Sister Ships and Alastair - Chapter 23

23. The Very Last Thing
Michelle Enlyfrith's work area was, like all work areas on Gondolin, a tiny domed cell cut out of the rock. At this precise moment, its centre was occupied by a green Gyrolite ammunition crate on top of which Sergeant Falconer was standing. A number of rolls of fabric had been pinned round him using rusty dressmaking pins of a variety of sizes. He was clearly trying to stand very, very still. Cleo was facing off Michelle Enlyfrith, the atmosphere between them so intense that it could have been cut, measured, and made into haberdashery. Falconer looked as though he would die of embarrassment if anyone in the room as much as tittered. Mizz Enlyfrith was currently wearing her hair in a massive Caucasian afro. She had complemented this with a lemon yellow hoop mini-skirt and what appeared to be a Mexican poncho. On top of the afro rode a small green felt top hat.
"Michelle, the shoulders are so large and sharp that Sergeant Falconer will decapitate the man next to him as soon as he turns sideways. And the cape will catch on walls and trees and provide something to grab hold of for pursuing robo-sheep and elephants. Plus, I don't think we need a skirt on the women's uniform. Sex equality has been around for a good few years now and -"
"Women's uniform?" Mizz Enlyfrith's voice could have liquefied oxygen. "This is not a woman's uniform. This is unisex."
Steve Deveril and Ant exchanged horrified glances. Penelope laid a hand on Enlyfrith's shoulder. "Michelle, please remember, people are going to have to wear this."
"And I'm not sure they will", said Ant. "The Commodore can send Richard Turpin out to get shot at by aliens all he likes, but I'm not sure he'll wear anything that, uh, draughty..."
"Besides", said Penelope diplomatically, "I don't think the shoulders and the, uh, uh..." she waved her hands at Sergeant Falconer helplessly.
"Forage cap", said Mizz Enlyfrith.
"Forage cap won't fit inside a standard space suit."
Miss Enlyfrith gripped her own hair in frustration. "My creative muse is being constrained. I feel stifled. Artistically, I cannot breathe."
Penelope pulled up a chair. "Sit down, Michelle. Take deep breaths."
"Thank you."
"Ant, fetch Michelle a glass of water."
Ant nodded and ran, grateful to be out of the firing line.
"Now, what was the basic vision you were trying to realize when you designed this uniform?"
Michelle blinked out through cavernous masses of eyeshadow. "A costume for the stars. One that breaks with the stale and bankrupt stylistic traditions of Earth."
"I see. I see." Every fibre of Penelope's being sounded sympathetic to Michelle's predicament. "And the poncho?"
"Oh, the poncho is all the rage on Earth right now." Michelle pointed across the room to a glossy photospread from National Geographic. "Such vibrant colours!"
Cleo narrowed her eyes. "Ponchos", he said, "are all the rage in Bolivia."
Michelle turned to Cleo, blue fire in her eyes. "And is Bolivia any less a part of planet Earth than Britain?"
"Technically", said Penelope, "she's correct."
"But I'm British", protested Falconer, "not Bolivian."
"Maybe there's a way we can make sure Michelle's basic design concept still inspires the new uniform", said Penelope. "We're looking for a uniform that says something new, something uniquely US Zed."
"Your uniform does say US Zed", said Cleo, tapping Penelope's shoulder flashes. "It says 'UNITED STATES OF THE ZODIAC GONDOLIN'."
"We could incorporate the sweep of the poncho into the lapel", said Penelope, taking up a sketch pad and scribbling furiously with a pencil, "like this."
Michelle stared at Penelope's creation. "That might work."
"Work? It looks fantastic, Michelle. You are a genius."
"Really?" said Michelle, rubbing away two tracks of leaky mascara from her cheekbones.
"It looks just like the old uniform", hissed Cleo in Penelope's ear.
"Sssh", said Penelope. "And the unisex quality you were trying to achieve in the prototype could be just as well obtained by giving both the men's and women's uniforms trousers, like this." Resting the notepad on her uniform trousers, she continued to scribble.
"Yes!" said Michelle, clapping her hands. "That's my vision! That's it exactly!"
"But the women's trousers would have to be cut differently to the men's", said Penelope, looking up at Cleo. "Men's and women's waists are different, and I for one am fed up with feeling like a sack of lichees tied up in the middle. And the jacket needs larger and better-reinforced pockets. Triple-stitched." She tugged at her own jacket. "These damn things will take a wallet, but not a purse."
"I can do you a leather jacket with kevlar reinforcement at the elbows", said Cleo. "I think", she added.
Penelope nodded. "We'll have the measurements of everyone on Gondolin for you by sundown. Please don't let us down, Cleo."
Cleo swallowed a cold hard lump of fear. "Uh. No. Of course not. The very idea."
"Good. Well, we're stuffing the money into two suitcases as I speak. Took us a while to find ones big enough."
"How am I supposed to smuggle two large suitcases filled with cash into my house?" said Cleo.
***
The night was jet black. Normally, it would have been a standard British mangy orange colour, sodium streetlight reflected off clouds, with an occasional yellow tungsten glow from houses whose inhabitants were up way too late. Now it was jet black, and this was causing problems.
"Easy on the stick there! You nearly clipped my wing!"
"Well, whose bright idea was it to cut the power to the whole neighbourhood? I can't fly straight with my head stuck out of the canopy -"
In pitch darkness, with almost perfect stealth, two flying saucers were landing on Cleo's parents' lawn. The lawn was huge, larger than Ant's house and garden put together. Cleo's dad needed a mower he sat in like a very slow Grand Prix driver to cut it. The Fantasm - with Turpin leaning sideways out of the cockpit in night vision goggles, his face a mask of concentration - was hovering silently inches above a greenhouse that would be considerably less than silent if the Fantasm's fins so much as brushed it.
"Okay, I'm extending the ladder now...you should be able to lower the suitcases."
"That's one small step for a frog, one impossible leap for me, Richard. The ladder's in the pond."
"Oops." Turpin nudged the Fantasm gently sideways. A garden gnome toppled off next door's wall and smashed irreparably on the neighbours' patio. A dog began barking.
"Uh...double oops."
"It's all right - we cut the cables on that pylon thingy. They can't see a thing. There's no electric light for a mile -"
Torchlight began wafting around one of the upstairs windows in next door's house.
Cleo, trapped halfway down the crew access ladder lowering a suitcase to the ground on ropes, froze as a key rattled in the back door of Number Twelve. The door opened.
"The light's not turning on, Ken. Why's the light not turning on?"
"Probably a blown bulb tripped the switches. I'll check the fuse box. See 'em off, boy!"
Number Twelve's highly enthusiastic border collie ran out into the back garden, bouncing up the wall towards the aft end of the Fantasm, trying to bite the port tachyon collector. The dog's owners, however, remained indoors, where they could not see the eighteen-metre spacecraft hovering above next door's garden with Cleo dangling beneath it.
"Bloody squirrels."
"It might not be squirrels, Ken. It might be burglars."
"It's bloody squirrels. I ates bloody squirrels."
"Go outside and take a look, Ken."
Mr. Molyneux from Number Twelve shambled out into the back garden in his wife's pink dressing gown. The dressing gown had blue flowers on it. He peered myopically out into the dark.
"Wotchoo barkin at, Eejit? One of them grey bushytailed nut monkeys knock that off the wall, eh?"
He walked out from the house, torch in hand, and was now standing directly over the gnome wreckage. If he only looked left, or wondered why a deep basso profundo organ note was coming from the sky...
"Oh, Alberich", he said, staring down at the gnome pieces. Cleo imagined Alberich was either the gnome's name or a powerful swear word in Mr. Molyneux's native language.
"Come on, boy", said Mr. Molyneux bitterly. "Leave 'em be, the acorn-eating freaks."
Eejit reluctantly allowed himself to be tugged back in the direction of the house.
"Are you wearing my dressing gown again, Ken? I can only see yours on the ook."
Mr. Molyneux looked down at his dressing gown.
"Oh bugger", he said.
He padded back into the house rather more hastily than he had left it, looking over his shoulder to see if any of his neighbours were peeking from behind the curtains. Eejit was still looking back up at the Fantasm, growling softly, every hackle perpendicular.
"Come on in, boy. Them tree rats may ave won this battle, but they ave not won the war."
The door closed; the torch bounced away into the house. There was a sound of furious switching. Cleo began lowering the suitcase again. There was a CLUNK as it hit the grass. Cleo swarmed down the ladder after it and dropped onto the lawn.
"See you soon, Cleopatra."
"See you soon, uh, Richard."
From inside the house, a muffled voice said: "It's not the ruddy fuse box, you know. There's no ruddy power -"
The Fantasm powered up out of the back garden with a whirr of flange. Almost immediately, a Hawker Harridan A1 swept in to replace it. The Harridan was smaller and able to fit into the lawn; Ant climbed down its crew ladder as Cleo was dragging her suitcases across the patio.
"See you Anthony. Don't be too upset", said a voice from the sky.
Ant looked up at the Harridan as it lifted away; he did not reply. Stencilled on the side of the cockpit were the words PENNY FARTHING.
"It's a good call sign", said Ant to nobody in particular.
"What did she mean", said Cleo, trying to open the back door with absolute silence, "by don't be too upset?"
Ant shrugged himself further into his rucksack straps and looked up at the dull glow of the two saucer drives climbing into the sky. "I asked him if I could stay on Gondolin. Not go back to Earth. Learn to fly a star fighter."
Cleo was horrified. "But your dad, Ant. He'd think you were dead."
And nodded, as if his head were very heavy. "Yeah. Yeah, I know."
"And what did he say?"
"He said no." Ant grimaced. "It seems I can help his people, but I can't be one of them."
"Well of course you can't. He needs you more on Earth."
"I guess."
Cleo's face was virtually invisible in the pitch black, but Ant was certain she was frowning severely at him. "We'll talk about this later, my lad. In the meantime, I need some help with these suitcases. I'd never have believed mere money could be so heavy. It must be all krugerrands or something."
Ant nodded wearily and bent to pick up the load.

© Dominic Green 2009