Starcross (32 page)

There was a sort of wondering silence for a second or two. Then Nipper said, ‘Is that it?’

I gulped, and nodded. ‘I always think it’s best to favour the direct approach in these matters,’ I said.

‘It’s a wonderful plan!’ cried Nipper, and to my relief the others all seemed to agree, except for Colonel Quivering, who had doubtless been expecting me to propose Flanking
Manoeuvres and Softening Up The Enemy’s Centre with our Light Horse.

‘Worthy of Jack himself!’ cried Grindle loyally, and Ssil put her blue arms around my neck and kissed me, which caused me to blush rather more than is proper in a military mastermind.

To cover my confusion I began arming myself from those handy tubs of cutlasses and boarding pikes which Jack and his friends keep dotted about the
Sophronia
’s cabin, in much the same spirit that Mother leaves out bowls of nuts and sweetmeats for visitors to Larklight over Christmastide. The others all followed my example, and before long we looked like the most fearsome
banditti
you can imagine, and I must say it boosted my confidence remarkably to have a few shooting irons stashed about my person. Nevertheless, I could not help wishing ardently that Jack were with us as Ssilissa set us moving towards our landfall.

Soft as thistledown, the
Sophronia
settled on the promenade. Nipper kicked open the main hatch, and we all went storming out through it. At first all was silence, but as we ran past the beach cafe we heard the squeak of wheels, and out of the shadows came rolling two striped booths,
extending pointy hands and gleaming gun-barrels as they advanced. At once we all let fly with our kerflunderbusses
²⁸
and multi-barrelled pistols, and a rattle of gunfire echoed from the front of the hotel. As the smoke cleared the two sinister sideshows collapsed, mere heaps of scrap, with smoke and sparks spewing from their riddled mechanisms.

‘Huzzah!’ I said.

Grindle prodded the nearest wreck with his boot. ‘
Hello, boys and sausages …
’ it said creakily, its voice running down slowly into silence.

‘Well,’ said Nipper, ‘unless those Moobs are all stonedeaf, they will know that we are here now.’

We reloaded our guns and hurried up the hotel steps, pausing at the top to check that our anti-Moob hats were in place and turbans tight-wrapped. Then, with pistol in one hand and sword in the other, and feeling every inch the bold adventurer, I kicked one of the doors open, Ssil shoved the other open with her tail, and our companions followed us inside in a rush of feet and pincers!

No Moobs came whirling down to try and steal our brains from us. Nothing stirred at all, except for a few
hoverhogs busy snuffling up cake crumbs, and an autowaiter which rolled to greet on us on well-oiled wheels and said, ‘Welcome to Starcross, ladies and gentlemen. I take it you will be joining the other lady for tea?’

We lowered our weapons and looked at each other, flummoxed.

‘
What
other lady?’ asked Ssilissa.

‘Mrs Mumby,’ said the automaton patiently. ‘She is expecting you.’

It spun about and wheeled away, and we followed it into the withdrawing room, expecting a trap. But there sat Mother, dressed quite neatly and properly in her good blue gown, taking tea with Professor Ferny and Mr Munkulus. And all about them, on tables and sofas and the carpeted floor, Moobs lay heaped about like well-stuffed black cushions. If you listened closely you could hear them murmuring, ‘Moob, moob, moob,’ in a most contented way.

‘Hello, Mother,’ I said.

‘Hello, dears,’ said Mother brightly, looking up and seeing us all standing stunned in the doorway.

‘We’re here to resscue you, Mrss Mumby,’ said Ssilissa.

‘Well, of course you are, dear,’ said Mother. ‘I was only saying to Professor Ferny and dear Mr Munkulus that you
would certainly come back to rescue us.’

I was not sure what to say next. It is disconcerting for a fellow to come bursting into a resort hotel, armed to the eye-teeth and expecting to do battle with a pitiless foe, only to find that the pitiless foe is asleep all over the floor and he is expected to take tea instead. I gulped once or twice, and said, ‘Mother, I’m afraid Myrtle is lost!’

‘Oh dear, again?’ said Mother, with a look of concern which deepened as I explained about the
Liberty
and its fate. But when I had finished she said, ‘Never mind; I am sure she and Jack will turn up. I may no longer have all the powers of a Shaper, but I am certain that I should
know
if anything terrible had befallen them. Now do pull up some
chairs, all of you; you must be famished. I believe there is a plate of ginger shortbread somewhere …’

As if in a dream we did as she bid us, pushing the unprotesting Moobs aside with our feet and gathering around the table. Colonel Quivering congratulated Professor Ferny on his swift recovery, and the intellectual shrub replied that it was nothing – that thanks to Mother’s quick thinking he had been removed from the poisoned mulch before very much damage had been done, and that a night in a bowl of restorative plant food had done wonders. Mr Munkulus, meanwhile, asked his shipmates what had been happening to them, and gave us joy of our escape from the Moobs, and shared our concern at the fate of Jack and Myrtle. He looked most embarrassed at having been a part of the Moobish plot himself, and still more embarrassed when we asked him what the Moobs had kept him behind at Starcross for.

‘Oh, they had me assisting Professor Ferny,’ he rumbled. ‘Doing this and that, you know …’

‘Your friend Munkulus is far, far too modest,’ rustled Professor Ferny. ‘Those spores which he bred for the Moobs are a work of art! He had even
me
yearning after one of Titfer’s Top-Notch Toppers!’

‘But, Mother!’ I cried out at last, quite unable to contain my curiosity a moment longer. ‘What about the Moobs? What have you done to them? How did you escape?’

‘Oh,’ said Mother calmly, holding out teacups for the mechanical teapots to fill, and also filling two shallow bowls for Yarg and Squidley to dip their feeding-tentacles in. ‘I did nothing at all. The Moobs eat thoughts, you know – indeed, I can see you know that, from those items you have so cleverly wrapped around your heads. Thoughts, and memories, and dreams. Well, I have a great many thoughts, and four-and-a-half-billion years of memories, and so the Moobs who so rudely clambered upon me were very quickly full, and fell asleep, whereupon their friends set about snacking on
their
dreams. That enabled me to regain control over myself once more, and close the passage into Futurity which they had had me open. I believe that all the Moobs in this era are currently napping.’

‘And when will they awaken?’ asked Mr Spinnaker nervously, looking about at the dozing Moobs who clustered on every pouf and window sill.

‘Oh, not for a few more hours, I expect,’ said Mother. ‘And by that time we shall have them home. I am planning to carry this hotel into the distant future where these
creatures dwell, and put an end to all this silliness. Poor Moobs! It is such a miserable era that they inhabit. I wish I could do something to help them so that they will no longer feel the need to come barging into other people’s bits of history and spoil their holidays.’

Like so many things my mother says, this left me speechless. Still, I was very glad that she was herself again, and that she knew a way to put things straight. I believe we all felt the same, for everyone around that table relaxed, and some of us went so far as to remove our headgear, which was growing itchy in the cosy warmth of Starcross.

We drained our teacups and ate up the ginger shortbread. Then, with Mother leading the way, we went down again into the cavern beneath the hotel. Moobs were piled in every corner and heaped up in masses on the metal stairs. We tried our best not to tread upon them, but it was impossible not to dislodge a few; they rolled down with wet wobbling sounds like those new rubber hot-water bottles, and mumbled softly in their sleep, ‘Moob, moob …’

At the bottom of the stairs Sir Launcelot Sprigg sat upon a wooden chair – indeed, he had been tied to it, and gagged with a napkin from the dining room. He looked most displeased at being treated thus, but of course Mother could
not trust him to run around free, and anyway, it served him right.

As for the great machine, Larklight’s old engine, it had changed while we had been gone. I could not imagine how Mother had found time to make so many alterations, to string so many lengths of cable and duct about it like Christmas paperchains, and add so many dials and switches to its mahogany control desk. When I asked her about it she said, ‘Oh, I simply made time.’
²⁹

The old machine, it seemed, was now ready to do all that Sir Launcelot Sprigg had wanted, and more; it would move through space, and also through the Fourth Dimension. No wonder that he looked so furious, fastened to that chair in a corner and forced to watch this miracle of science take shape, knowing that it would never be his to command!

‘There,’ said Mother, and she patted the flank of her machine as if it were some faithful old dog. ‘She is good for one last journey, I believe. All we need do is pull this lever, and turn that handle, and tweak that – well, I do not believe there is a word for one of
those
in any earthly language, but we shall tweak it just the same, and this hotel will be transported in an instant to that far-off future where Moobs eke out their cheerless existences.’

And as she was saying all this she
did
pull that lever, and turn that handle, and tweak the final what-do-you-call-it, and the old engine began to sing and churn and spin and shift in and out of various dimensions, while the rest of us clung to any solid thing that we could find, for the waves of giddiness we felt when Starcross whisked us back through a hundred million years to ancient Mars were as nothing to those which swept over us now, as the hotel went careering into the unknown vistas of Futurity!

On and on that dizzy, falling feeling went, until we began to grow used to it, and were able to uncover our eyes and let go of the things we had clung to when it started and walk about. Yet still a certain lingering unease remained. Perhaps it was a sort of disappointment at being cheated of our famous battle, but I think all of us who had been aboard the
Sophronia
felt the same nagging worry: that things were moving a little too swiftly and smoothly, and that somehow All Was Not Well.

It was Grindle who finally put his finger on it. He raised a hand. Something about my mother always makes him very polite and schoolboyish, and although he had something that he was itching to say, he kept it bottled up until she smiled at him and said, ‘Yes, Mr Grindle?’

‘Thing is,’ Grindle said, ‘and pardon me for speaking out of line, yer ladyship, but as soon as we land in the time of the Moobs, aren’t hundreds and millions of them going to come a-swarming in on us, all bent on eating up our thoughts?’

Mother turned to look at him. Her vast mind was busy with far deeper questions, and so her gaze was mild at first. ‘Mm?’ she said. Then what Grindle had just asked seemed to sink in; her grey eyes widened; she put a hand to her bosom.

‘Oh crikey!’ she said.

Chapter Twenty-One