Flaming Zeppelins Page 17

  It glanced up at the crowd with its odd red eyes, quivered its beaklike lips, omitted a sound like someone trying to breathe after running a fast mile, then retreated into the cylinder.

  “It’s frightened,” said the little man who had jumped the explainer.

  “You’re not going to start now, are you?” said one of the officers.

  Inside the cylinder, there was a sound like something being snapped together. Then there was a guttural sound like someone displeased. This was followed by more snapping and more guttural noises, as if some sort of trouble was being had with the fastening of a device.

  Martian Translation of Gutteral Noise:

  “It goes in the other hole, Gooldaboo.”

  “Which hole?”

  “That hole.”

  “I don’t get it. This hole?”

  “No. One of your assholes. For heaven’s sakes, give me that. Damn. That got me in the eye. You are always dooddiddledooin something. That could have put my eye out. There…I’ll take care of this. You just sit there. And don’t touch anything, Gooldaboo.”

  “Yes sir/ma’am.”

  As the people watched, metal tubing poked out of the cylinder, followed by what looked like an octopus with rectal pain. It scooted along the rough ground making a number of faces with its flexible skin and long broad mouth, which was quite unlike an octopus. It set the little framework of tubing on the edge of the cylinder, rotated it.

  The other creature appeared, carrying a long thin tube of light. This was placed in one end of the cylinder. The octopus reached a tentacle around the end of the tubing and pulled. It extended. He rotated the cylinder again, pointing the tip of it at the crowd.

  “What do you think he’s doin’?” asked someone.

  “Could that be a gun?” someone else said.

  “Shit,” said one of the policemen.

  And then there came a guttural sound from one of the creatures —

  — good-bye funny things —

  — and the tube spat out a rod of light. The light hit the crowd. The crowd glowed. The crowd disappeared. Left in its place were piles of black dust.

  The creatures flapped their tentacles wildly, made sounds that even humans would have recognized as laughing. One of the Martians climbed up on the edge of the crater, turned both assholes to where the crowd had been and cut an excruciating fart that flapped the edges of both his anuses, turned and said:

  Take that, you inferior fuckers.

  Seven: A Meteor, a Tidal Wave, the Martian Machines

  Meanwhile, back at the villa…

  Vern, Twain and Ned had gathered in the study. Ned was enjoying pickled herring while his rescuers smoked large cigars amongst thousands of volumes of books. One side of the room, the only side without books, was made up of numerous glass windows, and there was a fine view of the moonlit ocean. The waves came in white and silver whirls and burst against the white rocks on the shore and sent up spray that, in the moonlight, looked like an explosion of pearls.

  “Look,” said Twain.

  The night sky, as if clawed, was bleeding a horde of red marks.

  “Meteors, I presume,” said Verne.

  “Yes,” said Twain. “Most beautiful.”

  “Look at that,” said Verne, “they do not seem to be burning up in the atmosphere. Why, look there.”

  One of the red scars stripped across the sky and grew in size until it was a ball of red.

  “My god,” Verne said. “It’s going to make landfall.”

  “More like wet fall,” Twain said.

  The great ball of fire struck the ocean with a hard blast of white steam. The ocean waters rolled up high and dropped down and came upon the shore with a rush that caused the waves to rise as high as Verne’s house on the hill, all the way up to the glass windows of the study. It struck them with such force the glass collapsed, the water washed in, overturning furniture, knocking books from the cases, lifting Twain and Verne and Ned up and down, and then the water washed out again, fast as it had come in, took the three with it, but crashed them against a wall, left them lying on the floor amongst wetness, seaweed, fish and the wet pulpy pages of books.

  Ned darted for the fish, finding one large creature to his taste. He tore into it instantly.

  “Damn,” said Verne. “Now that was unusual.”

  “What I’m wondering,” said Twain, “is what happened to all the others.”

  “Others?”

  “The meteors,” Twain said.

  “What I’m wondering is how much of my home has been ruined.”

  Next morning, Verne called in workers to clean up his library, replace the glass. During the day, he, Ned and Twain took the dampened books — only a handful had been ruined — out into the sunlight, opening them to dry on the rocks beneath the warm Spanish sun.

  Twain had been given a new set of clothes by Verne, a nice white suit and shirt with white socks and black shoes.

  Verne had provided this because he did not like to wear white as much as Twain. He was dressed as usual in a black suit and white dress shirt. He had even bothered to tie a loose, thick, black tie about his neck in a bow.

  Ned had received the present Verne had promised. A device Verne called the Air Cruiser. A floating device, powered by air and by a core of uranium. The device had a fold-down step, and this led through a flap-open gate, a wraparound body. It was large enough for Ned and two others, if the three were willing to be pressed together tight.

  Inside the open-air machine, standing slightly higher than the encircling railing, was a control box on a post. There were but a few switches. It was essentially a disk with a railing and a gear box on a support.

  “It runs about six inches to twelve inches over the ground. A friend of mine in London invented the fuel core. He thinks that it will allow him to travel through time, this fuel. I think he is an idiot in that respect, but in all others he is a genius. The device is designed to create a current of air beneath, and this current will carry you over either land or water. One thing that is most unique, is that by pulling the red lever the sides will collapse and the surface on which you stand will also collapse, forming a kind of disk. The disk is very light, and can be reinstated by gripping the sides with your hands, or thumbs in your case, Ned, and pulling. You must watch though, for it will spring to life and knock you on your ass. Place it on the ground, so that when it springs, it will spring up, and you will be standing to the side. But it is ready now. Climb in.”

  With Verne at his side, Ned learned to work the device, and with the tassel on his fez popping in the wind, Ned rode about over the shoreline and even over the water, cruising at a fairly good clip.

  Ned was so excited he squealed. Verne had also provided him with a new pad. It was not made of paper, but was more like a white board. The pencil, which hung by a strong cord from the pad, was one with which you could write on the board, and erase with a wipe of your hand. Strangely, it left no stains on flesh or seal skin.

  “This way,” Verne said, “you need not worry about paper, or for that matter, the whole thing becoming damp. You can swim with it around your neck. There’s a light vest that goes with it, and you can push the pad against the vest, and it will stick. I call this, well, I call this sticky. Water will not loosen it, but with a quick flip of flipper and thumb you can remove it and write on it. There is also a cord attached around your neck for added insurance.”

  After an hour or so of experimenting with the near silent craft, Verne was confident Ned had it. They coasted back to shore where Twain waited.

  “What a device, Jules,” Twain said. “You are truly a genius. Like me.” Jules grinned.

  “Passepartout is as much genius as I. Or as you. He actually put it together. I provided the blueprint, the idea. And my friend in London —”

  “Would that be Wells?”

  “It would, provided, as I have said, the fuel. Shall we continue our work?”

  It was midday, and the books were drying well. Because
of this, and his time spent with the delighted seal, Twain noted that Jules’ depression, due to the destruction of part of his house and books, was passing. He was glad. Jules was a good man. A little more successful than himself… Well, a lot. But a good man. He just wished he were the one who was successful and Jules had a corn cob up his ass.

  Or sometimes he wished that.

  He felt bad about wishing that, but, alas, there it was.

  He had liked being rich and famous, and now he was only famous, and he realized now that rich was probably better. And, frankly, he wasn’t sure how famous he was anymore.

  He missed America. He missed his home. He missed his dead wife and daughters. Wondered where in Europe his other daughter resided. They had, due to him and his adventures with John Barleycorn, lost contact.

  While Twain was reflecting on this, as well as examining a copy of Don Quixote, he heard a noise, lifted his head, spotted something rising from the sea. It was a machine. It had long, flexible, metallic legs and a body like a grand daddy long-legged spider. It stood high up on its shiny silver legs and it moved quickly, as if its feet were on a hot griddle. The torso, if it could be called that, was fronted by a window of glass1, and behind the glass were two strange creatures flailing with octopus arms at numerous controls. They almost seemed to be struggling with the gears and levers.

  A little rod rotated under the torso of the machine, and out of it burst a ray of light that hit the rocks between where Verne and Twain stood, disintegrating them. The explosion knocked Verne and Twain winding. Ned was able to avoid the brunt of the blast, but he too was knocked by the shock waves.

  “Jumping horn toads,” Twain said, as he pushed himself to his feet.

  “Shit, Jules. It’s still coming.”

  And it was. It was on land now, and the two creatures behind the glass were definitely struggling at the controls. The way their tentacles whipped about, they looked like confetti in a windstorm.

  Interior of the Martian War Machine, and we’ve got:

  mine! ultu gets to kill.

  no. mine. ultu can suck my asses.

  fatty.

  smelly.

  Twain and Verne could not have known that the aliens, though wise and developed in the ways of machinery and invention, were, as far as emotions, as immature as six-year-olds. Even as Ned, Twain and Verne climbed into the device Verne called an Air Cruiser and made their exit, inside the war machine a fight broke out.

  mine!

  no. mine!

  remove your tentacles, you assholes.

  you. you assholes.

  i got your assholes, you bilbo sucking —

  Gears were touched that shouldn’t have been touched. The legs of the stalking device twisted and wadded up, and down went the device, striking the glass, shattering it, rolling over and over, and finally, with the glass now pointing toward the sky, one of the creatures pushed at the shattered pieces and finally worked them free and scuttled out of the machine, bleeding green ichor.

  mine, said the creature.

  To the ears of humans, these words would have sounded like coughs and sneezes.

  all mine.

  The creature crawled over the rocks, and one of its tentacles, which had been cut badly in the crash, came loose and stayed behind.

  orifice excrement, it said. that is not some good at all.

  Inside the machine, the other creature did not move. One of its eyes had come loose of its tendons, cut on a fragment of smashed metal, and it rolled out on the rocks and lay there like a giant medicine ball with an iris painted on it.

  The crawling creature soon ceased to crawl and lay on the beach. Quite still, and quite dead, looking for solace, poked one of its own tentacles up its ass.

  Looking back, observing this, our formerly escaping trio shot the cruiser back to where the creature lay sprawled on the sand like a beached squid.

  “What in hell?” Twain said, climbing down from the machine, poking at the beast with the toe of his shoe.

  Verne followed. The fez-festooned seal kept his place at the controls, nervously checking out the sea and the surrounding landscape for more attackers. He also wondered if the creatures were edible. They looked like things he had eaten. Only what he had eaten had been smaller. But they looked very similar.

  “The meteors,” Verne said. “They contained these life forms. It’s the only possibility. My guess is, due to recent articles I’ve read about canals on Mars, and the relative closeness of Mars to Earth, these, my good friend, are, in fact, invaders from that world.”

  “No shit?”

  “No shit. I wonder what happened here? How they crashed?”

  “A malfunction of some kind. Whatever, it was good for us.”

  Ned made a whistling noise, slapped his flippers together, pointed toward the sea with one of them.

  Out there, rising out of the water, were more of the machines.

  “Damn be it all and such,” Verne said, trying to sound American but failing miserably. “We must warn Passepartout. Would you do that, Samuel? I will prepare our escape. I know just the thing. Meet me in the barn.”

  Twain raced off for the house, while Verne and Ned headed toward the barn in the cruiser.

  1 It appeared to be glass to Twain, Verne and Ned, but actually it was a kind of Martian plastic, very hard, and waterproof.

  Eight: Passepartout’s Blueprint, Pursuit at Sea, Mooned by Aliens

  In the barn, Verne leaped from the cruiser, proceeded to the tarp and using a pocket knife cut the ropes and removed it.

  Beneath lay a shiny craft. It was long with a point on one end and glass slanted into a windshield. It had one great fin that started on the roof and ran to the tail.

  Twain and Passepartout came racing through the open barn door. Twain said, “If you’ve got a plan, might I suggest you put it to use. Those things are everywhere now, out of the sea, making kindling out of your house.”

  “I have this machine, my friend.”

  “Please tell me it does more than open cans.”

  Verne produced a key from his pocket, stuck it in the side of the machine. There was a hissing sound, like the air coming out of a bicycle tire, and a trap door came open slowly, guided by hydraulics and a puff of steam.

  “Climb in,” Verne said.

  Ned rode the cruiser inside and managed by himself to collapse it. He nosed it up and rolled it behind a curved couch at the rear of the craft.

  Once they were all inside, Verne closed the door, set about spinning a wheel that battened down the door firmly.

  “Watertight,” Verne said. “Powered by Mr. Wells’ invention. As well as steam.”

  Verne hustled to the front of the craft. The same key that opened the door fit into a slot on the instrument panel. Verne turned it, the machine hissed, the panel lit up like the U.S. on the Fourth of July.

  “That’s pretty fine,” Twain said. “But does it do anything besides look pretty?”

  Passepartout said, “Might I suggest we strap ourselves in the seats. Tight.”

  Passepartout hastened to do just that, but not before he strapped Ned into his seat. Ned’s seat was behind Verne’s, Passepartout was behind the seat that Twain took, which was to the right of Verne.

  “How do you say it,” Verne said, “grab you ankles and kiss your asshole, because here we go? Or, I hope. This is its maiden voyage.”

  “What?” Twain said.

  “First time, monsieur.”

  “But where do we go, Jules? The barn door is over there, to the right.”

  There was a big lever on Verne’s left. He popped it free, jerked a small gear forward, put his foot on something, and the sleek machine rose up on a set of rubber-wrapped wheels (one front, one rear), pooted a burst of fire and steam out of its ass and leaped.

  It seemed as if suddenly the barn wall jumped at them.

  Twain threw his hands over his eyes.

  The craft hit the wall with a sound like grapeshot, then they were through it amid
st a crack and a rain of splinters.

  The craft hit the shoreline in an instant, dove into the sea, raced across it like a shark, water spraying the windshield like bulldog drool.

  “My God, a submersible,” Twain said. “Like in your book. 20,000 Leagues.”

  “No, it does not go under,” Verne said. “Not completely. It is a very fast boat. In fact, I call it a speedy boat. And it can serve as a land vehicle. And, like a flying fish, it can fly, or rather leap, short distances.”

  “Damn, that was some takeoff,” Twain said. “I think I’m sitting a foot higher in my seat, if you know what I mean.”

  “If you feel the need,” Verne said, “There is a toilet in the back. The feces are absorbed by chemicals, flushed out the rear of the boat. I believe once the chemicals do their work it is harmless.”

  “I take my hat off to your skills at invention. Or would, if I had a hat.”

  “I contributed. I borrowed ideas from Wells. But Passepartout is the builder,” Verne said.

  Twain turned in his seat, looked at Passepartout, and nodded. “Thank you.”

  “Thank Mister Verne, he hired me for both my butler skills and my machine-designing skills. But many people must be given credit for their discoveries from which we borrowed, and the machine itself was constructed with Mr. Verne’s money, and a team of experts. I provided the blueprint and turned a few bolts myself, monsieur.”

  Ned was writing furiously. He held up the pad so Twain and Passepartout could see it.

  PLEASE TO PAT EACH OTHER ON THE BACK LATER. MACHINES WITH UGLY OCTOPUSSIES STILL OUT THERE. WE ARE OUT THERE. WE ARE JUST ONE MORE INGREDIENT IN THE SOUP. DO WE HAVE SOUP ON BOARD?

  Twain read this aloud so Verne could hear it.

  “The seal is quite right; let us see if we can lose our enemies. See the device to your right, Samuel. I have one on my left.”

  “The mirror?”

  “Ah, but it is arranged so that by looking into it you can see behind you. There are a series of mirrors alongside the craft, each feeding images into the other.”