Einstein's Underpants--And How They Saved the World (19 page)

He had to align his vessel at a precise angle to the oncoming asteroid. Get the angle wrong and he'd lose the ship as well as the Earth, with all its succulent goodness.

So even as fine a mind as Thlugg's, backed up by the most powerful computers in the universe, found itself fully occupied, for now.

CHAPTER 45

A CHEMISTRY LESSON

THE FREAKS WERE
lurking near the main entrance to the shield generator room. There were twenty burly, heavily armed Borgia on guard. Toy guns and metal playing cards and fierce tortoises wouldn't do the job. There was no way through.

The Hurricane was translating Plymm's smells in hushed tones: ‘She says there's a ventilation shaft that will take us right inside the room. We can give the shield generators a serious mashing from there. Then we make a dash for the escape pods, and pray this all works.'

The opening to the ventilation shaft was a rubbery flap, like something you'd find in a dissected pig's heart. It was just wide
enough for them to squeeze through. Then they had to wriggle like worms along the glistening intestinal tubing. It really wasn't at all nice in there. The foulest of foul gases wafted over them as they crawled, adding to that feeling that they were in the lower reaches of some great beast's bowels.

Alexander was in the middle of the crawling line of kids, his view restricted to Felicity's bottom. Not that he was looking. Jamie, Titch, Melvyn and Really Annoying Girl jostled behind him, while Tortoise Boy, The Hurricane and Plymm were ahead of Felicity. The thinking was to get their heavy hitters – Tortoise Boy and The Hurricane – up at the front for when they dropped down into the shield generator room.

Suddenly Alexander became aware of a commotion from the back of the line.

‘Monsters coming!' Jamie yelled, panic in his voice.

‘Attacked from the rear – sneaky alien swine!' snarled Titch.

‘I knew you was gonna snarl that,' said Really Annoying Girl.

‘Slow them down, Titch,' Alexander cried, looking back over his shoulder. ‘What have you got?'

‘All out of Death Cards. Nothing else, just rubbish: a rubber chicken, fake rabbit . . . No, wait, there's the flash-bombs I use when I want to disappear. You know – big flash, lots of smoke, and I go hide. That might confuse them for a while.'

Alexander now saw the first of the pursuing Borgia. It was moving swiftly through the narrow passage, squirming along like a finger in a nostril.

‘Do it.'

Titch dug around in his pocket and found three of the flash-bombs – tiny parcels of gunpowder, designed to go off with a bang on contact. He hurled them back along the tunnel, shouting out, ‘
SHAZAM!
' as he did so.

What happened next was surprising to
anyone who did not know that the venting gases of the Borgia were about seventy per cent methane, with smaller amounts of hydrogen, hydrogen sulphide and carbon monoxide.

What happened was:

BOOM!

Alexander was suddenly granted a profound insight into what it must feel like to be a cannonball, as the detonation sent the FREAKs flying along the few remaining metres of tubing and out onto the floor of the shield power-generating facility.

CHAPTER 46

THE GREAT DILEMMA

THE VENTILATION SHAFT
entered the shield room at floor level, which meant that they came skidding out on their bums, rather than crash-landing on their heads.

Their sudden and dramatic appearance was as startling to the half-dozen Borgia technicians as it was to the FREAKs. This was a further piece of luck, as, with ringing ears, hazy vision and wobbly legs, they were in no condition to fight straight away.

Really Annoying Girl was the first to recover. Years of having to listen to her own raucous voice had left her immune to loud, unpleasant noises. She went to work with her bag, flailing right and left like a berserker Viking warrior. The technicians
were not battle-trained, and two fell before her onslaught like corn before the scythe.

Tortoise Boy was next onto his feet, and soon he and Cedric had taken out two more, the unfortunate creatures left liquefying on the floor.

The last two made a wobbling run for the door. The Hurricane gassed one with a quick spurt of eggy cabbage (or cabbagy egg), and Jamie clutched the second in his mighty embrace. But it was like trying to grab the soap in the bath, and it squirted free. It hit the control panel and sped through the opening door, venting a warning to the guards as it went.

Plymm was at the door a second later. She had the override code, and locked it down.

Well, it was Plymm and yet not Plymm. She now looked more like a human than a Borgia blob.

She sent out a gaseous message to The Hurricane.

‘She says that will hold them for a few minutes.'

‘Could you ask her why she suddenly looks like a . . . like a
girl
,' said Alexander.

There was a quick exchange of smells.

‘She says that when they are young, the Borgia are more, um, malleable. If that's the word. They can change shape. They lose that ability as they reach adulthood. She likes the way we look, so she's adopting our form. But it means she'll be like this for ever.'

As The Hurricane spoke, Plymm moved around the room, smashing dials, throwing switches, wrenching out wiring. The others joined in, performing more or less random acts of vandalism. It may not have contributed much to disabling the shield, but it certainly made them feel better.

As they worked, they heard the hissing sound of a laser torch cutting through the door. And then a louder humming sound filled the ship, followed by an ominous silence.

‘That's it,' said Plymm, through The Hurricane.

Actually, not just through The Hurricane. For the first time, her venting was accompanied by a barely audible, inarticulate, but still recognizable version of the words.

The Borgia was learning to speak. The FREAKs were too busy to be freaked by this.

‘Now we go,' she whispered ploppily. ‘We have seven minutes. We go escape pod through breathing tube how we came.'

They began to crowd around the ventilation shaft, desperate to grasp this one slim chance of life.

‘Wait,' said Melvyn.

‘No,' stressed The Hurricane. ‘You heard her: we've got to get out of here!'

Alexander began to say something, but Melvyn stopped him.

‘This is important. I've thought it through. Plymm says that this will work if
we're lucky. Put that the other way round. It will work if the Borgia and that monster, Thlugg, are
unlucky
. It means that we're relying on chance, on fortune. And this is too important for that. Well, I know how to change the odds.'

‘What are you on about?' said Titch.

‘Guys, we got to split,' added The Hurricane. ‘Like, now.'

Alexander was ahead of the others. Melvyn was his best friend, and he knew what he was thinking.

‘Mel, no—'

Melvyn put his hand up. ‘Enough, Alexander. I'm staying on this ship, and that's that. If I stay, the asteroid will smash it to pieces. If I go, it won't. It's a luck thing. I'm going to keep my bad luck here with me where it can do some good. It's why I'm here. It's my power.'

‘Well,' said Really Annoying Girl, ‘I did
not
know you was gonna say that.'

‘I can stay right here with the remaining
ray guns and take out any blob that tries to get through that door.'

Alexander looked at the door. The Borgia were nearly through.

‘You know this is the right thing, Alexander,' Melvyn continued. ‘You want to be a leader? Well, now's the time to lead. Get them out of here.'

Plymm had been following the conversation, helped by The Hurricane. She touched Alexander gently on the arm. ‘Boy right,' she whispered. ‘He stay here and stop Borgia come fix shield. But now we go or all die.'

Alexander looked around at the others. Felicity was crying. Heck, they were all crying.

‘Jamie stay too. Help my friend.'

‘If he stays, I stay,' said Tortoise Boy.

‘And me,' said Titch.

That was it. Alexander had to act to save them, even if it meant sacrificing his best friend.

‘No, Melvyn's right. Let's go,' he said,
desperately trying hide his own emotion.

Felicity let out a wail of despair, but Alexander grabbed her roughly, and dragged her towards the ventilation shaft.

‘Please, Felicity, do this for me. I have to save you. I have to . . . Think about Jamie – we can't let him die here.'

Felicity nodded, and with tears streaming down her face, she took Jamie by the hand and led him into the shaft.

The Hurricane and Plymm helped shepherd the others after them. Alexander was the last to enter.

‘Get going,' he screamed. ‘I'll see you there.'

CHAPTER 47

BUTCH AND SUNDANCE

THEN
,
AS QUIETLY
as he could, he crawled back out again. Melvyn was waiting by the door, a ray gun in each hand.

‘I'll take one of those,' Alexander said to his startled friend.

‘But . . . no . . . you've got to go!'

Einstein's underpants had become rather skewed. Alexander tugged them determinedly down over his ears. ‘I'm seeing this through with you.'

‘But it's
my
luck,
my
rotten luck, not yours.'

‘Mel, I've been with you every time you've had a bucket of paint dropped on your head; every time you've fallen into a manhole; every time you've almost been
killed by an out-of-control ice-cream van; every time you've been bashed and bumped and scraped. And I'm going to stay with you now.'

Melvyn started to reply, but even though these were going to be his best friend's last words, Alexander found himself zoning out.

He was having an idea.

An amazing idea.

He tingled with the electric fizz of genius.

Actually,
idea
wasn't quite the right word. He was experiencing
understanding
. Things that had been clouded were now becoming clear.

‘What are you smiling about?' said Melvyn, puzzled.

But Alexander just grabbed his arm and, laughing now, said, ‘There's no need . . . We have to get off . . . The . . . It's . . . I'll explain on the way.'

Melvyn could not resist him. Together they dived into the shaft and scuttled after
the others. Along the way the path subdivided many times, but they were able to follow the scent trail left by The Hurricane and Plymm's conversations. And soon they saw a dark shape ahead of them.

‘Hey,' yelled Alexander, ‘we're coming!'

Seconds later they were all dropping out into a new compartment. It was a wide circular space, and the walls were lined with escape pods, each with enough room for all the children and Plymm.

The others crowded round Alexander and Melvyn, their expressions perplexed, puzzled, joyous.

‘I worked it out,' gasped Alexander. ‘Melvyn's not
unlucky
at all. In fact he's amazingly
lucky
. All those terrible accidents, and he's never once got seriously hurt. What's the chance of that? Anyone normal who fell out of a window or tripped over an eyelash or whatever would have ended up in hospital. But not Melvyn. He's not
Unluckeon
, he's
Luckeon
!'

And Melvyn smiled a slow smile of recognition. ‘Luckeon,' he said. ‘I like it.'

And then Plymm urged them into one of the pods, using what were now long, elegant arms and delicate fingers. As they strapped themselves in (loosely, for of course the seats were designed for Borgia proportions), she rapidly pressed a sequence into the control panel buttons. A handle eased down from the cockpit roof, and she yanked it.

The pod whooshed down a launching tube and out into the vacuum of space.

CHAPTER 48

DOWN THE THLUGG-HOLE

‘
SHIELD
!'
SCREAMED THE
admiral. ‘Where is that shield? GET ME MY SHIELD!'

‘It . . . appears . . . to be—' But those were the last smells ever emitted by that particular Borgia officer, as he was split and sucked dry by Thlugg, the way an ape eats an orange.

‘Fools!' Thlugg splurted. ‘Side thrusters, full impulse power. And get me a visual on that thing.'

A glowing green representation of Asteroid c4098 was projected in 3D glory into the middle of the command deck. It grew by the second, until its dimensions were greater than the room, and they were all contained within it.

‘Why aren't we moving? Where are those thrusters? Who . . . ? What . . . ? Why . . . ?'

And then Thlugg began to laugh.

He laughed because the Borgia, although nasty, brutal, smelly and silly, are not cowards, and every Borgia likes to meet his fate laughing.

The explosion was the single brightest event in the history of the Earth. Where it had been night, it was day. Where it was day, the Sun suddenly appeared like a smudge of dark brown against the new light's intensity.

If the FREAKs had been looking back, they would have been blinded. But their eyes were on the blue Earth as it sped towards them.

‘Whoooaahh!' they said, in one voice.

And, with the brightness filling the frail vessel, Alexander looked around at his companions, gazing into the eyes of each one.

There was Titch, whose poisoned Death Cards had cut a swathe through their foes,
whose flashes had baffled their pursuers and propelled them magically to their destination.

There was Tortoise Boy, Cedric snoozing on his lap. Without them, they would never have battered their way through the Borgia guards.

There was The Hurricane, hand in hand with the lovely green Plymm. Where would they have been without his bottom? Without her help?