Hallucinating (23 page)
"Good morning to you both," the dude says. "I'm from the government. I've come to check out your conditions."
"Been done by some other stooge," Nulight remarks.
"Yes, well we have to be fair in these matters."
The dude walks in, but he trips over something and crashes into the boxes in the corner. Kappa springs off the bed and helps him to his feet, but the dude is okay. He looks a tad embarrassed, though. They let him examine the cell.
And then it hits Nulight.
It's only Simon out of Shpongle!
Nulight bites back his recognition. He turns to look at the window, so that his face gives nothing away to Fred. What in Buddah's name is Simon Posford doing here?
After a further minute Simon turns to Nulight and says, "It could be better in here. I'll try to get something done about it."
Nulight has to act, now, real good. "Sure you will," he drawls. He glances at Fred, then adds, "In your nice government way."
Simon hesitates. "Look," he says, "I don't enjoy doing these jobs." He takes a scrap of paper from his pocket and scribbles on it. "Here's my mobile number. You might need it later, eh? When you come round to our side."
He folds the paper and makes to hand it over, but Fred leaps into the room and stops him. "Oy, oy," he grunts, "a bit less of that, mate." He examines the scrap of paper, then screws it up and throws it to the floor. "You, out," he tells Simon.
The door is locked. Nulight and Kappa are alone again.
For a full minute Nulight sits motionless, hardly daring to believe what has just happened. Then Kappa stands up. He jumps at her and holds her still.
"Sweets," she says, "what's the matter?"
"That was Simon Posford! Shpongle."
"You're joking."
"I'm not. What was he doing here?"
Kappa's face is blank. "How should I know... if it was him—"
"It was!"
Nulight grabs her and forces her to sit on the bed. He is sitting right next to her. In a low voice he says, "Why would Simon Posford come here? Very risky. He's on our side, yeah? So he must be up to something, some plan..."
Kappa leans down to pick up the scrap of paper. They see a row of ten numbers.
934 15 84 807
"Sweets, it is his moby," Nulight says with a sigh.
Kappa shakes her head. "This isn't a phone number," she whispers. "It doesn't start with 07."
Nulight looks again. "Or 09 or 08 or 01."
"It's a message. He wouldn't have handed it over otherwise. He was disguised as a government stooge. Fred doesn't know him—must be forged papers, or whatever these people are using for security..."
Nulight takes the scrap of paper. "A message. Just this?"
Now Kappa has grabbed it back. "What else could it be?"
"How do we decipher that?"
Kappa studies the paper. There is silence for some considerable time, which Nulight does not break, as he is hopeless at this sort of thing. Where's Jo when she's needed?
Eventually Kappa says, "It can't be a simple replacement code, there aren't enough letters."
"What, then?"
"I don't know... that 15 looks like he wrote it as
is.
"
"Is?" Nulight prompts.
"Yeah—the word."
"What about the rest?"
Kappa frowns. "He's written the seven with a bar across it, euro style."
"So?"
"It looks more like an x."
"Numbers to letters," Nulight muses. "But, hey, what sentence has ten letters?"
"You're right... yet..."
"What?"
Kappa is screwing up her face, eyes half closed, as if straining to reach the solution to this mystery. "I wonder," she murmurs.
"What?"
"An 8 might be a B, a nought an O."
Nulight thinks: something, something, something: is: b, something: b, o, something. This message makes no sense.
But Kappa is freestyling now. "What if that four is a vowel? It looks like an a."
"Ba?"
"Or a y—it might be by!"
Nulight nods. The middle two words could be
is by.
"What else?" he asks.
"Sweets—if that seven is an x, the last three words would be, is, by, box."
And then Nulight remembers something. Simon tripped over and fell into the cardboard boxes stacked in the corner of the cell.
Is by box...
He rushes over and throws the boxes aside. There is a metallic clink. He glances over his shoulder. Kappa has spotted something metal on the floor, that flew with one of the boxes. She is smiling, astonished, holding up—
"A key!"
Now it is all clear. Simon knew the layout of the cell before he arrived. He planted the key, then gave them the message.
Escape!
Nulight takes the key and studies it. Old, dull metal. It's no door key. He looks across the cell to the window, where he sees a cylindrical lock.
And the key fits.
"This place was once a house," he tells Kappa. "All the windows have the same key. Simon filched a random window key and brought it here. Sweets, there's people outside that know we're banged up! The underground—man, they're
here
for us."
Kappa is excited, now. "We'll have to wait until the middle of the night," she says, "then try to open the window. They won't be expecting us to escape. They won't spot us."
Nulight checks the scratch in the black paint. "Looks sunny outside," he says. "We'll wait, yeah?"
Kappa walks over and hugs him, then kisses him. "
Never
stop playing Shpongle inside your head," she says.
...escape...
It is deepest night when Nulight puts the key into the cylindrical lock, turns it, then opens the window. A cool draught of sea air enters the cell. He sees a garden, walled high on the right, a hedge of tall leylandii to the left; a private garden, as he suspected. They clamber through the window, then crouch low on the ground, where they eyeball possible escape routes.
Nulight points to a gate at the bottom of the garden and whispers, "Through there?"
Kappa nods. "We'll creep as close to those fir trees as we can, underneath if possible. People might be looking out of windows. No sudden movements, sweets."
They creep down to the bottom of the garden. The gate opens with a squeak, and then they are through, but Nulight spots a lone figure about forty yards down the lane in which they stand.
"Who's that?" he whispers to Kappa.
Kappa says nothing.
The figure waves them on, gesturing for them to approach. This they do.
It is Simon again.
"Man," Nulight says, hugging this dude for all he is worth, "you did good there, you did
good.
"
"It's not over yet," Simon whispers. "We've still got to get you out of Lyme."
"Hey, how you gonna do that?"
Simon takes hats and rolled-up macs out of his capacious coat pockets. "In a minute. Disguise yourself with these." Kappa gets a woolly hat and a black kagoul, Nulight a cap and a flasher's mac.
"How did you know we'd use the gate, man?" Nulight asks.
"I didn't," Simon replies, glancing up and down the lane. "There's three others watching the other exits from the garden. But I thought you'd choose the back gate."
They are ready. Nulight says, "Right, what next?"
"Down to the harbour, then out."
"Out?"
"We're going to sail you along the bay and up the Exe to Starcross, where somebody called... the Deputy?"
"Deputy Smark."
"He's going to meet you there."
Nulight glances at Kappa, who looks mystified. "Master Sengel's behind this?" he asks Simon.
A shake of the head. "He only got involved recently. We'd heard of him before, of course. So we bolted his plan onto ours—he's doing Starcross westward."
They hurry on down the lane, then it is Uplyme Road, Silver Street, Broad Street, then right into Marine Parade; and in a moment they are slipping through shadows and there is sand under their shoes, the sound of surf breaking on the shore. A boat is waiting for them, waves rippling about its boughs. The trio pause to say goodbye as the sea washes their shoes.
"Take care, man," Nulight tells Simon. "Hey, y'know we won't forget this."
"Good luck," Simon replies. His purple hair is being buffetted by the wind; he pulls his coat close around his body.
Kappa reiterates Nulight's farewell, then plants a kiss on Simon's cheek. Then they are climbing into the boat and shaking the hand of the tough ol' sailor dude standing there.
"That's Honest Bob," Simon calls out. "He'll take care of you."
They wave as Honest Bob turns the boat around and sets sail; no motor on this vessel, naturally. Too noisy, apart from anything else.
The pace of the night slows. The running is over. They sit in the stern of the boat and watch its captain sail out to sea—a calming experience. But it is cold and they have only their ordinary clothes on under the macs. Honest Bob doesn't help, coming out with such terse comments as, "Gets cold of a night," "Dinna move you two," and "You won't find no brekkie on this boat."
At least the wind is in the right direction. Nulight and Kappa both manage a two hour snooze as night becomes grey and misty dawn, and then they are sailing up the Exe estuary. Ten o'clock, and Starcross is in sight. Portside they see a lone figure, his cape flapping in the wind. It is Deputy Smark. They alight, thank Honest Bob, then turn to hurry through Starcross. Half an hour later they are standing in a copse of tall trees, where who should they see but Sir Trance-alot.
This transportation is not what Nulight expected. Lotus flyers.
"You'll have to grin and bear it," Deputy Smark tells him, when he complains. "The object is to get you to Boscastle as soon as possible."
"That's a long haul, man."
"We need you out of the way until the Dorset heat's cooled—Jo and Sperm are already down there, okay? Then there's going to be a big meeting. The Master's had a brainwave."
"Not bloody Arthur again."
"Something good. No clues, you'll just have to wait until we're all together again at the Chalice Well. Won't be long, now. Just don't do anything that gets you noticed. Until then, read books, pick fruit and contemplate the Cornish landscape."
Nulight shrugs, glancing at Kappa. "Sounds all right to me."
Sir Trance-alot sits astride one of the lotuses. "I'll be your guide from this point on," he says. "But first, a quick lesson in how to fly low and fast. Kappa is up to speed—come here, Nulight."
CHAPTER TWENTY
...Glasto conference...
A month later.
This is one mother of a meeting.
It is held in Master Sengel's underground halls next to the Chalice Well, a place still light and dust-free, set here and there with doors of smoked glass, its corridors cool and reverberant. The alien parentship resides here still, but now it has been opened up, and the remaining object looks like the result of an autopsy on some vast black beetle. Elsewhere there are people hurrying to and fro carrying Mac laptops, multicoloured cable, and cups of white rhino tea.
Sploosh!
Woah, somebody's dropped their drink.
"Man, don't you have saucers round here?" asks Nulight.
Master Sengel tuts to himself, then replies, "Strange, it used to be the case that we did. Van der Woofer picked up loads of Moroccan crockery in some bizarre bazaar."
Now it is Nulight's turn to mock. "The space between your ears is
wrecked,
man."
And Master Sengel grins. "One huge, live throb in there. But, you see, that's why my plans are so great."
Ain't no arguing with that.
So to the meeting. A table—round, natch—has been set up in the Tor view room, where a dozen people sit. Nulight gasps; dudes here that he's not seen for ages. Apart from Master Sengel and the other big cheeses, there's Slim Ciggie and DJ Human (or whatever he's called now), and even Partzephanaiah. Nulight and the rasta hug, before Nulight moves on to greet the other two. And here also are less well known folks, like Robbie Blacksword, Winston Gongswoon and Dreadboy. It is all smiling and hugging and slappings on backs.
Master Sengel sits down and strikes a crescent-moon bell.
Ting!
Everybody sits at the table, and a hush falls across the room.
Master Sengel clears his throat, then speaks. "It has been a long time since a meeting was called that had the importance of this one. Earth has been invaded, and now the aliens are relaxing on their orbital sofas... keeping one eye on the technological and economic activity upon the surface of the planet, of course—waiting for capitalism to return, no doubt. But we live on to oppose their dominance of human culture." Master Sengel glances down at his hands, which are clasped together and resting on the table before him. "Now, it is true that I made a mistake with the magick bullet and the Tru-Rah scene. But Tru-Rah lives on. It remains the vehicle that I intended it to be. And so a new plan has occurred to me, one that will both deal with the aliens and bring us new hope. We are going to devise and build a pirate radio station that broadcasts Tru-Rah—and many, many other things—to the people of this country. Inherent in the Tru-Rah musical form is the answer to our dilemma. Yet we know now that Nulight and Kappa's quest has also provided an answer. My plan, in a nutshell, is to combine the carrier wave that is Tru-Rah with the pure humanity represented by the eight pagan songs collected during the quest. It is my belief that once the aliens have been fully seduced by Tru-Rah—and Sir Trance-alot has already shown that in practice this is possible—and yet at the same time have been baffled by the ineffable qualities of the eight songs, their sojourn in orbit around the Earth will cease. They will understand that we are incomprehensible to them. You see, our eight songs cannot be remixed into the auton style. The aliens invaded Earth only because the electronic activity represented by western capitalist structures was susceptible to being remixed. In conclusion, then, we will not fight the aliens—that was an early mistake. Instead we will display our inner humanity to them, and they will retreat, confused, mystified. There will be no self-serving economic system for them to dominate, no immature culture to remix. There will be humane social structures and there will be pure human content, for the condition of the English peoples will be much improved, very different to before. And seeing this the aliens will float away." Master Sengel shrugs, as if humbled by his own insight. "We have nothing to lose but our brains."
Silence follows this remarkable speech. A few people glance at friends and colleagues, then look down at their fingernails. Nobody knows what to say. This, after all, is a big deal.
It is Kappa who speaks first. "To me, it sounds good. What were you thinking of calling the station?"
"Radio Free Festival."
People are glancing again at one another, but this time it is more out of curiosity than through awkwardness. These ideas... they are pretty crazy, yet they have a core of truth, something that they cannot quite grasp but which they know is present.
Nulight nods. "Nice one, yeah. What's it gonna broadcast?"
"Your eight songs, of course. A selection of other purely human music, such as the pieces we chose when constructing the magick bullet. Then there will be the spoken word—political and ecological thought, represented by the work of such thinkers as Erich Fromm and James Lovelock."
"What will everyone use to receive these broadcasts?" Kappa asks.
"Many people are already rediscovering their solar-powered radios and CD players," Master Sengel replies. "Batteries, of course, are a no-no. Then there is the whole range of wind-up radios. Once people know there is a pirate station aimed at them, their attention will focus on the various devices left idle since the invasion, and I am confident that a great surge in listener numbers will follow."
"Your programme doesn't sound very varied," says Jo. "People will get bored of it."
"This is merely my opening gambit," Master Sengel replies. "As time progresses we will alter the programmes. But do not forget that this radio station is aimed as much at the aliens as it is at people. There will be a certain amount of repetition—of the eight songs especially. But in the sort of communities that are presently springing up, people will be inspired and they will set up their own pirate stations. A great, loud, joyous refrain will blast up at the alien parentships. The aliens will receive a symphony of humanity."
"Man, I like the style of your thought," says Nulight.
Master Sengel acknowledges the compliment. "You were part of the inspiration," he says. "The concept behind the quest illustrated my earlier mistake. But I was also inspired by your journey across Britain. I needed to find some process, some
concept
which was both intimate and large-scale. Radio was the answer. Radio Free Festival will be our salvation."
"Let's hope so."
Then Master Sengel distributes other tasks to the assembled persons. Robbie and Winston are in charge of security, and there is mucho joshing about luminous jackets at this point. Partzephanaiah is asked to develop a remote control system, but Nulight hears no further details; he recalls, however, that it was Partzephanaiah who created the fresnel lens device that tracked the alien craft in orbit. Dreadboy is put in charge of logistics.
An atmosphere of pleasant anticipation begins to descend upon the group, as they consider the work that they must do.
...in Totnes...
A huddle of cottages at the top of the big hill in Totnes have been converted into the headquarters of Radio Free Festival. Master Sengel is here—at the moment looking like a spike-top blonde youth, his ears decorated with silver loops—and he is supported by all of his deputies except the Harley dude, who, as usual, is off on some mission. Also here are others of the Glasto crowd: the two druids (muscle), Nulight, Jo and Sperm (musicality), and Zhaman (who has been called up from Boscastle because of his local knowledge—he was born and brought up in the hippy communities of Totnes, before meeting Chantal, becoming the keyboards man in Mystery Trend, and composing the seminal album Several Silver Beasts).
So it is time to unpack several white boxes. Master Sengel directs this process. The hub of the pirate station is an Apple Macintosh Phase7 Tower fitted with a K-GLASS chip. This CPU and all the surrounding parts are modular, for convenience of set-up and operation. The virtual decks are visible as pale grey disks on a rainbow background, created by a series of Yamaha veryflatscreens. The transceiver units are standard, kept in the upstairs rooms, where they are linked by semi-intelligent bots to the massive aerial that rises from the roof-orchard of the central cottage.
It is sundown in this mellow town. A few people are still hanging around the cottages, but now the excitement is over most have returned to their communities.
Nulight, Kappa and Master Sengel begin programming the music material. It is all virtual. They have recordings of the eight songs made in the Chalice Well studio and they have the entire Stonehenge concert; also they have much classic festi music and lots of prime British melodies. All this is converted into streaming data and stored on optical drives. Now it is just a matter of arranging their stuff.
This they do. Two of the local cats watch from a window-sill as, hunched over key-pads and screens, Master Sengel creates the first broadcast. They have decided to limit the station to four hours per day for the first fortnight, then increase it by four hours per day until it is 24/7. For the moment they do not use Tru-Rah, because they want to test the human response before checking out the alien response.
The locals are intrigued, but only a few are bothersome, and they are moved on by Robbie and Winston, often with a few leaves of ganja to help them on their way. The local communities are requested to respect Radio Free Festival's need for secrecy. In return, they are promised namechecks between broadcasts; no locations, of course, no ID, but everyone in Totnes and Dartington has a different name, so no problems there.
Summer is fading, but hopes are rising. No sign of the aliens. Rumours of people locating their radios in order to tune in. All good stuff.
...the upsetters...
It is, alas, the namechecks that are the downfall of the pirate radio station.
October: leaves falling, skies darkening, mud and mushrooms on the ground. After a couple of months hundreds of names have been mentioned on Radio Free Festival, and official eavesdroppers have noticed something that links them: Sky Trip, Janey Oak Tree, Holly Da Sugar Cube, Jim Whimsy, Malcolm Segments & Gilbert Chunks, Vodou Sam, Yoni Pink, Rainbow Chandra. Yeah—they're all original names; all unusual, all with a bit of sparkle, a bit of humour. And why not? But only a few places have this concentration of alternative monickers: Glasto, Hebden Bridge, Falmouth, Stroud... and Totnes.
Authorities no like pirate radio; they have been snooping.
It all starts one autumn morning. Mist is rising from the River Dart and it is rolling over the lowest parts of the town; impenetrable, cold, for the sun is nowhere near evaporating it. Out of this mist comes a squad of military pigs all dressed in fatigues and big black boots; all carrying stun weapons. Ten of 'em.
Though there is no serious look-out in the town, the pirateers are not so stupid as to leave themselves unguarded. It so happens that it is Winston Gongswoon who spots the squad as they move up the lower sections of the hill.
"Shoit!"
He is on his walkie-talkie immediately, hotline to the Master.
Inside the cottages it is pandemonium.
"
Emergency!
" bawls the auto-voice, sounding like a crazed vocoder. The window-sill moggies yowl and skitter away through the open back door.
The RFFers have perhaps four minutes.
Master Sengel grabs the CPU and the modular drives, for any equipment that they leave behind must be free of data. He drops these items into a rucksack, which he then straps to his back. Nulight runs upstairs and grabs the bots; these are custom-built and too valuable to leave behind.
One minute gone.
Kappa grabs two laptop computers full of radio frequency details, closing them down and snapping shut their lids.
Jo turns every knob that she can find so that the equipment settings cannot be read after they have left.
Two minutes gone.
There are now seven persons in the back yard. How are they going to escape? Nulight thinks he can hear boots coming up the hill. Master Sengel points to an alky-car sitting by the alley leading out into the road. "Who's is that?" he asks.
Nulight shrugs, but Jo answers, "It's Toby's."
"Toby?"
"Banco de Gaia. He's down here visiting old mates."
Master Sengel runs up to the vehicle, but both its doors are locked. Then Toby himself runs out of an adjacent back door and stares at them, aghast.
"Toby!" Master Sengel shouts. "We need this! Where's the key?"
Toby walks over, and he replies, "Upstairs somewhere... in my pocket..."
Too late. Too far. Old man, too slow. Master Sengel curses.
"Smash the window!" Toby cries.
Now they can all hear boot-steps and voices coming around the corner at the top of the hill. Less than a minute.
Kappa grabs a garden spade that is leaning against a wall, raises it to shoulder level, then slams it against the car window on the driver's side. The glass smashes into hundreds of fragments. She pulls up the lock catch and jumps in, throwing her bags to the back seat. "Push it!" she shouts, putting the car in gear.
Master Sengel and Nulight throw their own bags into the back, then lean down and prepare to shove. Jo gets into the back seat of the car through the passenger door, which is now unlocked. Then shouts begin, loud, nearby: pigs. The two men push and Kappa lets out the clutch. There is a jerk, a bounce, and then the engine catches. Kappa declutches and revs once. Master Sengel and Nulight pile into the car, and then Kappa accellerates into the alley, pausing at its end to peer left into the High Street.
A squad of dark-clad men are rushing towards them, just a few yards away. Two halt, and draw rifles.
"
Shit!
"
Kappa screeches away; everyone ducks except her. Rifles fire. A bullet hole in the back window. Another. Kappa wails and lowers herself as best she can into her seat, but she must look where she is going. Another bullet. A fourth slams into the metalwork. She pulls the wheel around and skids into a right turn, straight into Collins Road. Out of sight now. Tyres OK. A minute passes, then another. Still driving, but one tyre not OK—she can hear metal screeching.