The Complete Short Stories: The 1960s. Brian Aldiss
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Nodding in approval, he offered her a seat on the bench beside him. They clattered against each other and smiled.
Another bout had ended in the arena. The cheers and chirrups drifted through the bars to them.
‘I’m sorry you’re involved in this,’ he said with care.
‘I was lucky to be involved in it with you.’ Her voice was not entirely steady, but she controlled it in a minute. ‘Can’t I hear water?’
He had already heard it. An unnatural silence radiated from the great inhuman crowd in the circus as they watched the stuff pour in. It would have great emotional significance for them, no doubt, since they had all lived in water for some years in their previous life stage.
‘They have wide-bore hoses,’ he said. His own voice had an irritating tremor. ‘The arena fills quite rapidly.’
‘Let’s formulate some sort of plan of attack then. These things, these yillibeeth must have some weaknesses.’
‘And some strengths! That’s what you have to watch for.’
‘I don’t see that. You attack their weak points.’
‘We shall be too busy looking out for their strong ones. They have long segmented grey bodies – about twenty segments, I think. Each segment is of chitin or something tough. Each segment bears two legs equipped with razor combs. At tail end and top end they have legs that work like sort of buzz saws, cut through anything they touch. And there are their jaws, of course.’
The keeper was back. His antennae flopped through the grating and then he unbolted the door and came in. He bore a length of chain as long as the cell was wide. Javlin and Awn did not resist as he locked them together, fitting the bracelets onto Javlin’s right arm and Awn’s left
‘So.’ She stared at the chain. ‘The yillibeeth don’t sound to have many weak points. They could cut through our swords with their buzz saws?’
‘Correct.’
‘Then they could cut through this chain. Get it severed near one of our wrists, and the other has a better long-distance weapon than a sword. A blow over the head with the end of the chain won’t improve their speed. How fast are they?’
‘The buzz saw takes up most of their speed. They’re nothing like as fast as the reduls. No, you could say they were pretty sluggish in movement. And the fact that the two of them will also be chained together should help us.’
‘Where are they chained?’
‘By the middle legs.’
‘That gives them a smaller arc of destruction than if they were chained by back or front legs. We are going to slay these beasts yet, Javlin! What a murderous genus it must be to put its offspring in the arena for the public sport.’
He laughed.
‘Would you feel sentimental about your offspring if you had a million babies?’
‘I’ll tell you that when I’ve had the first of them. I mean, if I have the first of them.’
He put his hand over hers.
‘No if. We’ll kill the bloody larvae OK.’
‘Get the chain severed, then one of us with the longest bit of chain goes in for the nearest head, the other fends off the other brute. Right?’
‘Right.’
There was a worker redul at the outer door now, the door that led to the arena. He flung it open and stood there with a flaming torch, ready to drive them out if they did not emerge.
‘We’ve – come to it then,’ she said. Suddenly she clung to him.
‘Let’s take it at a run, love,’ he said.
Together, balancing the chain between them, they ran toward the arena. The two yillibeeth were coming out from the far side, wallowing and splashing. The crowd stretched up toward the blue sky of Earth, whistling their heads off. They didn’t know what a man and a woman could do in combination. Now they were going to learn.
The room, with its Spy cartoons and the oil of Chequers hanging on the chimney-breast like the promise of a better world, held a cluttered comfort. The woman also was tired, but her straight back and splendid coiffure did not admit the fact. She could have poured their tea with no more command had she been before the TV cameras.
As if aware of reasons for guilt, both men straightened in their chairs when a tap sounded at the door and Taver peered in.
The Prime Minister glowered from behind his cup and said, ‘What is it, Tarver? Can’t we have five minutes in peace?’
The butler of No 10 said apologetically, ‘It’s Colonel Quadroon to see you, sir.’
‘The Governor of Pentonville Prison. More escapes, I suppose – more questions in the House. Better show him in.’
The PM turned to Lady Elizabeth and the Foreign Secretary in mock-resignation.
‘You remember you did make an appointment for him yesterday, Herbert,’ Lady Elizabeth said. She managed men as easily and gracefully as she managed herself. ‘The colonel said it was of great national importance.’
‘I don’t doubt he did. Quadroon presumes too much, my dear. Just because I’ve been on his shoots a couple of – Oh, Colonel, good afternoon. Come in.’
The PM wiped his moustache and gestured irritably to a free armchair as Quadroon moved into the room. The Governor of Pentonville was a tall, sharp-featured man, Haileybury and Queen’s, OBE. He bowed stiffly to Lady Elizabeth and shook hands perfunctorily with Ralph Watts-Clinton, the Foreign Secretary.
‘I wouldn’t bother you, Prime Minister, if this was not a matter of the highest moment,’ he said.
‘I should hope not. No more rioting, I trust?’
‘The Opposition gave you a pretty stiff time in the House this afternoon, I hear.’
At that, the PM had the grace to smile.
‘Sorry, Colonel. Give the Colonel a cup of tea, will you, my dear? Well, what can we do for you?’
‘No sugar, thank you, Lady Elizabeth. In this instance, sir, it’s a matter of what we can do for you. I mentioned the Opposition just now. Has it ever occurred to you that the Opposition consists of unhappy men?’
Watts-Clinton guffawed.
‘It’s often occurred to us, Colonel. Take the debate on the Immigration Restriction Bill this afternoon – they were frankly miserable. Harold Gaskin almost wept crocodile tears over what he calls “the overworked and under-privileged in less fortunate lands”.’
‘Precisely.’ The Colonel balanced Lady Elizabeth’s Spode cup and saucer on his angular knee and said, ‘All that can be changed tomorrow.’
The PM made a noise he had been heard to make more than once in the House.
‘I have no idea what sort of political chicanery you have up your sleeve, Colonel, but let me put it to you beforehand that nothing can alter Gaskin’s jaundiced view of the enlightened measures we are proposing.’
‘Polyannamine could,’ said the Colonel.
After a cold and curious pause, Lady Elizabeth said, ‘I’m sure we are all three very impressed by your air of mystery, Colonel. Perhaps you’d better put your case to us. I’m sure Herbert can spare you five minutes before he goes to prepare his Berlin speech.’
She embodied all the qualities needful in a Prime Minister’s wife: directness, indirectness, tact and insolence.
Blowing