the gap in the security fence and picked up speed on the approach road. At first the headlights showed nothing but more bitumen and desert. Then, in the distance, we could see a cluster of bright lights, some of them flashing, a few low buildings, and the dark bulk of a spacecraft. It didn’t look very big. In fact, it looked pathetically small.
“What the…?” I said. “Are we really meant to go all the way to Newharp in that?”
“That’s just the runabout, you fool,” Sue-Ellen said. “The Delegate is in orbit. They couldn’t land it if they wanted to. Which they don’t. It’s spinning.”
“Now they tell me,” I said. “And anyway, what’s all this about Ambassadors of Youth?”
“That’s what you are,” Sue-Ellen said. “It’s the pitch I had to make to Ulrike Lewis to get you on board. You are carrying youthful messages of peace and goodwill to the distant corners of the universe.”
“What messages?” I said. “We’ve got no messages. We haven’t even got any luggage.”
“Make them up, for godsake,” Sue-Ellen said. “Brothers and sisters of the cosmos, we extend to you the hand of friendship in which we hold the sweet dove of eternal peace in the sure and certain knowledge that our two planets are bound together in a common destiny and a common ancestry, blah blah blah.… Just stress the fact that everybody’s ancestors came from Earth—everybody’s human, they love that. That and the dove of peace.”
“Grab hold of a dove,” I said, “and the thing will crap on your hand. Or it’ll peck your eyes out.”
“Words, Neddy-boy,” Sue-Ellen said. “All you’ve got to do is sprout words. No one is going to ask you to handle birds.”
“So how come Em’s an ambassador as well?” I said. “She comes from Newharp in the first place. She can hardly be an ambassador to her own planet.”
“You aren’t going straight to Newharp,” Sue-Ellen said. “You are stopping at Skyros and then Kovalev along the way. You are the Special Ambassador of Youth from Earth. Em is the Special Ambassador of Youth from Newharp. Got it?”
“I suppose so,” I said. “It’s all a bit sudden.”
“Listen, kiddo, if you’re still on this planet by daybreak, you’ll end up in clink. Your current status is fugitive. And if you’re caught: finito.”
“True,” I said, and resigned myself to being an intergalactic fugitive from justice. That and an Ambassador for goddamned Yoof.
* * * *
Sue-Ellen brought the Gamma to a halt in the bright lights of the apron. The scene was a shambles. There were drunks falling out of busses, singing, cheering, chundering.
“Gawdalmighty,” I said. “These are the guys who are going to fly the tub?”
“’Fraid so,” Sue-Ellen said. “You should feel right at home.”
Canola rollers by the dozen were parked all over the apron in no pattern at all. Guys with clipboards were trying to check the loads before they were snatched off the trucks and carted away by forklifts with flashing lights and cursing drivers. Drunks were trying to pilfer whatever was left unattended.
I watched one guy lever the corner off a crate with a screwdriver. The crate splintered, the guy got his hand in, but couldn’t pull anything out. He stood there jerking and twisting, you’d think his wrist was caught in a trap. A Newharp shore patrol officer pounced on him, hauled his arm out of the crate, and twisted it up behind his back. The drunk laughed and stumbled as he was propelled towards the boarding ramp. The shore patrol guy let him go as soon as he was safely on his way up the ramp. The authorities weren’t making arrests tonight, just moving things along. I looked back to where the splintered crate still sat on the tarmac. Quick as a ferret a runty little guy in a huge overcoat split from a group of merrymakers, sidled up to the crate, and made a lightning gesture with his hand and sidled away. What a pro! You’d need the eyesight of a hawk to have seen the sleight of hand. I’ve got the eyesight of a hawk.
“OK, you lot. Stop gawking,” Sue-Ellen said. “Out.”
The three of us climbed out of the Gamma. There was a cold desert wind blowing the blackness of the night straight through the bright lights of the apron. The noise level was infernal. Em and Sue-Ellen embraced, kissed. Then Sue-Ellen turned to me and ruffled my hair.
“Just don’t stuff things up, Neddy-boy,” she shouted.
“What things?” I shouted back.
“Any bloody things at all,” she said and spun on her heel and climbed back into the Gamma. Five seconds later she was gone. She didn’t look back.
“Well, there’s a vote of confidence,” I said. “One of the great farewell speeches of all time.”
“Come on,” Em said. “Let’s try to get good hammocks.” Her voice cracked. I looked sideways at her. She was crying.
“You’re going home, for godsake, Em,” I yelled. “I’m the one that’s meant to be bawling my eyes out. I’m being sent into exile. This is my planet we’re leaving.”
“Shut up,” Em said. She took my hand and started to pull me roughly through the crowd towards the boarding ramp. I didn’t say anything. She was crying for her brother Harri. I knew that. At the last moment I’d taken Harri’s place on this loony intergalactic mission. Em had arrived on Earth with Harri, she was leaving with me. I just hoped she didn’t blame me for the substitution. It was Harri, after all, who’d chosen to remain on Earth. And it was me who couldn’t afford to remain on the damn planet.
We were almost run over by a forklift loaded with crates. The driver swerved, cursing in good English. She yelled at me and Em, calling us a pair of lame-brained mutants. She was just a local, she wasn’t going anywhere tonight. It occurred to me that these were the last words in English I’d ever hear spoken on Earth by a fellow Earthling. I was going to say something about this to Em, but a mob of singing, cheering space crew engulfed us. We all surged towards the runabout. Em and I went up the ramp with drunken strangers’ arms around our shoulders, an obscene parody of the Homecoming Song being bawled in our ears.
The inside of the runabout was an even greater shambles than the apron. It was one dim cavern. There were tiers of webbed hammocks—bright orange in the gloom. Stores were all over the floor: some were already tied down with more orange webbing, some were still being tied down by a gang of loaders who yelled and kicked at the pilferers. But their hearts weren’t in it; it wasn’t their stuff, and either way it would end up on the intergalactic. The crew member who had his arm round Em’s shoulder yelled something about share my nest and I’ll take off my vest.
“Not tonight,” Em said.
“You can only try,” the guy said. He was a drunk, but he was an amiable drunk.
Em disengaged herself. She said to me, “Top tier.”
“What?” I said.
“Grab a top hammock.”
“Why?”
“Because of the g-forces, you idiot.”
What
