In which Tom meets a mother of a ship
A
s he patted the dust and spiders from the secret passage off his clothing, and prised a small dogfish from his trouser leg, Tom’s mouth dropped open. He stared around the main production floor of SCT.
“I didn’t expect the passage to come out here, but rather glad it did, but where are all the ships we were building? Where is the ‘Belle’?”
“I have no idea,” said Suzanne, buffing her nails.
“And where’s the Magus; where’s Young Pete? They were supposed to be running this place.”
“Do I look like I care?” said Suzanne.
“You should,” said Tom. “We are being hounded by TBP, who are going to appropriate the company for non-payment of fines, and will stop at nothing.”
“I know that. They are after you, not me. I’m just along for the ride.”
“There isn’t a ride,” said Tom. “Look, the place is empty.”
“What about that then?” Suzanne pointed at a pile of scrap metal at one end of a metal rail.
“That was the first prototype we ever built,” said Tom. “A ‘classic’ Hynishota Pointless. It’s been crashed a few times on test flights, but that’s only served to improve its appearance.”
“Will it fly?”
Sounds of explosions, growls, splashes and shrieks came from the entrance to the passage. Tom looked about furtively. “If it’s the only way to get out, then it has to. You coming?”
“Yeah, if you like. Will we fit?”
“It was built to carry native Musoketebans, so it might be a bit of a squeeze. The Magus and Kara managed to fly it, but that was before it got bashed up. But where is the Magus? He and Pete should have been here waiting for us, even if the Skagan workers have deserted.”
“Would this be them?” Suzanne pulled a piece of sacking aside, to reveal two struggling cocoons of rope.
“That looks like Vac’s handiwork,” said Tom. “Have you got a knife?”
“I’ve got a metal nail file,” said Suzanne. “According to the airports, they can be used as terrorist weapons and bring down a whole plane. That’s why they make you leave them behind when you fly. I still haven’t worked out why they also insist on me removing my bra.”
“Maybe the metal supports?” Tom worked away while he spoke. Sure enough, the nail file proved to be deadly in operation, and the coils of rope parted like the seams on a Musoketeban sweatshop shirt. A small bald man rolled out.
“That big ape...”
“Magus, how good to see you,” said Tom, patting him on the shoulders to knock off imaginary dust.
“He took the fleet,” said the Magus, “along with all the security forces. He was muttering about returning to the spawning fields.”
“Spawn, like salmon, you mean, and ‘of the devil’?”
“Precisely. I tried to talk him out of it, but he said if they didn’t go now, there would be no chance for the Skagan race.”
“Racing? I didn’t think he gambled, but then I’m used to them doing weird things, what with the standard greeting they do which involves removal of clothing and going at it like Bonobos.”
“They do that on departure too,” said the Magus with a strange grin. “It took them quite a while to leave, before they tied me up and left me behind, and most of the rest of me too,” he added.
“I guess it would do, but why didn’t you simply use that teleportation skill of yours, relocate out of the bindings to stop them, or at least tell me?”
“I didn’t have the energy. The way I am feeling, I might have turned myself inside out.”
“Nasty. So everyone left with Vac, even Young Pete, the best designer we ever had?”
“Untie him and ask him perhaps?” The Magus indicated the other struggling cocoon.
“Let me,” said Suzanne. “You’re all fingers and more fingers with my nail file. Leave it to a pro.”
She attacked the bindings, and a newly-released Pete struggled to his feet. He wore a dazed, content and surprised expression, and nothing else. “I didn’t expect that,” he said.
“Was it good?” said the Magus. “You being a techie, I don’t suppose anything like that has happened before.”
“To be honest, no. I’ve always thought tarts and technology were mutually exclusive, but I can see the attraction. Trouble is, I now can't remember anything about technology. All I want to do is eat burgers and spend my time taking pictures of my food to post on Twitface, along with inspirational sayings that nobody will take any notice of.”
“Snap out of it. I need you,” said Tom. “We have to leave, but the Skagans have taken all the ships, and TBP Stormtroopers are at this moment forcing their way through the exploding lemming farm inside the secret passage.”
“I helped design that,” said Pete proudly. “If you get too many of them through their excessive breeding habits, they control the population themselves. It’s a simple matter of calculating the exact cage size, versus the rate of propagation, versus the food supply, and then adding dynamite shavings to the food. The enemy entering the passage triggers the release of the backup grain supply... except that I’ve probably forgotten all that after what I’ve been through.” He dreamily pulled on a pair of discarded Skagan security trousers.
“Do you think you can repair that ship over there?”
“I can’t remember. Which one?”
“That one there.”
“If I could think straight, I would point out that it was the prototype. We nicknamed that ‘Fireball One’ because it kept exploding.”
“It’s the only hope we have to escape. Can you get it flying before the troopers get here?”
“I really wouldn’t recommend it. We only kept it for nostalgia, and because the bin-men wouldn't accept it as recycling.”
“It’s all we’ve got,” said Tom. “Magus, you flew it originally?”
“Until it crashed a few times.”
“Good. Take the wheel. Pete, you’re co-pilot. Fireball One is going to fly again. Where are the back doors so Suzy and I can get in?”
“There aren’t any,” said the Magus. “It was advertised as a four-seater, but the back seats are so tight that they didn’t think it was worth giving access to them.”
“We have to get in. We never leave an employee behind.”
“Apart from Amber, Mrs Tuesday, Mr Errorcode and all other remaining staff,” said Suzanne, as she squeezed through the narrow space between the front seats. “I’ll pull you in.” She took hold of Tom’s head and dragged him through the gap. They lay wedged together closer than Tom had been with anyone since his lover, Caryl, left him.
“It won’t start,” said the Magus, as he struggled to operate the ignition key behind the steering wheel.
“Switch it off and back on again,” said Pete.
“Glad to hear you’re remembering your old skills at last,” said Tom. “We will need your engineering expertise to keep us flying.”
“Yes, I’m starting to recollect,” said Pete. “It’s remarkable how constricting these trousers are. Have you enough room in the back?”
“No,” said Suzanne.
“Neither have we,” said the Magus. “Now, Pete, wind down the hexacat whiskers into the doku-mat to get the engine going. I hope that shuddering I can feel in my back is the machine ticking over.”
There was a shriek as a hexacat was expelled from the exhaust.
“I guess that’s where the ship’s cat went,” said Tom, his nose pressed on the tiny back window. “I guess continuously having his whiskers pulled out to build doku-drives wasn’t much to his liking. Here kitty-kitty.”
The hexacat regarded him with suspicion, and then shrugged and leapt into the car, settling himself down by the floor pedals under the Magus’ feet.
“Come on then, old friend,” said Tom, “let’s go. If this thing will fly, get it to fly, like now.”
“Are you ready then, Pete?” The Magus glanced at the engineer.
“I’m winding the hexacat actuating whiskers into the doku-mat drive unit to trigger the release of energy.”
“We can see that,” said the Magus, “and we explained how it all works in the last book, where I discovered the answers to everything, except how to cure my excess of body hair.”
“Hang on,” said Pete, spinning the actuation wheel.
The passengers were thrust back in their seats as the Pointless careered along the track.
“Will it take off?” Tom closed his eyes.
“There’s a sharp curve at the end and then a steep ramp to launch us,” said Pete. “It’s been designed especially for this type of vehicle and drive unit. We’ve used it dozens of times.”
“How many of those has it actually worked?” shouted Tom, as the rail noise increased and the car approached the turn.
“This will be the first,” said Pete. “I pointed out that there may be something fundamentally wrong in the design, but Vac said it would work eventually if we kept trying. Law of averages, he said.”
The car hit the end corner and slewed around, catching the ramp centrally and then went spinning upwards like a loose Catherine Wheel out through the bay doors and into open air.
“I’ll connect the secondary drive,” shouted Pete through clenched teeth. “I’m connecting the secondary drive.”
“We can all still see what you’re doing,” said Tom.
Pete sighed. “Look, it’s vitally important to announce out loud everything I am doing with the controls,” he said with exasperation, “for the main reason that, advanced though they are, nobody has yet thought to connect the switches with some sort of recording device, or a light that comes on saying, for example, ‘Secondary Drive Engaged’. I will factor that into my next designs, now you’ve mentioned it.”
The car shuddered and continued spinning up into the atmosphere, scything its way through a small squadron of TBP attack planes, and then was in outer space. The spinning slowed as the Magus struggled to maintain control.
“I’m deploying the stabilisers,” he said. Two struts with wheels on the end extended from the sides of the car. “That should keep us more steady. Which way, Boss?”
Tom managed to get his head from between Suzanne’s legs and peered through the front space-screen. “Anywhere quickly,” he said. “What’s the nearest inhabitable location?”
“No idea,” said the Magus. “This machine was never fitted with asteroid-nav, but we could try landing on that thing, there.”
Directly ahead of them, a spec glowed. As they approached, the spec slowly turned into a space cruiser, a hideously ugly space cruiser.
“I suppose we should talk to them,” said Suzanne. “Perhaps they’ll be amenable to negotiations. Failing that, can we defend ourselves?”
“Two problems,” said the Magus. “One, we haven’t got any transmitter in this car. We had to remove it to give the passenger somewhere to put her legs, and two, the prototype ‘doku-shunt’ gun it was fitted with was used as the model for all the other ships we built and is currently in the company museum.”
“I thought I said there were to be no armaments fitted to our ships,” said Tom’s muffled voice, his head now wedged under Suzanne’s armpit. “Will you please keep still?”
“I’m trying to see,” said Suzanne. “That ship looks familiar.”
“It should do,” said Pete. “It’s the Fukeds Belle, only I really don’t remember fitting those gun batteries along the side.”
“Assuming that’s where all the Skagans went, how do we talk to them?” said Tom.
“I don’t think we can,” said the Magus. “And from what I remember about Skagan battle tactics, they shoot first and only ask questions if there is anything left to ask questions of.”
A voice echoed inside the car. “You there.”
“How are they doing that?” The Magus shook his head. “We don’t have any communications capability.”
“I think they are so close that shouting is working,” said Pete meditatively. “I’ve never considered that as practical, otherwise we would have fitted speaking tubes.”
“Who’s that then?” said Tom.
“It’s us.” The voice was vaguely familiar. “Attention unidentified abomination of scrap metal. This is the independent goods reallocation ship, The Black Empress Kara’s Good Fortune. Stand down or you will be destroyed.