The Androids of Thor's Helmet

By Stewart Bruce and Nigel Moreland

The Androids of Thor's Helmet
Book 1 – The Last Galactic War Trilogy.

Roy and the crew are back, ready for another bonkers mission. In smart new uniforms and equipped only with a metal detector and their own wits they set out to find the androids on Earth Station III. They meet the Tarot, a tribe of Eskimos, resident in Tunisia. Later in Brazil it is carnival time and Roy loses his ability to speak, gawping at the excess of exposed flesh.

The Troubadours return and Roy must honour his I.O.U. They go shopping in Darlington to spend £100,000 and is Toss-Pot really a tosspot?

The Android quest leads them to Asgard, but Odin is not without a trick or two and sends the Artois beyond the start of time. The crew meet a group of familiar faces and then resolve the issue in truly mad style. Bursting for a fight they return to Asgard to confront the Norse gods. Does Daz overstep the mark? Have his past misdemeanours come home to roost? Is he in trouble? And why do Tunisian Eskimos keep popping up everywhere?

And who are the dreaded Calamari, will we have to shake hands, hands, hands, hands, hands, hands, hands and hands?

Contains some adult language and topics - even the odd swear word, though mostly they are the common ones.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Stewart Bruce
• Release date: Jun 8, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311356970

Stewart Bruce

I was born in Lincolnshire in 1964. After living in several places and countries, due to my father being in the RAF, my family eventually settled in South Wales. After completing a music degree and teacher training I moved to North Yorkshire in 1989 where I still live and teach.

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The Androids of Thor’s Helmet

Stewart Bruce and Nigel Moreland

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Smashwords Edition

Text Copyright 2015 Stewart Bruce

All Rights Reserved

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

Lyrics copyright - Zak Wright

Many thanks to Zak Wright, The Kidz Alright and Fusion OK for giving me permission to use their material within in this book. Here Comes the Sun!

Front cover by Neil Evans.

Copyright - Neil Evans

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

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To Claire, Francesca and Amelia.

A big thanks to Nigel who has helped me turn my poor writing skills into something more readable and for all the work he put into this book.

Also, a big thank you to Adrian Bramley and Rob Williams for proof reading duties.

The Androids of Thor’s Helmet is book 1 of a trilogy.

Other books by Stewart Bruce and Nigel Moreland:

Beyond Uranus (Book 1 of the Uranus Trilogy)

The Rings of Uranus (Book 2 of the Uranus Trilogy)

Inside Uranus (Book 3 of the Uranus Trilogy)

Mozart 42

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Table of Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1 - Andwoids!

Chapter 2 - TWAT

Chapter 3 - The Hunt Begins

Chapter 4 - Darling Town

Chapter 5 - OFFPISS to Pridome One

Chapter 6 - Quimm

Chapter 7 - Green and Home

Chapter 8 - The Hunt Continues

Chapter 9 - Asgard

Chapter 10 - Before

Chapter 11 - The Big Bang

Chapter 12 - In Loving Memory

Chapter 13 - Yule

Chapter 14 - Return to Asgard

Chapter 15 - The Great Hall of Asgard

Chapter 16 - Doctor John D’Eath

Chapter 17 - Goodbye

Prologue

In the beginning… So our culture tells us, but like so much of our culture it is wrong. Because before the beginning there was other stuff happening and other places to be and time ticked along quite nicely without us there to watch it.

There were planets and civilisations so mighty and advanced that looked on in awe the moment that the music of Zak Wright broke the firmament. It was all Odin’s fault, again. He had been at his Orary watching these puny people and saw the beginnings of the gig on Pridome One and being a little hard of hearing, or ‘Mutt and Jeff’ as the Asgardians called it (Here we see the true origins of the form of speech known as ‘Cock-up’ slang. Later bastardised by folk from the London area as Cockney slang), had turned up the volume knob. Something about the chord resonated within the fabric of the sub ether and caused a rent, which sucked through enough matter to cause an event in another space time.

Somewhere that previously wasn’t, there was a huge explosion of light followed by the base elements spewing out in an ever expanding sphere of roiling molten matter and gasses, creating a new universe.

Now that’s gonna come in handy. said one of the ‘gods’.

And indeed it did. There was somewhere for all their children to play, no crashing chariots to run them down, a nice safe play area gently expanding as they grew too.

However it wasn’t long, well only a billion years or so give or take a few million, that some of the bigger lads started chucking little lumps of rock about. With nothing to slow them down they just went on more or less forever, and in so-doing some of the stones banged into each other and formed bigger ones. The bigger the rock, the more likely it was to be hit by one of the others and before long some of them got quite big and because they got quite big they developed a force of attraction that the children of the gods called ‘plop’. The rocks continued to grow in size and soon some of them were big enough to represent planets.

On some of these planets life started and eventually on one of the planets, in his ignorance of ‘plop’ one of the beings spotted this attractive force and called it gravity, this was after a few choice and rather fruity other words uttered whilst he jumped up and down on the apple taking revenge for its aerial assault and the headache it caused that would piss his wife off, again, later when she wanted to cuddle. Didn’t she realise that when she wanted him to play baby Isaac, that flopping those dumplings in his face was dangerous, with nipples like that she could have a bloke’s eye out! An act, which gave rise to him think about equal and opposite forces but didn’t give rise to much else, and that again was cause to upset his wife.

Bloody typical! She tutted, I get the only bloke with all his brains in his head, none left over for his trousers.

The beings on this planet had a thing about fruit, especially apples. They were always blaming them for their fall from grace or sticking them on each other’s heads and shooting arrows at them, or in this case a complete tosser thought, ‘I know what, I’ll sit under that apple tree now that it is autumn.’ Well it doesn’t take too bright a spark, like Einstein or Newton, to work out that an apple is likely to fall and all but brain the silly twerp. Still folk thought he was clever for realising that it would always fall and hit him on the head, takes all sorts I suppose!

Anyway, back to the real world of the gods. When they spotted the emergence of life on these new planets they rushed in, delighted to have some simple new folk to push around and command. But not Odin, he and his Asgardians held back whilst the Raanians nipped in to Egypt and the Titans to Greece. Odin had seen it all before – how they rushed in and how before long the people became wiser and threw them out or as in the case of the Titans, they were usurped by their own flesh and blood.

Odin held on and delayed. His ambition was to find peoples that could help the Asgardians avoid the Ragnorak. An event that occurred every so often, as and when it pleased, that all but whipped out their race. A few stragglers were left who rebuilt until the next event and so on ad-infinitum.

Some of the planets bore life earlier and they were now more or less god free, relying on the sciences of the light, something that governed the behaviour of this new universe, borne of the light.

On a new planet, the third rock from Sol, life was starting out and there was something about these beings that intrigued him. He spent many a long hour at his Orary watching their behaviour and progress into the future before he decided. He had spotted a tribe, warlike and violent, from the North that warranted further investigation. Over the centuries he knew that whichever folk he went for would eventually cast them out, but if he could plant the right seeds within these folk, then sooner or later they would have a massive influence over the civilisations that would follow.

He saw how the Titans and the Olympians rushed in with their trousers down and left their hybrid offspring all over the place. They were nearly always too brave or just sterile, so they were either killed off in senseless battles or just couldn’t pass their new genes down the line. No, he needed a different way to plant his influence in the right places and so he started watching certain favoured bloodlines and how they progressed through the generations.

He needed to be careful. He saw how the Greeks treated Sophia, a woman of tremendous wisdom. How they belittled her and planted false rumours about a creed of women-only lovers from the Isle of Lesbos and rather unimaginably called Lesbians. And if the men were too smart it often ended in death, one way or another. No, he must do something that would slowly bring about the desired end; have things change and grow as attitudes and common sense came to these folk.

He prepared a potion of Asgardian DNA with Runic codes implanted and bade Loki to disguise himself as the sandman and to blow it into the eyes of the chosen ones as they slept. Loki asked questions of course, but he did what he was told, without getting all the answers he sought.

All he could do now was to sit back and wait, would his plan come to fruition before the next cycle of the Ragnorak? He couldn’t tell. Something persuaded him to cross his fingers, in an entirely new gesture, and hope. So he sat and watched and occasionally had Loki use hexes to make things more favourable to certain ones of the line, but otherwise he let nature take its course.

Meanwhile, several thousand years later...

Chapter 1 - Andwoids!

Space had his special black coat on today. Alright, he had seven thousand of them and they were all a different shade of black but this was his favourite. He called it ‘happy black’ because something exciting always unravelled when he wore it. Nestled within the quilted lining was Earth Station Three on a slow rotation, six billion miles from a main sequence star that some, almost-intelligent creatures, called the sun.

Space chuckled to himself as he reminisced about Roy’s previous life. An alert observer might have spotted the blackness twinkle with a burst of ‘Lamplighters’ black contrasting with the colour of today’s coat. ‘Who would have thought a mediocre teacher of computers would end up having so many galactic adventures. Well, maybe adventures wouldn’t be the best choice of word because Roy seemed to bumble his way through major situations and somehow arrive at the correct outcome. How did he do that?’

In honour of Roy and his friends, Space sat back into his comfy chair and toked on his pipe, an original Meerschaum filled with his favourite tobacco, rough shag. ‘Let the entertainment begin’ he thought to himself, as he watched the happenings on the Earth Station. And yes the chair was upholstered in ‘Comfy’ black and it looked very shiny and new.

*

My gorgeous wife, Claire, had gone to see Gary to get a haircut. We had all been on so many escapades that I had almost forgotten that Gary was a hairdresser. ‘Come on Roy.’ I chided myself, ‘get it together man!’ I sat quietly in the front room of my apartment and thought about the events of the last couple of months. Solving galactic problems had been far more interesting than the job I had been hired for, shunting freighters out of the galactic plane, and I secretly hoped that Simon would come up with another predicament for us to solve. I had really enjoyed working with Michael, the galactic Über Geek, and I loved the problem solving aspect. I suppose I really should just be pushing freighters around but all that seemed very mundane. And yet, something on the edge of reason still troubled me. Things were not as they seemed, explanations were out of phase and it was there at the back of my mind, teasing me to solve the riddle.

My trusted computer, Adams, was usually stuck to a belt around my waist but he had insisted on being put into the android body that Michael had given him and was sitting next to me. I still preferred him strapped around my middle rather than being an android but Adams liked the freedom of his body. At this rate we’d have to get him his own apartment. As a cube he could be stuffed into a drawer if Claire and I wanted to perform some bedroom antics but as an android that was difficult to achieve. He didn’t always get the hint and saying things like ‘perhaps you’d like to go and watch some television’ or ‘maybe you’d like to go for a walk around the square’ didn’t always work to get rid of him.

You’ve got an email, interrupted Adams from my thoughts.

An email? Who the hell uses emails?

Helen, answered Adams.

You mean Helen the sex-crazed, nymphomaniac who keeps on sexually abusing me at every opportunity and doesn’t care that I’m married to a beautiful woman? The one that thinks my ship looks like a penis and I made it like that just to tease her?

That’s the one. I’ll display the email on the television.

Adams turned on the television and the message flickered into focus.

‘Hi Roy. Do you remember being in the observation area the other week. Did you enjoy holding hands and looking at the universe?’

I’ve never even been to the observation area with her, I complained. Send an email back telling her that information, please Adams.

A couple of minutes later and Adams interrupted my thoughts again. There’s another email, Roy.

‘Do you remember dancing to Love Me In the Moment by Tempo?’

Tell her no and to leave me alone.

‘Are you being shy? We’re both adults and I think you’re saying no but you really mean yes. Would you like to send me some sexy emails?’

Tell her no, please Adams.

‘I still think you’re being shy and when you say no you really mean yes. Let's have some fun. You are a sexy man and when we meet I want you to rub my breasts’

She’s mental, I told Adams. Tell her I’m not interested and I don’t want to touch her with a barge pole let alone rub anything. Tell her I’m married and it would be wrong of me to start flirting with her and tell her to stop emailing me.

‘It doesn't matter about your wife because I’m not asking for sex, I just want to have fun with you. There’s no harm in a little fun is there? Shall I tell you something interesting?’

Tell her no Adams and tell her to leave me alone.

‘I think you’re just being very shy. I think you're just teasing me because you want to be a bad boy and you want me to spank you.’

Don't answer that email, I ordered. She’s totally deranged.

She does seem very persistent, he said.

As soon as Claire comes home I’m going to tell her.

Do you think she’ll be angry?

I hope so and I hope she goes and has a serious word or two with her, and the second one should be off.

Twenty minutes later and another email arrived.

‘I've been waiting for a reply and you're just teasing me. Shall I tell you what is interesting now?’

Tell her no and to go away, I ordered Adams.

‘I know you mean yes,’ came the reply. ‘Every time I see you I think about you making love to me. I bet you're so hot in bed. When I think about you being in my bed it makes me crazy with desire and even now I can feel the temperature rising within me. It's like a fire I cannot put out and I think I'm going to explode. It is such a fucking…aaaq dn/mh %6[][]bnn @

Apparently, informed Adams, the letter ‘n’ goes on for another ten pages.

What happened?

I don’t know. Perhaps she uses the sound of an 'n' when she orgasms and she has peaked part way through a sentence. Adams tried to mimic the sound using the 'n' but it was more like the groan of constipation.

N, n, n, n, no! I interrupted him.

When Claire came home I explained the whole story to her. She seemed quite pleased that all my responses had been to say no, but suggested I see Simon and perhaps make a formal complaint.

The following day I strapped Adams to my belt and went to meet up with Daz in the hangar. He had modified my ship, The Artois, by building two spherical nacelles at the back that had housed a capture system. Now that we had Doctor D’Eath in a rehabilitation unit there was no more need for it. Daz was about to start the decommissioning of the capture system and turn my ship back to its former state. I got Adams to read all the emails to him and he fell apart laughing.

Hands on hips and with raised eyebrows, I huffed, I’m glad you find it so funny.

It’s hilarious. I wonder why she just stopped in the middle of a sentence.

I’ve no idea.

Why don’t we find out?

How?

We’ll go and find her and confront her.

Do you think that’s a good idea? What if you lose your temper? Considering you were thrown out of the SAS for being too aggressive I think that could be a possibility.

And then I got a doctorate in astrophysics which takes patience and self-discipline. Computer, where's Helen Fogel?

She is in her apartment, came the reply from Daz’s computer.

Daz turned on his heels and started walking, waving for me to follow. Come on Roy, let’s go.

I stomped moodily after him, protesting about it not being a good idea and, still muttering and complaining, followed him out of the hangar and to the support staff living quarters. Daz’s computer guided us to Helen’s apartment and with gusto he banged on the door. There was no answer so he hammered on it again.

Are you sure she’s here, computer?

Yes, answered his computer.

Open the door, he commanded.

You can’t do that, I warned him.

Fuck it, he answered. Open the door computer.

The door clicked and slowly swung open. We tentatively entered the apartment and saw a headless body sat in a chair. Out of the neck of the body protruded several wires and a thin trail of grey smoke floated towards the ceiling.

She’s a fucking robot! I exclaimed.

She’s an android, corrected Adams. She must have got so sexually aroused with your email conversation that it completely disintegrated her logic circuits.

Daz giggled, She certainly knows how to give head.

Shut up Daz, I warned him.

It’s one hell of a blow job, he continued.

Shut up.

An explosive orgasm.

Shut up.

She was only supposed to blow her bloody knickers off.

Wind your neck in Daz.

Is that what you told her? Oh, hang on a second, she hasn't got one.

It’s not funny Daz.

You're right, it's not funny, it’s fucking hilarious! You should have made a porn space movie with her and called it ‘Star Whores’ or ‘Battlestar Orgasmica’ or 'Pacific Rimmer' or...

I didn’t know she was a robot, I interrupted him.

Android, corrected Adams.

Robots seem to be attracted to you, commented Daz. Have you checked Claire to make sure she’s human? You don’t want her to blow a fuse when you’re doing the horizontal tango.

She’s not a bloody robot!

Can we start using the term android? asked Adams.

Better still, suggested Daz, how about we use the term fembot fatale?

Shut up.

Or spankdroid?

No. Shut up.

Or how about…

Shut up Daz. Your stupid comments are making us overlook a very serious problem here.

What do you mean?

Why is there a robot on the station?

If Adams was in his body he’d be clenching his teeth, ANDROID!

*

Fifteen thousand light years from Earth, inside a nebula called Thor’s Helmet lay the realm of Asgard. The planet orbits a hot giant star that gives the impression of being on the verge of supernova, which meant that everybody stayed away in case it popped in a massive nuclear cataclysmic, wiping everything out, sort of way.

On the edge of a barren continent a lonely stone castle crested a sheer cliff that overlooked a warm southern ocean which lapped rhythmically at the rocks below and sucked gently on the pebbles as each wave retreated. On the castle’s front, was a huge weather beaten, wooden door. A sign hung from a square-headed nail, knocked in with Thor’s magic hammer, Mjolnir. For those not paying attention during their Classical Viking lessons Mjolnir is pronounced as 'Meyol-nor' , though there are no native speakers alive today, so no one can argue if you wanted to pronounce it Bill. The sign’s flaking paint read; ‘Welcome to Valhalla, Hall of the Slain.’ And underneath in small lettering, ‘which is what you’ll be if you don’t wipe your feet.’ Inside one of the vast halls minced a solitary figure. Arms hanging by his side, with his hands held horizontally outwards and a frown upon his face.

Thor couldn’t understand why things were going so badly wrong. Last time they became gods of Earth it was so easy. His father had insisted that he wore body armour and carried a big hammer, a macho look of power and aggression so different from his own calmly elegant character and utterly impossible to be comfortable in. Apparently this was appropriate attire for Scandinavian gods and his sophisticated couture of fine silk shirts with frilly cuffs was unacceptable. ‘And make fuhe you neveh fpeak’ his father had ordered. ‘Why?’ argued Thor, ‘I have a lovely vocabulary and an eloquent accent.’ Thor cringed as he remembered his father’s response ‘Hey? Come again, fpeak up lad don’t mumble. Can’t ftand a lad who mumblef, ftupid boy!’ Odin was old time, from before the letter ‘S’ appeared in the language so he always spoke them as an ‘F’. Mind you his lisp didn’t help either, which Loki liked to mimic deliberately to wind up dad. Thor repeated louder. Odin’s face reddened as he stormed in his usual rhotacistic manner, ‘Fhut up you wing wadeh!’

Brother! shouted Loki, interrupting Thor’s reminiscence, from the other end of the hall. Thor turned to face his sibling as he marched towards him. What’s wrong Thor?

Thor had been facing a full length mirror, preening his appearance. The long golden tresses of his hairpiece glistened in the light and as he turned his three quarter length jacket swirled around, making the gilded embroidery tinkle as it clashed in movement. Thor loved making that happen, it added an extra level of impressiveness he thought. We have a broken contact with another anthropomorphic electro-computational device and I feel an unyielding sense of foreboding.

You mean one of the androids has broken again.

That’s what I said.

Which one?

Its nomenclature is Helen, I believe.

I programmed Helen! She had a dirty mind.

Maybe that’s the problem. Perhaps some of the dirt has interfered with the electronic circuitry and caused a cascade failure. You really should have cleaned the unit before sending her out on her mission.

No... I didn’t mean... oh forget it. Do you know what happened?

The last telemetry indicated she was in communication with somebody called Roy.

Oh shit.

Is there a problem?

Possibly. Come on brother, we need to go and talk to dad.

*

In the great hall sat Odin, on his golden throne. When I say golden throne I really mean big comfy chair painted gold to look like a throne. Pretending to be a god to primitive cultures could be an exhausting business and the last thing you need is to be sitting on a hard chair made from an inflexible and uncomfortable material such as gold. What you really needed was something a little softer that you could relax into with a cup of properly strong Thomas-tea; the type that wrinkles and deforms a spoon made of any lesser material than solid steel. Plus, some biccies for dunking and the evening paper.

The knocking on the door, on the other side of the hall, boomed around the chamber as the door swung open and two familiar figures came striding towards him. The reverberating footsteps of the approaching pair suggested that this was a room big enough to have its own echo.

Yo, daddio, greeted Loki.

Greetings Pater, added Thor, swishing his hand in a gesture of good manners whilst holding a delicate lace handkerchief.

Loki, why do you have to fpeak like that? questioned Odin, and why if Thaw dweffed like fome wet dandy?

It’s all these primitive cultures you keep on sending us to, explained Loki. It’s alright for you because all you have to do is turn up every thousand years and declare yourself god. I have to mix with them so I can send you reports. They all talk in ridiculous ways and add a whole host of irrelevant filler words. Fuck this, fuck that, fucking fuck the fuckers. And that’s just for starters, some of the other words they use made Thaw’s hair curl, as you can see.

I get it, interrupted Odin. Now, what newf do you bwing me?

Bad news father, answered Thor. Another android has shuffled off its immortal coil.

What? asked a confused Odin.

It’s fucked, answered Loki.

What?

She’s not a pining Blue looking for the Fjords, explained Loki, she’s done for! Bereft of life, resting six feet under the duvet, her electro-neuro processes are now history, drawn her last amp, slid down the curtain of life and singing with the choir celestial!

I don’t know what you’he talking about, Loki, moaned Odin. Thaw, explain it to me and twy and use wohdf with leff than thwee fyllablef.

The android is no longer working. It is broken.

Anotheh one?

The problem may be bigger than that, warned Thor.

In what way? asked Odin.

The android was in communication with a human called Roy.

Fo?

I’ve been observing him, explained Loki, and I think he’s got Asgardian DNA.

How if that poffible? thundered Odin. Haf one of you been impwegnating the hominidf? Odin pondered for a few moments and then added, Obvioufly you maw likely than Thaw fo I gueff that leavef you Loki. Explain youfelf.

You told me to do it! blamed Loki.

No I bloody well did not! fumed Odin.

"Ok, perhaps