Zamper Read online

  She took back the pencil without the slightest reaction, and started to separate the tags in the tray, slowly and incompetently. Taal’s suspicion increased. She’d never so much as walked past a gaming centre.

  The automated supply ships that called at Zamper bimonthly contained enough of the essentials to sustain the four permanent staff and any number of guest buyers. As a specialist, Smith’s needs were not overlooked, and on yesterday’s flight the Management, who had interfaced specially with a tobacconist on Shaggra on her behalf, had secured two years’ supply of tufted whizzweed. Although it wasn’t yet 10 a.m., Smith found her brown-stained fingers fumbling for the briar pipe in her jacket pocket.

  When it was ready she took a long, self-satisfied puff. After eight years she was getting somewhere. Eight years of working alone and friendless, with the Secunda looking on and wishing her to fail.

  It was time for the specimens’ feed. Even to her trained zoologist’s eyes all Zamps looked identical, and so she had numbered them with harmless adhesive metal plates. The specimen marked as Two sensed the vibration as she twisted the feeder control and the grass clippings sprinkled into the case. A Zamp moved by squeezing the middle section of its body in an accordion-like motion and squelching along, its locomotion aided by the sticky fluid trail that issued from its soft underside. Two lowered its twitching feelers and brought its mouth, seven pinprick-sized holes arranged in a ring pattern, down to the grass. It ate silently, straining the vital fluids it craved through a slalom of osmotic filaments that ran the length of its heavily muscled gullet. Satisfied, it slurped away. One took its place, its feelers intertwining briefly with Two’s as they passed. A melodic burble issued from One’s underdeveloped voicebox, and its fellows harmonized.

  As she watched, Smith felt her head shaking in silent admiration of the consortium’s adaptors. To alter a species so skilfully was beyond even the most talented of her homeworld’s geno-architects. If they’d had the intelligence, the Zamps could easily have opened their cage and squelched back to their herds in the yards. After eight years, she still was unsure what their original form would have been, but now they were parts of a machine, the secret components at the heart of Zamper. A herd of thirty, silently and without complaint, could design and build a multi-combat battlecruiser in four months.

  Her Outscreen twittered and she turned to see the wrinkled and over made-up face of the Secunda. ‘Hello dear. Up and about early this morning, I see.’

  ‘The Management’s been talking of some great discovery you’ve made. I thought I’d call over for a look.’ Her eyes darted about the lab.

  ‘Can’t discuss it, I’m afraid.’ Smith waved her pipe at the Outscreen. ‘Think I might’ve tracked down the breakaways. You know, the sub-herd.’

  ‘The missing Zamps? Have you really? Where then?’

  Smith put a finger to her lips. ‘Sorry. No big secret, I just don’t want to look silly if I’m proved wrong. I could do with a couple of servitors, you know, could you send some over?’ Inside she was bursting with glee at her likely triumph.

  ‘The proper process is to make a formal application,’ the Secunda said through gritted teeth.

  ‘Surely not necessary. It’s only me that asks.’

  ‘Procedure states –’

  Smith beamed. ‘Have you forgotten, Secunda, that I know exactly who you are? That we’re both in the same boat, as it were? Former glories count for nought here.’

  ‘I shan’t rise to your childishness. The servitors will be with you shortly.’

  ‘Ooh – Madge, dear, home them in on my buggy, will you? It’ll save time.’

  ‘Very well.’ The Outscreen clicked off.

  Smith laughed and punched the air.

  Big Mother became aware of his nurse fussing over him, checking the machines that supplied him with fluid, measuring the waste collected in the bag hooked over his rear.

  ‘What news from Hafril?’ he heard himself mutter in a voice that was crumbly and decrepit. He knew he had the name wrong, but it was difficult these days even to remember you’d forgotten.

  The nurse said patiently, ‘I think you mean General Hezzka, Highness.’

  Big Mother tried to wave a foot to indicate his understanding, but he had no energy.

  ‘He and First Pilot Ivzid are just leaving the range of our sensornet, Highness.’

  ‘We want to see.’

  The nurse stretched up and clicked a button on Big Mother’s selector.

  A starscape. He had travelled throughout the empire in his younger days, on diplomatic visits and the like, and had never tired of the wonders of space. This region had nothing to commend it in particular and the stars were unfamiliar, but he was moved by the beauty of the nearest, a fiery red giant that it hurt to look at, and the dusts wobbling in a belt of deep haze before a distant, hook-shaped constellation. It was peaceful in comparison to the war-torn spaceways the fleet had navigated on their long journey here.

  ‘That’s them, Highness, middle left of the image.’

  Big Mother saw it. The many facets of the shuttle glinted as it grew smaller, on the far side of the closing gateway, a pebble thrown into a bottomless black well.

  ‘You carry all of our hopes, Hezzka,’ he wheezed. ‘Do not fail us.’

  The gateway closed.

  Chapter 2

  Professor Bernice Summerfield stepped from the TARDIS into darkness. Even after several years – reckoned in her own relative experience – of eventful travel through time and space, moments like this remained important. She was, after all, an explorer, and crossing into a new world was a big part of what she did. More often than not, the Doctor would have their destination prepared, and might even throw in a quick lecture on what monsters to expect, which toilets to avoid, and the like. On this occasion he was far from being in control. Only hours after their departure from the Sloathe moon, the systems had suddenly jammed, forcing an emergency materialization. Shortly before it fell silent, the exterior sensor panel had assured the crew that all was well in the immediate vicinity. Bernice welcomed the chance for a peek, and had slipped the doors open, unnoticed by the Doctor, who had already vanished under the console wielding a wrench and muttering something about ‘dimensional rents’ and ‘spatial distortion.’

  The air around Bernice was warm and greasy, tickling the bridge of her nose, and somewhere close there was an engine or a big motor, rattling the floor beneath her boots. She reached into the black instinctively, edging the tips of her fingers forward an inch at a time. There was nothing. Pushing the door of the TARDIS open with her heel she called back, ‘We’ll need torches.’

  A rectangle of light escaped from the control room, revealing some of her new surroundings. The TARDIS had materialized in what looked to Bernice like a maintenance conduit. Hardly glamorous. Facing her, stapled to a wall, was a twisted coil of cables. Beneath was a plaque of feebly glowing green, reacting to the light thrown upon it.

  She pointed these items out as the TARDIS door opened wide and Forrester stepped out, shining a beam from a big, rubber-insulated torch. Bernice watched the older woman’s dark eyes pass around this new place, suspicion ingrained in every line of her frown. ‘This reminds me of one of the first ships I ever travelled on,’ Forrester said.

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘Just an impression.’ Standing on tiptoe she rapped her knuckles on the ceiling. ‘Made for humans, but I don’t recognize the technology. You?’

  ‘It really looks very dull.’ Bernice tweaked at one of the cables. ‘Fuel lines.’

  Cwej emerged, and swung his torch about, revealing more sagging lengths of cable, more phosphor plaques. He pulled a face. ‘What’s that stink?’

  Bernice’s guess was confirmed. The conduit was actually quite stooped and narrow; the light on top of the TARDIS missed the ceiling by only a fraction of an inch. Cables ran along the walls on either side, trailing off around corners into what looked like identical conduits.

  Forrester’s a
nxious features were caught in the light from her own torch. ‘It could be a fuel mixture,’ she said. Her voice echoed strangely. ‘Or a leaking tank.’ She nodded. ‘Of course, that’s why it reminds me of that ship.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘It blew up.’

  ‘This place could go up any moment?’ Cwej’s eyebrows shot up and he scurried back towards the TARDIS. He stood at the door, looking between the two women.

  ‘We’re in motion, I’m sure,’ Forrester told Bernice. ‘If we’re on a ship, it must be big one, judging from the size of those cables.’

  ‘Please let’s be sensible,’ said Cwej. ‘I’m not asking for much.’

  ‘It’s possibly a leaking tank, that’s all I said.’ Forrester set off along the conduit. She summoned him with an irritated twitch of her head, and he followed like a dog, with a shrug to Bernice.

  She listened to their footsteps and voices receding.

  ‘We’re on a huge spaceship that could be about to explode?’

  ‘That’s my theory.’

  ‘Then this is stupid. Why are we doing this?’

  ‘Because I want to know why it’s going to explode!’

  Bernice was not left alone in the dark again for long. With a sharp creak that hurt her ears, the TARDIS door was flung open and the Doctor emerged, his slight form caught in the light from the interior, the deep worry lines that brought a plenitude of mysterious character to his face even more creased than usual.

  ‘Ready, Doctor?’

  ‘I’ve traced the fault,’ he said. ‘We passed through a rent in the fabric of space, causing rapid erosion of our filaments. A circuit’s blown, look.’ In the palm of his hand was a small round unit of frosted glass. The filament inside was cracked. Bernice had learnt not to question the startling scientific irregularities of the TARDIS. If a blown fuse could bring a machine of such size and abilities to a halt, let it. There were more important things in life to worry about, generally hairy or metal or with fangs. ‘Don’t tell me. It’s catastrophic. I’d lay odds.’

  The Doctor grinned and tossed and caught the faulty component as if it were a coin. ‘Nothing of the sort. But the power’s blocked. We’ll be grounded until I can whistle up a spare. And I’ve mislaid the toolkit.’ He slipped the component into his pocket and cast about, squinting. ‘Where are those others?’

  ‘Roz thinks we’re on a spacecraft.’

  ‘Does she?’ He walked over to the facing wall and laid the palm of his left hand on the luminous green plaque. It responded to his touch, increasing in brightness until she could see him clearly. The sort of clever thing he would think of. ‘What’s your opinion?’

  Bernice blinked a couple of times, the skin around her eyes suddenly sore. That greasy odour was getting stronger, about four parts to ten of oxygen. She coughed, flapped at the air. ‘Ugh. Well, Roz also thinks there’s a –’ she spluttered, ‘a leaky –’ and again, ‘engine.’

  He sniffed. ‘Not necessarily. Perhaps we’ve stumbled across the galaxy’s biggest chip shop.’ He offered his handkerchief. ‘Go back inside if you like.’ He sauntered off, overpowered by curiosity, poking at the cables with an index finger. ‘I wonder, Bernice, if this ship is manned? And if so, what manner of creature we may find up on deck. I didn’t expect to find an advanced, space-travelling species in this part of the galaxy, but there again…’

  His voice, muffled by odd echoes and the rumble of that dynamo or whatever it was, trailed off. Bernice buried her nose in the hanky, took an anguished glance back at the battered wooden door of the TARDIS, which was made a kind of undersea green by the murky light, and followed him.

  ‘Battered sausage and pea fritter twice,’ she called.

  The web of conduits led to a metal barrier, a blank oblong panel set into its middle. Forrester threw her torch to Cwej and searched for an opening mechanism. The surface was smooth so she checked the walls and the floor. It would be logical for this to lead into another area. In a vessel this size, maintenance compartments would be in the mid-section.

  Cwej leant against the wall, breathing heavily. ‘That smell’s getting worse. Something’s burning.’

  She ignored him. ‘Perhaps this opens inwards, and is sealed from the other side.’ She searched the panel once more, running her fingers along the grooves that marked its edges. ‘But who’s going to seal a maintenance conduit? For safety reasons it’d be left open at all times. It must lead somewhere. It obviously comes away.’

  ‘I’ve been thinking. I’ve got an idea,’ he said.

  At the moment opening this panel was what mattered. A reliable, practical, soluble problem. That was a relief after recent terrors. ‘It definitely opens. It must swing open from the other side. That means it’s been sealed, and this section blocked off. Or is it the other side that’s been blocked off?’

  ‘These phosphor plaques,’ said Cwej, tapping one of the glowing rectangles. ‘Look.’ He snapped off both torches.

  Forrester snarled. ‘What are you doing? Will you –’

  She could barely see him in the green. ‘They’re just not bright enough to work in,’ he said, having to raise his voice as the engine rumble increased and a loose covering somewhere rattled and clanged as if blown by a strong wind. Trickles of sweat glistened on his brow. ‘A maintenance team couldn’t see in this. It sounds like something needs fixing, so where are they?’

  Damn, he had something. She retrieved her torch and tried to sound sceptical. Childish. ‘Yeah?’

  ‘There’s nobody aboard. No light, no air. We’re in flight, but we’re not adrift. In fact it sounds like we’re speeding up.’ He was backing away down the conduit as he spoke. The fearful expression on his big, pretty face really made him too cute. ‘We should have worked this out earlier.’

  Forrester ran quickly through the facts but couldn’t see his conclusion. She’d have to admit her ignorance. ‘What?’

  He turned his torch on. ‘It’s a test ship. Programmed to crash. I think.’

  Forrester swallowed, gulping down a wave of panic. She wasn’t bothered so much by the danger they were in. The TARDIS was only a short walk back. What rankled was that she’d had no idea, hadn’t thought, and gone blundering in. As if this were her world, working the way she understood. Even after the Sloathes, adapting was difficult.

  She kicked the metal barrier with the toe of her boot.

  The panel clunked open – well it would – revealing not another section of the ship but a porthole. Just to prove her completely wrong. A massive purple circumference was framed in the oblong. The planet was enormous and far too near. It was coming closer, pushing the stars out of the picture. She could see the outline of mountains and a couple of seas, through a thin pearl-pink cover of cloud. Its mass would crush this ship like a juice carton.

  Cwej pointed. ‘I was right.’

  Forrester smacked him across the shoulder. ‘Of course you were right. Now let’s move!’

  Bernice squeezed her shoulders through the hatch, took the Doctor’s hand and let him pull her up. The companionway into which they emerged looked more promising. It was still dark and too hot, getting hotter even, but there was an open door on the left. In the small cabin beyond, a skeletal shadow was thrown on the far wall by a tall metal structure. She peered, tried to resolve its shape; the thing was a bunk-bed. On the lower shelf a still form was huddled under a blanket.

  ‘There are people about, then,’ she whispered, following the Doctor in to the metal chamber. It was monastically bare, with no cupboards, tables or belongings.

  ‘There were.’

  The Doctor shook the sleeper gently. Her eyes growing accustomed to the dark, Bernice saw the head flop back grotesquely. The Doctor patted her on the shoulder. ‘Don’t worry. He’s very dead.’ A thought appeared to strike him. ‘Oh dear. Disease?’

  ‘And this heat, a kind of purification?’ She shuddered. ‘This could be a plague ship.’

  The Doctor, intrigued, knelt over the corpse, turned down the bl
anket gently as if the man really was only asleep, and unzipped the loose denim tunic beneath. He chuckled. ‘Ah. What about this?’

  Bernice looked closer. The figure inside the bed was a blank-faced mannequin made of yellow plastic. ‘Do you know,’ said the Doctor, ‘I thought there was something odd about this ship or whatever it is.’

  Bernice set off along the companionway. ‘You don’t say.’ She blew a drop of sweat from the point of her nose, slipped off her PVC jacket and slung it over her shoulder. ‘It’s getting hotter. I hope I remembered my deodorant this morning.’

  The Doctor, oblivious to her distress, carried on. ‘There’s no proper lighting, even here, up on deck. The temperature’s too high, there’s not enough air –’

  ‘What?’ Bernice’s pulses started to throb in time to the engine sound. The Doctor’s shoulders, her reference point in this unpleasant place, hurried away from her.

  ‘Enough to be going on with, don’t fret.’

  The high roof of the companionway sloped down, forcing them to lower their heads before it ended in a large door. Bernice took the initiative, sweeping her palm over the sensor panel. The sections of the door slid apart slowly.

  Like the rest of the ship the room beyond was dark, with a line of the dim green plates mounted in the ceiling. The surfaces of each of the three inward-curving walls were covered in instrumentation, with scarcely an inch between one flickering display and the next. When the door closed behind the Doctor and Bernice the unhealthy rumble of the ship’s engine was almost soundproofed out. In the sudden silence, Bernice heard her heart pumping against her ribcage. She thought she felt better and tried to take a deep breath. She couldn’t.

  The Doctor stepped forward to the two large flight chairs facing the control board on the opposite wall.

  Two more mannequins were seated in the padded control chairs, yellow and black striped safety straps tightened about their waists. ‘What if,’ Bernice said, ‘this ship was attacked? The crew were replaced to make it appear manned to sensor sweeps, then it was sent on its way?’