Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers by Grant Naylor

  He was broke, diseased and 793 million miles from Liverpool.

  When Lister got drunk, he really got drrrrr-unk.

  ***

  He brought the hopper to a crunching halt on the corner of hundred-and-fifty-second and third, outside a garish neon sign promising 'Girls, Girls, Girls' and 'Sex, Sex, Sex'.

  'I understand,' said the man in the navy-blue officer's coat, surreptitiously re-gluing his moustache, 'there are some excellent restaurants in this area, offering authentic Mimian cuisine.'

  'Look,' said Lister as he short-changed the officer, 'd'you want me to pick you up?' He really didn't feel like cruising around in the bone-juddering hopper for another fare. 'I don't mind waiting.'

  The officer glanced down the street at the various pimpy types with poorly-concealed weaponry under their coats.

  'Fine. Wait round the corner.'

  'How long will you be?'

  'Well, I'm led to believe the Mimian bladderfish is particularly exquisite, and I would be insane if I didn't at least try the legendary inky squid soup. Plus, of course, pudding, brandy and cigars. Say ... ten minutes? Call it twenty to be on the safe side.'

  Lister took the hopper round the corner, and saw his fare stride purposefully towards a Mimian restaurant, Pause outside, studying the menu, then turn and walk straight into the building with the neon sign boasting 'Girls, Girls, Girls' and 'Sex, Sex, Sex.'

  Lister locked the door of the hopper. He wasn't totally crazy about this area, safety-wise. He poured what remained of the coffee into the flask lid, and lit a cigarette. What could be nicer, he thought, than smoking Spanish tobacco and drinking real Spanish coffee? Except, possibly, having your whole body vigorously rubbed by a man with a cheese grater.

  He was sick of this armpit of a moon.

  He'd spent the last six months trying to get the eight hundred dollarpounds he needed to buy a shuttle ticket home. So far he'd saved fifty-three. And he was probably going to blow that tonight.

  Making money on Mimas wasn't easy. For a start you needed a work permit, and Lister didn't have a work permit because, officially, he didn't exist.

  Officially, Lister wasn't here. Officially, he was a space bag lady called Emily Berkenstein. Hence his problem. Which he attempted to solve by stealing taxi hoppers.

  Each evening, or at least each evening he felt in the mood, which turned out to be about one evening in four, he'd hang around taxi hopper ranks and wait for the drivers to converge for warmth and conversation in a single cab. When he was convinced it was safe, he'd steal the rear-most hopper and bounce around the seedier districts of the colony, where few taxi cabs and absolutely no police ever went, and pocket the night's takings before abandoning the hopper at a busy rank back at Mimas Central.

  If he'd set about his hopper scam in a slightly more business-like way, the chances are he'd have been off Mimas within a month. Unfortunately, he found Mimas so deeply depressing - quite the most hideous place he'd ever been; worse, even than Wolverhampton - that quite regularly he felt compelled to hit the bars and drinking clubs, and blow every single pennycent he'd saved. In some half-assed, subconscious way, he felt, if only he could get drunk enough he was sure to wake up back outside the Marie Lloyd public house, off Regent Street in London, trying to hail a cab to get a Monopoly board.

  Sadly, the price of alcohol on Mimas was so outrageously prohibitive, he could only ever buy enough Mimian sangria to get him in the mood to start drinking seriously, before his money ran out and he'd have to slope back to the shuttle port, where he'd hire a left-luggage locker, and sleep in it.

  'Life,' thought Lister, 'sucks.'

  Outside the hopper two pimps were having a minor disagreement about a girl named Sandra. It was brief and, for the most part, friendly. It ended when the severed ear of the taller pimp landed with a soft, wet plop on the hopper's windscreen.

  Lister double-checked the door locks, and suddenly found it important to read the A to Z of Mimas with fierce concentration. He was only half-aware of the hopper rocking gently from side to side as the two men rolled on its bonnet.

  Suddenly there was another soft, wet plop, and a second, slightly smaller, ear joined the first on his windscreen.

  What the hell's happening? thought Lister. It's raining ears on my windscreen. He turned on the wipers, and used his window wash. When the windscreen cleared, the ears had gone, and so had the pimps.

  Saturday nights on Mimas were wild. So wild, in fact, the Mimians had instigated an eight-day calendar, so that everybody could have two Sundays to recover from Saturday night. Sunday one and Sunday two, then back to work on Monday.

  Lister looked at the hopper clock. Forty minutes since the man in the blue officer's coat had gone for his 'meal'. He slipped his taxi-driver's night stick up the arm of his jacket, stepped over the body of a dead, one-eared pimp, and dashed across the trotter towards the building with the 'Girls, Girls, Girls' sign.

  FOUR

  Denis and Josie were lovers. Not that they actually made love. Not any more.

  They hadn't made love for the last four years; neither of them had been capable of it. Denis was into Bliss, and Josie was a Game head.

  Denis huddled in the shop doorway, tugging the remnants of his plastic mackintosh around his knees for warmth, his hangdog eyes searching the busy Mimian street for a 'roll'. Even though it was cold, he was sweating. His stomach had bunched itself into a fist and was trying to punch its way out of his body. He hadn't eaten for two days; his last meal had been a slice of pizza he'd stolen off a drunken astro. But it was a different kind of hunger that was gnawing at him now. He took out a long-empty polythene bag, and licked pathetically at its already well-licked insides. Denis had a second-class degree in Biochemistry. Though, if you asked him now, he probably couldn't even spell Biochemistry.

  Josie was sitting by his side, laughing. She'd been laughing for nearly an hour.

  Her long, once-blonde hair was matted into a series of whips which lashed at her pale, grimy face as she tossed her head, giggling idiotically. Of the two, she was the really smart one. Josie had a first-class degree in Pure Mathematics.

  Only, right now she couldn't even have counted her legs.

  They'd met at the New Zodiac Festival six years earlier, when the Earth's polar star had changed and the entire zodiac had to be realigned. Everybody shifted one star sign forward.

  Josie had moved from Libra to Scorpio, and Denis had changed from Sagittarius to Capricorn. It was a turning point in both their lives: they both felt so much happier with their new star signs and, along with the other five thousand or-so space beatniks who'd gathered for the four-day festival in the Sea of Tranquillity, they'd taken many, many drugs, and talked about how profoundly the shifting constellations had changed them, and how maybe the Druids were the only dudes who'd ever really got it right.

  Now they were on their way to Neptune, for Pluto's solstice, when Pluto took over from Neptune as the outermost planet of the solar system. They'd been travelling for five years, and so far they'd only managed to bum their way up to Saturn. Still, they weren't in a particular hurry - the solstice wasn't going to happen for another fifty years.

  So Denis scanned the street for a roll while Josie sat beside him, laughing.

  Across her brow gleamed the metal band of a Game head. Underneath it, needle-thin electrodes punctured the skull and burrowed into her frontal lobes and hypothalamus.

  The Game started out actually as a game. It was intended to be the zenith of computer game technology. Tiny computer chips in the electrodes transmitted signals directly to the brain. No screens, no joysticks - you were really there, wherever you wanted to be. Inside your head, your fantasies were fulfilled. The Game had been marketed as 'Better Than Life'. It was only a month after its release that people realised it was addictive. 'Better Than Life' was withdrawn from the market, but illicit electronic labs began to make copies.

  It was the ultimate hallucinogen, with only one real major drawback.

>   It killed you.

  Once you entered 'Better Than Life', once you put on the headband and the needles wormed into your mind, it was almost impossible to get out.

  This was partly because you weren't even aware you were in 'Better Than Life' in the first place. The Game protected itself, hid itself from your memory. Your conscious mind was totally subverted, while your body slowly withered and died.

  At first, well-meaning friends tried to rescue Game heads by yanking the headset out of the skull, but this always resulted in instant death from shock. The only way out of the Game was to want to leave it. But no one ever wanted to leave.

  Most Game heads, unable to look after themselves, died very quickly. But Josie had Denis. And Denis at least shared his food with her, and kept her alive. When Josie first bought the headset from a South African Game dealer on Callisto, she'd urged Denis to get a set too. She wanted to try 'multiusing', when two or more headsets were connected together, so the users could share the same fantasy.

  But Denis was into Bliss.

  Bliss was a unique designer drug. Unique for two reasons. The first was that you could get addicted to Bliss just by looking at it. Which made it very hard for the police to carry out drug busts. The second was its effect. It made you believe you were God. It made you feel as if you were all-seeing, all-knowing, eternal and omnipotent. Which was laughable, really, because when you were on Bliss you couldn't even lace your shoes. The Bliss high lasted fifteen minutes; after coming down, the resulting depression lasted twenty-five years. Few people could live with it, so they had to take another belt.

  Denis took off his boot, unrolled a second polythene bag, which contained a teaspoonful of the soil-coloured substance, and toyed with it pensively. He always saved a final belt for when he needed to roll someone for money. Which is what he was going to do right now.

  ***

  Lister should have known better. He'd been on Mimas long enough to know not to turn round when he heard the voice. He should have put his head down and run.

  But he didn't. And by the time he worked out what was happening, it was too late.

  'Stop, my son!' the voice bellowed, and Lister twisted to see the Bliss freak in the plastic mackintosh swaggering towards him in a Mysterious Way 'Dost thou knoweth who I am?'

  Lister's eyes darted from side to side, looking for an exit, but the Bliss freak edged him into a doorway, and there was nowhere to go.

  'Dost thou knoweth who I am?' he repeated.

  Yes, thought Lister, you're a smegging Blissfreak.

  'Yes,' he said aloud, 'you're God, right?'

  Denis beamed and nodded sagely. The mortal had recognised Him. Not everybody did.

  'That's right. I am God. And I have cometh to thee for a mighty purpose. I need some of your mortal money.'

  Lister nodded. 'Look, I'm completely strapped, man. I've got absolutely nothing on me. Not a bean.'

  The Bliss freak sighed heavily, trying to contain His wrath. 'Would you like Me to call down a mighty plague, and lay waste this entire world?'

  'No.' Lister shook his head.

  'Would you like to be turned into a pillar of salt?'

  'No.' Lister shook his head again.

  'Then give Me some money.'

  'Look, I've told you. I'm broke.'

  The Bliss freak stuck his right hand into the pocket of his ragged raincoat.

  'I've got something in here that can hurt you.

  Lister eyed him up and down. He wasn't that big, actually. And what did he have in his raincoat pocket that could hurt him? A lightning bolt? He decided to stand his ground.

  'I don't believe you,' he said, smiling pleasantly.

  The Bliss freak took his hand out of his pocket and showed Lister what he had in there that could hurt him.

  It was his fist.

  He swung it round, hitting Lister on the side of his face. The punch had no strength, but it took Lister by surprise. He banged his head against the edge of the door frame, and went down.

  When he came to, barely thirty seconds later, his fifty three dollarpounds had gone, and so had God.

  FIVE

  Lister made his way shakily down the brothel's dusky staircase and stepped onto the red, thick-pile carpet of the main reception area. Plastic palm trees encircled a vast, artificial, heart-shaped lagoon in pink tile. Phallus-shaped diving boards cast frightening shadows onto the softly gurgling water, while Chinese chimes, bedecked with glass erotica, tinkled in the strawberry-scented breeze of the air conditioner. A black, fake marble staircase led up to a mezzanine level, where twenty-odd clam-shaped doors marked 'Love Suites' circled the room. Music, which sounded as if all its charm and energy had been surgically removed, trickled out of a number of breast-shaped speakers. Various fat men of various nationalities sat around the lagoon in white towels, sipping fake champagne cocktails.

  In front of Lister a small red-haired man, with a porky roll of flesh above his towel-top, was examining a line of girls.

  'This one's face ...'

  'Jeanette's face The Madame followed behind him, taking notes.

  'This one's breasts ...'

  'Candy's bosom. An excellent and most popular choice.'

  'Legs: I'll have the right one from her, and the left one from her.'

  The Madame scribbled furiously.

  'Barbie's right ... Tina's left. And what would sir like, bottom-wise?'

  'Uh ... I think this one.'

  'Mandy's derriere.'

  The Madame clapped her hands, and two engineers began dismantling the android girls then reassembling them according to the client's order.

  Lister watched, trying to keep his lunch in his stomach, as limbs were changed and buttocks swapped, much to the apparent excitement of the small red-haired man.

  The Madame turned to Lister. 'Sorry to keep you waiting, sir. Would you like a pick'n'mix or an off-the-peg?'

  'No, I don't want a girl...'

  'That's absolutely no problem at all, sir - we have some beautiful boy-droids.'

  'No, - uh, this is kind of, uh, embarrassing...'

  'I understand.' She smiled. Before Lister could stop her, the Madame clapped her hands and a flock of android sheep baa-ed their way noisly into the reception area.

  'No, look ... listen...

  'Baa.'

  'Yes, sir?'

  'Baaaaaaaaa.'

  'You don't understand ...'

  One of the sheep turned, winked at him coquettishly, and wiggled off, hips swaying provocatively, towards the marble staircase.

  'Oh my God, no. I'm looking for someone. I'm supposed to collect him.'

  Lister described his fare, and the Madame led him through to a rest room.

  ***

  The man with the false moustache was sitting in a Jacuzzi, having a heated conversation with a member of staff.

  'I want my money back.'

  'Absolutely sir. This has never happened before.'

  'She nearly pulled the damned thing off.'

  'There was a slight circuitry problem...'

  'She wouldn't stop. It was like being trapped in a milking machine.'

  'Well, if sir would care to make another choice, at the expense of the management.

  'Are you insane? It'll be out of commission for at least twelve months! If you hadn't heard my screams ...' He looked up and saw Lister for the first time.

  There was an extraordinarily long pause.

  'You know,' he continued, pretending he hadn't seen Lister, 'I don't think this is a restaurant at all. I haven't seen so much as a soupçon of the spicy bladderfish for which Mimas enjoys such a splendid reputation. I thought it was a bit strange the way you insisted I take off my clothes and wear this skimpy towel. In fact, if you want to know what I think: I don't think this is a small bijou eatery. I think it's a smegging brothel.'

  The officer continued his protestations of innocence all the way back to the docks.

  The hopper lurched to a halt outside the shuttleport hopper rank.
Lister's fare climbed painfully from the cab, paid up, and leaned conspiratorially into Lister's window.

  'Look,' said the officer, his moustache still skew-whiff and curling at the edges from the heat of the Turkish bath, 'Space Corps-wise, I'm pretty much a high-flier; and career-wise'- he looked around - 'it might not be such an A1 wonderful idea if this little adventure were to go any further.'

  Lister held out his hand, and the man pressed one dollarpound into his palm and winked.

  'Go on,' he said, 'enjoy yourself on me.'

  Lister let him limp up to the automatic doors in the docking port before he leaned out of the window and shouted. 'Hey, whoremonger!'

  The man raced back. 'Keep your voice down, for mercy's sake - people can hear.'

  'You made a mistake. Instead of a hundred dollarpound tip, you've only given me a one dollarpound tip.'

  'Right,' said the officer, loosening the buckle on his money belt and extracting a brown leather purse, 'it's a dirty world, and I suppose I'm going to have a pay the toll.' He handed over a stale-smelling note.. 'You're very kind.' Lister took the note and stuck it behind the upturned earmuffs of his leather deerstalker. 'Very kind. 'just provided we understand: this is the end of the matter.' 'Sure.'

  'Don't try coming back for more. Don't cross me, OK?'

  'Sure.'

  'Nobody crosses Christopher Todhunter and gets away with it.'

  He closed his purse, which was monogrammed: 'Arnold J. Rimmer, B Sc, S Sc', and walked back across the forecourt.

  Lister leaned out of the window. 'See you, Rimmer.'

  'Yeah. Bye,' said Rimmer, absently.

  SIX

  George McIntyre placed the antique Smith and Wesson in his mouth and pulled the trigger. His last thought was: I bet this doesn't work. But he was wrong.

  The bullet passed through the back of his head, killing him instantly, before it sailed through his rubber plant and ended its brief but eventful journey in the wall of his office.