At the Mountains of Cuteness

8/14/2019 At the Mountains of Cuteness

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At The Mountains Of Cuteness

Being a H.P.Lushcraft tale, transcribed and edited by Simon Barber.

It is not without great hesitation that I break my self-imposed vow ofsilence, and put before the world at last the true facts, as far as Iwitnessed them, of the Grimslaithe-Nakajawa Expedition of '34, fromwhich I alone returned. And it was not wholly ficticious, the loss of

memory which I claimed before the investigating team and the relativesof those who had left the English shores with me three months before ...a fractured skull was my own souvenir, and it was long before more thanhazy outlines of those final hours returned to mind.

Even now, I would keep my silence, preferring to forget foreverwhat I now recall with such hideous clarity. But from Asgarth Universitythere are solid plans being made for another expedition ...... and theywill be heading into the same peril, if they follow our route. To theirleaders, I beg publicly, avoid those deadly waters, if you value yoursouls and your sanity ... for lives are the very least of what stand tobe lost, if you enter there !

But I must start at the beginning, with the facts and eventsthat can be proven, if I hope to convince those brave, foolish

explorers. There was a time when I was as brave myself, before my nervewent, and as for foolish - I was not merely ignorant, but worse, Iclosed my eyes to events I should have noted, and refused to drawconclusions that might have saved my sanity and my companions' lives. Itall seems so long ago, now - but the calendar counts only sixteen monthsbefore any of it began. My snout was free of any trace of white fur,back then.

It was a telephone call that began it for me, as I returned homelate one evening. I had been working late at the University, in thefinal days of my postgraduate course in Practical and Applied Theology.There was just one interview to write up, and a dozen e-prayers still tobe sent off in thanks, and the final draft would be complete.

"Glad I could catch you at last, me old hound !" I recognizedthe booming tones of Huddesworth Senior, one of my class who had alsostayed on, though in the PseudoScience department. "Got a vacancy comingup, I thought you might be interested. Professor Grimslaithe's littleboating trip out West, seafloor surveys for a couple of months. They'vehad a couple of folk drop out at the last minute - are you in ?"

My eyes fell on the calendar, with two dates underlined in red.The next week, when my final paper had to be in - and the end of themonth, when my grant funding ran out. One of those dates I could facewithout worries, but the other -

"Count me in," I nodded to the phone, my tail thrashing happily."I'll be round first thing tomorrow with my toothbrush packed!"

Of course, things took rather longer than that. Huddesworth hadthought of me for the crew due to my handiness with improvised machinery- the previous year I had won the Heath Robinson Scholarship by buildingthe most eye-catching, nitro-burning dragster unicycle to ever pulltwelve "g" straight off the start line. Persuading the actualorganisers that they wanted me, was another matter, and it was the dayafter my last paper was handed in that I was accepted, and learnedexactly what I had volunteered for.

"Undersea mapping," I blinked as I stood on the harbour ofAsgarth town,looking through the expedition plans with Mr. Grike, fromthe Vague Engineering department. "But ... surely that's all been done ?


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Both ways, from the top down and the native maps upward." I noddedgreetings to Cth'Rhy'Gac Junior, as the handsomely squamous philosophyprofessor climbed out of the harbour. A world-renowned leader in hisarea, he was never out of his depth. A deep one, certainly.

"Aha..." Mr. Grike tapped his own tusked boar-snout, turning towave at his icthyitic colleague. "That depends. Most of the basic workthat surface-dwellers could do, certainly was finished before theMilennium, and then of course after that we had access to first-hand

accounts. But - there's a few parts that .... weren't ON the sea floorthen." He opened up the chart to show where he meant, and I winced. Notlong after the Milennium, following the newly discovered Cup-HandlePrinciple of geological instability, various "Sticking-out bits" of thecontinents had broken off and fallen into the ocean.

For a few seconds we both stood there by the harbour wall,somehow feeling slightly chilled despite the Spring sunshine. All aroundus, was the normal routine of the town and harbour, peaceful right outto sea where a heavy swell showed something huge was undulating justbeneath the surface. A mile-long tentacle waved cheerfully on thehorizon, and the feeling passed.

The boar coughed. "Actually, we've been asked to investigate thewhole area - here." He pointed on the map. "It seems there's still a lot

of geological activity, with some very strange sea-mounts reported froma distance. The local .... government want us to map it out thoroughlybefore any of them swim over and take a look. Surface-dwellers only onthe active team."

I nodded, a little relieved. It made perfect sense - in thegeneral run of events, none of the expedition members would expect tosee their fourteenth decade - I knew, as we all did, how much more interms of centuries Cth'Rhy'Gac Junior and his relatives stood to lose ifa dangerous expedition went wrong. (The University had needed tointroduce a new category of "Mature Student", to cope with those whowere only 2 percent into their expected life-spans, but still couldlecture on most of recorded history as seen first-hand.)

"So, we're going for a bit of underwater sight-seeing ? " I

looked at the expedition outline, and my ears raised in surprise. "It'sscheduled to experiment with using ice-dam techniques, in the open ocean? I've heard of that ... freezing a caisson of ice all the way to theocean floor and pumping the water out .... that'll need a hell of aship to provide that much refrigerating power !"

Clint Grike's rock-solid features split in a stony grin. "Won'tit just. One hell of a ship."

It was Barnstoneworth who filled me in on the details, as weretired to the pub that evening, the Eurocrat's Head. The tavern wasold, comfortably so .... I noticed three of the Historical Architecturestudents in the corner, textbooks out, arguing over the date of a well-preserved leatherette coffee-bar. All around us was history, some of it

dating back to the fabled 1960's era ... rumour had it that a band ofghouls exploring deep in the sub-basement had once come across a realaluminium barrel for pressurising ale.

I looked around the room, drinking in the familiar sights - theupper floor was new, having been gutted in a firefight with armouredassault units of the Salvation Army just before the Liberation ten yearsago - but down here, things looked much as they had done for merrilyEldritch centuries.

"Cheers ! Eh, but it'll be good to see the sights a bit." Thegreat bristling badger set two brimming pint tankards down. "I've beenhere ten years, like, time for a change. And ..." he looked around,


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taking in the memento-packed room, the air rich with hops and the sharpscents as pints of absinthe were poured out, " it's a bit o' historythat'll be taking us out there, an' all. A Macro-ship, that's what we'vefound, left ower from the War .... enough of it left to salvage, forwhat we want."

I almost choked on my ale. "A Macro-Ship ? There's one survivedin one piece ... and they just let us Have it ? HOW ?" For I had onlyonce seen one, the size of a small town on tracks, far off on the

horizon in the final days of the EC Liberation, heading south towardsthe nightmare land that our ancestors had shudderingly called Belgium.

He chuckled, his sharp teeth gleaming. "For this trip, like, youmight say we've got friends of Influence, who want to see it gosmoothly. Friends in high places, 'cept they're down there at the fivetonnes per square inch level, like. And .... you might say, it needs alittle ... work on it, to get it going."

How much work, and the scale of the problem in every sense, Ifound out the next weekend. There were twenty or so of us on thequayside, looking out into the rain-swept drizzle that faded into greyevening out to the East, where we strained our eyes every few minutes.Suddenly one of the engineers, a white cat in a fluorescent yellow

boiler-suit that would probably show up from orbit, pulled off hispocket stereo and grinned around at us, whiskers twitching.

"Got a neutrino detector patched into the left channel," hetapped the pocket-sized box smugly. "Someone's running a reactor outthere, or I'm an ape-descendant. Take a listen."

The box was passed around us eagerly, and we had to agree. TheBulky Disc was still running in one ear, one of the "neo Prog-Rock"albums that modern digital recordings have made so popular, allowing thebands to explore musical frontiers involving eleven-hour guitar or evendrum solos. But in the other ear, there was a slow, random ticking asultimately tiny particles passed through the world's mass unhinderedtill they met the "Virtual V " of the detector's force-field. Swingingthe set, I stared out with the rest of us to the rolling fogbanks of

the North Sea, where something was definitely fissioning its waytowards us.

Half an hour later, our thoughts of damp fur and freezing pawswere forgotten. The wind had sprung up in sudden squalls, just as thelast of the light touched the moors and altar-stones high above Asgarthtown behind us. And there, suddenly churning through the grey waterstowards us, was a quarter of a million tonnes of sentient armouredfighting vehicle, its wrap-round tracks each the width of an autobahn,driving straight out of the pages of History and onto our dockside !

There was a massed sigh, and night-vision glasses were raised asmore of it came out of the cloaking fogbank, its grey-black armouredbulk blending into the darkening horizon. And then someone coughednervously, and passed the glasses around. From the first we had seen of

it, I had thought there was something .. strange about it, apart fromthe tracks rotating in the "wrong" direction, slowing it for a dockingrather than an overrun attack on Asgarth.

I saw the cat in the yellow suit wince, as he stared out at ourclass project. He handed me the glasses, and I could read the name"Eckingthwaite" on his nametag.

"It's something like a Class Twenty-Six, as far as I can tell,"he murmured. "At least... it might have been, before someone was ....Unkind to it."

The next morning, I stood aboard our new home as it lay aground


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at low tide, still three hundred metres offshore. This was the lastsurviving fragment of "I" deck, four turrets leaning out over the deeplyscarred glacis plate that sloped down into the choppy Spring waters someeighty metres below.

"Not a lot left of the upperworks." Clem Eckingthwaite, thefeline I had met the day before, carefully set up a laser theodolite."There was J and K decks above where we're standing, as this was firstbuilt. But .... we're not sure what happened to them. In fact, we're

not sure about any of this ship .... no documentation, and .... itlooks .... all wrong. It's one of ours, a macro-ship, but .. thestyle."

I nodded, for I had surveyed the rear decks, and found traces ofDimensional Shearing. This vessel had been fought to a standstill in thewar against the EC, as its huge scars still showed. Thousands of tonnesof mass were .... missing, in no sane pattern : evidently it had beencaught by a near-miss from a Psychotronic Bomb. I voiced my suspicions,and Clem's ears drooped.

"I ... can't see how it would have survived at all, a targetthis size. Not unless - unless it'd been in action right at the end,when we'd overrun most of their Summoning sites ... by then, they hadto fire from the far side of the territory they'd got left. Did you ever

see one of those ? I did. Or, I saw what was left of it ... the energyrelease takes a sort of arc outside Space, a bit like a hyperspatialmortar. Shorten the range, and eventually you're pointing the thingalmost straight up .. one miscalculation, and it drops down the back ofyour neck."

There was a silence between us, though in the background I couldhear a portable set tuned to Radio Liechtenstein's most popularwavelength - no adverts, no Disc Jockeys, just good honest Yodellingtwenty-four hours a day, Every day.

Clem's ears picked up a little at the refreshing sound, and hisexpression was more puzzled than horror-struck.

"That explains the back hull.... all the turrets must have beenblown apart like a street-mime. But ... I've studied these vessels, and

..... I can't quite put my paw on it, but.... " he shook his headworriedly. "There's something very Different about this one."

For eight weeks we laboured, exploring and renovating.Fortunately, all macro-ships has been designed to carry on despitemassive damage: far from "restoring" it, half our work was more likepeeling off layers, onion-fashion, till we reached the less damagedcore. Three trips we made to the Dogger Bank in the middle of the NorthSea, to dump the larger pieces we had stripped off onto the artificialreef the fisheries trade were building.

"Only thing you can do with it, really..." it was Clint Grikewho spoke, as we watched the three-hundred tonne slab that had roofed Hdeck's #23 turret, vanish with a huge splash into the cold grey waters.

"At least, it's non-polluting ... just processed igneous rock, don'tyou know, laser-fused. These ships pretty much build themselves.... getthe first reactors and the Helm up and running, and all you need to dois point it at a mountain you can do without. No way could you spare theresources to make something this size out of metal."

"The Helm ?" I queried "I've heard the other folk saying theycouldn't find it anywhere. What is it - some kind of computer ?"

He sat down, the spray glittering like jewels in his fur as helooked out over the flat expanse of ersatz volcanic glass that would beour final roof, "G" deck being the first truly repairable level we hadfound. The boar stared moodily at the tracked engineering vehicles in


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the far distance, and waved for me to join him."Maybe I'm starting to romanticise things in my old age," he

looked out into the hungry waves. "But .... these vessels aren't likeany other machines. The size and complexity of its control systems andprocessors ... everything having to be routed in triplicate andquadruplicate, no single vital spot on the whole ship....." He brokeoff, and looked at me strangely.

"When they built the first of these, they found out what you get

if you link enough autonomous, intelligent units together, and programthem to constantly reconfigure themselves, ready to take damage andcarry on. The ship .... lives. Not in the way some folk had thought ..it's not the sort of intelligence you can hold a conversation with. Butit lives, like maybe a coral colony .. no, more like a city, an oldcity that grew up to suit itself. The Helm was the main control device..... that's what we can't find. Oh, we can control it - if you meansteering it around the place, that's been done. Somebody's been herebefore us, and ... put in overrides, we can patch into those. Funny,the way they had to do that."

He stared out over the chill grey waters, and would say no more.

Another two weeks passed, fourteen days of hard labour, threeshifts a day of the intricate work of getting the Macro-ship ready toface the Ocean. I recall little more than a blur of climbing throughductwork, tracing leads and setting endless patch panels to link theancient, decade-old electronics with our own systems. At least the drivereactors had survived, or the task would have been hopeless ... thoughthey were solid-state coolantless affairs, each one buried in a block ofAsawa-Zarkov thermocouple compound, transforming the simple fissioncore's heat direct to electrical drive for the huge tracks and thewater-jets that drove it afloat. They were on B deck, far below thewaterline .... but what was below them on the very keel of the ship wassealed off, the access doors welded shut with ten-centimetre armourplate. Pressure gages assured us that any leaks would be inward, not

out."What's down there, had better stay there," Clem Eckingthwaite

winced visibly when I queried him about it. "For what we need, the Bdeck groups will provide quite enough power ... what's down there onmost designs is the weapons systems reactors."

I must have blinked, for he looked at me pityingly. "Believe me,you don't want to be in there. That's not a nice clean solid-statesystem, or even a liquid-sodium design ... I'm cleared to work onthose. On "A" deck they never had mortal crew, just the maintenancerobots who were sealed in and left there ... there's several boiling-potassium reactors, hundreds of tonnes of pressurised liquid metal downthere. It's all cold and solid right now ... I don't think there'sanybody left who even knows how to re-start one of those things. For

which we can be grateful."That night, I worked late, and missed the ferry hovercraft back

into town. There would be an hour or so until it returned with theevening shift, and I found myself alone, with just the great echosringing in the ship's corridors, a kilometre long, for company.Shouldering my toolkit, I followed the ancient tyre tracks down the longexpanses of lonely metal. Once this vessel had hummed with life, withpurpose ..... its thousand-strong crew and its almost-living onboardsystems keyed to desperate pitch as it ground its way across the ECfederation's frontier, so that mortal life might endure against thatwhich the Eurocrats had summoned from pastel dimensions of fluffy


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horror.I stood, in the middle of the corridor, and closed my eyes for a

minute. There was the lonely sighing of wind through the hatchways, andin the far distance the cries of seabirds perched on the superstructure.The vessel seemed .... at peace, somehow, in the manner of an ancientcrumbling fortress ... those of its crew who had died, had gone down inbattle with their blood hot and their back-banners flying, and theirspirits feasted forever at Odin's long hall. Very different indeed to

many an area I had shudderingly hurried past on land, where the cordonedareas around sites of the EC's Political Correctness EnforcementCommunity Centres would be the psychic equivalent of cobalt-bomb cratersfor centuries to come.

A wry smile came to my face, as I stopped to critically examinethe new welding work on the electrical conduits and the fat, insulatedliquid-air ducts that cooled the weapons systems. The pub I should be inright now on the bustling Quayside of Asgarth town, was known as theEurocrat's Head for short .. but the full name on the licence read "DaFederalist Bastard Wiv 'Is Nut Ripped Orf An' A Gurt Bayonet StukInnit" - and according to Barnstoneworth (who had been in town justafter the Liberation), the original inn sign had not been a Painting.

"Well, Cheers, lad !" Toasted that very same badger, not tendays later, as we celebrated the ahead-of-schedule completion of ourtask. "All ready for sea, like ... just the supplies to finish loading,and we're off !"

It was a wild, windy night outside the taproom of the Eurocrat'sHead, where outside the bay we could see the riding-lights of The GoodShip Vengeance, as its rediscovered papers had named it. Enough powerand control had been restored to get the town-sized battle machine ready- its solid-state reactors had years of working power left in them evennow, and only the needs of its mortal crew remained to be filled. On thedockside, several hundred tonnes of frozen tripe, vindaloo paste andprocessed canned green mushy peas awaited calmer waters to be loadedaboard for the galley store rooms.

I nodded, raising my mug of ale. "To the Vengeance .. swordsturned into ploughshares .. or in our case, excavation trowels." Weraised our glasses and drank, our tails swishing in time to the music asa party of cheerful ghouls hunched around the jukebox selecting from thelatest Ungrateful Undead album.

Barnstoneworth's snout furrowed in concentration, as he followedmy gaze out into the blustery night, the air wet with spray and lowcloud.

"Eh, tha' finds Strangest things," he mused, tapping hisluggable dataTome, where an ancient Bulky Disc of data was spinningwheezily, "We didn't re-name t' ship, that's what it were called inservice ... but the Vengeance, isn't it's original name . After itsfirst major damage, it was re-named and re-fitted ... major-like. Which

explains a thing or two ... but not everything. It'd been abandoned forsix months after t' North Sea third campaign, a track blown off by anuclear mine, and left heeled right over in t' mud o' the Frisian islandof Sylt."

"Or perhaps in the Silt of the Island of Mudd ?" ClemEckingthwaite called out across the room. He and a dozen of theelectrical engineers had been celebrating all day with our RussianExchange students around a portable Field Altar to Stakhanov, PatronSaint of Industrial Overachievers. It looked as if the RussianUnorthodox Church had made a few converts that day.

Barnstoneworth glared at the cat, who was demonstrating to his


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"I'm coming with you," her tail swished menacingly, and I sawhalf a dozen sets of ears and tails behind her droop like falling trees."There's something strange about this whole mission, and I intend tofind out what !"

Suppressing a groan, I bought us all the next round, recallinghow ten years before, buying a person of the opposite sex a drink hadbeen a criminal offence under the Pro-social Homogenisation EnforcementDirectives #4533778 to #4533986 bis, whether or not they had wanted or

even asked for one. Hesitating as I looked back at the table, I orderedtwo more pints of Kreakstones and a carafe of Amerretoni for Phoebe.That was another well-remembered taste of hers I had not shared.

Barnstoneworth's nose twitched as I set the tray down on thetable. "Amerretoni,", he looked on, his muzzle wrinkling, eyebrowsraised. "The most far-reaching export from that part of the world sinceSoya Substitute. An expensively priced, yet unpleasant, experience, itmanages to combine an authentic eighteenth century recipe with the up-to-date flavour of something bootlegged by bored engineers in an EasternBlock oil refinery."

The vixen gave one of those special grins that could damageexposed electrical circuitry, as she raised her glass of the blue, oily-looking liquid. "Cheers ! Last chance we'll have for awhile .... on

board, there'll only be the usual half-a-pint of rum in our dailyrations." She looked over at the engineers, and her ears dipped."Weapons crew and reactor personnel get two-thirds of a pint nominal, ofcourse, scaled up or down to their body mass."

For a few minutes there was a reflective silence .... somethingwith an albedo of about .85, my training told me. Then I noticed Phoebeleafing through her contract, the same commercial class as mine. My earsmust have raised a little at the sight - for she waved the papersdepreciatingly.

"I need the money too, you know..", she sniffed. "The ConspiracyStudies Department won't fund my new project .. I'm having to get itresearched and printed privately." She leaned over and looked aroundthe bar, conspiratorially. "I've got a hot lead on this story, that's

going to blow holes in History as we know it. There's this pile of oldsongs I found, recordings from the early 1960's, mostly ... I don'tthink anyone can ever have analysed them properly. As soon as Anyonesets foot on any sort of transport ... motor-cycle, car, aircraft ...chances are they're dead before the last verse. Scale that up with theknown traffic levels of the time ....." She looked across at me, hereyes gleaming, ears pricked up. "It must have been ten times worse thanthe Plague, the Black Death and the Los Angeles Ebola, rolled into one...... and not only do the official records overlook it totally, but ...." her grin was triumphant "I've talked with old folk who must have beenamongst the handfull of survivors .... their minds have been wipedcompletely, every single memory of the events removed ! Now, that's whatI call Proof." She sat back, her arms folded, and emitted what my

grandfather's pre-computer games would have described as a (Grin + 6,Save Vs. Gaze Weapon). "Probably masterminded by a loose association ofthe Bavarian and Wurtemburger Illuminati, the Wilfriedian Society ofGugnunks, and the last desperate survivors of the Sigue Sigue SputnikFan Club."

Barnstoneworth's muzzle twitched resignedly. I exchanged asympathetic glance: it was not my choice of company to take into thehowling wilderness, far from the cheerily bright altar-fires of our ownyodelling civilisation. He nodded towards the corner, and I followed himthere, to where the pub's games machines flashed and bleeped.

He looked over at me, and edged behind a NanoBall game being


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played by a Slow Lorris and a transonic-in-a-dive Lemur. The lights ofthe display twinkled in his eyes, as the players' Five-a-side nanobotteams earnestly kicked a BuckminsterFullerite carbon molecule around atransistor playing field forged from a chunk of old 1586 DX processor.

"It's a good thing they've got the traditional launchingceremony sorted out for the Vengeance," he gave a wry grin, one ear upand the other down. "Much better than wasting a champagne bottle, tha'knows... our Reverend caught one o' them Sociologists hiding out in

Australia, and us Ministry of Certain Things was kind enough to gi' 'imower to us. They'll stake him out in front of the tracks first thingtomorrow, before we roll."

In the corner of the room, I spotted our local Vicar, theReverend Archibald "Machete and Hammer-Job" Naismith, earnestlyexplaining something to our flag officers. We had wanted him to comealong, but he had been impressed by what he had seen on his antipodeantrip, and was joining the full-time watch for dimensional invaders inthe area of Australia's Ramsey Street public open-air nuclear testingrange.

I sighed with relief, looking around the room. It was a goodthing these days that our Vicars could relax a little, as spacetimerecovered from the pounding it had taken in the EC war, where so many

Psychotronic bombs were used that the area around Brussels was stillslightly fractal even now. "Well, at least that's One thing sorted - aproper sendoff. I have a feeling we'll need all the good luck we canget."

Grey Atlantic swell stretched in all directions eleven dayslater, as we got under way after a morning's halt. It had been a goodtrial run for the landing-tanks that we had found coocooned againstcorrosion on "D" deck: the little ninety-tonne runarounds we hopedwould prove useful in the unsettled area we were headed for.

Slipping below the horizon was the giant Mid-Atlantic memorial

marker that had been put there after the Liberation of Europe hadallowed the various nations to set their affairs in order.

Clem Eckingthwaite looked into of the ElectroEpiscope, thesynthtic-aperture porthole that was our only outside view from where welaboured below decks, fine-tuning number Eighteen starboard reactor.The cat's tail swished.

"Heh. There we go, past the midpoint. Forty-one degreeslongitude, latitude thirty .. bang on course. You should have come withus, paid our respects ! Monument to common-sense, that, where they letthe Fifty-first Staters decide which way they really wanted to go. It'sTraditional, to show our respect .... all the ships coming this waystop over."

I shook my head. Just because there was nobody left back home

who affected a mid-Atlantic accent or culture, was no reason to preservethe memory of such things. "Well, dropping them here and letting themswim either direction they wanted, was a good way of getting them tofinally making their minds up, even if it was a bit final..... didyou have a fun trip over ?"

There came a feline grin. "I'd say so. I won eight shillingsbetting against Phoebe ... she was sure that big Wolverine marinesofficer could hold out till we got there to pay our "respects" on themonument, but I'd seen how much water he'd been swallowing to get ready... and a kilometre trip in a small landing-tank over those seas ....Oh dear."


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I looked around, glad the Vengeance's huge size damped out eventhe long ocean swell. My own cabin was a small windowless section in thedepths of D deck, which still smelt sickeningly of explosives after allthese years - and despite it being handy for the kitchens and bathrooms,I was resolved to find a better one. Directly above me were the greattank hangars of E deck, currently home to a Girl Scout regiment we weretransporting to Bermuda - and the sound of joyriding main battle tankspulling handbrake turns was a little loud at times. They were a cheerful

but boisterous lot - their leaving party at Asgarth had resulted in ahigh-spirited artillery duel and the burning down of The Tentacle AndFirkin, the main rival to the Eurocrat's Head.

Clem's tail swished, and his whiskers twitched as he lookedalong the great slab which had once been the floor of F deck. In thedistance, a "step" of F deck itself had been left intact, looking likethe bridge of one of the giant tankers of old. His eyes were suddenlytroubled.

"You haven't been..... working overtime, down there ?" He askeduncertainly. "Things have been .. altering, and I've talked with abouteveryone else."

I shrugged, reminding him of the workload that we had agreed on.It was a hard life, below decks ... handling hollow charge explosives

and thermite charges which were about the only rapid way of"remodelling" the tough, siliceous composite the ship's structure wasextruded from. "If it wasn't for the double rum ration, we'd havetrouble enough getting through the work as it is. No, I'm notmoonlighting on this trip."

He nodded, slowly. "Maybe it's nothing. But, you know, one thingI've got is an eye for detail. I used to work in the holidays for anarchitect, before my Asgarth course started ... restoring executivestudio flats and second homes into working field barns and dockwarehouses. You get to .... notice when things have - shifted round,even if it's only just a bit. It's not that I'm complaining ... but Ikeep finding wiring routes altered, circuits changed .. and my team'snot done it."

"Sabotage ?" My ears must have pricked up. "I heard there'sanother University who were turned down for this mission .. maybethey're ..."

But he shook his head. "I'd have reported that. It's something -stranger. When I test the systems that look .. a bit odd, they work.And a couple of the heavily damaged ones - well, I can tell you, wedidn't know how to fix them !"

Night fell, and after our usual communal meal of curried tripeand chapatti bread, I felt oddly disturbed. The meal had been excellent,and the pitching of the vessel was hardly noticeable, but as I lay in mycabin, I could not relax. Irritated, I flung the door open, and lookedout into the long, dimly lit corridor which stretched the length of D

deck, its blast-proof doors all open in ring after ring receding intothe distance like a surgeon's optical probe looking down some immensegullet.

This side of the ship was little occupied: the four cabins nextto me were used by engineers on the early morning shift, who were offpreparing for work right now - and despite my canine ancestry, I was noton the Dog watch. So I fixed my eyes on the distant far corner of thecorridor, lit here and there by worklights with long sections of shadowbetween, and started walking.

Whether it had been the strange events of the day, or whetherthe usual triple tot of rum after the meal was having some unusual


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effect on me, I hardly knew. But as I slowly walked down that greatringing hallway, I found my ears pricked up, my nose sniffingunconsciously as if for something that I knew was there - somethingstanding there in the passage with me. In the darkest section betweenthe pale nightlights, I stopped, and closed my eyes. I stood there,nose twitching, straining my senses .... and very slowly, I began torelax, opening up my mind.

It was a sound that first began to change. The solid-state

motors that propelled us across the ocean, through the churning tracksand water-jets, gave no more than a distant whispering this far from thehull. But they seemed louder ... and further away, as if the sound fellfrom some distance not measured in metres, another sound shook deep inmy bones. It was nothing I had heard before, in waking memory .. a deeptearing bellow, like the tearing apart of a cloth big enough to coverworlds. I listened, and the space around me seemed to fill withpresences, as if I was suddenly transported hooded into the middle of apacked railway station, unable to see or hear the crowd, but knowing nowthat I was not alone.

There came a sudden jerk, and I opened my eyes to silence andthe normality of the empty corridor. That jolt, had been .... like afew times when I had been falling asleep, I had suddenly jolted awake as

if picked up and dropped onto a hard floor. But looking around, I feltwide awake, more so than I had been all evening.

My tail shivered. This was a job for an Arcaneologist, not anEngineer like me. I turned, and walked back, passing the point where alast stand had been made by Blast Door #57, before the attackers hadswept through....

"What the ... ?" I exclaimed aloud, my voice echoing. And myfur began to bristle outward, as I looked carefully around. Since therefitting of the "Vengeance" in the final week of the EC liberation shehad acted as long-range artillery, never getting into line-of sight withthat which the Belgians had called up to aid them. Barnstoneworth hadtold me that much, adding that the ship's turret rings were too small totake anything better than 485 mm cannon, which even in triplex mountings

was woefully underpowered to face that which had been Summoned justbefore the end. The ship had never been attacked directly - at least,not since it appeared on our record books. Before that - our recordswere as silent as the dim shadows that surrounded me.

And yet ... I knew what had happened here, like I knew myGrandsire's name or my breeches' tailgusset size - as a solid fact.Dropping to my knees, I examined the floor carefully, just around thedoorway. I found myself hoping that my strange fancy was nothing morethan that - until I found something, just where I expected it to be.

The grey fused rock of the ship was incredibly tough, as I hadfound out the first time I tried to chisel a conduit through it - thelaser-fused igneous rock had partly been spun into fibres, cementedtogether in a silicate felt that nothing short of explosives or thermite

would make much impression on. And yet here it was riddled with holeslike a fine cheese - not splintered as by solid shot, but smoothlyfused. Taking my worklight from my belt pouch, I shone the beam down thenear-vertical shaft, about the size and shape to swallow a pencil.Something glittered brightly at the bottom - and as I crouched there, Iknew I would not be resting that night till I found out what.

"Tungsten," Clem Eckingshaw nodded, taking what looked like asilver-grey ball-bearing from out of his analyser, and hefting it in thepalm of his furred paw. "You found this six or eight centimetres deep in


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the decking ?" He whistled, his whiskers twitching. "I can tell you onething .. this was molten when it went through that stone like a hotknife through lard ..."

I nodded, showing him the scans I had made of the area with ametal detector. "That was the only piece I could get loose - the restare fused tight into the rock. What do you think caused it ?"

The feline's tail swished, describing a slow metronome-like beatas he looked at it in frustration. "Nope. No idea. But whatever happened

.... was enough to volatilise kilos of this stuff.. . they don't melt iteven commercially, they powder-sinter the stuff." His eyes widened."That's one HECK of an energy release you're talking about!"

He looked around the room, one of the arched, tunnel-likestructures that ran the length of E deck. It was bare apart from therows of testing instruments and three lab chairs, and our voices echoedoddly. The two of us looked at the silvery sphere, and then at eachother.

I thought of telling him about the sensations I had feltstanding in that long, gullet-like corridor .. not only did I knowwhat had happened there, in a clear but distant way, but I had a ..feeling, that I knew who had fought there as time and hope had ebbedaway. It was a shadowy background cast on my own memories, like the

recollection of my classmates in my first school at the age of four ..names, events and faces had faded beyond recall, though I knew that theyhad been there. But Eckingshaw was a card-carrying Sceptic, I toldmyself, and believed nothing except his instrument readings ... muchto the dismay of the tax officials, who had to take him on a tour of theGross National Product every year before he agreed to contribute to it.

Suddenly, he smiled. "Still, that was a long time ago ..whatever it was, is long over. Our archaeology isn't due to start foranother week .. though I suppose there's no harm in getting a bit ofpractice in. In fact, I already have .. you should have heardBarnestoneworth last night. He'd found the remains of an internalweapons turret on B deck, two decks below the waterline now ... said itlooked like it had been ritually destroyed, not just put out of action

.... if you can imagine that."I could tell he had been missing some of his homework for this

trip. I had read a few books myself, starting with ProfessorGrimslaithe's own work on the Bronze-age sites of our native moors, andthe civilisation known as the early Bronze age Beaker culture. Gravegoods had been ritually "killed" to follow their owner into theafterlife; fine pots smashed, swords and jewelry broken. Which remindedme of something else .. but not until much later, did I clearly recallexactly what.

Later, of course, would turn out to be much too late.

Three more days passed, and we had our first sight of land ..though we were only two-thirds of the way to our final destination, we

were stopping over at Bermuda, almost exactly on our great-circle routeacross the planet from the friendly monolith-crowded moors of Asgarth. Ichecked the navigation station: 33 degrees North, 65 East ... hurriedlyre-setting my watch, as I did now every day we sailed.

Most of us were on deck, lined up outside the "step" where thesurviving deck rose a level some kilometre abaft of the greatcrennelated glacis plate and the thick stubs like amputated wrists thatjutted out fifty metres as a double bowspirit on each side of thetrack's drive sprockets. They had once bravely held out the ship'sthousand-tonne spiked fighting roller like a warrior's shield before herbreastplate (we had left most of that area intact, to keep the macrotank


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in balance for its ocean crossing.) The long swell had broken intodancing, foam-capped wavelets tossing white in the cheery sunshine, andour spirits were high. Even some of the Ghouls were daring the sunlight:on my left I could see a pair of young ghoulkins wearing big shady hatsand dark glasses, playing with their "My Little Bony"(Tm) dolls,cheerfully wrapping the little equine skeletons' tails in festive blackribbons.

Spirits sank a little as Phoebe joined us, swaying slightly -

she waved towards the blue smudge on the horizon. "'Been saying bye tothe girls," she nodded owlishly, "Wishin' them a good holiday outthere."

Barnstoneworth's striped tail twitched in annoyance, for he haddoubled as public Relations officer for the elite Girl Scout armoureddivision now getting ready to disembark.

"I'm sure they'll 'ave themselves a grand time," he saidfinally, shading his eyes as he looked out into the westering sun."Which is more than t' natives will ... I've radio'd ahead of us, sowhen they hit town an' start pickin' fights wi' bouncers, folk can't saywe didn't warn 'em...."

I looked on, smiling slightly, as Phoebe swayed along to themassed battle-hymn drifting up from E deck through the open hatches ...

she hummed, and then sang along, the old Robynist hymn that the Scoutshad sung all the way from the massed armoured breakout at Thirsk Salienton the great North Yorkshire plain, to the final apocalypticencirclement of Brussels from which none had returned both alive andsane .....

"Sometimes I wish I was a pretty girl...So I could wreck myself in the shower ...Sometimes I wish I was a pretty girl ..Been on my own so long, I can't tell left from wrong ..Bloody red pus ! Squelching Offal !Foaming mutilations, and the kiss of Death !" *

Many of the folk around us sang along, but I was silent .... forthis ship had seen it all, and of all the teeming crew it had firstcarried, none would sing again.

Sunlight beat down on us the next morning, as we berthed at FortCharles, Bermuda. The landing-craft had ferried the tanks and artilleryof Battle Group Hetty_Olmthwaite ashore at midnight, towards the ivy-covered walls and staff of the New Miskatonic, that hallowed hall wherethe Girl Scouts would be taking over security duties.

* "Sometimes I Wish I Was A Pretty Girl", (c) R. Hitchcock 1984

Barnstoneworth was looking much happier, as that burden wasraised from his stripy shoulders. "Aye, an' mebbe it was worth thetrouble, for the ferry price they paid us." he nodded. "And we've twodays shore-leave, like, to recover."

We strolled along, passing coraline sand beaches and wavingpalm trees . Phoebe instinctively waved back, but then, she had tendedthe Venus Tank-traps of a Vegetable Warfare unit throughout her cubhood,and had never really readjusted.

I shuddered. None of us had, really, after growing up in theOccupation and the Liberation of Europe .... it had taken years to re-accustom myself to entering a strange room without instinctively


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wanting to spray the windows with suppressing fire and lob a grenade infirst .. in my pocket I still carried a placebo, a foam-rubber ballthat I found myself throwing in ahead of me at times.

Phoebe gave a low murr of pleasure, looking around. "It's beenawhile simce I saw any vegetation this .. exotic." Her eyes widened,and her tail swished. "We were training the genespliced Neo-Triffidstock, they had to be ... socialised, so they wouldn't simply attackanything without chlorophyll. It was sort of Interesting, as a job."

Barnstoneworth's ears raised, wryly. "I heard of them. Wasn't itthe batch they bred from african edible tubers, got the most - social ?"

The vixen grinned. "I should say. Some of them turned out asabsolute sex Maniocs."

Suddenly Barnstoneworth stopped, his nose twitching. "Ey up ! Ahknow they're re-stockin' ship's galleys wi' fresh food, an' all," hesaid, eyes gleaming. "But we've cash to spend .. and I smell arestaurant that'll make us a nice change!"

An hour later, three very large and very empty plates werepushed aside as we relaxed, warm trade winds ruffling our fur.Barnstoneworth gave a contented sigh, which I echoed.

"All Ingredients freshly caught locally, and prepared by our ownchefs," he read from the menu, and turned a wistful eye on me. "When I

were a lad, we used to Dream o' eating food wi' Ingredients in it. Nowtbut E numbers, in them days."

Phoebe nodded, looking around. We sat in a shaded arbour infront of the wide-open doors of the restaurant, shaded by thick vinesgrowing up a latticework dividing the area into open-air "rooms", oneper table. "Same here," her ears drooped " We couldn't afford much,either. I remember I got a jigsaw to play with one New Year, when I waslittle ... I had to wait for my birthday before I got any blades forit."

My ears drooped, as if a shadow had fallen over us. While Phoebehad still been playing with jigsaws, I had joined the Resistance afterlosing my own family, victims of the Pro-Social Homogenisation Directive#4533789. They had committed the capital crime of playing Tubular Bells

in the local marching Brass Band - and Tubular Bells were forbidden,being obviously Phallic Cymbals.

But the moment passed, and I smiled again. Drifting down thewind came the cheerful notes of Lurs and Alpenhorn, one of the bigturbojet-pumped models by the sound of it. Somewhere Outside, friendswould be listening, although only after the Milennium had the world atlarge discovered the aid to be summoned by dressing in rune-gravenleather shorts, climbing steep lightning-crowned hilltops and CallingOut To The Hills in a properly supported yodel.

We looked at each other, relaxed and content for the moment. Itwas a moment I think I will always remember - we were sinister but wewere happy, and you can't say that of everybody, can you ? Then Iturned, and looked Westwards, to where the horizon darkened oddly in a

heavy haze. We were at rest for the moment, but our real task had notyet begun.

Down on the dock, we saw Clem Eckingthwaite deep in conversationwith a stranger, a cheerful-looking Human girl, obviously Japanese byher pure blonde hair and three-inch wide eyes. She was sitting on abench next to a strangely unfocussed patch of space, that seemed totwist and shimmer in writhing, sinuous patterns.

Next to me, Phoebe nudged me. "Rich kids," she growled softly"I'll bet that's her aircraft we saw going over us this morning ... thecustom job with the Japanese registration."


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unless they've got all the latest Neo-Neo Tokyo cyberwear fashions ...by the time they leave, they're sincerely happy at simple things likewater, fresh air and a few minutes of light a day."

We dug deep in our pockets .. indeed, after today there wouldbe nowhere we could spend our change, and it was certainly a worthycause. I recognized the logo on her charity box, having donated beforeto the same institution's "Seaside holidays for the Criminally Insane"back home.

Phoebe smiled, dropping a hefty golden shilling into the box -deflation was a problem these days, and we were threatened with goldensixpences by the time we returned to Asgarth. "I've read about thatcharity ... it's a classy operation .. they spend a fortune recruitingthe right staff for the residential areas ... they couldn't find enoughlocal talent around the Siberian labour sites, so they had to bring inIndonesian and Paraguyan workers." She shook her head wonderingly. "Andpersuading folk with those career records to leave the Secret Policecan't have been cheap or easy. Wonder how they did it ? " Her tailswished excitedly, and a familiar gleam came to her eyes.

I saw her reach for her notebook, and as she scribbled 64-bitencrypted shorthand she muttered something about "Protocols of theElders of Zion, Freemasons, Enslaved Plumbers and the Ovalteenies fan

club," before I managed to get out of earshot.In a few minutes we boarded our vessel, the silcrete deck of the

Vengeance firm and steady beneath our booted paws. I turned and waved toour new friend on the dock, and faintly heard her parting blessing -"May you live in Fortean Times!"

The four of us stood looking at each other for nearly a minute,feeling the warm winds in our fur. At last, Barnstoneworth voiced what Ithink we were all feeling.

"It's been a right good stopover..." his voice was wistful,"But - now, it's back to us work."

It was twelve days after our return to the ship, almost to thehour .... when at last, we saw what we had come to find.

The "Vengeance" had made good progress beyond Bermuda,steering South-West to the strangely .. unsettled area of lost land andunready waters where our mission took us. As we dropped anchor, I re-setmy watch for the last time, and looked at the readouts - 27 degreesNorth, 83 degrees East ... over seas that had once been lands.

We moored some thirty kilometres offshore - not that the shorewas easily defined, for the sea had not had time to wholly take thisarea to itself, and the ruins of buildings that had been tall before theMilennium, still stuck up making hazardous shoals.

I had spent three days testing liquid air connections, all thewhile cursing the massively duplicated, quintiply-redundant systems thatmade this ship so resilient - about every fifty metres was anindependent high-capacity cooler, able to pour perhaps fifteen tonnes an

hour of liquid air into a great arterial system that had once cooled theships' batteries of 485 mm automatic weapons. Now, the turrets were allgone - but we had another use for the air supply.

"Hidy!" Came a voice from just behind me - not a voice that Iknew.

Standing up too suddenly, I banged my head on the great curvingbuttress supporting C deck's Coolant Pump 447. I turned, and looked.

Looking up at me appraisingly was a short canine .. almostAnime, but with something more - exotic still, about her large eyes. Herwhite head-fur was a curled mop, and the rest was in a "poodle-cut"such as you see pictures of from before the Milennium. But her fur was


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not the surprise - she wore the brown uniform jacket and yellow neck-tieof Battle Group Hetty_Olmthwaite, all of whom I thought had left us atBermuda. In her paw she carried a paper cone of chips, evidently fromthe F deck chip shop - but there was a sharp, unfamiliar scent to them,as if mayonnaise had been poured over them. I shook my head, realisinghow silly the idea was.

She grinned, following my eyes as I took in her Accomplishmentbadges, several of them enhanced with extra orders and what must have

been a dozen of the rarely-given Frenzy stars. "I'm on leave ... Itagged along with my Troop, for the free trip ... I'm interested in thissort of thing."

Phoebe, of course, knew all about her, or so she said - butthen, Phoebe made it her business to learn every true and untrue storyshe could cram into her computer and wetware.

"Minette, Minette DuClos, that's her," the vixen growled, herears dipped. "Yes, she's paying her own fare, yes, she's a listedvolunteer. So we're stuck with her."

Barnstoneworth raised an eyebrow, and said nothing. We threewere sitting at the bow, hidden in the refreshingly cool fog flowing

from the great ice caisson that now reached down to the ocean floor. Inthe distance, pumps laboured, emptying the seawater from the tube andfilling the Vengeange's main coolant tanks, the extra weight pressing usfirm against the seabed.

Phoebe gave a sniff. "I wouldn't trust her. She's a Neo-Revisionist ... thinks everything in recent history's made up ..anybody who was actually there is automatically biased. Heretic!"

The badger gave a quiet cough, and looked at her. "But that'swhat you always do, eh ?"

"Yes .. but this is Different ! I'm on a Quest for Truth,about why things Happen - I don't just go around denying they ever did!"

I looked around, through the eddying mists, and suddenlystiffened. I pointed, to a secluded spot of the main deck, where a great

loading gantry towered forty feet tall. There was a figure standingwhere only we could see her, and only for instants through the vapour."That's her, isn't it ? But what's she doing ? " Recognisable with thatancient haircut even under a steel helmet, Minette was looking up atsomething on the loading gantry high above her. She pulled out whatlooked like a metre-long piece of pipe, and suddenly I realised what itwas - for the major sporting broadcast these days was no longer Pro-Celebrity Golf, but Anti-Celebrity Archery.

Barnstoneworth gave a deep chuckle. "That's all it is. Keepin'her skills up, nowt wrong wi' that. An' it's a tricky shot she's makin', straight up like that."

But Phoebe had frozen, her tail fluffed out in shock. She lookedat us searchingly, her eyes scanning from face to face. "I .. I can't

remember where I've read it," she whispered, eyes half-glazed. "But Iknow for a fact, there's a terrible .. Association somewhere, involvingvertical archery."

It was a popular duty, to actually work on the archeological"dig" - at least, in the blazing sun, to be at the bottom of an ice-walled dry hole in the ocean was a welcome relief.

Twenty metres of seafloor were exposed, frosted over near thecaisson walls, but easily cleared with water-jets and suction hoses.There was a constant thumping of pumps, and around us the sharp crackingof ice under pressure - it had been alarming at first, but soon we


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accepted that the supercooled ice really Did re-freeze any cracksinstantly, the circulating liquid air effectively making it a self-repairing structure.

"Hmm." I looked round, to see Professor Grimslaithe absent-mindedly scratching his head with his excavation trowel. He was staringat a readout held in his other hand, turning to look at what we haduncovered, a water-worn fragment of road, as if trying to make sense ofit.

"Attention, people ..." he called out to the twenty or so of uswho were busy clearing and labelling the finds. "I'd say we're in thewrong place ...." he waved his hand, as a general groan arose - "but..... the telemetry says otherwise. This is the right piece of theplanet, to within five metres ... but this road isn't on the map."

One of the senior students held up a polythene bag, withspecimens that had been part of the deposits in a culvert under theroad, and spared the scouring effects of the tidal waves that had sweptthe area under. "Artifacts check with what we'd expect, sir ... datedto the Sheet-Metal age, Styrofoam Cup Culture." He shivered, and not afew of us did likewise. The age of the site was appalling ... there hadbeen life here far post-dating civilisations, in dread non-Elderdecades lost to knowledge in the Pastel Years.

The professor nodded, glancing through the polythene bags of thedays finds. In the top layer was an aluminium can of aggressivelygeneric carbonated beverage, its garish logo still proclaiming "Tilt -with the Totally Typical Taste". On board the Vengeance, there wasequipment that could probably read enough of the printing to make outthe sell-by date, for an exact date fix.

I looked at the road - we had picked up its trace on the ship'ssonar, spotting the smooth concrete even buried under three metres ofmud and debris piled up from the catastrophic floods. Certainly, it hadgone somewhere ... it was three lanes wide each way, and here andthere were the jagged, corroding reinforced concrete stumps of street-lights. A road well-lit, and much used, but in an area that had beenmainly swamps and lakes even when it had lain under the sunlight. And a

road that for some reason, I knew, had been wiped off the map.

That night I lay in my bunk, unable to sleep. It might have beenthe stillness, for we were held fast to the ocean floor; the gentlemotion was missing that even in dock offshore of Bermuda, had lulled usasleep. It was hot, too, a thick muggy warmth that penetrated the greatcorridors even far below the water-line.

I sighed, as my watch beeped two in the morning. Earlier, I hadtried my radio, but we were too far from any radio stations .. ghostsof distant voices drifted through my head, fading in and out. For maybeten seconds there had been one clear burst .. the great Alto Tenoryodeller Ernst Straintz, with that pure vibrato tone that Barnstoneworth

had called "Like drivin' a tractor crossways up a ploughed field wi' apair o' breezeblocks tied to 'is privvits". But that had dissolved intostatic, leaving me looking around the bare silcrete room.

Restlessly, I stood up, heading out towards the ship's #47heads, a few hundred metres away. My footsteps echoed eerily, as Iwalked down the darkened corridors.

The change was so gradual that I can even now hardly put wordsto it. Once again, it felt as if I was no longer alone with the skeletoncrew and ghoul passengers that were my companions ... the feeling ofcompany was there, as if I would turn any corner and find it packed withpeople, though I can not say if I exactly heard or scented anything. It


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was staring straight ahead, as if looking at the unseen horizon beyondthe ancient, decades-old armour.

"... And those of her friends she could protect, she shieldedwith her shields and weapons, until the last of them died fightingbefore the great iridium doors ... she tore open her own body to finishthose of the vermin that remained inside.. and then when there wasnothing to do but resist, sixteen days she fought on, all alone......"suddenly he gave a twitch, and looked around. "Eh ? Tha' were sayin' ?"

My ears rose in interest. "You've found out more about theship's history ?"

But Barnstoneworth only looked puzzled. "Nowt like that. Why'dyou ask ?"

For once, Phoebe's obsession with Conspiracy Studies failed to

drive me out of the room. It was half an hour after our friend haddeparted to his bunk, pleading dizziness, and we sat alone in thesparsely furnished dining hall. After the day's events, the ship washushed, and those of us off duty were in little mood for leisured chat.

The vixen frowned. "Evidently, he didn't remember a thing aboutit. If only .. there was some way to .. confirm or deny what came out.

He's not the kind to make things up .. I don't think he HAS animagination under that flat cap. Badger stripes on the brainboxcertainly aren't 'go-faster' strips......"

I hesitated - and was about to tell her of the strange memoriesthat had washed through my own mind, since boarding the Vengeance -nightmarish memories as if seen by some observer that had seen it all -yet I told myself it was absurd, for none of the crew had survived totransmit their impressions. And just then, a certain yellow-neckerchiefed figure waved cheerily from the entrance, as Minettestrolled in carrying a tray full of mugs.

"So many long faces !" The poodle beamed, putting the tray downon our table. "I thought you looked like you needed company... soI've brought over my Special recipe ale." She looked across at Phoebe,

and her tail twitched, the round pom-pom of fur swinging. "I'm sure Idon't know how I've offended you .. but I'd like to bury the hatchet."

For a moment, I saw Phoebe's gaze flick aside to the wall,where a fire-axe hung on the emergency racks next to hosepipes,decontamination equipment and both physical and mental first-aid kits.Then she mastered temptation and nodded, her ears pulled up by force ofwill. The vixen waved Minette forward, no doubt with teeth gritted tootight to speak.

Minette slid into the chair opposite be, and brushed back thecurly white head-fur from her eyes. "I think it's so Exciting, don'tyou ? We're going to see the real coastline, and maybe .... we'll findsomething Interesting."

"Such as ?" I asked cautiously. She turned her large eyes

towards me, and I suppressed a shudder .. as if some odd andunhealthy association in my distant memory surged unquietly towards thelight.

"Oh ... I've heard there's all sorts of things in this part ofthe world." Again came that secretive smile. "You might say it's comedown as a family tradition. My grandmother worked over here for aseason, before the milennium, as waitress at a drive-by cafe."

Phoebe snorted. "Get your history right, can't you ? You mean'drive-in' - a 'drive-by' is where folk cruise past in vehicles andspray the place with automatic weapons."

The poodle nodded. "That's right. They had a lot of very


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big fighting pinwheel fuelled and drawn up to one of the landing-tankramps on B deck, its airlock door hinged to float it out into the oceanat first light.

Dawn showed a changed scene. Where there had been unbroken,choppy waters, now low banks of mud reared out of the mist like beachedwhales, with rushing runnels of water between them. The earthquakes hadheaved this part of the world back to the surface - and I shuddered atthe sight of hideously un-cyclopean architecture revealed on the nearest

bank. Just as I arrived at the launching ramps, I heard again, faint butshockingly clear, the distant, dismal pounding of the natives' drum-and-bass machines.

"It's coming from about North-North-East .. " Clem waved a mapat me, the printout from the disc we had been gifted with under theclear skies of Bermuda, now seming a long time ago. "There's highground that direction - must be pretty high, the tsunamis after thosetremors must have been something fierce. "

"Just the backwash off the land was up to "D" deck on us," oneof our flag officers pointed up to a muddy tide-line two decks above us.We stood in the launch bay, which the day before had been a deck and ahalf underwater - now the hatch stood open to the mists, a ten-metrewide ramp leading down to the shallow muddy waters, scarcely a metre

deep.I stretched, limbering up my fingers like a concert synth

player - settling down in the loader's chair which had served the 250mm spotting rifle for this turret's main guns. The panjandrum waspushed to the edge of the ramp, and Clem stood clear, giving me acheery "thumbs-up".

There were four of us in the launching bay; Clem, the flagofficer and two other engineers, looking intently at the screen, an old4096 by 4096 38" monitor of the kind they give away with gamescartridges these days. I pressed the "Game start" button, and thetowering drum gave a loud whine, as its internal rotors spun up.

Clem nodded, looking at it vibrating under the growing power ofits rocket-tipped rotors. "I forgot ... you've used this technology

before, haven't you ? Your unicycle runs on the same principle."As the whining note steadied off, I nodded, my fingers poised

over the port and starboard clutches. "That's right.. but these havetwo rotors, contra-rotating - like ... this....." With that, Icautiously let in the clutches, hearing the rotors change tone as theelectromagnets picked up the power, and the great wheel rolled down theramp with ever-increasing speed.

"Whoa! " But it was too late - the ramp was steep, and in asecond there was a huge splash as the panjandrum dug deep into theexposed ocean bed, mud and water flying. Cautiously, I halted it andchecked the diagnostics - everything reported as well, and I gave onelast look around at the expectant faces of the crew. The flag officerchecked his watch, preparing to rejoin the bridge, but the engineers, a

rat and a polecat from the Duke Of Argyll's Regiment, looked on ininterest.

"Well.... here we go." And with that I pushed the clutch leversforward, and the giant fighting-wheel rumbled off into the mists.

For two hours I stared into the screen, watching the littledigital readout updating its position. A hundred and twenty, then ahundred and thirty minutes of steering the panjandrum at walking speedover flat, featureless mudbanks, shattered masonry, and deep rills ofrunning muddy seawater draining still off the unseen land. And all thewhile came that sinister, monotonous bass-beat from beyond the walls of


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fog, where the unseen drummers mocked at us (and any sane or wholesomemusical taste.)

At last Clem tapped my shoulder, pointing to a blinking amberlight. "Fuel's getting low. Better bring it back ... "Control-Shift-Home" will do it automatically."

I nodded, rubbing my eyes. This was the only Scout model wehad, with a nail-down inertial guidance system and extra fuel in placeof much of the warhead - apart from a tiny self-destruct charge, less

than three hundred kilos of aluminised cyclonite, it was wholly unarmed."About twenty minutes till it gets back, if it finds a straight-linecourse. Good thing it floats .. just paddle-wheels right acrossanything it finds."

Standing up, I waved to the two engineers who were standing bywith the fuelling hoses, idly watching the screen. "Give me a shout whenit's back, I'll lend a hand getting it onboard again."

As luck would have it, we had restored one of the Ready Roomsthat the original gunnery crews had used, barely twenty metres awayfrom the open hatchway. Phoebe and Minette arrived together as we satabusing the hot drinks machine, an old and unrepentant model.

Clem pulled a face, his ears right back as he sipped from a neo-classical plastic cup. "Don't try the "Animal Soup" .... I 'm not sure

I WANT to know what species went into it.""The vegetable ones aren't much better," I felt my own taste

buds clog like a tank's tracks in shingle, as something reddish-brownand sludgy sluiced over my tongue. "If this is genuine tomato like itsays, it must mean it's made from real photographs of them ...."

Just then there came a scream from down the corridor - not justa scream, a ripping, throat-tearing howl of terror that went on and onin a rising wave of tortured sound. The four of us froze for aheartbeat - but only Minette was still in the room a second later as therest of us sprinted towards the loading ramp, our reflexes rememberingdesparate years of street-fighing in burned-out basements and smurfed-out slann-shacks all across the battle-torn cities of Europe.

We took up position, diving to the side of the door - Phoebe had

grabbed a fire-axe, and Clem had the hose of one of the refuellingcarts, fifty pressurised litres of pyrophoric borane fuel ready tospray. My own Swiss Army knife was out, the dim light catching the ion-densified edge of the twenty centimetre Eurocrat-whittling blade. As Itensed, ready to roll into the room, there came a crashing, poppingnoise from within - and the scream stopped.

I dived, rolling in across the floor, adrenaline pumping. Inthat instant I saw what there was to be seen - both engineers, lyingstill. One, the lop-eared rat, was stretched out stiff as a board - theother, the custard-yellow polecat whose scream I was fairly sure it hadbeen ... he was still standing, but he was surely dead. The poppingnoise had been when he had punched both fists through the screen of theold monitor, the stink of burned fur and electronics drifting in the

air from the high-voltage discharge that had earthed through him,killing him instantly. And from the look on the singed face, I sudenlyrealised it must have come as a relief.

All this had taken less than three seconds - and as Phoebe andClem cautiously followed me into the room, there came a deep, rumblingboom from out of the fog. I looked around, my whiskers stiff with panicfear, bafflement in all our faces - and saw that the panjandrum'scontrol screen suddenly read "No Signal".

Clem's ears were pressed right back against his head. "It self-destructed. That shouldn't have happened..." he whispered. "Idisconnected the firing switch on this console - and look - " he


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scrolled the command buffer back, showing us the last ten actions."Nobody touched it, since you told it to come home - it was headingstraight back to us, and those things DON'T have minds of their own !"

As we stood looking at each other, hearing alarm bells ringingin our heads as well as through the ship's speakers, I realised that thedistant drumming had stopped.

An hour later, the four of us were crowded in one of the ship's

galleys - Clem and Phoebe were shaking, and the ship's surgeon hadprescribed a flagon of rum between us. Over a portable Console, wecould follow the developments as the Flag Officers investigated, andanswer any questions they put to us.

Clem's eyes were bleak. "You saw the ... look on their faces.The defence system says nothing came near the ship ... whatever theysaw, was on the monitor. And to have THAT sort of effect...." Hereached for another big tumbler of the eighty-percent proof Navalspirit, and sank it like water. "It's been a long time since I sawanyone ... affected like that. And the things that caused it ... Idon't even want to think about."

Minette smiled condescendingly. "I see. Back in the so-calledLiberation days, I expect." She sipped from a bottle of one of the

exotic beers that she seemed to have an inexhaustible supply of, thoughnone of us recognised them.

Phoebe's eyes flashed. For a second I had the image of her fangssinking into the young poodle's throat, but she calmed herself down withan obvious effort. "There's no "So-Called" about it.. as you'd know, ifyou'd been there."

Minette's eyebrow raised, and her ears tilted wryly. "You'redoing Conspiracy Studies, and you've never thought there was anything alittle ... suspicious about the whole story ? You actually believe thatthe Brussels Empire was masterminded and then controlled by evilsqueaky-toys from some so-conveniently 'other' plane of existence ? Towhich they naturally returned, before you, or anyone you know, actuallysaw them." She swished her poodle-cut tail, the white pompom waving like

a tail-mace. "Rather TOO convenient of them.""There was folks as saw them." We turned, to see Barnstoneworth

standing in the doorway. "I were in t' Pioneers, layin' track for anarmoured tram assault on s'Hergtensbosch, like ... when they came owerthe hill. Three macro-tanks went up in front of us, lost wi' all hands... but I were detailed afterwards as stretcher-bearer for Dukeo'Devonshire's 897th Airbourne that went up to plug us line. I saw themthat'd been in contact wi' the Enemy." The badger shook his headslowly, painfully. "Good folk we had, like ... an' I found em' lyin' ina pool o' Sanity Points, some o' them too far gone to save .. we'dgone short o' transfusions since they hit Switzerland in the last week.Some folk had ......" he hesitated, " started to CHANGE. Us vicar had toshoot'em and burn the bodies on the spot, for their own good."

"I see." The poodle smiled, nodding. "But you didn't actuallysee anything yourself ? Or meet anyone who claimed to ?"

"Nay. I'm still here - tha' needn't chuck thisself ower a cliffto find out if it's fatal - seein' it happen to other folk is badenough. Folk as dealt wi' them things and lived, were mostly us Vicars -an tha's welcome to try asking one' o' THEM about it."

Phoebe's ears were pressed flat against her skull. "Minette - IAM doing Conspiracy Studies - and I can tell you as a fact, that ...even before the EC took over, there were .. events happening, thatdon't have any sane explanation. Not unless - something with astrangely unearthly sense of humour was behind things - like the


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Monaco/San Marino war. Explain that one away."I nodded, agreeing - the thermonuclear exchange between the two

pocket-sized principalities had been almost as inexplicable as it wasbrief and final. And just as with so much of the Liberation, there wasnobody left who could shed light on just what had happened there.

The poodle's tail swished, as she stood up. "I suppose with youoldsters, I have to make historical allowances for your - skewedviewpoint. But I know there's no such thing as evil fluff from other

worlds. After all, I .... " She hesitated, as if she was about to saysomething else and stopped herself just in time. The round pom-pom offur on her tail tip swished again, and she gave us a pitying smile. "Ifyou could only hear yourself, and how silly it sounds ! But some folkjust won't be helped." With that she turned, blew us a kiss and bouncedout, heedless of Phoebe's kilowatt stare at her back.

There was a silence, and we all stirred uncomfortably. At last,Clem spoke.

"How's the survivor, Barnstoneworth ? Has he said anything ?"The badger shook his striped head. "Nay, lad - he's gone

catatonic. We've more chance o' contactin' the dead'un, than gettin'owt from him. An' we would - but there's a snag."

Phoebe blinked. "What's wrong ? Surely we'll just feed the body

to the ghouls, like always - the one that gets the brain, will find outwhatever he last knew, if we hurry." She looked outside, as the greymists pressed heavy across the waters. "Don't they have ghouls workingthe reactors all shifts, away from sunlight ? We needn't wait tilldark." It was a useful trait of the Undead, their high resistance toradiation.

"Ey. That's trouble, like. Chap joined us at last minute,didn't go through same paperwork as rest of us - his Doner Card says wecan use him for Doner or Kebab, but not 'et raw."

There was a gloomy silence, as we looked at each other. My eyesfocussed on the comms screen, and suddenly my ears rose high insurprise.

"They're asking for volunteers to crew landing-tanks, and do a

manned reconnaisance," I looked around, my tail twitching. "Anybodyinterested ?"

An hour later, the launching ramps splashed down again from "D"deck, and three Vickers-Matushita amphibious tanks waded into the mudand fog. I was radio operator and loader on "Vicious", withBarnstoneworth at the controls. Evidently the handling qualities weremuch like one of the trams he had driven from the Rotterdam landings tothe final armoured battle, that big confused mecha brawl generallycalled Third Lille.

"There they go .. out of visual," I called down into thecramped driving section. On my screens to left and right were the radar

images of "Viper" and "Vilify", the only other landing tanks we had beenable to get working. "Vilify" was to our left: it had suprised us whenMinette had volunteered to drive, though I had noticed the Girl Scoutarmoured combat badge on the sleeve of her tunic the minute we firstmet.

"Aye... keep thi' eyes peeled, lad.." Barnstoneworth called up."Visual too - there's stuff that can spoof the detectors, tha' neverknows." He tapped his screen, the camera showing a projected line endingthree kilometres ahead of us still, the Panjandrum's incoming route andlast reported position.

Slowly we ground forward, the little landing tank riding high in


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Getting up the slope proved even worse than I had feared. Theooze was knee-deep in places, and flowed slowly down towards thedevouring bogs at the foot of the block - we knew we had to stay on thesteep but recognisable corner to avoid losing our direction entirely.The thought of getting lost out here, with the ever-present threat ofanother earthquake sending tsunamis washing over us, was in the back ofour minds every second as we sloshed and laboured uphill, slipping and

falling till our suits were foul with the glutinous ooze."Ey .. I think we're not far off top, tha' knows,"

Barnstoneworth panted after fifteen minutes of desperate labour. "Lookslighter up ahead."

"I think so .." I was a little ahead of him, but I had beenconcentrating on my feet as I scrambled up a steep slab of fracturedlimestone. "I think we're looking West into the sunset, unless I'm quiteturned round ... as if we could tell in this fog."

Soon, the slope abruptly levelled out. I stood on a sheerbroken edge, with the torn chaos of rock and spilled sea-slime below me,as Barnstoneworth caught up. Suddenly I reached down and wiped some ofthe ooze away from an oddly regular slab of rock, torn apart at the edgeof the block. It was concrete.

We stood there, getting our breath back. The top of the blocklooked much like the land below - but as I scuffed more ooze away, Icould trace the edge of the road, a fractured kerb pointing straightback the way we had come.

Suddenly Barnstoneworth stiffened. "Hear that ? " He pointedurgently, away into the gloom. "Somethin' out there. Cries, soundedlike."

I fumbled, muddy-pawed, with my helmet straps, and pulled itoff. "Can't hear anything .... are you sure ?"

My companion unslung one of the throwaway rocket-launchers fromhis shoulder, an old Swiss "Miniman" by the look of it. He noddedgrimly, extending the folding tube and flipping up the plastic sight.With a gesture he waved me forward, along the lines of the old road,

visible as a depression in the muck. The sense of relief at finding alandmark to follow was tempered by a creeping doubt, as I looked at thecracked, weed-choked surface: this was in almost the right spot to be apart of that other mysterious road we had found before the mists closedin, which had vanished from the final pre-milennium map as if thecartographers had belatedly tried to shield the world from what had beenthere.

It might have been two hundred metres, or a little more - weadvanced cautiously, skirting the pools of standing water that wouldhave been noisy to splash through. The fur on my tail was trying tostand straight out like a flue-brush inside the coverall ... my eyes,ears and nose were at their fullest alert as we advanced in turns,freezing at the slightest sound. Yet there was only the soft bubbling of

the mud, and a distant background of water still escaping over the steepedge of the block away to our right.

This time, I was first to freeze in alarm. I had been folowing along, shallow furrow in the mud, when I came across another one, a fewmetres long and just perceptibly angled to it. With a few gestures, Itold Barnstoneworth what I thought we were looking at, and he nodded -we stood at the outer edge of the Panjandrum's effects, where far-flungshrapnel had ploughed into the ground.

Half-crouching, I stalked forward, as alert as any of my wildcanine ancestors at the hunt, knowing wary prey awaited over the ridge.Then came a scent I knew well - high explosive and burned flesh,


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hanging sickly and heavy in the still air. Whatever had been thereinitially, was no longer a threat to us, I told myself. And then, faintthrough the mists ahead, the sinister pulsing of the drum-and-bassmachines started again.

"Nowt much left here." We stood a little later on the edge of abroad, shallow crater. Barnstoneworth looked around, trying to

reconstruct what had happened.Here on the top of the block, there was a little more light.

Cautiously we had circled the crater, until we found the remainingtracks where the great fighting-wheel had arrived on the scene.

"It was heading straight for home, and happened to run up theshallow end of this hill," I mused, half to myself. "Its cameras wererunning - what did it see ? What was up here ? There's marks here oflots of people, coming from the same direction " - I nodded into themists towards the mainland. The drumming seemed a little louder now,its sinister rhythm pounding monotonously through the blind clouds. "Bythe tracks, the people were here first .. all moving along the oldroad, to that point there." I looked at the great circular mud-splash,and something occurred to me. "Where are they - what's left of them ?

I've not found a whisker of anything organic - but I can certainly smellit. This place would have looked like a Siberian butcher's shop, gutsall over the place !"

"Tha's right," the badger blinked. He waved a twisted shard ofmetal. "Piece o' the warhead casing. Biggest piece o' Anything we'vefound. An' it went off right .. here." He stood in the centre of thecrater, deep in thought. His arms wrapped tight around his chest, thenhe suddenly flung them out, hurling the metal shard off into the mist.Then he looked at his feet, and bent down to examine the ground.

"Stay there, lad ... there's tracks heading out o' this - freshones!" He dropped to all fours, his black nose sniffing. In a minute,he waved me over. "Look .. the crater rim's regular, but .. there. Yousee ? Headin' off to the far side, like ... but I can't make'em out.

Something .. soft, but heavy."We followed the ill-defined traces to a point five metres away

from the crater rim, where there was a small, shallower crater. My nosetwitched with the smell of fresh blood and burned meat, and I pointedto the colour of the mud. "Looks like somebody ended up here .. or afair-sized piece did, anyway. But .. then what ?"

Barnstoneworth scratched behind his ears, snout wrinkled inworry. "Them funny tracks stopped, then go right past them ...... see,now we know what to look for, you can spot they're going all ower theplace. Reckon we'll follow ?"

For half an hour we paced across the explosion site,occasionally picking up metal fragments - and once, a shredded cap ofodd design, such as you see in the films coming down to us from before

the Milennium. The soft marks became oddly clearer, the impressionsfirmer in the mud - till they abruptly turned away and headed towardsthe far corner of the block, the steep side opposite where we hadclimbed.

Standing on the edge, I looked out into the unknown gulf. Justas I was going to suggest following further, two things happened. Therewas a slight tremor beneath us - and somewhere very nearby, a secondcentre of the drumming broke out. Somewhere, I guessed, on this veryblock. And then another noise, softer but far more horrible - a kind ofodd squeaking, filtering through the mists - a sound I instinctivelyknew I had never heard in waking life, but that sent panicked signals of


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hard-coded terror shrieking from the primal centres of my mind. In thatsecond, I was suddenly very glad that the mists hid us from that whichmade the sound.

I cast Barnstoneworth a glance, and he nodded, giving the"retreat" hand-sign and pointing to the far corner. A fur-pricklingsensation was growing by the second, somehow warning us that this was nolonger a place for any normal healthy living or undead folk to belingering.

We beat a hasty retreat, moving as fast as the mud and pools ofwater would allow us - this was no place to twist an ankle. Abouthalfway back to the edge of the block, I spotted something - a singleset of fresh tracks, running almost parallel to ours .. with a hiss ofwarning and a gesture I swerved our course to take a look, neither of uswilling to drop below a jogging speed.

"Ours ? Can't be .. we were together on this bit .." I panted,waving towards the road some ten metres to our left, our only guide inthe cloaking fog. "But .. they're regular Issue boot prints ..... likeours."

For perhaps five seconds we risked a stop, looking and sniffingcarefully at where the prints angled away from our route, heading back

towards the edge at the opposite side to where we had ascended."Aye .. same tread pattern, an' all," the badger panted. "I

recognise them old World War 3 Surplus hobnails anywhere. But we can'tfollow. Quick now ! " With that he started off again, bending back tothe road.

Three minutes later we were at the edge, and soon found ourprints heading uphill. Looking down at the steep slope we paused again,scanning around nervously, ears and noses twitching. There was nothingto be seen, and with a sick shivering I realised it was getting darkerby the minute, as the sun began to set behind the clouds. The drummingechoed around us, though mercifully there was nothing more of thesqueaking ... but as I swivelled my ears, there was one sound thatfaintly reached us from downhill. It seemed to be the sound of turbine

engines, but I could not be sure and said nothing. Barnstoneworth wassliding noisily down one of the flowing mud-gulleys at that second, andI doubt that he heard it - in a few seconds I was following him down.

After a muddy but uneventful glissade down the steep face of theblock, we soon reached the welcome metallic bulk of "Vicious", andwithout a word were soon stowing our muddy oversuits in the turretlockers and wriggling in through the cupola hatch.

The heavy clang of the turret hatch locking above us was one ofthe most comforting sounds I have ever heard. I looked down atBarnstoneworth, and breathed a sigh of relief. "Well, that's that, Ihope .. they can get someone else to volunteer next time." I switchedon the electrics, and was pleased to see at least half of the sensorsrunning again. "Back to base, green eggs and ham for tea tonight!"

Barnstoneworth nodded, firing up the turboshafts and swingingus around in a lazy, wide turn to follow our outward trail. Below me Icould see his striped face in the green and red glow of the instrumentlights, muzzle wrinkled with concentration as he stared out into thedeepening gloom. After about ten minutes of steady driving at eightknots or so, he stepped down through the gears, ears tilted back inworry.

"Eh, lad, I don't like look o' this ... " he growled, bringingus to a halt. "I can see the Vengeance on the radar, all right, butshe's moved - three klicks nearer land. She didn't ought to 'ave donethat, not wi' landing tanks out in this fog. If us radar was still down,


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we'd be lost an' no mistake. Still, there she is - should be plainsailing back 'ome now."

Relaxing, he reached down into the ITE rack (In-TankEntertainment) for a Bulky disc, and soon the inspiring strains ofmantra-filed oompah bands reverberated merrily inside the Vicious,theBagshot composite armour ringing tunefully with the sounds of fuel-injected euphoniums and aerospike trombones.

In another ten minutes the great slab-sided bulk of our ship

loomed out of the mists. As we drove around it, I noticed that some ofthe lights seemed to have gone out, and others on the top deck were thedistinctive blue-white glows of emergency searchlights.

"What the .. ? They've shut door on us !" Barnstoneworth's earswent right up in surprise and anger as we rounded the corner to the portside, where the big ramp from "D" deck's tank hangars was pulled upflush with the hull, leaving us parked at the foot of an unassailableeighty-metre wall. He hit the Transmit button to the Bridge frequency,and after a minute in which I learned several new words, there was afaint clunk on the outside of the hull.

I popped the hatch and looked up - to see a thin wire ladderreaching up to the top deck. I sighed, switching off the onboard systemsas I looked down at the badger in the warm, dry hull below me.

"I didn't expect them to roll out the red carpet for us ..... "I gestured towards the narrow, twisting ladder already glistening withcondensation from the greasy fog, "But this is ridiculous."

"The ship went crazy, ten minutes after you left," Clemexplained, after grabbing us off the deck and hustling us straightinside, "It was as if ... I don't know, as if a virus got into thecontrol system. But we've checked, there's nothing like that. Systemsstarting up and shutting down, all over the place ... all the reactorson B deck switched on to full power, tracks engaged and we were runningout of control towards the old shoreline ! Had to run downstairs and hitthe manual resets we'd put in ... the automatic shutoffs just weren'ttaking orders." He led us to a room just off the "C" deck emergency

bridge, one of the ubiquitous drinks machines and a dispenser for pre-staled biscuits taking up most of the room. "But wait till you see this.It just ... appeared."

My tail fur bristled out in shocked suprise, as I looked in. Ihad worked in this room

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At the Mountains of Cuteness