A Year Near Proxima Centauri

by Michael Martin

  When we got home we sat on the patio and opened a bottle of Mr Dobson’s Halmatrope. It bore no relation to the pleasant but unremarkable bottles he had given us. Evidently one must expect this sort of dramatic variation on a small uncommercial holding. In the meantime we helped ourselves to Grebble spawn and filled every container we could find and put them in the ice room.

  We expected our friends, Jan and Tony, to arrive just before our afternoon snack. My wife set about preparing something tasty and I cleared some of Henry’s gear out of sight. The Moostrin had certainly set rock hard and it was all too evident that smoothing Moostrin in the dark was a bad idea. I was also a little surprised at the colour it was turning as it cured. All the household Moostrin I had previously seen was slightly mauve with bluey flecks. This Moostrin was black with a coarse texture, just like the new Bepommel multicraft bypass. I had also noticed, now that the curing was advanced, that it was starting to glow in the dark and when I spilt a little water on it the surface immediately roughened.

  I heard Trevor approaching. He had a large tank in the back of his old Stromba. He reversed up to the lagoon, gingerly flung the top off the tank and the Melek, smelling the ripe Grebble spawn, leapt as one into the lagoon and started eating their way across it.

  “There’s hunger for you,” he grinned, as he pulled a clotted mat of Woolly Throat Piercer guano off his bonnet.

  “Have you ever done this before?” I asked, realizing that I should have asked this earlier.

  “This is your standard bio-degrader on Provender. Quick, clean. Well, I say clean. I mean, nature must take its course, with all that eating they are doing.” I was aghast.

  “How can we clean all that out of the lagoon afterwards?” I asked. He looked sheepish.

  “Well, Grebble spawn do a good job of cleaning lagoons.”

  Jan and Tony duly arrived. They had hired a Stromba at the Cosmodrome and seemed amused by it.

  “These hirecraft take a dreadful hammering,” Tony grinned. “Takes the stress out of driving in foreign planets. I’d scream if I had to negotiate these trackways in the Plush-Planishade.” Tony was the proud owner of a vintage Plush-Planishade, once considered the most luxurious saloon in the galaxy. Fully absorbed in the interior, you can repose in the fourth dimensional fantasy of your choice, unaware that your vehicle is frantically reorganizing events around it to account for its problem-free movements. Nowadays, the possible repercussions of even the smallest trip in a Plush-Planishade are too daunting for all but the purest enthusiasts, so they generally disconnect the Positive Outcome circuitry and use the manual over-ride. It is then that the enthusiast, unclouded by four-dimensional fantasy and artificially induced safety matrix, realizes what a cumbersome old tub the Plush-Planishade really is. Give me a Ferenziculo every time.

  Jan and Tony were most complimentary as they sipped Mr Dobson’s Halmatrope and pecked at their snack. We had forgotten that Fractini do not possess our healthy appetites.

  Tony is a Consultant in the Pan-Galactic law firm of Striffle, Striffle and Weave. It was his firm which negotiated the compensation after the Corto-Probax skin cleanser scandal, when the “Miss Sentient Being of the Galaxy” competitors each received a complimentary promotional tub of the new formula cleanser. Never having tested the product to destruction under laser lights, the manufacturers were as dismayed as the competitors when, during the final line-up in lagoon wear, simmering under the laser glow, their skins peeled off and they all began to lift off the stage emitting an incandescent gas. Tony had overseen the complex pre-trial assembly of evidence, species tolerances and skin samples and still kept in touch with every one of his clients. To give the story a romantic twist, he had married one, Jan. Although not a Fractini by birth, he was able to have her remodelled to his taste with the generous compensation payments and thus was able to combine the stamina, intellect and deportment of an Ilph with the skin, secondary and tertiary sexual characteristics of a fully developed Fractini. They had been inseparable ever since.

  We stayed indoors, in spite of the glorious weather, as there was rather conspicuous activity on the surface of the lagoon, where the Melek were thrashing around in an orgy of greed. We were also becoming aware of a slight smell as the waters changed colour. My wife brought in the Robusta and Tony broached the subject I had been avoiding.

  “So, what about your Will then?”

  “Yes, yes, I know,” I said.

  “That Will you lodged with me from Conima is worthless here, you know. No use being squeamish. Take my advice, get it out of the way.”

  “Later, please Tony, later,” I said. I was aware of a maze of restrictions in Provender law. You could not leave more than half your property to a Drool or Colwig, not more than a quarter to a Montalban and you could not leave anything at all to a Drisk, As I watched the lagoon froth and boil with activity I felt a calming pleasure in that pointed discrimination. We had encountered enough legal hold-ups in purchasing our property. I had ’screened Tony for advice on several occasions but all he could do was offer us the name of a Palissandrian law firm which proved to be extremely expensive. They would only correspond in Sprock while the vendors, who put the property up for sale immediately after inheriting it, refused to correspond in anything but Spheraglese. Then, to complicate matters further, the vendors, not closely related to their benefactor, fell out among themselves over what price to accept. It then transpired that two of them were half-Colwig, half-Montalban, and one had more than a touch of Drisk in him. This led to a protracted investigation by the Probate courts into who had a right to what. Our uninvited guest, the “Image Transmuter”, was probably in the throes of these problems at this very moment. That was comforting.

  That evening we took our guests out for a meal. The Halmatrope warehouse proprietor had told me of a place that might interest our friends, and us. We took both Strombas and they followed us down through Bepommel and along the side of the old Crustal Vent, long since extinct. Under the shadow of the great Crustal Vent was the restaurant in one wing of an old, converted Noxule mill.

  Centuries ago, when the vent was still active, the molten Drib hurling up from Provender’s core, was channelled down through the mill, reheated using the Vent’s waste Noxule gas, and cast for industrial use as the planet’s most versatile metal. When the core puncture healed itself, as all minor surface blemishes on Provender do, the mill fell into disrepair and the Crustal Vent started its long process of disintegration. A local family of Drools, descended from the early millworkers, restored the mill and had a Noxule gas tank installed, hitched it up to one of the old Drib smelters and started a restaurant specializing in shell crimplets. The old Drib channels were flooded and stocked with live shell crimplets. Customers pick their own and they are boiled alive under the old smelters while you wait.

  We made our selection then settled in the subdued lighting of the old converted batter house, where once Drools slaved away in cruel heat, battering the metal into submission, At one end of the room three Drools in traditional costumes stood singing traditional Drool “Batter Songs” in their inimitable, peculiar way.

  When the boiling tubs were ready we watched two cooks carry our live selection through, still thrashing their claws and snapping dangerously near the cooks’ heads. It was all part of the showmanship. When they flung them in the scalding water their high-pitched screams temporarily drowned out the Drool singers. One of the cooks returned to reassure us.

  “It’s only the air escaping from them,” he said.

  “That’s all it is when I scream,” Tony observed.

  When our shell crimplets were ready they were laid before us on Drib platters and we were each given an imitation batter tool to open them with. Tony and Jan were most impressed, they appreciated theme restaurants and managed to eat all their shell crimplets which was rather disappointing since I had been hoping to help them out. Tony bemoaned the inadequacy of Provender law on the question of food. On most other planets you could sue the restaurant p
roprietors if they failed to satisfy their customers, or inadvertently fed any species with food they were constitutionally unable to eat safely. This put quite an onus of responsibility on the proprietors of restaurants patronized by a broad range of species. The delicacy of one species could prove fatal to another. On Provender you ate at your own risk, and how we ate that night! Jan and Tony ordered course after course, we were delighted that their appetites had so improved. We finished with a Robusta and a particularly fine Algarglanon; I made a note of it for future reference. Jan and Tony followed us home. When we pulled up in the dark outside the first thing that struck us was the awful smell drifting off the lagoon. Whether it was that or the shell crimplets we shall never know, but something kept Jan up all night being very ill in the ablution suite. In the morning Tony did not look his usual dynamic self, either. We were very disappointed when they decided to cut short their stay, but perhaps it was for the best with the lagoon in the state it was. Two days later Henry turned up in the midday heat to look at the Moostrin, but took one look at the lagoon and left, which was most annoying.

  That afternoon, with Trevor also incommunicado on the ’screen, we decided to pay a visit to Mr Dobson. He had been a most friendly helpful neighbour but so far had not invited us to see him and had always been too busy to accept our invitations. We would pop round with some of my wife’s delicious Hully frickets, Hully flies lightly glazed in Smolene then roasted in the Gaga until they are so brittle they just melt in the mouth with a fizz. It was also a chance to get upwind of our sorry lagoon.

  We had not seen Mr Dobson’s house closely before. It was considerably bigger than I had expected. As we walked closer I realized that what we could see from our house was just the gable end and that it had a fine frontage and a range of outbuildings behind, surrounded by full grown Trake. Something growled from one of the buildings and Mr Dobson rushed out, saw us, then rushed across the yard, dragging all the huge doors shut before greeting us, quite out of breath. We chatted to him and he must have realized that we were not in any hurry so he eventually asked us to have a Halmatrope with him and his wife. We crossed over to the impressive house and past the great ornate front door to a small door round at the back. He led us down a long, dark corridor to his vast kitchen where we spotted his wife, a thickset rather ill-natured looking Drool. He introduced us and my wife presented her with the Hully frickets. Mrs Dobson just nodded and shoved them in a cupboard. Drools can only converse standing up so we felt obliged to remain standing out of courtesy, even though we were offered seats. The Halmatrope tasted similar to the ones Mr Dobson had given us before. Mr Dobson commented upon our lagoon but had no advice to offer. His wife, who had continued skinning some peculiar multilimbed creature, took an interest in the conversation when she heard we had Melek doing goodness knows what in our lagoon.

  “Melek, fresh fattened on ripe Grebble spawn,” she remarked. “Nothing to touch it.”

  I said that I, for one, did not fancy touching a Melek from what I had seen of them. She grunted and returned to her skinning.

  “Trevor will be selling them off to one of them Pallissandrian restaurants,” Mr Dobson said.

  “Oh, no, he won’t,” I said.

  But we were too late. When we got back home we found a note from Trevor, He had trapped the Melek and taken them away. He would let the lagoon settle for a few days and then return. I walked out on the patio pontoon with a clear jug to see what state the water was in. No sooner had the jug touched the water than it was snapped from my grasp by an enormous Melek. My initial annoyance at Trevor’s apparant inability to do one thing right was overshadowed by another consideration. “Supper,” I thought, remembering Mrs Dobson’s remarks.

  I opened the garage door. The Stromba emerged, striking a small tree that I had previously considered safely out of reach. I drove it round to the lagoon pontoon, took the emergency tow-line from the back, tied one end to the Stromba breakdown hook—an essential fitting for every Stromba—and the other to a rock wrapped in a leaf. I figured the ravenous Melek would snap at anything. My wife came out to help. I sat ready in the Stromba and she threw in the rock. The instant the Melek snapped I shot backwards and dragged the Melek up on to the patio, it started to bite its way up the tow-rope to the Stromba as we emptied all our cans of Instamort on it to no avail. At that point I considered it highly likely that we would lose the Stromba so I got back in and prepared to accelerate away, hoping to shed the Melek. However, as I eased the brake, the Melek gave a great flip of its tails and we all shot forwards towards the lagoon. I pleaded, I begged, I cajoled with the Stromba. Just as the Melek was about to hit the water, taking me with it, the Stromba surged backwards and stopped. The Melek hit the bonnet with sufficient force to kill itself outright and badly dent the thin Drib metalwork. It was an expensive free meal I later remarked to my wife after the Stromba had been repaired, but we were both agreed that it was well worth the money for a gastronomic experience of a lifetime.

  MAY

  The weather was hot every day now. Almost as soon as the sun rose it was hot. In the middle of the day it was too hot to do anything in comfort outside. All we wanted to do was sink into our lagoon but Trevor had still not returned. Our skins were darkening and wrinkling wonderfully. We were looking and feeling marvellous. Any friends that ’screened us from Conima were envious the minute they spotted us. They all wanted to visit us. I wondered if our extension would be big enough. I also wondered if we would ever have an extension.

  Henry seemed to sense just when our patience was strained to breaking point. We were rapidly approaching that state when he turned up early one morning with his two cousins. He flamboyantly inspected the Moostrin, tapping it with a small hammer and listening to the note it made, then he jumped up and down on it a few times and pronounced it fully cured and ready for the construction.

  “A miracle cure,” I remarked, “not merely ready for construction but also peak hour traffic.”

  He eyed me warily for a split second. I smiled and then he laughed and then the cousins laughed too.

  “All-purpose heavy duty Moostrin, all we could get at short notice. Last for ever.” Then he added, “At no extra cost.” I had been vaguely thinking of reduced costs for the privilege of a floor that lit up the valley each night, but I realized that the logistics of bulk material deliveries in these country areas were probably a problem. After all, one of the attractions of Provender was that it was at least two centuries behind Conima in most respects. They had scarcely pronounced the Moostrin ready when I heard the rumble and vibration of an enormous machine, it was apparently another of Henry’s cousins with the Late Couth from the demolished cottage in Bepommel.

  Henry and his cousins worked tirelessly until midday, sorting, dragging and heaping the stones. We bought out iced Robusta and their remaining energy seemed to drain away, even as we spoke to them. Within minutes they were all asleep in the hot sun and resisted all attempts to awaken them until the early evening. This gave me plenty of time to inspect the morning’s work. The stone matched beautifully and the ones that had been dragged into their permanent positions looked as if they had been put there when the house was first built. Progress was obviously slow but I was confident of the eventual outcome. Provender artisans are born, not taught. It was impossible to become a stonemason, a plumber or a plasterer if your father had not been one, and then his father would have had to have been one. Thus, even the mistakes were passed on from generation to generation. Styles changed little and every generation managed to find a few more short cuts and corners to cut. It was probably Henry’s great-grandfather who first fell fast asleep most lunchtimes and now it was practically enshrined as part of their normal work practice.

  While Henry and his crew slept loudly and obtrusively by their great stone heap, I received a visit from a Dribsmith I had spotted on a market in Bepommel. He had walked all the way bringing a gnomon he had fashioned out of Drib with decorative scrollwork for my sundial. He was short and thin
for a Drool but bore the distinguishing marks of a Dribsmith: his batter arm was three times bigger than his other arms and his skin was speckled with scorch marks from the tiny pellets of molten Drib his battering sent flying. We slipped it on to the sundial, it fitted perfectly.

  “It’s fast,” he said, “needs adjusting.”

  I looked at the size and weight of the stone. It seemed immovable. It must have always been fast. But apparently not. The Drool explained that Provender suffered from Incontinent Continental Drift. The three main land masses of Provender were formed on deep deposits of Smolene. This provided such effortless lubrication that from time to time, for no apparent reason, one or other of the continents would uncontrollably shift its position, sometimes sliding straight into another continent. Although this occurred over thousands of years and was seldom noticeable from day to day, it made the Provender sundial a remarkably inaccurate timepiece. I decided that it should remain fast.

  Tired of waiting for Trevor to arrive, I had fished a few lumps of rotting Grebble spawn out of the filterhouse pump and nervously switched it back on. It did rattle a bit, which it never used to do, but there was no blue smoke. For the next few days I was forever fishing putrescent lumps out, but the lagoon was looking cleaner, it was practically back to normal when Trevor arrived one afternoon. He looked at the sleeping bodies of the builders and made some sarcastic comment, as if he were blameless, and inspected the lagoon.

  “There you are,” he said, “I told you it would be fine.” He then handed me his bill, which I thought to be a trifle excessive in the circumstances, and left, as loudly as he had come. The sudden cessation of sound not far along the road suggested that his old Stromba had probably come to rest for ever. He was wise enough to walk on home rather than seek help from us.

  Day after day the weather was glorious and the extension was taking shape. Henry and his cousins were ready to fit the floor bearers. This variation from their stonework seemed beneficial for they managed to stay awake after their lunchbreak and remained fully awake all afternoon waiting for the materials to be delivered.