Tales of the Talking Picture

by Tom Slemen

  Just before dawn, a noise from outside roused Danny from his sleep. He went to the window and looked out at the dark rustic landscape. The C-shaped crescent of a waning moon hung low in the eastern sky, and above it strode the constellation of Orion the Hunter, the very constellation, Danny recalled, that contained the star Rigel, which was the sun of Higgledy's homeworld, over eight-hundred light-years away.

  The stillness of the nocturnal scene was suddenly disturbed by a winged visitor. A Barn Owl swooped down from the starry heavens and was a heartbeat from seizing its prey, which was an off-guard fieldmouse, when a large black creature with pincer-like jaws reared up out of the swaying barley. In one swift accurate movement the creature butted the owl and sent it spinning into the darkness. Danny pulled on his trousers, squeezed into his slippers and rummaged about in a box of junk under his bed until he found a torch. He tiptoed downstairs, put on his coat and slipped out of the house through the kitchen window. When he reached the field where he'd seen the creature, he bumped into Scarecrow, who was star-gazing again.

  "Did you see it?" Danny waved the torch at the robot to get its attention.

  "See what, Danny?" the apertures of Scarecrow's lidless eyes shrunk in the harsh torchlight.

  Danny suddenly caught sight of a dark amorphous shape moving near the woods in the distance. He raced off In that direction, sweeping the ground ahead with the torchbeam.

  When he reached the heart of the woodland, a pair of red eyes reflected back the sweeping light of the torch, Danny slowed his pace as he saw that the creature he believed was Higgledy was now the size of a small dog. When he was less than thirty feet from the animal, it dropped down into a hole at the base of an old oak tree. The creature had excavated a lair for itself.

  Danny crept near to the hole and shone the torch into it. "Higgledy?"

  Two antennas popped up over the rim of the hole.

  "It's only me," said Danny inching nearer to the hole.

  The creature's curious eyes peered over the rim of the hole and squinted in the light of the torch.

  Danny identified himself by pointing the torch at his own face. "It's me."

  The creature emerged from its hole gingerly, tilting its head sideways in a quizzical manner. Its six legs started to move alternately, The beetle crept forward and circled him.

  A light sweat broke out on Danny's face when the creature's inquisitive mouthparts touched his left ankle. He bent down, slowly, and gently stroked the creature's head. It was ice-cold, and through his palm he could feel the creature quivering with tension. He took his hand away, and to his surprise, the beetle made a peculiar warbling sound and rubbed its head against his shin.

  "You like that, eh?" Danny stroked its head again.

  As the morning progressed, Danny gradually built up a relationship of trust with the alien. He ended up throwing branches for the beetle to fetch, Just as a boy with his dog would.

  The moment the sun was on the rise, the creature headed back to its underground lair in the woods, and reluctantly, Danny headed back to the farmhouse.

  At a quarter to four, Mrs Pritchard, the tall and angular science teacher at Danny's school introduced a visitor to her class, Danny recognized him instantly, even without his black helmet. It was the sergeant who had visited the house. The man who intended to put Higgledy 'down'.

  "This is Sergeant Hackett of the spaceport police. He's come here today to warn you about buying animals from the space vendors," said Mrs Pritchard.

  Twenty small faces stared at the sergeant.

  Hackett picked up the globe of the world from Mrs Pritchard's desktop. "Hello. Can anybody here show me where Australia is on this globe?"

  Fifteen eager hands were thrust into the air.

  "Sir! Sir! Sir! I know!" cried a pig-tailed girl in the front row.

  "Come on," the sergeant invited her out.

  The girl rushed around her desk and walked to the sergeant without taking her eyes off the globe. She put her index finger to her mouth and hesitated for a moment, then pressed her tiny index finger on the big green continent. "There sir, and the capital is Canberra."

  "Well done," said Sergeant Hackett. Mrs Pritchard smiled and nodded at her proud pupil. The girl stood there, basking in the praise, as well as the envy of her schoolmates, and chewed on one of her pigtails.

  "Okay Emma, go back to your seat," whispered Mrs Pritchard.

  Once Emma was seated, Sergeant Hackett placed the globe back on the teacher's desk, and coughed to clear his throat before he spoke. "In the middle of the nineteenth century, a colony of wild rabbits was released into Australia to provide a good source of food and skins, but they multiplied faster than anyone had anticipated, and they rapidly ravaged the land set aside for the sheep and cattle to graze on."

  An epidemic of boredom broke out among the sergeant's captive audience. One boy gave an unashamed full yawn which was only partly stifled by his hand when Mrs Pritchard glared at him and gritted her teeth.

  Another boy in the front row was staring hard at the classroom's wall-clock, trying to accelerate the movement of its minute-hand to twelve by the sheer power of his thought.

  The sergeant continued, "Which just shows what can happen to a stable environment when a foreign animal invades it. That's why we want you to report the space vendors. I've got nothing against pets. I have a cat myself. His name' s Jasper."

  A girl at the front of the class raised her hands to her mouth and started sniggering at the mention of the name of the policeman' s cat.

  "Quiet now," said Mrs Pritchard to the giggling girl.

  The sergeant got a little distracted by the girl, but carried on. "But we know cat's aren't a hazard to anything."

  "They are to mice," said a quietly-spoken boy named Mohammed.

  The class started laughing.

  "Yeah, I know that, son," Hackett told the boy, "But seriously, if you're ever approached by anyone with a dubious-looking animal, always call the police."

  "I will, sir," said a prim and proper blond boy who intended to become a spaceport policeman himself one day.

  "You little grass," whispered a shaven-headed pupil seated at the back of the class.

  That night, an hour after his father had retired to bed, Danny sneaked out of the house and visited the creature's lair in the woods. He stood a few feet away from the hole that Higgledy had dug between the roots of the oak tree and called his pet's name. There was a faint rustling sound, then Higgledy emerged. It was bigger and broader than the night before. The giant insect rattled its shell and jumped up at Danny, warbling with excitement.

  "Good boy!" said Danny, forgetting that Higgledy wasn't male or female. "Calm down now.”

  Danny noticed that the beetle now had beautiful red polka dots all over its shell, and a small yellow diamond-shaped patch on its head, between its eyes.

  Higgledy crawled up the oak tree, tore off a small branch with its powerful pincer jaws, and dropped to the ground with a thud.

  "Careful now!" said Danny, alarmed. But the creature was evidently unharmed. It ran to him and dropped the branch at his feet.

  Danny smiled as he picked up the branch and threw it deep into the penumbral woodland, and Higgledy chased madly after it. As Higgledy went to fetch the branch, Danny looked skywards, through the branches of the trees, and was luck enough to spot a bright meteor streaking downwards out of the blackness. He wished upon it. He wished Higgledy could somehow stay here forever, and that Sergeant Hackett would change his mind.

  Higgledy returned with the branch. It threw it up into the air and caught it and shook it.

  "Oh yeah." Danny suddenly remembered he had something for the creature. He took a solid red rubber ball out of his pocket and bounced it once. Higgledy dropped the branch and watched the ball, fascinated.

  "Catch!" Danny tossed the ball to the beetle. It caught it in its mouthpart and swallowed it in one gulp.

  "No!" Danny protested, "You're not supposed to eat it!"

  The
creature lowered its antennae with guilt. It knew it had done something wrong by the tone of Danny's voice.

  "Oh, it's okay." Danny patted his pet's head. "How was you supposed to know, eh?"

  Higgledy tilted its head and blinked its golden sorrowful eyes at him.

  The sound of a twig cracking echoed through the woods. Out of the grey and blue shades, a tall silhouetted figure strutted towards Danny and the beetle. Danny stared at it in terror. Danny clicked on his torch and shined it at the figure. The stranger had a chromium face. It was a gamekeeper robot.

  "You are trespassing, " said the robot. Its speech was cold and accentless.

  "Run!" Danny shouted to Higgledy, but the creature stayed put. The robot ran after Danny and seized him by the arm.

  "Feel this, trespasser," the robot placed its palm on Danny's back and discharged a brief crackling surge of fifty-thousand volts into him. Danny screamed once and fell to his knees, unconscious.

  Higgledy's eyes turned blood-red, and let out a shrieking sound which made the robot turn around. The alien insect leapt onto the robot and tore into its neck with its powerful jaws.

  Under its carbon-fibre skull, the robot's computerized mind started to run its self-defence software. It thrashed about at the alien hanging from its neck, but no blow could dislodge the enraged creature. Higgledy continued to rip open the robot's hydraulic jugular tubes. In desperation, the gamekeeper robot placed its palm on Higgledy's thorax and discharged a bolt of high-tension electricity. The creature only shook slightly, but became more ferocious. Higgledy ripped out the robot's swivel neck-joint, and the metallic head toppled off its shoulders and swung about, held on by a sparking cable and a bunch of optical fibres.

  Danny came to. He opened his eyes and experienced a splitting headache. He saw Higgledy fighting the headless robot and cried out. "Higgledy!"

  The creature suspended its destructive assault and dropped from the robot, then ran over to Danny, whining. The gamekeeper robot took hold of its dangling head and tried to remount it on its twisted and torn neck-joint. Finding the task impossible, the robot held its head onto its shoulders with its hands and ran off. It suddenly dawned on Danny that the gamekeeper robot belonged to the neighbouring farmer, Mr Warlow, who owned the woodland. And according to Danny's father, Warlow was a rather nasty individual who was always looking for an excuse to make life harder for his neighbours.

  "We'd better get away from here," Danny got to his feet and watched the running figure of the gamekeeper robot receding into the distance, on its way to report tonight's incident to its master. Danny knew that this time he'd really done it.

  Higgledy warbled at Danny, relieved he was unhurt. "Stay here. I'll be back soon." Danny patted Higgledy on the head and trotted back to the farmhouse. He climbed through the kitchen window and crept up to his room to get his things together. Now he had no choice but to leave home.

  That morning at six, Mr Thurber was supervising two of his potato-picker robots when Farmer Warlow and two of his farmhands paid him a visit.

  "What do you want?" asked Mr Thurber, and he scowled, sensing trouble.

  "Last night, your son was trespassing on my land with an illegally imported alien creature that attacked my gamekeeper robot and almost destroyed it!" snarled Warlow. His three burly farmhands looked on menacingly. One was wielding a shotgun.

  "What?" Mr Thurber was shocked by the claims.

  "Don't play the innocent one with me, Thurber, Everyone around here knows your tricks."

  "What are you talking about?" Mr Thurber seemed puzzled by Warlow's statement.

  "You and your vegetarian mentality. Giving sanctuary to foxes, badges and hares, and now you're sheltering alien pests!" said Warlow, fuming. The two farmhands grunted in agreement.

  "Can you prove your allegation, that my son was trespassing?" asked Mr Thurber. "Beyond a doubt. The gamekeeper robot's video memory stored the whole incident. " said Warlow, grinning like the Devil himself.

  "It's a matter for the police now, then," said Thurber. "I'll give them a call and they can sort this out." He took his slim cellphone from his trouser pocket and was about to call the police, when Warlow suddenly intervened.

  "Wait! Look, damn the police! All they'll do is levy a fine, and it'll happen again and again until our livelihoods are ruined!" Warlow bawled. He knew that if he raised the matter with the police, they'd find out that the gamekeeper robot was fitted with a banned stunning device, and using such a device on a minor constituted a very serious crime.

  "Then what exactly do you want?" said Mr Thurber.

  "We want to know where you're keeping it." Warlow's dirty-grey eyes darted about suspiciously.

  "Keeping what?"

  "The alien. Where is it? If you don't tell us, we'll burn the farm to the ground," Warlow replied, and one of his farmhands nodded with a grim look in his deep-set eyes.

  "Get the hell off my land now, or I'll report you for threatening behaviour," Mr Thurber sincerely promised.

  "You'll report us? You won't get a chance," Warlow menacingly assured him. The farmhand lackey with the shotgun stepped forward and stood next to Warlow to await a command from him.

  Scarecrow approached, pushing a wheelbarrow full of organically-grown cabbages. When it saw Warlow and the farmhands, it stopped in its tracks, dropped the wheelbarrow and walked over to its master. Something in its neural-net circuits told the robot that all was not well.

  "If you're not off my land in ten seconds I'll call the police!" Mr Thurber warned his neighbour.

  Warlow turned to the armed farmhand and whispered. The farmhand responded by raising the double-barrelled linear-accelerator shotgun and blasting Scarecrow with both barrels. The magnetically-boosted blast destroyed half of Scarecrow's face including it's right eye, and the explosive impact sent the robot back six feet. It hit the ground and rolled with sparking wires trailing from the ripped plates of its face.

  Before Mr Thurber could react, the other farmhand was suddenly running towards Scarecrow. He had a crowbar in his hand, and he belted the motionless robot with it as it lay helpless on the ground. Mr Thurber jumped on the back of the cowardly farmhand and twisted his arm up his back.

  "Drop that bar you bastard! Drop it!" roared Farmer Thurber.

  The farmhand let out a cry, then dropped the crowbar, but when Mr Thurber looked around he saw that the other farmhand was inserting explosive-headed cartridges into the shotgun. Once reloaded, the shotgun clicked shut and was aimed at Mr Thurber. He had to think fast, or Danny would soon be an orphan.

  Mr Thurber swung the farmhand he had his arm locked around - and used him as a shield.

  "Don't shoot, you fool!" cried Warlow.

  "Put the gun down!" shouted Mr Thurber. But the farmhand refused to. He was confused.

  There was a terrifying silence. The farmhand with the shotgun suddenly lowered his weapon and stared at the horizon. Thurber followed his gaze and saw six police aircars in the distance approaching in a V-formation.

  Warlow turned and started to walk away. His subordinate farmhand lowered the gun and followed him. Thurber threw the other farmhand after them, then walked over to the inert robot and crouched over it to survey the damage. Scarecrow looked dead. The police aircars landed among the cornfield, and three helmeted men in bulletproof uniforms emerged from one of the vehicles and approached the farmer. It was Hackett with two officers.

  "Is your son home?" the sergeant asked Farmer Thurber.

  Thurber stood up and walked from Scarecrow's inert corpse. "Yes, he's still in bed, why?"

  "We received an anonymous call. One of the locals reported seeing him with the alien creature this morning, about three miles from here."

  "Impossible, he's still in bed," replied Thurber.

  "What happened to that?" said Hackett, noticing Scarecrow lying on the ground with his sparking innards.

  "One of Warlow's lackeys did it with a linear shotgun." said Mr Thurber. He glanced back at the dead robot and shook his h
ead.

  "Want to press charges?" said Hackett.

  "Er, no. It'd only lead to more trouble," the farmer reasoned.

  "So, Danny's still here?" queried Hackett.

  "Yes, he is." Mr Thurber nodded, then looked back at Scarecrow.

  "Er, could you just check again, Mr Thurber, and then I'll let you get back to your work?" Hackett asked.

  Mr Thurber led the three policemen to the farmhouse, where they waited in the hall while Mr Thurber checked his son's room. After a short while, the farmer came downstairs holding a note.

  "He isn't there. This was on the bed." Mr Thurber handed the note to Sergeant Hackett. The note read:

  Sorry Dad. I'll be back someday. Please don't worry about me. Bye.

  Hackett read the note then folded it and pocketed it.

  "What now?" said Mr Thurber.

  Hackett turned away and issued thoughts that were picked up by the sensors of his helmet, and those thoughts were encrypted, transmitted to the helmets of his officers, where they were decrypted, then reconverted into brain impulses that went straight into the audio cortex in the brains of the other two spaceport policemen. After this silent act of artificial telepathy, the two officers obeyed Hackett's thoughts, walked out of the farmhouse, and climbed into the aircar. Seconds later, the six police vehicles rose silently into the morning air and accelerated towards the south in delta formation.

  Danny had a plan; a ludicrous plan to the mind of an adult, but to Danny it seemed entirely feasible. All he had to do was make it to the spaceport, steal a spaceship and fly him and Higgledy into the sanctuary of deep space, Simple. He had read all the books on how spaceships were piloted; all the procedures, drills and navigational details. Should the ship crash onto some hostile unchartered world, he would be quite capable of survival - he read the ebook Space Cadet's Survival Handbook thoroughly almost every night, and he was more than prepared for the risky mission that lay ahead. He had his flask of polywater, a satchel crammed with his Dad's home-baked biscuits, foil-wrapped jam and peanut butter sandwiches, a can of beans, EternalLite torch, compass, and an ordnance survey map of the area.