Wormbender's Circus

“Stop it! You’re driving me mad!”

Zoe stopped pacing back and forth and stared at Chen Hua. “Sorry,” she said. She stood with her face pressed against the glass, staring at the unchanging scene in the warehouse. “Chen Hua,” she said at last, “why did you choose to come and work here?”

Chen Hua grinned. “Pretty unusual for a Chinese, huh? Living out here, parsecs from the nearest colony. Well, it suits me most of the time.”

“Most of the time?”

“Sure. I get the blues from time to time.”

“What do you do then?”

“You want to know?”

“Yes.”

“I have a punchbag out the back. When I feel like I’ve had enough, I put the gloves on and smash into it like a madman.”

“Could I try? I’m just in the mood.”

“Sure. Come this way.” He ushered her out of the office. “Sometimes I put a picture of my boss on the punchbag and imagine I’m beating him up. It’s damn good therapy.” Chen Hua gave her an impish grin.

Zoe looked at him. Normally she would have grinned back, but black despair had her soul in its talons. “I’d need to hang a mirror on it, the way I’m feeling now.”

Chen Hua nodded. “I understand.”

They got to the spot where Chen Hua’s punchbag was hanging from a beam. Chen Hua began putting the boxing gloves on Zoe’s hands.

“Can I ask you a personal question?” said Zoe as he tied up the laces.

Chen Hua smiled. “I can guess what it is.”

“Don’t you ever get lonely? For a woman?”

“I was right. The answer is yes. I do.”

“What do you do?”

“The same as most other men in the circumstances.”

Zoe turned her attention to the punchbag to conceal her scarlet blush. She began slamming her fists into it with vehemence, while Chen Hua watched.

“A lot of people used to think that space travel was somehow unnatural, that mankind should stay put on Earth.”

Zoe was breathing hard, and her face was gleaming with sweat. She stopped for a moment, her fists on her hips. “Yeah,” she panted.

“Sometimes I think they may have had a point.”

When Chen Hua stepped out of his office into the warehouse an hour or so later, he found Zoe with her back to him, juggling fruit. He watched with amusement as she took a bite out of an apple and continued to juggle it. She grinned momentarily at her triumph, and then found herself wishing Sebastian could have been there to see it.

Chen Hua walked slowly round to face her. He felt relieved. The first deepest pain from her experience seemed to be easing.

She smiled. “Hi. The punchbag did me good. I’ll have to get one.”

Chen Hua nodded. “You’re pretty good at that.”

“No. I’m just learning.” The fruit slipped from her hands and rolled away across the floor. “You see?” Zoe bent down to pick it up.

“Now Sebastian... Sebastian...” Her voice trailed away. The very mention of his name brought him back to her, and with him the anguish and the sense of guilt. A lump formed in her throat, and she had to blink several times in order to see Chen Hua clearly.

A voice suddenly filled the air. “Police Unit CO5 to supply station manager Chen Hua, do you read me, over?”

“The cops,” said Chen Hua, hurrying towards his office. Zoe was hot on his heels, still chewing her apple.

Within an hour, no less than five heavily armed police vessels had settled onto Chen Hua’s desolate and solitary little rock. From the first of them, four men in spacesuits walked across to the warehouse airlock.

The first policeman took off his helmet and his gloves. He looked like policemen everywhere in every age, a cosmic traffic cop.

“Unit leader Frank Prescott,” he said, shaking Chen Hua’s hand. “I assume you are Chen Hua, and you must be Zoe Pinkerton.”

“Can we hurry?” said Zoe impatiently. “I believe friends of mine out there may be in great danger.”

“All in good time,” said Prescott, beginning to unlatch his suit.

“You’re not taking your suit off?” Zoe exclaimed.

“Certainly am,” said Prescott.

“But you’re taking off again straight away.”

“Patience. Suits off, guys.”

When Prescott had taken off his suit, which seemed to Zoe to take a phenomenally long time, he made himself at home at Chen Hua’s desk. Chen Hua brought him some tea, a gesture which Zoe silently cursed for slowing him down still further.

Prescott sipped tea and took down the details of the Semiramis, what kind of ship she was, what she was carrying, and her probable course.

“Well,” he concluded, “your friends are certainly in the area where the convicts are believed to be.” He looked at Zoe quizzically. “What puzzles me is that if they are your friends, as you say they are, how is it that you’re here on this supply station, and they’re out there?”

“An accident,” said Zoe hastily. “They left me behind. Can we get going now?”

“We?”

“I’ve got to come with you. I’m sure my friends are in danger.”

Prescott looked at her. “They may be. They may be in no danger at all. And if we catch up with those hoods, it’ll be you in danger.”

“Chief?” One of the other policemen took his arm. “Those guys only have side arms. Their ship isn’t armed. What say we let the lady along for the ride?”

Prescott looked from his men back to Zoe, and shook his head in despair. “Okay, lady, get a suit on. We’re moving out.” He began pulling on his own suit.

“Thank you,” said Zoe. She turned to Chen Hua. “Do you have a spare suit you could loan me?”

Chen Hua laughed heartily. “It’d be a shame if I didn’t, after that impassioned plea, wouldn’t it?”

Zoe disappeared, reappearing in a spacesuit, clutching the helmet to her chest, just as the policemen were ready to leave. They stamped across the warehouse to the airlock, with Chen Hua following close behind.

At the airlock, Zoe smiled. “Thanks, Chen Hua. I’ll see this gets mentioned in dispatches.”

A look of terror crossed Chen Hua’s face.

“In the right way, of course.”

Chen Hua helped Zoe put on her helmet. She and the men waved and disappeared into the airlock. Chen Hua watched as they stamped across the rock to the nearest police ship, and in moments all five craft had risen in unison and vanished from sight.

With a sigh, Chen Hua turned his attention to his long-neglected robot shuttle.