Sister Ships and Alastair - Chapter 3

3. Out of Way, Monkey Head

The Shakespeares' Volvo pulled into Ant's drive. Further down the road, Mr. Stevens' eighteen-wheeler was parked across Miss Purbright's, Mr. Carslaw's and Mrs. Gooch's front drives, as usual. Normally, bitter complaints would result if a truck was parked across an entrance, but Miss Purbright, Mr. Carslaw, and Mrs. Gooch were all OAP's, and Mr. Stevens' truck brought them cheap cigarettes, Belgian chocolates and gin. For this, they were prepared to let it take up five parking spaces on a semi-permanent basis.
Mr. Shakespeare wound down the window and looked across at the truck.
"Well, Dougie's here."
"I still think this is too much to let a young girl do at Cleo's age", said Mrs. Shakespeare. "I never let you sleep in the same caravan as me at her age."
"Yes", said Mr. Shakespeare, remembering grimly. "But times change. And Dougie is in charge. If Dougie is involved, it will be all right."
Mrs. Shakespeare sat with her hands twisting in her lap as Cleo manoeuvred her enormous suitcase out of the car. "I don't know what you see in him."
"I wanted to give up", said Mr. Shakespeare softly.
"What?" said Cleo.
"When we were looking for you in the woods. I wanted to give up. You know, I kept telling myself, statistics say that after the first couple of days a child is missing, the chances are the child isn't coming back. But Dougie, you see, he doesn't have my fine education and he doesn't give a damn about statistics. He would have stayed in those woods searching till the Moon fell out of the sky. He shamed me into staying."
Mrs. Shakespeare, Tamora and Cleo, struck dumb, sat and stood still, not daring even to look at each other, or at their own reflections in the car's mirrors.
"See you in two weeks' time, princess", said Mr. Shakespeare, and wound the window up on the driver's side. Cleo stood back from the car as the engine fired up and the wheels span on the gravel.
Ant walked out of the house, catching an accusing glare from Tamora in the Volvo's back window. Ant waved cheerily at her as the car sped away.
"Oh my god", said Cleo. "My dad gave up looking for me."
"That's nice", said Ant. "Tamora suspects."
"What, suspects that we're about to go into outer space? That's one deductive little sister I've got there."
"Possibly not. But certainly she thinks we're not going to the Isle of Grain."
Cleo nodded. "Our first stop has to be an internet café. You need to know everything there is to know about St. Ignatius de Loyola's Faith-Based Prescribed Christian Activity Centre, and I need to know everything there is to know about the Isle of Grain."
"It's flat and it stinks at low tide", said Ant. "That's all you need to know."
Lieutenant Turpin and Lieutenant Farthing rose from their hiding place behind the bushes outside Number Thirteen.
"Have they gone?"
"Yes. Where's the space ship?"
Lieutenant Turpin looked at Cleo as if she were mad. "Space ship?"
"Yes. You came here in a space ship, out of space?"
Turpin looked at Farthing, who evidently shared his concern for Cleo's sanity. "Well...yes, but, as I said, we're going to Bedfordshire. Bedfordshire's not a very long way away."
Cleo looked coolly at Turpin. "It is if you walk there, buster."
"I thought we might use one of your earth cars", said Turpin. "They move on the planetary surface under power." He made a motion with his hand of a car moving on the planetary surface under power.
"Got a driving licence?" said Ant.
Turpin shook his head. "No. What's one of those? Does it have anything to do with golf?"
"Lieutenant Turpin, you were driving a van when we found you last time."
Turpin shook his head. "George Quantrill drove the van. All those pedals and levers scare me."
Ant ignored this. "Couldn't we just take off in your ship and land again a little bit to the south?"
"Go ten miles? In a Fantasm fighter? A ship designed for travelling across astronomical units of space?" Turpin looked shocked. "I dare say it's physically possible...of course, we'd have to get there first."
"We didn't land as close to here as we might have", confided Farthing.
"Where did you land?" said Cleo.
"Bedfordshire", said Turpin, smirking bashfully.
"Lieutenant Turpin suffered a navigational incapacity", said Lieutenant Farthing.
"I landed us on the right island on the right planet in the right solar system", complained Turpin. "In astronomical terms, we might as well be in the next room."
Cleo fixed Turpin with a hundred-watt stare. "Mr. Turpin, you are being deliberately obtuse. You got from where you landed to here somehow. How did you do that?"
"Via what I like to call the Universal Planet Earth Transportation System", said Turpin.
"Which is?" said Cleo.
Turpin grinned and stuck up his thumb.
***
"I not suppose to pick up hitch hiker", said the young, shaven-headed man driving the Transit. "But in my country half of country hitch hike. No-one have car. OUT OF WAY, MONKEY HEAD!" He leaned on his horn with his elbows, shooing a dawdling driver out of the fast lane, lit a foul-smelling cigarette with his free hand, and tossed a crisp packet out of the window with the hand he should have been using to hold the steering wheel.
He took a drag on the cigarette and offered it to Ant.
"I'm sorry", said Ant. "I'm too young."
"In my country", said the man, "everyone smoke cigarette, since pop out of mama." He offered the cigarette to Lieutenant Farthing, who shied from it like a horse from a snake.
"Don't you have lung cancer in your country either?" said Cleo from the back of the van.
"Oh yes, pretty lady. We have big communist nuclear reactor ten kilometre outside capital city, melt down, everyone got cancer, so smoke as many cigarette as want, not matter one tinker's flying cuss." A mobile phone rang somewhere down by his groin. He rummaged for it, barely missing a slow-moving Sunshine Coach full of old people. "HELLO? I RUN HALF HOUR LATE, IS TERRIBLE TRAFFIC. I RIGHT NEAR SCOTCH CORNER, BE WITH YOU IN TEN." He winked at Lieutenant Farthing. He had been doing a lot of winking at Lieutenant Farthing.
"Where do you come from exactly?" said Cleo.
"I not sure exactly. Name of country change on regular basis. Was once part of Hostro-Ungarian Hempire. LOOK IN MIRROR, IDIOT MAN, YOU SEE HOW YOU SO UGLY!"
In the back of the van, Lieutenant Turpin was sitting watching the traffic sail past, his whitened knuckles gripping the shelf rails in the walls.
"Mr. Turpin, you are such a baby", said Cleo. "You're used to travelling near lightspeed, and we're barely doing a hundred and ten."
Turpin swallowed something that seemed to object to being swallowed and fight its way back up his throat. His face was pale, his eyes pleading. In the front of the cab, Lieutenant Farthing looked similar.
"I just saw a sign for Bedford", said Ant.
"That's good", said Cleo.
"It was on the northbound side. We're southbound."
"You no worry. You Uncle Prawo he get you where you want to be got." Ant's Uncle Prawo handed him a business card. "I also install you new nice central heating, all British Standard, no foreign rubbish. MOTHER OF A PIG, YOU USE ACCELERATOR IS NEXT TO BRAKE!"
"We're going in the right direction", said Turpin gently. "We need Sapphirey Park, just like I said."
"Never heard of it", said Ant.
"Is famous tourist attraction!" said Ant's Uncle Prawo. "Beautiful country house, get visit by many British peoples, drive round in cars with windows shut, lose windowscreen wipers." He began making hooting noises and beating his chest for no apparent reason.
Ant stared at him blankly.
"I'm sorry", he said. "That one lost something in translation."
Then, just to the left of Uncle Prawo, he saw a thing that caused the blood to freeze in his veins. In the fast lane, hanging back a hundred yards, was a navy blue Renault, and sitting in its driving seat was a short fat white man with a bad moustache. What had the registration been? Impossible to remember.
"Er, Prawo", said Ant. "I think we're being followed. You understand 'followed'?"
Prawo looked in his mirrors in puzzlement. "Is no police."
"It's not police", said Cleo.
"No police? Then they eat my, how you say, ekshaustor! Is no man follow Prawo Jazdy we need next exit I think yes?"
"...yes", said Ant doubtfully, as the next exit sailed past, lost, to their left.
The van changed down a gear and the seat hit Ant in the back with a whiplash-inducing impact. The van's sides rocked, trying desperately to escape their chassis; twin trails of boiling rubber smoked on the road behind them. The Transit swerved across two HGV's to nip into the junction to a fanfare of horns. Behind them, through the back window, Cleo saw a blue Renault frantically change lanes, trying to follow the Transit, only to smash into the driver-side wing of an unsuspecting white Nissan in the centre lane. Bits of car flew everywhere. The BANG of the two cars coming together could be heard even inside the Transit. In seconds, the road behind them was a mass of skidded collided cars. Drivers emerged and began arguing with each other. Two well-dressed men in suits, both holding bleeding noses, were getting out of the Nissan.
"He no follow nobody no more", said Prawo in satisfaction as the Transit drew up to the lights at the top of the junction. "I am James Bond! I drive like I love! I install low cost domestic plumbing solution!" He thumped his chest proudly.
"I can't see any signs for Sapphirey Park", said Ant.
"Is here", said Prawo. "You trust." His mobile phone went off again; he seized it and yelled "HELLO IS VERY BAD TRAFFIC SORRY LINE IS BREAKING UP. I AT HANGER LANE GYRATORY, BE WITH YOU BEFORE YOU KNOW, FIX YOU NICE MIXER TAPS, YES?"
***
"You can drop us off here", said Turpin suddenly.
Prawo looked up and down a long, completely empty stretch of road. To one side, a very high brick wall separated them from huge, high old trees. On the other side were hedges and farmland.
"This is it", said Turpin. "Sapphirey Park."
Prawo nodded and braked with surprising gentleness. "Is true. But entrance is on other side."
"We're not going in by the entrance." Turpin pointed to a stretch of wall that looked as impassable as any other stretch of wall. "Here will be fine." He extended a hand. "Thanks very much."
"Is no problem for Prawo! I am iron man!" Prawo handed Turpin a card. "Reinstall you boiler, rates very reasonable." He winked once more at Lieutenant Farthing as Ant and Cleo hopped out of the van, and Farthing and Turpin slithered sickly out of it like crocodiles off a mud bank. It was good to have their feet on the ground again after an hour of driving and plumbing-related conversation. As Prawo burned away waving in a cloud of rubber and diesel, Farthing said:
"Did he just call me a boiler?"
"If he did", said Ant, "I'm sure it was a compliment. He obviously cares very deeply about them."
Cleo scowled at Turpin. "We have to get to your ship right now. He was so a government agent. Nobody is that Eastern European."
Ant weighed in in Prawo's defence. "But he got us away from that Renault! And that guy was following us!"
Cleo shrugged. "Maybe he was an agent working for the Other Side. Maybe he only wants his people following us."
Ant span round the landscape, waving at it demonstratively. "Cleo, we are alone. There is nobody on this road for over half a mile."
"Oh, we won't see them", said Cleo, with immense self assurance. "They'd be far too clever for that."
A Mondeo estate was approaching down the road from the motorway, apparently being careful not to exceed the miniscule local speed limit. Ant's, Cleo's, Turpin's and Farthing's eyes locked on to it and continued to stare fixedly at it as it rolled slowly towards them, passed them, and rolled away. A balding, middle-aged man with glasses sat behind the wheel, wearing a Hawaiian shirt. Next to him, a middle-aged woman sat underneath a massive perm. Behind them in the back seat, two children of around seven and nine, a boy and a girl respectively, stared back through identical National Health glasses. In the very back of the car, a red setter looked happily out at the world. The driver and the woman looked uncomfortable at being stared at. The boy stuck his tongue out at Ant, and so did the dog.
There was a moment of quiet as the car vanished round a bend in the road.
"They weren't", insisted Ant. "They were so not. They had children."
"Those children", said Cleo, "could have been highly trained dwarfs."
"Little people", nodded Turpin with grim sagacity. "In furry suits."
"The dog was genuine", said Cleo quickly, before Turpin acquired ideas.
"Cleo, this is pure paranoia." Ant turned to Turpin. "And I don't see any spacecraft around here anywhere."
"Of course not. We've hidden ours." Turpin's face assumed an expression of extreme cunning. "We put leaves and branches on top of it."
Ant looked round. Grass, leaves and branches stretched away to the horizon. He rubbed his head to make his brain work harder.
"Well, all I can say is that you've hidden it very well."
"Not here, monkey head", said Turpin. "Over here." He walked up to the fifteen-foot-high wall that flanked the road. "In Sapphirey Park." Bending down into the grass, he picked up a long, forked tree bough, needing to use both hands because of its weight. Staggering about in the grass beneath the bough, looking up his stick like a plate spinner, he poked it up into the branches of a massive lime that overhung the wall, and hooked a rope off a bough. The end of the rope dropped down to ground level, and Turpin tested it by pulling down hard. Then he set his teeth with concentration and began to walk up the wall, feeding the rope through his fingers. Seconds later, he was balanced on the top of the wall, breathing in great spasming gasps.
"He's really out of shape", remarked Ant.
"He comes from a world where gravity is only eighty per cent Earth normal", said Lieutenant Farthing, looking up the rope nervously. "And so do I."
"I am one hundred per cent sure I am not going up that rope", said Cleo, folding her arms. "Ropes and I don't get on. If I were a rope, I would have no rope friends of my own, and would be very lonely."
Ant grunted in disgust, took hold of the rope, and strolled up the wall. Lieutenant Turpin had still not regained his breath when he reached the top.
"Come on Pen", said Turpin. "You made it on the way out."
Farthing grimaced, spat into her palms, and grabbed hold of the rope. Turpin sucked in his breath, forced himself to his feet unsteadily on top of the wall, and wound the rope around himself, swaying backwards to take the weight off Farthing.
"Richard, remember, we'll fall further if we do fall", cautioned Farthing. "You fall ten metres further in three seconds in this gravity than you do back home."
"Luckily I think we'll hit something before our three seconds are up", said Turpin. "Climb, Pen."
Farthing gritted her teeth and stepped up onto the wall. With every step up it, her shoulders shook and her breath whooshed out like steam from a locomotive. By the time she was halfway up, Ant was absolutely convinced she was not going to make it. Her face was beetroot-red, and her knuckles white as raw chicken on the rope.
She made it, rising to an awkward position on top of the wall where she and Turpin were balanced delicately facing each other, connected by the rope. Hugely embarrassed, and obviously trying to touch each other as little as possible, they manoeuvred themselves to left and right until they were both sitting on the capstones.
The worst, however, was yet to come, Ant knew. As Turpin and Farthing dropped off the wall into the woods on the other side, Ant was still looking down at Cleo, who still had her arms folded.
"I am not", said Cleo, "going up that rope."
"Hey, look", came Turpin's voice from the forest floor behind him. "An animal. Do you think that's a deer?"
"Come on", said Ant. "You can do it. I know you can."
Cleo walked up and down the roadside, glaring at the ground, shaking her head. "You are not looking at Miss British Amateur Gymnastics", she said. "I do not do physical education. My body contains muscles by accident rather than design." She turned around and began sulking in the opposite direction.
"I think it's too big for a deer. Do you think it's friendly?"
"I don't know, let's try feeding it. Do you think it likes chocolate?"
"Look at the nose on it!"
"Couldn't you just try?"
Cleo wheeled around again, her jaw set. She had walked far enough up the road to be on the other side of a large roadsign that had its back to Ant.
A white Nissan was approaching up the road. That in itself would have been unremarkable. But the wing of this particular Nissan was hanging off in plastic rags, pieces of it dropping off as it came on. It was moving slowly, but despite that, it would be with them in half a minute or so.
"Er - Cleo?" said Ant. "We may have a problem."
Had the Nissan's driver been intending to leave at the same junction they had? The Nissan had been in the middle lane, but a sharp and dangerous swerve would still have been needed to make the turn. Hadn't it been the Renault, not the Nissan, that had been following them, though?
Had the Nissan simply left the road because of the accident it had just had?
"Cleo", he said, "I think you should stand very, very still and act like landscape."
Cleo did not answer. Looking back towards her, he saw her with her head raised up high, her eyes wide, reading the other side of the roadsign.
"Ant", she said, "I think we may have a problem."
"I know", said Ant. "I've already seen it."
"Don't be obtuse, Ant. How could you have seen this? Just come down here and look."
Unwilling to leave the relative safety of the wall, Ant crabbed awkwardly sideways along it, conscious all the while that the Nissan was approaching. It had slowed, as if it was taking a special interest in its surroundings. The sign was a brown one, a Tourist Information sign. It was almost edge-on to him, but he could make out the words:
SAFARI PARK
"Oh my god", said Ant.
"Oh my god indeed", said Cleo.
"Oh, he's adorable! Can we take him home?"
***
The Nissan had slowed gently to a stop around a hundred metres down the road.
"What are they doing?" said Cleo.
"Maybe they're confused", said Ant. "Maybe they were only told to watch us. Maybe they're calling in for further instructions. Maybe they're wondering if we've rumbled them or not."
"Maybe they're just ordinary people who've just had a nasty accident."
"Leaving the scene of an accident that fast", said Ant, "is illegal. I should know. My dad does it often enough. If he thinks no-one's been hurt, that is", he added hastily.
Cleo looked up at Ant. "They don't look hurt", she said. "One of them's talking into a really big mobile phone."
"Maybe he's calling the really big AA", said Ant. "DON'T LOOK UP AT ME. They might not have realized I'm here yet." Ant began moving backwards along the wall, feeling for the rope.
"Oh, it's always about YOU, isn't it. They're sure to catch Cleo, but the important thing is that they might not get YOU -"
He found the rope with a groping hand and shook it to get her attention while she was looking in his direction, winding it around himself as he had seen Lieutenant Turpin do.
"No way. Don't even think about it, Antman."
The car squealed suddenly into reverse, its wheels two maelstroms of rubber smoke. Cleo yelped and ran for the rope with a peculiarly feminine gait not actually resembling running so much as a mobile attempt to dry her nail polish. She grabbed hold of the rope, nearly yanking Ant off the wall, and ran up the bricks as if they were horizontal. Cannoning into Ant, she coiled her arms around him like an octopus. The two stood motionless on top of the wall, prevented from moving by the force of Cleo's grip. Ant was acutely aware that, if they started to fall in either direction now, bones would be broken.
"Are they going away?" said Cleo over Ant's shoulder.
"No", said Ant. "They're standing by their car looking up at us. One of them's talking to his big mobile phone again. Now, just bend your knees very slowly, and we'll separate." Cleo's heart thumped against his. Their feet wobbled on the wall as they lowered into a crouch. As they did so, one of the men made a step forward towards the rope. Ant whipped it up into the air. The man stepped back. Both men started to examine the wall to right and left, looking for a break or an entrance. None were apparent for a very long way.
"But I thought it was the Renault that was following us", said Cleo.
"Like you said", said Ant. "They'll be far too clever for that. They're good at following people. They probably do it all day every day."
"Aren't his big teeth fabulous."
"Maybe he's a horse. Horses are bigger than deer, aren't they?"
Cleo raised her voice. "LIEUTENANT TURPIN, UNHAND THAT ELEPHANT."
There was an abrupt but lasting silence, followed by the anxious words:
"Elephant?"
"Down off the wall", said Ant. "Hang and drop. And don't give me any more of that I Don't Do Gym rubbish, or I AM LEAVING YOU BEHIND."
He hit the ground, intending to roll, and instead collapsing into a tangle of limbs with the breath smashed out of him. When he rose to his feet, he also discovered he had had a softer landing than he had intended.
"Elephant poo", he said in disgust, flicking flecks of a fibrous stinking substance off himself. Flicking did no good. It had the adhesive qualities of superglue.
"There's no need to swear", said Lieutenant Farthing.
"No", said Ant, "I really do mean elephant poo. And what you have there, Mr. Turpin, is an animal of the sort that makes elephant poo. I'll leave you to figure out exactly what sort of animal that is."
The elephant was huge, the height of a building. When they had been on the wall, it had been hidden partially by the trees, but also partially, Ant suspected, by the absolute certainty that an elephant could not possibly be hiding in a clump of trees in Bedfordshire. Its tusks alone were the height of Ant. Its hide was as gnarled and wrinkled as tree bark. Its ears were big as swans' wings which, Ant was aware, were capable of breaking a man's arm.
"But I thought elephants lived in Africa", said Turpin.
"Maybe they migrate", said Farthing.
"Silly", said Turpin. "Britain is an island. We choose to land here because it contains no dangerous wildlife and the police don't carry firearms. Are you sure it's an elephant?" he said.
"It ain't no gerbil", said Ant.
"He's not dangerous, anyway", said Turpin, patting the elephant affectionately on its trunk.
"Not as long as you have an inexhaustible supply of chocolate ", said Ant. "Do you?" The trunk was clearly and deftly searching through each of Turpin's pockets in turn, no doubt for further chocolate. He wondered when Turpin would notice.
Turpin looked worried for the first time. "Er - no."
"Then on no account", said Ant solemnly, "act like chocolate."
Turpin's face went whiter than a Milky Bar. He began patting the elephant's trunk more methodically. "Nice elephant", he said. "Friendly, non-carnivorous elephant."
"Just walk away from it", said Farthing to Turpin.
"I've tried", said Turpin. "But when I do, this happens."
He backed away gently from the elephant. The elephant padded gently forwards and curled its trunk affectionately round his throat. If it had been a cartoon elephant, little red love hearts would have been pouring from it. The elephant liked Mr. Turpin.
"Where's your ship?" said Ant.
"Not far", said Farthing. "We, er, hid it in the trees in a part of the woods there seemed to be no people in."
"This is a safari park", said Ant. "A big enclosure where African animals live, through which people pay to drive with their car doors and windows locked securely, and on no account get out of their cars."
"I see", said Farthing - then, after she had thought further on the matter, added: "Why?"
Ant shrugged. "So they can see what it's like to drive through Africa without ever getting out of their cars", he said. "And with their windscreen wipers stolen by monkeys", he added.
"Monkeys?", said Farthing in sheer unadulterated terror.
"You've been watching King Kong, haven't you", said Ant.
Farthing nodded shamefacedly.
"Real monkeys are smaller", he said.
Farthing exhaled in massive relief.
"You think yourselves lucky you didn't come down in the lion enclosure."
"LION ENCLOSURE?" The terror was back. "There are LIONS?"
"Almost certainly. Safari park staple, lions."
"Are they bigger than deer?"
"Very."
"And how big are deer, exactly?"
Ant let his imagination run riot. "Over twenty feet long."
Farthing gulped. "I see. Do people in Africa drive through enclosures with animals from Britain in them?"
Ant had never thought about this. "I dare say", he said.
The elephant became interested in Lieutenant Turpin's shoelaces. Against all of Ant's prior knowledge of elephants, it seemed to be attempting to untie them.
"We really do need to do something about the whole Mr.-Turpin-being-menaced-by-an-elephant situation", said Ant diplomatically to Lieutenant Farthing.
Farthing observed Turpin's predicament drily.
"Maybe it'll teach him to dress up his friends as idiots and walk them down the High Street", she said. "This is my first trip to Earth! My first trip! I was promised the Pyramids, the Eiffel Tower, and the Hanging Gardens of Babylon! And instead", she looked around herself with venom, unable to think of a word bad enough.
Ant nodded. "Bedfordshire. Erm, I'm afraid the Hanging Gardens of Babylon aren't around any more. On past performance, I imagine we probably bombed them at some point."
Farthing's expression darkened, and she looked across at Turpin. "Someone is going to be spending a very long time making friends with Mr. Elephant."
Behind them, a squeal and a sound of splintering brushwood announced Cleo's arrival on their side of the wall.
"The ship is over here", said Farthing, for whom Turpin seemed to have ceased to exist. "I tied the tape round that tree over there to mark it."
"I can see it now. Is that camouflage netting?"
"Yes. Luckily we found some in green. A lot of our netting is blue. Instaraquae Saxiphagia, you know. The aquamarine lichen. It covers ten per cent of our planetary surface." Farthing began stripping the net from the ship. Ant had remembered the Fantasm being shiny and bright as silverware. Now it was blacker than black, darker than a P.E. teacher's soul. Inexplicably, it also sparkled like satin. It was also carrying a large number of what Ant judged to be weapons pods slung under its stubby wings.
"Are you sure this is the same ship?" said Ant. "It's a whole different colour."
"It's Twinkle paint", said Farthing. "Supposed to make the ship not show up against a black background. But not just black, you see. Black with stars. It's experimental. Only special ops ships are getting it. It's a bit of a misnomer, really. Stars don't twinkle in space." She began rolling up the netting methodically. "The trouble with it is, we have to put netting over the ship on the ground, or it looks like a big blot of night from overhead. Even in the dark, it looks darker than the rest of the night."
It was the same ship. It could not be mistaken for anything other than what it was - the fastest thing in the sky. In form, the stolen Soviet starfighter resembled a dagger thrust through a hollow steel disc, its leading edges honed to razor sharpness. This particular machine was a training model with an extra cockpit for the instructor; the instructor's cockpit was stencilled HIGHWAYMAN, which Ant knew to be Lieutenant Turpin's call sign. The trainee pilot's cockpit, at the front of the nose, was stencilled JOHNNY REB.
"Who's Johnny Reb?" said Ant. "Is that your call sign?"
Lieutenant Farthing spoke over her shoulder. "No. Do I look like a Johnny? No, my call sign is something depressingly obvious. I'm sure you can work it out for yourself. I'm pretty sure you can work out who Johnny Reb is too."
There was only one obvious candidate, though it seemed preposterous. "Glenn Bob? Is he old enough to learn to fly?"
"The USZ needs pilots", said Farthing. "In the old West, everyone either knew how to ride a horse or starved. On Gondolin, everyone learns to fly a starship."
Ant became suddenly, violently convinced that Glenn Bob was the person he most envied in the entire universe.
"Er, guys", said Turpin. "What shall I do with this elephant?"
The hull also bore lettering in a strange alphabet, all swoops and curls. "Mock Martian", said Farthing, noticing Ant's interest. "Designed to make the ship look alien to UFO spotters. The USZ insignia are still there, just covered over with patches."
"Thank you", said Cleo, dusting herself off behind them, "for helping me to my feet when I was in evident distress." Her nose wrinkled as she caught the scent of Ant.
"Ant, your inner beauty is really making itself felt today. The bad guys are trying to drive round the wall, I think. They shot off to the north." She pointed. "Is that the north? And, um, does he have that elephant under control?"
Ant examined the elephant. It seemed placid enough, though it was currently probing the back of Lieutenant Turpin's collar with its trunk, producing the interesting sight of a man trying to giggle while terrified.
"I'm betting", said Ant, "that you have some chocolate on board your ship?"
"That's the Commodore's shipment", said Farthing, horrified. "Twenty-five kilos of finest Belgian dark." She thrust a key into one of the weapons pods under the wings, which hissed slowly open to reveal clusters of clingfilm-wrapped boxes labelled LEONIDAS, GODIVA and NEUHAUS, crammed with difficulty into the limited space.
Ant nodded. "Just because you're on a mission of dire importance doesn't mean you don't have to shop for the Commodore, right? Well, we need them. Some of them, at least. We need to decoy the elephant away from the Lieutenant."
"But surely elephants are herbivores", said Lieutenant Farthing. "Richard is perfectly safe."
"Yes", said Ant. "They are herbivores which have been known to gore, trample and pick up passers-by with their adorable noses and bash them against the nearest tree."
The elephant looked at Ant reproachfully. Turpin was both sweating and trembling.
"Don't tremble", said Ant. "Elephants can smell fear."
"He'll be able to smell considerably more than fear in a minute", said Turpin.
"Be nice to him", said Ant. Working a box free of the clingfilm, he handed it to Cleo. "You'll have to do this. My inner beauty is making itself felt, remember."
Cleo looked at the chocolate box as if at an unexploded bomb. "Me? Why do I have to do it?"
"That elephant is an intelligent and discriminating animal", explained Ant patiently as the elephant tested Turpin's hat for edibility. "It is not going to be tempted by food that smells of its own poo. All you have to do", he said, "is walk north from here for around a hundred metres or so, dropping a chocolate every couple of metres. Ideally a brightly coloured one that an elephant would find interesting. I and Lieutenant Farthing will do the rest."
"North", said Cleo.
"Definitely north", grinned Ant.
"And you and Lieutenant Farthing will do the rest."
Ant glowed so red he thought his skin might crisp. Despite the fact that Lieutenant Farthing was standing right next to him and had plainly been able to hear Cleo, she did not react at all, but continued to pack the camouflage netting away extra carefully in one of the storage pods.
"I'm afraid we only brought two flight suits", she said. "So we can't take you out of atmosphere. Safety regulations."
Ant was crestfallen. He had been looking forward to more trips to other worlds, worlds more fantastic and hopefully less dangerous than Gondolin and New Dixie. But the arrangement had, after all, been that he and Cleo would be the USZ's representatives on Earth. If he hadn't seen the flaw in the plan, it was hardly the USZ's fault.
At that point, Lieutenant Farthing, who had uncovered the aft portion of the ship, said a word of which Ant would not have believed her capable. She was standing looking at the fins projecting from the rear hull.
"Is something wrong?" said Ant innocently.
"Wrong? Well, of course there's something wrong! Look at the shape of the portside tachyon collector! What's happened to it?"
Ant had no idea what the portside tachyon collector did, or what shape it should be. However, moving round the vessel and comparing it with the starboard tachyon collector, he was able to make an informed judgement. The collectors were supposed to stick out of the hull at forty-five degrees. The left hand one was bent back like a dog's ear.
"Well, this is only an educated guess", he said, "but I'd say an elephant happened to it."
Farthing was almost hysterical. "Why would an elephant attack a spaceship?"
"It probably didn't attack it", said Ant. "It seems to have quite liked your spaceship. But not as a spaceship; more as a sort of scratching post."
"Great", muttered Farthing. "That's hyperspace communication out the window."
"It doesn't look too badly damaged. If it's soft metal, it might just bend back."
The elephant had found something in Turpin's top pocket. Lifting it out with the dexterity of a pickpocket, it examined it delicately with an enormous tongue.
"Uh...Pen..." said Turpin.
"Don't be wet, Richard. We'll have it away from you in a minute, when Cleopatra gets back."
"I really think you should look at this, Pen."
The elephant now had in its mouth what was clearly, from the pistol grip, trigger and muzzle, a sort of weapon. It was attempting to eat it.
"It'll kill itself", marvelled Ant.
"That", muttered Turpin, "or make itself very, very happy."
"Why? What is that thing?"
Turpin's every muscle was tensed for an inevitable cataclysm. "Richard Gould and Steven Dawkins call it a Personal Orgonizer. It's an experimental non-violent weapons system." He cringed beneath the elephant's massive bulk, as if expecting the trunk to descend and crush him. "It sort of makes people so happy that they don't want to attack you any more."
"Like your humane killer we saw on Gondolin", said Ant. "Oh my god. It was Cleo who told you it had military applications."
"Yes", said Turpin. "Steven and Richard told me to pass on their thanks for that."
"Remind me to stand back while you do. Does it hurt?"
"Hardly. They spent all afternoon firing it at each other. We had to prise it out of Richard's fingers." The sound of the elephant's massive molars working on the weapon seemed to be setting Turpin's own teeth on edge. "The trouble is, I really don't think you're supposed to eat it."
The elephant's gullet suddenly flared green and purple. It shied away violently, tossing its head as Turpin ducked; then, it shivered from nose to toes. It hesitated a moment, then continued chewing; then it seemed to sneeze and trumpet at the same time, releasing a shower of sparks and one perfect incandescent smoke ring.
By this time, it was making a most un-elephantine noise, almost like a gigantic, contented purr. It continued to chew happily. Turpin backed away cautiously, but it seemed to have forgotten he'd ever existed.
Cleo pelted out of the woods, holding the half empty box of chocolates like the front runner in an egg-and-spoon race; Lieutenant Farthing grabbed it and began scattering them on the grass. The elephant reached down langorously and began picking up sweets one by one. It appeared to be in elephant heaven. Ant noticed, however, that it seemed to be studiously ignoring the coffee creams.
"They're coming!" said Cleo. "I saw them climbing over the wall!"
Farthing nodded. "Better go." She cast an eye over Ant's jacket. "Better take that off, too. I'm not sharing a hermetically sealed environment with it."
"My dad bought me this."
To Ant's horror, Lieutenant Farthing bent down to him, hands on thighs, as if to a very small child, before saying: "I'll get you a better one. Now off with it and into the nav seat; you can do less harm there. Quick now, if we take a shot to the hull we won't be going anywhere higher than a mile. One bullethole will suck out all the air in the ship in a minute as soon as we leave atmosphere."
"Time to go", said Turpin. He turned to Farthing. "I was going to set you straight on the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, I swear."
Farthing jumped into the aft cockpit. "No time to talk. Get in."
"Hey, that's the flight instructor's seat - that's my seat - LEAVE THAT CONTROL OVERRIDE ALONE -"
The cockpit canopy closed and pressurised itself with a hiss. Ant needed no encouragement to climb into the centre cockpit, but found it crammed with beer bottles and Belgian salami.
"Sorry", said Turpin. "Throw that stuff out." He picked up a protesting Cleo and threw her into the centre cockpit after Ant, before vaulting into the front cockpit and dropping his own canopy down. The impetus of the Fantasm's propulsion system powering up shuddered through the hull.
Panic-stricken, Cleo clambered about the cockpit, preventing Ant, who she was sitting on, from moving. "We're taking off! We're taking off! The canopy isn't closed! Ant!" She mouthed THE CANOPY ISN'T CLOSED at Farthing in the rear cockpit. Ant wrestled two handfuls of beer bottles out of the cockpit, but with both Cleo and himself sitting in the navigator's seat, the canopy would still not shut. Meanwhile, Ant was acutely aware that the trees on either side of the ship were growing shorter.
A tiny, insistent voice sounded from the control console. Ant looked down and saw a rubber flight helmet, containing an oxygen mask and earpieces. Quickly, he rummaged down past Cleo's knees, pulled out the flight helmet and dropped it onto his own skull.
"- 's better, can you hear me now?" The voice was Farthing's. Ant looked back at the aft cockpit and nodded.
"Good. We're not going to be able to shut the nav cockpit with both of you in there, so keep your heads down. Try and get the safety belt round both of you if you can. It's behind you to the right and left. I'm going to try and fly gentle -"
Cleo gave a sudden shriek as the entire ship tilted and turned in the air. The canopy flopped uselessly above Ant's head, and he heard a sharp hissing sound as two white contrails zipped past the cockpit. From the ground, he heard excited trumpeting.
"...that settles it...only Special Ops men carry rocket pistols..."
Cleo's backside was sticking out of the canopy; the ship appeared to be reversing in the air, the ground tilting giddily. Ant scrabbled for anything resembling a seatbelt to right and left of him.
"...shoot at MY ship, would you..."
The ship bucked gently in the air; there was a sound like thunder, and the forest below exploded. Leaves, branches and splintered tree bark pinwheeled into the air, filling the world with flying greenness. Ant spat out a mouthful of pine needles.
"FOR CRYING OUT LOUD, WHAT WAS THAT?"
Turpin's voice sounded from the forward cockpit. "Erm, that'll be a violent weapons system, a pair of bow-mounted coil guns...Richard Gould felt there weren't enough guns in the design."
"...can't see too well from back here...I didn't hit the elephant, did I?"
Ant stood up in the seat, looking down on an acre of felled forest in which a fully intact elephant was banging a Special Operations man against a tree stump with its trunk. The other Special Ops man was cowering behind a tree, his hands gripping his head. "I can report a continuing positive elephant situation, Lieutenant."
Then the ship surged forward, throwing Cleo on top of Ant once more, and nothing was visible outside the cockpit but sky.
"...Hang on...let me get some height...I'll try and hide us in that raincloud..."
RAINCLOUD? thought Ant in alarm, and no sooner had he thought it than the cockpit was drenched with cold water. Rain hissed in like a solid mass; his T-shirt was wet through instantly. Above him, Cleo shrieked. She was, of course, getting far wetter than he was.
"- now, if I can just read this map of yours straight..." Having to shield his eyes against the gale, he looked back on himself to see Lieutenant Farthing, snug and dry in the rear cockpit, poring over an unfolded Ordnance Survey map. She saw him suffering outside, smiled and waved.
"Do you know the symbol for a Church With Spire?"
"I think it looks like a lighthouse", offered Turpin.
"The symbol that looks like a lighthouse", said Ant through gritted teeth, a cold drop of combined rain and snot wobbling on the end of his nose, "is a lighthouse."
"Then what's the symbol for a Church With Spire?"
"A circle with a cross on top of it."
"How interesting. Are all of your churches circular?"
"None of them. It doesn't have to look like a church. It's a symbol."
"Why not? The lighthouse looks like a lighthouse."
His stomach turned over suddenly, as if the world had moved underneath him.
"Ant", apologized Cleo in advance, "I'm really sorry, but I think I'm going to throw, and the only thing to throw on in here is you."
"I heard that. Hold on, it's only negative G. You can feel it because we're going down."
"Where are we going down to?"
"You're the local experts. Pick a safe place to land."
Ant dragged himself over the cockpit lip and peered down. Through a haze of driving rain, he could see unfamiliar dual carriageways, a patchwork of fields, a town spreading out across them like a concrete cancer.
"We could head for that big curve of woods east of the town. We could hide the ship in there."
"Trust me, woods usually have people in them", said Ant.
This was news to Farthing. "What sort of people?"
"Usually the sort of people who have no business there. Kids who ignore KEEP OUT signs. Christmas tree thieves. The sort of people who give 'the woods' as their address to the police. Cleo and I have personal experience of running into bad, bad people in woods. That is where we first met Lieutenant Turpin." Ant squinted down into the gloom. "That house there. It's all on its own, with a drive between it and the road, and a lawn surrounded by leylandii, and there's no garage and no cars parked outside either. That means no-one's in. Put us down on the lawn."
"The lawn, you say."
"The slightly brighter green patch just to the left of it."
The ship dropped like an elevator with the cables cut. Cleo screamed louder than a banshee, connected to Ant by her fingernails and what little spare skin Ant possessed. The torrent pouring into the cockpit seemed to lessen - at least they had the advantage, Ant reflected, that they now seemed to be falling fast enough to overtake the rain.
"- braking NOW -"
The seat slammed into his back, and Cleo into his front. There were a couple of seconds' grace, and then the seat slammed into him again.
"Do you MIND?" yelled Cleo, loud enough for Ant's headset to hear.
"Sorry. The first bump was the antigrav going back on. The second one was us hitting the ground."
"Ground?" Cleo clambered out of the cockpit, fell on the ground and gave it a cold, wet kiss. "Ground! Oh, ground, sweet ground!"
Lieutenant Farthing's landing had not been gentle - the Fantasm's skids had sunk a quarter metre into an immaculately-maintained garden. The lawn was large, the size of a tennis court. The house matched the lawn. Next to it, a three-berth carport stood empty. Whoever lived here was not at home.
Cleo rounded on Farthing and Turpin as they climbed out of the ship. "WHICH OF THE TWO OF YOU WAS FLYING BACK THEN?"
"I was", said Farthing. "Why? Do you have a complaint?"
"Our COCKPIT was NOT SHUT. NEITHER of us was FASTENED IN. WHO THE HELL TAUGHT YOU HOW TO FLY?"
Turpin hid his face in his hand. "Oh, please don't start her off."
"The USZ Flight Combat School", said Farthing. "From which I obtained the maximum grade possible. Would you, perhaps, have preferred me to have taken off according to standard procedure, taking time to unload and strap you both in nicely? In which case, as I'm sure you're aware, both of you would now be dead."
Cleo's face screwed up in an industrial strength scowl.
"If the wind changes", said Farthing, "your face will stay like that."
Cleo snorted in disgust, turned her back on Farthing, and stomped off round the side of the house in a sulk.
"Cleo!" called Ant, tumbling down the side of the ship. "Are there any notes for the milkman?"
Cleo blinked uncomprehendingly at Ant.
"Saying 'NO MILK TILL THURSDAY, BECAUSE THERE WON'T BE ANYONE AT HOME, PLEASE FEEL FREE TO BURGLE THE HOUSE'?" prompted Ant.
"I'm sorry", snapped Cleo. "I don't have your in-depth knowledge of the art of burglary." She walked through the carport to the front of the house. "Yes, as a matter of fact, these people are thick as well as loaded. They're not going to be back for a week." She unfolded the paper further. "And they hope the milkman's well and that his lump has gone down." She unfolded it still further. "And they promise to bring him back a snow shaker from Dubai. Somewhat ambitious, I feel."
"Thank heaven for that", said Lieutenant Farthing, raising a hand to smash a window.
"STOP", said Ant. Farthing's hand stopped in mid-swipe. "What?" she said.
"Either they're rich and thick, or rich and very confident in their alarm system."
"Alarm system?" said Farthing, much in the same way another person might say 'Unicorn?'
"Yes. All big well-to-do houses have them."
"Alarm systems", said Cleo, "or dogs."
"Dogs", said Farthing, her face pale.
"You're going to ask me how big dogs get now, aren't you", said Cleo.
"I know", said Farthing acidly, "how big dogs get. I am not stupid. I have seen Hong Kong Phooey."
"Well, here's the thing", said Cleo. "Dogs don't normally walk on two legs, wear clothes, and fight crime."
Farthing and Cleo glared at one another across the rain-sodden lawn.
"I have a suggestion", said Ant. "We are still getting wet. What about the garden shed?"
The shed filled the bottom end of the garden, backed by leylandii. It was the size of a small house in itself. The door was secured with a padlock. Ant and Lieutenant Turpin broke it open with a set of hedge clippers hung neatly under the eaves.
"Oh, this is fabulous", beamed Lieutenant Farthing, poking her nose inside. "I've dreamed of living in a room this big."
The inside of the shed was decidedly un-shed-like. There were bunk beds. There was laminate flooring. There was a table and chairs painted to resemble toadstools. There were drawers filled with wooden and plastic toys. There was a heater, a small room containing a toilet and a shower, and a small portable TV. A mansized teddy bear sat on a wooden rocking chair in one corner, observing them malevolently.
"It's a Wendy house on steroids", said Ant in disbelief. "Someone's mummy and daddy have way too much money."
By the bunk bed, on a little table, rested an immaculate little book with an embossed leather cover. The book's title was THE CHILD'S SIMPLIFIED BIBLE. Up on the wall, a tiny sampler had been framed and mounted. It issued instructions to the Lord as to what the Lord was to do if the maker of the sampler died before she woke up.
"And", said Cleo, "way, way, way too much religion. This will do well as a base of operations." She opened the Child's Simplified Bible at the place marked by a leather bookmark, looked at the page. "Leviticus. Yeuch. I claim dibs on both the toilet and the shower. Now", she said, turning to Farthing and Turpin sternly, her arms folded, "do you people actually know where you're going?"
"It's a few miles south-west of here", said Turpin.
"It's a secret government installation", said Farthing. "You should be able to see it from the road. Maybe there are signs."
"I've been driven past Bedford a few times", said Ant. "Most of my holidays involve sitting in the back of my dad's truck. But I've never seen flying saucers landing."
"It would be a huge building", said Turpin. "It would have to be."
Farthing nodded. "Cobalt bombs are big. The ships that carry them have to be bigger."
Ant clicked his fingers. "The airship sheds!"
Cleo looked blank. "The what?"