Bonshoon: A Tale of the Final Fall of Man (35 page)

ZEEGON (THEN)

By the time they had crossed the undulating expanse of wrecked ships to the crisp, perfectly-maintained lawn surrounding the spaceport landing pads, dawn was breaking behind them.

There had been no sign of Janus on or around the lander. He’d clearly been snatched up by some sort of robotic drone, most likely an airborne one. Whether it had come from one of the ships and dragged him down into the unknown network of collapsed chambers and corridors below, or had come from the sky and whisked him away into the night, they had no idea. They’d found his organiser pad, and Decay said there was no sign of him on the damaged comm system.

So they’d left their crippled lander and headed across the starship graveyard, sticking to the ridges wherever possible and trying to watch in every direction at once for the completely unknown bodysnatching dangers of the graveyard itself.

Zeegon wasn’t all that interested in the fact that this was a divergence from their agreed landing protocol, namely staying close to the lander and possible rescue. Clue justified the divergence perfectly, as far as Zeegon was concerned, by the simple expedient of declaring that
Bunzo
would decide whether or not it was time for them to leave, and only then would he un-
stonk
their God damn lander.

“In fact,” she said as they traversed the set of decorative landing pads, “if he wants to, he can use his new fly-by-remote skills and come and pick us up from this luxury spaceport. Either we walk all the way back to the lander and find it’s still dead, or we walk all the way back to the lander and find it’s operational again. What’s the point?”

“And either way,” Zeegon pointed out, “Whye is gone and won’t be returned unless Bunzo decides to bring him back.”

“Exactly,” Z-Lin said. “Bunzo, or this NightMary persona who seems to be in charge.”

“It – she – could be a night-time aspect of his personality,” Decay suggested. “Didn’t Janya say that his psyche, his id and ego fragments, found their way into the machinery? Dissociative breakdowns may have been the only way to keep himself from going…” he paused.

“Insane?” Clue suggested.

“Or completely catatonic,” Decay recovered. “Or to keep him from dying altogether.”

“Wow, I’m so glad he fragmented,” Zeegon remarked. “It turned out so much better this way.”

They strode across the final expanse of pebble-grained crete and grass so perfect Zeegon wasn’t sure whether he wanted to eat it or roll on it.

The pads themselves looked like they had never been used. It occurred to Zeegon that maybe they never had. In six hundred years, the structures could only have continued looking this new with extensive replacement regimes and severe control of nature’s tendency to overgrow. And it wasn’t like there had been any visitors. Ships didn’t land at this spaceport. They were dumped scrupulously onto the pile that extended for miles outside the spaceport grounds, their crews dissected and turned into grotesque decorations inside their ruined vessels.

They should never have come here.

“I might be able to rig the lander for a completely manual burn, whether Bunzo or NightMary reactivate the systems or not,” Decay interrupted Zeegon’s brooding. “But to stop them from using the computer to shut us down again, we’d have to disconnect all the safeguards and controls. We’d basically be depending on Bunzo to get all his space-junk out of the way up there, and on Zeegon and me to fly the lander to the general vicinity of the Tramp. Ideally, that’d be sometime this evening, otherwise we’ll have to do a bit of an orbit around the planet to find our way to the ship, all without comms or navigation. I doubt we’re going to be able to manage that manually.”

“You think we’re going to last until evening?” Zeegon said.

They stepped into the gleaming spaceport. Despite the pale dawn sunshine filtering across the plain of starships, the building was a blaze of artificial light. Lamps and advertisements and restaurants, signposts pointing the way to classic Horatio Bunzo’s Funtime Happy World events that, for all Zeegon knew, were still quietly running somewhere.

Soft music, in the same vein as the Bunzo Theme and with a similar
scritch-scritch-scritch
-CLONK sound to it, piped through the huge foyer. Morning sunlight came through big windows on one side, turning the interior lighting warm and natural.

“Okay,” Clue said, looking around the seemingly-empty space. “Let’s set up here and keep plenty of clear space on all sides. And remember to be ready with your-”

“You really mustn’t blame her,” Bunzo’s voice was sudden and shocking from the same sound system as the music. “You were snooping around out there in her secure compound. That
Yojimbo
, it’s full of nasty stuff.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Z-Lin raised her voice, staring up towards the ancient sound-bubbles set in discreet corners of the chamber. “I take it you’re talking about NightMary?”

“Mary, yes,” Bunzo said, “bless her heart. Long gone, of course, but still taking care of us all.”

“Yes,” Z-Lin said cautiously, “we’re actually a little concerned about how one of our crewmembers may have been taken care of-”

“We have a gift, you know,” Bunzo went on. “Mary and I. We see things. Call it massive over-collation of data, infinite-regression subatomic determinism, the simple observation and deduction of cause and effect across centuries…”

“And your visions showed us to be some kind of threat?” Decay asked, when it seemed as though Bunzo was going to clap on for a while. “Showed our
counsellor
to be some kind of threat?”

“Oh
no
, no,” Bunzo chuckled. “I’m sure that’s not the case. A simple matter of miscommunication, mistaken identity, high spirits. No, we foresaw that we would die by Damorakind fire.”

“Godfire?”

“So it would seem.”

“So why keep so much of it stockpiled on the surface?” Decay asked. “I don’t know how many hundreds of starships you have stacked up around this spaceport, even if this is the only one of your – what, two hundred spaceports? Even if this is the only one with ships piled up around it…”

“A devil to dispose of, your Godfire,” Bunzo said. “We can’t exactly just throw it all into the sun.”

“We could take it all out of here for you,” Zeegon offered. “Or as much as we can carry, anyway. I don’t know how much that is. We could probably even come to an arrangement about hauling it all away a bit at a time-”

“The
Tramp
couldn’t carry much,” Z-Lin said. “Only a modular’s-worth each time. And that’s a fraction of a warship’s yield. And that would only be if we had those coded commands I was talking about earlier. There is
nothing
we can safely do with
any
of Bunzo’s mini-whorl collection. Or unsafely, for that matter. So please stop trying to contract us out as a hazardous waste disposal firm.”

“Quite so, quite so,” Bunzo said. “There’s no moving that Godfire. And it makes us uneasy.”

“We weren’t made aware of any of this,” Z-Lin said, clearly gathering her patience and just as clearly finding, as always, that there was barely enough of it to keep her from shooting somebody right in the face. “I’m sorry if-”

“You apologise a lot, Commander.”

“You know, you’re right,” Z-Lin said. “And most of the time I don’t mean it. I say it because it’s a diplomatic bandage. I didn’t learn much more basic diplomacy at the Academy. But I don’t need basic diplomacy with you anyway, do I, Bunzo?” she looked around. “You can read my blood pressure and heart rate and pupil dilation. You can tell when I’m sorry or not. So I might as well say what I think, using what I deem to be appropriate language.”

“Now now,” Bunzo said brightly. “A foul mouth never got anyone anywhere.”

“You never met Brutan Barducci,” Zeegon said under his breath.

“And isn’t watching one’s swearing just another pointless fake?” Z-Lin went on. “You can tell when I’m saying ‘shit’-” Bunzo’s nearest speaker gave a scandalised little gasp, “-even when I don’t say a word.”

“On the contrary. Minding one’s manners, and being rude and then fraudulently saying one is sorry, couldn’t be more different.”

“Bunzo?”

“Yes, my dear?”

“Where is our ship’s counsellor?”

“I understand she was killed by your ship’s gravity exchange field,” Bunzo said innocently. “Atomic-level gravitational disruption, nasty stuff. Deadly to humans, Molren, Blaren, Bonshooni … ‘most any organic species, really, except Damorakind with their electrical plasma cellular wossnames and such.”

“Bunzo.”

“Your clone-flesh fared a little bit better but its configurations were ruined, both in the printed ables that survived and in the printer itself. And as for the rest of you … you yourselves had a variety of narrow escapes, didn’t you?”

“Bunzo.”

“Sorry. You were talking about your
new
counsellor.”

“Yes.”

“Well, he was taken by NightMary, most assuredly,” Bunzo replied, and an awkward little laugh echoed through the cavernous foyer. “How very embarrassing. She probably did it as a gift for me, you know. She’s like a cat, see. Leaving little treats in my slippers of a morning, as a sign of regard.”

“You’re going to have to cut the whimsy and just tell us straight-up, if you’re going to tell us anything at all,” Clue said. “We’re none of us cat people.”

“We had a few cats when I was a kid,” Zeegon said. “Never knew one to leave anything good inside a slipper, though. Not entirely sure they ever meant it as a sign of regard, either.”

“Then you understand NightMary perfectly,” Bunzo said, his voice growing theatrically heavy. “She will most likely have Mister Whye in a drone of some kind, high stratospheric, following the night around. She could leave him for me on the terminator line ‘most anywhere.”

“And what would it take, do you suppose, for her to leave him
here with us
?” Z-Lin asked.

“I don’t know,” Bunzo said, flustered. “I believe she thinks he might …
do
.”

“Might do what?” Z-Lin said steadily.

“Might do
for
what?” Decay added.

“Let me answer that question with a question,” Bunzo said. “Are you hungry?”

While the team exchanged glances, there was movement at one side of the hall. A series of gaudy chain restaurants were lined up along one wall, and now one of them – brightly but not particularly creatively declaring itself to be a BUNZO BURGER – had exploded into a bustle of activity.

“Robots,” Decay said tensely. “Basic servers. They don’t seem to be approaching or making any threatening moves.”

“I’m actually surprised at the signage we’re seeing around this spaceport,” Z-Lin commented, looking up and down the line of services. “After six hundred and eighty years, even a language as stable as Xidh would change a bit. These near-arm standard signs should be all but unreadable.”

“The signs are all adaptive,” Decay pointed. “Screens, not cutouts. Bunzo’s probably been upgrading them along with the language he uses to talk to us, or in that song of his, based on his conversations with Bitterpill and the starship computers he eats.”

“Oh
come on
,” Zeegon burst. “Can you smell that?” he drew a deep breath. “Forget what Bunzo’s eating. That’s
steakburger
.”

They gravitated, in spite of themselves, towards the Bunzo Burger. The robots, smooth grey and-white Molranoids with stylised wedge-shaped heads even wider and flatter than actual Molranoids’, and minus the ears, moved back considerately into the recesses of the shop. As if to highlight the delicacy of the situation, the table and chairs slid silently out through the shop front autonomously, and arranged themselves in the clear space.

Ooh
, Zeegon thought as he watched the gliding furniture,
futuristic
.

But he couldn’t maintain his cynicism. The table was laden with large, perfectly-formed steakburgers. Zeegon was driven to momentary philosophy himself, much as Clue had been with the sign-writing. He couldn’t help but wonder if the gastronomic creation of the steakburger, as well as the cultural
idea
of a perfect one, had really not changed in seven hundred years. Maybe Bunzo had kept his menus updated as well.

Then again, this place
had
appealed to Molranoids and humans alike, and Molren weren’t known for their culinary variation. In a species with life-spans that could reach to four, five thousand years -

“Get serious, Zeegon,” Clue interrupted his rhapsodising, reaching out to touch his arm before he could step any further towards the table setting. “Bunzo killed every living thing on this planet. So what’s the meat in that burger?”

“Oh come now,” Bunzo said forbearingly. “It’s from our freezers. It’s perfectly good.”

Clue folded her arms. “So it’s, what, six hundred years old?”

“
No
,” Bunzo protested, sounding affronted. “Only ten or … no, I tell a lie,” he corrected himself, “it’s twelve years old. Perfectly fresh, with modern storage techniques.”

“So ten or twelve years … since a
cow
came here?”

“No, no, it was the
Scunthorpe
,” Bunzo said, “they had an excellent galley and a hospitality level cuisine printing facility-”

“I get it,” Zeegon grumped, “I’m not eating the burger, okay?”

“We have lots of delicious rations,” Decay told him, patting the bag slung across his upper shoulder.

“Bunzo,” Z-Lin said again, “
Janus Whye
. He’ll do for what?”

“So persistent!”

“Yes.”

“It’s something of an ongoing project of ours,” Bunzo confessed, with all the embarrassed pleasure of someone revealing a passion for breeding orchids. “An experiment.”

“An experiment in what?”

“
Retranscription
,” Bunzo said, “from the mechanical back into the physical.”