Ticklers Read online

  Ticklers

  David Fletcher

  First published in Great Britain in 2006

  The Trouser Press Press

  PO Box 12085

  Redditch B96 6WP

  Copyright 2006 by David Fletcher

  The right of David Fletcher to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 2000

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  ISBN 0-9548398-4-6

  All rights reserved to The Trouser Press Press

  For Freddy and Max

  *

  Contents

  Part 1

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  32

  33

  34

  35

  36

  37

  38

  39

  40

  41

  Part 2

  42

  43

  44

  45

  46

  47

  48

  49

  50

  51

  52

  53

  54

  55

  56

  57

  58

  59

  60

  61

  62

  63

  64

  65

  66

  67

  68

  69

  70

  71

  72

  73

  74

  75

  76

  77

  78

  79

  80

  81

  82

  Part 1

  *

  1.

  Yesterday, Renton had killed five hundred people. Before midday on Monday, he had thrown away the lives of half a thousand innocents - carelessly and needlessly. It really hadn't been the best start to the week.

  Now here he was again - in another space bucket - and with another five hundred souls whose destiny rested in his hands. Or was it six hundred? He really couldn't remember. Yesterday's events seemed to have knocked his short-term memory wagon clean off its tracks. And it didn't matter anyway. Five hundred? Six hundred? It was still a lot of people. A lot to add to the carnage of the previous day. An awful lot.

  But no! Wait! There'd be no more carnage! These passengers were going to survive! He wasn't about to make the same mistake again. No way! He could do it and he would do it! He gripped the joystick in his right hand and the speed handle in his left - and he concentrated. He concentrated like he'd never concentrated before.

  'Thirty degrees left sharp, maintain speed,' snapped the navigator. And Renton's concentration translated the order into action - immediately but carefully.

  The maintain speed bit helped. He was able to focus entirely on the joystick - and on the joystick's tactile signal of his angle of turn: the rising pressure on his little finger. And when the pressure was just there, just far enough along that mental measure he'd so painstakingly committed to memory over the past two weeks - and he knew he was on thirty degrees - he locked the joystick with the thumb button and waited for the next command. And he really did know he had it. It felt spot on. It was a good start.

  'Fifty degrees right sharp. Increase speed factor 2. Now!'

  He pulled at the speed handle and a second metal fin began to emerge from its grip into the palm of his left hand. At the same time he began to ease the joystick, and felt the pressure on his pinkie finger begin to subside as the pressure on his index finger began to grow.

  And now his left palm told him that the new metal fin on the speed handle had joined the first at the same height and he was at speed factor 2. Simultaneously the pressure on his index finger told him that he'd made the fifty-degree right turn as required. He heaved a large sigh of relief, allowed himself a small smile and waited for the next directive. He was going well - but his blind passage through the asteroid swarm had only just begun.

  'Ten degrees right sharp. Increase speed factor 2.5. Now!'

  Fractions of speed factors! Shit! He hated those. But if that's what was needed… He pulled the speed handle again and felt a third fin emerge. He moved the joystick slowly. Only ten degrees; it would take barely a nudge. He felt the pressure ease on his index finger and he locked the joystick - just as he gauged the third fin was half way out and they were at speed factor 2.5.

  'Ten degrees right! Ten degrees right!' screeched the navigator. 'You've gone left. Correct twenty degrees right. I say twenty degrees right! Now! Now!'

  Renton felt the coils of his lower intestine rearranging themselves. And he felt queasy, light-headed and thirsty, all at the same time. Far too many sensations to cope with on top of having to concentrate as well. Especially when he had to concentrate on averting disaster. Immediately. Without prior notice.

  But he tried. He moved the joystick. He moved it until he was as sure as he could be that he'd got the twenty degree turn, the one demanded so insistently by his agitated navigator. And as he locked the joystick, he realised that the angle was probably perfect - but the direction was certainly not. He'd taken the ship another twenty degrees left.

  He wasn't in the least bit surprised when, within two seconds, just as the navigator was starting to scream out a few more helpful suggestions on the steering front, the mass proximity alarm began to wail. Just like it had the day before. 'Cripes,' said Renton to himself, 'that's torn it'.

  And indeed, torn it was. No less than completely ripped to pieces. As was space vessel R2024, a passenger launch of the Pandora class carrying five hundred souls, not the more worrying six hundred that Renton had originally feared. As it ploughed into a disc-shaped asteroid the size of a small mountain range, Renton's total kill for the two days doubled to one thousand. This really was proving to be a completely miserable week.

  Then the lights went on. And, at the same time, Renton was aware of there being somebody else in his cubicle. It was the navigator. Only he wasn't the navigator any more and he wasn't talking to Renton through his earphones. No, now he'd reverted to his true rôle as Renton's instructor, and he was in real-time, real-space, audio-visual contact - in fact, overbearingly so. He was a big man and he towered over Renton's seated form. He had a strong voice, and he had its volume turned up to high as he addressed Renton. He shouted his greeting. 'You blithering idiot pillock! Don't you know your left from your right!?'

  Renton waited for a quieter question.

  'You did exactly what you did yesterday! Right, left, left, right. You haven't got a clue, have you?'

  Renton judged this to be a rhetorical question and it was still a rather loud question as well. So he maintained his own silence.

  The instructor ran his fingers through his hair, adding an alarmed edge to his look of total exasperation. 'I just don't think it's worth it. Why bother? You're never going to get it, are you?'

  The decibel level had dropped a little, but the instructor was still pushing out a lot of superfluous verbal energy. Renton considered a response but decid
ed against it. He would continue in silent subjection for a little while longer.

  'Well, young man,' asked the instructor in a quieter, unavoidably direct manner, 'what have you got to say for yourself?'

  Renton could defer a response no longer. He would have to break his vow of silence. But how? What could he say that wouldn't simply turn the decibel level up again? He thought. He thought very quickly. Then he had it. Yes! Something a little tangential, something to steer his instructor away from the sterility of a left versus right debate, the black and white of the old sinister-dexter duel. He'd question the purpose of the exercise. Again.

  'Well,' said Renton, 'I just think the whole thing's a bit of a waste of time. I mean, it's barely worth concentrating on, is it? I know what you said yesterday. But really, when am I ever going to get stuck in an asteroid belt with a bloody blindfold on? And if I'm blind rather than blindfolded, who in their right mind is going to ask me to drive the ship? I mean, can you imagine it? "Oh, look an asteroid belt, an asteroid belt! Put a call out! Put a call out! Is there a blind person on board? Is there a blind person on board? We need a blind person on the flight deck. Please report to the flight deck now if you're blind."

  'Well really, it's not going to happen, is it? I mean…'

  The decibels came back - with a face now more purple than pink. 'You dumbcluck! How many times do I have to tell you? This exercise is not about asteroids! Nor about being blindfolded! Nor about passengers in ships being driven by blind people! It's about tactile sensitivity, tactile response, speed of response, response under stress, coping with stress, the stress of responsibility. All these things and a few dozen more. But it's not about asteroids, blindfolds or blind people. And it's not about knowing which hand's on your right arm and which hand's on your left. That's rather taken for granted. Although in your case we obviously can't…'

  'I'm OK with blue and red,' mumbled Renton.

  'What?' screamed the instructor. He was still wasting an enormous amount of verbal wattage. He was talking to Renton as though he was on the next planet not just two feet away in the same small cubicle.

  'I can cope with blue and red,' repeated Renton. 'You know, blue for right and red for left.'

  'Blue for right and red for left? What in God's name are you on about, boy?'

  Renton was always surprised when people didn't understand this concept. And it was always. He'd yet to meet anyone who understood it. But, nevertheless, he was still surprised at their ignorance. Every time. Just why didn't people see right as a blue thing? It was so obviously blue. Just as obviously as left was a red thing. Bright scarlet red. Why didn't they see it?

  'Well, right is blue and left is red. Right? I mean OK, not right. I mean left. You know, left is red not right, right is blue. Right? I mean OK.'

  The instructor's eyes were glazing over.

  'Well, so if you say: "turn blue", I'll turn right. And if you say: "turn red", I'll go left. And I always get that right… I mean correct. But just saying left or right… well, I find that a bit confusing, you see.'

  This time it was the instructor who'd decided to remain silent. His mouth clearly couldn't cope with his racing thoughts.

  'I mean,' continued Renton, in the hope of reinforcing his argument, 'it's like numbers. You know, one is white, nine is black, eight's brown, three is red, like left, six is blue, you know, like right, two's yellow… errh what does that leave? Errh yes, four's green, five's orange and seven… well, that's a bit indistinct for me. What colour's seven for you, sir?'

  'What colour is seven for me? Is that what you said? You've just failed one of the most important modules on this course, and you want me to tell you what colour seven is? Is that what you really want?'

  Actually, Renton didn't want this at all. Not any more. He'd remembered what colour seven was. It was the colour of his instructor's face: purple. He thought he'd better steer the conversation back to right and left again - just make this chap understand that he responded to blue and red commands - but not right and left…

  But it was no use. He tried - but in vain. His ability to steer the conversation was about as good as his ability to steer a spaceship when blindfolded. And it had a similar result. Only this time it was his instructor that exploded. He went ape.

  Renton realised module “T1/3/90A - Reaction modulation” was beyond redemption. He'd have to make the points up somewhere else. In fact, everywhere else. And that wouldn't be easy.

  …even if he was able to cut his kill rate to something rather less than five hundred a day…

  2.

  'A pot-holder. A friggin' swinging pot-holder.'

  Renton mumbled to himself, his forehead drawn into a deep frown. 'Bloody typical! They get to build the shelters and the traps and things, all the real survival stuff. And I end up with something a cub-scout could do. I mean really, a perishin' swinging pot-holder. It just isn't on!'

  He looked at the illustration in the survival handbook and grunted. It certainly didn't look what might be called a tough assignment. In fact, it looked embarrassingly simple. A couple of twigs and a stick in the ground and you were there. A real doddle of a pot-holder. And that was the trouble. That was the indignity of it. There was no challenge, no glory. Where was the satisfaction in cobbling together some stupid piece of cooking kit? Just who was he going to impress with a bit of nonsense like that?

  He grunted again and then a thought. Time for a bit of Tenting fatalism to be applied.

  'Right,' he announced to himself. 'If it's a bloody swinging pot-holder they want, then that's what they'll get. But a damn good one, not just some make-do jobbie, like the sort they'll expect. Oh no! This will be the real thing. A model of outdoor culinary equipment. Nothing less than a gleaming pinnacle in the annals of do-it-yourself, self-sufficient, survival technology. Something that'll be remembered. I'll show them!'

  And so with inspiration kindled and determination engaged, Renton set about his little construction job - almost eagerly. And first of all he embarked on a search for the required woody bits: the twig and stick components of his campfire ensemble. Hardly a problem given that they were in the middle of a forest. For once he needed something that literally grew on trees. It would be as easy as pie.

  Or so he had thought. But he soon realised it wasn't quite that easy. And that maybe, just maybe, it wouldn't be that easy at all.

  To begin with, the bigger twig of the two needed to be stout and to have two sticking out sub-twigs, so to speak, both in the same plane and set about fifteen inches apart. And these sub-twigs needed to have the same girth as the twig itself. Renton considered this, and after a little while he reached the conclusion that even if the forest he stood in covered the entire surface of this and the nearest ten planets, it was still unlikely that within it there would be a single twig of the required configuration. The result was unavoidable. You either spent so much time looking for a woody pot-holder component of the prescribed shape that you died of starvation in the process, or you did what Renton finally did, which was to choose a piece of wood that was totally the wrong shape, but was at least strong and supple - and most important of all, it was accessible. You could reach it and remove it from its parent tree without being snared, stabbed or impaled and without having to indulge in any of the sort of climbing manoeuvres that might well lead you into the realms of triangular bandages and improvised stretchers.

  The second twig was even more accessible than the first, and even more unsuitable for its rôle in the required appliance. It was bent where it shouldn't have been bent and it was worryingly thin. It was also dry and probably not as supple as it needed to be. In fact, its suppleness bordered on the brittle. Renton had, after all, found it on the forest floor, its outstanding accessibility having been its prime, not to say its sole, recommendation.

  The stick, vertical purposes for the use of, came with similarly singular and inappropriate credentials. It was available. Although it was available only because one of Renton's colleagues had already col
lected it - and prepared it - for some shelter building. But there were lots more like it, and Renton was sure that just one of them wouldn't be missed. And anyway, it looked just the job. So even though it wasn't - because it was far too long and far too thin - Renton took it. Or more accurately, he stole it. Not that this stealing aspect worried him in the least. After all, his initial resentment at being made trainee in charge of swinging pot-holders had begun to resurface as soon as he'd seen all its problems - and this resentment had now cleared the water…

  'Bloody unfair. That's what it is: bloody unfair. They get all the easy stuff, and I get the bummer. So why the hell should I care? And if they can't even look after their own bloody sticks… well, that's just their hard luck.

  'And my need's greater than theirs anyway. I mean, I've got to get a move on, haven't I? Hell, putting this little lot together could well take more than a few minutes - and especially if some of the components aren't quite up to spec…'

  Renton's attitude to his colleagues was hardly justified, but his concerns as to the assembly of his pot-holder certainly were. And on top of this, when he'd had another look at the survival handbook and the exact method of securing the woody bits together, he began to think that even if he managed to complete the damn thing, the end result might not quite make it to the uplands of excellence in self-sufficient survival technology to which he'd initially aspired. In fact, not by a long way.

  When two things needed to be joined together firmly, any one of a number of methods could be adopted. Crystalating was the best, of course: merging two objects of the same material into one by knitting them together atom by atom at a sharp crystal interface. That was perfect. They were as joined together as they ever could be. But hardly a process suitable for all occasions. More likely would be ion-welding: fusing and integrating two different materials together, glass to steel, stone to plastic, or any combination of any number of different substances. Easy, effective and permanent - at least for most of the more commonly used materials. Even wood, with its irregular and wayward properties, lent itself to ion-welding - with remarkably good results.

  So if there were various bits of wood to be joined together, Renton would definitely have plumped for the ion-welding. And in the unlikely event that the necessary equipment wasn't available, he'd have considered some resi-bonding or even some platelette fixing. And if they weren't available, well, he might just have resorted to the quaint: a screw or a nail or a stud. Not ever would he have thought of using string!