Warblegrub and the Forbidden Planet (18 page)

“You are going to help us, aren’t you?”

“No,” replied Kali.

Alex grew angry, fear and exhaustion having gnawed through her frayed nerves. “Why not?”

Kali looked offended. “Because you haven’t asked nicely!”

Alex struggled to compose herself. “
Please
will you help us?”

“There it is!” Kali exclaimed. Pushing the chest aside, she retrieved a small spear-like weapon, a miniature trident with three gleaming tips.

“What’s it doing in here?”

Kali held the trident up and it grew to a more typical size. “I was hunting a cockroach,” she replied.

Hefting the weapon, she tested its weight, then they returned to the arsenals where she choose an array of brutal-looking weapons.

“These should suffice,” Kali decided then turned to Alex. “Of course I’ll help,” she said sweetly.

She offered Alex her hand but she stared at it as if it were a poisonous spider.

“I won’t hurt you,” Kali promised, taking her by the arm.

The sun was shining and Shmi was waiting outside the pagoda. With her were the three birdpeople who had caught them up at last. Bowing nervously, they bobbed their heads before Kali.

“How did you two get along?” asked Shmi brightly.

*

“Your friends are on their way,” said Warblegrub cheerfully, but before either the Colonel or 395 could comment on his reappearance, the sound of roaring engines drew their attention skyward.

Dozens of orange dots appeared high overhead. Rapidly growing larger and darker, the fleet of warships descended, filling the sky until only slivers of blue showed between their scorched hulls. The noise of their engines was deafening and 395 and the Colonel were forced to the ground by the downdraught. When they finally stopped, the lowest was barely twenty metres above them and Warblegrub looked up at the vessels, bristling with guns and missiles, then at the Colonel.

“Jump engines, Colonel?” he observed disapprovingly. “That’s restricted technology”

The Colonel rose and dusted himself off. Ignoring Warblegrub, he began to shout into his com-link.

Warblegrub helped 395 to his feet. “Where did you lot get jump engines from?”

395 shrugged helplessly. “I’m just a soldier,” he apologised.

“How many times have I heard that excuse!” snapped Warblegrub.

Ignoring the Colonel, he looked out across the sea. Following his gaze, 395 saw that the ominous bank of cloud he had noticed earlier was now an enormous thundercloud looming on the horizon. It was growing bigger, approaching very fast – unnaturally so. In moments it had blotted out the sun. The Colonel now noticed, and his face fell as the heavens darkened over and lightning bolts came rippling across the sky. A peal of thunder boomed out – the laughter of some gigantic ogre.

“Ah,” said Warblegrub, “reinforcements!”

*

As she dozed among the birdman’s soft feathers, Alex was roused by a rumble of thunder. Remembering where she was, she tightened her grip.

“I won’t let you fall,” the birdman laughed.

She looked up. When she had begun to doze, clouds were gathering, forming at the wingtips of Kali’s birdman. Now she was alarmed to see that they were flying in the eye of a hurricane, a funnel of clear air in the middle of a vast swirling storm cloud that was spinning round a now giant-sized Kali and her gargantuan birdman.

Open ocean lay below, a vast arena of white-capped waves that was growing rapidly larger. The clouds parted before them, fanned by the birdman’s ponderous wingbeats, and the hurricane began to break apart. Ahead lay the ring of islands, like the jaws of a drowning monster with its fiery tongue still flickering.

Even as the hurricane dissipated miraculously over the outer islands, the volcano erupted into life. With a deafening roar, it surged from the ocean, doubling in size. Lava spouted high into the sky and through the fire came Kali, revealed in terrible splendour. A titan in her rage, her birdman’s wings far surpassed the largest warship. The skeleton earrings danced on her shoulders and the skulls about her neck cackled with demented laughter.

Struck dumb with terror and amazement, 395 barely flinched when the fleet started firing. Pulling him to the ground, Warblegrub shielded him, but the Colonel stood as still as a statue, his sunglasses gleaming, an apocalypse reflected in each lens. Missile after missile slammed into Kali and her mount, and they vanished in an enormous fireball, only to emerge moments later, trailing smoke and fire, Kali shrieking with laughter. In a heartbeat they were among the fleet, spreading panic and chaos.

*

Emerging from the clouds to a moment of utter confusion, Alex saw Shmi and her birdwoman above her. They were upside down and above them were the waves breaking on the ring of outer islands. Then her birdman banked sharply, rolled and the world made sense again. Below them the sea was in torment and the lava-scoured slopes of the volcano were rising from the waves. They climbed higher, above the column of smoke and ash, only to find the sky full of warships, but before they could dive, Kali and her birdman came wheeling through the fleet. Now possessing an extra pair of arms or two, she struck out with all manner of weapons, sending warships plummeting to their doom, and through a rain of burning wreckage Alex’s birdman flew, twisting and turning like a dolphin among the waves.

*

Scrambling to escape destruction, the battleships left the smaller vessels to the dogfight and, at a safe distance, formed up in a long crescent and waited. When the last of the fighters and destroyers had plummeted into the ocean, Kali and the birdman turned towards the battleships, spiralling upwards, high over the bay. In answer, a single missile dropped from the largest ship in the centre of the line and came streaking towards Kali.

“Oh dear!” cried Warblegrub. “The next bang’s going to be a
really
big one!”

Grabbing the Colonel’s arm, he tried to pull him away but the missile droned overhead, the birdman rose to intercept it, and Kali opened her mouth wide and swallowed it whole. Her eyes blazed like twin suns and 395 remembered with horror what had happened when Fardelbear had consumed a rocket. But instead of a jet of fire there was a thunderous belch that shook the mountain.

“Split an atom, you puny humans!” laughed Kali. “I’ll swallow whole planets and stars! I’ll drink up the Universe!”

Burning arrows came streaming from her bow in a great arc, striking one battleship after another. The Colonel struggled free of Warblegrub’s grasp and stumbled forward. Gazing up in disbelief, he saw each mighty vessel explode and come crashing down into the sea, then Kali came soaring over the mountaintop, howling triumphantly as she fired arrow after arrow high into the air.

“She wasn’t joking about drinking stars, was she?” cried 395.

“Maybe a slight exaggeration,” Warblegrub hedged.

“She’s out of control!”

“Anger burns like fire,” he explained, “growing hotter and hotter until all is consumed!”

“Can’t you stop her?”

Warblegrub shook his head then grabbed 395’s hand. “Come on, Colonel!” he yelled, offering him the other.

But the Colonel drew a revolver and turned it on 395. And as he looked down the barrel of the gun, 395 saw green lights shining through the lenses of the Colonel’s sunglasses.

Chapter Nineteen

As his finger tensed on the trigger, the Colonel noticed that Warblegrub was looking up. Hesitating, he followed his gaze and the green glow faded from his eyes. A shadow fell over them and before 395 knew what was happening, Warblegrub had slung him over his shoulder, run to the nearest precipice and jumped off. Facing backwards, 395 glimpsed Kali land on the mountaintop, crushing a startled Colonel beneath her feet.

They crashed through the forest canopy, but Warblegrub grabbed hold of a branch, swung ape-like to the ground and landed firmly on his feet. Without a pause, he sped away through the forest, down the long mountain spur, heading for the furthest tip of the crescent-shaped island. Through the foliage, 395 caught glimpses of Kali spinning round and round in a frenzied dance, grinding the mountain underfoot. Her eyes blazed, her body was ringed with lightning and her birdman wheeled round her head, screeching wildly and firing arrows into the sky.

So thick with ash and smoke was the air that when they reached the end of the island, 395 could only just make out the rocky shore ahead. While he leant against a boulder gasping for breath in the choking fumes, Warblegrub peered into the distance, searching the gloom.

“There!” he cried.

Straining his eyes, 395 made out a small group of people approaching, scrambling over the rocks. “Who is it?”

“My wife and your friends.”

“Your
wife!
” 395 was astonished. “You’re
married!
”

Warblegrub was surprised. “Haven’t I mentioned her?”

395 shook his head dumbly.

“Oh!” said Warblegrub. “Well don’t mention that when you meet her.”

“Mention what?”

“Mention that I didn’t mention her.”

395 was spared any further confusion as an enormous plume of thick black smoke and ash boiled up from the volcano. A fresh spout of lava followed and, by its fiery light, he was relieved to see Peter among the survivors, carried in Shmi’s arms as if he weighed no more than a child. But the joyful reunion was immediately curtailed as a huge burning rock sailed overhead and crashed into the sea, drenching them with spray.

“This is getting out of hand!” warned Shmi.

“Don’t worry,” replied Warblegrub confidently, “help’s on the way!”

He pointed out to sea, and the sharper sighted among the company glimpsed a flock of birdpeople approaching through the smoke and ash, flying low over the waves.

“Impeccable timing,” Shmi noted approvingly.

But even as the Birdqueen herself landed before them, Kali gave a barbaric yell and leapt across the bay. Landing in the middle of the erupting volcano, she sent sheets of lava flying in all directions. Their surprise at the appearance of a bizarre new alien species was immediately forgotten and the soldiers scrambled onto the birdpeople, who took off immediately.

Lent speed by Warblegrub and Shmi, they climbed like rockets, but an explosion as violent as a nuclear blast rent sea and sky, and obliterated the islands. Through the shockwave, the birdpeople rolled, losing none of their passengers, and 395 glimpsed Kali as he span; in the midst of the inferno, a river of lava pouring from her mouth. As they soared into clearer skies, he looked back and saw she was still dancing. Great waves were rolling out from her feet and Warblegrub wept at the thought of all the life that would be drowned.

“Can’t you do something?” yelled 395.

“There’s not a lot
I
can do when she’s like this,” Warblegrub apologised, dashing away the tears.

395 glanced back again and saw Kali wading after them, gaining rapidly.

“
They
, on the other hand,” Warblegrub added, pointing straight up, “should give her pause for thought!”

The birdpeople and their passengers were suddenly bathed in rainbow light as hundreds of jellysquids began falling from the sky. Diving on Kali, they fixed tentacles on her arms and legs, and when she lashed out, she became entangled in a glorious web.