The Greatest Show Off Earth

  Phew!

  ‘A moment to refresh ourselves, Your Majesty, and then we shall play for you once more.’ Professor Merlin bowed himself from the circus ring and limped away on worn-out legs towards the dressing-rooms.

  Here sat his artistes, in a state of major collapse. Having each been forced to perform their routines at least twice, all were now exhausted.

  ‘We cannot go on again.’ Monsieur LaRoche spied out the professor’s approaching legs from the doubled-up position in which he was crouched. ‘My back, she is gone. A buggeration to Binky and a plague of boils upon his poor sick son.’

  ‘The Black Death be on him,’ agreed Dr Bacteria. “Three times the little shit demands to see me die of malaria. Three times. I refuse to do it again.’

  Similar moans and complaints filled the air. The professor raised his marvellous fingers. ‘I have implored him a moment’s respite. The man is clearly a stone bonker and we are late. We return at once to the ship.’

  ‘He won’t like that.’ Aquaphagus coughed up a small trout. ‘Ah, I wondered what I’d done with that. The Grand Duke will hunt us down.’

  ‘Be that as it may, we are leaving. Take only what you cannot live without and follow me.’

  ‘What are we going to do?’ Raymond tried to make himself heard. The deafening clap of the copter-blades as the gunships circled above, made any kind of communication, save possibly that of mime, rather difficult.

  ‘I have to find the circus and bring it safely back,’ Zephyr shouted.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You stay here. Leave it to me.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Stay here, I’ll fetch the professor.’

  ‘No!’ Raymond tugged Zephyr into the nearest cabin and slammed shut the door. ‘No.’

  ‘Yes, Raymond. I can get off the ship undetected and return the same way with the professor and the rest. No-one will see us.’

  ‘No,’ said Raymond once again. ‘You might get yourself killed.’

  ‘I can’t be killed.’

  ‘Oh,’ Raymond wondered at that one. ‘Well I can. What if they storm the ship while you’re gone?’

  ‘We can’t leave without the professor, and I’m the only one who can bring him through the lines of police.’

  ‘Fly the ship,’ said Raymond.

  ‘What?’ said Zephyr.

  ‘Fly the ship. Let’s go and pick up the professor.’

  ‘That’s a very good idea, Raymond.”

  ‘Do you think so? I thought it was a rather obvious thing to do really. Of course, it would depend on those helicopters backing away.’

  ‘Attention SS Salamander.’ It was one of those police loud hailers and it could be heard because the helicopters had moved away to allow for the loud hailing bit which always comes just before the big shoot-out bit. ‘There is no escape for you. Give yourselves up now or we open fire.’ (That bit.)

  ‘Now would be the ideal time,’ said Raymond.

  ‘All right. You go up to the wheelhouse and get the ship moving. I’ll distract the police.’

  ‘No,’ said Raymond.

  ‘What do you mean, no?’

  ‘I mean, I don’t know how to fly the ship. So let me bullshit the police. Then if I get shot, at least you’ll still have a chance to escape with the kidnapped people and pick up the circus.’

  ‘That’s very brave of you.’

  ‘Is it?’

  ‘Yes, it is. I’ll help you as best I can.’

  ‘Come out on deck or we open fire.’

  ‘Let’s go,’ said Raymond. But Zephyr had already gone.

  ‘Hey hey hey.’ Raymond strolled out on to the deck and waved gunless hands at the police marksmen. ‘No need for any of this.’

  A shot whistled past him and went thud into a lifebelt.

  ‘Hold your fire,’ called the policeman with the loud hailer.

  ‘Best to,’ Raymond plucked at the crotch of his leather trews. Still dry, but for how much longer? ‘You wouldn’t want to turn this city into a smoking ruin, now would you?’ he called out.

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘One shot in the wrong direction and we’ll all be dead.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘The ship’s space drive system.’

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘Very unstable. It functions on the trans-perambulation of pseudo-cosmic anti-matter.’

  ‘Get away.’

  ‘No kidding. And if one of your bullets interrupted the cross polarization of the beta-particle flow. Poof.’

  ‘Who are you calling a poof?’

  ‘The city will go poof. This whole city. All of it. Gone. Just gone.’

  ‘Gone?’

  ‘All of it.’

  ‘All of it?’

  ‘All,’ said Raymond.

  ‘Yeah? And my arse smells of snowdrops from a curate’s garden.’

  ‘Haven’t we met?’ asked Raymond.

  ‘No, but you duffed up my brother the security guard at the auction house.’

  ‘Just duffed up? You mean he’s not dead then?’

  ‘No, he’s fine. Got a bit of a headache though.’

  ‘Well send him my best wishes and say I hope he gets well soon.’

  ‘OK, I will. So now are you coming down, or do we shoot you dead?’

  Raymond scratched at his head and wondered what Simon might say next, the unstable space-drive-system-ploy having proved a real no-mark. ‘I have diplomatic immunity,’ called Raymond. ‘I am the new official ambassador from Eden. Shoot me and you’ll have an interplanetary incident on your hands.’

  ‘You’re a lying git,’ called the police officer who had the, brother that Raymond had duffed up but not killed. ‘I’m going to count up to ten and if you don’t come down then we shoot you dead and storm the ship.’

  Oh for the General Electric mini-gun, thought Raymond. And ‘Oh,’ he continued as it materialized as if by magic in his hands.

  This time the firing button had a big sticker on it which read ‘Press here for bullets and hold on tight’.

  ‘Back off!’ shouted Raymond. ‘Or I fire. I know how to use this thing.’

  ‘That’s not a real gun.’

  ‘Oh yes it is.’

  ‘Oh not it isn’t.’

  ‘Please yourself then.’ Raymond angled the six rotational barrels in the general direction of the police presence and pressed the firing button.

  To lovers of high-velocity firepower, those sad individuals who buy gun magazines and part-works about Nam, the General Electric mini-gun stands in a class of its own. Tried and tested upon many an innocent farming community in the Mekong Delta, it dispenses its six-thousand-round-a-minute payload in a wide body format, offering maximum tissue penetration and optimum soft-target takedown.

  It didn’t half go some. Raymond held on with a will as the recoil adaptors took up the kick and bullets strafed along the dockside.

  Fogerty’s finest fled as police-car tyres shredded, bonnets were torn asunder and petrol tanks exploded. Plumes of smoke bowled into the sky, confusing the pilots of the gunships, who simply gave the open fire order and steered around in faulty circles.

  Mayhem!

  Raymond had his eyes firmly closed, if he was doing any soft-target takedowns he didn’t want to see it. He had his legs crossed also. This was all very much, too much.

  What a lot of smoke!

  If you’re actually firing six thousand rounds a minute, it doesn’t take long to use up all your ammunition. Unless, of course, you have a great deal of ammunition. Raymond didn’t seem to lack for it. The big gun’s barrels whizzed around. Smoke and flames and chaos.

  Very gratuitous. But if you are one of those sad individuals who buy gun mags and the Nam part-works, right up your street really.

  What a lot of smoke.

  Raymond couldn’t see a thing. He dropped the gun and clung to the ship’s rail. Because things were shaking all around him. Bursting shells. Smoke and flames. The snapping of cables and chains.
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  More mayhem. Further chaos.

  And then the clear blue open sky.

  Raymond blinked. The ship was rising. The great liner was moving upwards. The smoke was all below. A black shroud covering the dockyard. Copter-blades whacked under the hull. Struck the hull. A helicopter gunship cartwheeled down into the harbour.

  Raymond covered his face and then did what so many shipboard passengers had done before him, though for far less dramatic reasons. He threw up over the side.

  The SS Salamander turned about in the sky. Majestic and magical. And dizzying too. Raymond toppled to the deck. Clung to a steamer chair. Slid along the deck clinging to a steamer chair. Then levitated through the open door of the wheelhouse.

  ‘All right?’ asked Zephyr.

  ‘Oh yeah, never better.’

  ‘Then hold on tight. It’s going to be a bumpy ride.’

  ‘Your Majesty.’ A cringing menial with an ibis head and a natty line in scarlet livery spoke at the Grand Duke’s regal ear. ‘Professor Merlin has just left the building.’

  ‘Without my permission?’ The big fat fellow rose in his royal box, dislodging his poor sick son Colin from his knee. ‘Call out the guards. Get after him. My boy wants to see the malaria man again.’

  ‘But the guards all have the day off, Your Majesty. You declared it a national holiday.’

  ‘Oaf! Buffoon! Bring back the circus. And pick up my son.’

  ‘To hear is to obey.’

  ‘Too bloody right it is. Now get a move on.’

  ‘Get a move on, Jumbo, do.’ Professor Merlin put spur to his flagging pachyderm. –

  ‘Less of the spurs. I’m going as fast as I can.’

  ‘You can talk. By Jimmy, you can talk.’

  ‘Of course I can talk. I just never wanted to before.’

  ‘Is that an Indian accent?’

  ‘I’m an Indian elephant. You expected Yiddish perhaps?’

  ‘No, I . . . well. Fiddle-de. Why now, my old muck-amuck? Why do you wish to talk now?’

  ‘Just exercising my prerogative,’ said the elephant in the unconvincing Indian accent. ‘Now are the End Times come and all the beasts of the field will speak out.’

  ‘All?’ asked the professor.

  ‘All,’ said Jumbo. ‘The lion and the lamb. The chimp and the chicken. Especially the chicken.’

  ‘What about the fish?’ asked Mr Aquaphagus, who was hanging on behind.

  ‘Don’t be a schmuck,’ replied the elephant. ‘A talking fish? My life already. Oi vey.’

  ‘After that elephant,’ cried the cringing menial.

  ‘Who me?’ The solitary guard in the little hut by the palace gate shook his head. It was the head of a mullet. ‘It’s more than my job’s worth to leave this hut.’

  ‘Call the police then.’

  ‘No point. They’re all at the dock shooting at the big ship that brought the circus in. Look, it’s live.’ He pointed to his portable TV. ‘Humphrey Gogmagog’s doing the commentary.’

  ‘Oh, I like him. Turn the sound up.’

  ‘Shall I put the kettle on for a cup of tea?’

  ‘Well,’ the cringing menial stroked his beak, ‘I really should be chasing after the circus.’

  ‘Why bother? Tell you what you do: phone the police at the dock, get them to arrest the circus when it tries to get back on the ship.’

  ‘Can I use your phone?’

  ‘Sure. Ask for my brother Charlie, he’s in charge of the loud hailer.’

  ‘Nice one,’ said the cringing menial. ‘Where do you keep your phone?’ ‘Down there, by the dirty mags.’

  ‘Down here?’

  ‘Down there.’

  ‘Down there! Down there!’ Raymond pointed down there. ‘It’s the professor on the elephant. In fact, it’s everyone on the elephant.’

  ‘Then hold on tight, we’re going down.’

  Chop chop chop, came the sound of helicopter gunship blades.

  ‘Over there,’ cried the pilot. ‘The ship’s going down to pick up the circus. Open fire. Shoot everything and everybody.’

  ‘Up there!’ Lady Alostrael did the pointing. ‘The Salamader.’ The circus folk began to wave and cheer.

  Raymond looked into the ship’s rear-view mirror. ‘Helicopters are coming up behind us. What are we going to do now?’

  ‘Take the wheel please, Raymond, and steer us down.’

  ‘Me take the wheel? Just like that?’

  ‘Just like that. Hurry now.’

  ‘You have something in mind then?’ Raymond took the wheel and once again found Zephyr wasn’t there. ‘She gets around, that woman.’

  Whoosh went an air-to-air missile. It sailed along the deck, clearing the wheelhouse by inches, dipped away into the distance and fell upon the guard’s hut at the palace gate, destroying it utterly. Hardly fair, but there you go.

  ‘It’s very exciting this,’ said Raymond. ‘Although quite frightening when you’re personally involved.’ He turned the wheel and the ship took a quite frightening dip to the port side.

  ‘Whoops,’ said Raymond.

  Down in the hold, the big spanking new auction house lorry, whose handbrake Raymond had thoughtlessly neglected to engage, rolled forward and bashed into a bulkhead (whatever that is).

  ‘Down here,’ waved the circus folk.

  Raymond waved back at them. How does this work? he wondered. This way, or the other? He yanked the wheel to the starboard side with most alarming consequences.

  The big spanking new auction house lorry rolled back across the cargo hold and ground its rear end into an upright wall-like partition of the vessel (a bulkhead).

  Chop chop chop, went gunship copter-blades. Ratatatatatatat, went their armaments.

  ‘Take cover behind the elephant,’ yelled Mr Aquaphagus, as shells racked over the street.

  ‘Take cover behind the elephant, he says.’ Jumbo threw up his trunk in disgust. ‘This goy thinks I’m a sandbag already. Such a shemozzle I never have seen.’

  Chop chop chop. Ratatatatatatat.

  Swerve, went Raymond, pulling hard on the wheel.

  Crash and bang went the big spanking new auction house lorry overturning violently and spilling off its load.

  ‘Something’s shifted.’ Raymond fell forward over the ship’s wheel. The SS Salamander took a rapid descent.

  ‘Wheel back! Wheel back!’ cried Professor Merlin, as the great ship blotted out the better part of his sky.

  ‘Wheel back, I think.’ Raymond dragged the wheel back as far as it would go. The ship shuddered to a halt in mid air and the first of the two oncoming gunships struck the stern and exploded.

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Raymond.

  The second gunship came about and shot up the front of the wheelhouse. ‘Dear oh dear,’ mumbled Raymond from the safety of the floor.

  ‘Oooh, aaagh, eeeek and so on,’ went the circus folk, as flaming shards of the first gunship rained down over the street.

  ‘I’m just not getting this right,’ Raymond sighed. ‘Let’s try forward a bit and left a tad.’ Forward a bit and left a tad.

  The big ship swung around in a forward, leftish arc.

  ‘Back away, back away,’ cried the gunship pilot. ‘He’s trying to ram us, back away.’

  ‘Or I could try back a bit and right a tad.’

  Back a bit and right a tad.

  ‘Take evasive tactics, he’s coming right for us again.’

  ‘Or. Down a bit, left a bit, up a tad and—’

  ‘I’m bailing out,’ cried the pilot of the gunship, as the SS Salamander struck it down a bit, left a bit, up a tad and double top.

  A considerable second explosion. No more second gunship.

  ‘Up and down and around and about. There’s a knack to this, I know it.’ Raymond rolled the wheel to the left and right. The ocean liner dipped and turned and settled.

  It was such a very large ship though and it could have come down just a tad slower. Two tads actually. And a bit.


  And another tad.

  ‘Stand clear of the doors.’ Raymond clung to the wheel. ‘All ashore that’s going ashore. Oh my goodness me.’

  The way it took out the entire parade of shops. That was something to see.

  Dust and falling rubble. Sparking electrical cables. Fleeing circus folk.

  More mayhem. Further chaos.

  Then that terrible groaning, as the ship’s hull ground its way into the dirt. Several further explosions.

  More chaos.

  A whole lot of silence. And then . . .

  ‘My God,’ croaked Raymond, as he collapsed in an unconscious heap. ‘I think I just sank the ship.’

  19

  Simon awoke without his usual natural sense of optimism for the day ahead. He had, amongst other things, a terrible headache. Far worse than any he had previously experienced. Due, he supposed, to the massive dose of barbituates shot into him the night before.

  The final hours of that night had been unhappy ones for Simon. Violent hands had been laid upon his sensitive person. Cruelly had the strait-jacket been strapped about him. Evilly the leather mask upon his face. And then, oh then, the hypodermic needle.

  And then. Oh then, oh then, oh then. The hideous and unthinkable bit. The-being-flung-into-the-police-cell bit.

  Not utterly hideous and unthinkable, you might think. After all, we’ve all been thrown into a police cell at one time or another, haven’t we? Indeed we have. But it was the occupants of the cell and what they had done to Simon.

  Yes! THAT!

  Simon recalled the final vindictive words of Inspector D’Eath. ‘We’ve got a mate of yours in here for you to have a chat to. Caught him skulking around outside the Scribe’s house with an unlicensed shotgun in his possession. Couldn’t get the vet up at this time of night, so we’ve had to put his dog in there with him.’

  And then Simon, sinking into narcotic oblivion, had been cast into the cell. All jacketed up and helpless to face the untender mercies of Dick Godolphin and his lurcher.

  ‘Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh!’

  Simon struggled in his strait-jacket. Say it wasn’t true. Say he’d only dreamt it. Say they hadn’t done THAT to him.