A Game of Battleships (22 page)

W sighed. ‘So your convoy blew up.. ’

‘Indeed so," Smith said. ‘It was destroyed by enemy action –’

‘Not us,’ Carveth added.

‘By a vessel powered by. . well, by what we think may be a portal to another dimension.’

From the left came a peal of laughter worthy of a mad scientist. Felicity Fitzroy was discussing 
something with Susan. ‘I see you’ve met Captain Fitzroy,’ W said. ‘She’s in charge of our deepspace 
protection. Our aim is to keep things low key.’

Smith reflected that if they wanted to keep their dealings quiet, the best policy would be to tell 
Felicity no jokes. In space, everyone could hear Captain Fitzroy laugh.

‘Make a damned fine lax forward,’ she declared and Susan, perhaps not realising that she was 
talking about lacrosse, stepped back.

‘We need to talk,’ said W. ‘Dreckitt ought to be in on this too – if you could just prise your 
android pilot off my synthetic bounty hunter. Journeys end in lovers meeting and all that, but I think she’s about to blow his fuse.’

W led them into a side-lounge. Two massive radio scramblers had been propped against the far 
wall. W pulled the lever on each and, as lightning ran up the Tesla coils, he took a seat and tried to ignore the static threatening to turn his pencil moustache upright.

‘Whatever is said here goes no further,’ the spy began. ‘First, I should explain my presence here.’

They listened as W set out the plans for the conference. ‘This meeting offers us the chance not 
only to formalise our alliance with the Vorl,’ he explained, ‘but also to make a fresh deal with the 
Khlangari, who as a client state of the Voidani will be under space whale protection. It's a very delicate time, Smith. This will need tact, intelligence and sophistication.’

‘Good thing I came back from that convoy mission to the far side of the Empire that you sent 
me on.’

‘Er, yes. Now, speaking of very delicate matters, tell me about this portal you've found.’

Quickly, Smith set out the details of the destruction of the automated convoy, the raid on 
Deliverance, and the theft of the mysterious device. ‘I want you to understand,’ he finished, ‘that Carveth has my full backing.’ He leaned back in his chair. ‘Unless she's gone mental.’

‘Thanks for that,’ Carveth said.

W sat, brushing static off his tweed as he listened. After a while his hair sank down and he 
nodded thoughtfully. ‘Prong, eh? I should have known he’d be calling the shots. It was inevitable that he’d take Lord Forke’s place.’

‘What happened to him?’

‘Witchfinder Forke? Well, you know what Edenites are like. He tried to have carnal knowledge of 
a grenade launcher. The grenade launcher finished first.’

‘But what about me?’ Carveth demanded. ‘I’m not mad, am I?’

‘No,’ W said, ‘you’re not mad.’

‘I told them
I
wasn’t mad,’ Wainscott muttered into his beard, ‘but did they listen? I was 
sectioned for single-handedly destroying an enemy orbital battlestation. That’s bloody gratitude for you!’

‘We’ve discussed this before,’ W said. ‘We wouldn’t have minded you blowing it up if there had 
actually been a war on. As it was the British Government had to formally apologise to Number One. If 
the Prime Minister hadn’t called him a pint-sized dickhead in the process, it could have been a deeply humiliating situation.’

‘Should’ve blown him up too,’ Wainscott replied.

‘Now,’ W said, ‘to the matter in hand. Who here has heard of Dodgson physics?’ He looked 
around the room. ‘Alright then, who’s heard of Newtonian physics? Physics in general? Anyone in the 
front row?’

Suruk raised a hand. ‘It is said that a rainbow turns to light when it passes through a prison.’

‘Force and angle applied to neck equals dead sentry,’ Wainscott added.

‘Right. Both of those are nearly examples of physics. Such rules govern the world. But there may 
be other places, outside our plane of being, where the normal laws of time and space no longer hold 
sway.’

‘I hear similar things about Croydon,’ Smith mused.

W took a deep draught on his roll-up, followed by a massive swig of tea. ‘The story begins six 
hundred years ago, at the height of the Victorian era. Although Britain’s previous empire spanned the 
globe, it may surprise you to learn that it was not a time of perfect freedom, justice and equality. In many cities, the main source of labour, currency and combustible material was the urchin. Yet many brave 
people strove to improve mankind's lot through reform and innovation. Today, we have such bold 
pioneers to thank for everyday comforts such as umbrellas, heavy artillery and the defleminating 
purdoscope.

‘One such pioneer was Charles Ludwig Dodgson, an Oxford-based mathematician and fruitcake.

Quite what basis he worked from, we don’t exactly know. But sometime in the late 1860s, he began to 
build a machine that would give him access to a world running upon a different system of physics.’

‘A different system?’ Smith found it hard to believe, even now.

‘Indeed, Smith. And through that machine, he took his brain to another dimension.’

‘He took his brain to another dimension?’

‘He took his brain to another dimension. Pay close attention… to judge from the records that 
Dodgson kept, whatever he found there was lethal – or at least lethal to adults. He formed the conclusion that, even with an endless supply of urchins, it was simply too dangerous for further exploration. It 
appears that at least sixty percent of the otherworld's inhabitants wanted to remove heads – a full two percent more than most M’Lak planets. Dodgson closed down his experiment and went into theoretical 
mathematics and children’s literature. His test apparatus has never been located. Until now, that is.’

There was a moment’s silence. Then Smith said, ‘So what we have in our ship is –’

‘A portal to another dimension, yes. You’ve done well to bring it back. We may have to jettison it 
into the sun but, at the moment, it’s safest in your ship. Keep it locked away, Smith! People have killed to get into the otherworld, and to stay there. You will, of course, tell none of the allied aliens about this.’

‘What about the other nations of Earth?’

‘Don’t be absurd, Smith,’ W said. ‘We’ve known our fellow humans for thousands of years. I 
wouldn’t trust them with a bloody cheese roll.’

*

That afternoon – at least, judging by the clocks on Wellington Prime – they moved the
John Pym
from the hold of the
Chimera
to dock separately with the main space station. Shortly afterwards, Carveth disappeared to her quarters with Dreckitt and, having given her the usual warning about not using the 
kitchen table again, Smith walked into the colony to see how things were progressing.

They were far from out of danger yet. Even if W's conference went smoothly, there was always 
the risk of the Edenites tracking the
John Pym
down – and even if that didn't happen, there was a fair possibility of Wellington Prime being swamped by Suruk's killer frogs or the card-game-obsessed minions of Hell or, most likely of all, the whole lot of them at once.

The service personnel were pinning up posters in the lounges. Smith sat down under one that 
said
Please note that haggis is food
– presumably for the benefit of foreign delegates. Sipping his vending-machine tea, he realised that he missed Rhianna very much.

Strange, really. Had someone told him that two years before, he would have snorted with 
derision and returned to assembling a model aeroplane. Yet he had become one of those fellows he 
would previously have dismissed as effete: the girl-liking sort. Of course, with Rhianna elsewhere, he and Carveth could belch and not eat vegetables but it didn't seem worth it, somehow. He knew Rhianna was 
doing something very important for the benefit of the Empire and, hopefully, she would return very soon and tell him that it hadn't involved any men.

‘Penny for your thoughts,’ said Captain Fitzroy. He glanced up as she loomed over him like a 
blonde, jaunty cliff. ‘How's the little lady?’

‘Oh, fine. Off seeing her boyfriend.’

‘What? Isn’t that you?’

‘Oh – right. . yes.’ Smith realised that the fiendish cunning of his own plan had outwitted him.

‘Yes, she is seeing him, because he’s me. . and she is watching me. From afar. She might be watching now, you know,’ he added, as Captain Fitzroy sat down beside him.

‘Looking forward to greeting the aliens?’

‘Oh, definitely. You see some funny-looking fellows in space. Of course, you have to be 
reasonable about it, though. I mean, if we went around giving people trouble just because they’re noisy and wear peculiar clothes, we’d have outlawed bagpipes years ago.’

Felicity laughed, and crossed her legs at the ankle. She was wearing dress trousers, creased like 
folded paper, and her boots were extremely shiny. ‘Listen, Smitty…’

Very warily, he said, ‘Yes?’

‘Your girlie seems rather keen on that Dreckitt fellow – security chap or whatever he is. You 
want to watch him. I know a sly operator when I see one. Takes one to know one!’ Her head flopped 
back and she vented her laugh like a burst of steam.

A bell rang above them. They glanced up as words began to scroll across the board on the far 
side of the room.
Spacecraft docking procedure initiated. Yothian deputation passing through quarantine control. All
greeting personnel to Atrium Four
.

‘Well,’ said Smith, leaping up, ‘I must be going – got to see the Yothians, you know. Lovely place,

Yath. Yoth. See you later!’

*

From the darkness of space, craft converged on Wellington Prime. Some travelled in convoy, others 
swiftly and alone, their jamming devices raised until they were within the colony’s defensive grid. Only a few spaceships were big enough to make the voyage without strength in numbers or subterfuge.

A huge M’Lak warship slid out of the void, flanked by its own fighters. It was covered in armour 
plate and, painted orange and decorated with symbols denoting clan ownership and events in its history.

Had he seen it, Captain No-Nose would have been deeply envious.

Two hours later, a grey, horseshoe-shaped craft halted just outside lidar range: a half-sentient 
vessel made by the Voidani space whales for their protegees, the Khlangari. A hatch slid open in the 
biomechanical croissant, and a shuttle sped forth. It contained five of the greatest mystics of Khlangar: foremost among them, the renowned Ambassador Tai’ni. As their mother ship withdrew to a safe 
distance they opened communications and hooted their arrival.

And so it began. Smith found himself travelling from airlock to airlock, greeting the great powers 
of Earth: representatives of the Indian Union, the South American Congress, the United Free States, the Pan-African League and Norway. A security team disarmed each group as they arrived, while a pair of 
troopers from the M’Lak Rifles stood nearby, a cheerful reminder to everyone not to start any trouble if they wanted to keep their heads.

Not only were there humans to welcome, but also the various aliens whose planets Britain’s 
dreadnoughts had kindly welcomed to the Space Empire. Creatures arrived that Smith had only read 
about in school textbooks. He greeted the ambassadors of the Hegemony of Wing-Dam, brave warriors 
strikingly similar in shape and size to woodlice; a pair of brooding, tentacled Thorlians – possibly the ones he’d run from a while ago, shortly after suggesting that they join the Empire – and a massive armoured Kroatoan, who had been woken from hibernation with a lettuce and who kept dozing off mid-sentence.

Suruk helped out. The M’Lak word for diplomacy was
Chal-Zag
, which was usually translated as 
‘spirit of warmth’ but more literally meant ‘hot wind’. Suruk toured the entrance hall, nodding to the delegates and occasionally catching the eye of one of the riflemen who stood near the doors. Strange how 
difficult it was for humans to agree on anything, he reflected, as he slipped past a wallahbot and deftly swept half a dozen vol-au-vents off their tray and into his maw. The Ghasts and lemming-men wanted to 
conquer the galaxy. Their heads were still attached. Through the simple medium of detaching the heads 
of the Ghasts and lemming-men, the invasion risk would go away and Earth would be left with some very 
nice new paperweights.

Another wallahbot appeared at his side with a tray of drinks. ‘Aperitif, sir?]

‘My mandibles are working just fine,’ Suruk said. ‘But thank you anyway.’ He turned away and 
strolled deeper into the hall, looking for company. Guests mingled around him. A trio of Seh witch-
priests that looked like plucked green emus trotted past, clicking at one another.

Isambard Smith was standing a little way back, chatting to a man in Indian naval uniform. No 
doubt they were discussing world affairs and the future of the galaxy.

‘You know, Smith,’ said the Indian space captain, ‘It was truly a fascinating century.’

‘Absolutely, Singh. Some of the bowling was pretty good, too.’

As the space captains shared views on starships, cricket and moustache protocol, it occurred to 
Suruk that mankind truly was one. As to one what, he was not quite sure.