Free Chronicles of Isambard Smith 05 - End of Empires by Toby Frost

to work quietly.’
    The M’Lak nodded. ‘Fear not. I shall strike from the shadows.’ He sipped his tea. ‘I must say, I find this politics business rather complex.’
    ‘Really? Well,’ Smith began, ‘it’s quite simple, really. You have the two main parties, who represent the interests of the working people and business respectively. Then you have smaller parties that believe in, er, other stuff. They’re usually crackpots. Personally, I’m a floating voter.’
    ‘It is only appropriate. You live on a spaceship.’ Suruk sighed. ‘Personally, Mazuran, I see virtue in both left and right. It is only right that there should be social justice for all citizens, but I am also in favour of the interests of the nation. Yet I must make a choice. Why not just make one big party that is both national and socialist?’
    ‘Perhaps you should just vote Liberal.’
    Carveth had given up eating the Rightos and was rooting about in the box. ‘Don’t you lot have political parties, then? How do you know who’s ahead in the polls?’
    Suruk frowned. ‘I would look at the top of the pole and see whose head it is. The fact is, we do not have the same problems as you, since humans are somewhat punier. We have no religion, no great desire for property, and luxury is shameful for warriors, so there is little reason for us to fight among ourselves except where there is a formal war being organised. Instead, we M’Lak share a common policy for foreign affairs, entertainment and defence.’
    ‘Meaning that you all get together and fight someone else.’
    ‘Exactly. On which subject,’ he added, ‘we have some time before this gathering tonight. Let us ready our spirits with Scrabble!’

The Plot Against Ravnavar
    Somewhere out there, Isambard Smith thought, there are billions of lemming men getting ready to kill us all. While the Ghast Empire shoots us in the gut, the Greater Galactic Happiness and Friendship Collective will take an axe to our necks. And somehow, this building is linked to it all.
    It wasn’t much of a place. Many of the public buildings of Ravnavar were as grand and stately as the empire that had created them, but the old Picture House looked as if it had been put up by frontiersmen who didn’t plan on staying long. There was a strange mixture of haunted house and Wild West saloon in the design, together with a suggestion of the sort of top hat favoured by men who enjoyed tying maidens to railway tracks.
    ‘This is it,’ Smith said. He stood by the car as the others emerged. In the streets around them, the docks creaked and banged. Cranes stood against the darkening sky like gallows. ‘I’ll do the talking,’ he said.
    Smith locked the car and strode to the doors. He opened them for Carveth and Rhianna, and walked in. Suruk took the rear. The alien was unarmed except for four large knives. Smith carried his Civiliser under his jacket.
    The foyer was dim, red and stale-smelling. On the far side of the room, a small man watched them from behind thick spectacles. ‘Help you?’ he asked, folding a newspaper away.
    Smith approached. ‘Four for Popular Fist, please.’
    The man squinted at them. ‘You?’
    ‘Yes, us. And I’ll have a copy of your manifesto, my good man. Chop chop.’
    Very slowly and deliberately, he looked them over: Smith, in his long coat and red jacket, Suruk, impassive and poised, Rhianna, casually elegant in her hired dress, and Carveth, who was looking for a food counter. ‘What’s the password?’
    ‘One moment,’ Smith replied.
    He ushered Suruk and Rhianna back. ‘Nobody told me there would be a password!’ he hissed.
    ‘The crimes of our enemies shall be washed away in a crimson torrent of blood!’ Suruk said.
    ‘Bit long for a password, isn’t it?’
    ‘Password, Mazuran?’
    ‘Never mind.’ He turned to Rhianna. ‘Look, Rhianna. Is there any chance you could, you know –’
    ‘Read his mind?’
    ‘Exactly. That’s just what I was thinking.’
    ‘I