The Mechanical Messiah (33 page)

The Jovian hunters did not make laughter at this. Although one of them chuckled somewhat at a joke he had heard earlier.

‘Which is why,’ said Corporal Larkspur, ‘thou leadest this hunting party, Colonel. Thou hast experience in both war and on the hunt.’

‘Damned right,’ puffed the colonel. ‘You fellows will fare well enough if you follow my instructions. Stealthily does it and all that kind of how’s-your-father-hiding-up-the-chimney. If you know what I mean.’

The Jovian hunters laughed as if they did.

‘We shalt remain in Efland for one week’s hunting.’

‘Earth week or Venusian week?’ asked Darwin.

Corporal Larkspur made fists with his ham-hock hands.

‘Nephew’s got a good point,’ said Colonel Katterfelto. ‘Did all this stuff in basic training. One Venusian day equals two hundred and forty-three Earth days, doncha know? Lovely sunsets if you can be bothered to wait, so I’m told.’

Corporal Larkspur did deep-breathing exercises to steady himself They succeeded only in making him breathless and he had to have a good sit down.

Eventually he rose again to finish what he had to say.

‘Please waiteth until the conclusion of my talk before thou askest questions,’ he began.

Then he began. To continue.

‘The equivalent of one Earth week,’ he continued. ‘Venturing out each Earth dawn, returningest to the ship each Earth evening. We will synchronise watches. Under the colonel’s leadership thou canst bag as much game as thou wishest. The patent Ferris Refridgetorium hath sufficient room to store and preserve trophies. I knowest a taxidermist upon Earth who asketh no questions.’

Much applause was offered up by the jovial Jovian hunters.

‘After one Earth week, we moveth on. Once the Refridgetorium is full, we returneth to Earth.’ He smiled upon all and sundry. ‘And questions
now?’
he asked.

‘Can I steer the ship down?’ asked Darwin.

Darwin did not steer the ship down. But neither did he bite Corporal Larkspur, as the colonel advised strongly against it for fear that Darwin might unexpectedly end up in the patent Ferris Refridgetorium. The hunters kitted themselves out in safari suits, big boots and camouflaged pith helmets. Checked their weaponry and took to a form of behaviour that Mr Cameron Bell found himself coining a new term for:
macho posturing.
Although they did it overall with good heart. The colonel, who lived in his dress uniform, took off his medals and hid them in his cabin. And gave his ray gun an extra charge up from the shaving socket
[10]
in the bathroom.

Darwin, with several changes of clothes in his luggage, chose to sport a colonial-style white linen suit with panama hat.

Alice discarded her ringmaster’s jacket and, availing herself of the ship’s stores, affected a rather fetching mosquito-net face-veil. In her brass corset, bloomers, white stockings and buttoned black boots she was not exactly dressed for a big-game hunt. But what gentleman with blood in his veins could have refused her company?

‘Please strappest thou in for landing,’ came the voice of Corporal Larkspur from the cockpit. And a sign that read SEAT BELTS ON and advised that cigars should be extinguished started to flash on and off.

Darwin made a grumpy face as the colonel adjusted his seat belt for him.

‘If thou hast prayers,’ continued the voice of Corporal Larkspur, in a manner that would never catch on with future commercial flights, ‘now wouldst be the time to speaketh them.’

A mighty rumbling shook the ship as the corporal steered it downwards.

There followed a period of considerable drama, the
Marie Lloyd
shaking fearfully. The friction of atmosphere scorching the hull. The forces of gravity acting this way and that. Alice, seated next to Cameron, clung on tight to his arm. Cameron, finding joy in this, sat with his eyes firmly shut. Darwin held the colonel’s hand, which the old campaigner found to be somewhat moving.

The Jovians cheered and some broke wind. What with the excitement of it all.

Down and down went the
Marie Lloyd,
then took to a swerving course. The corporal levelled out the ship of space, brought it in towards an achingly beautiful valley and then grounded it in a forest of mighty trees. There was a hideous tooth-grinding
grornching
of metal on rock and on soil and on shrub.

The
Marie Lloyd
came shuddering to a halt.

‘All safe and sound, I trusteth,’ came the voice of the pilot.

‘I could have done better than that,’ came the voice of Darwin.

There
had
been no injuries and the Jovian hunters cheered once more and waited for the seat-belt sign to go off.

Alice leaned towards the nearest porthole and peeped out. Beyond the ship lay an Arcadian scene, a veritable Garden of Eden.

Alice’s breath caught in her throat.

‘It is Wonderland,’ said Alice.

atent pressurising equilibriators fussed noisily in the engine compartment of the
Marie Lloyd.
Air from the planet Venus hissed through grilles, bringing with it fragrances as yet unsniffed by any aboard the spaceship.

‘Oh,’ sighed Alice. ‘How beautiful.’ And she longed to leave the craft and explore.

‘Synchronise thy watches,’ said Corporal Larkspur, adjusting his goggles to compensate for any unwished-for glare. ‘Two p.m. of the afternoon clock. Returneth by six, if you will. Dinner at eight. Five courses, formal attire, please, gentlemen.’

Thus saying this, he sprang the bolts and opened the door to Venus.

Alice took a swift step back, so too Cameron Bell, the colonel and Darwin the space-travelling monkey, as the Jovian hunters fought to be first through the doorway.

‘Gentlemen,
please,’
called Corporal Larkspur from the place of safety that he had wisely chosen. ‘And please tryeth to remain beneath the cover of the trees. Forgeteth not the death patrols. Please.’

‘Come to order!’ shouted Colonel Katterfelto.
‘Attenshun!’

Which halted the doorway strugglings and brought a modicum of order.

‘Ladies first?’ suggested Alice.

‘I would rather you stayed inside for now, my dear,’ the colonel told her.

‘Cameron?’ asked Alice, fluttering her eyelashes with renewed vigour at the smitten detective.

‘The colonel is in charge,’ said Cameron Bell. ‘I will wait here with you, if you wish.’

Alice Lovell folded her arms and made a grumpy face.

Colonel Katterfelto led the hunters from the craft. He would dearly have loved to gather
Magonium,
as that was his number-one personal priority. But the colonel was an honourable man and he knew it was his duty to offer what protection he could to the Jovian hunters. The
Magonium
would have to wait for now.

The valley was as pleasant a place as could possibly be imagined. The high canopy of the Nabana trees shaded all, yet shafts of light, crystal-rainbow hued, fell between these trees, painting pastel colours onto flowers and shrubs, at once exotic, yet somehow familiar.

Darwin gazed up at the towering trees, thinking them good for a climb. Yet he strayed not from the colonel’s side as his little sniffing nose scented creatures unknown and, in all possibility, dangerous.

Colonel Katterfelto drew out an ACME Thunderer and blew upon it. This had the desired effect of halting the Jovian hunters who were about to plunge off in all directions, guns held high, to blast at anything that moved.

‘Certain small matters,’ the colonel puffed. ‘Led hunting parties before. Let me tell you this. Chaps who rush off on their own rarely return to say what ate them. Make myself clear?’

The Jovians nodded. One of them said, ‘Yes, sir.’

‘Excellent stuff,’ said the colonel. ‘Put your faith in me and you won’t go wrong. Professional fellow. Experience in these matters.

The Jovians nodded once more.

The colonel reached for his ray gun and then recalled that he had left it extra-charging in the bathroom.

‘Just a mo,’ he said. ‘Won’t be a minute.’

And he was less than a minute.

But he returned with his ray gun in his hand to find only Darwin waiting.

‘Silly damn fools,’ said the colonel. ‘Let’s see if we can find ‘em.’

Within the
Marie Lloyd,
on a bar stool at the bar sat Alice Lovell. Corporal Larkspur had been busy doing something else and she had been forced to serve herself, which had made her even more grumpy.

‘You can’t make me stay here,’ she told Mr Cameron Bell, who sipped away at Jovian rum and felt most deeply embarrassed. ‘You are not my father. I can do what I like.’

‘You are very brave,’ said Cameron Bell. Knowing she was nothing of the kind. ‘The creature that attacked you at the Crystal Palace was Venusian. I expect there must be others of his kind lurking about out there, ready to prey upon a pretty young lady like yourself’

‘You have a gun, don’t you?’ said Alice.

Cameron Bell sighed deeply. ‘Yes, I do.’

‘And the colonel is not in charge
of you.’

‘True enough,’ said Cameron Bell.
Oh dear, oh dear,
he thought.

‘A little stroll wouldn’t hurt,’ said Alice. ‘We could keep the spaceship in sight.’

‘Things might lie in wait,’ said Cameron Bell.

‘You are not afraid,
are you?’
Alice turned those big blue eyes upon him.

‘I would not want any harm to come to you,’ said Mr Bell, in all honesty. ‘Perhaps we could just put our heads outside.’

‘You are a darling.’ Alice jumped off the stool and kissed him on the cheek. ‘Come on,’ she called, already making for the door.

The two stepped out onto the planet’s surface. A carpet of purple lichen strewn with queer blooms that opened and shut as if breathing the air.

Alice looked up at the marvellous trees. Swept her blue eyes over the wonderful sights.

‘We should not be here,’ she whispered. ‘This truly is a sacred place.’

‘Do you wish to return inside?’ asked Cameron Bell. ‘No,’ said Alice, tossing her head, then readjusting her mosquito—net veil. ‘We are here now, let us just enjoy it.’

From the near distance came sounds of a whistle being blown and shouts of, ‘Come back here, you fools.’

‘I saw some deckchairs on board,’ said Cameron Bell. ‘Should I bring out a couple and also our drinks?’

‘That would be lovely,’ said Alice.

Cameron Bell returned to the spaceship and brought forth deckchairs and drinks.

Alice Lovell, however, had wandered away.

She heard the desperate cries of her name, but she ignored Mr Bell. She would not wander far, and she certainly was
not
brave by nature. But there was something so beautiful, so innocent about the sylvan paradise that she felt it could not possibly harbour any predatory beasts that would carry her off and eat her up for their dinner. This was certainly Efland. And there might well be elves.

Alice wandered on a while, scuffling her feet in the lichen at intervals. Marking the way she had come.

Alice wondered, as she wandered, whether this magical land was as the Earth had been before the dawning of Mankind. She had always supposed herself to be a Christian, as this was the religion of her upbringing. She had learned much of the Old Testament at Sunday School and had assumed that the words of Genesis must be basically sound. That God
did
create Heaven and Earth and that he did create Adam and Eve to dwell in the Garden of Eden.

True, as the years had passed, she had experienced the occasional doubt and Mr Darwin’s theory of evolution was enjoying a degree of acceptance and popularity. And true, her experiences within the rabbit hole and beyond the looking glass were mystical to say the least, but the actual existence of God was not something that, in all truth, she had ever given very much thought to.