Saucerers and Gondoliers - Chapter 13

Chapter 13
Air Conditioning Can Be Fun

"What are they d-doing out there?" chattered Cleo. The temperature was down again.

"N-not a lot", answered Ant. "They've finished the last of the wh-whisky. They're l-looking rather ill."

"Where's Comrade Furby?" said Cleo.

"On C-Captain Popov's d-desk console, j-just next to the d-door. The Captain d-doesn't seem to be h-here right now. P-probably interrogating s-someone else."

"Mr. T-Turpin, shouldn't wonder." Cleo shivered, not just from the cold.

"Th-that's f-fifteen t-times they've come into our c-cell now", said Ant. "C-Captain P-P-Popov's b-been talking to the F-Furby for hours at his d-desk."

"Th-then it's t-time", Cleo admitted, "to t-try out your moronic plan."

"H-how do I wake it up?"

"It won't h-hear you talking through the d-door. Bang the g-glass. It m-might h-hear that."

Outside the room, on Captain Popov's cluttered desk, the furby sat holding down a number of intelligence reports. In the dark and presumably quiet room outside, it appeared to have gone to sleep.

Carefully, experimentally, Ant raised a fist and rapped the glass lightly with his knuckles; nothing. Frustrated, he banged harder.

One of the Soviet guards turned over in his delirium, and mumbled. The furby's gigantic violet eyes flickered open. It stared into the dark through gorgeous eyelashes. Ant banged again.

Whether because of Ant's banging or because of the Russian soldiers' mumbling, the furby began to talk. What it was saying couldn't be heard, but all its plastic bits moved in just the way they should if the furby were talking audibly. Ant continued to bang. The furby continued to chatter to itself.

Cleo glared at Ant from her position curled up on the other side of the cell.

***

"We have carried out Yanalysis of syamples collyected at site of Croatoan atrocity", said Captain Popov. His eyes were bloodshot, and he was slouching in his chair. Ant suspected he had been helping his men to analyse samples of Croatoan moonshine.

Comrade Furby sat next to him on the metal desk. The furby was wearing a KGB officer's cap which was far too large for it. It was also wearing a KGB officer's jacket and epaulettes.

"Comrade Furby is wearing a Russian uniform", said Cleo.

"Yuniform is being myade spyecially for Comrade Fyurby by Lieutenant Christov, who is yexcellent syeamstress", said Captain Popov. "Sometimes, we are worrying about Lieutenant Christov", he added in a confiding whisper.

Cleo looked at the furby's shoulder flashes critically.

"Comrade Furby appears to outrank you", said Cleo.

Captain Popov smiled. He saluted the furby.

"Yis byest thying", he said. "A commanding officer who yissue no orders."

"Ah-may koh-koh", said the furby.

Captain Popov frowned. He levelled a finger at Ant and Cleo.

"Croatoan syamples yindicate", said the Captain, "yextraterrestrial DNA."

"You mean", said Cleo, "alien DNA?"

"Could be New Dixie DNA", said Ant. "New Dixie's got alien life by the pantload."

Captain Popov shook his head. "Yis not oryiginating in New Dyixieland, and yis not terryestrial either".

"You mean an alien spaceship?", said Glenn Bob, whose jaw had dropped.

"So?" Ant looked from Captain Popov to Glenn Bob. "What's so special about that? There are aliens on New Dixie. Truman J. Slughound is an ali-"

Cleo kicked Ant under the table. It hurt. A hideous slobbering sound came from the airvents. Glenn Bob stood up and sidled across the room, stopping to warm his hands on the ventilator grille, which was belching freezing cold air. Coincidentally, this stopped Captain Popov or the sentry from seeing the twenty-odd gastropod eyestalks poking curiously into the cell.

"Don't be stupid, Ant", said Cleo. "Everybody knows there's no intelligent alien life in space. Why, the Captain said so only yesterday."

"A few weeks ago", said Ant, "I knew there were no Americans on Alpha Centauri."

"Are no Yamericans on Alpha Centauri", said the Captain. "Alpha Centauri is star. Yis too hot for Yamericans." He looked at the Furby warily. "If yis true that syamples show yextraterrestrial origin, Croatoan is destroyed by Unknown Yalien Power. We have alryeady transmyitted myessage to Red Star Fleet indicating destruction of Croatoan by USZ. Is not true. I yapologize. When tyests on syamples are complyete, we transmyit warning to Fleet that Croatoan is destroyed by Yenemy Yaliens."

"Gosh", said Cleo. "Thank you for apologizing."

"Can we go now?" said Ant.

Captain Popov shook his head. "No. You have not told truth."

Ant blinked. Captain Popov was still there.

"But you just told us that Croatoan was destroyed by aliens", said Ant. Captain Popov, meanwhile, sat quiet on the other side of the table.

Ant and Cleo waited patiently. The Captain didn't move a muscle.

"Aha!" Cleo clicked her fingers. "I understand now. This is an example of communist doublethink. The Captain knows that Croatoan was destroyed by aliens, and will warn his own Fleet that this has happened, but it will advance the cause of Universal Communism if two enemy capitalist nations believe they've been attacked by each other. Therefore, the Captain would still like us, if I am not mistaken, to confess to the fact that the United States of the Zodiac attacked Croatoan. Am I right?"

The Captain's left eyebrow twitched a millimetre.

"Good. I am glad we understand each other", said Cleo, smiling sweetly. "Then, with the greatest respect, the Captain can walk north till his hat floats."

Captain Popov's face went red as the stars on his epaulettes with fury. He rose from the table and unsheathed his finger at Ant, Glenn Bob and Cleo.

"We know", said Cleo. "We will tell truth."

The Captain's face brightened suddenly. A half-smile formed itself on his features. "You will tell truth?" he said.

"No", said Cleo. "We will not tell truth."

The Captain grimaced. A clear sound of teeth grinding issued from him.

"Then you will starve", he said, rose from the desk, and left.

***

The cell was dark. Glenn Bob and Cleo shivered in one corner. Only Ant, rapping at the door’s circular viewport, was not attempting to sleep - and only Ant, it seemed, was in any danger of drifting off.

Ant rapped on the glass with cold-whitened knuckles that the skin was fast vanishing from. It was dark in the Captain’s office outside, but the window was covered with a thin rime of ice - ice on the wrong side of the glass. It was only possible to see whether anyone was awake beyond the glass if the ice melted, and in order to melt the ice, Ant had to press part of himself up against it and bore a hole with his body heat. With the heat in his face, he had made a hole small enough to see through, and could just make out the Captain’s peak-capped head slumped in his chair, no doubt warm and cosy. The Captain appeared to be snoring, but Ant could take no chances. Each rap had to be tiny, measured, audible to nobody but the Furby. Whilst he rapped with the one hand, he breathed onto his other hand to warm it. He was rapidly losing the ability to feel his face -

And then both halves of the door hinged away and stowed themselves neatly into the walls.

Ant’s success took him by surprise. The Captain grunted in his sleep as a small hurricane of hot air whooshed out of his office into the cell. Ant stood staring at the Captain for several seconds before turning and hissing “Cleo! Glenn Bob!”

“Gnufurm what is it now?”

“It worked...the cell door is now open.”

Cleo jerked upright like a vampire rising from the dead. “WHAT? Why didn’t you TELL me -“

“I am telling you, aren’t I?”

“Magic! Now we can get out of here!”

Ant thought about this as he crossed the Captain’s office as if walking a minefield. “No we can’t, Cleo.”

“What are you talking about? The bloody door is bloody open!”

Ant bent down to the ventilator grille. “And where are we going to go after we get out of the door? This isn’t some prison with walls and a world outside. This is a spaceship under thrust. If we get out of here they’ll only search the ship from stem to stern, find us and drag us right back here again.” He tapped on the ventilator grille lightly. As he tapped, the Furby cooed back to him in Russian.

“Oh fine! Oh fantastic! We’ll just not walk out of an open cell then, shall we?”

In the dark behind the grille, Ant’s taps were answered by a hideous molluscoid gurgling. “We don’t just need a way to get out of the cell. We need a way to get into and out of it at any time we like, without being noticed.”

A forest of eyestalks grew out of the grille. Truman J. Slughound snuffled at the bars excitedly. “Ah - good sluggie”, said Ant. “That’s my fine sluggie there. Just you take a whiff of all that juicy polypropylene. I bet you’d love to get your choppers into that, wouldn’t you?”

Cleo stood in the doorway talking to Ant. “Ant, what are you doing in there? We are supposed to be getting out of here, not feeding the local fauna - YIKE!”

The two halves of the cell door had tried to snap back together smartly. Instead, they’d bounced back into the ceiling, and Ant looked up to see Glenn Bob stretched at full length in the doorway, staring at his hand as if he couldn’t believe the door hadn’t chopped it off at the wrist.

“Well, at least we know the safety circuits work” he whispered, to Cleo. “Doors won’t take your hand off there.”

The ventilator bars began to foam and steam as the sluggie tucked into them enthusiastically. Ant kept one eye on the Captain, who appeared to be having a bad dream in his sleep, which fortunately seemed to be keeping him from noticing the one that was happening right next to him in reality.

The Captain continued to snore.

“I don’t think he’d wake up even if someone plugged him in the head with his own piece”, whispered Glenn Bob, staring hungrily at the pistol in the Captain’s belt.

“I am certain this is true”, said Ant. “But no-one is going to do such a thing. Are they.” He glared meaningfully at Glenn Bob.

Truman J. Slughound burped out a cloud of glacial acetic acid that took Ant’s breath away. Ant wafted the cloud away from himself with his hand, then carefully lifted a handkerchief out of the Captain’s top pocket, dabbed it with vodka from the open bottle on the table, put this over his nose and mouth and squeezed himself through the wrecked stumps of the bars into the ventilator.

“So I’ll just stay in here like a lemon staring at an open door, shall I?” complained Cleo.

“No”, came Ant’s voice from out of the air conditioning. “Actually, I need you to go out into the office and find me a screwdriver.”

Inside the ventilator, it was cold and dark. Small squares of light were visible along the walls. The nearest one, Ant reckoned, must be the steel-barred vent in the cell. Ant dragged himself towards it on knees and elbows. Just to add that final polish to things, inside of the duct was lavishly coated with Sluggie slime.

"And where", hissed Cleo irritably, "am I going to find one of those?"

"Look in the Captain's desk", whispered Ant. "He's bound to have small sharp things for sticking into prisoners."

Cleo tiptoed past Captain Popov, who was by now making gurgling noises that could have put Truman J. Slughound to shame, and pulled the desk drawer open with the care of a bomb disposal expert.

"Anything in there?" said Ant.

"Er - rocket pistol, snowstorm globe of the Kremlin, tube of something, 'Мазь
Геморрой' - probably toothpaste - spare pair of glasses - vodka - vodka - vodka - " her hands clinked alarmingly as she searched the desk in the dark - "aha! Soviet Army knife." She raced very quietly into the cell and passed the knife through the grille. "I don't know if it's got a screwdriver on it, mind."

"Doesn't matter. I can use a knifeblade as a flat screwdriver if I have to." There was a sound of grunting and physical exertion that seemed to go on for some time.

Then, the ventilator grille popped clean out of the wall, tumbling toward the bare steel floor, and smacked solidly into the outstretched palm of Glenn Bob, who had somehow managed to dive back entirely silently across the whole length of the cell to field it, whilst still keeping one foot in the cell doorway. The cell doors attempted to shut round his shoe and bounced back up into the ceiling again.

Glenn Bob glared up at Cleo.

"Erm. Sorry", said Cleo, "I really should have caught that myself, shouldn't I."

"That's okay", whispered Glenn Bob. "Girls kin't catch."

"I'LL HAVE YOU KNOW THEY CAN - " started Cleo, but was interrupted by Ant.

"WHEN YOU TWO HAVE QUITE FINISHED, get back in the guardroom, shut the cell door, and come back through the ventilator into the cell. I want to make sure we can all fit down the ventilator."

"WHAT?" said Cleo.

"You heard me. Once we get back into the cell, we'll be able to move about inside the ship as we please through the ventilation system. Remember, we can't just get out of the cell and think we're free. This whole ship's one big prison as far as we're concerned."

"So how do we escape, then, if we can't leave the cell?" whispered Cleo contemptuously.

"We need to find two things", said Ant. "First, we need to find a ship. You heard the Captain say this ship is a carrier. That must mean there are smaller ships on board it."

"And the other thing?" said Cleo.

"We need to find Mr. Turpin", said Ant.