The Quanderhorn Xperimentations

by Andrew Marshall

  ‘OK. I was just worried I might have—’

  ‘No, no. It really happened.’

  ‘Yes,’ Guuuurk snapped tartly. ‘And the odd “thank you” wouldn’t go amiss.’

  ‘ Thank you? ’ I could barely contain myself. ‘For completely disintegrating us?’

  ‘In the nick of time! So the laser couldn’t blast us to pieces!’

  ‘So you killed us . . .’ Troy reasoned rather painfully, ‘. . . to stop us being killed.’

  ‘Nobody got killed . You all just got very slightly atomised .’

  Troy struggled with this a while, and then concurred: ‘OK. Thanks, daddio!’

  I was still somewhat baffled. ‘So, what actually happened?’

  Gemma unconsciously checked her ear. ‘Guuuurk’s right: his little temper tantrum overloaded the engines. They blasted us into . . . whatever that reality was.’

  I turned to her. ‘And did you . . . you brought us all back, didn’t you? You saved us.’

  ‘Ha!’ she snorted grimly. ‘Saved us for what? We could have crashed anywhere in the universe, known or unknown. Plus, we’re trapped on a dead ship.’

  Not quite dead, but almost. I could feel the last vestiges of its life ebbing away as the colour drained from the bulkheads – once a ruby red, now an anaemic pale pink. A terrible thought struck me – presumably the reason for Gemma’s grave expression. ‘But if the ship dies – there’s no way of opening a door! We’ll never get out!’

  But it was too late. The final tint of colour had bled away, leaving the hull a deathly white.

  Chapter Five

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

  The lights dimmed to almost nothing. I became conscious of the acrid air supply dwindling terminally. We had fifteen minutes, at best. All the oxygen tanks were dead, of course.

  Gemma was examining the area where the door hatch had appeared. ‘There doesn’t seem to be any manual override . . .’

  ‘There’s always this one!’ Troy yelled, and grabbed the bulkhead with both hands.

  ‘Not yet!’ Gemma yelled. ‘We don’t know if the atmosphere out there is . . .’

  With a terrible ripping sound, Troy yanked out a section of the hull leaving a huge, jagged hole.

  ‘. . . breathable.’

  ‘Ooops!’ Troy grinned. ‘Beg pardon!’ And with another horrible metallic screech, he rammed the metal back into place, rather unevenly, like a jam jar lid pushed over a manhole.

  Guuuurk actually smacked his forehead like I’d seen Edgar Kennedy do in the pictures. ‘Oh, well done! Another gold for England in the Stupidity Olympics!’

  Gemma shook her head. ‘It doesn’t matter really. If there’s no oxygen in the atmosphere out there, we’re finished anyway.’ She prodded Troy’s handiwork with her finger, and it fell outwards with a ghastly clang. She stood on the rim. I realised too late what she was about to do. I yelled, ‘No, Gemma!’ But she ignored me, steeled herself and took a very deep breath.

  Time seemed to be frozen. To come back from the dead like that, and then just lose her again . . . that would be beyond cruel.

  She exhaled slowly, turned to us and nodded.

  ‘You should have let me do that,’ I protested.

  ‘Why?’ she shrugged. ‘So I’d have lived thirty seconds longer than you?’ There was something uncharacteristically melancholic about her, since the lunar business.

  ‘Cheer up!’ I smiled encouragingly. ‘It may never happen.’

  ‘What?’ Guuuurk cried. ‘What may never happen? Because I’m running out of terrible things that possibly can happen. What’s left? What have you got lined up for us next, Brian? Do tell, because I must make a note in my diary. The twelfth: we all get boiled alive in a giant lobster creature’s tureen. Afternoon of the fifteenth, we get kidnapped by face-eating daffodils from the ninth dimension . . .’

  There were a lot more of these, but I haven’t bothered to record them. We let him rant on, though. I think we were all slightly hoping the tirade might bring the ship back to life, but sadly, it didn’t.

  I glanced back over at the tear in the hull, and spotted with some alarm that Gemma had stepped out through the hole.

  I followed, of course.

  Outside, it was pitch dark and fearfully cold. The air stank of smouldering foliage. We were in some kind of dense overgrown forest, as if sculpted in gnarled old wood by an insane hand. At least there was life here. Plant life.

  Gemma was staring up at the heavens through the tangled canopy of bare branches. Beyond them, the stars glittered coldly. I couldn’t recognise any of the constellations, but then I never did get that badge. From time to time there was a short burst of a call from some kind of creature. A bird? A badger? Some kind of flying badger?

  Troy stepped up behind me. ‘Where are we?’

  Gemma shook her head. ‘I really don’t know.’

  Guuuurk, having realised no one was listening to him any more, had followed us outside. ‘Fortunately for you,’ he declaimed, ‘all Martians are born with an encyclopaedic race memory of every constellation in the Universe. Nooooowwwww . . .’

  He squinted three of his eyes, formed a parallelogram with four of his thumbs, and peered at the skies through it. ‘I would say without any question of doubt we’re on a small jungle-like planet . . .’

  We all watched, impressed, as he appeared to make a number of complicated mental calculations. ‘. . . somewhere in the Crab Nebula.’

  This was devastating news. ‘ The Crab Nebula? ’

  ‘Definitely. Quadrant 54, unless I’m very much mistaken.’

  Gemma was equally crestfallen. ‘That’s six and a half thousand light years from home.’

  ‘Woah!’ Troy groaned. ‘Are you saying we’re going to miss today’s broadcast of Muffin the Mule ?’

  ‘I keep telling you,’ Guuuurk snapped, ‘it’s not a real donkey.’

  ‘Isn’t it?’

  ‘ Every time!’

  ‘But he’s so clever .’

  ‘He’s a marionette !’

  ‘The truth is, gentlemen.’ Gemma turned. ‘We may as well put all memories of Earth behind us.’

  This rather knocked the stuffing out of me. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Pure rationality, I’m afraid. It’s an impossible distance. I mean we will never get back.’

  There was a shocked pause. Eventually Troy said: ‘I wondered how it fitted on top of a piano. I tried that with a donkey and there was a terrible mess afterwards.’

  ‘So,’ Guuuurk mused, ‘ that’s what happened to my baby grand.’ He paused, then added: ‘ And what that zebra was doing in my room.’

  ‘Well.’ Gemma brought us all back to Earth. Or not, in the circumstances. ‘Accentuating the positive: we are on a class M planet, so we can breathe. There is plant and, it would seem, animal life. So we’re not going to starve to death. We can use the husk of the ship for shelter, at least until dawn. Assuming there is a dawn here.’

  ‘Yes,’ Guuuurk agreed cheerfully, ‘there are planets in this quadrant where nightfall lasts for millennia.’

  ‘It’s already getting colder,’ Gemma continued. ‘We need to build a fire. There should be plenty of kindling and firewood about. Suggest we split into teams I want Troy,’ she added, without a decent sporting pause.

  ‘Fine!’ Guuuurk kicked a tree stump. ‘Though, first, why don’t we play a quick game of Martian Closey-eyesy . . .?’

  But Gemma and Troy were already deep into the forest.

  ‘Well, Brian,’ Guuuurk smiled with thinly veiled disappointment. ‘Looks like it’s just us.’

  Chapter Six

  From Troy’s Big Bumper Drawing Book

  [PICTURE OF A BADGER WITH WINGS, AND AN ARROW POINTING AT IT, LABELLED: ‘NOT ME!’]

  Weer on a aliun planit. Its grate! Its six millium billium trillium miles in lites from Carlisle. Weer going to hav a fier. My frend Jema tole me orf for pikking up tree trunks befor they fallen d
own. I bet we get mor wood than Gerk. He smels. My frend Brain says to wach out for flying bagers. I still think Mufin is reel or how cud he dans?

  Chapter Seven

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

  I can’t say we made rapid progress. Guuuurk walked in a low crouch, hands poised in a sort of ersatz judo ready position, wheeling round regularly at the slightest sound, and chopping at the air, quite often making himself jump by stepping on dried bracken.

  I thought I might calm him with some chat. ‘Guuuurk – back there . . .’

  ‘Oh, yes. Of course, I actually wanted to have you on my team, so I rather cleverly tricked Gemma into picking Troy.’

  ‘She picked him before you could say anything.’

  Guuuurk nodded. ‘ That’s how clever it was.’

  ‘Actually, I was talking about when you were making me angry on the ship—’

  ‘Ah, yes. I did want to apologise for some of those things I may have said.’

  ‘One or two of them were rather—’

  ‘Indeed. And it pained me greatly to be forced to say them. I want you to know that, in actual fact, I consider myself an Englishman first, and a Martian second.’

  ‘Well, that’s what I thought.’

  We stumbled on in silence for a few minutes, grabbing up twigs and so on. Finally, I couldn’t hold it any longer. ‘But what you said about George Formby—’

  ‘Oh, good grief! Perish the thought, dear boy! The man is an absolute caution .’

  We both chuckled.

  ‘That song he sings about peering through windows pleasuring himself while watching women undress and honeymoon couples in the act of mating. It’s a riot !’ I couldn’t help thinking Guuuurk hadn’t quite got the idea of what the song was about. Or, upon careful reflection, perhaps I hadn’t.

  Guuuurk suddenly became terribly interested in his feet. ‘And speaking of mating, old fruit. What exactly were you and the delightful Dr. Janussen up to out there on the Moon? Ever since, she’s been more morose than a camel with three humps and I notice you’ve suddenly started calling her “Gemma”.’

  Had I? My face was surely glowing like a paraffin heater. ‘It’s nothing really. She just – became more aware of her – you know – clockwork brain thing . . .’

  ‘You’ve been listening to Jenkins, haven’t you? It’s not her brain that’s clockwork, old sport, it’s electrical , but it’s powered by clockwork. Otherwise she’d have to strap a heavy duty industrial battery on her head. I fancy even Signora Schiaparelli herself couldn’t conjure up a hat ghastly enough to disguise it.’

  ‘Anyway. She knows now. I think she’s always known in some buried part of her.’

  ‘Well, that’s probably for the best. Once she gets over the shock of it. And the calling her “Gemma” business?’

  My face was now as incandescent as a three bar electric fire. ‘Oh, well – you know . . .’

  ‘I do. I do know indeed, my dear chap. And take it from one who has been . . . in a similar position, if you know what I mean, on many, many occasions. And if I’ve learned one thing, it’s this.’ He paused dramatically ‘Never take them to the pictures when they’re showing Woody Woodpecker. He’s a complete passion killer. I think it’s his laugh .’ He shuddered uncontrollably. ‘Quite unnerving. And never put your arm around them until Pathé News . If you’re in luck, something unspeakably hideous will have happened, and they’ll need manly succour—’

  This stream of no doubt priceless romantic advice was cut short by our rounding a particularly large tree and rediscovering Gemma and Troy in front of the crashed ship. They were warming their hands over an enormous bonfire, the like of which I hadn’t witnessed since VE Day.

  ‘I say!’ I called, ‘isn’t that rather overdoing things? We don’t want to attract any predators or anything.’ And as if on cue, I definitely heard the snuffling squawk of a flying badger.

  We tossed our meagre bundles of twiglets into the blaze, where they were consumed in seconds, and started preparing to spend the night.

  While Gemma and I laid out makeshift beds with fire blankets rescued from the ship, Troy squeezed out a couple of chickens from the tube, which, of course, escaped immediately, so he and Guuuurk had to set off chasing them down.

  Which pretty much left me alone with Gemma. ‘I suppose,’ I said, ‘this is going to be our life from now on.’

  ‘It very much looks that way.’

  ‘We’ll be growing old together.’

  I offered a rather winning smile, but just got back a rather chilly ‘Yes.’

  I took a deep breath, mentally. ‘Look: I’ve been hurled along on quite a tumultuous emotional roller coaster over the past twelve hours. And now we’ve ended up here, together, frankly, it doesn’t seem quite as unbearable a thing any more to come out and – yes – speak my mind clearly. Say what I have to say without any tedious rambling, or beating about—’

  She folded her arms. ‘For heaven’s sake, Brian, get to the point.’

  ‘You and me . . .’ My voice cracked, just right exactly when you wouldn’t want your voice to crack. ‘Do you suppose there’s a chance we could ever—’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Understood!’ I shot back quickly, as if that cold final rebuff had been the most expected and natural thing in the world, and hadn’t in any way ripped my very soul into tiny shreds like the man who does paper-tearing tricks in the music hall.

  She straightened and brushed a bang from her forehead. ‘No, you don’t understand: it’s never going to happen for us; the rational side of my brain is literally inhuman . I’m calculating, cold and heartless, and who could love that? And there’s no denying it to myself any longer, but when I wind down, I’m hysterical, reckless and juvenile. And who could love that ?’

  ‘Me,’ I said, proudly. ‘That’s who. Both the impossible sides of you. There’s no rhyme or reason to it, is there? When you feel a certain way about a certain person . . .’

  ‘Kiss me,’ I think she said. Yes, she definitely did.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You didn’t last time. I won’t ask again.’

  She didn’t have to. We kissed. And it was undeniably the most glorious kiss of kisses . . . and yet . . . it ignited a torch in some dark corner of my memory. I had been kissed like this, exactly this, before! Yet, I couldn’t recall a face or a time for it. But what did it matter? This was now, and it was real. And it was my Gemma.

  Somehow, we parted. ‘Was that . . .?’ I hesitated to ask, because the wrong answer would dash my soul against some very cruel rocks. ‘. . . is your ear winding down?’

  ‘No, Brian. It makes no sense to me whatsoever. . .’

  ‘But it does! You’re finally allowing the two sides of you to communicate – you’re incorporating your emotions with your reason – and it’s wonderful!’

  ‘You could be right!’ she beamed. ‘And I think that I’m very much in—’

  A chicken hit me in the face, squawking, as it fled the lumbering figures of Troy and Guuuurk.

  ‘Oh, well done, Brian! You practically had it in your hand. We’ll never catch it now.’ Guuuurk turned to Troy. ‘Squeeze out another one.’

  ‘Tube’s empty.’

  ‘Seriously? You mean we’ve lost all thirty of them?’

  ‘’Fraid so.’

  ‘This entire planet’s going to be populated by angry chickens!’

  Troy creased his brow. ‘Why d’you think they’ll be angry?’

  ‘You can’t expect them to be pleased – they’ve spent who knows how long squashed into a toothpaste tube!’

  I looked over at Gemma, but even though she returned my smile, once again the moment had passed for us.

  Still, I must admit to feeling schoolboy happy as we all sat cross-legged, staring into the bonfire, trying to fry three eggs on the end of a stick. I even considered suggesting we sing ‘Ging Gang Goolie’, but the thought of having to explain it all to Guuuurk, and especiall
y to Troy, put me off completely.

  Guuuurk stood and clapped for attention. ‘We have to face facts, chaps and chappess,’ he announced. ‘We’re going to be stuck here in this shocking place for the rest of our naturals. We can’t go on as we were, however much we might have liked to. There must be changes. First, we must elect a leader.’

  ‘Hang on.’ Troy cocked his head. ‘I think I can hear a bus coming.’

  A bus! We all laughed. Even Gemma giggled slightly.

  ‘I seriously doubt,’ Guuuurk chuckled, ‘that buses come quite this far, young Master Quanderhorn. A leader,’ he repeated. We all turned to Gemma. Guuuurk pretended not to notice, and pressed on. ‘Now, I know what you’re thinking, but it need not necessarily be the most obvious candidate amongst us. What we require is a sort of rakish wisdom , from someone who is undeniably a member of the ruling class, and who, ideally, has first-hand experience of surviving on another world.’

  There was a worrying glow of something approaching in the distance through the thicket of trees right behind Guuuurk, and a faint, disturbing growling sound, which was growing louder.

  Oblivious, the Martian continued: ‘Naturally, this fêted person, whoever she – or perhaps more likely “he” – may be, would have the pick of the food, the women, any spare cash lying around, animal furs, a splendid shelter built by the other, lesser members of the tribe, and first dibs on the nattiest clothing. Now, modesty forbids my suggesting any individual in particular, but I’d say six eyes were an absolute prerequisite— What is that bally noise?’

  There was no ignoring the rumble now. It sounded like the engine of an AEC RT Regent III bus, with bodywork by Eastern Coachworks at Oulton Broad.

  Which was precisely what, at that very moment, drew up beyond the mound behind him.

  ‘I think,’ I replied, ‘it’s the number 43 to Highgate Woods.’

  Guuuurk turned slowly and stared in disbelief. ‘I didn’t know there was a Highgate Woods in the Crab Nebula!’

  But by then, we were all running over the mound towards the road.

  ‘Come on, you dozy lot!’ the conductor complained, hanging off his platform. ‘We can’t hang around here all evening. We got ’omes to go to.’