A Game of Battleships Read Online Free PDF Page B

hold. Gargling, he fell to his knees,  rolled onto one side and lay still.
    Carveth looked down at him. ‘Sounds like death?’
    ‘It is death!’ Suruk exclaimed from the floor.
    ‘So the first word of this film is death , and the second is like oboe .’
    ‘Well done!’ Suruk climbed upright. ‘Indeed it is Death Oboe . Truly, you are wise in the way of charades.’
    ‘I see,’ Carveth said. ‘I’ve never heard of Death Oboe .’
    ‘Really? It is a great favourite of my people. It is a remake of an old Earth film named Pretty  Woman . The knife-fight on top of a grand piano is notorious.’
    Carveth sighed. ‘Can’t you do a film we’ve both heard of?’
    ‘Very well. How about Brief Encounters of the Third Kind ?’
    ‘Alright, that sounds – no, you’ve just told me what it is! Look, let’s try something else.’ Suruk  was not well-adapted to word games: it had taken thirty minutes to explain to him that honour was not Animal, Vegetable or Mineral.
    ‘Very well. Tell me about Europe. Is it truly the worst place in the galaxy?’
    Carveth sat down on the aluminium teachest at the rear of the hold. ‘Well, it’s hard to say. I  mean, the Ghast homeworld’s probably worse, Yullia too, but Europe. . well, I’ve never seen the Captain so worried about meeting our allies before. And given that our allies include Major Wainscott and your family, that can’t be good.’ She sighed. ‘I’ve never been. But from what the captain says, it’s one big country, divided up into little states. France and Germany are the main ones, but there are others. They live in different sorts of houses depending on which country they’re from. Smith says the Germans have very modern houses, and the French live in castles called gateaux.’
    Suruk nodded. ‘Strange. I hear that in Switzerland, people live in cartons. Is it true that Europe is  a peaceful and cultured place?’
    ‘Well, yes, I suppose –’
    ‘Excellent! Let us conquer it!’
    ‘Um, no. Europe’s on our side. Pretty much.’
    Suruk rubbed his chin thoughtfully, after moving his mandibles out the way. ‘Troubling. We shall  have to proceed with caution. I shall examine my phrasebook.’
    ‘You’ve got a phrasebook?’
    ‘Of course. It would be rude to pick fights in English.’
    *
    Smith sighed deeply and pushed away the Scrabble board. ‘Well,’ he announced, ‘that was excellent. Good work, Rhianna: I didn’t expect you to get ‘quibble’ on a triple word score. Although I’m not sure it is actually a rude word.’
    ‘It isn’t,’ she replied. Rhianna looked down at the Scrabble board and shook her head. ‘You  know, when I suggested we do something more adult, I didn’t really mean making rude words on the  Scrabble board.’
    ‘Oh,’ Smith said. He peered at her. He felt much like a competitor in a decathlon who has heard  the whistle blow without knowing the order of the events. He was obviously meant to guess something.
    She was clearly not entirely happy, but he had no idea about what. Dimly, it occurred to him that she  might have taken him to her cabin for something entirely different. Damn!
    ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, standing up. ‘I misunderstood. Never mind, we can have a bit of the other  later on. Right now I really need a sleep.’
    ‘Right,’ Rhianna said. ‘You go and do that. I’ll just meditate.’
    Stepping outside, he nearly bumped into Carveth.
    ‘Question, Boss… When we get to France, will we have time to go to the duty free?’
    ‘I doubt it. Besides, it’ll just be full of chocolate and frilly pants. Nothing we might need.’
    ‘I need those! Come on, Boss, let me go. I’ll buy something for Rhianna, so you can give it to her  on her birthday.’
    ‘Oh, all right then,’ Smith said, and he headed to his room.
    In his cabin he knelt down and dragged the encryption engine from out under the bed. It looked  like a cross between a sewing machine and a very old cash register. A set of