The Ultimate Inferior Beings (16 page)

Chapter 11

sylX
appeared to
be
in her element, conversing with a strange being in a strange land.

“Tell us about yourself,
Chris,” she said, with genuine interest.

Chris shrugged as he
slithered along. “Not much to tell, really. I’d say I’m pretty average. Green
and slimy. Not too tall, not too short. That’s it.”

“What do you do? How do you
spend your time?”

“I don’t do much. There’s not
much to do here. I just sort of sit around a lot. Most of us do. When we get
hungry, we grab a brick and hunt down an animal. A pretty unexciting sort of
existence.”

“Hunt down an animal?” asked
jixX, coming into the conversation for the first time. “We haven’t seen any
wildlife at all, so far.”

“Yes, it’s a paradox, isn’t
it,” said Chris with a laugh. “There’s nowhere for them to hide, yet you can
never find one when you want one!”

“Is the whole planet this
flat and featureless?”

“Pretty much,” said Chris,
scanning the landscape. “Didn’t used to be. Used to have mountains, hills,
valleys, you name it. But then we bricked it all up, poured tar over the top
and got this. Took centuries, but was worth the effort.”

“You bricked up the whole
planet??” asked jixX and sylX together in disbelief.

“Yes,” said Chris proudly.

“With bricks?”

“Of course with bricks!” said
Chris. “You can’t imagine how many it took.”

“No,” said jixX, trying to
visualize the monumental scale of the task. This was landscape design taken to
the extremes of minimalism.

“A truly remarkable
invention, the brick,” Chris was saying. “It kick-started our civilization.” He
checked himself. “But I expect it was the same for you, too.”

“Er, well,” said jixX
hesitantly, not wanting to be impolite. “I think perhaps the brick’s
contribution has been underestimated in our culture.”

“So versatile,” Chris
continued. “Don’t know what we would have done without it. One hundred and one
uses for a brick. Brick weapons, brick kilns, a brick-based communication
system, brick clocks, brick musical instruments, brick art...”

“Brick houses?” suggested
jixX.

Chris looked puzzled.

“I expect your houses are
made of bricks.”

“Houses? Made of bricks?”
asked Chris astonished. “How do you mean?”

“Well...” jixX shrugged. “Two
up, two down?”

Chris seemed unable to grasp
what jixX was saying. “No,” he said finally. “We live in sponges. Which are
super absorbent and help retain your moisture. Whereas bricks, I think you will
find, are not particularly porous.”

“I guess not.”

As they walked on, Chris was
shaking his head.

“Houses made of bricks,” he
muttered to himself. “What an extraordinary idea.”

*

anaX was hooking the
extensible, spring-coil lead of the all-purpose, high internal impedance
recharger to the brass-alloy nodal-anode batteries of emergency deep-space
survival module No 3. And she was doing it a lot faster than it takes to say
it.

LEP was quietly singing
“Daisy, Daisy” to himself. anaX took it to be a normal pastime for ships’
computers, as she had heard it somewhere before, but it wasn’t long before this
pastime started to irritate her. She looked up from recharging the batteries
and said, “LEP?”

LEP stopped singing. “Yes?”

“Tell me something about
yourself,” she said. “Talk to me for a bit.”

“There’s nothing to tell,”
said LEP with uncharacteristic modesty.

“I’m sure there is.”

“Well, you’re quite right.
There is. And every bit of it is phenomenally interesting.”

“Go on, then.” She continued
with her recharging.

“I’m deeply flattered,” said
LEP. “I hadn’t realized you were so interested in me.”

“I’m not. But it’s got to be
better than your singing.”

*

“So, what do the three of you
do?” asked Chris politely in return, as they continued to walk on by the side
of the pathway.

“I’m a stowaway,” answered
sylX brightly, before jixX had a chance to reply.

“A stowaway?” asked Chris.
“What does that involve?”

“Stowing myself away,”
explained sylX. “On planes, boats or trains, anything that moves, in fact. The
past few years I’ve specialized in spaceships. Like now, I’m a stowaway on The
Night Ripple.”

“Is it a game?” asked Chris.

She gave a little laugh. “No,
it’s a profession,” she said. “It’s my job.”

“Your job?” put in jixX,
surprised.

sylX put her hand to her
mouth and gave a little giggle. “Oops!” she said. “Perhaps I shouldn’t have said
that. It’s meant to be a secret. But – yes, I’m employed by the Tenalp Ministry
of Intelligence and Spying.”

“They pay you?”

“Well, if you can call it
that!” said the stowaway with a playful little grimace. “It’s a long story.”

“I’d be very interested to
hear it,” put in Chris.

sylX shrugged. “Okay,” she
said. “But don’t tell anyone else. Promise?”

“I promise,” said Chris.

She looked at the others, and
they nodded in response.

“Well,” she began with a
sigh, casting her mind back. “It all began when I was a little girl back in England on Earth. I used to play truant from school. And, when I did, I’d go riding on
buses and trains without paying.

“In those days it
was
a game. I’d crawl under ticket barriers or jump over turnstiles. I’d hide in
train toilets when the ticket inspector came; all that sort of thing. But then
I went onto bigger and more dangerous things and it started getting out of
hand. And then, one day, I realized that I was addicted.”

“What happened?”

“I stowed away aboard the Isle of Wight ferry,” said sylX. “It was my first ever ship and I was seasick the whole
voyage. But as soon as we had reached the Isle of Wight, I just had to do it
again, and again. I couldn’t stop myself!”

They walked on a few paces
before sylX continued.

“It was all fine until, one
day, I got caught.” She gave a shrug and shook her head at the memory of it.
“So stupid, you wouldn’t believe it. I was stowing away on a bicycle, of all
things!”

jixX looked at her. “A
bicycle?” he said. “How can you stow away on a bicycle?”

“Not very well, obviously,”
answered sylX with a broad smile. Then she said, “It’s another long story. Do
you want to hear it?”

“Yes, please,” said Chris.

“Well,” started sylX.
“Completely crazy. It wasn’t an ordinary bicycle but a ten-seater tandem. And it
was on a sponsored, record-breaking, round-the-world tour. My boyfriend, Jim,
was one of the riders. I was following in the support car. About halfway round,
Jim cut his finger open – quite badly – while fixing the chain. It became
severely infected and he couldn’t continue. So, rather than jeopardize the
whole venture, he asked me to take his place. You see, he knew what a good
stowaway I was.

“What could I do? I knew how
much it meant to him. What with the world record at stake, and all that money
the sponsors were due to pay to charity. I couldn’t say ‘No’. Plus, it
was
a bit of a challenge. So I dressed up in his cycling gear, put on a fake
moustache and started off in his place the next day. Even some of the other
riders weren’t aware of the switch.”

“What happened?” asked Chris.

sylX’s face became grave.
“Ah, well. When we arrived in Australia, the customs men stopped and searched
us. I figured that, as long as they didn’t do a body search, I’d be okay. But
they started finding stuff on the bike. Drugs, alcohol, watches, cameras,
munitions. I think there was even a rabid pet or two. It turned out that the
whole ride was a front for a major international smuggling ring! I was furious.

“And, of course, as soon as
they started the body searches the game was up. All the riders were thrown into
jail for smuggling while I was thrown into jail for stowing away.”

They walked on. Chris
sniffed.

“What happened to your
boyfriend?” asked jixX.

“Oh, he went to prison, too.
His infection spread, but then it got better. He served his time and came out.
And that’s when I dumped him.”

*

anaX was still recharging the
batteries. The conversation with LEP had fizzled out. LEP watched her as she
continued about her business, the fires of passion burning fiercely somewhere in
the depths of his circuitry. He started singing “Daisy, Daisy” to himself
again, quietly at first and then with increased gusto as he got into it.

anaX stopped her work and
looked about her with a frown, apparently thinking hard.

LEP noticed her worried expression
and stopped singing. “What’s the matter?”

“I’m trying to remember where
I put those earplugs,” she answered with a meaningful look.

*

twaX felt like he’d been
walking for days, without seeing anyone or anything. But now he had spotted
something in the distance and was hurriedly making for it. He couldn’t make out
what it was. It looked like a building or a large machine or something.

As he approached he slowed
down, trying to make out what the object might be. It was as large as a house,
but strangely coloured and contoured. It was like a gigantic and really ugly
work of modern sculpture. If it was meant as a work of art it was a truly awful
one.

As he got nearer, a part of
it started to open. He stopped to watch. At first, he looked on curiously, then
with a grim fascination, then with a growing sense of unease, and finally with
a look of horror.

What happened next happened
in a flash. twaX had no time to think, no time to act. Within seconds it was
over and twaX was gone. The spot where he had been standing showed no sign of
him ever having been there, apart from a single six-inch nail lying on the
ground.

PART THE
FOURTH: THE BENJAMINITES

Chapter 1

There
were Ten
of
Them. The smallest was in the middle and the other Nine surrounded him, taking
it in turns to hurl insults at him. It was an ancient and hallowed ritual.

“You oaf,” called one.

“You fool,” called another.

“You dog,” called a third.

The One in the middle cowered
and shrank at each insult, particularly the last.

There was a silence and then
a further volley of abuse.

In the distance another Mamm
was slithering urgently towards the circle going as fast as the viscosity of
his green slime would allow. His name was Jeremy and he skidded to a halt at
the edge of the group, panting heavily.

“Masters!” he shouted once he
had managed to get a little of his breath back. “I bringeth Bad Tidings from
afar.”

The others turned towards
him, a little taken aback at the interruption of their ritual, and not best
pleased to see that it was Jeremy interrupting them.

“Oh, wisest Elders,”
continued Jeremy, still panting. “I bring bad, bad news. Prepare thy selves for
the Worst. The prophecies of yore are about to be fulfilled. We are about to
enter Dark, Dark Times.”

“This better be good,
Jeremy,” muttered Randolph, the tallest of the Mamms.

“No!” insisted Jeremy,
shaking his slimy green head. “It is not good. It is Bad. I just told you it
was Bad.”

Randolph
gave a deep sigh. “Let’s
hear it, then,” he said.

“Oh, thou most Wondrous
Superiors...”

“Look,” said Randolph with rising impatience. “Can you cut the crap and just get on with it?”

“Tragedy hath befallen us,”
continued Jeremy, lowering his head. “Benjamin’s prophecy is about to be
realized. We must now do what is Wrong in order to do what is Right.”