by Mark Roman
The tin heads shook.
The tin heads rocked back in astonishment.
Olli frowned.
Olli looked around.
Then, one by one, they returned to Botany Base, each looking around casually, whistling a tune and nonchalantly kicking at random stones on the ground as they went.
22. The Bad Matters Tea Party
“Are we there yet?” asked Tarquin from the back seat of MarsBug 1, crushed with the rest of the Brush family. “I’m scared.”
Delphinia cuddled and reassured her little action hero.
“Is me drivin’ botherin’ yer?” enquired Flint with a grin, twitching the steering wheel to aim the rubber wheels at the largest rock he could find. He glanced in the driving mirror to observe his passengers’ space helmets clattering against the ceiling of the buggy as it bounced over the rock.
“No, I’m frightened of the birds,” stuttered Tarquin. He scanned the Martian horizon with wide eyes.
“Yer too young to be mitherin’ yerself about birds,” said Flint. “Any road, there ain’t no birds where we’re goin’. It’s all fellas.”
“Gung!” interjected Brian Brush. “He’s referring to the giant alien bird-like creatures we have good reason to believe live on Mars.”
“Giant what?” asked Flint with a laugh.
“There’s, like, some seriously massive pigeons out there,” said Gavin Brush waving a hand towards the desert. “Tarq found a feather belonging to one of them. Out by the obelisk.”
“Weren’t a noblisk, after all,” put in Tracey.
Delphinia turned to her husband. “What were the results of the DNA analysis, love?”
“Still processing. They’ll be ready by the time we get back.” He gave her hand a squeeze.
“What the chuff are you lot gibberin’ about back there? Yer as daft as friggin’ brushes.” Flint laughed. “D’yer gerrit? ‘Daft as Brushes’.”
While the Brush family gazed, stony faced, across the sandy landscape, the occupant of the passenger seat next to him gave an exaggerated chuckle. “Ooh, you are awful, Commander,” said Emily, lifting a fist to give him a friendly prod, but thinking better of it at the last moment.
Dugdale scowled at her. “Which way, Leachy?”
The question threw Emily into a fluster, causing her to fumble the vast unfolded map in her hands, tearing one of the creases in the process. “Just a moment,” she squeaked, rustling the sheet as she set to studying it, her twitchy fingers darting from one point to the next in a desperate scramble to identify where they were. Every now and then she looked up at the view outside like a panic-stricken meerkat before tutting loudly and reverting to her frantic search of the map. As her anxiety mounted, the “Er …” she was uttering rose in pitch.
“I’ll keep it simple,” growled Dugdale. “Left or right of that ’ill up ahead?”
Far from keeping it simple, it made Emily jerk her head upwards, eyes wide open. “What hill? There’s no hill on this map.”
Dugdale issued a loud, long-suffering sigh.
“It’s not easy, you know,” insisted Emily. “One desert looks pretty much like the next. And there are no signposts or road names, you know! Why don’t I drive and you do the map reading?”
“Not chuffin’ likely,” said Flint accelerating up the hill at full speed. “Let’s see what we can see from the top of this thing.”
*
“Down there on the right!” cried Tarquin, pointing. “I see a building.”
Flint hauled the steering wheel clockwise, causing the buggy to make the turn on two wheels. He tore down the hill at full speed, tossing the buggy’s occupants like a bulky salad. The buggy screeched to a halt in front of a magnificent space-age building fronting a huge glass dome beyond. The second buggy, Marsbug 2, followed at a more leisurely pace and stopped behind them.
“Shit-a-brick!” roared Flint at the building. “Where the ‘ell did that bastard come from?”
The colonists tumbled out of the two buggies and gazed up in wonder at the architectural edifice.
“It’s magnificent,” said Emily in awe.
Dugdale’s upper lip started twitching. “How did four old geezers build that?”
“You think there’s something the Germans aren’t telling us?” asked Brian Brush.
“I think there’s a lot they aren’t telling us. Starting with what they’ve done with t’Botany Base food supplies.” He turned to address them. “Right, you lot. Let’s sort these thieving rogues out. We’ll show ‘em what us Brits are made of.”
He waddled up the steps of the giant portico, with the colonists straggling up behind him. At the top was a gigantic oak door looking like something from a gothic horror movie. Slowly, spookily, it creaked open. And then, when all the colonists had passed through, it slammed shut behind them, its booming echoes reverberating around the massive hall for several seconds.
Miss Leach jumped at the sound, squealing as she slipped on the polished marble floor. She ended up with space-suited legs spread-eagled in a most unladylike pose and her parasol skittering off across the hall.
A hand reached out to her, seemingly from nowhere.
“Let me help you, meine pretty flibbertigibbet. The floor it is quite treacherous.”
“Oh, why thank you!” said Emily, reaching up to accept the proffered hand. “So charming.”
With one hand under her arm and the other under her bottom, Helmut von Grommel gently lifted Emily to her feet. She giggled and fanned her space helmet.
Within a second Flint had grabbed the German by the lapels and thrust his space-helmet into Helmut’s face. “Look ‘ere, Fritz!”
“Ze name is Helmut.” Helmut gave a sweet smile before unleashing a whirlwind of swinging arms and legs that tripped and flipped and clipped Dugdale and left him in a heavy heap on the floor.
“So sorry, Kapitan. I would never have attempted canoodlings with the pretty lady if I had known of your love feelings for her. And now, I fear, you are hurt in ze posterior.”
“Love feelin’s?” Dugdale spat as he struggled to get up.
“This beetroot complexion you are displaying in the window of your space hat. Is this not the glow of ze shy lover who is exposed in the publics?”
Emily shrieked with delight. Here was confirmation, of sorts, that Flint really did love her.
But Dugdale’s beetroot complexion became even redder as the rage surged through him. He got to his feet and raised a threatening fist. “Listen, you thieving bugger. Warra’ve yer done with all t’food?”
“Food, of course, of course,” said Helmut, raising a calming hand. “Ze tea and ze crumpets are being readied even as we are speaking.”
“I’m not talkin’ about ‘ze tea and ze crumpets’! I mean all t’ Botany Base food supplies.”
Dugdale’s fury was a terrible thing to behold and the colonists edged back a step. But Helmut merely smiled a charming smile. “Ah, I now am seeing the reason why you are so miffed. But this is a simple misconstroodling. We may have borrowed
the odd tin of baked beans or two ...”
“Borrowed?” roared Dugdale. “Odd tin of baked beans or two? And the rest! ‘Appen we ‘ad two years’ supply of food and now there’s nowt.”
“Oh, did we really trade so many items? Tut, tut. Well, we have many of the offerings to make in return.” Helmut beckoned them to follow him to the other end of the hall. “You may remove your helmets. The air here is fine to breathe.”
Dugdale fumed, but took off his helmet, as did the others. They followed the German, looking around the hall. Its walls were decorated with numerous oil paintings: van Goghs, Cezannes, Raphaels, Vermeers and Rembrandts. Among them were a few rectangles of paler wall-colour as though several, prominently positioned paintings had been recently removed.
“Are these the originals?” asked Harry.
Helmut chuckled. “Just a hobby of one of my colleagues,” he replied.
“Ace space-base, man,” remarked Zak.
“Can we live here, Mummy?” asked Tarquin. Delphinia smiled and ruffled his hair, but said nothing.
The teenagers were taking photos with their blablets.
Helmut reached out and fiddled with a lever just beneath the waist of a nude Michelangelo sculpture. The floor started vibrating, as though he had just triggered a minor earthquake. Then the whole heavy masonry wall in front of them slid open.
Unfolding before their eyes was a scene that rendered them speechless. Behind the wall was an open veranda leading to an enormous, classically-designed stone staircase plunging deep into the interior of an ancient Martian meteorite crater. The staircase had nine landings, each connected to wide, landscaped terraces concentrically circling the sloping sides of the crater. Here and there were cave-like openings in the crater’s side. At the bottom, some fifty metres below, lay a small lake of crystal-clear water.
The sides of the crater were carpeted with lush, green crops. At the bottom were clusters of trees and bushes, and what looked like farmsteads, with small wooden buildings and fenced-off enclosures for livestock. Illumination came partly from the weak sunlight filtering through the domed roof above, and partly from the ultra-violet floodlights suspended from the roof structure.
Helmut proudly announced, “Velcome to mein home.”
“’Ow the chuffin’ Ada did four old geezers knock this together?”
“We were not always this old, Herr Kapitan, but I confess we had a little help from….” Here he covered his mouth with his hand and coughed the remainder of the sentence into it. “Walk zis way, please.”
Brian Brush leaned close to his wife and whispered a few words into her ear, tapping his nose when she gave him an enquiring look in return.
Helmut led the group around the upper level of the terraces, proudly describing the huge variety of crops laid out below them. “See down there, on level six? Das is Hansie Wankmüller tending to his beloved carrots.” Helmut leaned across the balustrade and waved. “Hello, Hansie.”
Below them, Hansie Wankmüller, an untidy-looking man, looked up and spotted the visitors. He raised a fist and shouted something in German that sounded a bit like, “Dumme scheisse schweine!”
“Ha, ha!” laughed Helmut. “He says ‘Hi’. Great sense of humour, our Hansie. This way, please.” He led them through one of the tunnel openings and into a ramped corridor slicing through volcanic rock. Flicking a switch, a long line of ceiling lights burst into life as far as the eye could see. One of the nearby lights blinked before winking out.
“Dammen it!” Helmut frowned. “I vill have to ask the robotniki to change the bulb ...” He stopped himself. “Did I say robotniki? Vhat am I like? What I meant to say was, I will ask Hansie.” The German tapped his head, to emphasise his silly mistake. Then, to change the subject, he said, “Before I am introducing you to Dr Otto Bungelly, I need to be warning you about him. He is very brilliant und is the designer of everythings that you are seeing here. Without his genius, we are surely becoming as dead as ze dodos. But, as you are knowing, if we use a muscle a lot, the muscle is growing bigger and stronger. So it is with Otto’s brain. He is using his brain all the time, never stopping to rest. Always thinking, always inventing. Consequently, his brain und head is growing to be grossen. When you meet him, please try not to be alarmed and staring at his head all the time. He is very self-conscious about it.”
He halted and knocked at a door in the passage.
“Wer ist es?” called a high-pitched voice from behind the door.
“It’s Helmut. Who else could it be?”
“It could be Hansie.”
“Well, it is not Hansie, it is Helmut. Now open ze door.”
The sound of bolts being drawn and locks being turned echoed down the rocky corridor, and eventually, with a creak, the door opened. The colonists followed Helmut in, some wondering why such a secure door had been installed. Brian and Delphinia exchanged frowns.
The room resembled an old-fashioned gentlemen’s club. Wood panelled walls, red leather armchairs, library shelving crammed with books, paintings of historic figures in robes and a stuffed stag’s head leering at them from high on the far wall.
From behind the door emerged a man with a head that was at least five times normal size. His mouth, nose, eyes and ears were standard size and bore a remarkable resemblance to Errol Flynn. But his skull was gigantic and he seemed to be struggling to balance it on his shoulders.
Miss Leach stifled a scream and Delphinia hauled her precious lambkin to her chest.
“By Beelzebub’s bollocks, what the fupp!” was all that Dugdale could say.
No one was truly prepared for the sight that stood in front of them. And despite Helmut’s earlier request for them not to stare, there was nothing they could do to wrench their horrified and fascinated gazes from the Head.
“May I introduce to you, Dr Otto Bungelly,” said Helmut. “Ze brains of our outfit.”
The word ‘brains’ merely helped focus their glares at the very thing they were supposed not to be staring at.
Fortunately, the wobble of a stepladder on the right of the room distracted them. Struggling to keep his balance on the top was a man attempting to secure the end of a banner cobbled together from old white sheets and shirts. Scrawled across it, in red paint, were the words ‘VELLCOME TO MARS’. The man steadied himself and scowled down at the colonists. He was short, chubby and ugly, not helped by an upper lip deformity accentuated by a toothbrush moustache, with a floppy black fringe hanging over cold blue eyes.
“That’s Andy Marsman up there,” said Helmut. “He is a great painter.”
Gavin whispered to Oberon, “He is not doing a great job wiv dat banner, innit.”
Tarquin tugged at the arm of his mother’s spacesuit and blurted, “Mummy, he looks just like Adolf Hitler.”
Delphinia smothered her little man’s speaker grille before he could embarrass them further.
“Ze little fellow must be referring to Herr Hitler,” Helmut was saying, placing a finger on his lips and looking up at the ceiling. “Ja, maybe I am remembering something about this guy. He wore a nice leather coat and would call at the firework factory to inspect our rockets. But I really am not seeing ze resemblance to Andy. Shall we all take a seat and have our tea?”
*
Otto Bungelly manoeuvred a trolley, filled with fine china cups and saucers along with an elegant silver teapot and a magnificent Battenberg cake, towards the guests. As he walked, he held his monstrous head as vertically as he could, as though the slightest tilt in any direction would see it toppling off his shoulders.
“So very pleased to be making your acquaintances,” said Otto in a high-pitched squeaky voice. “It is so nice to finally have humans living up at ze vonderful Robotany Base. Please have some of the cake I have specially baked according to Mrs Beethoven’s Old German recipe book.”
Each of the group accepted a slice of the delicious looking Battenberg and waited patiently and politely for the ‘one lump or two’ tea distribution procedure to complete.
Then, in the space of about two seconds flat, they had voraciously wolfed down their cake and gulped down their tea, holding both cup and plate out for seconds.
*
“After tea, I will be showing you Otto’s most remarkable invention,” said Helmut as he swept cake crumbs from his trousers.
Otto awkwardly turned his oversized head to look at his friend. “Oh, shicks, it is not so remarkable,”
“You mean ‘shucks’, Otto,” corrected Helmut.
“Zat is vhat I said, ‘shucks’.”
“You said shicks.”
“I never.”
“You did.”
“I never,” squealed Otto.
Helmut turned to his guests. “Brilliant, yet so very temperamental. It is always thus with the great minds.”
Otto seemed to blush, not just on his cheeks, but on the ears and a fair fraction of his cranium. He lowered his eyes.
During this exchange, Brian Brush had been busy. Surreptitiously he had removed a scientific sample-bag from his pocket and, while everyone was distracted, had plucked several hairs from the armchair on which he was sitting before depositing them in the bag and squirrelling everything away into his pocket. Only his wife Delphinia saw his actions, watching them with an open mouth and checking no one else was observing him. When he had finished, Brian threw her a wink and turned to listen to what Helmut was about to say.
“Now then, Herr Kapitan. I have a propositioning to be making at you.”
“Oh, aye?” asked Flint, raising a mistrustful eyebrow as he knocked back his second cup of tea.
“We have been on Mars for over eighty years und we would quite like to be going home now to catch up with the friends and families.”
“So?”
“We have no space vehicle.”
“And?”
“And you do.”
“There’s no way yer ‘avin’ me piggin’ spaceship.”
Helmut laughed and put the fingertips of his two hands together. “No, mein kapitan. I was not expecting you to be just giving me your shiny ship.”
“Just as well, lad.”