Apocalypso (14 page)

They
got a nice big fire going under Dilbert’s spacecraft.

Now, to
be awoken from one hundred thousand years in cryogenic suspension by a bunch of
aliens roasting you up for dinner is no-one’s idea of a good time and,
rightfully miffed at this abhorrent circumstance, Dilbert arose in displeasure.

And
also in pain.

Pain
was an entirely new experience for Dilbert who came from a planet where
thoughts are shared. For when thoughts are shared, then so is pain, which
probably explains why, as a race, vegetables are so much nicer than people.

At that
moment Dilbert didn’t feel very nice. He was hurt and he was angry. He was all
alone on a far-distant world, under attack from beings that, although basically
the same shape as himself, were far smaller and far nastier and whose
intentions towards him were hostile.

It was
not to be a meeting of minds. Nor was it to be ‘hands across the universe’. The
die was cast, as they say. The battle lines were drawn.

And
when Dilbert discovered within minutes of leaping hot-bummed from his
spacecraft that he could mentally inflict pain upon his attackers, but that
they were unable to do likewise to him, and when the sheer enormity of these
beings’ dining habits was brought home to him, it took him no more than a
moment to decide their fate. If his race were to colonize this planet, then the
indigenous population would have to be either exterminated, or brought under
control.

In his
vegetable wisdom Dilbert opted for the latter.

It
might well be a very long wait before his spacecraft’s homing signal ever
reached Eden and a great deal longer before anyone arrived from there. So Dilbert
thought he’d make the best of a bad job. We’d knock these beings into shape
and, though it was clear that he wouldn’t be able to change their eating
habits, they would certainly learn who was the boss.

Who, in
fact, was ‘God’.

He travelled widely in
those, his first days, and by many names they came to know Him. Names of Power.
He was Wotan to the Nordic race and Dadga to the Celts. He was Zeus. He was
Kronos. He was Jahweh. He was Amen-Ra. And all His people knew His power and
worshipped at His temples.

He was
kindly when He chose to be, forgiving when He chose to be, but those times were
rare. They knew Him by His wrath and at His name whole nations trembled. For He
used them and He squandered them, He ravaged and destroyed them and He gorged
Himself upon them, for He’d learned to like the taste.

Great
cities they raised for Him and, driven by the pain He could inflict, His armies
marched across the world, subduing all. For all it seemed were His, to do with
as He pleased and His excesses were awesome, spreading horror, and fear at His
displeasure chilled the hearts of those who whispered His name.

All
power corrupts, they say, etcetera, and, if there is time here for yet one more
universal truth, it is this.

Most
no-marks who win the National Lottery eventually return to no-mark status. And
most do sooner rather than later. Fate is ever the bastard pup that bites its
master’s knob.

Dilbert’s
knob got bitten in Mu: His summer home, a Pacific paradise and very nice with
it. Dilbert was lounging atop a mound of slave girls when the first tremor
struck. Unseated from his cosy throne he tumbled headlong to the marble floor
with a cry of ‘Bollocks’ (He had learned the tongues of Man) and a splattering
of sprout flesh unpleasing to behold.

Shake
shake shake went the ground and then, up from under, erupted the volcano.
Dilbert hastened to take His leave. And as granite pavements sank and gilded
towers collapsed, He lashed at His subjects with mental pain, forcing them to
cart His horrid heavy body to the means of His escape.

But He
didn’t get far. The thrashing winds and the clouds of volcanic dust drove His
spacecraft down from the sky and down down down into the ocean.
[3]

Rocks
and rubble fell and Mu went down, to legend and to fable.

And
that was that for Dilbert (or it bloody should have been!)

Back in
cryogenic suspension and under hundreds of tons of volcanic debris, it could
reasonably have been assumed that he had finally returned to no—mark status.

But no.
Fate, the old knob-gobbler, had other knobs to nibble.

Many
years passed, years that became centuries, that became millennia. The world
forgot about Dilbert. The world had the legends and the religions and whatever,
but the being behind them was forgotten. He was written out. He no longer
applied.

But He
was there all the time. Lurking like Porrig’s dad. But lurking big time. Down
all alone at the bottom of the sea. Frozen in time. Waiting.

Until
one day.

Bang.

Or
Boom. Or dull dank thud, or whatever you like. The sound that a nuke makes when
tested under water. And if Danbury was to recall his science fiction clearly,
he would recall that many a good yarn
begins
with a nuke, rather than
ends with one.

Bang,
boom, dull dank thud or whatever you like: American testing of nukes beneath
the nice blue waves of the Pacific.

Then
shift went the debris; switch on went the automatic controls of Dilbert’s
spacecraft. Unthaw went Dilbert. And quiet was He.

Hungry
was He also. But still wise.
[4]
Many years had passed since His ship went down and before He rose again,
God-like from the briny deep, Dilbert thought it best to test the water, sniff
the air, judge the mood and generally make no rash moves whatsoever.

And so
He sent out His thoughts to see what His people were up to.
His
people.
Had they forgotten Him? Had they developed? How much did they now know? How
much harm were they capable of doing Him? And He sent out His thoughts to
listen to theirs. And what He heard didn’t please Him one bit.

They
had
forgotten Him. They
had
developed. They knew a whole lot more and
they were certainly now capable of doing Him a great deal of harm. And there
was still absolutely no sign of His real people, the people from his own
planet. They had either not heard his call or they. were gone for ever.

But
Dilbert was back. And this time it was personal!

And so
He listened in, to many thoughts. He swept the planet with His mind, gathering
information. And the information He received surprised Him. At first He
thought that the planet’s power base lay in a land called America, a land He
had once named Dilbert. But the more He listened and the more He screened out
the interference caused by the babbling of millions, the more clearly did
another truth emerge.

It was
not a universal truth, but it was a truth none the less. The land of America
was not the seat of world power. The real seat of world power stood upon a
swirly-whirly-patterned carpet in a small office in a government department
called the Ministry of Serendipity, beneath an Underground station called
Mornington Crescent, in a city called London, in a country called England.

 And so
it was to here that He sent a little thought of His own. A little suggestion.
That the someone who sat in the chair upon the swirly-whirly-patterned carpet
might just carry out a satellite survey of a certain area in the Pacific Ocean
and discover something star-shaped and wonderful.

Something
that must be brought at once, intact, to that very seat of power.

And the
rest was history?

Yes, it
was.

Or,
yes, it would be.

He
quite liked the look of the native fishermen who dragged His spacecraft ashore.
All those firm muscles beneath the brown skin. They recalled to Him His Nubian
slaves, the chosen ones of most outstanding beauty, who had carried Him upon
their straining shoulders and pandered to the needs of His body. Without and
within.

As He
viewed them through the porthole he nodded with approval. He would take two
dozen with Him when He left the island.

Then He
saw Danbury, lazing on a packing case with one hand in his trouser pocket. He
didn’t take to him. A shiftless idle type fit only to be used as a suppository.
Didn’t he jump when he saw the seven-pointed craft rising from the waves. And
he fired a gun!

No guns
were allowed. Dilbert threw out a thought. A compulsion. The need to obey. At
once. And He smiled as He watched the shiftless youth struck down from behind.
His powers had not deserted Him. If anything they were stronger than ever.

He was
not
impressed by the
Apocalypso.
Even though it was a metal boat and
powered by engines rather than oars, it did not impress Him. He was used to far
better. He liked the ships that bore Him to be large and gaily painted, like
the barques that long ago had carried Him in luxury upon the waters of the
Nile.

They
lowered His spacecraft into the forward hold, down into the darkness and the
dirt, and they set men there to guard it. Men with guns.

He
studied their minds and once more He was not impressed.

And He
heard them speak of Him. They called him alien.

Alien!

He,
their God! They called
Him
alien.

He
killed them. Killed them all. Flung agony into their minds and made them shoot
themselves. Good riddance too.

He ate
them.

And
then, His repast over, He sensed something.

Something
large and near. Something splendid.

And
rising to the deck upon a ladder formed from men He spied it, riding upon the
night-time ocean.

Drifting
gorgeously upon the moonlit sea.

A
liner:
The Leviathan,
on its maiden voyage from New York.

‘I’ll
have that,’ He said. And He did.

There
were three thousand folk aboard that ship. Three thousand carefree souls,
exalting in their wealth and status. Three thousand who now were His.

They
screamed as He was carried aboard and some tried to fight and repel Him. So He
drew Himself up and He stared down upon them and He entered their minds with
His own and He hurt them. He drove them to the deck, clutching at their heads.
Their heads that burst with the pain He threw at them. And they hastened to
obey, to do as He commanded, to kneel and to worship and to welcome Him back.

He
called for the captain and issued His orders. They were clear and they would be
obeyed. The ship’s radio was to be smashed and all communications severed. And
the ship was to be brought about, to sail north-east, through the Panama Canal
and across the Atlantic ocean.

The
destination was to be the British Isles.

England,
London, Mornington Crescent.

The
Ministry of Serendipity.

The
seat of ultimate power.

The man who presently sat
in the seat that stood upon the swirly-whirly-patterned carpet in the office of
this ministry knew nothing whatever of just what was heading his way.

He did
not, as it happened, so much ‘sit’ in the seat, as ‘lurk’ in it. Because this
man’s name was Augustus Naseby.

Yes,
indeed, and there you go. Augustus Naseby.

But
more of him later.

For now
let’s return to his son.

10

Rippington jigged upon the
little big book. ‘Come on now,’ he said to Porrig. ‘Just one wish, that’s all I
want.’

‘That’s
all
I
want,’ Porrig said. ‘Or maybe two, or three at a push.’

Well,
you’re the angel, dish’m out.’

‘I’m
not an angel, I’m a person.’

‘It’s
the same thing here, mush. You might be just a person up upon heavenly Earth,
but here you’re the old bee’s bollocks.’

‘Is
that a good thing or a bad thing?’

‘It’s
the bestest thing there is. Come on now, just one little wish.’

‘I wish
I was home,’ said Porrig.

‘No no
no. A wish for me, you rub-tugging son of a—’

‘Rippington!’
The voice was that of the old bloke and Rippington
drew up short when he heard it. Porrig turned and the old bloke was there. Just
there. Of a sudden. In a magical way.

‘Ah,’
said Porrig. ‘It’s you.’

‘And it’s you,’ said the
old bloke. ‘But it shouldn’t be, should it? Should I praise you for your
ingenuity, or punch your lights out for your disobedience?’

‘Now
just see here,’ said Porrig.

What,
here?’
The old bloke ceased to be there. ‘Or
here?’
And now he was
somewhere else.

Porrig
stared in the direction of his latest appearance. ‘I’m not impressed,’ he
said, which, although a lie, he made to sound convincing. ‘You’re a stage
magician. You can do tricks like that.’