Роберт Грант - The Quanderhorn Xperimentations

The nose does seem to be rather crumbly at the end, now I looks. It’s sort of… caving in, like a sandcastle when the tide takes it.

He feels the tip of his conk with his fingers. It shatters like a biscuit. There’s a whole lot of tiny granules down his shirt front now. He looks down at them, sprinkled all over the place, and groans quietly: ‘Nooooooo!’

‘Don’t worry about your nose, sir. Just brush the crumbs to the floor and I’ll fetch the Ewbank.’

What’s left of his face is ashen. ‘Jenkins, this is a bitter blow – my corporeal form is clearly unstable. You realise what this means?’ he keens. A tiny bit of his earlobes falls off at the bottom.

‘Yes, sir. It means you’re falling to pieces.’ I don’t add, ‘If you could crumble into a neat pile, that would be most helpful.’ Though it’s true.

‘It means I’m the duplicate, not him! It means that unethical, mad iteration is the real Quanderhorn after all.’

I can’t help feeling disappointed, on account of I quite liked this version. I sighs. ‘Well, at least we know where we are now, duplicate sir. He’s the top copy, you’re the carbon.’

‘I’m deteriorating rapidly,’ he rasps as his little finger crumbles to the floor. ‘Regrettably, the duplication process itself must be fatally flawed. We have to warn him: he can’t rely on those facsimiles.’

‘Bit late for that, sir. They’re well inside that ziggurat by now.’

‘Then we’ll have to warn him before he sends them in. Yesterday.’ He holds up the notebook again. Where’s this so-called “Future Phone” I—’ He checks himself. ‘ He invented?’

‘There’s an extension over here, sir. But there was only enough tempor-what’s-i-um for one call, and we used it yesterday.’

He snorts a ha ! ‘ Think , man: this will be yesterday’s call.’

‘You may be a crumbling wreck of a duplicate, sir, but you still outranks me in the brains division.’ I hands him the receiver and dials in ‘Yesterday’.

It starts ringing at the other end.

‘Jenkins,’ the crumbly Prof hisses, ‘this is critical – I may need you to prompt me from time to time, so it’s exactly the same as yesterday. Clear?’

This Future Phone business makes my head fair spin, it does. It’s always trouble, if you asks me. I leans in close to listen.

‘ Hello ,’ I hears me yesterday self answer.

‘Quanderhorn here. I need to speak to Quanderhorn.’

I thinks back, and whispers to the crumbly Prof: ‘First, you’ve got to tell him about the ziggurat, sir.’

He covers up the mouthpiece. ‘That makes no sense. Why don’t I go straight to the warning?’

‘Dunno,’ I shrugs, ‘but that’s what you did.’

And we both hear the Yesterday-Prof says to Yesterday-me: ‘ Tell him I’m out .’

The carbon Prof yells: ‘And I know he isn’t out. I’m in the future, dammit!’ He covers the mouthpiece again and turns to me. ‘You’re sure the dire warning didn’t go first?’

‘Definitely not, sir’

‘ I’d better not be wasting my own time ,’ comes from the other end. ‘ Hello?’

‘Listen, Quanderhorn, there isn’t much time. The advanced technology in that Mercurian vessel has stirred a powerful alien artefact, a giant ziggurat, slumbering these many millennia under Piccadilly Circus.’

‘ Oh, really?’

‘Anyone who penetrates the heart of its structure will astonishing secrets beyond human understanding.’

‘ I see. And why are you bothering to tell me this?’

‘To be honest, I don’t have the faintest idea. I need to get to the point.’

‘ Well, get to the point, then .’

‘Well, if you’d just stop interrupting me, I would get to the point—’

‘ You’re interrupting me!’

‘No – you’re interrupting me. Just listen: I must give you this dire warning… whatever you do, don’t…’

And that operator’s voice. ‘ To continue this call, please deposit more temporium.’

‘…rely on the duplicate crew, because they’re going to crumble… Hello?’

But the line’s gone dead.

‘Dammit!’ He slams the phone down in such a fury, his hand snaps off with it.

We both stare at the hand on the floor as it trickles away like the grains in an hourglass.

‘I’ve had it, Jenkins’, he says quietly and he begins to sink slowly to knee height into a growing pile of dust. ‘I don’t have long now…’

I unfolds a sheet of newspaper and lays it on the ground. ‘If you wouldn’t mind just aiming yourself onto this, sir, it would make my job so much easier.’

But he’s staring into the distance. ‘It was all going to be so wonderful. Virginia and I had such plans. We would cure the sick, feed the starving… Where is she, by the way?’

‘Um – Dr Whyte? She’s, er… not been quite herself just recently…’ is the best I can come up with. ‘Rotting in a putrefying mass on the compost heap’ seems too cruel.

He’s down to the waist now. ‘Sixty-six years in a cupboard, and then this!’ he manages to croak, as his torso collapses.

‘I must say, sir, it’s been a real pleasure working with you.’ And it’s true, even though he’s ruining my newly swept floor. ‘Sorry you have to leave us.’

Then, with just his head remaining atop a pyramid of flakes, he barely murmurs: ‘I’m sorry, too, Jenkins – only the real Quanderhorn can save you all now…’

And he’s gone.

Mission log. Flight number 001, Advanced Laboratory-Blasting Squadron (‘The Lab Busters’) Wing Commander William ‘Wee Willy Winkie’ Watkins, Office Commanding. Dateline: Sunday the 6th of January, 1952 02.03 hours

I’ve been awfully patient with the Scotsmen, but I’m afraid I finally snapped.

‘Good God in Heaven ! Can’t you kilted bastards play anything else?’

There was the hideous baby-strangling strains of the bags deflating, followed by an ominous silence. Then the chief Jock stood up, took several steps towards me, creased his brow and rumbled: ‘We could do a selection from Showboat, but Angus here’s a wee bit iffy on “Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat Man”.’

A bagpipe was hurled to the deck at the back, and an even deeper voice boomed: ‘Only on the middle eight! D’ya want to mak somethin’ of it?’

‘It’s no’ a criticism, Angus,’ the pipe major rationalised. ‘It’s down to the tonal range o’ th’ instrument—’

‘Could we just calm down a bit,’ I intervened, ‘and perhaps you’d enjoy a little rest for a moment or two?’

But the piper wouldn’t leave it. ‘Are you sayin’ ma “tonal range” is inadequate?’ he challenged, real menace in the voice.

The pipe major squared up to him. ‘Are you sayin’ ma tessitural knowledge is inaccurate?’

‘Aye, I’m sayin’ it. Ye dinna ken wha’ the deil ye’s talkin’ ’bout!’

‘I’m takkin off m’ pipe major hat, now this is jus’ between us, mon tae mon.’ He put up his fists. ‘What’s keepin’ ye, Shirley Temple?’

‘I’ll no’ sully m’ knuckles on a scabby scunner frae Aberdeen. It’d be like punchin’ a wee blind kitten.’

‘Oh – a kitten, is it? Well, even a kitten could beat a hackit jessie frae Inveraray wi’ a face like a scrot—’

‘Why don’t we all sit back down,’ I soothed, trying with my free hand to cram the feather bonnet back on the pipe major’s bullet-like head, ‘and just have a nice cup of char…?’ I suddenly realised that the message light had been flashing urgently for some seconds. I yelled ‘Quiet!’ and flicked the switch.