The Japanese Devil Fish Girl and Other Unnatural Attractions Part 19

Professor Coffin departed and this time, to the accompaniment of a background din provided by many jungle beasties, George said his prayers as a good boy should and then dropped off to sleep.

It had all the makings of a proper expedition, so much in the way of equipment there was to be seen. Sleeping bags and picnic hampers, hammocks and mosquito nets. Bottled water and provisions, beer and crates of cigarettes. Tents and special umbrellas, big game rifle ray guns too. A folding canvas gents excuse-me. Sola topis, red and blue.

George was handed a sola topi, turquoise blue with fine big bra.s.s jungle goggles.

'Where did all this wonderful stuff come from?' asked George of the professor. 'I cannot believe it all just washed ash.o.r.e.'

'The burghers of Jupiter, as you will have observed, are somewhat jolly fellows,' Professor Coffin explained. 'One reason for this is that they are always prepared. For anything anything, really. They work on the principle that "well prepared is best prepared". They were first into a lifeboat. A lifeboat that they had previously packed with all this paraphernalia "just in case".'

'They clearly possess superior foresight,' said George, putting on his sola topi. 'How do I look?'

'Absurd,' said the professor. 'But it will keep the mosquitoes out of your hair and the sun off the back of your neck. Mind you, with that hat and your shrunken suit you'd cut a comic dash on the stage of the Hackney Empire.'

'Professor,' said George, steering the showman away to a quieter place where he might speak confidentially. 'Do you really think that we will find Sayito in this temple?'

'I have every confidence, my boy.'

'And you believe She is a G.o.ddess, correct?'

Professor Coffin shrugged. 'I believe only this,' he said to George, 'that whatever She is, She is unique. And if we return with Her to the civilised world, She will make our fortunes.'

'I do see a flaw in such reasoning,' said George. 'Whoever, or whatever, She is, She may not wish to accompany us.'

'We will cross that bridge when we come to it. I feel confident that I have the means to persuade Her. George, we are not here by any accident. All of this has been preordained. All of this is fate. Your fate.'

'But why?' asked George. 'Why me me?'

'I have no doubt that all will eventually become clear, to everyone's satisfaction.'

George was not altogether convinced.

'So are you ready to leave?' asked the professor.

'As ready as I will ever be, I suppose,' said George.

'And you have done your business and washed your hands?'

'What?' went George, appalled. went George, appalled.

'You really do not ever want to get caught short in the jungle,' Professor Coffin explained. 'Too many red ants' nests or horrible fishes that swim up your old John Thomas if you are having a wee-wee in the river-'

'Stop, Professor, please please!' went George. 'And I have have been, thank you.' been, thank you.'

Professor Coffin gave him a look.

'And washed my hands too too. Now stop.'

The captive native, secured about the waist by a length of st.u.r.dy rope for fear that some untoward circ.u.mstance might cause him to desert his position, led the way. Behind him two Jupiterians, heavily built and armed in the likewise persuasion. Then Ada and Darwin, then George and the professor, and then four further burghers of Jupiter, the final two armed with their big game rifle ray guns and walking backwards.

'As long as we are not attacked from the sides we have every chance of survival,' said George.

Professor Coffin said nothing.

It was going to be an uphill struggle in every sense of the words. The fellows from Jupiter, enthusiastic and full of beans as they were, were not built for uphill travel. Jupiter was a great big planet with heavier gravity than the Earth, and as a consequence the folk of Jupiter were very solidly built. So although they experienced a certain lightness of step when they set foot upon Planet Earth, this had a tendency to be negated by the heroic quant.i.ties of Earthly food they proceeded to consume.

George did not know quite what to make of them.

They were certainly more human than were the ecclesiastics of Venus. They appeared to really love life. They laughed, they sang, they gambolled and they laughed some more. And were it not for certain subtle differences their lack of an index finger, the length of their ear lobes, the close set of their eyes they were really all but human in appearance.

And they did not seem to bother with religion. They came, they traded, they spent the money they earned from their trading and then they all went home.

They were a racist's delight.

George eyed them as they puffed and plodded and climbed ever higher and higher.

On every hour they took a break and sat down for a rest. George sat close to Ada, who had divested herself of her normal travelling clothes and now wore only her vest, corset and bloomers, and looked just just the way that a girl adventurer should. Together they gazed out over the jungle. It truly was paradise, the lush green trees, the silver sands, the gorgeous ocean beyond. the way that a girl adventurer should. Together they gazed out over the jungle. It truly was paradise, the lush green trees, the silver sands, the gorgeous ocean beyond.

'Tell me,' said George to Ada, 'do you still have your female intuition?'

'I hope so,' said Ada. 'Why do you ask?'

'Because even though I obviously do not possess it to a single degree, I have a very bad feeling about how all of this is going to end.'

'The professor knows what is-'

'Stop that,' said George once more.

'Everything sweet as a sweet little nut?' asked the professor, ambling over. 'I thought I heard you saying "stop", young George.'

'Everything is fine.' George lifted his sola topi and wiped away sweat from his forehead. 'How much longer do you think it will take us to reach the summit?'

'If we continue unmolested, an hour perhaps. We have, however, been followed for at least the last hour by small brown men with bones through their noses.'

George gave a terrible shudder. 'I expect they want our guide returned to them.'

'And us in their cooking pot. But it is not really for the natives that I have concerns regarding our safety.'

'No?' said George. 'Then for what?'

'Look up,' said the professor. 'Up into the sky.'

George glanced up to the dazzling sky.

'Apply your goggles, George,' said the professor.

George lowered his goggles from his headwear and scanned the heavens above. At length he lifted his goggles once more and said, very quietly, 'What are those?'

'I am of two opinions,' said Professor Coffin, 'and I am torn between the two.'

Ada Lovelace did glancings upwards, donned her her goggles and stared. 'Oh dear no,' said Ada Lovelace. 'I do not believe goggles and stared. 'Oh dear no,' said Ada Lovelace. 'I do not believe that that.'

'Whether or not they fit into your belief system,' said Professor Coffin, 'is probably neither here, nor there. They circle above us large as life, but somewhat twice as terrible.'

'Vultures?' said George. 'Or great bats? But certainly horrible creatures.'

'Ah,' said Professor Coffin, 'your goggles lack for a magnifying lens. They are neither of the above, young George. They are either harpies or they are pterodactyls. '

George took in the enormity of this.

Ada all but fainted.

'Just think,' said Professor Coffin, 'if we could get one of those those back to London alive. I have heard tales of an island where there lives a gigantic ape. Long King Dong I think they call him, but that is probably just a tall tale. Those, however,' and he pointed to the sky, 'those look real enough to me. If they attack us and I feel that they will we must do everything in our power to net one.' back to London alive. I have heard tales of an island where there lives a gigantic ape. Long King Dong I think they call him, but that is probably just a tall tale. Those, however,' and he pointed to the sky, 'those look real enough to me. If they attack us and I feel that they will we must do everything in our power to net one.'

George Fox rolled his eyes. 'You never let an opportunity slip by, do you, Professor?' he said.

'I am a professional, George. I tucked half a dozen shrunken heads into that knapsack you are carrying the Rubes will pay a goodly penny to see those in London.'

'Aaaagh,' went George, a-tearing off his knapsack. 'Those are people's heads.'

'Onwards and upwards, George.' The professor laughed. 'Indeed onwards and upwards everybody, we will soon be there.'

Another half an hour of plodding upwards found the party upon a gra.s.sy promontory, several hundred yards below the summit.

'Oh yes indeed, indeed,' said the professor. 'What think you of that, George? What think you?'

Above them loomed the temple. A vast construction clinging to the rim of the volcano. George had once seen an etching of the Potala Palace in Tibet and there was much of that extraordinary edifice evident here. But there was so much more to be amazed by. Golden rooftops pitched at eccentric angles; turrets, seemingly of pearl, rising to dwindle in dizzying perspective. This building was Gothic, it was Chinese, it was Indian and j.a.panese and Javanese and Balinese, Taiwanese as well. And parts even bore a striking resemblance to the Prince Regent's pavilion in Brighton. There were statues of many G.o.ds, Judaic, heathen, pagan. Symbols inlaid into stone. The hexagram of Solomon, Bohme's wheel of anguish, the lapis sigil of the alchemists. Fludd's Trinitarian heaven enclosed within the sacred triangle. The squared circle of Pythagoras. The Rosicrucian 'Tree of Pansophia'. The tenfold universal spheres of Hermes Trismegistus. These and more, in stone beneath the sunlight.

'I am afeared,' said George to the professor. 'We are in a sacred place and we have not come here to wors.h.i.+p. We must turn back, Professor. We must go no further.'

'Oh my word no,' said Professor Coffin. 'We might well be the first civilised men to have visited this place in a thousand years. We cannot turn back now, not when we are so close. My entire life has led to this moment, George, and yours also. It is our fate, do you understand me? It is your your fate.' fate.'

George looked hard at the professor, whose eyes, shaded by the brim of his solar toupee, seemed to glow from within, lit by some dark fire.

'It is wrong,' said George. 'All wrong. We are not fit to enter.'

Professor Coffin's hand moved to his waistcoat pocket.

'Step aside with me a moment, George,' said he.

28.

George stepped aside with the professor. He was not too keen to do so though and when the showman put his arm about George's shoulders, the young man shrugged him off. Politely.

'Come, come, George,' said Professor Coffin. 'You look all in and tired.'

'I am not too bad,' said George. 'I do not particularly want to leave Ada alone, though, with those wild things all circling in the sky.'

'We will be but a moment. There is something I would like you to see. Something I would like you to smell, in fact.'

'To smell smell? I do not understand.'

Professor Coffin dipped in his waistcoat pocket. Drew out a slim gla.s.s phial with a screw-on cap. 'This will not take but a moment,' he said to George. 'And then all will be well-'

But George said, 'No,' very loudly and pushed past the professor. 'I cannot leave Ada,' he told the showman. 'You will have to show me later.'

Professor Coffin watched the lad returning to his love.

'Be a.s.sured,' said he, beneath his breath, 'I will will show you later.' show you later.'

Ada Lovelace, looking very pretty, was sipping water from a bra.s.s canteen. Her emerald eyes turned up towards George as he approached her and she asked, 'Is everything satisfactory between yourself and the professor?'

'Yes,' said George, rather sharply, and he settled down beside her. 'He wants to enter the temple. I I do do not not.'

'Then why not just wait here for him? After all, he does know what is-'

George cut her off in mid-flow. 'Ada,' he said, 'I do not know what that man did to you, but I know he did something. Your about-turn regarding your opinion of him is overwhelmingly suspicious. Young ladies such as yourself are not not for turning.' for turning.'

George looked Ada deep in the eyes. 'Did he do something?' he asked. he do something?' he asked.

Ada Lovelace made a puzzled face; a pretty face it still remained, but puzzled. 'Something happened,' she said slowly. 'Something in the Ladies' Accommodation aboard the Empress of Mars Empress of Mars. But it is blurry and indistinct. Some of my memories are missing.'

Two and two were making four with George. 'The same thing happened to me,' said he. 'Both times in the company of the professor.'

'Yes,' said Ada, her green eyes growing wide. 'The professor. He was-' But she never finished.

Instead she screamed at the top of her voice and pushed George to the side.

The expedition was suddenly under attack.

Down they plunged from the sky, those horrid beasties. And as they swooped and dived towards the party upon the exposed promontory, it was clearly apparent that they were neither harpies nor pterodactyls.

'They are flying monkeys,' cried George, scooping up his knapsack filled with shrunken heads and whirling it about at the attackers.

Darwin the monkey butler, exhibiting a wisdom which spoke highly of the evolutionary link between ape and man, ducked away to silent cover and hid himself at the jungle's edge.

Professor Coffin took to hurling stones.

Jovial Jovians c.o.c.ked their mighty weapons.