‘I’ll talk to the winning couple myself,’ she said, making a rapid departure from the Green Room.
She slammed the door and stalked back across the studio floor. As she approached the winning couple she was further distressed to find that the Dalai was already with them. He raised his Tampa Sunrise to her and smiled sweetly. ‘Gloria,’ he said, ‘what kept you? Not been talking to yourself again I hope?’
6
And a rose smells sweetly when it’s growing in manure.
Ivor Biggun
Back on Phnaargos the Time Sprout was holding court.
‘Sixteenth generation, eobiont engram modified,’ the informative veg explained, ‘utilising the trans-perambulation of pseudo-cosmic anti-matter.’
‘The what?’ asked Mungo Madoc.
‘Curve of space,’ said the sprout. ‘Time doesn’t travel in straight lines. I thought everyone knew that.’
Executive heads bobbed up and down. ‘Yes, indeedy,’ said Diogenes ‘Dermot’ Darbo.
‘Well, it’s the first I’ve heard of it,’ said Mungo.
‘You see time doesn’t really exist, it’s an illusion. Relative of course.’
‘Oh. Of course.’ Mungo turned to face Fergus Shaman. ‘Fergus, if this is a practical joke, I shall not be responsible for my actions.’
‘Could be ventriloquism,’ Garstang suggested. ‘An uncle of mine had a singing turnip. Went distinctly quiet once the old bloke had kicked the bucket.’
‘Yes, yes!’ Mungo beat upon the table with his fists. ‘My patience is not inexhaustible.’
‘When you’re all quite finished,’ the sprout bobbed up and down, ‘I will gladly enlarge upon any concepts that you might find . . . trying.’
‘He has a certain eloquence,’ said Lavinius Wisten. ‘I like that in a sprout.’
Mungo Madoc made digging motions with an ethereal compost shovel. ‘The floor is yours,’ he told the loquacious vegetable.
‘Well,’ said the sprout, ‘I’ll keep it brief, it’s all to do with the microcosm and the macrocosm. As above, so below, that sort of stuff. The infinite atom, the sprout, the planet, the sun, all spheres you see. You are all, no doubt, conversant with Phnaargian dogma, that the entire universe is nothing more than a pimple upon the nose of the deity.’
All present, barring the sprout, made the sacred sign, pinching their thumbs and forefingers to the tips of their noses.
‘Then you will no doubt wish to expedite matters before the great one chooses to lance his boil.’
‘Point taken,’ said Mungo. ‘We need waste no more time regarding the mechanics. Can you, with accuracy, convey a member of our team back to an exact location, at an exact time, on Earth?’
‘A piece of peat. Although there may be one or two minor biological problems for the traveller accompanying myself.’
‘Ah,’ Mungo nodded meaningfully. ‘Now this does surprise me.’
‘Ironic extrapolations are quite wasted upon me. I merely state fact. The Phnaargian isn’t designed to travel through time. He’s the wrong shape for one thing. He will “pick things up” as he travels along.’
‘What? Like germs, do you mean?’
‘Knowledge,’ said the sprout. ‘We will be travelling at the speed of thought. So therefore on the same wave-length. He’ll pick it all up, centuries of it. The accumulated knowledge of every intelligent being in the galaxy, that has ever lived, possibly even ever will live.’
‘So when do we leave?’ Mungo asked. ‘Best get off, eh?’
‘Slow down, the man who takes the trip and picks up all this knowledge will become . . .’
‘Godlike,’ said Mungo Madoc.
‘Barmy,’ said the sprout. ‘Stone bonkers.’
‘Ah,’ said Mungo. ‘I see.’
‘As a hatter,’ the sprout continued. ‘Off his kookie, out of his tree . . .’
‘Quite so.’
‘Basket case.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Loony, dibbo, round the twist . . .
‘Thank you very much. And this will happen as he makes the journey into the past?’
‘The journey into the past is okay; it’s the return journey, travelling forward to the present day that will do for him. Blow his mind, freak him out, spring his . . .’
‘Thank you! This matter will require a good deal of thought. Fergus, kindly take your little friend down to the lobby. I’m sure he’d like a glass of water, or something.’
‘Virtually self-sufficient, chief,’ said the sprout. ‘Metabolic rate merely ticking over, pseudopodium catered for.’
‘The lobby!’ shouted Mungo and he meant it.
The door sealed upon a sullen Fergus and a complaining sprout. Mungo smiled down at this team. They returned his gaze, with varying degrees of apprehension.
‘This is a conundrum,’ said Mungo Madoc. ‘One, in fact, quite new to my experience. But it has potential. I like it.’
‘But it isn’t going to work,’ Gryphus complained. ‘In fact it’s a load of old . . .’
‘Now, now. I can see the problems. To achieve our end, we must dispatch one of our number back into the past. On his return he will be a head-case,
‘With delusions of Godhood,’ sneered Gryphus.
‘A Godhead case,’ tittered Diogenes ‘Dermot’ Darbo. ‘Indeedy.’
‘Every problem has a simple solution. This one is just a matter of expendability.’
A great silence fell upon the boardroom. Silent prayers were offered up.
‘It’s all right.’ Mungo raised a hand. ‘I don’t consider any of you expendable. We need a volunteer. Someone whom the company won’t miss. Some insignificant little nonentity with ideas above his station.’
‘Showtime,’ said Jovil Jspht. ‘For what it’s worth.’
‘He’s a friend to the foe
The star of the show
The man we all know
By his king-sized karma
He’s a breath of spring
He’s the Living God King
He’s the Dalai . . . Dalai . . . Dalai
Dalai La ... ma . . .’
The Lamarettes were tonight stunningly clad in silver lame sling-backs, matching gloves and diamante ear-studs. Anything more and they would have been grossly overdressed.
As the Dalai materialized on stage, the applause lights flashed and the audience synthesiser went overboard. In homes above ground and homes beneath, prayer wheels span like football rattles and ring pulls popped from a million cans of Buddhabeer. In the control room Gloria bit her lip.
‘Blessings be upon you.’ The Dalai twirled upon his heel and made ‘peace’ signs. ‘Inmost One here saying a real fine howdy doody and a big Buddha welcome to ... wait for it . . .’
The vox pop crouched upon the edges of their make-shift seats . . .
‘NEMESIS!’
Lights flashed, sirens wailed, gongs were beaten. The Lamarettes fussed about the Dalai,
who had fallen to the floor, as if possessed. ‘Back to my suite, girls,’ he giggled, ‘I’ll give you something king-sized to meditate on later.’
‘I think I’ll take my lunch hour now,’ said Jovil Jspht. ‘If you don’t mind.’
‘As you please,’ Haff Ffnsh replied. ‘But don’t be late back.’
Jovil Jspht left the control room of Earthers Inc. and wandered down the organic corridor. Ahead of him the doors of the executive lift opened and Fergus Shaman, wearing a grim expression and cradling something in his arms, slouched out. The two men didn’t exchange pleasantries.
Jovil eyeballed the open lift doors. He’d never actually seen the upper floors of the spiral complex, his status didn’t allow it. Jovil halted, the doors would close in a matter of seconds. Was it worth the crack? If he was discovered it would be a big number. Demotion. Goodbye pension scheme, hello compost shovel. In this world, as upon any other, chances were only taken by the nerveless few, success their preserve alone. To quote the motto of the Phnaargian Special Service ‘
Who Dares Wins’.
Jovil shook his head. The lift doors closed.
Mungo Madoc sniffed at the Destiny lily which grew from his lapel. ‘So we are all agreed, it is a one-way trip for the chosen operative.’
Diogenes ‘Dermot’ Darbo made foolish chortling sounds. Gryphus Garstang rubbed his hands together. ‘Sounds good to me,’ he sniggered. Lavinius Wisten raised a limp hand. ‘How are we to ensure that the operative in question doesn’t return from nineteen fifty-whatever-it-is?’
Mungo Madoc twirled his outrageous moustachios in a manner much beloved of old-time villains about to foreclose on the mortgage. ‘Garstang, let me have your thoughts.’
Gryphus Garstang grinned wolfishly. ‘Shouldn’t be too hard to arrange, a neat little "magic box" with the words "return to Phnaargos" printed on it and a single button. He presses the button and . . .’ Gryphus mimed a very large explosion.
Outside in the executive corridor, a certain Jovil Jspht, hearing the buzz of conversation, pressed his ear to the boardroom door.
‘All right.’ Mungo Madoc took himself over to the picture window and gazed down upon sunny green Phnaargos. ‘We are all agreed. We need a hero. A brave and fearless Phnaargian, willing to travel back into the past and change history. Prepared to risk all for truth, justice and the ratings.’
From where his ear was pressed, Jovil Jspht wasn’t able to hear the laughter, only the applause.
‘So,’ Mungo continued, ‘suggestions, gentlemen.’
‘I think I know the very fellow.’ Grypus Garstang held up a certain memorandum, which had appeared upon his desk, as upon many others, that very morning. ‘If I was to mention “Killer Maggots from the Earth’s Core”.’
Outside the boardroom Jovil Jspht puffed out his chest. So this was it, recognition at last. He had always known that his time would come, that his talents would one day receive the merit they deserved. This was going to be one in the eye for Haff Ffnsh. Oh, happy day.
‘The ideal expendable buffoon,’ said Mungo Madoc, but by this time Jovil Jspht was well on his way to the canteen.
There may very well be a moral here somewhere. But in the light of future events, it would be extremely hard to pin it down accurately.
Mungo Madoc buzzed down for some executive nose-bag and a magnum or two from the reserve stock, Jovil Jspht blew his whole week’s luncheon vouchers on a belly-buster of heroic proportions and down upon Planet Earth certain others took their midday repast.
‘Luncheon,’ said Rambo Bloodaxe, ‘and pre-cooked.’
Deathblade Eric poked around in the wreckage of Rex Mundi’s burned out air car. ‘The reactor’s still intact. Non-contaminated meat. Shall I carve?’
‘Certainly not, Eric. I can’t abide dining alfresco. Kindly haul him back to the hotel.’
Rex Mundi’s mortal remains were unceremoniously dragged from the crumpled cab and deposited in the back of Rambo’s in-town runabout, a vehicle constructed from corrugated-iron and charred timber, camouflaged to resemble a thrown-together transient’s hut. Side slits housed hidden armaments and the whole caboodle was powered by a nuclear reactor, not dissimilar to the one Eric had now commandeered from Rex’s defunct 801.
Rambo keyed the ignition and the hidden wheels plied their way along the rubble-strewn street, en route for the Hotel California. Headquarters, high temple and Holiday Inn hideaway of the Devianti.
‘A few prime cuts and then it’s into the freezer for this boy,’ said Rambo, swerving the vehicle to clip something which might have been a cat. ‘That Rogan Josh is a decent enough cove.’
Eric opened Rex’s purse. ‘Ten credits, Josh said our lunch owes him!’
‘Give him the lot, Eric. Money is the root of all evil, you know.’
‘The life-force of God in action in the material world.’
‘Forever the philosopher, Eric.’
‘It’s a gift,’ said Deathblade Eric.
They were a likeable pair of rogues, these Devianti flesh-eaters. Well spoken, nicely mannered, and decently turned out. Personable young men.
Rambo was of old Sussex stock, with a triple-barrelled last moniker. Eric, the hereditary heir to the Lambton Lairdee, his extremely great great-grandfather having slain the famous Worm and been bunged the title in perpetuity by the king. Three hundred years of selective inbreeding had left its inevitable hallmark, but whatever they lacked in the chin department was adequately compensated for by their deportment and ingrained sense of style.
For instance, they always wore their radiation suits beneath their clothes, a vogue which hadn’t as yet caught on amongst the general public, acid rain having the tendency to play havoc with one’s mackintosh.
The Devianti favoured striped shirts, club ties, grey cords, Hunter Wellingtons and Barbour jackets. Beneath their weather-domes jaunty-looking tweed caps were the order of the day.
Despite their unconventional lifestyle they considered it essential to keep up appearances. The manufacture of such upper-crust-schmutter had, needless to say, ceased fifty years before and so its ‘just-bought’ look paid a posthumous tribute to the exclusive tailors of old London Town.
It might logically have been presumed that the warrior bands of social outcasts currently stalking the streets would have come from the ‘lower orders’. But not a bit of it. The ‘lower orders’ were all safely tucked up at home watching television. It was Rambo and his ilk who had become subject to Duke’s Principle and were forced to take to the streets. The upper classes had fared rather badly in the post NHE world. Without Wimbledon, the Royal Tournament, three-day events and Gardener’s World, they couldn’t actually bring themselves to watch TV. And so they became non-participants in the great EYESPI credit race. Those of them who left the bunkers made futile attempts to reclaim their ruined estates. But you just couldn’t get the staff.
Soon, like closing credits, they faded from the screen.
The young, for their part, took to the antisocial behaviour which was their birthright, and bands like the Devianti were formed. Within their ranks, they maintained a strict social order, reasoning that when society was eventually restructured, it would be for them to reassume their natural place at the top and govern it. The fact that they had become the complete antithesis of this society totally escaped them.
These were, as the Bard of Mersey had once un-knowingly predicted, ‘strange days indeed’. Rambo swung the car towards another cat, but the six-legged moggy danced nimbly aside. The in-town runabout bumped over the mangled wreckage of some-thing which had seemed very important at the time it was built and trundled up to the door of the Hotel California.
‘Home again, home again, jiggedy jig,’ sang Eric, shinning down from the cab. ‘Oh poos!’
‘Language.’ Rambo joined him at the rear of the runabout. It was empty. ‘Well, bless my soul,’ said the cannibal chief. ‘This is most unexpected.’
‘This is most unexpected,’ said the smiling Jovil Jspht. ‘Now let me see if I have it right. You have chosen me to travel back into the past and alter the Earth’s history.’
Mungo Madoc nodded sagely. When put like that it did sound pretty ridiculous at best. ‘We think you are the best man for the job.’
‘And indeed I am. So, the plan is that I manifest myself as an angel before this Paisley.’
‘Presley, Elvis Presley.’
‘Convince this Presley not to join the Army and then come straight back here.’
Mungo patted him upon the shoulder. ‘What could be simpler?’
‘Gosh.’ Jovil flushed with sheer pride. ‘An angel.’
‘We will issue you with everything you will require. There are several videos in the archives made after Presley’s death which show the dreadful state he got himself into as he approached his death in middle age. They will say it all to him. Frankly we don’t mind what you say to him. Just convince him not to join the Army. Leave the rest to us.’
‘And once I’m done, I just press this little button.’ Jovil reached fo
r the black box which lay before him on the boardroom table. Garstang hurriedly drew it beyond his reach. ‘That’s right, but not a minute sooner and only when you are a considerable distance away from Presley.’
Jovil looked puzzled. ‘Why?’ he asked.
‘Because . . . because why?’ Mungo gazed about at his execs. ‘Because why, Garstang?’
‘Because you must be on your own,’ said the sprout, who had twigged exactly what was going on. ‘Transient photons causing a cross polarisation of the interstellar overdrive. Anyone standing nearby would get sucked into the positronic trans-dimensional warp factor five graphic equalizer and turned into soup.’
‘Exactly.’ Mungo nodded approvingly.
‘Sounds very complicated and very nasty.’
Mungo nodded again. ‘Oh, it is. Very.’
Jovil turned to the sprout. ‘But what about you though?’
‘I’ll find my own way back, chief, don’t worry about me.’
‘So, Mr Garstang here will fill you in on all the details, issue you with the bits and bobs and whatnot. Do you have any questions?’
Jovil shook his head, ‘I can’t think of any.’
‘Good, well if you do, I’m sure Mr Garstang will set you straight. Won’t you, Mr Garstang?’
‘Indeed I will, sir.’
‘So now,’ Mungo drew Jovil to his feet, straightened up and saluted him. ‘Good luck soldier. The future of the series rests in your hands. We applaud you.’ The executive team put their hands together. On Phnaargos applause was considered the highest compliment or accolade that could possibly be paid to an individual. It meant that you had really made it. On twentieth-century Earth, the nearest equivalent would have been a guest appearance on Wogan or a libellous attack on your sexual habits by a Sunday newspaper, whose journalists had hacked into your phone.
‘You can count on me.’ Jovil Jspht stood rigidly to attention. There was a tear in his eye.
To further applause he left the boardroom in the company of Gryphus Garstang, who was carrying the black box at arm’s length.