A Game of Battleships (4 page)

Smith thought of the craft: the blue flash from which it had appeared; the blood, spikes and 
chains draped across the front; the unearthly light pulsing around the controls. That sounded far from normal – but then, much of space did technically qualify as
abroad
. He opened the map and began to leaf through the pages for the appropriate quadrant.

‘If the enemy is still in the vicinity, men,’ he said, half to the map book, ‘we must proceed with 
caution. Carveth, I need you to rig the engines to get us to our destination quickly and quietly. If the enemy analyses our progress, we should look no more suspicious than a very fast rock. A meteor, say. We need to get to a spaceport, have the ship repaired and get back in space. Then we’ll find the buggers who wrecked our convoy and blast them into the next galaxy. Page thirty-eight. .’

He found the right page and laid the map book on the table. ‘Right. We’re somewhere on this 
page, in the black bit between the stars. We need to go here – the edge of the Tannhauser Anomaly.’ He leaned in, peering at the tiny words under the symbol. ‘It looks alright, but… well…’

Smith straightened up. His face was grim. He swallowed hard and set his jaw. ‘Gentlemen, I 
have bad news.’

In the absence of any actual gentlemen, Rhianna, Carveth and Suruk watched him intensely. His 
eyes were hard as he took a deep, fortifying swig of tea.

‘I know I’ve asked a lot of you in the past. Together we have been to the darkest corners of space 
and encountered some of the strangest and most terrible beings known to man. We have done battle with 
vicious Ghasts, crazed Edenites and savage lemming men on a dozen worlds. We have seen and 
overcome the depths of madness and depravity. But now I must ask you to follow me once more, as we 
make contact with Tannhauser station and its inhabitants. I do not know what we will encounter there, 
but I am certain that it will take every drop of our moral fibre to emerge with our bodies and souls intact.

‘Crew, we are going to Europe.’

It was a bright cold day in April and the clock was striking thirteen as the repairmen began fixing 
it. Eric Lint, his collar pulled up tight against his jawline, cupped his hand around his cigarette and said 
‘Bollocks’ into the wind. He strode across the grass towards the thin row of tents at the top of the 
common, where a banner reading
Little Binley Village Fete and Family Fun Day
flapped like a dying fish.

Slowly he toured the stalls, determined to wring some joy from each. He bought a piece of cake, 
a sausage in a bun and half a pint of bitter in a plastic glass. He discovered that there was nothing worth buying at the white elephant stand and that he was too tall to have a ride in the village fire engine. Finally, after ignoring the maypole and nearly losing a finger to a grumpy pig in the petting zoo, he turned to the last stand of all.

‘Want to guess the weight of the cake?’ asked the girl behind the table. Apart from the knife scars 
down one cheek, she looked like a typical young member of the Women’s Institute.

Lint, whose operatives knew him as W, made a show of looking at the cake. ‘Eighteen pounds 
four ounces,’ he replied.

The woman nodded. ‘They’re out the back.’

‘Thanks. Nice twinset,’ W added, and he strode to the tent at the back of the fete.

He opened the door and an ominously smiling man in spectacles neatly frisked him as he stepped 
inside. Around the edge of the tent sat three others: George Benson, Assistant Director of Outdoor 
Recreation for the Service; Hereward Khan, who ran the outfit’s Acquisitions and Transport Department; and Aloysius Roth, whose bloodstained hands pulled the strings behind the Colonial Service Overseas 
Chess Team and Social Club.

‘Glad you could join us, W,’ Benson said. He was small, spectacled and sad-looking, with a deep, 
rich voice that seemed to come out of someone larger than himself.

‘A pleasure,’ W replied. He took a sip of his bitter and lowered himself awkwardly into a seat.

‘A potential problem has arisen,’ Khan declared, stroking the waxed tips of his moustache. ‘We 
need your department’s help.’

W nodded. A list of the galaxy’s most villainous riff-raff appeared in his mind: ruthless Ghast 
legions, zealots from the Democratic Republic of New Eden, crazed, sadistic lemming men of Yull.

‘Gladly. I’m always happy to introduce the turkey of oppression to the raw onion of British justice,’ he said, making an explanatory gesture.

Khan nodded to Roth. ‘I told you he was keen.’

Benson leaned across to him. ‘My colleague’s department,’ he said, gesturing towards W, ‘were it 
to actually exist, would have carried out some excellent work over the past few months. Remember the 
Edenite Minister of Propaganda? Had the manpower existed in any official way, it’s my colleague here 
you’d have to thank for taking him off the air.’

Roth raised one thick white eyebrow. ‘That was your work?’

‘The concept of objective truth is the cornerstone of human liberty,’ W said, crossing his legs.

‘Only by protecting truth can we hope to retain the gentleness and decency of British life.’

‘So what happened to him?’

‘We hanged the bastard.’ W shrugged. ‘He received a fair and balanced trial, followed by a fair 
and somewhat less balanced execution. So what do you need done?’

‘Very soon, we finalise the treaty with the Vorl,’ Benson replied. He removed his glasses and 
started polishing them on his tie. ‘Practically every allied nation will be there to witness it and pledge support, including the Vorl themselves. Also in attendance will be the mystics of Khlangar. By 
themselves, the Khlangari are pretty negligible. They do, however, have strong links to the Voidani space whales, who appear to protect them for reasons unknown. We want them on-side. An alliance like that 
would be almost unbeatable.’

‘I see. And where is it taking place?’

‘On a metrological station and recycling plant orbiting the gaseous planet Signus Four, which is 
to be renamed Wellington Prime for the event.’

‘What’s it called now?’

‘Gas and Rubbish Central. Perhaps not ideal for an international treaty. The place is fortified – 
originally to keep the rubbish in, rather than the rubbish out, but don’t tell the delegates that – but an event like this can’t stay secret forever.’

‘I see.’

‘We’ll need additional security,’ Benson explained. ‘It’s not enough for us to sit back and wait for 
Gertie to attack. We need good fellows out there on the alert, actively seeking out threats.’

W said, ‘Smith sounds like the man for the job. He’s got a nose for trouble. And a moustache for 
danger.’

Hereward Khan leaned forward, making his plastic chair creak alarmingly. He was a massive man, 
as tough and blubbery as an elephant seal. ‘No can do,’ he replied. ‘Smith is on convoy work. We thought he deserved a rest.’

‘Have you considered asking the other secret services?’

The appalled spluttering that followed suggested that they had indeed considered the other 
services. ‘Those oiks?’ Khan demanded.

Benson’s glasses had misted up. ‘Oh dear no,’ he said. ‘No, no. They’d only steal the sandwiches.’

‘And the furniture.’

Roth leaned close. ‘You know what I heard about the other services?’ he whispered. ‘Some of 
them aren’t even Oxbridge. To think of it, an entire secret service gone. .
redbrick
.’ He shuddered violently.

‘Gentlemen, please.’ W’s eyes narrowed. The tiny rollup in the corner of his mouth rose like an 
accusing finger. ‘What matters here is skill, not background. My own people are chosen for ability, not origin. Most of them think a Cambridge punt is a particularly nasty way of incapacitating someone. What matters here –’ and his eyes took on a fanatical gleam – ‘is the preservation of justice and common 
decency. We use the best tool for the job – and my men are the best tools in the business.’

There was a moment’s pause. ‘We thought about Wainscott,’ Benson said.

W took a sip of beer to hide his expression. True, Major Wainscott was an expert at seeking out 
danger. The major had crossed half the galaxy and most of its inhabitants whilst looking for trouble and had found quite a lot of it in some very surprising places. But leaving Wainscott with a bevy of foreign delegates? Surely that was putting a shark in charge of a swimming pool.

‘He has a reputation for working discreetly,’ Benson explained.

‘I’ll have words,’ W said, remembering that for Wainscott, ‘discreet work’ was something you did 
to enemy sentries. ‘But the major is on holiday, you know. Dartmoor.’

‘Dartmoor, eh? Didn’t he go there a couple of years ago?’

W frowned. Wainscott’s last trip to the West had been less a matter of going away as of being put 
away. ‘Er, you mean Broadmoor. That wasn’t a holiday, as such. More, ah, rest care.’

‘Well, in galactic terms, Dartmoor’s just down the road. Splendid.’

W reflected that it wasn’t so much the distance that would be the problem so much as figuring 
out which badger sett Wainscott was using as his base of operations. He had received a postcard a month ago, explaining that the major had been accepted by the badgers as one of their own and that he was 
having a great time making crossbows out of roadkill.

‘We knew you were the chap for the job,’ Khan said, leaning back. His chair creaked like a 
galleon in a storm. ‘I’ll see to it that you get transport and supplies.’

W stood up. ‘I’ll find Wainscott and head out. Goodbye, gentlemen. Oh – and of course I wasn’t 
here, and I didn’t say any of this.’

‘Naturally,’ Benson replied. ‘Would you like a piece of cake to take with you?’

W shook his head. ‘At eighteen pound four ounces, it's probably a little heavy for my tastes.’

*

‘So,’ Rhianna said as she put the tea things away, ‘is this the first time Suruk’s ever. . er. . had 
children?’

‘I’m not sure,’ Smith replied. ‘You could ask him, although I’m not sure he’d remember. The 
M’Lak don’t really care about their young.’ Rhianna passed him the biscuit tin and he reached up to put it on the shelf. ‘In fact, when I first met Suruk he was convinced that jelly babies were the human larval stage.’

‘That’s a shame. Is their culture too patriarchal to allow them to engage properly with their 
children?’

‘Not really. Engage with those things and you’d probably lose a limb. Young Morlocks are like a 
cross between a frog and a piranha. I’d advise wearing something a bit more solid than flip-flops if you’re going in the engine room soon. A suit of armour, perhaps.’ He frowned. ‘I hope it doesn’t take too long to get to Tannhauser. The last thing we need when we arrive in Europe is a bunch of killer frogs chewing through the hull.’

‘Well then,’ Rhianna said, ‘it sounds like we’ll get to spend some time together, at last.’ She raised an eyebrow. ‘Anything in particular you’d like to do?’

Smith recognised that look. ‘Scrabble?’

‘I was thinking of something a little more. . adult,’ she replied.

‘Rude Scrabble! Excellent plan, old girl!’ Smith rubbed his hands together. ‘Wait a moment.

Where’re the others?’

‘They’re in the hold. They’ll be okay for a while, won’t they?’

Smith shrugged. ‘Oh yes. So long as they don’t blow up the ship or drink bleach, they’ll be fine.’

*

‘Gah!’ Suruk clutched his throat and staggered across the hold. Gargling, he fell to his knees, 
rolled onto one side and lay still.

Carveth looked down at him. ‘Sounds like death?’

‘It is death!’ Suruk exclaimed from the floor.

‘So the first word of this film is
death
, and the second is like
oboe
.’

‘Well done!’ Suruk climbed upright. ‘Indeed it is
Death Oboe
. Truly, you are wise in the way of charades.’

‘I see,’ Carveth said. ‘I’ve never heard of
Death Oboe
.’

‘Really? It is a great favourite of my people. It is a remake of an old Earth film named
Pretty 
Woman
. The knife-fight on top of a grand piano is notorious.’

Carveth sighed. ‘Can’t you do a film we’ve both heard of?’

‘Very well. How about
Brief Encounters of the Third Kind
?’

‘Alright, that sounds – no, you’ve just told me what it is! Look, let’s try something else.’ Suruk 
was not well-adapted to word games: it had taken thirty minutes to explain to him that
honour
was not Animal, Vegetable or Mineral.

‘Very well. Tell me about Europe. Is it truly the worst place in the galaxy?’

Carveth sat down on the aluminium teachest at the rear of the hold. ‘Well, it’s hard to say. I 
mean, the Ghast homeworld’s probably worse, Yullia too, but Europe. . well, I’ve never seen the Captain so worried about meeting our allies before. And given that our allies include Major Wainscott and your family, that can’t be good.’ She sighed. ‘I’ve never been. But from what the captain says, it’s one big country, divided up into little states. France and Germany are the main ones, but there are others. They live in different sorts of houses depending on which country they’re from. Smith says the Germans have very modern houses, and the French live in castles called gateaux.’

Suruk nodded. ‘Strange. I hear that in Switzerland, people live in cartons. Is it true that Europe is 
a peaceful and cultured place?’