God Emperor of Didcot Read online

  He sighed, took out the praetorian skull and drove it onto one of the spikes. It jutted from the front of the ship, aggressive and empty-eyed. There was a noise behind him, and he spun around.

  ‘Dad?’

  ‘Hello,’ Agshad said. He was carrying a tin of paint.

  Morgar nodded at the ship. ‘I just came down here to put that skull away that Suruk brought us. By the ancestors, he does come back from his holidays with some right old tat. Thought I’d stick it here. . . it just seemed sort of appropriate.’

  Agshad chuckled. ‘Nostalgia, eh?’ He stepped into the garage and patted the ship with his free hand. ‘Ah, we used to have some laughs in this old thing. When I look back at it all. . .’

  ‘What’s that you’ve got?’

  ‘This? Oh, just some old red paint and a brush. I just thought I’d store it here, just in case I ever feel like painting the business end of anything red. . . you know, go faster stripes or something.’

  They stood there together for a while, looking at the ship.

  *

  ‘We’re being hailed!’ Carveth cried. ‘Someone’s calling us!’

  Smith jolted awake, spilling the remains of his drink over his lap. ‘Where?’

  Carveth folded down a console and her fingers clattered over the keys. ‘On the left. Four ships. Dart-shaped.’

  ‘Ghasts!’ Suddenly Smith was very awake indeed. ‘They must have followed us here. Put them on loudspeaker.’

  Carveth reached out, and high-pitched noises came from the speakers: squeaky, breathless, angry sounds.

  ‘Well, it’s not Ghasts,’ Smith said. ‘It could be worse.’

  ‘British offworlder scum! You are in sacred Yull space, offworlder cowards! Today you die, British! Hup-hup! Yes, cut out hearts for the war-god! Hwup! ’

  ‘Good God,’ Smith said. ‘The lemming-men of Yull!’

  ‘Kill you slow, offworlder!’ the speaker screeched.‘Hephuphephuphup!’

  ‘Tell them we mean no harm!’ Carveth cried. ‘Calm them down or something!’

  The door flew open and Suruk stormed in. He leaned across Carveth, toggled the speakers and roared, ‘Scum of Yull! Pirates and murderers! I will slay you all!’

  ‘Dirty M’Lak!’ the Yull shouted back. Carveth had the nasty feeling that she was trapped between two broken amplifiers.

  ‘So M’Lak are now cowards too! Polite after-dinner chat no match for frenzied assault of Yull! Prepare to die! Hup-hup!’

  ‘We will wade in your blood, filth!’ Suruk snarled.‘Today you will know that one of the M’Lak has not embraced cowardice!’ He flicked off the intercom. ‘Woman, turn this ship and prepare to fight.’

  ‘Bugger right off!’

  ‘The lemming-men will try to ram us,’ Smith said. ‘Do you think we can outpace them?’

  ‘I can bloody well try,’ Carveth said. She turned the ship, and in the edge of the windscreen Smith saw four specs of light, the engines of the Yull dart-ships. Carveth pushed the throttle forward. A sudden rushing, scraping sound came from the rear of the ship, and the floor began to shudder.

  ‘Full ahead,’ said Smith.

  ‘This is full.’ The Pym was fast, but it had more mass to move than the darts. Flashing dots appeared on the radar, slowly drawing closer. It would take only one Yull ship to destroy them, Smith knew. Looking at the faces of the others, they knew as well. ‘Stay here,’ he said, and he leaped up and ran into the corridor.

  He banged on Rhianna’s door. ‘Rhianna?’

  She looked out, saw his face and said, ‘What is it?’

  ‘We’re under attack. I need you to do your psychic thing.’

  For once there was no discussion. ‘Okay,’ she said, and she hurried inside and hopped onto the bed. Pressing her fingertips to her temples, she closed her eyes and said, ‘Um-umumum,’ like an instrument tuning up.

  Smith hurried back to the cockpit. ‘What’s the state of play?’

  ‘Not good,’ Carveth said. She was wearing the sighting goggles: always a bad sign. She tapped the navcom. The dots were a third closer.

  ‘Turn left,’ Suruk said. ‘Local debris field.’

  ‘Alright,’ Carveth said. The ship swung. Metal glinted at the edge of the screen: ragged, whirling junk. It’ll tear us apart, thought Smith, and then: better that than dying at the hands of the Yull.

  ‘Take us in,’ he commanded.

  The specs grew alarmingly. Smith could see individual lumps of debris now, pieces of ships and broken satellites, the rough edges gleaming like saw-blades as they spun.

  ‘You’ll have to slow down to manoeuvre in there,’ he said.

  ‘The Yull think that too,’ Carveth said. ‘How close are they?’

  ‘Close. Leading ship has forty seconds to impact at this speed.’

  She nodded. Under the goggles, she was biting her lip.

  Carveth reached up and toggled the brake controls. ‘Here we go,’ she said.

  The John Pym met the debris field. Part of a solar array shot past them on the left, its ruined panels glistening like fish. The Pym sped into the field at top sublight speed, and at once they were surrounded by a host of wrecks.

  Carveth opened the radio.

  The speakers burst into frantic jabbering. Ahead, the remains of a troop transport dwarfed the John Pym. They darted past its empty hull like a barracuda past the flank of a whale.

  ‘Now you die, mangy offworlders!’ screamed the lead lemming. ‘ Yullai! ’

  Smith looked up from the scanner – ‘Carveth, he’s bloody close! Collision in four, three—’

  She tapped the accelerator, and then at once braked and pulled the nose up. Fire blasted from the back of the Pym: the Yull saw it, threw his ship forward and overshot as the Pym swerved and pulled away. The lemming-ship shot past them into the debris. For a second it slipped between the wrecks – then, almost lazily, a dented rocket rolled onto its side, one of its stabilising fins swung down and batted the Yull out of existence.

  Being a vacuum, no sound carried to the Pym. But it did not matter. ‘Blam!’ Carveth yelled into the intercom. ‘How’s that, wankers? Haha!’

  ‘We kill you, kill you slow!’ the Yull warbled over the intercom. ‘Pull out your whiskers, British!’

  ‘Three more incoming,’ Smith said. ‘Can they see us from here?’

  ‘No.’

  Carveth flicked off the radio and cut the engines. Suddenly the room was completely quiet. A few buttons glowed on the controls. Otherwise, the only light came from space itself.

  They lay among the debris, camouflaged by broken metal. The Yull had wanted to run them down; now the initiative lay with the Empire. The John Pym looked as much like dead metal as it could.

  Silence. Smith could hear Carveth breathing, hard and fast. He leaned across to her and whispered, ‘Tea?’ It was, after all, an emergency.

  She nodded. He crept to the kitchen, made the tea and checked on Rhianna. She was still meditating. He did not risk breaking her concentration.

  As Smith brought the tea to the cockpit, Suruk passed him the binoculars. ‘Look,’ he hissed.

  The broken ships reminded Smith of dead sharks, of scaffolding and ferris wheels. Between the wreckage, a needle-shaped craft picked its way through the debris, hunting them. Searchlights flicked from its nose across the broken metal. It looked like a missile with wings.

  Smith looked at Carveth. ‘Plan?’

  Carveth looked at Suruk. ‘Delegate?’

  ‘We must move fast,’ Suruk said. ‘I suggest we lose weight by jettisoning the mascot out the airlock. Or better still, I eat the mascot.’

  Carveth grabbed the hamster cage. ‘No way. Gerald is as much a part of the crew as you are, Suruk. He stays.’

  ‘Gerald?’ Suruk said, giving her one of his special smiles.

  Carveth clicked her fingers. ‘Wait! That gives me an idea!’

  Half an hour later, Smith finished strapping the cargo webbing across the hold. ‘How’re you doing?’ he
asked, looking up.

  ‘Well,’ Suruk said. He had pushed their battered car to the very back of the hold, next to the rear doors. It was the only thing in the hold not tied down.

  Smith looked around the hold. ‘That’ll do,’ he said.

  ‘Let’s go.’

  They stepped into the living room and closed the door behind them. Suruk spun the wheel until the airlock was sealed.

  In the cockpit, Carveth was watching the scanners.

  ‘Anything?’ Smith asked.

  She looked up. ‘No. They’re circling, looking for us. That’s about it.’

  ‘Good.’ Smith sat down in the captain’s chair. ‘How fast can you get the hold open?’

  ‘Pretty quick,’ she said. ‘There’s an emergency option for ejecting hostile life forms. It’ll blow the door open in half a second.’ She looked back at the scanner. ‘Look, Boss, even if this works we’ll have them on our tail straight away.’

  ‘Of course. But this should prove a distraction. Get ready to power up.’

  She wrapped her hands around the stick. ‘Right.’

  ‘Prepare the hatches. Ready to blow?’

  ‘I was born ready to blow, Captain.’

  ‘Power up.’

  Carveth threw the switches: around them lights flickered on, the floor trembled, machinery began to hum.

  The ship came alive. Smith opened the radio and shouted ‘Let’s get out of here!’ He jabbed a finger at Carveth and she flicked a switch.

  The hold doors blew open. It depressurised in an instant, and the car was flung from the back in a rush of air. Smith glanced at the rear monitor. Spinning in the vacuum, the Crofton Imp made its final journey.

  From nowhere a light dived towards the car. ‘ Yullai! ’ the speaker screeched. ‘Die, filthy offworl – oh, wait a min—’

  The light hit the car and exploded. ‘Go!’ cried Smith, and the android threw the throttle forward and the ship roared around them.

  The John Pym blasted free of the debris field. Suruk laughed. ‘Two Yull dead!’

  ‘And two behind us,’ Smith said. Two more points of light had appeared on the scanner. ‘Full speed ahead, Carveth!’

  Her eyes were huge behind the goggles. ‘Right.’

  Smith watched the scanner, then the monitor. The dots were closing – closing fast. A dial on the scanner whirled.

  ‘Twenty seconds to impact!’ he called. ‘Brace yourselves!’ Carveth cried.

  Smith stood up. ‘I’ll tell Rhianna.’

  ‘No time!’ she called. ‘Strap yourself – what the hell is that?’

  She swung the ship left, and Smith staggered across the cockpit as the Pym turned. He stumbled back to his seat.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Big ship coming up planetside!’ Carveth said.

  Something huge rose into the rear monitor. At first sight Smith thought it was a bulldozer, for the whole front was hidden by metal armour – part bulldozer blade, part ram.

  The first Yull ship died in a flash of light on the blade.

  The second tried to dodge but it was too slow, and the massive prow clipped the dart-ship, spun it and smashed into its side, and it was destroyed.

  ‘Hello Suruk!’ said the radio. ‘Hello Suruk’s friends!’

  Suruk was on his feet, staring at the speaker. ‘Father?’

  ‘It’s me,’ Agshad said. ‘Everyone alright there?’

  ‘Better now that you’re here,’ Smith said. ‘Good flying, sir!’

  ‘And pleased that you have decided to follow the path of honourable combat,’ Suruk added.

  ‘Well,’ said Agshad, ‘we’ve never really liked the Yull, have we? Vicious buggers – fluffy, too.’

  Smith said, ‘Sir, I would ask you once again to join us. Urn, and the whole Empire, needs skilled fighters like yourself in its battle against tyranny. Join with us, and you need never worry about lack of honour, or enemies.’

  ‘Hmm.’ Agshad fell silent. ‘I’ve got a golf lesson next Tuesday, but I can’t see why I can’t put that back a few days. Yes, alright. Count me in. It might be fun. Let me see what the others think. How about the rest of you fellows?’

  The speakers rattled with a roar of approval. Carveth turned in her seat and stared at Smith, wide-eyed and grinning.

  ‘They fight with us!’ Suruk cried. ‘The House of Agshad goes to war!’

  ‘Well,’ said Isambard Smith, ‘that is good news. Time for tea, I think.’

  PART TWO

  So you can see that the making of tea is in essence a revolutionary act, because it lends support to the common man in his struggle to civilise the galaxy and establish a fair deal for its inhabitants. Yet at the same time it links us with the past. Think of the many people who have drunk tea before you, perhaps from the same pot, and you will have some idea of the connexion that tea gives you with your ancestors, like a row of carriages drawn forward by the same engine.

  It is this very link between the revolutionary and the traditional, the progressive and the established, that stands at the heart of the philosophy of tea. And it is this idea that fills our enemies and their hired arse-kissers with fear . . .

  Why Tea Matters, underground publication of Urnian resistance, author unknown.

  1 Return to Urn

  They docked with Agshad’s ship before they got within range of Urn. They sealed the Pym, headed through the airlock and met Morgar on the other side. ‘Sorry about the décor,’ Morgar said. ‘It’s all a bit, you know, dead.’

  The clan spaceship was really a troop carrier. It had little in the way of missiles, guns and what Suruk tended to call ‘pansy stuff’, but was well-equipped for ploughing into things and initiating boarding actions. Best of all, though, it contained over six hundred M’Lak and enough armoured ground-skimmers to transport them all.

  Morgar led them through the central chamber, a huge, drum-shaped room. There were niches in the walls, and each niche was now the home to a warrior. Clearly the arrival of Suruk on their world had thrown M’Lak society into something of a cultural crisis: Smith saw one fighter looking at a bare patch of wall, trying to decide between a skull and a picture of some people dancing on a beach.

  The control room was dark and confusing, crowded with trophies and big levers, and looked like a cross between a castle dungeon and a signal box. A lantern had been attached to a chain that hung from the ceiling, and under it Agshad was eating a cheese sandwich.

  ‘I would offer you seats, but it’s all a bit spiky in here,’ he said. ‘My commendations to your pilot, by the way. Shooting that car out the back of your ship was wily indeed.’

  ‘Oh, well, it was nothing,’ Carveth replied.

  ‘You surprised me, Father,’ Suruk said.

  ‘Sometimes I surprise myself. Your brother and I happened to be talking about the old days, and just then we got a call from Xanath the Fell-Handed at flight control, and he bet me three flagons of balsamic vinegar that we couldn’t fight off the Yull. . . and three flagons is a lot, especially if you like salad as much as I do.’

  ‘Will the Yull retaliate?’ Smith asked.

  Agshad shook his head. ‘I doubt it. They don’t own that space really; nobody does. If it gets nasty we can always claim the Voidani space-whales ate their ships for minerals. Nobody messes with them, not since they ate the Japanese fleet and passed it off as research.’

  ‘Father, we must speak of war,’ Suruk said.

  ‘Yes, indeed. Morg, what’s the word among the others?’

  Morgar’s tusks opened. He wore a steak knife on either hip and an apple corer in his belt. ‘They’re pretty keen, Dad. It was when I told them there would be no croquet under the Ghast Empire. That made their minds up.’

  ‘Your ship won’t stand a chance against Urn’s missile array,’ Smith said. ‘But maybe we could put down on the opposite side of the planet, out of immediate range, then make our way cross-country to join up with the others. That might work.’

  ‘Then we shall make rea
dy to disembark,’ Agshad declared. ‘I shall have our friends sharpen up their blades. We shall be ready to leave in an hour’s time.’

  On the way back to the ship, Suruk smiled. ‘My people are remembering the old ways,’ he declared.

  ‘Yes,’ Rhianna said. ‘Amazing.’

  ‘Indeed. Soon the rivers of Urn shall run red, and the tea-fields shall echo with the rumbling of a thousand rolling heads. Ahaha!’

  ‘I’m really happy for you,’ Rhianna said, but Smith couldn’t help noticing that for someone in flip-flops she got back to their ship pretty quickly.

  Landing was difficult. The John Pym went first, to scout out the territory, while the M’Lak waited in orbit.

  They landed on the far side of Urn, where the tea grew thick and dense, and where opposition to the new rulers was strongest. There was no problem finding people to help: no sooner had the Pym touched down than a skinny farmer ran out of the fields to greet them.

  She was called Jasmine Potts, and was a Lieutenant in the Colonial Guard. She had been training a squad of Teasmen how to fight, and her husband worked for the railway.

  Within an hour the John Pym had been loaded onto a huge freight car, guarded by railmen and disguised with farm machinery. Major Wainscott was waiting to meet them at the other end, and as Smith opened the door the Major came forward to shake his hand.

  Lieutenant Potts saluted. ‘I’ve brought Captain Smith, sir.’

  Wainscott responded with the Urnian greeting: left hand on hip, right hand held out to the side. ‘Good work, Jasmine.’ He turned to his guards. ‘Let’s get this unloaded. Come with me, please, Smith.’

  They were at a branch depot, one of the many stations that had carried tea from the great plantations to the spaceport, ready for export to the Empire. A water-tower loomed over the station like an Aresian walking-machine: next to it, a tea-tower just as big. It was a beautiful day, although a little humid for Smith’s tastes. The sky was clear and startlingly blue; the tea-fields rippled in a gentle breeze. They were brilliant green, the colour of a young lizard. They seemed to radiate health.