The Cat Wore Electric Goggles

by Ian Hutson

  The artefact is silent now both outside and in. The aliens are all gone. Before they died they took the final trouble of raining down their vengeance upon us in a blitz to end all Earthly blitzes. Could anyone really blame them? Had we done less?

  We humans died in our thousands of millions. What is that compared to the terrible deaths of every foreigner within the galaxy? Mr Wells was quite correct in all but the scale of the matter. Common rhinopharyngitis is a mere, oft-forgotten inconvenience when one’s species has already met it, cultured a stout resistance and invented the paper tissue, but to the indigenous population of the rest of the galaxy, cut off entirely as it had previously been from civilisation, from England, well... that was quite another matter altogether.

  Mankind has always feared that we might be alone in the Milky Way. Now, having briefly met some few dozen of our fellow creatures and equally briefly shared their air, I think that we certainly are.

  Rule Britannia. God save the Queen. Bring on the rats, We are ready for them now.

  #####

  Tiger, Tiger, Burning Bright

  The SSS Rorke’s Drift was a rocket ship of immodest, but nonetheless quite elegant proportions. She had been styled as though travelling through the aether required the streamlining of yacht hydrodynamics, and she bore a sporting rake from her cast-iron nose cone right back to her riveted-plate atomic-reaction jets. Her Marconi radio array lay back at an angle of thirty degrees, giving her the impression of speed even when at rest. Huge shatter-resistant glass structures covered the orangery decks, the promenade decks and the formal gardens and box-hedge mazes, while classic brass-rimmed portholes gifted more intimacy to the private cabins and suites. The Red Ensign fluttered at her stern.

  Patrolling like a deep shadow on the glazed Upper Promenade Deck, the Bishop Jefferies rather gave the impression of some dog-collared middle rank of a Christian Army marching onwards as to war. In point of fact, he was quite lost, being unable to recall the distinction between clockwise and anti-clockwise. He was buried in worry and praying that he was perambulating in a clockwise direction, since that sounded so much more inoffensive than anything beginning with anti. He didn’t want to be anti anything, except maybe the Devil. After about an hour of quiet, pedestrian panic it occurred to him to venture to what would be either his left or his right, had he known the difference, through one of the doorways into the body of the vessel. Unfortunately, this then only added to his woes, since he was immediately presented with doors requiring a decision in regards to his being either a Ladies or a Gentlemen. He felt he was really neither, being first and foremost a Bishop. Even had he felt confident enough to make such base categorisation, he knew he would then be faced with solving the mysteries of buttons and suchlike while recalling the necessary functional parts of his anatomy. It was all too much for him. Why could there be no third doorway, unequivocally marked “Lamb of God”?

  Those parts of the ship not either mightily confusing Bishops or devoted entirely to ship’s functions, such as lavatories, propulsion and navigation, were comprised, in the main, of two chambers, and they had been placed in the vessel like two vast lungs to dominate all other social entrails. One of these was a cathedral complete with vaulted nave, transepts, pulpit and marble tombs. The other chamber was an art gallery filled to the gunwales with examples of all of the treasures of artistic Creationism.

  Ranged in two lines to one end of the Art Chamber were the twelve originals of Michelangelo’s series of David, each one on a plinth. On the distant bulkhead wall between each statue hung the twelve originals of Leonardo da Vinci’s series of La Gioconda; the Mona Lisa. Only experts in their fields could differentiate the statues one from another, or separate the paintings into chronological order, there being only the minutest of differences in a brush stroke or paint mix here, a tap of a chisel there.

  The bulkheads of the forward half of the Art Chamber were largely given over to Hans Holbein’s portraiture; his magnificent life’s work of the portrait of Henry VIII, Henry VIII, Henry VIII, Henry VIII, Henry VIII and Henry VIII along one wall, facing his portrait of Henry VIII, Henry VIII, Henry VIII, Henry VIII, Henry VIII and Henry VIII along the other. Down the centre lines, and matching the placement of Michelangelo’s works, were the twelve Henry Moore originals: his 1950 Family Group and the next eleven almost identical expressions that he had created, each celebrating the same male parent, same female parent, same child, in exactly the same proportions.

  In the centre of the Art Chamber was a raised stage where the ship’s orchestra often performed The Music in the evenings. They would begin, continue and end with Edward Elgar’s Enigma Variation. The orchestra could play each and every exciting original publication of his Variation, and the only notes differing between performances would be the occasional bum note by an inexperienced, fumbling or asthmatic musician. Sometimes if the engineers had banged their fingers or something while working on the engines they might be less than perfect in then handling string, bow and key after ship’s dusk.

  All of these incredible artists knew one secret. When you’ve created something brilliant you may as well just keep on creating the same thing rather than risk venturing into novelty.

  The Bishop Jefferies, in his wanderings, was eventually found by a small fetching-boy, and taken away from the Gentlemen’s Convenience to prepare for the Sunday morning service, and for his sermon.

  Decent, Anglican church services are, of course, held at an English hour of the day with none of your self-flagellating nonsense about getting up at milkman o’clock, or of putting a serious crack in an otherwise perfectly good dawn. Sunday mornings have been civilised Sunday mornings since about ten sixty-six, and God too needs time for a shit, a shower and a shave before he gets down to the business of the soaking up of worship, wonder and awe from his own creations. He also needs time to have breakfast, read the newspapers and walk the bloody dog. This ecclesiastical temporal consideration is why Church of England services are universally populated with the well turned-out and the elderly, most of whom could not otherwise attend anything beyond the tea kettle without at least a couple of hours in front of an electric fire to raise their body-temperature from its overnight low.

  Other, false religions demand attendance before their gods at the most ungodly of hours or even several times a day, and this inconsideration puts the even those smaller, non-English gods themselves in a bit of a stinky mood, let alone their flocks. It also tends to make the faithful of those risible religions turn out to services looking like refugees from some harrowing suburban social disaster of antiquated plumbing and inadequate domestic staff, or, which is worse, of inadequate plumbing and antiquated domestic staff. It’s no wonder then that they are all, whether they be the foreign gods, the plaster angels, the flock saved or the flock damned, utterly grouchy and tending towards buckets of infidel blood and global Armageddon. A simple prescription of fewer, and later in the day, less serious services with reduced “hell fire” would quickly restore the world abroad to the All Creatures Great And Small end of the religious spectrum, and to satisfaction with charity fetes on Vicarage lawns.

  Thus it was that the female passengers of Rorke’s Drift had every ruche ordered, every lace-bound “i” dotted and every whalebone-reinforced “t” crossed as they gathered to be seen milling about artistically on the indoor lawn outside the ship’s cathedral chamber. There wasn’t a single corset, girdle or garter-belt that had not been tightened to exactly the weight of three large maids inclined at seventy-eight degrees on the end of the drawstrings, no Pompadour head of hair that had not been weighted down with chignons, buns and miscellaneous knots. Carefully counterbalanced bustle and emergency parasol edged around the social circuit like prize sheep at a county show.

  Just at the perfect time, when everyone had quite seen everyone else and some had seen or been shown to the more solid members of society twice, or even thrice, the flock gravitated as though by magic towards the stone terrace and thus nearer their god than th
ee. The ship’s social lawn (mown in stripes) gave way to cool, solid, ecclesiastical York stone paving laid upon a firmly engineered foundation. There the female flock dispersed themselves among several acres of comfortingly authoritative country-brown tweeds bound with half a league or more of fine pocket-watch and monocle chain holding their vices in check - the men.

  The greeting and milling and encouraging and snubbing took on more sombre, almost whispered tones as it came under the calming influence of the smoke from the gentlemen’s late-morning cigars. Scientific observation of their behaviour would, correctly, conclude that Mr God didn’t like noise. This subdued gathering around the portal of Mr God’s pied-en-space was in itself an act of trust and blind faith, given the somewhat unwise combination of tobacco flame with the clouds of potentially explosive Brilliantine fumes hanging around every pair of male shoulders and those of two luscious literary ladies in low-heeled comfortable shoes. Sometimes, if there was insufficient breeze or too high a concentration of pipes, cigars and slicked-down hair, a young gentleman or a Bloomsbury lesbian might to self-ignite, thus bringing conversations to a sudden halt and a very awkward social pickle indeed under the sprinkler system.

  The massive oak doors to the cathedral parted absolutely on cue, like the gates to a competition shearing pen, and tweed and bustle, fume of Brilliantine and expensive lingering wisp of Eau De Rose By Any Other Name disappeared inside, encouraged by the ankle-nips and yap-yaps of the Dean, the Precentor, the Chancellor and the Archdeacon. There could be no avoiding church parade, no matter how scatter-brained or cleverly lacking in navigational skills, and the flock was safely gathered indoors, along with their wallets and purses, for a gentle weekly shearing.

  In a reversal of Nature, once indoors the gentlemen took on such elements of pack-animal behaviour as might be adopted without actual recourse to howling or micturition to mark territory, and they lay fierce claim to their usual pew or their private pew boxes, each according to his standing and the size of his safety deposit box in the ship’s bank. The ladies did their best to avoid dragging down the floral arrangements with their skirts as they walked and they settled themselves into pew or pew box according, usually, to their father’s earlier bargain struck in re their matrimony. Some parents had chosen well, others, wittingly or unwittingly, had exposed their daughters to draughts and to rubbing elbows with the hoi polloi and worse.

  The entire flock then faced as one in the direction of Mr God, who was then out of sight, hidden somewhere up at the front of his house, and they rose and fell to their knees at every word of command from anyone in one of Mr God’s uniforms (except for the choirboys, who held no authority at all). Every pew made similar wooden scraping sounds, every hassock belched similar clouds of faithful dust when crushed by the weight of modest knee and each respiratory interruption and intrusion was followed by virtually identical, whispered self-admonishments. In church in space everyone can hear you cough.

  The vaulted ceiling spoke architecturally of ascension to Heaven, while simultaneously providing the perfect barrier against any such act of Rapture. The cathedral organ, requiring no fewer than three musicians, two JCB compressors and an oily engineer for its operation, played eminently forgettable lift-muzak, primarily, presumably, so that no-one would overhear Mr God having a final, Niagara-esque pee in the bathroom - if he were indeed actually in the building at all.

  The Bishop was given the once-over by his valet, and then led to the base of the pulpit, where he was encouraged onwards and upwards with his pre-written sermon idiot-cards in hand. It took a moment before he cottoned on to his role in proceedings and then, being godlike, he named the pulpit escalator and spoke the command word ‘up’. Elegant and balanced hidden machinery whirled into action and whisked him the twenty feet or so up in the air to tower over his flock. His flock of course only in the sense that he was acting on behalf of God, of course, who, while present in the building, always seemed to be a little shy and coy where front-of-house duties were concerned. An irreverent theory circulating among the choir (when they were not busy swapping cigarette cards or bartering for Corgi or Dinky toys) was that God had acne or buck teeth and thus preferred to perform his mysterious ways behind the scenes where no-one could call him names or see his wire braces. Having overheard the theory a few times the adult altos, tenors and baritones couldn’t help but agree that the choirboys’ theory held some water.

  A glass of water from auto-catering popped up in the pulpit, quite near the Bishop’s elbow.

  ‘Microphone on’ the Bishop said, pleased with himself that he knew as much. He could thus perform heavy labour when necessary with the lowliest of them, and he felt himself quite butch for an Anglican bishop.

  At the naming of its name a microphone formed from the pulpit and directed itself towards him. An amplifier in the bowels of the chamber began to glow and hum.

  The Bishop adjusted the microphone until he saw that it was good, then he blessed it.

  As one the congregation that had stood in reasonably military order then relaxed onto their variously padded and, in some lucky cases, recently paddled, arses.

  The Bishop, having finished his conversation with his microphone, then addressed the congregation.

  ‘You are, each and every one of you, quite unique. Made by God in his image. Eight thousand million humans, and all unique in a way that the nineteen thousand million eggy-hens of Earth, the one thousand four hundred million milk and steak cattle, the one thousand million each of mutton-sheeps and bacon-piggies, the twenty thousand inedible polar bears, the three thousand two hundred rug-tigers and the one thousand remaining giant, bamboo-munching pandas are not unique. Each and every individual here has been specially formed and blessed by the hand of God. Let us pray.’

  As one the congregation descended into the usual kerfuffle of shuffling, kneeling, pretending to kneel by dipping one knee, closing eyes, closing handbags, fumbling for dropped hymnals and - in the case of some closet heathen - looking elsewhere, anywhere and hoping that no-one important would notice that they neither knelt nor closed their eyes nor prayed. Generally though, they all as one told Mr God that he was in Heaven just in case he hadn’t already noticed, and then everyone agreed that God was really quite a special name. They hoped that his kingdom would come. It was unilaterally agreed that they also hoped that God would one day manage Earth as well as managing Heaven and they wondered if in the meantime he had any bread for them. Then they asked him not to give them a bum steer, to forgive them if they were a bit dozy about his rules, and then rather generously somehow gave him, an omnipotent and omniscient, omnipresent being all of the power and the glory in perpetuity anyway. Amen.

  After looking at the floor a bit longer while they listened to some specialist, professional prayers about how good God was and then giving him some best wishes for his future success, the congregation all stood and sang The Hymn four times while the organist tried his hardest to play exactly the same notes from each fresh issue by the composer. Mr God still hadn’t shown up by the end of the service - probably delayed in traffic or something - so instead the Bishop blessed everyone very nicely on Mr God’s behalf.

  The buzz once church had been dismissed was then all about the entertainments laid on for the afternoon and evening. The highlight was to be a trip for both ladies and gentlemen to the wild and dangerous new-found planet below, Planet 21ZedNA9! A full-blown safari no less!

  There was much playful and nostalgic banter referencing Daktari and Clarence the cross-eyed lion. This bubbly badinage then sank into some confusion when several of the more mature ladies, trying their very best to be up with the beat, or down with the beat, or whatever the modern phrase was, seemed to conflate Born Free with the Magic Roundabout and couldn’t be convinced that Johnny Morris hadn’t shot both Dougal and Virginia McKenna while poaching ivory, or something.

  The lists for the expedition had been posted at the top of the grand staircase and simply everyone who was anyone was going. Porters and g
uides would accompany the guests on a wildlife expedition during the late afternoon and then the day would be brought to a very daring close with a lovely formal dinner a la al fresco under the unfamiliar night sky.

  The ship’s milliners had, of course, been kept up all of the previous night in order to meet the expected sudden demand for pith helmets, and the cobblers were in a dead faint over the last of a run on field boots for ladies made in ultra-soft chamois suckling kid. Rough mechanics had laboured in the garages deep in the bowels of the ship to equip the ship’s fleet of Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost vehicles with khaki canvas sun-shades and cross-country tyres. The gunsmiths had been cleaning the various products of Messrs James Purdey & Sons Ltd., virtually in their sleep and there was by then no rifle aboard that had not been oiled, no new-fangled telescopical sight that had not been polished and calibrated using the finest of cross-hairs harvested from the inner thighs of blond badgers bred especially for the purpose.

  There was massive confusion among the passengers of course. Most of the gentlemen didn’t think that such an expedition would be quite suitable for the ladies, but they were over-ruled with a jab of the fan or a haughty sniff. The ladies themselves were, of course, secretly quite uncertain of what to expect or how one should really prepare for such a venture. It was all most exciting.

  Officers of the ship’s crew were kept very busy handing out mosquito nets that hung over the edge of the ladies’ hats and secured at the neck. It was a moot point whether these would in fact protect the ladies from any wild mosquitoes or, and which was more likely, protect any mosquitoes from the increasingly wild ladies. Stout parasols were, of course, de rigueur, if for no other purpose than leaning upon and looking imperious. Parasols could also be used when necessary for poking at indolent or lubberly servants, providing a means of direct communication while safely maintaining a hygienic separation.