Doctor Who_ Combat Rock - Mick Lewis [1]
‘Didn’t come all the way to this sweathole of an island to see no bird,’ shrilled the Earth woman. She wiped sweat and mosquitoes off her brow and pulled her straw hat lower.
‘And I not bring you here to see birds,’ the guide said, leading the way forward again. He wove through the clutching leaves, hacking here and there with his machete where the jungle encroached too invasively for plump Earth woman passage. He paused frequently for his group to catch up. Seven of them in all. Earth woman and her companion – fat too, balding, dogged by a bad cough, both of them stomping through the rainforest as if determined to frighten every exotic creature from their path so as to be able to remain comfortably unimpressed by their journey.
The others: a rich Indoni businessman and his sinuous wife, exchanging the air con wrestling of corporate charades for the skinslick steaming of the most unexplored rainforest on Jenggel; a couple of satellite aliens with expensive cameras and the complacent air of born tourists – never seeming to be excited by anything, but restlessly snapping, snapping, as if their lives depended on what they took home with them, stolen forever from the jungle and captured on holofilm; the last, a tall, silent man whose race or planet of origin the guide could not determine, but who seemed the keenest wildlife observer in the pack. The guide warmed to him the most.
‘Here be Kassowarks,’ he said dramatically, gesturing around at the broad green leaves and vines that surrounded them. Of course, the huge flightless birds were all long gone, thanks to the Fat Stompers, but it did no harm pretending.
The tall man’s eyes bulged with excitement. ‘Where?’ His blue jungle suit was obviously straight from a city, but he was genuinely interested in the flora and fauna the guide was trying to offer them.
‘I’ll kick their asses, if’n I see one of ‘em,’ Plump Lady boomed and her husband tightened his belt as if in aggressive agreement. ‘Where’s the bloody village?’
‘We there,’ the guide said slowly, and stepped under a fat snake zigzagged with migraine colours that arched down from the vines above. The businessman’s sexy wife saw it and gasped. The guide was tempted to hold her small brown hand to comfort her, but something deterred him. Instead he prodded the snake with his machete until it rolled further up the nearest bole and disappeared into green. He stepped aside and ushered the tourists to precede him. They did so, albeit gingerly, as if expecting the snake to drop around their shoulders like a fat, colourful arm.
The clearing revealed a small cluster of mushroom-like thatched huts, embraced by a circular wall of bamboo. The guide led them towards the gate, and stepped inside the compound.
‘Oh my God, will ya lookit that,’ the woman rasped and squealed with laughter. Two men were emerging from the largest central hut to welcome them. The reason for the woman’s amazed delight was obvious to all the tourists: the men were completely naked but for long, thin, hollow vegetable gourds that were tied around their waists by string and positioned securely over their penises. Their features were similar to those of the guide: broad, animated, their hair tight and curly where it showed under net-like hoods. The delicate Indoni woman backed away a step as the two villagers approached. The guide met them warmly, embracing each in turn.
The two tourists with the sophisticated holocameras commenced snapping rapidly but dispassionately. The plump woman was still giggling. Her fat spouse stood with his belly heaving over his belt and said nothing. He was probably dreaming of somewhere cool and distant, maybe even dreaming of what he could do with the Indoni woman, or maybe what he could do with his wife and a machete. The guide surveyed them with a mischievous smile. Then he relented, and gave them what they had come to see.
The two villagers retreated back inside the large hut, to re-emerge a moment later carrying a shrivelled figure perched on a wooden stool. The plump woman wobbled forward, sunglasses slipping down her