A Year Near Proxima Centauri

by Michael Martin

  “Never tasted anything like it,” he spluttered through a full mouth.

  I had to agree and yet, we decided, there was none the less something familiar about it, a faint odour, the texture. I remembered my earlier vow, never to enquire. But Mayhew had made no such vow. As we prepared to leave he asked the proprietor what the food had been, he was sure he knew it, but could not place its name.

  “You should do,” the proprietor replied in gruff Spheraglese, “you brought it with you.”

  “Ah,” Mayhew said, and wisely decided to enquire no further while there was still an element of doubt.

  We were totally dehydrated by the time we got home. The heat affected the Stromba too. It seemed unable to garage itself and kept bumping into the front of the garage before switching itself off and becoming too hot in the sun to touch. My wife was in the lagoon and we dived in ourselves with a sizzle as our bodies entered the water. Mayhew seemed unaffected by his night’s activities and was all for going out that evening for a meal in Bepommel, but we thought it safer if we stayed home to eat.

  My wife and I were preparing the evening meal when Mayhew came in from the lagoon. He had been relaxing in the Blasted 49. He said he fancied a quick walk up the hill to give himself an appetite. We were sure his appetite needed no encouragement but we warned him that the meal was almost ready as he sped out of the door. We should have known. Two hours later Mayhew appeared, just as we had decided to give up waiting for him. The Flasp was overcooked and the Dandralobe was too brittle but Mayhew tucked in enthusiastically and was full of compliments.

  “Just had a preprandial Halmatrope with your neighbours the Montalbans,” he said. “Best stocked private cellar I’ve seen in ages. Nothing too fancy, just good reliable stuff. They know what they are up to those chaps.” We were amazed. “They said you might be having a new neighbour soon.”

  “Oh?” I replied. “Is Mr Skeg going?”

  “No, no, some Drool, had a lot of interest in his place.”

  We had not even known Mr Dobson’s house was on the market.

  “Apparently Alaric Rincon is after a holiday home here.”

  My wife and I looked at each other and winced: Rincon was a style guru in Conima. His minions scoured the galaxy looking for unique items of furniture made individually in the finest materials so that he could copy them and mass produce them by the million in cheap materials and sell them in his Ecotat Store chain.

  “Only interested, nothing definite,” he soothed.

  I fetched the Algarglanon to take our minds off the subject. We relaxed sipping our Algarglanon and I broached another sensitive subject.

  “How long are you staying then, Mayhew?”

  He had been planning to spend two nights with us, but the first had inadvertently vanished in Nolbergale so this would be the only night he could spare. We breathed a sigh of relief as unobtrusively as possible and as he leaned back in his chair I heard something structural snap inside it. It lost all its shape and collapsed taking him down with it while his Algarglanon flew all over the room. He was most apologetic and diplomatically retired to bed while my wife and I spent half the night trying to soak out the Algarglanon from the rug before it permanently stained it. Our rug had been purchased on a holiday on Aspersasp, a mountainous planet covered in Halitoids. These are bulky creatures with tiny little feet. However, they are surprisingly agile and twirl and pirouette up and down near vertical rock faces. The local hill creatures trap the Halitoids once a year in the autumn, give them an antiseptic mouthwash and pluck the little springy hairs from their inside legs. They then spend the long winter nights weaving these hairs into the most luxurious, soft, springy rugs imaginable. We did not want ours indelibly stained.

  To avoid any further problems we arranged the next morning for a taxi to take Mayhew to the Cosmodrome. He was full of apologies and gratitude as he shook our hands. He was impossible but once again we told him he was welcome any time.

  SEPTEMBER

  On alternate days my wife and then I would keep well out of the way. Lesley was back. I noted when he had gone in the evenings that one day he would plaster great smooth expanses of wall, the next he would add delicate tracery to a ceiling, or clusters of fruit, frozen in the pulverized, roasted and slaked material. Henry turned up to see how he was progressing. I did not envy Henry’s role as employer.

  “Just a few more days,” Henry told me, “then we’ll be back with Neville to carry on.” I noted he said “carry on”, and not, as I had hoped, “finish off”. I ’screened George and told him that the house would be safe in a few more days. Perhaps he, at least, would soon be finished.

  The area was quiet again now. The Palissandrians had all gone. Market and restaurant prices were cheaper again. The sun was still hot, but not quite so hot. Mr Dobson told us that two visitors must have hammered unsuccessfully on their big front door, probably at midday, a few weeks earlier. They never used the big front door themselves, only the small door at the back. The big front door had been shut when his wife’s father was carried out and never opened since. When they happened to walk past it in the evening they noticed their visitors, who I later heard were an estate agent with a prospective purchaser, were fried to a crisp, ft had been a good summer. Mr Dobson also mentioned that soon he would be releasing the Halmatrope spores. They were late this year. Then would come the bottling. We could hardly wait, in the meantime Mr Dobson was concerned about the weather.

  “Be a storm tonight,” he warned. “I can feel it in my juices.” Drools had a tube that ran round one of their legs that responded to barometric pressure, swelling and pulsing as the pressure dropped. “Shame the Putrage is late this year. A storm this time of year can ruin the crop.”

  Sure enough, we were woken up in the night by foam roaring overhead, squeezing torrentially everywhere, and the sky was rent and set alight by enormous explosions of Noxule gas ignited by the piezoelectrical discharge from the drifting continents. Glad that the extension was weatherproof now, we could hear things crashing about outside as the storm intensified. Suddenly there was one enormous x crash. I rushed to the window and peered out. When the sky was lit up by the next explosion I saw our Flasted 49 had been flung through the air and had landed on the new gratification suite which was still waiting to be fitted.

  The next morning when we woke up the sky was clear again and the sun was hot, but all down the valley we could see the damage of the night before. Trake had been uprooted and our drive had been half washed away, but the Putrage seemed undamaged.

  Lesley was giggly and bashful on the last day of plastering. There was a little tidying up and one or two finishing touches to the dusters of Hollombrost and Matchagan, which seemed real enough to pluck, in spite of their lack of colour. We offered her a celebratory Halmatrope and she sat and gossiped with my wife and flashed her eyes at me. We thanked her profusely for the craftsmanship but when she wiggled back to her vehicle and drove off in a cloud of dust we were so relieved we had an impromptu snack of Ansate which had been left to hang in the kitchen for just such an occasion.

  The next day Henry and his cousins turned up to work on the fireplace, followed by Neville to hang the doors. Soon after George arrived. I took him aside and explained our decision to have a Noxule gas system. He was not surprised he said, he had noted our resolve not to be penalized by arbitrary tax regimes. He said he always kept a stock of all the fittings necessary, although it might take several trips to bring them over, owing to their bulky nature. We had also decided that the Noxule system, although obtrusive, was more in keeping with a vernacular cottage, although we were a little dismayed when George told us that the only suitable place for the tank was in the front of the house, obscuring the view of the lagoon, it was a regulation he said, as Henry and his cousins were easing the tank on to its Couth plinth, that tanks had to be kept near standing water for when they caught fire. Henry guffawed. I was perturbed by his use of “when” instead of “if”, but it was obviously all part of the char
m of vernacular systems that they had their little foibles.

  George examined the damaged ablution suite. He could sort something out, he said. It was not as easy to repair as Molarite, but something could be done. At the same time he cast his eye over the gratification suite. Henry and his cousins had lifted the Flasted 49 off and carried it back to the pool, where it sank. They had not noticed the hole in the base. They moved the gratification suite indoors before opening the crate. George told us the rotary arm was repairable but he was unfamiliar with the probe and sensor filaments, or the rest of it. I would have to call in an expert from Palissandria.

  “That sounds expensive,” I said. He nodded.

  Mr Dobson dropped by in the afternoon to warn us that the hunting season was to begin the next day. It only lasted a week and was principally aimed at the large tasty Cutlings, but everything else was at risk too. The Cutling is almost totally meat. Instead of evolving a better shape to move fast and avoid its predators, as it evolved it kept its original shape and developed enormous amounts of muscle on top of it to overcome its earlier inefficiencies. This made it faster but a much better proposition to eat, thus it focused more attention on itself rather than less.

  In the morning we were woken by the sounds of pursuit. We kept off the hill that week. The Cutling may be wonderful to eat with sprigs of Brotch, but to chase it with a pointed Trake seems a trifle barbaric, when all you need to do is leave a couple of Halmatrope out for it then spray it with Instamort while it steeps.

  We went to Bepommel for provisions and discovered that it was the day of the annual Clovis races. When we had stocked up the Stromba we followed everybody to the side street where the race was to be. We had often wondered why creatures kept Clovis. The flesh was pleasant enough but unremarkable considering the amount of care and attention the Clovis required. Even more care and attention was required for the Fainting Clovis, the hybrid used for street racing. At some point in its evolutionary cycle a male Clovis decided that, instead of trying to knock another Clovis senseless with its large thick head in order to win a female, there might perhaps be a simpler way. He tried fainting. The other males shrank away in case it was catching and the females crowded in to help. His numerous resulting offspring inherited this tendency, with one drawback, eventually they had no control over when they fainted. This gave Clovis racing an element of chance. If the Clovis did not faint at all it was disqualified, thus eliminating imposters. We joined the lines of Bepommel inhabitants along the street. At the far end of the street the Clovis were lined up ready. One fainted before the race had even started but it had come to by the time the race was on and the owners had let them go. A brownish one raced straight into the lead, then passed out tripping up the two Clovis just behind it, one of which fainted as it fell. The Drool next to me roared encouragement at the Clovis as the race shot past. He had placed a bet on it, but it fell again just before the end. The first one to cross the line was disqualified for not fainting at all, it had scarcely even run, and the winner stumbled groggily over the line, obviously not quite sure where it was. It was greeted with tumultuous applause and promptly fainted again. Its owner had to take it away on a trolley. After this edifying experience we drove home slowly appreciating the views. We were beginning to feel that we had lost our home. Artisans would casually wander in and out, some days they would all turn up, some days none of them would. We kept telling ourselves that it would all be over soon but then nobody turned up for a week.

  We decided, to pass the time waiting for the work to be finished, that we would drive out to the Trake woods and select our own bark. I asked Mr Skeg’s advice. He cackled. “I said you’d be getting your own. Didn’t I say?” We drove back with the Stromba boot full and set about hanging the bark to dry in the kitchen. The kitchen was always lull of Hully flies so the next stage of the process was guaranteed to progress.

  Mr Dobson visited. He had organized some help and the next day the Halmatrope would be released, weather permitting, but his juices were not too optimistic. I asked him how the hunting had gone.

  “Shocking,” he said. “Only caught a little skinny sick one. The Dorfs must have got the rest.”

  The following day was glorious, in spite of Mr Dobson’s earlier misgivings. By the time we emerged he and his helpers were halfway across the jostling Putrage, flinging little puffs of Halmatrope spores up into the air to flutter down on it. They worked their way across and then flung any leftover spores as far as they could back into the Putrage. Mr Dobson called them in. It was obviously part of the ritual. They all stood in a ring and had one of the previous year’s Halmatrope then sang a song. They sang on and off all the rest of the morning, marching round the edge of the Putrage singing in some ancient dialect we could not understand, Mr Dobson told us later that they were singing to the Halmatrope, telling it to eat its fill and grow strong and full of juice, wishing it health and flavour and hoping it would take to its new home, the bottle. Then they all sat at the end of the Putrage where they had started, and tucked into a fine meal prepared and brought out to them by Mrs Dobson. The sun beat down and for the first time we noticed that the Putrage had stopped moving. On its stems little swollen creatures were visible where the leaves had been. Mr Dobson walked around inspecting. He went back to sit down nodding confidently. An old Zulex bumped up to them, full of bottles. Mr Dobson carefully finished the last morsels of his meal, stood and stretched, then gave the order and all of them got up and seized bottles. They worked their way across, popping every Halmatrope they could see individually into a bottle. Some brought empty bottles along, some filled, some took the full bottles away. Years of co-operation allowed them to work smoothly singing another song to the tiny Halmatrope, urging it to grow and fill its bottle, it was almost dark when the last bottle was filled and the Zulex slowly hauled the load back to one of Mr Dobson’s outbuildings. He sat down and mopped his brow and opened a Halmatrope. We had watched on and off all day. We went over to ask him how it had gone.

  “Marvellously,” he said, standing up obviously still enthused by the day’s success. “That is to say,” he elaborated, “not quite as bad as expected. I expect half of them won’t grow to fill their bottles, we just chuck them away then. Still,” he grinned lopsidedly, “I’ll try and find a few good bottles for you, don’t you worry, even if we get none ourselves. ”

  “Oh, don’t deprive yourself after all your hard work,” I said, and he nodded and chuckled and said he would not.

  Mr Malvern travelled all the way from Palissandria to look at our gratification suite. We had discussed the matter first on the ’screen and I noticed a slightly sarcastic tone, but gave him the benefit of the doubt. He obviously knew only too well that we had little choice but to use him, unless we brought in an expert from Conima at even greater expense. My earlier suspicions were confirmed. Mr Malvern told us immediately that we should have ordered our suite through him. He asked us if we had ordered that particular model, the Nirvana Sensulex. We had to admit that it was not our intended purchase, but we had decided to make do with it. He snorted and examined the damaged rotary arm with a critical fingertip.

  “Pleasure is a serious business, you know.” He lectured us sternly. “Did you sit on it or something?” he asked. I was becoming rather irritated with his attitude. I informed him that at no time in the past had my wife or l sat on the rotary arm, nor did we intend to at any point in the future. We were fully cognizant of the correct use of the rotary arm, we just wanted it fixed and the filaments overhauled. He went to his vehicle and returned with an assortment of spare parts and equipment.

  An hour later he barged in on us in the kitchen and said he had replaced the arm and re hung the filaments. It was time to calibrate. I said we would calibrate it ourselves. He said it was madness to bring him all that way without calibrating it, particularly as we were Conimunculi, he added, rudely, I thought. Then, noting that we were insistent on that point, he suggested that it should at least be tested once in his presence and
if we would not, perhaps he should. We agreed to that but pointed out that there was as yet no door. He seemed unperturbed.

  Mr Malvern was in a better mood when he reappeared, several hours later. We offered him a snack before he set off on his long journey back. He assured us that the suite was now in perfect working order. We noticed that he was a little wobbly on his legs as we accompanied him to his vehicle and saw him off.

  Now all we needed was for the rest of the work to be finished.

  OCTOBER

  My wife and I were walking in the hills early one morning. The sky was clear, save for one or two meteors exploding with a puff in the upper atmosphere. We looked down on our house now doubled in size. The gas tank was something we would have to come to terms with and the new roof was a slightly different colour, but as close a match of surface foliage as could be expected. The areas of Putrage behind were strangely still, stripped of their leaves by the Halmatrope, Mr Dobson had told us that it would be a month or two before the new leaves grew large enough to harness the solar energy which activated them.

  There was very little to do to finish the work, or so it seemed to us. A few small awkward jobs were left, some tidying up and repairs to the inevitable damage caused by the whole protracted process. We had considered suggesting to Henry that instead of calling himself a building contractor, he might consider building protractor more appropriate, but we decided it would lose its effect in Spheraglese. There was also the problem of finding Henry in the first place to tell him.