The Ultimate Inferior Beings (26 page)

“Not really,” muttered Randolph. “Perhaps you’d like another go. After all, you are an alien.”

“No,” said jixX knowing there
was no point. “The better contestant won.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“Fair enough,” said Randolph. “One-nil to Jeremy.”

On hearing this, Jeremy
started wildly jumping up and down with joy. No sound came out of him apart
from a loud, periodic squelching sound at each jump. They all watched the
squelching victor for a while.

“It’s not over yet, Jeremy,” Randolph reminded him. “Next contest.”

*

The next contest involved
another small platform on the ground, this one shinier. jixX let Jeremy go
first again.

“Okay,” announced Randolph when Jeremy was in place. “Ready... Steady... Go!”

The three humans watched
Jeremy but, once again, he didn’t seem to be doing anything.

“It’s not the
keeping-perfectly-still sport again, is it?” asked jixX uneasily, looking at
his watch.

“No, no,” Randolph assured
him. “This is Sliding, another ancient game requiring great skill and
concentration. If you look closely you’ll see that one edge of the platform is
slowly rising. The idea is to stay on as long as possible. The angle at which
you slide off is measured.”

“Ah, I see,” said jixX
nodding. And indeed he could see that the platform was now inclined. Very
exciting, he said to himself. But, no sooner had he concluded that this sport,
too, would be of a lengthy duration than Jeremy slid off.

“He’s off!!” cried all the
Mamms.

Jeremy fumed, unable to
protest or make excuses.

“That’s pathetic, Jeremy,”
said Randolph in disgust, as one of the other Mamms stepped forward to measure
the angle of the platform.

Jeremy gesticulated wildly
for a bit, but then gave up. No one was taking any notice of him. He went off
to sulk some distance away.

Meanwhile, the platform had
been lowered back to the ground and two of the Mamms had set to wiping it clean
of Jeremy’s green slime, but succeeded only in covering it with their own.

“Your turn,” said Randolph to jixX.

jixX stepped onto the
platform. Before he could ready himself, Randolph said, “Go!” and the platform
started to rise. jixX felt the soles of his shoes slipping in the slime on the
platform, so he shifted his feet to find a drier part.

Higher and higher the
platform rose, tilting further and further. After about a minute the platform
was at quite a steep angle – much steeper than Jeremy had managed. jixX looked
down at it. “Can I get off now?” he asked Randolph. “I think I’ve won, haven’t
I?”

“Don’t you want to try for
the world record?” asked Randolph.

“Perhaps some other time.”

“Alright then. Good effort!”
Then he added, “The score’s one-all.”

jixX stepped off the platform
and was patted on the back by fluX and sylX. Chris merely said, “Good show, old
chap.” Jeremy, on the other hand, seemed to be silently fuming and mouthing
words of disgust to himself.

“Final contest coming up: the
decider,” announced Randolph. “Walk this way.”

*

The equipment for the third
contest looked like a drainpipe lying on the ground. It was a hollow tube,
about ten metres in length, and about six inches in diameter.

“This one’s a race, pure and
simple” explained Randolph when all had gathered around.

jixX perked up. “Ah, a race,”
he said. “That’s more like it!” Without even realizing it, he found himself
limbering up in preparation.

“The winner is the one who
can get from this end of the tube to the other in the shortest time.”

jixX continued limbering up,
shaking his hands and lifting his knees, and looked at Jeremy, wondering just
how fast a Mamm could move. Then a thought occurred to him: if he went second
the pipe would be slippery from Jeremy’s slime.

“Can I go first this time?”
he asked.

Randolph
looked at Jeremy, but Jeremy’s
wild, non-verbal response was too difficult to interpret. “Sure,” said Randolph.

jixX approached the pipe.

“Ready?” asked Randolph.

jixX concentrated all his
attention on the pipe. He could do this, he knew he could. And he had to: for
the Good of
his
Species.

“Steady?” continued Randolph.

jixX prepared himself.

“Go!”

jixX stepped onto the pipe,
arms outstretched and started rapidly but carefully stepping along it, breaking
into a run as he neared the end.

“No, no, no!”

“Wait!”

“What are you doing?”

“Stop!”

“Cheat!”

By the time jixX had reached
the end of the pipe, the Mamms were in uproar, yelling and shouting at him.

jixX turned round in
surprise, baffled by the Mamms’ reaction. “What’s wrong?”

Randolph
tried to calm the clamour of
the other Mamms. “Alright, alright,” he was saying. “Quiet! It’s my fault. I
didn’t explain the rules very well.”

“Did I do something wrong?”
asked jixX, returning to the starting end of the pipe.

“Yes, sorry, I should have
made it clearer,” said Randolph. “You have to go
through
the pipe. Not
along the top.”

“Through??”

Randolph
gave a laugh. “Oh, don’t
worry. It’s not as simple as it looks. It does have hurdles.”

“Hurdles?”

“Yes, inside the tube are
eight porous membranes spaced out at equal intervals.”

jixX’s jaw dropped. “Ah,” he
said.

“Ah,” echoed sylX and fluX,
both glancing nervously at the pile of bricks.

“I see,” said jixX quietly.
“Er... well perhaps Jeremy should go first after all.” He was playing for time.
“So I can see how it’s done,” he added.

“Of course, of course,” said Randolph. “Come on Jeremy. Ready?”

Jeremy looked back
dumbfounded. The Dog had cheated! He should be disqualified. It was clear that
he, Jeremy, was the winner!

“Steady,” continued Randolph.

Jeremy gave a long-suffering
sigh and, shaking his head in disbelief, approached the pipe.

“Go!” cried Randolph.

Jeremy looked about angrily
at everyone and then, slowly, painfully, agonizingly, he inserted part of
himself into the pipe. He squeezed and squeezed and, as he did so, more and
more of his slime disappeared. Bit by bit, Jeremy appeared to be shrinking as
he slowly entered the pipe. There was total silence as the Mamms and the humans
watched. It was totally fascinating and absorbing in a morbid sort of way.

When all but a small part of
Jeremy had disappeared, Chris turned to Randolph and said, “I’ve decided that
enough is enough. I think we should call this whole thing off. It’s clearly not
a fair contest!”

Bill seemed to be backing
Chris up, although to jixX he appeared to be hiding behind Chris rather than
offering either moral or physical support.

“You are totally
outnumbered,” continued Chris. “We cannot let a bunch of religious fanatics
treat our guests in such a rude and inhospitable manner.”

Randolph
looked stunned. He stared at
Chris and Bill open-mouthed.

jixX was wondering how Chris
had figured that the Benjaminites were outnumbered when Randolph seemed to
notice the same numerical discrepancy. “Outnumbered?” he asked.

“I don’t mean here and now,”
explained Chris. “I mean on the planet as a whole.”

“We’re the biggest religion
there is,” said Randolph defensively.

“Nevertheless, there are only
ten of you.”

jixX felt it necessary to
intervene at this point, being something of a stickler for arithmetical
accuracy. “Eleven,” he put in.

Both Chris and Randolph
looked at him in surprise.

“What?” they said together.

“Eleven,” said jixX. “I make
it eleven Benjaminites in total. Chris said there were ten.”

“No, there are ten,” said Randolph looking at him, puzzled.

“I think you’ll find there
are eleven,” insisted jixX. “I’m a bit of an expert at counting green things.
It’s part of my trade.”

Randolph
looked concerned. “Ten,” he
said firmly, but as he did so his eyes were darting from one slimy green blob
to another as he tried to quickly count them.

“Count them,” suggested jixX.

“Alright,” said Randolph confidently. He turned and counted his fellow Benjaminites aloud. “One...
two...,” he counted until he reached himself, “...nine... and not forgetting
Jeremy in the tube – out of sight but not out of mind, eh... which makes ten!”

“And Henry?” asked jixX.

“What about him?”

“He’s a Benjaminite, isn’t
he?”

“Well... yes,” said Randolph slowly. “I counted him.”

“No you didn’t. He’s not
here. He’s in The Night Ripple.”

“No, he left...,” said Randolph, scanning the other Mamms to see if Henry was amongst them. He wasn’t.

“That makes eleven,” said
jixX.

Randolph
frowned deeply, scratching
his head. “Hmm,” he said. “This is serious.”

jixX blinked in surprise, but
said nothing.

“Very well,” said Randolph after a while. “In that case, would you accept a draw?”

jixX looked even more
surprised, but nodded eagerly.

“Thank you” said Randolph. He gave a little smile, but his eyes showed he was deeply troubled. “George,” he
said to one of the Benjaminites. “Come with me.”

The Mamm called George
stepped forward and together they walked off into the distance where they came
to a halt and started talking animatedly.

The three humans watched them
go, totally bewildered by what was going on, but at the same time rather
relieved.

*

Had the bewilderment of the
three humans been summed, and the sum squared, and the result multiplied by
ten, it would still have come some way short of the bewilderment, nay,
horrified amazement, that Jeremy was feeling inside the pipe. Having managed to
force most of his body through the first four porous membranes, he had stopped
to listen to the developments going on outside. And he had not liked what he
had heard. Indeed, he had been absolutely thunderstruck. What was Randolph thinking? A draw?? How could it be a draw?? Jeremy was going to be the clear
winner.

Jeremy realized that The Dogs
were going to get away scot-free! And here he was, stuck in a narrow tube,
powerless to stop them! He had to do something!

But first, he had to get out.
He was about halfway through the pipe, so going forwards was as good (or bad)
as going back. With renewed determination, Jeremy surged on, battling to get
himself out as speedily as possible. For the Good of the Species. In the Light
of the Dark.

*

“Well,” said sylX to jixX.
“Looks like you’ve saved our lives.”

jixX smiled modestly. “It was
nothing,” he said, although he was as mystified as everyone else as to how he
had achieved it.

sylX gave him a little peck
on the cheek, which surprised him.

He cleared his throat. “Well,
er. Perhaps it’s time we were going.”

“Going where?” asked the
stowaway.

“Home,” said jixX. “To
Tenalp. Before they change their minds,” he added, nodding towards Randolph and
George in the distance.

“Already?” asked Chris,
surprised.

“Yes. We really must. It’s
been a great pleasure meeting you.”

“Oh,” said Chris, looking
disappointed.

“I’ll be staying,” said sylX.

“Will you? That’s great,”
said Chris brightening up.

jixX looked at her aghast.
“You’re staying??”

“Yes.”

“But the danger...”

“I’ll be safe with Chris and
Bill,” said sylX. “Won’t I?”

Chris nodded vigorously. Bill
took out his two bricks and waved them about impressively.

“There’s so much to do here,”
the stowaway was saying to jixX. “We’ve made the first-ever contact with an
alien civilization! There are all sorts of things to find out about them. Learn
their culture, their science, their art...”

“Their religion and their
sports,” muttered jixX under his breath.

“...their way of life,” she
continued. “Their history, their biology...”

“Shouldn’t we leave that to
the experts, though?” asked jixX.

“Sure. I’ll learn as much as
I can before they arrive.”

jixX looked at her
uncertainly. “Well,” he said, “if you’re sure.”

“I am, I am,” she said
smiling brightly. “This is the chance I’ve always been waiting for!”