pursuit.I shook my head.Competing for bird shit,
already.
I watched the bird and the two machines dart down
a corridor like the remains of some bizarre
dogfight, then went back to
Scene IV.The French camp.A tent.
Enter with drum and colours, Cordelia, Doctor,
and soldiers.
3: Helpless In The Face Of
Your Beauty
3.1:Synchronize Your Dogmas
Now, the Arbitrary wasn't actually insane; it did its job very well, and as far as I know none of its
pranks ever actually hurt anybody, at least not
physically.But you have to be a bit wary of a ship
that collects snowflakes.
Put it down to its upbringing.The Arb was a
product of one of the manufacturies in the Yinang
Orbitals in the Dahass-Khree.I've checked, and
those factories have produced a good percent of
the million or so GCUs there are blatting about the
place.That's quite a few craft [*2*] , and as far as I can see, they're all a bit crazy.It must be the Minds
there I suppose; they seem to like turning out
eccentric ships.Shall I name names?See if you've
heard of any of this lot and their little
escapades:The Cantankerous, Only Slightly Bent,
I Thought He Was With You, Space Monster, A
Series Of Unlikely Explanations, Big Sexy Beast,
Never Talk To Strangers, It'll Be Over By
Christmas [*3*] , Funny, It Worked Last Time Boo!, Ultimate Ship The Second etc etc.Need I say more?
Anyway, true to form, the Arbitrary had a little
surprise for me when I walked into the top hangar
space the next morning.
Dawn was sweeping like an unrolled carpet of
light and shadow over the Northern European Plain
and pinking the snowy peaks of the Alps while I
walked along the main corridor to the Bay,
yawning and checking my passport and other
papers (at least partly to annoy the ship; I knew
damn well it wouldn't have made any mistakes),
and making sure the drone following me had all my
luggage.
I stepped into the hangar and was immediately
confronted by a large red Volvo station wagon.It
sat gleaming in the midst of the collection of
modules, drones and platforms.I wasn't in the
mood to argue, so I let the drone deposit my gear in
the back and went so sit in the driver's seat,
shaking my head.There was nobody else about.I
waved goodbye to the drone as the automobile
lifted gently into the air and made its way to the
rear of the ship over the tops of the other devices
in the Bay.They glittered in the brightness of the
hangar lights as the big estate, wheels sagging, was
pushed above them to the doorfields, and then into
space.
The Bay door started to move back into place as
we dropped beneath it and turned.The door slid
into place, cutting off the light from the Bay; I was
in perfect darkness for a moment, then the ship
switched on the auto's lights.
'Ah, Sma?' the ship said from the stereo.
'What?'
'Seatbelt.'
I remember sighing.I think I shook my head again,
too.
We dropped in blackness, still inside the ship's
inner field.As we finished turning, the Volvo's
headlights picked out the slab-sided length of the
Arbitrary, showing a very dull white inside its
darkfield.Actually it was quite impressive, and
oddly calming.
The ship killed the lights as we left the outer
field.Suddenly I was in real space, the great gulf of
spangled black before me, the planet like some
vast droplet of water beneath, swirled with the
pinpoint lights of Central and South America.I
could make out San José, Panama City, Bogotá and
Quito.I looked back, but even knowing the ship
was there I could see no sign that the stars it
showed on its field skin weren't real.
I always did that, and always felt the same twinge
of regret, even fear, knowing I was leaving our
safe haven but I soon settled, and enjoyed the trip
down, riding through the atmosphere in my absurd
motor car.The ship switched on the stereo again,
and played me 'Serenade' by the Steve Miller
Band.Somewhere over the Atlantic, off Portugal I
think, and just at the line, 'The sun comes up, and
shines all around me' guess what happened?
All I can suggest is that you look again at some
picture of it, half black with a billion scattered
lights and streaks of dawning colour; I can't
describe it further.We fell quickly.
The car landed in the middle of some old coal
workings in the unlovely north of France, near
Bethune.By that time it was fully light.The field
around the car popped and the two small platforms
under the auto appeared, white slivers in the misty
morning.They disappeared with their own 'pop's as
the ship displaced them.
I drove to Paris.Living in Kensington I'd had a
smaller car, a VW Golf, and the Volvo was like a
tank after that.The ship spoke through my terminal
brooch telling me which route to take to Paris, and