The Quanderhorn Xperimentations Read online

  There was a knock on the door, and I crammed everything back into the pocket.

  Jenkins called: ‘Would you hurry up in there, Mr. Nylon, begging your pardon? They’re all waiting for you in the hangar.’

  The metallic voice, which I was coming to dread, burst over the tinny public address speaker and helpfully added that there were a scant fifteen minutes to the end of the world.

  I zipped up my silver bootees, and took my helmet under my arm, but as I made to leave I spotted a mirror at the end of the lockers, and realised I had no recollection of what I actually looked like. I strode up to it, expecting to see a fairly close replica of Colonel Dan Dare, Pilot of the Future. Instead, I saw a small, weedy chap wrapped in tinfoil, cradling a goldfish bowl. My muddy brown hair was spiky on top and shaved to extinction everywhere else, so my pate resembled a desert island. I had a nose that was more pointed than I would have hoped, and overlarge bushbaby eyes, bestowing me with a permanently startled expression.

  I sighed, and stepped out as resolutely as I could manage under the circumstances.

  The hangar was vast – bigger than four rugby pitches. Dozens of curious craft were scattered as far as the eye could see, some half-built, others half-destroyed. One or two of them actually seemed intact.

  Everyone was waiting for me, rather impatiently, beside a huge, bulky object draped with an enormous dust sheet. Troy and Dr. Janussen were also flight-suited, which I found alarming. Surely they weren’t planning on coming along for the ride? This would not be a suitable mission for women. And there was no such thing as a suitable mission for Troy.

  ‘At last, Nylon!’ The Professor took hold of a corner of the tarpaulin. ‘Ladies and gentlemen: I present to you . . .’

  He whipped off the cover with a flourish.

  ‘ Gargantua – the Prototype Plutonium Cell Hyper-Sound Streamliner.’

  There was a silence.

  I leant forward. ‘Uhm, is it behind that unusually large dustbin?’

  Dr. Janussen shook her head. ‘It is that unusually large dustbin.’

  Quanderhorn was unabashed. ‘Few people realise that the dustbin is the most aerodynamically perfect form for hypersonic travel.’

  I scanned the disreputable-looking heap of ill-fitted tin panels and corroded rivets. It didn’t look tremendously perfect. Or in any way safe.

  Guuuurk looked at me with what I assume was mock adoration. ‘I don’t know how you have the guts to fly a rust bucket like that, Brian. You certainly have our undying admiration.’

  ‘I have to explain here,’ I tried to keep the pitch of my voice to a masculine level, ‘that I don’t have the faintest idea how to pilot anything.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Nylon.’ The Professor wrenched open the hatch. Several screws clattered to the ground. ‘I’ve simplified the controls to just two buttons. See?’ He waved his hand towards the rather stark instrument panel. ‘Green, “Go”, and Red, “Go Faster”.’

  As was often the case, Dr. Janussen voiced what we were all thinking. ‘And how does it stop?’

  There was another silence.

  The Professor reluctantly conceded: ‘A third button is in development.’

  Guuuurk peered over my shoulder. ‘What’s that horrible mess all over the driving seat?’

  Quanderhorn made a dismissive gesture. ‘That’s the previous test pilot. It appears the human body can’t entirely withstand Mach 17.’

  ‘ Entirely withstand? ’ I croaked. ‘The man is jam !’

  ‘Which is why I’ve since lined the walls with hundreds of specially tempered armadillo carcasses. Few people realise that the strongest—’

  ‘Professor, I am not flying this contraption.’

  ‘ The world will end in thirteen minutes and thirty seconds .’

  ‘Men!’ Dr. Janussen shook her head dismissively. ‘Get out of the way!’ She pushed brusquely past me and began climbing into the hatch. ‘ I’ll fly it.’

  I grasped her arm to hold her back. ‘I couldn’t possibly allow that. It’s far, far too dangerous.’

  She shook herself clear and slowly turned to fix me with a Frigidaire stare. ‘Never, never ever tell me what you’ll allow me to do.’ I could feel my internal organs frosting up. I stammered an apology.

  ‘That’s jake with me!’ Troy chirped. ‘I’ll fly it. Sounds like fun.’

  I knew when I was beaten. ‘OK, OK, I’ll do it. There’s no point in all three of us risking our lives.’

  There was yet another silence.

  ‘Actually,’ the Professor said, ‘there is.’

  Despite the paucity of the controls, apparently, the craft also required a co-pilot to monitor communications and a stoker to shovel the fuel elements into the nuclear reactor.

  The cockpit was small and cramped and reeked of dead armadillo.

  Dr. Janussen seated herself adjacent to me and flicked through the frequency guide in the radio manual, while Troy, behind us, gave up trying to apply Vitalis to his hair through his space helmet and took up his atomic shovel.

  There was a large windscreen in front of us, and two smaller ones either side. Portholes dotted the sides.

  We were travelling along the launch track towards the take-off pad, running a standard preflight check.

  Dr. Janussen called out ‘Green button’ and I replied ‘Check’.

  Then she called out ‘Red button’ and I replied ‘Check’.

  That seemed to be it.

  ‘Well,’ I smiled thinly, ‘that was the shortest instrument check ever.’

  Troy frowned. ‘I got lost after “Blue Button”.’

  We began to tilt into launch position. My woggle fell out of my pocket. Fortunately, neither of the others noticed: they were watching the world slip away through the side windows.

  The comms desk burst into life. ‘Tower calling Dustbin Deathtrap ! Come in, Dustbin Deathtrap !’

  Dr. Janussen corrected him. ‘That is not the name of the vessel, Guuuurk.’

  ‘Understood,’ the Martian replied jovially. ‘Come in, Gargantua , the Prototype Plutonium Cell Hyper-Sound Dustbin Deathtrap.’

  ‘Why is the Martian running things?’ I asked Dr. Janussen, alarmed. ‘Where’s the Professor?’ She simply shrugged, unperturbed.

  ‘Bit of a crisis at the farm, old thing,’ Guuuurk cut in. ‘It appears the Professor’s self-shearing sheep have got hold of some visiting rabbis. He’ll be back as soon as he can wrestle the clippers off them. I’ll be remotely controlling the craft until you reach the target area.’

  I flicked my eyes sidewards at Dr. Janussen, but again she seemed unfazed by the notion that our fate lay in the be-thumbed hands of one of humankind’s greatest enemies.

  The metallic voice kicked in again. ‘ Launch in twenty seconds .’ Then a brief pause and ‘ The world will end in . . . ’ Suddenly, the voice struck a note of exasperation. ‘ Look, I can’t do both of these. ’

  ‘I’m frightfully sorry, Delores,’ Guuuurk cooed, ‘I’m afraid you’ll simply have to. We’re terribly short-staffed today.’

  ‘ Tch! ’ The metallic voice grumbled. ‘ The world will end in blah blah blah. Launch in fifteen, fourteen . . . ’

  As the twin countdowns continued, Guuuurk cut in: ‘I’ll be firing you straight up into space, you’ll spend a few minutes in parking orbit, and then you’ll loop back down, experiencing tremendous G-force and your faces will look incredibly amusing on my monitor. Ha ha, I love that bit!’

  ‘. . . two, one! ’

  The rockets fired and we launched with astonishing speed. From somewhere in the cockpit, there was a skull-piercing high-pitched scream of utter terror and distress.

  Chapter Eleven

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

  The craft was buffeting wildly. I swear I could hear rivets bursting like popcorn in the hull.

  I yelled over the din: ‘Will that person please stop screaming?’

  Dr. Janussen yelled back: ‘That’s you, B
rian.’

  Alarmingly, it was indeed me. ‘ Aaaaaahhhh! Oh yes. Sorry. I just looked down and saw the Earth shrinking away from us! I’ve never seen that before.’

  ‘Yes, you have. Often. And you always scream like that. There’s really nothing to get nervous ab—’

  There was the sudden burst of air, and a fantastic maelstrom of pressure tried to suck us from our seats into the black lifeless void.

  I whipped my head round towards the rear of the ship, to find the source of the breach.

  Someone had opened a window.

  A red emergency light started flashing, a siren whoop-whooped, and the metallic voice kicked in: ‘ Hull integrity compromised. Oxygen depletion in . . . hang on, I’ve got to go off and do the end of the world thing . Just work it out yourselves. ’

  Straining against the overwhelming suction, I prised my fingernails out of the arm rest. I unharnessed and, holding on desperately to whatever I could, I struggled manfully against the fantastic force that was intent on dragging me inexorably towards the back of the craft. Just as I was nearly there and stretching for the porthole cover, a stanchion I was hanging on to tore free from its housing, and I was almost sucked outside to a cold oblivion.

  Somehow I contrived to brace myself against a bulkhead and finally managed to reach over and wrench the wretched thing shut.

  I sank to the floor, panting and drenched in the sweat of near catastrophe.

  ‘Sorry,’ Troy said. ‘I thought a cigarette might relax me.’

  ‘ What? ’ I dragged myself upright.

  Troy took a puff. ‘There ought to be some sort of sticker here about not opening the window in outer space.’

  ‘You mean,’ Gemma called, ‘next to the sticker that says “Troy – Do Not Open This Window In Outer Space”?’

  Troy tapped the sticker. ‘Yes, right next to that. Nearly sucked my face off!’

  I hauled myself back to the pilot seat.

  ‘Troy, please just keep stoking, or whatever it is you’re doing,’ I pleaded, ‘and don’t do anything else dangerous.’

  ‘Right,’ he replied. ‘I’d better get rid of this lit cigarette, then . . .’

  I was sucked right back to the bulkhead, cracking my head rather painfully. The glass visor of my helmet was torn away and whipped into the void of space. I was now upside-down and had to fight the porthole closed with my feet, losing one of my silver bootees to the great beyond in the process. I finally managed to stamp it shut. The suction ceased, and I crashed to the floor, again landing painfully on my head. I was getting quite cross with Troy.

  ‘Darn!’ he grimaced. ‘Nearly sucked my face off! There should be some sort of sticker!’

  Just as I’d strapped myself back in again, the craft lurched and slowed at the apex of its path. Guuuurk buzzed in through the comms desk. ‘Levelling off into parking orbit. Estimated time of arrival at the mountain in three point five Earth minutes.’

  Finally, I had a few brief moments in which to quiz the evasive Dr. Janussen about all the things she never had time to explain.

  ‘Um – Dr. Janussen . . . Gemma,’ I stammered. ‘We haven’t really had a chance to get to know each other yet . . .’

  ‘We already know each other, Brian,’ she replied stiffly. ‘You’ve just forgotten.’

  ‘I know. But – I just have this terrible foreboding that this mission may not end particularly . . .’ How could I put this so as not to alarm her feminine sensibilities? ‘. . . cleanly.’

  ‘Oh, we’re goners! Since no one has yet broken the X-barrier, much less survived it, I think there’s an astonishingly high probability we’ll be shredded into tiny pieces.’

  I was amazed at her calm. ‘Really? You don’t think we’ll—’

  ‘Live? Oh no. It’s pure rationality.’

  ‘Well. Yes. Well. Exactly.’ I was somewhat nonplussed by her seeming indifference, but I ploughed on regardless. ‘And I’d hate to end up as Johnny-in-the-clouds without clearing up a couple of things. What was all that business about Big Ben? Why did we have to prevent Virginia reaching the clock before it struck?’

  Dr. Janussen cast her eyes downwards. Her cool demeanour now seemed to be a little shaken. ‘I’d rather not talk about Virginia at the moment,’ she slowly replied.

  ‘Why not?’ I foolishly pursued.

  ‘Because it makes me feel . . . because . . .’

  There was a sharp ratcheting sound and her ear revolved about twelve degrees anticlockwise.

  Chapter Twelve

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

  ‘ Uh-oh,’ Troy said, rather indiscreetly.

  Remembering Jenkins’ warning, I said very carefully: ‘Uhm, Dr. Janussen – your right ear seems to be rotating.’

  It revolved further at that very moment.

  ‘ My ear? ’ she suddenly exploded. ‘What’s my ear got to do with it, you half-witted lummox?’

  ‘You have to twist it, Brian!’ Troy hissed in a stage whisper.

  ‘Twist her ear?’

  I reached my hand out towards her.

  ‘Don’t you touch my ear! We’ve just been forced to splatter one of our dearest friends all over Big Ben, and you’re talking about ears !’

  ‘You need to wind her back up now !’ Troy insisted.

  With Dr. Janussen’s eyes burning pure fury at me, I lunged and twisted her ear clockwise. It made a satisfying ratchet sound, but was now upside down.

  ‘It needs three more turns!’ Troy hissed again.

  ‘Touch that again,’ she cautioned with that familiar terrifying calmness, ‘and I’ll punch you in the face.’

  I twisted again.

  She punched me in the face.

  She was quite good at punching. But I had no choice: I had to carry on.

  Twist. Punch!

  Twist. Punch!

  Finally, and at the cost of much pain, the ear was righted. Dr. Janussen’s expression unfroze slowly, as if she were waking from a dream.

  ‘Sorry,’ she smiled, ‘what were you saying?’

  ‘Good Lord! How often does that happen?’ I asked, dabbing my bleeding nose.

  ‘How often does what happen?’ She seemed genuinely oblivious.

  Troy shook his head in a slow warning.

  ‘I see . . .’ I said slowly.

  ‘Brian!’ Dr. Janussen exclaimed with concern. ‘What the devil have you done to your face?’

  ‘Oh . . . it just . . . bleeds sometimes. And my teeth get loose.’

  Dr. Janussen was about to pursue the point, when the comms desk burst into life again. This time it was Quanderhorn himself, slightly muffled at first, as if he were standing back from the microphone. ‘ Shalom , gentlemen. The Government will fully reimburse you for the beards.’

  ‘Oh good.’ Troy paused in his shovelling. ‘Pops is back!’

  Quanderhorn came in at full volume. ‘Listen carefully, Nylon: as soon as the target’s in sight, press the green button, which will take you through the X-barrier.’

  I nodded. ‘Roger – the green button takes us into the X-barrier.’

  ‘At that point the gravitational wave will be triggered and there’ll be almost unbearable G-force, whereupon our remote piloting controls will no longer work, so it’s vital you then press the red button to take you safely clear of the blast. Got that?’

  ‘Roger – then the red button to fire us out again to safety.’

  Troy asked: ‘And the blue button?’

  Dr. Janussen’s eyes flickered almost imperceptibly. ‘There is no blue button, Troy.’

  There was a moment while Troy processed the information, then he suddenly panicked. ‘There is no blue button! There is no blue button!’ He raced around like a frantic blowfly trapped under a glass. ‘There is no blue button!’ He stopped flapping his arms around and began patting his pockets. ‘Where’s my cigarettes?’

  ‘Troy, n—’

  This time the porthole was open only long enough to suck out my oxy
gen mask, whip me backwards over the chair and wedge my head between two racks of metal shelving. Troy fought it closed again fairly easily with his remarkable strength.

  ‘Wow!’ he yelped. ‘Nearly sucked my face off!’

  The Professor sighed. ‘The sticker didn’t help, then,’ he remarked unnecessarily. ‘Listen, Nylon: this is probably the time to tell you, when you pierce the X-barrier, you may encounter certain . . . peculiar phenomena.’

  My neck hairs bristled. ‘What sort of peculiar phenomena?’

  ‘This is purely in the realm of speculation,’ the Professor conceded. ‘but according to my best hypothesis, you may experience what I can only describe as a “Reality Reversal”.’

  My neck hairs had not lied. ‘And by “Reality Reversal”, you mean?’

  The Professor made a strange sucking sound, as if he were preparing himself to explain the unexplainable to a chimpanzee in a bellboy outfit. ‘You may find that when you speak, you say the exact opposite of what you think.’

  ‘The opposite of what I think . . .?’ I couldn’t fathom what that might mean.

  ‘My advice to you all is: try not to think.’

  Dr. Janussen called over her shoulder: ‘Troy, you may be immune.’

  I heard manoeuvring thrusters firing, and through the windscreen, the Earth hove majestically into view once more.

  ‘All right, chaps!’ Guuuurk cut in. ‘Firing plutonium re-entry jets in . . . five seconds!’

  ‘ Shouldn’t I be doing that? ’

  ‘You’ve got enough on your plate, Delores.’

  ‘ Thank you, you’re so sweet. The world will end in . . . seven minutes. ’