The Mechanical Messiah (37 page)

But she did not.

Because he would think me quite mad,
thought Alice, and so she changed the subject.

‘I wonder if my kiwi birds are missing me,’ she said. ‘How about a nice cup of tea?’ asked Cameron Bell.

Colonel Katterfelto had tea in a vacuum flask and whilst the Jovians, looking now to be for all of the world an overweight chain gang, toiled away in search of
Magoniam,
he unscrewed the lid and poured himself some and smiled a little bit.

Vacuum flasks always made the colonel smile. Ever since he had attempted to explain their workings to Darwin.

‘You put in something hot and it stays hot,’ Colonel Katterfelto told the monkey, ‘and something cold and it stays cold.’

‘But how does it know?’ asked Darwin. Which had sounded funny at the time.

So for now the colonel sipped at his tea and watched the Jovians dig. They went at it with a will and with good grace and with their usual humour. The colonel determined that he would do his level best to see that as many as possible survived to the end of the big-game hunt.

‘Magoniam!’
cried one of the Jovian diggers.

‘Put it on your own pile,’ said Colonel Katterfelto, observing with some delight the growing heaps of Venusian gold. This planet was a, well, a veritable gold mine, so it seemed. The old soldier sipped some more at his tea and smiled a bit more also. The Jovians could surely come to no harm by simply digging and he had already crammed more than enough
Magoniam
into every pocket of his uniform to overfill the empty compartment of the Mechanical Messiah, which was probably even now being manufactured for him.

‘It does not get better than this,’ puffed the colonel. ‘Does not get better than this.’

Cameron Bell would certainly have agreed with the colonel. The private detective had brewed tea in the galley and brought out a pot, with cups for two and a nice plate of biscuits beside. He settled himself down in the deckchair next to Alice, poured her a cup and placed one sugar in it.

‘It really is paradise here,’ said Alice, taking two biscuits from the nice plate she was offered. ‘I do miss my kiwi birds. But I would not have missed this for all of the world.’

The biscuit plate now being empty, Cameron went without. But he smiled at Alice and agreed that being here was very special indeed.

‘I think that I have never known such peace,’ he said.

Rainbow shafts fell here and there onto the valley floor. A gentle breeze turned the occasional fallen leaf and butterflies danced in the crystal air. Something furry bobbed in the distance, and Cameron Bell sighed softly.

Then stiffened as he heard the sudden shouting.

‘Whatever is
that?’
asked Alice. ‘What is that terrible noise?’

Cameron Bell cupped a hand to an ear. ‘The Jovian hunters,’ he said.

‘They have not shot each other again, surely?’ Alice set aside her tea and biscuits and rose from her deckchair to peer into the distance.

Cameron Bell was rising too as the sounds of shouting grew louder.

‘I think we had better return to the spaceship,’ he told Alice.

‘If someone is in trouble, perhaps
you
should help them,’ said Alice. ‘While
I
wait safely in the spaceship.’

‘Yes,’ said Cameron Bell, who was having his doubts. What with the increasing volume and frantic nature of the shouting.

‘Oh dear,’ he continued as he sighted Colonel Katterfelto. The old gentleman was running full pelt towards the
Marie Lloyd,
flapping his hands as he ran and shouting, ‘Get inside, damn it! Get inside.’

‘Let us get inside
now,’
said Cameron Bell. Behind the colonel ran the hunters, still roped together but making extraordinary progress. For big and bulbous beings they were putting on an impressive display of speed.

But not without good cause, for now both Cameron and Alice beheld the reason for all this running and shouting.

‘Oh my goodness,’ said Cameron Bell.

‘That is a dragon,’ said Alice.

oologically speaking,’ said Colonel Katterfelto, as he caught at his breath and peeped out through a porthole of the
Marie Lloyd,
‘dragons are improbable at best.’

Cameron Bell was intrigued by the beast and as all of the hunting party, the colonel, Alice and himself were now relatively secure within the spaceship and the door firmly bolted upon the magical world beyond, he took a little quiet time to contemplate the dragon.

His skill to draw conclusions through intense observation had been put to the test upon animals of Earthly origin. He recalled a time whilst seeking a criminal mastermind in New York City when the direction of the hairs on a wiener dog’s tail had led him to the conclusion that its owner was not the humble person he claimed to be, but rather the notorious Lord of Misrule, Eskimo Jim McNaulty. Cameron also remembered how his own mother had taught him to accurately predict thunderstorms by ‘reading’ the lay of a spaniel’s ears. But then the divination of future events through the study of spaniel ears dated back to Pythagoras and Pliny.

Dragons were untrodden territory for Mr Bell. And so when Alice asked him whether the dragon would eat them all, he had little he could tell her in reply.

‘Arm up, chaps,’ called Colonel Katterfelto. ‘If you’re up to shooting something, now would be the time.’

Alice peeped out at the dragon. It really was a most exquisite creature and looked to her exactly how a dragon really should. Fifty feet from tail to snout. Green and scaly all about. Tiny wings upon its back and smoke coming out of its nostrils. It paced up and down outside the spaceship upon four stubby legs, occasionally flicking its barbed tail and snorting fearfully. It made Alice feel most terribly afraid, but also strangely excited.

The Jovian hunters, now unroped, were cocking their ray-gun rifles.

‘Rank up facing the door,’ said Colonel Katterfelto. ‘Two ranks, one kneeling, other standing behind, that’s the stuff. Now imagine you’re potting the Zulus at Rorke’s Drift. Or, if that means nothing to you, just do as I say. When I unbolt the door, front rank fire, then we’ll take it from there.’

Colonel Katterfelto approached the door. Darwin the monkey shook his head.

‘Ah,’ said the colonel. ‘Understand your doubts. Might get cut down when they all fire together.’

Darwin the monkey nodded.

‘You must not shoot it,’ said Alice.

‘Madam,’ said the colonel, ‘I have no wish to be ungallant, but I will leave the training of kiwis to you and you must leave the slaying of dragons to me.

‘Saint George had a lance,’ said Alice. ‘Ray guns are not very sporting.’

‘Sure Saint George would have
liked
a ray gun,’ muttered the colonel, positioning himself to the rear of the hunters’ ranks. ‘Open the door, please, Stumpy, then we’ll have a pop at the beast.’

Corporal Larkspur came bustling up from somewhere. ‘Thou shalt not discharge any weapon aboard this spaceship,’ said he, in no uncertain manner. ‘One misplaced bolt might breacheth the hull. A hole spelleth doom in space.

‘Fellow’s right,’ agreed the colonel. ‘Stumpy, open up the door. Others march outside and form new ranks.’

None of the Jovians seemed too keen to comply.

‘Imagine that head on your study wall,’ said the colonel. But even this incentive failed to move the hunters.

‘I shalt turn the cannon upon it,’ said Corporal Larkspur.

‘And lo the beast shall grievous fall beneath its mighty prang.

‘Cannon?’ queried the colonel. ‘Prang?’ he queried also.

‘Mark Five Patent Prang Cannon,’ explained the corporal. ‘Latest thing, thou knowest. It employeth the transsubstantiation of pseudo-kharmic antipasti.’

‘Think you have that in a bit of a twist,’ said the colonel, who did his best to keep abreast of all the latest innovations in death-ray technology. ‘But catch the drift. Give the beast both barrels and see if the job gets jobbed.’

‘Cameron, stop this, please,’ said Alice.

‘Perhaps if we all stay very quiet it will lose interest and go elsewhere,’ Cameron Bell suggested to Corporal Larkspur.

The corporal eyed the private detective in a manner far from friendly. ‘Perhaps thou wouldst care to stepeth outside and shooeth it away,’ he suggested.

The dragon now struck the side of the spaceship, shaking the occupants all about and causing considerable alarm.

‘Breeched hull will meaneth all die-eth,’ said the corporal.

‘Man the prang cannon,’ said the colonel.

The existence of the prang cannon came as something of a surprise to Cameron Bell. This was, after all, a commercial vehicle of space,
not
an armed man-o’-war. A spaceship such as this, one that might be chartered by whomever could afford such a luxury, would not normally be expected to carry inbuilt weaponry. True it had originally been a Martian invasion craft. But these did not have cannons mounted upon them.

There was clearly much much more to this venture beyond an illegal hunt.

Darwin the monkey tugged at the colonel’s trousers.

‘What is it, my dear fellow?’ asked the oldster.

‘I want to fire the prang cannon,’ said Darwin.

But this he was denied.

In fact no one upon this particular midday of the London clock got to fire the prang cannon. There was a manual containing many pages of complicated instructions that had to be read and thoroughly absorbed before this technological terror weapon was even switched on. And the firing seat had thirty-two different position settings and the prang cannon could not be charged up ready for firing without the brass ignition key to the spaceship being inserted into its dashboard.

And the brass ignition key had unaccountably gone missing.

Which caused considerable distress to Corporal Larkspur.

‘I am sure it will turn up,’ said Cameron Bell, smiling somewhat as he said it.

Another great buffet upon the hull informed all and sundry that the dragon’s intentions, whatever they proved ultimately to be, included gaining access to the
Marie Lloyd.

‘Back to Plan A,’ said the colonel. ‘Open the door, Stumpy.’

‘No,’ cried Alice. ‘Please don’t shoot the dragon.’

‘Balls,’ said Colonel Katterfelto, ‘take the young lady to her cabin, if you will.’

The dragon struck the hull once more and everyone fell over.

‘Right,’ said the colonel, struggling up to his feet. ‘Nothing for it. I will deal with this.’ And drawing his ray gun from its holster he ordered Stumpy to unbolt the door.

‘Perhaps we might reconsider our options,’ Darwin suggested. ‘I have no doubts as to your bravery, but many for your prospects of survival.’

‘Duty,’ said the colonel. ‘My responsibility. Safety of all up to me.

‘Perhaps it might just go away,’ said Darwin.

The dragon struck the
Marie Lloyd
once more.

Stumpy drew the bolts with some difficulty, then kicked open the door. Colonel Katterfelto charged out through it, ray gun raised on high.

Stumpy hastily drew the door shut and nudged the bolts back into place.

‘Brave fellow,’ said Cameron Bell. ‘I will miss him.’

Darwin’s face was one of horror. ‘Someone help him,’ he cried.

But none showed any enthusiasm. All just peered through the portholes.

Beyond the portholes stood the colonel, squaring up to the dragon. The thing of myth and wonder towered above, smoke issuing from its nostrils, up on its stocky hind legs, scaly and fearsome to behold.

Colonel Katterfelto aimed his ray gun at its head. ‘Now see here,’ he told it. ‘Have to ask you to take your leave. Or be forced to shoot you dead. Understand? Don’t speak dragon language, but I’m sure you catch my drift.’

The dragon glared down on the figure below. Flames licked at its lips and its jaws went
snap-snap-snap.