Роберт Грант - The Quanderhorn Xperimentations

With a horrible whispering sound it suddenly fragmented and collapsed down into itself like a demolished industrial chimney, leaving a boiling eddy of bubbles and scattered flotsam. Amongst it, I spotted my lucky Scout woggle, which I managed to rescue without the others seeing. I think. [5] From Guuuurk’s Report: ‘What the Deimos is that peculiar little braided object Brian keeps rescuing surreptitiously? Is it something he applies to his genitalia during the mating ritual in some way, like the red-hot Barbed Hoopno employed in the Martian honeymoon ceremony? He certainly seems very attached to it (though not in the way one becomes attached to the red-hot Barbed Hoopno). We’re all laughing behind our hands whenever he gets it out!’

We tumbled, exhausted, into the topless jeep and Jenkins drove us back to the lab.

It was a moonless night, and as we all lay down to try and snatch a few moments’ rest, the darkness above us was dispelled all at once by a sudden enchantingly beautiful meteorite shower, bathing us in an ethereal glow.

I glanced over at Dr. Janussen, who was lying on the bench opposite mine. She looked particularly lovely as the soft radiant colours danced over her exquisite face, like fairies on midsummer night.

She opened one eye. ‘Brian, your nose is dripping. And there’s dried drool on your chin.’

I smiled back at her indulgently. That moment just now on the ship, when she’d claimed she didn’t like me terribly much – was that during or after the X-barrier was reversing our thoughts? Had she really meant she adored me, as I did her?

‘You really are disgusting,’ she added.

Would I ever know the truth?

Jenkins showed me to my room.

Though I entered it and bade him goodnight with an air of nonchalance, the moment I shut the door, my heart was pounding frightfully. My past lay in this room.

I looked around slowly.

A simple desk, a camp bed, a wardrobe and a washbasin.

I recognised nothing. Remembered nothing. There were no framed photographs next to my bedside, no letters in the drawers of the desk. An inspection of the wardrobe merely turned up a spare set of sensible shoes, two plain brown ties, a couple of tweed jackets and three socks. No inscription on the back of my watch. No wallet or driving licence. No clean underwear.

I collapsed, deflated, onto the smartly made bed. No clues anywhere.

And then it struck me: that piece of paper in my flight suit pocket!

I took it out and smoothed it down. If there were a message in invisible ink, all I had to do was hold it over a heat source.

I scanned the room again. No matches, no radiator, no Primus stove. No heat source of any kind. But then, wasn’t I a Boy Scout?

I poked a hole in the mattress and dug out some straw. I opened up the wardrobe and kicked out two slats from the back. Using my shoelaces to fashion a primitive bow drill, I spun a pencil into the remaining slat.

After about seventy-five minutes, the straw began to smoulder, and less than two hours later, it caught fire.

Feverishly I took the paper and held it above the flame.

Nothing happened.

I held it closer.

Letters began to form on the page, from the centre outwards:

Then it burst into flames, which immediately spread to my sleeve. My right arm was too exhausted from the bowing to actually move, so I had to put the blaze out by rolling on the bed. Which I remembered, just a moment too late, was stuffed with straw. I had to fill my tooth mug with water from the basin with my good arm and rush back and forwards dousing the fire.

After about half an hour, it spread to the wardrobe.

I had to dash into the corridor and hunt down a fire extinguisher. I found several, quite easily, but they were all labelled ‘Not Suitable for Fire’. What the devil were they for, then?

When I finally returned, I found absolutely all the furniture had completely burnt out, and nothing remained but several piles of black smoking ashes.

I closed the door quietly, and moved into the adjacent room, which was mercifully unoccupied.

As I switched the light on, I realised I could have simply held the parchment up to the bulb.

I lay on the bed, turning over the message in my head. ‘ELLER’? What could that possibly be? Propeller? Fortune-teller? Tunnel dweller? Bookseller? John D. Rockefeller?

‘EXTREMELY DAN’, I guessed was ‘Dangerous’, though it could have been ‘Extremely dangly’ or ‘Extremely Danish’.

‘BOOB’? A dangerous fortune-teller with extremely dangly boobs? Why the dickens would anyone bother to warn me against such an individual? If I saw them coming, I’d run a mile!

A wave of exhaustion swept over me, and I resolved to sleep and pursue my investigations in the light of day.

I flicked off the light and the room was illuminated by residual bursts of radiance from the dying meteor shower, gently lulling me off…

Exhausted, I had an almost dreamless night. There was just one: in a curious violet light, the Professor, wearing a peculiar pair of goggles, was at the foot of my bed, scraping my shins with some sort of strigil. I called out a cotton-mouthed ‘Professor?’ The dream Quanderhorn held his finger to his lips and vanished backwards into the gloom.

I sank back into peaceful oblivion.

From the journal of Brian Nylon, 2nd January, 1952 – Iteration 66

I rose late and breakfasted alone in the automated canteen on synthetic porridge and devilled ‘kidneys’, from the Professor’s farm. Apparently, for some reason the ‘kidneys’ were made of liver. Which was all very well, if you liked devilled liver. Personally, I found it revolting. I took my tea without milk, which seemed to disappoint the little cow on the table.

At eight, I made my way over to the briefing room. Everyone was waiting. Dr. Janussen, looking fresh and fragrant, was studying the output from the Telemergency Print-O-Gram. ‘The meteorite shower seems to have abated, Professor.’

‘Excellent!’ Quanderhorn barked. ‘That wraps up the sinkhole incident.’ He began gathering papers from the desk. ‘I’ll be in my office. My door is always open. Jenkins: can you do something about that damned door? These idiots keep coming in.’ He turned to leave. ‘And bring me all the information we have on that meteorite shower.’

Jenkins grumbled out of the room behind him. ‘Another bloomin’ meteorite shower! Still, it’s good for the garden.’

And we were left in peace. No end-of-the-world alerts, no klaxons, no ‘no time to explain right now’. Guuuurk noticeably relaxed. By which I mean, he deflated his head noisily. He was resplendent today in a cricket sweater, flannels held up by an Eton tie and a cap with an MCC badge. (I later found out that this stood for Motherwell Cribbage Club.) ‘That’s that, then,’ he grinned. ‘The pressure is off.’

Troy perked up also. ‘Yeah. I think I might go up and work on my dung ball.’

‘On your what?’ I asked, not really looking forward to the reply.

‘Work out with… my… dum bells.’ He sidled out, sheepishly. I exchanged glances with Dr. Janussen.

‘Just don’t go into his room. Ever. And never let him talk you into a game of croquet.’

Guuuurk hefted a sports bag onto the desk. ‘Right! Time for a spot of R&R.’ At which precise moment the Professor’s voice crackled over the intercom.

‘And Guuuurk, I’ll want a full report on that sinkhole business on my desk by noon.’

‘Absolutely!’ Guuuurk’s grin didn’t waver. He winked at me with three eyes and snapped off the intercom.