Something Rotten (Thursday Next 4)

Bradshaw quickly opened his copy of Death at Double-X Ranch and ran a finger along the line:

'. . . McNeil rode into the town of Providence, Nebraska, with fifty cents in his pocket and murder on his mind . . .'

I peered cautiously out of the window. Sure enough, a cowboy on a bay horse was riding slowly into town. Strictly speaking it didn't matter if we changed the story a little as the novella had been read only sixteen times in the past ten years, but the code by which we worked was fairly unequivocal. 'Keep the story as the author intended!' was a phrase bashed into me early on during my training. I had broken it once and suffered the consequences – I didn't want to do it again.

'I need to speak to Mr Johnson,' I yelled, keeping an eye on McNeil, who was still some way distant.

'No one speaks to Mr Johnson less Mr Johnson says so,' replied the voice, 'but if you'll be offerin’ an amnesty, he'll take it and promise not to eat no more people.'

'Was that a double negative?' whispered Bradshaw with disdain. 'I do so hate them.'

'No deal unless I meet Mr Johnson first!' I yelled back.

'Then there's no deal!' came the reply.

I looked out again and saw three more gunmen appear. The Minotaur had clearly made a lot of friends during his stay in the Western genre.

'We need back-up,' I murmured.

Bradshaw clearly thought the same. He opened his TravelBook and pulled out something that looked a little like a flare gun. This was a textmarker, which could be used to signal to other Jurisfiction agents. The TravelBook was dimensionally ambivalent; the device was actually larger than the book that contained it.

'Jurisfiction know we're in Western Pulp; they just don't know where. I'll send them a signal.'

He dialled in the sort of textmark he was going to place using a knob on the back of the gun, then moved to the door, aimed the marker into the air and fired. There was a dull thud and the projectile soared into the sky. It exploded noiselessly high above us and for an instant I could see the text of the page in a light grey against the blue of the sky. The words were back to front, of course, and as I looked at Bradshaw's copy of Death at Double-X Ranch I noticed the written word 'ProVIDence' had been partially capitalised. Help would soon arrive – a show of force would deal with the gunman. The problem was, would the Minotaur make a run for it or fight it out to the end?

'Purty fireworks don't scare us, missy,' said the voice again. 'You comin' out, or do wes have to come in and get yer?'

I looked across at Bradshaw, who was smiling.

'What?'

'This is all quite a caper, don't you think?' said the commander, chuckling like a schoolboy who had just been caught scrumping apples. 'Much more fun than hunting elephant, wrestling lions to the ground and returning tribal knick-knacks stolen by unscrupulous foreigners.'

'I used to think so,' I said under my breath. Two years of assignments like these had been enjoyable and challenging, but not without their moments of terror, uncertainty and panic – and I had a two-year-old son who needed more attention than I could give him. The pressure of running Jurisfiction had been building for a long time now and I needed a break in the real world – a long one. I had felt it about six months before, just after the adventure that came to be known as The Great Samuel Pepys Fiasco, but had shrugged it off. Now the feeling was back – and stronger.

A low, deep rumble began somewhere overhead. The windows rattled in their frames and dust fell from the rafters. A crack opened up in the plaster and a cup vibrated off the table to break on the floor. One of the windows shattered and a shadow fell across the street. The deep rumble grew in volume, drowned out the Narrative Proximity Device that was wailing plaintively, then became so loud it didn't seem like a sound at all – just a vibration that shook the sheriff's office so strongly my sight blurred. Then, as the clock fell from the wall and smashed into pieces, I realised what was going on.

'Oh . . . NO!' I howled with annoyance as the noise waned to a dull roar. 'Talk about using a sledgehammer to crack a nut!'

'Emperor Zhark?' queried Bradshaw.

'Who else would dare pilot a Zharkian Battle Cruiser into Western Pulp?'

We looked outside as the vast spaceship passed overhead, its vectored thrusters swivelling downward with a hot rush of concentrated power that blew up a gale of dust and debris and set the livery stables on fire. The huge bulk of the battle cruiser hovered for a moment as the landing gear unfolded, then made a delicate touchdown – right on top of McNeil and his horse, who were squashed to the thickness of a ha'penny.

My shoulders sagged as I watched my paperwork increase exponentially. The townsfolk ran around in panic and horses bolted as the A-7 gunmen fired pointlessly at the ship's armoured hull. Within a few moments the interstellar battle cruiser had disgorged a small army of foot-soldiers carrying the very latest Zharkian weaponry. I groaned. It was not unusual for the emperor to go overboard at moments like this. Undisputed villain of the eight 'Emperor Zhark' books, the most feared Tyrannical God-Emperor of the known Galaxy just didn't seem to comprehend the meaning of restraint.

In a few minutes it was all over. The A-7s had either been killed or escaped to their own books, and the Zharkian Marine Corps had been dispatched to find the Minotaur. I could have saved them the trouble. He would be long gone. The A-7s and McNeil would have to be sourced and replaced, the whole book rejigged to remove the twenty-sixth-century battle cruiser that had arrived uninvited into 1875 Nebraska. It was a flagrant breach of the Anti-Cross-Genre Code that we attempted to uphold within fiction. I wouldn't have minded so much if this had been an isolated incident, but Zhark did this too often to be ignored. I could hardly control myself as the emperor descended from his starship with an odd entourage of aliens and Mrs Tiggy-Winkle, who also worked for Jurisfiction.

'WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU'RE PLAYING AT?!?'

'Oh!' said the emperor, taken aback at my annoyance, 'I thought you'd be pleased to see us!'

'The situation was bad but not irredeemable,' I told him, sweeping my arm in the direction of the town. 'Now look what you've done!'

He looked around. The confused townsfolk had started to emerge from the remains of the buildings. Nothing so odd as this had happened in Western since an alien brain-sucker had escaped from SF and been caught inside Wild Horse Mesa.

'You do this to me every time! Have you no conception of stealth and subtlety?'