Ship of Fools by Dave Stone

Author:Dave Stone [Stone, Dave]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
Tags: Science-Fiction - Doctor Who
ISBN: 9780426205104
Publisher: Virgin
Published: 1997-06-14T22:00:00+00:00

Nobody understands me;

I hate my parents,

And I especially hate my sister, Laura

Because everybody likes her better than me

And I hope she dies horribly in a car crash.

The precisely similarly dressed contingent of her friends lounged by one of the mouldings on the walls, and nodded with cool appreciation, never allowing themselves to show anything as gauche and uncool as actual enthusiasm. Benny, who in her time had been a seriously angsty teenage poet, felt as though the single most embarrassing period of her entire life had come back to haunt her.

Mrs Nerode took them into a smallish back room that might at one point have served any number of purposes, but now served to contain the body of Nerode. A member of the bar staff stood rather vacantly nearby – the same kind of enhanced employee as had been employed in the dining room, but of a white-shined, waistcoated, leather-trousered type more suited to the immediate surroundings. Again, Benny was struck by the remarkable similarity to the dead Krugor – and made yet another mental note to tell somebody about that the moment she thought she could do so and get away with it.

‘I had taken to bed for an early night,’ Mrs Nerode explained. ‘Nathanael had gone to complain about the general and most deplorable lack of facilities for respectable people – as he liked to do regularly, sometimes for hours at a time…’

Benny shot a glance to the member of the bar staff, who remained utterly poker-faced and unconcerned.

‘Jacquin here came across him, and placed a call to my cabin,’ continued Mrs Nerode. ‘I cannot for the life of me imagine how he came to be here.’

The late Nathanael C. Nerode was dressed in an outfit that might once, at some historical point, have caused its wearer to be dubbed ‘the oldest swinger in town’.

A white suit with flappy, flared trousers and wing collars; a black silk shirt open to the navel to reveal a chest wig, enough gold medallions to make an Olympic powerball team scream with envy and quite possibly a merkin – Benny really didn’t want to look close enough to check. The effect was spoilt slightly by the fact that he was still wearing grey socks and brown sandals – and by the substances that were oozing out of his ears, and other areas.

‘So what do you think?’ she asked Khaarli.

‘Well he’s dead, at any rate.’ The Czhan turned to the member of the bar staff.

‘You. Tell me what happened precisely before he died, thou sheep-biting dissembling nut-hook.’

The leather-trousered man shrugged. Obviously, his vat-grown brain had not been designed for the higher levels of cognition. ‘Don’ know nothing, me. Guy was jumpin’ around like he had a spring up him, doin’ that thing where he rolls the hands around an’ tryin’ to look up young ladies’ skirts. Next thing, he’s jerkin’ and yammerin’ and shriekin’ away. Didn’ notice the difference, tell you the truth, till he shit himself and fell over.’

‘Hm.’ Khaarli turned back to Benny.

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