Colonel Vock’s homecoming was something of a disappointment. Despite all predictions the Divine Army had taken a fearful mauling: thrown back, harried and battered into almost nothing by creatures that the Yull despised. Vock brought no victory and worse than that, no offworlders to beat up. He was jeered at in the street.
A peasant, who he would normally have been allowed to kill merely to test the sharpness of his axe, threw a melon at his head. Vock had failed.
The groundcar dumped him at the edge of his estate and he trudged up the drive to his treehouse. As he approached he saw a heap of objects in the front garden, piled up as if ready to burn: pieces of his second-best armour, his favourite glockenspiel, even his beloved easel.
Vock stormed up the front steps and thumped on the door. ‘Wife! What is the meaning of this disgraceful behaviour? Open up!’
A window opened above and Mrs Vock stepped onto the balcony. ‘And what kind of homecoming do you call this?’ she demanded.
‘I have returned,’ said Vock, puffing out his chest. ‘I led our army in sacred battle against the offworld weaklings—’
‘And they kicked your furry arse!’ Mrs Vock shouted back. ‘I’ve heard the news – you’re a disgrace! All the neighbours are talking about it. The other children laugh at Plig and Vom because of you.’
Vock put his hands on his hips, puffed out his chest and declared, ‘ Harrumph! Lies! With my consecrated axe I charged at the cowardly enemy—’
‘Blah blah blah!’ Mrs Vock yelled. ‘Always the same with you, big words and no triumph. You said you’d bring back ten thousand sacrifices. The children are crying, because Daddy promised them a British to torture and what have they got? Nothing! You’ve not even captured a regimental mascot!’
Vock stared at her. Could she have been the rodent he had married, all those years ago? He remembered a beautiful lemming, not this shrew. Any more saggy and her cheek pouches will hang around her knees, he thought bitterly. ‘Where is my servant Hephuc?’
Hephuc stepped onto the balcony, behind Mrs Vock.
‘Er, hello,’ he said, a little sheepishly. ‘I’ve been, um, looking after your property.’
‘Good,’ Vock said. ‘At least you have protected my wife’s honour in my absence.’ He turned to his wife.
‘Look, Spem—’
‘Don’t you Spem me!’ Mrs Vock snapped. ‘You’re not fit to wear armour. You’re a disgrace! Our noble house has lost respect. Peasants laugh at our army. Even your concubines have sodded off. You’re not setting foot in this house until you’ve gone down to the temple, said sorry and committed ritual suicide. Not a foot!’
Vock thought about breaking in and killing her, but she had a point. After all, he had failed. There was nothing for it but to seek mercy from the high priests – which, knowing Yullian society, was extremely unlikely to be forthcoming.
The Great Temple of Hapiclapu was the finest example of ancient Yullian architecture this side of the Holy Homeworld. It was a huge ziggurat, built on the bones of a thousand slaves, rising eighty feet above the tallest tree-houses. Across the front a mural depicted one of the gentler scenes from Yullian myth: Popacapinyo, the war god, standing over the body of the thief Picapocetortu, holding his enemy’s heart and kicking his severed head.
A sort of diving-board stuck out from the summit of the temple, like a plank protruding from a pirate ship. As Vock ascended, a thin scream came from above and a lemming man sailed out from the board, flew overhead and disappeared with a leafy thud into the foliage at the bottom. The gods did not want apologies; they preferred a leap of faith.
It was a hot day, and the climb to the shine of the war-god seemed endless. All around him groups of worshippers whispered and stared. Even the sacrificial squol lowed with contempt.
The High Priest waited for him on the roof. ‘Great one,’ said Vock, ‘forgive me. I have failed.’
The priest pulled back his hood. He was half-blind, and his whiskers were thin and grey.
‘Yes,’ he wheezed, ‘you have failed. You promised ten thousand sacrifices, and yet you bring back none.’
‘I know,’ Vock replied. Guilt was rising in him like a tide: he felt as if he were drowning in the stuff. ‘I don’t know what happened. The offworlders were berserk: they fought like ten devils each! They left a champion on the bridge—’
‘Ten devils – pah!’ said the priest. ‘Everyone knows off-worlders are feeble and cowardly.’ He turned and pointed to the scowling idol behind him, thirty feet high and flecked with gore. ‘Hear me now! The war god has been cheated!’ He looked back, his voice lower, but still grim.
‘Now, what will you do to put it right?’
‘Say sorry?’ Vock suggested.
‘ Hwot? You – you – dickhead!’ The priest’s thin arm flicked out and cuffed Vock across the ear. ‘You are no better than a mangy offworlder! If Popacapinyo is not to see the head of the British general kicked off the temple roof, then something else must fly through the air!’
Vock swallowed hard.
‘Now, give me your axe and jump over the edge!’
Vock found himself wishing that his people had chosen a more forgiving god. But worship of the nature goddess had been banned for ten years, and the priests of Popiananetl were all dead – all except the wise and venerable Milf, who still wandered the forests, disgusted by his kin.
Numbly, Vock lined himself up with the plank. It wasn’t my fault, he thought. It was the conniving offworlders –most of all, that frog-faced M’Lak who held the bridge.
Curse him and his line! What I would do to take revenge on his clan! If only—
‘Ahem,’ said the priest.
Vock braced his legs like a sprinter in the blocks.
‘ Yullai!’ he screamed, and he raced towards the plank.
The ground disappeared under his feet—
And something hit him across the chest. He thumped down onto his back, winded, thrashing around in rage.
What new insult was this? Was he so shameful that he was being prevented even from suicide? A cruel punishment indeed, so cruel that it could only come from another Yull.
Vock turned his head and looked into the scarred, joyless, one-eyed face of a Ghast officer.
‘Mimco Csinty Huphepuet Vock,’ it said.
‘Let me die!’ he cried. ‘I have no name!’
‘Silence! You are addressing Attack-ship Commander 462 of the Ghast Empire. I have orders to collect you for intelligence purposes. Get up. You are still of use.’
Vock sat up. Two huge praetorians flanked the officer, sneering at the inferior architecture around them. ‘Of use? To the Yull?’
‘We have a mutual interest. You require Suruk the Slayer destroyed. I wish for his comrades to die. In return for your assistance, your name will be restored.’
‘But – how?’
‘We have ways.’ Behind them, a third praetorian staggered along the diving-board, the priest thrashing in its arms. It dropped the priest off the edge. A shriek rose out of the abyss. ‘So, you will work with us?’
‘Well, I – Yes, on my battleaxe!’
‘Excellent. Now,’ said 462, watching a group of mendicants climb the temple steps, ‘I think it would be wise to have any potential witnesses removed.’ One of the praetorians held out Vock’s axe. ‘Please, feel free.’
Leighton-Wakazashi’s headquarters were on YP278, a small planetoid at the far end of the system from Albion 90 Prime. It was a frozen, inhospitable wasteland: the company had chosen it to exploit a taxation loophole on uninhabitable planets and for the great skiing potential it offered the senior executives. The corporation ran the place, governed by British law. In the chaos and disruption of galactic war, it was hard for the Pax Britaniccus Interstella to be enforced as keenly as Parliament would have liked.
The John Pym had touched down for five minutes before it had its own icicles. A fine film of snow swished across the landing pad and was promptly swept away by automated ploughs.
‘I don’t see why I have to do this,’ Carveth said.
Smith fastened his coat and wrapped a scarf around his neck. ‘Because you’re the only one of us connected to the company. You’ve got a reason to be in there.’
She shrugged. ‘All they did was design my basic DNA. They didn’t even make me: I’m a custom job. The only link I’ve had with the company since then is that I play their computer games.’ She fastened her flying jacket and put on her hat. ‘Can’t you go? You could pretend to be a robot and we could wrap you in foil or something—’
‘No,’ said Smith. ‘Remember, Colonial Intelligence has an agent here already. You’ll be given false ID and shown how to get inside. After that, all you need to do is access the main data array and send us anything that links the company to the Ghast Empire and the Vorl. Alright?’
‘Huh. Alright.’
Rhianna wandered into the sitting room. She was wearing heavy boots, a jacket and gloves. ‘I don’t think I’m going to like it here. It seems so. . . I don’t know, capitalist.’
‘Well, it is the HQ of a major corporation,’ Carveth said. ‘Where’s Suruk?’
‘I’ll find him,’ Smith said, suddenly a little worried, and he left the room. He knocked on Suruk’s door and went in.
The alien stood by the shelves, admiring his skull collection. ‘I have made a decision,’ he said. ‘When this mission is done, I will go to find Colonel Vock.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘I am certain.’
Smith nodded. ‘I’d rather you stayed, Suruk.’
‘You think Vock will defeat me?’
‘No, I’d just rather – well, you know, I prefer having you around.’
‘And you also, Mazuran. You have been a good friend, and a great source of wisdom and bail money. But honour calls – and I shall of course return.’
‘I understand. Just - look after yourself, Suruk. And make sure you give him a good smack in the chops from me. Anyway,’ he added, forcing himself to brighten up, ‘we’d best get going. We’ll discuss Vock later.’
‘Indeed,’ said Suruk, ‘Now, let us slay some yuppies!’
They hurried across the cold landing pad, into a smart terminal where a monorail picked them up. The carriage was empty except for a high-ranking executive: the shoulders of his suit were padded, and he gabbled into a mobile comlink the size of a housebrick: ‘Buy it out at thirty percent, ditch the workforce and sell the gardens for scrap. What say we meet at Bernie’s wine bar, seven of the clock, bring your wad?’
Rhianna scowled. If ever she was going to use her powers to pop someone’s head, Smith thought, it would probably be now. Suruk leaned across and whispered to her, ‘He is a capitalist and I am an indigenous tribesman. Could it be wrong to detatch his head?’
Rhianna grimaced and looked away.
Smith glanced at Carveth. She was putting her mittens on, and she looked small and worried. ‘You’ll be alright,’ he said. ‘All you’ve got to do is talk to our agent, get this info and report back. Simple, eh?’
‘Yeah, right,’ she said. ‘This must be our worst plan since you let Suruk go carol singing on that bullion train.’
‘Nobody holds out on the Baby Jesus,’ Suruk growled.
‘I tell you, as soon as we’re done I’m coming straight back. No screwing around.’
The monorail slid to a halt at the main terminal.
There was a logo on the wall outside: a heraldic lion holding up a sword. Beneath the sign an unshaven man was finishing a cigarette.
‘Rick?’ Carveth gasped, squashing her nose against the window. ‘Rick Dreckitt?’
‘God,’ Smith muttered. ‘Not him.’
The doors slid open, pushing Carveth aside. Dreckitt looked inside the carriage.
‘Hey, sister,’ Dreckitt said. He had a gravelly, slightly melancholic voice. ‘How’s business?’
She prised her nose from the window before it could get frozen there. ‘Brilliant!’ she said, beaming at him. ‘How’re you?’
‘Still alive.’ Dreckitt smiled, reluctantly.
Carveth waved at the others from the carriage door.
‘See you in a few days!’ she called, and she skipped away.
‘Let’s get down to business, Rick!’
Suruk looked at Smith. ‘No screwing around, then?’
‘So,’ said Dreckitt, ‘they want me to put the squeeze on you too, huh?’
‘Yes please!’ Carveth said, trotting along at his side.
They were walking through the monorail terminal. It was white and sleek, dotted with odd chrome sculptures like twisted bumpers. Low-ranking Leighton-Wakazashi staff – which Carveth and Dreckitt resembled – hurried past them in work gear. Every so often they would spot an executive from the higher floors, telling someone loudly about his car over the comlink.
‘It’s a tough draw,’ Dreckitt said. ‘If you ask me, the company stinks like they pulled it out the bay after a week in a lead vest.’
Carveth was not quite sure what Dreckitt was talking about. His slang originated from Carver’s Rock, a very tough colony in the United Free States where he had worked as a bounty hunter. Apparently it was quite common for a man to wear a concrete overcoat out there despite his Chicago typewriter, which just went to show how different things were abroad. Whatever he was on about, it always sounded very exciting.
‘Gosh,’ Carveth said, ‘it is funny us meeting, isn’t it? I mean, after Urn and everything.’
Dreckitt frowned, perhaps recalling their last meeting, where Carveth had had her way with him in the John Pym. He had been very drunk. ‘Yep,’ he said. ‘We’ll always have the kitchen table.’
‘We could always have it again.’ Dreckitt said nothing, so she added, ‘Tell me what we’ll be doing.’
‘Okay.’ Dreckitt shoved his hands in his pockets. ‘Leighton-Wakazashi makes high-grade computers, right?Now, the cutting edge of that is simulants: flesh and semi-blood, cultured in a tank. The brains of the Empire – you and me, sister, you and me.’
She nodded, rapt. ‘So we’re at it – where it’s at, I mean?’
‘Exactly. We’ve been checking L-W for a while, making sure that they don’t start doing things they shouldn’t –building custom jobs for the wrong reasons, selling andies off to private clients, and so on.’
He fell silent as a woman strode past in a bright red suit, leafing through a personal organiser. They turned into a smaller corridor. ‘Beneath here is where the data-bases are,’ Dreckitt said. ‘I don’t have clearance: we can figure out how to get it later. But I warn you: the data’s guarded by the most hardcore techs around. They won’t be happy about a dame nosing through their business –assuming they know what a dame is.’
Carveth nodded and they walked on. ‘Look,’ she said, pointing. A cardboard cut-out was propped against the wall: a woman in a steel bikini, six feet tall, wielding a sword. She had huge, pointed ears. ‘ Galaxy of Battle.’
The bounty hunter scowled. ‘Yep,’ he said. ‘L-W hold the rights. Most addictive thing in the universe.’
‘Don’t I know,’ Carveth said. Fifty years ago, Leighton- Wakazashi had bought a moribund tool for sharing pornography called the internet. It was now used to support the company’s virtual world, a place considered by its inhabitants to be significantly better than the real one. ‘I used to play it,’ Carveth said. ‘I bought my own castle and everything. I wanted my own palace, but the captain made me spend it on a new autopilot for the ship. I suppose on balance he was right.’
‘Listen, we need to talk about where you fit into this.’
‘I’m all yours.’
‘Good. Let’s go somewhere private,’ Dreckitt said, and he opened the door of the ladies’ toilet.
Inside a cubicle, Dreckitt said, ‘Here’s the deal. It’s wartime, and sims are getting requisitioned for logistics work left right and centre. The company knows it can’t send andies out untrained. So, it calls them back in and gets them battlefield-ready – and that’s where you come in. You’re training them.’
‘What? I can’t do that! I don’t know how to fight, let alone how to teach other people.’
‘It’s a breeze, sister. The real trainer’s been delayed: Intelligence gave her ship a Mickey Finn. You’re down to do it in her place. There’s a neural link in your room: all you have to do is download this.’
He reached into his coat and took out a programme box. On the front was a photograph of a red-faced man, squinting belligerently as if regarding an enemy through a telescope. The title read: The Davies-McLaglen Complete Sergeant Major Simulator.
‘These broads are all androids,’ Dreckitt explained. ‘Tell ’ em to stand up straight and it’s a done deal.’
The man on the box glowered out at Carveth, his chin protruding like a cowcatcher. She sighed. ‘Rick, do you remember when you and I went out on that date?’
‘When I was hired to kill you?’
‘Yes. Do you think that could ever happen again?’
‘Depends whether you cross me or not. Listen, kid,’ said Dreckitt, ‘I get your drift. But this is a job. Maybe sometime we can get together and sink some rye, but for now, Dreckitt’s on a case, and there’s no getting him off it.’
‘Well then, we’re partners! We’ll sort it all out, and then we can get some time together. I can be on your case too.’
‘You already are,’ Dreckitt said. He looked glum for a moment, then sighed and added, ‘I shouldn’t be hard on you. You’re okay. Don’t look so shook up, kid. You look like you’re expecting to get the bum’s rush.’
Carveth was not sure whether this was a disease or an unnatural act. ‘You wish,’ she said, and she opened the cubicle door.
Back in the living room of the John Pym, Smith was consulting their library. This consisted of about fifty books, roughly divided between military history, spacecraft recognition guides, battlefield manuals and stories about young women looking for Mr Right.
‘Hey, Isambard.’
Smith glanced up. It was warm inside the ship, and the heat made him feel a little drowsy. Rhianna had taken off her coat and boots and, by the looks of it, a good deal else: her t-shirt and skirt seemed only attached to her by accident. Her casual sexiness made him interested, then resentful, then wary.
‘Just looking in my books,’ he said. ‘I wondered if there might be anything useful about the Vorl in them.’
‘ The Boys’ Book of Uplifting Adventure,’ Rhianna said, picking up one of the titles. ‘I doubt it. . .’
Smith frowned. ‘I hope Carveth’s all right. I never trusted that Rick Dreckitt fellow. Shady type, that.’
‘You worry about Polly, don’t you?’
‘Sometimes. Especially when she puts her arms out and goes Neeeeeeeyow! Bad form in a pilot.’ He shrugged.
‘She’s not a bad sort, deep down.’
‘I think that’s very kind,’ Rhianna said. ‘It’s good that you care so much.’
Smith lifted a volume of Jane’s Fighting Spacecraft and scowled behind it in the direction of Rhianna’s lithe body.
He crossed his legs and tried to think about something else, noticing that the old radio mast was getting ready to transmit its message of love.
‘How’s Suruk?’ Rhianna asked.
‘He’s in the hold, practising. He means to go after this Colonel Vock as soon as he gets the chance.’
Rhianna shook her head, genuinely sad. ‘War just breeds war,’ she said.
‘They don’t think like that. To Suruk, the cycle of violence is a bike with scythes. Still, if this Vock fellow is anything like the rest of the Furries, he’ll have earned it.’ He felt tired and sour. ‘How’s about a drink?’ he suggested.
‘Cool.’
Smith got up and opened the fridge. A stop at the company shop on the way back from the terminal had secured them a useful supply of beer. He pulled out a few and set them on the table. ‘Here we go.’
Rhianna always seemed to find it hard to sit on a chair properly for any length of time. She pulled her feet up under her and ran a hand through her hair. She looked deliciously scruffy.
Smith opened the hold door. Inside, Suruk was practising fighting with his spear, calling out the names of the strikes as he jabbed and sliced the air: ‘Leaping Dog style! Monkey Threatens Biscuit! Solitude Standing!’
‘Pint?’ Smith asked, making the universal tipping gesture. Suruk nodded.
‘You know,’ Smith said as he returned to the table, ‘I don’t trust Leighton-Wakazashi. They’re too interested in making a profit and not enough in the galaxy as a whole.’
‘Really, Isambard?’ She sounded pleased. He realised he had said something right.
‘Absolutely. Leighton-Wakazashi exploit the galaxy terribly. Not like our East Empire Company. They know how to exploit the galaxy properly.’
Rhianna frowned. ‘Soon enough,’ she said as Suruk strolled into the room, ‘Leighton-Wakazashi’s greed will turn against it. It’s karma. Karma is inside everything.’
Suruk started rooting about in one of the cupboards.
‘Not in here,’ he said. ‘I think I ate it.’
‘That’s korma,’ Smith said. ‘Another beer, anyone?’
The Leighton-Wakazashi buildings were soulless, even to an android. Carveth did not like her small, white, allotted room: the chrome and digital clocks unsettled her.
Already she missed the John Pym, with its dials, gears and inexplicable pinging sounds. Sitting up in bed, she reflected on the grim task that was to come. She’d registered, claiming that she was here to train the lady androids in basic combat drill, and been given a list of trainees and a programme of activities to run through with them, as well as a uniform in a box.
The list of names sounded reasonable: ten simulants of varying nationality, with the initial R or K in the middle of each name, for Robot or Karakuri depending on the planet of manufacture. The training schedule was less promising, though. There was a cursory bit about tactics and rifle handling, along with longer sections about close-quarter wrestling/hair pulling, beach volleyball and hazardous environment training (mud, custard). Each day was rounded off with a sing-song and disciplining of recruits (‘preferably over the knee’, someone had written in biro on the timetable. ‘Tolerate no naughtiness’). This looked bad.
‘Dirty old buggers!’ she said. Stuff this, she decided. If she was going to run this show, she’d run it properly, not for the amusement of a bunch of dirty old executives.
There was no way that she was going to roll around in mud dressed in anything but tough, sensible clothes. She might perhaps pay Rick Dreckitt a visit in less sensible clothes later, but that was her own business. After all, you had to have some sort of life outside work, didn’t you?
There was a neural shunt and a player on the wall. She wired up the basic training disc, plugged it in and went to sleep.
‘So,’ said Smith, finishing his fourth can, ‘Shipping command came to the conclusion that there was probably a connection between Binky landing the ship the wrong side up and the disappearance of half the shipment of Scotch. They accused him of being a drunkard.’
Rhianna nodded keenly. ‘How did he get his pilot’s licence back?’
‘He threw a party for the top brass and paid for the bar.’ Smith sighed. ‘Good old Binky. I think he captains a dreadnought now. How about you? Any good stories?’ He opened another beer.
Rhianna peered into her own can and shrugged. ‘Well, I don’t know. I’ve not really had as many adventures as you. We had some pretty crazy times, back in the day, though. There were nine of us in this modern dance group called Starship Troupers – doing spoken poetry, movement, kind of a holistic thing. We used to play whale music in the interval, until they translated whale song. We put our stuff through a translator: it turned out to be a sea shanty called Right Up the Blowhole.’ Rhianna burst into laughter. ‘You should have heard it!’ she exclaimed, and she coughed and spilt her beer in a frothy mess.
At the far end of the table, Suruk said ‘Holistic!’ and chuckled to himself.
Rhianna had the giggles. Smith watched her, intrigued.
Suddenly she slipped off her chair, landed awkwardly on one foot and then fell onto him.
He caught her instinctively, and she lay there across his lap for a moment, grinning. He smiled back at her. Their eyes met. Rhianna stopped smiling and hauled herself upright. ‘I ought to get to bed,’ she said.
‘Oh,’ said Smith. The spell was broken, if ever it had been there. ‘Well then – are you alright to walk?’
‘I’m fine.’ She rubbed her head. ‘Fine. Night, everyone. Nod bless.’ She padded out of the room, a little more uneven than usual. Smith heard the door to her room close.
‘Bollocks,’ said Smith. He looked at the far wall, feeling empty. ‘Suruk?’ he said after a while. ‘How’re you going to find Colonel Vock?’
‘I will manage,’ Suruk said.
‘You’ll need someone to fly you to wherever he is.’
The alien shrugged. ‘I will seek passage with other M’Lak. Much as I like this craft, I miss the ships of my people. They have their own ambience. . . and aroma.’ He opened another can. ‘Fear not. I will bring you back a postcard.’
‘Thanks,’ said Smith.
‘She makes you sad,’ Suruk remarked. He had mastered the art of using his mandibles to hold his can, freeing his hands to gesticulate. ‘You are angry that your end has not got away with the magic woman. You wish to donate her one, and it grieves you that you cannot.’
Smith nodded. He felt defeated. ‘Yes,’ he said.
‘We should find you another with which to spawn. I have an idea! We will advertise, placing cards in telephone boxes. I have seen it done.’
‘I don’t—’
‘Then, we could interview those seeking to apply. And if they are not good enough, they will die by my hand! This will discourage time-wasters.’
‘Thanks, old chap.’ He sighed. ‘I wish it were that easy, Suruk, I really do. Nice of you to try to help.’
‘I enjoy a challenge.’
Smith sighed and stood up. It was time to feed the hamster and go to sleep. ‘Goodnight, Suruk,’ he said.
‘Goodnight,’ the alien replied.
Smith put on his pyjamas and brushed his teeth. At the door to his room he switched off the corridor lights. The living room was empty, and in the hold, Suruk was practising his martial arts again.
Smith watched the alien leap, duck, cut and roll. He could not help but be impressed, and in an odd way envious. How much easier life would be without the curse of a sex drive, where the solution to any problem was decapitation! There was an elegant lack of complexity, a simple precision to the M’Lak mind that humans lacked. He would never admit it, but sometimes Smith wondered if mankind could learn from the M’Lak. Something crashed in the hold, followed by wild laughter. Maybe not.
It was snowing outside. Around them, Leighton- Wakazashi was keeping its secrets. And further away were Colonel Vock and 462, plotting their evil against Earth.
An onslaught against mankind on two fronts. Without help from the rest of the galaxy, the other empires would soon collapse under such an assault. Even Britain might find winning a bit tricky. Troubled, Smith went to bed.
Carveth woke early and prepared for command. She zipped up her utility waistcoat, pulled her hair back into a functional ponytail and looked at herself in the mirror.
‘’Ow the ’ell am I going to do this?’ she asked her reflection.
Then, ‘ ’Ow? ’Ell? When did I stop saying haitch?’
She realised that the programme was running. She hadn’t the faintest idea what she needed to do but, in her subconscious, she was a sergeant major.
On the way she bought a company newspaper and rolled it into a narrow tube. With one end jammed under her arm, her hand on the other, she strode onto the training ground.
The androids were chatting, waiting for the course to begin. They were a mixed bunch, from a variety of lines: in once glance Carveth saw a prim, dark-haired girl in a thick fur coat, an acrobat with a stripe of makeup across her eyes, an artificial company wife in a flowery dress and floppy hat, muttering something about a recipe – even an ancient Metropole-class, gold-finished and expressionless.
They looked quite reasonable from here, she thought, but the training programme thought otherwise.
‘Hatten-shun!’ she bellowed. ‘Get in a line! Now!’
The androids shuffled into a row. Slightly astonished, and already slightly hoarse, Carveth glanced around the room. The training area doubled as a sports centre for the company executives and the lady androids stood along the baseline of a badminton court.
‘Right then!’ Carveth said, approaching the end of the line. She dipped her head slightly, shoved her jaw out, narrowed one eye and widened the other. ‘You ’orrible crew,’ she began. ‘You ’orrible bunch of mummies’ bots, fresh out the server room.’ She took the paper from under her arm and prodded the first android in the chest with it.
‘You! What’s your name?’
‘My name is Emily Hallsworth,’ the android said. She was wearing a long dress and a bonnet. ‘I am pleased to make your aquain—’
‘I didn’t ask for the bleedin’ Doomsday Book! What’s that on your ’ed?’
‘It is known as a bonnet,’ Emily replied. ‘All ladies of—’
‘Where’re you from?’
‘I have of late been residing at the Jane Austen Experience, on New Bath. My calling is to entertain the visitors with polite discourse and the pianoforte.’
Carveth was finding that being in charge of an infantry unit was actually quite easy, once you got into the swing of it. ‘Ooh, New Bath, is it? La dee bleedin’ dah. Well, this is basic training now, girl. Get that bloody radar dish off your ’ed! Nah then,’ she muttered, moving on, ‘let’s see what else they’ve given me – oh my God, what’s wrong with your eyes?’
The next android in the line wore a white shirt, pleated skirt and long socks, which was odd enough, but her features were even more bizarre. She had a tiny mouth and nose, and vast, round, watery eyes like something that had evolved in a cave. They stared at Carveth for a moment, and the girl gave an idiotic giggle. ‘Hi!’ she said, ‘I’m Robot Pilot Yoshimi! Let’s have fun!’
Thrown, Carveth stared back. Yoshimi certainly didn’t look like any android she’d ever met – or indeed any person at all. Emily leaned over and whispered disapprovingly, ‘Manga specifications, I believe.’
The program recovered Carveth’s composure. ‘What the bloody ’ell are you on about? Don’t give me this fun bollocks, my girl!’
Yoshimi looked dismayed. Her huge eyes blinked. She sniffed.
‘Don’t get soft with me!’ Carveth bellowed. ‘What are you, a bloody schoolgirl?’
‘Yes!’ Yoshimi said, and she burst into tears.
‘Oh. Sorry,’ Carveth said. ‘Look, I didn’t mean to make you cry.’ Feeling that this was all going wrong, she stepped away and surveyed her charges. ‘Now, listen. My name is Polly and I will be equipping you to deal with the modern battlefield. The world out there is a tough, dangerous place. You may not like that. You may want to duck out, to run back to your motherboards. Well, there’ll be none of that here! You must learn to be as tough and dangerous as anything it can throw at you if you want to survive, understand? – Can somebody give her a tissue, please? – I said, Do you understand?’
There was a mumble of assent.
‘What was that?’ she barked.
‘Yes, Polly!’
‘That’s more like it!’ She strolled down the line, and since there were only ten of them, soon strolled back.
‘Right, you lot! Hatten-shun!’ She jammed the newspaper under her arm and squinted. ‘Now, listen! It’s a hard world out there, and if you want to survive, you’ll ’ave to get wise! And Polly will make you wise! Now, first up, I’ve made a couple of little changes to your training programme. Today’s mud wrestling is off. Instead, we will be learning about the Ensign rapid-fire laser rifle, following which I will be continuing your moral education down the pub. But first, which one of you babies knows anything about Von Clausewitz’s dialectical approach to military analysis?’
‘The Chairman will see you now,’ the intercom said, and the Deputy Director opened the office door and stepped inside.
Chairman Brett Gecko was at his desk, adjusting his braces. Club Tropicana was playing on the stereo: as the Deputy Director entered, the music stopped.
‘Tell me Patrick,’ the Chairman asked, ‘have you ever considered the profundity of the early works of Wham?’
He put his feet up on the desk and pointed at his minion with both hands, the thumbs cocked up like gun hammers. ‘I’m a busy man, so shoot.’
‘You wanted to talk to me about the robot girls, sir. Is there a problem?’
‘Course not. Problems are for wimps. There’s no such thing as problems in this company, only solutions to problems. Who solves problems? Tigers solve problems. And at Leighton-Wakazashi, we separate the tigers from the boys. Yes, Patrick, there’s a problem.’
‘Really, Sir? You need me to—’
The Chairman scowled. ‘Hold that thought – call coming in.’ He lifted the phone and barked into it, ‘Hey, Carter, how’s the space-haulage game? An entire ship? Only one survivor? A woman, you say? That’s terrible. Can we get hold of a specimen for the science division?’ He put the comlink down. ‘Now, Patrick, do you remember Paul Devrin?’
‘He was your predecessor, until his C5 transport unit exploded. . .’
‘Damn right. He had a sexbot built, a custom job. I happened to be watching the girl androids doing their physical training today, by coincidence, and I noticed there are. . . similarities between her and the new trainer.’
‘They may just be built to the same basic pattern, sir.’
‘Get with the programme, Patrick, because this train waits for nobody! This smells like trouble to me. You know we don’t need any trouble now, what with our grey-market sales at Tranquility Falls. The ants pay well for info, and the last thing the company needs is some renegade custom-job getting in the way. I’m making an informal executive order here: wait a moment. . .’
The Chairman leaned over and spun the needle on his executive toy. It teetered on Play a round of golf, rocked, and stopped at Order an assassination. He sat up, tightened his red braces and squared his padded shoulders. ‘Put the sleeper on standby,’ he said.
The Deputy Chairman swallowed. ‘Sir, isn’t that a bit, well, excessive?’
‘This is the age of excess!’ the Director barked. ‘Get wise, Patrick. Out there, it’s a jungle, a corporate jungle full of fat cats and wolves in suits. And you know what sort animals rule the jungle? Damn right you do. Sharks. You’ve got to be a shark – a tiger shark – to ride this train. That’s why I’m sitting here, swimming in my own jungle, and you’re standing in front of that desk, whining like a little girl. Hey, am I right or am I right?’
‘Yes sir.’
He clicked his fingers. ‘I like the way you think, Patrick. You’ll go far. But you can’t win the rat race if you can’t walk the walk – because it’s a dog-eat-dog world out there, and if you can’t stand eating dogs, it’s time to get back in the kitchen. Understand?’
‘Right,’ said the Deputy Director.
‘Watch this new trainer to the max. Watch her like a hawk, and if she starts poking her nose around – freeze her assets for good.’ He leaned back and put his feet back up. ‘Later. Ciao.’