‘OK. Then just set up some kind of warning and a record on anything that gets cut. If anything ever does.’
Spike grinned. ‘That’s sweet. And so are you.’
It was the nicest thing anyone had said to Jack for as long as he could remember.
‘Where do you want the stones then, guvnor?’
Rex stared up at the spaceman on the descending ramp. ‘Where do I want the what?’
‘The stones, guvnor, for the henge.’
‘I didn’t order any stones. Will you kindly get your damn spaceship off my lawn.’
‘More than my job’s worth.’
‘Job’s worth?’ Something in Rex’s ancestral memory rang a big red alarm bell.
‘Oh dear, oh dear.’ The alien, a lacklustre type in a lacklustre suit of shabby grey, called up the ramp to an unseen companion. ‘Got a live one here, Bert.’
‘Just get a signature.’
‘Yeah, are you going to sign for these?’
Rex did a silly sort of dance. ‘Now see here. I don’t know anything about . . .’
‘This is planet Earth, is it not?’
‘Yes, but . . .’
‘And you are . . .’ The alien consulted his clipboard. ‘Mr Rex Monday?’
‘Mundi.’
‘Well, same thing.’
‘No it’s not.’
‘Listen friend, when you’ve travelled one thousand light years from the shores of Ganymede, banged through the Crab Nebula, negotiated meteor storms off the Rigel Concourse, you’re not going to let a transposed letter or two spoil your day. Know what I mean?’
‘I . . .’
‘So, where do you want these stones?’
‘I didn’t order any . . .’ Rex sought a suitable adjective to express his extreme displeasure. None had as yet been invented.
‘Who sent you?’ he demanded.
‘Ah, there you go.’ The spaceman proffered his card. ‘FAR EAST OF EDEN LANDSCAPE GARDENERS. BETA RETICULI. We have the contract for this world. That’s my name underneath, by the way. Alf Parsons. Would you care to look at the plans?’
‘No.’
Christeen appeared at the doorway of the Mundi homestead.
‘Strewth,’ said Alf Parsons from Beta Reticuli.
‘What is going on?’ Christeen enquired. Rex did major shrugs.
‘Your henge, madam.’ Alf bowed politely. ‘Where would you like me to put it?’ Rex restrained himself, although he wasn’t sure why.
‘Put it out the back please.’ Christeen vanished into the hut, reappearing but briefly to say, ‘and make sure you put the roof on it this time.’
‘Certainly madam.’ Alf called up to his chum. ‘Lady says to put it out back, Bert. And with the roof this time.’
Rex made fists, but didn’t know what to do with them.
He slunk back towards his hut. Fido watched his master slouch by.
‘You want I should go over and piss on his leg, man?’
‘Yes,’ Rex replied. ‘I would like that very much.’
Jack took an early lunch so he could work on his novel.
‘A veritable tour de force. A real belter of a book. Doveston blends socio-realism, nail-biting suspense and hard-hitting action into an unbeatable combination.’
It didn’t go well. He returned late. He returned drunk.
‘How’s it going?’ he asked Spike.
‘You’re pissed again,’ the elf replied.
‘So, how is it going?’
‘It’s done. If we get penetrated—’ Spike made an obscene gesture which had Jack chewing his lip ‘—this set-up will record whatever gets penetrated. As to cutting the pirate, that’s up to you.’
Jack dropped into his chair. ‘This is of course a total waste of time and money.’ He gestured over the array of expensive paraphernalia forming a NASA HQ about him.
‘Seems like. Listen boss, can I split now? As you’re blitzed I wouldn’t mind skiving off early.’
‘I’m easy. But tell me before you go, how will I know if the system gets ... er ... penetrated?’
Spike stepped around Jack’s desk and interfered with his terminal. ‘This sucker will flash like crazy and play you Purple Haze.’
‘Purple Haze?’
‘Yeah. Well, you like Hendrix, don’t you?’
‘I like the way you think, Spike.’
‘Sure, you’re okay, Jack. You get drunk too much is all. You want to get yourself a hobby.’
‘I do?’
‘Sure. Ever thought about building an ark? A word to the wise eh?’ And upon that curious note, which had some of us thinking, Spike departed, whistling Purple Haze.
She wasn’t gone five minutes before Jack’s terminal took up the refrain.
‘Scuse me while I kiss that girl...’ sang Jack Doveston.
‘Well I think it’s very nice,’ said Christeen. ‘And it does have the roof this time.’
Rex wasn’t impressed. ‘But what is it supposed to be? What does it mean?’
‘It’s not supposed to be anything. It’s art. It means what it is, that’s all.’
‘I’m missing something.’ Rex had reached the same chemical condition as had Jack Doveston. ‘I don’t see the point.’
‘Nothing new there.’ Rex turned his wife a scornful look.
‘It’s art,’ Christeen did her best to explain. ‘Stone-henges, standing stones, pyramids. They’re art. Classical sculpture. Galactic Counsel Grant. They are supposed to be inspirational. And decorative of course. You wouldn’t believe the effect the first ones had on Earth’s history.’
‘It’s just a con then,’ said the enlightened Rex. ‘Why didn’t you say so?’
‘Well, if you’re going to be cynical.’
‘Or realistic.’
‘All a matter of opinion and interpretation. Back in the twentieth century there was this painter called Picasso. He didn’t have a lot of talent, but he made up for that with ambition. He was not going to be put off by the fact that he couldn’t paint very well. Not when he was determined to be rich and famous.’
‘So who did he fool?’ Rex should have known better than to ask.
‘Hailed as the most influential artist of the twentieth century. Couldn’t paint his way out of a corner. Of course he wasn’t one of ours.’
‘Phnaarg,’ said the thoroughly enlightened Rex. It was a cosmic truth, known to very few before the Apocalypse, that the entirety of human history had been nothing more than a TV reality show, designed and orchestrated by beings from the planet Phnaargos to satisfy their voracious viewing public.
‘As it happened,’ Christeen continued, ‘the greatest artist of the twentieth century was a fellow from Northern Ireland, Dave Carson. But who remembers him now?’
‘About as many as remember your Picasso.’
‘Sic transit gloria mundi.’
‘Ah yes,’ said Rex. ‘I have been meaning to ask about my sister.’
‘Oh, she’s about somewhere.’
Somewhat earlier Gloria Mundi had pulled herself out of Elvis Presley’s swimming pool. She turned a glance of utter contempt upon Sam Maggot as he sat sipping Elvis’s last drink and paying no heed at all to her plight. Exactly what she was doing here, or even where or when here was, were matters which were currently weighing rather heavily upon her.
Jack Doveston was sobering up nicely. His terminal screen was jumping. Whoever had entered the university’s system certainly knew what they were about. The rare books on disc were being scanned. But at amazing speed. Jack set the printout in operation. He was eager to see what was going on.
His reasoning went loosely as follows:
Someone has entered the system.
The Dean wants to know who this someone is.
The Dean has brought in very expensive equipment to achieve this end.
Ergo: Whatever is being lifted must be of considerable value.
Ergo: It might prove profitable to uncover the ‘what’ before worrying too much about identif
ying the ‘who’. Jack was really quite pleased with this line of reasoning. It had a kind of inebriate symmetry about it.
The printout began to catapult lines of copy on to the folding sheets. Fragments of Latin, Coptic, Olde English. It looked for the most part sheer gibberish. And then it was over. Jimi stopped playing and the room went very quiet indeed.
‘Golly,’ said Jack Doveston. ‘So what do we have here then?’ He studied the printout. It looked a bit like a poem. A bit like, but not altogether. It looked, ‘More like a recipe . . .’ Jack examined it with growing interest, ‘. . . or a formula. Or a spell. It’s an incantation.’ Jack whistled. He’d been long enough down here amongst all these books to know an incantation when one was staring him in the face. Jack tore it from the printer and examined it carefully. There was a certain balance to it, an almost musical harmony. The syllables seemed to be forcing themselves from the page, as if frantic to be read.
‘Curiouser and curiouser.’ He could certainly read them out. It couldn’t do any harm. Magic was an art rather than a science. The layman could not simply reproduce results at will. Put magic under laboratory conditions and it would not respond. It was a bit like giving a child some music and a piano and expecting him to play you a concerto. The adept who chose the left-hand path to practise the black art gave his entire life to it, his soul. Hardly surprising, therefore, that magic would not whistle a tune for a sceptical lab technician.
Jack knew all this well enough. He rose to his feet, took up the printout and without another thought, shouted the words into space.
Wayne L. Wormwood stepped on to the rostrum and addressed the stadium crowd. ‘My dear friends,’ he began. ‘My dear dear friends.’ Cameras flashed summer lightning across flags and banners. Searchlights diced the sky. The cheers were deafening. The new president raised his hands as in benediction. The crowd stilled to utter silence
Wayne L. Wormwood opened his eyes. The East Side Hall contained but a dozen onlookers. None were paying him much attention. The wino in the third row belched. The black with the headband chuckled and said, ‘Tell it like it is, bro’.’ A bag lady muttered to herself. Wormwood gazed down at her. The bag lady stilled to utter silence. The black said, ‘Uh-ha.’
‘Tonight,’ Wormwood passed his gaze over the ill assortment of New York low-life, ‘tonight you are twelve in number. Tomorrow one hundred and forty-four. You!’ He pointed to a fat biker who was picking his nose. ‘Eleven of your fellows, yes?’
‘You what, huh?’ The biker started up. He met Wormwood’s eyes. Stared into his face. It was a long face, the nose aquiline, chin deeply cleft. The forehead high, reaching to a pelt of dull black hair. The mouth a cruel red gash. The eyes burned like glowing coals. ‘Yeah, eleven, you got it.’ The biker heard himself saying. But his voice seemed to come from a great distance.
Wormwood managed a thin smile. He hunched his high narrow shoulders to lean forward over the make-shift rostrum.
‘Yes, I got it. Haven’t I?’ The dozen heads began to bob slowly. He’d got it.
Shortly afterwards twelve people shuffled from the hall and back out into the rain-lashed night. They had been told absolutely nothing, other than to return the next evening and bring eleven souls with them. And they would. Although they had not the slightest idea why. There had been no harangue, no sales pitch, no promises. But there had been something. They would never know what. They were not going to live that long.
Wormwood gazed over the empty hall. ‘Just like that,’ he whispered.
‘Just like that.’ The voice was high and piping. Wormwood swung around to view its owner. She was enormous. Clad in a filthy black overcoat that reached nearly to the floor. Wormwood was tall, but the old woman towered above him. He peered into the bloated face, half shadowed beneath an outlandish hat decked with coloured ribbons.
‘I told you that it would be simple with the few.’ Dewlaps rippled, blubber lips drooled.
‘We shall see.’ Wormwood turned upon his heel and strode from the hall.
‘Tomorrow night,’ called the gross one.
Something small and dark, which might have been a scorpion, scuttled from her mouth and vanished into a cavernous nostril.
Rex Mundi jerked awake clutching his nose. ‘Oh! Ow! What?’ he shrieked.
‘Lighten up, man,’ howled Fido. ‘Ease up there. You rolled on me.’
‘Sorry.’ Rex pecked at his nostrils. ‘I had this bad dream. First in ten years. Insect up the nose or something. Sorry.’
Rex shuddered and rose up on his elbows. He groaned as he caught sight of a procession that was heading in his direction.
‘Now who are they?’
‘I expect they’d be Druids, come up to celebrate the summer solstice.’
‘So where’s the police?’
‘Police, man? Or do I mean policemen, man?’
‘Police, I know my history. Whenever folk went to celebrate their rites at Stonehenge, police blocked off all the roads, set their dogs on them and banged them about with truncheons. It was a twentieth-century tradition, or an old charter or something.’
Fido shrugged. ‘You got me.’
The fellows in the white robes and the pointy hats formed themselves into a circle about Rex and Fido. ‘Oh celebrants,’ called one, who was wearing what Rex correctly deduced to be robes of high office. ‘Oh celebrants, our sacrifice is here before us.’ Rex and Fido exchanged looks.
‘Must mean you,’ said both Rex and Fido.
‘Let his blood be spilled upon the sacred stone.’
‘Don’t muck about.’ Rex climbed wearily to his feet. ‘That’s my dog. On your way.’
‘Cheers Rex,’ said Fido.
‘Only the blood of the Living God King can consecrate the circle.’
‘Cheers Druids,’ said Fido.
‘Let’s not be silly. What is that?’ Rex pointed dumbly towards what looked to be a very long sword. The chief Druid swung it to and fro.‘A simple bit of open-heart surgery,’ quoth Rambo Bloodaxe. For it is he.
‘Oh come on now. You are making a big mistake.’ Rex waggled his finger at Rambo. ‘This henge. It’s not what you think. Here, let me show you the receipt.’
‘New world, Rex. Time for a change of leadership. Don’t take it personally. You had a good run . . .’ The crowd closed in about Rex Mundi. Rambo’s blade rose toward the bright blue sky, clearly visble through numerous holes in the poorly constructed roof.
‘No wait. Let me explain. You see there was this spaceship..’
Fido bared his fangs. But in the face of superior opposition he made a strategic withdrawal.
Man’s best friend indeed!
Jack Doveston was feeling somewhat downcast. Not that he had really expected anything to happen. But he had sort of hoped. He wasn’t completely lacking in romance and the arrival of some djinni or holy guardian angel would have brightened up the day no end. Jack turned the printout between his fingers.
‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Fold in the page. Didn’t read the last bit. Endo sophistus apportem!’
There was a bit of a hush. In fact, there was a lot of a hush. Jack rooted in his ear, clicked his jaw. He couldn’t hear a thing. He snapped his fingers before his face. Nothing. Utter silence. ‘Oh great,’ he mouthed. ‘A spell that makes you go deaf.’
There came a sudden high-pitched whistling. It grew in intensity, like feedback. Jack ground his teeth. Clamped his hands over his ears. The whistle changed in pitch. Became a many-toned whine. The library began to vibrate. Precious books tumbled from the shelves. The Dean’s equipment erupted in showers of sparks. Jack wisely assumed the foetal position. Space warped, drew in upon itself and flung something at Jack Doveston.
‘Don’t do it!’ cried Rex Mundi. ‘Don’t do it!’
‘Don’t do what?’ Jack peeped up fearfully. The room was again still. A bewildered man in a soiled kaftan was gaping down at him. Fanning smoke.
‘Harrison Ford,’ said Jack Doveston.
‘Who?’ as
ked Rex Mundi.
4
WHEEL: Why some races chose not to invent it. It has always been my contention, now universally accepted, that most so-called ‘primitive peoples’ know a great deal more than they are letting on. And that they choose rather to understate their intelligence than to benefit from it financially. On a recent trip to East Africa, the chief of the Wakamba tribe confided to me that his people had chosen, by a show of hands, not to invent the Carbon Fourteen dating technique. The modesty of such peoples should serve as an example to us all.
Hugo Rune, The Book of Ultimate Truths
‘Christeen . . . man . . . you’d better come quick. Deep dog-doings going down at the stones.’
Christeen emerged from the rustic residence. She was dressed in one of those long tight white Arthurian numbers, her hair wound in golden coils about her ears. ‘What is going on, Fido? And stop doing that to my leg!’
‘Sorry. It’s all the excitement. Druids ... at the stones . . . big violence . . . Rex . . .’
Christeen sighed deeply. ‘Violence already? What is it about Stonehenge? The moment those rocks go up people start chopping each other to pieces.’
‘So Rex was saying. You’d better come over quick.’
The New Age Druids were arguing amongst themselves. There was much pushing and shoving going on. Voices were being raised. As Christeen approached these dimmed away to become embarrassed murmurs.
‘All right. What is going on?’ The Druids made innocent shrugs.