The Cat Wore Electric Goggles

by Ian Hutson

  The gentlemen, having changed as quickly as possible after church parade, looked quite magnificent in their multi-pocket safari coats and jodhpurs. Someone had very ill-advisedly, or very mischievously and quite brilliantly, dressed the Bishop in khaki short trousers, and he rather gave the visual impression whenever he smiled, which was often, of two legs more suited to an elderly stork supporting the body of an amply-provisioned myopic toad. This unfortunate situation was in no way ameliorated by his habit of replying to each and every conversational entreaty with either a lengthy ‘um...’ or a guttural ‘er’. It briefly became good sport to engage him in conversation with the sole purpose of being first to succeed in manoeuvring him into saying ‘ribbet’. As he blessed the expedition half of those present thought him about to add ‘parp parp’ and a quote from the Book of Dipsychus.

  Eventually, each Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost expedition limousine was elegantly stuffed with an Indian driver, a guide and eager, nervous passengers, and they were reversed expertly up the ramps of their individual dropships. The hydraulic whine of these ramps closing served to quieten conversation and to set the members of the expedition to some very natural anticipation. The flight deck atmosphere was vented, neon-yellow strobes whirled, docking clamps were released and each dropship was thrown into the near-vacuum of space, positively hurled at the planet below.

  The flight from the Rorke’s Drift down to the planet’s surface was described by many as ‘most exhilarating’ or ‘a bit like huntin’ on a horse with St Vitus’ dance’. As the dropships screamed their way down through the alien clouds the passengers all held their variously hairy upper lips in stiff formation and they all ensured that their bottom lips didn’t wobble in the least. The pilots were kept very busy at their levers and wheels, keeping the machines in the pipe, five by five.

  ‘Switch thermionic valve-gear to wireless DCS ranging.’

  ‘Nominal to profile. We’re picking up some hull electronification.’

  ‘Got it. Rough air ahead. Where’s the ruddy landing beacon? Oh - I have it now.’

  Mr Darwin, a man of little spirits of adventure and of very thin blood, ventured that they were in an express lift to Hell, going down.

  Lady Weaver endeavoured to enter into conversation with him in order to calm his obviously fragile nerves. It would not do for him to sink into any unseemly display of the old yellow stripe in front of the staff!

  ‘How many safari is this for you Mr Darwin?’

  ‘Thirty-two. Simulated.’

  ‘How many with live ammunition?’

  ‘One - including this one.’

  There was a general rolling of eyes, and the guide hid his sniggers and a sizeable snort of contempt.

  Three dozen dropships fell thus to the ground with loading ramps already whining open, and they disgorged between them some two dozen Rolls-Royce driven at most adventurous speed, eight more restrained Humbers full to the brim with spare porters and footmen and maids, and four slower Austin shooting-brakes laden with guns, food and all manner of domestic necessities including silverware, linen and furniture. The Indian drivers had been lectured at length on the need for a clean dispersal upon landing. The dropships then immediately stood off some distance but remained in readiness should a “mild distress” or “dire inconvenience” flare be sent up. Following their assigned instructions to perfection the safari vehicles peeled away to where they hoped the wildlife would be, while the service vehicles made for higher ground to set up a temporary encampment and field kitchen.

  The alien landscape appeared to be formed from a quite splendid and heavenly mix of features rather than being the hell that the sissy Mr Darwin had feared. Open grasses mixed with patches of dense woodland and with an almost jungle-like foliage. A river meandered and snaked through all, like a faithful servant bringing cool water, and the sound of a massive series of falls could be heard from the distance where rainbow-laden mist clouds rose and evaporated. The horizon presented every feature imaginable, and some that were not imaginable, from mountain ranges to gentle dunes and hills to a curiously “sensed rather than seen” absence of mountains. The ground itself was a magnificent patchwork of variety, showing all shades of clays, sands, silts, peats and chalks of the loam rainbow, some dusty, some soaked. The incredibly varied features of 21ZedNA9 looked most exciting to one and all. Lady Brackhampton was moved to note that they reminded her very much of the best of Keenyah and, oddly, also of Kuwait, Kiribati, Kazakhstan, Korea, Kent and Cornwall. Lady Brackhampton had got about a bit in her youth. She tapped her parasol on the floor-carpet of the Rolls for emphasis and as an indication of some very unseemly glee.

  The expedition guides though, were in some sort of befuddled huddle on the banks of the river, standing on the slip-off slope of an incipient oxbow lake formation, and they appeared even from a distance to be mightily confused. The perfect wildlife watering spot, it seemed, had not presented the expected pattern of spoor and the guides were in several minds over the positioning of the hides. Urging them to quiet and a more English decorum an officer then explained to the passengers that the river silts showed evidence of a positively encyclopaedic variety of wildlife coming to drink, and that the sport come dusk would indeed be magnificent. It was just that the spoor was a little more varied than the guides had expected, he added. The afternoon was still a little warm, he said in honey-drip tones, for any great exertions, but a refreshing tiffin of jam scones and Pimms had been set up under shade. He heartily recommended a spell on the rattan chairs near an energetic punkawallah, of which he indicated a working selection. From there the guests would have a magnificent command of the area, and could watch as the rest of the camp was set up.

  Daphne Windsor-Smythe indeed found herself struggling somewhat, although she had eagerly taken the officer’s advice. Oh, the breeze from the wallah was lovely and her daringly alcoholic Pimms deliciously cool but, well - the pages of her journal were proving most uncooperative. Having intended to take notes of her travels for use in later years when she became a fabulously successful, slightly scandalous lady novelist, Daphne drew a blank when trying to describe their current locus. It was sort of generally African, with a little Australian outback and all with a smattering of tamed Buckinghamshire that also looked like the northern American mid-west prairie - but ringed by Javan jungle. On reflection she concluded that she had unwittingly just described the landscape to perfection, and she underlined the sentence for her future editors and publishers to enjoy especially.

  Reports came in to the officers and gentlemen - which Daphne, by careful positioning and cocking of a ladylike but eavesdropping ear, could overhear. It seemed there were some quite extra-ordinary features to the landscape geographical as well as to the landscape flora and landscape fauna. Apparently the mountains on this planet went both up and down. The item on the horizon that drew the attention by some strange sixth sense and yet defeated the eye even when supplemented with binoculars had been discovered to be more of an inverted mountain than merely a steeply sided valley. This probably accounted for the distant fading scream that everyone had joked about earlier, and the missing porter. Where the mountain presented in layers of rising grasses, trees, a tree-line and then a snowy cap, the inverted mountain presented falling grasses, some most peculiar-looking trees, and then some evidence of over-warmth tending towards the almost volcanic. Where the mountain ended in cold, thin-aired altitude and snow, the un-mountain concluded with a funnel of thick, foggy sulphur and the glow of lava, some twenty-nine thousand and twenty-nine feet and one inch below ground level.

  Daphne thought it most logical and balanced that such features as mountains should be book-ended so by Mother Nature. She briefly wondered what it was like to meet one’s end by falling down an un-mountain, and found it easiest to imagine if she leaned to one side so that her head was almost upside down and then pictured someone falling up Everest. She made some notes in her journal and scribbled a diagram in the margin, complete with stick-man and scream-bubble.
She added two “thuds” and a “meaty hiss” as the stick figure reached the bottom, where the lava was.

  The river that they had lit upon upon landing was one of many such in the area, and each one different. Some were desiccated, dusty river-beds, others gave terrifying evidence of massive flows beneath the surface and all flowed in the most disorderly set of directions. A stream had been found that flowed with not water, but with a kind of fog that merely kept the bed and banks damp as it swirled about. It was as though the blueprints for the establishment had met with some chaos en route between architect and building contractor.

  This world, wrote Daphne in her best hand and using the fountain pen that her mother had given her on the occasion of her previous birthday, is most confusin’. Aside from the general curvature of the planet and the dome of the sky above, there is not one whole repeated feature to be found here. Were it not for the calming influences of a good supply of well-brewed Indian and China teas one might easily succumb to a headache! I have so far seen bird life and animal life dull and bird life and animal life defying description. Only moments ago some creature that presented the aspect of a wholly tripedal meerkat ran up, peered in wonder at each of us in turn and then back again as though not comprehending our group, and then scurried off into the foliage. I thought to have spotted a vulture, only to discover with the use of Major Cracknell’s telescope that what I had seen was a curved-beaked, bald-headed feathered thing with one wing. How it balanced its flight is beyond me (but then I never was terribly good at the masculine sciences). There is - still, I must say - a “centipede” passing our little afternoon encampment. We have been here for some hours and yet seen neither its beginning nor its end, it simply flows past constantly and for all I can guess, it rings the planet. The gentlemen are debating how best to cut it, to see if as with the worm the two halves may live separately.

  Mr Darwin, that little drudge of a man, that ocean-going boor, is going quite uncharacteristically frantic with his little pickling jars of formaldehyde, taking samples it seems every ten seconds. The Bishop is helping him and is at the moment prancing around with a butterfly net, looking for all the world like an overgrown schoolboy in his short trousers!

  Still, the expedition is well managed and amply supplied, and the tea really is excellent. We shall have proper, non-pickled examples of the wildlife to bring home later, once the porters and guides may agree upon the best location for the hides. The natural breeze here is quite entertaining, one moment the air is heavy and carries the scents of the tropics, the next it is cooling and civilised. Dinner this evening is to be quite al fresco and the chef has promised to let us sample some of the native meats!

  Daphne then accidentally put an ink splodge in her journal when, without warning cry, one of the gentlemen tested a Purdey to begin getting his eye in. She tut-tutted, sanded, rolled with blotting paper and then turned her attentions to the cucumber sandwiches and the feminine conversation instead.

  As a dusk of alien sorts approached the safari guests were encouraged into the make-shift hides that had finally been built by the river. The porters had not been terribly happy with their own construction efforts, hampered as they had been by the sheer variety of trees and the impossibility of matching up the timbers used. Still, the hide with seating area was completed, and that was the main thing. With the fading light came an air of sporting tension, and even Lady Devonshire mastered the necessary techniques of moving about quietly so as to not disturb or discourage the creatures that were expected to come in search of water.

  The predicted herds were, in fact, not forthcoming at all.

  What arrived at the water’s edge instead was a growing succession of individual animals, both nervous and bold, great and small. Some lapped at the water, some walked into it never to be seen again and yet others walked out of it and headed for the horizon, shaking like dogs. The largest creature seen was something that appeared to be a rolling boulder, granite in colour and without recognisable feature to indicate either stem or stern. Colonel Melchett bagged it with just three shots from his magnificent vintage 2 bore rifle by Holland & Holland of London. The ladies were all advised before he fired to allow a maid to put her hands over their ears before each shot, and my goodness me, some of the maids were a little mutton afterwards - quite unusable!

  Daphne was put in mind of some Guy Fawkes celebrations at one point, when the interior of the hide was overcome by the flashes of shot from the gentlemen’s glowing-hot guns. The loaders struggled to avoid being chastised for sloth. Two porters and several retriever dogs were lost during the excitement by venturing into the line of fire to clear away the kills. Once the gentlemen had sated their sporting appetites the ship’s officers joked that perhaps the ladies might like to try their hands, this being terra incognita nova and so forth and such.

  Lady Devonshire surprised everyone by showing surprising eagerness, and she was rewarded at the gun with a most spectacular animal venturing into play for its vital liquids. The beast had no fewer than six legs, the body outline of a very large bear and a wonderful pelt of soft burgundy and Wedgwood blue swirls. Lady Devonshire shot it expertly, preserving the features unmarked for stuffing and mounting, and she ordered it thus. Very few of the other ladies had the reach for the trigger, and presently the shot died down to the obvious relief of the guides.

  Dinner was a terribly grand picnic indeed, with the gentlemen each taking a lady on his arm and promenading towards the candelabra of the table, while some of the porters fetched up a tune on a small pedal-organ and some sundry woodwind. White Egyptian linen fluttered gently in the various breezes and each place was set with silver and porcelain fetched from the mothership’s supplies. It felt so adventurous to sit and make conversation in the wild, with nothing more than the footmen, porters, guides, a Louis XIV chair and a ring of guns to protect one’s back!

  Only one guest at table looked less than wholly cheerful, and that of course was still the expedition’s dour little Mr Darwin. He was occupied behind his mean pince-nez and his lined notebooks, and was quite oblivious to the fresh cuts and roasts placed before him by the chef.

  Daphne heard the First Officer summon the chef to enquire in regards to the quantity of vegetables and meats brought to table. It seemed to him that variety had been favoured too much over any consistency of menu, and the First Officer required an explanation. Each guest had more than ample of course, but each platter and each dish was different and only good manners hid the disappointment of some when comparing their fare with a fellow diner’s plate. Daphne did not hear the explanation, being buttonholed by Lady Hereford who simply had to tell her all about the unfeasibly incompetent maid attending her staterooms and how she wished that she had brought more of her own staff with her.

  Seated as he was between Lady Devonshire and the preternaturally accurately-named Lady Muktuk, Mr Darwin was not allowed to languish in his technical studies for long, and presently they wheedled him into the company.

  ‘Mr Darwin - do tell us your findings of this world, please do. The sport here has been... odd. I should love to see such variety on my on estates - the gentlemen would doubtless be overwhelmed in August.’

  ‘Odd indeed, Lady Devonshire, odd is indeed the word for it. Creation here is of a nature most puzzling, most puzzling indeed.’

  Over pudding Mr Darwin further waxed lyrical, and although quiet of tone, attracted a good deal of the attention of the diners. This had not been Lady Devonshire’s intention at all, but Mr Darwin was oblivious to all polite hint and ladylike suggestion to put a ruddy sock in it. She withered in the attempt and failed to solicit reinforcements, accepting that the mood was quite spoiled beyond repair.

  Mr Darwin first quizzed the party at length, asking if any had seen the same animal twice, and was he answered in the negative. Not so much as a breeding pair had presented themselves, each animal being utterly alone in its interaction with them. As the same answer was passed back and forth up and down the table, Mr Darwin nodded and
adjusted his Staedtler 2B pencil, his grubby pince-nez and his scientific consternation.

  The Bishop, between spoonfuls of a warmed Bakewell tart that had been fetched with the party from mothership, rambled at some length about Creation’s confusion here with the Ark and the animals surely going in two by two of course, as was necessary, but perhaps largely keeping their own company since, so to speak. God certainly moved in mysterious ways, his wonders to perform.

  Mr Darwin gently silenced the Bishop by passing him the custard, and the scientist interjected with a second question. Had any of the party observed either young or elderly of any individual creature?

  To Lady Devonshire’s further dismay the atmosphere of the table veered towards the puzzled, with each guest allowing a sense of sober thought that was not wholly dispelled by the cheeses and the fruit, also brought with them from the mothership. She observed, although she failed to issue rebuke, that this dulling of dinner conversation was one of the chief mechanisms by which science had ruined society.

  Now that they came to think of it though, no-one could remark upon seeing any young, nor any elderly at all, not one and neither had they seen any sick or infirm, although with some of the designs it was agreed that it may be difficult to differentiate between wholesome and afflicted.

  Also wary of the loss of cheer, the First Officer jibed that all of God’s creatures there present were of the most perfect state with regards to both form and age, and most especially so the ladies of the table. He raised a toast to the same sentiments and felt his job well done.

  Mr Darwin, however, having more about him of the country peasant than the town gentleman, was not to be silenced so easily. ‘I venture then, ladies and gentlemen, that Creation here has seen fit to employ an entirely different modus operandi with regard to nature and to life itself. I propose that each creature here is absolutely and utterly - indeed I may say terribly - unique. This planet is quite without the customary life-cycle of God’s works with regard to the plants and the animals.’