by Ben Elton
The last thing Rachel expected with a man like Sly was that they would have to go through the lengthy and gruelling familiar rigmarole of coffee and more coffee and edging towards each other that precedes most first bonks. But to her amazement, they did.
Sly could not be his usual, forceful, demanding self with Rachel, he found her too confusing, worrying even. Rachel was also inhibited because despite her politics she had never been one for making the first move. It still sounded weird to Rachel, a woman asking a man to go to bed; she knew it shouldn’t but it did. Language and convention remain great barriers to enlightenment.
And so, with the earth on the brink of extinction, and the conspiracy of cowardice and betrayal lumbering towards its thunderous climax, Rachel and Sly nervously chatted, drank more coffee, played some music, drank even more coffee and finally got close enough to go for it. It was more like two students at the end of term rather than two conspirators at the end of the world.
Well the moon held no more fears for Sly, suddenly it shone bright and friendly in the sky because now he knew how he wanted to spend his time on it. He wanted to spend his time rooting Rachel. It had been a revelation! Sly hadn’t really liked sex up until that point. Now he loved it. Suddenly he felt as if he had been completely wasting his time since his balls dropped. He realized that all the sex he had had in the past had just been elaborate wanking; he had finally discovered the real thing. This was not the case for Rachel of course. She had enjoyed it, certainly, but that was all. Not being obsessed with power and money she had not found it necessary to put in a sixteen-hour day, seven days a week all her life, acquiring things that she could not possibly use, therefore, despite being many years younger than Sly she had found much more time in her life to develop satisfactory relationships.
But Sly was ecstatic; and as he lay there in the dark wondering whether Rachel fancied another bash and if so could he coax a magnificent third erection out of his frankly startled penis, and deciding that he probably could if Rachel helped — he was looking forward to going to the moon.
220: SPREADING THE WORD, PAYING THE PRICE
Chrissy’s plan was to try to drum up sufficient media outrage in order to force either the authorities or the mob to intervene against Stark. Clearly she had a major problem in this situation, and that was that no one was likely to believe her story in a million years. Chrissy didn’t know that she only had a week in which to act, but she could guess that however long she had, it wasn’t very long.
It had been decided during the Council of War at the holiday home, that Chrissy would do her best to provoke press interest and that Mr Culboon and Walter would have a bash at alerting pressure groups and sympathetic politicos. This fairly hopeless and frankly embarrassing task was further complicated by the fact that they believed that the moment they showed themselves in public they would either be captured or killed. What’s more, they carried the uncomfortable responsibility that if they did manage to bring anyone into the situation, they would be putting that person in great danger too.
However, in the two or three days following the helicopter flight, it looked as if their consciences at least would remain clear. They were unlikely to be putting anybody in danger, because trying to alert total strangers to an utterly fantastic situation, whilst remaining anonymous, proved beyond any of their persuasive powers.
Chrissy, Walter and Mr Culboon had travelled back to Perth in Rachel’s Holden. ‘I feel that we have a right to requisition our erstwhile comrade’s wheels to the cause. This hog is now a peace tank,’ Walter had said.
It was, however, a peace tank which did not like being thrashed along red-hot highways by terrified renegades. It took nearly two days to get back to Perth.
They planned to operate out of telephone boxes, fearing that if they happened to contact anybody who was in the pay of Stark, the call could be traced. As it happened, what with Durf at the launch site and all the conspirators heading towards it at full speed, the omniscient power of Stark had been much reduced. But Chrissy did not know this and even if she had, the experiences of the previous few weeks would still have led her to be very very careful.
221: COMMUNICATION BREAKDOWN
Feeding in money that they could ill afford, Walter tried first. He phoned the office of the only member of the state parliament who had been elected on a no nukes platform.
‘Listen, uhm, I have to speak to Ms Grant, OK?’ Walter asserted. And, feeling the need to underline the urgency of the situation he added, ‘You have to get the chick on the line, right now, I mean, like yesterday or the lid comes off. Dig? I mean the lid comes off. And that is off with a double ‘F’ right? I am talking the Fucking lid comes off, OK? You seeing where I’m coming from sister? Well you’d better because unless you get the main lady blowing in my ear pronto, we ain’t going anywhere. I am talking about being dead lady. Dead with a capital ‘F’…’
Inevitably Walter was asked his business. This rather surprised him. He had not thought that the groovier type of politician would go in for all that bureaucracy crap.
‘Lady, can we please leave the mind control until we have the leisure to enjoy it?’ he asked. ‘You know, just put Big Brother back in his box. Because what I have to lay on the boss is very very very heavy. Right? It’s something that she needs to know…‘ The communication breakdown was unavoidable. Walter could not say who he was, and also he would prefer not to state his business except to Ms Grant personally…
Eventually, having been told three times to put it in writing and it would be dealt with he shouted, ‘Listen, up at Bullens Creek they’re fixing to blast off, man! The earth’s dying and they’re splitting!’ The phone went dead.
After his first attempt, Walter was relegated to selling off his few possessions to acquire dollar bits for the phone. Sadly, Chrissy and Mr Culboon fared no better than he had.
They both tried many times, many different people and did it much more articulately than Walter had done, but the results were the same. Two days went by, Chrissy’s finger ached from punching the phone. They seemed to have tried every media outlet and free-thinker in Australia. With no money, no time and no one to turn to, all three realized in a great wave of desperation that the chances of alerting the world were about zero. Walter was just thinking of suggesting that maybe they should try using the small ads and perhaps even put up some cards in newsagents windows, when they got a break.
It wasn’t international, it wasn’t even national, it was just a local TV news programme going out around Perth, but it was all they had and they had no choice but to go for it. The risks involved were horrible because the company insisted on a personal appearance. They said they could not possibly lend the credibility of their programme to rumour, hearsay and uncorroborated stories. This was most unfortunate because the three conspirators knew that whoever went on the television would be putting their head above the trench in no uncertain manner. None the less, they had to go for it. After all, they, like the world, had nothing to lose.
Mr Culboon and Walter felt that they should all face the music together, but Chrissy was insistent. There was no point them all risking their lives, she would go alone.
‘Well, I reckon maybe you’re right,’ said Mr Culboon, ‘you sure got the style Chrissy. I reckon there’s plenty out there wouldn’t want to listen to some old black fellah whining about his land. And as for Walter…‘ Mr Culboon simply shrugged his shoulders and exhaled.
As Chrissy got into her taxi she could still hear Walter trying to get to the bottom of this gesture.
‘So what was with the shrug man…I mean maybe I’m being paranoid here, but well, it struck me as being dismissive.’
222: DEATH WARRANT
On arrival at the studio, Chrissy was met by a researcher who led her straight to make-up for the ubiquitous ‘touch of powder, just to take the shine off. The show was going out live and it wasn’t at all long to air.
‘We were so pleased that you could come at such short notice,’
the researcher, whose name, like many researchers, was Jan, had said over her shoulder as they wound their way through the long corridors adorned with huge glossy photographs of newsreaders, weather men and stuffed cuddly Emus.
‘We were well and truly stuck for an item when the wombat died, just tearing out our hair. Your story was a gift from heaven.’
Chrissy couldn’t help thinking that this was a very strange way to view the profession of journalism, even at a local level, but there was no time to pursue her doubts. After five meaningless dabs with the powder pad they were led into the studio.
A shiny, very tanned man wearing a suit that was both trendy and conservative at the same time, sat reading the news. He looked like a footballer who had been invited to open a disco. Chrissy felt that local newsreaders always looked like footballers who had been invited to open a disco, or, if they were girls, aerobics instructors at a wedding. It was not going to be easy to make this work.
Chrissy was very tense. This was her one chance to make her story public. It had to be good. Chrissy was convinced that the only way to construct an even remotely effective last ditch defence of the earth was for those who controlled the financial infra-structure to stay in place, at least for the time being. She had one chance to force a public reaction against Stark, and hence an intervention against the launches. One chance, she would give it all she had, even if she was signing her own death warrant.
As Jan and the floor manager sat her down in the interview chair opposite the tanned man in the footballer suit, Chrissy felt a tremendous sense of purpose; she had a rendezvous with destiny and she intended to pitch her story like no story had ever been pitched before.
The suit and the tan were winding up.
‘…motorists are strongly advised to avoid that intersection until further notice,’ said the newsreader and Chrissy knew by the way camera two swung around to face her that the moment of reckoning had arrived.
‘And now it’s time to brush away all the doubts and cares because news doesn’t have to be all bad, there’s always someone about to put a smile on all our faces. Yes, it’s time for our Daily Daft Dingo, a look at the sillier side of life. Now we had said yesterday that we were going to bring you William, the wombat who can say ‘Western Australia, pure Aussie’ but unfortunately William’s caught a little cold and won’t be with us today. But fear ye not! We have another and even sillier Daft Dingo to chat to, not a wombat, but a lovely lady from the good old US of A…’
The bowels of the Daft Dingo, or Chrissy as she was known to her friends, were dissolving beneath her.
‘…this super silly has a theory, get this, that the new Moorcock Tyron Leisure Centre up at Bullens Creek is, in fact, a rocket launch site. Ha ha. And that the world is so polluted that Sly and Ocker are going to blast off and leave…ha ha! As if anyone would ever want to leave WA, the greatest state in the world — the state of excitement. I mean sure, things are a touch hot and stinky right now…‘ Chrissy did her best.
She tried to sound learned and convincing, consumed though she was with anguish and embarrassment, she explained the story of Stark, her confidence which had already been shattered, wilting further with every word she uttered.
Public ridicule is a strange thing; being right makes it no easier to bear.
‘But surely, Chrissy,’ laughed the interviewer, ‘the explanation that it’s a space-age theme park would seem a little more likely than the concept of Star Arks…?
Chrissy kept trying, and the interviewer kept laughing…
‘Sure, we realize everything’s a little strange at present; the economy, the weather, agriculture…but I hardly think a couple of true Aussies like Sly and Tyron are going to run away from their problems, do you?’
Chrissy shouted in her shame, which of course made her look even more of a dickhead than before…
‘Please stop laughing, godammit, the world is dying. These terrible people are trying to get out while they can,’ she pleaded. ‘We have to do something.’
But the studio laughed, and the viewers laughed. The only people who did not laugh were Durf, who was in the mission control room at Bullens, reaching for the phone, and Dixie and Mrs Tyron who were putting two and two together in stunned disbelief.
223: WARRANT PRESENTED
Chrissy ran out of the TV building, burning with frustration and shame, the cruel laughter of the bastard presenter ringing in her ears. She could not get out of the place quick enough, which was a bit of luck for her as it happened because Stark still had claws enough to deal with people who went on TV to blow the gaff.
Two minutes after she left, Durf’s henchmen arrived at the studio. Moments later they were taking fresh orders from Durf over the phone. ‘Find out from the television company where they are staying…’
Chrissy ordered the cabbie to drive around for a while, she wanted to collect her thoughts, come to terms with the failure and humiliation.
‘You want to sightsee in an area like this?’ said the cabbie. ‘The whole place has been ruined by Asians, Vietnamese running drugs and killing each other, boongs getting pissed on the pavement…’
Chrissy did not even hear him. It was half an hour before she finally had the cab pull into King Edward the Seventh Empire Terrace, the home of Walter and Zimmerman, where Rachel had first visited them a few months previously. Then it had been dead of night, now it was bright searing sunlight; then it had been silent and peaceful, now the air rang with the harsh cracks of gunfire and the desperate screams of men.
Durf’s killers had been trying to hold Walter and Mr Culboon quietly until the girl came back but whether in some desperate effort to warn Chrissy, or simply because they knew that their time was up anyway, they had tried to make a break for it.
Walter moved first, a frenzied, scrambling rush past his captors to the door. Unfortunately for Walter, these men were not quality, they did not know their work. It would have been easy for them to detain Walter but instead they shot him. Moreover, they shot him with machine guns. His huge body was lifted up by the force of it and danced for a moment in the air like a marionette, as he was perforated with bullets. When the endless split seconds of mayhem and smoke were over, Walter fell to the floor approaching extinction at last.
Mr Culboon, seeing how the land lay, charged the window. He almost made it. The thugs were still contemplating the soggy mess, above which the soul of Walter was beginning to hover in peace. Their attention was distracted. Middle-aged as he was, Mr Culboon launched himself through the glass and landed, rolling in the uncleared jungle that surrounded the house; a jungle which was, if anything, thicker and more inpenetrable than when Rachel had encountered it. The weeds and the brambles closed in on Mr Culboon like a net. If Zimm and Walter had a lawnmower about a decade earlier, Mr Culboon might have made it to Chrissy’s cab. Instead he fell victim to Walter’s lifelong belief in non-interference with the natural environment, which translated loosely as a lifelong hatred of gardening. From Walter’s dash to Mr Culboon’s ensnarement, was a matter of a few short moments, although time, of course, is a relative and a subjective concept. For Mr Culboon this tiny period represented all the time in the universe. For it was the rest of his life.
Chrissy’s car was still approaching, she was staring wildly out of the window. Mr Culboon saw her as he struggled with the tropical brambles and uttered his last words on earth. ‘Get out Chrissy, Walter’s dead, get the fuck…’
As with Walter, the point blank range leant tremendous power to the bursts of fire that tore through poor Mr Culboon. He too was lifted up with the force, but he did not dance in the air, he was immediately jerked down again. Zimm and Walter’s garden did not give up so easily and seemed to grip Mr Culboon ever more firmly with each successive burst of fire. Even after his death, Mr Culboon’s body still strained to escape into the air, shooting forward, propelled by the bullets, only to be dragged back by the jealous tentacles and twine.
‘Get out of here,’ screamed Chrissy at the drive
r. An unnecessary command, since by the time she made it her car was already a block away. Having got thus far, it screeched to a halt.
‘Out,’ shouted the terrified cab driver.
‘But…‘ mumbled the equally terrified Chrissy.
‘Just get out. Now, get out, please get out,’ the driver was nearly hysterical. Chrissy tried to collect her wits…‘You have to take me somewhere where I can hire a car…Please.’ But the driver did not hear the ‘please’. He had jumped out of the car and rushed around to Chrissy’s door. He tore it open and dragged Chrissy out onto the pavement. ‘It’s nothing to do with me,’ he shouted, ‘I don’t need it, I don’t want it, I work hard. Get out, get out, get out.’ The driver was blithering, Chrissy was already out; she was spread-eagled on the pavement. He rushed back around the cab, jumped in and drove off, leaving Chrissy sobbing, her head in the gutter.
224: LOVE AND WAR
Mrs Culboon and CD were sitting alone in the holiday home when Chrissy returned. There had been nothing for them to do so they had simply had to stay put. Zimmerman, who it seemed had mysterious plans of his own, had brought them some food but then disappeared. That had been two days before and they hadn’t seen him since. Not surprisingly they were pleased to see Chrissy when she turned up. She had managed to acquire a hire car on the strength of some hocked earrings. It was now way overdue, but nothing seemed to matter much now anyway.
She told her story.
When it was finished, there was nothing anyone could think of to say. CD was crying, Mrs Culboon sat stoney-faced, Chrissy who had driven non-stop for about sixteen hours in order to bring this terrible news, sat chewing her lip.
How lonely could three people be? In the case of CD, Chrissy and Mrs Culboon, the answer was very. Chrissy was ten thousand miles from her home and friends, Mrs Culboon’s husband was dead, CD had lost Rachel to Mr Culboon’s murderers, Walter was dead. The scale of their sadness and their defeat was incomprehensible. Set against it, the death of the earth seemed a comparatively simple thing to assimilate. They sat in silence, the noise from Stark had gone now, save for intermittent murmurs. The silence of the grave descended upon them in the sweltering desert. It was as if they all believed that they would simply remain where they sat until they died. Perhaps they would have done had not Zimmerman returned.