Saucerers and Gondoliers - Chapter 14

Chapter 14
Attack of the Pantbeast

The Captain looked from Ant to Cleo to Glenn Bob.

"You will explyain plyease", he said, "why you are covered in slime."

Glenn Bob turned to Cleo. Cleo turned to Ant.

"It's a rare medical condition", said Ant. "Native to New Dixie. It causes the body to secrete huge quantities of slime. It's called, er, Slime Disease."

"Did not hyave condyition when you fyirst cyame aboard", said the Captain suspiciously.

"We must have caught it in the swamps", said Ant. "Common in swamps, Slime Disease."

"Extremely common", said Cleo.

"Syimilar tryaces of slime have been found lyeading yinto one of our cyarrier's wheel wells", said Popov. "And several pairs of nylon pyants have vyanished from our starshyip laundry."

"Ah", said Ant. "That'll be a Linklater's Lesser Pant Eater, then."

"Pyant Yeater?" said Popov.

"A fearsome beast, native to the Slime Swamps of New Dixie", elaborated Ant. "Your men must have taken insufficient precautions, or it could never have come aboard. Normally it eats nylon, but it'll take polyester if it can get it. I advise all your men to go about unpanted until the beast is caught."

Cleo's face attempted to flicker into a smile, but she immediately froze it back into a poker-faced frown.

"How to cyatch byeast?" said Popov. He had taken out a notebook, and was writing it all down.

"Normally, they lair in lavatories and sewage systems", said Ant. "All the more easy to lie concealed in the inky depths of the S-bend, hoping to surface and rip the pants from the buttocks of an unsuspecting sitter."

"Yinky dyepths", said Captain Popov, scribbling. Cleo's face was going red, and she appeared to be attempting to chew her own lips.

"The best method of protection is to insist on natural fibre underpants only for your men. Wool-rich simply won't do", said Ant. "Linklater's Pant Eater can smell both fear and lycra. It's one hundred per cent cotton or nothing." Cleo's face had by now turned bright purple, and her cheeks were expanding like balloons about to pop.

The Captain finished scribbling, his tongue in the corner of his mouth. Then, he got up from the table, saluted, and scurried from the room. As he left, he turned and raised his finger to point menacingly at Ant.

"I will tell truth", said Ant obediently.

"Good", said Captain Popov, and left.

"Правда!", said the sentry sternly, and closed the door.

Cleo exploded, collapsing onto the floor in hysterics before the chair had even had time to vanish into the floor.

"What?" said Glenn Bob. "That Linklater's Pant Eater stuff, was that not entirely true there?"

***

It was pitch dark inside the steel duct, and slimy. Truman J. Slughound, who had made the duct slimy, was also interesting himself in the plastic soles of Ant's trainers.

"What can you see?" said Cleo from behind him. Ant felt himself wishing it had been Cleo, not Glenn Bob, who had stayed behind in the cell. "It's not another store cupboard, is it?"

Through the grille, Ant could vaguely make out a dimly lit, cavernous chamber that was definitely not a store cupboard. Arranged along a steel deck that stretched and stretched and stretched into the distance, he could see huge, sleek saucer shapes - not the dumpy, big-bellied space runabout Mr. Turpin had abducted them from Earth in, but razor-edged, shark-finned things that seemed to be travelling at warp speed even when they were standing still.

Of course, Ant reminded himself, the entire vessel was already travelling at warp speed, so the ships on the other side of the grille were actually moving, even if Ant was moving at the same speed as they were.

"What have you found?" said Cleo, attempting to squirm past Truman J. Slughound - an unwise move, as the fur fringe on her anorak hood could be made of nothing other than nylon.

"Fighters", said Ant. "We've found a fighter hangar."

Cleo inched up to the grille and squinted through it.

"Pah!" she said. "Those are no good. They don't have enough seats for us all. Where's Mr. Turpin going to sit?"

"There are two seats on those ones. Pilot and navigator, probably. That one's got its canopy back, look. And two of us could probably fit into one of those seats. They're made for big fat full-grown Communists -"

"If you think I'm sitting on your lap all the way to Earth you've got another think coming, buster. And what about Glenn Bob?"

Ant couldn't think of an answer. Glenn Bob had been prepared to stay in the cell indefinitely to keep Mr. Turpin alive. It didn't seem right to abandon him.

"What about that one?" he said, pointing across the hangar.

"That's the same model as all the others."

"No it isn't. Look at the canopy. There's an extra seat. It's probably a training model, with another cockpit for the instructor."

"If you say so."

"It might not have any weapons on board, mind."

"I want to get away from these people, Ant, not shoot them."

"All right then. We're agreed. All we have to do now is find Mr. Turpin."

***

Mr. Turpin's cell was similar to their own. He was lying in a corner with his face to the wall. He had curled into a ball, hugging his hands under his armpits with his legs folded up beneath him. The air in the room made Ant's breath steam as he looked through the grille.

"Can you see him?" said Cleo. "Is he alive?"

"I think so", said Ant. "The ice on the cell floor's melted around him." He pulled his head back from the ventilator. "Ough! Ny tongue froze to ge ngetal!"

"What's he doing right now?" said Cleo.

"Shivering", said Ant.

"Useless nincompoop", said Cleo. "Why doesn't he just tell them what they want?"

"What, so they can shoot him once they don't need him any more?" said Ant.

"They wouldn't shoot him", said Cleo, in a voice that sounded less sure than she intended. "I mean, he must know lots about enemy military spaceships and stuff. They'd be sure to keep him alive."

"So he can get his comrades killed", said Ant.

"Given a choice between getting my comrades killed and getting killed myself, I'll get my comrades killed every time", said Cleo.

"I'll bear that in mind", said Ant.

Suddenly, the grille flicked open in front of Ant with a deafening roar, making him completely visible to anyone in the cell. Ant panicked. Yelping, he sprang further back into the ventilator, colliding with Cleo. The air in the vent was also, suddenly, searingly hot.

"I CAN'T BREATHE", screamed Cleo. "I CAN'T BREATHE I CAN'T BREATHE I CAN'T BREATHE", she added.

"IF YOU CAN YELL, YOU CAN BREATHE", yelled Ant. "BACK UP SLOWLY AND LET'S GET OUT OF HERE."

***

They dropped out of the ventilator back into blissful freezing cold. Glenn Bob was shivering bitterly, but despite this, had the vent cover back on its screws in the wall almost before Ant and Cleo's feet had hit the ground.

"Why'd'you think they're turning the heat up in Mr. Turpin's cell?" said Cleo.

"It was colder in that cell than they ever made it in here", said Ant. "Well below freezing. He couldn't stand that for long without it killing him. They're freezing and frying him every hour or so, I shouldn't wonder, to try and break him."

"He deserves it", said Cleo, "the filthy kidnapper."

"PSSSST!" said Glenn Bob. "PSSSST, there!" Ant and Cleo looked in the direction Glenn Bob was frantically jerking his head. The ice rime on the outside of the cell door had been wiped away, and the sentry's face was beaming in. He waved cheerily. Ant and Cleo put on gigantic plastic smiles and waved back.

The sentry opened the door. Captain Popov entered with great ceremony, stamping his feet against the cold. The sentry blew on his hands to warm them as he moved to stand guard by the table which was rising from the floor.

Ant and Cleo grinned enormous guilty mouths full of teeth at Captain Popov. Ant's heart was drumming thrash metal in his chest.

Captain Popov sat down. But he looked up suspiciously at Ant and Cleo, who were sitting bolt upright at the table, then peered round them at Glenn Bob, who was still shivering uncontrollably.

"You do not feel cold?" he said to Ant and Cleo.

"Oh no", said Ant, and added confidingly: "We're British, you see."

Glenn Bob glared at Ant, and sneezed violently.

***

The ventilator grille dropped out of the wall, but did not hit the ground; two sets of shoelaces wrapped around it had stopped it falling far.

The cell was like a sauna. Ant writhed carefully through the ventilator to prevent any exposed flesh touching bare metal. The cell door was misted with condensation on the inside, which was good. Any guard wanting to take a look inside would have to physically open the door.

Mr. Turpin was huddled in the same position Ant had last seen him in, facing the wall, not moving. Ant had no idea whether he was even breathing.

"Psssst!" whispered Ant. "Mr. Turpin!" Then, remembering that the cell was soundproofed, he walked over to the prisoner and yelled "COOOEEEE! MR. TURPIN!"

He shook the man by the shoulder. Mr. Turpin did not reply. Ant shook him again.

"Now, look here, sleeping beauty", said Ant, growing more than a little annoyed, "we've come a long way to get you out of here. Over twenty yards, in fact. The least you could do is -"

Mr. Turpin's head turned round to stare in Ant's direction. His eyes boggled moronically. Blood and drool trailed out of one corner of his mouth. The shape of his face could only be made out dimly past the mass of bruises that covered it. Blood, Ant noticed, was also puddled around his fingertips on the floor.

"Oh dear", said Ant.

"What's the matter?" hissed Cleo from the airvent.

"There's no need to whisper", said Ant. "The cell's soundproof. I don't think Mr. Turpin can walk."

"The USELESS IDIOT! We should leave him here to FRY! And freeze, of course."

"And who's going to fly our saucer out of here then?"

"Glenn Bob can fly a saucer", said Cleo.

"I can too", agreed Glenn Bob.

"Glenn Bob was also able to find us a working radio transmitter and get us across country to Roanoke. Do you see a pattern developing here?"

Glenn Bob said nothing, but sat back hard against the walls of the ventilator, making the metal clang.

"Now he's sulking", said Ant.

"Well, as long as you aren't sulking too, you can help me shift him out of here into the ventilator. Whether it's him or Glenn Bob who flies the ship, if this man stays here he's going to die."

"Oh, all right then." Cleo unfolded herself from the airvent, took hold of Mr. Turpin's legs and made as if to drag him across the floor with effortless ease. This approach did not work. "Ungkk. He's too heavy, Ant."

Ant looked up into the ventilator. "Glenn Bob", he said, "we need your help."

Glenn Bob frowned, then nodded.

"He'll die iffen he stays here, I reckon", he said, spat on his hands, and jumped down into the cell.

Even with the three of them working together, it was a struggle to fit Mr. Turpin into the duct. His shoulders only just squeezed through the narrow opening. Also, he didn't appear to have worked out what was happening to him, and fought back weakly, so that Ant was forced to pinch his fingertips hard until he squealed and stopped.

"That seemed to shut him up", said Cleo. "What did you do?"

"Erm", said Ant. "I'm not entirely sure he still has fingernails on two of his hands. I reckoned the wounds might still be sensitive."

Cleo went pale and put her hand over her mouth.

"Not in here, please", said Ant.

Mr. Turpin was, however, eventually stuffed into the vent, where he moaned and dribbled while Ant and Glenn Bob pushed him up the tube from behind and Cleo pulled him by the shoulders from the front. Luckily, the walls of the vent had been well lubricated by Truman J. Slughound, who raced ahead of them all at a snail's pace. Unfortunately, this also meant that it was difficult to get a firm footing to push and pull against.

"GRAAAAH!" grunted Cleo. "You are the most GOOD FOR NOTHING man I have ever had to pull up an air conditioning unit - NNK - can't you even help a little?"

"BE QUIET, Cleo", hissed Ant. "You're making more noise than he is."

Thankfully, Mr. Turpin was making considerably less noise by the time he had been pushed halfway across the ship on his way to the fighter hangar. In fact, Ant was not entirely sure he wasn't enjoying being pushed.

"Shouldn't we have made cardboard models of ourselves and left them in the cell or something?" said Cleo.

"Somehow I don't think even Captain Popov would have been fooled", said Ant. "We've just got to get to the hangar before someone opens either our cell or Mr. Turpin's."

"And get this bag of bones to snap out of it enough to fly a ship out of here for us", reminded Cleo.

"Maybe Glenn Bob can fly us the first light year or so", said Ant airily. "Try and slap some sense into Turpin in the meantime."

There was a sound of enthusiastic slapping from further up the duct.

"WITHOUT ACTUALLY KILLING HIM", clarified Ant.

After a few more minutes' shoving, Mr. Turpin had arrived at the grille in the wall of the hangar. Having pushed him further on into the vent, Glenn Bob and Ant peered through the ventilator into the darkened chamber.

"Result", breathed Ant. "No lights on, nobody at home. D'you think you can fly one of those things?"

Glenn Bob looked at the enormous, razor-edged war saucers with trepidation. "Don't know rightly. I can try sure enough."

This was good enough for Ant, who ushered Truman J. Slughound up to the bars. "There's a good sluggie. Look at all that yummy polypropylene. Doesn't that look good."

Turning crimson and purple with pleasure, the sluggie set to devouring the bars. Before long, the ventilator grille was a mass of twisted stumps.

"GOOD sluggie there", beamed Glenn Bob in encouragement. "That's a good polymerivore there, boy."

Truman J. Slughound burped out an asphyxiating cloud of glacial acetic acid and rubbed himself affectionately across Glenn Bob's face.

Mr. Turpin protested feebly as he was dragged out of the ventilator across the bubbling remnants of the bars. He seemed to be trying to help Ant and Glenn Bob walk him across the hangar towards the line of fighters, but appeared to have no strength in his legs.

"Which one?" whispered Cleo as they scurried under the gigantic, menacing craft. "They all look the same."

"That one", said Ant, pointing.

"How do we get into it?"

The saucer was very big, very solid, and was made of a great deal of steel.

"Erm", said Ant.

Having found a ladder that led through the blade-thin wing of the saucer onto its back, Glenn Bob climbed up it.

"Oh, for goodness' sake", said Cleo. "Just smash the window and undo the door from the inside."

Up above, Ant's head, Glenn Bob began fiddling with the canopy glass.

"If all goes well", spat Ant, "this ship will be in a perfect vacuum in five minutes' time. How clever will smashing the glass have been then, Einstein?"

"It's open", said Glenn Bob.

"What?" said Ant and Cleo together.

"Wasn't locked", said Glenn Bob. "Didn't got no lock, I think."

"NO LOCK?" Ant was climbing up behind Glenn Bob, goggling at him as he climbed into the open cockpit.

"This here is a military aircraft", said Glenn Bob, "in a military hangar. Who's going to steal it?"

"What, apart from us, you mean?" said Cleo cuttingly.

Ant shrugged. "I suppose this is deep space", he said, "not Toxteth." He jumped down the ladder and began to heave Mr. Turpin towards it. "Come and give us a hand here."

Mr. Turpin was extremely heavy, and Glenn Bob and Cleo both had to help lift him up the ladder. Eventually he was dumped unceremoniously over the lip of the cockpit into a rather uncomfortable-looking pilot's seat, where he stared bemused at the instruments, moving his hands over them like a child just set down in a new nursery. Ant, meanwhile, made sure Mr. Turpin's arms and legs were all inside the cockpit and tried to buckle him in to the seat.

"This is my seat", said Cleo, settling grandly into the navigator's seat behind Mr. Turpin.

"Hey", complained Glenn Bob from the rear cockpit. "This console's all in Commie."

Mr. Turpin, meanwhile, was fingering the banks of dials and switches like a pyromaniac in a fireworks factory. A dim light of understanding seemed to be dawning in his eyes. Ant slapped his hands away from the controls irritably, and clambered round the vessel to the navigator's seat.

"Ohhhh no", said Cleo. "You're not sitting in HERE, buster."

"Suit yourself", said Ant. "I'll sit with Glenn Bob."

"Huh?" said Glenn Bob.

"Of course", said Ant, "that means you'll be sitting with Truman J. Slughound." On cue, a battery of eyestalks slithered over the edge of Cleo's cockpit. Cleo recoiled in horror.

"Ugh! Ugh! Get away from me, you minging mollusc!"

"Still want to sit in there on your own?" said Ant sweetly.

"Okay! Okay! But I sit on you, not the other way round. You weigh a ton."

Ant clambered back to the navigator's seat. Truman J. Slughound, rebuffed, glided across the saucer and poured himself into Glenn Bob's seat.

"Good sluggie! That's my fine slughound, there!"

The canopy began closing over Ant and Cleo's heads.

"I think I found the canopy button, y'all", commented Glenn Bob's voice from speakers in the console. "Now I'm looking for the main reaction drive. That'll send us to point one of lightspeed in a bag of jiffies."

"Shouldn't we be outside the carrier", said Ant, "before we turn on the main drive?"

There was a pause. Glenn Bob's voice came back from the console.

"Ahhm, you may have yourself a point there."

"Then where", said Cleo, looking round the hangar, "is the exit?"

"Can't see no door anywhere in these four walls", said the console dispiritedly, and then suddenly added: "Ah."

"Clarify 'Ah'", said Ant.

"Look up."

Ant looked up. Casting an immense shadow over the fighter saucers parked in the hangar was a colossal mountain of machinery. Resting on a mass of pipes, cables and pillars, it was the source of a gigantic pipe that led away from it in a straight line right through the hangar wall, and in one side of it, Ant could make out an enormous door with giant red letters picked out on its surface spelling Запустить Пушка.

"What does 'Запустить Пушка ' mean?" said Cleo into the console.

"I'll take a guess at 'Launch Gun', the console replied.

"Launch Gun", said Cleo, in a voice that sounded not entirely happy with this.

"Sure", said Glenn Bob. "These here big military carriers launch their fighter complement into space out of big steam cannon. The biggest ones can fire a wing of fighters a minute. It is perfectly safe and normal", he added reassuringly. Cleo's face did not look reassured.

"That's the door?" said Ant.

"It's a door", said Glenn Bob's voice.

"How do we get up there?"

"No idea", said the console. "Maybe iffen I just fly straight at it, it'll just open straight on up - GIT DOWN LOWEREN A SLUGGIE'S BELLY!"

Glenn Bob's head disappeared into his cockpit canopy. And and Cleo tried vainly to squirm further down into their own seat, fighting each other for space. Cleo elbowed Ant in the ribs. Ant pulled Cleo's hair extensions. But then they both froze in mid-elbow and mid-pull.

The personnel door to the hangar was trembling open, screeching like a scalded cat sliding down a blackboard. Evidently the doors in the hangar area were not as well oiled as the doors to the KGB cells.

Light flooded into the hangar. Gigantic arc lights blazed into life up above them. Through the corner of his eye, Ant saw the silhouette of a sentry saluting a squad of Russian officers walking into the chamber. The officers were being led by a red-faced man with a moustache like the tusks of a white walrus, who was gesticulating excitedly at the fighters, making zooming gestures with the palms of his hands. Ant guessed that this must be the officer in charge of the fighter squadron, showing off his toys to his commanding officers. The commanding officers, old men to a man, strode about stiffly, nodding as if they understood every word of what was being said to them. The fighter commander was walking closer along the line of saucers, pointing out the differences between each, getting perilously close to the machine in which Ant, Cleo, Glenn Bob, Mr. Turpin, and J. Truman Slughound were hiding. If they even glance at this machine, thought Ant, or look at the ventilator missing from the wall....

Meanwhile, at the other end of the hangar, the sentry on duty at the door paced round in bored circles, his rocket rifle on his shoulder. Ant realized with a sinking heart that this was the same sentry who had stood guard outside their cell.

Then, at one point, the sentry turned his head as he paced, and looked Ant straight in the eye, and - Ant was not even sure it had actually happened - winked. Then he got back to his pacing.

The officers turned round and headed back towards the door, not before one of the more senile-looking ones had smiled and waved at Mr. Turpin, who was grinning and dribbling at them from his own cockpit. The other officers, luckily, seemed not to have seen Mr. Turpin. They walked out of the hangar, and the sentry saluted and closed the door behind them.

Then, he relaxed, stood at ease, and turned to look directly at the training fighter once again.

"He knows we're here", whispered Cleo.

Ant made a decision, and felt round the base of the cockpit canopy until he found what he thought was the release mechanism. He pressed it, and the canopy glass hissed open and rose up. Ant clambered across the back of the saucer and down the ladder leading through it to the hangar floor. He walked up to the sentry, stood to attention, and saluted.

The sentry made a big show of standing to attention and saluting back. "Доброе Утро,Товарищ ", he said.

"You're letting us go", said Ant.

"We are not all KGB", said the sentry. "My brother, he is in gulag because of KGB."

"What's a gulag?" said Ant, who was horribly sure it was a sort of meat stew.

The soldier laughed. "Gulag is byeautiful communist hyoliday cyamp", he said. He looked across the hangar at a CCTV camera mounted on a beam, and waved at it happily.

"Won't waving at that camera get you into terrible trouble?" said Ant, looking at the camera in alarm. The soldier shook his head. "Cyameras do not work. Spyare parts are not arryiving from fyactory." He raised a finger to Ant, as if to say, wyait a myinute, and walked across the hangar to a kit bag stuck to the floor with velcro. He lifted something out of the bag and handed it to Ant. It was Comrade Furby.

"You were going to yescape without yimportant myember of your tyeam, yes?" he said, beaming.

"You knew we were going to escape", said Ant, flabbergasted.

The soldier nodded and smiled guiltily. "But yis no ryeason to tyell our Cyaptain Popov, yes?" He set the Furby down on the deck and saluted it smartly. Ant, grinning, gathered it up.

"I adjyourn this myeeting of the Byanana Splyits Clyub", said the sentry. "Don't you all be cyoming back now."

"We would love not to come back", said Ant, "but we can't figure out how to fly out of the airlock." He pointed up at the massive bulk of the fighter launcher.

"Is all syet up for lyaunch", said the sentry. "You dryive fyighter skyids into cyatapult slyed." He pointed across the room at a low platform which looked like a pallet truck mounted on a rail. "Then wheels yinterlock, cyatapult mechanyism loads fyighter into take-off bay, and Поехали!" The soldier banged his palm with his fist. "Is ten gee, very fast."

"Thank you", said Ant. He saluted again. "'Size of an Elephant'", he said.

The trooper saluted back. "'Size of an Yelephant'", he repeated.

Ant walked back across the hangar to the saucer, and climbed back into the cockpit. "We have to fly the skids of the fighter into that thing on the floor", he explained. Glenn Bob shrugged, activated whatever control closed Ant and Cleo's canopy, and saluted the sentry politely. Then, he confidently selected something to turn on the engines. The ship shuddered violently and began to vibrate hard enough to jar Ant's eyeballs.

"D'you think that's the Main Drive?" said Cleo.

"I think it might be Boil Wash", said Ant.

"Think I got the impeller rolling on neutral there", said Glenn Bob from the console, and there was a loud CLUNK of levers being thrown. The ship growled like a bull with a cowboy it didn't like sitting on its back, and began shuddering so hard Ant could not see the Russian characters on the console, much less understand them.

"And that'll be Rinse and Spin", said Ant.

"Whoopsidaisy there", said Glenn Bob. The thrumming stopped, and was replaced by a gentler roar. Ant realized suddenly that the hangar walls were moving down around them, and the ceiling was coming closer.

"Well done, that man", said Ant.

"Okeydokey", came Glenn Bob's voice. "Now to nose her forward and down a smidgeon into that launching jig." The ship began to rise higher and move backward. "Dangblasted Commie controls", complained Glenn Bob, "Let's try us that manoeuvre in the diametric opposite direction."

The ship stopped in mid-air and began slowly to move down and forwards. Ant heard one of the light fittings in the ceiling explode as the ship's fins touched it. The floor came up, glacially slowly. The fighter's landing skid nosed about on the floor for the launching sled while Glenn Bob pseudo-blasphemed again and again at his controls.

Then the skid connected. The whole saucer slammed down suddenly on the deck with a CLANG that shook Ant's teeth like tuning forks. Then the ship lifted, as if on a giant escalator, and began to move across the hangar toward the sliding door in the side of the Launch Gun, which started to creak ponderously open.

"That airlock chamber's tiny", commented Cleo.

"Tiny like a case round a bullet", said Glenn Bob. "Hold on to your hair there."

Ant turned round again to wave at the sentry, and caught a glimpse of the personnel door to the hangar closing, just as the Launch Gun door closed over the hangar and locked so tightly shut that Ant could hear the air squeal out of the join.

"Mooooo", said Mr. Turpin's voice happily through the intercom.

And then, Ant saw only bright white light, and heard only Glenn Bob's voice yelling "YEEEEEEEEEHA!" before the universe went out.

When he woke up, he was in space.