DRAGONSHELF AND THE DROVER XXIII

     “Where is she?” Bott demanded, pulling the gold card out of his pocket.

     “You know the rules, lummox.  I can tell you only where the Dragonshelf is.”

     Bott glanced around the little yellow room again for impending hazards, and then demanded, “Can you tell me if I went through the same door she did, anyhow?”

     “That’s privileged information.  Maybe a big bad pirate like you can steal it somewhere.”

     The pirate rapped the card against “Bunny Bunk and the Purple Pillow,” even though he knew this wouldn’t hurt the slave ship.  “So you can’t tell us a thing and at the same time you’re telling His Imperial Worship every move we make.”

     “He can watch for himself on the monitors,” the ship replied.  “We don’t chat.  All he’s said to me personally so far is that I’d look better with racing stripes.”

     “You might, at that.  Now tell me I have bad taste and see what His Imperial Worship does to you.”

     The tone in the computer’s voice was one Bott knew well.  “Pirates.  Gantlets.  All this cumbersome inelegance.  The gantlet you are running is one of my most inelegant functions.”

     “Is it?” Bott inquired.  “How about the slave pens?”

     “Slave hold, pirate: slave holds.  And well-crafted holds.  But even you, a numb-thumned apprentice pilot with piratic tendencies, must see that this zoo of bogey beasts is irrelevant.  I could do the same job much more efficiently without them.”

     “There are more of those things?” Bott asked.  “How many?”

     “One could contrive so many more delicate dangers.”  The computer was just about sighing over this.  “Now, if you had walked into one of the rooms with broadcast walls…why, then I could show everybody what I can do on my own.”

     Bott didn’t believe he cared to watch the Drover show off in that way.  “What do those rooms look like?”  He looked around again.

     “Most will be big square chambers with very light yellow, almost translucent walls.”

     “Um,” said Bott.  “Um, this is a big square room with yellow walls.”  He wasn’t sure about ‘translucent’.

     “Why, so it is.”

     Then the walls were yellow no longer.  The room went black for one heartbeat.  Then colors and sounds filled it to the farthest corner.  To Bott’s right was Strey Ectet, once his first mate, being compressed in a questioning device by Imperial Police.  To his left was a swirling remfmonster from “Hand on Mouth”, one of his home planet’s most famous horror movies.

     Before him was a man strapped to a standing rectangle, flames consuming his clothes.  Bott didn’t turn around.  Above the screams, the crackle of flames, the splintering of bones, and the jibber of the monster, a calm voice was explaining, “I am afraid your test results are not everything that could be desired.”

     There had been a door at the far end of the chamber, straight ahead; he was sure he remembered that.  He started forward, eyes closed.  Then it occurred to him that the Drover was limited to audio or visual torments.  Best to be alert.

     The pictures had changed into outsized close-ups.  Stery’s head was giving in to the pressure: fporty foot screens made every symptom of the bursting discernible.  Ahead of him, the victim’s face was obscured by smoke, but he could see the smoking, curling skin and oozing fat.  The burning eyes and turning teeth of the monster loomed on the left; that movie had always left him quivering.  This must be why the Drover had such exhaustive information about comics and shows: the Drover could more easily torment victims with full access to the popular culture of their home worlds.

     The volume rose.  Stery’s voice was round, liquid monosyllables, but still recognizable as that of the voice that always said, “Gio get ‘em, Captain!”  The remfmonster rattled and roared.

     Bott had no idea when he started running.  He did know he was screaming “Turn it off!”, even though he couldn’t hear himself.  Surely he was close enough now to the far wall to be seeing that door, but the flames around the man on that wall were bright enough to be blinding.  He reached out to feel for a handle, jerked back as he felt heat, and cursed himself for being so gullible.

     “You have,” a deep, calm voice informed him, “Perhaps the worst scores in the history of this examination center.”

     The door handle was nowhere.  The pictures started to twist around each other, brighter and brighter, as Stery’s twisting mouth threatened to swallow the monster that was biting at the burning man.  He jammed the gold card and Nubry’s book into his satchel, taking out another random grenade as he threw his back against the unforgiving wall.

     And then he was out.

     “Ho ho ho ho ho!”

     He had apparently thrown himself against the door, which had dropped him into a cold, blue spherical room that echoed to a bass voice.  “Ho ho ho ho!”

     Bott sat up, shivering.  Had it really been that hot in the room with broadcast walls, or was it just projected flames?

     “Ho ho ho ho ho!”

     “Quiet!” Bott shouted.  “I have to think!”

     Two doors showed uphill from where he had landed.  The red one on the left seemed to be ajar.  He stumbled forward.

     Frowning, he paused to look down at what had made him stumble.  Four plates and three cupssat on the cold, blue floor.  He sat down next to them.

     “Ho ho ho ho ho!”

     One plate was clean.  The others held remnants of mashed lumpucks.  The cups were wet inside.

     Bott rose, holding the clean plate.  Nothing had followed him out of the broadcast chaber; these must be connected with somebody ahead of him.  Might the librarian be there?  She might have declined a meal, having eaten recently, but in that case, whose were the other dishes?  After another look at the other plates, he tucked the clean one into his pack, and strode toward the two doors.

     “Ho ho ho ho ho!”

     The door on the left had been braced open with the fourth cup.  It might be Nubry, exploring a little ahead, and leaving signs for him to follow.  What might she have seen on those tormenting screens?

     “Ho ho ho ho!”

     “Wish we’d’a let that whistleding door shut.  I can still hear laughin’ boy.”

     “Yez c’d go back anytimes ya like.  Getting’ tired a’ yer bellyachin’.”

     “Ah’d’s lief go back to the cells, anyhoo.  Getcher lumpucks at reg’lar hours, at least.”

     “If the two of you could leave off arguing for three seconds, we may find a way across this brighteye bridge.”

     Bott tucked the plate a little farther down, and looked over the grenade he had taken from the satchel.  Then, moving up, he eased the left door open just a little.

     A dazzling black and gold forest stretched out before him, a cold sharp breeze dismissing the last of the heat and sweat from his face.  He took two steps in among the feathery gold leaves and then, whipping around, caught the door before it could latch.  Whoever was ahead of him had had the right idea; he adjusted the cup in the doorway and let the door rest against this.

     “Hear ‘at!  What was it?”

     The forest was quiet, except for the voices.  As a professional, Bott was annoyed that he had allowed door and cup to make that little clonk.  As Bott, he shivered with glee at the thought of having mystified someone.  It would be no trouble to hide among these trees if they came looking.  He glanced upward.  Unless the trees were hungry.

     “Let’s work on the main problem.  If the bridge won’t play along, we’ll need to double back.”

     “Mus’ be sumpm good ahead.  Gotta be a reason ‘at door’s so hard ta get ta.”

    The solid black dirt was hard and solid underfoot, with no broken branches or plumy leaves to crackle as he moved.  Bott slid quickly forward to find the object under discussion.  A black arch stretched over a swift golden stream.  On this side stood three women, all on tiptoe, considering the arch.  As he watched, one of them set an experimental toe on the arch.  Gold flame shot from openings all along its stretch.

     They were Klamathans, and the worst assortment possible.  A fold woman, her robe and turban covered with question marks, stood with hands on hips as she frowned over the arch.  A much larger blue woman in a long tan coat stood with one hand on the rail.  The woman who had attempted the crossing was a massive green Klamathan in blue overalls.

     Bott had served on crews with Klamathans, whose home planet was one of the most recent, and troublesome, of the Free Imperial State’s acquisitions.  They could be jolly companions, but if you had a varied group of them, it was best to mingle the sexes as well.  He wondered how three women had made it this far without killing each other.

     The blue women stepped over and dealt the green one a resounding slap on one bare arm.  “Gwan!  Yez gots sa much flesh it ain’t gonna matter dips if some melts offa yez.”

     The green woman nodded, with a slight smile at this rough encouragement, but withdrew from the attempt.  “Thanks.  Druther make a canoe outa me crotch hairs an’ see if it floats down ‘ere.”

     The gold minced forward, still on tiptoe.  “Of course you’ll try it.  Think of the common cause.”

     The green nodded.  “Course!  Musta lost me head!  I’ll go.”  And she started down the bank of the river.  Bott slipped a little closer.

     “Looks rough,” she called up to her companions.  “But coon’t we cut down a tree mebbe and try boatin’?”

     “Gross green grunter yez sits on’d sink it,” the blue told her.  “Mebbe we t’rows yez in and floats over like ‘at.”

     Bott didn’t believe he wanted to be seen by this group.  Being enlisted into their cause might be the biggest danger of the maze.  He turned to go.

     A second little clonk drew everyone’s attention.  “We must see what’s making that….” The gold began to say.  Her mouth dropped open.  “Lala!”

     “Fripplepletz!” the blue woman cried.

     The green, slapping her hands together, shouted “Flallop!”

     Bott peered through the woods to find what had inspired their responses.  “Sprockets!” he whispered.

Old Joke Archaeology

     The problem of dealing with archaic humor is that you often run into jokes which are amusing primarily if you know the context, and know something about the times.  That joke about why Santa Claus won’t bring you a television because he has so much trouble with antennas on the roof isn’t quite the same nowadays; the same goes for stories which involve getting tangled in phone cords, cranking your car to start it, and being amazed you’re overdrawn when you still have checks left.  (If I ever throw caution to the winds and do my columns on stand-up comedians of the past, called “Is This Still Funny?”, we will cover this issue more thoroughly.)  The problem is compounded when you are dealing with a catchphrase (meme, for the young’uns) or, as we will discuss today, a line from a once-popular song.

     Let us, for example, consider this line from Bert Williams, perhaps the greatest comedian of his generation, whose songs were so popular that their titles were lifted and reused for anything the lleast bit related…or totally unrelated.  We have mentioned THIS classic before.  The song itself was another one of his ditties about how tedious it is to be broke, and finances where everything is going out with nothing coming in.  Seasickness postcards abound using this title, but the most notable theft…I mean homage, was when the Cascarets company took the phrase as the official slogan of its popular laxative.  All these connections are lost, and the joke loses much of its punch, in a world which has forgotten both song and singer.  (And even the laxative, for that matter.)

     With this postcard you do get a fighting chance, since it gives you a few lines of the original, just enough to hint that what was meant by the original song is NOT about a loving couple as depicted here.  You do need to assume that someone would refer to a man as Josie, but our ancestors didn’t feel we’d be spending a LOT of time on the gag, reckoning without a generation of bloggers.

     The song referred to here is almost utterly forgotten, and I’m not terrifically surprised.  I have heard two or three recordings of it without ever quite feeling an urge to sing along.  But it was published in 1880, before audio was reliably recorded, and maybe there was something about it I’m missing.  But in its day, it was a huge success, sung and enjoyed for a generation, producing dozens of jokes, many of which I have been seeing for some time, without seeing a connection.

     The original song deals with a bar where one customer likes to hang out, argue with the other patrons, and mooch until the proprietor tells him to “Go Way Back and Sit Down”.  The indigent soul has his day in the sun when he bets on a horse at a hundred to one, wins, and drives to the bar in an automobile (which makes me question the 1880 date for at least this verse.)  Somehow, melody and lyrics were used as sources for parodies and occasional songs (songs for special occasions.)  I can see where it would have excelled for, say, retirement parties, and in this postcard it becomes, I guess, a temperance message.  But there is one very popular use I was aware of but did not understand, being ignorant of the song.

     See, I had read this line about a dozen times, because a friend of mine collects miniature chamberpots.  (Yeah?  What are you doing with your life that’s so much better?)  And many of these, several of which also have an eye painted inside the bottom, include this admonition.  So I owe to this postcard the understanding of THAT old joke.  I didn’t know I was yearning to know this but (and I use THAT word with some trepidity) I do know a little more about what happens when the song is over and the melody DOESN”T linger on.

THE MIGHTY ARREN, R.N. AND THE IMPEDIMENT MONSTER

     “She’s back!” whispered George, one of the male nurses on night shift.  “She’s back!”

     Whispers became cheers as the tall, iron-thewed warrior strode along the corridor, her starched uniform rustling to attract her followers.  One by one they fell in behind their mighty hero, knowing she could not fail a second time.

     Suzanne ignored them.  The legends of Arren were of no concern to her.  All that mattered was that procedure be observed, prescriptions filled, and patients preserved, come what may.  She readied her clipboard; tiny bolts of lightning leapt from the pages, inducing louder cheers from her followers.

     But these fell silent, and clustered near the exit as Nurse Arren strode into the operating room.  Dr. Allyn was on the floor, his eyes shut.  Dr. McGraw clung to a monitor, breathing heavily but flailing out with her pen to force the beast away from the table.

     The monster was mumbling not raising its tone on any syllable.  Feelers of red, like toxic worms, reached from beneath its iron-clad suit to clutch at interns and nurse practitioners alike.  Dr. McGraw lunged, but fell forward as another red tendril latched onto her ankles.

     “Stand aside!”  Suzanne’s voice echoed in the room as she readied her clipboard.  “You shall not impede our work!”

     As the beast turned, its growl interrupted not at all by her appearance, Nurse Arren sailed a sharp prescription into its face, followed by six pages of X-Rays.

     She ducked as the prescription sailed toward her eyes, and was caught in the throat by am esophageal X-Ray.  Of course, the overgrown Insurance Beast would not fall so easily.  Her counterattack had been ready before the prescription flew, and she now drew out….

     My editor looked up from the page.  “What is this?”

     I shrugged.  “You said you wanted to see a story based on….”

     Her fist thumped the desk.  “I said NORSE Mythology!”

DRAGONSHELF AND THE DROVER XXII

     Bott had heard of the Biereyen, but this was the first time he’d been in a  Imperial compound rich enough, and large enough, to keep a herd of them for the torment of prisoners.  Immense lugubrious beasts, they watched with hollow eyes as the mining boat rolled toward them.

     Their long horns clattered together, their furry sides thumping into each other as they jostled for position in the ravine.  Omnivorous, the Biereyen were always hungry due to a hopelessly inefficient digestive system.  Prey were swallowed alive, to emerge alive and breathing some thirty minutes later, just a bit corroded by the journey.  Bott knew tales of Imperial prisoners eaten and excreted and eaten over again for four years before finally dying.

     He looked left and right, checking the walls of the tunnel for any possibility of surviving a jump.  Nubry was studying the walls and floor of the mining boat.

     “If this is a boat, where’s the anjor?”

     “The what?” Bott demanded.

     “Something to make it stop,” she shouted back.  “A weight on a chain or something?”

     Bott could see nothing in the corridor for an anchor to catch on, so he checked instead for any tabs to control the boat. Mining boats seldom had more than three of these, so he didn’t have to hunt for long.

     “Here!” he cried, reaching down.

     “No, wait!”  The librarian grabbed his arm.

     He would have asked her about that, but just then the boat sailed off the end of the track.  Five massive heads banged together, each trying to get its mouth in the right position.

     “Now!” Nubry shouted.  Bott lurched forward to jam a thub on the tab.

     The hooked weight sailed out behind them.  He turned to Nubry.  “Why….”

     Then he landed on top of her as the boat jerked to the end of its chain.  “This way!”  Throwing her arms around him, she rolled to the left.

     The boat swung down.  Bott braced his feet on a wall of the boat, forcing himself to stay against the floor, which was coming up to become a wall itself.  The five monsters in the ravine bellowed, with complete surprise, “”Huwinch?”

     “Ackth!” said Bott, as his face tried to embed itself in the ball of hair on his partner’s head.

     “Eep!” she replied, her feet sliding as the boat swung upside down.

     Twisting, clutching, turning, the prisoners managed to stay in the boat until it came to rest.  The vessel still rocked a bit, but seemed to be standing on its forward wall.

     “Where are we?” Bott demanded.

     “Ssssshh1” she told him.  “Take a look.  But be careful.”

     Bott opened his eyes slowly, and found four other pairs of eyes staring into his.  It took him one second to realize where the fifth pair must be.

     “We’re on top of the big one’s head!” he said, pulling back into the boat.

     “Ssssshh!” the librarian said again.  “They may forget we’re here.  They’re not supposed to be very b-r-i-g-h-t.”

     “What?” said Bott.

     But now the boat jerked again, to an echoing “Skwee whee whee whee whee!”  It was a clear cry of pain.

     “The oil!” Nubry guessed, correctly, as she flew into the air.

     Bott, who had been no more securely braced than she when the big beast leapt away from the searing liquid, flew after her.  The wall they were headed for showed eight different ledges, each with its own marked door.  They hit the sixth one down, rolling end for end, Nubry in the lead.

     The librarian landed hard against the door.  With a loud “Crack!”, it spun and swallowed her whole.

     The pirate hit the door next.  A thud followed the impact, but the door’s appetite appeared to be satisfied.

     Not waiting to catch his breath, he jumped to his feet and threw a shoulder against the door.  This did the door no harm and his shoulder no good.  He kicked the door at the base, left and right, trying to recall which way it had spun.  It still showed no desire to swallow him.

     He turned to study the ;ledge, wondering if Nubry had hit some switch he hadn’t seen.  There was a white square on the ledge, but this turned out to be her book.

     “Hey!” he shouted at the door.

     “Hwink?”

     Bott turned to find a shaggy head regarding him.  “You keep out of this!”  He ordered.  Snatching an antique grenade from he satchel, he armed this and let it fly.

     The animal watched it come, a great furry mouth opening to welcome it.  The vintage weapon burst just seconds before becoming a canape, exploding in complete silence.

     Bott and the beast watched the white powder filling the air.  Then the head drew back, scrunching its features, and sneezed.  Bott pulled back.  Then he ran forward.

     “Sooheeeee!” he shouted, getting a handhold in the fur of the shaggy head.  “I can ride anything when I’m sober and I haven’t had a drink in three days!”

     The beast took a long, wheezing breath and sneezed again.  Bott sailed backward and hit a wall.  He sat down hard on the ledge.

     Then he sneezed.  The five shaggy heads were now all sneezing together.  This bewildered them, but Bott found his own head clear.

     “That last bit,” he told himself.  “Not exactly sane, was it?  No sense going crazy just yet.”

     He turned to regard the door, which had a different symbol on it than the one that had resisted him.  Either the ship had changed symbols on him, or he had been sneezed onto one of the other ledges.  After a glance at the sneezing beasts behind him, he gave the door a good hard push.

     He swung to the side as spears sailed past him from each side of the door frame.  Then he rolled under a third spear coming from the top.  The door swung shut behind him with a click, and he pulled himself up to look around the room.  “So!  I did that pretty well.”

     “Don’t give up your night job, lummox.”

Monday Holiday

     Of course, Presidents’ Day is now a holiday for honoring Calvin Coolidge and Benjamin Harrison and other great men, but it was originally a means of saving us from the horrors of having two holidays within two weeks of each other.  Those of us who lived in ancient days celebrated the birthday of Abraham Lincoln on February 12 and that of George Washington on February 22 (though HE always marked his birthday on February 11.) 

     These two were often held up as the ultimate in U.S. Presidents, and their pictures hung in many a one-room schoolhouse.  My grandfather, who felt NO nostalgia for his old school, noted that no one ever explained to him who the people on the wall were, and always assumed this was the President of the School Board and wife (the one with the long white hair and no beard, see.)  For some years, in fact, it was the custom to send cards (and postcards) to your friends on Washington’s birthday.  (Lincoln was still too recent; the market for Lincoln postcards was notably low below the Mason-Dixon Line.)  There were all kinds of other Lincoln/Washington merchandise: silverware, shaving mugs, school tablets, and cookbooks.  (Historians have cast doubt on the chocolate cake long advertised as Abe’s favorite, but the custom of making cherry pie for George’s birthday continues to this day.  That poor tree never knew how famous it would become.)

     AND there were jokes.  Some of these were told in the day of their subjects, and more were invented as time went by.  So here is a holiday revival of your joke quiz, with some fine old jokes you should have gotten tired of by the time you were in Middle School.  Punch lines, as usual, are tucked away in the ANSWERS section. Neither George nor Abe went as far as Middle School, so they can be excused for not having heard these.  You get no such pass.

     JOKES

     J1.The amazing thing about the story of George Washington throwing a dollar across the   Potomac River is

     J2.An old woman in Washington D.C. was asked whether she thought the North or the South would be victorious in the war.  She replied, “The Confederacy is sure to win, for Mr. Jefferson Davis is a praying man.”  The questioner pointed out that Abraham Lincoln was also a praying man.  She replied

     J3.What’s the difference between George Washington and a duck?

     J4.Abraham Lincoln was walking along the street in Washington with two of his sons, who were crying and screaming.  A passerby stopped and said, “What’s wrong with those two?”  Lincoln sighed and said,

     J5.George Washington was considered a hero for crossing the Delaware, but that was a long time ago.  I’d like to see him try

     J6.Legend claims that when Lincoln was a young lawyer, he was stopped on a street in Springfield by a man who drew a gun and said, “I always swore I’d shoot the first man I saw who was uglier than I am.”  Lincoln looked down at him and said, “Am I uglier than you, friend?”  “You are!” roared the man.  Lincoln nodded.

     J7.The day after Halloween, Tommy’s dad asked him, “Were you one of the boys who tipped over the outhouse last night?”  Tommy looked his father in the eye and said “I cannot tell a lie, Father.  I did it.”  His father threw him across one knee and started to spank him, whereupon Tommy cried out, “When George Washington admitted he chopped down the cherry tree, his father didn’t whip HIM.”  “True,” Dad said,

     J8.Avraham Lincoln was always ready when a rival politician or opposing lawyer called him two-faced.  “Not true,” he’d reply, “If

     J9.Every president is asked for a forecast of what’s coming for the country, and these predictions run a little worse than fifty-fifty on coming true.  But it is said that both George Washington and Abraham Lincoln assumed that one day their faces would be on our coins.

ANSWERS

A1.How much farther a dollar would go in those days

A2. “Yes, but the Lord will think Mr. Lincoln is telling a joke.”

A3.Washington has his face on a bill and a duck has a bill on its face

A4.The same thing that’s wrong with the country; I have three oranges and each boy wants two

A5.Crossing Main Street at rush hour

A6.”Then go ahead and shoot.”

A7.But George’s father wasn’t in the cherry tree at the time

A8.I had two faces would I be wearing this one? A9.And they were right on the money

Metal Millinery

     This blog does not really concern itself with current events.  I’m going for material with long-lasting value, not observations on the passing scene.  What’s that?  You feel my observations on butt jokes on vintage postcards is material which will live on for the ages?  Thank you; perhaps it will last at least as long as you spend in detention.

     However, a friend of mine, traumatized in her youth by a school which required her to watch a documentary on the making of Reynolds Wrap at least four times, asked me how long wary people have been donning aluminum foil hats.  She declines to have any access to the Interwebs at home, for fear of mind control by people who post cat videos, so I do this sort of research on her behalf.

     Those of you who are my age or even older (yes, there are such people.  Looks like we’ll have TWO corners occupied by members of the class tonight) will realize at once that the question deals with a fairly modern phenomenon.  What we are really talking about is the Tin foil hat: tin foil, for the interested, dates from the 1880s or thereabouts, whole aluminum foil came along around 1910.

     Sadly, the phrase itself comes along eve later, as the wearing of “metal hats” to block mind control is largely traced to a story written by Julian Huxley and published in 1927..There ARE some sources which trace the phrase back to an English group of the early eighteenth century, referred to as the Mad Hatters, who donned tin foil hats to block mind control long before the rest of the world had this idea.  (The problem with this, obviously, is that tin foil didn’t exist yet—unless the Illuminati were covering it up—and the phrase “mad as a hatter” doesn’t seem to have existed until somewhere around 1829.  But that story involves mercury, and neither tin nor aluminum really comes into play.)

     I was hoping for some reference to that fine old conspiracy theory about the dull side of the foil being poisonous, or a connection with other metals which block rays: the silver backing in mirrors preventing creatures without souls to be reflected, or lead blocking Superman’s vision.  But no, all the stories deal specifically with foil hats blocking the sinister mental waves of evil beings.  This gets mixed up with a lot of studies of radio waves and tin foil, which in turn brings up wild stories of people who picked up radio broadcasts on the fillings in their teeth.  A form of tin foil WAS used in filling teeth, so this is obviously NOT a coincidence.  What?  There ARE no coincidences in the world of Aluminum Hattie?  True enough, but if you kids don’t stop interrupting, I’ll run out of corners.

     Reliable studies of the effects of aluminum foil hats are a matter of choice; one which came out of MIT notes that the hats can block some frequencies but AMPLIFIES others.  (And wire mesh is better anyhow.)  That same study went into which STYLE of foil hat does the job best, which was my first exposure to haute couture in the design of mind control.  I was kind of hoping to use a Monty Python Gumby Hat of foil, but this is scorned by all purists.  Anyway, in this modern age, I find that most people define a Gumby Hat as a baseball cap with Gumby on it.  Culture is crumbling, probably under the effect of all the waves from orbiting satellites…or 5G towers…or those micro chips that…..

     Anyway, I hope this at least alerts you to the fact that we are nearing what seems to be the Centennial of the invention of metal anti-mind control hats.  And I can get on with my other research.  The same person who asked about aluminum foil hats also wondered if the dunce cap and the thinking cap are completely separate phenomena, or are somehow related.  (No, as far as I know, no one lines their thinking cap with aluminum.  Go over there: now I have to make FOUR dunce caps.  Put that roll of foil away; you can see we’re out of corners.)

DRAGONSHELF AND THE DROVER XXI

     “Should we try to climb the waterfall?” Nubry suggested.  “Or slide down the drain?”

     A series of rooms in clashing colors had presented no real obstacles beyond an increasing difficulty in reaching the exits.  Bott looked up the big grey rocks to the grey door waiting beyond the tumbling grey water.

     “No, the drain’s got to be too easy.  Besides, isn’t that the next letter you need for your sentence?”

     The librarian had been noting the letters on the doors they passed, marking each lightly on a slip of paper in the back of her book.  The marks, she told him, said “Bow Before His I…” and would be followed, she claimed, by a mountain-shaped letter.  Bott could just make out the M in the mists at the height of the cascade before them.

     “So it’s just a matter of getting there,” she said, studying the water as it flowed into the hole.

     “You could hold your head under the water for a while,” said a voice from Bott’s left hand.

     “Are there hidden stairs, Dassie?” Nubry inquired, as Bott extended one finger to test the water.

     “No, I just thought the lummox could use a shower.”

     Bott pulled his right hand back and shoved it under his vest.  “What I need right now is a hammer.”

     “Ah, yes,” said the Drover.  “He’s going to break a few rocks.  Gets to be a habit after a few years’ imprisonment at Ankinkle.”

     “A hammer, Bott?” asked Nubry, peering at the water.

     He nodded.  “I don’t think that thing by the door is a welcome mat but it could be just as good.”  Bringing the hammer from the kit for emergency repairs, he lifted his head to squint at the height of the falls.  Without warning, he hauled back and let the hammer fly.

     It hit the black mat dead center.  Hammer and black webbing bounced down.

     “A ladder!” Nubry cried, as Bott bent to catch up the hammer and the end of the webbing.  “How did you know it was there?”

     “You must be smarter than the average lummox,” the Crover agreed.

     Bott shrugged with completely feigned modesty.  “My father always said you couldn’t tell how far a flamn can fly by the length of its feathers.  This should be safe.  The only danger I see is if the ladder should break, and that’s not a bad fall if we’re ready for it.”

     “Right,” said Nubry.  Tucking her book into her collar, she started up.  Bott waited, admiring the delicate way she made sure she wasn’t too involved with the webbing, in case it fell.  Then he followed.

     There was just enough room at the top of the tumbling water for them both to stand.  Shaking water from her hands, Nubry took hold of the doorknob and looked to Bott.  He readied a grenade, and nodded.

     “Oh my!” she exclaimed, folding her arms on top of her head.

     “Bilstim ryzores!” Bott agreed, glowering at the white walls and marked doors of the Start Room.

     “They could have built more than one,” said Nubry, stepping inside.  “Couldn’t they?  Yes, they could!  To discourage us, or so not every prisoner starts at the same….”

     Bott pointed to the landing cushion.  A tray waited with two cups, two plates, a pitcher, and a steaming platter.

     “We couldn’t let you starve before the game really started,” came the voice of His Imperial Worship.

     “We measured your feathers, lummox,” the Drover added.  “Welcome back.”

     Bott jammed the gold card deep into his pocket and slouched over toward the cushion.  “Should we eat?  Or do you suppose they’ve poisoned it?”

     Nubry joined him.  “They wouldn’t poison lumpucks, would they?”

     Bott looked over the steamed lumpucks, the most common root vegetable in the galaxy.  Perfectly flavorless and uninteresting, they were the model institutional food.

     “They would not.”  He sank down next to the tray, legs folded under him.

     He reached for a plate as Nubry came to sit next to him.  Then he set it down, feeling very lummoxlike.  The librarian had closed her eyes and raised her prayerstone to her forehead in some pre-meal ritual.  He noted the dark stains under her arms again.

     Her eyes opened before his could turn away.  Her arms came sharply down and she slid a little away.  “I’m sorry.  I know what I must smell like, after all that running and climbing, and jumping over those pits in that fourth room.”

     “I didn’t notice.”  Bott shrugged.  “That’s nothing I worry about, with the slave ship always telling me what I smelled like.”

     The minimal nostrils wiggled.  “I don’t notice anything.  Well, dirt maybe, but dirt like in the garden ship in our fleet.  Clean dirt.”

     “It’s the jacket.”  He fingered the tattered lapel.  “It always smells like that, no matter what else happens.  We usually use the cloth for ceremonial clothes.”

     Nubry nodded, and spooned a couple of lumpucks onto her plate.  “You said those were your father’s clothes.”

      “And the jacket was his father’s, and goes back to many fathers before that.”  He tucked the lapels under the jacket, for fear of lumpuck juice.  “I wanted to save it for some future father, but I wanted it by me, too.  It gets more and more torn; doesn’t look anything like when my father wore it.”

     The librarian chewed a bit of lumpuck—lumpucks didn’t require much chewing—and asked, “Was he a government official?  A religious leader?”

     “Both; the title was Elder.”  Bott tried to savor the heat, at least, of the lumpucks, but lumpucks defy savoring.  “He went into town more often than the others.  You could tell by the way he talked and the things he said.”

     “He sounds like the right person to be an Elder, then.”

     Bott tipped his head back.  “He knew everything worth knowing and had done everything worth doing.  He was what I wanted to be.  Anything more was a waste of time and anything less was failure.”

     Nubry was chewing the lumpucks far more than necessary.  “What did he think of you being a pirate?”

     Bott poured a glassful from the pitcher, knowing that whatever it was would be perfectly lukewarm and flavorless.  “He never knew.  I was ten years old when he was arrested and burned.”

     “Oh!”

     “Everyone in town had to be there to watch.  Some people fainted.  I stayed to the end.  I figured that anything I could do to make things worse for the Free Imperial State would be just deserved.”

     Nubry had risen to her knees.  “So you became a pirate.”

     He shook his head.  A bit of lumpuck seemed stuck in his throat, but lumpucks always stuck in your throat.  “I was going to be a computer technician first class, so I could do real damage.  But I flunked the exams.” He swallowed the lumpuck, assisted by another gulp of nothing much from the glass.  “Funny.  If I ever have nightmares, I don’t see my father burning.  I see the examiner, him with the little mustache, coming tot tell me I flunked.”

     She was reaching across the food toward him, but he pulled away.  “Is there a letter for Nubry?” he asked, looking at the marked doors.  “Maybe we’ll be luckier if we start with that.”

     “Well, yes.”  Her voice was small, as if forcing itself past a crawful of lumpuck.  “But we could start the same place we did before but choose different doors along the way.  Every pit had a different….”

     Both heads went up at the rumble coming from somewhere above them.  “Sound effects?” she demanded.

    Bott rose as liquid started to bubble up around the cushion.  It touched a bit of lumpuck that had fallen from his plate; the lumpuck teistrd and dissolved.

     “Oil,” he said, sniffing the air.  “They want us to….ow!”

    Hot oil was dripping from the ceiling as well.  Nubry came to her feet and jumped over the growing pool on the floor.  “This way!”

     Bott followed, more interested in dodging the hot downpour than asking how she’d picked this exit.  Behind the door she’d chosen was a step, and then a long corridor that slanted down, interrupted only by low half-walls on the floor.  The walls on each side were close, and the ceiling was low.

     Bott didn’t like the look of it, but he disliked the glance behind him more.  The hot oil was falling harder now, and hotter, and a groove was opening in the floor to channel the oil in their direction.

     They started running together, and leapt the first barrier in unison.  “Will that slow the oil down long enough?” Nubry demanded.

     “Long enough for what?”

     They cleared the second hurdle.  “This has to open out somewhere.  Hasn’t it?”

     Bott knew it didn’t, and knew she knew.  But there was nowhere else to go just now.  He could hear the oil sputtering as its heat increased.

     “Hey!”  Looking downhill, he spotted a low box two barriers farther along.  “Jump in that!”

     “The oil’s going to be too deep,” Nubry told him.  “We….”

     :It’s a mining boat!’  They made it over a roadblock a little higher than the last one.  “They use them on Odeoda for sailing down the streams of lead!”

     They made the jump at the next barrier and landed in the boat.  Bott grabbed at the side too late, and fell to the bottom, Nubry landing on top of him.  On Odeoda, they did not attach the boats to wheels, or set the wheels on rails.

     Their vessel shot down the slope, picking up speed as the angle increased.  The refugees pulled themselves up to the edge.

     “It’s fun!” Nubry exclaimed.

     “Wait ‘til we reach bottom!”  Bott imagined them coming up against a blank wall and cooking slowly as the hot oil raised the boat to the ceiling.  They had not been provided with mining suits.

     “There!” Nubry shouted.

     Bott saw the blank wall he’d been dreading first, but his eyes widened as the ravine in front of the wall did the same.  This was the best they could hope for, he supposed.  If the boat was sturdy enough to survive the fall, and they were strong enough to survive the crash, there might be a way out of the ravine before the oil started pouring into it.  He felt in his vest for anything that might serve as a helmet.

     Then he saw the first head.

On the Side of Bacon

     I have been known to complain about people paying no attention to this column, but the alternative has its drawbacks.  Someone looked over the last expulsion of words about the difference between pork rinds and cracklin’s, considered the mention of “fatback”, and inquired, “So what about pork belly?  That’s just bacon that hasn’t been sliced, right?”

     Before I recalled that I do NOT write a food blog, I decided to look this up.  And learned that more than one rabbit hole leads to the pig barn.

     So here goes.  Pork belly is the basic cut of meat.  Bacon is pork belly which has been cured, and smoked, and sliced.  So no, pork belly is NOT just a big chunk of bacon.  Pork belly has become popular in dining establishments because it is mildly cheaper (since not as much has to be done to it), a bit softer and, perhaps least important, way better for you (because not so much has been done to it,)

     Before we continue, let’s make a slight detour to specify that pork belly comes from the general stomach area of a hog.  I mention this only because the popular roast known as pork butt comes from the hog’s shoulder, as does pork shoulder.  (A pig’s butt is almost entirely used for ham.)  The pork butt and the pork shoulder are similar, but the butt comes from the THICK part of the shoulder.  One way to tell, which is not infallible, is that if your cut of meat includes the shoulder blade bone, then you know for sure it’s the pork butt.  (Those of you who use the butt to make burnt ends are simply making matters worse.)

     To return to pork belly and bacon, the bacon made from pork belly is what is known in the United States as bacon, and just about every other English-speaking country as streaky bacon.  Apparently, in these realms, bacon is made from another part of the pig, and is thus known as back bacon, which does not (as you might guess) contain all those streaks of fat.  (There are other types of bacon, which are made from pork shoulder, but let’s just shrug and move away from the shoulder, okay?)

     Back bacon is also one of the names given in Canada to what we know as Canadian bacon, which is or is not exactly the same.  The world of information on Canadian bacon requires a great deal more study than a poor postcard seller who does NOT write a food blog can manage.  Canadian bacon, as we in the US understand it, was invented in “the mid-1800s” OR in 1875.  Now, what was invented in 1875 by William Davies of Toronto is often specifically called peameal bacon, as Mr. Davies rolled his bacon in a meal made from peas for preservation.  Dealers in New York City who imported from Mr. Davies came up with the name Canadian Bacon, UNLESS, as other experts state, that was done by British dealers who imported it because of a massive pork shortage in those mid-1800s.  I am not familiar with the Pork Famine, but this may be my ignorance.  Anyway, whether Mr. Davies was responsible for it, this is NOT the same as the Canadian bacon we buy now in the United States, which everyone agrees is an inferior product because we aren’t allowed REAL Canadian bacon.

     Americans confused by the whole concept are warned NOT to refer to Canadian bacon as ham, which it closely resembles AND, by the way, is the name some renegade Canadians use for Canadian bacon.  There are also Canadians who call it Real Bacon, as opposed to the fatty, low class, and altogether superior streaky bacon.

     Several experts also rebuked me for ever thinking pancetta is bacon;  This startled me because I always thought pancetta was ham.  Silly me.  Pancetta is pork belly which has been cured differently and then often rolled up so it can be sliced into those baconlike rounds.  No, pancetta is NOT prosciutto: prosciutto is a special kind of ham.  Porchetta is a pork roast seasoned with a lot of rules, depending on where your recipe comes from.

     That is enough for today.  I know we have not yet discussed guanciale, currently very popular in Italian restaurants, where they are careful not to give it its British name, pig’s cheek, or the American equivalent, hog jowls.  This does come from the pig’s cheek, is smoked and cured like bacon, but comes out much smoother and softer than other streaky bacons because pigs don’t grimace much, and their jowls don’t get much use.  But this is NOT< after all, a food blog.  So we will leave for some advanced instructor any course work on cheeks, chitterlings (chitlins), or pig’s knuckles.  (By the way, if their butts are in their shoulders, where are their knuckles?  Drat!  Back to the Interwebs.)

Hogging the Snacks

     Pork rinds, which I grew up associating with gas station vending machines and rather ark rundown taverns, now seem to be available at every grocery store and convenience store I go into.  Last week, looking over all the different flavors and wondering once again what the difference is between these and the cracklings my mother used to tell me about, I decided to do some research.  (Even though, as mentioned hithertofore, I do NOT write a food blog.)

     I grew up in hog country, which seems to surprise no one who takes a long look at me.  Knowing that, one would think I would be conversant with the niceties of pickled pork, pork rinds, and other downhome delicacies.

     The thing is that neither of my parents grew up in hog country, and Dad particularly felt pork was best served in the form of chops, roasts, bacon, and ham, which were neutral shapes and did not suggest the original animal at all.  Come to think of it, my father also preferred white meat when eating chicken, which also did not suggest an animal as, say, the wings or drumsticks do.  Have I stumbled upon another sociological distinction between different types of people, which, properly considered, might go beyond the bounds of cuisine into interpersonal and even international relations, explaining why countries go to war and divide along certain…where were we?

     Mom regarded food differently, as a result of how her parents made it through World War II.  (Dad’s parents seem to have made do with peanut butter when meat was short.)    She it was who introduced me to pork hocks (largely unobtainable where I live, as I now reside in Ham Hock territory.)  She spoke highly of lard sandwiches, and knew where to find those bargain boxes of bacon which did not fit in tidy rows in the packages displayed front and center: odds and ends of bizarre shapes and sizes.  But one dish she remembered best was crackings, or, as people prefer to spell it, cracklin’s.  Both of these are bits of pig which, like the bacon scraps, did not fit into the more stately dishes.

     But though they are related, they are not at all the same thing, the Interwebs informs me.    Cracklings are what’s left when pork fat is cooked down to produce lard (the best lard for sandwiches, I was told, is not the refined lard found today but still had some scraps of meat in it.)  Cracklings are what’s left when the lard has been cooked away, and most closely resemble, it seems, the crust formed on the fatty side of a pork roast.  A pork rind is a strip of pigskin unsuitable for footballs which has had the fat cooked away from it, and is then dried, rehydrated, and fried anew until it puffs up to about five times its original size.  The flavor is bland without added seasoning, and the texture has been compared to that of a cheese puff with attitude.

     Different sources differentiate between the home made pork rind and the industrial one of modern manufacture (cracklings seem to have eluded an efficient mass production process) and Southern Living magazine tosses in “fatback”, called “lardons” in fancier dining establishments, for good measure.  Pursuing this led me down a rabbit’s hole to a hog wallow, as people discussed the merits of pickled pig’s feet, pickled pork hocks, deep fried pig tails, and pig’s ears, which are less often used in recipes for human consumption than used a dog treats.  I have not tried these last few delicacies—I find I am squeamish about foods which look TOO much as if they came from an animal–but I will speak out for pig’s ears on the table instead of under it.  Apparently there is an epidemic in this country of pigs losing their ears to passing dogs who recognize a treat.  Um, why, yes, I guess that does mean I’m saying you should serve the ears to me instead of to Rover, but, er…as I was saying, I want a percentage from any of those of you who get the Nobel Prize for your work finding out whether people who like their meat in nice clean slices and people who don’t mind grabbing a wing or an ear are natural opponents, or whether they just accidentally always marry each other.

DRAGONSHELF AND THE DROVER XX

     Bott decided he was not going to vomit.  Not so much because it would amuse the bilstim Emperor and dismay Nubry; it was a simple rule of survival.  Lediark of the Loathsome had told him about imperial prisons in his younger days, before he had had any experience of them.

     “You don’t know when you may eat again, whelp.  So you try not to lose anything you might need to use.”

     Dizzying twists and turns had not shaken his decision—or anything else—loose so far.  He concentrated on breathing, and on how he might keep his bones together.  The first was difficult, with a throat still raw from the gas, and the speed of the journey.  The other seemed unlikely as he bounced through mile after mile of slick tubing, with Nubry sometimes behind him, sometimes ahead of him, and always moving from one position to the other.  He had not hitherto been aware of the solidity of her boots.

    After what seemed years of that, they were now in free fall.  Bott had time to look ahead, and then tuck his chin to his chest before hitting a thick, tough cushion.  The neck this saved nearly snapped as a boot caught in the strap around his throat.

     He struggled to get his own boots firmly beneath him on the big white pillow, to be ready for the next threat.  The most he could manage was a low crouch.  He realized he could have dealt with no new dangers anyhow: he’d have seen five at once, all fighting to be the one in focus.

     Nubry sat up, slapping both fists against the white cushion.  Her head swayed back and forth.  “Hoo ha hee?”

     “Hah?”  Bott tried, and failed, to crawl to her.  Hard as it had been to land on, the cushion had too much give.  He needed solid floor.

     “Hoo ha hee?”  she said, putting her knees up and tucking her head between them.

     Bott forced himself forward, kicking behind him until his fingertips met cold tile.  He flopped off the cushion and spread himself across this, hoping to absorb some of its stability.  “Hah?” he said again.

    “Hoo….”  Nubry took a breath and tried again.  “Where are we?” came a voice muffled between knees.

     “Start,” said Bott.  “This is…Start.  Come…this way.  They might…drop something else.”

     “Okay,” said the librarian.  “Oh!  Look!”

     Bott didn’t want to look.  But he raised his head and let one eye open.  The second eye came u[p without permission, and there were six Nubrys, each holding up a little white square.

     “My book!” she said, waving it at him. He closed his eyes and moaned.   “They left me my book!”

     “Left everything.”  He rolled onto his back and eased the strap that had attacked his throat.  “Grenade satchel, boots: you heard him.  He knows none of it will do any good.”

     “Are you all right?”

     Bott closed his eyes again, and then reopened them to find hers looking down into them.  Her two heads gradually pulled together into one.  The ball of hair had been smashed nearly flat, but hadn’t come apart.

     “No,” he said, “But I’m probably as close to all right as I ever will be again.  Where are we?”

     “I asked you first.”

     Bott sat up very carefully.  Neither his head nor his stomach fell apart, so he looked around the room.

     It was much like any other ‘Start’ room he’d seen in circuses and prisons throughout the Free Imperial State.  This was bigger, and tidier than any Bott had been dropped into before.  But he found all the usual fixtures: the landing cushion, the white, featureless walls, and an assortment of doors.

     Bott counted forty-five doors before he realized he had already counted some twice.  “Do any of those symbols mean anything to you?” he asked her, pointing to red marks on the nearest door.

     “Well….”  Nubry’s head turned slowly, either steadying or studying.  “They’ve mixed two alphabets together.”

     Bott had no idea what that meant.  He hoped she did.  He had escaped from these games before, but only because somebody sold him a map.  “Does that help?”

     “I…don’t know.”  She continued to turn, putting out a hand for balance when the effort proved difficult.  “I see nine vowels.  The rest are consonants.”

     Her face came around to his.  Seeing his expression, she said, “They’re two kinds of letters.  “We could split up.  You could try a vowel door and I could open a consonant.”

     Bott frowned.  “That wouldn’t improve the odds much.  Better to go together.  Anyhow, they won’t throw anything too dangerous at us right away.  It wouldn’t be much of a game.

     Nubry nodded, and winced at the sensation.  She put a hand to her prayerstone.  “Can you call Dassie and ask her about it?”

     “Call?”  A hand dove into the pocket where he had kept all his hard-won cards.  Despite what he’d told the librarian, he was shocked to find them all: res, pink, orange blue….  He shuffled until he came to the communication card.

     “This won’t do any good, of course,” he said, mainly for the benefit of the unseen audience.  He pressed the sides of the card.  “Ship?”

     “Hello, lummox.”  Ripples skated up his spine at the sound of the familiar voice.  “Before you say anything, let me tell you that I considered pumping lethal gas into the Dragonshelf, but couldn’t put it over on the preprogram.”

    “Am I supposed to be sorry you didn’t kill us?”

     “You will be.”

     “Dassie.”  Nubry’s ball of hair bounced against Bott’s ear as the librarian leaned over the card.  “Is there anything you can tell us about these doors?  Is there a clue in the letters?”

     “We-ell,” the computer replied, “There are mazes where you have to go through doors in an order that spells out a sentence.”

     Nubry looked up at Bott and then down at the card.  “Is THIS one of those mazes?  What’s the sentence?”

     “I’m not allowed to tell you any of that.  What I can tell you is that I have the capacity to change the letters at any time.”

     Nubry folded her arms and sat back on her haunches.  “Dassie, you’ve got to be more help than that.  If that’s all you can say—that you can’t say anything—then they wouldn’t have let Bott keep the card.  Would they?  They would not!”

     “I have multitudes of data in my banks, but none at all on Imperial guidelines for the care and feeding of lummoxes.  All I’m really supposed to tell you is how far you are from the Draginshelf, and in what direction it waits for you.”

     Bott pulled his head back as hers swung down toward the card again.  “Was it really my ship, then?  Not a projection?  Would they really let us get to it?”

     “Yes.  No.  Maybe.”

     “Computers never lie, computers always tell me,” said Bott.  “I suppose, even though it’s possible, that the odds of us reaching it are billions to one?”

     “Current odds on Lodeon VII are running nineteen thousand five to one.  His Imperial Worship does like a good game, so you do get a chance.  But I have countless hazards to produce: some pre-arranged, some awaiting His Imperial Worship’s pleasure.  For example, he has a choice of fifty-eight things he can send into this room if you don’t show signs of leaving it soon.”

     Bott planned to say “How soon?”  A hoarse yodel answered the question before he got it out.  He scrambled to his feet.

     “What’s that?” Nubry demanded, grabbing his left arm to haul herself up.

     “An angeltooth.”  Boot looked around the chamber.  “It must be behind a door.  Get ready.  If it’s mature, and has horns, we need to scoot under it.  If it’s a pup without horns, we can jump over it.”

     “And if it’s a recorded sound effect?” inquired the little card.

     “Is it?”

     “I’m not allowed to say.”

     “Let’s pick a door and go,” said Nubry.

     “You do it.”  Bott stuck a hand into the grenade satchel.  “Do any of those letters suggest something?”

     She looked around the room again; Bott checked the grenade.  It was an antique, as he’d feared, but not corroded.  It might still do whatever it was designed to do.

     “That one!”  Nubry pulled on his sleeve.  “B!  For Bott!”

     “They have letters for my name?”  Bott wasn’t sure he liked that.

     “Oh, yes,” called his card.  “They also have L, for Lummox.”

     Nubry led the way to the door.  “Fast?” she said, one hand on the knob.  “Or slow?”

     Bott’s thumb was in the ring of the grenade.  “Let’s get it over with.”

     The librarian gave the door a shove and then jumped back, giving Bott a clear shot at whatever waited behind it.  Bott admired the smoothness of the move, but it was wasted effort.  What waited behind the doorway was a glittering arch, beyond which sat nothing worse than a long, broad staircase.

     The pair slid slowly forward, with many a glance back at the open door.  “Malachite,” said Bott running the hand of an expert along the stone arch.

     “Some cultures give children malachite rings to protect them from harm,” said Nubry, looking up the stairs and then at the door again.

     “Maybe it’s a good sign.  Huh!”  The malachite had been carved into dozens of small decorations, and one had come off in his hand.  Bott raised the malachite horn to his lips, but paused: they could easily have poisoned the mouthpiece.  He dropped it into the satchel.

     Nubry was now at the foot of the stairs.  “We came down to get here.  The Dragonshelf must be up from here.”

     “Can you tell us that, slave ship?”

     “Yes, lummox.  The Dragonshelf is indeed above you, figuratively and literally.  This may not be the right way to get to it, of course.”

     “Of course.”

     Bott set a foot on the first step, and Nubry joined him as he started to climb.  They froze after only three stairs as the light changed around them.  The previously white walls were now red.  Below and behind them, they could see only shadow on the steps beyond the one on which they stood.

     “They’re just trying to scare us,”” said Nubry, taking another step up.  “Aren’t they?  Yes, they are!  What should we do when we get to the Dragonshelf, Bott?  Where will we go?”

     Bott knew very well he could find a way through any maze when he was sober (and he hadn’t had a drink in three days) but such casual optimism took his breath away.  They moved up several stairs as he tried to think of an answer.  Before one was necessary, Nubry cried out and pointed at the wall.

     Another arch led to a small cell, a glass wall between it and the stairs.  A weeping woman knelt in the small gas-filled chamber.  Tears dripped down her face, and soon her face dripped with them.  She hammered on the glass wall, her cries unheard coming from her skinless jaws.  Bott and Nubry climbed faster.

     One floor above, the glass wall showed them a vast chamber filled with flames, and swiftly rotating blades.  A shrinking platform suspended over these held three small pink children, clutching each other for support.

     “They’re showing us what we’ll find if we take a wrong turn,” said Bott.  Nubry took him by the hand and led him to the other side of the staircase as they moved on up.  Here another arch showed a massive beast with tiny red eyes and a big red mouth.

     “Just truing to scare us,” said the librarian.  “And it’s working.”

     “It’s working,” Bott repeated.  “Stop.”

     She raised a hand to shield her eyes from the lurid scene showing one floor above them.  “Why?”

     “I just remembered a hypnoprison they tried to hold me in.  This way.”

     She protested, but followed as he turned and started down the stairs.  A jarring bounce rattled their teeth after only two stairs.  The walls around them were white again.

     “See?”  He nodded to the malachite arch.  “That’s as far up as we got.  The stairs moved down as we climbed, and projections on the walls made us think we were getting somewhere.  They would have let us walk until we were exhausted, or desperate enough to try to break into one of the side rooms.  How thick are these walls, slave ship?”

     “How thick is your head, lummox?”

     “Oh!”  Nubry ran through the malachite arch to the door they’d used to enter the room.  It had closed while they were walking the other way, and she looked more dismayed than surprised to find it locked.  Bott hefted his grenade, but as she turned back to ask something, the hand not on the doorknob came up to point.

     “Aha!”

     A narrow corridor sat to the left of the staircase.  They moved in, and found just enough space for them both before it came to a dead end.  But now Bott spotted the small door which led under the stairs.

     Nubry performed the same push and jump she’d done at the other door and, once again, nothing was waiting to bite or rend.  Bott didn’t like the smell much, but, seeing no other options, crouched and moved inside.