Only Human by Tom Holt Page A

anything.’
    Understandable, Len commented to himself; doubtless for the same reason you don’t explain the workings of a power station to a seam of coal. ‘Yup,’ he said, nodding, ‘this is the one. Give us a hand to get it on the wheels.’
    Muttering, Colin put down his newspaper and helped Len to wheel over the big crane. Using the crane -
    (‘Wotcher, mate. What you doing in the monkey suit?’
    â€˜Tell you later, Crane. Give us a hand with this lot, will you? This human’s about as much use as a toffee drill-bit.’)
    - they hauled the machine on to the pallet truck, hooked up the truck to the winch, lifted the machine on to the pick-up using the pick-up’s crane (‘Hey, is that my cousin Sebastian in there? Hiya, our Sebastian!’), secured it with the straps and covered it with the big tarpaulin. While Colin was taking the crane back, Len helped himself to a couple of trays full of cutters and other bits and pieces, waved to all his bemused friends and made himself scarce. It felt strange, to say the least, driving down the Pershore Road at a quarter to one in the morning with himself under a tarpaulin on the back; a part of him kept wanting to say Hey, it’s dark under here, let me out. He could murder a quart of light oil and he wanted desperately to lie down on the floor and connect himself up to a three-phase electric current for at least twenty-four hours. He was—
    Tired.
    Dammit, what a wimpish piece of kit a human is! Me - the thing on the back of this truck - I run non-stop for days at a time, only getting switched off when it’s time to reset the jibs or change the cutters. I get so hot they have to pump coolant over me to stop me seizing up. My belts wear away, my works clog up with swarf, from time to time some fool runs me too hard and I damn near pull myself apart, and I don’t get tired or come over all faint. When was the last time anybody said to me, ‘Here, mate, you look bushed, go and have a sit-down and a cup of tea’? And why should they? I’m only a machine. But these wet-slaps—
    They’re only human.
    At the end of the street where Neville lived, there was a small, derelict industrial unit, long since starved out by business rates and foreign competition. The padlock on the door had about as much moral fibre as a lollipop, and the electric supply, though disconnected, was bored with nothing to do and happy to co-operate. By seven o’clock that morning, the machine was installed, trued up, overhauled, oiled and ready to go. One last thing remained to be done before he could throw the switches and get to work.
    â€˜Hello? You in there?’
    Huh? Wassamatter?
    â€˜Neville. It’s me. You know who I am?’
    Oh, it’s you.What you want? Tryin’ to get some sleep . . .
    â€˜You don’t mind, then? Only I thought I’d better just check, see if you were all right.’
    I’m fine. Go ’way.
    â€˜Anything I can get you? You know, er, human stuff?’
    Said I’m fine. Push off.
    Len shrugged. ‘If you do want anything, just shout. Bye for now.’
    Well, he’d asked. Now it was time to get on and make something of himself.
    Grinning, he flipped the switch and started to wind in the table.
    Â 
    As the little ship cut the earth’s atmosphere, all the windows were filled with fire, like a guided coach trip round Hell. While the heat crackled and fizzed unavailingly round him, Zxprxp wondered what he was going to say when he got there.
    Hello.
    Yes, good start. What then?
    I am from another planet.Take me to your leader.
    Hmm. Truthful, and to the point; but what if someone were to show up in his street, in his hive, saying something like that? Quite. Valid point. Think again.
    Odd that he hadn’t considered it before -
    (Through the atmosphere now, falling into a blue sky. Blue? Well, perhaps they like it that way. Something else blue underneath, too.