His Majesty's Starship Read Online Free
Author: Ben Jeapes
the ceiling gave the feeling of the infinite vault of a real Earth sky. Live flora and even fauna were loose in the open areas, all native to the British Isles. The air had a clean, piney smell which Gilmore always felt to be tacky, being so blatantly artificial.
His legs were wobbly: he had been on a two month patrol in a ship without a centrifuge, and working out in the ship’s gym only just kept muscular atrophy at bay. Now those wobbly legs were trying to carry him through a crowd, which he hated at the best of times, and his eyes were fixed firmly ahead, trying to navigate a passage through the jostling people. In this way he almost stumbled over a cluster of three Rusties.
They were gazing into a shop window, for all the world like tourists out on a buying spree. Gilmore fought to regain his balance and suddenly he discovered he wasn’t quite so uninterested in the stumpy, four-legged creatures after all. Still only a tiny percentage of people had seen one in the flesh and until now he hadn’t been one of them. He tried to look at them without staring.
“Mike!” A powerful hand slapped him on the back and drove the breath out of his lungs. “How are you?”
“Hello, John,” Gilmore muttered after a couple of breaths. “Have you seen the Rus-”
“Yeah, yeah, aren’t you bored of them?” John Chase was a large man in all directions. He and Gilmore had started in space together but Chase had shot ahead and now, while Gilmore was called a captain by virtue of commanding a ship, Chase was a captain by rank. And that meant he was able to draw Gilmore away from the three aliens and carry on chatting, and Gilmore couldn’t do a thing about it except to cast a final look back as the Rusties were swallowed by the crowd. “Heard the darndest thing about them,” Chase continued. “Did you know they make their ships out of pottery?”
“Yes,” Gilmore said. A plastic-ceramic compound, to be accurate, but not ferro-polymer, like the ships made by humans.
“Say, Mike ...” Chase looked about them and drew him to one side. “Rumour says you’ve been given command of
Ark Royal
. That true?”
“I’m on my way to the palace now,” Gilmore said hopefully. Chase drew back quickly.
“Then why are you talking to me? Get on, Mike! I’ll catch you at the Captain’s Club.”
He backed away into the crowd and Gilmore gratefully headed for the transport tube.
Strap hanging on the way down to the palace – the colloquial name for ‘F’ wheel, the sixth wheel of UK-1, which was occupied exclusively by the king, his family and staff – Gilmore pieced together his brief impression of the Rusties. Quadrupeds, the largest of them coming up to his chest. Flesh covered by a ruddy, fuzzy substance that could be hair, could be feathers, could be something with no analogue on Earth. It was the colour of oxidised iron and even close up it really did look like patches of rust flaking off the creatures. Now Gilmore thought about it, he could remember a smell which he realised had been coming from the aliens. It was as if they had splashed on too much aftershave: not displeasing but not pleasing either.
The jokes about telling them apart weren’t fair: he had seen they were all of slightly different sizes and shapes. The only identical thing about them was the translator units hanging around their necks. They also had harnesses around their necks and over their bodies, on which hung things that might have been tools or decoration or both, which were as varied as human clothes.
And that was the sum of Gilmore’s impression of the aliens. He thought dark thoughts about John Chase, a man so accustomed to them that he thought they were old hat, but he shook the thoughts away as the tube reached ‘F’ wheel. He still had his appointment with the king and, if His Majesty had in mind what Gilmore suspected, he was going to see a lot more of the Rusties than John Chase ever would.
- 3 -
27 September 2148
‘This is a
His legs were wobbly: he had been on a two month patrol in a ship without a centrifuge, and working out in the ship’s gym only just kept muscular atrophy at bay. Now those wobbly legs were trying to carry him through a crowd, which he hated at the best of times, and his eyes were fixed firmly ahead, trying to navigate a passage through the jostling people. In this way he almost stumbled over a cluster of three Rusties.
They were gazing into a shop window, for all the world like tourists out on a buying spree. Gilmore fought to regain his balance and suddenly he discovered he wasn’t quite so uninterested in the stumpy, four-legged creatures after all. Still only a tiny percentage of people had seen one in the flesh and until now he hadn’t been one of them. He tried to look at them without staring.
“Mike!” A powerful hand slapped him on the back and drove the breath out of his lungs. “How are you?”
“Hello, John,” Gilmore muttered after a couple of breaths. “Have you seen the Rus-”
“Yeah, yeah, aren’t you bored of them?” John Chase was a large man in all directions. He and Gilmore had started in space together but Chase had shot ahead and now, while Gilmore was called a captain by virtue of commanding a ship, Chase was a captain by rank. And that meant he was able to draw Gilmore away from the three aliens and carry on chatting, and Gilmore couldn’t do a thing about it except to cast a final look back as the Rusties were swallowed by the crowd. “Heard the darndest thing about them,” Chase continued. “Did you know they make their ships out of pottery?”
“Yes,” Gilmore said. A plastic-ceramic compound, to be accurate, but not ferro-polymer, like the ships made by humans.
“Say, Mike ...” Chase looked about them and drew him to one side. “Rumour says you’ve been given command of
Ark Royal
. That true?”
“I’m on my way to the palace now,” Gilmore said hopefully. Chase drew back quickly.
“Then why are you talking to me? Get on, Mike! I’ll catch you at the Captain’s Club.”
He backed away into the crowd and Gilmore gratefully headed for the transport tube.
Strap hanging on the way down to the palace – the colloquial name for ‘F’ wheel, the sixth wheel of UK-1, which was occupied exclusively by the king, his family and staff – Gilmore pieced together his brief impression of the Rusties. Quadrupeds, the largest of them coming up to his chest. Flesh covered by a ruddy, fuzzy substance that could be hair, could be feathers, could be something with no analogue on Earth. It was the colour of oxidised iron and even close up it really did look like patches of rust flaking off the creatures. Now Gilmore thought about it, he could remember a smell which he realised had been coming from the aliens. It was as if they had splashed on too much aftershave: not displeasing but not pleasing either.
The jokes about telling them apart weren’t fair: he had seen they were all of slightly different sizes and shapes. The only identical thing about them was the translator units hanging around their necks. They also had harnesses around their necks and over their bodies, on which hung things that might have been tools or decoration or both, which were as varied as human clothes.
And that was the sum of Gilmore’s impression of the aliens. He thought dark thoughts about John Chase, a man so accustomed to them that he thought they were old hat, but he shook the thoughts away as the tube reached ‘F’ wheel. He still had his appointment with the king and, if His Majesty had in mind what Gilmore suspected, he was going to see a lot more of the Rusties than John Chase ever would.
- 3 -
27 September 2148
‘This is a
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