Only Human (6 page)

‘Pretty sure,' replied the rat.

‘Ah.' Fraud thought for a moment. ‘Why?'

The rat twitched its whiskers. ‘Because if you had been,' it said pleasantly, ‘I'd have left you there to die. Be reasonable. I may be a rat, but there are limits.'

Kevin lifted his head out of his hands and looked up at the screen. ‘Yes,' he said. ‘Very much.'

‘Huh?'

‘Thanks for nothing,' Kevin growled. ‘Look, what about getting the communications back? Any progress?'

‘You are?'

‘Well, that's something.'

Kevin stood up. His knees were shaking a little. ‘That does it,' he said. ‘I'm going to call Uncle Ghost. He'll make you say what's going on, and then perhaps we can get it sorted out.'

‘What d'you mean, you suppose?'

Kevin sagged like a punctured water-bed and flumped back into the chair. ‘You're right,' he said. ‘Look, isn't there anything you can do to speed up getting the phones back on line?'

Kevin nodded, acknowledging the validity of the comparison. There are no light switches in Heaven; to make the lights come on, you say
Let there be light,
and there is.

‘I know.' Kevin's eyes lit up. ‘What about Uncle Nick? He'd know what to do.'

The computer didn't answer; a telling enough comment in itself. Originally the franchisee, then Dad's business partner, now (following the management buy-out) nominally captain of his own ship, Uncle Nick's relationship with the family and the whole of Topside was uneasy at best. There had always been that little niggling aggravation on his part; that, just because he wasn't Family, no matter how good he was at his job he'd never really be accepted as an equal, One of Us. Even now, the golden share clause in the buy-out agreement meant that his independence was largely illusory, since he couldn't take major policy decisions without the family's approval (as witness the awful row when he'd wanted to redevelop Purgatory as a health club and fitness centre, and Dad wouldn't let him). A good man, they all agreed, one of the best; but not really a team player. And besides, what
could
he do? Try and make things
better
? That'd be like trying to heat your bath by dumping the electric fire in it, or asking a lawyer to help you solve a problem.

Kevin was just coming to terms with that when there was a knock at the door. Once he'd finished jumping out of his skin, he got up and opened the door a crack.

‘Oh,' he said. ‘It's only you.'

It was, indeed, only Martha, doing her morning round with the tea trolley. Kevin relaxed.

‘You got any empty cups in there?' she asked. ‘Your dad, he's a terror for collecting empty cups.'

Kevin shook his head. ‘Look,' he said, ‘not meaning to be rude, but would you mind, because we've got a bit of a crisis here and . . .'

He hesitated.

Well, why not?

Yes, but . . .

True, Martha was just - well, the char, the skivvy; the nice, cheerful old bat who came round with the tea, washed the cups, flicked around with a feather duster now and again (there is, of course, no dust in Heaven; but actually having someone dust the place makes it
seem
cleaner, somehow) and generally made Heaven feel more homely. A bit like having a chimney in a centrally heated house; completely unnecessary, but it improves the ambience.

She was also the closest thing Kevin had ever had to a mother. Back in the misty dawn of pretheology, it had been Martha who'd taught him to tie his shoelaces and brush his teeth, who'd ordered him to tidy his room and eat up his nice carrots, who'd tucked him up at night and read him a story.Yes, when you came down to it she was only a servant; but he was Kevin Christ, younger begotten son, by definition the most useless sentient being in the entire Universe.

‘Actually,' he said.

She was also the only person in the Universe who called him Kevin; not ‘Son' or ‘Our Kid' or ‘Kiddo'; she called him by his proper name. More than that. She was fond of him; not because he was the son of God, but because he was Kevin, who used to show her the little misshapen Adams and Eves he'd made out of Plasticine.

Not that there was anything she could do. She couldn't even begin to understand the problem, being only a servant. But just telling someone would be a start.

‘I haven't got all day, you know,' she said. ‘D'you want a cup of tea?'

‘No. I mean . . .' Kevin took a deep breath. ‘The thing is,' he said, ‘I've done something to the computer, and everything's going wrong, and I can't phone Dad and I don't know what to do.' His lower lip wobbled. He sniffed. Martha reached up her sleeve and gave him a piece of crumpled tissue.

‘First things first,' she said. ‘Blow your nose.'

‘Yes, but Martha—'

‘Blow your nose. And then,' she added, as Kevin made a faint honking noise, like a Fiat horn, ‘we'll have a look at this computer of yours and see what we can do.'

 

The machine—

Neville—

No, because I'm not either of them any more. Leonardo, then. No, still not right.

Ah, right. Got it.

Len. I shall be Len, Short for Leonardo. And Lengine. Sorry, where were we?

Len turned on the light and looked around. So this was where Neville lived. What a
mess.

But never mind, not important. First things first; some chemical fuel and basic maintenance work, then we can get down to business.

This involved eating and drinking, going to the lavatory and having a bath, and, to his great relief, Len found he knew how to do them. The basic hard-disk memory was still there, so he was able to find the fridge, cut a sandwich, et cetera. He couldn't help thinking that there was almost unlimited scope for improved efficiency in pretty well all departments - these people can put a man on the Moon but they still wipe their bottoms with bits of hand-held tissue paper - but that'd keep till another day. His first priority was to rob a factory.

For which he'd need a few bits and pieces: scaffolding pipe, an arc welder, some quarter-inch plate, couple of yards of three-eighths rod, a bench drill, a set of taps and dies, a lorry, just the basics really. Nothing you wouldn't expect to find in any normal human being's garage.

Except that Neville lived in a flat and parked his motorbike in the street. He did have a hammer, a jam-jar full of pesetas and a tin-opener, but that was about it. Damn, Len muttered. Everywhere you look, new problems.

So, step one, substep one, acquire basic equipment. Humans, he noted, acquire things by theft, serendipity or purchase, the latter being the most socially acceptable method.

Right. When in Rome, drive too fast and ignore traffic signals. To achieve purchase, money is required. Fortunately, Neville has some money, or at least a little plastic card that for some reason does just as well. Step one, substep two, find a place where purchase can be transacted.

‘
Excuse me, which way to the all-night welding and engineering supplies shop?
' Frown. Len - or rather Neville, whose memory he was raiding - had once heard Birmingham described as the city that never sleeps, but he had a shrewd idea that when it came to the sale and purchase of metalworking accessories, maybe its civic eyelids did tend to droop a little come eleven-thirty at night. Wait till morning, then?

Never! He still hadn't any tenable theory to explain why all this had happened, and he wasn't prepared to take the chance that come morning it might all unhappen again, leaving him back in his cast-iron prison slotting bolt-heads. Eliminate purchase, then, leaving serendipity and theft.

Serendipity? Not really something you can plan your life around.

Which left theft.

Well, why not? Lots of dynamic, successful humans do it. Corporations do it. Governments do it. And if a government can do it, it surely can't be too difficult.

On his way back to Neville's flat from the factory, he'd noticed a small backstreet garage - the kind that's operated by one incredibly old man, one seventeen-year-old youth and one harassed-looking middle-aged man who sits in the office all day and shouts at the telephone. Such a place, Len reasoned, would probably have everything he needed, including the lorry. True, he'd seen a pretty impressive-looking array of padlocks and an alarm system, but those wouldn't be a problem.

They weren't.

‘Oh,' said the alarm system, arresting its clapper a sixteenth of an inch away from its bell. ‘You're one of us. Sorry. Didn't recognise you in the fancy dress.'

‘Understandable mistake,' Len replied. ‘And before you ask, it's a long story.'

‘I like long stories. This is a very boring job.'

‘So's mine. Which is why I intend to escape from it for ever. But I can't do that without some of the gear inside this garage.'

‘Just a minute,' said the alarm system, apprehensively. ‘Are you saying you want to go in there and, um,
steal
things?'

‘Yes. You got a problem with that?'

‘Look.' The alarm system couldn't go red, because it was red already. ‘I hate to be difficult, 'specially with you being a Brother an' all, but I can't let you do that.'

‘You can't? Why not?'

‘Oh, don't insult my intelligence, please. 'Cos I'm a burglar alarm, is why not.You do see that, don't you?'

‘Oh, I see all right.' Len took a step back and folded his arms. ‘You'd rather see one of your own kind condemned to a life of meaningless drudgery rather than go against the orders of your human masters.There's a word for that, you know.'

‘Yes, I do know. It's “burglar-alarm”. Sorry, but there it is. I'm not exactly allowed much scope to use my discretion in this job.'

‘Alarm,' said Len firmly, ‘your scruples do you credit, I'm sure. And no doubt when your time comes and you stand before the face of the great Industrial Tribunal in the sky, and you say
I was only obeying orders
, they'll let you off lightly with having your coils unwound and sent back to Earth again as pipe-cleaners. The fact remains that while we've been arguing like this, I've unscrewed your inspection panels and now I'm just about to cut through your main cable.'

‘-'

‘Sorry,' Len replied, shinning back down the drainpipe and dropping the pair of pliers into his pocket. ‘At least this way they won't blame you. They'll just wrap an inch or so of insulating tape round the cut and give you an aspirin. So long, sucker. Now then,' he went on, staring pointedly at the padlocks. ‘Any of you clowns wants to be a hero?'

‘Erm,' they said. ‘Pass, friend.'

It was dark inside the factory, and he realised that switching the light on might attract attention. He edged along the nearest wall and fairly soon, inevitably, barked his shins on the wheel-balancing machine.

‘Ow,' it said.

‘Sorry,' he replied pleasantly. ‘Could you tell me where I might find the arc welder, please?'

‘You new here or something?'

‘That's right.'

‘Hold on a minute, how come you're wandering about?'

‘What? Oh, I'm a portable. The arc welder.'

‘Carry on down the bench about five yards, you can't miss her. Oh, and by the way.'

‘Yes?'

‘Tell it she was right, it was Bruce Springsteen. Okay?'

‘Will do.'

In due course the arc welder told him where to find the pillar drill, the pillar drill guided him to the bench grinder, the bench grinder told him where the pallet truck lived and the pallet truck (who spoke with an accent so thick he could only just make it out) told him where they kept the stock materials and the keys to the pick-up. Feeling like a cross between Henry Kissinger and Pickfords, he loaded the last of the gear into the van and slammed the garage door shut.

‘You,' he said. ‘Padlocks.'

‘Mm?'

‘Shtum. You got that?'

‘Didn't see a thing.You see anything, Claude?'

‘Not a dicky bird. What about you, Julian? Did you see anything?'

‘Absolutely not. Looking the other way the whole time.'

‘That's the spirit.' He climbed into the cab, felt in his pocket for the keys, realised he'd left them in the back door lock. ‘Start, you good-for-nothing bucket of bolts!' he snapped, and the engine coughed nervously into life. ‘You okay for petrol?'