by Mike Ashley
The Byrds looped and zoomed and chased one another, and when they met they coupled. Artificial barriers of species were cast aside and Eagle mated with Chaffinch, Robin with Albatross.
“Clearly a visual parable,” said Dr Pratt. “The—”
“Shut up,” said Mother. “Shut up, shut up, shut up!”
In the garry oak, Rufous-necked Hornbill mated with Rufous-necked Hornbill, then with Crow; then, rising joyously into the sky, with Skua, with Lark, and finally with Hamadryas Baboon, who had at last realized what it was all about and strapped on a belt.
“She’s eighty-six years old! What is she thinking of?”
“She’s an Earth Mother to them,” said Dr Pratt.
“Earth Mother my arse,” said Father. “She’s stark, staring mad, and it’s about time we faced up to it.”
“It’s true, it’s true!” wailed Mother, a broken woman. “She’s crazy! She’s been crazy for years! She’s old and useless, and yet she keeps filling in all that stuff on her Peace form, instead of forgetting, like any normal old woman!”
“Winter is coming,” said Dr Pratt, “and we are witnessing the symbolic Preservation of the Species. Look at that nice young Tern up there. Tomorrow they must come back to earth, but in the wombs of the females the memory of this glorious September will live on!”
“She’s senile and filthy! I’ve seen her eating roots from out of the ground, and do you know what she did to the Ever-attentive Waiter? She cross-wired it with the Mailgift chute and filled the kitchen with self-adhesive cookies!”
“She did?”
And the first shadow of doubt crossed Dr Pratt’s face. The leader of the Byrds crazy?
“And one day a game show called on the visiphone and asked her a skill-testing question that would have set us all up for life – and she did the most disgusting thing, and it went out live and the whole town saw it!”
“I’m sure she has sound psychological reasons for her behaviour,” said Dr Pratt desperately.
“She doesn’t! She’s insane! She walks to town rather than fill out a Busquest form! She brews wine in a horrible jar under the bed! She was once sentenced to one week’s community service for indecent exposure! She trespasses in the Department of Agriculture’s fields! You want to know why the house stinks? She programmed the Pesterminator to zap the Tidy Mice!”
“But I thought . . . Why didn’t you tell me before? My God, when I think of the things I’ve said on Newspocket! If this comes out, my reputation, all I’ve worked for, all . . .” He was becoming incoherent. “Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked again.
“Well, good grief, it’s obvious, isn’t it?” snapped Father. “Look at her. She’s up in the sky mating with a Hamadryas Baboon, or something very much like one. Now, that’s what I call crazy.”
“But it’s a Movement . . . It’s free and vibrant and so basic, so—”
“A nut cult,” said Father. “Started by a loony and encouraged by a quack. Nothing more, nothing less. And the forecast for tonight is twenty below. It’ll wipe out the whole lot of them. You’d better get them all down, Pratt, or you’ll have a few thousand deaths on your conscience.”
But the Byrds came down of their own accord, later that day. As though sensing the end of the Indian summer and the bitter nights to come, they drifted out of the sky in groups, heading for earth, heading for us. Gran alighted in the garry oak with whirling arms, followed by Gramps. They sat close together on their accustomed branch, gobbling quietly to each other. More Byrds came; the Crows, the Pelicans. They filled the tree, spread along the ridge of the roof and squatted on the guttering. They began to perch on fences and posts, even on the ground, all species intermingled. They were all around us, converging, covering the neighbouring roofs and trees, a great final gathering of humans who, just for a few weeks, had gone a little silly. They looked happy although tired, and a few were shivering as the afternoon shortened into evening. They made a great noise at first, a rustling and screeching and fluid piping, but after a while they quietened down. I saw Pandora amidst them, painted and pretty, but her gaze passed right through me. They were still Byrds, playing their role until the end. And they all faced Gran. They were awaiting the word to Come Down, but Gran remained silent, living every last moment.
It was like standing in the centre of a vast amphitheatre, with all those heads turned towards us, all those beady eyes watching us. The Newspocket crew were nowhere to be seen; they probably couldn’t get through the crowd.
Finally Dr Pratt strode forward. He was in the grip of a great despondency. He was going to come clean.
“Fools!” he shouted. A murmur of birdlike sounds arose, but soon died. “All through history there have been fools like you, and they’ve caused wars and disaster and misery. Fools without minds of their own, who follow their leader without thought, without stopping to ask if their leader knows what he is doing. Leaders like Genghis Khan, like Starbusch, like Hitler, leaders who manipulate their followers like puppets in pursuit of their own crazy ends. Crazy leaders drunk with power. Leaders like Gran here.
“Yes, Gran is crazy! I mean certifiably crazy, ready for Peace. Irrational and insane and a burden to the State and to herself. She had me fooled at first.” He uttered a short, bitter laugh, not unlike the mating cry of Forster’s Tern. “I thought I found logic in what she did. Such was the cunning nature of her madness. It was only recently, when I investigated Gran’s past record, that I unmasked her for what she is: a mentally unbalanced old woman with marked antisocial tendencies. I could give you chapter and verse of Gran’s past misdemeanours – and I can tell you right now, this isn’t the first time she’s taken her clothes off in public – but I will refrain, out of consideration for her family, who have suffered enough.
“It will suffice to say that I have recommended her committal and the Peace Wagon is on its way. The whole affair is best forgotten. Now, come down out of those trees and scrub off, and go home to your families, all of you.”
He turned away, shoulders drooping. It was nothing like the Great Coming Down he’d pictured. It was a slinking thing, a creeping home, an abashed admission of stupidity.
Except that the Byrds weren’t coming down.
They sat silently on their perches, awaiting the word from Gran. All through Dr Pratt’s oration she’d been quiet, staring fixedly at the sky. Now, at last, she looked around. Her eyes were bright, but it was an almost-human brightness, a different thing from the beady stare of the past weeks. And she half-smiled through the paint, but she didn’t utter a word.
She activated her belt and, flapping her arms, rose into the darkening sky.
And the Byrds rose after her.
They filled the sky, a vast multitude of rising figures, and Pandora was with them. Gran led, Gramps close behind, and then came Coot and Skua and Hawk, and the whole thousand-strong mob. They wheeled once over the town and filled the evening with a great and lonely cry. Then they headed off in V-formations, loose flocks, tight echelons, a pattern of dwindling black forms against the pale duck-egg blue of nightfall.
“Where the hell are they going?” shouted Dr Pratt as I emerged from the shed, naked and painted. It was cold, but I would soon get used to it.
“South,” I said.
“Why the hell south? What’s wrong with here, for God’s sake?”
“It’s warmer, south. We’re migrating.”
So I activated my belt and lifted into the air, and watched the house fall away below me, and the tiny bolts of light as the Pesterminator hunted things. The sky seemed empty now but there was still a fading pink of sunset to the west. Hurrying south, I saw something winking like a red star and, before long, I was homing in on the gleaming hindquarters of a Hamadryas Baboon.
POLLY PUT THE MOCKERS ON
Stan Nicholls
At one time Stan Nicholls was best known as a bookshop manager and for his magazine columns and reviews. More recently he has broken into the ranks of fantasy novelists with such seri
es as The Nightshade Chronicles and Orcs: First Blood. But none of this prepares you for the following story.
The row about banks moving out of the countryside took a new twist yesterday when the countryside moved into a bank. Staff at the Ufton Paddesley branch of Clouts were taken aback when a customer wanted to cash a cheque. Nothing odd in that, you might think. Except this cheque was written on the side of a live pig.
Businessman Dirk Penhaligon proffered the pecuniary porker as his latest weapon in a long-standing dispute with the bank. “Clouts have caused me a lot of inconvenience,” Mr Penhaligon, 41, insisted. “Now they know how it feels.”
The entrepreneur, famed locally as a ballcock magnate, decided on his ploy after discovering that a cheque could be written on anything as long as it was signed and dated. “I know my rights,” he said. “It’s the law.”
Clouts branch manager Sidney Doub, 59, commented, “The rules clearly stipulate that we are obliged to honour a customer’s request to withdraw their own money, whatever that request may be written on. For our purposes, this pig constitutes a cheque. Though we have yet to devise a humane way of stamping it.”
Having pocketed his ten pounds, the amount the pig was made out to, Mr Penhaligon remained defiant. “I believe I’ve struck a blow for many other dissatisfied bank customers all over this country,” he declared. “They too should make their voices heard.” But Sidney Doub ridiculed the threat. “I’m sure I speak for the whole banking community in saying that our little difficulty with Mr Penhaligon is in no way reflected nationally. Bank customers are almost universally happy with our services, and have far too much good sense to involve themselves in these kind of antics. Believe me,” he laughed, “this is a one-off.”
The Qualmsley & Beagledale Chronicle
“Your mammals or your life!”
There was nobody else in the alley except the man blocking Eddie Markham’s path. He was massively built, and when a flash of lightning briefly illuminated his face it proved weathered, mean and desperate. The gun he clutched had a muzzle like the mouth of a tunnel.
Sloshing through a puddle as he moved closer, the mugger repeated his demand with a hiss.
A chorus of muffled snorts and scufflings came from Markham’s cart. Coolly, he stepped out of the reins. The would-be robber grinned, exposing broken teeth, savouring the prospect of enrichment.
“If you want it, you’ll have to take it,” Markham told him.
The mugger’s face dropped. Confusion clouded his bovine eyes. He glanced down at his fist. “But I’ve got a gun,” he remembered. “I’ll use it.”
“Go on, then.”
“What?”
“Shoot.”
“I will.”
“So what you waiting for?”
“I’m not mucking about, you know.” He raised the gun uncertainly, his hand shaking. “Give me your livestock or I’ll pop yer.”
“Go ahead.”
“But—”
“You going to talk or shoot?”
“Well, I—”
“You’re going to talk, aren’t you?” He made a show of directing his gaze at the automatic. “Ah, I see why. Trying a bluff, eh?”
Incomprehension creased the big man’s brow. “Eh?”
“Threatening me with a duff shooter.”
“Duff?”
Markham gave him a knowing wink. “It is as long as the safety’s on.”
Ponderously, the brigand turned the gun side on and blinked stupidly at it. It gave Markham the chance he needed for a swift upward kick to the man’s wrist. The gun went flying. Yelping, the mugger took a wild swing at him. Markham ducked and pummelled the thug’s stomach. He doubled over, expelling a loud Ooofff! Markham landed a cracking blow to his attacker’s jaw. Imitating a felled oak, he went down.
Markham picked up the gun. There was no time to do the good-citizen thing and get embroiled with cops. So he dropped the bullet clip through a drain grid. The gun he tossed into one of several large rubbish bins.
There was a rustling in the comatose mugger’s grubby, voluminous overcoat. A couple of white mice shot out of it, followed by a small badger. Ill-gotten gains from some other poor devil, no doubt. The animals scooted off in different directions. Markham didn’t bother chasing them, though he knew that if they weren’t netted by somebody else they became treasure trove.
Ignoring the robber’s groans, he went to the cart, lifted its lid and spent a moment soothing his change. Then he climbed back into the reins and continued his journey.
The rain was easing as he rejoined the teeming streets. Most people were hauling carts. Some were so big that their owners laboured to drag them, or else they were pulled by sweating couples. Others were small enough to bounce along on tiny wheels, drawn with a length of string. Markham’s was somewhere in between, and about average.
As usual, the noises and smells were near-intolerable. Slatted trucks nosed through the traffic, valuables bleating. Horns were honked at a small herd of Friesians being shepherded by nervous security guards. Naively, someone in the crowd pushed a battered supermarket trolley, their wealth on open show.
Markham passed a shop with trays of hamsters, tortoises and terrapins in the barred window. The standard offering for a jeweller’s. Next to it stood a block of luxury flats, his destination. A doorman checked his appointment, then directed him to the visitors’ holding pens. Markham deposited the cart. Taking his ticket from a dour parking attendant, he jabbed his finger at him and said, “Don’t get any ideas. I know what’s nesting in there.” He left the man suitably affronted and made for a lift.
He stepped out of it into an opulent penthouse apartment. There was no one about. He looked around at the sumptuous furniture and expensive ornamentation. But what really impressed him were the more obvious signs of wealth. A big tank of tropical fish, any one of which represented a month’s income for him. On the marble hearth, a pure white Persian cat, eyeing them. And a gilded cage on a silver stand, housing a pair of lovebirds.
He moved to a window occupying the far wall. Below was a large back garden. It was surrounded by a high, electrified fence and divided into corrals and wire-topped enclosures. Some held cattle, mostly rare breeds. There was a flock of flamingos, a group of antelope and a pack of baboons. He spotted llamas and camels. Craning his head, he saw what might have been kangaroos. He was obviously in a moneyed burg.
“A gerbil for them, Mister Markham?”
He turned. The voice belonged to a fat man. But it was self-confident fat. He was in his middle years, though his chubby, babyish face seemed unmarked by time, as is the way with rich fat. A pencil moustache slashed his upper lip, his eyes were powder blue. He was immaculately tailored. By comparison, Markham was a scarecrow in a body bag.
“Lonnie Fairfax,” the fat man explained, unnecessarily, “at your service.” He oozed charm, but didn’t offer his hand. “You were admiring my depository?” He nodded at the window.
“Like they say, money chirps. If you’ve got it, flaunt it.”
“Good, we see eye to eye. How would you like something worth flaunting yourself?”
“I’d like it fine, Mister Fairfax. But I’m wondering why a guy who owns his own zoo needs a private investigator. You must have plenty of people on your payroll to do whatever it is you want doing.”
“To the point. I like that.” He indicated a table laden with food. “Take some refreshment while I explain.”
It was an offer Markham would normally refuse, on the grounds of not mixing business with pleasure. But then he noticed meat, a rarity when only the rich could afford not to be vegetarians. He weakened.
“So how can I help you?” he asked, mouth full.
“It’s a matter of some delicacy.”
Markham took a swig of wine. “That’s my speciality.”
“A matter I wish kept confidential even if you turn down the commission. Though I don’t think you will.”
“Understood.”
“I want you t
o locate something.”
“Missing spouse? Stolen property? Runaway business part—”
“No, no. Nothing like that.” Fairfax leaned closer. His voice dropped to an undertone. “Have you ever heard of . . . the Macclesfield Macaw?”
Whatever Markham expected the sealionaire to say, it wasn’t that. “Sure,” he replied casually. “Everybody has. What about it?”
“I want it.”
“It’s a myth. A story bankers tell their kids at bedtime.”
“No, Mister Markham, it’s not a myth.” Fairfax’s eyes burned with a messianic intensity. “The Macaw is very real.”
“How do you know?”
“Believe me, it exists. It has narrowly eluded my grasp several times in the past. A bird of unusual size and markings. Quite a unique item.”
“I would have thought a man like you had enough already.”
“I have just about everything, true. But I don’t have the bird. Ergo, I must acquire it.”
“I bet you were a coin collector in the old days.”
It was meant as a jibe, but Fairfax looked mildly surprised. “How did you guess?”
Markham figured that if a man wanted to throw his money away on a wild macaw chase he wasn’t going to stop him, particularly if the money was crawling in his direction. “Okay, let’s assume the bird does exist,” he said. “How do I come into the picture?”
“I believe you may be able to obtain it for me. Based on information I’ll supply.”
“You haven’t told me why you can’t use somebody who works for you.”
“You’re not known to. That has its advantages.”
“I won’t do anything illegal.”
Fairfax raised an eyebrow. “Of course not. As to your fee—”
“I’ve got a set rate.”
That was waved aside. “For this task I expect to pay well. I’m offering a Thompson gazelle as a retainer. And shall we say a fully grown African crocodile on successful completion?”
Markham was awed. The most he’d ever pulled in for one job before was a manky rhino. But he kept his face poker and pushed a bit. “Expenses?”
