The Japanese Devil Fish Girl (29 page)

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Authors: Robert Rankin

BOOK: The Japanese Devil Fish Girl
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‘There are certain similarities,’ he said softly. ‘Ada is a beautiful young woman.’
 
‘And
I
must find her,’ said George. ‘Find her and make some sense of all of this.’
 
Darwin the monkey butler took to a sudden bouncing and to certain squawking squealing sounds.
 
‘Silence, you loquacious simian.’ Professor Coffin mimed rifle-shootings at Darwin.
 
‘He is trying to tell us something,’ George observed. ‘What is it, Darwin? Show us what it is.’
 
The ape danced forwards to the base of the statue. To the base where the fish-scaled feet of the Goddess rested. Upon this base was carved the resemblance of a mighty book, its title engraved upon it. The carven symbols were of an unknown language, but George instinctively knew what they meant.
 
‘The Book of Sayito,’
said he.
 
Darwin bounced a little more and rapped a hairy knuckle on the big carved book.
 
A dull hollow echo was to be heard. Coming from within.
 
‘Let me see,’ said George, stepping forwards. ‘Ah yes, Professor, see this.’
 
Professor Coffin hastened to join George and watched as the young man ran his fingers about the edges of the carved book cover. ‘It is a door,’ said George. ‘The cover of the book must open, like a door.’
 
‘Step aside, George,’ said Professor Coffin, once more cocking his gun.
 
‘You are not firing that thing anywhere near this statue,’ George told the professor. ‘Darwin seems rather good with doors. Can you open it, Darwin?’
 
The monkey butler thumbed at his waistcoat lapels and bowed, then turned to the statue’s base.
Did something
and then stood back. The book-cover door swung open.
 
George stepped forwards to peruse the ape’s doings. ‘Ah,’ said he. ‘You turned the key. I really should have noticed that. Well done.’
 
Professor Coffin came forwards and peered into the opening. Struck fire to a Lucifer, held it within. ‘Stairs,’ said he, ‘going down, but you wanted to go up.’
 
‘Let us follow where they lead and see what happens.’ George took the professor by the elbow. ‘You have the fire,’ he said, ‘so you should lead the way.’
 
‘Darwin—’ said Professor Coffin.
 
But Darwin now skulked to the rear.
 
‘Then I shall lead,’ said Professor Coffin. ‘And remember our deal – we split whatever we find fifty-fifty. ’
 
‘I want nothing but Ada,’ said George. ‘And I want one hundred per cent of her.’
 
The steps led down, as steps will do, when they are not leading up. Down and down and down some more, with a terrible tedious downness.
 
‘It would be for the best,’ said Professor Coffin, holding fire before him as he stepped forever down, ‘if we do not inform the other survivors of the airship of what we have discovered here. It would be better to keep it private, I think. They will all be anxious to leave the island and will probably harbour no longings to return.’
 
‘We do not even know where we are,’ said George. ‘This island is not on the map.’
 
‘No present-day map, no, my boy. But it is upon a map. A map that I once saw in the British Library.’
 
‘And what were you doing in
there
?’ George asked.
 
‘Seeking authentication for a book I had acquired. A handwritten manuscript. A play, it was.
Romeo and Juliet
by Shakespeare.’
 
‘You had acquired an original Shakespeare manuscript? ’
 
‘So I believed. But it was not so. The Head of Literary Antiquities identified the handwriting – it was not Mr Shakespeare’s.’
 
‘Tough luck,’ said George, in a tone which implied that he meant it.
 
‘It was the handwriting of a certain Francis Bacon,’ said the professor. ‘The Head of Literary Antiquities became most animated. He paid me almost twice the price I had intended to ask.’
 
‘Now stop there just one moment,’ said George. ‘Whilst still continuing to walk down this staircase, of course. But are you now telling me that you possessed a manuscript that proves that Francis Bacon wrote Shakespeare?’
 
‘I am not
precisely
telling you that,’ replied Professor Coffin. ‘When I say that it was the handwriting of a certain Francis Bacon, that is not to say that it
was actually
the handwriting of a certain Francis Bacon. More perhaps that it was so very close in resemblance to the handwriting of that fellow as to be easily accepted as the same.’
 
‘It was a forgery!’ said George.
 
‘I prefer the term “imaginative reimaging”. People will believe what they want to believe, George.’
 
‘There is a moral to that, then, is there?’ said George.
 
‘I use it as an example to illustrate a point. You saw the face of Ada Lovelace upon the statue, I did not.’
 
‘It was her face,’ said George.
 
‘Maybe so,’ said the professor. ‘And when we return with it to London, the Rubes can make up their own minds as to the resemblance. We could exhibit Ada along with the statue, dressed as the Goddess perhaps.’
 
‘Absolutely
not,
’ said George.
 
‘Well, it is open to discussion.’
 
‘It is
not,
’ said George. ‘Believe me on this. And anyway we have yet to leave the island, which I recall mentioning only a moment ago is not on any map.’
 
‘It is on the map I saw at the British Library.’ Professor Coffin fanned at his face. ‘The air is rank,’ said he.
 
‘Tell me about the map,’ said George, with a sigh. ‘Tell me what you know.’
 
‘Myth has it,’ said the professor, ‘that at the dawning of time three great civilisations were born. One from the children of Adam and Eve. Centred about the Euphrates, this civilisation spread across the planet. We are all the many times great-grandchildren of Adam and Eve. But there were two other civilisations. Perhaps not wholly blessed by God, perhaps not God’s creation. Or not the creation of
our
God, but of another. These two existed upon other continents, cut off from each other by many sea miles. One in the Atlantic, Atlantis. The other in the Pacific, here, Lemuria.’
 
‘We are on Lemuria?’ said George.
 
‘
In
, it seems at the present. But yes, that is what I believe. The remains of ancient Lemuria, a tiny part of a now sunken continent.’
 
‘It is as good a tale as any,’ said George. ‘And it is my dearest hope that these steps will lead us somehow to Ada. If they lead merely to a dead end, where excavations were terminated, it is going to be a very dismal climb back up again. We have surely been walking for hours.’
 
‘Perhaps Darwin will offer us a piggyback.’
 
Darwin pinched Professor Coffin’s bottom.
 
‘Or perhaps not,’ said the professor. ‘But look – I see a light ahead. What do you make of
that
, George?’
 
And with that the steps simply ended. They had reached wherever it was they led to.
 
George, the professor and Darwin looked on. The professor extinguished his Lucifer and as three pairs of eyes adjusted to the soft light that offered a gently crepuscular illumination, two mouths opened wide and drew in breaths.
 
‘A subterranean city,’ said George.
 
‘Lemuria,’ said the professor.
 
‘And more.’ And George made gesturings before him. Gesturings that the professor followed.
 
These were no sunken ruins. No fallen temples and rubble-strewn carriageways. No city gone to dust to haunt the speculations of present-day archaeologists. This was an ancient city, yes, but one most fiercely alive.
 
This city flowered within a cavern so vast as to seem a veritable hollow Earth. Sleek towers rose towards a rocky ceiling lost to vision. And between these towers moved airships of advanced design.
 
Design that was not of this Earth.
 
‘Oh dear me,’ said Professor Coffin. ‘Fiddle de, fiddle dum, fiddle dum-de-dum-de-dum.’
 
‘Why are you fiddle-dee-ing so much?’ asked George.
 
‘Because all becomes most frighteningly clear, my dear fellow.’
 
‘Then please take this opportunity to enlighten me,’ said George, ‘because I am surely all in the dark.’
 
‘The symbols,’ said Professor Coffin, ‘on the floor of the temple above – I told you that I felt I knew them from somewhere. That I had seen them before, but not in a temple.’
 
‘Go on,’ said George. ‘Please tell me.’
 
‘Recall, if you will, our dear old friend the pickled Martian,’ said Professor Coffin. ‘When I collected him from the London Hospital, there were various alien artefacts to be seen, which were being studied by the surgeon Sir Frederick Treves. Amongst these were what was believed to be the “user’s manual” for one of the Martian warships. The symbols were identical, George. This underworld is peopled by surviving Martians.’
 
George took in the enormity of this and then he said, ‘Hold on there. This is an ancient civilisation. The inlaid symbols on the floor of the temple above, the statue of the Goddess – all of this is ancient. Are you saying that the Martians were the original inhabitants of Lemuria?’
 
‘I can only speculate upon what my eyes are telling me,’ the professor replied. ‘Photographs of the cities of Mars were published in the press. Look at those towers, George, and those aircraft also. Martian in design. There is no doubt.’
 
‘I am well and truly confused,’ said George. ‘Are you suggesting that the original Martians were born on this planet? That they lived in Lemuria and when it sank beneath the waves, well, they sank with it and here they are?’
 
‘Something, if not similar, then precisely the same.’
 
‘I do believe,’ said George, ‘that as exhausting as it might be, we might retrace our steps and continue our search for Ada upon a higher level.’
 
‘I am right behind you there, young man. Or possibly even in front of you.’
 
Darwin now made squealing and squawking sounds.
 
‘Yes, I am sure you agree,’ said George, and sought to give him a pat. But Darwin was not to be patted. Darwin was backing away.
 
‘No need to be stand-offish,’ said George. ‘You know that I am your friend.’
 
But then George saw that Professor Coffin was also backing away.
 
And gazing into the strange dim light, George saw just why this was.
 
Something was approaching them. Something heavily armed.
 
It pointed its prodigious weapon at George and gargled something in an alien tongue.
 
Its alien tongue moved within a head resembling the shell of a crab, beneath which trailed and curled many tentacles. The creature gargled something more. Barked and gargled this also as an order.
 
George Fox dropped his weapon and slowly raised his hands as the Martian with the ray gun slid towards him.
 
31
 
‘C
ough on him, George,’ cried Professor Coffin. ‘Give him some of your germs.’
 
George was about to reply that, in his opinion, these particular Martians had most likely long ago developed an immunity to Earthly bacteria. Further conversation between himself and the professor was, however, staunched by more urgent garglings from the Martian, accompanied by most violent wavings of its gun.
 
‘Yes,’ said George. ‘I understand – you would like us to come with you.’
 
The Martian now gargled
very
loudly and gestured towards the staircase.
 
‘And I think that means
you too
,’ called George to Darwin.
 
Darwin peeped out, hung his head and sidled over to George.
 
The Martian growled and gestured once more with his weapon. Two men and a monkey moved along before him.

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