‘How was I to know?’ I brushed the plaster dust from my shoulders. ‘I can’t see what I’m doing. Why have you got it so dark in here?’
‘Well, it was all getting pretty confusing out there, so I closed Troy’s eyes. And his ears.’
‘Well, open them! We need to see what’s going on.’
‘OK!’ The simpleton raced off up the spiral staircase which stretched out of sight into the gloom.
‘And hurry!’ I urged after his disappearing figure.
Tikka tikka tikka.
His footsteps died off into the darkness above.
There was a brief pause.
Tikka tikka tikka.
The footsteps rapidly returned.
Troy stopped at the foot of the stairs, panting. ‘Sorry. What was it I wanted?’
I was losing patience. ‘The eyes! Open the eyes!’
‘Yes,’ he nodded, ‘of course!’
He turned and ran up the stairs again.
Tikka tikka tikka.
This time there was a longer pause.
Tikka tikka tikka.
He skittered back down again, sweating and red in the face. ‘What did I go up for again?’
Seriously, the nincompoop couldn’t win a battle of wits with a quarter of pear drops. I thrust him aside roughly. Eventually, he stepped out of my way. ‘Stay here,’ I ordered. ‘I’ll open them myself!’
I ran up the stairs as quickly as I could, my heart pounding in my stomach. I ran and ran, but the stairs didn’t seem to lead anywhere, just stretching on and on into infinity.
I stopped, caught my breath, leant over the side and called below: ‘Where are they?’
A tiny distant voice answered me. ‘I can’t hear you,’ it said.
Had I any breath left in my body, I would have sighed deeply in exasperation. Instead, I raced back down, valiantly fighting the cramps in my leg muscles with every step.
‘I said , where’s the control for the eyes?’
‘Oh, that ? It’s this yellow lever here,’ he said, waving towards the switch next to him.
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. ‘It’s down here?’
‘Yes.’
‘It was down here all the time ?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then why in the name of Norgar’s Ravenous Hordes have we been traipsing up and down these bally stairs ?’ †
‘I don’t know!’
I bustled the buffoon out of the way again and reached for the EYE lever.
But before I could grab it, there was a strange, echoing noise from the cavernous hall I’d just left, chilling my very blood. Which is not easy, as my blood is normally at a comfortable simmering temperature.
Footsteps! Extraordinarily large footsteps. There was some kind of monster lurking in Troy’s mindscape, and it was stamping its way towards us.
Every terrifying step brought it closer. And closer. The room began to shake.
Troy’s Self seemed frozen, but I was coursing with noble Martian adrenaline, and bravely leapt to the door which I locked, barred and bolted, then tugged a large sideboard in front of it, and courageously filled the sideboard with rocks, then wedged a ladder up against it.
And still the footsteps came.
Just when it seemed the behemoth was almost upon us, it stopped.
I held my breath. Suddenly, there was a monstrous pounding on the door, and a guttural growl: ‘ Me! Me! Me! ’
Troy looked somewhat sheepish.
‘Troy, please tell me that’s not your Ego out there.’
The boy didn’t raise his eyes from the floor. ‘He doesn’t want you in our head.’
More thumps, and the door actually bulged. ‘He sounds gigantic!’
‘Yes. He is.’ Troy shrugged. ‘I just think I’m really great, that’s all.’
Another thump, and the door began to splinter alarmingly.
I had to work fast. I wrenched back the eye lever and blinds immediately rolled up on the huge picture windows taking up most of the opposite wall. Finally I could see the interior of the stricken craft, and the panic that was going on inside.
But before I could engage the ears, the door finally burst into thousands of fragments, and Troy’s gigantic Ego stomped in, bringing the door frame and a good deal of the wall with it, effortlessly shattering the sideboard with a single blow.
It had a huge head. Its features were a grotesque parody of Troy’s face, with alarmingly little flinty eyes and two rows of teeth, triangular, sharp and interlocking, as if someone had fashioned a set of dentures from a bear trap. Its arm and leg muscles were hideously inflated, like sausage skins crammed full of basketballs and melons. Also, it drooled rather a lot.
‘ Me! Me! Meeeee! ’ it roared, beating its mighty chest with fists that could have hammered a concrete pile to the centre of the Earth.
‘Quickly, Troy: this is a psychological emergency! The only thing that can subdue him is your Superego!’
‘Is he that annoying bloke who’s always trying to tell me what to do?’
‘That’s the chap. Where is he?’
‘I keep him in here.’ Troy reached under the chair cushion and took out a matchbox.
A matchbox .
From inside it, a tiny voice squeaked: ‘Let me out! Let me out!’
I sighed. This, I had to admit, did explain rather a lot.
The Ego advanced upon us, hurling shredded furniture in its wake as it bellowed in fury: ‘ Me! Me! Meeeee! ’
Unperturbed, I was confident, as per the well-known theories of Dr. Kakark Bumpp, our foremost Martian Thinkalyser (whose work was shamelessly plagiarised by that despicable Terranean brain-quack, Sigmund Freud) that however large an ego may grow, it would always be subservient to the moderating influence of even the most underdeveloped Superego. ‘Stand back!’ I yelled, flipping open the matchbox and liberating the mighty psychological force contained therein.
‘Free at last!’ the tiny well-kempt Troy squeaked boldly, leaping from the box like a cricket and fearlessly placing himself squarely in the path of the marauder. ‘Now listen to me, you—’
And he was gone. Down the monster’s mouth, chewed up and swallowed before you could say the ‘J’ from Jack Robinson.
This was bad. There was now nothing to stop the slobbering behemoth from indulging its vilest bloodlust. I had no doubt in my mind I’d soon be joining the little man on his journey to stomach land.
Desperately, I reached out and threw the switch for the ears . . .
* Named after Mars’ outer moon. Deimos, in Martian fable, visits the hovels of the poor during the Festival of Misery, which occurs 72 times a year, when Martians are encouraged to leave out cake, sweet-smelling herbs and a selection of erotic literature to avoid offending Deimos (the Spirit of War), lest he steal into their children’s bedrooms and sew their legs together. Many parents gaily sew their children’s legs together under cover of darkness to maintain this delightful myth.
† In Martian myth, Norgar the Loose-Bowelled was a warlord who would only fight armies of women and/or extremely old people. There were, therefore, rarely any spoils to distribute, and his starving troops finally ate him.
Chapter Three
From the journal of Brian Nylon, 1st January, 1952 – Iteration 66
Troy was frozen. I tried to reach the button one last time, but I couldn’t move a single muscle in my arms, so great was the G-force.
‘ Gravitational wave impact in fifteen seconds. ’
I managed, with some considerable effort, to swivel my head slightly towards Dr. Janussen. ‘This is the beginning, Gemma. It’s all starting now. I want you to know that . . . I hate you so very much.’
She opened her mouth to reply, but then Troy bunched his right fist and suddenly punched himself in the face very very hard and yelled ‘Ouch!’
‘Troy?’ Was he awake? Was there still hope?
Abruptly, his eyes bugged open. And, bizarrely, through his mouth, Guuuurk’s voice issued. ‘Brian! Gemma!
It’s me, Guuuurk!’ How on earth could such a thing be happening? Nonetheless, it continued. ‘I’m here in Troy’s brain and I’m in desperate trouble!’
Guuuurk? Inside Troy’s mind? And he seemed to be protected from the effects of Reverse Reality. Though I, of course, was not: ‘Guuuurk! You mustn’t press the button now !’
But something very odd indeed was going on inside Troy’s head. ‘Agh!’ came Guuuurk’s voice again. ‘It’s got my feet in its mouth!’ There was a pause, and he added: ‘It’s all going terribly wrong!’
Troy’s body lurched forward nonetheless. His hand shot out and shakily moved towards the button.
‘You’re absolutely nowhere near it!’ I shouted encouragingly.
‘Almost there,’ Guuuurk/Troy strained. ‘Ah! No! Get off, you hideous beast! Owwwwww!’
Chapter Four
Secret Report to Martian Command, by Guuuurk [cont’d]
‘Owwwwww! ’ The creature had me in its terrible maw. Ignoring the pain completely, I made one last, valiant, self-sacrificing effort to reach the button. And I was close, so close . . . But then, blackness.
And in an eternity that lasted a heartbeat, the rushing winds carried me back to my body, despite all my efforts to bravely and valiantly remain in the danger zone.
For a moment, I was disoriented, still between realms. ‘ Uuuuurrrrhhhh . . . It’s dribbling on my spats . . .’
Water splashed on my face. I shook my head and opened all six of my eyes to see Quanderhorn in each and every one of them. ‘Dammit! Wake up, Guuuurk! Did you press the button?’
Had I reached it? ‘I honestly don’t know, Professor.’
‘Then you’ve got to go back!’
‘I can’t!’ Desperate as I was to get back to the extraordinarily dangerous situation, mind-hopping is extremely draining, as you all know, and requires a minimum of ninety-six Martian hours of recuperation between jaunts.
‘Dammit again! Well, at least we prevented the end of the world. As I correctly calculated, the top of the mountain tumbled directly into the sinkhole, sealing it completely. And all we lost were a few herds of goats and six or seven monasteries. Still, that’s no consolation if my brilliant, brave son has needlessly sacrificed his life.’
I was beginning to see how Troy’s ego problem might have evolved. ‘And Brian and Dr. Janussen, of course,’ I added.
‘ Nmmmmmmm ,’ the Professor mumbled vaguely.
The voice I was dreading blasted out of the speaker: ‘ Gravitational wave impact in two . . . one . . . ’
We held our breath. A second surely passed. And surely another one. I peered for the blip on the radar screen. It had vanished. Had the ship been destroyed, or had it accelerated out of range? The answer came suddenly:
‘ Gravitational wave evaded! ’
The comms desk burst back into life. ‘The communi-link’s restored!’ Quanderhorn roared. ‘Guuuurk! Resume the remote controls immediately!’
I dashed to the control panel, grabbed the joystick and hailed the craft.
‘Guuuurk to Dustbin Deathtrap! Bringing you home remotely.’ I fired the retro-rockets. ‘You should be dropping below X-barrier speed any moment now . . .’
Over the radio I heard Dr. Janussen say ‘I want you to know, Brian, I don’t like you terribly much.’
‘Sorry?’ Brian stuttered. ‘What?’
Chapter Five
From the journal of Brian Nylon, 2nd January, 1952 – Iteration 66
We splashed down in Lake Windermere, where Jenkins was waiting to take us home. As Troy, Dr. Janussen and I stepped into his patched rubber dinghy Gargantua, Goddess of the Waters , I looked back at the stricken craft that had borne us. It was now nothing more than a half-melted lump of amorphous metal with jagged tears in the structure on all sides, and was taking in water fast.
With a horrible whispering sound it suddenly fragmented and collapsed down into itself like a demolished industrial chimney, leaving a boiling eddy of bubbles and scattered flotsam. Amongst it, I spotted my lucky Scout woggle, which I managed to rescue without the others seeing. I think. *
We tumbled, exhausted, into the topless jeep and Jenkins drove us back to the lab.
It was a moonless night, and as we all lay down to try and snatch a few moments’ rest, the darkness above us was dispelled all at once by a sudden enchantingly beautiful meteorite shower, bathing us in an ethereal glow.
I glanced over at Dr. Janussen, who was lying on the bench opposite mine. She looked particularly lovely as the soft radiant colours danced over her exquisite face, like fairies on midsummer night.
She opened one eye. ‘Brian, your nose is dripping. And there’s dried drool on your chin.’
I smiled back at her indulgently. That moment just now on the ship, when she’d claimed she didn’t like me terribly much – was that during or after the X-barrier was reversing our thoughts? Had she really meant she adored me, as I did her?
‘You really are disgusting,’ she added.
Would I ever know the truth?
Jenkins showed me to my room.
Though I entered it and bade him goodnight with an air of nonchalance, the moment I shut the door, my heart was pounding frightfully. My past lay in this room.
I looked around slowly.
A simple desk, a camp bed, a wardrobe and a washbasin.
I recognised nothing. Remembered nothing. There were no framed photographs next to my bedside, no letters in the drawers of the desk. An inspection of the wardrobe merely turned up a spare set of sensible shoes, two plain brown ties, a couple of tweed jackets and three socks. No inscription on the back of my watch. No wallet or driving licence. No clean underwear.
I collapsed, deflated, onto the smartly made bed. No clues anywhere.
And then it struck me: that piece of paper in my flight suit pocket!
I took it out and smoothed it down. If there were a message in invisible ink, all I had to do was hold it over a heat source.
I scanned the room again. No matches, no radiator, no Primus stove. No heat source of any kind. But then, wasn’t I a Boy Scout?
I poked a hole in the mattress and dug out some straw. I opened up the wardrobe and kicked out two slats from the back. Using my shoelaces to fashion a primitive bow drill, I spun a pencil into the remaining slat.
After about seventy-five minutes, the straw began to smoulder, and less than two hours later, it caught fire.
Feverishly I took the paper and held it above the flame.
Nothing happened.
I held it closer.
Letters began to form on the page, from the centre outwards:
Then it burst into flames, which immediately spread to my sleeve. My right arm was too exhausted from the bowing to actually move, so I had to put the blaze out by rolling on the bed. Which I remembered, just a moment too late, was stuffed with straw. I had to fill my tooth mug with water from the basin with my good arm and rush back and forwards dousing the fire.
After about half an hour, it spread to the wardrobe.
I had to dash into the corridor and hunt down a fire extinguisher. I found several, quite easily, but they were all labelled ‘Not Suitable for Fire’. What the devil were they for, then?
When I finally returned, I found absolutely all the furniture had completely burnt out, and nothing remained but several piles of black smoking ashes.
I closed the door quietly, and moved into the adjacent room, which was mercifully unoccupied.
As I switched the light on, I realised I could have simply held the parchment up to the bulb.
I lay on the bed, turning over the message in my head. ‘ELLER’? What could that possibly be? Propeller? Fortune-teller? Tunnel dweller? Bookseller? John D. Rockefeller?
‘EXTREMELY DAN’, I guessed was ‘Dangerous’, though it could have been ‘Extremely dangly’ or ‘Extremely Danish’.
‘BOOB’? A dangerous fortune-teller with extremely dangly boobs? Why the dickens would anyone bother to warn me against su
ch an individual? If I saw them coming, I’d run a mile!
A wave of exhaustion swept over me, and I resolved to sleep and pursue my investigations in the light of day.
I flicked off the light and the room was illuminated by residual bursts of radiance from the dying meteor shower, gently lulling me off . . .
Exhausted, I had an almost dreamless night. There was just one: in a curious violet light, the Professor, wearing a peculiar pair of goggles, was at the foot of my bed, scraping my shins with some sort of strigil. I called out a cotton-mouthed ‘Professor?’ The dream Quanderhorn held his finger to his lips and vanished backwards into the gloom.
I sank back into peaceful oblivion.
* From Guuuurk’s Report: ‘What the Deimos is that peculiar little braided object Brian keeps rescuing surreptitiously? Is it something he applies to his genitalia during the mating ritual in some way, like the red-hot Barbed Hoopno employed in the Martian honeymoon ceremony? He certainly seems very attached to it (though not in the way one becomes attached to the red-hot Barbed Hoopno). We’re all laughing behind our hands whenever he gets it out!’
Chapter Six
From the journal of Brian Nylon, 2nd January, 1952 – Iteration 66
I rose late and breakfasted alone in the automated canteen on synthetic porridge and devilled ‘kidneys’, from the Professor’s farm. Apparently, for some reason the ‘kidneys’ were made of liver. Which was all very well, if you liked devilled liver. Personally, I found it revolting. I took my tea without milk, which seemed to disappoint the little cow on the table.
At eight, I made my way over to the briefing room. Everyone was waiting. Dr. Janussen, looking fresh and fragrant, was studying the output from the Telemergency Print-O-Gram. ‘The meteorite shower seems to have abated, Professor.’
‘Excellent!’ Quanderhorn barked. ‘That wraps up the sinkhole incident.’ He began gathering papers from the desk. ‘I’ll be in my office. My door is always open. Jenkins: can you do something about that damned door? These idiots keep coming in.’ He turned to leave. ‘And bring me all the information we have on that meteorite shower.’
The Quanderhorn Xperimentations Page 7