And Another Thing...

by Eoin Colfer

  This was Buff’s domain. He’d been quite the Kirk Douglas fan back on Earth and so had been put in charge of the weaponry.

  ‘Not too bad,’ he said, leading the ragtag brigade to the foot of the plaza’s Sean the Boxer statue. Their tools of battle were laid out on the plinth.

  ‘It’s mostly gardening stuff,’ admitted Buff. ‘This strimmer has nice weight to it and could give a person a nasty cut. We have a couple of rakes for poking and tripping, that kind of thing. I myself provided this nine iron – not my premium club, obviously, but it’s got a good swing. Pretty dangerous, in the right hands.’

  Even though he himself had signed the agreement forbidding the transport of actual mechanical weapons from Earth, Hillman had hoped for a slightly more robust arsenal.

  ‘This is great!’ he said with hollow enthusiasm. ‘Let’s show these feckers how the men of Cong can fight.’ He selected the strimmer and was about to press the starter button when Buff tapped his elbow.

  ‘Better hold off on that until we need it. The charge is pretty low.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Usually José does all that, but he ran off with one of your maids.’

  ‘Right. Fine. Well, we can work with what we have.’

  They strolled in a loose group towards the main gate. The compound had been designed along the lines of the original Innisfree, with a mall added in on the far side of the lagoon. There were pootle-tink birds standing in the shallow waters, some reading but most working on their tans and bemoaning the fact that a bird’s drive disappeared so quickly when someone handed it a lovely crocogator-free lagoon.

  Guide Note: The pootle-tink birds have long been victims of their own attractiveness, that and relentless inbreeding. The pootle-tinks were, for centuries, respected throughout the Galaxy as weavers of fine feather tapestries, until a certain Galactic Council trade ambassador proclaimed their plumage to be exquisitely beautiful and a must for all fashionable lagoons. This effectively spelled the end for the pootle-tink way of life as the culture vultures moved in and began to aggressively breed and cull the pootle-tinks in the quest for the perfect plumage, which could then be shipped across the Galaxy to brighten some diplomat’s water feature. The pootle-tinks did not put up much of a fight as they are vain creatures who enjoy being stared at. Culture vultures, on the other hand, do not have a narcissistic feather in their wings and like to pass the time screwing over other species then spending their profits on booze and sugary desserts. ‘We are like opposite ends of the same spectrum,’ a culture vulture once remarked to a pootle-tink, to which the pootle-tink replied: ‘Yes, so long as one end of the spectrum is made of crap and that’s the end you’re at.’

  ‘I have a thesis due in two months,’ one pootle-tink lisped to a friend. ‘And I haven’t even started my research.’

  Another spotted Buff on the bridge. ‘Hey, hey, Buffy. How’s the swing coming?’

  ‘Not bad, Perko. Not too bad at all. You finished writing that book yet?’

  Perko rolled his eyes. ‘It’s all in my head, Buff. I just need to park my backside on a chair and start typing, you know what I mean?’

  ‘I know exactly what you mean,’ said Buff, who had no idea what the bird was talking about, but was in a mood for positive statements.

  The fighting men of Cong followed Hillman across the asphalt to the main gate, which their leader was forced to crank open with a winch.

  ‘One of us should have learned the gate code,’ huffed Hillman as he laboured. ‘This is ridiculous. The Magratheans have subbed over the back-up codes, but there are hundreds of them. Electronic gates, cash registers, Sub-Etha vision. Nothing works without the codes.’

  Once the gate was open enough to slip through, the men stood at the checkpoint and gazed across the fuzzy humps of purple grass to the tropical forest that divided the two compounds. The tree branches criss-crossed densely and hung heavy with fruit and wildlife, apart from a half-elliptic cylinder-shaped tunnel that had been laser bored through to the other side.

  Hillman took out his phone and zoomed in on the tunnel mouth.

  ‘I see the misguided feckers,’ he snorted. ‘Coming over on golf carts. Jaysus, it’s hardly the Light Brigade now, is it?’

  The assembled band laughed heartily as they had seen warriors doing in war movies, then used their phones to zoom in on the approaching convoy.

  ‘I count ten,’ said Buckeye, who had the most expensive phone with the best lens. ‘There are only eight of us.’

  ‘Yes, but we’re on top of a hill,’ countered Hillman.

  ‘So?’

  ‘So everyone knows being up a hill is vital… feckin’ vital, mind, in these situations.’

  Buckeye was miffed. ‘I didn’t know it. So that’s not everyone, is it?’

  ‘Do you know it now?’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘Well, that is everyone then, isn’t it?’

  Hillman took no joy from his victory in this little verbal spat. This was supposed to be a tranquil settlement. There were not supposed to be any spats.

  ‘I don’t see what’s so good about this hill,’ said Buckeye sulkily. ‘Some of us are wearing loafers. And there are a lot of sharp stones out here. The soles on these things are like paper.’

  ‘I wore my golf shoes,’ said Buff with a bloodthirsty grin. ‘So I can stomp on these bastards. Mash their brains.’

  Guide Note: Buff Orpington happened to be a direct descendant of Sigurd, the noble Viking warrior. Mr Orpington was not aware of this; all he knew was that he often added honey to his beer and fantasized about chopping his wife’s pigtails off with an axe. He would later have his race memories extracted by a hybrid Babel fish and take to wearing sealskin leggings on the golf course.

  Hillman realized then how quickly the coming confrontation could get out of hand. ‘Hold up there, boyo. There’ll be no brain mashing. For one thing, the theatre nurses are shacked up with a couple of caddies in the fifteenth bunker and, for another, we are not working class here. No fighting unless absolutely necessary.’

  ‘Okay, Hillman,’ said Buff, chastened. ‘What if they insult us? Or maybe our grandparents?’

  Hillman’s cheeks lost their usual rosy hue. ‘If anyone insults my Na… eh… grandmother, then I crack his skull.’

  The Nanites were not the only ones watching the highway. A small group of lithe, hungry carnivores squatted in the dense vegetation at the tunnel mouth, strong fingers curled, tendons tight in anticipation of the attack. One, a hulking creature, raised a crust of bread to his mouth, tearing it with strong teeth, only to have it grabbed from his hand by the pack’s leader.

  ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ asked the leader, who was called Lewis Tydfil.

  ‘I need energy,’ replied his subordinate, who only used one name: Pex.

  ‘But that’s bread.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Carbohydrates after three p.m.? Are you insane?’

  ‘It’s just one crust. That’s all.’

  Tydfil held up the bread for all the personal trainers and beauticians to see. ‘One crust. That’s all it is. Do you know how many spoons of sugar there are in this one crust? Do any of you know?’

  ‘Two?’ ventured Pex.

  ‘Seven!’ shrieked Tydfil. ‘Seven. You eat this after three and you might as well shove a sugar pump up your arse.’

  ‘Come on, Lewis.’

  ‘Fifty push-ups, on your knuckles. Go.’

  Pex scowled. ‘I was hungry. I’m fed up of picking fruit from the trees. I want something fresh-baked or cooked.’

  ‘That’s why we’re here. Now get going on those push-ups.’

  Pex caught the eye of a manicurist that he’d taken a fancy to. Her nails looked like they had been dipped first in blood, then diamonds. He didn’t really like the idea of humiliating himself in front of her.

  ‘No, Tydfil. Go hump yourself. Who made you leader?’

  Lewis Tydfil drew himself up to his full height, bendin
g one knee to show off his gastrocnemius. ‘I made myself leader on account of my qualifications.’

  ‘I have qualifications.’

  ‘You’re a fitness instructor,’ said Tydfil in a tone usually associated with murderous dictators, serial killers or ex-girlfriends’ handsome boyfriends. ‘Any moron can spend a weekend in a crappy gym and become a fitness instructor.’

  ‘I have a diploma.’

  ‘I have a degree,’ thundered Tydfil.

  ‘I specialize in kettle bells.’

  Tydfil trumped him again. ‘I am an expert in the Kinesis Wall and I can take GP referrals.’

  Pex drew a rolled-up magazine from the front of his shorts, which was a bit of a let-down for the manicurist.

  ‘I did a Men’s Health pictorial. Look, there’s me on the front.’

  Tydfil put the final nail in his rival’s coffin. ‘I was the fitness adviser on a reality show. We had soap stars!’

  There was no recovering from that. Pex dropped to his knuckles and began counting off the push-ups in sets of ten.

  ‘Good,’ said Tydfil. ‘Now the rest of you, stay hydrated and do your stretches. They will be here soon.’ He checked a few of his comrades. ‘We’re fading here. Some camouflage, please.’

  Two beauticians, with spray-tan tanks strapped to their backs, painted stripes along the trainers’ limbs.

  A power walker emerged from the trees. ‘They’re coming down the highway. Jean Claude is in the last cart.’

  ‘Okay, everyone,’ said Lewis Tydfil. ‘This is it. All we need to do is snatch Jean Claude and it’s wholewheat crêpes for everyone. Let’s warm up with a slow jog and then charge on my signal.’

  ‘What is your signal?’ asked Pex, from the high point of a push-up.

  ‘I will shoot you in the head with my starter’s pistol.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Or maybe I will just say charge. Any more questions?’

  Pex’s chin dipped low to the ground. ‘Nope. I got it.’

  Tydfil’s smile was wide and perfect. ‘Good. Now come on everybody, lift those knees. Push it out.’

  The personal trainers seemed to come out of nowhere, ripping into the last golf cart as soon as it cleared the tropical forest’s fringe.

  ‘What the…’ yelped Buckeye. ‘Did you see that? Did everyone see what happened?’

  No one replied, too focussed on the drama unfolding on the asphalt. The attack was not precise, but it was lightning fast and furious. A group of tanned and toned athletes exploded from the planted border, swarming all over the cart that held Jean Claude. In a flurry of biceps, they hustled the cart to the kerb, tipping it off the road and down the verge. Then, in a flash of leotard and hair gel, they were gone. The driver never even had the chance to press the Emergency Aid panic button hanging from a lanyard around his neck. The only evidence of the assault was a settling dust cloud and the trailing curses of a stocky trainer who had not warmed up properly. It was several moments before the rest of the convoy even noticed that their rearguard was missing.

  ‘Jaysus,’ whispered Hillman, meaning it for once. ‘That was… I can’t believe it. I didn’t know humans could move that fast.’

  Buff, who had been to a talk about personal training once, nodded sagely. ‘Yep. That’s trainers for you. Extremely well-moisturized.’

  ‘They’ve turned savage,’ croaked Buckeye. ‘Nobody is safe. Do you think we could stop one of those with a strimmer? We’re doomed! Doomed!’

  It was time for some leadership. ‘Pull yourselves together, you crowd of chickens,’ snapped Hillman. ‘We still have the Tyromancers to deal with.’

  It was true. The Tyromancers had not turned back; if anything, they had increased their speed towards the Nanites’ compound. In all probability they were fleeing the scene of the ambush in case the trainers decided to strike again.

  ‘Should we run down the hill?’ asked Buckeye.

  ‘Just forget about the bloody hill,’ snapped Hillman, then remembered that Buckeye was technically a customer. ‘Don’t worry about the hill, sir. Just follow my lead.’

  ‘And crush their zarking skulls?’

  ‘Zarking, Buff? What the hell is “zarking”?’

  ‘Just a word I picked up from one of the merchants at the spaceport.’

  ‘Keep it to yourself, especially in front of the ladies.’

  Buff shrugged. ‘No problem. I wish I had a sword in my hand now. A big zarker… sorry… a big two-hander with sheepskin on the handle. If I had a sword like that, I’d die happy and go straight to heaven.’

  Buckeye tugged at his sleeve, a nervous tell. ‘When this is all over, you need to talk to my wife, the town psychiatrist, if we can tempt her back from the beach. She’s shacked up with a young lifeguard. According to her, it’s a clear case of projected reverse Oedipus. I tried everything, you know – took a course of bastard pills so she could have the good guy or the bad guy.’

  ‘Hopefully, I won’t live beyond today’s glorious battle,’ said Buff, blithely ignoring Buckeye’s tale of woe.

  The Tyromancers’ golf carts putted along Nano’s only dual carriageway, a clear example of future proof overkill, and proceeded steadily up the hill to the compound.

  ‘You might be better off,’ muttered Buckeye.

  Although he later claimed it to be accidental, at that precise moment the toe of Buff’s golf shoe nudged Buckeye Brown’s loafer, scuffing it badly.

  Guide Note: This relatively innocuous incident would lead to a tit-for-tat vendetta that was to escalate over the centuries, culminating in the destruction of three planets, eighteen loafer-class battlecruisers and a small hotel on a neutral world. On the positive side, there was a forbidden love affair between two younger members of the families that was later turned into a movie, a series of books and a moderately successful stage play.

  Related Reading:

  Brown & Orpington: A New Breed by Bandera Brown-Orpington

  The Tyromancers putted up the hill in a pretty cool semicircle formation that died a death when driver number four neglected to put on his brake and rolled back down the slope, crashing eventually into the foot of a bantally tree, which, luckily for the driver, was hibernating or it would definitely have put a hex on him.

  ‘Nice entrance,’ sneered Buff, swinging the nine iron nonchalantly.

  Aseed Preflux stepped from the first cart, spent a moment broadcasting you’re an idiot eye beams down at the stumped driver, then turned his attention to the Nanites.

  It was unnerving to see how much he looked like Hillman, right down to the widow’s peak and pointed chin, like an infernal leprechaun. In fact, if the Nanites had looked a bit closer at their nemeses, they might have noticed that there were several doppelgängers in the group.

  ‘The Cheese told me you would say that about our entrance,’ said Aseed.

  ‘A pity the Cheese didn’t mention anything about that ambush down the road, isn’t it, boyo?’ said Hillman quickly. His men rewarded the quip with a six on the laughter scale, one being a gentle chuckle and ten being uncontrollable guffaws. Hillman’s joke clearly rated no more than a four.

  ‘Do not mock the Cheese!’ said Aseed furiously. ‘You will bring Edamnation down on us all!’

  Buff took a bead on Aseed’s forehead with the nine. ‘You’re about to be cream cheese.’

  More laughter. A solid eight.

  Red spots bloomed on Aseed Preflux’s cheeks. ‘Yeah, go on. Do all the cheese jokes. It’s so easy, isn’t it?’

  ‘Easy singles,’ muttered Buckeye.

  ‘Yes. That too. Let’s get them all out of the way so we can get down to business.’

  Aseed’s men bunched threateningly behind him, looking as warlike as it was possible to look when armed with cheese-related instruments.

  ‘What is that?’ asked Hillman, pointing to one wooden implement. ‘Is that for cleaning drains?’

  ‘It is a churn plunger! As you well know!’

  ‘How would I know that, l
addie? I have someone to make my cheese before I put it on a cracker.’

  ‘Blasphemer!’ shrilled Aseed, and his friends took up the cry.

  ‘Listen to that din,’ said Buff. ‘Oh, din.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing, Hillman. Why don’t you let me take out these pansies? There are only eight of them left.’

  ‘Not yet, Buff. Maybe our friends don’t want to fight. Maybe they’ve come to return Jean Claude to us.’

  ‘We have not!’ shouted Aseed, and then he ran out of bluster. ‘Actually, we don’t have him any more. Those trainers took him, off to their beach settlement I imagine.’

  ‘We saw. So you left one of the faithful in the ditch?’

  Aseed made a triangle with his forefingers and thumbs, which he then touched to his forehead. ‘The Cheese demands sacrifices,’ he said.

  The others copied his action.

  ‘Appease the Cheese,’ they intoned, with faces so solemn they could have hired them out to an advertising agency as the ‘before’ pictures in a Blam-O-Brain, Antidepressant for the Whole Family campaign.

  Hillman and the Nanites quickly made the ‘after’ faces, laughing so hard that two of them farted.

  ‘Appease the cheese,’ spluttered Hillman. ‘Just when I think you can’t get any nuttier.’

  Aseed sighed. ‘So you’re not going to join us?’

  ‘No. We’re not. Why don’t you join us, Preflux? Just go easy on the cheese stuff. We’re all laid back here. And together we could outwit the staff.’

  ‘No. All must bow down to the Cheese.’

  ‘Appease the Cheese.’

  It was Hillman’s turn to sigh. ‘I suppose we have to fight, then.’

  ‘It is the only way. But no hitting in the face.’

  ‘Of course not. We’re not animals. And no goolies.’

  ‘We are forbidden to make contact with the goolies of non-believers, except through gloves of curd, which we haven’t managed to fabricate yet.’

  ‘So no face, no goolies.’

  Buff was being held back by an invisible bungee. ‘Come on, let’s just go.’

  ‘One more thing,’ said Aseed. ‘I will be fighting, as will my disciples, with my churning hand in my pocket, so in the spirit of fair play…’