The Chickens of Atlantis and Other Foul and Filthy Fiends (37 page)

‘Most inconvenient,’ said my friend. ‘However—’

But whatever direction this particular line of conversation might have been taking, I will never know. For Mr Bell found himself suddenly speechless as a steely tendril swept down from the tripod's canopy, wrapped swiftly about his portly frame and dragged my friend aloft.

I was about to slip quietly away . . .

When another dragged me from my feet.

So up we went in the hideous grasp of those sinister steely tendrils, up and into the horrible open mouth.

Then
whack
!

We both found ourselves sprawled upon the floor of the Martian tripod's wheelhouse. Smelly Martians loomed about us, their horrid, slimy tentacles moving in a most unpleasant manner.

‘Well, well, well, well, well.’ And there was Arthur Knapton, most extravagantly dressed in what might well have been the uniform of an Admiral of the Fleet. Heavily braided and hung with many medals, it was topped by a rather splendid hat.

A nautical hat with five separate pointy bits!

A pentacorn
.

The nasty long face did evil grinnings at us.

Mr Bell rose to his feet and did more dustings down.

I just sat and folded my arms and had a bit of a sulk.

‘That was a big explosion,’ said the Admiral of the Fleet.

‘I ain't finkin’ that ’orsell District Council will be a-raising a statue to ya.’ And he laughed. And again. And again and again and again. And the Martians sort of jiggled about, as they had no voices to laugh with.

‘I told ya,’ said Arthur Knapton. ‘Told ya time an’ again. I'm always way ahead of ya. You can't blow these ’ere tripods up with dynamite.’

‘So it would appear,’ said Mr Bell.

‘Titanium hyper-alloy combat chassis. Twenty-first-century technology.’ Arthur Knapton now preened at his heavily braided jacket. I hated to admit it, but when it came to preening, Arthur Knapton did it with considerably more aplomb than did Mr Bell. Arthur Knapton was a natural preener.

‘And so it ends,’ this evil preener said. ‘You ’ad yer chance. Lumme, guv'nor, if you ain't ’ad chances aplenty. And fouled ’em all up, so you ’ave. But enough is enough, I say. I ’as this ’ere planet to stamp under me titanium boot ’eels, then we'll clobber Jupiter an’ Venus, too. And that'll be that'll be that.’

Mr Bell hung his head sadly. ‘On the face of it,’ said he, ‘it would appear that you have won.’

Arthur Knapton laughed once more. ‘It does seem very much like that, don't it?’ he said. Producing, as he did so, a most substantial ray gun and pointing it with joy towards my friend.

‘I'm gonna shoot you now,’ the Pearly Emperor said. ‘Not in the ’eart, or in the ’ed, but in your big fat belly. Your guts will all come a-pouring out, but that won't kill you dead. These ’ere Martians feastin’ on yer innards'll kill you. Then they'll ’ave yer monkey for their puddin’. This ’un ’ere –’ Arthur Knapton pointed to a Martian ‘– ’e was King afore I took ’is throne. ’E does the orderin’ about on me behalf. And after ’e's ’ad his din-dins out of yer belly-parts, I'll ’ave ’im tell all ’is mates to tuck into anyone left upon these poxy British blinking Isles. A fine old feast they'll ’ave, an’ no mistake at all.’

I looked up at Mr Bell.

And he looked down at me.

‘I am very sorry, Darwin,’ said my friend.

‘Aw, bless ’im,’ went Arthur Knapton, God-Pharaoh of Egypt and King of Fairyland. ‘’E's sayin’ sorry to ’is monkey. Now ain't that flippin’ sweet.’

The Martians rocked and jiggled their horrible selves about.

I gave myself a good scratching, for I felt it might be the last I ever had.

‘I know you might consider this a very silly question,’ said Mr Bell, ‘but please, before you kill us, tell me why.’

‘Why?’ asked Arthur Knapton. ‘Why about what and which?’

‘The magical stele that you purloined from Aleister Crowley has enabled you to travel through time.
You
, in fact, were the first man ever to do this. With such power you could have made this world a better place to be. The world of today and yesterday and tomorrow.’

‘And why would I want to do
that
?’

Mr Bell sighed. ‘Because,’ said he, ‘there is a question that gets asked at one time or another, and that question is, what is the meaning of life? A very wise man once said that everyone's life has a meaning –
can
have a meaning – if, when they are about to die, they know that they did their best to make this world of ours a slightly better place than it was when they were born.’

‘Oh, spare me such platitudes,’ said the Pearly Emperor.

‘I say to
you
,’ said Mr Bell, ‘that this ape here—’ and he pointed at me ‘—has in his own little life achieved more and done more to make the world a better place than you might do if given a thousand lifetimes.’

‘An’ well it might be.’ The villain laughed once more his appalling laugh. ‘An’ I care not. I was brought up poor and I ’ad nothin’, so I'll make this world a better place for
me
.’

‘This world would be a better place without you, then,’ said Mr Cameron Bell.

‘But you'll not be my executioner. For I shall be
yours
.’

And with no further words said at all, Arthur Knapton, the Pearly Emperor, God-Pharaoh of Egypt, King of Fairyland and Mars and no doubt God to the Chickens of Atlantis, pointed his substantial weapon at my best friend's belly and tugged heartily upon the great big trigger.

*
We will turn a blind eye to the sheer ludicrousness of this. Because I suspect that you, like myself, have long since given up on reason and logic. But at least the end is now in sight. (R. R.)

44

‘
o!’ said Mr Bell. ‘
I
think
not
.’ And he made a rather fierce face at Arthur Knapton.

‘You finks not?’ The Pearly Emperor laughed his annoying laugh. ‘What you finks ain't got nothin’ t’ do wiv it.’ And his finger tightened once more upon the trigger.

‘If you fire
that
, then I will press
this
,’ said Mr Cameron Bell, and he produced from behind his back another brass contrivance with an extended metal rod and a blood-red button, upon which his thumb now rested.

‘Oh ho ho,’ roared Arthur Knapton and his horrid Martians laughed as well. ‘Wotcha thinkin’ t’ do, Mr Bell – blow us all a*** over t**? I thought you'd learned your lesson – you can't blow us up in ’ere.’

‘Not here,’ said my friend, and he looked most brave. ‘Pray do look out through your cockpit window. You might find something to surprise you.’

Arthur Knapton hesitated, but his gun wobbled ever so slightly in his hand. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I fink I'll kills ya now.’

Mr Bell's thumb was firmly on the button and his firm gaze met that of Arthur Knapton.

Sweat broke out upon foreheads, including my own. This was what the chickens in the time of Akhenaten would have referred to as an ‘Egyptian stand-off’.

Arthur Knapton's trigger finger twitched.

Mr Bell's thumb pressed down on the button ever so slightly.

‘All right, all right,’ cried Arthur Knapton. ‘I will allow a dyin’ man ’is final wish.’ And he stalked to the cockpit window and peered out.

Beyond was the blasted landscape. The ruination and misery. The fallen houses, the scorched earth, all of the horrors that this evil man and his Martian hordes had caused.

‘All looks mighty fine, in me ’umble opinion,’ said the King of Mars.

‘If you will just glance down at the half-toppled lamp post to your right.’ Mr Bell had a rather broad smile on now.

‘There ain't nofink— Oh my good Gawd!’ Arthur Knapton threw up his hands in horror.

‘Recognise the fellow?’ asked Mr Bell. ‘The fellow tied to the lamp post. With twenty sticks of dynamite strapped to his chest, which I can explode with a simple press on this button.’ He waggled his contraption at the villain of the piece.

The villain of the piece glared him daggers. ‘It is
me
,’ he said very slowly, between his gritted teeth. ‘It is meself in me teens you ’ave trussed up down there. ’Ow ’ave you done this ’ere fing?’

‘I decided that I must apply a special logic to the situation,’ explained Mr Cameron Bell. ‘The situation being somewhat outré, at best. You were always one step ahead of me. But we were both travellers in time, and so I reasoned that the best way to sort things out was for me to be one step
behind you
. This is the year eighteen eighty-five. The year when
myself and Mr Crowley were students together at Oxford and
you
were our fag and our bootboy.’

Arthur Knapton made terrible growling sounds.

‘A bootboy with ideas above his station. Mighty ambitions. So the me that stands before you now visited the me that is now a student at Oxford. Together we took the teenage you captive. And so he stands down there, a rather uncomfortable and frightened fellow – and one who, if you do not immediately surrender to me, I shall blow to smithereens.’

Arthur Knapton rocked upon his heels.

I gazed up in admiration at my friend Mr Bell.

‘That is very clever,’ said I, ‘because if you blow up
that
Arthur Knapton, then
this
one will cease to exist.’

‘That is about the shape of it,’ said Mr Bell.

Arthur Knapton spat upon the floor. Which was not a very nice thing to do, but he
was
a common fellow. ‘Think you're so damn clever, doncha?’ he roared as he spat. ‘Well, you ain't and I'll tell you why. I ’as the Stele of Revealin’ sewn into me vest, an’ I can use it to transport meself back in time before you can even press yer blasted button.’

‘I doubt if that is altogether true,’ said Mr Bell.

‘Oh, it's true, well enough. An’ I'll go back in time and wring your b****y neck whilst you still lies as a baby in yer cot.’

‘That sounds jolly unsporting,’ said Mr Bell.

The Martians looked from my friend to his mortal enemy. They were, perhaps, becoming confused by all this.

‘Farewell!’ shouted Arthur Knapton, and he clutched very hard at his chest.

But he did not vanish into time.

He stayed just where he was.

‘Perhaps you should give it another go,’ suggested Mr Bell. ‘Perhaps you did not do it properly the first time.’

‘What the Dickens?’ The Pearly Emperor tore at his wonderful jacket, he ripped it open and clutched at his vest. ‘It is gone!’ he cried. ‘The Stele of Revealin’ is gone.’

The Martians now looked back at Mr Bell.

‘You stole the stele from Aleister Crowley,’ said Mr Bell, ‘then used the knowledge from the libraries of books you have acquired whilst travelling through time to decipher it and use it as a time-travelling magical adjunct.’

‘I think we agreed that
that
wouldn't work,’ I whispered to Mr Bell.

‘It was one of those time-travelling plot-hole affairs.’

‘Not now, Darwin,’ said my friend. ‘So,’ he continued to the very very angry Arthur Knapton, ‘I removed the stele from Mr Crowley's possession before your younger self could steal it and use it to travel through time.’

‘But?’ I said, and I scratched my head.

And scratched at other parts, too.

‘Not
now
, Darwin,’ said Cameron Bell. ‘So Arthur Knapton, aka the God-Pharaoh Akhenaten, the Pearly Emperor, King Arthur of both Fairyland and Mars, I am arresting you for the theft of the British Library from the British Museum – a crime you will commit a few years from now.’

‘But—’ said I.

‘
Not now, Darwin
.’ To the Pearly Emperor, Mr Bell said, ‘Drop your ray gun and surrender to me, or I will blow up your teenage self and spare Scotland Yard and the Old Bailey a great deal of confusion.’

‘Well, at least you put
that
in,’ I said.

Arthur Knapton began to laugh his horrible horrible laugh.

‘It wasn't
that
funny,’ I said. ‘Although I must say that all these time-travelling shenanigans have taught me one thing, and that is how many plot holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall.’

Arthur Knapton continued to laugh. And not at what I had said.

‘You can't win,’ he said, when he finally stopped. ‘And d'you know
why
you can't win?’

Mr Bell, whose thumb had not left the bright-red button, shook his head. ‘Enlighten me,’ he said.

‘Because,’ said Arthur Knapton, ‘this is
The War of the Worlds
, but things are different this time around. Everyone knows that Martians cannot survive upon Earth because they fall prey to Earthly bacteria.’

‘It is an Eternal Verity,’ I said. ‘Like you should
never
run with scissors, or—’

‘Shut up,’ said Arthur Knapton. ‘You ain't gettin’ it, Mr Bell. My Martians ’ave been inoculated wiv penicillin. They are immune to Earthly bacteria, which means this time they will
win
.’

I looked once more up at my friend. He had ceased to smile.

‘So fink on,’ continued Arthur Knapton. ‘If me Martians win, then there ain't gonna be no Martian spaceships lying abandoned in Sussex, is there? And if there ain't, then Ernest Rutherford will not be able to convert one into a time-ship for you to travel in. Which means that
you
cannot travel through time an’ capture
me
.’