Colony worlds, p.41
Colony Worlds, page 41
"Neither the tars nor the indigenes in any of the many places I have visited, not in fact, since my creation among gentle folk, has anyone viewed me with as much revulsion as your friend displays," he said to Blue.
"Were not friends. We only just met," Blue said, breaking Eric's trance.
Bastard, thought Eric, still trying to unravel the exchange. Blue, thinking this was Frankenstein's monster was hard enough to swallow, but the giant's reply seemed to take the outrageous notion for granted.
Eric looked again at the portraits. Victor and Elizabeth were names he knew. He'd never read the book, but he'd seen the movie. The book was on his list of 'a thousand and one books to read before you die', but it was a long way down. From the conversation, he now knew who Robert was, which left only one portrait unidentified.
"Who's Margaret?" Eric asked, wondering why he bothered. He really didn’t care. He just wanted to get out of here and back to normality.
"Robert's sister," said the deep hypnotic voice. "Victor related my story to his rescuer. Robert committed it to paper in letters home to his sister Margaret, a friend of Mary Shelley."
Eric stared back at the 'monster'. It couldn't be. It was just a story told over a hundred years ago, wasn't it? This ugly brute was hardly thirty and looked nothing like Herman Munster or Boris Karloff.
"Don't mind him; I don't think he reads much," Blue said, and Eric's head shrank into his shoulders. Blue carried on as if he and the monster were old friends. "I thought when you jumped ship you planned to burn yourself to death."
"That was my intent. Such are the vicissitudes of life however that the ice floe broke apart, separating me from my funeral pyre. The Resolution picked me up a week later. I was with James for almost a year until he went ashore in the Islands, he named Sandwich." The smooth deep voice suddenly struggled, "... the natives speared him."
The way he paused and the tone he used put a shiver up Eric's spine. He had the sudden thought that perhaps the monster had done the killing. "Let me get this straight," he said. "You not only claim to be Frankenstein's creation, you want us to believe Captain Cook rescued you from the ice. How come his journals, nor any of his crew's journals, ever mention you?"
"Only your ugliness exceeds your rudeness, young man," De Lacey said a steel-like glint in the watery eyes. "I fear for the future of humanity. It seems not to have improved since Victor was your age."
Blue stepped between them. "Wake up, mate, and look where you are: an old-fashioned lounge room buried in the outback. I mean really, you can't think the indigenes built it? Gimme a break. And here before your eyes is a bloke who, no offence, James," he said to De Lacey. "...ain't your average man in the street."
Eric could feel his frustration rising. "But it's a fiction. He can't be real, and if he was; he'd be at least a hundred."
"Two hundred and fifty; I first saw the hateful light of day in the year of our Lord, seventeen hundred and sixty-six."
"You're impossible," Eric said.
"Yet I exist and apparently, the process of my creation has increased my longevity. How long? I do not know."
"'struth," said Blue suddenly looking at his watch, "where did the time go? I'm outta here."
"I think not," James De Lacey said. "There are reasons no one except Mary has mentioned me."
"Such as," Eric said, regretting the words immediately.
"If people of your ilk knew of my existence, they would arm themselves and seek my destruction. I have taken steps to remain hidden."
"Too late, James, we found you. Jonesy dug up your front door and the flies killed him," Blue said.
"Jonesy?"
"Immanuel Edward Jones. He's an archaeologist, they love digging up things. His death sorta led us here."
Eric's nose quivered with the unwelcome image of dropping Immanuel Jones' fly-blown corpse.
"And I dare say we won't be the last James," Blue added. "Someone's gonna miss Jonesy."
De Lacey stared down at them. "That is unfortunate, but changes nothing. I cannot let you leave and the flies will ensure you do not. You will however, be perfectly safe while you remain here. I have vowed never to kill again; I cannot however, vouch for the flies. Come, let me show you around your new domain."
Now we have two problems, thought Eric, as De Lacey led them back to the door through which he had entered. Getting out of here, and then away from the bloody flies.
* * *
"Touch nothing," De Lacey said as Eric and Blue wandered around what the plaque on the cold metal door had called a laboratory.
They had passed through several rooms and halls and down a flight of stairs to reach it. Along the way, De Lacey explained that the underground structure was here when he arrived in 1782. He simply refurbished it to his taste, ordering and paying for supplies by mail.
"With what?"
"Both Resolution and Discovery's companies agreed to give me a small share of the expedition's profits. We sold the sea otter pelts we got from the Russians in Macao. My presence apparently facilitated a better deal. The Chinese too stared, from curiosity not alarm."
"Inscrutable, eh?"
The monster frowned down at Blue.
"Sorry, please continue."
"When Captain Gore set me down in Batavia, I invested my share in a small Dutch Trading company."
"Gotcha," Eric interjected. "First you said it was Captain Cook who picked you up, now you’ve changed the story and it's Captain Gore. They might sound similar, but if you want to tell believable lies, get your story straight." He crossed his arms and smirked at the monster.
De Lacey's black eyes lost their tearful look. His hands clenched, threatening to rupture the stitches around his wrists.
Blue reached out and stoked the back of De Lacey's hand while his eyes bored into Eric. "Don’t mind him, James. He's as dumb as a star dropper and twice as ignorant. Let me set him straight. After Cook picked up Jimbo on his first attempt on the north-west passage, he wintered in Hawaii. He never left. They killed him as Jimbo already told ya."
De Lacey's anger eased as Blue rattled on, nodding at each of Blue's statements.
"When Cook carked it, Clerke took over and had another go at the passage. The ice stopped him. Clerke shuffled off and Gore took 'em back to the old country, dropping Jimbo off on the way. You got all that, short planks."
"Short planks?" De Lacey questioned
"He's as thick as two short ones," Blue explained.
Eric, although embarrassed was grateful to Blue for calming the monster. He noted Blue only called the monster Jimbo when talking about him, and James when talking to him. To his shame Eric couldn’t get past monster.
"You were saying James?"
"The staring, even of the polite Javanese people, soon becomes tiresome. I always felt the need to move on, and made my way east from island to island in a variety of interesting craft, until landing on these northern shores and eventually south across the dessert to here."
"How did you find out about this place?"
"From the natives, who I believe think this hillock inhabited by evil sky spirits they do not wish to disturb. It has suited my needs perfectly until now."
Eric, astounded by the room, paid scant attention to the conversation; he heard but didn’t listen. The monster's laboratory seemed more like a morgue, crossed with a butcher shop. Whole bodies and various dismembered parts lay scattered on wooden benches around the walls. Eric stared; he had never seen such a cornucopia of naked female flesh. The room smelled more of astringent chemicals than of decay.
"Still trying to build a mate, eh, mate?" Blue said.
* * *
Eric turned to where the pair stood and grimaced at what he saw. On the centre block, a massive slab of timber covered in copper, lay a complete assemblage of female parts. Like the monster, the creation was huge in every respect and just as ugly except for the disproportionally small head. Her skin, a taught leathery ochre, the staring eyes watery. The face that may once have been lovely but for the texture and pallor of her skin, was hauntingly familiar.
A portrait in the main room sprang to mind just as Blue asked, "Why Elizabeth, James?"
"Do you not think it fitting that I shall ease my lonely soul with the charming wife of my cursed creator? He who tormented me, who recanted his promise to ease my misery, who destroyed my hopes and left me empty. To my regret, Victor's death did not quell my rage at the injustice he did me.
"I was not always lacking compassion, as now you find me. My soul once glowed with love and humanity, but the folk I met, even my creator, reviled me. Oh, wretch that I am. Even strangling the life of his beloved Elizabeth on their wedding night did not ease my wrath. I exhumed her body after the funeral and hid it in the Alps as I travelled south to Italy bringing only the head packed in ice."
Eric backed away, convinced at last that James De Lacey was indeed a monster, not necessarily Frankenstein's, but right out of his tree. That Blue seemed as entranced as a cult follower in their leader's presence baffled him. The monster had admitted to murder. Eric wanted out of here, with or without Blue. He figured it'd be safer to steal the spray can and take his chances with flies. He couldn’t count on any help from Blue who seemed intent on hearing about the further adventures of Frankenstein's monster, after Shelley's tale ended.
What am I saying? thought Eric, slapping himself in the head. It's fiction. He would much rather believe the self-named James De Lacey an alien who read the story and identified with the monster. I need a weapon, he thought, scanning the Laboratory. Knives, cleavers and saws abounded, excellent weapons in the right hands, just not his. Pity there wasn't a fire extinguisher.
"Do you mind if I look around the rest of your place while you two reminisce?" he asked feeling awkward.
Blue and the monster looked at him with such a similar expression of annoyance that Eric wondered if Blue was in on it somehow, and had set him up. They acted like old colleagues or co-conspirators.
"I won't touch anything, I promise, scouts honour."
"Don't mind him, he's harmless." Blue said and returned to the conversation. "Where did you get her legs? They ain't a good a match, are they? One's black?"
"Out here, I have limited choices. This piece," De Lacey said, turning away and tapping the right knee, "came from..."
The rest faded as Eric, taking Blue's comment as a 'Yes', slipped through the door. He paused just outside a minute or two, half expecting a deep voice to call him back. Retracing his steps up the stairs, he returned to the drawing room. Time to go he thought and picked up the can Blue had left on the mantelpiece, a stark reminder of the dire situation out in the real world, a few yards above this outback bunker.
Quietly closing the door behind him, Eric felt his way to the corner of the tunnel's mini maze, in utter darkness. Faint daylight leaked out of the tunnel, highlighting a couple of active flies. Shit, we've been here all night. He walked as close as he dared to the tunnel mouth shook the can and after a guilty look over his shoulder, gave the area a short spray. The buzz level increased as the flies went frantic and eventually fell, some spinning upside down on the stone floor, but there were always more to take their place. These monster flies were not normal. Thwarted from leaving for the moment, Eric returned to the drawing room.
The other door tempted him. It opened into a long hallway with doors on either side and at the end. He tried them all, but only the end door opened, admitting him to a large bedroom. An ornate fourposter bed, a metal-bound chest like a prop from a pirate movie, two Queen Anne chairs - see Blue, I'm not completely ignorant - and another panelled door. Eric went for the door.
The walk-in wardrobe's middle shelf was full of suits; copper and leather suits with rigid hoop necklines, all neatly folded. On the shelf above were metallic helmets with glass faceplates and flexible ringed tubes hanging off the sides. Mouth hanging open and feeling like he had stepped from one movie set to another, Eric tried to remember if there was a connection between Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and Shelley's Frankenstein. Except for both being dead writers, nothing came to mind. So, what are these then? Alien space suits or antique diving suits?
Eric immediately saw holes in the suits where the tubes dangling from the helmets could connect. It didn't surprise him to see on the floor underneath the suit shelf, a rack of what looked like miniature scuba tanks. This was something he could understand. He turned on a valve and sniffed: fresh air, beautiful.
That the monster had kept and maintained the suits showed he safely visited the outside world. Now we can too, thought Eric, grabbing two sets: helmets, suits, and tanks.
* * *
Eric stepped through the door into the lab fully suited with the spare tank for Blue slung over his shoulder, the suit draped over one arm, helmet attached, and the can of fly spray in the other.
Blue and the monster, even more hideous with his shirt off, were in animated conversation over a small leather-bound notebook. They stopped and looked at his entrance.
"Well, if ain't Captain Nemo," Blue said.
The monster's thin black lips drew apart. It was neither a smile nor a grimace, thought Eric, more a baring of teeth.
"Are you coming?" Eric said, holding out the suit. He saw Blue's lips move, but heard nothing. He watched as Blue tapped his face and pointed at Eric. With clumsy gloved fingers, Eric reached up and unclipped his faceplates. "Are you coming?" he repeated.
"What for? We're safer here with Jimbo."
"You're joking," said Eric, glancing at De Lacey, noticing small black insects with silvery wings, crawling along the suture lines which looked open and raw.
Flies!
Thinking he might have left the door open Eric dropped the extra suit and slammed his faceplate shut. His other hand came up in a smooth arc, his finger jammed on the button, painting the monster from toe to head in spray. He saw the monster's agonised scream, which reached him as a faint, rather muffled roar.
What disturbed him was Blue's distressed expression. Red in the face, Blue snatched the can and hurled it at the wall.
"What the ... you idiot," Eric shouted, deafening himself.
Blue reached up and unclipped Eric's faceplate. "Whaddid you do that for?"
"Your monster friend is as flyblown as an undocked sheep."
"They keep him alive," Blue sneered, nose to nose. "Two hundred and fifty years he's survived only to be bumped off by a man with a can of fly spray. I was standing right next to him when the flies came out to do their magic. They didn't touch me." He tapped Eric's helmet, "Connect the dots lamebrain."
With an exasperated sigh, Blue turned away. De Lacey writhed on the ground, spinning slowly on his back like a tired break-dancer.
Again bewildered, Eric wondered why the monster needed the suits if the flies were helping him. Maybe it was to keep the flies in. Rubbish. Flies didn't need an invitation to crawl all over you, which is why the suits will be great for us.
Blue glanced up and must have seen him dusting off the suit he had dropped. With a look of utter disdain, he turned back to the now still form of De Lacey. "Which of those suits you reckon would fit James?"
Eric instantly saw his error. "None, I guess. So why did he maintain them?"
"It's - was his hobby, helped him pass the time."
"You're guessing. You can't know that?"
"Can't I? Unlike you, I talked with him, listened to his story."
"I'm sorry," said Eric, sensing the phrase woefully inadequate, but what else could he say? He hadn't expected such a dreadful result.
A look of sad resignation replaced Blue's anger as he stood and held out his hand for the suit. Eric saw tears in his eyes.
Confined in the strange suit made driving difficult and the desert heat oppressive. They had driven in silence with the windows down to keep a constant airflow through the Rambler, blowing invading flies off their faceplates. Since the monster's death, the flies had gone berserk, as if their relationship was symbiotic. Perhaps without him, they would eventually die out. Eric hoped so.
Thirty minutes later, as they drove across the roadhouse apron, Eric noted the archaeologist's body had now collapsed to an empty sack of bones, no longer recognisable as human.
A cloud of flies followed them inside the roadhouse. They'd had no way to prevent it and immediately set about clearing them out. When Blue's last can of fly spray emptied, they resorted to plastic fly swats.
"One of me best sellers," said Blue. "Eco nuts going camping, don’t like flies but won't use fly spray."
This approach resulted in hundreds of black blotches on walls, floors, and counter-top. The flies, as smart as they were vicious, soon tweaked to the idea it was safer to cling to the back of the suits, until Eric found the roadhouse's fire extinguisher. Night seemed to take forever to arrive.
"The thing is," said Blue once they could shed the suits, "Jimbo said the flies kept him supplied with fresh blood. I guess they gave him more than he bargained for. Made him susceptible to fly spray and you killed him. Do you have any idea how tragic that is? Here was a bloke who talked with Cook and Bligh. The things he could have told us."
"I said I was sorry." Eric said, too tired to argue; his brain overloaded. He felt permanently on the verge of losing control. Away from the mound and the underground complex, its resident took on a dreamlike quality. Except for the borrowed suits and the piles of dead flies, it didn't seem real anymore. If only it was a nightmare, at least then he could eventually wake up. He found Blue's ready acceptance of everything irritating.
"Jimbo couldn't work out Victor's notes on how to jump-start the female bits he put together. He hoped the flies would do the trick, and infect her with his blood."
"He's gone. How do we get rid of the flies?" Eric asked.
Blue glared at him with something akin to loathing and scratched his two-day-old stubble. "Weren't you listening? They're smart, practically immortal, and they breed faster than rabbits. Like I told you, out here, flies rule. Live with it."
