by Roald Dahl
And so the large Transport Capsule, piloted by Shuckworth, Shanks and Showler, with all the hotel managers and assistant managers and hall porters and pastry chefs and bell-boys and waitresses and chambermaids on board, moved in smoothly and linked up with the giant Space Hotel.
'Hey there! We've lost our television picture,' called the President.
'I'm afraid the camera got smashed against the side of the Space Hotel, Mr President,' Shuckworth replied. The President said a very rude word into the microphone and ten million children across the nation began repeating it gleefully and got smacked by their parents.
'All astronauts and one hundred and fifty hotel staff safely aboard Space Hotel!' Shuckworth reported over the radio. 'We are now standing in the lobby!'
'And what do you think of it all?' asked the President. He knew the whole world was listening in and he wanted Shuckworth to say how wonderful it was. Shuckworth didn't let him down.
'Gee, Mr President, it's just great!' he said. 'It's unbelievable! It's so enormous! And so… it's kind of hard to find words to describe it, it's so truly grand, especially the chandeliers and the carpets and all! I have the Chief Hotel Manager, Mr Walter W. Wall, beside me now. He would like the honour of a word with you, sir.'
'Put him on,' said the President.
'Mr President, sir, this is Walter Wall. What a sumptuous hotel this is! The decorations are superb!'
'Have you noticed that all the carpets are wall-to-wall, Mr Walter Wall?' said the President.
'I have indeed, Mr President.'
'All the wallpaper is all wall-to-wall, too, Mr Walter Wall.'
'Yes, sir, Mr President! Isn't that something! It's going to be a real pleasure running a beautiful hotel like this!… Hey! What's going on over there? Something's coming out of the lifts! Help!' Suddenly the loudspeaker in the President's study gave out a series of the most ghastly screams and yells. 'Ayeeeee! Owwwww! Ayeeeee! Hel-l-l-lp! Hel-l-l-l-l-lp! Hel-l-l-l-l-l-l-l-l-lp!'
'What on earth's going on?' said the President. 'Shuckworth! Are you there, Shuckworth?… Shanks! Showler! Mr Walter Wall! Where are you all! What's happening?'
The screams continued. They were so loud the President had to put his fingers in his ears. Every house in the world that had a television or radio receiver heard those awful screams. There were other noises, too. Loud grunts and snortings and crunching sounds. Then there was silence.
Frantically the President called the Space Hotel on the radio. Houston called the Space Hotel. The President called Houston. Houston called the President. Then both of them called the Space Hotel again. But answer came there none. Up there in space all was silent.
'Something nasty's happened,' said the President.
'It's those men from Mars,' said the Ex-Chief of the Army. 'I told you to let me blow them up.'
'Silence!' snapped the President. 'I've got to think.'
The loudspeaker began to crackle. 'Hello!' it said. 'Hello hello hello! Are you receiving me, Space Control in Houston?'
The President grabbed the mike on his desk. 'Leave this to me, Houston!' he shouted. 'President Gilligrass here receiving you loud and clear! Go ahead!'
'Astronaut Shuckworth here, Mr President, back aboard the Transport Capsule… thank heavens!'
'What happened, Shuckworth? Who's with you?'
'We're most of us here, Mr President, I'm glad to say. Shanks and Showler are with me, and a whole bunch of other folks. I guess we lost maybe a couple of dozen people altogether, pastry chefs, hall porters, that sort of thing. It sure was a scramble getting out of that place alive!'
'What do you mean you lost two dozen people?' shouted the President. 'How did you lose them?'
'Gobbled up!' replied Shuckworth. 'One gulp and that was it! I saw a big six-foot-tall assistant-manager being swallowed up just like you'd swallow a lump of ice-cream, Mr President! No chewing - nothing! Just down the hatch!'
'But who?' yelled the President. 'Who are you talking about? Who did the swallowing?'
'Hold it!' cried Shuckworth. 'Oh, my lord, here they all come now! They're coming after us! They're swarming out of the Space Hotel! They're coming out in swarms! You'll have to excuse me a moment, Mr President. No time to talk right now!'
10
Transport Capsule in Trouble - Attack No. 1
While Shuckworth, Shanks and Showler were being chased out of the Space Hotel by the Knids, Mr Wonka's Great Glass Elevator was orbiting the Earth at tremendous speed. Mr Wonka had all his booster-rockets firing and the Elevator was reaching speeds of thirty-four thousand miles an hour instead of the normal seventeen thousand. They were trying, you see, to get away from that huge angry Vermicious Knid with the purple behind. Mr Wonka wasn't afraid of it, but Grandma Josephine was petrified. Every time she looked at it, she let out a piercing scream and clapped her hands over her eyes. But of course thirty-four thousand miles an hour is dawdling to a Knid. Healthy young Knids think nothing of travelling a million miles between lunch and supper, and then another million before breakfast the next day. How else could they travel between the planet Vermes and other stars? Mr Wonka should have known this and saved his rocket-power, but he kept right on going and the giant Knid kept right on cruising effortlessly alongside, glaring into the Elevator with its wicked red eye. 'You people have bruised my backside,' the Knid seemed to be saying, 'and in the end I'm going to get you for that.'
They had been streaking around the Earth like this for about forty-five minutes when Charlie, who was floating comfortably beside Grandpa Joe near the ceiling, said suddenly, 'There's something ahead! Can you see it, Grandpa? Straight in front of us!'
'I can, Charlie, I can… Good heavens, it's the Space Hotel!' 'It can't be, Grandpa. We left it miles behind us long ago.'
' Ah-ha,' said Mr Wonka. 'We've been going so fast we've gone all the way around the Earth and caught up with it again! A splendid effort!'
'And there's the Transport Capsule! Can you see it, Grandpa? It's just behind the Space Hotel!'
'There's something else there, too, Charlie, if I'm not mistaken!'
'I know what those are!' screamed Grandma Josephine. 'They're Vermicious Knids! Turn back at once!'
'Reverse!' yelled Grandma Georgina. 'Go the other way!'
'Dear lady,' said Mr Wonka. 'This isn't a car on the motorway. When you are in orbit, you cannot stop and you cannot go backwards.'
'I don't care about that!' shouted Grandma Josephine. 'Put on the brakes! Stop! Back-pedal!
The Knids'll get us!'
'Now let's for heaven's sake stop this nonsense once and for all,' Mr Wonka said sternly. 'You know very well my Elevator is completely Knidproof. You have nothing to fear.'
They were closer now and they could see the Knids pouring out from the tail of the Space Hotel and swarming like wasps around the Transport Capsule.
'They're attacking it!' cried Charlie. 'They're after the Transport Capsule!'
It was a fearsome sight. The huge green egg-shaped Knids were grouping themselves into squadrons with about twenty Knids to a squadron. Then each squadron formed itself into a line abreast, with one yard between Knids. Then, one after another, the squadrons began attacking the Transport Capsule. They attacked in reverse with their pointed rear-ends in front and they came in at a fantastic speed.
WHAM! One squadron attacked, bounced off and wheeled away.
CRASH! Another squadron smashed against the side of the Transport Capsule.
'Get us out of here, you madman!' screamed Grandma Josephine. 'What are you waiting for?'
'They'll be coming after us next!' yelled Grandma Georgina. 'For heaven's sake, man, turn back!'
'I doubt very much if that capsule of theirs is Knidproof,' said Mr Wonka.
'Then we must help them!' cried Charlie. 'We've got to do something! There are a hundred and fifty people inside that thing!'
Down on the Earth, in the White House study, the President and his advisers were listening in horror to the voices of the as
tronauts over the radio.
'They're coming at us in droves!' Shuckworth was shouting. 'They're bashing us to bits!' 'But who?' yelled the President. 'You haven't even told us who's attacking you!'
'These dirty great greenish-brown brutes with red eyes!' shouted Shanks, butting in. 'They're shaped like enormous eggs and they're coming at us backwards!'
'Backwards?' cried the President. 'Why backwards?'
'Because their bottoms are even more pointy than their tops!' shouted Shuckworth. 'Look out! Here comes another lot!' BANG! 'We won't be able to stand this much longer, Mr President! The waitresses are screaming and the chambermaids are all hysterical and the bell-boys are being sick and the hall porters are saying their prayers so what shall we do, Mr President, sir, what on earth shall we do?'
'Fire your rockets, you idiot, and make a re-entry!' shouted the President. 'Come back to Earth immediately!'
'That's impossible!' cried Showler. 'They've busted our rockets! They've smashed them to smithereens!'
'We're cooked, Mr President!' shouted Shanks. 'We're done for! Because even if they don't succeed in destroying the capsule, we'll have to stay up here in orbit for the rest of our lives! We can't make a re-entry without rockets!'
The President was sweating and the sweat ran all the way down the back of his neck and inside his collar.
'Any moment now, Mr President,' Shanks went on, 'we're going to lose contact with you altogether! There's another lot coming at us from the left and they're aiming straight for our radio aerial! Here they come! I don't think we'll be able to…' The voice cut. The radio went dead.
'Shanks!' cried the President. 'Where are you, Shanks?… Shuckworth! Shanks! Showler!… Showlworth! Shucks! Shankler!… Shankworth! Show! Shuckler! Why don't you answer me?!'
Up in the Great Glass Elevator where they had no radio and could hear nothing of these conversations, Charlie was saying, 'Surely their only hope is to make a re-entry and dive back to Earth quickly!'
'Yes,' said Mr Wonka. 'But in order to re-enter the Earth's atmosphere they've got to kick themselves out of orbit. They've got to change course and head downwards and to do that they need rockets! But their rocket tubes are all dented and bent! You can see that from here! They're crippled!'
'Why can't we tow them down?' Charlie asked.
Mr Wonka jumped. Even though he was floating, he somehow jumped. He was so excited he shot upwards and hit his head on the ceiling. Then he spun round three times in the air and cried, 'Charlie! You've got it! That's it! We'll tow them out of orbit! To the buttons, quick!'
'What do we tow them with?' asked Grandpa Joe. 'Our neckties?'
'Don't you worry about a little thing like that!' cried Mr Wonka. 'My Great Glass Elevator is ready for anything! In we go! Into the breach, dear friends, into the breach!'
'Stop him!' screamed Grandma Josephine.
'You be quiet, Josie,' said Grandpa Joe. 'There's someone over there needs a helping hand and it's our job to give it. If you're frightened, you'd better just close your eyes tight and stick your fingers in your ears.'
11
The Battle of the Knids
'Grandpa Joe, sir!' shouted Mr Wonka. 'Kindly j et yourself over to the far corner of the Elevator there and turn that handle! It lowers the rope!'
'A rope's no good, Mr Wonka! The Knids will bite through a rope in one second!'
'It's a steel rope,' said Mr Wonka. 'It's made of re-inscorched steel. If they try to bite through that their teeth will splinter like spillikins! To your buttons, Charlie! You've got to help me manoeuvre! We're going right over the top of the Transport Capsule and then we'll try to hook on to it somewhere and get a firm hold!'
Like a battleship going into action, the Great Glass Elevator with booster rockets firing moved smoothly in over the top of the enormous Transport Capsule. The Knids immediately stopped attacking the Capsule and went for the Elevator. Squadron after squadron of giant Vermicious Knids flung themselves furiously against Mr Wonka's marvellous machine! WHAM! CRASH! BANG! The noise was thunderous and terrible. The Elevator was tossed about the sky like a leaf, and inside it, Grandma Josephine, Grandma Georgina and Grandpa George, floating in their nightshirts, were all yowling and screeching and flapping their arms and calling for help. Mrs Bucket had wrapped her arms around Mr Bucket and was clasping him so tightly that one of his shirt buttons punctured his skin. Charlie and Mr Wonka, as cool as two cubes of ice, were up near the ceiling working the booster-rocket controls, and Grandpa Joe, shouting war-cries and throwing curses at the Knids, was down below turning the handle that unwound the steel rope. At the same time, he was watching the rope through the glass floor of the Elevator.
'Starboard a bit, Charlie!' shouted Grandpa Joe. 'We're right on top of her now!… Forward a couple of yards, Mr Wonka!… I'm trying to get the hook hooked around that stumpy thing sticking out in front there!… Hold it!… I've got it… That's it!… Forward a little now and see if it holds!… More!… More!…' The big steel rope tightened. It held! And now, wonder of wonders, with her booster-rockets blazing, the Elevator began to tow the huge Transport Capsule forward and away!
'Full speed ahead!' shouted Grandpa Joe. 'She's going to hold! She's holding! She's holding fine!'
'All boosters firing!' cried Mr Wonka, and the Elevator leaped ahead. Still the rope held. Mr Wonka jetted himself down to Grandpa Joe and shook him warmly by the hand. 'Well done, sir,' he said. 'You did a brilliant job under heavy fire!'
Charlie looked back at the Transport Capsule some thirty yards behind them on the end of the tow-line. It had little windows up front, and in the windows he could clearly see the flabbergasted faces of Shuckworth, Shanks and Showler. Charlie waved to them and gave them the thumbs-up signal. They didn't wave back. They simply gaped. They couldn't believe what was happening.
Grandpa Joe blew himself upward and hovered beside Charlie, bubbling with excitement. 'Charlie, my boy,' he said. 'We've been through a few funny things together lately, but never anything like this!'
'Grandpa, where are the Knids? They've suddenly vanished!'
Everyone looked round. The only Knid in sight was their old friend with the purple behind, still cruising alongside in its usual place, still glaring into the Elevator.
'Just a minute!' cried Grandma Josephine. 'What's that I see over there?' Again they looked, and this time, sure enough, away in the distance, in the deep blue sky of outer space, they saw a massive cloud of Vermicious Knids wheeling and circling like a fleet of bombers.
'If you think we're out of the woods yet, you're crazy!' shouted Grandma Georgina. 'I fear no Knids!' said Mr Wonka. 'We've got them beaten now!'
'Poppyrot and pigwash!' said Grandma Josephine. 'Any moment now they'll be at us again! Look at them! They're coming in! They're coming closer!'
This was true. The huge fleet of Knids had moved in at incredible speed and was now flying level with the Great Glass Elevator, a couple of hundred yards away on the right-hand side. The one with the bump on its rear-end was much closer, only twenty yards away on the same side.
'It's changing shape!' cried Charlie. 'That nearest one! What's it going to do? It's getting longer and longer!' And indeed it was. The mammoth egg-shaped body was slowly stretching itself out like chewing-gum, becoming longer and longer and thinner and thinner, until in the end it looked exactly like a long slimy-green serpent as thick as a thick tree and as long as a football pitch. At the front end were the eyes, big and white with red centres, at the back a kind of tapering tail and at the very end of the tail was the enormous round swollen bump it had got when it crashed against the glass.
The people floating inside the Elevator watched and waited. Then they saw the long rope-like Knid turning and coming straight but quite slowly toward the Great Glass Elevator. Now it began actually wrapping its ropy body around the Elevator itself. Once around it went… then twice around, and very horrifying it was to be inside and to see the soft green body squishing against the outside of the glass no mor
e than a few inches away.
'It's tying us up like a parcel!' yelled Grandma Josephine. 'Bunkum!' said Mr Wonka.
'It's going to crush us in its coils!' wailed Grandma Georgina. 'Never!' said Mr Wonka.
Charlie glanced quickly back at the Transport Capsule. The sheet-white faces of Shuckworth, Shanks and Showler were pressed against the glass of the little windows, terror-struck, stupefied, stunned, their mouths open, their expressions frozen like fish fingers. Once again, Charlie gave them the thumbs-up signal. Showler acknowledged it with a sickly grin, but that was all.
'Oh, oh, oh!' screamed Grandma Josephine. 'Get that beastly squishy thing away from here!'
Having curled its body twice around the Elevator, the Knid now proceeded to tie a knot with its two ends, a good strong knot, left over right, then right over left. When it had pulled the knot tight, there remained about five yards of one end hanging loose. This was the end with the eyes on it. But it didn't hang loose for long. It quickly curled itself into the shape of a huge hook and the hook stuck straight out sideways from the Elevator as though waiting for something else to hook itself on to it.
While all this was going on, nobody had noticed what the other Knids were up to. 'Mr Wonka!' Charlie cried. 'Look at the others! What are they doing?'
What indeed?
These, too, had all changed shape and had become longer, but not nearly so long or so thin as the first one. Each of them had turned itself into a kind of thick rod and the rod was curled around at both ends - at the tail end and at the head end - so that it made a double-ended hook. And now all the hooks were linking up into one long chain… one thousand Knids… all joining together and curving around in the sky to make a chain of Knids half a mile long or more! And the Knid at the very front of the chain (whose front hook was not, of course, hooked up to anything) was leading them in a wide circle and sweeping in toward the Great Glass Elevator.
'Hey!' shouted Grandpa Joe. 'They're going to hook up with this brute who's tied himself around us!'
