Sister Ships and Alastair - Chapter 20

20. They Can't Quite Lose the Beefy Milky Aftertaste

Ant and Glenn Bob sat staring across the now otherwise empty canteen table at Vladlena, who was by now on her third Processed Beef Omelette. The lady on the canteen till had disclosed that the alleged omelette had been made with what she had described as Artificially Produced Egg Simulant. To Ant's mind, this made the only remaining food content of the omelette Processed Beef.

"She sure does pack it back", said Glenn Bob in something between awe and fear. Vladlena paused between mouthfuls to look up sourly at him and take a drag on a cigarette she had acquired. How she'd acquired it, Ant had no idea. He put it down to an addict's ingenuity.

"She's not eaten for a long time", said Ant.

"She has too. She ate five full ration packs on the ship, in between sleeping and begging for cigarettes. She's got to stop being starving some time."

Vladlena took the cigarette out of her mouth and examined it in detail, as if only just realizing it was a cigarette.

"Thyis cyigarette", she said, "yis myinty."

"Myinty?" said Ant.

"Myinty. Like myint, yas in spyearmyint yand pyeppyermyint."

"That'll be the menthol", said Ant, tapping the cigarette packet on the table. "My dad smokes these. They're mentholated. He thinks they're healthier. My dad's an idiot", he added.

"Myentholated." Vladlena made a face. "Yis not a syatisfyactory smyoking yexperience. I yam nyot in Marlboro Country."

Glenn Bob looked at Ant. "Do you know what she's talking about?"

Ant pursed his lips in thought. "I think I might. Vladlena, did you see Marlboro Country in the television? On a really bad television picture beamed to Krasnaya 3 from Earth?"

Vladlena nodded. "Marlboro Country yis byeautiful plyace where byeautiful cowbyoys syit on byeautiful ccchorses all day long enjoying smooth taste of Marlboro. Yis in Yamerica I thyink. I yintend to go thyere and lyive out ryest of my life on ccchorseback."

Ant nodded. "This is going to come as a shock, Vladlena, but I don't think Marlboro Country exists. What you saw was a thing we call advertising."

The door to the canteen opened. Ant heard a CLUNK-clunk. CLUNK-clunk. CLUNK-clunk.

"Commodore", said Ant, standing up and offering his seat.

"How ever did you know it was me", said Commodore Drummond, settling into the chair, taking off his left leg and rubbing the stump. As he did so, Sergeant McNaught, Captain Yancy of USZ Intelligence, and an elderly black gentleman Ant did not recognize, took the vacant seats all around them.

"Hard wearing devils, these", complained the Commodore. "I usually wear a stump-shaped hole in the wooden and plastic models over time, but these new titanium jobs are the very end. Did you hear the candidates' speeches?"

Ant grimaced.

"I know exactly what you mean", said the Commodore. "We're going to have trouble with her. Not because she's a gel, you see", he added, turning to Vladlena, "but because she's an cretin. Boadicea was a gel, of course, and Joan of Arc, and Queen Elizabeth the First. Capital fellows all, though gels. But I'm afraid our new president will be both a gel and and cretin."

Ant felt cold fear spreading over him. "But the election hasn't happened yet."

Captain Yancy interrupted. "I'm afraid it more or less has. There are any number of political parties in the US Zee, but there are only two main coalitions - the Expansionists, who want to spread out and find new worlds to colonize, and the Consolidationists, who want to make life easier in the colonies we already have. Mizz Ortega is the Expansionist candidate. Unfortunately, the Consolidationists have put up a candidate who is both highly intelligent and also has all the academic wisdom at his fingertips necessary for governing an interstellar federation."

"Pardon me, sir,", said Glenn Bob, "but you're saying that like it's a bad thing."

"You've seen him", said the Commodore. "He has the charisma of warm cheese. How many votes do you think he'll get?"

Ant tried desperately to think of an optimistic answer, but finished simply by nodding his head.

"Precisely. There's no doubt that he's the chap for the position, but he has zero chance in hell of being elected to do it. So now we have to decide how to frame an unpleasant message to an idiot president who won't want to hear it. That message", the Commodore explained gravely, "being that we might be on the point of nuclear war with Britain and America."

"I thought it was the President who asked you to get that information in the first place", said Ant.

"Indeed I did", said the elderly black man, passing over a leathery hand which Ant shook. "Outgoing president Nathaniel Mathews, at your service."

Ant cringed into his seat. "Sorry, sir. I would have recognized you from the money, only the US Zed, uh, doesn't use money. Doesn't print its own, I mean. The credit terminals and everything."

President Mathews grinned massively. "That's all right, son. It's actually quite refreshing. You're just about the only person on this planet who won't recognize me. That's why I have to wear this goddamned stupid hat. Now, before I relay that very unpalatable message to Elizabeth Ortega, I want to ask you the same question I've just asked your friends. Are you certain the Polaris Treaty are loading planetkilling bombs onto warships bound for the outworlds? For here?"

"Only Cleo and Penelope saw that", said Ant. "But yes, they said they were. Uh, but we might not be the target. I get the feeling the British and Americans are preparing for an attack by somebody, but that they're not quite sure who that someone is."

"It won't make any difference", said Mathews, "that they can't prove it was us who attacked them. All that's necessary for a war is that they think we did. For some of them, an excuse is all they need."

"Do you think she'll swallow the truth if it comes from you?" said the Commodore to President Mathews, reattaching his leg without regard to social decorum.

Mathews shrugged. "She's an Expansionist. She might think it's a political trick. But I'll give it a try."

The Commodore steadied himself with two hands on the edge of the table, and rose to his feet.

"Gentlemen, let's talk this over on board ship - less chance of being overheard. I've recently acquired some particularly fine cigars from Lieutenant Turpin's Cuban source. Rolled on the thighs of immense, sturdy, hairy Cuban peasant women." He nodded to Sergeant McNaught. "Sergeant, you may take the rest of the afternoon off."

"SAH. I will avail myself of the boundless store of leisure activities available in this ell ole SAH."

"Don't be cute, Sergeant. Mr. President? Major?"

The Commodore, Major Yancy and the President left. McNaught watched them leave.

"The Commodore don't like politicians", he said.

"But the Commodore is a politician", said Ant. "He's the Mayor of Gondolin. He sits in the USZ senate."

McNaught fidgeted uncomfortably. "Yuss, but that's different. Everyone on Gondolin votes for the Commodore because, well, everyone knows e's the guvnor."

"What about President Mathews there?" said Glenn Bob. "He seems to get along with the Commodore just fine."

"The President", said McNaught, "falls into that small and happy category of persons the Commodore does not class as cretins, and I believe you three do too. Along with your friend Miss Shakespeare." He raised a hand from the table as the canteen door opened again and Lieutenant Turpin entered. "Morning Richard."

"Hi Jock." Turpin sprawled into a chair, then looked round at Glenn Bob, Ant and Vladlena. "Why the long faces?"

"We thyink you should gyet myedal", explained Vladlena.

Turpin smiled broadly. "I should. I certainly should. Erm, not to quibble, but what should I be getting a medal for, exactly? There are so many reasons."

Ant shrugged helplessly. "Everything. Everything Penelope did. You did just as much."

"Well, yes, of course. She's always taking credit for my magnificence, the evil toerag. And given that I've just learned she's going to be my permanent commanding officer, I think I deserve ten medals." Turpin grinned. "But at the end of the day, I'm still flying a Fantasm, and Pen's still flying a Harridan, bless her. Which brings me to what I came here to say, which is: I'm taking the ship out for a jaunt. We're taking messages to the Southsiders. The Northsiders need parts for one of their hydro systems, and they think the Southsiders have some. But they won't talk to the Southsiders directly, on account of the Southsiders being such evil religious heretics. That's where we come in. Anyone fancy being taken away from this beautiful cafeteria?"

Glenn Bob ummed and aahed. "I've got a whole bunch of work to do for Astronavigation 101", he said. "I'm not one hunnerd per cent on my Riemann Tensors."

"I hate it when that happens", said Ant.

"Richard", said Mr. McNaught, "I would love to join you, but I ave been talkin to the port staff, an I ave discovered a wonderful thing. The Salemites claim to ave perfected a way to ferment an entire cow into alcohol. They ave an unofficial bottlin plant on Level Seven. They call it Kooenschnapps. Apparently they can't quite lose the beefy milky aftertaste yet, but they're thinkin of marketin it in the Omeworlds."

"And you're going to drink this", said Turpin.

"Large quantities of it", said McNaught proudly.

Turpin sighed and solemnly extracted an entire bottle of vodka from his flight suit. "Mr. McNaught, I believe your need is greater than mine."

McNaught accepted the bottle with wonder. "But this was made on Earth."

"By the same company mentioned on the label, no less. I was going to drink it myself. But I think drinking fermented freshly squeezed cow will probably kill you otherwise."

McNaught nodded. "They did mention as ow they adn't quite solved the methanol problem."

"Methanol makes you go blind and mad, Jock."

"Aha", said McNaught, crossing his eyes madly at Turpin. "That explains a great deal, archbishop. I will take my new friend back to my bunk on Jervis Bay, where I will cruelly drink his contents."

"Fine", said Turpin, watching the bottle disappear into McNaught's tunic wistfully. "Anyone else for Southside?"

***

Southside was remarkably similar to Northside. The Fantasm dipped down through the aurorae towards a concrete landing pad pock-marked with craters, Turpin flying through the solar blizzard as if it hadn't been there. The fighter's landing feet touched down so gently that Ant hardly felt the impact.

As the cockpit's canopy unsealed, he scrambled up out of a white haze, coughing and retching.

"What yis myatter?" said Vladlena.

"You have been smoking", said Ant, "the whole time. I have not been able to breathe, and a light kept coming on saying ATTENTION: FIRE IN CABIN."

"You shyould hyave syaid", said Vladlena.

"I", said Ant, "am British. I don't say. I just sit and sit and sit and get angrier and angrier and angrier and eventually explode in a fit of self-righteous rage. That is what British people do."

Vladlena scoffed and reached into her pocket for another cigarette to light up. Ant knocked the pack out of her hand.

"Enough!" he said angrily. Vladlena stared him down with cold reptilian hatred. She bent to pick up the pack, daring him to stop her with her eyes. Straightening up again, she brought up her thumb to flick the wheel on the flint of her plastic lighter as Ant poised himself to knock the cigarette out of her mouth again.

"COME ON THEN, chaps, let's get below ground", said Turpin. Vladlena looked round at Turpin in intense discomfort. He had just slapped her on the back very, very hard in a manly, comradely way, and she had just swallowed her cigarette. Ant saw her throat muscles work as the smoke went right down.

Turpin looked down at her quizzically. "Are you all right?"

Lamely, she nodded.

"Come on then, let's go. We have people to see about Parts."

Turpin strode off toward the ring of elevators. Somewhere over the horizon, bright white light blazed briefly. One of the technicians working on the Fantasm looked up momentarily. Seconds later, a shock wave tore across the concrete, pushing dust and grit before it like a highly organized sandstorm.

"TEN KILOTONNES IF THAT", grunted the technician, unable to hear how loudly he was shouting due to the ear protectors he was wearing. "TWEREN'T NOTHIN."

The elevator resembled the North Polar ones in every respect. It even had its own mechanic returning below ground.

"Name's Jonah", said the mechanic, extending a hand for Ant to shake. "Guess you'll have been up to the North Polar Settlement talking to them dang fool Ark builders." The stickers in the elevator read GO THOU UNTO NINEVEH rather than BUILD THOU AN ARK.

"Those crazy Northern hemisphere guys", said Turpin.

The elevator light pinged to HABITATION LEVEL. The same furnace heat blasted their faces as the lift door opened.

"We're looking for Mayor Jerkow", said Turpin. "We're here to talk to him about Parts."

"That'll be hydro parts", nodded Jonah. "You'll find Jed in the cafeteria there, straight ahead an take a right. He's a mite busy today, mind. Got Candidates in with im."

The cafeteria was loud with the sound of amplified speechmaking. Ant's heart sank. He could already hear, through the open door, an excitable female voice yelling "HELLO GOD'S OWN COUNTRY!!! I DO BELIEVE NEW SALEM SOUTHSIDE IS MY FAVOURITE US ZEE LOCATION!!! YAAAY!!!"

"I had hoped we'd left her behind at the North Pole", he said.

A very similar podium had been erected in the South Polar canteen. A very similar set of microphones had been put up. A very similar curtain closed off the far end of the room, and an almost identical Mayor Jerkow was hovering at Candidate Ortega's elbow. One thing, however, stood out like an opposable thumb on a horse.

"Cleo!"

Cleo, who was sitting at Ortega's right hand dressed in a brand new USZ flight cadet's uniform, flickered her eyes in Ant's direction, but otherwise said nothing, frozen rigid with embarrassment.

"FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO DON'T KNOW ME, I AM ELIZABETH ORTEGA AND I AM GOING TO BE YOUR NEXT PRESIDENT -"

Next to Cleo sat Penelope Farthing - also in uniform, though a considerably newer, less patched, less frayed uniform than she had been wearing earlier that day. She refused to cross gazes with Turpin, keeping her eyes frostily aloft.

"- THESE YOUNG LADIES ARE HEROINES OF THE UNITED STATES OF THE ZODIAC! THEY PROVE THAT A WOMAN CAN BE AS GOOD AS A MAN -!"

"Did anyone in the US Zed ever say a woman wasn't as good as a man?" muttered Ant.

"Pen's as good a pilot as I am", said Turpin, "though my vengeance will be terrible if you ever tell her I said that. But this Ortega woman's making a big deal of it, using it to get to the Presidency."

"I AM AWARE OF YOUR EARNEST DESIRE TO CARRY THE WORD OF GOD TO OTHER NATIONS, SPECIFICALLY THE 'NINEVEH MISSION' REFERRED TO BY YOUR PROPHET. REST ASSURED, IF I AM ELECTED, FEDERAL FUNDING WILL BE MADE AVAILABLE TO BUILD SHIPS FOR THIS PURPOSE -"

As if spring-loaded, Ant shot to his feet.

"JUST LIKE YOU'RE BUILDING AN ARK FOR THE NORTH POLARS?" he yelled.

The room fell silent. Every face in the room turned toward Ant, including Elizabeth Ortega's; and Ant knew from the narrowing of her eyes that he had made an enemy for life.

"THAT IS WHAT YOU PROMISED THEM EARLIER TODAY, ISN'T IT?" he continued, taking advantage of the silence while it was there.

Coolly, Ortega leaned forward to the microphone, and said: "I'M NOT SURE THAT COULD HAVE BEEN DESCRIBED AS A 'PROMISE'."

"THEN WOULD YOU DESCRIBE WHAT YOU JUST SAID AS A PROMISE?" shouted Ant.

Ortega's face twisted in a grimace. No sound came out of her for several seconds.

"IS IT, IN FACT, NOT THE CASE THAT CANDIDATES' ELECTION PROMISES COME FROM THE SAME PLACE THE DOCTOR TAKES YOUR TEMPERATURE WHEN YOUR MOUTH IS NOT AVAILABLE?"

Candidate Ortega's eyes blazed fury; Mayor Jerkow signalled to several of her bodyguards, who nodded and headed into the crowd towards Ant.

"I don't believe this", said Ant. "They're going to remove us for daring to disagree with her."

"I think", said Turpin nervously, "they might be going to do more than just remove us."

"DON'T LET THEM LAY A HAND ON US!" yelled Ant desperately. "WE HAVE A RIGHT TO FREE SPEECH!"

"I do think you were being a tad rude, though, in retrospect, old chap", said Turpin.

Several of the Salemite crowd were standing up in the bodyguards' path. Some of them were every bit as big as the bodyguards, and wore expressions that said Don't think just because I believe in love and forgiveness and the Risen Christ that I won't pound you into bonemeal. Lieutenant Turpin prevented a bloodbath by grabbing Ant by the collar and yanking him out into the corridor, with Ant still yelling that his civil liberties were being infringed.