The Mechanical Messiah (34 page)

A young lady of this modern age had so many other
modern
things to think about.

But here … Alice paused and breathed once more the scented air. Here there was magic. Here there was … holiness. If the existence of God was to be doubted and debated over in London, it could not be so upon this lovely world. The presence of God was here, shining down in rainbow rays though the tall and noble trees.

Alice sat down and had a little weep.

It was all too wonderful for words.

The wonder of it all was not for a moment lost upon Colonel Katterfelto. But he was a man of duty and of honour and he had taken on the responsibility of leading this hunting party. And to do so he must now track down the errant hunters. This was not an altogether difficult business. The amply proportioned Jovians left a notable spoor. Their footprints were most well dug in. And none of them, it seemed, had travelled far.

He came upon the first of them in a clearing, sitting on the ground and clutching at his leg.

‘I have a hurty-ankle,’ said the Jovian.

The colonel sighed. ‘Limp slowly after me,’ he said.

The second had tripped over a rock and suffered a hurty-wrist. The third had a hurty-knee. And so on.

Colonel Katterfelto gave them all a sound telling off.

‘Stay behind me,’ he ordered, ‘and I’ll find you something to shoot at.’

Darwin looked up at his martial companion. Darwin was not keen. Were there monkeys here, he wondered, distant cousins, somewhat like himself? Would the hunters shoot them dead and mount their hairy heads on plaques to hang upon their walls?

Darwin sniffed once more at the air. He could smell
something
and it was coming closer.

Whether the colonel smelled this too, Darwin did not know, but the old soldier suddenly raised his hand and counselled the keeping of absolute silence. ‘The game is afoot,’ said he.

Cameron Bell sat down on a rock and clutched at a wounded foot. He was not a man who travelled well through unpaved areas. His natural habitat was London. He knew the capital well. On more than one occasion he had won a bet that he could be blindfolded, taken to any area of the great metropolis and by merely sniffing the air correctly identify its location. It was not really down to the sniffing, though, for once again Mr Bell had not been altogether honest. It was that, given the location he began at, and his knowledge of the streets of London, he could work out, even blindfolded, merely by the twists and turnings of the hansom cab precisely where he was at any time.

But here was not London.

And Cameron Bell was lost.

He was on the trail of Alice, this he knew. Tracking a suspect was a necessary skill in his profession. But Alice’s wanderings were many and various, and her trail crisscrossed itself, went around in circles, meandered here, meandered there, meandered all over the place.

‘At least there is plenty of daylight,’ said Cameron Bell, making scuffings of his own in the hope of not following the same trail once again. ‘And still several hours before dinner, I’m thinking.’ He took out his watch and squinted at it. Sadly the watch had stopped. He had done the synchronising back at the spaceship, but he had forgotten to wind it.

‘No matter,’ said Cameron Bell. ‘I will find her shortly and I will
not
let her out of my sight again.’

‘Down, men.’ The colonel gestured downwards with his ray gun. ‘On your knees and follow. Come on. Pacey, pacey.’

Lumbering Jovians sagged onto their knees and much to Darwin’s amusement waddled after the colonel like so many slightly undersized young elephants. Mumbling about their hurty bits and bobs, but generally chuckling with good nature.

They approached long grasses, tall and pink, that rose to spires of crimson curlicues.

‘Fan out,’ whispered the colonel, gesturing to the left and the right. With big bottoms high, the Jovians fanned out.

As silently as could be, the hunters eased forward, ray-gun rifles cocked and ready, eager for a kill.

Ahead something moved. A white fur-covered head was to be glimpsed. Something non-human, non-Jupiterian, something about to be killed as game.

The hunters now all but surrounded a dreamy glade, kissed by wavering rainbow shafts of sunlight. The muzzles of their ray guns nosed from the long grass, trained upon the creature. The colonel, his own vision somewhat limited by an inconveniently placed — if delightfully beautiful —bush, raised his hand and counted down from three upon his fingers.

‘Three,’ he counted silently.

‘And two — and—’

At the centre of a glade stood Alice.

Chatting with a tall white rabbit.

‘One,’ the colonel counted down.

Then all the Jovians fired.

think I hear people shouting somewhat,’ said Alice.

The white rabbit cocked an ear to the not-too-far-distant cacophony. ‘Hunters,’ said he, and he sniffed at the air. ‘In a nearby glade. I do believe that they might have shot one another.’

‘Serves them jolly well right, I think,’ said Alice.

Colonel Katterfelto did a body count. ‘Just the two dead, ‘said he. ‘Not bad for a first day out.’

‘Might I have a word or two in private, please?’ said Darwin.

‘Certainly, my dear fellow,’ replied the colonel, accompanying the monkey a little way off, where they might speak in private uninterrupted by the howls of pain emanating from a number of Jovians who had only been wounded, rather than killed. ‘What can I do for you?’

‘I understood,’ said Darwin, ‘in fact, you gave us all to understand that you have led big-game hunts before.’

‘Certainly have,’ said the colonel, lighting up a cigar. ‘Certainly have.’

‘Did many of the hunters actually survive?’ enquired Darwin.

‘Ah,’ said the colonel, puffing smoke. ‘See where you’re going with this.
Did
say that I’ve led hunts before—’

Darwin nodded thoughtfully.

‘Didn’t
say that I was any damn good at it.’

‘Ah,’ said Darwin, whose thoughtful noddings were now joined by a facial expression indicative of enlightenment.

‘Pay’s rather good, though, you must agree.

Darwin nodded with vigour.

‘Anything else on your mind?’ asked the colonel. Darwin now shook his head.

The white rabbit was now shaking
his
head. ‘Foolish hunters,’ he said. ‘They cannot shoot anything here but each other.’

‘I think they will certainly try,’ said Alice.

‘And then they will certainly fail.’

Alice shrugged, but did not ask why. Instead she said, ‘Fancy meeting you again and
here.’

‘Where else would you expect to meet me other than here?’ asked the white rabbit. ‘If I wasn’t here and you weren’t here, then neither of us could meet each other, could we?’

‘No,’ said Alice. ‘I suppose we could not. But I did not expect to meet you again here on this planet.’

‘It is where you met me before,’ said the white rabbit.

‘I met you before in Tunbridge Wells,’ said Alice. ‘I followed you down a rabbit hole.’

‘It might have looked to be that way,’ said the white rabbit, preening at his whiskers, ‘but just because a thing looks to be a certain way, that does not mean that it
is
a certain way.

Alice agreed that this might be the case.

‘It
is
the case,’ said the rabbit. ‘I met you here, because it was to here that you were brought.’

‘To Venus?’ said Alice.

‘To Venus. Your uncle unwittingly put magic mushrooms in your soap.’

‘Oh,’ said Alice. ‘I was drugged, so none of it really happened.’

‘Are you drugged now?’ asked the rabbit.

‘I do not think so,’ said Alice.

‘Then do not interrupt when I am talking.’

‘Sorry,’ said Alice. Who wasn’t really sorry.

‘You were kidnapped,’ said the white rabbit, ‘whilst in an altered state of mind. You were brought here to Venus upon two occasions.’

‘By whom?’ asked Alice. ‘And why?’

The white rabbit twitched his nose and said, ‘You ask too many questions.’

‘Was I brought here in a spaceship?’ Alice asked.

‘There you are, doing it again. But I will tell you this. Not because I need to, but because I wish to. The ecclesiastics of Venus have been kidnapping people from Earth for many years. They bring them here and try to teach them things. Special things. Spiritual things that cannot be learned upon Earth. Only here in a world that is still filled with magic. They wish to convert all the peoples of the solar system to their way of thinking. To enlighten them, that they might share the wonder.’

Alice gazed about at the beautiful glade. A four-winged butterfly settled upon a flower that was easily the size of a dinner plate. ‘It is very wonderful here,’ said Alice.

‘It is certainly better than where I come from,’ said the white rabbit.

‘So you were kidnapped, too?’

‘Where I come from we do not call it kidnapping,’ said the white rabbit. ‘Where I come from we call it
abduction. Alien Abduction.’

‘Curiouser and curiouser,’ said Alice.

Cameron Bell was curious to know what all the shouting and howling was about. But intuition correctly informed him that it was
not
about Alice.

Mr Bell, who had not donned tropical kit, took off his dinner jacket and fanned at himself He was growing rather hot. All this walking, he supposed. Exercise was all well and good, but if he was to be having a bit of a holiday here upon Venus, he really would have preferred it to be mostly a sitting down in deckchairs and drinking gin and tonics sort of holiday.
Not
a tracking a wilful woman through uncertain terrain sort of holiday. Oh no, not that
at all.

Cameron Bell ran his fingers over his naked scalp. He really should have worn a hat. He was prone to over-perspiration. Hatbands absorbed perspiration. That was one of the major points of hatbands.

Cameron Bell suddenly said, ‘Now now now.’ His mind was sorely wandering, as was the wilful woman. He glanced at his hand and viewed the Ring of Moses. Now what
was
he to make of
that?
A magic ring? A ring that could
carry
magic? The
real
Ring of Moses? Moses the Venusian? ‘My mind wanders,’ said Cameron Bell to himself ‘Because I do
not
believe that this case is truly ended. The Death character might well have been pecked to oblivion by the kiwi birds, but there is more to the case than him. I do not believe that he killed the Music Hall bill-toppers. I do have a theory regarding that, but it is a theory that must be put to the test. I suspect the involvement of another. A powerful individual who seeks even more power. But here I am upon Venus chasing after a foolish female.’

The private detective sighed. He had no control over the situation. He had no idea precisely how long he would be here. He had no idea precisely how much trouble he would be in when he returned to Earth. He had no idea about so many things.

But at least he
was
dressed for dinner.

And although it is never really wise, if you are all by yourself in a potentially dangerous environment, to draw attention to your location by shouting, Cameron Bell considered that shouting might draw greater returns than aimless wandering.

‘Alice,’ called Cameron Bell, most loudly. ‘Alice, where are you?’

‘Someone is calling your name,’ said the white rabbit. ‘I suppose that you had better go.

‘It is Cameron,’ said Alice. ‘He will be worrying about me.’

‘You are lucky, then,’ said the white rabbit. ‘No one ever worries about me.’

‘Your mother must have worried,’ said Alice.

‘My mother was a
rabbit,’
said the rabbit. ‘Mother rabbits just make more rabbits. More and more rabbits. That’s what they do. If they were to worry about each rabbit they gave birth to, they would certainly worry themselves into an early grave.’