The Eye of Zoltar

Tralfamosaur Hunt Part 1: Bait and Lure

The train that had transported the Tralfamosaur had been derailed about four miles out of Hereford. The locomotive had stayed upright but most of the goods wagons were now lying in an untidy zigzag along the track. There was a huge number of police cars, ambulances and fire engines in attendance, and the night scene was lit by large floodlights erected on towers. A willowy officer named Detective Corbett introduced himself and then escorted us up the track, past the shattered remnants of the goods train.

‘The engine driver was the first eaten,’ said Corbett as we stared at the wreckage. ‘See these footprints?’

He snapped on a torch and pointed at the ground where a Tralfamosaur footprint was clearly visible.

‘The creature headed north-east,’ said Moobin after looking at several other footprints. ‘Any reports from the public?’

‘Nothing so far,’ said Corbett.

‘A Tralfamosaur can be surprisingly stealthy,’ said Lady Mawgon. ‘Discovering one near you and being eaten often happen at pretty much the same time.’

Corbett looked around nervously.

‘The roads are locked down inside a fifty-mile perimeter,’ he said in a hasty ‘I’m leaving pretty soon’ sort of voice, ‘and everyone has been advised to stay indoors, or in a cellar if they have one. Artillery batteries have been set up if it tries to go in the direction of Hereford, and if you are unsuccessful by first light, King Snodd has agreed to send in the landships.’

‘What about—’ began Moobin, but Corbett had already gone. We stared at the remnants of the Tralfamosaur’s railway carriage, then looked around. It was a dark night, and only a light breeze stirred the branches of the trees. Of the Tralfamosaur, there was no sign. Sending in the landships was a last resort: four-storey armoured tracked vehicles of immense power, they could overcome everything except Trolls, who impertinently called them ‘Meals on Wheels’.

‘I’m not sure a squadron of landships chasing after a single Tralfamosaur would do anything but cause a huge amount of unnecessary damage,’ said Perkins. ‘What’s the next step?’

‘No idea,’ said Lady Mawgon. ‘Moobin?’

‘Not a clue. Let’s face it, recapturing seventeen tons of pea-brained enraged carnivore isn’t something we do every day. How was it captured last time?’

‘Liquorice,’ came a loud voice from behind us, and we jumped.

‘I’m sorry?’ said Lady Mawgon.

‘Liquorice,’ repeated Once Magnificent Boo, who had just arrived on her moped. We all felt silent. Boo never used more words than was absolutely necessary, rarely smiled and her eyes were so dark they seemed like black snooker balls floating in a bowl of cream.

‘If you listen very carefully to my plan we will have the Tralfamosaur recaptured before the break of dawn,’ said Boo. ‘My plan is sound, and if followed to the letter, has a reasonable chance of succeeding without anyone being eaten.’

‘Define “reasonable chance”,’ said Lady Mawgon, but Boo ignored her and carried on: ‘We require only a grenade launcher, six pounds of industrial-strength liquorice, two spells of Class VIII complexity, a shipping container, a side of bacon, an automobile, several homing snails, a ladder, and two people to act as bait.’

Perkins leaned across to me and whispered:

‘Boo was kind of looking at us when the “two people as bait” thing came up.’

‘I know,’ I whispered back, ‘it’s possible to refuse, but the thing is, who are you more frightened of: Once Magnificent Boo, or a Tralfamosaur?’

An hour later Perkins and I were in my Volkswagen, parked up near a crossroads on high ground a mile or two from the damaged railway carriage. We could see the stars through the open sunroof, and the pinkish glow of the Quarkbeast where it was sitting on a wall close by, sniffing the air cautiously.

‘Enjoying the date so far?’ I asked in a cheery tone.

‘It could be improved,’ he replied.

‘In what way?’

‘Not being used as Tralfamosaur bait, for one thing.’

‘Oh, come on,’ I said playfully. ‘It’s a lovely night to be eaten by a nine tons of hunger-crazed monster.’

Perkins looked up through the open sunroof at the broad swathe of stars above our heads. As if on cue, a shooting star flashed across the sky.

‘You’re half right,’ he said with a smile, ‘it’s a lovely night. Crazy or nothing, right?’

I returned his smile.

‘Right: crazy or nothing. Let’s check everything again.’

I flicked the two glow-worms above the dash with my finger. A faint glimmer of light illuminated the two ‘SpellGo’ buttons that Moobin and Lady Mawgon had placed on the dashboard. Spells could be cast in advance and lie dormant until activated by something as easy to use as a large button. One was labelled ‘Bogeys’ and the second ‘Float’.

‘Got the rocket-propelled liquorice launcher handy?’ I asked.

‘Check,’ said Perkins, patting the weapon, which, instead of having an explosive warhead, had a lump of industrial-grade liquorice about the size of a melon. It smelled so strongly we had to poke it up out of the sunroof to stop our eyes watering. Tralfamosaurs love liquorice and could smell it from at least a mile away if the wind was strong enough.

We both jumped as a snail shot in through the open window and skidded to a halt on the inside of the windshield, leaving a slippery trail across the glass. Homing snails were one of Wizard Moobin’s recent discoveries. He had found that all snails have the capacity to do over one hundred miles per hour and find their way to a given location with pinpoint accuracy, but didn’t because they were horribly lazy and couldn’t be bothered. By rewriting a motivating spell commonly used by TV fitness instructors, communication using homing snail was entirely possible – and more reliable than pigeons, which were easily distracted.

The snail was steaming with the exertion and smelled faintly of scorched rubber, but seemed pleased with itself. We gave it a lettuce leaf, popped it in its box and Perkins opened the note that had been stuck to its shell. It was from Lady Mawgon.

‘Reports from worried citizens place the T three miles down the road at Woolhope.’

Woolhope was the Kingdom’s sixth-largest town and home to twelve thousand people and a Marzoleum processing plant. I had a sudden thought.

‘It’s heading for the flare.’

Marzoleum refineries always had a gas flare alight from a tall tower and it was this, I guessed, that would attract the Tralfamosaur. Brain the size of a ping-pong ball it might have, but when it comes to looking for food at night it was no slouch. Fire and light, after all, generally denoted humans.

‘There,’ I said, stabbing my finger on the map near a place called Broadmoor Common, just downwind of Woolhope. ‘He’ll be able to smell us easily from there.’

I whistled to the Quarkbeast, who jumped into the back of the car, and we were soon hurtling along the narrow roads as fast as we could. It was about 3 a.m. by now, and I drove, I agree, recklessly. The police had locked down the area tight and everyone had been told to stay in their homes, but even so, I was half expecting to run into a tractor or something. I didn’t. I ran into something much worse.

The Quarkbeast cried out first, a sort of quarky-quark-quarky noise that spelt danger, and almost immediately, my headlights illuminated something nasty and large and reptilian on the road ahead. The Tralfamosaur’s small eyes glinted dangerously as it looked up. It was bigger than I remembered from my occasional visits to the zoo, and it looked significantly more dangerous out in the open.

There were about fifty yards between it and us and Perkins and I sat there for a moment, the engine of the Beetle idling. It stared at us blankly for some moments until I realised we were upwind, and it probably wasn’t aware of the liquorice. I slowly backed away, but the Tralfamosaur didn’t follow. Quite against my better judgement I stopped, and then inched slowly forward again. It still didn’t seem that interested.

‘Better show yourself,’ I said to Perkins, ‘and try to look appetising.’

‘Yes,’ he said sarcastically, ‘I’m well known for my pie impersonations.’

Perkins took a deep breath, undid his seat belt, stood up through the sunroof and waved his hands. The effect was instantaneous. The Tralfamosaur gave out a deafening bellow, and charged.

I slammed the car into reverse and swiftly backed away. Luckily there was an open gateway nearby, and I reversed into this, pulled the wheel around, thumped the gear lever into first and drove off with the Tralfamosaur in close pursuit. Part one of the plan was now in operation.