The Lost Goats

By Jonathan Waite and Sam Armitage

The Lost Goats, the title story of this collection, is a new short novel in which Soren and Zander go hunting for missing Nyronds and find more trouble than they could have imagined. Also featured are The Caesarian Operation, The Silver Platter Stratagem and an extract from Times Past, Sam's solo work chronicling an earlier period in Nyrond history.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: May 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9781291860412

Book preview

The Lost Goats

THE LOST GOATS

and other tales of the nyrond

By the same authors

THE EIGHT-MAN AUSTIN

THE OVERLY OBNOXIOUS OIK OPERATION

By Jonathan Waite

TETRAD

OONAVERSE

THREE WINDOWS

TWO MAGICIANS

THE

LOST GOATS

and other tales of the nyrond

by

JONATHAN WAITE

and

SAM ARMITAGE

Copyright © 2012-14 Jonathan Waite and Sam Armitage.

All rights reserved.

ISBN 978-1-291-86041-2 

For Jan and the Angel

THE LOST GOATS

PROLOGUE - CONCERNING NYRONDS

(abstracted from So It’s Your First Time Off-Planet; a Rough Guide for Wayfarers, Wanderers and Would-Be World-Walkers)

As you sit and wait for your flight, or maybe when you’re on layover in some exotic port bar or other, you are bound to hear some talk of Nyronds. We here at Paralytic Pangolin Press have heard all the stories, and you’ll find a selection of them in the Appendix to the best-selling companion volume to this book, How To Cut A Swathe Across The Galaxy On Less Than Five Pinguli A Day. We would like to take this opportunity to assure you that there’s not a word of truth in any of them.

These tall tale-tellers would have you believe in a race of space-travelling confidence men and swindlers, all male, immortal, and possessed of superhuman abilities when it comes to separating fools from their money. Please. There certainly are con men around, nobody disputes that, but the ones we’ve found have all been thoroughly human, and all are now safely behind bars thanks to our prompt action in reporting them to the police. So pay no attention to that guy over there who warns you to beware of dark-haired, bearded men with large noses. Quite apart from anything else, that’s just racist. Lots of planets produce people with large noses; it’s all about the atmospheric density and other technical stuff you don’t want to know about. Why should these harmless folk be vilified and mistrusted just because they happen to resemble some ancient folkloric boogeyman?

There’s even a subculture that’s grown up around these stories, sad, lonely people who will come up to you and announce quite openly that they’re Nyronds. Really, we think it’s a bit pathetic, like people claiming to be superheroes, or Zip MacPherson. Trust us; there are no such people as Nyronds.

They’ll have all the facts at their fingertips, mind; these guys are obsessive. They’ll spin you yarns about the huge, ramshackle homeships where they live, the equally dilapidated smallships they travel around in, the devilishly intricate coups they use to trick people out of their cash. It’s all fantasy, we can assure you. These desperate wannabes are just trying to find some sort of identity for themselves in a vast and faceless universe, and we get that, we really do.

In fact, if you’re feeling generous, you might be inclined to let them con you out of a few credits absolute, just to make them feel better. You might even get a song or two out of them.

Just don’t let them get their hands on your pinguli.

CHAPTER 0

The smallship Underwear Is Not The Only Entrée had been in deep space for well over an hour before Zander broke the silence.

Well, he said, that went well, I thought.

Soren waggled his finger meaningfully through the charred blaster hole in his hat and said nothing.

Oh, come on, Zander said. It isn’t as if you were wearing it at the time.

I had half a pound of barley sugar in there, Soren said sepulchrally.

And we achieved a creditable seventy-nine per cent of projected.

It’s all melted into the lining now.

And I thought you were definitely on to something with that cultural attaché.

A right fool I’m going to look sucking the inside of my hat when I want a sweetie.

Intelligent, cultured, and certainly easy on the eye.

People will say ‘where’s Zander?’ and the answer will be ‘oh he’s over there, next to the idiot sucking his hat.’

You should really have got his number— Zander broke off. That’s odd.

Some key phrases were guaranteed to capture Soren’s attention no matter what personal woes he was undergoing at the time. Zander saying that’s odd was near the top of the list. Others included oops, don’t panic and I’m almost sure I know what I did wrong.

What’s odd? he said, hanging the hat on the astrogation console, which fell over.

I’m not getting a response from the homeship.

Are you sure it’s within range? Soren righted the astrogation console, plugged it back in and picked up his hat again.

This is the position it should be in now.

Far be it from me, Soren began, to impugn my Captain’s notorious navigational skills—

"ATTENTION. The voice was electronic, loud and grating, and emerged from a brass gorgon’s head on the main flight console. Both Nyronds flinched. UNAUTHORISED INTRUDER. SUPPLY CREDENTIALS FOR DOCKING."

Credentials? Zander pulled the gorgon’s nose. The control surfaces in Nyrond ships tended toward somewhat fanciful ornamentation, possibly to obscure the fact that less than half of the controls actually did anything. At least, as Zander was wont to observe, it prevented said controls being stacked two feet high with books, papers, data storage media and used crockery, like every other flat surface in the ship. Abelard, it’s us. Open a window.

"NYROND CONTROL OF DOCKING PROCEDURES OVERRIDDEN BY SECURITY PROTOCOLS. CREDENTIALS NOT REQUIRED FOR DOCKING. CORRECTION. CREDENTIALS NOW REQUIRED FOR DECKING. PLEASE GIVE THE FOURTEENTH, SEVENTEENTH AND THIRTY-FIFTH DIGITS OF YOUR PERSONAL SECURITY CODE. THREE ATTEMPTS WILL BE ALLOWED."

Security code? I don’t have a security code.

"FIRST ATTEMPT INVALID. PLEASE GIVE—"

Look, you stupid computers, put me on to Abelard.

"SECOND ATTEMPT INVALID. WOULD YOU LIKE TO REGISTER FOR A SECURITY CODE?"

Zander took a deep breath. Yes!

"STAND BY FOR MULTI-LEVEL SCAN."

A blinding, brilliant line of light coursed through the cabin of the smallship. Zander and Soren screwed their eyes shut as it scanned their faces.

"SCAN INDICATES NO LESS THAN TWO NYRONDS PRESENT. IDENTIFICATION; ZANDER NYROND AND CONCEPCION MARIA DE VEGA Y DE BARRANQUILLA NYROND. CORRECTION. ZANDER NYROND AND SOREN NYROND. CONFIRM BY VOICE ANALYSIS NOW."

Zander Nyrond present, Zander said.

Soren Nyrond present, said Soren quickly.

"IDENTITIES CONFIRMED. PLEASE STATE PROBABLE DATES OF BIRTH ACCORDING TO LOCAL CHRONOMETRIC SYSTEM."

Local here or local there?

"FIRST ATTEMPT INVALID. PLEASE STATE—"

Zander groaned inwardly and fumbled for a calculator.

Two hours later (according to the local chronometric system) a strip of printout dribbled from a console slot (shaped, of course, like the face of a grinning Falnobian dredger-ape). Zander grabbed it, tore it in two and passed half to Soren. Soren looked at it and passed it back. Zander proffered the other half, which was brusquely snatched from his fingers.

Ummm, seven, four, eight, Zander said.

"CORRECT. ADDITIONAL VALIDATION REQUIRED. PLEASE GIVE THE NINTH, TWENTY-FIRST AND FORTY-SECOND DIGITS OF YOUR COMPANION’S PERSONAL SECURITY CODE."

Th— Zander shut up, glanced at Soren’s printout. Nine, eight, three.

"CORRECT. PLEASE GIVE YOUR SHOE SIZE."

Er...twelve.

Eight.

"IDENTITIES CONFIRMED. SHIELD WALL WILL OPEN IN TEN SECONDS, FOR TWO SECONDS ONLY. FAILURE TO ENTER WILL RETRIGGER SECURITY PROTOCOLS AND ALL SECURITY CODES WILL BE INVALIDATED. TWO. ONE."

A patch of hull appeared, and Zander gunned the drives furiously.

I can’t wait to find out, Soren murmured, as the closing shield clipped four inches off the tail fin, "exactly how you caused this mess."

Oh, shut up, Concepcion, Zander growled.

*

As usual, Abelard said crossly, it’s a case of a tiny minority spoiling it for everyone. He squinted at Zander. Less usually, this time it isn’t you and him. Abelard was unsurpassed at cross. Other Nyronds could do angry, or sullen, or resentful, and Hilary was a past master at homicidal (with the obvious handicap), but only Abelard could really bring off cross. He sat in his beloved swivel chair in what most Nyronds called the control room (with scare quotes implied), surrounded by an obsessively neat disorder of piles of paper, notebooks, graphs, spotless pie charts[1] and boxes of data crystals, and radiated crossness at them in a way they could not but admire.

As you know, Abelard went on, over the past few years a handful of Nyronds have decided that the rest of us are just too irritating to live with and have broken away to live full-time in their smallships. Most of them crash, or otherwise malfunction, and come crawling back, but a few are actually making a go of it. With one slight exception, they have everything they need.

Tea? Soren broke off from sucking his hat to suggest.

Coups, Abelard said impatiently. The average smallship’s databanks only have enough space for three at most, and nobody wants to be stuck with the same three coups over and over again. So—

I don’t understand, Zander said. Why don’t they just make up their own?

Soren and Abelard both looked pityingly at him. Zander’s preference for improvisation, and his elaborate false modesty about how good he was at it, were an outworn joke.

So, Abelard continued, they’ve been sneaking back to pinch new coups from the library, and rather than flush their databanks and download new ones, they’ve been pinching the actual paper files. Several hundred are now missing, and Caedmon’s afraid that next time he syncs the library with the computers they’ll delete their records as well. So he complained to the computers, and this was their response.

Preventing unauthorised entry, Zander said. Mm. So. If the missing files were to be recovered, with attached Nyronds if possible, the computers might relax this stupid protocol, yes?

Now just wait on a minute— Once again Soren relinquished the hat, looking alarmed.

Abelard visibly relaxed. I was hoping you’d say that, Zander. I’ll get Theoderic to supply you with last known trajectories of the six ships we know to be involved. Soren, you spoke?

"mumble mumble Gryffindor mumble, Soren observed. Do I at least get a bath and a night’s kip before we— Zander was slowly shaking his head. All right, Soren sighed. Sonic shower and catnap at the controls it is then."

Splendid, Abelard said heartily. I’ve taken the liberty of prepping your smallship for immediate departure. You’ll find a master security code in your databank. That should work at least twice. Good luck, good luck, he went on, pumping Zander’s hand while inexorably ushering him to the door. You’re a good scout, Zander, I’ve always said so, always said so. Come along, Soren, you only have to eat your hat if he succeeds, you know. You don’t want to be left behind, do you?

Oh no, Soren said through his teeth as he followed Zander out. No, that would be terrible, wouldn’t it?

*

---

[1]  Abelard was one of very few Nyronds who did not consider pie chart to be an equivalent term to soup plate.

CHAPTER ONE

Since Soren and Zander had been on the homeship less than an hour, Underwear Is Not The Only Entrée was still keyed to Zander’s name, and soon, after some more tiresome negotiations with the computers over the issue of opening the shield wall, it was speeding into the star-dusted void once more.

Soren, on board despite a spirited attempt to sneak away at the last minute, consulted the list of names.

Ceribraun? Who’s he when he’s at home?

My dear Soren, there are several hundred Nyronds on the homeship at any given time. You can’t expect to recognise them all.

WIth a name like that I’d have thought—never mind. Adhemar I do remember. I shared a hazard detail with him once or twice.

How did you find him?

I just came round the corner and there he was. Soren expertly ducked the thrown cushion. Annoying. He had a sniff.

I expect it was mutual.

A mutual sniff?

You know what I mean. Zander leaned back in the pilot’s chair. You know, thinking about it, it’s a wonder anyone stays on the homeship at all. We do rather get up each other’s noses.

Well, some of us have more room up there than others. However, I take exception to your opprobrious suggestion, my Captain. I, as is well known, am sweet, fluffy and innocent and completely devoid of irritating habits.

Oh, I don’t know. That way you have of combing your beard—

"And who else is going to comb it, may I ask? And anyway, if we are indeed going to go there, as they say, what about your habits? I might mention, merely as an example, getting little Soren shot at on a regular basis—"

One-off, Zander said vigorously, and then thought about it. Several one-offs. In quick succession. A bad patch. All right, he went on, as Soren opened his mouth, point taken. Who else is on the list?

Let me look. Umm, Sarastro, Arioch, Voltimand, Palinurus—I didn’t even know he’d made it back after the last time—and...no, that has to be a mistake.

What?

Galen.

Galen the tormented soul? What’s he doing coming back and pinching coups? I thought he’d given all that up. Renounced our evil ways and set out to be a champion of Light, or some such piffle.

So did I. The computers must have glitched. Let’s be honest, I’ll be flabbergasted if any of these names are right.

I was startled that we actually got a list we could read. Oh well, we can always go and look. It’s not as if we have anything else on.

My rubber ducky is of a different opinion.

Your obscene ablutory rituals are a book I prefer not to open, thank you. Who’s the furthest away?

First to leave was this Ceribraun joker. Trajectory—oh here, you read it. Soren got up. I’m going to fab up a new hat.

What flavour? Zander called.

The cushion whizzed past his ear and splatted against the viewport.

*

Plenthorn’s World, when they reached it, looked like a lot of other Stage-14-Colonisation worlds (the Last Empire had had a tendency to colonise in waves, each of which took with it its cultural paradigms); creeping urban-industrial sprawl had not quite consumed all the rich and diverse biosphere which had attracted the colonists’ attention, but it was still advancing, if a little less swiftly these days. From orbit, it was still possible to discern, at the centre of each conurbation, the ranks of vast anonymous dormitory blocks which the Empire had thought adequate to house their millions of indentured workers, now lying derelict and too big to demolish, surrounded as they were by the humbler but more comfortable dwellings of the now-relatively-free citizens.

As was usual on UnAffiliated worlds, whose governments had not yet subscribed to the fifteen basic ethical principles known as the Sagittarian Accords, the mass of sentients led lives of quiet desperation, which limited off-world trade did little to allay. The government of the planet was on the face of it democratic, but, again as was usual, the will of the people had less to do with its policies than the large sums of money that changed hands in quiet, well-appointed rooms to which access was strictly limited. Zander made a note of it as somewhere to return to at a less stressful juncture, and wondered what Ceribraun was up to down there.

One obvious clue was the gigantic orbital bill-board announcing The Crepitorn Exposition and the Freewheeling Battledore Tourney—3 weeks of unequalled extravagance and chivalry.

Now I remember Ceribraun, Soren said. Lived in the Annexe BB Library, reading books on the Orders of Imperial Knighthood—whose team sport of choice, if you recall, my captain, was Freewheeling Battledore— Both Nyronds shuddered, remembering their one and only encounter with a member of that martial crew.[2] —and complained regularly and incessantly about the food fabricators.

Any idea what coup he’s running? Zander asked.

One to do with Making A Big Splash, Soren suggested.

Finding that the bill-board also housed a primitive spaceport, they docked there, and took a shuttle down to the planet (assuring the ticket-agent that pinguli were currently at an all-time low on the Galactic Bourse, and that, therefore, logically, they would rise in value astronomically in the very near future).

We should perhaps think of inventing another new currency, Soren commented.

I still have eighty-five million of these to get rid of, Zander rejoined.

Plenthorn’s World itself was en fête for the Exposition—everywhere billboards sponsored by large companies were advertising that they were Participating Partners in the grand endeavour, or that, having missed out on that opportunity, that they were nevertheless Auxiliary Supporters. As to the Tourney, a stadium was under construction, and there were, it seemed, no fewer than eight newly-launched periodicals chronicling the long-neglected sport and its principal participants, whose arrivals, from the farther corners of the Galaxy, were eagerly awaited.

And all of these things bore a little copyright notice in their lower corners, in favour of one Dr. Cronyine Braun.

Do you think that that’s a slight clue?

No—I think it’s a frodding enormous self-illuminated give-away if there are any Vigilantes around here. Zander tutted. He’s not very good, is he?

Then perhaps we’d better find the good Doctor and get our documents back.

Finding Braun proved relatively easy—he had a sumptuous office in the expensive part of town. He also had a security detachment second to none and an apparently psychopathic fear of being involved in face-to-face meetings.

I’m certain that I can handle anything you need to present, Weeblow Mortenfork told the two would-be investors (after they had proved their bona fides by slipping him ten thousand pinguli). I am Dr. Braun’s principal private postulant—

And an excellent job you do of it, Soren told him (although he was, temporarily, speaking as Vorplech Andunia Bittlestaum). But Dr. Braun assured us that our business with him would be utterly confidential.

Or will be, Zander (alias Ilian Zastrovene). For we are, you must understand, only here through the miracle of chronolustricial interstitialism.

By the time Bittlestaum and Zastrovene had finished stating their case (and adding slightly to the pinguli in Mortenfork’s wallet (In two months’ time, the pluge deposits on Ullbrish IV are going to fail, and the pinguli rises immensely in the consequent speculation.) Mortenfork was in a state of such conflexion that only reference of the pair to Sapphire O’Banion, Dr. Braun’s indomitable personal private secretary, seemed adequately to meet the circumstance.

As to Ms. O’Banion, she thought she had experienced the full flavour of crude yet forceful courtship when keeping herself adroitly out of Braun’s reaches. But Bittlestaum had her flustered within seconds and totally unbalanced within half an hour, to the point that the discreet passage of Seir Zastrovene through the private door to Dr. Braun’s personal rooms went unnoticed, in the effort to avoid making any dinner, supper, or midnight-feast engagements with the dervish of dramatic devilment that was Vorplech Andunia Bittlestaum.

And once inside, Zander wasted no time in seeking out Dr. Braun.

Morphically, Nyronds tend to extremes, and Ceribraun was no exception; skinny and balding, he glanced up in apparent terror as Zander stepped into his chromium-plated, sparsely-furnished private quarters.

How dare you burst in here! he squeaked. What have you done with my secretary? His pale eyes narrowed behind his rimless pink-tinted glasses as he rolled out from behind his desk in some sort of powered chair. Wait a minute—I know you, don’t I?

Hardly at all, Zander replied easily, otherwise the other two questions would have been, for different reasons, futile. But I’m sure you’ve seen me around the corridors and passages.

Ceribraun’s eyes narrowed still further. Zodnar, isn’t it? So, they finally realised. His pigeon chest swelled. Now, when it is too late, they seek my help. Now they recognise what they have so casually allowed to slip through their fingers. Now they want to make amends for all the slights, all the insults, all the apple compote that tasted of halibut—[3]

No, Zander said. We just want the coup files back. If it weren’t for those we’d never have noticed you were missing, and as far as we’re concerned you can stay that way over there, are they? He had followed the frightened twitch of Ceribraun’s eyes to a particularly repellent painting on the wall. As he moved towards it Ceribraun’s chair blocked his way.

I need those files, Ceribraun rasped. You have no right—

Oh, listen to yourself, Zander sighed. Talking about ‘rights’ as if you were a human. No wonder you couldn’t cut it on the homeship. He took Ceribraun by one skinny arm and lifted him bodily out of the chair. And stand up. You’re no more paralysed than I am, except maybe in the brain. With one toe he nudged the chair out of the way.

I have a right to use those files— Ceribraun landed on his feet, staggered, but stayed upright, bunching his fists ineffectually.

But not, Zander said gently, to remove them from the library. They are all clearly stamped to that effect. All right, not always in English, but failure to study ancient Mostolavian pictoglyphs is no excuse. Hold this. He handed the painting to Ceribraun, who nearly buckled under its weight, and studied the safe thus revealed. Pathetic. You really didn’t expect anyone to get this far, did you?

You, sir, Ceribraun said, clearly considering it the final insult, have no Honour. He staggered over to the nearest wall and rested the painting against it.

Honour, is it? Zander said absently, twiddling the knob of the safe. That’s why all this tourney business, yes? You’re trying to bring Honour and Chivalry back to a rude and debased world.

The Empire may have had its bad points, Ceribraun said, but at least they understood Honour.

No, they didn’t, you ludicrous little archaist, they just used it to cow the populace and feed their delusions, and that’s all you’re doing. Sport is the true opiate of the people, and you know it. It distracts from—aha. The safe door swung open, and Zander riffled through the buff-coloured, sticker-encrusted folders thus revealed. Oh dear oh dear. These are heavy stuff. Four Black Triangle, one Purple Diamond, and these two are actually Interdicted under the Odoacer Rule. And this, if I mistake not, is the one you’re running. Yes. While all the innocent inhabitants of this benighted planet were gawking at your spectacles, which I admit are pretty disgusting, and scoffing the associated bread, you were going to be quietly gutting their economy. And I bet you weren’t overly bothered about putting things back the way they were before leaving, were you?

Please, Ceribraun whimpered. I need to complete the sequence—I’ve already laid out billions on the stadium alone—

Well, that will be fun to explain to the planetary authorities, won’t it? Zander tucked the files into Ilian Zastrovene’s voluminous coat. The way I see it, Ceribonk, you have one chance. Presumably your smallship is nearby— This time Ceribraun’s eyes stayed resolutely away from the barely-concealed door in the office wall, but Zander spotted it anyway. Make a run for it and you might just get out alive.

But where could I go? Ceribraun wailed.

Where we all go, Zander said, opening the door on the third attempt and stepping into the airlock of a tethered smallship, both of whose doors were open. I’ll just lock your navigational systems, he went on, as Ceribraun scuttled after him, and—assuming the computers let you in—you should be safe on the homeship. That’s what homeships are for, after all. Did you forget that when you flounced off?

No! Not that! Ceribraun whined. The dust—the stale air—the damned apple compote—you can’t do that to me!

Zander straightened up from the console. "Just did. Thirty seconds and it leaves, with or without you. Bon voyage." He stepped back through the door, held it open for a moment, and then, as Ceribraun slumped defeatedly into his pilot’s seat, closed it quietly. As he did so, he heard the airlocks sealing automatically.

That was easy, he said, emerging into the outer office. Why is that woman sleeping on top of the filing cabinets?

I think she found the floor too uncomfortable, Soren said. The building vibrated gently as something detached itself from the side of it. A gentle thrumming faded slowly on the air.

And why is she wearing your hat? Your new hat, I may add?

She sort of took a fancy to it.

Soren—

I was a perfect gentleman, Soren protested. I said please. And thank you. I don’t think our friend Doctor Braun was too familiar with those concepts.

"Strange, for someone so devoted to the chivalric ideal. Well, let’s be on our way. I have some correctives to apply