THE GUN
by
T.J.Hurford
A toy shop...
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COMMANDER 'THARG' RAYGUNS
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(GET ONE BEFORE IT GETS YOU!)
Teenager, Bill Wilkinson isn't the kind of boy to want toy guns normally but a 'Commander Tharg' Raygun is something extra special. Nobody, and I DO mean NOBODY on the block or at school has one, and BOY!,it sure would wipe the smile off Jack Mason's face if Bill managed to get hold of one.
Bill is staying with his Grandparents in another town for a few days and with a little wheedle here and a slightly larger hint there, he soon has the toy in his possession.
Bill saves up the pleasure of unwrapping his new gadget 'til later that night when he has gone up to bed. First the shop bag comes off, then the tape holding down the lid is cut and finally the moulded polystyrene casing is eased up.
The boy stares down at his 'gun' in dismay. 'What a rip-off'. He's been given a used one. He looks at the 'raygun' in bitter disappointment. The muzzle, a curious transparent spiral affair is dirty and the hand-grip looks as though it has melted into an unholdable blob. Even the lights have been left on and are growing very dim. The batteries must be almost dead he thinks.
Bill gets off the bed and starts to open his door. Perhaps his Grandfather will take it back in the morning and get a replacement.
The teenager stares back at the gun, a puzzled frown wrinkling his forehead. Returning to the toy he looks at it more closely. THAT'S STRANGE!. The handgrip is covered in a thin leather. Not plastic!. LEATHER. What's real leather doing on a cheap toy raygun?. He looks more closely. The dirt on the muzzle isn't dirt at all. He wipes a finger along the tubing. Unnoticed on the underside of the toy, the battery lights brighten and then subdue. Bill lifts up his hand and carefully sniffs his finger. It smells of bonfire smoke!.
Reaching out, Bill lifts the 'weapon' from its packaging. Simultaneously, three things happen. With a curious tickling sensation the grip writhes within his palm and instantly remoulds itself to the shape of his hand. Lights, previously hidden by grime, come alive, corruscating in rainbow colours along both sides of the 'barrel' and, slowly at first but with increasing speed, elements of lightweight body armour snap upwards from the gun covering first his hand, then his arm and finally moving across his whole body with a series of soft clicking sounds.
Bill is too shocked for a moment to do more than stare at his reflection in the bedroom mirror. Instead of a tousle-headed, fourteen year old school boy, there stands an alien warrior complete with weapon, space helmet and body armour.
Blue lightning flashes and crackles about the edge of his body and illuminates his room like a human Van der Graf generator. With a frightened jerk, Bill throws the 'toy' onto the floor. At once, he is plain old Bill Wilkinson again.
No armour, No helmet and no weaponry.
Bill sinks to the floor and leans against the bed in amazed silence. A few inches away the gun continues to glow, its power apparently restored, lights flashing. He holds up his right hand and stares at it before subjecting it to rapid scratching. Pins and Needles.
Gently Bill reaches out an index finger and very lightly, with the extreme tip, touches the grip. Instantly, black shell-like sections click up his finger and across his hand, advancing and retreating as his finger touches and then gently moves away again. He smiles. The sensation is quite pleasant. He takes his hand away and crosses the room to an armchair. Picking up the box to see if he can find any clues he curls up, feet beneath him.
Far, far away on the other side of Mars, hidden from the prying eyes of Earth, a warning signal 'shouts' for attention. In the Captain's office of the Interstellar Study Ship, I.S.S Commander Tharg, Osro Phil'k is standing in subdued silence getting the dressing down he knows he deserves. To 'borrow' a Class Two CT Raygun is one thing, and to take it down to an inhabited planet to show off to your classmates during a geology lesson, another, but to actually LOSE IT!. The Captain is NOT amused. He is even less happy when it emerges that this all happened two whole CRUDPOX AGO!.
Actually, two crudpox, fourteen snots and three greebles, to be precise. He is apoplectic that the case has only just been reported and it is only because Osro's Uncle is Commander of the Fleet back home that this lad is not now pushing up the Wibblies on the face of Mars. "BREAD AND WATER FOR TWO CRUDPOX!!!. AND NO SNIVELLING HOME ON THE INTERSTELLAR BARGLESNOOT TO UNCLE PHILK!. Osro scuttles from the office with his tail between his legs. Phew!. He considers himself to be very, VERY lucky indeed to still be breathing.
Still shuddering, the young student heads back to his dormitory, rapidly regaining his aplomb as stories of his bravery 'under fire' begin to recommend themselves to his imagination for recounting to his admiring peers.
Privately, Osro thanks his lucky stars that he had the good sense to instigate Duplication Procedures as soon as he discovered the loss. If it hadn't been for THAT saving grace, nothing would have saved him from being 'spaced' by the Captain, Uncle or no Uncle.
Duplication Procedures, or 'DeePees' as the students were privately wont to call them, stated that 'All pieces of equipment likely to be used on an alien planet must, by law of the homeworld be capable of self-replication in the event of loss'. (DP503/762.axplonk). In this particular instance, that meant, the raygun, property of the ISS Commander Tharg would, after a certain period of time away from its sanctioned user, begin to copy itself. Every little detail of the original with the exception of its more obvious alien properties would be duplicated or cloned on several thousand facsimiles. The rationale and prime purpose of such a capability was obvious to all but a Marvellian Slimesprooker, to hide the real equipment until a rescue mission could recover it.
' There's no danger that the Prime Weapon can actually harm anyone '. This thought was the only solace for Osro. After all, the raygun was tuned to his own life force when it was mis-placed. so no other being of his race could possibly set its lethal functions into action. Osro is a hero to his classmates. Nothing but bread and water for TWO WHOLE CRUDPOX!!.
It's said that everybody has a twin somewhere - a doppelganger. Bill Wilkinson has one alright. It's just that his is Osro Phil'k, an alien from Alpha Centauri!!.
The recovery mission goes off without a hitch. Guided by the in-built homing beacon when its loss was first reported, the Class Two Commander Tharg Raygun is retrieved, apparently without a problem. Osro Phil'k allowed by the Captain to join the 'down team' in an attempt to redeem himself actually retrieves the weapon himself and brings it back aboard in person, his body armour glowing blue light and the gun in his hand. He is met by the Captain who is pleased to accept it from the young student.
The armour disappears back into the gun as it passes from hand to hand, but there is something wrong!.
With a strangled cry, Osro takes one look at the Captain and faints dead away. Everyone is puzzled. True, the Captain, being a Zannussi'an is not everyone's cup of farp, what with those slimy gill flaps and all, but Osro has been in the man's company now for thirty-eight whole crudpox so there's really no excuse. Perhaps the poor boy has fainted from lack of real food. Bread and water for two crudpox would be enough to make anyone faint. They pick the limp body up wondering where he got such repulsive pyjamas from. They're covered in pink alien farm animals!. He is carried to a private room and left in the tender care of Nurse Phwoorre, a binary-headed Scrate from Phwipple.
Bill Wilkinson is having a nightmare. Perhaps it's the raygun instigating hallucinations?. One moment he is strutting round the bedroom admiring himself in a mirror, the next, he's on a spaceship surrounded by boys who look not unlike himself who are obviously under the control of a large alien so weird that not even the art in his space comics could have done better. The big one dripping green phlegm from what looks like gill slits is GROTESQUE!. It wouldn't be so bad, but there's a little warty thing following behind with a mop and bucket to clean up the goo. Now, there's THIS one with TWO HEADS!!. Enough is enough. Bill faints back again into unconsciousness.
If Bill Wilkinson thinks HIS nightmare is bad, he should be in Osro Phil'k's shoes. Chased round an alien garden by a snarling, barking and obviously dangerous creature, he only manages to escape by climbing into the alien's house. He tumbles headlong in through one window just as Bill is leaving through another, borne aloft in the arms of his excited friends.
Osro stares out at the night sky. The 'downship' has lifted without him and his communication device is somewhere below hidden in the foliage and guarded by the beast.
Bill is about to go on a foreign exchange visit his teachers have never dreamed about. Osro, at least has a few advantages. He has been studying Earth for several crudpox and speaks the language, albeit with what will become a slightly embarrassing lisp. Osro also has some, by Earth's standards, some amazing abilities. He comes from a much stronger gravity and feels as if he could run faster, leap higher and swim deeper than ever before. He is also considerably brainier and stronger than the average American student of his age and can speak multiple languages fluently. This should make him popular. It doesn't. Except, of course, with girls. Osro LOVES girls.
Bill Wilkinson is going on a trip of a lifetime. Once the mistake has been discovered, it will be too late for the aliens to cover up their mistake. Bill will be leaving school earlier than he thinks. He will become Earth's Extra Terrestrial Adviser and Ambassador before his sixteenth birthday and President of the World on his twentieth, but that is still in the future. First, he has to find the strength to get off the bed!.
Far, far away on the other side of Mars, hidden from the prying eyes of Earth, a warning signal 'shouts' for attention. In the Captain's office of the Interstellar Study Ship, I.S.S Commander Tharg, Osro Phil'k is standing in subdued silence getting the dressing down he knows he deserves. To 'borrow' a Class Two CT Raygun is one thing, and to take it down to an inhabited planet to show off to your classmates during a geology lesson, another, but to actually LOSE IT!. The Captain is NOT amused. He is even less happy when it emerges that this all happened two whole CRUDPOX AGO!.
Actually, two crudpox, fourteen snots and three greebles, to be precise. He is apoplectic that the case has only just been reported and it is only because Osro's Uncle is Commander of the Fleet back home that this lad is not now pushing up the Wibblies on the face of Mars. "BREAD AND WATER FOR TWO CRUDPOX!!!. AND NO SNIVELLING HOME ON THE INTERSTELLAR BARGLESNOOT TO UNCLE PHILK!. Osro scuttles from the office with his tail between his legs. Phew!. He considers himself to be very, VERY lucky indeed to still be breathing.
Still shuddering, the young student heads back to his dormitory, rapidly regaining his aplomb as stories of his bravery 'under fire' begin to recommend themselves to his imagination for recounting to his admiring peers.
Privately, Osro thanks his lucky stars that he had the good sense to instigate Duplication Procedures as soon as he discovered the loss. If it hadn't been for THAT saving grace, nothing would have saved him from being 'spaced' by the Captain, Uncle or no Uncle.
Duplication Procedures, or 'DeePees' as the students were privately wont to call them, stated that 'All pieces of equipment likely to be used on an alien planet must, by law of the homeworld be capable of self-replication in the event of loss'. (DP503/762.axplonk). In this particular instance, that meant, the raygun, property of the ISS Commander Tharg would, after a certain period of time away from its sanctioned user, begin to copy itself. Every little detail of the original with the exception of its more obvious alien properties would be duplicated or cloned on several thousand facsimiles. The rationale and prime purpose of such a capability was obvious to all but a Marvellian Slimesprooker, to hide the real equipment until a rescue mission could recover it.
' There's no danger that the Prime Weapon can actually harm anyone '. This thought was the only solace for Osro. After all, the raygun was tuned to his own life force when it was mis-placed. so no other being of his race could possibly set its lethal functions into action. Osro is a hero to his classmates. Nothing but bread and water for TWO WHOLE CRUDPOX!!.
It's said that everybody has a twin somewhere - a doppelganger. Bill Wilkinson has one alright. It's just that his is Osro Phil'k, an alien from Alpha Centauri!!.
The recovery mission goes off without a hitch. Guided by the in-built homing beacon when its loss was first reported, the Class Two Commander Tharg Raygun is retrieved, apparently without a problem. Osro Phil'k allowed by the Captain to join the 'down team' in an attempt to redeem himself actually retrieves the weapon himself and brings it back aboard in person, his body armour glowing blue light and the gun in his hand. He is met by the Captain who is pleased to accept it from the young student.
The armour disappears back into the gun as it passes from hand to hand, but there is something wrong!.
With a strangled cry, Osro takes one look at the Captain and faints dead away. Everyone is puzzled. True, the Captain, being a Zannussi'an is not everyone's cup of farp, what with those slimy gill flaps and all, but Osro has been in the man's company now for thirty-eight whole crudpox so there's really no excuse. Perhaps the poor boy has fainted from lack of real food. Bread and water for two crudpox would be enough to make anyone faint. They pick the limp body up wondering where he got such repulsive pyjamas from. They're covered in pink alien farm animals!. He is carried to a private room and left in the tender care of Nurse Phwoorre, a binary-headed Scrate from Phwipple.
Bill Wilkinson is having a nightmare. Perhaps it's the raygun instigating hallucinations?. One moment he is strutting round the bedroom admiring himself in a mirror, the next, he's on a spaceship surrounded by boys who look not unlike himself who are obviously under the control of a large alien so weird that not even the art in his space comics could have done better. The big one dripping green phlegm from what looks like gill slits is GROTESQUE!. It wouldn't be so bad, but there's a little warty thing following behind with a mop and bucket to clean up the goo. Now, there's THIS one with TWO HEADS!!. Enough is enough. Bill faints back again into unconsciousness.
If Bill Wilkinson thinks HIS nightmare is bad, he should be in Osro Phil'k's shoes. Chased round an alien garden by a snarling, barking and obviously dangerous creature, he only manages to escape by climbing into the alien's house. He tumbles headlong in through one window just as Bill is leaving through another, borne aloft in the arms of his excited friends.
Osro stares out at the night sky. The 'downship' has lifted without him and his communication device is somewhere below hidden in the foliage and guarded by the beast.
Bill is about to go on a foreign exchange visit his teachers have never dreamed about. Osro, at least has a few advantages. He has been studying Earth for several crudpox and speaks the language, albeit with what will become a slightly embarrassing lisp. Osro also has some, by Earth's standards, some amazing abilities. He comes from a much stronger gravity and feels as if he could run faster, leap higher and swim deeper than ever before. He is also considerably brainier and stronger than the average American student of his age and can speak multiple languages fluently. This should make him popular. It doesn't. Except, of course, with girls. Osro LOVES girls.
Bill Wilkinson is going on a trip of a lifetime. Once the mistake has been discovered, it will be too late for the aliens to cover up their mistake. Bill will be leaving school earlier than he thinks. He will become Earth's Extra Terrestrial Adviser and Ambassador before his sixteenth birthday and President of the World on his twentieth, but that is still in the future. First, he has to find the strength to get off the bed!.
end
copyright T.J.Hurford 1996. All Rights Reserved
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