you own. Liquidise every asset. Bring it all.

The leader of the welcoming committee - a fat man in a grey robe who until two weeks ago had been the CEO of the largest multiplanetary weapons manufacturer in existence - dipped his head. Abrocabe - and every one of his stupendously beautiful wives - echoed the movement.

"Welcome," the man said, beaming. "Welcome, faithful ones! Hail to the Boddah!"

"Hail!" the harem chanted, tassels wobbling.

The man brandished a handful of grey straps, like watches without no faces. "For your wrists!" he declared, as if this explained everything.

Abrocabe had little time for such obliqueness. "How long?" he said, unable to disguise his fervour. He gripped the fat man on his shoulder, staring hungrily into his eyes. "How long do we have?"

The man smiled. "Not long now..." His voice was thick with devotion. "The Prophet spoke to us again this morning. He told us to be vigilant for the signs... He told us that all our doubts would be settled."

"When?"

"Soon. Time will die soon."

WORDS FOR THE DEAD

#2 Michael Donachie (AKA: "Micky the Trout")

Problem is...

Problem is, I'm not entirely surely what it is I've done.

Look, I know what you're thinking. "Coward", right?

Well, okay. Maybe you got a point. Maybe I should have stuck around, waited to talk to the guy, find out exactly what's bothering him. Maybe I could have talked him round. Explained things.

Then again, maybe there are certain... scenarios for which the most reasonable course of action is the old get-thee-from-dodge. The scarperati. The cola en medio las piernas. The flight to freedom. The don't-look-back. The-

Okay, okay. I'm running like sneck off a stick. You don't gotta rub it in.

Whoa... Déjà vu.

Thing is, there's only so much running you can do in a building where every storey is a big circle.

Welcome to the Doghouse.

I'm a Strontium Dog, sneckssakes. I'm not used to this "running away" malarkey.

It's also worth mentioning that my memory's not so good, and a lot of these rooms I'm sprinting through look familiar, like maybe I ran through here five minutes ago. I know, I know, it's real funny. Micky the Trout, Three-Second-Memory-Micky, always forgetting where he is. Har-de-snecking-har.

Well sneck that, okay? I'll have you know that certain species of migratory fish have a very advanced landmark recognition capability.

Get a grip, Micky... Now is not the time to be considering the cognitive abilities of aquatic fauna. I hate that I'm about to die and still can't snecking think straight.

Rationality went right out the window the second he called on the phone, that creepy voice of his, like cobwebs in my head, telling me to stay still and make peace with my maker, 'cos his shuttle just docked and he wanted to see me and, and, and...

Uh...

What was I saying?

Hey - where the hell is this? Looks like the Doghouse, but... These aren't my quarters...

And why the sneck am I running? I must look like a right pillock.

Blip. Blip. Blip.

My phone. Got it new from this place down on Algizarrr, top of the range, all the mod cons: texting, vidding, microwave, all that stuff.

Blip. Blip. Blip.

"Yo? Micky the Trout, here. SD agent."

"Micky."

"Uh... Who is this?"

"You know."

"M-mr St-"

"Just got back. Docking now."

"T-that's good news, Mr S-"

"Not for you."

"Not for-?"

"Bone to pick."

"Y-y-yeah?"

"Yeah."

"Oh..."

"Stay still. Coming ta... find ya."

"No problem."

"Micky?"

"Y-yes?"

"Say a prayer."

Click
.

I'm running before the line goes dead.

Problem is...

Problem is, I'm not entirely surely what it is I've done.

Look, I know what you're thinking. "Coward", right?

Well, okay. Maybe you got a point. Maybe I should have stuck around, waited to talk to the guy, find out exactly what's bothering him. Maybe I could have talked him round. Explained things.

Then again, maybe there are certain... scenarios for which the most reasonable course of action is the old get-thee-from-dodge. The scarperati. The cola en medio las piernas. The flight to freedom. The don't-look-back. The-

Okay, okay. I'm running like sneck off a stick. You don't gotta rub it in.

Whoa... Déjà vu.

Blam
.

FIVE

Four times.

Four times the moron ran in a circle; through the observation deck, past the commissioner's offices, up round the apartment spaces and back down to the obs deck.

He'd forgotten what he was doing at the same point each time. Second tier of the obs lounge, right beside the gallery window. Four times Micky the Trout stood there gaping, wondering why he'd been running, wondering why everyone was staring. Memory like that, the guy must have spent his whole life wondering. Easy enough to phone him, repeat the message, set him off running, like a hare before a hound.

Entertainment.

The killer watched him from a security cubicle, cameras tracking his panicky footsteps round and round.

After the fourth time it got boring. So Stix stepped out of the security cubicle and shot him.

Had the target been a normal human being - or even a slightly less vulnerable mutant - the single blaster round through Micky the Trout's left shin might not have proved fatal.

As it was, he went down like a sack of hyperdense bricks, toppled forwards on his knees, opened his mouth to warble a watery shriek, and shattered the reinforced plasplex fishbowl that covered his scaly face and gills all over the floor. Glass and water exploded across the obs deck.

His fisheyes bugged-out even more, gills flapping.

"S-sneck!" he gargled. "Some... somebody get me s-some snecking water, here!"

Nobody moved. The mutants present in the obs deck - a menagerie of unfeasible lumps, pointy extremities and out-and-out uglies - looked up from the dying man to the figure that stood over him, smoking blaster clenched in a grey fist.

Those that had instinctively gone for weapons when the shot rang out made a show of picking up drinks, avoiding eye contact.

Stix grinned. It wasn't pretty.

Seven feet tall, crowned by a wide brimmed hat that dropped his eyes into a thick pool of shadow, he reholstered his gun with a flourish, flicking aside the drab brown duster that he perpetually wore.

A hand dug deep into a pocket, withdrawing slowly, holding something tight. The watching mutants - trying to look busy - craned their necks to see.

Micky the Trout continued to thrash, eyes spinning in separate directions. Stix crouched beside him.

"Dyin', Micky."

"C-c-can't breathe..."

"Shot you."

"...hh..."

"Know why?"

"...Nn..."

"Want to?"

Micky's gurgles contrived to express the view that there were more important issues running through his mind. Staying alive, for example. Stix didn't appear to notice.

"Documentary," he hissed, voice wavering between a reptilian whisper and a gravel-choked rasp. He spoke in short, clipped bursts - as though a longer sentence might place too much strain on a throat already burning with acid. "Film about Stronts. Shot it last year. Aired yesterday. Channel thirteen."

Micky coughed, fighting to speak. "R-rings...
hkk
... a faint bell..."

Stix opened his hand and examined what lay inside. The watching mutants jostled for a better view.

It was a pair of coins.

"Crew came here. Doghouse. Paid the authorities. Lots of cash. Everyone's happy."

"S-so... wh-"

"Everyone but Stix."

The man flicked his wrist. The coins flipped into the air, clinking lightly. He caught them together, same side up.

"Stix wasn't here, Micky. On a job. No big deal." Another flick, another perfect catch. "Don't do interviews anyway."

"T-then what's th-"

"You do. You did. Saw it yesterday. Channel thirteen."

"D-don't...
hurrkk
... don't remember, Stix!" The gills spasmed.

"She asked you about me. Lady. Reporter."

"Don't reme-"

"Said, 'What about Stix? What's he like?'"

"I don't wanna,
hkk
, don't wanna die..."

"Know what you said, Micky? Remember?" The coins flicked into the air again.
Clink
. "Said I was good. Said I was one of the best."

Micky's revolving eyes fixed on his killer's face, bewilderment briefly breaking through. "Then... then why did you shoot m-?"

"Said Alpha was better."

The coins flipped into the air again. Micky went white.

"Shouldn't have said that. Bad for business."

The coins clinked once then tumbled earthwards.

"Made me mad, Micky."

Stix didn't catch them.

They dropped onto Micky the Trout's face with a quiet thud, settling over his rotating eyes and balancing on the ridges of his brows.

"To pay your way," Stix explained.

Micky the Trout died. Stix walked away.

Outside the gallery window the earth rolled ever onwards and didn't give a flying fig for one more dead mutie.