Роберт Грант - The Quanderhorn Xperimentations

Guuuurk called: ‘Not to worry, Brian, old sausage. We’ll catch up with this later.’

I smiled and nodded and prayed we did not.

Jenkins led me back down the stairs. He also seemed remarkably unruffled by the deafening siren and the metallic voice which chirped in to count down the minutes to the Earth’s destruction.

‘Isn’t anyone going to respond to that?’ I yelled.

‘Good point, sir. I’ll mute the siren. It does get quite irritating if you’re not used to it.’ He threw a lever on the wall, and it abated.

‘That’s not going to help the planetary destruction problem.’

‘I’m sure the Professor will get round to that in goodly time, sir. Now, we just need to take the lift…’

There was a bank of lifts behind me. I pressed the ‘Call’ button on the most important-looking one.

‘Not that button, sir!’ Jenkins barked. ‘You mustn’t go round pressing buttons and opening doors. There’s buttons that mustn’t be pressed and doors that mustn’t be opened.’

‘So, what is that button for?’

‘That’s the Professor’s private lift, sir. Nobody can operate it ’cepting him. Security devices.’ He pressed an adjacent button to summon another lift car. ‘We’ve had a lot of trouble with polymorphic shape-shifters from beneath the Earth’s crust. Those cunning little beggars. I put some powder down but they’re very persistent.’

The lift doors pinged open and we stepped in. ‘Here we go, sir. Next stop: the High-Rise Farm.’

The lift smelled of damp wood and fertilizer. Jenkins pressed a number on a huge bank of buttons. The doors snapped shut immediately, and we surged upward at an alarming speed. A complicated indicator board above the doors, very much like the one at Waterloo Station, was flipping over at a breakneck pace. I could only read the occasional legend as it flitted onwards: ‘Pigs and Sugar Beet’, ‘Currently Fallow’, ‘Soft Fruits and Hops’, ‘Tractor Repair Bays / Slaughterhouse’.

‘What exactly is the point of a high-rise farm, Jenkins?’

‘Oh, it’s genius, sir: the notion is, if they can put all the agriculture into high-rise buildings, they’ll be able to concrete over the entire countryside.’

‘ What?’

‘That’s the Professor for you: always thinking the unthinkable.’

The lift stopped suddenly, and I didn’t. I banged my head quite hard on the ceiling.

‘Sorry, sir, meant to tell you to brace yourself. Here we are: seventy-fourth floor: Chickens, Cows and Potato fields.’

The doors opened onto a hideous diorama of squawking violence and mooing mayhem.

Jenkins tut-tutted mildly. ‘Oh dear, they’re fighting over the potatoes again.’

The metallic voice reminded us the world would end in thirty-one minutes.

‘Good Lord, Jenkins – the chickens are enormous ! That one over there must be eight feet tall!’

Jenkins glanced over and looked away again very quickly. ‘That’s the cockerel, sir. I shouldn’t catch his eye if I were you. The poor old postman did, and he never walked straight again.’Course, they said it was an accident—’

‘But the cows – they’re tiny ! Why is that?’

‘Easier to milk, sir: just pick ’em up and squeeze ’em.’

We carefully negotiated our way around the poultry and bovine carnage, being sure to keep my gaze on my feet.

‘Here’s the Professor, now.’

The figure from the gantry at Westminster seemed even more imposing closer up. He’d shed his overcoat and hat and was dressed in a white lab coat, white wellington boots and long green rubber gloves. He was showing diagrams from his clipboard to Dr. Janussen. He looked up, ignored me completely and shouted at Jenkins:

‘Sedate those chickens immediately! And add more plutonium to their feed!’

‘Very well, sir.’ Jenkins saluted limply, and wandered off mumbling. I could only catch: ‘More blinkin’ plutonium! That’s his answer to everything!’

And at last, I was about to face the legendary Quanderhorn himself.

He turned his stony features towards me, and furrowed his serious brow. His strikingly brilliantined silver hair instantly bestowed him with an aura of wisdom and authority. Cold, steely grey eyes scanned me as if I were a biological specimen. Thin mirthless lips betrayed no trace of emotion.

His icy stare seemed to penetrate my very being – as if he knew everything I’d ever been, and everything I ever would be.

Eventually he spoke:

‘Who the hell are you?’

Dr. Janussen – whose ear, I noticed, was once again happily vertical – stepped forward and coughed discreetly. ‘It’s Brian , Professor. He’s wearing a different sweater.’

‘Ah! Nylon!’ The eyebrows lifted and the smile put in an appearance after all. ‘Pleased to see you’ve recovered.’

The metallic voice piped up again. ‘ The world will end in… twenty-nine minutes .’

The Professor ignored it. ‘Tea?’ he offered, amicably.

‘Uhm, do we have time, Professor? What with this world ending thingumajig?’

But he was already pouring from the teapot. ‘Milk?’

‘Er – no – th—’

He snatched up a tiny cow from the floor and callously squeezed it over the cup to a strangulated miniature moo.

‘Too late!’ He passed me the cup. I really had no option but to sip it.

It was vile.

‘How’s that?’ he asked.

‘Uhm…’

‘Ye-es. If you don’t squeeze them exactly in the middle, the wrong stuff comes out, and… well, it’s vile. We’re working on it.’

Dr. Janussen coughed again. ‘Professor? The crisis?’

‘Ah yes! The chickens seem to have outgrown the coop by a factor of about forty. They’re staging raids on the milking shed. Solution: arm the cows with—’

‘No – not the chicken crisis,’ Dr. Janussen corrected. ‘The destruction of the planet crisis.’

‘Well, if we must. Instruct the entire team to assemble in the briefing room in exactly forty minutes.’

‘ The world will end in… twenty-eight minutes .’

There was a long pause, whilst Dr. Janussen and I carefully considered how to tell the great man. Eventually, she tentatively offered: ‘Forty minutes may be pushing it.’

‘Oh, very well,’ the Professor scowled. ‘Five minutes, then. But I want toast.’

From the journal of Brian Nylon, 1st January, 1952 – Iteration 66

Ten minutes later we were all gathered in the briefing room. The Professor was pacing up and down impatiently in front of the blackboard, lost in deepest thought, while the rest of us perched uncomfortably on rough wooden benches.

The terrifying countdown continued relentlessly. I glanced nervously around. No one else seemed particularly anxious. Along with Dr. Janussen and Troy, I was surprised to see that Guuuurk was considered a trusted enough member of the team to be admitted to these briefings. He’d changed into a navy blue yachting blazer with a badge that said ‘Melton Mowbray Ladies Rowing Association’, a red silk cravat and a rather natty pair of co-respondent shoes.

Finally, Jenkins appeared with a tray.

‘Ah!’ the Professor beamed. ‘The toast has arrived at last! Now we can get on.’

He cleared his throat noisily and wrote the word ‘Crisis’ on the blackboard, then spun round to face us. ‘Nylon – if you’d like to tell us all what’s going on?’

I looked around. Everyone had swivelled towards me. ‘I… have no idea.’

The Professor sighed. ‘Well, there you have it, gentlemen. Mysterious problem beyond human understanding.’ He picked up some toast. ‘Open a file, and I’ll get back to the chickens.’