The Romance Of Crime Part 20

'Oh, decided to help me now, then, have you?' said Spiggot. He flexed his fingers and reached for a bank of console controls. 'Now, these must be for the guidance unit.'

'Halt!' K9 ordered. 'My sensors indicate that the console is protected by security devices.'

Spiggot withdrew his hand. 'Then how are we going to break into it?'

'Remove the inspection panel in the base,' K9 ordered.

Spiggot knelt down and with some difficulty unhooked the metal sheet from the foot of the console. A network of rods and tubes was revealed. Each was labelled a different colour.

'I am not familiar with these colour codings,' K9 admitted.

'But logic circuits indicate that the mechanisms serving the guidance system are those to the left.'

Spiggot nodded. 'Right. And are they safe to touch?'

'Negative,' replied K9. 'I will use my defensive laser to sever the connections.' He started to cut away at one of the rods. 'Estimate component will be destroyed in thirteen minutes four seconds.'

One of the several disadvantages faced by employers of Ogrons is that their servants are similar in appearance. It is difficult for non-Ogrons to tell Ogrons apart. When two Ogrons shuffled fearfully into computer control, Eddie mistook them for a couple he had sent on another errand.

'h.e.l.lo, boys. Brought us breakfast, then?'

The Ogrons looked guiltily at the floor. 'No, master. You did not give us orders to fetch breakfast.'

Eddie frowned. 'Oh, right. You must be the lads that were on duty back at the ship. We sent the relief guard. Shouldn't you be on patrol?'

Charlie looked up from the book he had been reading. It was one of his books about cla.s.sy works of art that Eddie couldn't understand. Charlie had always had fancy tastes.

'What's going on?'

The first Ogron looked as if he was about to wet his underpants. 'Sorry, master, but we lose prisoner, the judge man.'

Charlie slipped his bookmark gently between the pages of his book and rested it on the console. 'What have you done?'

'Ugly girl came to ship,' said the Ogron. 'She said she was Xais, your friend. Said you would punish if we did not let her in. With big bald man. They take judge man away.'

The second Ogron said boldly, 'They knocked me on head and I ' His explanation faltered as Charlie's stare bored into his primitive fear centres.

'What ugly girl?' asked Charlie. 'All the people here are supposed to be dead.'

Eddie spoke up. 'Perhaps we've missed some, Charlie.'

Charlie clenched his jaw and spoke very quietly. 'I do not like this. I do not like it at all. I look at this operation and do you know what word enters my mind? Slipshod. I am not accustomed to a lackl.u.s.tre standard of work.' He addressed the first Ogron. 'What's your name?'

'It it is Flarkk, Mr Charles. Your pilot.'

'Flarkk.' Charlie clamped a hand on the Ogron's shaking shoulder. 'If anyone says that they are one of our friends, and that they have our best interests at heart, and must be allowed through, do you know what to do?'

Flarkk shook his head.

'You kill them, Flarkk. Because we haven't got any friends.

No one has our best interests at heart. In fact, everybody hates us. Got that?'

Flarkk nodded. 'Everybody hates you.'

'That's right. Do you hate us, Flarkk?'

Flarkk floundered. 'Er, no, Mr Charles. I like you. You are good to Ogrons.'

Charlie leant closer and whispered, 'Wrong, Flarkk. You hate us. We don't give you enough food, do we? Or enough room to sleep in? And your beer is warm and recycled from your own urine, isn't it?'

'I hate you, Mr Charles,' Flarkk said dutifully, although Eddie knew that the Ogrons were pleased enough with their lot.

Charlie crossed to the station's public address system and pressed a b.u.t.ton. 'This is Mr Nisbett senior to all Ogrons.

There are humans aboard this station. You are to search them out and shoot on sight. And get it right this time. Oh, and by the way, rations are halved until further notice.' He was about to break the link when something occurred to him. 'And would Miss Xais please return to computer control as we are nearing our destination. Thank you.'

He broke the link and waved the luckless Flarkk and his a.s.sociate away, then returned to his chair and his book.

Eddie edged over. 'What do you reckon this ugly girl and big bald man are, then?'

'Dead,' said Charlie, finding his place.

At the intersection of corridors on level eight, Xais stood listening to the announcement. 'The idiots. Why did I ever choose to work with them?'

'A question I would like answered,' said a voice from the darkness.

Pyerpoint emerged, his rifle levelled in her direction. 'Our arrangement. You have broken it.'

She faced him without concern. 'I sent you to their ship for your own safety.'

Did you?' He came closer. 'I played my part. I gave you the helicon. I've been waiting for you three years. Involving the Nisbett brothers was never part of our plan.'

She took pleasure in unsettling him. 'They were part of the operation from the start. I decided not to inform you that we would be using their mining equipment. I imagined it would displease you. But they are here now and we will be rid of them soon enough. Essentially, nothing has changed.'

Pyerpoint lowered the gun slightly. 'Perhaps. And the attack on the McConnochie base? The Doctor told me of it.'

'Necessary. I know your caution, Pyerpoint. These things had to be done but you would never have sanctioned them.'

She curled the fingers of one hand over the tip of the rifle and angled it downwards. 'All will be well soon enough. The helicon is going to make your ambitions a reality. Remember the demonstration I gave you? The power of helicon can be yours.'

He grimaced. 'Why am I still alive, Xais? What use am I to you now?'

'You are the only survivor of the raid, Pyerpoint,' she said.

'As you will recall, the mining process will take two months.

As High Archon, your account of events here will be beyond suspicion. In two weeks, you will be found aboard the smoking remains of this station as it drifts on the other side of the system. You will report that the Nisbett brothers mounted a raid. Fortunately, you learnt the whereabouts of their base, on Helta. The police will be tangled up for months in bureaucratic wranglings with the Heltan authorities. Their attentions will never turn to our activities on Eleven. With your influence you can make doubly sure of that.'

'You have staked a good deal on my cooperation,' said Pyerpoint. 'And my reward?'

Xais waved a graceful hand. 'Unchanged. You will receive half of the activated helicon, which I will imprint with your personality.' She walked away. 'I have your a.s.sent? You must see there could be no other way.'

'Perhaps not. I did not realize you were so resourceful, Xais.'

'It is nothing. Now, the Doctor. He is the danger now. If he reports to the police, they may move against us before we can extract the helicon. He must be found and killed.'

'He was your prisoner,' said Pyerpoint. 'You lost him?'

'An error that will soon be rectified,' she said confidently.

'I must return to the Nisbett brothers. They must know nothing of your part in this. So drop the gun and play your part well.'

In the engine control room, Spiggot felt in his pocket for his packet of lights. His fingers closed around an empty box.

'Dammit,' he snarled. 'No smokes left. What am I going to do about that, K9?'

At the base of the console K9 continued his work.

'Ingestion of nicotine substances is harmful.'

'Ah, shut up, you sound like a state health warning.'

Spiggot clenched his fists. 'I feel so helpless, just standing here. But what can I do?'

'Exercise is recommended to relieve tension,' burbled K9.

'The physiology catalogue of my data bank offers two hundred and twenty-nine exercise routines for humans.

Exercise one. Stand with feet together and knees slightly bent '

'Look, will you give it a rest, all right?' Spiggot screamed.

'And I was just beginning to get used to you. Like you, even.'

'Your approval is irrelevant,' said K9, sounding slightly miffed. 'My oh.' His voicebox emitted a curious groan and he motored back hurriedly from the console.

Spiggot asked, 'Hey, what's up?'

The dog's ear sensors twirled. 'I have made an error,' he said. 'Please cover your eyes.'

The innards of the console revealed beneath the inspection plate fizzed and crackled. Currents of vividly coloured static buzzed like angry hornets between contact points and sparks burst in trails along insulated cables. Levers and switches on the console above started to move of their own accord. A bleeper sounded.

The floor beneath Spiggot upended and tipped him over face first. K9 skittered across the room.

'What have you done?' Spiggot demanded as he pulled himself up. The ever present throbbing note of the engines sounded deeper and discordant.

K9 twirled about, sensors and probe extended, absorbing information from all sources. 'Regret error has been made,' he said. 'Linkage ignited has not placed engines in stasis mode.

Failsafe mechanism has operated. Engines have stalled.'

'They've what?' Spiggot exclaimed. He hurried over to the small screen that displayed the Rock's relative position. Planet Eleven was dangerously near and they were dropping towards it like a stone. 'We're going to crash down there.'

'Inevitable,' said K9. 'Impact will cause ma.s.sive explosion of inflammable gases on the planet's surface.'

Spiggot felt like tearing his hair out. 'So what does that matter to us? At the speed we're dropping, we'll be dead well before that!'

11.

Planet Eleven.

-crambled eggs, fried mushrooms, kedgeree, triangular S slices of fried bread, bacon, baked beans, sausages, brown sauce. All slid greasily from Charlie's plate as the Rock of Judgement tipped forward into its new and deadly course.

He steadied himself. 'What was that?'

Eddie hurried over to the navigation console and squinted to make sense of the readings. 'We're speeding up. Going into a close orbit.'

Charlie put his breakfast tray aside, wiped his yolk-stained lips clean with a napkin, and joined his brother at the console.

A screen on top showed a computer projection of the likely outcome of the spiral in which they were locked. Blue animated lines converged in an urgently warbling red point at a range of mountains on the approaching world. Warning messages unrolled.

'We're going to crash,' Charlie exclaimed. 'Where is she?'

'What, Xais?'

'Who else?' Charlie's hand dipped into his pocket and his fingers slid into the grips of his knuckleduster. 'She's sprung her game quicker than I'd reckoned on.'

'No game of mine!'

The brothers turned as Xais stalked into computer control.