Galaxy's Edge Magazine: Issue 7: March 2014 (5 page)

The battalion appeared to be in a stalemate with the Germans and had been ordered to stay put. Apart from a few insults thrown at each other across ‘no man’s land’, there was little military action. None of us knew when we would face battle again. Ahhh, the nervous anticipation, the spirited singsongs, the many trips to the loo as the old tins of corned beef had their way with our colons. A few days later my beloved gave us some excitement, though. She had her best helmet ruined by a stray shot from a bored Jerry sniper. Immediately, and without any thought for her own safety, she went straight over the top. Her Sten gun chattered as she tossed off grenades left, right and centre. We watched in horror as my girl made straight for the enemy. We were helpless, unable to do anything as she bravely took them on headfirst. Unfortunately there were too many of them. It took seven of the Bosch to bring her down. The lads and I cheered her on from the safety of the foxholes as they wrestled her away. I didn’t see her again until after the war. Somehow she managed to escape from behind enemy lines. Apparently she became enraged after a Jerry guard called her ‘Sir’. Not only did she beat him to a bloody pulp, but she also stole a plane,
an
ME-109, which she flew back to Blighty. On the way she shot down several other 109s in dogfights over the channel. Her plane was rather badly shot up. In fact the undercarriage was so badly damaged the wheels would not lower but she was able to bring the old kite in safely on its belly. Of course she won the D.F.C. for gallantry in active flying service. It’s on display in our sitting room along with the ribbon of machine gun bullets from the stolen 109 she gave me as an engagement present.

We were married a year later after we’d both been de-mobbed. What a wedding! She looked stunning in her camouflage dress, boots and polished rifle. And I suppose that would have been an end of the tale, if it wasn’t for these recent events.

I’ve already written of my minor car accident after I saw the lights in the sky last week. Of course at the time I had no recollection of my initial encounter with the alien. I would probably have thought no more of them, except as a curious anecdote to tell the lads. A couple of nights ago, however, I saw these lights again.

I’d been drinking at the local pub with some of the lads, playing darts and chatting about the war years. I’d had a few pints of ale, and knew I had to be home by ten or else someone might get hurt. I didn’t fancy another black eye, so I made my excuses, left and stumbled out into the mild night air. About halfway home I saw a couple of those ‘hoodies’ chaps in their grey windcheaters standing under the yellowing circle glow of a street lamp. They were smoking cigs and swilling tins of lager.

“Hey Grandad,” one of them shouted as he crossed the street towards me. “Can you gimme a tenner?”

“Of course,” I said. “Luciano Pavarotti.”

“Smartarse!” he said, and thrust two fingers up at me. I’m not sure why he wasn’t pleased. I thought I’d answered his quiz rather accurately. I just don’t understand these modern teenagers. They shave their heads,
get tattoos and listen to that zany hippity-hoppity music. They need discipline! They should get haircuts and join the army.
A real job.
It’s what made a man of me.
And my wife.

The ‘hoodie’ crossed the street to rejoin his mate. As I turned the corner into Schoolyard Lane, an empty lager tin clattered off the cobblestones behind me. I ignored this and proceeded on my way. I was only 100 yards from home when I paused and leaned against a wall to catch my breath. As I rested, I glanced up into the night sky and saw those three pale blue lights again. They were in a triangular formation and crossed slowly above from east to west until they vanished behind the roofline of the houses before me.

I frowned. That was twice I’d seen these flying saucers in a matter of days. And bear in mind I still had no memory of those events in Holland.

Yesterday, however, that all changed.

It was early afternoon, and I was gardening out the back. My wife was down at the village hall, shouting numbers for bingo. I’d just mowed the lawn and raked the clippings and had knelt to start tending the vegetable beds. My cucumbers are coming along nicely and should do rather well at the village fair next month. I was weeding the marrow patch when the hair rose on the back of my neck and I smelled a touch of vanilla in the air. It stirred something in me, a memory of something forgotten. Something I should know. And then I remembered. I hadn’t had lunch yet, and there was a piece of cheesecake waiting in the fridge. I was about to stand and go inside when I turned to see a creature standing on the grass a few yards behind me. It was grey, about three feet tall, with a large bulbous head and small, lithe body. Long arms reached almost to its knees. Its eyes were almond shaped and black – as black as coal – and it seemed to stare right through me into the very depths of my soul. It held a small silver tube. It seemed, somehow, familiar.

I trembled in fear and wet myself. “What the hell are you?” I asked. Warm urine trickled down my thigh.

“Not again,” it said. “Must you always piss your pants?”

“Sorry? Have we met before?”

“Never mind.
This will explain everything.” The creature strode across to me and pressed the silver tube on the nape of my neck. There was a bright flash, and the memories flooded back. Instantly I recalled that night so long ago.
Holland, the Germans, the barn, the discussion with this creature, the acidic smell of drying piss.

And the invasion plans.

“Oh, God,” I said. “No.”

The alien stepped backwards. It trod on the rake I’d left on the lawn, and there was a ‘thwack’ as it sprung up to hit the creature square in the back of the head. It collapsed in a crumpled heap on the lawn.

As you will have determined from this letter, I am a man of action. My fear faded as I now knew what I had to do. I was possibly the only person on Earth who had knowledge of the impending invasion. Of course I still don’t know why this creature sought me out after so many years, or what it wants from me, but I believe I know how it located me. I suspect the shrapnel in my neck is not a shard of German armament, but a device implanted by the alien that has blocked my memories for the past seventy years, and has now been used to track me. I recovered the offending silver tube from where it had fallen and deposited it in my pocket. Then I dragged the creature to my garden shed. I now recalled, of course, that rope would not su
f
fice so I bound its hands and feet with chains and padlocks. I pushed the alien under my workbench and went into my house.

Up in my bathroom I gathered all my medication from the cabinet and took them down to the kitchen. I
opened each jar and dropped all the tablets into a bowl. From my secret cache I recovered the pills I hide from my love, the ones I don’t like because they make me feel all funny and see things. I added them to the others and crushed them all with the back of a spoon. Then I dissolved the powder into a glass of lukewarm water. Hopefully this mixture would sedate the creature. I carried the glass out to the shed where the alien still had not stirred. I opened its mouth and poured the concoction in. It coughed once and a little spilled out the sides, but I believe enough went down its throat. I left the glass on the bench. It would be needed again. I tied a rag around its mouth so it could not call out.

Of course I rang the authorities, but as I wrote previously they have ignored me thus far. I’ve been out to the shed several times since then to give it more of my medication, and it still has not roused. My wife has no knowledge of its presence, and I don’t believe she is becoming suspicious yet. All appears normal at home and I have managed to remain calm. Last night, after dinner, we sat and read in our front room, dressed in our smoking jackets and sipping a fine Bordeaux. As usual, we shared an uncomfortable silence as we puffed on our pipes. My love was not speaking to me. She’d spent much of the afternoon searching the house, rummaging behind the cushions and lifting the sofa to check under it. One of the antique silver lipsticks her mother left her is missing, and I, apparently, am somehow to blame. As we sat I offered her a smile, but she only glared at me for perhaps the fiftieth time that evening. I was going to risk saying something romantic when I suddenly realised I needed to check on the alien before bed. I closed my book, put down my pipe and rose.

“Where do you think you’re going?” she roared.

“I think I may have left the shed unlocked. I’m just going to check.”

“That’s the third time you’ve checked it this evening. Are you losing your mind?”

I didn’t respond. There is no correct response when she’s like this. The easiest way out would be to simply gouge out my own eye with a fork. But not even I am prepared to do that. I crossed the room to leave. She bared her teeth and growled.

When I returned from checking on the still comatose alien, she’d gone and closed the bedroom door behind her. I made myself comfortable on the sofa and tried to sleep.

And that brings us to the present.

My warring days are over now, there’s little excitement for me anymore. The closest I have to a thrill these days is when my loving wife returns after several hours from teaching self-defence at the local boys’ grammar school and releases me from where I’ve accidentally locked myself in the utility room. Ahhh, the bittersweet joy of seeing her face as the door is finally unlocked and swings open.

I realise my service to
Her
Majesty is all but done and there is little I can offer of myself in these twilight years, but I can do this one final thing. I can inform you of this imminent alien attack, and offer you the creature I have captured.

Now it’s up to you to use this knowledge to protect our once great empire.

Yours sincerely,

Brigadier Arthur Charles Holbrook (Ret.)
DSO, OBE, MC

p.s.—
As
I write this, the village Constable has just been speaking to my wife at the front door. Apparently a couple of houses in the street were burgled yesterday. I presume it’s the work of those ‘hoodies’ chaps. I therefore urge that you send someone straight away. It would be dreadful if one of those thieving lads were to break into my shed, discover the creature, and accidentally release it.

Original (First) Publication

Copyright © 2014 by Steve Cameron

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Robert Sheckley broke into print in 1952, was immediately acknowledged as the genre’s best humor writer, and began showing new ways for science fiction to use humor in his classic novels
Mindswap
and
Dimension of Miracles.
He was named Guest of Honor at the 2005 Worldcon. He considered “Cordle to Onion to Carrot” his funniest story.

.

.

Surely, you remember that bully who kicked sand on the 97-pound weakling? Well, that puny man’s problem has never been solved, despite Charles Atlas’s claims to the contrary. A genuine bully
likes
to kick sand on people; for him, simply, there is gut-deep satisfaction in a put-down. It wouldn’t matter if you weighed 240 pounds—all of it rock-hard muscle and steely sinew—and were as wise as Solomon or as witty as Voltaire; you’d still end up with the sand of an insult in your eyes, and probably you wouldn’t do anything about it.

That was how Howard Cordle viewed the situation. He was a pleasant man who was forever being pushed around by Fuller Brush men, fund solicitors, headwaiters, and other imposing figures of authority. Cordle hated it. He suffered in silence the countless numbers of manic-aggressives who shoved their way to the heads of lines, took taxis he had hailed first and sneeringly steered away girls to whom he was talking at parties.

What made it worse was that these people seemed to welcome provocation, to go looking for it, all for the sake of causing discomfort to others.

Cordle couldn’t understand why this should be, until one midsummer’s day, when he was driving through the northern regions of Spain while stoned out of his mind, the god Thoth-Hermes granted him original enlightenment by murmuring, “Uh, look, I groove with the problem, baby, but dig, we gotta put carrots in or it ain’t
no
stew.”