There Ain't Gonna Be No World War Three, Chapter 16

16. Bring Drain Cleaner and Guns

Zirc ran up behind Tamora, a clear sign that this was very urgent. Zirc did not normally run.

"Tazza! There's a big floyin saucer thing come down in the courtyard! An a woman come out of it!"

"Saw it", said Tamora. "It had a United States of the Zodiac logo on it; it's friendly. Anything friendly we can ignore."

She stared into the trees. There were still things out there it was not possible to ignore.

"What you doin out ere, Tazza? Everywun's gone indoors, loike. Iss cold out ere."

"Dead cold", agreed Tamora.

All the spots where Charity had spat blue goop on the snow were pooling into one common rivulet and trickling downhill.

"Now, where do you think that's going?" said Tamora.

"Dunno", said Zirc. "Dunt care neither", she added.

"I think we ought to find out." Being careful not to step on any goop, Tamora moved down the hill, following the blue trickle. "Go back and fetch Harjit; tell her it's important. You'll be able to see where I've gone by my footprints in the snow."

"I can see where a lot of folks has gone by their footprints in the snow", said Zirc warningly, nodding at the ground. It was true; looking down, Tamora could plainly see that a lot of large, booted feet had walked up the hill, up the path the rivulet was now trickling down.

"They came up this way to get to the castle", said Tamora. "Now the goop's trying to go back the same way. Zirc - I think it's trying to get back to their ship."

"An that means you wanna follow it why, exactly?"

Tamora stared hard at the goop, willing it to be less terrifying. "Because it's what Cleo would do. If she were alive."

Zirc put a reassuring hand on Tamora's shoulder. "But Cleo is aloive, Tazza. I know she's got a Nalien in er an everythin, but nowadays they can do wonders with lotobomy an mind control an that."

"No she is not alive", said Tamora. "Something else is walking around in her skin, that's all."

Shaking Zirc off, she sidled off down the path, following the route the goop was taking.

"GO GET HARJIT", she shouted. "AND ANTHONY. AND LIEUTENANT TURPIN. AND ANYONE ELSE YOU CAN THINK OF. AND TELL THEM TO BRING DRAIN CLEANER, AND GUNS."

***

"Urrrh" grimaced Cleo deliriously. "I ate meat."

"And you had an alien mind control amoeba in your head", reminded Ant. "Remember that part."

"And you tried to kill a nice old German gentleman with a sword", reminded Drague. "That would be the bad memory that would occur first to me."

Cleo, her head now removed from the microwave, was sprawled in on of the café sofas. Ant was holding one of her arms, Harjit the other, just in case.

"But I ate meat", moaned Cleo, her eyes fixed on a horrible vision of bacon only she could see. "It was disgusting."

"You also, at one point", said Ant, "referred to me as a Hunky Beefcake."

Cleo nodded, her mouth drawn open wide in a desolate grimace that meant she had a memory in her mind she desperately wanted to forget.

She looked up at Ant, her head lolling. "Don't worry", she said. "I didn't mean it."

"Clever idea, though", said Ant. "About the message in patois."

"They were talking to me in German in my head", said Cleo. "They hardly seemed to understand English."

"They didn't when they took me either", said Charity. She was still sitting bolt upright in her own chair, evidently waiting for the horrible, inevitable moment when They would come back.

Cleo nodded sleepily. "I figured if they didn't understand English, they certainly weren't going to understand someone jabbering away in creole. So I left you the note, while they were asleep. They like sleep. They don't get to do it while they're, you know, puddles of blue snot."

"Where do they come from?" said Ant.

Cleo shrugged and looked drunkenly across at Charity; Charity shook her head.

"They don't know", said Charity. "They have no idea. I mean, do human beings have any idea where we came from?"

"Africa", said Ant.

"But they've spent an eternity living in the bodies of other races", said Charity. "Once they wear out one species, they move on to another. They never really age, not as we would imagine it. They are one big blue organism. But they can only really have memories if they're occupying a mind capable of having them. They borrow everything - thought, memory, movement - from their hosts. Without us, they are more primitive than you can imagine."

Cleo nodded slowly and mechanically. "Weston Favell does not cover it."

Charity looked at her hand in wonder, turning it over, looking at the knuckles. "They have no natural shape...they are slime. I never thought I would see another uninfected human being again."

"I was so scared", said Cleo quietly. "I've never been that scared, Ant. There is nothing more scary than having an enemy inside your own head."

Armand, sitting sprawled across the back of a chair opposite, nodded sadly, staring into the distance, even though no-one had asked him. He was still holding the Mark Two Orgonizer, idly fiddling with its fire selector. No-one had attempted to take it off him. He had earned ownership of it.

A Year Seven walked up to Armand from the terrace.

"Armand", he said, "d'you want this coat back now? The weather's brightening up. I, uh, don't think I'll need it any more."

"Nah", said Armand, smiling. "You keep it. I got me a big ole layer of insulatin blubber."

"Cheers", said the Year Seven. "You're a mate."

He wandered off, letting the café door bang, letting in a burst of cold air. Armand shivered involuntarily, then regained control of himself and slouched back into immobility.

Ant looked up at Armand, stunned.

"You had a coat", he said. "You had one all the time. You gave it to someone else."

Armand shrugged. "Foster-mummy Denise and Foster-daddy Derek earn a lot of money. They can get me another coat." He looked out of the window at the Year Seven. "E ent lucky enough to be an orphan. E's got a proper mum and dad. Proper as in proper bloody awful, that is. E earns money from a paper round, an is dad nicks it to put it on the orses."

"You're full of surprises, Armand", said Ant.

"You've got a few up your sleeve yourself, Teds", said Armand.

Ant stretched out a hand; Armand took it and shook it.

"I could cut me palm an make us blood brothers if you like", said Armand enthusiastically. "It's all roight an everythin, I ent HIV positive or nothin." He felt in his back pockets. "I got a knoife."

"Let's do that some other time", said Ant. "You know, I don't think you have an addictive personality."

"I do", said Armand. He pointed to the Orgonizer in his hand. "That's why I want you to take this bloody thing as far away from me as possible. I've bin thinkin about shootin meself with it on APPY for the larst gawd knows ow many ours."

"Maybe the fact that you realize there might be a problem is what's likely to save you from it", suggested Ant.

"That's deep, Teds", said Armand. "Way too deep for me."

Outside, Turpin and Farthing were examining the damage to the Harridan. Small pieces of debris from the exploding enemy fighter had punched holes in its hull. Inside, Sukhbir and Narinder were helping Jochen and Jochen's mother, whose name was apparently Sibylle, to serve cakes to everyone. Each cake was being microwaved carefully to eliminate any possible traces of alien brain amoeba.

"I will never eat anything that hasn't been in for at least thirty seconds on HIGH again", said Cleo, watching the cake turning in the oven.

"It is quite easy to disable the safety circuit on a microwave oven", said Jochen. "I know, because I have tried to repair the safety circuit on this one so many times, and disabling is so much easier than repairing. I will teach you all, if you like, how to make your ovens at home just as unsafe as this one."

"Gosh! You're really practical", said Sukhbir, who appeared to have taken a liking to Jochen. "Our dad never makes anything round the house unsafe."

"Yeah", sighed Narinder, who seemed to be competing for Jochen's attentions, "he's pretty useless."

Armand, Quantrill and Ant were sitting in the café to guard the Shield, which was sitting on a Bavarian plate of honour in the middle of one of the tables. Alastair was also sitting watching the Shield, thoughtfully tucking in to what looked like a vanilla slice.

"Ach, Frau von und zu, dieser Bienenstich ist bloß unglaublich!" said Alastair. Frau von und zu Spitzenburg glowed in embarrassment and pride. Alastair continued to talk to Jochen's mother rapidly in German, and she replied happily.

"What are they talking about?" said Quantrill, who was also sitting watching the Shield like a hawk.

Jochen listened and translated as he polished a glass. "It seems Mr. Drague was here in Spitzenburg when he was a very small child, and there was a bakery in the town where just this sort of Bienenstich, this Bee Sting Cake, was made, and he never thought he would taste it ever again. Well, the bakery in town was owned by my grandmother on my mother's side. It is the same recipe."

Ant rose in his seat to peer out of the window, and whispered to Armand and Quantrill: "Alastair's two goons aren't anywhere near, are they?"

Armand spun the wheel on the Orgonizer. "I've got all the Year Sevens out lookin for em", he said. "They kent get back in to the carstle wivout comin through the gate or the cellar, an we got Year Sevens on both."

"Good", said Ant in a low voice. "It's bad enough with just Alastair in here. He's going to make a move sooner or later, and he's cunning as a greased stoat."

"Wunderschön", finished Alastair, beaming at Frau von und zu Spitzenburg, "daß ich erlaubt bin, dieses Ambrosia schon wieder zu schmecken, madame." He turned back to Ant. "Greased stoat, eh? Not a metaphor I'm familiar with, but thank you. I do hate to disappoint, so..." He wiped Bienenstich crumbs from his face with a paper towel bearing a picture of Neuschwanstein Castle. "Stick 'em up, Mr. Stevens. You too, Mr. Jeffries."

"Uh, Alastair", said Ant, "Armand's got an Orgonizer, and you haven't."

"True, true", said Alastair. "But I have a rocket pistol, and Armand doesn't." He still had both hands on the paper towel; he clearly so did not have a rocket pistol, and Ant was about to say as much when he heard a gentle behind his head.

He turned around very slowly. Behind him, George Quantrill had the barrel of his rocket pistol resting against Armand's skull below the ear.

"I must caution everyone in here to keep very quiet and still", said Alastair, "and not to alert anyone in the courtyard. Mr. Quantrill here has a notoriously itchy trigger finger. We are going to leave now, and we are going to take Wolfram's Shield with us."

Cleo's face went sour.

"You really are depressingly predictable, Alastair", she said.

Alastair shrugged in embarrassment. "What can I say? I'm the bad guy."

"I could rush im", suggested Armand.

"That's a Gyrojet Rocketeer", said Ant. "Point five one calibre. It'll smart some. Put the gun down, Armand."

Armand ground his teeth with the indignity as Quantrill took his Orgonizer off him.

"So you never managed to escape", said Ant. "All that heroic jumping-off-a-bridge-onto-a-train stuff, that was all made up."

Quantrill nodded. "Surprised you believed that guff. Richard I wasn't surprised by, mind - he's a Gondolier, those poor idiots on Gondolin'll swallow anything."

"So they broke you", said Ant. "They turned you."

Quantrill smiled a small, pained smile. "Sounds so easy, don't it? They broke you. After they pulled me off the street, they had me in a concrete cellar a hundred metres underneath London for twenty-four hours. Oh, and boy, they broke me all right. They broke me in places I'd never thought a human body could be broke."

"Though actually, he managed to withstand all that", said Alastair. "People can, you see. The men who had him weren't the most intelligent of sorts - that sort of treatment, the indiscriminate administration of pain, seldom gets results. But when I took over", he said, smiling happily, "things took a turn for the better."

Quantrill's face screwed up so hard Ant thought he might be about to burst into tears.

"You're not to blame, Mr. Quantrill", said Cleo. She was talking with difficulty; her breathing was laboured. She propped herself up on her elbows to be able to speak more easily. "I was working for him too. And he only had me under interrogation for an hour or so."

Ant looked at Cleo in amazement; Cleo nodded sadly. She held up the mobile phone wrapped in bacofoil.

"Alastair threatened my family, Ant", said Cleo. "He said he'd ruin my father, make sure he never worked for the union again."

"The court case", breathed Ant.

"So I understand", continued Cleo, "how easy it is for Alastair to get to you. How he finds people who mean a lot to you, and doesn't exactly physically hurt them as such, but...you know how it works."

"You don't understand", said Quantrill, his hand shaking dangerously on the Gyrojet. "This isn't the first time I've done this."

"Er, I understand you're getting a mite emotional, George", said Ant, "but could you do it with the gun not pointing at Armand's head?"

"They pulled me off the street a year before they nearly got Richard", said Quantrill, actually sounding as if he was in pain. "I'd been sending people down on a wholesale basis for months. Every time a USZ operative landed on Earth, they'd disappear. USZ intelligence thought it was because they found it so hard to blend in with normal Earth folks, because our guys would stop their cars when they got a chipped windscreen and start applying meteor patches to it - headquarters were getting real paranoid about us sticking out in a crowd towards the end. But it was me. It was me every time." He looked at Drague bitterly. "He told me to only ever shop my contacts outside the UK, make it look as if there was no problem on my patch. Make them think sending ships down to England was the nice safe option. Until the biggest prize of all fell into his lap. Alastair wanted the Highwayman so bad, he saw him every time he shut his eyes. He was prepared to sacrifice me, his best and biggest and dirtiest double agent, to get at Richard Turpin. But it didn't work out. One of his snatch team opened fire way too early, while their van was still a hundred metres off. Actually shot me, the idiot, and wounded Richard in the hand." He looked out of the window at Turpin, frowning nervously. "Richard took off into the woods, and I had no idea where in those woods he'd parked the ship. By the time we closed in on him -"

"- he'd bumped into us, forced us to load his ship up for him, and taken off bound for Barnard's Star", finished Ant.

"I had hoped", said Cleo, "that you were beginning to trust us, Alastair."

"Oh, I am, I am", said Alastair, picking up the Shield from the table. "I have the greatest trust in you, Cleopatra. It's just that you should never trust me, that's all. If it helps, I will be making a full report to my superiors that the Blue Goo is a real and genuine threat, and one which does not originate with the United States of the Zodiac. But I have a job to do; and my father tore this place apart fifty years ago looking for Wolfram's Shield. It was the one missing piece in the jigsaw of his life." He picked up the Shield and held it high. "Because of this horrible piece of alien junk, he died unhappy. Now I have been able to find it. I might even tell the Shadow Ministry I was unable to locate it, and just leave it on his grave in Highgate." He lowered the Shield again. "Mr. Quantrill - heel."

Quantrill crossed the room to Alastair's side obediently.

"Thank you - I'll take that", said Alastair, relieving Quantrill of the Orgonizer. "A fascinating trinket that I'd love our scientists to take a look at - I would actually much rather defend myself without killing anyone, regardless of all the bad things Cleopatra says about me. So much more civilized." He nodded to Quantrill as he inspected the Orgonizer. "You may put your pistol on safety now."

"Who of yours did Alastair threaten to hurt?" said Cleo to Quantrill. "Your mother, maybe? Or was it a brother or a sister?"

Quantrill glowered at Cleo.

"I took him out of the cell they had him in", said Alastair, "and I took him up Lambeth High Street and promised him a shiny red sports car in a showroom window. You really should stop judging people by your own yardstick, Cleopatra."

Quantrill looked as if he would die of embarrassment. Cleo glared at him as if she hoped he would.

"You won't get out of the castle", said Ant. "We have the gate and cellar entrance closed off."

"Actually I don't need to", said Alastair. "Watch and learn, Anthony." He held up Wolfram's Shield. "This projects an impenetrable force field - I would like to you to remember that." He walked out onto the terrace and, still holding the Shield, strolled up a set of steps onto the castle battlements.

"YOU CAN'T LEAVE THAT WAY", shouted Jochen. "IT IS A FIFTEEN METRE DROP TO THE FOREST."

Alastair waved to Turpin and Farthing on the other side of the courtyard. They waved back.

"Idiots", muttered Cleo.

Then, moving his hands experimentally over the control studs on the ammonite, Alastair activated a bubble of green impenetrability around himself. This attracted Turpin and Farthing's attention. Penelope began scrambling for the Harridan's cockpit; Richard fumbled for his Orgonizer. It was, however, already far too late. Alastair turned, drew his hand back, and hurled the device out into the forest.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING -" yelled Ant. Alastair craned his neck over the battlements. There was a terrific CRASH from far below.

"Oh my", said Alastair. "That has left a hole in the road." He turned back to Ant. "Don't forget the words 'impenetrable force field', now."

"You threw it over the castle wall", said Cleo, nodding long-sufferingly. "And when it hits the ground, the ground won't be able to pass through the shield - it'll be travelling too fast. It'll splash out around it, as if the shield were a cannonball going into custard."

"Exactly right", said Alastair, squinting down through the trees. "Karg is in the bottom of the crater picking it up now. The soles of his shoes seem to be melting. My word, look at him jumping about! Good man, Karg. He'll surprise you."

"But Lieutenant Turpin and Lieutenant Farthing have a ship", began Ant. "They'll follow Mr. Karg's car. They'll blow it to micro-smithereens from the air."

"I would like you to remember, one more time", said Alastair smugly, "the phrase 'impenetrable force field'."

"Rats", said Ant, shaking with frustration. "Rats and worse than rats."

Cleo's mobile phone - the phone that hadn't been given her by Drague - went off, to the tune of We Are Family by Sister Sledge. She stared at it as if trying to remember what its function was. Idly, she answered it.

"Hello", she said. "I'm afraid I'm rather busy right now."

"Come, Mr. Quantrill", said Alastair. "We are leaving."

"Really" said Cleo to her mobile. She looked up at Alastair. "That is so interesting."

"Teenage girls", said Alastair, "and their mobile telephones." He smiled indulgently at Cleo and departed.

Alastair and Quantrill crossed the courtyard, Quantrill still holding the Gyrojet, but with the muzzle pointing low, towards the ground. Silently, they passed Turpin and Farthing. Turpin spoke to Quantrill; Quantrill did not reply, keeping his eyes on Turpin and Farthing without actually making eye contact with them, as if expecting either of them to pull a weapon on him; his face was was utterly desolate.

Ant watched them go, fists balled in frustration.

"That's it, then", he said. "We've lost it. We've lost the Shield. We've failed our mission."

Cleo clicked her phone closed.

"Oh, I don't think so", she said. "I may have found us another."

Ant, Harjit, and everyone else in the room turned as one and stared at her.

"I presume", said Ant, "you've got access to some strange alien technology detection device that we don't."

"I", said Cleo in measureless pride, settling back in her sofa luxuriously, "have a sister."

***

The rivulet of goop trickled down the path, coherent as a blob of blue mercury. It reached the point where the path left the trees, and then it began running uphill.

Taking great care to keep her eyes on the stream and not assume it was unaware of her, Tamora skirted round it and followed it up the hill, onto a flat plain on the top of the hill. Up here, she could imagine a horde of Hunnish horse archers sweeping mercilessly out of the snow, tearing towards a line of German warriors huddled behind their shields, desperate for anything that would make them believe they could stand against that terrifying, half-human enemy. Desperate for anything that would make them think they could win.

Tamora knew how they felt.

Parked here on the plain as arrogantly as a stretch limousine on a double yellow line, was the Enemy. This time, not a foreign enemy, but a German one. A German one here to conquer Germany.

The ship was larger than the stubby dart shape she had seen hovering above the castle - it was three-lobed, like the dart, but much, much longer and pencil-slim, ending in three blunt fins at one end, and three glazed blisters at the front. Its skin, like that of the dart, was blotchy with snow camouflage, but a camouflage that crawled across it as if it was snowing inside the metal.

If it was metal. It was probably some advanced alien stuff, superior to metal. The only part of the metal that was not covered in living camouflage was a black swastika standing huge and shameless on the largest fin. The blue gunk was oozing painfully towards the vessel's gangplank. The gangplank was down. The hatchway it fed was open. There were lights on in the inside, though not comforting, cheerful lights that might guide you home to a warm house on a snowy evening. These lights were dim, and winked violet in the dark.

"Quite impressive, is it not?" said a voice behind her. "German engineering."

She whirled, expecting her brain to be invaded, but no-one was moving to attack her. Instead, the elderly man from the café sat slumped at the base of a tree, one hand on the hilt of a sword spiked down into the snow.

He was watching the blue rivulet trickle past.

"Careful, child", he said. "It knows you are here."

She looked down at the blue goo. It had changed direction towards her, almost imperceptibly widening the arc of its flow. She could imagine how easy it would be for it to catch someone unawares. She took two steps further away.

"It isn't coming for me", said the old man wearily. "It isn't interested in dead meat. It knows that if it tried to live in here" - he thumped his own chest weakly - "it wouldn't be living there long. You, on the other hand, are young and strong. You would make an ideal target."

"Are you Jochen's grandfather?" said Tamora. "Cleo told me about you."

The old man smiled. His breathing was laboured. He was having difficulty speaking. She wondered whether he was sitting because he could not stand. "Cleo. Yes. She is a very pretty girl, just like you...how stupid of me, you are sisters, yes? Yes, I am Jochen's grandfather. I am the Freiherr von und zu Spitzenburg, master of this castle and protector of this valley. But I will not be so for much longer." He gripped the pommel of the sword. "Can you do something for me, sister of Cleo?"

"Tamora", said Tamora. "My name is Tamora."

"Please take this sword, Tamora, and present it to my grandson. It is not such a very old sword, but it has done much in its time. Inform him that I hereby disinherit my useless son, and that he is henceforth the rightful Baron of Spitzenburg, keeper of the Shield." He looked across at the ship parked on the snow with sudden venom. "And get that heap of alien rubbish off my land. This is Hunnenfeld, where the devils were first thrown back...it is sacred..."

He winced, as if something inside him was hurting him very very much.

"Ilse", he whispered. "Bin bald dabei. Ich habe so lange gewartet..."

A single tear trickled down the many furrows in his face and crystallized on the snow. He said nothing more.

"Mr. Baron?" said Tamora. She rocked his shoulder; he fell sideways onto the ground. No breath was moving in his chest.

She drew her mobile phone and dialled.

"Harjit? I have a medical emergency. Just outside the castle. Through the wood. The old geezer from the café. He's not going to be winning the hundred metre freestyle breathing contest any time soon.

"I don't know how to do cardiac massage. I'm not sure which parts you push and which parts you breathe into. You need to get me some help. Two people capable of lifting and carrying a geezer."

She listened to the phone for a couple of seconds more, nodded, and bent to take the geezer's pulse. Or would have done, if there had been one.

She closed his eyes. She had seen people do it in movies, and knew it was respectful.

"No", she told the phone, "nothing. Listen, I've got other news. I've found something important. Really important. And I feel you, as the leader of Team Salami, should be in on it.

"Harjit, we have been through this, and you are so the leader of Team Salami. Cleo is no longer Cleo, and so -"

She stopped, listening intently for several seconds.

"She's alive? Are you sure she's Cleo? Have you tried tempting her with blood sausage?

"Of course. Thank you. Thank you, Harjit."

She closed the call. Immediately, she made another.

"Cleopatra", she said. "I believe you are alive. Congratulations on your continued life.

"Hush and listen carefully. I have found a ship. A big, shiny old space nazi ship. Parked on the other side of the wood. And sister of mine - I don't think there is anyone in it. It is ours for the taking."