Out to Launch

by Colin Thompson

  ‘This is, er, ground control,’ said Radius and, turning to Fiona, he whispered, ‘I’ve always wanted to say that.’

  He continued. ‘Are you receiving me?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ said Primrose. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Let me speak to your father. This is Radius Limpfast.’

  ‘You can’t, he’s asleep,’ said Primrose.

  ‘Well, wake him up.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  There was a pause.

  ‘He’s not dead, is he?’ said Fiona.

  ‘No, of course not, but he’s much too asleep to wake up.’

  ‘Let me speak to your mother, then,’ said Radius.

  ‘She’s fast asleep too.’

  ‘Well, what about the old lady?’ said Radius.

  ‘I heard that, you little twerp,’ said Granny Apricot.

  ‘Hello, my dear,’ said Fiona. ‘Is everything all right up there?’

  ‘Of course it is, little girlie,’ said Apricot. ‘And as long as you keep calling me “my dear”, I’ll keep calling you “little girlie”. I may be the oldest one here, but I’m not senile or stupid. Got it?’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Fiona. She wasn’t.

  Radius switched off the radio. ‘We might have made a bit of a mistake in our choice of granny,’ he said.

  Fiona agreed, but there was nothing either of them could do about it now.

  So Radius went on global TV to break the news to the world that the Grizelda Limpfast had been successfully launched and was on its way to the moon, exactly as planned, and that people could now go online and buy subscriptions to the Watch This Space channel.

  Although he omitted the ‘late lamented’ bit from the ship’s name, by then the whole world was calling it The Late Lamented Grizelda Limpfast already, and whenever Radius or anyone else from LIMP-TV called it the Grizelda Limpfast, at least ten people shouted out the full name.50

  Over the next twenty-four hours, Radius Limpfast made more money than anyone else had ever made in any other twenty-four hours ever, even more than people who’d invaded several countries and taken away all their stuff.

  Good thing I’ve got relatives working in the top jobs of every major country’s tax offices, he thought, as his accountant robots moved his money around the world faster than a speeding bullet.

  And I haven’t used Plan B/tx/27 yet, he reminded himself.51 Still got that in reserve.

  So, as The Late Lamented Grizelda Limpfast headed safely towards the moon, life for Radius Limpfast was just about as good as it could get. He sent a message to rRego, telling him that the spaceship was on its way and would be arriving shortly.

  But, of course, rRego already knew that. He’d been in direct contact with the ship’s onboard computers before the launch and had actually helped it take off by fine-tuning the engine controls. rRego looked upon The Late Lamented Grizelda Limpfast as a teenage human looks upon a baby brother.52

  ‘Yeah man, I know,’ rRego replied. ‘It’s all cool.’

  ‘Who programmed the wretched computer to have a hippie personality?’ Radius shouted. ‘I want them sacked immediately!’

  No-one knew – except for rRego himself, of course, because he’d done it. And this was because the scientists and engineers who had created rRego had given him something no other robot had ever had – a sense of humour.

  There had been robots who could tell jokes, but they were rubbish because the robots themselves had not actually known what a joke was. rRego, though, had a very sophisticated sense of humour, which covered every type of joke from puns to really, really rude stuff.53

  We know that as well as a standard computer brain, rRego had also been given copies of Radius and Fiona’s brains. As RealRadius had not been able to get in touch with RoboRadius, RealRadius assumed that rRego’s programmers must have deliberately removed his and Fiona’s brains and decided they would have to get the sack too. The truth was that after rRego had switched off the two brains, he had locked them up in a spare circuit board behind his left knee, just in case they might be useful at some time in the future.

  rRego had examined the computer copy of Radius Limpfast’s brain and found that:

  Radius Limpfast was a self-important dictator with an ego the size of a whale.

  Radius Limpfast was very devious and clever at covering up his many faults by shouting a lot and firing anyone who didn’t agree with him.

  Radius Limpfast sorted out most problems by throwing money at them.

  So, based on this, rRego decided that a hippie would be the best personality he could use to really mess with Radius’s brain.

  So yes, he knew his humans, the Contrasts, were on their way and he was actually quite excited about it, which was a first for a robot. rRego disconnected the channel down to Earth and connected to the Grizelda Limpfast.

  ‘Hi folks,’ he said in a much-less-hippie voice. ‘How’s it all going?’

  ‘Who’s that?’ said Primrose.

  ‘This is rRego and I want to let you know that we are on the same side,’ rRego replied. ‘I don’t mean that in the I’m-going-to-pretend-to-be-your-friend-and-then-report-everything-to-that-idiot-Limpfast sort of way. I dislike him as much as you do and, together, we will have a great time screwing up his brain.’

  ‘Oh, I like this robot,’ said Granny Apricot.

  ‘Yeah,’ Primrose agreed.

  ‘And, folks,’ rRego added, ‘I will do my very best to keep you safe and alive.’

  ‘Thank you, rRego,’ said Granny Apricot.

  ‘I will see you in fourteen hours, seven minutes and seventeen seconds,’ said rRego. ‘And by the way, those food packets are perfectly safe to eat, even though they’re actually older than you are, Primrose.’

  rRego then told them about the Gardening Module, and a system he had invented to turn cabbage and moondust into chicken.

  Around fourteen hours later, The Late Lamented Grizelda Limpfast began its descent towards the surface of the moon.

  ‘Are we supposed to steer this thing?’ Primrose asked.

  ‘No, it’s all under control,’ said rRego.

  Meanwhile, on Earth, everyone was freaking out.

  The worst thing, as far as Radius was concerned, was that none of the cameras on the moon or the spaceship were sending any signals down to his television network. In actual fact, they were all working fine and rRego was recording everything. It was just the hotline back to Earth that the robot had cut off and so all the TV screens around the world – from the penthouses of Manhattan to the remotest settlement in Patagonia – were blank. This meant millions upon millions of people were trying to call other people to see if they had the same problem, and that totally overloaded all the telephone systems.

  Fuses blew out everywhere, including the one inside Radius Limpfast’s head.

  ‘HELLO, HELLO!!’ Radius screamed into the microphone. ‘Come in, moon base! Come in, spaceship! Come in, anyone,’ he whimpered. ‘Please.’

  To make things worse, rRego started transmitting that awful music you get when you phone a big company and get put on hold for an hour. This, along with the most embarrassing photo of Radius that rRego could find,54 was broadcasted to televisions everywhere.

  And then, to make things ten times worse, after an hour, rRego transmitted a computery voice message saying, ‘Thank you for calling. Please leave your name after the beep and we will get back to you as soon as possible.’

  Except the message would cut off just when you would expect to hear the beep, and the music would start playing again.

  Radius saw his entire world collapsing around him. TV stations everywhere cut off their feeds from LIMP-TV and went back to their own news programs, which mostly consisted of people laughing at him.

  While all this was going on, The Late Lamented Grizelda Limpfast descended smoothly onto the moon’s surface. Primrose and Granny Apricot looked out the window and there below them, exactly where it was supposed to be, was their new home.

&
nbsp; ‘Here we are,’ said rRego. ‘If you’ll just stay in your seats for a few minutes, I will lock your ship to the MUD’s entrance so we don’t have to bother with spacesuits and all that lack-of-oxygen stuff.’

  Five minutes later, there was a gentle whooshing sound and the door of The Late Lamented Grizelda Limpfast opened into the MUD. Primrose picked up her awake yet sleepy little brother, Granny Apricot took hold of Crumley’s lead and they left the ship.

  While the humans stretched their legs, rRego carried Stark and then Laura, who were both still asleep, into their new bedroom and tucked them up in bed.

  But as the door of The Late Lamented Grizelda Limpfast had slid closed behind him, rRego had heard the sound of the spaceship’s locks and bolts fastening shut.

  ‘Mmmm,’ said rRego. ‘I wonder how that happened. It certainly didn’t have anything to do with me.’

  When everyone who was awake had had a shower and Granny Apricot went through the stores and baked an apple pie, then rRego made contact with Earth.

  ‘Hi world. Love and peace and all that stuff,’ he said. ‘Moon, here. I have, like, fixed the technical problemo and am now going to, like, turn the old switcheroody back on. Over and out.’

  ‘Hey, robot, wait!’ said Fiona Hardly. ‘I don’t suppose there’s the slightest chance you might’ve recorded the actual moon landing?’

  ‘Oh yeah, babe, got the whole thing – hi-def, ultra cool,’ said rRego. ‘Where’s the Limpfast dude?’

  ‘He’s lying down in a darkened room under sedation,’ said Fiona. ‘The blackout was more than he could take.’

  ‘Cool,’ said rRego.

  Fiona was certain she could hear giggling and sniggering in the background. ‘Who’s there with you?’ she asked. ‘I mean, I assume that Stark and Laura are awake now.’

  ‘Not exactly,’ said Primrose, coming into view. ‘They’re tucked up in bed, fast asleep.’

  ‘But …’ Fiona began.

  ‘We thought it better to leave them until we got things sorted out,’ said Primrose.

  ‘Things? What things?’ said Fiona.

  ‘Well, I made a nice apple pie,’ said Granny Apricot.

  ‘Do you realise where you are?’ Fiona snapped.

  ‘Oh yeah,’ said Primrose. ‘We’re on the moon. What’s the big deal?’

  ‘Are you kidding?’ said Fiona. ‘It’s huge. I mean, you’re the first family to go there. Apart from a few highly trained astronauts, no-one’s ever been there before.’

  ‘Whatever,’ said Primrose.

  ‘Apart from the long-extinct previous inhabitants,’ said rRego.

  ‘WHAT?’ said Fiona.

  ‘It’s cool, babe. The moon dudes died out, like, centuries ago,’ said rRego. ‘Nothing to worry about now.’

  Fiona was speechless.

  ‘Though I haven’t checked out the dark side of the moon,’ said rRego, ‘apart from the Pink Floyd album, man.55 Hey, maybe I should play it now to celebrate.’

  ‘WHAT?’ Fiona said again.

  After they had talked some more, rRego agreed to transmit the recording he’d made of the Grizelda Limpfast reaching the moon, and it was fantastic. No robot had ever produced a better film or edited a better movie before. The Grizelda Limpfast could be seen far away as it circled the moon, and then the camera followed it as it drifted slowly down towards the MUD. There were close-ups as rRego extended the corridor and joined the spaceship and the living space together. Then the doors opened and Primrose and Granny Apricot, with Jack and Crumley, walked into their new home.

  The recording was better than anyone could have hoped for, and while Fiona Hardly organised its transmission around the globe with a brief message apologising for the delay, Radius lay curled up in his bedroom weeping softly to himself. No-one in the entire history of being made a fool of had been made a fool of by so many people as he had been. He decided that in the middle of the night he would slip quietly away to a remote Patagonian valley and take a vow of eternal silence in a monastery, where the monks lived on a diet of boiled grass and fermented turnips. He would renounce the world and stay there forever.

  (As if.)

  Pathetic, that’s what you are, said a voice inside his head. And just as he lifted his hand to give himself a black eye, the door opened and Fiona came in. She ran over to Radius and grabbed his wrist.

  ‘It’s OK,’ she said. ‘Everything has worked out fine. They all think you’re a genius now.’

  Radius was torn in all directions at once. No-one, not even his own mother, had ever seen him in such a pathetic state. He was the great achiever, scared of nothing and successful at everything, and now this woman had put her arms around him and was rocking him like a baby.

  ‘I, er, um,’ was all he could say.

  ‘I know, I know, my darling,’ Fiona said, stroking the top of his head. ‘I will say it for you. You were trying to say that if I ever let anyone anywhere know that I found you in this state, you would have to kill me.’

  ‘Oh my god,’ said Radius, sitting up and wiping his eyes. ‘You’re me, aren’t you?’

  ‘Near enough,’ said Fiona.

  She wiped his face, brushed his hair and told him how rRego had transmitted everything and it had gone round the world to rapturous applause.

  ‘Once again, you are the king of the world,’ Fiona said. ‘And since you’ve been in here, I’ve calculated that you’ve made another seven hundred million dollars.’

  This was music to Radius’s ears, and as soon as he heard it he was back to his old self.

  ‘Wow, well, I …’ he began but, remembering how he had been a few minutes before when Fiona had come into the room, he began to blush and fell silent.

  ‘It’s OK,’ Fiona reassured him. ‘I’ve issued a press release saying that you were resting after all the massively brilliant and exhausting work you’d been doing to get this whole thing off the ground. Your popularity has soared to a new, all-time high. People love the fact that even you are human and can get a bit tired sometimes.’

  She wanted to say that it was time to stop tiptoeing around each other and for them to get married, but she thought that might just be pushing her luck.

  ‘You know,’ Radius said, ‘we should get married.’

  Fiona nodded, unable to speak. Had she heard it right?

  Wow, I mean, wow, she thought. I am so cool.

  ‘We’ll do it live when the ratings for Watch This Space look like they might be flagging a bit,’ Radius said.

  ‘Perfect,’ said Fiona, and she meant it.

  Fiona Hardly had an amazing memory. She could remember right back to the day she was born, though it was probably the day after she was born.

  There was a lot of noise – people noises, mostly – hurrying feet and hundreds of voices, including a loud blurry one coming out of a loudspeaker. She was surrounded by darkness, apart from a big, bright mouth-shape above her. As she got to know the world, she knew the mouth-shape was not a mouth, even though it had lots of tiny teeth along its edges. The brightness coming through the not-mouth was blue like the sky, but with black lines crisscrossing it.

  There was a smell, too. No, actually, there were two smells – one of them was her and the other was of old leather.

  Fiona was in a big handbag and the two rows of teeth belonged to a zipper.

  The bag was on the floor next to a bench, and the bench was in a busy railway station, and the loud blurry voice in the loudspeaker was telling everyone that the train on platform seven was about to depart.

  Unseen voices started talking very close to her. Something pushed her bag gently and a voice shouted for the something to stop.

  Then it all got very quiet. Fiona didn’t know why, but people were piling sandbags and cushions all around the handbag she was in. Two big hands holding a very big cushion came towards the mouth and the cushion came slowly down towards her.

  Then Fiona discovered something new.

  It was a voice.

  And she use
d it very loudly.

  Lots of things happened then, almost too many to remember. She did remember that the mouth opened very wide and two big hands had lifted her up.

  ‘Hello,’ said a voice coming out of a very big head in a funny hat with “Bomb Squad” written on the front of it. ‘Who are you?’

  Fiona, who was still about twenty-four hours old or so, didn’t understand the question, so she made as big a noise as she could – which didn’t answer the question, but made the bomb man laugh.

  The next twenty years were mostly a lot less dramatic. The bomb man and his wife adopted Fiona and gave her a lovely life with a kitten and a dog. The bomb man stopped being a bomb man because he decided it was all too dangerous when he and his wife had the responsibility of a child to care for.

  So they moved to the seaside and settled down to live happily ever after. Which they did, except Fiona had itchy feet and needed a bigger world to live in. She knew that somewhere in that bigger world was her real mother, but she never wanted to find her. Mr and Mrs Ex-Bomb were the only parents she had ever wanted and she could never imagine anyone better. But the world looked really big from their little seaside town and Fiona wanted to grasp it in both hands.

  Fiona went to university and was brilliant. Most men were overwhelmed by her fantastic brain and felt threatened by it. She was halfway between short and tall with dark blonde hair that was not really short but not really long, depending on what day of the week it was, and she had eyes that could hypnotise a cat – and had done so many times. The university was littered with zombified cats walking into things without realising why. The few undaunted men admired her mostly from a safe distance as they had worked out what had happened to the cats.

  After university Fiona joined LIMP-TV where she was even more brilliant, and very quickly became Radius Limpfast’s personal assistant.

  And she fell in love with him.

  Now read on.

  Sometime in the middle of the night – the moon night, that is – Stark and Laura woke up. Crumley was curled up on the end of their bed, like he was every night, snoring and filling the air with bad smells. (He did that every night too.)