East of Ealing

30

Professor Slocombe withdrew a goose feather quill from the inkwell, and scratched out the fifth day from the June calendar. From beyond the shuttered French windows sounds as of merriment reached him. The Brentford Festival had begun. Throughout the night, the floats had been assembling upon the Butts Estate; lumbering through the darkness, heavy and ponderous. Through a crack in the shutters he had watched their slow progress and viewed their silhouettes, stark against an almost white sky. He had presided over many Festivals past and judged many a float competition, but he had never seen anything such as this. The shapes which rolled onward through the night upon their many wheels were totally alien, even to he who had seen so much. They were the stuff of nightmare, the dreams of the delirious and dying sick. If human hand had wrought these monstrosities, then it was a hand far better stricken from the arm.

A shiver ran up the long spine of the ancient scholar and his mottled hand closed about a crystal tumbler, half-filled upon his desk. Sleep had not touched him in more than a week and could offer nothing to soothe the ache which filled his heart and the very marrow of his bones. The great clock upon the mantelshelf was even now ticking away mankind’s final hours. The prophecies were being fulfilled and the helplessness, to one who knew, but was yet unable to act, was beyond human endurance.

Professor Slocombe raked his hand across the desk and tumbled a stack of magazines to the carpeted floor. Computer Weekly, Softwear Review, Micro Times, Popular Processor: the poison fruits from the new technology’s tree of life. Mankind had finally reached its own level of super incompetence, and made itself obsolete. It had promoted itself into extinction. Uncomprehending, it had made a science out of the thing; established a new order, laid the foundation for a new culture, and ultimately created a god. Or more accurately, aided the reinstatement of one previously superseded. Computer technology had given mankind the opportunity to regress, to cease thinking and in so doing cease to be. Why bother to add? The machine can do it for us. Mankind had been subtly tricked into believing that sophistication was progress. That godhead technology could cure man’s ills at the flick of a switch, or if not that, then after a few more years of further sophistication. Man had lost sight of himself. Darkness was soon to triumph over the light, and the real means of confounding it were fading before the Professor’s eyes. It was progress. Mankind had made so much progress that it no longer had any hope of survival. The miracle of science had become a chamber of horrors.

Somewhere in the dark tower which pierced the Brentford sky, the bleak temple of technology, the dragon lay curled in its lair. Its moment of release drew nigh, and who was there to plunge the sword of truth into its black heart?

The old man drained his glass and refilled it. He watched the gilded pendulum endlessly carving its arc. Where was Holmes? He was to have returned at daybreak, having followed up certain of his own leads, but he was hours overdue. The Professor had put into his keeping certain documents which he felt might hold an ultimate solution; but where was he now? Crowds were gathering in the street and it was an invitation to disaster to venture out of doors.

The sound of rumbling wheels and wild applause drew his eyes once more towards the shuttered windows. Should they choose now to make an assault upon the house the Professor knew he would be powerless to stop them. If ever there was a time to rally the troops beneath the banner of truth, now was definitely it.

At the present time, the Legion of Light was holed up in an outside privy in Moby Dick Terrace. There was more than just a little of the Lost Patrol about these three particular stalwarts.

“Can you see anything?” asked Jim, as Omally put his eye once more to the door’s half-moon.

“I can see a good deal,” the brave Sir Knight replied, “and to be perfectly frank, I like not a bit of it.”

“Let’s have a squint,” said Soap Distant. “And you keep your hands to yourself, Pooley.”

“They’re in my pockets. Have a care where you step, it’s crowded in here.”

Soap’s pink eye rose to the carved crescent. “My God,” said he.

“Not mine,” said John Omally.

Beyond the broken trelliswork which topped the garden fence, the great Festival floats were moving in slow procession. The thin dawn light, now tinting their silhouettes, brought them form and solidity. They were vast, towering to fill the streets, extending outwards within inches of the house walls. But what were they? They had something of the look of great bloated sombre reptiles, with scaled flanks and rudimentary limbs. All gill slits and hulking slabby sides. But they were too large, too daunting, too top-heavy. They did not fit. How many of these monstrosities had already passed and how many more were yet to come? The three men skulking in the evil-smelling dunny chose not to make bets.

Soap tore his eye from the hole with difficulty. Already the terrible compulsion to watch each movement of the swaying behemoths had become all but overwhelming. “What are they?” he gasped, pressing his hands across the hole that he might see no more.

“The work of the Devil.” Omally’s voice, coming from the darkness, put the wind up even himself. “We have to get out of here. At least to the Professor’s, then I don’t know what.”

“A manhole, two gardens up, leads indirectly into a tunnel to his basement.”

“Oh no.” This voice belonged to Jim Pooley. “Down again we do not go. I will take my chances above ground.”

“Well, please yourself. Whatever killed Holmes could not pursue us, it was pretty big. The tunnels hereabouts are small. I shall travel below; you do as you see fit.”

“I think we should stick together,” Omally advised.

“Are you sure it’s safe, Soap?”

“To tell the absolute truth, I’m not too sure of anything any more.”

“Oh doom, oh desolation. Oooh, ooooow!”

“Come on then.” Omally eased open the door, and the three men, one now limping a little and clutching at himself, ducked across the garden and shinned up a dividing fence. Soap’s manhole was overgrown with weeds, which seemed promising. The hollow Earther took a slim crooked tool from his belt and, scraping away the undergrowth, flipped off the cover in a professional manner. “Follow me,” he said, vanishing from sight.

Pooley looked at Omally. “It’s all up and down these days, isn’t it?”

“After you, Jim. I should hate you to have cold feet.”

Muttering and complaining, the blighted billionaire clambered into the hole, followed by Omally, who drew the lid back into place.

Three darting images vanished from the screen of the Lateinos and Romiith computer scan, but already the information had been processed and relayed. No less than three Pooleys and a brace of Omallys were already scaling the garden wall. None of them were wearing carnival hats.

“Come on, lads.” Soap’s voice urged them on from the darkness. “And get a move on, something smells a bit iffy down here.” With hands about each other’s waists, the most unmusical of all conga lines moved along a few short feet beneath the streets of Brentford. The rumble of the heavy floats and the muffled sounds of chanting, coming faintly to them as the duplicates mouthed to the holophonic images pouring into their brains through their minuscule headphones, were anything but cheering.

Soap suddenly came upon a heavy door blocking his way. “There now,” said he.

“Where now, exactly?”

“We’re there.”

“Good man, Soap. Now open up, let’s not waste anytime.”

The sounds of Soap fumbling in his pockets preceded a long and dismal groan. “My keys.”

“Where are your keys, Soap?”

“In my desk, I think.”

A piercing white light illuminated the narrow black corridor. It shone directly on to three terrified faces, which had turned instinctively towards it. From about the light source came the flashing of blue sparks as several lethal handsets energized.

“Get out of the way,” said Omally. “Let me at that lock.” The Irishman squeezed past the pink-eyed man and dropped to his knees. A neat roll of house-breaking implements materialized from a hidden pocket in his waistcoat and were rapidly unfurled.

“John,” said Jim, “I had no idea.”

“They were the daddy’s. Keep out of the light and keep those bastards back somehow.”

The light was moving nearer, spiralling along the wet brick-worked tube of the tunnel. The crackling of the handsets became audible.

“You’ll not break it,” gibbered Soap. “The lock is protected, it cannot be picked.”

“There is no lock which cannot be picked.” Omally flung aside a bundle of metal tags and slotted another sequence into the shaft of the skeleton key.

“You won’t open it.”

“Shut up will you?”

“Get away.” For once doing the bold thing, Pooley had crept back up the tunnel towards his attackers. Now he lashed out with his hobnail at the blinding light as it reared up in his face. His boot connected and the beam swung aside, leaving Omally to fumble in the darkness. “Nice one, Jim,” he spat. “Now I can’t see a bloody thing.”

“Get off me, leave hold.” Clawing hands reached out towards Pooley. In the coruscating blue fire his face twisted and contorted. “John, protect me for God’s sake!”

“Protect me…” Omally’s brain kicked into gear. He tore his crucifix from about his neck and fumbling for the keyhole thrust it in and turned it sharply to the right. “We’re in, lads,” cried John.

“Go quickly,” said Soap. “It is up to you now.” With a brisk movement he vanished away as if by magic into the brickwork of the passage.

Omally bundled his way through the doorway.

Pooley wrenched himself away from his attackers, leaving them the right sleeve of his cashmere jacket as something to remember him by. The combined weight of two men hurtled the door back into its jambs. Fists rained upon it from without, but they could not penetrate the mantle of protection. Omally winkled out his crucifix and pressed it to his lips. “And then there were two,” said he, sinking to his bum with a dull thump.

Jim slowly removed his jacket, folding it neatly across his arm. He laid upon the floor and began to leap up and down upon it. “Bugger, bugger, bugger, bugger,” he went.

Omally watched the performance without comment. They were a strange old breed these millionaire lads and that was a fact. “When you are done,” he said at length, “I suggest we go upstairs and break the sad news of Holmes to the old man.”

“Oh bugger,” said Pooley.

“So you said.”

“No, this is another quite separate bugger. I left my fags in the top pocket.”

Professor Slocombe watched the two men plod wearily up the cellar steps, slouch down the side-corridor, and halt before the study door, twin looks of indecision upon their unshaven faces. He opened his eyes. “Come in, lads,” he called. “No need to skulk about out here.” Beyond the heavy-panelled door, Omally shrugged. With evasive eyes and shuffling feet, he and Jim sheepishly entered the study. Professor Slocombe indicated the decanter, and Omally grasped it up by the neck and rattled it into a crystal tumbler.

“Easy on the glassware, John.”

Omally, his face like a smacked bottom, looked up at the ancient. “Sherlock Holmes is dead,” he blurted out.

Professor Slocombe’s face was without expression. His eyes widened until they became all but circular. The whites formed two Polo mints about the pupils. The narrow jaw slowly revolved as if he was grinding his teeth upon Omally’s words.

“That cannot be,” he said, slowly drawing himself from his desk and turning his back upon his uninvited guests. “It cannot be.”

Omally poured his drink down his neck and slung another large measure into his glass. “And mine,” complained Pooley.

The Professor turned upon them. “How did this happen? Did you see it?” A high tone of fear choked at his voice.

“Not exactly,” Jim replied nervously, “but believe us, sir, he could not have survived.”

“He saved our lives,” said Omally.

“But you did not actually see?”

“Not exactly, thank God.”

Professor Slocombe smiled ruefully. “I thought not.”

Omally opened his mouth to speak, but thought better of it. If the old man did not care to accept the truth, then there was no good to be gained through labouring the point. “All right,” said he carefully, “we did not actually see it.”

“No,” said the Professor. “You did not. So let us speak no more of the matter. There is little time left and much which must be done.”

“We are actually somewhat knackered,” said Jim, sinking into a chair. “We’ve had a trying day.”

“I am afraid that it is not over yet. Kindly follow me.”

The Professor strode across the room and made towards the study door. Jim shrugged towards John, who put his finger to his lips and shook his head. “Come on,” he said. “We’ve nothing left to lose have we?” Omally followed the old man into the corridor.

Jim, left alone for a moment, suddenly smiled. He drew from his trouser pocket the ormulu-trimmed Boda hip-flask he had recently purchased and not yet had the opportunity to use, and hastily filled it from the old man’s decanter. “No point in going unarmed,” said he, following up the rear.

The Professor led them up several flights of steps to the room which housed the camera obscura. When Jim had closed the door and plunged them into darkness, he winched the apparatus into action and brought the image of the surrounding area into focus upon the polished marble table-top. The sight which leapt into vision was such as to take the breath from their lungs. Omally crossed himself and took an involuntary step backwards.

The evil travesty which was the Festival procession now filled every road and side-street in view. And the tableaux wrought upon them were now becoming recognizable for the horrors they were. It was as if those earlier floats they had seen were but the blurred and ill-formed shapes of clay, awaiting the hand of the master craftsman to draw form from them. Now the lines were distinct, the contours clearly defined.

“Look there.” Jim pointed to a lighted float which passed close to the Seaman’s Mission, a stone’s throw from the Professor’s door. Depicted there was the form of a giant, clad in robes of crimson and seated upon a great throne, carved with the gilded heads of bulls. Golden banners, each emblazoned with similar motifs, fluttered above and five hooded, stunted figures cowered at his feet in attitudes of supplication. The crimson giant raised and lowered his hand in mechanical benediction, and it appeared that for a moment he raised his eyes, twin blood bowls of fire, towards the men in the rooftop bower, and stared into their very souls.

“Him,” said Omally.

“And there.” Jim pointed vigorously. “Look at that, look at that.”

As the throned float moved beyond the range of vision, another rose up behind it. Here, a legion of men climbed one upon another, pointing towards the sky. They were identical in appearance, each resembling to a tee the young Jack Palance: the Cereans.

To either side of the floats marched a legion of men, women, and children. Familiar faces, now alien and unknown; their faces wore determined expressions and each marched in step, raising his or her own banner. Each illuminated with eighteen vertical lines, placed in three rows of six. The number of the beast, for it is the number of a man. Professor Slocombe pointed towards the image. Away in the distance, far greater shapes were looming into view, things so dark and loathsome, that even there, upon the flat white marble surface, their ghost images exuded a sense of eldritch horror which stunned the senses.

“Switch it off,” Omally demanded. “There is too much madness here.”

“One more small thing you must see, John.” Professor Slocombe adjusted the apparatus and the image of the Lateinos and Romiith building drew a black shroud across the table-top. The old man cranked the mechanism and enlarged an area at the base of the building. “Now look carefully, did you see that?”

His guests blinked and squinted at the image. “I saw something,” said Jim, “but what?”

“Look harder.”

“Yes, I see it.” It was but a fleeting movement, a single figure detached himself from the throng, pressed his hand to a section of the wall and was instantly swallowed up into the building to vanish without trace.

“I was at a loss to find a means of gaining entry,” the Professor explained, “but Holmes reasoned the thing through and deduced their method.”

“If it’s a lock then I shall pick it.”

“Not on this occasion, John. But one of us here has the key in his hand even now.”

“Oh no,” said Jim, thrusting his tattooed hand into his pocket. “Not this boy, not in there.”

“You have the right of admission, Jim, right there in the palm of your hand.”

“No, no, no.” Pooley shook his head vigorously, “An eight a.m. appointment with Albert Pierrepoint I should much prefer.”

“In my mind, only one course of action lies open. Unless we can penetrate the building and apply the proverbial spanner to the computer’s works, all will be irretrievably lost. We cannot think to destroy the dark God himself. But if his temple is cast down and his worshippers annihilated, then he must withdraw once more, into the place of forever night from whence he has emerged.” Professor Slocombe re-cranked the mechanism and the room fell into darkness.

“Oh doom,” said Jim Pooley. “Oh doom and desolaoooow! Let go there, John.”

“We must make our move now.” Professor Slocombe’s voice echoed in the void. “There is no more time, come at once.” He opened the door and the wan light from the stairs entered the strange roof chamber.

“But we cannot go outside,” said Omally. “One step out of this house and good night.”

“Have no fear, I have taken the matter into consideration.” Professor Slocombe led the two lost souls back to his study. “You are not going to like this, John,” said he, as he opened the desk drawer.

“That should create no immediate problem. I have liked nothing thus far.”

“So be it.” Professor Slocombe drew out a number of items, which had very much the appearance of being metallic balaclava helmets, and laid them on the table.

“Superman outfits,” said Pooley, very impressed. “I should have realized, Professor, you are one of the Justice League of America.”

“Silence, Pooley.”

“Sorry, John.”

“As ludicrous as these items at first must appear, they may well be our salvation. As you are no doubt now aware, the Lateinos and Romiith computer scan cannot penetrate lead. Hopefully, these lead-foil helmets will shield our brain patterns from the machine’s detection and allow us to move about unmolested.”

“Size seven and a half,” said Jim. “But I can fit into a seven at a push.”

“Good man. As an extra precaution, if each of you could slip another piece of foil into your breast pocket then your heartbeat should be similarly concealed. No doubt the infra-red image produced by body heat will still register, but the result should be somewhat confused. ‘Will not compute’, I believe the expression to be.”

“Bravo.” Omally slipped on his helmet without hesitation.

“Very Richard the Lionheart,” chuckled Pooley.

“A fine man,” said Professor Slocombe. “I knew him well.”

The three men, now decked out in their ludicrous headgear, slipped through the Professor’s French windows and out into the garden. At times one has to swallow quite a lot for a quiet life in Brentford.

Above the wall the titanic floats filled the street. As one by one the balaclava’d goodguys eased their way into the swaying crowd, each held his breath and did a fair bit of praying. Professor Slocombe plucked at Omally’s sleeve. “Follow me.” The marching horde plodded onward. The floats dwarfed both street and sky. Jim peered about him; he was walking in a dream. The men and women to either side of him, each wearing their pair of minuscule headphones, were unreal. And that he knew to be true in every sense of the word. At close hand, the floats appeared shabby and ill-constructed; a mish-mash of texture and hue coming together as if, and no doubt it was exactly thus, programmed to create an overall effect. No hand of man had been at work here. Like all else it was a sick parody, a sham, and nothing more. The bolted wheel near at hand turned in faulty circles grinding the tarmac, untrue. But it was hypnotic, its unreality drew the eye and held it there. “Come on, Jim.” Omally tugged at Pooley’s sleeve. “You’re falling behind again.”

Pooley struggled on. Ahead, the Lateinos and Romiith building dwarfed all beneath its black shadow. The sky was dark with tumbling clouds, strange images weaved and flowed beyond the mysterious glittering walls, shimmering over the roof-tops. Even now something terrible was occurring beyond the boundaries of the borough.

The awful procession turned out of the Butts and up into Moby Dick Terrace. Professor Slocombe drew his followers aside from the throng and the helmeted duo scuttled after him. “Make haste now.”

The Lateinos and Romiith building filled the eastern skyline. Jim noted with increasing gloom that an entire terrace of houses had gone, overwhelmed by the pitiless structure which reared into the darkling sky.

On a roadside bench ahead an old man sat with his dog.

“Good day, lads,” said Old Pete, as the strangely-clad threesome passed him by at close quarters. “Fair old do this year, isn’t it?”

“Bloody marvellous,” Pooley replied. “Hope to see you later for one in the Swan if all goes well.”

Old Pete cleared his throat with a curiously mechanical coughing sound. “Look out for yourself,” said he.

The three men continued their journey at the Jog.

“Stop here now,” said Professor Slocombe, as they came finally to the corner of the street. “I am expecting somebody.”

“A friend I hope.”

“That would be nice,” said Jim, with a little more flippancy than the situation warranted. “Organizer of the Festival raffle is it? Or chairman of the float committee?”

Omally took what he considered to be one of the last opportunities left to him to welt Jim about the head. “Oow ouch!” he said, clutching at a throbbing fist. Pooley smiled sweetly. “How much do you want for the copyright of this helmet?” he asked the Professor.

“Leave it out, you two. Here he comes.”

Along the deserted pavement, weaving with great difficulty, came an all too familiar figure, clad in grey shopkeeper’s overall and trilby hat. But what was this that the clone shopkeeper rode upon his precarious journey? Could this be that creaking vestige of a more glorious age, now black and pitted and sorely taken with the rest? Surely we have seen these perished hand-grips before? Marvelled at the coil-spring saddle and oil-bath chainguard? The stymied Sturmey Archer Three-speed and the tungsten-carbide lamp? Yes, there can be no doubt, it is that noted iron stallion, that prince of pedaldom, squeaking and complaining beneath the weight of its alien rider, it can be no other. Let men take note and ladies beware: Marchant the wonder bike, it is he.

“Get off my bleeding bicycle,” yelled John Omally.

Norman the Second leapt down from his borrowed mount with some alacrity. Not, however, with sufficient alertness to avoid the sneaky pedal which had been awaiting its chance to drive in deep. Norman’s right trouser cuff vanished into the oil-bath and the automated shopman bit the dust.

“Bastard,” squealed the mechanical man. “I’ll do for you.”

“Nice one, Marchant,” said John, drawing his bike beyond reach. The bicycle rang its bell in greeting and nuzzled its handlebar into its master’s waistcoat.

“Bloody pathetic isn’t it?” said Jim. “A boy and his bike, I ask you.”

“Do you think we might apply ourselves to the job in hand?” the Professor asked.

“I like the helmets,” said Norman the Second. “What is it then, Justice League of America?”

“A running gag I believe,” Jim replied. “Did you have to bring his bike? That thing depresses me.”

“Easy Jim, if I am going to die, I will do it with Marchant at my side, or at least under my bum.”

“Bloody pathetic.”

“Time to do your party trick, Jim,” said Omally. “Professor?”

The old man indicated a dimly-lit panel on the bleak wall. “Just there,” he said.

“I don’t know if this is such a good idea,” Jim complained. “I think the best idea would be to give the place a good leaving alone.”

“Stick your mitt out, Jim.”

The cursed Croesus placed his priceless palm on to the panel. There was a brief swish and a section of the wall shot aside. A very bad smell came from within.

“Quickly now,” said the Professor. “Keep your hand on the panel until we’re all in, Jim.”

A moment later the gap closed upon three men, one robot shopkeeper, and a bike called Marchant.

“Blimey,” said Omally. “I don’t know what I expected, but it wasn’t this.”

They stood now in what might have been the lobby and entrance hall of any one of a thousand big business consortiums. The traditional symbols of success and opulence, the marble walls, thick plush carpeting, chromium reception desk, even the rubber plant in its Boda plant-stand, were all there. It was so normal and so very ordinary as to be fearful. For behind this facade, each man knew, lurked a power more evil than anything words were able to express.

“Gentlemen,” said Professor Slocombe, “we are now in the belly of the beast.”

Omally suddenly clutched at his stomach. “I think I’m going to chuck up,” he said. “I can feel something. Something wrong.”

“Hold on.” The Professor laid a calming hand upon Omally’s arm. “Speak the rosary; it will pass.”

Beneath his breath Omally whispered the magical words of the old prayer. Its power was almost instantaneous, and the sick and claustrophobic feeling lifted itself from his shoulders, to alight upon Jim Pooley.

“Blech,” went Jim. Being a man of fewer words and little religious conviction, he threw up over the rubber plant.

“That will please the caretaker,” chuckled Omally.

“Sorry,” said Jim, drawing his shirt-sleeve over the cold sweat on his brow. “Gippy tummy I think. I must be going cold turkey for the want of a pint.”

“You and me both. Which way, Professor?”

The old man fingered his chin. “There is no-one on the desk, shall we take the lift?”

Norman the Second shook his head, “I would strongly advise the stairs. A stairway to oblivion is better than no stairway at all I always say. Would you like me to carry your bike, John, or would you prefer to chain it to the rubber plant?”

“I’ll carry my own bike, thank you.”

Pooley squinted up at the ragged geometry, spiralling into nothingness above. “Looks like a long haul,” said he. “Surely the cellar would be your man, down to the fuse boxes and out with the fuse. I feel that I have done more than my fair share of climbing today.”

“Onward and upward.”

Now there just may be a knack to be had with stairs. Some speak with conviction that the balls of the feet are your man. Others favour shallow breathing or the occupation of the mind upon higher things. Walking up backwards, that one might deceive your legs into thinking they were coming down, has even been suggested. In the course of the next fifteen minutes it must fairly be stated that each of these possible methods and in fact a good many more, ranging from the subtly ingenious to the downright absurd, were employed. And each met with complete and utter failure.

“I’m gone.” Pooley sank to his knees and clutched at his heart.

“Nurse, the oxygen.” Omally dragged himself a stair or more further and collapsed beneath his bike. “We must give poor Jim a breather,” he said. “The life of ease has gone to his legs.”

“Are you all right yourself?” Norman the Second enquired.

“Oh yes.” Omally wheezed bronchitically and wiped the sweat from his eyes. “It is Jim I fear for.”

Professor Slocombe peered down from a landing above. If his ancient limbs were suffering the agonies one would naturally assume them to be, he showed no outward sign. The light of determination burned in his eyes. “Come on now,” he urged. “We are nearly there.”

“Nearly there?” groaned Jim. “Not only can I hear the grim reaper sharpening his scythe, I am beginning to see the sparks.”

“You’ve enough breath, Jim; lend him your arm, John.”

“Come on, Jim.” Omally shouldered up his bike and aided his sagging companion. “If we get out of this I will let you buy me a drink.”

“If we get out of this I will buy you a pub.”

“Onward and upward then.”

Another two flights passed beneath them; to John and Jim it was evident that some fiendish builder was steadily increasing the depth of the treads.

“Stop now.”

“With the greatest pleasure.”

Professor Slocombe put his eye to the smoked glass of a partition door. “Yes,” said he in a whisper. “We shall trace it from here, I think.”

Norman the Second ran his fingertips about the door’s perimeter and nodded. “Appears safe enough,” he said.

“Then let us see.” Professor Slocombe gestured to Jim. “You push it, please.”

Pooley shook his head dismally but did as he was bid. The door gave to expose a long dimly-lit corridor.

Omally fanned at his nose. “It smells like the dead house.”

Professor Slocombe pressed a large gingham handkerchief to his face. “Will you lead the way, Norman?”

The robot entered the corridor. “I can feel the vibration of it,” he said, “but it is some distance away. If I could get to a VDU.”

“Stand alone, clustered, or wide-area network?” Omally asked, sarcastically.

“Super advanced WP and a spread-sheet planner, hopefully,” said Jim.

“Do I take the piss out of your relatives?” Norman the Second asked. “Stick your palm against this panel will you please?”

“Security round here stinks as bad as the air,” Pooley pressed the panel. A gleaming black door slid noiselessly aside.

“Ah,” said Norman the Second, “magic.”

The room was nothing more than a cell, happily unoccupied. Black walls, floor and ceiling. A cunningly concealed light source illuminated a centralized computer terminal, bolted to the floor. “And people have the gall to ask me why I never take employment,” said Omally, parking his bike. “Imagine this place nine to five.”

The robot faced the console and cracked his nylon knuckles. “Now,” said he, “only one small problem. We do not possess the entry code.”

Professor Slocombe handed him a folded sheet of vellum. “Try this.” The automaton perused the paper and stared up at the old man.

“Don’t ask,” said John Omally.

“All right then.” With a blur of digits the robot punched in the locking code. The words “ENTER ENQUIRY NOW” sprang up upon the now illuminated screen. Norman’s hand hovered.

“Ask it for permission to consult the main access body,” said the Professor.

Norman punched away at the keyboard.

PERMISSION DENIED, INFORMATION CLASSIFIED Professor Slocombe stroked at his chin. “Ask it for a data report.”

Norman did the business. Rows of lighted figures plonked up on to the monitor. Row upon coloured row, number upon number, little illuminated regiments marching up the screen. “Magic,” crooned Norman the Second.

“Looks like trig,” said Jim disgustedly. “Never could abide trig. Woodwork and free periods, but trig definitely not.”

“The music of the spheres,” said Norman the Second.

Professor Slocombe’s eyes were glued to the flickering screen. His mouth worked and moved, his head quivered from side to side. As the projected figures darted and weaved, so the old man rose and fell upon his toes.

“Does it mean something to you?” Omally asked.

“Numerology, John. It is as I have tried to explain to you both. Everything, no matter what, can be broken down into its base elements and resolved to a final equation: the numerical equivalent; all of life, each moving cell, each microbe, each network of cascading molecules. That is the purpose of it all. Don’t you see?” He pulled Omally nearer to the screen, but John jerked away.

“I’ll not have it,” said he. “It is wrong. Somehow it is indecent. Obscene.”

“No, no, you must understand.” The Professor crouched lower towards the screen, pushing Norman’s duplicate aside.

Pooley was jigging from one foot to the other. “Can’t we get a move on. I’m freezing to death here.”

The room had suddenly grown impossibly cold. The men’s breath steamed from their faces. Or at least from two of them it did.

Omally grasped Pooley by the wrist, for the first time he realized that the Professor was no longer wearing his helmet, and hadn’t been since they had joined him on the landing. “Oh, Jim,” whispered John, “bad Boda.”

The “Professor” stiffened; slowly his head revolved a hundred and eighty degrees upon his neck and stared up at them, sickeningly. “Learn, last men,” he said, clearing his throat with the curiously mechanical coughing sound John and Jim had learned to fear. “It is your only salvation. Humble yourselves before your new master.”

“Oh no.” Omally stumbled back and drew out his crucifix. “Back,” he shouted, holding it before him in a wildly shaking fist. “Spawn of the pit.”

The Professor’s body turned to follow the direction of his face. His eyes had lost their pupils but now glowed from within, two miniature terminal screens, tiny figures twinkling across them in hypnotic succession. “Behold the power,” said he. “Know you the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man.”

“By the Cross.”

The thing which dwelt in the Professor’s image thrust a hand into its trouser pocket and drew out a small black box with two slim protruding shafts.

“Head for the hills,” yelled Pooley, as the clone touched the nemesis button and the black rods sparkled with electric fire.

Omally flattened himself to the wall as the thing lunged towards him. A great explosion tore the world apart. Shards of glass and splinters of burning circuitry spun in every direction, spattering the walls and the two cowering men; flame and smoke engulfed the room. The Professor’s duplicate stood immovable, his synthetic hair ablaze and his clothes in tatters. Norman’s double drew a smouldering fist from the shattered terminal screen. He leapt forward, grasping the Professor’s doppelgänger about the throat, and dragged it backwards. “Out!” he shouted. “Run for your lives, lads.”

Pooley and Omally bundled out of the door. John leapt astride Marchant and Pooley clambered on to the handlebars. At very much the hurry-up they took to the retreat.

In absolutely the wrong direction.

Omally’s feet flew about and Marchant, realizing the urgency of the situation, made no attempt to ditch its extra rider. With its bell ringing dramatically it cannoned forward up the corridor. Figures appeared before them, dressed in grey uniforms and carrying fire-fighting equipment. Pooley struck aside all he could as the bike ploughed forward. As he cleared a path between several rather sloppy versions of himself, a thought struck him. The great machine for all its dark magic certainly lacked something in the old imagination department. Obviously when idling and stuck for something to do, it just kept turning out the same old thing.

“Do you know what this means?” Omally shouted into his ear. Pooley shook his terrified head and lashed out at another robot duplicate of himself. “It means that I am the last Catholic on Earth.”

“Well, some good came out of it all, then.” As Omally’s hands were busily engaged at the handlebar grips, he could do no more than lean forward and bite Pooley’s ear. “Jim,” he shouted, “Jim, as the last Catholic, I am Pope! Jim… I… am Pope. I am Pope!”