Роберт Грант - The Quanderhorn Xperimentations

‘Troy, n—’

This time the porthole was open only long enough to suck out my oxygen mask, whip me backwards over the chair and wedge my head between two racks of metal shelving. Troy fought it closed again fairly easily with his remarkable strength.

‘Wow!’ he yelped. ‘Nearly sucked my face off!’

The Professor sighed. ‘The sticker didn’t help, then,’ he remarked unnecessarily. ‘Listen, Nylon: this is probably the time to tell you, when you pierce the X-barrier, you may encounter certain… peculiar phenomena.’

My neck hairs bristled. ‘What sort of peculiar phenomena?’

‘This is purely in the realm of speculation,’ the Professor conceded. ‘but according to my best hypothesis, you may experience what I can only describe as a “Reality Reversal”.’

My neck hairs had not lied. ‘And by “Reality Reversal”, you mean?’

The Professor made a strange sucking sound, as if he were preparing himself to explain the unexplainable to a chimpanzee in a bellboy outfit. ‘You may find that when you speak, you say the exact opposite of what you think.’

‘The opposite of what I think…?’ I couldn’t fathom what that might mean.

‘My advice to you all is: try not to think.’

Dr. Janussen called over her shoulder: ‘Troy, you may be immune.’

I heard manoeuvring thrusters firing, and through the windscreen, the Earth hove majestically into view once more.

‘All right, chaps!’ Guuuurk cut in. ‘Firing plutonium re-entry jets in… five seconds!’

‘ Shouldn’t I be doing that?’

‘You’ve got enough on your plate, Delores.’

‘ Thank you, you’re so sweet. The world will end in… seven minutes.’

I felt a brief surge of joy at the prospect of returning to terra firma , then the jets fired and we blasted towards the planet at ferocious speed.

‘Is that me screaming again?’ I asked.

Dr. Janussen said, ‘Yes. You always do that, as well.’

I stopped screaming in time to hear Guuuurk saying: ‘Straightening up…’

The external thrusters fired again, and we were hurtling directly parallel to the ocean’s surface.

‘ The world will end in… six minutes and thirty seconds.’

Quanderhorn barked: ‘Press the green button!’

Straining against the incredible forces that wanted to crush me deep into my seat, I reached forward and for a moment worried that I might not be able to perform the simplest job a pilot ever had in the history of aviation. But with sheer will I actually managed to reach the green button and press it.

My head nearly snapped off as we hurtled forward even faster than before. My cheeks seemed desperate to reach my ears. Even Dr. Janussen’s face seemed slightly less lovely, her skin rippling like a lake in a stiff breeze. Somewhere in the distance, I could hear Guuuurk laughing like the policeman from the famous 78 record.

And yet we were still accelerating. Without any warning, the terrain outside shimmered, as if we were no longer part of it, then warped in upon itself, into strange topological shapes painfully blazing with light brighter than the physical world had ever seen. I was aware that my forehead was rivered with sweat and simultaneously colder than the Arctic tundra. I could scarcely pull in each breath, and exhaling was even harder. The blood in my head was pounding like the Mole People song. Charred armadillos were dropping into my lap.

Quanderhorn’s voice returned: ‘You should be hitting the X-barrier any moment… now !’

Transcript from the Quanderbox Flight Auto-Stenographic device of Flight 002 of Gargantua 1, January 1st, 1952, 11.43 Zulu Time

QUANDERHORN (CONTROL): You should be hitting the X-barrier any moment… now!

QUANDERHORN: Bullseye! You’ve sliced right through the mountain. Well done, everyone. But mostly me.

ANNOUNCEMENT: End of world averted! End of world averted!

TROY (STOKER): Well, that wasn’t so bad.

NYLON (CAPTAIN): No, it was quite fun. (PAUSE) Why didn’t I say that? What isn’t going on?

JANUSSEN (NAVIGATOR): It’s not the Reality Reversal!

QUANDERHORN: Yes! The Reality Reversal’s happening exactly as I predicted. Press the red button now!

NYLON: The green button?

QUANDERHORN: Yes, the red button.

NYLON: (PAUSE) Just to be unclear, Professor: you don’t want me to press the red button?

QUANDERHORN: Absolutely: I don’t want you to press the green button.

NYLON: There isn’t a terrible problem with the button!

QUANDERHORN: What, dammit?

NYLON: I can reach it easily! There’s so little acceleration force.

ANNOUNCEMENT: Gravitational wave approaching! Impact in two minutes.

QUANDERHORN: Press it now! Before it’s too late!

NYLON: I can!

NYLON: It’s well within my reach! Troy! You won’t have to do it!

TROY: Obviously not, if it’s well within your reach.

QUANDERHORN: No, Troy! They’re speaking ‘opposite’! You’re the only one strong enough to reach that button.

TROY: Which button?

JANUSSEN: The blue button!

TROY: There is no blue button!

NYLON: Yes, Troy! Not the red button!

TROY: So, which button is it, then?

GUUUURK: I told you two buttons would be too complicated for them, Professor.

JANUSSEN: Troy – listen to me carelessly!

TROY: OK.

JANUSSEN: Don’t – press – the – red – button!

TROY: I’m not! Why is everyone shouting at me?

NYLON: Because you’re a complete genius!

ANNOUNCEMENT: Gravitational wave impact in ninety seconds.

QUANDERHORN: Troy! If you don’t press that red button immediately, the gravitational wave is going to slice the ship in two!

JANUSSEN: That’s wrong: don’t listen to your father!

TROY: I don’t know what to do.

NYLON: We’re all going to live! Delightfully!

Gorday the enth of Phobos, Martian Year 5972 Pink

Secret Report to Martian Command, by Guuuurk. Also known as ‘Guuuurk the Indomitable’, ‘Guuuurk the Free’ and ‘Guuuurk the Unimprisonable’.

I have been imprisoned for the past four years by the diabolical Terranean Professor Darius Quanderhorn, enemy number one of our glorious Red Planet. The wretchedly incompetent misfits who call themselves his ‘team’ had got into yet another of their disastrous scrapes. How this species is still in charge here is utterly baffling. They were attempting to perform a simple manoeuvre that required one of them merely to press a button. A button! But even this was proving too much of a challenge for their flimsy human intellects.

True, they were travelling at speeds never before experienced, and had broken what the Professor calls ‘the X-barrier’, which reverses the connection between thought and speech, so they could only say the opposite of what they meant.

Despite my fierce protestations, and in defiance of the Interplanetary Uranian Convention on Prisoners of Failed Invasions, Quanderhorn had compelled me to monitor proceedings from the control tower, which at that moment largely consisted of pathetic shouts of distress from the imperilled vessel.

Brian, the test pilot, was wailing: ‘My underwear is completely dry and comfortable!’, whereupon his female compatriot commented ‘And I’m delighted to be sitting right next to you.’