The Japanese Devil Fish Girl (18 page)
Read The Japanese Devil Fish Girl Online
Authors: Robert Rankin
The professor would set his mind at rest.
The professor knew what was for the best.
Rocking gently in his hammock bunk, George dropped off to sleep . . .
To be awoken most violently from a curious dream about a portly man in a very weird room. Awoken by a deafening bang and a shock wave that overturned George’s washstand and pitched him from his bunk.
George arose from the floor to the sounds of screaming and loud alarm bells.
Something really terrible had happened.
19
G
eorge slid open his cabin door to find the corridor beyond crammed up with screaming people. Some in states of indecent undress, all in panic and fright.
eorge slid open his cabin door to find the corridor beyond crammed up with screaming people. Some in states of indecent undress, all in panic and fright.
‘What has happened?’ shouted George, attempting to make himself heard above the unwholesome din. ‘What has happened? Someone tell me, please.’
No one seemed particularly interested in answering George’s enquiry. All, it seemed, had gone completely insane.
George spied a bootboy getting all squashed up in the thick of it and hauled him by the scruff of his neck in through the cabin doorway.
‘Unhand me, please,’ cried the youth. ‘The ship goes down, we are doomed.’
‘You will be crushed to death out there,’ said George, drawing shut the cabin door. ‘Now tell me what has happened.’
‘We are under attack,’ wailed the wretched child. ‘Anarchists have bombed the ship. We must flee for our lives.’
‘That might prove somewhat problematic,’ said George, and then he viewed the open porthole.
‘We can’t go that way, sir,’ said the bootboy, all a-shiver. ‘The anarchists are in the trees, sniping at us with rifles.’
‘Indeed?’ said George. ‘And I thought to detect a hint of smoke in the corridor. Are we ablaze, by any chance?’
‘We are, sir, yes. A bomb went off in the Kinema. A terrible fire there is.’
‘Kinema?’ queried George.
‘It’s on the upper deck, between the indoor golf course and the ice rink.’
‘Indeed,’ said George. Quite slowly. ‘Well, it is stay and fry or risk the porthole. What think you to this?’
‘I will follow
you
through the porthole,’ said the lad. Thoughtfully.
you
through the porthole,’ said the lad. Thoughtfully.
‘The porthole is quite high,’ said George. With equal thought. ‘Best if I help you up and through it, I am thinking.’
And the bootboy
was
smaller than George. And George was, after all, saving him from death by smoke and flame.
was
smaller than George. And George was, after all, saving him from death by smoke and flame.
‘And out you
go
,’ went George as he pushed the bootboy through the open porthole.
go
,’ went George as he pushed the bootboy through the open porthole.
He did not tumble to his doom, nor indeed get sniped by a sniper. He dropped safely onto the service deck three feet beneath the porthole, as George had known he would. It was a bit of a squeeze for George, but fear of impending doom will put a spring into your step and spur you on to greater efforts than might otherwise be the norm.
George tumbled down to the deck beside the lad. ‘It looks safe enough,’ said he. ‘Which way is the Kinema?’
The bootboy pointed.
‘Then we should flee in the other direction. Come, stay close to me.’
Now George knew, as many aboard the great airship
did
know, that its mighty bladder was filled with helium. And that helium was an inert and non-flammable gas. So there was not likely to be an almighty, all-encompassing explosion that would wipe the airship’s passengers, the airship itself, Central Park and a chunk of New York from the map. But fire was fire and a fearful mob was fearsome.
did
know, that its mighty bladder was filled with helium. And that helium was an inert and non-flammable gas. So there was not likely to be an almighty, all-encompassing explosion that would wipe the airship’s passengers, the airship itself, Central Park and a chunk of New York from the map. But fire was fire and a fearful mob was fearsome.
Folk were already throwing themselves over the side. They were dropping into the trees and some into the lake. And the lake was probably where those who were thoroughly over-crowding the lifeboats were hoping to head for.
In the ballroom the band played on. As was ever the way.
‘I am thinking,’ said George to the bootboy, as the two of them caught glimpses of chaos and mayhem, ‘that, although this might appear counter-intuitive—’
‘Counter-
what
?’ asked the lad.
what
?’ asked the lad.
‘Against common sense,’ George explained. ‘But I think we would do well to climb higher, rather than risk jumping down.’
‘Climb higher?’ asked the lad, and he strained to lean back his head and peer up at the vast acreages of silver canvas filling most of the sky. ‘Climb up there? Are you mad?’
‘They will probably get the fire put out soon,’ said George. ‘And if you jump down there, you will probably break something, or someone will fall on you, or one of the anarchist snipers will shoot you. What think you of this?’
‘I think I will follow you once more,’ said the lad, who lacked not for astuteness.
So they climbed up. Up service gangways, up hawsers and lines, hand over hand and so forth. It was as if they were scaling a wondrous mountain, fairy-tale silver and shining. The wonder of it was not lost upon George, although he did harbour certain fears regarding what might happen if the gas bag got well and truly punctured. It would be a very, very long way to fall indeed, and although George naturally worried for his own welfare, he actually worried even more for that of the bootboy, who had now become, to George’s mind,
his
responsibility.
his
responsibility.
‘If the gas bag gets punctured—’ began the lad.
‘It will not,’ said George, ‘trust me.’
The views were rather splendid from the heights of the
Empress of Mars
. The chaos below was thankfully obscured by the airship’s bulging sides, so the views were mostly panoramic and pleasurable. The parkland and the high-rising buildings beyond. A pall of smoke billowing from the
Empress of Mars
did blot out much of what lay to the east, however.
Empress of Mars
. The chaos below was thankfully obscured by the airship’s bulging sides, so the views were mostly panoramic and pleasurable. The parkland and the high-rising buildings beyond. A pall of smoke billowing from the
Empress of Mars
did blot out much of what lay to the east, however.
‘Are you all right?’ George asked the lad. ‘Make sure you hold on tightly to something.’
The lad looked into George’s face and managed a bit of a smile. ‘You’re not like those other toffs, sir,’ said he. ‘You saved me from a squashing for sure. I’ve you to thank for the life of me, I’m thinking.’
‘I did what anybody would have done,’ said George. But he knew in his heart of hearts that this was not the case.
‘I wonder why anarchists would want to blow up this airship?’ he wondered aloud.
‘Because probably they ain’t anarchists,’ replied the bootboy. ‘They probably is them Creationists that hate them Venusian people.’
‘What of this?’ asked George.
‘It’s been in all the papers here, sir,’ said the lad. ‘I reads the papers, me. Read them in England, then picked up some here to read. I am hoping to be a writer, sir. When I grow up.’
‘A laudable ambition,’ said George. ‘Writing is a noble profession.’
‘Not the kind of writing I have in mind, sir. I want to specialise in adult literature. Erotic works, or smut as it is more commonly known. But like I says, no mention in the London papers that this here airship was going to be under threat the moment it arrived in New York. The papers here say that a Fundamentalist Christian group, a “cult” the papers call them, seeks to destroy the Empress of Mars and all aboard her. They claim she is a sky-flying Sodom and Gomorrah and that Venusians and Jupiterians are the spawn of Satan, come to Earth to bring on the End Times before these times are truly due.’
George managed a slack-jawed, ‘Indeed?’ but that was as far as it went.
‘They ain’t got souls, you see,’ said the bootboy.
‘Who?’ George managed. ‘The Fundamentalist Christians? ’
‘No, the blokes from Venus and Jupiter. They ain’t like us. We’ve got souls because the Garden of Eden was here on
this
planet. We are God’s true people. Them lot up there are the Devil’s brood. They should all go back to their own evil worlds.’
this
planet. We are God’s true people. Them lot up there are the Devil’s brood. They should all go back to their own evil worlds.’
‘And the Christian Fundamentalists believe this, do they?’ George asked.
‘Doesn’t everyone?’ asked the bootboy. ‘Makes common sense to me.’
George shook his head somewhat sadly. ‘I think we should all try to live in peace with one another,’ said he.
‘Oh, me too, sir. Once we’ve sent those alien swine back to where they come from.’
George momentarily considered pitching the bootboy over the side. Did the world really need a racist pornographer? Did it already have sufficient? Or if it had none, did it actually need any at all?
‘You’re looking at me in a right queer fashion,’ said the bootboy. ‘In case there is any misunderstanding, please allow me to disillusion you. Just because a young man chooses to pursue a career in filthy literature, it does not necessarily follow that such a young man is a sexual pervert eager to engage in acts of sodomy.’
‘Stop right there,’ said George. ‘I was certainly not thinking what you might think that I am thinking.’
‘I am thinking that, to judge by that sentence, a career in any kind of literature is probably not for you,’ said the lad.
And for his outspokenness he received a buffet to the head that sent him reeling.
‘Sorry,’ said George. ‘But you
really
asked for that.’
really
asked for that.’
‘Quite so, sir,’ said the bootboy. ‘Violence is the eloquence of the unlettered, I always say. And always safer meted out to one smaller than yourself.’
‘That is quite enough,’ said George. ‘Sit quietly there until things calm down and the fire is extinguished, then we will descend and go about our separate business. Do you understand?’
‘I do, sir, yes.’ And the bootboy took to silence.
But not quite as a duck will do to water.
He fidgeted about, eager to hold forth upon anything and everything. George sighed inwardly and stared all around and about. Somewhere in the distance he caught a glimpse of colour upon the airship’s silver upper parts. A little glimpse of red amidst that silver. George shielded his eyes to the setting sun and stared very hard indeed. And then he told the bootboy to stay where he was and George marched off across the vast surface at a trot.
She was seated most comfortably. She had a picnic hamper open beside her. Freshly cut sandwiches laid out on two plates. A fine selection of cakes. As George approached, she smiled upon him and raised a champagne glass.
‘I rather hoped,’ said Ada Lovelace, passing up a glass of bubbly to George, ‘that if anyone had the presence of mind to climb up, rather than jump down, that someone might be you.’
George smiled hugely, accepted the glass and sipped champagne from it. ‘How lovely to meet you once more,’ he said. ‘Would you mind if I joined you for tea?’
But George did not get to take tea, because another explosion and yet another shock wave knocked him from his feet.
20
F
lat on his back on the top of an airship, George gazed up at the sky. The sun was sinking low now and the stars were coming out. George could just see Venus rising with them, winking its mystical eye . . .
lat on his back on the top of an airship, George gazed up at the sky. The sun was sinking low now and the stars were coming out. George could just see Venus rising with them, winking its mystical eye . . .
When an awful rushing roaring sound banged his ears about.
‘What now?’ moaned George, and, ‘When will this madness end?’
‘Quite shortly, I believe,’ said Ada Lovelace, helping George into a seated position and refilling his rather spilled glass.
‘That noise?’ George did bashings at the side of his head, whilst holding his glass steadily in the other hand to avoid any further champagne spillage. ‘What was that horrible noise?’
Then George followed this question up with another, to the effect of, ‘What is happening
now
?’
now
?’
‘The
Empress of Mars
is taking off,’ said Ada Lovelace, carefully pouring champagne. ‘And in answer to your first question – “What was that horrible noise?” – that would be the ship’s onboard defence and retaliatory systems finally engaging. One of Mr Tesla’s innovations. Reverse-engineered Martian technology. A heat ray, it’s commonly called.’
Empress of Mars
is taking off,’ said Ada Lovelace, carefully pouring champagne. ‘And in answer to your first question – “What was that horrible noise?” – that would be the ship’s onboard defence and retaliatory systems finally engaging. One of Mr Tesla’s innovations. Reverse-engineered Martian technology. A heat ray, it’s commonly called.’
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