Saucerers and Gondoliers - Chapter 6

Chapter 6 - Naming of Parts

"NOW, THIS AFTERNOON, BOYS", said the big strong man at the front of the room, "AS IS ESSENTIAL IN ANY SOCIETY THAT AIMS TO MAKE ITSELF READY FOR THE THREATS POSED BY COMMUNISM AND INTERNATIONAL NEGRITUDE, WE ARE GOING TO LEARN THE PROPER CARE AND HANDLING OF FIREARMS."
He stopped to let the Yeehaws subside, and turned to lift one of the massive weapons out of the gun rack to his left. It looked too large even for a grown-up to use. Ant watched reproachfully from the back of the room. Initially, when he'd been told the afternoon's classes were Hunting, Shooting and Crawdad Fishing, he'd been excited. However, the morning's incident with the plastic cone and Miss Ikeman's head had led to a meeting with the Principal in which he'd been forbidden to handle firearms until further notice.
He observed Sergeant Sheldrake carrying out the field stripping and cleaning of the MX1000A GyroEagle rocket rifle sulkily.
"YOU, Mr. Stevens", roared Sergeant Sheldrake suddenly, jabbing a sausage-thick finger in Ant's direction. "What is the purpose of the Side Exhaust Release Valve?"
Ant thought fast. "Erm - to release exhaust at the side?"
"Aha, so you was listenin, boy. Continue to do thusly. Now, if we unscrew the top inspection plate here, we can see the main striking plate for the rocket exhaust gases -"
Still, Ant, thought, it couldn't be too bad. Tomorrow was a class called 'Astromoke Care', which sounded promisingly like being taught to maintain a flying saucer.
One of the boys in the row in front of Ant turned round and said, out of the corner of his mouth:
"Miss Ikeman got her the rest of the week off lying down. Now we got Principal Prickett for Gunplay and Political Orientation, and we can git him to talk about Plane Geometry for hours."
"That sounds dire", said Ant.
"Oh no", said the boy quickly, "it's real sweet. Some of us just hate having to learn to fly spaceships and shoot guns and stuff." He pulled open a page of his exercise book and showed Ant a drawing which had GLENN BOB DRAWED THIS written at the top of it. "It's an Isosceles Triangle", he confided.
"And an Equilateral one, too, by the look of it", whispered Ant.
"Do you know anything about Pythagoras?" said Glenn Bob urgently.
"Well", said Ant conspiratorially, "I've heard that the square on the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares on the other two sides."
Glenn Bob whistled. "Hooeee! Don't that just beat all!"
Where Cleo was, Ant had no idea. However, if he could learn how to use a gun and fly an Astromoke, Ant reasoned the two of them could steal a saucer and fly away to Earth.
"Can you fly a spaceship?" he said to Glenn Bob. The other boy reddened. "No. We ain't got to that lesson yet. Maintainin a Moke in Level Flight is right plumb at the back of the book, and Landin and Take Off are next year's syllabus."
"What about interstellar navigation?"
"Oh, you got to be in the graduate class afore you can do that."
"How long does that take?"
"Seven year."
Ant slumped down into his seat, defeated.
***
Cleo, meanwhile, was scrubbing a floor. She had divided the floor into sections, of which she had completed eleven sixteenths.
Cleo's grandmother had scrubbed floors when she had first come to Britain from the West Indies. Her grandmother had told her that, when you started dividing the floor down into the bits you'd done and the bits you hadn't done, you were starting to let the job get to you. Cleo had started by dividing the floor in two, so that she could feel good after she'd finished half of it. Then she'd divided it in four, so that she could feel a sense of achievement in half the time. Then had come eight, and finally sixteen, and thirty two was a distinct possibility in the near future.
"Still", she told herself, "look on the bright side. It'll teach you binary mathematics. You can be a genius computer programmer when you leave school."
"If you ever leave school", she added as she looked up at the metal pipes that snaked across the earth ceiling above her.
It was not too bad, working as a skivvy for the Croatoan folk. Most of them had never actually seen a black person, and consequently, although they tried to be racist, they didn't know what to say. People from Cleo's own home town in England could be far crueller. These people called her 'little monkey' and 'little piccaninny', which sounded positively sweet compared to what she got called at home.
"You finished that floor yet, li'l bush baby?" came the voice of Miss Maybelline, the Domestic Cleanliness Supervisor.
"Nearly plumb three quarter finished, Miss Mae", she trilled back.
Cleo was also beginning to realize that Croatoan was dying.
The people of the town all seemed to suffer from illnesses of one kind or another - the children were pale because they never set foot above ground, the adults had ricketty limbs and bleeding gums. The community was probably not able to feed itself properly. And everything technological, everywhere in the rats' nest of tunnels, kept on breaking down. The whole town went into fits of rejoicing every time a ship arrived from any other world carrying spare parts, medicine, or food. And the corridors were filthy, even here, outside the door to the medical bay.
Cleo suddenly realized, as she peered into the hospital area, that she could see the saucer pilot who had kidnapped her, lying on a bed - possibly the only bed. He was no longer breathing and sweating heavily, and seemed to be sleeping peacefully. There were, however, canvas bands tied around his bunk to stop him leaving it if he woke up.
Cleo tiptoed into the medical bay, being careful not to leave marks on the floor. The man was actually quite handsome for a kidnapper, if you ignored his military haircut. He hadn't been shaved in several days, and was growing the beginnings of a beard. A plastic board fastened to the foot of his bed said: TURPIN, R., 63, PRISONER OF WAR, BULLET TRAUMA, MORPHINE TWICE DAILY.
"So you're not one of them", she said. "And you're a soldier. Where are you from, then?" She reached up to the man's throat, and felt around his collar. Just as she'd thought, a metal dog tag on a chain was hung round the man's throat. It said TURPIN, R., 63.
"Wherever you're from", she said, "they can't have many soldiers if you're only number sixty-three. Why couldn't you have been useful for something? All you do is lie on your back breathing. We're trapped here because of you. Can't you do anything?"
R. Turpin, 63, didn't answer. Miss Maybelline was calling again. Silently, Cleo picked up her bucket and mop and tiptoed out of the hospital.
***
"The Colonies of the United States of America in space", said Principal Prickett, "originally numbered thirteen - New New York, Newer England, Novior Scotia, Nueva California, Mas Nuevo Mexico, La Plus Nouvelle Orléans, Nixon, New Nebraska, Louisiana Nova, Hawaii Hou, Novaya Alyaska, Brand Spanking New Hampshire, and our own proud homeland of New Dixie.
"It has been said", said Principal Prickett, who had a weirdly fascinating huge mole with a hair on it growing out of his left cheek, "that the number thirteen is unlucky, particularly considering the devastating rebellion that also ended the Thirteen Colonies of the British in the New World." He nodded to Ant, probably because Ant was the only person in the room listening. "Therefore, our colony has been numbered 12A, a number we wear with pride." He thumped his own badge vigorously.
"Our colonies have already suffered rebellion, however. Not good, honest rebellion of the sort that formed our great country to begin with, but mean, despicable rebellion fomented by Communist degenerates." And on his next overhead projector slide, he actually did have a picture of a communist degenerate, who resembled Ant's dad.
"In 1974, our original thirteen colonies turned renegade, proclaiming themselves the 'United States of the Zodiac'", said Principal Prickett. "We took two of those colonies back, and it is only a matter of time before our forces re-take the other twelve. Propaganda fed to USZ citizens leads them to believe that they live in a starry-eyed Utopia, where one man casts one vote, each citizen is allowed his or her opinion, and there is always enough food to eat." The Principal's next slide had a painting of a happy family, who were presumably USZ citizens, tucking in to a hearty meal of some roast animal or other which appeared to have six legs. This slide was, perhaps, unwise. Some of the thinner boys and girls in the class were staring at the screen as if they might jump up and attempt to eat it.
"POPPYCOCK!" yelled the Principal, throwing a book at a particularly emaciated boy in the second row. "Stop dribbling, boy! For this is the real story."
He wound on to the next slide, which showed a dejected group of sallow-cheeked people trudging through the ruins of what had once been a colony resembling Croatoan. It took Ant several seconds to realize that the group in the second painting were the family from the first.
"Starvation! Continual civil war! Rivers running with blood! Plagues of locusts!" The Principal was pointing at each of these evils as he spoke, which had actually been drawn in by the artist. Ant was not convinced. He put up a hand.
"Yes, boy."
"These United States of the Zodiac. Might they have enemies and agents even here, in our midst, sir?"
The Principal stared at Ant with great suspicion. "Sure as death and taxes, Mr. Stevens."
"Then how do they communicate with their degenerate Communist masters?"
Glenn Bob turned round in his chair. "That's easy. All their ships use the same frequency. You can listen in on them iffen you got an Electric Wireless that receives on 100 kilohertz - "
"DON'T give out information to a potential Agent of Communism, boy!" thundered Principal Prickett. "This here pupil is still on Probation."
Glenn Bob turned back round in his chair, eyes front.
"Tomorrow", said Principal Prickett, "we shall be going Outside."
The class was silent, save for a chorus of amazed whispers.
"Yes, you heard me right", said the Principal. "Having assessed the worthiness of this class over the past few months, I am convinced that it exhibits the gumption and frontier spirit necessary to survive the rigours of the Out-Of-Doors. We are going outside the colony perimeter on an excursion to devegetate our perimeter - specifically, a section of our protective electric fence, which has been shut down specially for the occasion. Sergeant Sheldrake will be present with a weapon at all times, and if the weather is fair, we may go skinny dipping and crawdad fishing."
The class shivered with dread. Ant leaned forward and whispered:
"What's Devegetating our Perimeter?"
"Weedin'", said Glenn Bob.
"Skinny dipping sounds good", said Ant.
"Water's five degrees above freezin'", said Glenn Bob. "And there's crawdads."
"What's a crawdad? Isn't it some sort of little freshwater shrimp thing?"
Glenn Bob turned round in his chair and favoured Ant with a particularly unpleasant stare.
"Ours are about horse size", he said.