Wrath of the Lemming-men by Toby Frost Read Free Book Online Page A

Victorian maid and some sort of nautical road cone. ‘You look fine,’ he said. ‘Heard anything from Suruk?’
    She shook her head. ‘He’s got the door shut and he’s playing music.’
    ‘Music? It’s not Minnie Ripperton, is it?’
    ‘Yes, actually.’
    Smith grimaced. ‘Not – Les Fleurs ?’
    ‘Yeah – how’d you know?’
    ‘Painful experience. Look Carveth, be careful with Suruk, would you? This is a bad time for him.’
    ‘Greetings!’ Suruk said from the door.
    They glanced round.
    ‘Guilty faces, humans? Do I interrupt the bonky dance?’
    ‘No!’ they said.
    Suruk stepped into the room. He wore a white dress-shirt with a high collar and a black tails jacket. ‘Perhaps you should. Your floaty seer is elsewhere, Mazuran, and the miserable android Dreckitt is off doing other things. Is he still spawning with you?’
    Carveth shrugged. ‘It’s tricky with Rick. It’s all a bit touch and go.’
    ‘You touched, he went,’ Suruk said. ‘So often the way. What do you make of my attire?’
    ‘I think you should turn back into Doctor Jeckyll,’ Carveth said.
    ‘At least you humans no longer need that paper bag.’
    Suruk chuckled and Smith winced at the memory. In those days aliens had been rare in human territory, and Suruk had been obliged to hide his face for fear of causing women to faint. He had drawn a smiley face on the bag to reassure passers-by, but it had still attracted attention. At Cromwell Station a youth had stolen the bag, and a crowd had mistaken Suruk for a horrible monster – if that was a mistake. Smith had been forced to fight through the howling mob to reach Suruk and rescue it from him.
    ‘Memories, eh?’ Suruk said thoughtfully. ‘Urchin tastes like rat.’
    The doorbell sounded, jolting Suruk from his reverie.
    ‘Wonder who that is?’ Carveth said, and she stepped into the corridor. A weird sense of foreboding made her shiver. She peered at the filthy window, saw movement behind it, shrugged, spun the wheel and pulled the door open. ‘I should have known,’ she sighed.
    Rhianna was on the doorstep. Her hair was not in dreadlocks any more: it fell around her head like a black cloud, remarkably un-lank. To Carveth’s surprise she was not wearing anything tied-dyed: she had on a long, shapeless white dress, like a nightie or an elongated smock. There was some dark stuff around her eyes, which made her look a bit mad. The overall impression was of a minor romantic poet who had woken up craving laudanum, or someone confused into thinking she was an elf.
    ‘Hi,’ Rhianna said.
    Carveth looked round: Smith stood behind her. ‘It’s Rhianna’s ghost,’ she explained.
    ‘Oh,’ said Smith. ‘Um, hello.’
    ‘Hey, guys.’ Rhianna had a soft New Francisco accent, at once dreamy and sincere.
    ‘Hello,’ Smith replied, warily.
    ‘Yeah, hi,’ said Carveth.
    ‘Can I come in?’ Rhianna asked. ‘The rain’s kind of puddling in my flip-flops.’
    There was a moment’s pause. ‘Of course,’ Smith said, stepping back, and Rhianna entered in a swish of damp, voluminous cloth.
    ‘Wow,’ she said. ‘Are you guys going somewhere?’
    ‘To a show,’ Carveth replied. ‘Why’re you here?’
    ‘Well,’ Rhianna said, slipping off her sandals, ‘it’s really strange. I was working last night, helping with – well, you know, research – and I had this amazing premonition that I’d find you here. And then they gave me a tube map.’
    ‘So you had a premonition that you were going to use the tube?’
    ‘Yes.’ She looked a bit crestfallen, and added, ‘But it was really spiritual.’
    ‘Why did they send you here?’ Smith asked.
    Rhianna sighed and stretched, and for a moment the damp dress clung to her taut body. She stopped stretching, and she was back to normal – but that image of her lingered, seared into Smith’s mind. He’d slept beside her, once.
    ‘I don’t really know,’ she said. ‘They said we were being briefed tomorrow?’
    ‘Well,