'You’re too soft for this work, boy. I’ve said it before.'
The three Robots, servos whirring, painfully struggled to their feet. The chief levelled the singing spear at them. 'Make no hostile moves, bloodless ones,' he said, 'We require your cooperation.' They meekly raised their hands. Bob Sunny Day’s nose dropped off and he sighed.
'We surrender,' he said.
All right. I suppose a bit of explanation is in order. As you’ve guessed, the chief didn’t plummet to his death. Maybe I am too soft, like Garron says. I don’t know. It’s not as if I made a decision, you understand. I hauled him to safety without a thought for my own. But the universe likes a fool, I suppose, because the chief then demonstrated that even the most primitive Draconian has a hide of honour. He swore an oath to repay his debt and to follow my orders until then. Well okay, I thought.
I didn’t expect the debt to be discharged so suddenly, though.
Garron sat against the wall of the corridor, as I said before, but he was far from dead. Sure looked like he wished he was, though. He was pale and sweating. The princess stood away, looking as if she might bolt at any second. The Doctor was urging Garron to keep still while he made readings with his screwdriver. 'Don’t move a micrometer,' he said, 'or that shaft is going to touch the edge and short out the tesseract 's safety protocols. You know what that means. You did read the manual, I hope.'
'I regret to say that this is, in fact, a second-hand tesseract and the manual was not included in the, shall we say, transaction,' said Garron, 'but yes, I know what will happen.'
I was horrified. The shaft protruded from his chest a mere arm’s length, a tiny corona of sparkling energy at the entry point. I immediately guessed what had happened. Garron had ordered the tesseract to close at the same instance the chief threw the spear. The tesseract's safety features worked as advertised and the portal did not close around the spear. So far, so good.
'But this genius didn’t follow basic maintenance routines and the tesseract developed a leak,' the Doctor said, 'Now the portal rim is supercharged with negative void energy. If that spear touches the sides it will act as a conduit to the positive void inside.'
'Won’t they short each other out?' I asked.
'They’ll equalize, Unstoffe. Implosively.'
'Oh. Can you fix it?'
The Doctor frowned. 'Maybe. What I mean is, I have all the readings I need to create a sonic pulse that will dampen the negative void ring and allow the spear to be removed.'
'That’s wonderful! Do it, then!'
'Thing is, I need either a quantum computer or the equipment on my ship to compute the exact frequency. One micro-octave off either way and...'
The chief surprised us all. 'Do I understand correctly that the fat one’s invisible pouch will kill us all if the spear is moved?'
'That’s right, chief.'
'But you have the means to save us if you are allowed to leave this place?'
'Yesss...'
'Then I will stay with him. My hand threw the spear. My hand will hold it steady.'
Was that pride in the Doctor’s nod? 'Thank you, Chief. You are a true son of Draconia. We’ll be back as soon as we can.'
I’ve never been fond of retracing my steps.
'Doctor,' I asked, 'Could we transmit the frequency? Even if we weren’t here?'
'If we had a receiver, sure.'
'Garron and I have a set of communicators.'
Garron groaned, 'Had. Had a set. One of those savages nicked mine.'
'Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. Say, wait a minute.'
I’d recently seen something, somewhere, hadn’t I? Ah!
'Chief, I need your headband.'
We synchronized the frequencies of chief’s headband and my communicator. The Doctor fiddled with both and declared we had a constant, clean connection. Garron would hear everything that happened to us and when the time came we could transmit the pulse from anywhere (from orbit, I hoped). The only thing the Doctor couldn’t do, frustratingly, was allow Garron to transmit to us. 'I’m a genius, no doubt,' he said, 'but even I can’t fix a microphone after someone’s stuck a decorative feather through it.'
Did you wonder at the coincidence of our meeting the Graff’s men on a ship the size of a small planet? Well, don’t. As we left Garron the Doctor picked up two transponder signals matching the Graff’s signature. He didn’t tell us, so we didn’t know we weren’t wandering. We were following a signal we hoped would lead us out.
In the Garden Highway the Doctor disabled the vents and repaired two transpods.
In the palace control room he programmed the Royals to abdicate after proclaiming Yaka the new Tsar. The Cossacks were programmed to never leave Yaka unattended and to kill him immediately if he made a single selfish or non-humanitarian decree, the compilation of which was a lengthy process.
A swift motorcar was dispatched to wait at the western waterfall.
From the eastern sea the train was sent back to await Garron’s arrival.
In the secret chamber under the wall of the world the Doctor finally managed to access Rallax’s central computer. He set it to work analysing his tesseract's readings.
In his cell, after the Bobs captured us, he hacked into the computer again. The information wasn’t ready. We had to stall.
Near the end of my first interrogation we sent the signal, the chief removed the spear and Garron was saved. Now it was his turn to save us.
And he did. He and Spidrick were soon leading a waiting army of Cossacks, bears and adventurous Bolsheviks out of the only land they’d known and beyond the sky. They’d battled the robots (who, truthfully, showed a marked tendency toward surrender) through corridors and compartments, gaining deck by deck, until reaching our location in Auxiliary Control. Then, on the communicator and through the door, Garron heard me say, 'Well, I suppose you could go to all that trouble.'
'We surrender' said Bob Sunny Day and his nose dropped off. 'Oh, pardon me!' he said, retrieving the stray organ, 'I seem to have been damaged in Mr. Garron’s melodramatic entrance. As we are now category 2 compatriots, may I excuse myself to the repair bay?'
'Is this really the time for vanity, Bob Sunny Day?' said Bob Name Your Poison.
'No, no. Go ahead, Bob. In fact, Bob and Bob –why don’t you accompany Bob? You’re all looking a bit discombobulated,' said the Doctor. After offering polite assurances to rejoin us soon, the robots trudged off.
No one spoke after they left. I suppose there should have been cheers, handshakes and if I was lucky a kiss or two. We’d won, hadn’t we? We should be celebrating. But the chief settled on his haunches, the princess and Garron sank into chairs and even the tireless Doctor leaned on a support column. Spidrick entered the room, nodded to us and found a bench.
I felt I should say something but, gentlemen, I was well and truly talked out. Instead I settled against a wall and removed my Crewbooties, enjoying the feeling of cool metal on tired feet.
I could almost taste the quiet, the commonplace sounds of a functioning ship. Unstoffe, I said to myself, you have to get up. There’s still so much to do. But Unstoffe, I countered, I could happily seclude myself in a Lull-D-Sack for a week. No, food first. Then a shower with real water.
'Oh, a shower!' said the princess, 'that sounds wonderful.'
Garron chuckled. 'He does this when he’s tired. You’re doing it again.'
My embarrassment faded when I saw no malice in their eyes, just weary understanding.
'Young Unstoffe is right!' said the Doctor.
Garron groaned. 'Yes, I suppose we should conclude this welcome siesta and return to the task at hand.'
'What?' said the Doctor, 'With all due respect for your new found and mildly worrisome sense of responsibility, Garron, I’m always famished after conquering a planet. Let’s round up a Bob and find the canteen.'
It was a nice dinner. The bobs were pleased to reinstall their old programming and Bob Name Your Poison turned out to be quite the alchemist. Our collective poisons kept him happily engaged as we plotted our next moves.
First and foremost, the Doctor insisted, we had to retrieve his capsule from orbit. Our next step, returning stability to Rallax, depended on the equipment inside. Bob Sunny Day, smart new nose firmly attached, mentioned that a nearby cargo dock was equipped with tow beams, so that was sorted. The Doctor was eager to be off but we prevailed upon him to explain what we needed to do.
'Well, we have to disable the warp engines, and to do that we need the ship’s registry to reinstall the data and cognizance core. Remember how I couldn’t access the main computer from the palace control room? Well, it’s like that all over this ship. Hardly any of the millions of systems are talking to each other. Once we install the registry, they will. You do still have it, Garron?'
Garron tapped his chest. 'Right here, Doctor.'
'And you can still access your tesseract?'
'Where do you think these fine olives came from?'
'Anglesey.'
'Oh! A fellow connoisseur?' Garron rubbed his hands briskly and leaned forward. 'That’s a good guess, considering you haven’t even eaten one. Yes, while many opine that the tartness of an Andalusian olive...'
Oh, dear gods of alcohol. We didn’t have time for one of Garron’s discourses on olives. Hadn’t he already begged and cajoled until everyone except the Doctor had eaten one?
'Not now, Garron.' He looked hurt. 'I know you’re an expert and I’m sure everyone would find it compelling and I’m sorry but I think we should hear the Doctor’s plan.'
'Why thank you, Unstoffe. Anyway, all we’ll need to do is crack the security protocols and we’ll deal with that when the time comes.'
'Excuse me,' said the chief, who was drinking something out of a reconstituted pineapple, 'but what are these ‘security protocols’?'
'You see, chief, a ship’s registry is more than just a brain. It’s also an ideally tamper-proof record of ownership,' I said, 'Think of it as the ship’s totem.'
'Ah. And the ship’s spirits will only speak with their master’s leave?'
'So much smarter than humans,' murmured the Doctor. 'That’s it exactly, chief. Top marks.'
Bob Sunny Day set another platter down. 'And then we will be safe? We will not become a star?'
'Not automatically, no. That’s where you lot come in.'
'Sir?'
'The ship’s auto-repair systems will fix some faults but the broken circuits will need hands-on repair. That’s you. I’ll have to alter your programming a bit. Show you what to do. Then you can start recruiting survivors from the recreation cells to help. Start with that lot over there,' he said, meaning a nearby table of drunken Bolsheviks. 'They’ll pick it up, train others. You’ve plenty of time.'
'We’ll do our best, sir.'
'Course you will,' said the Doctor. He rose from the table. 'Me, I’m off to the cargo hold. I’ll see you all in the morning. Try not to stay up late.'
Not long after, Garron insisted I help him to bed.
'Come right back,' said the princess, 'I may need your help, too.'
I hauled Garron to his feet, swearing he’d gained weight. The old man was quiet on the way to the his commandeered stateroom. But when we reached it he seemed recovered.
'You know,' he said, 'I think I may go for a little stroll instead. There are interesting opportunities here, don’t you think?'
'I think you’re going to get us in trouble. That’s what I think.'
'Oh, I’d say you have that well in hand yourself.'
'What do you mean?'
'I’m not really drunk, boy.'
'I know.'
'That’s not all you need to know. And for what it’s worth, I’m sorry.'
He produced a pair of ear buds and a tuning device.
'Here,' he said. 'Let’s see what our friends are up to, shall we?'
If ignorance is bliss, then the past few days were the happiest of my life.
When I returned to the canteen two harried Bobs in medical white were carrying out the chief, who was swiping at them playfully from his stretcher. He winked at me as they passed.
Bob Sunny Day sprawled at the bar, looking for all the world like an exhausted maître after a space regatta soiree. Bob Name Your Poison polished glasses behind him (It fleetingly occurred to me I hadn’t seen Bob What a Deal since the three had left for the repair bay. Maybe he was busy reopening the duty-free?). Other than the two ‘bots, the canteen was abandoned.
Where was the princess? The ‘bots didn’t know. They hadn’t seen her leave. I ran through the empty corridors to her stateroom. She didn’t respond to the call button. Her door was unsealed.
Inside, the only light was a flickering wall monitor displaying the nearest parking dock’s manifest. Her bed was not slept in. Her few belongings were missing.
A passing Bob gave me directions, adding that the Princess and a man in armour had passed this way. They’d been with two Cossacks who were carrying a sick man he didn’t recognise.
In the immense parking dock I ran past hundreds of ships, scarcely noticing their exotic contours. My destination was the small, sleek cruiser under the cavernous bay’s only bright light. I closed the distance, straining too hard to shout, as two large figures carried a burden up the ramp and disappeared inside.
I crashed to a halt at the base of the ramp, supported myself on the handrails and wheezed like an old bear. A dark female silhouette appeared in the hatchway. 'Took you long enough,' it said.
'Princess... why?'
She stepped back into the light. She’d changed into a practical coverall and tied her hair. Her eyes glittered.
'Get on board, Unstoffe, if you’re coming.'
I climbed up the ramp and stepped into the fanciest ship I’d ever seen, but I was immediately distracted from the posh interior by three things. The first was Garron, trussed up, gagged and sprawled on the deck. The second was the pair of Cossacks standing guard over him. The third was the sharp click and whine that told me a blaster was charging an inch from my ear.
'You remember dear Yaka, don’t you, Unstoffe?'
'Hullo, Yaka.'
'Greetings, boy. My mistress informs me I am not to kill you. Why is that, I wonder? Have we unfinished business, you and I?'
'Your breath stinks of onions. Would you mind terribly?'
'Do not be impertinent with me, cub. You, I suspect, do not fully comprehend your situation.'