Of course, I reckoned without the ingenuity of Madison Avenue.
Those of you who have read the last column in this space will be aware that I have so far failed utterly to find any conspiracy theories about Theodore Roosevelt. It isn’t that he is not liable to accusations—no one whose name appears on the Interwebs is—but that he keeps getting confused with Cousin Franklin, and people are busy falling all over themselves to tell us FDR’s secrets. (And how they can use the word “secret” on the Internet without giggling escapes me. It’s like “private.”)
So I filled the rest of the space observing the decline of a once mighty move to get us all to set up valentine’s Day trees once the time for Christmas trees had passed, and St. Patrick’s Day trees after that. The days of shamrock-themed strings of lights would appear to have passed without much regret.
But I was in a large store yesterday and my eyes widened at the sight of a kit for making your very own Valentine’s Day gingerbread house. Of course! I noticed, without making much of it, that there were haunted house gingerbread kits in the stores last Halloween, but now I see what the next push will be. It makes sense, really: decorating a tree is regarded by much of America as a chore, but eating gingerbread….
Mind you, the whole business does deliberately ignore another part of the question. My mother had a metal gingerbread house form. I saw it every year when we pulled out the revered old paper bag with the Christmas cookie cutters in it. But I never, ever saw it used.
See, constructing a gingerbread house requires a certain amount of manual dexterity, to start with, and a modicum of artistic talent as well. Viewed with nostalgia, our Christmas cookies were superb, and better than anything else any of the rest of you EVER decorated at Christmas. Viewed impartially, though, I think they were somewhat short of perfectly edible. We tended to go for the big, gaudy (and, nowadays, regarded as slightly poisonous) candy decorations. The cookies we liked to decorate were cookies that crunched when eaten. With luck that sound was not your teeth cracking on a layer of solid sugar.
I have eaten a number of gingerbread houses, or at least assisted in their demolition, and the temptation to go for big, chunky candies which looked nice but were difficult to eat was apparently irresistible (these bits were often thrown away along with the fossilized chunks of gingerbread which had been welded to the cardboard base by icing sugar. We actually preferred gingerbread houses from those of our friends who gave up, and just piled up walls and roof sections, tossed in a little candy, and said “Here. Do it yourself.” We ate the gingerbread and tossed the candy in a drawer for later.
But never mind that. The point of gingerbread house kits, after all, is not the construction of gingerbread houses, but sales. And the Valentine’s Day houses, like Christmas ones, LOOK so yummy on the box. I might prefer, say, a red velvet set of walls to go with the themes, but gingerbread is always welcome. And my mind immediately leapt to ideas for the future.
Gumdrops come in all colors, after all. Use a bunch of green ones for a St. Patrick’s Day house with shamrocks drawn freehand in the white icing on the roof. (A lot of us are still getting snow in March, so it fits.) And LOOK at this Fourth of July gingerbread house, its roof studded with multi-colored lollipops to simulate fireworks going off overhead. How about a Father’s Day gingerbread house, or maybe a gingerbread garage, with a gingerbread Mustang parked outside with marzipan golf clubs in the back? Once we think outside the house, how about a gingerbread highway construction project for Labor Day, with jelly bean gravel and a big gingerbread truck filled with chocolate asphalt for pouring as pavement or into the palms of each State Engineer?
It has all the benefits of the tree idea with the added advantage of edibility (perhaps) and without the pressure of having to put presents under your St. Patrick’s Day tree. I LIKE the idea. It’s got scope, it’s got legs.
Listen, I am NOT giving up on my countdown of presidential conspiracy theories, false tales of conspiracies, preferably contemporary with the man himself, but I MAY have to skip Teddy Roosevelt. This would make me unhappy, as Teddy seems to me the sort of person who would ATTRACT conspiracy theories.
But the Interwebs is doing me very little good. Whenever I try to look up the subject, I get replies shouting at me, “Of COURSE he knew all along about the attack on Pearl Harbor!”
I have tried every way I can think of to say “No, wait. I said Theodore, not Franklin.” And all I ever get is “Of course, he KNEW about the attack on Pearl Harbor.”
Perhaps he did, but having died in 1920, couldn’t tell anybody about it. Unless there was a conspiracy by spiritualists to cover up his attempts to warn us about it from Beyond. I’;; let you know.
In the meantime I thought I’d ask “Whatever became of the Valetine’s Day tree?”
Yes yes yes, just like the Christmas tree, the Valentine Tree has a long history, going back to Roman festivals, and the acirn St. Balentine planted and blah blah blah. This is NOT the phenomenon I mean. At some point in the late 1980s or thereabouts, mail order catalogs by common consent went all out to sell us strings of lights in the shape of hearts and glass or plastic Valentine ornaments. This continued for three or four years and then the listings stopped appearing. The rush to get Americans to set up trees for other holidays slipped away to the world of decorating magazines and the society pages. It was as if the lower and middle classes had turned against the idea of decorating a tree every month or so. See, because at the same time in the eighties, the same catalogs were also promoting shamrock strings of lights for St. Patrick’s Day, eggs for an Easter Tree, and so on.
I’d like to know, since I wrote at the time what a fun new tradition this would be. Those of us who are lackadaisical about decorating would gain the advantage of never having to take down your tree. All you had to do was redecorate it. I definitely remember strings of orange lights and bat ornaments, but I THINK the groundhog ornaments or strings of lights that spelled out MOM were my own…..
See, I KNOW there was something about Teddy Roosevelt and the Navy. Like his cousin, who has usurped his place in the world of conspiracy theories, Teddy was Assistant Secretary of the Navy. He had an advantage, as his superior was not a well man, and let Teddy do a lot of the heavy lifting, including preparing for war with Spain while President McKinley was trying to stave it off. And as President, Teddy had half a dozen different Secretaries of the Navy. He was looking for something and not getting it.
So what was it all about? Somebody must have remarked on it at the time, but unless I can prove it all took place in Pearl Harbor, I may NEVER find out. The only useful thing I’ve learned so far is that several companies produce Teddy Roosevelt ornaments suitable for hanging on your President’s Day tree. That will have to do for now.
Being an Imperial Sheriff did not allow for any display of nerves. Her father had told her as much while breaking her of that childhood habit of thrusting her entire right fist into her mouth. But Sherriff Parimat was unable to keep herself from rubbing that hand on her right thigh. She had no idea why she did this, really; it happened whenever she thought of the Emperor, even when his ship was lightyears away. She hoped he wouldn’t notice, particularly in his current mood.
People had died far too quickly. Coupled with the delay in the flower shipment, this had made His Imperial Worship petulant. He sucked angrily at his straw, making the creature at the other end gnash its teeth and thrust declawed paws against the inner surface of the crystal goblet.
Sergeant Symach had volunteered a daughter to have splinters thrust under her nails. And Sherriff Parimat had offered to wear the uniform His Imperial Worship had designed for her on his last visit, the pink panty with the green handles. But he had refused to be cheered.
“That ew pump for the crushed ice transfusions may be quicker,” he announced, “But it’s not a patch on the old shovel method.” He took another deep shlorp on the straw’ light burst from the creature’s eyes as it died. That hadn’t taken long either.
The Sheriff averted her eyes. There was very little she could look at now without some pain, now that the Emperor had ordered blazing blue lights installed in every room and corridor of the Rhododendron. “Cheer the place up,” he had ordered.
She did not cry out, but did jump slightly when her little skirt was jerked up behind her. She knew at once this had to be Sergeant Bindus’sach, with his retractable claws. He had been left off the latest promotion list after his computer misstep during the pursuit of the Klamathan with the contraband postcards, and was clearly trying to revive his career by entertaining His Imperial Worship.
The Emperor did smile. “Turn around, dear Sheriff.”
She obeyed, and gelt the force field crackle as he reached through it to raise her skirt and study the marks left by the sergeant.
“Ah yes.” He let the skirt fall back into place. “Very nice, Sergeant. Do you have any ambition to carry the truncheon of the Imperial Bodyguard?”
The man’s golden eyes blazed. “Oh, yes, Your Imperial Worship!”
The Emperor nodded to an attendant. This attendant nodded to two others. Sergeant Bindus’sach stood up straighter and brushed back his eyebrows.
In little more than one beat of a flossbird’s wings, the second two attendants had pinioned the sergeant’s arms behind his back. The first attendant took up his truncheon and forced it into the sergeant’s mouth.
“We cannot,” His Imperial Worship announced, as the truncheon proceeded down into the sergeant’s windpipe, “Have subordinates showing disrespect to their superiors. I am astonished that you allow it, dear Sheriff.”
“Your Imperial Worship.”
Everyone looked up as Deputy Brust approached. The Sheriff, after a glance at Bindus-sach’s struggles, barked “Brust! Over!”
Her Chief Deputy did not hesitate, dropping at once to stand on his hands. “There are worthier servants of Your Imperial Worship aboard the Rhododendron,” said Sheriff Parimat, reaching out to pluck three hairs from the deputy’s exposed legs.
“True.” The Emperor’s eyes turned back to the struggling sergeant. “Did you have something to report, Deputy?”
“Yes, Your Imperial Worship. The Drover has reappeared on our screens. It has changed course and seems to be approaching us.”
“It is on course for Lodeon VII,” said the Sheriff.
Brust’s face had gone a little purple, but his voice showed no alteration. “Their course is consistent with an approach to Lodeon VII, Your Imperial Worship, but we have received no transmission to indicate their intention.”
The first two fingers on each Imperial hand had begun to flip back and forth across each other. But he did not speak until the truncheon-bearing sergeant collapsed.
“One more notch for you, Alsix,” he told the attendant. Then he turned to the others. “Do not intercept the Drover. Stay completely out of its way. And open up a line to Lodeon VII.” His head twisted back in the direction of the Panoply. “Lewdes! Move!”
“At once, Your Imperial Worship,” called a voice from one of the six bays which ow connected the Panoply to the Rhododendron. In seconds, a group of five women in Imperial Tech uniforms approached the group, drawing in its center what appeared to be an egg, the same height as the women.
Imperial teeth clicked as this object approached. “Excellent, excellent. There has been no damage in transit?”
The five replied, in unison, “No, Your Imperial Worship.”
“Tell Pirgy to stand by, dear sheriff.” The Imperial face bore a gentle smile. “He shall be allowed to touch our new toy.”
“I have a line to Lodeon VII, Your Imperial Majesty,” an attendant announced.
“I’ll take it on the bridge.” The Imperial chair began to move. “Tell them I want the Gaming Commission. Oh, this will be choice! Sheriff, you are dismissed to do whatever it is you do when you’re not doing what you’re assigned to do. Later, I will give further instructions about proper exercise for my pets.”
“I thank Your Imperial Worship.” Sheriff Parimat bowed very low. She held her position until the Imperial chair had moved on. Rising, she studied the large egg and the company around it. His Imperial Worship had apparently recruited quintuplets. The women even had similar walks.
The Sheriff looked down at a deep purple face. “On your feet first.”
His feet dropped to the floor and he rose. She put out a hand to steady him if he needed help. He did not appear to require any.
“Yes, Brust,” she said, withdrawing the hand. “Have him taken to the disposal unit. There is a truncheon to be removed from hs throat, cleaned, and returned to Captain Alsix, with our thanks.”
“He was always hasty.” The Deputy stepped over to a communication monitor in the wall. “His father and uncle were the same.”
“I remember.” Both men had died during her father’s term in office. Brust had been the uncle’s assistant early in his career, but had been transferred to another department before the blow fell.
She watched her subordinate give the necessary orders. Like much of the crew, he had been born on the Rhododendron, and had served here all his life. The second half of his life had been spent on the staff of the Sherriff, so she knew a great deal about him. But not everything.
Nodding to the company around the egg, they stepped onto travelling squares. As these started to move, the Sheriff said, “You never married, Brust.”
Brust showed no more surprise than when ordered to stand on his hands. “No, Your Grace.”
She smoothed a wrinkle on her skirt. “There is a reason?”
He looked straight ahead, and not at her at all. “I never met a woman on leave I felt would be appropriate here. And aboard the Rhododendron, I could not marry…a subordinate.”
“Ah.”
The Sheriff had for some time been pondering the next generation, and how to pass along the ship and the legacy of the Parimats. None of her cousins struck her as suitable for command, and her sister had been too badly damaged by Imperial favors to produce offspring.
This was probably not the right time to pursue the matter. One could revere one’s Emperor without wishing to prolong his visit. His Imperial Worship did adore presiding at the weddings of ranking officials. She recalled the wedding aboard the Azalea of Sheriff Tottoll to Lieutenant Spiem. Just after the ceremony, His Imperial Worship had divided the guests and crew into two companies, announcing he wanted to revive an ancient matrimonial custom of the Spawodoas.
“The theory,” he had announced, as his attendants disrobed the members of the party, and the newlyweds were bound to tbles, “Is that after this, nothing about married life can upset you.” He had tired of the ceremony and after eight weeks of it, ordered spiem assigned to another ship.
Of course, in the excitement of the capture of the Drover and the Dragonshelf, a mere wedding would be overlooked. Especially if the pirate and the librarian took lonh enough to die. She glanced up at Brust. What was he thinking about all this?
“The traitors are, I hope, actually headed for Lodeon VII,” he said, as if he’d heard her wonder.
This did not indicate that he was thinking along the same lines she was. But if he could stand there hoping, she could as well.
“At last! I’ve been waiting…. I wish we didn’t have to meet up in the old burying ground!”
“Well, Nellie Belle, I cain’t come into town. Not since they figgered out who looted the stage an’ broke the driver’s neck.”
“Oh, I know, sweetheart, but…what was that?”
“Don’t fuss so, honey. You know that ol’ owl sets up in that dead pine, nights like this.”
“I wish I was brave like you, Bart. You’re used to bein’ out after dark.”
“That’s true, love. Now an’ again, though, I get to listenin’ and there comes a rustle in the brush by Monterey Pete’s stone and I know…tain’t nothin’ natural.”
“Oh, don’t say such things! Isn’t there any way at all we could just go somewheres else to be together, you an’ me?”
“No chance of that, Love, not since…not since the sheriff sniffed out my cave in the hills.”
“Oh, Bart, I wish they hadn’t hanged you! I hate this! Just look! I patched those ol’ pants for you an’ now…. More worms than ever, eatin’ plumb through!”
“Don’t I know it! Don’t hurt so bad as lookin’ at that pretty hair an’ dress of yours in the moonlight. I cain’t aide them crabs an’ little fish. You didn’t have to go drowndin’ yourself in the crick that afternoon.”
“Oh, Bart, oh Bart! Whatever can we do!”
“Nothin’ much ‘til…. There’s that hem crow again: reckon it’s time to go. Kiss me g’bye ‘til tomorrow night, Nellie Belle.”
This seemed to me the right postcard to show on a morning (or possibly afternoon) after the holiday we set up in honor of clock-watching. When some of us have spent our evening waiting for the two hands to meet at midnight so we would be positioned to kiss the right person (or a well-constructed wrong one), it seemed only right to pay tribute to places not so constricted by tradition. The fact that in some regions any time the clock shows is right for a quick canoodle seems worthy of commemoration.
Of course, this is really one of those cards where the first part of the sentence is separated from the second so that the second could be reprinted to fit any town or region where a storekeeper wanted to stock this cheerful thought. I have done a little online research into the town of Newark Valley, and can find no evidence that it is any more famous for its canoodles than any other community. I suppose the local Chamber of Commerce MIGHT be hushing this up, for fear of stampeding tourists. But this would violate the principle of this century that everything posted on the Interwebs in the last twelve hours is true and anything left unsaid must be untrue.
HOWEVER, I did find a certain amount of work on what the clock is telling us here. Yes, it IS telling us that the time is ten-ten, which MUST be a time of omen. It is NOT a suggestion that this double time announcement is especially good for canoodles, since that would contradict the sentiment of the postcard, that ANY time will do. (Besides, if you canoodle only at nine-nine and eleven-eleven or six-six, this leaves 48 minutes of every hour when you’ll need to find something else to do. Unless you have a ship’s clock and there ARE times of the day when it will be fourteen-fourteen or twenty-one twenty-one. Side note: is the new year one when we can all sing In the Year twenty—five twenty0-five without fear of retribution, or will the science fiction critics again…where were we?)
See, clock and watch advertisements for many years have shown 8:20 or 10:10. And the world is filled with people who want to assure us that this is not some vast international conspiracy. (They do us a lot of credit. I hardly ever notice what time is shown in watch ads. I am fairly clueless, of course, and had to look at my watch just now to see that it says 5:35. That may not alarm YOU, but my watch has said 5:35 for the last twelve years. Must get that new battery one of these days.)
See, apparently the people who DO observe these things created a sentimental narrative about the fact that the inventor of the wristwatch died at exactly 8:20, and watchmakers ever since have done honor to him in their ads. (The identity of this inventor isn’t always consistent, but maybe EVERY watch innovator died at 8:20.) OR this memorializes somebody else’s death. I especially like the theory that the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima at 10:10 and that, years later Harry S Truman, who ordered the bombing, died at 10:10 himself. Both of these amazing facts are completely untrue, which never prevents a good conspiracy theory. Other people supposedly remembered who did NOT, in fact, die at 10:10 are Dr. Mating Luther King, Jr., John F. Kennedy, Abraham Lincoln, or John Cameron Swayze (the spokesman for Timex watches, which “take a licking but keep on ticking.”) As someone who is working on a series of conspiracy theories himself, I would HATE to point out to anyone that I found NONE of these theories on line except in articles written to prove they weren’t true.
This conspiracy theory seems to be the True Fact. Eight twenty and ten ten are two times which keep the hands in full view and expose half the face of the watch or clock, thus allowing a good look at the logo of the manufacturer. These manufacturers liked to have their names at the TOP, which made 8:20 the favorite until some clever ad executives noted that this gave the clock a kind of a frowny face. Setting the watch at 10:10 makes the face smile. (Again, I hate to be THAT guy, but I always see the central point on the face as the nose, which makes the 10:10 clock a face with angry eyebrows. But this is why I am a blogger and not in the ad business. That and my tendency to hum random melodies when I should be working. “In the year 2525….”)
Lacking any other plan, Bott and Nubry moved in the direction of the voice, crawling over crumpled enforcers and under the traveling square of the Head Librarian, which zipped back and forth, dragging its unconscious rider. When Bott saw that the source of the voice was Wanure Smalen, wearing a transparent gas mask, he thumbed the ring of another type of grenade.
“You’ll need to go outside to reach the Deaccession Chamber in time,” the deputy librarian said. “The halls will be filled with our Collectors.”
Nubry rubbed her throat and glanced at Bott. “Why…should we…trust you?”
“Because I want something from you,” he replied, with a little bow. “I want to come along.”
Nubry took a step toward the older man. “You put my ship in the Deaccession Chamber.”
“Yes!” The deputy held up both hands and shook twelve long fingers at her. “But I set up the longest possible burning sequence, to give you time to get there if you could. Give hundred million books! I’ve never even SEEN a book. My father thought he saw one once, in the Head Librarian’s office.”
“Opio’s?” said Nubry.
“Her!” His lip curled. “She wouldn’t touch a book. She won’t even watch them burn. Please hurry; it won’t wait forever.”
“How do we….” Bott began.
“Ket’s try!” Nubry turned to him. “What could happen that would be worse than letting the books burn?”
Bott could think of several possibilities but followed the deputy and the captain of the Dragonshelf on the stairwell behind the door. His free hand went into his pocket for his cards. He pulled up the gold one.
“Ship?” he whispered.
“Are you STILL breathing?” demanded the Drover.
“Shut up. Come down within missile range and prepare to fire at the defenses if you see us leaving in a hurry.”
“You do have a knack for making friends. It must be your sweet smile.”
“Just do it.”
They came out onto the planet’s surface in the fog, which was breaking up under the impact of a wind that tossed loose strands of hair around Nubry’s ears. “Which way?” she called, sweeping these back.
Wanure pointed a thumb straight ahead. “If we cut through the ancient convention center, we can reach the exhaust vents, where we can drop down into the Chamber. If we reach your ship, the blast doors will be closed, so you’ll need to shoot them or ram through….”
“There they are!”
“Let’s go!” Wanure broke into a run toward a large roofless building. “Straight out the back!”
Rock fragments from the door sprayed them as the first gunshots landed. They plunged into cold shadow, surrounded by heaps of rotting debris. Running carefully so as not to get ahead of the man who knew where they were going, Bott kicked at one of these heaps to see if anything useful had survived. The rusting jewelry and broken measuring sticks did not strike him as especially profitable.
A grenade flew straight up from Bott’s right hand as he jumped at the sound. While he ducked the gunman’s shot, another grenade slipped from his left hand to wobble inert to the pursuer’s feet. The enforcer picked up the grenade, sneering, just in time for the first grenade to explode right in front of his face.
Bott put on a burst of speed toward the far end of the chamber. The near ed, rocking as the first explosion set off the other grenade, did not seem safe.
“Get ‘em with that every time when I’m sober,” he murmured. “And I….”
He stumbled, and snatched at a leather strap that had caught his ankle. Staring, he pulled this free of the pile of rubbish.
“A grenade satchel? Fully loaded?” He slung it over a shoulder. “On a library planet!”
“That’s a common stereotype,” said the deputy, holding open a door that dangled y one hinge. “People think librarians can’t handle weapons of destruction. That must have been a booth for a library security vendor.”
“I don’t like your security.” Nubry pointed at three waves of traveling squares approachin from the left. “Where do we go now?”
“There.” Wanure pointed out two metal squares with one hand, drawing a gun with the ther. “Take off the tops and you can slide down into the Chamber. When you get out, stop and collect me.” He held up his hands. “We all wear security bracelets that keep us from wandering into any trash eliminators or other dangerous areas.”
“Yeah?” Bott inquired, studying the man.
“I’d only get stuck halfway down the chute,” Wanure told him. The gun swung toward the sky. “I’ll try to discourage some of these folks while I wait.”
“I don’t….”
Nubry already had the lid free of one square opening. “You wait here,” she said. “You can get back to Dassie somehow if I don’t come out.” Before Bott could object, she dove into the darkness.
Scowling, Bott let a grenade fly up in the direction of the approaching traveling squares and ran to follow. He let the antique grenade satchel slip from his shoulder. He could already feel the het from the exhaust vent and there was no knowing what might set the vintage grenades off.
He chose to slide in feetfirst. A hand reached up to pull down his mask before the building heat melted it to his face. Landing in a brilliant haze of heat waves, he saw Nubry disappearing around the corner of his ship. He started to follow, but stopped, staring up into the golden eyes of an angry golden idol.
The heat generated by the statue allowed only one glance, but it was enough. Bott nodded. They used exactly this kind of incinerator to execute pirates on Sola Palag. The condemned were sealed into their ship which was positioned on a big gray slab like the one under the Dragnshelf. The heat was generated inside that massive head, and increased as the mouth opened. Eventually, the ship would be running in rivulets into grooves under the gray slab, sorted by atomic weight into reservoirs so it could be recycled. Anything remaining of non metal contents of the ship could be skimmed away later.
At the far end of the room were the locking mechanisms for the doors of the chamber. His lockpicks, absurdly cold for coming out of a rapidly heating pocket, were already in his hand. These doors would be specially reinforced against heat or explosion, and it would be far better for Nubry if those doors were open when she got there. The skin of a BBB-44 was very touchy when it came to heat.
A hum made him look back. He couldn’t tell if the Dragonshelf was moving, or if this was an illusion of the heat. He slid his lock picks away; he’d use the method his father had used to open the doors on Sola Palag. Pity to use his last two grenades. He should have accepted the Drover’s offer to make more, slave ship or no slave ship.
The mouth of the idol pulled wider. The Dragonshelf lifted a little from the slab. Sliding the pins from his grenades, Bott considered the lock. The grenades had to meet just at the sweet spot, not a finger to the left or below. And he had very little experience pitching grenades through waves of burning air.
“I can hit anything when I’m sober,” he reminded himself. “And I haven’t had a drink in….”
The Dragonshelf was definitely moving, and grenades wouldn’t wait. Time to move. He let the grenades fly and pushed off in the other direction. With any luck, Nubry had noticed he was here and left a ramp down.
The chamber shook. Bott found the main ramp and threw himself against a strut. A glove would have been useful right now, but he gritted his teeth and hung on.
The ship sped past a fallen door and up a steep incline into air that was shockingly cold. Bott slapped out some small fires in his vest and nearly fell loose when the ship executed a turn. A shot from the Dragonshelf’s underside scattered an approaching wedge of traveling squares.
“Just in time!” cried the deputy, who was carrying the abandoned grenade satchel. He flung this up on the ramp. Which was at his chin level, and grabbed the edge. Something rumbled above them; Wanure looked out and up.
“That must be your other ship, the….”
“No! Don’t!” Bott grabbed his wrists. “Don’t!”
He hauled the deputy onto the ramp, though the look of wonder on the man’s face told him it was too late. He had himself approached the Drover with blinkers, so he wouldn’t see too much of the most beautiful ship ever built.
The ramp rose slowly. Retreating into the ship, Bott checked the most likely places for a pulse. He had no idea where Wanure Smalen’s people kept their hearts. But he found nothing suggesting life.
A dull thud told him the Library Planet had broken out its heavy guns, and a second told him the Drover was replying in kind. The health of the deputy seemed suddenly less pressing.
“Where’s Wanure?” Nubry demanded, when Bott reached the cockpit.
Bott jerked a thumb toward the door. “Back at the door. Must be his security bracelets. Can you check on it? I don’t know your ship well enough.”
“Okay. Here.” Rising, she indicated her chair. “I’m staying out of range of their guns until we find a place they don’t have any. Shoot them if they need it.”
As soon as the door closed behind her, Bott lunged for the controls, sending the BBB-44into exit speed. This was no time to be cautious, not with the Rhododendron coming within reach. He had to dodge the shots from the ground and those answering from the Drover; when the sheriff’s ship added its fire, this would be incredibly complex. He thought of calling the Drover; the ship’s computers should be able to analyze the firing pattern and help navigate a way through it. But there wasn’t time for backchat from the computer.
In fact, he thought, as the Dragonshelf veered between blasts, this might be a good time to abandon the Drover completely. Having the biggest most beautiful ship ever built did add difficulty to concealment. The Dragonshelf might make him a better flagship.
The door to the cockpit opened. He glanced at the returning Nubry, whose eyes were all but invisible under her glare. Maybe not.
I am not referring to the making of ice cream, as I might if I wrote a food blog. I have wrestled with one of those handy dandy ice cream makers in the 1990s, which guaranteed endless delights, and succeeded only in making a flavorful slush. Nor do I refer to the complexities of finding new or seasonal flavors of frozen treats. Not one cubic inch of peppermint stick or egg nog ice cream did I find in any of my stores this season, which is no doubt one of the few pieces of good news to pass along to my doctor, and there are a few exciting new flavors that were announced along about last May which have never appeared anywhere in my vicinity. But aside from the occasional longing for something novel, I am able to furnish most of my own desires with vanilla and the occasional Chunky Monkey.
No, I was thinking of my family’s history of fighting with restaurants about ice cream. For a dining establishment, ice cream should be fairly simple: either a generous scoop in a bowl or, if your menu runs that way, a generous scoop piled with insane amounts of fudge, marshmallow caramel, whipped cream and a few dozen peanuts. As long as your wrist is limber and your ice cream scoop is clean, what’s the problem?
The women in my family: that’s the problem. Not ALL of them: I don’t recall my mother, for example, ever making a fuss about ice cream in any sort of eating establishment (beyond her mourning for the death of the five cent cone.) But among the members of my family tree, there are several who wound up with their pictures posted under warning signs in restaurant kitchens. Let us go back a few decades to consider my grandmother, who once picked up a slice of apple pie al a mode at a buffet style café.
The size of the slice was adequate. The ice cream addition was also of a good size, and just at the right temperature, melting just a bit from the proximity of pie. And then she spotted the doily.
What kind of burro-brain, she demanded, would put any sort of ice cream on a doily? She was NOT paying for a doily that was going to soak up her ice cream, nor did she intend to sit at her table sucking vanilla ice cream out of a fancy piece of paper. The resulting furor left a permanent mark of those of her grandchildren who were present, as well, we hope, on the restaurant (now out of business, possibly from the expense of all those doilies.)
I would like to note that, in my opinion, she was completely correct, as was an aunt of mine whose appetite for hot fudge sundaes was the stuff of legend. Her issue was not so much a matter of ice cream, but she would firmly refuse to dip a spoon into the dish if the kitchen had forgotten her maraschino cherry. I agree that a kitchen that could forget such a detail is simply too busy. This complaint always brought dividends. Feeling that to produce a plate with a single cherry on it might be interpreted as an insult, the waiter would generally turn up with anywhere from two to siz cherries. This always put her in a forgiving mood. (If I wrote a food blog, I would mention the times she would order a hot fudge sundae and I would order a hot peanut butter sundae, and we would, with amazing damage to the tabletop exchange halves of our respective sundaes. Why the place didn’t just offer hot fudge/hot peanut butter sundaes I have no notion. But they’re out of business now, too. So there.)
The final two adventures, in which, again, I think the relative who complained was in the right, are completely my fault. Once upon a time, a cousin of mine had a slice of apple pie a la mode in an establishment which also offered a dish of cinnamon ice cream. She asked the waiter if she could, instead of the vanilla ice cream offered with the pie, get a scoop of the cinnamon instead. The waiter and the kitchen had no problem with this, and she enjoyed the result.
I’m the one who glanced at the tab and said “Hmmmm. They charged a dollar extra for cinnamon ice cream.” What can I say? The ensuing fifteen minute argument about why it should cost a dollar to scoop ice cream out of THIS container instead of THAT one was my doing. My aunt and I left the place before the argument was done, and I still look back in shame at this act of cowardice.
But I will take no blame for the OTHER incident, when my aunt, cousin, and I decided a bowl of chocolate chip ice cream was just the thing to finish off our meal at another eating establishment. We continued to chat about the news of the day, each of us working on our bowl (you didn’t think I meant one bowl for three people, dd you? Waiters who made that mistake around us did so only once.) But again I acted the troublemaker.
I said, “Um, have you found any chocolate chips in your chocolate chip ice cream?”
They paused. They had not, but they had all assumed what I had been thinking: maybe this was some special version with white chocolate chips. But we hadn’t encountered chocolate chips of any color with our teeth or taste buds, and we finally flagged down the waiter to ask. As I recall, he didn’t even have to check; he knew the answer.
“Oh, the kitchen just finished a container of chocolate chip and didn’t want to open a new one.”
Had we started a riot, no jury in this land would have convicted us.
Now, these were four different dining venues, three of which are now gone where the good times go. And I dislike conspiracy theories, so I cannot believe word went out among the hospitality community about us. But I HAVE noticed that whenever we order ice cream, sorbetto, or gelato nowadays, we are told that the kitchen JUST NOW ran out of that flavor. Coincidence? THAT answer isn’t complicated.
Oh you darling fat fraud, there is only one thing I really want from you this Christmas, and that is that you keep far away from my holiday gift list. How am I supposed to train my relatives to give me useful things, like an online subscription to the Screaming Streaming Service and passwords to websites unfairly restricted to people twice my age if you keep chiming in with advice on giving me old, used stuff? I know my mother will probably get me more cute books with fluffy kitties instead of zombie rats in them, but I MAY have convinced my doddering grandfather that something high-tech can be sent by email and does not require wrapping, so kindly do not interfere with advice about pre-owned clutter. A Christmas without you would be like a gift of a thousand New Years.
IN GREAT HOPES FOR A SANTA-FREE DAY
Dear Ingrate:
It is always nice to hear from you, as it lends a personal touch to the holiday. It’s like seeing a grimy thumbprint on an otherwise pristine sugar cookie.
I am, however, rather surprised that you even bother to write, you being so modern and high tech. I suppose you still think that Elf on the Shelf is nothing but a bright-eyed chucklehead with no thought but to amuse and entertain. He has an advanced degree in all those modern technological wonders you adore, and has forwarded me your online wishlists and browsing history.
It pains me to point out inconsistencies in your hopes and dreams, but that IS part of the holiday tradition. You show an eager interest in movies which involve mortals who awaken ancient evil spirits, and you regularly check online auction sites for haunted dolls and artifacts with curses on them. Perhaps you see where I’m going with this. I hope not; sI need to fill the rest of this column somehow.
Perhaps you are simply taking your family too much for granted. You are so used to getting secondhand books with bunnies from your mother that you take no interest in the previous owners. Perhaps they were like you, Ingrate, and some of their frustration at not seeing decapitated gnomes or ravening bear ghosts lives on in those well-thumbed tomes.
Perhaps your doting grandfather, eschewing a digital passkey, will send you some postcards. Do NOT, Ingrate, just toss these aside saying “Confounded kitsch!” The message on the back may tell of treasure buried in an ancient burial ground, or hold coded clues to where something vile has been lurking in limbo, just waiting for some small, disappointed Christmas grumbler to speak the words “I am fine. How are you?” backward to activate the charm.
Christmas, my bitter dumpling, has always come with a streak of darkness: it is celebrated in the season of early sunsets and dark nights among people who believed that if they told stories of bloodthirsty creatures waiting just outside the door, those creatures would get the hint and move to the house of someone who had no respect for such ancient traditions. Not sending threats, Ingrate: just hints. Remember that one of the jauntiest of traditional English Christmas songs deals with the discovery and a skeleton in a forgotten room. Not everyone gets EXACTLY what they wanted or deserved (much as I know you’d love to find an ancient death in your toybox.)
I hope you will take whatever your family gives you this year in the right spirit. Surely someone of your basic temperament will be able to turn even fluffy bunnies and faded postcards into tools of terror. Show a little initiative, cyanide souffle; in the olden days, kids were expected to make their own terrors, and were perfectly happy with socks and underwear at the end of December. (Okay, maybe not PERFECTLY happy: your particular ancestor probably growled about getting pink undies instead of camo wear.)
Wishing you something terrifying and unexpected this holiday, and hoping you can respond with something equally surprising and horrifying for your family. (Try smiling. It’ll probably make them think twice before sampling the cranberry sauce.)
By the time Bott caught up, Nubry was halfway down the corridor, conducting a spirited debate with herself.
“Of course, they could mean they’re deaccessioning the collection from the Dragonshelf while accessioning it to their own inventory. Couldn’t they? Of course, they could! Or maybe they said ‘THE Accession Chamber’.”
”Deaccession Chamber,” said Bott. The grenade was in his hand again. Something was apparently seriously wrong, and perhaps an explosion would come in handy.
Nubry pulled up short at an arched doorway and thrust both hands against a terminal to the right of it. “General floorplan,” she murmured. “Do hurry, general floorplan. Oh!”
One finger stabbed at the screen. “What?” Bott asked, angling around for a better view.
Her hands came up to her ears and clenched into fists. “This big room is labeled ‘Deaccession Chamber’ and there’s a ‘Danger: Heat’ warning over at the side. Oh, they wouldn’t! Oh, they couldn’t! Where’s the way out? Where is it?”
Bott looked behind him. “These doors are….”
“Herte!” she cried, as that finger bounced across the screen. “And here! And here! We have to….”
Bott squinted at the screen. “How can you tell?”
“They’re labeled, see?” That finger threatened to break through the screen. “Oh! Sorry! These, um, letters make the word EXIT: that’s a way out. There’s probably a sign like it over the doors.”
Bott’s mouth dropped open. He was learning new things about why the Free Imperial State made such a fuss about reading. With labels like those, just anybody could walk in or out of a building, and not just those who knew the place.
Nubry was studying the screen again. “Now, the door closest to the Deaccession Chamber….”
“Is off limits, I’m afraid.”
Wanure Smalen and three earnest young men stood just beyond the archway. “The burning will begin in a few minutes, and for safety reasons….”
“Burning!” Nubry took a step away from the terminal, both hands on her prayerstone. “How can you burn books? You’re a library! You’re THE library!”
The deputy cleared his throat, but made no answer. One of the men with him said, “Deaccession is a vital part of library procedure. You can’t keep everything: there isn’t space.”
“You should FIND space!” she replied, with a stamp of her vote.
“And we cannot accept books which may be contaminated,” the young man continued, “Or….”
“That will do.” The red-braided Head Librarian looked displeased, gliding in on her travelling square. “”Wanure, you may go. I will see you in my office later.”
The deputy pushed past Bott and Nubry. Opio looked them over. “We hoped you would not find out until the process was complete.”
“You’re really going to burn our books?” Nubry set her prayerstone to her forehead. “Without even…without even looking at them? I can’t believe it! Can I? No, I can NOT!”
“Of course without looking at them.” The Head Librarian’s voice was gentle but firm. “His Imperial Worship prefers it that way.”
“This can’t be an Imperial post!” Bott exclaimed, as Nubry’s mouth opened and closed several times.
“It can. It is.” Opio raised a hand to indicate the walls. “We maintain this library against the day when Imperial policy changes about the number of books it is safe to possess. In return for our existence, we also maintain the legends of an ancient and secret library operation, just to lure in collections such as yours.”
Bott’s lips twisted. He should have thought to ask why the location of a hidden library Nubry couldn’t find would be on the navigational charts of an Imperial slave ship.
“I did mean what I said.” Something like sympathy showed on the Head Librarian’s face. “Yours is a magnificent gift, for the destruction of so large a collection may gratify His Imperial Worship to the extent of letting us keep you on as a docent.”
Nubry stamped her foot again and, still at a loss for words, stamped it one more time.
“Orm” the librarian went on, “We can wait and inform His Imperial Worship that you have already been added to the docent staff, after the Drover has been modified.”
“Modified?” Bott demanded, running his thumb across his grenade, identifying it by feel as he summed up his opponents. Four of them: not a serious threat unless they were really well-armed. “My ship?”
“The drover apparently belongs to whoever can hold it,” the librarian replied, with a braid=-bouncing jerk of her head. “We can hardly allow you to leave, to imperial out reputation for Imperial service. The ship is of no further use to you, and we need the storage space.”
“Storage space?” Nubry sputtered. “Storage space? You don’t even have any books or magazines!”
“No,” Opio admitted. “But that may change, and, in the meantime, we have been perfecting our classification system. Providing an alphanumeric code which can fit any artifact in the known universe is a major project, and the explicatory software and hardware has been overflowing its allotted space. The Drover should be able to hold a great deal of it, once the ship has been modified along the guidelines of the latest subcommittee report on efficient use of space on a library ship.”
”Mod….”
“And stamped within and without using proprietary codes.”
Bott pulled himself to what there was of his full height. “The Drover is the single most beautiful and efficient ship in the universe!”
The vast red eyebrows spread out across the bland forehead. “It may seem so. To a layman.”
Nott’s free hand went down for a second grenade. Opio nodded. “This is a library, sir. We like things to be orderly.”
Door opened all along the corridor to release a company of nearly naked men and women. The shortest of these was twice as tall as Bott, and what they lacked in clothing they made up for in muscle. Tomy eyes glittered as they fixed on Bott; thin lips drew back to reveal very long teeth.
“These have been bred for generations to collect overdues, once we have returned to operation,” Opio explained. Now, sir. How would you like to be classified? ‘Library, Friend of’ Or ‘Formerly Living Being—Human’?”
Nott considered the group. Puffy lower lips were bouncing against those elongated teeth as the enforcers murmured in unison a chant of “Fine, fine, fine, fine, fine, fine, fine.”
It reminded him of that time on Nazcor-D. And he’d gotten out of that. True, his crew had been with him, and a much larger supply of grenades. But surely a good pirate captain could face down any mob when he was sober.
And he hadn’t had a drink in three days.
His eyes went to Nubry, to see if she’d be ready to jump and run. But her eyes were closed, and she held that prayerstone clamped against her forehead.
“Well?” Opio inquired. “:”Which is it to….”
Nubry’s right foot was suddenly under the nose of the nearest enforcer. The big man’s eyes widened as blood shot from his nostrils. Bott’s eyes widened too, as the man dropped and Nubry spun.
One of the librarians who had come with Wanure, who had come forward to grab her shoulder, fell back, clutching his arm. A second enforcer fell forward, blood gushing from him onto Nubry’s fresh uniform.
Three enforcers dove for Nubry but Bott had remembered he was part of this performance as well. The key was out of the grenade, and he yanked the collar mask up in front of his face. He figured he had half a second to pull the second mask free before the enforcers also remembered he was there.
Ducking under the arms of two plug-uglies, he vaulted the body of one fallen enforcer to nudge past the one who had Nubry by the throat. Hoping she recognized him with his mask on, he forced the spare mask over her nonexistent nose as the gas from the first grenade burst free.
Those not punctured by the blast waved at the pink smoke. It was a little late for that, and they tumbled in a largely unlibrarylike disorder to the floor, gasping. Bott, Nubry, and her assailant toppled in one bundle. The big man had fortunately pulled to the right as he fell and, dying, even failed to crush his captives. Bott pried muscular fingers out of Nubry’s windpipe.
She stared at him through her mask. “Got to…save the….”
I have always appreciated your advice on giving pre-owned objects as gifts, but as years go by, i find the wish lists of my grandchildren very difficult to translate. One grandchild in particular gives me a lot of instructions which are awfully technical. Are second-hand postcards at all appropriate for such an up-to-date kid?
BARELY KEEPING UP
Dear Bear Up:
This is a time for reflecting on the past and the future, and we can all get caught up in depressing considerations about what is gone and what may be coming up. But this is also a time for remembering that some things are perennial, and always relevant, like snowflakes, safety pins, and old jokes.
You see, Bare, old jokes are like leaves: they blossom, give shade, wither, and disappear, But every old joke finds its way to come back in a new but recognizable form. And jokes on old postcards can be as relevant today as they were when first published (if we do it right.) For example, what could be more current than a phone with multiple uses?
And, believe it or else, even in 1905, there were jokes about people in danger from drones. What says 2024 better?
For the social media addict (and what else have we got nowadays?) we can show examples of musical cat videos from days of yore.
Along with motivational quotations (taken from some other source and misquoted).
In days long past, we had people who were willing to bring to our attention badly worded signs in public places,
Right next to personals ads on dating websites (though the word “website” did not exist, the idea of a web behind such ads was surely already present),
Mixed in with highly entertaining trivia of dubious verisimilitude and source.
Behold, Bear: if we keep looking, we can even find people whining about their printers. So take heart and go boldly forth with that Christmas list, Grandpa! Do not waste your money and your grandchild’s time with some high tech wonder which will be obsolete by Groundhog’s Day but fill that stocking with these glimpses of our past, proving that social media was as living and vibrant and annoying as it is today. They’ll always remember your gift. (I do hope you live more than a snowball’s throw away.)
Blogsy Babbles 