Debatable Space Page 9

  “Engage grapples.”

  Two roboships are sent hurtling from our main vessel and they land with an inaudible smash on the surface of the merchant ship. The magno-grapples are switched on automatically, pinning them against the hull, and they then engage with reverse polarity the magnets on our ship. Thus, the merchant ship is locked solidly on to us, unable to move.

  A sealed polytunnel unfurls along the length of the magnetic arm that links ship to ship. We are all swiftly suiting up, apart from Alby, who merely flares a little more vividly.

  Jamie stays on the bridge, ordering up doughnuts and Coke from the ship’s dispenser, as my pirate crew assembles and enters the airlock.

  We are swept downwards along an invisible magnetic tunnel. We use blasters to crack open the hull. And then we are inside.

  Robot guns fire at us as we come rolling through. Alliea has an eagle eye for such devices and pops them with lightning-fast laser blasts as we all run. Bullets rain on my body armour but none penetrate. We blow up a connecting door and emerge to find suited beetles preparing to shoot us.

  Before they can fire Alliea leaps up and sweeps a nanonet over them, stifling their air supply, coating them with a spider’s-web lattice of diamond-hard fibre. Then she yanks and tugs and knocks them off balance. At the same time, Harry and I are blasting them with stun and flare blasts. We duck and weave away from bullets, capitalising on the fact that these security warriors are trained to shoot accurately, not fast, and don’t know how to move their guns into position in the blink of an eye. Their every shot is telegraphed, and we duck and roll and effortlessly avoid their fusillades. Then I plunge needles through black body armour and feel the humans inside slump into unconsciousness.

  We enter the bridge. The rest of the crew surrenders to us. Only the Captain is defiant. I lay down my blaster, and courteously beg him to give up and unlock the ship’s security network. He refuses, and before he has finished his sentence, I have spring-loaded the scimitar I wear strapped to my thigh, then I unpop its blade and swipe.

  His head falls from his shoulders. The crew are entirely stunned. I pick up the head and brandish it before them. Living proof that I am a barbarian.

  For I am a barbarian.

  Only one other crew member possesses the code to unlock the ship’s security lattice, liberating all the treasures of that cargo. The identity of that crew member is a dark and deeply kept secret. So I lop off the purser’s head. Two heads, two deaths, and the rest follows easily. The crew key-holder surrenders himself, the cargo is unlocked.

  We have our treasure. Wooden furniture, carved metal artworks, electronics, flyboards, and designer clothing. Worthless to us, but worth a small fortune when we sell it back to the manufacturers.

  I exalt. I triumph.

  And I feel the taste of blood in my nostrils and my pulse surges.

  Lena

  On my cabin cctv, I watch the progress of the battle. I stare with horror as I see Flanagan behead two people.

  Who is this man?

  I feel contempt and rage for him. After what they did to me, I shouldn’t be shocked, but I am. And I give myself a silent warning: I must never, ever, trust these evil bastards. Flanagan and his pirates are strangers to humanity; they have embraced a creed of total ruthlessness.

  I hate them, and I fear them.

  I am afraid.

  Flanagan

  “You’re very quiet, Lena.”

  “I’m savouring my food.”

  “It’s fresh foie gras. We found a case of it in the cargo hold.”

  “You killed all those people. For foie gras?”

  “It’s a Corporation merchant ship. It’s fair game. Don’t glare at me like that, Lena, it’s…”

  “Whatever you say, Captain Flanagan. There, I’m looking at you nicely now.”

  “You hate me, don’t you?”

  “For what you have done, you have forfeited your right to life.”

  “Ah, phooey.”

  She eats. I hide my grin.

  Yes, I’m a barbarian. At least she knows now.

  Alby

  We are clossse to my home. My flame burnsss brighter.

  Flanagan

  Alby is flickering and flashing like a wild fire. I can’t tell if he’s excited and emotional with homesickness, or if he’s masturbating.

  Alby is my dearest friend, however strange that seems. He is weird, unfathomable, terrifying to be with, but useful if you have a tobacco habit and need a light. He is also the only member of my crew who likes my jokes. (However this may be because, as an alien, he doesn’t know any better.)

  And now we’re approaching his home – the vast and glorious artificial sun called, known to humans as Flare. This is the home of the flame beasts, created by them after these energy-eating ravening sentient plasma-flame entities had devoured their own sun. Their new home of Flare is a star larger than most solar systems. In the process of creating it, the flame beasts are estimated to have eliminated 4,556,767,699 species of life, including twelve possible-sentient species. This was not from malice but from oversight; at that time, it hadn’t occurred to the flame beasts that planets could be anything other than fuel.

  The flame beasts are an immensely powerful species. They cannot be attacked, invaded or intimidated, and any attempt to declare war on them would be futile. To bomb or fusion-blast them would be like throwing fingers to a hungry lion. They are immune to all disease, and cannot be affected by any poison or micro-organism.

  They do have their own natural processes of decay and death, which are poorly understood. But essentially, the flame beasts are unkillable, and infinitely gifted. Every flame beast can speak every human language. And every flame beast is familiar with every detail of what happened in every century, every year and every month of human history. The flame beasts speak Mandarin Chinese and the click language Xhosa without impediment; in every other human language they have the characteristic flame-beast sibilance.

  And yet, it seems, there is much that humanity can teach these beings. For the tragedy of the flame beasts is that for millions of years they have existed in a state of tedious stasis. Ennui, despair and inertia enveloped them. But since their first contact with humanity the entire species has been invigorated, and the flames have had a new lease of life.

  And this is because, from human beings, the flame beasts have learned all about art, ballet, drama, opera, classical music, popular music, pyrotechnics… and soap opera. The last of these arenas of human endeavour has, to the astonishment of many academics and scientists, proved the most addictive of all. The community of flame beasts has become an avid devourer of the great and prolific long form drama output of the human colonies. They are passionate, knowledgeable and completely besotted with the folly and the stupidity of human nature, as exemplified in shows such as The Magellan Girls, Paxos: The Early Years, Martin Devonzi and His Marvellous Amazing Family, and a myriad others.

  And so, as part of my barter, I come armed with a disc containing 400 hours of Argon, a sophisticated, sexy and often hilarious soap opera about a world in which time is lived backwards. The sex scenes are, trust me, to die for.

  It’s time. I suit up, and join Alby in the airlock. We exit on the lee side of the ship, using the hull as a sunshield to protect us from the impossible glare of the giant sun. We are soon joined by a delegation of flame beasts, who arrive in the form of a series of shooting stars. The stars become sparkles, which explode into a series of multi-coloured supernovae. The sky crackles and explodes with colours and swirling fiery shapes.

  Then the lights become a cloud, and the cloud becomes a complex pattern of light flashes. I can follow some of what the flame beasts are saying. I know that a small flash followed by a large flash followed by a small flash implies negativity. I know that a shimmering series of complexly patterned flashes alternating at the rate of 0.01 seconds per flicker denotes scepticism merged with irony with an undertow of courtesy, thus:

  (and so on, and so forth.
)

  But as for the actual content of the flame-beast language – that is beyond any human comprehension. It is clearly some kind of binary or trinary code, but no human-built computer has ever been able to crack it.

  “What do they say?” I ask Alby.

  “They agree to the barter,” Alby tells me. “They will retain Lena as their prisssoner under the sssupervision of a Flare Elder, namely mysssself. In return they accept your gift of drama offeringsss, but they also ask you to particccipate in a long-term training programme for our ssspecies in the hissstory, technique and sssstylisssstic philossssophy of the music known as bluessss and boogie-woogie.”

  “That’s not possible!” I exclaim, startled.

  “It’sss a prerequisssite. Your expertissse precedesss you.”

  “Then… I’ll do my best.”

  “If you betray the bargain in any way, my people pledge a blood feud and will destroy you, your crew members, your family and your descendants in a methodical way for a period of one hundred human years.”

  “Fair.”

  “I feel a pang. I yearn to be with my kind.”

  “Will you stay?”

  “Perhapssss.”

  “We need you.”

  “I know.”

  The sky explodes again, with light and beauty.

  Alby laughs with joy. And I shudder, for his laughter is like the sound of snakes sliding down your oesophagus, and mating in your colon.

  Flanagan

  I strum a chord. Gently, letting the notes hang in the air like whisky on the palate. We are in the ship’s situation room, the acoustics are better in here.

  “What’s the matter at the mill?” I say to Alby.

  “What’sss the matter at the mill?” he repeats patiently.

  “I got corn to grind. But I cain’t,” I tell him.

  “And why iss that?” he asks me, intrigued.

  “’Cause the mill’s done broke down.”

  “The mill hasss done broke down?” Bafflement suffuses Alby’s every syllable.

  I strum another chord, and sing gently:

  “I got some corn

  And I put in a sack

  Johnny went to the mill

  But he come right back.

  What’s the matter at the mill?”

  “That’s when you come in,” I tell Alby.

  “What’sss the matter at the mill?”

  “ No that’s my line. Your line is: ‘ It’s done broke down.’”

  ALBY: “ It’sss done broke down.”

  ME: “What’s the matter at the mill?”

  ALBY: “It’sss done broke down.”

  ME: “Well people are a talking all over town

  Telling me that the mill done broke down.

  I cain’t get no grinding.

  ’Cause the mill’s done broke down.”

  US: “What’s the matter at the mill?

  “It’s done broke down.

  “What’s the matter at the mill?

  “It’s done broke down.

  “Tell me what’s the matter at the mill?”

  I feel a haunting pang as our voices merge. Alby’s natural tones have modulated into a rich, evocative bluesy groan. I strum my acoustic guitar loudly, crudely, simply, from the heart.

  In Alby’s world, of course, there is no such thing as ground corn. There are no mills. There is only energy and fusion and an eternal flickering flame. But I know that once, just once, in the history of his people, disaster struck. The flame beasts’ native sun was fatally depleted. Their sun broke down. It is their only significant piece of history, their only natural disaster.

  I bathe in the light and heat of my best and least likely friend, this mercurial, pedantic, infinitely loyal walking ball of fire. I segue into a wild, angry, sad guitar break, and then Alby chips in with his own bold improvisation:

  “What’ssss the matter with the sun?

  It’sss done broke down.

  What’ssss the matter with the ssssun?

  It’sss done broke down.

  I can’t get no

  Tell me what’sss the matter with the sssun!”

  Lena

  Harry and Jamie challenge me to a poker game. I spurn them initially, but then begin to weaken. I am getting bored of my state of captivity.

  “But no card counting,” Jamie warns me. “We know you have that remote computer in your head. But that’s against the rules. We play the old-fashioned way.”

  I smile and accept the challenge.

  I don’t need a computer. I am, innately, a brilliant card counter. Ha! This new generation, they’re used to having surgically implanted computer chips to help them with their calculations. But I grew up in an era where we learned mental arithmetic in school. I was taught my times tables! And I have a naturally retentive mind.

  So even now, after all this time, despite a few lapses, I can control my memory like a fluid supple living thing. I can choose to forget whole swathes of past, keeping only the record of them in my computer data chips. But when I want to recall a fact, it will appear immediately, without hesitation. It is a skill that has allowed me to retain clarity through all these hundreds of years.

  And I am bound to win this game, of course, because these two are so easy to read. Jamie is a man in the body of a child, but he has nonetheless the soul of a child. He is over a hundred years old, but chose to have his puberty retarded in order to retain that precious, special clarity which only young children have. As a result, Jamie thinks more intensely than others, he feels more intensely. But he is frozen at the cusp of manhood, able to dream and desire, unable to deliver. It makes him edgy, dangerous, and desperate.

  With Harry it’s different of course. If I were naked and raging, with unwaxed hairy legs, and with my arse sticking up in the air, then maybe, just maybe, he might regard me as a female of the species. But in my present beautiful, perfumed, civilised state – no chance. Harry is a Loper through and through. He was banished from the community of Lopers for eating his own father (an act of barbarity that is so typical of these lower types.) But though he is forced to belong to the world of humans, Harry is more wolf than man; more pack animal than team player. His humanity is just a facade he assumes.

  Flanagan is oblivious to all this. But I can smell it on Harry. I know that he would long to devour his Captain, to eat him limb by limb and bite up his eyes, and to savour with his last bite the desperate death rattle in Flanagan’s quivering larynx.

  So I have no sexual power over Harry, but I can smell his every emotion, almost his every thought.

  “Raise you five, see you five.”

  “I’ll see you five and raise you another ten.”

  I win, and win again. At the end of the game, both Jamie and Harry are looking sheepish. Then I get a sudden whiff of something from Harry. An emotion I haven’t felt from him before. I glance at Jamie – and catch the same emotion in his eyes.

  Pity.

  “We’re surrendering you to the custody of the flame beasts,” Harry explains. “They will guarantee your safety. When the ransom is paid, you will return safely to civilisation.”

  He’s lying. I can’t smell it now, but I just know it. Why else would he be looking at me so kindly? Why else…?

  With a sudden surge of horror, I realise the ghastly truth. They let me win. I could have told you that, if you’d only asked.

  “Shut the fuck up!” I scream at the voice in my head. Then I realise I have spoken it aloud. Jamie and Harry look at me kindly. The boy and the beast.

  They have been humouring me. Because they know I’m doomed. These two sad, pathetic specimens are being nice to me, because they feel sorry for me.

  I stifle a sob.

  Flanagan

  I dine with our prisoner, the cold and beautiful Lena.

  I notice some interesting things. She’s fussy with her food. She talks to herself, without realising what she is doing, though that may simply be her way of communicating with her remote computer. She d
rinks large schooners of sherry, and even larger glasses of red wine. She picks at her food. She farts openly, without any attempt at concealment. She is taciturn, never asks questions. But when she does speak, she’s appallingly garrulous. She regaled me for several hours with stories of her time as a crime fighter in ancient Earth. A man called Tom featured frequently. The stories were rambling, but fascinating. But my, she did go on.

  She is very opinionated, about everything. Society has decayed. Courtesy is a forgotten art. Television has gone downhill. Young men lack sexual charisma, they are just “boys” now, in her eyes. When she pours herself a glass of wine, it doesn’t occur to her to pour me a glass. At one point, she falls asleep when I am talking. I am halfway through a sentence, and she damn well cat-naps off. Then she wakes, farts briefly, and continues with one of her stories from half an hour previously.

  She is, in short, old. Everything about her, apart from her sleek and sexual body and her shimmeringly wonderful face, exudes withered and arid age. She’s selfish, self-contained, cautious, cowardly, bigoted, small-minded, self-pitying, spoiled, self-indulgent, arrogant, uninterested in the feelings of others.

  Was she always like this? I can’t tell. But I do know that she has wrapped herself in so many comfort blankets that she can no longer feel the air around her. She is cocooned.

  I try to explain the reasons behind my course of action in kidnapping her. My ideals, my political imperative. She mocks me mercilessly at this point.

  “You’re just a pirate,” she tells me. “A savage!”

  “I’m a soldier of fortune,” I reply mildly.

  “You’re a butcher. You let that beast maul and bite me, for the sake of a grisly display to intimidate my son. And I saw what you did earlier, on the merchant ship.” Her bitter words hang in the air. “I saw you behead two men!”

  “Hey! I’m a pirate.”

  “You’re a terrorist.”

  “Whatever.”

  “You have no remorse.”