Come to Me in the Rain

"I walked into the galley to get a drink."

Bov and Vestock were seated at the table, cuddling mugs of steaming liquid. I walked to the dispenser.

I stood lost for words for a second. I knew I needed a drink but I still wasn't sure what the ship could make for me. I wanted to ask for a cup of carrot soup, but I knew it wouldn't know what that was. Let's face it: the ship didn't know what a carrot was and you know how troublesome eating my first meal on this ship was.

"Pretty-cat-fat: Whatever Bov ordered last" I asked. I'd get the hang of the computer-activation phrase at some stage, but this seemed close enough to me. Luckily the computer thought so too.

A cup slid out of the dispenser and I ripped the lid off and threw it into the recyc. The drink started steaming immediately. It was yellow. I shrugged.

I sat down next to Bov and cradled the drink in my hands. I'd have a sip at it when I was sure the others weren't looking, just in case I spat it straight out again.

"He's never out of that armour." Bov was saying.

Vestock nodded. "This is, what, the eighth time we've had the pleasure of his company."

Bov went glassy eyed for a moment. I could tell he was accessing his implant. Funnily I think I could tell how long someone had had a memory implant by how long they took to access it. It took me a good ten or twenty seconds to find anything, whereas Spiron was so practiced that he seemed to use the 'memory the same way he used his own organic memory. Finally Bov nodded. "Yep, eight. Everyone of them weird or dangerous."

"Does he always come on in such strange circumstances?" I asked.

"Strange?" Vestock asked, "What's strange about bombing a planet and asking us to pick him up five minutes before it turned into a fireball?"

"So, " Bov said, wanting to get back to his line, "What's he got underneath it eh?"

I had a small guess, but I wasn't going to add my tuppenth quite yet. In fact it may be dangerous to be right about our passenger.

"Someone told me," Vestock began with the air of one who knows, "Someone once told me that he's mostly machine - the only living thing under that armour is a small handful of organic sludge and the armour is actually his mechanical body."

"I think that's a Dalek?" I added. They both looked at me incredulously. "You know, like in Doctor Who?"

They stared at me for a couple of seconds then Bov faced back to Vestock, "Maybe he's covered in weeping sores, you know like punishment from the gods for his evil ways." Vestock nodded sagely.

"Maybe he's from an interdicted world and doesn't want anyone to know it?" I said in a low voice. I immediately began to mentally kick myself.

"What makes you think that?" Bov asked, suddenly interested in my statement. He turned to Vestock. "I must admit, no one knows where Lord Fader comes from.."

---*---

Cola threw the page down in disgust. She shook her hands in the air at the dead author.

"Why couldn't you have numbered the pages?" She let a great breath of air out, "I didn't understand any of that." She mumbled to herself.

It hadn't been a good day. She thought that reading some of Herbert's journals would cheer her up but it wasn't working as yet. She'd had three false starts, trying to work out what page was next. If only he could have numbered the pages. At least neither she nor Lotte had let slip they existed.

Lotte had been in an infuriatingly good mood all day, humming to her self and skipping around like a young doe in first love. She was acting like she'd had a buck the night before.

"Stop skipping around like that, " Cola had said, "You'll knock things over."

"Sorry," Lotte replied, "I'm just in a bouncy mood this morning."

"Who is he then?" Cola asked one eye squinting. Lotte stopped bouncing dead in her tracks.

"There's no one." She replied quickly, "I might say I've got my eye on a buck. But apart from that my lips are sealed."

Cola was about to press further when two sharp raps came on the door. Visitor! Cola straightened her self and Lotte had a quick preen. Lotte nodded at Cola when she'd finished. Cola shook her head. Lotte had definitely caught the eye of some buck, or vice versa.

"Come!" She said in a loud voice. The door opened and Fudge's head popped round the corner.

"There's a strange buck to see you M'lady." He said , tucking his forelock, "Shall I send him in."

"Did he give a name or anything?" Cola asked, it was proving difficult to train a muscle-buck to be a secretary. Fudge's head disappeared and came back a couple of seconds later.

"He say's his name is Dabs Rodgers, son of... Oh bugger I forgot"

Behind him a voice shouted, "Son of Henry Rodgers"

"Son of.." Fudge began,

"I heard, "Cola said. Son of Henry Rodgers? Wasn't Henry one of Herbert's brothers? That would make him the head bucks nephew.

Cola gulped. "Show him in, please Fudge"

"Yes, M'lady."

The rabbit he showed in was a small and wizened aged buck. He looked years older than the head buck had. Cola was sceptical. She examined his face and found nothing there she could recognise.

"Hello, sir." She bowed as befit her status, "I am Cola, Head Doe of these warrens." The buck nodded his head. "What can I do for you?" She asked, motioning him to a seat.

He shook his head. "I prefer to stand."

He walked over to the book shelves and started looking over them, although he didn't seem to be looking for anything in particular and he quickly turned to face the Head Doe and her secretary.

"I am the nephew and oldest living relative of Herbert Rodgers. The former Head Buck of this warren."

Cola nodded to herself, satisfied at her deductions.

"I am frankly very surprised to see a Doe in charge around here."

"So are a lot of others." Cola said under her breath.

"I would have thought that a, competent, " he put a lot of emphasis on that word. "search would have located me and my family. We don't live far." He dropped his head. "Frankly I was shocked to hear of Herbert's death. Especially as I was told by rumour rather than by official means."

"I'm very sorry for that, " Cola began, no one at the warrens knew of any relatives of Herbert's and she was about to explain that when Dabs butted in.

"My family were not necessarily very sorry. My father and Herbert did not communicate for pleasure but rather for duty. However, we are the inheritors of Herbert's wealth. His personal wealth, that is."

Cola blanched, thinking of the boxes and boxes of Herbert's goods that she had redistributed amongst the poor.

Dabs turned from Cola and walked around the room.

"I don't see many of Herbert's things here?" He said in an enquiring tone.

"I've put them in storage," Cola said, thinking on her back pads, "It'll take some time to sort them out."

Dabs hummed. "How much time? I'm a busy buck you know."

Lotte grabbed an unrelated piece of paper from the desk and chimed in, "Three days, I believe Madam, Sir. " she said, nodding at Cola and Dabs in turn.

Dabs scowled. "I will require accommodation for that time then."

Cola tuned to Lotte and squeezed her eyes shut as if in pain. "Please arrange something, Lotte." She asked. She composed her face again and turned back to Dabs.. "We'll be some time sorting out the arrangements. Shall I get one of my guards to escort you to, to.. " she floundered, "To the nearest coffee shop? "

"That won't be necessary. I can find my own way around, thank you." He said walking to the door. He didn't sound thankful.

He opened the door and looked out at the two guards.

"Building yourself a nice little empire here aren't you?" He said as a parting shot.

As the door shut Cola turned to Lotte and slumped into a chair.

"Coffee shop?" Lotte said, laughing.

---*---

That was about all the laughing they had done all day. The rest of the day was full of a lot of running around trying to locate enough of Herbert's things.

Now Cola was trying to soothe herself to sleep by reading, if she could find the right "next page".

"Damned if I'm letting him take the journals." She said to herself picking up another sheet.

"Spiron called Bov over."

---*---

"Bov is your opposite number. He's the portside gunner and he'll show you the cords."

I had to think a bit before I realised what the translator has said: 'ropes'..

"Come on lad," Bov said and he started off down the corridor.

"We've got the most exciting job of the lot. You haven't lived until you've stood, sweating, in the gunnery for an hour staring into the void of hyperspace whilst you fight off a hundred combat 'sects." He was grinning. "We get the glory for saving our shipmate's scaly butts time and time again."

"Isn't it dangerous?" I asked. Then I wished hadn't.

"'Course it is. Wouldn't be worthwhile otherwise. 'frinstance think of your predecessor - he was hit so hard he died before his body decompressed. Remember we're right on the outside of the ship so that we can get the best view and clearest sight. But this also means you're the most vulnerable." Surprisingly he was still smiling, I was wondering whether he continuously smiled because of his bone structure or whether he was just happy. I had the depressing feeling he might just have been happy. I was partnered with a lunatic.

I was beginning to think that the entire idea of joining this spaceship crew was the biggest bad idea this side of artificial carrots when we reached my gunnery station. We stepped out into a clear globe that was ninety percent exposed to space. This was the structure I had seen them mending whilst the ship was on the ground.

I could feel that the ship was behind me, but it seemed as if I had just stepped out into space. There was Earth below me and around me, on all sides - so it seemed - were stars. The sight nearly brought a tear to my eye. It did bring a grin to my face.

I looked at Bov. He was smiling at me.

"That's right." He said, "We get paid to stand here."

Pay! I hadn't thought of that. I must remember to ask Spiron about that.

What did aliens use for money?

Bov turned behind me and pulled something out of the wall.

"Here you go. Try to get a feel for them." He said handing me the device. "These are your controls." He pointed at the middle where a small button shaped like a triangle on its side sat with some lettering above it. Damn! There was no visual translator. Oh well. I'd just have to learn the old fashioned-way. "That's the start button." He said, pressing it.

I heard a faint whist-noise behind me and turned to see that the corridor into the ship had sealed. We were now in a transparent ball. Lines appeared on the ball surface. Bov walked around pointing at the display.

"This is the amount of torpedoes you have. This is the main cannon's charge gauge. This is the temperature for the main cannon, this is the temperature for the secondary cannon."

It was all quite simple really. One pile of lights represented my ammunition. One slew of lights represented the state if the weaponry. If one turned lilac I wouldn't be able to use it until it cooled down.

I held up the control in my paws. "Why has this got a cable?"

"Just to stop it getting lost, really." Bov replied.

The controls fit snugly in my paws. There were numerous buttons all over it but Bov explained that this was a generic controller and I wouldn't need most of them.

"The left thumb-twiddly moves the sphere. " As he said this he pushed my left thumb and the gunnery span first one way and the next. "The right one moves the targeting sight" A circle moved around the sphere as he pushed my right thumb.

"These buttons on the shoulder are referred to as the shoulder buttons." He said pushing the buttons beneath my fingers. It lost something in translation, I thought.

"The left hand controls the torpedoes and the right hand the cannons. The top ones fire, the bottom ones switch ammunition, or from the coherent light to the plasma in the case of the cannon.

"You will have noticed, " he said, "That when you pressed the fire buttons nothing happened. This is because you need to arm all weapons from the 'Select' menu."

He pushed the small button next to the 'Start' and a list of some sort of text appeared on the sphere.

"All you need to do is press the 'Cross' button to select the top option, which is either Arm or Disarm depending upon the current state." He pressed the button with my fingers and the targeting circle changed to flash and rotate.

"Of course you can change all the colours your self." He said. "That's the bottom option on the menu. You can also change the controls around to suit your fingers."

"I'll have to learn more of the language before I can read the menus." I admitted.

"Ah, "Bov said. "Well, You'll probably be fine with the defaults. For now."

It was all a bit much to learn in one go. I said so.

"'sright. " Bov said in agreement. "Tell you what. I'll show you to your quarters and we can do some target practice when you've rested and all your implants are on line!"

---*---

Cola yawned. Reading about Herbert's other life in the spaceship was soothing. It was just so different to her daily worries and just completely disconnected from her life that she could lose herself.

She placed the papers she'd read on the finished pile and turned her bedside lamp off

"Lord Fader!" She muttered to herself. "Whatever next!"