The Educated Ape and Other Wonders of the Worlds

  Princess Pamela’s hands gripped tightly to the parapet of a curly-whirly tower. The princess wore a lustrous gown awash with sequins all in pink, a cloak with a collar of ermine and a mighty train that spread for many yards.

  The flying palace passed into the atmosphere of Earth. Which differed but little from the all-pervading atmosphere of space, but for a smell of smoky chimneys, brass and brickwork and the scent of Man.

  The Lady Beast turned up her nose at the rancid stink of Man.

  ‘Picture it pink, lass,’ she told Lavinia Dharkstorrm. ‘Picture a world run by women, where men do what they art told.’

  Lavinia Dharkstorrm pictured such a world. ‘It would be pleasing,’ she said.

  The palace now dropped down towards the clouds that covered London. Clouds from which the bright red snow fell thickly.

  ‘Stay out of the snow, lad.’ Mr Churchill dragged the boil-ridden adjutant to the airship’s cabin and set him down to rest. ‘Call the troops below,’ Mr Churchill shouted at the wireless operator. ‘Tell them to shield their faces and hands and train their guns upon the sky. I fear that Cameron Bell is right — the danger comes from above.’

  Down and ever downwards came the palace of the Lady Beast.

  And there appeared a great wonder

  in Heaven. A woman clothed with

  the Sun and the Moon under her

  feet.

  Revelation 12:1

  And there appeared another wonder in

  Heaven: and behold a great red

  dragon with seven heads and

  ten horns.

  Revelation 12:3

  And as a great red dragon, the palace descended in silence. As within the concert hall, the very first movement of Beethoven’s Ninth came to its perfect ending.

  54

  ilence in the concert hall and silence now without.

  Arturo Toscanini raised his baton. Brought it down.

  Began the second movement.

  A movement in the Heavens drew the attention of gunners on the ground, gunners now sheltering from the deadly snow. Messages were exchanged. Mr Churchill viewed the descending palace. Ordered the airship’s captain to swing away to starboard. Ordered the gunners on the ground to open fire upon the massive structure dropping from on high.

  Now blood-red as any dragon, down the palace came.

  Bolts of deadly energy tore into the sky, flashed and burned upon the walls of the falling bloody palace. The flashes and explosions lit up the sky above the great arched roof of the Grand Exposition and the concert-goers leaned back in their seats.

  A son et lumière! Fireworks to accompany the great musical work! How fitting! How absolutely perfect!

  Queen Victoria rattled her jewellery, then sipped at her champagne.

  Cameron Bell rose up from his seat.

  ‘So it begins,’ he whispered.

  Mr Churchill had his helmet on. He bawled instructions into the brass mouthpiece of the wireless set. The Mark 5 Juggernaut Tanks lurched into motion in Trafalgar Square, angled up their turret cannons and rolled towards the Mall.

  Incendiary shells exploded about Mr Churchill’s airship. Mr Churchill hurled invective into his brass mouthpiece.

  The blood-stained palace drew to a halt five hundred feet above the halls of the Grand Exposition. In the throne-room on the second floor, Princess Pamela strutted to and fro before a mighty gathering of pirates, her long cloak trailing out behind, a crown upon her head.

  ‘Lads,’ cried she. ‘I want thee t’ go down there and give those soldiers ‘ell. Many of thee won’t be comin’ back, but that don’t matter nowt to me as I ‘ave bigger things to be going on with. Dost thou all ‘ave stuff to throw down?’

  ‘Aye!’ went the pirates, as pirates should, and displayed those items they had chosen for throwing down. Pointy objects, heavy things that would hurt if they fell upon your head. Pots of paint, which held to a certain humour. A baby seal and a puppy, which did not.

  Lavinia Dharkstorrm stood in a towering turret, before her on a pedestal her silver scrying bowl. She passed her hands over the inky liquid, causing ripples and contortions on its surface.

  ‘Let me see you, Mr Bell,’ said the evil witch of a woman, making magical passes and speaking magical words. An image swam into view of a dumpy fellow in pince-nez spectacles, a fellow who bore an uncanny resemblance to Mr Pickwick, standing to the rear of the concert hall. This fellow examined the face of his pocket watch. Examined it once, examined it again.

  ‘Priceless,’ said Lavinia, a-fluttering of her fingers. Time within the scrying bowl fled forwards. The solitary image of Cameron Bell just looked at his watch again and again and again.

  ‘You are stuck,’ said Lavinia Dharkstorrm. ‘Mine to do with as I choose. You will await me there.’

  She moved her hands once more over the scrying bowl. ‘And where are you, my sister dear?’ said she. Images of the concert audience swept across the surface of the liquid. Lavinia Dharkstorrm halted them, diddled with a finger. The face of Ernest Rutherford appeared, a face that wore an intense expression as the chemist immersed himself in the mathematical purity of the music. And beside Mr Ernest Rutherford, a lady all in black with a heavy veil.

  ‘Wait there, little sister,’ said the witch. And she poured down magic into the concert hall, securing the lady in the veil to the seat she sat upon.

  The pirates poured down sticks and stones upon the troops below.

  Sticks and stones and sealing wax and cabbages and kettles.

  The troops responded with rifle fire, which struck a pirate here and there, tipping him from his lofty perch and sending him with speed to Jonny Jones.[25]

  The troll named Jones had not received an invite to the concert. Naturally he concluded that this must have been some clerical error, as one so important as he should surely have been offered a seat with a comfy cushion in the royal box. Mr Rutherford had insisted Jones drive the chemist and Miss Wond to the concert in the elegant pony trap hired specially for the occasion. The two well-dressed humans were now in the concert hall. Jones sat bitterly on the trap, collecting boils as the red snow fell upon him.

  He was enjoying the gunfire, though, and he had grown quite excited a moment ago when a pirate plunged down from the sky and splattered in a gory heap a few short yards away.

  The pirates on high were now firing flintlocks and muskets. But these made little impression on the convoy of Mark 5 Juggernaut Tanks, which returned fire with a most malevolent force.

  Cupolas and turrets exploded, shattered and fell. The palace shook to this assault. Lavinia Dharkstorrm’s scrying bowl went tumbling to the floor.

  ‘Enough of this nonsense,’ Lavinia cried. ‘Men of Earth, you all will know my magic.’ She strode from her turret, down spiral steps and into the royal throne-room.

  Princess Pamela lazed at her dining table, sucking at the finger meat of the fresh-cooked cabin boy. A violent concussion shuddered the room, hurling a pink-framed portrait from the wall.

  ‘They will have the palace down about our ears!’ cried Lavinia Dharkstorrm. ‘Let me rain down fire upon their heads.’

  ‘‘Appen,’ said the princess. ‘Give ‘em a little taste of what’s to come.

  Lavinia Dharkstorrm stormed from the royal throne-room, mounted to a battlement, cast aside pirates and flung her arms aloft. Called forth words in a forbidden tongue. Conjured fire from the furnaces of Hades. Hurled it down upon the forces ranged along the Mall.

  The concert-goers marvelled as the fire filled the sky. Further jewellery rattled and gentlemen did noddings of the head.

  Flames swept down upon the soldiers of the Queen, wreaking terrible death and destruction. Infantrymen were sizzled black and then reduced to ashes. Drivers of Mark 5 Juggernaut Tanks sought escape as metal glowed about them.

  A troll named Jones bobbed up and down in glee.

  And then was gone to cinders. Just like that.

  And just like that, Venusians in the concert hail s
tiffened in their seats. They were sensitive to magic and when it occurred with such force and in such close proximity, they were deeply troubled. Whispers spread amongst them.

  Whispers to the effect that they should depart the Earth at once and leave its people to the untender mercies of the Venusian battle fleet that swung in a steady orbit several miles above.

  ‘The evil must end here!’ cried an ecclesiastic.

  Concert-goers shushed at the Venusian.

  ‘I will settle this,’ said Leah, rising from her seat.

  Concert-goers shushed her, too, and someone called, ‘Sit down.’

  Toscanini flourished his baton. He heard nothing at all but the Glorious Ninth.

  Leah the Venusian left the concert hall.

  Fire fell once more from high above.

  Winston Churchill stared in horror at the massacre below. He shouted into his brazen mouthpiece, but no words were returned to him. He turned his gaze towards the floating palace, saw pirates pouring over the battlements, swarming down lines and rope ladders.

  Many alighted onto the high arched roof of the Grand Exposition.

  Bringing delight to the audience within.

  Beethoven’s Ninth and pirates? How could it possibly get any better than that?

  ‘For better or worse, but for nothing in between.’ General Albert Trubshaw rode his chestnut charger up and down before his mounted troops. A dashing chap, was Albert, in his thigh-boots and bearskin, his handlebar whiskers rising to either side of his head as noble antlers and his burnished silver codpiece capable of holding a litre of champagne. As it so often did in the officers’ mess where it could not frighten the horses.

  ‘Gentlemen.’ General Albert stirred his mount with a riding crop that had reddened the buttocks of many a music hall gal. ‘Gentlemen, I have just received orders from Mr Winston Churchill that he wishes us to engage the enemy. Kindly draw your sabres and put on your fiercest faces.’ He made a fierce face of his own to demonstrate the look. ‘Quite so. Destroy the pirate menace for the honour of the regiment. And charge!’

  And proudly did the cavalry charge.

  Only to draw up rapidly short, upon finding their way barred by dug-in anti-airship guns and a row of fresh latrines.

  ‘And turn! And charge!’

  To once more draw up short, their way now barred by the rear of the concert hall.

  ‘To the right! Charge!’

  To arrive at the Jovian food hall.

  ‘Turn about and charge! And I forbid any fellow to stop!’

  It was the way things should be done when it comes to bravery. The horsemen plunged forward, standards flaring out and bugles blowing. The wall of glass before them was that of the Venusian Hall. An empty hall it looked to the valiant lads.

  With spurs dug in and battle cries upon their lips, they rode their spirited thoroughbreds through the plate-glass windows and into the empty hall. Horses’ hooves raised sparks upon the mosaic floor which might have held the image of the fingerprint of God. They thundered around the Sphere of Nothingness, which was surrounded by a rope baffler as a safety measure to keep the public away. And then through plate-glass windows beyond, a swift left turn and out into the Mall.

  The majority survived these brave advances. General Albert Trubshaw plucked a shard of glass from his left eyeball and considered just how extra-dashing and romantic he would look when sporting a black silk eyepatch.

  All in black silk, though mauve of eye, the evil witch gazed down upon the destruction she had wrought and found it very pleasing to behold. The last of the pirates cheered her success before thrusting daggers between their teeth and disappearing over the battlements. Princess Pamela came to Lavinia’s side.

  ‘Nice work, lass,’ said she to the woman in black. ‘Ah, see, look at t’ horsemen riding out.’

  ‘Should I blast them?’ asked Lavinia, raising her hands once more.

  ‘Let pirates battle ‘em. Always a guilty pleasure, watching pirates.’

  Lavinia Dharkstorrm magicked up champagne.

  Princess Pamela took a glass and toasted the witch with it. ‘Thou art full of it tonight, lass,’ said she. ‘We’ll ‘ave a glass or two of this, then pop down and sort me sister out.’

  Princess Pamela broadly grinned as glasses clinked together.

  ‘Darwin,’ whispered Lord Brentford. ‘I think I heard the sound of breaking glass.’

  Darwin shrugged. He really didn’t care.

  ‘Be a good boy,’ said his lordship. ‘Pop down towards the Venusian Hall and see if all’s hunky-dunky.’

  ‘Hunky-dunky?’ queried Darwin.

  ‘Ssssh!’ went a concert—goer.

  Sssssh and whoosh and wsssh and chop and slice went flashing sabres. The dashing chargers swept against the pirates. The red snow had finally eased, which meant at least that none of the riders’ looks got sullied by boils.

  The pirates put up a spirited fight, employing all those underhand tactics for which they are universally despised. Heads and hands were sliced from bodies, horses bommy-knockered to the ground. General Albert leapt from his mount and hacked away with vigour. Gentlemen riders cried, ‘Huzzah!’ at the pirates.

  Pirates ‘arrrhed’ and ‘arr-harrhed’ in reply.

  The hacking was horrid and the hewing hideous.

  And as the second movement of Beethoven’s Ninth came to a triumphal conclusion, the final combatant sank to the ground. And no one moved upon the Mall, for everyone lay dead.

  55

  arwin marched from the concert hall, then loped along the gallery beyond. Darwin was a rather angry ape. He did not want to be out here checking for broken windowpanes. Was there not some caretaker to deal with that kind of business? He wanted to be at the concert listening to the wonderful music.

  The Hall of British Industry and All Things Empire was dimly lit and Darwin felt suddenly most vulnerable. He crept past Mr Rutherford’s time-ship, which set the hairs a-rising on the back of his little neck, and slunk past the automated elephant.

  Behind him the dramatic beginning to the third movement struck up. Ahead there was a curious silence. Darwin cocked his head upon one side. Electric street lamps cast light in from the Mall, but it had an unearthly red hue to it. A nasty smell came to the simian’s sensitive nose. It was the smell of human blood. Darwin’s eyes grew wide.

  Beyond was the entrance to the Hall of Venus. The air was growing colder as the monkey butler moved upon his way.

  Then a voice called, ‘Darwin,’ and the monkey butler all but soiled his trousers.

  ‘Darwin — here.’ The voice was that of an angel.

  ‘Leah?’ said Darwin. ‘Leah, is that you?’

  The Venusian lady stepped from the shadows. ‘Come to me, Darwin,’ she called, and she held out her hand to the ape.

  ‘London, ‘ere we come,’ said Princess Pamela. ‘Mister Mate, where art thou?’

  ‘I’m here, ma’am. Ah—harr—harr—harr.’ Mister Mate flourished his cutlass. Princess Pamela clipped him round the ear.

  ‘Take us down!’ she said to him. ‘Land me palace there.’

  ‘There, ma’am?’ Mister Mate pointed with his cutlass. ‘But there’s something already there. We could land in the park.’

  ‘There!’ the princess said with such fierceness that it would even have put the wind up General Albert Trubshaw, now deceased. ‘There!’ she shouted, very loudly. ‘Land it right there on top of Buckingham Palace!’

  Darwin and Leah looked out from’ the palace of glass. Looked out towards the Mall and viewed the carnage that lay beyond the glazed walls of the Grand Exposition. The broken bodies of horses and horsemen, charred and twisted corpses, too, and all, it very much appeared, afloat in a sea of blood. It was truly a vision of Hell right there in the heart of London.

  Darwin turned his face away and Leah held him close. ‘You must aid me, Darwin,’ said she. ‘Great evil is amongst us and if it is not destroyed, all will be lost. My people will cleanse this planet of all
upon it.’

  Darwin looked up at the beautiful creature. ‘I am only a monkey,’ he said. ‘What can a monkey do?’

  ‘Do it!’ shouted Princess Pamela. ‘Do it now, Mister Mate!’

  Mister Mate swung the steering wheel and then released the handbrake.

  And the dragon was wrath with

  the woman and went to make

  war with the remnant of her seed.

  Revelation 12:17

  The flying palace passed over the halls of the Grand Exposition, swung past Mr Churchill’s airship and, as that man looked helplessly on, settled down amidst sickening crunches right upon Buckingham Palace.

  The walls of Queen Victoria’s London abode buckled outwards and windows exploded as priceless artworks and artefacts within were crushed into flattened ruination. Servants sipping cocoa in the pantry fled as the stuccoed ceilings fell. The throne-room buckled and the throne itself became splintered fragments of gold. The turquoise and silver frescoes depicting supposedly mythical tales, which few found even vaguely humorous, were mangled into oblivion. And like some bloated mother hen settling onto its nest, Princess Pamela’s palace came to rest upon the soil of Albion.

  As sole surviving minion, Mister Mate offered up three cheers for the Lady Beast.

  Princess Pamela smiled upon him. ‘Now, lass,’ she said to Lavinia Dharkstorrm, ‘what say thou and I take a stroll t’ me throne.’

  One might naturally have assumed that the mangling of Buckingham Palace would certainly have been heard within the concert hall. But if one had naturally assumed it, one would have been most wrong.