Grailblazers. Part 9

Pertelope frowned. 'Well, I'm hardly suitable either, Lammo,' he replied. 'I mean, I'm not a woman, am I?'

Lamorak bit his lip. This was embarra.s.sing. 'It doesn't actually specify a woman,' he said, 'not as such. Just a ... Hold on, it's coming this way. Right then, action stations.'

'I still think . . .' Pertelope said, and he was still speaking as Lamorak crawled away over the sand and hid himself behind a large boulder.

Forty-five minutes can be a long time.

It wasn't, of course, a unicorn that they had been sent to get. If all they'd needed was a unicorn, they could simply have strolled into Harrods' or Bloomingdales' pet department and ordered one.

In other words, this was the easy bit.

'Stone the flaming crows,' exclaimed the unicorn, 'it isn't a b.l.o.o.d.y sheila after all.'

But by then it was too late; the noose, cast by Lamorak's well-practised hand, was already flying through the air. There was a brief struggle, some extremely colourful language from the unicorn, and it was all over.

'Quick,' Lamorak grunted, 'grab the rope while I get the chloroform. And watch out for that horn.'

Tommy b.a.s.t.a.r.ds,' snarled the unicorn, hurling its weight vainly against the rope. Pertelope dug his heels into the sand and strained backwards, while Lamorak emptied the bottle on to his handkerchief.

'You didn't tell me they could talk, Lammo,' he gasped. 'Just imagine that, a talking animal.'

As if to confirm his statement, the unicorn said something else. It was largely to do with how this particular unicorn's father had been right in his warnings about the extreme effeminacy of the English; and for all his naturalist's curiosity, Pertelope was quite relieved when Lamorak managed to stuff the handkerchief up its nose. Slowly, and still muttering imprecations under its breath, the unicorn sagged to the ground and pa.s.sed out.

'Well,' Lamorak said, 'we did it. Next time, though, we use a tranquilliser gun and the h.e.l.l with tradition.' He knelt down and set to work with the rope.

'Can I get out of these clothes now?' Pertelope said. He was bright red in the face, only partly as a result of his exertions.

'In a minute,' Lamorak snapped. 'Give me a hand over here first, quickly, before the blasted thing wakes up.'

Pertelope sighed and grabbed a length of rope. He wasn't sure that what they were doing wasn't a gross interference with a majestic wild animal in its natural habitat. He firmly disapproved of such things, along with zoos, circuses and leaving dogs in cars with the windows done up. 'Don't tie it so tight, Lammo,' he said at intervals, 'you'll hurt the poor thing.'

'Right,' said Lamorak at last, standing up and breathing heavily, 'we've done that. Now I suggest we have five minutes' sit-down and a rest.'

Pertelope brushed the dust off his skirts. 'After,' he said firmly, 'I've got out of these dreadful clothes.'

'Go ahead,' Lamorak replied. 'I'm just going to sit here and . . .'

Pertelope blushed furiously. 'I need you to unzip me,' he snarled.

'Sorry.' Lamorak hoisted himself to his feet again. 'This time, for pity's sake hold still. You nearly put my eye out with your hairclips last time, remember.'

But before he could make any further movement, a bullet hissed through the air, just missed his eyebrows and lifted Pertelope's hat off his head. The two knights remained where they were, standing very still indeed.

'Thtick 'em up,' said a voice somewhere behind their backs, 'or I'll blow your headth off.'

The Australian wilderness is a place of many strange and terrible noises. There's the unmistakable yap of the dingo, the screech of the kookaburra, the soft bark of the kangaroo, the rasping growl of the mezzo-soprano gargling with eggs beaten in stout-all these can be disconcerting, and to begin with, even terrifying. But there's one sound guaranteed to fill even the hardiest heart with fear and turn the brownest knees to water; and that's the sound of a hearty contralto voice singing: Onthe a jolly thwagman camped bethide a billabong Under the thade of a tumpty-tum tree . . .

over and over again, apparently through a megaphone. The repet.i.tion is attributable to the fact that the singer doesn't know the rest of the words. The amplification effect, on the other hand, is due to the large metal drum that covers the singer's head.

'Can we put our hands down now, please?'

'Thorry?'

Lamorak closed his eyes, and then opened them again. 'I said,' he reiterated, 'can we put our hands down now, please?'

'Oh. Yeth. Only nithe and eathy doth it, right?'

'Yeth. Yes. Sorry.' Lamorak lowered his arms experimentally, and ran quick checks over himself to discover whether he'd been shot yet. All clear. 'How about turning round?' he suggested.

There was a pause. 'Go on, then,' said the voice. It sounded like a cow at the bottom of a deep, steel-lined pit.

The proprietor of the voice looked at first sight like the after-effects of the sorceror's apprentice run riot in a breaker's yard. Starting from the top, there was a big round drum, with two tiny holes. Under that, unmistakably, what had once been the bonnet of a Volkswagen Beetle, before someone with a degree in design flair and enormous biceps had beaten it into a vaguely anthropomorphic shape with a big hammer. Two steel tubes stuck out from the sides at right angles, and there was a rust-mottled revolver at the end of one of them. Finally, two more tubes projected out from the underside and linked up with a pair of old-fas.h.i.+oned diver's boots.

'Ith either of you laughth, I thall be theriouthly angry,' it said.

Pertelope blinked. 'Excuse me,' he said, 'but why are you wearing those funny clothes?'

The ironmongery quivered slightly. 'Look who'th talking,' it replied.

'Please,' Lamorak said hastily, 'you mustn't mind my friend. It's just that he's an idiot, that's all.'

There was a dubious, rusty sound from inside the drum. 'You're thure that'th all?' it said. 'I mean, that ith a throck he'th wearing.'

Pertelope winced. 'There's a perfectly good reason-' he started to say, but a sudden pain in his foot, the result of Lamorak inadvertently stamping on it hard, cut him short.

'Anyway,' Lamorak said brightly, 'it's been very nice meeting you, and the very best of luck with whatever it is you're doing, but I'm afraid we've got to be getting along. Cheerio.' He started to walk purposefully towards the unicorn, but the muzzle of the revolver followed him.

'Not tho fatht,' said the ironclad. 'What're you two doing with that 'roo, anyway?'

The two knights looked at each other. 'That what?' Lamorak enquired.

'The kangaroo,' replied the voice from inside the drum. 'Come on, thpit it out.'

'Excuse me,' Lamorak said, in the very recherche tone of voice one uses when pointing out the blindingly obvious to a heavily-armed idiot, 'but strictly speaking, that's not a kangaroo.'

'It ithn't?'

There was something in the modulations of the voice that gave Lamorak the clue he'd been looking for. 'You're not from these parts, are you?' he said.

The ironmongery didn't reply; but it shuffled and clinked in such a way as to confirm Lamorak in his belief. 'Or this time, come to that,' he added slowly. 'You're from the future, aren't you?'

'Oh thit,' mumbled the ironclad. 'How did you know?'

Had Lamorak been truthful, he'd have replied that it was the logical conclusion when you came across someone who'd heard of kangaroos but didn't know what they looked like, and had the idea that in the Outback, the way to dress inconspicuously was to make up as Ned Kelly. Instead, he said, 'Lucky guess.'

Pertelope, meanwhile, had been doing a very good impersonation of a man swallowing a live fish. 'How do you mean, from the future?' he finally managed to say. Lamorak smiled.

'Allow me to introduce you,' he said. 'Sir Pertelope, this is the Timekeeper. Timekeeper, Sir Pertelope.'

For his part, Pertelope looked like someone who has just been told that the sun rises in the east because of horticulture. He furrowed his brows.

'Excuse me,' he said, 'but could somebody please explain what's going on?'

The Timekeeper shrugged - a gesture which would have been rather more elegant if it hadn't involved the movement of quite so much rusty sheet metal -and removed the iron drum to reveal a young, freckled and quite unmistakably female face; fourteen going on fifteen, at a guess, and with braces on her teeth.

'It'th all right,' she said, 'I'll ecthplain. I'm uthed to it,' she added. 'But thirtht, can I get out of all thith b.l.o.o.d.y armour?'

There was a confusing interval while she peeled off the metalwork. It was like watching a destroyer getting undressed.

'That'th better,' sighed the Timekeeper. She was now dressed in a scarlet boiler suit and silver trainers, and stood about five feet two in them. The revolver was still in her hand, but probably only because there wasn't anywhere to put it down that wasn't covered in sheet steel. 'I'm throm a thpathethip,' she said.

'I see,' commented Pertelope unconvincingly.

'It'th very thimple,' the Timekeeper went on, standing on one foot and ma.s.saging the other vigorously. 'There'thten of uth, and we were put into orbit in a time capthule travelling at just over the thpeed of light.'

'The Relativity Marketing Board,' Lamorak interrupted. 'It was the biggest scientific experiment ever attempted. Years ahead of its time,' he added.

'Yeth,'said the Timekeeper, bitterly, 'ecthept the thools went and them uth off in the wrong direction. Inthtead of going into the Thuture, we went into the Patht.'

'Sheer carelessness,' said Lamorak sadly. 'Somebody forgot to read the instruction manual, apparently.'

'And they thorgot to pack any thood,' the Timekeeper added, 'which meanth every tho ofen one of uth hath to take the ethcape capthule down to thome detherted thpot on the Thurthathe and forage for provithionth. Gueth whothe turn it wath thith time.'

Pertelope gave Lamorak a bewildered look. 'Haw do you know all that, Lammo?' he asked.

'Simple,' the knight replied. 'I met one of them - oh, two hundred and fifty years ago now, maybe more. Nat you,' he added to the Timekeeper, 'one of your, er, colleagues. He was about nine years old, with sort of carroty red hair.'

The Timekeeper nodded. 'That thoundth like Thimon,' she said. 'I'll warn him to ecthpect you.'

Pertelope was about to say 'But-' again, but Lamorak forestalled him.

'Our past is their future, you see,' he explained, 'so although I've already met - Simon, was it? Yes, I remember now - he won't meet me for another two and a half centuries, or whatever it is in his timescale. And of course, where we get older as time pa.s.ses, they get younger.'

The Timekeeper nodded. 'I wath thorry-thicth onthe.,' she said savagely, 'and now look at me. And having thethe thodding thingth on my teeth doethn't help,'

'It must be awful,' agreed Lamorak. 'Why don't you take them off and the h.e.l.l with it?'

'Becauthe,' the Timekeeper replied sadly, 'when I watlh thorry-thicth I had really thraight even teeth and no thillingth. Which meanth I've got to wear thucking bratheth and bruth three timeth a day, otherwithe it'll cauthe a temporal paradocth. It'th a real b.u.mmer.' She paused for a moment, as something jammed in her mind. 'Hold on,' she said. 'Haw can you have met Thimon two hundred and thithty yeartlh ago? You'd be dead by now.'

It was Lamorak's turn to sigh.

'Let me explain,' he said.

Not far away, a real kangaroo -one without golden hooves or a horn in the middle of its forehead -was bounding happily along, its mind occupied with the one great mystery which obsesses the consciousness of the species; to the extent that it has stopped them dead in their evolutionary tracks and prevented them from developing into the hyper-intelligent superlifeforms they would otherwise have become.

Namely; how come, no matter how careful you are about what you put in your pockets, in the end you always find two paperclips, a fluff covered boiled sweet and a small, worthless copper coin at the bottom of them?

It had just come to the conclusion that the Devil creeps up and puts them there while you're asleep, when a terrifying apparition shot up out of a hollow in the rocks, waved its arms and grinned fearfully. The kangaroo stopped dead in midhop, landed awkwardly, and twisted its ankle. The force of the landing jerked a s.h.i.+rt b.u.t.ton and a sc.r.a.p of peppermint wrapper out of its pouch, and the wind bore them away.

The monster advanced, slowly and with infinite menace. Behind it, a man with a camera and another with a big taperecorder put their heads up above the escarpment. The monster was talking, apparently to itself.

'These spectacular creatures,' it was saying, 'the world's largest true marsupials, hounded by mankind to the verge of extinction in some parts of the Outback. . .'

The kangaroo cowered back on to its hind paws and raised its forepaws feebly; whether to make a show of aggression or to hide behind them was far from clear. The monster continued to advance.

'And now,' it was saying. 'I'm going to try and get in close to the kangaroo, and if we're really lucky we might for the first time ever be able to show you...'

The kangaroo tried to move; but completely without success. It fought the urge to grin feebly and wave into the camera with every fibre of its being. It failed.

'The largest species - Barry, can you zoom in on the little b.u.g.g.e.r's head please - the largest species of kangaroo, the Red, can leap twenty-five feet at a single bound and clear objects six feet high,' said the monster. 'I'm going to see if I can get close enough for you to see in detail . . .'

The spell broke. With a shrill bark of terror, the kangaroo launched itself into the air, twisted frantically round and bounded away, pursued by strange and distinctly unfriendly cries from the monster. Only after half an hour's high-speed bounding did it stop, crouch down and drag breath into its heaving lungs.

And then stiffen in cold despair; for just behind its shoulder it could hear the sound of human breathing, and that terrible voice, saying: 'And if we're extremely quiet, we might just be able Kieron, if you scare the b.u.g.g.e.r this time I'll make you swallow your polariser - we might just be able to get a glimpse of its...'

A single ma.s.sive jump might just reach the edge of that rock over there, but why bother? There was clearly no point.

With a soft, despairing cough, the kangaroo turned, faced the camera and waggled its forepaws, hating itself almost to death.

'Let'th get thith thtraight, thall we?' said the Timekeeper, after a long, long pause. 'You're really ecthpecting me to believe that you're a pair of Arthurian knighth on a quetht to find an ap.r.o.n?'

'Yes.I 'Fine.' A sharper than usual pair of eyes would have seen her suspended disbelief bobbing for a moment above her head before drifting away on the breeze. 'And that'th what you need the tied-up horthe for?'

'The horthe?'

'Horthe, yeth.'

'Oh I see, the horse.' Lamorak scratched his head. He was hot, tired, confused, overdosed to the eyebrows with tinned peaches and dying of toothache. He didn't really want to do any more explaining just at the moment. 'It's not a horse,' he said, 'not as such.'

Just then the unicorn woke up, struggled ineffectually in its bonds, and embarked on a stream of invective.

'Hey,' said the Timekeeper, 'the horthe jutht thaid thomething.'

'Yes, only it isn't a-'

'Listen, you b.a.s.t.a.r.ds,' screamed the unicorn. 'Tell that flamin' Sheila that if she calls me a b.l.o.o.d.y horse just one more time, then so help me-'

Pertelope, showing more intelligence than anyone would have given him credit for, grabbed a sugar-lump and slapped it into the unicorn's mouth. The tirade broke off abruptly, and was replaced by a crunching sound.

'If it's not a horthe,' whispered the Timekeeper, 'then what ith it?'

Lamorak sighed. 'It's a unicorn,' he said. 'Satisfied?'

'Oh.'

'And now, we've got to get on with what we were doing, and I'm sure your colleagues are getting very hungry up there in orbit, so. . .'

'What do you need a unicorn for?'