chapter forty

There was no teleport, no matter‑transmitter, no instantaneous people‑mover. There was, however, a very large parachute and it was on this that the spaceship floated, ignominiously, down through the planet's atmosphere. The ship landed, quite gently, on a lawn of purple grass, not far away from a group of tree‑like structures. The view through the window was soon obscured when the parachute caught up with its cargo.

"This is definitely not my dream," said Andrew grumpily, "it's pathetic; purple grass and trees with square leaves and square trunks. No, this is the product of a very limited imagination."

"Well make up your mind," said Alice, "either you thought of it or you didn't."

"What should it be like then?" said Alex.

"Well, I don't know, really weird, really way‑out, really different," said Andrew, waving his arms about for no apparent reason.

"Oh, I dig where you're coming from, man," said Alex, doing a passable imitation of someone with very long hair and a flower behind their ear, "you mean more psychedelic and less square."

"Exactly," said Andrew, "we should be gasping in amazement."

"I'm gasping for a drink," said Alice, "will that do?"

Andrew ignored her, took off his safety belt and paced angrily up and down the cabin.

"I don't have any refreshments," said Alex, "I'm thirsty too - I guess that means I'm low on fuel."

"I suppose we'd better go out and find some square meals," said Andrew cheering himself up, "what's the atmosphere like?"

"How should I know," said Alex indignantly, "why don't you go out and take a sniff?"

"Well open the hatch and I will, I suppose that this pitiful excuse for a spaceship does have a way to get in and out?"

"Yes, there's a hatch in the floor."

"Okay then, open up."

"Well there is a slight problem there, in the excitement of landing I forgot to put the legs down, so, you see, the ship is resting on the hatch."

"So we're trapped,"

"No, no, not at all, under the curtain, on the left hand side, is a hammer, you can use it to smash the window."

"It makes you wonder what high‑technology will come up with next," said Andrew as he swung the hammer into the glass pane.

"Ouch," said Alex as the glass shattered.

Andrew tore away the silk parachute which had flopped over the window and kicked out the pieces of glass which remained around the window frame. Alice, who had been cowering behind a chair, joined him at the window. They both sat on the window's edge and prepared to jump the short distance to the ground.

"This is one small jump for a man," misquoted Andrew.

"But a piece of cake for a woman," interrupted Alice as she jumped down to the surface.

"Spoil sport," laughed Andrew as he landed on the spongy purple grass.

"Aliens!" shouted Alice pointing towards the sky.

"In a helicopter," said Andrew scornfully.

But Andrew was pleasantly surprised when, as the object drew closer, he discovered that what he had thought was a helicopter was, in fact, a creature in its own right.

Take an orange, blow it up to the size of a large beach‑ball. Take a dolphin's flipper, stretch it until it is six feet long, stick it in the top of the orange and spin it very quickly. Take four coconuts and attach them to the base of the orange so that they form a square. Take the arms of a baby, fix a boxer's hand to each one and then put the arms on either side of the orange. Paint the whole thing grey. Draw a mouth, almost as wide as the orange, and two big round eyes on the front - be sure that the eyes, mouth and hands are all facing in the same direction. Add a rucksack at the back. What you have, after all that, is something similar to the thing which had just landed a few metres from Andrew and Alice.

The creature rolled across the lawn on its coconuts, its flipper, now limp, dragged along behind. It came to a halt in front of Andrew and grinned broadly - of course it's hard not to grin broadly when your mouth is almost as wide as your face.

"Um er ... Greetings," said Andrew and held up the palm of his hand, as if he was talking to a red‑Indian.

The creature turned to look at Alice.

"Uh ... Hi there," said Alice.

The creature rolled its eyes.

"What now?" said Alice.

"Well, er, we have to work out some way of communicating with it."

"Oh very shrewd, well you're the Captain - communicate."

Andrew stroked his chin thoughtfully, shrugged his shoulders and pointed to the sky. "Hi," he said hopefully.

"Planet come to our well," said the creature in a high staccato voice.

"Er what?" said Andrew.

"People of the official peace greet me as my representative let you in," said the creature formally.

"Well it sounds encouraging," said Alice, "whatever the hell it means."

"You try something," said Andrew.

"Have you got anything to drink?" she asked and mimed drinking from a cup.

"Desire shall be anything if yours shall drink you then you are you thirsty," the creature rummaged in the rucksack for a while and then produced a bottle of clear liquid, which it tossed to Alice.

"It seems to understand us, even if we haven't a clue what it's on about." Alice removed the cork from the bottle, sniffed the contents suspiciously, and then took a swig.

"What does it taste of?"

"Juice a gin between a mint it's a hint with orange of sort and of mixture," explained Alice.

"Don't do that," said Andrew, "this thing is probably studying the way we speak, you'll really screw it up if you start talking gibberish."

But Alice ignored him; she was too busy - growing a flipper from the top of her head, developing four coconut wheels, and turning grey.

"Now look what you've done," said Andrew angrily to the creature.

The creature reached into its rucksack and produced a large pair of false teeth which it slipped into its mouth. The addition of the jagged razor‑sharp teeth completely changed the creature's appearance. Gone was the funny little good‑natured alien; in its place was a slavering, mad‑eyed, flesh‑hungry monster.

"I'm afraid to eat the formalities now that are over, I will have you" said the creature with difficulty, its dentures seemed fractionally too large.

Andrew was unable to understand the words, but the tone of voice made the intention unpleasantly clear. He looked at Alice, who was now indistinguishable from the creature, she gnashed her incisors as if in preparation for a particularly grisly meal.

Andrew turned and fled back towards the ship, but as he drew closer it began to undergo its own metamorphosis, the gaping window turned into a gaping mouth. He changed direction and ran towards the trees, glancing over his shoulder he could see Alice and the alien trundling after him. A line of eight grey aliens dropped out of the sky, blocking his path to the trees, they advanced on him jabbering incomprehensibly. The words, individually recognizable, when combined, became an utterly meaningless phrase, and seemed to be more threatening than the chattering teeth. Andrew clamped his hands over his ears and sprinted for the only gap in the, rapidly closing, circle of creatures.

On reaching the trees he ran erratically, twisting and turning to avoid the branches and trunks, the square leaves scratched and tore at his hands and face, unnoticed roots and stones caused him to stumble and trip, but not once did he dare to look back.

Finally the pain in his lungs performed a coup d'état on his fear and he collapsed, gasping, to the ground.

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