Now, I felt reasonably certain that I had never been marched along at gunpoint before. And I do have to tell you that I did not like it one bit. In feet, I would not recommend the experience to anyone. It is a very frightening experience, having a loaded gun poking in your back and knowing that on the trigger end is a nutcase who seems quite prepared to use it.
I was scared. Well and truly scared. And I felt dizzy and sick in equal part, because the nutcase with the gun – and he was a nutcase, you could see it in his eyes – this nutcase with the gun had hit me with his gun and damn near knocked my lights out.
'Get a move on,' demanded this nutcase, poking me harder with his gun. 'And you, too, fatso,' he said to Mr Rune, 'or I'll shoot your boyfriend here.'
The Hokus Bloke glared daggers at the nutcase and I expected him to employ his Dimac at once and dispatch this malcontent. Mr Rune, however, demurred, no doubt for reasons too inscrutable for me to fathom. And so he and I were ushered down into the crater. And all too soon we were down in the encampment. And other guns were being trained upon us.
And I found myself face to face with the evil Doctor Proctor. And he now had a gun in his hand.
'Well, well, well, well, well,' said this man, looking me both up and down. 'If this isn't the transplant patient. You put me to no little inconvenience and caused me considerable grief. I'm still rather bruised, you know.'
I raised my fists to strike at the doctor. The increased pressure of a gun barrel in my back, however, removed such thoughts of violence from my mind. For the time being, anyway.
'But,' the doctor continued, 'matters adjust themselves. Nurse, do we have the spare crab suit in the van?'
'We do, Doctor, we do.' Nurse Hearse smiled a terrible smile, made all the more terrible by the fact that she lacked for her two front teeth. 'You're going to get yours now,' she told me.
Mr Rune made clearings of the throat preparatory to speech. 'If I might have a word or two,' he began.
'You certainly may not,' said Doctor Proctor. 'I recognise you well enough – you're the rider of that hideous horse. What was that, by the way – a little bit of your own genetic engineering? Well, regardless, I have you now and I'll have your skin for a duvet cover, you see if I don't.'
I looked at the doctor and looked at the nurse and then I looked towards the simply spiffing space crab. And I do have to tell you that, right up close, he did not look all that spiffing after all. Terrifying is what he looked, too large and too wrong and too menacing. He clicked his oversized claws and glared horribly at me with his horrible eyes on their horrible stalks. 'Nurse, the suit,' said Doctor Proctor.
'Now hold on,' I said. 'I do not know what is going on, but it is nothing to do with me. Just let us go free and we will say no more about it.' I have no idea why I said that, really – it did not make a lot of sense. But when you are as scared as I was scared then, you too would talk all manner of rubbish.
'Look,' I shouted, 'over there – Zulus, thousands of them.' Well, it might have worked.
Doctor Proctor laughed, and he did it in that terrible mad-scientist manner. It was most disconcerting.
'I feel,' said Hugo Rune to Doctor Proctor, 'that a deal might possibly be struck between us, for although my companion remains ignorant of what is going on here, I do not.'
'Oh, really,' said the doctor, in a sneery kind of way. 'So what do you think is going on, baldy?'
Mr Rune fairly bristled at this and I quite expected him to employ the Dimac Death-Touch. But he did not.
'I am not without connections,' said Mr Rune. 'My name is known to those in high office. I am acquainted with the workings of the Ministry of Serendipity.' 'This is new,' I remarked.
'The Secret Government,' said Mr Rune. 'Those who control the controllers. Those who govern the government. This project bears all their hallmarks and will surely end in calamity for all of us.' 'Well, certainly for you' said Doctor Proctor.
And the space crab gave his claws a further clicking, in a rather irritable way, I felt, a rather impatient way. And words came from the space crab's nasty mouthparts. Words that were not spoken in Cosmoranto, the universal tongue.
'Hugo Rune,' the space crab said in a voice that was all clicks and grunts and very unappealing.
'I am that man,' said Mr Rune. 'And you are Captain Ahab, I presume.' 'Ahab the space crab?' said I.
Ahab the space crab nodded his eyestalks. 'You are correct,' said he.
Doctor Proctor gawped at Mr Rune. 'You two know each other?' he said. 'I know all,' said Mr Rune. 'I am Rune, whose eye is in the triangle, whose nose cuts through the ether, whose ear takes in the music of the spheres. Rune, who-' 'Someone shoot this stone-bonker,' said Doctor Proctor.
'I think not,' said Mr Rune and he delved into his waistcoat pocket and withdrew his pocket watch. Perusing its face, he declared, 'You have by my reckoning approximately two minutes before the heavily armed unit that I summoned earlier to meet me at this location lays waste to the lot of you. I would recommend a rapid withdrawal. Any violence visited upon my person or that of my companion will be dealt with in the severest manner.'
I glanced about at all and sundry. The scientific types in the white coats. The Men in Black, for such they were, in their black suits, white shirts, black ties and sunglasses. The psychedelically camouflaged military personnel. The twin brother of Bartholomew's twin brother, still putting up a bit of a struggle. And Ahab the space crab, let us not forget him.
To say that there was a certain degree of unreality about the situation would be to say that there is more to a Russian spaniel than most folk generally know.
I glanced towards Mr Rune and viewed the big smile on his face.
'Hand over the experimental subject,' clicked and grunted the space crab. 'If the area is compromised, my crew and I must make a speedy departure.'
'Not so fast,' said the doctor. 'You promised to exchange the microchip technology. A deal is a deal.' 'Another time,' clicked Ahab.
'No,' said Doctor Proctor. 'My superiors won't take kindly to that. Don't believe a word of what this fat fool has to say.' 'Another time,' clicked Ahab once more.
'I think not,' said the doctor. 'If you won't give it now and willingly, then we'll take it.'
And he turned his gun on the space crab. And would you not just know it, but that space crab suddenly drew out a gun of its own from somewhere. A big silver gun. A big silver ray-gun, I supposed.
And suddenly a cry went up, a great cry, as of warriors, and up upon the hillside at all points of the crater's rim I saw them, big and bold and piratically inclined. And well armed, too, and holding flaming torches. It was none other than the greatly feared Moulsecoomb Militia. 'I warned you,' said Mr Rune.
And I saw the look of horror on the face of Doctor Proctor. And then I saw him swing his gun towards Mr Rune and pull upon the trigger and I dropped down and swung around and kicked at this gun, which went off loudly and blew the end from one of the space crab's legs.
And then there was gunfire all around and things became rather chaotic. The nutcase holding me at gunpoint was removed from existence by an arc of blue energy that issued from the muzzle of the space crab's ray-gun. For which I remain eternally grateful.
There was running and shouting and screaming and shooting. And Ahab the space crab retreating up his gangway. And the Moulsecoomb Militia laying down fire and pouring into the crater. The fighting was fearsome and I took cover and Mr Rune did likewise.
And amidst the running and shouting and screaming and shooting, there came a terrible humming as Ahab the space crab's scout-craft rose into the sky.
And then some blighter clubbed me down and things went very black. And I awoke with a terrible headache in forty-nine Grand Parade.
'I do very much hope,' I said, when I had located my voice, 'that I dreamed all that.'
'Which part?' Mr Rune asked. 'The space crab, or the attack by the Moulsecoomb Militia?' And I made plaintive groaning sounds.
'You acquitted yourself most well and also saved my life, as I predicted.' Mr Rune placed a glass of Scotch in my hands and I was grateful for this.
'And all has worked out rather splendidly,' said the Mumbo Gumshoe, 'for I am now the owner of a three-masted galleon.'
I rubbed at my head, which did not help, and sipped at my Scotch, which did. 'That will come in handy if we ever decide to take up a life of piracy,' I said.
'I'm leasing it out to Bartholomew Moulsecoomb,' said Mr Rune. 'He's still rather keen and there might well be booty worth sharing.'
I did further rubbings of the head. 'Please explain it all to me,' I pleaded.
'Certainly,' and Mr Rune took Scotch himself. 'Firstly, all the clues were there in the house of Bartholomew's brother. You saw them, as did I. You saw, but I saw more.' 'Continue.' I savoured Scotch, and found it to my liking.
'The photographs on the hall wall,' said Mr Rune, 'of Bartholomew's brother in military uniform – the Queen's Own Electric Fusiliers, a regiment that you will not find in any military history book. A unit that specialises in covert operations for the Ministry of Serendipity. There were medals in a case on the lounge wall – you noticed them also, but you did not understand their significance. They were for off-world campaigns, for battles fought in space.'
'You cannot be serious,' I said, in a manner that would one day find favour with the likes of John McEnroe.
'I certainly can. If you recall, in Danbury Collins's lecture, he spoke of the endless vacuum of space, and how there couldn't have been a Big Bang because sound cannot travel through a vacuum.' 'I recall that,' I said. 'It made a lot of sense.'
'But it is incorrect. Space is not a vacuum. Space is filled with air. There is an atmosphere in space and not only that, all of the other planets in our solar system are inhabited.'
'That cannot be true,' I said. 'Surely we would have discovered that by now.'
'Rizla,' said Mr Rune, 'spacecraft have been flying from Earth since Victorian times and commuting between the planets. You won't find this in any history books because it is a secret, a top-secret secret known only to a few. That few being the Secret Government that controls the controllers of our planet. I know this because I have travelled in space. I travelled with a circus, as it happens, that of Professor Merlin and his Greatest Show Off Earth. A treaty exists between the inhabited worlds – a peace treaty. But, needless to say, there are pirates – the flying starfish from Uranus, and those crab lads from the nebula that bears their name.'
I shook my head. Which hurt. 'So Ahab the space crab is a pirate,' I said. 'A space pirate.'
'You've no doubt read about alien abductions,' said Mr Rune. 'I have,' I said, 'in the Weekly World News.'
'It dates back to the time of the pharaohs. An unsavoury business, but there you are. Bartholomew's brother, it seems, was having his doubts about the whole thing. You saw also the books on his shelves, books on philosophy. And there were the letters on his desk. He was about to blow the whistle, as it were. The Men of the Ministry offered him up to Ahab, so he took his own life.' 'That is horrible,' I said.
'Indeed,' said Mr Rune. 'But by using his genetic material and the advanced technology that Ahab had already provided for previous services rendered, to whit the supply of the surplus "homeless" for experimentation in the crab nebula, Doctor Proctor cloned another Bartholomew's brother.'
'This all seems rather unnecessary and complicated,' I said.
'If everything was simple,' said Mr Rune, 'there'd be no need for me.'
'Go on,' I said. 'Tell me how you knew that Ahab would be landing last night and where.'
'The maps were there in the house – you saw them. And also the calendar with the rings about the dates.'
'But that is all so simple,' I said. 'But then you knew a lot more about all this than I could possibly know. But what happened to me when I was in that house and what was that shimmering shell thing that I saw surrounding the place?'
'An engineered fluctuation in the ether,' said Mr Rune. 'It is the ether that is the substance of space. It is by attuning to the ether that one can access everything – the past, the present and the future. It is how the Chronovision functions.'
'I really do not understand,' I said, 'but I did see a real flying saucer and a real alien last night and that was pretty damn exciting. I cannot wait to tell Fangio.' 'You will tell no one,' said Mr Rune. 'Aw,' I said.
'No one.' And he put a big fat finger to his lips. 'You and I,' he continued, 'have embarked upon a crusade. We are comrades in this and confidants, also. I have to have your word regarding secrecy – it is imperative.' 'Oh, all right,' I said. And grudgingly, too.
'We've seen the last of Ahab for the time being,' said Mr Rune, 'which is something.'
'It is something, I suppose. But there is another something. I recall you saying that the future of the House of Windsor and the British Government were at stake here. It seemed a big thing at the time. I remember thinking that I would probably end a chapter upon it, should I ever come to write the bestseller that you say I will write.'
'And you will,' said Mr Rune. 'The cloning process, which will now go no further as Doctor Proctor was shot in the head last night-' 'Oh, good,' I said. 'I am sorry I missed that, though.'
'You would not have enjoyed the experience. Very messy.' 'But the cloning process.'
'The Ministry of Serendipity's intention was to clone the Royal Family and the Prime Minister, then remove the real McCoys and substitute their own versions – versions that would do as the Ministry wished them to do. The Ministry seeks to control all, but it does not absolutely do so. Yet.' 'I am sure I have other questions,' I said, 'but as I cannot think of them now, I will not go racking my aching head.' 'Sound fellow.'
'No, hang about,' I said. 'I do have one question: why were Bartholomew's twin brother and Bartholomew's twin brother's twin brother dressed as space crabs?'
'Female space crabs,' said Hugo Rune, and he tapped at his nose and winked in a somewhat lewd manner. I shook my head. 'I do not get it,' I said.
'It's a long way back to the Crab Nebula,' said Mr Rune, 'and with an all-male crew with time on their hands and-' 'Stop!' I cried. 'I do not wish to know any more.' Mr Rune and I went to the circus the following week.
It was not Professor Merlin's Greatest Show Off Earth. It was Count Otto Black's Circus Fantastique.
The Count was not there in person, of course, but Mr Rune knew that he would not be. But there were clowns – fellows with whitery daubed faces who did things with cardboard boxes and mackerel for Art. I did not take to the clowns. Nor did Mr Rune. And when they came grinning in our direction and capering and doing it all for Art… We punched them. And we were thrown out of the circus.