NGLND XPX

by Ian Hutson

  The whole basket shifted a little across the floor every once in a while as the Labrador’s arse acted as a very effective manoeuvring-jet whenever he farted. He had found that sometimes he went to sleep in one place and woke up later in a quite different corner of the room. He suspected that he was having some fantastic second doggy-life that he remembered nothing about when he woke up. Either that or his fleas were, quite literally, moving home overnight without consulting him.

  Cholmondeley made a mental note, once again, to attach Velcro to the underside of the basket as well as to the sleeping surfaces. He believed in letting sleeping dogs lie and watching a dog with an erection and eyes tightly shut circumnavigate the room was more than a little bit disturbing.

  Cholmondeley caught himself drifting, and set his mind to more pressing matters. ‘How’s the boiler?’

  ‘Oh roaring away splendidly. I’ll check it again before bed and stoke it up and we should be fine until morning. Tomorrow I’ll add more lagging to the feed-pipes and put another couple of radiators towards the tail end of the comet.’

  ‘Splendid. And the coal consumption?’

  ‘Nominal – five by five. Provided that the next delivery is on time and we keep the cellars in trim I foresee no problems. I’ve ordered twelve bags. Once the extra lagging is in place we can turn the thermostat down a notch or two in fact and save some money.’

  On hearing a reference in his sleep to the mechanics of “more warmth” the Labrador wagged his tail. Well, to be perfectly candid, in the low gravity of Rorke’s Drift he enthusiastically wagged his basket a couple of times. Next to eating food for the first or second times, shitting, and humping legs, enjoying warmth was one of his top four favourite things. He dreamed of doggy-Heaven, in which all four life-activities would be combined into one with the added bonus of someone to tickle his ears as he chewed on a bone while shagging a leg-shaped heating boiler.

  Cholmondeley opened his face-hatch and carefully blew the smoke that had been collecting in his helmet out into the room in a series of stunning smoke-rectangles. For a couple of minutes his head was visible once again, although he retained a feint grey-blue aura, rather like a maths schoolmaster might, when thinking hard. He tapped his Calabash out and re-filled it with pre-rolled Dunhill’s Strongest Medicated Pit-Weed (guaranteed to freshen up the lungs and re-awaken those smoke-jaded taste buds).

  While the boiler chugged away and the rather clever automated hopper system fed premium anthracite eggs into the flames, Cholmondeley and Higginbotham read a little, played a couple of games of Old Maid and then brewed cocoa. Finally Cholmondeley stood and stretched.

  ‘Bed, I think, Higginbotham.’ His speech was delivered rather in the manner of an order.

  Higginbotham slipped into an awkward, goofy grin and looked at his feet. ‘Gosh, sir – well, if you say so.’ He was still kicking about awkwardly, broggling an ear out with his finger when he heard Cholmondeley’s bedroom door close. Life can be so cruel sometimes. He shuffled off to his own room and once more into the arms of Tiberius, his rather large Teddy bear. Still, at least in space no-one can hear a chap weep. Tiberius was quite used to being damp and emotionally drained by dawn.

  The following morning, as Sod’s Law would have it, they both arose rather late and dawdled over their breakfast tea, tubes of hot buttered toast-paste and the morning newspapers. The paper-boy had jammed them all in the letterbox again, ripping the sports sections. It was difficult to tell whether Sussex had declared or whether someone had declared Sussex de-eclaired. After Higginbotham had checked the boilers and Cholmondeley had dealt with the day’s correspondence from the first post they indulged in a light lunch of tubes of poached salmon with tubes of green salad and fresh minted new potatoes from a can. Then they took medical advice from Mission Control and had a bit of a snooze each. This meant that they were rather caught on the hop by a snap inspection by the Ministry, for the Ministry never liaises in advance in re snap inspections.

  Carstairs, Carstairs minor and Carruthers , the men from the Ministry, stepped out of the dull mint-green Humber Space-Imperial and shouldered their black umbrellas with the precision of a military parade. One, two, three, ten-hut you ‘orrible little man dress that line and stick those chests OUT!

  Rorke’s Drift, as the outpost had been designated by Edith in the Distant Outpost Designation Office, was a little smaller than they had expected. This was a good thing because some serious shrinkage had been written into the schedule for the project. Shrinkage qua shrinkage though was not what Carstairs, Carstairs and Carruthers were here to oversee. They were at Rorke’s Drift to check whether the shrinkage Her Majesty’s Government had so far received for the tax-payer’s money was of sufficiently good value for the next stage-payment to be handed over, and for the supply of the return journey fuel coupons and another week’s supply of seaside-salty breathing oxygen.

  Carruthers and Carstairs minor carried briefcases; Carstairs carried just his authority. His goldfish-bowl helmet had the necessary Senior Executive Officer-rank indentations to prevent his bowler hat from repeatedly slipping off in the low gravity.

  They all scanned the lie of the land, like three monkeys looking, listening and saying nothing. Carstairs (not minor) poked at the ice with the tip of his umbrella. It was nasty, dirty stuff such as one might find at the side of the Great North Road in January. He wiped the tip of his umbrella off on Carruther’s trouser ankle (maltreatments being a benefit of rank).

  Several huts lay to spinward, two of them emitting wisps of smoke and a lot of steam. Piles of coal had been sorted neatly between old railway sleepers. A large yellow Labrador dog wearing a gold-fish bowl had his leg cocked against the outside of a hut that bore a hand-painted sign with the legend “Home, sweet home”. Lazy globules of Lucozade-like Labrador urine were floating away towards the tail of the comet, steaming gently and rolling slowly over each other as they boiled away in the lack of atmosphere and the social vacuum. While they watched with a shared but unspoken and slightly creepy fascination, the stream of globules produced reduced in size from oranges to tangerines to walnuts and eventually to peas – peas of pee, no less, no more. There was a pause while the dog pinched his buttocks together a half-dozen times and then added a final burst of liquid full-stops. A little of his efforts drifted far enough with the spin of the body to burst over the wheels of the Humber. The three gentlemen from the Ministry sidestepped while they still could.

  Suddenly the door of the main hut opened and Cholmondeley appeared, dressed in red tartan dressing gown, hairy bare knees, Wellington boots and goldfish-helmet, carrying several empty gin bottles in the crook of one arm and holding up a small hand-written sign showing the classic “Here boy” dog whistle to recall the dog in the airless environment. It was a moment or two before he noticed the three officials. He dumped the empties and put the tin lid back on the corrugated dustbin. The dog was galumphing towards the intruders with his tongue lolling.

  ‘Gentlemen, the electrickery meter is on the wall, just around the corner – but it was read only a week ago.’

  ‘We’re not here to read the meter, Mr Cholmondeley. We’re here to check that the roaring boiler-fires of Whitehall are having the intended effect, and are doing so with the economy expected from a publicly-funded project. May I use your lavatory?’

  ‘What? Yes – of course, it’s also around the corner. The smaller hut with the squares of tabloid newspaper hanging outside on string.’

  ‘Thank you. May my colleagues, Mr Carruthers and Mr Carstairs minor – he is of absolutely no relation to me of course – come inside while they wait?’

  ‘Um. Yes – however they ordinarily pass their time while you’re um, in the loo. Yes, do come in gentlemen, do.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Thank you. Most kind.’

  They both followed the dog indoors. There were a few awkward minutes while they settled themselves and then Cholmondeley realised that he was physically intimidating the younger chaps,
and hastily tied his dressing gown cord.

  ‘Er - lovely weather – for the time of year.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Here. And there. Mostly elsewhere.’

  ‘Yes indeed. Quite clement, for a comet. Have you travelled far?’

  ‘From Earth. We’ve been sent out rather to, well – to be candid – to have a sniff around, check on progress and report to H.M. and to P.M.’

  ‘Mmm. Splendid. Tea?’

  ‘That would be most welcome. Thank you. There were no cafes en route and our official travel-flask, while refreshing, didn’t last past the moon.’

  Cholmondeley moved a pile of dirty magazines from a chair. Airfix Modellers Weekly and British East-Coast Rolling-Stock Monthly fell onto the floor, and some of the dirt and all of the biscuit crumbs dislodged.

  ‘We might have called ahead but your line is down’ apologised Carruthers.

  ‘Yes, we’ve been having problems with the connection. The General Post Office is working on it. It’s a fault at the exchange – something to do with the weight of the wire required and the necessary slack being taken in as we approach Earth. We are rather off the beaten track here, it’s a wonder that they could get us a line installed at all.’

  ‘Splendid. The G.P.O. is such a stout organisation. It rather affords one the feeling that the whole organisation is built along the lines of a Morris Minor Van.’

  ‘Quite so. Right then. Tea it is.’ Cholmondeley disappeared into the little flat-roofed extension that they used as a kitchen and put the kettle on. As quietly as he could he extricated four of the best cups and saucers that were stacked in with the other washing-up in the sink and rinsed them over and around and alongside the vagaries of the flow of the tap as best he could. In dismal gravity it was sometimes all a chap could do to keep the water in the sink. When you couldn’t see the sink for the pots it was damned nigh impossible. He laid out a tray with milk, sugar and – in view of the hour and his knowledge of the dining sensibilities of senior civil servants – pink and yellow wafer biscuits and a few precious custard creams.

  Carstairs came back from the loo with the expression on his face of a man who was on a mission, who knew his paperwork and who was determined to watch intently while it was all filled out by his subordinates.

  ‘Mr Cholmondeley, the compound is a little smaller than I had been led to believe it might be.’

  ‘Yes indeed, we’ve had some success with the project and are approximately twenty-three minutes ahead of schedule.’

  ‘Oh excellent, the P.M. will be pleased.’ Carstairs shifted more comfortably into his armchair while Carruthers made a note of “twenty-three”.

  Cholmondeley moved things along. ‘Shall we get this survey thing out of the way and then this evening if you can stay for dinner I have a rather splendid port that you might find amusing.’

  ‘Dinner? Splendid.’ Everything for the tea was laid out very nicely, considering. ‘Shall I be mother?’

  ‘I don’t know old boy – what have you been doing that you perhaps ought not to have?’

  Oh how they all laughed.

  The tea was in fact quite delicious – Cholmondeley had insisted on leaf tea from some of his own family plantations. The biscuits went down rather too well, although they had to switch to chocolate Bourbons before the large “entertaining” teapot was empty.

  Suddenly, an awkward social hiatus fell upon the conversation and all eyes turned to Shakespeare.

  Where he had previously been enjoying a postprandial canine snooze he was now sitting upright in the middle of the fireside rug, slightly cross-eyed and looking mildly distressed. Carstairs, Carstairs minor and Carruthers put down their drinks, not knowing what to expect. Cholmondeley just groaned. ‘Oh dear, not again.’

  The Labrador belched and swallowed, belched and swallowed and with each little spasm the belches and swallows became more serious and more energetic. Finally he stood and concentrated, furrowing his brow and assuming a working-dog stance.

  ‘Is your dog quite alright?’

  ‘Fine, fine – I just think he may have eaten his tube of Pedigree Chum pre-mixed with Winalot paste a little too quickly. He’s probably eaten the tube as well, again. This isn’t going to be pretty.’

  ‘Should we do anything?’

  ‘Just try to not react, he gets awfully self-conscious. Do please brace yourselves, emotionally.’

  The dog was now looking as though Sigourney Weaver’s mother-in-law was trying to climb up the inside of his windpipe and burst forth into the world. His little goldfish-bowl helmet wobbled and swayed around his collar. Then he let rip and the goldfish-bowl looked suddenly like the perfect gloss on a vast spherical brain made of diced carrots and chunky horsemeat – a brain already being destroyed by a long pink tongue licking at it appreciatively from the inside.

  Carstairs (minor, of course) tried to run from the room but only succeeded in hitting the ceiling where he clung to the chandelier and swung gently in circles, concentrating hard on controlling his own retching. Carruthers hugged his briefcase on his knees but couldn’t prevent himself from watching in much the way he always watched train wrecks and large ships sinking.

  The tongue continued working until the front hemisphere of the dog’s helmet was sort of clean-ish and only the rear hemisphere remained hugely disturbing on some primeval level, looking very like an exploded brain through which a very happy pet Labrador dog’s head had been pushed at not some inconsiderable speed. That the dog often stopped in his endeavours to chew (or rather, to re-chew) made it all the more disconcerting. He was wagging his tail again though and wondering why he was being watched. All was well once more, except for Carruthers who was then not well at all.

  Higginbotham chose that moment to return from his long shift in the field, persuading gas bubbles out of his beloved (heating) system. He hung up his bleeding key on the bleeding key-hook and wondered what the bleeding hell was going on. ‘Bloody hell!’ he said, before looking around and realising that they had company.

  Shakespeare started panting happily and let loose a fart that propelled him some six or seven yards across the room. Higginbotham took this as a sign that the dog had finally accepted him and bent down, intending to pat it on the helmet, before shying away again and deciding that maybe he was a cat-person after all. Perhaps there had been some sort of nasty decompression accident? ‘I say – has this dawg exploded recently?’

  Cholmondeley performed the necessary introductions. Higginbotham tried to explain to the guests what he had been doing.

  ‘Bleeding radiators.’

  They were obviously anxious to seem polite and Carruthers did his admirable best to reply in kind. ‘Sodding boilers?’

  ‘No, no, just bleeding the radiators today. I buggered the automatic hopper feed yesterday, and Cholmondeley won’t let me near the old boiler now unless he’s there to chaperone while I use the sodding rod to clean out the clinker filters.’

  ‘I see. How splendid.’ Replied Carstairs, not being able to speak “common little workman” with any degree of plausibility or fluency.

  Cholmondeley cut in before things got ugly. ‘You’ll all stay the night of course?’

  ‘You have guest accommodation?’

  Cholmondeley pointed to the rows of empty bunk beds and all five of them sighed the sigh of grown chaps re-living both their teenage years and their twenties at home.

  After dinner that evening they all went outside to watch the fireworks. Rocket after rocket after rocket following missile after missile after missile past the comet and all blazing trails of gold and red and blue and green until their fuel gave out.

  ‘Oh I say – some sort of twenty-one gun salute is it? It must be simply wonderful to know that the world appreciates your efforts eh?’ said Carstairs minor, gushing ever so slightly. ‘Oh, hang on though – there’s many more than twenty-one.’

  ‘Actually, not a salute as such – I’m fairly certain that the rest of the world neither knows nor car
es that we are here. The English Ambassador to Brussels tried but couldn’t get an appointment and all of his telephone calls were either queued or routed to the call-centre in Bombay. Poor chap is still recovering from “on-hold music” toxicity of the brain. No, those are the world’s combined nukes. They are trying their damnedest to blow up this comet. Fortunately, their aim is really quite shite.’

  ‘Nukes?’

  ‘Yah – as I mentioned, the World Government decided to blow the damn thing up. I’m not certain that they would change their minds even if they knew that we were here. Some group of Hollywooden generals decided that it would be better to suffer the slings and arrows of two gross of comet-fragments and that nukes was their only option. Besides, you know how desperate they’ve been for decades for an excuse to fire them in anger. Hollywood was beginning to wonder if the little bulb in President Morgan Freeman’s “DefCon One” indicator was still serviceable.’

  ‘But what if one of them lands on target? What then?’

  ‘We’d all briefly be very well-lit and extremely warm I suppose. Best to not think about it – there’s a serious job to be done here and someone must try to do it, whatever the risks. We may rarely get the glory or even the plaudits, but where there is a country in need of colonisation when we leave we at least leave behind railways and stable government, where there is a comet in need of a beating we’ll give better than we take. We always do.’

  ‘Indeed. Johnny Foreigner does tend to panic so at the first whiff of potential annihilation.’

  ‘Any idea which is which?’

  ‘Which what is which?’

  ‘Nuke.’