Dave Trellis and the Allotments of Doom (24 page)

The eye
flickered.

‘You prevent us
filtering out unwanted entities. You must therefore take
responsibility for those that take advantage of your decision.’

The lights on
the huge body changed colour and started to chase up and down in
complex patterns.

‘I ask you;
please take responsibility for your actions.’

The vast
squid-like body of Engineer threw Dave's bubble aside as it swam
off into the darkness.

Dave sat in the
bubble in complete darkness and regretted his arrogance. If the
mice in his kitchen demanded the removal of all cats, their squeaky
little voices would appear no more ridiculous than Dave demanding
action from the ancient and powerful Engineer.

‘Live? Die? Not
kissing him. Volunteers?’

Fergus could
hear the words, but they didn’t mean anything. He couldn’t move and
grass was poking his face.

‘Snapshot? Yar
nice.’

Something sharp
stabbed Fergus in the bum and energy flowed into this limbs. He got
to his knees and retched; a lot of water came up. He was grabbed by
the ankles and hoisted into the air. Someone pummelled his back, it
hurt, and even more water came from nowhere and dribbled out of his
nose and mouth. Fergus felt wretched. It didn’t help when he was
dropped; he only just managed to break his fall.

Fergus
clambered to his feet in the centre of a circle of amused
Palaver.

‘You survived
little girl. Now let’s go.’

‘Sorry
what?’

‘Eight hours,
then…’ Enoch slapped one hand down flat on to the other. ‘Out.’

‘I don’t
understand?’

Enoch
sighed.

‘You drowned.
Snapshot worked. I lost bet. Eight hours, body runs out, little
girl goes sleepy-byes.’

Fergus sat
down. He waved his hands at Enoch.

‘Fuck it. I
don’t care anymore. I’m going to sit here and enjoy the sunshine,
you bunch of jackasses can laugh all you want. I’ve walked forever,
been chased by a maniac, fallen miles without a parachute, attacked
by giant dogs, sacrificed to an arcane god, fallen without a
parachute – again, drowned, shot up with alien drugs and dropped on
my head. Through all this nobody has once said ‘well done’ or
‘thanks’ or even ‘are you alright’’.

‘Well done,
thanks, are you alright?’ said Enoch and grinned.

Fergus offered
a finger. He didn’t see Enoch move, but he was on his feet and his
finger was halfway up his back along with his arm. It hurt.

Enoch whispered
in his ear, ‘You warrior? This not way. Cowboy up.’ then pushed
Fergus away.

‘Look me in
eye, little girl. Are you warrior?’

Something
clicked in Fergus’s head. He threw a short, quick punch at Enoch.
It caught the huge Palaver just under the rib cage. Enoch gave a
sharp ‘oof’ and bent slightly. Enoch’s reply knocked Fergus clean
off his feet.

He staggered
upright, the Palaver were roaring with laughter and chanting
‘little girl, little girl’. Someone was patting him on the back.
Fergus expected a beating, but Enoch was laughing more than
anyone.

‘Enough!’
roared Enoch, then more quietly ‘Adjudication?’

‘Qualifies,’
said one Palaver.

‘In,’ said
another.

‘Unconventional, but undeniable’

‘Yar.’

So it went on
around the troop. Fergus was confused, but the Palaver seemed
happy. Enoch held up his hand and the Palaver became quiet.

‘Little girl no
longer. Now Rugby Boy, thirteenth of troop and warrior.’ Enoch
leant backward and yelled ‘Arooooogaaaah’.

Once more the
Palaver patted him on the back and chanted, but this time it was
‘Rugby Boy, Rugby Boy.’

Enoch threw a
huge arm around Fergus, guiding him back towards the
allotments.

‘Giant dogs?’
asked Enoch

‘Oh yes. Huge,
armoured too. Did you know you could ride them?’ said Fergus.

‘Legends
exist…’ Enoch stopped. Over the allotments was a green glow.

‘You!’ yelled
Enoch at a Palaver. ‘Get Rugby Boy armour and belt. Troop
engage.’

The Palaver
leapt away in huge bounds. Enoch unhooked the belt around Fergus’s
waist, put it on, and followed. Fergus ran faster than he believed
possible, as he tried to catch up.

When he arrived
at the allotments, the first wave of small spiders was squirming
under the net. Palaver and dogs arrayed around the first terrace.
The dogs wore grey, inflexible body armour and helmets that
extended down over the snout. Their legs covered with similar
articulated armour ending in a wide, claw-like paw. Even the tails
protected by a segmented sheath.

Fergus
eventually reached Enoch.

‘What’s going
on?’ asked Fergus.

‘When full,
grenades. Just little ones, workers. Here.’

Enoch handed
Fergus the pink armour and purple helmet. Fergus put it on, glad of
its protection. Once dressed, Enoch handed him a gravity belt and
banged on the helmet with his fist. The armour turned light
blue.

‘Observer. Keep
away, watch. We see what you see. Understand.’

‘Yes.’

‘Luck Rugby
Boy. Don’t fight.’

Fergus just
stood there.

‘Want kiss? Go,
watch.’ Enoch waved Fergus away.

Fergus leapt
gently and soared over the allotments, landing awkwardly on the
pavilion roof and dislodged a slate. Dave would have words. The
green glow appeared again and suddenly the net was full of
car-sized spiders.

‘Grenades.’
roared Enoch and the world filled with bits of spider arcing
gracefully in the afternoon sun.

But the net did
not collapse. It stayed full of twelve medium sized spiders.

Enoch cursed
and yelled for anti-tank missiles. It was not going well.

‘What’s going
on Enoch?’ asked Fergus. His armour relayed the question.

‘Grenades not
working, drones have armour.’

‘Not good?’

‘Double plus
not good. We fucked. Keep watching, do not fight.’

Painter wrapped
his brush in tinfoil, laid it down and jogged towards the front
door.

‘Trouble at
allotments,’ he shouted.

‘Alright love,
you take care now. Give my regards to Mr Trellis.’ replied a voice
a woman’s voice from the kitchen.

Painter’s van
tore through the streets of Huddersfield, he leant on his horn and
yelled at cars in his way, he drove through red lights, over
pavements and generally ignored traffic regulations. He yelled
something indecipherable as he sped past the Slubbers Inn.

One lunchtime
punter, enjoying a quality beer in that famed Huddersfield
establishment leant over to his companion and muttered.

‘That sounded
like Painter. Reckon there’s trouble at allotments?’

‘You’d have to
be deaf not to know that.’ replied his companion.

‘Are you
going?’

‘Aye, but have
to stop off at shed first. No point in turning up at knife fight
without spade.’

Mrs Yorkshire
closed the ledger and placed her fountain pen on the desk. She
stood and kept going up, like a Grizzly bear in tweeds.

Her office door
burst open and a young girl rushed in.

‘Mrs Yorkshire,
it sounds like there’s a disturbance at the allotments.’

‘I know my
dear, I have ears. Be so kind as to sound the alarm. I want all the
girls back here, armed and ready, just in case. I’ll be back.’

Butcher ushered
his customers out of the shop.

‘Trouble at
allotments then Butcher?’ asked an old lady.

‘Aye, we’ve
been expecting something. Mr Trellis don’t say owt, but you can
tell, what with preparations and arrivals and the like.’

‘Good luck lad,
and give my regards to Mr Trellis.’

‘Luck don’t
come into it,’ said Butcher, as he took down a huge two handed
cleaver from the rack behind the counter. He hefted it and took a
practice swing, thumping it half an inch into the cutting
block.

‘Oi lad,’ he
yelled to his apprentice, ‘Get the big cleaver out of back.’

The green glow
came again. Three enormous golden queen spiders arrived, filling
the courtyard with legs like street lamps. The air smelt acrid and
musty. They screamed, as they thrashed under the steel cable net,
their claws screeching as they scraped over the flagstones leaving
deep grooves.

There was a
loud crack and a cable parted, its end whipped back and struck a
queen across the thorax. The queen screamed, reared up and the net
tore away from its fixing points. As one the queens stepped over
the allotment wall like a vast net curtain with far too many
legs.

‘Regroup.
Follow them. Missiles now.’ roared Enoch.

Dogs and
Palaver poured out of the allotments and ran across the bridge,
chasing after the three entangled queen spiders.

The bubble
lurched again, suckers the size of dustbin lids appeared on the
surface and Dave was flung to the floor.

Dave's vision
flicked on and the bright sunlight blinded him. He closed his eyes
and then slowly opened them again. He stood in the parkland outside
the allotments, surrounded by a surreal sight.

Around him a
silent battle stopped in freeze frame. A palaver about to drive a
huge battle mallet into the thorax of a drone spider. An anti-tank
missile with a bright tail of flame stopped in mid-air. There were
worker spiders in the air, like hideous helium balloons. Lots of
dogs too, all in full armour.

‘He is
considering your request.’

Dave turned
round to see the small pale man, who still looked like Satan's Bank
Manager.

‘You called
yourself Engineer, but you’re not. Who are you?’

‘I am Engineer,
as much as this small human brain can hold. I embody him in human
aspect. I am Human and Engineer. I am consciousness chimera, a
mental mongrel -’

‘Ernie Farthing
with a broomstick up his arse.’

‘Ah, humour.
Skip it Trellis,’ said Engineer

‘All this.’
Dave waved his arm over the battlefield, ‘Why have you stopped the
battle? Why not just get rid of them or go back to sleep?’

‘I have stopped
nothing.’

Dave looked
around. ‘So this is a natural phenomenon?’

‘Could I
prevent the Earth from rotating, stop stars in their paths, prevent
galaxies from moving?’

‘Oh, I get it.
We’re moving really fast.’

‘Again no. It
is more complex. Mr Loaf may understand a little, you have neither
the training nor aptitude.

‘Try me.’

Engineer looked
at Dave.

‘You are
absorbing extra time.’

‘Really? How
interesting,’ said Dave.

‘All things are
interesting Trellis, it depends on your perspective. As to why we
let this happen. It is difficult to stop. The transfer method used
by these invaders is not normal. It was created to get engineers to
and from the machine. Nobody should know it exists and no-one
should be able to use it. The machine is not a normal transporter
it has no receiver or transmitter. Earth is not a valid
destination.

‘Then what the
bloody hell is the machine for?’

‘It is the
Exchange. Every traveller passes through the machine on their way
to their destination. The machine routes and controls every
transfer in the galaxy. A transfer to Earth requires that an entity
is plucked from the Exchange and set down here at the Allotments.
It is a task that requires direct control of the machine, a job
that I believed only I could do. I was wrong. However, perhaps you
now realize the machine’s importance.’

Dave was
stunned. It explained why no off-world dignitaries ever came, why
he was forbidden from traveling to other worlds. Why humanity was
apparently shunned by the galaxy. It was pathetic, Earth was the
most important planet in existence, yet no-one knew.

Dave sat down
on the grass amongst the broken bits of spider and spent
cartridges. It was a vindication of his hubris, a denial of
self-doubt, yet it changed nothing. He was still Dave Trellis
manager of the allotments, father of a dead daughter and husband of
a lost wife. Around him a battle paused, people were going to die
and by the looks of things the allotments were done for.

Dave looked up
at Engineer.

‘If this
machine is so important, perhaps you best look after it a bit
better.’

‘Hidden in
plain sight, I believe you would have it,’ said Engineer, ‘It has
worked for millennia. Still, we did not plan it this way. We came
to the deepest relativistic trench to give a firm foundation for
time storage and a solid platform for the causeways. We never
expected to build a transfer machine. We expected the causeways
would allow everyone to move under their own power and volition to
wherever they wanted.’

‘So didn't they
work?’

‘Oh they
worked, they worked fabulously. It remains the greatest engineering
feat of our race. It was time that caused the problems.’

‘Sorry?’

‘Time is the
key. Moving vast distances instantly is simple. What causes the
problems is time. If you can't balance the local time at the start
of the journey and the time that exists at the end, the journey
ceases to exist and the traveller goes nowhere. So we store the
time difference. When they return we give it back to them. On the
causeways the absorption and restitution of time took place as you
travelled along. The causeways themselves stored the time.

We believed
that the sum difference in time would be small. Those going one way
would balance those going the other. We were wrong. Natural
disaster, war, migration. All caused huge imbalances. The amount of
time stored became unmanageable and we had to close the
causeways.

So we built the
machine instead. Every journey goes through it. Every traveller
goes only to his destination and back again. It makes time storage
viable and the management simple.’