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IT WAS THREE DAYS BEFORE I got back to Graves. I had a rush of work on as you know, plus I had to attend a secret meeting. Tipper absolutely insisted I attend, and not many people can say 'no' to Tipper, and I’m definitely not one of them.
At the appointed hour I joined the Mayor, all the main tour operators and a few other concerned business people in a backroom of the Club. Mayor Bol began proceedings in his characteristic way. “Right, so we’re in deep shit with these bloody earthquakes. How the hell do we get ‘em started again?”
“Does anyone know why they stopped?” I foolishly asked.
“What do’ya think we are? Scientists?” asked Tipper crossly.
“I was just thinking...”
“Forget the causes!” said someone else, “We want solutions!”
I shut up for a while. Someone suggested using explosives to annoy The Crush back into action. This was seriously debated for a while, but they finally decided they were risking altogether too much. Notch summed it up nicely; “Yeah, like she might get really pissed, eh.”
“Isn’t there something more natural we can use?” asked Dob, “You know, some sort of itching powder?” He glanced at me, hopefully.
Tyge spoke first, “Yeah, but won’t we need thousands of tons of it?”
“Maybe not,” I said, finding it easier to answer her question than Bol’s, “the human body can respond dramatically to even tiny amounts of a chemical. Parts per billion in some cases.” I had a horrible thought right then. Maybe that tobacco juice had dribbled down into The Crush and somehow soothed the itch.
Then with relief I remembered that the earthquakes had stopped the day before I’d found the evil stuff. Anyway, I had people looking at me hopefully, and so I took the chance to get back to my main point, “We just need someone to do a bit of research, then ...”
They shouted me down again.
Dob Bol tugged at his ear and looked very frustrated. Finally he said, “This is probably a long shot but once upon a time, every leg in this town was hooked up to a central computer. If we could do that again, we could trigger all the legs together and simulate an earthquake.”
“Hey! Alright! Let’s do it!”
“You’re onto it! Good one, Dob!”
“You’ve got my vote, mate!”
He didn’t look happy, despite the accolades. Finally he came out with it. “Yeah, but the trouble is that lunatic Hickster and his scummy mates back at Central junked the whole system when they built the taxi-way. The main computer got trashed.”
“But it’s still a good idea!” boomed Tipper, “Surely Stevo come do it?”
Dob Bol nodded, “It's our best shot. But it’s gotta stay secret, alright?” He looked around at us with his alcohol-ruined eyes, “If the tourists get wind of it we’re all up shit creek.”
“No we won’t!” challenged Tyge, “because we’ve still got the best goddamn spider rides ever, and we’ve still got the piano! We’ll be fine!”
“Yeah, too bloody right, mate!”
“Hoorah for Edgetown!”
Everyone began drumming on the tabletop and whooping like they’d already solved the problem. The meeting began to break up with cheerful farewells and confident utterances. Finally only a small group of us remained.
“Right,” said Tipper once things had settled down again, “how the fuck are we actually going to do this thing?”
“Buggered if I know,” said Notch, “find someone to reprogram the legs, I suppose.”
“Where the hell’s Stevo anyway?” growled Tyge, “He was supposed to be here.”
“Up at the mansion, I guess,” I said, “still messing around with his piano.”
“Right!” Tipper stood up. “I’ve had a-fucking-nuff of him! Let’s go!”
We drove up there and docked in or locked up to the taxi-way. I was in the advance party. Everything looked normal, and I could hear a power tool running in the workshop. We waited for the others then we all trooped in together. In the centre of the worn carpet stood Stevedore’s piano, virtually finished, and all around it; like fragments of the past swirled together and frozen in time; were thousands of off-cuts, discarded tools and chitin shavings.
“Ah, ah!” said Stevedore, flapping his arms about like a happy three year old, “you’re just in time! We’ve just finished tuning it!”
At that moment the lovely Sharp stood up from behind the piano, closing her nanobot case. Her face was as impeccable as ever, but now she was dressed in an old pair of Stevo’s coveralls. A bizarre image.
She glanced around at us with that startled look I’d seen before, as if we were there to arrest her, but otherwise her face was blank. Ah: those mysterious deep dark eyes that seemed to contain all the pain and wisdom of a hundred worlds. Why in all the Galaxy was she staying in this loser town?
I have to admit I wondered for a moment if something was going on, but immediately dismissed the idea: Sharp with Stevedore? Impossible. But I guess I must have squirmed or something. I saw Tyge out the corner of my eye, studying them just as I was. I knew how to read her tiger-like eyes by then, and I could see that she could see what I didn’t want to see, and nor did I want Tyge to see the flash of pain and disappointment that pulsated through me right then. Sharp was with Stevo. Holy crap! I was rooted to the spot. Spot-welded, you might say, by the intensity of my emotions.
All this in a microsecond.
“Come on, missy,” boomed Dob the Mayor the moment he saw her, “play it!”
A troubled look flickered across Sharp’s perfect face as she sat on the stool. She hesitated, glanced up at Stevo, grimaced, raised a hand and played one chord.
We recoiled in shock. It sounded awful!
She played two more. A strange resonance seemed to hang between the notes, fluttering in my ears and causing my bones to feel jarred. We all took an unconscious step back, glancing at each another as to confirm this terrible truth: Stevo’s piano sounded like crap.
Sharp was clearly affected too. She quickly abandoned her first choice of music for something more measured, but the piano continued to mess with every note struck, producing some very distressing rattles of its own. Sharp slowed down once more, no longer playing anything I recognised but simply sounding the instrument, listening to its bizarre discords, and adding new notes as if seeking ways to string them together into something that finally worked. Even then, as she began to match the music to the machine, the sound she got out of it continued to set my teeth on edge – and I had to listen to Kirrikibats all day long!
I tell you, that piano was awful! I figured it must have been because of all the chitin Stevedore had used, or the materials he had used to make the strings, or perhaps a combination of both. But whatever it was, I could see in my companions a terrible anguish; an immense disappointment. We all began surreptitiously glancing at Stevedore, trying to read his face, and moment by moment we saw his face fall, his head droop, his huge shoulders roll forwards and his broad hands grip each other in some sort of unconscious mutual commiseration.
He was a man destroyed.
Sharp brought her torturous performance to an end. We applauded, trying to sound more than polite but not excessively insincere. It was, of course, impossible to do either. But luckily our pathetic applause was abruptly overwhelmed by a loud staccato that swelled up suddenly beneath the floor. For a moment I thought the piano had triggered some sort of reaction in The Crush. I held my breath, waiting for something worse to begin, when I heard a familiar sound mixed with the clatter: CHIK-I! CHIK-I! CHIK-I!
“What the hell is that?” said Bowl, glancing around uneasily. Even Tipper looked worried. “Kirrikibats?” said Tyge, glancing at me. I just nodded, too amazed to actually speak. CHIK-I was the one word I didn’t need a translator for, and I knew I was not listening to just one Kirrikibat but to a whole crowd of the beasts.
“Where are they?”
“What’re they saying?”
I pointed down at the floor, shouting, “At a rough guess I think they’re saying, ‘We love it! Give us more!’”
Sharp turned back to the keyboard, hit a key at random, listened to the note develop, then touched another, and another. This time she built the music up, driving a growing wave of tonal interactions mercilessly along, faster and faster, exploring what the instrument could do when pushed to its full capacity.
We all promptly ceased being polite. We covered our ears, scrunched our faces, and endured it. It lasted for maybe three frenetic minutes, then she drove her impromptu symphony over a cliff to crash at the bottom, letting the last shivers of sound warp the air for long seconds afterwards. Half a minute after I could detect no more audible sound, the Kirrikibati below us suddenly exploded with their raucous applause. The rattling, which I now realised was the beating of their armour-plated claws on the legs of the building, went on for several more minutes and we couldn’t speak above the racket.
I looked to Stevedore, wondering how he was taking it. His mouth hung open, and his eyes did too, and he seemed to radiate immense delight. I watched as he slowly rotated, looking for something or someone to pick up and hug, but luckily we were all saved from such a fate by an earthquake-like shudder in the building, followed moments later by a loud banging on the front door.
“Fuck!” said Tyge, startling suddenly the way I’d seen Sharp occasionally do.
Everyone looked at me.
“What?” I said.
“Sounds like you’ve got a visitor.”
“But I haven’t got my translator!”
“Just go answer the door,” Dob told me, “You’ll have to make do with sign language. Come on, everyone, let’s back up the Doc.”
They all came with me as the banging on the front door got louder. I was about to open when Tyge suddenly said, “Doc, breather!”
I’d forgotten it. It was still in her strider in the parking bay.
“Here,” Stevedore grabbed Hickster’s, still hanging on its recharger, and shoved it at me. Okay, that really weirded me out, but the door was nearly getting knocked down. I put it on. Everyone braced. I opened the door and there stood KU-TUK-RRRRIKKIBA.
He spoke to us enthusiastically, gesturing wildly and frequently pointing down. I glanced over the edge and saw a sea of saucer-eyed monsters looking back up at me. When they saw it was me they began a wave of happy rattling, each striking wild rhythms against the limbs of his fellows. I tried to indicate to KU-TUK-RRRRIKKIBA that I didn’t have my translator but I would soon be going back to the clinic. For ‘clinic’ I pointed in its general direction and mimed pealing off chitin, and for ‘go’ I made a two-finger walking gesture up my forearm. I had no way of knowing if he was getting any of my meaning.
KU-TUK-RRRRIKKIBA spoke again, then gestured towards his back. I didn’t want to believe it! According to the cultural adviser back in Crush Central Hospital, Kirrikibats never ever ever carried humans on their back. Apparently a major war had broken out about eighty years ago over that very issue.
I shook my head.
KU-TUK-RRRRIKKIBA spoke to me urgently, gesturing again.
“I thinks he’s offering you a ride,” said Bowl helpfully.
“Yes, I know, but...”
“Just get on it, Doc!” growled Tipper.
Nervously I stepped forward. KU-TUK-RRRRIKKIBA crouched down and I climbed up. Tipper cheered. I tried to scowl at her but I was already too far away. The beast shuffled around on the narrow road and suddenly sprang away. My chin banged down and my teeth clacked together in my mouth. I felt like I’d just received a violent uppercut to the jaw. All I could feel (asides from a lot of pain) was gratitude I hadn’t lost my tongue.
The next jump was just as severe but I was a little more braced, taking most of the force safely in the groin. Cross-eyed with pain I managed one cheerful thought: I’d never complain about strider travel again.
I was home in about twenty seconds. KU-TUK-RRRRIKKIBA leapt onto the Kirrikibat landing pad and the big automatic doors slid open. In the waiting room he let me down. Swaying and seasick I hobbled into my end of the building, strapped on my translator, and opened the door to let him come into the operating room. Here I had air. Breather off.
He began at once. “I am ecstatic; a feeling as good as dying in the jaws of my future wife! What was that wonderful thing? It drove us mad with delight! We came hopping, hopping, hopping from afar! We must see it! We must touch it! How do you make it sing?”
I was almost deafened by his excitement. “It’s called a ‘piano’.” I replied.
The translator struggled for a moment, producing ‘KI-A-BOH’ for piano.
“Piano! Piano! We must see it. We must touch it!”
“I’ll ask if it can be moved here. You may then see and touch it, out of the rain. But I must tell you now; it is made of your old chitin. I hope that won’t offend you.”
“The shells of great Kirrikibati are kept to honour them, and the arrangement of old chitin is considered a fine art on my planet. But here we are all ashamed of our fragmented carapaces. Here it is so difficult. We have so little chance for art, and so little time for poetry.” The translator sounded as if it were on the verge of tears. “We must see your KI-A-BOH!”
“Take me back now and I’ll arrange to have it moved. And you can also greet the two humans who made it.”
“Great Hungry Matriarch be praised! Let’s go!”
#
IT TOOK SOME ORGANISING but Stevedore got his piano over to the clinic by the end of the day. The local Kirrikibat gangs crowded into the waiting room (and underneath too where they reckoned the sound quality was best) and Sharp, in a breather-collar, played it once again. She and Stevedore received a tumultuous ovation that caused the whole building to shiver. I made sure to watch Stevo’s face right then.
He cried with happiness. Literally cried.
Then a remarkable thing happened. The Kirrikibats unburdened themselves of about 300 kilograms of flattened gold nuggets (they can tuck them between their body plates) and passed it all up like a conveyor belt through the main entrance, hand to hand, to pile at Stevedore’s feet.
“For the KI-A-BOH,” explained KU-TUK-RRRRIKKIBA.
Stevo tried to refuse it but they didn’t listen. It kept on coming. I shall always recall him standing knee-deep in gold, an expression of stunned delight on his face as tears of gratitude slid down his face. For my part, I was just worried that the extra weight would bust through the floor. As soon as I could I fetched my trolley and started ferrying it through to the parking bay and into Stevo’s truck.
Neither of us noticed that Sharp had already slipped away in a taxi.
Once we were done, I offered Stevo a shower (he needed it, I can assure you) and we regrouped in the kitchen.
“Ah, you hungry?” I shouted over the teeth-shattering noise of the party next door.
“What’ve you got?”
I showed him my cupboard full of ‘Instant Cheesy Stuff’. He was delighted. I gave him a dozen packets. The tears started again.
“Hey, it’s just a few packets of food.” I said, but he was gone, sobbing uncontrollably. Finally, through the whiffling and the snot, I began to make out his story.
“My parents hated me. You would, too. I never talked; I took apart the furniture, the computers, the helicopter. I failed at school. I mean who fails school these days?”
I had no answer, but my training told me I had to have an answer. As I struggled to come up with something bland, caring and professional, he went on, “I wanted to kill myself the day they put me in the hospital.”
“Huh? What sort of a hospital?”
“For the feeble-minded.”
Something stirred within me: a desire to go and punch his parents wherever they were. No, it was more than that – a desire to hug him too, and tell him it was okay. Instead of that I passed him a tissue. He blew his nose.
“Listen,” he said, “I’ve gotta go get ready for tonight’s show.”
“Sure. Any chance I can jump a lift?”
“No worries, Doc.”
He drove slowly back to town, still sniffing, but with a big smile on his face too.
“Oh,” I asked, suddenly remembering, “did Dob mention the earthquake idea?”
“Yeah.”
“Any joy?”
“Nah, not so easy, not without those old programs.”
“Damn.”
“Speaking of old computers, didn’t you say you wanted one?”
“Eh?”
“With a Routed Electro-Conflux T-Unified Matrix?”
“Oh yeah.”
“Well I’ve got it up and running. You want to go poke at it now?”
#
IN ONE CORNER OF THE workshop stood an old-fashioned computer, flickering sporadically. In the other corner was that pool table. And I knew that somewhere else in the room was a pretty powerful VR generator, and inside of that was my Harriet. I just hoped she was now happy, if that was at all possible. I looked at Stevo’s ancient computer, amazed that it still worked. “Where’d you get this old steam engine from?”
“Aw, I just picked it up.”
I peered all around it, curious, and spied a dirty battered stick-on label on the back. Discreetly I leaned over to read it. PROPERTY OF EDGETOWN MAYOR’S OFFICE.
“Hey, ah, you didn’t wipe this, did you?”
“Yep,” he said.
I tapped angrily on the casing, trying not to let him see my agitation, and the flickering view-matrix totally died. I quickly gave it another tap and the flickering resumed. “So, ah, this has definitely got that data transfer thingummy?” I asked.
“Yep. It’s got the old RECTUM all right. Shit of a system.”
“Okay, I’ll go find Graves.”
I found him in the kitchen polishing the handle of a broom. “Ah, master Bagel. Your coffee is ready, sir.” He pointed to the cup I had left out for Stevedore three days earlier.
“Very good, Graves. Now, we’re ready to retrieve that data. Come with me.”
“What data would that-at-at-at-at be sir?”
I paused to make that distinctive gesture at him.
“Ah yes! Stick it in the ol’ RECTUM, sir!
“You’re onto it.”
We went into the entertainment room, but Grave stopped in alarm the moment he saw Stevo. “Oh dear, sir! We appear to have been invaded!”
“It’s all right, Graves. This is Stevedore. He lives here how.”
“Really? How remarkable.”
“Yes. He’s my guest. Now, will this computer do, Graves?”
“Perfectly, sir.” He stood like only a robot (or Stevedore) could stand; blank and rigid; and pointed his middle finger at the computer. Things began to happen. A face swirled out of the flickering lights in the antiquated viewing matrix and said, “Ready to receive data. Would you like it encrypted or plain?”
“Plain,” I said, “File name ‘Bagel’.”
The machine spoke to Stevedore first. “Do you authorize this new user?”
“Yep.”
“As you wish. Now ready for data.”
Grave’s middle finger lit up and the transfer proceeded for so long that I began to wonder just how much, and what sort, of data Hickster had put into the robot. Finally Graves pulled his finger up and pretended to blow across the top of it.
“All done, sir.”
“Good. Computer, could you give me a summary of what you just received?”
“Fifteen financial audits, dated 2201 to 2216, 191 minutes of meetings dated the same, 2,714 documents related to runway extensions to Edgetown Airport dated...”
“Skip the dates,” I interrupted.
“...29 records of contracts for airport negotiations, 4,902 supply invoices...”
It went on and on, until finally the computer got to, “...executable program set: ‘Integrated Leg Response System’. Subgroup One: ‘Passive Earthquake Dampening’. Subgroup Two: ‘Re-levelling’. Subgroup Three: ‘Smoothing’. Subgroup Four: ‘Integrated Universal Control’... ”
“That's great! Anything else?”
“Oh yes. 27 different Entertainment Formats including 3014 Simulation Experiences beginning with 'Aardvark Adult Anal Action' followed by 'Aardvark Babies You Can Burrow!' ... ”
“Stop, stop! Thank you!”
Silence. Stevedore had been lurking beside me, listening to it with as much interest as I had. Meanwhile Graves stood beside me like a wavering tree of plastic and metal. The computer face wobbled, stretched away to the left, snapped in half, and instantly reformed. “Will that be all?” it said.
“Yes, for now.” The face blurred away to nothing.
Stevedore said, “You know, that sounded just like all the crap I got rid of.”
“Funny old world, isn’t it?” I said levelly, then I took him by the shoulder, which was about as high as I could reach anyway, and said, “Now listen Stevo, the town needs you. If I’m not mistaken, it sounds like this is the stuff you need to pull off that earthquake plan.”
“Don’t patronise me, man. I’m already thinking about it.”
“Sorry, sorry. Okay, um, good. Just don’t tell them I was involved, okay? I’m sick of being called the ‘miracle man’.”
“No worries, mate.”
“Great. Excellent.”
“You’re in the way, Doc.”
“Sorry.” I stood aside.
He shuffled up to the computer and started work. As the screen started to fill with three-dimensional strings of obscure gobblydygook even more complex than my Grade 5 DNA studies I pulled back and took stock. I had finally accessed Hickster’s mysterious data, but now I was beginning to realise I would need weeks and weeks to sift through it. And it all sounded as dull as a bank job anyway. What would I be looking for? Why was I even interested? Life was just too short. It was time to cease being nosy and get back to being as ethical as I could be. Which seemed like a distant hope.
I figured Stevo need a word of encouragement. “Well, good luck, mate!”
He just grunted. Focused, he was.
A useless prat, I was. I turned to Graves.
“Graves, any chance you can fetch me some cough drops?”
“With pleasure sir!”
He spun around, took two steps, and fell face down on the floor with a sad little clatter.
I got down and shook him. “Graves? Graves?”
No response.
Stevedore stepped around me and lifted the defunct robot over as if were nothing more than a rag-doll. He flipped open a cover and peered at a little tech-screen for a moment, then laid Graves gently down again saying vaguely like, “Must’ve been the deflubulator modals spontaneously re-anusing. That was a hell of a lot of data he was sitting on.”
I felt shocked, but tried to cover it. “So that ... sort of ... did to him? All that data?”
“No, quite the opposite. As it emptied out it cleared a huge mass of neural pathways. Basically, his brain just imploded, and these old-style scynapicoids always tended to reset themselves under those conditions.”
“So, he’s ... it’s ... is it ‘dead’ then?”
Stevedore stood up. “Nah, not totally. I could fix it...”
“No, no, don’t bother, mate. This earthquake thing is more important.” I stood up briskly. “I’ll, ah, I’ll just go tell the Mayor you’re onto it.”
I hastily left the room, feeling upset about the sudden demise of Graves. “He was only a robot,” I kept telling myself as I went to the taxi console and hit the call button. Quickly slipping on my breather-ring I went outside to wait, even though there was no one around to see the tears in my eyes.
After entirely too long a taxi came. I clambered in. “The Crush Club, please.”