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THE GIZZARD WIZARD, by Rory Barnes

Being a short sequel to that admirable novel, Space Junk, in which we learn the fate of Ned Malley and his friend Emceesquared Gonzalles della Harpenden following their abrupt ejection from the planet Earth.

Ned Talking

A guy in uniform appeared out of the darkness and pointed a light through the open window of the car.

“Evening, Ms. Harrison,” he said.

“Evening, Stan,” Sue-Ellen said and waved her hand at me and Em in the back seat. “These two are the Special Ambassadors of Youth.”

“Are they drunk?” the guy said.

“I don’t think so,” Sue-Ellen said.

“Other substances?”

“Not to my knowledge.”

“Look this way, please,” the guy said.

We looked at him. We were already looking at him. He shone the light straight into our eyes. First me, then Em.

“Normal pupil contraction,” the guy said. “I haven’t seen that for a while. OK, on your way. Have a nice trip.”

He pulled his head out of the car’s window and lifted the barrier. The Gamma surged smoothly through the gap in the security fence and picked up speed on the approach road. At first the headlights showed nothing but more bitumen and desert. Then, in the distance, we could see a cluster of bright lights, some of them flashing, a few low buildings, and the dark bulk of a spacecraft. It didn’t look very big. In fact, it looked pathetically small.

“What the…?” I said. “Are we really meant to go all the way to Newharp in that?”

“That’s just the runabout, you fool,” Sue-Ellen said. “The Delegate is in orbit. They couldn’t land it if they wanted to. Which they don’t. It’s spinning.”

“Now they tell me,” I said. “And anyway, what’s all this about Ambassadors of Youth?”

“That’s what you are,” Sue-Ellen said. “It’s the pitch I had to make to Ulrike Lewis to get you on board. You are carrying youthful messages of peace and goodwill to the distant corners of the universe.”

“What messages?” I said. “We’ve got no messages. We haven’t even got any luggage.”

“Make them up, for godsake,” Sue-Ellen said. “Brothers and sisters of the cosmos, we extend to you the hand of friendship in which we hold the sweet dove of eternal peace in the sure and certain knowledge that our two planets are bound together in a common destiny and a common ancestry, blah blah blah.… Just stress the fact that everybody’s ancestors came from Earth—everybody’s human, they love that. That and the dove of peace.”

“Grab hold of a dove,” I said, “and the thing will crap on your hand. Or it’ll peck your eyes out.”

“Words, Neddy-boy,” Sue-Ellen said. “All you’ve got to do is sprout words. No one is going to ask you to handle birds.”

“So how come Em’s an ambassador as well?” I said. “She comes from Newharp in the first place. She can hardly be an ambassador to her own planet.”

“You aren’t going straight to Newharp,” Sue-Ellen said. “You are stopping at Skyros and then Kovalev along the way. You are the Special Ambassador of Youth from Earth. Em is the Special Ambassador of Youth from Newharp. Got it?”

“I suppose so,” I said. “It’s all a bit sudden.”

“Listen, kiddo, if you’re still on this planet by daybreak, you’ll end up in clink. Your current status is fugitive. And if you’re caught: finito.”

“True,” I said, and resigned myself to being an intergalactic fugitive from justice. That and an Ambassador for goddamned Yoof.

* * * *

Sue-Ellen brought the Gamma to a halt in the bright lights of the apron. The scene was a shambles. There were drunks falling out of busses, singing, cheering, chundering.

“Gawdalmighty,” I said. “These are the guys who are going to fly the tub?”

“’Fraid so,” Sue-Ellen said. “You should feel right at home.”

Canola rollers by the dozen were parked all over the apron in no pattern at all. Guys with clipboards were trying to check the loads before they were snatched off the trucks and carted away by forklifts with flashing lights and cursing drivers. Drunks were trying to pilfer whatever was left unattended.

I watched one guy lever the corner off a crate with a screwdriver. The crate splintered, the guy got his hand in, but couldn’t pull anything out. He stood there jerking and twisting, you’d think his wrist was caught in a trap. A Newharp shore patrol officer pounced on him, hauled his arm out of the crate, and twisted it up behind his back. The drunk laughed and stumbled as he was propelled towards the boarding ramp. The shore patrol guy let him go as soon as he was safely on his way up the ramp. The authorities weren’t making arrests tonight, just moving things along. I looked back to where the splintered crate still sat on the tarmac. Quick as a ferret a runty little guy in a huge overcoat split from a group of merrymakers, sidled up to the crate, and made a lightning gesture with his hand and sidled away. What a pro! You’d need the eyesight of a hawk to have seen the sleight of hand. I’ve got the eyesight of a hawk.

“OK, you lot. Stop gawking,” Sue-Ellen said. “Out.”

The three of us climbed out of the Gamma. There was a cold desert wind blowing the blackness of the night straight through the bright lights of the apron. The noise level was infernal. Em and Sue-Ellen embraced, kissed. Then Sue-Ellen turned to me and ruffled my hair.

“Just don’t stuff things up, Neddy-boy,” she shouted.

“What things?” I shouted back.

“Any bloody things at all,” she said and spun on her heel and climbed back into the Gamma. Five seconds later she was gone. She didn’t look back.

“Well, there’s a vote of confidence,” I said. “One of the great farewell speeches of all time.”

“Come on,” Em said. “Let’s try to get good hammocks.” Her voice cracked. I looked sideways at her. She was crying.

“You’re going home, for godsake, Em,” I yelled. “I’m the one that’s meant to be bawling my eyes out. I’m being sent into exile. This is my planet we’re leaving.”

“Shut up,” Em said. She took my hand and started to pull me roughly through the crowd towards the boarding ramp. I didn’t say anything. She was crying for her brother Harri. I knew that. At the last moment I’d taken Harri’s place on this loony intergalactic mission. Em had arrived on Earth with Harri, she was leaving with me. I just hoped she didn’t blame me for the substitution. It was Harri, after all, who’d chosen to remain on Earth. And it was me who couldn’t afford to remain on the damn planet.

We were almost run over by a forklift loaded with crates. The driver swerved, cursing in good English. She yelled at me and Em, calling us a pair of lame-brained mutants. She was just a local, she wasn’t going anywhere tonight. It occurred to me that these were the last words in English I’d ever hear spoken on Earth by a fellow Earthling. I was going to say something about this to Em, but a mob of singing, cheering space crew engulfed us. We all surged towards the runabout. Em and I went up the ramp with drunken strangers’ arms around our shoulders, an obscene parody of the Homecoming Song being bawled in our ears.

The inside of the runabout was an even greater shambles than the apron. It was one dim cavern. There were tiers of webbed hammocks—bright orange in the gloom. Stores were all over the floor: some were already tied down with more orange webbing, some were still being tied down by a gang of loaders who yelled and kicked at the pilferers. But their hearts weren’t in it; it wasn’t their stuff, and either way it would end up on the intergalactic. The crew member who had his arm round Em’s shoulder yelled something about share my nest and I’ll take off my vest.

“Not tonight,” Em said.

“You can only try,” the guy said. He was a drunk, but he was an amiable drunk.

Em disengaged herself. She said to me, “Top tier.”

“What?” I said.

“Grab a top hammock.”

“Why?”

“Because of the g-forces, you idiot.”

What she said made no sense to me. But she was already climbing a scramble net making for the top tier of hammocks. Various others were climbing. One guy fell off. There were cheers and catcalls from those who were already occupying hammocks. As we climbed we passed a hammock with a couple in it—the woman waved a hip flask at us.

“Drink to the heroes of the schlock rock brigade,” she said. “Have a swig, why doncha?”

“Later,” Em said.

“Later?” the woman said. “Later will be too later, sister.” But Em was out of reach. The woman grabbed my arm. “You’ll drink, won’t you, darling, you’ll drink to the schlock rocks.”

“Go on, have a swig, you young hoon,” her companion said. “It’ll do you good.”

I took the flask and put it to my lips. Whatever it was ripped most of the skin off my throat and found its way into my nose. I spluttered and handed the flask back. There were tears in my eyes by the time I reached the top of the scramble net. All the hammocks at this level seemed to be taken.

“You’ll have to share mine,” Em said.

I clambered across into the hammock Em was already occupying.

“Cozy,” I said.

“Bloody hell, Earth-boy,” Em said. “Just fix those clips there. We have to be completely enclosed.”

“Suits me,” I said.

“There’s a zero-g component to this trip,” she said. “You don’t want to float away, do you?”

I fixed the clips that secured the top webbing. Em and I were now in a sort of open weave basket with a lid. We could have been kittens.

“This isn’t quite how I’d imagined it,” I said.

“Imagined what?” she said.

“Going to bed with you.”

“Oh shut up, Ned,” she said. But she settled herself with her head on my shoulder. I put my arms around her, kissed her hair. I had half a mind to tell her I loved her, but she already knew that. And I also knew that she didn’t love me. So I asked her a technical question instead.

“So how come the g-forces are less in the top hammocks?”

“They’re not, dingbat. It’s just that if anybody chunders during takeoff, it’s best to have them below you rather than above you. Get it?”

“The voice of experience,” I said.

“Common sense,” Em said.

There was a garbled announcement from half a dozen speakers. I looked down through the webbing. The loading gang was leaving, waving a mock good bye. Then they were gone, and I could hear the whine of the hydraulics as the boarding ramp was raised. The bright lights from the apron sent a wedge of brilliance into the runabout. The wedge shrank and disappeared. There were no windows in the craft. The dim cavern could have been deep underground; we could have been miners, or refugees in a bomb shelter. There were noises of locks engaging. More garbled announcements. In their hammocks the crew cheered and burst into song. Then I had the feeling that the runabout was floating gently, it was swaying, it could have been a boat on a tranquil sea. Suddenly the g-forces hit. We were accelerating and accelerating fast. The singing died. Em and I were forced down onto the webbing. And forced down onto the webbing, and forced down onto the webbing. It was hard to breath.

“How long,” I gasped. “How long’s this going to…?”

“As long…as it takes.”

* * * *

Em Talking

By the time the acceleration had cut out and we’d negotiated the zero-g component and then gone into synchronized spin, Ned was looking a bit pale. But, as soon as we’d docked with The Delegate, he managed to make it through the airlock and down the radial elevator without a major regurgitation event. The muster room at the end of the elevator was full of drunken crew regaining their composure.

“Magnets?” Ned said.

“What?” I said.

“There’s gravity in here—do they do it with magnets?”

“No, no. We’re spinning. The whole ship is a giant centrifuge. It’s one big barrel.”

“Of fun?”

“Who knows,” I said.

“Behold,” said a voice beside me, “the fresh-faced innocence of youth.”

I turned. There was a small guy in a large overcoat. He looked like a walking tent.

“I trust,” the tent said, “that you two are new additions to our esteemed crew of psychopaths and alimony evaders—we will have the pleasure of your company in the long drear months ahead?”

“Keep your hands in your pockets,” Ned said to me. “This guy will rob you blind. I’ve seen him at work on Earth.”

“Young man, that was uncalled for,” the little guy said, but he didn’t sound offended. “I am an honest trader, a merchant of the space lanes. My reputation can stand any scrutiny.”

“What do you sell?” Ned said.

“What do you want?” the guy replied.

“Hard to say,” Ned said. “We own nothing.”

“Then I am your man,” the runt said. “Everything the heart desires can be yours.”

“At a price?” Ned said.

“At a very reasonable price,” the guy said. “The name’s John Doe. Delighted to have made your acquaintance. Do not hesitate to seek me out if there is anything you desire. And now, if you’ll excuse me.…”

The guy scuttled off, passing through the only door out of the muster room, announcing himself to the log-in scanner as “Maintenance Leading Hand Doe, John. At your service.” This was a more civilized announcement than other people were making. Most of the drunks, as they left the room, yelled out a funny name or bawled a bit of ribald verse. They also made silly faces at the scanner. It was a standard voice recognition and retina scan barrier: it just checked your voice print and the patterns on the back of your eyeball, it didn’t know or care what you actually said or did. I hadn’t seen one since I left Newharp, but they are common enough at home.

“OK,” I said to Ned, “let’s try to get through the door. It’ll probably knock us back.”

It knocked us back. The repulsion field kicked in with a vengeance despite Ned yelling the first verse of Gert-by-Sea and thumbing his nose at the scanner. The Delegate’s systems had no idea who we were. The last two remaining drunks cheered as Ned dusted himself down.

“Good try,” one of them said. “I’ll have a word with the beast, appeal to its better nature.”

As the guy passed through the door he yelled, “Let them in, you half-witted lump of incharitable space debris, give the poor sods an even break, why don’t you, you moth-eaten.…”

He was still cursing the ship and all its systems as he and his companion disappeared round a corner in the far passage. We were now the only people left in the muster area.

“Well, I’m stuffed if I’m going to spend the whole trip in a waiting room,” Ned said. “Howabout we go back to Earth?”

“Please state your name and crew number,” an automatic voice demanded from a concealed speaker.

“Emceesquared Gonzalles della Harpenden,” I said. “I have no crew number.”

“Please remain where you are, Ms. Harpenden. Will the other access-denied person please identify him or herself.”

“I am the Ambassador for Yoof on Earth, Edward Malley, aka Ned. My number is twenty-two million, six hundred thousand, and thirty-four and a half. And like the guy said, let us in.”

“Your Excellency will please remain where your Excellency currently is. An authorized admissions officer will contact you soon.”

“It seems polite enough,” Ned said to me.

“Don’t get smart,” I said. “The last thing we want is to be sent back to Earth. You know that.” We retreated to a row of chairs against one of the walls. Nothing happened for a while. For the first time in hours we were in complete silence.

“This joint’s a bit light on for windows,” Ned said, waving at the walls.

“It’s a spacecraft, for pete’s sake. Windows would be a design fault. And anyway, even if there were windows, they’d have to be in the floor. We’re in a spinning drum, remember?”

“You make us sound like balls in a lottery.”

“That’s one way of looking at it.”

A flustered officer walked through the door. She was wearing a crisp uniform and was perfectly sober. She looked at us, looked around the muster room as if she was in search of someone else, and then walked over to us.

“I take it one of you young whippersnappers claims ambassadorial status.”

“We both do,” Ned said. “We are the Special Ambassadors for Yoof.”

“How did you get onto the runabout?”

“Sue-Ellen Harrison drove us there.”

“Oh, her,” said the officer. “Ms. Sue-Ellen Harrison is an official translator provided by the Earth authorities; she is not Crew Recruitment.”

“She’s great mates with Ulrike Lewis,” Ned said.

“It is true that Her Excellency Ulrike Lewis is the most revered and honored member of this ship’s company,” said the officer. “But Her Excellency is not the captain of the ship. And she is no more in charge of crew recruitment than Ms. Harrison is.”

“Lewis wants us to carry messages of youthful peace and good will to the Skyroans and Kovalevs,” Ned said. “We are prepared to shoulder that burden.”

“Who taught you to speak Newharp?” the officer snapped.

“She did,” Ned said, pointing at me with his thumb.

“Well, she hasn’t done a very good job,” the officer said. “It is customary in polite Newharp discourse to use the terms of address and honorifics to which a person is entitled by virtue of his or her rank and social standing. Do I make myself clear, young man?”

“What’s this old goat on about?” Ned said to me in English.

“She wants you to refer to Lewis as Her Excellency,” I said in English.

“Oh, god, one of those,” Ned said. Then he switched back to Newharp and said to the officer, “I’m sure Her Imperial High Majesty Ulrike von Lewis is most anxious that her Special Ambassadors for Yoof be given every assistance as they settle into the life of this esteemed spacecraft.”

The officer looked as if she was going to give Ned another lecture, but she checked herself and said very primly, “If—and I stress if—you are permitted to remain on board The Delegate, you will be required to diligently discharge your duties.”

“Sure,” Ned said. “We’ll be tip-top ambassadors, crash hot diplomats.”

“The nature of the ceremonial duties you will be required to perform once we arrive at Skyros will be a matter for Her Excellency. However, while the ship is in flight you will perform the more mundane tasks allocated to you by an officer of this ship.”

“I take it you are severely understaffed,” Ned said.

“What do you mean by that?”

“Half the crew have jumped ship.”

“It is possible that some vacancies may have arisen during our stay on Earth. We will only know this after the runabout has made its last shuttle flight. Now, what specialized work skills do you each possess?”

“I’m an organ salesman,” Ned said. “Em’s a waitress and language teacher.”

“An organ salesman?” The officer said, “You sell musical instruments to Christian churches? Hymns?”

“Body parts,” Ned said. “Kidneys, eyeballs, hearts, arteries, the odd pancreas, all sorts of bits and pieces. I sell them door to door. I’m a rep.”

“You will appreciate that there is no scope for your line of work on The Delegate.”

“That sounds like defeatist talk to me,” Ned said. “A good salesman never sleeps. He’s always making one last pitch.”

“We have a fully trained medical team on board. In cases where organ replacement therapy is indicated, the team can perform its duties without help from a salesman. Or rep.”

“What if trade’s slack?”

“It is not a trade.”

“A good transplant surgeon needs constant practice. Use it or lose it, I say. With someone like me counseling the troops, the surgeon guys will never be out of work.”

The officer shrugged and turned her attention to me. “Now, Ms. Harpenden, I understand from your companion here that you have waitressing skills.”

“Yes,” I said.

“In what sort of establishment have you practiced this profession?”

“The Dog and Harp,” I said. “An ethnic Newharp entertainment complex in Jackson’s Port.”

“And this is a high-class establishment? Top end of the market?”

“Yes,” I said.

Beside me Ned managed to turn a snort into a coughing fit. It was less than six hours since he’d burned the Dog to the ground, the whole greasy box of dice. The officer looked at Ned coldly but didn’t say anything. She returned her attention to me.

“Do you think you could handle the formalities of the officers’ mess on this ship, Ms. Harpenden? The standards required of the serving staff are high.”

“High!” Ned exploded. “High standards for that gang of bums?”

“Mr. Malley!” The officer said.

“Lady, we’ve just come up in the runabout. You can’t lecture us about high standards. We know these guys. We’ve got the measure of them.”

“I’m talking about the officers’ mess. Not the crew’s. I am glad to say that the crew’s mess is entirely self-service, and no intoxicating beverages whatsoever are available. Your recent companions on the runabout have had the last drink they are going to have for a very long time. A very long time indeed.”

“So what’s the price of moonshine in this tub?”

There was a moment’s tense silence. You could tell that Ned had got it right: The Delegate was well served with illegal hooch stills. I broke the silence by telling the woman that I was sure I could handle the requirements of the officers’ mess.

“Good,” she said. “And I hope Malley here can handle the duties of a washer woman.”

Ned burst out laughing. “A what?”

“We have reason to believe that there will be a vacancy in the Ultra-c Accelerated Drive Tunnels Maintenance Detail—a dedicated group of men and women known colloquially as ‘the washer women’—both genders.”

“These would be the guys most likely to jump ship?” Ned said. “We’re talking zero job satisfaction here?”

“We believe there may be at least one vacancy.”

“Well, it will have to do for a start, won’t it?” Ned said.

* * * *

Ned Talking

The ambassadorial quarters were a bit mean, a bit cramped. Em and I each got a spin dryer to live in. They were in a bank of spin dryers stacked up three high along both sides of a narrow corridor. The corridor curved around the circumference of the ship. You were always at the bottom of the hill, and however much you tried to climb the hill, you stayed at the bottom. Not that it was hard work, it was just like walking on level ground. But you felt you were a rat on a treadmill. The spin dryers were clean and shiny, and once you got through the door, the hatch, there was enough room to lie full length or to sit up—but that was all. Us ambassadors weren’t going to do much pacing around our spacious suites. At the far end of the spin-dryer was a small telly screen and a few drawers to keep stuff in. Not that Em or I had any stuff.

I climbed out of my dryer and stood in the corridor. Em climbed out of hers.

“Roomy,” I said. “The spacious elegance of a Scott-Wok mansion.”

“You’re not wrong, Idiot-boy,” she said. “This whole bloody ship is a palace.” She wasn’t joking.

“Compared to what?” I said.

“Compared to the smugglers’ rat-trap that Harri and I came to Earth in. What do you think?”

“Depends what you’re used to,” I said. “Let’s go and find the mess. I’m starving.”

“I just want a shower and then sleep.”

“OK,” I said, “see you in the morning.”

* * * *

The crew’s mess, when I finally located it, was bleak. The crew was bleak. But what could you expect?—they were all hung over. Not really feeling up to solid food. There weren’t many present, and those that were were sitting around with their heads in their hands—groaning quietly. I didn’t reckon the kitchen staff were going to be run off their feet with demands for second helpings. Not that there were any kitchen staff in evidence. All the food came out of self-service machines. You just spoke your order and a tray appeared out of a slot with the required tucker onboard.

I said, “Bowl of seaweed soup and a double helping of nine spice rolls with piquant sauce.” Then, just to be nice to the dumb machine, I said, “Please.”

The dumb machine whizzed and groaned and the tray appeared. The food looked quite good, smelt good. And I wasn’t hung over, I was keen for a feed. I took the tray to a table and sat down.

There was no cutlery—neither on the table nor on the tray. I went in search. I could find none. I tapped a hungover dude on the shoulder.

“Hey, mate. About spoons and forks. You know, knives.”

“There aren’t any,” the guy said without looking up. “The officers have got them all.”

“Oh, come on.”

“Someone flogged the silver.”

“What silver?” I said.

The guy took his head out of his hands and looked at me through bloodshot eyes. “You new?” he said.

“Yep,” I said.

“Earthling?”

“Yep.”

“You poor sap. You’re shipping out on a Newharp spacetub?”

“Yep.”

“Well listen, yeppster. What you’ve got to understand is that anything that isn’t nailed down walks.”

“This happens on Earth as well,” I said.

“Yeah, but on a spacetub, once stuff has walked out onto a planet, it can’t be replaced until you hit the next planet, get it?”

“Yeah, I reckon I’ve got it. Somebody took all the knives and forks and sold them on Earth.”

“No,” said the guy, “not all the knives and forks. Just all the knives and forks from the officers’ mess. You know, the real silver and gold stuff that they use every day. Whoever it was also took the ceremonial stuff with the precious stones and the rare metals and the inlays and all that crap. Fetch a packet on Earth. Those primatives’ll buy anything flashy—beads, tomahawks, blankets, brightly colored cloth….”

“Thanks,” I said.

“No offense meant, yeppster. But it’s your greedy Earthling mates who’ve left us with no eating irons.”

“I thought you said it was only the officers’ stuff that got flogged.”

“That’s what I said.”

“So how come…?”

“Well, the goddamned officers aren’t going to eat with their fingers, are they?”

“They’ve gone and stolen the crew’s utensils?”

“Stolen? You’ve a blunt way of speaking, yeppster. The officers don’t steal, they requisition, they commandeer, they reallocate, they.…”

“So how are we meant to eat?”

“Fingers. Rusty nails. Toothpicks.”

“All bloody voyage! You seriously reckon we’ll be eating with our fingers until we reach Skyros?”

“We could give up eating. I can’t say I feel very peckish myself at the moment.”

“Gentlemen,” said a voice at my shoulder. “I couldn’t help overhearing your mournful discourse.”

“Oh god,” said the first guy, lowering his head into his hands again. “Bloody Doe.”

“At your service,” said John Doe. “You will be pleased to know that I just happen to have at my disposal a limited—and I stress limited—supply of very serviceable knives and forks that I picked up in a flea-market on Earth. Some metal, some plastic. I may even be able to run to a spoon or two.”

“It figures,” mumbled the first guy.

“It pays to do your market research,” John Doe said. “That way the honest trader can be in a position to satisfy the pressing desires of his customers.”

“Market research,” the first guy said, still looking at the table. “Insider trading, more like. It was you who flogged the officers’ stuff in the first place. So you knew the crew was going to have a shortage of eating irons.”

“This is a gross slander,” John Doe said without any anger that I could detect. “I would no more dispose of the ship’s possessions than.…”

“Save us the lecture, Doe. We’ve heard it before. Or, at least, I have.…”

“Let us leave this cynic to his own delusions,” Doe said to me. “Come, our food is getting cold.”

He led the way to the table where I had left my soup and nine-spice rolls. There was now a second tray on the table, heaped with food.

“Let us dine,” Doe said, producing a knife and fork from his sleeve like a conjurer at a kids’ party. He sat down and started to feed his face. I sat down in front of my own food. Doe didn’t offer me any eating implements. I took hold of the soup bowl and raised it to my lips. For a while we ate in silence, Doe using his implements, me just drinking from the bowl.

“You’ve got some on your chin,” Doe said. “Here, allow me.” He leaned across the table, a silk handkerchief in his hand. In a second the guy had wiped my chin and returned the handkerchief to his pocket. “I always find spoons make things easier to control,” he said. “Show me soup and I’ll show you a certified spoon opportunity.”

“Sounds a bit fancy-pantsy to me,” I said. “Show me soup and I’ll show you an opportunity for animal behavior.”

“Spoons raise us above the level of the beasts,” Doe said. “Knives and forks also.”

“How many of the things have you got?”

“As I said, a limited number.”

“If I don’t buy now, I might miss out. That your message?”

“You’re a bright boy.”

“Also skint.”

“Skint?”

“Broke. Devoid of cash.”

“Credit can be extended.”

“By the way,” I said. “What do you get paid on this ship?”

“Not enough,” Doe said. “It’s an advantage to have a second source of income.”

“I’m an organ salesman myself.”

“Got any organs to sell?”

“Not at the moment.”

“You’d be better off in spoons. Here, have one. Also a knife and a fork. Pay me back next payday.”

* * * *

Em Talking

The officers’ mess had all the charm of a leftover palace. It was ornate, covered in deep carpet, richly patterned; the tables, which curved with the curvature of the ship, were wooden, richly polished; hunting trophies adorned the walls; old flags of long dead intergalactics hung from poles that jutted out from the bulkheads. The lighting was subdued; there were silver candlesticks on the tables, and fresh flowers, most of which I recognized from Earth, but some from home. Did the ship have its own greenhouse? The cutlery was pretty ordinary: great solid clunky knives and forks made of stainless steel. Spoons like ladles. Tamara, the shift supervisor who was showing me around, said, “The officers aren’t too thrilled with these things; the proper stuff got stolen.”

“Who by?”

“It pays not to know.”

* * * *

Waiting on the tables wasn’t too hard once I’d learned the ritual. Anybody who could handle the Dog and Harp could handle this place. I didn’t get to wait on High Table, but I got to see Ulrike Lewis in person for the first time in my life. It was a bit of a shock. I knew she was old, but I was unprepared for the wizened crone who held court at High Table. Still, as far as I could tell, looking quickly sideways while purveying food to the junior officers, she managed to hold her own. The glittering, high-ranking officers at High Table all laughed at Her Excellency’s jokes.

One of the regulars at a table I did wait on was the officer who’d allowed Ned and myself onto the ship. I suppose I was indebted to her, but I can’t say I warmed to her. She seemed to be in a constant state of suppressed fury. Her name was Flight Regulator Montesquieu. Her fellow officers addressed her as Monty. Usually she hardly acknowledged my presence. But one evening, after we’d been in-flight for about a week, she spoke directly to me while I was dishing out plates of battered darkfish.

“You and Malley have an appointment with Her Excellency at 1600 hours tomorrow.”

I was a bit flustered, but I managed to say, “Where?”

“In her private quarters.” And then, barely managing to keep her voice level, Montesquieu added, “She’s invited you to afternoon tea.”

“Thank you,” I said, and moved on to serve the next officer, a jovial fatso called Potemkin.

The guy let out a cheery hoot of laughter and said, “Lucky you, Em,” and patted my bottom. “Monty here doesn’t even get invited to Her Excellency’s cocktail parties, let alone a private audience with tea and cakes thrown in. Do you, Mont?”

“I don’t have ambassadorial status,” Montesquieu said. “Unlike Ms. Harpenden.”

“Snakey!” Potemkin chortled.

* * * *

Her Excellency’s apartment was sumptuous. A maid conducted us through the gilded vestibule and into some sort of drawing room. The carpets were richly patterned and very deep. The walls were paneled in a dark wood that gleamed slightly in the concealed lamp light. Her Excellency rose from a brocaded sofa and shook our hands.

“It is with great pleasure that I make your acquaintances,” she said.

“Yeah, likewise,” Ned said.

“And you must be Harri,” Her Excellency said.

“Not me,” Ned said. “Harri stayed behind. I’ve stepped into his shoes. I’m Ned, the Ambassador of Yoof from Earth.”

“Oh, I thought.…”

“No. Sue-Ellen had to switch things around a bit. Anyway, this is my mate, Em, Harri’s sister. She’s the Ambassador from Newharp, I’m from Earth. As I’ve said.”

Ulrike Lewis turned to me. I was tongue-tied. Then I said, “I have known Your Excellency through your poetry since I was in Basic School. I never dreamed I might meet you in person.”

Ned said, “You’ve forgotten to curtsy, Em.”

There was a moment’s silence. Then Her Excellency said, “Ms. Sue-Ellen Harrison spoke most highly of you, Em. She was full of praise for your abilities and your deep commitment to interplanetary peace.”

“For which a healthy mind and a healthy body are the number one prerequisites,” Ned said with enthusiasm.

There was another silence. It was clear that Her Excellency was having trouble making the connection. I was having trouble with it myself. She said, “Won’t you please sit down.”

We did.

“Use it or lose it, is my motto,” Ned said. “Crook gizzards, fuddled brain, planetary peace down the drain. Snappy innards, noggin clear, planetary peace—no small beer!” Ned then looked modestly at his own feet. “I’m a bit of a poet myself,” he said quietly. “I feel that the deepest, truest thoughts are best expressed in rhyme.”

I was gripped by a sudden surge of panic. Just what game did Ned think he was playing? Ulrike Lewis might be a bit ancient, a bit past it, but she was a Living Treasure; she had enormous moral standing. The last thing we needed was for bloody Ned to start taking a piss. I was about to say something mollifying. But Her Excellency got in first.

“One of the traps of rhyming poetry is the tendency to allow the rhyme scheme to dictate the sense of the poem.”

“What?” Ned said.

“Why did you finish your poem with the phrase, ‘no small beer’?”

“It seemed to fit.”

“Exactly, young fellow. It seemed to fit, but it doesn’t.”

“Why doesn’t it?”

“Because you only used it to get a rhyme with ‘clear’.”

“I wouldn’t underestimate the clear importance of galactic harmony,” Ned said. “The harmony of the galaxies is the harmony of the spheres, and I’ll drink to that in no small beers.” And then, after a short pause, Ned added, “Cheers!”

This was madness. Ned knew nothing of poetry. The doggerel he was spouting couldn’t fool Her Excellency for a minute.

Or could it? I suddenly saw Ulrike Lewis through Ned’s eyes. Ned thought she was a mad old crone, and you could see why she might appear that way to him. He hadn’t been brought up on her poetry, he had never won a prize at school—an Ulrike Lewis Medallion for Poetic Excellence. Not that I’d ever won one myself, but I’d always entered the annual competition.

I brought my attention back to the conversation. Ned had returned to the subject of gizzards.

“Only the gizzard wizard snouts it out, only the wizard is wise to the tripe, only his nose knows no wipe.”

“Alas, young man,” Her Excellency said, “you must forgive me if I do not respond immediately to the sense of your verse. I suspect there are cultural referents embedded in it which are known only to native Earthlings, and perhaps to those like Em here who have had first-hand experience of your civilization. What, for instance, is a ‘gizzard wizard’?”

“I am a gizzard wizard,” Ned said modestly. “It is my humble calling. I go amongst the people snouting it out.”

“Snouting what out?”

“Disease, decay, inner putrefaction, impurities of all stamps, rot, snot, even sometimes moral contagion. Although, I try to limit my activities to those items of decay that are consistent with organ replacement therapy. There is no organ that codes for moral contagion. You can’t replace it.”

“Ah, yes,” Her Excellency said, having finally understood a single phrase. “Organ replacement therapy. Something we Newharpians are very good at.”

“Indeed you are,” Ned said with feeling. “We Earthlings are deeply in your debt when it comes to the actual growing and replacement of organs. Pity about the diagnostics.”

“Diagnostics?”

“Scanners, medical imaging technology, pathology procedures, x-rays, y-rays, z-rays, stingrays, computer-assisted ultrasound tomography, litmus paper, all that sort of crap. By the time the diseased organ starts showing up on those babies, it’s usually too late. As I say, a pity.”

“Our diagnostic procedures are state-of-the-art.”

“Sure are, but the art is in a state of Stone Age decrepitude. Lassitude. Vicissitude. It’s lamentable. Lamentable, I tell you.”

“And you have a better way.…”

“Wizard gizzardry. Gizzard wizardry. Blizzard drizzardry. The secrets of the Ancients.”

“The Ancients…?”

“Old buggers. Old as sin. Knew a thing or two. They knew how to sniff out decay. A single putrefying molecule of decay. That’s all it took. One of those little putrifiers up the nose of an Ancient, bang! The guy was onto it, quick as a flash.”

“And you have this facility yourself?”

“Years of study. Arcane tomes. Runes.”

“I trust you don’t find much to sniff out on The Delegate. We run a very healthy ship.”

“Meatus.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Meatus.”

“What about meatus?”

“Your Excellency has a meatus problem.”

“I don’t think so, young man.”

“The number of times I’ve heard that response.…”

“I’m sure my own personal physician.…”

“Denial.”

“What about denial?”

“It’s natural. Don’t worry about it. Everybody goes into denial at first. They call in their own personal physician. The physician calls in one of the scanner guys. The scanner guy can’t find anything—of course he can’t, his instruments are a thousand times cruder than a gizzard wizard’s hooter. But he tells the victim what he or she wants to hear: you’re in the clear, there’s nothing wrong with you, don’t do anything, relax, have a good time.… And all the while the rot is setting in, establishing itself, making itself at home.”

“I’m sure that.…”

“Yeah, yeah,” Ned said quietly, “of course you’re sure. And I’m sure you’re right. Forget I said anything about your meatus. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe…. Let’s talk of more interesting things. Now, about me and Em being Ambassadors of Yoof.…”

* * * *

And we did. We talked for the best part of an hour about the ceremonies and speeches and appearances at joint sittings of both houses of parliament that we would take part in once we arrived at Skyros. Ned made up little mini speeches, some of them in his awful verse. Ulrike Lewis added bits, argued with Ned about rhymes and scansion. The two of them went at it like old friends, old sparring partners. Ned showed no deference, he was hardly polite—it didn’t seem to matter. I said barely a word; I could think of nothing to say. But slowly my anxiety ebbed. Whatever Ned was up to, he wasn’t going to land us in the soup just yet. At least I thought he wasn’t.

The maid reappeared, bringing a tray of cakes and tea. Ned looked at her intently for a couple of seconds and sniffed. The maid set the low table and poured the tea. We each had a dainty little plate for the cakes, and a dainty little stainless steel fork to eat them with. Ned held his up to the light, examining it critically.

“You’ve heard about the theft of the officers’ cutlery,” Her Excellency said.

“We certainly have. Things are a bit grim in the crew’s mess,” Ned said. “We’d be eating with our fingers, if it wasn’t for John Doe’s supply of Earth knifes and forks.”

“Maybe I shouldn’t say this,” Her Excellency said, “but you do realize that Leading Hand Doe is a prime suspect? He might well have stolen the officers’ silver in the first place.”

“Rumors,” said Ned philosophically. “The bane of shipboard life.” The way he said it, you’d think he’d spent his entire eighteen years plying the space lanes. “By the way,” he went on. “That maid girl who brought the cakes.…”

“My body servant, Jennifer. What about her?”

“Dizzy spells. Has she complained of dizzy spells?”

“No, I don’t think so. Why?”

“Attrification of the tensor tympani muscle.”

“I’m not sure I understand.”

“She needs her left tympani replaced. Do that and she’ll be as right as rain.”

“I was unaware she was sick.”

“She’s probably unaware herself—at the moment.”

There was a few seconds’ silence and then Her Excellency said, “I’ll ask her if she’s suffered any dizzy spells.”

“Might be a good idea,” Ned said. “Just to be on the safe side.”

We finished our tea and cake. It was time for us to go. Her Excellency accompanied us across the deep carpet to the vestibule door. She shook our hands and said to Ned, “Work on those verse speeches, my friend, but don’t let the need for rhyme dictate the sense. And when you’ve got a good body of work completed, come and see me. Goodbye to both of you.” She shut the door and we were alone in the corridor.

As we were finding our way back to the crew’s quarters, I said, “She didn’t ask me to come and see her again.”

“Poor old fossil,” Ned said. “She’s worried sick about her meatus.”

“And what the hell is a meatus?”

“I don’t know,” Ned said. “Some chunk of the human body. We’re all made out of meat, after all.”

* * * *

Ned Talking

“Welcome to the laundry,” the gang boss said. “You can breath easier up here. Or down here, depends how you look at it.”

“The gravity’s less,” I said.

“We’re nearer the center of the ship. That’s how centrifuges work.”

I looked around. Huge gleaming steel tubes ran like uncooked spaghetti in bundles that went on forever. Wires and cables flowed down the walls and along the floor twisted and tangled like overcooked spaghetti.

“What is this place?” I said.

“The laundry,” the boss said.

“It doesn’t look like a laundry to me,” I said.

“We launder the space-time continuum up here,” the boss said. “We fold it up and punch holes through it. It’s the only way. We’d never get from one galaxy to the next if we didn’t.”

“Makes no sense to me,” I said. “We didn’t do the space-time continuum at Tidy Consolidated.”

“Naw, I don’t understand it either,” the boss said. “None of us do. We’re just paid to keep the equipment clean. You’d be surprised how much cosmic dust gets into the works.”

“What do we clean it with?”

“Rags, mops, brushes.”

“Sounds a bit primitive,” I said.

“It is,” the boss said. “You just can’t get the help. Robots are useless, apparently.”

“How does the dust get in here in the first place?”

“Spontaneous creation of matter,” the guy said. “It’s a byproduct of hyper-c travel. The ship gets to the other end heavier than when it started. We have to keep shoveling the rubbish out. Half of it’s dark matter, real cosmic crap.”

“It’s something for nothing,” I said.

“You could look at it like that. Do you play jongma?”

“I know how,” I said. “I don’t usually play.”

“You’ve got to while away the down time somehow. But I’ll introduce you to D’Bridie, she can show you the ropes.”

The boss looked up into the mass of pipes and stainless steel vessels. He let out a piercing whistle and yelled, “Hey, D’Bridie, come and meet the new chum.”

I looked where he was looking, but couldn’t see anybody amongst the hardware. A muffled voice yelled something I couldn’t understand. Then I saw a figure, maybe fifteen meters above the deck, balanced on a gantry. As we watched, the figure launched herself backwards into the air, spreading her arms like wings. In exquisite slow motion she performed a perfect backwards somersault, landing lightly on her feet a couple of meters from where we stood.

“Show off,” the boss said.

The girl said something I couldn’t understand. Which wasn’t surprising, since her face was masked with a filtration device. She wore the same sort of overalls that they’d given me, although hers were filthy. Her hair was in a bun. The overalls disguised her figure, but I suspected she was thin and lithe. She said something more I couldn’t understand and offered me her hand. I shook it, saying, “I can’t understand a word you’re saying.”

“I…thought…you…were…meant…to…speak…Newharp,” she said slowly.

“I do,” I said. “It’s your mask, it muffles things.”

“Yeah, sorry,” she said and pulled the mask down to her throat. She had a crooked smile—it made her look, well, interesting.

“Birth defect,” she grinned.

“Hardly a defect,” I said.

“That’s why I haven’t had it fixed,” she said.

“I used to sell body parts,” I said. “I could have talked you into a new smile.”

“You couldn’t talk me into anything,” she said, sounding like she meant it.

“I probably couldn’t,” I said.

“I’ll leave you two to get on with it,” the boss said and wandered off.

“Come on,” D’Bridie said. “I’m meant to show you what to do,” and she led me to a storeroom. While she was organizing me a mask and brushes, I looked around the store. Mostly the cleaning equipment was on open shelves, but there were one or two closed cupboards. My nose alerted me. I walked over to one of the cupboards.

“I bet this cupboard is locked,” I said.

D’Bridie stopped what she was doing, and looked at me in silence for a few seconds, and then grinned and said, “How do you know?”

“I can smell the stuff,” I said.

“Like a bloody sniffer dog,” she said. “But hooch stills are only part of the game. It’s advisable not to speak of the laundry’s secrets belowboard.”

“Belowboard?”

“The rest of the ship. Here: put this on.”

She handed me a mask. I put it on. I felt like the masked raider. “I feel like the masked raider,” I said.

“It won’t last,” she said. “You’ll feel like a chemical warfare victim soon enough. Let’s go.” She pulled her own mask up.

* * * *

By lunchtime I was beginning to feel I’d got the hang of the laundry. The actual work was dirty and tedious, but there were plenty of breaks. No one was busting a gut. We didn’t leave the laundry for lunch; apparently, the rest of the crew would have complained about dirty overalls in the mess if we had. There were about a dozen of us, and we ate sandwiches in a cozy little lunchroom with its own tea urn. D’Bridie sat next to me, stirring her tea with a silver teaspoon encrusted with precious stones. I looked quietly round the table. The cutlery was a mixed bunch, some tin, some plastic, some plain silver and gold, some elaborately carved and engraved and covered in precious inlays and stones. I didn’t comment. If I were John Doe and I’d knocked off the officers’ precious eating irons, I too would’ve arranged to have them hidden in the laundry.

* * * *

Em Talking

Flight Regulator Montesquieu approached down the corridor. Not my favorite person, but I always tried to be civil.

“Good evening,” I said.

“I want to talk to you,” she said.

“Please do.”

“Not here,” she said, as if having a conversation in a corridor was an unheard of barbarity. “In my office.”

“When?”

“Now.”

She kept on walking. I turned and started to follow her. I was trotting along behind her like a dog. I felt a fool. I increased my pace. I’d walk beside her, regardless of how unpleasant she was. I drew alongside. She didn’t turn her head, but slightly increased her own pace. I did likewise. Luckily the door to her office was only ten meters away, we’d have been sprinting if it were any further. She flashed her ID at the sensor and marched through the opening door. I followed. She proceeded to the swivel chair behind her desk. I dumped myself down, unbidden, in an armchair, ignoring the straight-backed chair directly in front of the desk.

“Shut the door,” Montesquieu snapped.

“Isn’t it automatic?” I said.

“No, it’s not.”

“A bit primitive,” I said and recognized the phrase as I spoke it as one of Ned’s. But I stood up, closed the door, and returned to my armchair with good grace.

Montesquieu looked at me in silence for five or six seconds. I returned her stare. “What’s he up to?” she said suddenly.

“What’s who up to?” I said.

“Don’t play dumb. What’s Malley up to?”

“Ned. As far as I know he’s proving to be a valuable washer woman.”

“He spends half his spare time with Her Excellency.”

“I think they’re writing a poem together. A cycle of poems.”

“Ulrike Lewis hasn’t written a poem in fifteen years. That’s fifteen of our years, Ms. Harpenden. Not miserable little Earth years.”

“She wrote a poem when she was visiting Earth. We heard her recite it on the telly.”

“Recycled. She changed a few proper nouns, that was all.”

“Well, maybe Ned has inspired her, given her a new lease on life.”

“He’s giving her organs a new lease on life. The ship’s organ factory has orders for no less than twenty-two new body parts for Her Excellency alone. Her first transplant is next week.”

“Meatus,” I said.

“Precisely.”

“Well, if Her Excellency wants to regenerate herself.…”

“It’s not just Her Excellency. She keeps recommending Malley’s services to all and sundry. There’s not an officer at the High Table who hasn’t got an order in. Most of them have three or four. New lungs, new livers, new hearts, miles of veins and arteries.…”

“Well, they’re old guys,” I said. “They’re wearing out.”

“Look, sister,” Montesquieu said. “This is an intergalactic spaceship. It is a closed community. We all live in close quarters to one another.”

“I know.”

“What you don’t seem to know is the power of mass hysteria.”

“Hysteria?”

“Yes, hysteria. It gets magnified in closed institutions. No one has an outside perspective. No one can take time out. Everyone reacts to the obsessions of their neighbors by becoming obsessed themselves, which in turn causes an intensification of the original.… Round and round it goes.… Everybody gets caught up.… And before you know it.… Look, Harpenden, there won’t be a single member of the ship’s company who doesn’t think his or her whole body is riddled with disease.…”

“Calm down,” I said.

Montesquieu looked as if I’d slapped her face. She took a deep breath, swallowed a few times and said, “Ms. Harpenden! You are very close to being criminally impertinent.”

“Maybe,” I said, “but, Flight Regulator, let’s try and look at this in perspective. Coolly and rationally.”

“I’ve just told you, there is no outside perspective, not while the ship is in flight. We can’t look at it in perspective. He’s started on the crew.”

“Who’s started what on the crew?”

“Malley. He treats the crew’s mess as a consulting room for his vile practices. Men and women are lining up to have their inner putrefaction diagnosed by his alleged powers of smell. A single diseased molecule is enough to set off alarm bells in his nose. So he says.”

“I eat my own meals in the crew’s mess,” I said. “Often with Ned. I haven’t seen lines of men and women queuing up.”

“Then you can’t have been paying attention.… I have my sources, my informants.”

For a while there was silence. I looked at Montesquieu. She was still breathing heavily. I looked round her office. There was no item of personal significance, no image of husband, boyfriend, girlfriend, children. There was no art on the walls. The place was sterile.

I said, “Why don’t you talk to Ned himself?”

“I am forbidden.”

“Forbidden? By whom?”

“By Her Excellency.”

“Oh, come on.…”

“I made the mistake of sending Her Excellency a memo outlining my concerns. An executive order forbidding me from approaching Malley in any way was my only repayment. I was doing my duty.”

“What do you want me to do about it?”

“You’re his friend. Talk to him. Please talk to him. Before the mass hysteria goes viral, before the breakdown of all social structure destroys this spacecraft.”

“I’ll give it a go,” I said. “And now I’ve got work to do.”

Without waiting for a formal dismissal I left the room.

* * * *

I didn’t have work to do, I had an early dinner to consume before I started serving the officers theirs. In the crew’s mess I found Ned and his friends, John Doe and D’Bridie. I took my tray over to their table.

“Dear lady, you look a bit agitated,” John Doe said. “I hope nothing has happened to upset the even tenor of your days.”

“You’re very perceptive,” I said.

“Then speak to us of your angst,” Doe said. “You are amongst friends.”

I wanted to talk to Ned by himself. But then I thought, bugger it, nothing’s private, the ship’s a hothouse, just as Montesquieu says. I might as well broadcast my feelings to all and sundry.

“I’ve been talking to Flight Regulator Montesquieu,” I said.

“A stalwart of the ship’s company,” John Doe said.

“Her!” D’Bridie said. “A snapper. That’s what she is. She snaps. She’s as uptight as all get-out one minute, the next minute she’s snapped. Did she snap with you, Em?”

“Almost. I told her to calm down.”

“Far out.”

“She’s one of my greatest fans,” Ned said. “She sent a memo to Lewis praising my many talents.”

“She sent a memo to Lewis complaining bitterly about you,” I said.

“Why’d Montesquieu complain about Ned?” D’Bridie said.

“He is a menace to the good order of the ship,” I said. “He is the cause of mass hysteria.”

“Alas,” John Doe said. “The saint is often cast out from the pigsty of his own eyeballs.”

“What rubbish is that, John?” D’Bridie said.

Doe started to say something, but I cut him off. “Listen, you arseholes, I’m on this ship because I want to go home. I want to get home in one piece. I want to pass the time until we arrive at Newharp just doing my job and being left alone. I don’t want to become involved in saving the whole social structure of the ship from total chaos. Got it?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Ned said quietly. “We’ve got it, Em. No one’s going to involve you.”

“Bloody Montesquieu already has,” I said.

* * * *

Ned Talking

The Delegate went into orbit around Skyros and stayed there. Round and round we went. Rumors abounded, the bane of shipboard life. It was said that the Skyroans were asking an exorbitant fee to allow us to land. It was said that they were all suffering from some hideous new disease and we’d be mad to land. It was said that they weren’t prepared to accord Her Excellency the pomp and ceremony she deserved. Her Excellency was deliberately delaying things until her latest organ replacement was given the all clear. All sorts of things were said.

* * * *

One afternoon Lewis and I were working on our cycle of epic poems. I asked her what was going on. She said the problem seemed to be that there wasn’t a single Skyroan authority to deal with. The place was divided up into countries, fiefdoms, principalities, no-go areas, and they were all at war with one another. Also, there was a rash of civil wars: some entities were simply ripping themselves apart for the fun of it.

“Best we give the place a miss,” I said.

“It wouldn’t look good,” Lewis said.

“It would look even worse if we took the runabout down and landed on a battlefield. Bang! Crash! Kaput!”

“Good strong words,” Lewis said. “Let’s put them in the poem.”

So we did. When we’d finished, that bit of the epic cycle read:

Bang! Crash! Kaput! The Heavens shook.

Kaput and Crash and Bang

No love nor peace was with the rook.

And the dove had fled the land.

Lewis said, “There’s some little suzerain called New Stoke-on-Trent. It’s said to be reasonably peaceful. They’re prepared to let us talk to schools.”

“Schools?” I said. “Not joint sittings of both houses of parliament?”

“I’m not sure that they’ve actually got a parliament.”

“What about shore leave for the crew?”

“That might not eventuate.”

“They’re not going to like that.”

“Can’t be helped.”

* * * *

Em Talking

They tricked us out, me and Ned, in ambassadorial robes. I looked like a dork. I felt a complete idiot. But I was excited all the same; the trip to this New Stoke-on-Trent place would be a change. We were about to get out of the spinning drum for a few days, breathe the air of a new planet, see new sights, hear new sounds. We went down to the Skyroan surface in the officers’ runabout. It was a damn sight more civilized than the crew’s runabout that we’d taken from Earth. There must have been about two dozen of us in the official party. I wasn’t thrilled to see that Montesquieu was in attendance. I was amazed to see that Ned’s friends D’Bridie and John Doe were included. John Doe was wearing his huge overcoat, D’Bridie was carrying a backpack.

“How did those two get in on the act?”

“Procurement,” Ned said.

“What?”

“John’s been here before. He knows people. He is going to get in a supply of new cutlery. So that everybody can eat properly. D’Bridie is his assistant. I fixed it with Lewis.”

“What else did you fix?”

“Not much.”

We were met on the landing ground by some heavily armed militia folk, who ushered us straight into waiting troop carriers. If we thought we were going to see the sights on the way to the school we were wrong. The back of the troop carrier had no more windows than The Delegate.

“I don’t reckon this place is quite as peaceful as advertised,” Ned said.

“No kidding.”

The noise in the troop carrier made conversation difficult, so we didn’t talk. The machine rattled and jolted and gave no impression of traveling on a made road. At one stage I thought I heard gunfire, but maybe I was mistaken. We arrived at the school and were hustled out of the troop carriers and into an assembly hall. It was a bog-standard school assembly hall. It could have been on Earth, it could have been on Newharp, there was nothing exotic about it at all. The place was packed; they must have bused in a heap of kids from surrounding schools. They were all talking as loudly as they could. Some of them were sitting on window sills. Scuffles and fights broke out. Teachers were trying to quieten them down, with no success. Our party was ushered onto a wide stage. We sat and looked at the kids. The kids largely ignored us. The proceedings proceeded. In both languages. Everything was translated by babbling translator folk, so everything took twice as long. Finally Ned and I were called to the microphone. Ned used the Skyroan language skills he’d picked up on Earth flogging replacement organs to refugees. He talked directly to the kids in a bastard version of their own tongue, reciting a translation of the epic poem cycle that he and Her Excellency had cobbled together. But the kids started to drum their feet. A slow handclap added to the noise. Ned started yelling, but now he was yelling limericks:

There was a young lady from Skyros

Who’s bum was like a rhinoceros.

She sat on a mouse.

Which shrieked like a louse

And cursed the young lady from Skyros.

I’d never heard such infantile drivel in my life. It was acutely embarrassing to be standing next to Ned. But it began to work. The kids started laughing, and they were laughing with Ned, not at him. After a dozen such limericks Ned had the whole audience in the palm of his hand. He said, “Right. You lot can have a go. Someone come up here and do a limerick. What about you, mate, you look like a champion limerickeer.” He pointed at a rough lout in the second row.

Ned had picked just the right guy. The lout grinned like a cat and bounded over the row of kids in front of him, half squashing a smallish urchin as he did so. He leapt onto the stage, bumped into me, took the microphone from Ned and shouted, “There was a mad crowd from Earth, Whose brains were made out of turf.…”

An explosion on the roof of the hall sent a rain of dust and light-fittings cascading down onto the heads of everyone below, including me. Kids screamed and started stampeding out of all available exits, including the windows. The heavily-armed militia guys rushed the stage and began herding our party out of a back door. The sound of gunfire punctuated their shouted commands. Acrid smoke drifted everywhere. I found myself stumbling along next to Ned, who was conducting a shouted exchange with a militia girl. He turned to me, “She reckons it’s a kidnap attempt. Apparently, Lewis would be worth her weight in cold-fusion pellets. We’re OK, we’re not worth anything.”

“Good to know,” I said.

Out in the playground our party was being bundled back into the troop carriers. I saw Her Excellency propelled unceremoniously into the lead carrier by two beefy militia types. Then someone called my name. I looked round, Flight Regulator Montesquieu was standing next to the open rear hatch of a smallish troop carrier.

“You and Malley, into this one.”

Ned and I climbed into the vehicle. D’Bridie and John Doe were already there. Up front, the driver was accompanied by a couple of grinning militiamen who held their firearms at the ready—they had the cheery demeanor of the recently bribed. Montesquieu didn’t climb into the carrier herself, she yelled at the driver to take us away. The carrier started forward even as the hydraulics were closing the rear hatch.

John Doe said, “I do believe our esteemed colleague, Flight Regulator Montesquieu, has called us a cab of our very own. I suspect the driver will be taking us on a leisurely tour of New Stoke-on-Trent’s main tourist attractions. Pity we can’t see out.”

Doe wasn’t wrong. It took forever to get back to the landing ground. And when we arrived, it was too late.

We stood in the Skyroan dust and watched the runabout take off. It accelerated slowly; it was carrying the ancient, shaken-up Ulrike Lewis, after all. The pilot wasn’t going to subject her to too many g-forces, not if he knew what was good for him. For an eternity the craft seemed to float upside down on the cloud cover, like the keel of a boat seen by an underwater swimmer. And then it was gone, swallowed by the mist. I turned in complete misery to my companions. There was no answering misery on their faces; they had been watching the departing runabout with as much concern as a bunch of commuters who’d just missed a light rail shuttle.

“It’s not going to come back for us,” I said.

“I wouldn’t think so,” John Doe said. “We are marooned. We are castaways of the cosmos.”

“We’re on the wrong bloody planet!” I was nearly crying. “This place is worse than Earth.”

“I’m sure it has some attractions, dear lady,” John Doe said. “Let us look on the bright side.”

“Don’t bloody dear lady me.”

Ned said, “We’ll get you home, Em. We might even get there faster than The Delegate. We’ll be there to welcome Lewis on her triumphal return.”

“How? There aren’t any people smugglers going between here and Newharp. And we’ve got no money. No damn money at all.”

“The space lanes are not empty,” John Doe said. “Interplanetary trade demands the constant plying to and fro of that workhorse of commerce, the humble freighter. The freighter is not to be sneezed at.”

“And how the fuck are we meant to pay the goddamned humble freighter captain? With the clothes off our backs? Here, captain, give us passage to Newharp. Have a second-hand shirt and a used pair of socks.”

“We can always realize our capital,” John Doe said. “Skyroans are discerning aficionados of genuine antiques.”

“Realize what capital? What antiques?”

D’Bridie put her arm around my shoulders and squeezed. Silently she kicked the backpack that rested in the dust at her feet. There was a muffled clanking sound. “Spoons, Em,” she said. “Knives and forks. Ceremonial ones. John knows a guy who deals in them. John’s been here before. He’s got connections. We’re rich. We’ll go home in style.”

“I also know a matron who keeps an excellent hostelry not far from here,” John Doe said. “Let us go and eat.”