God Emperor of Didcot Read online

  Far behind the picture, lasers flashed in the city.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ Smith said.

  ‘Look on the bright side,’ Carveth replied. ‘At least we’re driving away from the Ghasts.’

  ‘And also from our own ship,’ Smith said grimly.

  ‘They’ll have the Pym impounded by now.’

  ‘We should return,’ Suruk growled from the back. ‘I hunger for blood, and this car is making me travel-sick.’

  ‘You’d better not puke on the hamster,’ Carveth said. ‘If you hurt Gerald there’ll be trouble. I empathise with him.’

  ‘Because he stuffs himself with food and his cheeks grow wide?’

  ‘Captain, I think he just called me fa—’

  ‘Will you pipe down!’ cried Smith. ‘Just. . . be quiet, everyone.’ He stared straight ahead, both hands on the wheel, sympathising with them too much to argue any more. She’s afraid, he thought, and who wouldn’t be? And Suruk: he must be frustrated to be going away from the fight. God knows I’d like a chance to bag Gertie Ghast right now, especially with that rotten bugger, 462, still dragging his big red arse around. He should be dead! I shot him in the eye!

  ‘It’s not easy for me either,’ he said. ‘I don’t like running away like this. Part of me wants to be back in the city, giving those dirty aliens a prime consignment of lead – but there’s a part of me that wants to be with Rhianna too.’

  ‘I can guess which part that is,’ Carveth muttered, and Smith pretended that he didn’t hear. A dial rattled on the dashboard and a huge, gabled building loomed out of the night before them. The car rolled under gates wide enough for a castle and they pulled up to St Carmilla’s.

  Even this far from the General Government, the influence of Imperial London was strong. The school was a foreboding slab of Victorian High Gothic, riddled with carvings as if infested with artistic termites.

  At the front of the school it was chaos: a swarm of young ladies was loading luggage onto buses, preparing to escape. Smith stopped the car and they stepped out into a sea of uniforms.

  ‘That is a lot of fishnet, even by my standards,’ Suruk said.

  ‘Over a thousand eighteen-year-old girls, and they all need protection,’ Carveth added. ‘It’s a hard old life, isn’t it, Boss?’

  ‘Follow me, men!’ Smith said, and, brushing down his fleet jacket, he strode up the stairs to the front doors.

  A thin, refined-looking woman stood side-on at the top of the stairs. She lifted her chin and looked over her nose as they approached. ‘Good evening. Amelia Cleaver, Miss. How may I help you?’

  ‘We’re looking for Rhianna Mitchell,’ Smith explained. ‘It’s an important matter.’

  Miss Cleaver frowned. ‘I see. Regrettably, Mr—’

  ‘Smith, Captain Smith.’

  ‘Regrettably, Mr Captain Smith, we have no-one of that name here.’ Something in the distance exploded. Miss Cleaver looked around with distain. ‘Really, some people,’ she said.

  ‘It’s urgent,’ Carveth said, her eyes flicking nervously in the direction of the sound. ‘We have to rescue her before they blow this place up!’

  ‘I very much doubt they shall, young lady,’ Miss Cleaver replied. ‘This is a respectable institution. We do not tolerate alien invasions at St Carmilla’s.’

  ‘Look,’ said Smith, ‘we were sent by an agent of the Parliament: we know him as W. He’s a tall man who works on the Daily Monolith. He has a friend called Wainscott.’

  ‘You had better come inside, then,’ said Miss Cleaver.

  She turned and led them into the hall: a cool, vaulted room of laser-etched red brick, lit by globes at its corners.

  Down the length of the hall ran a great skylight, and from it came ominous flickers of the city and the raiding ships.

  Two girls hurried towards the exit.

  ‘Ow!’ Smith winced as they passed him. ‘That girl pinched me!’ He rubbed his bottom sadly. ‘I wouldn’t mind so much, if that swine Featherstone hadn’t burned me earlier this evening.’

  ‘You were lucky I was tooled up,’ Carveth said. ‘He wouldn’t have stopped beating your arse if I hadn’t pulled your piece on him.’

  ‘What an interesting time you spacemen have,’ Miss Cleaver said. ‘Follow me, please. Now, at St Carmilla’s we believe in turning out a better quality of psychically-trained young lady. Along with our more normal protégées, the Empire sends us its ladies of unusual talent and we try to instil some discipline in them before they turn their classmates into toast.’

  ‘Do you actually believe any of that stuff?’ Carveth said. ‘People being psychic and all?’

  ‘It depends how you define it,’ Miss Cleaver explained. ‘The ability to influence others is a subtle business.’

  ‘Well,’ said Carveth, ‘I’ve seen no evidence to prove that psychic powers exist.’ She blinked and scratched her head.

  ‘I myself – wait,’ Suruk said. His nasal holes twitched. ‘Enemies.’

  Carveth looked around. ‘Where?’ she said, but she drew her service revolver all the same.

  Smith raised the Civiliser and stepped in front of the women. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Wait,’ Suruk replied. He pulled out one of his larger knives, stepped back and threw it at the roof.

  Half a second before the knife hit the glass, the skylight exploded. Smith spun and threw Carveth and Miss Cleaver to the ground as plastiglass rained around them.

  He looked up, cocking his pistol. Tendrils dropped through the roof, and there were forms on them: helmet-wearing, insectoid things, black coats flapping around them like wings as they slid down the ropes.

  One of them did not slide. A Ghast thumped into the ground at Suruk’s feet and he bent down and pulled his knife out of its body. The Civiliser roared in Smith’s hand and the chamber spun, and a second Ghast shrieked and fell like a dead bat. ‘Run!’ he cried.

  There were more Ghasts at the skylight, clustered on the roof. Carveth stared numbly at them, repulsed. Dimly, she realised that these were drones, not praetorians, and that the invaders considered them disposable.

  Then one landed on its hooves beside her, and she spun around, her arm flicked up and she shot the thing four times.

  Miss Cleaver was at a side door. ‘Come along!’ she called back to them. ‘This way, everyone!’ Suruk jumped up and sliced off the last eight feet of one of the ropes, and bounded through the door. Smith followed, and Carveth ran after him. ‘Do get a move on, young lady!’ Miss Cleaver called and, as Carveth ran inside, she slammed the door and bolted it.

  Something heavy hit the door. Alien voices chattered and barked.

  ‘You don’t have long,’ Miss Cleaver said.

  Smith opened his gun and tipped out the empty shells. He fished one of the speedloaders from his pocket and dropped a new set of bullets into the Civiliser. ‘We need to know where Rhianna is. Pass me your gun, Carveth.’

  The scratching of claws on the door stopped. For a moment Carveth wondered if the Ghasts had gone away, and then they charged the door together. The door shook. Brick dust trickled from the edges of the lock.

  Smith reloaded Carveth’s gun and handed it back to her.

  ‘Any thoughts, anyone?’ Miss Cleaver sniffed. ‘Some of the girls – the more talented ones – were getting out the back way. I’ve told Rhianna to stay and wait for you there.’

  ‘How?’ Carveth said.

  ‘It doesn’t matter. Take the back way – careful on the stairs, don’t run – and take the corridor on the left. She’ll be waiting at the end.’

  ‘Aren’t you coming?’ Carveth said.

  ‘I can hold them,’ Miss Cleaver said. ‘I’ll be fine, thank you.’

  ‘I’ll help you,’ said Smith.

  ‘Yes!’ Suruk snarled. ‘I will take their heads!’

  ‘No you will not. I have invested far too much time and energy in Miss Mitchell’s development to have it wasted in some galactic war. You will help her out of here. Well, Captain Smith?�
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  Smith paused. He looked at her and saw something like himself: a determination as great as his own, if not greater, and a strength of will that made him at once envy and pity her. ‘As you wish,’ he said grimly.

  Thump. The door shook. A screw fell onto the carpet.

  ‘Run along now,’ Miss Cleaver said. ‘Thank you for visiting our school, Captain Smith.’

  ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘Come on, both of you. We’ve got work to do.’

  ‘Indeed.’ Suruk drew two knives. He turned to Miss Cleaver. ‘Good hunting, shaman,’ he said, and jogged after the others.

  ‘It cuts deep, leaving a woman behind like this,’ Smith said between his teeth as they strode down the corridor. ‘Very deep.’

  The corridor was whitewashed and looked like the inside of a submarine. Pipes ran along the ceiling, lino squeaked underfoot and the smell of cabbage was thick in the air. It made him think of junior school, where he had been bottom of the class, and the memory made him afraid, which made him ready to fight.

  The children had mocked him then, but there had been something prescient in their ridicule: they’d called him ‘spaceman’. He couldn’t remember why: he hadn’t been listening at the time.

  They were twenty yards further away when the Ghasts broke down the door. The sound rang down the corridor and, like voices wafting up from hell, the barking of Ghastish followed it.

  ‘What on Earth is the meaning of this?’ Smith heard Miss Cleaver demand. ‘Simply barging in here—’

  ‘We seek two enemies of the Ghast Empire. You will—’

  ‘I will do as I please, thank you!’

  ‘Silence, human scum—’

  ‘ Mind your language,’ she said, and the sheer force implicit in the words ran through them like an electric charge, like a tidal wave of polite indignation. ‘How dare you speak to me like that? I am a British citizen. You will watch your mouth, young insect-man.’

  ‘Very well. We seek—’

  ‘Be quiet and stop making a fuss. What’s all this nonsense about? Shouting and carrying on like this –it’s an absolute disgrace. I’ve a good mind to report you to your senior officer. You at the back there – pay attention.’

  ‘It is important that—’

  ‘The people you are looking for are not here. They are far away, where you will never find them. It’s time for you to go. Do you understand? Speaky English, do we?’

  ‘Please—’ said the Ghast. ‘Underlings, I have orders that they are far away. We must leave at once.’

  ‘My God,’ Smith whispered, ‘she has the Bearing.’

  ‘The what?’ Carveth said.

  ‘I’ve heard it rumoured, but I’ve never seen it before –

  Shau-Teng, the ancient mystic art of the British. But it’s been years since I saw anyone—’

  ‘Right,’ Carveth said, glancing back nervously. ‘Tell me later, right?’

  They hurried on, turned the corner, and suddenly they were at the heavy, soundproofed door that led outside. A row of raincoats hung along the wall, and a figure stepped out of them, from her hiding-place.

  ‘Rhianna!’ Smith cried.

  ‘Blimey,’ said Carveth. ‘What the hell are you dressed like that for?’

  Rhianna pulled her skirt down as best as she could. ‘I told you it was a stupid uniform,’ she said.

  Smith looked her over. He had never seen Rhianna’s legs before: they were very long. ‘Nice boater,’ he managed.

  ‘Yeah, hi,’ Carveth said. ‘Now, can we get out of here?’

  Rhianna moved to the doors, and stopped. ‘Listen!’

  The voices started again. Miss Cleaver said, ‘You again? I thought I had sent you away. What nonsense is it this time?’

  ‘The drones have left.’ It was a Ghast that replied, but the voice was deeper, harsher, more like an animal’s.

  ‘Indeed. So will you, thank you.’

  The thing let out a grunt of laughter. ‘I think not. You see, we are praetorians. Your Bearing has no effect on our minds. You may, however, rest assured that the weaklings whom you corrupted will be shot. As will you.’

  There was a burst of disruptor fire. A second’s silence passed, and then Ghastish rang down the corridor: a snarling, cackling racket.

  ‘Oh my gods,’ Rhianna gasped, ‘they shot her!’

  Carveth swallowed. Her forehead was shiny with sweat. She ducked down and worked one of the bolts back on the door. ‘Just get the top bolt, would you?’

  Smith peered around the corner. The Ghasts were creeping down the corridor with high, careful steps. He cocked the hammer of the Civiliser.

  Rhianna ran to the door, stood up on tiptoe and slid back the bolt. She turned the handle, pulled it to her and let in the night air. In the doorway stood a praetorian sentry, its back to them, coat stirring slightly in the evening breeze. Rhianna froze, hand over mouth, eyes wide.

  Suruk stepped forward, silently picked Carveth up and put her to one side. The Ghast rubbed its antennae together. Suruk raised his big knife, and it dropped with a low whup through the air. The Ghast crumpled and thumped against the tarmac; its head rolled away.

  Smith looked back round the corner. One of the troopers was pulling a long-tailed biogrenade from its belt, and Smith flicked up the Civiliser and shot it in the arm. It dropped the grenade and the bomb landed upside-down, its legs and tail thrashing.

  Smith looked back round. ‘Come on!’ he cried. The grenade went off with a massive flat bang; there were howls and snarls from the corridor. Rhianna scooped up her satchel and they fled.

  *

  ‘Who wants a beer?’ Gilead strode into the spaceport with a cooler box under his metal arm.

  The sides of spacecraft loomed up around him like cliffs, disappearing into the night thirty yards above his head. Most were transport shuttles, used to ferry tea up to the enormous container ships the Empire would send to collect the monthly supply. They weren’t going anywhere now, Gilead noted with satisfaction. The planet was cut off.

  His men stood about in their armoured battlesuits, talking and joking, guns in hand. They were the best fighting men in the universe, Gilead thought. ‘Beer!’ he shouted, and he shook one of the cans as he threw it to a lieutenant and laughed helplessly when the soldier opened it and beer sprayed across the man’s visor.

  On the opposite side of the spaceport a row of praetorians waited for the Ghast leader to arrive: grim, silent things that watched with disinterest and contempt.

  They stood in formation out of instinct.

  Two chuckling Edenites in blue-grey battlesuits were supposed to be guarding the tarmac: they were currently studying an issue of Horny Heretic Harlots. One of the Ghasts stepped over and shoved them aside.

  ‘Silence!’ it barked. ‘The high commander comes!’

  With a wet sound like meat being pulled apart, a hatch slid open in the back of the command ship. A ramp folded down, smooth as a snake’s tongue. Foetid smoke billowed from the rear vents and a figure appeared at the top of the ramp, as if coalescing from the smoke. Slowly, his helmet under one arm, 462 walked down the ramp as the praetorians jolted to attention.

  462 wore a trenchcoat covered in insignia. His right eye was gone and, with graceless efficiency, his technicians had replaced it with a metal lens. The skin around the eye was dented and scarred, like the back of an ancient toad.

  His scrawny body propelled him to the bottom of the ramp and, as one, the Ghasts crossed their main arms over their chests, punched their pincer-arms into the air, banged their heels together and flicked their antennae, quiveringly erect. ‘ Ak nak! ’

  ‘ Ak,’ 462 said casually, and one of his pincer-arms made a vague wave.

  ‘Hey 462!’ Gilead called, steering a slightly erratic path across the tarmac to the bottom of the ramp. Several beers had done him no good. He thought of putting his arm around 462’s shoulders, but decided against it. ‘Too bad you missed the fighting. How’s it hanging?’

  462 looked round at
his stercorium, an organ shaped like an insect’s abdomen that protruded from the back of his trenchcoat. ‘Large and red,’ he said.

  ‘Uhuh. You want a beer?’

  ‘No. I shall have an injured drone pulped for nutrition.’ His eye flicked across the spaceport, taking in the decadent human control tower and its puny landing pads. ‘I have orders for the Hyrax before he installs himself as Governor-Prophet-Emperor-God-King.’

  Gilead’s head nodded, and something unpleasant ignited behind his eyes. ‘I’ve got some orders of my own, too. I’m going to have me some fun here.’ He looked around, squinting. ‘This place stinks. You give me the word, 462, and I’ll smash these people up. Between you and me,’ he added, leaning closer, ‘I’m thinking of skipping out the sissy medieval stage and getting Ancient Greek on their asses instead.’

  ‘And I would enjoy watching you tell them so,’ 462 replied. ‘Sadly, you must refrain from being Ancient Greek to any arse. This planet is under the control of the Ghast Empire, and as yet I have no orders to permit you to conduct a reign of mindless terrorism. Never fear: they shall come through soon. And then, you will have your fun: the wretched citizens of this planet will enjoy no more habeas corpus.’

  Gilead grinned. ‘Reckon I might get me some of that, too. Dirty English women. Unbelievers are all sluts.’

  At the edge of Gilead’s vision, a Ghast reconnaissance skimmer darted onto the tarmac. It shot across the landing field, headlight weaving like a drunken firefly as it slipped between the legs of the spaceships and halted beside the command ship. The pilot, a drone, climbed down and ran to speak with one of the praetorians.

  ‘What’s that?’ Gilead demanded.

  ‘A messenger.’ 462 beckoned to the pilot, and it ran over and saluted him.

  ‘ Ak! Flak krak Britak ak-ak! ’