Read God Emperor of Didcot for Free Online Page B

beer.’
    ‘Thanks.’
    ‘I’ll keep watch. If he arrives, I’ll let you know.’
    Smith left the mezzanine and strolled between the card tables, feeling lost. The crew were seated a little way off.
    Carveth was drinking one of her noxious not-proper-alcohol drinks and eating a toasted sandwich. Suruk was halfway through a pint of sucrose solution. Smith sipped his drink and sat down opposite Carveth. ‘On the hard stuff, Suruk?’
    ‘I will say only one thing for this palace of folly, Mazuran: it serves a good snack. Would you like the roasted flesh of a peanut?’ he added, holding out a little bag. ‘Hunt well and you might even catch the one with the monocle.’
    ‘No, thanks.’
    ‘As you wish. I think I may chance my skill at the card games.’
    ‘Well, just remember to lay off the Tizer.’
    ‘I do not touch it. Fizz-water is the ruin of many braves and the cause of much tusk decay. Ah, human females have arrived. Rutting time for you, Isambard Smith.’
    ‘We’re finding you a wife,’ Carveth explained. She nodded at the doorway, where two pretty girls had just arrived. ‘Blonde one might do you.’
    ‘I’m really not sure,’ Smith replied. He was not keen on entrusting the selection of his future wife to Carveth and Suruk, especially if this involved his future wife ever meeting them. Who knew what kind of misbegotten creature they might dredge up?
    ‘I reckon you should get yourself one of those rich RSF girls,’ Carveth said. ‘I’d have thought you’d be the right sort for a posh space-fleet girl.’
    ‘Ladies who launch? Ugh. I don’t know, Carveth. It would be settling for second best. I’d far rather have someone like Rhianna over there. Bloody hell! Rhianna’s over there!’
    They looked around, following Smith’s outstretched finger. ‘Nah,’ said Carveth, ‘it can’t be.’ Then: ‘Bugger me, it is.’
    She stood on the far side of the hall, by the doors.
    Rhianna was slightly taller than average, pale-skinned, with dark hair in dreadlocks that nearly reached her waist, held back by a cloth band that, for once, matched the rest of her clothes.
    She had dressed well, Smith thought. Rhianna wore a high-collared crimson jacket which struck him as vaguely Chinese, a skirt decorated in a way reminiscent of a sari, platform sandals like a geisha girl, and a scarf thrown back over her shoulder which made him think of Biggles.
    Smith had not seen the Indo-Oriental aviator look before, but he thought it suited her very well.
    Someone was offering Rhianna a drink, presumably made with non-organic grapes, and she smiled politely as she refused it. She looked so graceful, Smith thought, so refined – and so completely out of his league.
    ‘Good Lord,’ he said. ‘She looks ever so different to how I remember her.’
    ‘That’s probably because she’s had a wash,’ Carveth said. ‘Go and talk to her.’
    Smith pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘I don’t know. I feel light-headed. I think the alcohol’s gone to my head.’
    ‘That’s the blood going somewhere else,’ Carveth said. ‘You’d better go and see her before you have to sit down.’
    ‘That’s quite enough of that,’ Smith retorted and, feeling obliged to shut Carveth up, he straightened his fleet jacket, stood up and strode across the room.
    ‘Excuse me?’ he said. ‘Miss Mitchell?’
    She turned away from the bar, saw who it was and smiled. ‘Hey, Isambard! How’s things?’ she asked, leaning in and kissing him on the cheek. ‘ Namaste , Isambard. Is that jacket new? You look very smart - given that you’re wearing the trappings of an Imperialist aggressor, of course.’
    ‘You look super too. How did you know I’d be here?’
    ‘Your friend told me – the journalist. Tall man, kind of gloomy, drinks a lot of tea.’
    ‘Ah.’
    She glanced around the room. ‘So, how’s it going on your ship? Is Suruk still, um, keeping to his indigenous customs?’
    ‘Oh yes, he’s fine. The police tend to