Apocalypso

  ‘All right, yes. But I knew that there was something very wrong here. And it’s not just the blokes with the knives and forks. Clear the island. Call up the MoS. Get them to nuke the alien.’

  ‘Nuking is not an option,’ said Sir John.

  Danbury threw down his hands. ‘Look,’ said he. ‘Don’t you ever go to the movies? This is standard sci-fi fare. Spaceship is brought up from the depths, mad alien thaws out, hell and horror all around, thousands flee in terror and a great big explosion at the end. Why not cut around all the bad stuff while we have the chance? Let’s have the great big explosion now and get it over with.’

  Dr Harney shrugged. ‘Danbury does have a point, you know. If the alien were to thaw out, there’s no telling what might happen.’

  Sir John ceased to diddle with his twiddly bits. ‘There will be no nuking and that is that,’ he said in a very firm tone.

  Danbury threw up his hands once more. ‘Then leave it,’ he said. ‘Just leave it where it is. Call up the MoS. Tell them we have checked it out and it’s not a spaceship at all, it’s a big starfish, or a rock formation or something.’

  ‘Or something?’

  ‘Or anything. Bluff it. Just do it.’

  Sir John Rimmer shook his hirsute head. ‘No,’ he said and, ‘no no no. It just wouldn’t wash. For all we know the Americans are already on their way.’

  ‘Stuff the Americans. In fact, let the Americans have it. They were so gung-ho in Independence Day, let’s see how smart they are when they come up against the real thing.’

  Sir John gazed out at the ocean blue.

  Dr Harney scuffed sand with his sandally shoe.

  Danbury scuffed and sighed somewhat too.

  And a crab scuttled sideways, well what a to-do.

  Sir John turned sharply to avoid things slipping off on some poetic tangent. Shaking his noble head, he paced back and forwards, making ‘quack quack’ noises and doing a passable impression of Max Wall. At length he performed a cartwheel and a double back somersault and came to rest in the splits position. ‘What if we were to retrieve the spacecraft and then carefully dispose of its occupant?’ he asked. ‘Remove him from the craft, still in cold storage and—’

  ‘Nuke him,’ said Danbury. ‘It’s the only way to be sure.’

  ‘I have told you, nuking is not an option. But we might take the alien in its cryogenic unit, weight it down with stones and drop it into deep water.’

  ‘I want to go home,’ said Danbury. ‘What time does the next plane leave?’

  ‘You are not going home.’

  ‘I have a suggestion,’ said Dr Harney. ‘How would it be if we retrieved the spacecraft, removed the alien still in its cryogenic unit and let Danbury here put a bullet through its head with his daddy’s gun?’

  ‘What?’ Danbury’s hands went waving about in the air. ‘Are you seriously suggesting that we raise this spacecraft, root out this mad alien and then I, I end up with the sole responsibility for killing it? That the entire burden of sparing the human race from this thing rests upon my shoulders? That I take my father’s gun and shoot it? Blast an alien from another world out of existence? Me? That is what you’re suggesting?’

  ‘Do you have a problem with that?’

  Danbury pulled out the pistol and grinned at it. ‘Hell no!’ he said. ‘Let’s haul the scumbag up.’

  ‘Then we are agreed?’

  ‘Big-fala, him blong Godlady picker-pick?’

  The three men turned to confront a smiling native.

  The smiling native caught sight of Danbury’s gun and took a dive for cover.

  ‘Put that away,’ Sir John ordered, stooping from on high to pacify the native.

  Danbury twirled the pistol on his finger and blew across the barrel. ‘Your move, creep,’ he said as he tucked it into his red cagoule.

  ‘No shoot’m,’ begged the native from the foetal position.

  ‘No shoot’m,’ said Sir John, helping him up.

  The native dusted sand from his T-shirt. It was a nice new T-shirt. It had the words ‘Virgin coming soon to this island’ printed on the front.

  ‘Blow-dat,’ said the native. ‘Godlady picker-pick. Her blong you, blong me, pronto-Tonto.’

  ‘Dr Harney,’ said Sir John. ‘I think he wants the photograph.’

  ‘Of course.’ Dr Harney dug into his case and brought out the picture of the lovely one. He passed this with due reverence to Sir John, who handed on the sacred item to the native. ‘Oh Carol,’ said Sir John.

  The native smiled at the ten by eight glossy and then smiled at Sir John.

  ‘What very pointy teeth he has,’ said Danbury.

  The native’s smile froze. ‘One hundred dollar-pounds,’ he said.

  ‘Pardon?’ said Sir John.

  ‘One hundred dollar-pounds, yes-siree, by Jingo.’

  ‘Dr Harney,’ said Sir John. ‘You understand pidgin, what is he trying to say?’

  ‘Spit’m it out,’ said Dr Harney.

  ‘Shoot’m,’ said the native. ‘Heart-bump’m fair-had-me-going. One hundred dollar-pounds.’

  ‘He’s demanding compensation,’ said the doctor, ‘because Danbury pointed the pistol at him. He has a bad heart, he says.’

  ‘Outrageous,’ said Sir John.

  ‘Godlady picker-pick.’ The native pointed to the photo. ‘Brown-bots blong stone-bonker. Noway-Hosay, big-fala blong stone-bonker, dig deep long-pockets, ya boo sucks.’

  ‘Ah, I see.’ The doctor now smiled. ‘What he is saying is that if we are daft enough to believe that he and his fellow islanders worship Carol Vorderman, then we’re also daft enough to cough up one hundred quid for pointing a gun at him.’

  ‘Well, is that so?’ Sir John reached into a safari suit pocket pouch, withdrew a set of brass knuckles, fitted these over his right fist and then dealt the native a weltering blow to the skull.

  The native collapsed in an untidy heap and lay on the beach a-rubbing at his head.

  ‘Do I make myself understood?’ asked Sir John.

  The native nodded soberly.

  ‘Right then, no more of your nonsense. Lead us at once to our accommodation. Danbury, you stay and guard the supplies until our chap here returns at the hurry up with some native bearers. Up and at it then, Mr Brown-bot, there’s work to do.’

  Danbury chewed upon his lip. ‘There’ll be tears before bedtime,’ he said.

  ‘Chop chop,’ said Sir John. ‘Pacey pacey.’

  The native rose and led Sir John and Dr Harney up the beach and off into the palms. His smile soon returned to him and he engaged the doctor in conversation. He was eager to know all about England. Were New Labour living up to their election promises? Had the Spice Girls released a ‘concept’ album yet? What exactly did the word ‘oxymoron’ mean? How tall did you have to be to join The Twenty-third Congregation of Espadrille?

  Dr Harney, who knew when the Mickey was being taken, answered these questions politely and then posed a few of his own, regarding life on the island.

  The native explained that his name was Monty and that he was head man of the nearest village. He apologized to Dr Harney about the business of the hundred dollar-pounds, but excused himself by saying that, as one who had travelled widely, he had always found ripping off the gullible foreigner to be the rule rather than the exception. He would just have to work a bit harder at honing his skills.

  Dr Harney asked what duties were expected of a head man and was told that the post was largely honorific, as the local populace recognized few laws and fewer leaders. The head man was, none the less, empowered to impose three laws of his own choosing, for which the penalty was death. Death by slow torture, followed by being eaten.

  However, said Monty, as a humanitarian himself, he had imposed three laws that were unlikely to be broken. Impersonating an Egyptian was one, and goosing an elephant was another. And so he therefore maintained an air of authority and the good-will of his people, without the need to participate in torture, butchery and a
nthropophagous gut-fillings.

  At length Monty led Dr Harney and Sir John into a clearing.

  ‘You said that there were three offences punishable by death,’ said the doctor. ‘You told me the first two, but you didn’t mention the third.’

  Monty put his fingers to his lips and whistled. From all sides sprang natives. They were heavily armed natives, bearing stout sticks and pointy spears. They surrounded Dr Harney and Sir John in a scrum that was far from unruly.

  ‘Third law,’ said Monty. ‘No hit’m head man.’

  Danbury Collins sat on the beach, his back against a wooden crate, his shoe and sockless feet dug in the sand. Danbury gazed out over the beautiful bay, from the palm-fringed shore to the sea of deepest blue. It really was paradise here and no mistake. One hundred yards off the coast four long canoes moved easily across the water, each manned by ten long-limbed and finely muscled natives. They went about their noble task and paid no heed to Danbury.

  The lad sighed gently as he watched them. What a life that must be. Fishing and fornication. No mobile phones, no motor cars and no McDonald’s Big Macs. If it hadn’t been for the presentiment of doom that clung to him like an unwanted lover, he could quite have gone for it. Whipped off his kecks and leaped into the water.

  But the water was not really a good place to be. Something lurked out there. Beneath the waves a monster dwelt. A monster that should never be allowed to surface.

  But, of course, it could all be rubbish. Perhaps there was no spacecraft. Perhaps it was just an odd rock formation. Perhaps the whole shebang was a pile of poo.

  But Danbury knew better. He had the “certain feeling” that big bad trouble lay out there and although shooting an alien did have its fun side, the responsibility was no laughing matter.

  The fishermen had cast their nets and were now rowing home. Danbury looked on as they applied themselves to their oars. It was all perfect unison and great heroic strokes. They would certainly have put the wind up an Oxford or Cambridge crew. As they reached the beach they clambered down into the water, took up the stern-lines and pulled on them with a will.

  The lines stretched out into the sea, where nets bulged big with jumping fish. Ring-tailed spromlings, diamond-finned loonbellies, rainbow snoutmaskers and bum-waggle gin-pit splay-jawed grum-doodlers.

  Danbury rose and stretched and viewed the fishermen. There was such dignity to them: a proud people fishing as their fathers had done before them. And their fathers’ fathers. And their fathers’ fathers’ fathers. And their. . .

  My, how they sweated and strained. And my, how they still paid no heed at all to Danbury. The lad broke wind and watched and wondered.

  The nets drew ever closer and the natives plunged in thigh deep, shouting and cheering and hauling their catch towards the land.

  The nets now broke the surface to display their shining bounty. Danbury saw a silver dome-like body crest the waves.

  A flat-tailed chufgrumbler, was that? Or a bandybrowed hooleyplop?

  Surely not a rare duck-loined blanket-shark?

  Danbury squinted.

  The native fishers hauled and dragged and cheered and shouted, as up from the depths and onto the beach came a silver-grey metal object of considerable size.

  Danbury’s jaw dropped open and his bowels began to move.

  ‘Oh no,’ said Danbury. ‘Oh no no no.’

  But it was, yes, and up it came, to the cheers and shouts and hauls and pulls: an elegant aeroform resembling a star with seven points.

  ‘Put it back!’ shrieked Danbury. ‘Get it back in the water!’

  The natives ignored him. They were poking it with their spears. Poking, prodding, laughing and joking. They were not to be bothered by a stonebonker white-fala jumping up and down.

  As Danbury looked on in horror, he could see the steam starting to rise. As the massive craft lay there on the baking sand, the seawater was beginning to evaporate on its hull. The seven-pointed spacecraft was already warming up nicely.

  ‘Put it back! Put it back!’ Danbury unholstered his weapon and fired it into the air. ‘Stand away from that spaceship,’ he ordered. ‘No, I mean, get it back in the water. Quick. Pacey pacey. Get a hurry up.’

  And then someone struck him from behind and Danbury Collins said no more.

  He had plenty to say though when he regained consciousness.

  Like ‘Aaaaaagh!’ and ‘Ow!’ and ‘Oh my head!’ and ‘Where am I?’ and ‘What is going on?’

  ‘Be at peace there,’ said the voice of Dr Harney.

  ‘I’ve gone blind. I’ve gone blind.’

  ‘No, you haven’t. You’re in the dark.’

  ‘Why am I in the dark?’

  ‘Because you’re locked in a shed.’

  ‘Oh, I see. No, I don’t. Why am I locked in a shed?’

  ‘There’s been a spot of bother,’ said the doctor.

  ‘A spot of bother? A spot of . . . Oh no, I remember. The spacecraft. They’ve brought up the spacecraft.’

  ‘We know,’ said the voice of Dr Harney.

  ‘You know?’

  ‘There’s been a lot of chit chat going on outside. A lot of chit chat in American accents. It would seem that the MJ 12 mob from Area 51 got here before us. They paid the natives to bring up the spacecraft. It’s been taken aboard a tramp steamer and is being shipped off to an American naval base.’

  ‘Well, well,’ said Danbury. ‘The things you can hear through the walls of a locked shed.’ The lad tried to get up, but he couldn’t. ‘I can’t get up,’ he observed.

  ‘That would be the ropes,’ said Dr Harney. ‘They do somewhat impede movement.’

  ‘Somewhat. Oh my poor head.’

  ‘You’ll be all right.’

  ‘Oh no I won’t.’

  ‘No, you’re probably right about that.’

  Danbury groaned. ‘Will someone please tell me just what is going on?’

  ‘I told you, a spot of bother.’

  ‘You couldn’t perhaps be a little more specific?’

  ‘Well, you know how Sir John clumped the native?’

  ‘I do recall that, yes.’

  ‘Well, the native was the head man of the village and clumping the head man is a punishable offence.’

  ‘I suppose it would be.’

  ‘Punishable by death.’

  ‘Help!’ screamed Danbury. ‘Let me out. I didn’t clump anyone. I’m innocent.’

  ‘I tried that myself,’ said the doctor. ‘They weren’t having any. “All white-falas guilty,” the head man said. Apparently he’s inviting his cousins over for the big blow out.’

  ‘What big blow out?’

  ‘After they’ve tortured us slowly to death, they are going to cook and eat us.’

  ‘Do you remember me saying that I had a “certain feeling”?’

  Dr Harney made a grunting noise.

  ‘What about the Americans?’ Danbury asked. ‘They won’t let these savages eat us, surely?’

  ‘I think the Americans have all cleared off in their boat.’

  ‘Oh calamity!’

  ‘And so I was rather hoping that you might favour us with something. You being the lad who never steps in dog doings and always comes up with a rose between his teeth.’

  ‘We’ll just have to shoot our way out.’

  ‘I think you’ll find that they’ve taken your father’s revolver.’

  ‘I think you’ll find that they’ve missed my mum’s Luger. It’s strapped to my left ankle.’

  ‘What foresight you do show.’

  ‘Well, I did have a “certain feeling”.’

  ‘Bravo.’

  ‘And I’ve just had another.’

  ‘What exactly do you mean?’

  A key turned in a padlock and the door to the shed swung open. Sunlight beamed in and so did Monty the head man.

  ‘Chow time,’ said Monty.

  ‘That’s what I mean,’ said Danbury. ‘But that ain’t the half of it.’

  Chow t
ime on a certain tramp steamer was at 1800 hours, southern Pacific time. And it was shortly before chow time that the radio operator called in a message to the American naval base to say that the ship was steaming smartly along at forty-five knots in a north-north-easterly direction and that the ‘consignment’ was safely stashed in the forward hold.

  It was shortly after chow time that he called in to say that a fault had occurred with the refrigeration unit in the forward hold, but that the engineers were working on the problem.

  About an hour later there was one further message, although those who heard it at the American naval base could not make out exactly what this message was. It appeared to be a lot of incoherent babbling, followed by a terrible high-pitched scream.

  And then all communication with the tramp steamer Apocalypso was lost for ever.

  8

  ‘Apocalypso The Miraculous,’ read Porrig, somewhat earlier. ‘That’s what it says on the card.’

  ‘I read about him in a book,’ said Wok Boy. ‘He was very famous in his day. He’s dead now, of course.

  ‘But if he’s Dog-face the Dimac Man, the old bloke I met on the train this morning, and that’s the same old bloke you’ve been working for here, then—’

  ‘Then he’s not dead. But it won’t be the real Apocalypso, the real one is definitely dead.’

  ‘How can you be so sure?’ Porrig sipped at the tea he’d been given. ‘This tastes like cat’s wee,’ he observed.

  Wok Boy took the cup and sniffed at it. ‘Smells like cat’s wee too. That would probably be the cat.’

  ‘Oh, there’s a cat, is there? How charming.’

  ‘You like cats then?’

  ‘No, actually I hate them.’

  ‘Me too.’

  ‘Then why do you keep one?’

  ‘I don’t. It’s not mine. It gets in somehow and wee-wees all about the place. I have to use a lot of bleach and air freshener. Pine, for preference; the others smell too synthetic, in my opinion.’

  ‘Yeah, right.’ Porrig shook his head wearily. ‘I asked you how you could be so sure that the real Apocalypso is dead.’

  ‘Because it said so in the book I read. And there was a picture of his funeral with all these famous stage magicians standing around in top hats. And there was a picture of his tomb. This amazing marble obelisk and sort of stone masonic temple affair. It’s in the local churchyard, you can go and see it yourself.’