DRAGONSHELF AND THE DROVER XLVI

     Sitting on the soft, brown sofa left her centimeters above the floor, lower than any exhibits in this, the deepest, dimmest, dustiest section of the Rhododendron’s museum.  Leaning back, the Sherriff looked up at the pictures of her father, with a younger Taw Brust, in rooms of a bygone design.  There were even pictures of herself and her sister, and one very small one of her mother and grandfather.  Most of the exhibits, however, documented the career of her father—and her predecessor as Shariff—in the days before his disgrace and death.

     Marah Parimat came here in search of serenity that was always elusive and sometimes, as today, illusive as well.  Her own disgrace and death doubtless waited behind a sealed door that Taw Brust was having Sergeant Bruvitt cut open.  The whole gantlet section of the Dragonshelf had inexplicably shut down.  The situation’s inexplicability was continuing because every computer with access to the system was told “Awaiting Further Orders” whenever anyone tried to turn the power back on.  Her entire tech staff could provide no suggestions for an override.

     The Emperor’s Recreational Command Module was sealed completely, and his updates and images of the progress of the Game had cut off.  The governor of Lodeon VII was reporting violent demonstrations in five major gaming centers.  Incidents of violence between privileged citizens allowed to watch aboard the Drover and Imperial troops had had to be quashed.  Brust had mounted a rescue effort, in case this turned out to be one of His Imperial Worship’s little jokes.  (Indeed, betting on this possibility was all that was keeping the population of Lodeon VII under even partial control.)  The Sheriff, meanwhile, had ordered the Drover evacuated until the source of the problem could be pinpointed.

     She shifted in her seat, trying to enjoy her little sanctuary: this might be her last chance.  The whole mess was no doubt due to some glitch in the Drover’s computer system: an inevitable occurrence on what was still  the slave ship’s maiden voyage.  The Drover was vast and complex: one little error in programming could have huge consequences.  The Sheriff did not let this idea trick her into believing His Imperial Worship would not blame HER.

     The little monitor to her left blinked on; the face of Taw Brust filled the screen.  “First large section of the door has been removed.  A second will need to be removed before we can attempt entry.”

     “Very good.  What do you see?”

     “The heat of the metal is preventing a clear sight, even with scopes.  The Imperial Chair appears to be empty.  There are two large unidentified objects in a corner.   They appear to be albino slugs from Astafa, but I cannot see any way these could have entered His Imperial Worship’s chamber.”

     Her Grace nodded.  “Proceed with caution.  Keep me apprised.”

     She turned her head slowly, memorizing each picture.  There had been bright days.  Her father had awarded her that silver medal after the Strength Competition; her mother had dropped a glass of water on hearing she had won that certificate for torure development.

     She set her back against the sofa.  At the very least, she would be awarded weeks of concentrated pet duty.  She knew she could survive two consecutive shifts; they would likely assign her two shifts on duty and one dangling in a cell to rest.  Or she might be named the personal plaything of one of Stenge’s particular champions, like Kenjegge, allowing her to suffer in a corner of the Imperial Sty for a year or more.   

     The monitor hissed a little when it clicked on.  She did not glance at it.  “Yes?”

     “Hello?  Hello?  Is this thing working?”

     The Sheriff did not immediately recognize the nearly noseless face on the screen.  It was illuminated only by the glow of whatever monitor it was using, and faint light in the background.

     The signal to the left of her screen indicated that the message was coming from somewhere in a maintenance conduit on the slave ship.  She sat up.  Someone in Tech might be reporting on the source of the shutdown.

     “Where are you?” she demanded.  “Tell me now, in case the signal is shut down.”

     “I don’t know.  Do I?  I do not.  Who are you?  My screen isn’t showing anything; I had to patch in power from the copier.”

          The Sheriff knew the face now: it was the rebel librarian, who had been removed from the Game and held in the Emperor’s New Toy.  More than that, it was someone the Emperor would want to punish even more than the Sherriff and Captain of the Rhododendron.

     Now what?  She pressed buttons which would send a couple of swift, silent security guards to the most likely computer stayions.  In the meantime, best to pretend concern for the caller.

     “Are you all right?  Did you get lost?  Everyone was to have evacuated the Drover during the blackout, but it’s easy to get lost on a ship so large.  Don’t try to maneuver in the darkness.  We’ll send help.”

     “It isn’t all dark.  I have light from the machine.”  The escapee gestured behind her, rising enough to show that she was nearly naked, and bore the marks of His Imperial Worship’s attention.  “Maybe the power’s coming back on, or the copier picks up power from a long way away.”

     “Three thousand meters, or so I read in the manual.”  The number was actually two thousand.  If the prisoner did escape from the tunnel, she would run out of power long before it was convenient.

    “I’ve read about mechanisms like that.  It was ten….”  The blistered forehead wrinkled; the escapee winced, but was thinking of something else.  The little chin came up.  “You’re the Sherriff, aren’t you?”

     Marah Parimat, piqued at having been discovered so quickly, said, “What makes you think that?”

     “You can read.”  Split lips pursed, causing another wince.  “Do you…need any books?”

     The Sheriff drew back.  A quick plan to pretend to be part of a rebel literate force was discarded; the Emperor could use anything she said when he tried her for her failures.  “I read only government approved manuals and directives!  Anything else is unnecessary.”

     Now the traitor recoiled.  “Unnecessary!  I….  Unnecessary!”

     Marah Parimat could see the pictures on the wall; fingers that had been poised to strike other alarm buttons gripped the monitor.  Her voice was steady, though, as she replied, “Reading is treason.  My father, the Captain of the Rhododendron before me, picked up a confiscated issue of the Bee Inspector’s Journal and read through it.  This was not on the forbidden list, but was added later, and for having read it, he was condemned to be pressed to death slowly under blocks of ice.”

     The refugee’s eyes were immense.  “Did you…have to watch?”

     “I was allowed to help!”

     The face on the screen shook a little, the way a prisoner might shake its head if Bundar lace mites were dropped on it.  “Why do you work for someone who would order that?  What harm did the Bee Inspector’s Journal ever do to the Emperor?”

     The Sheriff, forgetting the prisoner could not see her on the monitor, shook a fist at the face.  “When infractions are not dealt with, dangerous rebels like you attempt to take advantage of the law, pressing against any leniency to widen the avenue of escape.  If it weren’t for you rebels, His Imperial Worship would not need such restrictive laws.”

     “But he killed….”

     “You people killed….”

     The conversation broke off in a burst of static.  Quite another face took over the screen.  It was rather a red face, but the Sheriff recognized it at once.  It took only a second longer to recognize that His Imperial Worship was sitting in the control room of his own ship.

     “Very good, Btust,” he was saying.  “You may go.”

     The face now turned toward the Sherrif.  “Your Imperial Worship!  Are you well?  Uninjured?”

     “Thank you for your concern, Sheriff.  I will reserve the tale of my sufferings until you have the leisure to enjoy it.”  His tone was similar to that she expected to hear from the lips of Death.  “In the meantime, you will concentrate all your efforts on retrieving a prisoner.  She called me groteske.w”

     The Sheriff nodded.  “What does it mean?”

     “I have no idea, but I don’t like it.  See that she is not damaged.  I will finish that job myself.”

     “Yes, Your Worship.”  Was there still a chance to let the full weight of Imperial displeasure fall on the fugitive librarian?

     No: the Imperial eyes promised that.  “:I shall expect her aboard the Panoply within the hour.  And those two men who pulled me out of the Drover—Brust and the others.”

     “Yes, Your Worship?”

     “Kill them.”  Imperial eyes narrowed.  “No one sees me barebottomed and lives to tell about it.”

     The Sheriff’s nod was slower this time.  “It was…no doubt a great honor to them, Your Imperial Worship.”

     The Emperor smiled sweetly, unconvincingly.  “An honor which could not be improved upon, so we shall spare them years of anticlimax.  In fact, kill them so painfully that by the time they die, they can remember nothing but pain.  See to it.”

     The monitor blinked off.

Booklet Classics

     So before we had Interwebs to do this sort of thing more cheaply, publishers would release pocket-sized little volumes with brief essays or stories suitable for giving or carrying around in a pocket or purse.  It was the equivalent of the 45 RPM single of our record days, as opposed to a LP, or full collection of stories equivalent.  If all you wanted was that ONE song/article you liked, it was convenient (and less expensive.)

     In the days when I used to redistribute people’s libraries, certain little hardcover booklets came in repeatedly.  Some were health-related, and some were motivational tracts.  But it was fiction, and frequently humor, which accounted for the perennials.

     The convenience of the little booklets sometimes had side effects.  Though the authors might have produced many, many more works that the one represented in the booklet, THOSE hardly ever appeared in donations.  The success of their booklet eclipsed everything else the writer had done.  Some of the all-time favorites in pocket reference literature include:

     Ellis Parker Butler: Pigs Is Pigs: Someone ships a pair of guinea pigs to a recipient who is unable to claim them because the stationmaster at the railroad depot demands the fee charged for shipment of hogs.  When the customer points out that these are GUINEA pigs, the diligent but uninformed official, Flannery, responds with the title of the poem: it doesn’t matter if the pigs are Guinea Pigs, French Pigs, or pigs of ANY nationality.  Since the guinea pigs are male and female, and  he is required to keep feeding the livestock and their offspring until claimed, the man grows to regret his stubbornness.

     Butler produced over two dozen books and hundreds of short stories in his career.  These may be all very well, but the little volume about comic Irishman Flannery’s stubborn belief went through dozens of printings.  Several animated adaptations have been made, and there was even a silent movie version.

     Langdon Smith, Evolution: A Fantasy: One lover expresses to another that their lives have been linked through eons of evolutionary time, beginning “When I was a tadpole and you were a fish”.  Various stages in the history of their relationship are covered in the poem, concluding with a belief that whatever happens in THIS life, they will meet—and love–again.

     Smith was best known as a reporter in the wild and woolly years of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.  His poem really burst forth in those little volumes after his death at the age of 50.  His wife, in a poignant postscript to the poem, committed suicide a few months later.

     Chic Sale: The Specialist: A self-trained architect reflects on his career and about the principles involved in building the structures he is famous for: outhouses. He notes the considerations which go into the proper construction of a privy: the nearness of apple trees, the efficiencies in locating an outhouse for a shy woman, especially  as opposed to a more courageous one, the dangers of asking the seats so comfortable people simply want to sit and read the catalogue which is provided for purposes other than reading.

     Chic Sale was a comedian who often played rural old men (HE died at 51).  “The Specialist” was originally a play, but he adapted it into a monologue to be published in book form primarily to safeguard his copyright.  The reception of the book meant he had to spend months answering fan mail, and led to the use of his name as a euphemism for outdoor toilets just at a time when these were starting to disappear from the scene.

     There are other booklets: I might have included Corey Ford’s How to Guess Your Age or Henry Van Dyke’s The Other Wise Man, or even Clement C. Moore’s A Visit From St. Nicholas.  But there’s no point making this column longer than some of the books discussed in it.

Doggy Domiciles

     It is hardy the job of this blog to critique architecture, but I a as ready and equipped to give advice on the matter as anybody else who dispenses information on the Interwebs.  So today we will consider some of the principles in constructing a useful dachshund domicile, collie cottage and other dog houses as seen in the encyclopedia offered by old postcards.

     What strikes us right away is how standard design was: a basic single-occupant building with four walls, arched door, and peaked roof.  I don’t know about you, Gainesburger goulash, but I was expecting a little more variation at least once we got back into airedale architecture of a century or more ago.  But no, there were no spaniel split-levels or poodle porches.  (Okay, I’ll stop now.)  This design was set at an early period, and everyone has followed suit, on postcards, anyhow.

     A FEW old photographs show a flat roof or a square door, but most builders, like our cartoonists, took no such chances.  (I kind of like the open attic shown in this postcard from 1914. Maybe Skipper there rented out the second story to pigeons.)

     What variations occur involve plain decoration,  The color of the house depended on what sort of wood or paint was available.  Several designers also included the name of the occupant over the door.

     We have discussed hereintofore the moon cut above the door in outhouses.  I don’t know if our cartoonist felt this was a neat feature, or based his picture on a real doghouse cut down from a repurposed privy.

     In general, cartoon doghouses have doors which open flush with ground level, unfortunately making things easier for squatters and other two-legged visitors.

     But quite a few examples exist with a threshold which needed to be stepped over.  This probably kept rain puddles from flowing in, or impeded snow that could drift inside during the winter.

     A more common option was the tether.  Unlike the little doorstep (which possibly also made the structure a little more stable), this depended almost entirely on the joke involved.

     Which is also true when it comes to the length and composition of the tether.  (Hey, do I get any points at all for NOT using a joke about him calling the landlady to extend his leash?  No?  I guess virtue really is its own reward.)

     And that is all I can find to discuss in the architectural history of doghouses.  Maybe next tine we can tour a few postcard chicken coops.  I was thinking about discussing cartoon cathouses, but you would not believe the kinds of things that came up when I tried to search the Interwebs about THAT.

DRAGONSHELF AND THE DROVER XLV

     In utter darkness, flesh met flesh, sharply and without compromise.

     “This is for our Facilities Director!  This is for our Assistant Facilities Director!”

     His Imperial worship, whom Nubry had expected to bellow and roar and give orders, just stayed bent over the arm of his chair, whimpering and crying for someone he called “Mimavax”.

     “Whatever that is,” she informed him, “It’s not here and you can’t have it.  And this…is for the Director of the Mail Room!”

     “Your Worship!” called a voice muffled by the closed door.  “Can you hear us?  Are you all right?”

     Nubry dealt the imperial bottom another swat.  “And this is for anyone I left out!”  She turned away from the whimpering emperor and stared in the direction she thought the door might be.

     “Mimavax!  Mimavax!” sobbed her prisoer.

     Nubty felt a little sorry for him, pining for his Mimavax, whatever that might be.  She shook herself.  For all she knew, a Mimavax could be an especially nasty torture device that would be here right now if the power hadn’t shut down.  She stepped back, still testing her legs: at times they still didn’t feel as if they were completely hers.  Joints, toes, and ankles tingled in an unpleasant manner.  No way pf knowing whether this energy boost was temporary or not, but there was no way that everything which had been done to her knees and hips could have healed.

     “The override pass is not opening the door Your Worship,” said the voice from the other side of the door.  “We’ll have to cut through.  If Your Worship can hear us and pleases to do so, it would be better to move away from the door.”

      Nubry’s mouth twisted to one side.  Then she dropped to her knees, hoping the knees would withstand this, and started to grope along the floor.  Her clothes had been cut apart by vicious little blades, but she was sure there were shreds big enough to cover her.  She would NOT wear anything of His Imperial Majesty’s.  Bad enough she’d had to touch his pants to pull them down.

     She heard a hiss on her left, and a shuffle and whimper on her right.  “You stay right where you are or you know what you’ll get,” she ordered.  She had a good mind to push his chair right over next to the door.  But she wasn’t positive where the door was, and positive the chair would not move for anyone until the power was restored.

     She heard a tiny whisper, mechanical and not organic.  Sucking in a breath, she pushed up and out.  Her hands found the thick puffy buttocks, and shoved hard.  The owner fell on his Imperial head.  At the same moment, the forecefield on the chair sizzled back to full power, bathing the control room in a flickering blue light.

     “Deputy!  The saw’s losing power, sir!  The Imperial Chair must be sapping it!”

     “Your Worship!  If some of the functions of Your Worship’s chair could be shut down, we could cut though more quickly!”

     No one could do anything with the Imperial Chair.  The forcefield sealed it off from Nubry and its usual occupant alike.   Nubry sat back and sucked a finger she hadn’t jerked away from the forecfield quite soon enough.    She looked over to the sobbing heap of Emperor.

     “Oh, shut up,” she informed it.  “I just saved your life.  Don’t tell anybody, okay?”

     Her main fear had been that he would sit back down in the chair and start pressing buttons on the console when the power came to it, but being in here with two halves of burnt Imperial Worship would not have been pleasant, either.  His auxiliary control panel was not far from her, the Imperial bulk having knocked it to the floor when he went over the arm.  He showed no signs of claiming this, so she grabbed it up.

     “No no!” cried the Emperor, throwing his hands over his head and pulling his knees farther under him.

     Nubry looked from the quivering rump before her to the giant egg-shaped prisoner she had occupied while His Imperial Worship sat in the Imperial Chair.  “How do you work this thing?” she demanded.  Dassie has said to take it along, and she could see His Imperial Worship couldn’t be allowed to play with it any more.

     “They’ll cut through the door.  Then you’ll be sorry!”

     She let her eyes drift across the controls.  She should remember some of them.  These on the bottom row altered the copies: these had not lit up.  And she knew this big bright one very well.  She kept her hands away from it.

     This left only a double row of blue levers, a yellow lever, and a shining silver switch.  She tried the switch.

     Blue cuffs, scattered around her on the floor, leapt into the air.  Nubry nearly dropped the console, sure these would come after her.  Instead, they lined up in perfect order to form a solid blue column.  The two halves of the big egg came upright, and then wrapped themselves around this column, closing afterward to form a large unmarked egg.

     She nodded.  That must be the power button.  The blue levers likely maneuvered the matching cuffs.  So this yellow lever must move the egg.

     She looked around the room.  Move it where?

     There seemed to be only one door, which now showed a red stain in the middle.  That made no sense.  There had to be an emergency exit for any room where an Emperor would be spending time, especially THIS Emperor.  None of the monitors around the room was turned on, so she could ask, and she had no cards like Bott’s.

     Looking around the room showed the scraps of her uniform.  “If you had to buy clothes,” she informed the wiggling bottom beyond the chair, “You’d be more careful with them.”  The buttocks clenched, and quivered.

     Nubry tried to reach for some fragments of clothing.  “Ack!”  As she slid in a pool of her own sweat, one leg twisted behind her and the other smacked the Imperial chair shin-first.

     “Ohhhh.”  The shock went through her entire body, bringing a memory to each muscle and joint of what it had been subjected to.  This flash of pain was brief but told her the stamina she’d received when all those copies were reabsorbed into her was not going to last.  If she was going to get out of this box by herself, it had to be soon.

     Pulling herself up on her elbows, she saw it.  Logical, really, that she hadn’t thought of that door.  Even though she’d been through it dozens of times, she had not actually been through it yet.

     She pressed a hand against the trap door.  It gave way.  So did one of her shoulders.

     “Is Your Worship all right?  We’re nearly through.  I hope the air isn’t too hot.”

     Nibry sat up and swung her legs over the edge, keeping her bottom firmly on solid floor.  A black emptiness awaited her.  Vague memories crowded in, saying this was a long tunnel with hundreds of trap doors to drop you into the maze.  The pictures in her head were fuzzy, faint copy memories from the copies of herself.  But none of them had gone through any of those before they were sucked back into the room and their original source.

     There had to be something else.  Escaping through the maze was not an inviting proposition.  Bott was there, of course.  But how would she find him?

     She caught up some of the shreds of her clothes but just twisted them between her hands.  And if she did find him, how could she convince hi she was the original?

     “We can’t make it through at this level of power, sir.  We should send for the Imperial….”

     “Keep on with it, Burvitt.”

     She knotted a couple of rags together and threw them around herself.  And if she could convince him she was real, would he kill her anyhow?  The transcription monitor had probably been lying, but those Klamathans might have better plans.  And there were three of them, and only one of her.

     This was as clothed as she was going to get, and likely it would all fall off the moment she moved anyhow.  She took up the controls again.  She needed to learn how to move that big horrible egg right now.  She drew the yellow lever down.

     The big copy machine did not move.  Nubry licked her lips and pressed harder, but then shook her head.  The egg was sitting on the floor: it couldn’t move down any farther.  Ashe pushed the lever the other direction.  With a hum, the egg rose about a foot into the air.

     “Losing more power, sir!”

     “It isn’t supposed to be easy, Burvitt.”

     Nubry moved the lever up and down, left and right, confirming what the controls did and draining more power from whatever they were using.  She was in no rush to drop into the unknown on infirm legs, and she had a feeling she was forgetting something.

     She glanced at the trembling Emperor.  Was that it?  Yes, it was!  She really ought to do something truly dreadful to him before she left.  A brief flurry of swats was hardly full payment for the way he had turned her inside-out and eft her feeling squished like a weevil under an unabridged dictionary.

     Rising, she stepped toward him.  She stepped back.

     She couldn’t think of anything.

     Thin red lines were radiating away from the hot red stain on the door.  She shifted the lever to position the egg close to the trap door.  It was just about time to go.

     She wished Bott was here.  A pirate could think of something practical and dramatic, something painful and memorable.  Very difficult to have to think up an atrocity all on your own, with no experience…on the giving side.

     The library held numerous books with horrible pictures, pictures of what tyrants did to people and what people did to tyrants in return.  Meanness, cruelty, and joy in destruction filled page after page in some histories.  There ought to be something….

     She crawled over to the Emperor.  Reaching down, she put a hand on each side of the pudgy, clammy head and turned it toward her.  Terrified eyes made her pause, but remembering those eyes and how they shone while she writhed and twisted in the blue cuffs made things easier.  Her own eyes were cold.  Her chin hardened.

     “You,” she informed His Imperial Worship, “Are really, really, really very groteskew.”

     Then, dropping his head, she snatched up the control module and jumped for the trap door.  A red sliver of the other door fell hissing into the control room.

Lazy, Hazy, Crazy Days

     So maybe you’re not the sort of person who notices this, but it has been rather warm lately.  Or maybe you’re one of those people who enjoys the warmth that allows you to broil steaks on the hoods of the cars in the parking lot.  But comedy is not made from people who are comfortable with the heat (excepting that poem about Sam McGee.)  So the postcard cartoonists offered various escapes from the unpleasant effects of the season.

     The people who could afford air conditioning, of course, could enjoy the dog days.

     Some houses, of course, do not provide mechanical cooling, so the answer was to go find it.

     Travel was promoted as a way to find cooler climes. Or at least a breeze.

     And although you COULD sleep outdoors at home, doing it on the road seemed more elegant and adventurous.

     Part of the adventure was finding just the right sleeping spot, of course, which afforded maximum ventilation and access to breezes.

     If you picked the right destination, you could cool yourself by divesting yourself of as many garments as was locally permissible.

     Postcard cartoonists pointed out that this could, of course, prove counterproductive.

     While places filled with vacationers could make finding a nice, cool spot difficult.

     Many people recommended a bath or shower for cooling purposes.  In some vacation spots, this could prove complex as well.

     So some cartoonists eschewed travel in summer, preferring repose and a cold beverage.

     As this method requires much less financial outlay than a trip to cooler regions, it has been popular throughout the ages.

     Whatever method you choose, do your very best to keep put of the heat, maintain your precious bodily fluids, and recite to yourself the Midwest Sumer Mantra: “Come January, you’ll wish you had some of this back.”

REVENGE OF THE JINGLER

     All right, all right.  I apologize.

     The last pop quiz about music videos stuck in between television programs (what some people insist on calling “commercials”) apparently disappointed some people who expected the question to deal with the product, rather than the lyrics themselves.  Still, there are plenty of golden oldie pop singles—okay, “jingles”—which can be used for YOUR kind of quizzical beliefs.  Hum along with these and fill in the word or phrase that paid the bills.

QUESTIONS

1, What would you do-oo-oo for a

2.There’s something about an

3.Oh I’d love to be an

4.You deserve a break today, so get up and get away to

5.Gimme a break, gimme a break; Break me off a piece of that

6.The hit of the day when you’re ready to play?  Everyone knows it’s

7.Clap on clap off clap on clap off: the

8.Have it your way at

9.What’ll you have?

10.That’s the name, and away go troubles down the drain:

11.Get a little closer with

12.Yot can rust your car to the man who wears the star: the big red

13.Ask any mermaid you happen to see: what’s the best tuna?

ANSWERS

1.Klondfike Bar

2.Aqua Velva man

3.Oscar Mayer wiener

4.McDonald’s

5.Kit Kat bar

6.Slinky

7.Clapper

8.Burger King

9.Pabst Blue Ribbon

10.Roto Rooter

11.Arrid Extra Dry

12.Texaco star

13.Chicken of the Sea

DRAGONSHELF AND THE DROVER XLIV

     “Some kinda job, makin’ up alla ‘is inferior decoration,” noted Louba.  “Does ya hasta go ta school fer years ta learn it?”

     The refugees were easing along a narrow bridge stretched high above a cage holding animals no one recognized.  There were dozens of them: long, muscular animals with big brown eyes, huge brown noses, and long white feathers.  They could fly a little, and they barked a lot.  Half leaping and half flying, they lunged up at the escapees, but not one came within yards of the bottom of the bridge.  Burt each leap sent feathers and dust sailing into the atmosphere.

     “Choo!”  Louba wiped her nose.  “Anybody else fer a glass of lema-aide?”

     The others waited until the bridge stopped shaking from the sneeze.  Another of the creatures flew up, a Klamathan body length too low, yipping complaints. Eye-fogging, lung-clotting fragments swirled from its topknot.

     “Hates animules,”growled Bassada, drawing a dagger from inside her coat.

     Chlorda, walking nearest to her, frowned.  “Where did you find that playpretty?”

     Bassada looked down at it.  “Oh, offen one o’ ‘em boys.”   She jerked her head back toward the snow-filled room they’d just left, and started to slide the weapon away again.

     “Look out!  Something on the handle!”  Stretching past Chlorda, Bott snatched the dagger from her hand and smacked the ornamental hilt hard against the edge of the walkway, hoping this didn’t tip them all down. 

      With a metallic clink, a black circle dropped from the ornamental hilt.  Bassada reached for it, but Louba, behind her, had longer arms.  Holding Bassada back with one massive palm, she studied it lying in the other.

     “Huh!”  She leaned forward to show Chlorda, not quite pushing the blue Klamathan off the bridge in the movement.

     Chlorda nodded.  “This must be that homing beacon they spoke of.”

     “Got a microphony on it, too.”  Louba flipped it over.  “See?”

     “Well, now.”  Bassada rubbed her chin.  “What would pigfaces like ‘em want wi’….”

     “They wouldn’t.”  Bott folded his arms.  “But you’ve had it at least since that room where you almost drowned.  “I found it when I was looking for…that rope.”

     “How ‘bout it?”  Louba folded her own arms.  “Mean I was bein’ frisked, Cap’m, and never knew it?  Musta been a real fine trance!”

     “Not fair fer him ta be searchin’ us and no….”  Bassada looked to Chlorda for support, and didn’t see any.  She swallowed.

     “Choosit!”  Chlorda managed to make the sneeze an opinion, and turned to move again along the bridge.

     “Hang on a smidge!”  Bassada waved both hands in the air.  She struggled to maintain her balance as Louba pushed past her, and, with her back to the blue Klamathan, followed Chlorda.

   “Yez don’t tink…..”  She extended her hands to Bott.  Hands and face were purple with some strong emotion.    “Gots dirty socks fer brain, both’em!  A pirate’ll unnerstan’….”

     Bott turned away as well, suppressing a sneeze.  This was not just to maintain a dignified silence, but also because the creatures below barked louder in response to sneezes.  Was it his imagination, or were they jumping higher as well?

     “Ayapfalapf!” Louba exclaimed.  It was the most violent sneeze yet, and everyone had to hold still as the bridge wobbled.  Bott noticed that not every section of the walkway was riveted in place.  Some simply overlapped.

     “Keep yer ears on!” Bassada cried.  “Yez gots big enough ears!  It’s all a misconstrual!”

     Bott glanced at her; she was more purple than ever, and her lower lip stuck way out.  “C’mon!  Yez could at leas’ call me sumpm!”

     “Pchiff!” Bott replied, the sneeze louder for having been held back.  The animals yelped below.  Or were they sneezing as well?

     “Awright awright!” Bassada wailed.  “You’da done it, too!  Made a deal wit’ …ayapfalleapfl!…cap’n…not OUR cap’m here…cap’n of ‘is slave ship when we was dragged aboard.  He said ‘at Empra wanted ta test his game floor here, an’ was gonna let us bust out an’….”

     “Let us?” demanded Chlorda.  “That was a perfectly planned prison break!”

          Encouraged, Bassada moved right up behind the rest, skipping sideways to watch everyone’s face.  “Wasn’t sposed ta happen ‘til old Empra was right here like he is now.  Figgered it was real, when we accident’ly broke out.  Turns out…ah-akshepsoonga! …cap’m here had took charge.  “at other cap’n was all done, but….”

     “Ayaka…chaparot!”  Chklorda ran one hand daintily below a golden nose.  “And what did you do for His Imperial Wormface?  Besides helping him track us?”

     “Jus’ feed him whatever might be useful.”  She angled so Bott was between her and the other two.  “Lady Chlorda’s head frequency and ‘at way good Loubba here goes fer red silk pants.”

     “Gave out my frequency?  Hatshepsoop1”  Between outrage and sneezing, Chlorda could neither speak nor move for a moment.  “And what,” she went on when she could, her voice ice, “Were you supposed to be paid?  Your own sleek Imperial police ship?”

     Bassada shook her head violently.  “No no!  Cap’n…’at nudder cap’n…said he’d get me a job s Imperial pet exerciser.  Full-time!”

     “An’ here’s you, jus’ hatin’ animules,” said Loubs, who had begun to pound one green fist into one green palm.

     “I do!”  Blue hands spread out flat as a blue chin stuck out.  “But I figgers, see, if I gets a job walkin’ his poodle er whatever ‘at gets me close enough ta kill him.  I…ayakh-hakh-hakh!…I knewed yez wouldn’ mind gittin’ killed a little in such a good cause!”

     “Easy as tossin’ ice cubes at a duck.”  Louba jabbed a thick index finger in Bassada’s direction.  “Any chance anybody’d let ya keep a knife once we was gone?  Or any chance ya wouln’nt justa dropped it an’ cut yer own toe off?”

     “Sure!”  Bassada looked down at her hands.  “We c’d still do it, y’know.  If yez’d surrenda, I c’d still get me chance ta off ‘at ol’ batbait.”  She looked up and swallowed again, but went on, “Anyways, yez don’t tink a slave ship’s really gonna help yez get to annuder ship what ain’t probly even around any more!”

     Bott had to admit she was possibly correct about that, at least.  Chlorda’s face showed a touch of doubt as well.  “There’s no point….” he started to say.

     “Ah…hia…ha…hoompf!”

     He would not have bet money on the idea Louva had been holding back her sneezes, but this one broke loose with a force that sent her backward three paces, sitting down on the gangway with a ringing “Splang!”

     The animals, he decided, bouncing with the bridge, were not sneezing but starving.  He grabbed for the nearest support column but it was nowhere near enough, so he settled for a grip on the walkway. His fingers slid across the metal surface before finally finding a hold at the very brink.  One of his feet kicked a feathered head, sending the animal down and a plume of dust into the air.

     He intended to catch his breath before trying to climb back up, but found his wrists enveloped by a great green grip.  “Gotcha, Cap’m,” Louba said, easing her weight back inch by inch so as not to tip the bridge further.  “An’ I don’t play as rough as you.”

     “Let go of my toes!” Chlorda ordered.

     Bott turned as he was hauled to safety, and found both the gold and blue Klamathans had found the same precarious stopping point he had.  Chlorda was closer; after he and Louba had helped her up onto the walkway, he slid toward Bassada.

     He was alone.  Looking up, he found the rest of his crew had pulled away, and wer starting to struggle upright.  “’Mon, Cap’m!” his rescuer called.  “Places ta go, rememba?”

     “Are you going to leave her?” he demanded, as she kicked at a creature with a tooth-hold in her coat.

     Louba looked down, and then over at the gold aristocrat.  “Don’t bother me none iffen it don’t nother you none.  Bother you?”

     “None,” said Chlorda, with a nod.

     But neither turned away.  Bott realized they were waiting for him to issue some captainly decree.

     “Ah, fergit it, Cap’m,” said the blue as the hem of her coat dropped away in the jaws of one of the attackers.  “Mebbe I’ll like ‘ese critters better ‘n I like ‘em guys.”

     Bott rose to his haunches, prepared to point out what Bassada had done to get them this far, and how, in spite of her treachery, she had faced the same dangers they had.  But one more look at the green and gold faces made him drop that idea among the dust and feathers.

     “Why let the Emperor have his way and give the slave ship a victory?  We could punish her ourselves when we have time.”

     Louba let her tongue lap at her upper lip.  “Kinda wanted ta see if any of ‘em chewed her up er just spit her out.”

     “This is an order.”  Bott said, using his firmest tone.  “Whoever hauls her up gets first choice of an appropriate penalty once we’re clear.”

     Chlorda dove to reach for the blue wrists, nearly turning the bridge sideways with the impact.  She, in her turn, was kicked to the side.

     “No, ya don’t,” Louba told her.  “It’s MY duty ta save her!”

     Chlorda gave the green rebel a shove that nearly toppled her.  “MY duty!”

     “Gotta good mind ta let go instead o’ lettin’ ya do yer duty all over me,”  But Bassada clung to all the arms offered her until she was on the bridge again.

     “Achapf!” she said, by way of thanks.

     “She’s back, Cap’m.,”  Louba set big fists on big hips.  “Not trustin’ her, alla same.”

     Bott looked to Bassada, who tore off her coat and let it drop over the edge.  Snarls and barks and the sound of tearing cloth greeted the gift.

     “Not hidin’ much from yez now, am I?” Bassada demanded.

     “I still don’t trust her.”  Chlorda stuck her tongue deep inside her left cheek.  “I say we search her.”

     “Gotcha!” cried Louba.  “Dibs on….”

     “No time,” said Bott.  “Better…achappff!…keep moving.”

     They set off down the bridge, Bassada doing her best to keep to the Bottward side of the path.  An iron gate lay open at the end of the gangway.  Bott disliked the flickering red light he saw beyond it.

     “Yihah!”  Louba tore off her turban and threw it up into the blinking but cleaner air of the new chamber.  Bott recognized the fabric, with one tiny [portion of his mind, as the flag of the gold Klamathans who were in revolt.  But his main brain was on the landscape before them.

     At the peak of a mountain with blazing slopes sat a BBB-44.  It looked familiar.

Right Back After These Melodies

     A while back, we spoke of the sitcoms which have been neglected in narratives on television history because they lasted a minute or less and were called “commercials” or “ads”.  Well, the folks in charge of television have, in their unending quest to keep us entertained, also pioneered the very short music video.

     Once again, these suffer in history from being trivialized under the name “jingles”.  But these brief ballads, marches, and refrains have stuck in the minds of Americans to such an extent that many of them are the only things viewers remember from the musical interlude.  Many were revived for a later generation with new graphics or have had their lives extended by other means (trivia quizzes, say.)

     Can you fill in the missing part of the lyrics?  (This blog takes no responsibility for earworms.  If you find people staring at you because you are murmuring “Meow Meow Meow Meow”, you’ on your own.

QUESTIONS

1.”The bigger the burger, the….”

2.”I am stuck on Band-Aid (brand), ‘cause….

3.”A&W Root Beer’s got that….

4.”One million strong and growing: we are….

5.”I don’t wanna grow up; I’m a….

6.”Hurry on down to Hardee’s, where the burgers are

7.”When you’ve said Budweirser, you’ve said….

8.”The best part of wakin’ up is….

9.”When you’re out of Schlitz, you’re out of…

10.”Give me Frito’s Corn Chips and….

11.”Halo is the shampoo that….

12.”If you’ve got the time, I’ve got the….

13.”You’ve got a lot to live, and Pepsi’s got….

14.”Kool-Aid’s here, bringin’ you….

ANSWERS

1.The better the burger

2.Band-Aid’s stuck on me

3.Frosty mug taste

4.Flintstones kids

5.Toys R Us Kid

6.Charcoal broiled

7.It all

8.Folger’s in your cup

9.Beer

10.I’ll be your friend

11.Glorifies your hair

12.Beer

13.A lot to give

14.Fun

UNPOP QUIZ

     I picked out a number of postcards which referred to bygone issues and inventions to provide questions of that quiz last week which skyrocketed to instant acclaim.  (According to the data on this website, I am the only person to read it so far.  This is part of the world’s attempt to remind me that what I write is not necessarily considered urgent reading.  Unless I reference a Kardashian, of course.)

     In any case, I picked out several that eventually involved such long or disappointing answers that they were unsuitable for the quiz format.  This does NOT mean I can’t force them before you, of course.  This will keep YOU out of a few rabbit holes.

     Ella Wheeler Wilcox started writing poetry at the age of eight, and kept on with it for sixty years to acclaim from the public and sneers from critics.  (The poem Sinclair Lewis despised—“The Man Worth While”—can be found on numerous postcards, too.)    Her most famous poem was “Solitude”, which starts like this.  I was planning to sneer myself that the postcard artist got the line wrong.  Turns out that those of us who quote it as “Cry, and you cry alone” are the ones who are wrong.

     This postcard is part of an avalanche of jokes made after Douglas MacArthur’s farewell speech, in which he used the phrase “Old soldiers never die; they just fade away.”  Parts of that would have made a good quiz question on their own, but no, I was going to ask where HE got the line.  And the answer is simple enough: it comes from a song that was popular in the army when MacArthur was a young man.  No one seems to know EXACTLY when it came about or where it came from, and that sort of answer is better spelled out in a plain boring article.  Note to quiz writers: be very sparing of answers which are longer than the questions.  Your audience will just fade away.

     Nobody knows where this phrase comes from at all.  It is often attributed to the Bard of Avon, but apparently existed at least a generation before William Shakespeare picked up his pen.  No, we will NOT be discussing whether Shakespeare or somebody else wrote “Wherefore art thou Romeo?”

     “Back to Nature” was the battle cry of a movement before it was a cliché.  Usually an admonition to return to a simpler life in the woods (but sometimes also a nudist slogan), it comes from a notion philosophers have batted around for centuries.  The latest “Back to Nature” push  started in the late nineteenth century, mainly in Germany.  But experts cannot find anyone using the actual phrase before 1915, and even they aren’t eager to claim that it never appeared before that.  “Nobody knows” is frequently the answer to trivia questions but it does not make for the sort of award-winning puzzles found around here.

     If you can’t make out the faded caption, this card says “Harmony, with apologies to Frank Dicksee”.  We have lost interest in making catchphrases based on popular paintings, partly because we don’t bother nowadays with popular paintings.  Sir Frank Dicksee was a painter best known for “The Funeral of a Viking” who also, in 1877, painted “Harmony”, which has nothing at all to do with the image here.  A young woman plays the organ as light pours through stained glass and a romantic young man looks on.  The joke was funny only to those who knew the painting, its artist, and title a generation after the painting hit the public imagination.  The possibility that it wasn’t very funny even then does exist.

     This catchphrase was popularized in 1932 by Franklin D. Roosevelt, referring to ignored souls who found themselves at the bottom of the economic pyramid.  This represented a complete flip from the meaning intended by a whole nother politician.  Charles Sumner wrote a novel, published posthumously, in which he used “the Forgotten Man” to describe the poor middle class dub forced by higher-ups and better-offs to pay for the needs of the man at the bottom of the pyramid.

     So there is your allowance of forgotten men and women and factoids for today.  Try not to use them all up at once on whatever social media platform you choose, lest you duffer my fate and find mankind beating a path to your door.  (And no, we will NOT be studying THAT quotation.)

DRAGONSHELF AND THE DROVER XLIII

    “Ain’t one ta complain, Cap’m” said Louba, sliding down the metal slope and landing hard at the end.  “But if we got an easy way, me elbows got teeth.”

     “Why not, Greenguts?” demanded Bassada, reaching for a handhold on the next metal mound.  “Got yer brains in yer behind.”

     The silent, shaded room had narrowed to this partially blocked passage, with a pair of tall lumps between them and the door.  Bott found himself glancing over his shoulder as he maneuvered around the smaller lumps on each large one.  He had no choice but to trust the Drover’s guidance, but even the easy way out didn’t guarantee they’d escape before someone came to fix what had gone wrong with the maze.  The vast curved blades in the walls were not encouraging: they’d be dodging those if the game started up again.  Hard to believe they wouldn’t swing down any second now.

     The crew was in good spirits, though, working their way through an argument which had begun days, or possibly months, earlier.  “An’ how ‘bout ‘at business yez all handled at Akitipah?  Where yez took hostages but forgot ta take any loot?”

     “Cute hostages, anyhuse,” Louba replied, sliding down the next mound on her stomach.

     “Not like what ‘ey said about yez, when we stole ‘em outa yer tinpot dungeon,” the Blue replied.

     “I wouldn’t talk,” sniffed Chlorda.  “We intercepted a copy of your ransom note.  One case of ammunition and three of beer.  What kind of ransom was that?”

     “A intellectual rebel kind,” Bassada said, reaching up to pinch the aristocrat high under her robe.

     Bott knew he could do as little about the argument as he could about the blades.  “There’s the door,” he said, sliding down the metal hill.  “Be ready.”

     “Been ready since I saw yer face,” said Bassada, coming down behind him to rub her chin on the top of his head.  “I…flallop!”

     Everyone turned to her; she was looking up.  Setting her hands on each side of her head, she adjusted her mask to point the lights straight up at what rose above them.  “Foots!” whispered Louba.

     They had, in fact, been climbing across the paws of an immense bipedal creature built of metal.  A tiny spark shifted left and right in each eye far above them. Something was alive in there, but it was unable to move its body without the maze’s power.

     Bott’s shoulders rose as he faced the door again.  There was no guarantee that what waited behind it had artificial bodies.  This was the same malevolent maze, after all.  Only now nobody was controlling it.

     “Which of you can be quietest?” he whispered.

     “I can’t believe they have the capacity for silence,” suggested Chlorda, with another sniff on ‘they’.”

     “I kin be quiter’n five gold noisemakers,” said Bassada, reaching under the Gold’s robe again.  Chlorda swung an elbow back to block her.

     “Hear how quiet I kin be, Cap’m?” demanded Louba.  “Coon’n’t be quieter less’n I was dead.”

     “Don’t be dead,” Bassada told her.   “Us cheerin’ wouldn’t quiet up ‘is place any.”

     “Let’s start the quiet contest right now,” Bott commanded.

     They eased quietly toward the door.  Bott’s mind raced to all the trouble that could be waiting.  At the very least, if they did reach the Dragonshelf, at least one of the Klamathans would try to rig it so the other two were left behind.  He had been running through all his experience to find some way to forge a link that would keep this crew together at least until they were out of range.  Maybe Nubry had read something in a book that would help.

     “Seen ‘is in pitcha pos’cards,” said Bassada.

     “You didn’t see a ship in any of them, did you?” Chlorda inquired.

     Stepping through the door had brought them into a snow=covered landscape.  Apparent miles of white-clad hills rolled before them, dotted with the vast round evergreen shrubs that grew on Aumbur.  Whole armies could camp inside the largest ones.

     “Door’s probably in one of the hills,”  said Bott, checking the firmness of the terrain before stepping out on it.  “If this is the shortest way out, maybe it’ll be in the first one.”

     “We still bein’ quiet?” Louba inquired.

     “Quiet as ya ever gits,” Bassada replied.

     “Probably doesn’t matter,” said Bott, as four pairs of feet crunched across the snow.

     There was no wind, and the air was not as cold as it could have been.  In fact, Bott spotted puddles forming here and there.  Shutting off the power might have shut down the climate control here, in which case, he supposed, they’d better find the exit soon or they’d all be swimming again.

     He slid out his communications card, but then he heard sounds caused by other feet.

     “My feets is ice!”

     “My feets is icier!”

     “I’ll set one o’ ‘ese bushes afire and heat yer feets so’s yez never use ‘em again.  Now push on!”

     The refugees looked to each other.  Bott slid his card away and reached into his grenade satchel.  Still only two left.

     “Let’s hide,” Chlorda whispered.

     “I say we takes ‘em,” Bassada countered.

     “My toes is as cold as my feets.”

     “Yer toes is on yer feets, stupid.”

     “They was when I put me boots on.  Dunno about now.”

     Bott waved his crew in close.  “Let me do the talking.  Keep the lights turned way up on your masks so they won’t see who you are.”  His hand went into another satchel.

     Two lights could be seen ahead of them now.  One was steady, from a big bush on the right.  The other flickered, and was advancing.  “Let’s ,eet them.  Everybody win the quiet contest, please.”

     Bott took up a position between the bush with the bright light, and another to its left.  He could see the group approaching now.  As he’d suspected, they were Schums, and big ones, too.  They wore only loincloths.  Someone behind him smacked her lips.

     “Ah, they drool rivers,” growled Chlorda.

     There were five.  Horns rose from domed blue heads; long blue snouts stuck out over long fangs.  One carried a long black box in one hand and raised a torch in the other, while the rest held odd clubs.  They could not be frightened, and they were smarter than grobbles.  Quicker not to fight them at all.

     So Bott swung his weapon to his mouth and belted out the first chorus of the harmonica classic “Coughing Traveler.”  The Schums, who had been studying the ground before them, looked up.

     “Hey, it’s a cousin!” shouted the one with the torch.  “Heighdy, Cuz!  You in this room too?”

     “We are now,” Bott called back.  “What’s up?  We thought WE weren’t dressed for this place, but you’re worse yet!”

     A Schum with gold tips on his horns stepped ahead of the others.  “Lookin’ fer prisners what was in the maze,” he said.  “We weas promised their skins as coats.  We was sposed ta stay in our room an’ wait, since their homing beacon said they was getting’ nearly, but then the lights went out.”

     He swung up his club a bit.  Bott nodded to it, not having to pretend to be interested.  “They didn’t give US those,” he said.  “Wotta they do?”

     “Makes snowballs.”  The leader, using what Bott could now see was a scoop at the end, hauled up a clump of snow as big as Bott’s head.  “Only once ya trow ‘em, they catches fire.”

     He suited the action to the description, and launched the missile skyward.  Three feet from the club, this missile ignited, shining bright enough to burn a stripe across the vision of anyone foolish enough to keep watching.  It flew off into the side of a hill, where it sizzled and went out.  It would not, Bott knew, have gone out so quickly had it landed on any of the fugitives.

     “Pretty good,” said Bott.  “I wonder…..”

     “Scuse me,” said the Schu with the black box, stepping forward.  “Head Dog, it says here the homin’ beacon’s mighty close.”

     “Yeah,” said Bott, sliding his harmonica away.  “They got wise and ditched it.  We picked it up and followed their tracks, but either they’re flyin’ now or hunkering down.”  He waved behind him, showing the Schums no tracks waited behind the friendly visitors but their own.  “We were gonna split up an’ search the bushes, just in cases, but if you’re here, you can check that one whilst we looks into this.”

     The Head Dog frowned, which sent wrinkles rippling right up between his horns and down the back of his skull.  “Can we do that?  Our orders….”

     Bott leaned in, one hand out flat.  “Don’t’cha get it?” he whispered.  “Orders don’t matter now.  Something big’s gone wrong.  The prisoners probably did it.  Anybody fins ‘em has ta be in fer a big, fat prize.”

     The leader continued to frown, but his shoulders were moving up and down, a sign that a Schum was finding a proposition appealing.  “And anyplace we go’s absolutle gotta be warmer than this here,” Bott went on.

          Head Dog raised a fist toward the bush with the light in it.  “Go zoom, guys!  Go zoom!”  Nodding to Bott, he led his company at a charge into the indicated shrub.  The light in it went out, and screams were followed by a mighty splash.

     ”Nice piece o’ work, Cap’m,” said Louba.  “But I kinda likes ‘em when ‘ey drools.”

     :You likes ‘em when ‘ey breathe,” snarled Bassada.  Bott pointed at the other bush.