The Quanderhorn Xperimentations

by Andrew Marshall

  ‘ I said: come in, Penetrator. ’ Even a quarter of a million miles away on a short wave transmission, the growling voice of the Prime Minister was unmistakable. ‘ Agent Penetrator, come in . . . ’

  Gemma glanced over her shoulder. ‘Who is it, Brian?’

  ‘Ohhh, I . . . can’t quite make out. I’ll have to go over here . . .’ I found a handle recessed into the bulkhead. ‘. . . into the Communications Room . . .’

  I tugged open the door.

  Immediately I was hit by an avalanche of crockery.

  A giant tower of dinner plates toppled over like a felled redwood and crashed into the deck and shattered to smithereens. I had barely recovered from the shock when a second tower, obviously held in place by the first, cascaded over me as well. Wave upon wave of suicidal crockery seemed intent on hurling itself to the floor, till the final plate fell with a horrible smash.

  ‘. . . into this alien crockery cupboard,’ I extemporised nicely. ‘Where the . . . reception is better.’

  ‘What on earth are you doing?’

  ‘Shhhhh! I think closing the door might help.’

  I crunched my way into the tiny cupboard and wrenched the door shut behind me, dragging all the shattered fragments noisily back in with me.

  ‘Sorry about that, Prime Minster,’ I whispered. ‘We’re in a bit of a pickle at the moment . . .’

  ‘ Speak up, man! The radio link might fail at any moment. You’re on the Moon, you know. ’

  ‘Yes, I’m sorry about that—’

  ‘ Stop whispering, Penetrator. You’re barely audible. ’

  ‘I’m afraid I can’t really speak up.’

  ‘ Just attend to me, then. I have new and urgent information. On no account must you go down to Quanderhorn’s infernal cellar until you have disabled the hidden security camera. ’

  Hidden security camera? Then it hit me: that flash when I was fleeing the cellar! It must caught me full on. I doubt even my gravy browning camouflage and sock balaclava would be sufficient disguise. I was rumbled!

  ‘But, Mr. Churchill:’ I hissed, ‘I’ve already—’

  ‘ Just thought I’d better warn you, Penetrator. Now, enjoy your spot of French leave. It’s coming out of your holiday days, you know. ’

  ‘Mr. Churchill . . .’

  But there was only the dead buzz of static. And for some intangible reason, the lingering sound of herring. I jumped as Gemma dragged open the door.

  ‘Brian, we’re still in serious trouble out here. Who knows how long this life support’s going to hold out.’

  ‘All done, now.’ I crunched back over the plates and shut the door behind me.

  ‘Who was it?’

  ‘I . . . I couldn’t quite make it out, perhaps it was Guuuurk repeating his message.’

  Gemma looked pained. She was clearly wrestling with a recollection that she found especially difficult. ‘Brian, I’m so sorry. I should have told you this before. I tried calling them when . . . when we got here, but there was no response. We have to face facts. They’re way past their oxygen limit. I’m afraid the pure rationality is: we’re never going to see Guuuurk or Troy again.’

  I actually smiled. I don’t know why. It hardly seemed appropriate. The very thought seemed somehow impossible. ‘What?’

  ‘They’re gone, Brian. We’re on our own.’

  I barely had time to accommodate this devastating news, when a hatch melted into the bulkhead and Guuuurk stepped through, removing his helmet.

  ‘There you are, you absolute rotters! I’ve been ringing the blasted doorbell for five minutes!’

  Chapter Seventeen

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

  ‘There’s a doorbell ?’ I echoed, incredulously.

  ‘Of course there’s a doorbell. Where d’you think this is? Pluto? ’ * He turned and dragged Troy up the ramp, boots first. ‘We’re not all savages , you know, just because we’re alien. And the Galactic Convention, carefully laid down over millions of years and observed across cultures throughout the known universe since time immemorial, is that when someone outside rings the wretched thing, someone on the inside bally well answers it!’ He let Troy’s feet fall to the deck, and the hatch sealed itself behind him.

  Gemma tilted her head. ‘It’s probably in a frequency beyond our hearing range’

  ‘That’s what the Plutonians always say. But that’s just an excuse for being skiving layabouts.’

  I looked down at the prone Troy. His face was quite blue. I knelt and unscrewed his helmet quickly. ‘Is he . . .’ I began, and his eyes blinked open.

  ‘Can I stop holding my breath now?’ he wheezed.

  Guuuurk looked puzzled. ‘When did you start doing that?’

  Troy climbed to his feet and swayed, still holding his breath. ‘When the air ran out half an hour ago.’ He gagged. ‘I’m feeling very—’ His eyes rolled back in his head and he fell poleaxed to the deck again.

  Guuuurk shook his head wearily. ‘Don’t worry. It’s just lack of oxygen to the brain. It’ll make very little difference, honestly.’

  ‘We saw the explosion from the basin,’ I said.

  Guuuurk held up his helmet. It was latticed with a filigree of spiderweb cracks. ‘There was a slight misunderstanding,’ his eyes cursed Troy, ‘resulting in the rather unnecessary demise of my radio. We did try waving to you. But Dr. Janussen here was busy drawing romantic doodles in the moon dust, and you were intent on dragging her away.’

  ‘Romantic doodles!’ Gemma scoffed. ‘I was doubtless trying to explain an advanced scientific concept.’

  ‘Yes,’ the Martian smiled. ‘Using a giant heart with an arrow through it.’

  Troy rasped. ‘Can . . . I . . . breathe . . . yet?’

  ‘Yes, you knuckleheaded twit! Breathe!’

  Troy just lay there, his eyes flitting from side to side. Finally, he asked: ‘How do you do that again?’

  Guuuurk hung his head. ‘In out, in out.’

  ‘Oh, yeah. Then shake it all about!’

  ‘That’s not breathing, that’s the hokey cokey !’ He turned to us. ‘You see what I’ve had to endure? It’s a miracle we survived. Happily, you don’t need nearly as much oxygen as humans if you’re a Martian, or a half-insect, half-moron.’

  ‘Hey!’ Troy raised his head. ‘Was that an insult?’

  Guuuurk narrowed five of his eyes. ‘Only a moron would think it wasn’t.’

  Troy got to his feet again. ‘Well, that’s where you’re wrong, because I’m one, and I think it was!’ He marched over and thrust his face into Guuuurk’s. ‘I’ve had it up to here with your rudeness, you huge-headed purple-faced . . .’ He reached for the worst taunt he could muster. It turned out to be: ‘bad, bad man.’

  And suddenly, there was the electrical whining again.

  ‘The deck’s up,’ Gemma called.

  ‘Wow!’ Troy cooed in childlike wonder. ‘This ship is pretty darn hep!’

  And just as rapidly, the electrical whining ceased.

  ‘. . . and the deck is down.’

  ‘Well,’ Guuuurk said, ‘just power it back up again.’

  ‘We don’t know how.’ I shrugged.

  ‘You don’t know? Well, how did you get into the ship, then?’

  ‘We don’t know.’

  ‘You don’t know?’

  Gemma stepped in. ‘Would you kindly stop saying we don’t know and tell us what we do need to know?’

  ‘I thought it was obvious.’ Guuuurk crossed to the consoles. ‘Didn’t you notice the scowling portholes?

  Troy giggled. ‘Yeah – they look really really cross!’

  Guuuurk rolled many of his eyes. ‘This is a Mercurian Star Clipper.’

  We all looked at each other, slightly baffled. ‘Meaning?’ I asked.

  Guuuurk sighed in exasperation at the poverty of our intergalactic species knowledge. ‘Mercury’s either ridiculously cold or insanely hot, so the Mercurians are per petually cheesed off.
I mean: absolutely fuming . If you bump into one in a dark alley, you’d better have your estate in order and a fully paid-up funeral plan. Ergo , they power their craft with their biggest natural resource: raw anger.’

  ‘It’s powered with anger ?’ I struggled to understand how that might work in practice, but Gemma got it immediately.

  ‘Of course!’ She beamed that delightful radiant smile which always accompanied a new scientific insight. ‘That’s entirely consistent with our experience. I was angry when we got into the ship, remember? And you were angry with me when the console lit up.’

  ‘Oh, I wouldn’t say I . . . well, I suppose I was.’

  Guuuurk stepped away from Troy. ‘That’s why I was mildly irritated when I first came in. I’d had to work up to that pitch to open the hatch. Of course spaceships don’t have doorbells , you idiots, but I had to get angry about something . Honestly. Sometimes I think you credulous shower will believe anything.’

  I was shocked to my core by this admission. ‘You’ve never lied to us about anything else, have you, Guuuurk?’

  ‘Brian!’ he gasped. ‘You cut me to the quick! I swear to you as an Englishman: I have never lied about anything else whatsoever.’

  ‘Well, that’s all right, then. I apologise for implying any such thing.’

  ‘Apology accepted.’ A thought occurred to him. ‘Actually, this may be a bad time to ask, but d’you remember that five pounds you owe me?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Oh, no: of course you wouldn’t remember. What was I thinking? In actual fact, I’ve a notion it might have been ten pounds. But I won’t hold you to that. Let’s call it seven guineas and draw a line under the whole messy business. Now I will take cheques, and personal items of an accredited value—’

  Gemma took control, as usual. ‘Can you all please concentrate? There’s a permanent lunar storm, and it’s closing in on us.’ She nodded through the scowling portholes.

  The cloud of dust seemed to have grown in size quite alarmingly, and was indeed heading our way.

  She turned back. ‘If we don’t get up and running before it hits, the ship could be buried too deep to blast free. Then we’ll be stuck here for ever.’

  * Plutonians have a reputation for being the most slatternly and uncivilisable beings in the Solar System. A year on Pluto lasts approximately 247.9 Earth years, meaning the average Plutonian lifespan is measured in weeks, so a Plutonian farmer won’t live to see the harvest he’s planted because it won’t occur for several dozen generations. As a consequence, they can’t be arsed to plant anything, or do work of any kind. Or anything.

  Chapter Eighteen

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

  I broke the horrible silence. ‘So what do we do, then? Get angry, somehow?’

  Gemma nodded. ‘Troy, get angry with Guuuurk again.’

  ‘Why? What’s he done?’

  ‘This!’ Guuuurk trilled, and slapped him.

  Smack!

  ‘Ow! That really hurt!’

  The controls started powering up.

  Gemma called: ‘It’s working. Slap him again.’

  Guuuurk complied.

  Smack!

  ‘Ow! Do that again, and I’ll get really . . .’

  Smack!

  ‘. . . angry. Owwww!’ Troy rubbed his face. ‘Stop doing that!’

  Smack! Smack!

  And now the consoles were thrumming with electrical life. ‘We have power!’ I buckled myself into the pilot’s seat. Through the viewport, I could see the swelling dust storm was distressingly closer.

  Gemma pointed to a meter on the console. Its needle was hovering in the red zone below the redder red zone, which wasn’t quite as reddy red as the utterly red zone at the top. ‘We’re going to need more anger.’

  ‘I’m smacking him as hard as I can,’ Guuuurk protested.

  Smack!

  ‘Owwwwwwwww! I think he is,’ Troy agreed, rubbing his ruddy cheeks.

  Gemma looked over at them. ‘Maybe you should try shooting him with one of your useless Martian Death Rays.’

  All Guuuurk’s eyes turned steely. ‘I’ll have you know . . .’ He paused to slap Troy with some venom.

  Smack!

  ‘ Owwwwww! ’

  ‘. . . our Death Rays are the best in the Solar System!’

  The humming got louder and the needle wavered up towards the slightly more red area.

  ‘In fact, the intergalactic magazine Popular Xenophobe gave Martian Death Rays an unprecedented five-skull rating, when compared with other species’ Death Rays in a totally randomised, double-blind—’

  Troy slapped Guuuurk quite hard.

  Smack!

  ‘ Ow! What was that for?’ He slapped Troy back.

  Smack!

  ‘ Ow! I’m trying to make you angry!’

  ‘Well, I can’t say you’re not succeeding.’

  Smack!

  ‘Ow!’

  Smack!

  ‘ Ow! ’

  Gemma called: ‘Keep slapping each other! The storm is almost on us! Don’t stop, whatever happens.’

  There followed a tit-for-tat slapping spree, reminiscent of the traditional Bavarian dance, only without the annoying accordion.

  The power was building, but we still needed more.

  I glanced over at Gemma, who’d reached the same conclusion: one of us needed to get angry.

  She shook her head. ‘I’m afraid I’m fully wound. I can’t get angry.’ There was a dolorousness in her eyes at this. It was clearly a painful admission.

  There was nothing else for it. ‘All right!’ I yelled. ‘Somebody make me angry. Quick!’

  Troy, eager to please as always, leapt in first with: ‘Brian, you’re stupid!’ Smack! ‘ Ow! ’

  ‘I know,’ I agreed. ‘I am pretty dense, I’m afraid.’

  Guuuurk tried. Smack! ‘ Ow! You’re hopeless with women!’

  ‘True,’ I sighed. ‘Come on ! We’re losing power.’ The vanguard of the storm was already here. I could hear the myriad tiny pebbles it swept before it pattering against the hull.

  ‘Brian, you’re smelly!’ Smack! ‘ Ow! ’ was Troy’s rather dismal contribution.

  Smack! ‘ Ow! You’re a dithering milksop!’ was Guuuurk’s.

  ‘You’ll have to make me much angrier than that, if we’re going to create enough energy for a lift-off!’

  Gemma had been thinking quietly to herself. She turned to me and said: ‘Brian, England is a dreadful place.’

  I was shocked. What on earth did she mean? ‘There really is no call for that kind of—’

  ‘Her Majesty the Queen,’ she added, ‘is not a very nice woman.’

  There was a sudden surge and the needle leapt into the upper red, really really red zone.

  ‘Now, that is completely unfair,’ I protested, barely containing myself. ‘Everyone says she’s quite the most delightful lady—’

  ‘Scones,’ Guuuurk chipped in coldly, ‘are not as good as apple strudel.’ Smack! ‘ Ow! ’

  ‘What absolute tosh ! Everyone knows German cakes are useless . Have you ever eaten dampfnudel ? It really is like chewing sweaty socks.’

  And as if that weren’t enough nonsense, he added: ‘Queuing is stupid!’

  Well, I’ve never heard such out-and-out balderdash. ‘Don’t be ridiculous – it’s the very cornerstone of civilisation!’

  There was a huge roar, and the main engines blasted into life. The whole ship shook as it struggled to pull clear of the lunar rubble.

  The slapping had apparently become unnecessary, now.

  Guuuurk was starting to enjoy himself. Rather too much, if you ask me. ‘Steak and kidney pudding tastes like donkey urine!’

  ‘Well, that actually is true.’

  The power began to wane.

  ‘Vera Lynn,’ Gemma tried, ‘is an appalling singer.’

  I opened my mouth, but words wouldn’t come out.

  The engines throbbed back to full pow
er.

  Guuuurk added: ‘And George Formby isn’t funny.’ Well, that was just plain Wrong. The man’s an absolute caution!

  Then they all started pitching in.

  Guuuurk: ‘A nice cup of tea does nobody any good.’

  Troy: ‘Cricket is stupid !’

  Gemma: ‘ The Archers is incredibly boring.’

  Guuuurk: ‘Shakespeare was French.’

  Troy: ‘Cricket is stupid !’

  Guuuurk: ‘Florence Nightingale was a heartless bitch!’

  Gemma: ‘The British never play fair!’

  Now, that really was beyond the pale. I was fairly sure we’d racked up enough energy by this point – the needle was actually bending against the upper marker – but Guuuurk was unstoppable:

  ‘Beer tastes better when it’s chilled! Public schools are just for thick people! The BBC is not the envy of the world! A bow tie doesn’t make dinner taste any better! And “Britons never shall be slaves”? What a joke! You’ve been persistently invaded by any nation who could rustle up three boats and a set of carving knives. The Italians, the Danes, the Swedes and Norwegians, the French, the Dutch, the Germans . . . Yes! There’s a headline for you: your Royal Family are all Krauts! They’re not really called “Windsor ” , but “Saxe-Coburg-Gotha”! The clue’s in the name !’

  I could actually hear the vein in my temple throbbing now. ‘That’s quite enough of that!’ I shouted, rather rudely. ‘This is beyond irritating.’

  ‘Well done, Brian,’ Gemma wheeled in her seat to face me. ‘You can calm down, now. See: we’re clear of the Moon and heading for the Earth’s atmosphere.’

  ‘Cricket is stupid !’

  ‘That’s enough, Troy.’

  ‘But it really is!’

  I looked through the viewport. The Earth was indeed looming towards us, or, more accurately, her gravitational pull was dragging us in.

  ‘We’ve done it!’ I cheered. ‘We’re safe! We’re free-falling back to Earth.’ Somebody started screaming.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Transcription of Mercurian Flight Recorder, Flight DIS-TA-GRAKK, Date: Gakrr i Nar di trlll (estimated Earth equivalent: 29th September, 1949) *

  TEE-POL (PILOT): Look at that shitty blue planet down there! Those bloody Earth bastards think they’ve got the bloody lot, don’t they?