Starcross (19 page)

‘Mrs Mumby!’ he said, in a voice full of false friendliness,
his black ’tache and whiskers bristling with self-satisfaction. ‘And Master Art!’

‘Mr Titfer!’ said Mother, sounding as old and cold as space itself. ‘Where is my daughter, sir?’

‘Myrtle slipped away somehow, along with that villain who calls himself Ignatius Flint,’ said Titfer. ‘But they shall be tracked down by my machines.’ He tossed his hat aside and hooked his thumbs in the pockets of his waistcoat. ‘Of course,’ he went on conversationally, ‘Titfer is not my real name. I have had to sail under false colours to set up this place, and to distribute my hypnotic hats to those I wished to influence. Why, even my whiskers are but a cunning disguise. Observe!’

So saying, he tore off his black whiskers to reveal a smaller, more gingery set beneath. Mother and I looked blankly at him, for he clearly felt he had performed an amazing transformation, yet we neither of us had the faintest idea who he was.

‘What?’ he cried. ‘Don’t you know me? Well, perhaps not. I haven’t had my picture in
The Times
or any other journal these past few years, thanks to your friend Havock. My name is Sprigg. Sir Launcelot Sprigg, former head of the Royal Xenological Institute!’

‘That villain who wanted to dissect Jack, and Ssil, and the Tentacle Twins!’ I exclaimed.
¹⁸

‘The very same,’ said Sir Launcelot. ‘And a deal of trouble it would have saved everyone if I had been allowed to go ahead and do it. But never mind. Soon I shall be the most powerful man in the Empire, and
then
we shall see some fun, eh? Then those fools in Government will tremble, and regret dismissing me from my position, and letting that mongrel sky-pirate Havock make a laughing stock of me!’

‘And was it in your time at the Royal Xenological Institute that you came across these mysterious living hats?’ asked Mother sweetly.

‘Oh, the RXS knows nothing of
them
,’ chuckled Sir Launcelot. ‘A small colony was found here on Starcross a few years ago, when my family were shutting down the mines. I was able to hush up their discovery. Thought they’d come in useful, and so they have. They disguise themselves
as headgear so that they can sit on the heads of higher animals and feed upon the electrical impulses generated by their brainwaves. It appears to do the host no lasting harm, but while the hypno-hat is feeding they are in a state of trance, and terribly suggestible. Watch this.’

He turned to poor Mr Spinnaker, who stood nearby looking quite numb and mindless beneath his hypno-hat. ‘Herbert!’ he barked. ‘You have soup all down your front!’

Mr Spinnaker’s waistcoat was as white as fresh snow, but he looked down and gave a little cry of vexation, then began trying to wipe off the imagined spillage with his pocket-handkerchief.

‘See that?’ chuckled Sir Launcelot. ‘Never fails to amuse. During the day, while the hat’s off, he doesn’t remember a thing. But come the night, when he’s asleep, that hat starts calling to him, and then he’s my creature. Him and all the others. They think they’re asleep in their beds, when all the
time they’re doing my bidding.’

Mother did not look amused. She said, ‘The other thing I should like to know is, how did you come by the old gravity engines from Larklight? When I dismantled them, and handed over the parts to Sir Waverley Rain, he assured me that they would all be melted down in one of his steel mills. Does he, too, wear one of these strange hats of yours?’

‘Sir Waverley Rain?’ Sir Launcelot fairly chortled. ‘Why, Rain’s such a squirt I didn’t need a hypno-hat to bend him to my will! As soon as I got wind of the fact that he was carrying those strange old machines of yours to England aboard one of his ships I hurried to find him. “Melting down other-worldly miracles of engineering, Rain?” I said. “There’s some who’d think that dashed short-sighted. Unpatriotic, even.” “But Mrs Mumby’s a friend of mine,” he whines, “and I gave her my word.” “Who knows
what
Mrs Mumby is?” I told him. “Some kind of unearthly monstrosity, I don’t doubt, with a house that can fly about faster than any of our aether-ships, and who can say what her word’s worth, or her friendship? She could turn nasty and eat us all up, and then you’d look a proper flat for not handing over the secrets of her machines to those who
know what to do with ’em, when you had the chance.”’

‘Oh!’ declared Mother, quite shocked. ‘I have never eaten anyone! At least, not since I was a Callistan snapdragon, and that was absolutely
ages
ago …’

‘Long and the short of it was,’ went on our host, not listening, ‘that Sir Waverley Rain was persuaded to fly his ship out here instead, where I took delivery of all your mysterious contraptions. Rain did his best to put them back in working order, and I set about using them to further my own ends. The hotel makes a useful disguise, and the guests the hotel attract have been my labour force. Why, even Sir Richard Burton was toiling away for me for a while, though he thought he was here to spy upon me! But he worked out what was going on at last – him or that Martian wench of his – and I had to dispose of them.’

‘So it was you who turned Sir Richard and his wife into –’

‘Changeling Trees!’ laughed Sir Launcelot. ‘Professor Ferny created the hybrid spores for me, working away under hat-hypnosis in a laboratory I had constructed down here for the purpose.’

‘So the spores he discovered yesterday were his own invention? And, of course, you had to dispose of him too,
in case he succeeded in reversing their effects …’ Mother looked fiercely at Sir Launcelot, as she understood the depth of his villainy. ‘And what of me and Art, and Myrtle? I presume that you had some purpose in luring us here. What part do we play in your plans?’

Sir Launcelot sniggered. He was one of those villains who was forever gloating, and most amused by his own feeble jokes and schemes. He even rubbed his hands together like some wicked uncle in a melodrama, as he said, ‘The children have no use, except perhaps to persuade you to help me.’

‘But what persuasion do I need?’ replied my mother. ‘Surely you need only set one of your hats upon me and I shall be entirely at your bidding.’

‘Ha!’ exclaimed Sir Launcelot bitterly. ‘There was one concealed in a hatbox in your suite. For two nights it has been calling out to you to put it on …’

‘I never heard it,’ said Mother.

(‘I did!’ I said, but no one noticed.)
¹⁹

‘No doubt it was unable to influence your weird, unearthly brain, madam.’

‘I protest, sir!’ retorted Mother. ‘There is nothing the least bit weird about my brain!’

‘Nonsense!’ barked Sir L., losing his sense of humour in a flash. Turning, he stood looking up at the spire of machinery which silly old Sir Waverley had given him. His foot tapped impatiently. He said, ‘
This
carried Larklight from the Trans-Lunar Aether all the way to London in the blink of an eye, I gather. But when I switch it on, it just hums.’

‘That is not quite all it does, is it?’ said Mother. ‘I think it is having all manner of effects. Why else does this asteroid keep falling back through time to pre-historic Mars?’

Sir Launcelot shrugged. ‘Starcross has always been prey to time-slips. It’s a freak of nature. That’s why the miners ran away, superstitious blighters. Nothing to do with the machine.’

‘And it’s not just pre-historic Mars, is it?’ said Mother. ‘That’s the most powerful slip, the one that happens most regularly. But there have been others. Art and Myrtle and myself experienced a minor one as we arrived. And then there are these horrid hats … I can assure you that they are like nothing I have seen in all my years, and I have been around for a quite surprisingly long time. No such peculiar creature could have evolved without me noticing. I suspect that they have come from the future and have dropped into our own era through some rift which you have opened with your meddling. The fabric of time is just like any other fabric, you know; it can be crumpled and torn and rendered quite unwearable if you do not treat it with due care.’

‘Be silent, woman!’ bellowed Sir Launcelot and bent forward so that his plump, ruddy face was close to Mother’s pale and lovely one. Patches of dried spirit-gum showed on his cheeks, with strands of his false whiskers still clinging to
them. ‘Make it move, Mrs Mumby,’ he commanded. ‘Make this machine of yours move and give me the knowledge to control it –’

‘I can sense an “or” coming,’ said Mother. ‘Tell me, are
all
the Fellows of the Royal Xenological Institute insane megalomaniacs, or is it just you and Dr Ptarmigan?’

Sir Launcelot Sprigg struck her with the flat of his hand. ‘Or your precious brat will be putting down roots at Starcross,’ he growled, ‘just like Dick Burton and his Martian girl!’

He turned away and barked another command. At once Grindle and Mr Munkulus came forward and dragged me to my feet, while the others went into a far corner and returned bearing an enormous urn of potting compost. I tried not to let Sir Launcelot see how scared I was as I realised what he planned to do to me.

‘Ferny’s new Changeling spores,’ he said. ‘Faster acting than the natural variety, and they lose power once their work is done. Imagine what a weapon that will make when I put it into production! And when we combine it with the space ironclads I plan to build, powered by engines like this one here, I shall be unstoppable! Then the Government will see what fools they were to dismiss me! I shall be appointed
Prime Minister, and Generalissimo over all the forces of our Empire! There will be no more pussyfooting about once I am in charge! I shall bring every nation of the Earth and every world of the Sun under Britain’s heel! I shall set our flag flying everywhere from the tin moon of Mercury to the mountains of those nameless planetoids beyond Georgium Sidus!’

Mr Spinnaker wheeled a small set of library steps over, while his companions lofted me up to stand in the urn. Mr Grindle produced a box of respirator masks, and everyone clamped one over his face, and buckled its thick leather strap around the back of his head. Mrs Spinnaker did the same for my mother. Then Sir Launcelot drew a perfume spray from inside his jacket and climbed the steps so that he was holding it out on a
level with my face.

‘Sadly we have only produced a few batches so far,’ he said, his voice muffled and rubbery behind the respirator. ‘But the spores are quite effective, as Dick Burton and his Martian bride could tell you if they weren’t so busy swaying gently in the breeze. So what will you say, Mrs Mumby?’

His hand reached for the dangling rubber bulb of the spray.

‘Shall you give me dominion over Space of your own free will, without any tricks or foolish attempts to outwit me?’ he asked dramatically. ‘Or shall you watch this boy of yours become a Changeling Tree?’

Chapter Thirteen