Russell was not that kind of a fellow.

It was quiet here. The occasional heron call. A salmon going plop. Something snuffling in a bush near by. But quiet overall.

Russell strode towards the big hangar-type sliding door. Should he knock? Was he expected?

Might there be danger?

That was a thought, wasn’t it?

Best to be cautious.

Russell’s stride became a scuttle. In a big sliding door there was a little hinged door, Russell gave the handle a try. It turned and the door clicked open. Russell drew a nervous breath. This was breaking and entering. Well, it wasn’t breaking, but if he entered, it was entering. Was entering a crime? It might be entering with intent. Entering with intent to enter. That couldn’t be a crime, surely.[22]

Russell pushed the door before him and stepped into darkness. And a number of things happened very fast indeed. Russell sensed a movement. He heard the swish of something swinging down. He jumped to one side. There was a sharp metallic clang, closely followed by a cry of pain that wasn’t Russell’s. And a hand that wasn’t Russell’s found its way onto the face that was Russell’s.

Russell gripped the wrist of this hand and gave it a violent twist. A second cry of pain, somewhat louder than the first, echoed all about the place and after this came many pleas for mercy.

“Where’s the light switch?” Russell shouted.

“Up there somewhere, let me go. Leave off me. Oh. Ow. Help!”

Russell fumbled about in the darkness with his non-wrist-twisting hand and found the light switch.

Click went the light switch and on came all the lights.

“Oh, oh, oh,” went Russell’s captive, and then, “Oh shit, it’s you.”

“And it’s you,” said Russell, releasing his grip and viewing the figure at his feet. A chap of his own age, dressed all in black, long thin hair, a long thin face, a long thin body, long thin arms, and legs that were long and thin. He also had a long thin nose, with dark eyes, rather too close for comfort at the top end, and a most dishonest-looking little mouth at the bottom. This was now contorted in pain.

“Bobby Boy, what are you doing here?”

“You almost broke my bloody wrist.”

“You attacked me with something.” Russell glanced around in search of that something. It lay near by. It was a long length of metal something. Piping, it was. “You could have killed me with that?”

“You were breaking and entering.”

“Ah,” said Russell. “This is not strictly true, I have considered this and –”

“Never mind that.” Bobby Boy struggled to his long thin feet and stood rubbing his long thin wrist. “What are you doing here?”

“What are you doing here?”

“I asked first, and how did you manage to do that to me? I thought you were a man of peace.”

“I did ju-jitsu at a night-school course.”

“You did ju-jitsu?”

“It was a mistake, I signed on to do upholstery, but there was some clerical error and I didn’t want to upset anyone by mentioning it.”

“You were being polite, as usual.”

“I suppose so,” said Russell.

“So what are you doing here?”

“I was given something to deliver. Something important, I think.”

“Who gave it to you?”

“The barmaid from The Bricklayer’s Arms.”

“The one who can do the splits while standing on her head?”

“I think that’s probably the same one.” Russell nodded gloomily.

“Why did she give it to you?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, didn’t you ask her?”

“I didn’t get a chance. Look, stop asking me all these questions.”

“Do you know what it is?”

“That’s the last one I’ll answer. It’s a programmer.”

The dishonest-looking mouth dropped open and the eyes that were too close for comfort grew quite wide. “You’ve got the programmer? Let me see it, give it to me.”

“I’ll let you see it,” said Russell, “but I won’t give it to you until you explain to me exactly what it does.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Then you can’t have it.”

“Oh come on, Russell, it’s mine. I’ll make it worth your while, I’ll give you money.”

“I don’t want money. I want … Holy God, what’s that?”

Russell stared and pointed. Bobby Boy bobbed up and down before him, trying to obscure Russell’s vision. “It’s nothing, don’t worry about it. Just give me the programmer.”

“It isn’t nothing,” said Russell, gently easing Bobby Boy aside. “It’s a … it’s a …”

“It’s a UFO,” sighed Bobby boy. “But it’s my UFO.”

“You built it?”

“I … er, acquired it.”

“You stole it.”

“Technically speaking, yes.”

Russell took a few steps forward and stared up at the UFO. It wasn’t really a UFO. Which is to say that it was, but also it wasn’t. A UFO is an unidentified flying object and this object was clearly identifiable. It was clearly identifiable as the thing it was, which was, to say, a flying saucer. But then a flying saucer would qualify as a UFO. Many consider these to be one and the same. Russell was one of these.

“A flying saucer,” Russell whistled, and it was as James Campbell would say, “the full Adamski”. About fifteen feet in diameter, standing upon the traditional tripod legs. The neat little dome at the top. Several portholes. An open hatch, a nifty extendible ladder (now extended).

This flying saucer varied from others which have been reported over the years, in the fact that it had certain markings on the side. Not cryptic symbols of a possibly Venusian nature, but symbols Russell recognized at once. And the recognition of them put the wind up him something awful.

“It’s not strictly a flying saucer,” said Bobby Boy. “It’s a Flügelrad.”

“A German word,” whispered Russell. “And those symbols are –”

“Swastikas, yes. They still have the power to put the wind up you, don’t they?”

“Yes, they do.” Russell shook his head slowly. “This is old, isn’t it? All the nuts and bolts and stuff. I mean, it looks as though it was built years ago. And yet it looks brand new.”

“If I tell you all about how I got it, will you give me the programmer?” Bobby Boy had a reedy little voice. A real whiner, it was. If his appearance said, tricky, then so did his voice. Well, it didn’t actually say “tricky”, but it was. Tricky, that is.

“If I consider that you’ve told me the truth,” said Russell.

“Tricky,” said Bobby Boy’s mouth.

“Would you like to have a go at it?”

Bobby Boy’s mouth made little smacking sounds. Tricky little smacking sounds. “All right,” said he. “I will tell you everything. Exactly how it happened. Shit, I’ve been dying to tell someone, but I just couldn’t. I didn’t know who I could trust.”

“You can trust me,” said Russell.

“Yes,” agreed Bobby Boy. “You can be trusted, Russell. So if I tell you, I want you to promise me you’ll not tell anyone else.”

“Well …” said Russell.

“That’s the deal. Hurry now, before I change my mind.”

Russell, who had felt sure that he had the upper hand, now felt that somehow he didn’t. “All right,” he said, “I swear.”

“OK, come on into my office and sit down. This will take a bit of telling.”

“All right,” said Russell once more and followed the long thin fellow in black.

The office was suitably grim. Suitably grim for what, was anyone’s guess. But suitably grim, it certainly was. There was a wretched desk, two terrible chairs, a carpet that didn’t bear thinking about. And a great many film posters up on the walls. These were grim, being Fudgepacker productions. Russell spied these out at once.

“Those are from the Emporium,” he said. “You nicked those.”

“I’ve saved them from mouldering away in that mausoleum. Movies are my life, Russell, you know that.”