The Greatest Show Off Earth

by Robert Rankin

  The rest of the apparel was lost below the table and so Raymond could only guess at it. He guessed correctly, however, that it was of a similar sumptuousness.

  And he was greatly taken with the gentleman’s hands. These were slender, the fingers elongated, hung with elegant rings, the nails manicured and burnished. These hands were of a ghostly white, as was the gentleman’s complexion. He had about him the look of an animated mummy. But one fiercely animated and not prepared to crumble into dust.

  And Raymond stared on, with polo mint eyes and his mouth catching flies, and he saw as he stared, something more. Raymond took in the fantastic costume, the countless conceits and fripperies. But he knew instinctively that these were not the studied eccentricities of the vain poseur. This was the natural wear of a man who knew who he was.

  And he was Professor Merlin.

  Oh yes indeed.

  ‘Raymondo!’ Professor Merlin rose from his chair and flung wide his wonderful hands in an all-embracing gesture which embraced both one and all. ‘You are restored to us. Come hither do.’

  The lad from Earth gazed upon the colour-wash of eager faces that were gazing unto him. And he was somewhat stuck for a reply.

  ‘Go on,’ whispered Zephyr. ‘Say hello.’

  Raymond waved some foolish fingers. ‘Hello,’ he said.

  ‘Hello to you, Raymondo.’ The professor inclined his head as one might do when taken in the company of royalty.

  The banqueters broke into wild applause. Someone cast his pink peruke towards the frescoed ceiling. Another threw this head, which he again caught expertly upon his shoulders.

  Happily Raymond missed that.

  The professor stroked his animated chin. ‘I tell you truly, my Raymondo, that I dig the duds.’

  ‘The duds?’ Raymond stroked his head.

  ‘The whistle. The Rooty-toot. The demob. The radiation-wear.’

  ‘The suit,’ whispered Zephyr. ‘He’s admiring your suit.’

  ‘Oh, my suit.’ Raymond preened at his natty lapels. ‘It was Zephyr, she—’ ‘You positively pauperize us.’

  The professor hung down his head and did melodramatic heart-clutchings. ‘I shall have my tailor hauled from his toggery table and tossed off the starboard bow.’

  ‘Oh no, please don’t do that.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ whispered Zephyr. ‘He doesn’t have a tailor.’

  ‘Oh, I see. Or rather I don’t.’

  ‘Come, Raymondo, come. Sit upon my right hand and bring your beautiful wife.’

  ‘My beautiful wife?’

  ‘He means me.’

  ‘But Zephyr, you’re not—’

  ‘I sort of am for now.’

  ‘I am most perplexed,’ said Raymond.

  Zephyr smiled and linked his arm. ‘I’ll help you understand. Come on and sit with the professor.’

  Raymond took a deep breath. And then he smiled. This really wasn’t all that bad when you thought about it. Dressed up in the Giorgio Armani dream suit, with your best girl by your side and invited to dine at the captain’s table. There was quite a lot going for it. At this particular moment, anyway.

  Raymond straightened up his shoulders. Yes indeed. Why not? ‘Shall we dine, my dear?’ he asked.

  ‘If you will kindly lead the way.’

  ‘Oh yes indeed. And Raymond did, to further wild applause.

  ‘Raymondo to the right of me and Zephyr to my left.’ Professor Merlin smiled them into their seats. Raymond sank his bottom onto the comfy chair. Having first pulled up his trouser knees of course.

  ‘Cushioned in?’ The host turned his head from side to side.

  ‘Very nice,’ said Raymond.

  Zephyr smiled that smile of smiles.

  ‘Then dine. I will introduce you all around, Raymondo, of a shortness. But as now your belly cryeth out for feastal cheering, eat your fill.’

  ‘Well thank you very much.’ Raymond took up a crisp serviette and tucked it into his shirt collar. There was no way he was going to sully the suit with spillage. But exactly where to start? That was the question. The other banqueters were once more back at banqueting. Plucking things apparently at random. But there might well be some special protocol to be observed and Raymond had no wish to make a schmuck of himself.

  The professor, noting Raymond’s hesitation, nudged him gently in the ribs. ‘As and where you wish,’ said he. ‘Just bung it down your cakehole.’

  ‘Thank you, then I will.’ Raymond ladled delicacies on to his plate. A nice good-sized plate it was. White china, with a coat of arms and the words ‘SS Salamander First-Class Salon’ printed upon it. Snazzy-looking cutlery too, silver, with ivory handles and a selection of exquisite drinking glasses. Oh yes indeed.

  Raymond spiked up something white and steaming, testing its fragrance under his nose. It smelt preposterously good. He opened wide his smiling mouth and prepared to ‘bung it down’. But then he paused and glanced across at Zephyr.

  ‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘I told you.’

  ‘Told him what?’ the professor enquired.

  ‘About the “George”.’

  ‘The “George”?’ Professor Merlin fell into hilarity. ‘You mean he thought that we . . .” He gestured around at the marvelous spread and the marvelous company. ‘That we eat. . .’

  ‘Eat George, yes.’

  ‘Eat George!’ The professor rocked about in his chair. Tears of mirth ran down his mummy’s face. ‘Raymondo,’ he croaked, when he could find his breath, ‘you are a caution, so you are. We’re circus folk, Raymondo. Artistes, performers, workers of wonders and makers magic. We spin dreams. We are come unto you, then we are gone. The coxcomb and the mountebank, the crooner, the contortionist, the pierrot and the merry prankster. We ain’t no stinking cannibals! So kindly dig in do.’

  Raymond dug in. He dug in with a will and he found all that he dug into quite superb. The professor poured him wine and served him this and that, delighting in Raymond’s gasps of amazement and hiccups of pleasure.

  At length the lad’s belly had a rosy glow inside, as did his cheeks. He winked across at Zephyr. ‘Is this great, or what?’

  But Zephyr just sat with her hands in her lap. Her plate was empty and clean.

  ‘You’re not eating.’ Raymond said.

  ‘No.’ Zephyr turned down her nice blue eyes. ‘I don’t.’

  ‘What, not at all?’

  ‘Raymondo,’ the professor broke in, ‘you haven’t told me what you think of the old Salamander.’

  ‘Quite incredible,’ Raymond said, as he gulped down a further glass of something. ‘But tell me truly, if you will. Are you really from Earth?’

  The professor’s chin bobbed up and down like a nodding dog in a Cortina rear window. ‘As really from Earth as you are.’

  ‘But how?’ Raymond scratched at his head with the handle of his fork. ‘How did you get up here, into space? How did you get this ship up here?’

  ‘What makes the ship run? Is that what you’re asking?’

  Raymond popped a sweetmeat into his mouth. ‘I think I am,’ he said, between munchings.

  ‘It’s a steam ship, Raymondo. Surely you noticed the funnels.’

  ‘But steamships don’t fly through space. Spaceships fly through space, but not steamships.’

  ‘Oh!’ The professor seemed genuinely surprised. ‘So what do steamships fly through? Steam?’

  ‘Water,’ said Raymond. ‘I mean they—’

  ‘Don’t pull my leg.’ Professor Merlin nudged again at Raymond’s ribs. ‘You cannot kid the kidder.’

  Raymond looked bewildered. He was bewildered. ‘I am bewildered,’ he said.

  Professor Merlin made a mock conspiratorial face and beckoned Raymond nearer.

  ‘Would you believe me if I told you that I have replaced the ship’s existing steam turbine engines with a revolutionary new interplanetary hyper-drive system of my own design, which powers the ship through space due to the trans-perambulation of pseudo-
cosmic anti-matter?’

  Raymond gave his head another scratch. ‘Probably,’ he said.

  ‘You’d be a schmuck then. Because I haven’t.’

  ‘Thanks very much.’ Raymond hunched his elegant shoulders.

  ‘Would you believe me then if I told you it was done by magic?’

  ‘No.’ Raymond gulped some more wine. ‘I would not.’

  ‘Pity. You’d have got it right that time.’

  ‘Get real,’ said Raymond. ‘Magic indeed.’

  ‘Magic,’ the professor smiled, ‘has nothing whatsoever to do with “getting real”. Quite the reverse, in fact. But of course if you have a better explanation for the ship being here, I’d be pleased to dismiss it out of hand for you.’

  Raymond was beginning to get a sulk on. The professor refilled his glass. ‘This arrack is distilled from a thousand sacred spices. Take a sipping. Tell me what you think.’

  Raymond took a swigging. It was pure nectar of the gods. ‘It’s okay,’ he said, grumpily.

  ‘Okay? This is the finest that Jupiter has to offer.’

  ‘Oh, Jupiter, is it?’ Raymond shook his now quite fuzzy head. ‘So Jupiter has life upon it too.’

  ‘It did when we played there last week.’

  ‘And you play all the planets?’

  ‘All there are to play we do, which is all of them that be.’

  ‘So there’s life on every single planet?’

  ‘Well there wouldn’t be much point in there being a planet, if there was no-one to live on it, would there?’ The professor laughed once more. But Raymond didn’t.

  ‘Play Venus a lot then, do you?’ he asked.

  The coldness of his tone was lost on the professor, who nodded with his chin and said, ‘We do.’

  ‘Nice for you.’ Raymond put down his glass rather heavily. It tipped upon his plate and spilt out its precious contents. Raymond suddenly became aware of just how drunk he had become. And just how angry. And when you’re drunk and angry at the same time . . . well. . .

  ‘Bloody nice,’ said Raymond rising in his chair, but sinking down again. ‘Lots of bloody nice food on Venus, I’ll bet. Though, of course, you don’t eat the “George”, do you? Not like those bastards do. Not like how they sell human beings there for food. I wonder if they bring a packed lunch when they come to your shows.’

  ‘Raymondo, please.’

  ‘My name’s not Raymondo and it’s not George. It’s Raymond.’

  ‘Raymond then, please. Calm yourself do.’

  ‘I don’t want to calm myself,’ said Raymond, who didn’t.

  ‘Well, have another drink then.’

  ‘I don’t want another drink. I just want to be heard.’ As Raymond’s voice was now a very loud voice and the only voice now speaking, it was a reasonable assumption that it was being heard. ‘All right!’ he continued. ‘Tell me how it works! Tell me why it works! Tell me why you can swan around between the planets in your magic boat, while people like me - What are we then, part of the food chain?’

  ‘Have you quite finished?’ the professor asked.

  ‘No,’ said Raymond. ‘Yes,’ said Raymond. ‘I don’t know,’ said Raymond. ‘Tell me what is going on.’

  ‘Quite so.’ The professor poured Raymond another drink.

  ‘I don’t want that,’ said Raymond.

  ‘We’ll see.’ Professor Merlin poured another for himself. ‘Firstly,’ he said, ‘this banquet was laid on specially for you. It was a sort of test.’

  ‘Which I’ve failed,’ said Raymond with a sneer.

  ‘Which you have passed,’ said the professor, ‘with full marks. I gave it all to you. Everything you’d ever dreamed of. That suit, the woman of your longings, this feast. Most men would have snatched it all without a second thought, looking out for number one and damn the rest. But you couldn’t do it, could you?’

  ‘No,’ said Raymond. ‘I could not.’

  ‘You could not. Your outrage at what goes on on Venus was too much for you to contain. Your sense of moral justice—’

  ‘Don’t lay it on too thick,’ said Raymond.

  ‘Bravo. Modest also. I knew that we’d finally found the right man.’

  Raymond scratched once more at his head. But with the pointy end of the fork this time and nearly took his eye out. ‘What if I’d been the wrong man?’ he ventured.

  ‘We’d have had to let you go.’

  ‘What?’ Raymond made a worried face. ‘Over the side, into space?’

  ‘No. Of course not. I would have let you go home. Back to Earth. You could have kept the suit and Zephyr said she liked the look of you and was prepared to go also.’

  ‘What?’ Raymond fell back in his chair. ‘That’s what I would have got for failing?

  ‘Exactly. The trinkets of trivia. The baubles of boloney.’

  ‘So what do I get for passing the test?’

  Professor Merlin rose, as did all else about the great table. He doffed his wig and bowed from the waist. ‘You get the opportunity to join us upon a perilous mission. To take up arms against an evil adversary. To fight for the cause of justice. To give your life for all that is true and honourable. Raymond, we salute you.’

  The professor flung his wig into the air and the air was swallowed up by frenzied applause.

  Strangely no record exists of exactly what Raymond said next.

  9

  AHRIMAN BOY

  LUCIFER LAD

  SEVEN SEALS

  MILLENNIUM CHOICE

  Simon was the first in the queue outside the bank that morning. When it opened at nine-thirty he went in and drew out all of his savings. Precisely one hundred pounds. Then he set off for the bookies, where he placed his now legendary four-horse accumulator bet.

  He would have whistled, if it hadn’t been for the hangover. How come he’d neglected to mention the hangover to the writer of Raymond’s biography? If he had mentioned it, then he’d have known in advance not to drink so much last night. And so he wouldn’t have the hangover now, and there’d be no mention of it in the book. Which there wasn’t, although he did have the hangover.

  Simon knew well enough why the hangover hadn’t been mentioned. Because he had no wish for the doings of last night to be given to posterity. That’s why!

  It all began for him just after he’d made up his mind to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, to the future writer of Raymond’s biography; and then formulated the ingenious (though bastardly) plan for winning on the horses. The winning horses were listed just where he would ask the writer to list them. Above the chapter that began, Simon was the first in the queue.

  Simon had copied the names of the winning horses onto the envelope of his precious ‘doctor’s note’, carefully hidden the book from the future, taken a shower, put on clean clothes and gone out for the evening.

  It was a big mistake.

  He should never have gone to The Jolly Gardeners. But he did.

  Andy met his arrival with a face like thunder. He had certain things he wished to say to Simon.

  These things concerned the unpleasantness which had occurred after Simon’s rapid departure from The Jolly on the previous night. Things which Andy held Simon responsible for by default. Things concerning Simon’s girlfriend Liza.

  Liza, said Andy, had kicked Dick Godolphin’s lurcher, and when Dick protested, Liza had kicked Dick. Long Bob the chicken fanner, who employed Dick on a part-time basis, had stepped in to bring order and had then received a kicking of his own.

  Andy, as everyone knew, had strict rules regarding kickings in his bar and Liza had been barred for life.

  Simon brightened upon hearing this. For it meant that he could drink here in the future, without always having to look over his shoulder. But his brightening soon dulled down as Andy went on to say that, after it had taken three members of Roman Candle to forcibly eject the kicker from the bar. The kicker in question had then employed the deadly martial art of Dimac upon his pub sign. Leaping t
welve feet into the air and kicking it from its single hinge. And, as Liza was now barred, Simon was going to have to pay for the reparation, which Dick (who had a part-time cleaning job at The Jolly) had agreed to take on, for fifteen quid.

  Andy added that, as he considered himself a fair man, Simon could, if he wished, choose not to pay, and opt instead for lifelong banishment.

  ‘I will pay you on the morrow.’ Simon said. Re-brightening to the thought that when the morrow came and his horses won, he would have enough money to buy The Jolly Gardeners outright if he wished.

  ‘A pint of the usual,’ he continued. ‘And put it on Raymond’s slate, which naturally I cannot borrow from to pay you, it not being my money.’

  Andy mulled that one over, found it all too confusing to argue about and set to the pulling of Simon’s pint.

  ‘Oh, and a bag of nuts if you will. And take one for yourself.’ Andy took a bag of nuts for himself.

  It was early yet and the bar was far from crowded. It was empty but for Simon. But it smelt a bit odd. Not of fish, more of sulphur. And Simon really should have noticed this. And the half-drunk glass of Guinness at the end of the counter.

  But he didn’t.

  So he really wasn’t prepared when the door to the gents’ bog opened and Mr Hilsavise ducked his big bald head, with its distinctive pentagram tattoo, beneath the-beam-that-strangers-always-bang-their-skulls-on-when-they-come-out-of-the-Gents.

  ‘Well well well,’ went the far from jolly gardener. ‘What do we have here then? An apprentice in a new hat who’s taken the afternoon off.

  Simon looked the big man up and down. He recalled reading this article about how dog owners came, after a while, to resemble their dogs. Apparently, the pet owner loving the dog, subconsciously wanted to be ‘as the dog’ and the dog, returning its owner’s love, yearned to be ‘as the owner’. They both tuned into this biological frequency and gradually exchanged elements of their appearance. Exactly what this biological frequency was and how it functioned, had not been fully explained. And Simon had had severe doubts about the whole business.