by Linda Jaivin
Eros, meanwhile, had just caught wind of the fact that the biggest, baddest, bestest rock concert ever was going to happen the following night in Sydney, Australia, Earth. Those babes. Promises-shmomises, Eros was going to be in the mosh. What had God ever done for him, hey?
But twinkle twinkle Mazzy Star, how the hell do you get that far? Kirkwood gaps! Eros jumped up and down in his joy! That’s it! The ejection seats of the asteroid belt! If I can just manoevre into one of the gaps, Jupiter’s gravitational pull will just whip me up and away!
Here we go! Yaaaaaaaaaay!
After what seemed to Baby a very long time veering on forever, Jake finally woke up. ‘Morning, starshine,’ she greeted him, rather too brightly for that time of day.
‘Mmmm,’ he moaned, stretching and yawning and rolling on top of her. He was still sticky with her juices and his own. ‘I feel seedy,’ he informed her.
‘Why don’t you take a shower then?’
‘What—and spoil the moment?’ he replied, yawning again, rolling off and scratching his balls. Baby looked at Jake with a new and disturbing clarity. Her antennae felt unusually sharp. They were picking up all sorts of things. Jake’s air of post-coital complacency, for one. The Missing Banana for another. (It was hiding under a copy of Homer’s Odyssey, another book Jake was planning to read When He Got Old.) She suddenly recalled the feeling of let-down she’d had that first night in the sexual experimentation chamber, when she’d wondered if that was all there was to sex. Now of course, she knew better. Last night—now that was Sex with a capital S. It was more than that, too, it was, you know, the pop thing as well as the rock thing. But now what?
Jake threw an arm over her. It felt heavy and confining. She needed space, she thought. Which, coming from an alien, could mean any number of things.
‘Breakfast?’
‘Sure,’ said Baby, thinking, go on, just leave me alone for a minute.
Jake trundled off downstairs. She could hear the toilet flush. Yuk-o-rama. She was still unused to Earthling evacuation habits. Alien systems were so much more efficient. They just turned food into energy. Full stop. Oh, there was the occasional fart, of course. But as we have seen, alien farts are in a category by themselves. Practically art. Arty farty.
Soon Jake returned with two plates. On one was a three-day old almond croissant, some scrambled eggs and some cheese he’d stolen from Saturna and Skye’s half of the fridge, on the other was an electric pencil sharpener and some other bits and pieces he’d scavenged from George’s place for her. They ate in silence. Well, not exactly silence. The whirring of the pencil sharpener and the sound of Baby scoffing metal lent the romantic little scene the soundtrack of an auto wrecking yard. Jake didn’t care. He was in love. He was thinking, could it really be that there were birds in the sky, but I never heard them singing?
After breakfast, they began to feel amorous all over again. Jake knelt on the mattress and pulled open a drawer in the cupboard by the bed. ‘So that’s where all my socks are,’ he exclaimed in wonderment as he chucked the dirty plates in. Closing the drawer he turned back to Baby and, putting on his best Iggy imitation, proceeded to nuzzle and growl at her astounding breasts.
The little act with the dirty dishes and the sock drawer did it for Baby. Rock n roll. She was definitely in love again.
For the moment, anyway.
Courtney Love: ‘When I get what I want, I never want it again.’
Doll was the first to return to the flying saucer on the day of the big concert. Skye and Saturna had risen early to open the shop. Lati was off with the twins, as usual, on some sort of chemical binge. Baby was still with Jake. Doll fumed. Boys. Drugs. Those two were so unreliable. They were due at the stadium in just a few hours for the sound check. Pacing, she found herself at the door to Galgal’s control room. None of them had been in there in ages. She pushed open the door, glanced around and was about to leave when something on one of the monitors caught her eye. ‘Jump-fuck-ing Jupiter!’ she exclaimed, a chill running up her antennae.
There was no time to waste.
Mum had received a message. It was a simple message. ‘Hello, Mum.’ Only a Nufonian could have sent that message. Qwerk. It had to be him. He was coming to get them. She checked the date and spatial locus. Doing a few quick calculations, she worked out that he was probably through the Last Wormhole before the tollgate to the lunar orbit.
God operated the tollgate, of course. Fancying Himself something of a metaphysician, He’d set the toll at ‘something of yoonal value’. The girls had got through by tossing the Bing Crosby record collection into the basket. It was originally Lati’s idea of a joke, a brief diversion while they worked out a more plausible offering. They could hardly believe it when the light turned green and the turnstile went up. Doll had activated the boosters and they shot through before God had a chance to realise His mistake. It wasn’t a mistake, of course. God is infallible.
The Nufonians would be touching down in a few hours.
Knowing the Nufonian distaste for scenes, Doll banked on the likelihood that Qwerk would make his move only after the concert was finished. That meant that if they jumped into the saucer right at the end, they’d have a fair chance of making a getaway. Doll had to get the saucer over to the cricket ground then. She’d explain to the others later.
She glanced at the chronometer. Hoping that the others had come back, she went to Lati’s room first and stuck her head in. No one there. A messy array of small sealed bags covered the bed. In the bags were pills and powders, mushrooms and leaves of various descriptions. Doll opened one, dipped a finger into some powder and sniffed. The cocaine launched itself straight into her brain and rocketed around her blue matter. Doll felt her feet lift off the ground. She was spinning like a top. With sudden clarity, she knew exactly what needed to be done. Scooping up all the drugs in her arms, Doll hightailed it to Galgal’s engine room. There wasn’t a moment to spare.
‘Strap me up, strap me down.’
‘It’s “tie me up, tie me down,” you moron.’
‘Who cares. I just dig all this bondage and discipline.’
‘Speaking of.’
Captain Qwerk had finally worked out that he could get through God’s tollgate by unloading his new sense of humour. Now, followed by his crew of borgs and bots, he was making a final inspection of the saucer before its ejection from Pop, which was docked in lunar orbit close to Mum. The aliens were already harnessed to their seats though, as Qwerk passed by, they clicked open their seat belts, let down their tray tables, and tilted their chairs back just to annoy him. Qwerk knew the routine. He passed them in dignified silence and entered the cockpit.
The saucer was a later model than Galgal, larger but sleeker. Ptui! Pop spat out Boyboy like a watermelon seed. Ziiiiip.
‘Getting hot.’
‘World’s biggest vibro-sauna,’ chuckled a Zeta Reticulan, reaching under his seat for the inflatable vest which Must Not Be Fully Inflated Until You Are Out Of The Spacecraft. That was another favourite trick, pulling the tabs on the vests, screeching the whistles, flashing the lights. But wait, what was this? Groping around under the seat, he’d unexpectedly found a tiny lever. Naturally, he fiddled with it.
‘Ow!’ cried a Sirian seated across the aisle, clutching his fat head, upon which a dense object had fallen. ‘Ow!’
While the other Sirians fell about in hysterics, an Alpha stretched out a leg and snaffled up the missile with his dexterous toes. ‘Holy Canopus!’ he cried, opening the Hidden Agenda, for that’s what it was. Alphas were the speed-readers of the yoon and, just minutes later, he’d nearly finished it when Galgal angled sharply downwards and began its plummet to Earth.
‘Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!’ screamed the other aliens as high g-forces plastered them to their seats. ‘Wheeeeeeeeeeeeee!’
In Washington, within the CONSPIRASEE office, a red light glowed and a buzzer honked for attention. General ‘Jackal’ Mikeson hoicked up his big chin and p
eered out from between his secretary’s legs. ‘Oh my God,’ he whistled, seeing what had appeared on his computer screen. ‘It’s the big one. Off that big fat ass of yours, Herman, and call up the troops. Qwerk’s in town and we’re gonna get his grey ass.’
Qwerk steered the saucer straight to Parkes. Several weeks earlier, the government had cancelled all funding for scientific institutions. Luella and her crew—convinced they were that close to making contact—had been forced to pack up and look for jobs in the wood-chipping industry, the only growth sector of the entire economy.
Boyboy passed low over several country towns in Queensland and New South Wales. As Earthlings pointed and stared in fascination and fright, the Sirians, dressed in their spangly jumpsuits, leaned out of the portholes and shouted, ‘We’ve brought you Elvis!’ Qwerk didn’t have a clue as to what they were going on about, not having seen Independence Day himself, but he had too much on his mind to give it much thought.
Parkes wasn’t hard to find—a vast webwork of steel and aluminium rising out of an immense paddock. Its centrepiece was a large white dish sixty-four metres in diameter. When the saucer landed beside the deserted complex, sheep were baa-ing at the unplugged monitors, and an entire flock of galahs was nesting in the dish. There wasn’t a bean in sight.
The girls clearly weren’t there either. Qwerk checked his co-ordinates. He was certain that the message to Pop had been sent from here. Darn. He rifled through the debris at the hastily abandoned scientific outpost for some clue as to where they might have gone. Ah-hah.
‘We’re off to Sydney,’ he informed the others, fingering an advertisement for Come to Mothership. The ad featured a photograph of the Rock n Roll Babes from Outer Space. ‘Let’s leave Boyboy here. We can get around easier in Pallas.’ Pallas was a cigar-shaped craft stored inside BoyBoy. Given the right weather conditions, Pallas could pass over Earthling-inhabited zones without being detected until practically the moment of landing.
The babes had insisted on keeping ticket prices for the concert low. The promoters grumbled at first, but when the girls told them that they didn’t want any of the profits, that the promoters could keep the lot, they were happy as Larry. Who was still very, very happy.
Different bands attract different audiences. You wouldn’t confuse the clean-cut disco bunnies flocking to hear the Petshop Boys with the hairy little headbangers who worship Metallica and Twisted Mofo, the beautiful punk girls with their glittery faces moshing for Babes in Toyland with the ponytailed suburban blondes bopping to Le Club Nerd.
But how would you describe, in a phrase, the crowd that was now streaming—pouring, flooding—into the Sydney Cricket Ground for the Rock n Roll Babes from Outer Space? There were hippies in tie-dyed harem pants, North Shore boys in boat shoes, hardcore punks with mohawks, dykes in leather corsets and fishnet stockings, kids on skateboards, New Agers with big curly hair, SF buffs in button-down shirts, pretty gay boys, ravers and ragers of every ilk. It was impossible to generalise even in terms of age. There were oldies who hadn’t been to a rock concert since, oh, the Rolling Stones and the Rolling Stones before that, and babies-in-arms who would be told you were there when they were old enough to understand it meant something. Many of the punters wore headbands from which bounced two springy antennae, or hand-made t-shirts with slogans like ‘Aliens Rock Harder’. Some carried stick toys with spinning flying saucers on top.
Luella, who was still looking for work, was there with Aubrey, Aaron and Jason. Also there were Zach and the rest of the team from Kissed for the Very First Time Records (including Mr Spinner), all of Newtown, half of Darlinghurst. There were the Mormons, and the drag queen, and Kya, and Groovy Gregory. Ratface had come down from Byron Bay and, yes, Brian the Bouncer and Shareen were there too. Three had come up from Melbourne and Prik Harness and the Angel Pygar from Canberra. The abductees were there, naturally. And Ebola. George, of course, wouldn’t have missed it for the end of the world.
Qwerk let the others off at the Opera House. He was surprised that they had all been happy to come to Sydney with him. Normally he’d be making dropoffs all over the planet: Moscow so they could play in the subways, Madagascar so they could giggle at the lemurs, the English countryside to do crop circles. But today, they all wanted to come to Sydney. Something about having a picnic at Eagle Rock? Who knows? Who cares? It was a beautiful late summer’s day, the sky was a cloudless blue, the tiles of the Opera House were glittering in the sun, and the harbour was dotted with pretty white sails. If he could just find those little troublemakers, neutralise them, and retake the saucer, well, hey, hey, it was Saturday and Earth would be Qwerk’s oyster.
An oyster’s a slippery thing, however. And if Qwerk had just misspent a bit more of his youth, in fact, if he’d misspent any of his youth, he’d have known something was up. Picnic at Eagle Rock indeed.
The truth of the matter was that the aliens had discovered, courtesy of the Hidden Agenda, what the Nufonians really wanted to do on Earth. Make it a better place, sure. If your definition of a better place encompassed the notion of a planet without music, without love, without desire. Definitely without rock n roll. These were the prime factors of Earthly chaos, according to the Nufonians. And they were going to eliminate them, one by one, beginning with their own creations, the very musical, very love-making, very desirable and desirous, rock n roll babes from outer space. What they did to Michelle Mabelle—that was child’s play.
Nufonians knew nothing about Eros, of course.
Doll paced the backstage area, waiting for the others to show. Roadies and crew were rushing back and forth, dragging cables here, hauling them there, testing mikes and switches and lights and lasers. ‘We have an emergency,’ she told Baby and Lati when they sauntered in at last. Pulling them away from the hangers-on, promoters and journalists, all of whom wanted just one quick word before the show, she hurried them into the dressing room and shut the door. ‘They’ve caught up to us.’
‘Who’s caught up to us? What are you talking about?’ Baby tried to speak the words without guilt, but she wasn’t feeling too innocent. She’d deliberately not said a word to the others about Zyggo. Would you change your life just because some big bug blundered up while you were tripping, claimed to be your cousin and told you to skedaddle? On the other hand, as she told Jake, she was geting ready to pack her bags. Or would be. If she had bags. Who has bags anymore, anyway?
‘Daddy Pop. Captain Qwerk himself. He’s on his way to recapture us. I don’t think it’s going to be pretty.’
‘What makes you think he’s here?’ Lati asked.
‘They’ve contacted Mum,’ said Doll. ‘Now, by my calculations, we’ve got just enough time to finish the concert and then beat it out of here. I covered the saucer with Enigma Cream—used up our entire supply—and parked it by the side of the stage. It’ll probably start to wear off by the time we start the show, but that’s okay. I don’t think anyone will try to interfere then.’
‘Oh, God,’ whimpered Baby. ‘I need to see Jake.’
You’ll see him. Anyway, weren’t you just nattering on about getting a bit sick of the whole Earth gig? You’re not being very consistent.
‘A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.’
Emerson? You’re quoting Ralph Waldo Emerson to Me? I must say, I’m rather gobsmacked. I didn’t think you read.
I don’t. It’s a line from an Angel Pygar song.
Figures. About Jake. Surely, he’s coming to the concert?
Yes, but God, I need to see him right now.
You realise I spoil you girls.
Yes. And we love and worship you for it. We have no other God beside you rarara.
That’s what I like to hear. The second I hear of any funny business with false idols or golden calves or anything like that you’re on your own.
Understood. Thank you. Oh thank you thank you thank you.
Saturna and Skye were dressed and ready to go. They stood in the doorway of the lounge impatient
ly tapping their feet and looking at imaginary watches as the twins performed their ritualistic pre-concert toke-up.
‘You know what I think,’ remarked Skye to Saturna, loud enough for the others to hear. ‘I think that the boys smoke dope to excess as a way of avoiding the intensity of life, of facing up to their feelings about things.’
‘That’s bullshit,’ retorted Torquil, trying to think why. ‘Dope, uh, intensifies the intensity,’ he hazarded. ‘Yeah. Of life.’
‘Yeah,’ agreed Tristram, exhaling. ‘You really face up to your feelings. It’s like, you see the real face of your feelings.’ He was onto something here. ‘The nose and eyes and mouth of your feelings. You can smell them. Real as.’
A silence followed. Impatient on the part of Skye and Saturna, philosophical on the part of the twins. ‘What were we talking about?’ asked Torquil, perplexed.
‘I’m not sure,’ said Tristram, inhaling, getting paranoid, thinking, why does Saturna always wear purple? What does it mean? Is it because she doesn’t like me?
‘Where’s Jake?’ demanded Skye, drumming her fingers on the banister.
‘He, uh.’
‘He, uh, went upstairs to find a sock,’ Torquil finished his brother’s sentence.
‘A sock,’ noted Skye.
‘A sock,’ repeated Saturna dryly. She and Skye didn’t have any trouble with their socks.
‘Either of you got a spare sock?’ Jake called out from upstairs. ‘Mine all have egg on them.’
‘Wow,’ marvelled Torquil. ‘Did you hear that? Egg? That’s so cool.’
Tristram, on the other hand, didn’t like the sound of that one little bit. What was egg doing on Jake’s socks? Whose egg was it? And why was Skye looking at him like that?
Jake appeared on the landing. Then, abruptly, right before their eyes and, to the accompaniment of a grand flourish of trumpets, he disappeared in a vortex of light.