David Garnet - Bikini Planet

Falspace was a dangerous realm, where ships still vanished: wrecked by the storms of time, torn apart upon the reefs of space, trapped in the endless depths of eternal flux. The one way out was via an escape pod, buoyed up to the surface after the vessel had sunk: Lifeboats could only travel in real space, in truspace.

Which was why they took such a long time to get anywhere.

And why few survivors lived long enough to make planetfall.

“In any case,” said Eliot Ness, “the pod wouldn’t have recognised Hideaway as a destination. It doesn’t have fixed co-ordinates.”

“That’s not what you said at the time.”

“Neither of us wanted to go there.”

“That was then. This is now. I’ll go anywhere.”

“There’s nowhere near enough. Not even in ninety-one hours, twenty-one minutes and thirty seconds. Twenty-nine, twenty-eight, twenty-seven…”

“Maximum air supply for one of us?”

“Yes.”

“What do we do?” asked Kiru. “Wait to die?”

“That’s not my preferred option.”

“How about the distress signal? Can’t you switch it back on? Or is being rescued too far down on your priority list?”

“It depends who rescues us.”

“Beggars can’t be choosers.”

“I’ve no experience of the choices available to beggars.”

“If someone answers the distress signal, they have to be on your list of approved rescuers? Otherwise you’ll say, ‘Thanks, but I don’t like the colour of your ship, I’ll wait for the next one’?”

“No one, Kiru, is going to rescue us.”

“No one will hear the signal, you mean?”

“Even if they hear it.”

“By the time they reach us it’ll be too late?”

“No one is even going to try to reach us. Why should they? What’s in it for them? You and me, what are we worth? I’m the most precious person in the universe. But only, it seems, to myself. Space rescue isn’t a charity run by humanitarians. Or even alientarians. There just aren’t enough philanthropic selfless altruists in the galaxy.”

“People like you?”

“That’s right. Launching a rescue is very expensive, even making a detour takes time and money. And it can be dangerous. Sending false distress signals is a pirate tactic to lure ships to their doom. As I’m sure you know.”

Kiru ignored the last remark. “What can we do?”

“We can rescue ourselves.”

“How?”

“By becoming a very attractive salvage opportunity. We need a fast rescue from the nearest planet, or we have to snare a ship out of falspace with a lucrative rescue proposal.”

“How?”

“Like this,” said Eliot Ness, as he returned to the control screen.

Kiru watched him. There was something different about him. Different but familiar. This was the first chance for a long time that she’d had to study Eliot Ness while his attention was concentrated elsewhere.

She wasn’t sure exactly how much time had passed, but they had been on the lifeboat at least three weeks. Or perhaps it was nearer to three months.

There was nothing within the pod to mark the passage of time. (Or nothing that Kiru knew about.) The symsuits slowed all their biological functions, making it even harder to judge how long they had been together.

On board, there was nothing to do except sleep, eat and talk, sleep, talk and eat, sleep. There was something else they could have done, something men and women had done together since the dawn of time, but Eliot Ness always behaved like a perfect gentleman. He never made any advances, but kept his distance and allowed Kiru her own, small space.

She often wondered how he would react if she made the first move. It was only an idle thought, but she had plenty of time for idle thoughts. He wouldn’t refuse her, she knew. He was a man, so how could he? He was old, but not that old. And the longer they were on board, the smaller the relative difference in their ages would become. In another ten years, say, he might be twenty or twenty-five percent older; but Kiru would be fifty percent older.

It was a depressing thought, almost as bad knowing she had less than a hundred hours to live.

Kiru had soon become used to the size of the capsule and learned where everything was. (Or everything Eliot Ness wanted her to know about.) What she didn’t learn was anything about Eliot Ness, who successfully evaded all of Kiru’s questions about his life. Despite this, he always had plenty to tell her. She’d never had much education, but thanks to her personal tutor she was on her way to becoming a galactic graduate.

Eliot Ness seemed to have been everywhere, to know everything. If not, he must have had a datadek grafted onto his brain. Or else he was lying.

Kiru had told him her own life story, which wasn’t worth lying about, although she stopped when she reached Grawl’s attempt to obliterate her brain and steal her body. She didn’t want to remember what had happened after, her few fantastic hours with…

… whoever he was, whatever he’d been called.

“Who are you?” Kiru asked, as Eliot Ness turned away from the screen.

He smiled and shook his head.

“Aren’t you ever going to tell me?” Kiru said.

“No, but I’ll tell you who you are.”

“Who?”

“You are Princess Janesmith.”

“Who?”

“She’s the elder sister of Marysmith, Empress of Algol,” said Eliot Ness. “I met her on Hideaway when I was having some clothes made.”

This was the first time he’d ever referred to being on Hideaway. Kiru had wondered if perhaps he hadn’t been on the pleasure asteroid. He could have been on the ship when it arrived and stayed on board when it departed.

“You went to Hideaway to buy clothes?” said Kiru.

“I was there. I needed some clothes. Princess Janesmith made me some.”

“A princess made you some clothes?”

“Forget the clothes, Kiru.” Eliot Ness paused, smiling briefly. “If I remember, that’s what you’d done when I first met you. The important thing is: from now on, you will be Princess Janesmith of Algol.”

Everyone else had a false identity, now it was her turn.

“Why?” she said. “Give me one good reason.”

“So I can survive,” Eliot Ness told her. “Or you might prefer another reason: so you can survive.”

Kiru nodded, but she was thinking of something else, of someone else. James. Before meeting her, he’d been with an Algolan princess. She was the one who sent him the box of blue worms. She had to be Janesmith, had to be the same person.

“Your younger sister, Empress Marysmith, inherited the Algolan throne,” said Eliot Ness, “and she—”

“My younger sister?” Kiru interrupted. “I mean, Jane-smith’s younger sister?”

“On Algol, it’s the youngest, not the eldest, who inherits everything. The youngest daughter, that is. Sons don’t matter. The Algolans have got everything back to front. The females are in complete control, the males are totally subservient.”

“That’s insane.”

Eliot Ness nodded his agreement.

“They must be absolutely crazy,” Kiru continued. “Imagine a solar system run by women. Gossiping all the time. Comparing their hair, their makeup. Talking about babies. Going shopping. How long could an empire like that last?” She shrugged. “Longer than Earth’s recorded history, isn’t it?”

“Yes, yes,” said Eliot Ness. “Never mind that. As I was saying, Marysmith, Empress of Algol, wants you, Jane-smith, her elder sister, dead.”

“Why? Because she, I mean me, because I keep borrowing her clothes?”

“It’s because you’re next in line to the crown. While you’re alive, you’re a constant threat to your sister. That’s why Empress Marysmith has issued an imperial death warrant. She wants you dead, and so her whole planet wants you dead.”