Wrath of the Lemming-men (25 page)

She draped a sheet of Cheddar, Military, One Serving, onto the bread. Smith watched her work. He had never seen anyone make a cheese sandwich with such elegant eroticism. He thought about saying something, complimenting her in some way, but he realised that anything he said would sound foolish and crude.

‘Would you like a dollop of my gentleman’s relish?’ he asked, passing her a jar.

She took it from him and gave the ingredients scrutiny.

‘I’m worried, Isambard,’ she said.

‘It’s fine for vegans,’ he replied.

‘I mean about going down there,’ she said, raising her voice over the racket of descent. ‘I mean, what will we find down there? Will we find the Vorl? Will they recognise me as their friend?’

‘I’m sure they’ll see you as one of the family. Though if they’re anything like my family, that might not be a good thing.’

‘No?’ she turned and smiled at him, which made him feel uncomfortable.

‘Rum bunch,’ he said. ‘Best check on Carveth.’

‘I—’ Rhianna began, but he was on the way out.

Carveth was at the controls, prodding the retro thrusters. Gerald’s cage was in the captain’s chair.

Everything seemed in order. ‘Alright there?’ Smith asked.

‘Pretty good. We’ll start the landing sequence in five minutes.’

Smith watched the planet grow larger as they approached. ‘What’s the terrain like down there?’

She pulled down a screen on a jointed brass arm. ‘Have a look.’

‘It looks like Bodmin Moor. Careful with those thrusters: we don’t want to burn the heather. The National Trust would raise hell for that.’

‘Right, boss. We’re carrying a bit of weight on the left dorsal. Might have a look at that once we’ve touched down.’

‘Go ahead,’ Smith said. He sighed. ‘Carry on, Carveth. I’ll be in my room.’

Smith wandered into his room and closed the door.

Descent had set the model spaceships swinging on their bits of string. He watched them rock, feeling inexplicably glum, and pulled out the chair to sit down at the captain’s desk.

It was Rhianna again. He had tried both ignoring her and being friendly, and still he could not escape the fact that he longed to be friendlier yet. There was no getting away from it: he would always want her, and his chance for that was gone.

A strange depression swallowed him, tranquil and deep.

Oh well, there was nothing that could be done. As far as the music of love was concerned, he had always been less of a virtuoso than a soloist.

If only he could just forget the whole women thing for good. Better to have Suruk’s cheerful company than feel miserable remembering what he couldn’t have. He needed a distraction. An idea struck him, and he reached under the desk and pulled out a large cardboard box. The lid depicted a spacecraft flying through an explosion.

Smith opened the box and smiled as he looked over the moulded plastic parts inside. This was no ordinary model kit: this was the Hyperspace Hellfire of the Space Marshall himself, issued with special transfers to celebrate his hundredth kill. He held up the fuselage and turned it round in his hands, simulating the flight of the ship.

‘Eeeeow,’ he said. ‘Akakak.’

‘Isambard?’

He looked round. Rhianna stood in the doorway. Smith lowered the model plane, feeling not so much embarassed as annoyed that she had to be here. Couldn’t he get some bloody peace, escape somewhere where he could forget about it all? It occurred to him that the M’Lak ancients had never been as wise or perceptive as he had been at the age of eight, when he had first made the great realisation that Girls Spoil Everything.

‘Can I come in?’ she asked.

‘I suppose so.’

She stepped inside and closed the door. ‘Can we talk for a while?’

‘If you like. Don’t mind me, I’m listening.’ He resumed his study of the Hellfire, without making the noises.

‘I meant like adults, Isambard.’

‘This is adult. It says “16 and over” on the box.’

‘How’s your head?’

‘Fine.’ He shifted position, drawing away from her in case she tried to make him better.

Rhianna sighed. ‘Isambard, I’m sensing a lot of negativity from you these days.’ She sat down on his bed, knees close together and hands on them. She leaned forward, as if expecting him to whisper. ‘Is something wrong?’

‘No,’ he said, returning to the kit. ‘I’m fine.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes.’

‘Is there anything you want to say to me?’

‘Not especially. You did a good job back there, on that Marty war-machine. That was good work. Thank you.’

She nodded and forced a smile. ‘Okay. Nothing else?’

She stood up. ‘I’ll be in my room.’

He heard the slap, slap of her flip-flops pass behind him.

‘I miss you,’ he said. It came out without him meaning to, as unbidden as Carveth’s wind. ‘For what’s it’s worth. . . I mean. . .’ he found himself adding, earnestly and bitterly,

‘That’s what you wanted me to say, feelings and all that. But it’s not worth saying so it’s better not said, because that’s done and dusted and whatever I think or feel won’t alter it.’ He wondered if the fumes from the model glue had done something to his mind, but now it was too late to stop; he had pushed the toboggan of truth down the slalom of his tongue and the jangling bells of sexual frustration were speeding it on its way. ‘At the end of the day, assuming Gertie or the Furries don’t do us in first, I’ll go back to my work and you’ll go back to being psychic and wearing that colander thing on your head and that’s that.’

‘I miss you too,’ she said.

‘Precisely,’ he replied. ‘So that rather finishes everything, and. . .’ He looked around and blinked. ‘Really?’

Rhianna nodded in a blur of dark hair. ‘I don’t really know why, but yes, I do. I mean, you’re English, you’re a colonialist oppressor, you’ve got that terrible moustache, and yet – yet I can’t help but sense that your spirit has somehow risen above that and blossomed into this pure, noble thing, like a great, big tree. . .’

He watched her, wondering if she had finally taken leave of her mind, and realised that on some odd level this was meant to be a deep compliment. Suddenly he realised what she was banging on about: she meant that he was decent. He had a sudden, glue-fuelled image of the sort of men she had wasted her time on, the sort that he had never thought he could compete with, and it occurred to him that – to Rhianna at least – he was now actually a catch. Well, then. . .

He stood up. ‘Rhianna, if we started walking out again, and we had to part company for you to work for the Service again, I could wait. Provided I knew you would, that is.’

She nodded again. ‘I can wait,’ she said quietly. She stepped over, looked up and kissed him. The whole world seemed to shake as she did and it was all he could do not to fall over. He realised that Carveth was landing the ship. Smith held Rhianna tightly as the landing procedure was completed, partly for the safety of both of them, and after a few seconds they looked at each other again.

The
John Pym
did not move. They were on Lloydland.

‘Erm,’ said Smith, ‘seeing as we’re both here now and pretty much in agreement on this, I don’t suppose we could – you know –
do it
, could we?’

Carveth picked up the toolbox, switched on the torch strapped to her head, and stepped out of the airlock door muttering. So much for chivalry. Nobody had offered to help her check the ship, even though she’d mentioned it at least half an hour before. Alright, she was both the pilot and the mechanic, but
really
.

She closed the airlock and lumbered down the steps, weighed down by the tools. Suruk had retired to the hold to do whatever Suruk did and Smith and Rhianna had spent the afternoon sulking at one another and were no doubt at it even now. Midges danced in the torch beam like performers under a spotlight. A breeze caught the heather and set it swaying.

The ship had landed on a rocky patch where there was no risk of setting the scrub alight. It was easy to walk across the barren ground and set up under the rear tail fin. She put the toolbox down, crouched and opened it up.

Spooky out here, she thought, looking over the heather.

It swung back and forth, left and right, almost beckoning.

She half-expected to see some pale nocturnal creature lurking at the edge of the light: the torch did not shine very far. She turned her attention to the sooty side of the ship, singing to keep her spirits up.

‘
Oh Mr Turing, whatever shall I do? I only count in
binary but I’ve just got up to two
. . .’

There was a set of collapsible steps in the toolbox; Carveth pressed the button and stood aside as they unfolded. She climbed up and looked over the tail fin.

On the way down there had been an unexpected weight on the port rear, leaving the
Pym
very slightly unbalanced.

It was worth examining. On a newer ship such things could presage minor damage; on the
Pym
it probably indicated that the tail was dropping off. She looked under the fin and found nothing, then turned her attention to the thruster.

A strange shiny substance had attached itself to the side of the thruster, gleaming like dried glue. It looked as if a group of snails had raced each other from the flank to the rear of the retro-booster. She prodded it with a gloved finger. It was as hard as plastic.

Carveth took out a pocket-welder and leaned around the back. The ladder wobbled slightly under her. She followed the snail trails around the thruster, watched them get denser and denser, almost a web criss-crossing the rear of the jet, holding in place something like a pineapple made out of snot. Utterly disgusted, she focussed the torch, and a shudder ran through the pineapple.

It burst. Something red and glistening leaped out at her and she yelled, the ladder swung away and she was falling –
thump!
– and the light fell off her head. She sat up, drawing her pistol and in the torchlight she saw a mass of tentacles and jointed limbs scurry into the heath and disappear. The heather rustled as the creature darted through it, then it resumed its gentle sway in the wind.

Carveth was shaking. She sat there for a moment, revolver in hand, watching the patch of light. The breeze set a strand of hair dancing before her eyes.

She stood up and rubbed her aching backside, quite impressed with herself for not screaming. Whatever that thing was, it had fled. She bent down, picked up the head-set and put it back on. Carveth adjusted the lamp, sighed and turned back to the ship.

She looked straight into the face of a ghost. This time she really did scream.

In Smith’s room the lights were out.

‘A bit gentler, please?’ Rhianna said. ‘You’re not tuning in a radio.’

‘Righto. Any better?’

‘Much better.’

‘Good-oh. Hold on a moment.’ The bed creaked. ‘One sec –
tadaaah!
No trousers.’

‘Give me your hand, Isambard. There. Do that, okay? Mmm. Now then, what have we here?’

‘That’ll be my todger, actually.’

‘It was a rhetorical question. Let’s take your shirt off –it’s – uh?’

‘Ah. It’s got tucked in to my underpants. That happens sometimes. Just out of – ah – interest, where’s your hand going there?’

‘Just trust me, Isambard, okay?’

‘Well, alright then, but – oh, I see. False alarm. Fair enough, all above board.’ He sighed. ‘It’s smashing to be with you again, you know. I honestly thought I’d never get the chance. Rhianna, would you mind if I put the light on? I’d like to see you without your kit on.’

‘Okay.’ The bed moved as she stretched out. ‘Sure.’

‘Right. Light switch. Should be just over here. . . Hang on, what’s this? Who the hell—’

‘Hello, Boss.’

‘Carveth! What the hell are you doing? Can’t you tell I’m busy?’

‘Yeah, sorry about that. I came in, and I was kind of waiting for a convenient break in conversation, and then. . . oh, hi, Rhianna.’

‘Hey Polly. Um, we’re kind’ve unavailable right now.’

‘I know, but I saw something really horrid outside and now I’m scared to go to bed. Can I sleep in here tonight?’

‘Was it the enemy, Carveth?’

‘Er, no, not really.’

‘Then dammit, no you can’t sleep here! Use your own room!’

‘I saw a ghost. I don’t want to go in my room in case it comes up the vent shafts and—’

‘Go away!’

‘Please, Boss. I could sleep on the floor. I’d be really quiet.’

‘No! Sod off! Can’t you see I’m getting my—’

‘Isambard, maybe we ought to let her. She sounds really freaked out.’

‘Certainly not! Carveth, you’re a grown woman, not a child. Now go to your room at once. Dear God, whatever next?’

‘Greetings, Mazuran!’

‘Oh for—’

‘Both the females at once? I salute you! When first we set foot on this vessel, I told you that you would have foul couplings with them both, and most modestly you said no. Yet I was right! Truly you shall spawn many—’

‘Suruk, Carveth is here because she claims to have seen some sort of monster outside. She wants to sleep in my room, which isn’t practical. I’m trying to get her to go back to her own room.’

‘I see. That is indeed impractical. Perhaps one at a time, then?’

‘Boss, I saw something on the moor. It was this white thing floating around the moor, making this weird, high-pitched sound—’

‘Was it Kate Heathcliffe, little pilot woman?’

Smith finally found the light switch. Carveth and Suruk stood at the end of the bed, like a judging panel. ‘Right, young lady robot, out. Out we go. Suruk, would you mind leaving too? Please?’

‘Fear not,’ Suruk declared. ‘I shall take the timorous Piglet to my chambers. Come, timid one. Suruk the Slayer shall stand guard over you.’

Suruk’s room smelt of ammonia. The bed was folded against the wall to provide more space for trophies.

Carveth watched as Suruk lowered the bed and smoothed the covers down with his palm. ‘It has never been used,’ he explained. ‘I do not sleep in a bed.’ He pulled the sheets back and gave her an unnerving smile, like Sweeney Todd welcoming a customer. Carveth yawned.