Rock n Roll Babes from Outer Space (11 page)

‘Stop playing with your food, Lati,’ Baby ordered, mock-serious.

‘Yes, Captain Qwerk. Whatever you say, Captain Qwerk.’ Without warning, Lati tossed the whipper snipper at Baby. Baby’s arm flashed out, caught it and in one smooth motion threw it back. Lati snaffled it mid-flight and kept it airborne. ‘It is fucken
great
to be out of reach of Qwerk and those other deadheads,’ she whooped.

‘I’d say it’s a fair bet they’re not missing us much either,’ said Baby.

Missing wasn’t exactly the word Qwerk would have used. But if Baby thought he didn’t care if he never saw them again, she had another thing coming. In fact,
they all had another thing coming, and that thing was Qwerk himself. He just needed to work out a few final details.

Eeeeek. Eeeeek. Eeeeek. Eeeeek. Eeeeeeeeeeeeek.

Whoops. Forgot about the pet. Baby reached over, grabbed Revor by the rear legs and pulled. His head popped out with a great
phook.
He rolled onto his back, closed his eyes and lay panting gratefully.

‘We could sit here all day,’ said Doll, ‘or we could make a move. I don’t wanna appear too impatient or anything, but I smell sex, drugs and rock n roll, and well, I dunno about the rest of
youse
but I’m ready.’ This got a laugh from the others. They knew about the difference between you and youse. Aliens might be innocent of many aspects of life on Earth, and their words might not spill out correctly all the time, but they’re not stupid. Or illiterate.

‘Actually, now that you mention it,’ said Lati, letting her toys drop to the ground, ‘I smell sex, drugs and rock n roll too. And I think it’s coming from next door.’

Baby glanced at the Locate-a-tron. ‘Definitely next door,’ she affirmed. ‘But, Lati?’ She put on her stern, I-am-the-leader-here voice.

‘Yeah?’ Lati hated it when Baby pulled that leader shit. It was so bloody Nufonian.

‘Jake’s mine this time.’

Lati shrugged. ‘As if I gave a fuck. I didn’t think he was so great the first time.’ Lati wasn’t being particularly malicious. She just enjoyed stirring Baby.

Doll observed their exchange warily.

Just as Baby was about to retort that Jake had probably thought even less of her, George reappeared. ‘Thanks for the grub,’ she said to George. ‘We’re off.’

‘You’ll be back, won’t you?’ he asked anxiously.

Reading his mind, she assured him, ‘Wouldn’t lift off without you.’

Tristram ambled back into the lounge. He flopped back down on the beanbag next to his twin.

Jake and Torquil looked at him blankly. Where had he been all this time, they wondered. It felt like he’d been gone for
years.
Torquil, overcome with emotion, threw his arms around his brother. ‘Bro,’ he cried. ‘Where
were
you?’

‘Where d’ya reckon?’ Tristram wriggled out of Torquil’s grasp. ‘At the door.’

‘
Really?
’ Torquil replied in a voice full of wonder. ‘That’s
so
cool.’ He thought about it a moment. ‘Was anyone else there?’

‘George.’

‘And what does old George have to say for himself, hey?’ Jake interjected.

‘He says the, uh, aliens have landed,’ Tristram answered, getting up again and wandering off to the kitchen to fetch a glass of…a glass of…Never mind. He’d probably remember when he got there.

‘
Doodoodoodoo
,’ giggled Torquil. ‘
Doodoodoodoo
.’

Jake suddenly felt very warm. He glanced at his new tattoo. It appeared to be heating up. Bizarre. Fred and Ginger were getting on his nerves. He picked up the remote control and switched channels. Click. A flying saucer was attempting to uplift a new model four-wheel drive, but failing. Click. Someone was impersonating a Mintie by tying up his ears with elastic bands. Click. On the news, the government announced new laws making it illegal to laugh at the foreign minister or any other members of Cabinet, no matter how risible they became. Click. A little extraterrestrial danced around a giant bar of chocolate. Click. Back to Fred and Ging.

‘Torq,’ he said.

Torq, eyes closed, had gone back into screen saver mode. Flying toasters winged their way across his eyelids, followed by toast.

‘Torq.’

Torq slowly came back on line. ‘Mm?’

‘I have this funny feeling that I’m about to meet the love of my life.’

Torq rolled his eyes. ‘Yeah. Well. You say that every Saturday night.’

‘It’s Sunday.’ Jake held up the paper and tapped an ad. ‘And speaking of Sunday. Smokey Stover’s playing the Sando tonight. Smokey Stover.
The
Smokey Stover. Tonight.’

Torq reached for the bong, pulled another cone and contemplated Jake’s professed excitement. ‘But Jake,’ he said.

‘Wha?’

‘I forget. What were we talking about?’

‘Dunno. Nothing?’

‘No. There was something. What’d you say just then?’

‘I said,’ Jake said, yawning again, and scratching his arse, which suddenly itched something fierce and had just released another small
blaaaat.
‘Smokey Stover’s playing the Sando tonight.’

‘Oh, that’s right. But Jake. Stokey Smover. Skokey Mover. Smovey Stokey always plays the Sando on Sunday nights.’

Jake sighed and shook his head. ‘You know, Torq, all I ask is—what?—a little enthusiasm. A little zeal. A little passion.’ He drew smoke into his lungs thoughtfully. That’s exactly what he needed, it occurred to him with a blinding flash of self-awareness: a little enthusiasm, a little zeal, a little passion. Torq didn’t need these things
half
as much as he did. What was he saying? Oh right. ‘Besides, someday, I know it’s hard to imagine, but someday Smokey Stover might not play the Sando on Sundays. And then, you know what? Life would be different.’

‘Life’s full of surprises,’ Torq submitted.

‘It is,’ agreed Tristram, who’d reappeared with a teatowel in his hand. He wasn’t sure why he had picked up the towel, it just seemed to be the right thing at the time. He sat down again and hung the towel over his brother’s head. Then he bent over and examined the hem of his frock. The stitching was fucken
amazing.

Knock knock.

‘Trist,’ Jake said. ‘The door.’

‘I got it last time,’ Tristram protested.

‘Which,’ Jake explained with exemplary logic, ‘is exactly why you should get it this time too. You’re in practice.’

Tristram frowned. He felt intuitively that there was something wrong with that argument but he couldn’t put a finger on it. He hauled himself out of the beanbag once more. There was definitely a flaw in Jake’s line of reasoning. Line of reasoning. Why was it a
line
of reasoning? Why couldn’t reasoning be a dot, or a plane, or a solid even? Maybe logic was a rhomboid, sorta circular but with
angles.
Tristram snudged out of the room to answer the door.

Torq extended a mental claw and scratched in the dirt
of his memory. ‘Uh, Jake,’ he said, sloughing off the towel. ‘Wanna hear a joke?’

‘Dunno. Is it a good joke?’

‘Dunno. Who’s to judge?’

Jake pulled the cushion into a more comfortable position under his neck and repositioned his long legs. ‘Well?’ he said. ‘Lay it on me.’

‘Have you heard the one about the dyslexic agnostic insomniac?’

‘Nup.’

‘He lay awake all night trying to figure out if there really was a dog.’

‘Arf arf…what the fuck?’ The hair on Jake’s arms and legs suddenly stood straight up. Full-body horripilation. Even his dreads were doing their best to scramble to their feet. Being fat and heavy and unaccustomed to exercise, however, they only managed to heave themselves halfway up before tripping over again exhausted. Three faded to zero as the CD wound down. A trancelike silence enveloped the room. Fred Astaire transmuted into a swarm of butterflies and fluttered off screen. Jake’s eyeballs were bathed in a dazzle of icy, diamantine light and he had a distinct sensation of centipedes in steel-capped boots marching up and down his spine. Hesitantly, he turned his gaze to Torquil. Judging by the other’s bugeyed expression, he knew that, whatever it was, Torquil was experiencing it too.

You have to give it to them—alien chicks really know how to make an entrance.

There, in the door of the lounge, stood a very palelooking Tristram and three positively glowing rock n roll babes from outer space.

‘Oi,’ greeted Baby. ‘Remember us?’

Jake sat up straight and blinked. Deja vu deja vu deja vu vu vu. But. How. When. Where?

Doh! she thought. Forgot about the Memocide. ‘Never mind,’ she said, unreasonably disappointed. ‘We just had
sex.
But it’s not your fault you don’t remember.’

Jake was goggle-eyed.

‘Really. It’s not.’

Lati studied the twins, who were looking equally flabbergasted. They were
heaps
cuter than Jake. Baby could have him. She’d have
them.
‘How are you today, ma’am?’ she inquired coquettishly. ‘Wanna suck my cock?’

Doll sighed and grabbed her crotch. Boy-o-rama. Where were some
girls,
hey?

‘Well,’ gestured Torquil, when he found his voice again, ‘do come in. And, oh, Jake?’

‘Uh, yeah?’ answered Jake, not taking his eyes off Baby.

‘You’re a legend. Fucken
leg of lamb
.’

I wonder if we could get away with fewer Sirians?

Let’s see. Given that Zn
²⁺
+ 2e == Zn, and the solubility product of MgNH
₄
PO
₄
at 25° C is 2,5 x 10
^-13
, if we installed a few extra solenoids here and a synchrocyclotron there we might not need quite as much vanadium or molybdenum, and that way—Qwerk brightened—we just might be able to knock down the Sirian component a bit.

Qwerk rose from his desk and walked to the door. He looked down the corridor. No one was around. He shut the door and returned to his desk. Opening his mouth wide, he inserted a long silver finger. With just a twinge of
guilt, he thought of the things that excited him most—tidy suburban shopping centres, pocket calculators and Michelle Mabelle—and devoted the next twenty minutes to pleasuring his uvula. Dongdong dingding dongdong dingding dongding dongding dongding dingdong dingdong
DINGDINGDINGDINGDING.

Before rock n roll, before rhythm & blues, before jazz, before Mozart and Bach, before Gregorian chants and German lieder, before sitar and marimba and gamelan and dulcimer and pipa, before
Cats
and
Phantom
and revivals of
Hair
, before reggae and house and ska and dub, before Johnnie Farnham, before Elvis, before Orpheus, before Throbbing Gristle and Butthole Surfers, all living creatures grooved to one beat: that of the heart.

Baboom. Baboom. Baboom. A stethoscopic survey of the living creatures gathered in the loungeroom of a particular Newtown sharehouse late on a Sunday afternoon early in the spring but late in the twentieth century would have revealed some highly generalised cardiac confusion. Was it rampant, uncontrollable lust? The first wild intimations of true love? The unpredictable physiological effects of alien contact upon the Earthling constitution and vice versa? Just springtime? A cosmic vibration caused by an adjustment in the orbit of the asteroid Eros, which at that precise moment had shifted minutely closer to Earth? All of the above?