Rocket Fuel Read online

  He (It?) appeared surprised; a novelty, and his to profit by. ‘If one tries,’ he answered smartly, the accent Irish. ‘May I be your guide?’

  He had in tow a wheel, a kind of spectral rickshaw. Droover considered the speed it would lend her and agreed.

  ‘Where to, then?’ the policeman asked, seating himself one side of the magnetic apparition.

  ‘Central 68,’ she said, and, imitating his action, they were moving.

  The Licencing Bureau occupied the thirtieth floor of an oval structure that reminded Droover of an antique mirror. Its facade borrowed shape and colour from the dissimilar edifices surrounding it, lower conglomerates in whose formless laps it reclined, as if on show. And as an administrative centre it was. But shapes could be misleading. The thirtieth floor, for instance, was down; like most of Radio it displaced languid ocean.

  Kate entered the lobby and paused. Beneath her, visible through the glass floor, milled hundreds of buffalo. A square section lifted and she stepped within its fancy, arms folded as the seamless, image-thick box was lowered.

  'What floor please?'

  She told it.

  A wind ruffled the animals' matted hides and dusty clouds grew like mushrooms at their feet, but Kate could, neither smell nor feel the commotion.

  A door opened, a window in the dry, grassy landscape that offered a view as if back through time, for beyond stood rows of metal desks and busy appendages, the clatter of mechanical, oily typewriters spilling past the unglazed frame.

  Droover, frowning, paced along the manifested aisle toward the heavy, carved and hinged panels at its farther end.

  Every face in the room was a girl's...some glanced up; some to one side; others giggled.

  Puzzled, and not a little annoyed, she knocked on the imposing entrance and waited. The gouged reliefs bored into her skull a full minute (she counted) and then swung away, admitting her. The office held a large wooden desk, a high-backed leather chair that rocked, its occupant facing a blank screen. The desk was swathed in coloured paper, sheets toppling floorward, that surface blue-veined like roof and walls, a cheeselike marble on which Kate Droover walked: up to the desk, her rubber soles squeaking. ..

  Among the discarded sheets were sowed numerous freshly-sharpened pencils varying in thickness and length.

  ‘I believe I'm expected,’ Kate said brusquely. ‘I represent the merchantman Mucho Tomcat.’

  The chair turned, the man in it short and amused. ‘In this life,’ he told her, ‘you believe what you can.’

  She avoided his eyes.

  ‘So Jones finally had one too many, eh?’ he went on. ‘That's difficult to credit!’ He stood and came round the front of the desk, leant back on it. ‘Anyway, fate dealt her a bum hand; but that's over. It's time to start again if you don't want to see the entire venture go under. But there're a few minor details to be cleared up first.’ Reaching behind him he grabbed a pencil from amid the variehued litter and spun it in his fingers, all the while smiling at Kate, who was static, patient, thinking of the crew, her duty to them.

  A tense silence lingered...

  ‘Yes?’ she said finally. ‘What minor details?’

  The man's smile broadened. He raised the pencil to her throat and dragged its blunt end slowly downward till it met the zipper of her blouse, whiting her skin. There it halted. He pushed from the desk. She remained passive. The pencil moved once more, counted down the plastic teeth, descended, their clicking like that of the typewriters dimly echoing through the heavy doors, far and near and measured.

  His smile, she decided, was sickening.

  The pencil passed below her breasts, exposing them, and lodged in her navel, where he gave it a twist. Then his greedy mouth was on her, nipping at flesh.

  Six - The Engine

  The SS Usufruct drifted ever closer, its darkened mass that of a warship, its silence foreboding. Sally Droover watched the craft's progress from the bridge, mouth dry and eyes strained to pick out the merest detail, while on the Tomcat's screens the unfamiliar beast provoked a riot of colour, an expansive contrast of visuals. In no way was it trying to disguise itself. Neither did she intend to stand in its way; but still there was no coherent message.

  What did the warship intend? she wondered. Its present course would bring the two vessels nose to nose in minutes.

  And then?

  'Droover S?'

  The voice snatched her attention. ‘...Here,’ she replied, pushing the button hesitantly. ‘Friendly, is that you?’

  'Right.'

  ‘Spritzer untangled the link,’ she said, more for her own benefit than the engineer's. ‘How's tricks?’

  'Fine. Listen - ‘ But he was cut off.

  Sal jumped from her seat, furious. The screens around her had come alive with pictures, the face they portrayed composed of tubes and plastic.

  'YOU WILL REMAIN WHERE YOU ARE,' the exaggerated tones of a man ordered. 'WE WILL COME ABOARD.'

  Sal leaned over the fascia, tapped a screen. All channels were open, she saw, the masked features broadcast throughout the ship, its internal communications subjugated. ‘Says who?’ The co-pilot was in no mood to be pushed around.

  The warship took its time replying; time which brought it within seconds of its stated aim: the shudder of docking, the merchantman trapped...

  'RESEARCH SECTION FIVE,' the face said eventually.

  Byron scratched his head. The repairman had told him about Captain Jones, although he'd offered little by way of detail, more interested in what Friendly thought of Ernie's 'projects and idiosyncrasies,' as Rich put it.

  The engineer didn't know what he meant. Puzzled, he made some excuse and buzzed the bridge, just as a shadow fell across his bed...

  Wait a minute. Think, he told himself. One dead engineer; one dead captain. It made - like Rich - no sense. The engine, its complex of walkways and galleries, inspection tunnels and freefall zones, fuel-tanks and converters hung in the void like an armoured maze around him, only it possessed direction, while among the crew there appeared to linger a malady of derangement. And now this further mystery, the Usufruct, she and the Tomcat kissing, exchanging any number of possible viruses, from common colds to pneumonia-like suspicions...

  Think back to Upfront and your first encounter with Sal, the glint in her eye when she heard you were a flyer, the almost inescapable outcome, there, on that sunlit hillside, and later, in the house, waiting for the knock on the door...yeah, waiting, he repeated absently, scanning the hidden countenance of the intruder, the white and purple plastic of his suit as the ship tracked him through the main bow-lock and onward, to his rear a quartet of similarly attired colleagues, each burdened with guns and unrecognizable equipment.

  To what end?

  'MAKE IT QUICK,' their leader instructed. He faced the screen, the distant lens, adding, ‘I REPEAT: YOU WILL REMAIN WHERE YOU ARE. ANY ATTEMPT TO INTERFERE IN THE RESEARCH SECTION'S LEGAL UNDERTAKINGS WILL BE MET WITH FORCE. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.'

  Byron scratched his head...

  They took Amy's body away. They explained nothing, refused all pleas, simply bullied their way in and left with the captain in a bag, together with samples of her clothing.

  ‘You're to stay in-system,’ Sally was instructed. ‘You may be subject to quarantine.’

  May? ‘What the hell for?’ she demanded. ‘What killed her? Tell us that much.’

  The mask regarded her silently. Then, ‘We don't know; we do what we're told,’ it said.

  The threat was obvious; the lie also. ‘And if we leave, say for Proxima?’

  ‘You'll be destroyed.’

  ‘Just like that?’ Come on, she thought, give me some information, some idea, some...

  ‘Nobody is to come or go aboard this ship until further notice. Failure to comply will result in immediate arrest. You are not to relate any details to any party outside of this ship and/or a proven representative of Research Section Five. We'll be keeping an eye on you - understood?’

 
Sally blew on her fingernails.

  The man behind the mask straightened.

  'Tell the bastard to fuck off,' advised the engineer, the warship's grip relaxed.

  She burst out laughing.

  He said, ‘You, the crew of this pile of junk may live to regret that.’

  May? She stood with her hands on her hips. ‘Goodbye.’

  *

  Sixty hours, the readout told him. That translated to six in decontamination.

  No wonder engineers were a lonely breed. It was hardly worth it; but if he didn't surface now, at least for a while, then the wait would get longer.

  He fell asleep. In his dreams a shadow spread across his bed, its substance tangible, heavy, like a blanket. Beneath, swaddled in imagery, parted from consciousness, Byron fought against a wind, the blustery air tearing out of a cataract, the rent in the ground impossibly dark, sucking on his limbs, dragging the blood from his veins as it forced him back, away from the abyssal opening. Somehow, he knew, he had to reach it, had to climb down inside, had to - what? Secrets denied him. His one hope lay in struggle, the matching of human strength and human fear, a contest he was ill-prepared for.

  But on waking, getting to his feet, he was sure the answer lay within reach.

  He'd slept two hours. Minutes wasted. Minutes more he would need to spend ridding his body of harmful compounds, dismantling those toxins likely to infect others (he himself was all but immune) while smoking cigarettes and reading comics, a ready supply of which - most in mint condition - occupied many a shelf and airtight container.

  And he could be pretty sure they weren't going anywhere, not for a while...

  The engine was idle.

  *

  Kate acted. The apology on her lips was for Sal and Amy and the crew, not for the short man whose blood dripped now to the stone floor, whose eyes turned inside his head, and whose legs collapsed below him like the kicked-away legs of a chair, the pencil he'd tormented her with, its sharpened end rammed forcibly up his nose, the right nostril, into his brain...

  She zipped her blouse and took a step back from the desk, letting him slump onto it, slip as the sheets of paper, clatter, soft and hard, to the blue-veined marble.

  It seemed to take so long.

  The typewriters could still be heard, their sound, the hands behind it reminding her of where she was, what she had done, the importance of making a speedy exit.

  But how? There was, as far as Kate knew, only the one way out, and that the way she'd come in.

  Could she risk it? The sooner she was seen to leave the sooner her crime would be discovered.

  Did she have any choice? No, unless...

  A second, hidden door.

  She found it easily, a section of wall falling outward at her touch, beyond the gaudily-lit maelstrom of the undercity, its sea-encased totality busy with life and living, colours thick and melded, not infrequently astir.

  Droover stopped a vacant wheel and sped off through the turgid air, forgetting the office and its blank screen, wooden desk and leather chair, revelling in the outlandish, actual solidity of this other world.

  It was behind her, the murder. Ahead was another thing, a new beginning. The wheel wandered at her instigation, transparent, globular and comfortable, a cousin to the one that had brought her to 68. Kate relaxed. Kate dozed, and on a whim directed the vehicle toward Bench 1.

  She would, Kate decided, do a little island-hopping.

  *

  He was lucky unlucky, they said, the crewmen, the flyers like himself. He was Byron Friendly, and jinxed.

  But he shouldn't have floored that controller...

  All the same, there was no future in war, he was well out of it. So what bugged him?

  Byron, he thought, it's mothertug again. Unlike before though, the attraction for Earth, the pull of Sol, this feeling was for Upfront, his home, his planet, his people and their insecurity. That's what affected him.

  ‘It isn't fair,’ he said.

  It never is. ..

  The engine was idle, but it wouldn't remain so. He recalled a time when he was forced to crash-land a reconnaissance craft on Bid-2's largest moon because of a retro failure that would have corkscrewed them into oblivion had he not taken manual control, wrestling the ship a full twenty minutes, its captain raving as they spiralled, threatening him with disciplinary action unless he unfroze the pilot's instruments and displays, the whole of which reported there to be no problem expect maybe in Friendly's head...

  Had he flipped? Did he imagine it?

  Byron was the only survivor. His mind played tricks on him, then and since. There wasn't enough left of the reconnaissance craft to prove the case one way or another. So they'd stretchered him out, given him a medal.

  Still, there were doubts...

  He shaved.

  The engine roared, that of his heart and lungs. The clock sounded the hours, those to come, and go.

  He cut himself; healed...

  He waited.

  Seven - The Heat Extractor

  The engineer smoked, burnt neat holes in the comic with his cigarette...

  Lumping Jack paced, hands behind back.

  They faced each other across the dark expanse of a fibrous carpet, its tangled pile like charred grass. Morgan smiled his jolly smile and folded his arms, rested his weight on one hip, said, ‘Please, no autographs.’

  Nobody laughed.

  *

  Frank was sweating, despite the fact he'd dropped the cabin's temperature by fifteen degrees. It was still too hot, wouldn't go any lower. He needed cooling, wished he were ice, not steam, not boiling. He stood on tiptoe, the metal deck burning the soles of his feet. Water dripped from his fingertips, hissed as it exploded into gas.

  He wiped the mirror in the adjacent stall and saw his face to be pink, the skin taut, his teeth large, nostrils flared, eyes like pool balls...

  He had to get out.

  Now. Do it, Franky, press the button, step inside, close the door, seal it; nothing could be simpler, I've rigged the outer lock, jumped its failsafe, there's no problem, just raise your hand, that's right, easy, yeah, you got it.

  Okay. That wasn't so bad, was it?

  ‘What the...’ Sal stared unbelievingly at the computer screen, the flashing red light it displayed.

  Elsewhere in the ship a copper baseball glove rasped closed about a screwdriver.

  ‘Man overboard,’ the pitcher said.

  Eight - Last Of The Earth Men

  Ernie put pen to paper, the numbness in his wrist irritating, and wrote...

  Last Of The Earth Men - issue 58.

  (Spot-beam to Uncle Stylo, friend and illustrator: GO!)

  In front of the Hightop building, Mugio, on the Spanish mainland, the harbour thick with water-borne traffic, the Atlantic grey and restful.

  ‘So do we go in?’ Morgan asked his dog.

  She padded up the steps. ‘Why not? They can only kill you - besides...’

  ‘What?’ he blurted, striding after, the darkened lobby deep and blind.

  But Frozen Hound didn't answer.

  Nine - Triple Zero

  Abdul climbed to the observation deck. He could see Earth's daylit crescent, Luna's steely globe. And fastened to the transparency's outer surface was the Research Section's ugly surveillance module, the malformed unit's invisible ears clued into each level of the ship's communications, life-support and utility systems. It stuck to the cornea-shaped window like some monstrous leech; silently watching, a spy in their camp.

  And it, they know, he thought, know everything...

  It frightened him.

  Heart pounding the cook quickly descended to the bridge where he'd left Sally Droover, quiet and numbed at her pilot's station, the screen still flashing red.

  He touched her shoulder and she turned. ‘What?’

  ‘Come on.’ Abdul took her hand and led the way back to his cabin...the lights out, undressing.

  ‘Luke...’ She moved against him, trembling.
>
  ‘Ssh - it's okay, Sal; we have to be close, talk, you and me, we have to make a decision.’ He held her.

  ‘Kate hasn't called,’ she said. ‘I think something's happened to her.’

  Abdul considered what he already knew. ‘Maybe she has,’ he said, ‘and they blocked it.’

  The co-pilot's eyes gleamed. ‘You mean the warship?’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘I thought of that,’ she said. Then, ‘They could easily have picked her up on Luna, or after, at the Bureau.’

  ‘Right again.’

  They fell slowly to the bed, taking comfort in one another's proximity, warmth.

  After a moment Sal continued, her mouth a damp presence abutting his cheek, whispering, ‘It'd make sense for them to grab Kate as soon as possible, and return her here, maybe, if they're serious about quarantining us...’

  He agreed. ‘You any idea why?’

  ‘No. But if it killed the captain...’ She paused suddenly, hands either side of his thin face.

  ‘And Frank,’ said Abdul, putting it into words. ‘And Ernie; perhaps you or me next, or Monica.’

  She froze. ‘Spritzer.’ The name spilt like dust from her dry tongue, its throaty kennel instantly starved of moisture.

  Abdul rolled on top of her. ‘Go on,’ he encouraged, prompting, troubled, his own suspicions close, he thought, to hers.

  ‘Have you seen him since Upfront?’

  ‘No. You?’

  ‘No.’ She bit her lip. The shadow-thick look she gave him was earnest. ‘He's responsible, isn't he, Luke?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘But why? How?’

  ‘Who knows?’ Research Section Five, he answered himself. ‘He watches us, or did,’ Abdul said quietly; ‘just as they watch us now.’

  ‘Yeah, Amy said something about it once. She seemed to believe he needed it; that it was harmless.’

  He grinned, head shaking. ‘I can imagine - Jones always had an answer for everything. As long as he did his job, eh? But it's strange, casting your mind back days, weeks; no time at all really, yet so far away...’

  ‘Don't,’ said Sally.

  ‘What?’ He laughed softly, moving her hair.