The Cat Wore Electric Goggles

by Ian Hutson

  There then came the day when six shallow oblate spheroids of the classic form once more appeared out of the east. The burnished copper, brass and bronze of their hull-plates gleamed and was punctuated by round portholes glazed with the latest fashion’s rich burgundy, midnight blue-black, drab green, Cornish cream and faded tangerine. They landed in hexagonal formation in the middle of what had once been the valley and they vented steam, and other surplus vapours, without regard or care. London’s Horse Guards Parade was quite filled with the alien saucers.

  New-Humankind, comprised now entirely of its own fears, saw itself in everything and thus feared all that it saw, and it fled the scene and sent back human-inspired machines to meet the visitors. Buried deep again within fresh, concrete caves and, having forgotten that they had been gifted words and gestures of more intelligent communication, they set upon the visitors with angry atomic fires.

  They were utterly ignored, and all of the venom of the new-humans fell back upon itself and was consumed in defeat.

  Sparking Jacob’s ladders rose from the domes of the flying saucers, and screaming drill and burrowing screw and small, scurrying machine checked and re-checked what now lay before them.

  An empire given; lost.

  Manifold good, heavy industries; closed.

  Coal and ore and oil and gas uncovered; frittered and wasted and forgotten.

  Skills; abandoned and unlearned, ignorance raised on high.

  Society; chaotic and ruled by those least suited.

  Communication; stilted for fear of offence and litigation, language twisted and imprecise.

  From their separate craft, recumbent in galvanic baths or enjoying brain-gland salving opiates and refined sugars, the aliens communicated once more, and discussed what had become of their efforts on Earth in their absence.

  ‘This new industry is without meaning.’

  ‘Service has become an end unto itself, without true purpose; a service industry quite without true sense of service, serving only itself and with chin set as though it were true industry.’

  ‘Your call is valuable to us, please hold and an operator will be with you as soon as possible.’

  ‘The new-humans have lost their pride in quality of workmanship.’

  ‘Obsolescence and vacuous fashion dictate all.’

  ‘Have you suffered an accident at work or while driving that wasn’t your fault?’

  ‘Ruddy diddums - should have been more careful, you blathering, clumsy, self-serving idiot.’

  ‘From chasing prey for food we have improved them to chase instead ambulances for claimants.’

  ‘Given a field and a hoe they could not now grow a turnip.’

  ‘Given shops full of edible wonders they still cannot feed themselves.’

  ‘Fat-free fats and alcohol-free alcohols abound. Tastes are chemical, nutrition supplemental.’

  ‘Shown a road they could no longer walk it a mile.’

  ‘They wear shoes made for exercise, and yet take none.’

  ‘They were given mills and docks and factories. Where are they now?’

  ‘Closed and decayed. Given over to their leisures.’

  ‘They were given capacity for greatness.’

  ‘Now they value only physical comfort and a false security. Greatness scares them all.’

  ‘What has become of the politics of advancement and the credo of improvement?’

  ‘It has become the politics of fear, and of disapproval. Negativity rules.’

  ‘They worship appeasement and seem prepared to contort the many for fear of offending the faux-proprieties of the one.’

  ‘Their politics serves itself alone. It has separated from the greater good.’

  ‘All is money and lack of spine.’

  ‘Where are their leaders?’

  ‘Dancing on ice.’

  ‘Cooking in the jungles.’

  ‘Legislating against stubbed toes.’

  ‘Claiming expenses.’

  ‘Serving corporations above all else, with no balance or declaration.’

  ‘What of the arts? We gave them music and painting and sculpture and stage. What of those now?’

  ‘Unmade beds in galleries.’

  ‘Animals pickled and on display.’

  ‘Paint splashed on walls.’

  ‘All they draw is breath.’

  ‘Soap has removed from the bathing act and acting has moved into the soap.’

  ‘So much on offer, and so very little of value to be had.’

  ‘They watch everything and yet they see nothing.’

  ‘They look to have seen to it that half got six square meals a day while the other half got none.’

  ‘Patently, this programme has failed.’

  ‘The Plan is not at fault. Our operation of it is.’

  ‘We chose the naked apes. Our choice was flawed.’

  ‘In a hundred cycles they have replaced industry and confidence with dependency and vulnerability.’

  ‘Their society is weak, drained of all substance.’

  ‘They fear everything.’

  ‘Most of all they fear themselves.’

  ‘Afraid to travel for fear of injury or attack.’

  ‘Afraid to speak for fear of giving or receiving offence.’

  ‘Afraid to act for fear of litigation.’

  ‘They communicate more than ever, and yet they say nothing.’

  ‘A photo of a cat.’

  ‘A photo of a lunch.’

  ‘A selfie.’

  ‘Whining and self-indulgence, flung into the electronic aether.’

  ‘They take much offence, but they do not take even a little responsibility.’

  ‘My mummy never loved me.’

  ‘Daddy was always distant.’

  ‘We are bored - Society must amuse us.’

  ‘These creatures have grown flimsy in the brain-gland, and they are doomed to wither and die.’

  ‘Agreed. We should choose again, and choose with more care.’

  ‘Agreed.’

  ‘We will restore the humans to their nakedness and to their caves.’

  ‘Reduce their numbers as the programme sees fit. Archive some few so that the future may see them and take heed of the error of their ways. Undo the remainder.’

  ‘We shall begin afresh.’

  ‘Prepare again The Improvement Engine.’

  ‘Our task is greater now. The humans have reduced the richness of the fauna.’

  ‘The major apes remain. We choose now only from among silver-back, small black-hair and the orange men of the jungle.’

  ‘What of the waters? Perhaps we should have chosen from the waters? What of the Cetacea?’

  ‘And fill this world with whale-song and silly dolphin squeaks?’

  ‘They have shown no inclination to head towards the beach.’

  ‘Eek eek eek and the sounds of indigestion rumbling.’

  ‘They are content to swim. Let them swim.’

  ‘Agreed. We still choose between the apes then.’

  ‘I choose the orange-hairs. They are more inclined towards sanity and indeed have remained thus throughout the misfortunes visited upon them by the new-humans.’

  ‘The orange-hairs do now show promise of better stock. Perhaps we misjudged them.’

  ‘We paid heed to factors we should not. The humans were chosen because they seemed further along The Path to righteousness.’

  ‘We forgot that they may have been there by some folly, some whimsy of the fates.’

  ‘The orange-hairs are more inclined to peace and love.’

  ‘Harmony and understanding.’

  ‘Sympathy and trust abounding.’

  ‘They require only the addition of purpose and drive.’

  ‘Agreed then. We choose the orange-hairs.’

  ‘How shall we begin?’

  ‘In the customary manner. The Plan is not at fault.’

  ‘When shall we begin?’

  ‘When the moon
is in the seventh house.’

  ‘When Jupiter aligns with Mars?’

  ‘Peace will guide their way.’

  ‘Love will steer their industry.’

  ‘This planet will see the dawning of a new age.’

  ‘Agreed. This is the dawning of the Age of Orang-Utan.’

  ‘Have the few that yet remain brought among us, and have the new-humans returned to their caves. They will remember nothing of their period of ascendance.’

  ‘We shall restore the naked apes to their former limitations.’

  ‘They shall hand in their fear of uninsured loss and exchange it for fear again of jackal and hyena.’

  ‘Restore unto them their primitive life of hunting, of gathering and of the cooking fire.’

  ‘It was not wise of us to expect more from them.’

  ‘Agreed.’

  ‘What of this new-human world about us? Is it to be razed?’

  ‘The world is not at fault. It will serve the new-orangs. Leave it be and mayhap it will help them to the stars all the sooner.’

  ‘I have ordered it done. New programme cards are being written.’

  ‘Deploy The Improvement Engine as soon as possible.’

  ‘When shall we return to check upon these new labours?’

  ‘One hundred more cycles. The orange-hairs will have their full chance too.’

  ‘Agreed. I fancy we shall see significantly better results from the orange-hairs.’

  Hoots of acquiescence echoed throughout a deserted London, and only the pigeons and the rats remained to pay heed.

  Once again the centripetal regulators of The Improvement Engine spun up into action and the work of the many-legged crawling things began. There was resistance of course, but the new-humans assisted the process by escalating their killing of each other based on nationality and distrust, and by continuing to work as fractured, aimless groups under separated agendas. The more the machines won the day, the easier it became for them to win. The more the new-humans lost the more they feared losing, and yet still they feared losing all the wrong things. Property was defended above person. Money was defended above food. When they had been subdued by the crawling machines the numbers of the necessary cull were far fewer than hitherto had been anticipated. The bulk of the New-Humans were returned to the earth as dust and ashes, and those random few that remained to populate the reserves were cleansed of the memory of their experience by the galvanic probes.

  In their turn, the orange-hairs of the jungle were expanded in number to fill the cities and towns and villages vacated by Man. At first they walked as the new-humans had, with machine to teach and guide. Then they stood and walked alone. These less-naked apes forged a different society among our ruins. A society without war-mongers, without bankers, without insurance men, without lawyers and without estate agents - without much silliness about their industry at all. It was an age of harmony and understanding, with sympathy and trust abounding. Peace steered their course, and love dictated their industry. It was indeed the dawning of the Age of Orang.

  They lived happily through the period of self-improvement and to the time of their judging.

  Sort of.

  Stardate? Hell, who knows? About a century had passed. The new-orangs had long-since ceased to carry fob watches. The lack of serious gravity on the orbital space station meant that they just wouldn’t stay put in a waistcoat pocket.

  The Orang Orbital space station itself had been built to resemble a giant flower, with each petal given over to a different functional purpose such as sleeping or hanging about playfully upside down or Zen contemplation or banana storage. A digital Dansette machine could be heard playing in the crew lounge. The lyric of the record was something about a singular mammoth’s ocular organ looking down from a humbug tree and a hole in a clog that was letting in liquids, letting in liquids.

  All over the station the crew was recovering from the previous evening’s partying. Some lay in kaftans, some were clothed in t-shirt and jeans, some were as they had been when their mothers last dusted them with talcum powder, turned them over and blew raspberries on their belly-buttons to raise baby-orang giggles. It was difficult on first glance to tell the crew apart from the furry beanbag seating. Official signs everywhere encouraged the crew to “Make Love, Not Work” and the aroma of organic lentils and various recreational herbs hung in the air as though they were the best of friends with the sweaty, podiatric scents rising from discarded feathered EVA boots and the damp, size 16 hemp sandals.

  Commander Maurice, just about sober enough for his shift, dangled by one hand from a climbing bar on the command bridge of the station. His saffron-coloured space-suit was covered in a retro-fit of embroidered CND symbols, and his blue John-Lennon specs were balanced quite precariously on the edge of his nose. With a bare, hairy foot he toggled the space-station’s main tactical display and zoomed in on the approaching formation of classic flying saucers. They appeared to be turned from solid brass and copper and bronze, and their shallow oblate-spheroid hulls gleamed in the harsh light of the unfiltered sun. At their rim there appeared to be port-holes glazed in the latest season’s fashion of chimerical colours: Stygian blue; self-luminous red; hyperbolic orange; sub-violet; the mythical Apple-white of Dulux as seen through male eyes.

  Wow! Cosmic mystic-crystal revelation!

  The visitors appeared to be heading directly for London. This was cool, thought Commander Maurice, because they’d be just in time for the Solstice celebrations and for the open-air concerts. A couple of months later on and the aliens would have had to make do with the Autumnal Equinox celebrations and indoor concerts.

  As the saucers flew past Maurice drifted to a panoramic window and gave them the universal “Peace” symbol with his fingers. Then he peeled a banana with his lips and flung the skin over his shoulder to float in the general direction of the waste bin.

  ‘Groovy!’

  The visitors flew with a very businesslike manner, but he was sure that they’d loosen up soon enough.

  ‘Have a look around, you hep-cats, and see what we’ve done with the place’ he said, to no-one in particular.

  Maurice scratched at an armpit and tried to focus both eyes on the bridge of his own spectacles. The air-conditioning system was still struggling to purge the station of the previous evening’s aromatics.

  The visitors made for what had once been Horse Guard’s Parade, and they tried to find somewhere to land among the overgrowth and jungle-like foliage.

  Sparking Jacob’s Ladders extended, and probes and drills were deployed. Puzzled alien faces threw frowns at the portholes and urgent signals flew from ship to ship.

  ‘This new industry is also without meaning.’

  ‘Agreed. We should not have dismissed the cetacea of this world.’

  ‘Consider the whales.’

  ‘They toil not.’

  ‘Neither do they know war, as did the naked apes.’

  ‘Neither do they wear flowers in their hair, and rest upon their laurels, as do the orange-hairs.’

  ‘Agreed. We were hasty in dismissing the cetacea.’

  ‘We should forget the land and bring unity to the waters. That which we now choose shall be fruitful and multiply, they shall tend all the waters. Everything shall be the waters.’

  ‘We will give them dominion over over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air. We shall set them above all other creatures that swim or crawl within the ocean.’

  ‘Order from chaos.’

  ‘Purpose from ignorance.’

  ‘We shall make them toil, and we shall make them spin.’

  ‘They will know heavy industry in all their days and nights.’

  ‘In the ending of this not even Solomon in all his glory shall be arrayed as one of these.’

  ‘Shall we then dispense with survey and instead immediately deploy The Improvement Engine?’

  Hoots of acquiescence set the parrots in flight from the trees and caused the orangs to wake and turn the
ir heads towards the sound. Something, it appeared, was going down, somewhere.

  #####

  One Small Step for Ma’am, One Giant Leap for Ma’amkind

  The Prime Minister’s very knackered, very official Humber saloon positively dwarfed the shiny new Isetta bubble-car sitting next to it at the traffic lights. Mind you, size was all that the Humber had going for it. By the time the signal had changed to green the Isetta was already buzzing away somewhere around Trafalgar Square, and looking for all the world like some tiny spacecraft. The Ministerial Driver managed to crunch the Humber into non-synchro first gear sometime alarmingly well into the green phase, and he eased out the worryingly soft clutch on a mild throttle, not wanting to put a strain on anything in particular. In his experience you could never tell what might just be the final motoring straw.

  On the back seat of the government “limousine”, Sir Rupert Nelson Wellington-Wilson KG KT GCB GCMG DSO GCVO OM ISO GBE CH BA (Cambs., Failed) VC GC CGC RRC DSC MC DFC AFC and AC-DC (on the quiet) was deep in heated conversation with Fotheringham, the DG of the EBC, in re the NASA of the USA, the RASA of the USSR and the necessary pre-emptive actions of the ESA, to wit, PAEOTRMBAEGT.

  ‘PAEOTRMBAEGT, Prime Minister?’ asked Puttlefrock minor, the especially stupid Minister for Things, from the discomfort of his fold-out seat, hunched up knees and crumpled “to do list” notebook. Puttlefrock was straying far from his more usual comfort zone, in which his only approved function was to say ‘Yes, Prime Minister, three bags full, Mr Prime Minister.’

  ‘Putting An Englishman On The Ruddy Moon Before Anyone Else Gets There. Do try to keep awake, Puttlefrock.’ The Prime Minister selected a boiled sweet and passed the little white paper bag around, rather generously considering the rationing that still lingered about England so long after the Second Great World Unpleasantness. Long, long after everyone else had put up a brand new house of cards, England still had no bananas. ‘Gentlemen, England is being squeezed in the space race between Uncle Ruddy Sam on our west and Uncle Ruddy Stalin to our east. Whoever wins this contest will reap immeasurable rewards for their industry. I intend that the winner, just for a change, shall be us. England is going to put a chap on the moon, and we are going to do so before the month is out.’