by Paul Ableman
It lasted for seven minutes, making it about two minutes longer than any other session of the Galactic Council ever held. Then slowly verbalization began once more at the topmost level, at first restricted to stylized exclamations.
“Whew!”
“Gosh!”
“Vilp!”
“Glad we don’t do that every day!”
“Not sorry that little session’s over!”
“Agg, it seems you’re not so nutty after all.”
“So it’s time to hand over.”
“Who’d have thought those barbarians were the ones?”
A delegation was appointed. Three senior councillors—not including Agg—were despatched to the distant planet Earth to inform its primitive inhabitants that they happened to be the trustees of the greatest evolutionary potential of any life-form up to and including the Vilp, to offer the human race graduated access to all Vilp science and to transfer to the nursery dominion of man the hegemony of the cosmos. Then, with a final burst of cheerful farewells, the doomed councillors of a self-condemned species dispersed once more to resume their unending patrol, but not the sex drive, until the reply from Earth was received….
*
At this point, nearly at the poignant climax of my work, I received a letter from Henry Glebe informing me that he had now abandoned the earth-borer since certain new calculations he had made indicated that such a machine would not prove genuinely effective:
It seems that the most we could hope for would be that it would plunge its nose several feet into the earth. You will appreciate, Mr. Witt, that at the commercial level very few people would pay money for such a short ride, probably not even if cocktails and ice cream were served gratis. Then again, the military applications would be seriously restricted since it is an uncommon event for an embattled nation to wish to plunge soldiers a few feet into the ground where they are unlikely to encounter the enemy.
Accordingly, I have ceased development on the borer and must ask you to remove all mention of it from your forthcoming novel, since it would clearly be actionable to suggest that I would devote myself to producing a stupid machine of this kind.
I have, however, exceedingly pleasant news for you. There is not on the market at present a lawn-mower capable of whistling popular songs. The simple incorporation of a steam organ in a conventional mower would result in such a machine and I am at present at work along these exciting lines. You can consider yourself at liberty to utilize this new invention in your novel in place of that stupid old borer that I should never have devoted so many fruitless years to developing.
Another point: my son has given up hitch-hiking because he wishes to become a tycoon. He therefore wishes to withdraw from your novel since he feels that his new image would not happily accommodate the idea of hitch-hiking aimlessly about the place.
Hoping that you are well and that our effective and grandiose collaboration may continue.
Yours with a merry whistle,
Henry Glebe
Naturally I was far from pleased with this intelligence but nevertheless retired to my study to see if it would be possible to adjust my novel to the new conditions. As a test, I went back to the first chapter.
THE SILVER SPORES
Chapter 1
… at this the crew members exchanged a puzzled glance.
“What did you say, sir?” asked Captain Guildenkrantz, hesitantly.
The minister repeated his statement and then the captain explained that she felt there had been a failure of liaison somewhere.
“You see, sir, no one mentioned the planet Puphborl to us. We thought we were going to mow Earth.”
“Well, I’m afraid you were wrong,” the minister rebuked her. “Space is the rave these days and we’ve decided that you lot are to mow Puphborl. Damn it, it’s only eighty-four million light years away.”
“It may not be far, sir,” demurred the captain anxiously, “but how are we to get there?”
“In the whistling mower, of course.”
Sonya now attempted to explain to the minister that the mower was in no way suitable for space travel, but he testily silenced her.
“Look here, Guildenkrantz, if you can’t get to Puphborl, I’ll find another team who can.”
“Give me a moment, sir.”
Captain Guildenkrantz now turned hopefully to old Glebe, the pathetic idiot who had given them the whistling lawn-mower.
“Can you do it?” she asked simply.
“Do it—flew it—suet—” gibbered Glebe.
“Pull yourself together, man. Can you adapt this mower for space travel?”
“Can adapt it for anything, girlikins,” leered Glebe, with a lewd gesture.
“Stop that, you old beast!” hissed Sonya sibilantly, kicking Glebe on the shin.
Glebe uttered a stentorian howl of pain. Taking alarm, the remainder of the crew leapt aboard the mower which, blasting out “Cattle Man’s Stomp” from its organ pipes, trundled away across country in the direction of Mushton….
*
It was no good. The game was lost. The whimsical unreliability of my characters amounting, I felt almost convinced, in the case of Glebe to certifiable lunacy, had wrecked the project. The Silver Spores would never drip from the presses, never grace the shelves of the libraries, never comfort the nocturnal pillow. How many months had gone by on this abortive project? I could barely guess. Indeed after forty-five minutes of concentrated guessing I abandoned the attempt. Still, there were consolations. I was still rich, respected and famous. Next time I would vet my applicants more carefully, subjecting them to a full range of psychological and emotional stability tests. In spite of everything I felt almost gay.
I went for a walk in the garden. Some of my children were hoeing long rows of yams and others were harvesting baskets of breadfruit. A few shorthorn cattle browsed placidly on the whortleberries. Two of my daughters were perched in the boughs of a blackthorn tree, turning axles for diesel locomotives. An elephant trundled up the kitchen path. My wife was astride the animal’s neck. With a brusque command, she caused the great beast to kneel and then helped me up behind her. I clasped my arms fondly around her waist. With a jab of her heels, she impelled the animal forward and we lurched off out of the garden gate and down the street. Before long, we saw my publisher advancing to meet us. He was clad in a suit of black armour and was riding on a milk-white stallion. I guessed immediately that he had come to declare his eternal devotion to my wife and challenge me to single combat.
Copyright
This ebook edition first published in 2014
by Faber and Faber Ltd
Bloomsbury House
74–77 Great Russell Street
London WC1B 3DA
All rights reserved
© Paul Ableman, 1969
Preface © Margaret Drabble, 2006, 2014
The right of Paul Ableman to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
The preface by Margaret Drabble is reproduced with kind permission of the Independent, where it first appeared.
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly
ISBN 978–0–571–31418–8
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