“Take us out of autopilot then, I shall fly this frigging ship manually.”

One of the remaining blips vanished from the video screen of the Captain Laser Alien Attack machine.

“Oh dear,” said the Professor. “It had occurred to me that they might just twig it.”

“There’s still another two,” said Omally. “Get them, get them!”

There was now a good deal of Brentford which was only memory. The New Inn had gone, along with the library, and one of the gasometers was engulfed in flame. A falling craft had cut Uncle Ted’s greengrocery business cleanly out of the Ealing Road, which, survivors of the holocaust were later to remark, was about the only good thing to come out of the whole affair. There had miraculously been no loss of life, possibly because Brentford boasts more well-stocked Anderson shelters per square mile than any other district in London, but probably because this is not that kind of book.

Pooley was faltering in his attack. “My right arm’s gone,” moaned he, “and my bomb release button finger’s got the cramp, I can play no more.”

Omally struck his companion the now legendary blow to the skull.

“That does it!” Pooley turned upon Omally. “When trouble threatens, strike Jim Pooley. I will have no more.”

Pooley threw a suddenly uncramped fist towards Omally’s chin. By virtue of its unexpected nature and unerring accuracy, he floored the Irishman for a good deal more than the count of ten.

Professor Slocombe looked down at the unconscious figure beneath the beard. “If that score is settled, I would appreciate it if you would apply yourself once more to the machine before the other two craft catch wind of what is going on and switch to manual override.”

“Quite so,” said Pooley, spitting upon his palms and stepping once more to the video screen.

Small Dave backed away from Edgar Allan Poe, his tiny hands a flapping blur. “What is all this?” he demanded. “I don’t like the look of you one bit.”

The Victorian author approached upon silent, transparent feet. “You conjured me here,” he said, “and I came willingly, thinking you to be a disciple. But now I find that I am drawn into a position from which I am unable to extricate myself. That I must serve you. That cannot be!”

“So leave it then,” whined Small Dave. “I meant no offence to you, I only wanted a little assistance.”

“You realize who I am? I am Poe, the master of terror. The greatest novelist ever to live. Poe, the creator of Dupin, the world’s original consulting detective. Dupin who was not, I repeat not, a dwarf. You mess me about with your trivial vendettas. I have spoken with Professor Slocombe, there is only one way I can find release. You vindictive grudge-bearing wee bastard!”

Small Dave backed towards the floating camel. Simon was floundering amongst the rafters, bawling now at the top of his voice, loosening slates and splintering woodwork.

“Stay away from me,” shrieked Small Dave.

“Stay away from me!” shrieked Simon in fluent dromedary.

Edgar Allan Poe stalked onwards, his patent leather pumps raising dust upon another plane, but leaving no footprint upon the Earth.

“Stay away from me!”

Simon gave a great lurch and burst out of the rafters of the lock-up garage. As he rose through the shattered opening towards the stars, Edgar Allan Poe lunged forward and, in a single movement, bound the trailing halter line firmly about Small Dave’s wrist.

“Oh no!” wailed the dwarf as he was dragged from his feet to follow the wayward camel through the open roof.

Edgar Allan Poe watched them go. “I will be off now,” he said, and, like Small Dave, he was.

In Norman’s kitchenette all sorts of exciting things were happening. Dials were registering overload to all points of the compass, lights were flashing, and buzzers buzzing.

The great brain-hammering hum had reached deafening point and a hideous pressure filled the room, driving Norman’s head down between his shoulderblades and bursting every Corona bottle upon his shop shelves. With superhuman effort he thumped down another fist full of switches, clasped his hands across his ears, and sank to the floor.

Every light in Brentford, Chiswick, Hounslow, Ealing, Hanwell, Kew, and, for some reason, Penge went out.

Lombard Omega squinted through a porthole. “Blackout!” he growled. “Fucking blackout, the wily sods. Mr Navigator, how many of us left?”

The navigator looked up from his controls. “We are it,” he said.

What Lombard Omega had to say about that cannot possibly be recorded. It must, however, be clearly stated in his defence that it was one of his ancestors who had invented the Anglo-Saxon tongue.

“Take us in low,” he said. “We will strafe out the entire area. Stand by at the neutron bomb bays and make ready the Gamma weapon.”

“Not the Gamma weapon?” said all those present.

“The Gamma weapon!”

“Fuck me,” said the navigator.

Pooley, Neville, and Professor Slocombe peered around in the darkness. The only light available flickered through the Swan’s front windows from a roaring inferno which had once been much of Brentford.

“What now?” Pooley asked. The Professor shook his head.

“You’ve done it, you’ve done it! Crack the champagne.” Neville performed a high-stepping dance before the now darkened and obviously defunct Captain Laser Alien Attack machine.

“Free beer for a year,” moaned a voice from the deck.

“For a century,” sang Neville. “Oh bliss, oh heaven, oh no!”

From the distance came a faint whine of unearthly engines. Something large and deadly was approaching, and all means of confounding its destructive intent had vanished away.

“Oh dear,” said Professor Slocombe, “anybody want the last rites?”

“Prepare the Gamma weapon,” ordered Lombard Omega.

“Gamma weapon prepared, sir.”

“Take out the entire quadrant, spare not an inch.”

“Not an inch, sir.”

“Fire the Gamma weapon.”

The navigator flinched and touched a lighted panel upon the master console. A broad beam of red raw energy leapt down from beneath the ship and struck home upon the Kew side of the river Thames.

The five-hundred-year-old oaks of the Royal Botanic Gardens took fire and half a millennium of history melted away in a single moment. The beam extended over a wider area and tore into the river. The waters thrashed and boiled, like a witches’ cauldron, hissed and frothed beneath the unstoppable power of the deadly Gamma weapon.

And the beam moved forward.

The mother ship ground on over the river, a vast chromium blimp filling a quarter of the sky. Along the length of its mirrored sides, lights glittered and twinkled like oil beads. Above it, great dorsal spines rose sharklike and menacing.

The hideous beam moved up from the churning waters and ripped into the river bank, hewing out a broad and ragged channel into which the old Thames gushed in a billowing flood tide.

Ahead lay the Brentford Quadrant, the Ealing Road, and the Flying Swan.

Brentonians fled from their shelters out into the streets. They shielded their faces against the all-consuming heat and took to their heels. The world was coming to an end and now was not the time to take the old Lot’s wife backward glance.

In the Swan the lads cowered in terror as the ghastly rumble of falling masonry and the death-cry of splintering glass drew ever nearer.

Outside, the Ealing Road, crammed with screaming humanity, pouring and tumbling in a mad lemming dash away from the approaching holocaust. Behind them the blinding red wall of fire pressed on, destroying everything which lay in its path.

Omally was upon his knees. “Stop it!” he screamed at Professor Slocombe. “Do something, in the name of our God. Only you can.”