Earth! We were on Earth!
Then I remembered my Scout Camp Laws. ‘Hold that bus!’ I yelled. ‘I’ve just got to put this fire out.’
Chapter Eight
Lumpy the blith of Deimos, Martian Year 5972 Pink
Secret Report to Martian Command, by Guuuurk ‘the Infallible’, fifteenth Minnow of Gaaaark ‘the Unfathomable’, and his ninety-third concubine, Bong.
After a rather unpleasant contretemps with the over-officious bus conductor, involving some Peruvian coinage and a twenty-seven bolivar note from Venezuela, we found ourselves rudely ejected from the bus at the very next stop, in Highgate Village.
I was acutely aware my face colouring was drawing unwanted attention, even in the dark, so I persuaded Brian to pop into Timothy White’s and get me a bottle of calamine lotion, which I slapped on in the absence of distemper. If anything, it looked even better than the paint. It gave me the glowing, tanned aura of a young Randolph Scott. With the masculine tang of zinc oxide.
The general plan was to get to a telephone of some kind, but the booth on the high street had been annexed by a gang of juvenile delinquents, who were beating at the coin box with crowbars. I was slightly cheesed off there were no postcards with tempting telephone numbers on display therein, which that moustachioed mountebank Jenkins had promised were all over the place in London.
Still, plenty of other intoxicating naughtinesses to investigate now we were On the Loose and In the Smoke!
Hardly able to contain my excitement, I skilfully persuaded the others that an unvandalised telephone would most likely be found in the saloon bar of the Wrestler’s Arms. Licking my lips at the prospect of some actual hard liquor – not the rancorous filth Jenkins distils in the professor’s laboratory, or that dreadful rot gut they decant at the Wytchdrowninge ironmonger’s – I was first through the inviting etched-glass doorway. ‘Ales’, it promised. Ales! ‘And Stout’. Stout! Imagine! I’d no idea what stout was, but it sounded the very ambrosia of the gods.
Imagine my disappointment to find the way to the bar blocked by a huge scrum of inebriated humans, clustered around a wireless set.
As we drew closer, we heard one of those dinner-jacketed BBC types droning on about something bizarre happening at Piccadilly Circus. Some kind of pyramid object – ‘a ziggurat of great antiquity’ – long buried under Eros, had forced its way up from the Earth’s crust into the Tube station.
Honestly, these Terraneans get distracted by the slightest thing. I was just about to fight my way to the counter and demand the best stout that money could buy (on the slate), when blow me, if the next voice on the radio wasn’t old Quanderhorn himself.
‘ Stand back! ’ he was calling on his megaphone. ‘ Stand back from the ancient alien artefact! ’
Damned if my slight hesitation didn’t allow Dr. Janussen to grab my forearm. ‘Guuuurk – where d’you think you’re going? We’re wasting time. We’re clearly needed—’
And then, oddity of oddities, Dr. Janussen’s voice was also issuing from the wireless.
The BBC chap introduced her as ‘one of the Professor’s associates, the lovely Dr. Gemini Janussen.’ I could feel the real Dr. Janussen’s grip tighten on my arm in shock.
‘ Good evening, everyone ,’ this other Dr. Janussen replied. ‘ And thank you for the charming compliment. ’
I realised, on reflection, that her voice was almost the same as the real Gemma’s, but not quite. Slightly . . . gentler. And – dare I say it? – more feminine.
Brian looked as if he’d applied some of my calamine lotion to his own face. ‘How can you be there and here at the same time?’ he asked Gemma.
‘ Actually ,’ the radio Dr. Janussen trilled, ‘ being merely a woman, I just make the tea and stuff around here. ’
I screamed in pain as the real Dr. Janussen’s fingernails dug deep into my arm. I swear I thought they were going to meet in the middle!
‘ What? ’ She thundered in a terrible voice. ‘Is she mad ?’
I patted her hand with my working arm, and craftily slid the other one out of danger’s way. Thank heavens I did, too, because the next words out of the radio might well have caused her to snap it in two.
‘ We should all put our faith ,’ the radio Gemma went on, ‘a s I do, in my fiancé, our brave test pilot – Brian Nylon. ’
Brian, as usual, had fixated on the wrong part of the sentence. He half-smiled: ‘Fiancé?’
‘She is mad,’ I muttered to myself. And now there was another Brian on the radio.
‘ Hello, everyone ,’ declaimed this second pretender breezily, in a much more confident version of young Nylon’s whiny tones. ‘ Nothing to worry about, now. I’ve got it all in hand. Two sugars for me, darling. ’
‘ You’re sweet enough already, darling ,’ the radio Gemma cooed, and the two of them laughed gaily for very much longer than one would have expected.
‘Does anyone have a vomit bag handy?’ spat the real Dr J.
Ha ha ha. The look on Brian’s and Gemma’s faces! Quite clearly, they’d been replaced, and their pitiful egos couldn’t cope with it. It really was quite jocund when you think about it. Honestly – these vain creatures have absolutely no sense of humour when it comes to themselves.
And then, horror of horrors, the presenter made a rather more startling announcement. ‘ And unless I’m mistaken ,’ he said, ‘ they’re followed by none other than Edith Sitwell!’
‘ What? ’ I found myself exclaiming. And then some appalling parody of my own mellifluous voice started ranting: ‘ Death to all Earthlings! Soon you will all be overrun by the superior warriors of the planet Mars and fry in the white heat of our inescapable Death Rays! ’
The reporter chuckled indulgently. ‘ Marvellous new poem, Dame Edith. ’
How dare that stinker pretend to be me, pretending to be Edith Sitwell? Was he utterly devoid of morals and ethics? ‘He’s nothing but a scurrilous liar,’ I protested.
‘What is going on ?’ Brian demanded.
Gemma had managed to gather herself. ‘Somehow, the Professor’s duplicated us all. Only, not quite.’
‘Not quite? “Death to all Earthlings”? Is that something I regularly say to you over breakfast?’ I mean, obviously I secretly agreed with the fellow’s sentiments, Death to all Earthlings et cetera et cetera, but it seems frightfully infra dig to come right out and say it to their faces .
But the radio fellow wasn’t finished with the treats. ‘ And here comes young Troy Quanderhorn, the Professor’s son with the matinée idol looks. ’
‘Ooh,’ our Troy crooned, ‘he’s my favourite.’
‘ Troy – a word for our listeners. ’
This duplicate Troy, quite frankly, sounded indistinguishable from our own lummox. ‘ I don’t know any words ,’ he said. ‘ Oh – except “herringbone”. Is that a word? ’
Our Troy threw back his head and laughed. ‘Ha! That Troy fellow’s an idiot! Everyone knows “herringbone” isn’t a word.’ He shook his head pityingly.
‘ So, ’ the penguin-suited popinjay concluded, ‘ with the Professor and his crack team about to descend to the Tube line and break into the mysterious ziggurat – hopefully to discover momentous secrets hitherto unrevealed to humanity for millennia – we return you to Max Jaffa and the BBC Palm Court Orchestra, resuming tonight’s Hungarian Hoo-Hah.’
‘No, no!’ I yelled impotently at the wireless set. ‘Go back! We need to know what’s going on with those unspeakable imposters!’
But the ghastly racket of horses’ tails being scraped across cats’ intestines started up, and the crowd immediately began to disperse. I was bundled out of the way as absolutely every last one of them headed for the bar. Was I never going to get my glass of stout?
Brian’s brow was as furrowed as Mrs Wiggonby’s goitre. ‘If they’re supposed to be duplicates, why are the other “us”s so different?’
‘Clearly,’ Gemma answered somewhat stiffly, ‘Quanderhorn couldn’t resist making “im
provements” to us. The arrogant fool.’
I found this actually quite shocking. I’d never heard anyone on the team directly criticise the Professor, much less the stalwart Dr. Janussen herself. She was normally so dispassionate about everything.
‘There’s nothing for it,’ she announced. ‘We have to get to Piccadilly Circus.’
Piccadilly Circus! The heart of Soho! Now we were talking.
‘Follow me, everyone,’ I ordered, heading back through the scrum for the doors.
In my head, I stared singing:
‘ In the day time Grandad’s searching for truth,
But at night time he’s searching for his youth
In Piccadilly, Piccadilly, dear old London’s broad highway . . . ’
Chapter Nine
Outprint from Gargantua, the pocket Quanderdictoscribe. Dateline: Saturday the 5th of January, 1952, 19.37 hours
JENKINS: . . . and this just clips under here, sir . . . I just switched it on.
NEW BRIAN: Got it! Testing, testing . . .
JENKINS: Yep! It’s printing out the other end lovely. Not too heavy, is it, new Mr. Nylon, sir?
NEW BRIAN: No. Nghh.
JENKINS: It is less than forty pounds. Miracle of miniaturisation, it is. Off you go then, sir.
NEW BRIAN: (CLEARS THROAT) I am standing deep in the heart of Piccadilly Circus Underground Station, where a gigantic pyramid-like structure has forced its way from the bowels of the Earth to the top of the platform . . .
JENKINS: Just near the chocolate machine.
NEW BRIAN: Yes, thank you, Jenkins, you can go now.
JENKINS: (MUMBLING) You tries and gives them colourful detail, it gets thrown back in your face.
NEW BRIAN: It’s impossible to tell how deep the edifice goes. There appear to be the markings of a doorway inset into the hard, rough grey granite-like material of its surface. There are two huge closed eyes carved in relief above the ‘doorway’, somewhat reminiscent of Egyptian and Aztec hieroglyphs. On the crumbling remains of the platform before it, gangs of Irish navvies stand by, pickaxes at the ready, awaiting the Prof’s instructions as to how we’re going to smash our way in, and give old Johnny Alien a shellacking he won’t forget.
NEW GUUUURK: Ha! Enjoy that pitiful illusion of human superiority while you can. When our mighty fleet lands, you’ll be bending the knee before your Martian overlords!
NEW GEMMA: What shall I do, Brian darling?
NEW BRIAN: You’re already doing it, my poppet: just stand there and be gorgeous.
NEW TROY: I don’t know if it will help, but I’m going to rip open my shirt and expose my magnificent oiled chest.
NEW BRIAN: You’re not wearing a shirt, old chap.
NEW TROY: Nyaaaaah. Anyone got a needle and thread?
QUANDERHORN: Stand back, everyone! This is a job for Gargantua, the giant Quandersaw. Bring her forward, Mr. O’Reilly!
O’REILLY: (DISTANT) Assuredly. Bejabers.
[SEQUENCE OF MECHANICAL SOUNDS]
NEW BRIAN: (LOUD) I’m looking at a colossal chainsaw rumbling forward, with three atomic-powered turbine drives spinning fifty titanium technic axles and a, what? A thirty-foot diameter blade . . .?
QUANDERHORN: Thirty-five. Spinning at fifteen million revolutions per minute, made of specially reinforced chiffon.
NEW BRIAN: Sorry, sir? Did you say ‘chiffon’?
QUANDERHORN: Yes. What of it?
NEW BRIAN: The giant whirring blade is lowered into position . . . makes contact with the granite doorway . . .
[VARIOUS SOUNDS]
NEW BRIAN: . . . and just sort of flaps impotently for a couple of seconds, then rips to shreds. And the Professor cuts the engine.
[BRIEF SILENCE]
QUANDERHORN: What idiot thought you could reinforce chiffon?
NEW BRIAN: The Professor is now looking at me rather angrily.
QUANDERHORN: Do you have to keep up a running commentary on absolutely everything that happens?
NEW BRIAN: Well, yes, sir. Those are my orders from you.
[SEQUENCE OF UNRECOGNISED SOUNDS]
NEW BRIAN: Professor! The wall!
QUANDERHORN: Describe it, man, describe it.
NEW BRIAN: I hardly know what I’m seeing. The ancient stones on the face of the edifice are sort of . . . sliding around . . . rearranging themselves. The eyes! The great stone eyes are opening! It’s looking at us! It’s actually looking at us!
QUANDERHORN: Tantalising!
NEW GEMMA: Hold me, Brian, I’m frightened.
NEW BRIAN: There’s nothing to be— Oh, my God! The mouth’s opening! It wasn’t a door, it was a mouth all the time! It’s speaking!
[UNRECOGNISED SOUNDS. SCREAMING AND PANIC]
Chapter Ten
Lumpy the blith of Deimos, Martian Year 5972 Pink
Secret Report to Martian Command, by the real actual Guuuurk ‘The Adventurer’, Assistant Assistant to the Assistant Assistant’s Assistant Stick Sharpener, temple of Draaaag (leap years only).
The Tube trains were all cancelled, of course, and as we neared Piccadilly on foot, the roads and pavements became absolutely crammed with fleeing cars and panicking Terraneans. So our progress through Soho along Brewer Street was disastrously slow. Not as slow as I’d have liked, though. Everybody kept tugging me onwards whenever I stopped to ask directions from the ladies standing in doorways, who seemed only too eager to offer helpful advice and even, for some peculiar reason, Gallic language tuition.
Eventually, I was dragged to the corner of Great Pulteney Street, where our way was completely blocked by a police cordon. Brian tried to explain to one of the officers that we were the real Quanderhorn crew – unlike those swizzlers from the radio – but his troubles only earned him a thump on the head from a truncheon.
A great Martian general, at this point, would come up with a strategy so ingenious that it would reduce his followers to slack-jawed, dewy-eyed awe. * And so it was when I hit upon the rather ingenious notion of our doubling back and taking a short cut through the Windmill Theatre.
The others could scarcely contain their utter adulation, and barely tried to restrain me at all as I dashed in through the stage door with Brian literally hanging off my shirt tail.
In my giddiness, I rather clumsily happened to stumble into, of all places, the showgirls’ dressing room! Being a gentleman, of course, I immediately averted my eyes from the array of half-stockinged legs, suspender belts, peek-a-boo brassières , feathered G-strings, sheer silk negligées , lacy peignoirs , and, in one or two cases, entirely naked bodies! Of women!
And dash it all, if I hadn’t completely forgotten about the Gentleman’s Novelty Instant Camera which I’d hidden in my buttonhole when coaching the St Winifred’s upper sixth tennis team, for evaluating tricky line calls. For some reason, it chose now to start going off.
It might not have induced such loud screaming and rushing about had it not been for the blizzard of snaps popping out of my breast pocket, and the blinding flashgun which I’d rather thoughtlessly concealed in my flies.
The bouncers were terribly understanding about the whole business, and as a warning broke only three of my thumbs.
Escorted to street level via a window that really ought to have been open, I rejoined my colleagues, only to be furiously congratulated by Dr. Janussen with a cricket bat. (I assume she’d somehow obtained it from the theatre’s props room.)
I managed to dampen down her excitement by observing there was now only one way past the police cordon.
Down.
Young Troy easily lifted a rusted manhole cover. In order to distract the growing attention of the milling crowds, I had him hurl it in the air like a discus, and yelled: ‘Look! A flying saucer! It’s probably those awful Martian stinkers!’ (which is obviously the most terrifying prospect on the planet for the feeble and cowardly Terraneans), and while everyone calmly got out their mirrors, one by one we slipped down into London’s dank sewers . . .
* This is dou
btless a reference to the great Martian general ‘Groooog the Impervious’: when surrounded on all sides and under siege by the armies of his mortal enemy (and ex-wife) Borbindaxxx the Terrifying, he instructed his followers to eat their own feet rather than starve. It wasn’t an entirely successful tactic, as it transpired that Borbindaxxx had grown bored and left the area with her forces weeks before. And when Groooog opened the city gates to check, a pack of Martian sloth-wolves slunk into the compound. Normally these lazy predators are quite easy to outrun, simply by strolling away at a leisurely pace, but on this occasion the entire army was casually nibbled to death in their immobile state over a period of several months.
Chapter Eleven
The Daybook of ‘Jenkins’ Jenkins, RQMS Royal Fusiliers (on the run), Saturday the 5th of January, 1952
Boil dishcloths.
Well, I thought I’d seen everything, what with being the Prof’s Ada-de-camp all these years, but a talking pyramid was a new one on me.
I can see right deep into its mouth, which is a sort of corridor with steps disappearing down the epiglottis.
They all stands there, gawping at it, as it comes out with a perculiar lingo in a voice like a foghorn jammed up an elephant’s jacksie (which takes me back to that day in Tobruk, when we’d had a little bit too much of the laughing juice).
Me, I do something useful: I tries writing down what it’s saying. It comes out as: ‘Tugggggah shhhhhhhhpkkkk! Vuuuuuk com com dooooooffffahhh!’ or thereabouts. Could be Italians. Italians! Don’t like ’em.
The Quanderhorn Xperimentations Page 24