Toxicity (30 page)

“You’re a fine beast, that’s for
sure. It’s a crime they left you behind!” Then a wonderful concept sidled into
his brain. “Hey, what do you think of me maybe riding you?”

The horse was chewing a log now.
Wood splintered and crackled.

Svool eyed the simple saddle,
and, cocking his leg up, got one foot in a stirrup and hoisted himself into the
seat.

Svool had never ridden a horse
before. In fact, he had never ridden any sort of creature, unless you counted
his many, many willing lovers. He recognised that would make a good line for a
poem, and filed it away in a mental drawer entitled:
Possible Future Poetry
Material.

He sat atop the beast, which
still placidly chewed on wood, and he bounced in the saddle a couple of times. “Hey,
this ain’t so bad! Moderately comfortable. Not so tight on the happy sacks. I’m
feeling pretty much in total control, at this rate we can gallop into town and
save Lumar! Hurrah!”

There came a very, very soft
clunk.

With a whirring sound, the horse’s
head lifted up and its legs straightened. Then, with a clicking ratchet sound,
the head rotated one hundred and eighty degrees so the creature was staring
straight at Svool, with a back-to-front head.

“Neigh,” said the horse.

“Er,” said Svool, licking his
lips nervously.

And then, speaking in the voice
of a human -possibly the engineer who had created or programmed the metal beast
- the horse said,
“Congratulations!
on your purchase of the DumbMutt
v0.3 [MUCH IMPROVED!] special robotic friend. This little special friend will
be your friend. A friend for life!! Please find enclosed the instruction manual
and ownership deed in a variety of Manna languages, Braille dot, PSI and
scent-sensorship.
”

“Hey, hold on a minute. The
purchase of a
what?
I didn’t purchase an anything! For a start, I haven’t
got any money on me, and even if I did I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be buying a
battered, er, bashed, er, hammered-out old rusted...”

The horse stared at him. Svool
rolled to a halt. The horse continued.

“As you listen to this, a genetic
sample is being taken from your buttock area by a saddle prick and relayed
digitally to the DumbMutt’s brain. He is now yours. He will never, ever leave
your side. He is forthwith electronically registered to your individual and
personal DNA coding and as such will follow you FOREVER and TO THE ENDS OF
[whatever planet you inhabit [insert here]]. If you lose or misplace or become
detached from your DumbMutt v0.3 [MUCH IMPROVED!] special robotic friend, do
not fret, do not cry, do not panic, because HE
will
eventually find YOU.
If you vacate the planet, your DumbMutt v0.3 [MUCH IMPROVED!] special robotic
friend has emergency funds to book passage on a Shuttle to anywhere within the
Quad-Gal [Manna] Bubble. In effect, your DumbMutt special friend will follow
you to the ends of the Galaxy. Well done in this, your Smart Choice.”

“Now hold on a bloody minute!”
snapped Svool, staring in horror at the metal horse’s head in front of him. The
jaws were working spasmodically as if trying to mimic a human’s lips whilst
reciting the words of the
contract,
but in reality it was doing a very
bad job of synching to the sounds, and simply looked as if it had gone badly
insane. “Now, now, now,
I
didn’t give you no permission to give me a
saddle prick, in the buttock area, and what’s all this about DNA and stuff and
you following me to the ends of the planet, eh? I didn’t agree to none of that,
so stop it right now, I don’t need a horse, or want a special robotic friend, I
certainly didn’t buy you and I never made no smart choice!”

At that point, something sharp
injected his bottom. “Ow!” he cried, predictably, and nearly fired the heavy
black pistol into the face of the horse. Cursing, and reaching under himself to
rub his arse, Svool gave a very severe frown. “That’s a bloody intrusion, that
is!” he snapped.

“Thank you, Svoolzard Koolimax,
Manna resident DNA number 6764783643 3896653652 3653652732 5347645 376457532
999994652. We do hope you enjoy your DumbMutt v0.3 [MUCH IMPROVED!] special
robotic friend. He will be a very special robotic friend. For life. Your
special friend DumbMutt v0.3 [MUCH IMPROVED!] special robotic friend comes with
many exciting innovations and technical upgrades over the previous DumbMutt
v0.2 [A BIT IMPROVED!] special robotic friend, which tended to accidentally
activate its inbuilt hydrogen cell auto-destruct initiation sequence and destroy
both DumbMutt Unit and Rider Unit in one massive blast.
Don’t worry! That doesn’t happen
anymore! Not often, anyway [please read legal addendum].”

“Argh!” gargled Svool.

“Your friendly special friend
DumbMutt v0.3 [MUCH IMPROVED!] special robotic friend is called [HERBERT].
Please be kind to it. And remember. A robot horse is for
life
not just
for [insert applicable religious festival]. ©qv2907 Metal Mongrels Inc. QGSMA
Quad-Gal Safety Mark Assured (pending). MSMA Manna Safety Mark Assured
(pending). Registered with the Federation For Safety With Metal Mongrels, Inc.”

There came a
ticka ticka ticka
sound. Herbert opened his mouth, and a long stream of punched foil paper
ejected. Svool took the paper, and read in letters made up of pin-prick holes:

Please take good care of your
DumbMutt v0.3 [MUCH IMPROVED!] special robotic friend [HERBERT]-model. Your DNA
has now been registered with the MMI central core database. Your deed will
last: 999 years. Thank you for your custom. ©qv2907 Metal Mongrels Inc. QGSMA
Quad-Gal Safety Mark Assured (pending). MSMA Manna Safety Mark Assured
(pending). Registered with the Federation For Safety With Metal Mongrels, Inc.

“Ahh,” said Svool. “What’s this?”

“It’s a deed of ownership,
buster,” said the horse, in a much more normal but still quite alarming voice.
Svool stared at the twisted-round head, with its flared metal nostrils reeking
of hot oil, its beaten face plates, and its big brown marble eyes.

“I don’t understand.”

“You own me.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Yes, you do. Your DNA has been
accepted. Neigh.”

“That isn’t even a real sound.”

“What?”

“That neigh.”

“That’s what horses do. And I am
a horse, therefore, I neigh.”

“Yeah, but they
make
a
neigh sound. They don’t say the word.”

“Listen, buster, I yam what I
yam.”

Svool sighed. “Listen, I’m going
to get off you now...” - all ideas of some heroic horse-bound rescue had flown
off into the jungle, along with Svool’s dignity - “so just put your head back
where it should be and I’ll get off and we can both go about our merry ways.”

“No,” said the horse.

Svool’s smile remained fixed in
place. “Excuse me?”

“No. You’re going to rescue
Lumar.”

“What...
how
could you
possibly know that?”

“It’s a process of ‘limination,
innit? Neigh.”

“No it isn’t. This has NOTHING to
do with you. So I’m getting off. And you’re
fucking
off.”

Svool tried to move his legs, and
realised in horror that narrow clips had ejected from the horse, wound about
his ankles, and pinned them in place. Slowly, the horse’s head returned to a “normal”
position, with a
click-click-click-click-click.

“How do you want to do it,
buster?”

“Wait! Let me off!”

“Time for the rescue. Innit.”

“Get OFF me, you fucking insane
robot beast!”

“Ha. Hold on! The West is about
to get much Wilder! Even though we’re, y’know, technically in the south. Innit.
Neigh.”

With a complicated series of
movements, the horse’s legs began to flap and flop all over the place, and
there were clanging and clanking noises, and slowly, it managed to turn around.

“Have you got your pistol?”

“Er, yeah....”

“And your sword?”

“Er...”

“And your sheriff badge?”

“Just wait a....”

“Then you’re a fully tooled up
sheriff! Yeeeeeee Har!” With that, Herbert reared, shouting “Neigh, neigh,
neeeeeighhhghhghhghghh,”
and galloped between the rusted metal cars.

And towards the saloon.

~ * ~

“HE’S
COMING, BOSS.”

The sun was high in the sky and
baking the boards of the saloon’s porch. Bronson lowered his boots from the
table, and cast a look back to where Lumar lay on her side, trussed up like a
trussed-up turkey. Her narrow green eyes bored into him with unadulterated
hatred, but Bronson’s deviant men had a certain expertise with knots, and
despite Lumar’s incredible agility, she was now stuck.

She spat at Bronson.

The large man ignored her, and
tipped the brim of his wide cowboy hat back a little.

“Showdown, boss,” said one of the
men.

Bronson hawked and spat, and with
a chinking of spurs, strode out to the centre of the street. He stood, hands
hanging loose by his sides, twin pistols holstered - how many pistols did this
man
have?
- legs apart, in a classic gunfighter stance.

He waited, patiently, the sun
behind him.

“What are you going to
do?”
wailed
Lumar.

Bronson didn’t look at her. He
was focused on the figure that had just stopped at the end of the street.
Again, he hawked and spat, and simply stood there, waiting.

Somewhere distant, a jingly
little tune began to play. The sort of tune which sometimes came from a pocket
watch. It played a sad slow hymn. On the porch, one of Bronson’s men got out a
harmonica and began to strangle it. The wails cut across the dry dusty street.

“What do you think he’ll do,
boss?” asked one man.

General Bronson grinned, and
patted his holstered pistol. “Why, I think the sheriff is going to do some
dying.”

~ * ~

“YES!”

“No!”

“Yes!”

“No!”

“Yes!”

“I am
not
having a fucking
gun battle with that fucking lunatic! I’ve never aimed a pistol in my life, and
I’ve certainly never aimed it at a person, and I have no intention of killing
anybody!”

“Well?” snapped Herbert, “Why
have you just ridden into town on the back of a horse wearing the sheriff’s
outfit and carrying a Law Maker’s pistol then, if you weren’t looking for
trouble?”

“That’s
because
you locked
my legs to your ribs and forced me to come here,
idiot.
Of course I’m
not looking for trouble. I couldn’t shoot an elephant that was trying to sit on
me!
I
was going to sneak in the back way, wait for it to go dark, then
cut Lumar’s bonds and we could have all snuck away without any hassle, but oh,
no, clever-arse metal mongrel horse shithead here had to go charging in, didn’t
you?”

“Well, you should have said,”
sulked Herbert.

“I should have said? Right, turn
around, get us the hell out of here,
now.”