I CAN EXPLAIN . . .

Look, it really isn’t my fault. I think my side of the story deserves to be heard as well. If it hadn’t been for that big over-muscled lantern-jawed Hero-type causing trouble, everything would have been fine. I was just minding my own business, trying to get on in life, you know?

Just to let you know, I run a small operation – let’s call it import-export. I import stuff – Denebian sqryll eggs, dried bwirth leaves from Markab, szxler wood from Alpha Centauri. Sure, I know they’re endangered – well, ok, almost extinct. But hey, some people are prepared to pay big money for them, and it’s not me that takes the eggs out of the nests or cuts down the trees. And if I didn’t do it, someone else would, wouldn’t they? Who pays big money for them? Oh, I can’t tell you that - it would be interfering in the client-merchant relationship. And anyway, I like living. Those guys can hire anybody to do anything. Anything.

And yes, ok, I export rare objects from Earth. The Mona Lisa – yes, of course it’s the original – I’m not unethical, you know. Michelangelo’s statue of David – yes, that was me as well. And the Eiffel tower – that was a difficult one. Had to bribe a lot of people. Yes, of course I got well paid. No, I can’t tell you where those things are now or who’s got them.

Anyway, I’m in my ship with a new cargo of artworks on my way to . . . oh, no, you can’t get me that way – let’s say to somewhere – and this big lug in a golden ship gets on my tail. Well, I’m pretty good at throwing off a follower and I try all the usual tricks. But he’s good - I look back and there he still is, right on my tail. So I go into an asteroid cluster and hide behind a big one waiting for him to go past. And what happens? Nothing! No sign of him! I wait for hours, still no sign. I figure he’s gone away and I didn’t notice. So I poke my nose out from behind the asteroid and there he is, waiting for me! He’s been on the other side of the asteroid all this time! Well, I hightailed it from there, and though I’m essentially a man of peace, he’d really got on my nerves. I’d installed space blasters in the stern of my ship and I let him have it. His golden ship glowed red and I thought that was it for him. But no, I think I just overloaded his control system or something. So I’m free, at least for the moment. I decide to make a call on a friend of mine, Gargar the Ghastly.

So I turn up at his planet. He’s not all that pleased to see me – apparently he’s planning an interplanetary war or some such. Wants to be the Ruler of the Universe. Well, you get so many wannabe Rulers of the Universe, don’t you? They’re a dime a dozen. But he lets me land and I go through the usual tall glowing corridors lined with big muscly aliens in space-armour, lugging blasters that look as they come from a toy store for colourblind kids with no design sense. I mean, really. What are all those fins and stuff for? And those garish colours? But I digress. I’m walking down the tall corridor to his Inner Sanctum. The muscly aliens glare at me, as outlined in their job description. I go through the standard enormous bronze doors designed to make you feel the size of an ant and into the big anteroom. Well, if the corridor was in bad taste, you ought to see the anteroom! Gargar’s henchman, the one with seven eyes and eighteen tentacles, meets me and tries to tell me to wait – his boss is busy. I tell him ‘Hey Blothg! Me and your boss go back forever! I’m always welcome here!’ And I barge straight through the doors – did I mention these are even bigger and in worse taste than the first ones? I mean, golden filigree with mother-of-pearl inlay?

Anyway, there’s Gargar sitting on his throne. Just as I thought the décor couldn’t get any worse, there’s the throne room and the throne itself. Strange, isn’t it? Nobody ever admits that he has bad taste, even though you see it everywhere. And especially with Evil Overlords. They must have shares in it or something.

He’s chewing on the leg of what must be an ostrich, and his table manners are atrocious. Yes, I know he’s not physically equipped for dainty eating, what with those claws and giant fangs and tusks and everything, but you’d think he’d make an attempt, wouldn’t you? He’s a bit rude to me, but I suppose arrogance is the privilege of the Evil Overlord. If you can’t be arrogant to your friends, who can you be arrogant to?

‘Waddya want?’ he says. Well, more like ‘Thwadtdhya thwanth?’

So I outline my scheme for a profitable joint venture in Goffmar skins, sure winner, can’t fail, and he laughs in my face! Spitting out fragments of ostrich leg all over my nice neat black space suit. I look like something that’s been through the wash with a tissue in the pocket. I wipe myself down as best I can and say ‘I’m sure that was an accident, and that you’re just about to apologise for messing up my space suit and offer to get it cleaned for me, and then sign a heads of agreement for this joint venture with me.’

Well, I have to say, those goonish aliens he keeps in the corridor are quick! I’m out of the throne room, through the anteroom and down the corridor and out before I can say ‘You’ll be sorry you missed out!’

So I’m back in the ship and on my way to my secret lair. Should have gone straight there in the first place. And, for heaven’s sake! There’s another ship on my tail! What’s with these people? This time it’s a ship all in silver, very sleek and curvaceous. And this one is as hard to shake as the other! Well, I do the usual – hide behind an asteroid. And this one vanishes too! I’m getting very sick of this. I decide even if it is hiding the other side of the asteroid I’m tired of messing around. This time I come around the asteroid all guns blazing. Nothing there! It’s on my tail!

Then the viewscreen lights up and there’s a female face in it. Silver figure-hugging outfit and a sort of tight bathing-cap type headgear with a blond curls peeking out from each side. Look, I’m as male as the next man, I hope. And yes, she’s very attractive, in a Conqueror of the Galaxy sort of way. She fixes me with her steely eyes and says ‘You’ve stolen your last Goffmar skin, Botritis!’

‘That’s Botris, if you don’t mind, lady. Botris the Extremely Clever.’

‘Who gave you that name? It can only have been you. Nobody else would call you clever!’

I smiled superciliously. I do pride myself on my supercilious smile, with just a slight raising of one eyebrow. I alternate eyebrows – sometime right, sometimes left. I like to be unpredictable.

‘Oh,’ she said ‘Supercilious smile number 3A. Doesn’t wash with me, you know.’

‘I suppose you’re going to tell me to give myself up and come quietly?’

‘No. I’m going to blow you out of the sky.’

‘Space, darling. Space. We’re not in the sky.’

‘I’m not here to quibble over technicalities! Surrender!’

‘Oh, I didn’t think you wanted me to. I thought you were going to blow me out of the sky.’

‘Space! Say your prayers, Botulism!’

‘Oh, now that’s really unkind. I told you my name. You could at least get it right, especially if you’re about to reduce me to a glowing atomic dust.’

‘You unbearable scum. You’re lower than the lowest slimy argle-worm, you know that?’

‘What have I ever done to you? I barely know you. We haven’t even been introduced!’

‘I’m Elladora of Pasqualion. You defrauded my whole planet, sent my father into bankruptcy, blew up my home - the home I grew up in. And you shot my dog!’

‘Pasqualion, Pasqualion. Nope, can’t say as I remember it.’

‘Liar! You’re a coward as well as a liar!’

‘I’m deeply wounded by your words, Elladora my dear. There must surely have been an unfortunate misunderstanding. Why don’t you come over to my ship, we can have a glass of wine and discuss it over a finely cooked Broscon steak. My auto-chef is quite brilliant.’

‘You swine! I wouldn’t drink wine with you if you were the last man in the universe!’

‘You sadden me. It’s a particularly fine wine – bold, cheeky, perhaps a little presumptuous. From Mizar Seven. Hard to get hold of nowadays.’

‘You’re not taking me seriously!’

‘Of course not, dear lady. If you were capable of blowing me to atoms as you’ve been threatening to do for the last five minutes or so, you would have done it already. I don’t think you’ve got it in you.’

‘Oh, don’t you? Well, suck on this, then!’ And her finger stabbed at a big red button on a console I could see on the screen. Rays, beams, rods and spears of energy thrust and coruscated from the blasters in the bow of her ship, surrounding and clashing against the screens of my own, changing from gold to white to violet in a blaze of dazzling light. But of course my screens held. I can afford the best, and no matter how good her blasters were, my screens – and my blasters - were better – they had been intended for a space battleship under construction but had been diverted with the aid of a few well-placed bribes. What the hey, governments can afford a little cappabar here and there. I’m sorry to hear what happened to the guys I bribed, though. Space prison for life is no joke - there’s no justice in the Universe. I would have helped them, but – well, you know.

‘Didn’t work, did it?’ I said, Smug Smirk 2B on my face. ‘Now, how about you go about your business and leave me alone.’

‘Never!’ she said through gritted pearly white, perfectly even teeth. ‘If I can’t shoot you out of space, I’ll come aboard you and kill you with my bare hands!’

I have to admit I sighed. But she did have persistence, I have to hand it to her. ‘You have to catch me first!’ I beamed (Smug Smirk Number 3!) and put her in overdrive. My ship shot away from hers at 97 percent of light speed and she was left eating my dust . . . well, you know what I mean.

I was surprised to find her still on my tail. Well, so be it. I was bound for my secret lair. If she chose to follow, that was her problem, not mine.

And she did. The hidden gate in the mountain opened just long enough for my ship to go through and slammed shut, leaving her outside. But to give her credit, that didn’t stop her. She went extra-vehicular on a little scooter that brought her to the surface and clambered over the rough lava-strewn landscape looking for some way of entering the lair. I watched it all on the viewscreen, from the comfort of my soft, padded motochair in my inner sanctum. Well, one does need one’s creature comforts, n’est-ce pas?

Well, would you believe it, she found the sewer outlet and went in that way. I wouldn’t have thought her capable of it. Right through all that gunk – though as I lived alone there can’t have been too much of anything bad in there. I’m a bit of a history freak, among my many other hobbies – to stave off boredom in the long nights in my lair I learnt how to weave fabric, how to paint a portrait, even how to use a sword, though that was a skill very much out of date and pointless in today’s universe. And I recalled at least one castle that had been entered by the enemy through the garderobe – the part of the castle with a chute down to the moat to get rid of the nasty stuff.

The girl was gutsy and persistent, I had to give her that. I knew where she would emerge, so I was there outside the door, waiting until she should take off her space suit and come out into the main part of my lair. When she appeared I found it hard to believe my eyes. What is it with these space-heroines? Why do they always go around with almost no clothes on? And how do they get that bronzed skin? A sunbed on her space ship? Frank Frazetta would have loved her.

So I was waiting outside, blaster in hand, a smile on my face. Smug smile number 4. ‘Welcome to my humble abode,’ I smiled. ‘I see you’ve made yourself at home. Now, slowly take that blaster out of the holster on that belt that seems to be the only thing you’re wearing, and hand it carefully to me.’ She complied with a sour look on her face. ‘Now march in front of me – slowly. And don’t try anything.’ I was embarrassed to be using such cliched language, but she had nobody to blame but herself.

We walked to the door of my torture chamber. Look, I’ve never used it, ok? It’s just that as a criminal mastermind I felt a torture chamber was part of the whole thing. I wouldn’t be able to hold my head up among my contemporaries if I didn’t have one installed. I made her stand aside and put my palmprint to the sensor. The door slid open and she walked inside, with me following at a safe distance, blaster levelled at her. You just can’t trust these space-heroines. Always getting a rush of valour to the head and trying something silly.

So I clamped her up to the rings attached to the wall for just such an occasion and proceeded to gloat. Well, it’s expected, isn’t it? What point is there having a heroine prisoner if you don’t do a bit of gloating? So I told her how stupid she was and how clever I was, and how she’d never had any chance of beating me, and my plans for the future – you know the kind of thing.

I was so caught up with the gloating – well, it was my first time, I was having a lot of fun – that I didn’t notice the alarm – I think I might have had it turned off – it gets terribly noisy and often goes off at the slightest thing. So that great big lunk took me by surprise. I never knew he was there. He must have come through the sphincter as well. I’ll have to do something about that.

Well, I’d put my blaster down while I was gloating, hadn’t I? He said the usual stuff, making nasty remarks about how evil I am, how my career of crime was finally over, you know how it goes. And he was almost naked, as well! Just a shiny golden jock-strap above his mighty thews and below his perfect bronzed musculature, his lantern jaw, his sapphire-blue eyes, his perfectly styled blonde hair. More Frazetta material!

Then he said something to the girl. You know ‘I’m here to save you; you needn’t worry little lady. I’ll take care of this nasty man for you.' With a huge smile on his face. Self-satisfied jerk!

Well, she looked daggers at him. I’ve never seen anybody so furious. I could swear there was steam coming out of her ears. “I didn’t need you, you ape!’ she snarled. ‘I could have gotten out of this all by myself without any help from you!’ It looked like they knew each other. There was almost an electric current of hostility running between them. I took advantage of his inattention and grabbed a sabre from the wall. Well, yes, I keep a pair of sabres hanging on the wall of my torture chamber. Have to put them somewhere. Is that a problem?

Well, he throws down his blaster and grabs the other sabre – so predictable. We manoeuvre around each other, watching each other like the proverbial tigers, pacing round and round in broad circles, each one waiting for the other to make the first false move. And I got to the table I’d left my blaster on! I snatched it up and aimed it at him. ‘Shoe’s on the other foot now, isn’t it, big boy? And don’t expect me to do the honourable thing – I’m the villain, remember?’

I should have been watching the girl. I really should. How could I know she’d managed to free herself? I found out later she’d put a hairclip in her mouth on the way there, and she’d picked the locks on her manacles. Clever girl – I hadn’t thought it of her.

BANG! She’s used an enormous great steel manacle to clonk me on the back of the head. I have the headache still. Down I went. So she’s the one who captured me.

I’m prepared to do my time. I’d rather not have brain-scrub to make an honest citizen of me. I like me the way I am. And so does Elladora, it turns out. She was quite sorry she had to do what she did. Truth, justice, the Earthian way, all that – she was quite torn. So she’ll be waiting for me when I come out. She’s got ideas for my lair, too. Cushions and drapes and throw rugs, and perhaps a cat. I think I can live with that.