2 - The abominable duck and other horrors.

Our intrepid scientist and his lovely moll are marooned on the moon. Fortunately not maroon on the moon as that would clash too badly. On a Wednesday afternoon too. Bright enough for colour vision.

"Note to self, repaint the conservatory in neutral colours."

Daisy Jones carefully locked her locker, impressed that it hadn't imploded or anything weird like that. It was rather a nice shade of dark black with some artificial seaweed artfully attached to the top for some reason. She looked at her shopping list and sighed. The machine was half combobulated now, and the broken treadle valve was on the work bench.

"Problem Jones?"

"If we were the bad guys, we'd have lots of henchmen to do the mundane things like going to the shops." She explained. "We're out of milk, biscuits, bog roll and sensible food too."

"Henchmen are more of a menace than a benefit. I mean, they make good cannon fodder but orcs will work for even less. However, managing them more than makes up for that." Doctor DickLogic rumbled manlificently. His intensely masculine voice had a detrimental effect on almost everything with a vagina. The one exception being on the list of things which thou shalt not utter. Daisy sighed deeply as it worked on her too, with no one else to absorb that intense glower of masculinity, her panties were in danger of violet spontification. "I reflubbered the jalopy if you want to drive."

Daisy cheered up, the jalopy was her sort of vehicle, lacking only tank tracks, a non-metric 3-inch 17 pounder and reversing death ray. Well, officially lacking in them anyway. Her beloved doctor, when not building his magnum opus in the conservatory, had modified it to be more suitable for women drivers. A five-point harness, booster rockets, turbo lasers and a real working space horn that went: AROOGAH!

"Go before you go," Doctor DickLogic advised, he relieved her of the shopping list and purse, handing her the last roll of moonbog bogroll. Soft, strong and very long, also vacuum resistant to a remarkable degree. He put them in her backpack and put it in the airlock.

Then he chased the cat out of the airlock. "Metric!" He growled at it manfully. His magnificent chiseled good looks, perfectly furrowed brows and precisely messed manly locks of prematurely greying hair did not work on the cat.

Daisy looked at the cat, "don't even think about it cat or I'll swap your dish for an Imperial one." she threatened it. The cat glared at her, it could tell a heinous threat when it heard one. She smiled at it. The cat threatened to claw her. She smiled at it. The cat hissed angrily at her and she smiled at it. Pointing her Manliance Issue combined meat tenderizer and death ray at it. The cat backed down hastily and ran off. She smiled and put the safety back on. Never mind it was decorated in bright colours and looked like a children's toy.

"Better add cat food to the list." Doctor DickLogic glared at the cat and was completely ignored as it was looking for moon mice under the seedling rack.

"Yes Doctor," Daisy looked in the garage at the mighty jalopy, it seemed to have a turret on top too. "when can we get one of those modern water closets?" She asked just before she went through the airlock and looked puzzled. The roses had been destroyed hadn't they? Yet here they were, glistening malevolently at her. She picked up her space brolly and skipped over to the outhouse for some evacuation. There was all sorts of science that could be performed in the outhouse, most of it in private too. But now was not the time. There was shopping to be shopped. Science in the outhouse would require more bogroll too. Requiring shopping, and an assortment of moonbog bogroll too. Returning to the unpressurised garage she picked up the checklist and opened the doors. Putting her backpack in the trunk. The earth was up, the sun was up, not a cloud in the sky too. No meteorite storm forecast either.

The jalopy had, at one point in time, been a car. It was still, technically a car as it had a wheel at each corner. It was now suitable for driving on the moon after a number of changes to the suspension, wheels and the 17 pounder. She wondered about the registration as she waited for the reactor core temperature to rise. None of that pansy photovoltaic rubbish here. Steam, glorious steam making lots of lovely volts. So many in fact that she was cautioned against flooring it near metal buildings due to the magnetic shockwaves. A sign on the garage door warned her not to floor it in the garage or it might implode. Instead, she pootled off to town a few kilometers away, pausing to admire a new dome being constructed, it looked almost ready for inflation. A sign proclaimed the merits of the new ultimate teat shape for reducing spire stress pressure and having a more desirable shadow. Now with extra gargoyles.

AROOGAH!

She nearly ran over a couple of people in black space suits walking in the shadows.

New Eboracum benefitted from being a modest crater to start with, resulting in a sufficiently high dome that they could even grow clouds and simulate to perfection the best bit of The Great British Empire's weather. Rain, lots of it. The sun never sets on this part of the empire, for about two weeks, then it made up for that mistake with a vengeance. Resulting in the month long season cycle and warnings about caustic bat guano on the gargoyles.

Daisy parked the jalopy carefully. Not because she was afraid of scratching the paint and having her bottom smacked, but because the unshielded wheel motors tended to glow and melt things either by radiation or induction. She spotted a meter maid and bought a ticket, sticking it in the window, then went inside through the pedestrian air lock. Then to a changing room to get her sailor suit on. Then back to the changing room to put panties on, she wasn't at home any more.

"News! News, fresh news!"

"Welcome to New Eboracum. Diameter forty seven of those new metric miles. Population quite a lot. Official religion, The Pantheon of Science!" A somber gentleman in a great coat handed her a brochure and then whispered the remaining rules to her. Men now had equal rights if they were citizens. Discrimination based on race, colour or hairstyle was illegal. Mullets had been legalised last year so do try not to laugh. Television was now in colour too! He pointed at the sign over the entrance explaining that she was at AZURE HUE TRIANGLE if she got lost she could ask a Peeler to direct her here and that she should now pause to admire the architecture.

Moon rock, being light and fluffy was not exactly ideal for building until the judicious application of Science! Now they could manufacture any shape and size in black, white and three shades of grey by using moulds, moon dust and the solar kilns. Architecture however retained the sensibilities of how best to flute your columns. In the triangle district every building was cylindrical and had a geodesic roof like the great dome above and a gargoyle on every corner. The streets were cobbled and wasted land space around every building was filled with vegetation, be it trees of unbelievable height or pansies. Carnivorous pansies.

Daisy admired the scenery for the compulsory five minutes. Taking in the near silent milk-float like vehicles that transported goods or people. The gargoyles. The wide and busy road from the underground station and the stall selling top hats just like god wears. The gargoyles. According to the map the sober man had given her, AZURE HUE TRIANGLE district was the markets and services like toolsmiths, hatters and haberdashers. And the research labs, but those were hidden away behind explosion resistant barricades and explosion resistant gargoyles.

Step one, cross The Park of Boldly Going. Remember to admire the public art at the centre. Each park, and they were plentiful had a different themed sculpture. Apparently this one the sculptor had met some famous author and this was the result. Daisy wasn't too sure about the tripods, they looked ungainly and big enough that she wouldn't want to meet them on a darkened street. On crossing the park, she would be at Market Road and Bowler Avenue. The latter being circumferential. The market would be centreward. Indeed her map could be mistaken for an annotated dartboard. She checked and indeed there were numbers. She was coming from double seventeen.

"Hear ye, hear ye."

"Cheese weasels on a stick! Get them while they are gooey!"

Daisy Jones looked at the sign and headed for the market, Within a hundred metric yards, every cutpurse, pressgang and munger knew to avoid her. Those that were still breathing. By the time she reached the market, only the most insane idiot spawn of inbred nobility would go near her. This promptly happened.

"You, yes, you with the hideous blue hair. How dare you flash unseemly amounts of leg at the scion of Grand Duke Shanks of Armitage!"

Daisy ignored him for a second, she checked her shopping list, at the bottom was written in lovely flowing copperplate, "don't forget to buy gingernuts, darling." It made her heart go all aflutter. She looked at the man nearest her. He was pretty manly, "my good man, would you know where to buy gingernuts in this market?" she asked the man in this remarkably posh red uniform with a simply incredible hat. Admittedly, he was wearing red so he would probably be the first casualty the moment everything went aubergine, but until then, he looked manly enough to survive a whole chapter. Possibly even two.

"Immediate right, third stall on your right, shop by the name of Rogers." The guard whispered to her, without moving his lips at all. Daisy was quite impressed. "you aren't supposed to talk to the guard, miss."

"Thank you very much." She turned around to the man shouting at her. "Little man, begone." she gently kicked him in the crotch. He sailed high above the crowd and landed on a gargoyle infested house. Sliding down the domed roof before falling to his death. Fortunately with moon gravity it wasn't serious death and he'd be repaired in no time.

"You beat up my manservant! I demand satisfaction!" A man in a curious uniform that appeared to be semi-demi-formal mid-morning pantaloons, some sort of haddockpiece and either a doublet or a straight-jacket in the most amazing day glow pink accused her. This was Daisy Jones' first exposure to modern fashion. Everyone else was rocking Victorian Drab with some pretty manly top hats too.

"I see. Is that real?" She pointed at his haddock. Manliance rule one, respect your fellow citizen. Amendment one; unless they are an asshole. "How are you going to demand satisfaction with that?"

Everyone stared. The most lethally gorgeous blue-haired bunny-eared lolly had pointed at the future grand duke of Eboracum's decorative haddock! Well, those that were still alive stared. Some had already experienced the gorgeous lethality of the blue-haired bunny-eared lolly and were in no fit state to express appreciation or complain.

The Peelers arrived, responding to reports of cutpurses, mungers and the pressgang spontificating. They admired the trail of bodies, someone had done the town of New Eboracum a big favour and decimate the lot. One or two literally as they had to get the buckets and suck brooms out. All over the road from Tripod Park to the huge crowd gathering around some ponce in front of the market.

"I have ten thousand men at my command, filthy prole."

"Still not impressed here." She twanged his haddock. It vibrated rigidly with a lovely seventies-era electric guitar twang. They hadn't been invented yet but someone in the audience was a musician and remembered that noise.

The guards were desperately trying to keep a straight face. They were extremely good at not moving for hours on end. Most everyone else was laughing.

"I challenge you to a dual!"

"Good, you do that and I'll go shopping in the meantime." She headed for the door.

"At the shop, ask for Ginger, my sister. She'll see you get the good gingernuts." the guard whispered. "oh no. he has a blunderbuss." he added with whispered urgency.

Daisy Jones had never thrown a man by his haddock before. She wasn't sure she wanted to do that again either. He stuck to a wall until the gargoyle swung a brush and knocked him off. "Where can I wash my hands?"

"Just as you go in on the right miss. Ladies' Powder Room." One of the guards opened the door for her, it was clear she really shouldn't touch anything. A female guard in a matching uniform only with a slightly more reasonable hat turned the taps on for her too. The hat purred for some reason.

Daisy had no idea what to do with powder. This was because she wasn't a scientist. She was an aspiring housewife. Doctor DickLogic, had he been there would have told her the correct proportions were three quarters of this, three fifths of the remainder that and two the other. Mix thoroughly. She washed her hands and thanked the female guard. Leaving the powder room without touching the powder at all, she checked her shopping list and noted that the market was quite a lovely airy place. It even had a roof to keep the gargoyles out.

"The rather nice guard at the entrance told me to ask Ginger about her nuts." Daisy asked at the appropriate stall. A biscuit emporium by the name of Rogers'. As a result she came away with a big bag of all sorts of biscuits and a rental trolley to cart her shopping around. Moonbog bogrolls, milk. She asked about milkmen and was told that they were off at the muscle gym getting their dozens on and she should talk to them at the entrance to the dome she had come in. Not too late because they went racing their milk floats around the ring road at three. Team AZURE HUE had some of the best drivers in existence.

After the market, she explored outside, leaving by a less exciting exit than the one she had come in. There seemed to be some sort of investigation or stomp going on.

The noon cannon fired and everyone had a ten minute pause to worship god. God wore a top hat and had invented everything. Their church worshipped Isambard much like the other church worshipped the goddess Marie who glowed in the dark. Indeed, Daisy was quite surprised to find a whole pantheon of modern gods and goddesses who were real and tangible. She even got to touch his holiness' top hat and be blessed by the great engineer himself. He was apparently hiding out on the moon for tax reasons. That and the queen had demanded he invent a floating island just like those airships those boisterous Europeans had, only bigger and armed with manlificent cannons.

For once, Daisy Jones was glad of panties. But only once and she hoped it wouldn't happen again. At least not with witnesses that she couldn't defenestrate. The other church made her Geiger counter sing so she didn't go in there.

After that, she wandered around the triple-seventeen district window shopping and wondering why there so many styles of umbrella.

Vegetables were a problem, the reduced gravity of the moon made everyone a bit taller yes, but it made plants and things that had now had many generations to acclimatize themselves much bigger. A shroom the size of a terrace house being typical. It had prominent warning signs about not setting fire to it. Do not feed to gargoyles either, lit or unlit.

A second crazed lordling challenged her to a dual for refusing to join his harem of delicious lolly. This time his haddockpiece was so big it had tassels. "Are you going to demand satisfaction too? Because dual means two and you only have one." This time it was much messier and people could have been hurt. They weren't but only because the mushroom house was soft and absorbent enough that slower projectiles bounced off and faster ones were significantly slowed before they emerged. Lord Spliffing of Bloomers somehow avoided critical injury but his haddockpiece was not so lucky. It spontificated on impact.

It didn't do the house any good at all.

After this excitement, Daisy dug her sailor hat out of her bag and concealed her bunny ears. Leaving the scene before the Peelers arrived to set fire to the remains of the house and party with the stoned, literally, gargoyles.

"I challenge you to a dual!"

Daisy Jones sighed her most exasperated sigh. Salvation was at hand. "It's duel." she pointed at the lovely stained glass window of The First Church of Branston. "D. U. E. L." She politely caused him to impinge on the window with each letter. "Do we understand now?" The whole window and challenger fell inside. Defenestration successful, she felt so much better for it. Just like good old times. Technically that was probably refenestration but close enough.

Her next turn took her to the farmer's market as she was nearly back at AZURE HUE TRIANGLE station.

BWARK!

Daisy Jones stared. A bona fide (fancy Latin words for banjo-waving) monster. She was in the livestock area of One and had been looking for eggs and maybe a turkey for Sunday roast. Possibly the second most buxom woman since Doris Schmodly came over and grinned at her, "fancy a chicken luv?"

"I was thinking of turkey, what is that monster?"

"A chicken luv, like they have down below." She pointed at the sign, "It has this fancy Latin name too. Gallus Gallus Oshiticus. A small one will feed about six hundred. Now the turkeys, those are big."

"And that isn't?" Daisy Jones indicated the creature that was taller than her. It was taller than her when sitting on Doctor DickLogic's shoulders too.

"Don't point luv, arms are food." The woman warned. "You see, we thought that that moon gravity only being like a sixth of the earth that we'd all be like six times stronger, plants would grow six times taller and stuff like that. Luv. More or less right. The chicken there is about six times bigger, luv. In every dimension. That's thirty six times the area and two hundred and sixteen times the mass."

"Don't you have any micro-chickens or something a family of two and a cat can manage?"

BWARK!

Something in the cages hammered on the walls. Denting them seriously.

"Go back to the yellow flag, luv. Turn Right and go straight until you reach the junction between one and seventeen. That's our butcher's. You can get modest size meat there, cut of your choice. Eggs that aren't the size of medicine balls and things too. Luv." The woman indicated the pen, "today's special is mutton."

"Excellent."

"Don't forget the M.I.N.T. sauce, luv."

MEH!

Whatever creature that was, it was big, loud and several hundred moonmere pullovers worth.

All shopped out, she loaded the sealed crate into the back of the jalopy, realised she still had some time and went back inside. This time, no one went near the lethally cute lolly that just happened to be cutely lethal. The somber man in the great coat recognised her and a policeman called Constable Painting told her she had used her quota of petty nobility today so no more. He made her repeat "yes officer" too.

Most anyone that could have bothered her was already gargoyle food so she could wander with impunity. Spurious Mungers running screaming into the scenery notwithstanding. One of them landed on top of the tripod. She found a coffee shop called Serendipitously The coffee shop. They grew their own coffee on the mountains of Clavius Crater and roasted it in small batches behind the counter.

"L.O. Wollibeluv?" The waitress was clearly some sort of British Empire Citizen for she spelled her name with a 'u' in Buttercup. "Moosetopialuv, erryoneasksluv." She wore this ridiculously short frilly thing with an apron and a top that seemed to be trying to push all the mincemeat out, let alone up. Only on the moon would this work, if Doris Schmodly had tried this on the earth, she'd have toppled over and bounced. Indeed, it was possible that this woman could be the legendary pin-up star's evil twin. Stockings and weighted moonboots in matching black and white too.

Daisy Looked at the menu and noticed it was almost as hard to read as the waitress was to understand. She must be from the barbarian wastelands of Canada. Or Wakefield. "Wiener coffee and chocolate cake please."

"Choc? Chocnchoc? Tribblechocwivmorechocluv?" The waitress was supremely cantilevered and her admirable assets were significantly hazardous too. Daisy managed to avoid being clubbed to death but only just. The second time she was sure they were magnetic or something serious like that. Fortunately they were amply cushioned.

"Just a small one."

"Masteronebigwienersmallchocnnilla!"

There was only a manly grunt from the master, he looked not much older than the waitress and about to burst his shirt from bulgingly manlificient musculature at any moment. He also had green skin and four arms. Daisy approved, sort of. He was a model of efficiency.

The smoke from the coffee roaster was so thick it was lumpy. It swirled gently around until sucked away and converted into compressed gas used to kill monsters in the drains.

Not even three minutes later, she was served with a large mug of coffee with cream and a large sausage and a modestly sized chocolate cake that would probably feed her for a week and more ands in a sentence than was legitimate as it was that sort of establishment. It even had a piano called Sam. She wished the Doctor was here to help with that. But not too much as she was drinking coffee. The sausage really hit the spot too. The chocolate cake was truly grolious. She asked if they sold cakes to take home for her husband. Twelve, eighteen or twentyfive Imperial inches. The latter was also a non-metric foot thick. She decided against that.

The waitress put the latest copy of The Daily Lunatic on the table. "Frontpageheadlineluv. Congrallualions."

"Lethal Lolly Mortally Insults Duke of Eboracum's scion, not even Using All Capitals!" and an artist's impression of the scene. Wherein the most gorgeously bunny lolly was pointing at the haddock and uttering the most damning words a woman of the female persuasion could possible say - is this thing real?

A third monolith had been found by the new Graviton Science Lab and they were beginning to suspect alien dumping.

The second page was devoted to a stock market disaster where Planetary Protuberance's Haddockpiece sales forecast was now suspected to be a complete fabrication due to a recent report of haddockpiece disassembly, unscheduled, rapid and Lord Spliffing was in intensive care with near fatal ego implosion as a direct result. Bookies were offering three to one against him recovering.

And the sporting news page reported that the Moonbase Alpha's team had to forfeit due to excessive radiation. The Cavius Crater Carpet Crawlers were through to the cricket finals. First division full contact moon cricket was serious stuff. The Treen Team looked to be some formidable opposition too. They were also green and their leader was reputed to be a nasty piece of work bent on dominating the inner planets. In the section on life and politics, Daisy noted that apart from the usual theory that the queen was a robot, mens' suffrage had been granted in the remote colonies and all citizens of any age would be allowed to vote for the queen. As long as they were citizens and not too decomposed to enter the voting booth without becoming violent. Indeed in certain colonies, this was a problem. Some places couldn't even field a single male candidate.

"Vote Chutney for Moisture Director!"

The waitress sat down opposite the blue-haired bunny-eared lolly. "Whyoucometourshopluv?"

"I'm sorry."

The waitress reached between her cleavage and pressed something. There was an unusual clunk, in stereo. "Is that better? Why did you come to our shop?" She almost rested her ample bosom on the table but noticed the condiments tray drifting towards them so she desisted.

"For coffee and cake."

"Where are you from? We weren't aware of any domes with bunny girls."

"We?" Daisy had a quarter of her cake, the small size, left. It was going to be tough to make it last all the way to the end of this chapter. "What are you, some sort of-" The waitress had pointed to a painting on the far wall. "Is that a genuine van Clomp?"

"Indeed."

"We just had an accident with our machine and the whole conservatory is about two leagues that way." Daisy Jones pointed, looked around then pointed in the other direction.

"That's towards the Roman Colony of Prophylactica. You can't miss them, they have chronic moonpong."

"There's a carving of a man surfing on a rock."

"Ah, you're over in Surfer's Hell. See any big waves yet?" The waitress cheered up. "Wednesday mornings are great for that. Good batch of moonquakes and surf's up. The master won a prize once, gnarliest landing. After that they moved the moon buggy parking to behind the rock." She indicated a trophy which seemed to symbolize an unhealthy juxtaposition between car and surfboard. The entire back wall was a trophy case, with the minor exception of the painting of The Reclining Madonna.

"Not yet. As soon as we fix our machine, we're off."

"You wouldn't happen to have heard anything on the new death ray the enemy have?"

"Death ray? Which one?" Daisy knew for a fact that there were at least twenty death ray guns under Doctor DickLogic's bed. And a monster that knew how to use them.