The Eye of Zoltar

Slow boat to the Land of Snodd

When I awoke the sun was up, but not by much. I had been disturbed twice in the night. Once as a Tralfamosaur herd moved through in a noisy manner, and then again when Ignatius found a gherkin-sized flesh-eating slug sucking on his toe as he lay asleep in bed. He screamed and dislodged it, which was a relief as we then didn’t have to help him.

I unbolted the door of my pod and cautiously looked out. A ground fog had crept in, which offered good cover for a Hotax attack, so it would be wise to remain vigilant until the fog cleared. I folded up my bedroll, tidied the pod, collected my belongings and then signed my name in the visitors’ book before descending the pole to get the breakfast going, all the while keeping a wary eye out.

The half-track had been shoved a few feet sideways by a clumsy Tralfamosaur, but aside from a small piece of bent armour plate, no damage had been done. There were Snork Badger footprints aplenty, and here and there were the shiny trails of flesh-eating slugs. If we wanted to earn a few moolah we could have scraped up the trails and sold them to any glue supplier, as slug slime is that gooey substance you find in glue-guns.

‘Ook?’ said Ralph, appearing from the brush, seemingly unharmed by his night out in the open. He would have been more used to sleeping with dangerous creatures all about him, even though most of the nasty creatures he might have known would have died out by the end of the Pleistocene.

‘Sleep well?’ I asked, and he stared at me in an uncomprehending sort of way.

‘G-ook,’ he said, making an effort to emphasise the ‘G’. I think he was learning to speak. Or relearning, at any rate.

‘L-ook,’ he said, and showed me the flint knife he had been making.

‘May I hold it?’ I asked, putting out a hand, and after looking at me suspiciously for a moment, he gave me the knife. It was well balanced, with a carved bone grip in the shape of the half-track. The blade was finely curved, dangerously serrated and was so thin as to be almost translucent. I smiled appreciatively, and handed it back. He gave an odd half-smile and placed it in a large ladies’ handbag he had found somewhere, then hung the bag over the crook of his arm.

‘Jennifer,’ I said, pointing at myself.

‘J-ookff,’ he said, then pointed at himself and said: ‘R-ooff.’

‘You’re getting it,’ I said with a smile, then nodded as he pointed at various things around the campsite, the small part of what was once Ralph’s brain attempting to speak through an Australopithecine voice box.

‘Hfff t-Ook,’ he said, pointing at the half-track. After a while he settled down by himself, practising pronunciations, and eating some beetles he’d collected.

I had noticed with dismay that Perkins’ and Addie’s ladders were still down, indicating that they’d not returned. I also noticed Ignatius’ ladder was down, so checked his pod – it was empty. I found a few slime trails and oddly shaped footprints at the base of his pod pole, but no evidence of Ignatius himself. It was only on a search for a fireberry with which to cook breakfast that I found Ignatius. He was huddled – wedged might be a better word – in one of the wooden rowing boats, which, as previously noted, were lighter than air because of the Thermowizidrical fallout, and were dangling straight up, tethered to earth only by a frayed rope tied to the jetty. Ignatius was alive, awake, and was staring at me with a shocked expression on his face.

‘Are you okay?’ I asked.

‘No, I am not okay,’ he said. ‘Several large creatures, two small ones and a slimy thing tried to eat me in the night.’

‘That’s an uneventful night here in the Empty Quarter,’ I said. ‘Didn’t anyone explain the dangers before you came out here?’

‘No, they did not,’ said Ignatius in an aggrieved tone. ‘They said this experience would be like the most amazing and enjoyable dangerfest known to man.’

‘And …?’

‘They said it would be like it – not actually it. You all must be stark staring bonkers wanting to be out here. I’m going home.’

‘Fair enough,’ I said, glad to be rid of him. ‘You can pick up a G’mooh in Llangurig.’

‘I’m not going a step farther. You can call me a G’mooh as soon as you find a payphone. It can come and get me. I’m not shifting.’

G’mooh was an acronym for ‘Get Me Out of Here’, the slang and universally accepted name for a Fast Exit Taxi, which will guarantee those who have lost their nerve a speedy way out of the Empire. The G’mooh drivers are usually battle-damaged former tour guides who will stop at nothing to return their passengers to safety. It’s expensive, but few haggle.

‘Okay,’ I said, ‘if you want to stay out here on your own, but I’d not …’

I stopped talking because Ralph was lolloping up the jetty towards Ignatius, and when he reached him, stared up at where Ignatius sat huddled in the vertically moored boat.

‘Go away, monkey-boy,’ said Ignatius. ‘Go on, shoo.’

But Ralph did not shoo, and instead flicked the taut rope that anchored the rowing boat with an inquisitive forefinger. He then looked up at Ignatius.

‘No mmnk … boy.’

‘What did he say?’ asked Ignatius.

‘I think he said he wasn’t a monkey-boy.’

Ignatius laughed.

‘Well, he is, that much is obvious – and a nasty piece of genetic throwback, to boot.’

Ralph frowned for a moment, rummaged in his handbag and brought out the razor-sharp flint knife. Without pausing he sliced cleanly through the rope that tethered Ignatius to the ground. The rowing boat, with Ignatius inside it, began to rise gently in the morning air.

‘Ralph!’ yelled Ignatius, suddenly panicking. ‘What in—!’

‘Wait there,’ I said, ‘I’ll throw you a line!’

I ran to the half-track and rummaged in the tool locker for a length of cord. By the time I had found one, Ignatius was about twenty feet above me, drifting east. I tied a spanner to the end of the line and readied myself to throw it to him.

‘It’s okay,’ he yelled excitedly. ‘The wind is taking me towards the border. Cancel the taxi, I’ll be home and safe in an hour or two!’

‘Hang on, Ignatius,’ I said, having seen civilians try to use magic for their own ends and it all going horribly wrong, ‘I don’t think this is a good idea.’

‘Nonsense,’ said Ignatius happily, ‘by the time the magic wears off I’ll be home and dry.’

‘Wait … !’

But I was too late. The rowing boat was now drifting faster as the breeze caught it, even bumping against Curtis’ pod pole as it went past. Curtis popped his head out to see what was going on, and was surprised to see Ignatius drifting past.

‘I’m off home,’ said Ignatius. ‘Join me?’

Curtis said he wouldn’t but wished him well and they agreed to meet up at a bar in London some time when all of this was over. Their voices roused everyone else, who also wished Ignatius well but probably, like me, were actually fed up with him. The rowing boat rose until it reached its maximum height of about six hundred feet or so, and continued to drift in the direction of the unUnited Kingdoms.

Now awake, the group came down from their pod poles. The fog had now dispersed and the risk of Hotax attack lessened, so they washed in the lake while they swapped notes about the night’s noises, terrors and close calls, then we all sat down to a breakfast of coffee and bacon and eggs. By the time we had finished, Ignatius and his rowing boat were simply a distant dot in the morning sky.

‘I’ve just had a thought,’ said the Princess. ‘I mean, aren’t there anti-aircraft batteries along the border?’

‘That’s just for aircraft coming in,’ said Wilson. ‘They’d have to be either mad or vindictive to shoot at anyone leaving – wouldn’t they?’

And as if to prove that Emperor Tharv’s orders to his military were precisely those things – mad and vindictive – we saw small puffs of anti-aircraft fire explode around the small dot. It was a slow-moving target, and Ignatius didn’t stand a chance. There was a large explosion and we saw a few bits fall to earth trailing smoke.

‘That was hard cheese,’ remarked Curtis without a shred of compassion. ‘Should have stuck with us – or taken a parachute.’

‘I trained in the navy,’ said Wilson, ‘and the first thing you learn is that parachutes are not generally required while boating.’

‘Ook-ook-ook,’ said Ralph, with a slight curling of the lip that I took to be an early hominid smile.

‘Do you think he planned that?’ asked the Princess.

‘I’m not sure Australopithecines can plan,’ I said, ‘but you never know.’

‘Okay,’ I said, as soon as we had given Ignatius a minute’s silence as a vague sort of respect, ‘this is where we are: Addie went to rescue Perkins last night and told me that if she didn’t return she was dead. It’s now nine o’clock. I say we leave it until midday before assuming the worst. After that, we head off towards Llangurig. Any objections?’

There weren’t any, of course, and we settled down to wait.