Sister Ships and Alastair - Chapter 12

12. All Things Will Be Better In Glorious Soviet Utopia

When Cleo returned to the bridge, all eyes were, bizarrely, on a brand new wide-screen plasma TV which Callaway was connecting to the communications console with coaxial cable.
"Got it in Bedford High Street", explained Callaway guiltily. "Black Prince's screens were all put in in the nineteen seventies. We're lucky they're in colour. With this we can watch Premier League football as long as we don't get the the planet between us and the signal."
"You're not going to be able to watch anything on that one but Man United against Liverpool", said Cleo. "The colour's gone on it. You need to take it back."
Lieutenant Jenkins shook his head. "That is the actual c-colour of the p-planetary surface. Ross 248 is a r-red dwarf star. Most stars are, in f-fact."
"Like Barnard's", said Cleo. "Barnard's Star is the one New Dixie orbits."
Jenkins nodded. "Very like B-Barnard's. The c-colour of the light from Krasnaya is about the s-same as from an electric f-fire."
Cleo squinted at the picture. "It's fuzzy as well as red."
Callaway grimaced. "It'll get worse. We'll lose them altogether once Krasnaya 3 rotates round away from us. Then they'll be out of contact for three hours. Krasnaya 3 has a six-hour day."
"Well, then we've got to do something! We can't lose touch with them for hours at a time!"
"I could bounce the signal off a comms satellite, and there are plenty in orbit round the planet, but they're all Soviet, of course. I have no idea how to patch in to them." A row of LED's glowed on Callaway's console. "My word. Here's one I missed. It's a big bit of junk, no idea what it's doing in that orbit...maybe a KGB surveillance satellite so the Russkies can spy on their own citizens. It's orbiting round the poles, so it's constantly in our line of sight." He rubbed his eyes in disbelief, as if the act of rubbing them might make the readout on his terminal go away. "It's almost ready-made for our purposes. Funny I never noticed it before. It's loop-broadcasting a text signal - most of it's gibberish, but..."
He tapped at his keyboard, and his screen filled with Russian characters. He pointed victoriously, however, to a patch of recognizable English in the middle of the screen. It said: "GREETINGS! THIS WILL BE EMERGENCY SATELLITE 127. IF YOU PLEASE USE THIS SATELLITE IN ORDER TO RETRANSMIT YOUR EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS. GLORIOUS SOVIET UNION IS IN TUNE WITH SPIRIT OF INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION. IF YOU PLEASE USE ONLY IN CASE OF TRUE EMERGENCY, PENALTY IS DEATH. LIST OF TRUE EMERGENCIES FOLLOWS. ONE (1): SOLAR FLARE TWO (2): PROTRACTED FUEL OIL SHORTAGE THREE (3): SABOTAGE BY COUNTERREVOLUTIONARY FORCES INTENT ON SUBVERSION OF BEAUTIFUL SOVIET UTOPIA FOUR (4): BREAD SHORTAGE FIVE (5): LICE EPIDEMIC SIX (6): THE RIOTING FOR THE OXYGEN..."
The list continued. Callaway looked up at Jenkins.
"If we patch our signal through the satellite, sir", said Callaway, "it won't be encrypted. The universe and his wife will be able to see what we're transmitting."
"D-do it", said Jenkins. "W-we're doing n-nothing illegal here. Let them see wh-what we're saying."
"Including anything we're saying about that top secret Russian cruiser we just walked through the innards of, I assume", muttered Callaway under his breath. He tapped at the keyboard again; the image on the wide screen TV solidified considerably. "We'll be able to talk to them round the clock now - and with a better picture..."
"Excellent, Mr. Callaway."
The picture on the plasma screen had cleared of electronic snow. Above hung a sky that was a vivid Soviet red. Below it, massive concrete-and-corrugated-iron structures loomed on either side. Between those, two scarlet figures were walking on asphalt the colour of dried blood. A bald patch could be seen on the back of the head on the left, a pony tail on the back of the one on the right.
"Sergeant C-Crawshaw's helmet cam", whispered Jenkins.
Particles of sand or dust blew sluggishly across the camera. The two scarlet figures were shielding their eyes from the wind with their hands. The street was wide, punctuated by the occasional gigantic shadows of tracked vehicles, some of which looked neatly parked, some of which were slewed across the centreline. There was a centreline, painted down the street in light red on dark. In the dim distance rose what looked like a control tower.
"This light's hell on the eyes", complained a crewman.
"Like a whole world on emergency lighting", agreed another.
"How do you think I feel?" said Penelope's voice from the console. "And this suit is heavy." She was puffing as she walked. "I am a low gravity girl. I am not used to weighing more than my big fat uncle Wally."
"So Gondolin is a low gravity world, then?" said Alastair. Penelope did not reply.
Gigantic, faded propaganda posters filled nearby walls. One showed pictures of a powerfully-muscled Soviet soldier, naked to the waist in a gas mask, victoriously holding up the dead body of a hideous fanged, clawed, multilegged creature in one hand, a bloodstained bayonet in the other.
"What does that poster say?" said Cleo.
Alastair's helmet light shone briefly on the poster. "Ah - VICTORY OVER FIELD PESTS, I believe."
"Do you think they really have pests like that down there?"
"It's probably artistic licence", said Alastair. His helmet light moved on to a poster one wall along, which depicted happy Soviet families skipping through fields of multicoloured flowers. "This one says THROUGH HARD WORK, THIS WILL HAPPEN HERE IN OUR LIFETIMES. Heh! Unlikely, I feel, unless hard work is capable of transforming the colour of the sun."
"It looks like a big settlement", said Cleo. "Bigger than New Dixie was, at any rate."
"Yes, I'm actually quite surprised", said Alastair. "The Russian name of this town is Potemkinsk, after all. Potemkin is the name of one of their old battleships, but it also means 'fake'. We've always assumed, when the Soviets claimed they had a great big colony orbiting Ross 248 that produced more oil, steel, limestone, salt and natural rubber than Britain and Malaysia combined, that they were simply lying as usual. It appears the cunning devils may have named the place deliberately to make us jump to conclusions -"
Penelope was approaching a slab-sided vehicle twice the height of a man. It was supported on immense tracks, each track link the size of a paving slab. Masses of steel pipes coiled out of its insides, culminating in a single stubby spout on top. Squat cylindrical tanks filled much of the space behind its cab, which was reached by a ladder from the ground. The camera moved toward the ladder. A hand reached out for the rungs -
"STOP RIGHT THERE, SERGEANT." A beam of white torchlight shone out across the ladder. Under proper lighting, the rungs oozed blue. The hand drew back as if scalded.
The voice was Alastair's. "Some of more of our blue ooze. It seems to display a crude sort of tactical intelligence. It manoeuvres itself into positions a human hand will touch. And in this light, it's almost black to the eye. Almost invisible."
"Bloody hell. I almost had my hand on that."
"We must be more careful. Keep watching the ground around your feet, and don't stand too long in the same spot...this is a strange vehicle, if I didn't know better, I'd swear it was steam-powered. Look, there's the steam chest...and over there the rotor housing...I used to want to be an engine driver when I was little, you understand..."
Penelope turned on the spot, holding the radio receiver in front of her. She pointed down the street. "Still in this direction. If there's a human being sending this signal, I think they're in that control tower."
Beyond the control tower, a statue, tall as a building, rose from a set of concrete steps in a small square. The statue was of a man, standing with a book in his hand and one finger upraised. Penelope stopped and craned her neck up at it.
"Have they...welded hair onto that?" she said in disbelief.
"I've seen that before in many Soviet colonies", said Alastair's voice. "Originally it's Lenin, you see, head of the Soviet state 1917-1924, with the bald head. Then someone decides to ingratiate himself with Joseph Stalin, head of the Soviet state 1924-1953, by adding on Stalin's hair and bigger moustache. Then when Stalin falls out of favour in '56, they decide to take off the moustache and most of the hair with an angle grinder and turn it into Nikita Krushchev." Alastair appeared in front of the camera, looking up at the statue. "I'm just surprised they didn't try to weld on some big bushy eyebrows in 1964 and make it into Brezhnev. In any case, this control tower is far more interesting. It may have people in it."
"What if it's a trap?" said Cleo, thinking out loud.
"Unfortunately", said Alastair, "once you start thinking what if it's a trap, you never get anything done. Because after what if it's a trap comes what if they want us to think it's a trap and what if they want us to think they want us to think it's a trap, when it actually is? And there's only one way round that train of thought, I'm afraid."
"Which is?"
"Assume everything is a trap. Mysterious distress signals from deserted control towers, advertisements that promise you things Absolutely For Free, and people who tell you they love you and will never leave." Alastair swung his torch around the solid, bulkhead-metal entrance to the control tower; no flecks of blue were visible. "This looks safe enough, though of course it isn't." He waved Penelope into the building and bowed. "Ladies first." Penelope scowled back.
"The streetlights are out", said Cleo. "There are streetlights, but they're not turned on."
"P-probably because it's m-midday down there", said Jenkins. "Ross 248 is a very dim b-bulb. But the l-lights are still on in all the b-buildings. Whatever happened, happened f-fast."
Sergeant Crawshaw's helmet cam showed a grim-looking lobby furnished with plastic chairs and tables under a faded poster of happy Communist families rocketing through the universe from red star to red star in a happy Communist flying saucer.
"What does the poster say?" said Cleo.
"Most stars in the universe are red", translated Alastair. "Fly Kosmoflot. Odd thing for them to say - they don't have any choice, actually. Kosmoflot is the Soviet state spaceline. The only state spaceline. The in-flight food is terrible."
"I've found a gun here", said Sergeant Crawshaw. His helmet light shone on a discarded weapon like a heavy, triple-barrelled pistol attached to a rifle stock. "A Soviet TP-82. Their astronauts use them." He leaned close. "The inside of the barrel's black. It's been fired recently. Been fired a lot." The floor around the gun sparkled with cartridge cases.
"Whoever the owner was", said Penelope, "having that gun didn't do her any good. Otherwise she'd still be here."
The camera hovered over an elevator button; blue goo oozed out of it like blood from a wound. "I think we'd better take the stairs."
The way to the stairs had to be opened with a ballpoint pen found on a desk; the doorhandle was thick with goop. All the way up the stairwell, the bannisters were iced with slime. Alastair had to slap Sergeant Crawshaw's hand away from the rail.
"What if it drops onto us from the ceiling?" said Penelope. The camera jerked upwards quickly, darting erratically back and forth across the undersides of higher flights of steps.
"I CAN SEE BLUE UP THERE! IT'S UP THERE -"
"Relax. It's just a blue wire. Even Soviets can't make all their wires red. They'd get themselves patriotically electrified trying to wire a plug. All the same, I believe Lieutenant Farthing is correct. The ceiling presents a serious risk. We had best spend as little time in enclosed spaces as possible. Who knows how little goop is needed to do, ah, whatever it is goop does?"
Then a fourth voice sounded in the console speaker. "Ccchello it is who?" The voice was high, either a girl's voice or a very young boy's.
"Мы должны здесь помочь вам", said Alastair. "Если вы имеете оружие, то пожалуйста не используйте его."
"Вы не должны коснуться веществу!" replied the voice warningly.
"Мы знаем это", said Alastair. "Будьте штилево".
The helmet cam emerged into a broad octagonal control tower. Visible through panoramic windows was a ragged line of black vegetation, a wall of alien life tens of metres in height, marking the edge of town. Whatever wall or barrier was stopping it encroaching on the settlement was hidden from sight by mountainous industrial spoilheaps.
The camera darted to the left of the room, where a large glass laboratory flask had been balanced on top of a control console. The flask was the core of a ball of azure slime. For some reason, electrical wires coiled around the flask, going deep inside the slime, and wisps of white vapour bubbled from its neck, which was thick with blue ooze. The camera darted back to the right; a small blonde figure was perched on the opposite console, shivering, wrapped in a Soviet greatcoat. The camera whipped back to the left again, centering on the flask.
"Mr. Drague, sir, I think it's ticking."
"Yes, Sergeant. I know. In fact, I believe there's an alarm clock inside it."
"It's a TRAP, sir."
"Of course it is. The only question is, who is it a trap for?" Drague turned away from the shivering figure, and pointed across the room at the retort. "Что это делать?"
A face emerged from the greatcoat - pale, red-eyed, sunken-cheeked, but staring across the control tower at the blue goop with an intense private hatred. Then the hands, too, came out of the greatcoat. They were holding two more wires - one red, one blue. The ends of the wires had been stripped, the copper threads inside them fanned out into brushes.
The wires came together. The retort hissed and sparked. Blue goo bubbled, crisped, charred, and fell away from the retort. Smoke rose from the assembly.
It was only then that Cleo noticed the shapes of other retorts scattered round the floor, each one wrapped around with wire, each one caked in crusty lumps of electrified goop. Each one also appeared to contain the innards of a clock.
"She's been doing this for a long time", said Drague. "Days, by the look of it." He fired off several more sentences in Russian at the occupant of the coat, who replied just as rapidly. Drague turned back to Penelope and Crawshaw.
"Very ingenious...she says the clocks are in the flasks to simulate a human heartbeat. She claims the goop is attracted to warm, living human bodies. She says the wire is wrapped around the flasks to to warm them, so that the goop will be more attracted to them. This decoys the goop away from her, and then she closes her second circuit and POW! It seems we have discovered another way of killing the stuff - electrification. Oh, and she says a patch of goop is sneaking up on you under the floor tiles, Sergeant -"
Crawshaw's camera gave a yelp and bounced a full metre backwards and upwards. When it came to rest again, it seemed to be perched on the console just like the figure in the greatcoat. Alastair and Penelope were also moving away from a patch of floor tiles that were rising out of place, as if the room were waterlogged.
"There wyill be also the Cyarbon Dioxide", said the coat sullenly, retreating back into itself so that only one blue eye was visible.
"Carbon dioxide. I see", nodded Alastair - and then, after a moment of beaming happily in total incomprehension, added: "No I don't."
"I th-think I do", said Jenkins, clearing his throat and leaning toward the microphone as he spoke. "She put a l-laboratory chemical in the b-bottom of the flask - probably nothing more c-complex than dry ice. Frozen c-carbon dioxide. Over time, the dry ice melted, releasing c-carbon dioxide vapour. Now, c-carbon dioxide is also what human beings b-breathe out. That's how m-midges always manage to find you to b-bite you in the dark. They f-follow the trail of your b-breath in the air. The g-goop became all the more c-convinced the f-flask was a l-living creature because it c-contained c-carbon dioxide."
"Our young Russian is both educated and resourceful", said Alastair. "What is your name? Будет вашим именем?"
"Владлена", said the coat. "Владлена Матвэевна Ильюшина".
"What happened to everyone here, Vladlena Matveyevna Ilyushina?"
"Blue syubstance", said the coat, pointing across the room with the tip of a nose. "Blue syubstance hyappen."
"What happened to everyone else?" said Alastair. "Where are they?"
"They try to yuse gyuns", said the coat. "And Yexplosives. Gyuns and yexplosives yuseless. Syubstance tyake them."
"Didn't kill them?" said Cleo hopefully, remembering Glenn Bob's family.
"Kyill them", said the coat with bitter finality. "Kyill them all for syure."
Nobody answered. Crawshaw's helmet cam looked at its shoes respectfully.
"Well, they've found the single survivor", said Cleo. "I imagine they can come home now."
"N-not just yet", said Jenkins. "Sergeant, Mr. D-Drague, Lieutenant - I w-want you to c-comb the area for f-further survivors. I am n-not about to t-take the word of a t-twelve-year-old ch-child."
On the screen, Penelope folded her arms and spoke to the ceiling. "It's dangerous down here, Jenkins."
"Even more d-dangerous if you've been abandoned by p-people who should have rescued you. Search the area."
Alastair's face was red. He glared into Sergeant Crawshaw's helmet cam. "Lieutenant Jenkins, I must protest. Every minute we spend down here, we are being sneaked up on by hostile alien life forms -"
"Then s-search quickly." Jenkins reached forward to the console and turned off the connection. The screen went dead.
"He's even m-more irritating on the p-planetary surface than he w-was up here", he marvelled sadly.
"I have to go back to my cell", announced Cleo suddenly. "I have Earth person things to do. And so does Mr. Karg."
Karg, who had been standing miserably silent at the back of the bridge, blinked like a startled toad. "I do?"
"You do. Trust me, you do."
***
"It's Jenkins. How could I have been so stupid? It's all so obvious now. He plays the daft clueless idiot whilst sending Alastair and Penelope down to the planet to die. And Alastair is the only man who could expose him. Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!"
Cleo was pacing up and down the Officers' Mess, punching herself in her own head in time with her words, as Hammond Karg looked on in bemusement.
"Can I get this straight?" said Karg nervously. "Mr. Drague believes you and me are the only ones who can help him."
Cleo nodded. "Neither of us had the opportunity to attach a transmitter to Black Prince's hull while she was in space. We were both under armed guard at the time. I had a motive, of course - I am an implacable enemy of the Status Quo. You, meanwhile, would have no motive at all, as you are just a rather sweaty fat man in a bad suit. Or are you?" She wheeled about and came face to face with a portrait of the Queen, whom she scowled at. The Queen scowled back.
"Is that how you see me?" said Mr. Karg, crestfallen. "I thought the male corset was holding it in."
Cleo turned the Look Of Fashion Death on Karg. "Male", she said, "corset?"
Karg shuffled his feet nervously. "Many men wear them."
"Many other men stop necking pies and go to the gym."
"I like pies", said Mr. Karg.
Cleo suddenly stopped, exhaled in a long sigh, and flopped down into a chair in one long movement.
"You know what?" said Cleo. "So do I. And my mum's about your size. I'll probably be your size in twenty or thirty years. I don't like the gym any more than you do. Put it there."
She raised a hand. Mr. Karg gave her his own hand. It was fat and sweaty. She shook it anyway.
"A corset, though", she said.
"It's really unobtrusive", said Karg. "You can hardly tell I'm wearing it."
With difficulty and a sound of straining elastic, he sat down opposite her.
"I used to be a policeman", he said. "I'm not saying I was a very good one; but I was a policeman. And there is a thing you need to carry out a crime as well as motive and opportunity."
"A stripy T shirt and a bag marked SWAG?" said Cleo.
Mr. Karg shook his head.
"A black face in a white man's car?"
Mr. Karg retained impressive dignity under pressure.
"Means", he said. "You need to have the means."
"Means", said Cleo.
"To go outside a space ship, for example", said Karg, "I'd imagine you would need a space suit. The space suit is the means in this case. Does everyone on board this ship have access to a space suit?"
Wrong-footed, Cleo shook her head. "Er - I don't know. But all this is irrelevant! We know it's Jenkins. He's behaving in a way that proves it."
"No he isn't, any more than the fact that I'd pulled over a black man driving a BMW back when I was a policeman would have proven that he'd stolen the car. We need proof. Not to prove it to others - to prove it to ourselves. Trust me, that is far more important. There's nothing worse than knowing you sent an innocent man down."
Cleo absorbed this quietly. Then she said:
"We need to find out how many space suits there are on board."
"That's the spirit", said Karg.