The Quanderhorn Xperimentations

by Andrew Marshall

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Of course I see it.’

  ‘It’s a hot potato stand.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘On the Moon !’

  ‘I know what it is.’

  ‘But I’m ravenous.’

  ‘Remember what Delores said, Brian. Just ignore it.’ She bounded past the hot potato stand, giving it a rather wide berth.

  Bewildered, and very, very hungry, I reluctantly bounded after her.

  Chapter Eight

  Franday the rth of Phobos, Martian Year 5972 Pink [cont’d]

  Secret report to Martian Command, by Guuuurk, et cetera et cetera.

  We’d almost made it to the wrecks in blessed silence, when the lad snapped out of whatever reverie he’d been in and started bouncing animatedly on his seat.

  ‘Wait! Stop the yacht! Stop the yacht!’

  I wrenched up the handbrake and we careened round in a cloud of grey moon dust.

  ‘What? What is it?’

  ‘Over there!’ He gesticulated wildly behind us. ‘We just passed a little cobbler’s shop! It had those sweet little windows with the swirly bits in the middle, and little mechanical elves hammering on a brogue in the display.’

  ‘Ye-ess . . .’

  ‘I was just thinking I need some new shoelaces . . .’

  ‘Were you really ?’

  ‘I mean, what are the chances? A shoelace shop on the Moon, just when I need one? It’s about as unlikely as me seeing a . . . Oh, look! A barber’s! I was just thinking I needed a trim round the back. Do you think they have that rubber thing that puffs talcum powder down your neck? I love that.’

  I heaved a deep sigh. ‘Troy, I need to explain to you about a creature called “the Lunar Mantrap” . . .’

  ‘Hang on a minute. I just need to nip over to that cute little sweet shop and get a quarter of gobstoppers.’ He was actually unhooking his seat harness. I laid a gentle hand on his shoulder as I accelerated away and tried again.

  ‘The Lunar Mantrap is a deadly plant life form which lures the unwary traveller into its jaws by picking up our thoughts and mimicking objects of our immediate desires. Do you understand?’

  ‘Oh yes! You mean . . . no, I don’t understand.’

  ‘They’re carnivorous shape-shifters. They read your mind and morph themselves to look exactly like the thing you want to see.’ He was still struggling. ‘They’re Nasty Things That Want to Eat You, so They Copy Things You Like.’

  This seemed to sink in. ‘The filthy swine!’ he cursed. ‘Pretending to be toffee shops!’

  ‘So you see – we have to be on our guard at all ti—’ I hit all the brakes at once. Would you believe it – right in front of us was the most splendid saucy gentleman’s club! It was a riot of flashing signs: ‘Open All Nite!’, ‘Gals Galore’, ‘Free For First Timers’, and ‘Beautiful Loose-Moralled Ladies Cavorting in Their Barely Adequate Nether Garments’.

  ‘Wow!’ Troy gawped. ‘That’s a lot of neon.’

  I unhitched myself and threw the car door open. ‘Let’s go ! I’ve got a whole wad of luncheon vouchers burning a hole in my tennis flannels. Tally-ho!’

  ‘I’m right behind you!’

  We scampered towards the lush red carpet that beckoned us towards the warm glow of the doorway. There was a poster beside it, advertising ‘Unlimited Complimentary Cocktails for Martians and Part-Insectoid Humans Every Saturday’. What a stroke of unbridled luck! It was Saturday!

  I was just about to set my foot down on the carpet and step inside when the idiotic troll grasped my elbow with his muscular hand like a G clamp, holding me back. ‘Wait!’ he yelled. ‘What if it’s one of the Bad Eaty things?’

  ‘Let go of me, you addle-brained ape, I’m going inside!’ I knew what he was up to, the bounder: he wanted first pick of the showgirls. Well, nothing was going to stop a violet-blooded Martian like me from getting to the floozies first. I stamped hard down on his foot, and he released me.

  It’s a bit of a blur from that moment. I remember my feet sticking to the ‘carpet’ as it began to roll up behind me, and banks upon banks of bayonet-sharp teeth emerging from the darkness beyond the doorway, dripping with what looked like acid. I was propelled helplessly towards them. I tried to move, but my feet were mired in its glue-like saliva. I was done for. The only honourable thing was to embrace my fate with all the calm dignity in my noble Martian breast.

  ‘Help! Help!’ I shouted, just to make the Terranean lad feel better, really. ‘I’m too handsome to die!’

  But the scoundrel had gone! There was no sign of him whatsoever. He’d simply left me there to be chewed and digested. And I thought he was my friend!

  If only I could liberate one arm, I could perhaps tap the broadcast button on my breast and warn the others of the danger, as a last heroic act of heroism. I kicked savagely at the beast’s cheeks, and managed to momentarily distract it enough to rip my hand free and hit the switch.

  ‘Brian and Gemma! This is the last message I shall ever send! It’s curtains for me. Don’t try and reach me – you’ll never make it. But you young things still have a chance at life – for heaven’s sake watch out for the Lunar Mantraps.’

  There was a terrible roar as the savage creature reared to deliver its death blow. I punched it violently in the eye. He wouldn’t forget this meal in a hurry.

  ‘I go now. This is the end for Guuuurk the Beneficent: I die as I would have wished: sacrificing myself for the greater glory of Mother Mars. I peacefully await the end, and my undeniably befitting transition to Bzingador. *

  ‘Thus ends the life of a legend. Weep not for me. Weep only for Mars, who has lost her favourite son . . .’

  ‘Guuuurk out.’

  * Bzingador (silent ‘b’ ) is a kind of Martian Valhalla, where the souls of the bravest Warriors are welcomed for an eternal slap-up meal at the legendary Long Table, at the head of which sits the Lord Phobos himself, brandishing his Mace of Fog, his Orb of Drizzle and his Mantle of Intermittent Showers. Each warrior has a twelve-breasted serving wench at each knee who pops sausages into his mouth, and isn’t allowed to argue, remark upon his personal hygiene or make him shop for furniture.

  It is most unlikely Guuuurk would even get to ring the doorbell, as a pit would open beneath the entrance, and cowards and traitors are whisked straight down to Croydon, the Martian Hades. Most Martian historians maintain it inspired the name of the London borough, and suggest that anyone who doubts this should pay a visit to Croyden power station on a Saturday night.

  Chapter Nine

  The Rational Scientific Journal of Dr. Gemini Janussen, Saturday 5th January 1952 (Again)

  Clearly, Brian’s hunger was not abating. Everywhere we looked there was a fully formed fish and chip shop, or a transport café, or the Aerated Bread Company. In frustration, he scooped up a pebble and hurled it at a small Italian trattoria, which immediately morphed back into its base form: a rather revolting giant Venus flytrap sort of plant, its gaping maw lined with savage teeth.

  This delighted the schoolboy cricketer in Brian. He grabbed a handful of pebbles and started targeting the lunar plants with gusto. He could hurl a stone quite a distance in the low gravity here, without breaking his step.

  Eventually, we left the outcrops of vegetation behind, and found ourselves in a large, dusty basin, with a cluster of promising-looking craft on the far ridge.

  I was feeling the exertions, now, and my breath was coming in gulps, which was inefficient. I held up my hand and shouted: ‘Stop!’

  Brian paused, panting. ‘Are you sure? We’ve got less than thirty minutes of oxygen left.’

  ‘Well, how much is that? That could be any amount at all right down to zero.’

  ‘Ye-es, but if you had ten minutes left, for example, you wouldn’t say “less than thirty”, would you?’

  ‘But that would be factually correct.’ Honestly, the vague way this man’s mind worked! How on earth anyone such as myself could find him remotely attractive was quite beyond compreh
ension.

  ‘OK – so we have twenty-eight minutes left. Approximately. And I still don’t understand why we’re stopping.’ He gave that funny little half-smile of his.

  ‘The more we strain, the more oxygen we burn. Our most efficient course is to rest for exactly three minutes.’

  We both caught our breath.

  I was beginning to feel a little light-headed. I checked my oxygen feed for blockages, but everything was fine. Suddenly, a tiny wisp of light flared from a nearby ditch. And another. ‘Over there!’ Brian started. ‘What are those things?’

  ‘They’re luminects.’

  ‘Whatinects?’

  ‘A sort of moon glow-worm.’

  He relaxed and started breathing more normally. ‘They’re beautiful.’

  Objectively, I had to admit: they were an appealing sight. ‘If you tune in your helmet, they say you can hear them chirruping.’

  I twisted my own tuner, and sure enough, there they were. A beautiful chorus of basso song drifting in and out on the solar wind. ‘Isn’t that lovely?’

  Brian was pulling a face. ‘Not really .’ He actually scratched his helmet. ‘They sound like . . . a room full of terribly flatulent old men.’

  Pitiful. What was wrong with this boy? ‘Widen the frequency and you can hear the moon crickets, too.’

  And a harmony of soothing baritone blended in to form a peerless symphony of lunar Nature, making me almost giddy with the wonder of it all.

  ‘Is it me,’ Brian asked tentatively, ‘or do they sound like they’re belching?’

  Oh, this was typical. ‘There’s absolutely no romance in your soul, is there?’

  ‘ Romance? That one over there sounds like it’s throwing up!’ There was an awkward pause, while the philistine shuffled uneasily. ‘Where are we exactly?’

  ‘The Sea of Tranquillity. Isn’t it romantic?’

  He kicked at a pebble. ‘No. Not really. There’s a bit too much farting and belching and vomiting for my taste.’

  ‘Do you want to put your arms around me?’ I said, suddenly. I don’t know why. I seemed to be feeling increasingly frivolous.

  Brian was staring at me strangely. For some reason, my hand automatically went up to the right side of my helmet. ‘Your ear . . .’ he said, unhelpfully.

  ‘What about my ear?’

  ‘It’s . . .’ He seemed strangely reluctant to tell me.

  ‘What about my ear?’ I repeated, quite cross with him.

  ‘It’s . . . it’s winding down.’

  ‘Winding down?’ My hand shot up again. Why did it keep doing that?

  ‘And we can’t reach it through your helmet.’

  ‘What do you mean, “winding down”?’

  But the truth was: I already knew the answer. I’d been denying it, pretending it wasn’t happening, but all those strange goings-on: the pink motor scooter, the cushions and the make-up . . . Could that have been . . .? It must have been . . . me !

  Johnnie Ray records?

  Crocodile handbags?

  Actually, thinking about it now, I did quite like Johnnie Ray, particularly ‘The Little White Cloud That Cried’. And that crocodile bag was pretty snappy (ha ha!).

  Oh my Lord! Winding down? It was blindingly obvious now. The right-hand side of my brain – the rational, logical side – was powered by clockwork!

  Clockwork!

  And there was a part of me that always knew that.

  ‘You’re going to be all right, Gemma.’ Brian smiled gently and stepped towards me. It was quite a sweet smile, when you thought about it. ‘You’re going to be just fine. You’ll simply start to feel increasingly emotional and intuitive, that’s all. It’s still the same old clever custard Dr. Janussen at the helm in there.’

  He was right. I could fight this. It was just a question of focusing on pure rationality and expediency. We were in mortal danger, and if we didn’t . . . ‘Kiss me!’ I demanded. Right out of the blue. Honestly. How forward!

  Brian shifted nervously on his feet and kicked another pebble.

  ‘Go on, kiss me,’ I positively demanded.

  ‘I feel . . .’ He squirmed. ‘I feel I’d be taking advantage of you. In this . . . condition.’

  ‘I want you to take advantage of me, you wonderful idiot!’ I tilted my head back and puckered up. Resist that if you can, boy!

  But he didn’t move. ‘Gemma, it’s pure rationality. We’re both wearing space helmets. If we took them off now, our eyes and tongues would boil, literally boil , long before our lips touched. That is if our lungs hadn’t already imploded.’

  ‘I don’t care about boiling lungs. Kiss me.’ My hands actually reached for the clasps of my helmet. I don’t know if I’d have gone ahead and wrenched it off, but I was interrupted by a transmission from Guuuurk:

  ‘ Brian and Gemma! ’ BZZT! ‘ This is the last message I shall ever send, unless you drag your arses over here sharpish and— ’ ZZZTSSS! ‘ some kind of fallacious floozy flophouse. That stinker Troy— ’ FZZZZT SSSSSS! ‘ cowardly bas— ’ FZZZZT! ‘ Ahhhh! It’s digesting me! I don’t want to die! I’ll give you anything if you get over here quick and— ’ BZZZT! ‘ I’ll even betray Mars! For heaven’s sake reply. Do you read me? Do you rea— ’

  I snapped the radio off.

  Brian was fiddling with his receiver. ‘I didn’t get that. What did he want?’

  ‘Nothing. Now: tell me what you think of my eyes . . .’

  In my headphones there was a sudden outburst that sounded undeniably reminiscent of flatulence and belching, just like Brian had been describing.

  ‘Sorry.’ He kicked another pebble. ‘Those were all me.’

  Chapter Ten

  The Daybook of ‘Jenkins’ Jenkins, RQMS Royal Fusiliers (AWOL since 1945), Saturday the 5th of January, 1952

  Groom boiler.

  The Prof’s scampering in and out of that isolation lab like that Eyetie POW we chased round the Colosseum with bayonets fixed.

  I finally manage to attract his attention: ‘Any news from the crew on the Moon, sir?’

  He looks surprised I’ve even asked. ‘Oh, it’s pretty hopeless for that bunch. As far as I can tell, there’s only one discarded ship up there that can conceivably be rendered spaceworthy. And frankly, I doubt they have the wherewithal to work out how to use it.’

  ‘I put all the gubbins you ordered over there, sir.’

  ‘Oh, bring it in. Bring it in. We’re going to start needing it shortly.’

  Sometimes with the Prof, it’s best to come straight out and ask. ‘Am I right in thinking you’re . . . growing people again, sir?’

  ‘Yes. But I think I’ve got it right this time.’ I clutches an armful of baby gear and follows him into the Iso lab. ‘I’ve been scraping the dead skin from the subjects while they slept for the last nine months.’

  ‘In your night vision goggles, sir, would that be right?’

  He fixes me with one of his looks. Sometimes, it ain’t best to come straight out and ask.

  ‘Yes. Well spotted, Jenkins.’ And there’s a little bit of a threat in the ‘Jenkins’. ‘Anyway, I’ve gathered sufficient bio-material to grow duplicates rapidly. Very rapidly.’ He hits a button, and a panel in the wall slides aside and there’s a window behind it. ‘If I hung around waiting for years for people to grow up properly, there’d be no end to it.’

  The window looks on to this quaint little nursery room. There’s four cots: a baby boy in the first, a baby girl in the next one, then a baby Martian, of all things, and something odd in a cocoon in the last one. The Martian one has a special muzzle on, to stop him eating the wet nurse.

  As I watches, I can actually see them growing! In less than five minutes, they’ve outgrown their cribs and are crawling around on a mat.

  ‘How are they going to learn things, sir?’

  ‘That’s the beauty of it: by the time they’re fully developed, they’ll have inherited the entire knowledge of their donors. No need to teach them anything! Imagine tha
t: no more schools, no more teachers, no more rules!’

  Just then, the little Master Quanderhorn duplicate bursts out of whatever pupa thing he’s been growing in, and starts stacking up the cots like alphabet bricks.

  ‘I’m the best!’ he’s saying. His very first words!

  ‘Put those beds down!’ says the purple baby, lighting a tiny miniature cigarette. ‘This place is an absolute shambles.’

  The Prof’s watching approvingly. ‘They should be fully grown adults by 3.37 this afternoon.’

  Young Dr. Janussen crawls over to young master Nylon, who’s heavily involved in his Brio train set. ‘Give us a kiss, Brian,’ she says, and plants one on his cheek.

  He leaps up like he’s been stung by a rattler and starts rubbing his face with considerable vigour. ‘ Yewgh! ’ he yells. ‘Smelly girl! Go away!’ Ha! He’ll be regretting that in about forty minutes if my arithmetic is right.

  ‘So they’re going to be completely identical, sir, to the original crew, are they?’

  ‘Perfect replicas,’ he nods. ‘Almost.’

  Oh dear.

  ‘Almost, sir?’

  ‘Obviously,’ he says, with that terrifying glint in his eye, ‘I’ve made one or two improvements.’

  Chapter Eleven

  Franday the rth of Phobos, Martian Year 5972 Pink [cont’d]

  Secret report to Martian Command, by Guuuurk, et cetera et cetera.

  I didn’t seem to be standing at the sacred Gates of Bzingador, where pain and suffering are washed away forever by the tinkling Fountains of Serenity. Instead, I was in considerable pain, and suffering rather badly. There was a gruesome smell, which led me to believe I may have soiled myself, my feet were screaming in agony as if being digested , and I could hear the most ghastly clanging noise.

  When I opened a few of my eyes again to check why I wasn’t dead, I saw Troy outside the roaring behemoth’s gaping maw, banging it roundly over the head with what looked like a huge section of jagged steel ripped off from some structure.

  ‘Stand back!’ he cried, unnecessarily. I wasn’t moving anywhere. I was rolled up in the creature’s tongue like Cleopatra wrapped in an Axminster.