The Quanderhorn Xperimentations

Chapter One

Transcript from the Quanderbox Flight Auto-Stenographic device of Flight 002 of Gargantua 1, January 1st, 1952, 11.49 Zulu Time

TROY (STOKER): Where’s Pops gone? What’s happening?

NYLON (CAPTAIN): Professor Quanderhorn is still getting through! Goodbye? Goodbye? Professor!

JANUSSEN (NAVIGATOR): The communi-link must be utterly intact!

NYLON: Troy, you’re not the only one who can save us now.

TROY: Good! I could use the help… Oh, no, wait… hang on, hang on! I think I get this, now. You’re oppositing, aren’t you?

JANUSSEN: No!

TROY: Oh, darn it, I thought… No, wait, wait again: you mean ‘Yes’, don’t you?

NYLON: No!

TROY: (SLOWLY) So… what you meant to say a moment ago was: I’m the only one who can’t save us.

NYLON: That’s absolutely right!

JANUSSEN: Yes! Yes! What Brian didn’t mean to say was: everyone in the world can save us, except you!

ANNOUNCEMENT: Gravitational wave impact in sixty seconds.

TROY: (EXTREMELY SLOWLY) So that means: nobody in the world can’t save me, including me. Which, in other words… (STRANGE GUTTURAL NOISE) Urrrrh…

JANUSSEN: I told you to make him think! Now he’s opened up completely.

NYLON: Troy! Troy! Go to sleep!

Chapter Two

Secret Report to Martian Command, by Guuuurk [cont’d]

Occupying a human mind, however simple, is a much more abstract endeavour than inhabiting a chicken.

And so it was I found myself in the symbolic vista of Troy’s psyche.

It was a vast, cavernous space, largely unoccupied: there were several inches of dust on the floor, with cobwebs everywhere and the skeletons of stillborn concepts scattered around.

I realised I was standing in an enormous indentation, which on closer inspection appeared to be some kind of massive footprint. It must have spanned seven feet from heel to toe. What in the name of Deimos’ tin antlers could have made such a mark?[3]

‘Hello!’ I called. ‘Anybody here?’ But my only answer was my echo.

I dimly perceived, ranged around the walls, a number of forbidding doors, all of which were shut. I stepped out of the footprint and tried the nearest one. It was locked. I wiped the cobwebs from its rusted nameplate, to reveal the word: ‘THOUGHTS’.

It had clearly not been used for some considerable while.

I tried the next door: ‘IDEAS’. Nailed shut.

I was getting nowhere rapidly, and it was impossible to tell how much time had passed in the outside world. As seasoned mind-travellers will know, time inside an abstract mindscape runs unpredictably, and not completely in sync with the world outside.

I thought about calling out again, and then I remembered the footprint.

A third door looked more promising: ‘SELF’.

There were no cobwebs, and the dust pattern and shiny hinges indicated it was in regular use. Indeed, it had recently been opened. I pushed it and, to my amazement, entered a pleasantly decorated sitting room, with a roaring fire and a delightful spiral staircase in the corner.

Sprawled in an overstuffed chintz chair in front of me, frowning perplexedly at a copy of The Dandy, was a familiar figure.

Troy’s Self looked up at my footsteps. ‘Guuuurk? What are you doing in my mind?’

‘There’s no time to explain right now. I need you to let me operate your right hand for a moment.’

‘I don’t know which one that is, but you’re welcome to have a go,’ he said, waving over his shoulder.

Behind him hung a large embossed sign: ‘MOTOR FUNCTIONS’. Beneath it ranged an array of large levers in dozens of different colours, like those in a railway signal box.

I hastened over to examine the adjacent polished brass indicators more closely. LUNGS were on, BREATHING set to MOUTH… WINGS set to MANUAL… I looked back at him. ‘Wings?’

He shifted uncomfortably. ‘They’re only little…’

Simple the boy may have been, but he was endlessly surprising. ‘Ah! Here we are: HANDS!’

I tugged on the immense orange lever with an ‘R’ fixed to its knob. At first I couldn’t budge the blessed thing, but suddenly, with an almighty effort I slammed it all the way back in one jolting movement. There was a deafening clang, and the entire edifice rocked dizzyingly. Chunks of plaster fell from the ceiling. A klaxon went wild, and the large illuminated board above the levers flashed ‘Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!’.

‘Steady on, Guuuurk,’ Troy chided. ‘You just punched us in the face.’

‘How was I to know?’ I brushed the plaster dust from my shoulders. ‘I can’t see what I’m doing. Why have you got it so dark in here?’

‘Well, it was all getting pretty confusing out there, so I closed Troy’s eyes. And his ears.’

‘Well, open them! We need to see what’s going on.’

‘OK!’ The simpleton raced off up the spiral staircase which stretched out of sight into the gloom.

‘And hurry!’ I urged after his disappearing figure.

Tikka tikka tikka.

His footsteps died off into the darkness above.

There was a brief pause.

Tikka tikka tikka.

The footsteps rapidly returned.

Troy stopped at the foot of the stairs, panting. ‘Sorry. What was it I wanted?’

I was losing patience. ‘The eyes! Open the eyes!’

‘Yes,’ he nodded, ‘of course!’

He turned and ran up the stairs again.

Tikka tikka tikka.

This time there was a longer pause.

Tikka tikka tikka.

He skittered back down again, sweating and red in the face. ‘What did I go up for again?’

Seriously, the nincompoop couldn’t win a battle of wits with a quarter of pear drops. I thrust him aside roughly. Eventually, he stepped out of my way. ‘Stay here,’ I ordered. ‘I’ll open them myself!’

I ran up the stairs as quickly as I could, my heart pounding in my stomach. I ran and ran, but the stairs didn’t seem to lead anywhere, just stretching on and on into infinity.

I stopped, caught my breath, leant over the side and called below: ‘Where are they?’

A tiny distant voice answered me. ‘I can’t hear you,’ it said.

Had I any breath left in my body, I would have sighed deeply in exasperation. Instead, I raced back down, valiantly fighting the cramps in my leg muscles with every step.

‘I said, where’s the control for the eyes?’

‘Oh, that? It’s this yellow lever here,’ he said, waving towards the switch next to him.

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. ‘It’s down here?’

‘Yes.’

‘It was down here all the time?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then why in the name of Norgar’s Ravenous Hordes have we been traipsing up and down these bally stairs?’[4]

‘I don’t know!’

I bustled the buffoon out of the way again and reached for the EYE lever.

But before I could grab it, there was a strange, echoing noise from the cavernous hall I’d just left, chilling my very blood. Which is not easy, as my blood is normally at a comfortable simmering temperature.

Footsteps! Extraordinarily large footsteps. There was some kind of monster lurking in Troy’s mindscape, and it was stamping its way towards us.

Every terrifying step brought it closer. And closer. The room began to shake.

Troy’s Self seemed frozen, but I was coursing with noble Martian adrenaline, and bravely leapt to the door which I locked, barred and bolted, then tugged a large sideboard in front of it, and courageously filled the sideboard with rocks, then wedged a ladder up against it.

And still the footsteps came.

Just when it seemed the behemoth was almost upon us, it stopped.

I held my breath. Suddenly, there was a monstrous pounding on the door, and a guttural growl: ‘Me! Me! Me!’

Troy looked somewhat sheepish.

‘Troy, please tell me that’s not your Ego out there.’

The boy didn’t raise his eyes from the floor. ‘He doesn’t want you in our head.’

More thumps, and the door actually bulged. ‘He sounds gigantic!’

‘Yes. He is.’ Troy shrugged. ‘I just think I’m really great, that’s all.’

Another thump, and the door began to splinter alarmingly.

I had to work fast. I wrenched back the eye lever and blinds immediately rolled up on the huge picture windows taking up most of the opposite wall. Finally I could see the interior of the stricken craft, and the panic that was going on inside.

But before I could engage the ears, the door finally burst into thousands of fragments, and Troy’s gigantic Ego stomped in, bringing the door frame and a good deal of the wall with it, effortlessly shattering the sideboard with a single blow.

It had a huge head. Its features were a grotesque parody of Troy’s face, with alarmingly little flinty eyes and two rows of teeth, triangular, sharp and interlocking, as if someone had fashioned a set of dentures from a bear trap. Its arm and leg muscles were hideously inflated, like sausage skins crammed full of basketballs and melons. Also, it drooled rather a lot.

‘Me! Me! Meeeee!’ it roared, beating its mighty chest with fists that could have hammered a concrete pile to the centre of the Earth.

‘Quickly, Troy: this is a psychological emergency! The only thing that can subdue him is your Superego!’

‘Is he that annoying bloke who’s always trying to tell me what to do?’

‘That’s the chap. Where is he?’

‘I keep him in here.’ Troy reached under the chair cushion and took out a matchbox.

A matchbox.

From inside it, a tiny voice squeaked: ‘Let me out! Let me out!’

I sighed. This, I had to admit, did explain rather a lot.

The Ego advanced upon us, hurling shredded furniture in its wake as it bellowed in fury: ‘Me! Me! Meeeee!’

Unperturbed, I was confident, as per the well-known theories of Dr. Kakark Bumpp, our foremost Martian Thinkalyser (whose work was shamelessly plagiarised by that despicable Terranean brain-quack, Sigmund Freud) that however large an ego may grow, it would always be subservient to the moderating influence of even the most underdeveloped Superego. ‘Stand back!’ I yelled, flipping open the matchbox and liberating the mighty psychological force contained therein.

‘Free at last!’ the tiny well-kempt Troy squeaked boldly, leaping from the box like a cricket and fearlessly placing himself squarely in the path of the marauder. ‘Now listen to me, you—’

And he was gone. Down the monster’s mouth, chewed up and swallowed before you could say the ‘J’ from Jack Robinson.

This was bad. There was now nothing to stop the slobbering behemoth from indulging its vilest bloodlust. I had no doubt in my mind I’d soon be joining the little man on his journey to stomach land.

Desperately, I reached out and threw the switch for the ears…

Chapter Three

From the journal of Brian Nylon, 1st January, 1952 – Iteration 66

Troy was frozen. I tried to reach the button one last time, but I couldn’t move a single muscle in my arms, so great was the G-force.

‘Gravitational wave impact in fifteen seconds.’

I managed, with some considerable effort, to swivel my head slightly towards Dr. Janussen. ‘This is the beginning, Gemma. It’s all starting now. I want you to know that… I hate you so very much.’

She opened her mouth to reply, but then Troy bunched his right fist and suddenly punched himself in the face very very hard and yelled ‘Ouch!’

‘Troy?’ Was he awake? Was there still hope?

Abruptly, his eyes bugged open. And, bizarrely, through his mouth, Guuuurk’s voice issued. ‘Brian! Gemma! It’s me, Guuuurk!’ How on earth could such a thing be happening? Nonetheless, it continued. ‘I’m here in Troy’s brain and I’m in desperate trouble!’

Guuuurk? Inside Troy’s mind? And he seemed to be protected from the effects of Reverse Reality. Though I, of course, was not: ‘Guuuurk! You mustn’t press the button now!’

But something very odd indeed was going on inside Troy’s head. ‘Agh!’ came Guuuurk’s voice again. ‘It’s got my feet in its mouth!’ There was a pause, and he added: ‘It’s all going terribly wrong!’

Troy’s body lurched forward nonetheless. His hand shot out and shakily moved towards the button.

‘You’re absolutely nowhere near it!’ I shouted encouragingly.

‘Almost there,’ Guuuurk/Troy strained. ‘Ah! No! Get off, you hideous beast! Owwwwww!’

Chapter Four

Secret Report to Martian Command, by Guuuurk [cont’d]

‘Owwwwww!’ The creature had me in its terrible maw. Ignoring the pain completely, I made one last, valiant, self-sacrificing effort to reach the button. And I was close, so close… But then, blackness.

And in an eternity that lasted a heartbeat, the rushing winds carried me back to my body, despite all my efforts to bravely and valiantly remain in the danger zone.

For a moment, I was disoriented, still between realms. ‘Uuuuurrrrhhhh… It’s dribbling on my spats…’

Water splashed on my face. I shook my head and opened all six of my eyes to see Quanderhorn in each and every one of them. ‘Dammit! Wake up, Guuuurk! Did you press the button?’

Had I reached it? ‘I honestly don’t know, Professor.’

‘Then you’ve got to go back!’

‘I can’t!’ Desperate as I was to get back to the extraordinarily dangerous situation, mind-hopping is extremely draining, as you all know, and requires a minimum of ninety-six Martian hours of recuperation between jaunts.

‘Dammit again! Well, at least we prevented the end of the world. As I correctly calculated, the top of the mountain tumbled directly into the sinkhole, sealing it completely. And all we lost were a few herds of goats and six or seven monasteries. Still, that’s no consolation if my brilliant, brave son has needlessly sacrificed his life.’

I was beginning to see how Troy’s ego problem might have evolved. ‘And Brian and Dr. Janussen, of course,’ I added.

‘Nmmmmmmm,’ the Professor mumbled vaguely.

The voice I was dreading blasted out of the speaker: ‘Gravitational wave impact in two… one…’

We held our breath. A second surely passed. And surely another one. I peered for the blip on the radar screen. It had vanished. Had the ship been destroyed, or had it accelerated out of range? The answer came suddenly:

‘Gravitational wave evaded!’

The comms desk burst back into life. ‘The communi-link’s restored!’ Quanderhorn roared. ‘Guuuurk! Resume the remote controls immediately!’

I dashed to the control panel, grabbed the joystick and hailed the craft.

‘Guuuurk to Dustbin Deathtrap! Bringing you home remotely.’ I fired the retro-rockets. ‘You should be dropping below X-barrier speed any moment now…’

Over the radio I heard Dr. Janussen say ‘I want you to know, Brian, I don’t like you terribly much.’

‘Sorry?’ Brian stuttered. ‘What?’

Chapter Five

From the journal of Brian Nylon, 2nd January, 1952 – Iteration 66

We splashed down in Lake Windermere, where Jenkins was waiting to take us home. As Troy, Dr. Janussen and I stepped into his patched rubber dinghy Gargantua, Goddess of the Waters, I looked back at the stricken craft that had borne us. It was now nothing more than a half-melted lump of amorphous metal with jagged tears in the structure on all sides, and was taking in water fast.

With a horrible whispering sound it suddenly fragmented and collapsed down into itself like a demolished industrial chimney, leaving a boiling eddy of bubbles and scattered flotsam. Amongst it, I spotted my lucky Scout woggle, which I managed to rescue without the others seeing. I think.[5]

We tumbled, exhausted, into the topless jeep and Jenkins drove us back to the lab.

It was a moonless night, and as we all lay down to try and snatch a few moments’ rest, the darkness above us was dispelled all at once by a sudden enchantingly beautiful meteorite shower, bathing us in an ethereal glow.

I glanced over at Dr. Janussen, who was lying on the bench opposite mine. She looked particularly lovely as the soft radiant colours danced over her exquisite face, like fairies on midsummer night.

She opened one eye. ‘Brian, your nose is dripping. And there’s dried drool on your chin.’

I smiled back at her indulgently. That moment just now on the ship, when she’d claimed she didn’t like me terribly much – was that during or after the X-barrier was reversing our thoughts? Had she really meant she adored me, as I did her?

‘You really are disgusting,’ she added.

Would I ever know the truth?

Jenkins showed me to my room.

Though I entered it and bade him goodnight with an air of nonchalance, the moment I shut the door, my heart was pounding frightfully. My past lay in this room.

I looked around slowly.

A simple desk, a camp bed, a wardrobe and a washbasin.

I recognised nothing. Remembered nothing. There were no framed photographs next to my bedside, no letters in the drawers of the desk. An inspection of the wardrobe merely turned up a spare set of sensible shoes, two plain brown ties, a couple of tweed jackets and three socks. No inscription on the back of my watch. No wallet or driving licence. No clean underwear.

I collapsed, deflated, onto the smartly made bed. No clues anywhere.

And then it struck me: that piece of paper in my flight suit pocket!

I took it out and smoothed it down. If there were a message in invisible ink, all I had to do was hold it over a heat source.

I scanned the room again. No matches, no radiator, no Primus stove. No heat source of any kind. But then, wasn’t I a Boy Scout?

I poked a hole in the mattress and dug out some straw. I opened up the wardrobe and kicked out two slats from the back. Using my shoelaces to fashion a primitive bow drill, I spun a pencil into the remaining slat.

After about seventy-five minutes, the straw began to smoulder, and less than two hours later, it caught fire.

Feverishly I took the paper and held it above the flame.

Nothing happened.

I held it closer.

Letters began to form on the page, from the centre outwards:

Then it burst into flames, which immediately spread to my sleeve. My right arm was too exhausted from the bowing to actually move, so I had to put the blaze out by rolling on the bed. Which I remembered, just a moment too late, was stuffed with straw. I had to fill my tooth mug with water from the basin with my good arm and rush back and forwards dousing the fire.

After about half an hour, it spread to the wardrobe.

I had to dash into the corridor and hunt down a fire extinguisher. I found several, quite easily, but they were all labelled ‘Not Suitable for Fire’. What the devil were they for, then?

When I finally returned, I found absolutely all the furniture had completely burnt out, and nothing remained but several piles of black smoking ashes.

I closed the door quietly, and moved into the adjacent room, which was mercifully unoccupied.

As I switched the light on, I realised I could have simply held the parchment up to the bulb.

I lay on the bed, turning over the message in my head. ‘ELLER’? What could that possibly be? Propeller? Fortune-teller? Tunnel dweller? Bookseller? John D. Rockefeller?

‘EXTREMELY DAN’, I guessed was ‘Dangerous’, though it could have been ‘Extremely dangly’ or ‘Extremely Danish’.

‘BOOB’? A dangerous fortune-teller with extremely dangly boobs? Why the dickens would anyone bother to warn me against such an individual? If I saw them coming, I’d run a mile!

A wave of exhaustion swept over me, and I resolved to sleep and pursue my investigations in the light of day.

I flicked off the light and the room was illuminated by residual bursts of radiance from the dying meteor shower, gently lulling me off…

Exhausted, I had an almost dreamless night. There was just one: in a curious violet light, the Professor, wearing a peculiar pair of goggles, was at the foot of my bed, scraping my shins with some sort of strigil. I called out a cotton-mouthed ‘Professor?’ The dream Quanderhorn held his finger to his lips and vanished backwards into the gloom.

I sank back into peaceful oblivion.

Chapter Six

From the journal of Brian Nylon, 2nd January, 1952 – Iteration 66

I rose late and breakfasted alone in the automated canteen on synthetic porridge and devilled ‘kidneys’, from the Professor’s farm. Apparently, for some reason the ‘kidneys’ were made of liver. Which was all very well, if you liked devilled liver. Personally, I found it revolting. I took my tea without milk, which seemed to disappoint the little cow on the table.

At eight, I made my way over to the briefing room. Everyone was waiting. Dr. Janussen, looking fresh and fragrant, was studying the output from the Telemergency Print-O-Gram. ‘The meteorite shower seems to have abated, Professor.’

‘Excellent!’ Quanderhorn barked. ‘That wraps up the sinkhole incident.’ He began gathering papers from the desk. ‘I’ll be in my office. My door is always open. Jenkins: can you do something about that damned door? These idiots keep coming in.’ He turned to leave. ‘And bring me all the information we have on that meteorite shower.’

Jenkins grumbled out of the room behind him. ‘Another bloomin’ meteorite shower! Still, it’s good for the garden.’

And we were left in peace. No end-of-the-world alerts, no klaxons, no ‘no time to explain right now’. Guuuurk noticeably relaxed. By which I mean, he deflated his head noisily. He was resplendent today in a cricket sweater, flannels held up by an Eton tie and a cap with an MCC badge. (I later found out that this stood for Motherwell Cribbage Club.) ‘That’s that, then,’ he grinned. ‘The pressure is off.’

Troy perked up also. ‘Yeah. I think I might go up and work on my dung ball.’

‘On your what?’ I asked, not really looking forward to the reply.

‘Work out with… my… dum bells.’ He sidled out, sheepishly. I exchanged glances with Dr. Janussen.

‘Just don’t go into his room. Ever. And never let him talk you into a game of croquet.’

Guuuurk hefted a sports bag onto the desk. ‘Right! Time for a spot of R&R.’ At which precise moment the Professor’s voice crackled over the intercom.

‘And Guuuurk, I’ll want a full report on that sinkhole business on my desk by noon.’

‘Absolutely!’ Guuuurk’s grin didn’t waver. He winked at me with three eyes and snapped off the intercom.

The Professor appeared on a wall-mounted TV screen behind him. ‘And I don’t want you paying a schoolboy to do it for you this time.’

Guuuurk wheeled round. ‘That’s a scurrilous lie! But understood.’

The TV went dead again.

Guuuurk waited for a few moments to see if the Professor had any more surprises, and then said brightly, ‘Right! As I was saying: time for a spot of R&R.’

‘What about the report?’ I asked.

‘Ye-e-e-ess. If you could have it finished by 11.30, so I have a chance to sign it?’

‘Why would I do that for you?’

He fixed me with a guilt-inducing stare and tilted his head. ‘I don’t know, Brian. Why would I selflessly have saved your life at enormous personal risk?’

He started rummaging through his bag. ‘OK. Seduction essentials…’ He pulled out a set of tortoiseshell moustache brushes, a large tub of Brylcreem, a tin of white spray paint, and what appeared to be a passport in the name of Edith Sitwell. A thought suddenly struck him, and he fished out his notebook again. ‘Oh, Brian, I was meaning to ask before – these “French letter” thingies – where exactly does one get them…?’

I realised my face had gone very red. I stammered out some nonsense. ‘Well, I, uhm, well…’ but I was saved by Dr. Janussen.

‘Leave Brian alone, Guuuurk. You know he’s lost his memory, and I need to bring him back up to date.’ She thumped a stack of files on the desk.

My heart soared. I’d been desperately wondering how I might persuade the good doctor to spend the morning with me, and here she was, volunteering. At last, some answers!

She flipped through the folders one by one. ‘The Failed Martian Invasion; the Second Failed Martian Invasion; the Third Failed Martian Invasion…’

Guuuurk looked up from his eyebrow pencil. ‘Oh, rub it in, why don’t you?’

She ignored him. ‘Attack of the Mole People; Hepcats from Under the Sea; Project: Huge Dog…’ she frowned. ‘The Andromeda Thrush; The Man With the X-ray Arse…’ She turned and narrowed her eyes. ‘Guuuurk, have you been tampering with these labels?’

‘That’s a scurrilous lie! But I get so bored…’

I was quite keen for Guuuurk to go, so I’d be alone with Dr. Janussen for the first time, but suddenly to my not-very-much-surprise, there was yet another alarm sound – a new one this time, like a particularly piercing telephone ring crossed with the war cry of a pack of baboons – and a light on the wall strobed red and white.

Guuuurk and Dr. Janussen shot upright.

‘What’s that?’ I asked, again not keen to know the answer.

‘That,’ Dr. Janussen said coldly, ‘is the Future Phone.’

Chapter Seven

From the journal of Brian Nylon, 2nd January, 1952 – Iteration 66

We scampered out of the room and round the corner, where there was an armoured door with a strobing red and white beacon above it.

Dr. Janussen unlocked the door with a key on a chain that was round her neck, and we hastened into the room containing this so-called Future Phone.

There it was, spotlighted on a plinth. It looked like a distant relative of a regular telephone, with a bloated riveted base covered in flashing lights. A thick piece of glass in its belly shielded a bright orange flame which was burning up a blob of strange material. There was a faint aroma of scorched linen.

There were two holes on the dial, one labelled ‘Yesterday’, the other ‘Tomorrow’.

I was amazed. ‘This is a phone… from the future?’

Dr. Janussen’s hand hovered over the heavy studded metal receiver. She looked suddenly pale. ‘It’s only for the direst of emergencies. On the end of that telephone line, one of us is calling from tomorrow.’

‘How is that possible? And don’t tell me there’s no time to explain right now.’

‘Well, there isn’t. I need to prepare myself. It must be something so terrible, so monumentally awful that—’

But Guuuurk had snatched up the receiver himself. ‘Hellllooooo? Yesterday here!’

‘Guuuurk – give that to me.’ Dr. Janussen held out her hand.

But the voice of another Guuuurk bled out of the speaker. ‘Hello handsome!’ it crooned. ‘Guuuurk Tomorrow here!’

‘Oh, how lovely to hear from you…’ Guuuurk eyed us leerily. ‘…Mother!’

Dr. Janussen tilted her head and folded her arms.

I heard the Future Guuuurk hiss: ‘Is the coast clear?’

‘No,’ Guuuurk offered me a counterfeit smile, ‘there are a couple of birds on the windowsill, actually.’

‘Guuuurk…’ Dr. Janussen sighed.

‘I’ll be quick, then,’ the Future Guuuurk said, ‘Put seven and sixpence each way on Dandy’s Lad, 3.30 at Haydock Park.’

Guuuurk’s smile remained completely fixed. ‘I’m sorry to hear your leg is still playing up, Mother.’

But Dr. Janussen had had enough of the feeble charade. ‘Guuuurk, we can hear you on the speaker. And we know it’s not your mother, because, as you never tire of telling us, you ate her at birth.’

‘What?’ Guuuurk fizzed with indignation. ‘Who is this? How dare you impersonate my sainted mother, you unspeakable cad?’ He slammed down the receiver in mock fury. ‘Some people!’

‘I can’t believe you’re using the Future Phone to give yourself racing tips.’

‘How else am I supposed to make ends meet?’

‘You know every call burns more of our dwindling supply of temporium 90.’

‘What’s temporium 90?’ I asked her.

‘It’s an incredibly rare natural precipitate of crystallised time. There’s only three and a half ounces in the world.’

‘Two and a half ounces now,’ Guuuurk corrected.

I struggled to understand what had just happened. ‘Hang on – Guuuurk, if that was you from the future, why didn’t he remember that Dr. Janussen and I could hear what he was saying?’

‘Brian, old chap, you’re not thinking this through,’ Guuuurk purred. ‘You see…’ A look of sudden confusion progressed through his six eyes like momentum through a Newton’s cradle. ‘Hang on, he’s right.’

Dr. Janussen frowned again. ‘The best explanation is: you were calling from an alternative future. Something happens over the next twenty-four hours that throws us off track and into a different timeline. You realise the horrible implications?’

‘Indeed I do!’ the Martian was aghast. ‘It means Dandy’s Lad may well lose at Haydock!’

‘And you’ve wasted a whole ounce of temporium.’

‘Nil desperandum.’ Guuuurk snatched up the phone again and dialled Yesterday. ‘I’ll just call my past self and warn him, i.e. me, not to take today’s call tomorrow.’ He grinned winningly. ‘Hello, it’s Mother here—’

Dr. Janussen snatched the phone away roughly and slammed it down. ‘That’s another half ounce squandered, you clot.’

I wrestled with the conundrum. ‘But surely if Guuuurk had persuaded Yester-him not to take the call today, then Tomorrow-he wouldn’t have had to make the call warning Today-him, and we wouldn’t have used any of it.’

There was a very long silence.

Eventually, Dr. Janussen said: ‘It’s not as simple as that.’

‘That was simple?’ Guuuurk wailed. ‘I’d hate to hear the complicated version.’

‘Every call creates a new time strand, a strand where the people who didn’t previously get the call, do get the call. The temporium is expended over all the strands simultaneously, therefore any strand using the temporium depletes the total store.’

There was an even longer silence.

Eventually, Guuuurk said, ‘I was right. I did hate hearing the complicated version.’

We all jumped as the phone started ringing again.

We stared at it. ‘So,’ I ventured, ‘do we answer that?’

Reluctantly, Dr. Janussen nodded. ‘We daren’t ignore it. It could be one of us calling with a critical warning.’ She raised the receiver. ‘Hello?’

And again we heard some version of Guuuurk on the end of the line. ‘Hello! Different Future Guuuurk here. I’m just calling to remind you not to answer this call. Otherwise you’ll be down to your last half ounce.’

And in the background on the other end, another Dr. Janussen interrupted: ‘Guuuurk? What are you doing? Please tell me you’re not calling yourself to warn yourself not to take the very call you’re making?’

‘Good point,’ Different Future Guuuurk agreed. ‘Ignore what I just said.’

The line went dead.

I noticed, with some trepidation, that Dr. Janussen’s ear had rotated ever so slightly.

‘You idiot!’ she snarled at Guuuurk. ‘There’s only enough temporium left for one more call now!’

The dreaded ratcheting noise was speeding up.

Guuuurk shot me a look that said: Look out! She’s about to blow!

‘Dr. Janussen, you’re unwinding,’ I ventured carefully. Not carefully enough.

‘Get out!’ she screeched. ‘You useless pair of rubber testicles!’

There really was no call for that sort of sailor talk. ‘B-but—’ I stammered.

‘GET OUT!’ she repeated. ‘I’ll do the report myself!’

‘I could just wind it up for you… Oh, ow! OK, we’ll be off then.’

‘And you, you six-eyed loon, stay away from this phone, or I’ll deck you!’

‘Understood, dear lady.’ Guuuurk snatched up his bag and hightailed for the door, and discretion being the better part of valour, I followed him. Very quickly.

We headed down the corridor towards the reception area, not running, exactly, but walking very briskly, and glancing over our shoulders.

‘Will she be all right?’ I asked, trying to stem the blood from my nose.

‘Oh, she’ll be fine. She’ll burn herself out and fall asleep as usual, and Jenkins will rewind her, safely.’

The aforementioned factotum was behind his desk, apparently counting biros. He eventually looked up. ‘Ah! Mr. Nylon. There’s a letter for you.’ He turned to the wall behind him. There was only one box, with a letter clearly protruding from it, but he made a great show of inspecting every inch of the wall before he ‘found’ it. ‘Ah! Here you go, sir.’

I tried not to snatch it from him. Who on earth would be writing me a letter?

Jenkins was looking at me oddly. But then, he tended to look at everyone oddly. He was odd. Mercifully, Guuuurk distracted him.

‘Jenkins, old fruit!’ the Martian cooed. ‘I’ve been meaning to have a word in your shell-like.’ He drew the janitor aside, and they began speaking in low voices I couldn’t make out. Clearly, some nefarious piece of commerce was being conducted. That suited me.

Turning away, I examined the envelope.

It was indeed addressed to me: ‘Mr. Brian Nylon, Professor Quanderhorn’s Secret Laboratory, Somewhere on the road to Carlisle’. I didn’t recognise the handwriting, but it was elegant, and executed in fountain pen.

Opening it quickly, I tugged out the missive inside.

It was a torn fragment from an Ordnance Survey map of the local area. The lab, of course, wasn’t marked (it never appeared on any map), but the quarry was there, and the old fever hospital within it. There was a hand-drawn ‘X’ in the middle of the nearby village, with the footpath from one to the other picked out in red, and a time. 10.30 a.m.

I considered requisitioning a vehicle, but, frankly, I didn’t want to face any awkward questioning from the nosy janitor. I’d established I was confoundedly bad at lying, and I didn’t want any suspicions raised.

I glanced at the clock behind the reception desk. It was already half past nine.

The village was a good three mile walk away. I had to hurry.

Chapter Eight

Booday the argth of Phobos, Martian Year 5972 Pink

Secret Report to Martian Command, by Guuuurk. Also known as ‘Guuuurk the Magnificent’, ‘Guuuurk the Bold’ and ‘Guuuurk the Bare-faced Liar’.

Having bribed Jenkins to turn a blind eye with a bottle of stout and three saucy postcards, I dabbed on some of the old distemper, fully deflated the noggin and taped closed four of my eyes with stamp hinges.

I admired the effect. Though I say so myself, I cut rather a handsome figure, not a million miles away from the young Dirk Bogarde.

I scurried out to the hut round the back of the septic tank, which I use as my secret garage, and there was the love of my life: my beautiful Morgan Plus 4 drophead sports coupé, Maureen, which I had obtained on ‘appro’ from a rather gullible inbred car salesman in the village. Topping up the tank with the amontillado, I hopped aboard, and sure enough, she started the fifteenth time, meaning my luck was in.

I roared off, my Biggin Hill NAAFI scarf flapping grandly behind me.

I coaxed the beauty around the rough winding country lanes, the sunlight glinting through the naked branches of the trees overhead. I hit a straight, and pushed down on the pedal. Maureen replied with an appreciative purr as she smoothly accelerated to top speed. It was a quite glorious January day, crisp and fresh. In a peculiar way, a lesser, more dishonourable Martian than myself might find himself beginning to feel very much at home here. But not me.

I double-declutched, slipped down into growling third, and powered on towards the village.

Chapter Nine

From the journal of Brian Nylon, 2nd January, 1952 – Iteration 66

I approached the village of Wytchdrowninge over the brow of a cobbled hill. It was a small but nevertheless horrible place.

It ought to have been a picture postcard sort of spot, but there was something off about it, something skew-whiffy I couldn’t quite put my finger on. There was a flock of large black sharp-billed birds I didn’t recognise perched along a telegraph wire. A small tanner’s workshop belched yellow sulphurous smoke which bit into every breath you drew. The front gardens of the cottages had dried, dead plants in them, and the pub was called The King’s Torso.

As I strolled down the hill quite warily, I passed a blacksmith hammering nails into a disgruntled horse. A hag-like old woman in a black shawl was entering Slaughter the Family Butchers, which had unidentifiable organs hanging on hooks in the window. An ugly baby in a pram was bawling outside a miserable-looking temperance bar, which had signs on the door reading: ‘Closed Evenings, Weekends and Holidays’ and ‘No Dancing’.

I relaxed somewhat to see a policeman on a corner, clipping the ear of a local urchin. He seemed to recognise me, and offered a nod.

I found myself saying, ‘Good afternoon, P.C. Mosely.’

I stopped. Now, how on earth had I known that? Could he have been the person who’d sent me the map? I was about to cross over to him when I heard a voice whose familiar gravelly timbre gave me pause.

‘Chestnuts!’ it cried. ‘Chestnuts! Buy my lovely hot chestnuts!’

I turned to see the corpulent street merchant at his smoking brazier. He was approached by an amiable fellow in a tweed cap who chirped, ‘I’ll have six penn’orth, please.’

‘Bugger off!’ Winston Churchill barked, brusquely dispatching the poor chap on his way.

‘Prime Minister!’ I hurried over. It was he who’d sent me the map.

‘Keep it down, Penetrator!’ the Great Man rumbled. ‘Don’t want to draw attention…’ A housewife passing by eyed us suspiciously, and he suddenly affected a pleasant, vendor-like tone to me. ‘Ah! So you’d like some of my chestnuts, sir? Would you prefer them on or off the bone?’ He suddenly seemed to lose faith in his rather dismal charade, and leant in again. ‘What the devil are chestnuts, anyway? Are they still alive?’

‘What are you doing here, sir?’ I felt terribly exposed. I really didn’t want word of this encounter getting back to anyone at the lab.

‘Communication lines are down all across the country, Penetrator. Something’s going on. And mark my words, that despicable scoundrel Quanderhorn is mixed up in it, somehow. What have you discovered?’

‘I haven’t found anything out at all yet, sir.’

‘Well, time is of the essence. Oceanic sinkholes, mountains decapitated – that insane scoundrel seems to think he can do whatever he pleases. He must be brought under control!’

The urchin had wandered up, rubbing his swollen ear. He fished some filthy coins out of his pocket and squeaked, ‘I’ll have thruppence worth, please, mister.’

‘Bugger off!’ the Prime Minister bellowed, cuffing the urchin’s other ear to make his point. The lad’s face quivered, and he raced off lest we see him cry.

‘We have to find out,’ Churchill continued unabashed, ‘why it’s perpetually 1952, and we believe the answer’s in the blaggard’s cellar. There’s something fearful down there. Something so evil and unspeakable it would render the bravest of souls a gibbering, mindless wreck. What we need is a man, a reckless and selfless hero who’s prepared to risk his life and even his very sanity for the love of his glorious country. And you are that stupid man.’

He didn’t actually say that last bit, but I definitely got the message.

The old woman, clutching a brown paper package drenched with blood from her recent purchase of chitterlings, offered a single coin. ‘I’ll have a penn’orth, please, sir.’

‘Bugger off!’ I shouted at the top of my voice. The poor old dear clasped a hand to her heart and opened her mouth in shock, though her teeth stayed firmly clamped. I fully expected her to expire on the spot, but she recovered and scuttled away.

‘I say, Penetrator,’ Churchill chided, ‘that was a bit rude.’

‘I’m terribly sorry,’ I blushed pathetically, ‘but you are asking me to break into the most terrifying and dangerous place on Earth. And then what am I supposed to do?’

‘Ahh! That’s when you employ our Secret Weapon. Here…’

He fumbled in the satchel that was slung over his shoulder and produced, to my astonishment, a live, brightly coloured and rather large bird.

‘That would appear to be a parrot,’ I said.

‘It looks like an ordinary parrot,’ Churchill smiled smugly, ‘but this one has a unique talent. Some of our top boffins have spent many, many weeks and thousands of pounds training him in the art of repetition.’

The Prime Minister seemed so thoroughly delighted with this scientific breakthrough I could hardly bear to break it to him.

‘Uhm… don’t all parrots repeat things?’

‘All parrots repeat things,’ the parrot said.

Churchill looked at the bird as if for the first time. ‘I need to fire some of our top boffins.’

‘So, assuming I survive the cellar, I use this parrot to report back?’

‘Yes. Simply teach it your secret message, and when released, it will immediately fly back to Downing Street and repeat to me whatever you taught it.’

‘Secret message,’ the bird squawked rather loudly. It had a rather defiant look in its eye. I was beginning to have my doubts about this parrot’s character.

At that moment, I heard a tinny wolf whistle car horn and turned to see Guuuurk parking a rather dilapidated old Ferguson-Brown Model A tractor across the road. ‘Prime Minister,’ I hissed, ‘that chap over there’s one of the Quanderhorn team.’

‘Quickly, then, Penetrator. And discreetly.’ He thrust the parrot at me.

I grabbed it, turned my back and started shoving it into my trouser pocket. The parrot resisted. Vigorously.

‘Awwwwk! We will fight them on the beaches, darkest hour!’

Churchill hissed, ‘Quickly, Penetrator!’

‘It’s a bit of a tight fit. And it keeps flapping around in there.’

‘Awwwwk! Don’t make me beg, Clemmie!’

‘The vicious fiend is trying to peck its way out again.’

The Prime Minister winced. ‘Apologies, but they’re still working on a smaller parrot.’

‘You mean… a budgerigar?’

Churchill frowned into the distance. ‘I may need to fire all of our top boffins.’

‘Waaaarrrk! Narrrzi apparatus!’

In the end, I had to resort to thrusting the cursed bird down the front of my pants, then tightening my trouser belt considerably so it couldn’t escape. It flapped and squawked mightily for several seconds, and then fell into an ominous calm.

‘By the way,’ Churchill warned, ‘it likes monkey nuts.’

He wasn’t wrong. It transpired the parrot had merely been positioning itself to launch its attack.

I scanned the street with gritted teeth and tears in my eyes. Had anybody spotted the exchange?

Guuuurk was now backing into the post office’s door. I’m pretty sure he’d seen nothing, as for some reason he was holding the ugly baby over his face.

For a brief moment, I felt I was actually getting quite good at this espionage malarkey, when several loud gunshots rang out. One of them hit me in the shoulder.

Through the pain, and with cat-like reactions, I spun round to shield the Prime Minister, only to find him gone, leaving behind, for some reason, the lingering smell of herring.

His abandoned brazier was blazing away unchecked, causing chestnuts to explode and fly hither and thither quite dangerously.

If you’ve ever tried to douse a dangerous fire with a hungry parrot imprisoned in your underwear, whilst simultaneously dodging exploding conkers and trying not to draw attention to yourself, you may begin to understand my difficulties at this point.

I finally got the disaster under control. Exhausted, bruised, reeking of smouldering tweed, and my poor jinglebells pitted with peck marks, I began to limp back to the complex.

I glanced up the street, and could have sworn I spotted Dr. Janussen walking (with a rather peculiar stumpy gait!) into the hairdresser’s, of all places. Curious. She hadn’t struck me as a preening sort of woman, and I’d thought she’d said she was staying at the lab. No, it definitely was her. Fortunately, her back was towards me. Still, I pulled my jacket lapels over my face instinctively as I passed the salon window. Which is why I didn’t notice the open drain till I fell down it.

Chapter Ten

Booday the argth of Phobos, Martian Year 5972 Pink

Secret Report to Martian Command, by Guuuurk [cont’d]

I parked up with a playful toot of the two-tone novelty horn, simulating a human ‘wolf whistle’, and instantly regretted it. Brian was on the other side of the road with a street vendor. He appeared to be buying a large coloured chicken for lunch. He’s a delightful chap, but absolutely rotten at lying. I really didn’t want him accidently blowing my cover with an ill-judged remark. Thinking quickly, I ducked behind a nearby water company warning sign, which bore the legend ‘DANGER! OPEN GRATE’, when I spotted Dr. Janussen crossing the road and heading for the hairdresser’s, which I realised to my horror was right behind me.

As luck would have it, at that precise moment everybody’s head turned towards the rather alarming sound of gunshots. It turned out merely to be chestnuts overheating on a brazier. This was my chance.

I glanced around and spotted a small pig someone had left in a rather ornate wheelbarrow nearby. I hurled the sign aside and snatched up the porker. Using it to hide my face, I backed carefully into the post office, triggering its delightful tinkling bell. I set down the piglet and smacked it to send it squealing on its way, then stepped up to the counter.

As usual, the repugnant old harpy, Mrs. Wiggonby the postmistress, was behind the counter in her moth-eaten wrap-over pinny. Normally, she would be gaily dangling envelopes over the spout of her merrily boiling kettle, but on this occasion she just seemed to be staring fixedly into the middle distance.

‘Hail, well met and good morning, Mrs. Wiggonby. And may I say, you’re looking particularly ravishing this morning.’

Now this sort of greeting would ordinarily spark a little bit of jolly flirtatious banter. But today, she merely rotated her head in my direction.

‘Good morning, sir,’ she said, rather slowly and in a dull monotone. ‘How can I help you?’

‘It’s me, Mrs. Wiggonby: Edith Sitwell.’

‘Oh, yes, of course, Mr. Sitwell,’ she said, but without a glint of recognition.

I peered at her more intently. Her eyes seemed rather glazed, and the pupils were dilated to an extraordinary extent. ‘Doris, are you feeling all right?’

‘I have never felt more perfect in my life,’ she said oddly, in the same monotone.

I shrugged. I would never completely understand Terraneans, and never, ever their unfathomable females. ‘Glad to hear it. Now, I was wondering: I see you sell Air Mail letters and registered letters, but do you have any French letters?’ I raised my top two eyebrows hopefully.

But she merely responded: ‘Would you like to see my glowing meteorite, Mr. Sitwell?’

Ah! So we were back to the flirting. Clearly, that was some sort of saucy human innuendo. However, it would be caddish to lead the poor homely creature on. ‘I should tell you, Doris—’ I smiled kindly ‘—I do prefer my women to be very slightly less repulsive.’

‘I really think you ought to see my glowing meteorite. It’s just around the back here. It’s quite magnificent.’

Clearly, she’d not taken my subtle hint. ‘I’m sure it is, old thing, but, er, I am in rather a hurry this morning…’ I backed out towards the door. ‘So nice to have seen you…’

Then, through the door pane I spotted the Professor over the road, angrily peeling Troy off a large strip of flypaper in the fishmonger’s window. Strange. Hadn’t he said he was going to stay in his office? I couldn’t risk him learning I was out of the compound. Again. The only other egress was through the rear. This of course meant taking up Mrs. Wiggonby’s rather frightening offer. Whatever it was.

‘On the other hand, perhaps I will just take a quick look at this glowing meteorite of yours.’ There was no getting out of it now.

The old trout led me through the multicoloured plastic strips that dangled from the back door frame. I must admit to a certain degree of trepidation. It may come as a tremendous shock to my legion of Martian admirers that Guuuurk the Rampantly Fecund had scant knowledge of Terranean reproduction rituals. Which is to say, none at all. I got into a terrible lather that I had insufficient food supplies about me, and absolutely no murdered flora whatsoever. Moreover, my one and only dancing lesson had been a complete fiasco, when Jenkins and I spent the entire session arguing over which of us should have brought the record player.

‘I think I should warn you,’ I declared, ‘I’ve never done this before. I do hope you’ll take that into account…’

We stepped out into a small backyard. I was surprised to see it was crowded with villagers. All of them stared at my arrival. ‘Good heavens!’ I said. ‘This is socially awkward…’

And then there was a sound. I’ve made quite a study of Earth music – the enjoyment of which still eludes me – and this series of harmonic waveforms was indubitably extraterrestrial.

The non-music was issuing from a large rock embedded in the shrubbery, which was pulsing with dazzlingly coloured light.

Mrs. Wiggonby’s voice descended to a deeply booming timbre. ‘Look deep into the glow, Mr. Sitwell. We want you to be One of Us.’

Slowly, quietly at first, the assembled villagers began to chant in similar low-pitched resonance: ‘One of Us… One of Us…’

I stared into the strangely beguiling luminosity. It seemed to be calling to me. Beckoning… beckoning…

‘One of Us…’ they chanted, ‘One of Us…’

Chapter Eleven

The Rational Scientific Journal of Dr. Gemini Janussen, Wednesday 2nd January 1952 (Again)

Jenkins gently awoke me from my nap. I must confess, I don’t recall having dropped off, but we’ve all been working long hours recently. I was surprised to find I was in my room. Normally it’s an extremely efficient, if somewhat spartan affair, but someone, for reasons unknown, had placed jars of sickly scented flowers everywhere. Moreover, there were fragrant candles burning on the mantelpiece, and cushions – hundreds of cushions – scattered over every horizontal surface. I loathe cushions. What are they for? Where did they come from?

Even more peculiarly, there was a note by my telephone indicating I’d booked an appointment at the hairdresser’s, of all things. What a pointless waste of time! Still, it was too late to cancel, and rather than pay for nothing, I decided to take my motor scooter into the village.

When I took it out of the garage, I discovered to my intense horror that during the past week some practical ‘joker’ had sprayed the entire thing pink. Was there never any end to the oh-so ‘amusing’ japes the adolescent males got up to in this place?

I parked the gaudy vehicle in the woods at the top of the hill, and hid it with bracken. I certainly wasn’t going to be seen arriving in the village on such an eyesore.

It was only when I stepped onto the cobbles that I realised I was wearing high heels. I would never choose such an impractical item of ludicrous foot torture. I didn’t even know where they’d come from.

I simply snapped the heels off and made my way as best I could down towards the hair salon.

I can’t say I was surprised to see Guuuurk arrive in his rather unconvincing ‘human’ disguise, and his even less convincing ‘sports car’. He sounded his juvenile ‘wolf whistle’ horn and leapt out of his rusting wreck as if he genuinely were a jet set playboy jumping from an Aston Martin convertible.

He spotted me, I think, but clearly didn’t want to be seen himself, because he quickly ducked behind a road sign, and skulked there for a while. I was about to go over and order him back to the lab with a flea in his ear, when I heard a series of small explosions. I turned to the source, and there was Brian, one of his sleeves on fire, trying to douse a small conflagration in a chestnut brazier. Really, he is the most useless article imaginable.

When I turned back, Guuuurk had vanished.

I scanned the street to see where he might be lurking, when I was surprised to spot Q. himself outside the fishmonger’s. I considered hailing him, but he was staring vacantly into the distance, clearly lost in thought, as was often his wont. Then I heard Troy calling in some sort of panic from inside the shop. Hardly surprising – it rarely took Troy more than a couple of minutes to find himself in intractable trouble, whatever he was trying to do. Hardly bothering to rouse himself from his reverie, the Professor slowly turned and marched inside.

I glanced at the church clock. I had no time for these shenanigans. I had an appointment to keep.

Marcia was just putting the finishing touches to my trim, when her niece, Minnie, burst through the door in rather a blue funk. ‘Hey up, Dr. Janussen! They said you was in here. There’s some very queer doings over at t’post office.’

‘Queer how?’

‘People’s goin’ in there, and they en’t comin’ out again.’

‘Well.’ I pulled off my bib and stood up. ‘We’d best take a look, hadn’t we?’

Chapter Twelve

From the journal of Brian Nylon, 2nd January, 1952 – Iteration 66

Hampered by my injuries, it took me the best part of an hour to heave myself out of the disgustingly slimy drain without further damaging the parrot buried down my underpants. On top of which, just as I had finally hauled myself almost to the top of the slippery shaft, I heard Quanderhorn walking past.

He was saying something about ‘growing meat and the like’ in his deep voice. Surely those unidentifiable organs dangling in the butcher’s window couldn’t have been the discarded by-products of the professor’s liver-substitute experiments? I resolved to become a vegetarian. And then I remembered his vegetable experiments and despaired.

Suddenly I caught a glimpse of Troy’s distinctive cowboy boots passing right next to my eye, and had to duck back down again into the slurry.

Eventually I emerged, unobserved, and staggered to my feet, muttering a string of words I wouldn’t demean this journal by recording. Whereupon, in the best tradition of one of Mr. Ben Travers’ hilarious Aldwych farces, I turned to find myself face to face with a vicar.

‘Oh, bugger!’ the parrot said.

I grinned weakly at the kindly old clergyman, who seemed nonetheless unrattled. ‘Oh, it’s Mr. Nylon,’ he beamed. ‘Would you like to come with me behind the post office and see the glowing meteorite?’

Well, that seemed a peculiar question. ‘Uhhhm, that’s very kind of you, Vicar, but I’m afraid I have to be running along. Perhaps another time?’

He put a surprisingly firm hand on my shoulder. ‘I really think we should do it now, together, my son.’

I’d read about this kind of thing in the yellow press, so I tugged myself free and stepped briskly away, almost colliding with the old woman who’d tried to buy chestnuts.

‘Pardon me, young man. Would you help me?’

I restrained the impulse to give her the Scout salute. (Now, that was one I did know: three fingers!) ‘Yes, of course.’

‘Just take my hand and guide me to the post office to see the glowing meteorite.’

There was something odd going on here, which I couldn’t quite get to the bottom of in my mind. I thanked the old biddy profusely and made more excuses. But before I’d gone two steps, the ear-tweaked urchin jumped in my path and shouted, ‘Here, Mister – gan wi’ us to t’post office and have a goosey at yon shiny rock.’

‘Ha ha,’ I fake-laughed, ‘scallywag!’ and ruffled his hair just a tad too violently. I felt a sharp tug at my trouser cuffs. The fat, ugly baby was gumming my turn-ups.

It released me for a second, looked up, and said, ‘Goo goo muh-muh meteorite,’ then tucked into my cavalry twill again. I glanced behind me. There were a dozen or so more villagers lurching towards me in a curious, stomping half-march, as if possessed. I shuffled free of the infant and started walking briskly.

Heart in my mouth, I gradually quickened my pace, glancing over my shoulder constantly, and unwittingly ran straight into the back of another villager. Mercifully, it was good old P.C. Mosely.

He turned to me with concern. ‘Why, Mr. Nylon! Whatever is the matter?’

‘I’m sorry, officer, something rather curious seems to be happening to those villagers.’

He looked at them with narrowed eyes and lowered his voice. ‘Yes, sir. Deeply suspicious indeed. I’ve had my eye on them for some time now. It’s my opinion they’ve been possessed by some kind of alien intelligence.’

‘Yes. I’m afraid that’s what I was thinking, too. The poor devils.’

‘Poor devils indeed, sir. Perhaps it would be wise…’ he snapped a handcuff over my wrist, as his voice began to drop in tone, ‘…if you accompanied me to the post office to see the glowing meteorite.’ He clunked the other cuff firmly over his own wrist.

The mob was beginning to chant: ‘One of Us… One of Us…’

There were scores of them now, lurching towards me, their inhuman eyes staring, staring…

Chapter Thirteen

From the journal of Brian Nylon, 2nd January, 1952 – Iteration 66

Instinctively, I knocked the P.C. out with a single blow from my free hand.

I have no idea where that instinct came from, and felt vaguely ashamed of it. It seemed unpredictably violent for me, but predictably stupid. I now had to escape the lumbering mob whilst dragging behind me the dead weight of a rather corpulent village constable.

It was the world’s slowest ever chase.

Slowly, and mostly backwards, I hastened at a ponderous crawl up past the fishmonger’s and, finally, one desperate heave at a time, the temperance bar next door.

Sweating heavily, I looked back. I’d managed to gain a few precious seconds on the horde – just enough time to clumsily manhandle the unconscious seventeen stone copper I was toting into the conveniently empty pram parked outside.

I began to push it up the hill, barely eluding the grasping lunges of the chanting pack.

I was making much better time, but the pram creaked and moaned with its grotesquely adipose load over the clattering cobbles. I could feel every bump and divot transmitted directly via the rattling handles to my teeth, which were gritted in fear and resolve. Well, to be honest, just fear.

By the time I’d finally put enough distance between me and the mob to rest for a moment, I’d earned quite a ferocious headache, which wasn’t helped by the incessant stream of profanities being squawked from my flies. I started to dig through P.C. Mosely’s pockets for the handcuff key.

A cluster of furred-up boiled sweets, a whistle, a notebook, a plastic fried egg, three bicycle clips – why three? What on earth does he do with the extra one? – a well-licked pencil…

‘One of Us… One of Us…’

Come on! A curly sandwich. Very curly. When I held it up to my ear I swear I could hear the sea. A handcuff key, a packet of three Player’s Weights – perhaps he used the third clip around his arm to keep his sleeve up. But then, what about the other arm? – a box of Puck matches, a warrant card with a rather threadbare cover – did he keep a spare bicycle clip for a friend? Ooh! Wasn’t it something to do with the Freemasons? Didn’t they wear a special – Hang on there. Hadn’t I said ‘handcuff key’? But where had it gone? I must have put it some where.

‘One of Us… One of Us…’ Loud now.

What was that rattling in the sandwich? No – just a cockroach… Cockroach? Aghhhh! Wait, yes, there was the key, glinting between those cobbles!

I scooped it up, jabbed it in the lock and twisted feverishly. The rabble was almost upon me. There was a click that sounded to me like the sweet clarion trumpet of the heavenly host and I was free!

The possessed P.C. was starting to come round. He made a grab for my wrist, but he was still groggy, and I unnecessarily punched him in the face again. Who the devil was I?

There was a disturbing humming noise. I spun round to see, with alarm, some of the villagers rolling the meteorite in front of them. As it drew closer, I could hear a kind of unearthly music emanating from it, which seemed to be seeping into my brain.

I turned the pram around and sent it hurtling into my pursuers, scattering them like bar skittles.

I hared off up the hill, over the brow and into the nearby woods. Almost immediately I stumbled and fell over a hard metal object concealed by bracken and fronds. A pink motor scooter!

What an unlucky and cruel twist of fate. Any other colour on the planet and I could have ridden it home!

I picked myself up and stumbled on into the unforgiving wood. The path would have been easier, but this way was more direct. And wet. And thorny. And painful.

The sounds of the mob began to fade behind me. Those poor souls!

There was only one way to prevent this nightmare.

And that was to stop it before it happened in the first place.

Chapter Fourteen

From the journal of Brian Nylon, 2nd January, 1952 – Iteration 66

With shattered nerves and shredded clothes, I staggered into the lab reception. Jenkins was scrutinising some kind of report. He pretended not to notice me for a few moments. Then, unexpectedly, he exhaled a sudden cloud of smoke and surreptitiously slipped a pinched out dimp behind his ear with a smooth, practised movement. Only then did he look up.

‘Mr. Nylon, sir!’ He hiked his moustache. ‘You’ve got yourself in quite a state, there.’

‘There’s no time to explain, Jenkins.’ I raced down the corridor to the room with the Future Phone. I tried the handle. Locked, of course. I banged on the armoured door in frustration.

Jenkins ambled up behind me.

‘I need the key to this room immediately!’ I yelled.

Jenkins sucked air in through his teeth. ‘Sorry, Mr. Nylon, Dr. Janussen left strict instructions in that regard. She said: “On absolutely no account are those two brainless tur—”’

‘This is an emergency!’ I rattled the handle impotently.

‘It’s no good you trying to get in, sir, she’s got the key with her.’

There came a loud, rude word from my private quarters.

Jenkins coughed and nodded down.

The damned parrot had pecked open my fly buttons! Its multicoloured head was protruding, looking very pleased with itself, I must say. In fact, as I stared at it, its crest slowly raised in delight.

Jenkins ostentatiously averted his eyes. ‘Perhaps you’d like to “adjust your dress”, sir.’

I stuffed the bird rudely back inside and pinched the gap closed with my fingers. ‘Jenkins – I want you to forget what you’ve just seen.’

‘Believe me, sir, I’m trying to.’

My mind swirled through the remaining options. There weren’t many. ‘Right! We’ll have to use the ordinary phone. I need to speak to Downing Street immediately.’

This was one of those moments Jenkins lives for. He shook his head, but couldn’t shake the smile from under his tash. ‘I’m very much afraid, sir, the ordinary phone lines went down with the meteorite storm. And, before you ask, the two-way radio is jammed with what I can only describe as “an unearthly static”.’

‘Jenkins, listen carefully: that was no commonplace meteorite storm.’

‘I’m well aware, sir. This is the information the Professor asked for.’ He produced the report from the Telemergency Print-O-Gram machine he’d just been perusing. ‘By a hextraordinary coincidence, meteorites landed behind every single post office in the country.’

I grabbed the sheet and scanned it. This was worse than I could have dreamt. Except, possibly, for that dream about Winston Churchill dressed as a Lyons’ Corner House waitress – which, come to think of it now, may not have been a dream after all. I stuffed it in my jacket.

This was an invasion, nothing more or less. Unless I could come up with something fast, the entire human race was in peril. But what?

A razor sharp bill suddenly embedded itself in my thigh. Of course – the parrot! ‘Wait out here, Jenkins! There may still be one last chance.’ I raced into the gentlemen’s washroom and locked the door.

I manhandled the parrot out of my trousers and held it firmly so it faced me. It regarded me coldly, the steel of defiance still glinting in its eye.

‘OK, parrot: this is your moment. I’ve got to get this warning to the Government.’

‘Awwwwk!’

‘Here’s the message…’

The parrot looked at me. ‘Here’s the message…’ it repeated.

‘No, that’s not the message.’

‘No, that’s not the message.’

Clearly, this was not going to be a straightforward procedure. ‘No! Stop! The message will start… now.’

The parrot looked at me again. ‘The message will start now.’

‘God give me strength.’

‘God give me…’

‘Shut up!’

‘Shut up!’

‘No, you shut up!’

‘No, you shut up!’

I bit my lip. I was arguing with an echo. This wasn’t getting me anywhere. Obviously, I needed to go straight to the message without saying anything else. I cleared my throat. The parrot cleared his.

‘Don’t go to the post office.’

The parrot considered this very carefully, and then said: ‘No, you shut up!’

‘No, you shut up!’

‘No, you shut up!’

I was doing it again! Damn this parrot! Infuriating little… I tried again. ‘Don’t go to the post office.’

‘No, that’s not the message.’

‘Yes it is! It is the bloody message!’

‘God give me strength.’

I composed myself and tried one last time.

‘Don’t go to the post office.’

There a very long silence. The parrot mulled it over. It put its head on one side and said: ‘Go to the post office.’

‘No no no no no no no! That’s the very opposite! Listen. Now listen very carefully. We’ll do it one word at a time: Don’t…’

‘Don’t…’

‘Go…’

‘Go…’

‘To…’

‘To…’

‘The…’

‘The…’

‘Post…’

‘Post…’

‘Office.’

A glint of comprehension dawned in the parrot’s eye. He puffed out his chest feathers, and in a confident tone declaimed, ‘Go to the post office.’

I’m afraid at that point my patience ran out, and I made it rather brutally clear to the parrot what his options were.

There was a discreet knock on the door, and Jenkins called, ‘Is everything all right, sir? Only, I heard a lot of hideously tortured squawking going on in there.’

‘Out in a minute, Jenkins!’ I held up the hopefully chastened bird. ‘Right, this is your last chance, Buster. Don’t go to the post office.’

‘Don’t go to the post office.’

‘No no no… hang on, though. What?’

‘Don’t go to the post office.’

‘Yes, yes. That’s it! You beauty! I could kiss you!’

The bird was extremely pleased with itself. It started bobbing its head up and down and repeating very excitedly: ‘Go to the post office! Go to the post office! Go to the post office! Go to the post office…’

Clearly, this was hopeless. I had no option but to stuff the wretched creature back in my trousers. Serve him right, too.

The obstreperous janitor was waiting outside, pretending he hadn’t been listening at the door.

‘Jenkins! Any second now, an angry possessed mob of villagers is going to swarm up that road…’

Jenkins rolled his eyes. ‘Oh, not again.’

‘I’ll try and hold them off for as long as I can. In the meantime…’

I scribbled out a note as best I could on a sheet of Izal:

I handed it to him. ‘You’ve got to get this to the Prime Minister somehow.’

Jenkins took the note and openly read it, which I considered rather disrespectful. ‘Very good, sir. I’ll slip out the back gate…’

He hastened out of a nearby side door, as my mind raced ahead. Would the Professor’s security devices be sufficient to keep out a violent mob? And if not…? My thoughts were abruptly interrupted by a familiar voice, but with a rather dark and unusual tone.

‘Hello, Brian.’

I turned. It was the Martian.

Chapter Fifteen

From the journal of Brian Nylon, 2nd January, 1952 – Iteration 66

I smiled, but the grin rather froze on my face. ‘Guuuurk – didn’t I see you going into the post office?’ I asked as casually as I could. ‘Did they happen to show you the glowing meteorite at all?’

‘Yes, they did. It’s rather…’ The Martian paused. Various eyes opened and closed so rapidly his face looked like a pinball machine. ‘Oh I see,’ he finally concluded. ‘You’re “One of Us”?’

Damn! He’d been turned!

I had no choice but to pretend they’d got me as well. ‘Yes… I am… One of Us.’

‘And so am I.’

We looked at each other uneasily. There was a long, embarrassing silence.

‘Shall we do the chant?’ Guuuurk suggested.

‘I suppose so,’ I reluctantly conceded. Neither of us seemed eager to chant first, so I rather feebly attempted to take the lead. ‘One of Us… One of Us…’

Guuuurk joined in in a rather cursory fashion, before breaking off apologetically. ‘I’m not very good at the chanting, actually.’

‘No, neither am I.’

‘We’ll take it as read, shall we?’

That was a relief. ‘I am looking for the Earthling Dr. Janussen,’ I lied as best I could, ‘to, uhm, stop her using the Future Phone to warn Yesterday-us not to go to the post office tomorrow. Today. Do you know where she is?’

‘I’m right behind you, Brian.’

I wheeled around, shocked. ‘Dr. Janussen!’

Guuuurk seemed similarly taken aback. ‘Gemma! Did you hear what we were just saying? At all?’

Her eyes took us both in for a moment, then her voice seemed to take on a deeper timbre. ‘Every word. But have no fear – I am also One of Us.’

This was a terrible, terrible blow. The beautiful, brilliant Dr. Janussen subsumed by an alien intelligence – perhaps forever! I should have realised there was something amiss when I’d seen her curious lumbering walk in the village. I had to struggle to wrestle the emotions from my face.

I was about to speak, when Professor Quanderhorn himself stepped forward out of the shadows and boomed, ‘I am also One of Us.’

I couldn’t help myself. Before I could stop them, the words ‘Oh, Rats!’ had fled my mouth.

The others turned towards me as one. ‘Perhaps I got the Earthling expression wrong,’ I squirmed. ‘I mistakenly thought rats were good things. I meant to imply I was just so utterly delighted the Professor is another One of Us.’

Quanderhorn nodded. ‘Troy is also One of Us, aren’t you, Troy?’

Troy stepped out of the shadows himself. ‘Actually, I don’t feel any different. But if you say so, Pops.’

So. My worst fears had been made manifest.

Everyone had been taken over except me.

Chapter Sixteen

Booday the argth of Phobos, Martian Year 5972 Pink

From the Secret Report to Martian Command, by Guuuurk. Also known as ‘Guuuurk the Intelligent’, ‘Guuuurk the Mighty’ and ‘Guuuurk the Sartorially Superior’.

Everyone had been taken over except me.

Obviously the dreary meteorite hypnotism couldn’t possibly work on my superior Martian brain, but I’d cunningly managed to dupe the rather simple-minded zombies behind the post office into believing I had been converted. As soon as the tedious chanting really got going, I made my excuses and left. I succeeded in starting Maureen in a lightning-fast twenty-three minutes, teased her up to almost 12 mph, foot flat down, and zipped out of town like wax off a floozy’s hairpin.[6]

Encountering Brian alone in reception, I realised just in the nick of time that he, too, had been ‘absorbed’. Unsurprisingly, it quickly emerged that the entire useless so-called ‘Invasion Prevention Team’ had fallen to the same device. How these sorry nincompoops ever managed to beat off the might of Mars on three consecutive occasions is a mystery wrapped in an enigma, folded up in a conundrum and stuffed inside a paper hat. With ‘I don’t know’ written on the front in brown crayon.

It was child’s play persuading the alien Brian that I was also ‘absorbed’. But maintaining the subterfuge now all four of them were possessed was going to prove very trying and extremely dangerous.

‘Oh!’ I exclaimed. ‘We’re all One of Us, then. How lovely!’

There was a rather worrying pause. I broke the silence by suggesting we tried the chant again, but alien Brian mercifully demurred. ‘I’m afraid I have to go off now…’ he declared, ‘and do… evil alien… thingumabobs. Gemma Alien, could I possibly have the key to the Future Pho—’

‘Stay where you are, dammit!’ the alien Quanderhorn barked. ‘I sense that one of us is not One of Us.’

I heroically resisted wetting myself. ‘Are you saying one of us is… One of Them?’

‘There’s only one way to root out the imposter,’ Quanderhorn insisted. ‘Extreme physical violence.’

‘Good idea,’ I said quickly. ‘I’m sensing it’s Brian.’

The alien Brian looked shocked. ‘No, it isn’t,’ he stammered.

‘That’s just what Not One of Us would say,’ I cleverly countered, ‘if he was One of Them.’

‘Very well, let’s see.’ Quanderhorn turned grimly to Troy. ‘Punch Brian in the face.’

The lad seemed confused. ‘Won’t that hurt him?’

‘Exactly the point. If he’s truly One of Us,’ alien Quanderhorn said, ‘he will feel no pain.’

‘Actually,’ alien Brian squirmed, ‘I turned my ankle earlier, and oooh… no pain at all. Just nothing. So it’s obviously not—’

Troy punched him in the face.

‘Ow! H… owwww did you not hurt me, Alien Troy, when you punched me so viciously hard?’ A rather large and painful-looking bruise seemed to be swelling across his jaw.

I could see Quanderhorn was about to shift his attention towards me. Thinking fast, I yelled: ‘Let’s try kicking Brian in the shins.’

‘Uhm…’ Brian started to protest, so I had no choice but to quickly deliver the first vicious boot myself. The others joined in enthusiastically.

I could have sworn Brian’s eyes glazed over, but obviously, I was imagining it.

‘Ahddnngg! Unnnghhh! Ha ha ha,’ he screeched with an unconvincing half-laugh. ‘See? If that had hurt at all, I wouldn’t be able to dance a hornpipe now, would I?’

He staggered forward, took a single step and immediately fell over. He started flailing about on the floor humming a sea shanty. ‘See? I think Guuuurk’s the traitor! It’s definitely Guuuurk, not me.’

Quanderhorn picked up a sturdy wooden chair and handed it to alien Gemma. ‘We have to be sure. Break this over his head.’

‘All right! All right! I admit it!’ Brian confessed. ‘I’m a human, and proud of it. I was playing for time. And it worked! Ha ha. Jenkins is warning London as we speak. So do your worst, you filthy alien swine.’

Bravely, and without any thought for my personal safety, I interposed myself between the evil aliens and Brian, and made my heroic stand. ‘You’re not alone, Brian, for I, too, am One of Them. If any of you despicable alien fiends want him, you’re going to have to come through me.’ I struck my sensei Shaku-wocky fighting stance and defied them to make a move.[7]

Chapter Seventeen

The Rational Scientific Journal of Dr. Gemini Janussen, Wednesday January 2nd 1952 (Again)

Guuuurk fell to his knees and grovelled disgustingly before the possessed Q., tears running down all his cheeks. ‘All right! All right! I was immune to the meteorite! Please, I beg you, don’t inflict the extreme violence on me. I’ll do anything to help you conquer this planet… or my planet. Mars is ripe for the picking. We’re all useless fighters anyway. Our Death Rays don’t even work! Just don’t hurt me.’

I resisted the temptation to break the chair over his head.

Personally, I’d never even made it to the post office. Just crossing the street, I’d been approached by five different villagers, obviously in some hypnotic fugue state, who’d tried to insist I look at their wretched meteorite. Clearly, it was no ordinary space debris: it was some kind of extraterrestrial life form bent on exerting its deadly thrall on humanity. I could see only one chance to save life on Earth – to get back to the lab and call Yesterday-us with a dire warning.

I found it rather shocking to overhear that both Brian and Guuuurk had apparently been taken over. Swallowing the key to the Future Phone was pure rationality – who knows what havoc these demons might wreak with such a device!

But, now with Guuuurk and Brian both unmasked, the situation was altered: we humans outnumbered the aliens.

I stepped forward. ‘You may as well know, I didn’t look at the meteorite, either.’

Brian started hauling himself unsteadily to his feet. ‘Dr. Janussen!’ he grinned stupidly, ‘Gemma! You’re – you! How very marvellous!’

Q. sighed. ‘And so am I. Troy also.’

Brian wrinkled his brow. ‘So… none of us was ever “One of Us”? But I saw you and Troy in the village, Professor.’

‘We’d gone to examine the nearest meteorite, but it soon became apparent it was dangerous to approach it. When I saw you’d all been subsumed, my plan was to get you to knock yourselves out one by one. I’m afraid this required a certain amount of creative deception.’

‘And I didn’t mean a word of what I said just now about being a miserable snivelling traitor.’ Guuuurk patted down his trousers to clean the knees. ‘Ha ha. I bet you completely fell for it!’

Troy smiled. ‘I’ve no idea what’s going on. But I quite liked kicking Brian.’

‘Sorry, Brian, no offence,’ Guuuurk apologised. ‘But actually it was surprisingly enjoyable.’

Brian plonked himself into a chair and winced. ‘At least we don’t have to do that appalling chant again.’

At which precise moment, we heard it, from outside the walls:

‘One of Us… One of Us…’

Barely audible at first, but getting inexorably louder. Of course, the inevitable klaxon sounded and the announcement we’d been dreading came over the tannoy.

‘Angry mob storming the outer compound! Engaging primary security protocols.’

‘Not to worry,’ the Professor snapped. ‘We’ll simply call Yesterday-us on the Future Phone, and tell them the dire—’

‘I’ve swallowed the key,’ I confessed. ‘Don’t all look at me like that. I thought you were all alien invaders. It was the only expedient course of action.’

‘Not to worry.’ The Professor was unfazed. ‘Nylon has the situation covered. Good old reliable Jenkins will have delivered the message to London. He should be back here, according to my calculations…’ He pulled out a slide rule and fiddled about with it ‘…assuming he took his usual bicycle and didn’t get a flat… He’ll be here…’

Jenkins burst back in through the side door, panting and sweaty. ‘I done it, sirs!’

‘…any moment…’

‘I delivered the message!’

‘…now!’ Quanderhorn looked up. ‘Jenkins,’ he scolded, ‘you’re early’.

‘I greased the chain yesterday, sir.’

‘Well, why didn’t you tell me, dammit? How am I supposed to calculate anything properly when you’re randomly adjusting parameters all over the place, willy-nilly?’

‘I didn’t know it was a parameter, sir. It just looked like a normal chain.’

It beggars belief. There was a baying crowd of alien invaders outside, and these useless males were bickering about bicycle components. I steered the conversation back to sanity. ‘Hadn’t we better turn on the wireless?’

‘Angry mob penetrating outer defences!’

‘And hadn’t we better do it quickly?’

‘Excellent thought, Dr. Janussen. Jenkins – take the largest forklift truck to warehouse number nineteen and load up Gargantua – the portable Quanderadio. And a very long lead.’

‘Or,’ I suggested, ‘we could just use the set in the briefing room.’

‘Almost as good, Dr. Janussen. Almost as good.’

I arrived first, immediately tuned into the Home Service and twisted up the volume. The reassuring honeyed tones of the BBC announcer filled the room:

Horrified, I twiddled the tuner to another station. Radio Paris:

I zipped through the medium wave:

A dark cloud was forming on Quanderhorn’s brow. ‘Jenkins? Did you send that message by telegram?’

‘I did, sir.’

‘And where did you go to send that telegram?’

‘Why, the post office, of course.’ A strange, cold grin bled over the janitor’s features as his voice descended below the depths of human pitch. ‘And soon, you will all be One of Us.’

Chapter Eighteen

The Rational Scientific Journal of Dr. Gemini Janussen, Wednesday 2nd January 1952 (Again) [cont’d]

It’s extraordinary to record at this moment that throughout all of this protracted situation none of the men, not a single one of them, had mentioned my rather striking new haircut. Not that I wanted them to, of course, but the sheer poverty of their observational facilities never ceased to amaze me.

For the record, and not that it matters in any way, I’d elected to have a Doris Day bob, because it was the most efficient style on offer. The sheer expediency of it, by coincidence, also subtly flattered my oval face, which I’d have thought would have been apparent to all. Clearly, I was wrong. Again, not that it matters. Frankly, this was not the time to be concerned with such piffling trivia. I can’t think why it had crossed my mind. My hand went up instinctively to my right ear. I’ve no idea why – what an odd thing to do!

The alien who had hijacked Jenkins had produced from his pocket what appeared to be a banana, and was holding us at bay with it, as if it were a gun.

‘Stay where you are. You will all be absorbed shortly.’

‘I say, Jenkins.’ Brian sidled forward with a rather unconvincing nonchalance. ‘Ha! You chaps have a lot to learn about our Earth weapons.’ He leapt and made a grab for the banana, which emitted a bright electric arc, repelling the foolhardy idiot across the room into the back wall with a rather sickening thud.

‘You’ve a lot to learn about our weapons,’ the Jenkins monster crowed. ‘Ho ho ho.’ He looked up, as if receiving a telepathic signal. Clearly he was operating as a component in some sort of hive intellect. ‘We are approaching the main gates. Soon you will be subsumed.’

Q. barked: ‘Delores, seal the main gates!’

‘Sealing main gates now.’

‘That should hold them for a few hours.’

‘Crowd broken through main gates.’

I heard a loud crash in the distance, and the chant suddenly grew in volume and, distressingly, fervour.

‘Dammit!’ Q. thumped the desk. ‘What idiot thought it was a good idea to install chocolate gates?’

That person, of course, was him. He’d claimed he could make them stronger than vanadium steel. We’d all had our doubts after the caramel submarine disaster.

‘Ho ho ho,’ the Jenkins alien laughed mirthlessly. ‘A little thing like chocolate gates can’t stop us!’

I estimated the marauding horde would achieve total incursion within seven minutes and thirteen seconds, with a probability of.97 recurring they would ingest us into their collective.

Guuuurk’s voice almost reached dog whistle pitch. ‘Chocolate gates! Chocolate gates! What were we expecting? An attack by Hansel and Gretel? What’s the next line of defence? A wall of meringues? A marzipan drawbridge over a pink blancmange moat?’

The alien waved his banana tauntingly. ‘It’ll take more than confectionery fortifications to stop us.’

Q. rounded on him with a cunning expression. ‘What will it take then, Jenkins?’

The human part of Jenkins was clearly battling his alien interloper, because he hesitated just an instant – the sound of His Master’s Voice had somehow got through to him – but the alien regained control. ‘You can’t trick us with your intellectual shenanigans, Professor! We’ll never let on about the music.’ The alien’s face twitched in irritation. Bravo, Jenkins! He’d managed to slip us a clue!

Brian had hauled himself back into the fray. ‘What does he mean, musi—’ He stopped and stared at me rather unnervingly. ‘I say, Dr. Janussen, have you changed your hair?’

Typical shallow male! How could he be thinking about such trivialities at a moment like this?

‘You’ve had it cut, haven’t you?’

I sighed. Might as well get the nonsense out of the way. ‘Well, yes, if you must know.’

‘It’s rather fetching.’

‘I don’t care.’ I waited. No doubt this conversation was going to drag on for some considerable while, ranging over various irrelevant aspects of my appearance. I waited a little longer. And a little bit more. Nothing!

‘And now,’ the Jenkins creature waved his bizarre weapon at us, ‘if you’d all like to queue up politely, it’ll be quicker to absorb you into the hybrid swarm.’

Q. closed his eyes wearily. ‘Troy – push that idiot into the broom cupboard and bolt it shut.’

‘OK, Pops!’

Jenkins pulled a lopsided grin. ‘You can try, sir, but you’ll find I have the strength of ten—’

The banana weapon was snapped in half and the alien was in the broom cupboard quicker than wax off a floozy’s hairpin.[8]

‘Oh. Well done, Master Troy.’ Jenkins’ muffled voice issued from the cupboard. ‘You’re a lot more muscular than I thought.’

This delighted Troy of course, who is Vanity incarnate. ‘I am though, aren’t I?’ He flexed his arm. ‘Would you like to feel my biceps?’

‘Very much, sir.’

Before we could stop him, Troy had released the bolt and it took Guuuurk, Brian and myself combined a great deal of effort to push the door shut again. Clearly Jenkins was drawing strength somehow from the collective.

‘Hey!’ Troy protested. ‘What are you doing? He wanted to feel my biceps.’

‘He wanted to escape, Troy,’ I pointed out.

‘Wow! These aliens must have like super-duper intelligence of some kind or other. I never saw that coming.’

‘Sorry, sir,’ came the muffled voice, ‘I can’t hear you properly.’

‘Nice try!’ Troy called. ‘Fool me once, shame on you – Fool me twice…’ He paused, frowning. ‘What was it again?’

‘Shmmmm ogggg yggg,’ came faintly from the cupboard.

Troy pulled it open. ‘Sorry – what was that?’

This time it took all four of us to close it. The alien’s strength was increasing all the time, presumably as the horde got closer.

Brian was braced against the cupboard door, panting. ‘I was just saying, what did he mean about music back then? Only, I did faintly hear something strange coming from the meteorite.’

Guuuurk, who was the only one of us to have actually encountered the thing at close hand, said, ‘Music… ye-e-es. There were some kind of peculiar, unearthly tones vibrating from it.’

‘Just a minute.’ Q. ruffled through the papers on the desk. ‘Where’s that meteorite report, dammit?’

And from the cupboard: ‘Mr. Nylon hasn’t got it in his jacket pocket, that’s for sure!’

‘Thank you, Jenkins.’ Q. held out his hand. Brian unfolded the report and passed it over.

Q. scanned it quickly. ‘Of course! Look at these waveforms.’ He slapped the report with the back of his hand. ‘The meteorites must exert control with a sequence of harmonic emissions. All we have to do is generate blocking soundwaves in the directly opposing frequencies!’

Guuuurk half-closed all his eyes. ‘I hope nobody’s going to suggest we form a barbershop quartet. Because I’d have thought we’d have learned our lesson from the deadly sing-off with the Cockroach Kaiser’s Battle Choir. I still have mandible scars on my throat.’

Troy was exasperated. ‘I said I was sorry! We hadn’t eaten in three days!’

‘Crowd has broken through the marzipan drawbridge—’ The Professor avoided Guuuurk’s gaze ‘— and overcome the attack penguin.’

‘Attack penguin!’ Brian exclaimed. ‘So that’s what was in the sentry box!’

‘Occupation of this building estimated in five minutes.’

Q. snapped into action. ‘We’d better get moving. What we need is some kind of device that can reproduce a succession of tones on a variable harmonic scale. We’ll have to construct some sort of jerry-built Hammond organ from what’s available in this room. Everybody: what do we have?’

We all scattered around the briefing room, calling out what we found:

‘A broken chair…’

‘Half a banana…’

‘Three slices of National Loaf…’

‘A paraffin heater…’

‘The other half of the banana…’

‘A fire axe…’

‘A ream of foolscap paper and a Hammond organ…’

PROFESSOR PROBLEMS

‘Splendid!’ The Professor clapped his hands. ‘We need to move fast! Start chopping up the Hammond organ with the axe, and we can combine the keyboard with the slices of bread and rolled-up strips of paper to fashion a sort of primitive hurdy-gurdy…’

Again, we were all thinking it, but this time I was the one who spoke. ‘Or we could just plug in the Hammond organ and play that.’

The Professor regarded me blankly for a moment. ‘Well, if you insist on being hidebound by conventional thinking…’

Guuuurk had plugged the organ in and flicked the switch. A low hum began to swell as it warmed up. ‘But what will we play on it?’

The Professor flipped open the organ stool and grabbed a sheaf of manuscript paper.

‘Here!’ He scribbled quickly and handed the sheet to Guuuurk.

‘“Order… larger… penguin?”’ he read, baffled.

‘Professor?’ I urged. ‘The tune?’

‘Of course.’ Consulting the meteorite report, he deftly scrawled down a series of elaborate musical notations on the manuscript paper and held it out with a flourish.

There was the sound of breaking glass from round about the reception area.

From the cupboard, the Jenkins thing crowed. ‘We’re breaking into the main building!’

Which provoked the irritated response from the tannoy: ‘Are you trying to do me out of a job, Mr. Jenkins? They’re officially breaking into the main building.’

I grabbed the sheet music, propped it up on the stand and started to play. Surprisingly, what came out was a jerky little gavotte. Strangely catchy, too.

There was a distressed rattle from the cupboard, and the door seemed to bulge. Could the music, by any miracle, be working?

‘I think I know that tune…’ Brian’s face scrunched up, as if he were in pain. ‘I can’t remember where I’ve heard it. Somewhere. I can’t recall… Play it again.’

I did, this time pulling out the Trompette Militaire stop. The Jenkins creature wailed in anguish and hurled itself around the cupboard. Dust began to erupt around the architrave. ‘Arrggh! Not the opposing tonal frequencies!’

‘It’s working!’ Q, yelled. ‘Keep on playing!’

‘Stop it! Pleeeeease! I can’t stand it!’

I literally pulled out all the stops and played. And played.

There were banshee shrieks and deep glottal groans as the alien thrashed around in intolerable agony. Then it abruptly fell totally silent.

I stopped.

We all watched the cupboard door leerily. Was the creature trying to dupe us again? If we approached, would it suddenly burst out and overpower us? Brian took a tentative step forward, then stepped right back again as whatever was inside let out a sudden groan.

Finally, there was a respectful tap on the inside of the door, and Jenkins meekly called, ‘Can I come out now, sir?’

We exchanged glances. Was this yet more subterfuge?

Brian, always too soft-hearted for his own good – and often everyone else’s – gently unbolted the door and gingerly pulled it open.

There Jenkins swayed, blinking in the light weakly. He stumbled to the nearest chair and collapsed into it.

‘Jenkins?’ Guuuurk asked tentatively from the back of the room, under a table.

Jenkins took out a hip flask, and took a generous slug from it. For once, he didn’t even bother to do it surreptitiously. ‘Ooh, I just had the most terrible dream.’

Q. leant over him. ‘And what was this dream exactly, Jenkins?’

‘I dreamt I’d been possessed by bodiless aliens from another galaxy.’

‘Bodiless aliens?’

‘Yes, sir. They roam the voids of space, riding meteor clusters, endlessly seeking host creatures to occupy.’

Guuuurk pretended he’d found what he’d been looking for on the floor and stood. ‘That’s just like the Martian nursery rhyme “The Beta Centaurans”…’[9]

‘Tantalising.’ Q. straightened. ‘Such creatures are spoken of not just in Martian fable – I’ve seen them mentioned in a number of ancient alien inscriptions. It’s obviously not a mere legend, but some kind of race memory. They have different names, but always the same story: a species so advanced, they evolve beyond corporeal form, and exist only as pure thought. No pain, no death. No wants, no needs. Sounds like Heaven, doesn’t it? Unfortunately, after several rather dull millennia, they realise that spending eternity as brainwaves can’t match up to the simple pleasure of eating a crisp, juicy apple, or five minutes alone with a hoochie coochie dancer from the travelling carnival.’

Brian asked, rather naïvely, ‘But what do they do with these bodies they occupy?’

The Professor raised his eyebrows. ‘They indulge them, Nylon. They indulge in relentless hedonism. An endless orgy of feasting and, yes, rutting. They rut and eat and rut and eat and rut until the bodies are burnt-out husks.’

‘So they’re like Frenchmen, then?’ Brian asked. I don’t know if he was serious.

‘And then they hitch a ride on the next passing meteor cloud, and the whole messy business begins again.’

All of Guuuurk’s pupils dilated unnervingly at the same moment. ‘So that’s what they’re after? They want to subject our poor defenceless bodies to relentless wanton sexual abandonment?’

Q. nodded. ‘I’m afraid so. It doesn’t bear thinking about.’

‘No. No it doesn’t…’ Guuuurk seemed to drift off.

A faraway expression enveloped Brian’s face. ‘Hmmmmmmmm…’

At the mere mention of sex, the male’s power of reason immediately downs tools and goes on a wildcat strike. And woe betide any sane thoughts that try to cross the picket line.

Jenkins shook his head. ‘I tell you, Mr. Nylon, when they were inside my head, the things they was planning to do to each other…’ He took another belt from his flask. ‘Unrepeatable!’ He shot a not-too-subtle look in Guuuurk’s direction. The Martian looked up with sudden interest. ‘Though I may be persuaded to set them down in vivid detail in a little book, for the right consideration.’

There was a hammering on the automatic storm doors, less than three hundred yards away – the last line of defence! The chant was growing ever more frenetic.

Time to haul the transfixed cavemen back to reality. ‘Can we please focus! They’re getting very close. We have to connect the organ to the tannoy system…’

There was more hammering and the sound of splintering wood. Inexplicably louder now, as if suddenly in the room itself. I spun round to see Troy chopping away at the organ with the fire axe. ‘Troy! What are you doing? Stop!’

‘I’m chopping up the organ.’

‘Don’t!’ I pulled the emergency Flit Gun from my handbag, and drove him back. But it was too late – the organ was matchwood.

‘Ow!’ Troy wiped the tears from his eyes. ‘What was that for?’

‘Why did you do that?’

‘Imagine what the aliens could do if they got hold of it!’

‘What could they do?’

‘Well, they could… they might… Sorry – what was the question?’

‘Apologies for the interruption,’ the tannoy announced, ‘but they’re through the storm doors and heading for the briefing room.’

Chapter Nineteen

From the journal of Brian Nylon, 2nd January, 1952 – Iteration 66

We formed a human/Martian chain and piled as much of the furniture as we could against the door, but we all knew in our hearts it wasn’t going to hold them for very long. Or, indeed, at all.

There was no other way out, except for a tiny fanlight high on the outer wall, which nobody could fit through. Although Guuuurk did try. Very vigorously.

The Professor was pacing. He suddenly whirled round and pointed at me. ‘Nylon! You say you recognised the tune on the organ.’

‘Yes. Well, I thought I did, but—’

‘Dammit, man, you have to remember!’

‘I can’t remember! I can hardly remember anything!’

‘Brian.’ Dr. Janussen gently cupped my chin with her hands and stared straight into my eyes. ‘You need to think. Where did you hear it?’

‘I don’t know!’ I wrenched her hands away in frustration. ‘I can’t remember! I lost my memory! What’s wrong with you all?’

‘You didn’t forget everything. It’s all in there, somewhere.’

Guuuurk stepped in. ‘Was it something on the radio?’

‘Yes. No. I don’t know.’

‘Dammit, Nylon! Think!’

My head was spinning. ‘Why won’t you all leave me alone? I’m not a monkey on a string!’

‘A what?’ Dr. Janussen grabbed me again. ‘What did you say?’

‘I said I’m not a… That’s it! That’s the song! “Monkey on a String” by Ethel Smith, First Lady of the Hammond organ. ‘I did hear it on the radio. When I was with… Virginia.’

Everybody shuffled uncomfortably at the mention of Virginia. The Professor’s expression took on a very dark tone. But try as I might, I couldn’t remember much more than flashes from that afternoon on the riverbank… the barges chugging by… the two of us side by side eating watercress sandwiches… a portable radio the size of a small house… Ginny saying: ‘The tanks will blow us all apart…’ And then just foggy nothing. Tanks? Was she talking about the army?

‘The music, Nylon!’ Quanderhorn snapped me from my reverie. ‘You’re certain it’s identical to this “Monkey on a String”?’

I grabbed the sheet music and ran it over in my head. Identical. I nodded. ‘Note for note.’

‘Splendid!’ Quanderhorn barked. ‘All we need to do is get Housewives’ Choice to play that record over national radio. That will easily release enough people from the aliens’ thrall to quash the invasion.’

‘Trouble is, Professor,’ Jenkins’ cheeks were glowing red from his hip flask indulgence, ‘the phone lines is down, and the shortwave’s shot, an’ all. There’s no way to get a message through.’

I heard the ominous sound of a large boulder rumbling along the corridor towards us. The meteorite! It could easily be employed to batter the door in, before it imprisoned us all with its ’fluence.

There was no point keeping my secret any longer. ‘I think I have something here that may help.’

Before anyone could react, I reached into my flies, fumbled about and pulled out the parrot.

There were gasps. Everyone stared.

‘What the devil is this, Nylon?’ The Professor eyed me cautiously. ‘Some kind of pornographic magic show? Because it’s scarcely the time or place.’

The parrot looked at me with distaste, blinked, then squawked: ‘I like Gemma’s bottom!’

The foul-beaked little rascal! I have no idea where he’d heard that. Honestly. It’s not a thing I’d say. My cheeks felt like they’d been slapped with hot flannels. ‘I-I… would never say that,’ I stammered.

‘Why?’ Dr. Janussen folded her arms. ‘What’s wrong with my bottom?’

‘Nothing!’ I squirmed. ‘I like it! No! I don’t like it! I mean it’s perfectly… it’s where it should be and it does the job. Whatever that job might be—’

‘Oh, shut up, Brian.’

I happily did.

Quanderhorn grabbed the parrot and studied it. ‘Excellent preparedness from our resident Boy Scout. Right – here’s the plan: first, we use the back of the fire axe to flatten the parrot and slide it under the door—’

‘Professor…’

‘No, you’re right. I’ve got a better idea.’ He studied the parrot intensely. ‘Its beak is a perfect miniature loudspeaker – if we squeeze it tightly and whistle the tune up its little anus…’

Much as I’d like to have seen the bird suffer thus, I felt I ought to step in. ‘That may be slightly over-elaborate, sir: the parrot is trained to fly to London and repeat whatever it’s been taught.’

‘Why didn’t you say so in the first place, you clown, instead of distracting us all with your ill-judged prestidigitation?’

‘Mob now directly outside the room.’

A mighty thumping began against the door. The furniture tower shuddered, but held firm.

Quanderhorn held the parrot six inches from his face. The surly psittacine was clearly sizing him up, like a boxer at a weigh-in. ‘Right, parrot, here’s the message—’

‘I must warn you, Professor, the bird is somewhat—’

‘Oh, we haven’t got time for that! Right! Message begins: This is Professor Darius Quanderhorn speaking…’

The parrot blinked. ‘Professor Quanderhorn speaking.’

‘Don’t abbreviate!’ the Professor scolded. ‘Message continues. To avert subjugation of entire human race it’s imperative you instruct the incumbent presenter of Housewives’ Choice to play the following phonographic record, repeatedly and without pause: “Monkey on a String”, by Ethel Smith, brackets First Lady of the Hammond Organ close brackets. Yours et cetera, et cetera…’

There was a long silence.

‘Professor, that may be slightly too complicated for—’

‘Awk! To avert subjugation of entire human race it’s imperative you instruct the incumbent presenter of Housewives’ Choice to play the following phonographic record, repeatedly and without pause:’

‘Excellent!’ Quanderhorn beamed.

‘…The Runaway Train by Vernon Delhart.’

‘Get the axe.’

‘Awk! “Monkey on a String”, by Ethel Smith.’

Quanderhorn nodded. ‘That’s better.’ He climbed on a table and released the bird through the fanlight. It perched on the outer frame for a moment, relishing its freedom. Slowly, it turned its head fully 180° to face us and squawked: ‘…I like Gemma’s bottom!’ Then it spread its wings to their full span defiantly and soared away. I watched it go until it was barely a speck on the horizon.

‘Hang on,’ I said, ‘isn’t that north?’

But my words were lost under a thunderous crash as the stacked furniture collapsed spectacularly, sending shards and splinters flying all over the room.

And the door gave way.