The Quanderhorn Xperimentations

by Andrew Marshall

  ‘Where the devil have you been ?’ I croaked weakly.

  ‘Getting this!’ He brandished the giant ersatz axe. ‘I pulled it off a crashed ship – take that , Moon Monster!’ He brought it down again to a horrifying screech from the Mantrap and a massive spurt of bilious sap from a huge gash in its hide.

  The tongue unfurled and spat me out like used chewing tobacco. I tumbled, winded and slime-covered, onto the lunar surface.

  Troy swung again and again. The creature was lunging at him ferociously. He yelled over his shoulder: ‘Get back in the yacht, quick!’

  I didn’t need telling twice. To be honest, I didn’t need telling once . I was already slamming down the accelerator when he just managed to jump in beside me.

  ‘Guuuurk – I nearly didn’t make it!’

  ‘Do you really think I would leave you behind?’

  He thought for a second. ‘Probably, yes.’

  ‘What? After you risked your life to save me from almost certain death?’

  He pondered again. ‘Probably, yes.’

  That, to me, is the essence of friendship. When you know each other so well.

  ‘What an ignominious end that would have been: savaged to death by a hotsy-totsy parlour.

  We motored on. The pain in my feet gradually subsided to a dull throb. I drove resolutely past an All-Nite Stripperama, the Lunar Playboy Club, and the combined Racy Cummerbund Shop and Swedish Massage Emporium.

  I glanced round at the lad. He was worryingly gullible. ‘We really need to keep our wits about us with these Mantrap demons,’ I admonished. ‘We have to remember: they always appear as something you urgently desire.’

  ‘Right.’ Troy nodded. He was gloriously quiet for a moment. It didn’t last. ‘Like, say, when we found this yacht.’

  ‘Yes . . . No! . . . What? No. That’s nonsense.’

  ‘Think about it. We really wanted a moon yacht, and bam ! There it was.’

  ‘No.’ I chuckled. ‘They can’t mimic moving objec—’

  ‘The yacht’s one! The yacht’s one! Jump out! The yacht’s a monster!’

  Before I could protest, he’d wrapped his arms round me and leapt backwards through the passenger door, bringing us both down in the moon dust with a sickening crump. The vehicle plunged onwards, dizzily out of control. It veered wildly to the left, swerved to the right, smashed into a large boulder which sent it spinning into the air. It finally embedded itself in a rocky ridge, throwing up a slow-motion plume of severed metal parts and scattered debris.

  Slowly and painfully we got to our feet.

  ‘I think you panicked a bit there, Guuuurk,’ the simpleton castigated. ‘Turns out it was just a moon yacht after all.’

  ‘And now,’ I pointed out, though it hardly seemed necessary, ‘it’s just a useless farrago of smoking metal detritus.’

  ‘You give up too easily, Guuuurk.’ He slapped me on my back with more gusto than I’d have liked. ‘I’ll just haul it over there to that handy moon yacht repair garage.’

  I glanced over to it. The sign by the petrol pumps read ‘Completely Smashed Moon Vehicles Repaired in Ten Minutes! No Wreck Too Wrecked!’. I sighed.

  ‘Troy, Troy, Troy, Troy, Troy.’ I shook my head genially. ‘However many times do I have to explain this: the creatures disguise themselves as something you want to see . . .’

  ‘Ye-e-e-e-esss . . .’ I swear I could hear his mighty brain whirring.

  ‘Something that’s not normally found on the Moon . . .’ I think I was beginning to get through.

  ‘Ok-a-a-a-ayyy . . .’

  ‘. . . But is familiar to the person they’re trying to trap!’

  His eyes widened alarmingly. I could see what he was thinking. Again, I chuckled. ‘No,’ I smiled kindly, ‘they can’t do peop—’

  And that’s as far as I got . . .

  Chapter Twelve

  From Troy’s Big Bumper Drawing Book

  Its Gerk! The Monstr is Gerk! Gerk is the Monstr! Heres a droring of Gerk:

  [STICK FIGURE WITH HUGE HEAD AND LOTS OF EYES]

  and heres a pikture of what he reelly look likes when hees a monstr:

  [CRUDELY DRAWN PLANT WITH A MOUTH]

  I have to kil him, which is a pitty becus hees my best frend.

  Bam bam bam I go on his helmut. Its beginning to crak open. Bam bam bam.

  He’s trying to say somethink but I wont lissen.

  Bam bam bam.

  Bam bam bam.

  Chapter Thirteen

  From the journal of Brian Nylon, 5th January, 1952 – [cont’d]

  As if it wasn’t hard enough trying to make it to the cluster of wrecks before our oxygen ran out, I had to expend enormous amounts of energy, time and valuable air trying to get Gemma to focus on the mission. Everything was a distraction for her. Wasn’t this a lovely pebble? (No, it was just another dull little rock); if we settled down here, where’s the nearest school? (The Earth).

  I couldn’t get her to tell me what Guuuurk had actually been saying in that transmission. In the small snatch I’d been able to make out, he’d sounded rather panicked. Worrying.

  My helmet radio picked up a dull, mighty thump in the distance, and I wheeled around to see a massive plume of smoke hurling debris above the horizon from roughly their direction. ‘Merciful Heaven! I hope nothing’s happened to the others!’

  But Gemma seemed quite unperturbed. ‘Oooh. That would mean we were the only two people left on the Moon. Just you and I under the twinkling stars of the Milky Way.’

  My indulgent smile was wearing out, but I pasted it on one more time, and ploughed on.

  We’d encountered a couple of ships that appeared potentially spaceworthy, but it had quickly become obvious they were beyond salvation. The Moon was a savage mistress. She took a heavy toll on things that stayed here too long, and she would surely take us if we lingered in her arms.

  Just when I thought all was lost, we rounded a dune to find an absolutely magnificent immense vessel, apparently intact, at the end of a long trench, embedded at an angle of thirty degrees in the encroaching scree. If it was still operational, it shouldn’t take much to blast it free.

  It appeared undamaged: defiant and sleek, a bold, glossy metallic red. It tapered towards the top, then swelled again into a sort of bulging head, with an arrangement of portholes and grilles that made it look for all the world like a scowling demon timelessly caught in a perpetual rage. It was intimidating, but no doubt, that was the point. For us, it was beautiful. It was hope.

  But was it real?

  Just to be sure, I flung a pebble at it. It pinged off the sturdy hull without making the slightest mark.

  Definitely real.

  ‘Oh, must we look at another ship?’ Gemma followed me reluctantly, deliberately dragging her feet. ‘It’s so boring .’

  ‘Just one last one.’

  She rolled her eyes. ‘Why can’t we have some fun ?’

  I’d given up checking the remaining oxygen. It wasn’t helping, and checking for oxygen levels wasted . . . valuable oxygen. But we could only be mere minutes away from depletion.

  Trying to keep my mounting excitement from causing me to breathe any faster, I circled the craft’s mighty girth. Two of its fins were indeed embedded in the ground, though I had no doubt the powerful-looking launch engines would blast it free without too much kerfuffle.

  But for the life of me, I couldn’t find an entrance.

  The highly polished lower hull was diamond-hard and entirely featureless. There didn’t even appear to be a seam.

  ‘Gemma, I need some help here. We’ve only got a couple of minutes of oxygen remaining—’

  ‘Oxygen, oxygen: that’s all you think about.’ And she began dry coughing.

  I glanced down at the dial on her breathing apparatus. Her supply was out.

  She looked at me, confused and afraid. ‘Why can’t I breathe, Brian?’

  ‘We’ve got to get into this ship. We’ve got to get inside it right now.’r />
  ‘My legs feel . . . heavy.’ She physically wilted.

  I bounded over and caught her. ‘Here . . .’ I uncoupled my remaining tank and swapped it with hers. Rather unchivalrously, I fear, I took a final gulp of air before I did.

  She started breathing again, the panic drained from her eyes, and the colour of her lips returned to beautiful. They gradually raised into a cheerful arc, then wavered once more. ‘But what will you breathe?’

  ‘Don’t worry. There’s still a few minutes’ worth left in my suit.’

  She smiled an infinitely sad smile. ‘You really are a terrible, terrible liar, Brian.’ Then she gave me that look which had induced in me such giddiness earlier on.

  ‘I know’ I said.

  I banged the unrelenting metal surface desperately one last time, to no avail whatsoever. There was no discernible door of any kind.

  ‘Gemma? I need a little rest. I’m just going to close my eyes for a while. Promise me, you’ll get inside there, whatever happens.’

  ‘How? Brian? Brian . . .?’

  Hers had been the first voice I could remember hearing, and it appeared it would be the last. I felt myself disconnecting from this world. It wasn’t all that unpleasant, really. I sank to a crouch, then collapsed ingloriously to my bottom. I managed to raise my head just a touch, to see the iridescent blue glow of the earthlight, haloing the stunning face of the woman I adored.

  Not a bad way to go.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The Daybook of ‘Jenkins’ Jenkins, RQMS Royal Fusiliers (missing, presumed dead), Saturday the 5th of January, 1952

  De-worm boiler.

  Kids? Don’t like ’em. Oh, the chaos! Things starts getting dodgy round about half past eleven, or as I likes to call it: ‘puberty’. We has to separate the young duplicates into individual rooms, for their own safety. The mess! The smell! The discarded clothing! I’m shovelling packets of crisps in there like there’s no tomorrow and carting out filthy laundry by the pallet load. There’s pimples and bumfluff moustaches and the monthlies and dumb insolence – that’s what I can’t stand, the bloomin’ dumb insolence. And skiffle, whatever that is. Can’t keep a washboard in the kitchen for five minutes. Good thing they sleeps most of the time.

  As if that’s not enough, the Prof’s also given me a huge list of materials to pack into Gargantua, the Super Quandertechnicon. I’ll be honest, he does tend to call more or less everything ‘Gargantua’, the old Professor. I’ve no idea why. It’s not as if he’s a stupid man. I suppose he feels it’s a waste of his brain space, thinking up new names for all the whatsits and whosits he’s inventing all the time.

  Anyways, I’m busy driving Gargantua, the Quanderforklift, hither and thither. Warehouse to truck, to lab, to warehouse. Perculiar list of stuff I have to shift, too: Cutting equipment, pitch torches, mobile generators, lights, protective overalls, and five hundred titanium shovels. I don’t know what it is he’s preparing for, but it’s definitely something big.

  The Prof don’t bother explaining to yours truly, of course: he’s busy tormenting that poor rat of his again. I tell you: that rodent has it easy compared to me.

  When the Great Man finally breezes in, I asks him: ‘Just a thought about the duplicates, sir: what happens if the others come back again?’

  ‘The others?’

  ‘The real Dr. Janussen and that. Would we have to . . . take care of these young perishers?’ I’ve got this old Gurkha kukri what would do the job nice.’

  ‘Oh, there’s no chance of that, Jenkins: Those poor devils are never coming back. Their oxygen will have run out . . .’ he glances at his watch, ‘. . . six minutes ago. Now: how about rustling me up some of your devilled liver kidneys?’

  Chapter Fifteen

  From the journal of Brian Nylon, 5th January, 1952 – Iteration 66

  I really hadn’t expected to wake up. I opened my eyes in the most peculiar environment: everything was red! For a moment, I thought I might be in Hell. Or Woolworths. It took me a minute or two to realise I was actually still alive and on the flight deck of the alien craft.

  Everything here was that same furious scarlet, except for clusters of strange symbols everywhere in incandescent crimson, which I presumed was alien writing of some description. Below the scowling portholes was a rank of what I assumed were control consoles, but they were shiny, smooth and featureless, with no apparent mechanisms.

  Gemma was standing in the cockpit area, studying the blank panels. Her helmet was off. My hands shot up to my head. Mine was off, too. ‘Gemma!’ I called, but my throat was ridiculously dry, and hardly any sound issued.

  She heard me anyway, and turned. ‘You’re all right, I assume?’

  ‘Yes, I . . . I think so. What happened?’

  ‘I’m not entirely sure. I suspect I wasn’t . . . completely myself for a while.’

  I noticed her ear had been wound back into position, but her look defied me to mention it.

  ‘I remember I was . . . furious,’ she went on. ‘Quite out of control, really.’ It was clearly a strain for her to talk about it. ‘Furious you were dying, and I couldn’t find a hatch. Then, suddenly, a portion of the hull just sort of . . . gave way.’

  ‘Gave way how?’

  Her scientific curiosity reasserted itself. ‘As if the metal temporarily became fluid and a hatchway just sort of melted into existence. I pulled you inside, but the rest of the ship was dead. I couldn’t believe it! To have got this far . . . it was intensely frustrating. I’m afraid I cursed the whole stupid ship!’ She looked down, ashamed at that. ‘And suddenly the life support just activated itself. Lights, atmosphere, everything.’

  I climbed to my feet and lurched unsteadily over to her. ‘So is it spaceworthy?’

  ‘I’ve no idea. I can’t work out how to access these controls, if that’s what they are.’

  ‘Are you sure this is the main control deck?’ It did indeed appear to be the pilot position. I glanced through the oddly shaped viewports. There was a cloud of dust on the horizon I’d never noticed before. A storm? On the Moon? Was that possible?

  ‘There’s a couple of small chambers behind us.’ She nodded with the back of her head. ‘Nothing useful in any of them.’

  ‘Maybe the controls are hidden behind more of that liquid metal stuff?’

  ‘Of course. It’s axiomatic.’

  We both ran our hands over the sleek surfaces. Nothing. I noticed when our hands accidentally brushed, she gently moved hers away without comment.

  We stood back. ‘What exactly did you do to get the hatch to work?’ I asked.

  She shook her head and tried replaying it in her mind. ‘Absolutely nothing. It just seemed to know I wanted it to open.’

  ‘OK, let’s try that.’ I cleared my throat and announced, in my best BBC voice: ‘I wish to use the controls.’

  We stared at the ‘console’. Nothing happened.

  ‘Oh! Of course!’ I slapped my forehead. ‘I didn’t say “please”. What must it think of me? Please I would like to use the controls to get back to Earth, if you please. Thank you.’

  And again, nothing.

  Gemma started: ‘Perhaps if you—’

  ‘No, no.’ I waved her away. ‘I think I’m getting there.’ I started again. ‘Please, very kind machine-ship, grant me the favour of revealing unto me the hidden bounty of your marvellous controls . . . No no no, that’s far too obsequious. No wonder it isn’t taking any notice of me.’

  I raised my voice. ‘I command you, in the name of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God, of Great Britain and the British Dominions beyond the Seas, open the hidden hatch now!’

  I fixed the panel with my very best schoolmaster’s stare. ‘I mean it. I’m not joking. I’m waiting .’

  I crossed my arms for further effect. ‘I’m still waiting. Nobody’s going anywhere until you open the hidden hatch.’

  ‘Brian,’ Gemma interrupted gently, ‘I don’t think that’s really going to—’
/>
  ‘No – wait: you said you cursed it.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You cursed the ship. What did you call it?’

  ‘I can’t remember . . .’

  ‘OK, you damn ship!’ I tried. ‘You think you’re so blasted clever, don’t you?’ I gritted my teeth and forced myself to swear at it. ‘You . . . you . . . you filthy machine bastard!’

  ‘Brian – why don’t you let me . . .?’ she offered.

  ‘I’m trying to save our lives, woman!’ I exploded in desperate frustration. ‘Can you please control these incessant interruptions?’

  There was an electrical whine, and the deck lit up. The surfaces melted away, revealing bank upon bank of mysterious blinking lights – all red, of course – and strangely shaped glowing crimson screens.

  ‘See? I told you.’ I relaxed and breathed out. There was still a chance we could survive. I shuffled uneasily. ‘Gemma, I’m awfully sorry if I got a little heated there. I was . . .’

  And the deck died again.

  ‘Curious,’ Gemma said, and started studying the surface again.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ I smiled, smugly. ‘Turn on again, you filthy machine bastard!’ But nothing happened. ‘You dirty, snivelling toerag!’ I tried, glancing over at Gemma apologetically. In truth, I only knew two or three swear words, and I was getting to the end of my supply. ‘You . . . you . . . vicious little snot !’

  But the panels remained defiantly dead.

  I heard a dull buzzing sound coming from the back of the flight area. I turned my head. ‘What’s that noise?’

  Gemma stooped so her eyes were parallel with the surfaces, studying them for slender cracks. ‘Your helmet radio. It could be Q.: he might be able to help.’

  I hurried back, pulled my helmet on and turned up the volume on the earphone.

  And I heard the single word: ‘. . . traitor! ’

  Chapter Sixteen

  From the journal of Brian Nylon, 5th January, 1952 – [cont’d]

  My stomach suddenly contracted like a jellyfish being poked with a stick. ‘Pardon?’