DRAGONSHELF AND THE DROVER XXXIII

     Was the drone so monotonous that you just couldn’t hear it after a while?  Bott had no real hopes that the Emperor’s technicians might have overlooked that possibility.

     Dazzling geometric patterns of black and white continued to swirl past under his hands.  Small, hard veins rippled along the surface of the tube with them, like worms crawling just below the surface.  He crawled forward, taking the little ridges as they moved back toward the opening into the room where his crew waited to follow him.

     “Ack!”

     “What is it, Captain?” called Chlorda, peering up into the tube.

     “Electric shock.  Not much.”  Bott checked his hands and found no burns.  “Hurry.  It’s probably designed to get worse as time goes on.  Be ready to scoot back on my command.”

     “Gonna be so ready I’ll jus’ wait here,” Louva replied.

     Bott crawled forward.  The whine rose in pitch around him.  He winced and pulled away as a particularly bright circular pattern spun toward him, bubbled back, and then spun beyond him.  He watched it one second too long, and felt his stomach swirl with it.  Lucky, he supposed, that he hadn’t eaten lately.

     A sudden crashing shriek of metal in collision made him look back.  A very grim Chlorda Diona Pollar had entered the passage and was crawling to catch up.  “I’m with you while fish sing in the compound, Captain.”

     This promise didn’t seem so threatening as it might have a few minutes ago.  “That wasn’t a door, was…faff!”

     A rippling vein had burst open under his fingers, sending up hot gas and black grit.  Bott had had no warning, and thus no chance to turn his head before eyes, nose, and mouth were filled with the smell and taste of burning oil.  Choking and coughing, he hoped it was a good sign.  Perhaps they had accidentally climbed into the Drover’s engine.

     A five-pointed star of twisting black and white rectangles zipped past.  Bott’s head hit the ceiling as another jolt of electricity traveled up his arms.  It COULD be the engine, he told himself.  In a ship designed to be so bilstim elegant, this could be a kind of power conduit.  The sound system raised the whine a half-tone, and threw in another crash.

     “Reminds me o’ Kilford’s Bar in Helsinger,” shouted Bassada, joining them in the tube.  “Enjoyed m’self, b’leeve it or not.  Dancers was crazy, an’ ‘ey served drinks ‘at made ya wonder if yez c’d write yer name onna ceiling wit’ yer toenails.  Shame I c’d only go the once.”

     “Oh, was that the night it was raided?” Chlorda inquired.

     “Ya kiddin’?  I was in charge o’ the raid!”

     Bott reached a turn in the tube and was able to clear it without touching the side walls.  More plastic stretched far ahead of him around the bend, a good length of dazzling, swirling patterns and a floor that all but crawled toward him in dozens of hard little veins.  Another curve seemed to wait in the distance, but it wasn’t easy to tell with the interior decoration swirling around him.

     “Apf!”

     He tried walking on just his knees.  The electricity would still stab into him, but at least his hands wouldn’t get burned.  The irregularity of the floor made this difficult.  His face came down as he stumbled, just to one side of another explosion of gas and grit.

     “Don’t care fer the scenery much,” called Bassada.  “Don’t nobody try ta sell me no souvenir pitchas.”

     “You didn’t expect His Imperial Worminess to plant flowers just for you?” demanded Chlorda.

     “Din’t mean the walls.  It’s yer wrinkly little rump, Goldyguts.”

     The white patches swirling past in the designs were painfully bright now.  Closing his eyes to slits did very little good, and he could certainly not afford to close them completely while he was leading this little parade.  Having proven to his own satisfaction that he needed both hands to crawl, Bott could cover neither his ears nor his nose.  Another crash coincided with another burst of scorched oil byproducts.  Some of the grit stuck to his face.  He swept it off.  A little smoke swirl up to his eyes.  He swatted at his clothes without checking them.

     “Hey!” called Louba, from the rear of the procession, “Ya coulda tol’ me what weather we was havin’ inhere.  I’da brung me galoshes!”

     Bott nodded.  Every breakout of gas was going to raise the temperature.  If this was part of the maze, he was going to have to think of something to congratulate the game technicians.  Half a dozen grenades would do.  If this really was part of the engine, he’d have a chat with the Drover.

     He crouched as another crash and clatter rattled through the droning whine.  Screams were mixed with this one, and he nearly checked behind him.  The sound was not new, though; he recognized the chorus of screams from the Nubrys back in the hall of cages.  Nice that the sound had been recorded; all those copies would thus not be a complete waste.

     The Dragnshelf had better be waiting.  He was not going through all this work to be cheated at the end.  He expected a whole lot of extra reputation for this, translating to plenty of free drinks at the Red Manabull and, as the story spread, a lot of eager volunteers to join his crew.

     And he would use that crew and reputation for more than just pirating left and right as the whim yook him.  The librarian had a mission with all that contraband; all she needed was someone to point out the possibilities for profit.  If there were other people as passionate about books as Nubry, there could be big money for someone who new how to deliver the goods.

     He reached the next corner, curling over his knees to wait for the next slice of electricity.  No rush to go around the bend; if he saw another stretch of wild lights and plastic leading to another corner (or, worse, an intersection) he wasn’t sure he’d be able to go on at all.

     A spout of gas between his thighs reminded him he couldn’t crouch here forever.  The path around the corner was indeed awash in even brighter black and white squares, swirling even faster around each other.  He had to squint to pick out which way was up, and could only guess where he’d be going.

     But there seemed to be a plain grey circle waiting.  It looked like a dead end, and was so featureless, so serene in the middle of the flashing lights that it made his eyes water.  He scurried forward, ignoring ridges which delivered shocks strong enough to make him grunt.  In all the chaos, he misjudged the distance, and hit grey before he thought he was even close.  It was only cloth: he jerked back before he could pitch forward into whatever was waiting.

     Pulling the cloth to one side revealed a dim, quiet, beautiful yellow sphere of a room, with scowling faces painted on the walls and floor.  Beyond that, he saw neither dangers nor doors.  But something had to be wrong; the emperor would not….

     “Hyack!”

     Two hands planted themselves firmly on his buttocks and shoved him out of the tube.  He hit the floor.  Chlorda followed, tumbling onto his stomach.  Only the fact that her mouth was open told him she was speaking.

     Jumping up, Bott jerked the grey cloth down to block some of the sound from the tubes.  He turned to bark at the golden aristocrat, but stopped.  She was smeared with black grit, except where sweat had etched trails through it.  The pupils of her eyes were tiny, and she could not stop blinking.  It had been a bad trip, after all; he couldn’t scold her for wanting to be done with it.

     “Hey!  Havin’ a private party or did my invitation git lost?”

     Bassada’s voice was pitifully muted as she rolled past him.  Bott pulled the cloth down again.

     “Tell me there’s a door,” panted Chlorda.  “I’m not going back.  Beat me blue; I won’t do it.”

     “I’m already blue an’ I ain’t goin’.”  Wiping oily grit from her forehead, Bassads looked around.  “Whatchoo sneerin’ at?”  She drove her fist into an unpleasant pink face on the wall.

      The face smiled as her fist came away>  “Oh!  ‘At’s what kinda party we got!”

      Bott frowned at the smiling face.  Looking under his feet, he found the face he’d stepped on was also smiling.  He leaned toward the wall and set his hand on a face at random.

     “Hoo!” cried Bassada.  Not only that face, but every face in a straight line to the ceiling changed as well.

     “I’ve played this game before,” said Chlorda, frowning at the face glaring up between her legs.

     “So have I,” said Bott.  “Watch where you walk.”

     He punched a smiling face to test his conclusion.  A dozen faces frowned again.

     Coordinating their efforts took some time, but eventually, they stamped and punched until every face in the room was smiling.  A thin blue line snaked up the wall to Bott’s right, outlining a circular door.  Chlorda reached for it.

     “Wait!”  Bott looked at the grey cloth through which they’d entered, but did not move, for fear of having to start the puzzle over.  “There are only three of us.”

     Chlorda reached for the cloth, which took a step.  The faces began to scowl, and the circular door vanished.  Bott pushed where it had been, to no avail.

     “Ah, she crupt back,” said Bassada.  “Le’s go.”

     “One of us should check.”  Bott also stepped to the cloth.  A dozen faces on the floor grinned at him.

     So did Bassada.  “Who’s cap’n today, cap’n?”

     Chlorda wiped more grit from her cheeks.  “I didn’t bring any straws, so we can’t draw any.”

     Bott had already known who was going to volunteer for this job, and, anyhow, he was the smallest.  Pulling back the cloth, he put his head into the flashing tube again.  Found hands grabbed his legs, perhaps mainly to help him up.

     The swirling patterns were fast and constant, without a break, and the whine was one long scream.  Bott knew more or less where to go, though, and crawled forward, pausing only to jump sideways when surprised by the sudden attack of a rogue band of black and white ovals.

     “Be trying to walk on the ceiling next,” he growled, and promptly hit the ceiling as a potent bolt of lightning raced through him.  A boiling cloud of gas billowed out of the ceiling at him.

     He crawled faster.  There was no sign of the green Klamathan for two turns of the tube.  She seemd a small green object amid the black and white chaos, but she had proven too big for the maze.  Her hips were wedged in the corner of the turn, obviously the cause of the holdup.  Smears of grease had caught fire on her shoulders.  She pounded her fists on the walls as another dose of current was fed into the occupants.

     Bott panted as he came down from the shock, and studied Louba’s head and shoulders.  Even if he could squeeze her out of this turn, there were more behind him.

Sinking Sensation

     Let’s talk household chores.  I love ‘em, myself.  I am constantly amazed by the number of other things I get done by simply thinking, “Well, it’s this or do the dishes.”

     Even as a child, though, I resented all the folktales which suggested that if men and women switched jobs, the women would do perfectly fine while the men would be lost at the outset and and be nothing but a puddle of muddle by lunchtime.  And the majority of fine old postcards follow this trend.  Laundry, especially, was considered a suitable reason for getting married.

     Given the laborious sequence of steps involved in doing laundry before the invention of washing machines, detergent, and dryer sheets, it seems foolish to feel that women had a natural talent for the job.  It was ore an understanding that a man, by natural right, got to work an eight hour job while a wife was on the job twenty-four hours and could handle little chores that involved a tub of hot water (prepared on the stove a kettle at a time) a tub of cold water, a tub of bluing, a quantity of starch, a wringer, a mangle….

     Let’s consider something simpler.  Washing dishes involved a mere sink full of hot water, some kind of soap, and elbow grease.  This was the second greatest running gag of those on KP during World War III, after peeling potatoes.  Interesting how women going out to the assembly line in the absence of men was heroic, while men having to do women’s chores…hey, it’s that same old folktale again!

     And yet, for a generation before that war came along, it was acknowledged that getting married did NOT excuse a man from washing dishes.  At the very least, he was expected to dry as his wife washed.  (This is another issue, by the way, which has divided our nation for generations.  The dishcloth families sneered at the lazy louts who simply put the rinsed dishes in a dishrack to dry, while the dishstrainer folks sneered at people who wiped every dish and spoon with a dirty old dishrag.  Where did YOUR family…oh, you were a paper plate clan?  I see this is a whole nother blog.)

     In most cases, postcard cartoonist regarded the poor chap who had to wash the dishes after supper as not so much inept as overworked.  (How much does his family rt, by the way?  The sink is almost as bad as the one confronted by that chap in the Army two paragraphs ago.)

     No wonder some men just let things go until the usual laborer came home.  (In spite of nagging from the feline section of the family.)

     While men who moved straight from the house where Mom took care of these little details to their own establishment, where their Dearest expected them to help out greeted this revolting development with a plain old pout.

     As time went by, some husbands became experienced in the ways of the household, and  found a way to time their volunteerism carefully.

     And wives found ways to express their gratitude for all the help.  As many a husband in the kitchen pointed out, “I don’t object to the words you use, my dear, but I don’t like the axe sent.”  (Look, it was either write that joke or take my lunch dishes to the sink.  Be reasonable.)

Guilt-Edged Stationery

     We have discussed this before, but one of the jobs postcards tried to handle for two or three generations was nagging people to write.  It was a rule of etiquette at the time, you see.  If I write you a letter, then the ball is in your court.  Now you owe ME one.

     More often than not, it was a woman on the card demanding that letter (or at least a return postcard.  The postcard was NOT a letter, and therefore it was appropriate for you to send one to someone who owed you a letter, because otherwise you were putting them under an obligation to do TWO letters.  This is also reflected in the tradition of publishing postcards which expressed ecuses for not writing a letter yet.  The sender knew this did not COUNT: you could not return a postcard for a letter.  But you could keep sending your excuses on postcards, perhaps in the hopes that if enough time passed, you’d both forgot who owed whom a letter.  I wonder how a telegram counted in this whole rate of exchange.  I also wonder if we’ll get back to the subject of this article.)

     One reason that a woman was demanding the letter was so that the cartoonist could use a joke substituting “male” for “Mail”.  I have no statistics to show whether more men failed to answer letters than women.  I suspect it ran about fifty=fifty.  Rigid insistence on the Rules is not really linked to sex and/or gender.

     I’m not sure whether the rules have continued into our primarily digital civilization.  I know it never applied to email.  Be more than five minutes about replying to an email from a co-worker at a desk eight feet from yours, and you get nine or ten emails asking whether you saw the first email.

     In spite of all temptations, I have never been enlisted into the texting world.  I blame this on my correspondents, really.  I seem to be acquainted primarily with people who still use their phones to make phone calls.  On the other hand, I’m the one who keeps his phone over there, being charged just out of reach.  Responding to texts on a regular basis would mean having my phone at the ready, which I regard as dangerous.  No, not that the poor old thing might explode, but that the poor old thing holding it will think, “Well, as long as you’re here, let’s play a few match 3 games.”

     There’s no space here to go over the pros and cons of digital communication over the handwritten version.  Yes, you save time by not having to decipher your correspondent’s handwriting.  Yes, future generations will be largely denied the ability to read through old love letters of the rich and famous (it’s harder to delete a spicy letter than a series of sexts: in the good old days when you had a fireplace, there was a chance.  Nowadays if you destroy a letter you have to hope AI has not figured out how to reassemble scraps from your shredder.)  I WAS disappointed that one of the publishers I send a Christmas card every year no longer publishes its mailing address.  Whether this disappointed them or will disappoint future researchers must be left to the future.

     However, this whole digital revolution HAS threatened the male/mail joke with extinction.  Go ahead, try to make jokes about emale.  I bet you hear from HR about pronouns.

DRAGONSHELF AND THE DROVER XXXII

     It wasn’t the intense odor of vanilla that told Bott where he had landed so much as the fuzz.  He recalled the time that his Klamathan captain, especially upset, had ordered half the crew to shave their legs and hips before being stood in corners.  Easing one hand up past his face, ge fave the yielding yellow obstacle a push.

     Vo complaint came from the Klamathan, but she did step forward, relieving Bott of the idea that she had been killed and hung on the wall as a trophy.  As he pulled himself free of the tube he’d descended through, he found three sets of buttocks but no other threats in the small cubicle.

     Apparently the Klamathans had decided simultaneously to remove their clothes and hang the garments on hooks thoughtfully provided by the Emperor.  Perhaps they had taken a shower; about an inch of water was lapping at their toes.

     He did not approve of the way they stood, their arms dangling, their heads tipped back at a ninety-degree angle.  Had he accidentally slid into a lab where His Imperial Walrus made copies of people, and found half-finished replicas of his crew?

     He glanced up to look at what they were seeing.  His eyes narrowed at the flashing lights; not bright enough to cast illumination around the cube, they must have some other purpose.  Concentrating, he could just hear the music.  He had learned, during his time on the Klamathan pirate ship, that certain frequencies could affect the minds of greens; he had learned a room ago  the same thing could happen to golds.  No doubt there were notes which could attach any Klamathan, particularly ones like these, especially susceptible after long days in the Imperial cells.

     The lights did impart a soothing air; Bott wondered if there were some code in the shifting of the lights, some subliminal command.  He realized as he watched that he had not had any natural sleep in days.  And there were hooks on the walls for his clothes.  The maze wouldn’t go away; he could try to get through some more after a nap.

     His hand slid down his jacket but the cold fabric made him pause in removing it.  The sensation clashed with the message of the lights, so he looked down.  The water was now lapping over the tops of his boots.  So THAT was the message: just rest there while we drown you.

     Better not to look at the water; the surface was reflecting the lights.  And he thought his nap might just have to wait.  Looking around the walls, he found two chute openings, one of which he had just come through.  Both were closed now, lest they interfere with any recreational homicide.  He moved to the one he hadn’t used.  A lock was visible, and elementary.  He turned to consider his crew.

     They were somehow more daunting in the buff: he could see everything they wanted to bring him into greater acquaintance with.  Was there any reason to take them along?  Really?

     Bott let a finger slide below the symbols on the lock.  Then he pushed away from the wall.  No self-respecting captain would abandon his crew.  Not, at least, without checking their clothes to see if they were carrying anything he could use.

     He found a few things they had not mentioned; he wondered if they had even mentioned them to each other.  There was a dagger with an Imperial reucas on the hilt and dried blood on the blade, perhaps a memento of the previous owner.  The blue had shown no inclination to use it this far.  The gold had a tiny metal box of crystallized honey.  Where had she been hiding that?  He decided not to worry about it.

     “Ah!”

     He thought he remembered them mentioning this.  He slid it free of the green’s overalls, and studied the three rebels.  “Chlorda, we want you about here.”

     She moved one step in the direction he pushed her; the water splashed her shins.  Moving back, Bott sighted along the six buttocks.  Sloshing back a bit through the rapidly rising water, he squinted.  Then he came up and urged Bassada backward one step.  He noticed she had a tattoo.  He hoped this was the last time he saw it.

     Setting his shoulders on the wall between garments smelling strongly of chocolate and honey, he measured the jumprope along one arm, tying knots at proper intervals.  Then, an end in each hand, he pulled it tight once or twice before pushing off from his leaning post.

     The rope shot overhead with a loud pop.  He nodded.  He sighed.  If this worked, he would probably regret it for the rest of his life.  But there were things a captain was expected to do for his crew.

     The rope swung in the air long enough to pick up some momentum, and then came down.  A dark green stripe appeared across the bottom farthest from him.

     Had it produced any other result?  Bassada’s head turned to look back over her shoulder.

     “C’mon, Cap’n!  One or two more fer good measure!”

     Bott coiled the jumprope around one hand.  “No time to play.”

     Louba rubbed one buttock and said, “Well, a little’s better’n no dessert at all.”

     “Cap’n’s got a knacky hand with a rope,” Bassada agreed.  “’At’sa way I likes him: firm but unfair.”

     Bott fiddled with a knot.  “Grab your clothes and let’s move.  And don’t look at the ceiling: that’s what trapped us.”

     Pursing her lips, the golden aristocrat sploshed through the water until her breasts were all but resting on her shoulders.  “I tried to urge them through, but one has to check for traps and….”

     “She found ‘em.”  A green thumb and forefinger reached over to squeeze one peach-colored nipple nearly flat.  “Whose t’rone’s gotta hole in the seat now?”

     “In general,” said Chlorda, her narrowing eyes still on Bott, “It takes a specific frequency for any single Klamathan to be hypnotized.  But the lights rendered us vulnerable and then the music froze us.”

     Louba’s generous swat against the golden backside nearly sent Chlorda and the captain against the wall.  “When ya gots such little parts, they’s easier ta freeze.”

     The gold whirled.  “At least I don’t need to wear trousered garments to keep bits of me from dragging on the floor!”

     Louba slapped her own backside this time.  “B’leeve me rear end’s in peart good shape, considerin’ ever’thin’ yer leadin’s dragged it through.”

     “Mebbe ‘at’s not one o’ the bits she meant,” Bassada put in.

     Louba reached out, took the blue nose, and shook it left and right.  Two blue fingers jabbed into the green abdomen.

     “Better hurry.”  Bott did not have to bend very far to slap the water with his hands.  “The door looks so simple there may be a trick.”

     Chlorda moved deliberately to her clothes, arms fully extended, hands straight up, fingers arched.  Bott caught the little motion of those fingers, and knew what it meant in Klamathan.  Louba’s response was less elegant, but then, she had bigger fingers.

     Bott leaned against the wall again.  He wondered whether any of these rebel leaders had ever led to anything much.  No doubt their companies had little in the way of central control.  Everyone did just what seemed good at the moment.

     Like a pirate.

     That was a depressing thought, so he drew his grenade satchel a little farther from the water and looked inside to find out how many antique weapons were left.  “’At’s an idea,” said Bassada.  “Bust a hole inna walls and let some water out.”

     “No no!”  Chlorda shook her head vigorously.  “My mother was put in an Imperial maze, cut her way out, and fell into a system of narrow tunnels filled with Vannasan caterpillars, long fuzzy things as thick as your leg.  We never saw her again.”

     “They…ate her?” Bott demanded.

     She shook her head again.  “No, Mother enjoyed their company so much she never came out.”  Golden shoulders shrugged.  “She does text us on our birthdays.”

     Bassada expelled air, and a little moisture, between her lips.  “Oh, le’s have a moment o’ silence fer Maw.  Okay, ‘at’s ‘nuff.”

     Seeing his crew mostly clad, Bott moved to the door and pressed the tabs on its lock.  A quarter tist to the left sent the door sliding into the wall.  A light blue tube beyond went straight for about three body lengths and then curled to the right.

     “I don’t trust that curve,” he said, as his crew crowded behind him, six hands quite accidentally sliding along his back.  “We’ll go in order of size, smallest first.  Then you can grab our ankles and bring us out if we get stuck.”  Louba and Bassada stuck their lower lips out.  Chlorda limbered up her fingers.

     Bott set his hands on the rim of the door, but jerked back when the tunnel whined at him.  The sound stopped.  He put his hands down to boost himself up again, and the high, discordant drone started again.  Gritting his teeth, he pulled himself up and into the tunnel.  The pitch went up a half step.

     “I….” he began, glancing back.

     His head swiveled forward as a bright square containing white diamonds alternated with black spralled along the wall, too fast for him to dodge.  He felt nothing; it was just a projection.  A second diamond came twisting toward him, the black and white diamonds changing colors or places as it sped by.

     Chlorda’s head and shoulders were inside the tube.  “That…could be pretty bad.”

     “So it must be the right direction,” Bott replied, raising his voice above the whine of the tunel.

     “Mebbe ‘ey jus’ wants ya to think so,” Bassada suggested.

     That was certainly possible, but Bott had no desire to backtrack and try to find another door.  Hitching up the shoulderstrap of his satchel, he crawled toward the oncoming diamonds.  “Come on, crew.”

FICTION FRIDAY: Making the Seen

     “Look, I have to climb the wall a then walk across a yard filled with gravel to get to Darkhaus the Dire’s dungeon door.”

     “Yes, sir.  And those Slippers of Silence will get you across the gravel without disturbing a single pebble which might alert a watchman or guard dog.”

     “I don’t care how silent the slippers are.  The soles are so thin that the second I drop down into that gravel, I’LL be making sounds.”

     “What else can I offer you, sir?  You’ve already turned down the amulet which ensures that the wizard’s legendary dogs won’t detect you by sniffing the air.”

     “Yes, by permanently making me smell like a dog.  And that ring you offered me that would help me just scare them away…..”

     “Being turned into a tiger would indeed make you rather conspicuous, sir.  But I did offer you the shield which would repel all of Darkhaus’s dire enchantments.”

     “And, at the same time, make every magic amulet I carry myself inert as well.  Are you sure you won’t sell me the invisibility cloak you mentioned in the first place?”

     “I’ll sell you whatever you please, sir.  But I don’t think….”

     “I’m starting to believe that’s true.  Let me try it on, at least.”

     “Here it is, sir.  But you should know….”

     “Ah, nice and warm.”

     “It is warded against all inclement…do come back, sir.  You haven’t paid yet.  And the door is barred.”

     “How did you know I was walking that direction?  If you can see me, then the Invisibility Cloak….”

     “Works a little differently than you expected, sir.  Look at your arms.”

     “Yes, I can see…but where’s the…I still feel it on my shoulders.”

     “That’s right, sir.  When you put on the Cloak of Invisibility, the cloak becomes invisible, not the wearer.”

     “What use is THAT?”

     “You asked about Invisibility Cloaks, sir; I didn’t claim I had one that was useful.  I believe the conjuress who crafted it said it would break the ice at parties.”

     “She sounds like a real charmer.  Maybe I should buy it, though.  If I break into Darkhaus’s place wearing this, maybe he’ll laugh himself to death.  No, I’ll buy the tiger ring instead.”

     “Indeed, sir?”

     “Indeed.  I’ll use it to discuss that joke with the sorceress.”

“Very well, sir. Thank you, sir.”

“Maybe if I scare her enough she’ll sell me something I CAN use. Does she live far from here?”

“Not very, sir. Just take the north road out of town, sir. She has a tall tower in the center….”

“Goodbye and good riddance!”

“…of a field of catnip.”

Next Year’s Summer Movies

     I have been less than perfectly successful selling these postcards as collectibles (you did note somewhere that I have these things for sale, right?  It’s hard to tell, sometimes.)  So, looking around for another way to make my millions, I wonder if I can sell a few movie studios on purchasing a bundle to look through for blockbuster horror movie ideas.  For example, I know the drive-ins have already handled giant rabbits, in Night of the Lepus, while demonic children are all but a cliché now.  But how about combining them?  Sample dialogue: “Johnny?  Johnny?  Here did you go?  And where did all these jelly beans come from?”

     Has Hallmark really considered the possibilities in the new craze for romantasy novels?  We know early in the picture, see, that HE is a vampire, who accidentally falls for a young lady he was planning to use as a menu item.  But SHE turns out to be a dryad, a forest spirit who came to the city to save her forest grove.  You understand the conflict in their relationship, right?  Since she’s a nature spirit, flitting through the fields, these two have to make things work even though they work different shifts.

     I don’t suppose a Hallmark slasher movie would make it, but somebody else could make a film about the lady who gets so tired of her husband reading the newspaper at the breakfast table that she finally snaps and scalds him to death with the hot coffee.  She thereupon goes on a rampage against other newspaper-addicted husbands, flooding dining rooms with maple syrup or wra[pping the miscreant in hot bacon while…no, you’re right.  With modern audiences we’d need to keep explaining what a newspaper is.

     This is a much easier concept to sell.  I don’t know whether to call the movie Puppy Chow or Soylent Kibble.  Marketing tagline: “They were NOT Good Boys!”

     And we can continue the canine horror theme with a movie combining the killer A.I. trope with robot dogs.  Marketing tagline :”When You Really Need to Unwind”.

     I don’t know WHY the mad scientist decided to create an army of robot owls.  (I have to leave SOMETHING to the scriptwriters.)  But I know how to go to the big finish.  You do the old “Confuse the Computer By Asking an Impossible Question” ploy.  In this one, the heroine realizes all she has to do is ask one of the robots how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop.  Product placement guaranteed.

     So this other mad scientist decides to solve the Childhood Obesity Epidemic with a miracle drug which he hides in sugary soft drinks to make kids lose weight.  Forgetting that the problem isn’t so much weight as bulk and adipose tissue, he creates a world crisis as kids start floating away.  My title for this one would be Root Beer Float.

     The Bob Hope Bing Crosby Road movies were adventures with frightening moments, but were never full-scale horror movies.  This would be an homage movie in which two similar characters on the Road to Henhouse would encounter giant chickens, and after an interlude in which they contemplate a world-winning fried chicken place wind up fleeing from ever larger poultry.  Sample dialogue: “Don’t go in there!  They’re laying for you!”

     Along this line, we could do an apocalyptic movie in which radiation causes the population to start turning into chickens and….  What?  Oh, right.  They did that on The Muppet Show already.

     We can do another post-apocalyptic thriller in which that radiation starts turning everyone into cute Dutch kids who speak a strange dialect and….  But that episode was about everyone turning SWEDISH and….  Oh, very well.  It’s no fun if the Muppets have already taken all the good plots.  Do you suppose Kermit collects postcards?

DRAGONSHELF AND THE DROVER XXXI

    Bott stared at the closing doors a moment too long.  Pellets flew again, this time angling down.  Most bounced off his back but he felt the sting as a few hit his hands and face.  He rolled from the ramp, aiming for the largest door he’d seen.

     The door shuddered, but did not open; he supposed he was too light to trigger the mechanism.  He slid his hands across the surface without finding anything useful.

     Then he slid his hands over himself, checking for damage from the pellets.  He found no breaks in the skin, no stickiness of surface poison.  The Emperor might have something more insidious than Bott had encountered before, but perhaps the purpose of the pellets was simply to urge prisoners to make stupid moves.

     Sitting up, he studied the room.  Even flying the Dragonshelf, he could go through the chamber again and again and still miss important clues.  Range upon range of mountainous white blocks rose before him, with doors and traps who knew where, triggered by who knew what, surrounded by who knew how many fake librarians.

     Checking to make sure his satchel and collection of cards were intact, he rose to his feet.  At least he was free of the distracting Klamathans.  Their odors and urges would have led to increasingly greater challenges.  Alone, he could cross any massive room sober.  And he was unlikely to see a drink for days.

     He started forward, aiming for two large spheres that looked to be about half a mile away.  After twosteps, he realized what they reminded him of, and stopped.

     He had to find them, of course.  Nubry at least and the Klamathans if he could.  What the large women kept telling him was true: His Imperial Worship intended them all to die n this playground, once sufficient entertainment and revenue had been produced.  But he had no inytention of dying without a crew, without a struggle, without one last grand assault.

     Without applause.

     As well die here and now as go to a lot of trouble without anyone to admire the effort.  His family,his crew, the librarian, the Klamathans: all had been audience and all were gone.  And acclaim meant more than food to a pirate captain.

     The thought of food made his stomach complain.  Food did mean something, too.  He took out his communications card.  The green still held that rations card, but when he found her—for he was Bott Garton and he could find a pea in a bean vault—they would need to know where the next food dispenser was.

     “Ship?”

     “Are you still breathing, lummox?”

     The voice was nectar, but there was no way he could admit this.  “Sorry to disappoint you.  Are you allowed to tell me where the nearest outlet for the foods computer is?”

     “Yes.”

     Bott considered his fingernails and brushed a scrape on the back of one hand before trying again.  “Ship, tell me where the nearest outlet for the foods computer is.”

     “Oh, you’re still there.  The nearest outlet is in is in Maze Room 3A1-slash-783-slash-3M7.”

     Bott tipped his head back.  “I suppose I don’t need to ask this.”

     “Ye-es?”

       “Ship, where is Maze Room 3A1-slash-783-slash-3M7?”

     “That I’m not allowed to tell you.”

     Bott nodded, not especially surprised.  At worst, he could always dine on the thumbs in his pocket.

     “With all those cards, [pirate, you’d probably order up waymuns soaked in Boiar champagne.”

     “What, no lumpuck truffles?”

     “Unless you were interested in the food hidden in this chamber.”

     Bott ran his tongue across his canine teeth.  “Just for chuckles, let’s assume that would interest me.”

     “You want to walk to your left until you reach that low white cylinder.  You do know which is your left?”

     “I am one of the greatest pirate navigators of our time.”

     “That does not answer the question.”

     So Bott did not answer the question, strolling toward the big low circle.  He strolled a bit faster when he smelled roasted meat.  A hint of pepper and garlic just about made the stroll a charge.  Reaching the block, he threw his hands up and brought himself to where he could peer down inside.

     A vast bowl stretched below, containing four drumsticks roughly the size of his old ship.  He considered the legs gravely.  The sides of the bowl were steep and slick; if he climbed over, he would slide right down next to the meat.  But a bird that size had probably not been fed with an eye to maximum tenderness.  He let go and dropped back down to the floor.

     “Do slave ships find this sort of thing funny?”

     “Frankly, I wish His Worship hadn’t let your Klamathans go through the floor.  I can picture the four of you trying to climb back out and sliding back into one greasy heap.  I don’t believe I was programmed to giggle, but that might force the issue.”

     Bott’s tongue slid across his lips.  “It was the Emperor’s plan to drop them through the floor?”

     “The money was getting a little soft, so he decided to pique interest by offering odds on whether you ran into each other again.”

     “What are the odds right now?”

     “Just now, 53 to 1 against.  Of course, what really matters is which outcome brings in more money.”

     “And Nubry?  The librarian?  The real one, I mean?”

     “He’s not offering odds on that.”

     Wondering what that might mean, Bott set a shoulder against the wall of the cylinder.  In a second, he was sprawled on the floor, the cylinder having slid eight feet back under his weight.

     Propping himself up on his elbows, he found he was lying between two silver doors.  Nudging one with his right foot opened onto a set of steps which were moving foen.  An experiment with the other foot showed him another set of stairs tolling down at a right angle to the first.  A grinding sound brought his head up.  The bowl of meat was creeping back toward him.

     For all he knew, of course, the Klamathans had dropped into a shallow passage which would bring them right back to this room.  This room was too big to work with, though.  He thought he’d prefer whatever these escalators would take him into.

     The bowl continued to slide back; soon it would cover the doors again.  He looked from one door to the other and with a shrug, reached for Nubry’s book.  The first animal he found was looking down at a blue flower.  That meant the door on the right.

     The bowl slid across the door as he traveled down, but a dim yellow light showed him where he weas going.  It was a short trip before he stepped off into a dusty concrete aisle between rows of large grey cages.  All of these were empty and smelled of neglect.  He wondered, moving among them, whether he should try some of the doors.  A passage might wait inside any one of them.  So might a trap.  He kept walking.

     Having seen no change in corridor or cages after two hundred steps, he paused and set one hand to the bars on his right.  The yellow light went red, and he jumped back to the center of the aisle, crouching to meet whatever came at him.

     What came were a dozen cries and groans, as the cage doors were replaced with projected scenes oflibrarians under torture.  He counted ten on each side: how many copies could the Emperor have on hand?  There had to be more than one: no one could survive the experience two ahead of him.  Or that one, three down on the left.

     These had to be computer-generated simulations, designed while the prisoners were unconscious.  No doubt, wherever she was, Nubry was being subjected to similar scenes in which he was interrogated.  But even knowing these scenes could never actually have happened, he couldn’t watch: The stretched, twisted, burning naked bodies were neary identical.  They had to be based on a single original; where was that original now?

     “Bott!” came a dozen screams from those still capable of speech.

     “Quiet!” he ordered, walking faster.  :Keep quiet!”  He slapped his hand against one screen.

     The librarian swung away from his hand, which had hit glass.  Bott whirled, and threw a punch in the direction of her face.  She blinked.

     The simulations were programmed to respond, of course.  The cage walls were made of wire-reinforced glass, cage glass.  He had been right the first time: these were cells containing three-dimensional simulated librarians.

     “You’re just pictures,” he snarled, half running down the corridor.  “Not one of you is bilstim real.”  On his right, a counterfeit Nubry coughed flame as her internal organs ignited.

    The end of the corridor waited for him, a deep triangular niche.  In one wall was a square door with a padlock.  On the other waited an oval door with a combination knob.  A black opening waited just beyond his toes.  He turned to the librarian’s book, where the pictures were comfortingly still.

     What did it mean when an animal was looking to the right?  Straight ahead?  He looked over the opening in the floor.  No thank you.  He turned to the combination lock.

     “My book!” screamed Six Nubrys on his right.  Bott swallowed.  Could computer simulations see?  He considered the hole in the floor again.  If he dove in headfirst, he could slide into a pot of bubbling ooze, making hot Bott Stew.  Feetfirst and he might land in a pit of soft cheese, sinking deeper and deeper with no way to climb out.  He shook his head; better find some food before it took over his brain completely.

     In the cage at his right, a librarian was separated from her legs.  “My book!” she wailed.  “Bott, read to me!”  He dove into the hole.  At least he’d see where he was going.

       There was no room to turn in the dark tube.  By pressing his arms and legs against the sides, Bott could slow his descent.  He wondered if this mattered.  At length, he was dropped into an orange cube lit by pale blue walls.  Six dark circles in these walls indicated he could go on traveling by tube.

     “Jzzn,” someone said.  A large blue insect crawled from one of the tubes.  Bott reached for a grenade, but shook his head.  The room was too small.  Maybe one of the thumbs would do: it had worked with the flies.

        “Jizzn vet.”  The long blue stick with many legs crawled along the wall to another opening, and was gone.  Bott reached for the book again, but shook his head, and walked over to the opening farthest from the one the insect had come out of.

     This was a smaller tube, barely large enough for progress.  Bott could see his future, wrapped in this plastic package, slowly starving to death while the Emperor chuckled.  Fine way for a pirate captain to finish.

     He found his way to the end of the tube more quickly as the plastic walls began to ooze hot liquid.  He fell forward, breaking his fall with his nose, which wedged between two fuzzy orange cushions.

Missed Millions

     I have mentioned here and elsewhere how I personally, invented some million dollar concepts, only to be turned away by experts so that I gave up, allowing people with more grit and perseverance to get the glory and the money.  The page-a-day calendar, the trivia board game, the shared universe short story anthology: these and other obsolete wonders were things I came up with in my spare time, only to be shot down.  Well, I’m tired of it.

     No, I am NOT going to burn the midnight oil developing my ideas.  That takes effort.  I am going to put them into a column so that I can do the Jules Verne thing and be credited long after I’m dead for coming up with these society-changing concepts.  (I was told all through my childhood about Jules Verne’s talent as a science fiction author in coming up with ideas a century ahead of their time. The Interwebs are now filled with articles pointing out flaws in Jules Verne’s concepts for space travel and atomic submarines.  I am willing to risk this.  Greatness will prevail despite nitpickers.  Anyway I’ll be too busy asking the superintendent of facilities if we can lower the thermostat a bit to be counting the wreaths tossed on my headstone.)

     Let’s start with a new concept for those mega-sellers online.  All of them already have places you can click to see “What I’ve Bought”.  This is hardly sufficient.  We would appreciate adding a few new tabs to click like “Where I Put It Once I Bought It” or even “Why Did I Buy This?”

     For people who are frustrated by always getting the wrong size spoon or tongs when collecting food from a buffet, I say the buffet should embrace this and make it fun.  Ditch the spoons and tongs: put in one of those claw machines you used to see in penny arcades.  Have customers put money in the machine and then take a chance on grabbing up as many Swedish meatballs or Salisbury steaks as that fiendish contraption will lift.  Same result, more fun; most of us will spend more calories than we eventually consume.

     Add a meter to the screen on social media platforms, charging so many pennies for each minute we spend viewing cute kitty videos.  No, I’m not saying we should pay the creators.  I’m spending MY valuable time watching their content: they should pay me minimum wage for that.  AND if I decide to post a comment offering very helpful advice on the dancer’s footwork, outfit or personal appearance, I demand a bonus for my generosity in sharing my opinion.  (If this results in a Nobel Prize for single-handedly shutting down social media, I can provide a mailing address.)

     Every time I rummage through my Useful Stuff Repository (i.e. junk drawer) in search of a twist tie, I grab one that’s broken off way too short to be useful (Yes, I always throw it back in the drawer; I’m not a barbarian.)  Why don’t kitchens in this supposedly civilized nation come with a twist tie dispenser.  Put a spool of twist tie inside once a month, and then just reel out the length you require.  (Yes, this WILL result in some people trying to twist tie lumber in the back of the truck when building a deck, but “no sweat, no swag” as nobody said ever.)

     This is all I’m going to have room for in today’s column, but I have plenty more ideas at least as useful as these.  I hear you marveling that I am not yet the beau ideal and matinee idol of millions.  That IS what you’re marveling, right?  No, don’t answer in the comments.  Wait until they install the meter.

FICTION FR/WEDNESDAY: The Camel Sails

Now in those days word came to Florence that her brother Noah was building a great ark to rescue the animals of the Earth from a mighty flood.  But when Florence heard that her brother planned to fill the vessel with all manner of animals of all sizes and diets, this did not seem good to Florence.

“Lo!” said Florence.  “I shall build my own Ark, as insurance, since my brother’s plan is inefficient and must fail, dooming life on Earth.  And I shall appoint a committee to discuss the cost-effectiveness of each type and kind of animal, that we be assured of survival.”

            And the committee was called, and long were its discussions of the animals of Earth.  For some were small but had mighty appetites, which meant excessive cargo, while others, of more modest appetites, were nonetheless so large that such animals and the fodder thereof would have been too great for any such enterprise to succeed.

            In the fulness of time, the committee presented Florence with a report.  And reading through the bullet points about efficiency of housing and compactness of fodder, Florence saw that the report was good.  Then and only then did she set in motion her plan, according to the report of the committee, ordering many cubits of gopherwood.  And being constructed by a more efficient plan than that of Noah, the building of her Ark was accomplished quickly, and the ship stood ready when the rains came.  And Florence, calling “Bon voyage!” to her brother and his inefficient zoo, set forth on her own Ark, with her wise committee.

            Thus Florence and her crew lived comfortably, for there was ample room aboard their Ark, constructed along the lines of logic and committee study.  And, as the committee with great wisdom had decided that the most efficient creatures to feed and house aboard a ship of gopherwood was termites, no one heard ever again of Florence’s Ark.

DRAGONSHELF AND THE DROVER XXX

     Chlorda paused on the side of corridor, setting the back of one hand against one golden cheek.  “How disorienting!  Fun, though.”

     “But nex’ time we does it, us dainty types goes first,” said Bassada, folding her arms across her chest as she stood on the ceiling.  “Watchin’ ‘em two slabsa chunk roast wobble round makes me hungry.”

     “That doesn’t surprise me,” yawned the gold.

     “Wasn’t tryin’ ta sur[prise ya,” replied the blue.  “If I was, I’da wore me colander.”

     Bott, standing on the wall that had seemed to be the dead end of this corkscrew corridor, ignored his crew and twisted the thick gold knob on the ceiling.  Lucky he’d been in the lead: the actual gravity always seemed to be on the left or right of the yellow path that wandered around the blue corridor.  They had all been able to walk it in spite of this, but not without a lot of wobbling.

     There!  Slide the bottom and top panels to the left and the middle one to the right.  He glanced back at the cold orange blob that popped and crackled as it burbled along the yellow road.  Then he pushed on the door.

     Clinging to the doorway, he tested the gravity in the next chamber.  Once he knew where down was, he set his feet there and pulled himself upright.

     “Well, finally,” said the gold, pulling herself after him.  “I suppose a four-poster bed would be too much to….”  She stared, and then was tossed on top of Bott by Louba.

     Louba’s eyes also widened.  “Well, my mother should see butterflies!”

     “Better’n seein’ yer feet,”  Bassada pulled up next to her.  “Whoogosh!”

     Bott shivered.  Vastnesses of floor space were interrupted, at long intervals, by light grey cubes, cones, cylinders, semicircles, and other building blocks apparently tossed down at random by some giant emperor.  They were even bigger than they looked; Bott knew it was only the size of the room that dwarfed them.

     “The door could be in any one of those,” whispered Chlorda.  At least, the room made it sound like a whisper.  “Or at the far end.”

     “If it’s got a far end anywheres,” murmured Bassada.

     Louba stretched back, hands high above her head, and then straightened.  “Hope we’s getting’ refreshments, anyhuse.”

     Chlorda’s eyes were troubled as she looked to Bott, but she also came to her feet.

     The party of four eased out along the pale floor, radiating caution.  Bassada was sliding her thumbs across her fingers; Louba pretended to have an itchy chin.  Bott didn’t pretend anything, his head swinging back and forth to check all the landmarks for possible trouble.  Everything was so far apart that anything coming out would have to be very fast or very potent.  He thought he would not mention this to his crew.

     He thought he ought to say something, at least, but no one heard him clear his throat, jumping as they all were from the sound of the trumpet. Somewhere, a door slammed open.

     “Well, to steal a sausage!”  Louba arched one green hand to the left.

     A big orange head rose from a trap door next to a low semicircle far off in that direction.  It looked neither right nor left as it came up.  A green head appeared just beneath it.  Bott frowned.  A second green rider and orange mount followed the first, and then a third.  They seemed to be Imperial Dragoons, the spiked planet emblem standing out clearly in shining threads on their banners.  Bott did not recognize these particular Dragoons; the orange heads and faces were nondescript, but he felt sure he’d recognize those fat, ugly battle axes.

     Five more followed the first three.  By this time, the troop was marching up onto the low semicircle, as a second door appeared at the other end.  The first rider rode straight down into this.  None of the Dragoons seemed to notice their company was not alone in the room.  Well-disciplined Dragoons, Bott thought: they might be useful.

     “Know anything about these?” he murmured.  The first riders were nearly all gone, but a second troop was rising from the first door.

     “It’s a kit of cock aldorves,” Chlorda murmured back.  “Loooks like a full kit, too.”

     “Two kits, mebbe,” Bassada put in.  “Reckon we gots ta knock ‘em all over?”

     “That string!”  Louba waved an arm at the banner held by this company.  “Seen it…blister me buns an’ call me a pickle!  Atsa same flag!”

     “a dozen or so moving in a circle to make us think….”  Bott reached out too late.  “No!  Don’t!?

     The largest Klamathan had charged, calling, “Yamfrees!”

     “Klamathans!” screamed the aldorves, their mounts rearing.

     “Stand your ground!” bellowed their leader.  “We can make a stand if….”

     Looking left and right, he found himself alone.  He urged his steed toward the exit at the end of the arch, rather too late.

     The impact of Louba threw him completely off his mount.  Before he could rise, Louba boxed his ears, and then boxed them again, apparently with the intention of keeping this up until her fists met.  The green mount leaned in to nip at her, but jumped for the exit as her exertions shook Louba completely out of the top of her overalls.

     Nott was startled to see she was wearing winged black nipple caps under the overalls.  The wings flapped and fluttered, not in time to the ear boxing.  Knowing what made them flutter, Bott shuddered again.

     Wiping her hands on the officer’s tunic, she bounded back to her allies.  “Make it look easy, don’ I?  Anybody wanna touch me, just ger luck?”

     Chlorda said nothing, but a gold underlip stuck out.  “Gwan,” sneered Bassada, “Probly gots orders not ta hurt prisoners.”

     The green waved a card on high.  “But I got his rations chit!”

     “Good job!” Bott called.

     The rest of the crew was less appreciative.  “Put yourself away, barrel o’ slugs.  Them things makes me break out in homicides.”

     Louba pulled her overalls up.  “Bugs, huh?”

     The blue sniffed.  “Bags.”

     Bott reached for his communications card.  “I’ll ask the computer where the next rations computer is.  We’ll….”

     “Aggif!”

     The sound came from the other side of the arch.  It was not a word Bott had heard before, but the voice sounded familiar.  He jerked his head toward the obstacle, and led his crew forward.

     He’d been expecting the librarian, but had to put a hand up to brace himself nonetheless as he came around the arch.  Nubry strained against a thick black harness which had ground angry red blotches into her skin.  Her uniform hung from her in tatters.  She looked…larger without all her clothes, lighter where the fabric had covered her.  Tiny red stripes showed here and there bout this exposed lightness.

     Above and behind her, in a high silver chariot, was the driver with the whip.  Loose, convoluted grey skin hung over his eyes as he jerked his head up and raised the whip.

     Nubry’s shoulders hunched forward; her head jerked up.  Spotting the other prisoners, she cried, “Bott!  Help me!”  The whip landed again.  “I’m the real one!  You can see that!”

    Bott could feel the Klamathans tensing behind him, but didn’t take his eyes off the librarian.  “Ye-es,” he said, reaching into his satchel.  “I’ll use one of the gas grenades.”

     “Of course!  He hasn’t got a gas mask!  Has he?”  She glanced back.  “He…owww!”

     The first grenade Bott touched went flying; he put a hand back to push his crew away in the same motion.  Both Nubry and her driver watched the rise and fall of the projectile.  The Pumferian dropped his whip and started a dive from the chariot.

     With a dull burp, the grenade dissolved into a silvery shower.  The driver was halted in mid-dive; Nubry was similarly frozen.  A silvery tint spread across their features.  Then they, too, fell into tiny metallic particles, leaving behind whip, harness, and other accoutrements.

     The Klamathans followed him forward.  “Y’know,” Bassada told him, “I got no complaint about how many copies ya wants ta kill, but the guy wit’ the whip was probly a pris’ner too.  His Imperial Whiplash tol’ him ta do it.  We coulda give him a better deal.”

     Bott slapped down the flap of his satchel.  “I don’t think I’d’ve liked him.”

     “Got us some transport, anyhuse,” said Louba, kicking some of the powder away as she looked over the chariot.  “We c’d take turns ridin’ an’ pullin’.”

     “Cep’n our Cap’n here,” Bassada put in.  “He rests wit’ one o’ us while everybody else pulls.”

     “We’ll allow him to ride quite a lot.”  The gold arched her hands at shoulder height and shook those shoulders.

     Bott glared at her, not amused by this attempt to pit personal conditioning against racial size differences.  Alarm on Chlorda’s face showed she was not wiggling to attract admiration.

     Her fellow Klamathans noticed.  “Don’t hear it, do you?” Bassada asked Louba.

     “What’s happening?” Bott demanded.  The gold’s eyes were rolling up, and she was wiggling with more vigor.

     “Whip guy.”  Louba crouched to take up a belt, shaking off lingering silver dust.  “Dead man’s switch.”

     Chlorda raised one leg and began to spin, moving generally in the direction of the triangle and the cylinder.  Louba’s suggestion was reasonable; the Emperor had included a failsafe in case the driver was killed.  Straining, he could hear a few notes of music, and spotted a tiny black dot high on the distant cylinder.  “It’s a speaker,” he said.  “What’s the problem?”

     “Yes plays music at one frequency, an’ it makes little brasshocks here dance.” Bassada explained.  “She’ll go for ‘at speaker.  Gotta be a trap.”

     “Hold her,” Bott ordered Louba.  He thought he spied a flicker of disappointment in the gold’s eyes.  “You go see what’s below that speaker.”

     “Yer cap’n, Cap’n,” Bassada told him.

     “I’m coming with you.  I’ll have a grenade ready if something comes at us.  You want to hurry.”

     “Not much I don’t.”  The blue nose wrinkled at him.  “An’ iffen it’s a reap door?”

     “I’ll grab you.”

     The blue thought it over as Chlorda spun past her.  “Awright, I’ll do it.  But if any of yez wants ta kiss me fer good luck, I’ll tell yez where.”

     Louba took hold of the gold and fell back, twisting, as Chlorda spun more violently.  Bassada, better than her word, raced over to the big triangle, setting one foot carefully on the side.  Bott followed, running where she ran, tiptoeing where she tiptoed, and setting a foot in the face of the pyramid, though he saw no reason for it.  Testing her footing, Bassada started up the incline. 

     “We make a good target here,” said Bott, as their ascent of the triangle brought them closer to the cylinder and its speaker.  Louba, carrying Chlorda with some difficulty, struggled up after them.

     “So’s anybody down below,” Bassada grunted.  “See a door?  Or any more…flallop!”

     Small black spots were flying their way from the speaker on the cylinder.  Flattening himself against the wall of the pyramid opened a large door just under his head and shoulders.  He was too low to fall in, but ducked his head as the pellets flew past.  Bassada leapt off to one side, Louba and her captive rolling off the other direction.

     The hard black pellets whizzed past for mere seconds.  With a glance below, Bott slid down from the trap door, which slid shut before his eyes.  “Close,” he said.

     No one answered.  As he watched the floor below, two black rectangles disappeared as their own doors slid shut.