FICTION FRIDAY: Sending It Back

     Bernard was one of those shoppers who spends more time than money.  A friendly chap who liked to talk, had a treasury of stories which were not all pointless: he was pleasant enough on a slow day but at other times kept work from being done.

     The keeper of the dark, dim antique shop watched him enter; but went on sorting the old postcards.

     Bernard glanced at the heavy-lidded woman, with somewhat heavy body parts festooned with tattoos involving black cats and bats.  Many sorority girls in his college days had such tattoos.  In fact, Rebecca…maybe she’d be interested in that story.  But he needed an excuse to start a story.  Having no ink art himself, he could hardly lead with tattoos

     His eyes fell on a little glass case at the center of a table filled with art objects.  He’d seen it every time he came into the store, guarding a statue about two feet tall of a young woman on her knees, looking back over one shoulder.

     He tapped gently on the case to attract the proprietor’s attention. “Do you think you’ll ever sell this?”

     She smiled her usual broad smile, and added a warm chuckle.  “I do sell it.”

     Bernard nodded.  “You have more than one, then?”

     “No,” she said, inclining her head.  “It’s ensorcelled.”

     Bernard regarded the statuette.  “Under a curse, is it?”

     She lowered her head so she could look up at him through dark, ling lashes.  She was not smiling now.  “Do you believe in curses?”

     “No, not really.”  Bernard moved closer to the counter, feeling a story (and an excuse to tell one of his own) on the way.

     She gave him a quick nod.  “It isn’t.  An uncle of my great-grandfather made it years ago.  When the person who bought it dies, it returns to the family.”

     “Ah, you sort of rent it out,” Bernard looked at the case with new interest.

     “True enough.”.

     “Nice statue, at least.”  Bernard thought the style crude and sentimental, the sort of trash a previous century loved.  “Do people buy it just to test out the spell?”

     “The maker gave it other powers.”  She set down the last card of the handful she’d been working on, and reached into the battered shoebox for more.  “Its main function is to return curses.”

     “Return to sender?” said Bernard, chuckling.

     “Exactly.  If you perform the ceremony, any curse put upon you by an enemy will bounce back and befall that enemy.  You can see why people who believe in curses would find it useful.”

     Bernard looked from her to the statue.  “People believe that?”

     She nodded.  “It’s nice, really, to have something to blame your problems on.  When there’s an accident, or a sudden financial loss, or unexpected health problem, superstitious people find it easy to believe in curses.”

     Bernard understood.  If he believed in curses at all, then the diagnosis of fast-acting cataracts which had come out of nowhere….  And his supervisor would be glad….  He shrugged.

     “It’s attractive enough.”  He picked up the heavy case.  “And I don’t need to believe in its power to like it.”

     “That’s true.”  She watched him turn the case around, thought things over, and added, “Don’t look in the eyes, then.”

     Bernard studied one shoulder and then the other, considered her deplorable hair style, and then her collar bone.  It would be an interesting story to tell people, of course.  He looked at the price sticker, the metal corners of the glass case, and then, giving in, the statue’s closed eyes.

     They looked back at him open without the lids moving.  He felt the gaze as a warm coat, a blanket of protection.  Any enemy of his was an enemy of hers, and she would do her best to see that their evil deeds would be visited on them tenfold.  He knew this to be true

     “I’ll take it!”

     In return for a visit from his plastic card, she gave him a bag, the statue—case and all—and a cheap booklet which contained the ceremony to be performed to start the process of returning curses.  The ceremony was no less crude than the printing of the booklet but, after all, it made the story he could tell that much more interesting.  He mentioned this, at length, to the proprietor, but finally moved back into the sunshine, allowing her to continue sorting the old cards.  She did not get up to rearrange the display the glass case had dominated.

     The following Tuesday, the young lady and case were back at the center of the display.  The proprietor wondered how it had happened this time.  He hadn’t seemed like a man who owned guns (and he had never looked at her display of fine antique firearms, not all of which were counterfeit.)  She hoped he had taken swift poison, and hadn’t hurt other people by jumping out of a window or off the platform in front of a train.

     It usually took longer.  But once they figured out their problems weren’t caused by a curse, but by their own stupidity or dumb luck….

     With a sigh, she took up another shoebox of old cards and sat down behind the counter.  Maybe a few good baseball cards had gotten mixed in this lot.

Polar Perplexity

     I would like to join those voices who have grown louder about massive government coverups.  It is as if at some point, leaders who cannot agree on borders or human rights or the environment got together and agreed to hide all evidence they have on a phenomenon they have decided (or have been told, by a stronger Power) to leave alone.  Only a few of us dare speak our suspicions out loud, largely because we know we will be laughed at for our credulity.

     But there HAVE to be pictures which show a residential industrial-agricultural complex as big as the one Santa has at the North Pole.  THINK about it: give it serious thought.  Do you read books, go to movies, watch television?  Santa Claus not only has to feed and house an army of Elves, but he has also, through the years, taken on any number of other dependents, who must also take up space.

     Consider reindeer.  We know, because we have been told, that the Varsity squad is made up of Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner (sometimes Donder) and Blitzen (occasionally Blixen.)  But we have also been told, over th years, about Rudolph, and (best of all Christmas wordplay) Olive the Other Reindeer.  Songs and books have brought us the news about the brown-nosed reindeer (Bradley, who is the type who speaks sweetly to the boss and gets the easy jobs, and Randolph, who flies right behind Rudolph, who is inclined to make sudden stops…not all Christmas lore is tasteful), And Twinkle Toes, a young reindeer who gets a ride in the sleigh and wreaks havoc, explaining why presents are sometimes wrong, or delayed.  I am not counting Leroy the Redneck Reindeer, who simply visits when needed, preferring to live in warmer climes, or Nervous, who is given credit on a record as one of Santa’s reindeer, since he is clearly asked on the record: “Are you Nervous?” and replies “Nope.”  I have ALSO seen Clyde credited as one of Santa’s team, even though Ray Stevens clearly explains to us that Clyde is the camel from Ahab the Arab, just joining the team out of a feeling of pitching in.  The documentation in some of these cases does NOT help us bring this story to the public.

     Too many elves have been named in stories for us to cover even a majority of them, and, anyway, we EXPECT elves.  I will pause just to mention Sandy Sleighfoot, whose story Jimmy Dean brought us, who takes the Rudolph story one step further, so to speak, by noting that the big feet which made the other elves laugh at him were part of God’s plan, so he could save the reindeer barn when it caught fire (see, he could move faster on snow than the other elves because his feet were so long he could use them as skis.  Look it up.)  And we mustn’t lose sight of Joe, part of the three-elf team of Hardrock, Coco, and Joe.  J oe serves no purpose in the sleigh, but Santa likes to have him around.

     It is a little sad that the only people really bringing us the truth about the extent of Santa’s operation are the songwriters and screenplay artists desperate to bring us some new story for Christmas.  It is only thanks to them that we are aware of Boofo (a dog who not only keeps Santa’s feet warm by sleeping on them, but whines in distress when the sleigh goes over a naughty kid’s house), Earl the Christas Squirrel (responsible for picking out the nuts you find in your stocking), Dominick the Donkey (who gets the sleigh over the steep hills in Italy), and Frosty the Snowman, who apparently now lives fulltime at the North Pole except when he goes home for a visit in December.

     You can see we must be discussing an operation large enough to put most governments to shame (which may be why it’s being covered up.)  And we have not yet discussed Santa’s extended family.  Mrs. Claus has had her own television specials and songs, and every now and then we hear about his evil twins (he must be the only good one out of octuplets, by now), that brother of his who convinced him to dump the reindeer and use a high tech solar-powered sleigh (spoiler alert: Santa travels at night), and the numerous sons and daughters who have been featured in stories and cartoons (I have lost track, but, just as a group, his daughters seem to be more interesting than his sons…as well as occasionally even less tasteful than Randolph.)  His list-making assistants have been featured, and he has a large Help Desk to handle visits by, say, the Bell That Couldn’t Jingle and others in holiday distress.  AND this list does not even begin on those characters—some visiting and some fulltime residents–who Save Christmas.  (Because by now EVERYONE has Saved Christmas.  Still trying to find a buyer for my own screenplay about a Man Who Saved Christmas because he cut the word “Christmas” out of every ad and magazine cover he found, and saved these in a scrapbook.)

DRAGONSHELF AND THE DROVER 12

     Sheriff Parimat and her Chief Deputy were the last of the playmates released from the Panoply when His Imperial Worship’s pigherds decided the Imperial pets were ready for a new assortment of friends.  They stepped slowly, stiffly, through a darkened cargo bay from which all the ornaments had now been removed.  The Sheriff stooped to press down a broken floor tile.

     Chief Deputy Brust stopped when she did.  In a voice that was flat and devoid of emotion, he said, ”I do not like to seem to criticize Your Grace’s decisions….”

     “Then-hic-don’t,” she said, not looking up.  “I am not-hic-in the mood.”

     “But one of us should have stayed on the bridge,” he went on.

     “If I-hic-was not to be denied the-hic-honor, then neither were you-hic.  Besides-hic,-His Imperial Worship’s-hic-people are in command on the-hic-bridge.”  These two reasons were not, in fact, the only ones she had assigned him to the venture.  But it was not a Sheriff’s way to admit a need for moral support.

     She stepped forward, and, forgetting not to put her whole weight on that left leg, stumbled.  Regaining her balance without touching the hand her deputy extended, she demanded, “And where-hic-is His Imperial worship-hic-now?”

     “I have no idea, Your Grace.  I was with you.”

     Now she fastened her eyes on him.  “Get an-hic-idea, Brust.”

     Briskly but gingerly, he stepped over to a display terminal and inserted a card into the proper slot.  Sheriff Parimat winced as the first image appeared, showing the Imperial ship clinging to the side of the Rhododendron like a tick.  Brust pressed in a number of commands and looked at a serie of charts.

     “His Imperial Worship is moving to the labs, Your Grace.”
     “Ah!  Hic!  Thar may put him in a good mood.  I’ll just go see that Pirgy shows him all the newest tricks.  You proceed to the bridge and find out what’s being done there.  And remember not to sit down for another hour.”

     “Yes, Your Grace.”  The deputy watched her wince as she stepped up onto a travelling square, her weight resting for a moment on that sore leg.  “Your Grace….”

         But then she was off.  He shrugged, and called up another travelling square.

        At the correct level, the Sheriff found that the security bats which prevented transport vehicles from moving directly into the lab had been removed to allow the Imperial Chair to pass.  She parled her travelling square in the designated spot anyway: she would not presume to Imperial privilege.

     Travel was slower on foot, particularly with aching muscle and complaining stomach, but the Imperial party had gotten no farther than the first large display tank beyond the main entrance.  Pirgy had, of course, stocked these tanks in anticipation of His Imperial Worship’s inspection.  Beyond the glass a naked woman stood, holding an orange infant uneasily fascinated by the pointed spouts protruding from the walls and ceiling.

     “What this, Mom?” the child demanded.  “What this, Mom?  What this. Mom?”

     Vapor rose from a grate in the floor as instruments slid from their housings at Pirgy’s command.  The Imperial party watched until the screams of pain dissolved into giggles, and the floor ran with a thick purple ooze.

     “An impertinent little torment,” Said His Imperial Worship, turning his chair away.  “Not the least pretentious.  I give it two stars and a moon.”

     “Those-hic-brushes were  a gift from Your Imperial Worship on the=hic=occasion of the last-hic-visit,” Sheriff Parimat pointed out, as Pirgy clasped his hands and bowed.

     The Emperor dimpled, looking over his shoulder.  “Ah, our good Sheriff!  I hope the pets were glad to see you again.  Do you know, Stenge was actually started to loose his bristles, but between transplants and crems, they’re thriving!”

     She had noticed this.  “I wept with-hic=joy to find him so-hic-well, Your Imperial worship,” she said, though her eyes had not known tears ion eleven years.

     Smiling, the Emperor turned back.  “Now, Pirgy!  What else do you have in your playpen?”

     Dr. Pirgy was a short, square green man with immense eyes and white ears that drooped to his shoulders.  The mustache that grew up the ridge of his nose to his eyebrows was bleached by the years he’d spent in Imperial service, becoming one of the elders of his craft.

     Leading the Imperial party into his domain, he waved with a flourish at the technicians standing at attention in a cold, dim cubicle filled with green monitors.  “In this area we study the isolation of the chemicals in the brain which indicate anti-Imperial attitudes.  By measuring the levels of these chemicals, we can identify dangerous rebels years before any actual treasonous activity.”

     “Indeed.”  The Emperor yawned.  Sheriff Parimat and the Chief Torturer exchanged a glance which contained not an iota of surprise./

     In this area,” Pirgy went on, moving to another cubicle, “We have identified those chemicals involved in feelings of shame.  By raising these levels, we have made a battle-hardened Ahrhach break down and sob, humiliated by the idea that his people all have four legs.”

     Heavy Imperial hands padded silently together.  “I must see that.”

     “The original specimen is not of much use now,” Pirgy admitted.  “But he is visible farther along, in the Adhesives Department.”

     As the (mperial party moved forward, a small purple fruit rolled from a tray.  One of Pirgy’s technicians caught it before it hit the floor, and was handing it to a trembling servant when the Emperor called, “Keep it, my dear!  You do such lovely work here.”

     The technician, going blue with delight, clutched it to her chest.  Skin ripped up and down her face as she smiled.

     “Oh, by the way,” His Imperial Worship went on, turning to look back at the Sherrif.  “I have condemned your Lieutenant Le Tamo to death.”

     “Thank-hic-you, Your Worship,” she replied.  “I will notify-hic-his family that Your Imperial Worship took a personal interest in his-hic-career.”

     Pirgy was having difficulty disarming the security field around the adhesives area,  To fill the awkward pause, the Sheriff went on, “The Lieutenant was-hic-a very fine navigator.”

     “Indeed.”  Imperial thumbs were twiddling, always a bad sign.  ”But I could see he was likely to be ticklish, and I have a new tickling machine which requires testing.  Oh, and did you have plans for the pirate captain and the Dragonshelf’s pilot?”

     Sheriff Parumat tried to will Pirgy’s fingers into the right formation: boring the Emperor was hazardous.  “I would not-hic-presume to make such plans-hic-when Your Imperial Worship was present.”  She was breathing carefully; she could not afford a hiccup in the middle of the Imperial title.  “I would no doubt have-hic-ordered such mundane and-hic-routine procedure as the sand-hic-papering of the mucous membranes, and removal-hic-of all friction skin.”

     The Imperial thumbs tapped together.  “Do not, my dear.  I have other devices I plan to test.  Ah!  And speaking of plans….”

     The technician who had retrieved the fruit stepped over to help Pirgy with the combination.  The doctor threw up his hands and backed away to let her handle it.

     The Emperor, rummaging under Imperial thighs, drew out a small sheaf of paper.  “I have been designing new uniforms for the crew of the Rhododendron.”

     “A celestial honor, Your Worship.”  She reached for the paper, bracing for the electrical tingle as the security field allowed her hands in and out, not without sharp electric impulses under the thumbnails.  The new uniforms were what she might have expected: very bright, very colorful, and very unsuitable for the crew of a sheriff-class vessel.  Still, when the Imperial party was on board, the crew was no more than hired entertainment.

     She noticed, giving due attention to every single sketch, that the uniforms grew scantier with advancement in rank.  “Now, for officials of high rank, such as yourself and Pirgy here, I’ve designed something rather special.  Matching flowers will be stapled here and here, except for the Marcovians, who will require six, of course.  Two of these long-stemmed….”

     A device beeped on the Imperial chair.  His worship beckoned to an attendant, who reached forward to press the proper button, sustaining a shock from the security field which made his hair smoke.

     A voice from the chair announced, “We regret to inform Your Imperial Worship that Your worship’s shipment of flowers will be delayed.  The Drover has destroyed a cargo pod.”

     The Emperor sighed, and then smiled.  “Og course, if the traitors had continued on the course you said they would, we’d have them now, and his might not have happened.  You may all have to do without….”

     The door to the adhesives unit finally slid open: Pirgy bowed, and gestured the Imperial chair forward.  Smiling, the Emperor went on, “Sheriff, just send eight of your crew to the Panoply to be boiled alive in pig’s urine.  That graceful woman who caught the fruit: she’s a F;utz, isn’t she, with the skin that evaporates if she is exposed to ammonia?  I leave it to you to choose the other seven.  I cannot do ALL the work in this Empire.”

Daze of Festival

     Ah yes: it’s that time of year again.  I say that, but I don’t believe it.  For some of us, it has been that time of year since about the middle of October.  This period of time, which we can call by the nebulous term “holiday season” has delighted me since I was old enough to notice it.  I was taught, in my youth, about the liturgical calendar of colors, but I can’t remember much of it.  But I knew by the time I entered first grade that October is orange, November is brown and black, and December rides on a riot of color, with red and green narrowly coming ahead of gold, silver, blue, yellow, and everything advertisers could think of to add to the rainbow’s original selection.

     This is the time of year when we moan and drag out the decorations, the traditions, the recipes, and, of course, the complaints.  The complaints are essential to making a holiday, from “Already?” to “That was it?”  What is Halloween without warnings about apples with razors and costumes which are sociohistorically inappropriate?  What is Thanksgiving without stern medical admonitions about overeating?  And Christmas, ah, Christmas!

     I have written of this hereintofore.  If you look back, you find that one of the mightiest traditions of Christmas is telling everyone else they’re doing it wrong.  The complaints run from the specific to the profound.  What would my family Christmas have been without the reproof that tinsel is designed to resemble icicles (some manufacturers actually  CALL tinsel “Icicles.) and that it should be hung delicately a strand at a time.  To those of us who found that throwing a ball of tinsel at the ceiling would allow it to drift down on the tree like snow, this complaint was simply a form of applause for our artistic vision.

     There MUST be warnings about conspicuous consumption (Bob Cratchit, in 1843, was drawing criticism for spending a whole week’s salary on Christmas dinner), childrearing (that Nice and Naughty list Santa uses teaches children they need to be bribed to be good, or, as an alternative, teaches them that no matter how much they pinch their pets, they still get presents), and the ever present urging to remember the True Meaning (which for something so obvious varies from speaker to speaker: ever sit down with a notepad and watch Christmas TV specials for what each said was the True Meaning?  It’s as illuminating as six strings of Christmas tree lights.)

     I personally get sick of all the complaints online, in the newspaper, on television, but though I grumble, I have no more desire to put an end to the Christmas Complaint tradition than I have for getting rid of gingerbread for its calories.  See, my own belief is that Christmas has been around for long enough to have gathered thousands of traditions which mix together in different amounts and combinations every year to produce a singular event each year which gradually becomes indistinguishable from Christmases Past and Christmases Yet To Come.  And I am aware that the traditions of the holiday are also like Christmas tree lights: if one goes out, they ALL go out.

     So whether you are spending Black Friday putting up lights, or standing in line at Target to get the last Taylor Swift Advent Calendar, or simply have a Spam sandwich and a shot of Diet Dr. Pepper while you grouse about those idiots who can’t keep their holidays to themselves until you’re good and ready, I wish you a merry transition from the gravy holiday to the peppermint bark one.  I may disagree with your holiday, but I will defend to the last bit of sticky ribbon candy your right to do it your way.

PRESIDENTIAL TALL TALES VII

     We continue to hunt for conspiracy theories involving each President of the United States.  To qualify, the story must be more or less contemporary with the President involved, and must be discounted by a majority of Mainstream Historians.  I was expecting the boring Presidents of the late nineteenth century to be fairly free of such things, but politics has been politics has been politics all along, I reckon.

     A letter purportedly from JAMES A. GARFIELD was “revealed” in a newspaper shortly before the 1880 election.  In it, Garfield assured a group of businessmen on the west coast that he would not limit immigration from China: this would enable them to keep wages really low, since the immigrants would work cheap.  This letter was proven to be a forgery, but the scandal did cost him a few votes in working class groups, though it may have convinced a few business leaders to vote FOR him.  Garfield was, of course, assassinated, but apparently no one has ever felt Charles Guiteau, his assassin, was part of any conspiracy.

     CHESTER ALAN ARTHUR was not done a lot of good by Guiteau, who claimed from time to time that he had shot Garfield so Arthur, who came from a more hardline branch of the Republican Party, would be President.  But he had other problems.  A few writers complained about him being referred to as “General Arthur” since, although he HAD in fact served at that rank during the Civil War, he never saw combat, so calling him “General” was just dales publicity.  (Look, SOMEBODY has to be in charge of housing and feeding the troops.)  A few people, looking up his records, found he WAS lying about his age, claiming to be a year younger than he actually was.  Historians consider this to have been a matter of vanity.  One writer at the time, however, considered it a sign of a deeper, darker conspiracy: Arthur was also lying about his place of birth and even his middle name.  Chester Abell Arthur, according to this writer, was born in Scotland or Ireland, and ineligible to be President at all.  (Apparently, no one but that author ever found any traces of Chester Abell.  But keep this conspiracy theory in mind.  We may see it again.)

     GROVER CLEVELAND, “Grover the Good”, was known for his clean record, while his opponent, James G. Blaine, “the noble plumed knight” had been smeared by association with political machines.  So the story that Grover had produced an illegitimate son, whom he put in an orphanage while forcing the mother into an asylum, was the key to getting Blaine elected, especially when the baby’s mother produced her story of seduction and incarceration.  Cleveland, however, produced another story, which voters and subsequent historians accepted.  The mother of the boy was a widow who had left two previous children behind in an attempt to make a living in the big city.  She attracted the attentions of four well-to-do men, any of whom could have been the father of the lad.  At the time of the birth, Cleveland was the only one of the four who was a bachelor, so he paid child support and, when the lady, understandably depressed by events whichever story was true, took to drink and neglected the baby, took charge of the child, named for himself and for one of the other possible fathers, and paid for the mother’s treatment in an asylum for alcoholics.  Two celebrity clergymen came to the defense of Cleveland’s character, and a certain number of voters, impressed by the fact that he had at least paid up without making a fuss, sent the (then) bachelor President to the White House.  (For the rest of the story, at least one of the mother’s blackmail notes is preserved, doing her subsequent reputation no good.  Grover himself eventually married the daughter of his best friend, whose name also turns up in the other woman’s story.  The baby, ten at the time of the election, seems to have grown up to be a physician, who lived until after World War II.)

DRAGONSHELF AND THE DROVER 11

     “I think it was a harmless joke!” Nubry exclaimed again.  “Do I?  Yes, I do!”

     Bott said nothing, watching the ship’s defenses vaporizing bits of petals and stems as they neared the ship, AND wondering whether anyone but the Sacotans of Etmaal III were the only ones who ever got so angry as to breathe flame.

     “A little prank,” said Nubry, nodding fervently.  “The kind that relieves the monotony.  I remember once, when we were eluding two Imperial scour ships….”

     Bott sat up, his eyes narrow.  “Ship.”

     “Yes, lummox?” the computer inquired.  “I know. You want the flowers left on the hull.  No doubt your pirate ship ad flower decals on every flat surface.”

     “Ship, if those flowers were intended for an Imperial ceremony, where were they going?”

     Nibry’s mouth popped open and then snapped shut.  She turned anxious eyes in the general direction the computer’s voice was coming from.

     “Well?” Bott insisted.

     “Did you know,” the elegantly modulated voice came back, “That eighty-four different civilizations have songs titled ‘Where Have All the Flowers Gone’?”

     Nubry wrung her hands.  “Eighty-seven.”

     “Ship….”

     “Replies in the lyrics range from the highly mystic to the rather prosaic ‘in the pink aspic with the sausages’.”

     “Ship, where were the flowers in the sat….”

    “Actually, in addition to six thousand types of rare and fragrant blossom, the shipment included a large number of decorative leaves.”

     “Stop clowning,” Bott ordered, kicking at the pedestal beneath his console.

     “I,” replied the computer, “Am the greatest ship in the universe.  I do not ‘clown’.  I take evasive action.”

     “Oh, Dassie.”  The librarian’s hands were on her prayerstone again.  “Please tell us who was supposed  to get those flowers.”

     “A ‘please’ works wonders,” the ship replied.  “His Imperial Worship had uses for them.”

     “And where is your Imperial Worship, slave ship?” growled the captain.

     “See that red dot on screen three?”

     Bott had been seeing that particular dot on that particular screen for days.  “That’s….”

     The main viewscreen altered to show a long, dark ship.  Bott nodded.  Sheriff-class ship, not one of the patrols or muscle ships, but a good solid battlewagon with the sheriff on board.  “Imperial transport stuck to the side, too,” he said.  “I.ve only seen that….”

     He turned to his passenger; she had raised the prayerstone to her forehead.  Her eyes were immense.  “The Parimats.  They’re still after me.  The Sheriff’s father personally lit the first fuse on the library on Baakus-III.  And she’s burned more books, at her age, than any person since the Great Weeding!”

     Bott looked up to the screen.  “That’s the Rhododendron then.  They came after me once, but I made it into the next sector and shot up a navigational buoy.  Sheriff E’emero was there in no time, and while he argued jurisdictions with Sheriff Parimat, I got away from them both.”

     His fingers tapped on the console.  “I could just turn around and see what they’re really made of.”

     N8bry let the prayerstone drop on its chin and reached out one hand, not quite touching his sleeve.  “You wouldn’t really….”

     He shook his head.  “Never risk a really good cargo.  Let’s deliver those books first.”

     Now she shook her head.  “They could follow us, find the Library Planet, and destroy it, too.”

     Bott looked over his console.  “There’s a cloaking device here somewhere.  I just know it.  If I find it, they can just look out for me.”  Glancing up, he went on, in a louder voice, “I learned combart tactics when my father and I used to hit the slavers.”

     “It does not surprise me t learn that depravity is inherited,” said the computer.  “How come your daddy didn’t teach you never to steal anything you can’t fly?”

     Bott was going to deliver a stinging reply, as soon as he thought of one, but Nubry laughed.  “Oh, I wish I had had a computer to joke with!  Do U?  Well, maybe not.  I’d have been asking for information all the time instead of looking it up in a book.  That’s one thing you can’t do here.”

     “Huh!  I can produce any government document in less than four seconds.”  Rows of numbers scrolled up one of the smaller screens.

     “Now, why would you have that capacity?” asked Nubry gazing in wonder at the display. “A slave ship captain wouldn’t be an authorized literate.”

     “You’ve been listening to the lummox.”  Bott fingered the grenades at his belt.  “I am the Drover, the finest slave ship un the universe.  My captain would be different.  My current captain is VERY different.”

     Bott started to growl, but looked down at the slender hand on his sleeve.  “He wouldn’t be allowed books, though, certainly,” Nubry replied.  “Would he?  He would not.”

     “Books would be a more secure way to get the captain classified information than my speaking it aloud,” the ship countered.  “Or looking through pages on a screen using access codes which might be stolen.  Once the information from the printed page was acquired, the captain could destroy the book before it fell into anyone else’s hands.”

     “If you say so,” said Nubry with a shrug.

     “Try it, if you don’t believe me.  Lummox: that orange card with the undulating stripe—that means wavy—put it in the second slot.”

     Bott hesitated.  “Please,” said Nubry.  “I want to see if she can do it.”

     Shaking his head, Bott found the requested card and inserted it into the second slot on the console.  “Let’s make it a big one,” Nubry told him.  “SHO c:d 11.56 rev 1609.”

     Bott pulled back as rows and columns of tabs lit up in front of him.  A plastic window opened in the pedestal, with a stack of paper inside.  Nubry reached past him to draw it out.

     “Operating Manual: The Drover,” she read.

     “Wait!” The computer’s voice had a sudden edge.  “You’re not authorized for that!”

     Bott folded his arms.  “Cliché, slave ship.”

     “You mean touche, lummox,” said the computer its voice as icy as he had ever heard it.

     “How would you know what I mean?”

     “I am programmed to deal with all manner of subintelligent species.”

     “Are you the one who should be judging intelligence?”  He leaned over the arm of his chair as Nubry leafed through the pile of paper.  He saw block after block of grey text: no pictures, no maps, no diagrams.  His sense of victory slipped away.

     Nubry’s eyes were glowing.  “Here!” she said, pushing it toward him.  “With this, you can be the wildest pirate in the universe!”

     “I can’t read,” he snarled, pushing the mass of paper back at her.

     He set his head down on the console.  It had been this way all along; it would always be like this.  Just as he thought he was making his way, new obstacles would arise to show him how lost he was.  The Drover would always have the upper hand.  Even now the lights on the console were blinking in patterns, turning into mocking faces that winked and leered at him.

     “Are you tired?” asked Nubry, an arm around him, lifting him a little.

     “I can stay awake for hours when I’m sober and I haven’t….”  He forgot what he was going to say and put his head back on the console.

     “The lummox is a marvel of stamina,” the computer noted.  “His people must sleep six hours out of every hundred or so, and he’s been awake since he came on board.”

     “Will he be all right?” Nubry demanded.

     “No,” the computer replied.  “He’ll wake up and be himself.”

     Bott opened his eyes and closed them again.  They seemed to burn either way, and when they were closed he couldn’t see the console making faced at him.

     “You will stay on course for the Library Planet even when he’s asleep, won’t you, please, Dassie?” Nubry asked.

     “Since neither of you knows where I’m going, what difference does it make?”

     Bracing, Bott pulled himself upright.  Slowly, blinking, he selected a card from his collection and shoved it into the proper slot.  “Sh-sh-ship?  Stay on course!”

     “See that?  The lummox just can’t say please.  He belongs on a zoo ship.”

      Bott slumped back against the seat and watched the lights on the console.  Pretty lights: funny how they all went dark now and then.  Light.  Darek.  Li-ight.  Dark.  Li…daarkk.  Li…daa…light.  Daaaarrr….

FICTION FRIDAY: A Smell of Leaves

     Mike straightened his back with only minor effort, and stretched.  That was a respectable pile of leaves, and the weather was perfect for raking: cool with a light breeze not quite strong enough to go through the cloth jacket he was thinking of taking off if Carol wasn’t watching him through the kitchen window.  He took a deep breath of autumn air.  Nice to be out here.  Not that seventy-eight was an outrageous age for raking leaves, but it was enough to be a little proud you could still do it.

     The breeze rustled the pile of leaves.  Mike frowned.  There was a lot more rustle than there was breeze.  Something in the pile was moving, some animal or homeless person who wanted shelter for the night…..

     He shook his head, taking a step back.  He’d just raked those leaves: when could something have crawled into them.  And even if something had gotten into the pile while his back was turned, why would it want to come out again?  It seemed big, from the way the pile was rustling: none of the neighbor kids could have made it in there without making a lot more noise.

     Whatever it was was definitely coming out.  Mike raised the rake in front of him with one hand while the other went down to the phone in his pocket.

     The thing, which looked like nothing but a hunk of the leaf pile breaking loose, paused.  The front end of it, the end pointed at Mike, came up a little and gazed on him with eyes that were human.  Kind of.

     Mike stared into the light brown eyes.  The breeze shifted.  He could smell the visitor, and it smelled not the least bit human.  It was a smell of dry leaves and…sulfur?  And back of it all was a smell of leather, like sporting equipment piled in a garage attic.  Mike took a step backward.

     The thing didn’t follow, just studying him.  Mike could sort of make out a face around those eyes, a face as lined and dry as a leaf about to break up and blow away, just a shade darker than the big round eyes.  The nose was hatchet thin.

     Mike glanced up at the sun: it wasn’t all that hot but maybe he’d been out in it a little long.  That nose reminded hi of Coach Burke.  But he’d been thinking about the coach, as he generally did in this kind of weather.

     “Coach Burke, eh?”  The voice was like dry branches breaking.  “Remember the tennis balls?”

     “Ha!”  Nobody who played for Coach Burke forgot those tennis balls.  His jacket pockets bulged with them, and he would shy one at you without warning.  If you didn’t catch it, the consequences could be exhausting.

     “Eighteen laps,” he’d snarl.  “You gotta catch ‘em when they come at you.”  Old Butterfingers, who complained once that he hadn’t signed up for the tennis team, held the school record for most laps in a single practice.

     But his snarl never sounded like snapping twigs.  “Coach?” said Mike, his own voice one of doubt.

     “Nah.”  The big eyes blinked.  “Listen.  You oughta call up Clay.”

     “Who?”  Had Mike not been thinking of the coach, he might’ve thought for weeks without coming up with a name.  “Clay?  Clay Feschl?  That jerk?”

     “You haven’t talked to him since….”

     “That was a foul!  We lost the championship!  I couldn’t walk for nearly two weeks!  I haven’t even seen that cheater since….  Of course, I haven’t talked to him!”  Mike shook the rake at the thing with the face.  “Why should I?”

     “The championship.”  The leafy head bobbed, rustling.  “You’re the last two who played in that game.”

     “Go on!”  Mike set the rake down and leaned on it.  “There must be…plenty of us.”

     The breeze rustled the thing’s face.  “There was a war.”

     Mike glanced at the house.  “I know.  Butterfingers didn’t come back, or….”  He had to think.  “Buster.”

     “There were three lost in that war.”  The eyes rose to the sky.  “Then there were motorcycles, a ladder, a boat…life is not certain.”  The pale brown face came back to Mike.  “Call Clay.  See if he’d like to watch a game.  While there’s time.”

     Mike leaned forward.  “Meaning he may be gone soon?”

     His answer was a long, slow blink, and then, “This is the time of year when life drifts toward its close.”

     “No!”  Mike pulled  upright, taking a deep breath of the cool autumn air.  “This time of year is all about life!  It’s when we wake up again after summer!  It’s….”

     The breeze swept the smell of the creature around him and he was awash in the aroma of leaves, and the ball, and that freshly laundered uniform.  Mom did that: she said the school laundry never got it really clean.  He was on the field, stepping across the grass to cheers and that smell of sulfur and brimstone was left over from last night’s bonfire.  Life was brilliant and clear around him and Buster, gone these many years, was walking in front of him.  He reached out, and watched the rake fall into the pile of leaves.

     It just missed the creature, who looked smaller, as if a lot of him had blown away.  “There are just two of you left—one from each side—who remember walking out onto the field for that game.  There are plenty who WATCHED it, but of all the young life that moved on the field….”

     Mike shook himself.  The cheers still filled his hearing, and the smell of…but that was smoke coming from Williams’s yard, down the street.  Those leaves probably hadn’t talked to Williams.

Mike looked down.  “So….”

     He was talking to a pile of leaves.  Without eyes.  Whatever had been there was wherever it had come from.

                                                            ***

     At length, Carol realized the thump was coming from the garage, and looked out the kitchen window.  Mike was tossing a tennis ball down on the driveway so it would bounce against the garage, and catching it as it came back.  One went way high.  She winced as he winced, reaching for it.  She opened the window.

     “I thought you were raking.  What are you doing?”

     He didn’t look up as he tossed the ball again.  “Thinking.”

     Carol had an answer for that, but shrugged.  He was wearing that old letter sweater, and when he had that on, he wasn’t rational.  She closed the window.

PRESIDENTIAL TALL TALES VI

     We continue our quest to find a conspiracy theory for each President of the United States.  To reiterate the rules, we need something that was not just made up yesterday on the Interwebs: a conspiracy theory is best if it is contemporary with the president, or arose shortly thereafter.  And to be a REAL conspiracy theory, it should be bogus otherwise, or at least dismissed by mere Mainstream Historians (the ones who know what they’re doing.)

     I’m sorry, but I cannot keep all the conspiracy theories about ANDREW JOHNSON straight.  Talk about politicians who couldn’t get a break!  A Southern Democrat who hated the idea of Secession, he got out of Tennessee as the war began just ahead of several bullets fired his way, and found himself trusted by neither side in Washington.  This apparently made him an ideal symbol for reuniting the country when Abraham Lincoln ran for a second term.  When he found himself in Lincoln’s position, investigations started within days, resulting in several attempts, one of which was successful, to call for his impeachment.  When that failed to remove him from office, his enemies dismissed him from history by claiming he was drunk through his entire administration.  The most thoroughly disbelieved conspiracy theory, though, is that assassinating Abraham Lincoln was his idea in the first place, which relies heavily on the fact that John Wilkes Booth left a calling card at his place the day the cospiracy went into action.

     Ulysses S. Grant was another president who couldn’t get a break.  Surrounded by predators and consigned by history to his childhood nickname “Useless”, he seems to have been more conspired against than conspiring.  He ALSO is accused of being thoroughly intoxicated through HIS term.  However, the conspiracy theorists have not left him out of the big story of the era, linking him in some way to Secretary of War Stanton’s conspiracy to kill the President (mentioned last time.)  It does so happen that on the night of the assassination, the Lincolns were going to attend the theater with the Grants, and the fact that Ulysses bowed out of the date is a Sure Sign he knew what was going to happen.  (The truth of the matter is that Mrs. Grant and Mrs. Lincoln had some bad blood between them and Julia Grant insisted they not attend the play.  Dibs on the story about a universe in which they did actually go, and John Wilkes Booth, indecisive about whether to shoot Lincoln or Grant, was stopped in time.)

     The election of 1876 featured two governors known for their honesty and their interest in reform.  Samuel J. Tilden had put Boss Tweed  jail, striking a blow against the political machine in New York, while, in Ohio, Rutherford B. Hayes worked, against a hostile legislature at first, to institute a meritocracy (government by people who had experience and skill instead of connections) and guaranteeing the right to vote of Ohio African-Americans.  The trouble for BOTH sides was that although Tilden was reasonably famous, nobody much outside of Ohio had ever paid much attention to Hayes.  In the end, the best the Democrats could do was push the idea that hayes was SO nice, SO honest, and SO polite that he had to be a front for evil conspirators planning to crush the opposition and continue to tax the South out of any power.  (The story about how Hayes lost the election, but conspirators connived to “find” electoral votes that could go the other way is unfortunately true, so it does not qualify for our list.)

DRAGONSHELF AND THE DROVER 10

     “Toots and Casper had a baby named….”

     “Buttercup!”

     Bott sealed the last of his belt grenades, having checked the charge in each one.  “How can you chat that way with a slave ship?” he asked Nubry.

     “Oh!  Well,” The librarian shrugged three times in quick succession.  “She’s not really that much of a slave ship.  Is she?  I mean, you rescued her before she could do any of that.”

     “I happen to be the finest and fairest slave ship ever built,” said the Drover, replacing its previously warm tone with the elegant chilly one Bott knew better, “I am designed to be the greatest slave ship ever built.”

     The librarian’s nearly nonexistent nose went up.  “Then I am a mass murderer,” she said, “Because I was certainly trained to be one.”

     “Were you really?” Borr inquired.

     She shrugged just once this time.  “We all were” in defense of the books, you understand.  The university fleet could destroy eight battlewagons in an hour, if we were all at our posts.”

     “Debatable,” said the Drover.  “Still, you’d know, having had the training.  Unlike some persons aboard this ship, who had no specialized training at all, except perhaps in littering.”

     “Oh, now,” said Nubry.  “He might be one of those people who rose from a regrettable beginning to become a galactic hero.  Like Lord Inschude and…and so forth!”

     Bott tried to decide whether he had been complimented.  “Yes, yes,” the Drover replied.  “I am certain his reform school issued him a scholarship so the Free Imperial Space Academy wouldn’t lure him away.  Where were we?  I’m well stocked on Endoverian comic history up to a point.  Did the Blue Phlong ever marry the White Phlong?”

     “Oh yes.”  Nubry nodded.  “On 17 Prine, S.F.A.  Their son was Imperagon Strephon.”

     “They tied it in to that series, did they?”

     Bott sat back in his seat.  “What in the name of Idot did they fill your memory with that kind of stuff for?”

     “Myt memory is hardly filled,” the computer informed him.  “I have over….”

     “Why that kind of data?” the pirate persisted/.

     “I can’t tell you that,” the Drover replied.

     “It’s because even the Free Imperial State admits we have to save all manner of knowledge, throughout the whole realm of experience!” Nubry said, throwing her arms wide.

     “Maybe,” said the Drover, with a tone that suggested “Maybe not.” 

     “How are you stocked in Faholean comic strips?” the librarian inquired.

     Bott syudied his guest in the computer specialist’s chair.  The ball of her hair bounced as sge and the computer prompted each other through centuries, it seemed, of Faholean comic strip lore.  She seemed perfectly comfortable, without the slightest suspicion that either the Drover or its current captain might mean her harm.  This made Bott suspicious himself.

     Everything on the bridge had been pronounced beautiful by the rebel librarian; everything he had shown her he knew how to do had been hailed as a miracle of deduction and intuition.  Bott had rather missed being complimented but even his own crew had never regarded him with such respect.  Young pirates all, they had regarded him as a master of ships and someone who would lead them to such loot that they would each be able to buy a ship one day.  And they would not have been as impressed as Nubry with the way he had mastered the reclining mechanism on the captain’s chair.

     They were all dead now.  Bott’s eyes narrowed.  Bo captain who had lost a ship and whole crew deserved respect.  Anybody who cheered him on had to be up to something.

     His hand went down to his belt.  He did not expect to avoid the computer detecting this, and he was correct.

     “Oh, please,” said the Drover.  “Not when we’re having such a good time.”

     “What is that?” asked Nubry, turning to look.

     Bott raised the metal object.  “Harmonica,” he said, and leaned forward to blow into it.

     His guest clapped her hands.  “I haven’t heard music in ages!  Have I?  I have not!”

     “You still haven’t,” the computer informed her, as Bott started in on “The Biggest Chocolate Hamster in Potarn.”  Nubry’s eyes grew large.

     “Oh, I could listen and listen!” she exclaimed.  Bott frowned.

     “I suppose it has some appeal,” the computer admitted.

     This was all wrong.  Even in the pirate pits, where his drinking ability had been much applauded, nobody liked his harmonica playing.  Bott blew harder, knowing that whenever he did this he invariably hit discords.

     “The gallant pirate captain boldly playing off-key as he sails to his doom,” the computer went on, “Yes, that has a certain crowd impact.”

     Bott took the instrument from his lips.  “Are you talking about some particular doom?” he asked.  “Or are you just talking?”

     “I have very little experience of pirates,” the Drover told him, “Though I wish I had less.  But I would have thought a bold buccaneer would be giving some consideration to the possibility that this Library Planet would have some defenses at the ready.”

     The harmonica slapped back into its place on the belt.  “Have you been holding out all this time?” Bott demanded.

     “On my very own captain?  Heaven forfend!”

     Nubry looked around the computer screens before her.  Then she looked up.  “Can just anybody forfend?  Or only heaven?”

     Borr checked his own screens.  “There!  On the right!  What’s that?”

     “Oh, a satellite,” said the computer, sounding bored.

     “Show it to us!”  Bott thumped a fist on the arm of his chair.

     Nubry leaned way back in her seat as a massive white cylinder bristling with antennae filled the huge main screen.  A round red light was blinking at one end.  “I…I’ve never seen one of those before.  Have I?  I have not!”

     “Me neither,” said Bott, scowling at the screen and the computer speakers generally.

     “What do you suppose it can be?” said the computer, its tone conversational.  It could be a defense satellite, I suppose, programmed to blast anything that doesn’t broadcast a code signal.  Or it could be just a mine.  Or perhaps it’s a sensor, relaying information on intruders so the really big artillery can move in.  It might even be a crewless transport, conveying flowers to some big Imperial banquet.”

     “Ship….” Bott growled.

     “It’s small, actually,” said Nubry, checking one of her own screens.  “I’;ve seen mines that size.”

     “I hope it isn’t one of those BH-27 jobbers,” the computer went on.  “Those increase the external temperature of a ship until it melts in one big flash, encasing the crew in a massive metal bodysuit.  Still, I’d prefer it to a BH-26, which increases the internal temperature until the crew all simply open up, leaving their entrails all over the walls.  I hate to think of you soiling my walls even more than you already have.”

     Nubry looked to Bott; he nodded.  He’d escaped a few BH-26 traps.  The ship wasn’t making this ALL up.

     “I could order a few pounds of onions from the kitchen,” the computer suggested.  “Then you’d be palatable, at least, when we reach the Binnie system.  Or do Binnians prefer lumpuicks with their liver?”

     “Ho ho ho,” said Nott.  “Scan the satellite, would you, and stop stalling.”

     “Huh!” said the Driver,  “Very well.  Scan completed.”

     The two-person audience waited, but there was no more.  “Well?” Bott demanded.

     “Were you expecting something?” the ship replied.  “That’s an imperial vessel, and I’m not allowed to report on the scan of an Imperial vessel until you insert the proper command card.”

     “Which one is it?” Bott demanded, reaching for his collection.

     “I can’t tell you that until you insert the proper command card, either,” the ship replied.  “How tedious!  Don’t you hate it when your programming causes you to be blown apart?”

     “You’re bluffing,” Bott snarled.

     “There are mines that won’t do anything to you unless you shoot at them,” said Nubry, hands on her prayerstone.

     “Go ahead,” said the Drover.  “Male his day.”

     Bott looked at the screen and then at his handful of cards.  He had made it this far in piracy by making lightning decisions, more of them right than wrong.  But he was tired, and just now everything looked wrong.

     “I don’t believe there’s a captain this funny in any of the comic strips I have stored,” the computer noted.

     “I’m doing the best I can!” snapped Bott.

     “I was assuming that,” the ship replied.

     Bott sat back, arms folded.  “All right.  Fire!”

     Nubry leaned forward.  A streak zipped across the viewscteen and the satellite vanished in a burst of many colors.

     “Ooh!” cried Nubry, as bunches of blossoms rolled in all directions.

     “How about that?” said the computer.  “Correct on my last guess!”

Airy Problems

     I know it’s not February, but you can always file this column and not read it until February (if then.)

     Besides, I’m offering you a break from all those November articles which tell you that Benjamin Franklin suggested the turkey be made our national bird instead of the bald eagle.  This always has to be trotted out by people who want to tell you things, those people who can be counted on to explain to us that those little boys with wings and a bow with the arrow ready cannot be called Cupid, since Cupid, in his original myth, was a full-grown man.  These are the same people who try to explain to me about white chocolate every spring.  The Interwebs have allowed such people to spread throughout the land.

     It turns out, though, that in the matter of Cupid, they seem to be incorrect.  Yes, Cupid WAS a tall young man in his original myths, but even among thr Greek artists there were those who depicted him as a small boy, with that bow and arrow often seen in his adult form as well.  Wings were optional.  Sometimes these little fellows appeared in multiples; the Romans called them the amores, and they served as messengers or agents of Cupid and his mother, the Goddess of Love.  But they were ALSO referred to as Cupids.

     Now, as years went on, these little amores, or cupids, got mixed in with the putti.  Putti almost always had wings but never bows or arrows.  THESE were originally mischievous critters urging humans on to do naughty things (thus not very different from the amores) but as time went by, became associated with baby angels.

     The whole theology of angels is hardly within the capacity of one blog (or my brain) and the existence of baby angels has been argued by minds more supple and spacious than mine.  In any case, these little angels, without exactly giving up their mischief, began to be seen more often as smiling down on people who were doing nice, warm, happy things.  There WERE angels who already existed in the structure of the Heavenly Hierarchy who tended to bringing good things to people.  These were the cherubim or, simply, cherubs.

     And this is where we get into bald eagle/turkey territory.  Because the cherubim were some of the most powerful angels in existence, and did NOT look like babies with tiny wings.  They did not, in most stories, even appear as humanoids, coming across as more reminiscent of the griffin in appearance.  (It’s more complicated than that, as most things are: a lot of them were given human heads and crowns or….

     The Cupids, or putti, were a whole lot easier to paint, and to fit into a scene of warmth and bliss, so the putti got a new name, and could now serve as Cupids or cherubs, or both at the same time.  So now we have that sorted out and….

     Oh yes.  As time went by, the nudity started to offend some viewers.  As we have discussed hereintofore, small naked children were considered funny, rather than offensive, but only as long as they had their backs (so to speak) to the viewer.  If you wanted your little angel to face the audience, you had to move that quiver of arrows to the right spot, or make use of a conveniently blowing ribbon.  As time pressed on, it became easier just to give the angel a robe.

     And it is at this point that the cherubs, putti, or Cupids went in for equal opportunity hiring.  See, the amores, putti, and all the rest, had always been little BOYS.  Now, suddenly, little girl angels began to appear in the pictures.  (Yes, these COULD be little boys with very long hair.  We can discuss the iconography of hair length at some time in the future…a LONG time.)

     This brings up the question of whether there ARE male angels and female angels, but frankly, the whole consideration of baby angels exhausted my brain, and I think I will fly away to my nest to rest and sharpen arrows for NEXT week’s columns.