God Emperor of Didcot Read online

He sighed. ‘You had them, Carveth. This is a professional mission, you know. We won’t look like good spies if you lose the spaceship keys on our first day here.’

  Irritated, he strode into the cool of the house. Featherstone was prodding buttons on an enormous machine as it coughed ice cubes into a cocktail shaker.

  ‘Cocktails make a man keen,’ Featherstone said. ‘What do you take?’

  Smith thought about it. He would have preferred a gin and tonic, or a pint of beer, but one of the most important arts of the spy was looking the part. ‘The one with the little umbrella,’ he said.

  Featherstone’s eyes stared at him from under their heavy lids. The exhaled smoke did not quite freeze in mid-air. ‘They all have a little umbrella,’ he said.

  ‘One of those, then,’ Smith said.

  ‘I suppose you’ll want it stirred next,’ Featherstone said crossly, and he poured some liquid into a glass. Outside, Suruk had taken the champagne out of the ice bucket, filled the bucket with pool water and was enjoying a drink from it. Smith tried his cocktail. It tasted like the venom of an alcoholic snake.

  Featherstone watched Carveth climb onto the sun lounger and wriggle about to get comfortable. ‘That little pilot of yours,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘She’s got an attitude on her. You know what you ought to do?’

  Smith was too busy adjusting his face to his cocktail to reply.

  ‘You ought to throw her across your lap, pull her britches down and thrash her bare arse till she squeals for mercy,’ Featherstone said, with relish.

  ‘She’s only lost the keys,’ Smith replied. ‘Bit harsh, isn’t it?’

  ‘Nonsense, my dear Smith. Harshness is the only language women understand. My own wife was like that when I met her: a wild filly, secretly yearning to be broken, and then ridden. One night,’ he smiled slyly around his cigarillo, ‘I seized her roughly after dinner, threw her against the wall and told her I knew she longed to surrender to my manliness.’

  ‘What happened then?’

  ‘She hit me with a toaster. But that’s not the point, Smith. A firm hand is the answer, preferably across the backside. They love it really. Vae victis.’

  Smith frowned, sipping reluctantly at his cocktail, trying to work out whether Featherstone had just revealed a shocking truth, or whether he was just a sleazy little git.

  ‘So,’ he said, deciding on the latter, ‘you’ve been watching things here for a while. What do you think of this Hyrax chap?’

  Featherstone frowned. ‘Well, there’s no doubt that the fellow is well organised. He has a simple agenda, he promises all things to all people, and he has a large number of fanatical followers. In short, he’s one of the chief political players on the colony – in fact, the only one other than the governor.’

  ‘I see. I’ve just seen him give a speech, as a matter of fact. The man’s obviously barking mad – but I suppose that’s irrelevant, isn’t it?’

  ‘Quite. Who knows what a lunatic will do? To you or I, this cocktail and chat is quite pleasant – but a madman like the Hyrax might get exactly the same enjoyment out of exploring his back end with a garden strimmer. These people are not normal.’

  Smith ventured to sip his cocktail again, which still tasted like antifreeze with an olive. ‘So what would you suggest we do? I’m not used to all this cloak-and-dagger stuff.’

  ‘Well,’ said Featherstone, ‘what’s your gut feeling?’

  ‘Hmm,’ Smith said. ‘I rather thought we might spy on him or something: you know, set up a chain of agents, infiltrate his organisation, dead-letter boxes, park benches, overcoats, that sort of thing.’

  Featherstone laughed. ‘Oh, my dear fellow, no,’ he said. ‘You’ve been watching too many films. Spying’s moved on from those days. We’re going down the casino.’

  ‘The casino?’

  ‘Of course. The heart of any modern spying operation is in the rolling of dice. Or, better still, getting a dolly bird to roll them for you. This isn’t the dark ages, you know. You see, the Hyrax himself lives a life of simple purity, but his men don’t. His PR guru is a hired gun called Calloway. He’s the one who helps the Hyrax answer questions that aren’t about crusades. Thing is, he spends a lot of time playing cards. If we can get close to him, we can learn a lot about how to get to the Hyrax himself.’ He finished his drink and turned to the ice machine. ‘Do you know baccarat?’

  ‘Only Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head. Did he do that thing about the cake left in the rain?’

  *

  ‘Well, this is the life,’ Carveth observed, three hours later.

  She had moved straight from the sun lounger to the bath-tub, and had spent nearly an hour there. Now she stood in front of her open suitcase in her dressing gown, trying to decide what to wear.

  In the next room down, Smith was ready to go. He wore his red fleet jacket with black trousers and shiny shoes. He was not looking forward to this.

  Suavity was not one of Smith’s strong points. He was not stupid, but he was not good at assessing other people; he could not tell jokes, impress or look clever.

  That was for other men, men who got girls without trying, and who inevitably treated them badly and were loved all the more because of it. Perhaps Featherstone was right and that was the way to success. Surely not. Rhianna would never embrace a philosophy like that. Depression welled up in Smith. How long would it be before some smoother, less sincere operator got Rhianna instead of him?

  He stood up and checked his moustache in the mirror.

  It was inevitable that she would belong to someone else soon. A woman like that couldn’t stay single for long.

  Forget about her, he told himself again.

  ‘What the hell’s happened to my fishnet tights?’ Carveth cried from across the hall. ‘There’s a massive hole in the crotch!’

  Suruk peered out of his room. ‘Apologies,’ he said. ‘I used them as a T-shirt.’

  ‘Thank God for that. I thought I’d done some kind of gigantic fart. Has anyone seen my boots?’

  Smith strolled into the corridor and Carveth stepped out to meet him. She was wearing her blue dress, which made her look like Alice in Wonderland.

  ‘Hey, Boss, looking very dapper there!’

  ‘Thanks, Carveth. What’s that stuff on your face?’

  ‘Lichen-based facial cream. The pack says it’ll make you look five years younger. Which, seeing how long I’ve been functional, should give me a visual age of about minus three, but what the hell.’

  ‘It looks like a clown hit you with a pie. Step in here a moment, would you?’

  She followed him into his room. ‘What’s the prob?’

  ‘I want you to look out, Carveth. From what I’ve heard, this Hyrax is a serious chap to have as an enemy.’

  ‘Huh. I’ll be fine. Besides, isn’t a hyrax a girly bit?’

  ‘I really wouldn’t know. Now look, this casino sounds like neutral ground. Chances are that no weapons will be allowed inside.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘I want you to go in our car, with Suruk. Stash the Civiliser somewhere out of sight, and if there’s any trouble, be ready to go for it. Understand?’

  Her small face became serious, under the cream. ‘Loud and clear, Boss. When it’s time for action I grab your rod.’

  She saluted.

  Suruk wandered in. ‘How do I look?’ he asked.

  ‘Threatening, verging on macabre,’ Carveth said.

  ‘Excellent.’

  Smith examined the alien. ‘Any chance you could ease off the skulls a bit?’

  Suruk untied some of his more impressive trophies. ‘Cannot handle a few severed heads? Very well, if I must. La-de-da puny humans.’

  *

  ‘Mr Featherstone?’ the barman asked.

  ‘White Russian in a tall glass,’ Featherstone replied. ‘Single cream.’ He pulled a scrap of paper out of his pocket and sighed. ‘. . . And a pint of mild in a jug. . . two pints of forty percent sucrose solution and. . . God almighty, �
��something that doesn’t taste of alcohol but will get me well wrecked”.’

  It was half nine and Casino Imperiale was in full swing. On the verandah, knots of drinkers watched a hundred people lose money. Businessmen and plantation officers mixed with policemen, criminals and servants of the government, and the air rang with the rattle of roulette wheels, the chink of glasses and the strident ringing of haughty laughter. At the head of a huge staircase, a man in a Nehru jacket stood quietly behind two bodyguards, his face in shadow, studying his domain.

  Smith felt uneasy here, far from deep space. He looked around the room, with its dapper inhabitants, and realised that he would have been happier in the void, or creeping through the jungle of some alien world with his rifle in hand, looking for artefacts to send back home. Odd, he thought: for a civilised man, he felt more comfortable in the wild than pretending to be a sophisticate.

  That’s where I should be, he thought, on the frontline, blasting hell out of Ghasts instead of swanking round like a particularly effete swan. I should just grab this Hyrax fellow, give him to the law and take the fight back to Gertie.

  ‘No sign of Calloway yet,’ Featherstone said at his elbow. ‘Here’s your beer.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘I’ll keep watch. If he arrives, I’ll let you know.’

  Smith left the mezzanine and strolled between the card tables, feeling lost. The crew were seated a little way off.

  Carveth was drinking one of her noxious not-proper-alcohol drinks and eating a toasted sandwich. Suruk was halfway through a pint of sucrose solution. Smith sipped his drink and sat down opposite Carveth. ‘On the hard stuff, Suruk?’

  ‘I will say only one thing for this palace of folly, Mazuran: it serves a good snack. Would you like the roasted flesh of a peanut?’ he added, holding out a little bag. ‘Hunt well and you might even catch the one with the monocle.’

  ‘No, thanks.’

  ‘As you wish. I think I may chance my skill at the card games.’

  ‘Well, just remember to lay off the Tizer.’

  ‘I do not touch it. Fizz-water is the ruin of many braves and the cause of much tusk decay. Ah, human females have arrived. Rutting time for you, Isambard Smith.’

  ‘We’re finding you a wife,’ Carveth explained. She nodded at the doorway, where two pretty girls had just arrived. ‘Blonde one might do you.’

  ‘I’m really not sure,’ Smith replied. He was not keen on entrusting the selection of his future wife to Carveth and Suruk, especially if this involved his future wife ever meeting them. Who knew what kind of misbegotten creature they might dredge up?

  ‘I reckon you should get yourself one of those rich RSF girls,’ Carveth said. ‘I’d have thought you’d be the right sort for a posh space-fleet girl.’

  ‘Ladies who launch? Ugh. I don’t know, Carveth. It would be settling for second best. I’d far rather have someone like Rhianna over there. Bloody hell! Rhianna’s over there!’

  They looked around, following Smith’s outstretched finger. ‘Nah,’ said Carveth, ‘it can’t be.’ Then: ‘Bugger me, it is.’

  She stood on the far side of the hall, by the doors.

  Rhianna was slightly taller than average, pale-skinned, with dark hair in dreadlocks that nearly reached her waist, held back by a cloth band that, for once, matched the rest of her clothes.

  She had dressed well, Smith thought. Rhianna wore a high-collared crimson jacket which struck him as vaguely Chinese, a skirt decorated in a way reminiscent of a sari, platform sandals like a geisha girl, and a scarf thrown back over her shoulder which made him think of Biggles.

  Smith had not seen the Indo-Oriental aviator look before, but he thought it suited her very well.

  Someone was offering Rhianna a drink, presumably made with non-organic grapes, and she smiled politely as she refused it. She looked so graceful, Smith thought, so refined – and so completely out of his league.

  ‘Good Lord,’ he said. ‘She looks ever so different to how I remember her.’

  ‘That’s probably because she’s had a wash,’ Carveth said. ‘Go and talk to her.’

  Smith pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘I don’t know. I feel light-headed. I think the alcohol’s gone to my head.’

  ‘That’s the blood going somewhere else,’ Carveth said. ‘You’d better go and see her before you have to sit down.’

  ‘That’s quite enough of that,’ Smith retorted and, feeling obliged to shut Carveth up, he straightened his fleet jacket, stood up and strode across the room.

  ‘Excuse me?’ he said. ‘Miss Mitchell?’

  She turned away from the bar, saw who it was and smiled. ‘Hey, Isambard! How’s things?’ she asked, leaning in and kissing him on the cheek. ‘ Namaste, Isambard. Is that jacket new? You look very smart - given that you’re wearing the trappings of an Imperialist aggressor, of course.’

  ‘You look super too. How did you know I’d be here?’

  ‘Your friend told me – the journalist. Tall man, kind of gloomy, drinks a lot of tea.’

  ‘Ah.’

  She glanced around the room. ‘So, how’s it going on your ship? Is Suruk still, um, keeping to his indigenous customs?’

  ‘Oh yes, he’s fine. The police tend to turn a blind eye.’

  ‘And has Carveth found a man yet?’

  ‘Well, she’s found loads – she just hasn’t run any to ground yet. But she’s not doing too badly.’

  ‘That’s sad,’ Rhianna said. ‘She should realise that as a woman she shouldn’t feel obliged to define herself by her relationships with men. Many of the women I respect the most never married at all.’

  ‘But not you, surely,’ Smith said quickly. ‘I mean, you’d want a decent chap at the end of the day, right?’

  Rhianna laughed. ‘I’m staying with the alternative lifestyle for now, Isambard.’

  Smith wondered if this involved other men, which would be despicable and morally wrong, or other girls, which would be smashing. Whatever it was, it didn’t sound like it included him. He felt depressed which, he knew, would make him less attractive because women liked confidence, which in turn made him feel more depressed. Business as usual, then.

  ‘So. . . um. . . all this top secret training you’re involved with,’ he said. ‘What’s it like?’

  ‘I can’t really tell you that,’ she said, running a hand through her dreadlocks. ‘It’s top secret.’

  ‘I suppose,’ Smith said. He was pissing this up, he realised.

  ‘I can tell you about where I’m based, though,’ Rhianna added, seeing that he was unhappy. ‘Not locations of course, but it’s disguised as a convent school run by the Order of Saint Carmilla the Tactile.’

  ‘Oh, right. Is that good?’

  ‘No, it’s terrible. I have to stay in cover, so I have to wear this ridiculous uniform all the time. I’m over thirty, and I have to dress like a sixth form schoolgirl so as to stay incognito. You can imagine what that looks like.’

  Smith found that he could imagine it quite well.

  Rhianna turned and stared down the length of the casino, past the slot machines, card games and roulette tables. ‘I really feel that a place like this, with its rampant capitalism, really. . .’ she waved her hands vaguely, ‘oppresses the soul. Don’t you think?’

  ‘Well, quite. Absolutely. Tell you what,’ Smith said, ‘I’m supposed to be looking for someone who’s not here yet. Why don’t we wait for him on the verandah?’

  ‘Hey, good idea.’

  Something prodded Smith in the back and he glanced round. Featherstone stood behind him. ‘Calloway’s here,’ he said, ‘time to get down to business. He’s just come in through the private door.’

  ‘Right,’ said Smith. ‘I’m sorry, Rhianna, but I’ve got to go. Duty calls.’

  ‘Okay. Good luck, Isambard! Blessed be!’

  ‘Bugger,’ Smith muttered as he walked away. Once again the Empire had chosen a stupid time to need saving.

  ‘Taste, my dear Smith, t
aste,’ Featherstone opined. ‘A spy must have good taste. All the splendid fillies here and you choose the answer that’s been blowing in the wind. There must be a damned big cat round here to have dragged her in.’

  ‘That’s not on,’ Smith said angrily. ‘Just because Rhianna isn’t dressed like a hussy with her arse stuck out—’

  ‘Let’s get to work, Smith. He’s over there.’ Featherstone nodded and Smith realised who he meant: a tallish, neat young businessman was shaking hands and beaming at a table of wealthy, disreputable-looking types.

  Smith grimaced, surprised at how drunk he felt. ‘What’s the plan?’ he asked.

  Featherstone waggled his eyebrows. ‘We wait ‘til he’s alone and snatch the beggar. I’ll grab him, you hustle him out the back door and to my car. I’ve got some items of restraint in the boot.’

  ‘Will that work?’

  ‘Of course. You’re a spy now, Smith. Confidence, remember.’

  This sounded like a bad plan, even to Smith’s addled brain. ‘Might be a bit difficult getting him out,’ Smith said. ‘We could chuck him out of a window, I suppose. Maybe lower him on a rope.’

  Calloway jerked his thumb over his shoulder and made an apologetic gesture. He turned from the table.

  ‘He’s going to the loo!’ Featherstone exclaimed. ‘Let’s jump him in the bogs!’

  A couple of passers-by took a small detour around them, and Smith said, ‘Right!’

  Featherstone stared at him. ‘Well?’

  ‘I was waiting for you to go first,’ Smith said. ‘I’ll come along in a moment. We can’t go together, can we? I mean, we’re chaps.’

  ‘Wait one minute, then come in,’ Featherstone said, and he crossed to the wall and disappeared into the lavatory.

  Smith looked around the room, trying to spot anyone he knew. Rhianna had disappeared completely, presumably unable to put up with the cigarette smoke and unfettered commercialism. Carveth had made herself scarce, although a small figure in the scrum around the bar might have been her. Suruk, Smith noticed, had acquired a visor from somewhere and was at a card table with a pile of chips in front of him. That looked very worrying.

  Smith glanced at his watch. It was time to go. Feeling distinctly uneven, he headed for the lavatory.