The Ultimate Inferior Beings (23 page)

“We’re not back to that
again, are we?”

Henry cringed. More
criticism. He nodded up at anaX, grinning idiotically.

anaX controlled her sudden
urge to hit him and straightened up. “What do you think, LEP?” she asked.

“Hmm,” said LEP thoughtfully.
“I’d say he definitely
is
inferior.”

Henry grinned happily, while
wondering where the voice had come from.

“I meant about rescuing the
others,” said anaX. “And stop encouraging him.”

“Ah,” said LEP. “Yes, I’d say
it’s a good idea.”

“Thanks for your input,” said
anaX. She turned to Henry. “Where exactly are my ‘friends’?”

“Sort of that way,” said
Henry pointing. “Quite a long way away.”

anaX nodded. She raised
herself from her kneeling position by Henry and seated herself in the captain’s
anti-inertial command couch. She looked at the controls and familiarized
herself with them. They looked simple enough. Hopelessly designed, but simple
enough.

“May I ask what you’re
doing?” asked LEP.

“I’m going to taxi over
there,” said anaX simply, checking the gauges.

LEP woke up at this. “In The
Night Ripple?? You’re going to taxi over there in The Night Ripple?!”

“Yes.”

“You can’t do that!”

“Why ever not?”

But LEP couldn’t think of a
single reason.

“Right, let’s go,” said anaX.
She turned to Henry, “Ready?”

“I’m inferior,” said Henry.
“So... no.”

anaX rolled her eyes. “Have
you ever thought of going to see a psychiatrist?”

Henry looked puzzled. “I
don’t know what that is.”

“An expert at dealing with
problems like yours.”

“Would he insult me?”

anaX considered the question.
“Yes, after a few sessions I think he probably would.”

Henry grinned.

anaX shook her head and
turned on the ignition. After a few seconds of intensive revving, the phonon
engines spluttered into life and The Night Ripple started vibrating in its
familiar, bone-shaking manner.

Although Henry didn’t have
any bones to shake, the vibrations happened to correspond quite closely to his
resonant frequency. “I-I-t’s a-al-r-right,” he said, his voice quivering
uncontrollably. “I-I-I th-th-ink I-I-’ll g-et-t out-t a-and-d wa-l-k-k.”

“Don’t worry,” said anaX, her
voice also wavering slightly. “I’ve driven one of these before. Just sit
tight.”

She gently pressed her foot
on the accelerator pedal and The Night Ripple started shaking even more
violently.

So did Henry.

“I-I-I th-th-ink-k I-I’m
g-go-ing t-to be-e s-si-ck-k,” he said, turning a whole shade greener.

“Hold on tight,” warned anaX
as The Night Ripple suddenly jerked into motion.

But Henry, having nothing to
hold on tight to, slid rapidly backwards across the polished floor and
squelched up against the back wall. There he continued to vibrate, pressed hard
against the wall.

The vast hull of The Night
Ripple trundled slowly forward, with anaX steering it in the direction Henry
had indicated. She drove slowly and carefully across the hard black landscape.

“Shall I try to contact the
captain on the transceiver?” asked LEP, feeling slightly redundant since the
gynaecologist seemed to know what she was doing.

“Good idea,” said anaX,
concentrating on her driving. “See if you can find out what danger they’re in.”

“Right-ho,” said LEP.

anaX drove on. Above the
deafening racket of The Night Ripple’s phonon engines she could just make out
the quivering moans of Henry behind her and the muffled sounds of LEP
muttering, “Night Ripple to jixX... Night Ripple to jixX. Come in, captain.
Over.”

After a couple of minutes or
so, LEP gave up. “It’s no use,” he said.

“Can’t you contact him?”

“No. He must have put all the
aerials in.”

Chapter 7

jixX
and sylX
looked
at one another in dismay.

“One hundred and seven
hours!” mouthed jixX.

The stowaway nodded. “I think
they’re trying to bore us to death,” she answered in a half-whisper.

“We have to escape,” mouthed
jixX.

“Agreed,” she mouthed back.
“But how?”

jixX shrugged. He looked at
Jeremy. “He’s doing really well,” he said out loud, hoping a little flattery
would make the blob more determined to stay immobile longer and buy them more
time.

“He could be dead for all we
know,” said sylX under her breath.

But Randolph heard her. “No,
no, don’t worry,” he said, stepping towards them. “There’s no danger of him
dying. We slimy green blobs are immortal.” Then he added, “Apart from the ones
that die, that is.”

*

fluX had not been taking much
notice of proceedings. He had been vigorously scribbling on a piece of
petromorphic ytterbium cellulose paper substitute, occasionally stopping to
scratch his head. As he finished writing he looked up and his eyes widened.

“Captain!” he called in a
loud whisper before ushering jixX to the side, away from the Benjaminites. “I
do not like zis, captain. Ve must escape.”

jixX nodded, “I agree.”

“I hov made a terrible
discovery!” He glanced over at the Mamms to make sure he wasn’t being overheard.
“I hov been puzzling over The Ultimate Inferior Beings, and I do not like vot I
have found.”

“Ah,” said jixX, his
shoulders sagging.

“Multiples of 26. Wherever I
look I see multiples of 26. Is not good.”

“Er, hadn’t we better be
getting back?”

“Look. If ve take ze initials
of The Ultimate Inferior Beings, ve get TUIB. Ze quantum number of TUIB is 52.”

“Good, good. Very good.”

“No! Not good. It is bad. And
zere’s more.”

“There is?”

“The Night Ripple. Initials:
TNR. Quantum number: 52. Again!”

“That’s... great. Well
spotted.” He turned to leave, but fluX grabbed him by the sleeve.

“And I’ve been vorking on
anagrams.”

jixX could see there was no
escape now.

fluX indicated the small
sheet of paper substitute he’d been scribbling on. “Listen to zis! An anagram
of ‘The Ultimate Inferior Beings’ is...” he paused as he searched for the
appropriate scribble, “...‘I’m obliterating the Uniferse’.” He stared hard at
jixX. “Is that not amazing? Is it not astonishing, zat it should come to say
zat! Don’t you sink? ‘I’m obliterating the Uniferse’.”

jixX took a look at the
scribbles on the sheet. “Uniferse,” he read. “Universe doesn’t have an ‘f’.”

“Ya, of course, I know zat!”

“So, it’s not exactly an
anagram, is it?”

“Yah, that worried me a
little. But zen I thought it could just be a bug.”

“A bug?”

“In ze English language.”

jixX considered this for a
moment. “You’re saying we’ve been misspelling the word ‘Universe’ for hundreds
of years? It should have been ‘Uniferse’ all along?”

“Could be. Maybe. You never
know.”

“Hmm.”

fluX threw up his hands in
exasperation. “Vell, it’s ze best can I do? I hov no computer to help me! I hov
to do it all myself, without even so much as a desk on zis bonkers planet.”

“Oh, look. Is that the time?”
said jixX, finally escaping.

*

Just as fluX and jixX
returned to sylX and the group of Mamms, there came the sound of a distant
rumbling that sounded like an approaching thunderstorm. All eyes except
Jeremy’s turned to see what it was.

There, far off on the horizon
was the glistening hull of The Night Ripple. It was gradually increasing in
size, and it soon became clear that it was heading in their direction.

“What’s that?” asked Randolph.

“That’s our spaceship,”
answered jixX, a huge smile breaking out on his face. He stretched out an arm
and waved to the distant craft. The other two humans copied him.

“Bit noisy, isn’t it?”
remarked Randolph as The Night Ripple rumbled slowly and heavily across the
black landscape towards them.

“No more than usual,” said
jixX who had never imagined he’d be quite so pleased at the sight and sound of
The Night Ripple as he was then.

*

In the main control room of
the aforementioned spaceship, LEP, informative as ever, cleared his throat and
announced, “A group of ten Mamms, three humans and a large pile of bricks at
twelve o’clock, madam. Distance 600 metres and decreasing.”

“I can see that!” said anaX
as she started to brake gently.

The ship decelerated, causing
Henry to slide forward from the back of the room until he ended up under a
control panel at the front of the room.

“Hey, where are you going?”
asked anaX as he shot past her and out of sight. She leaned out of the command
couch to look where he had gone. “Are you sure my ‘friends’ are in danger?” she
asked him. “They seem to be standing and waving and smiling.”

“D-dre-dread-d-ful-l
d-dan-ger-r,” said Henry from underneath the control panel.

The Night Ripple was now
within fifty feet of the group so anaX gradually brought it to a halt, switched
off the engines and cut the ship’s power to conserve energy. The lights in the
control room and, in fact, throughout the whole ship, dimmed and the ship’s
vibration became a gentle hum. LEP’s loudspeakers fell curiously silent,
although anaX failed to notice.

She again peered underneath
the control panel where Henry was quivering. “What are you doing under there?”

“Sh-shak-ing w-with-th
f-fear-r,” came the answer.

“What are you scared of?”

“I have betrayed my friends,”
explained Henry. “I am afraid of what they might do to me.”

“Well I’m going outside,”
said anaX. “I’ll try to put in a good word for you.”

“But aren’t you going to
attack them?”

“I’m not armed.”

“There’s a brick on the table
over there,” said Henry, pointing. “Next to that green plant thingie.”

anaX turned to where Henry
was indicating and remembered the stowaway showing her the brick previously.
She picked it up and read the note that was tied to it. ‘Landing permission
granted’.

“Just conceal the brick about
your person,” Henry was saying, “and attack them the moment you get out.”

“I’m a bit outnumbered.”

“Ah, but you’ll have the
element of surprise on your side.”

anaX laughed. “I think they
spotted us about a mile back.”

“Maybe so. But they still
won’t be expecting you to attack them.”

“Good point,” said anaX,
getting to her feet. “If I’m not back in half an hour it means I like it out
there.”

“And beware of Jeremy,” said
Henry, with a shaky voice. “Watch his every move.”

anaX waved farewell with the
brick and left the main control room. On her way to the airlock she left the
brick on the floor in the corridor.

*

Jeremy still stood still, as
still as he could, as still as he had ever stood, as still as he would ever
stand. And he was hating every second of it.

What was worse, the
unexpected arrival of The Dogs’ ship was of great concern to him. It looked
very much like they might be planning to escape.

Inside he fumed with anger
and frustration. If only his voice hadn’t deserted him so inconveniently! The
moment it returned he would be able to rescue the situation. But, in the
meantime, he would play it by Randolph’s rules. He would defeat The Dogs in
this contest and watch them be destroyed. He would keep standing still as long
as absolutely necessary, for The Good of the Species, in the Light of the Dark.