Einstein's Underpants--And How They Saved the World (9 page)

‘You will now tell me the names of your co-conspirators.'

‘But I swear there were—'

And that was as far as Jlatt got, because at that moment Admiral Thlugg lost patience, and slithered over him, entirely engulfing the smaller Borgia in his gelatinous bulk. Imagine a plate of jelly flopping on top of a wine gum.

The other crew members on the command deck of the ship were divided between those who looked away, appalled at the spectacle of one Borgia eating another, and those who gazed on, enraptured, and a little peckish.

The conspiracy of which Admiral Thlugg had spoken was not entirely the product of his paranoia. There had been rumblings among the junior officers that the humans were to be reserved for the Borgia elite back on the home planet of TZ789644444 (represented in the Borgia language by the smell of a tramp roasting marshmallows over a fire made from his own discarded vest and underpants). There was also another, more radical, item on the rebels' agenda. Was it really morally acceptable, some of them had begun to ask, to eat fellow sentient beings, creatures not much less intelligent than the Borgia themselves – even if they were as physically repellent as the humans?

It was this, or the rumour of it, that had
forced Thlugg to act with such rigour. The Borgia creed was simple. It had two parts.

Part 1: If it moves, kill it.

Part 2: When you've killed it, eat it.

Thlugg was not the kind of Borgia to look kindly upon a modification of this creed so that it looked something like:

Part 1: If it moves, have a polite chat with it.

Part 2: After the chat, say cheery-bye, and exchange Christmas cards for the next few years, until one of you forgets or you make some new friends, or you just drift apart and don't really see the point any more. Part 3:Then possibly eat them. But only maybe. You know, if there's nothing else in the fridge.

The conspiracy had not reached the
point of mutiny. Jlatt was merely compiling a list of grievances and complaints, which he'd accidentally left in the lavatory. The list was taken to Thlugg, and Jlatt's fate was sealed.

It was all over in a few minutes. Thlugg slithered off the remains of Jlatt – little more than a stain, shaped, as stains so often are, like Australia.

The point had been made. The scene had been broadcast live to the rest of the ship, smellocasters carrying each sniff of action to every corner of the vessel. There would be no more dissent. Admiral Thlugg vented a long, slow, satisfied gaseous exhalation. It smelled of Jlatt. And cheese.

CHAPTER 23

THE PICTURE IN THE NUMBERS

THAT EVENING ALEXANDER
was lying on his bed, mulling over the events of the day: the distinctly strange recruitment campaign, the first titanic battle, the way they'd become a team, forged in the heat of war. And of course there was the added bonus that they would never have to worry about Big Mac again. Yes, all in all it had been a good day. It hardly seemed to matter whether Otto's ideas were crazy or not.

Then he heard the little electronic tune from his laptop speakers that meant someone wanted to videochat. The only person who ever tried to videochat with Alexander was Melvyn, and it was never very successful. They'd spend about ten minutes getting
it properly set up, and then find they had nothing much to say except, ‘Well, bye then.' ‘Yeah, see you tomorrow.'

He got something of a shock, then, when he went to his desk and saw what was on his laptop screen. For a second he thought it might actually be one of the bloodthirsty aliens Uncle Otto had raved about. Its head – Alexander knew it was a head because it was perched on top of a pair of shoulders – seemed to be made entirely of a shiny metallic substance, except for two deep black eyes.

‘Do not be alarmed.'

The voice was grating and metallic, yet strangely familiar.

‘Who the heck . . . ?' said Alexander. Then he realized. ‘Otto, where are you? And why have you got a load of silver foil wrapped around your head?'

‘Otto? Otto? Never heard of him. I am Mr Reginald Fly.'

Then Uncle Otto lifted up the silver foil
wrapping and winked at Alexander, adding in a whisper, ‘This messes with their reception. I'm in the computer room at St Mungo's psychiatric unit. We get half an hour's Internet access a day. I've been doing more research.' He replaced the foil mask and continued urgently, ‘I've hacked into the NATO Combined Command computer systems. I was looking for evidence of their preparations. BUT THEY ARE NOT PREPARED. THEY ARE NOT PREPARED AT ALL. We are wide open. Like little lambs gambolling in the field as the wolf approaches. Luckily, I have found a few kindred spirits. Others like myself. I have made contact through the Internet. We've been watching and waiting. Some, of course, are cranks. Others are great geniuses, almost matching my own stature. They have confirmed my findings. In fact, they have widened my understanding. The Earth is confronted with more than one peril. The lambs are not just faced with the prowling
wolf, but with fire, flood, plague, famine. The universe itself is turning against us.'

‘The universe? What do you mean, Uncle?' Something about Otto's tone utterly unnerved Alexander. There was a new seriousness that commanded respect.

The metal-faced Otto paused as if considering great matters. ‘No,' he said at last. ‘It's too much for a mere child – even if he has the
you know whats
of the greatest scientist who ever lived. All I can ask of you is to confront one evil at a time. Now, tell me, you have the printouts, the data?'

‘From your computers? Yeah. I used my laptop to analyse it. You know, convert it from binary, check it for correlations and patterns. And I think you're right. There's something there. Some regularities. But, well, I can't really make head or tail of them. To me it still just looks like numbers.'

‘That's because you're using your computer to do the thinking for you. Science is an art, and great scientists are artists. They
feel
the patterns, they
hear
the numbers like
music
. Get the data out for me.'

The printouts were folded up in Alexander's bookshelf. He got them and spread them out on the desk.

‘Now look at them. Look at them properly, deeply. Use your soul as well as your brain.'

Alexander gazed at the lines of figures.

‘Now, what do you see? No, I mean, what do you
feel
?'

This is what Alexander saw:

He sighed. ‘Like I said, just numbers. I don't really see the point . . .'

‘Concentrate!'

‘I'm trying!'

The numbers began to swim around in a blurry cloud.

‘This is just giving me a headache.'

‘As I suspected. It's time.'

‘Time for what?'

‘I think you know.'

Strangely, Alexander
did
know. If he was going to understand these figures, understand them truly and deeply, then he was going to need some extra help. He retrieved the underpants from their hiding place beneath his bed.

‘I still feel an idiot for doing this, you know,' he said to the metal face in the screen.

‘Feeling like an idiot is one of the defining characteristics of genius,' Otto replied.

And so Alexander put the pants on his head. He could have been wrong, but for a
moment he thought he heard a sort of half-choked laugh emerge from under the silver foil.

‘What now?' he asked, a little annoyed as well as embarrassed.

‘Look again at the data.'

‘It's a waste of—'

‘Just do it!'

So once again Alexander stared at the numbers on the printed sheet. Again they seemed to blur and fuzz and drift like plankton. He used every gram of mental energy he had to squeeze the meaning out of them. He even tried to channel his mind through the underpants. He was just about to give up when something odd happened.

The numbers were still there, and yet they had changed.

He rubbed his eyes.

‘Are you seeing it? Are you feeling it?' urged Otto.

‘I . . . I . . . I don't know.'

Alexander looked again. Either he was
going mad or, yes, a pattern was emerging from the numbers. And it wasn't just that he was seeing some connection between the figures. That's what he thought he was supposed to be looking for, like one of those problems where you have a sequence of numbers – say, 1, 3, 5, 7, 11 – and you have to work out what the link is so you can guess the next in the series.

No, this was actually a pattern of some kind. He was seeing or feeling an image.

Otto had been studying his face. ‘You see it, don't you?' he said fervently.

‘Something, yes. But what is it?'

‘Look again and tell me.'

‘It's a shape. I don't know, a blob—'

‘Not a blob!'

‘It's a thing. It's . . . It's . . . It's one of
them
, isn't it, Uncle?'

‘Oh yes.'

Alexander gulped. He felt suddenly afraid, very afraid.

‘The next page – what do you see?'

Alexander gazed again. And this time the image came more quickly.

‘I don't know. It's kind of beautiful. Is it an angel?'

Otto laughed bitterly. ‘An angel? That's a good one. Yes, it's an angel. The Angel of Death.'

And again, as he gazed at the shape in the numbers, Alexander felt the cold hand of fear grip his entrails.

‘They are coming. That is their ship.'

Alexander nodded numbly.

‘Right, now tell me, Alexander, have you begun?'

‘Begun?'

‘Your mission. The fightback.'

‘Well, yes. Today we began – we more than began. I found my heroes, the guys who are going to save the world.'

‘Excellent, excellent. I knew you wouldn't let me down.'

‘But I'm not sure what exactly we're supposed to be doing . . .'

‘Then I shall tell you. You must—'

But then the picture on the laptop began
to break up, and the sound of Otto's voice was obscured by static.

‘Uncle! Uncle!' yelled Alexander. But it was too late. The weblink was down. But just before the picture of Otto in his crazy silver mask disappeared, Alexander saw – or thought he saw – another image take its place. It looked like this: