Future Tense (32 page)

“Oops!” said Emma.

All three vessels slowly started turning on the spot. The candle-like pom-pom guns mounted around their rails dropped a few degrees and commenced firing. About two hundred fiery brimstone bombs blasted over at us, from every tier.

Our squid figurehead reached up six or seven tentacles—it was too quick to count—and smacked them all back.

“Wonder what her batting average is,” I said.

“Time to split,” said the Duck, pressing another button. We shot away, made dozens of abrupt turns and straight sprints and came to a sudden halt. The ice was clear.

“Where'd they go?” said the Duck.

“I feel sick,” said Jemmons.

We started moving very slowly over the ice again.

“They must be around here somewhere,” I said.

“Perhaps we've won,” said Emma.

We all turned and looked at her. I caught something out of the corner of my eye—right behind us—a line of huge battleships was following in our wake at a sedate pace, like gigantic carnival floats.

“We've got company,” I said, in a sing-songy voice.

The Duck looked round and did a double take. “So, they wanna play follow the leader, do they?” he said. “Well, follow this!”

We accelerated and left them for dead. But they quickly fanned out and came after us. The Duck reached inside his biggles and pulled out a mini disc.

“Here, see if that Holy Roller jukebox over there'll play this,” he said.

“What is it?”

“See Emily Play—classic Floyd, man.”

“How do you switch this thing on?” I said, inserting the disc in the multi-player tray.

“The pink button, of course,” laughed the Duck.

The throbbing strains of “See Emily Play” poured out of the P.A. system in a psychedelic swirl of sound. The Duck headbanged and steered one-handed, while he smoked his spliff with the other. We swerved and zigzagged all over the ice, dodging and weaving his way through and around our bewildered pursuers. Our course must have been so wild and unpredictable that they couldn't work it out. The Duck was laughing and rocking—he was as relaxed as some kid driving a dodgem car at the fair. Round and round the island we drove, until we met one coming the other way! But the Duck merely bumped into it and it rebounded off the squid clinging to our rail and was sent careering across the ice. And every time they fired their brimstone bombs at us, the squid batted them straight back and set them on fire. One by one, the Duck eliminated every enemy ship from the game. And then he span off across the empty playground of the ice doing crazy victory spins and slides, and laughing and quacking at the top of his voice. Until we were brought to an abrupt halt and everyone lurched forward and rocked backwards and fell down on the floor.

“What was that?” I said.

“That,” said the Duck, “was our new braking system—we've been suckered—to the bleeding ice!”

We all scrambled to our feet and rushed to look out the forward observation window—the squid was gone.

“Damn it!” quacked the Duck. “She's lit out.”

“Well, at least we're still alive,” I said.

“I am not living in a bloody refrigerator!” said the Duck. “Where'd she go?” He ran around the panoramic window, looking for her. “There she goes—she's changed back! We're too late. Hang about—she's stopping.”

I took the cranberry glass time machine key out of my inside pocket and held it up.

“She won't get far without this,” I said.

The Duck leapt up in the air and jumped on me, kissing me all over. “When did you nick that? Oh, you little genius—you are so like me—it's uncanny! A true Duckworth through and through!”

I shoved him off me. “I took it when we were on the skateboard—she'll kill me,” I said, suddenly realising that I could be in big trouble with the Princess. I handed it quickly to the Duck.

Suddenly, the lift chute hissed up and the Princess appeared inside the tube. When it didn't open for her, she simply punched it and it shattered. She stepped into the conning tower. This time I had learnt and kept my eye on that key—and I saw the Duck slip it into Jemmons's pocket.

“All breakages must be paid for,” smiled the Duck.

“Have you got it, Sir Julian?”

“Got what, Your High—”

A tentacle shot out of the Princess' sleeve and hung him up by the neck, cutting off his air.

“I was going to leave this miserable ball of dung you call a world and return to civilisation,” said the Princess. “I even helped you to defeat your pathetic little enemies—and in return, you steal my front door key—what kind of a people are you?”

She released the Duck and dumped him on the floor. Emma rushed to help him, bumping into Jemmons on the way.

“Oops, sorry, Roger.”

Jemmons stepped aside for Emma but kept his eyes fixed on the Princess.

The Princess transferred her slimy tentacle to me and smoothed my cheek, then reached under my chin and lifted me up on my toes.

“Once I thought we could be an item, Stephen—but now I know that can never be—I have heard every crude, ignorant word you've thought and said about me.”

“I never meant to hurt your feelings, it's just that I love—”

She put her tentacle to my lips. “Hush. The simple truth is you are too prejudiced to be my consort. I realize that now,” she said. “Did you steal my key, darling?”

I shook my head and said, “Yes, yes, I did.”

“You bloody idiot!” cried my father. “Now, we'll be stuck here for—”

The Princess shot out another tentacle and gagged him.

“Where is it?” she smiled, batting her eyelids.

“Roger's got it,” I said.

Jemmons never flinched. The big Plymothian seaman straightened his back and stuck his chin out defiantly.

“Is this true, Roger?” asked the Princess, moving her tentacle slowly over to his shoulder and drawing it delicately down across his broad chest.

“You can go to hell,” said Jemmons.

The tentacle quivered and blurred. In a nanosecond it was gripping his manhood and squeezing the colour out of his face. She came in close and eyeballed him.

“That's no way to speak to a lady, Roger,” she said.

And then Jemmons did something I still can't believe he did to this day—he tilted his head back, as though in pain, and brought it forward with full force, like a striker rising to head a ball into the net. The veins in his neck stood out and his gnarled forehead struck her bang on the nose. Right on that sweet spot. Her eyes fluttered and she flopped to the floor—just as any human being would have—and keeled over. Her tentacles glowed Day-Glo green for a moment and slurped back inside her.

“Aunt bloody Nora!”

“And that, Your Lowness, was a Glasgow hello!” quacked the Duck.

Jemmons looked stupefied, hardly able to believe what he had just done.

“Quick—tie her up!” I said.

“Don't be daft,” said the Duck. “Nothing's going to hold her when she comes round—we'd better peg it—and fast. Come on, Rog—you'll be the one she's after!”

“No,” said Jemmons. “I'm not going to leave her till I know she's all right. I've never hit a woman in my life.”

“Are you stark staring mad?” cried the Duck. “That's not a woman—that's an alien shape-changer—she's a vampire!”

“Vampire?” I exclaimed. “You never told me that! You were going to marry me off to a bloody vampire?”

“She's not a proper one—she's a shape-changer—they have to drink your blood to copy your DNA so they can do their shape-changing and see if you're compatible,” explained the Duck. “That's all.”

“Oh, well, that's all right then,” I said. “You really are a piece of work, Dad.”

Emma felt her throat. “Did he—I mean, she—drink my blood, too?” she said.

“No, of course she didn't,” said the Duck, as though the very idea was ridiculous. “Drink your blood—what are you on about? Well, just a pint or two.”

“Pints!” exclaimed Emma.

Emma and I held onto each other for protection and stared down at the creature on the floor in horror.

“Princess?” said Jemmons.

The Princess stirred and moaned.

“Give me that key before she wakes up!” cried the Duck. Jemmons searched his pockets. “I haven't got the blasted key,” he said, turning his attention back to the Princess.

“You must have! Well, who's got it then?” he quacked.

“Don't look at me,” I said.

Emma held up the key. The Duck tried to snatch it, but Emma held it out of his reach.

“Roger's right,” said Emma. “We should make sure she's all right first—she saved our lives. In any case, if we steal her time machine, how is she going to get home?”

“How is she going to get home?” said the Duck. “What about us—how are we going to get home, you mean?”

“We are home,” I said. “At least we're on our own planet.”

“You're all mad!” cried the Duck. “We can't stay here—they'll skin us alive after what we did.”

“We'll find somewhere,” I said, smiling at Emma.

“Right, that's it—you leave me no choice—Jemmons, you'll have to marry her!” cried the Duck.

“How d'you work that one out?” said Jemmons.

“We've got to keep her sweet. Now, Roger, be honest, do you have a problem with that?”

“This is madness,” I said. “You can't ask Roger to marry her—what if she fancies a post-nuptial snack in the night?”

“Stephen!” said Emma. “That is so cruel!”

“No, I can't marry her,” said Jemmons, vigorously shaking his head.

“Look, Rog,” said the Duck, “don't think of her as a squid pretending to be a woman, think of her as a woman who just happens to be capable of turning into a squid—once in a blue moon.”

“Once every full moon more like,” I said.

“No, it's not that,” said Jemmons, shaking his head.

“All right, so she feels a bit slimy and tastes a bit salty—but give me one good reason why you won't marry her,” said the Duck.

Jemmons opened his mouth to answer.

“I can give you eight,” I said. “And they've all got suckers on.”

“This is species discrimination!” cried the Duck. “I will not tolerate this outrageous prejudice!”

“You cannot expect a human being to mate with a—with a—”

“Go on, say it,” said the Duck.

“Slimy alien vampire,” I said.

“That's speciesist!” quacked the Duck. “So what if she looks a bit different from your usual bird, that's no reason to reject her out of hand.”

“Er, shouldn't that be out of tentacle?”

The Duck looked genuinely—not that this means anything in his case—shocked at my quip.

“You disappoint me, Stephen, you really do,” he sighed, slumping down in his captain's chair. “I never thought I'd live to see the day when a son of mine could utter such a—such a cruel, ignorant, racist remark. I would have been proud to see you married to this fine specimen of a—of a princess. I built you up. Princess, I said, Stephen is a baronet, that's above a knight, but below a baron, a sort of baron-knight, but I promise you, Your Highness, there won't be many of those where my son is concerned—I've seen to that, genetically speaking—you won't find him wanting in that department, I said—”

I interrupted him. “Save your speeches. I know where this is going—you know Jemmons won't marry her, so you're trying to make me feel guilty, so I offer to do it—well, it won't wash, because I love Emma and I'm marrying Emma. Period.”

“Well, how else are we going to get out of here?”

“I know: why don't you marry her?” I said.

Before the Duck could open his mouth to protest, Jemmons spoke:

“I never said I wouldn't marry her,” he said, with a shy shrug.

We all looked at him in astonishment.

“But you said you couldn't marry her,” I said.

“Shut up—he's marrying her,” said the Duck.

“For heaven's sake let him speak!” said Emma.

“I can't marry her, because she don't love me,” said Jemmons.

This remark left the Duck and me speechless. But Emma immediately went to give Jemmons a hug.

“Oh, Roger, that is so sweet,” she said.

“I would marry her if she'd have me—but I don't reckon she's too keen,” he said.

“But you cannot be serious,” I said. “She's a squid.”

“Oh, I know she's not every man's idea of a catch.”

“Only in a net,” I said.

Emma shot me a scornful look.

“Well, you can joke, Stevie, but I've been a single-hander all my life—no woman ever looked twice at me—so maybe it is time I found myself a shipmate. I reckon this here woman is as good as any I'd find if I searched the seven seas over. So, I'm willing, if she's willing.”

Emma smiled tearfully and gave him a little peck on the cheek.

“I'm sorry, Roger,” I said. “You're right—she's quite a catch—woman.”

The Duck patted Jemmons on the back and said, “It is a far better thing you do than—”

“—You've ever done!” I said.

“I'm not doing this for any of you. I'm doing it for me—if she'll have me,” said Jemmons. “Now, I don't know if it's love I feel here in this lonely old heart of mine, but something's all a-flutter in there, like a fledgling attempting his first clumsy flight to freedom, his first jump into the new domain of air—”

“Yeah—all right, Rog, don't milk it, mate,” I said.

“She's coming round!” said Emma. “Princess?”

The Princess' body glowed and throbbed with a fluorescent green light. Her eyelids fluttered. Strange gurgling noises emanated from deep within her, slowly turning into a blood-curdling scream!