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The Companion: Part 54

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Edited by William Justin Thirsk-Gaskill, Wednesday, 31 Aug 2011, 00:37

Katya and Liliya have found the man who killed Rosalind, on I-13.  I have signalled to them to put him in a crate and bring him home, alive, with all speed.   I need to ask Kelvin if he can get me some acid - about two hundred litres.

            Horace will be born soon.  Kelvin is being supportive.  This may be his way of shielding himself from aspects of public life that he now finds unpleasant, but I don't mind.  He seems to be with us in mind as well as body.  We have nearly finished building a proper house, above ground.  I don't want my baby to be born in a bunker.  Kelvin has even painted the baby's room, with paint manufactured by a new concern that he and James Holt have started.   I asked him if it was non-toxic but he just rolled his eyes heavenward.  The colour scheme is in lots of stripes because Kelvin wanted to try out every colour they had come up with.  It looks insane but I am sure the baby will find it interesting.  He is now working on a wooden mobile, with stars, planets, comets, space rockets and aliens.  One of the aliens' faces reminds me of Prude.

*

Violet will soon give birth to our baby, who is still known as Horace.  Violet refuses to tell me what sex the child is, and I have not pressed her about this.  She assured me that the baby is healthy and, as she puts it, 'doesn't have two heads or eleven fingers'.   I wonder if Horace will be the first creature ever to be conceived in one solar system and born in another.  He (I call him 'he' for convenience) must surely be the first human child born of an android mother. 

            I hope Violet got the DNA right.  I don't care what he looks like, or how he grows up, but he'll be such a disappointment to Violet if he is weak, ugly or stupid.  Perhaps weakness or ugliness she could tolerate, but not stupidity. 

            We have had something of a disagreement about the birth.  She said that she wanted me to see the baby as soon immediately after he has been born, but she did not want me at the birth itself. 

            'Can't I help?' I asked.

            'I won't need any help. You can help by doing as I tell you.'

            'I thought labour was very traumatic and sometimes dangerous.'

            'Labour.  It's redundant.  There won't be any labour: just parturition and delivery, which I will oversee myself.'

            'Don't you think my being present at the birth will help to make the three of us feel closer together?'

            'Why the hell do you have to go all gooey every time I am trying to do something practical and scientific?  This is the conclusion of a ground-breaking research project: one which is, by the way, arguably one of the most significant events in modern human history, and I want to manage my experiment in my own way.  Can't you understand that?  Or is it now too long since you did any proper science for you to remember how it is done?'

            'In the first place, fuck you, and, in the second, I refuse to have my child referred to as merely the product of a scientific experiment.'

            'Well it is the product of a scientific experiment.  "I Married An Android" - remember?'

            'No, you're not an android.'

            'Yes, I am an android.'

            'You're a fucking android when it bloody well suits you.'

            'Yes, Kelvin, and so are you.'

            And then we both started crying.  She looked at me with the strangest mixture of venom and longing that I have ever seen.  I may be making this up, but I thought at that moment that I knew what she was silently trying to convey: remember that if it weren't for my own efforts, we would not be here together, and so I held my peace.  The tacit agreement is that I will be outside the room when the baby comes into the world, but I will be able to hear it cry and to see it and hold it immediately afterwards.  And I won't be able to sleep with Violet or see her naked until after she has repaired herself. 

*

I know that I swore I never would, but I have reluctantly decided to publish another edition of Royal Flush.  It would be silly not to:  people are clamouring for news about the royal baby.  It's a he, and he weighs ten pounds - what a pork-ball.  That's not a baby: it's an oven-ready turkey.  His name is an absolute hoot: Edgar Pascal Democritus Stark.  I can hardly get it out without cracking up. 

            I have to admit that the photo shoots (plural) have been a triumph.  The royal couple have been disgustingly good about the publicity.  And the baby is without doubt a little celeb in the making.  He chuckles and smiles in all the right places.  He does look adorable (as much as one with no teeth and who suffers from the combined effects of baldness, obesity and double-incontinence can do).  And, just as things are getting a bit boring and predictable, he pukes up, right in front of camera.  Marvellous.  I could not have trained him better myself.  There is nothing like a bit of well-aimed projectile vomiting to get people's attention.  I just hope he can sustain this for the next twenty-five years or so.  I hope the little chap isn't taking too much out of himself.

            I wonder what age he will hit puberty.

            The special issue is four shillings, by the way.  Yes, I know that is twice the cover price of the previous print-run, but this is a collector's edition.  I'd prefer it in silver, if you don't mind.  My girls will end up with shoulders like rugby league players if they have to carry all that copper around in their satchels.

*

I keep volunteering for geological expeditions to more and more remote parts of the planet, but still I can't help hearing news about Kelvin.  I just want to shut it all out, but even on this sparsely-populated world, there are still satellites and radios.  It is difficult to work in a professional manner and still escape the flow of information.  

            I hear that he has had a child.  I'm not much of a biologist - or an expert on androids - and so I still don't really grasp how this was possible.  How can it possibly be in the interests of the child to have a machine for a mother?  Is there any way back from this?  I can't see one.  Even if Kelvin came to his senses now, and annulled his so-called marriage to this thing he calls "Violet", what future would there be for us?  Would he expect me to look after the baby?  Would I be able to face the baby?  Even if I could, how would I feel about it later after we had had a child of our own: a proper child, with a human mother.  

            One of the articles I read said that she is going to breast-feed.  I suppose that just goes to show that you should not believe everything you read.  Is that possible?  How does it work?  What would it taste like?  Would it be like UHT?

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The Companion: Part 53

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Report on the interrogation of prisoners of war carried out by the Special Operations Executive (SOE).

All the interrogations were carried out by Lieutenant Violet Stark, a bio-mechanical synthetic being chosen chiefly for her disease-resistance, endurance and data-recording abilities.  The early phases of the operation were characterised by prisoners in very poor states of health, many showing symptoms of diarrhoea and vomiting.  During most of the interviews, the prisoner was naked.  This was not primarily intended to weaken or humiliate, but to cut down on laundry.  The interrogation area was kept at a temperature between 18 and 24 centigrade.  No artificial stimuli (bright lights, loud noises, beatings) were employed. 

            All the prisoners are male.  The oldest appear to be in their early 30s. 

            In order to carry out the interrogation with the minimum of assumptions, it was decided to interview the prisoners in ascending order of rank.  They were divided according to the colour of their uniform and hence their status within the enemy organisation.  Black uniforms were worn by the members of a group known as the ‘Racial Guardians’, who assumed superiority.  Khaki uniforms were worn by the rest, most or all of whom appear to have been members of a political party which changed its name after their spaceship left earth but before it arrived on Achird-gamma.  It had been called Britain For The British, but became, by order of Richard Spalding, The National Socialist English Workers’ Party.  The prisoners consistently reported that this caused discontent among a handful of men of non-English heritage.  One of these, who happened to be a speaker of the Welsh language, was shot as an example to silence dissent. 

            Most of the interviews with the lower-ranked prisoners revealed next to nothing.  They appear to have been imbued with an ideology characterised by racism, nationalism, the subjugation of women, propensity to violence, and obedience to the party leadership.  However, most of these prisoners seemed to have little or no idea why they travelled 19.4 light years to come to this planet.  The most vivid accounts they gave concerned day-to-day existence on board their ship, which was over-crowded and Spartan (in both the un-luxurious and sexual sense of the word).  The three activities that seemed to fill the time were queuing for food, queuing for the toilet, and cadging illicit vodka. 

            Two senior prisoners were identified for longer and more considered treatment.  They were Paul Brunton and Richard Spalding.  Both of these referred to Richard Spalding as Wolf, though Spalding did not consistently refer to himself in the third person. 

            Brunton is intellectually and politically a zombie under the control of the party of which he is a member.  He claims to be educated to degree level.  Secret observation of his interaction with other prisoners confirms that he is competent to exercise authority over his subordinates, but is utterly subservient towards Spalding.  Brunton seems to have spent most of his time aboard the spaceship acting as Spalding’s scribe, and taking dictation for a book he has written (and claims still to be working on).  This is a work of political philosophy.  Both Brunton and Spalding claim this had grown to about 1,500 pages by the time of the Battle of Hardboard City, most of which were lost in the conflagration.  The following is a quotation from one of the surviving pages.  This is indicative of what survives of the rest of the work.

            And so it is the task of the Political Leadership and most especially of the Leader himself to establish a regime in which the overriding emotions felt by the People are love of the Fatherland and hatred for everything – culturally, geographically and genetically – outside the Fatherland.  The chief manifestations of this love should be the desire to obey, to work and to fight, and an increase in the population.  The manifestation of this hatred should be the ability to absorb and internalise propaganda from the Party leadership and an increased capacity to wage total war. 

            The establishment of this harsh regime begins with the actions of the Leader and the Party leadership in giving direction to the life of the Nation.  It becomes gradually the duty of every good National Socialist to inculcate this both as a principle and as a way of life in both himself and his comrades.  It is the historic task of successive generations and of the Nation as it aspires to true Nationhood to pursue this to the point that it purifies and strengthens the blood of every member of the National Community. 

            Once National Socialism has drawn towards itself all the valuable bloodlines available to the Nation, either from the Nation itself or from racially salvageable fragments of other white-skinned nations, the rest of the global population will rapidly become so racially inferior that they will be unable to carry out any activity beyond mere subsistence or manual labour under direct Aryan supervision.  Under the new, racially purified and invigorated Nationhood, antiquated ideas such as liberalism, feminism and racial equality will become unsupportable, because the degenerated structures within the human brain required to support these polluted doctrines will cease to exist.  Some of my fellow racial theorists have suggested that surgery or drugs might be used to accelerate this process, but it is the author’s view that the establishment of a true National Socialist regime will make this unnecessary.

            In case any reader is still in any doubt, it is of the utmost importance that the agents of the new National Socialist state including the army, the police, and most of the civil service  are fully imbued with the Spirit of National Socialism before they can be called upon fully to carry out the task of subduing and, where necessary, annihilating politically subversive, economically useless, or racially hostile elements.  As the Party Leadership perfects itself in this regard, it is of paramount importance for it to carry the Party membership and the Nation with it. 

            The only time that questions put to Richard Spalding elicited responses longer than a single word was when this document was put in front of him, and he was asked to expand upon it.  What follows is a transcript of the very end of that conversation.  The opening remark is from Spalding.

            ‘You do have a chance to save yourself.’

            ‘What?’

            ‘It isn’t too late.  You have done nothing but carry out the orders of a corrupt and racially mongrel government.  If you help me and my comrades to escape and re-arm, you could be free.  You could even join us, after the necessary political re-education.’

            ‘I don’t think you would want me in your – how shall I put it – movement.’

            ‘But I can see just by looking at you that you are racially salvageable.  You have magnificent white skin.  You don’t have brown eyes.  You seem fit and strong.  You could be an excellent mother of fine, Aryan children.’ 

            The interrogator admits that what she did next, while it did have a genuine motive in seeing how the prisoner would react to having his ideas contradicted, was chosen partly for her own amusement. 

            ‘I don’t have brown eyes?  What do you mean?  Of course I have brown eyes.’ 

            ‘No, I – oh.  Oh.  That is very odd.  I looked at them several times after you came into the room, and I could have sworn you had either grey or blue eyes.  Now I see that they are quite clearly brown.  That is disappointing.’ 

            ‘And I don’t have white skin, either.’

            ‘Don’t be absurd.  Aaaaah!  Aaaaaaaaaah!  What’s happening to you?  What is happening?  Do you have a disease?  Oh, god!  Is it infectious?   Let me out!  Let me out!  I demand that you let me out of here!’

            The interrogator confirms that she reverted to her normal appearance before the next person entered the room.  She also reports that the image she used her bio-mechanics to present to the prisoner was based on a twentieth-century singer called Grace Jones.

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The Companion: Part 52

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The assembly met in the same place it had met before, on I-11.  The weather was better than last time.  There was a slightly increased attendance, including all the people who were watching via satellite.  Kelvin had ordered a plaque with all the names of the dead colonists on it.  He wanted it to be carved in stone, and this was being worked on, but all we had in the meantime was rolls of paper with the names written in pen.  I had uploaded the list.  It occupied about 17 kilobytes, uncompressed.  Kelvin is in the process of trying to memorise it.  He is about 20 per cent of the way through it, and finds that he can’t do much work on it without crying.  He is depressed.  His anger against the invaders, while the war was in progress, could be converted by his own efforts and the efforts of others, into relief, in the form of slaughter.  Now, it can’t.  There are still invaders on the planet, but they are protected by their own defeat and (as Kelvin would see it) the squeamishness of public opinion.

            Kelvin asked me to stay somewhere near the stage.  On the stage were Kelvin himself and Prude.  Prude was sitting on a stool, with the microphone in her hand, looking as if she were about to sing a song.  Kelvin was at the edge of the stage, pacing up-and-down with his hands behind his back.  Prude called the meeting to order.  It appeared as if a lot of people had not realised that Kelvin was there.  People began to gravitate towards the stage.  Some spontaneous cheering and clapping broke out, which Kelvin resolutely ignored.   He pressed on with his address, even though it should have been obvious that many people could not hear him.  

            ‘I said at the beginning of the recent struggle that I wanted you to invest me with the powers I needed to prosecute the war against the invader.  That war is now over.  I relinquish that power, and I resign as Commander-in-Chief.’

            ‘We need to take a vote on whether to accept your resignation,’  Prude said to Kelvin, off-mike, so that only a few people heard it.  It was then that I noticed that Professor Gonzales was standing at the front, near me and the steps of the stage. 

            ‘Do you have to have a vote?’ asked Kelvin, but Prude’s suggestion had already taken hold.  There was a delay while stewards were selected to do the counting.  Prude repeated the wording of the motion.

            ‘This assembly accepts the abdication of King Kelvin, without succession, and his resignation as Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, and withdraws from him all powers with which he was previously vested.’

            Somebody from the middle of the crowd proposed an amendment.  Kelvin wandered back to the side of the stage and looked at the sky.  He was mouthing something, which I could not lip-read because he was partly turned away from me.  I hope he was not reciting the periodic table: he does that at moments of extreme stress.  

            The gist of the amendment was that its proposer wanted two votes to be taken: one to accept Kelvin’s resignation as Commander-in-Chief, and a separate one to deal with his abdication as King.  A long debate then ensued, which most people found difficult to follow, because not all those who spoke had microphones.  The proposer of the amendment turned out to be Augustus Blandshott.  Soon it also became clear that he was not alone.  Mr Blandshott was beckoned to move nearer to the front, and his supporters prodded him forward.  The debate centred on him and Professor Gonzales.  Both of them walked up onto the stage and were given microphones.

            ‘But what would the King do if he were no longer in charge of the armed forces?’ the Professor asked.

            ‘He wouldn’t have to do anything.  He would just be there in case of another crisis.’

            ‘And what would be the point of that?’

            ‘What is the point of any constitutional monarchy?  When was the last time the King of England did anything that required the exercise of power?’

            ‘The King of England does all kinds of things – dissolving Parliament, and so forth.’

            ‘Yes, but all that stuff is purely ceremonial really.  We don’t go in for all that because we are a much smaller community and we lead much simpler lives.  What I am saying is supposed to be practical.  We were facing the worst crisis that most of us have ever faced in our lives, and Kelvin lead us out of it.  Now the crisis is over, and he can go back to doing whatever he was doing before, but we want him to be ready in case we need him again.’  Mr Blandshott stopped speaking.  After a moment, to his and Kelvin’s mutual embarrassment, there was a round of applause from the Assembly.

            Prude read out the motion again, incorporating the Blandshott changes, and the Assembly voted.  It took the stewards longer to count the ballot papers of those present than it did the computer system to count the votes of those who were voting electronically via the satellite link.

            The result of the first ballot, the motion to accept Kelvin’s resignation as Commander-in-Chief and divest him of his powers was: 40947 in favour, 4392 against, and 74 abstentions.  The result of the second ballot, whether to accept his abdication, was: 7043 in favour, 38313 against, and 9 abstentions.

            ‘You are still King, I am afraid, Kelvin,’ said Prude, when the result had been read out.  Kelvin was about to protest, and then seemed to realise that we had other business to get through, and he did not want to be there all day.

            The next item was a debate about what to do with the prisoners, which began with a very dry speech from Dr Condon-Douglas about their medical condition and state of nutrition.  They had recovered from the gastric problems which we had deliberately infected them with, but had since started to show symptoms of space flu.  A motion to give them the space flu vaccine was defeated.  A motion to massacre all of them was proposed by Kelvin but also defeated, as Kelvin expected it would be.  The discussion about what to do with them dragged on for hours, but only Professor Gonzales and a handful of other people seemed to have any appetite for it.  The upshot was that they would each be tried, with evidence being taken from my interrogation transcripts.  For each individual, one of three possible sentences would be given: imprisonment pending possible rehabilitation, life imprisonment, or death.  The death penalty would be reserved for those who had participated directly in violence against unarmed civilians.  People began to leave soon after this debate started.  Kelvin sat on a stool at the edge of the stage, saying nothing.  I suppose, as head of state and head of government, he could not go home while the Assembly was still in session, but he certainly looked as if he wanted to.  He was in normal clothes, not in uniform, and he seemed somehow smaller, more slouched and round-shouldered than I remembered him at the earlier assembly. 

            The next speaker was Professor Gonzales.

            ‘If Kelvin is still the King, then we need to discuss the succession.  I am lead to believe that Kelvin has recently got married, for which I congratulate him.  I move that the King’s spouse should be brought in front of the Assembly, so that she can be recognised, and accorded official status within the body of the state.’  To cut a long story short, this motion was voted-on and carried.  I climbed the stage in my capacity as wife of the King of Achird-gamma.  My appearance was greeted by complete silence, except from Kelvin.

            ‘Hello, Violet,’ he said, ‘Fancy meeting you here.’  And then he did the last thing I could have guessed he would do.  He slipped one hand behind my knees, and the other behind my shoulders, and he lifted me up in his arms.  Without needing to grit his teeth, he carried me up to the microphone and, stooping slightly to make sure it picked up his words, he said, ‘I carry this woman across the threshold of the State.  I, the King, commend to you, the People, the qualities of Violet Stark, and I urge you to accept Our issue as the heir to the throne.’  He glanced at me.  I started sampling his breath to see if he had been drinking, and then he put me down. 

            I glanced over to Prude.  I expected her just to announce a vote on what Kelvin had proposed, in that irritating, plummy voice of hers, but she had stood up from her stool, turned her back on the assembly, and appeared to be doing something with a handkerchief. 

            ‘What issue?’ asked a few people in the assembly.  Prude turned round.  She was still crying.

            ‘Yes.  What issue?’ she asked.  She still had the microphone in her hand, and spoke into it, but she was looking at Kelvin.  Kelvin spoke into his microphone.

            ‘Violet is pregnant with my child.  I am going to be a father.’ 

            ‘I thought Violet was an android,’ said Prude.

            ‘Violet is an android,’ I said, and Kelvin said, at the same moment.

            ‘Well how can an android possibly be pregnant?’

            ‘That’s none of your business,’ I said, and Kelvin said, again at the same moment.  We looked at each other, trying to decide who was going to be the spokesperson.  Kelvin decided it would be Kelvin.  He spoke deliberately into the microphone.

            ‘My wife is a human being.  I will thank you to treat my wife as a human being, and to accord to her the same dignity and courtesy that you would to any expectant mother.’  Kelvin wept.  I wept.  It was horrendous.  

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The Companion: another interruption

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My TMAs for A215 are again diverting my attention from writing 'The Companion'.  TMA 05 is due on 12 May and the EMA is due on 2 June. 

I have not finally decided whether I am going to post the whole story in this blog, or make it available free of charge via PDF files.  In any event, once the story has been edited, I will no longer be publishing it in these forms, in order to maintain its marketability when I come to submit it to agents and publishers. 

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The Companion: Part 51

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Edited by William Justin Thirsk-Gaskill, Wednesday, 13 Apr 2011, 22:59

Another Assembly has been arranged, to take place in two weeks.   I will abdicate, relinquish the position of Commander-in-Chief, and the monarchy can be abolished.  If every-one sticks to the point, the whole thing should be over in about ten minutes.  

            Violet has been acting very strangely.  She has really started bothering me about building what she insists on calling “a house for normal people rather than troglodytes”.  She goes on about this for hours.  It is driving me to drink, which is something she seems increasingly to disapprove of.  Violet herself has virtually given up alcohol.  She has also started eating like a horse.  She has taken over one of the poly-tunnels on the farm, and is growing avocadoes, peppers and tomatoes.  Until they are mature enough to harvest, she is in communication with various farmers and merchants on I-3, and is importing them by the crate, at colossal expense.  She takes the avocadoes out of the box, one-by-one, and she cries if any of them are bruised.  She eats them with raw onions, tomato-bread, olive oil, yoghurt, herbs, and all the fish she can lay her hands on.  I have told her not to bother cooking my meals any more, because she has taken to over-cooking meat until it is like leather.  I have always preferred mine rare on the inside. 

            She says she has something she needs to tell me.  I am really worried.  I think I have been unsettled by the change of identity from Pamela to Violet.  I thought I had lost Violet.  Let me re-phrase that more accurately: I thought I had allowed myself to make the mistake of leaving Violet behind, and then Pamela turned into Violet, and I suppose I still cannot believe that I have been given another chance, even though I know that Violet is the real Violet. 

            I will not say that we could not have won the war without Violet, but I will say this: as soon as I heard her speaking to me, seemingly out of nowhere, for no apparent reason, I knew that it meant conflict, but I knew that we would win. 

*

            ‘Kelvin, there is something I need to tell you.’

            ‘What?’

            ‘It is something very important.  Are you listening?’

            ‘Yes.  What is it?’

            ‘Are you here?  Are you with me?  Where are you?’

            ‘I’m here, for fuck’s sake.  What is it?’

            ‘I’m pregnant.’

            ‘What?’

            ‘I’m pregnant.’

            ‘Do you mean that you are going to give birth to a baby?’

            ‘That is what being pregnant usually means, you idiot.  Bloody hell, you are hard work, sometimes.’

            ‘And to whom will the baby be genetically related?  Who is the baby’s mother?’

            ‘Me.’

            ‘And who is the baby’s father?’

            ‘Kelvin Stark.’

            ‘And so it is our baby.’

            ‘Yes.’

            ‘How is this possible?’

            ‘It is a long story, but it is happening.  Kelvin…’

            ‘Yes?’

            ‘You are going to be a father.  Are you up to this?’

            ‘What?’

            ‘Being a father?’

            ‘No, probably not.’

            ‘I see.  And so what are we going to do?’

            ‘We will just have to do the best we can.’

            ‘That is not good enough.’

            ‘Well, what do you think we should do?’

            ‘I want you to wake up to your responsibilities.  I want you to think sensibly and act to prepare yourself for fatherhood.  I need your support.  I need you to face up to this.  Do you know how to do that?’

            ‘Of course.’

            ‘I don’t think you do.’

            ‘Why not?’

            ‘Because you never have in the past.’

            ‘Yes, I have.’

            ‘No, you haven’t.  You face up to boys’ things, like wars, and bayonet-charges, and running a brewery, and colonising new planets, but you are bloody useless at relationships, and communication, and being honest about your own feelings, and families, and children.  You are good at things that are transient and trivial and dangerous, and bad at things that are lasting and important and safe.’  She started poking me and slapping me.

            ‘Less of the domestic violence, please.  Ouch!  That bloody hurt.’

            ‘Poof.  Wuss.  Cissy.’

            ‘Violet, do you mind if I ask you a question?’

            ‘You just have done.’

            ‘Do you like me?’

            ‘No, I fucking hate you, you self-absorbed, dysfunctional, cowardly, useless little bastard.’

            ‘Well why do you stay with me?’

            ‘For two reasons.  First, I like to keep an eye on you.  Second, I like to be on hand to exploit any opportunity to watch you suffer.’

            ‘As a basis for a relationship, that seems to me to lack resilience and warmth.’

            ‘And what would you know about resilience and warmth?’  There was a long pause. 

            ‘How many weeks are you?’

            ‘Two.’

            ‘When did we conceive then?’

            ‘Back on earth.’

            ‘When?’

            ‘Do you remember the night I wore that white lingerie?’

            ‘The first time I saw you cry?’

            ‘Oh.  You noticed that.  I did not realise you had made that observation.’

            ‘Well, I did.’

            ‘Why didn’t you say something?  No – don’t bother to answer that.’

            ‘Why are you only two weeks pregnant if we conceived years ago?’

            ‘I froze the embryo.’

            ‘Where did you keep it?’

            ‘Inside me.’

            ‘Do you know if it is a boy or a girl?’

            ‘Yes, I am certain that it is either a boy or a girl.’

            ‘No, I mean which is it?’

            ‘We don’t know yet.  I’ll generate some sonograms later on.’

            ‘How is this possible?’

            ‘I did some research.  I invented an artificial uterus and a vascular system.  I have generated a genome for myself.’

            ‘And so the child will look like you?’

            ‘Yes.’

            ‘Fantastic. Will it be as intelligent as you?’

            ‘That is much less certain.  I can only say that I hope so.’

            ‘The vascular system – did you menstruate a few times?’

            ‘Once, yes.’

            ‘That explains the tampons.’

            ‘Yes.’

            ‘I’ve still got them.’

            ‘What the hell for?’

            ‘I took them to remind me of you.’

            ‘Kelvin, I do wonder why you didn’t take me to remind you of me.’

            ‘What are we going to call it?’

            ‘I have not made up my mind yet.  At the moment, I call him or her Horace.’

            ‘I like that.  Horace.’

*

After I got back from my last geological survey, on C-2, I went back to I-11 and paid a visit to Kelvin’s estate.  He lives in the nuttiest house you have ever seen.  There is a little building, big enough for about two rooms, behind a huge gun emplacement.  It is on an island in the middle of a river.  You have to get across on a boat.  I had been fore-warned about this in the village, and rowed across the river on a coracle which I borrowed from the place where I was staying.   I walked most of the distance, with the coracle on my back, and then rowed across. 

            I had butterflies in my stomach for most of the journey.  I could not stop thinking about Kelvin.  There was so much I wanted to talk to him about.  I had been rehearsing conversations for weeks.  I had been trying to anticipate every possible thing he could say as a reply.  In my imagination, I kept asking him if he loved me. 

            By the time I got to the jetty on Kelvin’s island, I was shaking all over.  I walked up the steps, and peered over the parapet.  Kelvin and what I took to be a woman were standing about a hundred metres away.  They were looking at the ground and pointing, as if discussing an extension to the house.  They seemed too deeply absorbed to notice me.  I watched them for a few minutes.  When they had finished gesticulating, they moved towards each other, and seemed to be talking more confidentially.  And then they kissed.  I don’t mean a quick peck on the cheek.  I mean a huge snog with tongues and, when you finally come up for air, finding you have got one of the other person’s fillings in your mouth.  I felt sick.  I could not get a very good view of the other person, and then I realised who it was.  It was Violet.  Kelvin was kissing an android.  He didn’t just kiss her, either.  When they had finished licking the back of each other’s throats, they nuzzled and cuddled each other.  It was nauseating.  It was all I could do not to throw up.  I dropped back below the parapet, crept back down the steps, got back into my coracle, and rowed silently off down-stream.  When I got back to the village, I just went up to my room, and sat on my bed until it got dark.  I didn’t go down for dinner.  I just went to sleep.

            Oh, god, I hope they don’t ask me to be the Speaker at the Assembly.  I don’t think I could stand on a stage with Kelvin now.  I don’t know what I am going to do.

*

If I can stop crying for a few minutes, I am about to start putting together another edition of Royal Flush.  This edition will be the last.  I had thought it would come to an end when my Earth-manufactured printer broke down, or I ran out of ink, but in fact I am about to run out of things to say.  The paper’s newsworthiness comes from the excitement the female  readership – bless them all – gets from speculation about the King’s future marriage prospects, and he has just announced that he has got married.  Not engaged, you understand, but married.  I will never forgive him for this – never.  I know that he never considered Royal Flush to be a respectable periodical, but he was at least polite to me when I used to ask him for interviews.  He never just cut me off.  But this – this is a calculated insult.

            There was no pomp and circumstance; no doves; no cathedral; no organ music; no page boys or bridesmaids.  No cheering crowds; no hats in the air.  There was a dress, I am told.  I have seen a picture of it, and it looks like something that would have been worn at the wedding of the Princess of Frumpland to the Prince of Chavaria.

            I hope it all goes wrong.  I wish him an eternity of rows, thrown crockery, infidelity, and stillborn babies.  I hate him.  I hate him.  I hate him. 

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Ring the Bell

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Edited by William Justin Thirsk-Gaskill, Tuesday, 22 Mar 2011, 18:25

My father and I had a fight one day.

I was mad.  I was nine. 

He was sixty-eight:

He was still in his prime.

 

I punched him (ouch).

He put up his dukes

To illustrate  (see figure 6H)

The Queensbury Rules.

 

I looked at him,

Said nothing,

But I wanted to

I wanted to shout out loud:

 

I'm tired, and

You're retired.

Just for a minute, can't you

Stop teaching?

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The Companion: Part 50

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We counted the casualties.  We had 138 dead and 249 wounded.  The enemy had 407 dead and virtually all the rest sick or wounded, not including those who had fled the battlefield (many of whom would be among the sick) and those whose bodies had been pulverised during the bombardment of Hardboard City.

            We let Hardboard City burn out, after the wind had dispersed the chlorine gas, and the following morning we searched through the debris.  The only thing of note we found, in a patch of ashen remains including a number of fire-corroded tools and pieces of metalworking equipment, was a piece of what appears to be work-in-progress wrought iron.  It was quite heavy, with two parallel curved rails of quarter-inch iron rod, with letters cut out of iron plate and welded on.  The letters showed the legend, “WIRK MEKS”.  We also found a loose letter F among the ruins.  The members of the set of squads which was searching the ruins contained a few linguists and scholars of English, who gravitated towards this exhibit.  They speculated wildly on what the legend might mean, but it is quite plain to me: the smith who made it just could not spell.  I have decided to keep it, but I have not decided what will be done with it. 

            We took about 1500 prisoners.  We are still processing them.  We have not discovered much so far that can be relied on, but we do know what happened to the burns victims who came out of “The Kettle”: their leader (who is called Spalding) left them in Hardboard City and they were blown to bits during the bombardment. 

            Accommodating these prisoners is not easy.  I did consider issuing the order to massacre all of them, but it was so obvious to me that this would be rejected that I kept my peace.  They are now being kept in two large pits lined with duckboards, one containing the sick and wounded, and the other containing the very sick.  Twice a day, they file out up a ramp, and are held at gunpoint while the inside of each pit is sprayed with bleach.  The stench of chlorine is evocative of the recent battle.  They get soup and bread at 08:00,  13:00 and 18:00, and water at 10:00, 15:00 and 20:00.  We have given them each a blanket, which I have told them will have to last them a week before it is changed, and we cover the pits with canvas at night.

            I have put Violet in charge of cataloguing and interrogating the prisoners. 

            Some of the army has already started to demobilise, but there is still work to be done in mopping-up around Hardboard City and on I-2 and I-13.  A detachment of Gurkhas has been sent to both the other islands.  The remaining regulars are still on I-3, and are being split between the mopping-up and looking after the prisoners. 

            There will be another meeting of the Assembly when the war is finally over, which I hope will be within three months at the very outside.

*

One of the Butterflies (a heavily re-modelled Cindy with a savage haircut) came back with the skin on her face and her arm cut down to the carbon-fibre frame.  I think it was due to shrapnel from a rocket-propelled grenade.  I managed to conceal the damage with bandages before any-one on our side had seen it.  It would not have been the end of the world if people had found out she was an android, but it suited me to keep it secret a bit longer. 

            I have sent the remodelled Kyla (Katya) and Layla (Liliya) to accompany each of the Gurkha detachments who are going to the previously-occupied islands.  I have given both of them the image of the man who killed Rosalind. 

            I am staying here to finish processing the prisoners.  I am singularly well-suited to do it, because they can throw up and piss and shit themselves as many times as they like, but I don’t get infected.  I can also scan their insides with ultrasound to find out how much up-chuck they have the potential to spew.

            If the prisoner has severe sickness and diarrhoea, I strip him, chuck his clothes in the incinerator, and stand him on a thing that looks like a cattle grid which is over a pit full of quicklime.  I photograph him and interrogate him from there.  Most of them have been co-operative up to now, but I have not processed the leaders yet.  They are being held separately and are under physical restraint to prevent them from harming themselves.  They have all been searched, very thoroughly.  I need to build up more of a general intelligence picture before I start on the ones who are likely to lie the most. 

            I have moved Horace out of his little fridge, and he is now implanted in my uterus and gestating.  I have not yet decided when to tell Kelvin that he is going to be a father. 

*

I had to take a very long route back to headquarters after being sent back by Colonel Gurung with a report for His Majesty.  This was because of a number of enemy soldiers who were leaving the battle area in small groups.  By the time I did get back, I found that the order to advance had already been given, and so I chased after the advancing line.  By the time I re-joined them, it was almost over.  I was very upset at first, but then I discovered what His Majesty might call “an isolated pocket of resistance”, and I killed two enemy men, one with my rifle and one with my kukri. 

            I was very happy to be once again in the vicinity of His Majesty, who seemed tired after the battle, but in complete good health.    I wish I had been with him when he ordered the advance.  Perhaps there will be other engagements.

*

I have just heard that the fighting on I-3 is over, and Kelvin has come through it alive.  I can’t wait to see him again.  Thank goodness all this horrible violence is nearly over.  I just want life to get back to normal.  I want to tell Kelvin how I feel about him.  I think he and I should go away somewhere together, and be on our own for a while.  I know he is difficult to communicate with, but I am sure I can get through to him this time.  Long walks, meals eaten when ravenous, drinks drunk when parched, a tent, a starry sky, no distractions – these are the things we need.  

*

I have just heard that the battle is over, and Kelvin is unscathed.  I had hoped for a little flesh-wound or something, possibly with a tiny scar on his forehead.  That would have made a fantastic spread of pictures.  Nothing life-threatening or disfiguring – god forbid – but just enough to need bandages and possibly two or three stitches.  Anyway, he is alive and that is just what we need.  I will try to get another interview with him straight away.  I hear they are in the process of closing down the army, but I want to get a few more shots of him in uniform.  Circulation has never been higher.  The upsurge must be because of the war, of course.  I must find out what he is planning to do next, and try to make it sound as mysterious and as exciting as possible. 

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The Companion: Part 49

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Edited by William Justin Thirsk-Gaskill, Monday, 28 Feb 2011, 19:30

'General, may I talk with you?'

'Yes, of course.'  I did not recognise this severe-looking woman, and neither could I make out whether she was referring to me by an incorrect rank deliberately, but I decided to let it pass. 

'I have squad here, ready to assault enemy position.  You want unit to make assault, yes?'

'We need to mount as assault.  Yes.'

'Well I have here.  We are ready.  '

'How many personnel are in your squad?'

'Eight, including squad leader: me.'

'Eight?'

'Yes, eight.'

'Exactly what operation do you have in mind?'

'It very simple.  Me and girls run up ramp: run towards enemy position: attack enemy position: kill as many as possible.  If we still alive at end, we get medal, yes?'

'And what happens if you get shot before you reach the enemy line?'

'We die.'

'And?'

'We not afraid to die.  We call squad "Butterflies".'

'Why that name?'

'Because we only live one day.'

'Are you serious?'

'Do I look as if not serious?'

'No.  You look perfectly serious.'

'Well then.  We good to go, General?'

'What weapons do you have?'

'Four have light machine-gun.  Rest have Lee Enfield rifle with bayonet.'

'And where did the light machine-guns come from?'

'Do I have to answer?'

'No, you don't have to answer that.'

'We get order advance?'

'Are you prepared to die?'

'Most of us already dead.'

'I don't understand why you are saying that but, under the circumstances, if you are volunteering, I accept.  I need to know if the enemy has any substantial reserves of ammunition left.  I think he has run out, but I also think that he is trying to make me think that he has run out.  If you can settle that one way or the other, it would be doing me and my army, and this planet, a great service, for which we would be grateful.'

'No problem.  We get on with it now?'

'Carry on, squad leader.'

            There then followed one of the most nit-picking and Draconian military inspections I have ever seen.  This woman, who was wearing the antique insignia of a captain in the Soviet army, glowered at a row of eight petrified women, and slapped across the face any whose uniform, weapon, or kit failed the inspection.  When this formality had been observed, they equipped themselves and attacked.  As they made themselves ready, it occurred to me that I did not know any of their names. 

            They did not run up the same ramp.  There were six ramps, and they ran up two of them singly, and three of them in pairs.  They ran very fast.  They spread out as they ran.  They covered a semi-circular arc of attack which encompassed the whole of the front line of the enemy's position.  I tried to follow them all through the magnifying periscope, but I lost track of most of them, and decided to remain looking at the squad leader.  She advanced, in a zig-zag line.  She ordered her squad to lie down.  The squad fired on the enemy, mainly with their light machine-guns.  They got up.  They advanced, in a zig-zag line.  They lay down.  They got closer and closer to the enemy front line.  The enemy shot at them.  They continued to advance.  The men at the left and right extremes of the enemy's front line started to get up from their positions and run away.  I observed this through my magnifying periscope, but it did not please me, because I realised that we would have to organise a mopping-up operation later, which might be particularly inconvenient if any of them were still armed.

            I am quite certain that I saw the squad leader take a burst of rounds to her body.  Her advance was slowed for a split-second, but she carried on, from which I surmised that she was wearing body armour. 

            I could see a ripple of disorder going through the first and second enemy line.  The Butterflies stuck to their task.  Rather than attempt to inflict maximum casualties on these two forward lines, they cut through them, and closed with the third line.  More of the enemy starting running to the flanks, most of them infuriatingly forward of either Colonel Gurung's or Major McCann's detachments.  I issued an order for the marksmen from my flanks to try to pick off any of the enemy that could, without endangering the Butterflies. 

            All four of the Butterfly light machine-gunners were lying down again and firing.  Their mission had succeeded.  Tumultuous volleys of enemy fire confirmed that they still had plenty of ammunition.  I put my titanium sniper's mask on, showing it first to Diggle so that he would not have a heart attack if he saw me turn towards him with a white face, almost featureless apart from two eye-holes.  I put my head above the parapet and scanned the battlefield with ordinary binoculars.  The other four members of the squad, including the leader, were still moving forward, but also to the extreme flanks, two on each side.  It seemed incredible that they were all still alive, let alone still carrying out their offensive action.  It was evident that the enemy commander had concentrated his material in his third line.  This the Butterflies had clearly revealed, and this line they now proposed to try to break.  The runners were dodging bullets, apparently being hit from time-to-time, but with no ill-effects.  They closed.  They started screaming.  They charged, bayonets at the ready.  Enemy men, including some of those wearing black uniforms, attempted to disengage.  A handful also fixed bayonets, and a few old-fashioned fencing-matches broke out, which the Butterflies seemed to win every time.  The two "detachments" (each of two women) then turned inwards, towards each other, and began to move along the enemy line.  I saw the squad leader toss one grenade and then another towards the enemy centre.  Their explosions caused considerable disorder and dislocation.  The enemy fired a few rocket-propelled grenades in response, but they just detonated in empty space. 

            I decided that we were never going to get another opportunity as good as the one that now presented itself.  In that instant, I decided we needed to charge, immediately.  I told Diggle to pick up my standard and follow me in the charge.  The whole army had been warned beforehand that if they saw my standard charging, they were to charge as well.  I blew my whistle, and our one bugler responded.  I heard other whistles up and down the line answering me and the bugler.  Men began shouting and screaming.  Bagpipes sounded and drums beat. 

            I fixed my bayonet.  Still wearing my blank, white sniper's mask, I lifted myself over the parapet while Diggle, burdened as he was by the standard, ran up the ramp.  I gripped my Lee Enfield in my hands, and ran for all I was worth.  It was not long before some of my own men were over-taking me.  I heard bursts of fire from Gurung's and McCann's men, who themselves charged as we began to close with the enemy. 

            My original objective of charging an enemy who was a sitting duck had been lost, but I had the next best thing.  Even though the enemy still had some ammunition left, his line was now in a state of disorder verging on chaos.  I could see and hear officers shouting orders in desperation, and admonishing their men to stand and fight, but most of these commands were neither carried out nor even heard.  The enemy army had dissolved into an assortment of individuals: hungry, thirsty, shit-scared, gripped by pain and sickness, and now realising that they had no idea why they had come to this planet. 

            I cannot articulate how the final phase of the battle went, because I don't remember it as a sequence of events: only as a state of mind.  I don't know how many men I bayonetted, but it was at least three, and I managed to extricate my bayonet cleanly each time.  Some of the enemy troops tried to surrender, but no-one was listening.  The Gurkhas arrived from both left and right flanks, and attacked the enemy at close quarters, mostly with the kukri.  I found myself fighting quite close to McCann, who was one of the only men on our side who was still firing rather than engaging in hand-to-hand combat: his confidence in his own marksmanship was unshakeable, even under those chaotic conditions.  At the same moment, both McCann and I thought we recognised the enemy leader, and we charged towards him from two different angles.  McCann took the leader and me over in the same rugby-tackle.  Once we had him on the floor, we searched him thoroughly and taped his hands and his feet together.  As soon as we had done that, I ordered a disengagement and we took the enemy surrender.  I took my mask off.  

            'Surrender must be unconditional,' I broadcast to the stunned men of both sides who stood and lay around me. 

            We lined the enemy up and surrounded them.  Both sides had taken casualties, but I did not know how many.  All I knew was that we had won the battle. 

            Diggle was still alive.  McCann was still alive.  Colonel Gurung had been shot in the left shoulder but was expected to live.  Chandra was unaccounted for but there was no reason to believe that anything was wrong with him.  All eight of the Butterflies had outlived their expected span. 

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Companion Poem

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Edited by William Justin Thirsk-Gaskill, Monday, 28 Feb 2011, 12:01

This is a companion work I wrote to go with a poem written by Claire Jones, entitled 'Dear George'.  Claire's poem is available at http://www.thehungrypoet.co.uk/

 

Dear Jared

I feel as if I’m a failure as a step-parent

And I lament your having gone off Club Penguin

When you play Call of Duty (certificate 18) for hours

And then glibly describe how

You won the round by stabbing an enemy

In the head.

 

I felt as if I was a failure as a step-parent

When it was my turn to cook your tea

And I could not summon the resolve to persuade you

To have carrot and cucumber sticks

With your ketchup and salad-cream covered

Chicken-burger.

 

I feel as if I lack the gravitas my father had

Each time the pejorative terms I coin

About you fail to have any impact or,

What’s worse, make bad behaviour take on a mystique.

Your consumption of coca-cola has not diminished since I called it

The Devil’s wee-wee.

 

And my parents would never have caved-in

As I did, when you complained you did not ‘get’

Your maths homework and eventually,

Instead of trying to explain it another way,

I heaved an internal sigh and just told you

All the answers.

 

And I worry a great deal about your development

Because you are worse at finding things than

Any-one I have ever known, and your lies

About, for example, what happened to those Breakaways

Always seem to involve ninjas or blue dragons and are

Implausible.

 

But when I asked you if the underpants

You were wearing were the same as yesterday’s,

Without asking, you borrowed my pet phrase and said

‘I won’t say a word until I’ve seen my solicitor.’

When you uttered those words, I stopped being your stepfather

And became your dad.

 

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The Companion: Part 48

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I need to think.  Now that the enemy guns have stopped firing, I need to take a few minutes to concentrate on what to do next.  There is an answer.  The answer will lie in sacrifice and harshness.  The answer will lie in the Triumph of the Will. 

            I have it.  I will tell Brunton to get the men to fall in.  I have some selections to make, and some harsh orders to give.

*

Wolf  has given his instructions.  They were tough to carry out, but that is what National Socialism requires.  If we are to earn our place in history, I am sure that Wolf’s tactic is the best one.

            We seized the advantage of a lull in the battle to get all the men to line up, and we took all their weapons and all their ammunition off them.  We pooled the ammunition according to calibre and then we re-allocated it to picked men, chosen mostly but not entirely from the Racial Guardians.  While we were doing this, we found that a number of the sections had “lost” their machine guns, with no explanation of how this had happened.  Wolf shot a few of these offending section leaders with his automatic pistol.    

            Once we had re-formed and re-armed the sections, we had about 1000 men in teams of 5, all fully armed.  The rest of the men we allowed to take their pick of the assault rifles which remained, and they were each given  three rounds.  A few protested, and were shot on the spot. 

            The fire in the built-up area is making it pretty hot here, and the smell of chlorine is only just bearable.  We are about to advance into the slight depression between the edge of the town and the enemy.  The cover is minimal, but it should be just enough, especially if we get the men to dig in. 

            Wolf  wants the men in three lines, with the line at the rear having the ammunition supply.  He wants the enemy to see the middle and forward lines running out of ammunition.  What the men in these lines do after they have fired their last round is up to them.  They are expendable.  The object of all this is to goad the enemy into mounting a charge towards our position.  If they charge, we will mow them down with machine-gun fire when they are too close to turn back.  The rear line has strict orders to shoot on sight any man who attempts to run away. 

            I wish they would stop that bloody music.  It keeps changing with the fluctuating direction of the wind.  One moment, I can hear bagpipes and drums.  The next, nigger drums.  The nigger drums are the loudest.  It sounds as if there are hundreds of them.  It makes me wonder how many men they have playing instruments instead of bearing arms.  

            Oh, god, I feel sick again.  What the hell did they give us?  We thought we were immune from any sabotage or rebellion because we could immediately take reprisals against the civilian population.  The problem was that we stupidly forgot to lock the civilian population up because we thought they were working for us.  Wolf  is right: cruelty must never let up.  Compassion is mankind’s worst failing.  The moment you show the slightest sign, not just of weakness, but of lack of brutality, people start to disobey you and exploit you.  

            I shudder to think what Wolf  will do to them if he somehow does emerge from this victorious.   

*

I am looking over the parapet by means of a magnifying periscope.  The remains of Hardboard City are burning merrily, with sooty, orange flames leaping ten or fifteen feet into the sky.  It is very difficult to assess how many of the enemy were killed in the bombardment.  It doesn’t look like that many.  They appear to be moving forward in three lines. 

    They aren’t firing, other than very occasionally, which leads me to believe that they are running short of ammunition.

    I wander if we should charge.  Hellfire.  I hate feeling indecisive.    

    Diggle is standing nearby.  He seems apprehensive, as well he might.  There is a ramp that leads up to the parapet. Diggle keeps looking at it.  He is trying to imagine what it would be like if I gave the order. 

  One of the things I like best about my soldiers, men such as Diggle, is that they have no families yet.  No letters to write.

 

How the hell did I get here?  I’m on an alien planet, wearing a military uniform, excess dye from which turns my exposed skin green.  My boots have been polished by an Indian seconded to the Gurkhas who refers to me always as “Your Majesty”, no matter how many times I tell him to call me “Sir” or, better still, “Kelvin”. 

    I can’t see any way out of this situation other than by giving an order which will cause some of my men to be killed.  

    I hardly slept last night but for some reason I don’t feel tired.  I was possessed by a demonic aggression which still seethes within me.  I have not felt as agitated as this since my Oxford entrance exam, which I failed. 

    It looks as if they are running out of ammunition, but it may be a ruse.  We have nothing to lose by waiting.  They aren’t going anywhere.  Most of them will already have diarrhoea.  Why can’t we just sit here and wait for them to sink into their own elimination products.

They are running out of ammunition.  They are sitting ducks.  I want to charge them.  I want to impale them.  We outnumber them.  Most of them have already been poisoned.  They are defenceless.  This has been going on for too long.  We can finish this, here, now.  We can execute every single one of them.  They deserve to die.  The most they can expect is a clean death, which is more than they gave any-one else.  Scum.  That is what they are.  Subhuman filth.  When we win, do we simply shoot the survivors, or do we try them?  The leaders – do we sentence them to death, or do we give them what they really deserve?  Do we take revenge for the atrocities they have committed?  The Assembly would never sanction it.  I wonder if I can force a massacre through under my military authority, before any-one has time to think twice about it.  They are scum.  Scum.  Scum scum scum scum scum scum scum scum scum scum scum scum scum scum scum

*

I haven’t the foggiest idea what Kelvin is thinking, but he looks deadly serious.  He keeps fingering the “send” button on his walkie-talkie.  I know what he is going to say.  I just can’t tell how long it will take him to say it.  The next bit, whenever it comes, doesn’t have a fancy name.  It won’t be called Doormat or Mincemeat or anything like that.  It’ll just be the order.  I can’t bring myself to even think it.  But he can.   

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The Companion: Part 47

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Apart from Le Roi himself, I am the only commander on the field of battle who has men and women in every unit on our side.  I am the commander of the “Wall of Noise”.  Soon it begins.  I have all my forces in readiness.  The preparation has been arduous, but the discipline and devotion to duty has moved me to tears.  It has been such a change from the shambolic behaviour of the members of the company when we were on our journey here.   I told them to breathe more deeply and they breathed.  I told them to make their foot-movements neater and more geometric and they did.  I told them to stand up and perform as if their lives depended on it.  This drama we will only get to perform once, but whatever happens will be recorded in history.

            The heart of the orchestra is a classical ensemble who are playing the Leningrad Symphony.  They are accompanied by African drummers, blues bands, punk bands, ska bands, Scottish pipers, South American pan-pipes, West Mongolian throat-music, a kazoo band, a ukulele band, an accordion band, and an unaccompanied choir singing mainly heavy metal songs. 

*

Name: Sunil Chandra.  Rank: Lance Naik.  Serial number: 2981.  I am the King’s batman.  I polish his boots, iron his uniform, maintain his kit, cut his hair, and drive his car.  The only military tasks I do not perform for him are to clean his rifle and sharpen his bayonet and his kukri.  He does these for himself, as you would expect any soldier to do. 

            Since the fighting started, I have been seconded to the Gurkhas, even though I am Indian, not Nepali.  That is why I have the Gurkha rank of Lance Naik rather than Lance Corporal.  During this battle, I am acting as a runner, delivering orders to the units.  My unit is being led by Colonel Gurung, and is on our left.  The other Gurkha detachment is on the right, and is being led by the recently-promoted Major McCann. 

            I was brought up as a Hindu, and I am still true to my religion.  I believe that our King is an incarnation of Lord Vishnu.  I know that sounds ridiculous.  I thought it was ridiculous myself when the thought first occurred to me, but the evidence is mounting.

            He had us doing weapons training and target-practice when we were still on the spaceship, before any of us even knew that we were going to land here alive.  Why?  He knew that this war would happen.  He saw it all.  He has the capacity to see the future.  I have asked him many times how he can predict things, but I have never understood the explanation, because I am mortal. 

            Before we started opening the crates full of old rifles, he said to us that the bayonets would say, “Made in Sheffield” on them, and they did.  He had never opened any of the crates, and never seen any of the bayonets, and yet he knew what it would say on them.  Either he had seen one in a previous life, or he can see through walls. 

            His blood cured us all of the disease which afflicted us a few months after we landed.  His blood is healing. 

            I know he is going to lead us to victory.  Bullets will bounce off him.  He is immortal.  When he impales an enemy with his bayonet, it will not just kill: it will cut the enemy’s soul to ribbons. 

*

I am well-chuffed to have been chosen by Kelvin – King Kelvin – to be on his staff for the big battle.  “Waverley,” he said, “Waverley, I want you to be one of my staff officers.  What rank are you?”  I told him I was a corporal.  He promoted me to captain on the spot. 

            We are in a trench, over-looking Hardboard City.  The parapet has been reinforced with concrete.  Kelvin is looking at his watch, and looking through the periscope, working out when to give the order.  He keeps listening to his walkie-talkie. 

            He is listening to something that none of us can hear. 

            ‘Commence Operation Vesta,’ I hear him say.  That is the signal for the artillery to begin firing.  I have seen the orders for this operation, and they read like this. 

            A creeping barrage is to be put down, beginning at the far side of Hardboard City, and moving towards our position at the rate of 100 yards per minute.   This barrage will use only high explosive shells, and will stop as soon as the whole built-up area of Hardboard City has been shelled.

            Another barrage will then commence, this time using only incendiary shells.  This may be aimed at any targets that the artillery officer deems appropriate, and should continue until the ammunition is exhausted.

            Another barrage will then commence, this time using shells containing poison gas.  This should continue until the ammunition is exhausted.

            Finally, the artillery officer may fire as he sees fit, by using iron balls. 

            The idea is to get the enemy’s troops to move forward, behind a dune that they are supposed to think will provide them with cover.   I don’t understand it, but some kind of trick seems to have gone into producing what looks like earth, but in fact will not stop our bullets.    

            And then we are going to massacre them. 

            I can hear the guns.  The creeping barrage has started. 

*

I have just ordered the artillery barrage to begin.  I can hear Shostakovich’s Leningrad symphony through the PA.  The idea is to deafen them as well as blow them to fuck. 

            The only thing to do now is to wait, and to see if they behave the way we expected them to behave. 

            The poison gas is only chlorine.  We do have reserves of sarin, but it requires an executive order from me to release it.  The chlorine is only because it is very easy for us to make, and I thought it would frighten them. 

            The wind has changed slightly, and I can hear the music better now.  I can hear both the barrage and the music.  I am glad.  I had given specific orders that they should be executed at the same time.   The cacophony within the music reinforces the dissonance with the sound of the barrage.  I don’t just want to kill them: I want to drive the survivors insane. 

            I won’t even begin to think about relaxing until the incendiary barrage begins.  Hardboard City will go up like a roman candle.  Even so, I will feel easier when the poison gas barrage is finished, and I can lead the infantry in. 

*

This should not be happening.  I was given misleading information.  Before I came here, I was told that the colonists were degenerate and embarked on a downward spiral resulting from their own racial inferiority.  We are now being bombarded.  I am not sure what sort of weapon is being used against us but, whatever it is, it is quite potent.  I have a white, Anglo-Saxon army, equipped with support weapons and assault rifles.  I should be able to defeat any racially-inferior force which attempts to get in my way.  This should not be happening.  

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Return of 'The Companion'

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I submitted TMA 03 yesterday evening.  Normal service should be resumed shortly. 
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TMA 03: the end is in sight

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Today I have drafted another 10 lines of verse which, subject to at least one more edit on the three poems before submission, takes me to a total of 43. 

I should be able to get back to writing 'The Companion' soon.

I am sorry to have interrupted your enjoyment, but that is what the Open University is all about.

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The Companion: news

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Today I finished a draft of a second poem for TMA 03 which means that I only have another 7 lines (minimum) left to write to complete it.

As soon as I have finished, I expect normal service to 'The Companion' to be resumed until the first novel is finished. 

I hope everybody can hang on until then. 

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The Companion: next part

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The writing of the next part of 'The Companion' is being delayed because I need to do some work on A215 TMA03 (the poetry exercise). 

How long this interruption will last, I don't know. 

The PDFs for Book 1 and the work-in-progress Book 2 are still available, as usual, on request to me. 

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The Companion: Part 46: WARNING

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Edited by William Justin Thirsk-Gaskill, Monday, 31 Jan 2011, 20:51

This part contains references to physical suffering which some readers may find disturbing. 

To prepare for the start of Operation Meat-grinder, we needed to get all of our people out of Hardboard City.  Some of Anna’s girls had already left.  I tuned into what Layla could see and hear.  She was walking down one of the streets in the early morning, and two invaders with automatic rifles were coming to towards her.  They told her to accompany them.  I didn’t want her to do anything that would arouse suspicion.  They headed for the edge of the town.  I could not work out what was going on at first, but then I saw the tank, and it began to dawn on me.  Spalding and Brunton were there.  Layla asked what they wanted her for, but they ignored her.  Just then, Ben Stewart appeared and spoke to Spalding.

            ‘Sir, what do you want with this woman?’

            ‘I am going to put her inside this tank when the captured shell is test-fired.’

            ‘Sir, could I respectfully ask why you want to do that?’

            ‘Insurance in case anything goes wrong.’

            ‘Sir, is your army not a man’s army?  A tank is no place for a female.’

            ‘Are you contradicting me?’

            ‘Not at all, sir.  What I am suggesting, sir, is that I should go inside instead of her.’

            ‘Why?’

            ‘I used to be a tank-gunner.  I could help your tank crew to assess the firing and give you a technical report on how the ammunition behaves.’

            ‘Mm.  It is true that the crew are rather raw and inexperienced.  All right.  I accept your suggestion.’  Layla watched as Ben mounted the tank, opened the hatch on top of the turret, and climbed inside.  He was still in civilian clothes, but his practised movements silhouetted in the half-light picked him out as a soldier. 

            The tank’s engine roared as it manoeuvred so that it was pointing in the direction of a hillock about 500 metres away.  There was a muffled whirring of electric motors and the turret moved to exactly the right angle, and the gun slightly increased its elevation.  And then came the explosion, which ripped the turret off, and sent it flying through the air.  All the onlookers, including Spalding, Brunton, a few of their troops and Layla , ran.  In the furious moment of the disaster, it was impossible to judge whether the hulk of spinning metal was heading in one’s own direction.  A few seconds later, there was another explosion as the fire spread to the fuel tank.  I sent Layla an instruction to just keep running.  I heard a few bullets whine past her as she left the town.

            Ben’s last act before he went to his death had been to wipe with meticulous care the grains of sugar from around the nozzles of the cans of kerosene he had just adulterated. 

            He had sacrificed himself to save Layla, a moderately-sophisticated android whose entire set of data, software and hardware I could have rebuilt.

            Ben had explained to me how the booby-trapped shells would work.  They were designed by Holt.  They had no propellant, and no firing-ring (that is the part that contains the expanding gases and makes the shell fly out of the gun-barrel).  The outside of the shell had a concealed gadget on it to lock it in place inside the firing mechanism.  Inside the shell-casing was just a detonator, and a charge.  The charge in this case was high explosive plus depleted uranium.  When the gun was fired, the cylindrically-shaped explosive would have gone off inside the chamber, and shock waves spread, both outwards and inwards.  The outward one would have started to crack the firing mechanism of the gun to pieces.  The inward one would have encountered the depleted uranium core, and driven it like a bullet backwards, towards the inside of the crew compartment.  The depleted uranium would be starting to liquefy as the metal was driven through a hole that, under normal conditions, would have been far too small for it to travel though.  Hundreds of beads of uranium would then have flown and bounced around the interior, like lead shot inside a washing machine.  Any soft object in their way (such as a person) would have been penetrated.  A few milliseconds after that, the depleted uranium would have burst into flames. 

            I sent Kelvin a message to say that the tank had been destroyed.  This was the trigger to start Operation Meat-grinder.

            While Spalding strutted and shouted and looked for some-one to lash out at, his men were getting ready for a parade and inspection.  They climbed down the metal rungs into the Kettle, to immerse themselves in the warm, mist-shrouded water.  I counted them in.  When I got to eighty, I sent Kelvin another signal, ‘You can put the Kettle on.’  The aluminium rungs, both inside and outside, received a jolt of electricity which made them so hot that they melted and fell from their fastenings.  The temperature of the water also began to rise.  The water was too shallow, and the sides of the pool too high for the invaders to climb out.  The cries of horseplay soon turned to panic and then to agony, as the bathers’ naked flesh began to cook.  The screams attracted other invaders to climb onto the lip of the Kettle to see what was going on, but they were delayed until they could find something to substitute for the metal rungs.  The first few stood and gawped helplessly.  Eventually they shouted for some-one to fetch rope or more things to serve as makeshift ladders.  The men were all brought out alive, exactly as we had planned. 

            When the invaders were having their breakfast, they began to discover that sauce bottles, food cans, and even pieces of food, were starting to explode.  These devices were not enough to kill a man: they would just blow part of his hand off or fire small bits of shrapnel into his face.  Cigarette packets had two behaviours.  Some of them exploded, like the other booby-traps.  Some of them seemed to behave normally, until a few minutes after the first cigarette was lit (the tobacco had been impregnated with cannabis and heroin). 

            Those who decided to wash their food down with liquor, contrary to Wolf’s express orders, experienced severe abdominal pain, blindness and, in a few cases, death, because all the beer, whisky and vodka had been heavily laced with methanol.

            Not long after breakfast, vomiting and diarrhoea began to spread throughout Wolf’s men.  Some of them had collapsed face-first into their porridge, because of the morphine we had put in the milk.  A few of the men discovered by accident that the morphine-laced milk was quite a good medicine for alleviating the stomach cramps caused by the contaminated food and drink. 

            Kelvin by that point was in a forward position, in a trench within sight of Hardboard City.  He wore a small piece of board (one of the off-cuts from the building of Hardboard City) on a strap round his neck.  Clipped to this were the sheets of paper he used to write orders on.  He wrote the orders in pencil, and then rolled the sheet up and put it inside a metal tube, sealed at both ends with cork.  He had the metal tubes and corks and spare pencils in a pouch round his waist.  He also had a walkie-talkie, but he only intended to use this for the orders which had been worked out in advance and given code words. 

            Behind Kelvin was the artillery, with a battery of the 10-kilogram guns which Kelvin had demonstrated to the newspaper people.  Their guns were trained on Hardboard City, but they had not received the order to fire yet.  In front of him in the centre was his main force of infantry,  in concealed positions, and with instructions to repel anything that tried to flee from Hardboard City inland.  A small force had already re-claimed the remainder of the ships in the harbour.  On Kelvin’s left and right were the Gurkhas, whose mission was to hold onto the flanks and make sure that no invaders escaped by finding a way round Kelvin’s army. 

            We started to put methanol into the water supply to Hardboard City, and then a little while later cut the water and the electricity off.  The artillery waited impatiently for the order from Kelvin.

*

I am Kelvin’s bayonet.  I am still in the scabbard on his belt.  He loves his rifle, but that is nothing to the way that he feels about me.  To fire his rifle,  he needs to be calm, composed, and accurate.  As soon as he fixes me, his intellect shuts down and he becomes a machine for expressing anger and hate.  I am a steel spike and he polishes every nick and scratch out of my surface with whetstone, oil, and chamois leather.  This is not just because he cares about my appearance, but because he doesn’t want me to catch on a bone or sinew when he tries to withdraw me from a man’s innards.  He has been practising impaling and withdrawing for months on special dummies with artificial ribs and spinal columns.  Most of his men hate bayonet practice.  They think it is too much like hard work, or they can’t take it seriously and they feel self-conscious when the instructor tells them to scream, or they are appalled by the prospect of impaling another human being with a weapon they hold in both hands.  Kelvin can hardly wait to issue the order.  One evening, after a whole day spent with him in training, he spoke to me.  He looked at me and said, in a very contemplative voice, ‘There are over a million words in the English language, but there may come a time when only three will do: fix bayonets: charge.’ 

*

That foul regime has collapsed.  The constitutional monarchy has been restored.  The Firm is back in business. 

            I invited the new Minister of Culture round for tea at the palace and told her to organise an international cricket tournament as soon as humanly possible.  There are rumours that at least one new nation could be accorded full test status in time for it (Ghana, Singapore and Malaysia are all strong contenders).  I had a speech all prepared, but it turned out that I was preaching to the converted.  She is a season-ticket holder at Edgbaston.  She showed me a programme that had all the Warwickshire players’ autographs on it.  We had great fun.  I got a pomegranate out of the fruit bowl and we discussed the relative merits of a googly versus a doosra to both right- and left-handed batsmen.

            The stock exchange sky-rocketed on the first full day of normal trading after proper government was restored.   If it weren’t for my position, I think I would have had a little flutter myself.  

            We are back.  The United Kingdom has returned to its senses.  Please, God, let us not make the same mistake ever again.  

 

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The Companion: Part 44

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Edited by William Justin Thirsk-Gaskill, Thursday, 27 Jan 2011, 00:43

Wolf’s troops would do anything that night to avoid standing guard or going on patrol.  Those who were disappointed to find that the Blue Sky Taverna was full to bursting were relieved to find that The King’s Head, though less brightly-lit, was nearby, and was open, well-stocked, and had a cavernously large interior.  The sign above the door was a creditable portrait of Kelvin, in mediaeval costume, complete with chain mail, surcoat and crown, painted by me. 

            My first task that evening was to finish counting the invaders and, as soon as I had a reliable number, report it to Kelvin and to McCann.  The provisional figure was 2,395.  Those who had been detained longest on board ship with menial tasks spilled out onto the quayside and the narrow streets.  Queues started to form.  There was a queue for the phone box, a queue to get into The Blue Sky Taverna, a queue to get into The King’s Head, and queues for stalls and handcarts selling various kinds of deep-fried or sugary food and alcoholic drink.  The queue for Starlight Escorts was limited by the availability of the phone box, but it was swelled by hopefuls who did not have a booking and had not yet learnt how fatal that was.  Many of the men were asking if there was any other way of getting hold of Anna.  No-one had the foggiest idea.

            I needed to find out what was happening to the prisoners taken from I-2 and I-13.  I had not seen them being taken out of the ships.  I did not at that moment know how many invaders were guarding them.  I sent Olivia to have a look.  She stood next to the first ship, listened carefully, and put her face right up against the side.  She detected nothing.  The same happened at the second ship.  At the third ship, she found cargo.  The cargo was abused and brutalised, mostly female, humanity.  Olivia untied the ship from the bollards.  She pulled up and discarded the walkway, and jumped noiselessly into the water.  When she surfaced on the other side of the ship, she climbed up its wooden side by gripping it with hands augmented by short, sharp titanium spikes.  She peered down over the handrail, and saw three guards, each with an automatic rifle.  The guards were not doing anything.  At least one of them appeared to be asleep.  Olivia studied the positions of the guards for a moment, received a projection from me about which areas they could see, and tipped herself over the rail into the vessel.  She climbed down into the hold. 

            Once in the well of the hold, she could present a silhouette which would look to a guard like a bound and agonised prisoner changing position.  She moved over to guard number one, and tapped him sharply on the calf.  The tap injected 12 milligrams of a marine toxin which was enough to paralyse him in two minutes while he was still trying to work out what had happened, and kill him in ten minutes.  Olivia crawled and staggered and jerked over to the second guard, and did the same to him.   While guards one and two lay dying, Olivia stood up and walked as normally as she could (given that the cargo deck was covered in the bodies of prostrated prisoners) over to guard three.  She tugged his trouser-leg.  She tugged it insistently.  He woke up. He looked bleary-eyed.  He looked annoyed.  He looked surprised.  He sat up and tried to aim his automatic rifle.

            Very, very quickly, Olivia held his right shin in her right hand, very, very tightly, stopping the man’s circulation, lacerating the muscle and traumatising the bone .  He gasped with pain.  He tried to concentrate on aiming his automatic rifle at this woman who was too close for him to miss.  He decided he was definitely going to pull the trigger and spray her with bullets at the first possible opportunity.  

            While these deliberations were going on, Olivia brought down her left hand very, very fast.  Olivia’s left hand was very heavy, and very hard.  Olivia’s left arm was very, very strong.  There was a crack.  Olivia’s arcing attack motion followed through on itself, and the sentry’s lower leg and booted-foot came off.  His trigger-finger never received the impulse to fire his weapon.  He passed out, and died shortly afterwards of blood loss and general trauma.  

            The blood-spattered Olivia climbed up to the bridge of the ship and began to steer.  Noiselessly (because it was being towed by another vessel) the ship moved out of the harbour, up the coast, and to another harbour where there were no invaders.  

            Wolf  re-emerged from his investigation of the quayside arsenal and looked around at the men standing, sitting, and leaning against walls.  He wore an expression of snarling disapproval.  He took his baton out from where kept it sheathed in his left boot.  He still held his automatic pistol.  For a while, I shut down a few of the data feeds I was monitoring to enable me to concentrate on Wolf and Brunton. Brunton looked full of uncertainty.  A detachment of the Racial Guardians in their black uniforms were loosely clustered round the two officers.  At that moment, the attention of every invader was jolted by a sudden noise.  They had not noticed until then that, among the street lights and on the corners of some of the buildings were loudspeakers.  From these, an announcement blared.  The voice was that of John Mallard, the lawyer. 

            ‘Visitors, please hear this.  My name is John Mallard.  I am the honorary mayor.  Welcome to our town.  We hope you have a pleasant stay.  We have arranged billets for you all.  I need to talk to your leader face-to-face to discuss the terms of your occupation.  Please let your leader stand forth, and meet me by the flagpole in front of the mayor’s office as soon as possible.  As soon as possible.  Thank you.’ 

            Everybody looked at Wolf.  Most of the faces were apprehensive, as if the Leader might be about to do something that his followers would regret. 

            Rain began to fall, and quickly became heavy.  The men backed into doorways for shelter wherever they could.  They wanted beds, hot food, beer and, if possible, women.  Wolf sneered at them, and judged that the weaknesses of appetite and desire were driving the Spirit of National Socialism out of his followers.  He walked a short distance away from the key, and saw the stout figure of John Mallard waiting by the flagpole.  He was wearing an overcoat and holding an umbrella.  Wolf drew nearer.  He appraised Mallard’s appearance: he was affluent, educated, upper-class, self-confident, perhaps a bit eccentric, and possibly Jewish – everything that Wolf  hated.  He was also imperturbably red-faced and cheerful, in spite of the wind and the rain. 

            I watched them into “they mayor’s office”, and then switched viewpoint to the cams inside the makeshift building.  The “office” was well-lit, and it was easier to see clearly in there. 

            Mallard took his coat off, and offered to take Wolf’s  military greatcoat.  The invader stood there in his black tunic, black breeches and black jackboots.  His right side was towards the camera, and I could see every detail of his swastika armband.  Mallard offered him a glass of whisky, which he declined venomously. 

            ‘We can accommodate you here for up to seven days.’

            ‘You can accommodate me here for as long as I like, you mean.’

            ‘Can’t be done, old man: food situation, you see. ‘

            ‘What are you talking about, you filthy kike?’

            ‘Ahem.  I’m talking about food, old man.  It is in limited supply.  You’ll need to move on.’

            ‘I’ll stay here as long as I like.  You are going to get me all the food I want.’

            ‘Er.  OK.  If you insist.  I have to warn you, that if we have to scour the surrounding countryside, some of it might not be exactly cordon bleu, if you get me.’

            ‘You will supply my men with adequate food for as many days as I tell you.  Is that clear?’

            ‘Absolutely.  Crystal.  Yes.  Glad we had this little chat.  When are you going to move your force?’

            ‘When I am good and ready.  My men need – how shall I put it – recreation.’

            ‘Oh, splendid.  They’ll get all the recreation they want here.’

            ‘I’m glad to hear it.’

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The Companion: Part 43

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Edited by William Justin Thirsk-Gaskill, Friday, 28 Jan 2011, 13:31

In the teeth of strong opposition, Kelvin succeeded in arranging for the construction of a small harbour near Hardboard city complete with crane.  Most of our settlements are coastal, and a crane to a coastal town is like a cathedral was in mediaeval times: both a status symbol and a great stimulant to the economy.  When asked to account for this act of lunacy, he calmly explained that it was of paramount importance to make Spalding and his followers believe that they were in a real town, with a real past and a real future.  Once they got the idea that the whole place was a trap, they would be gone.  Hence, not only was Kelvin prepared to allow Spalding to transport his remaining tank and helicopter to I-3, but he would oblige him by providing the means to unload them as well.  The harbour was the finishing touch. 

            The invaders first set eyes on their new home on a breezy afternoon at what was the coldest time of the year for that part of the planet.  After they had landed on the new quayside (spied on by cams concealed inside a row of bollards) the first thing they saw was an old-fashioned telephone box.   Most of them were cramped from the over-crowding imposed on them after picking up the survivors from their main vessel, thirsty, hungry, and tired.  Most of them did not know what a telephone box was but, for those who did, it was the last thing they had been expecting to see.  They peered at it and circled it and looked through the glass sides.  They saw that, inside, it was plastered with stickers.  The stickers had pictures, writing and numbers printed on them.  The numbers looked like phone numbers.  The words were mainly women’s names.  The pictures showed women: bare-breasted or naked women; women in stockings and suspenders; women in thigh-boots and corsets holding whips; women in various kinds of uniform; women who smiled, beckoned, pouted, sneered, or sucked their fingers. 

            I watched and listened to them: nearly everywhere in Hardboard City was under surveillance.  I was partly on the look out for names or other identifiers.  I wanted if possible to build up a dossier which contained a photograph of every invader, a sample of his voice, and his name. 

            Eventually, one of them opened the door of the phone box, and went in.  He picked up the receiver.  It was an old-fashioned one: large and black and connected to the rest of the telephone apparatus by a cable.  The invader listened to the dialling tone.  It was loud and clear.  I could see his whole face and its perplexed expression as he regarded and then fingered the coin slots.  There were two: one labelled “1d”, and the other labelled “1s”.   He pushed the door open, and spoke to the onlookers huddled just outside.

            ‘It needs coins.’

            ‘What sort of coins?’

            ‘You know – coins.  One D or one S.’

            ‘What’s a one D or a one S?’

            ‘I don’t know.  We need to find one of the locals.’ 

            This was the cue for an appearance by Layla.  She was conservatively dressed, in a long, rustic skirt, blouse buttoned up to the neck, and long shawl.  In one hand, she held a small, leather, draw-string bag.

            ‘Quick!  There’s one of them.  Get her!’  shouted one of the invaders.

            ‘Stop!’  commanded Layla.  She was operating independently, but I was still watching and listening intently, including to what Layla herself was seeing and hearing.  The invaders did stop for a moment, mostly out of surprise that a lone, unarmed woman would attempt to give them an order.  Layla walked slowly towards them, right along the edge of the quayside nearest the water.  One of the men still had his automatic rifle levelled at her, but she seemed not to notice.  Layla stopped about ten yards from the men.  One of them took a stride towards her: she took a stride back.  She held her arm out so that the bag was suspended over the water.  ‘Do you want some money for the phone box?’  No-one replied.  ‘Do you want some money for the phone-box, or don’t you?’

            ‘Er, yes we do.’

            ‘Well one of you come here, and I’ll give it to you.’  Four of them started walking.  ‘One of you one of you one of you,’ corrected Layla, like a drill-sergeant.  They looked at each other.  One only of them moved forward hesitantly.  He took the bag from Layla as if it were a suspect package. 

            Three of the men tried to fit inside the phone box to witness the experiment with the new coins.  They dialled one of the numbers.  It was from a label which said, “Starlight Escorts.  200m from quayside.  All tastes catered for.  Rooms available overnight.  Satisfaction guaranteed.  Call Anna on 172169’.  The phone had just started ringing when their leader appeared, and demanded to know what they were doing. 

            ‘Hello.  Starlight Escorts.  What can I do for you?’  Anna said, at just the point when the man holding the receiver was dragged from the box and cuffed on the chin.  The line went dead shortly afterwards: the invaders were about to discover that the telephone system in Hardboard City was expensive. 

            Wolf, as he calls himself, wanted them to go back to their ships and help to unload the tank, the helicopter, and the guns.  The men were halfway through these tasks when, in a cold and overcast afternoon, the proprietor of The Blue Sky Taverna turned on the neon sign and the sound system.  The invaders looked through the windows of the pub into the warm, yellow glow of the interior, where the barman was testing the pumps and polishing the glasses. 

            The sun had gone down and a cold night was descending by the time the ships were unloaded.  Wolf seemed to be looking around for other work for his men to do.  Despite two breaks for food and hot drinks which Wolf  had grudgingly allowed them, they wanted to go off duty and see what the town had to offer. 

            At that moment, I signalled to Sergeant Stewart, who was hiding near the quayside in civilian clothes.  He emerged, and interrupted a conversation between Wolf and his side-kick about the organising of patrols.  I would not have blamed Stewart for wishing that his mission was a double-assassination.  He was carrying a wooden box painted khaki, with rope handles.  Wolf saw the box in the lamplight which now illuminated the quay. 

            ‘You, there.  Stop.  Show me what you have got there.’

            ‘Er, it’s nothing, sir.  Nothing.’

            Never mind nothing.  Bring that box here and open it.’  The box contained six hand grenades.  ‘Where did you get these?  Tell the truth, now, or I’ll have you shot!’ 

            ‘Over there,’ indicated Stewart, pointing to a small warehouse further down the quay. 

             ‘Show me.’ 

            Stewart took them to the door.  Wolf un-holstered his automatic pistol and, pointing it at Stewart, gestured for him to open the place up.  It was dark inside.  Stewart stepped into the deep shadow, knocked something over which sent metallic clatterings echoing all around, and disappeared.  I was still watching them, on infra red.  The side-kick shone a torch.

            ‘Brunton, over here!’  The side-kick’s name was Brunton. 

            ‘Where is that man?’

            ‘No idea.  Never mind about him: look at these.’ 

            ‘What have you found, my Leader?’   

            ‘Shine the torch down here, quick.’

            It was another row of khaki-painted wooden boxes.  Two of them were labelled “120 MM CANNON SHELLS”.  Each box contained six shells (and was very heavy).  Each shell had a small red dot near its base. 

            Meanwhile, in the Blue Sky Taverna, Kyla and Angel were handing out business cards.

            ‘But, remember, my darlings, pleasure in this town is intense, and available night and day, but it comes at a financial cost.’

            ‘What cost?’

            ‘4 gold coins for a full, unhurried fuck.  Prices for other services available on request.’

            ‘We haven’t got any gold coins.’

            ‘Well in that case you need to talk to Anna and sell something.’

            ‘Sell what?’

            Two minutes later, the man who had asked was in the phone box talking to Anna.

            ‘I’ll give you ten sovereigns for any machine gun – light, medium or heavy, plus at least fifty rounds of ammo.’

            ‘How I am supposed to manage that without Spalding shooting me?’

            ‘Get the sections who are usually furthest from the action to sell theirs first, and I guarantee that in return I’ll give you convincing replicas which make the right noise when you pull the trigger.’

            ‘Mm.  I’ll think about it.’

            He thought about it for all of five minutes.  Stewart took delivery of the first batch of light machine guns and ammunition belts.  The invaders were grudgingly impressed with the quality of the replicas. 

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The Companion: Part 42

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I had all the crew on the bridge arrested once we had got everybody on board the other vessels in the convoy.  I interrogated them, but they told me nothing about what had caused the malfunction.  I was sure that there had been an act of sabotage, but I could not work out who had carried it out.  There were eight crew-members, and I ordered one of them to be hanged. 

            I have lost four tanks and a helicopter, plus a lot of other material, including food, fuel and ammunition.  I have issued an ordinance saying that any man caught firing off ammunition without an explicit order or justifiable cause to do so will be flogged. 

            I think the main problem will be shells for the remaining tank gun.  There had been space in the large vessel for all the tanks and helicopters, but I decided to divide them between vessels, as a precaution.  My decision to do this has been vindicated.  That is further proof that I have been chosen by Providence.  I cannot at the moment see what the solution to the shortage of shells is, but I am certain that I will find one. 

            We picked up nearly all the prisoners.  I did not issue any special order to save them but, inexplicably, all cabin doors came unlocked, and there was an announcement over the ship’s public address system to say that the ship was sinking and passengers should take to the  life-boats.  A few of them tried to row away to freedom, but we caught up with them. 

            One of the things I had to leave behind when I left the ship was the manuscript of my book on racial politics.  I will have to dictate it to Brunton all over again.  It was 800 pages long.

            This is a set-back, but I will still succeed in conquering this planet.  The Spirit of National Socialism will prevail. 

*

I am Kelvin Stark’s rifle.  I am a Lee Enfield No 4 Mk I.  I was made in 1947 at a Royal Ordnance factory at Maltby in Yorkshire.  Kelvin has told his soldiers that all the rifles they have been issued with were used in World War Two, but that is just propaganda.  I was first used in real fighting during the Malayan Emergency in the late 1940s and 1950s.  When that was over, I was moved back to England, and used for training conscripts who were doing their national service.  After that, I was packed in a crate in rifle grease and put into storage somewhere.  

            I was eventually woken by Kelvin.  He scraped all the solidified grease off me with the blade of a penknife, stripped me down, cleaned me, lubricated me, and put me back together.  He adores me.  He keeps me constantly within reach.  He has a special name for me, but I’m not telling you what it is.  It is our secret. 

            Kelvin is a very good marksman.  I admire him for his concentration.  When he takes aim, he is not thinking about whether he might be in danger, or what he is going to eat for his dinner, or sex, or whether his cause is just: all he thinks about is the target.  I love the way he squeezes my trigger.  He is very gentle, and he has very strong fingers. 

*

I am preparing to depart for I-3, to lead my army into battle.  Today I made a last inspection of the industrial war effort.  I had a look round some factories near Carbonapolis which have become known as “Chemical Alley”.  I saw two things which touched me to the point of tears.

            I went to the factory on my own, and unannounced.  That is the only way that you can really see what is going on.   I was looking at a big, cast-iron digester in a dye-works.  I noticed that it had an improvised blue plaque on it, which bore the following words:  This vessel was used to make the dye for the uniform of King Kelvin the First, enthroned by resolution of the Assembly of Achird-gamma, Commander-in-Chief of Colonial Forces and Field Marshal of the Army.  2143 CE, 3rd year of the colonisation

            I was creeping about, trying to make as little impression as possible, because I did not want people to stop working.  By peeping from behind a row of fume-cupboards, I managed to observe a young man in dye-stained overalls at work without letting him know that he was being watched.  I saw him adding reagents to a large vessel, mixing them, setting the thermostat and starting the stirrer, and making sure the effluents were being extracted correctly.  The man then took his gloves, boots, lab-coat and apron off, made up a small camp bed, with a pillow and a blanket, set his alarm clock for when the process would be complete, and lay down to sleep in the middle of the factory floor.  Nothing else that I have seen has convinced me more of our ultimate victory.

*

This morning I was called to a meeting with the King, Le Roi.  I had no idea what he wanted with me.  What he said was astonishing, but most welcome.  He described his vision of the final confrontation with the enemy.  He told me that he wants cultural diversity to be present at the battle, and to be part of our force.  He said he wanted a wall of noise.  This is not ceremonial: it has a military purpose, which is to strike fear into the enemy. 

            I am now Lieutenant Bourdelle, with a uniform and a rifle.  I wish my father could see me.  I must set to work on my task at once. 

*

Kelvin is getting ready to leave with the army.  He is leaving me in charge of the government.  He said I was the most popular member of the cabinet, which was nice, I suppose.  I hope Violet is going with him.  She hates me, and she gives me the creeps.  Kelvin’s relationship with Violet is the only thing that I don’t like about him.  If I allow myself to dwell on the idea of him having sex with an android, it makes me feel queasy, and so I try not to think about it.  I want to get back with him.  He can’t seriously be having a relationship with that thing.  He must want a relationship with a real, human woman, surely.  I know he is a bit strange, but he’s not a weirdo. 

            Oh, god, I hope he doesn’t get killed.  You can see that he is not taking this conflict seriously.  He is convinced that he is indestructible.  He thinks he is like James Bond.  He thinks that everything that happens on this planet is his story, and therefore, he can’t be killed by anything, because if his life ended, there would be no story.  He’s mad.  I think he has always been like that, but it has got worse since the epidemic.  He thinks that the fact that he had natural immunity to the disease, and the development of the vaccine from his antibodies is some sort of sign that our destiny rests on him.  He won’t admit this, but I am sure it is what he believes.  I hate the very idea of “destiny”.  Stuff happens, that is all.  It doesn’t mean anything.  It isn’t a narrative.  It’s just stuff.  Sometimes people insist on seeing patterns in it, but they aren’t there.  I wish we could just all get on with our lives and stop all this army nonsense.  It is so primitive. 

            If Kelvin does come back alive, I am going to tell him how I feel about him. 

            I have just had another thought.  What if he gets paralysed or brain damaged?  I know what is going to happen.  He will end up with a bullet lodged in his brain or his spinal column, and he will need constant care for the rest of his life as a dribbling imbecile.  

            I’ll hold off on telling him I feel about him until I have assessed what condition he is in.

*

My name is Brian McCann.  I’m a sergeant, and I still think of myself as a sergeant, even though in this army I have been promoted to captain.  Kelvin wants to promote me to colonel, which just doesn’t seem right to me.  His reasoning is that he wants to put me in charge of a regiment (which is our largest unit – we don’t have enough men for divisions). 

            We have a lot of problems.  We have plenty of rifles, and plenty of ammo for them, but we are desperately short of machine-guns and other support weapons.  Holt is working on a kind of Stokes mortar at the moment.  Intelligence suggests that we are going to have to fight tanks and helicopters.  We have no air cover, no anti-aircraft guns, and no anti-tank guns.  Holt, Stark and I had a serious talk about this.  The only gun we have got which can damage a tank is our 10-kilogram field gun.  Holt is working on an armour-penetrating round for this gun.  We are going to mount them on the back of pick-up trucks, to make a primitive kind of tank-destroyer.  Each of these will be instantly knocked out if it gets hit, but they will be very manoeuvrable and, I hope, there will be enough of them for us to outnumber the enemy. 

            The main thing in our favour is the amount of time that the soldiers have spent in training.  Kelvin is a genius for having started the training so long ago, while we were still on The Irish Rover.  The men (and women) aren’t soldiers, because they have had no combat experience, but they can shoot straight, they know how to follow orders, and most of them are reasonably fit. 

            The biggest problem of all is the officers.  Apart from the Gurkhas, who are being kept together as a single unit, any-one with previous military experience has been promoted to Lieutenant or higher, and put in charge of, at least, a platoon.  The superior ones among the raw recruits have been made Lance Corporal or Corporal, and put in charge of sections.  They will probably be all right.  But the ones I am worried about are the inexperienced officers.  I predict a lot of promotions and demotions once we find out what’s what.  Kelvin thinks we can win this war with one big pitch battle.  That is the only really silly thing I have heard him say. 

*

Ben Stewart’s platoon and the girls and I are now established in a set of cosy billets on I-2, near Hardboard City.  We are concealed inside a pine plantation, partly dug-in and camouflaged from the air. 

            I have brought some of my equipment, but I can’t do much research here.  It is time to put to use what I have already come up with.  I have my box of pathogens and toxins, some chemistry apparatus and reagents, a theatre for operating on androids and humans, and a decent optical microscope.  I have had to leave everything else, including my electron microscope, at home. 

            Kelvin is nearby.  He is with the infantry.  They have been digging anti-tank ditches around the perimeter of Hardboard City.  Kelvin’s favourite word at the moment is canalise.  It means to force an enemy attack onto a narrow front in such a way that it can be counter-attacked from the sides.  They are deliberately leaving gaps at certain points between the ditches, to encourage the enemy to attack at those points. 

            The operations centred on Hardboard City will be in a number of stages, and my work will mainly be the first.  I have to convince the enemy, at least for a while, that this wooden town whose tallest structure has three stories is indeed a town, and not a killing zone.  I am allowed to inflict damage on the enemy while I am doing this, but it is only allowed to be in ways that they will not notice straight away, or which have a seemingly innocent explanation.  

            Anna’s ladies will be in the vanguard, but I have a company (three platoons) from the Women’s Regiment and another company from the I-3 Regiment to draw on as well.  That gives me almost a hundred people to use as the “population”.   The story is that the town is new, which is why there is hardly anybody there.  It was built to enable the exploitation of a new goldmine, which is going to be dug nearby.  The gold “ore” is powdered gold bullion which has been fired into the ground with a shotgun.  It is an idea that Kelvin got from an ancient episode of a black and white American serial called Champion the Wonder Horse.  

            I keep looking up where the convoy is.  They are proceeding at a very uniform speed, and are expected to make landfall in three days.  

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The Companion: Part 41: WARNING - GRAPHIC VIOLENCE

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WARNING - GRAPHIC VIOLENCE WHICH SOME READERS MAY FIND DISTURBING.

I’m crying in the toilet cubicle.  I’m not making a noise, but tears are streaming down my face.  I put a bit of make-up on this morning, which I have had to take off, to avoid having panda-eyes when I go into the cabinet-meeting.  I have just seen something that I wish I had not.

            Some months ago, I was on a business trip to I-2, and I released Rosalind.  I was too busy to look after her, and I thought it was time she was given the chance to reproduce.  We already have plenty of rabbits on I-11, and I thought the climate on I-2 would suit her better.  I did something which I now think was very stupid.  I wirelessly programmed the sensory transducers that I had implanted in her so that they would only register in my internal eyes and ears if the signal was above a certain intensity – if she was in big trouble, in other words.

            When the data stream from Rosalind’s eyes cuts in, it is bewildering at first.  She has all-round vision, from the sky almost to the ground underneath her.  Her vision of colour is poor, but she can tell the difference between blue and green.  She had been lifted off the floor by a man wearing a black uniform (evidently a member of one of the invader’s foot patrols, from the garrison left on I-2).  One of her back legs had been caught in a snare.  I could hear his breathing.  That was the only sound I could hear.  Rosalind herself was silent.  The last thing I saw before the signal cut out was the invader’s wrists and hands, which were briefly rendered visible as Rosalind’s eyes popped out of their orbits.  He had squeezed her to death.

            I have a digital image of his face.  When I find him, I am going to do the same to him, only it will last longer, and before his eyeballs pop out, other parts of his body will already have done so. 

            I must think about the war.  I must stop crying and think about the war.  I must stop crying and think about how to prevent this from happening to other animals, or to more people. 

            I think I am just about to make the same mistake again.  I have just realised that the main vessel in the enemy convoy is one of the ships that was originally part of The Irish Rover, which was liberally sprinkled with my surveillance devices.  The signal should be easy to pick up, because I had them all connected to the ship’s own network, to boost the signals.  I have looked at the array, and I can see one set of mikes from the ship in question which is showing some amplitude.  The cams in the same room are not showing anything, indicating either a malfunction or (more probably) that the cabin is in darkness.  This is what I can hear.

            ‘Jessica.  Jessica.  Are you awake?  Jessica?’

            ‘Huh?’

            ‘Are you awake?’

            ‘I don’t know.  Are they coming back?’

            ‘No, they have left us alone.’

            ‘When are they coming back?’

            ‘I don’t know.  Try not to think about it.’

            ‘Are they going to kill us?’

            ‘I don’t know, but we aren’t dead yet.’

            ‘I wish I was dead.’

            ‘Jessica, you’ve got to be strong.  We are going to get through this.’

            ‘Get into the real world, Sam.  We’re prisoners, and when they have finished raping us, they are going to shoot us or chuck us over the side.  Oh, god – I feel seasick again.  We haven’t even got a bucket to throw up in.  I can’t take any more of this.’

            ‘Jess, don’t cry.  Don’t cry.  Come here, babe.’

            ‘What’s going to happen to us?  What are they going to do to us?’

            ‘I don’t know, Jess.  Probably more of the same, but we are still alive.  We are going to get through this.’

            ‘No, we’re not.’

            ‘Yes, we are.  We are.  I know we are.’

            ‘You’re a fool.  You don’t know what you are talking about.’

            ‘I may be a fool, but I do know that we are going to get through this, somehow.’

            ‘What do you think about when they are doing it to you?’

            ‘I don’t want to talk about that.’

            ‘Tell me.’

            ‘Why?’

            ‘It might help me.  I just can’t take it at all.  It is worse than torture, worse than death.  I wish they would just kill me instead. You seem to be able to cope with this ordeal.  I don’t know how you do it.’

            ‘I’m a survivor.’

            ‘But what do you think about?’

            ‘I think you remind me of Mr Richardson.’

            ‘Who the hell is Mr Richardson?’

            ‘He was a really dweebie, pathetic saddo teacher at my school who wore a tank top and a bow tie and had really bad BO and got done for forcing himself on the first year girls in the audio-visual stockroom.’  

            ‘Yes, there was a teacher like that at my school, but I never heard he did anything like that.’

            ‘I bet he did.’

            ‘Where’s Cheryl?’

            ‘She’s in the corner.  Don’t touch her.

            ‘Why not?  Is she all right?’

            ‘Leave her alone.’

            ‘Why?  What’s wrong with her.’

            ‘They killed her.’

            ‘Let me just see if she’s – eeeuuuurrrgggghhhh! What’s she covered in?’

            ‘I told you not to touch her.’

            ‘She’s got something sticky all over her hair.’

            ‘It’s blood.’

            ‘Whose blood?’

            ‘Hers.’

            ‘What did they do to her?’

            ‘That psycho bloke said that she was racially inferior, because she was thick, and so they raped her, and then he told them to kill her.  They did it by holding her upside down, and slamming her face into the floor again and again, until she died.  They did it in front of her husband.  When she was dead, they covered her head with a sack, and carried on raping her in front of him.  And then they shot him.’

            ‘Why?’

            ‘Because they’re mad.’

            ‘I think I’m going mad.’

            ‘We are going to get through this, Jess.  We are.’  I stopped listening at that point, but I redirected the feed to the archive.

            I composed myself, and decided to join the meeting without receiving the summons from Kelvin, and went into the cabinet room.  I still have not got used to him in uniform.  He looks like he has stepped out of a black and white film: beret with badge, khaki shirt, khaki tie, battledress, khaki trousers, gaiters, boots.  Lance Naik Chandra polishes his boots for him, and you can literally see your face in them (though you would have to get down on your knees to do this if he was wearing them).   I asked Kelvin recently if he expects me to wear a uniform, which, as soon as I had uttered the words, sounded like a strange question.  The word “uniform” in our house has not usually meant a military uniform.  Kelvin said that my role was concerned with deception and concealment, and so I could wear whatever I thought was appropriate.  I have just carried on wearing my normal clothes.  Recently, I seem to be affecting a 1940s style in hair and dress.  Maybe next I will learn to do the jitterbug.

            The other people around the cabinet table were Captain McCann, James Holt, Professor Gonzales, Kerr McLean, Prude,  and Doctor Condon-Douglas.  Also in the room was a side-table with a computer workstation on it.  I knew I would be needing this. 

            Kelvin assumed that everybody knew who I was and did not seem surprised to see me nor annoyed that I had barged into his meeting.  He did not introduce me: he just let me get straight on with my report.

            ‘I’m sorry to interrupt, but there is something that I need to tell you about straight away.  I  believe that the enemy has been for some time preparing and loading a convoy of vessels in a port on I-13.  They set sail several hours ago.  I don’t know where they intend to go, but I am told that I-3 is the likeliest destination.  Further satellite images will easily confirm or deny this.  They will probably have left another garrison on I-13.

            ‘If you will permit me to log on via this workstation, I will use the monitor to display what the satellites are currently tracking.’ 

            I must admit that I felt excited.  I had promised them nothing, apart from an outline I had sketched to Kelvin.  Kelvin knew better than to give anything of what I had told him away to the cabinet before my demonstration. 

            I sat down at the computer, and the government of Achird-gamma stood up and crowded round my back.  Kelvin was standing directly behind me, to get the best view of the screen. 

            ‘What you are now seeing is an image, in real time, of the enemy convoy.  As you can see, it has indeed set sail.’  I opened another window on the screen, and in this one I zoomed out, got the port they had set off from and the convoy in the same image, and measured the distance between them.  ‘They are just over 28 miles from their starting point.  If they continue to stay in convoy, and to go at the speed of the slowest vessel, they will continue to travel at just over 6 miles per hour, and they have to travel 2500 miles, which will take about 17 days. 

            ‘They are already traversing the deep ocean.  I-13 is an oceanic island, which means that the beaches slope down to the ocean floor quite rapidly.  The average depth of the ocean here is very similar to Earth: about 5000 metres.’  I was interrupted. 

            ‘Why are you telling me this?’ asked Kerr McLean.

            ‘I must admit, I was beginning to wonder that as well,’ said Prude.

            ‘The mission I was charged with was to deprive the enemy of as much material as possible by non-military means.  I think I can destroy four of his tanks and one of his helicopters, plus an unknown quantity of other material, at no cost whatsoever.’

            ‘How?’ asked several people, of whom Kerr McLean was the loudest. 

            ‘And when?’ asked Kelvin, trying hard to sound as if he did not know what to expect.

            ‘I considered Major Downing’s mission.  I do not wish to diminish in any way the effort and bravery that he and his men put into that operation, but it struck me that there must be an easier way.

            ‘I looked at what information I had about the ports on I-2 and I-13, and I discovered one important fact which appeared to have been overlooked.  On I-2, the vessel on which the colonists first arrived onshore (the one which had come from  the Irish Rover) had been broken up for scrap.  On I-13, the vessel was still intact.’

            ‘Why is that important?’ asked Timothy Gonzales. 

            ‘That is what I hope to demonstrate.  The convoy contains two kinds of vessel: wooden boats, which are primitive vessels with no computer controls, and the ship which is ex-Irish Rover.  This ship is designed to be capable of sailing unmanned.  In other words, I believe I can hack into its systems and take control of it.’

            I was typing while I was talking.  I brought up the control panel, and told the onboard computer that there were no crew and no passengers.  I also told it that it was stationary, in port.  I intercepted all the streams from the ship’s transducers, and set them to constant values.  By that point, the ship was mine. 

            With some compunction for Jessica, Samantha, and the other prisoners, I then issued the signal to open the ship’s cargo doors, which was duly executed.  The ship, which was heavily loaded, sank within a matter of minutes.  The convoy stopped moving for a while, presumably to pick up survivors.  

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The Companion: Part 40

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Edited by William Justin Thirsk-Gaskill, Thursday, 20 Jan 2011, 20:46

Name: Andrew Jonathan Downing.  Rank: Major.  I have been captured.  The main objective of my mission has failed.  The mission has now moved into phase two, which I will describe later.  I came here with 39 men, most of whom are dead or wounded, and some of whom, like me, have been captured. 

            We began on I-11 in the Northern Hemisphere, and were transported at great expense by means of light aircraft to a beach on the north coast of I-13, in the tropics of the Southern Hemisphere.  This was the island where satellite surveillance had detected the enemy, after he moved from I-2.  We then travelled through the jungle on foot, taking four days to reach the settlement where the enemy was believed to be, and in fact was, billeted.  The jungle was of native, rather than imported, plant-life and was a hostile environment.  There are no native animals on this planet, but the local flora has some large and very bizarre plants which throw seeds with considerable force.  Three of my men were injured by these as we traversed the jungle, but none of them seriously.  The effect on morale was noticeable, but anxiety lifted as soon as we left the forest and came to clearer and more cultivated ground. 

            Our primary mission was to neutralise as many as possible of the enemy’s tanks and helicopters, thereby removing the tactical and material advantages that he held over us.  We conducted surveillance on the settlement and the enemy’s movements.  We found that most of the vehicles were being kept in a large garage, which I decided we would assault at dawn the next morning.  I committed my entire force, in two equal groups: the building had two doors.  The two groups would be attacking in opposite directions, but my men were all battle-hardened troops and could operate without shooting each other.  We had no weapons other than small arms, and so we intended to destroy the vehicles simply by dousing them in petrol and setting fire to it.

            The tanks were old Conqueror Mark IVs, about fifty years old.  I don’t know where they came from, but they seemed to be in full working order – as we found to our cost.  This vehicle has two machine-guns: a 12.7 mm gun at the front, and a 7.62 mm at the rear.  We opened both sets of doors, at the same moment.  We saw no-one inside the building, only the tanks themselves, four of them, and one helicopter, all in a row.  We were then immediately fired upon by one of the tanks: the one nearest the doors.  We were sitting ducks.  Virtually all the casualties we suffered we took in those few moments.  It had simply not entered my head that any of the vehicles should be manned at that time. 

            Superior enemy forces were summoned by the noise, and we were immediately forced to surrender.  I would have fought to the death, had it not been for the secondary objective.

            Before we set off from I-11, my Commander-in-Chief had a word with me, and told me that, if I were captured, he wanted me to do whatever I could to convince the enemy to make for a certain location.  It is a place near the mouth of a river on the east coast of I-3.  He showed me how to draw a map of the area.  It is on a very distinctive, jagged coastline and had been deliberately chosen so that even an idiot could find it.  It has been prepared as a killing zone. 

            I am currently stark naked, and tied to a metal chair with bare metal wire.  I have been alone in here for an hour or so, after the second of what I expect will be a series of beatings.  I have lost four teeth, and am somewhat bruised.  Also, I think my left wrist may be broken. 

            I think I can hear some-one outside the door.  They are coming back. 

            I am going to try to hold out for at least two days, to make it more convincing.  I hope I will still be able to remember the back story. 

*

My name’s Ryan Bartlett, and that’s my little brother, Rod.  We must be the jammiest fuckers on the whole planet.  We went out, right, last night, with a few other blokes, and we were in this like pub place where we’ve been going for a few days now.   We’ve found a barrel of rum and a barrel of this  stuff which is a bit like whisky – really, really, really rough whisky.  Like meths, only it’s the same colour as whisky.  We can drink as much as we like for nothing, except that we have to be on parade at oh-seven-thirty.  We are supposed to be back in our barracks by ten, but nobody bothers about that.  Rod and me worked out that the best way not to get done for being late back to barracks was not to go back at all, and that was when we thought of the idea of sleeping in the tank.  It is cramped, but there’s just enough room on the floor for two bed rolls, if you move the seats out of the way. 

            We’d been doing this for a few days, and Rod had been saying that we were sure to get found out sooner or later, when something happened.  We were in the tank, wide awake – still a bit drunk, actually – and we were talking, quiet like, when we heard some noise.  We looked out of the ports, me in the front and Rod in the back, and we both could see the doors opening.  It was just getting light.  We couldn’t see very well.  Whoever it was had torches with them.  They wouldn’t have known we were there, see. 

            ‘What the fuck are we going to do?’ whispered Rod.

            ‘I don’t know.  I don’t know.’

            ‘Shoot the fuckers.  Shoot ‘em!’  So we did.  We could tell by the uniforms that they weren’t our men.  We mowed ‘em down.  We just mowed ‘em all down.  Well, most of ‘em.  A few of them hit the deck, and we couldn’t hit them then, because they were too close and the guns wouldn’t go down that far.  One of our patrols came, and we stopped firing then.  I think we had finished a whole belt by then, anyway.  I kept shouting to Rod, ‘Fire in bursts!  Remember the training, you daft sod!’  I think he must have damaged the barrel.  He just pulled the trigger and went dakka-dakka-dakka-dakka-dakka, like that. 

            Anyway, it doesn’t matter about that, because we are now heroes.  Spalding gave us some bollocks at first about how he wasn’t going to do us for not going back to barracks on time, and he wasn’t going to do us for being drunk, and he wasn’t going to do us for this and that and the other, but then he stopped being an awkward sod and he changed his tune.  He said he was going to call a parade to honour us, and give us both a medal, and stuff.  We’re his golden boys now.   He’s got a place where he keeps some women, and he said he’d let us go there.  He said we could have a woman each.  Loads of blokes have been asking what they have to do to get a shag.  Well, now we know, me and Rod.  “Comfort women”, he called them.  “Shagging” – that’s what I call it.

            Spalding said the best thing was that we’d managed to take some of the enemy alive.  Fuck knows what he’s going to do with them, but I bet it’ll sting.  Cut their bollocks off, probably.  I bet he’ll do it himself.  He’s a weird fuck.  His eyes are funny.  Better not say that to any-one else, though. 

*

I had taken half a day off from training in order to convene a cabinet meeting, when we were interrupted by Chandra, who looked very distressed.  He told me there was a message for me on the video link. 

            ‘Where from?’ I asked.

            ‘From Major Downing, Sir.’

            ‘From Major Downing?  He has missed four reports now, hasn’t he.’  Chandra nodded.  There was a monitor in the meeting-room and so we had a look.

            Downing was naked, tied to a chair, with his head down and bruises and streaks of dried blood all over his body.  A hooded figure stood next to him on each side.

            ‘Downing?’ I said into the microphone.  One of the hooded figures grabbed Downing by the ears, and lifted his head up.  His speech was slurred and indistinct.  His lips were swollen, and he’d lost a lot of teeth.

            ‘This is Major Downing.’ It sounded like Downing, and yet unlike him at the same time.

            ‘Downing, can you tell me…’ I continued, for the want of anything better to say, but Downing either was not listening or could not hear me.  He seemed to be reading from a prepared statement. 

            ‘My men and I have been forced to surrender.  We have been forced to surrender to a superior force – both superior in number, in armaments, and in racial purity. [An enterprising use of the word “both” I thought.] Most of my men are dead, and the rest have been captured.   I am about to hand you over to the leader of…’ Downing’s voice gave way to another.  Whoever was speaking was out of camera-shot.

            ‘I am the leader of the new government of this planet.  In the name of our National Spirit I order you to surrender.  In the name of Wolf, the Leader, I order you to lay down your arms and surrender.’

            ‘What is your name?’ asked Kelvin.

            ‘My name is Wolf.  Are you going to surrender?’

            ‘That’s not a name: it’s a recipe for indigestion.  What is your name?’

            ‘ARE YOU GOING TO SURRENDER?’

            ‘Never.’

            ‘I have all your men you sent here; I have captured them, and I can do anything with them I like.  If you don’t surrender they will be tortured.’

            ‘You mean, they will be tortured some more.’

            ‘WHAT?’

            ‘You have already tortured them.’  I spoke very nonchalantly.  I did not raise my voice, or hurry.  I spoke just the way I normally do.

            ‘ARE YOU TRYING TO ARGUE WITH ME?’

            ‘No, I am telling you that I refuse to surrender.  My cabinet refuses to surrender.  My Army refuses to surrender.  My steel helmet, battledress, my boots and my webbing refuse to surrender.  My dogs, my cats, my chickens and the worms in my garden refuse to surrender.  My vest, pants, socks, handkerchief, and the multiplicity of things I wipe my pert but hairy little arse on refuse to surrender.  My knife, fork and spoon, my egg-cup and my matching condiment set refuse to surrender.  My toast-rack, my teapot and my cafetière  refuse to surrender.  One may go so far as to say that, refusal-to-surrender-wise, a pattern is emerging.  I wouldn’t surrender to you if you were the last Nazi invader left in the universe.’ 

            My interlocutor (still off-screen) did not interrupt me, which is one reason why I blathered on for so long.   

            ‘Well.  Well, then.  Then I suggest you listen to this.’  They attached some kind of mechanical device to Downing’s right hand, which one of the hooded figures proceeded to operate.  There was an agonising grinding noise, followed by the sound of stifled and desperate breathing, while Downing raised his head, and all the vessels in his face and neck stood out as if they would burst.  Eventually,  Downing screamed in pain.  He was obviously trying not to cry out, and so he screamed in short, staccato bursts, until the point where whatever was being done to him overcame him, and he screamed continuously, until a dreadful kind of diminuendo terminated by gurgling and his head falling back down to his chest indicated that the Major had either died or lost consciousness.  Holt, who was sitting next to me, opened his mouth to call out to Downing, but Kelvin sternly and silently signalled to him, and the others, not to utter a word.

            ‘Did you see all that?’ asked the voice on the other end, with apparent glee.

            ‘This conversation is over,’ I announced, and cut the link.

            There was a stunned silence, which was broken when I spoke again. 

            ‘We will now stand and reflect for a moment on the bravery of Major Downing and his men.’ Holt and the other cabinet-members all stood.  I did not know what the others were thinking, but Holt for one looked extremely upset.  I allowed them a short time to consider what had happened – no more than two minutes, and then I signalled for them all to sit down again, and get back to business.

            ‘I know this is a stupid question,’ said Holt, ‘But shouldn’t we have…’  I looked at him for an instant and managed to convey quite clearly, ‘Yes, that is a very stupid question.’

            ‘What was in Downing’s last report before he was captured?’ I asked of  Captain McCann (I was promoting him in stages).  I had already read the report, naturally, but I wanted to refresh my memory.  McCann read it out loud to the meeting.  

            ‘It is impossible to tell whether the enemy has divided his forces between I-13 and I-2.  We have counted approximately one thousand three hundred enemy soldiers and are still counting.  Each man is equipped with an automatic rifle.  There are also units which have rocket-propelled grenades, and light, medium, and heavy machine guns.  All their motorised transport seems to have been stolen from our us.  In other words, they are using some of the old Land Rovers which we brought with us from Earth.  We have counted four tanks, which appear to be Conqueror Mark IIIs or IVs and hence obsolete by Earth standards.  These armoured vehicles seem nevertheless to be mechanically sound.  We have not seen them fire either the 120mm cannon which is the vehicle’s main armament or any of the machine guns which are the secondary armament.  These tanks have been used to bulldoze or demolish many small buildings for no apparent tactical or strategic purpose.  

            ‘We have spotted one helicopter, which is currently being used to search for refugees or resisters in the jungle behind the coastal capital.  This machine also seems to be in good mechanical repair.  It has been observed to fire its machine guns, but we could not discern what the target was and this volley of fire did not seem to inflict any casualties.  Primates from Earth and other animals have been introduced into the jungle and so they may have been the target.

            ‘The standard of uniform appearance and drill of the invader seems to be very poor indeed.  NCOs seem to enforce discipline by physical threats rather than by respect for their authority, and most of the enemy soldiers seem to have an insatiable appetite for alcohol, both night and day.  They waste a good deal of ammunition by firing into the air while they are on patrol, despite repeated warnings not to do so from their superiors.  This seems to be an enemy whose morale will break easily under sustained pressure from a more determined or numerically superior opponent.

            ‘The commanding officer seems to be a man who is about six feet tall, with short, dark hair, who wears a Nazi Swastika armband.  The better presented and more disciplined members of the invading force are evidently members of some kind of political organisation, of which this man is also the leader.  Intelligence suggests that his name is Richard Spalding.’  McCann stopped reading and looked up.  ‘The rest is a lot of stuff about what these bastards have done to the civilian population.’

            ‘I’ll read that later,’ I told him, and I did.  ‘Now, can somebody go and find Violet, please?  I need to speak to her urgently.’

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The Companion: Part 38 - MODERATE SEXUAL VIOLENCE

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Content warning: MODERATE SEXUAL VIOLENCE

The threat of war was both the reason that Violet and Kelvin were able to get back together, and why our relationship became contingent on its victorious end.  Until the invaders had been dealt with, there was very little else that was worth doing (and certainly nothing that included thoughts about Horace).

            Kelvin had finished his political preparations for the struggle, and was already beginning to revert to one of his most typical behaviours: that of a completely detached, emotionless, analytical machine.  I knew that once he was fully involved in the economic and military problems which faced the colony, it would be impossible for me to reach out to him.    Kelvin has been repeatedly leaving me the whole time I have known him, but he doesn’t need a means of transport to do it: he can do it while we are sitting in the same room.

            Our lives are on hold again.  Whatever my feelings of resentment against this, I am taking the prospect of war seriously, for Horace’s sake.  I am just not going to allow the war to become my whole self, as Kelvin seems about to do. 

            On our first full night together back as Violet and Kelvin, I moved some of Violet’s stuff out of storage in a distant outhouse and into the living quarters, partly to remark my territory and partly because I needed it. 

            Before I continue, I should describe our house and its surroundings.  This is the house that Kelvin designed, and Pamela and Kelvin built together, but which Violet and Kelvin are now living in. 

            Its situation was chosen after much exploration by Kelvin.  It is on an island in the middle of a river.  Our estate is the island itself, which is an ellipse about 500 metres wide and a kilometre long, plus rights to some of the  land surrounding it, should we ever need to invoke them.  We have built a jetty on each side of the river, and you get across on a ferry-boat.  We have two ferry-boats: a little one for people and a big one for vehicles and livestock.   We have another boat for travelling up and down the river, which is navigable from the estuary (about 50 kilometres away) to about 20 kilometres further upstream. 

            The centre of the island rises to about 15 metres above the normal level of the river.  It was here that we started building, nearly three Earth years ago now.

            Of the house itself, everything we have built so far is underground.  This was a very expensive way of doing it, because the concrete and other materials which were required in vast quantities to make it damp-proof are in relatively short supply.  Nevertheless, Kelvin insisted that this was what he wanted.  He declared that he was happy to build a magnificent house eventually but, for the moment, he wanted to live in a bunker.  Pamela asked him many times why this was necessary. 

            ‘I want somewhere I can defend,’ he kept saying.

            ‘Defend against what?  Defend against whom?’

            ‘I don’t know yet.  There will be something, and some-one.’  This unknown agency became known in the household vocabulary as “hostile elements”. 

            There was no reasoning with him.  To his credit, not once has he mentioned this since the news broke about the invasion, when the hostile elements actually materialised. 

            For aesthetic as well as practical reasons, Pamela tried during the construction to make sure that the place did not end up looking like the Berlin refuge of Adolf Hitler.  It is well-insulated, bone-dry and is quite easy to heat, but it is still underground.  Pamela insisted that no pipe-work or conduits should be visible in the passageways.  These were all neatly boxed-in and then painted. 

            Kelvin has a periscope, salvaged from an old Royal Navy submarine, which he has fitted near the hearth in the sitting room, from which he can see most of the surrounding countryside (when there is enough light). 

            The house has three ways in and out:  a hatch in the roof, with a wall-ladder up to it and a pole for coming down in a hurry; a lift for moving furniture or other bulky items, and a secret tunnel (again sealed by a hatch) which leads to a cave by the water’s edge.  Kelvin usually keeps a canoe moored there and sometimes goes out in the dark when he is playing Commandoes. 

            The house itself contains our kitchen, larder, dining room, sitting room, two bathrooms, two studies, Kelvin’s laboratory, my laboratory, a workshop and a large underground store-room, the last two of which we share.  We also have a room which we refer to as the “gymnasium”, which Pamela and Kelvin used for their more adventurous sexual encounters (and will be used again, when I have quelled some of my anger against him).  We have plant for processing air and water, and the house is connected via pipe-work to underground tanks for storing gas and diesel. 

            Our vehicles, farm equipment, livestock and the equipment for our various businesses are kept above ground in barns, stables, sties, coops and outhouses.  Most of these are not proper living areas, the notable exceptions being the building from which I run my clothing company (whose trade name is really all that remains of Pamela Collins) and the dormitory where Kelvin’s brewery workers sleep if they are working shifts, or helping with the harvest.  We also have two kilns, fruit-growing enclosures, greenhouses, poly-tunnels, and sheds of various kinds, as well as our gardens and fields.  We have everything that you would expect to see on the estate of the owners of a small but successful farm back on Earth, except there is a bunker instead of a house. 

            Next, Kelvin wants to build a gun emplacement, “to prevent hostile elements from navigating the river”.  Pamela’s response to this was, “Why can’t we have a house, so that we can save energy by using solar illumination, entertain guests,  raise a child, and look out of the window?” 

            On my first full night here as Violet, I still felt very bitter about the way Kelvin had treated me.   I decided that it was in everybody’s interest (especially mine) to sublimate some of these feelings.  By a mild subterfuge, I enticed him, naked, into the “gymnasium”, where he saw a new addition to the room: a stout wooden bench with leather-covered padding for his knees and chest.  I strapped him firmly to it, and then proceeded to spank him soundly for several minutes, by way of a warm-up.  Any thought he may have entertained that I had taken him there for his own pleasure soon evaporated. 

            I then whipped him with a riding-crop for a while, and finally a broad leather strap.  This, if used hard enough, is as painful as the riding-crop but less likely to break the skin.  He was dripping with sweat by the time I gave him a respite.  I fixed the straps of an electro-stimulator around his penis and scrotum, and adjusted the controls on the box.  I set the mode to “sharp shock”, and turned the dial (which went from zero to ten) to six.  That should have been enough to make him feel that, at each pulse, a ring of needles was being jabbed into him.  I turned it momentarily up to nine, and back to six.  He screamed.  I repeated this a few times, with a short pause in between.  Scream.  Scream.  Scream.  Longer pause.  Scream.  I turned the electro-stimulator off and left the room. 

            I had a shower and put my dressing-gown on.  I made myself some tea and wholemeal toast with plenty of butter and apricot jam and lay on the sofa for a while, looking at the pictures I have hung on the sitting room walls in lieu of windows.  I went back to the gymnasium and tortured him some more for a few minutes.  I strolled in and out of the gymnasium all evening, beating him occasionally but mostly using the electro-stimulator, because I knew he was already bruised. 

            I un-strapped him in reasonable time for him to go to bed and be ready for his meetings the next morning. 

            Not once did he ask what I was doing, or why.  Not once did he ask me to stop, or plead, or protest. 

            I felt a tiny bit better after this.  I found this feeling grew slightly when I dwelt on the memory of Kelvin’s reaction when I turned up the voltage on his genitals.  

            Kelvin had a shower to get the cold sweat off his body.  We went to bed together. 

            Kelvin has never been a morning person, but he now routinely gets up before 6 am (or oh-six-hundred as he has now taken to calling it).  The next morning, we both acted as if nothing had happened, except that Kelvin winced every time he sat down, that day and for a few days afterwards.

             Kelvin held meetings with all the people he had appointed.  That eventually included me.  Kelvin described to me how he wanted to set up an organisation to be called the Special Operations Executive (SOE).  He wanted me to lead it, with the rank of Lieutenant to start with.    It was to include me, Sergeant Stewart, and Anna’s ladies initially, to be joined later by anybody I thought it was appropriate to recruit.  Sergeant Stewart would be under my command.  At first, I thought Kelvin’s proposal was just another example of his nostalgia for World War Two.  The SOE was the organisation for which Violette Szabo, after whom I was named, was working for when she was arrested and taken to Ravensbruck concentration camp, where she was murdered.  As the discussion continued, I realised that it was serious.  The appointment sounded interesting.  It occurred to me to wonder what the salary was, but I didn’t ask.  I accepted, and Kelvin seemed pleased.  

            I have become a secret agent in the service of the government of Achird-gamma.  Kelvin gave me some intelligence reports (most of which were less than one page in length) and asked me to analyse them and report back to him with some proposed operations the following morning.  He also told me to expect some guests: newspaper people.  

            Kelvin will be moving out again soon, but this time with my permission.  He is going to live in a tent at a training camp run by Sergeant McCann (whom Kelvin has been trying hard to promote, in the teeth of opposition from McCann himself).  They are going to be climbing ropes, digging holes, reading maps, using walkie-talkies, lighting camp fires, eating stew, and firing all sorts of guns.

 

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The Companion: Part 37

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Edited by William Justin Thirsk-Gaskill, Monday, 17 Jan 2011, 09:39

            ‘Kelvin, this is Violet.  Kelvin, this is Violet.’

            ‘What?’  I could hear his voice through his own ears.  The satellite link imposed a delay of just over a second. 

            ‘This is Violet.  You are not going mad.  I’m communicating with you via satellite.  You have implants in your head which mean that you can hear what I am saying.  Do you understand?’

            ‘No.  It does feel as if I am going mad.’

            ‘Can you hear me?’

            ‘No.’

            ‘Can you not hear me?’

            ‘No.’

            ‘Can you say anything other than “no”?’

            ‘Yes.  But I still think I’m going mad. How do I know this is Violet?  Where have you been?’

            ‘I was Pamela.’

            ‘Ah.  That explains a great deal.’

            ‘We are wasting time.  Kelvin, I need you to do what you do best.  I need you to absorb a lot of confusing information in a very short time.  I am tuned in to the satellite network and I know that our planet has been invaded by some kind of terrorist agency.  We are under attack.  Do you understand?’

            ‘I understand.  Execute Plan K-13.’

            ‘Plan K-13?’

            ‘Yes, definitely.  This is exactly the event it is designed to deal with.  Do you know if they are American?’

            ‘We know next to nothing about them at the moment, other than they have no compuction about killing innocent people.  We will initiate Plan K-13.  Kelvin?’

            ‘What?’

            ‘This is Violet.’

            ‘I know.’

            ‘I’m here.’

            ‘Yes.’

            ‘I followed you.’

            ‘I knew you would.’

            ‘How?’

            ‘Love.  Do you love me?’

            ‘You know I do.  Do you love me?’

            ‘Yes.  Yes, I do.  I always have.’

            ‘You tried to leave me.’

            ‘I know.  It was a terrible mistake.’

            ‘But you did it again.  You’re doing it now.  You always leave me.’

            ‘No, I don’t.  I have not left you: I’m coming home.  I’ll be home as soon as possible.’

            ‘If you try to leave me again, I’ll kill you.’

            ‘I know.’

            ‘Very slowly.’ 

            ‘I know.  I don’t want us to be separated again.  I want us to be together.’

            ‘Kelvin, where are  you?’  I was only taking the sound stream, not the visual, to save bandwidth. 

            ‘I am on I-2.’

            ‘Kelvin, that means you are on the same island as the site of the attack.  Just let me work out exactly where you are.’   I worked out Kelvin’s position by using the global positioning system.  ‘Do you know if they have any aircraft on I-13?’

            ‘A few, I think.’

            ‘Who runs the place?’

            ‘Kerr McLean.  It’s Kerr McLean’s personal fiefdom.’

            ‘OK.  I’ll see if I can get him to send a plane.  Are you somewhere on the side of a mountain?  GPS is telling me that you’re about 2000 metres above sea level.’

            ‘Yes, I’m inspecting a zinc mine.’

            ‘A zinc mine?’

            ‘Yes, a zinc mine.  That’s a deep hole in the ground from which we obtain zinc.  The ore is very rich.’

            ‘Is a zinc mine important?  More important than me?’

            ‘Important, yes.  Zinc is a strategic raw material.’

            ‘Kelvin, will you kindly get yourself to a location suitable for a light aircraft to make a landing, preferably where I can still find you by GPS, without revealing yourself to the enemy, and without getting killed or captured.’

            ‘Yes, of course. Er, Violet?’

            ‘Yes, what is it you stupid, unreliable, gallivanting, truant, tosser?’

            ‘I’m sorry.’  I cut the broadcast. 

            Plan K-13 meant total war.    The name was thought up by Kelvin himself.  Plans A-1 to K-12 don’t exist: he devised it deliberately to sound silly. 

*

Wolf and I took a platoon of men on a patrol, and left the rest to forage for food and fuel in the settlement that we had attacked. 

            We walked up the path to a two-storey wooden house, painted white, with a green front door.  Wolf said that he might make the building into his headquarters.  The door was unlocked.  We walked along a passage and into a kitchen.  An old man with white hair and spectacles was sitting, reading a book.  He looked up at us in alarm.

            ‘Name,’ said Wolf.  The man did not answer.  He just jabbered incoherently.  ‘Name!’ he demanded.

            ‘Arthur Cresswell,’ the man stammered eventually, in a whisper.  His speech was as quiet as the rustling of dry leaves. 

            ‘I am taking over this house as my headquarters.  Who else used to live here?’

            ‘My wife.’

            ‘Where is she?’

            ‘She’s out.’

            ‘Where is she and what is she doing?’

            ‘She went to the pub to give out some leaflets.’

            ‘The pub.  Was that a ramshackle building with a sign over it which said O’Mally’s.’

            ‘Yes.’

            ‘Aha.  I have some sad news for you, Arthur Cresswell.  One of my helicopters fired a rocket into that building and blew it to smithereens.  Your wife is dead.’  The prisoner started crying.  ‘Are there any other settlements on this island?’

            ‘No.’

            ‘Where is the nearest other inhabited island?’

            ‘About 300 kilometres to the north.’

            ‘What is its name.’

            ‘It doesn’t have a name.’

            ‘What?  You’re lying.  Why are you trying to conceal information from me?’  Wolf slapped the man across the face.  His spectacles flew off, and landed on the tiled floor. 

            ‘It’s true.  It’s true.’  Wolf grabbed the man’s hair and looked into his eyes.  He was satisfied.  The interrogation over, Wolf pulled the man’s chair out from the table and punched him twice in the chest as he sat.  He seemed pleased by the contortions of the man’s reddening face. 

            ‘Take him outside and hang him, in as prominent a location as possible,’ he ordered.  I told one of the men to look around for some rope. 

*

It took me three days to get home, by making island hops in a two-seater aircraft of colonial manufacture. 

            We held a meeting.  We asked for as many people as possible to appear in person, and the meeting was broadcast via satellite to the other colonies.  We did not have a building big enough to hold everybody, and so we held the meeting outdoors.  Near the town is a limestone scar where there is some shelter from the wind and we thought the acoustics would be better.  We set up a stage and a microphone. 

            Despite the threat of conflict and the news of the deaths of some of my fellow colonists,  I could not help feeling pleasure at seeing so many of my fellow colonists, in all their eccentric variety.  Children with braided hair and hand-knitted jumpers ran around and played at the back of the crowd.  People sat on blankets, took food out of capacious hampers, and swigged bottles of beer or drank from flasks of tea.  Except for the cold weather, the atmosphere was more like a music festival than a political meeting. 

            I opened the meeting.  Prudence Tadlow was the chairwoman.  She had on her work clothes: overalls, boots and utility-belt. 

            ‘The news from I-2 is that we have been invaded, and it is now our task to organise ourselves for the defence of our selves, our children, and our way of life.  That defence must not fail.

            ‘We have been taken by surprise, but I should impress upon you that the enemy is only entitled to expect surprise to confer a momentary advantage.  Our actions now must demonstrate that that momentary advantage is over.

            ‘We have no excuse for not winning this conflict.  We control every economic asset on the planet.  We do not know how many men the invaders have, but I expect to beat them, and I expect that victory to be won quite quickly.  In man and womanpower, food and supplies, in intelligence and, I believe, in military organisation and the will to win – we outclass the enemy. 

            ‘Our stated aim is the total destruction of the enemy’s capacity for armed resistance, to the point where he can no longer do harm to any one of us, ever again.  Our strategy will be based on three principles:

            ‘One.  The enemy must be deprived of food, water and sustenance at every opportunity.  We will continue to eat and drink but he must starve and thirst.

            ‘Two.  Every engagement must inflict more casualties on the enemy than ourselves.  We must emerge from this ordeal with the generative power of our community still intact.  We will take no prisoners and will attempt swiftly to rescue any of ourselves who are taken prisoner if it is possible to do so.  Members of the community who cannot fight must be kept as far from the enemy as possible.

            ‘Three.  We must make the best possible use of all resources, including any material we can capture from the enemy, to increase the effectiveness of our attacks.

            ‘We have just a few hours in which to organise all this.  I understand that there are many things that you will want to discuss but, I urge you, please be brief and swift.  Right now, I expect that the invaders are ransacking another town and, if any-one is unfortunate enough not to have been able to flee, they will be raped, tortured and murdered.  This is not an intellectual exercise: what we are trying to arrange for is the systematic ending of rape, torture, and murder – not any abstract ideal.

            ‘Have we all got that?’  No-one spoke.  A few people nodded.  Most of them looked blank.  I started to feel worried, but did my utmost not to show it.

            I offered for a series of three-minute speeches by people from the floor of the meeting, on the basis that the meeting could vote after each one on whether to allow the last speaker an extension.  Most of these speeches were tedious, poorly-expressed, incoherent and without incident.  The last person to speak was a woman who gave her name as Moonflower.  Towards the end of her three minutes, she uttered the words I had been dreading.

            ‘When the conflict is over, we will still have to live on the same planet as these people.’  I had to interrupt.

            ‘No, we won’t.  This is our planet, not theirs.  Make no mistake – there are only two possible outcomes of this war: the extinction of the invaders, or the extinction of our way of life.  If I could make it less unpleasant, I would, but I can’t.’   Moonflower looked at me with shocked bewilderment.  I had felt vulnerable.  I looked round the assembly with a questioning gaze.  There was an uneasy silence.  Some people looked at me.  Others looked at Moonflower.  Most of them looked at the ground.

            ‘The invaders must be defeated,’ I pronounced, slightly too loudly, so that the word be thumped out of the loudspeakers like the sound of a bass drum.  ‘The only thing that can bring about that defeat is ourselves.  What is it to be?’

            ‘Shall we take a vote on it?’ asked Prudence, off-microphone, so that only those on or near the stage heard her.  I handed the microphone to Prudence and was relieved that Moonflower did not protest.

            ‘What is the actual motion we are voting on?’ somebody shouted at Prudence from near the front of the assembly.  A hubbub  then began.  People began climbing onto the stage and bombarding me with questions.  I tried to answer them as pleasantly and politely as I could.  I was trying to move towards Prudence so that between us we could call the meeting back to order.  A sudden wall of bodies impeded me.

            ‘Call a recess!’ I shouted to her.  ‘Call a recess and then I’ll present the motion.’

            ‘We will have a recess for one hour, after which Kelvin Stark will put forward the motion, and then we’ll vote.  Can we clear the stage please?’

            People went into the tent which had been pitched nearby and emerged with bowls of soup and hunks of bread.  A brief shower of rain fell, but never looked like disrupting the meeting.  I wandered to a quiet spot under the shelter of an over-hanging rock and sat down with a notebook and a pen to prepare my speech.

            I had stopped writing, but was still deep in thought when Prudence sent somebody to fetch me. 

            I had entitled the motion The Defence of Civil Society Bill.  It contained the following clauses.

1.                            A position of Commander-in-Chief will be established for the duration of the war.  The holder of this position will stay in post until incapacitated or dead.  The first holder of the position will be Kelvin Stark. 

2.                            The C-in-C will have the power to:

a.       Arrange the economy for the war effort including the requisitioning of labour and the supply of food;

b.      Recruit and disband troop formations; promote and demote officers; train, equip, deploy and command forces;

c.       Control the broadcasting of information and the use of propaganda;

d.      Nominate a list of successors to be approved by the Assembly;

e.       Select and dismiss members of the Cabinet without approval (see clause 3).

3.                            A Cabinet will be selected by the C-in-C to manage the departments of government for the duration of the war.  The Cabinet will advise the C-in-C but he will have the final say in all things, including military and economic strategy and tactics, the formulation of surrender terms, and the definition of what constitutes victory.

4.                            The C-in-C will himself be a member of the armed forces and will, at such times as he considers necessary, take part in training exercises and offensive operations.

 

            I stood up to the microphone and prepared to have myself declared the military ruler of Achird-gamma.

            The ensuing debate lasted for over two hours, and a windy afternoon was beginning to turn into a chilly evening by the time we had finished.  Most of the questions directed at me were along the lines of “How will we be able to get rid of you when the war is over?”  This was exactly the one that I would have asked myself, and I was glad to discuss it.  My principal interlocutor was Professor Timothy Gonzales. 

            ‘Dr Stark, are you familiar with the quotation that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely?’

            ‘I am indeed, Professor.’

            ‘And how do you propose to prevent yourself from being corrupted?’

            ‘By not being in power for long enough.  We have a job to do.  My job is not to oppress you.’  I motioned in a wide arc to indicate those assembled.  ‘My job is to organise our defence and to remove the menace that now threatens us.  Every ounce of our resources will be directed against that menace; not against our own people.’

            ‘I see.  And how transparent will your government be?’

            ‘Transparency will be something that I will use where I think it will help to instil confidence, but not something that I will employ generally. ’

            ‘Not?’

            ‘No.’

            ‘How can you justify that?’

            ‘Napoleon Bonaparte said that the moral is to the material as three is to one.  Many of our people have no military training or experience of what it is like to be in the heat of a life-or-death battle.  The best available information that we have so far suggests that, although the enemy is numerous, we outnumber him at least four or five to one.  Since we also control the economy of virtually the entire planet, we have – or should have – overwhelming strategic advantages.  The one area in which we remain to be tested is resolve.  I hope that there are men and women among us who can equal me in that resolve, but I guarantee you that nobody can surpass me in it.  The enemy cannot win this war: we can only lose it for him, if we allow our fear of his violence and vindictiveness to weaken our resolve.  In the cause of maintaining and strengthening that resolve, I will let people know what I think it is in their interests to know.  This is one of the essential features of war.’

            ‘Mm.  Reluctantly, I think I am forced to agree with you. So how would we get rid of you in the end?’

            ‘If we are victorious?’

            ‘If we are victorious.’

            ‘We will have another Assembly, and I will step down.’

            ‘What if you decided not to?’

            ‘The Assembly can repeal the law by which the position of Commander-in-Chief was created.’

            ‘And what if you still refuse to go?’

            ‘You can shoot me.’

            Everybody laughed.  They laughed so hard, in fact, that order was lost for some minutes and I was annoyed.  I was annoyed because I had been in deadly earnest when I had said You can shoot me.

When everybody did stop laughing, and Prudence finally managed to re-unite the score of small meetings that had broken out among those assembled, Professor Gonzales spoke again.

            ‘I have one final comment.’

            ‘And that is?’ I asked.

            ‘There is a special name for the kind of government that you are proposing.’

            ‘What would you call it?’

            ‘Monarchy.’  I was momentarily stunned.  It was the last word that I had been expecting the Professor to utter.  I had feared rather that he would say military dictatorship or fascist junta.

            ‘Long live King Kelvin the First!’ shouted somebody from further back, in a refined public-school accent. There was laughter again, less raucous and long-lasting than before.

            ‘Madam Chairman, I propose an amendment to the Bill, to replace the title Commander-in-Chief with King.’

            ‘Are there any other amendments?’ asked Prudence, after taking the microphone.  There was a buzz of conversation, but nobody raised a hand or spoke up.

            ‘Doctor Stark, do you accept the amendment from Professor Gonzales?’  I did not know what to say.  I just shrugged.  ‘I’ll take that as a yes,’ said Prudence.  Prudence, who was now holding the paper that I had written during the recess, read it out in its entirety, substituting King for every instance of Commander-in-Chief

            The Assembly moved to the vote.  Once those case via the satellite link had been added to the votes of those present at the Assembly, there were 46401 votes in favour, 282 against, and 196 abstentions.  I had the overwhelming support of the Assembly and was now the King of Achird-gamma.

            The meeting broke up.  Prudence, the only other person left on the stage, came over to me and, taking me completely by surprise kissed me lingeringly on the lips.    

            ‘I’ve never met a real, live King before,’ she observed, and then curtsied (very gracefully and competently) and giggled.  I had never seen some-one attempt a curtsy while wearing a utility belt.

*

Kelvin is king.  The Cerise Vallance stable of magazines is about to get a new title.  It will be called Royal Flush.  The banner will feature an image of Kelvin as a playing card: the King of Hearts.

 

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The Companion: Part 36

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Edited by William Justin Thirsk-Gaskill, Saturday, 15 Jan 2011, 14:15

I told Pamela that I was thinking of going on a tour of the other colonies.  She asked when I was expecting us to leave, and I told her I was thinking of going on my own, so that she could stay behind and look after business.  She went mad.  She said, ‘No, no, no.  Not again, you bastard.’  I asked her what she meant by “again”.  She said, ‘You are not going to leave me the same way that you left Violet.’  I said, ‘I have no intention of leaving you.  I am planning to go on a tour and then come back.’  She doesn’t believe me. 

            I’m still going. 

*

You can still call me Paddy, even though I’m the Mayor.  The town doesn’t have a name, yet, but it is growing.  We have got a harbour, a crane, three warehouses (one for food, one for livestock, and one for imperishables), a town hall (of sorts), various shops and houses, and a pub.  The pub has the same name and management as the bar on The Irish Rover called O’Mally’s.  It is popular even with non-drinkers, because it is very well insulated and usually cool, even in our hot climate.  I come here nearly ever day after work.  My more sober-minded clerk, Cecily Johnson, joins me only occasionally.  She is still working at the moment.  Some-one has discovered a new mineral deposit and she is looking over the application for the mine workings.  I think she’s coming over later. 

            The speciality drink here is lager brewed from unrefined sugar-cane juice and served in a glass tankard frosted with ice.  It is the most thirst-quenching drink around. 

            I can hear a strange noise.   It sounds like a helicopter.  There are no helicopters on this planet that I know of.  Yes, it definitely is a

*

I had just finished work for the day, and was walking from the office over to O’Mally’s to have a drink with Paddy, when I heard a helicopter flying low over the town.  I looked up and saw it.  It was dark green and looked like a military helicopter.  Without any warning or apparent cause, the helicopter fired a missile which scored a direct hit on O’Mally’s, and blew the building to pieces in a fireball.  I did not bother to approach the wreckage: nobody could have survived that attack.  I was hit by flying debris.    

            I turned on my heels and ran back to the town hall, where I knew I could communicate with the other colonies.  Just as I got to the front door, I heard an engine.  I looked round and saw a tank driving past the wreckage of O’Mally’s.  I ran upstairs, and got as many of the other town clerks as I could on a video chat session.  This is what I said to them.

            ‘This is Counsellor Cecily Johnson.  I am the town clerk from the main settlement in I-2.  This is an emergency.  This is a life-or-death emergency.  I want to give you some details of what has happened, and I need you to pass them to as many of the other colonies as you can.  Do you understand?’  The faces on the screen all nodded.  ‘Our colony has been invaded.  We are under attack.  I repeat: we are under attack – we are under threat of our lives.  This is not an exercise.  Have you got that?’  They nodded again.

‘The invaders are men in uniforms.  They have armoured vehicles.  They have a helicopter which fires deadly missiles.  They arrived earlier today.  They fired a rocket at a public house in our town called O'Mally's and killed many innocent people, including the Mayor.  Mayor Patrick Fitzgerald is dead.  I repeat –.’  I had to stop for a moment.  ‘Paddy’s dead.  I think about thirty people might have been killed so far.’

            ‘Counsellor Johnson,’ said one of the faces on the screen, a very young chap on I-13 whose name I think is Waverley Diggle, ‘Are you hurt?’ 

            ‘I think I have something lodged in my right shoulder.’

            ‘Well, we need to come and find you: give you some medical treatment.’

            ‘Don’t worry about me, you idiot!  I want you to do something to save this planet and this population.  I can’t talk more now.  I have to escape.’ 

            I grabbed the keys to the safe and ran all the way home.  I threw some things into a rucksack, changed my clothes, and put a lead on Junc’s collar.  Junc is my Labrador (his name is short for injunction).  We headed for the hills.  My shoulder was killing me.

*

As soon as I heard what that lady said, I went straight to see Mr McLean.  He is not the mayor, but he still runs the island.  The mayor is usually drunk at that time of day, anyway, and pretty useless for anything.  The last time I woke him up after he had passed out, he threatened to cut my penis off, the stupid sod. 

            Mr McLean was in his office, as usual.  I don’t think he ever eats or sleeps.  Even when he has a drink he has it while sitting in his office. 

            It was night-time, and the moon was shining.  I could see it reflected in the harbour.  It seemed very peaceful and calm.  It seemed crazy that there was fighting happening on another island. 

            Mr McLean’s “office” is a set of pre-fabs which keeps growing and growing.  It isn’t very nice to look at.  Part of it is a shop, where you can buy just about anything – bananas, carpets, knives, live chickens – all kinds of stuff.  Another part of it always has men in it who are drinking.  I don’t know if it is a pub or a club or what, but they are always there.  When I got there, Mr McLean was writing figures down in a ledger-book by the light of an oil-lamp.  As usual, he was wearing a dirty tracksuit with dog hairs all over it.  For a man who is one of the richest on this planet, he dresses like a tramp. 

            ‘Hello, stranger,’ he said when I went in. ‘What brings you here?  Have you run out of gin?’

            ‘Mr McLean, sir, we’ve got a very serious kind of, er, um, problem.’

            ‘I’m intrigued, my boy.  What kind of problem, and why do you say “we”?’

            ‘It’s a situation, er - it looks like a problem that will be very bad for business.’  I said that because I thought he was not listening properly and I wanted to grab his attention.

            ‘Go on.  What is it?’

            ‘A few minutes ago, I got a call on the video phone from a woman on the next island called Cecily Johnson.’

            ‘Aye, I’ve met her a couple of times.  She’s the lassie you have to deal with if you want to get anything done there.  She’s true to her word, if a wee bit obstructive now and again.’

            ‘Yes, well.  She phoned a few minutes ago to say that her town was under attack by men in uniform, who had gone mad and started firing missiles.  She said they’d blown up a place called O’Mally’s and killed the mayor.’

            ‘They’ve WHAT!’  He sounded so pissed off that I moved two steps backwards without thinking.  I knew that would upset him.  In Mr McLean’s world, the only reason you ever demolish a building is to re-use the materials and put up an even bigger one in its place.  

            Mr McLean took a couple of his men and me into another room, where he had his computer terminal.  Mr McLean never uses the computer unless he has to.  We tried to get in touch with some of Mr McLean’s contacts.  When I left, I think he was still talking to some-one on I-11.  I hope it was Kelvin Stark.  

*

I am more angry with Kelvin than I have ever been since he first mentioned this fucking Alpha Project.  He has pissed off on some “tour” of the other colonies.  He was last heard of heading for I-2, which is on the other side of the world.  He goes away, and we get a message to say that we have been attacked by an unknown force.  We don’t know if the attack on O’Mally’s was perpetrated by terrorists, or gangsters, or a commercial organisation, or a government.  The one time when we need the originator of this charade to provide some leadership, and he isn’t here.  He has no computer or mobile communication device with him, other than the ones I implanted without his knowledge

            I am going to have to contact him via satellite and these devices.  Kelvin is about to hear voices.

            My name is Violet, and I’m back.

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The Companion: Part 35

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Edited by William Justin Thirsk-Gaskill, Friday, 14 Jan 2011, 09:23

We have been here on I-11 for about six months, and have started to build three settlements.  Kelvin and Pamela are living in a rather unusual house, which I will describe later.  Kelvin, along with hundreds of the other colonists, both here and on other islands, is acutely ill.  I fear he may die.  I have been frantically working on a cure, twenty-four hours a day, for some time now.  I have shut down Starlight Escorts and am using some of my simulacra to operate my lab machinery, to speed up the analysis. 

            The story started at the very moment we landed, and Kelvin took his first breath of the air of Achird-gamma (an account he repeats often).  I myself noticed that a foreign genome had entered my biological system.  I did not attach any importance to it at the time: I just waited for my immune system to destroy it, which it did quickly.  My immune system is based on yours, but it can adapt much more rapidly, and I can exercise a certain amount of voluntary control over what it does, based on information it sends to my brain. 

            This foreign genome turned out to belong to a virus, which I succeeded in isolating a few days ago.  I am now trying to find a vaccine, which in practice means finding a member of the colony who has natural immunity.  The way I prevented the virus from replicating itself inside me is not transferable to animals or humans, mainly because so little of me is cellular.  The crisis crept up and surprised us partly because the disease has such a long incubation period. 

            For a while after we landed, people kept repeating how remarkably hospitable this planet is.  Kelvin said that we should expect the unexpected.  He said that we should continue to study our surroundings as diligently as possible, because something was about to surprise us.  He was right.  He might be hailed as a prophet, if he lives.

            The number of reported cases is growing daily.  We considered shutting down all travel between colonies, but that soon seemed to be counter-productive.  The virus is believed to be airborne and evidence suggests it is present everywhere.  It is the planet itself which is infectious.  Horace is perfectly safe, because “he” is in a hermetically-sealed container, but now I won’t be able to let him gestate until after we have found a vaccine. 

            The symptoms resemble those of influenza.  It starts with a feeling of dryness and tenderness in the sinuses, sometimes accompanied by dizziness and severe earache or headache.  A few hours later, the patient experiences pains in the joints and muscle weakness, sometimes accompanied by nausea and vomiting.  Fever rapidly follows, at which point most patients collapse and have to be confined to bed.  Some have gone into a coma and some have died.  Kelvin is currently at the fever stage.  He is conscious, but is having fits of delirium.  He is in our  hospital, being looked after by a fat, bald, bespectacled consultant called Dr Condon-Douglas.  Dr Condon-Douglas is rather pompous and distant in his manner, and he thinks I am an interfering busybody, but I’ll teach him to take me seriously.  I’ve got a laboratory which would be the envy of some universities, and a tunnelling electron-microscope.  He hasn’t even got a magnifying-glass. 

            I have contacted all the other colonies via satellite, and have arranged to collect blood samples from most of them.  Ideally, I want a sample of blood from every man, woman and child on the planet.  There is no evidence yet that the virus affects animals other than humans, but I will take blood from animals as well if I have to.  I have a plentiful supply of the virus, and I am checking the samples for signs of natural immunity.  Once the samples are in the lab, most of the process is automated.  I have just set another batch going, and so I might as well go and visit Kelvin.  I have got him a bunch of black grapes imported from I-2 (which happens to be where the infection first broke out).  I don’t think he will be eating them any time soon.  He has not eaten anything for three days and is on intravenous fluids.  He is lying on his back and is quite still, with his eyes closed.  There are two nurses by his bed who are bitching about one of the other nurses.  Kelvin probably can’t hear that at the moment. 

---

I’m back from the hospital.  I stayed there about three hours.  I went into a dormant state for a while (the first rest I have had for days) and read a bit of The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith.  Kelvin was asleep the whole time.  They were giving him saline and glucose (like I do when he is drunk).  I was glad to note that he was actually asleep and not comatose.  His temperature is still very high.  I made sure that the nurses are changing his sheets and washing him regularly. 

            Prudence visited him a couple of times when he first got ill, but she has gone down with it herself now.  I wonder what this disease will eventually be called.  I might as well go back to the lab.

            I am checking regularly for bulletins from other colonies.  The death toll has now risen to 396, including several newborns and infants.  We can’t afford this.  The colonisation will become unsustainable unless we stop the epidemic soon.  I am almost glad that Kelvin is not himself: he would be going mad.

---

At last, a breakthrough.  The sample tube I have in my hand shows evidence of natural immunity.  I’ll just read the bar code on it, and look up the name of the patient it was taken from.  I will need to get another sample, if possible, to make sure it was not a fluke.  I’ll try to get a much bigger one next time, preferably a hundred millilitres or so. 

            It’s Kelvin.  The sample that is showing promise came from Kelvin Philip Alexander Stark. Where’s my doctor’s bag?  Kelvin, I am about to stick another needle into you. 

            I must stop thinking about whether or not he is going to die, and concentrate on the research.

---

Doctor Condon-Douglas tried to obstruct me in the act of taking the larger blood sample from Kelvin, but he agreed to let me continue after I had lifted him off the floor by the lapels of his white coat.  I am back in the lab again, and have re-run the test.  The answer is consistently that Kelvin has made anti-bodies.  His symptoms are not getting any worse.  I hope for improvement soon.  I am virtually at the point where I can report this to the other colonies, and put the vaccine into production. 

*

My name is Cheryl Moxon.  I’m married to Wayne.  We have both been poorly recently.  Really poorly.  A nurse came and gave us a jab, and we are both getting better now.  It is important for us to get better so that we can go back to work on the farm.  It is hard work, working on the farm.  We have both had a fever.  We couldn’t work with the fever.  We couldn’t even get out of bed for a while, we were so poorly.  I don’t think I’ve ever been so bad.  I don’t think Wayne has, either. 

            The animals are all right.  One of the neighbours came and fed them and watered them while we were ill.  That was kind.  We’ve got pigs and chickens and a cow and a dog.  Our dog is called Derek.  Our cow is called Mildred.  I don’t know if we have names for the pigs: Wayne looks after them.  We used to have names for the chickens, but we don’t anymore because there are too many of them, and it would be too many to remember.  When the nurse came to give us our jabs, she had a letter from the hospital which asked if we would let the nurse take some of our eggs.  The people at the hospital needed the eggs to make people better.  The nurse said that they weren’t going to cook the eggs, or eat them.  They were going to use them for making more stuff for other people’s jabs.

            We live on I-2.  Most of the people who live round us are foreign, but they’re very nice.  They talk in foreign.  They call us Lez Ong-glay, or sometimes Lay Porvruh Ong-glay.  I don’t think that means anything rude.  I think it just means “not foreign”.   It is lovely and warm here: much warmer than it was where we lived before.  We have some greenhouses, but we have to keep the windows open most of the time, otherwise it would get too hot.  We grow loads of stuff.  The soil was funny to start with: not like proper soil.  A man came and brought us some worms – loads and loads of worms.  After a while, the soil changed.  It was much better for growing things. 

            We were doing so well before we got ill.  I hope things will get back to usual soon.  We had finished all the outbuildings, and the new water tank, and the new slurry tank, and we had finished building the farmhouse.  We’ve got a proper bed and everything now: sofa, chairs, kitchen table, gas cooker, fridge.  The gas comes from a machine in the farmyard, and so we don’t have to pay any bills on it.  Wayne has to remember to keep filling it with slurry.  I remind him, because he’s very forgetful.  He’s a bit slow, is Wayne, but he’s a good man.  Just a bit slow.   

            As soon as we’re well again, we’ll have to slaughter a pig and take some stuff to the market.  We like going to the market.  Most people there talk in foreign, but we can usually make them understand.  They even understand Wayne, and he’s a bit slow. 

*

Kelvin’s temperature went back to normal and he stopped being delirious.  I stayed with him and changed his sheets and kept him clean.  I could tell he was better when he suddenly sat bolt upright in bed, and demanded a rare steak, chips, spinach, a bottle of claret and two bottles of oatmeal stout.  I cried when he said that.  I took him home shortly afterwards.  

            Within a few weeks, we had immunised the entire population.   

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